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 introduce restrictions on the level of profit of energy companies.

The price cap protects households by ensuring they pay a fair price for gas and electricity. Ofgem’s price cap methodology includes a very modest allowance for profit made by an efficiently run supply company. The gas and electricity networks are economically regulated, so their returns are set through the Ofgem price control mechanism. Gas and electricity generators and gas shippers operate in a strongly competitive market. Additional taxes are already placed on the extraction of oil and gas, with companies engaged in the production of oil and gas on the UK Continental Shelf subject to headline tax rates on their profits that are currently more than double those paid by other businesses. To date, this sector has paid more than £375 billion in production taxes.