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

To ask His Majesty's Government, further to the Written Answer by Lord Callanan on 30 January (HL4760), what assessment they have made of the case for restricting the imposition of prepayment meters on energy consumers.

Prepayment meters allow customers to control and budget for the amount they spend on energy and help to mitigate the risk of going into or exacerbating existing debt. A restriction on installation of prepayment meters as a last resort would leave court enforcement as the only recourse in cases of non-payment and large debt. Ofgem has stringent rules on force-fitting prepayment meters. The Government has no plans to restrict this option.