Energy Bill

I support the previous two contributions. We have seen a diminution in deaths due to smoke inhalation as a result of smoke detectors. Part of the reason for the decrease is that the fire services have been proactive and going round homes handing them out. Frankly, £15 to £30 is not a lot, but it is quite a lot for the kind of households that might have defective boilers and the like. I know from my own experience that when people from British Gas, which we use for boiler maintenance, come to our home they always ask about this. We can afford to pay the £15 to £30, but it still seems to be excessively priced. If this legislation were to bring in a recognition of the importance of the issue then it would mean a massive increase in sales and therefore a reduction in price. We are told a lot about smart meters and about these gadgets which tell you how much you are spending when you use certain electrical appliances. People often use these not because they want to reduce their consumption but because they are interested in finding out how much they are spending. The electricity companies give them away for nothing. The gas companies should be a little more generous and more proactive. As I say, they are proactive when it comes to maintenance, but this usually involves condemning a boiler and saying that they would like to install another one. In the interim they will offer the person an alarm so that they do not poison themselves, or wrap the boiler in a yellow and black band and say that it should not be used. Invariably they do that on Christmas Eve when they know you are not going to be able to get another one until probably the summer. This is an opportunity. It is not about the Green Deal as such but it is about energy safety and domestic safety and it could be that this is an opportunity that the Government would be well advised to look at. In terms of people’s confessions about whether they have been in opposition when serving on Bill Committees, these amendments are an example of How to Oppose Bills in Committee 101: where you see a ““may””, you make it into a ““shall””. That is the first rule of opposing in any Committee. You go through the Bill and you strike them out. If it is ““14 days””, you make it ““28””, and if it is ““28””, you make it ““14””. A lot of people need to learn this. This mob here need to learn how to oppose legislation as much as anyone else does. They did not do much opposing when Labour was in power. They certainly did not do much of it in the past five years. The Government spend nearly two pages on the framework, telling us that they are going to establish a scheme making provision for the Secretary of State to authorise all these good works. At the end of it they say that even if you do all that, you do not have to tell anybody, and you do not really have to do it—it is really just permissive. If this is worth doing, it is worth doing well. It is worth making it clear and explicit. It makes sure that Governments of all stripes at the appropriate time will have to measure their performance against their ambition. Until such time as we have a clearer definition of what the Government intend to do, when we get the vague and sometimes not too specific provisions in the framework regulations, we want to make sure that the Government are called to account and know that they must do this. Therefore it would be a sign of the Minister’s good intent if he were to accept this amendment or take it away and think about it. This is fundamental to how you oppose legislation in Committee, but on the other hand it also makes a lot of sense to do this at this time because it would give a clear indication that they want it to be above board and intelligible to the parties that will be interested in those individuals. The great British public are not going to applaud you for doing this but I think that the people involved in this would take some comfort from the fact that the Government want to make their intentions clear and specific and that they are required to do so by the Bill.