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Lord Jenkin of Roding: My Lords, I am grateful for that—it is helpful—but can the Minister indicate what proportion of vulnerable households can be approached through those joint arrangements? My information is that it is very few of them and that most of the authorities do not agree to give the information.

Lord Whitty: My Lords, the noble Lord is correct that performance on that front is patchy, but in those health authorities where it has been pursued more than in others, there is a significant number. The gateway to the receipt of fuel poverty help is through benefits information and through application. The attention of households is drawn to these provisions by a number of interfaces with public bodies. Health authorities and the Department of Health have asked all their bodies to ensure that people are aware of these facilities. Health visitors and social workers can pass on the information, but only with the explicit agreement of the householder. That would not measure the total number of applications because they are quite often made at the suggestion of a health visitor or social worker, but it is the householder who applies.

So there is joined-up government in this regard. It is not as good as it should be, but the fuel poverty programme has been over-subscribed. We still have a long way to go to deal with everyone who comes in through the system and is identified by the various other services.

The House should recognise that the total contribution of energy efficiency reflected in the energy efficiency action plan is more ambitious than in the White Paper. We are being sensible in ensuring that the individual subsections are robust and cautious because we are dealing with a statutory obligation. Certainly, as Patricia Hewitt said, we would wish to go further on all fronts, but we think we can reasonably guarantee that this one will be met. We have therefore included that as our obligation for specifying the statutory aim.

Both for the reason that this is not a rolling back of the contribution of energy efficiency to our energy policy—quite the reverse—and for the reason that there is already an obligation in another piece of legislation, I hope that the noble Lord will not pursue his amendment.

Baroness Byford: My Lords, before the noble Lord sits down, he did not accept in his reply that setting the
 
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lower target may well discourage people from achieving a higher target. I am quite surprised that the Government are reluctant to accept the amendment because it will send out the wrong vibes to the wider audience out there. I am most disappointed. I shall wait to hear what the noble Lord, Lord Ezra, has to say. In truth, I do not think the Minister has answered the questions put to him as to whether the higher figure should be accepted.

Lord Ezra: My Lords, I am also very disappointed that the Minister has not been able to accept the amendment. When the figures for energy saving were published in the energy White Paper, the proposals were enthusiastically supported by all those who follow these matters and were, of course, many times reiterated by Ministers and senior officials.

This is, indeed, an objective; it should be restated as an objective and we should know what we are doing to achieve it. I quite agree that the Government have so planned matters that overall energy saving could be rather larger than first envisaged, but there is notorious inefficiency in the use of energy in the domestic sector and a determined effort has to be made to improve it. Inserting the amendment in this important Bill would have galvanised efforts. However, the Bill contains many measures that we strongly support and I do not wish to delay it in any way. So, with much regret, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment No. 8A, as an amendment to Commons Amendment No. 8, by leave, withdrawn.

On Question, Motion agreed to.

COMMONS AMENDMENT
9 Before Clause 84, Insert the following new Clause—
"Microgeneration
(1) The Secretary of State—
(a) must prepare a strategy for the promotion of microgeneration in Great Britain; and
(b) may from time to time revise it.
(2) The Secretary of State—
(a) must publish the strategy within 18 months after the commencement of this section; and
(b) if he revises it, must publish the revised strategy.
(3) In preparing or revising the strategy, the Secretary of State must consider the contribution that is capable of being made by microgeneration to—
(a) cutting emissions of greenhouse gases in Great Britain;
(b) reducing the number of people living in fuel poverty in Great Britain;
(c) reducing the demands on transmission systems and distribution systems situated in Great Britain;
(d) reducing the need for those systems to be modified;
(e) enhancing the availability of electricity and heat for consumers in Great Britain.
(4) Before preparing or revising the strategy, the Secretary of State must consult such persons appearing to him to represent the producers and suppliers of plant used for microgeneration, and such other persons, as he considers appropriate.
(5) The Secretary of State must take reasonable steps to secure the implementation of the strategy in the form in which it has most recently been published.
 
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(6) For the purposes of this section "microgeneration" means the use for the generation of electricity or the production of heat of any plant—
(a) which in generating electricity or (as the case may be) producing heat, relies wholly or mainly on a source of energy or a technology mentioned in subsection ; and
(b) the capacity of which to generate electricity or (as the case may be) to produce heat does not exceed the capacity mentioned in subsection .
(7) Those sources of energy and technologies are—
(a) biomass;
(b) biofuels;
(c) fuel cells;
(d) photovoltaics;
(e) water (including waves and tides);
(f) wind;
(g) solar power;
(h) geothermal sources;
(i) combined heat and power systems;
(j) other sources of energy and technologies for the generation of electricity or the production of heat, the use of which would, in the opinion of the Secretary of State, cut emissions of greenhouse gases in Great Britain.
(8) That capacity is—
(a) in relation to the generation of electricity, 50 kilowatts;
(b) in relation to the production of heat, 45 kilowatts thermal.
(9) In this section—
"consumers" includes both existing and future consumers;
"distribution system" and "transmission system" have the same meanings as in Part 1 of the 1989 Act;
"fuel poverty" has the same meaning as in section 1 of the Sustainable Energy Act 2003 (c. 30);
"greenhouse gases" means—
(a) carbon dioxide;
(b) methane;
(c) nitrous oxide;
(d) hydrofluorocarbons;
(e) perfluorocarbons;
(f) sulphur hexafluoride;
"plant" includes any equipment, apparatus or appliance."

Lord Whitty: My Lords, I beg to move that the House do agree with the Commons in their Amendment No. 9. In doing so, I shall speak also to Commons Amendments Nos. 21 and 35. I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Ezra, will be slightly more pleased with this position of the Government than he was during the previous debate.

We fully agree that microgeneration has a key role to play in our efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. We have lent our support to a number of initiatives. We have recently legislated to make it easier for small renewables generators to receive renewables obligation certificates. We have established with Ofgem the distributed generation co-ordination group, which has a workstream looking specifically at microgeneration. In financial terms, we already support microgeneration to the tune of £35 million through our funding of the major PV Demonstration
 
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programme and our Clear Skies initiative, which provides grants towards the costs of residential or community renewables projects.

The clause originally proposed raised some concerns— in particular the inclusion of a duty to set specific targets for small-scale generation of electricity which would have cut unhelpfully across other commitments in the White Paper. There were also some drafting issues around that, particularly the definition of "microgeneration". It was for those reasons that my colleagues in the Commons proposed the deletion of the clause inserted by your Lordships.

But it is clear that there are distinct benefits to a clear, joined-up strategy for microgeneration. Although I do not think, in general, that we need legislation for that, there needs to be a legal duty to establish a strategy which gives the industry and potential investors in this technology new confidence. Amendment No. 9 would impose a clear duty on the Government to publish a microgeneration strategy within 18 months of the commencement of this section of the Bill, and then to take reasonable steps to ensure implementation.

For technical reasons, Amendment No. 35 excludes the obligation from Northern Ireland. As energy is a devolved matter, it would not be appropriate to extend the strategy across to that administration unless there was separate Northern Ireland legislation. But we will, of course, keep in touch with our Northern Ireland colleagues on this issue.

Moved, That the House do agree with the Commons in their Amendment No. 9.—(Lord Whitty.)

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