Energy companies to be forced to put customers on cheapest tariff
Well it looks as if my personal campaign against the stoking up of rural fuel poverty by privatised energy pseudo monopolies is gaining traction with Government (ironic)! Lets see how successful Government is going to be at moving the issues on.
This article explains: “The energy secretary, Ed Davey, has unveiled more details of plans to make utility companies automatically switch people to the cheapest tariffs for their needs, in a radical simplification of the energy market. All energy companies will have to slash the confusing thicket of competing tariffs and reduce them to four, and they will be required to put consumers on the lowest one available to them.
Under the plans there will be two “core tariffs” that all companies will offer while they will compete for customers modifying the remaining two. Discounts will remain for those who pay by direct debit, online or buy into duel fuel deals. The scheme could be in force by 2014 but its small print will be studied by Labour MPs to see if it matches David Cameron’s original promise.
Details emerged in a consultation document that set out an “ambition that by summer 2014, all customers will have been placed on the cheapest price available from their supplier for the tariff type of their choice”. In the chief measure, the Department of Energy, in a consultation paper, states: “Where customers on a ‘dead’ legacy deal [one which is no longer offered] are paying a higher price than their supplier’s cheapest standard tariff, they will be switched to the cheaper rate.”