Energy Bill

I will not detain the House long. The hon. Member for Wealden (Charles Hendry) is being a little churlish in offering only one and a half cheers; I think that my hon. Friend the Minister listened very carefully to our debate in Committee and has responded far more fully than I expected him to, so he should get more than one and a half cheers. I want to reiterate a point that I made in Committee. A smart meter will certainly allow a person to choose between tariffs by providing them with the information that they need if they are to make that choice, but because of the way in which the electricity and gas retailing industry works, they would be making a choice between the tariffs offered by a particular company. If someone wants to change companies, they have to work out who has the cheapest tariff. They may have to go online to the website of a company such as uSwitch and enter their details and information about their energy usage; uSwitch will then tell them which the cheapest energy supplier would be, and the person could then sign up with that company. I do not want to do that in future; I want a smart meter that does it for me. I want a smart meter that I can hand over to a company such as uSwitch, so that it could monitor the energy retailing industry for me and change my tariff and supplier every week or month, or whenever appropriate. I do not want to have to do the work any longer. Why should I, when I have a computer built into my energy meter that should be doing that work for me? My question to my hon. Friend is whether the amendments before us go so far as to make that practicable, so that companies such as uSwitch can decide to step into the market and extend their range of products. According to my reading of the amendments, they probably do allow that to happen, but I would like confirmation from my hon. Friend that my reading is accurate, and I would also like confirmation that when the consultation takes place over the next few months, the need for such a service will be taken into account so that energy retailers are not allowed to block the entry into the market of companies that can provide us with such a service.