Energy Bill

I agree that we need interoperability and that we need to get the process right, but I do not see why another 12 months, 18 months or any other period of consultation and dithering will make that any more likely. We know that now and we knew it 12 months ago, so let us get on with setting the common standards to which all companies would have to adhere. Why was Ofgem not asked to do that 12 months ago? I agree with the hon. Gentleman on the goal. I do not understand the delay. Why is it so important that we get on with the task? We have heard some of the advantages of smart meters, but probably not all of them. One that has been understated so far in the debate is the potential for load shifting. If we are thinking about the difficult question of our future energy supply and security, and a structure that will match the peaks of demand that occur, and potentially thinking about a future when we might, for example, be charging up our cars overnight, the importance of load shifting will become greater and greater. If we can use smart meter technology to ensure that we do not need quite so much total capacity in the system because of a very small number of very high peaks—if we can do something about the peaks—that will have a profound public benefit for the infrastructure that we need. The cost-benefit analysis of smart meters should take that into account. The benefit would not just be private and personal; the entire public infrastructure would benefit from much greater incentives for load shifting. That has not been factored in sufficiently. We heard mention of fuel poverty. Certainly, we do not want people in fuel poverty to get estimated bills, especially when those are overestimated. The hon. Member for Wealden suggested that smart meters would bring an end to prepayment meters. That is not my understanding. Some consumers choose prepayment because that is the way they prefer to budget and, as I understand it, that method of payment would continue. The meters would not have slots, like the old fashioned ones had, but charging up a plastic card to obtain credit will still be an option when smart meters are up and running. The key is to ensure that the tariffs are right. A set of the fuel poor or vulnerable households or a similar category of people could be identified, and smart metering technology could be used to ensure that they were automatically on the best tariff that the given company offered, or the best tariff. That comes back to the point about switching, to which I shall return. Another aspect of fuel poverty and smart metering that we have not thought about is one of the arguments advanced by the companies. When they are told to target the vulnerable, they do not know who the vulnerable are. The Government know who the vulnerable are, and I have suggested in the past that the Government might once a year send a letter to everyone on pension credit, for example, with a certificate that they could show to their energy supplier to claim entitlement to its best tariff. In the world of smart metering we could go one better. Central Government could simply issue to the smart meter the eligibility switch. In other words, there could be a mechanism whereby, since the meters can receive data as well as send data, they could receive information that the householder was entitled to the social tariff, whatever it happened to be. It is another way in which the fuel poor could be targeted, which we struggle to do at present.