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Mrs. Brinton: I am grateful for that most helpful intervention.
I return to the subject of the new Environmental Audit Committee, which the Deputy Prime Minister said had been appointed to bite his legs if necessary. At last week's meeting--at which both the Secretary of State and the Minister of State gave evidence--we were pleased to welcome the announcement that the Government are to reverse the previous Government's intention to cut the budget of the Energy Saving Trust by £5.5 million in 1998-99. My local paper, the Peterborough Evening Telegraph had a headline which referred to my joy at the news, because this is something for which we in Peterborough have campaigned for some time.
Organisations in my constituency have taken something of a pioneering role in environmental matters. The hon. Member for Torridge and West Devon referred to the importance of energy advice centres. Our energy advice centre in Peterborough--one of 31 such centres in the country--depends partly on the trust for funding, and last year gave free and impartial advice on energy efficiency to its 10,000th customer. That is some achievement. In just over four years, the centre has helped cut Peterborough's fuel bill by £0.5 million--no small figure--and has reduced carbon dioxide emissions by some 55,000 tonnes.
The Peterborough environment city trust has organised a conference for 27 February on energy-efficient homes for the new millennium. I hope to tell the House about that in due course. The trust has nearly completed an energy audit which it describes as
The Bill would encourage householders to seek the advice available through energy advice centres. It would raise the awareness across the nation of the importance of the Government's environmental aims. I hope that an energy audit of the future would find greatly reduced energy consumption, emissions and costs. I imagine that the fine drafting of the Bill which will be necessary might result in some simplification in the interests of implementing it as quickly and effectively as possible.
Mr. David Maclean (Penrith and The Border):
I welcome the Bill, which no one in the House could object to in principle. My only concerns are with the regulations that may be produced by the Secretary of State one day. It has been my experience that the devil is always in the detail.
I wish to apologise to the hon. Member for Torridge and West Devon (Mr. Burnett) and to the Minister because I have to go out around lunchtime and I may not hear the winding-up speeches. I intend to be around if I possibly can.
When I was a Minister at the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, we passed sensible laws on food safety. The only problem was that they had to be interpreted by local environmental health officers, not all of whom interpreted those laws in the spirit in which they were intended. In one case in my constituency, a village hall with a cracked window pane had its kitchen closed down on a strict interpretation by one local environmental health officer of the regulations and the Act of Parliament.
I make that point merely to emphasise that although clause 2 seems eminently sensible--and, no doubt, it is--my concern from my experience in government is that Departments, sensibly, will attempt to cover all eventualities in the regulations. They will wish to ensure that the mortgage society takes as much care as possible to ensure that the householder has all the information he or she needs. I do not expect to see de minimis regulations. Inevitably, bureaucracies--with the best will in the world--will tend to produce regulations and guidance for mortgage lenders which will be more detailed than perhaps the hon. Member for Torridge and West Devon anticipates.
It is some time since I had responsibility in the Department of the Environment, but I seem to remember that there were two organisations involved in giving energy ratings to homes. Perhaps there is only one now, or perhaps they have been consolidated; I do not know. The organisations had different methodologies and, inevitably, different costs were involved.
I subjected my own home to an energy rating by one of those organisations. It did it thoroughly, no doubt to show that it was entirely competent. I was presented with a detailed list of possible improvements, some of which were obvious and simple. There was a large list of items that the energy rating expert considered would improve the energy efficiency of my home. These included cheap, major items such as extra loft insulation and cutting down on draughts under doors.
Further down the list, I saw more expensive items for which the payback was non-existent. That is why it is important that clause 2 refers to
I shall not labour the point. I merely suggest to the hon. Gentleman and to the Minister that the matter is not as simple as it first appears. Straightforward guidance must be given on the thousands of different types of homes in Britain. The 400,000 older homes that change hands each year are all individual. Even identical homes in a street will have been treated differently over the years. Some will have more draughts than others; some will have greater thermal efficiency. They will all be different. The guidance to the householder must be carefully thought out, but the danger is that it will then become over-elaborate and over-bureaucratic. That is when the costs rise.
I do not have any suggestion for the hon. Gentleman of what could be put into the Bill to control the costs. I can only say from my experience of legislation that when, at least a year ahead of the regulations being produced, we had a guess and a forecast that the additional cost would be £15, you could bet your bottom dollar that it would be nearer £45. Perhaps the hon. Gentleman has better information on what the actual costs will be.
There are also questions for the Minister to answer. I know that it is not stated in the Bill, and that there is no money resolution, but does she foresee any case where the Government might raise fees or a charge for the guidance or advice that will be given? Does she see a need for those carrying out the energy rating to be licensed or regulated? They may be controlled at present, or the Government may recommend one or two organisations to carry out the energy rating. In that case, there will be a cost to the Department, and there may be a demand to recover the costs of approving the energy rating staff or the costs of providing the guidance. Does the Minister foresee a need to recover those costs, not from the householder, of course, but perhaps from the building societies or those carrying out the energy rating?
I support the broad principle of the Bill. If it can be carried into law so that straightforward, sensible guidance can be issued to mortgage lenders who can then, in the course of survey, produce a simple leaflet or checklist of the key steps that householders could take at an appropriate cost to make their homes energy efficient, and if that can be done for about £15 extra, the hon. Gentleman will have provided a great service to 400,000 new home owners each year. At that rate of turnover, it would presumably be only 10 to 12 years before the bulk of our housing stock would have had an energy rating through the valuation, and householders could take action. I merely caution the hon. Gentleman again that the matter may not be as simple or as cheap as he envisages.
I hope that I shall be present for the Minister's reply to the debate, and I apologise once again if I am not. I assure her that I shall read her remarks carefully in Hansard. After the Committee stage, when more information has come to light on the sort of guidance and regulations that the Government will produce, we shall be in a better position to determine the costs.
"the world's first systematic house by house, business by business audit of an entire city".
That is no mean feat, and the trust hopes that it will provide a model for other cities to follow. In1996-97, a total of 65,023 households consumed10,320,000 MW hours of energy with a total fuel bill of more than £39 million, releasing 320,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.
"an indicative range of costs and an indicative payback time for installing each of the energy efficiency improvements."
It will be a daunting task for most householders to determine the most energy-efficient measures to take. The Minister or her officials may have done a survey--Which? also points these things out--and asked people what is the best thing that they can do to insulate their home. Most would say double glazing. However, that would be quite low down the list. Stopping the heat going up through the roof would be the first item, and stopping
it going out through the walls and windows may come third or fourth on the list. If, because of the guidance that the Government issue and the information that the mortgage provider gives to the householder, double glazing appears as the 10th item on the list, the householder may nevertheless rush to have that done, rather than any of the other options.
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