British Gas boss launches attack on his biggest rival over rule failure - and slams customers who won't pay their bills

The boss of energy giant British Gas has launched an attack on arch rival Octopus by suggesting it should be blocked from taking on new customers.

Chris O’Shea said it was “outrageous” and “criminal” that regulator Ofgem was, in his view, failing to impose its own rules designed to reduce the risk of suppliers going bust.

His blast comes six months after Octopus, founded just a decade ago, overtook British Gas as the UK’s biggest household energy supplier.

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Mr O'Shea also slammed customers who refused to pay their bills and raked-up debts, claiming it lumped the burden on “decent people” who did.

Nearly 30 domestic suppliers collapsed when wholesale gas prices soared in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2021. The mass failures cost hundreds of millions of pounds added to the customer bills of all surviving firms.

In response, Ofgem has set new financial buffers - which came into force this April - designed to “absorb severe but plausible market shocks“.

Octopus energy, now the UK’s biggest supplier, is said to be one of three suppliers that failed to meet the target at the time.

Mr O’Shea, chief executive of British Gas parent company Centrica, said: “Ofgem needs to up its game here. We think it is outrageous.”

He said suppliers had been given two years to meet the requirements and “there are increasing risks of systemic failures. We think it is criminal that they are sitting on a situation where it could happen again.”

Mr O’Shea said suppliers that fail to meet the capital requirements should “absolutely” be blocked from signing-up new customers. He was responding to questions about Octopus energy and insisted he did not know whether it was among those that had not met Ofgem’s threshold.

Octopus has previously said it was working on a plan, to be approved by Ofgem, to meet the requirements. Reports in April claimed that Ovo Energy, Britain’s fourth largest supplier, was the only big supplier that refused to say whether it had hit the target.

It comes after industry experts Cornwall Insight revealed in January this year that Octopus Energy was now the UK’s largest domestic energy supplier, with a market share of 23.7% at the end of 2024.

It meant British Gas had loft its crown was the first time since the energy market was privatised by the Tories almost four decades ago.

British Gas insists it is fighting back after halting the number of customers leaving, with a 1% rise to 7.5 million as at the end of last month.

Yet it was controversy involving British Gas that focused the spotlight on its debt collection tactics two years. Agents working for British Gas was found forcibly putting prepayment meters in the homes of vulnerable people behind on bills. Mr O’Shea said at the time he is horrified.

It came as Centrica published half-year results showing profits at British Gas dived £50million to £133million as demand was hit by the warm weather. The wider Centrica business reported underlying profits of £549million, nearly half the just over £1billion posted a year earlier.