Question to the Department for Energy Security & Net Zero:

To ask the Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero, whether he has made an assessment of the potential merits of transferring responsibility for the installation of smart meters from energy suppliers to energy infrastructure companies.

The decision to proceed with an energy supplier-led rollout, supported by a central communications infrastructure, was taken following a wide assessment of options and extensive stakeholder consultation in 2009.

The Government concluded that this approach would have more consumer benefits as suppliers had existing, direct relationships with their customers, unlike energy infrastructure companies and it avoided the costs of changing responsibility for metering services.

The Government consider that this remains the right approach for the installation of smart meters and changing it at this stage would slow down rollout progress considerably, reducing the resultant benefits for consumers and the energy system.