Energy Bills

Chris Bryant Excerpts

Monday 2nd December 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Davey]

I am being tempted by my colleagues on the Back Benches. I hope they can cast their minds back to a former Conservative Government who wanted to put VAT at 17.5% on energy bills while my party campaigned against that. As I want to ensure that our coalition parties are working closely together, I respectfully repeat that that proposal would be against the law.

[Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)]

All one needs to know about this Government is summed up in the first few words of the Secretary of State’s statement when he said that this Government were taking action “to reduce the impact of Government policies on energy bills.” I want to increase the effect of Government policies on energy bills, because I want a Government who are going to stand up to the energy companies and make sure that we reduce bills. Why will the Government not do that?

[Mr Davey]

The hon. Gentleman shows his lack of understanding of the policy. It is very important that we have Government policies to tackle fuel poverty and boost energy efficiency, and I would have thought he would welcome that. We are combining those policies with our very strong policies on competition. I only wish that when Labour was in government it had pursued competition policies as rigorous as ours.