Martin McCluskey

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Dowd. I thank all hon. Members for their contributions today, and I thank particularly my hon. Friend the Member for Shipley (Anna Dixon), not only for securing the debate, but for all her work on the Public Accounts Committee in scrutinising the ECO4 scandal. Over the last few months, she has fought extremely hard for her constituents who have suffered from substandard insulation through Government schemes. When I came to this brief, about 10 weeks ago, I was presented with the outcome of the National Audit Office report. I was shocked by the extent of the failures under the previous Government, by the system that we inherited and by the many personal stories of people impacted by damp, mould and other issues. Homes hold a special place in people’s hearts. They are places that we pour time and money into. We make memories in them. They are sanctuaries, shelters, places of care and settings for our lives. People will not put their homes at risk unless they can be absolutely sure that things will not go wrong—or that, if they do, they will be put right. That is why we are making consumer protection reform such a central part of the upcoming warm homes plan. Just a few months into this new Government, widespread cases of poor-quality insulation were identified under the ECO4 and Great British insulation schemes. The Government, including both me and my predecessor, have spoken extensively about our actions on this. To give hon. Members reassurance, those include enhanced checks and oversight of contractors and TrustMark; new restrictions on installers operating through the multiple certification bodies we have; updated standards for retrofit co-ordinators and designers; and an offer of a comprehensive on-site audit to every household with external wall insulation installed under those two schemes, at no cost to the consumer. I see hon. Members present who I know are advocated for constituents facing particular problems with ECO4; they will all be receiving notices of audits, or maybe they have already. I encourage hon. Members to make sure that their constituents take up that offer of an audit, because that is the gateway to remediation.