Draft Energy Bill Relief Scheme and Energy Bills Discount Scheme (Amendment) Regulations 2024

Nick Timothy Excerpts

Tuesday 11th February 2025 General Committees

[Nick Timothy (West Suffolk) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under you bright and early this morning, Mr Stringer. I am pleased to respond to the draft regulations on behalf of the Opposition. Committee Members will be relieved to hear that I shall not detain them long.

It was right for the previous Conservative Government to step in during the cost of living crisis to protect families and businesses from rocketing energy bills. The supply shock from the pandemic and a major land war in Europe created a unique set of circumstances. Thanks to the previous Government, we came through the storm.

Now that the crisis has passed, it is reasonable to finish the work of winding down the energy bill relief scheme and the energy bills discount scheme. They were always intended to be temporary measures during a time of national emergency. Now we are presented with the challenge of finding our way back to recovery and a long-term path to lower energy prices.

As the current Government continue down the ideological decarbonisation route, led by the Secretary of State, we will watch carefully in order to protect the families and businesses who bear the cost of unrealistic clean energy targets. Indeed, experts expect the energy price cap to rise next month. The Manchester-based— not Aberdeen-based—head of GB Energy, Juergen Maier, says it will be

“a very long-term project”

to reduce bills by £300, which was a promise that Ministers stopped making as soon as their election campaign ended. I note that the Minister is wiser than her boss in not repeating that promise.

We support the regulations. We recognise their role in winding down the old schemes, but we remain vigilant about new policies that will surely make lives harder and more expensive because of the unattainable and self-harming decarbonisation goals that the Government are pursuing.