People's Right to Fuel (Hansard, 6 February 1985)

§ Mr. Dennis Canavan (Falkirk, West)
I beg to move, That leave be given to bring in a Bill to prevent disconnections of domestic fuel supply in cases of hardship; to implement a statutory code of practice for dealing with such cases; to introduce a fuel allowance scheme to help eradicate fuel poverty; and for related purposes. This is my third attempt to introduce a Bill of this nature. I shall not dwell on the aspects of disconnection and threatened disconnection, save to say that last year the domestic fuel supply of 120,000 households was disconnected when most of the people involved were already suffering hardship. The Bill would make it an offence to carry out such disconnections without a court order. Those cases show that the present voluntary code is not working. The Bill therefore seeks to introduce a statutory code of practice.
I shall address most of my remarks today to the third aspect—the introduction of a comprehensive system of fuel allowances tied to housing benefit. Understandably, a great deal of public attention and controversy has recently centred on the DHSS regulations for payment of the severe weather extra heating allowance. Indeed, the controversy was such as to provoke the Minister for Social Security to come out with the Newtonian admission in the House that the regulations were "weird and wonderful". They are so weird and wonderful that people in the north and in Scotland, where the weather is coldest, are excluded from extra payments while people in the south and parts of the midlands where it is not so cold are included.
It is worth pointing out that the rules in question are internal to the DHSS and have never been approved by Parliament. If everyone is sitting comfortably, I shall explain just how weird and wonderful they are. If X is the 24-hour mean atmospheric temperature in degrees Celsius, subtract X from 15.5 for each day of the week, add up the seven answers and call the total Y. That gives the number of degree days. If Y is greater than or equal to Z, where Z is the DHSS trigger point, you get your money. If Y is less than Z, you do not get your money. Hands up all those who understand that. It seems that Members of Parliament find it impossible to understand. If Members of Parliament do not understand the formula themselves, they certainly have a brass neck expecting the public outside to understand or accept it.
When I taught mathematics I used to try to teach from examples rather than merely speaking in the abstract. I shall therefore give some examples of the way in which the trigger mechanism works. The trigger point varies from place to place. I have tried to obtain support for the Bill from both sides of the House, so I shall not seek to score party points by choosing one Labour and one Conservative area. Instead, I shall take my own constituency of Falkirk, West and compare it with that of the right hon. Member for Plymouth, Devonport (Dr. Owen), a non-party leader who occasionally sits beside me. The trigger point for Falkirk is 122 degree days. For Plymouth where the climate is warmer it is only 105 degree days. In other words, if the temperature in Plymouth remained at half a degree above freezing point for a week the extra allowance would be paid. In Falkirk, it would have to remain at about 2 deg below freezing point all week for the extra allowance to be payable. The 973 assumption seems to be that the people in Falkirk are thick skinned. In fact, they are very warm-hearted people, although that is no thanks to the Government's coldhearted policies.
It may be argued that my example is hypothetical because temperature is not constant but varies from day to day and from one time of the day to another. In an area such as Falkirk the temperature at the coldest time of the day would probably have to fall as low as minus 25 deg Celsius before people qualified for the extra allowance. A further anomaly is that for the purpose of the allowance the temperature is measured not in Falkirk but at the meteorological station 45 miles away at Leuchars, where the weather could be quite different.
The Bill seeks to introduce a scheme based on climatic differences. I have broken my own tradition and sought all-party support. I normally just ask my hon. Friends. Last year the hon. Member for Dundee, East (Mr. Wilson) introduced a Bill covering just one aspect of this matter. My Bill is more comprehensive. The hon. Member for Dundee, East asked me to sponsor his Bill on that occasion and he has reciprocated by sponsoring my Bill.
I also invited the Leader of the House to sponsor the Bill, and he very kindly replied that he would consider my request, but he wrote to me recently saying that on second thoughts he had decided to turn down my invitation. I am sorry about that, as the Scottish Conservatives are reported to have passed a resolution last weekend demanding an end to the disparity that I have described. It is perhaps a measure of the lack of interest on the part of Scottish Tory Members that not one of them is present, although I invited several of them to sponsor the Bill. Indeed, I received what I thought was a sympathetic response from one of them. To save him embarrassment, I shall not give his name, but he once held very high rank, he is a well known lawyer, well respected in Scottish legal circles, and a close friend of the Prime Minister. He said that he would listen to my speech before making up his mind and then signal to me if he was prepared to sponsor the Bill. Unfortunately, he is not even here to listen to my speech.
The Glasgow Herald today reported that the Solicitor-General felt it extraordinary that while Braemar had been the the coldest place in Britain one night the 'trigger' point for payment had not been met because the temperature recording station was at Dyce, Aberdeen. 974 The report also states: Mr. Fraser, in his letter to Mrs. Thatcher, said that the present scheme could be so flawed it might have to be wholly reconsidered under the Department of Energy review. As a member of the Government, he should have known that it is not the Department of Energy but the DHSS that is supposed to be reviewing the matter.
I have heard rumours that the Government intend to scrap the heating allowance altogether. That would be an absolute travesty of justice, not only for the people of Scotland, but for people in all parts of the United Kingdom. It would be better to introduce a comprehensive system of fuel allowances with a regional element based on climatic differences. I do not have time to go into the details of the scheme now, but under the terms of the Bill the detailed regulations would be subject to parliamentary scrutiny.
At present hundreds of thousands of people are suffering from hypothermia, or the threat of it. Many of them are old-age pensioners. In some cases it would not be an exaggeration to say that they are not merely suffering but dying from hypothermia. Therefore, the House must respond to their needs constructively. My Bill is an attempt to introduce a comprehensive charter to eradicate fuel poverty, and I therefore ask the House to support it.
Question put and agreed to.

§ Mr. Deputy Speaker (Sir Paul Dean)
Who will prepare and bring in the Bill?

§ Mr. Canavan
Mr. Kevin Barron, Mr. Dennis Skinner, Mr. Gordon Brown, Mr. Robert Parry, Mr. David Winnick, Mr. William McKelvey, Mr. Gordon Wilson, Mr. Jim Craigen, Mr. Eddie Loyden, Mr. Bob McTaggart, and myself, and I have still space for one Tory Member, if he wants to signal me that he wants to sponsor my Bill.