My Lords, I do not want speak specifically in favour of the spirit of the amendment proposed by the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, about the vertical integration of this industry. It has seemed to me over the past 12 months in particular that there has been, if I may say, a growing corporate arrogance in the energy industry. Power seems to have gone to the heads of many of those six organisations. They feel that they can do what they like to their own customer base and that they do not have to pay much regard to democratically elected Governments or Parliaments, let alone your Lordships’ Chamber.
I was particularly struck by this one evening when I visited my 94 year-old mother. She had just had a letter from British Gas which said that she would have to pay an increase of 10% on her bills for the year. Then it kindly went through—in very small type, which was not easy for a 94 year-old—all the reasons for the rise. It gave as the top reason, the first on the list of bullet points explaining why energy prices had gone up, not one of the reasons that we know are actually the reasons for the price increase; instead, it blamed the Government. It is a dual fuel tariff, so the charges are affected by the various bits of government legislation. I think that reflects a real arrogance. It is very difficult indeed to fix this competitive area, as noble Lords are trying to do. It is time to think what has previously been the unthinkable and say, although perhaps not tonight, “Yes, it is credible that we split supply from production”. That should be seen as a real way forward.
However, we have another problem, which leads to the arrogance that we are seeing within the industry. The companies know that we know that some £100 billion needs to be invested to keep the power lines going to make sure that we keep the lights on in terms of capacity. That is a dilemma for any Government. Nevertheless, we should start thinking what has previously been the unthinkable: that this arrogance is not acceptable. We expect them to be more responsive, not necessarily to us but certainly to their customer base and to the nation in terms of their pricing strategies. They should know that if we cannot solve the competitive issues, that split could indeed happen.