Tom Richmond: Treasury cashes in on £2m power failure

However, there is more to the £2m fine levelled against npower for failing to adequately address customer complaints than meets the eye.

For, when I asked where npower would be expected to send this seven-figure sum, I received a rather surprising response from Ofgem – the cheque is to be posted to HM Treasury.

This was perplexing, given that victims of malpractice, or people who cannot afford to heat their homes this winter, had probably hoped to receive a small share of the £14.5m in financial penalties that Ofgem has levied this year alone.

“The Government requires us to pay it over to the Treasury,” Ofgem spokesman Chris Luck tells me.

“We have asked the Government for more powers so we could force companies to compensate customers if they had breached the statutory rules.

“The Secretary of State, Chris Huhne, is still considering this.”

If only. Huhne’s Department of Energy and Climate Change says it is a Treasury matter – while the Treasury, you’ve guessed it, says it is a matter for the energy department. This is the same Treasury which announced in the Budget small-print that people aged 60-79 will get £200 instead of last year’s £250 when the winter fuel payment is made. Those who are 80 or older will get £300 instead of £400.

Given this, I’m surprised that the Government has not acted – or are the public finances in such a dire state that a one-off gesture is unaffordable?

TALKING of financial penalties, Leeds rugby league legend Keith Senior offered a revealing insight at the races recently about what happens when a professional player is fined by their club for breaching team rules.

When I asked him what happened to the money, he said it invariably went towards the Christmas or end-of-season party.

Yet, given Carlos Tevez is at least £400,000 out of pocket following his dispute with his Manchester City paymasters, where will this money go?

Will it line, further, the pockets of the club’s Middle East owners, go towards the most expensive drinking marathon ever – or will the side see sense, and hand over the money to junior football clubs?

EVERYONE else is having to downsize in the slump, so why does David Cameron think his Ministerial team is exempt from this process?

The Commons Public Administration select committee recommended in March that the number of ministers should be cut from around 120 to 80, and there should only be one parliamentary private secretary (PPS) bag carrier per department.

This week, committee chairman Bernard Jenkin criticised the Government’s “disappointing” response – particularly as the number of Ministers helped to limit the revolt on the non EU referendum

“The Government say they are keeping ministerial numbers ‘under review’, but that is political code for their refusal to engage with the committee on this recommendation,” he added.

“There are over a dozen unpaid ministers in this Government – a practice described to us by one eminent witness as ‘an abuse’.”

The Cabinet’s response? A spokesman insisted it had “acted decisively” to reduce costs by cutting five per cent off ministers’ pay and agreeing to reform their pensions.

Sorry, this is not good enough – especially as Cameron was campaigning for fewer Ministers when in opposition.

I SEE Richard Corbett, the one-time Labour MEP for Yorkshire and the Humber who lost his seat at the 2009 European elections, has re-invented himself.

I was somewhat surprised to hear him speaking on the Today programme being described as a senior advisor to European super-boss President Herman Van Rompuy.

That’s right. Rejected when Corbett stood for a democratically-elected post, he’s now in a powerful unelected role.

No wonder voters are so cynical when it comes to the EU.

HARRIET Harman, or Harperson to use her more politically-correct surname, is holding special Labour Party strategy meetings for female members of the Shadow Cabinet.

Can you imagine the outrcry from the Sisterhood if Ed Miliband chose to have male-only meetings? You’d never hear the end of it.

But if I were Miliband, I’d be slightly worried about Harman’s motives. For could these powwows be putting in place a strategy that could ultimately see Pontefract MP Yvette Cooper, the Shadow Home Secretary, run for the Labour leadership?

BUSINESS Minister Mark Prisk did himself few favours during the backbench Commons debate on defence giant BAE’s redundancies.

Though it was discussing job losses at the firm’s Lancashire plant, this did not stop Alan Johnson intervening on behalf of his constituents based at Brough.

“The geography of the debate does not extend beyond Lancashire, but I will give way briefly,” said Prisk.

It was a curt remark which, I’m afraid, suggested that Ministers do not understand the significance, or seriousness, of the 899 threatened job losses at Brough – or the importance of maintaining Britain’s manufacturing base.

TALKING of defence matters, I see that the disgraced Liam Fox hopes to return to the political front line.

I’m surprised, given that he resigned from the Ministry of Defence after his many meetings with self-styled adviser Adam Werrity contravened the Ministerial Code.

How does he expect taxpayers to trust him again?

IF the Duchess of Cambridge is so committed to helping the famine in ast Africa, why did she turn up at an Unicef aid factory dressed as a fashion icon? I can only assume the priceless publicity outweighs the lack of time spent shifting goods.

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