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Energy Bill

The Minister makes a reasoned case. However, we are not just talking about the costs to the consumer. One great benefit of smart meters—and of course it is an issue about the type of smart meter that has caused such controversy—is that there is enormous benefit to the supplier in producing them. All those people who knock on your door on a regular basis at inconvenient times because they know you are going to be in at that point—it always happens when I am bathing the kids—will no longer have to go from door to door. That is a massive saving and cost benefit to the companies. But it is not just a cost benefit to the companies. As the Minister says, there is then a value in that, if they are taking that cost base out of the equation, the cost is not then passed on to the consumer who buys the electricity supplies.