Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, whether he plans to bring forward legislative proposals for compulsory training to tackle the way companies sell cavity wall insulation to vulnerable people; and if he will make a statement.

There are currently no plans to bring in new legislation relating to selling to vulnerable consumers. Trading Standards Officers can already take action against salesmen who use misleading practices and aggressive pressure selling, such as those that might be used by a seller seeking to exploit the elderly and disabled. Since the implementation of the Consumer Protection (Amendment) Regulations 2014 consumers have been able to take action against such traders to get their money back.

Beyond these regulations, my Department is working with industry to improve consumer protection for cavity wall insulation and other energy efficiency work by developing new standards and launching a more robust government endorsed quality scheme through TrustMark. This reflects the recommendations of the independent Each Home Counts review, which identified an important need for an independent, all-encompassing mark of quality that consumers can rely upon and trust.

The new quality scheme will be underpinned by rigorous standards and a code of conduct to tackle mis-selling, poor design and installation. This is a voluntary scheme for registered business delivering to households under the existing Government endorsed TrustMark scheme, but Government wants to encourage consumers to choose these trusted traders and for business to get on-board. In future, we intend to incorporate the quality mark as a requirement of Government schemes such as the Energy Company Obligation (ECO).