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Energy Prices

I am most grateful, and I hope that as part of that inquiry the Committee will examine the weighty report that the OFT has provided, as well as specific submissions from individuals and organisations that, like the previous three speakers, can give specific examples of price fixing or the appearance of price fixing. That is in the context of DCC, the company that I am particularly concerned about and have to deal with, recording operating profits of approximately 19.9% on an ongoing basis. I find that figure hard to square with the one given by the managing director, who when questioned in The Sunday Times said that the operating profit was only 2%—but I have taken my figure from the published accounts. In Hexham five independents operate—WCF, Par Petroleum, Wallace Oils, GB Fuels Ltd and Rix Petroleum. I urge individual Members to draw to their constituents' attention by every possible means, as I do for each and every constituent who is faced by heating oil problems, which independents operate in the constituency, so that they are in a better position to get a fair price. I want to trumpet the great success of the way in which certain communities, such as Tarset, Allendale and Humshaugh, have come together and produced their own price comparison sites. For example, there is Humshaugh village shop, which is run as a co-operative. It was set up by the local community and is financed and run by the 60 people of Humshaugh. Every Monday they publish the prices available from all the genuinely independent local heating oil suppliers. Individuals can either go to the shop's website or—this addresses the point that was raised about people who do not have internet access—see the prices in the village shop throughout the week. Everybody in the village can then assess who is providing oil locally. Such ideas need to be taken forward. I welcome the fact that the OFT report indicates that there are problems. However, I would ask the OFT to go further, not least because the report shows that when a company is one of a multitude owned by a larger company, it is obliged to give people who telephone it specific information about who its ultimate owner is. That needs to be monitored, because it is not necessarily taking place. My researcher phoned one of those only yesterday and was not given that information, as should have happened according to the OFT report. I urge the various Committees involved to examine that point. There is also tremendous difficulty for those who wish to compare prices themselves, because heating companies have no obligation to tell people the price that they are offering. Unless people ask to buy, they are not necessarily given the price. With respect, the Government can do something about that, and I invite them to sit down with individual suppliers, particularly the larger suppliers, and make that point very clear to them. If people ring up and ask for a price, they should be told it rather than the company withholding it.