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Fuel Poverty Bill

I will be entirely frank. Yes, I would consider the removal of child benefit from those in the higher tax band. The measure would be simple; it seems to me that those on the higher tax band could do without child benefit. I say frankly to the hon. Gentleman that I—and I know others who feel the same—have felt embarrassed by the issue on occasions. I have had three children, for each of whom we received child benefit. As all Members are likely to be, I am in a state of relative affluence, and on occasions I felt embarrassed at receiving the payment. The approach could be widened, but let us concentrate on fuel poverty. We are considering how we target help better at those in fuel poverty, which is a serious problem, as I know the hon. Gentleman understands. Help, although a limited amount, could be given by targeting the winter fuel payment better. Let us turn to the issue of cold weather payments, which are triggered when there have been five successive days at 0° C. As the Minister knows, because I have raised the issue with her before, the cold weather payment is not well targeted because it is measured from some bizarre stations. The problem particularly affects rural areas. For example, people in Princetown, a relatively deprived area in the high moorland of Dartmoor, do not get cold weather payments, even though they may have shivered at below 0° C for weeks. Why is that? It is because the temperature applied is measured in the centre of Plymouth, some 25 miles away, and the temperature in Plymouth is usually 3 or 4° C higher than in Princetown. That applies across rural areas, and not only in my constituency. There should be ways in which the Government can look more flexibly at the issue, so that the cold weather payments actually go to those who are so badly in need of them. These may seem to be relatively minor criticisms, but I hope that they are constructive. I respectfully suggest to the Minister that cumulatively they demonstrate a sense of incoherence. That is why I urge the Government to allow passage to the Bill, which puts forward some worthy objectives and should be generally supported. I shall now conclude, because I do not want to provide any further excuse for the Bill's not passing through today. I make one other plea. It is that, as the hon. Member for Somerton and Frome said, in the consideration of energy efficiency we must not lose sight of the value of microgeneration. In certain of the more remote rural areas, microgeneration offers the prospect of alleviating fuel poverty and it should be included in any policy that the Government develop. For all those reasons, I support this important Bill.