Energy Bill [HL]

My Lords, I am going to offer a word of solace to the Minister: I recommend that he suggests that the noble Lord withdraws his amendment, not that the Government should accept it. I doubt whether the Government will accept it, not least because although this has been an interesting and informed debate, the cross-currents have been very sharp and very obvious. In seeking the objectives that we all seek, the question of strategy is difficult. I doubt whether this Bill can stand the strain of carrying an amendment which indicates that the whole of the tariff position should be restructured as far as the electricity companies are concerned, particularly given that we are short of information. First of all, the companies are short of information about which households ought to have preferential treatment. I very much enjoyed the thoughtful and considered speech of the noble Earl, Lord Cathcart. He took us with him in terms of the objectives, but council tax will not do as a measure of the relative strength or weakness of household economies. We are in the historic position—as the noble Lord, Lord Oxburgh, identified—that this initial tariff is the old standing charge written into a new pricing framework. Now there are elements of a standing charge which companies have to meet. However, our consideration with this Bill is, how do we make the Green Deal effective? I listened very carefully to my noble friend Lord O’Neill, who indicated the difficulties of both ends of the spectrum in this argument. In terms of making the Green Deal effective, it would complicate matters enormously if we were also saying that in a short period of time, we would be changing the nature of the pricing policy. There is enough of a problem with pricing anyway. We all know that we have a terrifying situation at the moment with world energy prices and the issues faced by consumers. None of us knows what lies ahead, but it is unlikely that energy will become significantly cheaper in the foreseeable future. Therefore households treat energy bills with great seriousness. Can this be solved along the lines of this amendment? In due course, I think it would probably need to be. We have to get away from the issue of why the pricing policy is as it is. The Bill has to deliver the drive towards the Green Deal. The priority has to be to emphasise to households that they must pursue strategies to reduce the consumption of electricity. It is consumption that we have got to reduce or, more accurately in many cases, we have got to reduce waste, given that our houses are so ill-equipped for the circumstances. We have to deliver the Bill’s objectives before we move, and expect the industry to move, to that dimension identified by the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Teverson. This has been a very useful debate, but I fear that if the concept in that amendment was put into the Bill, we would complicate matters enormously in terms of the impact on households. We would therefore fail with the main strategy to which we are all committed under the Bill. I hope the Minister will take a similar view.