Meeting of the Parliament (Hybrid) 03 December 2020
It is just as well that I was paying attention, Presiding Officer.
I am pleased to speak in the debate and to highlight the very real opportunities to boost consumer protection that the licensing of heat networks, which is the central aspect of the bill, may bring.
The minister knows that I have a direct constituency interest in the matter. In November 2019, he visited Maryhill to hear about the issues facing residents of the Wyndford estate in my constituency, which are referenced in paragraph 133 of the committee’s report.
Households in Wyndford receive their heating and hot water through a heat network. Such households have less protection than energy customers; that is clear. My office was contacted by many households who were about to be disconnected or were seeking to get their supply reconnected. In what should have been a flagship scheme, residents had been cut off by SSE due to arrears—which were often disputed, it has to be said—for heating and hot-water charges. There were issues around SSE’s punitive £274 reconnection fee and the high level of the up-front payment—routinely of around 50 per cent of the debt owed—that it required before a household could be reconnected.
In the run-up to Christmas 2018, my office, along with Glasgow North West Citizens Advice Bureau, secured some reconnections by persuading SSE to show flexibility, and I warmly welcomed the actions that SSE took at that time. At the height of the situation, 121 households were disconnected, but the figure dropped to 46.
I very much hope that the licensing regime in the bill, along with the wider UK consumer protection framework that we have heard much about, can drive up the consumer experience, so that the situation in the Wyndford estate is not repeated in future. I want to be clearer about how that can happen and what needs to go in the bill to drive that expectation.
One of the key issues that customers in Wyndford faced was the daily accrual of debt through standing charges, even if they did not use heating or hot water. Low-usage households were particularly impacted. SSE was persuaded to introduce a low-usage, low-income tariff without daily standing charges—it was not ideal, but it was better than what had been in place. The definition of what constituted a vulnerable household was too narrow, and SSE extended the criteria to include households with children under five. I pay tribute to the Wyndford tenants union, which persuaded SSE to increase the threshold for residents seeking to qualify for the low-usage tariff, and which drove further changes to the criteria for access to that tariff.
I am keen to ensure that there is suitable regulation and levers of influence in the bill and the licensing regime so that, for example, reconnection fees are not a barrier to reconnecting constituents to heating and hot water, and that companies’ repayment plans are not unreasonable.
More important, there should not be disconnections in the first place, of course, and there should be a fair and consistent approach to protecting vulnerable groups. Standing charges accrue daily for users of heat networks, and we should remind ourselves that they also pay standing charges for electricity. We must not penalise users more generally and certainly not low-usage, low-income households.
In paragraph 135 of its stage 1 report, the committee wanted clarity about what the bill can do to drive that kind of change—and it is that kind of change that I would be hugely supportive of in the bill. I want to be very clear about how the bill will improve the lot of people on the Wyndford estate in my constituency and across Scotland in relation to existing heat networks, as well as how it will drive more heat networks, which we all want to see.
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