The Burnley and Padiham MP, Antony Higgonbotham, calls for more government action to fix the cavity wall insulation scandal at a meeting for victims in the town.
He discusses the role of the Government and MPs in supporting victims, investigating the SRA, vetting trade companies, and regulating no-win, no-fee firms.
He discusses the role of the Government and MPs in supporting victims, investigating the SRA, vetting trade companies, and regulating no-win, no-fee firms.
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NewsTranscript
00:00 So I know about the EDM, I've taken a position since I was first elected not to sign any EDMs
00:06 because I think they're really expensive and a poor tool, but actually the message of the EDM is
00:11 we want the government to work with us to do the right thing to deliver justice for all the people impacted
00:16 and that is 100% what I'm committed to doing.
00:19 We know that the SRA said they did a forensic investigation into SSB law last year before the collapse
00:26 SSB law then did collapse and the SRA hasn't said what that investigation found or why they allowed the firm to keep trading
00:33 so we've got to have an investigation once the SRA has come back on what it's doing now to help victims
00:40 which is the primary concern, but we do then have to look at well what went wrong the first time
00:45 because we don't have regulators failing to regulate the profession they're supposed to be looking after.
00:50 Every politician is in the job because we rely on the people who we serve
00:56 and ministers just like MPs have a responsibility to meet victims.
01:00 We saw that with the post office, it took too long for ministers to meet the victims of the Horizon scandal
01:06 and we don't want to go through that again so absolutely I think ministers should meet with the victims of this.
01:11 We are going to see over the coming years and decades more of these type of schemes to help people decarbonise
01:17 and if the first instance saw scandal on this scale nobody's going to take it up
01:23 so we've got to put it right this first time and then we've got to design the schemes in future
01:28 in a way that doesn't allow for cowboys and others to abuse the system, to take taxpayers money
01:34 and then to land innocent normal hard-working families with bills that are this massive
01:39 so we've got to re-look at those schemes and we've got to instil confidence in them
01:43 because otherwise people just aren't going to take them up.
01:46 There's no win no fee, people hear and think that means no fee in total
01:50 and we've seen because of the collapse of the insurance on the other side, victims come
01:55 and so we've got to re-look at that to go well was this appropriately marketed?
01:59 If it was then something really bad has happened and if it wasn't then clearly the SRA has failed
02:04 to make now victims aware of what was going on in the first place.