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About-turn on HIPs
Home Information Packs have been delayed, perhaps fatally, writes Paul Lewis
On Tuesday, just ten days before every home put up for sale would need one of the new packs, the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government Ruth Kelly told Parliament that they would not start until August 1. And then only for homes with a least four bedrooms – about one home in every six.
More significantly she announced a review by the end of the year which "will assess the implementation of HIPs and consider what further steps might be needed to maximise the reduction in carbon emissions and drive forward the reform of home buying and selling".
Which gives Gordon Brown PM and his new ministers the opportunity to scrap the whole thing if they want to.
That was certainly what some Opposition MPs called for. Conservative housing spokesman Michael Gove called it "a humiliating climbdown" and accused the Government of "arrogance and incompetence".
Ruth Kelly blamed the U-turn on two things. Last Wednesday the High Court issued an order which would have stopped HIPs going ahead on June 1. The judges were considering a claim by the Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) that the Government had failed to consult adequately on the Energy Performance Certificates.
Ruth Kelly told the House of Commons that an agreement between the Government and RICS "within the last half hour" resolved – or at least delayed – that problem. Secondly, she said there were not enough energy assessors trained and accredited to allow the scheme to go ahead as planned. Up to 2500 were needed and there were in fact only 520 fully accredited, though 1500 were almost there and another 2500 were in training.
She made two other changes to the scheme. Until the end of the year, sellers will be able to put their home on the market as soon as an energy performance certificate has been commissioned, rather than having to wait for it to be delivered. And "as a temporary measure" a certificate will last a year instead of three months and therefore will not have to be redone if the home was put back on the market within 12 months.
The Government plans to extend HIPs to smaller homes "as rapidly as possible", as the number of accredited assessors grows.
But don't hold your breath. HIPs could now be dead.
This article was created: 9 May 2007.
This article was last edited: 24 May 2007.
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