Cavity Wall Insulation: Complaints

Jim Shannon Excerpts

Monday 16th March 2020 Commons Chamber

[Chris Elmore (Ogmore) (Lab)]

Thank you, Mr Speaker, for allowing this debate to be held today. I thank the Members from across the House who have stayed to take part. I shall speak about a problem that affects thousands of people across the UK—some estimates suggest that the number could be up to 3 million. It is a problem that Members, including me, have raised with the Government, but as yet, the people affected have been given nothing by way of resolution.

Inappropriately fitted cavity wall insulation might, on the face of it, sound like an issue that could be down to just a few rogue traders, but given what we now know, it is time for the UK Government to come forward with a sensible package of support for people who have felt the blunt end of Government interventions gone wrong. The scale of the problem could not be more stark. In 2018, the BBC reported that industry insiders estimated that at least 800,000 properties have defective cavity wall insulation. I want to explain why the injustice that many people in my Ogmore constituency and across the UK face is another symptom of the gross inequality across our country. I also want to tell the House why I believe that we need a new, independent body to oversee cavity wall insulation claims if the current body, the Cavity Insulation Guarantee Agency, is not able to do so.

From the outset, I want to make it clear that I am not against cavity wall insulation. If done properly, it is an efficient means of making our homes and other buildings more energy efficient, saving us power and helping to make the way we all live more sustainable. It can also help to reduce people’s energy bills—something that we all welcome, of course. In the light of the climate and environment emergency that we must address, only a fool would suggest we should not use all the tools at our disposal to make the way that we live less environmentally damaging. Cavity wall insulation can and should form part of this; that much is clear. What is less clear is what happens when our interventions bring about unforeseen consequences—unforeseen consequences that cause damage to people’s homes and leave them with a hefty repair bill.

As Members will know, most homes built before the 1970s had no form of insulation, and many were instead built with vast cavities within the external walls. Throughout the 1990s, as our awareness of energy efficiency and environmental issues expanded, the practice of retrofitting insulation in those wall cavities began to expand. Various Government schemes have followed, encouraging people living in energy-inefficient properties to have that work undertaken at a reduced or no cost to the homeowner.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for giving way; I did speak to him beforehand. He has raised this issue on behalf of his constituents, and I now want, through him, to raise it on behalf of mine. Does he agree that, yet again, something that the Government intended to be of great use to our most vulnerable and to the environment has been abused, and that the case of his constituents—and a number of my constituents—has been replicated throughout the United Kingdom? Is it not therefore right and proper for an investigation to follow the trail of businesses that are no longer in operation to secure justice for those who have been taken advantage of, and who are worse off as a result?

[Chris Elmore]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his intervention. Indeed, it would have been wrong for him not to intervene. I do agree with him: this is an appalling failure on the part of businesses.

I commend the basis of the Government schemes to which I referred. They were admirable in their intent—and, indeed, they still exist today—but it has now become clear that many properties that have been retrofitted with cavity wall insulation should never have been retrofitted in the first place, and that in many cases the works have been so shoddy that people have been left with significant damage to their homes.