Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what estimate she has made of the number of Police Officer hours spent in (a) Nottinghamshire and (b) England in the last month accompanying energy company agents or debt collection agents acting on behalf of energy companies, enforcing warrants for the forced installation of pre-payment meters.

The Home Office does not collect data on the number of hours police officers have spent accompanying energy company agents or debt collection agents acting on behalf of energy companies, enforcing warrants or the forced installation of pre-payment meters.

The Government expects suppliers to take proactive steps to identify vulnerable consumers and offer them the necessary support. Suppliers can only install prepayment meters without consent to recover debt as a last resort. Ofgem Standard Licence Conditions require suppliers to ensure that prepayment meters are only installed where it is ‘safe and reasonably practicable’, including consideration of whether a consumer’s vulnerability makes a prepayment meter a poor choice.