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Mr. David Taylor (North-West Leicestershire): I have great respect for the hon. and learned Gentleman, and I am sure that he is not being deliberately disingenuous. Is not the campaign based on the fact that, statistically, up to 100 elderly people in each constituency die each winter who would not die if the pattern of deaths were more evenly spread, as it is in countries where housing and energy provision is more satisfactory? Even in the relatively affluent part of Leicestershire that he has the
privilege to represent, there are pockets of poverty, to which he referred. Individual deaths that are related to cold homes will not necessarily hit the headlines. It will not always be obvious--that is the whole point.
Mr. Garnier: I am not quite sure what lesson I am supposed to draw from that intervention, save that the hon. Gentleman kindly says that he respects me. May I return the compliment?
This is a simple point, and I do not need to labour it. It is merely that bald figures are useless unless we understand what is behind them. Before right hon. and hon. Members rush headlong into enthusiastic support for the Bill, they must be more careful about the statistics that they use to bolster that enthusiasm. I share the enthusiasm for the promotion of public health and welfare, but I want it done on a rational basis, not on the uncertain basis of figures that have been conjured up out of the air.
Mr. Forth:
Does my hon. and learned Friend further agree that unless we know a lot more about the individual patterns of expenditure and disposal of income of each of these people, we should not rush to judge what was the main contributor to their unfortunate and regrettable demise? It seems rather odd to draw a general conclusion without knowing the very relevant circumstances of those people--how they spent their money and what their priorities were. Unless we know a lot more about that, the conclusions will be even more suspect that my hon. and learned Friend suggests.
Mr. Garnier:
That is right. Although I have made my point about statistics and I do not want to be sidetracked, I offer a ludicrous example in order to--
Mr. Bill Rammell (Harlow)
rose--
Mr. Garnier:
May I finish my reply to my right hon. Friend the Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Mr. Forth)? I shall then give way to the hon. Member for Harlow (Mr. Rammell).
If an elderly lady in my constituency who slipped on an icy pavement and broke her thigh, went to hospital and died from pneumonia contracted as a consequence, would that be an excess winter death? I do not intend that example to be flippant. It would undoubtedly be a tragedy, but it would have nothing to do with the real message that the campaign is trying to draw out. I pose that rather ridiculous question to illustrate my concern about the use of statistics.
Mr. Rammell:
I thank the hon. and learned Gentleman for giving way. Will he reflect on the fact that no serious academic source has challenged the methodology by which excess winter deaths are calculated? A similar calculation prevails in Scandinavian countries. If the same methodology is used in both cases, and deaths in those countries are less than in the UK, that is a cause for concern--whatever the end figure. Surely, that should be the focus of the debate.
Mr. Garnier:
I am neither an academic nor an academic institution, but I am sure that I am not the first
Mr. Maclean:
Will my hon. and learned Friend give way?
Mr. Garnier:
May I finish my sentence before I give way to my Scottish--but northern English--right hon. Friend?
I apologise for repeating myself, Mr. Deputy Speaker. We need to be a little more careful in such matters. The subject is highly emotional. The death of any large group of people must be a matter of public concern. Like all hon. Members, I want to get the measure right, but I do not want us to be pushed along a road that is right-headed but wrongly premised.
Mr. Maclean:
I am grateful to my hon. and learned Friend for giving way. I am following his speech carefully. It may help him if I quote the definition of excess winter deaths given by the director of the Office for National Statistics. He states that they are
Mr. Forth:
What about global warming?
Mr. Garnier:
My right hon. Friend and I would probably agree that excess winter deaths are not the result of sun stroke.
I have some concerns about clauses 1 and 2. My hon. Friend the Member for Southend, West pointed out that clause 2 contained the guts, if not the engine, of the Bill. How can my hon. Friend's aspirations in the Bill be measured?
Several hon. Members read out the accepted definition of fuel poverty. I asked the hon. Member for Plymouth, Sutton (Mrs. Gilroy) whether there were subdivisions of poverty; whether those who are fuel poor were also to be described as poor; and whether all poor people could be described as fuel poor. Those of us who were taught maths in the 1960s learned about Venn diagrams. Does the universe contain separately identifiable groups, or is fuel poverty merely one of those new jargon expressions that we shall have to get used to?
Mr. Forth:
My hon. and learned Friend will be familiar, as I am, with the Office for National Statistics family spending survey, which has just been published. It shows that for the group with incomes in the lowest 10 per cent., expenditure on fuel and power is 7 per cent.
Mr. Garnier:
My right hon. Friend makes a perfectly valid point--
Mr. Martin O'Neill (Ochil):
It is not a valid point.
Mr. Garnier:
My right hon. Friend makes a perfectly valid point, but whether it is relevant to the discussion about cold homes, I do not know. Clearly, a number of people who die during the winter are elderly and die of heart and lung diseases, partly as a result of smoking and possibly partly as a result of the cold. It is possible that the aggravation to their constitution caused by smoking was exacerbated by the cold, and vice versa--the effect of the cold may have been aggravated by smoking, a habit that I heartily condemn.
Mr. Hopkins:
I thank the hon. and learned Gentleman for giving way. To counter the point made by the right hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Mr. Forth), may I suggest that it is possible that the people who are dying of cold are not the same people as those who are consuming alcohol and cigarettes? Is it not also likely that as the people in question are very poor, small percentages of income represent very small sums of money indeed? The people who are suffering and dying are not the same people as those who are living a lavish life style, no doubt with good claret.
Mr. Garnier:
I have no idea what the answer to those questions is, and I do not suppose that the hon. Gentleman has, either.
I ask my hon. Friend the Member for Southend, West to bear in mind that we need closer definitions of some aspects of the Bill. We heard a definition of fuel poverty, and I made known my criticisms of it.
I am concerned about the impact of VAT on some of the proposals. My hon. Friend the Member for Chipping Barnet (Sir S. Chapman) is an expert in this field, and I am sorry that I was absent during his remarks. He may have been able to advise the House about the impact of VAT on, for example, the home insulation and other energy efficiency measures to which clause 1 refers.
Whether the Government are the paymaster for these improvements or local authorities are to pay for them, I hope that the Government will not pay out on the one hand and take in on the other, by requiring VAT to be charged on those necessary and sensible improvements.
Clause 2(2)(b) was mentioned by the hon. Member for Plymouth, Sutton (Mrs. Gilroy). It requires that the strategy referred to in the preamble to the clause shall include
I do not want to delay our proceedings with further rambling, but I wish the Bill well. I do not speak from complete ignorance. As I said earlier, my constituency, though prosperous, has pockets of deprivation. It may amuse some hon. Members to know that I am perhaps one of the few Conservative Members to have been a coalman. In my university vacations, when I had to get a job to pay off my overdraft and restore my bank balance to credit, I worked for Charringtons, a coal merchant's in Harling road, which is between Thetford and Attleborough in Norfolk. Consequently, I visited many homes in south-west Norfolk--another prosperous part of the country--and saw the conditions in which many elderly people lived in that rural part of England.
the difference between the number of deaths during the four winter months (December to March) and the average number of deaths during the preceding autumn (August to November) and the following summer (April to July)---[Official Report, 20 December 1999; Vol. 341, c. 436W.].
The danger is that we have made the assumption that all excess winter deaths are due to hyperthermia or to cold, rather than to other illnesses or diseases, which we may contract during the winter months because of our climate but which are not necessarily cold-related or related to cold homes.
measures which the appropriate authority believes are required to ensure that households in fuel poverty have access to appropriate fuel tariffs which encourage the efficient use of energy.
I should be grateful if my hon. Friend the Member for Southend, West--or, in his temporary absence, the Minister--would explain whether that means that there
will be subsidies for energy companies such as gas, coal or electricity suppliers, to enable them to reduce the tariff to a particular section of society, whether the individual consumers of those energy products will get the subsidy directly, or whether there will be no subsidy at all. It is unclear what is meant by
appropriate fuel tariffs which encourage the efficient use of energy.
It may well mean that the cost should increase rather than decrease to discourage inefficient use of fuel. Again, I would be grateful for an explanation.
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