Vulnerable Households: Energy Costs

Baroness McIntosh of Pickering Excerpts

Tuesday 31st January 2023 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Baroness McIntosh of Pickering]

To ask His Majesty’s Government what steps they are taking to help vulnerable households with energy costs; and what is the role of Ofgem in delivering affordable energy.

[Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Con)]

My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question standing in my name on the Order Paper and in doing so I refer to my entry on the register as honorary president of National Energy Action.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (Lord Callanan) (Con)]

My Lords, as part of the Government’s comprehensive package of support, in addition to the energy bills support scheme, EBSS, and the energy price guarantee, EPG, there is further targeted support for vulnerable households to help them to navigate these challenging times. This includes a cost of living payment of £900 to households on means-tested benefits, £300 to pensioner households and £150 to individuals on disability benefits. Ofgem is supporting the Government to deliver EBSS and EPG.

[Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Con)]

I pay tribute to the Government’s warm home discount scheme and accept that it has been an enormous success. Recently, the chief executive of Ofcom has asked for a serious assessment of introducing a social tariff. Given the fact that Citizens Advice recognises that there has been an excess profit of £7.9 billion this year for electricity distribution companies, will my noble friend do one of two things: either introduce a new social tariff or increase the warm home discount? Instead of asking other households to pay for it, will he ask the electricity distribution companies to pay for the increase?

[Lord Callanan (Con)]

There were a lot of questions there. The issue around social tariffs is that the warm home discount was introduced in the first place to replace various social tariffs on offer because this was considered to be a better way of supporting vulnerable households, but we always keep these things under review. I did not quite understand my noble friend’s point about excess profits. If she was talking about suppliers, many suppliers have actually gone bankrupt; they are not making excess profits. If she was talking about generators, we have already imposed an excess profit levy on generators.