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Energy Prices Act 2022 (Extension of Time Limit) (No. 2) Regulations 2026

I thank the Minister for presenting the regulations before us. I express the hope that he stays in his position, as indeed does the Whip. We do not like changes in the House of Lords.

I will make a couple of comments. Eons ago, I served as the shadow Environment Minister on an energy Bill in 2006 or 2007, I think it was, so plus ça change, plus—or rather, the more things change, the more they stay the same. I do not know how Hansard will cope with a French quotation so I will not say it.

What the Minister has put before us just confirms that this is smoke and mirrors. We are all playing for what is, in effect, a subsidy, and this has been the case

since the mid-2000s, when his Government introduced this type of policy. Instead of me, as a householder, paying my household electricity bill, I am now paying it as a taxpayer, through my general taxation. I just hope the Minister and the department will step back from saying that this is a reimbursement or a return to me of £117, because that is not the case.

Where the department and the Minister could make a difference is by reducing the standing charge, as Martin Lewis, the money-saving expert, has said on many occasions. I know it has been outside the remit and the purport of the statutory instrument, but I just make a plea to the Minister, who has now disappeared behind the Dispatch Box—I cannot see him any more. I think he is still there.