Consumer Rights Bill

Debate between Baroness Maddock and Lord Berkeley

Monday 27th October 2014 Grand Committee

[Baroness Maddock (LD)]

My Lords, I support my noble friend on this, partly because during the passage of the Energy Bill—the noble Lord, Lord Whitty, was there when we did this—I managed to get the Government to accept my amendment to promote more accurate information on energy bills. In reading my noble friend’s amendment here, I would like the regulators—just as in my amendment that is now law—to “uphold” rather than “promote” in subsection (2). I would also want them to be “upholding” rather than “promoting” in subsection (3)(a), with reference to energy bills. That is something that they should make sure happens. It is part of the law. I strongly support my noble friend here. It would be very good if we could get this in other areas. We have something rather better in energy bills thanks to the Government accepting an amendment last year in the then Energy Bill.

[Lord Berkeley (Lab)]

My Lords, very briefly, I support this amendment. Subsection (2) says:

“It shall be the duty of consumer regulators to promote the rights of consumers”.

I have been looking at the duties of Ofwat, the water regulator. It says that,

“our primary duties are to: … protect the interests of consumers, wherever appropriate by promoting competition … ensure that the companies properly carry out their functions … ensure that the companies can finance their functions”,

and,

“ensure long-term resilience”.

In the case of Thames Water, which is the biggest water utility, the regulator over the past 10 years has allowed the company to reduce its asset base to about a quarter of what it was, so it cannot now finance the tunnel that it wants to built under the Thames—the Thames tideway tunnel—without going into a kind of complex financial structure involving a separate infrastructure provider. The relationship between the infrastructure provider and Thames Water is extremely unclear. Who is liable if something goes wrong? That is also unclear, but the Government have been very nice and given them a guarantee if they run into financial trouble, because the provider is Macquarie Bank—and we would not want it to get into financial trouble, would we?

The extraordinary thing is that the regulator seems to think that this does not need any questioning or that any information should be given to the 12 million customers of Thames Water who are going to have to pay. There is a debate about how much they are going to have to pay a year, but it will be somewhere between £60 and £80 extra. This is a sewage charge, but all the people living in Oxford, Witney, Newbury or anywhere which is part of the group, even though they are not going to benefit from the Thames tideway tunnel, will have to pay. I think the regulator has been asleep on the job.

This amendment should make things better, but Ofwat already has a primary duty to protect the interests of customers, and it is clearly not doing so. Therefore, this amendment, if it is accepted by the Government, should put more pressure on it and some of the other utilities to do what they should do: to look at the needs of the customers, see whether there is an alternative and keep customers informed about what is going on. It is a good amendment and it will be interesting to hear what the Minister says in response.

Infrastructure Bill [HL]

Debate between Baroness Maddock and Lord Berkeley

Thursday 3rd July 2014 Grand Committee

[Lord Berkeley]

If I may just respond to the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, let me say that I, too, congratulate the Minister on what has been announced today about the things happening in Cornwall. To go back to the noble Lord’s comment about the long-term finance, I certainly agree with him that if this change enables the longer-term finance that Network Rail has at the moment, it will be a major step forward. I worry that I do not see that in the Bill—maybe I cannot find it, and perhaps the Minister will be able to put me right. However, I worry further, that although Network Rail has it for the next five years, where is the commitment beyond that for the railways? If that does not happen for the railways, it probably will not happen for the roads. I was going to raise this later, but since the noble Lord raised it, let me ask: is there the opportunity to have a discussion before Report committing the financing of this new agency—the Highways Agency and maybe Network Rail—to a five-year programme? If that does not happen, it would need primary legislation to change it. That is probably a bit of a tall order, but it would be interesting to explore.

[Baroness Maddock (LD)]

My Lords, I declare my interests as in the register, although I do not think that any of them have any particular relevance to what we are talking about today.

Following my noble friend Lord Teverson, of course we all have our favourite roads. Many people will be familiar with the A1 north of Newcastle and the issue of dualling it. Therefore, as I have lived with that, having now been married to the MP there for 13 years, I would be grateful to know how the Bill might help or hinder what has been a rather sorry tale of getting quite advanced on the dualling of that road, and then it all going backwards. It is now going forwards again, but I would be grateful for any information my noble friend can give me on that.

Energy Bill [HL]

Debate between Baroness Maddock and Lord Berkeley

Wednesday 2nd March 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Berkeley]

I shall speak to Amendment 160A which is in this group. It follows on from what my noble friend Lady Smith said about transparency, information and confidence in the field of energy conservation. As noble Lords will know, this is a rerun of Amendment 34 in Committee. I pay tribute to the noble Baroness, Lady Maddock, for her tireless work in supporting energy conservation and for moving the amendment eloquently in Committee. She emphasised the lack of interest of Governments over the years in the issue of saving energy rather than producing more to meet an often unnecessary demand. My noble friend Lord O’Neill of Clackmannan supported her and urged publication of the information.

I am trying again to see whether I can squeeze a little more out of Ministers at this stage. I pay tribute to the Association for the Conservation of Energy which has been tireless in promoting this part of the energy debate on conservation, which is often put into the “too difficult” category by government. The noble Baroness, Lady Northover, responded in Committee and said that the Government are already obliged to report annually to Parliament on the progress towards legally binding carbon budgets. She also said that,

“the principle of this amendment is sensible and laudable, although we feel that the case for specific reporting from Government may be stronger for the energy company obligation”.—[Official Report, 19/1/11; col. GC 107.]

Surely the information on conservation is as important as is the information on energy production.

I remind the House of a few facts given in Committee. The European Climate Foundation reports that emissions from buildings can be reduced by 95 per cent, which breaks down into 40 per cent from reduced demand and 45 per cent as a result of the electrification of heating. It is important to bring all these figures together at least in one report—we can debate whether or not it is annual—given the enormous challenges the Government have in meeting our carbon reduction targets.

It is also worth reminding the House that Chris Huhne, the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, said that the cheapest way of closing the gap between energy demand and supply is to cut energy use. Many other Ministers have said similar things. The Association for the Conservation of Energy has been calling for a cost benefit assessment of energy saving for many years and it asked the Government about six months ago whether they had carried out a long-term assessment of the costs and benefits of energy saving and efficiency as against those of energy generation. The answer was that there was nothing specific in the public domain. I suggest that there should be because consumers need that information. I hope that when the Minister responds he will accept the principle of the amendment and agree that the Government should publish a cost-benefit assessment. How can the Government have properly thought through their overall energy policy without that? If they do not have that information, they should have. If they do have it, perhaps they should publish it.

I refer noble Lords to the Long Title of the Bill, which refers in line 5 to,

“information relating to energy consumption, efficiency and tariffs”.

It would be a small step for the Government to produce a report and then we would know both sides of the equation: the production; and the consumption and conservation.

[Baroness Maddock]

As has already been said, I moved a similar amendment in Committee so I am happy to support the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, today. At a time when we are trying to persuade people about all the things we need to do to tackle climate change and CO₂ production, we ought to have the best analysis and figures to back up our arguments.

There is little I can add to what the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, but if we are to persuade the sceptics, we need the very best figures. I withdrew my amendment in Committee—we were in Grand Committee and we could not go any further—but I hope that since our discussion the Government have looked at this and thought, “Why on earth can't we do it?”. It is not that difficult. There is lots of information available to draw the figures together. That would be very helpful for all of us. A lot of time and energy is going into the Bill because we believe that it is the right way forward. Let us have the complete evidence to back it up.

I hope that, even if the Government cannot say yes today, they will go away to look at the common sense behind the amendment.