I find the standing charges abhorrent, companies in the 'good times' would spend tens of millions in advertising to win new customers, running loss leader or discounted tariff promos to win new customers.
I fail to see how the expense of onboarding hundreds of thousands of 'new' customers is such a world ending catastrophe for these companies. I understood that the SoLR 'awardees' such as Octopus etc were able to make significant claims to recover costs that they wouldnt ordinarily recover through the onboarding of significantly more customers through the Last Resort Supply Payment.
If I were a cynic (which I am) you could argue that these last few years have worked particularly well for utility companies profits..either at the consumer end which was failing badly before and during covid to posting some pretty healthy profits during this consumer nightmare!!. I wont mention the extra costs to the consumers/tax payers for the roll out of non standard smart meter solutions to the tune of £11billion+ or more by now (At leats some of those will be SMETS2).
I'll file a response to standing charges input.
I just see this being agreed behind closed doors and the additional expense of this will just come from consumers one way or another.