Oral Answers to Questions

Derek Twigg Excerpts

Thursday 20th October 2011 Commons Chamber

[The Minister of State, Department of Energy and Climate Change (Charles Hendry)]

My hon. Friend raises an extremely interesting issue. I have the sense sometimes that Canary Wharf would be visible from Mars at night, and there are some lessons that we need to learn. The Government are showing leadership on this: simply by using energy-saving measures we have cut our own emissions by 20% in DECC over the year, and all Government Departments have cut theirs by 10%. We need to involve people who work in such buildings so that we can get their ideas about the contribution they can make, because this is as much about human endeavour as the advances in technology.

[Derek Twigg (Halton) (Lab)]

An increasing number of my constituents are telling me that they are not just anxious but frightened about whether they will be able to pay their winter fuel bills. I ask the Minister not what the regulator or the companies has done but what specific representations the Minister or the Prime Minister made to the six big energy companies about keeping the cost of energy down or freezing it? If he cannot give me the details today, will he write to me and set that out?

[Chris Huhne]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for that question. We came away from the energy summit not just having made representations to the energy companies but with a list of specific actions that will help, including, for example, the 4 million letters that will be sent out to vulnerable groups on access to energy saving. We were determined to secure all those points as a result of the energy summit, and we did.