Westminster Hall

Thursday 13th November 2025 Westminster Hall

Thursday 13 November 2025

[Sir Roger Gale in the Chair]

Backbench Business

Thursday 13th November 2025 Westminster Hall

Modern Day Slavery: Pakistan

Thursday 13th November 2025 Westminster Hall

13:37

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered modern day slavery in Pakistan.

I thank you, Sir Roger, for coming to stand in as Chair. We appreciate that very much. I also thank right hon. and hon. Members for coming along to participate in the debate, and I thank in particular those in the Public Gallery who have deep interest in this subject matter for attending and for all the hard work they do.

This debate is an opportunity to highlight the issue of slavery in Pakistan, particularly in relation to brick kilns. I declare an interest as chair of the all-party parliamentary group for Pakistani minorities, and I must speak in particular of Morris Johns, the administrator of the APPG, who is in the Public Gallery. It is through his hard work and the hard work of everyone on the APPG that we are able to highlight the issue in this House and to work freely to ensure that people in Pakistan can gain freedom.

I am grateful to have the opportunity to address the deeply tragic and profoundly urgent issue of the continued existence of modern slavery in various industries of Pakistan. I am going to focus on one of the most entrenched and brutal forms of modern slavery, which occurs in the brick kiln industry. It is a stain on Pakistan’s conscience, a violation of human rights and a barrier to social and economic progress. I thank the Backbench Business Committee for agreeing to this debate and granting time in Westminster Hall to discuss this vital issue.

I commend the excellent report on modern-day slavery and brick kilns that was published in May 2024 by the APPG for Pakistani minorities. It shed a vital light on the daily suffering endured by so many, particularly those from minority faith communities. Pakistan is the third largest brick producer in south Asia. Estimates suggest that more than 1 million men, women and children work in approximately 10,000 brick kilns in the Punjab region alone, yet despite religious minorities making up around only 5% of the population, the percentage of religious minorities in brick kilns is often as high as 50%, particularly in Punjab and Sindh provinces. Across the brick kilns, marginalised and excluded groups, such as the scheduled caste Hindus, Christians and Muslim Shaikhs, are working in horrific conditions, in bonded labour and without sufficient wages to afford necessities.

I have been to Pakistan twice in my time in Parliament. The last time was to visit some religious minorities, in particular the Ahmadiyya Muslims, and the time before that was with Morris Johns, when I had the chance to see more of what was happening in Pakistan. I would love to be able to report back that things are better, but things are not, and today is an opportunity to highlight one of the things that definitely needs to be addressed.

The history of brick kiln slavery in Pakistan is long and persistent. It is rooted in centuries-old systems of debt bondage and social and religious hierarchy. Landless labourers, often from marginalised communities, have been forced to work in kilns under the peshgi system, where they receive an advance loan from the kiln owners. The debt is then often inflated and manipulated and keeps them trapped for years, sometimes decades, along with their children and families. Employers often take advantage of the workers’ low status in society.

As a result, entire family units are forced to work, with women bringing their new-born children to the brick kilns as well—it starts from the earliest of ages. According to a survey from the Islamabad-based Trust for Democratic Education and Accountability, 72% of brick kiln workers have children working with them in the kilns. It is a stain on our global conscience that the next generation are destined to face the same oppression as their parents. What happens to the parents and grandparents will happen to the children unless the necessary change comes. Despite the passage of the Bonded Labour System (Abolition) Act 1992, and despite Pakistan’s ratification of international treaties that prohibit forced labour and child labour, the practice persists—indeed, it seems to thrive.

Weak enforcement, a lack of worker registration and the economic leverage of kiln owners have allowed bonded labour to continue unchecked, particularly in Punjab, but also in the Sindh province. The brick kilns are often in remote or suburban areas, so the communities working at the sites frequently face major issues in accessing quality healthcare, water, sanitation and education. One eyewitness account describes the harshness of the workers’ conditions:

“They are barefoot, have no gloves, and work like this from dawn to dusk all day every day”,

seven days a week.

The health hazards of working in such conditions have been widely documented. Hazardous fumes emerge from the black smoke, resulting in higher rates of asthma and other health issues and increasing the risk of contracting tuberculosis. The contaminated water that is used to mix the soil, without any protective equipment, also gives workers at the kilns various skin diseases. When we work in this country, all the health and safety conditions are in place; in Pakistan, there are none of any description.

It is vital also to highlight the horrific nature of child labour and exploitation in the brick kilns. As children grow, they are forced to work gruelling 14-hour days and exposed to toxic fumes. Children as young as four or five years old have been documented in the kilns. They suffer from respiratory problems and severe malnutrition, and there are reports that they also suffer from poor eyesight as a result of their working conditions. Their mortality rate is higher than among children elsewhere. Children are often kept as hostages by the kiln owners to prevent their parents from leaving under the pretext of seeking medical care of shopping for essentials. Children witness their parents being subjected to violence and physical and emotional threats, greatly impacting their ability to develop into normal adults.

Child labour has persisted in Pakistan despite legislative reforms, which unfortunately have not translated into any kind of significant change. Only 12% of the children attend school regularly, so they do not have educational opportunities, and 62% have never been enrolled in a formal or informal education programme. If somebody works here, there is an obligation that their children are in education—in the brick kilns of Pakistan, no. It is utterly unacceptable that this type of treatment has been allowed to persist and to grow. We must protect the dignity and wellbeing of these children.

The conditions at the brick kilns disproportionately affect women and girls. They are excluded from financial decision making and are unable to influence the negotiation of loans, yet they have to bear the consequences through the resulting bondage. Women are also increasingly susceptible to exploitation and abuse by their husbands or fathers. Devastatingly, in a 2019 study carried out on brick kilns, approximately 20% of the females admitted that they were sufferers of mental torture at home. A woman in this situation is stuck in a cycle of abuse; she has no option to escape or get away or to change her life. Women and girls have also faced extensive sexual violence and abuse in the brick kilns. According to the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, about 35% of women workers at brick kilns are abused and harassed by their bosses. Many women in Pakistan’s brick kilns are subjected to severe restrictions, with some forcibly confined to their homes by the kiln owners.

Two women brick kiln workers interviewed by Human Rights Watch’s Asia division had been forced—these things are quite upsetting—to have regular sexual relations with their employer or members of their family as a condition of their stay in the brick kilns. Some women were even raped and abused by jamadars or local police officers, so it goes beyond the brick kilns to those who are supposed to enforce the law but actually abuse their position within it. Christian and Dalit women are particularly vulnerable—marginalised for being women and for belonging to a minority religious group or caste. Owing to a lack of accountability and active investigations, kiln owners act with impunity. Workers who are medically unfit are also physically beaten and verbally abused.

No person, regardless of faith or background, should be subjected to such grievous violations of their personal life in any way. As chair of the APPG for international freedom of religion or belief, I believe very much that people should be able to worship their God as they wish. Along with that come human rights, but those are often taken away from these workers.

Devastatingly, there have also been reports of—these are quite upsetting circumstances—organ harvesting at brick kilns, where the forced removal of organs is carried out to repay debts that are owed by family units. That is a horrific example of how deep chains of debt trap generations. It is almost unthinkable that, in today’s world, men, women and even small children are treated in such an inhumane way—their very bodies seen as collateral for a debt that should never have existed in the first place. It is as if the brick kiln owners can use them in whatever way they wish.

The illiteracy rates have a powerful impact on how individuals and families remain in debt. A study on one brick kiln demonstrated that 80% of the workers were illiterate, which means that they were easily exploited and taken advantage of. As a result, kiln workers were unable to understand the terms of loans and interest rates and were rendered extremely vulnerable to exploitation by owners because, when the owner sets a paper down in front of them or gives them instructions on what is happening, they accept that as gospel, whatever the facts are. That is just another way of exploiting them. The lack of education is not just a social disadvantage; it is a deliberate tool of control. When people cannot read the contracts that they are bound to or calculate the interest that is consuming all their wages, they become trapped in a cycle of servitude that can last all their lifetime and, indeed, generations.

As chair of the all-party parliamentary group, I have seen at first hand how poverty, discrimination and lack of education combine to trap individuals in conditions that amount to modern slavery—the very thing that we are all concerned about.

[Martin Rhodes (Glasgow North) (Lab)]

I thank the hon. Member for bringing this subject to us today. Does he agree that, despite legislation being in place in Pakistan and elsewhere in the world, we still see these problems of the undermining of human rights? Would there be, therefore, an argument for greater multilateral ways of policing these human rights violations and making sure that human rights are upheld?

[Jim Shannon]

Yes, there are many places in the world where international slavery is rampant. We can think of China and the Uyghurs; probably countries in central America; Africa, of course; and many other places. The hon. Gentleman is right to highlight that issue.

I welcome the Minister to her place. I know that she is filling in for someone else, but I am always pleased to see her because she and I have been friends for many years. We came to this House at the same time and over the years have struck up a strong friendship that we both cherish.

When we work to ensure that religious minorities do not unjustly face discrimination solely because of their religious beliefs—these slavery issues happen across the world—most importantly we must advocate for a world where every individual has intrinsic worth and dignity. That is the world that you and I, Sir Roger, and everyone here would like to have—a world where people are respected. We can be different but respect each other. In Pakistan, those who work in the brick kilns are not respected by their owners or the Pakistan Government.

Every person, regardless of their caste, religion, gender or social status, is made in the image of God and is entitled to live free from oppression, fear and bondage. However, in Pakistan’s brick kilns we see that that fundamental dignity is trampled upon and disregarded. Men, women and even children are treated as commodities. Their labour is exploited, their bodies and minds abused, and their freedoms stripped away. We must not turn our eyes away from the injustices taking place in Pakistan as we speak at this moment in this debate. In these debates I always use texts from the Holy Bible; the one I think of today is Psalm 82:3-4, which states:

“Defend the weak and the fatherless;

uphold the cause of the poor and the oppressed.

Rescue the weak and the needy;

deliver them from the hand of the wicked.”

Those words should be our guideline and incentive to ensure we do what is right. It is our duty to speak out against such cruelty. We must not ever remain passive.

We must ensure greater support from the international community to restore freedom, dignity and justice to workers trapped in slavery and bonded labour in Pakistan’s brick kilns. Collectively, we must act to ensure that human rights frameworks are upheld with concrete accountability and the investigations to end generations of families remaining trapped without hope and support. Someone working in the brick kilns has little or no chance of getting away—no chance of getting out. I know that some of those in the Gallery and those who have a deep interest in Pakistan have organised many escapes from the brick kilns to give people an opportunity of freedom, liberty and the opportunity of a life outside of that. For that we thank them.

This is a country that champions the right to freedom of religion or belief, as this Government do and as we uphold in this Chamber every day. Today I asked a business question about freedom of religion or belief. The Leader of the House always gives us encouragement in the work that he does, as does the work done in the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office. I ask the Minister to take a particular deep interest in this subject matter, as others will do as well, and ensure that we can have a proactive strategy coming out of this debate today to work on behalf of those people across the world.

It is essential that we place UK aid under greater scrutiny and monitoring. If we are going to give aid to Pakistan—as we do and as we should—there has to be a condition for how it is used: is it done fairly? Are there conditions on what they do with it? Yes, there are. It is the law in Pakistan that people have freedom, but that is not the reality. We need to make Pakistan aware of that.

We cannot possibly assist countries while foreign Governments refuse to protect the basic human rights of their citizens, particularly the rights to religious freedom, safety and dignity. When vulnerable communities are exposed to exploitation and persecution on a daily basis and in a deliberate fashion, there must be efforts to establish accountability and repercussions for Governments that continue to turn a blind eye to the realities of injustice and suffering in their own countries. Today is an opportunity to highlight that with the Minister, for all of us to agree collectively and, hopefully, for the Pakistan Government to respond and start to undo the injustice they are involved in.

We must ensure that the United Kingdom’s generosity is not misused to sustain regimes or systems that oppress their own people. With that, I believe we must do a number of things. We must monitor Pakistan’s compliance with international human rights law—are they doing it? At this time they are not, but they should be.

Pakistan is a party to both the universal declaration of human rights and the international covenant on civil and political rights, which both clearly outline:

“No one shall be held in slavery or servitude.”

Despite those commitments, reports continue to surface of bonded labour and systematic exploitation in various sectors across the country—an exploitation that must come to an end.

Pakistan is also party to the international covenant on economic, social and cultural rights, which ensures an individual’s right to work and the resulting commitment to safeguard that right, and to ensure that if they are working they are protected; that there is health and safety; that they are not exploited; that they are getting paid the right money; and that they are not abused in any way by the people who own the brick kilns, or by others who happen to be there.

The Pakistan Government must fully comply with the provisions of the Bonded Labour System (Abolition) Act 1992, which is part of their law, and with the related provincial legislation that should filter down from Government to the lower levels. It is vital to mention the International Labour Organisation’s requirements on the prevention of slave labour, children’s rights, women’s rights and minority rights. There are binding obligations that exist to uphold the dignity and freedom of every human being. They must be followed to ensure the protection of vulnerable children and women, and indeed any person within that system. The UK must place greater scrutiny on monitoring Pakistan’s adherence to the ILO’s obligations.

If I am asking something from the Minister—and I do, ever knowing that the Minister will come back to give us encouragement, which is important—it is that we need to know what Pakistan has signed up to, what it is obligated to, and that it is actually doing it. We can use our aid to Pakistan to influence the direction that that goes.

We must also make businesses aware of the high risk of modern slavery in Pakistan’s brick kilns and ensure that all UK-funded projects purchase only from certified brick kilns. It goes back to what the hon. Member for Glasgow North (Martin Rhodes) referred to in his intervention about slavery—we need to control that as well and see the things that are being done right. This will not only help to prevent exploitation, but set a very clear standard for responsible business practices.

There are also some positive developments through the potential progress and modernisation of the brick kiln industry itself, through mechanisation, for instance. Benefits would include reduced reliance on human labour and improved working conditions. However, the use of modern technology, including mechanisation alone, would be insufficient. While we look to what potentially could be the future, we also have to be aware of what is happening today. Without legal enforcement and worker protections, freed labourers may simply be displaced into other forms of exploitation, and that should never be allowed.

The United Kingdom must continue to engage with Pakistan through diplomatic channels, encouraging meaningful reform, stronger enforcement of labour laws and genuine accountability for human rights violations. The dignity of every individual must take precedence over trade and economic interests, or any other considerations. It is through sustained dialogue that we can create change and permanently end the horrific practice of modern slavery and bonded labour in brick kilns.

I conclude with this: we must also work to strengthen civil society and support local advocacy groups. I thank the people in the Public Gallery who work hard to make changes globally in relation to brick kilns, but those who have friends and contacts in Pakistan must ask them to make those changes too. We must hold public and private actors accountable for upholding the human rights standards that we all agree on and adhere to.

Hon. Members in the Chamber will echo what I have said and share some of the evidence and information that they have on the horrendous violations taking place in Pakistan’s brick kilns. We must not let the stories and the individuals be forgotten.

We have a duty to use our position and influence to speak up about the ongoing injustice on behalf of our suffering brothers and sisters in the Lord in Pakistan, and I thank in advance all of those who will take the time today to do that. This is our chance. As a Christian, I obviously believe it is important we do that; other hon. Members clearly think it is important too, and that is why they are here. I look to the Minister for the answers we need. We have a dire, dire situation happening in Pakistan that needs to be addressed, and I seek the Minister’s help to make that happen.

14:01

[Ruth Jones (Newport West and Islwyn) (Lab)]

It is a real pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Roger—without you filling in, we could not have held this important debate, so thank you for your time. I also thank the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) for opening this debate with such clarity and compassion. His tireless advocacy for persecuted communities, particularly Christians and other minorities in Pakistan, is both admirable and necessary. I also pay tribute to the all-party parliamentary group for the Pakistani minorities for its report, published in May last year, which brought essential evidence to the House.

As someone who has consistently stood up for justice, equality and the protection of all faith communities, I rise today with deep concern, but also determination, because we are confronting what is, in all but name, modern-day slavery. Across Pakistan, particularly in Punjab and Sindh, more than 4 million people, many of whom are from religious minority backgrounds, are trapped in bonded labour in the brick kiln industry. Entire families—mothers, fathers and children as young as five—work long hours under scorching heat, breathing in toxic fumes, and still cannot repay debts that often began with a small loan taken out of desperation.

Let me be clear: there has been progress, and it is right that we acknowledge that. Pakistan’s Bonded Labour System (Abolition) Act 1992, as the hon. Member for Strangford outlined earlier, outlawed debt bondage. Provincial measures, such as the Punjab Prohibition of Child Labour at Brick Kilns Act 2016, have banned the employment of children under 14.

We have also seen the launch of the Khidmat cards to support brick kiln families and encourage schooling, alongside efforts to register workers and enforce minimum wage. The introduction of zig-zag kiln technology supported by international partners, including the International Labour Organisation, has not only reduced air pollution, but offered a platform for improving labour monitoring and worker safety.

However, laws mean little without enforcement. A recent report by Pakistan’s own National Commission for Human Rights confirmed what activists have long said: enforcement remains weak, inspections are rare and many of the district-level vigilance committees meant to oversee bonded labour cases are either inactive or non-existent.

Behind every statistic is a human life. Yasmin, a mother of four from rural Punjab, took a small loan to pay her husband’s medical bills. That debt chained her family to a brick kiln. Each day, she and her children work from sunrise to sunset. The smoke makes it hard to breathe. They mould bricks with their hands in temperatures higher than 40°C, and still her debt grows. “Even when we sleep,” she says, “we dream of mud.”

Then there is Qaiser, who is just 11 years old. He wanted to be a doctor, but when his father fell ill he was pulled from school and put to work. He now spends 14 hours a day mixing clay instead of holding books. These stories of crushed dreams and invisible chains are not exceptions; they are the reality for thousands of families across Pakistan’s brick kilns. As a proud Labour MP, I have always believed that every worker deserves fair pay, dignity and safety, but that belief must extend beyond our borders, especially when British aid, diplomacy or trade may touch the same industries that sustain injustice.

This is also a women’s issue, as the hon. Member for Strangford outlined. More than one third of women working in Pakistan’s brick kilns experience harassment or abuse. It is also a child protection issue. The International Labour Organisation estimates that more than 1 million children in Pakistan are involved in brick making, some starting work before the age of 10. They should be in classrooms, not kiln yards.

In my work in the APPG on safeguarding in faith communities, I have seen how easily systems fail the most vulnerable, especially when poverty, gender and faith intersect. We must not allow these women and children to continue falling through the cracks of international policy.

We cannot call ourselves champions of freedom and justice abroad if we stay silent about slavery when it is right in front of us. That is why I am calling for a number of things. I want stronger scrutiny of UK aid to Pakistan to ensure it directly supports the elimination of bonded labour, strengthens independent labour inspections and funds legal aid and education for freed families. Programmes such as Aawaz II and the Asia regional child labour programme must not just exist, but deliver measurable change for those trapped in modern slavery.

I also want mandatory supply chain accountability for UK businesses. The Modern Slavery Act 2015 must go further.

[Martin Rhodes]

Does my hon. Friend agree that one of the most effective ways the UK can combat modern slavery worldwide is by introducing due diligence legislation for imports? In that way, we can ensure that products brought in from Pakistan, China or wherever else are produced in ways that do not include slavery.

[Ruth Jones]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right, and I hope the Minister will touch on that in her winding-up remarks. British firms sourcing bricks, construction materials or kiln-fired products from Pakistan must prove that they are not profiting from coercion. Ethical trade should be a condition, not a courtesy.

Certification and procurement reform is another area that I want to look at. I urge the Minister to support a credible slave-free kiln certificate scheme so that we can distinguish between law-abiding employers and exploitative operators. I ask the Minister to work with her colleagues to commit to excluding slave-made bricks from public procurement, both here in the UK and in projects we support overseas. I appreciate that the Minister is standing in, but it would be great if she could touch on those points when she is winding up.

My final ask is for diplomatic leadership. The UK must raise this issue consistently in dialogue with Pakistan, not as interference but as partnership. If Pakistan is to maintain its enhanced trade access through the European Union’s generalised scheme of preferences plus, it must show tangible progress in implementing the ILO conventions it has already ratified, including those prohibiting forced child labour.

I do not believe in hopeless causes; I believe in the power of collective action, international partnership and moral leadership to transform lives. Earlier this year, 20 bonded labourers, including six children, were freed from a brick kiln in Sindh after a successful court intervention supported by local non-governmental organisations. That is what happens when laws are enforced, when civil society is empowered and when justice is made real. Let us support the Bonded Labour Liberation Front, the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan and countless grassroots organisations that work every day to free families, educate children and restore dignity.

No brick made through suffering should ever be laid in silence. As parliamentarians, we must not only speak of human rights; we must act to uphold them. If we do not stand with the poor, the exploited and the voiceless—especially those from persecuted faith communities—we will fall short of the values we claim to represent. Let this be the moment when Britain chooses to stand not only as a trading partner, but as a partner for freedom, dignity and change.

14:08

[Monica Harding (Esher and Walton) (LD)]

It is an honour to serve under your chairship, Sir Roger. I thank the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) for bringing this important debate to the House.

Modern slavery remains one of the greatest violations of human dignity in the world. In Pakistan, an estimated 2.34 million people—more than one in 100—are affected by modern slavery. That figure places the country among the top 20 worst affected globally. Debt bondage, exploitative labour practices and gender-based inequality are driving millions into coercion and abuse. Pakistan’s vulnerability score of 80 out of 100 demonstrates the scale of systemic risk—from the effects of conflict and poverty to weak governance and entrenched inequality.

Although Pakistan has made some progress, its Government response score sits at just 37 out of 100—below the regional average—according to international humanitarian rights groups. Victims continue to be trapped in cycles of exploitation, with women in agriculture and children in bonded labour facing the harshest conditions. Natural disasters, including the devastating 2022 floods, have intensified that vulnerability; they have destroyed livelihoods and forced many into debt bondage simply to survive.

The United Kingdom has a unique and historic relationship with Pakistan. Our two nations share deep ties through trade, and we continue to work with the new Government of Pakistan for the benefit of all Pakistanis. That partnership gives Britain an opportunity but also a responsibility to speak up for those whose voices are silenced. We should be deeply concerned by Pakistan’s lack of action on modern slavery, as well as its lack of action to safeguard human rights, protect religious freedoms and defend minority communities. The UK must use its influence to encourage genuine reform and work with international partners to ensure that all Pakistani citizens enjoy the fundamental freedoms and protections they deserve.

The hon. Member for Strangford laid out the evils of bonded labour in Pakistan. Pakistan has one of the highest numbers of bonded labourers in the world, with over a million workers in brick kilns. Bonded labour is an abuse analogous to slavery. As we have heard, Pakistan’s Bonded Labour System (Abolition) Act 1992 was enacted to outlaw bonded labour, but its implementation has been a significant challenge, perhaps because of a lack of political will or capacity.

What help is the UK giving to Pakistan to implement the 1992 Act by encouraging will and assisting with capacity? What conversations have the Government had with the Government in Pakistan about ending modern slavery, and what support can the Government give to Pakistan, given their own commitment to achieving sustainable development goal 8, which targets modern slavery?

We must also remember, however, that modern slavery is not a tragedy that happens only overseas; it is happening here in the UK, often hidden in plain sight. It is present on our farms, in our care homes, in nail salons and even in drive-through restaurants. Modern slavery is not a crime of the past. Last year alone, more than 19,000 potential victims were identified in Britain. That rise has been fuelled by deepening inequality and increasingly sophisticated criminal networks that exploit vulnerabilities and target victims through online platforms and social media.

The Modern Slavery Act 2015 was rightly hailed as a landmark piece of legislation and demonstrated that the UK could lead the world in confronting this abuse, but nearly a decade on, charge and conviction rates for offences under the Act remain too low. The result is a system where victims slip through the cracks and too many perpetrators escape justice. If we are serious about ending exploitation and working with our partners in other countries, we must strengthen our own enforcement, protect survivors and ensure that the law delivers accountability as promised.

We Liberal Democrats believe that the fight against modern slavery must begin with action, both at home and abroad. Primarily, we would introduce a business, human rights and environment Bill that would establish a clear duty of care on companies, financial institutions and public bodies. The legislation would require businesses to carry out due diligence to prevent human rights abuses, including modern slavery and child labour, across their global supply chains and to report openly on their actions. Will the Minister commit to exploring similar legislation, and will she ensure that UK-linked supply chains in countries like Pakistan are not allowed to rely on vulnerable or exploited labour?

The UK also has a major role to play in demanding fairness in global supply chains. The fast fashion industry, including major sourcing from Pakistan, has long been associated with unethical labour practices. I hope the Minister will set out today what steps the Government will take to ensure that no product entering the UK market is tainted by exploitation.

Beyond supply chains, more can be done nationally. I would welcome a promise from the Government that they will review the modern slavery strategy to help them to address modern and evolving trafficking methods and take a victim-centred approach. They should restore the modern slavery fund to support innovative approaches to tackling modern slavery and back it up with a multi- year funding model.

Our message is simple: Britain must not profit from exploitation. That means holding corporations accountable where they are complicit in abuse abroad and ensuring that our trade and foreign policy reflect the values we hold dear: justice, dignity and human rights for all.

For the Liberal Democrats, human rights and preventing violations of international law such as modern slavery are the centrepiece of foreign policy. We continue to work tirelessly to abolish the death penalty globally and end the use of torture, and we would ban imports from regions complicit in egregious abuses. However, it is not enough to react to abuse; we must build the conditions in which dignity and liberty can thrive—from Pakistan to China and from Ukraine to Sudan.

On Pakistan specifically, I would like to turn to the Ahmadiyya Muslim community. Ahmadis are among the most persistently and brutally persecuted people in Pakistan. Their crime, in the eyes of the law, is simply to call themselves Muslim. Under Pakistan’s constitution, Ahmadis are legally defined as non-Muslims. They are forbidden to use Islamic terminology, barred from voting and denied freedom of worship. Last week, I met the leaders of the Ahmadiyya Muslim community in the UK, who described to me the grim reality of state-sponsored persecution. Fourteen Ahmadis are currently imprisoned, some for more than five years, for practising their faith. Their schools have been nationalised, their literature banned and their mosques destroyed. In the past two years alone, there have been over 50 attacks on Ahmadi places of worship and over 420 desecrations of Ahmadi graves.

For the Liberal Democrats, freedom of religion means freedom for all faiths whenever and wherever. I ask the Minister to make this issue a diplomatic priority. The UK must use its close relationship with Pakistan to press for immediate change, to hold perpetrators of mob violence to account, to release prisoners of conscience, to restore Ahmadi voting rights and to return nationalised schools. Britain’s voice matters and it must be used to defend those whose only wish is to live and worship freely.

Modern slavery and persecution thrive where the rule of law is weak and indifference is strong. We will not turn away. We stand for a world in which every person in Pakistan and beyond can live with freedom, dignity and hope. Britain must once again lead with moral clarity and compassion, using its influence to not only condemn exploitation, but confront it, and building a future where human rights are not the privilege of the few but the inheritance of all.

14:17

[Andrew Rosindell (Romford) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Roger, and especially today—thank you for saving the day by turning up to chair this important debate. I commend the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) for bringing another vital debate before the House in the characteristically noble fashion we have grown to expect from him. I also commend the other Members who have contributed to it, including the hon. Member for Newport West and Islwyn (Ruth Jones), who always speaks with passion and principle. She rightly highlighted examples of the exploitation of children, women and vulnerable people in Pakistan today. She said we cannot stay silent on slavery, and she is absolutely right: Britain needs to have a voice on this issue. She is also right that there should be a link between UK aid to Pakistan and dealing with the atrocious issue we are debating, so that we can get rid of modern-day slavery in that country.

I commend the Liberal Democrat spokesman, the hon. Member for Esher and Walton (Monica Harding), who spoke about the Ahmadi Muslims. I myself have spoken about the way they are treated, and she is absolutely right that that is another area that needs to be highlighted and that we need to support that community. She said that Britain’s voice matters—absolutely it does—and we should use that voice strongly and clearly against the persecution and ill treatment we have been discussing this afternoon. I thank her for her comments.

Modern slavery is one of the greatest moral outrages of our time. More than 50 million people are estimated to be under the yoke of slavery across the world—more than at any point in human history. It is a sobering truth that while we in Britain debate our country’s historic involvement in slavery, millions of men, women and children are being born, sold and trapped into slavery today.

Pakistan is a Commonwealth partner and a friend of the United Kingdom, and only 70 years ago we shared the same head of state, Queen Elizabeth II. It is because of that close connection that Britain can raise, and ultimately assist in eradicating, the concerns we are debating. According to the Global Slavery Index, 2.3 million people are living in modern slavery in Pakistan, making it one of the top 20 worst affected nations in the world, and 10 or 11 people in every 1,000 are enslaved, which is an outrage. To contextualise that, throughout the entire 200 years that Britain was involved in the transatlantic slave trade, 3.4 million people were taken from Africa to the new world. In Pakistan today, 67% of that number are living in modern slavery.

As we have heard this afternoon, the brick kilns of Pakistan are perhaps the clearest example. There are over 20,000 kilns across the country, employing up to 3 million workers, many of whom are trapped in bonded labour, with entire families working 14 to 16 hours a day in suffocating heat and toxic fumes to pay off debts that can never actually be repaid. These are generational debts of forced labour, which are passed from parents to children, binding generation after generation to indentured servitude in many of these kilns. Workers are paid barely enough to survive, let alone escape. Children—some of them as young as five—mould bricks alongside their parents. Women, often from minority faith backgrounds, face harassment, violence and sexual abuse from their employers.

The majority of brick kiln workers are from among Pakistan’s poorest and least educated, and too often from religious minorities, including Christians and Hindus, who are disproportionately affected. Many families are lured into bondage by loans, which they take out as a last resort to pay for food, medical bills and dowries. Illiteracy means they rarely understand the exploitative interest rates or the false records maintained by their employers. Their debts are also recorded informally and arbitrarily, which means they are effectively impossible to contest. Unfortunately, these workers are invisible to the state.

As was referred to, Pakistan passed the Bonded Labour System (Abolition) Act in 1992, but over three decades later enforcement appears sporadic and ineffective. In the last Parliament, a report from the APPG for the Pakistani minorities, chaired by the hon. Member for Strangford, rightly said that

“successive governments have lacked the political will or capacity to enforce the law.”

The same report recommended that His Majesty’s Government use their aid budget to strengthen monitoring and compliance with International Labour Organisation standards, and even earmark £500,000 to hire inspectors to carry out unannounced inspections of brick kilns.

The aid budget might be a controversial topic at present, but I say to the Minister that if we are going to spend money on development aid, we should surely take up the mantle of our forefathers by taking the fight to slavery. When the Minister replies, will she tell us whether the Government will support the creation of a dedicated UK-funded inspection mechanism for Pakistan’s brick kilns? Will the FCDO consider making aid conditional on measurable progress in tackling bonded labour? Will the Department for Business and Trade issue clearer guidance to UK firms about the risk of slavery in supply chains linked to Pakistan’s construction sector?

Although we are focusing particularly on Pakistan, I am sad to say that it is far from unique. Across Asia, Africa and, shockingly, even Europe, cases of forced labour, human trafficking and child exploitation still persist. The ILO estimates that forced labour generates $236 billion in illegal profits every year, which in state terms is roughly the size of the Portuguese, Czech or Greek economies. It is huge.

As I alluded to, this is also very much a problem for the United Kingdom. British consumers unknowingly buy goods produced through forced labour in a range of areas, such as fashion, electronics, seafood and construction materials. Will the Minister therefore outline what steps are being taken to update, reform and strengthen the Modern Slavery Act? Do the Government agree that development aid must be conditional on the efforts taken by recipients to tackle modern day slavery?

This House must not shy away from the fact that our nation has been the ultimate force for good in the world. We should speak proudly of Britain’s historic role in abolishing the slave trade, not apologise for it. It was this country that led the world—at great cost—in suppressing the slave trade in the 19th century. The Royal Navy’s West Africa Squadron rescued tens of thousands of enslaved Africans from ships flying other nations’ flags, and policed the eradication of the slave trade across the seas.

Today, the same voices that denounce our ancestors for slavery’s past—a trade that unfortunately predates civilisation as we know it—too often turn a blind eye to slavery’s present, as we have discussed. They are quick to pull down statues, yet slow to stand up for the children working in brick kilns, mines and sweatshops. It is easy to virtue signal about history; it is harder to confront the uncomfortable truth that slavery continues today in countries we trade with, partner with and fund, let alone in a Commonwealth nation such as Pakistan.

We should not therefore indulge in moral self-flagellation, but lead once again in the cause of abolition. The UK should prioritise anti-slavery measures in all development programmes in Pakistan; support NGOs providing legal aid, education and rehabilitation to bonded labourers; push for the digital registration of all brick kiln workers to bring them within the formal economy; and champion the global partnerships to eradicate slavery by 2030.

I suggest to the Minister that the FCDO publish an annual report on progress made against modern slavery globally. I emphasise that the UK should once again lead internationally, as we did two centuries ago, to ensure that every human can live in freedom.

Shamefully, modern slavery is not a relic of the past; it remains very much a stain on our present. The children in Pakistan’s brick kilns deserve the same rights, the same dignity and the same hope that we take for granted here in these islands. The Britain I know and love stands for freedom and for individual liberty, and is wholesale against oppression, whether that comes in the form of the state or the corporation.

If we are to influence affairs abroad, there is no finer crusade than the moral crusade to unchain children and their mothers and fathers from a life spent in forced labour and exploitation. Britain must lead this cause—just as we did before.

14:29

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs (Seema Malhotra)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship today, Sir Roger, and to respond to this debate. I am grateful to my good friend, the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon), for securing the debate, and for his work on the issue through the all-party group and by contributing to the cross-party report that was published last year. I am also grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Newport West and Islwyn (Ruth Jones) for her contribution, and to the Opposition spokespeople, the hon. Members for Esher and Walton (Monica Harding) and for Romford (Andrew Rosindell). I will endeavour to come back on all the points that have been made, and where I am unable to, I am sure we can follow up in conversations afterwards.

I am sure that the hon. Member for Strangford will want to join me as I express my deepest condolences to all affected by the tragic explosion in Islamabad earlier this week. Our thoughts are with the victims and their families, and with everyone on whom that terrible event has had an impact.

I am grateful to those who intervened in the debate, which has highlighted our shared determination to confront another grave injustice—modern slavery. I must also acknowledge the work of the Under-Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, my hon. Friend the Member for Lincoln (Mr Falconer). He is the Minister for the Middle East, North Africa, Afghanistan and Pakistan, and he would normally have responded to this debate, but he is unavoidably unable to be here. He and I speak regularly, and I am grateful for the opportunity to respond on his behalf.

Modern slavery refers to horrific situations in which individuals are exploited through coercion, threats, deception, forced labour and human trafficking. Despite the work that we have done and the abolition of slavery, which is such an important part of our history, so many forms of modern slavery still go on in the UK and across the world. We are determined, collectively, to do all we can to end it.

Bonded labour is a specific form of modern slavery, where a person is trapped working to repay a debt, often under conditions that make escape or repayment impossible. In the debate, we heard how Pakistan has an estimated 2.3 million people in modern slavery, including bonded labour, forced marriage and child labour. We heard about the billions of bricks made annually across the estimated 20,000 kilns, which employ more than 1 million workers. Many of those workers are trapped in debt bondage, because they take loans from kiln operators—sometimes for emergencies or basic needs, but the loans come with exorbitant interest that workers may not even be able to calculate, as well as unlawful deductions and a lack of transparent records. Children and entire families work to repay the debts, which are often passed down through generations. Some 83% of kilns surveyed had children working in them, many during school hours. Religious minorities, especially Christians and Hindus, are disproportionately affected. Up to 50% of kiln workers in Punjab and Sindh are from minority communities.

Let me reaffirm the UK’s clear and unwavering commitment: we are determined to end all forms of modern slavery, forced labour and human trafficking. We are working with partners to protect the most vulnerable, especially women and children, and to help survivors to rebuild their lives. That commitment shapes our engagement with Pakistan, and precisely because of that important relationship, we can engage frankly and constructively, including on human rights.

As we have heard, bonded labour remains a significant risk, particularly for already marginalised religious minority communities, which are disproportionately affected. We have welcomed moves by Pakistan to strengthen its response to forced labour and wider trafficking issues, including through its accession to the UN trafficking protocol in 2022 and the 2025 amendments to the Prevention of Trafficking in Persons Act and related laws.

As the all-party group identified, and as has been said today, legal enforcement remains a challenge. The UK’s approach has been to combine diplomacy with practical programmes that strengthen laws, data, institutions and community resilience, alongside discreet advocacy in sensitive cases. We know that progress is possible, because when evidence, political will and community action come together, exploitation can be prevented.

Let me say a few words about how the UK is helping, and then I will respond to some of the comments and questions. Through the UK’s £46.5 million Aawaz II programme, we support Pakistan at both policy and community levels. Nationally, the initiative helps to improve laws, policies and systems that protect marginalised groups; locally, it raises awareness, promotes behaviour change and supports people to engage constructively with the state to access rights and services. That has included practical work on bonded and child labour in sectors such as brick kilns. Because we cannot fix what we cannot see, the UK’s support has helped to deliver some of the first child labour surveys in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Punjab, giving policymakers the evidence they need to act.

I should also mention our work in Balochistan through our Asia regional child labour programme—the FCDO’s largest modern slavery programme—between 2018 and 2023. We helped to set up a child protection system that is already linking vulnerable children to support services. That is part of a wider preventive approach that puts survivors at its heart, and it sits alongside the UK’s wider development partnership in Pakistan: investing in girls’ education, strengthening health systems and building community resilience.

[Jim Shannon]

I welcome all the things that the Minister refers to—they are good steps forward, and that is what I would expect—but we have all mentioned that the young children in the brick kilns are not even getting educated. Some 80% of them have no education whatsoever. How will the Government target that issue? The hon. Member for Romford (Andrew Rosindell) referred, as possibilities, to more inspections in the brick kilns and more work with the NGOs. I welcome everything that the Minister has said, but those are the key issues.

[Seema Malhotra]

The hon. Member has raised those issues in the report, and I can come back on a few points.

Our UK aid is delivered in Pakistan via trusted partners with rigorous safeguards. Our programmes focus on systemic change, strengthening child protection systems, improving birth registration and supporting legal reform. Through Aawaz II and the Asia regional child labour programme, which I mentioned, we have helped to register more than 3.4 million children and established referral services that connect vulnerable children to protective services. I will talk a bit more about that work. We are also doing work through some of those programmes to tackle early and forced marriages, which are a problem in this space, and raising these concerns regularly with the Government of Pakistan, including at ministerial level.

The investments that we are making in our work with Pakistan also address the underlying vulnerabilities—poverty, exclusion, lack of documentation and lack of access to justice—that traffickers and exploiters so often prey on; they believe and say that people have no option. We will continue to use our diplomatic network to encourage effective enforcement against those who profit from exploitation and to champion the rights of workers and of children to be safe, to be in school, and to be free.

We know that modern slavery thrives where rights are weak and discrimination goes unchallenged. That is why, in parallel with our work to tackle modern slavery, we consistently raise human rights issues with the Government of Pakistan, publicly and privately. We call for respect, for due process, for the rule of law, and for the upholding of the rights enshrined in Pakistan’s constitution and international obligations. That is why the Minister for the Middle East, North Africa, Afghanistan and Pakistan has regularly raised these issues with his counterparts, including most recently in a meeting with Deputy Prime Minister Dar in August when he voiced concern about the persecution of the Ahmadiyya Muslim community. I know that is a very serious matter of concern to us all.

The British high commission in Islamabad regularly raises the subject of the rights and safety of religious minorities—such as Christians, Hindus, Sikhs and Ahmadis—with the Pakistani authorities at the highest levels. We also support interfaith dialogue; we support efforts to counter hate speech, especially online; and we support sensitive parliamentary engagement on laws that are misused to persecute minorities. We will continue to press for the protection of minorities, for full investigations where violence occurs and for accountability for those who are responsible.

Hon. Members have asked about our approach to modern slavery, and I will make this point about our work and our trade strategy. The Government have launched a review of their approach to responsible business conduct policy. That review will focus on the global supply chain of businesses operating in the UK, and it will be a neutral and objective appraisal of the UK’s current responsible business conduct approach and alternative options that aim to enhance that approach. The review will consider the effectiveness of the UK’s current responsible business conduct measures and alternative policy options to support responsible business practices, including mandatory human rights due diligence and import controls, among other measures. I am sure that hon. Members will want to consider their views in relation to that work.

When it comes to the UK funding more organisations that aim to tackle bonded labour, we recognise that UK resources are finite, as I am sure the shadow Minister does. However, we can prioritise programmes that deliver systemic change, and we can do that alongside our continuing advocacy. It is important that our UK aid is channelled through trusted partners. That requires due diligence and accountability, and we must ensure that it has impact and represents value for money. We welcome the all-party group’s recommendations and share its concerns. Although direct funding for inspectors is not currently in place, I hope that our programmes that focus on systemic reform, and that support legal enforcement, data collection and community empowerment, are having an impact. We keep that work under review.

In conclusion, the UK stands with those in Pakistan who are working to end modern slavery. We will continue to combine evidence-driven programmes with principled diplomacy to help to tackle bonded labour and strengthen the rights that keep people free. That is the measure of a just society, and it is a cause that the United Kingdom will continue to champion.

14:45

[Jim Shannon]

I thank everyone for taking part in the debate. I and my friend and colleague the hon. Member for Newport West and Islwyn (Ruth Jones) have the same focus, demands and compassion and the same energy for this subject, and I thank her very much. She was right to underline the need for regular inspections, which I think would be instrumental in making the change we wish to see. She mentioned the crushing of young children’s dreams and gave two examples—an example always illustrates a story better than a thousand words, and she certainly did that.

I thank the hon. Member for Glasgow North (Martin Rhodes) for his two interventions on modern slavery. He has the same interest in this matter. The Government, and the Minister in particular, have indicated that modern slavery issues have to be addressed at every level. The hon. Gentleman referred to due diligence legislation for imports, and I am quite clear that there is a role for Government to play on that.

I thank the Lib Dem spokesperson, the hon. Member for Esher and Walton (Monica Harding), for her contribution. She referred to the debts that are imposed on people and to the fact that the UK can and should influence Pakistan. She made the point clearly that we should all be equal in our religious freedom and human rights; unfortunately, the debate illustrated that so often we are not. She also referred to global support for tackling bonded labour and reducing slavery through legislation, and I thank her very much for that.

The shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Romford (Andrew Rosindell), who is a good friend as well, clearly illustrated the Opposition’s position. He mentioned that slavery across the world is at its highest level, and that Pakistan is a member of the Commonwealth and therefore our influence should be greater—and it should be; I agree with him. He referred to brick kilns as a prime example of what is wrong with the bonded labour system, in which people’s debts just seem to increase continuously. He also referred to Pakistan’s 1992 bonded labour law—something that Pakistan brought in and that Governments should be using to try to influence it. If that is the law that it has, then we should make it work.

I thank the Minister, as ever, for her contribution. I have absolutely no doubt that she wants to see the change that we all want to see. However, as the hon. Member for Newport West and Islwyn and the shadow Minister both mentioned, we should be making a point of asking the Pakistan Government directly to act on inspections of brick kilns. We should be working closely with the NGOs that work in Pakistan regularly and have evidence and information. I am conscious that this subject is not the Minister’s responsibility, but if we have evidence—and I suspect we do—to show where things went wrong, can we send that evidence on to the responsible Minister to ensure that we can make a change? It is clear that the Government have a plan that they are working on. We want to work with them, through those who are here today, the NGOs and others, to bring about the change that is needed in Pakistan.

Thank you, Sir Roger, for filling in, for your generosity and for the time that you have committed to be here this afternoon when you were asked to—we all appreciate that—and I thank those in the Public Gallery for coming along. I hope that Westminster Hall has done them justice today.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House has considered modern day slavery in Pakistan.

14:49

Sitting suspended.

Rogue Builders

Thursday 13th November 2025 Westminster Hall

[Gill Furniss in the Chair]

15:00

[Mark Garnier (Wyre Forest) (Con) [R]]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the matter of protecting consumers from rogue builders.

I am conscious that we may have to go off for multiple votes before half-past 4, so I will crack on with what was going to be 45 minutes of the most magnificent speech—I will abridge it to just 42. I am missing out the bit where I was going to be nice about builders—I am afraid I will concentrate on the nastiness of builders.

I start by defining the area that I am keen to concentrate on, which is the smaller end of the market. Known as the repair, maintenance and improvement sector, or RMI, this is the area where we see many appalling stories of people’s lives being ruined by unwittingly taking on so-called dodgy builders.

There are countless stories in the press, and there are TV shows specialising in these types of problems. I could turn to any number of articles in the national and regional press that talk about cowboy builders. A relatively simple search for stories of rogue and cowboy builders reveals 1,500 such stories in the last five years alone, and that is just the stories that made the press. This is a very insidious problem.

Chat to almost anybody who has had any building work done to their home, and they will roll their eyes and admit that they have had trouble of one sort or another. But we do not have to rely on hearsay and the media to understand the problems and the implications. The Federation of Master Builders conducts surveys to see what the effect is on the RMI market, and a recent poll of homeowners discovered that one in three were put off having work done on their home because of the fear of being ripped off. That equates to a possible £10 billion of lost economic activity.

[Monica Harding (Esher and Walton) (LD)]

I would like to shine a light on one of those many stories. My constituent in Esher and Walton paid over £16,000 for a kitchen remodelling that was never delivered, and the same company is alleged to have defrauded other constituents, including one this year who lost £20,000. When fraud occurs on this scale, it is theft from honest people, but consumers find that the civil courts are slow, complex and costly. Does the hon. Member agree that the Ministry of Justice should ensure accessible routes to redress, which may be small claims courts or an ombudsman scheme, so that consumers can get justice quickly?

[Mark Garnier]

I will talk about that in my speech. The fundamental problem is that, at the moment, the only course of redress is through the court system, and it is not good enough.

The FMB does a lot of work in this area, and it is worth looking at some of its statistics. Thirty-seven per cent of customers report unreliability, and many of them cite apparently unqualified operators. Nearly a quarter—that is 25%—of all customers have lost money to rogues, with losses averaging £1,760, but in many cases the amount is far higher. The national loss is horrific. The FMB estimates that, over five years, homeowners have lost an astonishing £14.3 billion to unreliable builders, putting an astonishing burden on the housing market and households. It turns out that young adults are more at risk, with 33% scammed by rogue traders found via social media.

The consumer is not the only victim of rogue or cowboy builders. Within the industry, many find themselves a victim of the same problem. Subcontractors find they are not paid, and it is the same for merchants. Plant hire companies are frequently the victims of theft and abuse of equipment. Alarmingly, health and safety is a low priority among many small and medium-sized building firms operating in the RMI market.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I commend the hon. Gentleman for securing this debate, and he is absolutely right. In Northern Ireland, consumer protection against rogue builders involves preventive measures, official reporting channels and legal recourse through the Consumerline service, trading standards and the small claims court. The reality is that those protections are difficult to navigate, and they are often off-putting for people who are not used to filling in forms and writing things out. Does the hon. Member agree that there must be a more straightforward approach? People, who are often vulnerable and need support, should not have to jump through hoops.

[Mark Garnier]

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. The current system does not satisfy people in any way, shape or form. Also, there is an inequality of risk, which I will come to in my speech.

Although large firms working on major commercial and civil engineering projects have embraced health and safety legislation, a blitz of small refurbishment sites by Health and Safety Executive inspectors in 2016 found that a stunning 49% of sites fell below the standards set for compliance with health and safety requirements. More alarmingly, that cavalier attitude to health and safety reveals the potential problem of cowboy builders leaving dangerous sites. When someone has an extension built, might they be risking life and limb when they climb those stairs? Poor-quality building results in not just shoddy work, but dangerous and potentially fatal work.

Rogue builders have an effect beyond their own unhappy activities. By undercutting reputable, high-standard builders that make up the majority of the market, they force them to cut their margins. Price competition is fine, but not when a worthwhile and reputable SME builder is competing against someone with no care for safety, honesty or customer satisfaction. Given that the RMI market is dominated by occasional customers—we are not doing this very often—it is quite likely that the key element of choice is price. Unhealthy price competition drives down standards, even if reputable firms are unhappy being forced to cut standards to compete.

In an extreme example of the problem—this is an important point—I recently met Andrew Bennett, who had engaged a local firm in Liverpool to refurbish a six-bedroom property that he owned—a job that was to be worth around £100,000. He checked out the firm and was happy with references and testimonials. He engaged the firm, but it turned out that the work was dangerously below standard. When he started to seek redress, he discovered that the company in question was not what he had been led to believe. It was a rogue builder passing off as a well-known, reputable company. Moreover, this dubious company had nine county court judgments against it and therefore had no money to pay the award to Mr Bennett when he won his case.

That company was passing off as another. It was seeking to take money off an individual customer by deliberately misleading him, and it failed to deliver the work contracted by that customer under the cover of misleading him—fraud, by any other name, or by the actual name. Mr Bennett went to the police, who told him that it was a civil matter. He tried all the avenues available to him to get this individual bang to rights, but to absolutely no avail. The company continues to rip off people, in full knowledge of the local law enforcers, trading standards, the local council and planning department, and multiple victims of its activities.

[Ms Julie Minns (Carlisle) (Lab)]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for securing this important debate. One of my constituents was ripped off to the tune of £19,000 when the builder walked off the job part-way through. However, when they went to trading standards and the police, they were told that, because the work had begun, it was a civil and not a criminal matter. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that more needs to be done to protect our constituents who are caught by that loophole?

[Mark Garnier]

Yes. It is shameful how these builders can get away with it—it is absolutely astonishing. By the way, this campaign has been going on for a number of years. It is very good to see, behind the Minister, the official who has worked with me in the past, although we have yet to achieve what we want to achieve.

How do victims of rogue builders seek redress? The answer, as we know, is not simple. They go to trading standards in the first instance but, with a rogue builder being, by definition, a rogue, the sanctions available are weak at best. Ultimately, the homeowner or small business owner who finds themselves a victim has no recourse other than the courts. However, the reality is that contract law simply does not work for people with problems above the small claims limit but below around £1 million.

The reality is that anyone can make up a fictitious bill that they want us to pay, and we have to negotiate. To challenge or defend that type of bill requires a commitment of between £100,000 and £200,000 in legal and court fees to prosecute a court case, and in professional fees to demonstrate the loss. I spoke to any number of friends and colleagues with very senior legal experience, and everyone said that this type of problem has absolutely nothing to do with justice and everything to do with negotiation. One even said that it is like being mugged and then being charged for the knife, with the backing of the law. For many reasons, our legal system is so clogged up that it serves no one properly, allowing it to be abused by rogue traders.

[Mr Connor Rand (Altrincham and Sale West) (Lab)]

The hon. Gentleman speaks powerfully of the devastation that can be caused by rogue builders, as families in Altrincham and Sale West have experienced. Many have been ripped off by Frank Deary, a rogue builder who has taken over £1 million for work that he has never finished. He repeatedly liquidates his various building companies, making it extremely difficult for victims to recover any money, before he starts all over again with a different company name popping up. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that this case, and so many cases that we all see in our constituencies, shows the need to crack down on rogue builders and improve customer protections?

[Mark Garnier]

The hon. Gentleman has probably read my speech, as that is the core of it. The legal problem is bigger than just failing to support victims through the court system. Rogue builders know the legal system works in their favour. There are builders who create fictitious bills or charge fictitious costs for work not carried out—I have seen that as a victim myself. I contracted a builder to renovate a much-loved family home, and they failed to do the work in time, which was a breach of contract. They rattled on for far too long, they did not do the whole work and, at the end, they put in a massive, fictitious bill. Our quantity surveyor reckoned there was an outstanding balance to pay of perhaps £6,000, but they put in a bill for £100,000.

In the end, everybody said, “You have to negotiate.” We negotiated a final settlement, which was multiple times in excess. This is a fundamental problem. We do not get redress, and we have to negotiate even if we know the negotiation is bogus.

[Tom Hayes (Bournemouth East) (Lab)]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for securing this debate. There are lots of excellent and reliable builders in Bournemouth East, but I am thinking of my constituents Andrew and Heather, who have really suffered at the hands of a rogue builder whose contact details they were unable to access. They got in touch with me because of their concern about their circumstances. Does the hon. Gentleman agree with me, and with them, that the domestic building industry needs strong licensing and regulation? Without that, we will not stop cowboy builders exploiting my constituents.

[Mark Garnier]

The hon. Gentleman makes exactly the right point. We need a balance of risk, and I will come to that point later.

Consumers of repair, maintenance and improvement building services have no protection whatsoever. There is no practical protection for consumers to avoid the highly risky, unbelievably expensive and emotionally draining prospect of prosecuting contract law. Indeed, subcontractors working on my home were also victims of the rogue builder because they were not paid, either. It is extraordinary that consumers are unprotected. When we think about the whole process of refurbishing a home or building an extension, it looks even more astonishing.

The proud homeowner seeking to improve their home will go to an architect regulated by the Architects Registration Board. They might contract a quantity surveyor regulated by the Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors. They will probably need to borrow money, so they might approach a mortgage broker regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority. They will get help with a mortgage provided by a lender—again, regulated by the FCA, and possibly the Prudential Regulation Authority—with advice from a solicitor regulated by the Solicitors Regulation Authority. The money will then be deposited in a bank, again regulated by the FCA and the PRA.

The whole process is laden with consumer protection right up to the point where the money is handed over to someone with absolutely no regulation, possibly no qualifications, and no protection mechanism for consumers. As I said before, the problem gets worse, but it is worth repeating. The victim may well prosecute the case in court and win both damages and costs. But at that point the rogue builder goes bust with no assets, as pointed out by the hon. Member for Altrincham and Sale West (Mr Rand), and starts a new business the following day to continue the process of ripping off consumers. Meanwhile, the victim’s costs are unpaid and run into hundreds of thousands of pounds. The consumer ends up winning the moral victory but losing an enormous amount of money, while the rogue builder goes on to do the same again without any consequence.

[Lee Pitcher (Doncaster East and the Isle of Axholme) (Lab)]

As well as the financial cost, there is also an emotional cost. A constituent got in touch with me after trying to resolve an issue with leaking roof insulation. When we got involved, it took us eight months and 97 emails to get the builder back out to repair it. There is an emotional impact on the whole family. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that this is an intolerable burden to put on people, and that we need to do something more?

[Mark Garnier]

Absolutely. Not only that, but if we think about the consequences, those 97 emails could have been sent for any one of the 100,000 constituents that we each have. We should not be doing this, and there should be a mechanism to sort it out.

The important reality of all this is that there is no disincentive at all for the cowboy builder to present fictitious bills and do bad work. While the consumer must engage in a risky legal process, the rogue builder can game the system with no jeopardy whatever. As we learned from Mr Bennett's story in Merseyside and the many other people who contacted me, the police will not investigate a case with regard to fraud and rogue builders, as they deem it a civil matter.

So what is the solution? How do we protect honest builders, subcontractors, merchants and, importantly, our constituents and consumers? How do we redress the balance of risk so that it does not favour the rogue builder but gives equal weight to both consumer and builder? The builder is not always in the wrong, so the solution must be balanced. Builders may occasionally need to be protected from rogue customers. The answer must lie in a scheme of regulation and licensing. In essence, what I am seeking to do—I have had a couple of presentation Bills on this topic—is get the Government to come up with a scheme of compulsory licensing for SME building firms working in the renovation and domestic improvement space. We do not know what it will be, but we need a system in which there is an equivalence of risk on both sides. There must be something that the builder as an individual can lose if he or she is found not to be doing their job properly.

My experience in this area has been with financial services and regulatory reform. Although I am not proposing anything remotely as complex as the FCA or the PRA to regulate builders, there is more than one important carry-across from financial services regulation. The first is that we do not want regulation to be a burden on the taxpayer. A licensing scheme must be self-financed through licensing fees: the building firms must pay for it.

Rules for having a licence must be straightforward. Importantly, no firm or individual should be allowed to offer services directly to customers without a licence. That in itself would result in the wider building industry policing the market. If a builder knows that somebody else is a dodgy builder, it is in their interest to report them. Mortgage lenders would require evidence that money will be spent on a licensed firm. Architects and surveyors acting as project managers would need to see licences to engage a building firm in the first place, so consumer would know what they are getting. Consumers would be able to check the builder on the regulator’s website, in the same way that they can check their pension adviser on the FCA register. The regulator could be TrustMark, which already offers voluntary regulation. There should a code of conduct covering honesty, safety and quality of work. Failure to comply should have a series of sanctions, with the ultimate sanction of the loss of licence.

An option could be a compensation scheme. The Financial Services Compensation Scheme is an example of how consumers who have lost out as a result of poor practice can be compensated for their loss from a scheme financed by levies placed on licence holders in the relevant sector. The double effect is that the consumer gets their losses covered while the industry as a whole is incentivised to keep an eye on each other. An ombudsman would be able to assess consumer loss without the need to engage expensive and lengthy legal and professional experts to defend against bogus builds or to challenge poor work. These proposals aim to end the decades-long history of consumers who have been ripped off in one way or another by shoddy rogue builders.

I am conscious of time, Ms Furniss, but I want to acknowledge that the Government have started to resolve some of these issues. A New Homes Quality Board has been set up to ensure that new homes are built to a certain standard. That is a welcome development. The fact that it has an ombudsman demonstrates that the Government and I are probably thinking along the same lines in a broad sense, but the New Homes Quality Board is targeted specifically at the new homes market. Given the Government’s target of 1.5 million new homes, it will have its work cut out. Importantly, it is not designed for the RM&I sector, which remains wholly unregulated and unsupervised. That is what the Minister must concentrate on.

Many people agree that this problem in the RM&I sector is beyond redemption. The Federation of Master Builders report on this subject in 2018 said that even construction firms themselves agree that a compulsory licensing scheme is necessary. The industry wants it too: 77% of SME builders and 78% of consumers agree with the FMB’s proposed licensing scheme.

Enough is enough. I have a few more words about my engagement so far. Unfortunately, the Housing Minister is on his feet in the main Chamber talking about the Planning and Infrastructure Bill. I was looking forward to beating him up a bit, because he has been less than brilliantly helpful. None the less, it is very good to see the Minister from the Department for Business and Trade in her place. I look forward to hearing her helpful words about how the Government will introduce legislation to ensure our constituents are not ripped off endlessly by these wretched builders.

[Gill Furniss (in the Chair)]

I am keen to bring this debate to a conclusion before the first of many expected Divisions is called, with all participants having had a satisfactory opportunity to contribute to it. Mr Garnier and the Front Benchers have graciously agreed to watch the clock, curtail their remarks and be very succinct. I ask all of you to be extremely brief with speeches and interventions.

I expect the first Division at 4.15 pm. To help me to enable all those who wish to contribute to the debate to do so, please stand now that Mr Garnier has moved the motion and made his speech, so that I can calculate accurately the initially informal limit on speeches that I will strongly encourage.

[Several hon. Members rose—]

[Gill Furniss (in the Chair)]

There will be a limit of four and a half minutes for each speech. I call Sarah Hall.

15:20

[Sarah Hall (Warrington South) (Lab/Co-op)]

Thank you; it is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Furness.

I am grateful to colleagues for securing a debate on this issue, because it is something that I am hearing more and more about in Warrington South. When people come to see me about it, they are usually exhausted and upset. Their home is supposed to be the safest place in their life, but instead they are living in chaos. Indeed, this is such a widespread problem that there are now entire TV programmes about cowboy builders, and newspapers and broadcasters regularly produce guides about how to spot and avoid them.

One constituent came to me after doing everything that a sensible person would do. They found a firm on Checkatrade, read the reviews, checked the company’s details and were confident they had found a reputable business. They were not naive; they were careful and did their due diligence. However, once the work started, their home was devastated. The whole roof came off. Rooms that they relied on day to day, including the shower, were in a horrendous state for months. They ended up spending around £60,000 to put things right.

Trading standards officers were helpful and saw the case through the legal process. Eventually, the rogue builders received a suspended sentence for what they had done to three different families. But even then, the system did not come close to putting things right. The company had claimed to have insurance, but it did not. Under the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002, the judge had to set a limit of £50,000 to be split between all three victims. My constituent will only get back a fraction of what they lost, and frustratingly they still have not received the compensation they are owed. When we talk about consumer protection, we must be honest—it simply did not work for my constituent.

Members from across the House have described similar patterns of behaviour in their own constituencies. When the same individuals take thousands of pounds, leave homes unsafe and move straight on to the next victim, it looks and feels like fraud, yet too many people are still being told that it is a civil matter. If we are serious about protecting consumers, we need clearer lines, so that the police understand when this issue becomes criminal and not just contractual. We need enforcement agencies with the resources to intervene earlier, and we should take a proper look at whether an affordable and proportionate licensing or accreditation scheme for builders would help to stop repeat offenders from slipping through the net. Most of all, we need a system that recognises what is at stake. Rogue builders are ruining homes across the country, yet victims are still being left to fend for themselves.

I hope that my hon. Friend the Minister will look closely at the gaps that this case has exposed in enforcement, compensation and basic protection, so that what happened in Warrington South does not keep happening to families across the country.

15:23

[Sir Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)]

This is an issue that is crying out for a solution. In my opinion, there are two principal remedies that need to be applied to the plague of rogue builders: criminalisation of those builders who are shown to have fraudulently fleeced their innocent victims; and a requirement for all builders to be registered with and licensed by a professional body, together with an insurance scheme to remedy failure or harm, as my hon. Friend the Member for Wyre Forest (Mark Garnier) has already explained in his admirable opening speech.

I have decided, on balance, not to identify the specific rogue builders and their victims to whom I shall refer today; however, I do not rule out doing so in the future. My first case study concerns Graeme, a constituent of mine who paid more than £1,800 to a builder in 2023. Although the same builder had done satisfactory work in the past, on this occasion he gave a succession of excuses for not turning up before ceasing to respond at all. A solicitor advised Graeme that it would cost more than any sum likely to be recovered for lawyers to be involved, and suggested contacting the police.

Graeme writes:

“I was born at the very end of the 1960s and, to me, if someone deprives me of my money, it is theft or even fraud.”

As someone born at the beginning of the 1950s, I heartily endorse that view, but the police responded that stealing £1,800 from Graeme in that way did not meet

“the threshold for theft or fraud”.

Similarly, his bank was not keen to help once it knew that the builder had previously completed satisfactory work for Graeme.

Next, he found that trading standards could be contacted by an aggrieved individual only via a charity such as Citizens Advice, which also came as news to me. His CA recommended the money claims court; Graeme followed its advice and eventually obtained a county court judgment for £1,800 plus costs and interest. Even then, it took action at a higher court level for bailiffs to be appointed. They extracted a few weekly payments of a fraction of the sum stolen before giving up the ghost.

One might say that it could have been particular circumstances or misfortune that led the builder to let down his client—although that is no excuse for keeping his money. However, Graeme managed to establish directly that he had treated another victim in precisely the same way. Indirectly, Graeme heard of several others who had suffered in similar fashion. He was forced to conclude that, irrespective of a pattern of dishonesty towards multiple victims, the police still regard such behaviour as “a civil matter” and a “breach of contract”. Thus, with criminal prosecution closed off, all that remains is the costly, risky and often ineffective civil route. To date, Graeme has received a paltry £260, with more than £2,040 awarded by the court outstanding.

While Graeme rightly feels aggrieved by the injustice of his situation, my second constituent, Malcolm, has had his own and his family’s life totally upended by a truly nightmarish experience—one of the worst cases I have had to deal with in 28 years as a Member of Parliament. After a career of admirable public service in the Royal Navy and as a fireman, he has lost huge sums of money from his life savings and pension schemes at a time when a close relative with stage 4 breast cancer was meant to be benefiting from his support. It was for that purpose, I believe, that he commissioned the alterations—primarily converting a garage into extra ground-floor rooms—to his home in the first place.

Malcolm selected a building firm that he chose from a respectable trade recommendation website, where 5-star ratings for it were recorded. He agreed to pay about £25,000 for, supposedly, three weeks’ work to be undertaken while the family was on holiday in 2022. Despite an extra week’s delay, they returned to a scene of incomplete and utterly shoddy work and, in some respects, dangerous disorder. Indeed, Malcolm injured himself quite badly in a fall at the property that he attributes to this.

In addition to the very large payment made irrecoverably to the rogue builder, it cost Malcolm a horrifying £45,000 more for remedial works, which he had to undertake to make his home safe and inhabitable again. The trade recommendation website, which he thought had validated the rogue builder, offered its maximum level of compensation —a modest £1,000. Later, he discovered that the builder had no gas safety qualification, as he had falsely claimed.

Malcolm succeeded in communicating with trading standards, which indicated that it would be helpful if a pattern of similar construction disasters could be established. Malcolm therefore turned investigator, and discovered several other families in my constituency and in nearby Southampton. He calculated total losses caused by the same rogue builder to be at least £200,000. One victim, a lady living with multiple sclerosis, was left without a functioning toilet.

The police, nevertheless, still insist that the threshold for criminality had not been reached. If so, that threshold needs to be changed, and changed substantially. Despite correspondence from me to Hampshire county council pointing out the multiple victims, the apparent evidence of companies being repeatedly set up and dissolved by the rogue builder—as we have heard from another hon. Member—and his not infrequent changes to his own name, nothing effective has been done to punish or constrain him in any way.

As stated at the outset, there are two fairly obvious remedies. First, if the police are right that the current state of the law prevents such devastating and ruthless misbehaviour reaching the threshold of criminality, that threshold must be repositioned by legislation to include it. Secondly, like other skilled professions, builders must be licensed before being allowed to operate. The good news is that, as we have heard, the Federation of Master Builders is ready and able to undertake this vital role. That must be coupled with an insurance scheme to which builders will contribute to enable redress where appropriate and where standards are breached. Rogue builders can ruin lives; now is the time to banish that evil.

15:29

[Amanda Martin (Portsmouth North) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Ms Furniss. I am grateful to the hon. Member for Wyre Forest (Mark Garnier) for securing this important debate on protecting consumers from rogue builders—an issue that affects thousands of families, honest tradespeople and small businesses across the country.

In my constituency I have spoken to homeowners left heartbroken and out of pocket after rogue traders walked away leaving unfinished work, and skilled local tradespeople who tell me they are being undercut by those who cut corners, dodge taxes and disappear when something goes wrong. Every year, hard-working homeowners lose an estimated £1.4 billion through rogue traders, not to mention suffering emotional stress, anxiety and shattered trust. At the same time, those rogue operators undermine our legitimate, qualified tradespeople who play by the rules, pay their taxes, insure their work, and uphold professional standards and training. They damage the reputation of the entire construction and home improvement sector, making it harder for honest builders to win work and for consumers to know who to trust.

As in many parts of the country, residents in Portsmouth have been affected by rogue builders who exploit trust and cause real distress. The crimes often target vulnerable people, such as the elderly, or families just trying to improve their homes. In one case in my city, an elderly couple paid thousands of pounds from their pension savings for essential roof and patio repairs, only to be left with unsafe and unfinished work. They were forced to pay even more just to make their home liveable again. In another example, a family hired a builder to renovate their garage; instead of safely removing the asbestos roof, the contractor left open bags of hazardous material in a shared alleyway, putting neighbours and children at risk. The family had to pay for specialist clean-up and repairs, adding more financial strain to their emotional stress and worry.

In Copner, an area of my city, a local family’s home extension turned into a nightmare when the builder abandoned the project halfway through. He was meant to put a new kitchen in, but it became an unsafe shell that failed building inspection after building inspection, leaving the family out of pocket and living with disruption for years. Other residents across the city have been scammed by traders using multiple companies to take deposits for work that they have never finished—or, indeed, never started.

Those cases remind us that rogue builders not only cause financial loss, but damage confidence, safety and peace of mind. They also highlight the importance of checking credentials, avoiding doorstep deals, reporting suspicious activity and gaining our tradies from social media. Concerns have been raised about trade websites, but I commend Checkatrade and other industry bodies that are working to raise standards. Checkatrade, for example, has blocked 850 rogue traders from joining its platform in this year alone. It has also formed a primary authority partnership with trading standards, helping to strengthen consumer advice and set new benchmarks for best practice.

[Amanda Hack (North West Leicestershire) (Lab)]

A constituent of mine recently shared that she hired a builder who took payment for professional services—but everything about the work was fraudulent. She told me that she felt abandoned by a black hole of referrals, despite multiple agencies confirming that it was actually a criminal matter. The work is being investigated by a neighbouring trading standards, but that is taking far too long. Does my hon. Friend agree that the process of reporting and getting resolution has to be speeded up?

[Amanda Martin]

I absolutely agree. Voluntary measures only go so far, and the Competition and Markets Authority must step up to enforce this work.

The lack of consistent action against non-compliant trade recommendation sites undermines confidence, creates an unlevel playing field and ultimately hurts the very people we are here to protect—both consumers and legitimate businesses.

That brings me to another issue I have been campaigning on: tool theft. Just as rogue builders threaten trade in the industry, tool theft threatens its very foundation. Every van stolen, and every break-in on a building site or driveway, means another tradesperson unable to work, another small business losing its livelihood and another family struggling to make ends meet. More than 1 million tool theft incidents have occurred in the past five years. Tool theft costs the economy hundreds of millions, and fuels the black market and more rogue builders. I have been calling for a national register for stolen tools, mandatory marking and traceability requirements for high-value tools, and stronger police action and sentencing for repeat offenders. Protecting tradespeople from crime goes hand in hand with protecting our consumers from rogue builders: both rely on trust, fairness and accountability.

I urge the Government to take four steps: first, strengthen the enforcement of consumer protection laws and ensure that—

[Gill Furniss (in the Chair)]

Order. I call Munira Wilson.

15:34

[Munira Wilson (Twickenham) (LD)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Furniss. I congratulate the hon. Member for Wyre Forest (Mark Garnier) on securing this debate, and for his record of campaigning on this issue. I also recognise the Federation of Master Builders for its important work in this area. I was proud to be at the launch of its “Licence to Build” report earlier this year.

Like many other hon. Members, I have heard regularly from constituents who have gone through horrendous experiences with rogue builders, and I have seen people in tears in my surgeries after suffering the effects. One couple who came to see me had their home turned into a building site when builders left trenches dug up around their house, having taken £36,000 from them. When the couple were asked to pay double that cost and they refused to do so, the builders disappeared without trace, leaving the work undone and parts of the couple’s home unusable and unsafe. Another constituent’s builder continually demanded further payments for months before abandoning the work unfinished. The mental toll on the victims is hard to explain until we meet some of these people.

These builders, if we can even call them that, are simply allowed to get away with it because there is so little regulation. As we have heard from other hon. Members, rogue builders often close down their companies and re-establish under a different name, which makes it incredibly difficult for trading standards to go after them. Over half of UK homeowners, 55%, have had a bad experience with a builder, so this is not a small or hidden issue—and, as other hon. Members have said, it gives other, excellent builders a poor reputation. It is not fair on the rest of the industry.

Consumers are left with limited options, limited support and limited agency. Our system of redress is overwhelmed, underfunded and extremely complex. The small claims courts, trading standards, the Consumer Rights Act 2015, and the Competition and Markets Authority all have a role to play, but they are all far too weak. When homeowners have spent their savings or borrowed huge sums of money to improve their home, as is their right, they do not have money left over to chase people through the courts. There is no ombudsman, but how could there be when there is no regulation to enforce?

I urge the Minister to take back to her Department the need to be much more ambitious in this area. This problem is not just societal, but economic, given that the public have lost some £14 billion in five years to rogue builders. As the hon. Member for Wyre Forest said, this problem depresses demand because many people are too afraid to do extension or home improvement work. I hope that the Minister will give strong consideration to a licensing scheme that could be administered and regulated by the Building Safety Regulator. If she concludes that that is not feasible, for whatever reason, what other measures are Ministers willing to consider to strengthen the justice system in order to protect consumers and make it much easier for them to get redress from the rogue house builders that cause misery up and down the country?

15:38

[Andrew Cooper (Mid Cheshire) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Furniss. I congratulate the hon. Member for Wyre Forest (Mark Garnier) on securing this debate. We have heard some harrowing stories from right hon. and hon. Members from across the Chamber. I am pleased that the right hon. Member for New Forest East (Sir Julian Lewis) was able to share his story in full; what his constituents went through was utterly outrageous. I want to focus on the other end of the market and highlight a deeply troubling issue that has left families in my constituency and across the north-west region paying the price for the reckless and irresponsible actions of a house builder that failed to meet its most basic obligations.

The collapse of Stewart Milne Homes North West England in January 2024 exposed a glaring loophole in our housing system, which allows developers to sell homes without first securing the legal agreements that guarantee the adoption of essential infrastructure such as roads and sewers. In my constituency, three estates built by Stuart Milne were completed years ago but their infrastructure was never legally adopted. The streets were not adopted by the local authority, nor the sewers by United Utilities. Why? Because the developer failed to secure either the necessary bonded section 38 agreement, the section 104 agreement, or both. The result is that homeowners who purchased their properties in good faith are now told they must foot the bill to bring roads and sewers up to standard: we are talking about thousands of pounds for infrastructure that should have been properly delivered and adopted from the outset.

In Middlewich, residents on one estate had been waiting for a decade for the adoption of their sewers. It has been up to residents themselves to navigate the complex process of securing sewer adoption. After years of persistence, significant personal investment and tireless effort, their determinations have paid off, and the sewers on their development are now fully adopted. I pay particular tribute to Claire Bertram for seeing this through—but this situation is not just unfair; it is unacceptable. People buying a home should not have to become experts in planning law or infrastructure adoption. They should be able to rely on a system that protects them from exactly this kind of exploitation.

We need urgent reform to close those loopholes and prevent that situation from happening again. It must be a legal requirement that no home can be sold unless the infrastructure that it relies on—roads, sewers, drainage—is fully secured through binding adoption agreements. This is not a radical proposal; it is a basic standard of consumer protection. We already have a legislative tool: section 42 of the Flood and Water Management Act 2010, passed by the previous Government, which provides a mechanism to ensure that sewer adoption is properly regulated. It is time to activate and enforce this provision through secondary legislation. We also need a parallel mechanism for highways—one that ensures that developers cannot shirk their responsibilities and leave communities in limbo.

This is about restoring trust in the housing sector. Families should not be punished for a developer’s failure. We need stronger regulation, better oversight and a clear legal requirement that no home can be sold unless the infrastructure that it relies on is secured, adoptable and protected by law. Only then can we prevent this kind of injustice from happening again.

15:41

[Tom Gordon (Harrogate and Knaresborough) (LD)]

It is an honour to serve under your chairship, Ms Furniss. I congratulate the hon. Member for Wyre Forest (Mark Garnier) on securing this important debate.

Over the last year, I have been campaigning on behalf of homeowners affected by faulty spray foam insulation installed under the previous Conservative Government’s green homes grant scheme. The aim was to improve the energy efficiency of homes across our country by offering households help to make their homes warmer, greener and cheaper to run. Many homeowners used the scheme to fund the installation of spray foam insulation. However, in a number of cases the installation was done incorrectly, causing moisture to become trapped, creating structural issues such as roof timber decay.

Under the green homes grant, as with other Government retrofit schemes, homeowners were told that only TrustMark-approved contractors could carry out the work, yet we have seen substandard and unqualified contractors admitted to the scheme, carrying out poor-quality work and then disappearing when problems emerge, leaving homeowners to deal with the consequences. These cases have exposed a growing problem: the rise of rogue builders and traders operating under the banner of Government assurance.

Although spray foam may seem niche, that case is not isolated. It is a symptom of a much deeper failure in oversight and consumer protection. The Government’s own quality assurance mechanism, TrustMark, as the hon. Member for Wyre Forest mentioned, is administered by the Department for Business and Trade, and it has failed in its most basic duty. TrustMark was established to ensure that only qualified and competent contractors were permitted to carry out work under Government-funded schemes, yet here we are with hundreds, if not thousands, of homeowners left with defective installations.

Recent announcements about improper installation under the Great British insulation and ECO4 schemes have further highlighted this failure. To put it simply, TrustMark is not fit for purpose. If the Government are to tackle the issue of rogue builders, they must start with those that they endorse under their own schemes. The Department for Business and Trade must work more closely with the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero to ensure that future schemes are properly monitored, contractors rigorously vetted, and consumers protected. That must include a thorough evaluation of TrustMark’s capacity to deliver the effective consumer protection that it ought to offer. At present, it is failing to provide meaningful quality assurance or to keep rogue builders out.

What is worse is that these failures have created a second wave of exploitation. Rogue traders are now targeting households that had any form of spray foam insulation and offering to remove it, at great cost, even where the insulation is properly installed and functional. In many cases, these removals, which are completely unnecessary, cause further damage to the property, leaving homeowners with even greater costs.

These vulnerable consumers have been exploited not once, but twice: first by unfit contractors operating under a Government-endorsed quality scheme, and then by opportunistic builders and traders exploiting the chaos that that failure has created. As my hon. Friend the Member for Twickenham (Munira Wilson) mentioned, often the companies are then wound up, leaving people without a mechanism or a person to seek redress through. This is precisely why stronger oversight is needed.

The Department must work with TrustMark to ensure that contractor vetting, auditing and enforcement are properly co-ordinated, leaving no room for unsuitable contractors to operate under the banner of Government assurance. Secondly, there must be clear and accessible routes to redress. Homeowners should not be left to navigate complex complaints systems or take costly legal action against builders who may already have vanished. While TrustMark offers a dispute resolution service, those who have tried it will know how difficult it is to access and how rarely it delivers meaningful outcomes.

I therefore urge the Minister to take up this issue seriously. TrustMark must be reviewed, consumer protections must be strengthened, and we must clamp down on rogue builders who exploit public funds and private households. Rogue builders are not just a nuisance; they are a serious threat to consumer confidence, public spending and the integrity of the housing sector. It is time we treated them as such.

15:45

[Clive Jones (Wokingham) (LD)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Ms Furniss. I thank the hon. Member for Wyre Forest (Mark Garnier) for securing this important debate.

A house builder and social housing provider have treated some of my constituents disgracefully. Three families with children bought shared ownership homes in Wokingham. One family refused to move in due to mould and damp in the house and the other two found mould all over the cupboards. It has been found that the houses were missing a crucial damp-proof membrane and course, both vital to keeping moisture out of the house.

There has been a real lack of communication and empathy from the company and housing provider, and they have ignored the residents’ claims for many months. After my intervention, the social housing provider agreed to decant the residents while remedial work is done to the houses. It is now backtracking on that commitment, and it has taken far too long for the builder and the social housing provider to acknowledge fault, which has had a serious toll on my residents. It is clear that the builder and social housing provider cannot be trusted to build and maintain quality housing going forward.

I have one question for the Minister: does he agree that house builders and social housing providers must be held to account, and that local authorities must be able to end relationships with underperforming house builders and social housing providers to protect residents?

[Gill Furniss (in the Chair)]

I call Ben Maguire. I ask you to be quite swift, because we understand there may be Divisions sooner than we expected.

15:46

[Ben Maguire (North Cornwall) (LD)]

It is an honour to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Furniss. I congratulate the hon. Member for Wyre Forest (Mark Garnier) on securing this important debate and giving an excellent and comprehensive speech.

Many people will be familiar with this topic. In fact, half of all homeowners have had a bad experience with builders at some point. Of course, those cases vary in value and scale, but fundamentally they represent consumers—many of whom are sadly vulnerable or elderly—being taken advantage of by rogue builders and traders.

Those people are all victims, whether they are in desperate need of emergency repairs or have committed to an extension they have saved up for over many years. They can be in a range of difficult situations: financial hardship, poor health or bereavement—some of those harrowing personal stories were outlined by the right hon. Member for New Forest East (Sir Julian Lewis)—and for them, seeking a fair resolution can seem impossible.

Two months ago, I pressed the Solicitor General on the deeply troubling case of Launceston primary school in my constituency, a brand-new building that had to be demolished just as it was ready to be opened because it failed to meet basic safety and building standards. When the developer went bust, it was us—the taxpayers—who were left carrying the cost of rebuilding the entire school to the tune of around £7 million.

Our communities deserve better safeguards and real accountability. Nationally, those stories are all too familiar, and those problems persist even in our sewage and road infrastructure systems, with many developers going bust before such vital infrastructure is finished. The hon. Member for Mid Cheshire (Andrew Cooper) made a powerful case for mandating infrastructure before the sale of homes.

Many of my constituents near Bude reached out to me to explain how a developer abandoned a site after going into liquidation, leaving unfinished roads and sewage works. The developer directly contravened planning conditions by not paying the bond, and yet the local authority had no power to act or hold it to account.

The Government cannot stand by any longer while those rogue developers fail to fulfil their promises. Those cases are shocking to hear, and the wider implications are clear. In the past five years, it is estimated that rogue builders have cost the public around £14 billion. That demonstrates the necessity of an efficient and effective justice system to resolve such disputes, protecting consumers and discouraging cowboy behaviour from builders.

Concerningly, as we have heard today, too many individuals in those situations find the justice system slow, complex and expensive to navigate. These are people in unexpected situations, without the time or resources to rectify them effectively. The Liberal Democrats believe that justice should be on the side of all consumers, not just those who can afford costly legal battles, as was highlighted by my hon. Friend the Member for Harrogate and Knaresborough (Tom Gordon).

The Government should ensure that there are accessible redress routes, such as small claims courts and ombudsman schemes, that work quickly and fairly for everyone. They should also support alternative dispute resolution mechanisms that save consumers time, stress and money, giving them a fair outcome without the burden and cost of going to court. That is important for the victims, and for the hundreds of thousands of honest builders who provide brilliant services for consumers up and down the country. My hon. Friend the Member for Twickenham (Munira Wilson) made the point that the reputation of those businesses is damaged by widespread concerns about the trustworthiness of the industry as a whole. They, too, will benefit if we can effectively deter and catch rogue builders.

Since 2019, there have been more than 125,000 official complaints about rogue builders in England alone. The justice system must ensure that those responsible are properly held to account. It is crucial that proactive steps are taken against these traders through the Competition and Markets Authority and local trading standards bodies, to ensure that they are effectively punished and, where necessary, publicly named and shamed.

To that end, what are the Government doing to ensure that investigations by those bodies are properly resourced and supported? Crucially, to the point made by the hon. Member for Altrincham and Sale West (Mr Rand), how can the Government stop some of these repeat offenders going into liquidation time and again, and then committing the same frauds somewhere else?

How will the Government ensure that victims of rogue builders are provided with accurate and clear information regarding their options? What are the Government doing to support accessible redress routes, as well as out-of-court resolutions for these victims? Finally, will the Minister look into providing greater powers and resources to local authorities so that they can properly hold rogue developers to account and enforce planning permission?

15:51

[Gareth Davies (Grantham and Bourne) (Con)]

It is a great pleasure to see you in the Chair, Ms Furniss, and to see the Minister. This is our second interaction in a week, and, under the direction of the Chair, it will be a lot shorter than the last.

I congratulate my very good and hon. Friend the Member for Wyre Forest (Mark Garnier), on securing this debate. I commend his commitment to this issue over many years. Many of us turn up to these debates as one-offs, but he is a consistent champion for builders and against rogue builders.

My hon. Friend again raises a very fair and well-intentioned question: how can we in this place best protect our constituents from the scourge of rogue builders? He is right that the issue is caused by a minority of people and organisations in the construction industry, who exploit people’s good nature and certainly do not deliver for their customers. We all know someone who has faced this issue, whether that is homeowners or subcontractors, particularly those in the repair, maintenance and improvement sector, as my hon. Friend pointed out.

We have seen the best of Westminster Hall today. I have been struck by the many excellent examples given by hon. Members from many different parties and from across the country of people who have suffered the consequences of cowboy builders. I genuinely thank hon. Members for their contributions to this debate.

This issue is not simply aesthetic or material; it can and often does have very serious consequences. That is why I am pleased that, in recent years, there has been some progress to address some of the problems set out by my hon. Friend the Member for Wyre Forest. For example, there are various competent person schemes that allow builders to self-certify, ensuring that they follow certain rules to comply with building regulations. These schemes ensure that customers are provided with the appropriate financial protection for a minimum of six years to correct work in dwellings that are non-compliant with building regulations.

For our part, the previous Conservative Government passed the Building Safety Act 2022, which introduced competence requirements on anyone doing design or building work. The legislation also brought about the creation of the Building Safety Regulator and the Industry Competence Committee, both of which help to encourage and monitor industry competence. I am nevertheless really looking forward to hearing from the Minister about what specific plans she and her Government have to build on that work to further address the concerns raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Wyre Forest and many other Members from both sides of the House.

Another part of what we can do to push out rogue builders must surely be to encourage those builders who follow the law, play by the rules and deliver for customers. I would not be doing my job if I did not reflect the concerns of the builders I spoke to in preparation for the debate by pointing out that, unfortunately, builders feel that that is not happening under this Labour Government. Instead of backing builders who are not rogue and who work hard, the Government are determined to make sure that doing the right thing just does not pay.

I have spoken many times about the impact of the national insurance hike on the construction industry, but I want to use the last moments of my speech to ask the Minister directly, on behalf of the National Federation of Builders, about the builders tax that the Chancellor is proposing in the upcoming Budget. That will add another £28,000 to the cost of building a new home and drive up the cost of critical national infrastructure, including roads, schools, factories and even nuclear power stations. It will add significant costs to construction and the building sector, and I was asked to ask the Minister what is going on with this Government if they are proposing this tax by way of a formal consultation. On behalf of the official Opposition, I want to be clear that this tax cannot go ahead. Builders and construction workers want to hear her response to that specific point. There are so many hard-working builders in this country, and so many people who make something, and we must get behind them.

[Gill Furniss (in the Chair)]

I call the Minister to respond to the debate—very briefly.

15:56

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Business and Trade (Kate Dearden)]

I will do my best, Ms Furniss. I congratulate the hon. Member for Wyre Forest (Mark Garnier) on securing this debate on an issue that I know he has campaigned on for a long time, beginning when his party were in government.

I really welcome the debate. I am grateful to the many Members who contributed to it for raising their constituents’ concerns and the horrifying cases that they have been dealing with in their constituencies. They set out the serious impacts that incompetent and rogue tradesmen have had on the homes and the physical and mental health of their constituents, who are sometimes elderly or vulnerable in other ways. I know from my own constituents the misery that can be caused and the toll it can take on people, as well as the time and money it takes to remedy problems. I thank Members again for their hard work, through casework and surgeries, to defend their constituents’ consumer rights.

Consumers have a have a right to expect that work undertaken in their homes will be performed competently and that there will be redress if the work does not meet acceptable standards of quality and safety, and I want to take the opportunity to assure the House that the Government are committed to strengthening the system to ensure that that happens. I will try to align my winding-up speech with the winding-up speech in the main Chamber and move quickly to responses to points that Members raised.

The Government’s aim is to improve the market and to support honest and competent tradespeople and firms, working with the industry and with local authority trading standards. The Consumer Rights Act 2015 sets out the standards that consumers can expect in relation to the supply of goods and services, including building work, and the remedies available to them. Under the Act, traders are required to carry out a service with reasonable care and skill, and within a reasonable time. If those requirements are not met, the consumer can ask for the service to be performed again or for a price reduction. If that is not agreed, consumers can seek redress through the courts. The small claims procedure provides the means to pursue a claim of up to £10,000 at an affordable cost and without a solicitor, and consumers have six years to bring a claim against a trader.

Government bodies are also working with the super-sector working groups under the industry competence steering group, collaborating to improve trade and installer competence and to reduce the incidence of poor work. That process brings together over 1,000 individuals across trade bodies, professional organisations and employers to produce and implement competence frameworks across more than 130 occupations.

The Government are committed to strengthening competent person schemes that cover higher-risk occupations such as electricians and gas engineers. Competent person schemes must ensure that consumers are provided with the appropriate protection for a minimum of six years to remediate work that is non-compliant with the building regulations.

Other protections include the TrustMark scheme, which hon. Members have mentioned. That is the only Government-endorsed quality scheme for domestic construction. It covers trades such as fenestration, roofing, and kitchen and bathroom installation, as well as general building work, and it requires participating firms and tradespeople to demonstrate competence and provide for consumer redress. Government-funded schemes for energy and heat efficiency also require installers to hold relevant certifications and to provide consumers with access to redress.

I know that the hon. Member for Wyre Forest has campaigned for a long time on licensing schemes. Licensing or registration schemes exist in the US, Australia and New Zealand and aim to improve quality, protect consumers from incompetent contractors, and provide consumers with redress for poor-quality work. The hon. Member spoke about that in quite a lot of detail. However, few evaluations have been undertaken of the effectiveness of those schemes. The available evidence suggests that they can deliver some benefits, such as increased quality, but that they can also have detrimental effects, including increasing prices for consumers. There is also no clear evidence that the existence of licensing schemes reduces the incidence of poor-quality work. The schemes are reliant on audits and inspections of work to identify incompetent builders, which is similar to the approach of the TrustMark and competent person schemes in the UK.

There are also questions of how licensing schemes would be funded and administered, the implications for existing schemes in the UK, and the resourcing of the organisations responsible for the schemes. Any proposal to introduce a licensing scheme in the UK would have to be based on an assessment of costs and benefits and would have to address those issues.

Hon. Members also mentioned the issue of phoenixing. We are aware of the problem and work is ongoing. In the 2024 autumn Budget, we announced a greater focus between His Majesty’s Revenue and Customs, Companies House and the Insolvency Service on tackling rogue directors and phoenixing. Key actions include closing loopholes in company registration and dissolution, targeted enforcement to boost compliance, and stronger referrals.

I thank the hon. Member for Wyre Forest for welcoming our New Homes Quality Board and ombudsman. From a consumer protection perspective, the Government are supportive of alternative routes to recourse outside the courts, such as alternative dispute resolution and the ombudsman. Many similar schemes already exist, and the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act 2024 strengthened ADR provision. That is also relevant to his comments and reflections on compensation, for which I thank him.

I am very conscious of the time, Ms Furniss, so I will move to my concluding remarks and just thank hon. Members for raising lots of other issues that I do not have time to go through. I will be working closely with other relevant Departments on the wider infrastructure issues that Members have raised on house building.

[Sir Julian Lewis]

What about the fact that these people, in some cases, are criminals and their actions ought to be subject to the criminal law?

[Kate Dearden]

I thank the right hon. Member for raising that point. Lots of Members have mentioned the complexity of determining whether something is a criminal offence or a civil matter under the Consumer Rights Act, whether we are looking at a trading standards matter or a criminal act, and demonstrating intent. It is a very complex area and I would be happy to meet individual Members if they want to talk it through with me.

I am sure that the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Grantham and Bourne (Gareth Davies), does not expect me to speculate or comment on the Budget so close to its announcement. I am sure that his party, during its time in government, had lots of opportunities to address this issue. On his remarks on the licensing scheme, I think he can reflect on similar reflections that his Government worked through.

No one should doubt the human impact that rogue and incompetent tradespeople can have. This issue obviously needs to be addressed, and the best way to achieve that is by improving standards of consumer redress. Although there is no clear evidence on how a licensing scheme would do that, we will keep that under review. In the meantime, we will continue to improve standards of competence and consumer redress in the construction sector. I thank hon. Members again for raising cases on behalf of their constituents. I have run through a lot of them in my concluding remarks, but if Members want to talk to me directly about these issues or ask me to raise them with other Departments, I will be more than happy to do so.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House has considered the matter of protecting consumers from rogue builders.

16:04

Sitting adjourned.