Cavity Wall Insulation: Government Support

(Limited Text - Ministerial Extracts only)

Wednesday 21st February 2024 Westminster Hall

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero (Amanda Solloway)]

It is a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Henderson. I thank the hon. Member for Arfon (Hywel Williams) for his passionate speech and for his case studies reminding us of the individuals affected in these houses, who have to live with these issues daily. I thank him sincerely for raising the matter.

As the Minister responsible for energy affordability and fuel poverty, I have often said that the greenest energy is the energy that is not used. That is why insulation is so important. We must ensure that customers do not see their money vanish literally through their walls while they are living in cold properties. Improving the energy efficiency of homes is central to the Department, as are helping people out of fuel poverty and achieving net zero.

When correctly installed, cavity wall insulation can reduce the amount spent on keeping a house warm, which is critical to alleviating fuel poverty. It can also make homes readier for a clean heat source. Insulation is one of the most cost-effective means of improving household efficiency. The Government have an ambition to reduce by 15% on 2021 levels the UK’s final energy consumption from buildings and industry by 2030. We also plan to ensure that as many fuel-poor homes as possible achieve an energy performance certificate rating of C by 2030.

I will cover three areas—schemes, safeguards and standards—and the questions that have been posed. Cavity wall insulation has been installed under previous Government schemes and continues to be installed under the home upgrade scheme, the social housing decarbonisation fund, the energy company obligation and the great British insulation scheme. According to the great British insulation scheme’s final impact assessment:

“At the end of December 2022, it is estimated that there were around 5.1 million homes without cavity wall insulation in Great Britain, of which 3.8 million are easy to treat standard cavities”.

I turn to safeguards. As the hon. Member quite rightly pointed out, we debated cavity wall insulation in 2017 and 2020, with many examples occurring before the change to consumer protections.

[Stephen Kinnock (Aberavon) (Lab)]

The Minister is being generous in giving way. Several of my Aberavon constituents are fighting to get justice after cavity walls have been incorrectly or inappropriately installed, and real damage has been done to their homes. The companies have disappeared and no longer exist, and this Cavity Insulation Guarantee Agency does not seem to be working at all. It has cost my constituents tens of thousands of pounds, and years of stress and worry. Will the Minister set out what is going wrong with the CIGA and what steps the Government will take to help my constituents to sort out this absolutely appalling problem?

[Amanda Solloway]

The hon. Member makes an important intervention. Although it is not within my portfolio, I will absolutely get back to him with as much detail as I can on individual cases and pass them on to the relevant places.

I am sympathetic to the points raised by the hon. Member for Arfon and others about the need for a better understanding of the scale of the problem. At the moment I do not have those figures, and in all honesty I am not sure whether I will be able to get them, but I will certainly endeavour to find out the number of people affected by the issue.

As hon. Members have rightly mentioned, the issues have arisen as a result of poorly executed installations of cavity wall insulation, of which I am very much aware. Unfortunately I do not have a full view of the number of failed installations. Our understanding is that it is a relatively small proportion, but that does not justify it; even if it is a small amount, we should be looking at it. We need to take on board the situation and think about how we can improve. I will refer later to what we have done to make improvements so that this does not happen again.

I want to address the genuine concerns raised by the hon. Member for Bradford South (Judith Cummins). Claims management companies and firms of solicitors have contacted consumers offering to represent them in return for compensation for the damage caused to their homes by the installation. It should be noted that not all those companies have the consumer’s best interests at heart, and some have left consumers facing extensive legal fees. I thank the hon. Member for bringing that to my attention.

To assist consumers who suspect that they have had faulty cavity wall insulation installed in their homes, the Department published guidance in October 2019. I urge customers to follow that guidance to avoid becoming victims of fraudulent cavity wall insulation claims, and for information on organisations that can offer support if a problem arises.

We have put standards in place for the protection of consumers. Energy-efficient measures installed under current Government schemes include the energy company obligation and the great British insulation scheme, and they must comply with the requirements outlined in the British Standards Institution’s good practice standards, set out in the PAS 2035 document. That requires installers to be certified to PAS 2035 standards for any energy-efficient measure including cavity wall insulation, demonstrating a high level of competence. Those standards will help to ensure that an installation is suitable for the property, as the hon. Member for Arfon described when he talked about the way the wall was facing. They will ensure that it is to the highest standards, while also improving the service provided to the consumers.

[Hywel Williams]

I commend what the Minister is saying and what has been done. One of the problems that has bedevilled this matter is the unwillingness of anybody with any power to look at historical cases. The 2016 Bonfield report specifically said that it was not looking at historical cases, but it is the historical cases that are egregious and difficult. I commend the Minister, but eventually we must look at historical cases as well.

[Amanda Solloway]

I thank the hon. Member for making that point. Where consumers have concerns or are unhappy with work that has been carried out, they should contact the installer, although I recognise that some of the installers in the historical cases that we are talking about no longer exist. The insurance-backed guarantee provider offers a second layer of protection, for example in cases in which the installer has ceased to trade. We agree that the industry does not always get it right, and I encourage the industry to provide appropriate remedy for the affected customers.

By mandating the requirement for installations under Government-backed schemes, and ensuring that TrustMark and PAS 2030 businesses undertake the work, we have helped to improve the quality of installations since 2019. We are fully committed to protecting all consumers who have insulation products installed in their homes, as well as improving the overall consumer journey regardless of housing tenure or how installation work is funded.

I thank the hon. Member for Arfon for raising questions about individual cases. I will follow them up in writing; if there any we could look at specifically, I am happy to take them away. I encourage other hon. Members to raise such cases.

I also welcome recent research by the Competition and Markets Authority and other organisations such as Which? and Citizens Advice on consumer protection in this sector. Today the CMA published an update to its report on consumer protection in the green heating and insulation sectors. In response, the Government have announced the work that we are undertaking to improve consumer protection in the green heating and insulation sectors.

I thank the hon. Members for Arfon, for Bradford South and for Aberavon (Stephen Kinnock) for their contributions. As I say, we must remember that these are people’s houses that we are talking about—they are the homes that people live in. If there are any individual cases that we should look at, I encourage hon. Members to send them on to me.