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

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what assessment his Department has made of the effect of working from home during the covid-19 outbreak on the average cost of household energy bills in (a) Coventry North East constituency, (b) Coventry, (c) the West Midlands and (d) England; what assessment he has made of the number of households in those areas that have fallen into arrears with their energy supplier during the outbreak; and what steps his Department is taking to protect vulnerable households in energy arrears.

Provisional data for 2020¹ shows an increase in average UK gas and electricity consumption of 5% and 4% respectively, relative to 2019, once temperature effects have been removed. The price falls in both fuels, however, mean that the average dual fuel bill decreased in real terms by 5%.

Data is not available by city or constituency, but provisional 2020² data shows that the West Midlands was in the lower half of UK regions for both gas and electricity bills.

The Department does not hold figures on the number of customers newly in arrears due to COVID. This data will be reported in Ofgem’s Supplier Obligations Reporting later this year.

In order to support vulnerable customer in arrears, the Government secured an industry-wide agreement to a set of principles to support consumers impacted by Covid-19 including to identify and prioritise customers at risk, support customers who are impacted financially, and support prepayment meter customers to stay on supply.

Additionally, the Government is extending the Warm Home Discount Scheme with over 2 million households provided with a £140 rebate off their energy bill each winter. The Energy Company Obligation has supported low income and vulnerable households with upgrading 2.2 million homes and delivering over 2.7 million energy efficiency measures.

¹https://www.gov.uk/government/statistical-data-sets/annual-domestic-energy-price-statistics

²https://www.gov.uk/government/statistical-data-sets/annual-domestic-energy-price-statistics