Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, whether his Department has taken recent steps to help ensure that energy suppliers punctually and adequately refund the credit balances of their customers who pay for their energy (a) by direct debit and (b) in other ways.

The Government has no plans to intervene in this area. Under existing rules set by Ofgem, suppliers must automatically refund outstanding credit balances within 10 days of issuing a final bill. Suppliers must also refund accumulated credit on request by an existing customer in a timely manner unless they have reasonable grounds not to.