Moving house is already one of the most stressful experiences anyone can have, but be warned, this time next year it will be considerably worse!

A new law is due to be implemented from June 2007, the new Home Information Packs, which experts have warned will hit jobs, reduce consumer spending and undermine the economy.

Michael Gove has urged the Chancellor to intervene and force the Government to abandon John Prescott’s “half-baked and dangerous new regulations”.

Ross Clark’s report for the Sunday Telegraph warns that the new regulations are in disarray and will bring chaos, that only 4,000 home inspectors will be trained in time, far short of the 7,000 required.

My concern is that HIPs fail to make it compulsory for soil samples to be included which would highlight contaminated land. Families in Littleport, Cambridgeshire have had their lives devastated by this discovery.

The present threshold for chemicals is set very low and local MP Malcolm Moss has urged the Government to review this so the blight can be removed – without success. Malcolm wanted soil samples to be a standard requirement in HIPs, but according to Lester, soil samples will only be taken on an “advisory” basis.

It seems quite clear why this not happened, it would jeopardise John Prescott’s plans to build on brownfield sites. The Littleport homes were built on the site of a an old gasworks and children have been told not to play in gardens because the chemicals are potentially carciogenic.

I remember seeing Sir Trevor McDonald report this on a TV documentary and an expert showed how easy it was to take soil samples, we already have the technology.

It seems HIPs comes under Ruth Kelly’s umbrella, which does not instil one with confidence after her poor record as Education Secretary. Incidentally, why does her job title include the portfolio for Minister for Women? Surely the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government and Minister for Women are two separate jobs.

UPDATE from Malcolm Moss: “A soil analysis from the garden is not mandatory although buyers may ask for some “comfort” in this area. There’s the rub, You may be damned if you don’t do one and damned if you do with soil guideline values in such disarray.”

Update 19thJuly: The doomed scheme is scrapped.