Richard Fuller
Main Page: Richard Fuller (Conservative - North East Bedfordshire)Fuel Poverty and Energy Efficiency
Richard Fuller Excerpts(11 years, 4 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text
Caroline Flint
Absolutely, and the question is this: what have the Government been doing for the past two and a half years? [Interruption.] Well, for a start, 2 million homes received a Warm Front grant under Labour. What is this Government’s record? Let us talk about that. Even families who have been accepted as eligible for help under Warm Front are facing huge delays. Despite being asked parliamentary questions, so far the Government have refused to reveal the average waiting time, but yesterday morning on “Daybreak” I learnt of a single mum called Susannah Hickling who was forced to wait nine months.
From asking other parliamentary questions, I have uncovered a huge backlog. In response to a question on 18 December, the Government were forced to admit that of nearly 22,000 successful applications for Warm Front grants—fewer than we have had in previous times—just 6,000 have resulted in any work, meaning that nearly 16,000 families who have been told that they will receive help are still waiting, in the middle of winter. I understand that the Government are now saying that the backlog is only 14,000. That is hardly a sign of success. If that is the case, I hope that the Secretary of State will update the House on how many households are waiting and when they can expect the work to be done.
On top of that, a further 9,000 people have applied for assistance but are still anxiously waiting to know whether they will get any help before Warm Front closes for good. Notwithstanding the insulation or energy efficiency measures that have finally been installed, the amount of help that people end up receiving has been quietly slashed by two thirds compared with last year. This year, the average level of grant provided under Warm Front is just £997, but last year it was more than three times as much at more than £3,000. In short, we have a scheme in its dying days under which people are receiving less help than ever before, with a massive backlog and thousands of families being given the cold shoulder.
Disgraceful though that is, it gets worse. Despite all the hardship—the cuts in funding, the reduced help, the delays—the Government have been forced to come clean and reveal that more than half the budget is predicted to remain unspent. In answer to a parliamentary question from me on 12 December, the Government confirmed that, from a total budget of £100 million this financial year, just £34.8 million has spent, while another £15.1 million has been committed but not yet spent. That means that more than £50 million that this Government chose to set aside to help low-income households through Warm Front might not even be spent at all. Given that the average Warm Front grant this year has been just under £1,000, that means that some 50,000 low-income or vulnerable households could have received help but will not, unless the scheme is extended and Saturday’s deadline is pushed back.
Let me ask the Secretary of State a straightforward question. What possible justification can there be for shutting down a scheme and turning away people in need when only half the budget has been spent? If he cannot answer that question, will he not see sense today and agree to extend the Warm Front scheme until the entire budget has been spent or committed to expenditure? No one is asking for more money or for the budget to be increased. We are simply saying that if the Government have chosen to set aside £100 million for Warm Front this year, they should at least ensure that this support reaches the people it was intended to reach.
Caroline Flint
It is indeed a disgrace. I do not say this without thinking about it first, but I think this Government have basically driven the scheme into the ground.
It makes it even more unforgiveable that we find ourselves in exactly the same situation as last year, when, despite repeated warnings, the Government had an underspend in the previous financial year of £50.6 million in the Warm Front scheme. Instead of that money helping people to reduce their energy use and cut their bills, it went back to the Treasury—presumably to help to fill the holes in the Chancellor’s borrowing targets. Why were Ministers not on the case? They have known since October 2010 that Warm Front was due to end this Saturday. After last year’s debacle, if I were a Minister I would have been all over this issue and not waiting for another car crash. Indeed, if I can access that information through parliamentary questions, Ministers should have known about the underspend, the backlog and the thousands of applications still waiting to be decided on. If they knew there was a problem, why were they not on the sofas of “Daybreak” or “This Morning”, or out in the country promoting the scheme and ensuring that people knew the help was available? The Government are keen on performance-related pay; perhaps they should start with the pay of Ministers at the Department of Energy and Climate Change.
Richard Fuller
I am extraordinarily grateful to the right hon. Lady for giving way. Perhaps my question will move her on to something more constructive and what we can do to improve some of the schemes. She has mentioned the Warm Front scheme and some of the problems with the backlog, but the Public Accounts Committee found that only 35% of the households that were likely to be fuel-poor would be eligible. Does she not think that it behoves us to look at improvements to the scheme? What would she recommend constructively that we could do better?
Caroline Flint
I will tell the hon. Gentleman what I recommend. There is £50 million in the Warm Front budget. The Government should delay the closure of the scheme and extend it so that more people can get what they need. Indeed, only 22 people in his constituency got Warm Front in the last year. Is he happy with that? Is he satisfied that £50 million will go back to the Treasury, rather than helping people in Bedford and every other part of this country? I suggest that he put that in his press release for his local paper, explaining why he will sit on £50 million before letting it disappear from the communities in Bedford and everywhere else in the country.
Sometimes there are Opposition motions whose purpose is to express a clear dividing line between us and the Government; sometimes they will contain policies or proposals with which we know the Government will not agree; on the odd occasion they will even be used to make a political point or two. In preparing today’s motion, however, we focused on common-sense solutions to some of the problems relating to Warm Front, the green deal and the obligations of the energy companies, in order to ensure that our energy efficiency schemes deliver, that help reaches those who need it most and that, even in these difficult times, people who are struggling are not needlessly left out in the cold when money is available and has been committed to help them. It is in that spirit that I urge all hon. Members to support a green deal that is a good deal, tougher action on the energy companies if they fail to meet their obligations, and the extension of Warm Front until its entire budget has been spent. I commend the motion to the House.
Mr Davey
My hon. Friend is absolutely right, and he is an authority in the House on this issue. It was not just the green deal or nuclear or other things that Labour failed to do when in government; it failed to get investment into the energy system in the UK, and we are having to make up the backlog.
We are helping people now, in the short term, by intervening directly—getting extra money into the pockets of those who need it to pay their bills and looking after those who are struggling most—through the warm home discount. We are helping people now and in the medium term by helping everyone to be able to help themselves to cut their bills by saving energy through the green deal. We are ensuring through the Energy Bill that our country and future generations are not hit by future volatile fossil fuel prices, as we are being hit by major reforms for a more competitive, more diverse market of suppliers and energy sources. Let me deal with each of those areas in turn
Richard Fuller
We all recognise the differences between this Government and the last Government. This time money is short, whereas the last Government spent like drunken sailors money that they did not have. When we deal with fuel poverty, we thus want to ensure that the funding is focused on those who really need it. Will the Secretary of State address the issue that under the last Government schemes were not targeted on those who really needed them, and tell us what this Government are doing about it?
Mr Davey
My hon. Friend is absolutely right, and I am coming on to talk about that right now. Looking at the actions we are taking, it is clear that we are helping the poorest and most vulnerable with targeted extra money to help with winter bills. We need to make sure that those who feel the cold most sharply and those who can least afford to pay can put on the heating in the knowledge they will receive extra help to pay for it. For many pensioners, winter fuel payments make a valuable contribution to paying their energy bills. That is why we have protected winter fuel payments in line with the budget set out by Labour. Last year, we made over 12 million payments to over 9 million households at a cost of around £2.6 billion.
We are doing more for the poorest pensioners and for many other vulnerable households through cold weather payments. When the coalition came to office, cold weather payments were at £8.50 a week and had only temporarily been raised to £25. As cold weather payments target the most vulnerable when they need it the most, the coalition decided, despite the tough financial situation, to keep cold weather payments at £25 a week and to make that permanent, investing an extra £50 million a year. About 4.2 million people are currently eligible—older people on pension credit, disabled adults, families with children under five on an income-related benefit. They can now be sure that—year in, year out—if the temperature drops dramatically, they will get help with energy bills. We should be proud of that.
Richard Fuller (Bedford) (Con)
Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker, for permitting me to speak. This is the first time that I have spoken in an energy-related debate so I will be grateful for forbearance if I do not know all the terminology.
I came to the House with very positive feelings about the Warm Front scheme. Prior to the general election in 2010 I was contacted by an elderly gentleman, who said, “I have never contacted anyone before, I have voted for your party all along, and I have a problem with my heating at home.” He had served his country, always done the right thing and brought up his family, but he was on his own, he was in his 80s and he had no heating at home. I engaged with the company—I think it was Carillion at the time in the region—and it did a superb job in following up. It had been complicated for him to get help but the company did an excellent job in supporting him. It was wonderful to see that reaction. It is a great sadness that he has since passed away.
I do not lightly criticise the Warm Front scheme. It was a very good scheme in that instance, but we have to face facts. It is a shame that the shadow Minister did not respond as positively as she might have done to my inquiry. When money is short, we have to make sure that it goes to those who most need it. That is incredibly important. We cannot pretend to people that we can spend money that we do not have to help people who perhaps do not need it just because they would like to have it at the cost of directing money towards those people who really need it. I applaud the Government for ensuring that, when there is less money available, they protect the money for, and focus it on, the most vulnerable.
Most of my comments relate to how the Government are trying to focus on ensuring that all the taxpayers’ money that is being spent goes to those who most require it. Will the Minister assure us that the Government is targeting taxpayers’ money for people in fuel poverty more on those on the lower decile incomes and on those who are most vulnerable? What measures is he taking to ensure that that happens?
Directing money towards those who most need it is important, but ensuring that it gets there—and does so effectively—matters, too. I was intrigued by the response to a letter from the shadow Secretary of State to my right hon. Friend the Minister of State on the installation times under the Warm Front scheme. I noted that during the last period of the Labour Government, the time it took to install insulation or heating was very long. The installation of insulation took 30 working days, on average, under the previous Government and it took 60 or 70 working days for heating. I noticed that that had come down during the past couple of years and I would be interested if the Minister had further comments about the efficiency of the Government’s proposals to tackle fuel poverty, ensuring that the work and necessary steps are done as quickly as they can be, and about how they are holding the insulation and energy companies to account as quickly and frequently as they can.
A number of hon. Members on both sides of the House have said that the underlying causes of fuel poverty are multiple. I applaud the Government for considering a more rational view of assessing fuel poverty—I think the Secretary of State mentioned that the Queen would be counted at one stage, so that clearly needs to be considered. The statistics on fuel poverty in different parts of the United Kingdom show that there are clearly issues. My interest obviously lies with the town of Bedford and also with England.
Nigel Adams (Selby and Ainsty) (Con)
I accept everything my hon. Friend says about Warm Front. Does he accept the findings of the Public Accounts Committee that the majority of people who were likely to benefit from, and be targeted by, that scheme were less likely to be in fuel poverty?
Richard Fuller
My hon. Friend makes precisely the right point: we need to ensure that money is focused on those who most need it and that that money gets to those people as efficiently and effectively as possible. That is what I heard in the Secretary of State’s speech today, which was focused very positively on what could be done rather than on, if I may say so to the right hon. Member for Don Valley (Caroline Flint), throwing around statistics that were not particularly relevant to what could be done right now. When we look at the statistics, we can see that underlying issues lead Governments to take certain actions. I am interested to hear what the right hon. Lady or her colleague, the hon. Member for Liverpool, Wavertree (Luciana Berger), will have to say when they wind up, but it would have been nice to have heard some more positive engagement from the Labour Front Benchers. It would have been nice to have heard what they would do and what positive suggestions they would propose. Opposition is not just about shouting one’s point of view—it is often about engaging with statistics and answers and coming forward with positive solutions. I am sure that my right hon. Friend the Minister will be very positive.
Sarah Newton
Is it not important that we learn the lessons from the ridiculous situation in which people who were off-grid were made to have oil as their central heating system, which they could not afford after the first time the system was filled? Under our schemes, they can now have something sustainable, such as a ground source heat pump.
Richard Fuller
I appreciate that positive contribution from my hon. Friend. I guess that sums up what I would like to say: as many Members on both sides of the House have said, many constituents are facing tough decisions on their heating this winter. We are beholden to engage positively in support of the Government in the initiatives they have taken. It is critical that the Government—I look to the Minister for an answer today—ensure that their initiatives are focused on those who most need the support—that is, the most vulnerable. If he is doing that, he is doing this country a great service.