Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Chris Huhne and Gregg McClymont
The Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change (Chris Huhne)
Department of Energy and Climate Change Ministers and officials regularly meet energy suppliers to discuss market issues, and this afternoon I will be hosting an energy summit for small, non-big six suppliers, to discuss the barriers they face to competing in the market, with a view to making sure it is as easy as possible for them to enter it.
Gregg McClymont
Bringing the Secretary of State back to the issue of the big six energy companies, do they do enough to make vulnerable customers aware of their potential eligibility for a social tariff, and if they do not do enough, what will the Government do to make sure vulnerable customers are made aware of their potential eligibility?
Chris Huhne
The hon. Gentleman raises an important question, especially as we approach the winter months. As he may know, we have put the warm homes discount scheme on a legislative basis and it is absolutely crucial that our targeting efforts continue. We are doing a lot of work, not least with the Department for Work and Pensions, to try to ensure that we can identify the people who will be most in need, and of course the green deal, which will start next year, will prioritise those in fuel poverty so that we tackle the root causes of the problem and do not merely seek to apply a sticking plaster—
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Chris Huhne and Gregg McClymont(14 years, 3 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text
Chris Huhne
I am grateful for my right hon. Friend’s kind invitation. I would love an opportunity to visit his constituency. Indeed, I will visit the north of Scotland and Orkney and Shetland in the next few weeks, and I intend to inform myself about the important pioneering energy developments, particularly in renewables, that are under way in the area.
Gregg McClymont (Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East) (Lab)
A moment ago, the Minister of State, the hon. Member for Bexhill and Battle (Gregory Barker) suggested that the difference between the previous Labour Government and this Government is that the latter want to get government out of the way and let the private sector create the jobs in the green economy. Does the Secretary of the State believe that that is the appropriate approach to developing the green economy?
Chris Huhne
The hon. Gentleman knows from previous answers that I have given on the matter that any sensible Government policy has to have a balance between providing a strategic framework, which gives incentives for us to move towards the green economy, and avoiding unnecessary bureaucratic burdens on business. We prefer the approach of simplifying signals and providing market and price signals to the bureaucratic entanglement, on which, I am afraid, some of the friends of the right hon. Member for Doncaster North (Edward Miliband) were particularly keen when the Labour party was in government.
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Chris Huhne and Gregg McClymont
Chris Huhne
I welcome the hon. Lady to her new role and I am glad to see that she is getting stuck in. I thought the whole point about new Labour was that it believed in a market economy. The last sort of organisation that set targets for jobs sector by sector was the Soviet Union’s Gosplan, and we all know what happened to that.
Gregg McClymont (Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East) (Lab)
6. What recent estimate he has made of the likely cost to the public purse of the implementation of the Government’s commitment to reduce the level of carbon dioxide emissions by 10% in the next 12 months.