Off-gas Grid Households

Roger Williams Excerpts

Tuesday 16th April 2013 Westminster Hall

[Mr Weir]

I cannot say that I have specifically addressed that issue but, to be fair to the Government, two winters ago, they introduced a regulation to amend drivers’ hours, to enable tanker drivers to deliver during the worst of the winter. In spite of that, in my constituency it was impossible for tankers to get up many of the roads because they were blocked with snow. I had constituents who had no gas over that Christmas. The problem is exacerbated by the fact that some suppliers place a meter in the tank, and unless the remote reading shows that the gas is at a certain level they will not deliver because they do not consider it an emergency.

[Roger Williams (Brecon and Radnorshire) (LD)]

The hon. Gentleman raises an issue that was very evident in my constituency during that time. The remote sensing meant that the supplier would not deliver unless the gas got down to a specific volume. Some people, for instance those suffering from cancer, were so afraid that they would be without heat that they were caused considerable anxiety and concern.

[Mr Weir]

The hon. Gentleman makes an excellent point. All these issues need to be addressed.

When I debated the issue with the Minister of State, Department for Work and Pensions, the hon. Member for Thornbury and Yate (Steve Webb),in this Chamber, I indicated that some of the larger firms were interested, at least in discussing possible ways to address some of the issues, and I understand that there have been discussions between Ministers. When the Energy Bill was in Committee, the then Minister of State, Department of Energy and Climate Change, the right hon. Member for South Holland and The Deepings (Mr Hayes), agreed that the Department for Work and Pensions would be included in such discussions. I understand that a round table is due to take place next month, and I would be interested to hear from the Minister on whether he feels any progress has been made.

Although the price of fuel rises, often substantially, as winter approaches, some suppliers offer a fixed price, but one that is much higher than in summer, and my Bill suggested ways in which we might tackle the problem. Winter fuel allowances are paid as a result of regulations that specify a date by which pensioners must apply, and it is worth noting that once someone is in the system they do not have to apply in subsequent years. Clause 1 simply seeks to vary the regulations by bringing forward the qualifying date for those off the gas grid from late September to late July. Clause 2 seeks to bring forward the payment date to no later than 30 September to allow them to take advantage of buying a complete tank of gas before winter.

It seems to me that the real problem—it is not unique to this Government; to be scrupulously fair, it happened under the previous Labour Government as well, and I discussed it with the then Minister with responsibility for energy—is that the Department simply tells Ministers that such changes are too difficult and too expensive, neither of which bears scrutiny. I have already suggested that, if the Government have real problems with an earlier date, we might keep the September date and simply allow payment to off-gas grid consumers at an earlier date from the second year. That would get round many of the problems, none of which seems to me to be insurmountable.

As we gallop towards Prorogation, I fear that time has run out for my Bill in this Session. I recall, however, that when Ted Heath was Prime Minister, he wanted to bring in the pensioners’ Christmas bonus, but was consistently told by his advisers that it would be too difficult or expensive, so he simply went on television and announced its introduction, and the Department suddenly found a way to do it. Perhaps it is time for similar ministerial militancy from the Minister to tackle the problem. To encourage him, I have tabled a new clause to the Energy Bill that would insert the main provisions of my Bill, and I ask all Members who are interested in the issue to sign it. Let us have another go at the Minister before our constituents have to suffer another winter of massively increasing fuel prices and an inability to get oil because of the weather.

[Roger Williams (Brecon and Radnorshire) (LD)]

I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Truro and Falmouth (Sarah Newton) for securing this debate. As the hon. Member for Angus (Mr Weir) said, it has been oft-repeated. It is none the worse for that, but progress is pitifully slow. I am sure that constituents throughout the UK who are represented by hon. Members across this Chamber must feel that their cause has not been addressed by this Government or, indeed, by previous ones.

I want to raise several issues, on the first of which some progress has been made. My predecessor, Richard Livsey, pressed the Office of Fair Trading to conduct an inquiry into the supply of LPG for many years, but I was the Member for Brecon and Radnorshire when that inquiry was completed and a report made. It gave customers greater flexibility in being able to compare prices from various suppliers. Until then, they had to change the bulk tank when they changed suppliers, and the complexity and expense of doing so meant that changing suppliers was very difficult.

There have been incredibly good examples of communities coming together to form purchaser groups that can negotiate more strongly with suppliers. Certainly, the little community of Llanspyddid in my constituency has achieved that, although again—we have heard this message from hon. Members—the tariffs proposed by suppliers were so complicated that it was difficult for consumers to come to a conclusion and they needed help to evaluate suppliers’ proposals. That is nevertheless a good example of how the consumer can be more powerful in the market, given the right conditions.

I say to the Minister that those people need support to get groups together. A document has been produced on good practice for consumer groups in the energy market, but the Department of Energy and Climate Change could certainly do more to ensure that LPG consumers know that they can have competitive tenders from different suppliers. I often talk to LPG consumers who still do not understand what can be done, and there should certainly be a public information campaign to enable people to benefit more from that.

[Sarah Newton]

This topic is very important. In Cornwall, a huge amount of work has certainly been done, with some financial help from the Government, to set up such buyer co-operatives. They have been successful, but there are limits to their success, because of fundamental issues in the market. If there are only one or two suppliers, people can get a discount, but it will be about 10%, and we have heard about the huge disparity between on-grid and off-grid. Such help is welcome and a step in the right direction—of course, 10% is still a decent saving—but it will not really tackle the underlying market issues.

[Roger Williams]

My hon. Friend makes a good point. However we cut the cake, heating a property with LPG is almost twice as expensive as doing so with mains gas. I am sure that consumer groups can achieve a 10% reduction, which is valuable.

My hon. Friend leads me on to say—this point was also made by the hon. Member for Angus—that although off-grid energy consumers often live in very isolated properties, sometimes their communities have never been connected to the gas mains for some reason or another. Certainly in my constituency, old coal-mining communities where there used to be deliveries of free coal to miners or their widows seem to have been left off the mains grid. As I understand it—the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) will correct me if I am wrong—the number of people off-grid in Northern Ireland is much higher than in the rest of the country. Yet, work is going on there to get more people on to the gas mains, which will give them huge savings on their energy consumption.

Whenever I have tried to inquire about getting communities such as Llangynidr and Abercraf on to the mains supply, the cost—as the hon. Member for Angus said—was so enormous that taking that forward was impossible. There is not just the cost of the infrastructure, but people have to be made to commit to taking mains gas, which is a question not only of putting in a connection, but often of having appliances changed for mains gas. In the old mining communities in my constituency, some people are particularly vulnerable and certainly do not have the spare cash to make that type of investment in their properties. I believe that the Government should have some system for making mains connection more affordable for communities, because at one stroke that would make a great impact on fuel poverty. I am not sure what the arrangements are in Northern Ireland, but I would be pleased, perhaps after this debate, to talk about that with the hon. Member for Strangford.

[Mr Russell Brown (Dumfries and Galloway) (Lab)]

I do not think that any of us denies that it would be good to get more and more people on to the grid. However, does the hon. Gentleman see any dangers in that for those still left off-grid, with the potential for volatile pricing and many of the problems highlighted in the all-party group’s report?

[Roger Williams]

The hon. Gentleman makes a good point, but there will always be people left off-grid. We will not reach a situation in which everyone is on mains gas. Where there is an opportunity to take a larger step forward in access to the mains supply, we should look at ways to achieve that because, as I have said, it would make a huge difference to fuel poverty in such communities.

To conclude, we are told that the green deal will make a huge difference to the heating efficiency of homes, and I have already seen that in my constituency. None the less, the person who lives in an off-grid property might be at a disadvantage, because the golden rule of the green deal, which is that the savings will be paid for by the reduction in the energy demand, will be harder to meet. It has already been said that off-grid properties tend to be old and difficult to insulate. Will the Minister tell us how the green deal will be made available to people who live in such homes and what will be done to address their needs?

--- Later in debate ---

[Hywel Williams (Arfon) (PC)]

I congratulate the hon. Member for Truro and Falmouth (Sarah Newton) on securing the debate and the all-party group on the off-gas grid on its report. I commend the solutions that the group recommends.

I will not restate many of the statistics that have already been presented this morning, but I will make just a few points. Four million UK households are off the mains gas grid and they use a range of other fuels to heat their homes, including heating oil; gas, as we have heard; mains electricity; and microgeneration. However, they also use solid fuel—coal and wood—and that is a particular issue in constituencies that were previously coal mining areas. Also, there are some rural non-coal-mining areas in my constituency; the point about non-mining areas has already been noted by the hon. Member for Brecon and Radnorshire (Roger Williams).

We know that the cost of using heating oil is substantially higher than the cost of using mains gas—about half as much again as the cost of using mains gas—and the cost of using LPG is about twice as great. However, in my area there is limited opportunity for consumers to switch their fuel source, an issue referred to by my hon. Friend the Member for Angus (Mr Weir). I have heard over a number of years that there are continuing suspicions of what are, in effect, local monopolies, with large companies presenting themselves locally with local names, for example. I do not know if that continues to be a problem, but it certainly has been in the past. There is, therefore, also a difficulty in substituting one supplier for another.

Reference has already been made to the difficulty of adopting some of the solutions that have been recommended by the Government, such as getting better insulation. In my constituency, houses typically are of rubble construction and a large proportion of them are pre-1919. The possibility of insulating those houses more effectively is limited, to say the very least.

Throughout the UK, 42% of rural households are not connected to the mains gas, compared with 8% of households in urban areas, but I think that the percentage of such houses in some parts of rural parts of Wales is much higher. From my experience of living on the Llyn peninsula, which is isolated from the mains in some areas, I know that the percentage is very much higher, which has a specific consequence for those communities, some of which are particularly deprived in the first place.

Rural households rely more heavily on oil and LPG to heat their homes, but there are difficulties in using oil and LPG. I have referred to the problems that I experienced during the particularly hard weather recently. I have a group of pensioners, all of whom depend on LPG and live in an extremely rural area. The lorries carrying the fuel could not get up there. I made inquiries about whether the gas supply was part of emergency planning, and clearly it was not in any real sense, although the local authority acted very promptly, and I might even use the word “heroically”, in getting gas supplies to those people around Christmas time. However, much more attention should be paid to that specific issue.

We have already discussed the fuel poverty that arises from the issue of off-grid gas. We know that fuel poverty leads to ill health. I also looked at the statistics. Cardiovascular diseases and respiratory diseases, such as asthma, are exacerbated in cold, damp and poorly ventilated homes. Again, that is a particular issue in former coal mining areas, where a number of people still suffer from the effects of their involvement in the coal industry. Also, in my area, similar effects arise from people’s involvement with the slate industry.

I will put before the House a case that I came across last Friday. The accepted definition of fuel poverty is

“a household which spends more than 10 per cent of its income on all fuel use and to heat its home to an adequate standard of warmth”,

which is the definition used by the Department of Energy and Climate Change. I came across a case last Friday. A gentleman came to see me who was on benefits; I think he gets about £72.40. By the way, he was very precise about the amount of money he gets—down to the penny, almost—because people on very low incomes have to be. Out of his £72.40, he was considering buying two bottles of LPG, which he thought would cost him around £40. Spending that £40 was going to destroy his finances for that particular week, but he was confident that he could manage, because he had been managing in this way for years. I went through his finances with him very briefly and I asked him in passing, “I don’t think you have allowed there for the cost of a TV or a TV licence,” and he said, “Oh, the TV’s gone years ago,” and that was the way he was coping. I must admit that I scarcely watch TV, but this issue is about being able to take part in society in the way that everyone else does.

[Roger Williams]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Hywel Williams]

I hope that the hon. Gentleman will forgive me for not giving way, as time is rather short.

You would not want me to wander off the point, Mr Crausby, but may I note that I saw that particular gentleman because he is also going to be paying the bedroom tax at £18.40? I have no idea how he will do that on £72.40, with bedroom tax at £18.40 and buying LPG at £40 a shot. He has no savings, no job and very little possibility of moving.

I will press on to say, very briefly, that households that use oil or LPG as their main source of heating are more likely to use secondary heating than are other homes. In Wales, 85% of heating oil consumers use fuels for secondary heating and most frequently use solid fuel—that is, they use oil, but they also use coal, or some use wood. Only 23% of consumers in Wales with mains gas heating use other fuels for secondary heating, so mains gas is not an answer.

Lastly, I refer to the Bill introduced by my hon. Friend the Member for Angus and commend it yet again. It would allow pensioners to be given the winter fuel payment earlier in the year. I would like to see that extended to solid fuel. My hon. Friend’s Bill was deliberately restricted in scope to increase its chances of being passed, which I hope it is. Again, I press the Minister and the Government to give it proper consideration.

On 16 January, I asked the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change whether the Government could make winter fuel payments earlier, so that people would get more value, or more “bang for the buck” as it were. Interestingly, the Secretary of State said:

“My Department has been encouraging people in many parts of the country who are off grid to buy early, because they can get much better deals than if they leave it until later.”

That is precisely the point that I was making. He then said:

“Although the extra payments are welcome to those who get them, they are not received by everybody. They do not address the fundamental problem of homes and appliances that waste energy and money.”—[Official Report, 16 January 2013; Vol. 556, c. 950.]

Well, “hear, hear” I say—that is a very fine point—but I would not want the Secretary of State or the Minister to use their not being able to do something fundamental as an excuse to do nothing at all.