My Lords, in moving Amendment 97 I remind the House of my interests as set out in the register. This is truly a cross-party amendment, and I am grateful to the noble Lords, Lord Bourne, Lord Whitty and Lord Foster of Bath, who have added their names to it. The noble Lord, Lord Foster of Bath, has Amendment 98 in this group, and has been fighting the battle on energy efficiency even longer than I have.
I do not need to speak at length on this issue, as I explained the rationale of it in Committee. For any noble Lords who missed that event, I also explained the rationale for amendments to the Social Housing (Regulation) Bill and the Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill. This is an important issue and it goes across many sectors. In the private sector, social housing and owner occupation we have the same problem: our housing stock is old, leaky and draughty—and part of the leaking that goes on is of money. There are also the effects on health and productivity.
There has been no challenge at any time when I have suggested that it is important that we focus on energy efficiency. The analysis that we have a real problem is universally accepted. Indeed, six years ago the Government first set out their own aspiration for as many homes as possible to be EPC band C by 2035. However, I am afraid that, although the aspiration has
been there, the achievement has not. Since that aspiration was set out, we have had numerous schemes for home insulation, which in the main have failed. They have been piecemeal and ineffective, and have given no confidence to the industries that we need to deliver those services that there will be long-term investment and that they too can invest and train the workforce necessary to make the inroads we need into the problems.
We have had those sorts of schemes and a string of announcements from Governments. There has been a string of announcements, a string of reannouncements, a string of consultations and, most recently, an announcement that there was a commitment to publish the responses to a previous consultation. What we have not had is the comprehensive, coherent, cohesive plan that would see us able to make real progress in this area.
Everyone else has quoted the Skidmore review so I will too. In that review, Chris Skidmore said that the mission to improve energy efficiency for households
“will not only reduce energy demand and bolster our energy security, but also save consumers money on their bills”.
To that, I add that it will also save taxpayers money because, at the moment, they are subsidising those bills. Good money is literally going up in smoke; we need to stop it now. What we need is a comprehensive, cohesive plan with set times for the achievement of set objectives—something that we have never had.
This is not only my analysis. In its progress review—last month, I think—the National Infrastructure Commission highlighted:
“Government is not on track to deliver its commitments on heat or energy efficiency … A concrete plan for delivering energy efficiency improvements is required, with a particular focus on driving action in homes and facilitating the investment needed”.
We need to take that conclusion very seriously; my amendment seeks to do just that.
I am grateful to the Minister, who found time to discuss these issues with me. He had some concerns about the drafting of the amendment, particularly the words “cost effective”, “practical” and “affordable”. I am trying to make this amendment sensible, cost effective, practical and affordable, but I hope to reassure the Minister that those words were not just plucked out of the air by me. They come from the Government’s own Clean Growth Strategy and were quoted back at me as something that the Government supported by the noble Earl, Lord Howe, in his response to my amendment when we debated it during a debate on the levelling-up Bill.
For those reasons, I hope that these words will not worry the Minister in the way that they did when we had a conversation. If he was still concerned and felt the need to change them at Third Reading, I think we would all be happy to come back and see whether there was a way in which we could accommodate that. Meanwhile, I do not resile from my view that, as a Parliament, we need to say how firmly we believe that the Government have not made enough progress on this issue and that we need a road map to do so urgently.
I beg to move.