Housing

What utter nonsense. The hon. Gentleman asks for evidence of his opposition to energy performance certificates, and I must tell him that there is plenty of it. The hon. Member for Meriden rose early this morning—even earlier than I did—to make clear her hostility to energy performance certificates on GMTV. She objects to them because she does not like the fact that someone will have to carry out energy ratings of people’s homes. She said"““the new feature is having energy performance assessors come round and actually look at how your house is put together… so it’s a very intrusive measure.””" Perhaps the hon. Lady will explain how she can support energy ratings of homes if she opposes the idea of people going round to those homes to carry them out. How does she think that energy ratings on homes will be done? That provides more evidence of Conservative Members opposing energy performance certificates. The hon. Member for Surrey Heath takes a different line. His objection is that we are gold-plating EU regulations. That is true; we are going beyond the minimum requirements for energy performance certificates set out in the EU directive. However, that is not gold-plating; it is green-plating, and we make no apology for that. The European minimum that the hon. Gentleman advocates is that people should be able to use an energy performance certificate if it is up to 10 years old. Well, it is a fat lot of use to a new home buyer to have information on a home’s fuel costs and running costs that could be up to eight or nine years old. There will not be a huge impact in respect of how people respond to energy performance certificates if they know that the energy information in them is out of date. The fact is that Opposition Members are trying to block energy performance certificates; they are trying to delay them and to water down the information. They are also telling different things to different audiences. On 1 May, the hon. Member for Surrey Heath told the Daily Express:"““If we can stop them we will””." On 2 May, he told The Guardian that"““we shall not use our vote to impede prompt and effective EPC implementation.””" On 4 May, he told the Daily Mail:"““I hope MPs will put pressure on the Government to go back to the drawing board.””" Why is he not straight with people? The truth is that he does not like energy performance certificates at all. The Conservative party’s leader claims to care about the environment, but time and again it will not back the practical measures needed to help to cut carbon emissions. The right hon. Member for Witney took a trip to the Arctic, organised by WWF, to demonstrate his commitment to the environment. It was his photo-opportunity to hug a husky. While he was there, he was asked for his top tips for people to go greener. He mentioned bicycling to work and growing vegetables, and he said that some of the steps that we can take to reduce our impact on the environment, such as home insulation, will save us money. He also stated that leadership means doing the right thing not just saying it. Well, the Conservatives should do the right thing now. They should back these measures to bring in environmental improvements. However, they will not back them. What do WWF and Friends of the Earth now say about the Conservatives’ environmental policy? Let me quote from a letter from them to the Conservatives:"““Your party is currently campaigning for the local elections, under the slogan ‘Vote blue, go green’””—" That sounds familiar. The letter continues:"““However, we are concerned that by attempting to block the HIPs, you risk scuppering one of the most important pieces of environmental legislation to affect households in recent years.""We therefore urgently request that you…reassure us that under no circumstances will you allow their introduction…to become a victim of moves by your party to delay the rest of the HIP.””" The huskies have just cocked their legs on the Conservatives’ environment policy. If their environment policy were energy rated now it would get a big ““G””. Perhaps that is not the only big ““G”” that they will have to reckon with in the next few months. The green groups are right: this is a good measure and it should be implemented. The Conservatives should start to back it now.