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Mr. John Carlisle (Luton, North): Yes.
Mr. Fabricant: Perhaps I should refer also to a Minister mentioned in the tabloids. They reported a lady as saying that making love with him was like having a double wardrobe fall on her with its little key sticking out.
Mr. Fabricant: No, I will not--but it is a serious point. Fat people know that their obesity is often concentrated in their torsos: their guts become like pots of foie gras. That may seem an odd analogy--the Minister may laugh--but it is a serious problem because their organs are packed in fat.
Mr. Carlisle: I hate to stop my hon. Friend during his catalogue of disasters and descriptions, but he is depicting only the British people. Does he agree that one has only to travel across what is popularly known as the pond to see a far worse situation? The Americans are much more obese than British people. I am sure that some of their elected representatives would fit the description of the Minister whom my hon. Friend quite rightly chose not to name in the House this afternoon.
Mr. Fabricant: My hon. Friend is absolutely right: obesity is an even more serious problem in the United States. However, it is a problem here also.
Six million people in this country cannot run for a bus. They cannot sit in the same seats that we sit in, they cannot walk properly and they cannot get comfortable. More seriously, they are refused operations until they lose weight, because obese people cannot be stitched easily. Hip replacements will not work because of the excess pressure and the anaesthetic risk is too great in patients whose breathing and cardiac function are impaired by excess weight. We are not talking about a small minority: we are talking about 6 million people in this country alone.
My hon. Friend referred to the United States example. The most recent research in that country, based on a study of several hundred thousand people, has proved without doubt that the fatter one becomes, the more likely one is to die early. We should think about that: the fatter one is, the more likely one is to die before one's time. It is as simple as that.
Perhaps the hon. Member for Halifax does not care about the nation's health, because she thinks that it is not nice to tell people that they should not be fat. However,
she may care a little about how much obesity is costing the nation. It has been estimated that the cost to the national health service of trying to treat obesity and the things that happen to people's bodies as a result amounts to at least £200 million a year--money that could be spent providing other, perhaps more urgent, operations. The awful truth is that most of that money is spent on firefighting: treating the painful, disabling symptoms of the numerous health problems that are caused by excess flab. Those problems range from the merely unpleasant to the fatal.
The consequences of being overweight and obesity are among the most serious public health issues that face us today. It amazes me that we have a health problem of such enormous scale, which calls for urgent action, yet along comes the hon. Member for Halifax with a Bill that not only misses the point, but is completely ineffective against the problem that she hopes to remedy. It also fundamentally threatens some of the lifelines that are achieving results for many obese people. What is more, it is totally unnecessary.
What exactly is the hon. Member for Halifax hoping to achieve with the Bill? She has said that she wants to stop overweight people being exploited by businesses that try to cash in by selling them ineffective products. That is true, but who are the unscrupulous people running those businesses and how will her Bill affect them? We know that it is possible for people to buy powerful and dangerous amphetamines with only the most cursory of medical--
It being half-past Two o'clock, the debate stood adjourned.
Debate to be resumed upon Friday 19 April.
Order for Second Reading read.
Second Reading deferred till Friday 19 April.
Order for Second Reading read.
Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Michael Morris):
Not moved.
Order for Second Reading read.
Second Reading deferred till Friday 19 April.
Order for Second Reading read.
Second Reading deferred till Friday 19 April.
Read a Second time.
Bill committed to a Standing Committee, pursuant to Standing Order No. 61 (Committal of Bills).
Order for Second Reading read.
Second Reading deferred till Friday 19 April.
Ordered,
Park Homes (National Grid)
Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.--[Mr. Bates.]
Mr. John Hutton (Barrow and Furness):
In 1988, the Department of the Environment calculated that there were some 2,000 park home sites in England and Wales and approximately 80,000 park homes. It is reasonable to assume that the figure is now significantly higher. There are probably more than 100,000 park homes in the United Kingdom, providing homes for nearly 250,000 people.
The reason for the increase is attributable to the attractions represented by park home living. It offers retired or semi-retired people the opportunity to realise the capital value of their homes and to live comfortably, often in beautiful rural or semi-rural locations. In my constituency, there is a large park home site on Walney island--West Shore park--with more than 300 homes and 500 residents.
Park home residents have recently been the victims of deliberate and totally unacceptable discrimination on the part of the regional electricity companies. I refer to the fact that the majority of the park home residents will not receive the £50 rebate payable to domestic electricity consumers in connection with the privatisation of the National Grid Company. That is despite the fact that all those people will have been life-long consumers of electricity--and, of course, still are--and, through their taxes, they have contributed to the industry through all the years of public ownership.
Withholding the £50 rebate from park home owners is not only unfair and unreasonable--it also contradicts the Government's policy of ensuring that all electricity consumers benefit from the sale of the national grid. It is worth repeating the comments of the Minister for Industry and Energy in a DTI press release dated 24 October 1995:
Quite simply, that is not happening.
In simple terms, the regional electricity companies, the Department of Trade and Industry and, to a lesser extent, the electricity regulator have failed to ensure fair play for electricity consumers and denied a valuable rebate to a large number of people, often living on fixed or low incomes. That deliberate discrimination might have saved the regional electricity companies more than £5 million--no doubt underwriting the huge profits made by a few people from the sale of the national grid--but it has tarnished the companies' image as well as reducing the already dwindling reputation of Ministers in ensuring that electricity consumers get a fair deal.
The reason for the rebate not being paid to park home owners is purely administrative, which is grossly unfair. Most park home owners purchase their electricity through the site owner and thus are not direct customers of the regional electricity companies. The site owner is the company's only direct customer, but will probably be regarded as a non-domestic consumer and therefore not receive a rebate. After consultation between the Government and regional electricity companies, it was agreed to provide the rebate only to direct customers so as to simplify the scheme. I fully understand the need for simplicity and for fraud prevention in administering the
rebates, which will apply to nearly 21 million customers. I find it extraordinary, however, that it proved completely impossible to devise any acceptable scheme to ensure that park home owners receive the rebates to which they are obviously entitled.
The Director General of Electricity Supply approached the regional electricity companies directly last year, and they responded that they had considered his request carefully but had concluded that the legal and practical difficulties were such that they were not willing to extend the rebate to consumers living in park homes.
The north-west electricity consumers committee in my region was informed by Norweb on 28 November 1995 that the rebate scheme in the north-west would not be extended to park home owners who purchase their electricity supplies through the site owner rather than from Norweb. No reason or justification for that decision has ever been provided. In the interests of fairness, it should have been the policy of regional electricity companies and the Government that the rebate eligibility criteria would be widely drawn, but they were not. As a result, tens of thousands of people throughout the country have lost out, and there is no sign that the Government have any intention of pushing the regional electricity companies to extend the rebate scheme.
Most electricity consumers have received their rebates, which were included in their 1996 first quarter bills, but it is not too late to protect the interests of park home residents. I invite the Minister immediately to invite the regional electricity companies to discuss with him the implementation of the rebate scheme, to determine whether everyone who should have benefited from privatisation of the national grid has done so. He should also consider asking the companies to consider two methods of extending the rebate scheme to park home owners.
There is no reason for park home owners not being invited to apply directly to their regional electricity companies for the full rebate. They would need to establish that they are domestic consumers, which they could do easily by providing a copy of the electricity bill from the site owner. There is no objection in principle to the rebate being paid in the form of a cheque, in the limited case of park home owners. In a letter dated8 November 1995 to the north-west electricity consumers committee, Norweb indicated that it was prepared to pay the rebate by cheque if requested.
I will quote that letter because it is important that the Minister should understand that the rebate does not necessarily have to be administered through the billing system. Norweb's letter to the chairman of the committee, which is signed by Joe Ashe, directorate liaison officer, states:
In other words, Norweb has already accepted that the rebate can be administered through a cheque system. I hope that the Minister will raise that issue directly, not only with Norweb but with the other regional electricity companies, and that residents on park home sites can be alerted to the fact that the rebate scheme might be extended to them by the regional electricity companies simply placing advertisements in local newspapers.
Alternatively, the regional electricity companies could be asked to introduce a reduced unit price regime for park home sites for a limited period. There may also be other ways of solving this problem, but it is simply not acceptable for the regional electricity companies to wash their hands of the matter in the hope that it will go away, because it will not. Neither is it acceptable for the Government to say that these are matters for the electricity companies alone to determine. The Government have a wider responsibility to ensure fair play and it is simply not being discharged.
That, notwithstanding the practice of the House as to the intervals between stages of Bills brought in upon Ways and Means Resolutions, more than one stage of the Finance Bill may be taken at any sitting of the House.--[Mr. Bates.]
22 Mar 1996 : Column 683
2.31 pm
"I am determined to ensure that the full benefits of privatisation should flow through to consumers."
"As far as the method of reduction, there will be a one line entry on the bill, for regular bills/payment plan customers, and a cheque will only be given if requested by a customer . . . Customers will receive Royal Bank of Scotland cheques, which can be cashed at any of our shops, or Royal Bank of Scotland branches, free of charge."
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