To a certain extent, I agree with that, but perhaps we can take it up another time or the hon. Gentleman could make his own speech later on if he so chooses.
I was going to make a point about retirement homes and end-of-life homes. We ought to have three times as many as we do. We need to attract people into decent homes, which are probably smaller and more thermally efficient, rather than them living in a cold, draughty place with many rooms that are not needed. I have an uncle who told me that his home in Taunton is so thermally efficient that he has not had to turn the heating on once in the four years that he has lived there.
If we can attract people into those homes with confidence, that will free up many more homes that will go to younger families, who will do up those homes with carbon-free heating, better insulation and all the kinds of things that we went through when we were young in the life cycle of housing, so we will all gain. That will not happen until we have housing providers who can be trusted. Again, I say to Mr McCarthy at Churchill, “I wish I could trust you. Why don’t you engage with us and show us that our doubts can be answered and that if your practices are unworthy you will have better ones?”
We had the same thing in the past with McCarthy and Stone—the McCarthys were obviously involved in that as well. Some of the managing agents there—this was when the Tchenguiz interests were involved—were involved in the scandal over call systems. They ran a cartel that saw leaseholders either unnecessarily paying out millions and millions of pounds to replace a system, or being overcharged. When the police came to investigate them, they declared themselves as having a cartel, which meant that they got let off completely free. That should not have happened. The first time that we lay complaints against these people, there should be action. The police need to be involved in these things as well.
I hope to have another opportunity in this Parliament to raise more of these issues. The key point is, why cannot we have action now on the scandals? Why cannot we frighten people?
On the overall costs of the defects in fire safety—not just cladding, but many others—why do the Government not get in the insurance companies, which covered the liabilities of the developers, the architects, the builders, the sub-contractors and everybody else, and say, “We want to have a few billion pounds from you as well, so that nobody is left in a home that is either unsafe or unsellable”?
We want people to have the confidence to live in their homes. I look forward to seeing what the Government do, and I am grateful to the Opposition for raising the motion, although I shall look down on them with less respect if they force it to a vote.
2.11 pm