I think we will just call the noble Lord, Lord Stoneham, a brave man. I would not take that lot on.
The noble Lord, Lord Hodgson, is right. We had a brief canter around this area last week on his amendments. I just want to thank the noble Baroness, Lady Oppenheim-Barnes, for focusing the Government’s attention on this. As I think the noble Lord, Lord Hodgson, said, this is a Consumer Rights Bill and this is a very basic right: to be able to have a choice about whether to have your bills on paper and to pay by cheque—without paying for the privilege.
We need to keep at the centre of our debates those customers who struggle to get paper bills, and easily accessible and understandable information. The figure of 7 million has been mentioned of people who do not have internet access. We have a lot of people who find that even reading is quite difficult, let alone trying to do it on a small handheld telephone. But as we mentioned last week, there are other people as well, not just those who do not have access to printers, but who, for example, need a domestic bill to prove their identity, as my noble friend Lord Harris of Haringey has said. But there are also carers and cared-for people, as the noble Baroness, Lady Maddock, has highlighted. There are also divorcing couples, which is the time when you have to start splitting bills; the self-employed who need to make claims; people who work away or are in hospital for a long time, who may not have access to their normal internet and can quickly lose track of what is happening.
I will take two minutes to tell you the very sad story of a friend of mine who was virtually battered to death. She was in hospital for a very long period after this. But the only way she was able to help the police find the culprit was when she woke up in hospital. The usual thing happened, her post came in. Her bills came in and she was able to see that a credit card had been used. The police could then go and see where that money had come from, and find a photograph of the culprit. I am glad to say that the attempted murderer is now well locked away. But there are all sorts of reasons why people feel secure when they are able to see that sort of data on paper.
That may be an extreme example, but people want to check on what bills have come; they want to check on who paid them; flat sharers want to be able to divvy them up; and people who have got any problems, particularly with paying bills, as we mentioned last time, where they have to work out which bill to pay when in order to make sure that nothing is cut off. They literally do this with paper. I sometimes think that those who run the utilities just do not understand how people live. Maybe they should spend a day with my noble friend Lord Clarke of Hampstead sitting in a post office and hearing about how people do things; they would learn a little more.
Finally, some companies take particular advantage of their poorer customers. On the wider issue of price, we know that energy suppliers target their lowest price at the big users and actually penalise their smaller customers for not using very much, and then go on to make it even worse by charging those very customers if they want their bills on paper.
It is great that some people can do all of this electronically, but they are likely to be younger, they are likely to be the more savvy. I wonder whether the utilities really have to make life difficult for the rest of us—who want paper bills and the use of cheques—to encourage others to take up the electronic option. People who choose to do it electronically do not do it to save £6, they do it because that fits in with their way of life. I doubt very much they need a £6 bribe, if you like, to go electronically. They may have earlier on, but now this is not the reason. It is rather an excuse for the utilities to get a bit of money out of people who want to pay by cheque rather than, any more, acting as an incentive. I hope that the Minister hears the strength of feeling. She may recall when we had the debate in the Chamber that this was the feeling across the House, and there will be a lot of support. It would be advisable for the Government to take the initiative and do this rather than have the sort of defeats that we have seen tonight in the Chamber.