Clegg calls for fuel price cuts

The Liberal Democrat leader has urged the government to help cut fuel bills this winter.

Speaking at prime minister's questions in the Commons on Wednesday, Nick Clegg noted that energy companies have indicated that they will not cut their prices until next year at the earliest, despite wholesale gas and oil price falls.

"Yet this winter four out of five single pensioners will be living in pensioner poverty," he told Gordon Brown. "What will he do now, for them, this winter?" he asked.

The prime minister replied that: "We are helping pensioners this winter by the rise in the winter allowance that will come to people very soon, the help we are giving with the social tariff that will also helps pensioners, by encouraging pensioners to use the direct debit system to keep their bills low and by all the measures we are taking on central heating and insulation to give pensioners the best chance of saving energy or saving costs from the use of energy they are having.

"We are trying to do all these things, I hope we will have all-party support."

Clegg then made what he said was a "specific suggestion about something he could do now".

"At the moment all of us pay more for the energy we use first for our early energy units and less for the rest," he said.

"This hits families on low and middle incomes who use less energy very, very hard indeed.

"Will he commit today to reversing this unfair system, turning it on its head, so that those who use less energy pay lower prices?

"It makes environmental sense, it makes common sense and it is something he could do now to help people this winter."

Brown said he was "happy to look at any constructive suggestion about how we can help people through these difficult winter months".

'Revolution'

Clegg also called for a "green revolution" to help people cope with rising fuel costs in a speech to the British Wind Energy Association conference on Wednesday.

He called for a "supergrid" to be developed in the North Sea, to connect the National Grid to Europe, increase demand for wind turbines and help create jobs.

And he said that lower social tariffs are needed to help the poorest people, while calling for an expansion in renewable electricity sources.

"The green agenda is a social justice agenda," Clegg said. "We need to tackle energy use in a way that helps the worst off and rewards energy efficiency."

He argued that consumers using more energy should pay more, while there should be "protection for vulnerable households that need a lot of energy".

Green agenda

An expansion of renewable energy will help ease the effects of the economic downturn, Clegg also claimed.

"For many of the people who are struggling to make ends meet, climate change will seem a secondary concern," he added.

"So it is up to us to show that fighting for prosperity and fighting for the planet are part of the same battle.

"It is madness to see some sort of trade-off between fixing the economy and protecting the environment.

"The road to economic recovery has got to be green."

Describing the National Grid as "old fashioned and inefficient", he said: "We need to create the infrastructure for a supergrid across the North Sea.

"Building interconnectors down from Scotland to the South of England and then across to the Dogger Bank. Which - through partnerships with our neighbours - could then be developed into a Europe-wide supergrid.

"These are ambitious plans, I don't deny it. But ambition is precisely what we need.

"The new grid would meet future demands in a way that is more efficient, more reliable, less harmful and ultimately cheaper."