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Energy Providers

May I begin by welcoming the Minister warmly to his position? Perhaps it would be more appropriate to welcome him back, as he held the post for a few months four years ago. I also welcome his new ministerial colleagues, and I think that there will be some interesting discussions among that team. The Under-Secretary of State will be required to consent to new nuclear power stations and to the proposed facility at Kingsnorth, and that will be a fascinating process to watch. May I also use today's greetings as an opportunity to pay a warm tribute to the right hon. Member for Barrow and Furness (Mr. Hutton), who is now Secretary of State for Defence but who used to have responsibility for these matters when he was Secretary of State for Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform, and to his former Minister of State, the hon. Member for Croydon, North (Malcolm Wicks)? Both really had begun to come to grips with the size of the energy challenge that we face. They did not do enough, but they had begun to understand the problem. We wish the Minister of State well in this important role, but we also have to recognise that people outside are frustrated at the number of changes that have taken place. The hon. and learned Gentleman is the 10th energy Minister in 11 years, and he was also the sixth—just as his predecessor was the seventh and the ninth. That shows this Government have a true commitment to recycling, but many people are frustrated about the changes that have taken place. There is also no doubt that this is a very challenging time for the Minister to take up his post. There is massive pain in households as fuel bills go up, and there is a real threat that companies may close as a result of the lack of competitiveness in our electricity pricing. In November, the forward price for electricity for business is one third higher in this country than it will be in France. We face an energy gap in less than a decade, when the lights may go out, and the current financial pressure makes the targets on renewables even more challenging. However, the charge against the Government is that they have made problems worse than they needed to be by failing to make decisions at the right time, and sometimes failing to make them at all. The Government have received warnings since the spring about fuel poverty, which was completely inevitable given the huge price rises coming through. Gas prices have risen by 50 per cent. since January, and electricity by 30 per cent., but the Government did not act until September. Of course we all agree that energy efficiency is vital, but it is not possible for enough to be done before winter starts, even though the warning signs were there. That will have catastrophic consequences for the Government's fuel poverty targets. They want to remove all vulnerable households from fuel poverty by 2010, and that is a legally binding target, but the numbers are shooting up in the wrong direction. We need clarity from them about whether they think that those targets can still be met.