Cavity Wall Insulation

Imran Hussain Excerpts

Tuesday 26th March 2024 Westminster Hall

[Imran Hussain (Bradford East) (Lab)]

It is of course a pleasure, Mrs Latham, to serve with you in the Chair. I join colleagues in thanking my hon. Friend the Member for Halifax (Holly Lynch) for securing this very important debate.

My hon. Friend quite rightly pointed out the importance of this debate, as did my hon. Friend the Member for Blackburn (Kate Hollern) and other hon. Members. Indeed, it is very important to many of our constituents, who are suffering the results of some of the scandalous actions that we have heard about. Many of them are having sleepless nights and are threatened with financial ruin, which I will say more about a little later.

As other hon. Members have said, with the promise of reducing energy bills and with the Government’s stamp of approval, cavity wall insulation schemes were an attractive proposition that were readily signed up to by many people, including many of my constituents in Bradford East. However, the reality was a far cry from the promise of warmer homes and lower bills. Cavity wall insulation has now left many of them facing financial ruin, because, after it was installed, they began to notice, as many other hon. Members have said already, damp and black mould was growing on walls, ceilings, window ledges and floors in their homes, and their electrical systems were compromised. Their homes became harder to heat and in some cases skin conditions increased. Also, many experienced mental stress, because they constantly had to deal with the problem. It is important to mention the real-life consequences for our constituents.

The cavity wall insulation that was supposed to keep their homes warm instead acted as a bridge to draw in the moisture from the external walls and transfer it inside their homes. Although cavity wall insulation was an excellent way to improve energy efficiency in many homes, which it is if it is correctly installed, in those cases it was discovered tragically that those homes were never suitable for cavity wall insulation or that the work that had been carried out was defective.

Like other hon. Members, I have tens of cases now of people being forced to pay hundreds of thousands of pounds. That is the total accumulated amount, including legal fees, which I will come on to. What is alarming is that in every one of these cases the companies that initially installed the cavity wall insulation disappeared, and my constituents had nobody to go back to to ask for help. They were literally left on their own.

That is where the next serious issue arose, because legal firms were going around, door to door, and promising no win, no fee. Sometimes, that was the only option for people who had very limited means and who had already gone through so much stress. One such law company was SSB Law, which has already been mentioned today; actually, it has now been highlighted by a documentary. I and other colleagues have raised the issue in Parliament. SSB Law took on £200 million in debts in trying to deal with these cases. Actually, the company probably knew that many of these cases never had any chance of success, but they were taken on and there were many victims in Bradford, as we have heard.

My constituents were pursuing financial reparations for damage caused by defective insulation. There was no fault on their part for the situation they found themselves in, but they are now facing demands for payments that stretch into tens of thousands of pounds and are simply unaffordable. Despite the situation, with many of my constituents in Bradford growing more and more desperate, it is clear that no one in the current system has any inclination to deliver them justice. It is therefore equally clear that the Government need to step in and intervene.

There is cross-party support for this issue, and it is not an issue that has never been raised before. According to my research, the reviews go back as far back as 2015, when it was acknowledged by at least one report, if not more, that there was an issue with some of the work on cavity wall insulation and the level at which it was being carried out. Certainly, the matter has been raised a number of times in parliamentary questions and debates, including in 2016 and 2017.

Our constituents are now begging us. I cannot emphasise enough the strength of feeling in some of the conversations that I and my colleagues have had. If it were not for the one-line Whip and the last minute nature of the debate, which only my hon. Friend the Member for Halifax (Holly Lynch) could have pulled off as quickly and miraculously as she did, many more colleagues would have been here. We are here to plead that this issue is causing anxiety, stress and depression. I have had people who have not slept for days, worrying. If someone is a pensioner and the only thing they have is their house, and they are already living through one of the biggest cost of living crises and making ends meet, and they suddenly get a demand for £28,000 through the door, that is going to cause untold misery—of course it is.

As was said earlier, the SRA knew about this. A complaint went in about SSB Law way before many of these cases had advanced to the stage where people are now being asked to repay. The insurance company responsible is now not agreeing to pay any of the indemnity insurance that is the legal protection—I will not go into further detail as I suspect the matter will be subject to much legal debate when the time comes.

I respectfully ask the Minister to step in, in the spirit of the cross-party agreement on this issue. I wrote to the Justice Minister about the issue in that spirit more than a month ago, and I have yet to receive a response. All I request is a meeting for MPs to sit down and discuss this issue, because we have a duty to protect those constituents who have been wronged.

I have just three asks of the Minister. First, the Government must ensure that the legal proceedings, costs and demands for payment that our constituents are mired in, along with the charging orders, interest charges and threats of home repossession are dropped immediately. I think the Government can step in to address these issues and to take some action, although I appreciate the legal technicalities. Secondly, the Government must conduct a full review of all Government-funded insulation schemes to identify the total number of homes affected by defective cavity wall insulation, as well as a full investigation into the collapse of SSB Law and the role of regulators in guarding against risks. Thirdly, the Government must convene a meeting between Ministers, energy providers, insulation companies, legal firms and anyone else involved in this scandal to agree steps toward a compensation fund such as the one developed for the Fishwick insulation scandal. That involved insulation of a different type, but there was compensation there. It set a precedent where defective cavity wall insulation was removed from the homes, the structural damage was addressed, and good quality suitable insulation was retrofitted with a 25-year warranty. That is what happened in that case.

I thank again my hon. Friend the Member for Halifax. Thousands of our constituents up and down the country will be very grateful to her for securing this important debate. I cannot emphasise enough how important this area is to our constituents. If we can save further misery, we have an absolute duty to do so. I look forward to working with Ministers to address and end this scandal for our constituents.

--- Later in debate ---

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

It is the greatest of pleasures to be here under your Chairmanship, Mrs Latham. I thank the hon. Member for Halifax (Holly Lynch) for raising this incredibly important debate, and all hon. Members who have partaken in it and shared some heart-moving stories. It is dreadful for consumers to be in the situation described in those stories and I have every sympathy for the people affected. All Members who have spoken have made their points incredibly well. We need to remember the impact this situation has on people’s lives, which has been portrayed very clearly.

As the hon. Members for Tiverton and Honiton (Richard Foord) and for Southampton, Test (Dr Whitehead) have stated, insulating homes properly is one of the most impactful and cost-effective things we can do, which is why we have a number of schemes ongoing to install cavity wall insulation.

As the hon. Member for Halifax has said, the Solicitors Regulation Authority is already working with the Financial Conduct Authority and the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors to look into the conduct of the firm in question, but these bodies are independent of Government and it would be inappropriate for my Department or the Ministry of Justice to intervene.

The Ministry of Justice, as the Department responsible for legal services regulation, will continue to closely engage with the SRA and Legal Services Board to understand the action being taken and the timeframes for investigation. However, I am concerned to hear from the hon. Member for Halifax and the hon. Member for Blackburn (Kate Hollern) about how companies such as SSB Law may have targeted people. We will ask the SRA, as part of their ongoing investigation, to consider how SSB Law were able to do that. I also acknowledge the points raised by the hon. Members for Bradford East (Imran Hussain) and for Southampton, Test on this subject.

I do not want to see this issue passed around like a football, because this is an urgent matter for the households impacted. I therefore guarantee that I will be writing to the Ministry of Justice, asking them to encourage the SRA to accelerate the investigation for affected homeowners, as they deserve to have this matter addressed swiftly.

[Imran Hussain]

While the Minister is writing to the Ministry of Justice, can she please kindly request that her colleagues there respond to the letters from MPs and organise an urgent meeting?

[Amanda Solloway]

I thank the hon. Member for the intervention. Of course, I will pass on those remarks.

I encourage Members to write to the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero about specific cases. If there is a guarantee in place, my officials will engage with the guarantee agency to see if there is anything that we can do about that particular situation.

The range of Government-backed schemes to install cavity wall insulation are ongoing and lessons have been learned from the complaints that we are discussing today. These complaints, thankfully, are not representative of the experiences of thousands who have used our existing schemes. As I said earlier, in certain circumstances in suitable properties, cavity wall insulation is one of the most cost-effective measures for energy saving. For a relatively small outlay in costs, we know that cavity wall insulation, which costs between £1,000 and £3,000, can save homeowners up to £300 a year.

The hon. Member for Halifax is aware that the Government have made improvements to installation standards as a result of earlier findings. I will summarise the changes we have made, because any response to the problem must include preventing it from happening again. That is why the energy efficiency measures installed under all current Government schemes must be in line with industry best standards established by the British Standards Institution. All installers must be certified to the publicly available specification 2030 standards for any energy efficiency measure that they carry out, including cavity wall insulation, and must demonstrate a high level of competence. The latest revision to the standards was published at the end of September 2023, so I can assure hon. Members that this is a live issue for us and that we continue to refine and improve.

The Department published guidance in October 2019 for consumers who suspect they may have had faulty cavity wall insulation installed in their homes. We urge consumers to follow the guidance to help them avoid becoming victims of fraudulent cavity wall insulation claims.

Outside of Government-funded schemes, I urge all consumers to check the certifications claimed by their installer and what protections or warranties installers can offer before going ahead with work. TrustMark is the Government-endorsed quality mark for retrofit, so its “find an installer” web search will be a good place to start for any consumer, whether the work is Government-funded or not.

As the Minister for Affordability and Skills, I am glad we are discussing this matter today because I think there is a double injustice. People who did the right thing by wanting to install insulation to lower their energy use have suffered from insulation that has failed. That emphasises why we are now required to use the PAS certificate and TrustMark-registered businesses in Government schemes.

A legal firm that was recovering the costs has now collapsed, leaving affected households wondering how this will finally be resolved. That is why I am grateful to the hon. Member for Halifax for bringing the cases in her constituency to my attention, as have other hon. Members. I encourage Members who were unable to attend today to write to the Department about specific cases. My officials will follow up with the relevant guarantee agency to ensure that all due process has been followed.

Oral Answers to Questions

Imran Hussain Excerpts

Tuesday 27th February 2024 Commons Chamber

[Imran Hussain (Bradford East) (Lab)]

I have recently been inundated with correspondence following the collapse of SSB Law, a legal firm that took thousands of defective cavity wall insulation cases to court. It has left constituents with tens of thousands of pounds in costs that they cannot afford during an unprecedented cost of living crisis. Can the Minister assure me that the Government have a plan to address this scandal? What compensation will my constituents be offered to remove faulty cavity wall insulation so that they can finally be free of its devastating consequences?

[Amanda Solloway]

It is always awful to hear of these cases. I will write to the hon. Gentleman on the issue.

Oral Answers to Questions

Imran Hussain Excerpts

Tuesday 16th January 2024 Commons Chamber

[Andrew Bowie]

We recently announced further details of the £6 billion extension that will be allocated from 2025 to 2028. This will support an extra 500,000 homes—prioritising those who need it most, but including new build—and is on top of support for 700,000 families to install improvements through the Great British insulation scheme and the energy company obligation by March 2026.

[Imran Hussain (Bradford East) (Lab)]

9. What recent discussions she has had with Ofgem on the compensation payment process for households that have had prepayment meters wrongfully installed.

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

I have met Ofgem and suppliers to reiterate my expectations that the new rules will be followed. Ofgem has announced that if a supplier wrongfully installs a prepayment meter, it will be expected to compensate its customers appropriately.

[Imran Hussain]

Forcing the installation of prepayment meters in the homes of some of our poorest and most vulnerable constituents is, frankly, a scandal. Although the Government rightly paused forced installations last year, some energy companies have been allowed to resume this outrageous practice under a new rules regime, which the Minister referred to, that still faces many questions. Does the Minister think that in the middle of winter—in a week when we have seen temperatures drop dramatically—we can trust energy suppliers that have a history of unscrupulous practices in force-fitting energy meters in the homes of vulnerable people to, in effect, self-regulate? Will the Government instead legislate to ban the scandalous forced installation of prepayment meters once and for all?

[Amanda Solloway]

I acknowledge how awful it was that people had their homes broken into to force fit prepayment meters, but there is also a place for prepayment meters to enable people and to support people out of debt. I reassure the House that I have scrutinised every level of the regime for prepayment meters, now that we are going back to reinforcement, to absolutely ensure that we will not see all the scandalous practices that happened before.

Oral Answers to Questions

Imran Hussain Excerpts

Tuesday 28th November 2023 Commons Chamber

[Graham Stuart]

I thank my hon. Friend for her question and for pursuing this matter assiduously; we have met and discussed it, among other issues. I think both industry and communities would appreciate greater clarity about community benefits, and I look forward to discussing that with her further.

[Imran Hussain (Bradford East) (Lab)]

One in four households in my constituency is now living in fuel poverty, compared with the national average of one in 10. Why do the Government continue to give millions to gas and oil giants, which enjoy billions in bumper profits, while our constituents continue to be dragged into poverty?

[Graham Stuart]

Regrettably, the content of so many Opposition Members’ questions this morning is absolutely not in line with reality. Oil and gas production in the UK not only typically has lower emissions than the alternative of imports, but supports 200,000 jobs, all of which would be at risk if the Labour party came to power. To answer the hon. Gentleman’s specific question, it is expected to raise £50 billion of tax over the next five years, all of which—including the safety of his constituents—would be at risk if Labour ever came to power.

Oral Answers to Questions

Imran Hussain Excerpts

Tuesday 19th September 2023 Commons Chamber

[Amanda Solloway]

At this moment in time we do not think that a uniform price cap would benefit consumers, given the huge diversity in size and scale of providers in the market. However, through the Energy Bill, the Secretary of State will have powers to introduce a price cap, should one be beneficial in future.

[Imran Hussain (Bradford East) (Lab)]

14. What estimate her Department has made of the number of families in fuel poverty.

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

In 2022, there were an estimated 3.26 million households in fuel poverty. The additional support we provided last year prevented 350,000 households from falling into fuel poverty in 2022. The established targeted support remains in place, while from July 2023 household energy bills have been falling.

[Imran Hussain]

Over 40,000 families in Bradford have been plunged into uncertainty as the Tory Government lurch from crisis to crisis. More than one in five of my constituents now live in fuel poverty, yet the Minister still comes here today with no real plans or solutions, and no real windfall tax on the booming profits of energy giants. Let me ask the Minister to put herself in the shoes of my constituents. What does she have to say to those who, frankly, have been abandoned and have to choose between a warm home, a full stomach and school uniforms for their children?

[Amanda Solloway]

Having experienced fuel poverty myself when I was growing up, I do understand completely how the hon. Gentleman’s constituents feel. That is why the Government are absolutely committed to ensuring that we support people. We have given unprecedented support. We have the warm home discount and the cost of living payment, among many other measures, to help constituents through the cost of living.