Callum McCaig
Main Page: Callum McCaig (Scottish National Party - Aberdeen South)Energy Network Charges
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Callum McCaig (Aberdeen South) (SNP)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mrs Main.
My hon. Friend the Member for Ross, Skye and Lochaber (Ian Blackford) has said most of what is required and he said it in his usual passionate way. It is right that he should feel passionate about this, because there is a clear sense of injustice—one that, as he rightly pointed out, the Minister has acknowledged in the past. To quote her again for the record:
“It is not right that people face higher electricity costs just because of where they live”.
We have heard that that applies not just to the north of Scotland but to Northern Ireland and other regions of the UK. Nobody is asking for special treatment. We are asking for a level playing field, and I do not understand how that cannot be justified. Perhaps it is possible to hide behind what Ofgem has said, but this is a Government who purport to be a one nation Government. How can you be a one nation Government when, just because you live in a different part of the country, you have to pay more for your electricity? That cannot follow from the Government’s rhetoric.
The Ofgem report states:
“There does not appear to be any clear justification for a national charge in terms of the regional concentration of vulnerability. Distribution regions represent large areas and the socio-demographics of the population in each region tend towards the Great Britain average.”
The justification is fairness. Just because you may have average distributions of poverty and wealth in the north of Scotland and the south of Scotland—which, to be fair, is highly debatable—does not mean that if you are rich or poor in the north of Scotland, you should pay more than anyone in the south of Scotland. If you are disadvantaged in the north of Scotland, it is no consolation to you that you are part of a national average and you fit neatly into a demographic box, so that Ofgem can dismiss your legitimate concerns about additional costs plunging you further into fuel poverty.
Drew Hendry
On the point about additional costs, there are many off-grid users in the highlands and islands, for whom costs are 100% more than they are for on-grid consumers. That adds to the problem.
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.
Barry Gardiner
I agree that many factors come together to push people into fuel poverty and into poverty. They have been ably outlined by the hon. Gentleman and his colleagues. The point I am making is that here we have something that affects not just one part of the United Kingdom but many parts of England and Wales, as the Ofgem report clearly shows.
Barry Gardiner
I felt that the debate had been unbalanced in how the facts were presented, which implied that this was an injustice being done by the Westminster Government to poor Scotland.
Barry Gardiner
Mrs Main, I am mindful of your ruling. I simply wanted to say I accept that there is an issue of justice and fairness, but wider effects are being felt all around the UK. If we keep this issue in that context rather than trying to make it about “us” and “them” and simple victimisation, we will have a much better opportunity to resolve the problems that do exist.
Barry Gardiner
I will finally take the intervention of the hon. Member for Aberdeen South.
Callum McCaig
I accept the point that they may be relatively small figures for individuals—they may be generally quite important to them for the reasons outlined—but, to use the hon. Gentleman’s own figures and multiply the £60 benefit by 700,000 people, this is not quite back-of-a-fag-packet but that is £42 million being needlessly taken out of the economy of the north of Scotland. That would make a transformational impact if it were reversed, and that is the point being made.