Energy Efficiency

The number of people living in fuel poverty is at its highest for almost a decade. This no doubt accounts for the price increases announced by British Gas and its competitors, all of whom plan to raise their bills by between fifteen and twenty-seven per cent, thus continuing the combination of low prices and efficient service which is the hallmark of privatisation and competition in the free market. The Government, which has committed itself to ending fuel poverty in England by 2010, is at risk of legal challenge from a coalition of pressure groups, led by the Association for the Conservation of Energy, who have obviously failed to realise the extent to which the Government respects its obligations under the law.

The law in question is the Blairily-titled Warm Homes and Energy Conservation Act, which was passed in 2000 - that is, before Osama and company changed the rules of the game by drawing the free world's attention to Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass nonexistence - and placed the Government under a legal obligation to eradicate fuel poverty among benefit cheats and pension crisis exacerbation resources. One consumer group, Energywatch, has suggested that the state should force energy suppliers to offer subsidised "social tariffs" for less efficient consumers; and given a choice between free-market dogma and state intervention on behalf of the vulnerable, New Labour will always jump the right way. The Government and its non-binding regulator "insist it is better to allow suppliers to offer these lower tariffs voluntarily". No doubt it is better, for some: the Minister for Administrative Administration, Hutton the Thrift, "defended the energy industry last week in the Commons. He pointed out it was spending £56m this winter to fund social tariffs. Yet the six largest energy suppliers made profits of £2bn in six months alone last year", thus continuing the combination of low prices and efficient service which is the hallmark of privatisation and competition in the free market.