Preet Kaur Gill MP has joined with five other Birmingham MPs to write to the Secretary of State of Housing, Michael Gove to call for an end to Dickensian-like housing.
Jess Phillips, Khalid Mahmood, Steve McCabe, Paulette Hamilton and Liam Byrne joined Preet in raising their concerns following the avoidable death of Awaab Ishak who, it was ruled, died because of mould in his family’s Rochdale flat.
British homes are among the worst insulated, most draughty, and leakiest in Europe. England has one of the oldest housing stocks in the developed world and one of the lowest rates of social housing replacement. The Conservative Government has also failed to retrofit the worst energy efficient homes, leaving families losing hundreds of pounds a year in heat loss and forced to deal with damp and mould in their homes.
The group questioned the speed with which the Government is set to release additional funding for insulation and energy efficiency, describing that budgeting this from 2025 "is patently inadequate".
Preet Kaur Gill, MP for Birmingham Edgbaston said, "68% of homes in Birmingham don't meet the basic energy efficiency standards. This is pushing fuel bills even higher at a time when the UK is in recession, unemployment is high and food prices are rising.
"It is simply not good enough for the Government to sit back for the next three years and wait for the next death to happen. They crashed the economy, making life so much more expensive for residents and councils alike, it is unacceptable that funding for retrofitting won’t be available until 2025. This is simply too late and puts lives at risk."
Last week Preet wrote to Deborah Cadman, chief executive of Birmingham City Council, where she outlined how the issue of damp was one of the largest causes of complaints from her constituents and how of the 160 outstanding cases she has with the council, almost all of them were reoccurring.
Read Preet’s letter to Birmingham City Council chief executive here:
Read the Birmingham Labour MPs letter to Michael Gove:
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