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Energy Bill

moved Amendment No. 6: 6: After Clause 41, insert the following new Clause— ““Permitted development for renewable energy (1) The Secretary of State must make regulations within three months of the day on which this Act is passed for the purpose of granting permitted development status to specified microgeneration installations. (2) In this section— ““specified microgeneration installations”” means small wind turbines and air source heat pumps, and any such further technologies the Secretary of State may consider appropriate, ““permitted development status”” means development for which planning permission is not required in the circumstances stated herein, and ““fixed specified period”” means one year from the date on which the regulations made under subsection (1) came into force. (3) The regulations shall specify that small wind turbines and air source heat pumps shall be permitted development in the circumstances and on the conditions stated in subsection (4). (4) The circumstances and conditions referred to in subsection (3) and to be specified in the regulations are— (a) that the design and installation of a specified microgeneration installation should not cause an external noise level, due to the specified microgeneration installation alone, in any mode of operation or wind speed that will not be exceeded more than 10% of the time on the given site, above 45db at the façade of the neighbouring building, and in the case of small wind turbines, measured in accordance with BWEA small wind turbine performance and safety standard, (b) that permitted development status only applies to certified products, (c) that permitted development status only applies to detached houses, (d) that permitted development status only applies where a certified installer is used to install the equipment, (e) that a certified installer should be under a duty to ensure compliance with paragraphs (a) to (c) above in any installation carried out by him, (f) penalties or sanctions that may be incurred by a certified installer who fails to discharge the duty specified in paragraph (e) above. (5) The Secretary of State shall have the power to review, amend or suspend regulations made under subsection (1) for the fixed specified period specified in subsection (2) for the circumstances and conditions contained in subsection (6). (6) The circumstances and conditions referred to in subsection (5) are— (a) that there is evidence that a significant number of statutory noise nuisance complaints have been upheld for any technologies installed as permitted development in accordance with the regulations made under subsection (1), (b) that the Secretary of State has consulted relevant parties on the evidence used to inform any decision he proposes to take to amend or suspend regulations in accordance with subsection (5). (7) Regulations under this section shall not be made unless a draft of the instrument containing them has been laid before, and approved by a resolution of, each House of Parliament.”” The noble Lord said: My Lords, this relatively small amendment looks rather more complicated than it actually is. It deals with an apparent anomaly that the Government have on several occasions said that they were going to make right but have yet to do so. This is a nudge to try to get them to. It is arguably on the interface between the Planning Bill and the Energy Bill, but I have refrained from participating in the Planning Bill, so I am afraid that it is here. The amendment relates to renewable energy and the fact that, while other forms of microenergy get permitted-development status, small-scale wind turbines and air source heat pumps do not. This is not particularly logical. The then DCLG Minister, Yvette Cooper, said two years ago that this would be addressed. That was repeated by Iain Wright this year and, again, as I understand it—I am not sure that he was strictly the Minister’s predecessor—Jonathan Shaw at Defra indicated that he was prepared to do it provided that there was a limit to the noise effect of turbines. Air source heat pumps are particularly important on this, because they are available, as somebody—probably the noble Lord, Lord Teverson—said earlier. They can play a major part in helping the fuel bills and the contributions to cutting carbon by those who are off the gas network. Other forms of so doing are much more expensive and difficult. On turbines, we are not talking about massive ones, but those roughly the size of a television aerial. We accept that there should be a limit to their noise impact, and that that should be set at the WHO-recommended level of 45 decibels. In objecting to these various points, officials have told those who are advocating these changes that the noise was a real problem. However, as a result of a Freedom of Information Act investigation with local authorities, we discovered that, out of 4,500 such applications, there was only one complaint on the grounds of noise, and that was not upheld. Therefore, provided the decibel limit is within the regulations, there is no reason why these two extremely valuable bits of microgeneration should not receive permitted development status in planning policy. As the Government have said on several occasions that they will do this, I hope that it will be done and that it will be reflected in the Bill. If the Minister has an alternative, I hope that he will tell us what it is. I beg to move.