Warm Home Discount (Miscellaneous Amendments) Regulations 2016

Debate between Baroness Jones of Whitchurch and Baroness Neville-Rolfe

Thursday 21st July 2016 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Neville-Rolfe]

My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Whitchurch. As she says, there is some agreement across the House on the importance of tackling fuel poverty. Like her, I look forward to further debates on this issue in the months, and even years, ahead.

As I have stated, these regulations were prepared in difficult circumstances. I very much regret that they have come before this House so late. Although some households will receive their rebates later than in previous years, the majority will reach customers during the coldest months of the year. As I stated in my opening remarks, payments will start in mid-October and not in December, as I think the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, feared.

To respond to another of her points, we are in touch with suppliers and have put in place steps to ensure that they can begin to credit customers’ accounts by mid-October, helping those customers to keep warmer. We will also closely monitor delivery during the scheme, especially given the delay. However, I say to the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, that I cannot perform a miracle. I can reassure him that I have tried to be completely transparent about what the new timetable is as a result of the delay, which I think we all regret.

I hope that the unusual circumstances of this year will not be repeated next time round. As the new Minister, I take note of what has been said about the importance of avoiding delays in the future and the wish of noble Lords to be able to engage.

As it happens, the Digital Economy Bill, which has been introduced in the other place, will provide the powers to be able to combine data on benefits and the housing stock, helping us to identify more households in fuel poverty. The Government accept that the targeting of this scheme could be improved and, therefore, we are seeking to take steps to improve it. The new powers will provide the Government with the opportunity they need, and also opportunity for debate. We will, of course, be consulting, as we try to do on these sorts of schemes, on the way that we will go about using the new information-sharing powers that we hope to obtain.

The noble Baroness, Lady Miller of Chilthorne Domer, rightly pointed out, and I can confirm, that we have committed to extending the warm home discount to 2020-21. That discount continues to help a large number of poorer households with their energy costs, right across the country, at a time when they are most in need. We will work with stakeholders to deliver these changes efficiently and will continue to provide help where and when it is needed in the most effective way. This obviously complements other proposals that either exist or are being consulted on, such as the energy company obligation and improvements to homes in the private rented sector, which have some of the worst energy efficiency ratings.

The noble Baroness also mentioned measures stemming from the CMA report, which is one thing that I plan to read this weekend. If I have anything further to say, I will certainly come back to her. I look forward to learning from her in this new brief.

I hope that noble Lords will agree that these regulations are important and forgive us for the delay. I hope that the noble Baroness will feel able to withdraw her amendment.

[Baroness Jones of Whitchurch]

My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister for the regret that she expressed about the timetable and the late registration of the regulations before the House. Obviously, that goes some way to addressing our concerns.

We could argue about the five months. I do not think that the unusual circumstances—or however we want to describe them—go back to November of last year. Still at the heart of this issue is a fundamental problem about cross-departmental working and cross-departmental policy discussion, which seemingly remains unresolved. We were looking for the opportunity to hear from the noble Baroness that the Government understand that, are taking it seriously and are addressing it.

[Baroness Neville-Rolfe]

I did say that I take the point about interdepartmental co-operation. It was quite an unusual period in the run-up to the referendum lasting several months: it felt like that to me. However, I am a newcomer to this subject and all I can do is to learn going forward. Cross-departmental agreement in these sorts of areas, particularly between DWP, the Treasury and others is obviously extremely important.

[Baroness Jones of Whitchurch]

I thank the Minister for that intervention. I have one other point. The timetable that is set out assumes that the data matching will go to plan—the timetable with the DWP is 10 weeks. A lot of those IT projects tend to have optimistic timetables in my experience, so we are relying on that data-matching being done within 10 weeks. Otherwise, there will be a further delay which everyone would find very regrettable. There is clearly more work to be done on targeting and how we can get the rebates and the payments to those in greatest need. I understand that this cannot necessarily be resolved within this particular set of regulations, but there is more room for dialogue on that issue in the months to come.

Having heard what the Minister has to say, I will not detain the House any longer. I do not intend at this stage to press this amendment to a vote. It is the Lord Speaker’s last day in post barring disasters over the summer, so it is only fair to give her a gentle ending to her distinguished service. On that basis, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment withdrawn.

Motion agreed.

Apprentices

Debate between Baroness Jones of Whitchurch and Baroness Neville-Rolfe

Wednesday 10th June 2015 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Jones of Whitchurch (Lab)]

My Lords, on behalf of my noble friend Lord Lennie and at his request, I beg leave to ask the Question standing in his name on the Order Paper.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Departments for Business, Innovation and Skills and for Culture, Media and Sport (Baroness Neville-Rolfe) (Con)]

Over the next five years, we will support 3 million new apprenticeships. We are developing a package of measures to achieve this growth by getting more employers to offer apprenticeships so that many more young people can benefit from this valuable route to a successful career.

[Baroness Jones of Whitchurch]

I thank the Minister for that reply. She will know that the Lords Library has produced statistics showing that of the apprenticeships available, only one quarter are currently going to young people under the age of 19. On top of this, by the admission of the Government’s own funding statement, funding for apprenticeships is going down. Of the 3 million new apprenticeships that the Government are promising to create by 2020, how many will be for 16 to 18 year-olds? Does the Minister agree that schools should be doing far more to encourage young people to consider alternative vocational entry into work?

[Baroness Neville-Rolfe]

My Lords, young people will inevitably be a huge focus of the scheme, but it is right not to exclude others because people can need to develop lifelong learning after the age of 19. We will be making a total investment of £1.5 billion in apprenticeships available in the current year, and I am delighted to say that training for 16 to 18 year-olds is fully funded by the Government, with a particular emphasis on English and maths.