Housing Bill
6:06 pm

Baroness Hanham (Shadow Minister, Local and Devolved Government Affairs; Conservative)

My Lords, I can be brief. We have discussed this issue in the past. It is an important amendment to which we return. The amendment would require a 20 per cent improvement in domestic energy efficiency by 2010 based on 2000 levels. That is the target that the Government assured the public—they have done so no less than 15 times—would be set as the energy efficiency aim under the Sustainable Energy Act. The noble Lord, Lord Whitty, in the House on 27 October 2003, said the same thing. That was until the Government reneged on those promises in April and reduced the level by 16 per cent.

The 20 per cent improvement is a target supported by the Energy Saving Trust, the Government's official advisers on energy efficiency; the Cabinet Office Performance and Innovation Unit, the Government's advisers on energy policy; and the Sustainable Development Commission, the Government's advisers on sustainable development.

It is also supported by more than half of the House of Commons: 340 MPs have signed Early-Day Motion 96 in support of that target. We are sometimes criticised for not supporting energy efficiency: we are now being criticised for taking it on board. But those, of course, are standards that the Government have set and should be implemented.

The DTI, Defra and the Government's Sustainable Energy Policy Network have all publicly stated in one way or another that they support the improvement that is suggested in this amendment. I beg to move.

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