Lords demand protection for those facing disconnection

Members of the House of Lords will this week call for more protection for customers who face disconnection.

The call will feature in an amendment to the Energy Bill. So far, over 100 MPs have signed an Early Day Motion that calls for an end to disconnections.

The chief executive of energywatch, Allan Asher, says the combined work of the consumer watchdog, politicians and the media has already prompted some energy companies to rethink their disconnection policy.

He said: “We have already seen a welcome downward trend with 5,000 fewer disconnections over the last few months of 2003 compared with previous years but the challenge remains to build on this and end the archaic practice altogether.”

The Early Day Motion was tabled by the Labour MP for Edinburgh North and Leith, Mark Lazarowicz, who said he would pledge his support until this practice is at an end. He added that he was heartened so many of his parliamentary colleagues had added their support to this campaign.

energywatch has worked with Ofgem to generate a number of initiatives that it hopes companies will implement instead of disconnections. These include:

• Changing company behaviour through a review of individual company disconnection policies and debt management processes

• Working to promote the Priority Service Register – a set of free services designed to help and protect the elderly and other vulnerable groups

• Seeking to extend the current winter moratorium on disconnections for the elderly to 12 months and for it to include all vulnerable consumers

• Interrogating the current system of how companies obtain warrants to disconnect supply

• Encouraging other companies to establish trust schemes similar to that of the EDF Energy Trust for customers with debt problems.

Early Day Motion 207 can be viewed at http://edm.ais.co.uk/weblink/html/motion.html/ref=207.