Fuel Poverty

David Amess Excerpts

Thursday 8th July 2021 Commons Chamber

[Sir David Amess (Southend West) (Con)]

Some 20 years ago, I introduced my private Member’s Bill to eliminate fuel poverty. It received Royal Assent in 2000 and was called the Warm Homes and Energy Conservation Act. It was inspired by a Polish gentleman living in a high rise block of flats who died of fuel poverty. As my hon. Friend the Member for Hastings and Rye (Sally-Ann Hart) said, no one should die of fuel poverty. I am delighted that fuel poverty in England fell by 3.9 million households between 1996 and 2004, and decreased by 34% between 2010 and 2019, but I say to my right hon. Friend the Minister that the fact we are having this debate today means we still have not eliminated fuel poverty.

My 2000 Act placed on the Government a duty to produce a strategy to ensure an end to fuel poverty

“as far as is reasonably practicable”

in 15 years. However, in a subsequent court case the judgment was that the words of the Act meant there could only be an “effort” to achieve the targets, instead of guaranteeing that they would be reached. In addition, the courts ruled that the words “as far as is reasonably practicable” meant that the Government could deprioritise fuel poverty if, for instance, resources were tight. In short, therefore, the courts ruled that there was no duty to end fuel poverty, only to try to do so. As a result, fuel poverty was not ended by 2016.

Fuel poverty needs to be eliminated, as the whole House agrees, as quickly as possible to maintain our population’s health and to prevent any avoidable deaths that can happen as a result of a cold home. I am pleased, however, that my Act has been updated and that the current duty to bring fuel-poor homes up to at least Energy Performance Certificate Band C by 2030 is set in regulations. However, the words

“as far as is reasonably practicable”

are used time and again, so I hope my right hon. Friend the Minister can confirm today that the only exceptions to ending fuel poverty will be made due to the physical characteristics of the property or the occupiers’ refusal to have works carried out.

I introduced—listen to me, as if I am a separate Government—a Back-Bench Bill called the Domestic Properties (Minimum Energy Performance) Bill in the last Session

“to ensure that domestic properties have a minimum energy performance rating of C”

and

“to give the Secretary of State powers to require persons to take action in pursuance of that duty”.

I ask my right hon. Friend the Minister to agree to a meeting with her officials to discuss energy performance of buildings. I am working with the industry and experts on a revised version of the Bill. I know that no Government enjoys private Members’ Bills in reality; they always like to promote them themselves—I am not bothered about who takes the glory. I believe that it would certainly be beneficial in reducing fuel poverty if she and officials worked with me on the new Bill. Among other things, it would reduce the impact on the environment and make fuel more accessible to all in privately rented properties, social housing, new homes and owner-occupier properties.

There are brilliant charities throughout the country, especially in Southend, that help people who are struggling financially. Age Concern in Southend offers a range of support for older people. One of the concerning trends that it is starting to see is the number of older people requiring services that indicate they are housebound. This means that they use more fuel for heating and cooking while they are on a fixed income. There may be a fuel poverty crisis coming our way. This has, of course, been intensified by the coronavirus pandemic. The types of inquiries that Age Concern is receiving are for its befriending services, social activities and help at home. The Government need to invest in preventive measures that would get older people out of the house and active again. This will keep people healthier and help to alleviate the need for fuel use. This is where the Haven community hub in Westcliff comes in, which encourages people to leave their homes, where it is safe to do so with the current restrictions, and socialise.

In conclusion, it is promising that colleagues are debating this topic today and there have been improvements in reducing the rate of fuel poverty in the last 21 years, but really, I say to my right hon. Friend, we need to do more. The coronavirus pandemic has further pushed developments back and I hope that the Government perform their statutory duties by bringing fuel-poor households up to EPC band C by 2030. The wording of these regulations should not limit the extent to which fuel poverty can be reduced, as my Act suggested 21 years ago. People still need heating and electricity during the coronavirus pandemic and these problems will never go away unless concrete legislative action is actually taken.

[Mr Deputy Speaker]

Thank you for another concise contribution.

Enabling Community Energy

David Amess Excerpts

Thursday 1st July 2021 Westminster Hall

[Sir David Amess (in the Chair)]

I do not think it is necessary to remind colleagues how we proceed during Westminster Hall debates, but I remind those who are participating virtually that we are watching you all the time, so be on your best behaviour and watch what you are up to. Members who are participating physically should keep their masks on.

There has been just one withdrawal, and Wera Hobhouse is opening the debate and closing it. I will not impose a time limit, but everyone other than the Front Benchers, who have 10 minutes each, should take roughly four minutes each. Please share the time.

[Wera Hobhouse (Bath) (LD)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered enabling community energy.

It is a pleasure to serve with you in the Chair, Sir David, and I am looking forward to the Minister’s response. I thank the Backbench Business Committee for granting the debate, which I secured with the hon. Members for Waveney (Peter Aldous) and for Ceredigion (Ben Lake). We want to make the case for enabling community energy by removing the blockage that is preventing its huge potential from being realised.

The evidence that the climate crisis threatens to destroy human civilisation and the natural world is increasingly alarming. We must achieve our emissions reduction targets and get to net zero by 2050 at the latest, as set out in the Climate Change Act 2008 and the Paris accord. The UK is way off track in doing that, as the Climate Change Committee has made clear. Currently, only 12% of our power comes from renewable sources. The only sector that has made reasonable progress is the production of electricity. In all other sectors—heating, transport, agriculture and heavy industry, let alone shipping and aviation—Britain is failing to reach its own targets.

The two big challenges facing householders are heating and transport. How do we rapidly transition from powering our heating and transport with fossil fuels towards doing so with clean energy? A change of this scale can be achieved only through the active involvement of people, because they will have to pay for it through their energy bills, the products they buy, and the taxes they pay. People will need to host the new infrastructure in their neighbourhoods and communities, and they will ultimately need to change their routines and practices. If people do not agree to pay for it, host it or do it, progress to net zero will be more costly and more contested, and it will be less inclusive, equitable and environmentally sustainable. The individual householder or consumer must be at the centre of our transition to net zero, and it seems the Government have not quite understood this; otherwise, they would by now have developed a coherent plan to engage people along the way.

Community energy is one of the few existing tried-and-tested means of engaging people in the energy system. Indeed, the strength of community energy comes from its connection to people and places, because people make community energy. Community energy means smaller-scale, renewable power generation that is owned and run, at least in part, by local community companies or co-operatives. The individual providers might be small or medium-sized, but when taken together, community energy could be done on a very large scale. A 2014 Government report stated that we could have had 3,000 MW of clean community energy generation by 2020. The Environmental Audit Committee’s recent community energy inquiry said that

“by 2030 the community energy sector could grow by 12-20 times, powering 2.2 million homes and saving 2.5 million tonnes of CO₂ emissions every year.”

Let us imagine a future in which we can all buy clean electricity directly from a local supply company or co-operative and in which every pound spent powering our homes, workplaces and transport supports local jobs and helps to fund new facilities and services in our communities and in turn contributes to the building of more renewable energy infrastructure. Right now, UK community energy generation is just 319 MW—just 0.5% of our total energy generation. That is a great failure of potential.

The huge potential of community energy is being blocked by our energy market and licensing rules, which are largely unchanged from when they were designed in the 1990s. They make the cost faced by community energy groups insurmountable. A report by the Institute for Public Policy Research states that the financial, technical and operational challenges involved in setting up a licensed energy supply company mean that initial costs exceed £1 million.

Let us imagine setting up a microbrewery. We plan to deliver our beers to local pubs, off-licences and homes, but then we are told that we have to pay £1 million in road tax for our delivery van. These businesses would never be started, and the savings in transport costs, greenhouse gas emissions and prices would never be realised. That is the reality that the community energy sector faces.

The 319 MW of installed community energy capacity exists because of the dedicated efforts of the people who make up the UK’s few hundred community energy groups—groups such as Bath and West Community Energy, which is in my constituency and which uses its revenues to support energy efficiency in homes, fuel-poverty programmes and low-carbon transport. Often, these groups reach those who are traditionally left behind. They are staffed largely by volunteers, who work hard to survive in an unnecessarily harsh regulatory environment.

Our outdated energy market rules mean that the groups must sell their power to large utilities, which sell it on to customers. That makes it impossible for community energy to scale up. The market structure does not recognise and incentivise the efficiencies and savings that community energy’s distributed generation creates by enabling power to be consumed closer to where it is physically generated.

The Government say that there is no problem. In answer to a parliamentary written question on 1 March, they said:

“The right to local energy supply already exists under the Electricity Act 1989. One of Ofgem’s key strategic priorities is increasing flexibility across the electricity system to support the delivery of net zero and ensuring that consumers benefit from these innovative changes.”

That misses the point: the fact that the right exists does not mean that it is practically possible. In answer to a written question on 2 November 2020, the former Minister of State, who is now Secretary of State, said:

“Ofgem can award supply licences that are restricted to a geographical area and has just consulted on how to use this facility more effectively to bring forward innovation. Ofgem’s Licence Lite regime also aims to reduce the cost and complexity of entering and operating in the market for suppliers.”

Clearly, neither has been able to achieve the potential of at least 3,000 MW of community energy generation that was identified in the 2014 Government report.

The intention behind Licence Lite was commendable, but it has not delivered what was intended. Its key flaw is the need for local renewable generators to partner with a willing licensed energy utility. None of the existing community energy groups in the UK is licensed to sell its electricity directly to local customers. That is why community energy has hardly grown for more than a decade when it should have been multiplying many times over. The flexibilities and allowances for local supply that Ministers referred to have not delivered. As the call for evidence for the Environmental Audit Committee’s recently launched community energy inquiry put it so well,

“the ability of communities to sell the energy produced locally is limited in the UK’s centralised regulatory system, meaning that projects often have to sell energy directly to the grid, then buy it back at additional cost.”

The solution is a right to local supply that enables community energy schemes to sell their power directly to local customers. That would make it viable to expand existing schemes and to construct many new ones. The Local Electricity Bill proposed by the hon. Member for Waveney in the last Session would do that. Think of it—a surge in clean energy and a surge in public buy-in for climate solutions, because people would see the local economic benefits happening in their own communities.

The Government have said they want to enable community energy. They have agreed in principle with the need for a right to local supply, but they have not agreed to look at the detail of how the true potential of community energy could be unleashed and why there are persistent barriers. Words must now become actions. I therefore ask the Minister to engage with me and other lead Members supporting this reform, and the campaigners and experts behind it. Together, we can get the detail right and implement it quickly and effectively.

The need to get to net zero is becoming more and more urgent. We will not get there without the consent and active engagement of the people who have to pay for it, host any infrastructure and change their habits. Community energy could make a large contribution, not only to produce the clean power we need but to bring people with us in our ambition to get to net zero before it is too late.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (Amanda Solloway) [V]]

It is, as always, a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir David. I thank the hon. Member for Bath (Wera Hobhouse) for securing this important debate. I am representing the Department in place of the Minister for Business, Energy and Clean Growth, my right hon. Friend the Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Anne-Marie Trevelyan). As I am taking part virtually, I am unable to take any interventions, but I will happily write to people if they have specific questions that are not covered in my remarks.

I reassure the House that this Government absolutely recognise the valuable role that community and local renewable energy projects can and do play in supporting the UK’s national net zero targets. I know that all Members will agree that excellent work is already under way in the community energy sector. We have heard about a number of such projects from several hon. Members, including my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Kenilworth and Southam (Jeremy Wright), my hon. Friends the Members for Clwyd South (Simon Baynes) and for Barrow and Furness (Simon Fell), and the hon. Members for Bristol North West (Darren Jones) and for North East Fife (Wendy Chamberlain).

We need only look at the recent state of the sector report by Community Energy England, which identified 424 active community energy organisations across the United Kingdom run by 396 volunteers, to note that community energy projects can contribute to achieving net zero, not only by stimulating clean growth, but by acting as catalysts for raising awareness. As the hon. Member for Bath and my hon. Friend for Barrow and Furness pointed out, the promotion of behaviour change and the ability to build communities is a key outcome for us to achieve our 2050 goals.[Official Report, 12 July 2021, Vol. 699, c. 1MC.]

To support community energy projects, the Government currently fund the rural community energy fund. The £10 million scheme supports rural communities in England to develop renewable energy projects, which provide economic and social benefits to the community. Since the fund’s launch in 2019, it has received 1,214 inquiries and 188 applications, and it has awarded more than £4.5 million in grants to projects focusing on a variety of technologies, including solar, wind, low-carbon heating and electric vehicle charging.

Many Members spoke about the recent Environmental Audit Committee inquiry into community energy and its several recommendations. As many Members will be aware, the Secretary of State published a response last month—it can be viewed on the EAC website—and stated that we are considering future plans for community energy in the net zero strategy, which will be published later this year. As my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Kenilworth and Southam mentioned, we will draw on evidence from this country and around the world when assessing the most effective way of meeting our net zero goals.

Many Members also spoke about the Local Electricity Bill and the need to establish a right to local supply, which would allow electricity generators to sell their power directly to local consumers. That Bill sought to establish that right through the creation of a local supply licence and to ensure that the costs and complexities of being a local energy supplier are proportionate to the scale of its operation.

As my hon. Friend the Member for Waveney (Peter Aldous) stated, the Local Electricity Bill was unsuccessful in receiving a Second Reading in the previous Session. While the Government agreed with its broad intentions, we did not support the Bill as a means to enable local energy supply. There is already flexibility in how Ofgem regulates energy supply to allow for local suppliers. Ofgem has powers to award supply licences that are restricted to specified geographies and/or types of premises. However, many Members have observed that, while the right to local supply exists, the costs of becoming a supplier currently act as a barrier to entering the market.

Making more substantial changes to the licensing framework to suit specific business models may create even wider distortion elsewhere in the energy system. Artificially reducing network costs for local energy suppliers, as the Bill appeared to suggest, would be distortive. It would mean higher costs falling on to consumers, with costs increasing as more local suppliers entered the market. It is important that we take a broad view of all consumers when making changes to the energy market, including consumer protection measures, which form an important part of the supply licence.

The Government support the development of new business models to supply energy consumers and to help achieve our net zero ambition. The 2020 energy White Paper committed the Government to review the overall energy retail market regulatory framework. That review will assess the changes that may be needed to ensure that the framework is fit for purpose and allows new business models to come forward. We will engage closely with community energy stakeholders as part of the review, and I welcome the various offers from Members today.

To support the establishment of more local energy schemes, we will also continue to look at a full range of other options to support local involvement in tackling climate change in the net zero strategy, which will set out how we will meet our net zero goals overall. My hon. Friend the Member for Waveney raised several additional points, and I look forward to receiving and responding to his letter.

As my hon. Friend the Member for Clwyd South suggested, I am happy to recognise the role that Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland play in taking forward community energy projects. I was interested to learn from the hon. Member for North East Fife about the community-owned project on Orkney. I note that community energy is a devolved policy, and each nation has different policies and financial support. Indeed, they may use different definitions of community energy. The hon. Member for Bristol North West asked for information on the role of the shared prosperity fund and, again, I will be pleased to write to him in response.

This debate is testament to the fact that there is clear cross-party support and a growing appetite for community energy. I close by reiterating that this Government are supportive of community energy. We absolutely understand that communities are key to the Department’s wider efforts to decarbonise the country and create a cleaner, greener future for us all. I thank the hon. Member for Bath once again for securing this important debate.

[Sir David Amess (in the Chair)]

I call Wera Hobhouse to sum up. You have until 3 o’clock.

10-point Plan: Six Months On

David Amess Excerpts

Tuesday 18th May 2021 Commons Chamber

[Kwasi Kwarteng]

Let me declare an interest: I served under the hon. Lady’s chairmanship on the Public Accounts Committee and I am very grateful for the time that I spent on the Committee. Of course, I will treat the Committee with the respect and courtesy that are due it. I look forward, as do my officials, to being asked about any of the Government’s programmes in respect of the net zero agenda.

[Sir David Amess (Southend West) (Con)]

I welcome the commitment in the 10-point plan to achieve net zero carbon emissions by 2050, but we have very few electric vehicle charging points in Southend and many parking restrictions. We would very much like to see them on new builds and in people’s driveways. With petrol and diesel cars being banned by 2030, will my right hon. Friend please help us to get more of these charging points in Southend before we become a city?

[Kwasi Kwarteng]

That begs the question, when will Southend become a city? Leaving that to one side, of course I will help my hon. Friend achieve those goals. The electric charging point roll-out is perhaps the most important metric—the most important thing to do— in order to achieve our goals with respect to electric vehicles.

Electricity

David Amess Excerpts

Tuesday 27th April 2021 Commons Chamber

[Sir David Amess (Southend West) (Con) [V]]

Having spoken in the Chamber 21 years ago about the need to reduce fuel poverty, when I got my name on the statute book for introducing the Warm Homes and Energy Conservation Act 2000—I hope that does not sound too puffed-up, Mr Deputy Speaker—I am delighted with the Government’s improvements to that legislation, which was the first piece of legislation obliging the Government to design and implement a strategy to limit fuel poverty in this country.

According to the most recent annual fuel poverty statistics published by the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, 13.4% of households were in fuel poverty in England in 2019, compared with 15% in 2018. Although progress has been made, which I welcome, our work needs to continue. We need to take every measure to raise public awareness about the various help options available, both from the Government and from energy providers.

I very much support an extension to the warm homes discount scheme, as it has been described as a winter lifeline by many of my constituents. At a time of financial uncertainty, many residents in Southend have relied on Government support to pay their bills during the coronavirus pandemic. If the warm homes discount scheme were not to be extended, many of the most vulnerable households would be forced to live in unsafe conditions, which would severely affect their mental and physical health, with the potential for long-lasting irreversible health effects. Fuel poverty is a real concern for many households in the United Kingdom as individuals live from day to day relying on every pay cheque to buy food, care for their children and pay their utility bills. This scheme should be extended for at least a year, but preferably at least until 2026 as set out by the Government in their energy White Paper.

I am sure that colleagues will have received emails similar to the ones I have received from worried constituents. In Southend, I have constituents who have been made redundant because of the pandemic and have been forced to claim universal credit but are still struggling to pay their bills because they have children and grandchildren who rely on them financially. These individuals need urgent support. The Government’s policy on social housing needs to be developed further. I hope the Government aim to require social landlords to bring their properties up to at least EPC band C, as social housing is Government-funded and so should lead the way in terms of energy efficiency.

I welcome the extension of the green homes grant, but further support should be given to individuals living in older houses that need remodelling as we transition to net zero by 2050. I hope that the Government will continue to work closely with energy suppliers to make utility bills more affordable for those struggling financially.

Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy: Departmental Spending

David Amess Excerpts

Tuesday 7th July 2020 Commons Chamber

[Sir David Amess (Southend West) (Con)]

This time last year, the House was in gridlock because of Brexit. We then changed Prime Minister, had a general election and left the European Union, and I was very excited about the new business opportunities we would get, but then, of course, we had to face this invisible enemy. As far as the Department is concerned, I say to the Minister that only time will tell whether or not we have addressed the current situation well, but from what I can see at the moment I think we have reacted pretty well. Many colleagues have mentioned that beauty salons, tattoo and piercing parlour owners and gym owners feel very much left out in all this. They tell me that they already have personal protective equipment when they help the people who want to take advantage of the service they are offering, so we need to address that.

Since 2012, easyJet has been flying from Southend Airport. Unfortunately, I got a phone call last week to say that it is pulling out of the airport. It is absolutely devastating. I am speaking on behalf of my hon. Friends the Members for Rochford and Southend East (James Duddridge) and for Castle Point (Rebecca Harris) and my right hon. Friend the Member for Rayleigh and Wickford (Mr Francois). There are 185 people who are crying out for help because of the downturn in the numbers of people booking flights. Everyone loves Southend Airport. That is why we are going to become a city, but we desperately need Government support at the moment.

I was delighted with the package that was arranged for the performing arts. Southend West was the alternative city of culture. We are awash with actors, actresses, painters, dancers and all of that, which is absolutely magnificent, but now I am getting emails from constituents saying, “David when precisely are we going to get the money, and how is it going to be dished out?”

I am delighted that the coronavirus local authority discretionary grants fund is open, but we need more clarification around who qualifies. I have three local examples: one is the director of Currency Farm Ltd; another is the owner of the Spread Eagle pub; and the final one is the owner of the magnificent Boatyard Restaurant. May I ask the Minister to have a word with the Secretary of State to see whether we could give greater guidance as to precisely how these grants are to be administered? This is a lot of money that we have given to local authorities to administer, and we need to know how much leeway they have in terms of discretion.

Oral Answers to Questions

David Amess Excerpts

Tuesday 30th April 2019 Commons Chamber

The Secretary of State was asked—

[Sir David Amess (Southend West) (Con)]

1. What steps his Department has taken to promote youth entrepreneurship.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (Kelly Tolhurst)]

First, I would like to update the House: unfortunately, my right hon. Friend the Minister for Energy and Clean Growth will be unable to join us this morning due to a family illness.

Our young people provide an invaluable contribution to the UK economy—they are more than twice as likely to be entrepreneurs as their peers in France and Germany—and we are supporting them. The start-up loans programme has provided over £60 million in loans to 18 to 24-year-olds since 2012. To further realise young entrepreneurs’ potential, I have asked the Prince’s Trust to lead a review to identify the barriers that they face.

[Sir David Amess]

In 2017-18, recent graduates from the University of East Anglia set up 247 start-ups employing 1,015 people. Will my hon. Friend reassure me that the Government will continue to fund these schemes, as they mean so much to young people and help to create a vibrant economy?

[Kelly Tolhurst]

I thank my hon. Friend for that question. Through our industrial strategy, we recognise the valuable contribution from the creation of spin-outs and start-ups by businesses from university. That is why we have committed to increasing higher education innovation funding from £160 million to £250 million per year by 2020-21. This will help to increase universities’ capacity to engage in commercialisation and work with business.

Office for Product Safety and Standards

David Amess Excerpts

Wednesday 9th May 2018 Westminster Hall

[Several hon. Members rose—]

[Sir David Amess (in the Chair)]

Order. I was remiss in not saying anything at the start. This is a heavily subscribed debate, so to be fair to one another, colleagues should take about five minutes at the most, before the winding-up speeches start.

--- Later in debate ---

[Jim Shannon]

The hon. Gentleman has been a warrior on these issues and speaks well about them, and what he said illustrates the point. “Watch your dryer”—my goodness, watch it as it burns and the house catches fire. It will be too late then, but that is by the way.

I thought that what was happening was not the way to handle an electrical safety unit, and I am pleased about the setting up of the Office for Product Safety and Standards. There has been no long-term strategy to tackle fires caused by electricity in people’s homes. At present, only the Electrical Fire Safety Week held in November each year—we all go along—exists to provide a concentration of communication to the public from Government. Communication campaigns such as the Home Office’s “Fire Kills” campaign have been under Government review for some time. Perhaps the review is coming to an end; I hope so.

Electrical Safety First believes that Government campaigns on electrical fires must be expanded. There should be more advertising, probably on television, and through councils, and more safety measures should be taken. An average success rate of 20% of products being recovered or repaired means that millions of potentially dangerous products remain in people’s homes. We may not know it but we might have such things in our own homes. The hon. Member for Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney (Gerald Jones) mentioned phone chargers, and it is an important point: teenagers laugh if their phone charger, or even earphones, catches fire, but those incidents are not reported. Teenagers do not know where to report them, or who to contact. It is easier to buy a new one, which is probably what they do. They discard the old one, without considering why the fire happened. We must realise that someone who falls asleep with their earphones on may not find it so funny. It is definitely not a funny matter.

Clearly, consumers need confidence that the Government are taking appropriate action to protect them, particularly given that five fires a day are caused in the UK by white goods alone, and in view of the dangers posed by counterfeit electrical goods. In her opening remarks the hon. Member for Swansea East made many good points, but the one I want to reiterate is the rise in the number of people buying online. It continues to be a problem, and it is frustrating because the attraction is price, and customers do not see the safety issue. Is the safety perfect? No, it is not. Is there a safety-conscious attitude? No—or rather, as that is not fair, not in every case.

A big issue, which must be addressed, is the need to look at authenticity and proof of origin. I completely agree that an action plan must be developed, and backed up with an enforcement operation strategy to target the growing problems. Consumers are being put at risk by inaccurate and misleading advertising of electrical goods, as other hon. Members have mentioned. Products claimed to be genuine often contain counterfeit or substandard components. They might look good, but that does not always mean that they are. That has a significant impact on consumer safety, creating a culture of acceptability in selling counterfeit electrical goods online. It undermines legitimate UK business—those who are doing it right. What does the Minister think can be done further to address that issue?

We live in a technologically driven world that is over-reliant on technology. We depend on such things in our lives. We test-drive cars and research the safety of vehicles in crashes, but we do not do the same for electrical goods that we use in our homes. We must, through the new office and today’s debate, send the message that it is important for people to safety-check everything in their homes, and that they can have recourse to a way to report defective goods. That must be done not simply to complain—that is not what it is about—but for the safety of others in the future. That is the motivation of every hon. Member who has spoken in the debate. We look to the Minister, as we always do, for a satisfactory response.

[Sir David Amess (in the Chair)]

Order. I commend colleagues on their excellent timekeeping, which is an example to others and has resulted in plenty of time being left for the Opposition spokesmen and, particularly, for the Minister.

Residential Premises: Product Safety and Fire Risk

David Amess Excerpts

Wednesday 1st November 2017 Westminster Hall

[Sir David Amess (Southend West) (Con)]

I congratulate the hon. Member for Poplar and Limehouse (Jim Fitzpatrick) on securing this debate. He has real expertise in this area. He was a first-class Fire Minister, as indeed was the right hon. Member for Knowsley (Mr Howarth), who is sitting next to him. I also pay tribute to the hon. Member for Hammersmith (Andy Slaughter), for whom this was a constituency issue in 2016, and he has not let the matter drop. In the light of the disaster at Grenfell, I am sure that I share with colleagues a sense of optimism that, at the end of the debate, our excellent Minister will leave us with a positive plan of action.

In this debate, what I term white goods are large electrical goods used domestically, such as refrigerators and washing machines. I have been provided with an excellent brief by the secretariat of the all-party fire safety rescue group, Mr Ronnie King, and by Electrical Safety First, a UK charity dedicated to reducing and preventing damage, injuries and death caused by faulty electrical goods.

In 2016, 1,873 fires were caused by domestic electrical white goods, which is a truly shocking figure. Five fires a day in the UK are caused by electrical goods, and three a day involve tumble dryers. Of course a fridge-freezer was the initial cause of the Grenfell Tower disaster; the inquiry into that is taking evidence, and we will see where that leads us.

Electrical Safety First proposes that the Government provide free mandatory electrical checks for homes in tower blocks. Colleagues might say, “Free checks are all very well and good, David, but who’s going to pay for all this?”, but perhaps we could come up with some innovative ideas; I could ask the Minister how we could address that.

Housing associations and local authorities should have a legal responsibility for ensuring free mandatory electrical safety checks, including of fixed electrical installations and appliances in properties. Housing associations and local authorities should keep a register of the white goods contained and operating in their tower blocks, regardless of an apartment’s tenure, and should ensure that tenants register those products. The cost of that is enormous—between £48 million and £60 million over five years, which is a huge amount of money—but again, I say to the Minister that we might be able to come up with an innovative way to deal with that cost.

Current policy, as my hon. Friend the Minister knows, is that there is an “expectation” that landlords will keep electrical installations safe, but we all know that there is a vast gap between an expectation and ensuring that a policy is delivered.

[Wera Hobhouse (Bath) (LD)]

Does the hon. Gentleman not think it important that the safety checks be compulsory, not mandatory? If we are thinking about ways of introducing them, let us look at what we do about gas safety checks: every landlord has to provide a certificate.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sir David Amess]

I hope that the House will unite in the view that we cannot compromise on safety, and I very much agree with the hon. Lady’s point, which I hope my hon. Friend the Minister will take on board. As the hon. Member for Poplar and Limehouse said, it is simply not good enough for these products to go unchecked for years in socially rented properties.

The hon. Member for Hammersmith told the House about a serious fire in Shepherd’s Bush in 2016 that was caused, as the hon. Member for Poplar and Limehouse said, by a faulty Whirlpool tumble dryer. Whirlpool was aware of the fault but failed to recall the products, instead advising customers not to leave them unattended and saying that repairs would be carried out in due course. That does not seem good enough, really. Most Members present attended the Adjournment debate on this issue in September last year.

The Department for Business, Innovation and Skills established a working group on product recalls and safety in July this year, and I congratulate the Government on that. Its key recommendations are: having centralised technical and scientific resource capability, to support decision making and co-ordination of activity in local authorities and the businesses they regulate; having a detailed code of practice that is informed by behavioural insights research; and considering establishing central capacity to co-ordinate product safety corrective actions. Furthermore, it was recommended that manufacturers and retailers work together, through standards-setting bodies, to develop technological solutions to product marking. Finally, the registration by consumers of appliances and other consumer goods with the manufacturers should be encouraged, to make corrective actions—including product recalls—more effective. Of course, to go back to the earlier point, it is compulsion that the House is looking for, but I understand that it is pretty difficult to frame a law that achieves that effect.

In August this year, the London fire brigade wrote to the Government on the anniversary of the Shepherd’s Court disaster. The Total Recalls campaign aims to: make white goods safer by having a single, publicly accessible register of product recalls, including of international products; publicise recalls better, to reduce confusion; publish risk assessments when a fault is identified; ensure greater regulation of second-hand appliances, which is very important; change the way that fridges and freezers are manufactured—a big ask—and ensure that all appliances are marked with model and serial numbers. Also, sleeping risk should be included as a factor in risk assessments.

Dany Cotton, the London Fire Commissioner, says:

“How many more devastating white goods fires does there have to be before the Government makes it easier for consumers to check whether their fridges and freezers are on the recall list?...This is not the time for further reports and recommendations, it’s time to take action.”

I am sure that my hon. Friend the Minister will understand the slight sense of frustration there.

In 2014, a coroner at the inquest of Santosh Benjamin-Muthiah, who died after a fire caused by a faulty Beko fridge-freezer, recommended a series of measures to improve product recalls. These changes are yet to be made. The review has been ongoing for almost three years, and as yet there have been no substantial improvements made to the system. It is about time that we acted on the group’s recommendations.

As we have heard, in September a press release from Which? referred to a fire in Wales that killed two people, which was caused by a Whirlpool tumble dryer. Neil Gibbins, the chairman of the group, has said that “significant progress” is being made. There has also been talk about the publication of a standard PAS—publicly available specification—7100 form, which would set out the process for monitoring product safety and the actions that should be taken if something goes wrong. That idea is under consultation, and I believe that the steering group is meeting on 8 and 9 November. The PAS will give guidance to enforcing bodies to help them work with the product supplier to achieve a successful resolution to a safety issue. The report also highlighted the need for additional specialist resources to help provide guidance and enforce it if necessary. Neil Gibbins said:

“I am anticipating an update on this from our BEIS colleagues at the next meeting of the working group, scheduled for Nov 28th …We must ensure that British Standards continue to be devised and updated by people who have access to the best possible information to help them make decisions, and that agreed standards are applied, and where they are not, action is taken.”

Jeff Williams, a former offshore engineer with responsibility for fire safety systems, wrote to the hon. Member for Poplar and Limehouse to say:

“Connection between faulty goods and cladding, for example a tumble dryer may be in action a yard from flammable cladding—you cannot make flammable materials safe by using fire barriers—the only solution is to use non-combustible materials.”

I am vain enough to say that our all-party fire safety rescue group does good work, and if we had been listened to, I believe that the Grenfell disaster would not have taken place. I do not want to be giving interviews after there is a fire in a school, to find that our recommendation that all new school buildings have sprinklers fitted was ignored. The voices of the hon. Members for Poplar and Limehouse, and for Hammersmith, should be listened to. The figures are shocking. We had the recommendation from the working group and from London fire brigade. Now is the time for action. We do not want to read terrible headlines yet again in our newspapers in the months and years to come.

Carbon Capture and Storage

David Amess Excerpts

Thursday 19th October 2017 Westminster Hall

[Sir David Amess (in the Chair)]

Order. Having recently been at a meeting of the Panel of Chairs, I remind new Members that if they wish to intervene they must be present at the start of the debate. However, I know that Dr Williams spoke in the main Chamber earlier, and I realise that he cannot be in two places at once. Nevertheless, as a Clerk is sitting beside me, I thought I should point that out.

[Alex Cunningham]

My hon. Friend the Member for Stockton South (Dr Williams) was indeed in the main Chamber earlier. So was I; I was in the smoking debate, trying to persuade our country to give up the weed.

I agree entirely with my hon. Friend. The company he refers to consumes the same amount of gas at its other plant in Runcorn. It is crucial that CCS be spread across the country.

Renewable Energy Generation: Island Communities

David Amess Excerpts

Tuesday 4th July 2017 Westminster Hall

[Derek Thomas (St Ives) (Con)]

I appreciate the opportunity to intervene. Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that a significant motivating factor for accelerating the development of renewable technology has to be reducing household energy bills as part of the community benefit? Those bills are often higher in island communities such as the Isles of Scilly in my constituency, owing to the inaccessibility.

[Sir David Amess (in the Chair)]

We are fresh from an election, and there are lots of new Members here. The usual procedure in a short half-hour debate is that there should be prior discussions with the person whose debate it is as to whether they are prepared to take interventions. Of course, there is nothing to stop any Member intervening on the Minister’s speech.

[Mr Carmichael]

I am grateful for that timely reminder, Sir David—although it has driven from my mind the question that the hon. Gentleman asked. Perhaps I could write to him about it in the fullness of time. It was about driving down price, which is one of the important opportunities of a more diverse and flexible market structure than the one we have. The issues faced by my constituents are not dissimilar to those facing the hon. Gentleman’s constituents in the Isles of Scilly.

We want to hear a bit from the Minister today about something beyond the situation regarding wind generation. We would like to see a willingness from the Minister, his Department and the Government to engage with the renewables industry beyond the onshore, or even offshore, wind sector. The United Kingdom already has a pipeline of wave and tidal stream projects that could be some of the most significant and forward-leaning projects to be found anywhere in the world. The estimates we have seen are in the region of £76 billion-worth of development by 2050. It is a significant global market for which we are doing the initial heavy lifting at this point. I have seen in my constituency, and especially in Orkney over the years, how the industry has pulled itself up inch by inch, but in recent years it has been pushed backwards by a lack of dedicated support for wave and tidal projects. I hope that the Minister, in his time in the Department, will have some proper regard for that.

We need a proper ring-fenced pot for wave and tidal power. A pot of that sort could be transformative. It would not need to be particularly significant in size, but for it to be guaranteed would make a massive difference to those involved in the development of these technologies and would give a very positive signal to those who are looking at bringing their projects to this country to develop them and to put devices in the water at places such as the European Marine Energy Centre in Stromness. I know the Minister has not yet visited that centre, but I strongly encourage him to do so in the earliest possible course, because there he would see for himself the potential that is being thwarted by the inclusion of wave and tidal projects within the pot for emerging or less established technologies, where they are competing with offshore wind.

To give an illustration of what is involved here, the offshore wind sector currently has 5,100 MW of installed capacity, with a further 4,500 MW under construction. The marine renewables industry, by comparison, has 10 MW of installed capacity. In that context, it is pretty straightforward and easy to see which is the genuinely less established technology that requires the support found in the title of the pot.

To bring down the costs is not rocket science. We have been here before and seen it with other low-carbon industries. We have to get the devices into the water. We see what happens to them there, learn the lessons, innovate, improve and repeat. That work is still being done by those who demonstrate a commitment to marine renewables.

We have a burgeoning supply chain. We have investment from local councils in Orkney, which I would be happy to show the Minister. As I indicated to him this morning, we have a sector that is desperate to re-engage with him and his Department. I hope that in the time he has in this position—which I hope is both long and productive—he will engage with the sector, because the opportunities that it brings to the future development and the industrial strategy to which the Government still lay claim are significant indeed.