17:41 Mr Adrian Bailey (West Bromwich West) (Lab/Co-op)

My constituents have had extensive correspondence with both the Department of Energy and Climate Change and the Coal Authority, neither of which will accept responsibility for the inaccuracy of the original NCB report, and they have been met with nothing more than an evasive smokescreen designed to obscure the relative level of their culpability.

The safety of the houses is not the only concern; residents are also worried about the reduction in the resale value of their properties. The Department of Energy and Climate Change, in correspondence with the residents, has suggested that the Coal Authority has no responsibility in relation to property devaluation and that its responsibility is limited to subsidence claims, which may, in some cases, result in the loss of value. To counter that, the residents obtained an independent evaluation, in which the surveyor suggested that

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