The plans set out tough new measures to improve the financial health of energy suppliers so that they can withstand future shocks in the energy market, especially over the autumn and winter.

The proposed changes include protecting consumer credit balances and green levies when suppliers fail, to prevent the costs being picked up by consumers.

There will also be new requirements for suppliers to have better control over the key assets they need to run their supply business, and a tightening of the rules on the level of direct debits suppliers can charge customers, to ensure credit balances do not become excessive.

These changes will reduce the risk of suppliers going bust and protect the credit balances of energy customers if this does happen, preventing a repeat of last year’s failures.

The cost of moving customers to new suppliers from 28 failed suppliers since September 2021, including new suppliers having to buy extra gas at short notice while prices...