The spate of energy supplier failures seen over recent weeks is “far from normal”, Ed Miliband has told Kwasi Kwarteng, who revealed that the bulk of customers being transferred from failing suppliers are on tariffs at or just below the price cap.
In his initial statement about the situation on Monday, Kwarteng had told MPs that the level of supplier failures during recent weeks had not been abnormal.
However, the secretary of state had been “complacent” about the crisis in the energy market and its impact on families and cost of living, Miliband said: “He pretended on Monday and again today that it was normal for a number of suppliers to go down each winter, but what we are dealing with is far from normal: 800,000 customers losing their suppliers yesterday alone and 1.5 million in the last six weeks.”
Kwarteng denied that the government has been complacent and “ill-prepared”, adding that “so far this year”, the supplier of last resort (SoLR) process has worked and that supplier failures have been accommodated within existing structure.
He added that he would look into cutting the time it takes SoLRs to provide accurate forecasts of customers’ energy costs, who have been transferred to a new supplier, at his next meeting with Ofgem chief executive Jonathan Brearley.
Responding to concerns that energy suppliers will resist taking on customers on capped tariffs because they will lose money on them, Kwarteng said: “Most of these prices are at or just below the price cap, and that is fundamentally what will protect consumers in this period.”
He said that he had “repeatedly resisted” pressure to scrap the price cap and “categorically” ruled out giving any grants or subsidies to “larger” suppliers.