Energy firms: sending in the bailiffs

If you want a glimpse of the “hidden human cost of this country’s deeply dysfunctional energy market”, said The Times, consider the “abhorrent” practices of British Gas’s debt collectors. “At a time when energy firms are enjoying bumper profits”, bailiffs hired by the British Gas have been forcing their way into people’s homes and installing pay-as-you-go meters with expensive tariffs – so that if a struggling customer can’t afford to pay, they get no power. Those classed as vulnerable are not meant to be forced onto such meters. But a Times undercover investigation into the bailiffs of Arvato Financial Solutions, a debt-collection firm used by British Gas, found that this rule was often being ignored. They fitted meters in the home of a single father of three young children; of a mother with a four-week-old baby; and of a disabled woman who woke up to find that two bailiffs had broken into her house. Such people “are even charged for the indignity” of having their homes visited by bailiffs, “their locks picked, and meters installed by force”.

British Gas aren’t the only ones, said Marina Hyde in The Guardian. Several other energy companies have also been force-fitting the meters, “shockingly often in the case of disabled customers who rely on electrically operated equipment to manage their lives”. At a time when vulnerable households are struggling even to feed their children, “this is simply inhumane”. Since the Times report was published, British Gas has suspended the practice, said The Observer. The regulator Ofgem has launched an investigation, and courts in England and Wales have been ordered to stop issuing the warrants that allow firms to force-fit the meters. But sadly, this issue is only “the sharp end” of a deeper problem: that after a decade of benefit cuts, many households have been pushed into fuel poverty. It reflects, too, what is known as the “poverty premium”; “the grim reality that people living on the edge often end up paying some of the highest prices for essential services”.

“If we want a fairer energy system, we need to be radical,” said Christine Farnish in The Times. The idea of a social tariff, offering lower rates to vulnerable customers, is gaining traction. But these are complex to administer, and hard to target at the right people. Far simpler and better would be to set an affordable basic tariff for all customers “for the first block of energy used”; anything more would be charged at market rates. Low-income households, which tend to use less energy, would be the main beneficiaries. But “everyone would be incentivised to be economical with energy” – a useful step as the country attempts to sharply reduce its emissions.