Gas Prices and Energy Suppliers Debate
Full Debate: Read Full DebateDepartment: Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy
John Penrose
Main Page: John Penrose (Conservative - Weston-super-Mare)Department Debates - View all John Penrose's debates with the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy
Gas Prices and Energy Suppliers
John Penrose Excerpts(3 years, 2 months ago)
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Kwasi Kwarteng
A conference of EU Energy Ministers took place only yesterday to discuss that very problem. Mitigating a quadrupling of the gas price is not a function of storage—that is a complete red herring. One reason why we have less storage is that we have a greater diversity of energy supply, and that is a strength, not a weakness.
John Penrose (Weston-super-Mare) (Con)
The Secretary of State is absolutely right to focus on consumers and not to bail out energy firms that got things wrong or are too fragile. However, will he explain how he is dealing with customers currently on capped tariffs with suppliers that have gone bust? Is he encountering any resistance from the firms being asked to take on those customers, who may be arriving as a loss to the acquiring firm?
Kwasi Kwarteng
As I have said, we have a supplier of last resort process that has worked well in the past couple of years. It is not my job to state the terms on which customers are absorbed by other companies—