Energy Price Cap: Residential Buildings with Communal Heating Systems

Debate between Mark Pritchard and Siobhain McDonagh

Wednesday 20th April 2022 Westminster Hall

[Siobhain McDonagh (Mitcham and Morden) (Lab)]

Thank you, Mr Pritchard. Anyone would say that I was garrulous after those comments.

I thank and congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Hackney South and Shoreditch (Dame Meg Hillier) on bringing forward this really important debate. For households across our country, the cost of living is soaring. We have seen the biggest tax hike since the 1940s, the largest drop in living standards since the 1950s, public sector net debt reaching the highest level since the 1960s, and real earnings growth facing the largest one-year drop since the 1970s. Rising inflation, a hike in national insurance, and rocketing energy costs are putting unprecedented pressure on the pockets of hard-working families in all our constituencies.

However, as we have heard, approximately 150,000 housing association residents have heating and hot water delivered to their home via a communal or district heating network, rather than an individual boiler. Their way of paying energy is not regarded as domestic but business use. When it comes to energy payments, some might call them non-doms—perhaps we had better not go there. The Ofgem price cap does not protect those residents, so housing associations face the prospect of either absorbing soaring energy costs or passing them on to tenants and leaseholders.

This issue was first raised with me by my constituent Mr Johnston at the beginning of the year. He was worried that the lack of price cap protection and the soaring costs of energy may mean that he and his neighbours at Sadler Close in Mitcham could face an up to tenfold increase. They currently pay an estimated cost, with leaseholders paying through service charges and tenants through their rent. Mr Johnston lives in a Clarion-owned housing block and, despite my recent criticism of Clarion, I was delighted and relieved to learn that it has a commodity-capped agreement in place with its energy provider for another two years, so tenants and leaseholders will experience little increase, if any, in their gas charges. I am, of course, concerned about what will happen in two years’ time.

Right now, however, other tenants in similar situations will not be as fortunate. On 16 February, I wrote to the chief executive of Notting Hill Genesis regarding the Meadows estate on Mitcham Common to seek clarity that my constituents in those blocks would not face the same issue. Given the urgency of the energy price rises, I had hoped for a speedy response but, unfortunately, two months later I am still awaiting a reply. Even if those tenants are fortunate, thousands of others will not be.

The problems of unregulated energy supply are threefold. First, the monopoly of supply means that customers in shared blocks may be locked into long-term contracts with no way of holding suppliers to account on quality or price. Secondly, there is a lack of transparency. Residents often do not know that their energy will be supplied by a heat network. I took it upon myself to share the Clarion information outlined earlier in my speech with my constituents, fearful that many of them may not be aware of the impact of energy costs on their income. Who would have thought that a letter saying that their energy prices would be the same for two years could be heralded as such brilliant news? Thirdly, higher ongoing operating costs caused by property developers trying to cut the up-front costs of installing a network may simply result in higher costs for customers.

Minister, we need to examine the cost increases faced by residents in shared blocks and consider who has been hit disproportionately. We need to look at the regulation of energy costs paid in this way and quickly, because the clock is ticking towards the next big price hike in October. Warm words will not ensure warm homes, and without action the problem will get worse very quickly.

[Mark Pritchard (in the Chair)]

Do we have any other takers?

Sri Lanka

Debate between Mark Pritchard and Siobhain McDonagh

Tuesday 8th January 2013 Westminster Hall

[Siobhain McDonagh]

I completely accept what my hon. Friend says about the ongoing torture against Tamils in Sri Lanka. It must be said though that other ethnic groups are also being tortured now.

Without accountability, we are seeing torture, disappearances and killings, yet the Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting is still scheduled to take place in Colombo in November. What sort of message does that send out? The Commonwealth was right a couple of years ago to take away from Sri Lanka the honour of hosting a summit. If it was right to do that then, how can it be right now to let Sri Lanka have that honour when our fears about its Government have been confirmed? Canada has bravely stated that it will not attend the 2013 summit unless significant progress is made on human rights and accountability. Why cannot Britain show the same leadership? Why are we so determined to brush accountability under the carpet, just as the UN did with the evidence of atrocities four years ago?

In November, I wrote to the Prime Minister imploring him to do the responsible thing. I pointed out that the number of people who had been killed in the space of just five months was roughly the same as the entire population of the major towns of his constituency: Witney, Carterton and Chipping Norton. Those poor people were herded into an area smaller than the Prime Minister’s constituency, tricked into believing that it was a safe zone and then relentlessly targeted while the institutions of the international community made a deliberate choice not to help, even though they knew what was happening. I pointed out that Britain’s Tamil community, which numbers more than 250,000 people, is still grieving. I asked what the British Government were doing to ensure that there is justice for Tamils now. In particular, I said that it would send out a terrible message if Sri Lanka were permitted the honour of hosting the CHOGM. I said:

“If a nation had systematically killed every single person you knew in Witney, Carterton and Chipping Norton, raping and murdering in cold blood, I do not think that you would find it acceptable for that Government to host an event as prestigious as a Commonwealth summit, or for our Government to attend… The international community has admitted it failed to help Tamils before, and cancelling the summit will ensure that mistake is not compounded.”

[Mark Pritchard (The Wrekin) (Con)]

I understand the hon. Lady’s concerns, but does she accept that there were human rights violations on both sides of the community in Sri Lanka—certainly during the war and in the immediate post-war period—and that the relationship between the communities has improved in recent years? Secondly, does she accept that hosting the Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting would mean that Sri Lanka had a global audience looking at it, and that that in itself may produce the result that she is looking for?

[Siobhain McDonagh]

I totally disagree with the hon. Gentleman. I am sure that his motivations are entirely good, but he misreads how the Sri Lankan Government interpret representations from foreign Governments. If the Queen were to put her foot on the soil in Colombo it would be regarded as a vindication of the Sri Lankan Government’s actions—and this is at a time when at least 40,000 people are still dying or missing.