Energy Prices

Debate between Sarah Newton and Guy Opperman

Wednesday 19th October 2011 Commons Chamber

[Guy Opperman]

The hon. Gentleman obviously did not hear what the ministerial team said earlier, which addressed that exact point.

The OFT report is a market study, but I seek a formal investigation where there is a reasonable suspicion that the law has been breached in relation to the Consumer Protection from Unfair Trading Regulations 2008. I suggest that that applies to pricing practices, particularly when there is a varying price after a customer has placed an order. In my constituency, there is ample evidence that that has happened.

[Sarah Newton]

I apologise that I was not here for the first part of my hon. Friend’s speech, but an urgent matter called me out of the Chamber. The experience that he so vividly describes in his constituency is echoed in Cornwall and across the south-west. I, too, welcome yesterday’s OFT report. It says specifically that there is an opportunity for us to go back to the OFT and make the case for a referral to the Competition Commission to look further at the issue of pricing, which he has raised. Will he join me in suggesting that Members whose constituents are affected by this should join together to make representations to the OFT for such a referral?

[Guy Opperman]

I totally endorse that point, particularly in relation to pricing practices and the considerably enhanced prices charged by many heating oil suppliers. I have done quite a lot of research into this matter. In Hexham constituency the price of oil rose from 41p to 71p per litre between September and December last year. In that time, the wholesale price of oil went up only by about 10%.

In my constituency there are roughly 16 to 18 heating oil providers. However, 11 or 12 of those are controlled by one company. DCC Energy, an Irish-based company, has bought up many of the individual suppliers throughout the country. It operates heavily in west Wales and has been prosecuted there in relation to a trading standards case. It also operates to a considerable extent in Scotland. In Northumberland and throughout the north-east it has a substantial presence. I accept that there is competition in the sense that there are about five genuinely independent companies providing heating oil. However, the other dozen or so are providing heating oil from one global source. There is nothing wrong with that, but when one adds up the figures, it means that one company has 69% of the providers and the multitude of other companies represent 31% of the providers. That should be investigated by the OFT, and it should result in a competition inquiry. If that case does not give the suspicion of price fixing, I do not know what does.

--- Later in debate ---

[Guy Opperman]

The Minister of State, Department of Energy and Climate Change, my hon. Friend the Member for Wealden (Charles Hendry) is not the only one who has been carrying out research on websites. Let me cite the interesting efforts to prove the hon. Lady’s exact point undertaken by the hon. Member for Brecon and Radnorshire (Roger Williams), who ordered more than 2,000 litres of heating oil at a price of 40p a litre—again, from DCC—and received only some of the delivery, at the outset, at that price. Later that December, when the remainder was delivered, the price was 65p per litre—an increase of 25p per litre. I applaud his efforts in this House to publicise that, and previous efforts to deal with the problem, as well as the work of The Sunday Times.

I conclude by saying that I endorse much of the motion.

[Sarah Newton]

One of the next steps identified by the OFT was for the Government to take, because it acknowledged that people who use heating oil or LPG—or microgeneration, which the report also covers—cannot get dual fuel deals because they are off the grid, and furthermore, they are not eligible for the excellent new £125 warm home discount. This group of people, even if they are in absolute fuel poverty, cannot access some of the very good measures that the Government are introducing. May we ask the Government to consider that specific group of people, and see what could be done to help them?

[Guy Opperman]

I am most grateful for my hon. Friend’s intervention, and I endorse her point.

It is incumbent on us all to go back to our constituencies—not, as was once said, to prepare for government, but to prepare our constituents for the winter.

Rural Bus Services

Debate between Sarah Newton and Guy Opperman

Tuesday 11th October 2011 Westminster Hall

[Guy Opperman (Hexham) (Con)]

I am pleased to be able to speak on rural bus services. The issue is apposite because on 26 September Northumberland county council issued the report of its bus subsidy working group. I endorse the all-party work, led by Councillor Gordon Castle, to bring together a proper and legitimate way forward for the bus services of Northumberland. The problems of Great Yarmouth presented by my hon. Friend the Member for Great Yarmouth (Brandon Lewis) are common to us all and endemic in all our counties and constituencies. We have a common will and desire to change the policies of the past, which have seen a gradual decline in bus services, to the detriment of people in rural areas. I hope and pray that the Minister will take on board and progress the excellent suggestions arising from today’s timely and proper debate.

I represent the second largest constituency in this country, and rural bus services are clearly an important factor. Without question, the Hadrian’s wall bus service provided by the Hadrian’s Wall Heritage company and Northumberland county council provides a great service for tourism. Not only rural bus services are at stake, however, and I do not want us to fall into the trap of being champions solely of those suffering from rural fuel poverty and poor rural bus services, because those matters are also common to the market towns and villages in our constituencies. Those areas are not fundamentally rural, but include 5,000 or 3,000-people towns that are absolutely dependent on bus services. All of us could highlight individual areas of rural bus poverty—if that is the proper expression—that we could describe, note and champion, but the little towns and villages also need support. That is what I particularly want to discuss.

I have the great fortune—I express that passionately—to have three particular bus champions in my constituency who regularly fill my postbag. In Prudhoe, I wish to cite Robert Forsyth and Amanda Carr, who promote the cause of buses and are, quite rightly, on the case of bus companies such as the euphemistically named Go North East, which does not seem to go very far or to continue to go very often—it would be well named, if only it fulfilled its name. They champion the desire of local people to have buses that support them in local villages. The Hexham Courant, my local paper, has supported Mrs Carr. Her mother and mother-in-law try to take the children to and pick them up from school using the local bus service but, if it goes, they will not be able to do so, so continuing to work will be impossible and there will be huge difficulties on the way ahead.

[Sarah Newton]

My hon. Friend is making some good points. People often think that rural bus services are a bit of a luxury—some have cars sitting in their drives but choose to use bus passes because they have them—but they underestimate the poverty and the number of those struggling on low incomes who use the buses to go to work, school or hospital. In Cornwall, we have only one acute hospital for the whole county, which is more than 100 miles long. CAB Cornwall, the citizens advice bureaux, has done some excellent work showing the cost to society of the lack of affordable access to transport. High numbers of people miss doctor or hospital appointments, which is detrimental not only to personal health but to the whole of society because of the costs of them not accessing such vital services.

[Guy Opperman]

As always, my hon. Friend makes a telling point, and I endorse entirely what she said.

Certain organisations are stepping into the breach, and I would like to support the work of Adapt, which has stepped in to provide an essential public service but has gone further than traditional countryside bus provision. It targets those who need the service by operating a dial-a-ride scheme, picking up local residents from their home. The service has proved extremely successful and invaluable to those with young children and to the elderly, who felt that their access to buses was limited under the old, more traditional provision. I totally endorse the dial-a-ride system as the way forward for traditional rural bus services that are failing to provide.

I want to finish with two particular points, which relate to what the Government can do for us, touching first on integration and secondly on the degree of control that Government and local councils have over bus services. I represent a constituency that is entirely in Northumberland, but Durham is below me—it is good to see my neighbour in the Chamber, the hon. Member for North West Durham (Pat Glass)—Cumbria is to the west, Newcastle is to the east, and the bus services have to integrate. I also have Scotland to the north and, although we do not have an awful lot of bus services to Scotland, there should still be a degree of integration.

The sadness is that there is no integration between individual bus services operating in one county and the next—that must come from the Government giving guidance. We have the bizarre situation of the bus companies literally not talking to each other, let alone planning individual services with each other.

To go further, we rightly have a degree of competition, with bus companies able to provide local bus services, but we can have the bizarre situation of two bus companies competing for the same journey, with the result that neither can make a profit or provide a service and we end up with no bus company in that area. The Government must be able to find some way to enforce a degree of integration when the ultimate contract is awarded to a bus company, so that the parties and partners work together and not against each other.

Energy Bill [Lords]

Debate between Sarah Newton and Guy Opperman

Wednesday 14th September 2011 Commons Chamber

[Guy Opperman]

I would certainly welcome hearing what the Minister has to say on that. The point, however, is that there is regulation of the big six energy companies, but there is no regulation of the heating oil companies and others. I accept that we must wait until we know the results of the Office of Fair Trading investigation, however. After that, we might want to come back to the House and argue that changes must be made.

[Sarah Newton]

My hon. Friend is giving a comprehensive account of a problem that we in the west country also face, as there are very high levels of fuel poverty, which is related to the fact that so many people are off the gas grid, and they rely on heating oil and LPG, just as people do in my hon. Friend’s Northumberland constituency and in Scotland. As he says, we must wait for the publication of the OFT’s full findings at the end of the month, but does he agree that its initial findings were welcome in that at least there will now be clarity in respect of websites offering people advice on where to purchase their heating oil? Thanks to the intervention of Members—and especially the Minister, who asked the OFT to look into oil supply as part of the off-grid energy review—this winter, when prices are rising and people are increasingly concerned, at least accurate and fair information will be available on where to purchase heating oil.

[Guy Opperman]

I agree with all those points and applaud the efforts of the Government, and especially the Minister, in pursuing the point about websites. One such site, BoilerJuice, is supposedly a price comparison site yet is owned by one company—DCC, unsurprisingly —and it markets only the products it owns. That is manifestly unfair and wrong; it is not good for either the consumer or our constituents in general. I endorse the OFT response, and it is to that company’s great shame that it behaves in that way. I welcome the actions of the Minister, the OFT and especially The Sunday Times, which has done much to help tackle what is, frankly, a scandal.

The message must go out that this issue is about not only what the Government can do through the Bill and the guidance they issue, but about the fact that our constituents must ask questions and shop around as well. They will not be able to do that unless they know who owns the business that is supplying them with fuel or heating oil. If they do not have such information, they will be subject to what amounts to a monopolistic cartel. That is manifestly wrong. We cannot do all the work, however; people must address this issue themselves as well. We have to sell that message to them.

[Sarah Newton]

My hon. Friend is being very generous in giving way. Does he agree that there are some very good initiatives in which communities are gathering together to form co-operatives? In villages, people join together, often enabled by voluntary organisations such as Community Energy Plus in Cornwall, to get a better deal for customers in their villages.

[Guy Opperman]

I totally endorse that. In certain areas in Northumberland, such as in the communities of Tarset and Allendale, similar approaches are being pursued by local communities’ grouping together and purchasing from a local supplier. In my area, we thought we had 21 different companies but in fact we have one company masquerading as 17 providers and four independents. Fortunately, the four independents have been identified and should be supported; indeed, I assure hon. Members that they will be supported because of the way they are trying to do business and support the local economy and are not an Irish-based provider in a cartel.

Following on from the community projects we have been talking about, I endorse the work of organisations that have addressed this issue and worked to improve the position for the individual consumer and constituent. To their great credit, Age UK and the National Farmers Union have done tremendous work to address the matter. It is worth noting that of the 10 things most likely to be stolen in thefts and burglaries of people’s houses, the sixth-highest is fuel—in Northumberland, the figure is probably even higher. The Countryside Alliance should also be complimented because the rural action that it has proposed is massively successful; it is identifying ways in which the community can be assisted, and not just in farming communities and market towns. In my constituency there is no question but that fuel poverty is an issue in residential parts of places such as Prudhoe, Haltwhistle and west Wylam. Those are not areas of farmland and sheep—they are nothing other than normal houses where people are struggling to stay above the fuel poverty line.

Today, I met representatives of the Young Foundation, which supports The U—a citizens’ university-based organisation in Hexham that is working for specific energy efficiency projects. Those projects are just the sort of thing that will benefit from the green deal in future. They, along with the Green Alliance and several Members of Parliament, are working together to try to provide flagship examples and leadership for the type of constituency and community that is putting green policies at the heart of the community. There is great scope for a community-based way forward to try to strengthen our ability to address energy efficiency.

I support the Bill, but I want to touch briefly on new clause 19, which was tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Basildon and Billericay. It will be no surprise to hon. Members who have listened to my contributions to hear that I should like to see clarity of provider ownership on bills. At the moment, individual consumers are being misled by their failure to understand which parent company owns particular providers. I accept and endorse my hon. Friend’s comments that new clause 19 is a way forward. It addresses the additional information that should be supplied by energy suppliers on bills and I hope that the Government will support it. It is supported by Which?—an organisation that self-evidently works on behalf of individual constituents and consumers—and a number of other organisations that are greatly to be credited. Anything that ensures that a generic signposting message is displayed prominently on all customers’ energy bills, detailing how they might reduce those bills, should go ahead. We should ensure that such messages are on bills. Indeed, I go further in saying that it would be of great benefit if something were supplied on that issue this year, although I accept that it might be difficult to do that by 1 December given the bureaucracy involved.

I should like to have seen a further subsection added to new clause 19—it is to my detriment that I failed to table an amendment to it—that would have touched on clarity of ownership, but perhaps we can return to that after the OFT has produced its report, when we know what it says about the role of DCC Energy.

I support the Bill and the green deal. The constituency that I represent and the whole of Northumberland is well behind the green deal and the objectives that it seeks to achieve.