---

Finance Bill

I certainly think that we need to work closely with local government to meet those objectives, so I agree with the hon. Lady. I fear that if my answer to her is too detailed I will stray beyond the scope of the clause, but I very much accept the tenor of her comments. The hon. Lady will agree that building regulations are not all that is needed to meet the objective. We need to ensure, too, that the planning system helps to encourage lower carbon emissions and does not present a barrier to the development of new homes—that is a matter for local government. We have therefore consulted on a draft planning policy statement on climate change, and we will publish the final document later this year. The consultation on building regulations sets out interim steps, but we have taken other initiatives as well. We have, for example, suggested that improvements be made to building regulations in 2010 and 2013 before going to zero- carbon status in 2016. We also launched the code for sustainable homes as a voluntary standard in England. It allocates a star rating from one to six to new homes, thus assessing their overall sustainability performance, and it sets out our aspirations for new-build housing. We have proposed, too, making rating against the code mandatory from April 2008. Code level 6 represents a zero-carbon standard, and I shall explain why that is relevant to our debate. The new stamp duty land tax exemption is an important building block, and it completes our strategy. Our long-term goal is to achieve a zero-carbon standard in all new homes by 2016, but with technology in that area moving so quickly, it is difficult and undesirable for anyone to try to predict precisely what standard we will have to meet in 2016. We do not know what technological developments lie ahead. On the other hand, we want early action to kick-start the market—in Committee, we had rather a long debate about the definition of ““kick-start””—so the stamp duty land tax exemption will sit alongside code level 6 as an incentive. Following our consultation and discussions in Government, I can set out today our view that it is important that these two initiatives, code level 6 and the definition of zero-carbon homes in our stamp duty land tax regulations, are aligned so that we can adopt the same definition of zero-carbon homes. I therefore propose, following consultation with ministerial colleagues, and subject to the outcome of the consultation and the debate that I promised Parliament later this year, that we will aim to align the stamp duty land tax exemption definition with the code level 6 definition. Starting with a common definition will maximise certainty for house builders in the crucial early stages. We are still consulting on these issues, but I can give hon. Members two examples of what the alignment may mean in practice. First, following the publication of our draft regulations, we are now inclining to the view that both the code and the stamp duty land tax exemption should include the provision that, initially, a zero-carbon home for stamp duty land tax purposes could be connected to the gas mains, provided that there was adequate offsetting for the gas burned through renewables provision. Similarly, we know that it is sometimes more efficient for renewable energy to be provided on a development-wide basis, rather than house by house. This is another area where we want to adopt the same approach in both instruments. In both examples, without pre-empting the consultation that is under way, we will seek to achieve that in the regulations that we intend to put before the House under the affirmative resolution procedure.