Oral Answers to Questions

Claire Perry Excerpts

Thursday 1st November 2012 Commons Chamber

[Gregory Barker]

Absolutely. We not only want to make it easier for consumers to shop around; we also want to ensure they are supplied with better information. We will use legislation to help people get the best deal.

[Claire Perry (Devizes) (Con)]

8. What steps his Department is taking to help people lower their energy bills.

[Katy Clark (North Ayrshire and Arran) (Lab)]

9. What steps his Department is taking to help people lower their energy bills.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change (Mr Edward Davey)]

We have three ways to help people lower their energy bills. The first way is to help people save energy through policies such as the carbon emissions reduction target, Warm Front, the green deal and the energy company obligation. The second is to help people switch to get better deals; we will do everything we can, including through the energy Bill, to get people on to the lowest tariffs. The third is to help low-income and vulnerable households with their energy bills directly, through policies such as the warm home discount.

[Claire Perry]

My hon. Friend the Member for Suffolk Coastal (Dr Coffey) alluded to the fact that many of us who live in the real world—the one not inhabited by bourgeois left-wing academics—live off the grid and are reliant on sources of fuel such as heating oil; indeed, 53% of people in rural Britain rely on heating oil, I believe, as their primary fuel source. I welcome the Government’s recent support for community fuel buying schemes. Will the Minister say a little more about that? We have a very effective scheme in Wiltshire, which is saving people on average £140 a year, which is a sum not to be sneezed at.

[Mr Davey]

The hon. Lady is absolutely right, and she will know that I have championed collective purchasing and collective switching. People who are dependent on off-grid fuels such as heating oil have been doing an awful lot of work through heating oil clubs over a number of years. They have been trying to take on the imperfections they see in the market and get a much better deal for those communities. She is right to say that this is the way to go, and I commend her and others who support those projects.