Whitehead said a separate body should be created to run the 24 hour emergency gas service, or a consortium formed by the gas distribution operators.
He said: “It’s absolutely the right time to make that proper nationally branded fresh start which would have the confidence of at least all the distributors and certainly a much better structure in its approach to customers.”
He said National Grid’s proposals to pass the obligation to “whoever happens to buy seems to be out of line with what has been previously arranged”.
“The idea that it is just passed on to whoever happens to buy it seems to me not appropriate now,” he said. “That needs to be done fairly urgently either by regulatory intervention, or government saying you can’t do this.”
He added that the number at least needs its own independent branding to ensure consumers recognise it is a national service.
National Grid has outlined its proposals, in an ongoing industry consultation, to ask Ofgem to allow it to pass the obligation with the sale of its gas distribution businesses, saying this is “the appropriate entity to continue to provide this important service”.
National Grid has also said that among the solutions it is discussing with the Health and Safety Executive is the option of creating flexibility for future changes in the duty holder, which would allow a separate body to run the service.
It added that “in any event, the impact of the gas distribution sale will leave the service unchanged and with clear accountability”.
According to the Telegraph, Wren House, the infrastructure arm of the Kuwait Investment Authority, and the Universities Superannuation Scheme (USS), one of Britain’s biggest pension funds are in talks to form a “super-consortium” to bid for the £11 billion gas distribution business.
The two funds may join Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan (OTPP) and Borealis, who have already held talks about a consortium bid, and may also be joined by the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority and the CPP Investment Board.