Rogue Builders

Gill Furniss Excerpts

Thursday 13th November 2025 Westminster Hall

[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.

--- Later in debate ---

[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.

--- Later in debate ---

[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.

--- Later in debate ---

[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.