David Cameron’s surprise announcement at yesterday’s PMQs that energy companies will be forced to put all their customers on the lowest tariff available was yet another The Thick of It moment from a government that has supplied many. The Department of Energy appeared not to have been briefed on the proposal, with officials struggling to offer any detail on the policy. A spokesman eventually fell back on the line that the coalition was looking “at all options” to help consumers get the lowest tariffs.
For the record, here’s what Cameron said yesterday:
I can announce that we will be legislating so that energy companies have to give the lowest tariff to their customers – something that Labour did not do in 13 years, even though the leader of the Labour Party could have done it because he had the job.
This morning, it’s no clearer where the government stands. There was, perhaps unsurprisingly, no minister available to discuss the subject in the 8:10am slot on the Today programme. It appears probable that Cameron’s pledge was “a slip of the tongue”, as a spokesman from USwitch, the energy comparison website, surmised.
After Cameron’s words in the Commons, a spokesman for the PM said:
We’ve asked energy companies to take action themselves and make clear what the lowest available deals are. The point is, in practice this market is not operating for everyone. A small minority of people are actually switching deals, therefore we need to push some of this responsibility on to the energy companies.
But there’s some difference between pushing “some of this responsibility” on to the energy companies and compelling them to offer customers the best deal available.
In his conference speech, Ed Miliband memorably asked, “Have you ever seen a more incompetent, hopeless, out of touch, u-turning, pledge-breaking, make it up as you go along, back of the envelope, miserable shower than this Prime Minister and this Government?”
Based on the latest farce, the answer is probably “no”.
Update II: In humiliating scenes in the Commons, energy minister John Hayes has just been forced to backtrack on Cameron’s pledge. In response to an Urgent Question from Labour, he said the government would “use the energy bill to get people lower tariffs [emphasis mine] and of course there are different options to be discussed in that process.” Cameron, by contrast, had promised to force companies to give their customers the “lowest” tariff.
Update: Thankfully, the Speaker, John Bercow, also takes the view that the government should be forced to explain itself. He’s granted an Urgent Question on the subject at 10:30am.
Content from our partners
Related
