Lord Callanan: I know that the noble Baroness is passionate about onshore wind. I hope the changes that we announced will produce more capacity. As I said, we have just let 24 projects under the latest CfD round. She is right that the industry said in advance of this round that it wanted to be paid more. Across all the different areas of government for which I have been responsible, I have never met a...
Lord Callanan: The noble Lord makes a good point. There are a number of such areas of critical national infrastructure, including gas-interlinking pipelines and electricity interconnector cables with other countries, as well as our interconnector cables with the offshore wind farms. These are all critical vulnerabilities and the noble Lord can be assured that we monitor these things closely. We are well...
Lord Callanan: My Lords, the Government are investing £6.6 billion over this Parliament in improving energy efficiency and installing low-carbon heating. A further £6 billion has already been committed for 2025 to 2028. Heat pumps are the key technology for decarbonising heating in the near term and are essential in all 2050 scenarios. Therefore, the Government’s aim is for 600,000 heat pump...
Lord Callanan: As the noble Lord knows, that is a matter for building regulations. The future homes standard will come in from 2025; it will not specify the type of heating but it will put in place standards that will, in effect, end gas boiler installations in new homes.
Lord Callanan: The noble Lord is right about the efficiency of heat pumps and about the cost of electricity. Later this year we will issue a consultation on so-called price rebalancing, which will attempt to bring the electricity price down relative to gas.
Lord Callanan: The noble Baroness makes a valid point. Heat networks are probably more appropriate for most flats—for instance, you could have one heat pump in the basement that would heat all the flats—but for some cases she is right.
Lord Callanan: That depends on what target the noble Lord is referring to. There are a number of different targets but a substantial amount of government funding is going into this—some £450 million for the boiler upgrade scheme and £6.6 billion to decarbonise heating generally.
Lord Callanan: Public acceptability is a key component; that is why we ruled out Whitby for the trial. Redcar is the only other location being considered.
Lord Callanan: I would not characterise just rental properties in that way; whatever form of heating is used, better insulation and better performance of buildings is a good thing.
Lord Callanan: The noble Baroness has been dogged in her pursuit of this. It is very difficult to give an estimate, as she asks me to do. It would depend on the number of applications and its acceptability for local communities.
Lord Callanan: I will have to look very closely at the noble Baroness’s figures. I do not recognise £2.1 billion as being unspent; in many of the schemes we are oversubscribed in applications, but we will press on with the progress in many of these schemes. In fact, I went to visit a number of them in the noble Baroness’s home area of Leeds only a few weeks ago, and they are proving extremely successful.
Lord Callanan: The noble and learned Lord is right. His home area of Scotland will see the installation of a number of transmission lines to help to get power to other parts of the country. This is very important. Ofgem has allowed billions of pounds in the settlement to the DNOs, which will help electricity upgrades, but as he will be aware it is not without its controversial elements.
Lord Callanan: Indeed we are. The situation in France and for ourselves is very different, because France has not had the availability of domestic gas that we have had over the years. Nevertheless, I agree with the noble Baroness’s point: we need to expand the number of heat pumps being installed. In fact, we are already doing many of the measures that she outlined.
Lord Callanan: That is the case for many renewables. Tidal power is an emerging technology and it is eligible for contracts for difference schemes. We made a number of allocations of tidal power support in the last round. I agree with the noble Lord, but we must look at the costs of that against the costs of other renewable technologies and get the best value for the bill payer and the taxpayer.
Lord Callanan: I can indeed update the right reverend Prelate. There are a number of schemes and training competitions, and we have recently allocated tens of millions of pounds, training thousands of new installers. I am pleased to say that many of the boiler and heat pump manufacturing companies are running their own training courses, and there are now, I think, about 2,000 registered firms with the...
Lord Callanan: The noble Lord is asking a self-contradictory question. He starts off by saying that the Government have no long-term schemes and then admits that we have extended the boiler upgrade scheme through until 2028—precisely to address the point that he is talking about. We need more long-term schemes and we need a greater commitment over the longer term. That is precisely what the Treasury has...
Lord Callanan: My Lords, I join with the rest of the House in congratulating the noble Lord, Lord Krebs, on securing this debate. I also thank the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, for kindly welcoming me to the Dispatch Box. This item spans a number of government departments, but most of it is in Defra and my noble friend Lord Benyon was originally going to be replying. Sadly, he is unavailable this evening, but...
Lord Callanan: My Lords, I thank all three noble Lords who have contributed to today’s debate. The Government always listen carefully to the views of this House. In response to the noble Lord, Lord Hendy, I have seen the letter from the European TUC, which I read with interest. I am sure the noble Lord will accept that it is hardly an impartial referee on these matters. It is also fair to say that it had...
Lord Callanan: I am afraid I cannot confirm that for the noble Lord. No final decisions have been taken yet, but it is our intention to get on with this as quickly as possible, so we will consult over the summer. We will leave an adequate period for responses to that consultation and then, as I said, the code will have to be approved by both Houses. I understand the Opposition’s principled objection to...
Lord Callanan: My Lords, the House will be pleased to know that I can again be brief, as we have debated this Bill and the remaining issue at length on a number of occasions. The other place has again considered the Bill, as requested by this House. The House will be unsurprised to hear that it has come to the same conclusion as previously, again with a significant majority. This is now the third time that...
