All 2 John Bercow contributions to the Domestic Gas and Electricity (Tariff Cap) Act 2018

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Mon 26th Feb 2018
Points of Order
Commons Chamber

1st reading: House of Commons
Tue 6th Mar 2018

Points of Order

John Bercow Excerpts
1st reading: House of Commons
Monday 26th February 2018

(6 years, 1 month ago)

Commons Chamber
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Stella Creasy Portrait Stella Creasy (Walthamstow) (Lab/Co-op)
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On a point of order, Mr Speaker. In the Foreign Secretary’s contributions, he suggested that in my contribution to the urgent question I had called for military intervention in Ghouta. Actually, I simply called for him to pick up the phone to the Russian president. I wonder if there is a way to correct the record to make it clear what I said.

John Bercow Portrait Mr Speaker
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The hon. Lady has found her own salvation. The Foreign Secretary is nodding approvingly from a sedentary position, which I think is confirmation that he accepts the truth of what the hon. Lady has said. There is a satisfactory conclusion, and I am grateful to the Foreign Secretary—[Interruption.] He may come to the Dispatch Box if he wishes.

Boris Johnson Portrait The Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (Boris Johnson)
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Further to that point of order, I am happy to accept the hon. Lady’s assurances that she was not in fact calling for military intervention.

John Bercow Portrait Mr Speaker
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Thank you. From memory, I think the record will confirm that the hon. Lady was not advocating that. I am grateful to the Foreign Secretary.

Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi Portrait Mr Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi (Slough) (Lab)
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On a point of order, Mr Speaker. I was disgusted on Wednesday when someone, consumed with hatred, tried to pull off the turban of one of my Sikh guests, as he queued up outside our Parliament buildings, and shouted “Muslim, go back home.” It has been brought to the Government’s attention on previous occasions that the hate crime action plan to properly record and monitor hate crimes completely ignores Sikhs. The Sikhs regard the turban as a crown on their heads. Indeed, Mr Speaker, when you presided over the launch of the national Sikh war memorial campaign, for which I am extremely grateful, you will have ascertained the substantial strength of feeling in the community about the need for a statue of turbaned Sikh soldiers in our capital. More than 80,000 turbaned individuals died for the freedom of this country—our country.

Given that considerable context, Mr Speaker, when giving your advice, perhaps you would be kind enough to impress on the House authorities and the police the need to take this matter very seriously and to bring the assailant to justice.

John Bercow Portrait Mr Speaker
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I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his point of order and for his courtesy in offering me advance notice of his intention to raise it. First, let me take this opportunity from the Chair to empathise with the hon. Gentleman and all decent people across the House on this subject. It was a truly appalling incident. I feel a great sense of shame that such an act could have been perpetrated in our country. The hon. Gentleman’s friend and visitor to Parliament must have been very shaken by his experience. The act can have been motivated only by hatred, ignorance or—more likely— an extremely regrettable combination of the two. The matter is under active consideration by the police. It would therefore be inappropriate for me to comment in detail upon it. In any case, I would not be able to do myself, although I have received a report of the incident.

Let me make it absolutely clear that I take the matter extremely seriously, as, I am sure, do the House authorities. It is absolutely imperative that visitors to this place are—to the best of our ability and that of the police and security staff here—safe from physical attack and abuse. Moreover, I say to the hon. Gentleman that if I am provided with an address, I would like to write, on behalf of the House, to the hon. Gentleman’s visitor to express our regret about the attack that he experienced. I think that we will have to leave it there for today, but I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for airing the matter.

Ian Murray Portrait Ian Murray (Edinburgh South) (Lab)
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On a point of order, Mr Speaker. There is a convention in this House when a Member of Parliament visits someone else’s constituency that they should write to them, informing them that they have done so. Many Members of Parliament from England may have stayed and dined—or, indeed, drowned their sorrows—in my constituency on Saturday, after the rugby. Now, I do not really want them all to write to me, but I wondered whether there was a mechanism to find out who they were so that I could write to them in order to remind them of the convention, and also maybe to just about gloat about Scotland’s Calcutta cup success on Saturday.

John Bercow Portrait Mr Speaker
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Far be it from me to rain on the hon. Gentleman’s parade after he has shown such considerable ingenuity and sense of humour to raise this matter. The convention, of course, applies only to visits that are undertaken on official business, but I am glad the hon. Gentleman has raised this matter. I am pleased to say that, so far, no Member of Parliament representing a Manchester constituency has been so unkind as to raise with me the fact of my own team’s defeat at Wembley yesterday.

Mike Kane Portrait Mike Kane (Wythenshawe and Sale East) (Lab)
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On a point of order, Mr Speaker.

John Bercow Portrait Mr Speaker
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I hope that I have not brought on a trickle, still less a flood. I was admiring the forbearance and courtesy of the hon. Member for Wythenshawe and Sale East (Mike Kane). I hope that he is enjoying his day, possibly more than I have been enjoying mine.

Bill Presented

Domestic Gas and Electricity (Tariff Cap) Bill

Presentation and First Reading (Standing Order No. 57)

Secretary Greg Clark, supported by the Prime Minister, the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, Secretary Chris Grayling, Secretary Michael Gove, Andrea Leadsom and Claire Perry, presented a Bill to make provision for the imposition of a cap on rates charged to domestic customers for the supply of gas and electricity; and for connected purposes.

Bill read the First time; to be read a Second time tomorrow, and to be printed (Bill 168) with explanatory notes (Bill 168-EN).

Domestic Gas and Electricity (Tariff Cap) Bill

John Bercow Excerpts
2nd reading: House of Commons
Tuesday 6th March 2018

(6 years ago)

Commons Chamber
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Stephen Kerr Portrait Stephen Kerr (Stirling) (Con)
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I rise to make a short contribution to the debate on this important Bill. I pay particular tribute to the right hon. Member for Don Valley (Caroline Flint) and my hon. Friend the Member for Weston-super-Mare (John Penrose) for their persistence over time to get us to this point.

The Bill will make a real impact on the day-to-day lives of the people who elected me, which is why it matters very much to me and why I have been pleased to sit here listening to the debate for several hours. When it comes to such important issues, we are talking not about academic abstractions or economic theories, but about reducing the energy bills of my constituents. That really does matter to me, as it matters to them, so I support the Bill and wish to make a few comments on it.

The price cap in the Bill is not, as some might fear, a corruption of the free market, but a market intervention to protect consumers from the worst excesses of a market that is not working. On a related note, I shall quote the words of a very famous Scotsman, which I am sure that you, Mr Speaker, will recognise instantly:

“People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public, or in some contrivance to raise prices.”

I am not laying the charge of corruption against the big six, but their activities might be described as a contrivance to raise prices.

The price cap is a blunt object—

John Bercow Portrait Mr Speaker
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Order. I was rather hoping that the hon. Gentleman was going to furnish us with the page reference in “The Wealth of Nations”.

Stephen Kerr Portrait Stephen Kerr
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I am unable to furnish you with the page number in “The Wealth of Nations”, Mr Speaker, but you are absolutely right that it is, of course, the famous Scotsman, Adam Smith, to whom I was referring. He was a great soul indeed.

The price cap can be a blunt object if it is left in place too long: it could cause stagnation; it could cause a reduction in competitiveness; and it could reduce the scope for investment in innovation in the sector. The effect of the price cap is not intended to result in that end; it is to lead to something far subtler. I am talking about a market intervention that is consumer-led and that is about empowering consumers. I am glad that the cap is time limited. It gives us time, as has been said by many Members in this debate, to fix the market, but what does the fix look like? My contention is that the Government, Ofgem and the industry must work harder to create this consumer-led marketplace. New technology is becoming available to empower consumers—to give them more control over their energy consumption and supply like never before. It gives consumers the data they need to optimise their energy consumption and to give them control over their energy costs.

The idea of this technology is the start of something that is unstoppable—I am talking about the idea of the smart home. In effect, what it does is give power to consumers, which ultimately is what this Bill is all about. The average household energy bill—if someone is on a standard variable tariff—is between £1,200 and £1,300 a year. It is incredible how little interest many consumers pay to that kind of expense going through their households. Part of the remedy to this disengagement, or lack of interest, must be to give consumers the confidence to feel empowered to deal with those costs. At the heart of all this is the smart meter. I do not have time in this debate to talk much about smart meters, but they can create data, display data and give uses to data that help consumers to optimise their energy bills.

We need to make it easier for people to switch. There is a great fog that comes over many people’s minds when they are given the opportunity to switch suppliers. If we can make it as easy to switch supplier as it is to open an app on a smartphone or press a button on a smart meter, the game is on. I remain convinced that this technology can fix the market in time—and “in time” is the key phrase. We need a real national effort to install smart meters in every property across the country. There is a Bill, which has gone through this place and is now in the other place, that is about smart meters. There are issues about smart meters that demand the urgent attention of anyone who has an interest in seeing this vital national infrastructure installed in this country. There are technical issues, but that is not what we are here to discuss.

What are we discussing? Why am I standing here in the first place? Frankly, it is because we have a broken market. I wish to apportion blame for that: I put the blame firmly at the door of the regulator, which has been around, in one form or another, since the 1980s. I firmly believe that the regulator already has the power to do what this Bill will give it the power to do, but it lacks the will to use that power.

As a member of the Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy Committee, I was astonished to hear the leadership of the regulator, who were in front of us, admit in effect that they had the power to set the tariff cap, but that they were too frightened of litigation from the companies that they were supposed to be there to regulate in the first place. As we say in Sterling, why have a dog and bark yourself? That seems an apt expression for a regulator that has failed to protect the free market and has allowed itself to be sucked into the game of special interests. It is almost protecting the very businesses that it was supposed to be there to regulate. It is now time to question Ofgem and its fitness for purpose. If the leadership of Ofgem will not take these powers that will inevitably pass through Parliament and become law and use them to protect the customer and to build and create a proper, free and competitive market in energy, that leadership will need to be changed. It is time that we were better served by that regulator.

The energy suppliers are benefiting from this lax regulatory regime. By creating a situation in which they charge rip-off prices for standard variable rates, the big six suppliers have broken the covenant that all companies have with their customers. They have lost the trust of the people. They may use the period of the tariff cap to restore and rebuild that trust by working to create this proper functioning marketplace.

Let us not forget what these companies have done. They have used profits from standard variable tariffs to subsidise their cheaper tariffs. Unengaged consumers have been punished harshly because of their loyalty, to the tune of at least £300 per household per year—much too high. According to the Competition and Markets Authority, the country has overpaid a total of £1.4 billion. Consumers have been ripped off for years at the hands of companies that should have known better and at the mercy of a regulator that has proved ineffective. It is time for us to take action and to work pragmatically to solve this problem for our constituents. It is a time not for economic dogma or ideology, but for proper pragmatism. The Bill is a superb example of the pragmatism that this Government pursue, and I am proud to support it.