Early election debate.
A proposal to cap the energy bills of households on standard variable tariffs has caused an early campaign kerfuffle.
Last year the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) said customers were being overcharged by an astonishing £1.4 billion a year.
The current debate is about whether a cap on prices would be counter-productive.
The CMA, the industry and some consumer groups think it would stop competition growing and lead to even higher prices. They say more should be done to make the market work better.
However the CMA was divided on the issue, as the BBC points out today. And two recent Citizens Advice blogs* show that a well-thought-out price intervention could work. A cap could reduce customer bills significantly without reducing the longer-term benefits of competition.
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* Power to the people: cutting energy prices Richard Hall, Citizens Advice, March 2013. How do you solve a problem like energy prices? James Plunkett, Director of Policy and Advocacy, Citizens Advice, October 2016.