Cavity Wall Insulation

John Denham Excerpts

Tuesday 3rd February 2015 Westminster Hall

[Mr John Denham (Southampton, Itchen) (Lab)]

I am pleased to open this debate under your chairmanship, Mr Sanders. I welcome the Minister to her place—I will be posing a number of questions to her at the end of my remarks.

I am able to bring this subject here for debate because of a remarkable woman, Claire Eades, and two others, Pauline Saunders and Dianna Goodwin. That trio of schoolteacher, artist and retired magistrate have shown that those whose cavity wall insulation goes wrong can find it near impossible to obtain swift and effective redress. Quite recently, they set up the Cavity Wall Insulation Victims Alliance, and I have drawn on far more cases from the association than I can report today. Other reported cases are included in the briefing pack for the debate compiled by the Library. I know that hon. Members of all parties will contribute their own constituency cases.

Claire Eades’s parents are constituents of mine. Their home in Southampton suffered badly from wrongly installed cavity wall insulation. Claire ultimately achieved a reasonable settlement after a determined campaign, but her parents are not the only ones affected. Their case exposes the problems with the supposedly independent insurance body, the Cavity Insulation Guarantee Agency, as well as bad industry practice and total inadequacies in the regulation provided by Government.

The market in cavity wall insulation is worth £700 million to £800 million a year. It has been boosted by Government policy, with some direct Government funding; however, most CWI has been funded by energy companies, which have been required to invest in energy conservation measures through a range of schemes, such as the carbon emissions reduction target, the community energy saving programme and the energy companies obligation. All the schemes differ in some respects but include insulation paid for by energy companies meeting Government obligations. Energy companies that fail to do so can face fines.

Many householders who responded to cold calls, e-mails and adverts and had cavity wall insulation installed had no idea that an energy company was funding that installation. Advertising typically refers to a 25-year guarantee and names CIGA. Doorstep visits and telephone calls typically describe the schemes, wrongly, as Government-backed or Government-funded. I have transcripts of a couple of phone conversations with such salesmen, one of whom, when asked who funded the cavity wall insulation, said:

“Erm, I think it’s the government, and also your British Gas, your Southern Electric, and the other companies. Sorry, it’s only my first week but obviously that’s why they’ve already paid for it and…it’s free on behalf of the government.”

In another case, this time when discussing guarantees, the salesman said:

“Yeah, there’s only a couple of companies which government approves, they’ll give you a 25 year guarantee with the government.”

The transcript goes on:

“‘Sorry, if I had it done would I get a government guarantee?’

‘For 25 years.’

‘What, the government guarantees it?’

‘Yeah, because the government fund it. They don’t fund it, it’s from the tax they’ve taken from you, so they fund it in that way.’”

That is fairly typical of what goes on in the industry.

Even official bodies get it wrong. The North East Lincolnshire council website advises:

“The Cavity Insulation Guarantee Agency…was set up by the government to provide householders with an independent, uniform and dependable guarantee. This is a 25-year guarantee that is independent of the installer who insulates your property.”

But CIGA was not set up by the Government, nor is it independent of the installers. When things go wrong, the Government are the first to deny any responsibility or involvement. Government policy is driving much of the market, but the Government are not taking the measures needed to ensure high standards of installation or redress.

The Government have had plenty of warnings. The Office of Fair Trading reported in 2012 that failure to install properly would undermine Department of Energy and Climate Change targets for energy reduction. It recommended that DECC should ensure that there was a single body ensuring effective independent monitoring of installers and installation quality. All there seems to be is a licence; Dianna Goodwin of the CWIVA bought one online for £75.

The Minister is advised by the Green Deal Consumer Protection Forum. At its meeting on 26 June 2014, Ofgem reported:

“Ofgem has noted that there are suspected cases of fraud within the ECO scheme, for example around the installations for hard-to-treat cavity walls. Ofgem was informed of anecdotal evidence of systematic abuse of the technical rules, and investigated. It found that a number of installations were done improperly…Ofgem reported that one of the main difficulties it has is that it cannot engage with the supply chain”—

that is, the installers—

“as its agreement is with energy suppliers.”

At the same meeting the Energy Saving Advice Service reported that it receives about 30 complaints about ECO per week. There have been different schemes, but those elements—poor installation, abuse of the rules, and the inability of Ofgem to act—appear to run through all of them.

Following a cold call, a Mark Group survey of the Eades property took place on 10 June 2010. CWI can go wrong—badly installed or installed in an inappropriate property, it can cause damp penetration and condensation. In 2011 Which? asked eight companies to assess a clearly unsuitable house for CWI. All eight surveys recommended installing CWI. Funnily enough, four were carried out by that same company, the Mark Group, and three by the same person. All four surveys provided different prices even though they recommended the same work and materials.

The Eades’ property is less than 1 mile from the sea and according to an independent survey conducted last year is

“exposed to severe wind driven rain”.

Cavity wall insulation was installed in the property on 10 November 2010. By 4 February 2011, the house had a strong musty smell and significant condensation, and black mould was beginning to form. It is common for problems with CWI to appear more than a year after installation, yet the only routine independent inspection of properties takes place a few weeks after installation. It is required by Ofgem, but it is not to check whether there are damp problems; it looks only at whether energy reduction targets are being met. I cannot know—nor can the Minister—whether the problems I am raising are isolated or the tip of an iceberg.

On 3 February 2012, the Eades sent a letter by recorded delivery to the Mark Group reporting severe condensation. No response was received to the complaint. That lack of response appears to be standard across the industry. In December 2013, two years after the original installation, there was significant water ingress and damp patches were appearing along the length of the south-west-facing wall upstairs and downstairs and from top to bottom of the wall.

A quick look at the part of the Review Centre website relating to the Mark Group shows pages of complaints. For example:

“The installation team from Mark group in their wisdom filled all the air bricks in the property with silicone sealant…causing huge problems with damp. I have complained but had no response.”

Another reads,

“from my experience either I am the most unlucky house-holder in the country, if this is a one-off event, or the whole cavity idea is a big sham which should be investigated by someone other than the industry itself.”

A further complaint reads:

“Do not use Mark group. They filled our walls with non-compliant CWI, as open to the wind driven rain, our properties have been ruined...CIGA’s guarantee up to now is worthless”.

A further complaint says:

“It is now nearly 6 months since they damaged my home and I am no nearer to resolving the issue. They seem to be using delaying tactics in the hope that I will give up.”

And so it goes on, for page after page.

I do not know, however, whether the Mark Group is worse than any other company. It is still approved to do this work. My own encounter with the company was not good, as it made a fatuous attempt to threaten legal action after I retweeted a customer complaint—something I have never come across in 22 years as a Member of Parliament. [Interruption.]

[Mr Adrian Sanders (in the Chair)]

Order. As much as people in the public gallery might feel the need to applaud, that is not the way we do things. Thank you.

[Mr Denham]

I have some satisfaction in saying that it was at that moment that I decided that I should try to secure a parliamentary debate on the issue.

The Eades eventually contacted the Mark Group via its website. On 9 January 2014, Mr Lillywhite of the Mark Group inspected the property and offered to extract the cavity wall insulation for £2,000. Such double paydays for companies that install insulation wrongly and then charge to take it out again seem to be endemic in the industry. On 21 January, Claire Eades put a review on the Review Centre website, as the report of the inspection in January had still not been received. After further chasing, the Mark Group report was sent by Nathan Dunham. The report stated that the CWI was correctly installed and that the property was at fault. The response that nothing is wrong with the cavity wall insulation and that the damp is caused by something else is standard across the industry. Sometimes the property is blamed, and sometimes the occupants’ lifestyle is blamed, even though the same people have been living in these properties for years without suffering damp problems. It is simply a disreputable tactic. Many of those who take up CWI are older. They live in properties they own, and fuel bills are a major part of their expenditure. Perhaps the industry thinks they are less likely to complain.

On 31 January 2014, Claire Eades gave Mr Dunham of Mark Group a week to supply a date for a CIGA visit. CIGA was established in 1995. Ministers refer to it as independent; indeed, a letter from the Minister in December said:

“CIGA is an independent body”

and

“an organisation that will clearly be up to resolving issues relating to cavity wall insulation”.

I must ask the Minister what advice she was acting on when she signed that letter.

How independent is CIGA? On 3 November 2014, the directors were: Jeremy Robson, a director of the British Board of Agrément, the National Insulation Association and InstaGroup; John Sinfield, managing director of Knauf, which makes insulation materials; John Card, a director of Domestic and General Insulation Ltd; Brendan McCrea, a director of Abbey Insulation and Warmfill; Walter French, a director of the National Insulation Association; and Ian Tebb, a director of Polypearl Ltd and Tebway Ltd. Michael Cottingham was a director of CIGA between 2008 and 2009 and the managing director of Mark Group from 1991 to 2009. How can an organisation led almost entirely by directors of insulation companies be called independent?

I will return to the case of Pauline Saunders, but I want to read an e-mail she sent about a south Wales neighbour:

“I have just called on a very vulnerable 82 year old widow who unfortunately is in the position that her cavity wall installer has gone out of business and CIGA are not responding to any correspondence regarding this lady’s situation. I have just visited this lady and found her up to her knees in shredded wall paper”—

it was peeling off because of the damp—

“that she is scraping off the wall herself in an effort to save money”.

Even if vulnerable people complain, therefore, they are not guaranteed a reply.

After chasing, a CIGA inspection was carried out on the Eades’s property by a Chris Cuss on 13 February. On 20 February, the Eades wrote to CIGA to complain of a lack of interest on the part of the inspector. On 25 February, a short summary was sent to the Eades stating that the property was at fault, with no mention of faulty installation. The family therefore asked Mark Group for a copy of the original inspection report, which, had it been done properly, would have shown any failures in the property.

On 26 February, Mr and Mrs Eades wrote to John Campbell at CIGA. In a separate case, Dianna Goodwin of Milford on Sea had been copied into an internal e-mail from Mr Campbell, which referred to her, saying:

“She has far too much time on her hands and nothing better to do.”

In that case too, CIGA claimed there was no evidence that the CWI had

“caused or contributed to any issues with water penetration”.

That e-mail was sent from an organisation that, in its briefing to Members of Parliament for today’s debate, says:

“If something does go wrong, CIGA is at hand to put things right for consumers. It exists to protect consumers; they are our number one priority”.

The full CIGA report was never sent to Mr and Mrs Eades, but Claire Eades asked Mark Group for its report and the full CIGA report. The full CIGA report was then sent, and it said:

“the installation of CWI has NOT been completed in compliance with system designer and BBA specifications, the drilling pattern is non-compliant omitting an area of the original external wall within the rear extension”.

The full report would never have been made available to Mr and Mrs Eades had it not been for their daughter’s persistence.

CIGA colludes with installers to suppress evidence of failure and mis-installation. In the Eades case, it concluded, on the basis of no evidence, that CWI had exacerbated a concern regarding damp. It failed to acknowledge that the original Mark Group survey did not identify any pre-existing dampness.

CIGA claims there are historical problems in homes that have always been dry. Mrs Goodwin of Portsmouth was told her damp was caused by property defects and “lifestyle condensation”, even though her home had never previously suffered from damp. Chris Stillwell of Weymouth says:

“I have been left with damp and damaged walls....my flat is uninhabitable and has been ruined…CIGA who guarantee CWI keep trying to fob us off, even though their report states that the insulation used is now non-compliant”.

On 17 March last year, Lloyds, the household insurer for the Eades property, said the damp and water ingress were due to faulty CWI. However, the Eades still faced the challenge of getting work done, because having the CWI installed had invalidated their household insurance policy. They raised their plight with DECC, which said, “Go to Ofgem.” It also said:

“under the 25 year guarantee there should be no cost to the householder”.

DECC must be aware that CIGA conspires to keep details of inspection reports from householders and produces reports that are totally inadequate.

The Eades took their plight to Ofgem. Ofgem took a month to reply and referred them to Citizens Advice. They raised their plight with trading standards, which said, “Go to the citizens advice bureau.” They went to the CAB, which said it could not help and suggested the couple go to trading standards. They finally went back to DECC, asking who was responsible. The DECC reply was very clear: whoever it was, it certainly was not going to be DECC. DECC said:

“The contractual arrangements between energy supplier and third parties are not within our remit”.

For the Eades, this was the first time the involvement of an energy supplier had been mentioned.

A couple of weeks letter, DECC offered further advice: Mr and Mrs Eades—an elderly couple—should get a solicitor. However, on 23 May, there was a breakthrough. Ofgem had managed to establish that E.ON had funded the installation. Claire Eades told me that Dani Hickman of E.ON corresponded directly and appropriately with Mr and Mrs Eades. The involvement of the energy supplier was critical.

The Cavity Wall Insulation Victims Alliance has been in contact with more than 40 victims, but the Eades case is the only one in which the link with the energy company has been established. Ofgem does not hold address-level information consistently and, under CERT and CESP, there was no obligation for suppliers and installers to submit it. Despite that, the Minister of State wrote to me on 9 July, saying:

“Should it be the case that this work was undertaken under CERT, then Ms Eades or her parents may wish to contact the relevant energy supplier if they are unable to resolve the matter with the installer”.

In this case, Ofgem did trace the energy supplier for the Eades, but whoever drafted that letter for the Minister of State must have been aware that it would have been quite impossible in most cases under CERT to trace the energy supplier.

E.ON’s involvement led to an inspection by Knauf. The inspection recommended that the insulation be taken out of the south-west-facing wall due to voids. The internal walls in the extension should also have been drilled out for installation, and there were other failings. The Knauf report was never sent to Mr and Mrs Eades, and it was not intended for them. It was passed to them only by E.ON, which, acting on their behalf, demanded it from the Mark Group.

On 20 June, E.ON commissioned Green Deal Resourcing to carry out thermal imaging, which showed voids. The property is exposed to severe wind-driven rain. The insulation is facilitating the transfer of moisture across the cavity.

Having got that further independent report, the Eades complained to the British Board of Agrément. The BBA is supposed to accredit installers and materials, but it shares directors with CIGA. This is a very cosy network. The United Kingdom Accreditation Service, which is responsible for accrediting the BBA, confirms that householders have no right to see BBA reports on their properties.

On 21 July, the BBA inspected the property. Its report was never sent to Mr and Mrs Eades; it was sent to the Mark Group. It started, “Hi Nathan.” It continued:

“The system hasn’t been installed in compliance with the BBA issued certificate and should be extracted”.

Again, the Eades had no right to see that report. They got it only because E.ON was involved and passed it on to them.

To return to the case of Pauline Saunders of Newport, she finally received £1,750, and the Mark Group removed the fill. The trigger was a BBA report on the property that was sent to her in error. As a result, she was able to establish that it said:

“the property was and is unsuitable for cavity wall insulation and should not have been insulated”.

Without that report, which was intended only for the eyes of the installers or CIGA, she would not have received a payout.

In the end, the Mark Group and its loss adjuster, while still denying responsibility, paid the Eades about £11,000. Let us remember that the Mark Group originally wanted to charge £2,000 to remove the insulation from the property, having already been paid by E.ON for putting it in. How many people will there be who have not managed to pursue things that far? One cause of offence is the fact that even when settlements are achieved, installers still routinely deny responsibility and describe any action as a good will payment. Mr and Mrs Eades had their work done by a company that only does removal. On the occasions when CIGA will pay for extraction, its chosen extraction companies are Dyson Energy Services and InstaGroup, both of which share directors with it, so even when CIGA is finally forced to act, it seems that companies owned by its directors are the ones paid to do the work.

In a note sent to Members of Parliament, CIGA says:

“If something does go wrong, CIGA is at hand to put things right for consumers”.

I can give no credence to that claim. It says:

“If there is a problem with the workmanship or materials of an installation, we will ensure the installer put things right.”

As I have shown, CIGA takes active steps to avoid installers having to put things right. It says that, with regard to the 11,675 concerns reported, it has worked with installers to resolve 80% of cases; in 20% of them it covered the cost of work to the value of more than £2 million. Well, 80% plus 20% is 100%: that is all the cases dealt with. So how come so many people say they cannot get their problems resolved? There is something dodgy.

The obvious question is whether all those householders would agree that the resolution has been satisfactory, or whether they have just given up, accepted whatever they can take, or paid to put things right themselves. Who knows? There is no independent oversight of CIGA. CIGA is judge and jury in its own case, and it is run by the people who cause the problem. It says in its briefing to MPs that it will appoint a consumer champion. It is a bit late in the day, and it is hard to give credence to that. I am pleased that since today’s debate was announced, some of those involved in cases taken up by the CWIVA have had better offers. However, we cannot allow that last-minute action to let CIGA off the hook.

I have several requests for the Minister. I would like a full review of how the industry and CIGA operate. I want her to make a commitment to establishing genuinely independent oversight of the compensation arrangements. I ask her to change the regulatory regime so that the link between each energy company and each property is transparent and registered. Also, crucially, I would like every effort to be made to find out what additional historical information can be established. We must not just rectify problems for the future; we must deal with historical cases. I want the Minister to establish an independent assessment of properties at least one or two years after installation. That is the only way we will be able to understand the true scale of dampness caused by CWI. I also want her to introduce effective regulation of initial sales.

I have no doubt that there is fear in DECC that acknowledging the problems would discredit a key energy conservation policy, but the real danger to the credibility of the energy conservation programme lies in hushing the matter up. Many victims now question the whole idea of cavity wall insulation. Jeff Howell, the respected building correspondent of The Daily Telegraph, believes that all retrofit CWI is likely to cause problems. Is that true? I certainly hope not, and many organisations take a different view, but unless the Minister acts now, those doubts can only grow. We should not allow that to happen. We need an honest appraisal of the technology—where it works and where it does not—and we need effective redress for the victims.

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[Alistair Burt]

I have been a Member of Parliament for some 28 years, and in a previous constituency, there was a lot of condensation in some parts of the town. It can be a difficult issue, but it is the easiest thing in the world to avoid responsibility for. Whatever is going on in the house is said to be the fault of the householder, and it is difficult to prove otherwise.

If I may, I will finish quoting the letter from Carillion:

“I understand that this may not be the outcome that you would have hoped for. I would like to thank you for giving us the opportunity to investigate the issues you have raised.”

I wonder how many people have received a similar letter and thought, “Well, there we are. They know what they are talking about. It must be us; it must be something else.”

However, with the not unreasonable experience of over 25 years living in their house, my constituents were not prepared to accept that, and they responded as follows:

“We do not accept this decision. We have lived in this house for 28 years and have had the windows replaced. There were no problems with mould at any time. Then we had the cavity wall insulation done. The bedrooms, kitchen and living room then started to have mould growth around the windows and on the ceilings. Condensation on the windows became a real problem. When we first contacted the company about the cavity wall they sent out an inspector and he confirmed that there would be no problem to have the insulation carried out. However, when the workmen came to do the job they started muttering about being unable to do part of the house due to the fact that we had an extension. We got the impression that some parts of the house were not insulated. We are in the situation now where the whole house needs decorating but we can’t do anything because of the unsightly growth on the walls. If we had been told at the time that as a result of cavity wall insulation we would experience mould growth and condensation, we would not have gone ahead. Now Carillion seem to think they can just say it is not their problem. We consider it is. If there was a problem in installing the cavity wall we should have been fully informed before work started.”

That is the first eight to 10 pages of my file, which contains some 100 or 150 pages that detail my constituents’ attempts to deal with the problem. To cut a long story short, CIGA has recognised, after an independent inspection of the property, which was very difficult to arrange, that the cavity wall insulation was indeed installed in a faulty manner. CIGA continues to wriggle away from any serious responsibility, however, and it has made half-hearted efforts to get the matter dealt with.

I am not simply concerned about the way in which the case has been handled, although that is pretty bad. A detailed summary of what has been done is full of attempts to contact CIGA, attempts to ensure that people take responsibility and failure to deal with things. Some 16 months after it was notified of the initial complaint, for example, Carillion came back and asked for details of the problem. We see people at the bottom end of the chain being given the usual run-around by those who have power and responsibility.

After some further work on the matter, I came across a freedom of information request made by Ms Dianna Goodwin, from which I will quote briefly. I thought it was a very good piece of work that demonstrated, as the right hon. Member for Southampton, Itchen has said, the close relationship between the guarantee agency and the industry. Without repeating everything that was said about the directors and so on, I will read Ms Goodwin’s conclusion:

“With assets in excess of 16 million pounds, CIGA certainly does have the resources to meet claims under their Guarantee—yet have a strong track record for blatantly ignoring and intransigently resisting claimants. The government set the parameters for this industry and the abuse of the system is just allowed to roll on year after year, unchecked. It is nothing short of a national scandal that this private and patently non-independent company is allowed to function at all, and high time the government stepped in to disband them. Proper and solid arrangements should be made for their Guarantees to be underwritten; also for an obligatory ombudsman service made available for all. What action will the government take please?”

I am pleased to add my constituents’ concerns to those raised by other hon. Members.

[Mr Denham]

I am grateful for the right hon. Gentleman’s remarks and for those of the hon. Member for Arfon (Hywel Williams), who is the pioneer when it comes to raising the matter in the House. Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that because an underlying Government policy is driving the size and shape of the market, it is essential that Government take some responsibility for sorting things out? The problems would be bad enough in a free, consumer market with people buying and selling a service, but the market exists on the scale that it does because of the Government policy and obligations on energy companies.

[Alistair Burt]

It is quite right that Government should want to ensure greater energy efficiency by carrying out a policy such as this. We all want our homes to be warmer and our energy usage to be reduced, and insulation is a key part of that. It is essential, as the right hon. Gentleman says, when the Government are urging people to have such work done, that there is some sense that it is carried out properly. If things go wrong, the Government must accept some responsibility and work with the agencies that are charged with dealing with the matter to make sure that they are doing so.

Finally, I want to repeat a concern raised by the hon. Member for Arfon, who said that when he mentioned the issue locally, people appeared and said that it had been a problem for them. That is what worries me the most. If the Government want there to be a campaign on the matter by MPs all over the country, the best thing for them to do would be to defend what is happening and just say that they will look into it. If nothing is done, I promise the Minister that she will be back here with a room full of even more MPs, and that will not do anyone any good. Today offers a real opportunity to recognise the pain suffered by so many people and get something done, so that the agency lives up to its responsibilities and the companies involved know that they will be named and shamed for their work. The bottom line will be that consumers and our constituents will get a better service—the service that they deserve.

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[Mr Denham]

I apologise for intervening so early, but I have a question to which the Minister may well not know the answer, so this will give her time for a note to be passed forward. She mentioned the possible withdrawal of green deal certification. Does the Mark Group have green deal certification?

[Amber Rudd]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his consideration of timing. I will endeavour to come back to him on that point before closing.

Since 1995, uptake of cavity wall insulation has increased significantly with the launch of successive energy-efficient home improvement schemes by this Government and the last, including schemes aimed at fuel poverty such as Warm Front, and those focused on climate change, such as the energy company obligation and the green deal, which enable home owners to install energy efficiency measures, including cavity wall insulation. Between July 2010 and September 2014, 2.27 million homes had cavity wall insulation fitted; of those, 1.7 million did so under Government schemes. At the end of September 2014, 13.9 million homes had cavity wall insulation, or 72% of properties with a cavity wall. Up to the end of November 2014, some 462,103 cavity wall insulation installations were delivered under ECO, or 37.9% of total ECO measures, making them the most popular measure undertaken by households.

I will outline the protections in place for customers who receive cavity wall insulation. The installation of all cavity wall insulation must meet the requirements of the Building Regulations 2000, and the materials used to insulate cavity walls are subject to specific standards and must be certified by a technical approval body. To ensure the quality of installations under the green deal and ECO, installers must undergo a rigorous authorisation process to become authorised participants. Participants must comply with a publicly available specification setting out requirements for the installation of energy efficiency measures in existing buildings and levels of monitoring of those installations, including for cavity wall insulation. Furthermore, under the previous carbon emissions reduction target and community energy saving programme, and their successor schemes, the green deal and ECO, cavity wall insulation measures must be accompanied by a 25-year guarantee.

The green deal framework regulations require a green deal provider to agree, as part of any green deal plan, to guarantee the functioning of the improvements and to repair any damage to the property caused by the improvement. Under ECO and the CERT and CESP schemes before it, cavity wall insulation measures were required to be accompanied by an appropriate guarantee. Ofgem sets out the requirements for those guarantees in its ECO guidance: they must include a mechanism that gives assurance that funds will be available to honour the guarantee; the guarantee should last 25 years or longer; the guarantee must cover the costs of remedial and replacement works plus materials; there must be an assurance framework for the quality of installation and the product used in the installation. The suitability of the framework will be assessed and verification may be required through independent assessment by an independent United Kingdom Accreditation Service-accredited or other appropriate body. A list is available on the Ofgem website with details of guarantees that have been reviewed and are considered to meet the criteria for an appropriate guarantee under ECO.

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[Amber Rudd]

The hon. Gentleman will recall that we have debated that specific subject in this Chamber previously. My recollection is that mostly it should not have been. We went through the maps to which he referred in his comments, and the concerns that it had been inappropriately installed.

To return to the context of this debate, when the issue was put before the Government, we began conversations with the Cavity Insulation Guarantee Agency, which as we heard earlier is the largest cavity wall guarantee provider. We discussed the level and nature of existing complaints in order to understand the issue in further detail. The total number of complaints received by CIGA since 2010 is 6,890 and there have been 1.5 million cavity wall insulation installations since 2010, which implies a claim rate of 0.5% since 2010. The total number of outstanding unresolved cases on which CIGA tells me it is working is 171.

[Mr Denham]

Does that include all the cases in which CIGA has simply not replied to people who have contacted it?

[Amber Rudd]

I will have to return to that question to give the right hon. Gentleman a full answer. When I conclude my comments, I will address some of his specific requirements, including requesting a meeting between CIGA and my Department officials and me after this debate, and I will ensure that that is one of the questions that we address.

--- Later in debate ---

[Amber Rudd]

I will have to come back to the hon. Gentleman on that question.

[Mr Denham]

Adding to the list of things for the Minister to come back on, there is also the issue of installations carried out under CERT and CESP. It is clear from Ofgem’s Freedom of Information Act replies that it does not have those data. My hon. Friend the Member for Stalybridge and Hyde (Jonathan Reynolds) suggested that sufficient paperwork should be held somewhere to enable the match to be made between householders and energy suppliers, even under the two earlier schemes. Can the Minister advise us where that information is held? Will she make every effort to identify that information for each of those historical cases?

[Amber Rudd]

The hon. Member for Stalybridge and Hyde (Jonathan Reynolds) was right to raise that issue. I will review the regime for the legacy issues now and after the ECO regime expires in 2017. I agree that we need clarity about what happened in the past, and that we must make improvements for the future.

Let me move on to the suitability of cavity wall insulation for different properties. As my hon. Friend the Member for Meon Valley (George Hollingbery) said, not all properties are suitable. The hon. Member for Arfon and I have discussed that issue previously in this Chamber. A dwelling is suitable for standard cavity wall insulation if its external walls are unfilled cavity walls, the cavity is at least 50 mm wide, its masonry or brickwork is in good condition and its walls are not exposed to driving rain. It is important that cavity wall insulation is installed only in suitable homes and to the required standards. Pre-installation surveys are key in identifying suitable properties. Cavity wall insulation is not suitable in homes that are exposed to wind and driving rain, as my hon. Friend the Member for Meon Valley said.

The British Standards Institution’s regulations offer a step-by-step procedure for assessing properties’ suitability for cavity wall insulation and provide guidance for assessing exposure by looking at topography, shelter and rain spells. Technical certifications—for example, the BBA certificates—state how and where products can be used.

Members who have spoken in this debate have said that they want complaints to be properly handled, however many there are, and their constituents to get proper redress. It is clear that more needs to be done. The right hon. Member for Southampton, Itchen asked about the Mark Group. I can confirm that it is an authorised green deal provider. He requested several commitments from me, and I want to state clearly for the record that my Department and the Government take very seriously the concerns that have been raised about people’s homes. People’s homes are not just an asset or something that costs them money; they are essential to their livelihoods and well-being, which is why we take this issue so seriously.

I will speak to Ofgem, and I will write to it to ask for a summary of the number of complaints it has received and its view on that. I will consider conducting a review. I will consider the case for introducing independent oversight for all guarantees, not only those under CIGA. Concern about the guarantees, their implementation and access to them has been one of the features of this debate. I am concerned about the level of transparency—an issue that has been raised. The right hon. Member for Southampton, Itchen and others said that they were concerned about the independence of the directors of CIGA. I will have discussions with Ofgem about that issue.

The hon. Member for Arfon asked whether it would be possible to return to CWI properties after two years to ensure that the insulation was correctly installed. I will consider putting in place an independent assessment to look at properties two years after installation. I will also consider regulating the initial sales conversation—the right hon. Member for Southampton, Itchen raised that issue and quoted from various sales conversations. I have listened to the personal stories that Members have put on the record.

[Mr Denham]

The Minister has given us a list of things that she will consider. I agree with the right hon. Member for North East Bedfordshire (Alistair Burt), who said that the Minister will take those things seriously and pursue them. However, the dissolution of Parliament is approaching, and I and others will leave this place. Will she give me the satisfaction of promising to consider these issues and come up with answers before 30 March? It would be a great shame if she were to take this issue forward and, for whatever reason, not to find herself in the same position after the election. It is not unreasonable to ask her, in just under two months, to consider these issues and report back to the House.

[Amber Rudd]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman. He is absolutely right that I take this issue seriously and that I intend to get some answers on it. I commit to writing to him before Parliament dissolves to update him on where I am. I will do my level best to get as many answers as possible to address the concerns that he raised. I will start by making the points that I just outlined to Ofgem and asking for a meeting with CIGA to raise those complaints and issues.