Oral Answers to Questions

Meg Hillier Excerpts

Tuesday 17th January 2023 Commons Chamber

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (Kevin Hollinrake)]

The UK, including Wimbledon, is one of the best places in the world to start a business, as evidenced by the OECD report. My hon. Friend is right to raise the issue of access to finance, particularly for diverse groups. The Start-Up Loans Company has provided £1 billion of loans to around 100,000 businesses, including £2 million of loans to businesses in his constituency, and 40% of those loans go to people from a black, Asian and minority ethnic background.

[Dame Meg Hillier (Hackney South and Shoreditch) (Lab/Co-op)]

There is an inconsistency in how the public sector is required to report greenhouse gas emissions. That makes it difficult to keep a track on progress as we approach net zero, and difficult for citizens to hold the public sector to account on delivery. What is the Minister doing to rectify that so that we can keep a proper track on what is happening?

[George Freeman]

May I take this opportunity, on behalf of the Department, to thank the hon. Member and the Public Accounts Committee for their report, to which we will very shortly reply? I am delighted to say that the public sector has reduced emissions by 44% since 1990 and the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy by 70% since 2010. We appreciate her Committee’s point that the data—the metrics—have to be clear and coherent, and we are taking that on board.

Industrial Action

Meg Hillier Excerpts

Tuesday 10th January 2023 Commons Chamber

[Grant Shapps]

I am pretty sure the hon. Gentleman has been in the Chamber from the beginning, otherwise you would not have called him to speak, Mr Deputy Speaker. He will therefore have heard me say, not once or twice but three times now, that this legislation is compatible with the International Labour Organisation rules that the unions themselves sign up to and many of our European neighbours follow. I am struggling to follow the hon. Gentleman’s argument that this is somehow unfair, undemocratic or against international law.

[Dame Meg Hillier (Hackney South and Shoreditch) (Lab/Co-op)]

From the way the Secretary of State is speaking, one might think he is the knight on a white charger coming to rescue the system. Let us be clear, however, that it was this Government who froze pay in the public sector and then increased it below inflation, and this Government who reduced recruitment in the national health service, particularly among nurses, where we have a recruitment gap of 40,000. What we are actually hearing is chickens coming home to roost, isn’t it? He ought to take responsibility as a Minister in this Government.

[Grant Shapps]

I simply make the point that it is not the case that we have frozen recruitment, because we have 44,000 more nurses, not fewer—that is an increase rather than a decrease. It is also not the case that we have frozen pay, other than during the aftermath of the financial crash, which as I recall happened under the Labour party and we had to pick up the pieces, and through covid, although not all the way through covid, as I mentioned. Last year, even while the rest of the public sector was experiencing a pay freeze, we made an exception for NHS workers and paid them more, so the hon. Lady’s narrative is simply not true. Again, if the Opposition are saying that they would pay 19% more, I do not understand where that money would come from and whose taxes would be raised to pay for it and the increased interest rates.

Draft Prescribed Persons (Reports on Disclosures of Information) (Amendment) Regulations 2022

Meg Hillier Excerpts

Wednesday 30th November 2022 General Committees

[Dame Meg Hillier (Hackney South and Shoreditch) (Lab/Co-op)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Gray. I have a simple question for the Minister. MPs were put into the same category as prescribed persons, but I suspect that a straw poll of colleagues would show that many do not understand that. Crucially, staff would find it hard to recognise a true whistleblower. Like the Minister, we in the Public Accounts Committee have done some work on the subject and we know the importance of having a proper pathway when someone has shown the courage to whistleblow. As MPs, like MSPs, we also get other types of complaint that would not reach the threshold of whistleblowing. Has he had any conversations about how to support Members of the Scottish Parliament as well as others in the category who might need stronger guidance? It is all very well passing the law, but unless it works in practice it will all be for nothing. I hope that the Minister can give us some information on how he is spreading the word and making sure that there is proper training.

Oral Answers to Questions

Meg Hillier Excerpts

Tuesday 29th November 2022 Commons Chamber

[Kevin Hollinrake]

I thank my hon. Friend for his recognition of the small businesses in his constituency. He is absolutely right: there is no greater force behind the supply side of the economy than small businesses, which are essential to prosperity and productivity. He is absolutely right to champion their cause, and we should all join him in that endeavour.

[Dame Meg Hillier (Hackney South and Shoreditch) (Lab/Co-op)]

There has been some talk about business rates. I appreciate what the Minister says about needing a proper plan. Businesses in my constituency tell me that business rates are their big bête noire and that reforming and replacing them would make their lives a lot easier and their survival more certain. Will he give some indication of the Government’s thinking, and of the timescale in which they might be looking at the matter? Labour is proposing a radical reform.

[Kevin Hollinrake]

Well, Labour is proposing a radical reform, but we cannot quite work out whether it will scrap business rates or reform them. There have been mixed messages among Labour Front Benchers—indeed, among the shadow Chancellor and the Leader of the Opposition—so we are not quite sure what Labour’s policy will be. We are certainly not sure how it would replace the £25 billion to £30 billion of revenue. I would really like to understand that.

This is a thorny issue, because if we scrapped business rates the taxpayer would have to find that huge amount of money by some other means. The right thing to do right now is to see businesses through this very difficult time with the kind of concession that we have made, such as the £13.6 billion, rather than making irresponsible and in my view undeliverable promises to completely scrap business rates.

Oral Answers to Questions

Meg Hillier Excerpts

Tuesday 25th October 2022 Commons Chamber

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

Wadworth is a very well-known west country brewer. I used to live not very far from a tied pub in Wadworth’s capable hands, and it is a distinguished company that serves fine products. However, I must tell my hon. Friend that, while VAT is a matter for the Chancellor, the British Business Bank is offering £12.2 billion of finance to more than 96,000 small and medium-sized businesses. On 20 July my predecessor introduced a new iteration of the recovery loans scheme, which helps smaller businesses to get loans and other kinds of finance up to £2 million per business, and the Government have reversed the national insurance rise, saving small businesses £4,200 on average. The energy bill relief scheme, which ought to get Royal Assent later today, will secure businesses over the winter, and there will be a review; it is one of the most generous schemes in the world and has been copied by foreign Governments.

[Dame Meg Hillier (Hackney South and Shoreditch) (Lab/Co-op)]

Businesses in my constituency, including some of the fabulous small breweries, are struggling with the extra paperwork they now have to fill in in order to export to the European Union. The Business Secretary was a great exponent of Brexit, but even he must acknowledge that it is causing a huge burden to businesses and seriously affecting their profitability.

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

I look forward to the hon. Lady’s supporting the Retained EU Law (Revocation and Reform) Bill, which is coming later today and will get rid of lots and lots of dreadful EU regulations that are such a terrible burden on businesses. Is it not wonderful, Mr Speaker, that our socialist friends at last have this glorious zeal for deregulation? It is something we on the Conservative Benches have supported since the time of Noah.

Energy Update

Meg Hillier Excerpts

Monday 5th September 2022 Commons Chamber

[Greg Hands]

My hon. Friend is always a strong voice for Redcar and Teesside. I think that every single question he has ever asked me has included hydrogen somewhere. He is auditioning, I think, to be the UK’s Mr Hydrogen. He has mentioned CCUS as well, which is a big priority of ours, and he is absolutely right to say that energy efficiency is so important. If we can reduce the amount of energy that is used to create the same level of heating in people’s homes, clearly that is a massive gain. That is why we have invested £6.6 billion over the course of this Parliament in energy efficiency.

[Dame Meg Hillier (Hackney South and Shoreditch) (Lab/Co-op)]

The annual energy costs of a bar on my patch in Shoreditch—it is part of a large chain—have gone up from £30,000 last year to £120,000 this year. All energy contracts are now being renegotiated, with some experiencing an uplift of at least 300%, and since the pandemic some electricity suppliers are refusing to supply the hospitality sector. The Minister has given warm words, but there are two issues there. Will he give us comfort that he will act on at least one of them by talking to the energy suppliers about making sure that more of them can at least compete for the business of these important hospitality businesses?

[Greg Hands]

As ever, the hon. Lady raises an important and telling point. It is worth reminding ourselves, as I said earlier, that businesses tend to have long-term contracts for their energy bills. Prices were lower but they are now rising. There is an advantage in being locked into lower prices for a longer term, but there is, of course, a disadvantage when that long-term contract rolls off and they have to replace it. She is quite right about that. I am happy to look into the specifics of the bar that she mentions. There is no obligation currently on energy suppliers to supply businesses, unlike their obligation to provide to consumers, but I am happy to look into the specifics of the bar that she mentions in her constituency.

Draft Construction Contracts (England) Exclusion Order 2022

Meg Hillier Excerpts

Wednesday 29th June 2022 General Committees

[Lee Rowley]

A number of industry bodies were consulted, including Build UK and the Construction Leadership Council, which try to take a holistic look at the views of the industry as a whole. In my other role, as construction Minister, I work with them very closely and know that they try to ensure that they prioritise the views of all across the industry, not simply those who may speak with a louder voice, for whatever reason.

Let me turn to the other two points, which are important and I am happy to address them. We hope that the special purpose vehicle will be a tool that can be used to bring forward significant infrastructure improvements in the future, but the ultimate decision about how it would be set up in the one, two, three or n number of cases where this happens will be down to the organisations that want to go into those SPVs. The hon. Gentleman asked how likely the first-tier contractor is to be part of the SPV or its entity, but I cannot give him a number, a percentage or an expectation, because ultimately that will be down to the market to determine. However, experts and officials have indicated that, given historical precedent and what companies that play in this space are likely to do, they would expect those companies building this infrastructure, such as pipes or sewage improvements, to take an early interest in the discussions and the transactions. It is not unusual for such companies to be in similar financial structures early on in the SPV process, but that will ultimately be down to them.

That leads on to the second question, which is how do we make sure that there is not a problem of payment further down the supply chain. There are two broad answers to that. First, for those who are not first-tier suppliers, the same requirements apply around payment as they do today. The contracting that would be undertaken for tier 2 suppliers would be undertaken on the basis of the construction Act, and that Act and the scheme of construction contracts contain clear clauses about payment upon delivery, not payment when other organisations or entities choose. That is not changing.

What is changing is, in effect, the box before that. The SPV and the first-tier operator will need, either through being a group of one or through the SPV contracting to a tier 1 operator, to price in risk appropriately and organise themselves appropriately. They will also need agreement with their funders to ensure that they have cash available at the point at which they will need the working capital to pay tier 2 suppliers or whoever they are contracting, to ensure that the output is delivered.

That is fully transparent at this stage, and that is exactly what the DPC is designed to do—to allow private companies to go out and seek investment to cover the build element, including tier 2 suppliers, and then recognise that they will start to get a revenue stream at the point when the infrastructure is delivered. That is entirely the point of it. The revenue coming from the water companies will not start until delivery. That means that if this works, and we have confidence that it will, the risk to the public purse is minimised because companies pay on results, not on proposal, and because a set of companies and individual actors will be entering into a contract to ensure that they price the risk of delivery appropriately and deliver it to get a long-term revenue source from the Government. I hope that those answers resolve the points raised by the hon. Gentleman. I am grateful for his contribution.

To conclude, I reiterate that the creation of any exclusion under the construction Act is the exception.

[Dame Meg Hillier (Hackney South and Shoreditch) (Lab/Co-op)]

Before the Minister finishes, I note that it falls to Ofwat to monitor this legislation. Obviously, the very long-term timescales of some of the projects will be such that they may outlast our time as Members of this House. How is he going to make sure that Ofwat’s monitoring feeds back into Government if there is a problem in the future? If there is a problem, that could be significant. On the other hand, if the model works well, it could be used for other infrastructure projects.

[Lee Rowley]

I am grateful for that question. I had a long discussion with Ofwat yesterday about the importance of its monitoring role. The first stage is to make sure that this works. Obviously, given that we have not yet changed the rules—this order has not gone through yet—we do not have a clearly working example in progress. I am very open about that. There will be a number of pathfinder projects, and they will have to be reviewed. Ofwat has been clear that it will review and, if necessary, suggest changes. It would be entirely appropriate for the relevant Committees and Ministers to remain close to that process over the months and years ahead. The fact that two parties are interested, as well a third in one of the other three nations, should give us clarity about what we hope will happen in the coming years—namely, that this will be a successful model that will balance the kinds of things that we have spoken about.

From the perspective of the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, I accept that this will need to be monitored closely. I encourage all the relevant Committees in the House of Commons to do that. We want this to work. We want to learn from the challenges and make sure that it does not fall into the problems that have resulted from other types of financing structures, with which I am familiar from my time serving on the Public Accounts Committee, chaired by the hon. Member for Hackney South and Shoreditch. We hope that that will not be the case in the future.

Oral Answers to Questions

Meg Hillier Excerpts

Tuesday 7th June 2022 Commons Chamber

[Greg Hands]

As the Financial Secretary to the Treasury said yesterday, that consultation on the climate compatibility checkpoint has closed and the Government will be responding to that consultation in due course.

[Dame Meg Hillier (Hackney South and Shoreditch) (Lab/Co-op)]

A recent Public Accounts Committee report on net zero highlighted the real challenge of getting consumers onboard. Going net zero and embracing low- carbon technologies cannot be a preserve of the wealthiest and there needs to be much more work by Government. What are the Government doing to ensure that consumers are supported to make green choices?

[Greg Hands]

The hon. Lady raises some very good points. I am looking forward to appearing before the House of Lords Committee on this very topic on Thursday. I am sure that her Committee has done important work on this. We want to make this process as affordable as possible for people. That is why we have introduced the boiler upgrade scheme. That is why we are spending £6.6 billion of public money in this Parliament on energy efficiency, making sure that those options are there and are affordable. That is one of our key aims, particularly if we are to get to 600,000 heat pumps per annum by 2028.

Energy Price Cap: Residential Buildings with Communal Heating Systems

Meg Hillier Excerpts

Wednesday 20th April 2022 Westminster Hall

[Dame Meg Hillier (Hackney South and Shoreditch) (Lab/Co-op)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the energy price cap and residential buildings with communal heating systems.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Pritchard. I should declare an interest, as I live in a leasehold flat in a block with a communal heat network. I also represent a constituency with one of the highest numbers of multiple dwelling blocks in the UK, a number of which have community heat networks.

The problem is very simple. I think I should lay that out, and then I want to lay out what I am asking the Government to do and hope to get a positive response from the Minister. Quite simply, we all know about the cost of living crunch and the increased price of energy bills, and of course the Government have put in certain measures to try to mitigate that, but constituents who live in residential buildings with communal heating systems—also known as heat networks—are not protected by the energy price cap as other energy purchasers are.

[Janet Daby (Lewisham East) (Lab)]

In my constituency there are many Barratt homes that have district heat networks and I have continually raised that issue in Westminster Hall and on the Floor of the House. Does my hon. Friend agree that it is even more important that the Government introduce regulation to put protections in place for residents where they have these heating networks, given the fuel crisis experience that the country is going through and the increases in fuel costs?

[Dame Meg Hillier]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. About half a million people, as an estimate, live in such blocks—not only new developments such as those that she has highlighted, but some older developments that would take a lot of retrofitting to get individual heating systems in place; but that is not the answer and I will come to that in a moment.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I thank the hon. Lady for securing this debate. She is right, and such bodies as Ginger Energy have highlighted that domestic customers of communal heating networks should be included within the energy price cap’s protection. The Government were committed to introducing legislation. This affects some 14,000 heat networks in Great Britain—2,000 district heat networks and 12,000 communal heat networks. Half a million customers suffering, half a million homes unheated, half a million reasons for us to take action. Does she agree?

[Dame Meg Hillier]

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. When I get to my asks of the Government, I shall be very clear, as the hon. Gentleman and the hon. Lady have highlighted, that the issue has been raised in the House before—indeed, it has been raised since 2018. I will get on to the timeline, and my question to the Government is this: we know about this, so why is it taking so long to resolve it?

The key issue is quite a simple definitional issue: the energy price cap sets a price limit on domestic supplies of electricity and gas, but not on domestic supplies of heat. So developments of the type that my hon. Friend the Member for Lewisham East (Janet Daby) referred to will often have wood-chip burners or an equivalent in the basement, or some other source of supply, and they provide heat to the home, but it is purchased for the building and then sold on to an individual. Ofgem, as we know, regulates the supply of gas and electricity but not, at present, the supply of heat. That means that while the supply of gas to a heat network is regulated, the supply of heat from the heat network to homes is not, because Ofgem classifies supplying heat to a heat network as a commercial arrangement, not domestic. But let us be clear: the end user of this is someone living in a home—a flat, an apartment—who benefits from the communal heating system, often arranged for good reason, sometimes in an attempt to provide green energy, but it has actually left individual residents, whether they are homeowners or tenants, in the lurch.

[Rushanara Ali (Bethnal Green and Bow) (Lab)]

I want to cite an example. There are many such cases in my constituency. A junior doctor who wrote to me said that her heating price went up by a staggering 400% and every day she has to pay an additional £7 a day. She wrote to me in the winter, in December, because of this policy, and up to half a million people are affected. This is not a difficult thing for the Government to address—to make sure that the regulator can encompass heating in this form so that they are protected—so I hope the Minister will address it and will have some good news for us today.

[Dame Meg Hillier]

My hon. Friend highlights another important point, which has been mentioned by other hon. Members—that of course the individual, the resident, gets a bill that is directly related to their property, to their energy use, so it is very personal, yet that is seen as a commercial supply and clearly it is not; it is about someone living in their home.

One of my constituents, based in the East Wick and Sweetwater development, has their heat supplied via a heating network from East London Energy. From April, this month, East London Energy is increasing its usage fee by 103%, and other Londoners on heat networks are reported to see price increases of over 700% in the worst cases.

The National Housing Federation, which has a lot of these properties in a portfolio of housing associations generally but represents housing associations at a national level, says that around 150,000 of the people affected are housing association residents. These are people on lower income, of course, but we also know that there is a strong correlation particularly between new tenants of social housing and the ability of a household to pay.

Peabody, a large landlord in my constituency—obviously it is also a housing association—has 172 operational heat networks across its whole portfolio, and it says that in general the price of energy has increased by over 300% since April 2021. Peabody has managed to mitigate up to a point by buying multi-year deals from its supplier. However, that is not universal and clearly it does not always help, because it depends at what point in the market the energy is bought. There are 32 of Peabody’s operational heat networks that cover over 100 homes each, so these are quite large scale. Someone could live in a development next door to a person in another development; one could benefit from the energy price cap while the other, by accident of housing allocation, bought a property with a communal heat network, not realising what the consequences would be. We would not have predicted that the energy prices would have increased so much. Nevertheless, that is the problem now.

What has been happening? In 2018 the Competition and Markets Authority conducted a study that concluded that the market should be regulated. Here we are in 2022, with energy bills having gone up in April and going up again in October—considerably. In December of last year the Government, as part of their response to the heat network’s market framework consultation, published proposals to regulate the heat network sector. It is a welcome move but it has taken a long while to get there. I am sure that the Minister is aware how pressingly urgent that is for people, particularly those on low incomes who are crippled by the extra costs they are having to pay.

The Government tell us that they are committed to introducing legislation in this Parliament, so it would be helpful if the Minister could indicate when that might be—he will get my wholehearted support if it is in the Queen’s Speech. He might get a quick win; he can sell it to the business managers in Government as something that he can get through quickly with little opposition, if he does it well. The Government also intend to appoint Ofgem as the heat network’s regulator, and they have already highlighted that Citizens Advice could be the consumer advocacy body. A lot of pieces of the jigsaw are beginning to come together, but we need to know when it is going to happen.

I am not alone in asking for regulation: the Heat Trust has called for it to happen; the Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy Committee, as part of a recent report on decarbonising energy, called for heat networks to be regulated; and crucially, it is in Ofgem’s forward programme for 2022-23. It could stretch out for quite a long time to come, but that is not fast enough for those residents who are sorely affected.

The Government need to make faster progress. In the meantime, there are a couple of things they might consider. I would be interested to know whether the Minister has considered these things, given that the Government have professed their desire to support households and insulate them against energy bills. The National Housing Federation has called on the Government to provide targeted financial support for housing associations—the 150,000 residents I mentioned earlier—that covers the expected rise in energy bills. We have had a rise in April, but there is an expected rise coming in October as well. It would be for those who are not protected by the energy price cap, to create a level playing field for residents of the same landlord who often have very different energy bills. It could be a dedicated hardship fund; there is precedent for that during the covid pandemic, when local authorities managed similar funds. Although the Public Accounts Committee has not looked into it in full, those funds had quite good assurance procedures to ensure that the money was targeted. I think some has even been returned to the Treasury—not for energy, but for other hardship. There are also existing schemes that could be extended.

All individuals have a bill that comes, so there is an easy way of attaching the cost to the household to the household’s name. There must be a creative way that the Government could look at as a stopgap while the more detailed work is done. That also highlights the constant need, which I want to reiterate again, for insulating and retrofitting homes, because some of those heat networks are in quite old buildings and it is a real issue.

All of those solutions we would like to see instantly, of course, but my simple ask for the Minister today is that some of the most vulnerable customers need support right now. Someone like me can manage. It is the people who really cannot, and who are going to have to choose between eating and heating—the extra £7 per day highlighted by my hon. Friend the Member for Bethnal Green and Bow (Rushanara Ali)—that are the real concern. I hope the Minister can give us assurance not only that this is being looked at, but that we are going to get action sooner rather than later.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Minister for Energy, Clean Growth and Climate Change (Greg Hands)]

I begin by congratulating the hon. Member for Hackney South and Shoreditch (Dame Meg Hillier) on securing this important debate. I apologise, Mr Hollobone, for having been late for the debate, which now seems some time ago. I think it is the first time, in the 17 years I have been in the House, that I have been late for a debate. It may seem a bit academic, at 8.43 pm, to apologise for being here at 5.25 pm instead of 5.24 pm, but I apologise none the less. I was a guest speaker in the Boothroyd Room for the Net Zero all-party parliamentary group, with the hon. Member for Leeds North West (Alex Sobel), but I of course apologise—as you know better than anybody, Mr Hollobone, Westminster Hall always takes precedence over APPGs.

I congratulate the hon. Member for Hackney South and Shoreditch on securing this debate. I noted that there were, I think, seven London MPs here, and all of the Back-Bench contributions were from London MPs. My own constituency, of course, is also very affected by this issue, as are other inner-city constituencies. They tend to be the places where district heating networks occur, so it is very much an issue for my constituents as well.

This Government recognise and understand the pressures people are facing with the cost of living. This is of course a deeply worrying time for many of our constituents, and for many their fuel bill is perhaps their biggest concern. We know that the war in Ukraine and the recovery from covid-19 have driven up wholesale energy prices, and no Government can control the global price of gas. UK consumers, like many others, are now feeling the effects of that in their energy bills.

Turning to some of the points raised, the hon. Member for Hackney South and Shoreditch asked if we would consider a targeted fund to help those in heat networks. She will know that the Chancellor announced an additional £500 million for the household support fund at the spring statement, which will go towards those in hardship, including heat network customers. There are other measures in place to support vulnerable bill payers.

My hon. Friend the Member for Cities of London and Westminster (Nickie Aiken) asked if we could improve the installation of meters. We introduced revisions to the Heat Network (Metering and Billing) Regulations in autumn 2020, which required a significant expansion in the heat networks required to install heat meters, with an additional 84,000 customers receiving heat meters over the following four years.

The hon. Lady also asked whether we could install a price cap on wholesale prices being used by heat networks. When we introduce new legislation, we will consider all options on price regulation. I will come back to other points raised by hon. Members.

Our energy price cap insulates millions of customers from volatile global gas prices, but I recognise that, with heat networks not being covered by the price cap, they are more exposed to those increases. That means that a significant minority of customers on networks are seeing price increases that are far in excess of price cap rises. As commercial purchasers of gas, heat networks can ordinarily purchase gas at cheaper prices than individuals, which I think one or two hon. Members drew out. I do not think it is fair to characterise heat networks as being exploitative practices. In fact, they generally render cheaper bills on average. However, without the price cap in place, when the price rises come in, if customers are used to paying a lower tariff, they are likely to be more affected. That ability, which is beneficial when prices are low, is leaving many more exposed to the current price increases, because the prices that customers were used to paying were lower.

To provide immediate support to consumers, including those served by heat networks, the Government have provided, as we know, a £9.1 billion energy bill support package. That is in addition to increases in universal credit, the warm home discount and a £200 discount on energy bills. All households in bands A to D in England will also receive a £150 rebate on their council tax, which will not have to be paid back.

[Dame Meg Hillier]

I would just point out to the Minister that, while any support on energy bills is welcome, and band A to D households are the focus, many people caught by this issue in my constituency, and I am sure in his, are living in properties in significantly higher council tax bands, but that does not mean necessarily that they are wealthy households by any means.

[Greg Hands]

Yes, the hon. Lady is absolutely right. Her constituency, and mine probably even more so, will have people in exactly that category. That is why the Government also provided £144 million in funds to local authorities to help those vulnerable customers who do not live in band A to D properties—either they live in a larger property or they do not pay council tax at all. That £144 million fund is available for local authorities to help those who do not fall into the £150 council tax rebate.

We provided a total of £1 billion funding through the household support fund, enabling local authorities to support—on top of that—the neediest households with the cost of living, and all that support will help people in the short term. Clearly, in the long term, we need to see a more sustainable regulatory system for heat networks. That is why the Government have committed to introducing legislation within this Parliament, which will see Ofgem regulate the heat network industry. With Ofgem having regulatory powers over the heat network industry, legislation will secure fair pricing for all heat network customers, as well as ensuring that heat network operators secure the best possible purchasing deals for their customers. Ofgem will also have powers to investigate and intervene when networks appear to be charging customers disproportionate prices.

Heat networks are part of the pathway to decarbonising heat. By operating at scale and, in some cases, by making use of waste heat sources, heat networks can supply heating more cheaply than individual gas boilers. The study commissioned by my Department in 2017 found that heat networks supply heating at a discount of £100 per annum on average compared with individual gas boilers—it is literally a case of economy of scale.

--- Later in debate ---

[Dame Meg Hillier]

Thank you very much, Mr Hollobone; it is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship—hours have passed between the beginning and the end of the debate.

In many respects, the Minister summed up the feeling of colleagues present. It is instructive that a lot of London MPs were present for the debate. For all the talk about levelling up and about other areas of the country being poor, the cost of living in London is very high, and those on average incomes who live in properties with energy supplied by a heat network are doubly hit by the challenges of energy prices.

I am pleased that the Minister has reiterated that the Government are going ahead with long-term change. I am keen, and will continue to push, for additional support to be provided to those consumers because of the extremely large increases in their bills. The fact that local authorities are expected to use the hardship fund to support households is an important point, because that will be an extra drain on local authority budgets in constituencies and boroughs where lots of residents live in such properties. I undertake to do some more number-crunching in my constituency.

[Matthew Pennycook]

indicated assent.

[Dame Meg Hillier]

I see that my hon. Friend is nodding. I think we will come back to the Minister on that, because that money should be distributed in a way that recognises that those households and vulnerable customers are hit hard by the additional high costs and really need support right now.

I thank the Minister and the shadow Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Southampton, Test (Dr Whitehead), for their responses, and I thank all colleagues who have been supportive, including those who were unable to attend today.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House has considered the energy price cap and residential buildings with communal heating systems.

Net Zero Strategy and Heat and Buildings Strategy

Meg Hillier Excerpts

Tuesday 19th October 2021 Commons Chamber

[Dame Meg Hillier (Hackney South and Shoreditch) (Lab/Co-op)]

Once again, we hear warm words, big headlines and big figures from the Government, but too little detail, as the Public Accounts Committee has repeatedly highlighted. So I hope the Minister will make sure that there are repeated and meaningful reports to Parliament on these figures, good or bad, so that we can keep a track on this. Will he also look at the issue of people’s behaviour? As others have highlighted, there is a challenge on not just the money but the hassle factor, for example, in greening homes that are very challenging to insulate. How is the Department looking at that? Will he commit to do so?

[Greg Hands]

The hon. Lady asks a set of very reasonable questions. First, I commend her for saying that the Government have announced big figures, because her Front-Bench colleague, the right hon. Member for Doncaster North (Edward Miliband), seemed to think they were very small figures. I agree with her that these are very, very big figures of Government money being committed.

The hon. Lady asked a reasonable question on people’s behaviour. Of course we want to make things as straightforward, simple and transparent for consumers as possible. We want people to be making the change—to be incentivised—and the Government are putting in the financial incentives. We want people to feel incentivised to make the right choices. That can be something as simple as making the scheme straightforward and easy to understand. That is where we will be moving on the replacement boiler programme, making sure that it is as easy as possible for people to understand when it starts next April.