MSE News: Ed Davey tackles misbehaving firms, faster switching and answers questions

Smiley_Dan

Thanks for posting his replies.

Q) MSE user Paul Smith: Why are insulation grants for walls only available for those insulating 51% or more of the walls?

A)ED: That rule in the GDHIF has been there for a good reason. If we are given tax payers' money we want to make sure they are doing as many walls as possible. Retro-fitting Britain's leaky houses – we don't want to do it wall by wall. We want to go for it and the 51% rule in the GDHIF was there for that purpose.

Nonsense. If you wanted to "go for it" you'd be subsidising EWI and air tightening for everyone, not just "Dave's Mates" in their character solid wall properties.

Furthermore you'd be allocating more money than the pittance out there.

undercover_peon

Whoa firstly let me say I am astounded to find a minister who seems to have half a clue what he is talking about.

That said I take issue with some of the things he said. I think 24 hour switching is a terrible idea and is a recipe for slamming. I would love to be proved wrong on this though.

A further point is that I like the 14 day cooling off period and the fact customers could eek out quite a long period on the previous rates under the old system. Changes would further erode this making some customers worse off.
The mainquestion I think he fudged was

"Do you have concerns about Ofgem's ability to regulate effectively? "

For me Ofgem is part of the problem. Yes it has levied several large fines but these to me are reactions to underlying problems they should have spotted and dealt with far sooner. Gas sculpting they made a terrible job of, they made some changes to rules regarding tariffs which led to NPower INCREASING the costs of some historic tariffs based on their interpretation of the ruling.

It seemed to take an age for them to get onto NPower's myriad of billing issues despite there being ample evidence in a public forum (here!).

If standing charges being remove would make customers worse off then what is the rationale for keeping Ofgem when, in so many other ways, customers have been made worse off by their actions (or lack of action!)?

Frankly it isn't good enough for Ofgem to say things like this isn't what we intended when we brought in/amended that license condition it is their job to make sure the rules say and mean EXACTLY what they intended. Otherwise what the heck are they for???

There was one promise made based on the Lib Dems winning the election. I had a little chuckle at that, he could just as easily promise everyone in the land a solid gold house.

Oh and lastly smart meters. I guess in theory they are ok but this annoying adverts about them being installed at no additional cost really irk me. We as customers ARE paying for it, the additional costs are included in our bills whether or not we want one.

I am quite happy to read my meter and can work out roughly what it is. Can I tell them where to put their smart meter?

csense1

Great to grill Ed Davey but Ofgem is ineffective and not fit for purpose for consumer issues such as appalling customer service. I switched to OVO through MSE but Scottish Power are still sending me electricity bills even though they correctly closed the Gas a/c and have said in email they are closing the electricity account. Csense1 North Yorkshire