Energy Bill [Lords]
Debate between David Mowat and Meg Hillier
Meg Hillier
The hon. Lady may be jumping to conclusions. It is this Government who are removing the Warm Front scheme, and it is this Bill that is failing to deliver for the fuel poor. I shall say more about that shortly.
In his 45-minute peroration, the Secretary of State promised 100,000 jobs. He promised that the poorest would be saved from the cold, and that the market would protect the consumer and many others. However, he did not give us the details of some important matters. We have a Secretary of State who has been rolled over by the Tory Chancellor—and, we have learned in recent hours in days, by his own party colleagues, particularly the Business Secretary—on every important issue in his Department. We have also learned today that the ECO may be within the levy cap, but not yet. We have a Liberal Democrat sheep in a wolfish Government: a Government who want to be green-tinged, but who are under-delivering on their grand promises.
David Mowat (Warrington South) (Con)
When the last Government left office, one half of 1% of the UK’s total energy production was delivered by renewables. Is that under-delivery or not?
Meg Hillier
The Opposition seem to misunderstand—[Hon. Members: “You are the Opposition!”] They are the Opposition to me. They seem to misunderstand the position. There is cross-party agreement on the need for more renewables and a lower-carbon economy, but we believe that the Bill could do more to deliver that. What disappoints us is that a Bill that promised so much is delivering so little. We hope that in Committee we shall see some movement from the Government.
At the heart of the Bill is the green deal, which the Secretary of State spent much of his speech telling us about. The task is obvious. We all agree that Britain needs to insulate its homes and buildings. It needs to improve energy efficiency in millions of households. Given rising energy bills and the need to hit our carbon reduction targets, that work must be done, as Labour’s manifesto made clear at the last general election.