Energy: Action on Bills

Lord Whitty Excerpts

Monday 2nd December 2013 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Verma]

My noble friend is right. We need investment. Since 2010, we have seen more than £35 billion of investment in the energy sector in this country. My noble friend will have to get the answer on the Opposition’s pledge from them. It seems that they are empty words that have no substance.

[Lord Whitty (Lab)]

My Lords, perhaps the Minister can clarify the arithmetic, particularly in relation to the eco. Past DECC figures suggested that the eco costs consumers about £47 a year. This Statement claims that we will save £30 to £35 of that cost, yet 60% of the eco relates to affordable warmth and other fuel poverty measures, and they are going to be maintained according to this Statement, so the full cost must fall on the other 40%. By my calculations, that works out at roughly £7, not £30 to £35. The only way to square those figures is by extending the period by another two years, which means halving the annual expenditure on the fuel poverty programme. Even then, the arithmetic does not work out. If that is indeed the case, and the insulation industry seems to be taking that to be the case, does it not justify the stance that we on this side of the House took that the Government’s commitment to the fuel poverty strategy is only to address it rather than to reduce the numbers in fuel poverty? The only measure that we have yet seen is an attempt by the Government to refine fuel poverty downwards, as the Select Committee in the other place pointed out. Will the Minister explain those figures and perhaps justify the position?