Ian Lavery
Main Page: Ian Lavery (Labour - Blyth and Ashington)Urgent Questions are proposed each morning by backbench MPs, and up to two may be selected each day by the Speaker. Chosen Urgent Questions are announced 30 minutes before Parliament sits each day.
Each Urgent Question requires a Government Minister to give a response on the debate topic.
This information is provided by Parallel Parliament and does not comprise part of the offical record
Mr Hayes
The fundamental objective of the strategy I outlined is to bring clarity. Clarity is the prerequisite of certainty, certainty is the prerequisite of confidence and confidence is the prerequisite of investment. That, in a nutshell, is where the failure of the previous Administration lies.
Ian Lavery (Wansbeck) (Lab)
As this moment in time, 80% of people are paying too much for their energy because of confusion and unfair tariffs. Last year alone, 70 more tariffs were introduced, making a total of more than 400. What are the Government actually doing to make things more transparent for consumers?
Mr Hayes
As I mentioned, transparency and what I described as accessibility or explicability are crucial—the hon. Gentleman is right about that. People need to know how they can get the best deals. We have done a lot of work on that, but we need to do a lot more. We need a simplification of the process, and that has been debated in this House for a considerable time. He makes a good point, which was also made earlier, and we will be drawing it to the close attention of the energy companies and considering it as we develop our own thinking.