Alan Reid
Main Page: Alan Reid (Liberal Democrat - Argyll and Bute)(10 years, 3 months ago)
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Roger Williams
I absolutely agree with the right hon. Gentleman. One of the first things I did when I was elected to the House was to continue the work of my predecessor, who wanted to bring real competition into the supply of liquid petroleum gas. We managed to get the Competition Commission to conduct an inquiry into the procedures that limited people’s ability to change providers, and the commission introduced proposals to allow people to change their supplier without having to change their bulk tank. That has made people much more likely to choose their own supplier.
Mr Alan Reid (Argyll and Bute) (LD)
I congratulate my hon. Friend on the success of his campaign. I am sure that he was as disappointed as me by the Office of Fair Trading investigation into the heating oil market, which concluded that it was working fine, when it is quite clear that in rural constituencies such as mine people are subject to monopolies because they do not have a choice of suppliers. Does he agree that the OFT should look at the situation again?
Roger Williams
I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend, and I would join him if he made such a proposal. At the height of concern about the lack of competition in heating oil, we looked at a price comparison site that was available to my constituents, which appeared to show four potential suppliers of oil. When we looked into it, however, those suppliers were all the same company pretending to provide competition and offering marginal differences in oil price. That was undoubtedly illegal, and I believe that the company concerned has been prosecuted.