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Finance Bill

I am grateful for that intervention because that takes me—you will be relieved to know, Sir Alan—to the amendments that the Liberal Democrats have tabled. They try to widen the scope of consideration so that the Government do not concentrate only on new homes, which are clearly important, but focus on the UK's housing stock as a whole. In any given year, roughly 1 per cent. of the houses occupied in the United Kingdom will have been built in that year, while 75 per cent. of houses in 2050 will have been built before 2007. If we concern ourselves solely with newly built houses, we will address the situation only incrementally. Indeed, I would like us to go much further in that regard, too. It distresses me that large new housing developments are built on the edges of towns throughout the country with the car in mind. It is hard for the people living in those houses to buy a pint of milk or beer without getting in their cars. Such developments are often built without shops, pubs, village halls, churches, post offices or other amenities, which people cannot reach without driving a car. The houses are quite well insulated, but they could still incorporate large numbers of building features that would improve their carbon emissions. There is a lack of ambition among builders in that regard. However, if we neglect the existing housing stock, we will not tackle the problem with anything like the urgency that it requires, particularly given the interesting cultural dimension in this country, whereby people often aspire to live in older houses. People in the United States, for example, would think that the best house that one could buy would be a brand new one, in the same way that people in this country would, by and large, like to buy a brand new washing machine, car or whatever else. The most expensive and desirable houses in the United Kingdom are often those built, say, 200 years ago. There is not quite the market drive towards new house building in this country as there is in some countries. Whether because of a cultural or social dimension, it is seen to be desirable to live in an older house, often with not very well insulated windows, for example. We therefore need to turn our attention to how we improve such matters. I am not the only person who takes that view. In the Select Committee on Communities and Local Government report, ““Existing Housing and Climate Change””, the hon. Member for Milton Keynes, South-West (Dr. Starkey), the Labour Chairman, called for a"““much clearer focus on what must be done to bring existing housing up to required energy efficiency standards””." She also said:"““We need the Government to go further and do much more to help householders radically cut carbon emissions from their homes, whether they were built in 2007 or 1707.””" That is the position of my party, too. We have put forward large numbers of policies to try to accelerate the level of home insulation, as well as other measures that can be put in place to try to reduce CO2 emissions both in Britain's existing housing stock and in newly built houses. That is the scale of the ambition that we urge the Government to adopt. We have no problems with the measures in the Budget; we just think that they do not go far enough.