Government crackdown on 'cowboy' insulation installers

Burnley MP Oliver Ryan welcomes the Government's crackdown on 'cowboy' insulation installers.

Transcript

00:00Oliver Ryan. Thank you Madam Deputy Speaker, can I thank the Minister

00:02sincerely for her great work on this. In the six months she's been in she's made

00:07more progress than the last lot did in 14 years and this has been a serious

00:11problem for victims in Burnley. Can I thank her. I'm glad that she's looking at

00:17earlier schemes too because many homes in Burnley have fallen victim to cowboy

00:22builders and failed insulation over several years so I look forward to her

00:25updates on earlier schemes which did need to be actioned by the previous

00:28government and weren't and were ignored for an awful long time. Can I particularly also

00:31welcome the stronger regulation the clarity for consumers and clear process

00:34of complaints which will make a genuine difference. Two questions if I may. Will

00:38the bans of these particular companies follow the directors of these companies

00:42because too often what we've seen is companies being established making

00:47forward of these poor insulation and then they'll go away extinguish

00:52the company and start again somewhere else and as the Member for Bradford East said

00:55before will this cover cavity wall insulation where it's been government

00:59backed? Thank you to the Honourable Member and thank you for all the work

01:07he's done on this and for engaging with me and my department on this. Look we are

01:12aware of instances where companies fold not to deliver on their obligation to

01:20remediate work and then set up again. We are putting in place processes through

01:24the certification bodies to mitigate that happening so that there is a clear

01:28expectation that you won't be taken on by another certification body if you

01:32don't get the work right. Our priority at the moment is on solid wall

01:38insulation because that's where we think there is an immediate problem

01:40within Eco and Gbiz. We are aware from members of the house contacting us that

01:46there are wider issues that need to be addressed and I come back to the fact

01:49that we understand that the system has not been working for consumers. We

01:53understand that the quality quite frankly and the quality assurance across

01:57the system has been far too fragmented and patchy and critically consumer

02:01protection has not been underscored in the way that it needs to be so we are

02:05looking to overhaul the system and we're conscious that there are issues with

02:09other schemes and we're thinking about the best way in which we can resolve

02:12those.