Air Quality Strategy

Alan Whitehead Excerpts

Monday 24th April 2017 Commons Chamber

[Andrea Leadsom]

I absolutely agree with my right hon. Friend, who always speaks very strongly for the Chilterns. She is right to do so as it is a beautiful area. Air quality is of course vital not only for humans, but for our lovely landscapes. Preserving the contribution made by our trees, peat lands and so on is a very important priority.

[Dr Alan Whitehead (Southampton, Test) (Lab)]

Southampton is one of the 10 cities threatened with an infraction under the air quality regulations. It is also one of five cities, under the Government’s December plans, to introduce clean air zones, and Southampton’s local authority has been really assiduous in moving forward with its plans. While it has received grants, it has also put in a great deal of its own money. Is it the Secretary of State’s advice that the city council should now go easy on its plans because the Government cannot get their own together?

[Andrea Leadsom]

I was in full agreement with the hon. Gentleman until that last bit. Of course not. I was going to praise the work of Southampton City Council, which has received significant Government funding for its clean air programmes. It is doing a good job and should continue to do so. To be clear, as things stand, clean air zones can be implemented by any local authority. It should therefore be in the interests of all local authorities to do whatever they can to improve air quality for their local communities.

Oral Answers to Questions

Alan Whitehead Excerpts

Thursday 14th July 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

The Deputy Leader of the House has other important responsibilities and she knows that. As far as the men sitting on the Front Bench are concerned, they all look absolutely fine and are doing the right thing—simply nodding in the appropriate places.

[Dr Alan Whitehead (Southampton, Test) (Lab)]

I thank the Minister for her kind comments this morning. I, too, enjoyed our exchanges—and the chocolate peanuts.

The CMA’s final report has been characterised as blaming sticky customers for not switching and condoning penalties on them if they continue not to switch. Does the Minister agree with that analysis?

[Andrea Leadsom]

I also enjoyed the chocolate raisins.

The evidence is clear that customers on expensive standard tariffs could save £325 by switching to the cheapest fixed deal. I do not think that the CMA is blaming consumers; it is recognising a slight inertia or unwillingness to switch. We are trying to urge people to switch. Between January and March this year, almost 2 million energy accounts were switched, over half of which moved to new suppliers, so the push to switch is actually getting through and we are seeing some progress.

--- Later in debate ---

[Andrea Leadsom]

The capacity market is incredibly important for ensuring secure energy supplies. We recently announced that we will bring forward an earlier auction for 2017-18, to secure more capacity. We hope that that will enable us to get over this short-term issue where wholesale prices are so low that the viability of power stations is at risk. By having that capacity mechanism firmly embedded in our energy supply, we believe that we will bring forward new, attractive gas investment through longer-term contracts that will benefit the UK energy consumer.

[Dr Alan Whitehead (Southampton, Test) (Lab)]

The Government have estimated that the capacity auction this winter could put £36 on customer bills. Given that today the Minister has talked about keeping down customer bills, how does she think that that auction will affect those bills?

[Andrea Leadsom]

Our central assessment is that the impact on bills could be up to £28, but our impact assessment also shows that if we did nothing, further power station closures could add a further £46 to consumer bills. We believe that this auction is good value for consumers, and it provides the energy security on which we all rely.