Oral Answers to Questions

John Robertson Excerpts

Thursday 26th January 2012 Commons Chamber

[Chris Huhne]

I am very happy to join the hon. Gentleman in encouraging the third sector in this regard. However, I point out that we recently announced 82 community winners in the first tranche of DECC’s £10 million local energy assessment fund, which share in £4.2 million to undertake feasibility studies for proposed community energy and energy efficiency schemes. The winning communities in the remaining, second tranche are due to be announced in early February.

[John Robertson (Glasgow North West) (Lab)]

11. What the level of debt is by which a prepayment meter customer is able to change supplier.

[The Minister of State, Department of Energy and Climate Change (Charles Hendry)]

The debt assignment protocol helps prepayment meter customers with a debt of £200 or less to switch, providing the new supplier agrees to take on the debt. Ofgem monitors the protocol’s effectiveness by recording the number of customers blocked from switching as a result of having a debt.

[John Robertson]

I am sure the Minister will understand my question when I mention that because of debt 200,000 customers are trapped on tariffs that they cannot get out of. If the level was extended to £350, a lot of those people would be able to get their debt down. What is he doing to try to deal with that and will he persuade Ofgem to set the figure at £350?

[Charles Hendry]

The hon. Gentleman raises an important point, and I shall ask Ofgem to look at the issue in detail. Many people are on prepayment meters because they were already in debt and it was a way of trying to manage their repayments to get them back on a firm footing. Clearly, we want people in all circumstances to be able to benefit from lower tariffs and it is important that they should be set at the right level in that part of the protocol.