Energy Bill [HL]

My Lords, my best line has been taken by my noble friend Lord Moynihan, as I was going to accuse the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, of speaking far too conservatively. He has neglected to take note of the change that has altered public sector housing enormously over the last decade and a half, which is, of course, the advent of housing associations. Housing associations are now responsible for a very large proportion of public sector housing, but they do not have the opportunity to offer things such as rent rebates. Speaking as an old local authority man, I am not entirely sure that if I was still there I would like the thought of somebody committing my ratepayers to having to pay for something, however beneficial, by way of an added inducement. We need to be extremely careful to make sure that what is done in a scheme such as this is self-justified entirely within the scheme. If somebody else wants to add further inducement, there is nothing to prevent a local authority from doing it. However, we should not begin to assume that any aspect of this scheme is going to be dependent—or might become dependent, which would be even worse—on some other outside source of funding. If the schemes are not justified in their own right, standing entirely within the terms of reference that will be established in this Bill, then frankly they are not worth having. We absolutely have to stick with that, as a primary rule in what we are doing here, without expecting others to make other commitments to support it.