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

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what mechanism his Department used to ensure that the £200m in CFD payments made to the Low Carbon Contracts Company by renewables generators between September 2021 and February 2022 was passed through to consumers as energy bill savings.

Due to current high energy prices, the Low Carbon Contracts Company (LCCC) has temporarily stopped collecting the compulsory levy from suppliers which funds the Contracts for Difference (CfD) scheme. CfD generators have instead paid approximately £205 million back into the scheme from September 2021 to March 2022 inclusive. LCCC returned around £40 million of this to suppliers at the last quarterly reconciliation, with suppliers leaving the balance on account with LCCC to meet future liabilities towards funding the cost of the scheme. This ensures that consumers do not pay higher CfD support costs during periods of high electricity prices.