John Robertson
Main Page: John Robertson (Labour - Glasgow North West)
Michael Fallon
The Bill is before the House today and tomorrow, and has some way to go before it completes its passage through Parliament. Let me assure the hon. Gentleman that he will have an indication of the draft strike prices before the Bill completes its passage. If he will allow me, I want to say more in a moment about how we can improve transparency.
Amendments 8 and 9, tabled by the right hon. Member for Don Valley (Caroline Flint) and the hon. Members for Rutherglen and Hamilton West (Tom Greatrex) and for Liverpool, Wavertree (Luciana Berger), focus on the important issue of transparency of investment contracts. The Bill requires all investment contracts to be laid before Parliament alongside a statement of their importance to Government objectives. For Hinkley Point C, we have also committed to publishing summaries of reports from our external advisers. There is a difficult balance to be struck between publishing as much as possible about a contract, while also allowing some commercially sensitive information to be withheld from publication. It is crucial that developers provide the information we need to show that a contract represents value for money, but it would be inappropriate to publish information that damages a developer’s commercial interests.
This point is relevant to amendments 163, 165, 166, 171 and 172, which were tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Daventry (Chris Heaton-Harris) and relate to information acquired or produced under the Bill. It would not be appropriate to release commercially confidential information provided under the provisions, but let me reassure the House and the hon. Member for Angus (Mr Weir) that we will publish details on the CFDs and capacity agreements signed each year through annual updates to the EMR delivery plan, and details of how much of the budget has been expended. Secondary legislation, such as that under the capacity market provisions, will set out details of the information flows, transparency and handling of sensitive information. That includes information acquired under clause 27. Ofgem will continue to publish information gathered from generators about the biomass they have used.
John Robertson (Glasgow North West) (Lab)
On the rules governing what is considered sensitive, who will set the criteria: the companies themselves or the Government?
Michael Fallon
I must make some progress, if the hon. Lady will forgive me.
The third improvement I am suggesting through amendment 52 is to place a duty on the Government to publish a report each year setting out how they have exercised their powers and carried out their functions under part 2 of the Bill. I hope that that provides particular comfort to my hon. Friend the Member for Daventry, who, through amendments 176 and 177, is looking to bring forward the five-year review in clause 50 and require speedy progress, but the review that he suggests would take more than one month, while enough time must elapse if we are to collect sufficient data to make an informed judgment. On his amendment 178, however, I can assure him that we will look closely at the impact on different consumers when carrying out the five-year review, as we already do with our impact assessments on electricity market reform. Finally, Government amendment 66, which follows a helpful suggestion in Committee—again from the hon. Member for Brent North—will bring the emissions performance standard within the scope of the review.
I turn now to the counterparty arrangements for CFDs and investment contracts. I have tabled several amendments on this topic—again, many of them responding to very reasonable points made in Committee. Amendments 53 to 55 and 74 to 76 set out the circumstances in which we might need more than one counterparty, while amendments 56 and 77 extend the notice period before a body can withdraw its consent to act as counterparty. Amendments 57, 62, 63, 78, 82 and 83 make minor changes to avoid any confusion over the use of the terms “obligations” and “liabilities”, while amendments 58, 65, 85 and 86 create a statutory guarantee that the counterparty will exercise its functions to ensure CFD and investment contract liabilities are met and place a duty on the Government to provide the powers to do this.
Michael Fallon
I will just finish this section.
Amendments 60, 64, 80 and 84 make it clear that supplier debts can be pursued through the courts and that payments to generators will be pro rata in the unlikely scenario that the counterparty does not have sufficient funds immediately available, while amendments 59 and 79 ensure that suppliers only face costs that are related to the regime, including operational costs of the counterparty. Amendments 61, 68 and 81 are minor corrections and clarifications to ensure that the settlement of payments can work effectively, and amendments 88, 89 and 90 introduce a duty to transfer investment contracts to the CFD counterparty, thus ensuring they transfer quickly once the CFD regime is in place next year—that reflects points made by the hon. Member for Southampton, Test (Dr Whitehead) in Committee—while amendments 73 and 87 are minor changes to align the drafting of schedule 2 with part 2.
I am sorry to have kept the hon. Member for Glasgow North West (John Robertson) waiting.
John Robertson
I thank the Minister for being generous in taking interventions.
Who will scrutinise the counterparties’ liabilities? We saw how everyone thought that the banks were safe and had plenty of money and that things were good, but it did not turn out that way, and even the Treasury’s own predictions over the last three years have not been met properly. What guarantee can the Minister give, therefore, that the counterparties will have sufficient finances to meet their liabilities?
Michael Fallon
I am happy to give the hon. Gentleman further written assurances on that. He might be on rather weak ground in discussing the regulatory framework put in place for the banks, given that we have had to take immediate and fairly radical steps to improve it, but if I can give him any further reassurances on his main point, I certainly will.
The third main issue covered by this group of amendments is the funding and governance of the capacity market. I shall deal with the remaining Government amendments and new clauses, which relate to that market and are, I hope, relatively uncontroversial, before coming to the more important amendments tabled by the hon. Member for Southampton, Test. New clauses 8 to 10 and amendments 105 to 107 will enable us to set out detail of the capacity market in a combination of two places: in regulations, changes to which would be made and overseen by the Secretary of State; and in rules, which once made by the Secretary of State could be overseen by Ofgem.
The intention is to give Ofgem the responsibility for consulting on and implementing future changes to those elements in capacity market rules, in line with evolutions in the existing market structure. These changes enable that. However, Ministers would retain accountability for key aspects of the scheme, such as capacity volumes and cost control. Amendments 101 to 104 make clear our intentions for the capacity market settlement body, which has overall responsibility for managing payment flows—in short, that capacity payments will have to flow through the settlement body; that it can discharge certain technical obligations and functions through an agent; and that it can recover costs only in connection with the obligations placed on it as the settlement body.
Amendments 45 to 50, tabled by the hon. Member for Southampton, Test, would allow a second, alternative capacity mechanism, known as a strategic reserve, to be included in the Bill. As I understand it, a strategic reserve would hold a small amount of capacity outside the market, to be deployed only in limited circumstances. The Government have always acknowledged the potential benefits of a reserve as a short-term measure. If it is necessary to respond to a short-term security of supply challenge, Ofgem already has powers it could use. For instance, it could strengthen the options that the national grid has, to ensure sufficient capacity is in place before the capacity market is implemented. However, I would suggest to the hon. Gentleman that a capacity market is a better medium-term solution to address the current investment challenge and ensure continued security of supply, for two reasons.
First, if used as a longer-term intervention, a strategic reserve could undermine the market signals for capacity providers by reducing revenue certainty. That is because of the uncertainty about when the reserve might be deployed and the negative impact on the revenue of other capacity providers. There is a danger that investors may decide that future Governments will be tempted to use the reserve too frequently—a reasonable concern in a world of rising prices—which would increase the risk of not getting a sufficient return on their investment. The resultant increase in financing costs would flow through to the consumer, with the long-term risk that less capacity is built and the Government are forced to create a larger and larger reserve, at which point the competitive market disappears. By contrast, a capacity market is open to all providers of reliable capacity, with the only exceptions intended to be plant receiving support under CFDs. This provides the right, market-based signals for both existing and new capacity. Secondly, offering both capacity mechanisms in the Bill—the capacity market and the strategic reserve—would create regulatory uncertainty about the Government’s preferred approach and, again, act as a disincentive to investment.
Let me turn, fourthly, to nuclear power. The Government have made it clear that nuclear generation has an important part to play in decarbonising electricity generation. It is a source of reliable generation capacity and it is a vital part of our energy mix. CFDs are intended to provide support to all forms of low carbon generation; hence I could not support amendment 23, as it would exclude nuclear generation. I also have concerns about amendment 24, which seeks to limit the amount paid under a CFD to nuclear generation to no more than what can be paid to renewables generation. It would not make sense artificially to link the amount of support for one technology with support for another. Support should be set based on robust evidence and advice that demonstrates, for instance, that the level of support makes a project economically viable—and thus will attract investment—and that it delivers our policy objectives while minimising costs for consumers. More widely, renewables support rates will vary over time, as has happened with the renewables obligation, and a mechanism to link support levels in this way, as proposed in amendment 24, could be cumbersome and could restrict our discretion to set support levels that might otherwise provide value for money.
Mark Reckless
I am pleased to follow the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas) and to hear that she intends to press amendment 24, a relatively moderate amendment, to a Division. She envisages subsidy for nuclear as long as it is not greater than the subsidy for renewables, but I would prefer a world in which we do not subsidise any energy production. Under this dog’s breakfast of a Bill, we will end up subsidising almost everything.
My worry with nuclear—my hon. Friend the Member for Cheltenham (Martin Horwood) addressed this—is the length of the contract. I do not go all the way with him on the £1 billion a year cost, or the very large sum grossed up over the period of the contract, but my calculations suggest something in the range of £600 million to £700 million a year just for the new Hinkley stations. That is a huge amount of money. Earlier, the Minister seemed unable to get to grips with the idea that the House might express a view on that. The contract is enormous and could put hundreds of pounds on consumers’ bills, and cost billions of pounds over the length of the contract. It would therefore be highly appropriate for the House to consider the matter, and for hon. Members to vote by positive resolution on whether we believe it is the right thing to do with our constituents’ money.
The key problem with the Bill is that it changes the law and puts very large subsidies to different technologies, which Ministers pick as winners in an opaque process, on a contractual basis that cannot realistically later be unpicked. The Chancellor has told us of an increase in the limit from about £2.4 billion to £9.8 billion per year, which is a quadrupling of the amount spent. That will be added to consumers’ bills for those various technologies, but the Bill implements that into contracts that cannot be unpicked. The nuclear contract could be absolutely enormous. I would like far greater concern for our constituents and the bills they pay for electricity.
We used to have the most competitive energy market in the world. I thought that the Minister believed in free markets, yet essentially what we are doing here is almost the final stage of replacing the freest energy market in the world with one that is rigged against consumers. The cost will be far more than the £9.8 billion figure, which ignores the fact that it is not just through the European Union and its directive that we are planning to close existing coal-fired plant, which are the cheapest at producing electricity. Unilaterally, we are banning the construction of new coal-fired power stations, when Germany has several new coal-fired plants under construction.
John Robertson
Will the hon. Gentleman clarify something for me? Is he saying that we should not worry or think about our obligations on climate change? If he is not saying that, how does he expect his electorate to pay for what he is suggesting?
Mark Reckless
I am sorry to hear the hon. Gentleman not focusing on his constituents’ heritage. Climate reduction and the carbon issue should relate to cost. The coal price has collapsed globally largely because of the success of shale gas in the US and its export of coal, and that means that the cost of the proposals is now far larger than it was. Global temperatures rose until 1998 or 2000. Since then, projections of an exponential increase in temperature have not been borne out by recent data. We have cut our emissions by 24% since 1990, which I think is larger than any other country. What we are left with is a complete mess of policy in the Bill, with various subsidies interacting and greatly increasing bills for our consumers, and I am not sure what the effect will be on reducing carbon emissions compared with, say, the US, which has had a big decrease.
We should look at the cost of coal and the extent to which carbon may be reduced by different things. In this country, we have a price of £16 per tonne on carbon. Under the EU emissions trading scheme, it is less than £2. We are making a great unilateral cross that we must bear when other countries in Europe, for example Germany, are constructing more unabated coal. We will have to buy electricity through the interconnectors, which will hurt our balance of payments and increase the cost to our constituents while we shut down our cheap coal plants. At the same time, shale gas has not come on stream due to the moratorium, as well as ownership and other regulatory restrictions. We will end up with some of the most expensive energy in the world and it is not clear what the impact will be on reducing carbon output.
At the same time as we are closing existing power plants because of the EU, we are banning unilaterally the construction of new plants. The cost of how much we are putting up electricity prices for our constituents should be added to the £9.8 billion figure. We would be much better off if we had a proper market in electricity production, rather than a market rigged against consumers. The Minister, through clauses 38 to 40, wants to introduce a huge network of conflicting subsidies that will let the Government, ex-post, change the conditions of someone’s electricity supply contract. All that will do is increase the price of investment to guard against that risk—yet another thing moving us away from the free market in electricity that might drive down prices for consumers who, certainly in my constituency, are finding the costs very difficult to bear. The previous Government’s policies were bad enough, but the Bill will lead to long-term contracts that may be impossible to get out off, and which will force consumers to pay higher prices for energy for years into the future.
Luciana Berger
I am expecting to hear from the Government about that, and I intend to address the point later. After I have done so, I will be happy to respond to any further questions the hon. Gentleman might have.
As I was saying, the Bill also contains a crucial loophole. The new powers would not apply to current Ofgem investigations. That is why we raised concerns in Committee, and it is why we have brought back amendments addressing the point on Report. Before I address the specific issues, let me remind the Minister why this will matter a great deal to households across the country.
Over the last few years there have been far too many cases of people being mistreated or misled by their energy providers. In April last year EDF agreed to pay £4.5 million after an investigation found it had been mis-selling to customers, and in April this year SSE was given a record fine of £10.5 million for running a sales process where people were given information that simply was not true. There are other ongoing investigations into practices at E.ON, npower and ScottishPower, and overall Ofgem is currently carrying out 15 formal investigations into potential malpractice by energy suppliers. Its enforcement team is also informally reviewing an additional 12 cases.
That is why we agree that schedule 14 represents a step in the right direction. It gives the regulator the power to order companies to compensate customers who have been misled about their energy deal and tariffs and the arrangements by which they are put on those tariffs.
None of those ongoing investigations will be covered by the new powers now being introduced, however. That means that any company found guilty of wrongdoing in any inquiry that begins or concludes today, tomorrow, next week, next month or at any time before this Bill receives Royal Assent will escape the new penalties all together. Also, if in future the regulator finds that there have been other failings by suppliers that took place before the Bill became law, those companies will avoid sanction as well.
I wonder how the Minister can think that that is right. How will it be fair to consumers who have suffered bad practice by their suppliers that they are not to receive due compensation? Amendments 2 and 5 would close this loophole and make all energy firms that break the rules fully accountable both to their customers and the regulator. I hope the Minister will agree that that is the right thing to do and support these changes.
John Robertson
Does my hon. Friend agree that we have also not used the current rules properly? The fines that have been imposed of late do not even go back to the people who pay the bills. Does she agree that we should be looking to compensate the people who pay the bills, rather than give that money to the Treasury?
Luciana Berger
My hon. Friend raises an important point. Currently, the fines that are being raised are going into the Treasury, and many questions have been asked about where that money should go.
If the Minister does not support our amendments, will he tell us what indication he has had from Ofgem as to how many of its current 15 formal investigations will conclude before these new powers are introduced, and how many consumers could miss out on compensation as a result?
Following the discussions we had in Committee, I suspect the Minister might argue that we are proposing retrospective legislation. Let me be very clear about why that is not the case. These amendments do not alter any of the regulations energy companies currently need to abide by. That is the crucial point. We are not seeking to penalise companies for something that was not against the rules at the time. Our proposals would simply ensure that customers whose providers are found to have broken the rules receive appropriate compensation, including for investigations that fall before the Bill receives Royal Assent. I hope the Minister will bear that in mind and support this change.
Turning to our other amendments, we seek to enshrine an important point of principle in the new powers: that customers who have been treated unfairly can, and always should be, fully compensated. As it is currently drafted, schedule 14 places a limit on compensation to 10% of an energy company’s annual turnover. I ask the Minister to explain what would happen if the losses suffered by customers were greater than that. How was that arbitrary figure reached—and why not 11% or 15%?
John Robertson
Can my hon. Friend clarify what she means by turnover, as factors such as the central pot and whether generation is included as well make a big difference?
Luciana Berger
My hon. Friend raises a point we on the Opposition Benches have raised many times before about the challenges we face with our very opaque energy market, where we do not know the true cost of our energy and many of our generators are also our suppliers. We will wait for the secondary legislation to hear exactly what the Government mean by that term, but it is fair to say that we are dealing a lot in this Bill with a broken market, and it is a shame that the Government are not proposing legislation to fix it.
We accept that there is a relatively small chance of a compensation package exceeding 10%, but that is not an impossibility. If a case ever did exceed that amount, it is likely that an enormous number of consumers would have been affected. It would be irresponsible for the Government not to be prepared for that scenario. In Committee, the Minister said that if consumers suffer losses greater than the compensation they receive, they will still be able to seek further redress through the courts, but surely he acknowledges it would be better not to risk that happening in the first place by amending this Bill.
Surely that would be better than abandoning consumers and leaving them to endure a long and protracted court battle to get due recompense. We believe it makes more sense to guarantee that families will always receive pound-for-pound compensation when they have been mistreated, which is why our amendments specify that compensation would be allowed to exceed 10% of turnover if
“one or more consumers have suffered loss or damage greater than this value.”
The Department’s own impact assessment said that such a change would send a powerful signal to energy firms on consumer protection. That is our priority.
This Government claim that they are on the side of consumers and today they have the chance to prove it. Our amendments put consumers first, ensuring that mistreated families will not be short-changed, no matter when they were wronged or how much they are owed. Will the Government stand up for the many? The question for the Minister and his colleagues is simple today: whose side are they on?
John Robertson
I ask the Minister the same question I asked my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Wavertree (Luciana Berger): what is classified as turnover? Does it just include retail or does it also include generation?
Gregory Barker
I will correct myself if I am wrong, but I believe we are talking about global turnover—we are talking about very significant sums. [Interruption.] This relates to the turnover of the company under investigation. [Interruption.] That was very helpful.
John Robertson
Just for clarification, is “the company under investigation” the mother company as well as the subsidiary company, or does it include all the companies that that company is part of?
Gregory Barker
The hon. Gentleman asks a fascinating and timely question, one which deserves a proper answer. He may have misheard me, because when I said “global turnover” what I actually meant was UK turnover. Nevertheless, that is clearly a very significant amount.
Our approach would allow for a relatively straightforward resolution of relatively simple cases. Accepting amendments to remove the cap would require us to make changes to the appeal mechanism, which could deny consumers access to the timely compensation they are due, as it could result in a far lengthier resolution of cases if the stakes are much higher. In considering whether such a trade-off is justifiable, we should take into account just how unlikely it would be for consumers to lose out on this scale. Exceeding a 10% cap of annual turnover would mean penalties and compensation of over a £1 billion for the very largest domestic energy supplier. The largest penalty imposed to date by Ofgem has been £15 million and under our legislation the cap for the largest would be set at £1 billion. A cap on redress is therefore unlikely to hinder Ofgem’s ability to impose appropriate redress orders.
In addition, there are unintended consequences of removing the 10% cap on penalty and redress, as that could also increase the costs of capital and insurance premiums for energy companies. Again, that would particularly affect the smaller companies—the very ones we are trying to attract into the sector—with all the adverse impacts on consumer bills that I mentioned earlier.
Energy companies should be in no doubt, however, that these powers are designed to ensure that consumers receive appropriate compensation. The combined 10% cap on penalties and redress will apply to each separate regulatory breach. If companies flout the rules on a number of occasions, they will therefore face correspondingly larger payouts. For the reasons I have set out, I hope that hon. Members will, on balance, agree not to press their amendments to a Division.
Mr Weir
I accept that, and I understand what the Minister is saying, but he said in his speech that the maximum penalty to date had been £15 million. Under the Bill he is talking about £1 billion. There is a massive difference between the two and my point stands: if consumers have been ripped off, it does not matter whether it happened just before the new system was introduced or just after that. The same should apply, in my view, and I do not have any great problem with that proposal.
However, I have a big problem with amendments 3, 4, 6 and 7. As I said in an intervention on the hon. Member for Liverpool, Wavertree (Luciana Berger), I have a worry—the same sort of worry as the Minister—about the effect that the amendments would have on the company. It seems that one aspect of the Bill is about trying to get investment into the energy industry. For far too long there has been insufficient investment; a lot of modernisation and new investment is needed to get our energy system up to scratch. The figure is 10% of the turnover, whatever that turnover will be—I am still not clear what the word covers. That takes me back to the days when I served on the Select Committee on Energy and Climate Change with my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow North West and we had the big six in one day and asked them about their profits. We asked whether they had made their profits selling to the consumer and they replied, “Oh no, we didn’t do that.” We asked whether they made them through generation, and heard, “Oh no, we didn’t make it from that.” We asked, “Where did you make those profits? You have large profits,” and no one could answer the question. There is great difficulty in pinning down what is meant by profit and turnover. In a time when we have six big energy companies, five of which are effectively multinational companies—we have seen in recent weeks what happens with the tax of multinational companies—we need a bit more clarity about what is meant by turnover.
Although the sums involved in 10% of turnover are significant, my bigger worry is that a company could be under investigation for an alleged breach for a considerable time. If there is a set limit, whether it is 10%, 20% or whatever, anyone thinking of lending that company money for infrastructure projects—most of them borrow from large financial institutions or other lenders—will know the contingent liability and what they are dealing with. I grant that if the liability is absolutely unlimited the sums involved are unlikely greatly to affect the big companies, given their size, but the uncertainty might well affect them. As we all know, those lending sums of money of such magnitude will consider the state of the company. A potential unlimited liability going into many billions of pounds, if there has been such an incident, could seriously undermine the company’s ability to borrow the money for much-needed infrastructure in our energy supply system.
I have a great deal of sympathy with those four amendments and understand what the hon. Member for Liverpool, Wavertree is trying to do, but I have a difficulty with them. Perhaps when she winds up she could expand on them and reassure me on the points I have made.
We must also remember that the provision would affect not only the big six energy companies but all regulated persons. If I understand correctly, that would include the small companies that are trying to get into the market. The Government say that they want to bring new entrants into the market, including the smaller companies that are beginning to nibble away at the edges of the big companies. If they were faced with such a penalty—let us hope that none of them would be—it would be the death knell for them.
John Robertson
The hon. Gentleman makes a very good argument and I had not thought of going down that road. Does he accept that those small companies could, through no fault of their own, follow what the large companies are doing and get themselves into bother that they did not really think about when they first started doing whatever it was that they did?
Mr Weir
My hon. Friend makes an excellent point. Whereas the big six would be able to take that financial hit, many of the smaller companies would not be able to do so. These proposals would take us down a road that could have serious repercussions. Many small companies are beginning to break into the market. Many of them are particularly strong in renewables, for example, and that is one way in which much of our renewables investment might be generated in the future.
I ask the shadow Minister to think about my points. I have sympathy with the amendments and understand what they want to do. We all want to ensure that any energy company that has been mistreating consumers is dealt with severely. There are two sides to this, however, so let us not rush into doing something that could have profound and unforeseen results.
John Robertson
It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Angus (Mr Weir). He was an excellent member of the Energy and Climate Change Committee when it was first put together and I am very sorry that he is not still a part of it—but there is time for him yet, as they say.
I agree with a lot of what the Minister said—I do not pick holes in things just for the sake of it—but it is not my place to worry about whether the big six have financial difficulties or whatever else. Personally, I could not give one jot about any of those companies. They are big enough to look after themselves and they certainly know the rules, because they know how to break them and get away with it.
I support every one of the amendments tabled by my colleagues on the Front Bench. I have no problems with them whatsoever. The only thing I have to say to the Minister is that I was slightly disappointed by his speech. He talked about hard-working families and, yes, I believe that hard-working families should always be looked at and looked after as best we can. My constituency has more than its fair share of elderly people and it has the highest percentage of single women in any constituency in the country, which probably means that most of them will be elderly. That means that they might have some difficulties that other people do not have. There are also quite a number of people who are disabled. We have found over the years that those are the people who do not complain, because they are frightened to, and who do not get the help they probably should get. Once again, we are getting to a stage when people think that their biggest bill is their electricity bill, their gas bill or both. According to some newspaper articles, people will be more worried about how they pay their fuel bills than how they pay their mortgage.
I do not worry about the big six, because they are making plenty of money, but we have to nail down what we mean by profit and turnover. Let us take EDF, a large multinational company that is to build a new nuclear power station, from which it will make a lot of money. It also has other power stations in the United Kingdom on which it makes money, and of course it is involved in retail as well, where it says it makes 2% profit. It makes some 17% to 19% profit from generation. It puts that 19% alongside the 2% when it comes to giving shareholders a dividend, but it tells Government that it is making only 2% profit. The company may therefore put up its prices—SSE did so only last October—yet these same companies are making enormous profits. They are telling people, “Invest in our company because you can get a return for your money.” That is not right.
Gregory Barker
I absolutely assure the hon. Gentleman that there will be no “get out of jail free” card.
John Robertson
That is a very good answer, but the Minister gave an answer earlier that was found to be wrong, so I will wait for a note to come over to him.
Barry Gardiner
I have listened carefully to the debate. Is there not in my hon. Friend’s mind, as there is in mine, a concern that we are putting on companies a financial penalty that will ultimately be borne by consumers? Should we not instead address the real problem, which is directors’ liability? It was noticeable in the recent SSE case that no criminal prosecution for fraud was brought, even though the maximum penalty was imposed. Would it not be better to impose a strict liability on the directors of the companies, so that it is not the consumer who ends up paying the fines?
John Robertson
My hon. Friend makes a very good point, which brings me to the next issue that I wanted to raise: what happens to the money? If we get £1 billion off a company—not that that is likely, because it would be a lot more than we get at present—or even £100 million, surely that company should have to pay that back to its consumers. It should not give it to the Treasury to spend, though I am sure it would spend it in a very nice manner. It should go towards what it was designed for: paying for electricity. That £100 million or £1 billion should go back to the customers of that company. I ask the Minister to look at that.
The Bill is a great deal better than it was when we scrutinised it on the Select Committee. Everything else about the Bill has been rushed. Look at the number of amendments tabled today, and the number of things that we are not being told—the strike price and so on. We are basically being given a promise that it will be all right on the night. We need to know what the Bill is. The Select Committee had five weeks’ scrutiny of the Bill, when normally the period is 12 weeks. Then we waited an inordinate amount of time for the Bill to come back to us. When we got it, we sent it back to the Minister and told him that it was a dog’s breakfast; it was terrible. We then got something else. It has been through Committee, and we have improved it. I implore the Minister to consider the amendments that hon. Members on both sides of the House are putting forward, and seriously look at using the best bits to improve the Bill further, because this is an okay Bill, but that is all it is; it is not good. It is probably slightly better than what we had at the start, but we still have a long way to go. I ask the Minister to consider that.
I also ask the Minister to look at the issue of people paying their taxes. We see that npower has admitted that it does not pay corporation tax. Another three of the major companies say that they do not pay much corporation tax. I am pleased to say that the two companies with Scottish links say that they do pay their corporation tax, although I would still like to look at the books.
There lies the biggest problem that we have with energy: looking at the books. What are the books? I have talked to Ofgem and to the Minister. What do the books cover? That goes back to the definition of cost and the definition of turnover. Where does the generation element come in and where does the retail element end? What happens to all the money that is made on either side of the box in the middle? That is a real problem. When billions of pounds of profit are made on one side and appear not to be counted, and billions of pounds are missing on the other side so the companies put the prices up, they keep making money but the consumers—the poor, the elderly, the disabled, the hard-working families that the Minister likes to talk about—are all suffering, and it appears that our Government do not care.
We should be doing more. We have even got to the stage where HMRC hired a gentleman called Volker Beckers, who was the chief executive of RWE npower. I bet he knows how to deal with tax for those energy companies. I hope he uses the same skill as he used for RWE not to pay corporation tax to get the same money out of the same company for HMRC.
There is much that is good in the Bill. I hope the Minister will consider the amendments moved by my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Wavertree (Luciana Berger) and listen to what my friend the hon. Member for Angus said. Between us all, we will make the Bill better, but we must remember that at the end of the day it is the people who put us here that we should be looking after.
Luciana Berger
I have been listening carefully for almost an hour to the debate, and I listened carefully to what the Minister said. We on the Opposition Benches still intend to divide the House on amendments 2 and 3. Let me explain why.
I reiterate the point that I made about the number of investigations currently under way. Ofgem is carrying out 15 formal investigations into potential malpractice by energy suppliers, and its enforcement team is informally reviewing an additional 12 cases. On that basis we consider it crucial that consumer redress orders be issued in respect of contraventions that might occur before the Bill comes into force. I reiterate that that is not retrospective legislation; it just means that consumers can get the redress they deserve.
Amendment 3 protects an important point of principle. Instead of a cap on the amount of compensation that consumers can receive, customers who have been treated poorly should be entitled to receive what they are rightly due. If the Government are convinced, as I heard the Minister say, that the level of compensation would never reach 10% of turnover, whatever that definition of turnover might be, the amendments should not present much difficulty. They would take effect only if the harm to consumers was above the 10% threshold. If it is unlikely ever to reach that threshold, the cost of that risk would be relatively small, and if the level of damages were to exceed that level, surely the Government would want to ensure that customers who had been treated unfairly were properly protected.
Question put, That the amendment be made.