Rogue Builders

Ben Maguire Excerpts

Thursday 13th November 2025 Westminster Hall

[Ben Maguire (North Cornwall) (LD)]

It is an honour to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Furniss. I congratulate the hon. Member for Wyre Forest (Mark Garnier) on securing this important debate and giving an excellent and comprehensive speech.

Many people will be familiar with this topic. In fact, half of all homeowners have had a bad experience with builders at some point. Of course, those cases vary in value and scale, but fundamentally they represent consumers—many of whom are sadly vulnerable or elderly—being taken advantage of by rogue builders and traders.

Those people are all victims, whether they are in desperate need of emergency repairs or have committed to an extension they have saved up for over many years. They can be in a range of difficult situations: financial hardship, poor health or bereavement—some of those harrowing personal stories were outlined by the right hon. Member for New Forest East (Sir Julian Lewis)—and for them, seeking a fair resolution can seem impossible.

Two months ago, I pressed the Solicitor General on the deeply troubling case of Launceston primary school in my constituency, a brand-new building that had to be demolished just as it was ready to be opened because it failed to meet basic safety and building standards. When the developer went bust, it was us—the taxpayers—who were left carrying the cost of rebuilding the entire school to the tune of around £7 million.

Our communities deserve better safeguards and real accountability. Nationally, those stories are all too familiar, and those problems persist even in our sewage and road infrastructure systems, with many developers going bust before such vital infrastructure is finished. The hon. Member for Mid Cheshire (Andrew Cooper) made a powerful case for mandating infrastructure before the sale of homes.

Many of my constituents near Bude reached out to me to explain how a developer abandoned a site after going into liquidation, leaving unfinished roads and sewage works. The developer directly contravened planning conditions by not paying the bond, and yet the local authority had no power to act or hold it to account.

The Government cannot stand by any longer while those rogue developers fail to fulfil their promises. Those cases are shocking to hear, and the wider implications are clear. In the past five years, it is estimated that rogue builders have cost the public around £14 billion. That demonstrates the necessity of an efficient and effective justice system to resolve such disputes, protecting consumers and discouraging cowboy behaviour from builders.

Concerningly, as we have heard today, too many individuals in those situations find the justice system slow, complex and expensive to navigate. These are people in unexpected situations, without the time or resources to rectify them effectively. The Liberal Democrats believe that justice should be on the side of all consumers, not just those who can afford costly legal battles, as was highlighted by my hon. Friend the Member for Harrogate and Knaresborough (Tom Gordon).

The Government should ensure that there are accessible redress routes, such as small claims courts and ombudsman schemes, that work quickly and fairly for everyone. They should also support alternative dispute resolution mechanisms that save consumers time, stress and money, giving them a fair outcome without the burden and cost of going to court. That is important for the victims, and for the hundreds of thousands of honest builders who provide brilliant services for consumers up and down the country. My hon. Friend the Member for Twickenham (Munira Wilson) made the point that the reputation of those businesses is damaged by widespread concerns about the trustworthiness of the industry as a whole. They, too, will benefit if we can effectively deter and catch rogue builders.

Since 2019, there have been more than 125,000 official complaints about rogue builders in England alone. The justice system must ensure that those responsible are properly held to account. It is crucial that proactive steps are taken against these traders through the Competition and Markets Authority and local trading standards bodies, to ensure that they are effectively punished and, where necessary, publicly named and shamed.

To that end, what are the Government doing to ensure that investigations by those bodies are properly resourced and supported? Crucially, to the point made by the hon. Member for Altrincham and Sale West (Mr Rand), how can the Government stop some of these repeat offenders going into liquidation time and again, and then committing the same frauds somewhere else?

How will the Government ensure that victims of rogue builders are provided with accurate and clear information regarding their options? What are the Government doing to support accessible redress routes, as well as out-of-court resolutions for these victims? Finally, will the Minister look into providing greater powers and resources to local authorities so that they can properly hold rogue developers to account and enforce planning permission?