Lord Barker of Battle
Main Page: Lord Barker of Battle (Conservative - Life peer)(11 years, 9 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text
Graeme Morrice (Livingston) (Lab)
2. What steps he is taking to encourage energy companies to deliver green deal finance through small and medium-sized enterprises.
The Minister of State, Department of Energy and Climate Change (Gregory Barker)
There will be huge opportunities for small and medium-sized enterprises in delivering the green deal and they are vital to its success. Our SME forum for the green deal, which has been ably chaired by the right hon. Member for Greenwich and Woolwich (Mr Raynsford), has delivered an excellent set of recommendations on which we are acting.
Graeme Morrice
What advice would the Minister give my constituent, Mr Ged Smith, who runs a local energy efficiency company? Like many people in a similar position, he is on the brink of going out of business, at the cost of hundreds of jobs, because there is no sign of any funding from the utility companies through the energy company obligation, as they say that they are too busy tying up the loose ends of the carbon emissions reduction target to engage in discussions about the ECO?
Gregory Barker
I am afraid that that is not absolutely correct. I am pleased to report to the House that more than 1,000 measures have been delivered under the ECO in the past few days, even though Warm Front came to an end on 19 January. It is early days and there is a transition, but we are working with SMEs to make that transition work and the long-term prospects are bright.
Stephen Mosley (City of Chester) (Con)
I welcome the launch of the green deal this week. Consumers now need to know that it is available and must start signing up. What is the Minister doing to let people know that the scheme is available and to encourage them to join it?
Gregory Barker
Clearly the Government have a role. My hon. Friend may have seen the green deal adverts that have run in the press. They will continue to run this weekend and the weekend after. We will also be launching a digital campaign. This is a tightly focused, value-for-money campaign, not a huge advertising splurge. The real drive will come from the individual offers. What marks the green deal out as different from previous Government energy efficiency programmes is that there will be huge choice, huge competition and lots of market participants.
Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)
Does the Minister share my disappointment about the fact that many of us thought that the green deal would be an opportunity for small and medium-sized businesses up and down the country not only to fit smoke alarms and CO monitors at the same time, but to prepare for smart metering? I now understand that CO alarms will not be fitted under the green deal, unlike I was led to believe, and that smart metering has been put on hold.
Gregory Barker
First, smart metering has not been put on hold; we have a very ambitious roll-out. The green deal has got off to a good start and had 42,000 visitors to its website on Monday alone. I understand that CO alarms are part of the green deal assessment, but I will willingly discuss that with the hon. Gentleman, who I know has a long history on the issue.
Simon Hughes (Bermondsey and Old Southwark) (LD)
I welcome greatly the launch of the green deal and hope it will be successful. Will the Minister ensure that, among others, the chambers of commerce and all trade federations are informed about the green deal directly, and that all local authority libraries also contain the information?
Gregory Barker
We are making the information available widely online and we have a range of outreach activities, including round tables. Local authorities are a particularly important partner in the green deal, and I am delighted that a number of the largest metropolitan areas have been core partners in the “go early” project. I will ensure that the organisations mentioned by the right hon. Gentleman get the information.
Neil Carmichael (Stroud) (Con)
3. What recent assessment he has made of investment opportunities in green energy technologies.
Caroline Dinenage (Gosport) (Con)
4. What steps his Department is taking to tackle fuel poverty.
The Minister of State, Department of Energy and Climate Change (Gregory Barker)
The green deal and energy company obligation will provide considerable support to make homes more energy efficient, reaching some 230,000 low-income and vulnerable households each year. Our warm home discount scheme supports 2 million households in total—this winter it has already helped more than 1 million of the poorest pensioners. We also make cold weather payments and winter fuel payments.
Caroline Dinenage
The Government have recently consulted on a new definition of fuel poverty to ensure that help is targeted at those who need it most. Will the Minister confirm what progress has been made?
Gregory Barker
I am happy to do so, as I know my hon. Friend takes an interest in fuel poverty. Professor John Hills published his final report in 2012. It highlighted serious flaws with the current methodology. We have therefore committed to moving away from that definition and consulted on a new approach that will more accurately measure the problem. We will publish our response to the consultation early in 2013. In addition to changes to the definition, we have announced that we will publish, for the first time since 2001, a refreshed strategy for tackling fuel poverty this year, and ensure that our resources are being used as effectively as possible.
Mr Mike Weir (Angus) (SNP)
One group that suffers most from fuel poverty is those on prepayment meters. Hon. Members have heard evidence from witnesses in the Energy Bill Committee that the Government’s proposals will make reductions to the lowest tariff only within the type of tariff people are already on. How will that help those on prepayment meters?
Gregory Barker
Those people should also see reductions; they certainly will not be stranded on previous deadweight tariffs.
Caroline Flint (Don Valley) (Lab)
The Government have claimed that the new energy company obligation will be bigger and better than the fuel poverty and energy efficiency schemes that came before it. Why, therefore, could up to 60% of ECO funding end up going to people who can already afford to improve their homes, and not to those in fuel poverty?
Gregory Barker
The fact is that a minimum of £540 million a year under ECO will be directed towards the fuel poor. That is a minimum; we expect far more to end up in low-income areas as ECO rolls out, and as we upgrade our housing and finally come up with the solution in respect of retrofitting that Labour, in 13 years, failed to offer.
Caroline Flint
The Minister can dodge the question as much as he likes, but the facts speak for themselves. Out of this year’s ECO budget of £1.3 billion, just £540 million will go to people in fuel poverty. That is less than the budget for people who can afford to insulate their own homes, and less than half the support available last year. Is that not why, according to the Government’s impact assessment, ECO is forecast over the next 10 years to lift just 250,000 households out of fuel poverty—50,000 fewer than fell into fuel poverty this winter alone?
Gregory Barker
I remind the right hon. Lady that, while she was in government as a Minister, fuel poverty rose from 2 million to 5.5 million. This Government are committed to doing something about it. Rather than crying crocodile tears, perhaps she should recognise that that £500 million-plus is the absolute minimum we are spending on the fuel poor. We expect to spend a lot more.
Alex Cunningham (Stockton North) (Lab)
17. What assessment he has made of changes in the level of fuel poverty since 2010.
The Minister of State, Department of Energy and Climate Change (Gregory Barker)
The latest annual fuel poverty publication estimates that during the first year of the coalition Government, fuel poverty fell by 500,000 to 3.5 million households in England. It is projected that the number of households in fuel poverty remained the same in 2011, but may rise again in 2012.
Mrs Riordan
Since the Government came to power, the average energy bill has risen by more than £300 a year—a big issue for my constituents, with all the other cuts going on. Is it not a fact that the Government have halved their support for people in fuel poverty?
Gregory Barker
No, that is not the case. The hon. Lady knows that during the previous Parliament fuel poverty rose from 2 million to 5.5 million, and it continues to be a huge issue. The only way we will tackle it is not by chasing gas prices, but tackling the underlying cause—the fabric of our homes—and creating better, warmer and cheaper homes for people to live in.
Debbie Abrahams
In Oldham, more than 17,600 households —one in five—were in fuel poverty in 2010, but with energy bills up by as much as 20% that figure is likely to be much higher today. Oldham council is not content, however, to let the most vulnerable people in society suffer, and through a fair energy campaign, it is ensuring that people in my constituency can keep their homes warm without worrying about hefty energy bills. Will the Government take a lesson from Oldham council?
Gregory Barker
We are working collaboratively with local authorities up and down the country, which have a key role to play in delivering the green deal and ECO. It is by an area-based, street-by-street roll-out, rather than by chasing gas prices, that in the long term we will deal with fuel poverty once and for all.
Alex Cunningham
My local borough, Stockton-on-Tees, is a national leader in tackling fuel poverty—we have had a warm zone initiative, a go warm campaign and now a hard-to-heat homes campaign—but it takes real investment to make these things happen. Energy companies are using consumers’ money to promote and install energy efficiency measures, but why will the Government not do the right thing and restore Government investment in energy efficiency measures, instead of leaving it to expensive loans that will cost consumers more than they might save?
Gregory Barker
By and large, consumers and taxpayers tend to be the same people. We are determined to get far better value out of our energy poverty eradication programmes than the previous Government did, and we will demonstrate that by getting more measures taken for less and bringing in competition. The green deal will, for the first time, let the fuel poor make real choices, as opposed to the monopoly one-size-fits-all solution of the previous Government.
Mr Jim Cunningham (Coventry South) (Lab)
8. How many households he expects to take up loans offered under the green deal.
The Minister of State, Department of Energy and Climate Change (Gregory Barker)
The green deal is a completely new market-led initiative for installing energy efficiency measures. We expect demand to build over time, so forecasts are difficult, but the green deal impact assessment estimated that about 223,000 households would take advantage of the scheme in year one. On day one, 42,000 people visited the website for information.
Mr Cunningham
Will the Minister estimate what proportion of households taking up the green deal are likely to lose more than they save owing to high interest rates, hidden charges and penalty payments?
Gregory Barker
The golden rule in the green deal should mean that the vast majority of people, on a like-for-like basis, will be better off, even after financing is taken into account. It is about time that Labour stopped running down the green deal; stopped running down all the small and medium-sized enterprises and small businesses investing in this new opportunity; stopped running down all the people training up and getting skills for this new opportunity; and started talking up the British economy, rather than scoring cheap political points.
Luciana Berger (Liverpool, Wavertree) (Lab/Co-op)
It is because my Labour colleagues want the green deal to work that we are trying to hold the Government to account over the practicalities of a scheme that we have been talking about for the past two years.
The Government predicted that the green deal would create 100,000 jobs by 2016, but the Insulation Industry Forum estimates that since its soft launch in October more than 83,000 insulation projects have been cancelled or put on hold and that 4,200 people have lost their jobs in the sector. What has gone wrong?
Gregory Barker
We are at the dawn of a far more exciting and expansive long-term project. We are talking not only about lagging lofts, but about the whole-house retrofit of millions of homes, and our impact assessment shows that we will create tens of thousands of jobs by 2015. Perhaps the hon. Lady would stop scaremongering about interest rates and start getting behind all the consumers and small businesses that will benefit from the green deal.
Glyn Davies (Montgomeryshire) (Con)
9. What steps he is taking to enable local communities to express opposition to onshore wind farms in their area.
Nick Smith (Blaenau Gwent) (Lab)
11. What steps he is taking to help households improve their energy efficiency.
The Minister of State, Department of Energy and Climate Change (Gregory Barker)
The green deal, which went live on Monday 28 January, will help to transform the homes of British consumers over the coming decade and beyond. This transformational policy, alongside the ECO and smart meter roll-out, will drive the development of a new energy efficiency market, providing unprecedented choice, benefits and access to low-cost finance for British consumers.
Nick Smith
Cold weather payments were triggered recently, as deep snow covered Blaenau Gwent, yet in recent months 181 insulation workers have been made redundant in Wales. Instead of the hyperbole, has not the Government’s introduction of the green deal and ECO sadly been woeful?
Gregory Barker
Once again, I hope that the hon. Gentleman will see that the insulation industry has a huge opportunity to move beyond just installing measures such as loft insulation to whole-house retrofits. Of course the industry is in a period of transition, but unless we take this bold step and create a much larger market, we will never tackle fuel poverty and turn around the juggernaut of increasing fuel poverty figures that we inherited from the last Government.
Roger Williams (Brecon and Radnorshire) (LD)
T6. Anaerobic digestion is sometimes seen as a Cinderella technology in our fight against climate change, although I am sure that that is not the case in the Department. A report by the Royal Agricultural Society of England sets out some of the benefits of on-farm AD, such as a reduction in greenhouse gases and pollution, but also a number of barriers to it. Will a Minister meet interested parties to discuss how those barriers can be overcome?
The Minister of State, Department of Energy and Climate Change (Gregory Barker)
I am certainly happy to meet interested parties because AD is a priority for the Government. Since we published our AD strategy in 2011, I am glad to say that the deployment of AD plants has increased by a third. We remain ambitious, and I will happily meet my hon. Friend.
Joan Walley (Stoke-on-Trent North) (Lab)
In Stoke-on-Trent, we have a disproportionate number of people in fuel poverty and a high reliance on intensive energy use, on which a great number of jobs depend. Will the Secretary of State give an assurance that the city deal bid that is being made by Stoke-on-Trent and the local enterprise partnership for investment based on energy will be the subject of an urgent ministerial meeting to ensure that the proposals are not stalled?