Part of Petition - European Baccalaureate Qualification – in the House of Commons at 7:37 pm on 24 October 2018.
I concur with the hon. Gentleman. Whether it is with Northern Ireland authorities or with our own Government, there is no reason why there should not be good co-operation and good insulation schemes. That is what I would have expected with these 387 houses in my constituency.
In the meantime, I requested a meeting with the Secretary of State on the matter, as a matter of urgency. Except for a very brief encounter in the House of Commons Tea Room, when the Secretary of State said that she was looking into the matter as she passed me by, she seemed uninterested in the case and reluctant to discuss the matter. She did, however, refer me to an official, who then assured me that Preston City Council was working with the NEA fuel poverty charity. However, what the Department did not know was that this was the case only because of my direct intervention and contact with the chief executive of Preston City Council at the time, because, as I said earlier, the council officer had sat on the letter from the NEA.
By July 2016, the chief executive was indicating that she needed extra funding in order to carry out surveys to get a “detailed picture of issues”, so clearly the £2.5 million was not enough to deal with the problems, and in fact was only to be targeted at those homes which had complained about the work—62 of the 387 homes. That did not take account of the fact that many of the other homes had problems, but because the residents thought that people in other properties were complaining on their behalf as well, they did not come forward and make their direct complaints. Therefore, the fact that work was to be carried out on the 62 properties only, neglected all the work that needed to be carried out on the other affected properties, whose residents, for a variety of reasons, had not come forward and made their own complaints. That was, in my view, totally unjust and short-sighted.
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In the meantime, I received an email from Councillor Martyn Rawlinson of Preston City Council, telling me that the management of the repairs on the 62 houses was as bad as the original work that was carried out. Some of the houses had been left half done for several months. E.ON originally said that all repairs necessary would be done, but E.ON was then saying that homeowners should get their own insurers to get the work completed, which was outrageous—an absolute disgrace—and by then the residents had been putting up with this nonsense for four years, with many of them having work done twice to their property, and still not to their satisfaction.
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I tabled a series of parliamentary questions to BEIS about the use of cladding on properties. That culminated in a letter from BEIS indicating that remedial work on 62 of the properties should be completed shortly, and that E-ON was in discussions with National Energy Action to help other households. In the meantime I received a variety of complaints from the residents, one claiming to have spent £1,500 after a ceiling caved in after wet weather. In a separate case, an elderly homeowner had to leave her property and move in with her son because the damp was affecting her health.
Since then, the Minister for Energy and Clean Growth has responded to my parliamentary question, PQ177184, indicating that the retrofit on 62 of the properties was completed in the summer of this year and that work has been carried out to estimate the extent of the work that is necessary to sort out the work required to the other properties. As I said earlier, that resulted in questions being asked on the doorstep. In addition, talks have been taking place between Ofgem, BEIS and the energy suppliers in an attempt to secure funding for the remaining houses.
This saga has been running for six years, from 2012 to where we are now, in October 2018. It has been an absolute tragedy for those living in those 387 houses, who have been trying to put up with substandard housing and great inconvenience. The result has been unsafe properties with associated health risks. In the meantime, I am reliably informed that in many cases the cladding has been removed, but properties have been left with holes in the walls. The landlord has said that they will be finishing off the work, but will only repair the holes and paint the brickwork. They are not prepared to install any new insulation. One of the complainants wonders where the money has gone for the work that should have been done to her property. The landlord has told her that she should speak to E.ON or Preston City Council.
Let me tell the Minister that I recall spending three years in the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs as Parliamentary Private Secretary to the then Environment Secretary, Margaret Beckett. During that time, when my party was in government, we dealt with fuel poverty issues through the Warm Front scheme, which was applied to about 10,000 homes in my constituency, particularly in the area of Deepdale. The scheme focused on energy efficiency by installing new central heating boilers and providing loft insulation and double glazing for terraced housing that was not too different from the housing that we see in Fishwick ward. It was extremely effective, and popular with residents.
May I ask the Minister why the more recent schemes that are using cladding of the type mentioned in Fishwick are being employed when the detriment to both property and residents is known? Why has it taken six years to get to where we are now for the residents of Fishwick? Are the Government willing to help to direct the residents to a satisfactory and available source of finance to rescue what is, in fact, a Government scheme?