Andrew Selous MP

South West Bedfordshire MP Andrew Selous has called on the Government to help villagers in Hockliffe and Whipsnade who are not connected to the mains gas supply as well as Park Home residents with their heating bills in a House of Commons debate. Local resident Lorraine Bond of Whipsnade Park Homes asked Andrew Selous to visit her about this issue as she paid £300 a month for cylinders of LPG (propane gas) in last year’s freezing winter. Central Bedfordshire Councillor Alan Shadbolt has also tried to get Hockliffe residents on mains gas for many years.

Andrew Selous called for

• Park Home residents and others relying on LPG to be fully informed of the costs of heating their homes before they buy or rent
• The Office of Fair Trading to examine more fully competition among LPG suppliers
• For the Government “green deal” on insulation to be speeded up for Park Home owners, and
• For the new renewable heat incentive to apply to Park Home owners

He also praised Aldwyck Housing Association for the photovoltaic hot water heating on all its 179 new properties in Sandringham Drive Houghton Regis which residents said lead to much lower heating bills for them last year. Andrew Selous said, “Like everyone else, I hate being cold. Hockliffe, Whipsnade and Park Home residents have to bear extra heating costs and I want to see them helped in practical and sustainable ways. I also welcome the Government’s new carbon emissions reduction target insulation programme which will also apply to Park Home owners.”

The debate in Hansard was as follows:

Debate on Energy and Climate Change – House of Commons Tuesday 20 December 2011
Andrew Selous (South West Bedfordshire)
I represent a constituency that has a large number of park homes, which I visit regularly. I am particularly grateful in this regard to a constituent, Mrs Lorraine Bond, who has a Whipsnade park home. She asked me to come to see her a couple of weeks ago, having corresponded with me for quite a while about the exorbitant cost of heating her home using liquid petroleum gas cylinders—this is common for many park home residents. She told me that last winter, when it was cold, she was spending £300 a month on average to keep her park home warm. It is possible to have five extremely cold months in a difficult winter in the United Kingdom, so my constituents are having to spend £1,500 to keep their park homes warm. If we bear in mind the fact that most park home residents are elderly—they tend to be pensioners—and often on low and fixed incomes, the House will realise the significance of that sum. It causes me great concern and that is why I wanted to raise the matter with the Minister today.
The Office of Fair Trading just completed its off-grid energy report in October of this year. It describes the cylinder LPG market as
“a mature and declining market”
of only some 25,000 to 50,000 homes for the 47 kg cylinders of LPG. It points out that bulk LPG is more economical and involves greater ease of delivery and handling, but even bulk LPG is more expensive than other off-grid fuels such as heating oil, about which we hear a lot in this House, solid fuel or electricity. They all, in turn, are much more expensive ways of heating one’s home than a mains gas supply connection, which many rural areas do not have.
The market for liquid petroleum gas—propane and butane in the main—is very limited. There are only three major cylinder suppliers, Calor Gas, Flogas and BP Gas, and the OFT noted that retail arrangements for cylinder LPG
“in effect require dealers to deal exclusively with one supplier.”
It notes, with considerable understatement, that
“these agreements could potentially restrict competition.”
The OFT has said that it
“may return to these issues in the context of the wider cylinder LPG market at a later date”.
It urgently needs to do so, because we are talking about very vulnerable people on low incomes with little choice about the way in which they heat their homes. Our current regulation is purely through the OFT and the Competition Commission, because Ofgem and Consumer Focus do not have a remit for this market.
What can we do? The first thing we need to do is ensure that any future potential park home residents are well aware before they move in of how much it could cost to heat their home. They need to have that knowledge before they take the decision to become a park home resident.
I was encouraged when earlier this year, on 24 March, in column 1084 of Hansard, one of the DECC Ministers said that the green deal and the energy company obligation would apply to park home residents. That is very welcome, but what has happened with the renewable heat premium payment? Some £15 million of Government money, aimed at around 25,000 homes, is due to be spent up to March next year, so have park homes been covered by that payment scheme? If they have not been, can we ensure that they are in the remaining months?
My major question for the Minister concerns whether the renewable heat incentive, which starts in March next year, will apply to park home owners. As I hope I have outlined, they are some of our most vulnerable residents who are in greatest need of the new technology and financial support that the Government are bringing in through that incentive. I understand that at the moment that decision is still, in classic Government language, “subject to policy development”, so I urge my hon. Friend the Member for North Norfolk (Norman Lamb), as the Minister on the Front Bench, to ensure that this group are covered. As I have said, they are the most vulnerable residents and they need this help.
A couple of weeks ago, I visited a major new development in my constituency in Houghton Regis, on Sandringham drive, where every roof—the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas) will be pleased to hear this—had photovoltaic cells on it, leading to water heating. It did not benefit from the renewable heat incentive, but the residents told me that they had very light heating bills last year as a result of that new technology. Above all, park home residents, who are mainly pensioners and mainly on low incomes, should be the ones to benefit from the renewable heat incentive and the technology that is coming in, which could make heating their homes much more affordable.
Norman Lamb MP [responding on behalf of the Government] Finally, I will deal with the contribution of the hon. Member for South West Bedfordshire (Andrew Selous). I am grateful to him for raising the concerns brought to his attention by Mrs Lorraine Bond. The amount that she and others have to pay over the winter just to heat their homes should concern us all. He is right that the recent Office of Fair Trading report highlighted that cylinder liquefied petroleum gas—
The concern is that the consumers we are talking about are mostly on very low incomes, are often elderly and struggle with their heating costs. I will talk about the steps that the Government are taking. The Minister of State, Department of Energy and Climate Change, the hon. Member for Wealden wrote to the OFT recently, asking it to consider how to make markets work more effectively for vulnerable consumers.
Park homes will shortly be able to receive help under the Government’s main home energy efficiency scheme—the carbon emissions reduction target. CERT requires all domestic energy suppliers with more than 50,000 consumers to reduce householders’ carbon dioxide emissions by promoting low-carbon energy solutions. Under CERT, suppliers are free to decide what measures to promote. I recognise that suppliers have chosen not to install measures in significant quantities to date, but there have been successful trials this year of park home insulation solutions that significantly reduce energy use. Those trials have shown what can be achieved. Solid wall insulation for park homes will get a formal carbon score under CERT, which will incentivise energy suppliers to promote these measures to park home residents during the final year of the CERT scheme.
Finally, I have taken on board the concerns raised by the hon. Member for South West Bedfordshire about the renewable heat incentive. It is clearly important to ensure that that matter is considered fully. The concerns that he has raised will be taken on board by the Department. Every effort will be made to ensure that these vulnerable consumers are protected as well as possible.
ENDS