My Lords, I thank the Minister for his answers and for his offer to write on the specific details in relation to REMIT and the setting of the reference prices, which I believe are central to the Bill and may come up in subsequent debates.
It is rather amusing and ironic for the Minister to be praying in aid uncertainty as a reason for not moving forward on this; we have already had debates about the degree of certainty in the Bill, and this side of the Committee clearly believes that the Bill does not provide anything like enough certainty, which is exactly why we have the current hiatus in investment. I do not believe that sorting out proper regulation would cast a shadow over the markets; most people in the market accept that things need to be changed and fixed. If we have a regulator that has gone native, that is in no one’s interests—certainly not the consumer’s. I do not accept that argument.
On the question of extra cost, obviously all regulation has a trade-off between proper regulation and uncovering cost savings for consumers, against the additional burden of the reporting requirements on industry.
I urge the Government to look closely at the policy on transport fuels. One can dismiss it and say that there is no monopoly, but everyone who knows how that industry works knows that it is an oligopoly and that there is very little variance in pricing. There is also a severe problem of vertical integration in all these large energy companies, going up the chain to exploration and down to retail and the pump.
That is not to say that there is nothing to be looked at here. The opposite is the case. The issue has been overlooked for many decades and the time has come for the energy sector to be under the same degree of scrutiny in order to provide value for money for consumers. I do not buy the argument that this would lead to a net cost. You just have to look at the profits in some of these sectors to see that there is plenty of scope for prices to be brought down, with proper competition. That is what regulation should be about. I urge the Government not to be complacent and sweep this issue aside but to do some further work on it. I am happy to beg leave to withdraw the amendment.