Oral Answers to Questions

Luciana Berger Excerpts

Thursday 17th October 2013 Commons Chamber

[Ann McKechin (Glasgow North) (Lab)]

11. What steps he is taking to help households improve their energy efficiency.

[Luciana Berger (Liverpool, Wavertree) (Lab/Co-op)]

16. What steps he is taking to help households improve their energy efficiency.

[The Minister of State, Department of Energy and Climate Change (Gregory Barker)]

For the first time ever, the UK now has a national energy efficiency strategy. This is something no Government have put in place before. Helping to cut energy bills is at the heart of this drive through the green deal, energy company obligation, electricity market reform, smart meter roll-out and support for innovation, research and development. They all demonstrate the Government’s determination to drive unprecedented investment into energy efficiency.

--- Later in debate ---

[Gregory Barker]

The hon. Lady seems to be confusing the record of the coalition with that of the last Government. During the last Parliament, fuel poverty rose in every single year; under the coalition, it has fallen in every year. [Interruption.] The definition has not been changed yet. It will be changed next year, on a cross-party basis.

We still have a great deal to do, but this Government are rolling up their sleeves and making a difference, unlike the last Government. They had the chance to deal with fuel poverty, but it rose in every single year of the last Parliament.

[Luciana Berger]

The Government forecast that the green deal and the energy company obligation would create 60,000 jobs, but earlier this year the Insulation Industry Forum confirmed that more than 4,000 jobs had been lost during the transition to the ECO. Just the other week, Carillion, a leading green deal provider, was forced to announce a restructuring that is expected to lead to further job losses in the green deal sector. That is a disaster for the workers who are affected, for their families, and for our low-carbon industry. Can the Minister confirm the number of people who have lost their jobs since the scheme was launched, and can he explain why this is happening?

[Gregory Barker]

We are certainly seeing a change in the industry, and we expect to see a structural change. New companies are now entering the market. The growth that we are seeing is not in the big energy companies created by the last Labour Government, but in the small and medium-sized enterprises, the independents and entrepreneurs who are being championed by the coalition. The ECO is helping more than 215,000 households, and we expect it—in combination with other measures—to enable nearly a quarter of a million homes to benefit from insulation, and from a range of new products that were not available before, by the end of the year.