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

To ask Her Majesty’s Government why Citizens Advice and Citizens Advice Scotland have the exclusive rights to nominate people for two of the seats on the Smart Energy Code Panel, as specified in paragraph C3.4 of that Code.

The Government considers that it is important that the interests of energy consumers are represented on the SEC Panel. The current arrangements were consulted on in the Government’s Smart Energy Code Consultation in April 2012, and were concluded in the Government Responses in November 2012 and April 2013. The Government concluded that Consumer Futures, as the exclusive statutory consumer body in the energy sector, was best placed to nominate consumer representatives for the Panel. These statutory responsibilities were transferred to Citizens Advice and Citizens Advice Scotland when Consumer Futures was abolished in 2014.