Lord Palmer
Main Page: Lord Palmer (Crossbench - Excepted Hereditary)
Lord Marland
I welcome the noble Baroness to her new role, although I am not sure that I welcome the question, and I look forward to working constructively with her. As I have said many times in this House, the delivery of energy supply goes across many Governments and has a long period of development. Decisions that we make now will have fundamental relevance to Governments in five, 10 and 15 years. As for spending, I am sure that the noble Baroness will understand that I will not commit anything until after tomorrow, when I will be able to bring joyous news, I hope, on the subject.
Lord Palmer
My Lords, should fuel poverty payments not be stopped for those who are paying 40 per cent tax and instead allocated to those who are in desperate need of cold weather payments and fuel poverty payments?
Lord Marland
That is not really a matter for my department; it is a matter for the Treasury. There is no doubt that, under the last Government, fuel poverty went up from 4 million to 4.6 million households and, as I said, fuel prices went up by 80 per cent. This is a serious problem, which brings hardship to a lot of homes. We have a very significant problem reversing that trend.