Energy and Climate Change and Environment, Food and Rural Affairs

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. His point applies particularly to young people, but huge numbers of people in this country will be interested. My postbag, like that of other hon. Members, shows that there is huge interest in the issue. Climate change is important here, for reasons that people in Cumbria may think are obvious, but it is far more important for countries such as Bangladesh and the Maldives. There are other places for which it is a life or death issue, too, so momentum is vital. We wish Ministers well, but we hope that we will hear higher targets announced before Copenhagen, as an indicator from the UK. The UK could then lead; that would be to the credit of the Government. It would unite us across Parliament and politics if the Government were bolder. The Treasury has to come along, too, but the obligation to ensure that that happens rests with Ministers. The Energy Bill effectively does two things. First, it provides for the authorisation of the development of carbon capture and storage. I shall not speak at length about that. That is, inevitably, the way that we must go. We will need coal, but it has to be clean coal. However, we need to move far more quickly. One of my frustrations is that so many of the issues have been on the agenda for as long as I have been in this place—a quarter of a century. The issues are not new, and the Government are really slow to give them any urgency. In some ways, the second issue dealt with in the Bill is the more important issue—the one that people in the country are concerned about. It is the question of whether there will be fair fuel prices in this country, something that we have not had in our lifetime. As for the call for social justice across the world that the right hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull, East made, there is still a long way to go in this country, for his constituents, mine and others. The poor and people who use less fuel still have to pay relatively more. I want to give Ministers some direct questions to answer when the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs winds up. I have looked carefully at the Bill, and understand that it will provide a statutory basis for subsidy for poorer households, once the voluntary deal finishes in a year's time. I also understand that it will change the wording of the obligations on the regulator for gas and electricity supplies. It is not clear to me whether that will guarantee that, in future, every utility company has to have a tariff that does not discriminate at all on the basis of method of payment, and whether it will guarantee that poorer households and low users will always pay at a lower rate than the people who consume more. That is the iniquity. As Ministers know, the unit cost for the low user is higher than the unit cost thereafter. All sorts of fiddles, to put it bluntly, mean that no one can work out the system, because there are 4,000 different tariffs. I should be grateful to know whether Ministers are happy to accept amendments to the Bill that will make that absolutely clear in the measure itself—not in regulations that may, or may not, deliver—so that we can ensure that those things happen.