Home Information Pack (Amendment) Regulations 2007

My Lords, I feel as though I am intruding on old friends in this debate. When there was a debate on the No. 2 Regulations last year, my noble friend Lady Scott of Needham Market started by saying, ““Here we are again””. I am taking over from her today and, as I look around, I see a number of Members of the House whose words on that occasion I have recently read. On that occasion, on a Motion moved by the noble Baroness, Lady Hanham, from the Conservative Front Bench, the Government, with Liberal Democrat support, got what might be called a ““non-fatal mauling””. To say that the Government ignored that would be unfair; I am sure that they paid a great deal of attention to what was said, not least because many of the points made in the debate were very valid. Nevertheless, they ploughed on. I have never been terribly enthused by home information packs. They were a good idea, but the Act was flawed and the implementation has certainly been flawed—at least, it has been very difficult. It has been fragmented and there has been an impression of stuttering and stumbling along. Having said that, we should pay credit to the noble Baroness, Lady Andrews, who, as a Minister, has put a lot of personal commitment and energy into making HIPs work. Without her efforts, they probably would not have been put into force. Some people may consider that to be a good thing but I think that she should be given the credit for them. However, they are still struggling to get over the finishing line, as we see with the amendment regulations before us. In many ways, it is too soon to make a judgment on home information packs. In the debate on 18 July, the Minister said: "““They will help to end frustration and reduce costs””.—[Official Report, 18/7/07; col. 273.]" At the moment, the kindest thing that one can say is that that case is as yet unproven, but it may be that that will be the long-term effect. However, Parliament as a whole will have to come back to this issue at some point in the future to see whether HIPs are doing what has been claimed for them. If they are not, their cost will mean that they should be done away with. Nevertheless, at the moment the jury is not out because the evidence and information is not there, but the jury will be needed in future. The noble Lord, Lord Dixon-Smith, said that the Government had never dared to publish the report from the pilot trials. I do not know whether that is the case or whether it has just taken a long time for the information to emerge through the system. Again, I shall be kind to the Government and suggest that that may be the case, but one has to ask when this information will be published, as clearly it must be. On the previous occasion, they promised to publish it in the late autumn. Whenever autumn may be nowadays with global warming, it certainly does not extend into January of the next year. We need a clear commitment on when the information will be published, because it is vital. It is extraordinary that a system has been introduced across all types of housing before publication of the report on the pilot schemes, which were presumably intended to give us the benefit of that information before the decision to proceed was made. The report by Europe Economics has been published but it was only narrow in its reference to the housing market and it suggests that there has been no impact as yet. Again, we shall see in a year or two whether that continues to be the case. I know only that the introduction of the two-bedrooms-and-less rule on 14 December resulted in all the advertisements for houses disappearing from the local press in my part of the world for around three or four weeks before Christmas. We got remarkably thin newspapers, which just shows how much the newspapers rely on people advertising houses. It may be that, apart from that, nothing has happened. However, we want to know what use HIPs are, what impact they are having and whether they are value for money. Those are questions to which we shall have to return. The energy performance certificates have had a wider degree of support around the House and certainly from the Liberal Democrats but, again, some serious research must be done on them once they have been around for a while to see whether they are making a difference. Are they resulting in more energy-efficient houses because people are investing in things to produce that? Such evidence might emerge in a couple of years’ time, but the Government must take responsibility for ensuring that the research takes place, and that is the basis of my second question. Here, we are discussing quite narrow amendment regulations to regularise what has been happening since 14 December and to extend what is known as the ““temporary first-day marketing provision””—a few people in the world will understand what that means—to 1 June. What will happen if there is a need to extend that beyond 1 June? Will we have more amending legislation or will 1 June be an absolute back-stop? That is my third question. I turn to the temporary provision on leasehold information. Until 1 June, the leasehold documents, apart from the lease, will now be authorised, not required, documents because of the difficulty that people have had in getting this information quickly from landlords and leaseholders. Are the Government satisfied that by 1 June people will start to produce this information or that they will have had enough practice in the new system for it to work, or, again, will the date be extended beyond 1 June? The debate about HIPs goes far wider than these regulations, but the noble Lord rightly asked questions about how they were introduced and where we are going now. However, in the context of where we are now, our view is that the regulations are sensible. They are not fundamental and they are not unprincipled, and, even if we voted against them today, we would not want to see the system close down overnight—it is too far advanced for that. If HIPs are to become a permanent feature, that is one thing but, if they are not to become permanent, a decision on them will have to be taken in a year or two or perhaps four or five in the light of experience. Therefore, we would not support the noble Lord, Lord Dixon-Smith, if he pushed this Prayer to a Division this evening, although we sympathise with a great deal of what he said.