HELMS and the Green Deal

Paul Sweeney Excerpts

Tuesday 23rd October 2018 Westminster Hall

[Mr Paul Sweeney (Glasgow North East) (Lab/Co-op)]

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 and making a powerful speech to introduce the complex but dramatic and distressing situation of green deal mis-selling and the impact of HELMS in particular.

I was elected last year by a community that I have grown up and lived in my whole life. Balornock is probably similar in many ways to Linwood in the hon. Gentleman’s constituency: it was an overspill estate created after the second world war, built at a time of great optimism in the Glasgow city region, where people were moving out of overcrowded slum tenements in the inner city and into what they saw as new build housing, with indoor toilets and front and back gardens. The community was largely born of the baby boomer generation, who moved in and have lived there their whole lives. Many benefited, as they saw it, from buying their council houses in the 1980s and 1990s, and, as they reached retirement, they wanted to make improvements to their houses.

The community was built out of great optimism and aspiration for the future. Five years ago, the green deal was launched to great fanfare by the Tory Government, with the promise of a win-win situation for homeowners: lower energy bills and the chance to do their bit for the environment. It seemed like a great idea. Those who sought to exploit that scheme cynically homed in and targeted communities, particular those with a large population of baby boomers in self-contained housing units—not flatted accommodation—with back and front gardens. If the scheme sounded too good to be true, that was because for some in those communities it turned out to be exactly that.

Dozens of my constituents in Glasgow signed up to install green deal-financed improvements to their homes, such as solar panels and insulated cladding, but that has proven to be one of the worst decisions they have ever made. Instead of realising the Government’s vision of a flagship programme to reduce fuel poverty and improve energy efficiency, the complete failure to regulate the scheme properly has allowed it to be ruthlessly exploited by gangsters and other rogue traders, who have systematically preyed on trusting people who thought that, as the scheme was approved and accredited by the Government, they could trust its credentials and sign up.

In 2015 Christine McBain, one of my constituents, handed over her life’s savings to a Cambuslang-based green deal provider called Home Energy and Lifestyle Management Systems—otherwise known as HELMS—to put external wall insulation on her Swedish timber-framed house in Balornock. Those houses are a common feature of Balornock, because after the second world war the overspill in Glasgow was so problematic that timber kit houses were imported from Scandinavia, such was the pressure on housing. More than half a century later, those houses are not the most energy-efficient, so this offer seemed like a plausible way for those homeowners to make them better. As I have said, it turned out to be the worst decision they ever made.

Another constituent, 86-year-old Mary, handed over her lifetime’s savings and has been left with £17,000 of debt after being duped by HELMS with no sign of any redress. It is the most appalling experience as an MP to see people who are meant to be enjoying their retirement, and feeling safe in their life’s work and savings, but who have been stripped of any sense of security and are in absolute distress about what they are having to deal with. If this is not dealt with urgently, sadly they will have to deal with it for the remainder of their lives. That is a shameful indictment on the Government’s failure to regulate their policy.

Christine and Mary are among many local residents in my constituency who have been left totally in limbo by HELMS. The company carried out similar works on more than 160 properties in my constituency without obtaining the necessary building warrants, cynically preying on local residents with promises of free solar panels and cavity wall insulation that would save them thousands of pounds. Normally such a matter would be easily remedied with a retrospective application for a building warrant from Glasgow City Council. However, because building standards were not adhered to by HELMS, no backdated planning permission can be granted without costly surveys. In addition, the statutory fee for a building warrant will be tripled where works have already been completed. Residents simply do not have the financial resources to fund that, and in the absence of building warrants the houses are now uninsurable and unsellable. Residents—many in the latter years of their lives—feel effectively imprisoned in their own homes. That is shameful.

I am currently seeking agreement from Glasgow City Council to waive the multiplier fee for the retrospective warrant and to cover the cost of the surveys needed for the building works. Will the Minister write to Glasgow City Council’s chief executive to make a similar call?

[Dr Whitford]

Does the hon. Gentleman not accept that the underlying fault lies with the UK Government scheme? To me, the UK Government lobbying Glasgow City Council to pick up those costs, rather than offering to fund them, seems the wrong way round.

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[Mr Sweeney]

The hon. Lady makes a fair point. I urge the Minister to show some leadership and overall responsibility. In the first instance, she should contact Glasgow City Council’s chief executive and offer a dialogue. I would be receptive to the hon. Lady’s proposal of the Government offering to finance those costs as a way of breaking the impasse and getting the problem dealt with. The problem requires a whole-Government approach from city level, Scotland level and UK level. That would be the most proactive way to deal with it. Ultimately, however, responsibility lies with the Department that introduced the scheme, and it should show some moral and financial leadership.

Earlier this year I met representatives of the Green Deal Finance Company to raise my constituents’ concerns. In the last year alone the GDFC has upheld 169 complaints against HELMS, compared with 14 complaints against all other contractors upheld since 2013. Clearly, one contractor is a massive outlier in those figures. Some 154 cases against HELMS remain under consideration by the GDFC. However, the piecemeal approach to handling complaints has put the onus on the victims. The sheer number of complaints upheld against HELMS suggests that there was a systemic failure of regulation by the Government and that a proactive approach is now needed, to tackle that huge failure in the green deal scheme. It was the responsibility of the Minister and the GDFC to lead in the matter; it cannot be the responsibility of residents who are already distressed, disoriented and at their wits’ end in trying to deal with it. They cannot be put under further stress from the huge effort of having to right the wrong.

[Angela Crawley]

I am sure that the hon. Gentleman is aware, from speaking to his constituents, that people who chose to pay over several years through their electricity bills are not able to withhold payment, which is a common and acceptable consumer rights practice, if they believe that there was mis-selling. If the power company does not receive the funds, those people accrue debt. They cannot prevent the green deal payment from being made through their energy bills, which means they accrue more debt in the process.

[Mr Sweeney]

I completely agree. One of the most insidious aspects of the green deal scheme is that it locks people into a structural system. The loan is tied to the house, so the property imprisons the resident. That is the most appalling aspect of the way things have been manipulated by HELMS and other nefarious practitioners of the scheme.

HELMS made more than 6 million nuisance sales calls and, as the hon. Member for Paisley and Renfrewshire North said, was fined £200,000 by the Information Commissioner’s Office. The Department of Energy and Climate Change also fined the firm another £10,500, but conveniently the company was put into liquidation by its owners, who walked away after paying just £10,000 of the fines owed. The company was owned by the multi-millionaire Robert Skillen, who continues to live a highly privileged lifestyle at the expense of the thousands of people he ripped off—including my constituents—leaving a trail of misery and chaos in his wake. He fled abroad and continues to profit from his fraudulent business practices. If he had any honour he would return to the UK and face the accusations against him. Indeed, he should face prosecution for fraud.

[Gavin Newlands]

I just want to make Members aware that Mr Skillen has returned to the country—on a number of occasions, I think. Once he turned up at the Green Deal Finance Company to ask for the details of the customers who have contacted it, so that he could contact them directly, such is the shamelessness of the man.

[Mr Sweeney]

It is appalling to realise that this chap has such a shameless attitude that he does not accept the harm he has caused to thousands of people, who cannot sleep at night. I hope that he will realise the impact he has had on them. However, it is time the Minister and the GDFC took formal steps to censure and effectively blacklist the guy, to stop him continuing to exploit vulnerable people.

As the hon. Member for Lanark and Hamilton East (Angela Crawley) mentioned, dozens of other homeowners in Glasgow North East are still literally paying the price of the green deal’s failure, through the finance deals that they were conned into to get the work done. A home is somewhere that we should all be able to consider a sanctuary and place of safety. However, many are so depressed by the green deal trap that they can no longer bear to live in their own homes, which are the very source of their turmoil.

Most people would consider a Government-backed scheme such as the green deal to carry a copper-bottomed guarantee, but for many of my constituents the feeling is one of total betrayal by the authorities they trusted. The Tory Government created the environment in which rogue traders could pull a fast one. The Government and the Green Deal Finance Company must now do everything they can to find a remedy for those who have been adversely affected. They must contact all 4,226 HELMS loan recipients, to make them aware of what they can do to find redress if they experience financial detriment because of the scheme. They must also consider a compensation scheme for those affected by mis-selling by HELMS.

That is why after I was elected I joined the all-party parliamentary group on green deal mis-selling, along with my hon. Friends the Members for Rutherglen and Hamilton West (Ged Killen) and for Coatbridge, Chryston and Bellshill (Hugh Gaffney), and why I presented a petition to Parliament earlier this year, urging the House of Commons to ensure that the Government compensate and protect people who have suffered detriment because of the green deal scheme. In the interest of fairness and justice the Government should now take steps to ensure that the same thing can never happen in future.

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[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.