A government-backed drive to warm British homes has backfired spectacularly, leaving thousands of properties damp, mouldy, and dangerous.

The UK Public Accounts Committee (PAC) has dropped a bombshell report labelling the government’s ECO 4 and Great British Insulation Scheme as a "catastrophic fiasco." The numbers are damning: over 30,000 homes have been fitted with defective insulation since 2022. For many families, what was supposed to be a money-saving upgrade has turned their homes into health hazards, with mould spores and water ingress threatening their lungs and their wallets.

A "Doomed" Scheme

Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown, chair of the PAC, did not mince words, calling for the Serious Fraud Office to investigate.

• The Scale of Failure: Less than 10% of the affected homes have been fixed. That means 27,000 families are still living in sub-standard conditions.
• The Oversight Gap: The scheme received "virtually no attention" from senior officials for two years. It was a ghost ship sailing into an iceberg.
• The Fraud Factor: The "extreme" level of non-compliance by installers suggests systematic corner-cutting and potential fraud.

Lessons for Kenya’s Affordable Housing

This scandal is a timely warning for Kenya as we roll out the Affordable Housing Programme (AHP). The rush to meet targets—building 200,000 units a year—must not come at the expense of quality control. The UK disaster shows what happens when government oversight sleeps while contractors cut corners. In Kenya, where we have already seen cases of buildings collapsing due to poor workmanship, the stakes are literal life and death.

The UK Department for Energy Security denies "widespread health risks," but the MPs’ report paints a different picture. It is a classic case of good intentions paving the road to hell. For Kenyan policymakers, the message is clear: robust inspection regimes are not red tape; they are the only thing standing between a national project and a national disaster.