Cost of Energy: Dalmarnock

Debate between Anne McLaughlin and Alison Thewliss

Tuesday 24th October 2023 Commons Chamber

[Alison Thewliss (Glasgow Central) (SNP)]

For those unfamiliar with the Dalmarnock neighbourhood in my constituency, it is located in the east end of Glasgow, between the River Clyde and Celtic Park. People there are generous, kind and welcoming. It has been an absolute pleasure to represent them, first, as a councillor and now as an MP for the past 16 years. Dalmarnock has seen a lot of change over the years, as heavy industry has declined and the population has moved away to the new towns. In more recent years, it has seen significant regeneration from the Clyde Gateway—I draw Members’ attention to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests, as the unpaid chair of Clyde Gateway—and it was host to the world as the site of the Commonwealth games village.

I will speak first to the wider picture that people face. Over the past two years, families right across Glasgow and Scotland have struggled with soaring energy prices. While France implemented a price tariff shield on electricity and gas, the UK Government took more limited measures, which have left many people struggling to keep their homes warm and pay their bills. Inflation related to Brexit and the disastrous mini-Budget also increased the cost of food on our shelves. The energy price cap brought in by the UK Government was welcome, but prices remain significantly higher than they were prior to the war in Ukraine.

Last year’s energy bill support scheme, which, again, we in the Scottish National party welcomed, was supposed to give every household a £400 discount on their energy bills from winter 2022 to March 2023. I recall very well the Prime Minister and the Chancellor of the time not understanding exactly how a prepayment meter worked. That speaks to some of the issues that have happened with the scheme. There were many people whom it did not reach. We feel that the crisis has not gone away. We are calling for a further round of an energy bill support scheme with a £400 rebate this winter, because the crisis has not gone away and people are still struggling.

On some of the issues we faced in administering the scheme through the casework I had in my office, these things ought to be addressed in any future scheme to ensure that everyone gets what they are entitled to. In many cases, people did not even realise they had received the vouchers, because they had been automatically applied to their smart meter and the cost had gone up so dramatically that they did not feel the difference. It was so hard to do the various checks and to go back to people and explain that they just were not entitled to any further support. To make matters worse, it was estimated that more than 13,000 energy bill support scheme vouchers went unclaimed in Glasgow Central, including for residents in Dalmarnock. The vouchers for constituents with prepayment meters were so important because, disproportionately, they are both on lower incomes and charged higher prices for the energy that they consume.

The energy support schemes of the future should be targeted at those who need it most. A flat scheme across the board, regardless of need, is not progressive in any way and does not support those with larger families or people with disabilities who need the heating on for longer periods. I am concerned that so many people did not receive the support to which they were entitled, which raises serious questions about the efficacy of the scheme. That money should have been in the meters of my constituents, not the coffers of the UK Treasury. I would like to ask the Minister how energy firms are being held to account for the vouchers that did not reach their customers, because in many cases they know exactly who those customers are. What review are the UK Government doing of the effectiveness of the scheme that they created and forced on companies at short notice? From speaking to the companies, I know that they found the scheme difficult to administer at times. It is clear that there are complexities in our energy system. Complexity of supply and market failure is resulting in limited choice, and very varied and poorly insulated housing stock, in the UK as a whole and even in individual neighbourhoods such as Dalmarnock.

People in Dalmarnock have been affected more acutely by the cost of living crisis than the general population of Glasgow, or than people more widely in Scotland. Dalmarnock is exactly the sort of community that the UK Government should have in mind when constructing an energy support scheme. As Understanding Glasgow’s Glasgow Indicators Project stated:

“Estimates of male and female life expectancy in Parkhead and Dalmarnock are lower than the Glasgow average. Single parent households make up 61% of all households with dependent children. The rate of claiming unemployment and disability related benefits is higher than the Glasgow average. Levels of deprivation and child poverty are also significantly higher than average. Thirty-two per cent of the population are limited by a disability.”

If the scheme does not work for Dalmarnock, it does not work anywhere.

Dalmarnock also contains a real mix of housing types, from the traditional sandstone tenements we think of when we think of Glasgow, to interwar tenements, four-in-a-block homes, terraces, houses built in the 1980s and the 1990s, the Commonwealth games Athletes’ Village, and brand new flats built to Passivhaus standard. Dalmarnock is also home to a significant population of Showpeople, whose chalets and caravans come in all shapes and sizes. The energy supply is just as varied; it ranges from traditional gas boiler and storage heaters, to a district heating scheme and rooftop solar in the games village, and a communal boiler in the new Riverside Dalmarnock development.

I was aware from my casework of the many challenges my constituents faced with their energy costs, so I went out to conduct a survey in Dalmarnock to get a better picture of what was going on and what additional support might be required. The results were heartbreaking. Where my team and I have been able to assist people, we have done so, yet much more is required on a UK structural level to tackle the issues my constituents face. The survey was conducted in the period after the energy bills support scheme closed. We surveyed over 1,000 people in the Dalmarnock area, and received a response rate of around 10%. Respondents were from right across different housing types, so results showed the breadth of people’s experience with this issue. Replies are still coming in.

We asked about housing type and tenure, energy supplier, the proportion of income people were spending on their bills, and how much that had gone up in the past year. We also asked people about dampness and condensation in their home. Many reported regularly running out of credit on their prepayment meters, and having had prepayment meters forced on them because they were in debt.

[Anne McLaughlin (Glasgow North East) (SNP)]

I thank my hon. Friend for taking my intervention. I wanted to come in earlier on prepayment meters, but I was very keen to listen to what else she was saying. Despite the fact that Ofgem has, for the moment, stopped energy companies from being able to force prepayment meters on people, and despite the fact that the Courts and Tribunals Service stopped that happening in England and Wales, Scottish Power applied, I think in the last week, for over 100 such meters to be installed, and got the warrants. Does she agree that it can be doing that for only one reason, which is to intimidate people who are struggling to pay their bills?

[Alison Thewliss]

I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention, and for all the work she has done to highlight the issues facing people on prepayment meters. That is an absolutely brutal way to go about your business: forcing your way into people’s homes, forcing people to take prepayment meters, and then clawing back money off them that they could have used to heat their house, rather than to service a debt caused by soaring energy prices. The energy companies have made significant profits out of these people—profits that really have not been earned through anything that the companies have done, but that have resulted from global circumstances. People in our constituencies in Glasgow are paying the real price for that, living in cold, dark flats through the depths of winter.

A woman wrote to me who lives in a new-build flat. She is in debt now. She works full time, but has had to ask for payment holidays on her credit cards and other loans. She is not the type of person who gets into this situation. She said:

“I have had to cut my food shop. I live now on soup and sandwiches. I don’t put my heating on unless it’s freezing. I don’t have any disposable income now and I’m contemplating giving up my car”.

The impact of these high bills on whether people can afford to eat properly is stark. Another woman reported:

“I can’t cook during the day on weekdays. I can only cook at night or weekends in order to save energy and money. I can’t cook my local or native food because it takes longer to cook. We eat more junk foods which is not healthy for us.”

People recognise that this is causing them harm, but there is really nothing that they can do about it. A gentleman who has diabetes reported to me that he goes to bed early, he feels cold all the time, and his diet is not good owing to money concerns. Another woman told us:

“I was worried about accidentally running hot water as it would cost so much. I refused to have friends or family around because I was embarrassed to be living like that.”

Even those in new-build houses are struggling, with one constituent reporting that the house ventilation system in her new home cost 15p a day in 2015, and now costs £1 a day, which is a 600% increase. As a result, she opts to use it only when the condensation starts to build up, and after mould has appeared on the windowsills. That is no way for people to live, but they simply do not have the money to make ends meet. Another constituent reported that the price of her gas and electricity had risen from £72 to £184 a month. The family are supported through universal credit, and there is no means of getting extra money in. I do not understand how this Government expect people to live.

The survey asked people who were not comfortable putting the heating on what alternative methods they used to get warm. Some said that they would not even boil the kettle for a cup of tea, while others, including a pensioner couple, reported going to bed early to stay warm. Many respondents said that the cost of energy bills had caused them stress or other adverse mental health issues. Some had physical health issues such as fibromyalgia, anaemia or even cancer, which they felt could be alleviated by a warm environment in their homes. It is even more worrying that so many—including the constituent whom I mentioned earlier—reported damp and mould in their home, which is a risk factor for future respiratory problems. One said that they had to paint rooms twice over the last year, to cover up damp patches.

I am aware that housing associations in the area are worried about the impact on their tenants and housing stock in the long term. Although they had some money to distribute to their tenants through the Scottish Government’s social housing fuel support fund, that does not fix the systemic issues, which are reserved to Westminster. One of those systemic issues is the regulation of heat networks—an issue that has affected people in the Riverside Dalmarnock development. In January this year, those residents, whose heating is supplied by a communal boiler system operated by the company Switch2, received a notice informing them that the price of a kilowatt-hour of gas was increasing from 12p to 33p. That has had a serious impact on many residents, a number of whom have disabilities, because the development was sold to them on the basis that it was accessible and affordable. One resident reported no longer using gas and washing in cold water; electricity was okay, but Switch2 had increased the cost of heating to unrealistic levels, and the resident could not afford hot water. The price of gas had risen from between £40 and £55 to £160 for the same usage.

In the post-covid “working from home” environment, some people are weighting up the cost of transport versus the cost of energy. One of my constituents said:

“If I work from home my home bills go up and my employer saves. But if I commute to work I need a car and fuel costs a lot too. I don’t have a choice and just have to foot the bill. I can’t default as it will affect my job.”

These constituents do not have alternative options for heating. The homes in that development are not equipped with traditional boilers, and cannot be supplied with heating in any way other than via the communal heat network. Switch2, for its part, purchases direct from energy providers and passes the cost on to its customers. The issue with the lack of regulation and support is not really of its making.

For those on communal and district heating, the energy bill relief scheme failed to provide the support that other energy customers across the UK managed to get, and the energy price guarantee does not apply to homes on heat networks. The regulation of heat networks remains forthcoming; plans for that were set out in the Government’s Energy Bill, but those plans are unlikely to be implemented before the winter. These constituents cannot wait. They cannot live in fear of prices going up still further. They need real support with their energy bills now, not after the situation has worsened. Can the Minister confirm the date on which those regulations will be put in place? May I also ask her what assurances can be given to those who are on heat networks? At what rate will the price be fixed when the regulations come into force? Will it be the rate that customers pay now, or the rate that they will be paying at that time? The prices may have gone up again by then. What information will they receive about the implications of these new regulations?

I would like to make a few points about business customers, because there is a relevance to them, too. A large employer in the east end came to me despairing that they could not cope with the price increase that they faced; they worried that they would not be able to keep their staff. They strained every sinew to keep their loyal staff during the pandemic, and they want to do right by them now. They felt thoroughly unsupported by the Government and, like many businesses, they are now marooned on a very high tariff, which they will be stuck with until it comes up for renegotiation. What more is the Minister doing, in conjunction with the regulator and suppliers, to tackle the patent unfairness of some businesses being stuck on a high tariff and struggling to pay their staff, while other businesses have a much better deal? There has also been scant support from the UK Government for the third sector. It should be a real source of shame that the churches and community centres that provide some of the most valuable support for vulnerable people also face these kinds of contracts, and have had to consider closing their doors because of the price of energy.

There is a further complexity for a particular group of business customers in my constituency—those who operate the Showpeople’s yards that I mentioned earlier. One of my constituents operates several yards and cannot get an explanation from his supplier, Scottish Power, as to why he is on different rates for different yards in the same street. He has had to pass the costs on to the tenants, and they too are struggling to understand the disparity. His costs have also gone up dramatically, as everyone else’s have. For example, he is paying three times as much for gas and electricity, which has gone from 17p per kW and a 28p standing charge to 56p per kW and an 81p standard charge. He has also struggled to get support, in common with others known as park home residents.

I received an email this week, by coincidence, from an organisation called Charis, which is administrating a warm home discount scheme for park home residents, but as it is benefit-dependent and targeted towards a group of people who traditionally do not claim benefits and are self-employed, I would question whether this scheme will really reach those who desperately need it right now. They have already waited a considerable time for this help to come. I ask the Minister to consider what more can be done for this group of people. On a technical point, how she will monitor the uptake of schemes such as this?

Temperatures in Scotland have already started to drop. It was 0° with frost on the ground in Glasgow on Monday morning this week, and there is the prospect of further chills. The Minister cannot wait—and my constituents cannot wait—for the freezing temperatures to hit the south-east of England before she takes further action on this. In Scotland, we are doing what we can in a grim situation. The Scottish Government have invested in social housing, and they introduced the energy efficiency standard for social housing in 2014. As a result, homes in the social rented sector are now some of the most energy-efficient in Scotland, with 85% achieving level D or above on their energy performance certificate. We are working hard to tackle fuel poverty, but responsibility for the structural issues and the cost of energy, which affect our constituents, does not lie with us; it lies in this place, and it is for this Government to try to fix them.

Today’s Joseph Rowntree Foundation figures on destitution in the UK make for utterly grim reading, but they find that the actions the Scottish Government are taking, such as the Scottish child payment, mean that

“Scotland has improved its position to lie below the GB average, having experienced by far the lowest increase since 2019.”

But these are just a few glimmers of light when energy and food prices are driving 3.8 million people across the UK into destitution.

It is beyond comprehension to me that people can be shivering this winter in energy-rich Scotland. It does not have to be this way. Independent Ireland will invest some of its budget surplus into energy support to see people through the winter. I urge the Minister, who I know is very keen to help, to do what she can to support people in Dalmarnock, in Glasgow and in the rest of Scotland with their energy costs. We face particular challenges. It is colder and people need that support. We need to reform the market to make it fair for the customers, not the shareholders. The will to change does not come from Westminster; it will come from an independent Scotland.

Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill

Debate between Anne McLaughlin and Alison Thewliss

Consideration of Lords amendments
Monday 28th February 2022 Commons Chamber

[Anne McLaughlin]

I was trying to find a way to work that into what I was saying, so I thank the right hon. Gentleman for that.

We know that without demos and protests, a lot of things would not change. The Minister said that things changed through political campaigning and getting elected, but actually things change because people in local communities rise up and tell us what they want us to do. That is how democracy should function.

[Alison Thewliss (Glasgow Central) (SNP)]

My hon. Friend is making some very good points on the importance of protests. One of the most significant protests in my constituency of late was when the people of Kenmure Street came together to try to stop their neighbours being removed from their homes by the Home Office. Does she agree that the Government should be trying to protect that kind of protest—the community involved and standing up for what is right for their neighbours—not trying to remove it?

[Anne McLaughlin]

I absolutely do, because if people feel empowered by being part of that democracy, other than getting to vote every four years, that can only be a good thing.

The notion that the police can intervene on any kind of noise threshold—as we have heard, we do not know what the threshold is—puts the fundamental right to protest at risk. This Bill will create a situation where people who are simply trying to have their voices heard will be dragged into the criminal justice system. We are going to need extremely large prisons by the time this Government have finished with all this legislation. The reduced knowledge threshold, where a person ought to have known that restrictions were in force, is an Orwellian nightmare. A protester will have to second-guess how the authorities will judge their behaviour.

The language used in clause 55 is vague at best: “serious unease”, “alarm” and “distress”. A protest may seem more alarming or distressing to one police officer than to another. This hands far too much discretion to the police, and there is a point when too much discretion becomes a burden. That was echoed by former police chiefs and senior officers, who have warned against the political pressure that this Bill will place on frontline officers. If the police do not think these powers are necessary, why do the Government? As we have heard from a number of speakers, the powers already exist for them to deal sufficiently with a protest that could result in serious public disorder, serious damage to property or serious disruption to the life of the community. I just do not think the Government have made a good enough argument that the powers are insufficient. For those reasons, we support Lords amendment 73.

We also support Lords amendment 80, which would remove the police’s ability to impose greater conditions on static demonstrations. The Public Order Act 1986 was careful to delineate and differentiate the conditions that can be imposed on static demonstrations and those that can be imposed on a march or moving protest, which is sensible as it reflects the relative ease with which a static demonstration can be policed. Clause 56, which the amendment seeks to remove, will see the distinction removed.

In the words of Big Brother Watch, clause 56 could potentially hand the police

“unfettered discretion to impose any condition they see fit including, for example, restrictions on the words or slogans that can be expressed on placards.”

That is a democratic outrage. This is an attempt by the Government to level the distinction between static and moving protests. As they tend to do, they are levelling down, not levelling up. For that reason, we support Lords amendment 80.

We also lend support to Lords amendment 87, which removes the police’s ability to impose conditions on a one-person protest. What a situation. The might of the Government and their legislative power is bearing down on single protesters, which is ridiculous and disproportionate in equal measure. Worryingly, it has the potential to snare anyone who even stops to engage with that protester as committing a criminal offence. As I said, we are going to need much larger prisons.

Lords amendment 88 would narrow the scope of the offence of wilful obstruction of the highway to include only highways that are part of the strategic road network. We are caught in a trap where, on the one hand, I am glad to see this offence is restricted to the strategic road network but, on the other hand, I am alarmed to see the associated sentence increased from a fine to 51 weeks’ imprisonment—much larger prisons. This amendment is targeted at some very specific protesters whom we have all witnessed taking their protests to the streets and roads, but I feel this severe penalty has the potential to create a chilling effect—I have used that term all too often in the past six months during our consideration of the Judicial Review and Courts Bill and the Nationality and Borders Bill, although, from what I am hearing from the other place tonight, there is now not much left of the latter.

Turning to Government amendments 90 to 93, I am disappointed that the only amendments to part 4, on unauthorised encampments, appear to be technical clarifying amendments that do nothing to row back on the measures expanding the criminalisation of trespass and the accompanying police powers. Again, this is an area where existing powers are available to the police. This is more to do with targeting a minority than targeting trespass.

We know this Bill will disproportionately interfere with the right of respect for the private and family life of Gypsy, Roma and Traveller groups. The new seizure powers in respect of vehicles—vehicles often being the home of Gypsies and Travellers, in particular—are very likely to mean that people will end up facing homelessness. I can only hope that, in mitigation, the Government will focus on providing further support and funding to local authorities across these islands for authorised sites and implementing a national sites strategy. They might want to speak to the Scottish Government about some of their work on this. The Court of Appeal has set out that this community has an enshrined freedom to move from one place to another, and that the state has a positive obligation to protect Gypsy, Roma and Traveller communities’ traditional way of life.

What are the Government so afraid of? From the man outside Parliament today adorned in plastic bottles to make a point about the overuse of plastics, to the many who finally found their voice in the last two years through the Black Lives Matter movement, and who are using that voice to make a very simple point that black lives matter every bit as much as white lives. From our Ukrainian brothers and sisters here on these islands who feel so helpless right now and who need to come together to protest against what is happening in their country, to people who simply wish to save the planet. What are the Government so afraid of? Well, I thank and applaud those protesters. This Government want to stop and criminalise them.

International Women’s Day

Debate between Anne McLaughlin and Alison Thewliss

Thursday 5th March 2020 Commons Chamber

[Anne McLaughlin (Glasgow North East) (SNP)]

Amuna anga andig wiririria usiku watha. I know it is unlikely anyone here understands what I said—if they do, I hope they will not tell everybody I pronounced it incorrectly —but I will come back to it at the end and explain why I said it.

The 8th of March is International Women’s Day. I hope you will forgive me, Madam Deputy Speaker, but it is also my birthday.

[Alison Thewliss (Glasgow Central) (SNP)]

My hon. Friend is an international woman.

[Anne McLaughlin]

I am an international woman.

For many years, I had my niece and nephew believing that the day was named in honour of me. They were wide-eyed at the celebrations the world over—all for me. At the same time, I regularly adjusted my age for them, so it was a bit of a running joke that I could not face up to reaching the upper stages of my youth. It all came unstuck for me in 2011, when the world marked 100 years of International Women’s Day. They found it amusing to discover that I was around more than 100 years ago.

There are some lessons in there somewhere, and one of them is about age. As we celebrate women, let us celebrate all women and note those who often face barriers in addition to those presented by their gender. That might be for any number of reasons: race, disability, gender identity, sexual orientation, income and, yes, age. Age International reports that nearly a quarter of the world’s women are over the age of 50, yet they are routinely excluded from policy and practice that aims to address gender inequality and violence against women, including sexual violence.

We, and I include myself in this, also need to stop talking about age as if it were a bad thing—it is clearly better than any other alternative. We talk as if women, in particular, are past it once they reach a certain age—a certain age I have yet to reach, obviously. While we are talking about age, let us not forget the regular exclusion of young women from the policy-making process.

International Women’s Day is not just about looking at barriers and inequality. As we have heard, it is also about celebrating successes and the barriers that have been overcome. However, until we have true equality in every walk of life and in every sense of the word, we have to keep talking about why we do not have equal opportunities in this life. So today I want to do three things. I want to read out a roll-call of just some of the women who inspire me. I also want to talk about some fundamental barriers facing women and how our male allies can help break them down, and I will end by asking two things of the Government. That will allow me to explain why I started off speaking in a different language.

On the roll-call, I sometimes think we have our famous women we pay tribute to, and then we have our so-called ordinary women. I am just going to mix them up and read a list of women who inspire me. Some are constituents, but they are by no means the only woman in my constituency who inspire me—I would need the entire debate to mention them all. The women are Mary Seacole, Helen Carroll, Marie Curie, Winnie Ewing, Mags Watson, Gemma Coyle, Rosa Parks, Mary Hunter, Marie Stopes, Janet Connor, Harriet Tubman, Laura Clark, Bessie Watson, Josephine McCusker, Catherine Yuill, Tracy Pender, Donna Henderson and, finally—I am going to say something about the last one—Chief Theresa Kachindamoto, also known in Malawi as the marriage terminator. She became the chief of over 900,000 people and immediately dissolved the child marriages of 3,000 girls. I like the name “the marriage terminator”. I want those on the list who are still with us to know that they inspire me. If they do not know why, I will tell them when I see them.

The second thing I want to talk about is the fundamental barriers facing women. I want to say a bit about how I came rather late in life to understand the barriers that I face because of my gender, in the hope that it will help others who want to understand. I am not going to talk about children and childcare. It is an obvious, although necessary, matter to refer to, but it sometimes allows people to simplify the issue. It allows those who regularly ask, “When’s International Men’s Day?” to argue that women who have full childcare or who have no children are barrier-free, and that is just not the case. I do not have children, so I cannot say that childcare duties prevent me from doing some of the things I want to do, but for my entire life I have experienced the fundamental barriers that almost all women experience—I just did not know that that is what it was.

Many of my peers were elected long before I ever was. I thought that that was because they were better, that I would not be that good anyway and that politics was not for the likes of me. I also did not like the combative and competitive nature of party politics, so if there was an internal battle for selection, I just refused to put myself forward. I remember my friend Shona Robison, who went on to be the Cabinet Secretary for Health and Sport in the Scottish Government, phoning me and saying, “It’s the first Scottish Parliament, Anne. We need more women. Why don’t you stand?” I just point-blank refused. No matter how much she encouraged me, and no matter how she tried to persuade me, I told her it was not for me.

I believed that the thing holding me back was me and my lack of ability, but I was not lacking in ability, and it was Nicola Sturgeon who opened my eyes to that. We were talking about gender balance mechanisms, and I said what I have heard many women say: “I would only ever want to get somewhere on merit.” She said, “Well, that’s fine—if all the men you see elected are there on merit alone too. Until they are, we need these gender balance mechanisms.” That got me thinking, and it set me on a path where I ended up spending the last two years working in different countries, mainly trying to get more women into politics. I made that argument about merit, and I could see other women’s eyes opening.

I also used something else Nicola pointed out to me that day: ask a man to tell you three things he is really good at, and he will. He is quite right to do that, because you have asked him to do it, but if we ask a woman to do the same, most women—of course, I am generalising, but I think we can use general points here—will start by telling us what they are not good at, and I could list many more than three.