The House of Commons’ Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy Committee released a report on its third 2022-2023 session regarding Energy pricing and the future of the energy market. The report concluded: “A systemic failure in regulation left the energy supply market, and ultimately taxpayers, more exposed when the global wholesale energy crisis began.”

The report highlights that crisis is far from over and more action must be taken as further price increases are expected making “the Government’s May 2022 support package insufficient”.

In conclusion, the committee said: “With the worst yet to come, the consequences of the energy price crisis and wider cost-of-living crisis on customers, and energy suppliers, is still to be seen. The extent of these challenges cannot be dealt with by BEIS or Ofgem alone.”

The committee added: “We recommend that the Government urgently sets up a cross-departmental taskforce, like the Brexit taskforce, to respond to the energy price crisis and wider cost-of-living. This taskforce should meet regularly to support Ofgem and other arms of the Government to do the work necessary to provide the best possible outcomes for consumers and stabilise the energy supply market.”

In response to the report, an Ofgem spokesperson commented: “We welcome the Committee’s scrutiny of energy market regulation following the once-in-a-generation global energy price shock.

“While the unprecedented rise in global gas prices would have resulted in market exits under almost any regulatory system, we have been clear and transparent about the fact that suppliers and Ofgem’s previous financial resilience regime were not robust enough. This contributed to some of the supplier failures since August 2021.

“No regulator can, or should, guarantee companies will not fail in a competitive market but we are working hard to reform the entire market, as well as closely scrutinising and holding individual energy suppliers to account, to further strengthen the regulatory regime.

“We’re pleased the committee has recognised the major scale and reach of these reforms which are already driving positive change across the market on behalf of customers.

“We commit to working closely with the committee, government and industry to make sure the balance of trade-offs across the board are carefully considered so that customers are prioritised throughout the current crisis and they have access to the government support they’re entitled to.

“We are also working with all parts of government and industry on the long-term solution to the energy crisis by moving us away from imports of expensive gas towards a more secure, reliable, home-grown energy system.”