Faulty Tumble Dryers (Fire Risk)

Carolyn Harris Excerpts

Tuesday 13th September 2016 Commons Chamber

[Carolyn Harris (Swansea East) (Lab)]

I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Hammersmith (Andy Slaughter) for allowing me to speak, and congratulate him on securing this really important debate. He will be aware that I chair the all-party group on home electrical safety, and that we have been following this issue very closely. Members have raised the issue of tumble dryers both formally and informally.

I met the company, and was astounded by the responses that I received. Perhaps it is the domestic goddess in me that thinks that a white good that needs to be monitored while it is drying clothes is really not much of a convenience and that it would be far easier to put the clothes on the line. The attitude of the company was that that was acceptable. When I heard about the problem of my hon. Friend, I contacted him immediately, because the very thing that I had said to Whirlpool was, “This is an accident that is waiting to happen.” Unfortunately, that accident did happen. We can only be grateful that there were no fatalities.

I cannot understand—I expressed these concerns to Whirlpool—why it has not issued a total recall. I am totally confused by the answer that it is an adequate system; that it is replacing things slowly. No, it is not an adequate response; it is absolutely inadequate that these machines are in people’s homes and they are potential death traps. They are fires waiting to happen.

Whirlpool informed me that the modifications to the affected model are likely to take until March 2017. Who is going to wait that long to have the use of a “convenience” that is inconvenient? I have written to the Chair of the Business, Innovation and Skills Committee —I urge my hon. Friend the Member for Hammersmith to do the same—to ask my hon. Friend the Member for Hartlepool (Mr Wright) to get the Committee to conduct an inquiry into this.

We also need a proper Government response. What is being done about the fire risk to people’s homes? Why did the Government reject Lyn Faulds Wood’s recommendations on product safety in a pitiful eight-page response? Some of the recommendations, such as a national product safety agency and mapping of organisations involved in recall issues, would have gone some way to protecting customers.

Having met Whirlpool, and having received responses from the Government, I am at a loss to believe that they actually think the current system is adequate. Something needs to be done as a matter of urgency.