In the last ten years of labour government we have witnessed an ever increasing bureaucracy and regulation of many areas of our working and public lives. The building industry has not been exempted.

It is no longer sufficient for work to be up to building regulation standards. Now the individual has to prove that he is up to standard as a worker. From 2010 all tradesmen on Major Contractors Group (MCG) sites will have to carry a card containing a computer chip detailing their qualifications. Access onto the site will be denied to anyone unable to prove their worth. The contractor is liable to a heavy fine if found employing an unqualified tradesperson.

Already in recent years we have seen the arrival of Part P regulations for electrical work and an extension of Part L for plumbing work. This is in addition to the longer standing CORGI and FENSA registration schemes.

Increased regulation is attractive in many ways. At the very least it shows a minimum level of experience on behalf of the tradesperson. Perhaps most important of all, he or she will also have had to go on, and pass, a comprehensive health and safety course. The technology of the card readers and microchips makes head counting and resource allocation easier. But there are obvious pitfalls to this scheme.

Much like the great identity card debate, opponents will highlight the potential for fraud. The cards are supposed to be able to ensure higher wages for skilled operatives. The influx of migratory workers from abroad has meant that labour prices in the construction industry have remained steady for the last five years while the business as a whole has boomed. One could suggest that a card which gives a person the ability to get work, and consequently higher wages, will become a big target for fraud. Those foreign workers with poor language skills, or UK workers unwilling to study, may find obtaining a fraudulent card easier than a training course.

Certainly the card scheme will not improve the quality of the work. A card tells us that a worker has proven skills and health and safety education. It does not say that he is conscientious, a perfectionist, or even bothered about the standard of his work.

For a modest homeowner looking to have an extension built the new working practices are unlikely to have an impact, at least not for some time. Small scale building companies will not be subject to these new checks. The homeowner will still be stuck with the problem of finding a good builder, and the worries about punctuality, tidiness and intrusiveness. This is a problem that organisations like the Federation of Master Builders are now trying to fill. One only has to view a recently finished house on a large scale development to see that the quality of the work is the last concern. The priorities are different. The work must comply with the Building Regulations as a minimum standard, it must be safe, and most of all it must be done quickly. This will always mean aesthetically new houses are a disappointment, and no amount of regulation will change that.

Now we have a huge bureaucracy to train our builders, issue certificates, enforce the system and administer it. And all this before any work has been done. It is no coincidence that many of our large projects (the new Wembley, the Scottish parliament and surely the Olympics) run over budget. Consider all the expense involved in just getting a builder onto the site. The bureaucracy is in full swing at many levels, and costs are passed on to the end user, long before a single brick has been laid. The construction industry is getting more sophisticated and more regulated. This is increasingly expensive. But to the ordinary homeowner, a more expensive builder is not always a better builder.