Once again, it has been a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Betts. I will not speak for long, but I want briefly to cover a few points from the debate.
I thank the Minister for the open and helpful way in which she responded. Such a response is a breath of fresh air in this place. I look forward to working with her to solve these problems for people who are struggling in their homes. I thank the Labour Front-Bench spokesperson, the hon. Member for Southampton, Test (Dr Whitehead), for his comments, which were spot on.
All hon. Members in this debate have shown—perhaps more diplomatically, in the Minister’s case—that Ofgem is not stepping up to the plate. I thank my hon. Friends the Members for Glasgow North (Patrick Grady) and for Kilmarnock and Loudoun (Alan Brown) for their comments, which were helpful in underlining the plight that people face. People’s money is being held captive. It is their money and they should have it back.
May I again be clear about some of the asks? An easy ask is for a clear, printed credit balance at the top of bills so that people can see their credit. That is easy to solve right away so that people can understand their bills. We need plain language billing. A click of a button is not the answer for everybody out there, because not everybody can do it. I have constituents who do not have email, let alone a computer or a smartphone, so that is not the answer for everybody.
The Minister talked about helplines. She is absolutely right that helplines should be available, but the problem is that often they are not. If they are available, they can be quite obstructive and there can be enormous delays getting through. There has to be a better system.
The Minister referred to having the best available information for direct debits. She is right that that is how it should be, but the system is clearly not working. There are many examples of information not being taken into account.
The debate has been helpful in raising the issue, and hon. Members’ contributions have been welcome. I hope we can go forward, working together as a group to ensure that we solve the problem and make it clear to people that the money that is being held by companies does not belong to those companies. I say to every consumer, “Check this out, because it is your money.”
Question put and agreed to.
Resolved,
That this House has considered regulation of customer credit retained by energy suppliers.
10.46 am
Sitting suspended.