Electricity Supplier Obligations (Green Excluded Electricity) (Amendment) Regulations 2023

Baroness McIntosh of Pickering Excerpts

Monday 20th March 2023 Grand Committee

In conclusion, the Government, in consultation with industry, have seen a clear rationale for the amendments to the regulations to improve the operation of the EII exemption scheme, and, through removing the green excluded electricity exemption, to bring a closer alignment between a GB electricity supplier’s market share and its proportion of the contracts for difference scheme costs. The green excluded electricity amendment also delivers part of the Government’s priority to address the UK legislative legacy of being a member of the EU. The exemption will continue to apply in respect of electricity supplied up to 31 March 2023. I commend the regulations to the Committee.

[Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Con)]

My Lords, I assume that we will take both SIs together. I thank my noble friend for bringing forward these two regulations, with which I broadly agree. I will limit my remarks to the Electricity Supplier Obligations (Excluded Electricity) (Amendment) Regulations.

I listened carefully to what my noble friend said. He said that the costs arising from the scheme will be distributed to all other users. Does that mean all other users, both domestic—that is, households—as well as industrial? If that is the case, is this part of the charge on standing charges? I will put down a marker—and I hope my noble friend will agree with me—that it seems very unfair that at this time of household stress and cost of living constraints, standing charges are the one element of a bill that we are not able to control. As individual householders we can control the unit charge, but we cannot control the standing charge. Therefore, if this is being spread across all users, both domestic and industrial, as my noble friend indicated, it seems a little unfair that this will be or is already an additional cost on the standing charge. Would it be possible at some stage to have a general debate on what constitutes the standing charges? I realise that that is not the purpose of today’s debate, but that would be very helpful indeed. My question is, what is the impact of this measure, with which I am in broad agreement, on household bills?

I absolutely accept that the EII plays a useful role, covering high electricity-using businesses such as, we are told, in the very helpful paragraph from the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee report on this, energy-intensive users in sectors such as

“steel, paper, plastics, chemicals, cement and glass.”

Cement and ceramics are often overlooked, despite being high-energy users. That paragraph also says that the charge covers potential market failures:

“the Energy Intensive Industries … Exemption Scheme”—

to which my noble friend refers—

“offers an exemption for eligible companies to receive a discount from their electricity costs to address high energy costs and potential market failures.”

Another question that arises from this is: in the event of a market failure relating to an industrial user in this category—I am sure that a number may be teetering on the edge—is it left to the others in this category to pick up the costs of that failure, or is it once again a charge to all users, domestic and industrial?

My two final points are, first, that no impact assessment was done, which possibly might have been useful. Secondly, paragraph 10.8 of the Explanatory Memorandum states:

“This consultation ran for 5 weeks and closed on the 16 September 2022.”


That seems a short period to run a consultation which covers the holiday period. Was there any particular reason for that, or had the department taken other soundings before it launched the formal consultation? However, with those few queries, I support the two regulations before us this afternoon.