Oral Answers to Questions

Julie Hilling Excerpts

Thursday 16th September 2010 Commons Chamber

[Gregory Barker]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right that the Secretary of State is an important member of that group. Its report will be published later in the year. Here in the UK, we are taking an active role in trying to develop the private sector solutions that must be part of the overall funding package for developing countries, both in adaptation and mitigation.

[Julie Hilling (Bolton West) (Lab)]

4. What recent steps he has taken to ensure that energy companies provide greater assistance to vulnerable people in meeting their energy bills.

[The Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change (Chris Huhne)]

I recently announced the extension of the energy companies’ carbon emissions reduction target to December 2012, which will provide a greater focus on helping low-income vulnerable households. Additionally, we expect up to 250,000 poor pensioner households to receive an £80 rebate from the six major energy supply companies through the current energy rebate scheme, and we are hard at work ensuring that a focus on fuel poverty is a key feature of the green deal.

[Julie Hilling]

I thank the Secretary of State for that answer. As more than one in three pensioners live in fuel poverty, will he follow Labour’s lead and ensure that all energy suppliers have a mandatory social tariff?

[Chris Huhne]

On the social tariff, I congratulate the right hon. Member for Doncaster North (Edward Miliband) on the powers introduced in the Energy Act 2010. We can use that important set of powers to try to alleviate these problems. The Department’s approach, most fundamentally, is to try to deal with the causes of the problem, not merely to use sticking plaster on the symptoms. The key thing is to identify those in fuel poverty and ensure that they have the energy-efficiency measures in place to make sure that they do not get into fuel poverty in future. With social price support we can help for one year, but if we get the energy-efficiency measures right, we help for ever.