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

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what recent assessment his Department has made of the (a) potential impact of the standing charges on consumers and (b) the adequacy of efforts by energy companies to ensure standing charges are kept to a minimum cost.

Standing charges are capped under the price cap and ensure millions of households pay a fair price for their energy.

The standing charge is a fixed charge that suppliers pass on to their customers to cover the cost of providing a live supply. If the standing charge was removed, these costs would be added to the unit price of energy. Otherwise, suppliers would not be able to recover the legitimate costs of serving customers. The setting of the standing charge is a commercial matter for individual suppliers.