My Lords, I thank my noble friend for tabling the amendment. I agree that it is important that we have information on the operation of zero-carbon homes standards. As I said on Amendment 93AAA, we need to ensure that the desire for information is dealt with in a way which does not create unnecessary administration. Usefully, there is an opportunity to use existing reporting mechanisms, which will save the need for extra legislation.
In that respect, I have to point out that it would not be the role of the Planning Inspectorate to be involved in reporting for off-site carbon abatement matters, as proposed in the amendment, as those are dealt with through building control, not planning, which is the remit of the inspectorate. To ask the inspectorate to report would require the creation of new systems for it to ask for information from building control bodies, and that would create unnecessary administrative burdens.
I have already outlined the requirements in the Sustainable and Secure Buildings Act 2004 which can meet the intent of this amendment and would not need the introduction of new requirements. For the benefit of noble Lords, it would be useful to repeat what Section 6 of the Act requires. Under that section, a biennial report on the sustainability of building stock is produced and laid before Parliament. It specifies that the report must include building regulations made in the reporting period, changes in the energy and carbon efficiency of the building stock, and an estimate
of the number of dwellings at the end of the reporting period. The intent and content of this existing reporting requirement under the Sustainable and Secure Buildings Act lends itself to the provision of information about zero-carbon homes, and could offer a way forward to provide the information being sought to the House and more widely.
My noble friend also asked for other information about what the Government propose. In this respect, we can augment the information already required to be produced for reports under the Sustainable and Secure Buildings Act with information available from the register for keeping track of those certificates, as proposed in our new clause. Our new clause enables building regulations to be made for the creation, maintenance and administration of a new register to keep records of certificates as evidence of compliance with building regulations when off-site allowable solutions are adopted as part of zero-carbon homes solutions.
As we develop the register, we can certainly look to see that it will enable appropriate information to be available. That would avoid the need for separate reporting requirements and additional administrative burdens and costs, of course.
In terms of enforcement and how this would work, nothing proposed removes the fundamental fact that, before buildings can be used, they have to be signed off by a building control body as meeting building regulation requirements. Therefore, a building control body need not accept a certificate provided for off-site carbon abatement measures if there is any doubt as to, for example, the provenance of certificates or the validity of the off-site carbon abatement measures to which they relate. Of course, in the last resort a local authority could prosecute someone who failed to comply with the zero-carbon standard.
My noble friend also talked specifically about the gap between design and performance. Our zero-carbon homes strategy does not stop at strengthening the building regulations alone. We want to ensure that the homes perform as we expect them to. To that end, we support a wide piece of work with the industry being led by the Zero Carbon Hub to ensure that all new homes, when built, save the amount of energy and carbon expected.
The work led by the Zero Carbon Hub is looking at closing the gap between the design and the as-built performance of new homes, and we will consider how best to take forward its recommendations. In terms of practicalities and how the register will operate, we are currently working up the detail, which will be subject of course to consultation. The key elements could operate in a similar way to the register of the energy performance of buildings—namely, that a copy of the certificate would need to be entered on to the register by the person who had produced it at the same time that it was supplied to the developer. We would of course anticipate that information about the number of certificates on the register would be available more widely, subject to appropriate data protection requirements, as is the case with the EPB register.
As for how allowable solutions will be checked, I think that my noble friend raised a question about that in respect of a previous amendment. I mentioned
at that point that measures such as retrofit, which are classified as building works, will be subject to building regulations. We could also support this through a requirement to provide an updated energy certificate, while small-scale energy measures would also have to demonstrate that they met minimum energy performance levels, which would be converted into carbon savings.
My noble friend also asked about the effectiveness of building regulations enforcement. A building control survey in November 2011 showed a significant number of interventions by building control bodies. I can of course send a copy of that report to my noble friend and, indeed, share it with all noble Lords in the Committee.