“If Dermot Nolan was still in post, we would be calling for his dismissal,” say the MPs on the business select committee, in their report on the energy sector, about the former chief executive of regulator Ofgem. And they would be right to do so. Top billing in the MPs’ report was taken by the need for the government to boost financial support for poorer households when the energy price cap rises again in October, but the other key conclusion was the damning verdict on the pre-crisis performance of Ofgem.
That is not surprising, of course, but it needed to be said with suitable force: “Ofgem has proved incompetent as the regulatory authority of this complex market, thereby costing taxpayers billions of pounds. The scale of failure and the cost exposure to taxpayers is only comparable to the financial crash of 2008.”
