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

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what assessment he has made of the accuracy of the Office for Budget Responsibility's estimate that the administration of Bulb Energy required £6.5bn from the public purse.

The OBR figure has been forecast in accordance with usual processes. However, the £6.5bn figure only reflects the public spending implications of the Octopus transaction and does not account for the financial support that will be repaid in accordance with an agreed repayment schedule or recovered by the established shortfall direction mechanism, which means that the Special Administration Regime (SAR) will eventually be fiscally neutral. SAR costs will continue to fluctuate, driven by high energy market volatility meaning any published figures remain uncertain.