Energy Market: Consumer Protection

This will protect people in the future, but we must also support people who had faulty solid wall insulation fitted during ECO4 and GBIS. We are doing that in three ways.

First, at the end of last year we launched our “Find and Fix” programme to identify and offer a full house audit to the families who had external wall insulation installed under ECO4 and GBIS.

We have now contacted over 10,000 properties and arranged over 5,000 audits.

And we want to help all affected households to access an audit as quickly as possible. TrustMark will continue to contact households, and I would encourage everyone who hears from them to take up the offer of a free audit.

I have been clear that the families who have suffered from these poor installations should not be the ones to pick up the bill. It is the industry’s responsibility to put this right and help affected families.

Secondly, in cases where the installer that fitted the faulty installation is no longer trading and the guarantee is missing, fraudulent or cancelled, the National Energy Foundation will be contacting homeowners and arranging remediation of both internal and external wall insulation fitted under ECO4 and GBIS.

Eligible homes will be identified through audits, with remediation action in recipient homes taking place as quickly as they can make that happen.

Thirdly, in the rare instances where the cost of damage from faulty ECO4 and GBIS solid wall insulations exceeds the £20,000 limit covered by a valid guarantee, we are working with delivery partners on the right solutions.

I can announce today that the Installation Assurance Authority will now cover the cost of repairs up to £25,000 where these are within the terms of the original, still-valid IAA guarantee. We will continue to work on solutions for the remaining cases, and I hope that other guarantee providers will follow the IAA’s lead.

Families who were affected should first contact the installer who carried out the installation, and where the installer is no longer trading or unable to remedy damages, they can contact their guarantee provider to initiate a claim.

ECO4 and GBIS has some of the highest levels of non-compliance that Government have seen, but other issues have been brought to the Department’s attention. In particular, many households who had spray foam installed have found they have encountered problems when selling their home. I have held extensive talks with the spray foam industry to support homeowners that have struggled to sell or been targeted by rogue removal companies. Independent advice has been published online by the Property Care Association, and we will keep working with mortgage lenders to ensure they can be flexible when lending to those affected.

A range of major lenders are already on side and have confirmed that they will not take a blanket approach to houses with spray foam, including Nationwide, Lloyds, Santander and Barclays, and I am planning a follow-up roundtable with the sector later this summer.

Finally, ensuring a fair deal for consumers in the energy market remains a priority for the Government. Today we are also responding to our consultation on strengthening protections in the energy supply market, enhancing the powers of the Energy Ombudsman and making it easier for consumers to access support when they have a complaint about their retail supplier. We want to give the ombudsman stronger powers, including the ability to issue a penalty fee that will end up as compensation for consumers, to enforce decisions and hold suppliers to account.

Families will have clearer routes to pursue justice through the courts, and we are shortening the complaints process and making automatic referral to the ombudsman easier so that people are no longer stuck in limbo waiting for their case to be escalated.

If we want to change this country, restore faith in Government’s ability to improve lives and disrupt a status quo that is simply not good enough for so many people, then we need to learn from the mistakes of the past.

We need to rebuild confidence and take people with us, and we need to ensure that failures like those we saw on the ECO4 and GBIS schemes can never happen again.

This is our chance to build an energy sector that truly works for working people, and that is the message behind the measures I have set out today.

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