Ofgem has admitted that it has not seen the details which underpin Labour’s claim that British households have been overcharged by £3.8 billion over the last four years.
Labour claims to have uncovered figures which show that the ‘Big Six’ energy companies have been deliberately inflating prices to boost their profits or, that the companies have been paying over the odds for wholesale electricity.
Responding to Labour’s allegation, a spokesperson for Ofgem said that it “had not seen the details of the Labour Party’s analysis”. However, the regulator claims that it “regularly looks at the relationship between wholesale and retail prices and [its] own analysis of the evidence does not support this allegation”.
Tom Greatrex MP, Labour’s shadow energy minister labeled the energy regulator’s response as “just not good enough”. He asserted that Ofgem should know whether or not consumers are being overcharged as a key aspect of the regulator’s job.
Greatrex added: “There is now clear evidence which suggests that all the big energy companies have been buying electricity at above the market price. Today’s revelations show why we need a tough new regulator and reforms to the energy market to stop these firms from overcharging. The only way to get proper transparency in the energy market is to stop energy companies from selling power to themselves and make them do all their trades in a proper open market, as Labour has proposed.”
The allegations came on the day that Ofgem introduced new measures which aim to ban suppliers from complex tariffs, narrowing the choice to just four tariffs for gas and four for electricity.