Oral Answers to Questions

Christine Jardine Excerpts

Wednesday 1st March 2023 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I share my hon. Friend’s concern. The House will know that health is a devolved matter for the Labour-run Government in Wales, where one in five people in the entire country are now on a waiting list. The Government there should focus on the people’s priorities and start cutting waiting lists, as we are doing here in England.

[Christine Jardine (Edinburgh West) (LD)]

Q7. A heartbreaking 80% of those who responded to a survey that I carried out recently in my constituency said that the high cost of energy meant they would have to ration it—and I do not represent a deprived area. Nearly a quarter of Scottish households now live in fuel poverty, not helped, of course, by the total absence of a Scottish Government insulation programme. Will the Prime Minister now accept that allowing the price cap to rise will only make things worse for millions of families, and given the significant reduction in the cost of wholesale energy, will he also accept that it is time to listen to the Liberal Democrats and cut bills to the levels of last April?

[The Prime Minister]

The Liberal Democrats’ shadow Energy Secretary said that there was no role for nuclear power in our future energy industry, which is not something that we need to listen to. As for helping people with their energy bills, as I said earlier, because of the energy price guarantee we are paying, typically, about half a family’s energy bill at the moment, which is worth £1,000. However, the support does not end there: over the next year there will be about £1,000 of direct support for the most vulnerable families in the nation.

I agree with the hon. Lady about energy efficiency. It is important, which is why the Government have allocated more than £6 billion over the current Parliament, and the new schemes that we have just introduced will help hundreds of thousands of households across the country, saving them about £300 on their bills through improvements in their energy efficiency—and the hon. Lady is right: it should be available everywhere, including Scotland.