Skip to main content

Ofgem must live up to vows to protect money of energy consumers

Regulator should face down cries for delay or lengthy transition periods in its plans to shake-up sector

The energy regulator Ofgem would like you to believe its new measures to ringfence customers’ deposits are “tough”. They certainly ought to be. About £400m of customer money evaporated with the failure of 28 energy suppliers since last September – the coffers only refilled via a charge on all households.

Unfortunately, the regulatory boast of toughness looks premature. A properly robust plan to prevent deposits being used like “an interest-free company credit card”, as Ofgem’s chief executive, Jonathan Brearley, put it, would be adopted immediately. Some suppliers would have to raise equity to replace deposits they have been using as working capital, but a determined regulator would insist that they do.

Continue reading...

from The Guardian https://ift.tt/kfslF0G
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Guardian view on Covid-19, five years on: lessons still to be learned | Editorial

Though many would rather forget the pandemic, we are living with its consequences. Are we any better prepared for the next one? “When asked what was the biggest disaster of the twentieth century, almost nobody answers the Spanish flu,” notes Laura Spinney in her book Pale Rider, of an event that killed as many as one in 20 of the global population. “There is no cenotaph, no monument in London, Moscow or Washington DC.” Most of us will better understand that absence after Covid-19 , which was declared a pandemic by the World Health Organization five years ago this week. Some cannot put those events behind them: most obviously, many of those bereaved by the 7 million deaths worldwide (not including those indirectly caused by the pandemic ), and the significant numbers still living with long Covid . Others want to forget the loss of loved ones, the months of isolation and the costs to businesses, families and mental health. Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? I...
Post a Comment
Read more