---

Energy Bill

I am grateful to the Minister for paying tribute to my eloquence. That is very decent of him. As an economist, I have never been accused of being unencumbered by economics—au contraire. We heard from the hon. Member for Wealden that for individual smart meters the costs are modest, relative to the potential savings to the consumer. So the consumer gets a benefit, the companies clearly get a substantial benefit on billing and so forth, society gets a benefit in terms of CO2 emissions, load shifting and microgeneration—my crucial fourth point, to which I shall return. Bringing that all together, it is hard to see why the Government's cost-benefit analysis is so at variance with everybody else's. Given that Government money is not involved, I do not understand what the agenda is or the internal DBERR politics.