Electricity Bills: Standing Charges

1. What assessment he has made of the potential implications for his Department’s policies of recent trends in levels of standing charges for electricity bills.

We know that consumers are frustrated by standing charges, which is why we are committed to lowering them. Ofgem has been consulting on introducing a zero standing charge tariff that would shift the costs on to unit rates. The consultation has now closed, and we will be working with Ofgem to take this forward.

Has the Department assessed whether the rising standing charges are discouraging residents in our constituencies from switching to heat pumps and electric vehicles because they are concerned about the fixed costs that will come with them?

There are fixed costs within standing charges relating to, for instance, the cost of maintaining and upgrading networks, which we have to cover, but we recognise the imbalance between the price that people are paying for electricity and the price that they are paying for gas. We are committed to dealing with that imbalance, because we think it right that consumers can transition to clean heat. That is the way in which we reduce the amount of energy we use and, critically, that is the way in which we reduce bills.