Alistair Burt (Shadow Minister, Communities and Local Government; North East Bedfordshire, Conservative)

Is it the Minister’s assumption that those currently charged with handling HIPs will also be the authorised assessors? Have the Government an idea yet of the sort of fee that will be charged for the services of those who will provide sustainability certificates?

Iain Wright (Parliamentary Under-Secretary, Department for Communities and Local Government; Hartlepool, Labour)

The assumption is that domestic energy assessors could provide these certificates. That is perfectly possible. It could be part of another package that the developer or the builder provides in respect of the new buildings. I do not want to dodge the question about costs, but the cost of a sustainability certificate would vary, depending on the size of the development, the services provided and so on. So I cannot provide a great deal of reassurance to the hon. Gentleman in that respect. We expect the average cost of a certificate to be about £210 or £220 per home, but we have forecast that it could be as high as £1,600 for a single home on a single site that was built in isolation. I imagine that, as the information becomes clearer to the industry and there is greater awareness of what needs to be taking place, costs will be driven downwards, but I hope that what I have said provides a ballpark figure for the hon. Gentleman to criticise me with.