HL Deb 17 April 1986 vol 473 cc756-9

3.19 p.m.

Lord Stallard

My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question standing in my name on the Order Paper.

The Question was as follows:

To ask Her Majesty's Government how much was spent by the DHSS on assistance with fuel bills in 1985; the number of houses they estimate could be brought up to the current thermal standards by an equivalent expenditure; what savings would result from such expenditure and whether there is adequate co-ordination between departments to ensure cost-effective public expenditure in this area.

Baroness Hooper

My Lords, the cost of supplementary benefit weekly heating additions was approximately £400 million in 1984–85. This includes expenditure on age and health-related heating additions which could not reasonably be redirected to a combination of thermal insulation measures.

The cost of relevant thermal insulation measures varies widely according to the size, type and state of repair of the dwelling, but for a medium size home in good repair it could cost between £500 and £3,000. Such a programme would be unlikely to bring significant public expenditure saving. I am satisfied that there is adequate co-ordination between the various departments concerned with home insulation measures.

Lord Stallard

My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Baroness for that reply. She will accept that my arithmetic is not as good as it used to be. I am not able to work out immediately how many homes at £500 each that enormous figure of £400 million could insulate, but it is quite a tidy number. That seems to confirm my view and that of many others that we are spending far too little on conservation and insulation and wasting scarce resources in the way that we did last winter and the winter before.

Does the noble Baroness agree that what we need is a co-ordinated approach among the three departments, the Department of the Environment, the Department of Health and Social Security and the Department of Energy, to get the most cost-effective programme of conservation and insulation, as well as financial assistance for those in need; and that we ought to start that planned and co-ordinated programme now and not wait until the middle of next winter?

Baroness Hooper

My Lords, I agree with the noble Lord. Indeed, in Energy Efficiency Year this is something that the Government are concentrating upon. We have started an energy efficiency campaign which has been promoted on television. Leaflets have been distributed, and they provide advice for all households on how to improve the energy efficiency of their homes. In addition, government funded voluntary sector insulation projects are expected to double in number from 200 to 400 during 1986.

Lord Kilmarnock

My Lords, after the recent cold spell in February, can the noble Baroness tell the House whether the Government are to review their arrangements for special emergency payments in such situations? I have read the guidelines. They are extremely confusing and give rise to random results. Will the Government take that to heart and look at their guidelines?

Baroness Hooper

My Lords, during that period the Government looked, and certainly in future crises of this sort will look, at every way possible to make the system more efficient.

Baroness Masham of Ilton

My Lords, may I ask the noble Baroness what role the voluntary organisations can and do play in helping to co-ordinate the Government's policy over these matters?

Baroness Hooper

My Lords, the voluntary sector insulation projects which I mentioned earlier are a good example of different government departments working together to improve the thermal efficiency of low income households. There is the Community Programme and the Manpower Services Commission funded programme in regard to financing the labour; start-up costs are financed by the Energy Efficiency Office, while materials are financed by the DHSS for draught-proofing and the Department of the Environment for loft insulation. I believe that this is a good example of co-operation among government departments supported by the voluntary sector.

Lord Winstanley

My Lords, is the noble Baroness aware that many general practitioners have been gravely concerned about the risk of hypothermia for elderly people during the recent unexpectedly cold spell, particularly bearing in mind high fuel costs and the tendency of elderly people to turn down their heating appliances to dangerous levels? May I ask the noble Baroness whether she is aware of the new scheme pioneered by the Electricity Council, whereby a single room is insulated and heated? This is being explored and pioneered as a pilot scheme in certain electricity board areas and many of us would like to see that scheme extended to other areas.

Baroness Hooper

My Lords, while I think that this point is slightly outside the terms of the original Question, I am most grateful to the noble Lord for drawing the attention of the House to the scheme, which I feel will be more generally supported in future.

Lord Stoddart of Swindon

My Lords, is the noble Baroness aware that if she were to give serious consideration to the suggestion of my noble friend it offers the possibility of employing on insulation schemes many tens of thousands of unemployed people? That is relevant after the publication of the worst figures for four and a half years which were made available yesterday. Will she reconsider this, particularly bearing in mind that for every person put hack into employment the Government would save about £6,000 a year on unemployment benefit?

Baroness Hooper

My Lords, I am not sure that I completely understood the relevance of the noble Lord's supplementary question, but voluntary sector insulation projects which are being supported by Government funding, and, in particular, the wages of labour under the Manpower Services Commission scheme, are helping, in addition, with the unemployment problem.

Lord Barnett

My Lords, can the noble Baroness tell us whether what she was saying about cost-effectiveness of public expenditure means that there has to be a net saving from this expenditure, despite the fact that it could bring enormous benefits in regard to hypothermia, the subject which the noble Lord, Lord Winstanley, raised?

Baroness Hooper

My Lords, current building regulations are set by the Department of the Environment and they specify a thermal standard for lofts and walls, as well as a limitation on the area of external windows. While it is relatively easy to bring dwellings with loft spaces up to this standard, it is more difficult to bring walls, especially solid walls, and windows up to the standard set for new houses. This is why I spoke of thermal insulation measures in a package, as it were, to give an indication of what might be achieved on an average property.

Baroness Ewart-Biggs

My Lords, the noble Baroness mentioned the single payments which were used to cover the cost of materials used by voluntary organisations, such as Neighbourhood Energy Action. Will she confirm that those single payments, or a substitute for them, will continue? Otherwise, the voluntary organisations will find it difficult to pay for those materials.

Baroness Hooper

My Lords, yes. We appreciate the value of draught proofing and the work done in this way by the local voluntary projects. I think I can do best by quoting comments made by my honourable friend the Minister of State during a television programme recently. He said: I would not be prepared to see the loss of these single payments without being satisfied that we had devised alternative arrangements to make sure that these schemes could go on".

Forward to