Question to the Department for Energy Security & Net Zero:

To ask the Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero, what recent discussions he has had with the Energy Ombudsman on the effectiveness of its dispute resolution process in providing redress for customers.

On 19 June the Government announced that we will consult on strengthening the Energy Ombudsman to ensure that suppliers comply with its final decisions or pay compensation to their customers. We also announced that we would consult on proposals to make referrals to the Ombudsman automatic instead of consumers having to do this themselves, and on waiting time for referrals being cut from 8 weeks to 4 weeks.

The Government is working with Ofgem to look at increasing the value of base-level automatic compensation from £40, following the first increase since the payments were introduced a decade ago.

Ofgem is also looking at expanding automatic compensation to cover more key issues faced by consumers, including excessively long call waiting times, unexpectedly high bills when suppliers fail to adjust their direct debits, suppliers not responding to complaints, or suppliers not complying with Energy Ombudsman final decisions. This will ensure that consumers can get fairer, quicker, and easier compensation when things go wrong.