Government is abandoning vulnerable energy customers

A leading Liberal Democrat MP has accused the government of abandoning vulnerable energy customers and has slammed prime minister Rishi Sunak’s raft of net zero policy changes.

The party’s energy and climate change spokesperson Wera Hobhouse was speaking to Utility Week ahead of Sunak’s announcement on Wednesday (20 September), in which she voiced her concerns about the lack of support for customers ahead of this winter.

Despite costs coming down recently, there have been mounting fears about the impact high energy bills will have on the most vulnerable. A number of suppliers and charities have called for targeted support to be introduced, in line with Utility Week’s Action on Bills campaign.

Hobhouse was asked what the fears and concerns are of MPs at the moment.

In response, she said: “That the government is really abandoning vulnerable people, that it thinks because energy prices are coming down slightly and because inflation is coming down that the cost of living crisis is finished.

“But the government has completely ignored the fact that the cost of living has increased dramatically so even if inflation is coming down a bit or energy prices are coming down a bit, compared to what we had previously two or three years ago, the cost of living has increased dramatically for people in general but particularly for those on low incomes.

“So they need continued support and the government is just abandoning them and hiding behind headlines that inflation is coming down.”

One major solution that is gaining momentum is the idea of a social energy tariff, targeted at those who need the most support. Such a tariff is a solution favoured by the MP for Bath’s party.

“Even continuing the energy support scheme from the previous year is ultimately an interim measure whereas a social tariff really embeds the idea that vulnerable people need to have help with their energy bills properly over the long term,” she added.

Hobhouse was speaking to Utility Week just hours before the prime minister’s announcement on the government’s proposals for net zero, with most of the major plans having been leaked the day before.

These include moving back the ban on the sale of new petrol and diesel cars by five years and delaying the ban on installing oil and LPG boilers, and new coal heating, for off-gas-grid homes to 2035, instead of phasing them out from 2026.

Hobhouse was scathing of the delays and accused ministers of “pushing the vital targets to achieve net zero into the long grass because they don’t want to be responsible in the next year for having to deliver these”.

She added: “Even the Society of Motor Manufacturers & Traders (SMMT) said keep the targets, the worst thing is always changing targets, stick to the targets, the industry is delivering on the target. British people are buying electric vehicles and the sales are exceeding expectations, but what is needed is that people know where they can charge their cars.

“Here is an onus on government to set into motion a proper programme where local government particularly, but other bodies, can deliver electric charging points. If the government is failing to do that, supporting in the right way with grants and money but also with the right policy frameworks, those people who are investing privately, that’s the failure that has meant we don’t have enough electric charging points yet.

“But the industry’s ready, they just want to have the certainty, they keep saying that, and the government is doing the opposite of certainty by taking targets away again. Better a tough target than U-turns and that is the problem.”