Question to the Department for Energy Security & Net Zero:

To ask the Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero, whether his Department has made an assessment of the potential merits of tasking Ofgem to consider the issue of higher costs that customers incur when paying by methods other than direct debit.

Ofgem rules currently state that the difference in price between payment methods for energy must reflect the cost to the supplier of that method. On 21 February, Ofgem published a Call for Evidence on a package of work focused on prepayment meters, including looking at all energy payment methods to see whether there is a case for levelling them. Responses are requested by 7 March.