Whirlpool: Product Safety System

Jim Shannon Excerpts

Wednesday 26th April 2017 Westminster Hall

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Ryan. I commend the hon. Member for Hammersmith (Andy Slaughter) for bringing forward this issue, on which he has been a champion in debates in the House, including in a shorter Adjournment debate, when he fully put forward the issue and was supported by many of us here today and those from further afield. I thank him for bringing it forward today and am fully supportive of his purpose. He gave much detail on what has happened, and I will try to give my speech without repeating it.

I have had constituents in my office who are anxious and concerned about being told, “Just stay in the house,” when the machine is in use. Let me set the scene with an example of one constituent. My constituent and her husband work full-time jobs and also work some additional shifts to pay the mortgage. She leaves the house with her two-year-old and her one-year-old baby at 8.30 am. She returns at 6.30 pm, gives the children their dinner and bath and has them in bed for 8 pm, at which stage her 18-year-old babysitter takes over, to allow her to go to her evening meetings. She does not have the time to sit for the washing and drying cycle to complete, and cannot leave an 18-year-old in charge of a fire hazard with sleeping babies upstairs—that is unrealistic.

Her option is to sit and watch the washer-dryer cycle throughout the night. That is certainly ridiculous, but it is the reality of what the firm wants people to do, as the hon. Gentleman set out in his introduction. Is it a joke? No, it is not, and that is why in Westminster Hall today, with the Minister in her place—she has a very wide-ranging portfolio, given what she was here responding to yesterday and what she is doing today—we believe that legislation needs to be put in place that makes firms accountable and protects consumers, which it quite clearly does not at this moment in time.

I read the very succinct briefing provided by Which?—I am sure we have all had sight of that. Where a product could cause a risk to life or serious injury, Which? expects it to be promptly recalled by the manufacturers. What could be clearer or simpler than that? Yet we have firms who clearly disregard that and have a blasé attitude in how they respond. I ask again: how can we make those firms act with the urgency that we really need? All right-thinking people expect that, but we must make what is expected from manufacturers crystal clear.

As we know, Whirlpool acquired the Indesit Company, including its brands Hotpoint, Indesit, Swan, Proline and Creda, in 2014. In August 2015, Whirlpool informed Peterborough trading standards, as its primary authority partner, that up to 5.3 million dryers in the UK were affected by a fault discovered in more than 120 models. The magnitude of that number! The 5.3 million dryers in more than 120 models is nearly everything it has. Why has it not been coerced, persuaded or made to act more quickly? Those driers were also at risk of catching fire and required urgent modification to address the problem.

In August 2015, the company admitted what had to be done and notified trading standards, but the number of driers and models is very large. By 2016, about 750 fires had been reportedly linked to Hotpoint, Indesit, Proline, Swan and Creda tumble driers. Of course, since then there have been even more. A fire in a tower block in Shepherd’s Bush—I am sure the hon. Member for Hammersmith or other hon. Members will talk about it—left 50 people unable to return to their homes. The London Fire Brigade found that it had been caused by an Indesit tumble drier. We could see the horror that it caused on TV: it did not affect just one person, but all the other residents of the tower block. There are other examples—the fire brigade gave us one. Does Indesit not realise the danger? We do as elected representatives, and the people who own the driers and those whose homes have been damaged certainly do as well.

Which? found that those affected have been forced to wait far too long for a repair or replacement, and that customer service staff have given incorrect and potentially dangerous advice.

[Mrs Moon]

Does the hon. Gentleman share my concern that some of the machines have been sold on? When houses go up for sale, electrical goods go with them, and perhaps the second owners do not appreciate that the machine they inherit with their new home is dangerous, so they will not be looking to see whether it should be repaired.

[Jim Shannon]

I thank the hon. Lady for that very wise intervention. I had not given much thought to that. Sometimes the machines are sold on, but where is the follow-on? How does the company find out about those people? The people who have got them know about the problem from the adverts on TV, the stories in the papers and so on, but in many cases they do not know that they have something dangerous sitting in their home. The hon. Lady is right. We are trying to be positive in our questions to the Minister, but perhaps she will give some thought to that issue.

The hon. Member for Hammersmith spoke about home fires, and the hon. Member for South Leicestershire (Alberto Costa) spoke about some personal examples. There is a record of damage, and the company admits that there is a problem, so surely it should be held to account and should award compensation to people who have had massive fires in their flats and properties. Let us be honest: it is only for the grace of God that people have not been injured or died as a result of this issue.

Whirlpool has not acted in the best interests of consumers. It resisted a recall of the affected models and failed to repair and replace affected machines in a timely way. The affected consumers were told not to use their tumble driers. When someone is told not to use their tumble drier, they expect the company to come and repair it or replace it with something that works correctly.

[Ms Ritchie]

Does the hon. Gentleman agree that regulation is an issue? A series of recent product safety issues have brought into sharp focus the need for proper regulation and enforcement. Does he agree that the Government should focus their attention on that issue, too?

[Jim Shannon]

I thank the hon. Lady for those comments.

Clearly, the issue for us all is safety. As I said, it is only by the grace of God that nobody has been injured or killed. It is unrealistic to expect consumers not to use their tumble dryer for months on end, so it is possible that further fire and safety incidents will occur as a result of continued usage. Whirlpool should issue a full recall of all affected models immediately. If there are 5.3 million dryers, we will get them all back. If there are 120 models, we will work on that and get it done.

Which? reported that one in five—22%—of the affected customers surveyed in April 2016 were still waiting for their machine to be repaired or replaced. Does the company have no sense of urgency or safety? Are these issues lost on it? The Minister must be able to feel our frustration and anger. Other Members who speak after me will reiterate that. We need to be on the ball to ensure action is taken.

A third of customers who had their dryer repaired or replaced said they were dissatisfied with how the manufacturer handled the situation. I’ll tell you what, if I had been waiting since 2016, I would be very dissatisfied. I would be wondering what the company was doing and whether it had got the notification of the repairs to be done in a tray in a locked room where nobody ever goes. Six in 10, or 62%—it is rising all the time—of those who were surveyed for the first time in November 2016 and had decided to wait for a repair were concerned about using their tumble dryer, so the vast majority of those who own those dryers are concerned. One quarter—26%—of affected customers were told that they would have to wait longer than six months for their tumble dryer to be repaired. If only it did take six months to have it repaired, at least we would have a date. One in five—22%—were told that the wait would be between three and six months. Where is the company’s understanding of the inherent danger that those delays compound?

I will conclude with this comment because others wish to speak. We must ensure that consumer protection legislation is in place to deal with this issue. Current legislation allows that to take place. I believe the power is with the Minister: she can do this. I respectfully ask her, in the short time she has, to ensure that action can be taken after the election. It is incumbent on us all to ensure that this does not happen again. I thank the hon. Member for Hammersmith and all those who have come to Westminster Hall to support the safety not only of my constituents but of people throughout the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, who rely on legislation to force manufacturers to do the right thing. The fact is that we have to force them. I believe we must deal with this issue.

--- Later in debate ---

[Margot James]

I am sorry that my hon. Friend has not had satisfaction from Whirlpool on that. Whirlpool wrote to me on 4 November outlining its engineer training programme and auditing programme of the machines that it has modified. I am happy to share that correspondence with him and other hon. Members.

We hear from industry and other experts that recall programmes typically have a success rate of resolving between 10% and 20% of affected products. In this case, Whirlpool’s resolution rate is over 40%, which is well above the industry norm. We can therefore posit that the action taken by Whirlpool in co-ordination with Peterborough trading standards has achieved more in terms of resolving cases than recalls typically achieve, meaning a greater number of consumers have been protected from potential harm.

[Jim Shannon]

Will the Minister give way?

[Margot James]

I will give way once more. There is more material that Members will be interested in.

[Jim Shannon]

We are talking about 5.2 million machines and 120 different models. Is there a timescale for how many years it will take for resolution to be arrived at and all those machines to be repaired or replaced?

[Margot James]

I can only reiterate what I have already said. Of those machines, 1.5 million have already been modified, and only 10% of cases registered with Whirlpool are outstanding. Whirlpool is modifying machines at roughly the rate of 100,000 per month.

The role of Peterborough trading standards has been discussed. That team has ensured that Whirlpool has taken responsibility for resolving the issue and agreed actions deemed proportionate to the level of risk. The initial risk assessment was peer-reviewed and agreed by two other trading standards departments, at Norfolk County Council and Hertfordshire County Council. As a responsible regulator, it has kept the issue and the evidence under continuous review and made decisions accordingly. It issued enforcement action to ensure that Whirlpool gave clear advice to consumers not to use the product before it had been repaired, and it has been in close contact with Whirlpool to agree and oversee the corrective action programme.

I note hon. Members’ comments about Whirlpool’s motivations and the extent to which it was moved by the threat of judicial review. It is impossible for me to comment on that speculation, but I would point out that Whirlpool had already resolved the majority of those 1.5 million cases prior to the threat of judicial review, which was later removed. As a result of Peterborough’s actions, Whirlpool did not, as Members implied, sit on its hands; it commenced a programme of corrective action back in November 2015. I have covered issues about Whirlpool’s customer service, so I will move on.

I want to acknowledge the remarks of the hon. Member for Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney (Gerald Jones) about the manufacturing of white goods. I was sorry to hear of the manufacturing losses in his constituency, but I am pleased to report that Whirlpool tumble dryers and some of its other white goods are manufactured not abroad but in Bristol.

I will turn to the working group on product recalls and safety. I take to heart the suggestion by the hon. Member for Hammersmith that the Government should look at the safety of all electrical goods and not just tumble dryers. That brief has been given to the working group. An online hub of information on product recalls, known as “Recall Central”, has been developed on gov.uk. That follows up one of Lynn Faulds Wood’s recommendations, cited by the hon. Gentleman.

When I took on the product safety brief, I reviewed the remit of what was then called the recall review steering group. Like the hon. Gentleman, I considered two years far too long to wait for discernible improvements in the system. In October, I rebooted the group and established the working group on product recalls and safety to develop credible options for improving product safety and the recalls system, setting a more challenging timetable of six months. I asked the working group to focus in particular on identifying the causes of fire in white goods and the action needed to reduce that threat.

The group is better resourced than its predecessor. Officials in my Department are supporting the group and are in regular contact with the Home Office about fire prevention. The group consists of experts in the fire services, trading standards, consumer groups and industry, including Electrical Safety First. The chair, Neil Gibbins, has extensive experience of fire safety, as former deputy chief fire officer for Somerset and Devon, and a background in enforcement.

I am grateful to Neil Gibbins and members of the working group for their work. They submitted their initial recommendations in December, which were published on gov.uk. Each meeting has had its notes published on gov.uk, and hon. Members can visit that site. The group submitted its full report to me earlier this month, which might explain why I have not yet published it, in less than the six months given to it. If it had not been for the Easter recess and the calling of the general election, I would now be planning the publication of the report. The group has already commissioned the British Standards Institution to develop a code of practice on corrective actions and recalls to improve consistency and transparency.

The hon. Member for Poplar and Limehouse (Jim Fitzpatrick) raised the issue of consumer behaviour and attitude, which is very important. The working group has commissioned consumer behavioural insights research, which I gather has almost concluded, to help ensure that the code of practice, and indeed the whole process of encouraging and motivating consumers to register their appliances, is taken forward in the optimum way.

I must leave time for the hon. Member for Hammersmith to wind up the debate, so I will conclude. In terms of Brexit, I would like to reassure Members that the Government have absolutely no intention of watering down consumer protection and consumer safety. The opposite may well be the case. I would also like to reassure the House generally that the Government take these issues very seriously indeed, and I look forward to the hon. Gentleman’s concluding remarks.