Housing

The hon. Gentleman makes a fair point, which brings me on to another part of the evidence given by Mr. McDonald. That related to whether there should be a voluntary or a compulsory element to the home condition reports. On that, the Department—Mr. McDonald—was caught betwixt and between. In one part of his evidence he said that the reason why the Department had changed to a voluntary system for the home condition reports was that it thought that it was right for that to be taken forward by the market, rather than be imposed by regulation. However, he also said that the Department estimated that a negligibly small amount of home condition reports would actually be taken up. On the one hand the Department wanted to rely on the voluntary principle to deliver home condition reports because it thought that the market would suck them in, and on the other hand it accepted that none—or almost none—would be done. In support of his point of view that the voluntary scheme would not work, Mr. McDonald added that the Law Society had had its own voluntary scheme which it had tried to market in previous years and that it had failed and had had to be withdrawn.