Question to the Department for Energy Security & Net Zero:

To ask the Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero, what steps she is taking to address the loyalty penalty paid by households reliant on (a) heating oil and (b) LPG; and whether she has asked the Competition and Markets Authority to make an assessment of the adequacy of competition in markets for these products.

We believe consumer choice provides the best long-term guarantee of competitive prices.

The structure of the heating oil market allows for switching of suppliers on a delivery-by-delivery basis. There are commercial price comparison sites and the trade association UKIFDA provides a ‘Find a distributor’ facility at https://ukifda.org/find-a-distributor/.

There is similar consumer choice for bottled LPG users, supported by the trade association LGUK ‘Supplier search’ facility (https://www.liquidgasuk.org/domestic/supplier-search). The bulk domestic LPG market is subject to regulation under the Competition and Markets Authority’s LPG Orders (https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/liquefied-petroleum-gas-lpg-market-orders-and-calculator) to enable easier switching of domestic bulk LPG supplier by domestic customers and the CMA continues to monitor that market.