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

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what assessment his Department has made of whether some pensioners are missing out on the Warm Home Discount Scheme as a result of being customers of a supplier with fewer than 250,000 customers.

Energy suppliers that are obligated to participate in the Warm Home Discount scheme cover 94% of the market for domestic customers. Suppliers that are not obligated under the scheme can volunteer to provide rebates to the Core Group. Last winter, three suppliers volunteered under the scheme.

We estimate that the number of pensioners beyond those 18 suppliers that would have been automatically eligible for Warm Home Discount last winter under the Core Group is roughly 60,000, of the roughly 1.4 million Pension Credit Guaranteed Credit recipients who would be automatically eligible if they held an account with a participating supplier.

There is a set spending envelope for Warm Home Discount and increasing the number of obligated suppliers would not in itself increase the number of households receiving the rebate. We have recently completed a consultation on the next phase of Warm Home Discount, including the obligation thresholds, and are currently reviewing the responses.