My Lords, I thank the noble Lords for their interventions. This group includes amendments relating to energy efficiency and energy savings which would help to reduce energy costs and, of course, ensure energy supply for vulnerable consumers, which I will come on to shortly. I completely agree with noble Lords that improving the energy performance of domestic and non-domestic properties is vital in the context of affordability, energy security and fuel poverty.
Amendment 8, tabled by the noble Lords, Lord Teverson, Lord Foster and Lord McNicol, would require the Secretary of State to produce a report on the effectiveness of energy efficiency programmes in reducing energy costs. The Government already evaluate the impact of their energy efficiency programmes and publish extensive energy statistics and evaluation reports as a matter of course. There really is no shortage of published materials on these matters, and I believe that they sufficiently cover the intention of this amendment. Bedtime reading for noble Lords interested in this matter includes the Annual Fuel Poverty Statistics Report: 2021, the Household Energy Efficiency Statistics, and the English Housing Survey, commissioned annually, on housing circumstances, condition and energy efficiency in England. Therefore, I am not sure there is any more information we could provide noble Lords with, and we believe this amendment to be unnecessary.
The noble Lord, Lord Teverson, also asked about a government public campaign on energy demand reduction. As I have mentioned in this House before, I have been working with officials and we have just launched our new website on GOV.UK—we have migrated the SEA site over to the government website and updated it. We now provide home owners with a kind of home energy MOT that gives impartial recommendations and could help them save hundreds of pounds a year. It is linked to the EPC database, so it provides personalised information on people’s property. Of course, we will be rolling that out further and linking it to several other sources of advice from energy companies, charities and others, to make sure that people have the information they need to make energy efficiency savings.
Amendment 9, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, would require the Secretary of State to formally assess the merits of introducing social energy tariffs. I would never accuse the noble Lord of wanting to go back in time or of being stuck in the past, but in 2011 the Government of which his party was a part replaced social tariffs in the energy sector with the warm home discount scheme. The warm home discount is a better scheme than the then social tariff scheme; it provides a consistent level of support, standardised across all the participating energy suppliers. It has been an improvement on the previous arrangement of voluntary social tariffs—not all companies took part in them—where the level of benefits and eligibility varied between energy suppliers.
I hope the noble Lord is not suggesting that we should go back to that time. The warm home discount was introduced as an improvement to the old social tariff system. Any new social tariff would be almost identical to the warm home discount in its design and operation. It is already a mandated, targeted mechanism to reduce the cost of energy for those in vulnerable
circumstances, on benefits et cetera. If the noble Lord thinks about it, he will accept that this is a better way of doing essentially the same thing, but I do not disagree at all with the objective. In short, this proposal simply seeks to provide benefits to vulnerable energy consumers that are already provided by the existing warm home discount model, and it would add a further level of complexity to the support system. Certainly, to judge by my postbag from Members of Parliament, it is already quite a complex system with complex eligibility requirements, and I do not think we would be well served by adding to that complexity.
Before I turn to Amendments 10 and 11 from the noble Lord, Lord Foster, let me answer the questions he asked me. He compared ECO4, the current iteration of the energy company obligation, and the forthcoming ECO+, and highlighted that there could be different levels of bill savings in each one. The reason for that is that the energy company obligation is an obligation based on suppliers; it used to be bill funded and is now funded by the Exchequer. One of the elements of the mini-Budget that remains—the last time I looked—is the ECO+ announcement that I worked hard to get in there, and we will shortly be consulting on the way it works. We project lesser bill savings because we want to do more under that scheme. The latest iteration of ECO4 looks at whole-house retrofits, so it is obviously much more expensive and treats fewer whole-house property refits. We have to consult on the details of ECO+, but the idea is that it would provide a smaller number of targeted measures, possibly only two or three, such as loft insulation, cavity wall insulation and heating controls.
Even though they are both called “ECO”, they will be targeted at different parts of the market; indeed I hope ECO+ will be targeted more at the able-to-pay market—those who are not necessarily on benefits and slightly above benefit level but who are still suffering and could take advantage of some support. The noble Lord will not have long to wait. We are working on policy design now and we will consult shortly on how that will work. The House will have an opportunity to debate the regulations and it is my intention to have this up and running as early as possible next year.
The noble Lord also asked me about the PRS regulations. As he correctly said, we consulted on them; we are currently looking at the recommendations and working on a government response. If I am honest with the noble Lord, it is about getting the balance right between wanting to see improvements and operating in the private rented sector and not doing so at the expense of less rented properties being available where there are already shortages in many areas. It is about trying to get the balance right between, on the one hand, obliging landlords to improve their property and, on the other, not wanting to provide them with incentives to leave the market.
Amendment 10 would zero-rate VAT for battery storage when used to store energy generated by solar panels, and measures to reduce energy demand in domestic properties. The installation of central heating system controls and insulation draught stripping already qualify for the zero rate for energy saving materials. The noble Lord will, of course, know that changes to
tax policy are considered as part of the Budget process. If he has ever had interactions with the Treasury, he will know that this is important and will be jealously guarded. Tax policy decisions are taken in the context of the Government’s wider fiscal position. It permits sufficient time to consider the impact of any changes on government finances and individual taxpayers. The Treasury would wish him to know that that it keeps all taxes under review and welcomes representations to help inform future decisions on tax policy. I am sure that the noble Lord will want to feed in his views to Treasury, as we all do.
Amendment 11 would make it a legal requirement, as of 31 December 2022, for all fuel-poor households to be upgraded to band C by 2030 and all other households by 2035, with specified exemptions. The Government already have a statutory requirement to upgrade as many fuel-poor homes to band C as is reasonably practicable by 2030, and we have set out in the 2021 fuel poverty strategy how we intend to do so. The Warm Homes and Energy Conservation Act 2000 placed an obligation on the Secretary of State to make regulations that have as their objective the improvement of households in fuel poverty by a target date. Such regulations have been made for each of the devolved nations. The Governments of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland have set out their own approaches. This amendment seeks to replicate that requirement. I therefore submit that it is unnecessary.
We remain committed to our aspiration of improving as many homes as possible to EPC C by 2035, where that is cost effective, affordable and practical. However, we need to retain flexibility to choose the best approach, including how and when to introduce reforms, rather than being restricted by a statutory longstop date. This will ensure that we set policy that reflects best practice in the industry and that homeowners will not be required to make upgrades that are sometimes inappropriate for their property.
We move on to the important issues raised by the noble Baronesses, Lady Brinton and Lady Thomas, in Amendment 12, which would require a
“strategic plan for the supply of energy for those who are disabled or seriously ill”.
I know that this is an important issue and one to which the noble Baronesses are deeply committed.
As I think the noble Baroness said, electricity distribution network operators are obliged to maintain priority services registers to ensure that support is given to the most vulnerable customers during power disruption, including those customers who are disabled and rely on electricity-powered devices. Furthermore, as the noble Baroness also said, under the Civil Contingencies Act 2004, network operators are required to liaise with local authorities, strategic co-ordinating groups and third parties such as local resilience forums and partnerships to share information about vulnerable customers and work together to provide welfare support.
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While the right processes and duties are in place—I think the noble Baroness recognises this—she and others have concerns about how it is working in practice. We are also keen to ensure that all relevant parties are co-ordinated as they should be. A review was carried
out as a result of the electricity disruption faced during the storms of 2021-22. As a result of its key recommendations, distribution network operators have since created a guidance document and standard presentation to ensure consistency and clarity on provision of welfare and support during such incidents. This will form the basis of network operators’ winter liaison with local resilience partnerships. As I mentioned, I completely agree that a crucial issue has been raised. The Cabinet Office has responsibility for ensuring the plan is implemented. I will certainly pass on the noble Baroness’s comments and ensure with them that this is followed through.
Amendment 15A was tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett. I am sorry she was not able to speak to it. It would give the Secretary of State powers to introduce measures such as reducing unnecessary lighting, advertising, heating and air conditioning in commercial premises. It is right that commercial and other organisations should look to be energy efficient. We already have measures such as the energy savings opportunity scheme for large businesses to achieve exactly that.
While I commend the sentiment of the amendment, I do not consider that the noble Baroness’s approach is the right one. The Government believe that it is for businesses to make decisions on the basis of the information they have available to them. We want to avoid unnecessary and burdensome regulation. There would also be practical complications in delivering such regulations; for example, in defining unnecessary heating or lighting, as well as potentially significant enforcement costs and risks.
We will also publish a review into the operation of the energy bill relief scheme in three months to inform decisions on future support. The review will focus particularly on identifying the most vulnerable non-domestic customers and how the Government will continue assisting them with their energy costs. They are likely to be those who are least able to adjust by, for example, reducing their energy usage or increasing their energy efficiency.
In conclusion, I have sought to assure noble Lords who tabled amendments in this group that the Government are committed to energy efficiency and supporting vulnerable consumers. Therefore, I hope they will perhaps not press their amendments—but looking at the gathering of the clans, I suspect not.