Member Article

Scottish Power must end rollover contracts, as E.ON ends this unfair practice

With five of the big six energy suppliers now committed to banning automatic rollover contracts for small businesses, the Federation of Small Businesses (FSB) is now calling on Scottish Power to join British Gas, npower, EDF, SSE and E.ON to end this unfair practice.

Ted Salmon, North East Regional Chairman, Federation of Small Businesses, said: “The Federation of Small Businesses (FSB) is pleased that another energy supplier has decided to end automatic contract rollovers for small businesses and calls on Scottish Power, as the one remaining supplier not to end this practice, to do so.

“The FSB has been working with the Prime Minister’s energy group to highlight this issue and we are pleased that E.ON has joined the other four suppliers and taken action as a result.

“Innovative ‘evergreen’ style tariffs should mean that small firms are not unfairly penalised for being out of contract and gives the flexibility to search the market for the best deal. The move to a 30 day contract renewal window is also to be welcomed as too many small businesses get caught out by differing and overly complicated contract renewal and termination procedures.

“The FSB is now calling for the other energy suppliers to follow suit and move to a 30 day window so that small businesses know where they stand no matter which supplier they are with. We also want to see all of the big six energy companies agree to work together to publish meaningfully comparable tariffs so that all 4.8 million small businesses can see costs from one supplier to another.

“We will continue to work with the Number 10 SME energy working group to deliver a fairer and more transparent energy market for small businesses.”

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Federation of Small Businesses .