Large Solar Farms

Charles Walker Excerpts

Wednesday 9th March 2022 Westminster Hall

[Sir Charles Walker (in the Chair)]

Before the debate starts, there are quite a lot of speakers. We have had great co-operation from both Opposition Front-Bench spokespeople, who have kindly agreed not to take their allocated 10 minutes. If you are on the list to speak, I urge you, but I cannot force you, to be restrained in making interventions. We will start with a four minute time limit, but if that proves to be too long I will have to drop it.

[Brendan Clarke-Smith (Bassetlaw) (Con)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered large solar farms.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Charles. I thank colleagues from across the House who are attending this debate, many of whom will be highlighting issues around large solar farms in their own constituencies. I thank the Minister for attending and all those watching at home on Parliament TV.

I will briefly outline the planning process for solar farms. Solar photovoltaic panels, known as solar panels, generate electricity from the sun, and large-scale solar installations are known as solar farms. Planning is a devolved issue, but energy plants that generate more than 100 MW for offshore and 50 MW for onshore generation are treated as nationally significant infrastructure projects and a development consent order must be sought from the Secretary of State for them; solar farms that generate power below that threshold require planning permission only from the local planning authority.

The national planning policy framework provides the framework in which local planning authorities draw up local plans and determine planning applications, and encourages them to promote renewable development and identify appropriate sites for it. The goal, which is admirable, is to meet the challenges of climate change, flooding and coastal change, including our transition to a low-carbon future.

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[Several hon. Members rose—]

[Sir Charles Walker (in the Chair)]

Order. I call Ian Paisley—four minutes.

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[Sir Charles Walker (in the Chair)]

Order. The hon. Gentleman went more than 30 seconds over. I tolerated it from him because of the issue he was discussing, but I will not tolerate it from any other colleagues. The clock is the clock. I call Alicia Kearns.

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[Sir John Hayes (South Holland and The Deepings) (Con)]

I am grateful for your indulgence, Sir Charles, and I will speak briefly as a former energy Minister. Before I do so, I draw the attention of the House to my entry in the Register of Members’ Interests.

The point that my hon. Friend the Member for Tiverton and Honiton (Neil Parish) made at the end of his speech is the first salient point that I want to amplify, and that is that of course there is an argument for renewables. It is not an a priori argument, by the way; it has to be legitimised by renewables’ efficiency, their ability to supply productive energy, and by the goods and virtues they displace. Every kind of energy production needs to be measured against those kind of criteria, as does every specific proposal.

There is a case for renewables in an energy mix—an energy mix that allows us to deal with our environmental footprint, as it is known in the modern idiom; that can guarantee steady supply; and that provides the flexibility necessary to ensure that we can deal with the peaks and troughs of demand. But renewables should be measured by their cost effectiveness, too. The point made by the hon. Member for North Antrim (Ian Paisley) about the cost-effectiveness of solar was one that I identified when I was energy Minister, before my right hon. Friend the Member for West Suffolk (Matt Hancock) did the job.

It is critical that energy supply be placed as close as possible to areas of demand. It is absolutely right that we should populate industrial, commercial and domestic buildings with solar panels long before we consider putting them in fields, which are remote from demand and entail all the transmission costs I mentioned.

My second point is about food security, which I mentioned at the outset of the debate and has been raised several times since. It is vital that we protect grade 1 and 2 agricultural land, such as the land in Lincolnshire that is now being suggested for these very large-scale solar parks. They are not being suggested for some rocky outcrop; it is proposed that they be placed on the very land that can grow the food to guarantee the food security that so many in this House have called for. The Minister needs to make it absolutely clear, again, that the Government will not tolerate that, as we move into a future in which we protect our economy to the greatest degree possible, in terms of both food supply and energy provision—as I have always wanted us to do. We are moving happily into the post-liberal age for which I have clamoured so long.

I have also clamoured for the protection of our green and pleasant land—indeed, for our green and pleasant land to become a new Jerusalem, one might say. A Conservative Government should understand the aesthetic argument associated with solar farms—and wind turbines, too, by the way. It is critical that we preserve the character of settlements, and that we believe in the sense of place that helps to deliver our sense of worth and identity. Again, a truly Conservative Government—and I know that the Minister is truly Conservative, so I have high expectations of him—would do just that.

In summary, it is right that we consider renewables as part of the energy mix, but not on any terms or at any cost. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Bassetlaw (Brendan Clarke-Smith) on being such an outstanding servant of the people of his constituency; I am proud to have contributed to a debate sponsored by him. I look forward to the Minister’s response with eager —one might say gleeful—anticipation.

[Sir Charles Walker (in the Chair)]

Last but not at all least, Greg Smith.

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[Stephen Flynn (Aberdeen South) (SNP)]

It would be remiss of me not to start by congratulating the hon. Member for Bassetlaw (Brendan Clarke-Smith) on securing this important debate, and all his colleagues on their impassioned views. I am not sure I necessarily agree with everything they said, particularly about some of the planning aspects, but I will leave that to the Minister to address, especially as planning is devolved.

Thankfully, in Scotland—and, indeed, everywhere else—direct sunlight is not required for a solar panel. We are fortunate enough in Scotland to still have daylight, though, which means that solar panels do work—as I am sure the hon. Member for Kensington (Felicity Buchan) will recall from her years in the north-east of Scotland, we are not exactly blessed with sunlight. However, solar panels have a key role to play in the wider energy mix, as the right hon. Member for South Holland and The Deepings (Sir John Hayes) said.

It is my understanding that around 400 MW of installed capacity for solar panels exists in Scotland. Will that be sufficient to supply our needs in the long term? No, of course it will not, which is why we are so fortunate to have a whole host of other renewable sources on our doorstep, be that tidal, offshore wind, onshore wind or hydro pumped storage, or moving into the likes of hydrogen and so on. That energy mix is incredibly important, and I was a little surprised to read that, in 2018, solar panels provided Aberdeen, my own city, with 136% of household electricity demand. I am told that that was during a summer heatwave—I do not quite recall that heatwave, but there was obviously significant supply from solar panels.

One issue on which I am sympathetic to Members’ comments is where solar panels are located. There are plans afoot—they have been talked about for many years—for a fairly significantly sized solar farm in my constituency, but on the site of a former tip, which makes sense, because that land cannot be used for anything else. More importantly, that solar farm will provide the renewable electricity that will hopefully power a hydrogen station nearby, completing the green hydrogen journey that we need to be on. If we can secure renewable electricity that goes right into the hydrogen mix, that has to be the aim, as I am sure the Minister would agree wholeheartedly.

As I said earlier, solar panels are not necessarily the panacea for the UK or Scotland. I touched earlier on some of the other renewable energy sources we have in Scotland. At this moment, in the midst of this energy security situation, which is of concern to us all, we are blessed in Scotland to have the capacity to provide 98% of our electricity from renewable sources alone. That is quite a remarkable feat, considering that we have not even started on the 25 GW that has been approved through the ScotWind round.

I want to pause briefly on the topic of energy security. As I recently said to the Secretary of State when he made his statement in the Chamber on the reduction in oil and gas imports from Russia, what we urgently need now from the UK Government is a plan for how they intend to accelerate renewables at a speed never seen before. It is fair to say that a lot of good has been done—the likes of contracts for difference and so on—but if we are to treat energy security with the seriousness it deserves, we need the Government to buck up their ideas, to invest more and to come forward with a clear and collegiate plan. Solar will not be the bedrock of that plan, but it will play a role in it. Given that the Secretary of State was not able to answer my question on that earlier, I am sure the Minister will be able to do so in due course.

[Sir Charles Walker (in the Chair)]

I thank the SNP spokesperson for finishing in four and a half minutes, not five. My gosh, he has no future in this place if he is so polite.

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[Dr Whitehead]

Yes, the right hon. Member is absolutely right. The public should be on board with any development that is going on anywhere concerned with anything. That is a starting point as far as the developments are concerned. It is worth reflecting on the Government’s onshore wind policy. Despite the fact that the public in many areas of England and Wales were in favour of hosting onshore wind, the Government put a moratorium on it. We do not want to go in the other direction as far as public support and renewables are concerned.

I have indulged myself by taking interventions and have gone a little over my time. I hope that Members will understand, however, that my comments are founded on the imperative of solar for the future. Solar needs public support, and a sensible approach must be taken to its deployment if it is to take its desired place in our future renewable firmament.

[Sir Charles Walker (in the Chair)]

Minister, could you sit down at 3.58 pm, so that our mover can wind up after you have wound up?

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (George Freeman)]

Do feel free to remind me at two minutes to 3, Sir Charles.

[Sir Charles Walker (in the Chair)]

I will.

[George Freeman]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship. May I start by congratulating my hon. Friend the Member for Bassetlaw (Brendan Clarke-Smith)? The scale of attendance and the passion with which colleagues have spoken speaks to the importance of his advocacy and the issue.

I am standing in today for my right hon. Friend the Minister for Energy, Clean Growth and Climate Change, but I am absolutely delighted to be doing so, for a number of reasons. First, I come from a rural, agricultural constituency that is itself facing the introduction of substantial, industrial-scale infrastructure connected to offshore wind energy. The industrialisation of rural constituencies in pursuit of the noble aims of net zero is a local issue. It is very important and we have to get that planning process right. I have seen that for myself. I also drive through the Cambridgeshire-Suffolk border on my way to my constituency and see the Sunnica proposal, the signs in every field around the area and the concern locally.

As the former Minister for agritech, I am passionate about the importance of this country leading the world in net zero farming and showing how we can pioneer the technologies for and approaches to net zero agriculture. Nobody in this Chamber needs to be reminded that agriculture is the next dirty industry on the block. We are cleaning the energy system, but we will then have to decarbonise agriculture and transport globally. That is a big opportunity for this country.

As the Minister for Science, Research and Innovation, including for fusion, I see it as fundamental to my role to ensure that we turbocharge our drive towards the technological solutions that will allow the planet to grow and develop sustainably in the longer term. I am also committed to the science of the data metrics of sustainable development, by which I mean both agrimetrics, so that when consumers pick up a pint of milk or a piece of British food they are clear about its environmental footprint—that is the best way to reward advanced, progressive farming—and carbon metrics, so that consumers can be harnessed on the journey to net zero, confident that they are making enlightened choices. That requires good science, which a number of colleagues have touched on.

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[Brendan Clarke-Smith]

I thank everybody for their outstanding contributions—there are too many to name individually in the time—on energy security, the move to renewables, our energy mix, protecting our countryside, our agriculture, where we get our food from and the importance of solar, while ensuring it is used in the most sensible locations, including brownfield sites. Once again, I thank the Minister, and the Opposition spokesmen, the hon. Members for Aberdeen South (Stephen Flynn) and for Southampton, Test (Dr Whitehead). And I thank you, Sir Charles, for your excellent chairmanship.

[Sir Charles Walker (in the Chair)]

I thank all colleagues for the generous way in which they have conducted the debate and treated each other. Everyone got in.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House has considered large solar farms.

British Steel Industry

Charles Walker Excerpts

Tuesday 10th March 2020 Westminster Hall

[Jessica Morden]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. We cannot be reactive; we have to look holistically at achieving a long-term strategic vision. Help for British Steel is, of course, welcome, but we need help for the whole steel industry in the UK, including the Welsh steel industry.

Just before Christmas, Tata’s Orb steelworks in Newport—the only producer of electrical steels in the UK—was mothballed. It needed investment, but with investment it could have provided the steel for the electric vehicle industry, in which the Prime Minister has repeatedly said that he wants us to be a leader. Last week, we found out that no Government support was forthcoming, that no suitable buyer had been found for the works and that Tata was now considering other uses for the site. No help or good news was forthcoming.

There is a human cost to the closure. As my hon. Friend said, the steelworks provided well-paid, highly-skilled jobs in an area that needs them, but the closure also represents the loss of a strategic industry at a time when we need it. We are going to need electrical steels like those made at Orb, so either we will have to import them or someone will have to go out and build another plant. How did we allow that to happen? We need this steel Minister to take a holistic approach, rather than a piecemeal and reactive one.

I am honoured to represent a constituency that has a proud steel tradition, which includes the Llanwern steelworks. The automotive galvanised steel produced at the Zodiac plant in Llanwern is renowned for its quality across the world and is used by manufacturers in the automotive sector, which is closely linked to the steel sector, to make more fuel-efficient and lightweight cars. I have mentioned Orb, but there is also Liberty Steel, which produces hot rolled steel coils and floorplate coils for the construction sector. Sadly, in January that company announced job losses in Newport, which is a reflection of the clouds of uncertainty that still hover over the sector.

Steelworkers in my constituency take huge pride in what they produce. There is a real passion for the industry, and that is why we fight so hard for it. Reflecting on that, I want to mention Paul Horton, who worked at the Orb steelworks for 37 years. He was the main union rep for Community and did an excellent job, alongside other reps from Unite. He attended a debate on the future of Orb in this Chamber just a few months ago, when he sat in the Gallery. In that debate, I highlighted the contribution of workers past and present at Orb, and that of the trade union representatives from Community and Unite who fought so hard for everyone there.

Paul clocked up 12,849 days of work at the site and, although he was reaching the end of his own time at Orb, he knew it would be a tragedy for Newport and for south-east Wales to lose such a strategically important works. Sadly, on new year’s day—the day after he finished work after 38 years—Paul passed away. He was a wonderful man and a passionate advocate for our steel industry. In mentioning him today, I want to reflect on the passion and dedication of those who work in the steel industry, and to honour his memory by carrying on the fight to save our steel.

[Sir Charles Walker (in the Chair)]

I will call the Minister no later than 5.33 pm.

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[Marion Fellows]

No, I would like to carry on—

[Sir Charles Walker (in the Chair)]

Order. It is traditional in a one-hour debate that the Front Bench speaks for five minutes. I have been lenient because the hon. Lady took an intervention, but can we move on? Mr Stafford, you have not been here for the whole debate, so I think we will just let her continue.

[Marion Fellows]

Thank you, Sir Charles; I am just about to wind up. The SNP Government have fought for threatened jobs wherever and whenever there has been a chance to save them. Unlike successive Westminster Governments, the SNP will never turn our back on Scottish industry. I am proud that they saved Dalzell works in my constituency; Sanjeev Gupta, the chair of Liberty House, said that he was very impressed with the efforts of the Scottish Government and the Scottish Steel Task Force to save that plant. No such commitment has ever been shown by a UK Tory Government.

I have taken on board the fact that I need to wind up, Sir Charles, but I just want to say one more thing. Brexit is only going to make all this worse, but in the past the UK Government have used our membership of the EU as a shield that prevented them from doing anything about the UK steel industry’s asks, which it has repeated time and time again. Will the Minister confirm that he can do even more now that this Government have dragged us out of the EU against Scotland’s will?

[Gill Furniss (Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairpersonship, Sir Charles. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Aberavon (Stephen Kinnock) on securing this important and timely debate. As a long-serving member of the steel APPG, he has been at the forefront in fighting for the future of the steel industry and communities that rely on plants across the UK. I also pay tribute to all the members and former members of the APPG who have kept steel high on the Government’s agenda.

The steel industry in the UK has faced many challenges in recent decades, particularly in the past few years. High energy costs and business rates, uncertainty among international buyers about Britain’s future trading relationship with the EU and USA, and the need for certainty about Government procurement have all contributed to increasing concern within the steel sector. Despite those challenges, the steel sector is adaptive and passionate and, with the right amount of support, will prosper.

Over the past three years, I have met steel companies, trade unions and trade bodies. They have all had the same consistent message about what the steel sector needs to succeed. We have been waiting since the launch of the industrial strategy White Paper in 2017 for a steel sector deal to be implemented by the Government. It is time that the Government brought that forward to deal with the many challenges that the industry continues to face.

I will try to skip through most of my speech, because it is important that the Minister answers a lot of the points that have been made. I will just reflect briefly on reducing energy prices. That has been a major ask, and many of our APPG members here, particularly my hon. Friend the Member for Newport East (Jessica Morden), have spoken eloquently about the need to deal with it. The high business rates are just ridiculous. We need plant and machinery removed from business rates; that would boost investment and bring the UK into line with international practice.

Large-scale infrastructure projects provide vast opportunities for steel. Projects such as HS2 contribute towards the 3.8 million tonnes of steel identified in the 2019 steel pipeline. The UK steel sector can and should play a significant role in providing that steel. Investment would secure 6,000 new jobs and an additional contribution of £3.3 billion to the UK economy. The Treasury should sign the UK steel charter and commit to maximising the supply opportunities for steel producers.

The section 232 tariffs imposed by President Trump should be at the forefront of any future trade talks with the USA. It is important that we ensure that the British steel sector is exempt from the punitive tax that was intended to prevent Chinese dumping. British jobs should not be put at risk because of Trump’s trade war.

In July 2019, the Under-Secretary of State for BEIS committed to providing £66 million to support foundation industries, including steel, through the industrial strategy challenge fund. Will the Minister update us on the progress made on that, and when the tangible benefits should be felt by the steel sector?

The concerns of UK steel manufacturers and parliamentarians must be heard and addressed. The long-awaited steel sector deal must be published without delay, to allow the industry to plan for the future with confidence, so I ask the Minister when he will publish a comprehensive sector deal that addresses the concerns of steel manufacturers and parliamentarians. Our steelworkers are well-paid, highly-skilled professionals, well placed to deliver the green revolution that our planet badly needs. I beg the Minister to give them the support they need to help us to do just that.

[Sir Charles Walker (in the Chair)]

Minister, you have until 5.53 pm at the latest to sit down, so that we can allow the mover of the motion, Mr Kinnock, to wind up.

Future of the Oil and Gas Industry

Charles Walker Excerpts

Thursday 14th March 2019 Westminster Hall

[Douglas Chapman]

The UK Government has had a spend, spend, spend approach, but as I said, I would like us to put away much more of that wealth for future generations. Perhaps it is a bit late to do that now; we probably should have started doing it from the beginning. It is easy to say in hindsight, but it should have been part of the overall oil and gas strategy right from the start.

It was interesting to hear the Chancellor’s reply to my hon. Friend the Member for Aberdeen North (Kirsty Blackman) during the spring statement yesterday. He said:

“Scotland gets its share of…capital and resource, but precious little thanks do we ever hear from…the SNP Benches”.—[Official Report, 13 March 2019; Vol. 656, c. 360.]

The fact that £350 billion went into Treasury coffers but not a brass farthing went directly into the Scottish economy underlines the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh North and Leith (Deidre Brock) about what Scotland has got out of oil and gas. We could have had an awful lot more to benefit every man, woman and child in our country. The Chancellor’s concept of pooling and sharing is much different from mine.

I am grateful that the control, stewardship and the tax take will soon be back in Scotland’s hands—“stewardship” is the key word rather than “management”. I return to the eloquent point made by the hon. Member for Coatbridge, Chryston and Bellshill (Hugh Gaffney) on safety: if companies are being brought to the table to talk about how to license certain fields, surely that is a fantastic opportunity to talk about their responsibilities for trade union recognition, and the safety and security of people who work on rigs far out in the North sea.

Scotland does not underestimate the vital part the oil and gas sector plays in meeting our energy needs; as the Committee points out, it is forecast that two thirds of the UK’s primary energy needs will be met from the North sea until at least 2035. However, we must also appreciate that we need to transition to a low-energy, low-carbon economy. Our world-leading, export-oriented supply chain already plays a positive role in that respect by looking at ways to reduce its carbon footprint at every turn. Average emissions per unit of production on the UK continental shelf have fallen year on year since 2013, and total emissions have been in decline since their peak in 2000.

Our oil and gas industry is awash with highly skilled individuals in possession of world-leading expertise. The sector currently supports 283,000 jobs across the UK. We must seek to hold on to those workers to retain the value they add to our economy. As I said, the Scottish Government’s transition training fund has made good progress in that regard, facilitating training for many oil and gas workers to move into renewables such as tidal, onshore and offshore wind, wave power and solar. However, the UK Government’s decision to slash funding for the renewable energy sector does not give us much encouragement. In fact, it does exactly the opposite, removing opportunities for talented individuals to utilise their skills to develop new wind technology and other low-carbon technologies such as carbon capture and storage—not so much opportunity knocks as an opportunity lost.

Brexit looms large in many people’s minds. We stand at a Brexit crossroads, with freefall into no deal on one side and a car crash of a bad deal on the other. It is inevitable that business across the UK will suffer if we ever actually leave the EU, but the oil and gas industry is likely to be one of the hardest hit, due to its highly globalised nature. With approximately £61 billion of oil and gas-related goods traded with the rest of the world, the threat of tariffs looms over the industry. In a worst-case scenario where the UK reverted to World Trade Organisation rules with the EU and the rest of the world, the cost of trade would likely almost double to around £1.1 billion per annum, assuming trading behaviours remained unchanged.

[Mr Charles Walker (in the Chair)]

Order. I remind the hon. Gentleman that we want to share the time out: if he could wrap up in two minutes, that would be great.

[Douglas Chapman]

Certainly, Mr Walker; I will move on to my final comment.

The report’s conclusions focus on the positives: developing an ambitious deal for the sector as a whole, which I hope will be supported; developing new technology, which many Members spoke about, so we can recover more of what we need; reducing the costs of decommissioning; exporting the sector’s skills and experience, not just in exploration but in subsea work; and making the vital transition from carbon energy such as oil and gas to renewables—especially hydrogen, which could be a game changer and might just help save the planet. The opportunities remain immense, and the sector deal outlined by the Committee would offer energy security for decades to come and allow Scotland to remain a sector leader.

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

I congratulate the authors of the Select Committee’s excellent and wide-ranging report, and everyone who took part in the Committee’s proceedings. The report goes well beyond some previous considerations of the future of the North sea by putting it in the context of a number of other issues relating to where we stand on the exploitation of North sea oil and gas and what the future looks like.

As the report states, the North sea is a very mature basin. Hon. Members mentioned that its exploited resources total some 43 billion barrels, and estimates of what is left vary from about 8 billion to 10 billion barrels. Some of the discoveries to the west of Shetland notwithstanding, it is extremely likely that there will be no more Brents and that we will see the exploitation of smaller pools, which are more difficult to exploit. Clearly, there will be great emphasis on the efficiency of exploitation. The report emphasises the extent to which the oil and gas industry has increased its efficiency; it needs to continue to do so for that exploitation to be effective.

The report also goes into considerable detail about not just the future alternative paths, but what we might call the future imperative paths for the North sea as a mature basin. My hon. Friend the Member for Coatbridge, Chryston and Bellshill (Hugh Gaffney) mentioned that the oil industry has come through a challenging period—it is in a better position than it has been in for quite a while, given its efficiency achievements and what is happening with the exploitation of future fields—but he drew attention to the need to look at a future industry for decommissioning in the context of the climate change imperative. I was pleased to see that the report did not duck climate change; quite a few of its passages actually centred on the challenges that the fight to get us to a low-carbon economy will present for the oil and gas industry, and on how the industry can take part in that process rather than opposing it.

The hon. Member for Aberdeen South (Ross Thomson) is right about the need to consider how decommissioning can be turned from a liability into an opportunity and, indeed, become a substantial part of the industry. We need only reflect on what is at stake: 250 fixed installations, 250 subsea platforms, 10,000 km of pipeline and 5,000 oil wells need to be decommissioned. The potential decommissioning industry is huge, not just in its own right but in terms of the expertise that already exists, which could be added to. The UK could be a world leader in decommissioning, exporting its expertise and methods. I commend the report’s attention to the detail of decommissioning and how it can be undertaken to the advantage of jobs, skills and exports for UK plc.

We must recognise that the imperative of climate change will cause us to take a considerable number of decisions about the oil and gas industry. Indeed, the report identifies a number of those decisions, one of which is the question of what we do about carbon capture, use and storage. That is not just a possible extension of activity and industry for the North sea as fields are depleted—indeed, those fields are enormous potential repositories for carbon dioxide—but can be used to the benefit of the North sea fields in their own right.

I would link that to the decommissioning efforts that are under way, because the next phase will be about exploiting smaller fields. That needs to be done on the back of existing infrastructure, which arguably should not be decommissioned but rather kept in place, so that those fields can be exploited without the infrastructure having to be completely replaced. If we decommissioned all that infrastructure when a lot of it could be used as the carrying capacity for carbon capture and storage, we may well live to regret it.

We need an understanding about future roles for the North sea. We should not only think about potentially depleted fields that could be repositories for carbon capture and storage, but look at practical considerations in respect of how the capture, transport and sequestration chain can be completed, possibly by using installations that are already there. The same applies to the future North sea wind industry. As the hon. Member for Waveney (Peter Aldous) said, there is a close link between the skills and practical measures involved in developing offshore wind energy and maintaining the structure and infrastructure of the North sea oil and gas industry. Those two industries should work in tandem, rather than separately. As is mentioned in the report, that is important for satisfactory developments in the North sea and for the transfer of skills to the new industries. The skills, facilities and techniques that are already there in the North sea can greatly aid us in creating world-beating offshore wind energy installations and similar technologies, and ensure that the North sea plays its part in the transition to the attainment of a low-carbon energy economy.

In conclusion, the report marks an important milestone. It shows where we need to go next with the North sea oil and gas industry, and its recommendations and suggestions will stand the test of time. In the immediate future, I commend the report’s suggestion that we need to get on with a sector deal for the oil and gas industry. I do not need to say more about that, because I am sure the Minister will update us about it in his response. I emphasise my support for the need to get that deal over the line. In addition to milestones for the future, we have ambitions for the immediate time ahead to ensure that the oil and gas industry continues to be in a better position than it was in before and that it has the wherewithal to make its mark over the decades to come.

[Mr Charles Walker (in the Chair)]

Minister, please could you leave two minutes at the end for Mr Wishart to wrap up?

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[Richard Harrington]

The hon. Lady has brought up an excellent point. From what I have seen—I expect to be corrected by her or by the hon. Member for Coatbridge, Chryston and Bellshill (Hugh Gaffney) if I am incorrect—I feel that there is a lot of co-operation between companies and the union. However, I was very concerned by the points that the hon. Gentleman brought up about the survey from Robert Gordon University on the stress and everything else; that is of concern. While this is, I hope, a highly-paid industry, it is one where we must be very conscious of health and safety—not just the formal things to do with safety regulations, but things to do with the wellbeing of the workers in it. The hon. Member for Midlothian (Danielle Rowley) was correct to bring the question to my attention; I am sorry I had not answered it in the body of my speech. I will confine my remarks to that, and thank the Committee again for the work it has done.

[Mr Charles Walker (in the Chair)]

Mr Wishart, you have three minutes, 45 seconds, or thereabouts.

Energy Efficiency and the Clean Growth Strategy

Charles Walker Excerpts

Thursday 8th March 2018 Westminster Hall

[Mr Charles Walker (in the Chair)]

I thank colleagues for being here today. There are some terrible weather conditions across the country, which I think will suppress attendance at this debate. Some colleagues had to get back to their constituencies before they got cut off, or the rail links got cut off. I call Antoinette Sandbach to move the motion.

[Antoinette Sandbach (Eddisbury) (Con)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered energy efficiency and the clean growth strategy.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Walker. I am grateful to the many of my colleagues from both sides of the House who helped me to secure this debate, not least to the hon. Member for Birmingham, Selly Oak (Steve McCabe).

This is an important debate, and I hope that it will spur Members to action, not just today but in the future. This is the first debate of its kind in several years, and it is important to ensure that we keep energy efficiency at the top of the political agenda. This week the energy price cap Bill, the Domestic Gas and Electricity (Tariff Cap) Bill, received its Second Reading. The Bill is a vital step to protect consumers while we reform the market in the short to medium term.

I want to propose a long-term solution for energy efficiency improvements and suggest how to make best use of the time we will have bought with the energy price cap Bill to address energy efficiency. In my remarks, I will outline how far we have come and discuss the challenges we face, before proposing a couple of solutions to return us to a better low-carbon path. I plan to talk generally about the state of energy efficiency, but where I am more specific I shall be addressing domestic energy efficiency. Other Members, I am sure, will focus on other areas, but I shall leave that contribution to them.

It is important to outline how far we have come in building a low-carbon economy and in improving energy efficiency over the long term. That is testament to the commitment of successive Governments, and I am proud to say that we are now a world leader in the green economy. Since 1990 we have cut emissions by 42%, faster than any other G7 nation. We have outperformed the first carbon budget, of 2008 to 2012, by 1%, and we are on course to outperform the second and third carbon budgets by 5% and 4%, respectively.

All that achievement has not come at the cost of economic growth. Emissions dropped by 42%, but the economy grew by 67%. In 2016, 47% of electricity came from low-carbon sources, which was twice the rate of 2010. Household energy consumption has fallen by 17% since 1990, despite a rise in the number of home appliances. More than 430,000 people work in low-carbon businesses and the supply chain. All that work has resulted in bills being roughly £490 lower than they would have been without the energy efficiency improvements made since 2004.

Clearly, significant progress has been made over the past three decades. I applaud Ministers and Members of all parties for their commitment to tackling climate. What is more, we have taken those steps without damaging our economy, the idea of which was originally dismissed by some as simply not possible.

Despite such progress, there is still more to do. Progress on energy efficiency has slowed. Between 2012 and 2015 the annual investment in energy efficiency fell by 53%; and in the same period there was an 80% reduction in improvement measures, with the Committee on Climate Change warning us that that will decline even further by 2020. Fuel poverty remains a stubborn problem that we must continue to address. It is all very well giving assistance with bills, but a long-term solution—insulating houses—is surely the way forward.

As of 2014, 2.3 million households in England were in fuel poverty and 41% of the households in the lowest income decile were fuel poor; 56% of fuel-poor households lived in properties built before 1944. To my mind, those issues make it an urgent requirement of the Government to do a housing survey in England: 60% of fuel-poor households lived in inefficient properties with an E, F or G energy performance certificate rating, and 14% of households in rural areas were in fuel poverty, which is higher than the national average. Those rural households cannot access the efficiencies of dual fuel billing, and that is important, because many are off grid. Many cannot access the warm home scheme measures, which often involve whole streets. The low-hanging fruit has been picked, but the more challenging households, in particular in rural communities, have not been addressed.

The clean growth strategy is a welcome addition to the debate. I support its proposals to combat fuel poverty and to promote energy efficiency, but I hope that the Minister can be more specific about the Government’s plans today than they were six months ago. The Committee on Climate Change assessment of the clean growth strategy found that three actions were expected to deliver, six actions had delivery risks, or were rated amber, and seven proposals were without firm plans, or rated red.

It has never been more important to tackle climate change and to decarbonise the economy. However, the potential rewards have never been so great. A building energy performance programme could save households £270 a year on bills. Over the long term that would save even more than the current proposed cap on energy bills, and it would also make a large contribution to hitting our climate change goals. Bringing every household up to an EPC band C by 2035 would save 25% of the energy used by the UK, which is the equivalent of six nuclear power stations the size of Hinkley Point C. The net economic benefit of such a programme would be between £7.5 billion and £8.7 billion, according to macro- economic analysis by the UK Energy Research Centre, and that figure does not include the wider secondary benefits in growth, jobs or health. With cold homes in England costing the NHS an estimated £1.36 billion, such a programme would have a considerable impact on health budgets, as well as on the wider economy.

The economic and social case for increased energy efficiency measures seems unarguable. We must focus on how to deliver them. Throughout recent history, we have seen that the fight against climate change is most effective when Government and private industry work together. The Government can lead the charge, but we need to harness the innovation and energy of the private sector to truly succeed. That is why I want to suggest one way in which the private sector can step up. It is one way for the Government to make a change that can expedite energy efficiency improvements. Mortgage providers should give people more incentives to purchase energy efficient homes.

In essence, if people make savings on their energy bills they will have more money to service a larger mortgage, and that should be taken into consideration when banks make their lending decisions. We know that in 2014, 51% of fuel-poor households were owner-occupiers, with only 33% in the private rented sector. Were the EPC rating of a house to be included in a lender’s affordability calculation, people could borrow up to £4,000 more in many cases. Under such a system, an EPC A rating would allow people to borrow £11,500 more than an EPC G-rated house. I recommend to hon. Members who are interested in this proposal a report by the Lenders group, which said that energy bills were a sizeable part of borrowers’ essential expenditure, and were therefore a component of the affordability calculation that warranted being made more sophisticated.

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[Antoinette Sandbach]

Given the new Thornton campus in Cheshire, which is specialising in geothermal, may I suggest that on the way to Southampton from Scotland my hon. Friend call in to see some of the leading research that is being done at the University of Chester on the opportunities for geothermal and how we can roll that out much further across the country?

[Mr Charles Walker (in the Chair)]

Mr Graham is now going to make some progress.

[Luke Graham]

I thank my hon. Friend for her kind intervention and, again, invitation. I would certainly be keen to visit both places, as my constituency arrangements allow.

Scotland has been at the forefront of every major industrial development in the UK, from the industrial revolution in the 18th and 19th centuries, to oil and gas in the 20th and 21st, so it has undoubtedly contributed to the UK’s emissions over the years, but it has fantastic potential, through infrastructure and existing expertise, to be the leader on the clean growth strategy in the UK, and to drive the UK as a global leader in economic growth through emissions reductions. I urge the Minister to put the entire UK at the centre of the Government’s clean growth strategy in the months and years ahead.

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[Claire Perry]

The hon. Gentleman and I debate Acorn and St Fergus frequently. I will double-check the numbers, but my understanding is that the UK Government have put in £1.6 million and the Scottish Government have committed a welcome £100,000. We are absolutely keen to support those projects and we continue to be a major investor in all sorts of levels of carbon capture and storage; I will address CCS and its future in my closing remarks. I will double-check those numbers and write to him, but I am confident that we have already committed several multiples of what the Scottish Government have to that project—and quite rightly.

[Mr Charles Walker (in the Chair)]

We are all looking forward to the Minister’s closing remarks.

[Drew Hendry]

I have not even got to the bulk of my speech, but I will try to speed up. I was getting to the end of my responses to hon. Members’ comments, which I was certain we had time for.

I will finish on a positive remark about the comments made by the hon. Member for Ochil and South Perthshire. I am pleased to say that geothermal investigation has been embraced around the Chamber. I am sure that he will support the delivery of the Scottish Government’s ambition for accelerated clean growth in Scotland.

To aid the debate, I will cast aside some of my notes. As we have heard in this debate, much more needs to be done on energy efficiency. In my meetings with energy companies and climate change activists, they all agree on one principle: not enough is done for energy efficiency in our homes and businesses across the nations of the UK. Old housing stock is part of that huge challenge.

On new housing stock, I was struck by the comments in an intervention about new heating systems and new ways of looking after buildings that can reduce costs for people. When I was the leader of the Highland Council, I was pleased to be involved in a Highland housing fair, which adopted a housing development model from Finland. Some houses on that scheme were so innovative that it was reckoned that they would have average energy costs of about £2 per year, so it can be done with the right will. They have been sold now, so someone who wanted to see them would probably have to knock on the householder’s door. It was a good project, and the Minister might want to consider more innovation like that.

I will skip a page of my notes. We welcome the industrial energy efficiency accelerator, but we look for more detail from the Minister. We want to see how that will move forward.

My conclusion will not be too lengthy, but I will touch on some things that are happening in Scotland. Energy efficiency has been mentioned several times; it is fundamental to Scotland’s meeting its ambitious climate change targets. The Scottish energy efficiency programme route map—I am sorry to tell the hon. Member for Wells that its name is now SEEP rather than HEEPS—will be published in May 2018.

Last December, the Scottish Government published their energy strategy, which will strengthen the development of local energy projects, empower customers and support Scotland’s climate change ambitions, while tackling poor energy provision. Our ambition to improve the energy efficiency of Scotland’s buildings is central to our efforts to tackle fuel poverty.

On 28 February, the Scottish Government’s Cabinet Secretary for the Environment, Climate Change and Land Reform published the “Climate Change Plan, Third Report on Proposals and Policies 2018-2032”, which details how the Scottish Government will meet their emissions target of 80% by 2032. With the Climate Change Bill, Scotland is sending a message that it is the place to do low-carbon business, which seems to be endorsed around the Chamber.

Energy efficiency is fundamental to Scotland. Heating and cooling Scotland’s homes and businesses costs £2.6 billion a year, and accounts for just under half the country’s greenhouse gas emissions. In June 2015, the Scottish Government announced that they would take long-term action to reduce the energy demand of residential services and industrial sectors by designating energy efficiency as a national infrastructure priority. Again, something that has been called for in the debate has already been done in Scotland. That was subsequently confirmed in the Scottish Government’s “Infrastructure Investment Plan 2015”.

Would you believe, Mr Walker, that I am going to cut my remarks considerably short? I wanted to go into a lot more detail about what is happening in Scotland, but given the response in the Chamber today, there is plenty of incentive for the Minister to look at that in detail.

As the Member for Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey, it would be remiss of me not to mention a wonderful development: the Scottish Government’s dualling of the A9 between Perth and Inverness. The A9 is set to become the world’s—well, Scotland’s—electric highway because of the Scottish Government’s investment in ensuring that it has rapid charging points all the way along. It will be a real boon for the electric vehicle proposition in Scotland, and it is just the start of much more work that will be done there.

The debate has been very constructive, and I thank the hon. Member for Eddisbury for introducing it. There is still an awful lot of work to be done, but hopefully the debate has given the Minister a bag full of ideas to take forward and develop in future.

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[Dr Whitehead]

I surely do. On the basis of what the Committee on Climate Change says, the current ECO commitment falls way short of the levels of treatment we need if we are to get anywhere near our 2035 targets. Even the £1.8 billion figure that has been cited will not cover a complete series of treatments for houses in the UK. I suggest that making our treatments much more efficient—by doing them on an area basis, for example—would allow us to get much closer to our target for the same money. We can probably agree that £1.8 billion will be the sort of money that will get us there, but an efficient approach could get us so much further, which I would completely support.

As the hon. Members for Eddisbury and for Wells and my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Selly Oak emphasised, enveloping energy-efficient homes area by area needs to be funded from the infrastructure budget. It may not look like big boys’ toys, but it is absolutely an infrastructure project and ought to be treated as such by the Government. That would have a number of advantages for costs of capital, borrowing and all the rest of it; as the Minister says, we could make even more houses efficient for the same investment.

I appreciate that I have gone on rather longer than I intended, but let me briefly say a few words about the speeches of my hon. Friend the Member for Redcar (Anna Turley) and the hon. Member for Ochil and South Perthshire (Luke Graham). They both drew attention to the role that CCS can play, as did the hon. Member for Wells—or rather for HEEPS. I thoroughly endorse that line of thinking on CCS, but I must point out that as far as the clean growth strategy is concerned, £100 million will not get us anywhere near our CCS target, just as our ECO commitment will not get us anywhere near our energy efficiency target.

I congratulate Teesside on its comprehensive approach, in which my hon. Friend the Member for Redcar has been centrally involved. Teesside could be an absolute exemplar for the rest of the country in its combination of intensive industry with CCS and its by-products. That is very important for realisation of the clean growth strategy and we need to incorporate it in all our future clean growth plans.

I congratulate all hon. Members on their contributions to the debate. They all faced in exactly the same direction, acknowledging the importance of energy efficiency in homes, for a variety of reasons including climate change and fuel poverty, and the prominence that we need to give it in our policy debates. If this afternoon’s debate has hastened that process, we will have done a very good job between us.

[Mr Charles Walker (in the Chair)]

I have let speeches go on longer than is conventional because we have had plenty of time. We have had two mammoth speeches from the SNP and Labour Front Benches. I know the Minister could speak for 55 minutes if she wanted to, but if she felt that she could just match them at 25 minutes, I am sure we would all appreciate it.

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[Claire Perry]

My hon. Friend is absolutely on the money, but I would like to do both. I do not want it to be sequential. I cannot remember which of my hon. Friends talked about energy as a service. I thought it was my hon. Friend the Member for Ochil and South Perthshire, but as I say that, I think it might have been HEEPS—my hon. Friend the Member for Wells. He is never going to live that down.

If someone running a small business is trying to do payroll and deal with potential changes in the regulatory structure for export, are they really going to sit down and think about energy efficiency? They might—I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Eddisbury that if someone has installed an energy efficiency measure in their home and has seen a material change, they might do that—but they might not. What incentives can we create and what market structures are already there that can help those businesses to focus on their energy efficiency? Many of the challenges in the rented sector that apply in the homes market also apply in an even greater way in the energy market. It is a real challenge that many firms occupy premises where energy is just part of the service bundle they receive, so it is not within their control to install such measures.

We are consulting later this year on a package of measures to help businesses improve how productively they use energy. We are focused on trying to do things that work, and that work locally.

Many Members referenced green mortgages and finding a way to finance such initiatives. There has been some excellent work, such as the “Levering economics for new drivers to energy reduction and sustainability” project. My hon. Friend the Member for Wells talked about being asked about utility bills. Actually, the way the market works now is that, whether someone is in a home rated A or G, they input the same number, which is crazy.

Work is already under way on mortgage lenders who might pick up on the fact that someone could save £700 on their energy bills by having a better energy performance certificate. The green finance taskforce that I set up with the Treasury last year will be reporting shortly. One of its strands of work is how we get green mortgages to be a proper retail offering. Some lenders have taken steps to support energy efficiency improvements. Last November, Barclays launched the first green bond from a UK bank, on the back of the work that the taskforce was doing. That is being used to fund domestic assets, which it plans to use to refinance mortgages for the most energy-efficient properties. That is a testament to the data available and the bank’s desire. It is common sense to reward that sort of behaviour.

I have talked a little about the savings and what we are doing. Now I will mention briefly the most vulnerable households, which have come up often, especially given the recent cold snap. As my hon. Friend the Member for Eddisbury said, it was really cold in many homes. Turning up the heating was an option for many of us, but we might not have realised that others who do so feel extremely worried about what their bills will look like.

I want to reassure colleagues that the warm home discount programme—£140 a household—continues to operate. Winter fuel payments are being paid, and the cold weather payment was triggered by the cold snap. It is absolutely right for the Government to continue to support the most vulnerable and to help them make improvements to their homes. Such people do not necessarily have financial choice. I was therefore pleased that we committed £3.6 billion to ECO. Going forward, that will upgrade more than 1 million homes. We will extend that out to 2028 with funding at least at current ECO levels.

I take the point about the landlord challenge. The problem, frankly, is that 95% of landlords have four properties or fewer—they are us. We asked them to sign up to something that at the time we had underpinned with a green finance offer, but now they are potentially required to raise capital to do it. We have to do things that are fair and proportionate if we want the country to come with us. The measure is still incredibly important. We do not want people living in the least fuel-efficient homes and we are determined to do something about that. In fact, compared with 2010, there are 835,000 fewer homes rated E, F or G in the UK, so we are making progress at the least efficient end of the market.

I hope that I am not trying your patience, Mr Walker, but I have two more quick points to make. The first is on smart meters. I think we are on the cusp of something really exciting with smart meters. We are absolutely in the world’s vanguard by offering every household a smart meter by 2020. I accept the concerns about technology. People say, “Why would I install one of these when I’m going to get a better one?” The point is that if someone installs one now, they get all the benefits immediately of understanding what their energy consumption looks like, and can work out ways to cut their bills. Furthermore, they will automatically be upgraded through the technology that we are putting in place to the next generation, so when they switch suppliers they will not lose any of that functionality. That is a vital step forward.

More needs to be done to work on the consumer proposition. I am desperate to put in a smart meter, but not to take a morning off work to do so. It is really difficult to find the time, which is a problem that many people face. We will be working with industry and the organisation rolling the meters out to see how we can make them more consumer flexible, and how we provide incentives, because plenty of money is being spent on advertising them. We are on the cusp of something very exciting.

I also wanted to mention fundamentally changing the way in which we build and think about homes in the construction process. It is astonishing that the way in which we build homes has not changed much since the 1890s: we build the foundations, and then get the trades in. We can build really high-quality modular homes—homes that are built off-site and installed—in a far more effective and resource-efficient way. We are working closely with the construction sector to see what we can do to turbocharge that.

We can also do retrofits in a modular way. Nottingham City Council and Melius Homes are taking a prefabricated approach to retrofit homes to 2050 standards, and improve their energy performance. A lot of innovation is happening in this area that I am extremely keen to support. That is how we create a new market for what needs to happen, while rightly focusing on building regulations. All colleagues will be aware of the challenge in the post-Grenfell world of ensuring that there are no unintended consequences to what we do with building regulations. We are working very closely with our colleagues in the relevant Department, and have reconstituted the inter-ministerial clean growth group, because so many of these challenges span across Government.

There is a huge amount more to do. We have heard lots of sensible ideas today, many of which are extremely attractive and that we want to take away. All of us want to get the costs and consumption of energy down, reduce carbon emissions, make our homes warmer, and make the transition to low-carbon energy less risky. This is not an either/or question; in order to meet our carbon targets, and to create a housing stock that is fit for the future, we absolutely need to do this. That is why the clean growth strategy is so important, and why the industrial strategy has clean growth as one of its four major pillars: things that we know that we can lead the world in, and that have to be done.

It has been a pleasure in today’s debate, as in so many others in this area, to work with colleagues across the House who are so committed to this agenda, and have so much knowledge and interest in it. It will really help us to accelerate the work going forward, so I thank hon. Members for the opportunity to respond this afternoon.

[Mr Charles Walker (in the Chair)]

I think colleagues were almost heading for the door, but we have up to two minutes for the proposer of this great debate to wind up.

Fireworks

Charles Walker Excerpts

Monday 29th January 2018 Westminster Hall

[Several hon. Members rose—]

[Mr Charles Walker (in the Chair)]

Order. Colleagues, 12 of you want to speak. I have worked out that, if you each speak for eight and a half minutes, we should get everyone in and leave 10 minutes each for the three Front Benchers to make their winding-up speeches. I call Jim Fitzpatrick.

[Jim Fitzpatrick (Poplar and Limehouse) (Lab)]

rose—

[Mr Charles Walker (in the Chair)]

Sorry, I got that wrong. I call Bill Grant. I do apologise, Jim; you will be next.

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[Peter Aldous]

The hon. Gentleman makes a good point, which I was not going to raise, but it is pertinent, and it is right to make it, so I thank him.

There do not appear to be figures for the average length of the UK garden, but it has been suggested that the typical British garden is 50 feet long. If that is correct, many modern houses will not have gardens of the required size to ensure the safety of spectators when F3 fireworks are let off. Obviously, the consequences, should anything go wrong with the fireworks, are likely to be greater the closer the spectators are to them.

Trading standards and the fire service can have control over the storage arrangements at sites only if they are aware of those sites, which means only if they are licensed. Recent guidance to those bodies has encouraged them to be more proactive about storage conditions and quantities at licensed premises. In Suffolk the number of small independent retailers storing fireworks has dropped considerably in the past 10 years. It is unclear whether that is because of a lack of demand or an increase in the number of major supermarkets selling fireworks. Also in the county, trading standards continues to find minor issues with storage arrangements, with the occasional more serious problem being found on unannounced inspections. However, there have not been any major storage issues resulting in prosecution since 2010. In general, Suffolk County Council believes that the controls and powers that are in place are appropriate and sufficient to ensure that where unsafe storage issues are found they can be rectified without the need to resort to more formal measures.

In recent years the number of allegations about sales via social media such as Facebook has increased nationally and in Suffolk. Such sites are difficult to control as they are often promoted through private selling groups and thus they are not visible to all users. The sites often require investigators to “friend” the seller or join the group to determine how or where the fireworks are being sold. The Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000 requires local authorities to obtain approval from magistrates courts before formal intervention can be contemplated, and that makes investigating allegations difficult, especially given the short time constraints of the firework season. The control of sale is currently limited to restrictions on age and on period of sale—generally between 5 October and 5 November—and controls on the quantity supplied. In the UK we limit the sale of F2 and F3 fireworks to those aged over 18. In many parts of Europe F2 fireworks can be purchased by anyone over 16.

It is also appropriate to raise an issue that links sales, storage and safety. It concerns the current exemptions for the storage of less than 5 kg net explosive content. I am advised that in some places in the north of England it has been reported that some businesses are trying to get round the need to hold a licence by restricting their onsite storage to less than 5 kg NEC while keeping their remaining stocks hidden. There is concern that some fire authorities would therefore not know of the existence of fireworks on a property, which could put both firefighters and the public at risk. Some in the fire service would like to remove that exemption, but that would need careful consideration, because if it were not implemented properly many other businesses that store less than 5 kg NEC perfectly legitimately could be affected.

Suffolk County Council also makes suggestions on how existing regulations could be improved. First, it touches on insurance. The issue of public liability insurance was raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Stafford (Jeremy Lefroy) in a debate on 18 November 2016, when he highlighted the case of a fire at SP Plastics in Stafford in 2014. The business suffered financially due to neither the individual business nor the licensee having appropriate cover in place. While health and safety legislation does not require public liability insurance, it is now recommended that those manufacturing or storing fireworks should hold it. That advice has been added to the Health and Safety Executive website and to the “Guidance to Applicants” section on the licence application form.

Suffolk trading standards receives information from Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs on all firework imports. That information is then disseminated to the relevant district council and the HSE where the consignment is destined. While in theory that allows the council and HSE to monitor the amount of fireworks being stored at their licensed sites, the information provided by HMRC can be sketchy at times and there is little or no enforcement of the requirements. Even where the information is provided, many authorities have suffered cuts to their budgets that restrict their ability to monitor imports adequately.

I sense that I have probably stretched my time a little. I have more to say, but I will come to my conclusion, which is that the Government should adopt a systematic approach to the collection of the statistics. Having considered the extremely helpful information put together by Nigel Howlett at Suffolk trading standards, I believe that, on balance, there is a case for amending the current regulations, although it is vital that a full consultation and regulatory impact assessment take place before any changes are made. That should include all those businesses in the supply network; we must remember that the vast majority of them are responsible, and it is vital that their views are heard. Thank you for bearing with me, Mr Walker.

[Mr Charles Walker (in the Chair)]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his self-discipline. Others had been shorter, so he was not in danger of eating up anyone else’s time.

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[Angela Smith (Penistone and Stocksbridge) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Walker. I am slightly thrown because I thought you were going to call a Government Member, but I thank you very much.

[Mr Charles Walker (in the Chair)]

There are more Opposition Members than Government Members down to speak, so I am just trying to balance it out before the end.

[Angela Smith]

I appreciate that. I am not used to such favours. It is a pleasure to contribute to the debate, which was very ably moved by my hon. Friend the Member for Clwyd South (Susan Elan Jones).

This issue has been repeatedly debated in Parliament and has been the basis of more than one petition. Some 158 signatures to this petition were secured in my constituency, which is higher than average. That does not surprise me, because I receive regular correspondence on the topic from constituents, and with very good reason. On 6 November last year, just after bonfire night, the local newspaper, The Star, reported:

“Fireworks thrown at police officers and fire engine attacked as more than 500 incidents”

of irresponsible use of fireworks were reported across South Yorkshire in the space of a few hours.

I have to say that, although the irresponsible use of fireworks and how they are sold are matters of great concern to many people, like many others—I think everybody who has spoken so far—I make it clear that I am not opposed to public firework displays. Indeed, I have enjoyed the new year’s eve display across the river near the London Eye, I have enjoyed firework displays in Madeira and I have enjoyed much smaller displays in my constituency, such as at the Waggon & Horses in Langsett, which does a wonderful “Mr Fox” night every year on the night of the hunter’s moon. Let me be clear: I enjoy a good firework display.

However, while displays such as those I described are magnificent spectacles, there are many times when the—particularly private—use of fireworks is not only a nuisance but downright dangerous. The latest figures, which have already been cited but are worth repeating, show that, between bonfire night and new year’s eve in 2017, there were 221 reported incidents of firework misuse. Those range from reports to the RSPCA in Wales about distressed and unwell stray dogs on new year’s eve to a report of a large group of teenagers, with some wearing masks, running in front of cars and setting off fireworks. The cars had to swerve away from them or execute emergency stops.

Of more concern, according to the Firework Abatement campaign, is admissions to hospital owing to firework accidents, which have risen year on year over the last few years. That is also of particular concern to me, because I do not think any right to enjoy the private use of fireworks is worth the serious risk of injury and harm to people and animals. We have all seen pictures of children who have been permanently disfigured by the misuse of fireworks, and I think there is a responsibility on the House to consider the balance between regulation and the rights of individuals because of the increasing risk of injury.

In addition, many animal welfare charities have for a number of years been concerned about the effect of the use of fireworks on animals. The British Horse Society has reported year-on-year rises in horses either injured or killed because of fireworks, as was mentioned earlier. The RSPCA has long-standing concerns about the effects of fireworks on dogs, with almost half of all dogs showing signs of distress. Many cats also show distress when fireworks have been used nearby. The Dogs Trust did a very interesting survey of 3,750 pet owners on this matter. The results showed that two thirds of dogs are worried by fireworks, and that 93% of owners alter their routine during firework celebrations to try to minimise the trauma on their pets.

That is all evidence that something needs to be done and that we really need to start taking this seriously. All the organisations I have referenced would like to see changes made to the law to secure further restrictions on the use of fireworks, and I think they have a strong case. As the law stands, regulations derived from the Fireworks Act 2003 dictate that fireworks must not be let off between 11 pm and 7 am, except at Chinese new year, Diwali and new year’s eve, when the period is extended until 1 am, and bonfire night, when it is extended to midnight. That means that fireworks can be legally used by private citizens 365 days a year—every day—between 7 am and 11 pm. That is an incredibly liberal regime.

The Government response to that, and to the petition in particular, is to argue, as they have done for some time, that the best way to deal with the problem is through education. I have to disagree. That policy is weak in the face of the evidence, which, although it is not as robust as one would perhaps like, indicates increasing antisocial use of fireworks, and that more damage to people, animals and property is taking place than ever before.

I am not here to call for a complete ban on the private use of fireworks, much as I would like to. My hon. Friend the Member for Poplar and Limehouse (Jim Fitzpatrick) said he was a fully paid-up member of the grumpy old persons’ club, and I would also like to subscribe as a fully paid-up member. However, as much I would personally like a complete ban on anything other than public displays—I absolutely agree with the hon. Member for Ayr, Carrick and Cumnock (Bill Grant) on this—I recognise that that would probably be a step too far at this stage. What we need are further restrictions, to allow fireworks only on agreed traditional dates, such as 5 November, new year’s eve, Chinese new year and Diwali.

We also need further restrictions on the noise levels allowed. The current regime allows fireworks to make noise up to a 120-dB limit, which is the equivalent of a jet aircraft taking off. That is far too loud and a cause of great concern, particularly to the many animal welfare charities that have contacted us on this. I also take the point made by the former Secretary of State, the right hon. Member for Meriden (Dame Caroline Spelman), about the need to be more careful about where public displays take place. The Government ought to have more regard to that.

The law as it stands does not protect vulnerable people, as my hon. Friend the Member for Clwyd South pointed out. The available evidence suggests that private firework use also has an extremely detrimental effect on both domestic and wild animals. It is disappointing that the Government appear unwilling to open up this area of legislation for review, given the year-on-year increase in antisocial use that I described earlier.

As I said earlier, no right to let off fireworks in the back garden, to buy those fireworks or to organise family gatherings in private places, is worth the significant risk of injury to children, animals and adults that we see year on year. Something needs to be done. A change in the law would certainly have public support, with online petitions gaining more than 100,000 signatures each year for the last three years. I therefore ask the Minister—I agree with earlier comments that he is a very reasonable and competent person—to take on board these concerns, to re-evaluate firework use and to consider introducing new restrictions and guidelines on the use of fireworks by private citizens.

Blacklisting

Charles Walker Excerpts

Tuesday 5th September 2017 Westminster Hall

[Mr Charles Walker (in the Chair)]

This is a one-hour debate. As colleagues know, there will be five minutes for the two Opposition leads and 10 minutes for the Minister. If the contributions of Back Benchers were to end a little earlier, I would be inclined to allow six minutes to the hon. Members for Glasgow South West (Chris Stephens) and for Birmingham, Erdington (Jack Dromey), but it may be just five.

[Chuka Umunna (Streatham) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered blacklisting.

I should say at the outset that I am pleased that the Minister for corporate responsibility will respond to the debate, because, as she responded to the debate that I held in the previous Parliament earlier this year, she will be familiar with the issues.

For the benefit of the record in this Parliament, I want to recap what we are talking about. Imagine a person who has spent years acquiring the skills to work on construction sites around the country. No one ever complained about the quality of their work or their work ethic. They happen to be an active member of their trade union, keen to ensure that they and their colleagues have a safe and pleasant working environment—nothing out of the ordinary. Then, on one occasion, they raise a serious health and safety concern—no small matter, given that an average of 39 construction workers are killed at work every year in the UK—and ever since they have not been able to get work. That is what happened to thousands of construction workers for decades. They were blacklisted, and no one has ever been brought properly to book for it.

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[Sir David Crausby (Bolton North East) (Lab)]

When I was a young trade unionist, there was a feeling about that those people who were blacklisted or sacked on strike were generally revolutionaries and pretty bad people, in the main. I rather suspect that that view is still harboured in the dark corners of some people’s minds.

Nearly 40 years ago, I was a works convenor in a medium-sized factory, and after a 19-week strike, the employer decided to sack me for being nothing more than the works convenor of the people who had been on strike. People may well have said at that time that I was a pretty aggressive individual and might well have deserved it, but the reality is that my wife and two little children had not done anything wrong. I never really got over the fact as to why I should be victimised in that way.

Earlier this year, Prince Charles, on the instruction of the Queen, knighted me. So I ask the question: in the long term, who was the villain—me, a Member of Parliament, or the employers who decided to victimise me and, much more importantly, my family?

[Mr Charles Walker (in the Chair)]

We have a little extra time, so I will allow each shadow Front Bencher seven minutes, which will give the Minister a little longer, if she requires it. I call Mr Stephens.

[Chris Stephens (Glasgow South West) (SNP)]

Thank you, Mr Walker. First, I congratulate the hon. Member for Streatham (Chuka Umunna) on giving a very vivid account of blacklisting in this country.

I have argued since the general election that in this House of minorities, there is potential for this Parliament to be called the justice Parliament. That is by ensuring there are inquiries to deal with the Shrewsbury conspiracy, the wrongful conviction of miners during the miners’ strike and this issue of blacklisting, as well as for those caught up in contaminated blood. While there is now an inquiry into contaminated blood, which I welcome very much, I support the efforts of the hon. Member for Streatham and others to have a public inquiry on blacklisting.

Blacklisting is covered in a fantastic film called “The Happy Lands”, which is based in Fife. The historical context is the general strike there, and in that film blacklisting is revealed. It is difficult to comprehend the extent of blacklisting in this country, thanks to the levels of denial and secrecy surrounding this odious practice, but what is not difficult to understand is the dreadful effect that blacklisting has on people’s lives and the suffering of not just the workers targeted for their trade union activity but their family members as well. Denial of the most basic of human rights—the right to work and provide for your family—by the same companies that have grown rich on lucrative public sector contracts is a shameful act and an abuse of power.

Make no mistake: blacklisting is a deliberate decision taken by company directors and managers who are in the business of maximising profits for shareholders by punishing those who seek to stand up for their rights and the health and safety of their fellow workers. The account given by the hon. Member for Bassetlaw (John Mann) of his personal circumstances is commonplace in the construction industry, where people turn up for work and within a day or two are told that there is no longer a position for them, because companies have been looking at the blacklist.

The Scottish National party is clear that blacklisting in any form is unacceptable and will not be tolerated. Despite employment law being a reserved matter—which is unfortunate, given the consensus in Scotland that it should be devolved—the Scottish Government have introduced legislation: the Public Contracts (Scotland) Regulations 2015 and the Procurement (Scotland) Regulations 2016, which came into effect in April last year. Those changes will ensure that any company in Scotland found to be involved in the practice of blacklisting will be excluded from bidding for public sector contracts. The general secretary of the Scottish Trades Union Congress, Grahame Smith, has welcomed that action and said that any company applying for new public contracts where blacklisting has taken place in the past must make an apology to the affected workers, issue a statement on future conduct and prove compliance with any tribunal ruling made against it in relation to blacklisting.

I share the concerns of the hon. Member for Streatham about the delays to 2018, flagged up by Unite the union. That is more pathetic, Brexit-induced stalling, and yet another kick in the teeth to those who want not just justice for past wrongs but security for present and future workers.

Some of the context for the move towards greater transparency has come through action through the High Court. In an attempt to body-swerve liability, a number of construction companies attempted to almost name and shame themselves, including Laing O’Rourke, Costain, Kier and Sir Robert McAlpine, which I will come on to later. Let us make a mental note of the last company named there. One of its directors, Cullum McAlpine, who has already been mentioned, was interviewed under oath by the Scottish Affairs Committee when it conducted its inquiry into blacklisting. As an important aside, I hope that the Scottish Affairs Committee now goes back to that inquiry, which was chaired by my predecessor, Ian Davidson. The three interim reports all made clear that there is a case for a full public inquiry, which is essential if we are ever to expose the true extent of the practice and take measures to stop it.

I return to Sir Robert McAlpine, which was a founding member of the Consulting Association. Cullum McAlpine refused to answer many of the questions put to him by the Scottish Affairs Committee members and relied heavily on his lawyer for advice throughout the session. Despite that, he was forced to admit that the company had used the blacklist to vet workers on the Olympic stadium. In the light of that, it is most shocking, as the hon. Member for Streatham rightly said, that the company has been awarded a £20 million contract to refurbish Big Ben—one of the most iconic buildings in the country, symbolising the seat of power and London as a global destination.

I am calling today for McAlpine to be stripped of that contract. It is an absolute disgrace and scandal that it was awarded the contract in the first place and that none of the actions taken in Scotland are happening here in Westminster. The Government should look at what the devolved Administrations have done about companies in the public sector that have engaged in blacklisting. It signals bad faith that one of the main perpetrators of this conspiracy—and blacklisting is a conspiracy—is accessing public money to boost its profits.

I support the hon. Member for Streatham in relation to a public inquiry. I hope that the Government will announce a public inquiry into blacklisting, because there are many, many unanswered questions. I congratulate him once again and all those who have spoken so far. They have the support of the SNP for a public inquiry into blacklisting.

[Mr Charles Walker (in the Chair)]

Mr Dromey, you have until exactly quarter past 2.

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[Jack Dromey]

Without hesitation, I agree with my right hon. Friend, and I will come to that.

Over the years, hundreds of individuals have been blacklisted and I will give one example today. Dave Smith, joint secretary of the Blacklist Support Group, became virtually unemployable as a consequence of his file, which was first held by the Economic League and then by the Consulting Association. It was 36 pages long and stretched from 1992 to 2007, from his very first job with Balfour Beatty all the way through successive employment. His sin with Balfour Beatty was to take part in a dispute about unpaid wages. His file included personal information, including address and national insurance number, but also details of his wife and brother. That is an affront to democracy and the rights of working people, and demands further action. Members today were absolutely right when they said we need first and foremost a public inquiry into blacklisting, its use in the past, its current use, steps going forward to eradicate blacklisting, the role of the special demonstration squad, the role of the Consulting Association, and examination of evidence of blacklisting in publicly procured contracts. The truth needs finally to be fully told.

Secondly, we must strengthen legislation to stop the continuing practice of blacklisting and criminalise it. We must also ensure that the law is not limited to employment relationships because, by definition, if a worker is blacklisted he or she does not have an employment relationship. As Unite has argued, we must also tackle patterns of work generally in construction, such as bogus self-employment. The argument is that 10 million workers are in insecure employment where employers can abuse without fear, and blacklisting very often follows.

Thirdly, we need strong rules covering Government contracts awarded to firms complicit in blacklisting. There must be consequences for blacklisting. It is a scandal that the Big Ben contract has gone to McAlpine, one of the first blacklisting offenders. I suspect that we here do not give a damn about the Big Ben bong, but we give a damn that that firm, which blacklisted workers and treated them shamefully, has an iconic contract just yards from where we are.

We need effective action, including at local authority level. I particularly praise Liverpool for its social value charter, which refers to respect for all individuals and does not engage in any form of discrimination or blacklisting practices—in other words, an unmistakeable message must be sent and enforced that a company suspected of blacklisting does not get public contracts.

Fourthly, we must make sure that specific laws banning blacklisting and data protection are retained after we leave the European Union.

In conclusion, as we have heard today, blacklisting is not history. We must learn from the lessons of history and ultimately confine blacklisting to history. That is why we need a public inquiry, strengthening of the law and absolute clarity that companies do not get public contracts if they blacklist. The time has come to blacklist the blacklisters.

[Mr Charles Walker (in the Chair)]

Before I call the Minister, may I ask her to leave a minute or two at the end for Mr Umunna to sum up?

Energy Prices

Charles Walker Excerpts

Thursday 16th March 2017 Commons Chamber

[John Penrose]

The right hon. Gentleman is exactly right. One of the things that may be improved by the roll-out of smart meters, which we heard about earlier, is those collective bills, which would be broken down. Many energy suppliers and others in the industry are concerned that too many hopes may be being invested in smart meters and they may not necessarily produce a lasting uplift in customer engagement and interest—they will start off as an interesting new gadget in the corner of the room, but after a few weeks or months that interest may die away. We will have to wait and see, but he is right that there is an opportunity, at the very least.

In the spirit of trying to make switching simpler and less scary, firms such as Make It Cheaper, Flipper, OVO and Money Saving Expert provide end-to-end services that do the donkey work for us, handling everything from finding a better deal to organising the switch itself. They appeal to those of us who currently think that even the most convenient price comparison sites take too much of our valuable time.

[Mr Charles Walker (Broxbourne) (Con)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that part of the problem with the big six and other generators, such as Veolia, is that they are not straightforward and honest with their customers and stakeholders? Until they are straightforward and honest, there will be disquiet about their conduct.

[John Penrose]

That is one of the underlying concerns about the way that this industry operates. People are not necessarily asked at the moment they are switched to the default tariff, so when they notice that they have been—if they notice—they feel that they are being ripped off, because those default tariffs are so much higher. That leads to distrust of the suppliers, and that is one of the things corroding the underlying trust in the industry as a whole. It is incredibly dangerous. I think some forward-thinking people in the industry understand that and the brand damage that is being done, not just to individual firms but to the sector as a whole. Trust is slow to gain and easy to lose. My hon. Friend has a background in marketing and consumer business, so I am sure that he understands what I mean.

Rolling out the end-to-end services that I mentioned, which are still in their infancy, should persuade a new group of customers who currently do not switch at all to do so, extending the number of people in that stubborn two thirds of the customer base who do not switch, or do so very rarely.

These changes, taken together, are essential steps to solving the underlying fundamental problems that make the energy market such a rip-off. If the Government, the regulator—Ofgem—and perhaps even enlightened energy firms themselves are willing to take those steps, abuses and consumer detriment will start to fall and customers will finally be in the driving seat, as we already are and expect to be for everything else, from toothpaste and coffee to cornflakes and soap.

But how long will this take to fix? How quickly will the rip-off stop? Even then, will there still be stubborn pockets of problems left over here and there? Given that fully two thirds of all customers are on these rip-off tariffs and that proportion has been glacially slow to change, there is an awfully long way still to go. Even under the most optimistic scenarios, an unacceptably large number of households will still be being ripped off for too many years yet. So we need a stopgap—a temporary solution—while all those other changes to make switching easier and less scary start to take effect.

The answer is a relative price cap—a maximum mark-up between each energy firm’s best deal and its default tariff. If someone forgot to switch to a new deal when their existing one came to an end, they would not be ripped off too badly, but people would still be able to save plenty of money when they got round to switching again, so it would always still be worth their while to become engaged and take that additional action, should they be so minded.

Under these proposals, energy firms would still be able to compete on price—they could still decide whether they wanted to be the Aldi or Lidl of the industry, or the Waitrose or Marks and Spencer—and could still have as many tariffs as they wanted, so there would be plenty of customer choice. If someone wanted a green energy tariff, that would be fine. If someone did not like computers or wanted to do it the old-fashioned way with offline paper and an ink deal, that would be no problem.

I am delighted to confirm today that the idea of a relative cap is supported by three of the largest challenger brands—OVO, Utility Warehouse and Octopus Energy, which cover hundreds of thousands of customers between them—and I hope to persuade others to join the cause in due course.

Crucially, a relative cap is a lot better than a normal price cap. A relative cap would mean that each energy firm could still adjust its prices whenever the wholesale price of gas or electricity went up or down, but a normal cap would mean that Ofgem had to approve any changes, which inevitably would be slower and create work for lawyers and lobbyists. A relative cap would also mean that energy firms still had plenty of incentives to innovate and find new ways to please particular groups of customers however they wanted, without needing Ofgem’s approval first.

Lobbyists and lawyers will hate a relative cap, because there will be much less lobbying and lawyering to do. Putting customers in the driver’s seat would mean fewer fat fees and fat lunches. If customers could switch their supplier as easily as changing their brand of cornflakes or soap, we politicians, and the bureaucrats and regulators, would rightly matter a lot less in this area. Because of the extra clarity and simplicity, a relative cap would mean that we could deregulate, too, by striking out reams of regulations, red tape and guidelines that complicate the market and stop energy firms thinking about their customers first and foremost and make them focus on their regulators, lawyers and compliance directors instead. A relative cap would reduce red tape rather than add to it.

But the people who would hate a relative cap the most are the big six, because it would force them to treat us, their consumers, fairly, to reward loyalty rather than exploit it and to fight hard to keep long-standing customers rather than take us for granted. In other words, it would force the industry to be a normal industry with normal firms where the customer, not the regulator or politicians, is king.

I know that both Ministers and regulators understand this problem. They have spoken to me and many others in this House about it, and both the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy and the Prime Minister have been trenchant in criticising the sector for not delivering an economy that works for everyone, so I hope that they will accept the thrust of this motion.

The time for action has come. We simply cannot argue, as others have tried to, that even though fully two thirds of the country is being ripped off, we are not going to help or protect those victims because it is their own silly fault if they are not savvy enough to switch. Yes, we need to make switching easier and safer so that, eventually, most of us do it most of the time. That is clearly the right long-term answer. But I hope that Ministers accept that, until that glorious day, we cannot simply sit back and allow consumers to be harmed on this scale for this long and do nothing. We need to do more.

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[Mr Iain Wright (Hartlepool) (Lab)]

I congratulate the hon. Member for Weston-super-Mare (John Penrose); it is an honour to follow his speech. He set out the arguments incredibly well. He is passionate and knowledgeable, and his points about the energy market were incredibly measured. I pay tribute to him, my right hon. Friend the Member for Don Valley (Caroline Flint) and the hon. Member for North Ayrshire and Arran (Patricia Gibson) for securing this important debate. The issue affects all our constituents—millions of people up and down the country—and I thank the Backbench Business Committee for agreeing to the debate.

The excellent opening address of the hon. Member for Weston-super-Mare made it very clear that the energy market is not working in the best interests of customers. That is not to say that there is any collusion whatever between the energy companies—far from it. Ofgem told us on the Select Committee on Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy that the major energy companies have quite different price strategies; there can be a difference of about £140 a year between what the major energy suppliers charge dual fuel customers. In addition, as the hon. Gentleman said, there have been welcome new entrants to the energy market, which have disrupted, in a very positive way, the energy oligopoly that has been in place for far too long. There are more innovative companies offering better choice, service, and value to the energy customer. Ten years ago, the big six companies dominated the entire market, with a 100% market share. Last year, that had moved to 85%, which is great. That is positive news. New entrants are taking market share and offering quite competitive fixed-term deals.

I said that there was no evidence of collusion between energy companies, but there are marked similarities between the major energy companies’ business models, and they do not act in the best interests of customers; in fact, as the hon. Gentleman said, they actually punish customer loyalty. Their business models are predicated on a sizeable proportion, if not the majority, of their customer base being, and continuing indefinitely, on their standard variable tariff. Looking at the big six companies, 74% of British Gas customers are on its SVT; for EDF, it is 56%; for E.ON, 73%; for npower, 59%; and for ScottishPower, 50%; and an astonishing 91% of SSE’s customer base is on the SVT.

SVTs are, in the main, the most expensive of all the energy tariffs available, yet almost half of all customers have been with the same supplier for five years or more, and 44% of customers have never changed tariff. It is almost guaranteed that those households are overpaying for their energy. The Competition and Markets Authority estimates that, due to a lack of competition in the market, collectively customers are overpaying for their energy to the tune of £1.4 billion. Despite all that, and the very clear evidence that the market is not working in the interests of customers, energy companies continue to penalise customers for their loyalty. The longer a person is with a company, the more they are likely to pay. In a modern, customer services-oriented economy, what other market could possibly say that?

When npower raised its prices by 14% last month, Ofgem stated to the Select Committee quite categorically that it did not see a case for such a significant rise. Ofgem’s chief executive told our Committee that wholesale costs had risen by about 15% in the past year. However, the overall cost of energy was marginally below what it had been three years ago.

[Mr Charles Walker]

I made this same point to my hon. Friend the Member for Weston-super-Mare (John Penrose): the big six and Veolia behave in this way because there is a culture of arrogance and entitlement. That is the problem, and we—or, more to the point, the companies—need to address that culture.

[Mr Wright]

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. A market has to be dynamic. Companies should be nervous about customers moving away, but customers are not doing that. As I said, these companies’ business models are entirely predicated on the fact that people will, for a variety of reasons, stay on the expensive tariff; because of that, though companies may provide loss-leading deals for new customers, they scoff at customer loyalty. This market is not working in anybody’s interests. It is not dynamic, efficient or effective, and ultimately it is not benefiting customers.

[Mr Walker]

The problem is not just the way that organisations such as Veolia and the big six treat their customers; it is the way that they treat their regulators and this place—elected representatives.

[Mr Wright]

This is not just about price and cost; it is about customer service, and what teeth the regulator has—and, ultimately, the Government provide—to ensure a dynamic energy market.

It is true that wholesale costs went up by about 15% last year, and obviously the wholesale cost of energy is ultimately a big part of the energy bill that goes to the customer, but the cost of energy is marginally lower than it was three years ago. Companies hedge their risks when it comes to purchasing energy, which should flatten any price spikes that they experience when buying their energy on the global market. That means that retail prices to customers might not fall as quickly and as sharply when wholesale prices fall, but conversely, it certainly should stop big price hikes when wholesale prices rise, and we have seen no evidence whatsoever of that.

Last month, in announcing its big price rise—the biggest for many years—npower stated on its website:

“over the past few years, the cost of supplying energy to your home has increased, as well as the amount we need to pay towards government schemes.”

This is slightly unusual for me, but allow me robustly to defend the Government. The phrases that npower and other companies have used about the cost of Government schemes are simply wrong. The Committee on Climate Change today published its analysis of energy prices and household costs, which showed that 9% of the average dual fuel bill for domestic customers is accounted for by the cost of moving towards a UK-based low-carbon electricity supply and support for energy efficiency home improvements. The notion that energy companies can justify price increases through Government action or policies is simply disingenuous.