I understand the point that the right hon. Lady is making, but there is a cost to mandating solar panels on new properties: the cost that will be paid for the initial transaction. If right hon. and hon. Members want to see supply boosted, we have to accept that we have to set a balance; we are trying to do that by saying both that it is important to make progress with regard
to the environmental imperatives that have been rightly highlighted and—to answer the exam question—to get the kind of supply that everybody in this debate wants to see.
I gently caution hon. Members not to be too prescriptive regarding the technology we use. Although solar panels will be appropriate in many instances—I would guess the majority of instances, as a non-expert and a non-surveyor—they will not be the solution to reducing the carbon footprint of every single new property built. We should all collectively accept that solar panels will not be a useful or effective way to spend money in that cohort—in situations where, for whatever reason, including the wrong aspect, the wrong part of the country or the wrong geography. We should seek not to impose a requirement in that regard but instead to say, “If you have that amount of money within the system to be able to spend on making that building greener, the Government will not be prescriptive that you have to do something that isn’t necessarily going to be effective, but we will encourage you to use that money to make it effective, be it in a different form of technology or doing it in a different way.”