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Climate Change and Sustainable Energy Bill

It is a very long time since I was a Minister in the equivalent of the Minister’s Department, but I recall that in those days, it was the building inspector’s responsibility to look at a building’s construction and to decide whether the building regulations had been complied with. We privatised the building inspectorate so that a range of different people could carry out building inspection responsibilities, and my understanding is that it is already incumbent on the person constructing or seeking to alter a house to employ a building inspector. If so, why should a building inspector so employed not ensure that a building complies with the regulations? The hon. Member for Hazel Grove (Andrew Stunell) thinks that—even before the new, much more stringent regulations come into force on 6 April—the majority of new houses do not comply with the building regulations.