My Lords, first, I take this opportunity to thank all noble Lords for their kind and warm words of welcome. I assure them that I look forward to working with Members from all sides in my new role. There will be times when I am sure that we will agree; there may be other times when we do not; but all discussions will be done in a manner of listening to and acknowledging the great expertise in this field in your Lordships’ House. On this subject, I have sensed that there is a good consensus on the approach of providing off-site carbon abatement measures, but of course a series of important points have been raised. I shall deal with those in responding to the amendments.
Before doing so, I shall deal with the specific issue raised by my noble friend Lord Teverson on the climate change committee’s recommendations on low-carbon heating, such as heat pumps. Rather than specifying what heating to use, the standards in building regulations are technology neutral, giving builders the flexibility to innovate and choose the most practical and cost-effective heating solutions. As we further strengthen standards, builders will increasingly find that they need to include low-carbon solutions such as heat pumps. Of course, heat pumps work best in well insulated homes, and we have already amended building regulations to require that all new homes are well insulated. There is no reason why low-carbon heating
such as heat pumps could not be considered as part of the allowable solutions investment to meet the overall zero-carbon standard.