Energy Bills: Self-disconnection
Debate between Roger Gale and Graham Stuart(1 year, 10 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text
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Graham Stuart
I thank my hon. Friend for his kind words. We are absolutely focused on that, and we all have a role to play in increasing awareness of the vouchers, which are so valuable to people. We want to see more being redeemed, and the numbers are going up consistently. We have published the list of suppliers and we have already brought them together so that they can share best practice. I wanted to publish the list so that it could be seen not only by the House but by the suppliers’ chief executive officers, who I hope will talk to their teams about why they are lower down the list. If all of them, all of us in this House and everyone in the voluntary and other sectors and in local authorities do everything possible to raise awareness, we can lift the number of people who get that help, to which they are entitled.
Graham Stuart
My hon. Friend is right that identifying the location of park homes might sound relatively simple, and I hope I have made it clear that there are levels of complexity that have to be dealt with. We are doing everything possible to ensure this is done as quickly as possible. Because of council tax bills, this is the busiest time of year for the local authority staff who deal with this. We must have a system that stands up, is robust and delivers on time.
As might be expected, I pushed back in every way possible to see if we could open the portal in January, but we could not do so without risking the confidence and support of those local authorities. We will make sure that we have it in place and that we deliver it in the right way.
For months, my hon. Friend has rightly made sure that my focus has remained on this issue by reminding me of her constituents and their need for this help.