Renewable Heat Incentive (Amendment to the Energy Act 2008) Regulations 2011

That is a debate for later. I think that the noble Duke roughly knew the direction of travel that I was coming from. However, we were interested to hear about his great estates and restaurant business. When I am up in that part of Scotland, I may pop in to sample the fare. The restaurant probably serves his beef. That would be excellent. We know that he is not involved in the peat business because he was very pleased that peat was excluded. I confirm that and thank him, as always, for his contribution. I say to the noble Baroness, Lady Smith of Basildon, who described me as slinky, that it takes one to know one. As I have admired her slinky movements round the House, I am delighted to see that she is no longer impeded by having a foot in plaster and has her dancing shoes well and truly on. I thank her for giving me advance warning of some of her questions and for the great support on this subject. That is not surprising as the renewal heat incentive was kick-started by the previous Government and we are happy to take action on it. The noble Baroness makes a very good point about the budget. She knows as well as I do that dealing with the Treasury is not always the easiest thing on earth. I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, for congratulating us on getting the money from the Treasury. We cannot push our luck too far with the Treasury, but I totally understand where the noble Baroness is coming from. Despite the fact that each year is a cut-off point, people who started after 1 July 2009 will now be able to apply for RHI—we are going back further. There is effectively a six-month period when we can backdate RHI into another financial year, provided that the relevant person has completed his accreditation. It may well have taken five or six months to process but we can backdate the funding to the date of accreditation which, of course, may go back to a previous year. I hope that that gives the noble Baroness hope that there is an element of flexibility, although not perhaps as much as she would like. Reluctantly, I occasionally have to say no to her—I know that she is not used to it—but that is as far as we can go. I wipe the sweat off my brow in relief at not having to go back and challenge the Treasury again on this difficult subject.