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Finance Bill

The speech that the hon. Member for Putney (Justine Greening) gave was interesting, as is her amendment No. 20. Unfortunately, however, as sometimes happens, she leavened her speech with too much righteous indignation. I will bear that in mind when I think of the reports of the views of Conservative party activists on eco-towns, for example, which the Government are putting forward and which are so important. I want to distinguish between the construction and the occupation of new properties. If we are talking about zero carbon, the first thing that I would like to do is change the terminology. It is a little late for that, because the terminology is already in statute, from the Finance Act 2003, but we are almost certainly not talking about zero-carbon homes. Rather, we are talking about zero-CO2 homes. I venture that almost no home will be built in the United Kingdom in the next 100 years without any carbon in it, because wood is carbon and the architraves around the doors, if nothing else, are likely to remain wood. The reason I stress that point is that it highlights the use of language and whether we are talking about emissions when we talk about zero-carbon homes—I will use that phrase, because it is in the legislation already and in the proposals before us. However, we need to distinguish between emissions from the construction and emissions from the occupation of such homes. That is why amendment No. 20 is interesting. Indeed, I shall be interested to hear what my hon. Friend the Exchequer Secretary says about definitions and the need for definitions. I find it difficult to envisage the construction of a new home in the United Kingdom in the next 20 years involving zero CO2 emissions, if only because for many years to come it is quite likely that some of those building the home will drive to the site in a car fuelled by fossil fuels, not by electricity. They will use electric saws to cut wood, and sometimes electric concrete mixers, and some of the electricity might well come from fossil fuel. We might move to mass renewables. We could move to nuclear, but the building of nuclear power stations involves CO2 emissions. Construction workers might drive to the site in a vehicle powered by electricity from a renewable resource and plug in rotary saws that are powered in the same way. A consideration of zero CO2 emissions during a home's construction depends on how far one wants to take things towards the absurd. If we are to avoid reaching an absurd situation, the definitions must be clear and we must distinguish between construction and occupation. On the occupation of houses, should we require those seeking the tax exemption to guarantee that their washing machine will be run only on electricity from renewable resources? How far should we take things when we consider zero CO2 emissions for occupation? I am worried that we will move towards bringing into the equation CO2 offsetting, which is one of the biggest boondoggles around. My hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham, South (Alan Simpson) has mentioned in the Chamber—wittily, as usual, but quite rightly—that there is an adultery offset website. Allegedly, the person behind it is a rather spotty youth from somewhere like Plymouth called Kevin. He agrees to remain chaste and not to engage in sexual relations—certainly not adultery—so that someone who signs up to the website can engage in adultery absolutely guilt free because of the adultery offset—[Laughter.] That might produce a laugh, but it highlights some of the problems with CO2 offsetting. Although this is being exposed, CO2 offsetting is often a complete con. It is said that Coldplay chose 10,000 trees in somewhere like Indonesia to carbon offset one of their world tours, but that all the trees were dead. I raise this point regarding the definition of a zero-carbon home under amendment No. 20. Will CO2 offsetting come into the definition on the occupation side of the equation—when someone is living in the house—and when measuring whether the occupation leads to no net use of CO2? We need tight definitions and a clear political direction, preferably with cross-party consensus, to determine exactly what constitutes a so-called zero-carbon home.