The National Audit Office has published a bombshell report which reveals 98% of homes with external wall insulation installed under the government’s own Energy Company Obligation (ECO) now require urgent repair work to mend “major issues” that will lead to damp and mould. Thousands of homes are affected...
- 98% of homes with external wall insulation installed under the government’s ECO scheme require work to correct major issues that will cause problems such as damp and mould.
- DESNZ’s consumer protection system, which was set up in 2021, did not alert it to significant issues with the quality of installations until late 2024.
- The NAO recommends that DESNZ sets out how and when affected households can have faulty installations repaired, and reforms the consumer protection system.”
It is a withering review, citing “poor-quality installations, weak government oversight and inadequate audit and monitoring” for the failure. The NAO estimates around 23,000 homes with external insulation will now have issues that need fixing. A masterclass in Whitehall buffoonery. Read the full report here…
Statement by Paul Dacre, Editor-in-Chief of Associated Newspapers Limited, following Harry’s loss in court today:
“Prince Harry wrote a sad book which boasted about his killing of 25 Taliban, his drug-taking and, in cringe-making detail, how he lost his virginity. There isn’t a laundry in the cosmos big enough to wash all the dirty linen he has aired about his own family. For him, to complain about HIS privacy being invaded takes, not just the biscuit, but the whole tin. Poor Harry. I feel sorry for the way a confused and angry young man has been drawn into this case. The bitter irony is that his mother, Diana, liked the Mail. We were her paper. We took her side in her acrimonious break up with Charles. She and I would speak and meet. The Mail’s superb royal reporter was her friend and confidante. The truth is that this trumped-up action – which has cost well over £50 million and wasted a huge amount of valuable court time – should never have been brought to trial. That it did, raises profoundly disturbing questions about the conduct of elements of the legal profession. Today’s verdict is not just a victory for Associated’s magnificent journalists – several of whom have had a terrible toll imposed on their health and lives – but a free press generally. Make no mistake. This was a conspiracy, supported by Hacked Off, to destroy a paper. Financed by the orgy-loving, racist Max Mosley and involving the actor Hugh Grant, it was also a sinister bid to resuscitate Leveson Two and impose statutory regulation on the press which, even now, is rearing its ugly head in Labour’s Media Green Paper.”