Labour will revoke energy companies’ licences if they breach agreed conditions, says Flint

Today Caroline Flint MP, Shadow Energy and Climate Change Secretary, will lay out the difference between Labour’s and the Conservatives approach to energy.

As part of Labour’s summer campaign, Flint is set to give a speech in which she will reveal new figures that show since 2010 household energy bills have risen four times as fast as wages and twice as fast as inflation.

She will say that the Government has not been effective in ensuring that energy companies are held to account. Flint will explain that since 2001 Ofgem have issued  30 fines, totalling over £87 million, but despite this, energy companies have continued to mistreat their customers.

In light of this, Flint will announce that the next Labour Government would create a new regulatory body and give them the powers to revoke energy companies’ licences, if they repeatedly breach their licence conditions. The regulator will also create an yearly ‘scorecard’ for energy suppliers – this will lay out how each company is performing and highlight any areas where they may be failing to meet standards.

She will say that with Labour’s current policy on energy, there’s a clear choice to be made at the general election:

“These figures lay bare the full scale of the cost-of-living crisis and David Cameron’s failure to tackle rip-off energy bills. On David Cameron’s watch, energy bills in Britain have risen twice as fast as inflation, four times faster than wages and faster than almost any other country in the developed world. Households cannot afford another five years of this.

“At the next election there will be a real choice between another five years of rocketing energy bills, rip-off tactics and poor customer service under the Tories – or Labour’s plans to freeze energy bills until 2017, saving the average household £120, and reform the energy market for the future.”