Energy Bills

Toby Perkins Excerpts

Monday 2nd December 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Davey]

My hon. Friend raises an interesting point. Certainly, we and, indeed, Ofgem have been looking at how we can reform the wholesale market in a way that deals with the problems. Ofgem’s suggested “secure and promote” reforms—which the Labour party appears not to have read—will ensure that we will have much greater competition in the wholesale market, which means that independent generators will be able challenge the big six and their vertically integrated model. There are, therefore, alternative models to ensure that we get competition working in the generation markets, which has not happened for far too long.

[Toby Perkins (Chesterfield) (Lab)]

More than 5,000 people in Chesterfield signed a petition urging the Government to freeze energy prices. They will be mystified as to why the Minister thinks it is a good idea to put money saved from energy bills on to the tax bill instead. In answer to the question asked by my hon. Friend the Member for Halton (Derek Twigg), the Secretary of State said that he had discussed profits and prices with the big six energy companies. Did he tell them that he thought that profits and prices were too high?