Hips delayed

Home Information Packs (Hips) are to be delayed following months of wrangling between industry officials and MPs.

Communities secretary Ruth Kelly has told the House of Commons that Hips will not be introduced on June 1st as promised but will instead be phased in from August 1st.

The announcement comes just ten days before the packs were due to introduced to the home-selling process and just one day before they were to be debated in the House of Lords.

Only days ago the government won a vote in the House of Commons in which it said Hips should be introduced on June 1st.

Now Ms Kelly has revealed that the date has been put back because there are insufficient numbers of surveyors trained and accredited to provide Energy Performance Certificates.

This comes despite recent assurances to the contrary and led to opposition MPs berating her in the Commons.

Ms Kelly remained adamant that Hips would eventually be introduced in the UK but said that the initial August 1st rollout would only apply to four-bedroom homes.

Tags: insufficient numbers, mps.communities secretary ruth, Commons, hips, energy, Home Information Pack, house, recent assurances

Hips legal challenge “groundless”

Home Information Packs (Hips) continue to cause a storm within the housing market but it seems that they will be given the go-ahead.

Communities and Local Government (CLG) has pledged that it will continue with the planned introduction of the packs and has reacted angrily to threats of legal action.

The Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors (Rics) this week commenced Judicial Review proceedings against CLG over a ‘failure to carry out proper consultation prior to implementing new legislation to bring in Hips’.

CLG has slammed the legal challenge and promised that Hips will become a part of the home-selling process.

“This challenge is groundless, and we will proceed with the packs being introduced on June 1st,” said a spokesman for CLG.

“This is a shocking example of a vested interest wanting to water down important environmental information.”

Meanwhile a debate in the House of Commons over the introduction of Hips ended in victory for the government and housing minister Yvette Cooper sang the praises of Hips and in particular Energy Performance Certificates.

“The certificates will give people’s homes an energy rating for the first time,” she told MPs.

“They will give people not only the rating on their home but information on what they can do about it – what their fuel bills are likely to be and how they can cut them.”

Tags: energy, June, government, shocking example, MPs