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

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what evidence his Department holds of energy retail price caps having been successfully introduced into competitive markets in other jurisdictions.

We have considered many international models but market conditions are different to the situation in GB. The Government has introduced a Bill that requires the industry regulator to cap poor value standard variable and default tariffs. This follows the Competition and Markets Authority investigation which found that domestic customers of the Big 6 energy companies pay on average £1.4bn a year more than they would in a truly competitive market. The Bill requires Ofgem to set the cap so as to protect consumers and have regard to the need to, among other things, enable competition between suppliers and ensure suppliers can finance their licenced activities.