Timeyin Akerele

But what we have improved is the stability of the sector.

Yeah, more than half of the energy suppliers.

That's quite a lot.

They hadn't hedged properly, was the basic problem, and then they were faced with a massive shock that because of the way the price cap works, they couldn't fully recover their costs.

So...

That is a sort of interaction of different factors that we think we have now tackled so that if there were to be another surge in energy prices, which obviously we're all conscious about, we think the sector is much more resilient than it was then.

So...

If you like, there was a philosophy of regulation that you should encourage open markets, you should encourage competition.

And I don't think anyone expected the level of shock to the sector that we saw when gas prices went up.

At peak, they went up about eightfold over their previous levels.

I mean, that sort of shock is something that would really...

caused trauma for any sector.

And as I say, we've learned the lesson of that.

We now have really clear monitoring of all the suppliers, energy suppliers in the market, and we require them to meet capital requirements and to make sure that they are that much more resilient in case there are further shocks in the market.

So I guess...

One of the things that organisations all need to think about is what are the risks that can hit a market?

And I think we hadn't.

I don't think anyone had really anticipated that risk.

In retrospect, it looks like, oh, well, it could easily have happened.

But I don't think people were expecting that.