My Lords, I thank the Minister for presenting this statutory instrument. The noble Lord, Lord Grantchester, is a world expert in the new Green Deal, so I look forward to his contribution and will defer to him in all ways in this area.
First, in many cases we have had to take the Government to task for not consulting but it seems that there has been an extensive consultation in this process, which should be acknowledged.
I became a little confused when I looked back at when this was debated in the other place. I found a debate that goes back to June 2016; if noble Lords can cast their minds back that far, Andrea Leadsom was then the Secretary of State. It appears that this was debated at that time. What happened to it in between—what has been going on? The then Secretary of State refers to all sorts of dates with regard to launching the register, which have passed. Perhaps I have got terribly confused, but it seems that this is the SI that was being debated and that there has been a very long gap in between. In due course I will refer to something the Secretary of State mentioned in that debate.
As the Minister set out, this deals with some of the least satisfactory housing in the country: nearly 300,000 substandard private rented sector homes. As the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee pointed out:
“The Committee is of the view that, as a significant proportion of tenants in ‘substandard’ properties are in fuel poverty”.
The committee recommends that the,
“Department may wish to monitor whether the proposals lead to any adverse impact on vulnerable tenants”,
and recommends that the department might wish to monitor how the proposals lead to the impact on vulnerable tenants and whether they become less or more fuel poor. I would welcome a response from the Minister to that recommendation.
Moving forward, the fact that we have moved from public investment into the new Green Deal to private finance providers flags up concerns—I do not know whether the noble Lord, Lord Grantchester, will go into more detail. We talk about private finance providers. Private finance initiatives in other sectors are clearly not covered in glory at the moment, so I am interested in and concerned about how those finances are regulated and registered and what level of their returns on their finance we are expecting back. What kind of cap do they have on their returns?
As the Minister set out, the key proposal here is the removal of the no-cost-to-landlord aspects of the legislation. I think that that is right, because it is quite clear that work needs to be done and it will come at a cost. The Minister highlights this as being an important element of the green agenda, and it is very clear that there are big wins to be had for relatively small investment.
5.15 pm