Clause 1 - Purposes
Climate Change and Sustainable Energy Bill
3:30 pm
Malcolm Wicks (Minister for energy, Department of Trade and Industry; Croydon North, Labour)
It is important that the Government should answer for them. There a number of ways in which we are doing that and reviewing the issue, not least with the climate change review.
The Government have also introduced several measures as part of a wider programme to promote energy efficiency across all sectors of the economy, including reduced VAT rates for the professional installation of energy saving materials and the landlords’ energy saving allowance for the installation of insulation in the private rented sector. Additionally, the Government support the Energy Saving Trust and the Carbon Trust with £100 million a year in their aim of encouraging the uptake of energy efficiency measures in the domestic and business sectors. The pre-Budget Report announced a number of further measures that will help us to meet our climate change goals, including revolving funds to assist small and medium-sized enterprises and the public sector to install energy efficiency measures. To have a requirement for a separate report on fiscal measures promoting microgeneration and energy efficiency would prejudice the normal Budget process. I therefore oppose clause 3 standing part of the Bill.