Cost Effective Energy Measures Bill

GBE > Blog > News > G#75

As you will have seen from earlier information we have circulated, the AECB is working with a range of other organisations, including the Sustainable Energy Association (SEA) and the Association for the Conservation of Energy (ACE), to support this potential Bill.

It is a very important initiative which could potentially make a significant difference to what the Government does during its term to address energy efficiency in particular.

On Wednesday evening AECB Trustees along with representatives of the other partner organisations lobbied MPs at Portcullis House.

The aim was to try to take this forward as a Private Members Bill.

The potential Bill received cross party support from a range of speakers from all main parties, including Lord Deben (Conservative, Chair, Committee on Climate Change), Jonathan Reynolds (Labour, Shadow Minister for Energy and Climate Change) and Caroline Lucas (Green MP).

Please click here to download a copy of the draft Cost Effective Energy Measures Bill together with paper outlining why this Bill is needed.

Also included for information is a briefing document from the AECB.

The following MPs have been successful in the ballot to take forward a Private Members Bill.

We now need to encourage these MPs to take up the Cost Effective Energy Measures Bill as their preferred option.

The most effective way of achieving this is for their constituents to lobby them about it.

So, we are asking any AECB members who are constituents of any of these MPs to lobby them to take up this Bill.

The more constituents who do the more chance there is of them adopting this Bill.

If you need help or support to do this, please contact gill@aecb.net.

MPs normally pick two or three possible issues/Bills and then see what response/pressure they have from their constituents before deciding what to take forward.

So we strongly encourage AECB members who have these MPs as their constituency MP to lobby their MP hard. Please emphasise to your MP that they will have excellent professional support from the supporting organisations in taking it forward.

This is also part of the mix that will encourage MPs to go for a particular issue.

If adopted, we would also be grateful if all AECB members could please lobby their constituency Member of Parliament to support the Cost Effective Energy measures Bill as it is taken forward through Parliament.

However we will keep you updated about this so you will know when is the right time to talk to your MP.

Successful Ballot MPs

1. Rob Marris – MP for Wolverhamptom South West (Twitter: @wsw_labour)

2. Chris Heaton-Harris – MP for Daventry (Twitter: @chcalling)

3. Sir Gerald Howarth – MP for Aldershot (Twitter: @geraldhowarth)

4. Julie Cooper – MP for Burnley (Twitter: @JulieforBurnley)

5. Wendy Morton – MP for Aldridge-Brownhills (Twitter: @morton_wendy)

6. Teresa Pearce – MP for Erith and Thamesmead (Twitter: @tpearce003)

7. Mike Wood – former MP for Batley and Spen (Twitter: mikejwood)

We outline below some suggested points to include in the letter/email to your MP.

The Bill will save the UK money and help reduce the deficit for the reasons explained below.
The Bill requires the Secretary of State to draw up a new Energy White Paper containing a strategy to promote and accelerate the take up of cost effective energy measures.
The Bill proposes that though method used by the Treasury in the ‘Green Book’ when assessing the cost of policies is used to assess what measures are cost effective.
Work done by the Sustainable Energy Association and AECB, using Government figures and Treasury methodology, shows that a strategy that used buildings to save and generate energy would save the country around £12bn per annum
Cambridge Econometrics (who do the Government’s modelling work) shows that ….. then pick out a couple of points from the relevant part of the attached ‘why the Bill is needed ‘ document to include here.
Then pick out another bullet point from the ‘why it is needed document’ that emphasises your particular interest to include in the actual email.

Finally, offer to go and discuss the Bill in more detail with your MP and try to keep the email as short and to the point as possible.

Details of the MPs Twitter handles have also been included. It would be great if you could tweet the MPs an example of a tweet is here:

Congrats re ballot. Pls adopt Cost Effective Energy Measures Bill.

Saving/producing more energy in bldgs will save UK £12bn pa

Please remember that, if you are using an MPs Twitter handle at the beginning of a tweet, you MUST preface it with a full stop. Otherwise it will only be the MP who will see the tweet, rather than your whole network of followers.

Kind regards

Andy Simmonds

AECB Chief Executive