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 impact of the supplier of last resort scheme on the level of standing charges.

Standing charges are capped under the price cap and ensure millions of households pay a fair price for their energy. One component of the standing charge relates to network costs, which have recently increased in part due to the Supplier of Last Resort (SoLR) levy. The levy allows suppliers acting as a SoLR to reclaim reasonable additional otherwise unrecoverable costs. Ofgem have confirmed that network costs increased by £68 from April 2022, due to the Supplier of Last Resort (SoLR) levy costs.