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

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, if he will make it his policy to equalize energy standing charges between the regions of the UK.

The standing charge element of an energy bill reflects the on-going costs that fall on energy suppliers to provide and maintain a live supply regardless of a consumer’s usage. One component of these costs relates to distribution. As it costs more to distribute electricity to some regions than others, there are regional variations in standing charges to reflect higher costs to serve.

For millions of households on default and standard variable tariffs the level of standing charge is protected by the energy price cap rate set by Ofgem.