Energy Bill
10:54 am
Steve Webb (Chair of the Election Manifesto Group, Cross-Portfolio and Non-Portfolio Responsibilities; Northavon, Liberal Democrat)
I imagine that you would all like to come in on this point but we probably will not get very far if you do. However, I would like to follow that up. Clearly we want people to shop around but the evidence is that low-income households, unemployed families and lone parents are the least likely to shop around, so if we want to protect them, I do not think that we can rely sufficiently just on them shopping around. Given that there is considerable variation among the companies represented here in the proportion of turnover you spend on subsidising social tariffs, are customers not vulnerable? If they are with the worst of you—the company with the least good social tariff that spends the least on such subsidies—and they do not shop around because it is complicated and difficult, are they not at your mercy and would it not be better to legislate minimum standards, which need not be over-prescriptive? Would that not be the best way to protect the customers? Perhaps someone who has not responded yet could reply.