Fuel Poverty

Debate between Baroness Neville-Rolfe and Baroness Gardner of Parkes

Tuesday 25th October 2016 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Neville-Rolfe]

As the noble Baroness said, the Government are very focused on this issue. We are trying to improve the various schemes to focus them more on low-income and vulnerable people. We have a report from the Competition and Markets Authority looking at price, and at the key issue of pre-payment meters, which are extremely important for the poor and vulnerable—and which Lord Ezra, who used to ask questions on this subject, did so much to bring to everyone’s attention.

[Baroness Gardner of Parkes (Con)]

Does the Minister agree that it is not only the price of fuel and heating that are important, but how you use them? In my days as a member of the London Electricity Board, we encouraged a programme to be sent, particularly to elderly and vulnerable people, telling them how they could intensify the use of one particular room at times when they would be at serious risk of ill health if they did more. At least we sent out information that could be useful to people to protect them. Are the authorities that produce fuel still doing that? If not, can it be sent out by a health department or someone of that type?

[Baroness Neville-Rolfe]

The noble Baroness makes an important point about the need to get the information to the consumer, which I very much agree with. Public Health England recently estimated that cold homes cost the NHS £850 million a year—so we need to get the regimes right, and we also need to communicate that well, both through the energy providers and more generally.

Zero-hours Contracts

Debate between Baroness Neville-Rolfe and Baroness Gardner of Parkes

Thursday 11th June 2015 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Neville-Rolfe]

This is not an area that I am an expert in, but my impression is that the local Jobcentre Plus and so on are actually very helpful on these points. However, I will look into this issue further and write to the noble Baroness.

[Baroness Gardner of Parkes (Con)]

What will be done to make people aware of the exclusivity issue no longer applying? Only last week I spoke to a carer who had an opportunity to earn other money but was not allowed to do so because their zero-hours contract had exclusivity very clearly written in.

[Baroness Neville-Rolfe]

I am disturbed to hear that. The provision has certainly come in and will be publicised in the normal way. As part of the work we are now doing, we consulted in February on redress. We will be bringing in a route of redress against employers who ignore the ban, and this will give a further opportunity for people to know about this exclusivity. An issue that I have often discussed on these Benches is how you get information about new legislation out. I take the point in general, but I assure the noble Baroness that the new provisions have come in and we are taking steps to publicise those.