§ Mr. Mike Thomasasked the Secretary of State for Energy how many domestic and industrial/commercial consumers, respectively, of gas and electricity, respectively, were more than three months in arrears with payment of their bills at the last available time when statistics were collected; and what was the total number of consumers in each category at that time.
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§ Mr. John SmithAn analysis of debtors by age of debt is not available. All quarterly credit consumers are, by definition, up to three months in arrear with payment for their supply. The disconnection procedures of area boards and the British Gas Corporation operate no less than 35 days after rendering the account; further relaxation is also arranged in cases of hardship. Some 120,000 electricity credit consumers out of 17 million in England and Wales were disconnected in 1974–75. Gas disconnections in Great Britain in the same period totalled 34,872 credit consumers out of a total of some 9,750,000.