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

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, for what reasons Ofgem recently increased the level of the pre-payment metre price cap.

The prepayment safeguard tariff (price cap) tariff was introduced by the Competition and markets Authority (CMA) following its investigation into the energy markets. The methodology set by the CMA, and administered by Ofgem, to calculate the cap is based on wholesale costs, network costs, policy costs, operating costs and costs specifically associated with prepayment meters. The recent change reflected changes in these underlying costs.