Written evidence to be reported to the House
Energy Bill
12:00 pm
Alistair Buchanan: I am very happy to do so. You may have noticed that we were invited to see the Chancellor a few weeks ago, and the letter that was sent to us invited us to address what we called a shopping list of ideas on fuel poverty, so it is encouraging that the Chancellor wants to consider those issues. Among our shopping list were to get smart metering rolling, to examine the DWP’s work with companies on the ground, to get the Minister to join Ofgem when it hosts a fuel poor summit—we are delighted that he will join us in April—and finally, an idea that was not new.
We published the idea in April 2006 at the time of the energy White Paper. I was invited to offer ideas, and we took the idea that we offered in April 2006, which was that if the companies have been given a vast amount of free hand-out because of the EU ETS free hand-out scheme—and they have been—is there any opportunity for the Government to use some of it for fuel poverty? The answer may be no. I do not know whether the Government can do it; there may be issues about hypothecation, but that is not my problem. We gave an idea. We are not a lobby group, but a statutory organisation, and I am not lobbying for that idea. However, it is an idea, and it was part of the shopping list that we gave the Chancellor a few weeks ago.