Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Chris Huhne and Luciana Berger

Thursday 26th January 2012 Commons Chamber

[Chris Huhne]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right that such skills will be essential for the green deal—indeed, for the whole low-carbon economy. That is precisely why we have been working closely with the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, which takes the lead on skills. We have a national skills academy for environmental technologies, which is developing standards, delivering training and upskilling tradesmen and technicians. We also have funding for the renewables training network that is run by Renewable UK, and a talent bank for the gas, power, waste management and water industries, which is led by the Energy and Utility Skills sector skills council.

[Luciana Berger (Liverpool, Wavertree) (Lab/Co-op)]

I understand that the Government have not yet even designed the training programme for many of the people who will have to deliver the green deal. Ministers have been claiming for months that the green deal will mean the creation of thousands of jobs, but the Department’s figures show that the number of energy efficiency installations will plummet in the first year of the scheme, with cavity wall insulations set to fall by 67% and loft insulations by a staggering 90%. That will cripple the sector and, according to Europe Economics, could lead to the loss of 3,000 jobs. Will the Secretary of State protect those jobs by adopting Labour’s proposals to include hard-to-treat cavity walls and lofts in the ECO?

[Chris Huhne]

I think the hon. Lady misunderstands a couple of issues. First, the green deal is a very different scheme precisely because it is designed to support a complete retrofit. We are talking not just about cavity wall insulation or loft insulation but about many other measures as well. The second point is that she is quoting the first impact assessment. It has always been the case that the take-up of the green deal will depend on the triggers and incentives that have been introduced for take-up, which have increased substantially since the figures she quoted.

Energy Prices

Debate between Chris Huhne and Luciana Berger

Wednesday 11th January 2012 Commons Chamber

[Chris Huhne]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for the concern about prepayment meters. It is one thing that we have been looking at closely. Thankfully, people on prepayment meters are not paying more than was previously the case, and that is a step forward. I am sure there is more work to be done and we are looking at it closely.

[Luciana Berger (Liverpool, Wavertree) (Lab/Co-op)]

The hon. Member for Wells (Tessa Munt) raised the issue of people on prepayment meters. There are two other key issues concerning people. One million households across the UK do not have access to a bank account so they cannot have direct debits; likewise, there are those who do not have access to the internet—the digital divide.

Further to the point that the Secretary of State made about the energy companies that are writing to their customers, I received one of those letters asking me to go on to direct debit. I called my energy company, E.on. It wanted to put me on to a monthly payment, which would have cost me at least a third more and I would have had to wait until May before I could reassess the situation. So even when energy companies are writing to their customers, myself included, they are not offering consumers the best deal. I cannot move on to direct debit because the company wants to charge me more than I pay already.

[Chris Huhne]

I can only recommend that the hon. Lady look at switching energy supplier to see whether she can find a better deal. We know from Ofgem that people can save substantial sums of money by doing that—£200 a year. Her particular case is obviously regrettable.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Chris Huhne and Luciana Berger

Thursday 1st December 2011 Commons Chamber

[Chris Huhne]

It is a very interesting idea and one that certainly merits further consideration. I am delighted to say that the Minister of State, Department of Energy and Climate Change, my hon. Friend the hon. Member for Bexhill and Battle (Gregory Barker), will be very happy to meet my hon. Friend to take that matter further.

[Luciana Berger (Liverpool, Wavertree) (Lab/Co-op)]

We have heard a lot about interest rates this week. Affordable interest rates for green deal finance will be crucial if consumers are to take up the green deal at the scale and level the Government anticipate. A report by E3G says that relying on commercial loans could mean interest rates as high as 8%, 9% or even 10%. Polling has found that only 7% of the British public and homeowners would be interested in taking up the green deal if interest rates were as high as that. Given that, what specifically are the Government doing to get green deal interest rates down?

[Chris Huhne]

We are working closely with a group of interested parties to provide a finance aggregator for the green deal, which is exciting and will bring forward finance that is substantially cheaper than that estimated by E3G. We will announce the details of the scheme when we have them.

[Luciana Berger]

I thank the Secretary of State for that answer. The aggregator to which he refers is the Green Deal Finance Company, which is working very hard to try to lower interest rates. It estimates that it will need hundreds of millions of pounds from the Green investment bank properly to fund the initial capitalisation of green deal loans and to act as the catalyst that the green deal market needs. Without such funding, interest rates will be higher than 10% and the green deal will, therefore, surely fail. A moment ago, the Secretary of State said that he envisaged that the Green investment bank would provide some support for the green deal and that it could play a very important role. Will he tell us definitively today whether the Green Deal Finance Company will receive that scale of funding from the Green investment bank?

[Chris Huhne]

Obviously, it is up to the Green investment bank board to make its decisions, but it is clear that it is interested in helping energy efficiency and ensuring that green deal finance gets off to a good start. Let me make it clear how this particular market is structured. Green deal receivables—please excuse me, Mr Speaker, for reverting to financial market jargon—are very similar to utility receivables. As soon as the market is established and we secure a couple of deals, the Green investment bank’s support will become important. The market will then be happy to finance this on terms similar to utility receivables. If it does that, we will be looking at substantially lower interest rates than the ones the hon. Lady has been citing.

Energy Prices

Debate between Chris Huhne and Luciana Berger

Wednesday 19th October 2011 Commons Chamber

[Chris Huhne]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that question. Our overall energy policy is designed to be robust in the face of considerable uncertainties in relation to technologies and what is likely to happen to the price of particular fuels. If it transpires that the early indications we have received from Cuadrilla about the size of the find under Lancashire are correct, there will clearly be an impact on gas prices within the UK. We have already seen that gas prices in the United States are half of those in the UK and the rest of Europe and are even lower than the prices for gas in the far east. This is a very important development and all our policy framework is designed to make sure that we can provide affordable, clean electricity at the cheapest possible price to British consumers in the long run. If that means cheap gas, then obviously the technological imperative is to go forward with carbon capture and storage so that we can use that gas in an environmentally friendly manner. That is precisely why that is so important.

[Luciana Berger (Liverpool, Wavertree) (Lab/Co-op)]

Will the Secretary of State give way?

[Chris Huhne]

I must make a bit of progress with my speech; otherwise I fear we will be here all night.

Over the next 10 years, we need £110 billion of investment in power plants and another £90 billion of investment in energy infrastructure to avoid the risk of black-outs. If we do not invest now to reduce our energy use and our dependence on fossil fuels in the long term, we will have to rely on ever more expensive imports. That will leave us at the mercy of global oil and gas prices and at the mercy of events in very volatile parts of the world. We have only to look at what has been happening in Libya and the rest of the middle east to see that. The impact on energy security and household bills will be worse. This is a very important way of insuring our country against the sort of economic shocks that we can otherwise expect.

That four-pronged strategy of energy saving, renewables, new nuclear and carbon capture and storage is absolutely essential.

[Luciana Berger]

rose—

[Chris Huhne]

Is the hon. Lady about to ask about carbon capture and storage perhaps?

[Luciana Berger]

I thank the Secretary of State for giving way. He said that energy saving was one of those prongs, and on energy saving he said only a moment ago that the Government are introducing the energy company obligation, which will replace Labour’s carbon emissions reduction target and community energy saving programme. That ECO pot is not going to go just to homes in fuel poverty but will be split, with some money going to subsidise able-to-pay households. Will he tell us how much there will be in that ECO pot?

[Chris Huhne]

We will be bringing forward the consultation document on the green deal and the ECO subsidy shortly, and all those issues will be addressed. Clearly, we have to make sure that we are getting value for money on both the carbon reduction side and in reducing fuel poverty because they are both very important.

I want to make some remarks on carbon capture and storage, which was raised in Prime Minister’s questions. Despite the fact that all the parties have worked extremely hard on the first carbon capture and storage demonstration project at Longannet, we have not been able to reach a satisfactory deal, as the Prime Minister pointed out. We will not, therefore, be proceeding with the project. That decision is purely about the viability of that particular project and is not a reflection on our commitment to the CCS programme; indeed, hon. Members will have heard me commit us to that very clearly a moment ago.

The long-term need for CCS remains as strong as ever. We will continue working across Government to start a more streamlined selection process as soon as possible and £1 billion will be available, as it was allocated in the comprehensive spending review, for that new process. Over the coming weeks, we will ensure that the lessons from that first process are fully learned and we now know that commercial-scale CCS projects are technically viable and are likely to be financially achievable. We also know more about the best way to procure these first-of-a-kind projects. Our findings will be published and made freely available on the Department of Energy and Climate Change website to help to speed up deployment of CCS both here and abroad. We will study those lessons closely as we develop the forthcoming CCS road map setting out our vision for CCS deployment.

--- Later in debate ---

[Luciana Berger]

I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention and I shall cover that point in just a few moments.

There has been an issue with doorstep selling, which four out of the six energy companies have had to stop because it has been proven that people were mis-sold packages and were paying more than double what they were before. We know from last week’s Which? report that a third of people are not offered the best advice from their energy suppliers when they call them for advice about which tariff to switch to.

On Monday, we heard and saw all the news about the energy summit and thought that that was a great opportunity. The Government could have done something tangible to help, but all we got was more of the same. We were told to shop around, ring this number and look at that website. I looked at the DECC website to see what the exact outcome of the summit was, and it tells us:

“This winter suppliers will place a cheaper tariff signpost message on the front page of bills, encouraging customers to call their supplier or visit a website to find out if they could be saving money on their energy bills.”

We already know that many people do not have access to the internet or to websites and cannot benefit from cheaper tariffs because they do not have access to a bank account or because they are unable to secure direct debits, an issue that specifically affects pensioners. We already know that that approach does not work, but the energy summit had no outcome on simpler tariffs, improving trust, reforming the market or increasing competition. It showed an out-of-touch Government wedded to an out-of-date orthodoxy at the expense of everyone else.

In her opening speech, my right hon. Friend the Member for Don Valley (Caroline Flint) set out a very clear plan to limit energy cost increases and to support struggling households.

[Chris Huhne]

The hon. Lady mentions the clear plan from the right hon. Member for Don Valley (Caroline Flint), but will she clarify for the benefit of the House whether it is now Labour policy to break up the big six, as the leader of the Labour party suggested, or to have a Competition Commission referral? May we have some clarification?

[Luciana Berger]

The Leader of the Opposition has said that we are seeking to break the dominance of the big six. He has not explicitly said that he wants to break them up—[Interruption.]

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Chris Huhne and Luciana Berger

Thursday 19th May 2011 Commons Chamber

[Chris Huhne]

I am grateful for my hon. Friend’s question. We are working through literally every possible impediment, as we are in other areas of the economy in which my Department particularly wants to see a transition to a low-carbon economy, to understand best what the impediments might be and to remove them. I am absolutely confident that when it comes to the launch of the green deal in October 2012 there will be enormous opportunities for Cornwall. The only constraint is going to be making sure that there are enough people who are trained properly to accredit, assess and install the green deal. I am confident that the finance will be available and it is important that we make as much progress as we can.

[Luciana Berger (Liverpool, Wavertree) (Lab/Co-op)]

Consumer confidence is vital to ensuring that the green deal is a success. We know that Ministers were discussing possible incentives at around the time of the Budget to encourage green deal take-up and the Chancellor alluded to that in his Budget speech, but no concrete announcements have yet been made. Will the Secretary of State give us any further details today about how home owners and tenants will be incentivised in order for the green deal to meet the Government’s ambitions?

[Chris Huhne]

Under the terms of the energy company obligation in the Energy Bill, there is capacity for the companies that are subject to the ECO to bring forward incentives. The Chancellor has, as the hon. Lady pointed out, rightly made a commitment to consider incentivisation. She will also be aware that we made announcements on the Energy Bill’s Second Reading to bring forward some quite important incentives for the private rental sector, particularly for F and G-rated properties. All those measures will get the scheme off to a flying start.