Energy Market: Consumer Protection
House of Commons · Written Statements · 17 Jun 2026 · 1 speech · Official Report
We are acting today to restore consumer confidence in the energy sector and ensure that failures in Government insulation schemes can never happen again. The 2025 National Audit Office report into the failures of the ECO scheme gave a damning account of the failures of the ECO4 and GBIS schemes that we inherited from the previous Government: thousands of faulty installations, terrible damage to peoples’ properties, and blameless families who had signed up to a Government scheme and were forced to live in damp and sometimes unsafe conditions as a consequence. I promised, when I first updated the House on our response, that it would never happen again. As we embark on the Government’s warm homes plan-the biggest programme of home upgrades in British history-we must ensure that people have confidence when retrofitting and upgrading their homes. Homeowners and landlords need to trust that upgrading their buildings will deliver the right results and not leave them facing further issues down the line. Those faulty installations did not just damage people’s properties, they eroded trust and confidence in the entire market. In October, we set out three principles for reform of consumer protection that have guided our proposals: Work should be right first time. Despite the unacceptable failures uncovered in ECO4 and GBIS, in most cases work on Government schemes is safe and carried out to a high standard. Consumers must be able to trust that work will be done right the first time in...