Home Information Pack Regulations 2007

My Lords, it is good to know that the noble Lord, Lord Hanningfield, agrees that£1 million a day is a reasonable estimate of the money wasted. The packs will cost money but they are to be produced on behalf of the seller. On average, every transaction involves three aborted attempts to purchase before there is a success—a 1:4 ratio. Whatever the costs—we could debate them for a long time—it would seem reasonable to suggest that there is £1 million a day of aborted work. Part of the reason that the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors and other organisations have opposed these proposals so strongly is that they will probably lose that business of £1 million a day. The Government have opened up much of their work to competition, and professional bodies do not like competition. I am a member of the Institution of Civil Engineers, as is my noble friend Lord Howie. We value our professional qualifications and do not like competition, but we should have it, as should the RICS. Noble Lords opposite say that everyone is against the proposal, but the only person who has spoken in this debate in favour of consumers—buyers and first-time sellers—is my noble friend Lord Graham. Those people, represented by my noble friend,should be listened to. Of course the professional organisations will say, ““We are going to lose all of this money, it will be the end of the world and the quality will go down””, and so on, but there are many checks and balances. We should accept that the Government are trying to make this more accessible so that, when you buy a house, you do not have to commission four or five surveys for four or five different houses that you do not end up getting, in place of the one that should come with the home information pack. I was struck by the amount of time and effort that we have spent in this debate complaining first that there are not enough inspectors and then that, when inspectors get their qualifications, there are not enough jobs for them. We cannot have it both ways. There are bound to be start-up problems, when there may be too many or too few inspectors, but I hope that my noble friend’s new timetable will sort thatout. I wish this new timetable and the whole project very well.