Speeches by Edwards.

“At present, I know that you cannot regulate brokers, and I recognise that this has been a call for a long time, but through the supplier you can regulate their use of brokers. There have been lots of cases where suppliers have not been vetting their broker partners. Those broker partners must be part of a dispute resol…”

“That was an average taken of 15 suppliers yesterday in Yorkshire.”

“You are monitoring them. What does “unduly onerous” mean? Is 30% or 40% higher not unduly onerous?”

“If I can just come back on the deemed rates, the phrase used is that the rates should not be unduly onerous and that they should be cost-effective and published transparently. Is that happening?”

“It is still happening now.”

“Yes, 100%, but on the deemed prices, that is all the supplier.”

“There is a conversation that I keep having with brokers, who have been very helpful and have given me a lot of information. I know that you do not regulate them, but there is part of the problem here. Suppliers come into this, because suppliers are supposed to work with brokers who are part of a dispute mechanism syste…”

“I am quite interested in the situation with energy bills and the cost of energy. We have heard a lot from businesses about how expensive it is: it is usually their second biggest cost after staffing. A lot of the stories that we are hearing are also telling us about a market that seems to be broken. The question is whe…”

“That is very helpful. Thank you very much.”

“They are going to go under in that time, aren’t they?”

“A lot of businesses have told me that they do not have that capacity, so it falls to: are they going to do it, or are they going to leave it and let them get away with it, or are they just going pay it? If they end up in a dispute, they also end up with their credit rating being hit, so they cannot deal with it and the…”

“No, I recognise it is not a silver bullet, but the Committee is looking for all the different pieces of the puzzle to help bring this down.”

“It is interesting, because there is an onus on the supplier to make its customers aware, when it enters into a dispute, that the ombudsman service exists. In theory they are being told about that 50% of the time, from the figures that the ombudsman itself gave me, when I asked it directly. However, I do not know of any…”

“One thing that has been raised with me is the fact that there is absolutely no clarity on how on earth it came to a decision about the case. In the instance of the business that I have supported and reconstructed its accounts, it is owed over £4,000 from the energy supplier. During the ombudsman process, the energy sup…”

“As you know, I have been crusading on this one. Last week I led a debate on commercial energy billing, which is a fascinating subject when you start to get into the real details of all the scandals that keep going on. I have a company that I have been supporting in my own patch through the Energy Ombudsman process. It …”

“So no actual definition—that is fair enough, and we can understand why. What about a set of principles that sit across the top that enable both yourselves and Departments to make judgments about where the eye should fall? Again, your principles can be flexible—you can flex and change those much more easily than a defin…”

“That is great. Verity, you might have a slightly different take on this, but it would be interesting to hear your thoughts.”

“That is very helpful. Paul, what are your thoughts? You probably have examples as well.”

“Yes. I am moonlighting here. On the Business and Trade Committee—obviously, you came to speak to us the other week, and thank you very much for that—we have heard so much about the problems of energy rates. We have gone around the country and heard that continuously, and I have had issues in my own patch, to the point …”

“Building on this landscape of a potential cyber-attack, or whatever we might want to deem it, we have heard some quite interesting information about Pool Re. Obviously, that originally started to cover terrorism from the IRA in the ‘90s, but it still exists. There is about £13 billion sat in a pot of money to cover an …”