Energy Bill [HL]

First, I must point out to the noble Lord, Lord Jenkin, that we are committed to 2016 in any case. That is what we are going to do—it is what this Government have committed themselves to and what the previous Government proposed. It is one matter that we agree about. I have to declare an interest because I have a financial interest in a business that seeks to build houses of precisely this kind of format now. It is perfectly possible to do. We are building houses that meet the requirements. The issue is that, unless you build enough of them, the price is greater. It is true that if you build them in penny packets when everybody else is building another type of house, it does cost you more. But if you start to build them as part of the general run of things, the result is that you can build them at a price not unadjacent, as Private Eye would say, to the present price for building houses that are not on eco level 6—to use my own shorthand—which is, roughly speaking, what we are looking for. At the moment, a lot of houses are built at eco level 3; we do not build any at less than eco level 4 and we are moving a whole stage up. As the machinery of being able to build those houses comes into operation, you can build more of them. I very much support the proposals of the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, because they underline the reality of what we can do. The noble Lord spoke of what was happening in Scandinavia and Germany, underlining the fact that, once you get the thing moving, you enable people to build to a price that does not make the market significantly more expensive. Most housing is done in units that are prefabricated in various ways; even in brick, many of the parts are prefabricated. They can be prefabricated to either a lower or a higher level; once enough of them are being made, the price begins to be not unadjacent to the price at present. It is perfectly possible to do it and we are committed to it. I support the amendment because it says three things that are very important. First, it restates the commitment, and that is important because, I fear, a number of people in the construction industry have been speaking to some of my noble friends who do not want to do this. They have not done the work and do not like the fact that they are behind major companies such as Barratt and Taylor Wimpey that have done the work and know they can do it. They tell their shareholders that they do not need to do it because in the end the Government will give way. They are saying that the Government will not stick to 2016 and that they will save the shareholders a lot of money because they will not have spent money on research, and so on. The real way in which to let down the major housebuilders—which I certainly am not—who are trying to do this is to move in any way from the commitment to carbon neutrality at that date. The people who have spent the money in trying to make this work have been constantly dogged by the backsliders in the industry. I have a lot of criticisms of the previous Government because there was a lot of talk and very little action. However, the one thing that they did and got right was to give a date—2016 for this, 2018 for commercial buildings—and now we have to make that work. I very much support this amendment for this reason. Of course those people who do not believe in climate change will tell you that it cannot be done because they do not want to do it. They do not understand the urgency. They are not prepared to fight this battle. In that sense, they are saying the same thing as the people who always want to put something off because it will never happen. Of course it is going to happen, it is happening; we have to do it, and we have to do it rapidly. As far as the definition of carbon neutral is concerned, it is not that we do not know what carbon neutral is; it is that we need to write down more clearly what has already been worked out by the Carbon Hub, the group of people working in this area. We have to write down precisely what will be acceptable to the Government in meeting their requirements. There are some details to take care of, but we are almost there. It has taken a long time, as my noble friend points out, because the whole industry has been involved in it. Green organisations and many others have been involved, and they are trying to get something that will stick. There is no doubt that it can be done—it is very close now. Most of us have been working to eco level 6, which is a perfectly reasonable surrogate for the detailed arrangements which will take place. Therefore, my noble friend Lord Jenkin need not be worried. All the evidence is that we can deliver and manage this; unfortunately, there are some who would like us not to. I know that he is usually on the side of those who want to do things, and I am sure that he will be able to do it. I will make one last comment, in the hope that I have established that I am on the side of the righteous on this occasion. What happened in the 1950s, when we came out of a period in which a Government totally failed to build any houses, has happened again in the past 11 years. The previous Government have had the worst housing record for building of any government in history; so they should not talk about this as if it were somehow a failure of Harold Macmillan, who was desperately important to this country. When I think of the housing conditions that were prevalent when my father worked at as a parish priest, I will not take lessons from Labour Members about their behaviour on housebuilding. The Labour Party did it again in the 11 years in which it was in government, when we had the worst housing record of any country in Europe. So they should not tell us that. However, on this, we happen to be agreed, so I am very sorry that the noble Lord, Lord O’Neill, found the one thing that he could argue with me about. Let us unite in saying, ““This has got to be done””. The noble Lord is absolutely right that there is urgency, and I hope that the Minister will be favourable to what is an important reaffirmation of what the Government have already committed themselves to.