My hon. Friend is absolutely right. All the new independent suppliers who are coming into the market and taking on the big six companies created under Labour do not like the policy, because they know it would undermine competition, put them out of business and be bad for consumers. Although we have debated many times the price-freeze intervention proposed by the right hon. Member for Don Valley, she still has not convinced anyone. We have shown time and again that it is just a damaging con.
The second, and latest, price control is proposed legislation to force energy companies to pass on variations in the wholesale markets more rapidly, which is sort of the exact opposite of a price freeze. Rather than keeping prices the same, this price regulation seems to want them to change more frequently and more rapidly, mirroring the wholesale markets.
That is interesting, because if we look at what has happened recently, we will see that wholesale prices can go up and down on a daily basis. A fortnight ago, wholesale prices were falling: day-ahead electricity prices fell by 7% and the natural gas spot price fell by 12%. Last week, however, the day-ahead electricity price went up four days out of five, ending up at almost 6% by the end of the week, and the natural gas spot price was up 10% by the end of the week. In other words, the spot prices on the wholesale markets go up and down—they are very volatile and fluctuate all the time.
The price regulation proposed by the right hon. Lady is a rollercoaster approach to energy price freezes. I call it Labour’s bungee-jumping approach to energy prices, and one would be hard pressed to think of a more incoherent and inconsistent approach. It is a populist, opportunist, soundbite approach to energy policy that would not just hit investment but leave consumers worse off. In other words, yet another con.