Asked by: Sara Britcliffe (Conservative - Hyndburn)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what steps he is taking to increase (a) the take up of the Energy Bill Support Scheme, (b) public awareness of the voucher scheme in operation, (c) the deadline for redeeming vouchers and (d) ensuring energy companies pass on the vouchers for people with pre-payment meters.
Answered by Graham Stuart
Households in Great Britain should have automatically received the first instalment of the Energy Bills Support Scheme (EBSS) in October. There is no need for customers to claim the discount. Traditional prepayment meter customers should have received their first EBSS discount voucher. EBSS credit is applied automatically to smart prepayment meters.
Suppliers have an obligation, and must be able to evidence, that they have attempted to make a minimum of three attempts by at least two different methods to contact customers who have not redeemed their voucher. Replacement vouchers can be issued until the scheme closes on 30 June 2023.
Asked by: Sara Britcliffe (Conservative - Hyndburn)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, if he will make an assessment of the potential effect of standing charges on (a) small- and (b) medium-sized businesses.
Answered by Greg Hands - Minister of State (Department for Business and Trade)
The standing charge is a fixed charge that suppliers pass on to their customers to cover the cost of providing a live supply. If the standing charge were removed, these costs would be added to the unit price of energy. Otherwise, suppliers would not be able to recover the legitimate costs of serving customers. The standing charge is passed on to consumers as a flat rate per day, rather than as a percentage charge (based on how much energy they use). The setting of the standing charge is a commercial matter for individual suppliers.
Asked by: Sara Britcliffe (Conservative - Hyndburn)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what plans he has to support decarbonisation pathways; what estimate he has made of the potential extent of hydrogen replacement of natural gas in the next ten years; and what assessment he has made of the potential role of hydrogen alternatives in supporting job (a) creation and (b) investment in the North West.
Answered by Kwasi Kwarteng
The UK has set a benchmark by legislating for net zero, and the adoption of hydrogen as a decarbonised energy carrier will support us in achieving this legally binding target. We will set out our approach to growing the UK hydrogen economy our Hydrogen Strategy, set to be published early next year.
I have been very pleased to see the ambitious plans for hydrogen in the North West, such as the HyNet project, which we are supporting with over £13m funding through our innovation programme. I have talked directly to companies in the North West about how they can support growth of the hydrogen economy, and my officials are in regular discussions with stakeholders in the region.
In November 2019 we published the Energy Innovation Needs Assessment (EINA) for hydrogen and fuel cells. This identified that the future market for all hydrogen technologies could yield around £5.3bn of GVA and create nearly 50,000 jobs by 2050 to meet demand in export and domestic markets. The North West is ideally placed to capture such opportunities.