Housing

I reconcile them using a process called logic, with which the hon. Gentleman might be unfamiliar. It is because it is so difficult to get searches that the number of properties on the market will dry up. That point has been made by every expert body that knows anything about the housing market. The pipeline will be narrowed, and supply will be constrained. It is a matter not only of logic but of economics, and I would be happy to go through both processes with the hon. Gentleman any time he likes. The Government have failed not only on searches but on the most crucial test of all: seriousness about the environment and climate change. Their record on the environment is patchy at best. Ministers in the Department for Communities and Local Government have recently been proclaiming their green credentials. How recently? I have been reading the speeches of the Minister for Housing and Planning on her website, and very instructive and entertaining they are too. From the moment she was appointed to her present responsibilities, however, there has been scarcely a mention of the environment. There was support for more housing and for more regulation, but nothing on the environment before December 2005. I am sure that hon. Members will remember what happened at that time. My right hon. Friend the Member for Witney (Mr. Cameron) became leader of the Conservative party and put the environment at the heart of our campaigning. After December 2005, what was there on the Minister’s website? There was silence until May 2006, just two weeks after my right hon. Friend had secured 40 per cent. of the vote in the local elections. The Minister then suddenly emerged from her purdah, her self-imposed silence, to make her first speech as a Minister for five months. To whom? To the Green Alliance. When we campaigned with the message ““Vote blue, go green””, we had no idea that the Minister would take that message to heart. Now, as a new convert to Cameron conservatism, she is talking about building eco-homes. Let me remind her that, as the Economic Secretary to the Treasury pointed out in Committee yesterday, no zero carbon homes have been built so far, and the number qualifying for zero stamp duty on the basis of zero carbon in the years ahead will be—as he said in answer to a parliamentary question—““negligible””. Ten years in office, and no progress on the environment. Yet as soon as my right hon. Friend the Member for Witney was elected leader of the Conservative party, Ministers were galvanised into greenery. Just imagine what we could do for the environment if we were actually in power—[Laughter.] We would certainly take the provision of energy performance certificates seriously, unlike this Government and their Back Benchers, who seem to regard the environment as a subject for hilarity. I am glad that they are laughing at their own record. There will be plenty of opportunity for them to weep when the voters pass their verdict on it at the general election in a couple of years’ time. If the Government were serious about energy efficiency they would have put the people in place to carry out the energy inspections that are at the heart of the provisions on energy performance certificates, but once again, the Minister and her Department have failed to listen and learn. A year ago, we said that there were not enough people in place, but the Government said that they would get the 7,500 inspectors that they needed; it would be all right on the night. A month ago, however, they revised that figure down and said that they would need only 2,500. Why the sudden reduction? We asked two weeks ago how many inspectors were fully trained and accredited, and we were given the answer at 5 o’clock on the Friday of the May bank holiday weekend: not one domestic energy assessor had passed the test and been accredited. With less than four weeks to go before the implementation of what the Minister describes as a key policy to combat climate change, not one of the 2,500—or 7,500; which is it?—qualified, accredited inspectors is ready to respond. How does the hon. Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme (Paul Farrelly) explain that?