Energy Markets Competition Assessment

Alan Whitehead Excerpts

Thursday 27th March 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Davey]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right, and that is one of the problems that many have with the official Opposition’s policy. Governments do not control wholesale prices. We have seen large increases in wholesale gas prices over a long period, primarily driven by the increase in energy demand from countries that are growing such as China and India. My hon. Friend is absolutely right to say that we cannot control that, but we can do everything in our power to help people, whether by promoting competition or helping people to save energy through energy efficiency.

[Dr Alan Whitehead (Southampton, Test) (Lab)]

Bearing in mind that the “State of the Market” competition report contains a number of different headings of concern about the market, has the Secretary of State done any work, or will he do any, on the relative urgency of those headings? If he is considering referring the headings in Ofgem’s report to the CMA inquiry, does he think the two-year time scale will give his Department sufficient urgency to deal with them all?

[Mr Davey]

First, for the avoidance of doubt, it will be Ofgem that makes the referral to the Competition and Markets Authority, not me. However, I want to make it clear to the House that we have been acting on competition issues in energy markets from day one in 2010 and will continue to do so. Where evidence is brought to our attention or Ofgem’s that more can be done, we will do it. As I said in my statement, consumers can look forward to our work with the industry to drive forward faster switching times, for example. We want to halve switching times, so that competition works for people and they can get the best deals in the market. We are not going to do nothing during the review; we are going to be very active. However, the review is critical to doing a deep dive and getting a deep analysis of what is going on.