HELMS and the Green Deal

Kelly Tolhurst Excerpts

Tuesday 23rd October 2018 Westminster Hall

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (Kelly Tolhurst)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Robertson. I congratulate the hon. Member for Paisley and Renfrewshire North (Gavin Newlands) on securing the debate. I welcome the comments and interest of other hon. Members; they mentioned the particular issues for their constituents. We have a shared wish to see proper redress for consumers who have been mis-sold green deal plans. I thank the hon. Gentleman for highlighting the case of Mr and Mrs Murray. We listened to his account of the sadness and horror that they have experienced.

I want to make a particular point at this stage. As the Minister responsible for consumer protection, company law and the insolvency process, I place it on record that the Government are committed to ensuring that rogue directors, rogue traders, are investigated, in the interest of protecting consumers. I feel very strongly about that in this role and, obviously, my other roles in Government.

In total, Home Energy and Lifestyle Management Ltd, which I shall refer to as HELMS, was responsible for selling 4,581 green deal plans. Of those, 3,068 were sold to households in Scotland and 293 in the hon. Gentleman’s constituency. We understand that about 460 consumers have made complaints about the green deal plans provided to them by HELMS. That is a substantial number and it is a real concern, but let us remember that a large majority of green deal plans run smoothly, without complaint.

Most complaints focus on the fact that HELMS led consumers to understand that there would be no cost to their installation. HELMS gave consumers the impression that that was possible because of the nature of the Government’s green deal scheme. Consumers were then surprised to see green deal payments appear on their electricity bills. Many consumers were unaware that they were entering into a credit agreement, or of the opportunity that they had to cancel their agreement. That runs counter to what the green deal is about—enabling consumers to install energy efficiency measures through a loan and then repay through the resulting savings on their energy bills.

The consumer’s position was often worsened because they were persuaded by HELMS to assign elsewhere the rights to any feed-in tariff from the measures. HELMS encouraged many to transfer their feed-in tariff rights to a separate company—one related to HELMS—as a contribution to the costs of their installation. That meant that consumers could not put that potential funding stream towards meeting the costs of the green deal plans, and HELMS failed to inform the consumer of the impact.

Before saying more about the HELMS cases, I shall provide some background on the green deal. It was launched by the coalition Government in 2013. Under the green deal, consumers can borrow money to fund improvements and repay the loans over time through their electricity bills. In the case of solar PV, consumers can begin to use renewable energy generated on-site in their homes. The savings can then be used to repay the loan. A principle called the golden rule, which has been mentioned today, is in place and intended to ensure that loan repayments do not exceed expected savings.

It is true that at the time the Government and, indeed, hon. Members from across the parties had high hopes for the green deal. But it failed to take off to the levels expected. Various reasons have been offered for that. They include its complexity and the fact that it did not properly consider consumer demand to undertake energy efficiency improvements in this way. The original scheme design was not perfect, but we and others believe that the pay-as-you-save mechanism at the heart of the green deal can still play a valuable role in the future. We have published the summary of responses to our call for evidence and will consult on proposals in due course. The right consumer protection will be paramount in any reformed scheme.

We want to improve the green deal, but it is far from being the only game in town for energy efficiency. Just yesterday the House debated the Draft Electricity and Gas (Energy Company Obligation) Order 2018, under which we are looking to further improve the already successful energy company obligation scheme. Since 2013, it has led to over 2.4 million measures being installed in nearly 2 million homes.

To make things right for the consumers who have suffered from the activities of HELMS, it is important to know that there is a specific process for handling complaints under the green deal. Consumers should first approach their green deal provider. If the problem is not resolved, the consumer may then approach the green deal ombudsman or the financial ombudsman service, depending on the nature of the complaint. Ombudsman decisions are binding on the green deal provider. If the consumer is still dissatisfied, they can refer their complaint to the Secretary of State for consideration.

The liquidation of HELMS further complicated resolving consumer complaints, as it meant any ombudsman decisions against HELMS could not be implemented through the company. Therefore, my Department worked with other key parties to establish a mechanism to offer a resolution for consumers. The Green Deal Finance Company reviews those cases and, where it considers it appropriate, makes settlement offers to consumers. If they are dissatisfied with any offer received, consumers can still refer their cases to the Secretary of State under the green deal framework regulations. The Secretary of State has the power to reduce or cancel loans where he is satisfied that the consumer has suffered, or is likely to suffer, a substantive loss.

[Mr Sweeney]

Does the Minister think that, rather than the onus being on the individual to seek that assistance, the Green Deal Finance Company ought to be writing to every recipient of a loan and every customer of HELMS to make them aware of the route to getting redress, if they need it?

[Kelly Tolhurst]

The Green Deal Finance Company will make those offers. If they are not accepted by the consumer, the onus is on them to recommend the case to the Secretary of State and for him to take the decision. That is the redress process that we have put in place.

[Alan Brown]

I thank the Minister for giving way again. She said that roughly 10% of people who have a HELMS green deal have instigated a complaint. Therefore, 90% of those sitting on these deals have not complained, and many do not even know that they have been conned. That is why the Government have a responsibility to contact them directly and begin investigating, to see what help they can give.

[Kelly Tolhurst]

If that has not already been done, I am sure it will be looked at. I am not sure whether it has been done or not, as I do not have that information.

[Gavin Newlands]

The Minister spoke about the compensation that effectively comes through the Green Deal Finance Company. Does she think it right that a private company, which had nothing to do with the initial mis-selling or scamming, is left to deal with this issue and possibly £20 million of compensation to consumers, instead of the Government, whose scheme it actually was?

[Kelly Tolhurst]

As a Government, we have worked with the Green Deal Finance Company to establish the redress system. That is why it can make offers and has done so. I will repeat the process again. If consumers are not happy with the offer that has been made, they can refer the case to the Secretary of State. We understand that only 100 offers have been accepted and 52 have been referred to the Secretary of State, so I encourage consumers to refer them to the Secretary of State. So far, only one decision has been taken on a HELMS case, but the Department is considering the evidence in other cases before the Secretary of State decides what sanction, if any, is appropriate. We expect more decisions to follow shortly.

From the outset, the green deal was subject to a monitoring regime administered by the Green Deal Oversight and Registration Body, which started investigating HELMS in October 2013 and concluded with a report in March 2015. Based on that report, the Government concluded that there had been significant consumer protection issues with the company, and the then Department of Energy and Climate Change imposed a final sanction on HELMS in November 2015. In September 2015, the Information Commissioner’s Office issued HELMS with a £200,000 nuisance calls fine—its largest ever at the time—after ruling that it

“recklessly broke marketing call regulations.”

Soon afterwards HELMS stopped issuing green deal plans, and in March 2016 it entered into liquidation.

I regret that it is taking some time to reach conclusions in many of the cases, but I would like to assure everyone that my Department is focused on progressing them as quickly and fairly as possible. We need to ensure the necessary evidence on substantive loss being incurred and to allow time for representations to be made.

Notwithstanding such mis-selling issues, let us be clear that solar PV in the UK is a success story, with rapid deployment over the last eight years. We are now exceeding our projections on solar PV deployment. In 2013 we estimated that solar capacity would reach 10 to 12 gigawatts by 2020, but the latest figures indicate that we now have over 13 gigawatts of solar capacity installed in the UK—enough to power over 3 million homes.

As I have said, I would be happy to meet with trading standards and the constituent of the hon. Member for Paisley and Renfrewshire North—I want to get a greater understanding—but will quickly answer some of the questions raised, so that the hon. Gentleman has time to wrap up.

I thank the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) for his point about Northern Ireland. The green deal has not applied in Northern Ireland, because some of these matters are fully devolved. I thank the hon. Member for Glasgow North East (Mr Sweeney) for his comments. I would like to hear further information on the issues particularly affecting properties in his constituency, which I can pass on to the Secretary of State. I also thank the hon. Member for Central Ayrshire (Dr Whitford) for her comments. She is always a champion for her constituents, and where she feels there is an injustice, she stands up for them. The green deal framework ensures that payments should not exceed the period of the savings—over 15 to 20 years. Providers that do that will be found in breach and then action can be taken by the Secretary of State, including fines and stopping the actual deal. I would be interested to know about particular ongoing cases that may be of interest.

Unfortunately, we will probably never be able to completely eradicate mis-selling but, as a Minister in this Department, it is something I feel strongly about. Where it does happen, we will try to have the best processes in place to deal with it. I am grateful to the hon. Member for Paisley and Renfrewshire North for securing this debate and I look forward to seeing him in the future.