End of Radio Teleswitch Service: Rural Areas

Debate between Dave Doogan and Graham Leadbitter

Wednesday 4th December 2024 Commons Chamber

[Dave Doogan (Angus and Perthshire Glens) (SNP)]

I am pleased to raise the issue of the radio teleswitch service decommissioning in the House this evening. This is a pressured and important matter for 4,665 households in my constituency, a further 80,000 households across the north of Scotland and fully 800,000 households across Great Britain. The ending of the radio teleswitch service, or RTS, which controls “total heating with total control” meters, is of vital importance to electric-only customers and yet remains a troubled landscape to some extent.

RTS is a radio signal that tells “total heating with total control” meters when to switch between peak and off-peak rates, and this obsolete system will come to an end on 30 June 2025. It was originally going to cease on 31 March 2024, but that had to be pushed back because the system was not ready. That should have been when alarm bells started to ring.

Customers are being asked to switch to smart meters, and Energy UK, the trade body for energy suppliers, has advised customers what could happen if they do not:

“You may find that your heating and/or hot water is continually left on or off, or the charging-up happens at the wrong time of day. Your electricity supplier won’t be able to confirm how much electricity you have used during peak or off-peak times, which means your electricity costs could be much higher than before.”

However accurate that message might be, it could easily be a source of alarm for customers. Any of us who have had the misfortune to have electric-only heating will realise that even with the discounted rates, it is still ferociously expensive, so the idea that anyone could have it without the discounted rates is simply not realistic.

[Graham Leadbitter (Moray West, Nairn and Strathspey) (SNP)]

Like my hon. Friend, I have significant concerns about the end of RTS in rural Scotland. Moray West, Nairn and Strathspey has a disproportionate number of RTS meters, and I include myself in that statistic. My own experience with OVO Energy and switching to a smart meter from RTS has left a lot to be desired. I have had several telephone conversations with OVO representatives as a private customer regarding the RTS switchover. The main question I had during those phone calls was, “If I switch, will I be better or worse off, or paying the same as I am now for electricity?” I had to push extremely hard to get a straight answer to that. If that is the difficulty I am experiencing, as someone who is experienced in assisting constituents with this very issue, does my hon. Friend share my concern about how more vulnerable people, who may feel immense pressure from operators installing new meters, will be impacted?

[Dave Doogan]

I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention. He has raised a couple of points. One is really important, and that is whether or not customers have an option. They actually do not have a realistic option. The radio teleswitch service is coming to an end at the end of June next year, and they will not want to be in the position where they do not have a smart meter that can toggle between a reduced-rate tariff and a full-price tariff. That would be ruinously expensive.

My hon. Friend also touched on the communication, and the quality thereof, that supply companies are having with their customers. One of the reasons that the uptake is so slow is that people do not have confidence in smart meters—and why would they? There were plenty of problems with the smart meter roll-out just for regular electricity customers who want to know how much electricity they are using. The stakes are far higher for electric-only customers who heat their homes with electricity. They need confidence that their smart meter will actually work. I will come on to that point in a second.