Select committee: Public Accounts Committee
Conclusion 25
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 described energy security and the security of supply as its highest priority. We asked the Department what it thought about concerns, set out in a document published by Net Zero Watch called “Blackout Risk in the GB Grid”, that events such as certain weather conditions, or interruption to a few power stations, led to a situation in early January where the level of supply in the grid to meet energy demand fell to what it described as “worryingly low levels”; with a risk of “cutting off certain areas of electricity or even a blackout”.72 Indeed, on 8 January 2025, the National Energy Systems Operator (NESO) issued to energy providers an energy margin notice, one of a range of tools it uses to make sure there is a healthy margin between the demand for energy and the available supply.73 It cost NESO £21 million to achieve this (a similar intervention on 14 January 2022 cost £25 million).74 The Department assured us this was a “normal part” of the 66 Q 11; C&AG’s Report, para 4.14 67 Q 66 68 Q 54 69 C&AG’s Report, para 4.12 70 Q 9 71 Qq 9, 71 72 Q 5 73 Qq 5, 6, 8 74 National Energy Systems Operator, What happened with margins on 8 January?, 14 January 2025 15 system’s operation. It explained that such notices are “routine signals to the market about supply needing to be available”.75 It also told us that it “did not agree with the analysis” in the document from which we drew our concerns.76 NESO acknowledged, however, that there had been some speculation about the seriousness of the situation. In response, it published an article setting out the actions it took and shared the publicly available data that informed its actions.77
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".