Citizens Advice has welcomed prime minister Theresa May’s promise to “set the market right” in energy.
Gillian Guy, chief executive of Citizens Advice, said: “The prime minister is right to call out businesses who are letting down their customers – people are losing an average of £446 a year – equivalent to a week’s pay – due to failing markets such as broadband and energy.
“There are a number of options available to government to help squeezed families with their energy bills including guaranteeing loyal customers a cheaper deal, extending the prepayment cap to vulnerable consumers on credit meters and looking at the gap between the cost of a standard variable tariff and the lowest priced deal.
“People have been paying over the odds for their gas and electricity for too long so it is important that action from the government means people can benefit from a fairer energy market as soon as possible.”
She said, “The next step is to translate this tough talk into firm action.”
In her speech to the Conservative Party conference May had said: “Where markets are dysfunctional, we should be prepared to intervene. Where companies are exploiting the failures of the market in which they operate, where consumer choice is inhibited by deliberately complex pricing structures, we must set the market right. … It’s just not right that two thirds of energy customers are stuck on the most expensive tariffs.”
Energy and industrial strategy secretary Greg Clark had suggested there would be a new emphasis on making competition work earlier in his speech earlier in the conference, when he said, “it’s not in the most competitive industries where people who are loyal to their supplier are fleeced, but where competition is most sluggish and incumbents most dominant”.
Subscribers: login to download the October issue of New Power and read our interview with Citizens Advice’s Gillian Cooper. She says, “We are thinking of ideas that work within the grain of the CMA remedies, but push it a little further in terms of impact”
Related content:
The New Power interview: Gillian Cooper, Citizens Advice (members only)
Subscribe to New Power for full analysis, comment, interviews and data in our monthly report, and access to our database, or sign up to our FREE e-newsletter for website updates