Oral Answers to Questions

Rebecca Long Bailey Excerpts

Tuesday 12th September 2017 Commons Chamber

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

Social care providers play a vital role in supporting some of the most vulnerable people in our society, but workers in that sector should be paid fairly for the important work they do. The Government are working closely with providers and worker representatives to estimate the scale of any back-pay liabilities for sleep-in shifts, and we have temporarily suspended HMRC enforcement action while that work continues, and it is continuing as a matter of urgency.

[Rebecca Long Bailey (Salford and Eccles) (Lab)]

On 27 June, the Secretary of State failed to confirm to me that he would legislate for a price cap to deliver to 17 million customers the £100 saving promised by the Prime Minister if Ofgem did not propose such a cap. On 3 July, Ofgem announced its plans, which fall short of the Prime Minister’s promise, and later stated that a cap is really a matter for Government legislation. I ask again, will the Government now legislate for a price cap to deliver the Prime Minister’s promise?

[Greg Clark]

The hon. Lady is misinformed; Ofgem has not responded formally to my request, and it should act on the evidence presented to it, using its powers. The ball is in its court, and I expect Ofgem to do its job and stand up for consumers.

[Rebecca Long Bailey]

I am saddened that the Secretary of State is non-committal, because at the same time as we have rising prices, power distributors recently made an average yearly post-tax profit of 32%, paying out share dividends of £5.1 billion. For water, the situation is even worse, as over the past decade companies have made £18.8 billion in profits, paying out £18.1 billion of that as dividends, with Macquarie paying £1.6 billion in dividends alone, while Thames Water incurred £10.6 billion of debt, ran up a £260 million pensions deficit and paid no UK corporation tax. So I ask him: what are the Government’s plans to reform our broken utilities markets?

[Greg Clark]

On the specific point of retail energy markets, a two-year investigation has been carried out by the CMA, and it is now for Ofgem to respond. I hope it will respond and eradicate that deficit; that is the test that Ofgem faces. We have made it clear that we will rule nothing out if it falls short, but I do not want to remove the obligation on it to respond in that way. I hope that the hon. Lady will welcome our intention to publish a consumer Green Paper and that she will contribute to it. This will look across the board—across other utilities as well—to see whether the existing regulatory arrangements are sufficient.