Not a single Lib Dem Lord voted for fuel poverty amendment to Energy Bill

Liberal Democrat peers opposed a move to make fuel poverty a factor for the government to consider when in makes energy policy.

Today Nick Clegg has made an impassioned speech in defence of the green agenda and the role of the Liberal Democrats in holding the Tories to account over their pledge to lead the ‘greenest government ever’.

What Clegg probably won’t have mentioned, however, is the fact that many Lib Dem MPs refused to support the 2030 Carbon Target amendment contained in the Energy Bill – despite the fact that it was supposedly their own party’s policy.

There is another amendment that the Liberal Democrat members of the Lords have now also found themselves unwilling to support: one that seeks to make fuel poverty a consideration of government energy policy.

In a vote in the Lords yesterday evening, 68 Liberal Democrat peers opposed a move to make fuel poverty a factor for the government to consider when in makes energy policy – with not a single voting in favour – following an amendment by Labour Peer Lord Whitty.

The vote comes on the back of warnings by the End Fuel Poverty Coalition that current UK government plans for energy efficiency are “woefully inadequate” in dealing with the problem of fuel poverty.

Here’s how the vote went:

Energy bill fuel poverty amendment

http://www.parliament.uk/business/publications/business-papers/lords/lords-divisions/

No wonder Clegg appears to have cooled in his enthusiasm for a wholly elected second chamber.

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