Energy Bill [HL]

My Lords, I do not think we ought to take it quite as simply as that. One of the things we learned from the Warm Homes operation—which I had the privilege of introducing—was that many people live, as far as their heating is concerned, to the level that they can afford. If their house becomes better insulated, what happens is not that they have a lower bill: they merely warm the house better than they were able to do before. In other words, this is not as simple a mathematical equation as one might think. I am worried about the concept of a sort of holiday. If someone enters a tenancy where the agreement has been made already, they will know the terms of the tenancy: it will be part of what they are offered. It does not seem possible that anyone can have a holiday in those circumstances, because that is what they joined in the first place. I realise that we have chosen to concentrate on people at the bottom end, with perhaps little choice in the tenancy they have. I very much agree with the comments made about some landlords. However, in my experience of having had a lot of landlords in my former constituency, a good number were decent. In those circumstances all I am suggesting is that when people enter into an agreement, they know what the situation is, and there certainly should not be a holiday. The only circumstance seems to be the first one, where people are actually able to control the heating bills. If you have better insulation, you can decide whether you are going to continue with the amount of heating you had before—in other words the price you had before—but get more benefit from it because the house is better insulated. Alternately, you may decide—and many people do—that you would prefer to get even warmer. I am sure people who have gone canvassing know that there are certain houses where you bang on the door and cannot stop yourself stepping back from the wave of heat that hits you. It is not always true that we are sensible about our heating. The fact is that these things are within the control of the tenant, and I find it difficult to understand why we are going down this line. Tenants have a good deal here, paid for by the state, and it is absolutely right; but do not let ourselves get into a position in which we find that tenants are able to turn up the heat and then ask for a holiday because it does not work out as they thought it would.