Energy Costs for Businesses

Earl of Effingham Excerpts

Tuesday 17th December 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab)]

My Lords, I am very happy to give that consideration. The noble Lord will have noted that we are looking at whether we should introduce a regulatory regime for the third-party intermediaries, because some businesses are affected both by mis-selling and other problems with the current system. The other point I would make is that the Energy Ombudsman’s remit is being extended to small businesses within the next few days, and I hope that will also be of advantage to those companies that he mentioned.

[The Earl of Effingham (Con)]

My Lords, the UK is importing record amounts of electricity from Europe. We understand that the EU is to propose limiting access to its electricity markets. How can the Minister ensure that businesses can transition to net zero over time without facing prohibitive energy costs during this process? Surely if supply goes down, costs will go up.

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab)]

My Lords, we should not speculate about this until we see actual evidence that it may come to pass. The real way to ensure continuity of supply is to do what we are doing, which is to move as quickly as possible to ensuring that we have homegrown, clean energy. This is what we are seeking to do.