Miatta Fahnbulleh

We know we have a challenge with smart meters. The majority of smart meters work, but there are far too many cases where they do not. We are working with the DCC and suppliers to make sure that we have connection across the piece and that there is a clear obligation on suppliers to respond to meters that are not working. Ofgem is reviewing this at the moment, and we will set out what we will do to introduce further obligations and ensure compliance on the specific issue of smart meters. On the wider question about back billing, let me be clear: suppliers cannot back-bill domestic or microbusiness consumers for energy use more than 12 months ago. A company is classed as a microbusiness when it has fewer than 10 employees and turnover of less than £2 million, or where it falls under certain energy-usage thresholds. In February, the Secretary of State wrote to the chief executive officer of Ofgem, asking him to accelerate the regulator’s work on reviewing the back-billing rules as part of its ongoing consumer confidence reforms. Ofgem is in the process of doing that. The Secretary of State and I have constant meetings with the regulator to make sure that this matter is proceeding with the pace and urgency it requires. It is very clear that suppliers can back-bill consumers only in very specific circumstances; we need to clarify what those circumstances are and ensure far tighter compliance and enforcement on this issue. My hon. Friend raised a point about the Energy Ombudsman, and what it should do to support businesses such as those in her constituency. We announced an expansion of the ombudsman’s service in December so that small and medium-sized enterprises with fewer than 50 employees can now access it. That means that 99% of businesses in this country can now access that important service. In recognition of the impact on businesses when things go wrong, the maximum award for new business disputes that go through the ombudsman has been doubled to £20,000. We know that much more must be done to ensure that the ombudsman and the redress service are working for all customers. We have committed to consulting on a range of issues that would strengthen the ombudsman, including introducing automatic referrals to it rather than consumers having to do that themselves. We think that will speed up the process. We are also looking to reduce the referral waiting time from eight weeks to four weeks so that customers are not waiting in a long and frustrating process before their issue gets redress. Critically, as part of that, we are looking to increase the value of the compensation that is paid to customers when things go wrong and the ombudsman has clearly put in place a judgment that suppliers are not responding to. We also want to make compensation automatic, because that is how we can expand and drive deterrence in the system. We will look to see how, in instances of, for example, excessively long call waiting times, which consumers find desperately frustrating, unacceptably high bills when suppliers fail to adjust their direct debits, and suppliers not responding to complaints in time or not complying with the Energy Ombudsman, there can be automatic compensation so that consumers get the redress without having to go through the hassle.