MP Oliver Ryan meets with victims of cavity wall insulation scandal

Burnley, Padiham and Brierfield MP Oliver Ryan met with victims of the cavity wall insulation scandal.

Transcript

00:00It is completely appalling. There are people here, and we've heard their stories tonight,

00:03living in mouldy homes, damp homes, homes that have been wrecked by shoddy insulation,

00:09by cowboy builders and cowboy operators. It's not right. It's an unjust situation and the group

00:15here are doing the best they can, people power, to try and get some kind of justice and hopefully

00:20I've come to, well I have come, to offer them my help and to hopefully bring some solutions.

00:26I think we need to see, or I need to at least go down to Parliament and ask some questions about

00:29what regulation currently exists for the people doing this work in places around Burnley,

00:36Paddyham and the rest of Lancashire, for operators and for councils and for the government which has

00:41ultimately funded some of this work at the end of the day. Not just so that we can deal with some

00:46of the retrospective failed insulation, but some of the insulation that will be put in in future.

00:52I mean ultimately we want more homes insulated. It's a good thing to attract funding to do some

00:57of that. Burnley especially has got some of the most under insulated homes in the country

01:01that too many people live in damp and mouldy accommodation. It's a good thing that government

01:06wants to fund that, but I need to make sure that when this work is being done it's not being done

01:09by cowboys that are going to do poor insulation, that are going to leave people like this and

01:12families like this in situations that they can't live with for any lengthy period of time. There's

01:18people here with breathing problems, mental health problems, on account of failed insulation that's

01:22gone into the houses. It's a seriously bad thing. I was quite happy to be invited. I'll be even

01:28happier if I can help and hopefully by going out to Parliament, asking those questions, we can

01:32we can hopefully bring about some change. People need to probably understand out there that when

01:37people read newspaper articles about it or people see a headline of SSB law and people sort of see

01:41that it looks like quite a complex legal situation, it isn't right. For people who've gone through

01:47this, somebody, most likely a salesman or a cowboy, has turned up and said there's a government back

01:52scheme for insulation, if you just sign this thing we'll come and fit it and then your home will be

01:56safer and you'll get cheaper bills, it's all paid for by somebody else. Most people would take that

01:59and people will still get a strut through their doors now that says we'll do it for you, it's all

02:04kosher and there's nothing else you know you need to do. These people have, in good faith,

02:08gone down those avenues, taken that insulation because they believed it would help their bills

02:12and some of them have been left with failed insulation that's now made their homes less

02:16safe, that has given them damp and mouldy conditions to live in for them and their kids

02:20and I think we're all just trying to get together to help them and find a way out of it.

02:24So I would just say to people if you're reading this and you sort of think god I'm seeing so much

02:28of this SSB law stuff and it feels like a complex legal thing, it's not. It's insulation that's

02:32filled on people's homes and how do we find a situation of getting them out of it and that's

02:36what I'm trying to do and these people are leading on actually. I'm not a central part of this, this

02:40group is leading this, I'm just trying to see how I can help.