Cost of Energy: Dalmarnock

Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—(Gagan Mohindra.)

For those unfamiliar with the Dalmarnock neighbourhood in my constituency, it is located in the east end of Glasgow, between the River Clyde and Celtic Park. People there are generous, kind and welcoming. It has been an absolute pleasure to represent them, first, as a councillor and now as an MP for the past 16 years. Dalmarnock has seen a lot of change over the years, as heavy industry has declined and the population has moved away to the new towns. In more recent years, it has seen significant regeneration from the Clyde Gateway—I draw Members’ attention to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests, as the unpaid chair of Clyde Gateway—and it was host to the world as the site of the Commonwealth games village.

I will speak first to the wider picture that people face. Over the past two years, families right across Glasgow and Scotland have struggled with soaring energy prices. While France implemented a price tariff shield on electricity and gas, the UK Government took more limited measures, which have left many people struggling to keep their homes warm and pay their bills. Inflation related to Brexit and the disastrous mini-Budget also increased the cost of food on our shelves. The energy price cap brought in by the UK Government was welcome, but prices remain significantly higher than they were prior to the war in Ukraine.

Last year’s energy bill support scheme, which, again, we in the Scottish National party welcomed, was supposed to give every household a £400 discount on their energy bills from winter 2022 to March 2023. I recall very well the Prime Minister and the Chancellor of the time not understanding exactly how a prepayment meter worked. That speaks to some of the issues that have happened with the scheme. There were many people whom it did not reach. We feel that the crisis has not gone away. We are calling for a further round of an energy bill support scheme with a £400 rebate this winter, because the crisis has not gone away and people are still struggling.

On some of the issues we faced in administering the scheme through the casework I had in my office, these things ought to be addressed in any future scheme to ensure that everyone gets what they are entitled to. In many cases, people did not even realise they had received the vouchers, because they had been automatically applied to their smart meter and the cost had gone up so dramatically that they did not feel the difference. It was so hard to do the various checks and to go back to people and explain that they just were not entitled to any further support. To make matters worse, it was estimated that more than 13,000 energy bill support scheme vouchers went unclaimed in Glasgow Central, including for residents in Dalmarnock. The vouchers for constituents with prepayment meters were so important because, disproportionately, they are both on lower incomes and charged higher prices for the energy that they consume.

The energy support schemes of the future should be targeted at those who need it most. A flat scheme across the board, regardless of need, is not progressive in any way and does not support those with larger families or people with disabilities who need the heating on for longer periods. I am concerned that so many people did not receive the support to which they were entitled, which raises serious questions about the efficacy of the scheme. That money should have been in the meters of my constituents, not the coffers of the UK Treasury. I would like to ask the Minister how energy firms are being held to account for the vouchers that did not reach their customers, because in many cases they know exactly who those customers are. What review are the UK Government doing of the effectiveness of the scheme that they created and forced on companies at short notice? From speaking to the companies, I know that they found the scheme difficult to administer at times. It is clear that there are complexities in our energy system. Complexity of supply and market failure is resulting in limited choice, and very varied and poorly insulated housing stock, in the UK as a whole and even in individual neighbourhoods such as Dalmarnock.

I thank my hon. Friend for taking my intervention. I wanted to come in earlier on prepayment meters, but I was very keen to listen to what else she was saying. Despite the fact that Ofgem has, for the moment, stopped energy companies from being able to force prepayment meters on people, and despite the fact that the Courts and Tribunals Service stopped that happening in England and Wales, Scottish Power applied, I think in the last week, for over 100 such meters to be installed, and got the warrants. Does she agree that it can be doing that for only one reason, which is to intimidate people who are struggling to pay their bills?

I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention, and for all the work she has done to highlight the issues facing people on prepayment meters. That is an absolutely brutal way to go about your business: forcing your way into people’s homes, forcing people to take prepayment meters, and then clawing back money off them that they could have used to heat their house, rather than to service a debt caused by soaring energy prices. The energy companies have made significant profits out of these people—profits that really have not been earned through anything that the companies have done, but that have resulted from global circumstances. People in our constituencies in Glasgow are paying the real price for that, living in cold, dark flats through the depths of winter.

A woman wrote to me who lives in a new-build flat. She is in debt now. She works full time, but has had to ask for payment holidays on her credit cards and other loans. She is not the type of person who gets into this situation. She said:

“I have had to cut my food shop. I live now on soup and sandwiches. I don’t put my heating on unless it’s freezing. I don’t have any disposable income now and I’m contemplating giving up my car”.

The impact of these high bills on whether people can afford to eat properly is stark. Another woman reported:

“I can’t cook during the day on weekdays. I can only cook at night or weekends in order to save energy and money. I can’t cook my local or native food because it takes longer to cook. We eat more junk foods which is not healthy for us.”

People recognise that this is causing them harm, but there is really nothing that they can do about it. A gentleman who has diabetes reported to me that he goes to bed early, he feels cold all the time, and his diet is not good owing to money concerns. Another woman told us:

“I was worried about accidentally running hot water as it would cost so much. I refused to have friends or family around because I was embarrassed to be living like that.”

Let me begin by thanking the hon. Member for Glasgow Central (Alison Thewliss) for tabling this incredibly important debate on the cost of energy in Dalmarnock. She makes a strong case for her constituents and, as the Minister for affordability, I am mindful of the issues that she raises. That is why the Government spent nearly £40 billion protecting households and businesses from spiralling energy bills last winter. That included robust support for households, covering around half of a typical energy bill last winter through the combined support since October 2022 of the energy price guarantee and the energy bills support scheme, with a typical household saving around £1,500 by the end of June 2023. The energy price guarantee subsidised the per unit cost that a household could be charged for its gas and electricity usage. The typical household was therefore paying £2,500 a year for its energy when prices were at their highest, between October 2022 and June 2023.

To put that in context, the Ofgem price cap reached £4,279 for quarter 1 of 2023, which is what a typical household would have paid for its energy had the Government not intervened. Alongside the EPG, the energy bills support scheme delivered a £400 non-repayable Government discount on electricity bills to help 28 million households in Great Britain.

The hon. Lady mentioned the difficulties some people in her constituency faced in accessing energy support last winter, particularly those who were unable to be reached automatically. The EBSS alternative funding was available to over 900,000 households in Great Britain that did not have a domestic electricity supply and were not eligible to receive support automatically through EBSS, providing them with £400 to support them with their energy bills. I note the comments from the survey, and I am very interested, as we discussed before, to see the results of that survey.

The scheme remained open for three months from 27 February to 31 May, and the Government used a range of methods to ensure that as many eligible households as possible knew that they could apply. That included press notices to highlight the scheme in national and regional media, and a request for local authorities to write to care homes and park homes in their area.

The alternative fuel payment scheme delivered £200 to households that use alternative fuels such as heating oil, liquefied petroleum gas, coal or biomass, helping around 2 million off-gas-grid households to meet their energy costs last winter. The scheme particularly supported households in areas that are not connected to the gas grid, and support was doubled to £200 in the autumn statement to reflect the price rises experienced by people using alternative fuels to heat their home.