09:06 Dr Alan Whitehead (Southampton, Test) (Lab)

Although I said that we do not want to stand in the way of the regulations, I am not mollified about their overall thrust. We need to be clear that the regulations will represent a reduction on the reduction in the ambition of the ECO as far as energy efficiency measures are concerned, both for those in fuel poverty and for the climate change purposes of increasing energy efficiency in properties. They are an endorsement of the collapse of the energy efficiency measures going into all homes, and even with the change of emphasis toward the fuel-poor and those receiving measures under the carbon emissions reduction obligation, other parts of the ECO have in effect been removed.

We are barely reaching fuel poverty targets. I welcome the important emphasis on fuel poverty in the measures—a substantial and welcome shift of fuel poverty-focused measures up from 30% to 70% of measures within the ECO as a whole—but I emphasise that that is within an overall reduction of the pot. The consequence of that is that the measures under the CERO part of the ECO scheme reduce substantially and carbon saving community obligation measures disappear entirely. The measures under CERO represent a reduction, in that smaller pot, from 34% to 30% of the total. That is very important in terms of the treatments of properties that might be available under ECO, in terms of the energy efficiency climate change targets.

Those targets are fairly stark. In the fourth carbon budget, which was adopted and accepted by the Government, the Committee on Climate Change considered that 2.2 million solid wall treatments by the early 2020s should be included in that, to make the contribution to energy efficiency climate change targets. Hon. Members may want to reflect on the targets that are in this measure today: 32,000 treatments envisaged in the 18 months up to 2018. If extrapolated, and even if that amount is maintained over the full period of the next ECO, when it succeeds the interim measure we are discussing this morning, that would mean we would fall short of the target, which was agreed by Government, by 1.8 million treatments. That is an astonishing shortfall. That is not a question of falling slightly short—it is effectively extinguishing any serious consideration of those targets over the period, which is potentially catastrophic for our ability to meet our obligations under the carbon budgets.

I do not wish to detain the Committee further, but I do emphasise that the Opposition consider the measures to be woefully inadequate for those in fuel poverty and to address wider concerns about climate change. If we had the opportunity, we would fundamentally revise their scope and extent in order to make a proper impact on fuel poverty and the overwhelming imperative of getting energy efficiency under control in the context of concerns on climate change.

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09:24 Crispin Blunt (Reigate) (Con)

I looked very closely at the whole issue of issuing trading certificates around the creation of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and how that might work with the European Union scheme. That was the area of greatest difficulty, so I take this opportunity to say to the Minister that I very much hope he will examine the implications of Brexit for our returning to a proper trading certificates scheme around carbon dioxide and the other greenhouse gases being put into our atmosphere and around the wholesalers of all fuel, whether that is the transport sector, the domestic sector or the electricity generation sector. That could be a far more effective and economically efficient way of delivering the environmental obligations we have entered into by international agreement.

If we had an overall strategy that set the framework for the market in which we are going to operate for greenhouse gases we are going to put into the atmosphere, that framework should constrain the market, allowing the generation of electricity, heat and power in our homes and the consumption of fuel in our cars and the transport sector, but making everything subject to an overall environmental policy envelope. Measures such as this, which have an extraordinary level of detail and requirements on the energy companies and others to deliver the Government’s policy, are going to run into the kind of trouble that the order is trying to ameliorate in some cases, but will probably make worse in others with all the details, given the law of unintended consequences.

When we get to that place, we get the kind of disaster we have seen with the scheme that has got the First Minister of Northern Ireland into so much trouble. We get into that mess where everyone was encouraged to get into the market of building solar panels, and then the subsidy was cut halfway through. People had built a business to take advantage of a Government subsidy. There is no relationship between the Government subsidy and the overall policy effort and objective—to cut carbon emissions—so we have found an extremely expensive way of delivering reductions in carbon emissions. It would be much more effective to have overall emissions trading certificates for the generation of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases, which would drive coal-fired power stations out of business and create a proper relationship between the consumption of electricity by, say, electric cars and their overall impact on the generation of carbon emissions and global warming.

We should not hide away our policy objective and its cost in an obligation on energy supply companies and try to do things at one remove, which would mean that we could not necessarily deliver that objective. If we hide away its cost and try to hide what is, in effect, taxation and benefit expenditure, we will find that an economically inefficient burden falls on the country, and I do not think that that would deliver the policy objective. Overall, that would mean that we could not really measure whether we were going to deliver the objectives we have signed up to or our global obligations to reduce carbon emissions and make a fair contribution to reducing the danger to our planet from global climate change.

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09:33 Jesse Norman (Conservative)

There are two points to make on that. First, the way to think about all these things is as part of a wider energy mix that is designed to solve the trilemma of security, affordability and decarbonisation. On the contribution of offshore wind, for example, it is true that there is some question as to its total cost when including intermittency. It is also true that, had it not been for the substantial Government investment in this area, we would not have the situation in which costs for this technology are falling faster and further than anyone would have anticipated.

As for the fourth carbon budget, the hon. Gentleman was talking about totals—and the challenge for the Government is to meet the fourth carbon budget in total. The support and advice that the Committee on Climate Change offers is always welcome and of interest to us, but the focus is on the total. The hon. Gentleman painted a beguiling picture of towels being tightened and retightened in the bowels of the Department; but I think it is fair to describe the process of aligning all the different carbon saving measures required to meet the budgets as complex and difficult. That is what the clean growth plan, which will be published in due course, will do.

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