Ukraine

Lord Whitty Excerpts

Friday 25th October 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Whitty (Lab)]

My Lords, I have listened to the vast majority of speeches in this debate. I will comment on a few of them, but I pay particular tribute to the noble Lord, Lord Balfe, who has perhaps put an element of realism into this debate, even though I do not agree with all his conclusions. We are faced with a much bigger problem than many speakers have acknowledged.

I congratulate my noble friend Lord Spellar and welcome him to this House. I have known him for half a century or more. He and I used to be opposite numbers in rival trade unions for many years. Over the years, we have not agreed on everything, but his experience, his knowledge and particularly his understanding of the industrial side of our life will be a great benefit to this House, and I bid him welcome.

I was slightly surprised that it took quite a long time before the biggest elephant in the room—or possibly elephant out of the room—was mentioned. It fell to the noble Baroness, Lady Fall, who is not in her place, to say that what happens in the war in Ukraine, despite us deploring the terrible suffering of the Ukrainian people and the destruction of the infrastructure and the grain and the obscenity of Putin’s war, will be decided, to a large extent, in a fortnight’s time in Washington—or rather, in polling booths across the United States. If President Trump wins, it changes the situation entirely. He says he is going to try to get peace within 48 hours, and he is going to cut off the current level, as least, of the support America is giving in arms, military support and money to Ukraine. I have to say that, even if Kamala Harris wins, there may well be an increase in support in Congress for the Republican Party, which might well have the same result if it can block expenditure on Ukraine.

That transforms the situation for Europe. If America is not Ukraine’s backer, we are in a situation where it will be even worse than the noble Lord, Lord Balfe, indicates. There will be no peace, but there will be further Russian success. There are ways of offsetting that, and it is of course possible that President Trump will not actually do what he says he is going to do—it has been known—but I think we will have to gauge public opinion as well as political opinion within the United States. They are tiring of this Ukrainian war and, as the noble Lord, Lord Balfe, said, this is also the case in parts of Europe.

One of my great regrets is that, during our membership of the European Union, both parties in Britain by and large resisted the European Union developing its own defence capabilities. I think that now has to be rectified. I am glad to see that my right honourable friends John Healey and David Lammy, the Foreign Secretary, have been making approaches to Germany, France and the European Union as a whole to try to pull together a more coherent European-level defence capability. But, as far as Ukraine is concerned, it is probably too late. I commend those efforts and I hope that they increase. I hope that we and the French and Germans, in particular, can give Ukraine additional help in terms of mobilising the defence industries of those three countries, which are very formidable, in support of Ukraine’s efforts. But, in the short term, at least, there will be a shortfall of help to Ukraine, and the Ukrainians, despite their terrible losses and their superhuman efforts to resist the Russian invasion, will be faced with having to make some sort of accommodation with the Russians. It will not be a formal peace. We cannot accept the illegal occupation of any Ukrainian territory in any formal way, but there may well be a ceasefire that will see the Russians still in occupation of parts of what is legally, and ought to be, part of Ukrainian territory. That is a terrible outcome, but I am only being realistic here.

If the Americans belie what has been said before the election and continue to support the Ukrainians, we should continue to support them. If they do not, however, we have to build up within Europe, particularly with the French and Germans, a united approach to stop Ukraine being completely smothered by Russia and to ensure that there is an unsatisfactory and unjust peace, or ceasefire, at least, that stops the suffering and the destruction of Ukrainian society, the killing and maiming of Ukrainian civilians as well as military personnel and the destruction of Ukrainian infrastructure. If we manage to freeze the situation, it will involve a superhuman effort at European level, which will have to be led by the current Government, because the French and German Governments are lame ducks. Chancellor Scholz and President Macron may not be there in two years’ time and we will have to take the lead. I hope that my colleagues are up for it, because a superhuman effort will be required, not just for Ukraine but for Europe as a whole and, indeed, the free world.

Queen’s Speech

Lord Whitty Excerpts

Tuesday 7th January 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Whitty (Lab)]

My Lords, I can hardly be expected to welcome the new Government, but nevertheless I congratulate members of the Conservative Party on holding themselves together long enough to get a clear election result. Today, I will probably confine myself to a few words of caution for the Government in the light of that result. It is of course good to see so many familiar faces on the Government Benches—at least for now. I am sure we will be back to business as usual shortly.

I caution first against hubris. We now have a precise psephological and scientific definition of the difference between triumph and disaster: it is less than 1.3%. In other words, between the catastrophic outcome of Mrs May’s election two years ago and the last one, the Conservative Party has managed to convince one person in 100 to vote for it. That is a bit of a fragile mandate, but it is a mandate. Nevertheless, a clear working majority in the House of Commons is not a blank cheque.

In view of the events of the last three years, I also caution the Government to try to avoid factionalism within the Conservative Party—we never have that in the Labour Party, as noble Lords will know. I hope that the sense of direction given during the election can be maintained for at least a few more months. I understand that Boris got an oath of allegiance from all his candidates that they would support his deal and his withdrawal Bill. However, that does not go that far because, as we know, this is only the beginning of Brexit. I assume that no such loyalty oath was required by the now former Chief Whip—he is in his place—of Members of the upper House, because we know that there are vastly different opinions on Brexit within government circles, as there are in the country. That will be just as difficult over the next stages of Brexit as it has been for the last three years.

We have a new withdrawal Bill, and later in the week I will explain in more detail why I will not support it. In many ways, it is a worse Bill than that which Mrs May presented us with, but it will probably go through. It is a worse Bill partly because of its effect on Northern Ireland and partly because of its reneging on previous discussions on equivalence of regulation and alignment with our European partners. It is also only the first stage. In the next few months we will need to settle issues of trade with Europe, America and the rest of the world; issues of migration and citizens’ rights; and issues of agriculture and the environment. I was grateful to hear the words of the noble Lord, Lord Gardiner, in his opening address, but our changed position in the world will require all of us—in Parliament and elsewhere—to face up to some serious issues. That will require co-operation and some degree of alignment, not maximising divergence from our European partners.

I also caution the Government against making reckless promises. During the election, there were many promises of money to be spent on public services, policing and defence. I understand that the Budget has been put back from February to March, presumably to allow the Chancellor enough time to work out how those sums add up. Promises made during an election are not easily deliverable, but they can be held against a Government.

My major message to the Government is to caution against isolationism. Our departure from Europe, which I now, with deep regret, regard as inevitable, is happening just at the time when there is a renewed threat of global quasi-religious war, and when the threat of the destruction of the planet through climate change now needs finally to be faced up to. Pulling out of Europe and moving to perhaps too close a relationship with the United States—particularly the regime there at present —means that we are moving away from international co-operation. On the one hand, we are isolating ourselves from Europe, or at least moving substantially away from it, and on the other we are undermining the degree to which Europe can affect progressive arguments and discussions on climate change and on other issues in the world as a whole.

I will quickly advise the Government against two other things. One is contempt for the Civil Service—whatever shortcomings it may have, we are still one of the best-governed countries in the world—and the other is contempt for Parliament. One of the effects of the redraft of the withdrawal Bill is to reduce scrutiny in this House and in another place of the developments on Brexit. That will prove to be a serious government mistake.

Flooding: Military Deployment

Lord Whitty Excerpts

Monday 24th March 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Astor of Hever]

My Lords, I cannot say that I am very good at forecasting the weather, but if the Armed Forces are called on I am sure that they will do as good a job as they did this year.

[Lord Whitty (Lab)]

My Lords, military assistance to the emergency services in the Environment Agency was very welcome. I well recall an even more acute situation in the foot and mouth disease outbreak. However, had that outbreak occurred a few months later, the military would all have been in Iraq. It is, therefore, important to recognise that military priorities change and we need to invest in the emergency services. I have just been given information that there is to be a huge cut in West Sussex Fire and Rescue Service of about £2.5 million this year and another £1.5 million next year. We depend utterly on those emergency services; help from the Army is good, but we need to continue to fund them.

[Lord Astor of Hever]

My Lords, the noble Lord makes a very good point, but the Armed Forces are always ready to do what they can to help the civil authorities.

Energy Bill

Lord Whitty Excerpts

Tuesday 9th July 2013 Grand Committee

Moved by

[Lord Whitty]

50A: Clause 127, page 97, line 24, at end insert—
“(f) provision for requiring or allowing a licence holder to offer a particular form of tariff designed to—(i) reduce the incidence of fuel poverty;(ii) reduce total energy consumption or increase conservation;(iii) change the time profile of energy consumption.”

[Lord Whitty]

My Lords, I will also speak to the other amendments in this group. We now come to what is probably, in the outside world, the most important part of the Bill. We had a huge discussion on nuclear regulation and a very substantial discussion on issues relating to carbon targets but the millions of people out there are concerned about—I agree with the early part of the noble Earl’s remarks just now—the very rapid doubling of prices for fuel and the more than doubling, on the old measure at any rate, of the level of fuel poverty. That is what the consumer dimension and the consumer objectives of energy policy, among all the others, need to address.

The original Bill did not include Clause 127. It is a fairly hefty clause, with three clauses after that following it through, but it is nevertheless a pretty thin part of the totality of the approach to energy policy represented by the Bill. It owes its genesis almost entirely to a remark by the Prime Minister in October last year when he effectively promised that everybody would be on the lowest possible tariff. There was some consternation at the time in the noble Baroness’s department and Ofgem about what the Prime Minister actually meant by that. Ofgem rapidly engaged in some internal work, some of which was very welcome. It is now engaged in two consultations on how to put that into effect. Clause 127 gives effect to some of the issues covered and recommended in the Ofgem consultation.

However, the clause does not really deliver the Prime Minister’s objective. It probably delivers some greater transparency and certainly delivers a very welcome requirement on reducing the extraordinarily confusing number of tariffs that consumers face at the moment. But underlying it, it betrays—as my noble friend implied just now—a huge lack of trust in Ofgem to deliver this. Clause 127—probably correctly given Ofgem’s present state and record—is full of subsections allowing the Secretary of State effectively to intervene and tell Ofgem what to do.

There are delicate issues of independent regulation here. There are important issues as to where policy lies in terms of the department as against the regulator and where legislation lies as against secondary legislation and Ofgem’s own rules. It is an odd approach in many ways. However, given the deficiencies of regulation in terms of consumer benefit, it is not one I entirely reject, but if we are to go down that road we need to be clear why we are giving the Secretary of State such powers of intervention. In another context, and in relation to, for example, the statement of policy, the Government wish to step back and give the regulator, in this sector as in others, a general framework to act on for five years. This clause gives the Secretary of State the ability to intervene at all sorts of points on all sorts of issues in all sorts of ways, but does not really explain for what purpose. Subsections (5) and (6) of Clause 127 lay down the way in which the Secretary of State could intervene, but no part of Clause 127 explains for what purpose.

My amendments today are to try to establish that purpose and thereby to achieve what I think was behind the Prime Minister’s intervention, which is that every household should, as far as practicable, know the most appropriate tariff for their circumstances or that there should be an obligation on their supplier to ensure that they know it. Whether that is always the cheapest tariff depends a bit, but it is certainly not delivered by Clause 127 as it stands or by current Ofgem practice.

In a sense, I am taking the Prime Minister’s text and trying to give the Secretary of State basic objectives for intervention which would help to achieve the objectives we seek, in particular, the ability to intervene in order to ensure more economic use of energy in terms of energy conservation, energy efficiency and decarbonisation and to ensure that tariffs are more affordable, at least for domestic consumers—there are also industrial consumers who do not really feature here, even microbusinesses, which also need to be addressed—in terms of affordability in general and fuel poverty in particular.

Obviously, I have not had time to absorb the full impact of the Secretary of State’s intervention on fuel poverty strategy today. As the noble Earl said, redefining a problem does not make it go away. However you redefine fuel poverty, it is always a very big number. At the moment, it is going up seriously. While some of the changes in definition that underlie John Hill’s recommendations, which the Government seem to have adopted, are quite sensible—there is a total income gateway to being defined as fuel poor whereas on the previous formula some very rich people could have been so defined—that is a relatively minor point. The problem about the redefinition, which the Government, Ofgem and all of us who care about fuel poverty will have to address, is that whereas the previous formula was arguably far too sensitive to price movements, the present formula is very insensitive to price movements, yet price movements are what define whether you fall in or out of fuel poverty. With insensitivity to price, it is going to be quite difficult to shift that new total so the aim of reducing fuel poverty will prove more difficult.

I am trying to help the Secretary of State here, at least to have some clarity about what powers of intervention he has on fuel poverty and other issues. Clause 50A allows the Secretary of State to require Ofgem to put a requirement on a supplier licence to require tariffs aimed at reducing fuel poverty, for example, tariffs aimed at low-income households or associated with energy-efficiency measures to reduce the totality of the bill, probably funded via the ECO. My amendment also allows for tariffs aimed at low users or at low-income, high-use households. These tariffs would be options. They would not be mandatory over the whole range of tariffs and therefore they would allow Ofgem to require and the supplier to allocate people to the most appropriate tariff for their circumstances, which must be the aim of this policy.

There are all sorts of ways in which you could require a tariff which encouraged energy efficiency, in aggregate or in timing of energy use. For example, you could have a different range of tariffs where the marginal cost of the next unit of electricity was higher than the average cost. In almost all tariffs now the opposite is true. You could, as the Select Committee on which I sit heard from the Belgian authorities a few months ago, make it so that the opening tranche of initial units was free until you hit a certain minimum usage, and then there would be very high disincentive if you went beyond that level. You could have the whole structure of rising block tariffs, which is one way of doing it. All those methods would encourage behaviour and energy usage that reduced total energy usage and bills.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Whitty]

My Lords, I am grateful to noble Lords who have taken part in this debate, and particularly for the interventions by the noble Baroness, Lady Maddock, my noble friend Lord O’Neill and the noble Earl, Lord Cathcart. I think we all recognise that this is a difficult area. The proposals today, which I have not yet read and which we will no doubt be able to look at on Thursday when we come to the Government’s fuel poverty amendments, have a significant bearing on this area.

This is not just about fuel poverty, although that is an important dimension. It is about consumer confidence and understanding and making what ought to be a competitive market, even though it is run by oligopolies, actually work for consumers—for the average bill as well as the bill of the poorest families. The fact is that neither actually gets the best deal at the moment. The objective of trying to ensure that every household, whatever its income, status or pattern of energy use, can relatively easily understand what the best tariff is for it and that there is an obligation on the supplier to ensure that they do so is an objective that we all share, but it is not an objective that is operating in the market at the moment. That is not an outcome of years of regulation, nor of the I do not know how many energy Bills I have sat through from various Governments, nor of how the supplier companies are actually behaving.

This is a very important clause. It must be a very important part of the Government’s armoury in explaining energy policy to consumers, and we have to get it right. The Minister explained that we do not need the three-year limitation on Secretary of State interventions because this is all going to finish by 2018, by which time we will somehow reach Nirvana whereby the regulator is working and the outcomes that we all wish to see are being delivered. I have to be a bit sceptical and go back to what my noble friend said on an earlier amendment: the record of Ofgem in this area and the relationship between Ofgem and the successive departments has not been good. A radical change is probably needed here that goes beyond this clause, but this clause, if properly interpreted and amended, could take it a little further in the course of this Bill. I do not think we are quite at that point yet.

We need to be clear that some of the interventions that the Secretary of State is going to have to take, at least in the short term, are along the lines of the amendments that I have proposed—for example, an intervention on grounds of encouraging energy efficiency. It is true that there are other measures in the Government’s armoury to deal with energy efficiency. I know that the Minister and I do not entirely agree, but as yet the ECO and Green Deal are not effective. They may be in three year’s time, but they are not effective now. The warm home discount, although highly helpful to lots of fuel-poor families, is effectively an override on bills and tariff structures that are not appropriate for fuel-poor families. That is not necessary in the long term. I hope we keep it for the next two or three years, but in the long term, it is not the most appropriate way of dealing with fuel-poor families. You need different overrides.

On transparency and unit costs, I would have thought that the noble Earl, Lord Caithness, was a fairly canny consumer, but the fact that he finds himself totally incapable of understanding even page 1 of his five-page bill indicates the kinds of problems that most consumers have, middling consumers as well as fuel-poor ones. Something closer to the unit price requirement is important. The Minister needs to look at what the consumer is saying here and to come up with a scheme that is useable by the bulk of consumers, including not only the noble Earl but also those who suffer seriously from fuel poverty but who have the nous to try to make some choices of their own.

It is also important that a bill is accurate. Although there have been some improvements, at the moment most bills are estimated, which means that they are wrong. If you complain about them, it is very difficult to get satisfaction. In the long run, smart meters and everything else may solve this problem, but at the moment, there is serious consumer detriment as a result of the way in which bills are presented and enforced. It is very difficult to argue with the company supplying your electricity. It is therefore important that we can intervene to make everything a lot clearer.

I am not suggesting that the Minister should accept every word of my amendments, but she and the Government should accept that there is a need for more sharpness in the interventions that we are now proposing in order to deliver the objectives of energy policy which, by and large, we all broadly agree. Consumer affordability and tackling fuel poverty are part of that, but so are energy efficiency, energy security and ensuring that all energy users are treated fairly without discrimination. All those things need to be part of a proper regulator’s normal method of operation. They have not been. The market has not delivered them and the regulator has not delivered them. A new start for the regulator and a new context in which it is working perhaps might. Clause 127 needs at least to be strengthened in order to increase the possibility and the probably of that outcome. In the mean time, I commend my amendments to the Minister and beg leave to withdraw Amendment 50A.

Amendment 50A withdrawn.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Verma]

My Lords, I would like to start—

[Lord Whitty]

My Lords, I have two issues. First, I support the clarity referred to by the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, that is promoted by the amendment proposed by the noble Baroness, Lady Maddock. Secondly, there are issues relating to the cost of carbon, and so forth, which need to be reflected in energy bills, but I am not sure that I would agree with what the right reverend Prelate says in how we present that. There is a cost to all of us of carbon and to isolate it separately in a crude way would not necessarily improve understanding. The Government would have difficulties in that respect.

On the consumer issue, I would just mention the survey about unit pricing that I referred to under the earlier group of amendments. On the question of percentages, the public do not understand APRs when they take out loans, so they will not understand TCRs in relation to this operation. The Which? survey shows that three out of 10 people using the tariff comparison rate found the cheapest rate whereas more than 80% found the best comparison when they were demonstrated by unit prices. So the use of clear figures but not necessarily percentages will help in that regard, and I support the noble Baroness, Lady Maddock.

[The Lord Bishop of Chester]

Can I just come back on this point? What I wanted was for the government obligations to be listed. One justification for these green taxes is that it saves money in the long run because of this, that or other theory. However, when the Government themselves impose a financial tax or precept, or whatever you want to call it, we should all surely want a degree of transparency about it. Then there is an argument about whether it is justified because of other long-term savings. The danger is that if you hide these things away you cause the lack of confidence in consumers that the amendments that we have discussed are precisely about.