Fuel Poverty and Energy Efficiency

Oliver Colvile Excerpts

Wednesday 16th January 2013 Commons Chamber

[Oliver Colvile (Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport) (Con)]

I should like to kick off by saying how worth while it is to hold this debate today, given that it is going to be very cold over the next few days, and probably for the rest of the winter as well. I am delighted to be able to speak from a pretty unusual position, in that I am an urban Tory. There are not many of us outside London. I am delighted that I do not have a single piece of farmland in my constituency, or very much in the way of suburbia either. There is real deprivation there, however. There is a 20-year difference in life expectancy between one end of the city and the other. The issues that we are discussing today are very important indeed.

Fuel poverty needs to be taken seriously, and at the end of the day, we are dealing with three areas. The first is energy security: can we supply enough energy for ourselves in this country? The second is the need to deal with CO₂ emissions. The third is the need to target our welfare to ensure that we are delivering it to those who desperately need it.

The previous Labour Government failed to deliver proper energy capacity. It is likely that, in the next couple of years, we will be reduced to about 4% capacity, although it has been as high as 14% in the past. We have failed as a country to deliver a proper set of energy facilities, and we now need to ensure that we include nuclear power in those facilities, although I know that some people here will not be keen on that. We also need to ensure that we have a proper amount of renewables. Devonport dockyard in my constituency is going to have a marine energy park, and I was delighted that the Minister of State, Department of Energy and Climate Change, my right hon. Friend the Member for Bexhill and Battle (Gregory Barker) was able to come down to Plymouth to announce that. It is a very positive development that will also help the growth agenda. We need to ensure that we have sufficient energy capacity.

Last year, I paid a visit to the British Antarctic Survey, which has done an enormous amount of drilling down into the ice. It has pulled out a good 800,000 years worth of ice and examined it. Its research shows that, except during the past 300 years, there have not been high levels of CO₂ emissions. The past 300 years of industrialisation have made a very big difference indeed, however. Unless we do something about all that, things are going to get much more expensive. Hon. Members will have seen on their televisions over the past couple of months that the whole of Devon and Cornwall has been under floods, as my hon. Friend the Member for Truro and Falmouth (Sarah Newton) knows. It is going to become increasingly expensive to deal with those issues.

It is also important that we target our welfare. I read a paper recently that made it clear that in 2009—this was not when we were in power, I am sorry to say—the Public Accounts Committee found that 75% of the households receiving Warm Front support would have been unlikely to fall into fuel poverty. We need to take a positive approach to that matter.

I very much welcome all that my right hon. Friend the Minister has done on the green deal, but I believe that we need to have a much more joined-up Government. A lot of people live in affordable and rented homes, and we must ensure that the new buildings that the housing associations are delivering will be compliant with our energy campaign standards and that they will be much greener. Similarly, we must ensure that the improvements being carried out to Ministry of Defence properties will be environmentally friendly. I have had a great many discussions in the past two and a half years, but I believe that this is one of the most important debates that we have had.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mrs Main]

I thank the Minister for that comment. That is why it would be ridiculous just to insist that Warm Front continues and to splash the money about until it is gone. The coalition Government have a forward-thinking plan on how to offer consumers what best suits them, including the best deal on tariffs, and how to help all families, whether or not they are technically in fuel poverty.

I hope that if nothing else comes out of the debate, we agree that we should not waste energy. Whether or not we agree on climate change, wasting energy will be ruinous for people in the future.

[Oliver Colvile]

Will my hon. Friend give way?

[Mrs Main]

Briefly, because I have given way already.

[Oliver Colvile]

There is a tendency for electricity from the national grid to be dissipated because it has to travel so far. We need to ensure that much more is available locally.

[Mrs Main]

I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention. I hope that he will forgive me if I do not explore the issue he has raised.

I pay tribute to RES in my constituency, which has developed numerous innovative ways of finding renewable energy solutions. I think that we should have a pick-and-mix arrangement—a whole basket of energy solutions. The last Government were in complete denial. When we were debating the Energy Bill, I observed on many occasions that they seemed to have no solutions. The present Government, however, are having to find a way forward.

Rather than making shrill proclamations about our taking everyone to hell in a handcart, the right hon. Member for Don Valley should welcome the fact that we are giving consumers a better choice, and that we have agreed to support the poor and the vulnerable. We work within the Government budget because, in the end, it is taxpayers’ money that is being spent. I think that this Government are forward thinking enough to find the right way forward, and to do what is right for the consumer.