Lords join calls to scrap £600 packs for homesellers

The threat of a revolt in the Lords by the Conservatives, and now the Liberal Democrats, grew after peers launched a scathing attack on the controversial HIPs.

They stressed that the way the Government had altered the packs, which will cost between £300 and £600, had sparked unprecedented opposition among experts.

The Tories will now table a motion in the Lords in an attempt to block regulations laid before Parliament which specify the contents of the packs.

The Lib-Dems also hardened their stance on HIPs, due to be introduced on 1 June, following an onslaught by the Lords select committee on the merits of statutory instruments which examine orders going through Parliament.

Committee chairman Lord Filkin told officials from the Department for Communities and Local Government (DCLG): "We have previously scrutinised hundreds of statutory instruments. I can't think of one when I have seen so many stakeholders so passionately disgruntled and critical."

Neil McDonald, the DCLG's director of the home information packs programme, said that they would reduce fuel bills for many householders by £300 a year because they would encourage energy-efficiency.

The Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors is calling on the Government to ditch the HIPs, which will now include an energy performance certificate, as well as searches, evidence of title and a sale statement.

The Daily Mail led a revolt which forced the Government to abandon the scheme.

Ministers are pressing ahead with a watered-down version. This will require all homeowners to compile a smaller report including a "green" rating on their property, local searches and other information.

Tory housing spokesman Michael Gove said: 'We will try every Parliamentary lever at our disposal to make sure that ministers think again before it's too late.

"If we can stop it, we will. Every major body with an interest in the stability of the housing market is telling the Government to go back to the drawing board. Yet in their stubborn vanity, ministers have refused to listen."

Tory peer Lord Jopling said: "I get the feeling that the Department's policy making is equivalent to being lost on a very foggy night.

"You must forgive us for getting the feeling you really don't know where you are going."

But Mr McDonald said: "There is ample scope for the benefits to be very, very much larger than the costs involved."

Peers are understood to be concerned that the legislation introducing the packs may be flawed, given that the views of property bodies consulted have changed significantly.

The RICS, the National Association of Estate Agents, the Council of Mortgage Lenders and the Law Society have voiced concerns about the packs.

Even the Government's own Better Regulation Commission recently called for the introduction of the energy performance certificates to be delayed.

Andrew Stunell, LibDem communities and local government spokesman, said: "There is a mounting body of professional opinion that this scheme can't be made to work if it is brought in in its present form on June 1.

"That means Parliament must look intensely at the Government's proposals and not simply nod them through."