Energy Prices
Debate between Albert Owen and Thérèse Coffey(13 years, 1 month ago)
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Albert Owen
I am a fellow Welshman, but my energy policy is different from that of the hon. Gentleman. Wales is a net exporter of energy because Wylfa nuclear power station, which is in my constituency, generates 30% of Wales’s energy needs. If that was to go, we would be in a difficult situation. However, he is right to point out that some regions of the United Kingdom that generate energy pay more in the retail price for their energy. The energy companies will tell us—I have raised this as a member of the Energy and Climate Change Committee—that that is because of transmission, but those areas, which are often on the periphery of the UK, generate electricity and send it to the national grid, but the consumers in those areas pay more for it. That is totally wrong and something we all need to work together to eliminate in future.
I wish to concentrate on two issues. The first is the reform of the regulator. I would like the regulator to have more teeth. That is not just my view. I can remember the Prime Minister, when Leader of the Opposition, saying that the regulator needs to get to grips with the energy companies and ensure that they deal with price rises. I agreed with him then, and I agree with that statement now. That is also why I am disappointed that there was a high-profile energy summit in No. 10 that resulted in these very tame reforms, if indeed they are to come about.
Ofgem has already suggested that we introduce greater accountability, greater transparency and simpler tariffs, and the Secretary of State was wrong about the time scale, because I believe that in the past year the number of tariffs has gone up considerably from 180 to some 400. I am not making a political point, because I know that many people, such as the Minister of State, Department of Energy and Climate Change, the hon. Member for Wealden (Charles Hendry) of whom I am very fond, have phoned up energy company call centres and tried to switch tariffs but found it extremely difficult to do so. They have spoken to people at call centres who, despite representing and working for the companies, do not themselves know the tariffs, so the system really needs to be simplified to ensure that people understand them and can make a choice.
Even if everyone were to switch to a cheaper tariff tomorrow, they would still in a year or two’s time be paying more for their energy, so switching is a peripheral issue. We want the energy companies to divvy out some of their profits to help customers directly or to build infrastructure for the future—[Interruption.] Somebody shouts, “They are,” but they are not using their profits to a considerable degree.
Albert Owen
The hon. Lady is trying to intervene. Would she like to intervene on that point?
Albert Owen
I am sorry if the hon. Lady was not listening, but I believe that we will have a new nuclear power station; the consortium, Horizon, is working towards that. Issues in Germany might affect its balance sheet, but it is committed, as the Labour Government were, to the project. Work is being carried out, and I support the site that has been allocated.
When huge profits are made, the customer should not be punished, as they have been, with high rises in their gas and electricity bills. If the hon. Lady thinks the opposite, she is in a minority in the House, because we have seen excessive profits.
Fisheries
Debate between Albert Owen and Thérèse Coffey(13 years, 11 months ago)
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Dr Thérèse Coffey (Suffolk Coastal) (Con)
It is a great pleasure to address the annual fisheries debate for the first time. That delight is slightly diminished by the fact that England did not win its World cup bid. However, that disappointment will be temporary, whereas the disappointment that fishermen face every day over the fact that their industry is being decimated is beyond comparison.
I thank the hon. Member for Banff and Buchan (Dr Whiteford) for leading the charge in securing this debate. I was delighted to accompany her when she put her case to the Backbench Business Committee. I suggest to colleagues that on the first Monday of November next year, we all go to the Backbench Business Committee and secure the rightful place for this debate in the main Chamber. The hon. Member for Aberdeen North (Mr Doran) points at the Minister. He will have voted, I think, for the Backbench Business Committee’s reforms. I understand that in the Wright report, it was decided that the Committee would take on the role of allocating debates, such as the annual fisheries debate. As often happens in politics, voting for something sometimes has unintended consequences. However, this is the reality for this year. For next year, we should all club together and go to the Committee.
I want to congratulate my constituent, Mr Wightman, who has come to London for this debate. He had, I believe, a successful meeting with the Minister earlier. He fishes from a boat called Maximus out of the port of Lowestoft, which is in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Waveney (Peter Aldous). I pay tribute to him for sitting through this debate when he could be out fishing instead.
Fishing may not be the biggest industry in my constituency, but it is an iconic one. The whole area to the north of my constituency is called Sole bay, and for a good reason. It includes places such as Aldeburgh, Southwold, Dunwich, Felixstowe Ferry and other places such as Orford, which have a different kind of fishing. I am surprised that no Member has yet claimed to have the best fish and chips in their constituency, so I will make my bid for that. Although the Minister came to my constituency to look at coastal erosion and meet some fishermen, sadly, we did not have time to stop for fish and chips. If he comes again, I will make sure that that will be our first port of call.
I pay tribute to local fishermen and councils for their efforts, with the support of my hon. Friend the Member for Waveney and our MEPs, to secure significant investment to upgrade the fishing facilities in Southwold harbour. We secured a grant from the European fisheries fund. If colleagues have not had the opportunity to do so, I recommend it. It is a good source of financing to keep our industry going.
Ultimately, however, what will keep our industry going is not fancy facilities but the ability to fish. It is a great irony—hon. Members might remember this as a classic pub quiz question—that the only foodstuff not rationed during world war two was fish, but today we are debating the rationing of fishing. As has been said, it is likely that the total allowable catch will decline in the next agreement, even though the Minister, who has been outstanding during his short time as Fisheries Minister, will fight the good fight. I wish him well.
The fishing fleet in my constituency is an inshore fleet. As has been said, that is substantially the highest proportion of the fleet, with a tiny amount of quota. I know that Commissioner Damanaki has recognised the important cultural role that fishing plays in coastal communities. It enhances the social and economic fabric as well, which should not be underestimated. Different experiments in managing fisheries have been undertaken. It would be worth while for the Minister to go back and look at some of the trials in the eastern sea area to see what worked and what did not.
In a way, I did not appreciate the importance of fishing to my constituency until that became clear in the summer, when fishermen were suddenly prevented from fishing. Although I should not use unnecessary hyperbole, the consequences in terms of the community’s reaction, never mind the fishermen’s, were absolutely astronomic. Again, I pay tribute to the Minister, because I know that he worked exceptionally hard to get the quota swaps. I understand from my hon. Friend the Member for South Thanet (Laura Sandys) that the fishermen’s subsequent quota was higher than last year’s, thanks to the Minister’s good efforts. Although I do not have the data to back that up, I believe it to be true.
Discard rates have been mentioned, as has the distortion of quotas by the fact that discard rates are automatically calculated in. That seems somewhat ridiculous. Discards happen, as has been said. I am interested to hear about Project 50%, to which my hon. Friend the Member for Totnes (Dr Wollaston) referred. I hope that the Minister will consider ways not so much to improve efficiency as to reduce discards, especially in our inshore fleet.
On a slightly different subject, other barriers to fishing include marine conservation zones or offshore wind farms, both of which are prevalent off the coast, as my hon. Friend the Member for Waveney will know. Natural England and other organisations have been proactive in engaging with fishermen on the issue. I believe that my constituent has been involved in helping map out areas where fishermen can still fish. However, as he convincingly pointed out to me earlier, they are effectively doing it blindfolded, because they do not know what the Marine Management Organisation is doing in its plans for sustainable management. It should be a round-table discussion rather than a bilateral one.
Views differ on offshore wind farms. Developers seem to suggest that wind farms provide a haven for fish and are therefore good things. I am not convinced by that, but at some point during the summer, I am due to visit a wind farm, and I hope that the company will allow me to bring along a fisherman as well. Fishermen in my constituency have made a relevant point about the operational effectiveness of the MMO. I am conscious that that is a new organisation. However, I understand that the leadership and directors have already changed on a regular basis. That brings into question the credibility of the leadership of the MMO. Instead of being focused on internal matters, it should focus on fish and fishermen. I do not expect the Minister to criticise the MMO, but perhaps he will reflect on and express his view of its first months of operation.
As my hon. Friend the Member for Waveney and other hon. Members said, it would be useful to have a discussion about how we can devolve the management of fisheries locally. I shall give an example. The people to whom I spoke in the summer suggested that it was all well and good for the MMO to say, “Right, you can now go and fish cod,” but it said that when there were no cod there; they had already moved on. It is that inflexibility that concerns people. The fishermen know what they are doing. I appreciate that the MMO must have a process for deciding what can be fished and for closing different areas and so on, but those decisions seem to be completely unlinked.
There is a joke in our part of the world that there are more “policemen” dealing with fishermen than there are real policemen dealing with criminals. That is an interesting set of priorities. As has been said, there is another distortion in relation to leasing of quotas, which are a valuable commodity. In the past, Governments have boldly adopted the notion of trying to get leaseholders to become freeholders, with some element of compulsion. Although I appreciate that such decisions cannot be made on the back of just one or two conversations, perhaps the Minister will take that into account when considering this issue in future.
Fishing is an inherent part of our country’s heritage. It is an inherent part of what makes us special as an island. It is an inherent part of the good foodstuffs that we should be encouraging people to eat every day. I am proud to serve a coastal constituency. I recognise the excellent contributions made by other hon. Members. I am sure that although the Minister is not from a coastal constituency, there are plenty of fishermen in his area, even if they fish just for recreation.
Fishing is one of our most important industries, but it has been treated shamefully under the common fisheries policy. Hon. Members have asked whether we need a common fisheries policy. I believe that it has been a disastrous experiment, and one of the things that one learns as a scientist is not to keep doing the same experiments and expect to get a different result. It is a case of what could be; we need to take it forward in a new way. We do not rely for our defence solely on the European Union. In fact, we do not at all; we use NATO as the appropriate organisation for that. It seems ridiculous to constituents that landlocked countries have a say on fisheries in the Agriculture and Fisheries Council.
Perhaps there is an opportunity to move forward with people outside the European Union and have a fisheries council just of fishing countries, which work together to make a difference. Who knows what the future holds for fish? I hope that it is a thriving future. Some policies seek the restoration of fish stocks, but the same policies also result in the decimation of the fishing industry.
Albert Owen (in the Chair)
I am grateful to hon. Members who have attended the debate, including the 12 Members who have made speeches. Before I call the Front-Bench spokesmen, I would like to say that I have taken note of what was said about the debate not being in the main Chamber today. I shall ask the Member who initiated the debate to make her concluding remarks after the Minister—he has agreed to this—has made his concluding remarks. I call Willie Bain.
Fuel Poverty (Rural Britain)
Debate between Albert Owen and Thérèse Coffey(14 years, 4 months ago)
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Albert Owen
The hon. Gentleman knows me well enough to know that I would not pander to the previous Labour Government when they were in office, and I will certainly not try to defend their record now when I think that it is wrong. The hon. Member for Somerton and Frome (Mr Heath) has an excellent record on this issue, and now that he is in the Government I hope that he will able to use greater leverage on Ministers to ensure that measures are introduced. As Deputy Leader of the House, he is in the privileged cross-governmental position of being able to bring everyone together to get things done as soon as possible, and he will get my 100% support in doing so.
In his helpful letter to me, the Energy Minister said that some schemes are working and that Ofgem has made progress on connecting vulnerable households to the gas networks by encouraging large gas distribution networks to work with agencies to produce results. He said that about 20,000 households would be connected to the grid by 2013, but we simply do not have the agencies or the local authority initiative in my area, so there is no lead partner. I urge the Government to look at that, because we need a thrust from central Government, and from regional and national Government in Wales and Scotland, to push the issue forward. I acknowledge that there are many excellent energy efficiency measures, and I repeat that the Welsh Assembly Government have an excellent record in this field and are taking fuel poverty and their part in dealing with it very seriously, but we all need to work together.
The boiler scrappage scheme was useful in helping many people to replace equipment. That is a big issue, and the hon. Member for Suffolk Coastal is right that there are a lot of associated costs with changing to another source of energy and not least to another supplier. People have to remove the gas storage equipment in their properties, which is costly, although some companies will take over that cost because they will get the business in the future. However, when people apply, they are hampered by additional costs, so the process is not easy. People feel trapped with their supplier, which is putting an extra cost on them.
Albert Owen
Things certainly have improved, but the change has not been advertised very openly. When people were approached in the past, it is clear that they felt trapped. The customer needs clarity to ensure that they can get a better deal from a different supplier.
The core of the problem remains the cost of domestic fuel, particularly in rural areas and areas on the periphery, and that is why the debate is so important. A constituent in her 80s who came to see me in late May was very grateful for the additional Government support that she received through the winter fuel allowance, which helped to alleviate some of the problems that she faced, but she was still paying huge amounts for her propane gas. From 2008 to April 2010, her company supplied her at a unit cost of between 45p and 51p per litre. That gave her an average quarterly bill of between £400 and £700, which is an enormous amount for an elderly person living on her own in an older property. The property and the dozen like it on the same small estate are not that old, but I was astonished to find that the properties that did not have access to mains gas were all paying different prices to the same supplier. The households had to go through something like an auction to get the basic unit cost down—they had to negotiate.
I raised the issue with the company. In addition to the unit cost, there was the cost of associated charges such as the standing charge and gas surcharges, which took the price up considerably. When the company replied to the correspondence I had sent on behalf of my constituent, it said that the variations were due to the geography, the seasons and the type of agreement, but I am talking about households in the same estate paying different prices.
Those issues need to be looked at, which is why I want to move on to the excellent campaign by Which?, the consumer group, which is looking for greater transparency in energy prices. The old chestnut from many of the suppliers and fuel companies is that the retail price is linked to the wholesale price. When wholesale prices go up, the companies say that they are forced to put their retail prices up, but when wholesale prices come down, companies say that the system is very complicated and sophisticated, and it does not necessarily follow that the retail price is linked to the wholesale price. We therefore need greater transparency.
I am asking for a breakdown from suppliers to show exactly the amount of bulk gas that they get at wholesale prices and what they pay for it. Some of the electricity companies, and the companies that supply gas and electricity, are now more open and transparent, and they are gaining from that—greater transparency is in the interests of the suppliers, as well as the consumer. The Committee of Selection is meeting today, and as a member of the new Select Committee on Energy and Climate Change, I will push for greater transparency so that we can see exactly the link between wholesale and retail prices. That is an important move forward, which would benefit consumers, particularly in rural areas, and I would welcome it. The Government should be encouraged to work with the consumer watchdog to bring about greater transparency.
I know that a number of Members want to speak in the debate, and I do not want to detain them, but I have concentrated on off-mains gas areas because they are being hit particularly hard, and we need to look again at extending the network; indeed, hon. Members in previous Parliaments raised the issue. The irony is that although my constituency is on the periphery, I am promoting the concept of an energy island because we have energy generation in the area. We have a nuclear power station and wind farms, and we welcome both because they generate employment and contribute to the United Kingdom’s energy security. We also have projects that are looking at tidal energy, so we are well positioned to provide the new renewable energy that the Energy Minister told me was a way forward. However, although the Wylfa power station in my constituency supplies more than 30% of energy in Wales, some people living in close proximity to it pay some of the highest prices in Wales for their energy because they do not have the opportunity to use the gas network and they do not have the same choice as many people in non-rural and urban areas of the United Kingdom.
I welcome the response that I received from the Energy Minister. He is a sincere man and he will work with the Deputy Leader of the House and others to ensure that we get a good deal for people in my constituency, in peripheral areas and in rural Britain. Once again, I congratulate the hon. Member for Suffolk Coastal, because this is a hot subject. It needs dealing with now, and I hope that we can move forward.