Feed-in Tariffs (Amendment) (No. 3) Order 2015
Debate between Lord Berkeley of Knighton and Viscount Ridley(8 years, 10 months ago)
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Viscount Ridley
My Lords, I omitted to mention my interests and I apologise to the House for that. I do not have interests in solar power, which is what I mostly spoke about—mainly because I have turned away solar developers—but I do have other interests in energy, including coal.
Lord Berkeley of Knighton (CB)
My Lords, I crave the indulgence of the House, as I missed the opening of this debate, but I did take part in the last one.
Energy Bill
Debate between Lord Berkeley of Knighton and Viscount Ridley
Viscount Ridley
My Lords, I support the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth. There is no doubt that the policy of putting green subsidies on to consumer bills was designed to disguise and hide the costs and hope that we would not notice. We can disagree about whether the results are going to be pleasing or not, but we have noticed that the consumer has rumbled the ruse, so it is time, as the noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours, said, to be transparent and honest. It would help to resolve some of the disagreements we have heard again this afternoon about how much green levies are adding to bills.
There is an infographic on the Government website that says that £286 will be added in 2020. The Department of Energy and Climate Change says that the figure is £199. The Committee on Climate Change, as we have heard this afternoon, says it is only £100. A lot of these calculations leave out VAT, upgrades to the grid and system integration costs. They often make unreliable assumptions about wholesale gas prices and how they are going to change but above all these calculations leave out the indirect bill—the cost of green levies that is added to industrial and commercial users of electricity who then pass it on to individual consumers through the cost of goods and services. A pint of milk will be more expensive because of green levies paid by the dairy and the supermarket. If you look at the quantums involved, this roughly trebles the cost of green levies, two-thirds of which fall on commercial customers.
The way we have of doing things at the moment is underhand, regressive—as has been said—and unfair. Those who heat their homes with electricity are hit the hardest by these green levies. Contrary to what has been said today, 2.9 million people in this country heat their homes with electricity and those include many of the poorest people. Ideally we would remove these costs altogether and put them into taxation. Then the rich would pay more of them and the poor would pay less. If we cannot have that, then let us break it out honestly and transparently and see what there is. To those who say that it cannot be done and that it is too difficult, the noble Lord, Lord Marlesford, has shown me one of his own bills where it has been done very nicely. I think it is definitely possible and it should be done.
Lord Berkeley of Knighton (CB)
My Lords, I would like to follow up on that point and also agree with the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth. I feel I represent people in mid-Wales—another area which is profoundly threatened with pylons and wind farms. When I get my council tax bill, the police, the fire services and everything else is listed in just the way the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, is suggesting. I do not really see any problem in bringing greater transparency which we would all like to see and which might help us to understand how these bills are put together.