Thousands of home inspectors will be needed under the new plans

Under the proposed scheme, people selling their home would have to arrange a basic survey and complete a questionnaire on the details of the property for potential buyers.

Ministers believe the packs will make gazumping - when buyers are outbid by rivals at a very late stage of the house-buying process - harder to achieve.

But MPs on the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister Select Committee, question whether purchasers will be able to trust a report they have not ordered themselves.

Will purchasers really be able to trust a home condition report which they haven't commissioned? Office of the Deputy Prime Minister Select Committee

In their report on the draft Housing Bill, the MPs question whether there will be enough home inspectors to produce the packs by the time they become compulsory in England and Wales.

The MPs said "a whole new profession of home inspectors would be created" if the reports were introduced in their current form.

While the government believes between 7,500 and 8,500 inspectors will be required, the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors says the figure could be as high as 10,000 full-time inspectors.

Speed up process

The MPs say they would not recommend the packs be made compulsory, arguing that it was unclear what effect they would have on house prices and supply.

The home information pack, or home sellers' pack, is a key part of the draft Housing Bill, which aims to improve standards in private sector housing.

The government hopes the pack will reduce the average time between agreement and completion of residential property sales.

The idea was dropped from the previous legislative programme, but the government has always been committed to the scheme.

Under current rules it is the onus of the buyer, not the seller, to make adequate checks.

'Potential problems'

Andrew Bennett, chairman of the ODPM committee, said while the draft bill contained some "good ideas" more work need was needed on the packs and on the housing health and safety rating system before it received a second reading.

The MPs said it was "worrying that witnesses, including advocates of the changes, have highlighted so many potential problems with implementation of the home information pack and the rating system".

It had "not been tested widely enough for professionals to feel confident about its effects".

The government's pilot in Bristol covered 61 completed sales out of the 1.5m completed sales across England each year.

Ministers had "relied heavily" on comparisons with international housing markets, including in Denmark and New South Wales, which were "very different to England and Wales".

Exemptions

The MPs said "it is not clear whether the home information pack will actually speed up the process and what its impact will be on the number of houses coming on to the market".

They asked: "Will purchasers really be able to trust a home condition report which they haven't commissioned and will home inspectors have adequate professional indemnity insurance?"

The committee recommended houses sold for less than �30,000 should be exempted from the pack.

They also said estate agents should be licensed and house buying and selling could be speeded up by better use of IT in local authority searches and by solicitors and estate agents tracking the progress of sales on websites.

The committee said it had been "disappointed" the bill did not go far enough in several areas.

"More could be done to curb abuses to Right to Buy. All houses in multiple occupation should be licensed and all councils should have a power to license all private landlords.

"The draft bill should have included a tenancy deposit scheme and clarified security of tenure for same sex couples."