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Energy Providers

We must ensure that we have the policy right. We are ensuring that that is so, but we also have to ensure that we balance the way in which the policy is developed over the coming months. We want to ensure long-term investment, too, and it is important to get substantial investment from companies in new infrastructure. Those companies will say that they want to make a good return on that investment. We will have to strike the right balance, but my right hon. Friend is right to suggest that we must always be aware that that balance needs to be struck with a great deal of care, bearing in mind the fuel-poor. I now wish to make progress. There is a limit on the length of my contribution, as I am sure those who want to contribute to the debate will recognise. My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister set out a new package of proposals for dealing with fuel poverty, and this debate is our first opportunity to outline what it contains. The new measures aim to reduce the amount of energy that households need, not just this winter but in the long term. They could help an extra 2 million households improve insulation and efficiency, and save them up to £300 a year in fuel bills. An additional £560 million obligation on energy companies is to be provided under the supplier's carbon emissions reductions targets to fund home improvements such as loft and cavity wall insulation. Eleven million elderly and low-income households will qualify for those measures, at no extra cost to themselves. This is about not just individuals, but communities. Gas and electricity suppliers and electricity generators will also contribute a further £350 million to a new community energy savings programme. That will support new and existing partnerships between local authorities, voluntary bodies and energy suppliers, and will provide intensive help to some of our most deprived communities on a house-by-house, street-by-street basis.