Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Greg Hands and Richard Holden

Tuesday 11th January 2022 Commons Chamber

[Mr Richard Holden (North West Durham) (Con)]

My constituents in Consett in North West Durham are paying up to 10p a litre more at major supermarkets, including Tesco, for their fuel supplies than their neighbours just down the road in Bishop Auckland, 18 miles away. Will my right hon. Friend meet me to discuss what I can do to stand up for my North West Durham constituents, who are fed up with being screwed by the big supermarkets?

[Greg Hands]

My hon. Friend has done a great job representing his constituents. I know from when I visited his constituency in the aftermath of Storm Arwen how well he is appreciated. The RAC did a recent report on this, and I would be very happy to meet him at the earliest possible opportunity to discuss the issue.

Storm Arwen: Power Outages

Debate between Greg Hands and Richard Holden

Monday 6th December 2021 Commons Chamber

[Greg Hands]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for those further questions, and for his concern. It was good to have a chance to give him an in-person update on Friday morning on the situation in County Durham and particularly in relation to North Durham, and to pass on contact details for Northern Powergrid.

The Secretary of State gave a statement last Wednesday from this very Dispatch Box. He was in the north-east yesterday and is currently on an urgent call with Phil Jones, who heads up Northern Powergrid.

On the responses, I agree with the right hon. Gentleman that the communications have not been effective. I said to Phil Jones in person last Wednesday that the communications were not good enough, particularly in the first few days. I was joined by my right hon. Friend the Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Anne-Marie Trevelyan), who gave directly to him the frustrations she had had, including that there had been no social media response. I think those messages landed well with Northern Powergrid.

On Wednesday, I also visited the call centre at Penshaw, and I agree with the right hon. Gentleman about the incredible work being done in those call centres. I remember meeting Nicola Chipp, Dave Rose and many others who have been putting in long shifts in that call centre. For the first 48 hours, it was quite difficult to get into the call centre in the storm’s aftermath, but some incredible efforts are being put in there.

A lot of engineers have come from right across the country. When I was there on Wednesday, 200 engineers were there—there are even more today—ensuring that those last properties get reconnected. In terms of reconnection by tomorrow, that is the assurance given by Northern Powergrid. Hundreds of generators have been deployed in the area. Finally, on the independent assessment, what the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy and Ofgem do after these events is conduct an independent assessment and a lessons learned process, which is exactly what we did following Storm Desmond seven years ago.

[Mr Richard Holden (North West Durham) (Con)]

I congratulate the right hon. Member for North Durham (Mr Jones) on securing this urgent question, and I thank the Minister and the Secretary of State for visiting my constituency over the past week. There are some real issues here about the relationship between energy companies and the local resilience forums. The Civil Contingencies Act 2004 and its associated regulations in 2005 set out the guidance for how energy providers should engage with local resilience forums, but we need to know from Ministers what assessment they have made of the communications from Northern Powergrid. Does the law need strengthening if it is not passing information over quickly enough?

To make another quick point, we welcome the Ofgem review, which should be a helpful step in the right direction, the fact that the £700 cap has been removed and the doubling of the daily allowance for my constituents. However, many of them in the run-up to Christmas will have spent a huge amount of their own cash on going into hotels or other accommodation and on extra food. Will the Minister put the Government’s shoulder to the wheel to ensure that Northern Powergrid gets that compensation to my constituents as quickly as possible? The run-up to Christmas is an especially expensive time of year for people, and they need to have that money.

[Greg Hands]

I commend my hon. Friend, with whom I spoke on Tuesday and Wednesday. It was a pleasure to visit his constituency. At Ireshopeburn, I saw the generator being connected to the community centre by engineers from across the UK, including from UK Power Networks in south-east England. I saw the relief centre at St John’s Chapel and I was in Eastgate, so I saw things first hand in his constituency.

To answer my hon. Friend’s question about our assessment of the comms, I have already mentioned that the comms from Northern Powergrid were not good enough in those first days. I am sure that that will be part of the review process that the Government will do with Ofgem as part of the response to all these storm events. On Northern Powergrid, we put the experience of many Members of the House and their constituents in those first few days firmly to Mr Jones, and I think that that message landed.