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

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, whether the Government plans to review the system of standing charges for (a) electricity and (b) gas customers.

The standing charge includes the costs energy suppliers incur to provide a live supply of gas and electricity to individual properties, regardless of how much energy their customers use. If it was removed, these costs would be added to the unit price of energy. Otherwise, suppliers would not be able to recover the legitimate costs of serving customers.