News broke today of a rather bizarre development in the ongoing debate on the future of home information packs.
In response to a well meaning letter sent by, and seemingly sent on the advice of, the London based PR lobbyists Luther Pendragon, and on behalf of their client, Association of Home Information Pack Providers, to Conservative MPs and Prospective candidates, Grant Shapps unleashed a scathing attack on what he described as a ‘crass’ lobbying campaign.
Commenting on the letter (as set out below) Shapps, a former American style online marketing guru, stated:
‘This is one of the most crass examples of public affairs I have ever seen from a lobbying company. Spamming parliamentary candidates with political abuse from a company email address hardly displays the intelligent political awareness that Luther Pendragon proclaim on their website.'
He added:
‘Email has great potential to engage Parliamentary candidates with the public in the forthcoming general election. Yet the public affairs industry needs to realise that like poorly targeted, unsolicited press releases, email also has the potential to annoy and undermine the very issues you are championing.
Conservatives are happy to talk to the housing industry over our plans to scrap Home Information Packs, but personal, angry campaigns are not a great way to win friends and influence people.'
Rich coming from a shadow cabinet member who not too long ago was involved in his own ‘crass’ example of public affairs when he was photographed wrapping red ribbon around a house! Cheap publicity and a stunt clearly determined to infuriate those who are working hard to bring about reform and save businesses they have worked hard to establish and develop.
It is also hard to understand why a man who has plenty of personal experience in using spam type emails and other types of marketing tools to run past and present campaigns can express outrage in such alarmist terms at a perfectly legitimate use of a public database.
Perhaps the decision to take this step has unsettled Mr Shapps. Perhaps the pro-hip lobbyists and those within his party who secretly support the HIP are finally getting to him?
Lobbying of political parties is part and parcel of a democratic society and the practice has been around from centuries. In attacking AHIPP and its actions is Mr Shapps not challenging a very fundamental democratic right? Does this not smack of sheer arrogance on his part?
What is perhaps more worrying is the decision of the lobbying company Luther Pendragon to respond to the outcry by ditching AHIPP as a client. How comes? One can only speculate that some political pressure has somewhere along the line been applied. It will be interesting to see how Luther’s other clients react to this rather public denunciation of a client who had for a healthy fee placed its confidence and trust in its hands.
THE LETTER IN FULL
Dear XXXXXXX
Many thanks for your response to my earlier correspondence on Home Information Packs. Whilst I appreciate there is an established Party line on this issue, I am disappointed that you did not take the opportunity to review the evidence for yourself and come to your own informed conclusion. I hope you will consider this letter and take a personal stance on the issue.
Grant Shapps, the Shadow Housing Minister, believes that scrapping HIPs would be a popular and inexpensive manifesto commitment. Having adopted a perceived vote winning policy in a neglected area, Mr Shapps has chosen to ignore the many voices and reams of evidence pointing towards the need for further reform through the development of the HIP product. Consumers, stakeholders across the property industry and the press are clear that the future of home buying and selling lies in Exchange-Ready products. These products reduce cost, delay and stress from the process of buying a home, and the removal of the requirement to produce a HIP provides an ideal opportunity to introduce them. Grant Shapps' refusal to introduce Exchange-Ready products is irrational and regressive.
A policy to scrap HIPs with no mandatory replacement will cause enormous short term damage to the housing market. Following the election of a Government with a commitment to scrap HIPs, homeowners will delay selling their home until they are scrapped. This would stifle any hopes of a long-overdue recovery in the housing market.
The market will also suffer damage in the long term. Before HIPs, the unavailability of reliable information and legal documents early in the home buying and selling process were the prime cause of stress, delay and abortive transactions, which cost consumers approximately £1 million every day. With this information provided in the right format, at the right time, and at the right price through a HIP, costs are kept down, transactions run more smoothly, and professionals like lawyers and estate agents are freed to carry out their specialist work.
Critics of the HIP claim that the searches included are not authoritative, and lawyers are commissioning their own searches. The most recent report by the Property Codes Compliance Board, which regulates property searches, showed that there were no differences in quality between the searches in HIP Code compliant HIPs and searches provided by the Local Authority. Critics also say that HIPs add cost to the home buying process. This is simply not the case, as the savings made through efficient search delivery outweigh the upfront cost of the packs. The reduction in the cost of moving home seen over the past two years has been as a direct result of the introduction of HIPs, and scrapping HIPs would increase costs once again.
Finally, Grant Shapps assures voters that he will retain the Energy Performance Certificate element of the HIP, as he accepts that it is a crucial tool in reducing carbon emissions. He has, however, ignored evidence from all other European Union member states that have attempted to introduce the EPC as a stand-alone document. In Northern Ireland, where there are no HIPs, 45% of houses are sold without an EPC, versus less than 5% in England. Indeed, in the rental or commercial property sectors in the UK, where HIPs are not required the levels of non-compliance are over 40% and 73% respectively. No member state has managed to achieve meaningful levels of compliance with the requirement to produce an EPC, except for states that require it as part of a HIP-style pack. There is no reason why the UK would be different.
Grant Shapps has ignored calls from the HIP industry, the Law Society, Which?, numerous estate agents and consumers, for further reform taking into account the progress made through the HIP. He has ignored his own research and consultation exercise, the 2007 Home Buying Review. This exercise, which sought to investigate the possibilities for further reform, was cancelled shortly after Owen Inskip, an independent expert, submitted his report. This has never since been released, despite repeated requests. Should he be elected, by the time Grant Shapps consults on his proposals, with the market in turmoil and jobs already under threat, it is likely to be too late to build on the achievements of the HIP.
I hope you will give all of these issues your urgent attention. Grant Shapps intends to make a national election issue of his opposition to HIPs, but he underestimates the industry's ability to make the case for itself with voters. I hope, that having considered the issues, you will write to me outlining your own position on the issue.
In response to a well meaning letter sent by, and seemingly sent on the advice of, the London based PR lobbyists Luther Pendragon, and on behalf of their client, Association of Home Information Pack Providers, to Conservative MPs and Prospective candidates, Grant Shapps unleashed a scathing attack on what he described as a ‘crass’ lobbying campaign.
Commenting on the letter (as set out below) Shapps, a former American style online marketing guru, stated:
‘This is one of the most crass examples of public affairs I have ever seen from a lobbying company. Spamming parliamentary candidates with political abuse from a company email address hardly displays the intelligent political awareness that Luther Pendragon proclaim on their website.'
He added:
‘Email has great potential to engage Parliamentary candidates with the public in the forthcoming general election. Yet the public affairs industry needs to realise that like poorly targeted, unsolicited press releases, email also has the potential to annoy and undermine the very issues you are championing.
Conservatives are happy to talk to the housing industry over our plans to scrap Home Information Packs, but personal, angry campaigns are not a great way to win friends and influence people.'
Rich coming from a shadow cabinet member who not too long ago was involved in his own ‘crass’ example of public affairs when he was photographed wrapping red ribbon around a house! Cheap publicity and a stunt clearly determined to infuriate those who are working hard to bring about reform and save businesses they have worked hard to establish and develop.
It is also hard to understand why a man who has plenty of personal experience in using spam type emails and other types of marketing tools to run past and present campaigns can express outrage in such alarmist terms at a perfectly legitimate use of a public database.
Perhaps the decision to take this step has unsettled Mr Shapps. Perhaps the pro-hip lobbyists and those within his party who secretly support the HIP are finally getting to him?
Lobbying of political parties is part and parcel of a democratic society and the practice has been around from centuries. In attacking AHIPP and its actions is Mr Shapps not challenging a very fundamental democratic right? Does this not smack of sheer arrogance on his part?
What is perhaps more worrying is the decision of the lobbying company Luther Pendragon to respond to the outcry by ditching AHIPP as a client. How comes? One can only speculate that some political pressure has somewhere along the line been applied. It will be interesting to see how Luther’s other clients react to this rather public denunciation of a client who had for a healthy fee placed its confidence and trust in its hands.
THE LETTER IN FULL
Dear XXXXXXX
Many thanks for your response to my earlier correspondence on Home Information Packs. Whilst I appreciate there is an established Party line on this issue, I am disappointed that you did not take the opportunity to review the evidence for yourself and come to your own informed conclusion. I hope you will consider this letter and take a personal stance on the issue.
Grant Shapps, the Shadow Housing Minister, believes that scrapping HIPs would be a popular and inexpensive manifesto commitment. Having adopted a perceived vote winning policy in a neglected area, Mr Shapps has chosen to ignore the many voices and reams of evidence pointing towards the need for further reform through the development of the HIP product. Consumers, stakeholders across the property industry and the press are clear that the future of home buying and selling lies in Exchange-Ready products. These products reduce cost, delay and stress from the process of buying a home, and the removal of the requirement to produce a HIP provides an ideal opportunity to introduce them. Grant Shapps' refusal to introduce Exchange-Ready products is irrational and regressive.
A policy to scrap HIPs with no mandatory replacement will cause enormous short term damage to the housing market. Following the election of a Government with a commitment to scrap HIPs, homeowners will delay selling their home until they are scrapped. This would stifle any hopes of a long-overdue recovery in the housing market.
The market will also suffer damage in the long term. Before HIPs, the unavailability of reliable information and legal documents early in the home buying and selling process were the prime cause of stress, delay and abortive transactions, which cost consumers approximately £1 million every day. With this information provided in the right format, at the right time, and at the right price through a HIP, costs are kept down, transactions run more smoothly, and professionals like lawyers and estate agents are freed to carry out their specialist work.
Critics of the HIP claim that the searches included are not authoritative, and lawyers are commissioning their own searches. The most recent report by the Property Codes Compliance Board, which regulates property searches, showed that there were no differences in quality between the searches in HIP Code compliant HIPs and searches provided by the Local Authority. Critics also say that HIPs add cost to the home buying process. This is simply not the case, as the savings made through efficient search delivery outweigh the upfront cost of the packs. The reduction in the cost of moving home seen over the past two years has been as a direct result of the introduction of HIPs, and scrapping HIPs would increase costs once again.
Finally, Grant Shapps assures voters that he will retain the Energy Performance Certificate element of the HIP, as he accepts that it is a crucial tool in reducing carbon emissions. He has, however, ignored evidence from all other European Union member states that have attempted to introduce the EPC as a stand-alone document. In Northern Ireland, where there are no HIPs, 45% of houses are sold without an EPC, versus less than 5% in England. Indeed, in the rental or commercial property sectors in the UK, where HIPs are not required the levels of non-compliance are over 40% and 73% respectively. No member state has managed to achieve meaningful levels of compliance with the requirement to produce an EPC, except for states that require it as part of a HIP-style pack. There is no reason why the UK would be different.
Grant Shapps has ignored calls from the HIP industry, the Law Society, Which?, numerous estate agents and consumers, for further reform taking into account the progress made through the HIP. He has ignored his own research and consultation exercise, the 2007 Home Buying Review. This exercise, which sought to investigate the possibilities for further reform, was cancelled shortly after Owen Inskip, an independent expert, submitted his report. This has never since been released, despite repeated requests. Should he be elected, by the time Grant Shapps consults on his proposals, with the market in turmoil and jobs already under threat, it is likely to be too late to build on the achievements of the HIP.
I hope you will give all of these issues your urgent attention. Grant Shapps intends to make a national election issue of his opposition to HIPs, but he underestimates the industry's ability to make the case for itself with voters. I hope, that having considered the issues, you will write to me outlining your own position on the issue.
Yours sincerely
Mike Ockenden
Director General
Mike Ockenden
Director General
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