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Energy Bill

I have put my name to this amendment as I sought to move similar amendments during the passage of the Utilities Act 2000 and the Energy Act 2004. The central point made by my noble friend is that this is an example of transparency. If extra charges are being laid at the doors of consumers for broadly public sector objectives—climate change and so on—it is right that the consumer should know how much he or she is paying for that. The argument put to me on the previous occasions was about how that can be apportioned to individual consumers. I see the Minister nodding and looking up the page from which he will repeat the argument. I do not accept that argument. We now have elaborate computer programs, and all major energy suppliers produce their accounts through sophisticated consumer programmes. At Second Reading, I quoted the figure that I got from Ofgem for the typical contribution of an average householder: it was £79 a year. That is not an insignificant figure against an average householder’s fuel budget of approaching £1,000. It is a little less than 10 per cent, but it is still a substantial figure. My guess is that very few householders have any idea that they are paying this with their gas and electricity bills. The Government have always talked about subsidising renewable energy, but how many householders realise that that is not coming out of taxation or being paid by the Government but is being paid by the consumer? The cost of ROCs goes on to the industries that have to buy them; it is included in their costs and they put them on their bills. The same is true with the Emissions Trading Scheme: the costs of that are borne not by the Government but by consumers. The average figure given by Ofgem for 2008 is £79. That is for the average consumer and assumes a certain consumption of gas and electricity. No doubt Ofgem could supply the details. It does not seem to be beyond the wit of man or woman to say that if you consume less, you are contributing less to these other climate change objectives. If you are consuming more, you are contributing more. I do not accept for one moment that it is impossible to link that to the individual consumer’s invoice and show the on the bill, ““This is what you are paying towards the measures to fight climate change””. That would have a considerable impact on the public’s appreciation and understanding of what is happening. At the back of my mind, I fear that the Government’s real objection to this is that they do not want consumers to know, so that they think that they are getting all these climate change things without having to pay for them, or that it is all being subsidised by a generous Government. If you were to ask the average consumer, I suspect that is what he would say. If we are going for transparency, it is important that the Government come clean on this and make it clear so that companies can include in their invoices the amounts that that individual consumers are paying towards these charges. For the life of me, I cannot see a valid objection to that. I can see that the Government’s objection is that they do not want consumers to know. I can see the possible objection that it would be too difficult to apportion amounts to the many millions of consumers, although I do not accept it. So what is the real reason? Transparency is called for. I argued for it eight years ago, I argued for it four years ago, and I argue for it again. Perhaps this time it will be third time lucky.