Housing

One has to be careful what one says, even in the House, but one will probably get the former for a third of the cost of the latter and it will be just about as good. It is no secret that my party and I want to see a rapid and dramatic improvement in the energy performance of buildings. Indeed, my private Member’s Bill—now the Sustainable and Secure Buildings Act 2004, which was well before the right hon. Member for Witney (Mr. Cameron) came into anybody’s sights—gives Ministers the power to move much more decisively on this important issue than just simply labelling. Labelling is important, but we need to go further. I remind the Minister that she has the powers to go further than she proposes today and my party recently set out a scheme that would assist owners in achieving that on a sensible timescale. On the one hand we have militant opposition to anything to do with this project. We saw a wolf in sheep’s clothing speak with great eloquence at the outset of this debate, but it is a fact that the Conservative party, whether it knew that it was doing it or not, prayed against both elements, including the EPC. The Liberal Democrats strongly support the EPC. We actually want the Government to go further and faster on that and to see some positive results. Whatever the merits and the theoretical benefits of the scheme in its original form, the Government have dithered and bungled on the HIP project. They should press forward with the EPCs and recognise the rest of the project for the train crash that it has become.