Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between John Robertson and Chris Huhne

Thursday 26th January 2012 Commons Chamber

[Chris Huhne]

I am very happy to join the hon. Gentleman in encouraging the third sector in this regard. However, I point out that we recently announced 82 community winners in the first tranche of DECC’s £10 million local energy assessment fund, which share in £4.2 million to undertake feasibility studies for proposed community energy and energy efficiency schemes. The winning communities in the remaining, second tranche are due to be announced in early February.

[John Robertson (Glasgow North West) (Lab)]

11. What the level of debt is by which a prepayment meter customer is able to change supplier.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between John Robertson and Chris Huhne

Thursday 1st December 2011 Commons Chamber

[John Robertson (Glasgow North West) (Lab)]

T8. An early-day motion tabled today, signed by me and the hon. Members for St Ives (Andrew George), for South Suffolk (Mr Yeo) and for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas), calls on Ofgem to raise the level of debt for which pre-payment meter customers can switch suppliers from £200 to £350. According to the House of Commons Library, that would help more than 200,000 people immediately. Can we rely on the Secretary of State’s support?

[Chris Huhne]

We are working on a number of issues to try to ensure that those with pre-payment meters are given the best possible deal—that they can switch easily, and can opt for credit rather than pre-payment meters when that will help them. And yes, the hon. Gentleman can be assured that we will continue to pursue that agenda as vigorously as possible.

Annual Energy Statement

Debate between John Robertson and Chris Huhne

Wednesday 23rd November 2011 Commons Chamber

[Chris Huhne]

The hon. Gentleman is right. Consumers have the option to choose a fixed rate of course, which will be for a specified period. At the time of the recent consumer energy summit, we made the key point that the big six, which supply 99% of our households, had announced their tariff changes and that some of them had committed to keeping them all the way through the winter. Right now is therefore a rather good time to compare prices and switch to the cheapest tariff.

[John Robertson (Glasgow North West) (Lab)]

I understand that it is important to get money into the Treasury, but is that more important than people’s lives? The Hills report found that thousands of people will die as a result of this Government’s policies. What is more important: money to the Exchequer or people’s lives?

[Chris Huhne]

I am afraid that the hon. Gentleman is not giving credit where it is due, although I cannot say that it is terribly surprising. I commissioned John Hills to produce that report precisely because I wanted a really good and authoritative review of how we can best tackle fuel poverty. I am determined that we shall do that. One conclusion of the interim report from Professor Hills was that there are 25,000 excess winter deaths and that perhaps 10% of them—a similar figure to those killed on the roads—are due to fuel poverty. We are determined to tackle that issue—[Interruption.] That is after 13 years of Labour government; let us please have a little cross-party consensus on trying to tackle the problem while recognising that it needs to be dealt with in the long run and that we have the means to tackle it at source as well as in the short-term through the warm home discount.

Solar Power (Feed-in Tariff)

Debate between John Robertson and Chris Huhne

Wednesday 23rd November 2011 Commons Chamber

[Chris Huhne]

By all means, the hon. Gentleman should give us the details of exactly that sort of issue, which we will consider as part of the consultation. However, his constituent might have been better served if there was a proper energy efficiency audit of her home so that she could make substantial energy savings beforehand.

[John Robertson (Glasgow North West) (Lab)]

You don’t know what his constituent did.

[Chris Huhne]

We do not, but we do know that under the scheme promoting solar PVs or the scheme that was launched by the Labour Government in April 2010, there was a link to energy efficiency.

[John Robertson]

You’re making it up.

[Chris Huhne]

Opposition Members are getting terribly shirty about this, but there was a link to energy efficiency and that link was abolished with the introduction of the scheme by the right hon. Member for Doncaster North, the Leader of the Opposition, when he was the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change in April 2010. We need to deal with that.

There are more efficient ways to clean our energy supplies and grow our green industries than using consumers’ energy bills to support one industry at well over the market rate. If we did nothing, by 2014-15 feed-in tariffs for solar PV would cost consumers about £1 billion a year. If we are to succeed in building a low-carbon economy, we must make sure that we show people that we are committed to value for money.

It is precisely because this Government are committed to a sustainable, long-term future for clean energy that we propose revising tariffs now. Encouraging a minority of companies to feast on bumper profits for six months, swallowing up the entire feed-in tariff budget for a four-year period, would be the acme of short-termism. It is worth keeping things in perspective.

--- Later in debate ---

[Chris Huhne]

We would like to do that, but the legal basis for doing so is simply not there in the scheme that was introduced by the last Labour Government.

[John Robertson]

Change it.

[Chris Huhne]

Well, we could do that, but it would have to be part of the longer-term consultation on the comprehensive review, which we will carry out.

--- Later in debate ---

[John Robertson]

I am not going to give way. Government Members give way to waste time. Let them do it. We will make sure that we say what needs to be said. They can play games.

I should like to move on to fuel poverty, which is what I believe we are here to talk about, and people who will die. I asked the Secretary of State earlier whether the tax taken from the big six and the reduction in the money for solar power are worth the 2,700 lives that will be lost this year owing to the Government’s energy policies, but he never answered me. I am willing to allow him to intervene if he wants to tell me that his policies are worth more than 2,700 lives. We all hear that deafening silence. The money that the Government get from the tax and from reducing solar energy will amount to 2,700 lives. That is what the Hills report says, and the Secretary of State agreed with me when he was questioned about it.

[Chris Huhne]

The hon. Gentleman is completely misguided to quote the Hills report, which I commissioned because I want a real effort made to combat fuel poverty, which was not happening in the past few years; we saw fuel poverty increase under the Labour Government. He is quite wrong to say that I am not concerned about the big six. We want a competitive market. That is why we are introducing extra consumer safeguards, and why we are making the retail and wholesale markets more competitive.

[John Robertson]

I can only use the right hon. Gentleman’s own words. He told me that the Hills report said that 27,000 extra people would die this winter, and that 10% of those deaths would be down to the Government’s energy policies. That will be in Hansard for hon. Members to read for themselves. I asked him whether lives were worth more than the tax money, and he never answered me.

At the end of the day, people will make the difference. The Government cannot be trusted. If people cannot trust the Government or what they are saying, how can they move forward? There lies the biggest problem. The 13,500 pensioners who are approaching fuel poverty in my constituency, and the disabled people who need extra help, will not be able to work out whether they can trust the Government to see them through this winter. Everything that has been mentioned is for next year, not this winter, but we need to solve the problems this winter.

The money spent on solar power would have helped in the long term to keep people in jobs, to stimulate growth in industry and to get money circulating in the country, but the Government are cutting it. They want to halve the amount of money that would circulate. They want to halve everything. My hon. Friends the Members for Ayr, Carrick and Cumnock (Sandra Osborne) and for Dumfries and Galloway (Mr Brown) told us about their constituents who, through no fault of their own, will be caught up in this system and will find that they cannot afford what they thought they were going to get, although they did do their risk management.

When the Secretary of State was having a go at my hon. Friend the Member for Dumfries and Galloway, I asked him how he knew that the person in question had not done a risk assessment or worked out the financial situation, and he replied, “Well, I don’t.” So there we have it: we have a Secretary of State who makes policy on the hoof and statements that contradict my hon. Friend, who knows his constituent and knows the situation, and says that my hon. Friend is wrong—and then, when asked from a sedentary position, “How do you know the constituent didn’t do that?” turns round and says, “Well, I don’t.” He is basically saying, “I just don’t care.”

We see it more and more. We have a Government who always use the excuse, “It’s somebody else’s fault. A big boy did it and ran away.” That is their modus operandi. That is what they do. It is always somebody else’s fault and never their fault, but unfortunately it is the people who Labour Members, in particular, represent who will suffer at the end of the day. I want to ensure that the 2,700 extra people who might die this winter do not, but the sad truth is that this Government do not care, and never will care. That is why the people on this side of the House are better than them.

Energy Prices

Debate between John Robertson and Chris Huhne

Wednesday 19th October 2011 Commons Chamber

[Chris Huhne]

I do not agree with the hon. Gentleman on that. I care as passionately as he does about consumer rights on this issue. I spent some time on the board of Which?, the consumer association, so I will not be second to anyone on those particular issues. My experience—perhaps his differs—is that many of my constituents go first and foremost for advice on these issues to their citizens advice bureau, so that is an appropriate place to situate such advice.

When the coalition took office, some 400 separate tariffs were available. That is also part of the legacy we inherited from the time when the right hon. Lady’s boss was Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change. This coalition Government have, in our Energy Bill—now the Energy Act 2011, as it received Royal Assent yesterday—taken powers to force companies to give straightforward information about cheaper tariffs. We are also working with Ofgem to cut the number of tariffs and make it easier to compare them. According to Ofgem, only 15% of households switched gas supplier last year and only 17% switched electricity supplier. Switching should be fast and easy, and we are cutting the time it takes to switch to just three weeks—that is another change that this Government have introduced. In addition, Citizens Advice and Ofgem announced record funding from suppliers for the “Energy Best Deal” campaign, which helps vulnerable consumers to shop around for the best deal.

[John Robertson]

rose—

[Chris Huhne]

I cannot resist, although I hope that the hon. Gentleman will be raising a matter concerning fuel poverty. I wish he would because I will be able to respond.

[John Robertson]

My speech is full of stuff on fuel poverty, but I wish to pick up on one of the points that the Secretary of State made. He said that Sweden was using less energy than the United Kingdom, but that is wrong. According to the Swedish Government’s own figures, Sweden uses twice as much energy as this country does, and the cost is more. In addition, according to the International Energy Agency, Sweden’s energy use is substantially higher than that of the UK. I do not suppose he meant to mislead the House, but I think he must get his facts right.

[Chris Huhne]

The hon. Gentleman needs to examine the situation for households. It is clearly the case that Sweden has a lot of hydroelectricity and a lot of industries are very dependent on it. My point was about households and the household use of heating, which is key.

Millions of households could save just by switching tariffs or payment method. From now on, suppliers will write to customers to tell them about these savings—that is another outcome from Monday’s energy summit.