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Energy Bill

My Lords, this is an interesting proposal. I was feeling positively enthusiastic and crusading—I cannot say that; it is the wrong word, as is missionary, so I shall stop there before I get into even bigger trouble. I thought that it was exciting but then we got into the detail of what needs to be done, and I suddenly realised that it will go right into the long grass and be really difficult to achieve. However, I hope that the noble Lord will continue to pursue this. The scheme needs to be simple although I understand entirely the difficulty suggested by the noble Baroness, Lady Wilcox, about the possible distributions between large and small families. I remember when the noble Lord, Lord Jones, introduced the Bill on Second Reading and I questioned him on the idea of trying to make energy companies become organisations that would sell energy conservation. That is great in theory but I cannot see it working. This is a pricing mechanism that would work in consumers’ minds, which is its power. It starts to get difficult when it gets into the endless detail trying to make it equitable for everybody. There has to be a big trade off to make it work, but it is a model that I much prefer to trying to pretend that all the energy distributors will move into organisations that are trying to sell less of their product rather than more.