Smart Meters Bill — House of Lords, 2018-03-13
Topic: Energy
Oliver Michael Robert Eden (Conservative, Centre-right): The noble Lord is absolutely correct. I apologise for not making that clear. There will be information available from Ofgem On rollout, I agree with points made that there is more that we can do to engage with customers in moving to smart metering. This is important and we shall certainly do more. As noble Lords will know, we have required the establishment of Smart Energy GB. This is an independent not-for-profit organisation leading the centralised programme to raise national awareness alongside activities to drive behaviour change and help consumers to benefit from smart working. The situation is changing. I think that the noble Baroness, Lady Maddock, quoted figures about satisfaction rates, but on awareness of smart metering, this has increased from some 40% to over 80% in three years and has driven demand for millions. Research shows—I believe that this is a figure that the noble Baroness quoted—that some 80% of consumers who have smart meters would recommend them to friends and family The question of safeguards, safety of data and related issues, is a concern of my noble friend Lady Manzoor, the noble Lord, Lord Whitty, the noble Baroness, Lady Maddock, and others and it is something to which we shall come back in due course. National smart meter infrastructure has been developed from the outset in consultation with experts from industry and government including the National Cyber Security Centre, which is part of GCHQ. The smart meter security model establishes physical, regulatory and operational security controls backed by independent security assurance arrangements. For instance, critical commands will only be accepted by the smart meter if they are issued by the responsible energy supplier and authenticated through strong encryption. Moreover, they have to be countersigned independently by the DCC The Government have also put in place a strict data access framework that protects consumers’ privacy. This is important. I think that this was at the heart of some remarks of the noble Baroness, Lady Featherstone. Households will have control over who can access their detailed energy consumption data and for what purposes, except where this is required for regulated purposes—that includes billing I am beginning to run out of time. I shall write in greater detail. The final point that I shall address now is that of the noble Lord, Lord Broers. He highlighted the importance of more work to ensure that a promise of a connected home was delivered. The noble Lord will be aware of a joint BEIS-Ofgem smart systems and flexibility plan that was published in July 2017. That reaffirmed that smart meters are the foundation of a smart meter energy system. It included a commitment to work with industry to develop standards for smart appliances that will allow consumers to provide flexibility and benefit from demand-side response I appreciate that I was asked many more questions and that there is much detail that will need to be gone into. What I hope to do is to write a letter as soon as possible to all those who took part in the debate detailing all those points that need to be covered. The important point is that we can then sit down—or stand up—and discuss these matters in detail in Committee, make sure we have the Bill right when we send it back to the Commons and make sure that we can look forward to broad, sunlit, happy uplands. As I said, I will continue to be the optimist rather than one of the series of Eeyores I have heard speaking on this occasion. I look forward to a bright future for smart meters, whether that is SMETS 1, SMETS 2 or even SMETS 3 as mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Lennie.