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11.22 am
Mr. Harry Barnes (North-East Derbyshire): These Adjournment debates are popularly referred to as consisting of short speeches, so I shall keep my contribution brief. I have three items to raise.
First, constituents are facing problems obtaining passports. We are coming to the recess, and some hon. Members may be lucky enough to be popping overseas for a short while. Many of our constituents are having considerable problems obtaining passports so that they can go on holiday. My constituents use the Liverpool passport office, and it is claimed that passports are sometimes sent out but have not been received, so duplicate copies must be sent and that involves much organisation. Some constituents have waited 10 weeks or more: their cheques have been cashed, but they have not received their passports. There is a last-minute panic, and finally the matter is brought to the attention of their Member of Parliament and arrangements must be made so that those constituents can obtain passports.
People can obtain a passport quickly by going to a post office and paying £3.20 under what is termed a partnership scheme. Whether there should be such a scheme when the general waiting list for passports is not moving is debatable, but such a system should be operated properly.
I had a case of constituents who made use of the post office facility on 28 April. As it is supposed to take 10 days to receive a passport, they should have received theirs on 8 May. They had not received them by 19 May and were due to leave for their holiday on 20 May. When the chief executive's office of the UK Passport Agency
was contacted, arrangements were made to post the passports that day so that my constituents would receive them in time to go on holiday. A check was made of whether they had received them. They had not, so a courier had to be sent from Liverpool to north-east Derbyshire. The courier left late, and arrangements were made by telephone that one of the relatives of the people concerned would go to junction 29 of the motorway to meet the courier. Meanwhile, a taxi was waiting to take my constituents to the airport. They managed it, but that shows the serious state of affairs.
I dealt with another case yesterday. I contacted the chief executive's office, and was told that it was also having difficulty contacting the Liverpool passport office and was obliged to send material by fax. We are checking whether the people concerned receive their passports in time. This is a serious matter, and needs to be dealt with, given that the recess is approaching. I hope that the appropriate Department will take my comments on board, and that improvements will be made so that constituents are not placed in that position.
The second problem that I want to mention concerns an issue that I have already raised in another Adjournment debate. It is about the payment of jobseeker's allowance when a firm goes into receivership. This matter was brought to my attention by the collapse on 22 April of Bryan Donkin Foundry Limited at Renishaw in my constituency. So far, 160 out of a work force of 180 have been sacked. They were entitled to moneys from their ex-employer when the receivers moved in, but must wait for the redundancy arrangements to be worked out. According to a parliamentary answer that process takes nine weeks on average.
In the meantime, those sacked workers are not entitled to jobseeker's allowance and must be dealt with through income support, which is means-tested. They are from my constituency or neighbouring areas. Out of the 160, only 10 per cent. or so receive income support, because other income coming into the family is taken into account. In one case, the claimant does not receive any payment because of his wife's disability benefit.
The Government are well aware of this problem. I wrote to the Department for Education and Employment immediately, and I raised the matter in an Adjournment debate. I received a letter from the Minister for Employment, Welfare to Work and Equal Opportunities, which says:
Mr. Stunell:
Does the hon. Gentleman agree thatthe injustice is even greater, because the longer the individual's service with the firm and the greater the redundancy payment, the longer he will be denied support from the state system?
Mr. Barnes:
As the average period to sort out the redundancy payment is nine weeks, and the payment
The Minister's letter goes on to say:
Finally, I want to say something about Yugoslavia and the NATO bombing. I have always supported the bombing of military targets, and I accept that some civilians are bound to be caught up in that and that there will be unfortunate accidents. However, I feel that the number of civilians who are being killed and injured, and whose lives are being disrupted in what is allegedly not an all-out war, is excessive, as is the number of errors. Mary Robinson, the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, has argued in favour of proportionality, and I think that what she says should be seriously considered.
It should be possible to make a reasonable distinction between military and civilian targets. Military targets are military hardware and troops; civilian targets--which, obviously, should be avoided--include schools, hospitals, health care centres, housing estates, monasteries and religious shrines. A number of those have been hit, it is claimed by accident. But in which class should we place bridges, railway stations, civilian airports, public institutions, factories, agricultural complexes and telecommunications facilities? Some of those might be said to have military links, but most are basically civilian, and often civilians will be hurt the most when they are attacked. In a number of cases, civilians are being hit while military targets are merely suffering collateral damage.
Mr. Tim Loughton (East Worthing and Shoreham):
I fear that I cannot emulate the grand tour of Southend, West to which my hon. Friend the Member for Southend, West (Mr. Amess) treated us earlier, as he customarily does. I shall limit myself to a single subject.
I am pleased to bring the House what I consider to be very good news of an excellent project in my constituency called First Check Point, which is proving to be
dramatically successful in combating the menace of cowboy builders. That is entirely due to the tremendous work of one Mrs. Hazel Jones, who set up the project and initially ran it almost single-handed.
I am sure that all hon. Members will have dealt with constituency cases involving cowboy builders. Home owners are told that a job urgently needs to be done before further costly damage is caused; builders turn up, invited or uninvited; the resulting charges may bear no relation to the cost of the job, or the time that it takes. Elderly people in particular are faced with myriad quotations for larger jobs especially, having no idea what the cost should be or how well qualified the workman who takes on the labour will prove to be.
Some unscrupulous builders take deposits and then abscond. Smaller jobs that would not be profitable for reputable traders are not taken on, and the home owner is left to the mercy of smaller, less scrupulous traders. When doing one job, a builder may create faults that require a second, more expensive job. Builders may start the work although their quotation has not been accepted, or they may make the job out to be much bigger than it is by not doing the minimum work required to deal with the problem. They may take on work that is beyond their capabilities, or they may do the work in a hurry, which results in a poor standard of workmanship. Some use the wrong materials in order to save costs; others may have too many projects on the go at the same time and consequently move from one job to another, spending only a short time on each and disrupting the householder for far longer than is necessary. Such cases lead to what Mrs. Jones describes as "builderphobia".
Let me give some examples from my constituency. A female householder who heard water running in her loft telephoned a plumber--a member of the Confederation of Registered Gas Installers--whose name she had found in Yellow Pages. The plumber visited the attic, and reported that the whole system needed replacing--and that if the householder did not have the work done, she would be replacing the ceilings. The price quoted was some £800. A CORGI-registered plumber from First Check Point then visited, and found that all that was required was replacement of the ballcock at a cost of £35, which meant a saving of £765.
An elderly female householder needed the rotten woodwork around her garage door replacing. She asked for two quotations: one was for £2,340, and the other for £1,430. Both included the cost of replacing the whole garage roof. First Check Point sent a surveyor, who found that all that needed to be replaced was the woodwork surrounding the garage door and the lead flashing above it. The roof was not damaged in any way, and no part of it was leaking. The quotations were for £595 and £650 respectively. I am sure that hon. Members could give many other examples.
I know that the Government are aware of the problem. Last year the Department of Trade and Industry produced a welcome consultation paper entitled "Combating Cowboy Builders", and various working parties are taking action. First Check Point, however, has already achieved dramatic results.
A year ago, a little lady in her 60s came to my surgery. She had a curious mid-Atlantic accent, and wore a large fur coat. Her name was Hazel Jones. She brought with her many ideas from the United States, where she had spent
a lot of time in industry and the voluntary sector, working on federal housing projects with, in particular, elderly people. She said that she needed mental stimulation, and something to keep her busy.
Subsequently, last October, Hazel Jones, the mayor of Worthing and I--along with others--launched First Check Point. It was initially funded by Hazel herself and a local builder, who was keen to help because cowboy builders give the reputable trade a bad name. The project was tied in with local voluntary organisations and the police. A team of retired volunteers manned the telephones in the office to which part of Mrs. Jones's house had been converted, and a team of semi-retired professionals came on board to give quotations and assess what work needed to be done.
First Check Point works like this. Someone needing a job, big or small, to be done telephones the organisation. An approved volunteer--all those involved have at least 40 years' building experience--visits the property, lists the items of work that need to be done and specifies the type of trader who will be required. There is then a choice of two schemes. For small jobs, there is the approved handyman scheme, involving a list of skilled tradesmen, usually semi-retired, who want the odd one or two days' work a week. They are closely vetted. They must prove that they live locally, they must have at least three references in relation to jobs done in the past, and they must have no police record. The work is awarded on the basis that they have indemnity insurance of at least £1 million. Those smaller jobs may be electrical or they may involve plumbing, roofing or carpentry.
Larger jobs are dealt with through the approved trader scheme, which involves a list of approved local traders with proven track records and references from people who are prepared to guarantee their work. Two or three appropriate tradesmen will be asked to give quotations, all of which must be itemised and signed by both builder and householder.
Both lists are reviewed regularly, and householders who have had a job done are required to answer a questionnaire about the quality of the workmanship. First Check Point will monitor the work to ensure that it is done properly; if it is not, First Check Point will bring back the builder to ensure that it is done to the required standard.
The scheme was originally funded voluntarily, with help from Worthing council grants and charities such as New Horizons--which was so impressed by the quality of the scheme that it doubled its initial donation. Following the mushrooming of the scheme, First Check Point now levies a 5 per cent. commission on approved tradesmen, and a commission of £5 per day of work on approved handymen. There are no direct costs to the customer.
I mention the scheme because it has been spectacularly successful. Earlier in the month, we reached the mark of 1,000 jobs done since 1 January: in the space of just four months, more than 1,000 people have been helped with jobs. There has been a torrent of thank you letters, and letters of congratulation saying, "I do not know how anyone could go to Yellow Pages or any other local trading body without coming to you first because the scheme is so successful."
The scheme now covers the area from Brighton to Littlehampton and is under great pressure to expand. Age Concern is sending some of its national officers to
consider the scheme seriously, with a view to helping to establish pilot schemes in other parts of the country. The National Neighbourhood Watch Association is coming on board because First Check Point is a useful scheme to combat crime as well. It could deter unscrupulous traders who knock on the doors of little old ladies to offer their services, but who may have ulterior motives. The local neighbourhood watch has been helping to distribute window stickers that are based on neighbourhood watch window stickers, but which have First Check Point on them, thereby deterring cowboy builders from trying to take advantage of people who need work to be done.
I said earlier that the Government's work on cowboy builders is welcome, but the consultation paper addresses only the quality of the builders' workmanship. It deals only with national projects, but the success of First Check Point has been the local supervision and the local factor: the capacity of local people to monitor the standard of the work and to award a sort of kite mark. In addition, the national lists proposed in the consultation on cowboy builders would not include the small firm--the two or three-person family firms that are the lifeblood of First Check Point.
First Check Point works very well. It works largely because of the absolute dedication of Mrs. Hazel Jones and the people who work with her, such as Norman Tilley, who has been on board from the start. They would be the first to admit that it is not perfect, but it is simple, it addresses the problems that have been experienced and gives the public, particularly the elderly, someone to turn to for objective advice.
"As things stand . . . any notice payment due must be taken into account in calculating JSA during the notice period, even though it has not yet been actually paid. The Department of Social Security, rather than this Department, have the lead responsibility for this area of JSA policy. They are considering the matter in conjunction with DTI, but I understand that the issues involved are proving complex."
I am not sure what the great complexities are, but this matter requires three Departments to co-ordinate their activities.
"There are also practical difficulties--for example, surrounding the early identification of whether or not an employer is insolvent."
A distinction is made between a firm that goes into receivership, which is the case with Bryan Donkin, and one that becomes insolvent. The letter also says:
"DSS are unable to say when the work will be completed, but I am assured that efforts are being made to conclude the matter as quickly as possible."
If the relevant period is nine weeks, my constituents are halfway through it. I hope that the matter will be resolved in time, but it seems obvious to me that it will not be, and I feel that something must be done on my constituents' behalf.
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