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Energy Bill [HL]

My Lords, I am pleased that my noble friend is sympathetic towards this amendment. I should explain that it was going to be spoken to by my noble friend Lady Parminter, who regrettably is defending Britain’s interests in Brussels with her European sub-committee at the moment, so she cannot be here today. The basis for this amendment is that in Grand Committee, we had quite an extensive discussion around making sure that within this system there would be some form of ombudsman or final appeal for consumers so that people would feel assured that any dispute would be looked at in a proper and independent fashion, and could be resolved in a sensible and cost-effective way. The process should be friendly to consumers and would come to an objective conclusion, but would not cost them a lot of money to go through it. I know that my noble friend has looked through the government amendments to see how this could be achieved and feels that this is one of the more appropriate ways of dealing with the issue. Disguised in the rather generic language of the ““green deal oversight body””, which in the language of 1984 would probably mean something quite big brotherish, the amendment is trying to use the Government’s form of language in order to introduce the concept. Given that, while I welcome the Government’s own amendments, I am disappointed that we have not yet found a way of bringing this dimension to the Green Deal. I would be keen to hear from the Minister in her response at the end of the debate how this particular need, which goes back to consumer confidence in the process, could be met. I am not absolutely sure that the government amendments put forward at this stage will do that. I beg to move.