FISCAL INCENTIVES FOR DOMESTIC ENERGY EFFICIENCY AND BUDGET 2006

Early day motion 1419, tabled 18 January 2006 by Mark Lazarowicz (Labour). Signed by 51 members.

That this House notes that HM Treasury has carried out three consultations in the past three years on how economic and fiscal instruments can be used to improve domestic energy efficiency; strongly agrees with the Chancellor in his Budget Reports 2002, 2003 and 2004 which described in paragraph 7.21 in 2002 and 2003 and paragraph 7.20 in 2004 energy efficiency improvements in the domestic sector as `key' to reducing fuel poverty and carbon emissions; strongly agrees also with the Budget Report 2005 that `improving energy efficiency is the most cost-effective way of reducing greenhouse gas emissions' (paragraph 7.26) and that households have `an important' role to play in achieving this; and is therefore concerned at the few fiscal incentives that have been introduced so far and that measures such as stamp duty and council tax rebates, which were very widely supported in the consultations and that have been advocated by the Energy Saving Trust, the Government's official advisers and supported by 47 out of 52 local energy efficiency advice centres which have specialist knowledge of which measures would be effective, have not yet been implemented by the Treasury; and so calls for a full package of measures to be included in Budget 2006.

Signatures by party: Labour 34, Liberal Democrat 10, Conservative 3, Social Democratic and Labour Party 2, DUP 1, Scottish National Party 1.