Schemes for reducing fuel poverty

I beg to move amendment 22, in clause 8, page 6, line 24, at beginning insert ‘On or before 31 December 2010’.

With this it will be convenient to discuss amendment 1, in clause 8, page 6, line 24, leave out ‘may’ and insert ‘shall’.

Currently the bill is written in a way that means that the Secretary of State is not required to make schemes for the purpose of reducing fuel poverty. This amendment would place an obligation on him to do so.

We are beginning part 2, and the deliberations on fuel poverty and the schemes for its reduction—a welcome and topical subject. I propose to be brief because this is an introductory group of amendments and more substantive debate will come in a moment or two.

The Government have announced that they are moving towards a statutory agreement for alleviating fuel poverty at the end of the present voluntary agreement in 2012. The Minister knows that that is welcome and that everybody has, in effect, signed up to that. Whatever the rights and wrongs of the voluntary system run by the utilities, everybody has concluded that a compulsory statutory system is needed.

When we questioned the utility representatives, they accepted that. They had different interpretations of how successful the voluntary system had been. We asked them the same question that we asked Ministers: has the voluntary system been a failure? They made various points, but the conclusion has been reached, and rightly, that we need to replace the voluntary system with a statutory one.

Amendment 22 would simply require the Secretary of State to make one or more schemes for the purpose of reducing fuel poverty by the end of this year. It would tie down the timetable by which the scheme had to be in place, which would obviously have to be done by secondary legislation. It would get the Government to agree to commit to implementing legislation this year, which would bind the hands of whoever was in  Government after the general election, which has to come this year. That would be a good thing because it would bind others if this Minister was not still in office—who knows, that may be the outcome of the election in May or June. I wish the Minister no personal ill will, but that is the nature of elections. He cannot be sure what the future holds.

Amendment 1 is equally important. It is of a type often found in Committee and would require the Secretary of State to make the schemes by secondary legislation—by regulation—rather than leaving it as an option. I know that it is conventional to draft Bills to say that the Secretary of State “may by regulations” do something and that that is permissive, but we need to tie the Government’s hands. If legislation says that they must, then they must. There will not be any possible ducking, diving or weaving by whoever has responsibility in the months ahead.

I hope that there is no great controversy about either of the amendments, and I hope that the Minister is sympathetic to both. If he thinks that there are technical problems in the drafting, I will be happy to think about that and come back on Report, but I hope that the new scheme can be in place by the end of the year and that the legislation will make it clear that it will happen, not that it may happen. That will reassure all those with an interest in the issue.

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his comment about not wanting me personally to lose my seat at the next general election. I am all for that.

The Government have made their intentions on social price support very clear. In July, in the low carbon transition plan, we said that we did not think it acceptable that nothing followed the voluntary agreement. We said that we would bring forward a policy of mandated social price support, and in November last year we introduced this Energy Bill, which contains the enabling clauses required to do so. We said that we would significantly increase the amount that suppliers had to spend, and in the pre-Budget report, we announced that suppliers will have to provide £300 million a year by 2013-14. That is double what suppliers agreed to provide in the final year of the voluntary agreement.

We said that we would help suppliers better target those who need the help. The regulations to put in place the data-sharing pilot, allowing us to test this innovative tool, were considered and agreed yesterday by the House of Commons. There is now no chance that the proposal will not happen, and it will happen because of what we have already put in place.

All members of the Committee agree on the importance of making further progress on tackling fuel poverty and the need to continue to identify better ways of helping more of the most vulnerable households. I believe that the intention behind the amendments is to ensure that the Government act on the provisions of the Bill and bring forward regulations to create the mandated social price support scheme.

I do not take it as any criticism or questioning of my honourable intentions that the hon. Gentleman should have made these proposals. Although our intentions on mandated social price support can be in no doubt, I am  happy to repeat yet again, on the record, that the Government are fully committed to bringing forward mandated social price support in time to follow on from when the current voluntary agreement ends in 2011.

Amendment 22 would require the regulations to be in place unnecessarily early. The voluntary agreement does not end until March 2011 and suppliers have already committed to a collective spend of £150 million on support schemes in the 2010-11 financial year. The new scheme will not come into force until after the voluntary agreement has ended. Furthermore, we should not underestimate the significant amount of work that will be done if the Bill becomes an Act of Parliament later this year. We have rightly committed to public consultation on the regulations, which, in line with the Cabinet Office’s normal guidelines, will run for three months—as it should, because these are big, serious and important issues. After the consultation, we have to collate the information received and ensure that the regulations fully reflect the finalised policy.

To help as many people as possible in the most meaningful way, we need to work through a number of issues before we can set out detailed proposals, even for the consultation. For example, we need to identify the right balance between the overall number of households that we help through this policy and the appropriate level of support that we give them, within that £300 million funding envelope announced in the pre-Budget report. We also need to determine the best and most cost-effective ways to identify and deliver the support to those who need it most, while minimising the risk of fraud in the scheme. Finally, we need to consider the evidence on which elements currently funded through the voluntary agreement—such as trust funds, partnership working, debt write-off and sponsorship—should be continued in the new system as part of the legacy spending.

All that requires analysis and work with Ofgem, suppliers, consumer representatives and other key stakeholders, including Members of Parliament with an interest in the subject. I also believe it would be useful to feed as much information as possible from the data-matching pilot that I mentioned into the proposals for the social price support mechanism before launching the consultation. Subject to successful testing of the processes and systems, that data-matching pilot is expected to take place in the spring.

On a more technical note, because of how it is worded, the amendment would limit the Secretary of State to bringing forward a mandated price support mechanism once. That is because the amendment would not give the Secretary of State the power to introduce any further schemes to reduce fuel poverty after the specified date at the end of December.

I am sure that that is not the hon. Gentleman’s intention, because clearly it would be sensible to retain the option of introducing more schemes in the future, as and when they are needed. There is a strong precedent, of course, in existing legislation for using “may” rather than “shall”. It is very unusual to require the Secretary of State to introduce regulations; moreover, it is not necessary in this context. We will bring forward a mandated social price support scheme in 2011, as promised, after the current voluntary agreement ends.

For all those reasons—and with yet another reiteration of my commitment to introduce the scheme before the voluntary agreement comes to an end—I hope that the  hon. Member for North Southwark and Bermondsey will withdraw the amendment, otherwise I will ask my hon. Friends to vote against it.

To show that there is always good will when Ministers are reasonable, I am persuaded by the Minister’s response to the first amendment and will therefore seek to withdraw it. On the second amendment, I am not persuaded because the Minister has given the conventional argument that says, “I will do it and therefore I do not need to be obliged to do it by legislation”. As the Minister understands, he may not be the person who is responsible for these matters, as it depends on who is in government. However, it is on the record that he, as a Minister, has given the undertaking, which is relevant if we are to hold the Government to account. It is never as good to have permissive rather than obligatory obligations, but I am not going to start on a confrontational note. I will reflect, when we complete Committee proceedings, on the areas that we need to toughen up on Report by imposing definite obligations on Government, rather than obligations that give them options. For the time being I am content not to press the first amendment, and I beg to ask leave to withdraw it.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

I beg to move amendment 2, in clause 8, page 6, line 25, at end insert—

‘(1A) A scheme under this section must make provision for a national programme to make every home a warm home within 10 years of the passing of this Act. For the purposes of this Act a warm home shall mean a home that is rated 81 or above on the Standard Assessment Procedure (SAP) ratings system.’.

The amendment was tabled in my name, in that of my hon. Friend the Member for Harrogate and Knaresborough, who is here to support this important measure, and in the names of our other hon. Friends as well. The amendment is, in our book, very important because, if it is accepted by the Committee, it would establish a much more comprehensive scheme for dealing with fuel poverty than anything that the Government have so far done, or have said that they plan to do. If the amendment is accepted it would require the Government to make provision for a national programme to make every home a warm home within 10 years; that is, by 2020. For the purposes of the measure, a warm home would mean a home rated 81 or above on the SAP—standard assessment procedure—rating system, which is generally accepted as being the right system for assessment.

We come to the Committee this morning the day after a debate in the Chamber on energy security. One of the key issues that emerged from that debate was that to achieve energy security we need to reduce unnecessary energy consumption, and one way in which we can do so significantly is by having properly insulated homes. When the right hon. Member for Derby, South (Margaret Beckett) was the Minister for Housing last year, she wrote to me, and subsequently confirmed in oral questions, that only one in 100 British homes meet the SAP 81 standard. I invite the Minister to confirm that there are no updated figures that suggest that that is not the position.

The Government response last October to the inquiry by the Select Committee on Environment, Food and Rural Affairs into energy efficiency and fuel poverty is,  in many ways, the latest comprehensive statement of Government policy and intent in this area. On page 25, in response to the Committee’s 30th recommendation, the Government say:

“DECC believes that using SAP ratings as a standard, and requiring all fuel poor households to be upgraded to a SAP 81 rating by 2016, ignores the diversity of the UK housing stock, over 40% of which has a SAP rating between 39-54”

The next paragraph goes on to say:

“It is currently estimated that only 35,000 properties in England meet Band B—SAP 81, and that 1.7 million homes are Band C —SAP 69, 28,000 of which are thought to be fuel poor. The average SAP rating of all homes is 50, according to the 2007 English House Condition Survey (EHCS).”

I am conscious that the power to legislate on those matters is more significant in England than in the devolved Administrations. Those are obviously English housing figures, but there is no indication that the level of properly insulated homes is significantly higher in the other three countries of the UK.

What costings has the hon. Gentleman placed on the amendment and on its effects?

That is, of course, a relevant issue and an important part of the proposal, and I shall come to it in a minute. We have about 22 million households in the United Kingdom. New house building accounts for less than 1 per cent. of the housing stock in any given year, and at the current rate of demolition and building some 75 per cent. of the existing housing stock will still be in use by 2050. In an article this month by Brenda Boardman, there was a graphic and colourful illustration of the time it would take to replace our housing stock. She said:

“Did you know that your home could still be standing and occupied in 3010? That is not a typo, it is a statistic. In the UK we are demolishing about 20,000 properties a year out of a total of 26 million. That means the stock will take 1300 years to replace.”

The significant point is that all the legislation in the world about new housing may be brilliant, but it is relatively insignificant, compared with the amount of housing that will not be new and in which people will continue to live. I am reassured that the hon. Member for Northampton, South feels that he has a home that will still be there well beyond his lifetime and into the lifetime of many generations after him.

More than 4 million homes that were built before 1914 are currently in use, and that is hugely important on two accounts. One is that those homes are cold and energy-inefficient, and the other is that their emissions are high. The Government understand the obligation to deal with CO2 emissions; we all know that about 27 per cent. of emissions in the UK come from domestic housing. Dealing with energy efficiency and emissions at the same time would be a completely win-win option. It would be a further win because of its capacity significantly to reduce fuel bills. The Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee estimated that if we had proper energy insulation across the country, people’s bills could be reduced by 50 per cent. That figure was, I think, cited yesterday in the Chamber by the hon. Member for Nottingham, South (Alan Simpson).

We have a phenomenal task ahead. The Government, as they indicated in their response to the Select Committee, have, of course, not been inactive, and there are now various programmes that deal in part with these issues, including the Warm Front programme, the carbon emissions reduction target programme—CERT—and the community energy saving programme or CESP. However, it was clear in the Select Committee’s report last autumn that those schemes together do not sufficiently meet even the Government’s targets and ambitions, and that they ought to be put together under one national programme, rather than having three overlapping, inconsistent and not coherently co-ordinated schemes. That was certainly not addressed adequately in the Government’s response to the Committee, so I seek to probe them on it.

The Government have announced that they want to do something called “the Great British Refurb” post-2012. The Secretary of State has indicated in oral responses to me in parliamentary questions in recent weeks that the Government have, or plan to have, a 10-year programme for delivering that. However, if one seeks to discover what is behind it, one finds that it is all a bit opaque. There are lots of programmes around, including those that I have named. There are consultations taking place at this very moment on extending the carbon emissions reduction target. The Government will no doubt respond to that, and it was referred to in the Select Committee report.

Our concern, however, is whether the Government are seriously willing to make the step change to say that we are not just going to deal with the fuel poor who spend more than £10 in every £100 of their income on their fuel bills. Not only do we want to try to make up for lost time in meeting the targets that we have set ourselves and that everybody thinks the Government are unlikely to meet, but we want to have a much more comprehensive system.

Let me make two specific points before outlining our proposal in response to the intervention of the hon. Member for Northampton, South. I want the Government to clarify exactly what their plans are, as well as what the Department of Energy and Climate Change has in the pipeline in relation to announcements and whether the great announcement of the national scheme will happen before the election. The scheme has been trailed and half-promised, but it is extremely vague and does not seem to have the Government’s support, because they have not been willing to find the money or the commitment.

The central issue is that the Government are going to fail to meet their target of taking people out of fuel poverty by the end of this year, although they have not admitted it yet. Secondly, the Government have a statutory obligation in legislation to take everybody, as far as is practicable, out of fuel poverty by 2015. What is the Minister’s assessment of achieving that longer-term target? It is more obtainable in theory, even if the shorter target, which is meant to be met by the end of this year, is not.

I am deeply concerned to try to meet the target of completely eradicating fuel poverty. The hon. Gentleman wants to give me a target to improve all the houses in the country within 10 years. Is that instead of my target or is it in addition to it? A lot of the money that I would like to spend on eradicating fuel poverty—the  mandated social price scheme, for example—will help address other related elements, such as the household incomes and bills of the poorest people in the country. Does the hon. Gentleman seek to take the money for those elements away from me in order to fund his own proposal, or does he want to add another huge bill on top of them?

I can be clear about the answer to that.

And succinct?

And succinct. I want the Government to merge all their current programmes into one. One scheme dealing with the fuel poor would be most effective. As evidence from Kirklees, Harrogate and other councils has shown, it would be best delivered at a local authority level by the people who know the community well, doing it on a street-by-street and village-by-village basis. The Select Committee has put forward all sorts of ideas, such as using infrared, to work out which homes are the most energy inefficient. There are ways of doing that.

Moreover, I want the Government to commit to a scheme that would not significantly involve Government money, although it might involve it partially. I do not think there is any great difference between the parties on how we proceed, but under the scheme, the householder—the local authority, the housing association or trust, the private landlord or the owner-occupier—would be able to acquire the money to deliver a complete and comprehensive insulation programme.

To answer the question asked by the hon. Member for Northampton, South, our view is that that programme, which would be for the whole country, would cost hundreds of billions of pounds. It would be a significant programme; there is no hiding from that. The actual assessment of how much it would cost depends on how much one believes it would cost on average per home. As it happens, in this country local authority housing is the most energy efficient already and so might require the least spending per property. Obviously, some homes, such as farmhouses, cottages, croft houses and homes that are built in a particular way, will be particularly hard to insulate. Some homes that are not local authority homes will be relatively easy to insulate, such as the standard more recently built and better designed homes.

Various figures have been discussed by knowledgeable people. The £6,500-per-dwelling contribution figure is the lowest, which, as I am sure the hon. Member for Wealden will either confirm or deny, is the one that the Conservatives still use. The more realistic proposed and accepted figure is in the order of £10,000 and there are some who think that the true figure may be above that, and there will obviously be administrative costs.

How do we get the Government to sign up to a scheme that delivers that, given that hundreds of billions of pounds of public money have to be found for it to be delivered? As a precursor to the answer, I should say that we are likely to achieve the objective only if the political will and systems are in place to deliver such a scheme; it is not instead of the objective that the Minister already has in legislation, but in addition to it.

The Government should commit to a scheme that starts this year and runs over 10 years by setting up an agency of central Government to drive it. I am not into creating more duplicating agencies, so that could be the same agency that drives renewables and ensures that we have a more energy efficient and less carbon intensive country. To deliver the scheme on the ground and work out how it should roll out in their areas, local government is the natural partner in England and the devolved Governments are the natural partners in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.

The way to raise the money is for the Government to act as underwriter and have two specific obligations. The first would be to pay for those who are so poor that they would never be able to afford to make their homes more energy efficient themselves; that would be an amalgamation of the current schemes. There is a consensus that there is a group of people who will never be able to afford to do it themselves. The second obligation would be to underwrite the borrowing of money in a way that releases some funds up front to start the programme, which get paid back by the users as an addition to their bills over a maximum of 10 years.

The energy bill will be topped up by the repayment, which will increase as the bill reduces, so the user will never have a relatively higher bill. We cannot predict fuel costs over 10 years—that is the variable—but bills would continue to reduce because the savings from the insulation scheme would be significant. The money would be paid back and the householder would enter into an agreement.

There are two groups that, in our book, should be obliged to fund the rest of the scheme. First, the utility companies should be obliged to produce the money for the loans once the system is up and running. Secondly, local authorities should be allowed to loan the money and collect it. They are the other group that could make the loan to the householder. Those are the two most secure sources of raising the significant amount of money involved. The Government act as underwriter. Introducing the scheme would not be an additional burden on the public exchequer; it would set out a programme that says that over 10 years, in each local authority in England and in each part of the UK, a programme will encompass everybody.

Of course, we cannot make people insulate their homes and, as a liberal, I would accept that if somebody wants to sit in a cold home, they must have the right to do that. In the same way, if somebody insists on sitting in the middle of a place that is set for development as a motorway, they have the right to do so until compulsory purchase takes that right away. One must allow people to opt out.

The scheme by definition would start slowly in all local authorities; I expect the graph would be a parabola. The skills sector must be built to be able to do the work. At the beginning, there must be a comprehensive survey of the home, to list what is required to insulate it properly. Then people can choose when to implement different parts of that scheme. They may not be able to afford it at the beginning; they may be able to afford some in the first year, some in two or three years, but others may take longer to implement. One thing that must be secured is that the obligation should pass at the  moment of sale if the property is sold. Otherwise, people will be taking on an obligation when they have left the property and have no further interest in it.

We believe that only such an ambitious, bold and comprehensive scheme will deliver the huge transformation needed by the housing stock in this country. The gains are for everybody: for the world, by reducing the damage to our climate through emissions; for our country, by reducing consumption and demand on energy supplies; and for every householder, by significantly reducing bills.

I admire the hon. Gentleman’s vision but I despair at his accounting. He talks about £10,000 per home. There are 23 million homes in this country, of which roughly 17 million are owner-occupied. Even if householders borrow the money, as most will have to, it would place a massive burden on the Chancellor of the Exchequer for 10 years, at the start of which period we would be coming out of recession. Secondly, if the Liberal Democrats are genuinely promising this, it has to go on their list of promises. How will they explain this massive amount of expenditure to the electorate?

The hon. Gentleman, either wittingly or unwittingly, has misunderstood the point that I was making. I repeat it clearly. [Interruption.] He is being advised by the hon. Member for Wealden. He will need to ask his hon. Friend similar questions, because his Front-Bench team has talked about a scheme to give people £6,500.

The answer is that the money does not all come from the Exchequer. The Exchequer acts to underwrite the system as it begins; then the utility companies—and/or local government, if it wishes to do so—would act as the source of the borrowing that then gets paid back later to the utility companies or local government. The money would not come out of the public fund; I am very clear about that. The Government would act as the underwriters, the backer and support. The Government would get the scheme going but then the scheme would bring in its own money because people would start paying back.

By definition, if one starts slowly, as one must, to get the scheme going, the initial investment is relatively small. The payback is within a year, as people begin to repay the loans.

Mr. Binleyrose—

I will be happy to give way to the hon. Gentleman if he still does not understand, but I hope he accepts that there would not be the burden of that huge bill on the public purse. That would be unsustainable. He knows that, I know that and we would not argue.

I reassure the hon. Gentleman that I am of independent mind and question my own party just as much as his. At the end of the day, most of this money will be borrowed and most of it will come out of the product of the nation. That is the point that is being missed by the hon. Gentleman.

Of course, most of it will be borrowed by the consumer, who will repay it over a 10-year period, or a shorter period if they wish. If the property is sold, it will have to be recovered on sale, but that can  be reflected in the sale price. It can also be done by way of a charge on the property, so that it is only payable at the time when the property is disposed of.

I understand that.

The hon. Gentleman understands how that system works. The crucial issue is how we get the scheme up and running. To encourage both the utilities and local government to get the scheme on the road, the Government need to underwrite the finances that they have proposed. He will be aware that my hon. Friend the Member for Twickenham (Dr. Cable) for Twickenham has said that there should be a national investment bank to deal with green initiatives. We believe that there should be an increase in local banking to do the same sort of borrowing to enable the capacity for that underwriting. That could happen nationally or locally. However, I understand the hon. Gentleman’s point that this is not something for which we can expect this or a future Chancellor to write a cheque, because the money is not in the public coffers.

The hon. Gentleman has suggested that the borrowing should be repaid by shaving savings off bills over a 10-year period following the introduction of energy efficiency measures. Is he confident that a margin of around £800 to £900 a year on bills exists in order to effect the repayment without increasing them? That would have an adverse consequence, certainly as far as fuel poverty is concerned, on those people whose homes have been provided with energy efficiency measures.

The hon. Gentleman has asked a perfectly valid question. Of course, the system will only incentivise people if they believe that their total bill will not increase in the repayment period. The hon. Gentleman will have seen the figures from the Select Committee and others estimating the reduction in consumers’ bills. They show significant savings of 50 per cent. on gas bills, which would give the leeway that would allow for the repayment. I understand his point, and that is exactly why I want the Government to tell us what they mean by the Great British Refurb. Do they really have a 10-year plan or not? We believe that external evidence and the experience of other countries—the hon. Gentleman is an expert in that field—show that if we allow a 10-year pay-back period, we can ensure people do not paying more by virtue of the top-up.

I will make two other points that I am sure the hon. Gentleman will understand. The likely gain in reduction of fuel bills is incremental, so the bill will reduce over the 10 years of a scheme that starts early, which means that someone would be likely to repay more as the period progresses. We think that it is important to have a pay-back at the date of the sale of a property so that the obligation is with the property. Having talked to estate agents and others, my understanding is that a property that has complete energy efficiency will be a much more sellable product. People would be willing to pay a little extra for such a property in the knowledge that it is an energy efficient home. It would not be a disincentive to sale and purchase; people know that they would get a much better property. Moreover, if people want to pay by charge on the property, as  happens with the right-to-buy legislation and local authorities, that could be redeemed either at 10 years, or earlier if they sell earlier. That is a secure way that people often feel they can afford. That flexibility has to be given to people, local authorities and other social landlords.

The only area in which the issue is difficult and in which there would have to be some compulsion is the private rented sector, where the incentive to reduce the bill is on the tenant, not the landlord. We need legislation to require the landlord to comply. Indeed, existing legislation passed by this Government and supported by us requires local authorities to enforce healthy homes, but it is not being effectively delivered at the moment. Perhaps that is because of the pressure on local authorities’ trading standards departments and the like, but we need a system covering the private rented sector to prevent fiddling. For example, when it came to the next letting once the legislation was in force, we could say that it would be illegal to have a letting by a private landlord, unless they had signed up to the scheme. I would support that as it would be the best and most secure way of delivering this measure in the private sector.

The nation needs a 10-year programme for making every home in Britain a warm home if we are to ensure that we reduce UK emissions by about a third, cut bills and reduce our energy consumption in the domestic sector by about 50 per cent. That must be done in a way that will not add to public expenditure more than marginally, and there must be a safety net for those people who will never be able to afford to do it to their own homes, and need to be supported by the public purse. Above all, the Government, which so far have introduced piecemeal schemes, need to be bold and adopt a wholesale scheme.

We have made a proposal, and I know that the Conservative party has made another one that we will discuss later in Committee. However, the Government do not yet have a proposal on the table. In his reply, I would like the Minister to make it absolutely clear—as I am sure he will—what the Secretary of State means by a 10-year programme. Where is it and when will we see its details? What commitment is there to make every home a warm home? Is it, as I fear, still a plan that is limited in ambition to a minority of homes in Britain and not to every home?

I end with the example of places such as Kirklees and Harrogate and elsewhere. Where such schemes have been tried, those that deliver village by village, street by street, community by community are seen to be the most effective. The incentive for local authorities to do it for their community provides a wonderful opportunity for communities to see something in which they have a collective interest. I hope the Minister will say that the Government are now willing to be bold. If he does, it will redound to their credit and will be something that they can rightfully put in their shop window at the next election. If they are still tempering the issue with a partial scheme, they will be at a great disadvantage at the next general election. I hope that the Minister realises that and changes or firms up policy between now and then.

We have all listened carefully to the hon. Gentleman’s contribution. I am not sure that it was his finest hour—it may not have  been an hour, but it seemed like one. He had a rather absolutist position that became less absolute as it moved forward. It gave a sense of policy being developed on the hoof in response to each intervention.

The way in which the amendment is phrased is pretty absolute—if one can be pretty absolute:

“A scheme under this section must make provision...to make every home a warm home”, and there are no exclusions to that. We will return to this debate next week with the new clauses—there might be a sense of groundhog day as we go through this issue again, but we will have a further opportunity to look at it. However, the amendment as phrased is not the right way to address the matter.

The hon. Gentleman said that the measure would not be compulsory, but there is also a clear obligation for every home to be included. How to handle that could become quite complicated. In a constituency such as mine, there are a mass of 400 or 500-year-old timber-framed huts, cottages and farmhouses. To make an obligation for every one of those to be brought up to a SAP rating of 81 would be challenging and cannot be done on the £10,000 that the hon. Gentleman mentioned. Going further north to the constituency of his hon. Friend the Member for Harrogate and Knaresborough in Yorkshire, there are some pretty large stately homes. Would the Earl of Harewood be locked up in prison for failing to meet the obligations imposed on him? If one goes even further north to Angus, there are all those large, baronial piles scattered across the landscape. It will be extraordinarily difficult to bring them up to this level without an enormous amount of money being spent. Are those properties to be excluded from the way in which the amendment is phrased or will they have to be included?

This is not just about people who may have the money, but who choose to live in large, draughty homes. It will also be an issue for elderly people on low incomes. Someone will go into their homes and tell them, “I’m sorry, but you haven’t got cavity walls that we can insulate, so we’re going to have to strip all the plaster off your walls to make you home energy-efficient. You’re going to have to move out for a few months, and we’re going to have to go through every single room, rip off all the decoration and the plaster and make a complete mess.” Somebody in their 80s may simply say, “I’m sorry, but I don’t want that,” and they could be in breach of the law. It is not clear who would be in breach in such circumstances. Would it be the poor, hapless Minister, who will be carted off to the clink with the Earl of Harewood, or will it be householder? The amendment is badly drafted.

The hon. Gentleman is talking about old homes and large homes, but there is another problem. In recent years, all our constituencies have seen a growth in park homes, particularly for people who are retiring. These homes will be almost impossible to bring up to this energy rating. Under the proposals, they would have to be vacated or have heaven knows what done to them.

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. There are wider issues about park homes, which the House should address at some point. They would be impossible to bring up to this rating.

Although the intentions behind the amendment are understandable and positive, it has been badly drafted, which makes it quite difficult to accept. It is not clear who would be responsible. An obligation would be introduced, but it is not clear whether it is the Secretary of State or the householder who would fail if houses were not brought up to standard after 10 years. The amendment is inadequate, and there will be better opportunities to move in the right direction when we come to some of the new clauses in the next few days.

As has just been said, the amendment would require the Government to introduce a scheme that led to every home having a SAP rating of 81 within the next 10 years. However, I was heartened that the hon. Member for North Southwark and Bermondsey made it clear that the amendment does not mean that, as there is a helpful concession that anybody could opt out of the scheme, so nobody would be made to take part. Only a small number of properties might therefore be modernised under the amendment in the next 10 years. If that were the case, the hon. Gentleman would be as disappointed as me that he had not achieved his ambition. The amendment is therefore wrongly drawn, and there is certainly a lot of detail missing. For now, the hon. Gentleman probably simply welcomes the opportunity to have a debate, and we will debate more focused provisions next week when, as the hon. Member for Wealden says, we will come to the many new clauses and everybody else’s bright ideas on the subject. I look forward to each of them.

On the amendment, using SAP ratings alone as a standard and requiring all households to be upgraded to SAP 81 within 10 years of the Bill being enacted ignores the diversity of the English housing stock. Figures from 2007 show that about one third of all properties in England have a SAP rating of between 39 and 54. Many of those properties are therefore hard to treat—the point made by the hon. Member for Wealden. We must recognise that some of these properties will be extremely challenging if we take the measure set out in the amendment. The hon. Member for Angus is right that some properties are not conventional and simply could not reach SAP 81. I am sure that we would not want to prevent people from living in them because they could not reach the standard that the hon. Member for North Southwark and Bermondsey thought was right for them.

As we heard in many interventions, there is a lack of clarity about how much the amendment would cost and how works will be funded. The most telling intervention was from my hon. Friend the Member for Southampton, Test. The hon. Member for North Southwark and Bermondsey does not know whether the savings on people’s energy bills will be sufficient to repay the giant loans that he mentioned, although he hopes that they will be. In that respect, the pay-as-you-save pilots that we launched last December are significant, because we will find out what the best model is, how much it is likely to cost and how long the money will take to repay. I suspect that we will find that if the scheme is to work on the scale of our ambitions, the Government and Parliament will not be able to run away from the necessary commitment from public funds. We will need not simply to guarantee or underwrite the transactions but provide cash to make the schemes add up for some people.

There is another reason why the amendment is not helpful. The hon. Member for North Southwark and Bermondsey rightly said that some people in this country would not wish to take on a loan even if we gave them all the assurances in the world that it would not cost them more than the savings on their bills, because they are too poor or risk-averse to credit. He accepts that we would have to find the cash from public funds and pay for them. However, there are a lot of people in this country for whom it makes sense to go out and do work on their homes—not simply because it will help us save the planet from dangerous climate change but because it will save them money on bills—but who are not doing so. We cannot say in this Act of Parliament that we will let them off the obligation to do it for themselves.

At the start of our campaign to improve radically the energy efficiency of all homes in this country, as we all want to do, we must do more to persuade those people who can afford it to go out and do that work today. A new advertising campaign started this week. I do not know whether anyone here watched “Emmerdale” on Monday, when our new “Act on CO2” advert aired, featuring dad insulating the loft. It is one of our efforts to persuade people that they should be thinking seriously about doing such work themselves, because it is in their own interest.

What does that add to the Government’s advertising bill just before the election? What sum are we up to, given the addition of this new campaign?

I will look up the figures for the hon. Gentleman. They have been published, and I have answered parliamentary questions about the cost of the advertising campaign. It is one in a series. I am sure that most people remember the advert before Christmas about climate change, in which a parent tells his child a scary story. It led to many complaints to the Advertising Standards Authority. The new ad is one in that series, for which the spending has public approval.

Moving on to the issue of cost, the hon. Member for Somerton and Frome (Mr. Heath) had a similar ambition during the last Session in his private Member’s Bill on fuel poverty, and a similar idea about focusing the country on improving the energy efficiency of properties to a SAP rating of 81. I met him to talk about his ideas, as I share his ambition, and he said that he would be willing to discuss an energy rating matching level C, or a SAP rating of about 70 instead of 81, if that would help me.

The hon. Gentleman and I discussed, and fell out about, the likely cost of hitting either of those targets. We agreed that it would cost tens of billions of pounds. His number was smaller than mine, which was based on the advice of my officials, but the hon. Member for North Southwark and Bermondsey has been more up-front than either of us, saying that it will cost more than £100 billion. It is helpful to see that we have moved on from arguments about the cost to a recognition of how serious the issue is. I am pleased that that is now off the table. The number is big.

There is no argument that if we are to fight fuel poverty and meet our challenging climate change targets, there must be a step change in the overall energy efficiency of our existing housing stock. Every political party says  so, the independent committee on climate change says so and most of the public can see the sense of the argument. The Government recognise that, and we have introduced extensive programmes to address the issue. I know that Opposition Committee members will groan as I run through them all, but I remind the Committee that since 2002 the obligation on energy companies has delivered more than 6 million homes with energy efficiency works, such as insulation and so on.

Some works, but not necessarily the comprehensive work necessary to insulate a home fully.

I accept that entirely. In addition to those measures, I wanted to mention the contribution of Warm Front, which the hon. Gentleman mentioned and praised. That has contributed another 2 million properties and probably delivers more works than an energy suppliers’ obligation.

For example, under Warm Front it would be possible—in the maximum grant, if the figures stack up—to insulate the loft and cavity walls, and have draft proofing and a modern, efficient central heating system. The maximum grant today, off mains gas grid, is £6,000. The average improvement in SAP rated properties benefiting from Warm Front will bring them up to SAP 57, which is nowhere near SAP 81. That is for £6,000—or £3,500 if they are on the mains gas grid and can use gas central heating. Clearly, there is a mountain to climb to find the money to get to the level that the hon. Member for North Southwark and Bermondsey is talking about.

I mentioned the energy suppliers’ obligation and Warm Front. There has also been a huge programme, with £33 billion of spending, on the decent homes programme for councils and registered social landlords to improve the quality of their properties. A lot of their “decency” is to have decent kitchens and bathrooms in their properties—not central heating and not energy efficiency measures. However, some of them have improved the energy efficiency of properties, although nowhere near the level of SAP 81.

We are committed to extending the carbon emissions reduction target scheme—the energy suppliers’ obligation—to the end of 2012, and expect a significant contribution to the target, set by the Prime Minister in 2008, of another 6 million properties receiving insulation works by 2011. We have also set our ambition to insulate every loft and every cavity where it is possible, and where the occupier accepts it, by 2015. The achievement of those targets will be helped by the CERT extension to 2012 and will make a significant contribution to our carbon budgets, as well as our fuel poverty alleviation strategy.

The hon. Gentleman mentioned the community energy saving programme, which we launched last September. That also runs to 2012. So many MPs urged us to use the approach of going street by street through an estate, in a focused and strategic way, to improve energy efficiency that we have launched CESP to do precisely that. That will run to 2012. CERT, with the extension, will run to 2012. Hopefully, Warm Front will run for that kind of period. That brings us the opportunity, in 2012 as the hon. Gentleman urged, to bring together all those different programmes and design one overarching strategy that will focus on making the step change and the improvements to people’s homes in the way that he desires.

However, I stress that even with one programme we must recognise both the diversity of the properties that we will treat and the diversity of the arrangements at the local level that will probably be required to make it work. The CESP programme might reveal that in some parts of the country a really willing, enthusiastic committed energy supplier will be a great lead for a local partnership that involves the local authority and the local community groups. In another area, a “Kirklees” of the country, we might find that it is absolutely the local authority that should take the lead. I entirely agree with the hon. Gentleman that we should be open-minded about having more than one delivery vehicle at the local level, but there needs to be that central drive and direction for it to work.

The hon. Gentleman urged us to use the way of paying that the Conservatives also propose, though they suggest £6,500 for every property. The pay-as-you-save scheme pilot that began last year will be an integral part of designing this whole programme from 2012. I cannot say today that I think it will be the energy companies that find the money for the scheme; I cannot even say today that it will be repaid through people’s energy bills. That is a debate that we will have later, on one of the other clauses. I am trialling both of those methods, and many others as well, through those pay-as-you-save pilots. I want to see the results of those pilots to know which is the most reliable way, or the most reliable ways, to do that in the future.

Therefore, although the hon. Member for North Southwark and Bermondsey has asked whether I will set out my programme for the future today, I cannot do that. The programme will be in a document called the household energy management strategy. I would have liked to have been able to brandish that to Committee members today, but it will come out in a couple of weeks’ time—ish.

People know what Ministers are like. They avoid giving a date and say “shortly”, but that document really is close to publication. I have been intimately involved in the discussions about its content and I have read the draft contents. The document does exist and hon. Members will see it shortly.

Will the Minister accept that that is very disappointing? We have before us a Bill that proposes significant changes to how we deal with fuel poverty, and then we discover that the Government strategy will come out the week after we finish considering the Bill in Committee. Can he give us an assurance that we will not consider the Bill on Report until we have seen that report?

Given that I am disappointed that I am not brandishing the document today, I shall not disagree with the hon. Gentleman’s first point. I am not a manager of business, so I cannot say when consideration on Report will happen. I can say that the document will be out shortly, and I hope that that will be within the time scale that he requires of me.

To return to the points, put to me by the hon. Member for North Southwark and Bermondsey, about giving more detail of the scale of the Government’s  ambition, I still can say that by 2015 I expect every cavity wall and every loft in the country that can take it to be insulated to an acceptable level, provided that householders and occupiers will allow us to do the works. We are expecting that, by 2020, 7 million of the hardest-to-treat properties will have received a whole-house approach to the insulation and energy efficiency measures under our strategy. We expect every property in the country to have had that kind of whole-house approach by 2030. Furthermore, I expect there to be a smart meter in every single property in this country by 2020.

I am not short of ambition or detail in the sense of what my programme will be, but some of the things that we all need in front of us before we legislate on these important issues, including the payment mechanism, require the results of work that is taking place at present but has not yet finished. That is an important point for me to draw to everyone’s attention.

The amendment pre-empts our considerations about longer-term household energy efficiency policy and the delivery arrangements, so I hope that, after what has been an informative and useful debate, the hon. Gentleman will withdraw the amendment.

It has been a useful exercise already, in that it has flushed out the Minister a bit. I shall return in a second to the central point, which is about trying to discover what the strategy is. At least, however, we have discovered today that it is a strategy for 20 years, not 10. That is very disappointing; it is not only on the Opposition Benches that the Minister’s and the Government’s level of ambition is not regarded as sufficient.

In recommendation 14 of its report entitled “Energy efficiency and fuel poverty”, published last year, the Select Committee on Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, talking about smart meters—the Minister will know what I am going to say—stated that

“we believe that the 2020 target is unambitious. The Government must decide urgently on the roll-out model for the programme so that the industry can move ahead as fast as possible. Customers also need to be given clear information on the costs and benefits of smart meters, including advice on how they can use them to monitor and adjust their own energy usage and costs.”

The example always cited is that Italy delivered the programme in, I think, three years. There are arguments that although that is true, it was easier to do that, partly because many more of the meters there are outside people’s homes than inside them. However, I think that the general view of the Committee was that for smart meters, for example, a five-year programme should be completely sufficient for delivery.

Liberal Democrat Members believe that it would be possible—indeed, this should be the Government’s ambition—to have a national programme that is delivered in 10 years. We may not always be able to deliver everything that we wish to deliver, but a 10-year delivery programme for warm homes in Britain is a hugely different proposition from a 20-year programme. If we are talking about dealing with the climate crisis, of which the Minister is certainly aware, as well as trying to ensure that we improve our energy security, a 10-year programme would be a far more effective and appropriate ambition. During his exchange with me, the Secretary of State said that there would be a 10-year programme  for all homes. In the document that we are told is coming—today we were told that it is coming soon—that is likely to be a 20-year programme rather than a 10-year programme, although, of course, we cannot confirm that until we have seen the document.

I want to pick up now on the point made by the hon. Member for Wealden; I did not intervene when the Minister was speaking, but the hon. Gentleman rightly did. The Minister has seen a draft and we know that the document is in his Department. Furthermore, in his Department’s response to the Select Committee in October it said:

“DECC is also considering how future arrangements for delivering energy efficiency measures to households could continue to support the fuel poor alongside other households as we develop the Government’s proposals for the heat and energy saving “Great British Refurb” post 2012.”

At the end of that section from the Department’s response, it says:

“We are presently considering, in great detail, the post-2012 delivery options in the HES Strategy, making sure that we develop options that mitigate the impacts on the fuel poor.”

I share the view that it would be nonsense for the House of Commons and Parliament to consider the Energy Bill, fuel poverty and the insulation of homes before we know what the programme is. Therefore, can the Minister say to the Secretary of State that I tabled the amendment partly to discover where this document has got to and when we would see it?

The Minister has been helpful—I am not criticising him, so far—but we need to see the document. I agree with the hon. Member for Wealden that it must be produced. Let us be honest about this. Normally, the convention is that we allow two weekends between consideration in Committee and on Report. Consideration in Committee is due to finish at the end of next week, meaning that we could consider the Bill on Report in early February, before half-term. Will the Minister go away and say to the Secretary of State that the great press release, the great press conference and the great announcement must all happen this month, so that we can know what we are talking about?

I now want to deal with the point made by the hon. Member for Wealden. I say to him gently that I suppose that he could interpret the amendment in the way that he said he had interpreted it. However, if he reads it again carefully, I think that he will see that it does not have the flaw that he specifically highlighted. It was drafted so that the Government would have to:

“make provision for a national programme to make every home a warm home”.

By definition, when the Government come forward with the detail of the programme, they must accept, first, that some people will not want this work to happen and must have the right to say no; that was the point that I made to the hon. Member for Northampton, South. The Government would then have to deal with the categories of homes that are more difficult to deal with. The hon. Member for Angus made the obvious point about park homes and there are other categories of homes, such as prefabricated homes, that may be more difficult to deal with. The obligation is for a programme—not for an obligatory system that turns every home into a warm home whether or not the 80-year-old owner or the aristocratic owner of the home wants that to happen.

There is an issue about the cost of the programme, and it was raised several times in different ways. I am grateful to the Minister for saying that I am not trying to hide the national cost of the scheme if we were to do this work for every home. That is why the Conservative scheme is flawed, modest and inadequate. We will be able to test that next week. The best evidence I have received is that an average cost of £6,500 across the UK is an underestimate, although some properties might be able to have full insulation for that sum. The Select Committee has done some work in this area and between us we need to work on the best estimate.

That is why there are two preconditions for a scheme. First, I perfectly accept the need to pilot the best way to have the repayment. We have a proposal that it be put on the bill, provided that it does not add to the bill—gross—over the period. Secondly, we need to have a survey in advance of the work that is to be done. I have not heard from the Minister about that, but I hope that it will be in his Department’s document that the precondition for doing this work properly is that a survey should be carried out on every home so that the occupier can know exactly what they need to have done.

The failure of the current system is that there has been a bit of cavity wall insulation here, a bit of loft insulation there, a bit of boiler replacement over there and possibly some double glazing somewhere else. The Minister and I know that unless people are offered the opportunity of a whole programme, there will not be as successful an outcome. Of course there would be improvement, but people should know the score. The industry is up for it—I have talked to all the different trade bodies in the industry, which represent glaziers, roofers and electricians, and they are willing to work together. It would be fantastic work for them.

Wonderful work.

It would be wonderful work, and would provide many of the jobs that the Government want, as well as many apprenticeships and training opportunities. We believe that it should be done locally because local authorities will be much more likely to ensure that local firms, young people and apprentices are engaged, and everyone will see themselves as having an investment in the process.

I just want to give the hon. Gentleman the reassurance that he sought when he began making that point. Although he has moved on, I am going to be very naughty and deal with both things.

I was at the annual conference of the National Insulation Association just before Christmas. The hon. Gentleman is right about the enthusiasm about the jobs that will be made available. He wants to be assured about a whole-house approach and the fact that people’s properties will be assessed for the measures that are needed. That is now the approach under CESP, and I suspect that it will be the forerunner of what happens post-2012.

I remind the hon. Gentleman that the estates that are being chosen for the whole-house approach—house by house and street by street—are some of the poorest in the country. We hope that the fuel-poor will be at the forefront of what happens. The hon. Gentleman is right about the enthusiasm for the scheme. Centrica—British  Gas—announced its first 10 agreements with local authorities to do works under CESP as soon as we launched the scheme.

I am glad that there is agreement. We have all been picking up the same indications from the industry. Of course it is in its interest; it is such a fantastic opportunity. There may be less new house building because of the recession, and if we can turn difficulty into an opportunity to improve existing housing stock, that will be all to the good.

I have three remaining points to make. I had understood from the then Housing Minister, the right hon. Member for Derby, South, that she accepted that the standard that we should work to was the best standard: SAP 81. Of course I understand that there are some homes, such as park homes, for which that may not be possible, but otherwise that should be the standard. I would be grateful if the Minister told the Committee whether that is still the Government’s aspiration or whether he has downgraded it.

In support of what the Government have been doing, the Minister prayed in aid the decent homes programme. I supported that programme; I am, in England, the Member of Parliament with the largest proportion of council tenants among my constituents, so the impact on my constituency has been huge—although there has been a heavy obligation on the local authority to deliver. However, the Select Committee confirms that the decent homes programme was not at all intended to deal with insulation; it was to improve kitchens, bathrooms and things like that. The Committee was critical about that.

I do not know whether the Minister has any figures, but I am not aware of a substantial number of local authority or social housing landlords—housing associations or housing trusts—that have included insulation measures as part of the decent homes programme. I should be grateful if the Minister told me, now or in the near future, whether a comprehensive list can be supplied of the landlords that have delivered such measures, and the details of what they have delivered.

We all want to get to the same end, but it is a question of the means. Will the hon. Gentleman be clear on two points? If as many people as he would like took up his suggested loans scheme, how would we ensure that those loans were repaid, and what would be the cost of compliance?

A related point is about private landlords. Would there be a cost to the tenants—and therefore to the Exchequer, via housing benefit—because of compliance for private landlords? What would that cost be?

The answer—[Interruption.] The answer to both questions, as my hon. Friend the Member for Harrogate and Knaresborough said under his breath, is that it would add to the cost of people’s electricity bills. Their bills will go down because with better insulation they will use less fuel, and over a 10-year period, as the bills go down, the cost of repaying the loan will be added on incrementally. We have suggested a 10-year period because that seems manageable within people’s sight lines—it could, of course, run for longer.

Crucially, the obligation has to move with the person who takes it on; it cannot be passed on if the property changes from one tenant or homeowner to another. That is where the additional cost comes. Private-sector  tenants would benefit from the reduction, as the landlord would be able to share among the tenants the cost as the bill went down, and tenants who paid the bill in the normal way would continue to do so, with the bill reducing. However, the sanction is needed because a private-sector landlord does not have the automatic advantage that we would have if we were owner-occupiers, or that a local authority would have if it was letting to tenants.

I do not understand the hon. Gentleman’s last point. A private-sector landlord would not benefit from the reducing bill. He might benefit from the improvement to the property, but surely he would pass the cost of that on to the tenant through increased rent. The hon. Member for Halton was making the point that if the person concerned was on housing benefit, that could impact on the Treasury as well.

I did understand that point, and I am saying that the cost would not come by virtue of increased rent, which could call for an increase in housing benefit and therefore an increase in the Exchequer subsidy. It would come on the bill of the tenant, whose bills would be lower because the property was better insulated, topped up with the cost shared. However, there has to be an obligation on the landlord to do that, because they do not necessarily have the same incentive as an owner-occupier.

Under those circumstances it would be necessary to transfer the saving from the tenant’s account to the landlord’s account, to effect the difference that the landlord would enter into as a result of taking out the property improvement loan. There would therefore be a landlord capture of tenant’s savings on bills. Although that might be technically possible, some people might find it a bit difficult.

I understand that that context is the most organisationally difficult, and it is exactly the sort of thing that needs to be consulted on and checked. The private-sector landlord would not benefit immediately, but he would benefit indirectly because the better-insulated property would be more saleable or lettable. We have to ensure, therefore, that an indirect state subsidy is not required as a result of adding the cost to the rent instead of the bill. The obligation on the landlord therefore comes elsewhere, through legislation and other measures. I agree, however, that the greatest technical difficulty is with that sector.

We will be interested to see whether the Government paper makes this clear, but the Minister seems to have accepted that from 2012 it is imperative that we have one national system, rather than the different, partial schemes that we have had. It might be a different national system in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, and that would be a matter for those countries.

The Minister has rightly said that the most recent scheme, which has been piloted in certain areas, appears to be the best because it is the most comprehensive. I am happy to seek leave to withdraw the amendment at the end of this debate, because I wanted to use it to flush  out the Minister’s position. It would help if he said that the Government had come to a view that from 2012, having done the piloting and testing, we would have one scheme in England, rather than the current plethora of schemes. If he could say that, I would happily proceed quickly to withdraw the amendment.

I am happy to speak again to answer those three questions. The first was really a fishing exercise about whether the draft will say that the Government will aim to hit a target of SAP 81 in each property that will be improved. The document certainly will not say that, for the reason I gave in my earlier response to the hon. Gentleman. We must respect the diversity of the housing stock in England and provide appropriate solutions, tailored to the needs of the individual property. We will not, therefore, be going down the route of specifying one particular outcome for every property. I take his point, however, about the importance of people living in comfort, their bills being as small as possible and their carbon emissions being as low as possible. We aim for all that.

Of course, other standards already exist. We aim for every new property built from 2016 onwards to be carbon neutral. There is already a code for sustainable homes, which sets very good standards that are way above building regulations. The best builders already aim to meet the best standards. Certainly when public money is put into building properties, we require people to aim for the better standards. The hon. Gentleman can therefore be reassured that we will be ambitious, although we will not necessarily be tied to the particular solution in the amendment.

On decent homes, some registered social landlords will be disappointed that the hon. Gentleman is not aware that they have very high standards and that they aim for good levels of energy efficiency when they carry out decent-homes works. Some of the best registered social landlords have certainly included insulation works in their programmes. When I am given figures to give publicly as a Minister, I am always told that 1 million properties have been subject to insulation measures and have had their energy efficiency improved through decent-homes standards. That is a considerable body of work, although a lot of the £33 billion spent on the programme is for the other measures that I mentioned, to ensure decent standards in people’s homes—in their bathrooms, kitchens and so on.

The third thing that the hon. Gentleman asked was whether I could definitely say that there would be one national system from 2012. What is for sure is that our single strategy will provide the necessary coherence, central direction and leadership. However, I want to correct him on one thing, because he put words into my mouth when he suggested that I had said that CESP delivery is the best. I did not say that. He and others urge the Government to adopt a whole-house approach and to move systematically—house by house, street by street—to get the best value for money from the programme. I said that that is what CESP does and that it is a good model, which we might want to adopt post-2012. That is different from saying that CESP is the best.

Under CERT, the energy supply companies are doing excellent work. As the Minister who sponsors Warm Front, I think that that is an excellent programme, so I am certainly not saying that CESP is best. However, I  agree that we want a coherent programme that is entirely focused on the step change that we all agree is needed. The opportunity to bring together the learning from the different projects and to set the end of CERT, CESP and perhaps Warm Front for a particular time, may allow us to bring those projects together to get the coherence that the hon. Gentleman and I want.

My hon. Friend the Member for Harrogate and Knaresborough and I would draw from this debate the conclusion that it is still possible for our Government to have a programme with the ambition and intention that every home should be a warm home within 10 years. I concede that the response to what he said is that such a programme would realistically have to start in 2012, not 2010, given where we are and the need to dovetail programmes.

That would also give us time to complete the pilots, to learn the lessons from them and to complete any other technical work, while allowing appropriate Select Committees and others to look at the work. I am entirely happy to accept that it may be better to set the programme’s start date for two years from now, after the end of the current programmes.

In case there is any doubt, given what the hon. Gentleman has just said, I should say that works will go on until 2012. Between 2008 and 2011, work will still happen on 6 million properties. In the pre-Budget report, Warm Front got more money for its budget. That will still go on, day by day, month by month and year by year, until we get to the start date.

Of course; I did not mean to imply that such work would not go on. We continue with the current scheme. In 2012, however, we should start a 10-year programme, and that is possible. We have heard what the Minister said, and we will inevitably come back to it. He has heard the requests to outline the Government’s programme in full before Report, but on the basis that we have, to a degree, flushed out where the Government stand, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

The Chairman adjourned the Committee without Question put (Standing Order No. 88).

Adjourned till this day at One o’clock.