Oral Answers to Questions

Meg Hillier Excerpts

Thursday 16th December 2010 Commons Chamber

[Chris Huhne]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his kind remarks. There was an outstanding team effort at Cancun. The Minister of State, my hon. Friend the Member for Bexhill and Battle (Gregory Barker), who is responsible for climate change, and the rest of the team played a tremendous part in making sure the outcome was much more successful than we might have hoped even as recently as early in that week.

My hon. Friend the Member for The Wrekin (Mark Pritchard) is absolutely right to make the point he made. In my discussions with Ofgem, I have repeatedly raised the fact that we want it to be firm with energy suppliers and ensure our consumers are not being taken for a ride. Both the chairman, Lord Mogg, and the chief executive are very aware of that, and they are completely in line with our objective of making sure the energy suppliers are providing the best possible deal. The review is looking at precisely this issue. Ofgem does have substantial powers over suppliers and, of course, we can also trigger a competition review.

[Meg Hillier (Hackney South and Shoreditch) (Lab/Co-op)]

Labour Members are also pleased that Ofgem is looking into energy pricing. The Government seem to be in a funny place. They appear to accept that energy prices will increase and that that is a price the British public will have to pay, to a degree, for a greener future, but we know that prices rise for many reasons, as the Secretary of State acknowledged. Given the Government’s proposals to increase VAT from January, freeze pay, cut funding to public services and oversee huge job losses, increased energy bills will add to hardship. At the same time, the Government are abolishing Consumer Focus, which battles on behalf of consumers. We have heard lots today about the theory, but consumers are facing the challenges now. Even if energy market reform is successful, can the Secretary of State tell the House what plans he has to improve things for consumers now, as we approach a harsh winter and the measures that I mentioned?

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Speaker]

Order. There is huge interest, as colleagues can see, and I want to try to accommodate it, but we must have brief questions and brief answers.

[Meg Hillier (Hackney South and Shoreditch) (Lab/Co-op)]

Given the list that the Secretary of State just read out, one would think that he sees himself as Action Man, but we heard this week that he describes himself as Tesco Man. Last time I questioned the Government about green investment, the Minister of State, Department of Energy and Climate Change, the hon. Member for Bexhill and Battle (Gregory Barker), reassured the House that plans for the green investment bank would be unveiled in the spring. Yesterday, I read that the Secretary of State has lost out to the Treasury and that this much-vaunted green investment bank is to be a fund with nowhere near enough resources to generate the £200 billion necessary for investment in green technologies. The question is whether the country has lost out. Given the impact on British business, job creation and the climate, a properly functioning bank cannot wait, and this confusion is very unhelpful to British business. Will he tell the House what is happening?

[Chris Huhne]

I am grateful to the hon. Lady for her question. I can assure her that this matter is still under review by Ministers on the time scale that we were anticipating. Much as I like and respect The Guardian, having worked for it for 10 years, I have to say that its report gave only a partial view of what I said. I said, among other things, that ducks quack and banks borrow and lend. The Chancellor of the Exchequer was the person who put forward the idea of the green investment bank when he was in opposition, and he knows very well what a bank is. I am absolutely convinced, therefore, that we will have an institution that does exactly what it says on the tin.

[Meg Hillier]

We still do not have certainty. We hear that the matter is “under review” but we believed that it was a Government commitment. I am proud to be the first Labour/Co-op shadow Secretary of State for climate change, and the Secretary of State has described himself as very happy to be the Tesco of the energy industry. Yet without the green investment bank, whichever model we choose, we will not see the benefits that we want to see. The Minister of State, the hon. Member for Bexhill and Battle, spoke earlier of the importance of community energy and smaller suppliers; we want energy to benefit all. We want to see this bank up and running, and the Secretary of State will have support from the Opposition if it gets going. Will he consider joining me, as the advocate of co-operative climate change, in working for the benefit of all, with the green dividend and green investment shared fairly through an up-and-running bank?

[Chris Huhne]

I agree that we have to look very carefully at the sources of finance for green investment. There are undoubted obstacles in the way of some of the technologies that are furthest away from the market, in particular, and that makes the very important case for the green investment bank. That—not the concept—is what is under review at the moment. The commitment to a green investment bank is clearly in the Government’s coalition agreement, and it was an idea of the Chancellor of the Exchequer. Some of the reports suggesting that the Chancellor would want to murder his own baby seem a little far-fetched.