Fuel Poverty

David Drew Excerpts

Tuesday 11th December 2018 Commons Chamber

[Richard Harrington]

I would ascribe grace and dignity to the hon. Lady’s usual contributions. This is a serious matter. The hon. Lady is right that last winter’s severely cold weather included wind-chill factors of minus 10° C and I accept what she says about the statistics. However, I do not accept her assertion that the Government have done nothing about that. If she will bear with me for the rest of my contribution, I will answer her point, and if I do not, I am sure that she will intervene.

[Dr David Drew (Stroud) (Lab/Co-op)]

I hope that the Minister will say something about rural areas. Fuel poverty is one of the biggest problems for rural areas because of the nature of the properties, which are often older, with older people living in them, but also because the schemes do not reach them. In particular, the energy company obligation—ECO—has completely failed and I hope that the Minister will say something about that. It is a tragedy that people in rural areas are more likely to die early because of fuel poverty.

[Richard Harrington]

I will indeed mention that. Various groups have lobbied all Members of Parliament to contribute to the debate and I agree with the basis of what they say.

It is also fair to say that fuel poverty is a devolved matter and that the debate originates from the fuel poverty strategy for England.

--- Later in debate ---

[James Heappey (Wells) (Con)]

I will rattle through what I have to say very quickly, then, Madam Deputy Speaker.

As both Front Benchers have said, the key to solving fuel poverty is twofold: on the one hand, we reduce the price of energy; and on the other, we help consumers to use less energy. In the two minutes and 30 seconds remaining, I will very quickly whizz through some of the things that we could do that are relatively low-hanging fruit for the Government. First, the costs of running the energy system are growing too much, and we have a number of very comfortable, monopolistic companies that perhaps we could screw down on a little in order to see whether the growth in system costs could be curbed.

Secondly, while the price cap is a useful temporary measure, there is a huge opportunity for market reform in order to take advantage of the very cheap renewable energy that can now be generated, and the flexibility that now exists within the system that can make use of those renewables without the need for quite so much in the way of back-up generation.

We can also make some really good progress on allowing energy and heat as a service to come through as a proposition to consumers. I would like Ofgem to do more to work with the companies that are likely to provide those services so that we can put in place a regulatory construct that will allow consumers to start to take advantage of this sort of initiative very quickly. I know that the Government are leading on the changes to the feed-in tariff, but we must start to look at how we encourage people to generate behind the meter for their consumption behind the meter, because that will reduce their energy costs, too.

But generation is just half of the story—using less is very important, too. Many of the measures I have mentioned, particularly things like heat and energy as a service, will naturally lend themselves to greater energy efficiency, particularly as the companies that are delivering those services are quite likely to want to install the energy efficiency measures within a home or business because they make a greater margin by being able to do that in the most efficient way possible. Lots of companies out there are innovating all the time in terms of what can be put in walls, rooms, doors, windows and floors in order to let less heat escape from a business or a home.

[Dr Drew]

Does the hon. Gentleman agree that we need to prioritise the properties that have never been on the gas grid, because they lose out whichever way? I am sure that he has some properties like that in Wells, as I have in Stroud.