Prepayment Meters

Baroness Fox of Buckley Excerpts

Tuesday 24th January 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Callanan (Con)]

As I said, people pay slightly more for prepayment meters because of the cost to suppliers of servicing those customers. The issue of social tariffs is of course different. I have had this debate with my noble friend before. We had a system of social tariffs that was replaced by the warm home discount, which was found to be a better way of supporting vulnerable customers. But, of course, we will continue to look at the issues.

[Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, I feel as though I have to state the blindingly obvious, which is that being asked to pay more for servicing a prepayment meter that you do not want is not fair. To anyone in the normal world, saying that the tariff is the same just makes the Minister sound like someone who does not understand the normal world. Ordinary people are paying more for a prepayment meter that they do not want but which is being imposed on them, and they are the people who have the least money. It is ludicrous.

[Lord Callanan (Con)]

The noble Baroness says I do not understand, but I have lived in properties with prepayment meters and I very much understand the issues. No one is forced to have a smart meter or a pre- payment meter, either, except in the limited circumstances that I have outlined, particularly for customers who are in levels of debt, and we have put in place a number of measures to try to reduce that as much as possible. I have outlined the steps that we are taking with suppliers to make sure that those are imposed on customers only in the last possible circumstances.