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Fuel Poverty (Rural Britain)

I congratulate the hon. Member for Suffolk Coastal (Dr Coffey) on initiating this very important debate. It is also timely, given the election of a new Government. I have already been in correspondence with the Department of Energy and Climate Change and I shall come to that in a moment. I want to start by pointing out that this issue is about rural Britain—the periphery areas of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. The periphery area that I represent in north-west Wales suffers from a double whammy: most of the household customers pay extra for their fuel, but they also pay extra fuel costs for their transport. We have had a number of debates on the issue in this Chamber, and I appreciate what the Chancellor of the Exchequer said in the Budget about looking at rural areas and pilot schemes whereby transport costs and the price of petrol at the pump can be considered. Pilot schemes should also consider rural areas on the periphery of the United Kingdom when it comes to energy prices and energy costs as well. That is what I believe the hon. Lady was developing in her argument. Periphery areas are a special case. I do not accept that in the 21st century, areas on the periphery should have to pay much more in fuel costs. I know from having the port that is the gateway to Ireland and Wales in my constituency that Northern Ireland's problem is compounded by fuel smuggling from the Irish Republic. Fuel is smuggled in and out of the United Kingdom via the south of Ireland. There are huge problems that we need to grapple with. I have campaigned to reduce both the cost of petrol at the pumps and the cost of energy supplies to homes. People living in periphery areas and rural areas are being ripped off. The hon. Lady says that she wants to give the companies a kicking. I will join her and I think that all of us should, because mass profits have been made by many of the companies over a long time and the people who are paying for it predominantly live in the rural areas of Britain. The market is letting people down badly in those areas. All that my constituents and those of the hon. Lady and every other hon. Member in the Chamber are asking for is a level playing field. Yes, they want reduced costs, but they want to pay the same as people in urban areas and other parts of the United Kingdom, and importantly they want choice. Quite often in isolated rural areas, people just have the choice of propane gas, coal or other things. Off-grid areas do not have access to mains gas and are losing out. The market says that it will provide choice to customers, but in rural areas they simply do not have that choice and they are penalised for it through the price that they pay. That limited choice and paying more for fuel is a huge problem. I said that I had already raised the matter in correspondence with the Department, and I first did so at business questions, when I asked for a debate on the issue. A debate in Government time would be very much welcome in addition to this important Adjournment debate. I have had, over many years, helpful responses from Energy Ministers and progress has been made. Warm Front is a good national project that has helped an awful lot, and good energy efficiency measures are available. I am certainly familiar with what has been done by the Welsh Assembly and I know that other devolved Administrations are working on the issue, too. This Parliament, local government and the Welsh Assembly can work together with the distribution network to ensure that we get better services to people in these areas. In the very helpful reply that I received from the Minister of State, Department of Energy and Climate Change, the hon. Member for Wealden (Charles Hendry), he said that he recognised that more needed to be done. One option that he came up with was a further roll-out of energy efficiency measures. I disagree with the hon. Member for West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine (Sir Robert Smith), who said that we have been concentrating just on price. Huge amounts of money have been invested in energy efficiency measures. In my constituency, most of the houses have been done, and to a very high standard, but the price is the issue.