Utility Week

14 | FEBRUARY 2021 | UTILITY WEEK Policy & Regulation Analysis Life after the white paper David Blackman gauges industry views on salient points from the Energy White Paper and sets out the packed schedule of follow-up policy papers it has prompted for 2021. I t's a mark of how long it has taken the Energy White Paper to gestate that it was first floated in front of a live audience. In November 2018, the then Secretary of State for Business and Energy Greg Clark announced in a speech at the Institute of Directors that a white paper would be pub- lished "early" in the following year. However, Brexit, a switch of prime min- isters, a general election and then the coronavirus pandemic intervened. The long- awaited white paper finally emerged in mid- December 2020. Josh Buckland worked on previous itera- tions of the white paper when special adviser to Clark before the latter le‹ government in July 2019 when Boris Johnson became prime minister. Buckland is now a director at public affairs company Flint Global, and he says: "The difference between this [white paper] and the previous version is much stronger focus on how to pay for the transition and affordability, so that consumers and vulner- able customers don't feel they are paying too much of the burden. "For the first time, this government has set out how it sees the energy sector's transition." In many respects, the white paper does not supply the answers the industry has been seeking these past two years. Instead (see panel, facing page), the document fires the starting gun on a swathe of consultation papers, the bulk of which are due to be pub- lished in the next 12 to 18 months. "It parks a lot of the difficult ques- tions and policy decisions over the next 18 months," says Buckland. "There is a whole ra‹ of difficult stuff identified in the paper, however the really hard work starts now in terms of addressing those policy issues. The government acknowledges that the white paper is a point in time and not an end point." Surprise switch Perhaps the biggest surprise surrounding the white paper was the emphasis on switching in the briefing that immediately preceded the document's publication. In a bid to end the current situation, where more than half of energy customers pay a so-called loyalty penalty for remaining on default tariffs, the white paper outlines a series of moves to encourage auto-switching. It says the government will consult by March on creating a new framework to intro- duce opt-in switching and trials of opt-out switching. The timing of the proposals was espe- cially surprising given how little focus there has been on this facet of energy policy since

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