May I start by asking the Secretary of State a very simple question: does he accept that the sum total of everything he said in his statement today, which includes spending £600 million of taxpayers’ money and weakening the obligation on energy companies to deliver energy efficiency, is that the energy companies will still be allowed to put up people’s bills this winter? Does he really think that is a good deal for consumers?
The Secretary of State claimed that today’s announcement would lead to a £50 reduction in people’s bills. To be clear, will he confirm that if the average increase in energy bills this winter is £120, even if the companies do pass on the reductions from the cut in levies, the average household bill will actually be £70 higher than last winter? As I understand it, one supplier has
announced that it will wait until March before passing on any price reduction, and another has made no commitment at all on reducing bills. What powers, if any, does the Secretary of State have to ensure that this reduction is passed on fully and immediately?
The Secretary of State will know that for the past two years we have said that the energy company obligation is bureaucratic, inefficient and poorly targeted. The scheme was designed and implemented under his Government. Indeed, the Prime Minister boasted in the House on 23 January that it was “bigger and better” than the schemes that had gone before it. When did the Secretary of State decide that the scheme needed to be cut? Was it this weekend? Could that explain why an impact assessment will not be published until next year? Will he also tell us how many fewer households will receive energy efficiency measures this year and next year than was originally planned under the scheme?
The Secretary of State wants to talk about the total number of households that will be helped, but if the scheme was meant to run for two years and will now run for four, does not that mean that half as many people will receive help in each year? Will he also tell us what discussions he has had with the insulation industry about the effect of this announcement, and what assessment he has made of any potential job losses in that industry?
As for the warm home discount, will the Secretary of State confirm that all he has actually done is move the cost from people’s bills to their taxes? Evidence that we published last month, and in our Green Paper last week, showed that increases in wholesale costs—which the Secretary State blamed in his statement for rising bills—cannot explain the price rises we have seen in the past two years, and neither can increases in network charges and policy costs.
Last month, the Secretary of State appeared to agree with our criticism of the way in which the energy companies had put up their prices, when he said that they were treating their customers like “cash cows”. In the light of that, will he confirm that there was not a single measure in the package that he announced today that will cost the energy companies a single penny? Hundreds of millions of pounds of taxpayers’ money is being spent, the energy companies are helping fewer households with energy efficiency, and people’s bills will still be higher this winter than last, yet the energy companies are still allowed to carry on overcharging people. Whatever the Secretary of State says today, if we genuinely want to get people’s bills down, nothing less than a price freeze and action to stop the energy companies overcharging will do.