Asked by: Anne McLaughlin (Scottish National Party - Glasgow North East)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, with reference to Answer of 16 March 2021 to Question 167254 on Home Energy and Lifestyle Management: Green Deal Scheme, what the updated cost to the public purse is of expenditure by his Department on the Government’s legal department on First Tier Tribunal litigation related to the sale of Green Deal plans by Home Energy & Lifestyle Management Ltd.
Answered by Greg Hands - Minister of State (Department for Business and Trade)
For Home Energy & Lifestyle Management Ltd appeals at the First Tier Tribunal, the Department has incurred estimated total costs of £142,300 from the Government Legal Department.
Asked by: Anne McLaughlin (Scottish National Party - Glasgow North East)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what the total cost to the public purse is of expenditure by his Department on (a) Government Legal Department costs and (b) external legal advice on complaints related to the sale of Green Deal plans by Home Energy & Lifestyle Management Ltd (HELMS).
Answered by Anne-Marie Trevelyan - Minister of State (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office)
Since 2017, the Department has incurred £309,992 on external legal advice in relation to Green Deal activity. This figure cannot easily be disaggregated to give a total for purely HELMS-related costs. The Department has also incurred £79,787 in fees from the Government Legal Department on First Tier Tribunal litigation related to the sale of Green Deal plans by HELMS. The Department gave external legal instructions for a small amount of work prior to 2017 but the details of costs are not readily available.
Asked by: Anne McLaughlin (Scottish National Party - Glasgow North East)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what information his Department holds on the number of appeals to the First Tier Tribunal as a result of sanction notices issued in response to complaints which do not concern mis-selling as their subject matter but which are related to the activities of Home Energy & Lifestyle Management Ltd (HELMS).
Answered by Anne-Marie Trevelyan - Minister of State (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office)
To date, no appeals have been made to the First Tier Tribunal in relation to complaints which are related to HELMS but do not concern mis-selling.
Asked by: Anne McLaughlin (Scottish National Party - Glasgow North East)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what recent assessment he has made of the effect of the UK leaving the EU on UK businesses that hire rather than sell goods.
Answered by Paul Scully
The Trade and Cooperation Agreement secured zero tariffs and zero quotas on trade in goods between the UK and EU.
The Agreement also guarantees that UK investors and service suppliers will be able to access the EU’s markets and will not be subject to discriminatory barriers to trade.
If someone hires goods to the EU, they will need to check the national regulations of the country they are doing business in to understand how best to operate.
If the supplier intends to travel for business, they should check whether they need to apply for a visa, work permit or other documentation before travelling to the EU.
The Department has undertaken no specific analysis in relation to leaving the EU and goods for hire.
Asked by: Anne McLaughlin (Scottish National Party - Glasgow North East)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, how many complaints in relation to Green Deal plans sold by Home Energy & Lifestyle Management Ltd (HELMS) his Department has refused to consider due to breaches of the Code of Practice having taken place more than six years ago.
Answered by Anne-Marie Trevelyan - Minister of State (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office)
At 15th February, a total of 244 appeals about the mis-selling of Green Deal Plans by the company Home Energy & Lifestyle Management Ltd (HELMS) have been referred to my Rt. Hon. Friend the Secretary of State, of which 137 are yet to receive an intention notice and 153 are yet to receive a sanction notice.
The Department has issued 2 Intention Notices setting out ‘minded to’ decisions not to consider appeals on the basis that they were made more than 6 years after the date on which the alleged breach of the Green Deal Regulations occurred. These decisions have been made in accordance with the Regulations. The Department does not hold data on any further appeals made more than 6 years after the date on which the alleged breach occurred, as it is not possible to categorise appeals as such until case reviews are complete, at which point Intention Notices are issued.
Asked by: Anne McLaughlin (Scottish National Party - Glasgow North East)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, how many complaints his Department has received in relation to breaches of the Green Deal Code of Practice by Home Energy & Lifestyle Management Ltd (HELMS) which took place more than six years before the date of receipt of the complaint.
Answered by Anne-Marie Trevelyan - Minister of State (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office)
At 15th February, a total of 244 appeals about the mis-selling of Green Deal Plans by the company Home Energy & Lifestyle Management Ltd (HELMS) have been referred to my Rt. Hon. Friend the Secretary of State, of which 137 are yet to receive an intention notice and 153 are yet to receive a sanction notice.
The Department has issued 2 Intention Notices setting out ‘minded to’ decisions not to consider appeals on the basis that they were made more than 6 years after the date on which the alleged breach of the Green Deal Regulations occurred. These decisions have been made in accordance with the Regulations. The Department does not hold data on any further appeals made more than 6 years after the date on which the alleged breach occurred, as it is not possible to categorise appeals as such until case reviews are complete, at which point Intention Notices are issued.
Asked by: Anne McLaughlin (Scottish National Party - Glasgow North East)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, how many complaints his Department has received on Green Deal plans sold by Home Energy & Lifestyle Management Ltd (a) in total, (b) of which are yet to receive an intention notice and (c) of which are yet to receive a sanction notice to date.
Answered by Anne-Marie Trevelyan - Minister of State (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office)
At 15th February, a total of 244 appeals about the mis-selling of Green Deal Plans by the company Home Energy & Lifestyle Management Ltd (HELMS) have been referred to my Rt. Hon. Friend the Secretary of State, of which 137 are yet to receive an intention notice and 153 are yet to receive a sanction notice.
The Department has issued 2 Intention Notices setting out ‘minded to’ decisions not to consider appeals on the basis that they were made more than 6 years after the date on which the alleged breach of the Green Deal Regulations occurred. These decisions have been made in accordance with the Regulations. The Department does not hold data on any further appeals made more than 6 years after the date on which the alleged breach occurred, as it is not possible to categorise appeals as such until case reviews are complete, at which point Intention Notices are issued.
Asked by: Anne McLaughlin (Scottish National Party - Glasgow North East)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, how many times (a) he and (b) his predecessors have used the power as outlined under Part 9 of the Green Deal Regulations to obtain information from (a) a Green Deal provider, (b) from the Green Deal Finance Company and (c) GDFC Assets Ltd to date.
Answered by Anne-Marie Trevelyan - Minister of State (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office)
The Department has requested information from various Green Deal Parties, including Green Deal Providers and the Green Deal Finance Company, on numerous occasions since the scheme was introduced in 2013. However, because there is no formal requirement to state that the Department is using its powers under Part 9 (reg 86) of the Green Deal Framework (Disclosure, Acknowledgment, Redress, etc) Regulations 2012, no record exists of how many times the Department has invoked the powers.
Asked by: Anne McLaughlin (Scottish National Party - Glasgow North East)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, how many green deal agreements were issued by Home Energy and Lifestyle Management Ltd (HELMS) for the purposes of installing external building insulation in each constituency in (a) England and (b) Wales.
Answered by Anne-Marie Trevelyan - Minister of State (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office)
The number of Green Deal plans provided by Home Energy & Lifestyle Management Ltd which included External Wall Insulation in England and Wales by parliamentary constituency are shown in the table below.
In order to manage the risk of revealing personal or commercial data, our approach is not to release non-zero counts of less than five for a small geographic area. Items marked * are small and have been supressed to achieve this disclosure control.
Parliamentary constituency | Green Deal Plans |
Bristol North West | 21 |
Chippenham | * |
Coventry North West | * |
Coventry South | * |
Esher and Walton | * |
Gloucester | * |
North Herefordshire | * |
North Swindon | 41 |
Reading West | * |
South Swindon | 13 |
Worcester | * |
England total | 90 |
Newport East | 7 |
Newport West | 16 |
Asked by: Anne McLaughlin (Scottish National Party - Glasgow North East)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what the total value is of Green Deal loans sold by Home Energy and Lifestyle Management Ltd (a) excluding and (b) including fees and interest.
Answered by Kwasi Kwarteng
The then Secretary of State Greg Clark delegated initial reviews of complaints about mis-selling to the Financial Ombudsman Service under section 32 of the Energy Act 2011 on 24th October 2018, and as such the Department does not hold data on the total value of Green Deal Loans, whether taken out with Home Energy and Lifestyle Management Ltd (HELMS) or any other Green Deal Provider.
The Financial Ombudsman Service’s consideration of complaints is part of the wider review process. Responsibility for deciding whether a breach has occurred and, if so, whether a sanction should be imposed rests with the Secretary of State, in line with the requirements of the Framework Regulations.
Under this delegation the Financial Ombudsman Service has made recommendations regarding 143 complaints about HELMS. Recommendations may cover whether to cancel or reduce loans, or cover other matters, such as whether to conclude that there have been breaches of the Green Deal Framework regulations. For 69 of these complaints, the Financial Ombudsman Service recommended cancellation.