Energy Bill

I do not believe that we are. I am grateful to the noble Lord for that clarification. We are in the same space. We both agree that flexibility can be a strength of the scheme by which certification to the required standard is sought. The important thing for the Government and for those who seek, as it were, to use the Green Deal, is that there is consistency with which all those who participate comply with the standard. On the amendment of my noble friend Lord Teverson regarding suspension and expulsion, I make a brief comment about the broader point that an accreditation scheme run by UKAS should make sure that, long before the Minister has to step in in order to suspend or exclude, the system itself should make all those judgments within its own processes. The point of certification should be able to judge non-compliance. If it is major non-compliance, one needs to make a judgment between suspension and permanent withdrawal. The accreditation body should be capable of suspending or withdrawing a certification system if they are similarly not meeting the required standards that the scheme expects. This group of amendments raises some very important issues. I am not persuaded that the way that the Bill is currently written needs to be changed in order to deliver the strengths that I believe that the Government are looking for. However, I am grateful. We have had an opportunity to debate some of the key attributes that the Green Deal will be underpinned by.