Success!
15th May
Alan Whitehead, MP for Southampton Test, is celebrating today as the Climate Change & Sustainable Energy Bill achieves House of Commons acceptance.
The Bill which has had to continually ward off the juvenile tactics of two maverick Tory MPs was successful today in its final stages in the House of Commons and now passes to the House of Lords. This has been hailed as a notable achievement across all the parties and by many interest groups.
The Bill had been adjourned at Third Reading as the Rt Hon Eric Forth had continued to talk thus preventing the Bill from passing to the Lords. Dr Whitehead's own Private Members Bill (PMB) 'Management of Energy in Buildings' was derailed earlier in this parliamentary session by similar tactics - during the Second Reading of Dr Whitehead's PMB Mr Forth talked his Bill out which effectively meant there was not sufficient parliamentary time to pursue it further.
However, at the Committee stage of the Climate Change and Sustainable Energy Bill, Dr Whitehead successfully achieved the incorporation of all the key clauses from his own PMB including:
- the better compliance of building regulations in energy efficiency
- the removal of planning permission for micro-generation in homes
- and new regulations to ensure a minimum energy standard in new homes including micro-generation
Dr Whitehead is therefore ecstatic that this important piece of legislation has a very real chance to achieve Royal Assent. He now waits with bated breath as the Bill passes through the Lords and hopes that it will not be subjected to similar tactics or fall prey to the same methods of obstruction that these two Conservative MPs practiced.
Alan Whitehead said:
'The threat posed by climate change is now taken very seriously and most people are committed to ensuring that we do all we can to prevent it. This Bill aims to alleviate climate change and reduce greenhouse gas emissions through the increased use of sustainable energy sources, which will in turn counter the increasing costs of energy. One example, incorporated from my Bill, is the use of microgenerators which present a real and viable change that we can all make within our own homes.
'It is vital that this Bill becomes law for all of the reasons outlined above and many more - I am so pleased that it is so close to this becoming a reality.'