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Green Energy (Definition and Promotion) Bill

I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for that useful clarification. The attitude that he describes feeds into today's carbon emissions reduction target programme, whereby energy companies make a great commitment to helping customers to make energy savings in order to cut their bills. That is the kind of approach for the future that the Government want to encourage. My right hon. Friend made an important point, which was not much taken up on the Liberal Democrat Benches, about the potential effect on neighbours of the installation of new micro wind turbines and air source heat pumps. One person's benefit can be a neighbour's nuisance, and it is important for us to ensure that we avoid any negative developments from what is a very good policy. That is why when the Government extended permitted development rights for many microgeneration technologies last year, further time was taken on micro wind and air source heat pumps in order to ensure that we got right issues such as noise and vibration and did everything possible to minimise the effect on neighbours so as not to attract negative publicity that would harm the cause of promoting greater microgeneration.