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 (a) made an assessment of and (b) holds any data on the length of time it takes for customers requesting that an energy company repay a positive account balance for that balance to be repaid.

Regulatory compliance is a matter for Ofgem. The Department does not hold data on this issue.

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. They must explain the reason to the customer.