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Energy Bill

My Lords, I may be hidden, but I would like to make a short intervention. I speak as the chairman of Ofgem, an organisation whose name seems to pepper every intervention, usually to pass on work, which I note with some anxiety. The noble Lord, Lord Jenkin, makes my contribution short and very easy. He explained, precisely and elaborately, the background to his amendment. I congratulate him on his persistence and ingenuity in convincing the House authorities to include it for debate. Fuel poverty is a fundamental concern. At the fuel poverty summit held in April this year, there were five Ministers, chief executive-level representatives of the energy supply companies, and most of the representatives of those agencies which were actively involved in this process. The outcome was the constructive development of new policies, principally focused around the intention of targeting fuel poverty. I pay tribute to the Minister, Mike O’Brien, for putting forward in the Pensions Bill, at a fairly late stage, an amendment which allowed a focused targeting of the constituents covered by that legislation. Narrow though it was, it was still a contribution and the first, in my experience, to try to deal with the targeting of these measures. The fuel poverty summit has been followed up with a fuel poverty action programme. I am sorry that we are fairly uninspired in our entitlements. That, too, has demonstrated a real wish to make this approach more general. As the noble Lord said, I was particularly grateful for the letter from the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, which identified a willingness to review the situation more generally. I do not need to quote it as the noble Lord, Lord Jenkin, has done so in extenso. I fully support the motivation behind the comments of the noble Lord, Lord Jenkin, but I am particularly anxious that we make progress in identifying with a little more precision, and perhaps with a little more timetabling—in the same way as the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, has been given some very interesting information on metering which is of considerable interest to my authority—whether the Government see any opportunities, if not in this Bill then in others, to have a more broadly based approach to targeting fuel poverty while safeguarding the privacy concerns that are so necessary. We in Ofgem fully recognise data privacy concerns. Single mothers with children, the disabled and the chronically sick will not be covered by the pension fund amendment, which I believe has every chance of success. I hope that the Government will be able to give, perhaps even at the end of this debate, some indication of the timetabling.