Energy Bill

Debate between Caroline Lucas and Jonathan Reynolds

Wednesday 4th December 2013 Commons Chamber

[Jonathan Reynolds]

No, I am afraid that I will not give way.

It is important that we have the opportunity to discuss tackling fuel poverty, which is rightly of considerable interest to Members across the House. I pay tribute to Members in the other place for their hard and thoughtful work in tabling amendments to the Bill, and in particular to my noble Friend Lord Whitty for his amendment of 19 November, the basis of which forms part of amendment (g), tabled in my name and those of my right hon. Friend the Member for Don Valley (Caroline Flint) and my hon. Friends the Members for Rutherglen and Hamilton West (Tom Greatrex) and for Sunderland Central (Julie Elliott). It is welcome that the Bill at least now acknowledges the need to contain a fuel poverty strategy.

Our amendments, and those tabled by other hon. Members, seek to put some detail into that strategy and make the commitment for which we are legislating a meaningful one. I therefore hope to test the opinion of the House on amendment (g) to Lords amendment 87. Like my noble Friends in the other place, I agree that it is vital that the Bill contains a commitment for a fuel poverty strategy that is effective and can be used to hold the Government to account for their success or failure in pursuing it. Fuel poverty is a serious problem in this country and something on which we must improve. I am sure that the whole House was distressed by last week’s figures on excess deaths in England and Wales last winter. We should never accept such a figure or fail in our duty to prevent it from happening again.

As a result of the much greater age profile of the UK’s housing stock, we have some of the least energy-efficient dwellings in Europe. Worryingly, only Estonia has a higher proportion of its population in fuel poverty than the UK. Even under the Government’s new definition of what constitutes fuel poverty, the latest figures show that almost 2.4 million households in the UK are classified as being fuel poor. We need to see more action from this and future Governments on fuel poverty, and I believe our amendment will ensure that. I am disappointed that, without Lords amendment 87, the Bill will be unacceptably light in respect of dealing with fuel poverty.

The Government have serious questions to answer about the implications of their announcement on Monday on the number of households that will in future receive help with energy efficiency. I strongly believe that the energy company obligation can be much improved, and I note that the Secretary of State claimed in Monday’s statement that the fuel poverty-related components of ECO—the community obligation and the home heating cost reduction obligation—had not been reduced. However, many Members will be aware that most of the larger-scale retrofits that have been carried out in their own constituencies under ECO, whether by local authorities or registered social landlords, have been schemes that contributed towards the third strand of ECO, which has been substantially reduced—the carbon emissions reduction obligation, or CERO—because the other components of ECO allow much easier and cheaper measures to be installed. By reducing CERO, the big local area-based schemes, mainly in the poorer parts of the country, will be reduced.

The Government also announced that cheaper measures will now count towards CERO, too, and we will soon know from Ofgem how much of the carry-over from the carbon emissions reduction target will be allowed to count towards the energy companies’ progress towards their CERO targets. The industry believes that the 100,000 minimum installations that have been specified for solid-wall measures up to 2017 will now in fact become the maximum—an average of only 25,000 a year, when last year alone 80,000 were done. Against a total of 7 million solid walls still to do, progress will simply be too slow.

There has therefore never been a more urgent need to ensure that the Bill contains provisions for successive Governments to meet energy-efficiency targets in 2020 and 2030 and to reduce the numbers of households in fuel poverty, with an overall ambition of eradicating fuel poverty. Nothing else should satisfy the House, and I urge Members to support amendment (g).

I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Derby North (Chris Williamson) for the amendments that he has tabled that focus on this issue and for his work in ensuring that it is debated in the House today. He and I have discussed these matters on several occasions, and he knows that there is no difference of opinion between us on the desire for an ambitious fuel poverty strategy on a scale appropriate to the size of the challenge. He is absolutely right to highlight the need, in amendment (a) to Lords amendment 87, for an energy-efficiency programme that is focused on raising the efficiency rating of housing stock within the UK.

What we all want to see is whole-house retrofitting, not just, for instance, a new boiler going in without cavity or loft insulation being done at the same time. Ensuring properties meet a certain standard that progressively improves is the best way to prevent and eradicate fuel poverty. The only area where my hon. Friend and I differ is that I believe the best way to approach this is to ensure that such a strategy is accounted for in the Bill and then for the Government to have to produce a properly costed and deliverable strategy to ensure that we can achieve it.

In the event of a Labour Government, I want to be able to come to the House with a plan that says very clearly what we intend to do and how we will pay for it. I am conscious that there has been a great deal of over-promising and under-delivery in this area, not least on things like the green deal, and it would be better to do the opposite. That is why I believe amendment (g) is the better way to go, but I reiterate to my hon. Friend and all my colleagues that I am firmly of the view that we need that strategy to be bold, not only to tackle fuel poverty, but to reduce our carbon emissions and for the wider economic benefits it would bring.

I also thank my hon. Friend for highlighting the health impact of fuel poverty. That is addressed in his amendment (e), which I and my Front-Bench colleagues have also signed. As I have previously mentioned, there were more than 31,000 excess winter deaths in England and Wales last year. Not all those deaths can be attributed to cold housing, but there is evidence to suggest that illnesses caused by cold homes cost the NHS more than £850 million a year.

People classed as living in fuel-poor households are likely to suffer from heart problems, strokes, mobility issues and poorer mental health, including severe depression. There is also a social cost: for example, children in fuel-poor households often perform worse at school, and there is a marked increase in a child’s performance once they are taken out of fuel poverty. The stress faced by people managing household bills on a stretched budget should not be underestimated. We should all recognise that there could be significant health benefits from an ambitious fuel poverty strategy, and I welcome discussion of including that aspect in the assessment that the Secretary of State would have to make.

I genuinely believe that there are Members on both sides of the House who care deeply about fuel poverty. It is therefore my hope that amendment (g) will be considered properly by the Government. Despite the fact that energy and the price of energy is the number one political issue and the source of much partisan exchange, we all stand to gain substantially from improving the quality of our housing stock. The only way that we can make a difference in addressing fuel poverty is by having a programme that is ambitious in its aims and clear in its target for improving energy efficiency. Amendment (g) will ensure that this Government and any future Government cannot side-step their responsibility in seeking to eradicate fuel poverty. I hope the Government will support us on that. If they do not, I will seek to press it to a Division.

[Caroline Lucas]

I would like to speak in favour of the amendments tabled by the hon. Member for Derby North (Chris Williamson), and I apologise for having the floor before him.

There is a huge amount of noise about energy costs, with blame and accusations flying in all directions, but the basics are clear: the current approach to tackling fuel poverty is inadequate. According to National Energy Action, it is expected to reach just 5% of the fuel poor in England. Poorer households and individuals stand to suffer most from energy price increases, which they cannot afford. The most vulnerable people tend to live in the worst-quality and least energy-efficient housing.

Energy efficiency is the only serious solution to protecting householders from future price rises. We know that that is the direction that we have to go in, regardless of the discussion on the cause of rising fuel prices. We need a stronger commitment on energy efficiency and urgent action to deliver it from this and future Governments. An ambitious nationwide energy-efficiency drive would make a huge contribution to job creation and the economy, as well as being essential for carbon targets.

The amendment that I want to speak to sets out minimum energy-efficiency targets for homes occupied by low-income households. They would be an effective and lasting approach to ending the scandal of fuel poverty, and the reality that many of the UK’s poorest and most vulnerable individuals and families live in the coldest, most leaky homes. It would reduce seriously the health risks—respiratory and cardiovascular illnesses, mental ill health and depression—linked to cold homes, thereby reducing the burden on local health provision. It would make a significant contribution to the desperately needed cuts to carbon emissions from buildings.

The Energy and Climate Change Committee made it clear that there has been very limited progress on some measures, such as solid wall insulation, to cut emissions from existing buildings and called for new approaches to increase uptake. I am sure that DECC disregarded all that advice this week. I hope that we will not be there doing that again.

This effective and ambitious approach is needed because we urgently need action to stop the scandal that, in the 21st century, we still have people dying from the cold in their own homes. It is literally a scandal that we had 31,000 excess winter deaths last year—an increase of 29% on the previous year. We are a relatively rich and not terribly cold country, but many people are dying because they cannot afford to heat their homes.

The hon. Member for Derby North clearly understands the enormous benefit of an approach to fuel poverty that is based on minimum energy-efficiency targets. What a shame that he no longer holds a shadow communities and local government position, and what a shame that the shadow energy and climate change team favours what seems to be a weaker and vaguer approach and has tabled its own amendment rather than supporting his.

In recent weeks and months, many of my constituents have written to me to call for ambitious action on energy efficiency to tackle the scandal of cold homes. Many of them have moving personal stories to tell. Many of them have written about the Energy Bill Revolution campaign and the no-brainer of recycling the billions of carbon tax revenues received by the Treasury into a mass home energy efficiency scheme. Having clear fuel poverty and energy-efficiency objectives in primary legislation is a crucial first step to driving the nationwide housing upgrade that we need. Without such targets set in legislation, our constituents have no guarantee that this or any future Government will take the necessary action on fuel poverty.

I just want to say a few words about my amendment (a) to Lords amendment 76, which concerns the information that energy companies provide to their customers. Lords amendment 76 makes provision for the Secretary of State to require a licence holder to provide information to domestic customers to allow them to see for themselves whether any bill increases are due to an increase in company profit, or due to increases in other costs.

My amendment would make some modest additions to that welcome proposed increase in transparency. First, in relation to profits, it would allow customers to see how much UK corporation tax their energy supplier has paid in the past three years as a total and, crucially, as a proportion of its profits. The Minister said that that was not necessarily fair because there was not a direct correlation between corporation tax paid and overall turnover, but none the less it would be useful for people to have that figure when deciding to switch between energy companies.

Wild Animals (Circuses)

Debate between Caroline Lucas and Jonathan Reynolds

Thursday 23rd June 2011 Commons Chamber

[Caroline Lucas (Brighton, Pavilion) (Green)]

I pay tribute to the Members who tabled this important motion.

We need a ban on keeping wild animals in circuses because it is cruel, but we also need a ban because the welfare of those animals is emblematic of the way in which we treat all animals, and is symbolic of the kind of society in which we live. The Government are wrong to suggest that the European Union is somehow preventing us from dealing with the issue. In response to the insistence of Ministers during the last debate on this subject that a legal threat in Europe had been a major factor in the prevention of an outright ban, leading animal protection organisations called a meeting with the European Commission’s Head of Representation, at which it was confirmed once again that the issue of wild animals in circuses was a matter best left to the judgment of member states.

When I was a Member of the European Parliament, we did a great deal of work trying to make progress with animal welfare issues in the Parliament. Often, the advice was to go back to member states in the first instance and to rouse them to act. I have therefore urged Ministers to consider, for example, the action that was taken first on dog and cat fur and then on seal fur. On both occasions, leadership by member states prompted the EU to ban imports of those types of fur. It is significant that the legal advice that was used in an attempt to stop those bans was that there were so-called “outstanding legal impediments”. Exactly the same excuse is being used today. Governments were given the legal advice that it would be impossible to ban imports of cat and dog fur, and the same was said of seal fur, but when individual Governments challenged that dubious advice, they were able to make the bans happen.

It is when a number of forward-thinking member states call strongly for action on something that we see progress on the EU position. There are clear precedents, not least in animal welfare policy, in which action by individual states has been the means by which animal welfare protection has been secured across the EU.

In an attempt to find out whether the Government were genuinely looking for a legal way to make a ban on wild animals in circuses happen, I tabled a written question asking whether the Secretary of State had received any legal advice on

“instances where a single EU member state has taken unilateral action on animal welfare matters which has led subsequently to a change of EU policy in line with that action”.—[Official Report, 9 June 2011; Vol. 529, c. 408W.]

The extraordinarily complacent response was that the Secretary of State had “no recollection” of any such advice. Why is she not going out and asking for that advice? Why is she not looking for the legal means to go ahead with a ban, in line with the wishes of the vast majority of people in this country? Instead, she and her Ministers have been looking for legal cases to cower behind as a cover for not acting.

It is worth reminding ourselves that it is not just because of public opinion that we need a ban, important thought that is. Members have spoken about the importance of science, and I have cited the evidence of the British Veterinary Association, which has stated that

“the welfare needs of non-domesticated, wild animals cannot be met within the environment of a travelling circus; especially in terms of accommodation and the ability to express normal behaviour. A licensing scheme will not address these issues”.

We are not criticising individual circus owners; we are saying that the very nature of being in a circus means that animals’ welfare needs cannot be addressed.

At first, my feeling was that the Government’s position was extraordinarily cowardly. As the debates continue, I am sadly coming to the conclusion that they do not want to act because they do not like to be seen to be banning things, and are therefore looking for excuses. It is interesting to reflect on the fact that successive UK Governments have been in breach of their obligations under the bathing water directive since 1975. Although it is nice to see DEFRA suddenly discovering the idea of complying in full with what it perceives to be its EU obligations, perhaps it is not too cynical to suggest on this occasion that they simply do not want to act.

If the Government wanted to stop this cruel practice, they would be acting. In their defence we would have another euro-sausage type story, with headlines about the UK having every right to act and comments like “How dare the EU interfere?”, as we saw with the “Defend the British banger” story. Yet in this instance, the EU is not telling us what to do. Instead, we are inventing barriers where none exists.

[Jonathan Reynolds (Stalybridge and Hyde) (Lab/Co-op)]

The hon. Lady is making a marvellous speech. My understanding is that every legal case brought by European circus owners, like the one in Austria that has been mentioned, has been lost. There seems to be almost no real basis at all for the Government’s claim.