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Planning and Energy Bill

I thank the hon. Gentleman for that intervention. I have heard him make that point before. I think that it comes on the back of research that he has done, and it is an extremely powerful statistic. He will be aware of the frustration that is felt about the extraordinary paucity of ambition and energy shown by the Government. We have to remind ourselves that back in March 1995 the current Prime Minister announced that the Labour Government would lead a major push for energy efficiency in the home. However, as the hon. Member for Cambridge (David Howarth) will know, the Association for the Conservation of Energy said to the Environmental Audit Committee that"““the energy efficiency industry as a whole…is extremely disappointed by the painfully slow progress towards introducing new economic instruments to improve household energy efficiency. Frankly, we are beginning to wonder whether it will ever happen””." The background to the Bill is one of failure, and we should recognise that. There has been no shortage of rhetoric from the Government. That rhetoric has its place, particularly on the international stage, but we must get to grips with the fact that there is failure of delivery on the ground. The problem is not a shortage of initiatives. The policy landscape is very full; in fact, it is cluttered, and there is lots of stuff going on, but it is all driven by the proposition that central Government have all the answers. The penny must soon drop, and we must soon realise that the levers that central Government are pulling are not necessarily connected to anything. As the right hon. Member for Leeds, West suggested, we need to take a different approach. We should realise that if we are to encourage people to change their values and behaviour over economic cycles and across generations, we have to engage them in a bottom-up process, and involves them in their communities. There has been chronic failure to do so, and an opportunity has been missed. Local authorities are closer to their communities and are more trusted than central Government. The reality is that local authorities are not adequately engaged. They are major stakeholders in the debate. They are huge estate managers; 25 per cent. of the housing stock in this country is social housing, which is their responsibility, directly or indirectly. They are service providers, who must help us to manage waste and enforce building regulations. They are enablers, and play a role through Warm Front and the energy efficiency commitment. They ought to be standing shoulder to shoulder with central Government as partners in that collective effort, but they are not. As the National Audit Office pointed out to the Environmental Audit Committee in a 2007 report,"““Although over 200 local authorities have made high level commitments to climate change…analysis suggests a mixed picture of performance, with few replicating the achievements of the best.””" I am struck by how often we come back to the examples of Woking and Merton in such debates—there are no other names in the frame. However, things are happening out there, as my hon. Friend the Member for East Surrey (Mr. Ainsworth) said. I draw particular attention to Kirklees, which is enormously innovative and energetic on such issues. My council, Hillingdon, is one of the 100 authorities that are beginning to deploy some of the principles behind the Merton rule, in their own way. We need more leaders. The Bill is attractive because it sends a strong signal to the market to encourage people to lead, not through imposing targets but by giving local authorities real power. The Bill is therefore a step in the right direction.