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Energy Bill

My Lords, the noble Lord makes a very sound point, but as I think we will see when we get the White Paper on waste, which we have been promised before the end of this month, it is a very long-term programme. It will be a long time before we are able to embark one way or the other on a waste programme. Of course these things will need to be rigorously examined by the competition authorities, if that is relevant, and certainly by all the regulators and by the Government. I would not expect anything less. All I am saying is that on the information which I have, there seems to be something here of which the Government should take careful note. I know they are being apprised of this because I have been told that. Noble Lords will not be surprised by my next point if they remember the debates we had in January on the arrangements for reducing emissions from domestic properties—the so-called CERT programme. In our debates on that, one of the key provisions was for the energy companies, in seeking to reduce the emissions from domestic properties, to provide 40 per cent of their savings from the target group, which includes everyone on benefits, tax credits, housing benefit and so on, and, rather surprisingly, pensioners; and I declared an interest. Those present in the House when we debated that order will know that I felt that it was entirely wrong that the companies could not be told who was in the target audience. When asked who the people are and where the households are, the answer given was that the information is protected by data protection. At the end of April, a very important fuel poverty summit discussed many issues, including not only the social tariffs mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Redesdale, but also the CERT programme and prepayment meters. There was clear recognition that there has to be a system for identifying the households. I have received a letter from Sir John Mogg, chairman of Ofgem, who, shortly, will join this House, which is admirable. He said: "““Our remit and the focus of the Summit was on how to target and make more productive the help available by suppliers to the vulnerable and fuel poor””." I warmly welcome that. Recently, when I asked the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie of Luton, when that would be, he said that it would be very soon. I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Jones, will be able to give me a more precise answer. I shall certainly return to this matter in Committee. An issue which appears to be in dispute between members of the Government is whether this will require further legislation—for instance, an amendment of the Data Protection Act. If further legislation is needed, why cannot that be done in this Bill? Do we have to wait until the next Session of Parliament before we can have a Bill to deal with that? I really would like an answer to that. Transparency is another issue that I have pursued on every Bill we have had on energy. Why cannot the extra costs imposed by climate change legislation be shown on customers’ bills so they can know what that is? Again, I am told by Ofgem that a typical domestic customer has within his annual bill £31 a year for the emissions trading scheme; £38 a year for the CERT programme; and £10 a year for the renewables obligation, which of course falls on the customer and not on the Government. Together, that amounts to £79 a year, which goes straight on the customers’ bills, including those of the fuel poor. Is not the first step to make that clear, so that people know what they are paying for all that? I should warn the noble Lord that I shall pursue that too in Committee. I would say more about the Ofgem remit but have run out of time and will have to come back to that in Committee. It has been approached the wrong way around. The right way would be to impose clear statutory duties on the suppliers and then to get that properly regulated. Finally, much has been said about the price of carbon as being essential for new investment, which, again, I have referred to on previous occasions. Last week, a paragraph in the Wall Street Journal, said: "““Luckily for Euro utilities, the British government is mulling an energy bill that would set a minimum price for carbon””." It is not in this Bill. Can the Minister tell us whether the Government are mulling the possibility of putting a floor price under carbon? I am sure that the industry would be very interested to know the answer to that, and so would I.