Energy Bills

Debate between Ed Davey and Russell Brown

Monday 2nd December 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Davey]

We have actually gone further than the hon. Gentleman wants. We have asked Ofgem to do a full review of the financial transparency of the big six so that their customers, this House and the public can see where and how they are making their profits. That is exactly what the hon. Gentleman ought to be welcoming.

[Mr Russell Brown (Dumfries and Galloway) (Lab)]

The Secretary of State has been asked twice about rural areas such as mine, where many households are off the gas grid and use liquefied petroleum gas and heating oil. Not only that, but they are desperately low-income households. The Secretary of State’s statement gives nothing to those people, apart from telling them to continue to pay their tax, which will subsidise the energy companies.

[Mr Davey]

When I was asked that question on the two previous occasions mentioned by the hon. Gentleman, I replied that one of the components of the energy company obligation has not been working, namely the rural sub-obligation of the carbon saving community obligation. We are reforming that to try to make sure that it works better for rural areas. We are doing an awful lot for people in rural areas, not least through the renewable heat incentive, which will be launched next March or April. We have not announced the actual date, but it is designed to help people who are off the gas grid.

Petrol Prices

Debate between Ed Davey and Russell Brown

Wednesday 15th May 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Davey]

I pay tribute to my hon. Friend for raising the issue of businesses, in particular small and medium-sized enterprises. If the allegations are proved to be correct, and petrol and diesel prices have been higher than they otherwise should have been in a fair market, then they will have been hit as well. He will know from previous debates on petrol and diesel prices the impact that fuel prices have on the wider haulage industry. It is vital that we get to the bottom of this not just for consumers, but for our whole economy.

[Mr Russell Brown (Dumfries and Galloway) (Lab)]

If anything untoward is discovered at the end of this process, it will not show the OFT in a good light. While price is important, the quality of fuel that people purchase is also an issue. I find that more and more of my constituents complain about poor mileage from cheaper fuel. I put to the Secretary of State a quick calculation: 2p a litre extra and two miles per gallon is far better than cheaper fuel. I have asked Which? to conduct a survey on fuel quality. Does the Secretary of State agree that we should be looking at that too, and will he support an investigation into the quality of the fuel that people are purchasing at the pumps?

[Mr Davey]

That is an extremely interesting point. I hope the hon. Gentleman is liaising with his local trading standards department, in case there are any serious problems, but I shall certainly ask my officials to look into it. It is not just the quality of the fuel, however, but fuel efficiency that matters: we need far more fuel efficient cars and we need standards that send a signal to the industry that we want it to make its cars more fuel efficient. The Government have a proud record of supporting the electric motor industry, and the UK is beginning to be a real producer of electric cars.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Ed Davey and Russell Brown

Thursday 31st January 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Davey]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his question and I will certainly look into that idea, but can I just tell him how many things the Government are doing to support switching, not least our support for collective switching? One of the advantages of collective switching is that it can get even better deals for people than the normal switching we have seen in the past. It can also reach out to the most vulnerable and to the people on the lowest incomes. That is why the only criterion for our competition, Cheaper Energy Together, which this year will see 94 councils involved in collective switching schemes, was that the fuel poor should be involved.

[Mr Russell Brown (Dumfries and Galloway) (Lab)]

I do not recognise where the Minister of State, Department of Energy and Climate Change, the right hon. Member for Bexhill and Battle (Gregory Barker), got his figures from when he answered the previous question, because under the previous Labour Government 1.75 million people were lifted out of fuel poverty. When next year’s figures come out, which will show what has happened since the general election, does the Secretary of State think that the number of people in fuel poverty will have increased or decreased?

[Mr Davey]

I am grateful for the chance to answer a question on this issue, because the report that my predecessor commissioned from Professor John Hills is a serious report, and I urge all right hon. and hon. Members to read it. It talks about how we measure fuel poverty and shows that some of the statistics we have used in the past have been deeply unhelpful in tackling fuel poverty, not least because they failed to identify the people who were in grinding fuel poverty year in, year out. The proposals put forward by Professor John Hills will ensure that the really poor, who never escape fuel poverty, are identified and that we can give them much greater help. That is the real debate we should be having, not this exchange of statistics that gets us nowhere.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Ed Davey and Russell Brown

Thursday 8th July 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Davey]

The safety of staff and the public is always a major consideration as we go forward in modernising the network. I think the fact that the Government are committed to looking for new services and new ways of doing things, and to seeing whether we can increase the financial services that go through the network, will be widely welcomed. That will enable the network to be more financially viable and therefore to meet even better the concerns that the hon. Lady has voiced.

[Mr Russell Brown (Dumfries and Galloway) (Lab)]

The Minister knows full well that one of the determining factors as to which post offices remained open during the two or three-year period when we lost 2,500 outlets was the access criteria. Can he give the House an assurance today that we will not see those access criteria interfered or tampered with?

[Mr Davey]

The hon. Gentleman can have my assurance that I am working very hard with Post Office Ltd to make sure that we have the new services that will generate the revenue, so that we do not have to see the mass closure programme that precipitated the access criteria that the hon. Gentleman’s Government had to introduce.