Question

To ask the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, if the Government will make it its policy to include families with children as a vulnerable group in the Social and Environment Statutory Guidance to the Gas and Electric Market Authority.

The Ofgem Review of 2010-11 recommended that the Social and Environmental Statutory Guidance to the Gas and Electricity Market Authority should be replaced with a new Strategy and Policy Statement. The guidance will be repealed once the statement is designated. The draft statement, which Government consulted on last year, makes it clear that helping vulnerable households is one of the Government’s strategic priorities to which Ofgem should have regard to when carrying out its regulatory functions.