Energy Bill

My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister, but I am not sure he has addressed the point I made first. On Amendment 38, I think that perhaps the noble Baroness, Lady Noakes, misunderstood me. It is not with any welcome that I say there are 52 pieces of secondary legislation; I think it is entirely inappropriate. I welcome the fact that the Minister says that he will consult on them. That is very different from having full scrutiny in this House. The point the noble Baroness and I both made at Second Reading is that it would be helpful in our deliberations if we had drafts of some of the secondary legislation as we discuss the Bill. I accept that this is a framework Bill but I do not welcome the fact that it is. If we look at some of the points that will be covered by secondary legislation, it would be much better if we had that information today. The actual framework of regulations—the code of conduct, for example, and the kind of assessments—would be helpful prior to this stage. I would prefer to see much of this information in primary rather than secondary legislation. The noble Lord, Lord O’Neill, referred to a lack of clarity. It would be helpful to have some of these comments prior to the Bill, and I apologise if I was not clear enough in my explanation. The objective of this Bill is to ensure that as many households as possible have as much work undertaken as possible in terms of energy efficiency to reduce carbon and reduce bills. The Bill is market-driven in some ways because, as I think the noble Lord, Lord Dixon-Smith, said, if there is an incentive for people to save money, there is an incentive to undertake the Green Deal; we would not want to exclude work that could be done and paid for in another way, including by the householder, because it is not in the Green Deal plan. Clause 1 provides that an energy plan is an arrangement by the occupier owning the property for persons to make energy efficient improvements to the property, and goes on to say that it is an energy plan if it is paid for in instalments. Yet all the references in Clauses 2 and 3 to assessors, the framework regulations and the code of conduct apply to a Green Deal plan. We want to ensure that the assessor can undertake an energy plan so that he can assess how much work can be undertaken in that home to ensure energy efficiency, part of which may be part of the Green Deal. I do not think it has ever been the Minister’s intention to exclude all work other than the Green Deal. It should be an opportunity for the householder. I would welcome further discussion on this, because I do not think this is what the Minister intended. Clause 1 agreed. Clause 2 : Green deal plans: supplementary Amendment 1D Clause 2 : Green deal plans: supplementary Amendment 1D Moved by