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Energy Prices

I can tell the right hon. Lady, in answer to her sedentary question, that even the small providers have put that on record. Secondly, the right hon. Lady alluded to a series of reforms that she believes would combat fuel poverty. That suggested that the last Government's attempts had somehow been successful, or would be successful were they to be continued. In that earlier debate, the right hon. Lady also said:"““we had the most ambitious programme to help people in fuel poverty deal with their bills””. —[Official Report, 19 October 2011; Vol. 533, c. 932.]" Let me remind her of that policy. Between 2000 and 2008 the last Government spent £20 billion on abatement of fuel costs, and what happened to fuel poverty during that period? It increased by 333%. That was indeed ambitious. It was ambitious to the extent that for every household the Labour party put into fuel poverty, the taxpayer paid £5,700. The taxpayer paid £5,700 to reduce a household to fuel poverty, yet Labour Members have had the cynicism to come to the House and claim that their policies would work again, and that the brave and principled position of Her Majesty's Government is somehow misguided. It is a hypocrisy which lays bare a party that has no ideas of its own, and is reduced to attacking its own record.