The Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy Committee has announced a call for evidence on the government’s Draft Energy Price Cap Bill.
The BEIS Committee’s pre-legislative scrutiny will involve examining the objective, provisions, and likely impact of the legislation and the call for evidence will be followed by evidence hearings, likely to take place in December and January. The committee said it would be questioning BEIS secretary Greg Clark on energy price caps on 1 November at 10am.
The committee’s chair, Rachel Reeves, said: “The energy market isn’t working. Millions of customers are stuck paying far too much for their gas and electricity and face exorbitant bills dropping through their letterboxes this winter. As a Committee we want to take a close eye to the Government’s proposals and make recommendations to ensure that the reality of a price cap can match the rhetoric by delivering lower bills for consumers and fixing the broken energy market”.
Call for written submissions
The BEIS Committee pre-legislative scrutiny of the Government’s Draft Domestic Gas and Electricity (Tariff Cap) Bill (published by the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy on 12 October 2017) invites written submissions addressing any or all of the following questions concerning the draft legislation:
Objective of legislation
· The Government’s stated objective is “protecting customers until the conditions for effective competition in this market are in place”. Is this a clear objective? Does the text of the draft legislation enable this objective to be achieved? Could it be better achieved by other legislative or non-legislative means?
Provisions of legislation
· Are the draft legislation’s provisions necessary, workable, and clear? If not, what changes need to be made?
· Are the five matters listed in clause 1(6)(a) to (e) compatible? What priority should each one have?
· Should the cap be an absolute cap? If not, what kind of cap should be set and why?
· Should the cap be only on Standard Variable Tariffs and default tariffs?
· Should the cap be intended to have the same impact on all suppliers?
· Should the cap be temporary? If so, for how long should it apply?
· How will the roll out of smart meters affect policy on the price cap?
· What factors should be included in the determination of the cap?
Impact of legislation
· What is the likely impact of the legislation on energy suppliers, the energy market and investment in the energy sector?
· What is the likely impact of the cap on customer engagement and switching?
· What evidence is there of the impact of price caps on prices, competition and switching in other countries or in the UK?
The deadline for submissions is 29 November 2017.
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