During a debate on the Home Information Pack pilot schemes, Charles Walker asks who will pay for the surveys and condemns universities that are running training courses on legislation which has not yet been (and may never be) enacted.

Mr. Charles Walker (Broxbourne) (Con): If the home owner does not pay, who will fund those surveys?

Andrew Stunell: The hon. Member for Surrey Heath has suggested that some of the £3 million of promotional money should be used. I am not arguing that the surveys should be free. I am simply saying that previous discussion suggests that the Government thought that they were testing the mechanics, such as whether the envelopes could be opened quickly enough, when they needed to measure the impact on the market of a completely new vehicle for house buying and selling. The pilots need to be conducted on the right financial basis, and the Government should tell us where the pilots will conducted, how representative they will be and the scale on which they will be conducted.

How long the pilots will run is not as critical as it used to be. When the Minister made her announcement last night, it must have been in her mind that she could not use a pilot scheme that ran for a month or two in the winter, when sales are depressed, to gauge whether the scheme is functional. She has referred to market research that will be conducted this summer before the pilots start, and I welcome any moves to make the pilots as realistic as possible. We also need to know what will be used to judge success or failure in the pilot schemes.

As has already been asked, what will be the fate of those who started out on HIP training programmes? This afternoon, I heard that Reading university is currently running a course attended by 480 students, who have paid £8,500 each to be on it. When the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister was changed into the Department for Communities and Local Government a few weeks ago, the students on the course asked for, and were given, a specific assurance that the change in the structure of the Departments would not affect the implementation of the HIPs, and the students continued on the course on that basis. The Government have an obligation to say what they intend to do about that matter and how they see the job prospects for those students either under a voluntary scheme, which might one day be a mandatory scheme, or during the pilot exercises. What future do they intend them to have?

Mr. Walker: Surely this is the lesson to be learned by Reading university and others: for God's sake, do not start running training courses until a Bill has been enacted or an idea has become law.

Andrew Stunell: I do not know whether Reading university should take the rap. There has been a serious attempt to recruit people to meet a Government deadline, which has now been changed, and the question is whether the whole scheme has been changed or abandoned. What are the prospects for those students? It may be that so few people have participated in training programmes that the work available from the voluntary scheme will be sufficient. We need to hear from the Government exactly what will happen.

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