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Opposition Day
Home Information Packs
Madam Deputy Speaker (Sylvia Heal): I advise Members that Mr. Speaker has selected the amendment in the name of the Prime Minister.
1.56 pm
Michael Gove (Surrey Heath) (Con): I beg to move,
That this House expresses profound concern at the lack of adequate preparation made for the introduction of the Government’s Home Information Packs (HIPs); is further concerned at the failure on the part of the Government to provide a substantive pilot scheme; acknowledges the misgivings of various professional organisations; registers grave concern about the failure of HIPs to include reliable information on electrical safety, flood risk and contaminated land; fears that the cost of providing a HIP could be as high as £1,000; asserts that valuations and surveys will still be required, particularly for first-time buyers, increasing the cost of buying and selling a home; and notes that independent economic experts have warned of a negative impact on the economy arising from the introduction of HIPs.
May I say how pleased I am that the Minister for Housing and Planning is still in her place, because this debate gives me an opportunity to congratulate her on grasping the nettle, which her predecessors avoided, of signalling the death of home information packs? For let us be in no doubt that the announcement that she made yesterday—with becoming modesty, by way of a written statement—was an obituary to the Government’s plans to tie up the housing market in red tape. The Minister has come to the House today not to praise HIPs, as she may have anticipated a week ago, but to bury them.
Mr. Jim Devine (Livingston) (Lab): I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for making reference to last week, because a week last Sunday I read in my newspapers that the major issue for the Opposition was English votes for English Members. I cleared my diary and prepared my speech in defence of the Union. I wanted to ensure that there would be no second-class MPs. What happened?
Madam Deputy Speaker: Order. The topic under consideration in this debate is home information packs.
Michael Gove: Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. I am always delighted to hear from a fellow Scot in such debates, and I look forward to hearing what the hon. Gentleman might wish to say about the subject that is actually being discussed this afternoon.
Despite the Minister’s
many skills at the Dispatch Box and elsewhere, she will not be able to
disguise that the central part of HIPs—the keystone around which
everything else was constructed—has been demolished. Her
decision yesterday to make home condition reports a purely voluntary
part of HIPs means that they are now, in effect, a dead letter. After
all, who in their right mind will voluntarily wish to pay hundreds of
extra pounds for a home condition report, with all its current defects,
simply to market their property, when they can go ahead without one?
Making the preparation of a
home condition report voluntary is like making payment of council tax
voluntary—something the former Office of the Deputy Prime
Minister knows all about. If a Government-mandated levy is no longer
obligatory, why should people
pay?
The Minister for Local Government (Mr. Phil Woolas): For the benefit of the House, I should point out that council tax collection rates are at their highest ever level.
Michael Gove: I am delighted to acknowledge that, thanks to the wonderful campaign conducted by my hon. Friend the Member for Meriden (Mrs. Spelman), the Deputy Prime Minister has at last succeeded in paying his council tax, no doubt contributing to the increased collection rates in Conservative-run Westminster council.
Madam Deputy Speaker: Order. I have already said that the motion under debate is home information packs—not council tax, nor anything else.
Michael Gove: Thank you very much for your welcome intervention, Madam Deputy Speaker; it allows me, despite the temptation offered by the Minister for Local Government, to get back on course.
I am naturally delighted that the Minister for Housing and Planning, in making yesterday’s announcement, accepted the force of Conservative arguments, because we have consistently highlighted the scheme’s weakness and invited her to climb down. I am particularly delighted that she has appreciated the importance of economic stability and the vital role that a stable housing market plays in ensuring such stability. [Interruption.] Labour Members laugh—perhaps they take a cavalier approach to economic stability—but we Conservatives put it at the heart of economic policy. That is why we welcomed the independent report by the lenders GMAC-RFC, which showed precisely what consequences the introduction of home information packs might have for the housing market and broader economic stability.
Emily Thornberry (Islington, South and Finsbury) (Lab): I presume that the hon. Gentleman is a fan of free markets, given his background in the Policy Exchange and his being a Tory, and all. So I am sure that he is aware that free markets can be fair only if everyone has the same information. Is his opposition to the Government’s plans merely based on keeping information in the hands of the rich, rather than making it available to all?
Michael Gove: That was a beautifully read intervention. As a believer in free markets, I welcome precisely what the Government have done, which is to replace something that would have been compulsory—an intervention and a regulatory clogging of the market—with a voluntary proposal that allows the market to continue to function well.
As I was pointing out, we
Conservatives welcomed the report by independent lenders GMAC-RFC,
which pointed out that, unfortunately, the introduction of
home information packs could—if the Government had gone ahead
with them—have had profoundly destabilising effects on the
housing market. That report took the Government’s own
projections of the likely effect of home information packs—a 10
per cent. reduction in the number of properties for sale—and fed
the figures through the Treasury model. The report showed that, as a
result of pressing ahead, there would have been a deleterious effect
not just on economic stability, but on gross domestic product and
unemployment. [Interruption.] The right hon. Member for
Greenwich and Woolwich (Mr. Raynsford) laughs, but the silence from the
Treasury at that point was notable. It did not utter any criticism, as
it so often does when independent economic reports and forecasts are
made, of that report. Indeed, shortly after it was published, the
Treasury made its feelings known and, sure enough, the Minister for
Housing and Planning, who keeps in close touch with Treasury thinking,
ensured that it was taken proper heed of and that a voluntary scheme
was introduced.
Tony Baldry (Banbury) (Con): Was not the sad reading from the Whip’s brief that we heard earlier evidence of the Government’s considerable embarrassment at having got the worst of all possible worlds? My hon. Friend is being far too kind to the Minister —[Interruption.]
Emily Thornberry: On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. I was not reading from the Whip’s brief, but from my own fair hand. I have many notes and pieces of paper here—
Madam Deputy Speaker: Order. That is not a point of order for the Chair; it is a point of debate and the answer is now on the record.
Tony Baldry: Does not the hypersensitivity of the hon. Member for Islington, South and Finsbury (Emily Thornberry) at my pointing out her reading from the Whip’s brief demonstrate that the Government are greatly embarrassed? As I said, my hon. Friend the Member for Surrey Heath (Michael Gove) is being far too kind to the Minister, and we are ending up with the worst of all possible worlds. The chief executive of the Association of Home Information Pack Providers says that the energy performance certificates will cost £200 each, which is ludicrous price for people to have to pay when moving home, on top of everything else. My hon. Friend is being far too gallant today in his comments to the Minister.
Michael Gove: I am flattered by the generous words of my hon. Friend; it has always been my intention to forge a consensus, wherever possible. Under the leadership of my right hon. Friend the Member for Witney (Mr. Cameron), we have said that, when the Government do the right thing, we will agree with them. Belatedly, the Minister has done the right thing, so it would be churlish of me not to acknowledge that.
Mr.
John Hayes (South Holland and The Deepings) (Con): I am
extremely grateful to my hon. Friend for giving way; his perspicacity
and astuteness has led to the Government changing their mind. It is not
as if we did not warn them. When this matter was debated in
Committee during the passage of the Housing Act 2004, we told
them that home information packs would be a disaster, because they
would end first-day marketing, add costs to the system and put pressure
on those already facing difficulties in selling or buying. We also
pointed out that they would not get enough inspectors. All those things
have come true. Why did the Government not recognise that then, and why
have they pursued this policy with such vigour ever
since?
Michael Gove: I thank my hon. Friend very much for his intervention and he is quite right. He and my hon. Friends the Members for Cotswold (Mr. Clifton-Brown) and for Poole (Mr. Syms) exhibited rare prescience during the passage of the Housing Bill, pointing out precisely the dangers that the Government have only now recognised. The question that we have to ask is why it has taken the Government two years and millions of pounds of taxpayers’ money to realise the folly that was clearly pointed out to them by my colleagues.
Several hon. Members rose—
Michael Gove: What an embarrassment of choices! I give way to the hon. Member for Wrexham (Ian Lucas).
Ian Lucas (Wrexham) (Lab): I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving way and I am listening carefully to what he has to say. Is he aware—I speak as a former domestic conveyancing solicitor—that there is profound concern at the huge costs involved for consumers, about whom I know he is very concerned, in proceeding to purchases that inevitably fail because of vendors’ failure to disclose? Is it not right that we should try to improve what is a defective conveyancing system?
Michael Gove: The hon. Gentleman makes a good point and I am grateful to him for declaring his interest. We should certainly seek to improve the conveyancing system, but nothing in the Government’s proposals would have done so. It was clear, particularly from the comments of smaller solicitors directly involved in conveyancing, that by proceeding as the Government planned to do before yesterday’s written statement, specialist conveyancing solicitors would have lost out. Family firms that provide diversity and competition would have been swallowed up by a move toward conglomerates, which would have provided a poorer and shoddier service.
Several hon. Members rose—
Michael Gove: Now, the embarrassment of choices is slightly smaller. I give way to the hon. Member for Hastings and Rye (Michael Jabez Foster).
Michael Jabez Foster (Hastings and Rye) (Lab): I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving way. As he is looking for consensus, can we decide what we do agree about? Does he believe that energy performance certificates are an important element, or does he oppose them, as well?
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