Prepayment Meters: Self-Disconnection

Debate between Catherine West and Alan Whitehead

Thursday 15th December 2022 Commons Chamber

[Dr Whitehead]

I thank the hon. Member for emphasising her optimism; let us see how we get on this afternoon.

Hon. Members have added to the debate positively by setting out where we are on prepaid meters and a number of issues relating to their present operation, as well as where we need to go for the future. About 15% of UK households are on smart meters for electricity and 14% are on prepaid meters for gas. That may well have gone up since those figures were last calculated. As hon. Members have mentioned, about half a million warrants to place people on to prepaid meters have been successfully passed through the courts since the beginning of the covid pandemic in 2021, so the figure is likely to be higher.

The situation is, frankly, a snapshot of the way in which the have-nots in our society are treated, as opposed to the haves. We need to keep that centrally in mind, because overwhelmingly, a substantial number of people in vulnerable circumstances, on lower incomes and in poorer housing are on prepaid meters, whereas people who are not in those circumstances have accounts. As the hon. Member set out, that means that there is a two-tier arrangement on energy debt. On one side, those with accounts can manage and work their way through very large amounts of debt. On the other side, those on prepaid meters simply cannot do that, for the simple reason that as soon as they go over the credit limit, they are out—their meter has, effectively, been switched off—and they have no more energy. Let us be clear: from the point of view of energy supply companies, that is the most efficient way to get rid of the problem that they might face, under other circumstances, of having to pursue customers for debt. Companies can simply put people on prepaid meters and they then self-disconnect, ending the problem for the energy supply companies.

As my hon. Friend the Member for York Central (Rachael Maskell) and other hon. Members said, in a recent court case in the north of England, about 496 warrants were agreed in a very short period for people to go on to a prepaid meter despite what they wanted to happen. Some people like the way that prepaid meters operate, in terms of balancing the family budget, but I would suggest that they are in a minority. Most people are on prepaid meters because they have to be and their circumstances do not allow them to do otherwise. However, it is not really the case that the courts can just rubber stamp warrants. It would be very difficult to rubber-stamp 496 warrants in three minutes—that was the speed at which the warrants were recently dealt with in that particular court case. A conveyor belt of warrants for prepaid meters is currently going through the courts, adding up to the enormous figure that I mentioned.

As hon. Members have said, there is already a differential with prepaid meters. The have-nots pay more and the haves pay less on tariffs, standing charges and so on. That is remarkable because, prepaid meters are a very good thing for the cash flow of energy companies and for getting money in up front, which I would have thought would lead to lower rather than higher charges for prepaid meters.

[Catherine West]

Does my hon. Friend agree that this is yet another example of rip-off Britain?

[Dr Whitehead]

That is right. We are allowing a group of customers to be ripped off much more easily than other people in the energy sphere. It is good that we have shone a light on that this afternoon, because this needs urgent action. For the short term, I hope that the Government will say that there should be a moratorium on further warrants to put people on to prepaid meters, at least for duration of the energy crisis. That would at least mean that, as hon. Members have already said, we would not be putting more people into a situation in which they face impossible choices in their household management. In a number of instances, people literally cannot reactivate their systems when they have been disconnected, or have self-disconnected. They simply do not have the wherewithal to get back on the prepaid meter horse, as it were, because—among other things—the standing charges continue to ratchet up.

People are also paying grossly inflated prices when they are not the direct bill payer. I am thinking of people in park homes and in various other circumstances where the landlord has a meter-charge arrangement that bears no relation to what that should be, were the money to go into the meter. So, given the energy crisis, there are a great many areas in which the Government must take action in the near future in recognition of the fact that people with prepayment meters are at the coalface when it comes to energy poverty.

Edmonton EcoPark: Proposed Expansion

Debate between Catherine West and Alan Whitehead

Wednesday 9th February 2022 Westminster Hall

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

I congratulate the right hon. Member for Chingford and Wood Green—

[Catherine West]

Woodford Green.

[Dr Whitehead]

Sorry, the right hon. Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Sir Iain Duncan Smith). My office companion is my hon. Friend the Member for Hornsey and Wood Green (Catherine West), so that is on my mind all the time, as it should be. I need to get my nomenclature absolutely straight.

I congratulate the right hon. Member for Chingford and Woodford Green on having secured today’s debate. The debate appears to be about a specific incinerator in a specific place with specific proposals for its extension, but it encapsulates much wider questions: how do we deal with our waste in modern times, and what are the best ways of dealing with it and, indeed, the energy that might come from it? By examining those wider questions, we loop back to the best thing to do with the North London Waste Authority, and the Edmonton incinerator in particular.

The first thing that is important in addressing this modern debate is to recognise—as my right hon. Friend the Member for Islington North (Jeremy Corbyn) has correctly pointed out—that although we have been talking about waste this afternoon, we should not be talking about it in this way, because the vast majority of waste is actually a resource. In the context of the modern circular economy, the idea that we place a material that we have used into a stream, and then it is gone out of the system one way or another—it used to be buried; now it is incinerated—is clearly not appropriate if we regard that waste primarily as a resource. The duty of authorities dealing with waste should be to make sure that as much of that resource as possible can be recovered for use elsewhere, one way or another.