Energy Bill [ Lords ] (Seventh sitting)

Olivia Blake Excerpts

Committee stage
Thursday 8th June 2023 Public Bill Committees

[Dr Whitehead]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right: the Government did not consider that. There were discussions at the time of the earlier smart meter roll-out about radio systems that could get over precisely those problems by patching in—that is, going on the back of a good radio signal and patch in on the next radio signal, where the overwhelming radio signal is against signals operating properly. But that decision was not made at the time. It was a one-frequency signal for the south of England and phone arrangements for the north of England, with the results that we now see.

Halfway through the roll-out it was decided to change the specification of the meter itself. Because the process of changing the specification was so slow, a number of retail companies that had large stocks of the original meters continued to install the SMETS1 meters long after they should have stopped installing them—just because they had those stocks, which the new specification had not got round to replacing because of the delays in the so-called SMETS2 meters coming on to the market and being installed. Consequently, a number of meters are still not operating in smart mode, because they are either awaiting update or replacement so that they can go into the smarter system. Of the 31.3 million smart and advanced meters that are currently in homes, only 28.1 million are operating in smart mode. The roll-out is worse than it looks from the overall statistics.

What do we do about all that? The Government have put a clause in the Bill that simply says to retail companies, “Okay, we are going to give you more of the same. We are going to regulate you and give you targets”—which, by and large, the retail companies are not achieving—“and if you don’t achieve those targets we are going to fine you and whip you harder to ensure you achieve them.” Frankly, if we go on in the present direction we will get to 2028, and we do not need detailed maths to demonstrate that we will not be much further forward in the roll-out.

That is important because, in terms of the use of smart meters across the board to collect aggregate data for marking our system as a whole, we probably need about 70% penetration to get the figures right under the circumstances. We are way away from that, and we will be for a quite some time. We may well have a situation where our smart systems are racing ahead, but the means of communication on those smart systems are not, thus the smart system itself is compromised in the medium to long term.

Amendment 100 seeks to put some options in front of the Government. It states that

“the Secretary of State must produce and lay before Parliament a report setting out options for securing a guaranteed roll-out of smart meters to at least 70% of premises in all regions and nations of the United Kingdom by 2025.”

That is a reasonable target to try and aim for. Not that we would necessarily adopt this approach right now, but the amendment then states that the report must consider, among other options, different ways of rolling out smart meters for the future.

Members may push back substantially on obligatory smart meter installation. Do we transfer responsibility for the remaining smart meter roll-outs from the retail companies, perhaps to distribution network operators? That would put an end to the current system, in which literally four or five installers could go up the same street on the same day to try to install smart meters on different premises, depending on what retail company the person was with. There would instead be one body that would be installing smart meters in the various regions, and doing so in a much more systematic way. By the way, a lot of the to-ing and fro-ing that goes on when someone switches supplies to their smart meter, and how that can be transferred in an operable way, would be ended as well.

I am on record from about 2015, I think, saying that it was not a bright idea to have given the roll-out of the smart meter system to energy retailers, and that it should have been given to distribution network operators at that particular point. That is now a widespread view, and, looking back with the wisdom of Captain Hindsight, it is something that we should have considered. We can still consider it now because smart meters are not owned by the companies that install them. They pretty much all employ third parties, which actually own the meters in people’s homes, to run them. We could relatively easily —without transferring the ownership of the smart meters from those third parties—transfer the contracting agent from energy retail companies to district network operators.

The Minister is a little less advanced in years than I am, and may not remember the switchover in television lines from 405 to 625. That was basically accomplished by saying, “You can keep a 405 line television—you don’t have to have a 625 one—but it might not work in a few years’ time if you have kept your 405 TV.” The switchover was accomplished pretty much in good time, and universally. We are asking the Government for a report that considers all the different options for getting us out of the hole that we are in regarding the smart meter roll-out, to ensure that smart meters can fully play the role that we want them to play in our future low-carbon energy economy, and that we have the means to do that and can confidently come back with something better than the flog-a-sickly-horse routine in the amendment.

I hope the Minister will have a positive response to the amendment. I feel so fed up with yet again considering a Bill that just seeks more of the same that I am tempted to press it to a Division if he is unable to come substantially towards what we are saying regarding the future of smart meters. It is that important. I am trying to ensure that some Government Members go home so that we can win, but obviously it is up to the Minister how far he can come towards that view regarding the future of smart meters.

[Olivia Blake (Sheffield, Hallam) (Lab)]

The amendment is eminently sensible. I speak with the experience in my constituency before Christmas of what is now referred to as the great gas flood of Stannington. Hundreds of millions of litres of water entered the gas system, causing 3,000 properties to have water ingress, in some cases it was so harsh that water was coming through gas appliances and hitting the ceiling with force, or wrecking the whole interior of people’s properties. I mention that because almost every property involved in the crisis had to have its meter replaced. To the exasperation of some of my constituents, their smart meters had to be replaced with refurbished meters. We had issues with the second-hand meters that were put in.

I am still carrying out conversations with the energy companies because there were differences in the units of some of the meters. Some measure cubic metres and some measure cubic feet, which means that some people are getting a very good deal at the moment on their energy, because their energy company does not know that they changed the unit, and some people are getting awfully ripped off. It is very complicated, but because Cadent, which did a fantastic job during the crisis to make people’s homes safe and to ensure that the faulty gas meters were immediately replaced—I have no problem with that—did not have any agency providing smart meters, there was a missed opportunity to upgrade or keep them.

We have actually seen a decline in the number of smart meters in my constituency because of that major incident. We know that such incidents will probably become increasingly likely and with climate change there are likely to be more problems with water ingress—although hopefully not at the scale we had in my constituency, which left constituents without hot water and gas for many weeks during a very cold snap when there was snow on the ground.