ENERGY firms face further scrutiny about their treatment of vulnerable customers in the wake of the pre-payment meter scandal.
It comes as magistrates were yesterday ordered to stop approving warrants for pre-pay meters in England and Wales.
ReutersMagistrates have been ordered to stop approving warrants to fit pre-payment meters amid cost-of-living crisis[/caption]
The Government has given energy firms until today to report back on what action they will take and compensation they will give victims of forced installations.
An investigation by The Times last week found that debt agency workers for British Gas were breaking into vulnerable customers’ homes to fit meters.
Being switched on to pre-payment meters means immediately facing higher energy costs, extra installation charges, and a struggle to pay off the debt of existing bills.
Last year, courts approved more than 1,000 warrants a day for energy firms to force-fit meters.
Magistrates can approve hundreds at a time in bulk within 15 minutes.
Ministry of Justice figures showed 32,790 warrants were issued in January alone.
Since the revelations, Ofgem has already told companies to suspend installing their meters.
And one of the country’s most senior judges said that magistrates had to “act proportionately and with regard to the human rights of the people affected, [in] particular any people with vulnerability”.
Lord Justice Edis said that no further warrant applications for installing energy meters should be filed until further notice.
The revelations come as energy producers such as Shell, BP and British Gas owner Centrica are making record-breaking profits from soaring oil and gas prices.
Households are falling behind on bills as rocketing energy costs are driving the cost-of-living crisis.
Energy giants have repeatedly argued that they have looked after customers with hardship funds.
However, the reality has been very different for the most vulnerable members of society, including those with disabilities who have returned home to find meters installed without their knowledge.
The Business Select Committee will meet today to discuss allegations about energy firms’ behaviour.
WHAT’S OFGEM’S JOB?
HOW can energy regulator Ofgem believe it is fit for purpose after it was in the dark about the scandal of forced pre-payment meter installations?
Before The Times’s revelations, Ofgem boss Jonathan Brealey resisted the idea the watchdog should be tougher.
He told MPs last week it was the “day job of energy bosses to make sure they are looking after their customers”. So what’s Ofgem’s job?
Business Secretary Grant Shapps has said regulators were “having the wool pulled over their eyes” by the energy firms.
Damningly, Ofgem allowed firms to mark their own homework on looking after the most vulnerable.
As ever it will be the poorest who end up paying the price.
Unilever Magnum force for Russia
Unilever has boosted the economy in Russia by £432million in the past year
UNILEVER’S decision to keep selling ice cream in Russia has boosted the Russian economy by £432million in the past year.
This could fund Putin’s war with a new tank every day, a Sukhoi Su-25 fighter jet every week or a 122mm shell every minute, the Moral Rating Agency says.
Unilever continues to sell Dove soap and Cornetto and Magnum ice creams through its Inmarko unit in Russia. The firm will reveal financial results this Thursday.
Mark Dixon, founder of the MRA, said: “A Cornetto ice cream seems innocuous until you realise millions sold each day can quickly pay for the launch of a missile.”
Outgoing Unilever boss Alan Jope has said it stayed in Russia to look after its 3,500 employees there.
PENSION CHAOS
THE mini-budget meltdown last autumn was made even worse because of risky borrowing by pension funds, a House of Lords Committee has said.
The sharp rise in interest rates and slump in government bonds forced funds to dump billions of pounds of assets to stay afloat.
The chaos led the Bank of England to intervene in buying government bonds.
The House of Lords said the Pensions Regulator required “greater control and oversight” over borrowing.
RATE ‘WILL LIFT AGAIN’ WARNING
INTEREST rates remain likely to rise again according to a Bank of England rate setter.
Just days after the Bank hiked rates by another 0.5 per cent to 4 per cent Catherine Mann yesterday gave a speech saying the next interest rate move was “more likely to be another hike than a cut or hold”.
AFPCatherine Mann said the next interest rate move was ‘more likely to be another hike’[/caption]
Traders had started to bet that Britain was coming towards the end of rate rises as inflation was falling and central banks in the US and Europe were also slowing the pace of increases.
The market reckons interest rates will peak at 4.25 per cent.
That is a big jump from the last decade of very low interest rates but lower than earlier fears they would keep soaring to 6 per cent.
Ms Mann said that the Bank needed to “stay the course” on raising rates to bring the rate of price increases back down to its 2 per cent inflation target.
GOING DIGITAL
THE Bank of England is to introduce a “digital pound” which will work alongside cash and online payments.
Nicknamed Britcoin, it will be launched in the second part of this decade as a way of preparing for the declining use of cash.
Users of the coin will be protected by the Bank of England, so a digital £10 will be the same as £10 in cash.
Chancellor Jeremy Hunt said: “A digital pound could be a new way to pay that’s trusted, accessible and easy to use.”
SHOPS HIT BY SLUMP
DESPITE the high street’s December boom, retailers suffered the January blues.
UK retail sales rose by 4.2 per cent in January, but this was below the three month average of 5.2 per cent, according to the British Retail Consortium.
The BRC revealed sales volumes have almost halved in comparison to December.
Their chief executive said: “Rises in bills and mortgages mean discretionary spending will remain weak.”
SHARES
BARCLAYS down 2.18 to 186.46
BP up 0.89 to 486.94
CENTRICA up 0.66 to 95.92
HSBC down 2.20 to 594.50
LLOYDS down 0.5 to 52.83
M&S down 158.96 to 4.04
NATWEST down 6 to 300.20
ROYAL MAIL down 2.40 to 234.7
SAINSBURY’S down 0.90 to 266.6
SHELL down 15.50 to 2,398.50
TESCOup 0.10 to 246.50