Energy Prices
Debate between Robert Halfon and Caroline Flint(9 years, 4 months ago)
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Caroline Flint
I will give way shortly.
Before I set out my case, let me deal head-on with one issue raised by the Minister for Business and Enterprise, the right hon. Member for West Suffolk (Matthew Hancock). He claims that the energy companies are refusing to pass on reductions in wholesale costs because of the prospect of an energy price freeze. Let me first thank him for the vote of confidence in our prospects at the election and tell him he is right about one thing. I absolutely believe there will be a Labour Government in May and we will freeze energy prices until 2017.
The substance of what that Minister says, like so much he comes out with, bears no connection to reality for one simple reason. From the day we announced our price freeze, which, as I have said many times, would stop suppliers increasing their prices without preventing them from cutting them, we have been clear that the price freeze—[Interruption.] If Conservative Back Benchers wait and listen to what I have to say, I will provide the evidence of my words as they appeared in Hansard.
From the day we announced the price freeze, we have been clear that it goes hand in hand with our reforms of the energy market and the creation of a tough new regulator with the power to cut prices when costs fall. That is what the Green Paper we published in November 2013 says—at paragraph 2.25, for those hon. Members who have not yet found the time to read it. Let me remind Members of my exact words in a debate on energy prices in April last year, when I said that
“the Government should…intervene to require all suppliers to freeze their prices. As we have said many times before, that would not prevent companies from cutting prices, but it would stop them from increasing them.”—[Official Report, 2 April 2014; Vol. 578, c. 892.]
What could be clearer than that? I said the same in June last year, too, when I urged the House to back a motion to give the regulator the power to cut prices when costs fall, which Government Members defeated. Therefore, none of the energy companies and no hon. Members should be in any doubt about what we will do.
Yes, we will freeze prices until 2017, so that bills can fall, not rise, and we will also give the regulator the power to cut prices. Let me remind the House that the purpose of our price freeze is not just to give us time to reform the energy market for the future, but—crucially—to compensate consumers for the fall in wholesale prices in 2009, which was never passed back to them. If anyone is labouring under the illusion that the price freeze is, or will be, an excuse for not cutting prices to reflect falls in wholesale costs, let me disabuse them of that idea today.
Robert Halfon
Under this Government, fuel duty was not just frozen but cut, and the fuel escalator was got rid of. That means that in tax terms, the average motorist is better off by 20p every time they fill up the family car, amounting to hundreds of pounds a year. Given that this debate is about energy prices, why did the right hon. Lady and her party vote against all those measures?
Caroline Flint
On the average energy bill, gas and electricity have gone up by about £260 since 2010. I shall say a little more about who has been hardest hit by that. If we look at the poorest people in our communities, we find that their price rises have gone up substantially more. On every occasion since I was given this job by my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition, I have consistently raised concerns, as I think the hon. Gentleman will appreciate, not only about wholesale cost falls not being passed on, but about the sharp practices going on in the sector, which need to be attended to.
Caroline Flint
Labour Members certainly agree with that, as do others, including the CBI. Energy should be a managed market. It is different from other things that we may buy, because it is essential to life. It keeps our homes warm, it keeps the lights on, and it keeps our hospitals and our businesses going. In this area it is absolutely clear, and I would have thought there would be some agreement from those on the Government Benches about this, because they have welcomed the CMA review. Why would they welcome a review if they thought everything was hunky-dory? Clearly there is something wrong in the way this market has been working, and that is why we have risen to the challenge to do something about it.
Robert Halfon
The right hon. Lady is being extraordinarily generous in giving way to me. She said that the energy companies are only reducing prices to new customers, but under the Government’s regulations they have to offer the cheapest tariff. I know that because I regularly get letters from EDF, my energy provider, not only offering me a cheaper tariff but informing me of the cheaper tariffs on offer from other companies.
Caroline Flint
The hon. Gentleman has on a number of occasions stood up for consumers where he has concerns about how the energy sector is working. I say this to him: the energy companies have been asked to inform their customers of the cheapest tariff, which is okay, but the truth is that we have the enormous problem of the inherited legacy post-privatisation of a very sticky customer base. That is demonstrated by the fact that the number of people switching is falling, not increasing.
Let me give the hon. Gentleman an example of another practice that is happening at the moment. It is called white labels, and it is where an energy company—one of the big six—offers through another organisation, maybe a supermarket or another company, a cheaper tariff to people who decide to be customers of that organisation, when it is the energy company providing the staff in the call centres and doing the training behind it, but they do not let their existing customers know what is going on. That is a good example of how they get around the offer they should be making to their existing customers to reflect wholesale cost falls for everyone, not just those whose business they want to acquire.
Local Government Funding
Debate between Robert Halfon and Caroline Flint(13 years, 5 months ago)
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Caroline Flint
On the working neighbourhoods fund, I am afraid that the hon. Gentleman has fallen into his Tory coalition partners’ trap. The Tories say, and he repeats the claim, that we planned to scrap the working neighbourhoods fund and had already cut money from it. In the March Budget we did announce savings, including £300 million through rationalising the regional development agencies, but we clearly distinguished between those programmes that were not a priority and would therefore be scrapped and those, including the working neighbourhoods fund, to which we were committed but would look to find savings in. It was a three-year programme in which, in November 2009—[Hon. Members: “Three years.”]. Three years’ funding is more than the one year that we used to have under Tory Governments, and more than the non-existent funding that poorer communities had under the Tory Government from 1979 to 1997.
Indeed, in November 2009 we announced a £40 million boost to the fund, worth £1.5 billion from 2008-09 to 2009-10. Of course, we had to look at programmes, but there is no evidence whatever to suggest that we would have scrapped the working neighbourhoods fund. That is not the case.
Robert Halfon (Harlow) (Con)
The right hon. Lady talks about devolution, but her Government took £13 million out of the housing budget in Harlow, where 45% of housing is social housing. The current Government are ending that and guaranteeing Harlow housing money for Harlow people.
Caroline Flint
I am afraid that is rubbish. The Labour Government, in so many different ways, contributed not only to boosting the refurbishment of homes that had been left to languish for too many years under the Tory Government, but to ensuring that there were ways and means for local councils, with other housing providers, to provide more homes.
The National Housing Federation, I think I am correct in repeating, says that, once the homes that Labour funded in its last period in office have been built, under the coalition Government’s plans, no more homes will be built. In relation—[Interruption.] The Minister for Housing and Local Government says “nonsense”, but let us just wait and see, because even in a time of recession, it was Labour money that worked in partnership with others—[Hon. Members: “Taxpayers’ money”.] It was taxpayers’ money with which a Labour Government decided that we should promote the building of more social homes. Even in the teeth of recession, I think we built at least 55,000 homes to provide for people who could not afford a house on the private market.
We all know why that front-loaded package is happening: because the Secretary of State gives the impression of being more interested in trashing local councils, chasing cheap headlines, calling councillors stupid or lazy and telling local authorities to grow up. The hundreds of thousands of decent, honest, hard-working people who work in local government, and the millions of people who depend on the services and support that they provide, hardly seem to warrant a second thought, but they will be the ones who pay the price for this Government’s decisions.
To make matters worse, local councils are being forced to make deeper cuts than they expected and to do so much quicker, because the reductions in local government funding are front-loaded. As much as 50% of the cuts could fall in the first year. Councillors are looking at cuts of 14%, 16% or 18% to their budgets within weeks, but the Secretary of State still denies it. He says that it is a fiction, but he is about the only person left who still thinks so.
Police Grant Report
Debate between Robert Halfon and Caroline Flint(13 years, 10 months ago)
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Caroline Flint
No, I am talking about the cost of these elected individuals over and above what we have at the moment, and priorities being skewed in ways that do not help.
We need to make a better case of explaining how serious organised crime impacts on our neighbourhoods and communities so that people can see the relationship between the drug dealer in their street, the prostitutes in their neighbourhood and the counterfeit goods at the car boot sales and how that leads all the way back up to the organised criminals. I think we should have made a better case of explaining that under my Government, and I certainly think we need to do that in future, so that the link between these policing priorities can be seen. The danger is that that will not be done because these elected individuals will not be interested in that; they will just be interested in getting easy votes, whereas sometimes we as politicians have to explain the big picture so that we get the policy right.
That is a credible and sincere thing to say. I fight every day to make sure that the communities I represent are protected from antisocial behaviour and the other problems they face, but I know, both as a former Home Office Minister and as a constituency MP, that many of the problems in our neighbourhoods develop as the young people and adults involved in antisocial behaviour become more hardened criminals, and that hardened criminals at the top end are often behind the low-level crime my constituents experience. We have to deal with both aspects. The Minister said nothing about that or about looking at better operational capacity—and in doing so saving some money along the way.
Robert Halfon
Why is it perfectly okay for people to elect councillors, MPs and all sorts of other representatives, yet the right hon. Lady does not trust people with the responsibility of electing someone who will provide an overview of the kind of policing they want for their neighbourhood?
Caroline Flint
We already have elected councillors as part of the police authorities, and I think that model could be improved. At the local level through the safer neighbourhood teams, we already have monthly accountable meetings which the public can attend and talk about their local policing priorities. This is not about being against accountability; it is about what is right and what is fit for purpose—and, to be honest, what is good value for money, which is part of the debate we are having this afternoon.