Rogue Builders

Julie Minns Excerpts

Thursday 13th November 2025 Westminster Hall

[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.