Home Information Pack (Amendment) Regulations 2007

My Lords, I very much welcome the statement made by my noble friend Lord Graham of Edmonton, with which I entirely agree. I felt that the noble Lord, Lord Dixon-Smith, and the noble Earl, Lord Caithness, were the mouthpiece of the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors. They did not like it, so the thing should be cancelled. HIPs are being blamed for the downturn in the housing market, based on anecdotal evidence. We were told that the Government need to agree this with the property industry. This is my interpretation. The property industry needs to engage with the Government. My understanding is that the Government tried very hard to engage with the property industry. Negotiations went on for some time, and in the end the property industry said, ““We don’t like it””. My noble friend talked about the consumer. This is where we should start. I am told that having a HIP has stopped quite a few vendors, or so-called vendors, putting their house on the market and simply testing how much they will get for it. If they actually have to spend money on a HIP, they might think twice before doing that, which is not very good for people who want to buy it. The other thing is that if there are three or four people competing to buy a house or a flat, you could end up with three or four surveys of the same house or flat, which is great for the surveying industry but a complete waste of money. The HIP is a way out of this. Ditto with the energy performance certificates, Yes, people might not want them, surveyors might not want to know about them, and they might not be perfect, but they will provide information to people who can then take action or not. I suggest that, as the price of gas, electricity and everything goes up, more and more purchasers, when taking the decision whether to buy, will welcome them as providing information so that they can decide whether they will buy a place, whether it needs more insulation and how much it will cost. The noble Lord, Lord Dixon-Smith, seemed to like the idea of the energy performance certificates, but did not want them to be part of the home improvement pack. I do not know how one could become obligatory without the other.