Energy Prices

Debate between Nick Smith and John Robertson

Wednesday 19th October 2011 Commons Chamber

[John Robertson (Glasgow North West) (Lab)]

I will try not to use the whole 12 minutes available, as in many ways my contribution will be a repeat of a speech I gave in an Adjournment debate not long ago. I have listened intently to all Members who have spoken, particularly the hon. Member for East Antrim (Sammy Wilson), who said that he wanted honesty in the debate. Having heard history being reinvented and regurgitated so many times by Members on both sides of the House, I think that honesty is sometimes the first thing that goes out of the window.

I declare an interest as chair of the all-party group on nuclear energy. Interestingly, Labour Members used to raise the issue of nuclear energy much more often than the then Opposition, who ran away and hid every time the word “nuclear” came up. I am sure that the hon. Member for Angus (Mr Weir) will say, “And I wish it had just stayed that way.”

I can tell the Secretary of State, who unsurprisingly is not in his place, that doing nothing and giving up on things is just not an option for people. My predecessor in representing my constituency, the late Donald Dewar, once said:

“Cynicism, together with unrealistic expectation, are the two great bugbears of politics.”

Those words were ringing in my ears when I heard about the energy summit at Downing street. The cynicism is to think that there is nothing we can do to regulate prices, and the unrealistic expectation is the Secretary of State’s thought that asking those in fuel poverty to use less energy is a solution to the situation; it obviously is not.

The average household has seen energy costs rise by about £300 in the past year, and Ofgem announced last week that the profit margin for energy companies has risen to £125 per customer, from £15 in June. With 13,500 pensioner households in my constituency alone—it has one of the highest concentrations of pensioners in Europe—and with the highest number of single women pensioners in the entire country, according to the Library, Members will understand why this issue is of grave importance to me as a local MP, and why I raise it today as I have on other occasions. As Members can imagine, my constituency surgeries are currently dominated by this issue.

According to official figures, 65% of single pensioner households and about half of small pensioner households in Scotland were classified as poor in 2009, making them more likely than any other type of household to be affected by rising energy prices.

When I was first elected in 2000, four out of five single pensioner households in Scotland lived on an annual income of £15,000 or less; today that figure is 60%— admittedly lower than the percentage when I was elected, but the level is still unacceptable. According to Scottish Government figures, almost one quarter of single pensioner households and one fifth of smaller pensioner households in Scotland are deemed to be in extreme fuel poverty, which means that they spend more than 20% of their disposable income on heating their homes. In addition, in Scotland 8% of pensioners live in absolute poverty and one in 10 over-65s are classified as materially deprived. Members will therefore understand why I keep telling people that we are on the verge of a fuel poverty crisis.

What causes fuel poverty? There are three root causes: low incomes, poor housing and, most of all, high energy prices.

[Nick Smith (Blaenau Gwent) (Lab)]

My constituency is 1,200 feet above sea level, its winters can be bitter, and the latest figures show that it has 40 excess winter deaths every year. Does my hon. Friend agree that the Government have failed to stop the super-profits of some energy companies, and do not have a coherent plan to help families with their fuel bills this year?

[John Robertson]

I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention, and I will come on to the points that he makes, but to answer his last point, I sometimes wonder whether the Government are helping the energy companies make those obscene profits, rather than stopping them.