Ed Davey
MP for Kingston and Surbiton · Liberal Democrat · United Kingdom
“I associate myself with the Prime Minister’s opening remarks, not least about the 25th anniversary of the horrific terror attacks of 9/11. I welcome the Government finally banning imports from illegal Israeli settlements, something Keir Starmer should have done a long time ago.”
“I thank the Prime Minister for that answer. Britain should be the safest country in the world to have a baby. We will keep raising this issue until it is the safest.”
“No mother should have to give birth in such circumstances. Does the Prime Minister agree that Musgrove Park cannot wait until 2033 for work to start on a new maternity unit? Will he offer a meeting to local MPs, so we can move it forward? And will he make fixing the maternity scandal across our country a top priority of his Government?”
“I hope at that summit the Prime Minister will negotiate a good deal for our country, our economy and our defence, and that means rejoining the single market. North Devon’s maternity unit has been closed for three weeks due to staff shortages, so women now have to travel for up to two hours to give birth.”
“The Prime Minister said yesterday that Brexit ushered in “a decade of low growth and stalled regeneration.” —[ Official Report , 1 September 2026; Vol. 790, c. 27.] He is right. Our economy is stuck in this mess thanks to the Conservatives—and the leader of Reform UK—and their terrible Brexit deal.”
“There are so many more problems in our political system: too much power in the hands of social media barons who interfere in our politics and crypto billionaires who use donations to buy influence; and too little power in the hands of our people.”
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“At the climate talks in Doha, as part of a balanced outcome, I want to see a collective commitment from developed countries to maintain climate finance at least at Fast Start levels from 2013. We also want work on mobilising sources of finance to continue to reach the goal of jointly mobilising $100 billion a year by 2020. Finally, we will need to endorse the host country for the green climate fund.”
“I raised it at the pre-COP talks in Seoul. It is a really interesting source of new climate change finance and should be explored alongside other potential revenues. It is absolutely vital that developed countries raise their ambitions in this area. We must show developing countries that we want to support them in this change and that moving to ambitious targets for reducing carbon emissions globally is possible and will not stunt growth. Green growth can go together with economic growth, whether in the developed or developing worlds, and we must support those countries.”
“Left-wing bourgeois academics are obviously welcome to contribute to any discussions in this House, because we want to hear from all sides. I must say that climate change scientists are not noted for their political beliefs; they do their work as scientists. They are providing the evidence that the Government, the country and, I hope, the rest of the world will act on. Their scientific results are extremely disturbing. Most recently we have seen what is happening in the Arctic, where the polar ice cap is melting faster than people had previously thought. That is what the scientists are telling us, and we should take it very seriously.”
“Our policy remains the same: to support onshore wind farms. Onshore wind is good for our energy security, emissions reductions, economic growth and jobs, and it reduces pressures on consumer bills. The new wind projects to deliver the ambition of 13GW by 2020 are largely on the table. The Government are clear that those must be properly sited and must provide genuine benefits to local communities.”
“I am sorry if I have disappointed my hon. Friend by my presence at the Dispatch Box. She will know that Ministers do not comment on particular planning applications, but I have made it absolutely clear, working with the Department for Communities and Local Government, that the planning system needs to be more responsive to local communities. I personally launched the consultation on trying to get greater community benefits for communities who host renewable sites. I hope that she will, with her experience, contribute to that consultation process, which is very important in ensuring that communities who host these sites can gain a real benefit.”
“My hon. Friend the energy Minister suggests that I use the word “intimately”, but I can say that we are working very closely. My hon. Friend and I—as you, Mr Speaker, requested I will face the House—may occasionally disagree on issues of substance, and I certainly did not agree with his remarks the other day, but I have to say that I really admire his style.”
“What the right hon. Lady did not say is that in the renewables banding review that we announced in July, which was warmly welcomed across the industry, we set the support levels until 2017 and sent a very strong signal to investors in the sector. She also did not tell the House what the Prime Minister said yesterday in supporting my position that the renewables policy has not changed. The Prime Minister and the Secretary of State are at one on this. We will continue with our renewables policy; it has not been changed.”
“If I may, Mr Speaker, I should like to pay tribute to the great work that my hon. Friend did at the Department in a whole range of sectors and thank him for the support he gave me. He is absolutely right that countries around the world, even those that are richer in oil and gas supplies than ours, are investing in renewable energy, and I think we should continue with that. We should make it clear that this is one of the best places in the world to invest in renewable energy.”
“As you know, Mr Speaker, I intend this month to introduce the energy Bill, which will reform the electricity market, provide long-term certainty to investors, and ensure that British households and businesses enjoy affordable, secure and clean electricity supplies.”
“Since my Department’s previous Question Time, I have attended the pre-COP ministerial climate change talks in Korea. In addition, we have announced the winners of the record-breaking 27th North sea licensing round and the shortlist for our £1 billion carbon capture and storage competition. We have put in place the framework for our flagship green deal energy efficiency programme. We have welcomed the news of Hitachi’s major investment in new nuclear power stations in Britain. Energy UK has reported that energy investment in the UK is running at a 20-year high, including record investment in renewables.”
“I am grateful for the hon. Gentleman’s question. He will know that we have made it clear that new nuclear investors need to be responsible for the decommissioning costs and disposal of their waste. That is part of the deal—they must meet those financial obligations. In addition, as I said earlier to my hon. Friend the Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale (Tim Farron), we are working with a number of communities, particularly in west Cumbria, on a geological disposal facility.”
“I could not agree more with my right hon. Friend, who has championed community energy for many years. As Secretary of State, I am determined that we promote even more ambitious polices. We will introduce a community energy strategy in the spring. We have already made a number of announcements to encourage community groups and democratic local authorities to support these types of schemes.”
“I am grateful for my hon. Friend’s question. I think that there is a case for a decarbonisation target for the power sector, but that is still subject to ongoing discussion in Government. We are in a coalition and we need to get Cabinet approval for a decision such as this. However, it is worth noting for the benefit of the House that it is not just the Climate Change Committee and the Select Committee that have called for a carbon limit on the power sector by 2020. More than 50 companies, third sector bodies and trade bodies recently signalled their support in an open letter. There is huge support from industry for this measure and I hope that we can win that argument in this House.”
“The hon. Gentleman seems to suggest that there is a lack of transparency in the way in which energy costs are delivered. I have to say that I disagree with him. There are huge amounts of information about the different costs of green energy. He will know that the cost of renewables for bills is tiny and that the cost of energy efficiency schemes, such as the carbon emissions reduction target and the energy company obligation, is significantly greater. The real costs involved in and the real reason energy bills are going up are the rising price of wholesale gas on global markets and the need to invest in our distribution networks that need to be replaced. Those are the real drivers behind higher gas and electricity bills, and people who suggest otherwise should look at the facts.”
“I can confirm exactly that. I pay tribute to my right hon. Friend for the fantastic work he has done in pursuing those policies for many years, not least as a Minister in the DCLG. He will know that the Under-Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, my right hon. Friend the Member for Bath (Mr Foster), is continuing his excellent work.”
“I do agree that investment in onshore wind is a serious matter. We need to ensure that industry and investors know that the Government are committed to a long-term, stable and consistent framework. The hon. Gentleman will know that I lead on renewable energy strategy and I decide the policy, and the industry has heard that.”
“I am aware of Hitachi’s record, and with its Canadian partner it has a fantastic record of building new nuclear reactors on time and on budget. It has built 20 nuclear reactors over the past 40 years—an impressive track record—and I welcome it to the UK energy market.”
“As the hon. Lady will know, the Government have already made a big commitment to carbon capture and storage, and we have announced the next stage of our £1 billion competition, with four of the original eight bidders going forward. It is not for me to set the investment priorities of the green investment bank; the purpose of it being at arm’s length from the Government is so that it can set its priorities.”
“I will write to the hon. Gentleman with the exact dates of when a Minister from our Department last visited China. I recently met the relevant Minister from China in London, and in Seoul at the international climate change talks. We are working closely with the Chinese, and they have taken up our 2050 road map calculator for how we can plan to reduce carbon emissions in an ambitious way. Our relationship with China in that area is solid.”
“The right hon. Lady has said quite a few times that the energy market has changed. Will she confirm that in 1998 there were 14 of the original 15 incumbent energy suppliers, but that by the time Labour had finished, that had gone down to six? That is a consolidation in the energy market, does she not agree?”
“The right hon. Lady is right to say that there has not been enough competition in the generating side of the market. I will speak at length about competition in both the retail and wholesale markets. The real issue between us is whether we should get extra competition in the generating side of the market through pooling, as she proposes, or by addressing the lack of liquidity in forward markets, which we believe to be the real problem. Does she want to compare and contrast her approach with ours?”
“I will set out the Government’s policies on how we believe we can best help people and businesses facing higher bills. Our position is based on a combination of ever-tougher competition and ever-more ambitious efforts to save energy. I wish to spend some time talking about that competition today.”
“There is, I hope, at least one thing that unites the House today: we all want to help people struggling with high gas and electricity bills. When times are tough, as they are now, and when salaries are not going up yet prices of many essential things are, the last thing that people need is higher energy bills. We have heard the same worry in debates on the cost of petrol and diesel, for very similar reasons. When the price of oil and gas on world markets goes up, that pressure can feed through, and not just in the UK. The challenge to many Governments around the world is how to react to that and how they can insulate their people and their economy from fossil fuel price hikes. I therefore welcome the debate, which enables the House to test out the Government’s policies and the Opposition’s ideas.”
“The hon. Gentleman may or may not be aware that two or three months into my time as Secretary of State, I secured a voluntary agreement with the big six. I negotiated it and the Deputy Prime Minister announced it in April. The agreement was clear, and the big six are delivering on the promise that they made to us, namely that they will inform people of the lowest tariff available to them. That was part of a range of policies that we have agreed with them. For example, there is the warm home discount, which is often forgotten in this debate. We legislated for that discount to ensure that £130 will go straight off the bills of the poorest pensioners and the poorest people in our society next year. That will get money to the people who really need it and help them with their energy bills.”
“I could not agree more. We want to ensure that all people can access the best deal, whether or not they are online. That is why we have made the voluntary agreement and why we will take powers in the forthcoming Energy Bill to ensure that the energy companies have to inform people of the best deal. As I will set out in my speech, we want to enable the poorest people in our society to get the help they need, whether about switching, competition or energy insulation.”
“One thing I agreed during my negotiations with the big six earlier this year, ahead of this winter, was that those who receive a reduction in their bill through the warm home discount should also receive the most attention from energy suppliers to help them get the best available tariff. Those people were the priority then and they are the priority now. What I find slightly odd about Labour’s position, is that they seem to be worried only about the over-75s. What about everyone else facing high energy bills? What about families who are struggling with those bills? The Government’s policies will address everybody.”
“I want to make some progress and I will come to my hon. Friend in a moment. The Government’s policies combine competition and energy saving, and are designed to drive a wedge between rising world energy prices and the actual energy bills that people in Britain end up paying—decoupling bills from prices. If tougher competition in the UK energy market can take the sting out of rising global prices, and if we can help people to use less energy, we can cushion families and firms. In many ways, the right hon. Member for Don Valley (Caroline Flint) said similar things. She talked about competition and markets, and it was music to my ears. Where we differ, however, is in the detail, and in particular on how to generate the extra competition that she spoke eloquently about.”
“That national competition—not a Labour party competition—is called Cheaper Energy Together and should provide a boost to awareness and learning that could transform switching in the UK, not least because winning bids must show how they would involve the fuel poor in their schemes. If we are to see a revolution in switching, with collective switching, I will insist that the most vulnerable are part of that. It must be slightly embarrassing for Labour Members to know that when they were in government, they did not use the collective principle to help people. It must be embarrassing because, although the current Government are using the collective principle to tackle fuel poverty, the Labour party did not. I am, however, genuinely delighted that the Opposition have overcome their embarrassment, and taken up our idea.”
“That is because gas and electricity are pretty similar commodities, wherever and however people buy them, and because people are increasingly worried about their bills. However—this is crucial—many people find it too difficult to switch by themselves, and I have been addressing that problem. I have talked to a range of people about the barriers to collective switching, and I have got people—including Ofgem, the large energy companies or firms, and organisations capable of managing a collective switch—round the table where we have made real progress. Regulatory barriers are coming down. Last week, we announced a nationwide competition, in which the winners, whether councils, community groups or others, will get seedcorn cash to help them get going.”
“The right hon. Lady talked about her commitment to collective switching, and she mentioned Labour’s “Switch Together” scheme. The Government support collective switching because we talked about it first. The right hon. Lady knows that the Labour party could have pushed that idea when in government, but it did not, and it was this coalition Government who got it. When I was the Minister responsible for consumer affairs in the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, I pushed the general notion of rekindling the spirit of co-operatives into different retail markets, and, in league with Co-operatives UK, I set up a competition to stimulate new ways for communities to buy things together. From that work, energy co-operatives emerged as among the most promising.”
“Switching rates appear to have fallen in recent years, and those who continue to switch tend to be the internet savvy and often the more well-heeled, leaving the less well-heeled and less internet savvy out in the cold when it comes to getting the best deals. In essence, it is a very unsatisfactory situation. The policy question is about whether we can promote competition through switching in other ways, or whether switching is simply not the way to go. I am delighted because it seems from the right hon. Lady’s speech that the Opposition have not given up on switching, and in fact they seem to be copying some of the policies that I first articulated. Since imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, I take that as a vote of confidence. For Members who may have missed that neat trick from the Labour Front Benches let me explain.”
“Switching has, of course, been the principal way to do both those things, which is what happened by letting customers choose their supplier and forcing energy firms to offer better deals to hold on to customers. As the right hon. Lady rightly said, however, that system has not been working well, and switching has not helped the vast majority of people. In fact, it seems that switching rates have been falling just as prices have been rising. That bizarre finding seems to be the result of the virtual end of door-to-door selling which, as many of us know from our constituencies, was fraught with problems.”
“No, I will make some progress and give way later. When we consider competition in energy markets we must first separate the retail side from the wholesale side—or, in English, competition between firms that sell us energy and firms that generate it. There are, of course, many firms that are on both sides of that equation, just as there are policies to help on both sides. Let me start with the suppliers, the retailers, the people to whom we pay our bills. We can drive competition in that area in two ways: by making the existing bigger players compete harder to keep their customers, and by enabling more firms to enter the market and grow—something on which the right hon. for Don Valley is rightly keen.”
“We know that customer inertia can be a barrier to competition, preventing new companies from getting market share, and collective switching reduces that barrier for small companies. Co-operative Energy won the big switch organised by Which?, and doubled its customer base overnight. Collective switching has the potential to be part of the way that we reshape the market.”
“Yesterday, Oldham borough council launched its collective switch, which I attended. I did not see the right hon. Lady; perhaps she was there at a different time. That collective switch is called “Power to the people”—Citizen Smith would be proud. A wide variety of schemes are coming forward. I am already aware of eight, perhaps the most ambitious of which is Cornwall Together, in which the council, the NHS, the trade union Unison, the third sector, and St Austell brewery have come together to organise a collective switch. Collective switching is not a silver bullet or panacea, but people are seeing how it can be part of the answer and reform the way switching works. Switching does not just force existing firms to compete more vigorously to keep customers, it enables smaller suppliers to grow their customer base faster.”
“I will come to that point, but I remind the right hon. Lady of what I said earlier. Under her party’s watch, the number of companies went down from 14 to six, so we will not listen to her too much. Let me finish my point about switching and say why it is so important. Collective switching got going in Belgium just a few years ago, and we have now seen live, successful switches in the UK. The Consumers Association, Which?, led the way with its big switch earlier this year. It helped around 37,000 people to switch and get an average saving of £223. We have also seen smaller collective switches. Last month, South Lakeland district council was the first local authority to run a switch. Nearly 1,700 residents signed up, and early indications suggest savings that range between £60 and more than £200.”
“BIS is now consulting on making the midata ideas a statutory requirement. Coupled with the work of Ofgem on simpler bills, that could be a huge catalyst for helping many more people to switch.”
“In the voluntary agreement I negotiated, the companies agreed to put quick response codes on their bills. “What,” hon. Members may ask, “is a QR code?” It is a bit like a bar code, but smarter. The QR code should make it much easier for people to provide the energy bill details needed for switching, reducing the effort people must make. I can announce to the House that we will be consulting on that and a number of other measures when we introduce our consultation on consumer bills. The Government have gone further to reduce the hassle of switching. In another consumer project I worked on at the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills—it was called midata—we looked at other ways in which an energy company could provide the customer with the customer’s data, for example, in easy-to-use or easy-to-pass-on electronic formats.”
“I am disappointed that the companies did not respond more positively when the right hon. Gentleman wrote to them. I do not know whether he wrote to them under the Labour Government. The voluntary agreement that we managed to secure after two months in office included a commitment from the energy companies to take part in collective switching proposals. A number of the big six took part in the Which? big switch, so we have moved them and we are changing things. A key barrier to collective switching and ordinary switching is individual bill payers getting their details to the third party organising the switch, the switching website or the new supplier. In principle, that should not be too difficult, but the evidence we have found is that it is. We have therefore started to tackle the problem.”
“Unlike the right hon. Lady, this Government respect an independent regulator. Ofgem has been conducting its retail market review. It would have been completely inappropriate for the Government to publish a consultation before the independent regulator completed its work. She ought to know that. We have been waiting for the report and got it just last week. As a result of receiving that work, we will take forward our consultation, which will enable us to introduce new legislation in the Energy Bill.”
“Lady come to the Dispatch Box to suggest that the Leader of the Opposition got it wrong just two and a half years ago?”
“Lady said that the previous Government looked at whether reforming the regulator would be better than creating a new one. She gave no good reason why we could not reform Ofgem, which is what this Government will do. It is interesting that she wants to spend time rebranding public bodies. I do not know whether she believes that is a good use of taxpayers’ money, but, interestingly, her proposal is rather disloyal to the Leader of the Opposition. I am sure she is aware that he legislated on Ofgem when he was Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change. Just two and a half years ago, he told the House that the purpose of his Energy Act 2010 was “precisely to strengthen Ofgem's powers in a number of respects and to make it a more proactive regulator” —[ Official Report , 7 January 2010; Vol. 503, c. 254.] Will the right hon.”
“My right hon. Friend is absolutely right, and the Government will do just that. I pay tribute to Ofgem’s work on simpler bills—the retail market review it published last week is an excellent piece of work. I was disappointed that the right hon. Lady did not welcome it. That might be something to do with her policy of abolishing Ofgem, which I should like briefly to turn to as my right hon. Friend has raised the matter. We want to understand why the right hon. Lady believes that abolishing one regulator and replacing it with another will make any difference whatever. That is a recipe for delay and chaos and for letting the energy companies get away with it while the Opposition mess around moving the deckchairs on the Titanic. The right hon.”
“I am extremely disappointed that that is the position the right hon. Lady has arrived at. The retail market review last week proposed to reduce and limit the number of tariffs from the massive number that exist at the moment to just four core tariffs. As my right hon. Friend reminded us, he asked the Labour Government to do that just a few years ago, but they did not. Ofgem has acted where the Labour Government did not. It will help to tackle the complexity of multiple tariffs, which have not helped transparency or competition. I am delighted that its plans allow collective switch tariffs to emerge in addition to the core tariffs. I am surprised that she wants to abolish a body that, under this Government, is taking the action that the previous Government failed to take.”
“I am grateful for the hon. Lady’s question, not least because I was born in her constituency. The Government want to help everybody. I am surprised that she is focusing simply on over-75s. We are acting on over-75s and on all poorer pensioners, because the warm home discount will get £130 off their bills this year. We are taking action.”
“1102.] When the NAO reported on the old pool in 2003, it said that the “the centralised arrangements of the pool carried with them a risk that some generators could manipulate the market and Ofgem consider that this risk materialised through much of the period of the Pool’s operation to the detriment of consumer interests.” Indeed, many at the time believed that the pool was leading to higher and not lower energy bills. That is why the Government are not convinced by the Opposition’s policy.”
“No, I will not. I have spent some time on competition in the retail energy markets, but the right hon. Lady spoke a lot about competition in the generating markets, to which I should like to turn. She made a great deal of wanting to reintroduce a pool to the UK and said it was in the Labour party’s manifesto. She did not really explain why, having abolished the pool in the UK in 2001, Labour wanted to re-introduce it. The Labour Energy and Competitiveness in Europe Minister at the time of pool abolition—she is now the noble Baroness Liddell—told the House: “There is no question but that the electricity pool has distorted the market”. —[ Official Report , 15 June 2000; Vol. 351, c.”
“I have already. I explained how the number of companies fell under Labour. [Hon. Members: “How many?”] There were two: PowerGen and National Power. Yes, I do know. And there are more generators now, so going back to the pool, when there were fewer generators, would be a bit odd.”
“Faced with the might of large, vertically integrated energy companies supplying their own power, independent generators find it difficult to enter the market. I think we agree on that. The question is: how do we deal with that? The problem is with liquidity, not the pool. The right hon. Member for Don Valley, who clearly dislikes Ofgem, has not noticed that by threatening to take action Ofgem has, to some extent, already made progress on liquidity. As we have seen, large volumes are now being traded in the day-ahead market, which has improved price transparency. That is a good start.”
“As a former competition Minister, I know that commenting on such things is extremely tricky, so I will leave that to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills. I want to focus on how we can tackle the real problems in the energy market. I think we all agree that there is a problem with competition. When we compare the UK market with overseas markets, a key observation is that our markets are less liquid, especially the forward market. To get a good, competitive energy market, firms should be buying and selling electricity three, six, 12 or more months in advance. If they were, and if we had greater market liquidity, it would be much easier for independent generators to enter the market and invest in generating plant confident that they can buy and sell electricity and manage their risks.”