Energy Network Charges

Debate between Anne Main and Callum McCaig

Tuesday 5th July 2016 Westminster Hall

[Mrs Anne Main (in the Chair)]

Order. Mr McCaig, may I ask you to speak through the Chair? You are using the word “you” rather a lot, and of course I have nothing to do with it.

[Callum McCaig]

My apologies, Mrs Main.

The issue, as I say, is one of fairness. My hon. Friend the Member for Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey (Drew Hendry) has highlighted the additional impacts that come from the rural nature of large parts of the highlands and islands and the north of Scotland in general. The Government must take those into account. It is easy to hide behind Ofgem, but the Government must act, and there is a clear and pressing need to do so. As has been mentioned, the charge in the highlands and islands, based on per unit usage, is 84% higher than in London. It is colder in the highlands and islands, so people have to use more electricity. Also, for large periods of the year it is darker, because of the more northerly latitude. The costs of heating and lighting a home are greater the further north people live. That is not taken into account. Also, a far higher proportion of people in the north of Scotland use electricity to heat their homes. That comes at an extra, punitive cost to them. That cannot be acceptable and the Minister needs to explain it.

The Minister, perhaps inadvisedly, intervened on my hon. Friend the Member for Ross, Skye and Lochaber to talk about the fuel poverty record of the Scottish Government. There is more work that they need to do, and they have acknowledged that. Contrary to what is happening here, fuel poverty and, indeed, energy efficiency are national infrastructure priorities for the Scottish Government. There will be record levels of investment. If a comparison is made between the investment record in Scotland and that of the other nations of the United Kingdom, it is highly favourable.

Let us break down fuel poverty and look at where responsibility really lies. Electricity distribution and network charges rest with the Government. The regulation of the market, in terms of the energy companies, rests with the Government. Looking at the fuel side of the issue, it is clear that the responsibility lies with the Government. As to the poverty side of things, it is even clearer that the responsibility is the Government’s. They control the economy, set taxation and, perhaps most importantly, set the parameters of the welfare state, which they have undermined time and again, plunging more people into fuel poverty. On the face of things, the term “fuel poverty” may be devolved to the Scottish Government, but the actual responsibility—the actual levers to effect real change—rest with this Government and largely with the Minister and her Department.

It may be fine and well to engage in back and forth as we regularly do in this place, but we need to see where responsibility really lies. If the Minister really wants the Scottish Government to have that responsibility, I can tell her that we will happily take the powers out of her hands, and I promise her that we will use them more effectively than her Department has in ensuring that the people of our country do not live in cold, dark houses or have to choose, as my hon. Friend the Member for Ross, Skye and Lochaber said, between heating and eating. That is not acceptable in the 21st century. If we are one nation and there are simple things that can be done to address fuel poverty, it behoves this Government to do them.

Another theme that has run through the debate—one that was mentioned by my hon. Friend and the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon)—is the economic and social impacts that fuel poverty has on our society. Fuel costs are adding cost for and holding back our businesses and social services. There is an opportunity cost. I disagree with the hon. Gentleman about redistributing wealth. This is not actually about redistributing wealth; it is about keeping wealth where it is generated and ensuring that people do not have to pay too much of their own wealth and that it is not sucked out of their economies. It is about keeping the wealth where it is generated and allowing it to be put back into communities in Northern Ireland or in the north of Scotland. That is not redistribution; that is just fairness, which is utterly absent from this regime.

We are not necessarily asking the Minister to agree with the Scottish National party or even the Democratic Unionist party on this issue. We are asking her to agree with herself and with her own Government’s one nation rhetoric. If she cannot do that, perhaps she can explain to us why.