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Climate Change and Sustainable Energy Bill

We can discuss that in Committee, as much of the Bill needs to be discussed. It has been brought to my attention that when we were discussing whether the Prime Minister himself or the Secretary of State should table the report, I referred to my own Secretary of State, the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry. It is evidence of the fact that we are so joined at the hip on these issues that I should, of course, have referred to the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. Frankly, we DTI Ministers are so often in and out of DEFRA that I sometimes forget which Department I am a member of—such is the extraordinary joined-up-ness of this Administration. Hon. Members will be aware that my Department has been in the process of reviewing the renewables obligation. Some measures included in the preliminary consultation, and now the statutory consultation, require primary legislation to be tabled. They are aimed at making it easier for micro-generators to benefit from the obligation. They will make it easier for agents to handle much of the administrative process on behalf of householders who wish to claim renewable obligation certificates for the electricity that they generate. They will also remove the need for micro-generators to have a sale-and-buyback agreement in place with their electricity supplier before they can claim their obligation certificates, which are known, in the jargon, as ROCs. That will help to make the whole process a lot smoother. The Bill seems an appropriate piece of legislation in which the Government can make those changes at the earliest opportunity.