Cameron energy price row deepens

18 October 2012 Last updated at 07:21 ET

Energy Minister John Hayes: "We will be bringing forward legislation to make sure customers get the best deal"

The government has yet to confirm a pledge by Prime Minister David Cameron that energy firms will be forced to move customers to their lowest tariffs.

Mr Cameron made the surprise announcement on Wednesday at prime minister's questions.

But a minister summoned to the Commons to explain what the PM meant said the details had still to be worked out.

John Hayes vowed to help consumers "get the best deal" - but Labour accused the government of being in "chaos".

Shadow energy secretary Caroline Flint said it had been a "shambolic mismanagement of energy policy" in what was "probably the quickest U-turn in British history".

Mr Hayes told MPs the Energy Bill, which the government plans to publish next month, will reform the energy market and increase competition.

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Analysis

Confused?

Well, you've every right to be.

The government say they want to introduce legislation to help consumers with their fuel bills. That much is clear.

What is a good deal less clear is if they plan - as the prime minister told MPs on Wednesday - to make companies pass on the lowest tariffs.

In other words, to use legislation to force firms to give customers the best deals available.

Today ministers have carefully refrained from repeating Mr Cameron's tough message.

Indeed Energy Minister John Hayes said ministers would evaluate existing voluntary agreements "to see if legislation is needed."

This confusion has prompted Opposition accusations of another omnishambles - or as some on Twitter have begun to refer to it "a combi-shambles".

And at a time when the government is seeking to re-assert its credentials for competence - in the wake of the West Coast Rail upset - it's a row Mr Cameron could well have done without.

He said the government needed a "robust" relationship with the six big energy firms and would take the "necessary steps to ensure people get the best possible deal".

A number of options were being considered, he confirmed, including an evaluation of whether voluntary agreements made by the energy companies in April should be "made binding" through legislation.

Under this voluntary arrangement the six main energy providers agreed to contact customers once a year to tell them what the best tariff is for them, and how to get it and to contact customers coming to the end of a fixed-term contract with the same advice.

"This is a complicated area and we will discuss with the industry, consumer groups and the regulator in order to work through the detail," Mr Hayes said.

The BBC's chief political correspondent Norman Smith said Mr Hayes' statement shed little new light on what the government was planning to do: "It seems very far from confirmed that the government will legislate to get customers on the lowest tariff."

He said Downing Street was insisting new laws promised by Mr Cameron would come into force but the details "remain elusive".

Speaking to the BBC, Energy Secretary Ed Davey confirmed he was working on a plan to require energy companies to inform customers of the lowest tariffs available, but did not mention the prime minister's more radical proposal to force them to charge the lowest tariff.

"I've been working with the deputy prime minister and others, working with the energy companies, to try to drive more competition, to get them to agree that they will tell their customers what are the best available tariffs, so customers can save money," he said.

At Prime Minister's Questions on Wednesday, Mr Cameron said: "I can announce... that we will be legislating so that energy companies have to give the lowest tariff to their customers, something that Labour didn't do in 13 years, even though the leader of the Labour Party could have done because he had the job."

However, the Department of Energy and Climate Change later played down suggestions that companies would be forced to move customers onto cheaper deals.

The main energy firms said they knew nothing of the plan or of the government's intention to put it into legislation.

Shadow energy secretary Caroline Flint said Mr Cameron had thrown energy policy into "confusion", causing "chaos" in the energy industry.

She said: "We all misspeak from time to time and the prime minister was under a lot of pressure yesterday.

"But for the government to spend a day pretending to have a policy they have no intention of implementing is no way to run the country."

Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-19986929#sa-ns_mchannel=rss&ns_source=PublicRSS20-sa

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