Luciana Berger
Main Page: Luciana Berger (Liberal Democrat - Liverpool, Wavertree)
Chris Huhne
I am grateful for my hon. Friend’s question. We are working through literally every possible impediment, as we are in other areas of the economy in which my Department particularly wants to see a transition to a low-carbon economy, to understand best what the impediments might be and to remove them. I am absolutely confident that when it comes to the launch of the green deal in October 2012 there will be enormous opportunities for Cornwall. The only constraint is going to be making sure that there are enough people who are trained properly to accredit, assess and install the green deal. I am confident that the finance will be available and it is important that we make as much progress as we can.
Luciana Berger (Liverpool, Wavertree) (Lab/Co-op)
Consumer confidence is vital to ensuring that the green deal is a success. We know that Ministers were discussing possible incentives at around the time of the Budget to encourage green deal take-up and the Chancellor alluded to that in his Budget speech, but no concrete announcements have yet been made. Will the Secretary of State give us any further details today about how home owners and tenants will be incentivised in order for the green deal to meet the Government’s ambitions?
Chris Huhne
Under the terms of the energy company obligation in the Energy Bill, there is capacity for the companies that are subject to the ECO to bring forward incentives. The Chancellor has, as the hon. Lady pointed out, rightly made a commitment to consider incentivisation. She will also be aware that we made announcements on the Energy Bill’s Second Reading to bring forward some quite important incentives for the private rental sector, particularly for F and G-rated properties. All those measures will get the scheme off to a flying start.
Gregory Barker
The hon. Gentleman raises a very important point. As I also sit on the Cabinet Office’s Public Health Sub-Committee, I am very aware of the issue he raises. That is why we are absolutely clear that the ECO must be focused on the fuel-poor and hard-to-treat homes and why we must have an impact on exactly the statistic that he mentions in relation to his constituency.
Luciana Berger (Liverpool, Wavertree) (Lab/Co-op)
We have just heard twice from the Minister that the ECO will be used specifically to tackle hard-to-treat homes and fuel poverty, but unfortunately this week we have heard worrying rumours that the ECO will not be used exclusively to tackle fuel poverty and hard-to-treat homes. Consumer Focus recently estimated that to tackle just over a third of non-cavity-wall homes in the UK would require an ECO investment of more than £7 billion. That underlines the scale of the challenge that the ECO needs to meet. Will the Minister guarantee today that the ECO will be used only to tackle fuel poverty and hard-to-treat homes and not to subsidise banks providing green deal finance?
Gregory Barker
I do not think I could be clearer than to say that the focus of this new measure, unlike the CERT programme brought in by the previous Government, which we had to reform considerably when we came to office, will be on fuel poverty and hard-to-treat homes. We are absolutely clear about that and the measure is going to be much more effective than any measure that the Labour party introduced.