Energy Bill

My Lords, the amendments moved by the noble Baroness, Lady Smith, raise a number of important themes. I am sure that my noble friend the Minister would agree with that, given the importance that he places on accreditation in order to guarantee consumer protection and user protection. I just want to comment on some of those themes. I should declare an interest as chairman of the United Kingdom Accreditation Service, which is the government-recognised national accreditation body. The first point that I want to make is to clear up the common misunderstanding about the two terms ““accreditation”” and ““certification””. I can do no better than refer to the impact assessment that the department produced for this Bill. In paragraph 115, on page 40, it makes the following short point: "““Accreditation and certification are two related but distinct activities. ‘Certification’ is the process that leads to ascertaining ""someone has a particular qualification, and ‘accreditation’ is the process by which certification is awarded responsibly””." I suggest, first of all, that we are using the word ““accreditation”” where perhaps we should be using the word ““certification”” in some of the debates that we have been having. Accreditation underpins the scheme by which operators and participants will receive certificates. Accreditation therefore determines the robustness of the scheme by which compliance with the required standards will be judged. My second point is that the word ““accreditation”” can mean different things to different people. Given the importance of accreditation to consumer protection, it has been recognised at an intergovernmental level that, when the word ““accreditation”” is used, it should mean the same thing to all parties. In fact, the European Union passed a regulation two or three years ago that requires every member state to have a national accreditation body, and for the use of the word ““accreditation”” by that Government to refer to a consistent set of disciplines and rigour. Thus the previous Government passed a regulation in December 2008 which recognised UKAS’s role as the de facto national accreditation body and formalised our role in that purpose. Therefore I can speak with some authority on what, at an intergovernmental level, accreditation should mean, by way of reassurance to those who are users and consumers of goods and services. First of all, the assessment and verification when accrediting a regime looks at technical competence, and this of course is a point that Amendment 2D focuses on. It measures the capability of a participant, be it a company or an individual, to deliver that competence and to deliver the services underpinned by that competence. It looks at the ability of individuals and companies who might be certified by accredited certification to maintain that competence and that capability over a period of time; in other words, it is not a one-off assessment but an ongoing assessment of that company’s or that individual’s capabilities. It therefore looks at reliability, integrity and governance. Very importantly, it looks at outcomes and performance, making sure that outcomes and performance deliver against the standards that have been preset; in this instance, they would be preset by the Minister and by the Government. In other words, accreditation should mean a wholly comprehensive judgment about the ability of the certification system to properly certify either individuals or companies in terms of their performance, their goods and their services. It really should be a badge of confidence to anyone who has any doubts about the goods and services they might be acquiring. The Minister over and over again has made the point—as indeed have other Members of your Lordships’ House, in Committee and on the Floor of the House—that the accreditation and the certification which this Bill requires as underpinning the Green Deal must deliver that high level of consumer protection and public confidence. It must deliver the guarantee of quality that I know the Minster wants to see. It must deliver the trust. I understand exactly why the noble Baroness has raised this Amendment in order to explore this area. I think that it is a very important attribute which is going to underpin the Minister’s ambitions in terms of how the Green Deal delivers the outcomes that the wider public, homeowners and others can have confidence in. I am not sure about Amendment 2G and agree with my noble friends Lord Teverson and Lord Jenkin about the standard assessment measurement. I understand the noble Lord, Lord O’Neill, when he says that there needs to be some methodology that enables a large number of participants to operate across a large number of diverse circumstances and deliver some sort of consistent output. The point about consistency of outcomes is where I absolutely agree with the noble Lord, but to require a standard assessment measurement could lead to some unintended consequences. I speak with my full experience of other schemes that we accredit on behalf of the Government. I will give you an example. The gas safety scheme that was called CORGI benefits from the fact that we accredit five or six different routes to certification. If you are a gas installer and you want to be certified, those five or six different options for certification offer different types of assessment measurement. They do not offer a standard approach, the value of which is that it encourages innovation, competition and flexibility in order to provide the certification process best suited to different types of gas installer. I would strongly suggest to my noble friend the Minister that we want the same arrangement with the Green Deal. We want to avoid an absolutely rigid, standard assessment process. The important point is that, however one achieves accredited certification as being compliant with the requirements of the Green Deal, you meet the standards that have been set down. As long as you meet the standards that are set down, how exactly the measurement has been made is less important. UKAS, though, guarantees on behalf of the Government that, if the certification process or body is accredited as being capable of delivering that standard, it is consistent with what the standard requires. That we avoid a too rigid approach to the exact process is very important.