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

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what steps his Department is taking to promote awareness of Ofgem's priority services register.

Ofgem requires energy companies to promote and maintain a Priority Services Register (PSR), to provide non-financial help to certain groups of vulnerable consumers. Ofgem is responsible for ensuring compliance with these requirements.

In 2016, Ofgem introduced new requirements that companies take all reasonable steps to identify customers who may benefit from PSR services and introduced a broad “Vulnerability Principle” in 2017, which clarifies that suppliers need to make an extra effort to identify and respond to the needs of consumers in vulnerable situations, which can help identify those who could benefit from PSR services.

The number of consumers on PSRs has risen from 1.7 million electricity and 1.4 million gas consumers in 2010, to nearly 6 million electricity and 4.8 million gas consumers in 2017. Ofgem publish information on energy company performance, available online at:

https://www.ofgem.gov.uk/system/files/docs/2018/11/vulnerability_report_2018.pdf

Ofgem is also working to promote PSR data sharing between energy and water companies in England and Wales (with the customer’s consent) following a successful pilot in Spring 2018.