Cost of Living

Alan Whitehead Excerpts

Wednesday 16th May 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Davey]

Since becoming Secretary of State, I have spoken to Professor John Hills, given all the work he did analysing fuel poverty, and I have made changes to the energy company obligations as originally designed. The Deputy Prime Minister talked about this issue recently. We will be laying regulations before the House for debate this summer which will contain all the details that the right hon. Lady seeks. I say to her in the nicest possible way that she needs to wait a little bit, but those regulations will be laid before this House.

[Dr Alan Whitehead (Southampton, Test) (Lab)]

Does the Secretary of State accept that unless action is taken on the interest rates charged by those providing the loans for the green deal, the green deal is unlikely to deliver what he says its likely benefit is? What action has he taken to get that right, and why is he doing nothing further to ensure that the interest rate is compatible with an effective green deal for the future?

[Mr Davey]

I have been looking at the financial arrangements of the green deal. When we are able to announce even more details than we have already, I believe that people will see that it is a very attractive offer. I also believe that there are many low-income households that will actually welcome the rate of credit that will be asked through the green deal, compared with some of the rates of credit that they have to pay other lenders.

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[Mr Davey]

The hon. Gentleman is right to say that there are people predicting that wholesale gas prices will go up later this year. We had the announcement from Centrica last week, and we also had the announcement from E.ON. I am sure that other providers will be competing on price. However, I have already laid out some of the measures that we have been taking, whether it is the discussions that we had with the energy providers on gas and electricity bills, the collective switching or the work that Ofgem is doing on tariff simplification. All those measures make up quite a strong package to try to help the constituents he has just mentioned.

Returning to the energy Bill, there are four parts to our reforms: new long-term supply contracts to provide stable incentives to invest in low-carbon electricity generation; a capacity mechanism to ensure that we can keep the lights on; an emissions performance standard to keep carbon emissions from new fossil fuel plants down; and a carbon price floor to give investors certainty to commit capital to low-carbon projects. These reforms will attract the investment that we need to secure our electricity supplies. The investment will bring real rewards: up to 250,000 jobs in the construction and operation of new power plants, 19 GW of new electricity capacity, and an energy system that is fit for the future.

This is one of the biggest delivery programmes that this Government will oversee. It will stimulate growth, support new skilled jobs, upgrade our ageing energy infrastructure and bring down consumer energy bills. Our latest analysis shows that over the next two decades the average household energy bill will be 4% lower than if we did nothing. If we do not act now, we face a higher risk of blackouts and more exposure to price spikes, and higher consumer bills for both homes and businesses. That is not a future that this Government are willing to consider, so we will take the right decisions for the long term. The provisions in the forthcoming energy Bill will keep the lights on and our carbon emissions down, at the lowest cost to the consumer.

[Dr Whitehead]

As the right hon. Gentleman has made specific mention of the consumer benefit that will arise from electricity market reform, would he care to place on the record this afternoon how many consumer-based levies are in his energy market reform proposals, and what price effect their implementation will have on consumer bills?

[Mr Davey]

When we publish the draft Bill for pre-legislative scrutiny, I will set out a range of details, with a lot of technical documents. What I can say to the hon. Gentleman ahead of that is that there will be fewer levies than Labour planned. Labour planned a levy on bills for carbon capture and storage, which I believe would have cost consumers £9 billion. We are not going ahead with that.

This is a difficult time for many households. I am sure that Members on both sides of the House have heard from constituents who are struggling to pay their bills or keep their businesses afloat. Promises from politicians will not make the end of the month come any sooner, but the Government are doing what they can to help. We are making it easier for people to get a better deal from their energy suppliers; we are bringing energy efficiency to the mass market, making homes in every corner of the country cheaper to heat; and we are reforming our electricity system, to protect consumers from a more unstable and more expensive energy future. These three objectives share a common cause: not only will they insulate our consumers from energy price rises, but they will deliver a cleaner, more secure and more affordable energy system for generations to come. This is government for the long term, and that is what this coalition stands for. We are taking action where the last Government delivered inaction.

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[Jake Berry]

It was 46p when I bought it last weekend, but since the general election, the cost of the pint of milk that I buy for my milky coffee has gone up by 10%. Although that is not the world’s greatest economic indicator, all hon. Members can accept that it is a symptom of the huge increase in the cost of fuel, which puts pressure on families in all our constituencies.

I am a great supporter of the great British pint—I am sure some of my colleagues think that litres are a European abomination—but one thing that we buy in litres is fuel. The cost of fuel in my constituency is 6p or 7p a litre more expensive than in the neighbouring towns of Bury and Bolton. I became absolutely fed up with that, so I wrote to the major supermarkets to ask why there is such a difference. Apparently, for people who live in rural isolated areas such as Rossendale and Darwen, the local supermarket sets the cost of the fuel at the pump. Therefore, in a small geographical area that encompasses my constituency alone, the biggest retailer in my patch—the supermarket—sets the price and is the major supplier.

People in my area say, “Welcome to rip-off Rossendale or dearest Darwen if you want fuel in your car.” That situation cannot be right. It is wrong that supermarkets behave in that way on fuel pricing. I can find out the price of a Tesco pint of milk or a can of beans by going on its website, but it is not prepared to set a tariff for fuel nationally and instead discriminates against rural and isolated areas.

I support the Government’s idea of getting energy suppliers, particularly the utility companies, to write to their customers to offer them the lowest tariff, but supermarkets should offer petrol at the cheapest price to the young, hard-working families in my constituency—they might have to put diesel in a van to go to work or petrol in a small car to take children to school—and not at a price that they know they can get away with just because of location. The major supermarkets have had a monopoly—the hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale (Tim Farron), who is no longer in his place, spoke extremely well on farming and the price of milk in that respect. Anti-competitive practices on fuel are pushing small, independent fuel retailers out of business, which is bad for businesses and for my area.

That extra £5 a week where I live to put fuel in a vehicle to go to work is the difference between people being able to turn the heating on or not, being able to feed their children healthy food or not, or being able to go out and spend money in the economy or not. I hope fuel price setting is part of the Government’s programme to look at the relationship between supermarkets and their suppliers.

The cost of gas and electricity is another major issue raised by all our constituents. Those costs have ballooned beyond anyone’s increase in income over the past few years. They have risen by as much as 20%. We tell people to switch supplier. When people visit me in my patch, they say they will not switch supplier because they are nervous of bill shock. Uniquely, virtually, in a service industry supplying utilities to our houses, it is expected to be self-service. People are asked to read their own electricity meter. People in my advice surgeries have told me that they purposely underestimate how much electricity or gas they have used to help manage their cash flow. That builds up a huge legacy bill. Others simply have underestimations having had their meter readings underestimated over a long period.

Those people are worried about switching, because they know that when they switch they will have to give an up-to-date meter reading and will have a huge legacy bill that they cannot pay. These people, sometimes those on the most expensive tariff, are unable to switch because they cannot pay their historical bill. That is why it is absolutely right that the Queen’s Speech sets out a programme to introduce smart metering. Bglobal, a successful business in my constituency, which I am delighted to see has retained its profitability, does business-to-business smart metering. There is an opportunity for us all to have smart meters in our homes.

[Dr Whitehead]

Does the hon. Gentleman think that consumers should pay for smart meter installation or should other methods of payment be considered?

[Jake Berry]

However they are paid for, ultimately the consumer will pay, because if the electricity company pays, it will be added to the bill somewhere.

I am glad that the hon. Member for Southampton, Test (Dr Whitehead) is interested in smart metering. As I said, Bglobal, a business-to-business smart meter supplier in my constituency, is doing very well. The great thing about smart meters is that they enable us to pay only for the energy we use. There is not the bill shock; there is not the legacy bills which make people nervous. Paying only for the energy we use helps us to manage our electricity consumption and means that we can reduce it over time. People underestimate their readings so that they can manage their cash flows and pay their bills, but that is not real; they are simply putting off the pain. I want people to understand that by smart metering they can regulate their utility use and genuinely reduce their bills.

Bill shock is a real block to switching, as too is the fact that switching between the majority of energy suppliers involves an online medium. I refer to the uSwitch website, which I am sure many Members have used. That is a real block for the elderly and people on low incomes who do not have an internet connection. There are plenty of silver surfers in my constituency—they e-mail and tweet me—but that is not for everyone, so switching online is not right for all. People without phone lines or internet connections cannot switch.

Having said that, uSwitch does make the switching facility available in paper form. I am sure that many Members, like me, have collected the uSwitch envelopes and taken them out to elderly constituents, saying “Get your last utility bill, put it in here, and uSwitch will write back telling you the best tariff to go on.” As MPs, we should be publicising that and ensuring that vulnerable constituents are not excluded from saving what can be hundreds of pounds by switching their electricity supplier.

I support the Government’s proposal that energy suppliers should be compelled to write to their customers every year offering them the cheapest tariff. That does not enable people to switch between suppliers, but it at least ensures that they are on the best tariff. Of course, that is not always the one with the lowest electricity charge. Some people—those with very low usage, for example—might choose not to pay the standing charge and pay slightly more for their electricity. Tariffs have to be tailored to individuals.

Finally, I turn to the proposal to ensure that power generation in this country is environmentally sustainable. Often in this place we obsess far too much about short-term issues. As important as things are such as the eurozone, part of our job has to be horizon scanning. If I scan the horizon and think about what might affect our children or grandchildren, global warming is probably the biggest issue that I spot. I absolutely support the Government proposals to move to more sustainable electricity generation, but we have a problem with wind energy. In my constituency, 30 planning applications for wind turbines are currently under consideration by the local authority. That points to a market that is completely out of kilter with commercial reality. We saw it with solar energy: we had a sort of gold rush, because people suddenly realised that they could get 16% guaranteed by the Government tax-free. We are now seeing similar speculation by major energy suppliers, with the applications for large wind turbines in my constituency.

We all support wind generation, but I do not want to see my patch become the wind capital of the UK—although colleagues might look at me and think that it already has become that. I hope that the Government will have a look at the subsidy for wind generation and try to ensure that we cut the “get rich quick” merchants—the speculators—out of the market. I am happy to see the development in my area, but I want to ensure a local benefit, so that it really works for our children and grandchildren.

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[Dr Alan Whitehead (Southampton, Test) (Lab)]

Today, we heard that energy prices for the average household went up by 12% over the last 12 months, and by 34% over the last four years. That clearly has a tremendous impact on the cost of living and, as we have heard already, on the rise in fuel poverty.

Bills are not increasing because of green initiatives, although they contribute. The Daily Mail and others who have suggested that green and environmental initiatives add hundreds of pounds to energy bills are wrong. They are increasing mainly because of the non-transparent energy market and global fuel prices. The latter are not about to change, but we can do a lot about other issues.

Investing in green energy and the low-carbon economy is one route to lower fuel costs in the future, because of the disaggregation of fuel costs and world mineral energy prices. We can keep getting indigenously produced and stably priced fuel in the future. Investing in energy efficiency in homes and offices—using less energy more efficiently—is a no-brainer, as has been said. Lower energy usage will bring smaller bills. The best method for combating fuel poverty is to fuel-poverty-proof UK homes.

All that investment in energy and the low-carbon economy means jobs, energy security and the development of technologies where the UK can play a world role. In some instances, we already have a world lead that needs sustaining. I understand that the Foreign Secretary recently intervened on these matters in a letter to various Departments. He said:

“I am in no doubt that we must meet this challenge, not only to safeguard the sustainability of our planet and the security of our energy, but also to ensure we are at the front of the queue when it comes to the jobs and industries of the future.”

I agree with many of those sentiments, but it is remarkable that the right hon. Gentleman felt it necessary to write that letter if the Government are indeed the greenest ever, as has been suggested.

Current policy on the challenges is patchy; in practice the Government even fail to get to grips with the targets in their own legislation. It looks as though the carbon emissions reduction and community energy saving programmes will end ingloriously, seriously short of their targets. The targets and likely achievements and ambitions of their replacements—the green deal and the energy company obligation—are being downgraded before our eyes. The green deal is stuck on the question of interest rates.

On fuel poverty and hard-to-treat homes, the overall ambition is being bound by the imposition of levy caps. That is a peculiar element of forward Government policy, in that the response to the question of levies for environmental and green purposes is first to introduce them as a policy instrument in energy policy in the future, and then to disembowel their effectiveness by capping them. There is no plan B, and we can see the results of that process in the recent solar PV feed-in tariffs fiasco. Hence the serious binding of the energy companies’ obligation at £1.3 billion a year, even if successful, leads us only halfway towards those hard-to-treat homes’ insulation targets. If a switch is made towards dealing with fuel poverty, that target will be further downgraded and there will be no serious impact on long-term fuel poverty.

The levy theme is recurrent in future energy policies, as well as in present initiatives. We have a levy for the energy company obligation, a levy for smart meters, a levy for the warm home discount, a levy for feed-in tariffs and a levy for carbon reduction commitments. In the energy Bill, levy mechanisms are the engine oil of the measures to reform the energy market, although as I have commented previously, the Bill is remarkable in seeking to promote energy market reform without reforming the way the energy market works—that is, it continues with the loose regulation of non-transparent bilateral deals a long time ahead, without any change in the new energy Bill.

We will shortly see what the Bill consists of, but we know already that there will be a new levy, effectively for capacity payments, a levy for contracts for difference, a likely levy for a fund to underwrite the counterparties to the contract for difference, and indirectly at least, a levy fund to anticipate payments into Government when energy prices rise above the agreed strike price level. So a series of new levies will come in with new legislation, undoubtedly being capped by the Treasury in the process.

That seems to me not to be a sensible long-term form of green and low-carbon energy policy. It is a dead-end in policy development, and one that we need to get over if we are to meet the ambition, among other things, set out in the Foreign Secretary’s recent letter. We can start to do that, in the context of this Queen’s Speech, by redesigning the Bill that is coming up on energy market reform genuinely to reform the energy market, so that it works around a transparent pool which will drive prices down through full contract transparency and the ability of new and competitive entrants to come in on a level trading playing field.

There seem to be no demand-side measures in energy market reform, unless there are big surprises in the Bill when it emerges, to incentivise and support reductions in energy demand and the advance of energy efficiency in our energy market. Is it because DECC cannot negotiate further levies with the Treasury that there are no demand-side measures in electricity market reform as it stands? We should go further and look at the relationship of green taxes in the future, not the hypothecation of current taxes, to the advancement of the low-carbon economy.

Why should new green taxes that are supposed to tax bads and reward goods simply disappear into the Treasury, thereby underlining the often unjust accusation that they are not green taxes at all, and are merely stealth taxes? Should not those new forms of taxation, such as the carbon floor price and the auction of EU emissions trading scheme credits, be placed behind our move to a low-carbon economy and our support for low-carbon technologies within it, rather than acting as an arguable one-way tax that does not connect with the promotion of environmental goods in any way?

The energy bill revolution campaign suggests that at least some of these taxes should be applied to the promotion of energy efficiency, and in particular to home insulation. I applaud that idea. I would like to go further, to relate green taxes to our support for green initiatives, instead of the dreary round of levy imposition, followed by Treasury cap, followed by policy fiasco. This can be, among other things, mediated and given enormous added value by the green investment bank, the other environmental measure contained in the Queen’s Speech—a green bank hobbled at present by Treasury formulae so that it cannot be a bank and do what banks do as far as credit, bonds, lending and so on are concerned until 2017 at the earliest. Legislation to make it a real bank early is another important matter.

It is the lack of ambition for the green and low-carbon economy, and the difficulty in creating policy instruments to move the low-carbon economy forward, that stand out in the proposed measures. These are measures to which we should pay urgent attention as we debate the Queen’s Speech.