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Department of Energy and Climate Change

My Lords, I have three questions but I preface them by saying that bringing together the energy aspects of Defra and of BERR into this new department is wholly to be applauded. I say that as the first Minister who ever had the title Minister for Energy. We have waited a long time for it. I was surprised that the Prime Minister did not do it on appointment in his first reshuffle, but it is happening now. My three questions are simple. First, there is some doubt about this outside the House, but the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority is hugely important with an enormous budget stretching over many years. While the news release about the responsibilities of Ministers refers expressly to offshore decommissioning, it does not talk about nuclear decommissioning. Will the Minister give an assurance that the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority will be one of the agencies that comes under the new department? My second question, which will not altogether surprise him and to which we will no doubt return in the Bill, concerns fuel poverty. Huge emphasis has been placed on the need for much better targeting from the point of view of social tariffs and the CERT obligation. We have had only a tiny change—for pension credit in the Pensions Bill—so far, involving a very small group of people who could be within fuel poverty. Can the Minister say anything more about the targeting and whether that will be improved? My third question is again perhaps a more technical one. When the Office of Nuclear Development was set up within BERR, one of the points made to me was that it would be largely concerned with the supply chain for nuclear development. Most of the industries concerned—engineering and others—will fall under the aegis of BERR. Obviously the Office of Nuclear Development will be part of the Minister’s department, but how will the supply chain of that office’s work function? There will have to be a very close collaboration between his department and that of the noble Lord, Lord Mandelson.