Energy: Fuel Poverty

Earl Cathcart Excerpts

Wednesday 13th July 2011 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Earl Cathcart]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what progress has been made in carrying out their “full-scale review of fuel poverty and its implementation”, with special regard to energy companies adopting a rising block tariff system of charging.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Energy and Climate Change (Lord Marland)]

My Lords, the Secretary of State announced on 14 March 2011 that Professor John Hills would undertake an independent review of fuel poverty. He has been asked to consider fuel poverty from first principles—what causes it, its effects and how best to measure it—with interim findings expected in the autumn and a final report in early 2012. The review is independent. Its conclusions will be evidence-based and have not been and will not be pre-judged or pre-agreed with the Government.

[Earl Cathcart]

My Lords, I thank my noble friend for that encouraging reply. It is good that Professor Hills will carry out that work. The problem is that energy companies recover their fixed costs from the first few hundred units they charge each customer, and the more energy used the lower the charge per unit. This seems topsy-turvy to me and does nothing to encourage us to use less energy. It is no wonder that there are millions of households in fuel poverty. With energy prices set to surge, surely the first few hundred units consumed should be relatively cheap and then the charging should get progressively more expensive per unit.

[Lord Marland]

I am very grateful to my noble friend. This is a subject that we have discussed on many occasions. Indeed, our officials have offered to meet him to discuss it, which I am delighted to say they will in September. I can also inform my noble friend that I have written to Professor Hills and suggested that he might like to talk to noble Lords and hear their views, bearing in mind that his is an independent review so I am not allowed to insist upon that. I am delighted that he has offered a date in August, which is probably not that convenient to noble Lords, so he has agreed to see your Lordships in September. I hope that the input from my noble friend will then be extremely invaluable.