Home Information Packs and Stamp Duty

Part of Opposition Day — [19th Allotted day] – in the House of Commons at 6:28 pm on 10 October 2007.

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Photo of Bob Neill Bob Neill Shadow Minister (Communities and Local Government), Deputy Chair, Conservative Party 6:28, 10 October 2007

My hon. Friend is right. The Government are culpable for the effect on the market—no amount of flannel gets around the destabilising effects—and for the position of those who bought a pig in a poke and took a commercial risk by setting up firms as HIPs providers. I regret the fact that the Government misled them, but that is what happened. If there is, regrettably, a commercial consequence to abandoning the scheme—which will doubtless happen in due course—the Government must shoulder the responsibility for leading them up the garden path. We will take no lectures on that from Labour Members.

Every supporter of the scheme has crept away from it. It is a little like the Haydn symphony in which all the musicians blow out their candles and disappear, with only one left at the end—two in the case that we are considering. Even the Consumers Association, which was originally a great supporter of the scheme, makes the point that, without the home condition report, it

"will be a useless but a very expensive waste of time".

That comment was made by the Government's chief ally in the initial stages.

The Government have not allowed the House to scrutinise the secondary legislation adequately or revealed any of the material on which we could reach a considered view. The House did not get a chance to consider and vote on the extension to three-bedroom homes until after the measure had been pushed through. Why are the Government scared to put the material before us? It is because the emperor—even the rather new emperor—has no clothes. It is surprising that the Government did not take the opportunity of a change of some personnel in the Department to bury the scheme before it became an embarrassment to them. That is their error because we do not intend to let them off the hook.

The tragedy is that HIPs are a distraction from the real task of creating houses. They will not get a single new home built for anyone. They are a side show of the worst and most dogmatic kind.