Asked by: Grant Shapps (Conservative - Welwyn Hatfield)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what estimate his Department has made of the number of energy smart meters that are operating in dumb mode.
Answered by Claire Perry
It is estimated there are currently around 637,000 smart meters being operated by the 14 large suppliers in ‘traditional’ mode.
There were more than 11 million smart and advanced meters operating in Great Britain in ‘smart mode’ as at the end of March 2018.
The Data and Communications Company (DCC) will move SMETS1 meters into its national system, starting later this year, so that all consumers can keep their smart services when they switch energy supplier, regardless of which generation of meter they have installed.
Asked by: Grant Shapps (Conservative - Welwyn Hatfield)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what assessment he has made of the potential merits of all energy network companies refunding excess profits to consumers.
Answered by Claire Perry
Energy network regulation, including the setting of price controls, is a matter for Ofgem as the independent energy regulator and, by law, Government has no role in this process.
The current price control, RIIO-1, has led to significant benefits for consumers with gain share mechanisms resulting in savings worth over £5 billion. As part of this some companies have made voluntary returns of revenue, reflecting changes in investment that were planned at the start of the price controls but are now no longer required. Ofgem estimates that these returns will result in benefits to consumers worth more than £700 million.
Asked by: Grant Shapps (Conservative - Welwyn Hatfield)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what steps the Government is taking to support Ofgem in ensuring that the new RIIO-2 price control framework is tougher on energy network companies.
Answered by Claire Perry
Network regulation, including setting the next energy network price control, RIIO-2, is a matter for Ofgem as the independent energy regulator. By law, Government has no role in this process.
Ofgem states that its proposals for RIIO-2 are expected to save consumers £5 billion over 5 years or around £15-25 per household bill.
Government welcomes regulators and network companies acting in the best interests of consumers and expects consumers to get a fair deal.
Asked by: Grant Shapps (Conservative - Welwyn Hatfield)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, if the Government will assess the effectiveness of (a) protections in law for workers from penalisation for whistle-blowing and (b) incentives to ensure that workers are not dissuaded from raising matters of improper conduct relating to their place of work.
Answered by Andrew Griffiths
In 2013 the Government published a wide-ranging call for evidence on the effectiveness of the whistleblowing framework. The Government’s response in 2014 set out a plan of legislative and non-legislative actions to improve the framework: those actions are essentially complete. We believe that the legal framework is effective, but as the Government response said, the legal framework in isolation cannot prevent malpractice or encourage people to raise their concerns. The steps that we have taken since 2014 also help to address the wider cultural barriers to effective whistleblowing.
The Government considers that financial incentives for whistleblowers would be unlikely to increase the number of quality disclosures received and could have adverse consequences.
Asked by: Grant Shapps (Conservative - Welwyn Hatfield)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what incentives the Government provides for whistleblowers to come forward with information before an incident has occurred; and what steps he is taking to tackle the practice of penalising whistleblowers.
Answered by Andrew Griffiths
The Employment Rights Act 1996 provides employment protection for workers in all sectors who have blown the whistle. It enables them to seek redress if they are dismissed or suffer detriment at the hands of the employer because they have made a ‘protected disclosure’ about wrongdoing that they have witnessed at work. While workers can secure compensation at Employment Tribunal in these circumstances, the Government does not generally offer incentives for whistleblowers.
Asked by: Grant Shapps (Conservative - Welwyn Hatfield)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what assessment he had made of the merits of a US-style system for whistleblowing whereby whistleblowers are given incentives to come forward.
Answered by Andrew Griffiths
The Government considers that financial incentives for whistleblowers would be unlikely to increase the number of quality disclosures received and could have adverse consequences.
Asked by: Grant Shapps (Conservative - Welwyn Hatfield)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, how many SMETS2 meters (a) have been installed and (b) are operational.
Answered by Claire Perry
The rollout of smart meters is making good progress, with nearly 440,000 meters being installed every month and a total of 10 million meters already operating as of 31 December 2017.
As of the end of January 2018, industry information showed there were around 450 SMETS2 meters connected to the DCC system. Most of these were being operated in test conditions and around 80 had been installed in the live environment.
Asked by: Grant Shapps (Conservative - Welwyn Hatfield)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, how many (a) domestic and (b) small non-domestic energy customers are presently on time of use tariffs.
Answered by Claire Perry
As of 31st December 2016, in Great Britain, there were 4.4 million domestic time of use (Economy 7 type meters). Of these, BEIS estimate that there were around 3.1 million domestic customers on Economy 7 or 10 tariffs.
While a number of suppliers are offering time of use and other innovative tariffs enabled by smart metering and elective half-hourly settlement, we do not have information on the number of domestic customers on these types of tariffs.
As of 31st December 2016, in Great Britain, there were around 500,000 non-domestic profile 4 Economy 7 type meters (used by small non-domestic customers). However some properties with Economy 7 meters will be on single rate tariffs.
Source:
An estimate for the number of Economy 7 meters in Great Britain can be found here:
Asked by: Grant Shapps (Conservative - Welwyn Hatfield)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what steps his Department is taking to ensure that savings from the roll-out of smart meters will be passed on to consumers.
Answered by Claire Perry
Smart metering will give consumers the tools they need – through access to energy consumption data – to take control of their energy use. Consumers can start saving energy from the moment their smart meter is installed. In a recent survey Smart Energy GB found that 86% of people with a smart meter said they made energy saving changes to their behaviour.
Suppliers have a strong incentive to keep costs down. If suppliers do not deliver the programme cost-efficiently, they risk losing customers to their competitors.
Smart meters will help improve engagement and competition. The Programme will give households the information to allow them to be more active consumers and more easily act upon poor service of expensive tariffs, by being able to switch suppliers quickly and simply.
Ahead of that, the Government is introducing legislation to cap poor value standard variable and default tariffs.
Asked by: Grant Shapps (Conservative - Welwyn Hatfield)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what proportion of the 8.6 million smart meters installed by the end of 2017 were (a) advanced and (b) SMETS1 meters.
Answered by Claire Perry
As of 30th September 2017, there were over 8.6 million smart and advanced meters operating across homes and businesses in Great Britain, by both large and small energy suppliers. Of those, around 7.7 million were smart meters and around 0.89 million were advanced meters.
The Government publishes quarterly reports on the number of smart electricity and gas meters installed in Great Britain as part of its Smart Meters statistics collection. As part of each statistical release, a breakdown by meter type is provided:
https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/smart-meters-statistics.