Oral Answers to Questions

Robert Halfon Excerpts

Thursday 16th December 2010 Commons Chamber

[Charles Hendry]

We are looking at a whole range of different technologies. We are looking at the role of battery storage, hydrogen storage and pumped water storage which is already making an important contribution at Electric Mountain in Dinorwig in north Wales. We are also looking at the role that interconnectors can play, using perhaps pumped storage in countries such as Norway, to enhance our energy security. This is a way of ensuring that renewable energy can be used in such a way that it is there when the demand is there, and it will greatly enhance our energy security in the process.

[Robert Halfon (Harlow) (Con)]

17. What recent estimate he has made of the number of homes in (a) Harlow constituency and (b) England which could receive assistance from the Government's proposed green deal.

[The Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change (Chris Huhne)]

The green deal will create a completely new market mechanism for driving energy efficiency installations in buildings, incorporating an entirely new obligation on energy suppliers. All 22 million homes, and within that all 35,699 homes in my hon. Friend’s constituency of Harlow, could potentially benefit from the green deal.

[Robert Halfon]

I thank my right hon. Friend for his reply. More than 850 households in my constituency are thought to be suffering from fuel poverty, and fuel prices are rising now. Will the Minister explain what the Government are doing specifically to warm up Harlow homes this Christmas and in the years ahead?

[Chris Huhne]

As my hon. Friend knows, the discount scheme available to people is a voluntary scheme. We are bringing forward the warm home discount bonus for next year, a scheme that will be clearly underpinned by legislation. In the short run, we are putting pressure on Ofgem, as I have previously described in the House, and Ofgem is putting pressure on the suppliers, to ensure that there are not excessive margins in the industry. In the longer term, which is the key if we are to deal with fuel poverty, we have to deal with its root causes. We cannot go on applying sticking-plasters, in the form of discounts or short-term help. The only long-term solution, as we have seen from the failure of the strategy to deal with fuel poverty over the last few years, when it has risen substantially, is to deal with the root causes by improving energy efficiency in the homes of those affected.

--- Later in debate ---

[Gregory Barker]

I am very sorry to hear about the redundancies at Eaga. That is very regrettable. Eaga still has to fulfil about 70,000 jobs this winter, between now and the end of the financial year. However, we need to get more investment into the energy efficiency sector in the long term, which means opening it up to the private sector and getting in billions not hundreds of millions. The green deal is the way forward to achieve that.

[Robert Halfon (Harlow) (Con)]

T1. If he will make a statement on his departmental responsibilities.

[The Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change (Chris Huhne)]

Since the last departmental questions, we have helped to secure an agreement at the United Nations climate change conference in Cancun. We have published the Energy Bill, which includes measures to boost investment in low-carbon electricity generation, to improve energy security, and to give companies better access to upstream oil and gas. The Bill also sets out the infrastructure of how the green deal energy efficiency programme will work, with particular reference to those in fuel poverty.

[Robert Halfon]

Given that Labour Members blame us for everything, including the weather, may I ask my right hon. Friend, in his capacity as climate change Minister, if he can do anything to ensure that we have a white Christmas in Harlow?

[Chris Huhne]

There are limits to my powers. I think that the most popular legislation that this House could ever bring forward would be a short Bill requiring it to rain only between the hours of 2 o’clock and 4 o’clock in the morning. Sadly, the technological capability to deliver quite such meteorological results is not yet with us.