This is a commercial market-driven project. In any commercial market-driven project there are going to be properties and buildings where, as the noble Lord rightly says, a cost may not be acceptable within the repayment fund or may not be within the golden rule. My sense, and that of the department, is that we set up the structure and see how it proceeds. I live in an oil-fired house in a rural community where we cannot get gas, as do many, as the noble Lord said. If it does not make commercial reality for market-driven forces to help with that, the department and Government should look at how that can best be achieved.
Until the commercial equation is worked out, however, and until I have seen the assessor and the accreditor, I cannot begin to see whether that is a viable proposition. It is incumbent upon the Government to regroup at a point, as the noble Lord rightly says, to see where it has not worked with these properties, what can be done to help, what type of people are not able to take full advantage of the scheme and then see where the Government can help. I look particularly here at the vulnerable, who are vital to this, particularly the vulnerable in rural communities where they cannot have the benefit of this if the numbers do not work out.
I hope that that deals with the noble Lord’s point. However, I think that he is absolutely right. The scheme needs to be road-tested to ensure that it works and we must keep a watchful eye on it. Getting these things precisely ordered is a very good thing for the Bill.
I regret to say that I have forgotten where I was but I have a feeling that I was somewhere like subsection (5) —or was it subsection (4)?
Energy Bill
Proceeding contribution from
Lord Marland
(Conservative)
in the House of Lords on Monday, 17 January 2011.
It occurred during Debate on bills
and
Committee proceeding on Energy Bill [HL].
Type
Proceeding contribution
Reference
724 c17GC 
Session
2010-12
Chamber / Committee
House of Lords Grand Committee
Subjects
Librarians' tools
Timestamp
2023-12-15 21:16:50 +0000
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