UK energy companies forcibly installed 94,000 prepayment meters using warrants in 2022, with Scottish Power and British Gas ordering the most, according to government data.
The government has been keen to distance itself from the practice of forcible installations of prepayment meters, which are generally used by energy companies for customers who have missed payments in the past.
Forcible installations have come under particular scrutiny during the energy crisis triggered by the removal of coronavirus pandemic restrictions and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, which raised prices significantly and forced 2m English households into fuel poverty in 2022.
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The government in February agreed with suppliers to halt forced installations, amid concerns that rules to protect vulnerable households were being ignored. The head of the energy regulator for Great Britain, Ofgem, this month told MPs a ban on forced installations would remain until a code of practice has been established.
Three companies were responsible for 70% of all forced installations, the government said, describing them as “the most overzealous suppliers”. They were Scottish Power, which is owned by Spain’s Iberdrola; British Gas, part of the FTSE 100 firm Centrica; and Ovo, which took over SSE’s home energy business in 2019.
Scottish Power was “the worst offender when taking into account their customer base” with 24,300 installations, the government said. That represented more than 500 installations per 100,000 meter points.
The Department for Energy Security and Net Zero published the data on its website under a banner reading “Not. Good. Enough”, and the energy secretary, Grant Shapps, said the figures were “horrifying” in a statement.
Gillian Cooper, the head of energy policy at Citizens Advice, said: “The stress, anxiety and hardship often caused by forced prepayment meter installations cannot be overestimated. These figures are more evidence of the troubling scale of the problem.
“Right now there is an extended ban on prepayment installations in place, but Ofgem has to make sure this isn’t lifted without stronger protections in place.”
Cooper said suppliers should also take action to review all customers on prepayment meters to ensure it was a safe option for them.
The number of forced installations peaked at 112,000 in 2013, but fell after Ofgem sought to curtail them following more than 1m installations from 2007 to 2019. However, before the pandemic installations had fallen to 84,400 in 2017, 71,000 in 2018 and 67,000 in 2019.
The energy department also revealed on Monday that 2.1m vouchers had not yet been claimed under the government’s energy bills support scheme. The scheme, first announced by Rishi Sunak when he was chancellor in February 2022, offered £400 to every household in the UK. The support was applied automatically for most customers, but users of non-smart prepayment meters needed to receive vouchers, often by post, and manually claim the support.
Many people have been dogged by problems in receiving the support, with the final vouchers for March due to expire 90 days later. The 2.1m unclaimed vouchers equates to about £140m that has not reached its intended recipients, probably including some of the UK’s most vulnerable households.
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Scottish Power, Ovo and British Gas all have more than 400,000 unclaimed vouchers, the government said.
Shapps said: “Today’s figures give a clear and horrifying picture of just how widespread the forced installation of prepayment meters had become, with last year seeing an average of over 7,500 force-fitted a month.
“Prepayment meters are right for some people, so I do not want to ban them outright, but I do have concerns that companies have not been treating their customers fairly, over an already difficult winter during which the government has tried to help families by paying around half the energy bill of the average household.”
Centrica declined to comment. Scottish Power and Ovo were approached for comment.
An estimated 2.5 million households, or 8.8% of the total, missed or defaulted on a utility bill or a housing, loan or credit card payment in March, according to the latest data from consumer body Which?.
That was up on the 8.2% and 8.1% recorded in January and February respectively – prompting Which? to claim that missed payments were running at “alarmingly high” levels.
January was typically the month where the highest number of households tended to miss or default on essential bills and costs, Which? said.
