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

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, if he will make an assessment of the extent to which regional differences in the energy price cap accurately reflect the variation in energy distribution costs between regions.

There are no plans for an assessment. Ofgem, as the independent regulator, is responsible for the operation of the price cap.

Electricity and gas distribution charges, which are incurred by suppliers and passed through to consumers, vary regionally. These variations reflect the costs of maintaining and upgrading the distribution network in a specific area and the number of consumers between whom those costs are spread. This cost reflective approach helps to minimise overall network costs across Great Britain by ensuring that each network company has to account to its local stakeholders for the costs it has incurred.