Green Deal Scheme: Misrepresentation

(asked on 7th October 2020) - View Source

Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what the average waiting time is for his Department to decide whether to serve an intention notice proposing a reduction of a Green Deal loan mis-sold by Home Energy and Lifestyle Management Ltd on a case.


Answered by
Kwasi Kwarteng Portrait
Kwasi Kwarteng
This question was answered on 12th October 2020

The Green Deal Framework Regulations require that, before imposing any sanction, my Rt. Hon. Friend the Secretary of State gives notice to affected parties of his intention to impose a sanction (an initial notice, referred to as an Intention Notice) and provides them with an opportunity to make representations before it is made final.

As of 8th October 2020, there were 117 appeals against mis-selling by Home Energy and Lifestyle Management Ltd (HELMS) for which no Intention Notice or final decision has been issued.

The average time between receipt of an appeal case by the Secretary of State and the Issue of an Intention Notice is 13 months.

The following table shows how many Intention Notices were issued by month proposing reduction or cancellation of Green Deal loans in response to appeals about mis-selling by HELMS, and the number of these cases for which no representations have been received.

Month

Number of Intention Notices Sent

Number of cases for which no representations have been received

October 2019

15

9

November 2019

11

9

December 2019

17

9

January 2020

13

7

February 2020

22

10

March 2020

12

6

April 2020

3

0

Complainants can appeal final decisions (set out in final Sanction Notices) to the General Regulatory Chamber of the First–tier Tribunal. For one case recorded in the above table, the complainant did not submit representations but, following receipt of a final Sanction Notice, appealed to the Tribunal.

No Intention Notices have been issued since April. In April, two decisions were made by the First-tier Tribunal in response to appeals. Following this, the issuing of Intention Notices was paused to allow for full consideration of the First-tier Tribunal decisions in future Intention Notices.

During this period, 43 Sanction Notices have been issued in response to appeals about mis-selling by HELMS.

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