Energy Price Support: Northern Ireland

Paul Girvan Excerpts

Wednesday 16th November 2022 Westminster Hall

[Paul Girvan (South Antrim) (DUP)]

Another big problem that we have in Northern Ireland is supply and the volume of storage. Kerosene works out around 7p a litre more expensive than in any other region of the United Kingdom.

[Stephen Farry]

I am grateful to the hon. Member for that intervention, which again highlights how the situation in Northern Ireland is different from the rest of the UK, and reinforces the importance of trying to tailor solutions to address our very particular circumstances.

It also emerged this week that the UK Government’s joint taskforce responsible for delivering the scheme into Northern Ireland has met only twice. While households across the rest of the UK are being insulated from the worst effects of the crisis, families in Northern Ireland are still waiting for this lifeline and have no clarity about when it will arrive. It is not tenable to argue that, because the money will be coming next year, Northern Ireland will not be missing out. There must be a real urgency for getting this resolved now.

Disposable incomes in Northern Ireland are being particularly eroded by rising energy costs. This represents a grave threat to the wellbeing of households. People in Northern Ireland are also being left behind in terms of their ability to access energy support and are suffering as a result. A survey by National Energy Action in Northern Ireland in June indicated that 45% of Northern Ireland households were already spending more than 10% of their total household income on energy costs. This will be even higher now. That has resulted in dangerous coping mechanisms. Some 80% of Northern Ireland homes admitted to rationing their use of central heating in an effort to reduce costs, and one in 10 households has resorted to skipping meals to ensure that they have enough money to pay for their energy.

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[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (Kevin Hollinrake)]

It is a pleasure to speak with you in the Chair, Sir Gary. I congratulate the hon. Member for North Down (Stephen Farry) on securing this very important debate, and I thank the hon. Members for Strangford (Jim Shannon), for Belfast South (Claire Hanna) and for South Antrim (Paul Girvan) for their interventions. They all made important and salient points relating to the problem in Northern Ireland.

Given the record energy prices, the Government understand the pressures being faced by households and businesses in Northern Ireland and right across the United Kingdom, and we are taking direct action to address the issue. Clearly, the crisis has been driven by Mr Putin’s illegal invasion of Ukraine, which has caused a surge in the global price of wholesale gas, leading to an unprecedented increase in the amount that households and businesses are paying for the gas, electricity and oil they use. This has compounded already high prices in economies across the globe that are recovering from the covid-19 pandemic. The effects of the price rises are being felt up and down the country, but the Government are determined to ensure that families can provide power for their homes and that businesses can power the economy.

[Paul Girvan]

While we have been sitting here, I have taken the opportunity to check on today’s oil price. In England, people can buy a litre of 28 kerosene for 85.9986 pence, but the current price in Northern Ireland is £1.0835—a difference of 22 pence. How can we address the imbalance in transporting oil from GB to Northern Ireland? We have no refinery in Northern Ireland, and no way of dealing with it.

[Kevin Hollinrake]

The hon. Gentleman makes a very good point, and I heard his comments earlier about the increased price of oil in Northern Ireland. The hon. Member for North Down spoke of the very high number of households in Northern Ireland that are off-grid, and that is extremely important. I will try to cover that point in my remarks.

The announcements made by the Government in September demonstrated our commitment to protecting UK households and businesses through the energy price guarantee, the energy bill relief scheme and the energy bills support scheme, which is the key matter under discussion. Under the plans, households, businesses and public sector organisations across Northern Ireland will be protected from significant rises in energy bills, thanks to the Government’s support. As well as outlining the support that still needs to be delivered, I will set out what the UK Government are already delivering in Northern Ireland, and what is to follow shortly.

The energy price guarantee in Northern Ireland launched on 1 November, offering equivalent support to that provided in Great Britain for domestic households. The scheme reduces the price that energy suppliers charge customers for units of gas and electricity, providing money off energy bills. Households will receive backdated support to cover October 2022 through a higher discounted rate. Through the EPG scheme, a typical household in Great Britain with both gas and electricity contracts will save around £700 this winter, based on current prices. Equivalent support will be provided for households in Northern Ireland.

Government support will also be provided for households that use alternative fuels for heating, such as heating oil or liquified petroleum gas instead of mains gas. The alternative fuel payment scheme will provide a one-off payment of £100 to ensure that all households that do not benefit through the energy price guarantee receive support for the cost of the fuel they use. The £100 payment has been calculated with reference to increases in the cost of heating oil between September 2021 and September 2022. The aim is to ensure that a typical customer using heating oil will be offered support that is broadly in line with that offered by the energy price guarantee for those using mains gas to heat their homes. However, I hear what hon. Members say, and we are monitoring the price of heating oil and other alternative fuels very closely, now and in the months ahead, to see whether further payments are required at a future point in time.

Households in Great Britain that are eligible for the payments will receive £100 credit on their electricity bills this winter. For Northern Ireland, the Government are working with electricity suppliers to explore how the payment could be delivered via electricity bills under a similar delivery model. Details of when the payment will be made will be confirmed shortly—we have heard that word a number of times from Ministers at the Dispatch Box—so I cannot give the hon. Member for North Down a firm date, but we are very keen to deliver it as quickly as possible.

Community Energy Schemes

Paul Girvan Excerpts

Tuesday 30th November 2021 Westminster Hall

[Hilary Benn (Leeds Central) (Lab)]

In view of the fact that there is a bit of time left, I thought I would say one or two things. I have come to learn about the Local Electricity Bill. I congratulate the hon. Member for Bath (Wera Hobhouse) once again on securing the debate, and thank all the Members who have supported it. To be honest, I find it a bit frustrating that people who want to do things that will contribute to helping to address the great challenge that we face, which is to change the way in which we produce and consume energy, find difficulties in their way.

I, too, look forward to listening with great interest to what the Minister has to say, because I thought the example that the hon. Member for North Devon (Selaine Saxby) gave of the £1 million and the microbrewery really made the case that it is disproportionate. I would have thought that any Government in such circumstances would be reaching out their arms to embrace those who wish to contribute to generating energy rather than allowing there to be obstacles in the way. We know that connecting to the grid is a problem even for quite large producers. There are a number of new offshore renewable projects, and when we ask how they are getting on, the answer is, “Well, there’s a problem about plugging the wire in when it comes ashore.” Of course, there are a lot of very important technical issues to do with the capacity of the grid and so on, but if we look at this historically, we will see that our energy generation system has relied for a very long time on big places making the energy—it used to be via coal, gas and nuclear—and sending that electricity down wires to all the homes in the country.

The community energy Bill is saying that there is a different model that could help us to reach our goals. I am struck when I hear colleagues talk about the success of community energy in countries such as Germany. I know nothing about the generating and distribution system in Germany, but it gives rise to the question: if they can do it there, can someone please explain to me one more time why we find it so difficult to do it here? The reason I quoted earlier the Licence Lite application figures I had sought was that they suggest to me that this is complex and difficult when we ought to be making it a lot easier.

We can envisage a future in which there are two other benefits. First, we know that getting infrastructure constructed in this country can lead to a lot of objections and difficulties. If the idea of localised nuclear generating facilities, which Rolls-Royce has been talking about, comes to pass at some time in the future, I have no doubt that there will be a lively debate, because it is a much more devolved system of manufacture and distribution of electricity. However, experience surely teaches us that if we give people a stake, they are more likely to agree to the infrastructure being constructed.

I remember from my time as the Environment Secretary hearing from a community that had put up a wind turbine. We know that onshore wind turbines are very unpopular indeed in some parts of the country. That is part of the reason why we have so much offshore wind. However, that community had no trouble getting approval from the village, because people understood the benefits that would flow from electricity generation, and they knew that the money from the feed-in tariff would go towards supporting the local community hall.

When he replies, I hope that the Minister will not only give encouragement but set out the practical steps that the Government are willing to take to make it easier for that to happen. The hon. Member for Bath says that she has requested a meeting, and I join her in that request. It would help all of us who are campaigning—I freely acknowledge that I have come late to this—to understand what the problems are. In the fight against dangerous climate change, the fight to change the way we produce, distribute and use our energy, nobody is afraid of trying to get to grips with the practical changes that are required. We want to support the Government to make the necessary changes.

[Paul Girvan (South Antrim) (DUP)]

The problem in Northern Ireland is that if everybody were to convert to electric vehicles, as we are trying to do in relation to net zero, our grid would collapse. With everyone coming home at 6 o’clock at night and plugging in, the grid would collapse. The only way to deal with that is local generation for charging networks, as has happened in some communities in Israel and America. That approach has worked and is working.

[Hilary Benn]

The hon. Gentleman raises a really interesting example, because the future will require a huge increase in renewable electricity generation, whether for heat pumps for homes, for cars or for other things. Electric vehicles are an interesting example of thinking about energy in a different way. For example, if the car arrives home and is parked up at 7 o’clock in the evening, and that is when people go indoors to put on the kettle and the TV, we could say, given that there will be loads of car batteries being used, “Between 7 and 11, part of our generating capacity will be the batteries in all those cars. We will draw them into the system, and then when we have gone to bed, hopefully at a reasonable hour, the battery can be charged up to take us to wherever we want to go the following morning.” That is such a good example of how we can think differently about energy generation and distribution, and it is a powerful argument for the Bill, which so many hon. Members are here to support.

Oral Answers to Questions

Paul Girvan Excerpts

Tuesday 15th December 2020 Commons Chamber

[Alok Sharma]

My hon. Friend raises an important point, and my right hon. Friend the Health and Social Care Secretary is working very hard to help NHS trusts return to pre-covid levels of elective care as soon as possible. I have been really quite impressed over the past months throughout this pandemic at how businesses, both within the medical field and outside, have come together to support the NHS.

[Paul Girvan (South Antrim) (DUP) [V]]

What measures can the Minister take to ensure that GB businesses do not use the Northern Ireland protocol as an excuse to refuse to do business with companies in Northern Ireland? Some are already saying that after 31 December they can no longer supply goods to those companies, and some are using the situation as an opportunity, because of the additional bureaucracy and paperwork, to increase prices.

DMB Solutions: Liquidation

Paul Girvan Excerpts

Monday 5th March 2018 Commons Chamber

[Richard Harrington]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention. I hope that I will be able to partly satisfy him with the comments that I am going to make. If not, I will be happy to meet him and the hon. Lady, representing the Greater Brighton constituencies, to take up any further points.

The insolvency regime is an important part of the framework of business, even though it has to deal with the unintended consequences of it. To put this into perspective, levels of insolvency are low, but when it does happen—particularly in consumer-facing companies such as this building company—it can have a significant impact on customers, employees and suppliers. It is an unfortunate fact of life that companies sometimes have to cease trading without paying their debts, and that when they do, creditors can often suffer, with little or no chance of receiving their money back. This is exacerbated in circumstances such as these when customers have paid for work in advance, because those people have often saved for some considerable time to have improvements made to their house, for example.

In many cases, insolvency proceedings such as liquidation will follow. These allow an expert in insolvency, who is authorised and bonded, to be appointed to oversee an orderly winding-up of the company’s affairs, to sell its assets and to make dividend payments to creditors from the funds available. It is an important principle of the insolvency regime that unsecured creditors rank equally when it comes to receiving such payments. Only certain creditors, such as employees, are paid in priority.

Hon. Members will appreciate that I cannot comment specifically on the liquidation of DMB at this early stage of the proceedings. The liquidators have an important task to carry out in winding up the company and making such reports to the creditors as are appropriate. I am aware that complaints have been made to trading standards—

[Paul Girvan (South Antrim) (DUP)]

Will the Minister give way?

[Richard Harrington]

I hope that the hon. Gentleman will bear with me. I do not want to run out of time without having tried properly to answer all the questions. If there is time left at the end, I will be delighted to give way to him.

I am aware that complaints have been made to trading standards, and we will have to wait for that authority to reach its conclusions. In the meantime, however, we are not sitting idly by. All traders are subject to consumer protection regulations which, for example, require them to provide clear and full information and allow consumers to unwind a contract if they have been the victim of a misleading commercial practice. It is right that any alleged breaches of those regulations should in the first instance be reported to trading standards.

I will set out how the regime impacts on creditors. The first thing to say is that directors who do not play by the rules can expect to be held accountable. It is a long-established principle of company law that directors must act in the best interests of their company, but once the company approaches insolvency, their first duty must be to the creditors. I note from the hon. Members’ comments that, in this case, some of the money was paid a few days before insolvency. Without speaking specifically about this firm, I can say that that is highly relevant to the possible actions open to the authorities. I will say more about that in a moment.

In the majority of company insolvencies, the law is obeyed. Once it has been established that the company cannot pay its debts, a responsible director should take steps to protect creditors, and if a solution to the problem cannot be found, the company may enter into formal insolvency proceedings.

However, not all directors are that diligent. Sometimes, they bury their heads in the sand and continue to run the company as if nothing has happened, or they try to use money owed to creditors as working capital, so that the company may continue to operate, and pay their own salaries. In those few cases, the position of creditors, such as customers who have paid for work in advance, may deteriorate, which would seem to be the case here, given what we have been told. Such directors may be subject to disqualification proceedings, which if successful will prevent them from acting as a director of a company, whether formally appointed or not, for a period of between two and 15 years.

The Government are responsible for disqualification of unfit directors via the Insolvency Service, which assesses insolvent company cases to decide whether to investigate the conduct of the directors and, where appropriate, seek disqualification orders. A person who acts as a director while disqualified is committing a criminal offence and, further, they are personally liable for any debts of a company incurred while they were breaching the disqualification.

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[Richard Harrington]

I believe that is the case, but I do not want inadvertently to mislead the House, so I will write to the hon. Lady on that subject to answer specifically and properly.

I am genuinely sorry, as anybody would be, for the hon. Lady’s constituents following this business with DMB. It is a horrible situation, but I reassure her and other Members that there will be full consideration of whether there should be further investigation of the circumstances of this insolvency. [Interruption.] I have been given a piece of paper saying that the answer to her question is, “Yes, it does.” I will write to her anyway, because I promised that I would.

I have craved your indulgence enough, Mr Speaker—I think I have one minute left—and I hope I have been able to reassure the hon. Lady that the insolvency legislation is robust in dealing with directors who abuse the principle of limited liability. If she and her Brigtonian, Hovian and Portsladian colleague, the hon. Member for Hove, would like to meet me or the relevant officials, I am happy for them to do so.

[Paul Girvan]

Is it possible for protected creditors, such as Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs in respect of VAT, to allow flexibility for those who are in most need? We are sometimes talking about the widow’s mite here.

[Richard Harrington]

That is not currently the situation. As the hon. Gentleman will know, some creditors are protected above others, such as banks with mortgages, and we have to be careful that companies can legitimately borrow money and pay their taxes.