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The noble Baroness said: I shall speak to Amendments Nos. 183 and 194 together. Although they come from two different clauses, both relate to the building in of some leeway into the process of preparing a home information pack.

The provision of such leeway is crucial to the continued effectiveness of the housing market. I know that the Minister disagrees with that and although we had a Second Reading debate during our proceedings yesterday, we must continue with our amendments and our views on how the HIP should apply.

Even in this day and age of advanced computer systems, of desk-top publishing, of easily negotiable electronically held property databases and of surveyors equipped with laser-guided tape measures, if I wanted to put my house on the market this afternoon in order to execute a very quick sale under the regime imposed by Part 5 of the Bill, I would be unable to do so until my estate agent had produced a home information pack. It is possible that I could not afford that delay. There must be some flexibility in the system.

I am aware that some estate agents in areas where the home information packs were piloted were able to produce the information in the same amount of time as it took to draw up and agree property particulars. Although impressive, that still led to a delay of about
 
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a week in putting property on the market. Had the photograph of my house gone up in my estate agent's window on the day I had instructed the sale, that would have given prospective buyers an extra week to consider putting in an offer, knowing that the home information pack was being produced.

Although I do not know whether there are any statistics available, by and large I am sure it is a fact that sellers often want to sell in a hurry, while house buyers are happy to take a little more time. Fourteen days is by no means a figure that needs to be set in stone. Indeed, given the improvements in information technology, particularly with the advances of the National Property Gazetteer, it could be argued that as home information packs may well be ready in a couple of days a fortnight's leeway may be unnecessary. But I do not believe that we should make it a sine qua non that home information packs must be available on day one. I beg to move.

Baroness Maddock: I shall speak to Amendments Nos. 183A and 185C. They too relate to day-one marketing. Amendment No. 183A is similar to that tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Hanham. It is a probing amendment following discussions that took place in another place. Following the Government's amendment to Clauses 138 and 139 at the Commons Report stage, some people believe that confusion has arisen on the timing requirements for the possession or production of the home information pack. To avoid any misunderstanding in the market, I am seeking clarification with Amendment No. 183A.

One interpretation of Clauses 138 and 139 as presently drafted is that the responsible person—the seller or his agent, if there is one—has to provide an HIP or part of a pack only if requested by the buyer. The responsible person has 14 days in which to do that—or more if terms and conditions are debated under Clause 139(5).

That appears to conflict with requirements in other clauses, which seem to require the possession of an HIP from the outset. I am therefore seeking clarification on whether the above interpretation of Clauses 138 and 139 is correct. Is it a relaxation of the Government's requirement for day-one marketing? If it is, it is welcome, but those outside the Chamber are confused. I would welcome clarification from the Government.

Amendment No. 185C is designed to help the Government on this issue. The Government's proposal to introduce home information packs will bring to an end the right of consumers to put their properties up for sale when they desire. In future, they will have to wait until the home information pack has been prepared. No one really knows how long that will take, as we have discussed several times already.

The Government seem willing to accept the very optimistic forecast that it could be as little as three days, while others who believe that they have a greater degree of realism and appreciation believe that it could be considerably longer. Indeed, the noble Baroness, Lady Hanham, spoke of one week. It means the ending
 
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of "day-one marketing" and many of those who work in the housing market feel that it is not desirable and that it could have an inflationary effect on the market.

The purpose of my amendment, therefore, is to keep the Government's options open. It provides the Secretary of State with the power to determine at a later date the appropriate period of time in which the home information pack must be made available to prospective purchasers after marketing commences.

We do not have to make the decision now. The Government have already said that home information packs will not be introduced immediately and that we are working roughly to 2007. That therefore gives us the opportunity to consult with the industry and, crucially, to monitor progress in the areas that are most likely to cause delay in the production of HIPs.

I know that the Government argue that if home information packs are not available to buyers when marketing takes place, their effectiveness will be undermined. I do not believe that that is true—and many who work in the field do not believe that it is true. Most prospective buyers arrange to view a range of properties in a given area before they narrow down their list of potential purchases. Often they will instruct an estate agent to arrange several initial interviews based on their criteria such as price, location and size. I hope that those more experienced will back me up on that. Indeed, I have done the same thing myself. At this stage, buyers will not want to be burdened with lengthy technical reports for each and every property that they view, for access to which, as I understand it, they would have to pay a charge.

Because the current home information pack proposals will delay the ability of consumers to market property, it is widely accepted that there will be some reduction in the number of properties coming on to the market. Independent studies have measured that and they give figures of between 13 and 30 per cent. If the figure is 13 per cent, that is still fairly detrimental. Even at the lower end of the forecasts, it is likely to have an inflationary effect.

The Government have questioned just how important day-one marketing really is to consumers and whether they will be put off placing their houses on the market if they have to complete a home information pack. There are conflicting views on this topic and I should be very interested to hear from the Minister whether his department has any plans to undertake some independent research into the matter before pressing ahead with day-one marketing. The amendment is designed to help them to do that, and I hope that the Government will look favourably on it. It is an important issue and it is very controversial.

The Earl of Caithness: The noble Baroness, Lady Maddock, is absolutely right: this is a crucial area and it is one that will cause a huge amount of contention unless we get it right. It will be the area where most disputes occur because vendors invariably want their houses marketed from day one. They will give instructions for whatever reason, but they want to put
 
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their houses on the market now. Of course some people are coming forward at present and saying, "I want to market the house next spring. Start preparing particulars now", but that does not happen all the time, and a big section of the market will be put under considerable constraint by the Bill as it stands.

We talked about this matter a little last night. It was quite late and, on reading col. 998 of the Official Report, I noticed that I mentioned a somewhat similar situation in response to the noble Lord, Lord Borrie, on the question of buying Whiteacre. If one reads what I said in the Official Report and takes it by itself, it could be misleading. What I wanted to say was that the noble Lord, Lord Borrie, would be at a disadvantage if he had to sell his house in order to make an offer on Whiteacre. In the Official Report, it reads that the noble Lord could not submit an offer to the noble Lord, Lord Phillips. Of course, the noble Lord could submit an offer, but if he had to sell his own house first in order to obtain the finances, he would be at a considerable disadvantage in wanting to buy the house compared with someone else who already had his house on the market with a home information pack.

These are critical amendments. I look forward to hearing what the Minister has to say, particularly with regard to some of the points raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Maddock.

Lord Rooker: This is a very important part of the Bill and the system. I fully accept that, but I certainly cannot accept some of the things that I have just heard, such as that the industry does not know what is going on and will be confused, and so on. From extensively published consultation documents, the industry knows exactly what we have been thinking about in some considerable detail for the past 18 months. So there are no surprises in this measure.

This is the first of a number of amendments about the duties in Clauses 137 to 141 to have a home information pack before commencing any marketing activity. I fully admit that this is an area which probably causes the most concern. I would argue that that concern is not justified and I shall try to give my reasons. However, we recognise the concern, which is why we have been doing something about it.

Ministers and officials at the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister have discussed the concerns extensively with key stakeholders, including the National Association of Estate Agents. We know that the key concerns are uncertainty over how the home information packs will impact on the market—that is a factor—and particularly how long it will take to compile the packs.

We know from experience that some agents who are providing home information packs on a voluntary basis—it is only a modest number at the moment; I realise that—can manage to compile packs in about five working days. We take the view that, given the advances in information technology, it should be possible to compile them in a shorter timeframe by 2007. And, once the Bill is enacted, that will act as a significant push to information providers to change
 
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their processes to ensure that the information is available very quickly. So, with compulsion on the way, it will cease to be a voluntary activity.

Some stakeholders are saying to us, "That's all very well in theory, but what if the practice turns out to be different?" What if an item in the pack—for example, the home condition report—takes a good deal longer and that acts as a logjam on bringing homes to the market? Those are issues that have been raised and it is a fair point. The big concern seems to be that if that kind of problem does arise, the Bill may be too inflexible as it stands to deal with the situation. It is that point on which I want to give the Committee some assurance.

First, following the Office of Government Commerce Gateway review of the home information pack programme, we are setting up a new, extensive programme support structure to oversee the route through to the implementation of the home information pack. All the key stakeholders have welcomed the move and they are actively involved. Therefore, it is not being done behind closed doors. Part of the job of the new programme arrangements is to bottom out and address the risks and develop effective contingencies. That work will identify and address any of the pinch points that could delay production of the home information packs.

Secondly, as I mentioned last night, there will be a dry run of home information packs before they come into force. We want to identify the components of the packs by the middle of 2005 and have them available from the middle of 2006. That will give a minimum of six months for estate agents and others to test the new arrangements before they come into statutory force. That gives a rough idea of the timetable and we have left ourselves plenty of time.

Thirdly, if we find that the speedy production of home information packs is at serious risk, provisions in the Bill would enable us to address the situation. Clause 144(9) allows the Secretary of State to address this kind of problem in regulations. He could vary the time at which a document is required to be included in the pack; he could make some kind of transitional arrangements; and he could make different arrangements for different areas, descriptions of property and other circumstances.

In short, there is an armoury in the Bill to deal with problems relating to the speedy availability of documents and other problems if they arise after all the other preparatory work, along with that of the stakeholders, has been done and defects come to light. So there is no question of the Government introducing home information packs in a way that will cause unnecessary delay in getting homes on to the market. That is not our purpose.

Some of our research has indicated that 40 per cent of consumers are dissatisfied with the current system. More recent surveys conducted by the Consumers' Association and the Yorkshire Bank both indicated a dissatisfaction rate of almost 90 per cent. Therefore, some action must be taken to improve the situation.
 
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One principal cause of that dissatisfaction is the lack of up-front information available to sellers and buyers. That lack of transparency at the start of the process is a primary cause of uncertainty, failed transactions and wasted costs. We genuinely believe that our reasonable proposals will remedy that, but the amendments would risk perpetuating the problems associated with the current system where sellers market their homes without the benefit of important information to guide their marketing decisions and buyers take important decisions on the basis of little or no information.

It is no good to say that this beggars belief; we know that it happens—it is happening now as we speak. We are talking about some 8,000 properties a day or 40,000 properties a week. People will be looking at places for a few minutes. They may have looked at lots of others as well but, on the basis of little or no information, they will make offers and then become very upset afterwards.

The time spent compiling the pack need not be long and we think that it is time well spent. As I have said before, all this information, save for the home condition report, already has to be provided at some stage in the process. The difference is that we are saying, "Do it upfront".

Some of the tick box forms that people fill in for fixtures and fittings and about the property itself—two or three of the forms one gets from solicitors—could be done beforehand. Sometimes there is undue delay, even as regards the solicitor getting the seller to complete the form, to tick the boxes. They say, "You are selling the house. I need the form. Tick the boxes". So, undue delay can be caused even by the seller not filling in the basic forms because they cannot decide to leave the curtains or the spice rack or something stupid like that. All of that is on the form and they simply have to tick a box.

So, there are delays. We are asking that that be done before the home is marketed. There is no problem about that. If someone decides that they want to sell the property, they obtain the forms and get them filled in. If we seek to cut corners, as the amendments would propose—the idea is to market under the present system, stick it up for sale today, find a buyer the next day, and sell the house—that is fine, but that apparent speed can be illusory. That is what we know from the present system. You think you have sold and you have not. Then there are protracted negotiations while the legal aspects are sorted out and local searches are commissioned. There can be arguments about the property and the things that are found out and arguments about the price. Each of those things can reveal problems which add to delay. Indeed, sometimes, not always but many times, they can lead to the collapse of the sale, and the whole process can be complicated by chains.

Having the relevant information at the start of the process creates a number of benefits. The seller and agent can use the home information pack to assist in setting the asking price. This is different—

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