How is it that the Tories think that they can get away with abolishing the much reviled Home Information Packs (HIPs)?
After all as was pointed out by their own pet think tank, Open Europe,
After all as was pointed out by their own pet think tank, Open Europe,
"an EU directive agreed in 2002, “The Energy Performance of Buildings Directive”So how is it that Grant Shapps, the Shadow Housing Minister can today claim at the Tory conference,
required that homes and other buildings should have an energy efficiency survey when they are bought, sold or rented. This would then be used to produce the Energy Performance Certificate (EPC), which would give homes an efficiency grade from “A” to “G” (with A as the most efficient). This was supposed to encourage people to adopt more energy efficiency measures. The Government decided to bundle in the new EU energy certificate with the old idea for a Home Information Pack. However, the legislation has been revised several times, and in practice when the “pack” comes into force on 1 June this year it will contain little other than the EU Energy Performance Certificate".
"The experts ridiculed them. The industry doesn't want them... and I can announce that the next Conservative government will scrap them".After all it isn't up to him or indeed a Tory Government, thye would need to get the unanimous agreement of the EU 27 at Council. Which, as I have pointed out before would be rather unlikely.
6 comments:
It would be very easy indeed to abolish HIPs. They've been thoroughly watered down, as you rightly point out. And, to meet the EU directive, all you have to do is make production of a valid EPC part of the conveyancing process when a property is sold. That would be a very simple thing to do. This EPC, by the way, may be up to ten years old under the EU directive, so it doesn't even need to be newly done. Rental properties are covered already by the changes to legislation in assorted Housing Acts, especially that of 2004. (I was compliance manager for HIPS for a while,)
We should do what the rest of the EU countries do, which is to pay lip service to the legislation we don't like and ignore it in practise.
Fran
You are right, but that is merely window dressing. A Tory Government, I accept could abolish the HIPs as they are, but the practical effect would be minimal if the costs of the energy certificate was just added to the normal conveyancing costs.
It would be like saying 'there is no Europen Foriegn Minister', we have rehatted the post as the High Representative for Foriegn and Security affairs'.
Other than the PR fluff, what reduction of the current costs would there be for Joe public? (Admittedly at the very least a layer of bureacracy could well be swept away).
I'm sick of people, who are either ignorant of the facts, or even worse, have hidden agendas, dissing vegetarians because we care about animals and the environment. What do you want to live in a barren wasteland dick wad? Now, just so we get off on the right foot here I want you to know my background. I'm not some new age, macro-psychotic wimp trying to get you to eat your sprouts. Most new age people make me fucking puke. The fact is I've probably had a harder life then 90% of you out there. Just read my first book, "The Evolution of a Cro-Magnon." I survived orphanages, abusive foster homes, boy's homes, NYC's mean streets in the mid-seventies at 14, shootings, stabbings, lock-ups, drug addiction, homelessness, the music business and the list goes on. So if anyone knows a thing or two about being tough and fighting on it's me. What I'm giving you in this book is a no-holes-barred, New York style beat down for your brain cells on real health and real nutrition, and I'm not pulling any punches.
I discussed the guidelines and the reactions to them myself multiple times. Let's put it this way. I'm in the business, so to speak, and even I was shocked at the vehement reaction from not just patients and patient advocacy groups, but my very own colleagues. I was particularly disgusted by the reaction of the American College of Radiology, which was nothing more than blatant fear mongering that intentionally frightened women into thinking that the new guidelines would lead to their deaths from breast cancer. Radiologists dug foxholes from which to protect their turf. Even some of my colleagues were very resistant to the guideline, and in fact I was in the distinct minority at my own institution in cautiously supporting the new guidelines--with some misgivings. At least I managed to be a moderating force to keep the press release we ended up releasing from being too critical of the new guidelines. As much as we'd like to pretend otherwise, even science-based medical practitioners can fall prey to craving the certainty of known and accepted guidelines over the uncertainty of the new. And if it's so hard to get physicians to accept new guidelines and new science, imaging how hard it is to get patients to accept them.
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