Energy

Alan Whitehead Excerpts

Tuesday 7th March 2023 Commons Chamber

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

As the Minister has said, these statutory instruments deal with alternative fuel payments within the general scope of the domestic energy price guarantee scheme and the non-domestic energy bills support schemes. They deal specifically with circumstances in which the customer does not hold a fuel account directly with the supplier but, either domestically or commercially, is able to secure assistance with energy costs by ensuring that the saving is passed through from the supplier to them. This applies to, for example, park home occupiers or, in business cases, end users such as those who run cafés and guest houses and are lessees of a landlord who pays the bills, and receives the rebate, in the first instance. There will be pass-through payments of £200 for domestic end users and £150 for non-domestic end users. It should be noted that in Northern Ireland alternative fuel payments have been combined with a main payment of £600.

These latest SIs represent what I hope is the end of a long line of provisions for various sub-categories of people for whom we seem to have been legislating for a very long time. However, we ought to note, at least in passing, that this has meant that schemes that were announced in the autumn and were supposed to run for six months are now in the last month of their operation, and some people who should have received support are still waiting for it six months after the scheme started. Lest there be any doubt about that, I can tell the House that in February the Government issued a press release headed “Households, businesses and organisations off the gas grid to receive energy bill support over the coming weeks”, which stated that:

“£200 payments for off grid households start today, while businesses off the grid are expected to receive £150 payments by 10 March”,

which is in three days’ time. I therefore think that the inquiry from the hon. Member for Kilmarnock and Loudoun (Alan Brown) about who had not yet received their payments is rather germane, given what the Government themselves said about the long delays in releasing the payments.

I appreciate that the support schemes have proved difficult to administer, and that there have been repeated instances of new sub-categories of people for whom separate secondary legislation has been necessary to secure the integrity of the schemes, but does the Minister really sit comfortably with the knowledge that a not inconsiderable number of customers, both domestic and non-domestic, did not receive help that was often desperately needed for virtually the whole passage of the scheme itself, and in some instances, as I have said, may not receive support until the middle of the month?

We will not be opposing the SIs. Indeed, we want to see them dispatched so that help, albeit late, can assuredly reach people, particularly those who are relying on pass-through arrangements for relief when they do not receive the up-front sums directly. We are discussing these SIs because—as far as I can see—of defects in the original pass-through SIs, which we have already debated, as reported to the Government by the Joint Committee on Statutory Instruments.

The Committee cited one particular defect in the Energy Bills Support Scheme and Alternative Fuel Payment Pass-through Requirement (Northern Ireland) Regulations 2023, which failed to make it clear that support is to be delivered as a single rather than a monthly payment. That has been corrected in the Non-Domestic Alternative Fuel Payment Pass-through Requirement and Amendment Regulations 2023. However, the Committee reported on a second defect in the legislation which I think is potentially serious: namely, the fact that there are requirements in both pass-through SIs for the intermediary in the scheme to notify the end user within 30 days of the provision of the scheme benefit of how and when the pass-through will take place and what amount will be passed through, and convey the important information that the end user can recover amounts to which they are entitled but do not receive as a civil debt.

All the information about how the end user can expect a pass-through benefit should be contained in the information from the intermediary. The Committee noted that no sanction is attached to the provision to cover cases in which the intermediary fails to inform the end user in that way. It seems that the vital part of telling someone that they will receive the benefit or can sue the intermediary if they do not receive it is essentially a voluntary act for the intermediary to perform.

Yes, they should send the information, and yes, the legislation says that they should, but if they do not, nothing will happen to them, and unless the end user is aware of their entitlements, they might remain in complete ignorance of an expected payment. Thus, nothing will happen as far as a payment is concerned. This is in spite of requirements being placed in the main legislation, the Energy Prices Act 2022. Section 10(b) of that Act states that regulations may make provision

“for the payment of a specified amount, on an application made in accordance with the regulations by a person who is an end user of an intermediary, where the intermediary fails to comply with a requirement by virtue of subsection (9) to provide information to the person”.

It is therefore clear in the main legislation what the secondary legislation is intended to achieve.

The Government’s response to the information they received from the Committee on this defect was to decide not to amend their approach and effectively to ignore this provision in the Act. They say so in the explanatory notes to this SI, and it is worth putting the Government’s line of argument for ignoring the main legislation on record. The explanatory notes state:

“Section 19(10)(b) of the Energy Prices Act 2022 provides that pass-through regulations may require an intermediary who is in breach of requirements to provide information to pay a specified amount on application by the end user to a specified person. The Department decided that the incentive for end users to make such an application for payment would have been insufficient given the time and administrative burden involved in doing so. However it is still considered that there is merit in including notification requirements in the instrument. This is on the basis that many intermediaries would be likely to comply with the requirements notwithstanding the lack of an enforcement mechanism.”

Frankly, that is a rather laughable defence for not doing in the secondary legislation what the original Act said should be done.

Is the Minister comfortable with this state of affairs where the secondary legislation has written out a provision contained in the primary legislation and potentially makes the receipt of relief from bills much more capricious in the process? Does she consider that there is arguably a case for action against the Government by those deprived of the information to which they are entitled on the grounds of negligence in doing their own pass-through, which is to pass the requirements of primary legislation into secondary legislation in such a way that it reflects the primary provisions? Clearly these are not in themselves grounds for chucking these SIs out on a vote, but perhaps the Minister should consider, since she is clearly no stranger to SIs, correcting the defects of previous SIs, and consider whether there might be a case for a further correction of these SIs to place the primary and secondary legislation on a watertight footing.