Energy Bill

Indeed, we need to be realistic about costs. Climate change and fuel poverty are urgent imperatives, and because of the delay, industry is wasting huge amounts of money and passing that on to consumers. The Minister told my hon. Friend the Member for West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine (Sir Robert Smith) that over 2 million meters—roughly 5 per cent.—are replaced each year. The further delay between now, when we hoped for a decision, and Christmas, when we might get one, means that another 2 million meters will quickly be obsolete. That is waste as well, which has to be paid for by consumers. I doubt whether the Government's cost-benefit analysis factors that in. There is a net benefit to the companies, the consumer and the wider society, and the sooner we get to that point, the better. The fourth advantage relates to microgeneration, which we will deal with more fully in the next group of amendments. The ability to measure accurately what has been generated on a micro scale, exported to the grid and so on is integral to some of the issues that will be covered in the next group of amendments. All that is on hold while we dither about smart metering. New clause 3 deals with what I call ““your friend on the mantelpiece””. We know that there are sets of consumers who switch. We know that, on average, they are the IT literate and the better off. The people least likely to switch are the fuel poor, the urban poor, the very elderly and frail—people who do not get on with technology. Now that the Government have accepted that they will be making regulations about what smart meters must do, new clause 3 proposes that one of those should be to do the shopping around for the consumer. That is what I suggested in Committee and I am delighted that the Minister accepts that principle. I am happy to discuss the fine detail of how that works, whether it involves switching every second or every quarter, and the way that that is finessed. However, the principle of relying on consumers, even with display units, to take the information to the internet seems one step too many for the most vulnerable. The Minister asked me whether the technology was feasible when we debated this issue in Committee. The technology seems self-evidently integral to smart metering; the meters can receive and send data. Once there is interoperability—an essential prerequisite—that will be done in a standard format. The smart meter should be able to go to the internet and check, on the basis of the person's individual consumption, for the best package and tariff. That seems to be a win-win situation. Rather than there being regulators investigating the industry to see whether it is competitive, why do we not just make it competitive? Why do we not put every consumer in charge? What I suggest is the ultimate in putting consumers in charge and making the companies respond. The companies would have to innovate, because those out of line on tariffs would lose custom dramatically. There would be opportunity for niche marketing, because each smart meter would base its choice on the individual consumer's actual consumption patterns and firms would have an incentive to match tariffs to people's actual consumption patterns. That could revolutionise the industry. It is the paucity of vision in new clause 8 that bothers me. We could do this thing in a completely different way, and we are missing that opportunity. Through new clause 3, we are seeking the Minister's assurances that when specifications for what smart meters have to do are set out, they will include the proposals in our new clause. New clause 3 mentions the"““tariff which is most to the householder's advantage.””" What constitutes an ““advantage”” might be interpreted in a variety of ways; some might want to use the smart meter to find the best green tariff, for example. However, the point would be that the digital divide in respect of the poor would cease to apply. That is one of the big problems with the whole presumption that one of the answers to fuel poverty is that poor people should switch. We know that, in general, poor people do not switch. They do not have the information. I still find my fuel bills baffling, and I regard myself as moderately sophisticated on such matters. It is unrealistic to expect the fuel poor to tackle fuel poverty by constantly shopping around online or by any other means. The smart meters could do that for them—and the sooner that they are in place, the better.