Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Michelle Donelan and Claire Perry

Tuesday 17th July 2018 Commons Chamber

[Claire Perry]

My understanding is that there have always been differentials for different age groups. We will continue to review this because we are the party that nationally—right across the UK—wants to make sure that productivity and wages increase, rather than using the rhetoric we hear from other Members.

[Michelle Donelan (Chippenham) (Con)]

7. What steps his Department has taken to tackle the challenges set out in the industrial strategy.

[Julian Sturdy (York Outer) (Con)]

13. What steps his Department has taken to tackle the challenges set out in the industrial strategy.

[The Minister for Energy and Clean Growth (Claire Perry)]

Blimey, Mr Speaker, I am getting through them today.

As my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State laid out at the northern powerhouse business summit, the industrial strategy is encouraging innovation across the UK, developing those high-quality jobs and wages we all campaign for. Sector deals are about building long-term partnerships and businesses, and the grand challenges in areas such as clean growth will equip the UK to seize opportunities and be a world leader in the industries of the future.

[Michelle Donelan]

One of the biggest challenges we face is the STEM skills gap, something that I repeatedly mention in this place, given that Wiltshire is a hub of engineering design and technology. What work is my right hon. Friend doing with the Department for Education to ensure that we are developing the skills needed by businesses?

[Claire Perry]

I thank my hon. Friend and neighbour for the work that she has successfully done in her constituency promoting the importance of STEM skills. We are working with the Department for Education to grow STEM skills in the UK through initiatives such as T-levels, by investing more than £400 million, and I am particularly keen that that work focuses on harnessing the huge potential of women, a group who are very under-represented in the sector. That is why initiatives such as POWERful Women are so important.

Domestic Gas and Electricity (Tariff Cap) Bill (First sitting)

Debate between Michelle Donelan and Claire Perry

Committee Debate: 1st sitting: House of Commons
Tuesday 13th March 2018 Public Bill Committees

[Claire Perry]

Q Thank you. Mr Moorey, you have not been super-supportive. Would you agree on the need for more protection for vulnerable customers?

Pete Moorey: I support everything that Rich said on the potential need for ongoing support for vulnerable consumers beyond the end of the cap as set out in the Bill. It is important, though, that we do not assume that vulnerable consumers across the board do not engage in the energy market. We know that the most vulnerable are often the savviest consumers. They have to be: they are on tight budgets and, therefore, they can be the most adept at engaging with markets. I know Peter’s organisation, National Energy Action, has done an awful lot of work with very vulnerable people to get them engaged and on to some of the best deals in the market.

Our—and, I hope, your—vision is ultimately of a market that is competitive and delivering good outcomes for consumers. That should include vulnerable consumers and the ability for those consumers to be as actively engaged in the energy market, as they are in many other markets—notwithstanding the fact that, as Rich said, there will potentially be some people who will need ongoing additional support. We would support that.

Peter Smith: There are two clear priorities that sit outside the Bill. The first would be to extend the warm home discount scheme to smaller suppliers; currently, smaller suppliers, with fewer than 250,000 customers, are not required to provide the warm home discount scheme. That means a real challenge on the doorstep in terms of encouraging households, particularly vulnerable households, to switch to the smaller suppliers. Those smaller suppliers are often able, at least on a price comparison website, to provide the cheapest deal but households do not know that they might be missing out on the warm home discount scheme.

The second element is to get on and use the data-sharing powers on which there was a recent consultation, which would enable Government to better share information about households eligible for the warm home discount scheme and could, therefore, benefit from the safeguard tariff.

Those two actions can take place regardless of this Bill. As we warned in the Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy Committee’s pre-legislative scrutiny, if we do not do those things, the cost might be that 500,000 low income and vulnerable households—many working-age—will miss out on approximately £260-worth of support this winter and next. It is an urgent priority.

Two things that can be done inside the Bill, reflecting on the previous evidence and remarks from the rest of the panel, would be to clarify in clause 2 that Ofgem should have due regard to households on the safeguard tariff. We are particularly worried that there is an assumption being baked in at this stage that the SVT-wide cap will protect exactly the same households as are protected by the safeguard tariff. That is not the case. We are also making an assumption that the relative values of those two different caps are going to be broadly the same. Again, that is not the case. We would like Ofgem to consider those two issues specifically. It is right that that is reflected in clause 2, and we support the hon. Member for Southampton, Test’s amendments that seek to achieve that outcome.

The final thing from my perspective is in relation to clause 8, where the conditions by which we remove this SVT-wide price protection need to be met. The opportunities that Dermot Nolan talked about to reflect on vulnerability within that context, particularly engagement for vulnerable consumers, are the clear priority and should be listed in the Bill to make sure that that assessment on competition is also reflecting on engagement of consumers, particularly the most vulnerable households. There would be a set of things that could be done to make that clear.

[Michelle Donelan]

I just want to follow up and build on the topic of consumers. How do you each feel this Bill will impact on the interest groups you represent? This is particularly pertinent to Which?

Pete Moorey: We represent all consumers, and the Bill may have a number of different impacts for all consumers. Clearly, for the large number of people on standard variable tariffs, it is going to mean a cut in their energy bills, which will be very welcome for them.

However, as you are probably aware, we have some concerns about the risks presented by a price cap and the impact that could have for consumers as a whole, which may well be mitigated by the measures in the Bill regarding Ofgem, ensuring that it maintains attempts to promote competition.

Nevertheless, the things that we are concerned about with the introduction of a price cap are that we do not see any softening of competition and that we do not see prices for consumers overall going up. It is likely that for some consumers we will see some price rises, as some tariffs get removed. We do not want to see a reduction in the standard of customer service, which is often deemed as being poor among the larger suppliers; the annual satisfaction survey that we do at Which? every year shows that the larger suppliers do very poorly on a whole range of metrics.

Also, we do not want to see less innovation in the market. So we do not want to see the introduction of a cap having an impact on the smart meter roll-out, or indeed on the transformation that Dermot Nolan spoke about, which we really support, around the introduction of new suppliers in the market, who may well be able to bring a transformation to energy, which is what we want to see.

I absolutely understand why the price cap is being introduced. I think the energy industry had opportunities, time and again, to stop this from happening, and they failed to react to that and to the problems that their customers were facing in the market. However, as we now introduce the cap, we have to be very mindful of those risks: the last thing we want is a price cap to come in, be removed at the end, and for us then to be left with exactly the same kind of broken market that we have now.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Michelle Donelan and Claire Perry

Thursday 30th June 2016 Commons Chamber

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport (Claire Perry)]

Millions of tourists use our railways, and we have products such as the BritRail pass to encourage this, but we want to do more. In March, the Prime Minister launched a £1 million competition to boost tourism specifically in relation to heritage and community railways, and it has been wildly successful. We had a fabulous array of bids, and we have made 17 grants to wonderful projects from Cornwall to Caledonia and from Welshpool to Warwick.

[Michelle Donelan]

Will the Minister confirm whether her Department has conducted any work into the potential economic boost from trade and tourism for Corsham, Wiltshire and the wider area of reopening Corsham railway station, and if not, will it do so?

[Claire Perry]

Even before my hon. Friend took her seat she had for a long time been a doughty campaigner for reopening the station. I thoroughly enjoyed going to see the site with her, and I know that we will have a meeting next month to continue the discussions. I understand that a feasibility study is currently being undertaken in Corsham, which I hope will reference the uplift for tourism and, indeed, some of the educational opportunities in this area. I am looking forward to seeing such references when the report is presented.