Domestic Gas and Electricity (Tariff Cap) Bill — House of Commons, 2018-04-30
Topic: Energy
James Stephen Heappey (Conservative, Centre-right): It is a pleasure to follow the right hon. Member for Don Valley (Caroline Flint), with whom I agree on the risk to green tariffs and on making sure that we do not perpetuate the belief that green tariffs are a premium product. We want them to become the universal norm Generally, the Bill is a necessary evil. Interference with the market is not our first choice of action, but it is the consequence of a market that has stopped working and is exploiting customers, especially those who are least engaged in it. The Bill’s key point is its temporariness. I know that the Minister shares my strong belief that temporary should be as temporary as it absolutely can be. It therefore becomes essential that once the Bill is passed—it is good to see the Opposition’s continued support—Ofgem moves very quickly not only to come up with a mechanism for price capping, but to consider what sort of market transformation it can deliver as it changes the regulatory framework in the market, so that we end up with something that is markedly better than what we have now. The big savings come not from a cap that cuts bills by £100 or more, but from the delivery of an energy market that is digitised and cheaper because we have facilitated the disruptive powers of all the new suppliers that are coming in, which in turn will encourage the current large suppliers to change their ways to do business better I intervened on the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Southampton, Test (Dr Whitehead), about his amendment 5, so I will not say anything more about that. The purpose served by amendment 6, as we discussed in Committee, is to say to the energy companies that all they need to do is save customers £100—so they will just save customers £100. I passionately believe, therefore, that we should not tell them just to save customers £100. Instead, we should deliver the biggest saving that we reasonably can through whatever device Ofgem delivers, but the moment that we put a figure on it, lo and behold, that is exactly what all the energy companies will deliver The hon. Gentleman has made some changes to amendment 7 since Committee stage. He knows I share his concerns about vulnerable customers and possible unintended consequences from the Bill, and I know the Minister will be keen to reassure us that the Government have got this covered, but I prefer amendment 9, tabled by the hon. Member for Leeds West (Rachel Reeves), which has the support of many on the Select Committee and is well worth considering. The Government have looked at the vulnerable customer issue since Committee stage, and I wonder, given today’s very sensible amendments, if they might run one more lap on this between now and consideration in another place On amendment 8, which we also discussed in Committee and which the hon. Gentleman has also come back with, my concern is that the list could be much longer. If we are to specify all the circumstances, why not designate another dozen or two dozen things that we could legislate for, if we absolutely had to? I am not convinced it is necessary I also have a problem with new clause 1, because the Bill needs to be temporary. As I said either on Second Reading or in a Westminster Hall debate, it needs to be a raid into the energy market, not an occupation. New clause 1 is a raid with a few troops left behind thereafter, which I am not sure I like very much. We want to ensure that Mr Nolan and his team at Ofgem can, in delivering the price cap, facilitate a transformation in the market that makes such legislative provisions redundant. The consumer-friendly, disrupted, digitised market that awaits will be so much cheaper that we will be glad to have made this slightly un-Conservative, temporary raid into the market, to deliver something on the other side that is much better for consumers.