Oral Answers to Questions

Caroline Flint Excerpts

Thursday 31st January 2013 Commons Chamber

[Gregory Barker]

Those people should also see reductions; they certainly will not be stranded on previous deadweight tariffs.

[Caroline Flint (Don Valley) (Lab)]

The Government have claimed that the new energy company obligation will be bigger and better than the fuel poverty and energy efficiency schemes that came before it. Why, therefore, could up to 60% of ECO funding end up going to people who can already afford to improve their homes, and not to those in fuel poverty?

[Gregory Barker]

The fact is that a minimum of £540 million a year under ECO will be directed towards the fuel poor. That is a minimum; we expect far more to end up in low-income areas as ECO rolls out, and as we upgrade our housing and finally come up with the solution in respect of retrofitting that Labour, in 13 years, failed to offer.

[Caroline Flint]

The Minister can dodge the question as much as he likes, but the facts speak for themselves. Out of this year’s ECO budget of £1.3 billion, just £540 million will go to people in fuel poverty. That is less than the budget for people who can afford to insulate their own homes, and less than half the support available last year. Is that not why, according to the Government’s impact assessment, ECO is forecast over the next 10 years to lift just 250,000 households out of fuel poverty—50,000 fewer than fell into fuel poverty this winter alone?

[Gregory Barker]

I remind the right hon. Lady that, while she was in government as a Minister, fuel poverty rose from 2 million to 5.5 million. This Government are committed to doing something about it. Rather than crying crocodile tears, perhaps she should recognise that that £500 million-plus is the absolute minimum we are spending on the fuel poor. We expect to spend a lot more.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Davey]

I am grateful for my hon. Friend’s question; that sounds a very interesting scheme. We are supporting micro-hydro schemes through feed-in tariffs but if she has particular issues that she wants to discuss with me or my colleagues in DECC, I am sure we will find time to meet her and her delegation.

[Caroline Flint (Don Valley) (Lab)]

Every day it is becoming more evident where the Liberal Democrats do not agree with their Conservative colleagues. However, in response to Labour’s proposal to extend community energy schemes by increasing the feed-in tariff threshold to 10 MW, the Minister of State, Department of Energy and Climate Change, the right hon. Member for Bexhill and Battle (Gregory Barker), told the Energy Bill Committee that

“it is a matter of public record that I myself supported the expansion of the FITs scheme at the Conservative party conference last year…However, this is a coalition Government”.––[Official Report, Energy Public Bill Committee, 22 January 2013; c. 248-49.]

Will the Secretary of State confirm today that it is the Liberal Democrats who are responsible for the Government’s failure to support extending the feed-in tariff threshold to 10 MW in the Energy Bill and therefore to support and encourage community energy schemes?

[Mr Davey]

I congratulate the right hon. Lady on a good try, but I am afraid it is going to fail. I work closely with both my Ministers of State and we are a united team on that and many other measures. I am sure the right hon. Lady will be terribly disappointed, but that is why we will introduce later this year the most ambitious community energy strategy this country has ever seen, and we will consult on it before we finalise it. She wants to point out one measure, but that will be considered along with many others. We have a rather more ambitious approach to community energy than the previous Government ever had.