No.
I am not the first Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change to be confronted with the problem of wholesale and retail energy prices—the possibility of a rocket and feather consumer energy price rip-off. As Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, the right hon. Member for Doncaster North (Edward Miliband), the Leader of the Opposition, presided over a period in which wholesale prices crashed and retail prices did not. When he did my job, between September 2008 and January 2010, wholesale prices actually fell faster than the figures set out in the Opposition’s motion. Wholesale electricity prices on the day-ahead market fell not by the 23% mentioned in the motion but by 62.5%. Under the Leader of the Opposition, wholesale gas prices to businesses fell not by 38% but by 43%. A big driver of those falls was, of course, the massive recession, and they went on so long that, eventually, retail prices for consumers fell—but only by a bit: electricity by 7.5%, not the 62.5% fall in wholesale prices enjoyed by the energy firms, and gas by 5.6%, not the wholesale fall of 43%.
The energy prices rocket and feather phenomenon is, therefore, not new. I thought it would be worth finding out what lessons we have to learn from my predecessor, the leader of the Labour party. What did he do when he had the power? He called a summit—a summit. He reported back to this House on what action he had taken:
“I impressed upon the companies the need for retail energy prices to reflect changes in wholesale prices as soon as possible.”
He “impressed upon” them that retail prices should reflect wholesale prices “as soon as possible”. It just never happened. But, to be fair, he went further, in standing up to the energy companies. He told the House that
“The Government and the industry are agreed on the need to bring down retail gas and electricity prices.”—[Official Report, 18 November 2008; Vol. 483, c. 14WS.]
It was “agreed”; it just never happened—it never reflected wholesale prices. Perhaps that was because, a month later, the Labour leader backed down. He said—fiercely, no doubt, and the right hon. Lady should listen to this—
“We have recently seen big falls in wholesale gas and electricity prices, but I understand that because energy companies tend to buy in advance they won't be passed on immediately.”
It sounds as though he was more impressed upon than impressive.