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Planning and Energy Bill

The right hon. Gentleman makes a good point, but I was referring to mild winters when air conditioning is not typically used, rather than hot summers. Air conditioning, unlike winter energy use, is growing rapidly and is very energy-intensive. We need to tackle that if we are to crack this problem. In the same year that the manifesto commitment was dropped, the then Chancellor pledged in his Budget £20 million—not a great sum, but welcome nevertheless—to energy efficiency, but only a quarter of those funds made it through into efficiency projects. Last year, the Government cut around £300 million from their DEFRA climate change initiatives, including recycling, energy conservation and emissions reduction programmes. The existing capital grant scheme for microgeneration technologies—the low-carbon buildings programme—has been insufficient from the outset. The grants on offer were so undersupplied that they typically ran out after 30 minutes of being available on the internet on the first day of each month. Since then, the low-carbon buildings programme has descended into little more than a farce. In the past 12 months, there have been no fewer than five major changes to the grants programme, including a reduction in the maximum grant per household from a really worthwhile £15,000 to just £2,500. Then, the new Prime Minister, five months into his premiership, finally made his first foray into the climate change debate. That speech was welcomed in advance, but what was the big idea at the centre of his new climate change strategy? It was a consultation on plastic bags—welcome, but not exactly commensurate with the scale of the challenge of global warming. Do these actions suggest that the Prime Minister is making Britain's low-carbon future a real priority? Sadly, I do not think so. That is why, in Britain in the early part of the 21st century, we are now so reliant on local initiatives. There is, in direct contrast to the inertia at the centre of Government, excitement, passion, drive and determination to push some of the most progressive and innovative schemes coming up from the local level. There is real support in our communities, and there are great things going on in our local councils, universities, local organisations and community action groups, with people pushing for genuine change.