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Climate Change and Sustainable Energy Bill

There are two major ways of tackling the problem. One involves income-maintenance measures such as pension credit and winter fuel payments, which are subjects for another debate. The other, which I consider more important, at least in the long term, involves improving the energy efficiency of our housing. We have introduced energy efficiency measures that have been applied both to new build and to existing stock, but we need to go further. I must confess that I have not looked at the English house condition survey for a couple of years—I have probably shocked my hon. Friend the Minister for Housing and Planning by admitting that it has not been part of my most recent bedtime reading—but when I have looked at that and similar data in the past, I have noted that there is still a great deal of housing that is not energy-efficient, lacking adequate insulation and good heating systems, and that there is a correlation between such housing and our poorest and most elderly people. Moreover, I think I am right in saying that it is the very elderly who are likely to live in the most inefficiently heated houses. As the hon. Gentleman knows, in physiological terms they are most at risk from cold conditions.