Domestic Gas and Electricity (Tariff Cap) Bill

Debate between Antoinette Sandbach and Rebecca Long Bailey

2nd reading: House of Commons
Tuesday 6th March 2018 Commons Chamber

[Rebecca Long Bailey]

The emergency payments were certainly welcome—I thank the hon. Gentleman for his comment—but the fact remains that this price cap should have been in place this winter and it was not.

National Energy Action also found that each year an average of 9,700 people die due to living in a cold home. That equates to 80 people per day, the same number of people who die from breast or prostate cancer each year. It has been Labour party policy since 2013 to introduce a price cap on consumer energy bills, and although the principle of this Bill is positive, I remain concerned that, as drafted, it does not go far enough.

[Antoinette Sandbach (Eddisbury) (Con)]

Given that electricity prices rose by 44% between 2003 and 2007, will the hon. Lady outline what action the Labour Government took in their 13 years in power to address this issue?

[Rebecca Long Bailey]

The hon. Lady makes an interesting point. I think that both sides of the House have reached something of a consensus on our energy market. People on the right and left—wherever they place themselves on the political spectrum—agree that our energy market is fundamentally broken and needs to be reviewed. It is interesting that the Government put their own commission in place, under Dieter Helm, but we have had no response from them so far about the proposals it made.

I have several issues with the Bill as drafted, but I start with the fact that it does not provide any direction from the Secretary of State on his preferred level of cap, which effectively passes the buck to Ofgem. The Bill merely states:

“The Authority must exercise its functions…with a view to protecting existing and future domestic customers who pay standard variable and default rates”.

In doing so, Ofgem must consider a number of factors, including creating incentives for suppliers to improve efficiency, enabling suppliers to compete effectively, maintaining incentives to switch between suppliers, and the need to ensure that holders of supply licences who operate efficiently are able to finance activities authorised by that licence.

Budget Resolutions

Debate between Antoinette Sandbach and Rebecca Long Bailey

1st reading: House of Commons
Tuesday 28th November 2017 Commons Chamber

[Rebecca Long Bailey (Salford and Eccles) (Lab)]

I am surprised by the Secretary of State’s comments, which are usually quite measured, and he seems to be struggling with reality today. However, let us talk about the Budget. A substantial section of the Chancellor’s speech on Wednesday focused on the productivity crisis, and rightly so. Labour analysis has shown that we have to go back to 1820, when George IV ascended the throne just after the Napoleonic wars, before we can find a time when productivity increased by less than this over a 10-year period. The result has been catastrophic. People are earning less now than they were 10 years ago and, as the Institute for Fiscal Studies states, average earnings look set to be nearly £1,400 lower by 2021 than was forecast last year. The Chancellor and the Secretary of State have tried to paint that as a phenomenon that is quite separate from the Government—like a sort of freak accident that is nothing to do with them—but that could not be further from the truth. To help the Secretary of State with his recollection of history and reality itself, I will take him on a little trip down memory lane.

By late 2008, it was clear that monetary policy alone was not working in the traditional way—people were not spending and the economy was not recovering. To quote economist Paul Krugman,

“the truth is that mainstream, textbook economics not only justified the initial round of post-crisis stimulus, but said that this stimulus should continue until economies had recovered.”

But what did the Conservatives do? The polar opposite: slashing Government spending and investment, and essentially pulling the rug out from under the UK economy.

Not only that, but the financial crash had shown clearly that our economy was becoming dangerously over-reliant, both regionally and sectorally, on financial services in the south-east of Britain.

[Antoinette Sandbach]

Does the hon. Lady accept that, in effect, 12 previous years of Labour Government had left the economy in that state?

[Rebecca Long Bailey]

Frankly, I expect better from the hon. Lady; she usually makes very measured contributions. If she lets me continue, I will explain a little about what happened. Perhaps she will make different comments if she asks another question later.

It made perfect sense to use that economic turning point as an opportunity to invest in the development of our industrial base and to address the deep structural problems that had been emerging in our economy since the early 1980s. However, what happened was the scaling back of investment and funding in the tools that business needs to grow and succeed, such as skills, infrastructure, research and development, and access to long-term patient capital.