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Housing

At the outset, I wish to draw attention to my declared interests, specifically as chairman of the Construction Industry Council and a director of Hometrack. As I have made clear in previous debates on this subject, I am a strong supporter, and have been for many years, of reform of the house buying and selling process, which is one of the most stressful experiences in most people’s lives, is unduly protracted and involves a scandalous level of waste and abortive costs. Only last night, I was talking to someone who had lost £1,000 because a seller had withdrawn after he, the buyer, had committed to expenditure on searches and surveys. That experience is repeated hundreds, if not thousands, of times a day. Every day £1 million is lost in abortive costs. I was very disappointed that the hon. Member for Surrey Heath (Michael Gove) simply ignored my question about what the Opposition intended to do about that very real problem.