Off-gas Grid Households

Debate between Fiona O'Donnell and Mike Weir

Tuesday 16th April 2013 Westminster Hall

[Mr Mike Weir (Angus) (SNP)]

I am pleased to speak in this important debate under your chairmanship, Mr Crausby, and to support the recommendations made by the all-party group on off-gas grid in its excellent report, which sets out the issues and proposes interesting ideas to deal with them.

I do not intend to speak on the general problem of fuel poverty, the details of which should be well known by Members on both sides of the House, but I note the point that the hon. Member for Truro and Falmouth (Sarah Newton) made: although only 15% of households in the UK are not on the gas grid, 32% of such households are in fuel poverty, as opposed to 15% of on-grid households. That shows the extent of the problem, particularly, but not exclusively, in rural areas. I have raised the issue of off-grid supplies in all the years I have been in the House. When preparing for the debate, I was tempted simply to say—in the manner of “Blue Peter”—“Here’s one I prepared earlier” and produce an old Hansard. It is slightly depressing to see the same familiar problems that we have talked about for years highlighted in the report.

I have raised the particular issue of winter fuel payments for off-grid pensioners on numerous occasions, to Ministers in both this and the previous Government. I am pleased with the strong recommendation in the new report that calls on the Department for Work and Pensions to reconsider its opposition to my private Member’s Bill. My Bill does not seek to extend winter fuel payments to additional groups, nor does it tread on the contentious issue of means testing that concerns some Members. It is tightly drawn to give some relief to a particularly vulnerable sector: pensioners who are off the gas grid.

As the hon. Member for Truro and Falmouth said, all forms of energy have increased in price, but the price of home fuel oil has rocketed in recent years, and there is clear evidence that the cost rises in early autumn and stays high over winter. Even on the website of an oil supplier, www.valueoils.com, we can read:

“Winter months are typically more expensive than the summer given the rise in demand across Europe, the summer months of June and July will usually provide the lowest rates.”

The graph on the site shows dramatic increases in all areas of the United Kingdom over the winter months. It is important to note that this is not just an issue for the rural highlands and islands of Scotland; it also affects rural Wales and all parts of rural England, including Cornwall.

[Fiona O'Donnell (East Lothian) (Lab)]

What the hon. Gentleman says is further evidenced by the experience of one of my constituents, who queried her bill and had it reduced. No other market—including mains gas and electricity—would operate in that way, so is that not evidence that the suppliers are charging over the odds at times?

[Mr Weir]

The market is not clear. I appreciate that there are difficulties in the market. There are some big suppliers, but there are many small ones, and one difficulty is that many suppliers buy on the notoriously volatile spot market. The APPG report highlights another difficulty, which is that people are given a price when they ask for oil, but the price is not guaranteed and can be completely different on delivery. That is no way for someone to run their main home heating supply. The presence of the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) reminds me that this is also an issue in Northern Ireland—I was interrupted before I could mention that.

Figures from Oil Firing Technical Association suggest that a typical rural household could save £170 if they bought heating oil in June 2010 rather than in January 2011, nearly doubling the value of their winter fuel allowance. When I introduced my Bill, the House of Commons Library produced a note that stated:

“The average costs of heating and providing hot water for a typical three bedroom house with LPG have been estimated at around £2,300 per year (based on April 2012 prices with a conventional boiler), heating oil is thought to cost around £1,700 and gas around £1,200.”

It is worth noting that over the past four years, the cost of heating an average home with propane or home fuel oil has increased by £850 and £750 respectively, while gas has increased by only £400, so not only are off-grid homes more expensive to heat but the costs have risen much more sharply than for homes on the gas grid. In short, it costs almost double to heat a home with LPG than a home with access to the mains gas grid. It is also important to note that the main use of LPG and home fuel oil is for heating, so although these homes generally have electricity they still face greater costs.

The traditional response of Government to the problem has been to call for an extension of the mains gas grid, and that point is made in the report, but there are fundamental difficulties, not least because in many rural areas there is simply no gas main and there is no possibility of a gas main ever coming to areas such as the islands and highlands of Scotland, rural Wales and rural Northern Ireland perhaps. Even where there is a gas main, the connection cost can be exorbitant.

I recently came across a case in an urban setting in my constituency. Even though there was a gas main further down the street, my constituent was quoted £6,000 to connect to it. That would be uneconomical for most households, which are struggling to pay their fuel bills. If the Government are serious about the extension of the gas grid, they have to do something about connection costs. In the case of my constituent, it might be that the quoted cost was high because they were the first person in their small area who wanted to connect. People connecting in future might get it cheaper, but it is still uneconomical for the first person, and that issue needs to be tackled.

The problem in many rural areas is exacerbated by the fact that much of the housing is old and of a construction that makes it difficult to install energy-saving measures such as cavity wall insulation. I appreciate that the Minister will say that the energy company obligation is meant to tackle such issues—and I am sure that it will— but there is still a huge problem over all rural areas of the United Kingdom.

Those households receive the same winter fuel allowances as pensioners on the gas grid, but the crucial difference is how the energy is delivered. Those who are on the gas grid will receive their winter fuel bill around the time that the winter fuel allowance is generally paid, and it therefore works well for them. Indeed, in the explanatory notes to the regulations that last amended the benefit, the previous Government stated:

“They are paid in a lump sum each winter to ensure that money is available when fuel bills arrive.”

That, however, is not the case for those who are off the gas grid. They face the difficulty of having to pay for their LPG or home fuel oil up front at the beginning of winter, well before they have the benefit of the winter fuel allowance, and the hon. Member for Truro and Falmouth rightly pointed out the cost of a full tank of gas. Many find it difficult to make the payment at that point, and may well not fill up the tank completely, which leaves them having to do so in the depths of winter, which can bring problems of its own, particularly during the severe weather that we have recently experienced.

The Office of Fair Trading produced a report that found that there were many competing suppliers in the market. However, by definition many of them are small suppliers, and although some of the larger players offer greater payment flexibility, many smaller ones are unable to so.

Postal Services Bill

Debate between Fiona O'Donnell and Mike Weir

Thursday 9th June 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Mike Weir (Angus) (SNP)]

I have expressed opposition to post office closures for 10 years in the House, and my view is unchanged. My colleagues and I do not think that the Post Office should be privatised, but the Bill is going through. I would laugh if it were not so sad to hear Labour Members slagging off the Government, given the number of post offices that their party closed, but I had better confine my remarks to the amendments so that you do not call me to order, Madam Deputy Speaker.

Although I welcome Lords amendment 1 to an extent because it would improve the report, it does not provide a guarantee of business. That remains a difficulty: there is considerable uncertainty in local post offices about future business, and I fear that many more will close if it is not dealt with. Many are closing now, not just because of the Post Office side of the business but because of the general state of the economy. At the risk of opening up another front of argument between the two sides, I will cite Ferryden in my constituency. During the closure programme it was agreed that Ferryden’s post office was needed, but the post office was in the local shop, which recently closed. The reason was not to do with the post office itself—and I appreciate that it is not within the Government’s immediate control—but the fact that the small shop, the last in the village, was considered to be no longer economic. When the shop went, the post office went as well.

The same difficulty exists in rural areas throughout the country. With respect to the hon. Member for Birmingham, Erdington (Jack Dromey), post offices will not take up the slack in rural areas, because they are closing there as well. It is a simple case of economics. It is unlikely that the Ferryden post office will go to another business, because it does not exist. The chances are that it will end up as an outreach programme and a restricted service to the village. The important thing is to try to keep some postal services in that village. I should have preferred an inter-business agreement that provided certainty about the future level of business. I appreciate the difficulties, but the continued uncertainty does not help.

My main point about the Lords amendment relates to new section (3A)(b), which concerns the proposed share scheme. I wanted to raise the issue at an earlier stage, but unfortunately we ran out of time. The amendment states that when shares are sold for the first time, details of the employee share scheme will be given. However, we do not know what the structure of the scheme will be. Clause 3(2) states that when the Crown no longer owns any part of Royal Mail, the share held by or on behalf of the employee share scheme must be at least 10%. I know that the Minister said that on the first sale of shares the share scheme details would be given, but the 10% is vitally important, because the Bill otherwise allows the sale of 90% of the company to one other entity, such as another postal operator. Leaving aside the argument put by the hon. Member for Llanelli (Nia Griffith) on behalf of the Opposition about whether 10% is an appropriate figure, the choice of this level does present a potential difficulty, depending on how the shareholding is held. In Committee, the Minister was pressed on whether the shareholding would be held in a trust for the benefit of the employees—the so-called John Lewis model—or whether it would be given in individual shares to the workers. We did not receive an answer to that question.

[Fiona O'Donnell]

Has the hon. Gentleman’s party had any discussions with the Government about the future of Royal Mail in an independent Scotland?

[Mr Weir]

The hon. Lady has taken her chances by asking that question, but it goes beyond the scope of the amendments before us. The Post Office is very important to rural areas of Scotland, and I will merely note that the Scottish Government have done much more than the UK Government to help rural post offices in the future—such as through the diversification and rates rebate schemes. That illustrates what we would do in an independent Scotland.

To return to the point I was making before being led down this interesting side road, the lack of detail about the structure presents a dilemma because, depending on what method is chosen, there could be unintended consequences in the future. If the John Lewis method is pursued, there may well be no problem, in that it will be a trust holding and will, in all likelihood, be held at or above the 10% level. However, if the shares are distributed to individual employees, we could have a very different scenario. Experience of previous privatisations suggests that a number of employees would immediately sell their shareholdings, and others would be likely to sell at some future date, either when they retire or, perhaps, by their executors on death. There is absolutely nothing wrong with that; they would be their shares so they can dispose of them as they see fit. Such actions could, however, have a serious consequence for the continuation of a workers’ shareholding within the company, because of the operation of our current company law, and especially as Ministers have made it absolutely clear that they would be relaxed about Royal Mail being bought either by one of the major foreign postal operators or by private equity companies up to the remaining 90% figure.

I remind the House that in cases where private equity companies have bought listed companies, they have on occasion de-listed the company and operated it as a private company. I particularly draw Members’ attention to the terms of section 429 of the Companies Act 1985, which gives provision in respect of implementation of the EU directive on takeover bids. One of the purposes of the directive was to deal with the problems of, and for, residual minority shareholders following a successful takeover bid, processes known as “squeeze out” and “sell out”. The provisions in question provide that following a takeover offer:

“If the offeror has, by virtue of acceptances of the offer, acquired or unconditionally contracted to acquire—

(a) not less than nine-tenths in value of the shares to which the offer relates, and

(b) in a case where the shares to which the offer relates are voting shares, not less than nine-tenths of the voting rights carried by those shares,

he may give notice to the holder of any shares to which the offer relates which the offeror has not acquired or unconditionally contracted to acquire that he desires to acquire those shares.”

In effect, therefore, anyone who acquires 90% of the shareholding in a company can force the sale of the shares of the remaining small shareholders and become sole owner of the company. If the Government were to sell 90% of Royal Mail to, say, Deutsche Post, there could clearly be a potential difficulty in regard to the workers’ shareholding in the future if that is held individually by Post Office workers. If at any time the individual shares held by the work force were to fall below 10%, there is the potential for the owner of the remaining 90% to force a sale and therefore wipe out the shareholdings of the workers.

I am sure the Minister will, in his usual inimitable manner, tell me that I am constructing a theoretical problem that would not occur in the real world, but I wanted to propose an amendment on this point because of a real case of this kind involving constituents of mine. My constituents, who are pensioners, were shareholders in Dana Petroleum, and had been for a large number of years. The company was not paying dividends, but the shareholding did increase in value and my constituents regarded it as a nest egg for the future. Unfortunately, Dana Petroleum was subject to a hostile takeover by the Korean National Oil Corporation, which I believe is state-owned—I believe it is part of a sovereign wealth fund. That company purchased the majority of shares, although my constituents did not wish to accept its offer. The new owners decided to de-list the company, with the effect that my constituents were forced to sell their shareholdings, in their case causing a capital gains tax liability.

Unless the Government give us details of the form the shareholding will take, there is a genuine danger that we could face that situation within Royal Mail in the future. If the Minister will stand up and say, “It will be the John Lewis model; it will be a share trust of at least 10% of the shares for all the employees in the company”, I do not think there will be a problem. Alternatively, however, we might go down the same road as with previous utility sales, where individual shares were given to the workers and that shareholding within the companies has been reduced over the years. It is interesting to note that many of the former utilities are now offering special deals to get small shareholders to sell out their remaining shares because they do not want the small shareholders. Although this idea of worker participation is a good one, I would rather the company was not privatised. If that does happen, however, the bigger the workers’ shareholding within it, the better, and the shareholders would, it is to be hoped, have real rights.

As there is a lack of detail on this point, there is a danger that we will end up with nothing for the workers and the company wholly in the hands of one, possibly foreign, postal service or private equity company. The recent experience of private equity companies buying out limited companies is not a good one; we need only look at the current problems with Southern Cross to see that. I ask the Minister to reflect on this issue, and give us an assurance on it, or at least more information as to how the shareholding is to be held.

Postal Services Bill

Debate between Fiona O'Donnell and Mike Weir

Wednesday 12th January 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Weir]

The Government in Scotland will have discussions with the Post Office, in the same way as the Government here, but that will depend on what happens. I was making the point that, although I welcome the development that I have described—I could equally well ask the hon. Gentleman what his colleagues in local government are doing about it—I have concerns about what will be produced, albeit not because I distrust the Government’s intentions. The Minister held a meeting before the Bill came forward and he explained what he was trying to do. I support that, but there are practical difficulties.

I made the point that, in my area of Angus, the local authority has established local access offices in most boroughs to offer a front-office service for all local authority services. In Arbroath, Brechin, Kirriemuir, Forfar and Montrose, those offices are all situated around 100 yards at most from a post office. In the case of Kirriemuir, Forfar and Montrose, those are the only post offices in the borough. However, there are two difficulties with that. It is difficult to see how the local authority will have a greater ability to deliver services through the post offices in those borough areas, especially where there is only one post office. Also, because of what happened in the last round of closures—when many of our stand-alone larger post offices were closed, being moved into sweet shops, paper shops and other premises, as the hon. Member for Linlithgow and East Falkirk said—those post offices do not have the space to deliver greater services and nor, in many cases, do they have the expertise.

In my constituency, there are already problems with some of those post offices because of lengthening queues and an inability to deliver the services already provided by the Post Office. It is difficult to see how those post offices will cope with an influx of other services from the UK Government, the Scottish Government, local authorities or anybody else. That is a practical difficulty, and I have not heard anyone in the Government come up with a solution to it. What is proposed may be a possibility in rural areas, but in their programme for post offices, the Government are talking about 4,000 main post offices that will provide a full range of services—incidentally, that is the number of post offices that are currently viable, which is slightly worrying. However, on top of that is what the Government call the post office local model. The idea of the local model is to put post offices into smaller businesses to deliver—the Government say—longer office hours and greater help for local people.

That is fine in theory, but the post office local model does not provide the full range of post office services. I suggest that the bulk of our post offices will be unable to provide the full range of services in smaller communities if the Government, local government, Scottish Government and whoever else get their act together and produce such services in the first instance. That practical difficulty needs to be tackled before things can proceed. That is another reason why a long-term inter-business agreement is a good idea. We have to look at not only the business, but the structure of the post office network, so that it can deliver the new business that is being promised to it.

However, the most important point is what the relationship will be between a privatised Royal Mail and a Government-owned Post Office Ltd, where the Government are determined to push down the costs to the taxpayer of continuing to support Post Office Ltd. As the hon. Member for Colchester rightly said, Royal Mail will inevitably try to push down its costs in delivering a mail service. When asked about that in the evidence session, Paula Vennells of Post Office Ltd said:

“In terms of what is in the Bill, what is important for Post Office is that we maintain our strong relationship with the Royal Mail Group.”––[Official Report, Postal Services Public Bill Committee, 9 November 2010; c. 5, Q6.]

That is fine and well, but we all know that at present Post Office Ltd gets fully one third of its business through the inter-business agreement. The Minister will, I am sure, point to the statement made during the evidence session by Royal Mail. Moya Greene, the chief executive, said:

“For me it is unthinkable that we would not have a very long-term relationship with the Post Office.”––[Official Report, Postal Services Public Bill Committee, 9 November 2010; c. 18, Q42.]

Again, that is all very well, but I would suggest that the relationship between a fully privatised Royal Mail and a Government-owned or mutual Post Office Ltd would be very different from that between two companies that are both members of Royal Mail Group, as they are at present. In passing, one might also wonder how long the present management will remain in place, given what has happened with management previously.

[Fiona O'Donnell]

The hon. Gentleman has referred several times to the report of the Public Bill Committee, but I wonder whether he has also seen the excellent report from the Select Committee on Scottish Affairs, in which the Minister is recorded as saying:

“That makes it very clear that there are very limited circumstances in which there could be more than one universal service provider.”

However, if the Government are really committed to the relationship, why leave any gaps in the Bill at all?

[Mr Weir]

The hon. Lady makes a good point. I have read that report, which I found to be an excellent report, hitting on the main points as they affect Scotland.

I was talking about the management at Royal Mail. Ms Greene may have a considerable attachment to Post Office Ltd, but will a new owner of the business necessarily feel the same way? What happens when the commercial profit motive really kicks in? How much will sentimentality govern the actions of Royal Mail? That is especially important given that, as has been said on many occasions in previous debates, including in Committee, the ultimate owner of Royal Mail may turn out to be Deutsche Post or TNT, which I would suggest perhaps do not have the same sentimental attachment that we all have to our Royal Mail. As I understand it, the rationale behind the privatisation is to make the new company look for efficiency savings and cut costs. I agree with the hon. Member for Colchester that it is utterly inconceivable that the new company will not look at how it can do so in its relationship with Post Office Ltd, which will not be exempt from scrutiny under the new arrangement.

In her evidence, Ms Greene said:

“I do not see other retailers as a particularly serious threat, because Post Office has an enormous amount of expertise in this area”.––[Official Report, Postal Services Public Bill Committee, 9 November 2010; c. 17, Q42.]

The hon. Member for Edinburgh South (Ian Murray) mentioned the situation in Germany, but as the National Federation of SubPostmasters has said, there is no precedent anywhere in the world for splitting the delivery service from the post office. I asked the Minister on Second Reading whether he could come up with one, but none has been forthcoming since.

I spoke at length in Committee about the situation that has developed in New Zealand. I will not go into that again at great length today—interested Members can read the report of the Committee’s proceedings, where it is explained at some length. Suffice it to say that a competitor has set up what amounts to an alternative post office network targeted purely at what it needs to sustain its postal delivery business. That is another point. When Royal Mail is split from the Post Office, it will be in a very different position. Royal Mail will be looking at what it needs to be able to deliver a postal business—not a Government business, a pro-Government business or all the other things that the Post Office might do.

In her evidence to the Committee, the chief executive of Royal Mail said that it would be “inconceivable” that anyone but Post Office Ltd would be used by the Royal Mail. The Minister, if I recall correctly, was very dismissive of the idea that an operator might want to go to, say, a major supermarket and use it for delivery of post office services. Then again, it was not so long ago that it was inconceivable that a supermarket would offer a mobile phone network, for example, be an internet service provider or perhaps offer legal services, which might happen shortly. Who would have bought a television or a hoover from a supermarket 15 years ago? Times change and that applies to the Post Office as well.

In New Zealand, as I say, that has already begun to happen. That does not mean that a provider in the UK would necessarily do the same, but it is certainly a possibility. It might look into it and that provides a danger sign for post offices in the UK. New Zealand Post, of course, fought back—one of its principal weapons being Kiwibank—but this Government have rejected the option of creating a post bank in the UK with which to anchor Post Office Ltd.

No two postal markets are the same and the UK Royal Mail and Post Office Ltd might be able to hold together and provide a seamless and mutually profitable business, but there are lessons from what has happened elsewhere and we simply cannot idly let the future of the post offices in our constituencies rest on the good amicable feelings that currently operate between the two companies, which might not survive the privatisation.