UK energy bosses face bonus clawbacks as mis-selling crackdown lands

UK energy bosses who pocket big bonuses while their customers get fleeced are about to feel the heat. The government's energy independence bill lands on Wednesday, and it hands Ofgem a fresh arsenal: the power to order compensation, slap on fines and outright ban rogue operators, according to The Guardian. Suppliers and brokers that break the rules will see executive bonuses curtailed too.

The sharpest edge is aimed at energy brokers, the middlemen who arrange business supply contracts and have run largely unregulated for years — unlike the intermediaries who sell mortgages or insurance. The government says rogue brokers have shoved small businesses into overpriced deals while quietly pocketing hidden commissions. Folding brokers and price comparison services into Ofgem's remit is expected to save businesses more than £100m a year.

Energy secretary Miatta Fahnbulleh didn't mince words. "People work hard for their money," she said. "They shouldn't be ripped off by energy companies or forced to fight for fair treatment when things go wrong." She added that bosses who fail customers shouldn't stroll off with bumper bonuses while families and businesses pick up the tab. The crackdown follows public fury over fat payouts to executives even as investigations swirled about how vulnerable customers were treated.

The bill, trailed in the king's speech, also carries the government's broader clean energy transition plans — and it arrives while ministers are dodging flak over the green agenda. John Healey recently unveiled more than £3bn of cuts to the energy department's budget, much of it destined for higher defence spending, and the chancellor said new offshore wind projects would be vetoed unless they brought bills down. The government insists it's still committed to clean power by 2030.

Landlords get their own headache. Local authorities will gain stronger powers to go after those who miss energy efficiency standards, with fines reaching £30,000. Letting a property with an energy performance certificate rating below E has been illegal since 2020 unless the landlord can prove an exemption.

Then there's fracking. The bill introduces a moratorium by ending new licensing onshore in England, reviving a ban the Conservatives imposed in 2019 and Liz Truss briefly overturned in 2022 — a move that sparked widespread anger. Climate transition minister Katie White said the government was "putting communities first and protecting them from the risks of earthquakes and unsafe drilling." The moratorium won't cover lower-volume fracking or "proppant squeeze," which the industry insists isn't fracking at all. Friends of the Earth's Tony Bosworth called that a bid to "creep in through the back door under a different name," though the government said those low-volume activities fall outside the ban's scope and it has seen no evidence they carry the same risks. Prof Stuart Haszeldine of the University of Edinburgh has argued the quakes triggered by lower-volume fracking can be just as large and unpredictable as those from the high-volume kind.