Energy: Green Deal and Energy Company Obligation

Lord Vinson Excerpts

Wednesday 30th January 2013 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Verma]

First, I congratulate the noble Lord on his observation. It was not intentional. As always, the noble Lord is resplendent in his attire, too.

The Government are very much focused on ensuring that consumers get the best possible deal that they can source out in the market. It is not the end of competition —it is actually more encouraging of competition. I hope that the noble Lord, when he accesses the Green Deal, as I very much hope that he does, will see how easy it is for consumers to be able to take control of their own destinies by being able to control how much they spend on their energy bills.

[Lord Vinson]

My Lords, while the Green Deal may or may not help the poorer sections of our community, the huge subsidies paid for the installation of wholly inefficient wind turbines, which will make no measurable effect on world CO₂ levels, are making British industry uncompetitive and, as the noble Lord, Lord Ezra, said earlier, putting millions of households deeper into fuel poverty. Surely it is time that the fiasco of some parts of the energy-saving programme inherited as it has been by the present Government were reviewed.

[Baroness Verma]

My Lords, I think that the noble Lord’s question is slightly away from the Question on the Order Paper. I remind him that, as a country, we need a mixed source of energies, and wind is one of those sources.