Energy and Climate Change and Environment, Food and Rural Affairs

My hon. Friend is right. When we were designing our green deal, we were determined that the limit of £6,500 should be high enough to ensure not only that it covered the basic cavity walls and loft insulation available for modern houses, but that houses that are harder to treat—I hesitate to say "hard to treat", because it is important to get the message out that they can be treated—can be treated in such a way that actually saves money. We need to unlock the savings that people can make, and use them to release to people up front the cost of making those investments. It is characteristic of the Government to assume that any proposal that they hear about must involve the expenditure of vast amounts of public funds. That is what they assume all the time—[Interruption.] I will enlighten the Secretary of State. When people save money on their energy bills through being more energy efficient, that is costing them less than it otherwise would. That stream of savings continues into the future. Our discussions with the banks have elicited a certain enthusiasm for the proposal that, by taking those savings and capitalising on them, people can get the money up front that is needed to make those investments. That proposal would benefit everyone in the economy. From day one, it would reduce energy consumption and bills, even after repayment, for the people who engage in such improvements. It would reduce our CO2 emissions and provide work for energy efficiency installers at a time when the construction industry is suffering. It would also provide apprenticeships. It would provide a stimulus to the economy that would not have the effect that the Government's stimulus is having—namely, to saddle future generations with debts without the means of repaying them. There could not be a better designed policy for the times, and it is a source of sadness to me and others outside the House that the Secretary of State has not had the imagination to put such a proposal into the Queen's Speech.