Gas Prices and Energy Suppliers Debate
Full Debate: Read Full DebateDepartment: Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy
Philip Hollobone
Main Page: Philip Hollobone (Conservative - Kettering)Department Debates - View all Philip Hollobone's debates with the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy
Gas Prices and Energy Suppliers
Philip Hollobone Excerpts(3 years, 4 months ago)
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Kwasi Kwarteng
As I have said, we have a supplier of last resort process, and it would be wrong of me here at the Dispatch Box to interfere in how it works. It has worked effectively over the past two years. As I have said repeatedly to the House, the energy price cap does give some succour, because consumers prices could be exorbitant without the cap. The price cap gives support, and we continue to support the warm home discount for the vulnerable end of the market.
Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)
Customers in Kettering and across the country will be worried that their gas and electricity could be cut off if their energy supplier goes bust. To put customers minds at rest, will the Secretary of State explain in straightforward understandable terms how the supplier of last resort process works?
Kwasi Kwarteng
What happens—and it is happening at the moment—is that there is a process of bidding for the customers of the exiting, failing companies, and the cost of absorbing those customers is taken on by the company that wins the bid and also by the industry at large; so the costs are mutualised, but generally it has been seen that there is always continuity of supply. That is a key element of the system.