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Mr. Betts: I want to speak about new clause 32, which would introduce a scheme to license estate agents. The home information pack is a major regulation issue and I must admit that when I first heard about it and we considered it in the Select Committee on the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister, I was mildly sceptical about whether it would improve the process of selling and buying homes. Such is the power of the Minister's persuasive talents that I came round to the view that it is generally a good scheme and should be supported. I am sure that he will think about my persuasive talents when he decides to support new clause 32.

The Government are committed to a major item of regulation that will clearly formulate the way in which houses are bought and sold in this country. As part of that process, solicitors will perform their traditional conveyancing role. Of course, they have to be qualified and they are regulated in a specific way. The compulsory home conditions survey that we are introducing is also subject to regulation and the inspectors who carry out the surveys must be qualified for the job. There is an issue about training, which the hon. Member for Poole (Mr. Syms) mentioned, and the Government must tackle that to get the scheme right.

As public representatives, we have some duty to safeguard people from their worse follies. Two thirds of people buy a property without a proper home conditions survey. That is a bit silly and it is right for us to protect them from the mess into which they can get. That is one of the reasons for my support of the proposal for the home information pack.

However, although a series of professionals engaged in the process will be subject to licensing, regulation and the need for qualifications, the group of individuals who put the pack together, formulate and produce it will be completely unregulated. Any individual can walk in off the street, rent a property on a short-term lease, then stick a notice outside stating, "We are Rip-off and Folly, local estate agents. Come and sell your house through us." They would be entitled, with no controls, to formulate and produce a home information pack, which is subject to legislation and regulation. That is a glaring anomaly. The set of individuals who have to bring together the whole regulated process and will probably be paid more than anyone else for their endeavours—some people may not always perceive them as endeavours—will remain unregulated.

The BBC's "Brassed Off Britain" and Which?, the Consumers Association publication, have undertaken work to examine the current position. A survey was conducted into buying and selling homes in this country. It showed that 1.8 million homes are bought and sold every year and that fewer than half the people polled were satisfied with the service that they received from estate agents. That is probably not surprising. Over two thirds thought that estate agents frequently gave
 
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misleading information about their properties and 82 per cent. thought that all estate agents should be trained. It does not seem unreasonable to insist that those who do that job should be trained.

People were very concerned that those who would do the home conditions survey should be trained. I think those who would produce the sellers pack should be trained as well, and that they should have a professional qualification. Two thirds thought that the Government should license estate agents. That view, I think, would be fairly well reflected among Members of the House if they were asked to give their opinion based on their own experience.

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I do not want to imply that every estate agent does a bad job, but we should go and talk to the better estate agents—the ones who have a reputation to think about—as they also would welcome a licensing arrangement, because it would lift the standard of their industry and bring a new respect to it. Such an arrangement would also mean that the rip-off merchants and the cowboys could not do a bad job and give the whole of estate agency a bad name. Many of the good estate agents would welcome my proposals.

There is, of course, an ombudsman for estate agents. The problem there, however, is that only a third of estate agents belong to the scheme. While someone who is selling a home can decide to go to an estate agent who is a member of that scheme—I certainly recommend it—people who want to buy a particular home that they are interested in cannot choose to go to a member of the scheme because the agent for the property will already have been appointed by the seller. That is another flaw.

In the meantime, the Minister could easily decide that all estate agents must become a member of the ombudsman scheme. That would be a step in the right direction, but it would not be perfect because, essentially, an ombudsman scheme is about sorting out problems after they have occurred. However, a proper system of regulating and licensing estates agents, and ensuring that they are trained, would try to deliver a better service from the beginning and prevent problems from occurring in the first place.

Mr. Simon Thomas (Ceredigion) (PC): I want to make one point that I hope the hon. Gentleman accepts. It is not true that all estate agents are not trained or are not professionals in some way, shape or form. Many estate agents, particularly in rural areas, are chartered surveyors as well. Therefore, they have that other aspect to their work.

I agree with the hon. Gentleman in this regard: if we are to have compulsory home information packs, the buyer and the seller need some assurance on the contents of those packs. Most people will still trust the estate agent to put the pack together, but if it contains a fault they will have no comeback on those estate agents, unless they belong to the scheme to which he has referred. He is on the right track there.

Mr. Betts: I thank the hon. Gentleman for that point, with which I agree in general. Indeed, I had a phone call from the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors the
 
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other day, saying that it generally supports the licence scheme as well. It needs to give that professionalism and certainty to the service being delivered.

I put it to the Minister that there is a difference now that we are to have the home information pack. The public will believe that, because the Government are insisting on the pack, it somehow has Government approval behind it. If the people who are formulating the pack and pulling it together are not necessarily trained—some may be, some may not be—not necessarily qualified; subject to no proper controls and no proper regulation; and not necessarily part of an ombudsman scheme, the Government could be the ones who get blamed in the end for the deficiencies of the service.

Mr. Alan Hurst (Braintree) (Lab): My hon. Friend may realise that estate agencies often contain within their partnership chartered surveyors, who may well be the same people who draw up the home survey report. There is an inherent conflict of interest from which the purchaser—now called the buyer—may well suffer.

Mr. Betts: That is another fair point that needs to be sorted out. It shows again why we ought to have clear regulations laid down so that the public understand what is expected and required of the individuals who engage in this process on their behalf.

Mr. Geoffrey Clifton-Brown (Cotswold) (Con): I declare an interest as a fellow of the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors. Becoming a chartered surveyor involves a minimum of four years' training. In proposing a training scheme, will the hon. Gentleman give the House some idea of what training he thinks would be necessary and who would grant the qualification at the end of the process?

Mr. Betts: No, not off the top of my head. I have deliberately left the new clause open so that Ministers can take it away and consider those issues with the people in the industry. I see a body being set up, perhaps by the industry, but under regulation. That is something for the Minister to come back on. I do not want to say at this stage that two or three years' training would be appropriate, but clearly some training, a qualification and a form of licensing are what I am arguing for.

Finally, I understand that the Minister may be in a dilemma. I am sure that he is aware that when the public are polled and consulted on these issues, often, the only group of individuals who are seen to come lower down in their estimation than politicians are estate agents. He might be in danger of ensuring, at a stroke, greater public respect and support for the job of estate agency by lifting that group of individuals above his colleagues in the public esteem. In considering that issue, I am sure that the Minister will also have regard to the fact that if he introduced a scheme for licensing and training estate agents throughout the country, he would probably become the most popular individual politician in the country. I leave him with that thought.

Mr. Edward Davey: The hon. Member for Sheffield, Attercliffe (Mr. Betts) is raising his status with his
 
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helpful speech and new clause. At this relatively late stage of the Bill, were the Government radically to reform part 5 and make a home information pack voluntary, but adopt the approach of the hon. Member for Sheffield, Attercliffe, they could get a consensus in this House. It is agreed, not necessarily by every Member of the House but quite widely, that the estate agency profession needs regulation and training. The hon. Gentleman did not mention, but he might have done, that the National Association of Estate Agents is in favour of the profession being regulated, which might strike some people as odd, but the good estate agents are concerned to drive out the cowboys. What is interesting is that those same estate agents, who are looking to improve the quality of their profession, think that the compulsory home information pack would be a disaster, both for their profession and for the housing market.

Unlike the hon. Gentleman, therefore, I was not convinced by the soothing words of the Minister in Committee. I want to spend some time explaining why the Liberal Democrats oppose the Government's proposal to introduce compulsory regulation of the buying and selling of homes.

I shall start by replying to the Minister's introduction of new clause 13. It is doubtlessly a step forward in terms of ensuring that the seller can ensure that a potential buyer does not disclose information. As I sought to indicate, however, it has not gone far enough. There are still concerns that people who roll up claiming to be potential buyers could have nefarious motives. Clause 138(4)(c) states that the duty of producing a home information pack does not apply if the "responsible person", the estate agent,

"believes on reasonable grounds that the person making the request . . . is not a person to whom the seller is likely to be prepared to sell the property."

The Minister might say that that provision guards against the concern that an agent might have that the home information pack will be given to someone from the criminal fraternity, for example. I return to the point that I made in an intervention, however: how will the "responsible person" be able to identify these people? We are being given a process through regulation whereby the criminal fraternity, journalists and others—they are not synonymous—will be able to access the property details of individuals, about which I am very concerned.

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