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Housing

It certainly is not. The way in which the Government are trying to use HIPs to prop up their faulty green credentials has been exposed by no less than the Cabinet Office and its Better Regulation Commission, which said that the regulations were"““ill considered regulatory responses to the climate change challenge””," and that Ministers were"““using climate change as a justification for measures which have other motivations.””" The Government are using energy performance certificates as a fig leaf—a piece of greenery deployed to cover their massive embarrassment—but no one is convinced. Let me offer to save them further embarrassment. If they will ditch home information packs—that is the motion under debate today—we will help them to ensure that energy performance certificates work. After all, Ministers discovered greenery only after the Conservatives showed them the way. The truth is that the regulations will add cost and complexity to the housing market, when what we need is more supply and economic stability. In the interest of keeping the housing market healthy, I ask the House to throw out once and for all these botched, bungled and broken-backed regulations.