Domestic Heating Oil

Mark Williams Excerpts

Wednesday 9th February 2011 Commons Chamber

[Pat Glass]

Absolutely.

[Mr Mark Williams (Ceredigion) (LD)]

. I also congratulate the hon. Lady on securing this debate and on reiterating how important it is to rural areas. The problem that she described, where oil companies deliver much larger quantities, was compounded by the fact that a lot of them were not telling the customers that they were doing so until the invoice arrived. People who were expecting bills of £200, which is bad enough, were then hit with bills of £800.

[Pat Glass]

Absolutely, and I am happy to give way to hon. Members from across the House, because this debate is about an issue that affects all our constituencies.

When I first started to investigate the domestic heating oil industry, it became clear to me that it operates in a completely unregulated market, where suppliers can do exactly what they choose. A number of takeovers and mergers in recent years have led to the supply industry being owned by two or three companies. All that has happened quietly, without reference to the Office of Fair Trading or the Competition Commission. Prices are being driven up not by world shortages or global increases in the price of oil, although there is some of that. Rather, prices in this country have gone up by 100% in a very short space of time largely because suppliers have been clearly taking advantage of people in desperate need during the coldest winter in a generation.