PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES - United Kingdom Parliament

1553 Easter Adjournment
26 MARCH 2013 Easter Adjournment
1554
The bedroom tax is an invidious policy. It will not
free up rooms in the way the hon. Member for Central
Devon (Mel Stride) expects. Up and down the country,
people are being forced to move from their larger homes,
although smaller homes are not available in their area,
and they are being penalised if they cannot move. It is
illogical. The policy provides a good cheap headline for
the Government, but it will not deliver and it is having a
negative impact on families’ lives. There are better ways
to tackle the housing issue. Cross-party, we should
look at supporting an increase in supply and ensuring
that there are no loopholes in any schemes. In the
Budget, the Chancellor talked about the mortgage
guarantee, which will enable people to buy second homes.
The Government have still not come up with a
comprehensive rejection of that approach, so we can
only take that as an assurance that people can buy a
second home with a mortgage guarantee from the
Government, while many of my constituents will continue
to struggle to get on the housing ladder, or into a form
of tenure that provides them and their families with
security and the strong base in the community that we
all want to see.
5.5 pm
Alison Seabeck (Plymouth, Moor View) (Lab): I begin
by making my usual declaration of indirect interests.
I am raising an issue brought to me by a constituent
who has serious concerns about the way in which gas
safety certificates are dispensed. She recently bought a
bungalow, and was supplied by the previous owner with
building regulation compliance certificates, including
gas and electricity safety check certificates. Having got
those certificates, she trusted, as anyone would, that all
the work and inspections had been carried out to the
required standard, as did her conveyancing solicitor
and surveyor.
It later emerged that all the traders and engineers
who had issued those certificates were personal friends
of the previous owner, and it appears that the certificates
were issued without them either checking that the work
had been carried out or that it was up to the correct
standard. Electrical and gas appliance installations such
as the under-floor heating, boiler and heating system
had been blindly certified by Gas Safe and ELECSAregistered
engineers as a favour to a mate. There have
been some consequences, such as de-registering the
ELECSA trader, but the main concerns remain. The
Electrical Contractors’ Association has accepted that
its engineer was very wrong to issue a certificate for
work he had neither carried out nor inspected for safety.
However, it appears Gas Safe has been reluctant to take
the same approach.
I by no means pretend to be an expert in the field of
building regulations and appliance safety, but I do find
it incredibly odd that although gas and electrical engineers
can be struck off the register if they negligently leave an
appliance unsafe, the same does not apply to those who
issue certificates without doing or inspecting the work.
There really does appear to be not simply a loophole
but a gap in the legislation that endangers lives. My
constituent sustained an injury as a result of the faulty
appliances, and informed me that it was pure luck that
the later inspecting engineer, who condemned the appliance,
was not electrocuted.
Clause 57(1)f of the Building Act 1984 states:
“If a person…recklessly gives a notice or certificate that…purports
to comply with those requirements, and contains a statement that
is false or misleading in a material particular, he is guilty of an
offence.”
Should the same rules not apply to those issuing gas
and electricity safety certificates? My constituent has
had to re-check one appliance after another after they
failed to operate. The inspecting engineer found that the
consumer unit was faulty and the sockets were not
earthed. The boiler had parts missing, such as the
mini-expansion vessel and the pressure-reducing valve.
The under-floor heating system had parts missing: the
pump, balancing valves and the heat-reducing valve.
Also, the boiler was not earthed and the isolation switch
had not been wired in. It appears that another blind
certificate was issued, falsely to certify the safety of the
boiler.
These are not just small mishaps or omissions, but
fundamental issues that could have had very serious
consequences. There is an urgent need for both Government
and the industry to take this matter very seriously
indeed. There has also been a considerable financial
cost for my constituent. We need to establish who has
the power of enforcement in such cases. Trading standards
said that my constituent had misunderstood the issue,
and she was repeatedly told that the engineer was
certified to carry out the work. He might have been, but
he still did not do the job properly. Trading standards
also apparently said to my constituent that these things
happen all the time—all the time!—but there is very
little scope for pursuing the issue owing to the lack of
relevant legislation.
It is my understanding that Gas Safe decided to
investigate the engineer after persistent communication
from my constituent. At present, the engineer is still on
the register, even though the appliance certified by him
failed to meet even the most basic safety checks. Yet
Gas Safe, while seemingly not acting in this instance,
took space in my local paper in January advising DIY-ers
not to take risks with gas.
Legally, my constituent is also in a tricky situation: as
she does not have a direct contract with the engineers in
question, she cannot bring a case against either of
them. Her conveyancing solicitor advised her that it was
a matter of “buyer beware”. My constituent is frustrated
because she was aware—she had done everything by the
book and had accepted, as had her surveyor, that the
certificates were valid and had been issued by a “trusted”
professional. This practice of false or blind certification
has to stop. Plymouth’s director for place has said that
“in essence the fact of the matter is that we are used to the
presence of consumer protection legislation when we buy goods
from a high street trader but those protections are considerably
lacking when we buy our largest purchase, a house”.
What can the Minister do, through his Department, to
liaise with those involved in consumer protection to put
an end to this deceit?
Meg Hillier: On a point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker.
I regret that when I spoke earlier I neglected to draw the
House’s attention to my entry in the Register of Members’
Financial Interests, and I seek to rectify that now.
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle): That has
now been noted and rectified.