Housing and Planning Bill — House of Lords, 2016-05-10
Topic: Housing
Kathryn Jane Parminter (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): My Lords, we return again the to the issue of building the homes that we need, ensuring at the same time that we contribute fully to meeting our greenhouse gas emission targets and lowering fuel bills I am very disappointed to see that the Government and the other place did not feel able to accept the amendment that we proposed. In lieu, the Government are proposing a review. I remind noble Lords that the zero-carbon homes standards were agreed during the time of the coalition, with industry-wide support. Again, we ask why there is a need for a review. As the noble Lord, Lord Krebs, so powerfully asked last week: how many more homes will have to be built before this review and the implementation date and any action coming out of that review takes place? Given that we are looking to build a million new homes, how many more of those homes will have to be retrofitted—at great cost to individual home owners—because we have added a requirement for a review, when we know what we need to do now? There is no guarantee of action at the end of the review proposed by the Government. Indeed, the Government are obliged anyway to review the building regulations by June next year as a condition of the 2010 energy performance of buildings directive Finally, on that point, given that it was the Government and the Chancellor who scrapped the zero-carbon homes last year—the Government throughout the process of this debate have refused to engage on anything other than the viability issues around the housebuilding industry; again, the Minister chose to quote only from the housebuilding industry this evening—it gives this House little confidence that the review will look, alongside viability for housebuilders, equally at the need to ensure that we meet our greenhouse gas emission targets and lower the energy bills of people so that we can contribute to meeting our fuel-poverty targets. Given that a third of our greenhouse gas emissions in this country come from buildings and two-thirds come from homes, my contention is that this is too important to leave to a review I accept, however, that at this late stage there is a need to move to a compromise. Therefore that is again what I have done today. The amendment before your Lordships is a compromise. At the last stage we were proposing carbon standards of 60% for detached properties, 56% for attached properties and 44% for flats. This compromise would set the reductions at 44% in greenhouse gases on the basis of comparison with the building regulations in 2016. That is the level that the Government recommended during their time in coalition as the on-site zero-carbon standards, which would take effect from this year. It is those standards that a growing number of local authorities were setting as a condition of giving planning permission, until they were scrapped by the then Secretary of State, Eric Pickles, last year. I point out that, between 2007 and 2014, 79,000 homes in England and Wales were built to this standard. Further, Scotland has introduced this standard already, last October, and the volume of houses to this standard is growing. Therefore, the standard is proven to be both effective and achievable. As I told the Minister, I trawled through the Conservative manifesto this morning to study exactly what their commitments were in this area. The Conservative manifesto made a clear commitment to the legally binding climate change targets and to tackling fuel poverty. It made a very clear commitment—some of us in this House may not have liked it—to offer no further public subsidy to wind farms. That was the Government’s priority; it was in the manifesto and this House can therefore understand it. However, while they made no commitments on rowing back on building standards, they made a commitment to deliver on the greenhouse gas targets and to tackle fuel poverty Throughout this debate, all sides of this House have challenged the Government endlessly to make quite clear, if they intend to meet their greenhouse gas targets and are not prepared to accept this amendment, how they will meet those targets. The Bill is an opportunity to provide us with the sustainable homes that we need. This compromise amendment would put us back on the right trajectory towards getting more zero-carbon homes. It would help deliver on our greenhouse gas targets, ensure that people’s fuel bills were lower and at the same time deliver the homes that we need. I beg to move.