Tessa Munt
Main Page: Tessa Munt (Liberal Democrat - Wells and Mendip Hills)
Michael Fallon
The position is that insurance payments are now coming through to the company, so the financial situation is not quite as the hon. Gentleman describes it. I want to assure him that the Government are doing everything they possibly can to safeguard the financial future of the two collieries, and to assist the company in necessary restructuring following the disastrous fire at Daw Mill earlier this year.
Tessa Munt (Wells) (LD)
Many village halls, such as the one in East Brent in my patch, have applied for Big Lottery awards for all funding to install PV solar panels and use feed-in tariffs as an invaluable source of income to make repayments on loans to complete their projects. It is a feature of the lottery that it is funded not by Government but by individuals, and that that grant funding is made completely independent of government, as is stated on its website and in its literature. Ofgem seems to have decided in February 2013 that lottery funding is—
Mr Speaker
Order. It is my ambition in this Parliament to educate the hon. Lady that the second sentence should usually end with a question mark. That is what we want.
Tessa Munt
Thank you, Mr Speaker. Ofgem has decided that this is state aid—[Laughter.]
Tessa Munt
It is, Sir. I must explain myself. Will the Secretary of State investigate Ofgem’s administration of the scheme and the lack of information provided to everybody involved, so that it reverses its decision to categorise lottery money as state aid?
Mr Davey
My hon. Friend is a doughty campaigner for her constituents in villages, helping them with community halls and so on. I am aware of this issue—it is not just grants from the lottery, but grants from elsewhere in government that prevent installation of micro-technology receiving feed-in tariffs under the Ofgem scheme. This matter has been raised by a number of hon. Members and I hope we are able to look at it in due course.