Question to the Department for Energy Security & Net Zero:

To ask the Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero, what assessment his department has made of the potential merits of rebalancing policy costs currently levied on electricity bills across gas and electricity bills equally.

The Government recognises that policy costs fall disproportionately on electricity bills and are taking forward work to ensure that prices reflect the cheaper wholesale price of clean energy.

On the distribution of costs between electricity and gas, the Government acted at the Autumn Budget to cut electricity costs in a way that makes this distribution fairer. We ended funding for the Energy Company Obligation scheme, as well as removing 75% of costs for the Renewables Obligation scheme from people’s energy bills.

The government also announced in April plans to go further and faster on delinking electricity and gas prices. We will consult later this year on arrangements to offer existing generators a fixed price Contract for Difference for the electricity they generate. In addition, the rate of the Electricity Generator Levy has been increased by 10% to respond to the high prices that generators are benefitting from due to the crisis in the Middle East.