Energy Spending Priorities: Investors and Consumers — House of Commons, 2016-07-04
Topic: Energy
Antoinette Geraldine Sherratt (Sandbach) (Conservative, Centre-right): I certainly would, and I will come to that point in touching on the home efficiency section of the report. I am afraid that I have not had a chance to see the Government’s response—the Chair said that it only arrived this morning, but, owing to technical errors and my iPad’s failure to sync, I do not have a copy—so I do not know exactly which recommendations they have adopted. It is absolutely clear, however, that they need to set out a methodology and budget for the levy control framework going beyond 2020 I very much welcome the fact that the National Audit Office has said that it will look at the levy control framework and "lift the veil", as the Chair put it, on the funding, on by how much it was exceeded and on the projected spend. It is only by sending out that signal of certainty to the markets that we will encourage the investment to come forward. We need to do that in a way that is responsible to the taxpayer and provides a return to investors, albeit not an excessive one in which the taxpayer or the bill payer loses On the macro-level of delivery on the larger scale, I should not forget contracts for difference. We need clear signals on CfD; we need to know when the auctions will happen; we need to look at technologies such as anaerobic digestion, which have been under-adopted in the UK and have huge potential to deliver, particularly in rural areas. As others have highlighted, rural areas face real problems. Many people there have oil-fired boilers and the housing tends to be of older quality. It is vital that CfDs look at how to deliver not just the vast gas projects that are coming forward, although not yet built, but the micro-level projects, which are seen in the section of the report on home efficiency. I shall move swiftly on to that now Government policy on home energy efficiency has been stop-start, which has led to policy uncertainty that has damaged consumer confidence with the loss of jobs in the supply chain. I have seen that in my own constituency, where a small business has laid off a number of employees. Over 60 have been lost in this sector as a result of some of the policy changes. That has had a real impact on my constituents. Sixty people out of work is 60 people who have to re-train and learn different skills The energy company obligation scheme has not achieved what we wanted it to achieve. I do not praise the Welsh Government very often, but I have to say that the Nest and Arbed schemes in Wales achieved a far greater amount than the ECO did in the UK. Much could be done from the Government looking and learning from over the border. I hear what our Chair says about Scotland, too. It is clear that the ECO will be extended to 2018, but the Select Committee was very concerned that its main policy target was fuel poverty. We have questioned whether it will really deliver on that ambition. The hon. Member for Southampton, Test (Dr Whitehead) mentioned what was happening in rural areas on solid-wall insulation. Rural areas are a particular concern, and it is quite clear that we need more data at the level of the individual household, so that ECO measures can be targeted more effectively. One major concern is the lack of data at the individual level, and one of the report’s recommendations is to ensure that we set up the sharing of data, so that home efficiency measures can be far more effectively targeted, particularly in rural areas. The evidence relating to ECO suggests that it has gathered the low-hanging fruit and has concentrated on largely urban areas where whole streets can be done at a time. It has failed to deliver in the rural areas where, as I said, housing is older, tends to be of poorer quality and tends to be solid-wall, built pre-1945 If we are to make the gains that we need to out of home efficiency, it is key that we look at tackling the harder-to-reach homes; to do so, we need the data. For that reason, the Government clearly need to do much more cross-departmental working and they need to set up a proper database. I suspect smart meters can generate the data that will be able to identify which homes are the least efficient and will give the Government and, indeed, the energy companies the information about who is using the most and potentially who is the least efficient.