Chamber and committees

To ask the Scottish Government whether it will provide an update on whether adult disability day centres are able to operate at pre-pandemic levels. (S6O-01028)

Thank you. Does Paul White want to add anything?

We have spoken this morning about the role of local authorities in the delivery of not only a net zero transport system but consistency across the board.

What role can regional transport partnerships play in the delivery of net zero? Do the witnesses feel that that role might differ based on the model of RTP, and could any problems arise from that, given different responsibilities, approaches or, perhaps, inconsistencies?

Thank you.

Scottish Power’s parent company, Iberdrola, has announced that it forecasts a net profit for 2022 of somewhere between €4 billion and €4.2 billion. Taking those profits into consideration, how can Scottish Power justify increasing household utility bills by 54 per cent, in line with the increase in the energy cap? I put that to Keith Anderson.

Thank you for your thorough response.

Frazer Scott said at the beginning that it is not going to be a choice between heating or eating; it is just going to be a fact that people have no money. We all have real concerns about how that will impact people’s everyday lives.

We have people on prepayment meters; if you have no money, you have no money to put into a prepayment meter. I would like to see more advice coming from suppliers on the differences between debit meters and prepayment meters. Often, information from suppliers is extremely complex. Prepayment meters do not work for everyone and there can be real complications when people try to change from a prepayment meter to a debit meter; there can be credit checks. Would you like to see more from suppliers to assist people who will really struggle? We are expecting people to get into debt because of this; perhaps suppliers could be working with people and giving people a little bit more leeway over the coming months, which will be extremely hard.

To follow up on your first point, do you feel that energy suppliers are genuinely trying to keep costs down and that, without continued increases in the price cap, private energy firms would struggle? Are those increases necessary, when energy firms are still achieving high profits?

Good morning to the panel. Given the large number of failures in the UK energy market despite the significant increase in energy bills, is Ofgem’s price cap fit for purpose? Will Ofgem’s proposals to boost resilience in the energy sector—for example, the proposals on financial stress testing for suppliers and on increasing the number of times a year that the price cap can be adjusted—have a material impact on the market?

I put that to Dan Alchin first.

Good morning. A lot of my questions have already been answered, so I will try to keep this short.

Could the Scottish Government implement any additional policy solutions that could mitigate the worst impact of the increase—and the expected further increase—in the price cap, or are there any actions that the UK Government could take to assist in the crisis, such as increasing benefits, which was mentioned earlier? Could the UK Government go further in its dealings with Ofgem, for example by limiting the amount by which the cap could increase?

Alastair Wilcox touched on some of those points previously, so I ask Chris Birt to answer.