Energy Bill [HL]

My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister for his reply and to other noble Lords who have taken part in the debate on this group of amendments. As the noble Baroness, Lady Smith, said, when we are looking at some of these very low rated properties, we are not talking about a lot of money to improve them one step up to the next band. I suggested some figures at the beginning and the noble Baroness, Lady Smith, repeated some of them. When we discuss this, I think that people are not really looking at what these properties are like. We may be talking about insulation and draught proofing, so some measures will involve quite low amounts of money. Therefore, in persuading tenants to improve the property’s rating, it may not be very much extra that they will be asked to contribute. I am not quite clear what the Minister was saying in his answers to my amendments. I think that he was saying, ““Yes, we understand all of this, and when we eventually get around to making regulations, we might do something a bit like what you are suggesting””. I am not sure whether that is what he was saying, but I will look at what is in the record. Perhaps at some point we can have a discussion about this. If we are keen to get local authorities and landlords working together to improve properties, we need a little more than is on the face of the Bill at the moment.