Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Alan Reid and Ed Davey
The Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change (Mr Edward Davey)
Mr Speaker, with permission I will answer this question with questions 3, 7, 10, 15 and 16.
There are three main ways in which we help people with their energy bills: first, with money, to help vulnerable customers with their energy bills with policies like the winter fuel payment, the warm home discount and cold weather payments; secondly, by helping people save energy and so cut their bills with policies like energy efficiency, product regulations, the energy companies obligation and the green deal; and, thirdly, by making our energy markets more competitive, where our reforms have seen the market share of smaller independent companies grow from less than 1% in 2010 to 10% today, enabling people to save hundreds of pounds on their bills by switching supplier.
Mr Reid
The price of oil has been coming down quite dramatically in recent weeks. This opens up the prospect of lower prices, particularly for people who live off the gas grid. What is he doing to ensure that companies selling to those consumers bring their prices down to help them with their heating bills this winter?
Mr Davey
First, Mr Speaker, I apologise for not getting the list of questions right. My hon. Friend the Member for Argyll and Bute (Mr Reid) makes a good point. We expect heating oil companies to pass on the savings they are making. They do not hedge in the way that electricity and gas companies do in relation to the long-term forward markets; I understand that heating oil forward purchases are done on a much shorter time scale. We would therefore expect reductions in the price of oil to be fed through much more quickly.
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Alan Reid and Ed Davey
Mr Davey
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. An energy price freeze would hit investors, hit investment, hit energy security and hit our efforts to decarbonise. Worst of all, it would hit consumers, because energy companies would put up their prices directly after the freeze. Everybody knows that, and it is one of the reasons why we have been pushing competition. Competition means not merely freezing bills—five of the big six have announced that they will freeze their bills this year—but, because of independent suppliers, enabling people to cut their bills. Our policy is to cut bills; the Opposition’s is simply to freeze them. We are the ones who are ambitious and on the side of the consumer.
Mr Alan Reid (Argyll and Bute) (LD)
Many of my constituents live off the gas grid, and there is limited competition for liquefied petroleum gas or heating oil to heat their homes. Many of my constituents depend on one local supplier and have to pay whatever prices that supplier chooses to charge. What can my right hon. Friend do to help my constituents who are in that position?
Mr Davey
My hon. Friend makes a really important point. The Minister of State, my right hon. Friend the Member for Sevenoaks (Michael Fallon) has been working with the industry on the concordat. The statistics that have emerged from the new fuel poverty definitions show, unlike previous ones, that much fuel poverty is in off gas grid areas. When we bring forward the fuel poverty strategy shortly, we will be focusing on off gas grid customers, because they are really suffering, and—guess what?—the previous Government did nothing about it.
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Alan Reid and Ed Davey
Mr Davey
That, of course, is absolutely not the case. If anything is damaging green jobs, it is the Leader of the Opposition and his irresponsible position on freezing energy prices. That has had a damaging effect on investment, and the right hon. Member for Don Valley (Caroline Flint) knows it. We have a very good record in this area, and I am looking forward to making more announcements of more investment.
Mr Alan Reid (Argyll and Bute) (LD)
2. What assessment he has made of the process involved when a Scottish and Southern Energy customer on its “Total Heating, Total Control” tariff tries to switch to another electricity supplier.
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Alan Reid and Ed Davey(11 years, 2 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text
Mr Davey
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. The Energy Bill and electricity market reform do just that. He may be interested to know that we have today asked the Leader of the Opposition 10 questions about Labour’s policy. If we look at it, we not only find that it is a con that will reduce competition and hurt the small suppliers, but that it will hurt investment, too, which is needed to keep energy security and to decarbonise. Labour’s policy is economically illiterate.
Mr Alan Reid (Argyll and Bute) (LD)
SSE’s 8.2% average price increase—we should remember that some people have to pay more than that—is unacceptable when the company is boasting on its website about the large dividends it pays out to its shareholders every year. I see competition as the answer. Will my right hon. Friend tell my constituents what concrete steps are being taken to improve competition and when they will be able to have a much wider choice than they have at the moment?
Mr Davey
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. When big energy companies make these high price rises, I would urge all their customers to look at the competition available. There is a lot of choice out there. In fact, there is far more choice than there has been for a long time—possibly ever. The last Government killed choice and reduced competition; under this Government, we have seen a big increase.
Energy Market Reform
Debate between Alan Reid and Ed Davey(12 years, 1 month ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text
Mr Davey
One thing I agreed during my negotiations with the big six earlier this year, ahead of this winter, was that those who receive a reduction in their bill through the warm home discount should also receive the most attention from energy suppliers to help them get the best available tariff. Those people were the priority then and they are the priority now.
What I find slightly odd about Labour’s position, is that they seem to be worried only about the over-75s. What about everyone else facing high energy bills? What about families who are struggling with those bills? The Government’s policies will address everybody.
Mr Davey
I want to make some progress and I will come to my hon. Friend in a moment.
The Government’s policies combine competition and energy saving, and are designed to drive a wedge between rising world energy prices and the actual energy bills that people in Britain end up paying—decoupling bills from prices. If tougher competition in the UK energy market can take the sting out of rising global prices, and if we can help people to use less energy, we can cushion families and firms.
In many ways, the right hon. Member for Don Valley (Caroline Flint) said similar things. She talked about competition and markets, and it was music to my ears. Where we differ, however, is in the detail, and in particular on how to generate the extra competition that she spoke eloquently about.
Daylight Saving Bill
Debate between Alan Reid and Ed Davey(12 years, 11 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text
Mr Reid
I entirely agree with the hon. Gentleman. If the referendum proposed by the SNP in Scotland were to succeed, Scotland would have no say about the time in England. If the clock was moved forward by an hour in England, the situation to which I referred earlier would arise and the Scottish Government and Parliament would be presented with a fait accompli.
Mr Reid
I am extremely grateful to my hon. Friend for that intervention. He shows once again the complete inconsistency of the Scottish Government. One minute, they ask for one thing and, if it is granted, they start huffing and puffing and complaining that the Government here are being anti-Scottish. In fact, the Government here have given the Scottish Government exactly what they asked for.
Daylight Saving Bill
Debate between Alan Reid and Ed Davey
Mr Davey
And I am keen to say it.
I was saying that we have had two experiments in different countries which were abandoned not for the same reasons, but because on the whole more of the population found that it affected their lives deleteriously. Of course, the argument that it is necessary to be in the same time zone as other member states in the European Union is perhaps less important than it was, because expansion has meant that the EU spans three time zones, not just one.
Jersey also deserves a mention. We have heard about Gibraltar, but what about Jersey? Normandy is just 14 miles away from the Channel Islands, but, despite being closer to the French coast than to the UK mainland, in a referendum in October 2008 Jersey residents voted against moving to central European time by 17,230 votes to 6,564.