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Finance (No. 2) Bill

I had forgotten about that point, so I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for reminding me of it. He is absolutely right to say that I tabled this measure in support of Government policy, rather than in opposition to it. Let me give the clearest example that I can offer. In our energy White Paper, the Government made a specific commitment by setting a target that 4.5 million of the homes with cavity walls should be fully cavity wall insulated by 2010. At present, there are about 9 million homes with cavity walls throughout the UK. Each year, about 80,000 of those homes become fully insulated. If we were to deliver on our programme by 2010, there would have to be a sixfold increase in the rate at which the existing policy is working. How do we deliver such a sixfold increase? When we talk to people in the industry and the relevant sectors, they point out that by and large, the most successful time for intervention is when people are moving house. When people are in the process of buying a new home or trying to sell their existing home, they examine what they have to sell and consider what they want to buy. At that point, stamp duty is a significant financial consideration for many such people. If we could tie rebate measures into delivering the strategies and policies that we have set out our stall to carry out by 2010—without looking for new ones—we might deliver what we promised. There would be not only a big environmental plus to that, but a big creditability plus. There is nothing worse for the credibility of Parliament and Governments than making promises but failing to deliver on them. I am proposing a simple measure, and almost everyone in the industry is saying, ““Give us this mechanism and we’ll deliver the outcomes that you in Parliament say you want.”” The proposal has the support of the Energy Saving Trust, the Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution and the House’s own Environmental Audit Committee.