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Energy Bill [HL]

This is in a sense left-over business from Report stage. Again, I am not looking to the Minister to accept the amendment as it stands but to recognise that some of the issues that it brings up need to be addressed by the Government during the Bill’s stages in the Commons, one hopes, or possibly in secondary legislation. The amendment deals with smart meters. We have had substantial discussions on smart meters in Committee; it is a very small part of the Bill but a very big part of the whole strategy for tackling energy efficiency in buildings, fuel poverty and the price of bills for everybody. Smart meters will therefore be key in improving energy efficiency, changing the behaviour of householders, reducing bills and providing the basis for introducing rather smarter grids into our electricity supply system. However, there are issues relating to smart meters. Unlike the Green Deal, which is voluntary for the householder or landlord, the smart meter is mandatory on the supply company and therefore, in effect, mandatory on the consumer, in that at some point the supply company will have to enter the house and replace existing meters and wiring with ones susceptible to smart metering. I strongly favour this process and think that it will make a big contribution to energy efficiency; I think that at least some consumers will be able to alter their behaviour significantly and that we should therefore all support the strategy. However, there are some clear anxieties among consumers about the whole prospect of smart meters, some confusion about how they are to be delivered and in particular some concern about the lack of standardised and interoperable meters. I realise that on that front the Government are attempting to bring together the companies, and we are making some progress, but those concerns exist. There are also serious concerns, which noble Lords may regard as irrational, about privacy and what use may be made of the records of energy use. We must recognise those problems and recognise the possibility of serious consumer resistance that needs to be built in to how the rollout is delivered. It was an opportunity in this Bill to give a clearer framework to the totality of the smart meters’ rollout. We are three years on from the 2008 Act and, clearly, there have been developments and slight changes in approach. The clause that would immediately precede the new clause that I propose is, in effect, simply to extend the possibility of altering licences to transmission licences. That may or may not be necessary, but it will probably be necessary in some circumstances—and I certainly support that change. Given that smart meters are such a major part of the provisions and we rely so strongly on them to reduce household energy use, we should perhaps have used the Bill for a slightly wider purpose. If households and landlords do not have confidence in the process of the rollout, if they are confused, if it leads to a backlash and slows down the programme significantly, it will slow down the achievement of our carbon targets significantly and aggravate the problems of fuel poverty. For example, if interoperability is not achieved, it could aggravate that confusion and limit the real choice of consumers in their ability to switch supply, at least in the short term. We need to ensure that the framework provides for the Secretary of State to be able to monitor the progress of the smart meter rollout and report to Parliament, to the players in the industry and to consumers on how well the rollout is doing and whether there are problems. Benefits were identified in the overall impact assessment of July 2010 against which progress needs to be measured. The impact assessment on the Bill is fairly minor because it relates only to Clause 71, but the overall impact assessment sets some clear targets. We need to develop an independent code of conduct on how the suppliers and the installers operate with householders. We also need to monitor it against the targets for carbon set out in the Climate Change Act 2008 and the deliberations of the Committee on Climate Change. We need to see how far they can help in the reduction of fuel poverty against the targets there and what contribution the rollout can make, and we need to ensure that during this process we do not inhibit competition within the energy sector but preferably enhance it. The issue of the recipients of the smart meter provision who are also in a Green Deal was not resolved in our discussions in Committee. Another dimension that was mentioned and is repeated in this amendment is that, in another part of government for which the Minister is not directly responsible, water metering is another major contribution to sustainability but also, indirectly but substantially, to energy usage in the home and in the totality of the water system. Putting in compulsory smart meters for energy without also addressing the water dimension could prove to be a problem down the line. All I am suggesting in this amendment is that the Government have a clear framework in which they are assessing the delivery of the smart meter rollout, ensuring that we overcome difficulties in inculcating a degree of confidence in the market and in the recipients, and report in such a way that from time to time Parliament can debate the progress that is being made. I hope that the Minister can accept the spirit of this amendment and will indicate to his colleagues in another place, should similar or slightly more succinct amendments emerge there, that the Government give them serious consideration. I recognise that for now we are not going to do that at Third Reading in this place, but I am raising some issues which I hope the Government will take serious note of. I beg to move.