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7.45 pm
Lord Thomas of Gresford: Will the noble and learned Lord confirm that that applies in a different circumstance? Let us suppose that the civil authorities, who the noble and learned Lord said will take the initial decision, decide that it should be a court martial, will the potential defendant have the opportunity of making representations to the Attorney-General that it should be a civil trial?
Lord Goldsmith: I did not have that in mind. The noble Lord’s example is slightly odd because he says if the civilian authorities decide it should be a court martial. Did I misunderstand his question?
Lord Thomas of Gresford: I understood the noble and learned Lord to say that under the present arrangements where there is dual jurisdiction it is left to the chief of police to decide whether to takethe matter on a civil basis or whether to refer it to the military authorities for a court martial. Those are the circumstances that I am thinking about. Let us suppose that the chief of police says, “This murder charge, although it was committed in the United Kingdom, involves a victim who was a serviceman and therefore it should be by court martial”. Will the potential defendant have the opportunity of making representations to the Attorney-General that it should be a civil trial?
Lord Goldsmith: I was not dealing with that with that case at all and I am not giving any assurances about that. We have well worked-out arrangements where events take place in this country through Queen’s regulations and through arrangements between police and military authorities. I was dealing with the case raised by the noble Lord, Lord Campbell, about a person who is on active service in operational circumstances overseas where there is concurrent jurisdiction. In those circumstances, I understand that he says that he would expect to be dealt with in a military proceeding in a military procedure. I am saying that if a question arises that it should be civilian, within the limits I have identified, I will seek to ensure that he has an opportunity to make written representations as to venue before a decision is made to take it to the civilian process.
Lord Craig of Radley: Before the Minster sits down, he mentioned Clause 126, which is headed:
Given the Attorney-General’s superintendence responsibilities, is there a possibility that an Attorney-General could overturn that decision by the director of service prosecutions to bar further proceedings?
Lord Goldsmith: As I understand the way in which the Bill operates, if a director makes such a direction, it has the effect set out in the Bill. Therefore, if he has made the direction it would have the effect of—I am
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Lord Goldsmith: I am obliged to the noble Earl. It counts as an acquittal and the rules for what we call “autre fois acquit” would apply. Having said that, I do not rule out that the director of service prosecutions might consult the Attorney-General of the day as to whether he should make the direction. As long as that is clear, I can answer the question in the way that I have done.
Lord Campbell of Alloway: I thank the noble and learned Lord the Attorney-General for his assurance. He is right—it gives me the essence of what I am asking. I hope it alleviates the concern of noble Lords. I dissociate myself from the extension of the undertaking sought by the noble Lord, Lord Thomas of Gresford. That is not what I am seeking.
The whole object of this having been achieved with a reasonable sense of amity, I certainly shall not come back to retable this, and I shall not be having any further discussions with my noble friend Lord Kingsland about it. I hope, however, to have some discussions with the noble and learned Lord the Attorney-General and the noble Lord, Lord Drayson, if there is a way that one can help. I am very grateful to them both. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Baroness Crawley: I beg to move that the House be resumed, and, in doing so, I suggest that the Committee begin again not before 8.52 pm.
Moved accordingly, and, on Question, Motion agreed to.
Housing: Home Information Packs
7.52 pm
Baroness Hanham rose to ask Her Majesty’s Government what is now their policy on home information packs.
The noble Baroness said: My Lords, my original intention was to have the home information pack regulations brought to the House to pray against them. Owing to the difficulties in finding a suitable date for a debate before the Recess, it was postponed until today. However, noble Lords will remember that shortly before the House rose for the Summer Recess—on 18 July, to be exact—the new Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government suddenly announced that the mandatory provision of the main component of home information packs, the home condition report, was to be abandoned in favour of the report being produced on a voluntary basis, if the seller wished. Since that seemed to raise the question of the viability of the regulations themselves, rather than praying
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I will not weary your Lordships with a rehearsal of all the concerns raised in this House and the other place by me and my colleagues about the validity of the rationale for HIPs. The rationale was that, by arming buyers from the outset with information on properties in which they were interested, the packs would prevent sales from falling through and save millions of pounds from being wasted. Concerns were raised about the packs’ shelf life. There were also concerns about the mandatory requirement for a home condition report to be included in a mandatory pack, which had to be available before a seller was even able to put their house on the market. There were great doubts, still not resolved, as to whether a home condition report would satisfy the requirements of the mortgage companies in terms of a survey adequate for their purposes, and as to whether the home condition report surveys would be of sufficient detail to satisfy the requirements of a buyer. There was a concern that the whole thing would be a complete waste of time in view of the imminent arrival of e-conveyancing.
I will briefly draw attention to the aspects that have brought this pack of cards tumbling down, both of which were foreseen and debated ad nauseam but comprehensively rejected by the Government as an unnecessary intrusion into their unfettered belief in the viability of the packs: the number of home inspectors who were in training and would have been ready for implementation day, and the preparedness of the home-sellers industry to undertake this wholesale change. Time after time, the Government were questioned—and I am delighted to see the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, in his place, because we debated this together on numerous occasions—on the number of inspectors in training. The answers were always reassuring: there would be more than sufficient to undertake the work when D-day came. That fig leaf was finally blown aside in the Secretary of State’s admission in July that there were not going to be anything like enough inspectors trained or in training to entertain a compulsory introduction of home condition reports for all sales. In fact, we understand that of the 7,000 required, fewer than 250 had been trained, at a cost for each one of about £7,000. That made implementation impossible.
Another aspect was that the Government had agreed, under pressure during the passage of the legislation, to undertake a pilot—or, as it was termed, a dry run—of the packs prior to their implementation. That has barely begun. We understand that six area trials are due to be undertaken shortly, supported by £4 million of government funding and under the aegis of the Association of Home Information Pack Providers. The test will include the trialling of packs funded in different ways: fully funded, paid for by the Government; the home condition report element funded by the purchaser and the remainder by the Government; and the Government picking up the bill if the sale falls through and the consumer pays the full cost. It does not take the genius of Einstein to see that the only test will be of the fully funded packs.
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How are these trials to be monitored and reported? Prior to these dry runs, the Government sought to obtain a benchmark of the current selling processes for comparative purposes by seeking information from estate agents, solicitors, buyers and sellers by means of a baseline study that was to take place between 15 May and 9 June 2006. Was that baseline study completed? How many responses were received from the three-week survey? What use was the study going to be put to? In her statement on 18 July, the Secretary of State also referred to the fact that over 14,000 home information packs with searches had been successfully tested, but that only 250 of these had been produced with “some sort of survey”. Those 250 were to be analysed over the summer. What is the result of that analysis?
While there has been a complete volte-face on the home conditions report, the requirement for an enemy—I apologise; maybe it is indeed an enemy, but I meant “energy”—an energy performance certificate has suddenly become the Holy Grail of the home packs. These certificates are to be mandatory and will contain information and gradings on the efficiency of heating and hot water systems and the insulation of properties. However, they will also require technically trained inspectors. How many of these are in training, and will they require different qualifications and competencies from those of the home inspectors that are currently in such short supply? How does the Minister believe—if she does at all—that it will be possible for energy performance certificates to be introduced by June 2007 if specially trained inspectors are required for them but are not even available for home condition reports?
Does the Minister agree that the only reason why the energy efficiency audit has become so important is to implement the EU directive on energy savings in homes, and that that is already being done perfectly satisfactorily in Northern Ireland, where it is a stand-alone requirement on sale of property? Does she further agree that the European directive talks about a certificate having to be made available on the sale or letting of a property? If so, why are the Government insisting that that is a condition of first marketing a property? The reservations about and opposition to home information packs have been demonstrated to be well judged. Our view, which is supported by many professionals in the industry, is that the Government should do everyone a favour and jettison this whole policy.
I am sure that the Minister will agree that moving home is one of the most stressful things that anyone can do. These provisions, even if introduced in their mauled form, threaten to make that worse, not better. Rather than protecting the public, they are set to undermine the stability and health of the housing market. Having reached the decision to delay, the Government would be well advised to abandon this whole project. It is plain as a pikestaff that these regulations cannot be allowed to stand. They have been blown apart as a result of the Secretary of State’s actions. Will the Minister say when and if they are to be revised and, if they are, can she clearly deal with the question of what the Government’s policies are now?
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8.01 pm
Lord Addington: My Lords, I came to this subject via the indirect route of a member of my family undertaking the training to implement these packs in time to be told that the scheme was not happening. I regarded that as annoying to them—that is an understatement—and as fundamentally unfair to anybody who had undertaken the training. The Government brought in the scheme and then the Government took it away. The cost involved is considerable—more than £8,000—and the course controls your life for a year. I have figures that show that it takes 15 to 20 hours per week of home learning over a year. Vast amounts of effort are required to do that.
Suddenly, something that you had been working towards that you thought would bring you career advancement was taken away at the drop of hat—at least, that is what it felt like. Then, when the noble Baroness responded to a topical Question—it was the last topical Question we had, so perhaps her reply will be more entrenched today—those people found out that the energy component will remain. The figures that I have on that course is that it costs £3,000—as opposed to £8,000—the maximum total home learning is about 40 hours and it can be done in about three months. I was given those figures by one of the major suppliers. So 15-plus times more work and effort over a year—when your applications for jobs and everything else in your life are being controlled by that intensive training—was taken away.
I did not get involved in whether the packs were a good idea in the first place. Initially, they seemed attractive to me, and they still do as a concept. As the implementation was this badly done, I suggest that the Government have a duty at least to compensate those people who have done that work. The junior level of training required for the secondary qualification for which you are apparently covered does not compensate for the amount of effort you have put in. A greater number of people can enter the market to get the training quickly and will thus be competing with you. There is no compensation for the amount of time that you have put in.
No matter what their reasons or how logical they were, the Government must stand up and say, “We got it wrong; we will give you a form of compensation”. Initially, I thought that some repayment of the costs would be enough, but the longer this goes on, the more it will rankle. Every time the Government insist on some training to fulfil a government post, I would be looking over my shoulder for a wee bit, especially in this field. Surely there is a duty—indeed, a moral responsibility—on the Government to give some form of compensation. I look forward to the Minister’s reply, but the fact that you have a junior qualification from your much more expensive training does not cut the mustard. I look forward to the Government taking some action to give compensation.
8.05 pm
Lord Jenkin of Roding: My Lords, when I saw my noble friend’s Unstarred Question on the Order Paper, I reflected that this year I have undertaken three transactions: I surrendered a tenancy in Pimlico,
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- “ensure the home buying and selling process becomes more certain, transparent and consumer friendly, whilst reducing stress and the number of failed transactions”.
I entirely agree with what my noble friend said about the stress of moving house; my wife and I are getting on a bit in years and that makes it worse. I have studied the case. I attended a briefing on Monday and have read the 80 pages of the regulations—80 pages, what on earth are people supposed to make of that? I have come to the conclusion that I cannot begin to see how, if the HIP process had been in force for any of the three transactions that I undertook, it could have done anything other than increase the costs and multiply the bureaucracy.
When I sold my house, my solicitors had no difficulty in getting hold of all the information that they needed, including information about title, so that they could draw up a contract and the conveyance. That included sufficient information to register the land for the first time, as it had not been registered before. When the first purchaser whose offer I had accepted failed to make any progress and I had to put the house on the market again, I asked my solicitor how much that failed transaction would increase his costs. She said that, as she had all the documents and all that she had to do was make other copies and send them off, it would probably cost about another £20. Is that what this massive bureaucracy is supposed to save? I cannot believe that the HIP process—particularly without the house condition survey, which has now been abandoned, as my noble friend said—could conceivably have helped me in any way at all. Apart from one matter—the energy performance certificates, to which I shall return in a moment—I have identified nothing in this process that would have made any of the three transactions anything other than more expensive. I cannot believe that that is what the Government would be happy with.
The ultimate purchasers quite properly insisted on a fully qualified surveyor to survey my 150 year-old house. It is inconceivable that he could have been satisfied by the sort of house condition survey that the Government originally envisaged. The longest delay in the purchase of my house in Vauxhall was getting information out of the freeholder’s agents, and there is nothing in the HIP process that could conceivably have speeded that up. That was the only delay we had.
Where does that leave us? The energy performance certificate is the only part that is worth having, and I could be persuaded that that would be worth while. I believe that the Government ought to withdraw the rest, start again with their energy performance certificates, and see where they get to.
8.09 pm
Lord Graham of Edmonton: My Lords, it is customary to declare interests in debates. My first interest is that many years ago I served as chairman of
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I first came across the possibility of aiding this generality when the idea of a logbook was mooted. That was more than 20 years ago when I was in the other place. So the Government should not be accused of being too quick in trying to produce a solution to a problem. The noble Lord, Lord Jenkins, and the noble Baroness have sought to make it clear that there are no problems to be solved. Now, as far as I am concerned, there are many problems to be solved.
On Monday night, at the meeting which the noble Lord, Lord Jenkins, attended, I asked where was the—
Lord Jenkin of Roding: My Lords, I am sorry. My name is Jenkin without an “s” and has been so for the past 80 years.
Lord Graham of Edmonton: My Lords, I apologise. I realise that it must be a touchy subject and I will keep off it. On Monday, on the question of where the opposition was coming from, the noble Lord said that people were opposing the Bill on principle. I asked what the principle was. He said that the principle was interference in the free market. I said, “Well, I am supporting it on principle—the principle of interfering in the free market”. If by the operation of the free market there are, across the whole field, supporters for this kind of action, I believe that the Government should be commended for at least making the endeavour.
I hear what the noble Lord, Lord Addington, says: that an aspect of his speech deserves answers and possibly some constructive response from the Minister when she replies. But no scheme with so many vested interests—one of them being the consumer—will ever begin with unanimity. It will evolve. If the Government felt that with the passage of time there would be difficulty in producing a workable and viable scheme for the home reports, they did the right thing in withdrawing them. I am assuming that the Minister will tell us something helpful about the steps taken to try to come around to the original suggestion.
I have quotes from the Law Society, from estate agents and from the Consumers Association. It says that of the people it surveyed 80 per cent said that they were in favour of the scheme—possibly not the detail, but in favour of the idea that this HIP nexus would be produced.
Time, as we all know, is the essence of many situations. The process that takes place in this country is far and away longer than it is in other countries. The Government should take courage and persist in their plans, taking careful note of the improvements which might be made, but certainly not abandon them. I wish the Government well in their process.
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8.13 pm
The Earl of Caithness: My Lords, I declare my interest as a surveyor and as one of those who were conned by the Government into getting trained, only to have the rug pulled from underneath me. I cannot possibly comment on the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Addington, because I might be a beneficiary of it. How we miss the noble Lord, Lord Phillips of Sudbury, on an evening like this.
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