British Gas to end use of 3,500 overseas call centre staff and move jobs to UK, CEO pledges

He said: “I have made a commitment that we will move all of those off-shore jobs on-shore. It will take time.

"Over the next few years we plan to have all our customer contacts for the UK customers within the UK and our customer contacts for Irish customers in Ireland. That’s what our customers want.”

Mr O’Shea did not put a timeframe on when the change will happen.

Part of the reason for the AGM being held in Leeds was that the company already employs around 1,000 people locally – mainly in customer service and British Gas engineer roles.

Chairman Scott Wheway said prior to Mr O’Shea’s remarks: “Broadly our attitude is that on-shore customer service is the direction we should travel in.”

Mr Wheway admitted earlier in the meeting that there have been customer service challenges for the company in recent years but said improvements are taking place.

He said: “Customer service across the last two years as a consequence of coming through Covid and going through the energy crisis has been a very challenging time for everyone.

"We have over 10 million customers and saw a 50 per cent increase in the number of calls we would normally receive.”

He said the company has recruited 700 extra staff to deal with increased demand.

During the AGM, one shareholder highlighted that British Gas HomeCare is the UK's worst insurance product in terms of the number of complaints about it following more than 160,000 complaints to the Financial Conduct Authority in the first half of last year.

Mr Wheway said the company has previously acknowledged issues within the HomeCare business and is taking steps to improve matters.