Unlike the hon. Member for Castle Point (Rebecca Harris), I do not rise to support every single part of this Bill.
Earlier in the debate, the Bill was described as a kaleidoscopic vision. I would prefer to describe it as a rag-bag. One dictionary definition of “rag-bag” is “a confused assortment; a jumble”. Perhaps that is a little harsh, so I prefer an alternative definition: “a bag in which small pieces of cloth are kept for use in mending”. I am afraid that time prevents me from pulling more than a couple of pieces of cloth out of the rag-bag to examine. I will therefore concentrate my remarks on just two pieces, neither of which seems to have been designed to mend anything in particular.
The first piece of cloth I want to pull out is the question of the so-called moves towards zero-carbon homes. I say “so-called” advisedly. The explanatory notes to the Bill clearly state:
“The Government is committed to introducing a zero carbon emissions standard for new dwellings in England from 2016.”
However, the Government have now made three attempts to knock down the original version of what would have been moves towards zero-carbon homes by 2016. As hon. Members will remember, that arose from the 2006 code for sustainable homes. There were rising levels of sustainability going up to code level 6, and homes were supposed to be getting towards that level by 2016. I accept that there could have been allowable solutions under certain circumstances when it might have been difficult to get homes up to that level, but they should have been the exception. The code level should have got as close to 6 as possible before those allowable solutions came about.
This is a very important infrastructure issue. If one is pursuing a major project to try to make sure that all the homes that are standing by 2050 are as energy-efficient as possible—as the Government claimed they had been doing with the energy companies obligation and the wider issues of energy efficiency in homes—it seems nonsensical and perverse not then to seek to build new homes that are as energy-efficient as possible to replace the ones that they were trying to make as energy-efficient as possible in the first place. However, that is what seems to be on offer in this Bill.
The Zero Carbon Hub is a group consisting of, among others, the National House Building Council, the Federation of Master Builders, the Home Builders Federation and major house building companies, all of which said that allowable solutions should be put in place only after the code for sustainable homes went up to something like a 60% improvement over part L of the building regulations. Yet the Government have simply said, “That’s not feasible—there’s no evidence. Lets put it down to 40%-odd over part L.” Indeed, the explanatory notes state:
“The intention is therefore to set a maximum on-site carbon dioxide emission standard for new homes and for the remainder of the zero carbon target to be met by house builders supporting off-site carbon abatement measures”.
What that means is that those homes will be built to nowhere near the zero-carbon-emission standard. Relatively modest improvements will have to be made over and above the part L building standard commitments and it will be possible to pay money to get out of that particular commitment.
Although the Government appear to be arguing, despite having no evidence, that the standard is unobtainable, the additional cost of building zero-carbon homes has halved since 2011. The payback for that additional cost takes only a few years in terms of the lower energy bills in homes built as close as possible to a zero-carbon standard, but the Government have decided that they do not wish to pursue that course.
Let us be clear that, under the Bill, a major element of infrastructure—new housing—is moving away from being zero or low-carbon in the future. The allowable solutions suggested by the Bill are not just applicable to circumstances in which it is not easy to make the homes zero carbon, but act as an excuse for making sure that those homes are nowhere near zero carbon. Moreover, the regulations are very unclear about the amount of money builders will have to put into the fund if they do not make their homes zero carbon. As we have heard, that may leak out from planning authorities and may not go towards alternative zero-carbon proposals for retrofit. That rag needs to be looked at.
A number of other hon. Members have addressed the other rag that needs to be seriously examined, namely fracking. We need to be clear that the relevant clauses are all about trying to make sure that fracking can be undertaken as speedily and with as little examination as possible, as opposed to making sure that there are proper environmental safeguards and that concerns are properly addressed if fracking is to go ahead at all. I mentioned in an intervention that fracking usually takes place at least 1 mile, possibly 2 miles, underground, so what could be the harm in that? Unfortunately, however, the Bill suggests that anything below 300 metres—a third of a kilometre, not even a third of a mile—will be regarded as deep underground and therefore available for fracking.
It will be possible for there to be access beneath the land on which people live. As we have heard, regardless of assurances about safety, there are no proposals for any kind of baseline or environmental impact assessment. Even if concerns are correctly expressed, such as the question of what might happen to the land should there be a fault with it that could lead to some damage being done, we do not know who would be responsible, because there will not be that baseline or that assessment.
We also do not know—there is nothing about this in the Bill or elsewhere—what will happen about to the accumulation. It appears that the regime envisaged will simply enable drilling after individual planning permission is given and accumulation will not be an issue as far as water or fracking fluid are concerned. Indeed, it is not even an issue with regard to where fracking goes.
The Bill’s proposals fall far short of the very minimum that one might expect from any sort of regime that would make fracking an assuredly safe procedure as far as the public are concerned. It is of paramount importance that public concerns about the safety of the fracking process should be addressed. If we persist in putting through legislation that appears to suggest the opposite to the public, it will not be surprising if they continue to raise very serious objections about what is going on behind the whole process and ask whether the design of the process is in their interests at all or in someone else’s interests entirely.
7.46 pm