Health and Safety and Nuclear (Fees) Regulations 2022
(1 year, 9 months ago)
General CommitteesRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Mims Davies)
I beg to move,
That the Committee has considered the Health and Safety and Nuclear (Fees) Regulations 2022 (S.I. 2022, No. 1378).
It is a real pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Hollobone. The regulations were laid before Parliament on 20 December 2022 and came into force on 21 December 2022.
The regulations correct an error in the powers used to make the Health and Safety and Nuclear (Fees) Regulations 2021. The error was an unfortunate oversight, whereby pressures on the Government Legal Department, or GLD, due to the volume of covid, Brexit and trade agreement work resulted in a referencing error not being picked up in the checks. The HSE and the GLD regret the error and are taking suitable steps to reduce the risk of this happening again. The error was identified by the GLD in a recent review.
The urgency to make the regulations arose from the need to use the powers in the European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018 before they expired on 31 December 2022, thereby avoiding the requirement for primary legislation. This instrument has had to be made by the affirmative procedure and debated in both Houses, because that is what the 2018 Act specifies.
I hope the hon. Member for Bradford East will agree that the instrument in non-contentious—[Interruption.] We will find out. It repeats the previous regulations, with some minor technical changes. The preamble to the Health and Safety and Nuclear (Fees) Regulations 2021 did not cite one of the enabling powers, and was not made with the consent of the Treasury, for certain fees for chemical regulation functions transferred from the EU. Vitally, the correction ensures that the HSE can continue to recover its costs for those functions.
The preamble in the 2021 regulations refers to paragraph 7 of schedule 4 to the 2018 Act, but it should have also referenced paragraph 1 of schedule 4, to give the powers for the provisions that allow charging for certain regulatory activity around biocides and classification labelling and packaging, or CLP. In addition, the same error was repeated in later regulations, which contained a series of amendments to the mirrored powers in the 2021 regulations. This instrument simply corrects that error.
Biocides and the CLP provisions—the classification, labelling and packaging provisions—in the fees regulations of 2022 rely on paragraph 1 of schedule 4, so consent from Her Majesty’s Treasury is required, as referenced in paragraph 3 of that schedule. I can assure my fellow Members of Parliament that consent for this has indeed been given and that a rigorous checking process is now in place, which would normally ensure that errors are identified before instruments are laid. I am keen to rectify the error and do not want to detain the Committee.
I re-emphasise that the instrument is a restatement of the fees regulations of 2021—with the correct powers cited in the preamble—for which Her Majesty’s Treasury’s consent has now been obtained. These changes put beyond doubt the ability for HSE to charge fees for certain biocides and CLP regulatory activity. I stress to the Committee that the instrument makes no changes to policy or duties.
Debbie Abrahams (Oldham East and Saddleworth) (Lab)
Apologies for being slightly late, Mr Hollobone. I just want to ask the Minister whether the fundraising that the Health and Safety Executive is undertaking is because of reductions in the budget.
Mims Davies
I do not believe that to be the case. There has always been a cost-recovery scheme, which is the reason that the HSE is so eminent in the field and able to work globally to share its ability to lead. I am happy to write directly to the hon. Lady, because that might be helpful, and I can also put a copy of the letter in the Library to be helpful.
I must say, it is not Her Majesty’s Treasury—I apologise to the Committee. The Vice-Chamberlain of His Majesty’s Household, my hon. Friend the Member for Bury St Edmunds, who is sitting next to me, pointed that out. I am sure my team will be rewriting any future speeches accordingly, and I will be checking them even more thoroughly.
The instrument makes no changes to policy or duties although, as explained in the explanatory memorandum, it corrects some minor technical errors. I hope that my colleagues in all parties join me in supporting the new regulations, which I commend to the Committee.
Imran Hussain (Bradford East) (Lab)
It is always a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Hollobone. I will try to keep my remarks brief, as I am sure hon. Members across the Committee want to get to an important debate in the main Chamber, in particular to stand up for the rights and protections of our hard-working frontline staff.
We of course support the regulations. As set out by the Minister, they amend the errors in the 2021 regulations that were identified by the Department for Work and Pensions. They will ensure that the Health and Safety Executive and the Office for Nuclear Regulation can go about their work of maintaining strong health and safety standards.
Nevertheless, while we will not oppose the regulations, we have concerns about why the Minister has had to make them again. We want to know not only how and why the errors that necessitated the Government revoking and replacing the 2021 regulations were made in the first place, but how and why they were not picked up in the drafting process. I appreciate the Minister’s explanation today—it was an unfortunate oversight—but these are important regulations, and the House and the country rely on Ministers scrutinising legislation properly before it is laid, in particular with checks in the drafting process. We therefore have real concerns that both primary and secondary legislation brought before the House has not been looked at properly by Ministers who seek to put it on the statute book, including in other areas. The regulations prompt that question.
Given that the Government are forcing through the Retained EU Law (Revocation and Reform) Bill—itself a product of the UK’s departure from the EU, as the regulations are—we are naturally worried that they have not done proper due diligence on that legislation either. All retained EU law will be scrubbed from the statute book by the end of 2023, unless the Government move to reinstate or replace it. That includes not only important employment rights and protections, but health and safety protections, too. If the Government are missing important wording in the regulations, what else are they missing in that incredibly complex Bill?
We also know that the regulations, which allow the Health and Safety Executive to continue to charge fees for the costs incurred during its work, will not negate the damage that the Government have inflicted on it. During their time in office, the Government have slashed funding to the HSE by almost half and have presided over the loss of a third of inspectors. It all goes back to the very pertinent question asked by my hon. Friend the Member for Oldham East and Saddleworth. The reality remains that over the past decade, the number of health and safety inspectors has gone down from just under 1,500 to below 1,000. Clearly, therefore, the HSE’s ability to do its job to keep people safe has been dramatically reduced.
I will be grateful if the Minister could inform us whether the Government will review all legislation passed in the same period as the 2021 regulations to ensure that similar errors do not exist. What are the Government doing to ensure confidence in the accuracy of their legislation, even if we do not necessarily agree with its intentions? What are they doing to ensure that no health and safety protections are lost during the passage of the retained EU law Bill?
Jon Trickett (Hemsworth) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Hollobone.
The Minister would like us to focus purely on the mistake that was made, although I guess she does not want to have made a mistake in the first place, but I think we are entitled to ask whether, in bringing the legislation home to the UK, the HSE is tooled up properly to deal with nuclear industry issues. I will therefore make a couple of points to test whether the HSE is capable of handling the work that has now been brought solely within the UK.
I tried to find the number of accidents that have taken place in the nuclear industry in the past few years. It is difficult to find the information, but there was a major incident at Sellafield in, I think, November of 2019, when a lot of radioactive liquor went into the ground from the Magnox swarf storage silo—to get the correct wording. The terrain remains polluted, but we are told that the remediation works will not take place until after the facility is totally decommissioned.
Four out of five current reactors are due to be decommissioned by 2028. Will the HSE, now that this has been brought under UK legislation, be supervising carefully that decommissioning process—
The Chair
Order. I am listening closely to the hon. Gentleman’s interesting speech, and I want him to remain in order. To do so, I think he needs to have more references to the fees that we are debating today.
Jon Trickett
Thank you for that advice, Mr Hollobone. That is precisely the point that I was about to arrive at. The industry is meant to be charged to recover costs incurred by the HSE, but—my hon. Friend the Member for Oldham East and Saddleworth made this point—there have been huge cuts in the budgetary provision to the HSE by the taxpayer in recent years: £100 million less.
Not all that goes to nuclear, and the Chair wants me to keep to the subject of the legislation, but will the Minister tell the Committee whether the fees charged to the industry will cover all the costs of decommissioning—the point I have just made—and of other accidents? Outside the nuclear accidents I have just described, will the Minister also tell us how many other accidents at workplaces happened? Is all that expenditure recovered in fees and charges, as discussed?
Instead of 1,500 inspectors across the whole HSE, there are now fewer than 500 main grade inspectors. With the fees and charges that the HSE collects from industry, will it be able to staff the nuclear industry properly? What does the Minister imagine the fees and charges will amount to? Will that aggregate on top of the £136 million budgeted now?
Finally, as well as the costs of decommissioning—presumably charged to the industry through fees and charges by the HSE—what will be the situation in relation to the construction of all the nuclear facilities being envisaged by the Government? I worked as a manual worker for many years in the construction industry, which is very dangerous. Thousands of days a year are lost because of accidents in the construction industry. While we are constructing the new nuclear facilities, will the HSE be able to charge fees, and levy other charges, to the industry for the construction period? How will that be managed?
Finally, the HSE looks, to me, as though it is drastically understaffed. Nuclear is one of the most dangerous industries in the country, and we are proposing to build more facilities, as well as to decommission some. Can the Minister convince us that, by bringing all this legislation home into the UK, the fees that will be charged to the industry will cover all the aspects of work which I have just described?
Mims Davies
I thank hon. Members for their comments. I will come on to the points made by the hon. Member for Hemsworth after I cover some of the questions from the hon. Member for Bradford East.
As for why the new statutory instrument is required, the 2022 fees regulations correct an error in the powers used to make the fees regulations in 2021. Indeed, that error needed to be corrected urgently, before the European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018 power expired on 31 December 2022.
To explain why the error occurred, it simply was an unfortunate oversight due to the pressures and volume of work, and it was not picked up as a result. I reassure the hon. Gentleman that the lessons are being learned, which I am sure that he was asking me about.
On what is being done more widely, to ensure that such errors do not happen again, the HSE and the GLD have completed a full review of the lessons learned. The Committee will perhaps be pleased to know that that has identified some practical actions that can be taken for better ways of working between the GLD and HSE policy officials. I have had the honour of being the HSE Minister twice, and I can say that it is a very complicated area, and I have always looked to my officials and the experts in regard to this, so it is important that we strengthen that relationship.
On the sufficiency of resourcing, we know that that was a particularly acute area of demand and—I have done quite a few Committees myself—it is a rarity that we have to have a Committee for an exceptional case like this. I welcome the new Members, the hon. Member for City of Chester and the hon. Member for Stretford and Urmston to our Committee; this is not an often-undertaken issue.
The GLD will also undertake rigorous prioritisation of its work to mitigate that increased demand. Hopefully, that should reassure the Committee. We are ensuring that we understand the impact of the error.
The hon. Member for Oldham East and Saddleworth asked about the impact on one particular area. About £25,000 was charged across the industry under the powers related to the error. However, HSE judged that there is a low chance of any case being brought, due to the amount of money involved. That is why we are rectifying it extremely quickly. HSE will continue to manage any legal implications on a case-by-case basis.
Debbie Abrahams
I am grateful to the Minister for that response. Members here will be aware of yesterday’s report from Western Australia about Rio Tinto losing a radioactive capsule. Does the Minister have confidence, given these drafting errors about something that is quite important and relates to a key industry, that that sort of thing could not happen in the UK?
Mims Davies
I undertake to learn from the lessons that the hon. Lady pointed to. I have a lot of work to scrutinise in this area. The hon. Member for Bradford East laid down the gauntlet to ensure that we get things right, and that has been squarely held and heard in this Committee.
The charges range from £500 to £5,000 per company involved. It is important for us to reiterate that the HSE as a whole operates a cost-recovery funding model, which we are building on. That financial model is an integral part of keeping the HSE sustainable. Being unable to recoup costs is a challenge for its regulatory work around biocides and other matters, which is why we are fixing this.
It is important that we ensure an effective regime. Members are right to challenge that today. We have an incredibly good and clear strategy for the next 10 years to address any risks related to charging work in a changing world. Just before the Committee, I was discussing this matter and wider matters with HSE leadership.
The hon. Member for Hemsworth made points around the Office for Nuclear Regulation. To be clear to the Committee, that is a totally separate public corporation and it is outside the remit of HSE. It is not HSE’s responsibility and it sits with another Minister, but I will ensure that those points that are on the record are responded to, as they have been made in the Committee.
Jon Trickett
In her written response, could the Minister indicate what the costs were in relation to the incident at Sellafield? How much of those costs were recovered, possibly including anticipated costs because it is not yet finished?
Mims Davies
I thank the hon. Gentleman for clarifying his concern. I simply cannot say any more to the Committee at this point, but I will undertake, through officials, to pick up the questions that he has asked.
To conclude, the instrument corrects various drafting errors, for which we are sorry. The HSE will ensure that it can continue to cover its costs for regulatory work around biocides and CLP.
Question put and agreed to.
Energy Bill Relief Scheme (Non-Standard Cases) Regulations 2023
Energy Bills Support Scheme and Alternative Fuel Payment Pass-through Requirement (Northern Ireland) Regulations 2023
(1 year, 9 months ago)
General CommitteesRead Full debate Read Hansard Text
The Minister for Energy and Climate (Graham Stuart)
I beg to move,
That the Committee has considered the Energy Bill Relief Scheme (Non-Standard Cases) Regulations 2023 (S.I. 2023, No. 10).
The Chair
With this it will be convenient to discuss the Energy Bills Support Scheme and Alternative Fuel Payment Pass-through Requirement (Northern Ireland) Regulations 2023 (S.I. 2023, No. 10).
At the end of the debate, I will put the question on the first motion, and then ask the Minister to move the remaining motion formally.
Graham Stuart
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Robertson. I thank all members of the Committee for attending this afternoon to debate the regulations that were laid before the House on 11 January 2023
Throughout this winter the Government have delivered critical support to households, businesses and other non-domestic consumers in response to the unprecedented rise in energy prices. We introduced emergency legislation on energy support, which has enabled the support package to be delivered rapidly across the entire UK. The EBRS regulations require licensed suppliers to discount their prices for the supply of electricity and gas to non-domestic customers. Licensed suppliers provide the vast majority of the electricity and gas supplied to non-domestic customers, but some UK businesses do not receive their energy in that way.
The Energy Prices Act 2022 allows us to provide financial assistance for energy costs using non-legislative schemes, and on 9 January 2023 the EBRS non-standard customer scheme opened for applications. The non-standard cases scheme is a grant scheme that allows payments to be made to the non-domestic customers who received an unlicensed supply of electricity or gas through the public electricity or gas grid over the period 1 October 2022 to 31 March 2023. The regulations we are discussing today are ancillary to the non-standard cases scheme.
The businesses eligible to benefit from the scheme include energy-intensive critical national infrastructure. They have been exposed to high energy costs in the same way as those who benefited from the discounts under the EBRS regulations, and the scheme enables them to receive relief at a level comparable to the customers of licensed suppliers. We expect businesses to begin receiving support under the scheme this month, and it will be applied retrospectively.
Turning to domestic support in Northern Ireland, in December the Government announced that Northern Irish households would receive support through the energy bills support scheme and the alternative fuel payment. Through that, households in Northern Ireland have already or will shortly receive £600 to support them with their energy bills. To account for the fact that alternative fuels are much more common in Northern Ireland than in Great Britain, the AFP is being delivered to all households in Northern Ireland. The £600 payment therefore reflects the merged delivery of the £400 of EBSS support for the energy costs of domestic households and £200 of alternative fuel payment support as well.
The Secretary of State made a direction pursuant to section 22 of the Energy Prices Act in December, which placed requirements on Northern Irish electricity suppliers to deliver support to households this winter. Delivery has commenced and households are already benefiting from that support. We expect the majority of eligible households to have received support by the end of February.
Earlier this month I visited Belfast and discussed the energy bills support scheme and alternative fuel payment in Northern Ireland at a roundtable with a local charity and consumer groups hosted by the Consumer Council for Northern Ireland. I was able to thank them for their assistance in developing the schemes and for communicating to households how they work. I was also able to hear at first hand how delivery was progressing and how we can continue to work together to resolve any outstanding operational challenges.
What do these SIs do? The first, the Energy Bill Relief Scheme (Non-Standard Cases) Regulations 2023, delivers and operationalises support to certain non-domestic customers who take gas and electricity from the public networks, but which is not provided by licensed gas or electricity suppliers. The second concerns pass-through requirements for EBSS AFP in Northern Ireland. That will place a legal obligation on intermediaries to pass on benefits received through the schemes to end users, helping to ensure that support is delivered to the people it is intended for. Both sets of regulations have been created under the Energy Prices Act 2022. They are essential secondary legislation to ensure that the schemes are delivered fully.
Adam Afriyie (Windsor) (Con)
The Minister has been very clear in his remarks. I have a couple of points of clarification. In my constituency of Windsor we have mobile home parks, and their energy is provided via the park itself. Is it incorporated within these measures that any benefit given to the mobile home park owner must be passed on to the actual users?
Graham Stuart
I thank my hon. Friend for his question. That is not covered by these regulations; these are very specifically about the non-standard cases. Typically, that is large industrial parks where one major energy producer directly links to another, and does not go through a licensed supplier. It is a specialised area. While I am proud of what we have been able to do for most businesses and people quite quickly, I have found with these support schemes that the more we get to the edge cases, the harder it gets, the more complicated it is and, naturally, the more frustrated the potential recipients and their representatives become. That is the nature of the beast.
Identifying who is eligible to receive payments under the EBRS non-standard cases scheme is not always straightforward. The regulations provide the Secretary of State with powers to obtain information from those involved in the often quite complex supply chains through which this energy flows. The regulations today not only put a duty to pass it on but give us the powers to gather information in order to identify those who should receive it.
Adam Afriyie
I am trying to avoid making a speech by getting everything out the way now. I noticed in the impact assessment—I approve of impact assessments—that there are no numbers on the first page. It also says something about “error in bookmarks”. Are there supposed to be no numbers in the impact assessment, and is there something wrong with the document that has been given to the Committee?
Graham Stuart
I might seek refreshment, the better to answer my hon. Friend’s questions. What we are seeking to do is be sure that the right businesses are admitted to and benefit from the scheme. The regulations apply some terms into the contracts between those involved and those in the supply chains to help the scheme work more smoothly.
Finally, as with all the schemes put in place under the 2022 Act, the regulations provide for the pass-through of relief. Certain intermediary businesses, often landlords, that receive a benefit under the scheme, but who in turn provide energy to others, are required to pass a fair share of the benefit that they receive on to their end users. The regulations set out the information that relevant intermediaries are required to provide end users about the scheme benefits, including the amount and supporting details of how they have calculated this in a just and reasonable manner.
The pass-through regulations for EBSS AFP NI are modelled on the requirements for other energy schemes, particularly EBSS in Great Britain. In other words, the pass-through regulations, as structured, are very similar to what we have already passed for EBSS in GB. Chiefly, it imposes the requirement that intermediaries pass-through the financial benefit of the schemes to end users.
In this case, an intermediary is any individual that is party to a domestic electricity contract, has a domestic electricity meter, and is the recipient of the Government energy support. That includes groups such as landlords. Whereas an end user is an individual who consumes energy and pays for this energy usage; that includes groups such as tenants. Similar to other energy schemes, the regulations require that support is passed on in a just and reasonable way. That enables end users to be treated fairly and lawfully.
Regulations have been drafted to account for the numerous configurations of an intermediary-end-user relationship. A narrow definition could risk some intermediaries inadvertently falling outside the pass-through requirements. That is why the regulations are modelled on ones we have already passed. The regulations accommodate scenarios where intermediaries have multiple end users to pass the support on to. They also make clear when and how intermediaries should communicate with end users regarding the benefit being passed on.
The enforcement approach for EBSS AFP NI and EBRS non-standard cases is consistent with that of other energy schemes, in particular with EBSS in Great Britain. If an intermediary does not pass on the benefit to a user who is entitled to it, that user can pursue recovery of the benefit debt through civil proceedings. In the case of EBBS AFP NI, should a court rule in the end user’s favour, they would be entitled to the payment plus interest.
The Government have published guidance on gov.uk to ensure affected parties understand the requirements. If necessary, there are template letters, which are included to assist tenants to contact their landlords should they have concerns about their energy bills. Through our engagement with stakeholders and those impacted, the Government are also striving to ensure that all those in scope of the pass-through regulations, including vulnerable groups, receive what they are entitled to. Over the past several months, we have engaged with consumer groups, landlord and housing associations, and charities to disseminate communications and to underline the obligations on intermediaries and the rights of end users. That extensive engagement also includes organisations in Northern Ireland, such as those I met last week.
In conclusion, the regulations are essential to ensure the effectiveness of the energy bill relief scheme in non-standard cases, and the energy bills support scheme and alternative fuel payment in Northern Ireland. Without the regulations, customers eligible for support under the schemes would be exposed—sometimes very exposed—to high energy costs. In some cases, such exposure may lead to firm closures and redundancies for those who are EBRS non-standard cases, including in critical national infrastructure. Without the EBSS AFP NI regulations, there would be a risk that intermediaries do not pass on the £600 support to end users, which could leave some households in Northern Ireland vulnerable to high energy costs. The regulations are vital to ensure that support reaches the people it is designed to help. I commend the regulations to the Committee.
Dr Alan Whitehead (Southampton, Test) (Lab)
I can straightaway inform the Committee that I do not intend to press the two SIs to a vote this evening because they are essentially uncontentious. They complete what is now a very complicated process of getting support to all the categories of people who need it. I freely concur with the Minister that that has been a very complex process. Perhaps I was a little harsh in the recent urgent question—
Dr Whitehead
I thought I was, yes. Nevertheless, the point I was trying to make on that occasion was that we are now coming to the end of the period set out for the schemes, particularly the energy bill relief scheme, and are still making legislation to implement the scheme. We are still saying, as the Minister has said today, that in non-standard cases people will get their money perhaps next month, which means within a month or so of the end of the scheme and five months after it began.
The Minister alluded to the fact that, as these things unfold, it becomes apparent that many cases fall into slightly different categories. I wonder whether this is actually the last of it. Can the Minister say that we have now caught all the different categories that could conceivably have a problem because they are not on the standard route? We have already been through a number of those with other recent SIs. Are there any more to come, or is the Minister confident that we have—I hesitate to say “cracked it”—covered all the particular circumstances that are not the run-of-the-mill, straightforward cases?
I also wonder whether the non-standard cases scheme concerns just the large businesses that the Minister mentioned. I have looked at the “Energy Bill Relief Scheme non-standard cases: guidance for non-domestic customers” document. Unlike the hon. Member for Windsor, I did not consult the impact assessment, although I think I should have done. However, the guidance note said:
“The non-standard customers to whom this scheme will be available, include: businesses, voluntary sector organisations, such as charities, public sector organisations such as schools, hospitals and care homes.”
Is that right, or am I looking at a different scheme? The guidance appears to widen the scheme’s availability from just businesses to voluntary sector organisations, which operate as businesses in many ways, but they are not; they are charities. As I said, it also includes public sector organisations such as schools, hospitals and care homes. They will all be in that category of not getting their money until next month, if my understanding is correct.
It is unfortunate, to say the least, that people are not going to get their money until next month. I do not know whether those particular exceptions—the special, non-standard cases—were known about at the beginning of the process, or whether they have come to light as the process has been gone through. If it is the latter, that excuses to some extent the great lateness of these pieces of legislation. On the other hand, one might say that it would have been good to know about the exceptions at the beginning of the scheme. If they were known about at the beginning, then it has been a mighty long time to write the documentation to get them right. Could the Minister expatiate briefly on which of those two it is?
Finally, in a number of the schemes that the Committee has discussed previously, if the bodies that are supposed to pass through the heat or power do not do so, the arrangements for getting redress involve civil litigation. I think we have agreed that way is not very satisfactory; there could have been a straightforward liability on the part of the people passing the power through. At least with the energy bill relief schemes, the recourse is that the energy ombudsman can assist with the civil litigation process, acting as an intermediary if the money does not appear.
There is no mention of the energy ombudsman in this SI. I wonder whether that should have been included in the procedure for civil litigation, or whether the special cases are, by their nature, outwith the scope of the energy ombudsman in pursuit of civil litigation. I would be grateful for some clarification on the matter. I have no further objections to the proposals. I hope they will go through as speedily as possible, in order to get the relief to people also as speedily as possible.
Graham Stuart
I thank the hon. Gentleman for the much more characteristically kind words than those he used the other day. He asked two questions. He asked whether the Government are considering any more such schemes and when these cases came out. We had to go out and discover them. Government officials are still engaging with people to understand the nature of their business and the complexities of the way energy is distributed between different people. That work is ongoing, and it is complicated.
The truth is that, given two or three years, we could have come forward with the most perfect system. We would have given ourselves the legal right to gather the data, we would have built a complete database of all the businesses, and we would have obliged them to inform us of the way they do business. We would have collected it all, and then we would have been ready to deliver this help. But we were not in that position; we had to do it this winter, to get the help out.
I do not blame the Opposition for picking on the ones that we have not got to, but a pretty tremendous job has been done to give nearly every household and business help this winter. It is really significant. There has been an average saving of £900 for every family, with energy bills directly subsidised. Another £400 has been available through EBSS, and there is additional help for people on benefits. It is really important and critical, but the truth is that it is complicated. It sounds simple, but it is not, and we will continue to work on it. It is possible that we will be doing things well after the schemes have theoretically closed, because we have to close the loop and make sure that we are fair to everybody. If it takes us time to understand the system, so be it. As I say, we put in place emergency legislation and moved as quickly as we could.
On the impact assessment—going back to the question from my hon. Friend the Member for Windsor—given the diverse range of businesses and the reasons that a subset of businesses could not access the standard EBRS, it was terribly difficult to quantify in any meaningful way the benefits of the scheme. We looked at quantifying the costs, but the largest and most significant benefit will be the avoided closures and redundancies that would have resulted, and that is what we are looking to do.
The hon. Member for Southampton, Test asked about who else is in the non-standard category, because I talked about industrial parks as being the typical ones. Again, there is no central database for this; we had to go out to the country, try to find them, and get people to come forward and tell us that they were not receiving their energy through a licensed supplier. If they were not, we had to try to come up with a flexible system that could give them the aid that, like their competitors, they would seek.
Adam Afriyie
I expected that to be the answer, because it is quite clear that the direct cost to the Exchequer is £2 billion to £4 billion—hopefully, it is a bit lower. My point was really for the people who prepare these papers. They just seem to put funny words in the boxes, such as “optional”, rather than simply saying “unknown” or “difficult to calculate”. It would be a lot clearer if that were the case.
Graham Stuart
I thank my hon. Friend for his point, which I am sure has been received deep in the heart of officialdom. That is exactly what the Committee is here for: not only to scrutinise the regulations, but to make sure that we are better able to scrutinise further regulations in future.
Hilary Benn (Leeds Central) (Lab)
Further to that point, the impact assessment talks about the £2 billion to £4 billion maximum ceiling. Of course, we do not expect all those businesses to require support at the maximum level. Will the Minister clarify who is going to determine how much support an individual business gets? Is it according to a formula?
Graham Stuart
It is about taking the individual circumstances and then applying to those circumstances the principles that we have laid out for this support. That is not as transparent an answer as the right hon. Gentleman would probably like, but that is fundamentally where we are. We have laid out the principles of the scheme and the principles behind our support. We then have to interrogate the specific circumstances, which turn out to be many, varied and complex.
Some people are partly involved in energy generation to some extent, and we want to make sure that we do not double subsidise those in that space. Equally, we want to recognise the complexities if they have had increased fuel costs or other costs coming through. Wrestling with that, and then coming out with something that is broadly fair, is something that has to be determined within the Department, but it is obviously subject—rightly or otherwise—to potential legal challenge if we do not get the balance right. As I say, the more to the fringes we go, the more complex it gets, but it is still material, as has been discussed. These are very substantial sums of money. Very important facets of society are dependent on these non-standard cases: they are not tiny in quantum, just tiny in number, typically.
Dr Whitehead
Would the Minister like to say anything about the involvement of the energy ombudsman in the process?
Graham Stuart
No such refreshment has come my way. The energy system in Northern Ireland is, of course, devolved, so it is a separate system altogether from that of GB. In this particular instance, we have reluctantly had to step into that situation. I am told that the ombudsman is only applicable to heat networks, if that contributes in any way to the hon. Gentleman’s understanding.
Graham Stuart
Which might explain why they are not covered. If there is any discrepancy between the treatment of the regulations in Northern Ireland and that in GB, I am happy to write to the hon. Gentleman to explain why that is the case, if the Committee will allow me—I hope that will satisfy him. Actually, I suppose I should write to all members of the Committee; they can all enjoy my correspondence with the hon. Gentleman. That is one of the joys of sitting on such Committees.
I thank hon. Members for their valuable contributions to the debate, which I hope has satisfied everyone that we have exhaustively covered the landscape brought about by the regulations. I commend them to the House, but ask the Committee to note that as the Joint Committee on Statutory Instruments has not yet reported, we—and, I guess, I—will have to return to the House on another such joyous occasion to move the motion formally. My understanding is that through the usual channels, a desire was expressed that this debate should go ahead, even if we were not in a position to move the motion formally today. That is the explanation I have had, and I hope that when we come to move the motion, it will be a very short and sweet recognition of the thorough scrutiny that the Committee has undertaken today.
Question put and agreed to.
Resolved,
That the Committee has considered the Energy Bill Relief Scheme (Non-Standard Cases) Regulations 2023 (S.I. 2023, No. 9).