Select committee: Public Accounts Committee
Conclusion 14
19th Report - Energy Bills Support
Published 28 Mar 2025
Addressed to HM Treasury
Public Accounts Committee Energy Bills Support All items in this report Report on parliament.uk ↗ Inquiry on parliament.uk ↗
Conclusion (the committee's words)
The Department acknowledged that it knew less about the non–domestic sector than the domestic sector at the time of the interventions and that this “threw up a number of issues and complexities”.33 It told us that targeting the non–domestic sector was a challenge because of “level of data to allow us to categorise non–domestic suppliers into particular groups”. Although it used standard classifications of industry to understand which sectors 24 Q 12 25 Q 30 26 Q 13 27 EBS0001; EBS0008 28 Qq 13, 17 29 Q 13 30 Q 13 31 Q 31 32 EBS0008 33 Q 46 10 were particularly exposed to high energy costs, and which were more energy–intensive, the Department said there were “limitations around that data in the way it groups different sets of customers”.34 The Department’s poor understanding of the non–domestic sector led to it providing identical support for all businesses.35 Small businesses, however, do not have the buying power of some of the larger non–domestic customers to get good deals, and have a variety of contracts and arrangements.36 Some small businesses with high energy usage such as hospitality may have also missed out on additional support that they needed before the government began to target businesses deemed to be energy and trade intensive in March 2024.37 The Department said that it would want to target a future scheme more precisely using its “understanding of the different exposure that different parts of the sector had” to high energy prices.38 Identifying consumers most in need
From: Public Accounts Committee, 19th Report - Energy Bills Support (HC 511), 28 March 2025
Government response
Latest Treasury Minutes progress report to the Committee of Public Accounts on the Nineteenth Report of Session 2024-26
The government responded to the whole report on 4 June 2026.
Treasury minutes: Government response to the Committee of Public Accounts on the Nineteenth report from Session 2024-26
Published 18 September 2025.
Treasury minutes: Government response to the Committee of Public Accounts on the Nineteenth report from Session 2024-25
Published 10 July 2025.
Summary written by Accountability Index from the government's response. It is not the government's own words.The government states that it agrees with the Committee's recommendations on lessons learned, targeted support, vulnerable consumers, electricity bills and energy supply, and disagrees with the recommendation on supplier debt advice data.
- On lessons from the evaluations, the government agrees and says that "within one month of publication" the department will write to the Committee, with evaluations to be published by Q3 2025 (target date October 2025).
- On targeting support, the government agrees (target September 2025) and says it is "taking the opportunity to review options for better targeting of future bill support" beyond March 2026, while describing data sharing as "complex matters".
- On supplier debt advice data, the government disagrees. It proposes that Ofgem, as market regulator, is "better suited than DESNZ" to collect information, and says the review of Ofgem aims to publish its outcomes in autumn 2025.
- On rebalancing electricity and gas costs, the government agrees (target July 2025) and says it "will set out proposals for rebalancing domestic energy bills in due course". It adds that it is operating in a "difficult fiscal environment".