The Government's plans to transform house sales suffered another humiliating blow today when Ruth Kelly, the Communities Secretary, admitted that the long-awaited Home Information Packs will not be introduced on June 1.

The deadline, just eight days away, was pushed back to August 1 after a legal challenge to the packs by the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors, the latest in a series of objections to the plans by estate agents and property professionals. Even then, the packs will now only be required for four-bedroom houses and larger.

In a statement to MPs this afternoon, Ms Kelly said that she had decided to withdraw the original deadline, set 18 months ago as the intended moment of realisation for reforms first mooted in 1997, after the high court said it needed time to consider the objections raised by RICS to the energy checks required by the plans.

The surveyors insist that the packs in their current form would bring chaos to the housing market because there are not enough inspectors to carry out the energy efficiency checks demanded by ministers.

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Ms Kelly admitted today that were just 520 accredited inspectors for a housing market in which 2.4 million properties exchange hands every year.

Ms Kelly said the delay had been ordered because the Government believed it was "neither practical nor acceptable" to introduce the HIPs without the energy checks. The energy efficiency certificates are one of the few substantial features remaining in the packs after ministers were forced to remove a home condition report last July.

To guffaws and jeers from the Opposition benches, Ms Kelly set out what she described as a "pragmatic way forward". She said that the objections of the RICS had now been resolved and that the first HIPS, for houses with four bedrooms or more, would be required on August 1.

She said that the HIPs would then be extended to rest of the property market "as rapidly as possible" and that the Government would review its progress by the end of the year. To ease concerns about possible backlog of energy checks, Ms Kelly said sellers would able to place their property on the market when the checks were commissioned rather than completed.

She said the Government expected to have 2,000 qualified energy inspectors by the end of June -- seen as an acceptable level -- and that a further 2,500 were currently in training.

Ms Kelly's announcement came moments before a debate in the House of Lords on the HIPs, where peers may inflict an embarrassing defeat on the Government by approving a motion to scrap them altogether.

The delayed introduction of the HIPs, which are intended to speed up house sales by forcing sellers to provide legal searches and energy efficiency certificates before putting their property on the market, was made inevitable by a judicial review requested last week by RICS.

In a preliminary order, the high court judge considering the review, Mr Justice Collins, said that the surveyors had an "apparently arguable case" and that the Energy Performance Certificates (EPCs) should be removed from the HIPs until a full hearing could be held.

"An order should be devised which ensured that the requirements for an EPC are not enforceable in the meantime," he wrote. "Since the claim cannot possibly be heard before 1 June 2007, some such order will in any event be needed because nothing could be worse than that the Regulations come into full force and are subsequently struck down."

Estate agents and property professionals reacted with relief at today's announcement, saying the delay could buy the Government enough time to train enough energy inspectors. Energy efficiency gradings are required by EU regulations and are seen as a good way of controlling Britain's carbon emissions, of which 25 per cent come from private homes.

“At last the government is coming to its senses on HIPs," said Nicholas Leeming, the director of Propertyfinder.com. "Hopefully this delay will enable the government to begin to sort this shambles out, and allow the market to avoid further disruption so soon after the latest interest rate rise.”

The Conservatives, meanwhile, accused the Government of arrogantly ignoring the mounting difficulties for the HIPs. Michael Gove, the Shadow Housing Minister, asked Ms Kelly why today's delay was announced so close to the June 1 deadline, asking: "Isn’t it tragic that confidence in the industry, the stability of the housing market and the battle against climate change have all been damaged by this Government’s arrogance and incompetence?"

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