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

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what assessment he has made of the implications for his policies of the increase by energy companies in standing charges on energy bills; and if he will make an assessment of the reasons for that increase given that the pure cost of connection has not risen.

The standing charge is a fixed charge that suppliers pass on to their customers to cover the cost of providing a live supply. One component of these costs relates to transmission and distribution costs, which have increased recently, as the Supplier of Last Resort (SoLR) levy is paid via network costs. The SoLR levy covers the unrecoverable costs of a supplier taking on the customers of a failed supplier and reflects the significantly higher costs of purchasing wholesale energy since August. The standing charge is passed on to consumers as a flat rate per day, rather than as a percentage charge, based on how much energy they use.