Davey 'determined' to deal with gas price fixing
The Government is under pressure to take action after allegations of price fixing in both the electricity and gas wholesale markets.
Ed Davey earlier told MPs of his "absolute determination” to tackle any price fixing, and pledged to give extra powers to regulators to deal with any such abuse if necessary.
The Energy Secretary made a statement to the Commons today following allegations from by whistleblower who claimed to show that gas traders were seeking to rig the price of wholesale gas prices.
The whistleblower, who worked for price reporting agency ICIS Heren, told The Guardian how traders submitted erroneous bids and offers to skew the end-of-day price of a key gas contract.
And this evening the scandal spread to the electricity market, with a former energy trader telling ITV News “most traders know that this [fixing] is going on”.
Shadow Energy Secretary Caroline Flint described the allegations as “deeply worrying”, and said they underlined the need to reform the energy market as a whole.
Earlier today, the Prime Minister's Official Spokesman said today: "If there has been manipulation of the energy market then action needs to be taken very quickly... If there has been wrongdoing, the regulator should come down on those people very hard."