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Energy Bill

My Lords, this is not an area in which I have any particular knowledge or expertise, but recently I was fascinated to find that in the north-east of England, where I live, the newly refurbished Grace Darling Museum in Bamburgh is now being heated totally by geothermal means. We were so interested in that development that, in exploring the possibility of changing the heating system in a house belonging to my family, we found that two firms in the north-east of England are now embarking on geothermal heating in a number of domestic premises. Of course, the required borehole and other costs would, in certain domestic circumstances, make it prohibitively expensive. However, as my noble friend Lord Oxburgh said, the technology is moving on. This seems an attractively permissive amendment, putting forward something that ought, in principle, to be supported. I was somewhat puzzled by the use of the word ““tenements””. When I was a young medical officer just after the war and was stationed temporarily in Glasgow, I sometimes used to be called out to see patients in what they called ““single ends”” in huge, decrepit, tall buildings called tenements. It struck me that it is a rather odd term to be included in an amendment referring to areas of land. Subject to that caveat, this amendment, in principle, well deserves support.