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Energy Bill

I take up the point of the noble Lord, Lord O’Neill. It is all very well for the Government to say, as they did frequently in the other place when amendments were tabled, ““This is not in the Bill””. If we look at the list of new clauses that appear either after Clause 79 or before Clause 80, we can see that there is a whole range of issues that Parliament would like to be dealt with in an energy Bill. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord O’Neill, that the Bill has important points. It is about facilitating nuclear energy, dealing with gas and CO2 storage, and all the other measures that we have been debating, but it is naive of the Government to imagine that they can introduce a Bill and not recognise that the concerns of Parliament and increasing numbers of the public go rather wider. This Energy Bill is before us and we should be entitled to debate such things. I hope that if one makes a sufficient case, eventually the House may be persuaded, as it has been on previous energy Bills, to insert amendments dealing with matters that were not originally in the Bill. All those who have spoken have referred to the extraordinary difficulty of persuading millions of ordinary citizens to change how they do things; we are creatures of habit. It is difficult when one is faced with a new overriding need—fighting climate change, a new development in this context—to recognise that people must change their way of living to contribute to dealing with these threats. By far the single most important stimulus to change in this area is price. Some people have argued, for instance, that transport prices are almost inelastic. Well, one only has to study the recent figures in this country, Europe and the United States to see the swift response to the soaring price of petrol at the pumps. People are driving less and more slowly. They are buying more energy-efficient cars and trucks. That is happening much more quickly than one might anticipate if one merely looks at the economists’ arguments. The same is true of household expenditure. People now feel that they have a duty to switch off lights. I wholly agree with those who say that the public sector is not very good at that. One drives around Whitehall, and the lights seem to be on all night. Why? The public notice these things. I have heard, as have others, the argument, ““Why should we take this seriously if the authorities obviously don’t?””. It is a question of setting an example, which is a perfectly good way of bringing this before the public. However, trying to get ordinary members of the public, who do not read lengthy reports on company websites, to recognise that there must be a change is important. I do not want to anticipate my later arguments on the new clause on targeting groups, which I indicated that I would raise on the Bill; we will deal with that when we come to it. However, there must be increasing awareness of what households and businesses can and should do to curb their energy consumption and contribute to reducing carbon emissions, and that should be a continuing programme. It is as much for the energy industries themselves to do this; they send their bills with leaflets and everything into everybody’s houses. These must be carefully pitched so that ordinary citizens who do not normally read the guff that comes with their bill can be persuaded to do so, and see what they can do. It must now become much easier to get a wide variety of efficient, energy-saving light bulbs. The supermarket that my wife and I shop at has a selection, but it does not cover everything we need. I entirely sympathise with my noble friend Lady Carnegy that many of these lights are rather dim. My mind goes back to the wise words of the German Chancellor Angela Merkel when this was all introduced at the Copenhagen conference. She said that it was all very well, but if you dropped something on a patterned carpet you could not see it. We have all had experience of that, and it becomes more difficult as one gets older. One must have more readily available and efficient low-energy light bulbs. Some of them that I have been able to buy were very expensive. The noble Lord, Lord Rooker, has constantly assured the House of Lords that prices are coming down as this becomes increasingly apparent. However, anything that contributes to availability would have my support, and the amendment could be a useful contribution.