I beg to move,
That this House has considered Government support for cavity wall insulation.
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Henderson, in this debate on cavity wall insulation. I might even say that this is yet another case of déjà vu, given that I have been here before with similar debates, in 2014 and 2017. Alas, some of the problems have not been remedied.
I will explain very briefly for those who may not be familiar with cavity wall insulation that it fills the cavity between the exterior and the internal skin of a house with a material that insulates the house and keeps heat in, and it is a commendable way of doing things, if circumstances allow. Unfortunately, in most of western Britain, where there is wind-driven rain and high rainfall, the wind drives rain in through any cracks or faults in the exterior coating of the house, and the cavity wall insulation acts as a bridge, transmitting the water into the house, which leads to damp, mould and a host of other problems. I will not go into that any further, although I have become slightly expert in the functioning of cavity wall insulation, given the number of times that I have looked at the issue.
The cavity wall insulation scheme was financed with money from the green initiatives that the Government had at the time. It seemed to be particularly targeted at people of modest means, including people who were older or disabled. In fact, I have heard many people who have had damp problems say that a man came to the door and said, “This is a Government scheme. It will save you £350 per year and it’s free. Can we put it in?”, whereupon most people said, “Yes, of course,” because they imagined that it was guaranteed, certain to work, and suitable both for their premises and for the area they lived in. Cleary, it would also better their living conditions and allow them to save energy and to do their bit on climate change.
My area is one where cavity wall insulation is clearly unsuitable; as I said, it has westerly winds, wind-driven rain and heavy rainfall. Many properties actually face the sea. In fact, in the very first case of cavity wall insulation problems that I came across, when we looked out of the front window, where the damp was coming in, we could actually see the sea. That was one of the reasons why that house had so many problems.
The system failed in many ways. I will briefly address several points; there is no point in rehearsing them, because the Minister and others are already familiar with them. When places were allegedly assessed, in too many cases cavity wall insulation was installed where clearly an assessment would have contraindicated it, for example in places where the rendering was very poor.
I do not intend to go into individual cases, because the Minister clearly cannot take them up now—they are historical—and I would be here all day if I did, but I will give some examples. I saw one house, a former council house that had been bought by the tenants, that had a piece of the front rendering about the size of a fireplace missing from the front of the house. The house was on an upland site, facing the sea, and rain was being driven at the bricks where the pointing was faulty and going straight through into the house, causing huge amounts of damp. That case was fairly typical. I asked them whether they had been assessed and they said, “No. They just came here and offered to do it, and we took it.”
Often, the installation was of poor quality. Again, I will just give a quick example. An elderly lady told me that some men came to her door late at night and said that they had one installation to do during the day, and that they were very keen to help her and so on. She was very keen to have the insulation, so they put it in for her. She said, “They were so keen—very nice lads. That they put it in using torches”—they had no lights. When people chased after the installers subsequently, they found that many had gone bust—they had closed down, or become insolvent.