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Energy Bill [HL]

My Lords, we will come to the question of the energy company obligation later, but at this stage I must say that I was relieved to hear my noble friend Lord Teverson qualify the proposal in the third subsection of his Amendment 12 by saying that this is a bit of a cock-shy and may not necessarily be the right way ahead. At Second Reading, I remarked favourably on the energy company obligation because it was going to be more targeted on the fuel-poor than is the comparable measure under the CERT programme, which provided for a priority group covering about 11 million people, including every pensioner. It seemed to me that that was a very broad scattershot and made the cost to the energy companies that much greater. As I understand the Bill, the ECO is firmly linked with the question of fuel poverty; it is aimed at providing benefits for those who are classified as fuel-poor. I am entirely with my noble friends in their assertion that local authorities have a major role to play in ensuring the success of the Green Deal. I recognise the value of incentives in the form of reduction of council tax or whatever. For instance, this is being offered by the Government in the case of communities that accept onshore wind farms; for a limited period they will be able to keep the additional rateable value coming to them, which will help the councils. On this occasion, however, it would be difficult to justify putting on to the energy companies the cost of any council tax rebates that may be awarded under subsection (3) of my noble friend’s Amendment 12. I was grateful to hear that he was not hooked on that as a solution to his problem.