RT HON HILARY BENN MP, MS SUSANNA MAY AND MR PAUL CHAMBERS

20 FEBRUARY 2008

  Q1 Chairman: Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. This is a one-off evidence session with the Secretary of State, for which we are very grateful to you for being able to join us today, to discuss two things: some follow-up to the Department's response to the Committee's Report, Climate change: the citizen's agenda, and some questions about the follow-up to the Bali Summit. Just a bit of housekeeping before we start. Probably around about 4.30 or thereabouts the division bell will go for a vote and, therefore, the Committee will be suspended. We will try and get back as quickly as possible within ten minutes to carry on our questioning. Can I also just ask if you have a mobile phone you could make certain it is turned off, that would be very helpful indeed. We will just take a ten second mobile phone break so that everybody's mobile phone can be turned off, including mine. Having done that, can I formally welcome Hilary Benn, the Secretary of State for Defra, supported by Susanna May, who is described as the Public Engagement Team Leader. Does that mean you do all the marriages in the Department?

  Ms May: Not too many yet.

  Q2 Chairman: That must be a very happy job, I like that. And Mr Paul Chambers, the Head of Household Strategy and Energy Supplier and Obligation Team. Well, I think every department needs its domestic king, and you are it, so that is very good news. Secretary of State, when your Department sent its response to our report it did it on 15 November and all of a sudden, about three days later, you announced £100million worth of funding for the Green Homes Service. I suppose we were a bit disappointed that for whatever reason you delayed quite a bit in sending your response and then, instead of hanging on for a few more days and making it complete and including this, you sent out a rather thin diet and three days later issued something rather more substantial. Why?

  Hilary Benn: I am not sure I would quite agree, Chairman, with the fact that what we sent was a thin diet. The truth is we were a bit late in responding and I remember we had a discussion about whether we should wait further, and I do take trying to respond in a timely fashion to select committees very seriously, and I took the decision that we would send you the response knowing that the Prime Minister was about to make a speech and there was to be an announcement. In all honesty, had I known that you would not have minded if it had been a bit later then I would have waited. Can I just say no discourtesy was intended to the Select Committee and if I caused offence I am sorry, but that is the truth.

  Q3  Chairman: As simple as that?

  Hilary Benn: As simple as that.

  Q4  Chairman: I am going to ask some more detailed questions in terms of the Green Homes Initiative. Just before we go into some detail on that, was this an idea that originated in Defra or was it an across the Government idea?

  Hilary Benn: I think there have been a number of conversations about how we make progress on the existing housing stock. For new houses, as you will know, the announcement we made about zero carbon homes from 2016 will deal with that bit of the problem in the future, and you have got to crank up to get that point. That then leaves you with the question of what more can be done about the existing 20-plus million properties that you have got. It was in that context. Certainly we have been talking about it for quite some time, including with other Government departments, and what we announced and the Prime Minister spoke about in his speech was the product of that reflection because we recognised, and the Committee certainly recognised in its report, that we need to get on and make it easier for householders to make the changes that are needed and providing more advice is the first stage, and we will come on no doubt in the course of the questioning to what needs to come after that. Providing good advice so people know what is possible and making it easier for people to access the advice seemed to all of us to be a really sensible thing to do.

  Q5  Chairman: Okay. I just want to ask you one question which came out of looking at the totality of the climate change policies for which your Department and other parts of Government are responsible. One of the difficulties is that there is now a multiplicity of initiatives and schemes either happening, going to happen or in the planning stage. Some of them affect the domestic agenda, some of them are specifically focused on electricity emissions and some are discussing heat and so on, but what seems to be lacking is somewhere where you can pull together across Government all the different things that are going on which are designed in sum total to help reduce the United Kingdom's emissions complicit with the Government's targets, the Kyoto obligations, and ultimately what comes out of the Climate Change Bill. Do you think there is a chance of being able to pull these together because I think one of the things that we struggle with is to know just how we are doing on the track towards the end target. Certainly a lot of the things that we did in our Climate Change: The Citizen's Agenda focused, if you like, on a domestic agenda. We know that emissions have been going up in that area but we are not clear in sum total how all this lot is progressing, what are the targets, what is the track in them, how does it add up and where does it fit in with the big picture. Is there any way you can try and draw it together—I do not expect you to do it now—to enable us to get a better, tighter, more objective overview of what is going on and how we are doing?

  Hilary Benn: I think that is absolutely the question. There are lots of schemes and initiatives because there is a lot going on. The first thing is how do we make it, in particular in relation to the domestic household sector, easy for people to access the range of support that is available. Therefore, it seemed to me, and I hope the Committee will agree, right and sensible to put resource and support into the Energy Saving Trust in the form of the Green Homes Service and what is going to be available as they gradually expand what they can offer from April onwards. The truth is that it is only the most committed and hardy from the research that we have done and looking at the population and how they regard all of these matters. I remember from looking at the chart, and there was a very good document that has been published, at one end you have got the positive greens, people who get this and will do it, and then in that wonderful jargon at the other end is what are described as the "honestly disengaged", which I think roughly means "don't know, don't care" and then there are lots of people in-between. I think the way forward has to be, if you like, to have some kind of brokering support service that will say, "These are your needs", and either point you in the direction of places where you can get support or in the end do things for people that make it easy. That is why I made the point about the next stage being in truth how do we generate a market in retrofitting the existing housing stock, because that, it seems to me, is where we have got to get to so that someone comes and says, "This is a range of work that would bring your bills down. We will do it and put the investment upfront and this is the way in which you can pay back, either through your energy bills or through an addition to your mortgage, a green mortgage", because obviously the time when people are moving house is a time with Energy Performance Certificates when people might be prepared to do that. That is the first point. The second point is measuring how we are doing. Every year the figures are published and we had the CO₂ figures for the UK in 2006 two or three weeks ago. Since we are talking about the domestic sector, the CO₂ emissions were down slightly but it was a warmish winter. We have got the figures being published every year that enable us to see how the different sectors of the economy are doing and, you are right, we are now moving to a stage where we will count, and the Committee on Climate Change as it draws up the budgets and then will report annually on how we are doing. This will become the most important vehicle that will answer the question you have put: how do we know how we are doing. And, within that, depending on how they frame the budgets and what they say about the expectation that they have about the contribution that different sectors of the economy are going to make including the domestic sector, that will enable the different bits of the economy to see whether they are playing their part in contributing to the total.

  Q6  Paddy Tipping: I think that is right, having an open door policy, getting people in and giving advice, but we have got to be clear what the policy objectives are. I just wonder whether there is some confusion in Government around energy efficiency and carbon savings and our aim to reduce fuel poverty. One is an environmental aim and the other is a social aim. The two overlap but they are not necessarily compatible. I just wonder what discussions you have had with colleagues in the Department for Work and Pensions around these issues.

  Hilary Benn: As you know, we have put a very considerable amount of money, above all talking about fuel poverty, into the Winter Fuel Payment, from memory some £20 billion, and this is a very, very significant investment, secondly the money we put into the Warm Front programme and, thirdly, EEC, and what will become CERT, with the particular obligations that the energy suppliers have got. The rising price of domestic fuel currently, looking at the gas and electricity increases, should be an encouragement, to use it in a particular sense, to all of us to be looking at the benefit that will accrue to us over time if we are able to put the investment in upfront; hence my point about making it easy for that to happen, easy payment terms, because not everyone will have the capital to put the investment in in the first place. In the end it is about CO₂ reductions and in the course of that energy efficiency can certainly help, but the overall target is very clear, it is what is set out in the Climate Change Bill, the 26-32 per cent reduction by 2020 and the at least 60 per cent by 2050, but it is probably going to be more, and you may have seen what the Prime Minister said in answering a question today.

  Q7  Chairman: Do you know what the current figure is for domestic emissions in tonnes of carbon dioxide?

  Hilary Benn: Yes. For residential, the 2006 figure, million tonnes carbon dioxide equivalent, is 79.7 which was down from 83.1 in 2005 and 86.9 in 2004 and then it was 86 and in 1995 it was lower. Actually, in 1990 it was about the same as it was in 2006. That is the run of figures that was published when the overall greenhouse gas stats came out, as I say, two or three weeks ago.

  Q8  Paddy Tipping: There is no sense in putting targets around reducing fuel poverty and that is because, as you say, fuel prices are going up and that is going the wrong way. You mentioned the Warm Front budget, can you just spell out how the budget looks into the future?

  Hilary Benn: Yes. Over the next three years it is going to be just over £800 million. It compares with, over the previous three years, from memory, £870m or so. However, we have doubled the obligation under CERT and there are priority groups within that and if you add the two together then the total amount that will go into those priority groups over the next three years will be £2.3 billion which is £680 million more than the previous three years. My point is you need to look in the round at the support and then, of course, in addition to that is the money that has been going in for some years in the form of the Winter Fuel Payment which, of course, did not exist more than a decade ago.

  Q9  Paddy Tipping: The fuel poverty target?

  Hilary Benn: The honest truth is, having made significant progress in going in the right direction, in the latest figures that came out I think we got down to around 2.2 million up to 1.6 and there is no doubt in view of the current rise in energy prices the figure is going to go back up again because when you have got increases in prices of the magnitude that we have seen for coal and gas that feeds its way through into domestic prices.

  Q10  Miss McIntosh: You mentioned the Green Homes Service, is this going to be a reactive or a proactive service? What is your intention?

  Hilary Benn: The first thing will be one phone number that people can ring for advice on energy, energy efficiency, micro-gen, water, waste and transport, so it is taking an overall view. Then one-stop shops will start opening up around the country on a regional basis and one of the things they want to do is try and link people, going back to my earlier point, to support that is available through the CERT. You have got the energy companies who are looking for customers to take the offers that they are making in order to meet the CERT obligation and you have got the EST through the Green Homes Service which will be in a better position to link people up. Subject to consultation which is currently going on, the idea is that the Green Homes Service will be able to contact homes that have an Energy Performance Certificate in the F and G category. There are some data sharing issues there, which is what the consultation is about. That is a really sensible thing to do because bringing in the Energy Performance Certificate gives us the information that we did not have before about the energy efficiency of domestic properties and that is a sensible place to start. Then they will also be piloting, but it is going to take time for that to come out, the capacity to visit people at home. That is the kind of plan for improving the advice and making it easier for people.

  Q11  Miss McIntosh: The £100 million budget, is that an annual budget or is that for the whole three years?

  Hilary Benn: I think that is over the three years but I would need to double-check.

  Miss McIntosh: Mr Chambers is nodding. So actually it is only £33 million a year.

  Chairman: Is it new money?

  Q12  Miss McIntosh: You are launching it as a new service, is it new additional money or money that is already in the budget?

  Hilary Benn: No. The Energy Saving Trust will be getting additional funding to support them to do this and it is nothing to do with the Warm Front.

  Q13  Lynne Jones: It is additional?

  Hilary Benn: The Warm Front budget is as I described in answering a previous question.

  Q14  Miss McIntosh: The "green homes health check", is that going to be available to everybody and is there going to be a charge for it?

  Hilary Benn: That is something that they are thinking about. You have got a model at the moment in the Green Concierge Service which is available in London where people, I think, pay 200 quid and somebody comes and gives them advice. That is something which we will need to think about and that is why the Energy Saving Trust is rolling this out in stages, but the very clear aim is to enable more people to get advice compared with what has been the case in the past.

  Q15  Miss McIntosh: So there is going to be £33 million a year but people are going to be charged for the service.

  Hilary Benn: No, for the things that I have described, the one phone number, the one-stop shops, not. The point I am making is as we look to the future I am simply saying I think there is an issue to be debated about when and in what circumstances it might be appropriate to ask people to make a contribution and when it would not be. A policy decision has not been taken, but since you ask the question I think it is a perfectly fair question to put.

  Q16  Miss McIntosh: As this is an inquiry on climate change, what impact do you think building Ecotowns on functional floodplains is going to have on reducing flooding and improving energy efficiency of houses?

  Hilary Benn: No Ecotowns, of course, have been built yet but a number of areas have bid. In relation to floodplains, as you will know, PPS25 is very clear. We have toughened the guidance not once but twice, and PPS25 is the second and stronger phase of that. We have given the Environment Agency, who are the experts, the statutory right to be consulted. There is a very clear responsibility on local authorities in taking decisions to make sure they have regard to that and ministers have the right, of course, to call in applications if they do not think that is being properly followed. The issue with floodplains, and we meet in a floodplain today, is can you adequately protect—

  Q17  Chairman: We are on the first floor!

  Hilary Benn: Yes, we are lucky in that sense, but about two million homes in the country are already in floodplains and the issue is do with those who are making the applications and do the planning authorities who are taking the decisions about whether to give planning permission or not fully consider the flood risk. PPS25 tells them that they must do so. The question is can you adequately protect or not.

  Q18  Miss McIntosh: So if I was to mention that one of them in the Vale of York is going to be built, and I am visiting it on Friday, on the only part that is actually retaining the excess water at the moment and the Environment Agency advice was to rule against, you would have no hesitation in advising that such an Ecotown should be placed somewhere else?

  Hilary Benn: Firstly, I do not take planning decisions in relation to Ecotowns.

  Q19  Miss McIntosh: No, but you are the Minister responsible for climate change.

  Hilary Benn: Absolutely. Therefore, what I would say to you is, and no decisions have been taken about where the Ecotowns are going to be yet so it is a hypothetical question, with respect, the framework within which a decision would have to be taken in relation to an Ecotown or any other planning development is very, very clear, it is PPS25 and it sets out the obligations on the local authorities. It is a matter for the local planning authority having regard to the advice of the Environment Agency to take a decision in the light of that, it is their job to do that, but we have changed the rules precisely so the Environment Agency has a very clear role and my colleagues in CLG retain the right to call something in if they have concerns and that is the way the system works, as you know.

  Sir Peter Soulsby: You have spoken about the challenge of providing incentives to people to retrofit homes and do what is obviously in their interests but helps towards meeting challenging targets and in the context of the Green Homes Initiative you have talked about financial support packages. I know this is ultimately something for the Chancellor rather than for you, but just take an example of the way in which differential duty was used to help introduce lead-free petrol, do you think there is scope for similar imaginative uses of taxation, VAT or Council Tax to promote incentives for householders?

  The Committee suspended from 4.28pm until 4.52pm for divisions in the House.