Many people in Northern Ireland, who face the second highest fuel bills in Europe—behind only Italy—and where 42% of the population experience fuel poverty and there is very little competition in the market, will be disappointed by the Secretary of State’s response to this debate.
My natural instinct is not to intervene in markets, but Government Members’ touching faith in markets is not founded in fact. We do not have an unhampered energy market in the United Kingdom. As has been said time and again, 96% of the market is dominated by six companies—that is far higher in Northern Ireland where there are really only two companies. We have an integrated structure that does not allow competition between those who supply wholesale energy and retailers, and a complicated pricing structure that is not understood by the vast majority of consumers. Indeed, as hon. Members have pointed out, the very consumers whom we want to understand that pricing structure are those who cannot understand it or do not have the ability to switch supplier. In Northern Ireland only 2.6% of people switch companies on a year-on-year basis, and there is a need for regulation.
Of course, there is opposition to regulation, and we have had numerous references to Ofgem. Regulation already exists so let us not have a kind of purist view that we cannot have regulation. The other, rather niggling point that was made by the Minister is that if we are going to regulate, what price will it be? Will it be the spot price, the monthly price or the long-term price? We know what the problem is: over time, the price of wholesale energy falls, but that is not passed on to the consumer. A mechanism to regulate that is at least right in principle, so let us not dispense with it by niggling about which price we use.