Executives at one of the UK’s top appliance companies have revealed a shocking statistic – that there could be as many as 800,000 faulty tumble-dryers in homes around the country, twice as many as originally feared.
And each of these tumble-dryers pose a significant fire risk.
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On Wednesday (June 3), This Morning shared the news that their Whirlpool Campaign has finally been taken to parliament.
Four years after the morning show first called on Whirlpool to take action over their faulty tumble dryers, bosses went in front of MPs for a parliamentary select committee.
Over 1.7 million tumble dryers have now been modified, but Whirlpool execs admitted to MPs that there could still be up to 800,000 machines posing a fire risk in homes across the UK.
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Jemma Spurr, who has previously appeared on This Morning, spoke at the select committee yesterday and described how her modified machine caught fire last year and nearly burned down her home.
Talking about getting an apology, she said: “It just felt really quite awkward. It’s a bit too little too late.”
She also told politicians she was asked to sign a “non-disclosure agreement” about the incident, which MPs said was used for “shutting people up”.
Of This Morning’s campaign, which started in 2015, Phillip said: “Seventeen times we’ve mentioned this on the show.”
Speaking of the select committee chair, Consumer Editor Alice Beer, who was at the committee, said: “She said to them, ‘you need to make more of an effort to get this [the information] out there’.”
Alice added: “This has been very, very damaging for their brand… How many times in the last year do you think they [Whirlpool] have tweeted ‘this is a problem with your affected machines?’ A big fat nothing.”
Meanwhile, Jemma said she’d never use another Whirlpool product. She said: “Absolutely not, not a chance. I wouldn’t even trust them with a hairdryer, never mind a tumble dryer.”
The parliamentary select committee yesterday paid tribute to This Morning’s campaign.
In a statement, Whirlpool said: “We’re pleased to have the opportunity to update the committee on our tumble dryer campaign.
“The office for product safety and standards recently concluded a comprehensive year-long review of the dryer programme, which confirmed that the modification is effective in resolving the issue.
“Safety is always our number one priority and we remain committed to resolving all unmodified dryers affected by the issue.”
In 2015, Whirlpool issued a safety warning about millions of dryers after it acquired the Hotpoint and Indesit brands and discovered some machines had a fault which made them a fire risk. The machines in question need to be modified to make them safe to use.
Last month, the Government said it would order Whirlpool – which produces products for Hotpoint, Creda, Indesit, Proline and Swan – to recall an estimated 500,000 unmodified tumble dryers due to concerns they pose a fire risk.
A fault in Whirlpool machines was blamed for at least 750 fires over an 11-year period, the government said.
Whirlpool says anyone who has an affected dryer should contact it immediately for a modification.
Watch This Morning, weekdays at 10.30am, on ITV.
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