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Energy: Annual Statement

My Lords, I apologise for rising, but I thought that the Minister had already answered the question because the Statement included the statements made by the noble Lord. I, too, welcome the commitment to nuclear power, but I wonder whether we will do more than simply build new nuclear plants. Will the science improve sufficiently to lead us to nuclear fusion, because in the long run that is probably the area we need to go into. Are the Government looking at the possibility of researching it? The Statement says: "““The cheapest way of narrowing the gap between energy demand and supply is to cut energy use. We need to address the state of our buildings. We have some of the oldest housing stock in Europe””." I am confused. For example, the school rebuilding programme was aimed at addressing some of the worst school buildings, which can waste a lot of energy, but most of the projects that have been cut are those that were most needed. Is there still a commitment to this kind of rebuilding because the condition of some schools is really not good enough? Does the Minister see that the aim of using less energy requires a lot of improvements to be made to our school and other buildings? If so, why have these cuts been made? Finally, the previous Government were at least committed to ensuring that listed buildings undergoing repairs and being made more energy efficient were able to claim relief on VAT. Some churches and other buildings consume too much energy, so part of helping to address this was to ensure that VAT relief was available. I have not seen anything about that relief in the Statement. Will it continue?