Energy Bill [HL]

My Lords, in reading the Bill, and in getting the substantial number of representations that I suspect that we have all had from the relevant organisations, I have been impressed by the sheer complexity of the problem that we face in dealing with the private rented sector. It covers an enormous range of properties, of kinds of tenancy, and of people who occupy the houses. One trade association, the Federation of Master Builders, told me that there are around 26 million homes in Britain, over half of which were built before the 1960s. Five million are Victorian terraced properties. The scale of the challenge is nothing short of enormous. That is what has impressed me. Yes, we have new homes coming up with new standards and owner-occupied homes, but the private rented sector offers a severe challenge to the Government and to all those working with them. Everybody with whom I have spoken has had nothing but total support for the whole concept of the Green Deal. At the same time, they recognise that it will have to maintain a careful balance between the desire to get maximum energy efficiency from this huge range of houses and, at the same time, maintaining the availability on the market of homes to rent. Some of the representations that I have heard have expressed some anxiety that, if too many obligations and restrictions are placed on landlords of rented homes, one result could be that they will simply be taken off the market. The consequence would be almost worse than the original problem. There is no question about it: the rental market has grown substantially in recent years, largely because of the progressive removal of the controls which hampered it for so long. When I was very young, I lived in a rent-controlled property. My mother was renting and the landlord could not put up the rent at all. In those circumstances it was almost impossible for anybody to rent a house because none of them came on to the market. If the house was empty, it was immediately sold for owner occupation. One has to hold that balance carefully. I hope that, when dealing with the amendments to the later clauses, the Committee will feel that we have to give attention to this. There has to be a proper balance between the desire to improve these houses and their energy efficiency, and making severe inroads into the rental market as a whole. I am encouraged that, both in the Bill and in one of the amendments to be moved by the Opposition, there is a recognition that this needs to be done rather carefully. A considerable duty rests on us to try to get that balance as fair as we can between the two objectives—making sure that there is a proper market in homes for rent and getting the houses improved. I want to make only one other point, which has been made by speakers already. The biggest problems we face here are in the homes that are extremely difficult to make more energy efficient. It has been made clear in some of the representations that the limit of £5,000, or whatever it is, would not cover those sorts of places. They are coming under the energy company obligation, or so I understand. One does need to look at all these various aspects if we are going to achieve our objective. Like my noble friend Lady Maddock when moving her amendment, I congratulate the Government on having had the courage to pick up this ball and run with it, because it is important that we try to deal with this hugely varied sector of housing if we are to improve the lot of the tenants and at the same time save energy.