Fuel Poverty and Energy Efficiency

David T C Davies Excerpts

Wednesday 16th January 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Davey]

Two things surprise me about the hon. Lady’s question. First, she seems to know the details of the ongoing negotiations between EDF and the Government. I pay tribute to her if she knows them, but I have to tell her that her figures are completely wrong. Secondly, I would have thought that, given the real threat of catastrophic climate change, low-carbon energy would have changed a number of people’s views on nuclear power, if we can make it cost effective without public subsidy, in line with the Government’s policy.

[David T. C. Davies (Monmouth) (Con)]

Does my right hon. Friend agree that it is deliciously ironic that the Green party should be attacking the coalition Government for pursuing a form of energy generation that requires some kind of subsidy when it is determined to festoon the country with wind farms that require enormous subsidies to generate anything at all?

[Mr Davey]

My hon. Friend tempts me down a particular road, but it does not relate to the motion, so for reasons of time I am happy to get back to what I want to say.

--- Later in debate ---

[David T. C. Davies (Monmouth) (Con)]

We are all united today in lamenting the fact that so many people are suffering as a result of fuel poverty. I listened with great interest as the Minister, the shadow Minister and right hon. and hon. Members discussed what they would do about it—all the schemes that they have put in place, the Warm Front scheme, cold weather payments, the green deal, the affordable warmth scheme, collective switching, bashing the energy companies, subsidising people to put insulation in their lofts, and whether pensioners were getting £300 or £400 under Labour. There was no agreement about that, but it struck me that there was not a great deal of difference in what any of them were suggesting. The only difference was that Opposition Members were promising to do more of it and spend even more money, although of course they have no money because, as they admitted, they spent it all. There was very little difference.

We are failing to address a fundamental question. The energy policies of all parties in the House are predicated on the fact that man-made carbon dioxide emissions are causing global warming, that this is a problem and something must be done, and that the something that must be done is to change the way in which we generate electricity so that we do it through renewables and fund this through subsidies, which have to be passed on to consumers. Of course more people are suffering from fuel poverty under this Government and the previous Government. They always will, because we are pursuing policies that are increasing the cost of energy and we should be honest about that.

If we are to be honest about that, we would have to be honest about something else as well: the problem that we are trying to confront does not appear to be a problem. In 15 years, according to the Met Office website, there has been no increase in temperature. Let us think about that for a minute. Since 1992 the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has been chucking out predictions, one after another, telling us that there are going to be monumental rises in temperature as a result of the fact that we are putting carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.

In the 150 years of industrialisation, the temperature increase has been around 0.7° and much of that will be due to the fact that we were coming out of a period of unusual cooling anyway from about the time that we industrialised. But for the past 15 years there has been no increase whatever. All the industrialisation that has gone on in China, India, Brazil and all those other countries has not led to a trace of an increase in global warming, which is another reason why so many people will stay in fuel poverty: they will continue to have to spend large amounts of money heating their homes.

I have spent a great deal of time looking into this issue. I voted for the various carbon taxes and the climate change Bills, and I am coming to regret the fact that I did. But I did not have the information that is now out there. For ages I could not even find the Met Office figures that show that there have been no increases. If there are no increases, it is surely reasonable to conclude that something other than carbon dioxide is affecting the atmosphere and climatic and temperature changes. If that is so, perhaps we need to rethink our entire energy policy—all of us.

I have come to the conclusion that it is time to do away with the carbon taxes, the subsidies and all the rest of it, to allow energy companies to generate electricity as cheaply as they can and to sell it to consumers as cheaply as they can. I look at America, where this approach has been tried out. The price of electricity for domestic users has halved in the United States as a result of the exploitation of shale gas through fracking. Obviously, Ministers will get no support from the environmentalists, but they will get no support from them anyway.

The first Member who intervened on the Minister was the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas), the Green party Member, complaining about subsidies. I have never heard anything so ludicrous as a member of the Green party complaining about energy subsidies and energy price increases. We have followed its policies to some extent and obviously all renewable energies need subsidies and they will always lead to an increased cost, which is passed straight on to the consumer.

[Caroline Lucas]

I did not want to interrupt the hon. Gentleman because I did not want to give him any encouragement whatever, but he has now challenged me. Does he accept that fuel bills are rising now because of rising gas prices, not because of anything to do with support for renewables?

[David T. C. Davies]

I can assure the hon. Lady that I need absolutely no encouragement whatsoever. It would be a pleasure to discuss this issue with her at some point. She will understand that gas prices in the United States have not just halved—they are around a quarter of what they were a few years ago as a result of the exploitation of shale gas. I am tempted to suggest that she should join me in supporting that exciting new technology, but I have a feeling that I know what the answer will be. Of course she will not support it, and she will not support the Severn barrage, either, even though that would allow us to generate electricity without carbon emissions. She will not support nuclear power, even though that allows us to generate electricity without the carbon emissions that she would suggest are the greatest threat to our climate.

[David Mowat (Warrington South) (Con)]

My hon. Friend is making a very interesting speech. He has mentioned the United States and the fact that gas prices have gone down by a factor of four. The other interesting thing about the United States is that it was the OECD country that reduced carbon emissions the most last year, by replacing coal with gas—exactly the opposite of what Germany is doing.

[David T. C. Davies]

I thank my hon. Friend for that point. I am out of time and I will not impose on you, Mr Deputy Speaker.

Tear up the carbon taxes, tear up the subsidies—let us start again, deliver the cheap energy we know is out there and end fuel poverty that way.