Stone's Throw: Energy crisis is set to get worse and government dithers
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SOME years ago, I met an elderly gentleman (at a Ross County match) who made the Tain connection with my surname, writes MP Jamie Stone.
“I used to work for Mackays Garage in Dingwall, and right enough, I knew your family way back," he said. "Your father’s farm was a hellish cold place, and I mind going through to Tain to help sort the grey Fergie tractor. There was a wee boy who was trying to help me by turning the nuts on the wheel the wrong way round – and he was near crying with the cold.”
My God, that was me. Blarliath Farm, where my brother makes cheese today, is below the north-east facing brae that runs through Tain. And it was indeed incredibly cold in the middle of winter. There was no central heating in the house, and although it didn’t seem strange at the time, looking back I always seemed to have chilblains and a permanent sniffle.
All this is a way of saying that I know about the cold. In January I led a debate on energy costs in which I impressed upon the government that a crisis was imminent, and sure enough, this week Ofgem confirmed that the energy price cap would rise by a staggering 54 per cent. To the average household, this is an increase of over £700. This disturbs me greatly, because it means an increasing number of people, particularly the less well off or elderly, will be faced with the appalling decision as to which comes first – the heating bill, or the other costs of life such as food and transport.
You would have thought in this day and age, when we are so incredibly clever at doing things, that the sort of cold house that I was brought up in for the first six years of my life was a thing of the past. But so many in the Far North already struggle to heat their homes. With these astronomical rises in costs – gas, oil, electricity – that chilly breath from the past may become even more widespread.
In my speech in the Commons I made a number of suggestions including expanding the warm homes discount and abolishing the five per cent VAT on heating fuel, anything at all that the government could do to soften the blow of these price increases.
At this point I want to mention someone who I believe has been very courageous. For reasons best known to themselves, the Conservatives have so far refused to consider such a cut in VAT – instead saddling every household with a £200 loan – save for one Conservative MP, Anne Marie Morris, who voted against her own side and supported the opposition in calling for the VAT cut.
For this, she has had the whip suspended (i.e. her own party has semi-thrown her out) and she may well be facing the prospect of utter darkness at the next election.
But she has done a most honourable thing, and put the needs of her constituents first. And the speech that she made during my debate was simply the best of her life. I do hope that it is brought to the attention of her constituents.
I am not entirely sure if the government realises just how serious this problem is – the Chancellor’s £200 loan intervention suggests not – but the fact is that they must be made to understand. We simply cannot let more people slip into fuel poverty. The mark of a civilized country is how it treats its poorest and most vulnerable. Obviously I hope that the UK government will wake up and do something more. In the meantime, it’s my job to raise this subject again and again, as often as it takes.
– Jamie Stone is the MP for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross.
