Energy Bill [HL]

I support the amendment. We have had repeated statements from the Minister to the effect that, in many ways, the Green Deal will be market-driven, that there is little public funding but that there is a great deal of public provision, in the sense that the Bill will mark the paving of the way for the Green Deal. I think that, therefore, it is important that there is a degree of public reporting of what we are trying to do so that we can measure its effectiveness, whether in environmental terms or the penetration—which parts of the country respond better. We would anticipate that continuing for many years, so it would be desirable for us to have proper indications of take-up rates, the environmental impact and, in particular, who is getting it and where they stay. While we are not asking for a street-by-street report, it would be useful on a regional basis or a local authority basis to get an indication of what is happening. It might even be useful to see the take-up within the devolved Administrations and see whether they are playing their part alongside the Whitehall-driven part of the exercise. I take the point that the first line of defence of most Ministers, when faced with amendments which seem to be rather good in intent, is that the wording is wrong, or it is not properly drafted. That is why the ministries have masses of civil servants; not necessarily to do the drafting themselves but to instruct those who do it to do so. Therefore, before we get any feeble excuse that it is not properly worded, many of us would be very happy if the Government were prepared to take the amendment away, look at it in some shape or form, and see whether we can achieve that. As we have said in respect of so many aspects of this Bill, while it is very ambitious and wide-ranging, it is not rocket science. This information will be held somewhere. It is just a question of making sure that we can get it from that somewhere into the public domain so that on a draughty Friday morning we can have one and a half hours of debate on it in order to subject the whole proposal to some kind of public scrutiny and public accountability. While we might not be spending much public money on this, we are going to be investing a great deal of, I think, Westminster prestige. There is not a lot of that going about at the moment, but what is there, if it is to be effective in this instance, ought to be reported. If it is not as effective as it should be, we ought to be doing something about it, not on the basis of prejudice but on the basis of hard information, which I think a report of this nature would provide.