Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Chris Huhne and Jo Swinson(12 years, 10 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text
Mr Speaker
Order. May I just say to the Secretary of State that that answer—about which he felt strongly—was too long? There must not be a repetition of that, and if there is, I will cut it off. That is the end of it.
Jo Swinson (East Dunbartonshire) (LD)
The Secretary of State is right to say that the design of the scheme he inherited from Labour was flawed. However, by continuing with that scheme for 18 months, coupled with apparently poor legal advice, the implementation of FITs that he has presided over has been somewhat chaotically managed for consumers and businesses alike. I am concerned that a letter from the Minister of State says that if there is no action, proposals may have to be brought forward to close the FITs scheme. What reassurance can the Secretary of State give that FITs will be put on a sustainable footing for the rest of this Parliament?
Chris Huhne
I entirely reject the idea that we did not act to deal with this issue as soon as we were advised. The problem with the design of the scheme was that it was unable to cope with the dramatic fall in the cost of solar panels. That dramatic fall, the reason for which I have already described, became apparent over the past year, and we acted as quickly as we could to deal with the situation. What is unforgivable is the fact that the present Leader of the Opposition failed to foresee, by looking at best practice internationally, how the scheme should have been designed in the first place.
Durban Climate Change Conference
Debate between Chris Huhne and Jo Swinson
Chris Huhne
The UNFCCC process provides numerous opportunities, including through the groups around it, such as the Major Economies Forum and the Clean Energy Ministerial meeting, which we will host next spring, in order to bring political leadership to the whole process. I was very encouraged by what happened at Durban and that the political leadership is increasingly there, and we need to build on that.
Jo Swinson (East Dunbartonshire) (LD)
I congratulate my right hon. Friend and all those involved in the negotiations in Durban on a very welcome outcome, especially after so many disappointing climate change talks. I wholeheartedly agree with the remarks of the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas) on the need for the EU to step up its own emissions targets, but that will clearly be a challenge, given the global economic difficulties we face. Will my right hon. Friend tell us more about the progress being made on the Technology Executive Committee to promote low-carbon technology so that we can simultaneously boost our economy and reduce emissions?
Chris Huhne
Progress is being made in that regard. The key is to ensure that appropriate progress is made at different levels of development. Much can be achieved in some of the poorer developing countries where there are low levels of development by ensuring, for example, that people simply use more efficient forms of burning wood for cooking. We are making progress on the technological issue, but it applies at all levels of development.
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Chris Huhne and Jo Swinson(13 years, 2 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text
Chris Huhne
No, I disagree with the hon. Gentleman on that. Once we had gone through the front-end engineering design studies, the specifics of the Longannet project were clear, including on the costs of transferring carbon into the reservoirs. Those costs were high; as a result, we could not do carbon capture and storage at Longannet, compared with where we believe we can do it elsewhere.
Jo Swinson (East Dunbartonshire) (LD)
5. What recent discussions he has had with energy suppliers on the provision to consumers of information on how to access the cheapest tariff.
The Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change (Chris Huhne)
The UK low-carbon and environmental sector is growing strongly, despite the disappointing recovery. It employs about 910,000 people, and this could reach more than 1 million by 2015—[Interruption.]
Chris Huhne
You are absolutely right, Mr Speaker.
We have negotiated a voluntary agreement with suppliers to provide consumers with a prompt on their bills to cheaper deals this winter, and an additional communication to their customers who pay by cash or cheque to let them know how much they could save by moving to the cheapest direct debit tariff. There is also a commitment from suppliers to assess the impact of the prompt on bills and to improve it in the light of this evidence.
Jo Swinson
I thank the Secretary of State for that reply. Last week a Which? investigation uncovered the appalling behaviour of the big six energy companies, finding that they failed to offer the cheapest tariff in a third of calls. I welcome the moves announced this week, although I remain slightly cynical about the willingness of the energy companies to give consumers the fairest deal. Ofgem currently has the power to fine energy companies, but surely it should also be able to force companies to pay compensation in cases such as those highlighted by the Which? report, where they have effectively been mis-selling and providing inaccurate information.
Chris Huhne
I consider mis-selling to be a very serious offence, and it is a matter for the independent regulator Ofgem to investigate. As my hon. Friend pointed out, Ofgem has the power to fine energy companies. When customers have lost out, I expect energy companies to pay compensation. Unfortunately, Ofgem currently does not have the power to force companies to give consumer redress, despite the last Government having 13 years and several energy Bills to give it that power. This Government are not going to sit on our hands, unlike those on the Opposition Benches. We are carefully considering legislation on the issue as part of the next energy Bill.
Electricity Market Reform
Debate between Chris Huhne and Jo Swinson
Chris Huhne
The hon. Gentleman is right to say that the electricity market arrangements in Northern Ireland are quite distinct from those in England, Scotland and Wales. There is effectively a single market between Northern Ireland and the Republic, and we need to be aware of and respect that. I gather that discussions are ongoing at official level and elsewhere to ensure that there are no unintended consequences of the changes that we introduce.
Jo Swinson (East Dunbartonshire) (LD)
Feed-in tariffs are proving effective in encouraging people to generate their own renewable energy. Will the Secretary of State look at how they could also be used to encourage the use of negawatts—that is, energy saved—to give people an additional cash incentive to ensure that their homes are warm and snug, and well insulated, so that they do not waste energy?
Chris Huhne
We have been clear in the White Paper on electricity market reform published today that we want to encourage demand-side response. My hon. Friend makes the good point that, in an ideal world, we would move beyond the temporary switching off of demand in order to close the gap between demand and supply and adopt the practice of paying people to reduce overall demand at all times. We are working on that, and we show awareness of that matter in the White Paper. This is a holy grail, however, and we have not yet found a way of doing that without opening up the possibility of wholesale fraud and other problems, but it is a good, interesting idea and we would like to look at it further.
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Chris Huhne and Jo Swinson
Chris Huhne
I entirely agree with my hon. Friend, and what he describes is one of Ofgem’s objectives in tackling this issue. It is also one of the objectives we are introducing in legislation: we want to ensure that people can see on their bill that there will be a clear alternative with the same supplier at the cheapest tariff.
Jo Swinson (East Dunbartonshire) (LD)
The big six seem very quick to put prices up, but they act much more slowly to reduce their prices when wholesale prices fall. There are alternatives out there, such as the social enterprise Ebico, which supplies energy on a not-for-profit basis. What more can the Secretary of State do to make customers aware that they do not need to stick with the big six if they are being ripped off?
Chris Huhne
The key is to encourage people to act. At the moment 99% of people are with the big six, and they are very unlikely to look at alternatives and to switch. If we can get people to look more comprehensively on a regular basis at alternatives, substantial savings can be made, and we can drive greater competition, we can simplify bills, we can bring more new entrants into the market, we can make sure that Ofgem is keeping that market under review and we can give the best possible deal to British consumers.
Fourth Carbon Budget
Debate between Chris Huhne and Jo Swinson
Chris Huhne
The hon. Lady raises an important issue that people periodically talk about, which is that no matter how well we do in the UK, we are not making a difference to the world as a whole if we are merely outsourcing production of carbon-intensive goods to economies such as China. However, I would make two points in response, the first of which is that we should not underestimate the progress being made in economies such as India and China to grapple with and move very fast on this agenda. The Department and the Government are working with the low-carbon pilot areas in China and the developments are truly impressive, so I urge her to look at them. We are aware of this issue, but I do not think that any time soon we will be able to move globally towards a situation where we are taking into account the embedded carbon emissions in trade. The reality is that most of the nearly 200 countries that are members of the United Nations are fiercely protective of their own territorial sovereignty, so it seems likely that our major efforts to tackle climate change will be based on states’ control of their own territorial integrity.
Jo Swinson (East Dunbartonshire) (LD)
I congratulate the Secretary of State on accepting the ambitious fourth carbon budget recommended by the Committee on Climate Change. His statement highlights how vital it is to increase the EU carbon emission reduction target from 20% to 30% by 2020, so how will the Government redouble their efforts to secure that agreement and, in particular, to get a significant tightening of the EU emissions trading scheme cap?
Chris Huhne
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that question. We have made substantial strides in the direction of securing an agreement and a number of countries in the EU are clearly signed up to the 30% ambition level for 2020. A number of other countries would like to go beyond 20%. The European Commission is the key player and one of the points that it is making—rightly I think—is that if we as a European Union were to deliver on just the energy efficiency commitments that we have already made, we could get to a 25% cut in carbon emissions by 2020 without any additional cost. There is a lot of progress to be made on this agenda and I and my ministerial colleagues are pressing that point at all the meetings we attend in Brussels and elsewhere. I believe that we are making good progress.