HIPs would almost certainly have been scrapped last year by whatever political party came to power – including Labour.
Although Labour never mentioned scrapping HIPs in their manifesto, and continued to defend what had been a flagship policy in previous general elections, they would nevertheless probably have dumped HIPs had they won the election.
Labour certainly offered to scrap HIPs in the coalition negotiations that they had with the LibDems.
The revelation – courtesy of Neil Kurz on the Home Inspector Forum – is in a book, ‘22 Days in May’, by the Lib Dem MP David Laws.
Laws was a key player in the different sets of coalition talks and an architect of the eventual coalition government formed with the Tories, but had to resign within days because of an expenses scandal.
In his book, he refers to the various documents that formed part of the various bargaining.
Scrapping HIPs was in the first document Labour presented to the Lib Dems, who had unexpectedly made abolishing HIPs part of their own election manifesto.
It has never been made public before Laws’ account that Labour had become so disenchanted with their own measure that they were prepared to make HIPs their first sacrifice in order to claw their way back to power.
It seems that had Labour won the election outright, they would have found a way of getting rid of HIPs, possibly by first simply making them a voluntary measure or introducing a temporary suspension.
Comments
Labour are very good at saying things in retrospect, and being reactive to things other people say.
Sadly, they weren't very good at running the country.
Say's alot about Labour and the dictatorship they signed up to while Blair and Brown were in power. Anything to get a vote ....... hoped we wouldn't notice they bankrupt us to! Its about time people voted with brains rather than camps.