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Energy Bill [HL]

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Whitty, put down Amendment 153 and I added my name to it, but he is not in his place. I spoke to this amendment at some length in Committee so I will not repeat what I said then. I do not have the cynical view of local government that is being expressed by the two previous speakers. My experience over the years of local government is that it has been very effective in trying to deal with poorly insulated properties in its areas under the Home Energy Conservation Act, which is now going to be removed. I know that my noble friend the Minister is keen for local authorities to be involved in what is going on, but I also support the fact that we do not necessarily give new duties to local authorities. We have a Localism Bill coming that includes a power of general competence. However, it is clear to me that, in spite of all that, local authorities have a major role to play in this. As I said, I know that the Minister agrees with that. I hope that he can set out some of the roles that he sees for local authorities as the Green Deal is rolled out, and give us some idea about what sort of rewards they might get. I do not mean rewards from the public purse; it is not necessarily from there that they will get rewards for being involved with this. I know that he understands what I am talking about. I hope that, if not tonight then at some point, he will be able to set this out in a little more detail to reassure us—including local authorities, many of which are asking to be involved. Some of them are actually asking for carbon budgets, which Amendment 100 mentions. I have had a letter, as I am sure have other noble Lords, from a group of local authorities that want to have local carbon budgets. The situation is not anything like as clear-cut as the two previous speakers said. I hope that my noble friend can go at least some way towards setting out how he sees local authorities being involved. Maybe this is something else where, when the Bill gets to another place, we can be more specific on how local authorities have been involved. Their record on doing things such as rolling out energy efficiency street by street is fantastic. People in local communities trust their local authority more than they trust the people who provide their utilities, so we need to take full account of that. I know that my noble friend understands that, and I look forward to what he has to say.