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Energy Bill

My Lords, I welcome the Government’s move forward in this area over the period that the Bill has been going through Parliament and particularly through this House. One of the key areas here is ensuring not just that the Government really intend to write the enabling clauses into the Bill and accept the principle but that there really is a commitment to take this forward so that it becomes a practical and implemented part of the Government’s energy policy and we can get on and reap the benefits of it in terms of the renewable energy that is generated on a smaller scale, and households and communities can join in with the project and make it work. That is why I was pleased to put my name to a number of these amendments. I would be interested to hear from the Government some idea of the timescale in which they intend to bring a feed-in tariff into operation. It was brought to my attention by one of the groups involved in the low-carbon building programme that funds for that will now end in June 2009. I have a question mark there. That programme has been successful and important in terms of microrenewable energy generation, as part of its work. Are we introducing one incentive as we take out another?