A series of parliamentary questions tabled by MPs who support the Make the Connection campaign has highlighted numerous areas of the energy market where small businesses are at a disadvantage.

Malcolm Wicks MP – the Department for Trade and Industry minister given the task of answering the questions – had to admit that small businesses do not receive as much protection in the energy market as they do in other markets; have no protection from unscrupulous selling tactics, no codes of practice for quality billing and no effective and binding means of resolving difficult complaints without going to court.

Small businesses need action – if the industry is unable to come up with a range of self-regulatory tools that will protect small business consumers from the worst excesses of the market then Ofgem should step in and consider more formal regulation.

Government plans for an overhaul of consumer representation also provide an opportunity to make business suppliers adhere to certain standards for handling complaints and to create ombudsman schemes to examine complaints from small business consumers, with the power to enforce binding solutions on energy suppliers.  Without these the Government will in fact be reducing the already minuscule levels of protection for small businesses.