Fuel Poverty

Baroness Smith of Basildon Excerpts

Thursday 16th February 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Marland]

I am pleased that the noble Lord felt he was being of assistance. I am not entirely sure that it quite fits with my dictionary’s definition of “assistance”, but I take on board what he said. He is bowling a straight military medium over and we are quite used to it. I shall consider the word “assistance”.

[Baroness Smith of Basildon]

My Lords, some of the people who I most worry will not be able to afford the heating they need are those on pre-payment meters. The noble Baroness, Lady Stowell, told me in a Written Answer on 19 February that pre-payment meter customers now pay on average £20 less than standard credit customers for gas and electricity. However, Charles Hendry, the Minister in the other place, told MPs that in 2011 pre-payment meter customers would pay on average £90 more than direct debit customers and a maximum of £170 more. Therefore, pre-payment meter customers pay more. Will the Minister explain why pre-payment meter customers pay less for their energy but so much more for their bills, and what can be done to ensure that those who have the least are not paying the most?

[Lord Marland]

I will not get into the crossfire of the detail on that because I do not have the facts in front of me. However, we all know that energy bills have gone up. They will obviously affect pre-payment meters because you have to put more in to supply the energy bills. The big point that I am making here is that we are completely focused on reducing energy bills, which is why we have a raft of measures. The warm home discount is worth £1.1 billion. The core group rebate of £120 goes to 600,000 pensioners. There is the winter fuel allowance of £200. Cold weather payments worth £93 million have already been paid this winter, and £100 million has been paid under Warm Front. A huge number of initiatives are in place to protect the consumer and we are very committed to doing so.