Prepayment Meters: Ofgem Decision
Debate between Graham Stuart and Bernard Jenkin
Graham Stuart
It is worth pointing out that emergency credit should be supplied to customers and support should be put in place for those who get into arrears. It is a failure of the existing processes and duties that has been highlighted and has caused us to come before the House today. We must make sure that companies do that which they are obliged to do.
Sir Bernard Jenkin (Harwich and North Essex) (Con)
Can we be clear about the fact that, inexplicably, what has been happening has been completely legal? Nothing has changed since the gas and electricity Acts of the 1980s, and, indeed, the Rights of Entry (Gas and Electricity Boards) Act dates from 1954. Can the Minister explain whose decision it was that the courts should start issuing warrants for the forcible fitting of prepayment meters online, with no judicial oversight or scrutiny? Applications have been submitted in their thousands, and granted in their thousands, without even a magistrate looking at each case. Whose decision was that?
Graham Stuart
Of course I welcome the move by Lord Justice Edis to order magistrates courts to stop the authorisation of warrants for energy firms, and I will write to my hon. Friend if I can identify the root cause of the original decision.