---

Housing: Home Information Packs

rose to ask Her Majesty’s Government what is now their policy on home information packs. The noble Baroness said: My Lords, my original intention was to have the home information pack regulations brought to the House to pray against them. Owing to the difficulties in finding a suitable date for a debate before the Recess, it was postponed until today. However, noble Lords will remember that shortly before the House rose for the Summer Recess—on 18 July, to be exact—the new Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government suddenly announced that the mandatory provision of the main component of home information packs, the home condition report, was to be abandoned in favour of the report being produced on a voluntary basis, if the seller wished. Since that seemed to raise the question of the viability of the regulations themselves, rather than praying against the remaining aspects I decided to turn the prayer into a Question, which I ask today: what is the Government’s policy now on home information packs? I will not weary your Lordships with a rehearsal of all the concerns raised in this House and the other place by me and my colleagues about the validity of the rationale for HIPs. The rationale was that, by arming buyers from the outset with information on properties in which they were interested, the packs would prevent sales from falling through and save millions of pounds from being wasted. Concerns were raised about the packs’ shelf life. There were also concerns about the mandatory requirement for a home condition report to be included in a mandatory pack, which had to be available before a seller was even able to put their house on the market. There were great doubts, still not resolved, as to whether a home condition report would satisfy the requirements of the mortgage companies in terms of a survey adequate for their purposes, and as to whether the home condition report surveys would be of sufficient detail to satisfy the requirements of a buyer. There was a concern that the whole thing would be a complete waste of time in view of the imminent arrival of e-conveyancing. I will briefly draw attention to the aspects that have brought this pack of cards tumbling down, both of which were foreseen and debated ad nauseam but comprehensively rejected by the Government as an unnecessary intrusion into their unfettered belief in the viability of the packs: the number of home inspectors who were in training and would have been ready for implementation day, and the preparedness of the home-sellers industry to undertake this wholesale change. Time after time, the Government were questioned—and I am delighted to see the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, in his place, because we debated this together on numerous occasions—on the number of inspectors in training. The answers were always reassuring: there would be more than sufficient to undertake the work when D-day came. That fig leaf was finally blown aside in the Secretary of State’s admission in July that there were not going to be anything like enough inspectors trained or in training to entertain a compulsory introduction of home condition reports for all sales. In fact, we understand that of the 7,000 required, fewer than 250 had been trained, at a cost for each one of about £7,000. That made implementation impossible. Another aspect was that the Government had agreed, under pressure during the passage of the legislation, to undertake a pilot—or, as it was termed, a ““dry run””—of the packs prior to their implementation. That has barely begun. We understand that six area trials are due to be undertaken shortly, supported by £4 million of government funding and under the aegis of the Association of Home Information Pack Providers. The test will include the trialling of packs funded in different ways: fully funded, paid for by the Government; the home condition report element funded by the purchaser and the remainder by the Government; and the Government picking up the bill if the sale falls through and the consumer pays the full cost. It does not take the genius of Einstein to see that the only test will be of the fully funded packs. How are these trials to be monitored and reported? Prior to these ““dry runs””, the Government sought to obtain a benchmark of the current selling processes for comparative purposes by seeking information from estate agents, solicitors, buyers and sellers by means of a baseline study that was to take place between 15 May and 9 June 2006. Was that baseline study completed? How many responses were received from the three-week survey? What use was the study going to be put to? In her statement on 18 July, the Secretary of State also referred to the fact that over 14,000 home information packs with searches had been successfully tested, but that only 250 of these had been produced with ““some sort of survey””. Those 250 were to be analysed over the summer. What is the result of that analysis? While there has been a complete volte-face on the home conditions report, the requirement for an enemy—I apologise; maybe it is indeed an enemy, but I meant ““energy””—an energy performance certificate has suddenly become the Holy Grail of the home packs. These certificates are to be mandatory and will contain information and gradings on the efficiency of heating and hot water systems and the insulation of properties. However, they will also require technically trained inspectors. How many of these are in training, and will they require different qualifications and competencies from those of the home inspectors that are currently in such short supply? How does the Minister believe—if she does at all—that it will be possible for energy performance certificates to be introduced by June 2007 if specially trained inspectors are required for them but are not even available for home condition reports? Does the Minister agree that the only reason why the energy efficiency audit has become so important is to implement the EU directive on energy savings in homes, and that that is already being done perfectly satisfactorily in Northern Ireland, where it is a stand-alone requirement on sale of property? Does she further agree that the European directive talks about a certificate having to be made available on the sale or letting of a property? If so, why are the Government insisting that that is a condition of first marketing a property? The reservations about and opposition to home information packs have been demonstrated to be well judged. Our view, which is supported by many professionals in the industry, is that the Government should do everyone a favour and jettison this whole policy. I am sure that the Minister will agree that moving home is one of the most stressful things that anyone can do. These provisions, even if introduced in their mauled form, threaten to make that worse, not better. Rather than protecting the public, they are set to undermine the stability and health of the housing market. Having reached the decision to delay, the Government would be well advised to abandon this whole project. It is plain as a pikestaff that these regulations cannot be allowed to stand. They have been blown apart as a result of the Secretary of State’s actions. Will the Minister say when and if they are to be revised and, if they are, can she clearly deal with the question of what the Government’s policies are now?