Energy Bill [ Lords ] (Seventh sitting)

Katherine Fletcher Excerpts

Committee stage
Thursday 8th June 2023 Public Bill Committees

[Dr Whitehead]

The amendment relates to clause 170, which is very much another stand-alone clause; it concerns smart meters, and nothing else in the Bill relates to smart meters. We think that there ought to be a rather more serious approach to the question of smart meters and their present position in the energy firmament than the clause provides. I want to amplify that for a moment.

Where we are with smart meters is nothing short of a creeping long-term disaster as far as the UK energy economy is concerned. I am sure that Members will be aware that the introduction of smart meters came about through a 2012 piece of legislation with a view to starting the roll-out in about 2013 or 2014. The Minister responsible for the 2012 legislation said that the roll-out would start in 2014 and would be complete by 2019, when we would have 100% smart meters across the country. Ever since the 2012 legislation and the beginning of the roll-out, there have been repeated returns to the legislative process, including the Smart Meters Act 2018, which among other things included various measures on the Data Communications Company, about which I perhaps should not say too much for fear of becoming upset.

The thrust of that Act was to extend the timescale during which there would be jurisdiction over the process by the regulator, various other people and the DCC from 2019 to 2023. And here we are in 2023, having a further go at doing exactly the same: extending the exercise of powers from November 2023 to 1 November 2028. It is as though, if we continue to flog the dead horse for another five years, maybe the horse will miraculously come back to life again and we will all have the smart meters installed.

[Katherine Fletcher (South Ribble) (Con)]

I can speak from my own personal experience about why the horse is not dead and is benefiting from new technology. I wanted to have a smart meter and I could not, because the mobile phone signal was not good enough in the north of England. We have made great strides since 2019, so I think that horse still has a breath of life as technology, especially gigabit coverage, expands.

[Dr Whitehead]

My dead horse was perhaps something of an over-dramatic metaphor, but at the very least the horse is pretty sickly. That is partly because the smart meter wide area systems in the north of England are different from those in the south of England; the roll-out of smart meters in the north of England and in particular regions has been much slower and more problematic than has been the case in the south of England.

When we see the roll-out of smart meters now being 56% of all meters in Great Britain, the figure hides a number disturbing points, one of which I think the hon. Member for South Ribble will certainly want to worry about: that the roll-out in certain parts of Great Britain—strictly speaking, statistics are not provided on a regional basis, so I am citing evidence gathered by other means—could be as low as 30-odd per cent. in certain regions of the UK.

That is important not just because it is a good idea to have a smart meter that reads bills so that people do not have to continue to send their reading in, and not just because someone can look at their meter and see what sort of energy they have used and therefore can economise —although those are important things. One of the overwhelmingly important parts of the smart meter roll-out has always been and will always be the extent to which the smart meter network gives the country the opportunity to move forward radically with different forms of managing its electricity structures, including: a demand-side basis equivalent to the supply-side basis; ensuring that systems are resilient in terms of the information the smart meters are giving out; and enabling both prosumers and consumers to come closer together when it comes to what is going in and out of the smart meter via self-generation or other devices. There are all sorts of things, including half-hourly settlements, that will collectively make our energy system much greener, much better and much more resilient.

Indeed, the ability of smart meters to aggregate data—another area that we might want to consider—means they can read in real time the nation’s electricity activity. In the context of the roll-out of electric vehicles and all that goes with it, and all sorts of other things such as heat pumps, the ability to gauge in aggregate electricity demand at particular times, including where that demand may stress the system, means that activities can be undertaken that will divert from that and use the system much more effectively. That all depends on what is happening with smart meters and the information they give out. It is about—Daily Mail, take note—not capturing people’s personal information but capturing aggregate information that comes out of smart meter use as a whole. And that is where we are in a potentially disastrous position for the future, because the 55% roll-out does not mean 55% of all meters; as I have said, there are big regional divergences. I am very pleased that the hon. Member for South Ribble has got her smart meter in—[Interruption.] She has not.

[Katherine Fletcher]

Unfortunately, I have only an electricity one now, after the mobile phone signal was upgraded; the gas cannot take it, because of the construction of the house. There are a number of practical problems that we have to get over. The issue is not just consumer desire.

[Dr Whitehead]

Indeed. That was why I was pretty dubious about the 2G system, essentially, being used for this purpose in the north of the country. It is not fit for purpose and will not be fit for purpose in the future. It needs to be substantially revised.

[Katherine Fletcher]

No, we haven’t got any phone signal: not 2G—nothing.

[Dr Whitehead]

I think that underlines my point. It is not fit for purpose.

[Katherine Fletcher]

It doesn’t matter what G it is if you haven’t got one.

[Dr Whitehead]

Yes. The various retail energy companies that have been responsible for the roll-out have in many instances tried their hardest, but they have been overcome by the sort of obstacles that the hon. Member mentions. For example, in an urban environment, meters may be in the basement of a block of flats and then somehow the smart meter is supposed to communicate from the 7th floor to the meters in the basement—the arrangements between the meter and the householder. That is over and above the problems with radio signals and phone signals that there have been in the north of England.

The roll-out is 55% after nine years of active operation, so let us say that that goes on at the same rate, although it very probably will not, because we have captured all the low-hanging fruit as far as smart meters are concerned, and smart meters are getting more and more difficult to install.