Ms Karen Trant:

The Government has not announced anything on that. We would certainly monitor disconnections and the arrears to see if there is a pattern there. If something is needed for gas customers, then yes, absolutely. We certainly do not want any disconnections or gas customers running into difficulty. Again our message to people is to engage with their supplier and make sure their supplier is aware of their circumstances. It should be a customer-led rather than a supplier-led approach in dealing with the customer, which has happened in the past.

The issue around Travellers and halting sites was something that came up during the last round of credits, and that was because some of the halting sites might be run by the local authority and therefore the local authority is actually the customer and is in control of the credit. My understanding is that there will be a mechanism to reach out to those halting sites. It is not something the networks can see but it is definitely something we will be able to approach. We sit on the electricity security supply emergency groups and this is something that has come up. We are engaging with the NGOs and the Department of the Environment, Climate and Communications is also looking at this to ensure the credits reach the particular cohort of vulnerable customers who could be missed.