All energy suppliers in the UK have pledged to end the installation of prepayment meters in the homes of vulnerable customers, after damaging reports on how they were forcibly installed against people’s wishes, the government has said.
The Guardian reported last month that leading energy suppliers including Scottish Power, Ovo and E.ON had stopped reclaiming debts from some prepayment meter customers. The Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, which is being carved into three new departments, said that all energy firms had agreed to stop the practice.
As energy prices have soared, many people are struggling to pay their bills and have fallen into debt.
The department said it had asked all suppliers to set out how they were supporting their customers, how many warrants to forcefully enter people’s homes they had applied for and how they would make up for any wrongdoing.
The energy security secretary, Grant Shapps, found most suppliers were falling short on correcting their ways and said halting forced installation was “only the beginning” of fixing the “abhorrent” practice of forcibly fitting prepayment meters into vulnerable customers’ homes.
He said: “People will have understandably been shocked and appalled at how vulnerable people’s homes have been invaded and prepayment meters installed against their wishes – and suppliers are only at the beginning of correcting this abhorrent behaviour.
“Since those reports were published, I have demanded answers from suppliers, and Ofgem: all suppliers are now halting forced installations, magistrates are no longer signing off warrant applications and Ofgem are upping their game when it comes to their reviews.
“But I am angered by the fact some have so freely moved vulnerable customers on to prepayment meters without a proper plan to take remedial action where there has been a breach of the rules. So, I have only received half the picture as it still doesn’t include enough action to offer redress to those who have been so appallingly treated.”
Previous rules already stated that energy companies should not forcibly install prepayment meters for vulnerable customers. This week, Lord Justice Edis, one of the UK’s most senior judges, ordered magistrates to stop approving warrants to force fit prepayment meters.
The Guardian revealed on Sunday that more than 30,000 warrants had been issued by magistrates since the start of the year, despite concerns raised before Christmas that the courts were approving warrant requests en masse without scrutiny over whether energy customers were vulnerable.
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Shapps said that while several companies had set out redress for affected customers, such as providing compensation, or replacement of a prepayment meter with a credit meter, a number had failed to address the question.
He has written to energy bosses to insist that they revise their practices and improve measures to support vulnerable households, to make sure prepayment meters are only installed as a genuine last resort.
His intervention came after an investigation by the Times revealed that debt agents at Arvato Financial Solutions working for British Gas were ignoring signs that people were vulnerable and fitting prepayment meters under court warrant regardless. Shapps called in the British Gas boss Chris O’Shea and told him to take urgent steps to end the practice, and asked him to outline the role he would personally take to fix these cultural issues.
