Examination of Witnesses (Questions 60-79)
Wednesday 22 October 2003
Sir Brian Bender, Mr Jeremy Eppel; Mr Chris Leek,Mr
Garry Worthington, Warm Front, General Manager, POWERGEN UK, examined.
Q60 Mr Rendel: Why are you giving
grants at all if you are not going to increase energy efficiency?
Mr Eppel: Because they will nevertheless
help vulnerable people who are the target of the scheme to improve
their levels of comfort, notwithstanding that the overall energy
efficiency of the home may not be permanently improved.
Q61 Mr Rendel: The aim of the scheme
is to increase energy efficiency in those homes and you are not
doing so in 10% of cases.
Mr Leek: The aim of the scheme
is to try and help vulnerable households suffering from cold,
rather than to raise energy efficiency. Where you have a household
that has a high SAP rating, a high energy efficiency, we would
not take out the measures creating that high energy efficiency
in the household. The measures given to them would be things such
as energy efficient light bulbs and energy advice. If we have
done a survey which has identified that it is a high energy efficiency
household, it does make sense that while we are in the household
we give energy efficiency advice and energy efficient light bulbs.
Q62 Mr Rendel: You have signed up
to a Report on page seven which says, "Warm Front's aim is
to improve energy efficiency for . . ." and then it lists
the people for whom energy efficiency is to be improved. You have
just said that the point was not to increase energy efficiency
but to help vulnerable households. I would put to you that the
two are not compatible.
Mr Eppel: I think you were primarily
referring to homes where there was already a reasonable level
of energy efficiency and where the additional measures that the
scheme can provide would not substantially further increase that
energy efficiency.
Q63 Mr Rendel: I am referring to
the 10% to which you gave grants and you failed to increase energy
efficiency. The aim of your scheme, according to paragraph 1.1
of this Report, is to improve energy efficiency in various cases
and you have failed in more than 10% of cases to do that. Why?
Mr Eppel: Because the eligibility
for the scheme is such that people who are eligible and are living
in a home that already has a reasonably high level of energy efficiency
are still entitled to the benefit of additional measures which
will provide benefit to them and increase their comfort and warmth.
Q64 Mr Rendel: The scheme is aimed
at improving energy efficiency and you are giving grants for things
which do not improve energy efficiency.
Mr Eppel: That is not the eligibility
criterion.
Q65 Mr Rendel: Are you saying the
Report is wrong?
Mr Eppel: No.
Q66 Mr Rendel: The Report says is
that the aim is to improve energy efficiency.
Mr Eppel: The overall aim of the
scheme is indeed to improve energy efficiency to the greatest
possible extent. The specific eligibility criterion for individuals
who may benefit from it is not directly related at this point
and—
Q67 Mr Rendel: If you are not giving
them the benefit for which the scheme is aimed, those cases in
which you have given grants achieve other benefits for the same
people but not the benefits for which this scheme is aimed. Those
grants have been a failure. They have not done what this scheme
was to do, which was to improve energy efficiency. I quite believe
that the money you have spent may have improved many people's
lives in other ways but that was not the point for which this
money was voted by government. Why have you given these grants
to places where you are not going to improve energy efficiency?
You have voted money for one thing and you seem to have used it
for something else.
Mr Leek: If we go into a house
that is energy efficient they would not receive a measures grant
as such. In other words, they would not receive a high value measures
grant in terms of insulation of heating because to have that high
level of energy efficiency in the household already they must
have these measures fitted. Whilst we are in the house to establish
that criterion, we will give them energy advice and a light bulb
which will improve the quality of their lives.
Q68 Mr Rendel: I understand what
you are doing and I have some sympathy with you wishing to improve
the lives of vulnerable people. However, it seems to me you have
gone beyond what the scheme says it is supposed to do. If the
aim of the scheme is correctly identified in paragraph 1.1, it
seems to me you have been paying out money for things that you
were not given the money for.
Mr Eppel: One of the problems
with energy efficient light bulbs is that even though they have
come down in price substantially in recent years they are nevertheless
more expensive than conventional tungsten light bulbs. The result
is that people on low incomes would not be inclined to go out
and buy them.
Q69 Chairman: They do not warm people
up, do they?
Mr Eppel: No, but they reduce
their total energy bills. Over a period of time, those light bulbs,
provided they are used in a fitting where the light is on for
a period of time, will reduce the energy bills compared with traditional
light bulbs. That will reduce people's total energy costs. That
will provide an element towards the potential movement out of
the fuel poverty zone because their total bills in relation to
their income will come down.
Q70 Mr Rendel: Will Warm Front close
down at the end of 2010?
Sir Brian Bender: That is a long
way away. That depends on the progress we are making and contribution
it is making towards the government's fuel poverty strategy.
Q71 Mr Rendel: If all the vulnerable
people have been helped by this time—and you assure us that,
as far as you can see, you are on target to do that—Warm
Front will close down.
Sir Brian Bender: We will be looking
also at all households, not just the vulnerable, and therefore
no doubt we will have criteria for that as well. I cannot answer
that far down.
Q72 Mr Rendel: That is not the point
of Warm Front, is it? Warm Front itself will close down as soon
as the vulnerable homes are helped.
Sir Brian Bender: Warm Front as
currently defined? The answer to that is probably yes but we may
revise it.
Q73 Mr Rendel: Who revises it? Is
that done by secondary or primary legislation or just you yourselves?
Mr Eppel: It is done by the Department
promulgating the basis on which it will be done, through statutory
instruments or secondary legislation.
Q74 Mr Rendel: As far as the current
secondary legislation is concerned, this aim is only for vulnerable
groups. The money may be available if Warm Front closes down and
you may change Warm Front into something else?
Sir Brian Bender: That is what
I was trying to say.
Mr Eppel: The government's overall
approach to energy efficiency which the White Paper promulgated—and
there will be further explanation in due course, including an
energy efficiency implementation plan—will be designed to
try and improve the energy efficiency of the housing stock of
the country as a whole, which to the extent that that improves
it will also help people who are non-vulnerable. The propensity
for becoming fuel poor for the non-vulnerable, we hope, will tend
over time to decrease.
Q75 Mr Rendel: What is the fastest
way of increasing energy efficiency in domestic homes across the
country?
Mr Eppel: Loft insulation, much
of which has already taken place, cavity wall insulation and the
installation of high efficiency condensing boilers, which is why
the building regulations will require it from April 2005.
Q76 Mr Rendel: If you wanted to save
the maximum amount of money, which of those three would you use,
in terms of how much fuel is being wasted across our country in
domestic houses?
Mr Eppel: Probably cavity wall
insulation, followed by the boilers in terms of what still remains
to be done.
Q77 Mr Rendel: Are there any cases
in which you are not providing a full grant because the costs
of either putting in cavity wall insulation or the new condensing
boilers are above your maximum grant?
Mr Eppel: No. If it does creep
above the maximum grant, there are opportunities for working with
other schemes such as the Energy Efficiency Commitment to trade
measures, to try our utmost to ensure that an individual household
gets everything it needs.
Q78 Mr Rendel: Is there any loan
scheme at present? We are talking about private home owners in
some cases whose house values presumably will rise with the energy
efficiency measures you can put in. Is there any value in introducing
a loan scheme to pay for these costs when they are above the present
maximum grant?
Sir Brian Bender: It is not something
we have thought about at this stage.
Q79 Mr Rendel: Why not?
Mr Eppel: It is a possibility
and it is certainly something that we could examine but it has
not been one of the things on our array of possible policy options.
There are interest free loan schemes for small businesses which
have recently been introduced by the Carbon Trust but that does
not address the fuel poverty issue.
| 
