UK Parliament / Open data

Energy Bill

Proceeding contribution from Lord Berkeley (Labour) in the House of Lords on Thursday, 18 July 2013. It occurred during Debate on bills and Committee proceeding on Energy Bill.

My Lords, I shall intervene briefly because I do not want to pre-empt what I am going to say in moving Amendment 53.

The noble Lord, Lord Deben, and my noble friend Lord O’Neill both hit the nail on the head when they emphasised the problems that we are facing in the market. However, whatever else we do with other amendments, it is important that we have an amendment such as Amendment 52, which puts a duty on government and regulators to promote competition and look after the interests of consumers. There is similar wording in

legislation relating to water and the railways but it is the principle on which all other negotiations and discussions are based. It may be meaningless but it is there. There have been many occasions when I have used the railway principle against a particular Government who seemed to do something stupid or something that I did not like, but it is a very important principle. Whatever we do later as we go into more detail, it is very important that we have this kind of policy right at the top to show where the Government and the regulator should be going.

Type
Proceeding contribution
Reference
747 cc343-4GC 
Session
2013-14
Chamber / Committee
House of Lords Grand Committee
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