Electricity and Gas (Community Energy Saving Programme) Order 2009

My Lords, the measures contained in these orders, whatever their merits—I certainly would not wish to assert that they have no merits—will add substantially to the costs of electricity users. If I follow the report of the Statutory Instruments Committee correctly, the 20 per cent CERT increase will cost £1.1 billion, which, as it happens, is about the same amount as electricity consumers pay today on an annual basis for the ROC subsidy to wind-farm operators. According to paragraph 4 of the committee’s report, the CERT £1.1 billion is accounted for by a £363 million cost to householders to part-pay for measures—presumably capital costs—and £582 million to energy suppliers who will, of course, as they are explicitly permitted to do, pass it on to consumers and a £160 million cost to local authorities and social landlords. How much of these costs will be recurring, how much are one-off costs and over how long a period will they be spread? To ward off criticism, the Government in their impact assessment have introduced an enormous figure which they simply assert will be the financial long-term benefit of the measure over its lifetime. In this case they have picked the figure of £3,523,000,000. The Government hope that the improvement in the standards of energy efficiency, which the CESP order seeks to promote, will bring a reduction in the number of households classified as being in fuel poverty. It seems to me highly probable that that could be more than offset by the number pushed into fuel poverty by the increase in their bills due to companies passing on their costs. That possibility is mentioned also by the Statutory Instruments Committee. In recent years, the number of households classified as being in fuel poverty has been increasing. The Government have been moving away from, not towards, their fuel poverty targets. The community energy saving programme is directed at the lowest income households in an attempt to deal with the fuel poverty problem. That will only add to the costs which the companies will have to recover from all other consumers and, as the Statutory Instruments Committee report points out, there will be very few beneficiaries in rural areas, only payers. Therefore, issues of fairness arise, as the committee points out, as well as affordability. Of course, not all increases in electricity bills are necessarily attributable to climate change legislation such as this. In my submission, the consumer should be informed of the contribution that he is making towards meeting the Government’s climate change targets. The Government are always singing the virtues of transparency in other contexts, so why do they not oblige electricity suppliers to inform their customers, private and business, on their bills of how much is attributable to each relevant piece of climate change legislation? Would that not be in the interests of transparency? Would it not also give consumers the moral satisfaction and, to some extent, the kudos of knowing how substantial their contribution was to meeting what the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, only this afternoon called the moral challenge of our time, or are the Government afraid that if consumers knew what they were paying, that would spell the end of any chance of the Government meeting their fanciful renewable energy targets?