Climate Change Bill [HL]

I am grateful to the Minister for her response but perhaps I may press her a little further. First, I can clearly see the advantage for the authorities that carry out the pilots in being able to bill in advance, but I cannot see the advantage for the consumer. One may well be reimbursed if one operates the scheme sensibly but, for many families, the charge will be made up front and they will not get anything back at the end. Secondly, the Minister said that people might have to wait months and months. Perhaps she could tell us how long the Government see the pilots running. I had assumed that they would not run for months and months. Clearly, they need to run for a reasonable length of time so as to come up with something concrete but at the moment it is not clear from the Bill how long that will be. Therefore, looking at this matter from the consumer’s of view, the scheme seems to be geared towards helping the local authority much more than the consumer.