Dr Luke Evans

Forgive me; I would be happy to give way again if the hon. Gentleman knows what the value was at that point. I do not know what it was because at the time I was working in the Energy Department trying to help support those households who were struggling and suffering, particularly those who lived in caravan parks, static homes and canal boats, who are off-grid and suffered by the very nature of where they got their fuel. He is right to say that we have to take this in the round. I have heard the Chancellor say that multiple times. How long will this go on? The decision is under consideration. I am not asking about when the decision is made or how to make that decision. This is more about understanding at what point we make those decisions and when the Chancellor decides that it is the right time to step in. It may well be that that decision was too late and that lessons could be learned. How do we know? That is the question I am posing to civil servants and this Government, because the hon. Gentleman’s party is now in charge of setting that out and deciding when is too long and when is too late. I would argue that the current payment of £53 million is not enough for my constituents. Many of them will not benefit, because they will not be covered by the resilience fund. What the Government have done under the resilience fund—formerly the household support fund—is simply delegate the decision making to councils. Under the previous Government, when we were in charge, we chose not to do that because we wanted to support everyone who was struggling. It is this Government’s job to set out why they are not going to do that. I would argue that keeping the fuel duty rise in September will create a terribly difficult time for any of us who drive cars or run a business that uses vehicles. Let us not forget that the energy price cap will change in July. The Government have rightly said that it is frozen until then, but the impact on prices will not come through the system until July, so we might well see prices and the price cap rise very quickly in July just as the fuel duty is about to come in in September. We are back to the point made by the knight of the realm, my hon. Friend the Member for Bridgwater (Sir Ashley Fox) about this toxic concoction of everything happening at once. I urge the Government to be aware of that and to set out the trigger points and the framework.