§ Mr. GummerTo ask the Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions what plans he has to phase out stand-by systems on electrical goods. [119288]
§ Mr. MeacherThe approach which the Government have followed, with other EU countries, is not to prevent the inclusion of stand-by systems in such products. In future, more equipment will communicate automatically with other equipment, users and service providers, and this will involve stand-by systems. Therefore, our approach is to ensure that these features incorporate good energy efficiency technology and do not encourage waste. We have been supporting EU initiatives in this field, which recently led to an agreement with manufacturers to reduce stand-by power consumption of new televisions and video cassette recorders. Further initiatives are in hand to reduce stand-by energy consumption in the fast growing areas of "set-up boxes" and power supply packs.