Member

Like the noble Earls, Lord Russell and Lord Effingham, the noble Baroness referred to the increase in bills, when clearly the ideal situation would be for bills to start to reduce. As I said in my opening speech, the Government have statutory duties to address and reduce fuel poverty and have to balance the needs of those most at risk with the impacts on other consumers. We are determined to cut bills as far and fast as we can, and meeting the £300 reduction by 2030 remains our objective. We need to offset the costs as much as possible by other savings on bills, such as reductions in operating costs or to the debt allowance. An example of that is the £8 reduction in operating costs that took effect in July. Ofgem continues to work on its debt strategy, with the aim of cutting the cost of servicing bad debt, which currently increases bills for everyone. So we are looking at other ways to bring bills down.