Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Chris Huhne and David Ward

Thursday 20th October 2011 Commons Chamber

[Chris Huhne]

The clear advice that I have received is that, legally, we will have to legislate to ensure that redress is available for energy consumers—but I am happy to look at any evidence that the right hon. Lady has to the contrary, and if we can move further and faster, we will. However, our advice at present is that we will need new legislation, and it is a matter of great regret to me that the Labour Government did not implement that.

[Mr David Ward (Bradford East) (LD)]

T4. My understanding is that under the green deal golden rule, monthly repayments should be lower than the energy savings, but this makes them very sensitive to interest rate charges on the loans. What progress is being made on setting up a new not-for-profit company that can offer green deal loans at below market rates?

[Chris Huhne]

We have made considerable progress on this matter. The Minister of State, Department of Energy and Climate Change, my hon. Friend the Member for Wealden (Charles Hendry) was talking about the aggregator, which seeks to ensure that we get good support for small businesses, and that is an important part of it. On the point about the costs being sensitive to interest rates, the way we envisage this working is that the financing will, in most cases, be available at fixed rates, so that the consumer will know in advance exactly what those interest rates will be. That is one of the reasons why the assurance can be made about the green deal offering a reduction in the overall energy bill.