Written question asked by Lord Barker of Battle (Conservative) on Tuesday, 22 October 2002, in the House of Commons. It was due for an answer on Wednesday, 6 November 2002. It was answered by Elliot Morley (Labour) on Wednesday, 6 November 2002 on behalf of the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs.

Dept for Environment Food and Rural Affairs

Question: To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, if she will make it her policy to ensure that the performance figures collected to show local authorities' progress on strategies drawn up under the Home Energy Conservation Act 1995 can be compared between authorities.

Answer: Gregory Barker: To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs if she will make it her policy to ensure that the performance figures collected to show local authorities' progress on strategies drawn up under the Home Energy Conservation Act can be compared between authorities. [77458] Mr. Morley: It would be helpful to be able to make better comparisons between comparable authorities' performance. But this could only be achieved by having a single monitoring method. Defra has provided software to all authorities in England, free of charge, to help them monitor improvements in domestic energy efficiency. This is just one of a number of energy efficiency monitoring tools available. We believe that authorities should have the choice of which software package or monitoring method they use. They do, however, have to provide evidence as part of their annual progress reporting that they are using a robust monitoring method.

Secondary information