Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Nia Griffith and Lord Barker of Battle

Thursday 19th June 2014 Commons Chamber

[Gregory Barker]

I thoroughly understand my colleague’s frustration—he is a fantastic champion for his constituents. That sort of large-scale solar development on a brownfield site on an airfield is exactly the sort of large-scale solar that we want to see and support, rather than one on high-grade agricultural land. It sounds like an exemplar project.

[Nia Griffith (Llanelli) (Lab)]

Constituents are still phoning us about problems with green deal suppliers, particularly those who take the money for the survey and then do not come up with the goods in spite of numerous phone calls. This often occurs over different areas, so it is not necessarily appropriate for just one local trading standards officer to take up the matter. Will the Minister consider talking to his colleagues in the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills about having a more thorough investigation into what is happening on the ground with these companies?

[Gregory Barker]

We have an excellent relationship with the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills. We take all cases of potential mis-selling or poor practice in the green deal market extremely seriously, even though such cases are relatively infrequent. The Green Deal Oversight and Registration Body has particular responsibility for policing the market, but if the hon. Lady has specific examples of poor practice, I would be very grateful if she let me have them.

Fuel Poverty and Energy Efficiency

Debate between Nia Griffith and Lord Barker of Battle

Wednesday 16th January 2013 Commons Chamber

[Nia Griffith (Llanelli) (Lab)]

This Government are failing to tackle fuel poverty because they have not managed to tackle the energy companies and bring in the tough regulation needed to make them moderate their prices. As we have said, we would make the energy market more transparent and create a tough new energy watchdog to replace Ofgem.

I will cite just one example of why we need a much tougher watchdog. Ofgem allowed Swalec, which is now part of SSE, to double its standing charge between September 2011 and October 2012—a massive 100% increase. Since October 2012, Swalec has been charging customers a standing charge of £100 a year for their electricity and an additional £100 a year should the customer also get their gas from Swalec. Such charges just feed into the bills of my constituents. Swalec’s prices are of particular concern to people in south and west Wales, because Swalec is the traditional supplier for the area, and Wales has one of the lowest percentages of people who have switched energy company for their electricity.

That doubling of the standing charge in less than 15 months is hitting low users disproportionately hard, punishing people who are struggling to keep their bills down and who switch off appliances whenever they can. No matter how much they switch off, whether to save money or to save the planet, Swalec is taking £100 off them just to stay connected—£200 if they get gas from Swalec as well. I am sure that if these people had computers, they would be thrilled to know that the SSE site tells them that £50 per customer per fuel is profit—is that not wonderful news for them? It is an absolute kick in the teeth for loyal customers. SSE knows jolly well that many customers who have stuck with the traditional south Wales company for years are probably the least likely to switch provider. It is all very well to say that customers can shop around, but unless people have easy internet access it is impossible to compare the prices. Even where people do have that access, the process can be extremely confusing. In any case, people are wary of switching. They hear horror stories and they are worried about being caught out by some sort of penalty charges for switching, or worried about the goalposts being moved just after they have switched and finding that things have changed yet again.

As my hon. Friend the Member for Rotherham (Sarah Champion) explained, people are wary also of going on to direct debit because they are pretty well convinced that the companies take more than they should be taking, and that they will take advantage at every turn to make sure that the money is in the banks of the energy companies, rather than in the pockets of the people that they are taking it off. The energy companies tell us that that is for simplification purposes, but I am cynical about that. By increasing the standing charge, energy companies avoid the problem of having to decrease energy prices if there are fluctuations in price. They have heard that that is what people are talking about. They have heard that we, the politicians, would like to see them decrease energy prices, but if they stick the increase on the standing charge, they will not need to do that.

Energy companies have also heard that we might want them to put people on to the cheapest tariff. So what are they doing? They are raising the cheapest tariff, aren’t they? They are making energy more expensive for the lowest users. The cynic in me says that the companies have good reasons for upping the standing charge. The effect is regressive. Like any form of regressive taxation, it means that those who have the least money are proportionately punished the most.

It is right and proper that the Government’s cold weather payments should be raised when energy prices are rocketing, but they are for exceptional circumstances. For the vast majority of the UK it is not often that temperatures for an entire seven-day period average zero. It is far more likely that there are three or four days of cold weather, then a slightly milder period, then more cold weather and so on. There are fluctuations, so the number of times during the year when people will be able to claim those payments is extremely limited.

Finally, I wish to say a word about the Warm Front scheme. I am horrified to hear that £50 million is not being spent on good insulating programmes. I contrast that with the Welsh Government, who are continuing with their Arbed and Nest schemes, which they have adapted. They have looked at many different ways—

[Gregory Barker]

I can assure the hon. Lady that that is exactly what is happening. Any underspend from the Warm Front scheme is being spent on exactly the type of measures that she mentioned.

[Nia Griffith]

So are we clear, then, that that money has been ring-fenced and that it is in addition to any other planned money that was going to come into energy schemes anyway?

[Gregory Barker]

We are scaling up the proposals that we had for the community challenge in order to deliver into that programme a much greater amount of money than would otherwise have flowed.

[Nia Griffith]

I hope the Government will follow the example of the Welsh Government, who have also drawn down European money. I am sure the UK Government could do that for the areas of the UK where that might be possible. The Welsh Government have rolled out a number of programmes in their Arbed and Nest schemes, which cover a range of different types of property, particularly those that are hard to heat and those that are part of social housing, as well as properties that are privately owned.

Feed-in Tariffs

Debate between Nia Griffith and Lord Barker of Battle

Thursday 9th February 2012 Commons Chamber

[Gregory Barker]

That is absolutely right; my hon. Friend is spot on. Under the scheme we inherited from Labour, a very small number of people were enjoying bumper returns. Our improved scheme is much fairer. Under it, there will be far more deployment and at a fairer rate, which will be better news for consumers—who, as my hon. Friend rightly points out, pay for this through their bills.

[Nia Griffith (Llanelli) (Lab)]

Given the shattered consumer and business confidence following the fiasco before Christmas, has the Minister conducted any analysis of how many people will take up the FITs on a 13.6p return? I am also concerned that this new scheme might exclude a lot of people who are not in a position to have loans out for a very long time and who need to get the money back more quickly.

[Gregory Barker]

We expect to see two and a half times more installations by 2015 than under the original scheme introduced by the Leader of the Opposition when he was Energy Secretary, and we also expect that that higher level of deployment will be delivered for far less money. We therefore believe we have struck the right balance between consumers and having a higher level of ambition. Our scheme will be predictable: it will offer greater transparency, and it will offer certainty to the industry.

Feed-in Tariffs

Debate between Nia Griffith and Lord Barker of Battle

Monday 31st October 2011 Commons Chamber

[Gregory Barker]

No, I am afraid that that would deliver the most terrible uncertainty to business. It has to be clear that there is a cut-off date. We mean what we say, I am afraid.

[Nia Griffith (Llanelli) (Lab)]

The Minister is right that we cannot consider the matter in isolation. In the light of his Government’s decision to betray the good faith of all those who have invested in the solar panel industry on the basis of feed-in tariffs, how will the Government now convince any potential investors in UK manufacturing that the Government can be trusted to stick to policies that encourage manufacturing, to avoid the immeasurable damage that the lack of that investment would cause?

[Gregory Barker]

That sort of hysterical response does very little to help the industry. The fact is that the feed-in tariff scheme was set up to provide a return in the region of 5%. Now, 18 months on, we are recalibrating the scheme to provide a return in the same region. Everything else is a bubble. The hon. Lady’s constituents’ energy bills pay for the scheme, and we cannot simply waste energy bill payers’ money.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Nia Griffith and Lord Barker of Battle

Thursday 7th July 2011 Commons Chamber

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

I was delighted to meet my hon. Friend and GreenWin, which is an excellent organisation whose expertise is now radiating beyond his constituency. He is absolutely right. Many of the barriers to the green deal and take-up of energy efficiency are not just financial but involve practical measures such as clearing the loft. A community response to overcoming those barriers is often the very best way. My officials will be working to see how we can spread the expertise of GreenWin right across the country.

[Nia Griffith (Llanelli) (Lab)]

An observant constituent of mine noticed on a very sunny day that he was getting nothing back for the electricity he was generating from his solar panels. Luckily the problem—it was a grid problem—has now been resolved by Western Power. What is the Secretary of State doing to ensure that the infrastructure across the country is adequate to take on all the electricity, especially in areas where solar panels have become very popular, and to make absolutely sure that those people are able to get the feed-in tariff that they are generating?

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Nia Griffith and Lord Barker of Battle

Thursday 10th February 2011 Commons Chamber

[Gregory Barker]

I am grateful for my hon. Friend’s ongoing enthusiasm and determination to fight for geothermal energy. She has made some excellent points. The ROCs banding review will examine those issues and others to ensure that the right incentives are there to drive forward the whole green economy.

[Nia Griffith (Llanelli) (Lab)]

May I return the Secretary of State to the question from my hon. Friend the Member for Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland (Tom Blenkinsop)? Will he agree to meet a delegation from the all-party parliamentary group for the steel and metal-related industry to discuss the effects of the carbon floor pricing proposals on high energy users such as the steel and ceramics industries?

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Nia Griffith and Lord Barker of Battle

Thursday 1st July 2010 Commons Chamber

[Gregory Barker]

The hon. Gentleman makes a key point. Under the last Government, 95% of the infrastructure and turbines for one of the largest offshore wind projects was built abroad. We cannot allow that to happen, and we have a policy of marine parks to ensure that that does not happen with this nascent, potentially world-beating British technology.

[Nia Griffith (Llanelli) (Lab)]

Will the Minister reaffirm the commitment by his Government to the Severn estuary tidal project to make genuine use of the tidal power there? Can he give a progress statement on the consultation to date?

[Gregory Barker]

I understand the hon. Lady’s interest in this potentially important project. Ministers are currently considering the evidence from the two-year cross-Government Severn tidal power feasibility study with a view to deciding whether the Government can support a tidal power scheme on the Severn estuary, and if so, on what terms. I cannot say anything today, but we expect to make an announcement shortly.