Skip to main content

Proceeding contribution from Chris Huhne (Liberal Democrat) in the House of Commons on Wednesday, 11 January 2012. It occurred during Opposition day on Energy Prices.


Energy Prices

Park homes will be eligible for the green deal. We in the ministerial team are very keen to ensure that park homes, which are often the Cinderella of the housing stock, are looked after, and we are trying our best to ensure that they are eligible for the full array of measures that are available elsewhere. The new energy company obligation, alongside the green deal, will include support not just for solid-wall insulation, which I mentioned to the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent South (Robert Flello), but provide ““affordable warmth”” to low-income and vulnerable households, through heating and insulation measures. That is the direct replacement for the Warm Front scheme, so the right hon. Lady's charge that we are the first Government not to pay for help through public expenditure is disingenuous, because there will be help, but it will be delivered in a different way through the ECO subsidy, and with greater targeting and, I believe, greater help. Those policies will make a difference this winter and next, but, as I said in October when I addressed the House on this topic, we also need to take the right long-term decisions so that energy does not become unaffordable. We must keep the lights on in the cheapest, cleanest way to ensure that households get the best deal in the long term. Over the next 10 years, we need £110 billion of investment in power plants and another £90 billion of investment in energy infrastructure to avoid the risk of blackouts. We must invest now not only to improve our energy efficiency, so that we do not need to produce as much energy to keep warm, but to reduce our dependence on fossil fuels in the long term, so that we do not have to rely on ever-more expensive imports.


Secondary information

Type
Proceeding contribution
Reference
538 c265 
Session
2010-12
Chamber / Committee
House of Commons chamber
Subjects
Conservation Housing Energy Electricity Fuel poverty Insulation Warm front scheme Natural gas Meters Prices Renewable energy Winter fuel payment Feed-in tariffs Warm home discount scheme Green deal scheme
Link
View this Proceeding contribution on www.publications.parliament.uk