Clause 1 - Targets for energy efficiency improvements
Home Energy Conservation Bill
10:32 pm
Mr Michael Meacher (Minister of State (the Environment), Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs; Oldham West and Royton, Labour)
The amendment would require energy conservation authorities to take all reasonably practicable steps to implement the measures in energy conservation reports, including any modified reports. It represents a considerable step forward from the current HECA requirements. As hon. Members will know, the 1995 Act places a duty on authorities only
to prepare energy conservation reports and then report progress. It does not provide a clear legal duty to implement any measures in their reports, which means, paradoxically, that they can make virtually no improvements yet still comply with the legislation. That is clearly nonsense and the amendment is designed to put that right.
I accept that that does not go as far as my hon. Friend the Member for Brighton, Kemptown and several other hon. Members would like. I agree with the principle that authorities should have worthwhile targets and should achieve them. However, we need to be clear what the targets are and to come up with proposals for the best way of achieving them without imposing excessive costs on local authorities.
In the time available we have not been able to assess fully the likely cost implications for authorities of placing on them a duty to meet energy conservation targets. I assure the Committee that this is not for lack of trying. I simply have not had the means to reach those estimates until now. We are examining the matter, but until the information is available, the Committee will understand that I cannot make any more specific commitment.
However, I undertake that, subject to a full consideration of the costs, the Government will table on Report an amendment that will have the effect of requiring authorities to set and then take all necessary steps, so far as reasonably practicable, to meet the targets set out in the energy conservation reports. The reports and targets would need to be drawn up in accordance with guidance provided by us. The amendment would therefore introduce a new requirement for authorities to set a target and to take the necessary steps to meet it, but the Bill will not specify what the target should be.
There is a good reason for tabling such an amendment. The original Home Energy Conservation Act 1995 did not contain targets. In setting targets, we need to take into account the fact that the performance of local authorities across the country varies enormously. We should not be blind to some of the practical difficulties in giving authorities a duty to set and meet targets. The 1995 Act and guidance make it clear that some of the measures that will help achieve the improvement target will be outside authorities' control. Most of the improvements will be made through non-local authority programmes—as I mentioned in my comments on the sittings motion—such as the energy efficiency commitment and the warm front schemes, as well as through action by millions of individual householders.
The role of authorities is to facilitate and encourage the take-up of the programmes and activities so far as they can, and to take action in their own stock. They should not have to achieve the whole target on their own. It should be possible to estimate for any local authority how much will be achieved through the energy efficiency commitment, which is due to start in two months' time, how much can be achieved through the home energy efficiency scheme and the warm front
programme, and then to look at the increment that the authority has to achieve and to cost that. We shall need to address that issue carefully in our amendment and in guidance.
I am also aware that authorities' targets vary considerably and that energy conservation reports have been drawn up to reflect differing local circumstances. They are based on different assumptions and information, they vary in technical merit and they have differing levels of ambition and realism. Some may not even have set targets. I believe that a handful have not drawn up reports. We shall address those issues in our amendment and in guidance so that we and energy conservation authorities can be sure that the targets that they have to achieve are fair and robust, but stretching. I want those targets to be as stretching as they reasonably can be.
I hope that Members of the Committee will agree that the Government amendment to require authorities to implement the measures in their report is a helpful provision in its own right. It would complement and pave the way for a requirement to set and achieve the targets. That is what I want to do, and I repeat that, subject to full assurance about the costs, I propose to do that on Report. On that basis, I commend the amendment to the Committee and hope that hon. Members understand the Government's wholehearted commitment to what I believe is the most important measure in the Bill—the establishment of new targets and the measures and the commitment to implement them that were not included in the 1995 Act.