Energy firms deny prepayment meter warrants are excessive, blaming customers' personal debt

Emma Pinchbeck, the chief executive of trade association Energy UK, replied: “The reason that there are higher levels of people going on to prepayment meters is that there simply are higher levels of debt.”

She did not deny that “bad practice” and “rule-breaking” was partly to blame but emphasised many people were struggling to pay their bills.“That’s one of the things that we’re talking to the consumer groups, to Ofgem and BEIS, to see if we can go further than the already extensive process for putting people on to a prepayment meter that exists in the supplier licence, including a cross-industry principles approach to what those steps should look like,” she told the committee.

Quizzed on why the trade association itself couldn’t be tougher on its energy supplier members, Ms Pinchbeck pointed to communications breakdowns between customers and firms. She also added that suppliers can’t solve the issues affecting vulnerable consumers on their own. She later said: “We’ve raised concerns about the regulator time and time again,” and questioned the Ofgem’s skills and capacity to deal with the problems.More on

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