Queen’s Speech

My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Broers, who was the chairman of the Science and Technology Committee when I joined it. I got used to hearing his wise words, and this evening he had much to say that was provocative and thoughtful. It is also a pleasure to follow one of my former constituents, the noble Earl, Lord Mar and Kellie, who displayed the Ian Allan-type knowledge of the railway system that a lot of us knew he possessed. As a former constituency Member of Parliament, I was never very sure before he came to this place whether he was just one of my constituents or one of my voters, because the Liberals never got much support in that area. Although he talks the separatist talk, I never thought that he went so far as walking the walk on election day, but I pay tribute to the efforts that he made, along with many of us, to ensure that the Alloa-Stirling line was reopened. That is all I am going to say about transport today. This Queen’s Speech has been accused by a number of detractors as being opportunistic and electioneering. Of course, in an election year, or within six months of a general election, no Government would be responsible if they did not do that because one of their purposes is obviously to be re-elected. Indeed, we may take comfort from the opinion poll in last Sunday’s Observer, which certainly suggested that the election is not yet a done deal. I think that in the coming weeks and months we will begin to see the credit for much of what the Government are doing to put the energy issue and the economy into key positions, and by the May or June election we may not have quite the foregone conclusion that some people would have us believe to be the case. There was reference in the Queen’s Speech to carbon capture and storage, and I should like to spend a moment on this because we devoted some time to it during the Committee stage of the Energy Bill. At that time, we were considering the competition arrangements—that is, whether we should have one competition or three—and various matters of that nature. I think that the Government have now come to recognise that there are not only one or two opportunities of a commercial character in carbon capture and storage but in fact tremendous opportunities, and not just in the United Kingdom. Given that India and China will be the increasingly major consumers of coal, there will be a market there for various forms of CCS technology. However, CCS technology is not a silver bullet and will not be achieved in the immediate short term. None of the companies committed to the development of CCS has been able to suggest that they will be able to offer whatever technology they have as a commercially attractive proposition before 2023. To put it very simply, you will not be able to buy a commercial carbon capture and storage facility capable of being bolted on to a 400-megawatt turbine, which is the standard component in most coal-fired power stations. The Longannett power station, which is well known to the noble Lord, Lord Tombs, and me, has 2,400 megawatts of capacity. Capturing the carbon from that station will involve four, five or even six carbon capture facilities—one for each of the turbines. Not only will that be extremely expensive but it will diminish the thermal efficiency of the plant because these facilities are run on electricity, as we have found with the current flue gas desulphurisation facility there. Therefore, CCS is no silver bullet and will not come about quickly, and even when it does come, it will result in the price of electricity going even higher. For that reason, among others, I welcomed the proposal in the Queen’s Speech for legislation for proper social tariffs within the new price framework, and I welcome the Energy Bill, which has now had its First Reading. If we are to see investment in capital, in gas storage facilities and in new forms of electricity generation, then it will be necessary to protect the poorer and disadvantaged consumer in ways that we have not been able to do hitherto. We know that, as a consequence of the agreement between the Government and the energy utilities, there has been an increase in support for vulnerable consumers, and that is to be welcomed. This agreement is of a short-term character and will expire by 2011, and it is because of that that the Government are introducing this scheme. It is also the case that they will be able to do so because for the first time we will not have the constraints on personal data that were present hitherto. We will now see DWP data being made available to assist those groups—in particular pensioners over 70 on pension credit. If I have a qualification on my support for this proposal, it is simply because it is unduly modest. The Government will have at their elbow data on winter fuel payments. The data show that something in the region 4.1 million households are in receipt of winter fuel payments, 2.7 million of which are in the category of receiving pension credits because they are over 70. About 1.4 million householders are either chronically sick or on certain forms of social security taxation credit; or, in the case of families with children under five, in receipt of credits. These groupings should be considered as being part of the vulnerable and needy element of consumers who are currently in fuel poverty. We know that when fuel poverty was falling it was because the price of energy was reducing. We know that a number of households are still hard to heat and we also know that a number of households are simply poor because they do not work, are chronically sick or have a number of children who require care and are identified by the social security system as being in need of financial support. Given that these families are part of the social security data which are available, it would be unfair not to consider them. If the Government are lacking in anything in this area they are lacking in boldness. They have gone a great way in grasping several of the nettles that have beset them in this area, but I feel that they could go further. Were they to do so, they would get the kind of credit that they deserve but which they do not always get for the work that they have tried to do to pull people out of poverty. Fuel poverty is one of the most frustrating forms of poverty because it can overtake people so quickly. If houses are not heated either because of their structure or because of householders’ inability to pay the bills, sure as night follows day the people who live in these houses are more susceptible to illness, more susceptible to absence from work, and more likely to be frightened to turn on the heating thinking that it would be too expensive to do so. We correctly identify pensioners over 70 who are disadvantaged as being vulnerable and deserving of assistance, but there are other groups. The Government have evidence. They have created precedents and it would be a great shame if they were not to do this. I realise that this is almost a Second Reading or even a Committee stage speech, but on such an issue we are still at the stage when the criteria are open for discussion and debate. When a statutory instrument will ensue, let us try to get this on the agenda now and try to ensure that the hard-faced men at the Treasury are made to understand that the people who will be paying for this, sadly, will be the consumers. At the moment the cost of this increase would be something of the order of 29p per week—15 quid a year, I am told. We should set that alongside the £84 that is being paid for the environmental schemes and subsidies that go to quite often deserving causes. But, frankly, I think that renewable companies are not quite as badly off as the people whose plight I have been describing. It would be a relatively small cost to the domestic consumers of gas and electricity in this country if we could help families to the tune of £80 to £100. That is the figure we are talking about for supporting pensioners in the scheme. Something should be done and it would not take a lot of effort. It should be put on the agenda and, with a bit of boldness from the Government, we could help a lot of vulnerable people, something of the order of 1.4 million households who at present have been cast aside in the pursuit of what is a desirable but oversimplistic solution.