Clause 247
Housing and Regeneration Bill
3:15 pm
Alistair Burt (Shadow Minister, Communities and Local Government; North East Bedfordshire, Conservative)
The Minister is doing well, but he is struggling on this issue. If, when buying a property, I need to see the HIP or the sustainability certificate before I complete the transaction, but it does not happen, I will not go ahead, so it is at the vendor’s expense if they do not comply.
However, the clause talks about
“an authorised officer of an enforcement authority”.
Who is the authorised officer, what is he authorised to do, and why? I am not trying to harass the Minister or chase him down the HIPs route. That job is usually done spectacularly well by my hon. Friend the Member for Welwyn Hatfield—and has been for several months. Genuinely, who will turn up on the doorstep of a new house, as an authorised officer in a uniform, like Deryck Guyler in “Please Sir!”, if the Minister remembers it from days gone by, and say, “I am from”—whatever it is—“and I demand to see your sustainability certificate, and if not I have these powers”?
I am intrigued as to how far the measure goes, because as the Minister knows, there are national newspapers that are very concerned about the increasing powers of people who would do just what I have described, and it may be that a word will have to be had with those papers, because they might be very interested. That is not a threat at all, but I am genuinely puzzled about the circumstances in which the Minister sees an authorised officer wanting to do what I have described. Who would ask them to do it?