Energy Prices

Huw Irranca-Davies Excerpts

Wednesday 19th October 2011 Commons Chamber

[Caroline Flint]

I agree. There are measures that Government can take. However, they can also show leadership and exert moral pressure on the energy companies to be fairer and consider sharing some of their profits with those who are most in need, at the very least.

[Huw Irranca-Davies (Ogmore) (Lab)]

The Secretary of State has focused on the fact that switching suppliers might save people as much as £200. Is that not a bit rich, given that the energy companies’ profit per person is £125? Most people will never get around to switching, and meanwhile the big six are raking it in.

[Caroline Flint]

If it is true that every customer who followed the Energy Secretary’s advice could save £200, why do the companies not make it easier for customers by simply reducing their prices? The latest report does indeed show that their profit margins are £125 a head, up from £15 a head in June. If that does not set the alarm bells ringing in Government, I do not know what will.

As Members have pointed out—including, to some extent, Government Members—reforming the way in which energy is priced and sold will only ever work if there is genuine competition in the energy market. There is no such competition at present. The market is dominated by just six firms, which supply more than 99% of electricity and gas.

--- Later in debate ---

[Chris Huhne]

I will happily give way in a moment, but having listed a few legacy issues that we are attempting to deal with, I should make one final point. The leader of the Labour party held this portfolio for almost two years, but only now that he no longer has any power to do anything does he keep coming up with interesting ideas. He recently came up with the interesting idea—I do not agree with it but it is an interesting proposal—that the energy companies should be broken up and should no longer be vertically integrated. However, I can see no such proposal in the Opposition motion. Why is that? Is the right hon. Lady already resiling from the proposal that her boss made just a few weeks ago?

Indeed, I read this motion very carefully expecting, as usual, to come across a number of points on which we could disagree, but I and my ministerial team have consulted, and we cannot disagree with it. We will not oppose it. I hope that the right hon. Lady asks her boss whether she was right not to propose that key idea he made a few weeks ago.

[Huw Irranca-Davies]

rose—

[Chris Huhne]

I am happy to give way to the hon. Gentleman, who, sadly, has lost his Front-Bench role dealing with these issues. I, for one, thought he performed his duties rather well.

[Huw Irranca-Davies]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his civility. However, he is rewriting history yet again. What did he and his party do throughout the previous decade and longer when we were establishing the consensus on the need to build new nuclear? Also, would he care to comment on the fact that when we left office this country was one of the top five most attractive countries in the world for inward investment on renewables?

[Chris Huhne]

We do not need to go as far back as that. As the hon. Gentleman knows, the coalition reached an agreement which said that, given the overwhelming support for new nuclear from the Opposition and the Conservative party, it has a part to play. I refer him to my recent speech at the Royal Society in which I addressed how we intend to make sure that we do not repeat the mistakes on new nuclear generation that, sadly, so many Energy Secretaries made in the past.