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Energy Bill [Lords]

I thank the Minister for his intervention, and I am pleased to see his impatience for me to get to the crunchy bits involving the figures, which I will now do. The figures that I was quoting were from an all-party group chaired by the hon. Member for Southampton, Test that involved myself and a few others. The group believed that it would be necessary to have a minimum of £2.5 billion in the ECO pot specifically for low-income and vulnerable households involved; some members of the group felt that it should be £4 billion. We were therefore looking at between £2.5 billion and £4 billion, but that was intended not for solid-wall insulation in the able-to-pay sector; it was focused solely on low-income and vulnerable households. We considered where we might be able to find such sums of money, including down the back of the sofa and so forth. Based on the Treasury's own budgetary projections, the EU emissions trading scheme and the carbon floor price will bring in a combined revenue of £2.7 billion in the first year of the green deal's operation, 2013-14, rising to £3.6 billion by 2015-16. If we were to choose to hypothecate those two revenue streams alone, they could be used to supplement the revenues of the ECO. That is exactly what many groups and individuals have recommended. A 2008 European Parliament directive recommended that at least 50% of revenues from EU ETS auctions of allowances should be devoted to environmental protections, including more efficient heating and improved insulation. In contrast to the UK, countries such as Germany, Hungary and Poland are doing exactly that. Ofgem provided constructive support in its report to the Chancellor of the Exchequer in 2008, stating:"““In view of these pressures on prices the regulator has identified a windfall to the electricity industry arising from the free allocation of tradeable emission permits.””" That windfall still exists. The report continues:"““This could be used to fund aid for fuel-poor households: those who spend more than 10 per cent of their income on energy.””" The European Parliament and Ofgem are thus both in favour of such a move.