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Energy Bill

The Minister said that if it turned out that there was a surplus in the fund and that the fixed-price, as he called it, was higher than it needed to be, any surplus would be returned to the companies. I am sure that he said that. That is what I understood. But if that is the case, in layman’s terms that is not a fixed-rate mortgage; it is a capped mortgage. They are very different things. Surely, going forward, the funding agency will take a risk. It could turn out that there is not enough. At one time it might think that there is more than enough and at another, five years later, it may turn out that there is not enough. The fund would have to keep a healthy surplus against the possibility in the future that there may not be enough. It may have been underestimated. I would be extremely surprised—I may have heard incorrectly—that a surplus or what I would call a sunk cost in the past would be refunded if a company found that the cost was less than expected. I would be grateful if the Minister could clarify that.