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Housing: Home Information Packs

My Lords, I declare my interest as a partner in Beachcroft LLP and the other entries on the Register. I warmly congratulate my noble friend on securing the debate and on her lucid and penetrating speech. To summarise what has been said in the debate, the Government have a disastrous policy that is now in a terrible mess. I therefore want to give the Minister as long as possible to explain. We do not have to finish until eight minutes to nine, so she will have a long time to do so, and we are avid to listen. It is never endearing to say, ““I told you so””—I agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, that there is little profit in saying that—but many of us on this side of the House, as we have heard, warned Ministers from the outset that their policy on home information packs was ill-thought-out, intrusive, and expensive nonsense. Much more important is the fact that many of us warned that the policy was likely to unravel, and I echo what my noble friend said about the whole pack of cards coming tumbling down. The fundamental point is surely that moving home is already one of the most stressful, debilitating and, above all, costly undertakings. It was generally felt that HIPs could serve only to add to the general nuisance and woe. My noble friends Lady Hanham and Lord Jenkin of Roding are right to talk about that stress. We must bear that in mind. My noble friend Lord Selsdon, too, is quite right that 80 per cent of the assets—80 per cent of the debt—is in a person’s home. We must therefore handle this policy very carefully. In their original form, HIPs would have cost as much as a survey. Indeed, in many ways they were going to replicate a buyer’s survey but would in no way obviate the need for one. Numerous headlines in July said that the Government had seen sense and had backtracked on all this nonsense, but the truth is not quite so simple or so gratifying. The statement given on 30 July informs us that the only aspect of the Government’s policy that has changed will now be an authorised rather than a mandatory aspect ofthe HIP during the dry run. I recall exchanges with the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, about the dry run and the trials. The ominous note in the statement is an implied threat that mandatory HCRs will remain on the table if the industry fails to make a success of its roll-out. HCRs are supposedly so attractive that they will take flight majestically entirely voluntarily, but just in case they do not, the market must now operate under the shadow of the Government’s power to impose them as and when Ministers dictate. So the leopard’s spots have not changed that much after all, although I hope that the Minister will clarify all this for us. We have already heard from my noble friend Lord Eccles that the Joint Committee found some defective drafting; no doubt the Minister will explain all that and speak in her defence. We have also heard that the EPCs are a very good aspect, and I agree with my noble friend Lord Jenkin that there is a good case for them; my noble friend Lord Eccles said the same. There are so many questions; the noble Earl, my good friend Lord Caithness, posed a whole set of them. I would like the Minister to respond to the point about compensation made by the noble Lord, Lord Addington, who, with the noble Earl, has instanced the number of people who took the training and have spent a great deal of money, only for the Government to move the goalposts. We need as quickly as possible an explanation of exactly where the Government are at the moment. That, of course, is my noble friend’s question.