Lord Beith
Main Page: Lord Beith (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)
Mr Davey
The hon. Gentleman really is suffering from amnesia. There was a 13-year period in which Labour could have done something about that and failed. In fact, Labour took price controls off. The leader of the hon. Gentleman’s party refused to refer the energy markets to the Competition Commission; this Government have done that.
Sir Alan Beith (Berwick-upon-Tweed) (LD)
Some of the highest fuel bills and worst fuel poverty are faced by people in rural areas who are off the gas grid and by the small but even more vulnerable group of people who do not even have mains electricity. Is my right hon. Friend going to introduce some targeted measures to help these vulnerable groups?
Mr Davey
My right hon. Friend is absolutely right to point out that many households that are off the gas grid and the small number that are off the electricity grid suffer high energy bills. Interestingly, the new analysis we have done for our fuel poverty strategy shows much more clearly than the measures used under the previous policy that that is a key group of people we need to help. That is what we will be doing very soon when we produce our draft fuel poverty strategy, in which he will see a number of measures.