Welfare Benefits Up-rating Bill - 21st January 2013

18:08 Caroline Lucas

I congratulate the right hon. Gentleman on his attempt, but it was a bit feeble. All the evidence from Deutsche bank, the International Energy Agency and many other places tells us that rising fuel bills are a result of rising gas prices, and the percentage extra on people’s fuel bills that is coming from renewable energy, which, sadly, he is not a fan of, is very much smaller. I do not agree with his premise.

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18:23 Andrew George (Liberal Democrat)

I said earlier that one big weakness of the Government’s proposal, and the reason why I opposed it, was the inflexibility of the 1% uprating. It takes no account of what may happen to food prices, for example, by 2015-16. It is all very well having a Bill that takes a clairvoyant view that a 1% increase will not press large numbers of working families, as well as out-of-work families, into severe and extreme hardship. However, we have experienced this year in the UK the impact of significant volatility in our climate. There has been significant climate change, which is having an impact on the food baskets of the world, including those in many developing countries and here. We therefore need to ask ourselves whether we can confidently say that there will not be food price spikes such as we saw only a few years ago. I suggest that we may see such spikes again. There is also tremendous concern about the potential volatility of energy prices. The 1% uprating figure is inflexible and somewhat arbitrary, and we cannot say with confidence that we will not need to introduce further primary legislation to revise that figure in 2016.

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19:24 Mr Reid

No Government have control over world food and energy prices. At Prime Minister’s questions last week I raised this potential problem when I asked the Prime Minister what contingency plans the Government had for benefit increases, should food and energy prices rise by more than expected. He answered by pointing to the good work being done by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change to ensure that energy companies put people on the lowest available tariffs. That will indeed be a big help to people on low incomes, but if energy prices rise by more than expected, the lowest tariff will rise by more than expected too. After I heard the Prime Minister’s answer, I am afraid that I was left to form the conclusion that the Government have no contingency plans for a scenario in which prices rise by more than expected. I hope that when my hon. Friend the Minister replies to this debate, he will be able to reassure me on that point. I hope there is a plan B, in case world prices go up by more than expected.

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20:07 Richard Graham

On the proposals that have actually been made, the only person who emerges with real credit for honesty is the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas). She has the guts to say that these benefits should be uprated now and for ever by the retail prices index, at a preliminary cost of some £7.6 billion. She might have some idea where that money will come from—I am sure she does not, as certainly none of the rest of us does—but at least she has tried to put a value on her compassion. Personally, I think that it is as practical as some of her efforts to spread wind farms across the country, in a passion for green energy for which our constituents will also pay heftily through their energy bills, but that is a separate matter. At least she has put a mark on the ground.

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20:50 Steve Webb

Let me offer my hon. Friend the Member for St Ives further reassurance about what will happens if inflation rises—an important issue raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Argyll and Bute. Our right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change is actively seeking to ensure, for example, that low-income constituents get the best energy tariff they can, rather than what they currently pay. Evidence shows that the people most likely to shop around, switch and be online are not on the whole the most vulnerable customers, so we are ensuring that the most vulnerable customers, who may not take advantage of those lower tariffs, get access to them. I believe that will make a real difference.

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