Commons Sitting of 13 February 1996

Preamble
The House met at half-past Two o'clock
PRAYERS
[MADAM SPEAKER in the Chair]
PRAYERS
  MESSAGE FROM THE QUEEN

    INHERITANCE TAX
    THE VICE-CHAMBERLAIN OF THE HOUSEHOLD reported Her Majesty's Answer to the Address, as follows:
    I have received your Address praying that the Double Taxation Relief (Taxes on Estates of Deceased Persons and Inheritances of Gifts) (Netherlands) Order 1995 be made in the form of the draft laid before your House.
    I will comply with your request.

Oral Answers to Questions
  HEALTH

    Life Expectancy
    Dr. Spink: To ask the Secretary of State for Health what was the average life expectancy in 1979; and what it is currently. [13304]
    The Secretary of State for Health (Mr. Stephen Dorrell): Life expectancy in 1979 was 70.4 years for men and 76.5 years for women in England and Wales. By 1993, those figures had risen to 74 years and 79.3 years respectively.
    Dr. Spink: Does my right hon. Friend agree that the blessing of a longer life results from two factors: first, Government policy, which has meant that an additional 1.5 million patients have been treated each year, 800 major building projects in hospitals have been brought on board, a greater range of treatments have become available and quality in hospitals has improved; and secondly, the skill and the dedication of nurses, doctors, carers and managers who operate hospitals?
    Mr. Dorrell: My hon. Friend is precisely right. We have seen a dramatic improvement in life expectancy and the quality of life enjoyed by many citizens as a result of the success of the national health service. He is quite right to draw attention to that measure of its success, which is in the end the measure that matters to the patient.
    Mr. Galbraith: Is the Minister not aware that life expectancy has improved in every decade this century? Since it improved less in the past decade than in some previous decades, what is so special about the figures?
    Mr. Dorrell: I would have hoped that the hon. Gentleman, who has not only worked in the health service but espouses its cause, would have wanted to join an all-party celebration of the success of the NHS.

    GP Fundholders
    Mr. John Greenway: To ask the Secretary of State for Health what proportion of NHS patients are covered by general practitioner fundholders in the Northern and Yorkshire region. [13305]
    The Minister for Health (Mr. Gerald Malone): Forty per cent. of the population in the Northern and Yorkshire region are registered with general practitioner fundholders. We expect that to rise to more than 50 per cent. in April.
    Mr. Greenway: Does my hon. Friend agree that fundholding has driven the way through and enabled greater emphasis on a primary care-led NHS, from which all patients benefit? Is he aware, for example, that one first-wave fundholding practice in my constituency has its own consultant clinic for neurology, which treats patients from other practices, whether fundholding or not? Does that not show just how good the NHS is becoming under the Government, and that the best way to secure it is to vote Conservative at the next election?
    Mr. Malone: I disagree with my hon. Friend only in one respect. Voting Conservative is not the best way to secure fundholding GPs under the next Government: it is now the only way, because the Labour party is pledged to abolish fundholding.
    My hon. Friend is quite right to cite one example of an improvement in primary care through GP fundholding. I congratulate him on espousing the service. Indeed, I understand that, as recently as 10 days ago, he took the cause to the British Medical Association in Scarborough, where he won by 16 votes to 12 a debate on the question "Is the health service safe in this Government's hands?" despite being opposed by the hon. Member for York (Mr. Bayley).
    Madam Speaker: Order. I must tell the Minister that his comments did not relate to the question. I may shortly have something to say about hon. Members and Ministers who stray far away from the questions on the Order Paper.
    Mr. McLeish: Does the Minister acknowledge that, in the Northern and Yorkshire region, a two-tier health system is operating? Will he confirm that the Central Sheffield Universities Hospitals trust provides conclusive evidence that there are two tiers? Cardiology patients of fundholders wait nine weeks, while those of non-fundholders wait 26 weeks. For hip replacements, patients of fundholders wait 12 weeks while those of non-fundholders wait 26 weeks. Can the Minister justify that, or is he saying that fair waiting lists and a one-nation health service have been abandoned for a two-tier health service—a fundamental part of the unacceptable face of Tory health policy?
    Mr. Malone: No, I will not attempt to justify those figures, because they are wrong. Had the hon. Gentleman bothered to read his newspapers this week, he would have seen the purchasing authority's precise reply, which stated exactly what happens between fundholders and non-fundholders and in relation to waiting lists. I shall return to that topic in today's debate. The truth is

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    that non-fundholders' patients are doing marginally better than those of fundholders, so the hon. Gentleman had better be careful when he peddles muddled facts.
    Mrs. Ann Winterton: Will my hon. Friend give the House an undertaking that he will not give funds to fundholders in the Northern and Yorkshire region, or anywhere else for that matter, towards the costs of surrogate motherhood on the NHS? Does he agree with me that, sad though the circumstances are surrounding the woman in question, the estimated cost of £15,000 would be better spent on other priorities?
    Mr. Malone: I understand the point made by my hon. Friend. That matter raises difficult ethical issues. I can tell her that we shall carefully examine the issues which have been raised in the British Medical Association document and look at those which have been raised more widely.

    Private Health Market
    Mr. Tony Banks: To ask the Secretary of State for Health what estimate he has made of the growth in the private health market since 1979. [13306]
    The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health (Mr. John Horam): The value of the private acute health-care market has increased from an estimated £132 million in 1979 to more than £2 billion in 1994 according to Laing's "Review of Private Healthcare".
    Mr. Banks: I cannot recall which party the Minister was in when Margaret Thatcher stood at the Dispatch Box and said that she wanted to make the NHS so good that no one would want to take up private medicine. However, that really has not come about—he has just told us of the enormous growth in the private medicine market. Since Tory reforms, about £1.5 billion has gone out of the NHS to pay for private treatment. Does the Minister accept that that is obscene when people who are waiting for operations can hear radio advertisements which tell them that, if they go private, they can get an operation, and, moreover, that they can borrow the money to pay for it under a finance arrangement? That is obscene, and the Minister should feel ashamed. He has not only let the people of this country down: he has betrayed the words of the blessed Margaret Thatcher.
    Mr. Horam: I thought that, these days, the Labour party believed in choice. The hon. Gentleman said in today's Evening Standard that he would like to spend his money on skin toners and vitamins. Why are not other people allowed to make their choices and have waiting times cut and their surgery earlier?
    Mrs. Roe: Is my hon. Friend aware of the recent Institute of Fiscal Studies report which found that long waiting times for NHS treatments boost the take-up of private health assurance? Does he agree that the dramatic decrease in 12-month waits, from 20 per cent. of patients to only 2 per cent., is a stunning achievement which strengthens the NHS?
    Mr. Horam: Those figures are absolutely right, and they reinforce the point that the hon. Member for
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    Newham, North-West (Mr. Banks), who tabled the question, should have done his homework. He will find that the private sector is, in fact, getting extremely tough competition from the NHS for precisely those reasons.

    Regional Health Authorities
    Mr. Evennett: To ask the Secretary of State for Health what estimates have been made of the savings resulting from the abolition of the regional health authorities; and if he will make a statement. [13307]
    Mr. Dorrell: By 1997–98, total annual savings from the abolition of regional health authorities are expected to be around £100 million a year. A further £50 million a year has also been saved from the creation of single health authorities at local level. These substantial savings will be retained by the NHS and spent on improved patient care.
    Mr. Evennett: I thank my right hon. Friend for his reply, and warmly endorse his determination to remove an unnecessary tier of bureaucracy in the NHS. Will he reaffirm that Conservative Members believe—that the Government strongly believe—in putting patients first, in putting money into medical provision, and not into unnecessary bureaucracy?
    Mr. Dorrell: Yes, my hon. Friend is right. We believe in an efficiently run health service, in which the administration function is subject to exactly the same efficiency scrutiny as that to which managers subject all the other activities of the NHS. It is because we are engaged in that activity that, over the next few years, an extra £300 million will be devoted to improving patient care in the NHS.
    Ms Harman: How can we rely on the figures that the Secretary of State has just given the House, given that he misled the House during the previous Health Question Time? Will he now admit that, contrary to what he said last time, no new beds have been opened in Consett, no new beds have been opened in Good Hope, no new beds have been opened in Newham general and no new beds have been opened in Chester? We believe in a Secretary of State who tells the truth about the national health service.
    Mr. Dorrell: The hon. Lady is wrong on every one of the examples that she cited. What I told the House was exactly what happened—that, faced with an increase in the emergency work load, the managers in each of those hospitals provided extra bed space to ensure that it was dealt with. I should have thought that the hon. Lady would recognise that as good management delivering a good service to NHS patients.
    Sir Terence Higgins: Is my right hon. Friend aware that, as a result of changes in the regional structure, it was expected that some £11 million extra would be available for patient care in West Sussex? This is a matter of great importance to my constituency, because Worthing is the most underfunded district in the country-13 per cent. below capitation compared with 9 per cent. elsewhere. It now appears that a high percentage of that money will not

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    go to reduce underfunding in the most underfunded district, but will go elsewhere. If the matter cannot be resolved, will my right hon. Friend receive a deputation?
    Mr. Dorrell: Of course, I am always ready to receive a deputation led by my right hon. Friend, who has been a relentless and assiduous exponent of the interests of Worthing. I am sure that he will recognise that, as a result of last year's public expenditure survey settlement, West Sussex district health authority's allocation reflected a growth rate that is very much faster than the national average, reflecting the fact that Sussex is a below-target area. Worthing will benefit from that reallocation of resources in favour of Sussex, reflecting the operation of the weighted capitation formula, but I look forward to receiving my right hon. Friend's delegation.

    Royal Liverpool Hospital
    Mr. Loyden: To ask the Secretary of State for Health how many patients were transferred from the Royal Liverpool hospital to Broadgreen in the last six months. [13308]
    The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health (Mr. John Bowis): Between 1 April and 31 December last year, the most recent period for which figures are available, the total was 483.
    Mr. Loyden: Is the Minister aware that since the closure of Broadgreen's accident and emergency centre—against the wishes of community health councils and, indeed, of the local communities which fought a long battle to retain that particular facility—all patients now have to go to the Royal Liverpool hospital for assessment before they are moved on? That includes stroke patients and those with heart problems. They have to ride in an ambulance from one side of the city of Liverpool to the other which, as anyone with any common sense will agree, puts them at risk. That is especially true of the type of patients to whom I referred. Is it not a fact that the Minister and the Government do not know what is going on in the national health service? They have abrogated responsibility for accountability. When will they tell us why the chief executive would not answer a very simple question—[Interruption.]
    Madam Speaker: Order. The hon. Gentleman must resume his seat. This is not an Adjournment debate, but Question Time.
    Mr. Bowis: If I am allowed to say something, perhaps I could calm the hon. Gentleman down. We do know what is going on. The hon. Gentleman talked about the 483 people who were transferred between the two hospitals which are, after all, in the same trust. Only two were A and E transfers; 238 were being transferred to the recently opened rehabilitation unit at Broadgreen. I thought that the hon. Gentleman might have welcomed that, as well as the fact that, as a result of recent investment, the Royal Liverpool hospital's A and E capacity has increased from 80,000 to 120,000 patients a year.

    Cardiac Arrest
    Mr. Sheerman: To ask the Secretary of State for Health what steps he is taking to increase the speed at which those who suffer a cardiac arrest receive treatment. [13309]
    Mr. Malone: The Department will continue to work with the national health service to find ways of speeding the delivery of treatment to patients.
    Mr. Sheerman: What kind of national health service is it when a man collapses with a heart attack in the centre of one of our major cities, is refused by 12 or 14 hospitals, and has to be helicoptered to a far-off town to receive treatment? That is not an isolated incident, because, as the Minister knows, there is a lack of slack—that is what the British Medical Association calls it. There are not enough intensive care beds to deal with that kind of emergency, and there are not enough nurses to support the intensive care units. Last week's decision to give nurses a measly 2 per cent. will not help recruit many more.
    Mr. Malone: I beg to differ from the hon. Gentleman. That incident was isolated, but important. Isolated incidents are vital for those involved, and I understand that the hon. Gentleman will meet my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State on 23 February to discuss that matter. Intensive care has grown rapidly in recent years, and the number of intensive care beds has risen by 100 since 1989. The number of nurses working in intensive care has increased by more than 1,000 since 1990. Other bodies of work are being undertaken by the Department of Health that will show us how we can better use the intensive care facilities that we have.
    Mr. Nigel Evans: Will my hon. Friend send congratulations to the Lancashire Ambulance Service NHS trust, which I visited last year? It has invested a vast sum of money in a sophisticated tracking system so that it can deploy ambulances around that large county to ensure that they get to those patients who need ambulances most urgently.
    Mr. Malone: Yes, I am happy to do that. My hon. Friend raises an important point about the need to provide care as quickly as possible to people who suffer from cardiac problems. Some of the essential components include improving response times—that is happening, as my hon. Friend points out—and putting paramedics in ambulance teams. The whole question of the provision of emergency care outwith the context of an acute hospital is being considered by the chief medical officer, who will report to Ministers in due course.
    Ms Eagle: If there are no beds to receive patients, it does not matter how good the ambulance service is, because there is nowhere for the patients to go. Is not the difficulty that, since the NHS has been run as a business, new, lean-production techniques have abolished all the spare beds, so there is no capacity if sudden accidents or emergencies arise? Is not that the basic problem that is now emerging in our health service?
    Mr. Malone: It is rather bizarre that the hon. Lady makes that point in the context of the number of intensive care beds rising steadily in recent years. She makes a false

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    point. Much of the work that has to be done is to make better use of the facilities that are available. For example, following the Wells report, procedures have been set up to share intensive care beds in London. Sensible use of existing facilities can improve performance in an expanding service.

    Private Finance Initiative
    Mr. Lidington: To ask the Secretary of State for Health if he will make a statement about the impact of the private finance initiative on the hospital building programme. [13310]
    Mr. Dorrell: The NHS has so far seen schemes worth more than £200 million approved under the private finance initiative. The momentum is increasing, and is providing modern tools to NHS professional staff to allow them to deliver an ever-improving quality of health care to patients.
    Mr. Lidington: Is my right hon. Friend aware of the warm welcome that has been given in the South Buckinghamshire NHS trust, which I visited last week, to the £35 million rebuilding programme for High Wycombe and Amersham hospitals, announced under the private finance initiative late in 1995? Does my right hon. Friend agree that that welcome project will provide improved services for patients and better working conditions for NHS staff? Does he also agree that the project provides a telling contrast to the policy of savage cuts in hospital building that was imposed by the Labour party when it was in office?
    Mr. Dorrell: My hon. Friend is precisely right on each count, and I shall add one more. The project to which my hon. Friend refers has commanded widespread support among the clinical fraternity working in the same hospital because they understand that the PFI route that has been chosen by the trust offers the best prospect for them to improve the quality of care provided to their patients.
    Mr. McLeish: The only one.
    Mr. Dorrell: The hon. Gentleman says "the only one"—the Government have increased state-funded capital expenditure in the NHS by 80 per cent. in real terms over the figure that they inherited. We have further improved the prospect of capital investment by abolishing the controls that were the necessary concomitant of the old-fashioned means of capital planning.
    Mr. Ieuan Wyn Jones: Does the Secretary of State recognise that that sort of initiative is often not appropriate in many scattered and rural communities? Will the Secretary of State make it clear that public finance should be available where trusts start to adopt that policy and find that the necessary money is not available?
    Mr. Dorrell: Public finance remains available to support the capital investment programme of the NHS. But we are looking for partnerships with the private sector to allow us to modernise the capital stock for NHS patients wherever they need their health care. I do not agree with the hon. Gentleman that there is any reason to
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    sign rural patients out of that deal. The PFI offers the best prospect for improving the capital stock of the national health service wherever its patients need health care.
    Mr. Clifton-Brown: Does my right hon. Friend agree that the PFI is an excellent way to lever capital from the private sector into the health service? Could he rationalise the recent actions by the hon. Member for Peckham (Ms Harman) with her statement on the "Today" programme that the PFI provides a ramp for privatisation in the health service?
    Mr. Dorrell: My hon. Friend is on to an important point. The Labour Front-Bench team seems to be in difficulties. The Leader of the Opposition said in the House that the PFI was "right in principle". The hon. Lady says on the "Today" programme that the PFI is a new trick to privatise the health service. Presumably they cannot both be right.
    Mr. Barron: Are not clinicians in this country suspicious of the PFI and what is behind it? A few months ago, the Secretary of State said that clinical services would not be run by private companies. But clinical services are currently being privatised by the use of market testing. When will the Secretary of State stand up in the House and give a definition of clinical services? He knows, as I do, that many clinicians are suspicious that the measure is no more that a vehicle to privatise the national health service.
    Mr. Dorrell: The hon. Gentleman is completely wrong. In my answer to the original question I referred to the fact that where a set of clinicians was presented with a specific proposal for the modernisation of its hospital, it did not simply accept it, it warmly embraced it because it saw an opportunity to improve the service available to its patients. As to the hon. Gentleman's question about what a clinical service is, and, indeed, what a clinical support service is—which the hon. Gentleman did not mention, although he might have done—they are both well-known terms of art within the health service. The scope of those terms is well defined.
    Mr. Garnier: My right hon. Friend will know from the county that we both represent that there have been tremendous improvements, both in terms of new building and rebuilding, at the major acute hospitals in Leicestershire: the Glenfield general, the Leicester general and the Royal infirmary. Will he confirm that he will do all in his power to influence the health trusts in that county to make use of the PFI further to improve the capital building project system in our county?
    Mr. Dorrell: I can certainly assure my hon. and learned Friend that exactly the same opportunity is open to all the Leicestershire health trusts, as to every other trust throughout the national health service, to use access to both private capital and private management of health service facilities to give NHS clinicians the tools to improve the quality of care available to NHS patients. The PFI offers the national health service an escape from the bind in which it has been caught since the day it was established—short-term capital planning being dictated by short-term, Treasury-inspired horizons. We are now free of that as a result of the PFI, and I should like to have seen Labour Members celebrating that freedom.

    Care of the Elderly
    Mr. O'Hara: To ask the Secretary of State for Health what recent assessment he has made of the provision of care to elderly people living in the community. [13311]
    Mrs. Fyfe: To ask the Secretary of State for Health what guidelines he has issued about the provision of care to elderly people living in the community. [13316]
    Mr. Bowis: Various guidelines have been issued to local and health authorities in relation to the care of elderly people.
    There is clear evidence that community care is a success both from our own monitoring and from independent reports.
    Mr. O'Hara: Can the Minister confirm that 40,000 old people have had to sell their homes to finance their care in old age, and does he agree that, therefore, a whole generation has been betrayed, especially those who fought in the second world war, who were promised a better Britain and care from the cradle to the grave? They now find that they must pay twice for their care in old age; they have already paid once through their taxes, and now they must pay once again through private provision.
    Mr. Bowis: The people who fought through the war then lived through a Labour Government, and it was the Labour—[Interruption.] The hon. Gentleman may think that that is funny now, but many people remember that with horror.
    Let me remind the hon. Gentleman that it was that Labour Government in 1948 that introduced the charging system for residential care that applies to this day. The Labour party has made no proposals about that. As a Government, we have made proposals on occupational pensions and on the capital disregard and, as announced in the Budget, we are consulting on partnership schemes to alleviate the problem that some people have in that respect. If Labour Members would make constructive proposals instead of sniping from the sidelines and trying to frighten people, they would do a lot better.
    Mrs. Fyfe: Would that we had the welfare state that was introduced by Labour in 1945.
    Does the Minister agree that, if Beveridge were alive today, he would be horrified to think of what is happening to old people? If the Minister disagrees with that, does he agree with me that a royal commission should be appointed to inquire into the condition of old people and care in the community?
    Mr. Bowis: May I welcome the hon. and Scottish Lady to English Health questions? I suggest to her that, if Beveridge, Bevan and others were alive today, they would be astonished at the rates of investment by the taxpayer in the care of elderly people, and they would notice that, in the past six years, investment in personal social services has increased from £3.6 billion to £7.4 billion—I suspect, more than either of those two gentlemen would ever have dreamed of.
    Mr. Sims: To ensure that the resources devoted to community care are used in the most cost-effective
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    manner, should not local authorities be required to publish the true cost of care in residential homes run by local authorities, so that a comparison may be made with similar residential care provided in the private sector?
    Mr. Bowis: My hon. Friend makes an interesting and valid suggestion. When those who are interested in value-for-money reviews of social service provision—not least the Audit Commission and district auditors—seek to discover whether that value is being provided by a local authority, they need to be able to compare like with like. It is easy to see the price of residential care in the private or voluntary sectors; it is very difficult to see the price in the state sector. That is something that we shall certainly inquire into and which may emerge from our review of inspection regulation as a whole.
    Sir Jim Spicer: On the subject, not of residential care but, care in the community, does my hon. Friend agree that the social services budget has doubled in the past six years? Can there be any excuse for county councils such as Liberal-controlled Dorset increasing their charges for home care help and all other aspects of care in the community and spending the resulting funds on unrelated services? Is it not time to reconsider responsibility for social services? Is there not a strong case for social services to move over to community trusts, which are non-political and not manipulated by Liberals?
    Mr. Bowis: My hon. Friend makes a long-term suggestion of a solution. It is true that, in the county of Dorset, during the last six years resources have increased from £43 million to £93.8 million. Those resources are fair by anyone's standards.
    As to the county's charging policy for domiciliary and day services, the hon. Gentleman will be aware that that is entirely at the discretion of the elected local authority. If anyone is unhappy with that authority's charging policy, he or she knows where to look—the elected leaders of the council are accountable and responsible for it.
    Mr. Milburn: By passing the buck to individual health authorities and allowing them to decide eligibility criteria for long-term care, have not the Government created a lottery in health provision for elderly people? Do not the care that elderly people receive and the price that they pay for it now depend on where they live? When will the Minister take responsibility for defining the boundaries between provided and paid-for care, so that once again we have a one-nation national health service where access to care is a matter of right and not a matter of chance?
    Mr. Bowis: The hon. Gentleman is right to point out the distinction between social care and health care, which was introduced by the Labour Government in 1948. We want a fair system and we shall be as open as possible about the definitions on either side of the dividing line. That is why we have introduced our guidance in that regard, which has been widely welcomed, and why authorities up and down the country have been consulting on the future eligibility criteria for those services.

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    The truth is that the hon. Gentleman and his party want a standard society: they do not like flexibility or choice and, above all, they do not like the independent sector. As new Labour marches on, it reminds us ever more of "Nineteen Eighty-Four".
    Mr. Nicholas Winterton: I pay tribute to my hon. Friend's commitment to the care of the elderly in the community. However, does he accept that today many elderly people must pay for services which, until relatively recently, they received free under the national health service? Will my hon. Friend join me in campaigning for some form of assistance for those people—whether it is through fiscal means or other ways—which will help them to meet the cost that they must now pay for care that is essential for their health and well-being?
    Mr. Bowis: My hon. Friend is right: one of the great successes of our health service is that many people who would have spent their last days in geriatric wards are now able to have operations, receive treatment and take new medication which allows them to return home or to a homely setting. That is a triumph for the health service. Taxpayers—and the Government on their behalf—must now plan ahead to ensure that the cost is reasonable and affordable and that they make the necessary preparations to meet it. I believe that we have taken those steps through our various announcements, both before and in the Budget.
    The other side of the coin is that we must keep pressure on the authorities to ensure that they provide services at a reasonable cost. That means using the independent sector as well as the part 3 sector—which is something that the Opposition are remarkably reluctant to do.

    Accident and Emergency Waiting Times
    Mr. Corbyn: To ask the Secretary of State for Health what is his estimate of the average waiting time of accident and emergency visits at hospitals in London; and if he will make a statement. [13312]
    Mr. Malone: Information is collected to monitor patients charter standards, which cover initial assessment and accident and emergency departments. Patients requiring emergency treatment are always treated immediately. National health service trusts and health authorities are working together to ensure that all patients attending accident and emergency departments are seen as quickly as possible.
    Mr. Corbyn: Is the Minister aware that there is increasing concern all over London about the length of time that people spend in accident and emergency departments awaiting treatment? In view of last Friday's tragedy in east London, should not the Government reappraise the proposal to close Edgware accident and emergency department and consider reopening St. Bartholomew's accident and emergency department, so that Londoners may be secure in the knowledge that at least they will receive treatment at a nearby casualty unit, rather than being shuttled miles away in ambulances through a very congested city?
    Mr. Malone: The accident and emergency and all other services performed magnificently in light of last Friday's tragedy, and I add my thanks to those that have been expressed already in the House.
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    The hon. Gentleman tries to generalise from a particular incident. I shall give him the overall figures for accident and emergency attendances at Whittington hospital, in which he has a constituency interest. From April to June, 75 per cent. of patients were seen within two hours and 96 per cent. within four hours. From July to September, 81 per cent. were seen within two hours and 99 per cent. within four hours. From October to December, which is a tough period, 60 per cent. were seen within two hours and 96 per cent. within four hours. The hon. Gentleman and his colleagues try to characterise the service as insufficient; if they look at the overall record, they will find that they are precisely wrong.
    Mr. Dykes: Does my hon. Friend accept that we need no lectures from the Labour party on how to run a modern health service, as when the Labour party was last in power it closed or reduced 60 hospital units a year? Does he agree, however, that there are legitimate anxieties about future provision at Edgware general hospital, and that there is every reason to keep its accident and emergency facilities intact?
    Mr. Malone: I understand that there are legitimate anxieties, but they have been discussed with my right hon. Friend and properly taken into account.

    NHS Nurses
    Mr. Barry Jones: To ask the Secretary of State for Health if he will take measures to improve the morale of nurses in the national health service. [13314]
    Mr. Dorrell: High-quality health care requires high-quality clinical staff. That is why NHS trusts have greater freedom than ever before to reflect and reward the valuable contribution of highly motivated and skilled nurses.
    Mr. Jones: Is not the Government's commercial approach to the health service making the professional lives of nurses quite intolerable? Is it not time that the Secretary of State took action to help our nurses, who are now under great strain because of Government policies?
    Mr. Dorrell: The hon. Gentleman says that it is time that the Government took action. The Government have taken quite a lot of action over the past 16 years to improve the lot of nurses in the national health service. If the average nurse were now paid what he or she was paid in 1979, he or she would be paid £186 a week. A nurse now receives £311 a week. On average, nurses in the national health service today are £125 a week better off at today's values than they were when the Labour party left power. That is a single proposition for every nurse in the national health service to think about this evening.
    Mr. David Evans: Does my right hon. Friend agree that nurses' pay was reduced by 23 per cent. in 1976? When that lot were last in power, not one hospital was opened in 1979, thanks to the National Union of Public Employees and the Confederation of Health Service Employees, and if a loved one died in 1979 we could not even get him or her buried? When that lot were last in power, the national health service was a total fiasco.
    Mr. Dorrell: My hon. Friend, as ever, is accurate and rapierlike in his comments. Once again, he has underlined

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    the central fact that, when nurses compare the records of the two parties, they will remember that the Labour Government cut nurses' pay and that the Conservative Government have increased the average earnings of a nurse in the national health service by £125 a week in real terms. Those are 125 reasons for supporting the Government in the development of the national health service.
    Mr. Simon Hughes: The figures that the Secretary of State gave the House may be correct, but if two thirds of hospital trusts report difficulty in recruiting nurses, 75 per cent. of nurses regard staffing levels as too low to give adequate care to patients and 20 per cent. of nurses regard staffing levels as dangerously low, how will a below-inflation award of 2 per cent. assist either the recruitment of the additional nurses we need or the retention and morale of the nurses still in the NHS?
    Mr. Dorrell: I have always thought that, like the Labour party, the hon. Gentleman and his party supported the principles of review bodies. The review body looked at exactly the case that the hon. Gentleman has set before the House—the proposition that there is a shortage of nurses in the NHS. It found there was not a generalised shortage, but isolated local shortages. The review body recommended in unambiguous terms that the right way to deal with the shortages was by locally negotiated pay in a national context. That recommendation has been accepted by the Government in full, and we are acting on it.
    Mr. Thomason: Will my right hon. Friend confirm that the worst thing for nurses' morale would be the election of a party that had no policy on NHS revenue funding, capital funding or primary health care?
    Mr. Dorrell: My hon. Friend is exactly right. It becomes more and more obvious, week after week, that where there should be a national health service policy among Labour's Front Benchers, there is a vacuum.

    Residential Beds
    Mrs. Anne Campbell: To ask the Secretary of State for Health if he will make a statement about the provision of long-term residential beds for the elderly in the Cambridge and Huntingdon health authorities. [13315]
    Mr. Bowis: Cambridge and Huntingdon health authorities, in common with all others, have been consulting on and reviewing local provision for people with continuing health care needs.
    Mrs. Campbell: Why will beds be lost at Brookfield and Chesterton hospitals in Cambridge, when there is already an estimated 1,350 shortage of nursing home and long-term residential beds? What will people in the Cambridge and Huntingdon health commission areas do if no alternative provision is made before those beds are lost?
    Mr. Bowis: People will be pleased to know that the local health commission has decided to invest a further
    800
    £1 million in the area, and that the region is considering further support from the strategic charge levy fund—which will enable exactly that sort of planning.

  PRIME MINISTER

    Engagements
    Mr. Turner: To ask the Prime Minister if he will list his official engagements for Tuesday 13 February. [13333]
    The Prime Minister (Mr. John Major): This morning, I had meetings with ministerial colleagues and others. In addition to my duties in the House, I shall be having further meetings later today.
    Mr. Turner: Will the Prime Minister accept from me that the national health service is holding together at this moment only because of the dedication and good will of its professional staff? In Wolverhampton, beds and wards have been closed, staff have been made redundant, and accident and emergency services have been closed dozens and dozens of times in recent months. May I assure the Prime Minister that the good people of Wolverhampton do not regard the health service as safe in his hands?
    The Prime Minister: I am surprised that the hon. Gentleman chooses this day of all days to make that old charge. As was announced yesterday, the number of patients facing waiting times in excess of one year has fallen yet again. There are now only 20,000 people waiting more than 12 months. Five years ago, the figure was 187,000. People are getting treated quicker, better and more comprehensively at all levels in the health service than ever before. It is about time that Opposition Members—I do not mean only the hon. Gentleman—realised the tremendous advances made in the health service by doctors, nurses and administrators in the treatment of people from one end of this country to the other.
    Sir Giles Shaw: Is my right hon. Friend aware, from The Mail on Sunday, that the hon. Member for Dundee, East (Mr. McAllion) was persuaded to vote against the new clause IV relationship on the ground that it was only a change of words?
    Hon. Members: Oh.
    Madam Speaker: Order. The hon. Gentleman must ask the Prime Minister a question on a matter for which he has responsibility.
    Sir Giles Shaw: Does my right hon. Friend agree that the change in words with which the hon. Member for Dundee, East disagreed was typical—[Hon. MEMBERS: "Order."] Does my right hon. Friend agree that a change in words often disguises a change in meaning?
    The Prime Minister: I do not regard the hon. Member for Dundee, East as the only voice of the Labour party, but I am sure that my hon. Friend is correct: we are increasingly learning that we get a different Labour policy depending on which Labour Member writes it.
    Mr. Blair: Will the Prime Minister agree to the request that has been made by Members of Parliament on both

    801
    sides of the House—and now, very strongly, by Sir Richard Scott—that the Scott report be published at 2.30 pm rather than 3.30 pm on Thursday? Members of Parliament will then have an opportunity to study the report before commenting on it.
    The Prime Minister: The right hon. Gentleman knows that that is not the way in which the Government, or our predecessors, have conducted business in the House. The proposed arrangements are in line with the usual practice of publishing a report and making it available to hon. Members at the same time. The Government have arranged for there to be a debate, in Government time, 10 days after the publication of the report. Hon. Members will therefore have time to absorb and to understand the report and will be able to speak to it with knowledge rather than with ignorance—which is what Labour Members have done for the past three years. There will be a full and open debate on the report.
    Mr. Blair: The Prime Minister has relied on precedent. I suggest that a report containing 1,800 pages and of this complexity is almost without precedent. Ministers having a report for eight days before anyone else is also without precedent. The campaign to discredit the judge who conducted the inquiry—before the report has been published—is also without precedent. Will the Prime Minister reconsider the request? The refusal to allow Members of Parliament this facility, on the day that the report is published, effectively disables them and prevents them from holding the Executive to account and discharging their duty both to Parliament and to the country.
    The Prime Minister: The right hon. Gentleman is quite mistaken, and he knows that. The Government will answer questions about the Scott report on the day that it is published, and we will debate it when all hon. Members have had time to study it. The right hon. Gentleman referred to a campaign to discredit the report before it is published. That campaign has come from the the hon. Member for Livingston (Mr. Cook) and the right hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull, East (Mr. Prescott), the deputy leader of the Labour party. Without a single scruple, time and time again, the Labour party has made it clear what it believes will be the outcome of a report that has only just been concluded. If anyone has prejudged the report, it is not the Government but the right hon. Gentleman and his colleagues—and the right hon. Gentleman knows that to be the case.
    Mr. Blair: Does not what the Prime Minister has just said—in a ridiculous attempt to blame Opposition Members—underline why we should have the Scott report early, so that people can comment on it? In the interests of proper parliamentary democracy, will not the Prime Minister reconsider hon. Members' request, especially as it is backed by the inquiry judge?
    The Prime Minister: As for the Government having had the report, the right hon. Gentleman knows that the House will expect my right hon. Friend the President of the Board of Trade to be at the Dispatch Box to answer questions, quite properly, put by the House when the report is published. That is why the Government have the report in advance. The right hon. Gentleman knows that
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    that has been the position under both Conservative and Labour Governments for as far back as he may care to remember. He is trying to twist public opinion before the report is published, just as his hon. Friends have done for the past three years. The report will soon be published, and Labour Members will have to consider the issue on the basis of fact.
    Dr. Hampson: Is my right hon. Friend aware that the privatised utilities are such a good investment that, while slagging off British Gas and Yorkshire Water, a group of Labour councils in West Yorkshire—notably Leeds, led by the hon. Member for Hemsworth (Mr. Trickett)—were investing 170 million of their pensioners' money in those companies? Is that not a classic case of saying one thing and doing another?
    The Prime Minister: I congratulate the unions on making a successful investment. I live in hope that the day will yet come when the Opposition recognise that, if they talk about the virtues of the market, they ought to support private ownership, not attack it on every conceivable occasion as they have been doing.
    Mr. Ashdown: Leaving aside for a moment the interests of the House, will the Prime Minister at least consider the interests of his civil servants? How can it be right that Ministers, who can defend themselves in public, have eight days in which to read this 1,800-page report and prepare their defences, while civil servants who are criticised may not get even six hours?
    The Prime Minister: Let me explain what has been agreed, so that I can remove the misunderstanding from the right hon. Gentleman's mind. At present, the report has been made available only to Ministers or civil servants who need to see it in order to help to prepare the Government's response to questions in the House—[Interruption.]
    Madam Speaker: Order. The House must come to order and listen to the answers.
    The Prime Minister: That is the fact of the matter. Other Ministers and former Ministers and civil servants have not had access to the report. That is how the matter has been dealt with; it is an entirely proper way to deal with the report—we have dealt with it entirely properly.
    Mr. Bill Walker: Will my right hon. Friend confirm that he has no plans to introduce a parliament in Edinburgh? It would leave Westminster Scottish Members with very little to do, because most of their business would be devolved; so they would become part-time, and should probably be paid part-time. They would also avoid paying the tartan tax, because they would be based in London.
    The Prime Minister: My hon. Friend makes a sound point. The advocates of a Scottish Parliament among the Labour party who live in London would not themselves have to pay the extra tax that would be levied on everyone else living in Scotland. I can certainly confirm that we have no plans for such an assembly, or for such a tartan tax, or to allow Scottish Members to vote on matters in Scotland on which English Members cannot vote, and then to permit Scottish Members to come to the House

    803
    and vote on similar matters for England, Wales and Northern Ireland. I can also confirm to my hon. Friend that, were anyone to introduce such plans, that would be the most blatant gerrymandering of the constitution that we have ever seen.

    Royal Docks
    Mr. Spearing: To ask the Prime Minister when he next plans to visit the royal docks. [13334]
    The Prime Minister: I have at present no plans to do so.
    Mr. Spearing: When the Prime Minister does visit the royal docks, will he also visit the adjacent Silvertown fire station, whose crews joined their colleagues in Millwall on the Isle of Dogs at the tragic incident on Friday? Does he know that crews at both stations, not to mention the inhabitants of docklands, face the prospect of having the two appliances at each station reduced to one? Does he recall that his name appeared at the top of a successful motion at 10 o'clock last night, calling on local authorities to exercise their freedoms responsibly? If he were charged with denying them those freedoms, because of the policies of the Government towards the public services, what would he say?
    The Prime Minister: Of course the hon. Gentleman is right to say that we require councils to exercise their freedoms and opportunities responsibly, but there must also be fallback powers for when that does not happen:
    "we believe there must be fall-back powers to enable central government, in extreme circumstances, to protect council tax and business rate payers".
    Mr. Spearing indicated dissent
    The Prime Minister: I was quoting a Labour policy document, so I am sorry to see that the hon. Gentleman disagrees with it.
    When looking at the royal docks area, the hon. Gentleman might also like to look at the dramatic improvements there: the 5,000 new homes and the
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    2 million sq ft of commercial property. The whole area has been revolutionised by policies that we have followed but many of his colleagues have opposed.

    Economic Indicators (Lichfield)
    Mr. Fabricant: To ask the Prime Minister what recent analysis he has made of economic indicators and their effect on Lichfield; and if he will make a statement. [13335]
    The Prime Minister: Lichfield has benefited fully from the Government's policies, which have given this country the lowest mortgage rates for 30 years, the lowest basic rate of tax for 50 years and the longest period of low inflation for 50 years. Unemployment in my hon. Friend's constituency has now fallen by some 40 per cent. from its peak.
    Mr. Fabricant: Is my right hon. Friend aware that Lichfield is not only a beautiful cathedral town but a centre for light industry? Is he further aware that people in Lichfield will be heartened by the report in The Times today which showed that the average net take-home pay of production workers in France, Italy and Germany is now less than that in the United Kingdom? Is that not because we have consistently refused to enter into an agreement on the social chapter? Does my right hon. Friend agree that, under a Labour Government, workers would suffer, because the Labour party's idea of negotiating in Europe is rather like the Trustee Savings bank—it is the party that likes to say yes?
    The Prime Minister: They certainly were very startling figures to set out what net take-home pay will purchase, which was the basis on which they were done. That stands in stark contrast to the claims of a sweatshop economy about which we so often hear from the Labour party. It is no coincidence that those figures were achieved. Business is attracted by flexible working practice and low cost—precisely the benefits that would be wrecked by the social chapter as it is and by the social chapter as it would be if any Government were to sign up to it in this country. This Government will not.

BILL PRESENTED
  COMMONWEALTH OF BRITAIN
  Mr. Tony Benn presented a Bill to establish a democratic, federal and secular Commonwealth of England, Scotland and Wales dedicated to the welfare of all its citizens; to establish fundamental human rights within that Commonwealth; to lower the voting age to 16 years and to make other provision with respect to elections, including equal representation for women; to prescribe a constitutional oath; to establish a Commonwealth Parliament consisting of the House of Commons and the House of the People and to make provision for the term of a Parliament and for legislative and other procedure; to establish the office of President, and a Council of State, and to prescribe the powers of each; to provide for the formation of governments; to amend the law relating to official information, the armed forces and the security services; to make fresh provision for the participation of Britain in the United Nations Organisation and the European Communities and European Union; to make the basing of foreign forces in Britain dependent upon the approval of the House of Commons; to make new provision with respect to the judicial system and to establish a National Legal Service; to set up national Parliaments for England, Scotland and Wales; to amend the law relating to local government, the district auditor and the accountability of police forces; to end the constitutional status of the Crown and to make certain consequential provision; to abolish the House of Lords and the Privy Council, to end the recognition in law of personal titles, and to provide for the acknowledgement of service to the community; to disestablish the Church of England, abolish the offence of blasphemy, and to provide for equality under the law for all religions and beliefs; to end British jurisdiction in Northern Ireland; to provide for a Constitution and for constitutional amendment; and to make transitional and related provision: And the same was read the First time; and ordered to be read a Second time upon Friday 12 July and to be printed. [Bill 57.]

  DELEGATED LEGISLATION
  Madam Speaker: With permission, I shall put together the motions relating to delegated legislation.
  Motion made, and Question put forthwith, pursuant to Standing Order No. 101(4) (Standing Committees on Delegated Legislation),

  AGRICULTURE
  That the Hill Livestock (Compensatory Allowances) (Amendment) Regulations 1996 1996, No. 27) be referred to a Standing Committee on Delegated Legislation.

  PRISONS
  That the Prisons and Young Offenders Institutions (Scotland) Amendment Rules 1996 (S.I., 1996, No. 32) be referred to a Standing Committee on Delegated Legislation.[Mr. McLoughlin.]
  Question agreed to.

  Point of Order
  3.32 pm
  Mr. Peter Luff: I seek your guidance, Madam Speaker, not on the point about which you so kindly wrote to me this morning, but on the rights of Back-Benchers, which you are always so keen to protect. My question relates to the use of Adjournment debates by hon. Members on the Front Bench.
  I notice from the Order Paper of Thursday 8 February, page 1488, that the hon. Member for Nottingham, North (Mr. Allen) sought to raise with the House the question of the roads programme—a matter for which he has responsibility as shadow spokesman. I see that, subsequently, the debate has been changed and now the hon. Member for Coventry, South-East (Mr. Cunningham) will raise the question of the 1994 Coventry air crash. Did you encourage an Opposition Front-Bencher perhaps to be more respectful of the rights of Back-Benchers, or was it the Labour Whips, who were worried about the ways in which the debate might expose the bankruptcy of their party's policies?
  Madam Speaker: I would not know what action anyone else took, but I encouraged nobody. Hon. Members have asked before to withdraw Adjournment motions. Indeed, that occurred the other day, with the hon. Members for Dartford (Mr. Dunn) and for Blackpool, South (Mr. Hawkins). Many hon. Members have withdrawn their Adjournment debates, so it is a perfectly usual thing to happen.
  Mr. Bob Dunn: Further to that point of order, Madam Speaker. May I point out that I was a beneficiary of someone removing their Adjournment debate? I benefited from it.
  Madam Speaker: I am delighted to hear that.
  I believe that the hon. Member for Blackpool, South (Mr. Hawkins) withdrew two Adjournment debates in a matter of three weeks. Hon. Members often find that they have other things to do.

  National Parks (Scotland)
  3.33 pm
  Mr. Sam Galbraith: I beg to move,
  That leave be given to bring in a Bill to confer upon the Secretary of State powers to establish national parks in Scotland.
  National parks were given to the world by a Scotsman, John Muir, yet today Scotland is one of the few nations that still has no national parks.
  In 1945, two committees were set up to look into national parks in the United Kingdom. They produced the Balfour report for England and Wales and the Ramsay report for Scotland. The recommendations of the report for England and Wales were implemented, but those for Scotland were not. The reasons for that difference are not difficult to discern. The mountains, the wilderness and the beautiful areas in Scotland are much more extensive, and there was little pressure on them at that time. The distances from the population were large and visitors to Scottish areas were relatively few.
  In 1952, the Scottish Health Department, which was responsible for such matters, introduced plans for national parks. Again, they fell by the wayside. In 1970, the Select Committee on Scottish Affairs asked that plans be brought forward for national parks, but nothing happened. In 1988, a Scottish Office Minister, the hon. Member for Edinburgh, West (Lord James Douglas-Hamilton), asked the Countryside Commission to introduce plans to manage Scotland's mountain areas. That resulted in the Countryside Commission's 1990 report, entitled "Scottish Mountain Areas". It proposed national parks for the Cairngorms, Loch Lomond, Ben Nevis, Glencoe, the Black Mount and Wester Ross. I think that the proposal should have included Skye, where pressures are increasing, particularly in Sligachan and Glen Brittle. I am undecided, however, about the case for Wester Ross.
  Ben Nevis, Glencoe and the Black Mount is an important area requiring protection. Inappropriate development and bad planning are leading to significant blight and degradation. A national park is essential there.
  There should be no doubt in anyone's mind, however, about the absolute and overriding necessity for national parks at Loch Lomond and in the Cairngorms. The problems of the two areas are different—at Loch Lomond they are of people management and, in the Cairngorms, of land management. It is clear in both areas, however, that the problems cannot be solved other than with an overriding authority that has planning powers—in other words, a national park.
  The Cairngorms are of exceptional nature conservation and scientific importance within Britain and the European Union for a range of bird species associated with mountain plateaux, open moorland and Caledonian pine forest. Breeding birds of prey are particularly important and include hen harrier, golden eagle, osprey, merlin and peregrine. Breeding on the mountain plateau are ptarmigan, dotterel and snow bunting. Specialist pinewood birds include capercaillie, crested tit and Scottish crossbill. The Cairngorm lochs have been designated as a non-bird Ramsar site, and it is a candidate for special protection area and special area of conservation status.
  The position has moved on since the Ramsay report of 1945. As I have said, in those days visitors to the mountain and wilderness areas were few. Even in
  808
  the 1960s, I could climb the north face of Ben Nevis, both in winter and in summer, and rarely see another person. That is no longer the position. With motor cars have come people to enjoy the outdoors in all its glory. I welcome that, but we must deal properly with the realities.
  The plans proposed by the Countryside Commission for Scotland are not those for replicating the system in England and Wales. Such replication would not be appropriate. Scottish areas need Scottish solutions. In Scotland, national parks will be based on an amalgam of local communities and conservationists, who will work together in eliminating conflicts that sometimes arise between the two.
  Parks will be organised into zones. There will be a core mountain zone, which will be protected from any development and used only for recreation. There will be a countryside management zone, where recreation will be developed close to the roadside. There will be a community zone, where visitors will be catered for.
  These useful plans were put out to consultation and gained universal support. Unfortunately, the Government are against them. They fear their landowning supporters in another place and, as a result, no progress has been made in establishing national parks in Scotland.
  The Government recognise that there is a problem, but they do not understand how serious it is. They maintain that areas of wilderness can be managed solely on the voluntary principle. The voluntary principle has failed in the past, however, and has resulted in the desecration of the countryside, such as the punching of roads through Glen Feshie.
  In response to pressure, the Government have set up a joint board for the Cairngorms, working on the voluntary principle. There is no doubt that that is an improvement. There are members on the board who never expected to be on it, and that in itself has been a victory for conservation. The difficulty, however, is that the board has no land management powers. Indeed, that is the main problem in the area. That power is left in the control of landowners, and it is difficult to deal with the problem.
  Loch Lomond is under considerable pressure, where the problem is one of people management. Despite universal support for national parks from everyone, including the landowners in that region, the Government have simply proposed another joint committee. Not even Scottish Natural Heritage wants it. Its response to the Loch Lomond and Trossachs working party report states:
  "The joint committee … would depend on the voluntary delegation of powers and functions by the local authorities involved. We are concerned that, on present indications, this may not materialise."
  The problems in Loch Lomond are becoming desperate. The road on the east side to Balmaha must often be closed due to traffic volume. Cars are driven down on to the loch side, eroding the bank. With boating restrictions being imposed in the Lake District national park and with the improvement in the M74, more and more traffic and boats are moving to Loch Lomond. Even though the road on the west side—the A82—has not yet been closed, it has functionally come to a halt on a number of occasions, with huge traffic jams extending from Luss to the Balloch roundabout.
  The water is now crowded with speedboats and jetskis zig-zagging across its surface, interfering with fishing and polluting the air. Their engine whines can be heard even high up in Ben Lomond. Surely it is now time to call a halt.

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  In both the Cairngorms and Loch Lomond, there are too many authorities and too many agencies. Co-ordination is difficult, if not impossible. It is time to sweep them all away and to replace them with a body with real planning powers. It is time to replace them with a national park.
  3.40 pm
  Sir Hector Monro: This important subject has been debated regularly since the war. I reluctantly cross swords with the hon. Member for Strathkelvin and Bearsden (Mr. Galbraith), because of his particular interest in the countryside in Scotland, which I share. As we have often said in the House, however, if something works, do not try and fix it. He has underestimated what is happening and has happened over many years in Scotland towards solving the problem that he raises in his Bill.
  The hon. Gentleman overstates the problem, bearing in mind developments in recent years. The theme that has been developed by my right hon. Friend the Member for Galloway and Upper Nithsdale (Mr. Lang) and is being developed now by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Scotland is one of partnership. That has been highlighted through the Cairngorms Partnership, the investigation into Loch Lomond, the recommendation of the committee to local authorities and the many people involved in the community.
  We must also bear it in mind that we have a sound planning system in Scotland for our scenic areas of national beauty and that we should not implant a bureaucratic system such as that which exists in many of the national parks in England. At one time, I was responsible for them so I know the difficulties there, as I have known about the issues in Scotland.
  The hon. Gentleman underestimated what has been achieved in Loch Lomond. I am glad that byelaws are in place to deal with the problems that he raised, especially those relating to speedboats. The quick action taken by the Government in introducing legislation so that byelaws could be used speedily shows what can be done with co-operation. We have something in place for this summer. The regulations and the ranger services should have an important impact on the Loch Lomond problem.
  The partnership system in the Cairngorms, the other extremely sensitive area, is working well and has an important part to play in current issues such as those
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  involving Aviemore, the funicular railway and skiing developments. The breadth of experience in the partnership—involving environmentalists, the governing bodies or those involved with economic development—should go a long way towards the right decision being made.
  We must always remember that many people must live and make an economic living in all these sensitive areas, which are not just to be admired. It is therefore important that we let this develop before we consider any further way forward, which is not essential at present.
  In relation to all the developments, we need to consider what is going on in terms of the access concordat, which stems from good work by Scottish Natural Heritage. That organisation resulted from the Government putting together the Countryside Commission for Scotland and the Nature Conservancy Council for Scotland and has been a great success. I am glad that the Government have been able to fund it far above the funding for the two organisations before they were amalgamated.
  Moreover, there have been immense developments in agriculture, and help for environmentally sensitive areas in the form of substantial grants and management agreements. There have been improvements in policy relating to forest development, including the community forest and the central Scottish woodland.
  All that shows that the Government are working hard to improve Scotland's environment. We should not throw it away by introducing legislation establishing a whole new system when that has been shown to be unnecessary.
  Question put, pursuant to Standing Order No. 19 (Motions for leave to bring in Bills and nomination of Select Committees at commencement of public business), and agreed to.
  Bill ordered to be brought in by Mr. Sam Galbraith, Mr. Norman Hogg, Mr. John Maxton, Mr. John McFall, Mr. Brian Wilson, Dr. Lewis Moonie, Mr. Elliot Morley, Ms Joan Ruddock and Mrs. Maria Fyfe.

  NATIONAL PARKS (SCOTLAND)
  Mr. Sam Galbraith accordingly presented a Bill to confer upon the Secretary of State powers to establish national parks in Scotland: And the same was read the First time; and ordered to be read a Second time upon Friday 1 March and to be printed. [Bill 59.]
  Opposition Day
  [6TH ALLOTTED DAY]

  National Health Service Staff
  Madam Speaker: I have selected the amendment standing in the name of the Prime Minister.
  3.46 pm
  Ms Harriet Harman: I beg to move,
  That this House notes with concern the growing demoralisation of those who work in the National Health Service; recognises that those who work in the NHS are dismayed that they cannot provide the quality of care that they and their patients want and that they feel that, without consultation, changes in the NHS detrimental to patient care are forced upon them; notes that NHS staff are concerned that they are spending more time on paperwork and less time with patients; notes that the number of managers is growing while the number of beds and nurses is cut; deplores the unfairness that saw the pay of chief executives rise by more than twice that of nurses; notes that there are now staff shortages both in hospitals and in the community and there is an increasing reliance on unpaid overtime, locums and agency staff; and calls on the Government to recognise demoralisation in the NHS, affirm that the NHS staff are its most precious resource, affirm that there should be fair pay and proper attention to staff security, end the growing use of short-term contracts, ensure that all NHS staff should be able to speak out about their professional concerns, and that at all levels of the NHS the views of staff should be heard and acted upon.
  I make the usual declaration: all declarable interests appear in the Register of Members' Interests, as required.
  Today's debate is about one of the most important problems facing the national health service today. It is about the demoralisation of doctors, nurses and the rest of the health-care team, the large number of vacancies caused by NHS staff voting with their feet and leaving the service and the damage to patient care. It provides a chance for the Secretary of State to admit that there is a crisis in NHS morale, and to set out the action that he plans to take to tackle it.
  The NHS team—from porters to professors of medicine, from catering assistants to consultant cardiologists—are the most important resource of the NHS, our most precious public service. Yet this Tory Government have systematically trampled on them, and on the service in which they serve. Doctors and nurses see their work as a vocation, not just a job.
  When NHS staff look at the Secretary of State, they do not see a man who recognises or reflects their concerns. He is going in the opposite direction from NHS staff. They want beds to stay open; the Secretary of State closes them. They want more nurses at the patient's bedside; the Secretary of State wants more managers. They want to spend more time caring for patients; the Secretary of State makes them spend more time on paperwork. They want a public sector NHS; the Secretary of State wants commercialisation and privatisation. Doctors and nurses work longer and longer hours to cover vacant posts, as advertisements for staff remain unanswered month after month.
  Mr. Jacques Arnold: I am fascinated. The hon. Lady is telling us, with great authority, what various people in the national health service think. Only a short while ago, she was busy telling us that doctors did
  812
  not want fundholding practices to be introduced. Can she explain why more than half the GPs in the country are now fundholders, and making a success of it?
  Ms Harman: I think that the hon. Gentleman is in the wrong debate. I explained at great length why GPs joining fundholding represented not a vote of confidence in fundholding but an attempt to get the best for their patients in an unfair system. He should listen.
  The last straw for NHS staff is the Secretary of State's refusal to recognise the damage that he is doing, as he is in this debate. "Crisis? What crisis?", he says. "Morale? It is fine," he tells us. "Recruitment? No problem." The debate will illustrate two different approaches to NHS staff. On one hand, we see staff as the most vital asset of the NHS and a resource on which to draw. On the other hand, the Government see NHS staff as a nuisance and a cost to be reduced as far as possible.
  Demoralisation affects doctors and nurses throughout the NHS. In hospital and in the community, the evidence is overwhelming. The shortage of doctors in accident and emergency departments has worsened the casualty crisis. I spoke to an A and E consultant in the south-east. Unfortunately, he asked not to be named. Increasingly, that is a problem among NHS staff, who are concerned but not able even to speak out.
  The consultant works in a busy casualty department that treats 60,000 patients a year—from a toddler with a squashed finger to an old lady who has had a heart attack. There are supposed to be two A and E consultants in that hospital; there is only one. The other post has been vacant for 12 months; they have found it impossible to recruit. As a result, the consultant has to work longer and longer hours. He says that he is spread too thinly to be supervising and training junior doctors and that he spends less and less time caring for patients. He works at least 60 hours every week and is able to spend only nine hours seeing patients. Yet caring for patients took him into the NHS.
  I asked the consultant what would happen if he left his post. There was a long pause before he said that there would be a major crisis, the department would probably no longer be recognised for training purposes, they would lose their junior doctors, it would probably be run on locums for a bit and then it would shut. That is what people on the front line feel. It is the same story around the country.
  The Secretary of State for Health (Mr. Stephen Dorrell): The hon. Lady has cited the experience of a particular health service doctor who does not wish to be named. He has no reason to fear being named.
  Mr. D. N. Campbell-Savours: Consultant.
  Mr. Dorrell: Consultant. If on the basis of total confidentiality the hon. Lady wants to send me details of the experience and the hospital to which she has referred, I will have the case examined and reply to her in detail about the background. I will protect the confidentiality of the doctor. The doctor need have no concern. Instead of shadows and innuendo and erecting a theory to which it is impossible to respond, the hon. Lady should allow us to examine the specifics of the case and respond to them.
  Ms Harman: I shall discuss with the doctor to whom I spoke—I have a verbatim account of a discussion that

  813
  I had with him at the end of last week—how his confidentiality can be protected. The Secretary of State says that the doctor has nothing to fear, but people do have something to fear and they are afraid to speak up.
  Mr. Dorrell: Send me the facts.
  Ms Harman: It is no good saying, "Rubbish"; it is a fact that people are afraid. I will make sure that the Secretary of State is satisfied that I am citing a real circumstance. We will get back to the doctor and sort the situation out. They may say, "Rubbish," but staff tell the same story around the country.
  Mrs. Alice Mahon: The case that my hon. Friend mentions is not unique. We have all heard of similar experiences. I sent details of the case of one woman, whose doctor told her to write to me, to the Secretary of State for Health. She was trundled across the M62 from an intensive care bed where she had been told that she had only a 50:50 chance of survival, brought back a few days later and dared not speak out. I received the most unsatisfactory answer from the Secretary of State. He thought that that was good practice.
  Ms Harman: My hon. Friend raises a very important case. It is a tragedy when those caring for patients are unable to speak out about what they face because they fear not support, sympathy and action from the Government, but retribution and gagging.
  The morale of NHS staff has never been lower. Those who can leave do so. It has become ever more difficult to recruit staff to vacancies; posts are covered by locums and unpaid overtime. Staff are under stress, and their morale falls further—it is a vicious circle. It is becoming increasingly difficult to recruit GPs. According to Dr. Ian Banks of the BMA:
  "The problem of GP recruitment has now reached crisis proportions and is bound to affect the quality of care to patients."
  Nearly one quarter of newly qualified young doctors are considering not entering the profession for which they have trained. Those who have become GPs want to quit. Almost half of Britain's GPs are leaving general practice, and those who stay in general practice want to quit early. Six out of 10 GPs plan to take early retirement because, for them, there is more time spent on paperwork and less time spent with patients. They are unable to keep up with medical developments, and they are angry at the damage to patient care that has been caused by the Tory NHS reforms.
  Mr. Michael Fabricant (Mid-Staffordshire): Is the hon. Lady aware that, by April, every GP in Lichfield will be a fundholder? Is she aware that several GPs have told me that, were a Labour Government elected who would abolish GP fundholding, they would wish to quit the NHS?
  Ms Harman: The hon. Gentleman fails to address the issue. There is a serious problem of recruiting GPs, and not enough GPs are going into training to enter general practice. Is the hon. Gentleman trying to tell the House that there is not a problem? The situation is not acceptable.
  814
  The same story applies to nurses. Nurses' morale is at an all-time low. More than one in three nurses have said that they would leave nursing if they could, and one in five say that they will leave nursing in the next two years. They are overworked, but they feel insecure. It is hardly surprising that 78 per cent. of the nurses who were surveyed by Unison felt that morale in their wards had worsened during the past year. It is tragic that 46 per cent. of nurses no longer enjoy going to work, and that 28 per cent. of them regret their decision to go into nursing.
  Those nurses dread the occasion when the next person leaves—the next vacancy that cannot be filled except by unpaid overtime by those who remain. I shall give the Secretary of State an example of somebody who, fortunately, is prepared to be named. A district nurse in south London, Jane Tierney, told me about working in her community last weekend. On Friday, with the increasing pace of discharge from hospital, a patient had been discharged with a feeding tube inserted. They had been in such a hurry to discharge the patient that they had not performed the normal test feed.
  When the patient arrived home, Jane was there to nurse him. She discovered that she could not feed him because a bit of the feeding apparatus was missing. She spent her whole weekend ringing round and trying to get the piece of equipment that was unsatisfactory, because of the patient's early discharge. The patient was desperate: he could not be fed.
  Jane Tierney joined the NHS to care for her patients, not to spend all weekend telephoning the hospital. She even telephoned the manufacturer. She said that she is spending increasingly more time battling with hospitals about discharge—they, too, are under pressure—and battling with social services about who will do what. Social services are under pressure; hospitals are under pressure; and the nurses get squeezed in the middle.
  There is a vacancy on Jane's team which has been empty for 18 months, which is not surprising. She is therefore working increasing amounts of unpaid overtime. Her team is dreading the time when the next person leaves and there is yet another vacancy.
  It is clear to everyone that the Tories value managers more than front-line staff. Last year, chief executives' pay increased at twice the rate of nurses' pay increases. Chief executives' pay rose by 7.6 per cent., while nurses' pay rose by 3.2 per cent. Since 1989, there have been 20,000 more managers recruited, while the number of nurses has been cut by 50,000.
  Mr. Michael Brown: Is the hon. Lady including in her attack on NHS managers those who used to be called ward sisters? Technically, they are probably managers according to her description, yet they are on the front line of health and patient care. The hon. Lady should be careful when using such statistics, because the regrading of staff means that ward sisters may be included as managers although they are in the front line of patient care.
  Ms Harman: The new managers have been recruited to run the internal market. I am not talking about those who manage NHS staff and who have always been there. The Secretary of State says that he will cut bureaucracy, but it is ironic that he is cutting not the sales or finance

  815
  directors—even more of them are being appointed—but the very nurse managers to whom the hon. Member for Brigg and Cleethorpes (Mr. Brown) referred.
  Since 1989, 20,000 more managers have been recruited whereas the number of nurses has fallen by 50,000. That is the Government's record. When the Government can afford to spend an extra £1.5 billion on bureaucracy to run the internal market every year, it is hard to understand why nurses should have to accept a below inflation 2 per cent. pay increase without having lower morale and without more of them voting with their feet and leaving the NHS. It will only make matters worse if the pay award has to be funded by further bed cuts.
  It is not that the Secretary of State has not been told about staff shortages; it is simply that he has refused to listen and is still refusing to do so. The Medical Workforce Standing Advisory Committee reported last year that 25 per cent.—one quarter—of consultant posts were unfilled and that 12 per cent. of advertised consultant posts received no applications at all.
  Most trusts are struggling to appoint doctors. According to a survey by the National Association of Health Authorities and Trusts, the worst problems are in psychiatry and anaesthetics. A third of trusts are now offering recruitment incentives. Hartlepool hospital was so desperate to get an anaesthetist that it paid for his jeep and Rottweiler to be flown over from the United States.
  As doctors leave the NHS through early retirement, the shortages get worse. Consultants and specialists are being driven out of the NHS by the intolerable pressure put on them by the Tory market in health.
  Several hon. Members rose—
  Ms Harman: I give way to my hon. Friend the Member for Rotherham (Mr. MacShane).
  Mr. Jacques Arnold: Chicken.
  Mr. Denis MacShane: Is my hon. Friend aware that the district general hospital in Rotherham has had to spend £250,000 to recruit accident and emergency doctors from South Africa where they are desperately needed? Half their salaries go to a private agency—such is the poor morale and unwillingness among our junior doctors to work in A and E departments.
  Ms Harman: As my hon. Friend says, the staff shortage is leading the NHS to spend huge sums of money. When people leave, their replacements have to be advertised for and then trained. Expensive locums and agency staff have to be used, so the failure to retain staff in the NHS is paid for not only in terms of patient care but in terms of hard-pressed NHS cash.
  Let me cite the example of a consultant who was prepared to allow me to use his name in the debate. I am grateful to him. Dr. Peter Fisher is a consultant at Banbury who has been in the NHS for more than 30 years. He says that he is the only person he knows of his age who is not seeking early retirement. He says that the bed cuts have
  816
  profoundly affected the quality of care that doctors are now able to provide. All over the hospital, patients are shunted around—
  Mr. Bob Dunn: Will the hon. Lady give way?
  Ms Harman: I shall give way to the hon. Gentleman although I think that I heard him call me a chicken, which is rather an odd description of me. I do not quite know how to describe him.
  Mr. Dunn: I did not call the hon. Lady a chicken; perhaps she should have her ears syringed. Does she remember the debate on health during the week in which she was having a little local difficulty with her party? A member of her staff contacted Dartford and Gravesham health authority to ask how many beds it had cut in the previous six to 12 months. Will she please tell the House the answer that she was given, because it might reveal that the facts that she is using today are highly selective?
  Ms Harman: I have quoted from surveys by nationally accredited organisations, including the Royal College of Nursing, the National Association of Health Authorities and Trusts and the British Medical Association. I have quoted from every national, independent source possible, so I do not think that the hon. Member's intervention is to the point.
  I was in the middle of talking about Dr. Peter Fisher—
  Mr. Jacques Arnold: Will the hon. Lady give way?
  Ms Harman: I am certainly not going to give way to the hon. Gentleman who, I understand, called me a chicken.
  Mr. Arnold: On a point of order, Madam Speaker. The hon. Lady referred to my district and I would like to give her the answer.
  Madam Speaker: During the course of speeches, hon. Members refer to many districts. The hon. Lady has said that she will not give way at this stage.
  Ms Harman: I referred to Banbury, if the hon. Gentleman will listen. He is referring to a previous speech and he is two weeks late with his intervention. I know that Tory Back Benchers have difficulty getting their act together, but that is ridiculous.
  Mr. Dunn: On a point of order, Madam Speaker. I would be grateful if you would ask the hon. Lady to withdraw that disgusting remark. She would not give way in the last debate or in the one before, when I raised the issue.
  Madam Speaker: I think that the hon. Gentleman may have misunderstood. If I understood correctly, the hon. Lady referred to the hon. Member for Gravesham (Mr

  817
  Arnold), who tried to intervene. Is that right? [Interruption.] The hon. Lady referred to the hon. Gentleman who was trying to intervene. Is that correct?
  Ms Harman: Yes.
  Madam Speaker: So it was not the hon. Member for Gravesham.
  Mr. Jacques Arnold: On a point of order, Madam Speaker. [Interruption.]
  Madam Speaker: Order. What is the point of order?
  Mr. Arnold: On a point of order, Madam Speaker. The hon. Lady referred to me when she said that the point was a point of debate two weeks ago. However, the point I wished to make was precisely the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Dartford (Mr. Dunn).
  Madam Speaker: That is not a point of order. It is a point of debate and, if the hon. Lady allows the hon. Gentleman to intervene, he can make the point.
  Ms Harman: I do not think that I can help the hon. Members for Gravesham (Mr. Arnold) and for Dartford (Mr. Dunn). They need to discuss with each other what is going on. Neither of them is from Banbury, and the point that I am trying to make is about Banbury hospital.
  Dr. Peter Fisher says that morale is at rock bottom. I shall explain the situation, because the Secretary of State does not talk to doctors who are working in the NHS so he does not know the circumstances. When beds are closed and more and more patients come in, surgical patients are put in medical wards and medical patients are put in surgical wards. The surgical team of nurses, who are experts at dealing with surgical patients, end up missing problems with medical patients, and vice versa. The nurses hate that situation and the doctors hate it. It breaks up the team and it undermines the quality of patient care. Danger signs are not noticed, and the patients suffer.
  Doctors and nurses also hate the misrepresentation that is constantly perpetrated by the Secretary of State. He has done it again. The Minister of State tried to challenge the Sheffield memorandum in questions today. I remind the House that the Sheffield memorandum shows that there is a two-tier waiting list for out-patient prospective waiting times in the Royal Hallamshire hospital, the Nether Edge hospital and the Jessop hospital for women.
  Mr. Dorrell: That is an important point. The hon. Lady said that my hon. Friend the Minister of State misled the House. My hon. Friend drew the attention of the House and of the hon. Lady to a letter written by Mr. Kevan Taylor, the head of contracting for Sheffield health authority. He is a person who presumably knows what is going on in Sheffield, and he says:
  "There are no marked differences in access times for fundholder and non-fundholder patients."
  Those are not the words of my hon. Friend or the words of anyone divorced from the situation. They are the words of the person who is responsible for the quality of care
  818
  delivered to the patients whom the hon. Lady has mentioned. The letter says "no marked differences". That is not what the hon. Lady told the House last week.
  Ms Harman: I told the House last week—I stand by what I said and repeat it to the House today—that the average out-patient prospective waiting times show a two-tier list. The Secretary of State has quoted from a letter in The Independent that is not from the hospitals that are making the appointments and carrying out the operations, but from the purchasing organisation. If he looks at the letter from Kevan Taylor, he will see that it does not contradict the Sheffield bulletin.
  Mr. Dorrell: The service being delivered today to patients does not reflect the difference that the hon. Lady talks about. I shall quote from another passage in the letter, which states:
  "The facts about the current situation are shown in the fully validated waiting time data for December 1995"
  that was five weeks ago, which is fairly recent by most statistical standards. The letter continues:
  "This data shows that at the end of December 85 per cent. of fundholder patients and 83 per cent. of non-fundholder patients had been waiting less than 13 weeks."
  Those are the facts as reported by the people on the ground. They are wildly at variance with what the hon. Lady said to the House of Commons last week.
  Ms Harman: The Secretary of State has once again made the position worse. Only this afternoon, my assistant spoke to the deputy chief executive of the hospitals running the waiting lists. He confirmed that the differentials between the waiting lists that we quoted are absolutely right. It does the Secretary of State no credit when he seeks to conceal the situation instead of finding out about it and sorting it out.
  Mr. MacShane: As Member of Parliament for a constituency in the catchment area, I can assure the Secretary of State that that list is in every doctor's surgery and in most hospital doctors' hands, and is causing outrage and scandal. The Secretary of State would not dare to come to Rotherham or South Yorkshire with the mendacious nonsense that there is not a two-tier waiting list system for fundholding and non-fundholding GPs.
  Ms Harman: Last week, the Secretary of State acknowledged that there was a two-tier waiting list in Sheffield, and tried to defend it. This week, he has changed his position and is trying to deny it. There are two-tier waiting lists—he is not quoting the facts. We are right on this point and he is wrong. He does himself no credit by continuing to deny that.
  Mr. Dorrell: When the hon. Lady can produce an example of one patient from a fundholding practice and another patient from a non-fundholding practice whose waiting times show the differential to which the hon. Lady referred, I shall withdraw my remarks in the House. Until the hon. Lady can produce a specific case where that difference has been established, I shall rest on the

  819
  evidence from the statutory health authority, whose job it is to deliver good-quality care to patients of the Sheffield area.
  Ms Harman: I do not need to produce a patient; I can produce the deputy chief executive who runs the hospital that provides the services. When will the Secretary of State recognise a fact?
  Mr. Campbell-Savours: Will my hon. Friend call on the Chairman of the Select Committee, who last week said that, as Chairman of that Committee, she was prepared to look at the list? Will my hon. Friend call on her to have a Select Committee inquiry so that we can establish the facts?
  Ms Harman: When we know that the facts are that there are two-tier waiting lists in the national health service and when the Secretary of State, even when confronted with documentary evidence, cannot admit it, it is indeed time for the Select Committee to look into the matter.
  Mr. Ronnie Campbell: As a member of the Parliamentary Commissioner for Administration Select Committee, I asked a few weeks ago whether the ombudsman would be prepared to look at complaints that non-fundholder patients are being put behind fundholder patients on waiting lists. Does my hon. Friend agree that her evidence and that of other hon. Members should be put before the ombudsman so that he can investigate it?
  Ms Harman: The only person who denies the evidence is the Secretary of State. Perhaps the Select Committee investigation and a reference to the ombudsman will clarify the facts that we all know, but which the Secretary of State still tries to deny.
  Mr. Barry Porter rose—
  Mrs. Marion Roe rose—
  Ms Harman: I give way to the hon. Member for Broxbourne (Mrs. Roe), the Chairman of the Health Select Committee.
  Mrs. Roe: As the hon. Lady knows, the Select Committee has already been considering the purchasing element of—
  Mr. Campbell-Savours: Look at the list.
  Mrs. Roe: I prefer not to be constantly interrupted by the hon. Gentleman, who never allows anyone to say anything.
  The Committee has considered the purchasing element of the purchaser-provider split and has already produced a report on that. One of my colleagues who serves on the Select Committee is already sitting in the Chamber and will no doubt contribute to the debate later, and we have heard the arguments of the hon. Member for Halifax (Mrs. Mahon). I am sure that members of the Select Committee will take heed of what the hon. Lady says as well as the hon. Gentleman, and in due course they may well wish to take those opinions into account and conduct
  820
  an inquiry, but it is for them to decide. In my Committee, we act democratically and the whole Committee decides, not only the Chairman.
  Ms Harman: I am sure that the House will be grateful for that intervention, and we look forward to hearing the later contribution.
  Mrs. Mahon rose—
  Ms Harman: I give way to my hon. Friend again.
  Mrs. Mahon: I thank my hon. Friend for once again giving way, and for her patience.
  I would welcome an inquiry into the two-tier system that is developing, but when I sent the Secretary of State a letter, of which my hon. Friend has a copy, showing clearly that one cannot have access to clinical psychology services in Calderdale unless one is on the list of a GP fundholder, I received an unsatisfactory answer from the Secretary of State. He has a copy of that letter.
  Ms Harman: I believe that that letter was submitted in the previous debate and, once again, the Secretary of State refuses to acknowledge it. He also refuses to acknowledge the shortage of nurses.
  Two thirds of hospital trusts find it difficult to recruit nurses. Leighton hospital in Crewe has 76 unfilled vacancies. Glasgow Royal infirmary delayed opening its winter medical ward by two months because of a problem in recruiting nurses. One thousand Australian nurses are being recruited by the British Nursing Association. "Golden hellos" of £2,000 each are being offered as incentives for nurse recruitment. King's College hospital in my constituency in south London has sent managers to Ireland, Australia, Finland, Canada and Hong Kong.
  Mr. Iain Duncan Smith rose—
  Ms Harman: It is not only that hospitals cannot fill the vacancies; they cannot even bring agency staff to the patient's bedside, and staff shortages are affecting patient care. The Queen Elizabeth hospital in Birmingham had four intensive care unit beds, two of which stood empty for six months because it was impossible to obtain specialist intensive care nurses. With the two intensive care unit beds always occupied by emergencies, patients waiting for heart surgery had to have their operations cancelled repeatedly.
  Mr. Duncan Smith rose—
  Ms Harman: Will the Secretary of State admit to the House that there is a national shortage of nurses and doctors? Will he admit that there is too much reliance on unpaid overtime, locums and agency staff?
  Mr. Duncan Smith rose—
  Ms Harman: In parts of London, one in 10 hospital doctors is not part of the team but only temporary. Consultants work 30 per cent. more hours than contracted by the NHS. More than half of all nurses work unpaid overtime to keep the service going.

  821
  What is the Government's response? Where is their action to lift staff morale and to retain staff?
  Mr. Duncan Smith rose—
  Ms Harman: Opposition Members recognise the low morale in the NHS and regard it as being of the utmost seriousness. We propose today five steps that the Government might take to start to rebuild the confidence of NHS staff.
  First, the Government should give health professionals a say in planning the NHS.
  Mr. Barry Porter rose—
  Ms Harman: Instead of trampling over their opinions, they should respect their expertise and experience and involve them in planning the future development of the NHS. Trust must be rebuilt—
  Mr. Porter: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. It would be extremely helpful if the hon. Member for Peckham (Ms Harman) would confirm whether she intends to give way to any hon. Member at any stage. If riot, I shall not continue to waste my time here.
  Mr. Deputy Speaker (Sir Geoffrey Lofthouse): That is not a point of order for the Chair. The hon. Member for Wirral, South (Mr. Porter) knows full well that right hon. and hon. Members must decide whether they wish to give way.
  Ms Harman: I am putting before the House five proposals that I believe would lift the morale of national health service staff and help to stem the tide of staff leaving the NHS which is threatening patient care. I shall not give way to any more Conservative Members today.
  Trust must be rebuilt, because no one trusts a word that the Government say about the NHS. Trust is built on dialogue and dialogue starts with listening. Labour listens to nurses and doctors, but the only doctor that the Secretary of State listens to is a Dr. Mawhinney.
  Secondly, the Secretary of State should act to end the gag on NHS staff. Health professionals should be able to talk about their work in the way that they used to. Doctors, nurses and health professionals are now afraid to speak out and express their views. Labour believes that all health service staff should speak freely about their professional concerns—that is in the public interest. We endorse consultants' freedom to speak out and we wish to see that right respected and extended to all health professionals in the NHS.
  Thirdly, safety at work for NHS employees is becoming a major issue. The Secretary of State should address NHS employees' growing concern about their personal safety at work. It is a problem for GPs, for staff working in the community, those working on their own and going into people's homes, community psychiatric nurses, staff working in accident and emergency departments, and particularly for women staff. The NHS should ensure their safety at work and it should always prosecute assailants when they are identified.
  822
  Any staff member who is injured at work should receive the support of the NHS, but, in reality, staff believe that that support is not there. A London GP, Dr. Anthony Inwald, went to the defence of a colleague who was being threatened by a patient wielding a kitchen knife, and he was stabbed by the patient and seriously wounded. The incident caught the attention of the nation, but it did not attract the attention of the Secretary of State: he was not interested.
  Fourthly, there should be fair pay and conditions in the NHS. Will the Secretary of State agree to ending the short-term contracts that are now spreading throughout the national health service? In some trusts, almost a third of nursing staff are on fixed-term contracts, and one in six nurses are on a bank or an agency contract. That is no way to create a sound basis of teamwork in patient care. Many trusts are going even further, proposing contracts which allow the hospitals to alter work locations, working hours and working patterns. Zero-hours contracts are beginning to appear in the NHS. That must stop.
  On top of that, the Government are diverting scarce NHS resources away from front-line staff who are caring for patients to managers who are running the internal market. We believe that there must be fair pay and conditions. A national service needs national pay—local pay bargaining, as it currently stands, is divisive and wasteful. It leads to hundreds of different pay negotiations across the country and it takes nurses away from the wards. This morning I met a nurse who said, "I joined the NHS to nurse, but I am spending all my time negotiating".
  Fifthly, there should be a moratorium on the bed closures that are causing the casualty crisis and an end to two-tier waiting lists, which are damaging morale in the NHS.
  The test today for the Secretary of State is whether he is prepared to acknowledge that NHS staff morale is at an all-time low. The eyes of 1 million NHS employees are upon him. Will he rise to the challenge and pledge action to tackle the NHS staffing crisis? We have proposed measures to start rebuilding staff morale; we have offered the solutions. Does he have the courage to take that action?
  4.23 pm
  The Secretary of State for Health (Mr. Stephen Dorrell): I beg to move, to leave out from "House" to the end of the Question and to add instead thereof:
  `pays tribute to the dedication and commitment of the NHS's staff; welcomes the investment in professional development for all NHS staff made by the Government since 1979, in particular the investment in high quality nurse training represented by Project 2000, the development of new nursing specialties, for example, in general practice and paediatric intensive care nursing, the increase in the number of doctors, nurses, midwives and consultants, the reduction in on-call hours for junior hospital doctors, the establishment of an independent Pay Review Body for nurses, the increase of nearly 70 per cent. in nurses' earnings, the establishment of the principle of local pay for nurses which has delivered fair and flexible settlements and the development of high quality NHS general management: commends the recent announcement by the Secretary of State for Health of an 8 per cent. real terms cut in administration budgets for health authorities and trusts next year, together with an efficiency scrutiny which will identify and eradicate unnecessary paperwork; and looks forward to the further development of the National Health Service.'
  The title of the debate is: "Morale of National Health Service Staff', and I shall have quite a lot to say about that. However, it was clear from the speech by the

  823
  hon. Member for Peckham (Ms Harman) that the substance of the debate is morale in the Labour party. The Opposition are really concerned to give their troops something that they can talk about. They have had some difficulty with that this year, and they have been casting around for an issue that they can approach.
  The Leader of the Opposition went to Singapore to talk about stakeholding, but that did not work. Then he started talking about the tartan tax and the Scottish Parliament, but that did not work either. Now he puts the hon. Lady in to talk about morale in the NHS. On the basis of her speech this afternoon, that does not seem likely to work any better than it did last week, when she tried to secure the support of her right hon. and hon. Friends in rejecting the words of her predecessor as Opposition health spokesman, the right hon. Member for Derby, South (Mrs. Beckett), in a Labour amendment.
  Mr. Campbell-Savours: Those are selective quotes.
  Mr. Dorrell: Mr. Enoch Powell once said that a quotation is, by definition, out of context. I challenge the hon. Gentleman to find a quotation that is in context.
  Mr. Dunn: Will my right hon. Friend cast his mind back to the question raised by the hon. Member for Peckham? During a recent debate, a member of her staff, presumably paid for by Unison, rang the Dartford and Gravesham health authority to ask how many beds had been cut in the past six to 12 months. [Interruption.] I wish that the hon. Lady would listen for a moment. This is a debate. The answer that was given to a Mr. Ross, who works for the hon. Lady, was that no beds had been closed in the past six or 12 months, and that 22 extra beds had been provided to take account of the winter influx of patients. The hon. Lady did not use that statistic—why not?
  Mr. Dorrell: My hon. Friend asks what I think is a rhetorical question, and the answer is that it did not suit the hon. Lady's argument. When I used that as an example of the national health service responding to the increase in the emergency work load by providing extra medical bed space to allow extra medical admissions during the peak of winter demand, the hon. Lady said that I was misleading the House. She is quite wrong about that. It beggars belief that anyone could seriously believe, as the hon. Lady apparently does, that, if a hospital has a short-term peak of emergency work load, it should respond by building a brand new ward block.
  Mr. Henry McLeish: That is silly.
  Mr. Dorrell: The hon. Gentleman is quite right to say that is silly. Perhaps he should persuade the hon. Lady of that, as she attempted to use that argument.
  The hon. Lady is in some difficulty. She is trying to rebuild morale in her own party. I am setting out to destroy that morale, and there is not much of it left. When
  824
  she tried to advance her arguments a week ago, 32 of her hon. Friends chose not to support her in the Division Lobbies, including the deputy leader of the Labour party.
  Mr. Campbell-Savours: Rubbish.
  Mr. Dorrell: The hon. Gentleman says, "Rubbish," but he was not there.
  Mr. Campbell-Savours: I was paired.
  Mr. Dorrell: The hon. Gentleman says that he was paired, but the Government majority at the end of the debate rather gives the lie to that proposition.
  Sir Peter Hordern: Did my right hon. Friend hear the hon. Lady saying that there should be no short-term appointment of nurses, but that there should be large-scale, permanent recruitment to cover every possible event and shortage in the event of a sudden disease? Surely that would require the most enormous increase in expenditure. I thought that the Labour party was being very careful not to make any public expenditure commitments. Surely the hon. Lady has blown the gaff in that direction as well.
  Mr. Dorrell: The hon. Lady blows the gaff in that direction most times when she is on her feet. My hon. Friend was absolutely right to say that the good management of a NHS hospital, now as in the past, must ensure not only good employer provision for the majority of the long-term work force in that hospital, but the capacity to respond in a short-term way to short-term needs. If the hon. Lady does not understand that, she has not reached first base on how to deliver good value out of the resources available to the NHS.
  I will deal now with the substance of the arguments that the hon. Member for Peckham put before the House. I begin by reflecting that, given the pressures to which the health service has been subject over the past couple of months with the increase in its emergency work load—there is no argument about that—I might have hoped for an acknowledgement from the lips of the hon. Member for Peckham this afternoon of the debt that every NHS patient owes to health service staff—doctors, nurses, midwives and administrators.
  They have delivered through the winter emergency care at the time that it was needed, in the overwhelming majority of cases, to an extremely high clinical standard. They have done so while at the same time maintaining progress on the elective surgical work load, maintaining the development of primary care and maintaining the development of mental health services.
  This winter, the NHS has been working under strain, and I had hoped that the hon. Member for Peckham might have seen fit to recognise the skill, dedication and commitment of NHS staff in a debate of this nature. However, the hon. Lady did not. I simply observe that she did not, and I am sure that my right hon. and hon. Friends—and, I suspect, most Opposition Members—join me in reflecting that debt in the House this afternoon.
  Mrs. Mahon: Is the Secretary of State aware that, at Halifax general hospital, men were put on the

  825
  gynaecological ward because of the shortage of beds? How does the right hon. Gentleman imagine that things will carry on after Northowram hospital is closed and another 300 beds are lost in the next couple of years?
  Mr. Dorrell: I have already acknowledged that the health service has been working under unprecedented pressure this winter, in responding to the emergency work load.
  Mr. McLeish: What about the bed cuts?
  Mr. Dorrell: The hon. Gentleman asks about bed cuts, but the hon. Member for Halifax (Mrs. Mahon) asked whether it was ideal for a man to be treated on an obstetrics and gynaecology ward. The answer is no, that is not ideal—but if I were a man in need of emergency medical care, I would prefer to be in one of those beds than in no bed at all. That response is one that the health service has always provided—[Interruption.]
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. It is no use asking the Secretary of State questions if he is not allowed to answer. I am having great difficulty hearing the right hon. Gentleman, so I am sure that the rest of the House is having the same difficulty.
  Mr. Dorrell: I hoped also that the hon. Member for Peckham might have recognised some of the progress that we have made over the past few years with a number of key issues that must be addressed if the NHS is to be a good employer.
  Mr. Fabricant: Will my right hon. Friend give way?
  Mr. Dorrell: I should like first to make some progress.
  The hon. Member for Peckham talked a lot about nurses. One key improvement over the past few years has been the dramatic rise in the quality and record of training NHS nurses.
  Mr. John Gunnell rose—
  Mr. Dorrell: I want to make more progress; then I will give way.
  I remind the House of the starting point on nurse training. The Judge report in 1985 recorded the position that prevailed then in NHS nurse training, and which had prevailed for some time. In 1983–84, 25,000 students of nursing were admitted to training. The report commented:
  "The best available evidence suggests that 15–20% will not even complete the course, and of those that survive some 30% may fail the qualifying examination at their first attempt. Of those who do eventually qualify, many are disillusioned with the preparation they have received, enjoy only a minimal engagement in clinical practice, change jobs with disconcerting regularity, find themselves caught in a machine".
  That was the assessment of the position prior to the Government's introduction of Project 2000 in 1990, which led to an improvement in nurse training. In those days, 30 to 35 per cent. of those who commenced nursing training did not continue in nursing practice. Today, the fall-out rate is 20 per cent. Since 1990, the Government
  826
  have cut the fall-out rate by almost half as a result of the improved training and employment terms available to nurses. In a debate such as this, the hon. Lady might have mentioned this fact. The national health service is investing in its most precious asset: the professional staff who deliver the health care for which the Government are responsible.
  Mr. Gunnell: Does the Secretary of State agree that the number of people who undertake nursing training has decreased dramatically? For example, between 1992 and 1995, it decreased from 21,000 to 13,000.
  Mr. Dorrell: The figure for next year's commissions is 17,000. The Government have improved nurse training, resulting in a decrease in the fall-out rate of 35 per cent. to 20 per cent. We may therefore need to take in fewer nurses at the beginning of the training. That was the purpose of the improvement, as recommended in the Judge report. The Government accepted that recommendation in the context of Project 2000, to ensure that the professional staff of the NHS receive the high-quality training needed if we are to deliver high-quality health care.
  Mr. Fabricant: Is my right hon. Friend aware that a hostile reporter from a local newspaper contacted senior nurses at the Victoria hospital in Lichfield? A senior nurse said that, because of the health care reforms, for the first time she is able fully to use the valuable training that she has received. She said that this is because money is following the patient, because of general practitioner fundholding and because of greater integration between GPs and the hospital. She is now able to be a real nurse, whereas she said that, in the 1970s, all she could do was think where to send the next day's sheets to be laundered.
  Mr. Dorrell: My hon. Friend has put his finger precisely on the point: nurses receive a better quality of training as a result of the changes that the Government have introduced in the health service. The Government have invested an extra £60 million to improve the quality of nurse training. Professional development for nurses allows a more rewarding practice and a better use of those higher-quality skills that we pay to provide through the training programme. The national health service is investing in the training of its nurses.
  Mr. Simon Hughes: I do not question the improvements in the training and qualifications of nurses. However, there are still severe shortages of staff, and senior nurses report that they regularly cannot recruit or retain staff. Recently, a senior nurse at Guy's told me that Guy's and St. Thomas's NHS trust is down by 40 intensive care nurses. What do the Government propose to meet the severe current shortfall in qualified nurses, which is not being met from agency and overseas sources?
  Mr. Dorrell: The hon. Gentleman makes a number of points. What has happened with respect to intensive care nurses employed in the national health service during the last five years? In 1989, there were 32,500 intensive care nurses, whereas this year there are 40,500—an increase of 24 per cent. The Government will continue to ensure that we have a nursing work force that is able to meet the intensive care needs of the health service.

  827
  The hon. Gentleman also referred to the shortage of nurses in the health service. In the past week, independent advice has been published on this issue. The review body examined precisely the point that the hon. Gentleman raised. Its report stated:
  "We have carefully weighed all the evidence presented to us and we are not persuaded that there is a general nationwide shortage of nursing staff at the moment."
  There are clearly local difficulties and problems with particular specialties, and we believe that local pay may be part of the solution to these problems."
  So the review body examined the hon. Gentleman's point and recognised, as the Government have by accepting the report, that there are some local shortages. Furthermore, the review body recommended a way of dealing with them which the Government have accepted. I hope that that satisfies the hon. Gentleman.
  Mr. Simon Hughes: I know what the review body recommended, but the Secretary of State must accept the consequences. If the Government have stipulated that there should be a 2 per cent. national increase, and that additional increases should be funded by local hospital trusts, depending on the circumstances, how can the right hon. Gentleman assure us that there is enough money in the kitty for the trust to be able to pay for the increases that it will need to adopt in order to recruit all the nurses it needs?
  Mr. Dorrell: The hon. Gentleman has asked another question that the review body has already examined: whether there are enough resources to provide for a decent deal for nurses. Once again, I quote the review body's report:
  "The allocation of resources to the NHS for 1996–97 means that most providers should be able to reward staff for improvements in efficiency and effectiveness while delivering increased volume and quality of care to patients. This `win-win' outcome can, however, be achieved only if purchasers and providers work constructively together."
  I agree. I want local staff groups and local managers to address the issues of each health provider locally—precisely to meet the concerns that the hon. Member for Southwark and Bermondsey has expressed.
  Pay is clearly at the heart of much of the issue that the hon. Member for Peckham raised this afternoon. The key thing about pay—nurses understand it, but the hon. Lady did not refer to it at all—is the fact that average earnings of nurses have increased by £125 a week in today's values compared with the figures that we inherited in 1979.
  Nurses should look at what the Government have done for them over the past 16 years, and in the shorter period since 1990—since when they have enjoyed a 10 per cent. real-terms increase. As for the future, nurses must also bear in mind the improved living standards with which the Government have provided them; and they should recognise that no nurse in the NHS has yet received a pay offer for next year. The Government have accepted the recommendation of the review body. Furthermore, the Government are working within the terms of the agreement that we signed with the nursing unions four months ago. Both arrangements provide for local pay in a national context.
  828
  This is not, contrary to what is sometimes suggested, a low-pay agenda. The proposition that local pay equals low pay was examined by the review body and explicitly rejected:
  "The experience of other industries, and our reading of the limited evidence so far available about Trust contracts, suggest that local terms and conditions as a whole are unlikely to be less favourable than those embodied in national agreements, and may in some respects be more favourable. Local pay can be expected to lead to new pay structures and working arrangements but we do not see it as a low pay' agenda".
  That is also the position of the Government.
  The hon. Member for Peckham said that she was hostile to local pay and local flexibility. She is going to have real difficulty squaring that with the first proposition in her five-point plan for the Government—the idea that we should listen to health professionals and allow them a say. It defeats me how we can allow them a say at local level and insist at the same time on national structures—contrary to our agreements with the nursing unions and with the review body. I will happily give way to the hon. Lady if she can enlighten me.
  Ms Harman: Does the right hon. Gentleman think it fair that chief executives should get twice the pay increase of nurses?
  Mr. Dorrell: I gave way to the hon. Lady to allow her to reconcile the two propositions—that we should listen to local staff groups, and that we should have national pay determination. How can she reconcile that with her five-point plan—or with the words of the leader of her party? Speaking about the British political system only last week, the right hon. Member for Sedgefield (Mr. Blair) said:
  "In part … the disaffection is because people feel no ownership, no stake"—;
  that wonderful word—
  "in much of the political process. The citizen feels remote from power, because he or she is remote from power. Britain is THE most centralised government of any large state in the western world."
  This afternoon, the hon. Member for Peckham has come here to argue for further centralisation: a national formula for dealing with nurses' pay that would prevent health service employers from listening to local staff groups and bring more power to the centre. In short, this would prevent local solutions being found for local problems. It is impossible for the hon. Lady to reconcile her support for centralising national bargaining with her speech today or with the words of her leader in his much-trumpeted constitutional lecture of last week.
  As for managers' pay, the answer is straightforward. As the hon. Lady well knows, I have imposed an 8 per cent. real-terms cut on the budget out of which chief executives' and administrators' pay in the health service comes. I have provided growth money, on the other hand, for the payment of doctors and nurses. As the review body found, that will provide for a proper balance of growing demand and growing service provision, as well as fair terms for nurses and all other clinical staff in the health service.
  Ms Harman: Will the right hon. Gentleman answer one simple question? Does he think it fair that chief executives last year had double the percentage pay increases the nurses had?
  Mr. Dorrell: First, they did not; secondly, I have clearly set out the arrangements under which the budgets

  829
  for these different parts of the health service will work in the next 12 months. The budget out of which administrators are paid is being cut, the budget from which nurses and doctors are paid is growing.
  Nurses are not the only people to benefit from this dramatic improvement in the investment in human resources available to the health service. Exactly the same is true of the doctors. It will be within the memory of everyone in this House that, until a very short time ago, the NHS used to rely on absurdly long hours being worked by junior medical staff. That is why the Government, at the beginning of the decade, introduced a new deal for junior doctors. It is worth reminding the House of the progress that we have made in improving the terms of junior doctors in the NHS.
  There used to be 13,000 posts in the NHS in which doctors were on call for an average of more than 83 hours a week. Now there are no such posts. There used to be 14,000 hard-pressed posts in which doctors were on call for more than 72 hours a week. Now there are virtually none—295, to be precise. By the end of this year, we are on course to have eliminated every junior doctor post with an on-call requirement of more than an average 72 hours a week. [Interruption.]
  Opposition Members may find this funny, but no junior doctor does. Neither does any junior doctor find it remotely funny to have had £65 million in extra resources provided to ensure that the work load placed on junior doctors in training is kept within reasonable bounds. Nor do they think that it is funny that we have created an extra 2,500 medical posts—consultants and juniors—to ensure that the workload is more fairly spread around the medical work force of the health service. Nor do they think that it is funny that the number of consultants has grown over the past five years—
  Mr. Ronnie Campbell: Will the Secretary of State give way?
  Mr. Dorrell: Not at the moment, because the hon. Member for Peckham seems to think that it is funny that we have cut the excessive workload of junior doctors throughout the health service. The hon. Lady says that we have not. She will not find many doctors who do not agree with the proposition that we have cut the unreasonable, excessive workload for junior doctors, and, furthermore, that we have increased the consultant work force in the NHS by 14 per cent. over the past five years.
  The Government are committed not just to good training for nurses, which I have described, but to high-quality training for doctors, to a reasonable workload for doctors and to investment in the continuing education to ensure that doctors, nurses—all the professional staff of the health service—keep their skills up to date to ensure that medical and other professional practice continues to develop within the NHS. That is the most important single investment that the NHS can make.
  More important than all the buildings and expensive kit, we must ensure that the health service has the best quality human skills that we can muster to deliver health care to our patients. The professional staff of the health
  830
  service will have noted that Opposition Front-Benchers, who bring the subject of NHS morale to the House, find it a subject for private entertainment.
  Mr. Campbell: What would the Secretary of State say to a gynaecologist who wrote to me in these terms:
  "Having observed the midwives on the ward on several occasions, I am struck by the fact on many occasions they are tired, exhausted, confused, scurrying around trying to maintain basic standards."?
  Mr. Dorrell: The hon. Gentleman quotes from a letter that I have not seen. I have made it absolutely clear that I regard the training of doctors, nurses and all the professional staff in the health service a high priority. That is why I provided extra money in last year's pay settlement to ensure that the health service invests in its people, and then, having trained them, that it is a good employer and gives them fair terms.
  Dame Jill Knight: Has my right hon. Friend been able to find out from Opposition Members, who consider that things are so bad—indeed, the hon. Member for Blyth Valley (Mr. Campbell) obviously feels that if more money were spent, all of the tiredness would go—how much more money per annum the Labour party would put in to avoid these situations?
  Mr. Dorrell: My hon. Friend raises an extremely important point. As she knows, it is a rhetorical question. The answer is no. They have made no commitment. They have not even matched the commitment that the Government give: that year by year there will be real-terms growth in the extra resources for the health service. Opposition Members are remaining very mum now. They have not been to the hon. Member for Dunfermline, East (Mr. Brown) to get that cleared, have they?
  I shall give way to the hon. Member for Peckham if she will tell the health service how much extra money a Labour Government would promise.
  Mr. Ronnie Campbell rose—
  Mr. Dorrell: With all respect to the hon. Gentleman, I doubt whether he is in a position to speak with authority on this subject.
  I shall happily give way to the hon. Lady if she is prepared to tell the House and the nation how much extra money a Labour Government would promise.
  Her silence speaks volumes. She is not even prepared—
  Mr. Campbell-Savours: Will the Secretary of State give way?
  Mr. Dorrell: The hon. Member for Workington may have ambitions, but I am afraid that I have to remove the delusion.
  Mr. Campbell-Savours rose—
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order: The Secretary of State is not giving way. The House must settle down.
  Mr. Dorrell: I have talked about training and investment in the human skills of the health service. We

  831
  have done something else for the professionals who work in the health service: we have given every professional working in the health service the opportunity and the support that is necessary to deliver an improving quality of care.
  Last week, we debated fundholding. That has given GPs throughout the country the opportunity to improve the care that is available to their patients. It has strengthened the voice of primary health care in the health service and has provided a broader range of provision to patients in the surgeries.
  Mr. Eric Martlew: Will the Secretary of State give way on that point?
  Mr. Dorrell: No, we spent a long time on fundholding last week.
  We announced yesterday the best results seen on waiting times in the health service within living memory. We announced that just under 21,000 patients had been on a waiting list for more than a year. Throughout the 1980s—this is not a political point, as the figure was inherited from the 1970s as well—the number of people who were on a waiting list for more than a year was plus or minus 200,000 for more than a decade. That figure is now down to 21,000. That figure was referred to as sleight of hand. It is no such thing. We have cut the waiting time for patients on in-patient waiting lists, so that nobody waits for more than 18 months. A few years ago, 80,000 people had been waiting for more than two years. Now, nobody waits for more than 18 months. The number of patients waiting for more than 12 months is down to 21,000. The average waiting time on an NHS waiting list has been cut from nine months to four months. That is real progress, and patients who are on waiting lists, or feel that they may be on one for elective surgery in the health service, understand that very well. It represents a dramatic improvement in the quality of the elective surgery service that is provided by the NHS.
  Mr. Kevin Hughes: I am grateful to the Secretary of State for giving way on waiting lists, because I hope that he will tell us which one he is referring to. Is it the waiting list to get on the waiting list, or is it the proper waiting list? As far as patients are concerned, when they have been to see their GP, they are on a waiting list, but the Government, through their people in the health authorities, have created two waiting lists: first, they put the patient on a waiting list for an appointment to see a consultant—a list that they could be on for 12 months before they are even seen—and secondly, when they get to him, they are put on a waiting list for 18 months. That makes two and a half years, not 18 months.
  Mr. Dorrell: The hon. Gentleman is simply wrong. Opposition Members claim to be supporters of the NHS, but when there is a clear improvement in the quality of service available to NHS patients, one might have hoped that Opposition Members would welcome it. It is simply untrue to say that patients on waiting lists do not wait a shorter time than a few years ago. In-patients are waiting a shorter time for admission, and [Interruption.]
  Mr. Dorrell: If the hon. Member for Doncaster, North will contain himself in silence for a moment, I shall tell him
  832
  the answer. He referred to outpatient waiting times for patients who are waiting, after referral by their GP, to be seen by a consultant in an outpatient appointment. The health service has never monitored that before. [HON. MEMBERS: "That is not true." I was a Health Minister between 1990–92. I regularly asked: how long do people wait between referral and their first outpatient appointment? I was told, "We do not know, because the information is not collected." It was the Conservative Government who recognised that that needed to be controlled and limited. It was the Conservative Government who introduced the patients charter standard that said that 90 per cent. of patients should be seen at their first outpatient appointment after referral within 13 weeks, and all of them within 26 weeks. The Government are delivering the progress that the hon. Gentleman asks for and does not recognise when he sees it.
  Mr. Nigel Evans: Does my right hon. Friend agree that it is not just the success in waiting lists about which we should be proud but the fact that since 1991 more than 1 million people have been treated in the NHS—that is an extra 3,500 a day—and that it is not just the money that is invested in bricks and mortar that is important but the money that is invested in patient care? It is the patients whom we want to see served.
  Mr. Dorrell: My hon. Friend is right. Waiting times are an important measure, but there are many others. My hon. Friend quoted one. Let me quote some others. We delivered the first breast screening programme in the European Union for the health service. I thought that the Opposition would have celebrated that. In Harefield hospital, just outside London, we have the world's largest centre for heart and lung transplants. Such transplants were unheard of 30 years ago. The world's first heart transplant took place in 1969. We all know that it is now routine business in hospitals throughout the health service. More transplants take place at Harefield hospital than at any other hospital on earth.
  Mr. Kevin Barron: They are carried out by NHS staff.
  Mr. Dorrell: The hon. Gentleman is excited. I have been arguing throughout that it is the professional staff of the health service who deliver health care. Like the hon. Gentleman, I count myself a supporter of the NHS. Unlike the hon. Gentleman, however, I celebrate its successes.
  Surely the NHS is something of which every citizen should be proud. Similarly, we should be proud that Harefield hospital is a great success story within the NHS. We should be proud also that the NHS is delivering improved patient care for people with strokes, asthma and diabetes, for example. Surely we should be proud that the NHS is improving the care that is available for cancer patients. We should take pride in the fact that it is now a routine operation in the health service to have joint replacement, to have keyhole surgery or to have modern lithotripsy.
  The hon. Member for Rother Valley (Mr. Barron) is right when he asserts that it is not politicians or managers who deliver these services. The answer lies in the development of modern medicine. The hon. Gentleman

  833
  might serve his cause rather better, however, if he recognised that, throughout the health service, we are seeing the developments to which I have referred.
  Patients are being given care that was undreamed of 20 years ago. Health care is improving. That is why the answer to the first oral question this afternoon was to the effect that the people of the United Kingdom are living longer. That is because we have the best NHS we have ever had. Of course it is not perfect. An organisation that employs 1 million people will, of course, occasionally make a mistake. The central fact, however, is that NHS patients living in this country receive care that is better than it has ever been, and it is improving year by year.
  The attempts by the Opposition to paint the NHS as a system—[Interruption.] The British people believe me. It seems that it is only some Opposition Members who do not. When NHS patients are questioned, 90 per cent. of them recognise that we are delivering through the NHS a good health service. Hon. Members—[Horn. MEMBERS: "They don't believe you."] Opposition Members are precisely wrong when they say that. National health service patients know very well that service is improving year by year. They do not believe the Opposition's claims that, if they were in government, they would somehow do better. They are right not to believe those claims. They know that they should not believe them.
  Mr. Campbell-Savours: Will the Secretary of State give way?
  Mr. Dorrell: No, I shall not give way again. I have nearly finished.
  Mr. Campbell-Savours rose—
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. The Secretary of State has made it clear—
  Mr. Campbell-Savours: The Minister seems to be avoiding me.
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. The Secretary of State is not giving way.
  Mr. Dorrell: The NHS is a service with ambitions. The staff want to see it develop. They want to see the Government continue to support it. It is clear—
  Mr. Campbell-Savours: What is wrong—
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. The Secretary of State made it clear—
  Mr. Campbell-Savours rose—
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. The Secretary of State has made it clear that he is not giving way. The hon. Member should remain in his place.
  Mr. Dorrell: The people who work in the health service have learnt that the Labour party shows only a dilettanti interest in the NHS. They have seen through the hon. Member for Peckham. That is why the debate will
  834
  fail in its central purpose, which is to motivate Labour Back-Bench Members. The hon. Lady has failed to do that. The only result of the debate is to lay bare once again—I welcome the chance to do it on a weekly basis, and we shall be doing it week after week, because we are looking forward to each debate—before the House and the country the emptiness or the vacuum that is at the heart of the modern Labour party.
  Mrs. Mahon: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. The Secretary of State has promised us a debate every week on the national health service. Should the right hon. Gentleman declare an interest? I understand that he does not use the NHS, and has private medical insurance.
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: That is not a point of order for the Chair.
  5.4 pm
  Mr. Bruce Grocott: The Secretary of State talked about there being a debate on the health service week after week. This is the third occasion in the past couple of weeks when the gist of the debate has been that Opposition Members say that the public are not happy with the way in which the Government are managing the health service, but the Secretary of State, at some length, and supported by his right hon. and hon. Friends, says that the public are happy with the Government's management.
  The Secretary of State is in the fortunate position of being able to resolve the problem, so that we do not have to continue to debate the subject week after week. He can suggest to the Prime Minister that, as soon as possible, we should have a general election so that the public can decide whether they are confident about the Government's running of the NHS.
  I suspect that one of the many reasons why the Government would like a debate on the NHS week after week is that, as long as such debates take place, we do not have to throw the matter open for the public to decide. The Government know what the public will decide on what for the Government will be the grim day when they face the electorate. They know that many of the Conservative Members who have spoken this afternoon and in previous debates on the NHS will not be with us much longer.
  Mr. Edward O'Hara: Did my hon. Friend note the small print that appeared last week in The Daily Telegraph opinion poll, which revealed that the Tories appear to have come within 30 percentage points of the Labour party? On reading the small print, it was apparent that as many as three out of four people were terrified of another Tory Government because of what another Tory Administration might do to the national health service.
  Mr. Grocott: I do not normally turn to The Daily Telegraph for evidence to produce in arguments, but I am sure that my hon. Friend and I are in complete agreement.
  The Government have an ideal opportunity to test public opinion—they can quickly move the writ for a by-election in the constituency of South-East Staffordshire. Perhaps the Secretary of State could persuade the Prime Minister to do that.

  835
  I shall be brief and refer only to a specific constituency issue that involves morale in the national health service. I am to meet the Secretary of State's ministerial colleague, the Under-Secretary of State for Health, Baroness Cumberlege, with the members of a delegation from my constituency and the surrounding area. I am grateful for the opportunity.
  We are to meet the Minister tomorrow afternoon, following a vote of no confidence—49 general practitioners and 26 consultants in and around my constituency were involved—in the management of the health service by the Shropshire health authority. I think that Ministers will acknowledge that that is a serious matter. I shall spend three or four minutes explaining how the situation arose and a couple of minutes suggesting how the issue might be resolved.
  The background to the vote of no confidence was the way in which the health authority has been making decisions. That decision-making process was highlighted during the consultative period last year when the health authority published a document entitled "Shaping Shropshire's Health". The background is straightforward: the growth of Telford new town, which I have the honour to represent. It can be acknowledged that the appearance of a new town will produce changes in an area's population structure.
  The population of my constituency is growing rapidly. A hospital was built to serve the new town. Unfortunately, the balance of hospital services between the county town of Shrewsbury and the new town of Telford is out of kilter, given the way in which the population has changed. It is the resolution of that problem that goes to the heart of the vote of no confidence.
  The focus of the debate is on a consultant maternity service. We in the Wrekin and surrounding areas believe strongly—this view is not confined to my constituency—that the case for our having our own consultant maternity unit is overwhelming. Last year, the health authority partly recognised that fact by publishing the "Maternity Care in Shropshire" document, which suggested three possible solutions. One was to retain the consultant maternity unit in Shrewsbury. The second was to close the Shrewsbury unit and open one at the Princess Royal hospital in Telford in my constituency.
  The third, which I strongly favour, was to recognise the changing population balance and to split the consultant maternity unit between the two hospitals, both of which cover populations large enough to justify a unit of their own. Overwhelming arguments exist for doing that and they involve medical issues, which is one of the reasons why general practitioners and consultants signed the motion.
  In brief, those arguments are that women in the east of the county, including my constituency, are more likely to be admitted for consultant hospital care than are women in the west. The east has a younger population, which means, obviously, that more babies will be born there—all the population trends show that. More than twice as many babies of low birth weight are born to Wrekin mothers as to mothers in any other part of the country. Strong medical support exists, therefore, for a two-unit consultancy service.
  There is overwhelming public opinion in favour of two units. Last year, there were petitions signed by 27,000 people who wanted the health authority to provide them with a consultant maternity unit. Significantly, we were
  836
  supported by the community health council which, as all hon. Members know, has responsibility for considering health service provision across the region.
  The community health council's comments about the need for our own consultant unit included this evidence:
  "Women booked to deliver at the Consultant unit"—
  in Shrewsbury—
  "have graphically described the problems they experience travelling there in labour, particularly if they have to rely on others for transport. They have referred to the physical discomfort, the stress and fear of being out of contact with a hospital and the acceleration or cessation of labour en route."
  The council added:
  "There was a strong desire for continuity of care and carer during pregnancy and childbirth and it was felt this was only likely to be achieved if Telford had its own unit."
  The population argument is easy to describe, and it is compelling. I should be grateful if the Minister, in his winding-up speech, would refer to it. It has been said repeatedly that 2,500 births a year are more than enough to justify a consultant maternity unit. It is projected that, in the county of Shropshire, by 2011, there will be more than 5,000 births. In fact, the projected figure is 5,358—heaven knows how anyone can be as precise as that. The number is, however, more than enough to justify two consultant units.
  On grounds of clinical matters, public opinion and population, there is an overwhelming case for our own consultant maternity unit, but—this is where the immediate problem arose—in its meeting on 16 November, the health authority basically said no to all those representations. Over the years, I have been involved in numerous campaigns. I have never known a campaign with as much public support as this one. I have been involved in many campaigns where people are opposed to something. We all know that is easier to mount a campaign in opposition to something than in support of something, but the campaign to have our own consultant maternity unit has had a level of public support like nothing I have seen.
  When the health authority said no, and that there should be no change and no recognition of the changing population in the county, it was little surprise to me that doctors decided to publish, in the Shropshire Star on 2 January, the following resolution, again with all-party support—it was signed by leaders of the Labour, Conservative and Liberal Democratic parties and by 49 GPs and 26 consultants.
  "We the undersigned are seriously concerned by recent decisions regarding the strategy for hospital services in Shropshire and no longer have confidence in the ability of the Shropshire Health Authority to plan future health care for the people of East Shropshire."
  I am sure that the Secretary of State will recognise that that is a serious state of affairs. When we meet the Under-Secretary of State tomorrow, I hope that she will respond to our modest request that, following the clinical evidence and public opinion in the region, she will ask the health authority to reconsider.
  When the hospital was built in Telford, again as a result of all-party support and a campaign over many years, to meet the growing needs of a new town, it was never planned to be a static hospital. It is on a good site and there is room for expansion. It was always assumed that, as the population grew, services would grow to meet population need.

  837
  The consultant maternity unit issue has focused public opinion in a way that hardly any other service could have done. I simply appeal to the Secretary of State to recognise that, in Shropshire, there is a morale problem, which is clearly spelt out in the resolution, and to take seriously the overwhelming representations that have been made to him.
  5.15 pm
  Mr. Peter Luff: It will not have escaped hon. Members' attention that the hon. Member for Peckham (Ms Harman) could not put any figure on the amount of money that a future Labour Government might spend on the health service. I had had hopes that the hon. Member for The Wrekin (Mr. Grocott) who, I believe, is parliamentary private secretary to the Leader of the Opposition, might have been able to shed a bit more light on that subject, but those hopes were quickly dashed.
  Perhaps I should not be too harsh on the Labour party. It makes a pleasant change for an Opposition-initiated debate about health matters not to be dominated by talk about money, as the health service is about much more than just that. It is indeed about a high level of morale. Before the hon. Member for Peckham leaves, I thank her for what she has done to boost morale among Conservative Members recently. The right decision that she took for her son was not the right decision for morale on the Labour Benches.
  Most of the motion that we are being invited to endorse is simply fatuous nonsense, but we can agree on one thing: the high importance that we all attach to nursing staff in the national health service. We all agree that it is important that the House should affirm that
  "the NHS staff are its most precious resource".
  That unites all hon. Members.
  We also agree—if I understood my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Health correctly, he agrees, too—that the views of staff in the NHS should be heard clearly. As a constituency Member of Parliament, I sometimes find that a tricky exercise. Different branches of NHS staff do not always agree about the priorities for health delivery locally. Hospitals, doctors, general practitioners, nurses and ancillary workers often disagree about the priorities that should be attached to various issues in the local health service. They all make an invaluable contribution, but that does not necessarily mean that they should be expected to speak with one voice. Naturally, they have their own priorities.
  The question that the motion begs is what makes for high morale in the NHS. Obviously pay is a factor—it would be wrong to deny that—but a host of other intangible and tangible issues affect morale. They include job satisfaction, good working conditions—by which I mean a hospital's physical environment—a sense of direction and purpose in the health service as a whole and in the trust for which staff work, and patients' manifest gratitude to staff for their help in making them fit and well again and able to go about their daily lives.
  If there is one thing that destroys morale in the health service, it is the Labour party's constant denigration of what is being achieved. If there is one thing that I find especially shabby about the way in which the Opposition
  838
  behave on this issue, it is their malicious attempt to weaken morale in the health service for narrow party advantage.
  It is important to state clearly that the health service's achievements in recent years under this Government have been built firmly on extra money and on ensuring that that money is spent well. It must be repeated time and again that spending on the NHS in England is up sharply: by 70 per cent. in real terms since 1979. Moreover, health service spending represents a larger share of national income. When we took office in 1979, the Labour party was spending just 4.7 per cent. of gross domestic product on health; now, we are spending some 6 per cent. That is a sharply increased share of an increased national income.
  It is obviously important to discuss pay, as it has a significant impact on morale. No active constituency Member of Parliament could fail to be aware of the public concern about nurses' pay; probably no group in society is more admired than nurses, and rightly so. That is precisely why their pay has risen by so much—by some 70 per cent. over and above inflation under the present Government. I am told that an experienced ward sister now earns about £22,000 per year.
  I do not take kindly to lectures from the Labour party about nurses' pay. It was Labour that cut their pay, in real terms, when it last had any responsibility for health. It was the Conservatives' respect for nurses that led us to establish the Nurses and Midwives Pay Review Body in, I believe, 1983. It is essential for that body's findings always to be respected. Sometimes they will please the nurses and alarm the Treasury; on other occasions, they may please the Treasury and upset the nurses. That is the nature of independent bodies.
  I issue not a warning but a judgment when I say that I do not think that nurses can seriously expect to retain an independent body to review their pay if they are prepared to accept the outcome only when it suits them. I hope that the Government will continue to accept the pay review body's recommendations in full, as they have in the past. We should also remember that—as my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State pointed out—no nurse has yet received a pay award. Personally, I hope that the awards will be well above the 2 per cent. minimum established by the pay review body: I want nurses' pay to continue to grow in real terms. We should also remember that many individual nurses will in any event receive considerably more than 2 per cent., plus the locally agreed settlement, because many receive annual salary increments.
  I should say, in fairness—I try to be a fair man—that there are signs of a few recruitment difficulties in certain specialties in my constituency, but I suspect that pay is not the root cause. I suspect that the problems are also caused by something of which my right hon. Friend has considerable personal experience—continuing concern about delay in the building of our new district general hospital.
  The independence of the pay review body shines through every page of its report. It is important for people outside to understand that: the Government have accepted independent advice. The report states:
  "Pay increases for nursing staff in 1995–96 have compared favourably with awards in the public sector and been broadly in line with those in the private sector, despite problems associated with the introduction of a measure of local pay determination … We further recommend that individual Trusts should engage in

  839
  negotiation with their staff representatives for local pay increases in 1996–97. We note that the Government is providing 3.9 per cent. additional resources to the HCHS"—
  the hospital and community health services—
  "in England in 1996–97. We have no reason to think that Scotland and Wales will be worse off. We believe that these resources should enable all Trusts to offer reasonable local pay increases to their staff, in addition to our recommended increase in national salary scales."
  The body is at pains to point out some of the problems as well:
  "The Review Body is not a negotiating partner and we have not sought to determine conditions of employment. However we would be remiss if we did not point out that in our view local pay arrangements can only contribute to increasing efficiency and job satisfaction if all aspects of work organisation are considered."
  I hope that trusts will consider that recommendation carefully.
  The review body says a great deal about its own independence. It says, for example:
  "The Review Body has in our view always to work within the broad framework for the NHS established by Government policies: this would apply to any Government and any policy framework. This does not affect the Review Body's independence, which means that we come to our own judgement on the issues we are required to consider. We accepted in our last report that local pay determination was an inherent part of the Government's NHS reforms. In particular we felt that Trusts and staff representatives should be able to use local pay bargaining to achieve greater flexibility and efficiency in delivering health services, for example, by responding to the local labour market, or by improving the quality and quantity of patient care."
  That is what drives the review body, and I think that it is absolutely right. What the body says gives the lie to the line peddled by the hon. Member for Peckham, that a national health service is all about national pay scales. It manifestly is not: a national health service is not a national employment service. Addressing local issues means achieving equality of care. That is the real need of the health service. The pay review body's report makes it clear that achieving that equality can be assisted by an element of local pay bargaining. For me, that is what a national health service is all about.
  I said that morale in the health service was not just a question of pay. Working in a successful organisation matters to everyone, whatever field they are in. It is certainly true that the NHS has been a spectacular success: the Labour party tries to conceal that, but, I hope, consistently fails to do so.
  Mr. Campbell-Savours: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
  Mr. Luff: No, I do not think I will. I observed the way in which the hon. Gentleman treated my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State, and I have no particular desire to give him any currency.
  This year, hospitals will carry out 3 million more treatments than in 1979 and 1 million more than in 1991, when reforms were introduced. That is reflected in shorter waiting times. Over the past five years—my right hon. Friend made this point, but it bears repetition—the number of patients waiting for more than a year has fallen from more than 200,000 to about 31,600, the lowest figure since 1948. Over the past six years, the average wait for treatment has halved.
  In Worcester, the success has been particularly spectacular, as my right hon. Friend saw for himself on Christmas eve when we toured Worcester Royal infirmary
  840
  together. I hope that he agrees that what we saw suggested that nurse-patient relations at the infirmary were of the highest order, as they have always been. I also hope that he agrees that, during our walk around the wards, there was an atmosphere of professional dedication and high-quality patient care. That suggests to me that morale in my hospital trust is reasonably high. Perhaps in areas that we did not see it is not quite so high, but certainly it is generally good, as it has every reason to be.
  Worcester Royal infirmary treated 2,851 more patients in 1994–95, and is on course to treat a surprisingly precise 3,444 in the current financial year. That represents increases in activity of 7.9 per cent. and 7 per cent. in two successive years. Further increases are planned for the coming year. Maximum waiting times have fallen sharply in my constituency. In 1993–94, the trust reduced them from two years to one; in 1994–95, they were reduced from 12 months to nine; this year, the trust is on target for a reduction from nine months to six. That is a phenomenal achievement by any standards, but it does not stop there. Worcester Royal infirmary is one of the 12 significantly improved hospitals in the national league tables. It was awarded a charter mark for its out-patient work, and it was the first hospital in England to win World Health Organisation status as a health-promoting hospital.
  I know from what I see in my surgery, read in my post bag and hear from friends who have received treatment at the hospital, how grateful patients are for the quality of care that they are given there. I know that almost every patient receives an extremely favourable impression. There is a "but", however. My right hon. Friend probably knows what is coming.
  Morale is also about good facilities. I am glad to say that facilities have been provided at a spectacular rate throughout the country: I believe that there has been a multi-million-pound project every week throughout the lifetime of the present Government. That is a real shot in the arm for the morale of those working with the new facilities. The massive increase in funds that the Government have made available to the NHS has made that possible.
  Worcester's new hospital, however, is overdue. I am delighted to be able to tell my right hon. Friend that approval for the outline business case has now been won from the region, and the trust's ambition is to get contracts signed this year. Three private finance initiative syndicates have already pre-qualified, and the invitation to tender will go out early in the spring, with bids due in the summer. I look to my right hon. Friend to ensure that no obstacles or elephant traps are placed in the way of the new hospital by, for example, his friends in the Treasury.
  I know what keeping to the predicted schedules for building that new hospital will do for the morale of the Worcester Royal infirmary trust staff. The new hospital, which will have a fine range of core services, will be one of which to be proud. I know that other hospitals in the region are facing severe difficulties because plans for them are inappropriate, but I am confident that the trust, the health authority, the region and the Department will not make those mistakes again.
  I am delighted that the hospital is likely to be built using money from the private finance initiative. I am sure that that will produce some innovative solutions to the health needs of Worcester. Freeing up the supply of

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  capital should enable more such hospitals to be built in other parts of the country sooner than might otherwise have been possible.
  Morale also relates to working in a well-managed organisation. Working in a badly managed organisation is incredibly poor for morale. Although I hope that nothing that the hon. Member for Peckham said suggested that management is intrinsically bad, that was the impression that I formed from her remarks. It is generally accepted that the NHS has been appallingly under-managed. Bureaucracy must be resisted and I welcome the 8 per cent. real-terms cut in administration costs across the health service that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State repeatedly reminds us has been made this year.
  I welcome the reduction in the number of executive directors in my trust. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State's plans to fight bureaucracy are impressive. The abolition of a whole tier of the health service, opposed by the Labour party, is welcome. The merging of three health authorities into one in my county is also welcome. What does that do for bureaucracy? It does a great deal; it helpfully releases resources for patient care.
  Reducing bureaucracy locally is not always as uncontroversial as it might appear. The merger of two community health trusts in my county has been opposed—sadly—by one vote on my local community health council. Interestingly, the debate and the voting was swung by the intervention of my former Labour opponent at the last election. He persuaded the community health council to oppose a further reduction in local health service bureaucracy—so much for Labour's opposition to bureaucracy at a local level. Give Labour a chance and it supports unnecessary management costs and less money for patient care. It is yet another case of do as we say, not as we do.
  I think that I am right in saying that the right hon. Member for Derby, South (Mrs. Beckett) said a year ago:
  "I do not think it's really in question any more that the NHS has been under-managed in the past."
  Perhaps the hon. Member for Peckham, who now speaks on such matters from the Opposition Front Bench, needs to be reminded of that. The £34 billion or so that we spend each year on the health service must be properly managed—the House has a right to expect my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State to ensure accountability and effectiveness in delivering a high level of patient care.
  I do not think that many hon. Members know that I worked in the NHS for a few months in 1973, as a hospital porter. The huge scope to manage resources more effectively rapidly became clear to me. The Socialist Health Association gave some very wise advice to the Labour party last January, when it was quoted in The Guardian as saying:
  "the NHS was traditionally under-managed and the Party"
  the Labour party—
  "should avoid 'bureaucrat-bashing' … It is clear that in an organisation such as the NHS, good management is a prerequisite for good patient care".
  I had hoped to hear something in this debate about the Labour party's plans for the health service. As far as I could tell, my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State agreed with much of Labour's five-point plan and is already putting it in place himself.
  842
  The Labour party needs to bear in mind three things. First, it is still not promising any new money, yet constantly suggests that we are not spending enough. The silence when my right hon. Friend confronted the hon. Member for Peckham with that point spoke volumes. In fact, I noticed that she even avoided catching his eye while he put the point to her because she was so embarrassed by it.
  Secondly, Labour's plans for the NHS, if it were ever to form a Government, involve substantial extra costs with no increased patient care. A national minimum wage would directly and indirectly increase costs through reclaimed differentials, and its plans to end competitive tendering would build costs back into the system and reduce funds for patient care.
  Thirdly, even though the Labour party cannot quite work out what it does not like about our health service reforms, it plans more upheaval—even of reforms that are working well and that the medical profession has said it likes, such as GP fundholding. Those are three direct routes to lower morale. The system has experienced major change and the Labour party seems to want to impose more on it. That change is delivering the goods and should be allowed to settle down.
  The fundamental test of the health service, which those who work in it should apply, is not the number of beds, the waiting list, or the management levels, but the results that it is delivering in improved health care. I have cited some of those results, as did my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State.
  Two facts that really matter about the health service that should encourage the highest possible morale among all those who work in it are: a child born today has a two-year longer life expectancy than he or she would have had in 1979—that is a result of the Government's policies—and, since 1979, the proportion of babies dying in the first year of their life has halved. Such results give the lie to the Labour party's arguments.
  5.34 pm
  Mr. Simon Hughes: I welcome the debate, although, like last week's, it has not added greatly so far to the sum of human knowledge. Although the hon. Member for Peckham (Ms Harman) was right to identify the lack of morale, I join others who have identified her huge flaw in not mentioning what the Labour party would do about the biggest issue connected with morale: pay. [Interruption.] The hon. Member for Fife, Central (Mr. McLeish) says that he will answer that in his winding-up speech, so I shall look—
  Mr. McLeish indicated dissent.
  Mr. Hughes: He said that from a sedentary position a few moments ago. He will either deal with the issue and we will have an answer, or he will not do so and we will go without an answer. I was not expecting an answer—I do not think that the Labour party has one. I hope that all those who are interested will read the account of the debate and realise that, although it is very easy to say what is wrong with the health service, it is much more difficult to come up with the recipe to put it right.
  The hon. Member for Peckham described five points. First, she said that health professionals should be given a say, with which the Minister and every hon. Member

  843
  agrees. Secondly, she said that there should be an end to employees being gagged. I did not hear the Secretary of State agree with that, but my hon. Friends and I certainly do. Thirdly, she said that there should be improved safety at work, which is a general proposition that others and I would support. Fourthly, she said that there should be fair pay, which is easy to enunciate without any elaboration. The fifth point got lost in the general exchange on what fair pay might be. We clearly have to wait for another day to find out what the Labour party will do in practical terms about the pay of NHS staff.
  I expressly join the Secretary of State in congratulating and thanking the people who work for the health service—the largest employer in the country—for all they do and for their dedication. That is where we ought to start. I am all too willing to support many phrases in the Government amendment. There has been considerable improvement in many parts of the health service, such as nurse training, and many of the developments have produced better qualified people.
  There is, however, some difficulty. I confirm that there is low morale in many parts of the health service, which the Secretary of State has not yet addressed. I hope that the Minister will address it. It is no secret to aficionados of health service debates that across the country Liberal Democrats are surveying morale, among many other issues. [Interruption.] I shall add factual evidence that confirms that morale is low. [Interruption.] Since hon. Members are always rightly sceptical of the veracity of such evidence, I shall even cite the number of forms sent out and the number of responses returned.
  The leader of the Liberal Democrat party in the west midlands, John Hemming, and the deputy leader, Paul Keech, who are respectively our prospective candidates in Birmingham and in Hereford, carried out a survey among the majority of practices—that is a real test—in Birmingham and Hereford, in which 354 forms were returned. In answer to the question, "Are you seriously considering leaving medicine by early retirement?",41 per cent. of GPs said that they were.
  That survey was conducted at the end of last year. When Chris Fox, a colleague who is our prospective candidate in Windsor—the seat of the deputy chairman of the Conservative party—asked GPs in that constituency the same question, more than 50 per cent. said that they were considering early retirement. To ensure that the statistics are on the record, I should like to point out that 30 per cent. of GPs in that constituency replied, representing 70 per cent. of the practices. I shall give the House two further statistics, only to demonstrate that my proposition has many resources to back it up.
  Steve Jarvis, our prospective parliamentary candidate for Hertfordshire, North-East, had a reply rate of 42 per cent. to his survey, and more than half the GPs in that constituency are seriously considering giving up medicine. The results of those surveys will be compiled in future—so that people do not have to wait for their exciting conclusion.
  My colleague, Mark Oaten, who is our prospective candidate in Winchester—
  Mr. Kevin Hughes: Outrageous.
  Mr. Simon Hughes: It is not outrageous at all; it is fact.
  844
  Mark Oaten received replies from more than 80 per cent. of the practices in that constituency, and 47 per cent. of the GPs there were seriously considering leaving the profession by taking early retirement.
  Mr. Luff: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
  Mr. Hughes: Of course I shall give way to the hon. Gentleman, with whom I discover I share one thing in common—I, too, was once a hospital porter.
  Mr. Luff: I wonder whether any of those surveys will be about anyone other than prospective Liberal parliamentary candidates. I ask just for my own amusement and information.
  Mr. Hughes: If the hon. Gentleman and his colleagues want to join my colleagues in conducting the surveys, I should be entirely happy for that to happen and would equally attribute the results to them.
  The Minister for Health (Mr. Gerald Malone): I should like to clarify a point, because the hon. Gentleman has mentioned my constituency. Is this the same survey that came from the Liberal Democrats' style book of campaigning tactics, which asked, in a general sense, what Nora Batty's view was of the local health service? I must know what we are talking about. That survey predicated its approach with the view that, of course, a vast majority of people would be demoralised. If it is the same one, I should certainly like to know.
  Mr. Hughes: I do not know whether Nora Batty features in it. However, as it is the Minister's constituency, I shall happily send him a copy of the surveys. We could then debate the health service in Winchester, as my colleague in Winchester would be happy to do.
  It seems me that there is abundant evidence for my proposition. The surveys were obviously a partisan collection, but they had responses from independent professionals. The surveys are borne out by all the other evidence. It ill behoves the Secretary of State—I hope that the Minister will not make the same mistake—to fail to acknowledge that there is a common dissatisfaction among professionals. One has only to ask the representative professional bodies to confirm that; whether one asks the BMA or the Royal College of Nursing, the evidence is the same. All the briefings that Members of Parliament receive from those bodies confirm those facts.
  I shall not cite the evidence which we received in anticipation of today's debate, although I shall cite two other recent pieces of evidence. The first is a report, from last June, of the Department of Health's medical work force standing advisory committee. It contained clear evidence that there is a shortage of doctors in the hospital sector, as set out on page 18, and in general practice. A significant number of posts remained unfilled and without applicants. In response to the pay review body's recommendations and the Government's response to them, Michael Lowe, the BMA deputy secretary, said in a letter:
  "The underlying failure of the Review Body to acknowledge an act upon the excessive and unsustainable workload facing doctors is further exacerbated by the Government's gratuitous insult of phasing the award."

  845
  That is the most telling point; doctors have complained that the award, once recommended, will be phased in.
  Nurses are entirely unhappy. The general secretary of the Royal College of Nursing has said on the radio and, during the weekend, in the newspapers that nurses find a fundamental award of 2 per cent., with a prospective local top-up, entirely unsatisfactory, and that they will campaign for a 6 per cent. basic award everywhere. Of course pay is not the only influence on morale. Other things impinge on morale, such as stress and work load; the number of people working in the ward, practice or hospital; how staff are treated by management; and how often they must go for locums or to an agency. Our job is to seek to alleviate those factors; that is our collective responsibility.
  I should say one other thing to elaborate the point that I made in my intervention on the Secretary of State's speech. There are acute crises in various parts of the health service. The Secretary of State was right in saying that the review body did not say that the crises were occurring everywhere. However, that does not mean that the crises are not acute where they exist. One directorate at my local hospital, in the Guy's and St. Thomas's NHS trust, lost 13 staff nurses between November last year and January this year. That loss of people from one department cannot be sustained without a huge impact.
  Whenever I have gone around to my local hospital, I have been able to testify to the truth of most patients' view—to which the hon. Member for Worcester (Mr. Luff) alluded—that the staff there do an excellent job. However, the patients often also recognise how much stress and overwork the staff experience, and how that makes it difficult for staff to do the job that they would like to do.
  I should like to give a few propositions on how we might proceed. My right hon. and hon. Friends and I stated our position on pay in an amendment on the Order Paper, which was in contradistinction to the Labour party's position. We believe that there should be a pay review. We ask the Government to re-think the pay increase that has been awarded to nurses and for the national pay increase to keep pace, at least, with inflation. It is extremely unfair that nurses—uniquely, out of all the people to have had a pay increase recommended—have had recommended a below-inflation pay increase. Of course I appreciate that the increase may be topped up by local awards, but the fundamental 2 per cent. award is clearly below inflation.
  What shall we do? It is right to say that the elimination of short-term contracts would help considerably, because they undermine morale. One of the problems of the NHS structure, in which trusts themselves have short-term contracts, is that trusts employ people only on short-term contracts. That is a fundamental flaw in the system. There must also be increased flexibility in the types of contract that are offered. I am not saying that they should not be long-term, but people need to have sabbaticals, to share jobs and to have part-time contracts, particularly to encourage returners—the people who have left a profession, especially nursing, and want to return to it.
  There must be—sadly, we heard not a word about it from the Secretary of State—effective forward planning. One of the dangers of a divided NHS, as it is under
  846
  the current structure, is that there is no clear planning to meet the staff demand. When professional colleagues who advised our party in 1992 examined what would be the likely result of current policy, it was found that there would be a shortage of nurses, doctors, consultants and senior registrars in many places. Indeed, we are short of those people. We are not adequately planning ahead. We cannot leave such matters to the market. We have a national health service, and it must have people to meet patients' demands. I am grateful that the Minister agrees with that, and I hope that he will tell us how the Government propose to deal with that problem, so that we can plan for adequate staff and prevent shortages.
  A small point—it does not apply everywhere in the country—is that there should be adequate staff accommodation, which is a factor in recruiting younger new staff in particular. There is now less staff accommodation, and trusts should sometimes subsidise it to enable staff to work in hospitals.
  We believe that there should be one NHS pay review body, to deal with the disparity between management and other pay grades. The pay of everyone, from chief executives to cleaners, would be reviewed by the same body. That would prevent the situation in which the pay levels of some grades and professions are decided without taking into account the pay levels of others. The current position absolutely gets the goat of people who work in the mainstream of the health service.
  I shall take the example of my local health service. If a nurse there is on £10,000, £15,000 or £20,000 and the chief executive is on £115,000 or thereabouts, nothing will persuade that nurse that the pay levels are equitable, however big a responsibility the chief executive has.
  We believe that the pay review body's recommendations should be altered or varied only with the assent of the House of Commons. If the Government decide not to follow the recommendations, as they have done this year by delaying implementation, that should require parliamentary approval. That would give parliamentary protection against the actions of any Government who wanted to change what the independent body recommended.
  We believe that there should be national criteria for local flexibility. There is a need for local flexibility, but there should be national criteria to govern how that is applied. For example, there should be flexibility to reorganise the staff structure in a trust, to deal with a local recruitment problem or to reward exemplary performances. However, local flexibility should be used within a pattern established for the country as a whole.
  I shall mention two more issues. First, compulsory competitive tendering should be optional, and not compulsory. Secondly, the medical hierarchy should be reformed. I could elaborate on that, but I will not. However, the present structure is not compatible in many ways with the best use of resources. If we took less time to train our specialists, if we had specialists accredited earlier by the professional colleges and if we increased the number of consultant posts by bringing people into consultant grades earlier, we would start to fill the gaps in the system.
  There are ways of dealing with morale in the health service. We have a duty to health service employees and, more important, to the patients to improve morale. The implication of today's debate is that all three parties,

  847
  and especially the Labour party, need to come clean with the employees in the health service on what they would do in practical terms to improve morale. Words on the Order Paper are not enough.
  Several hon. Members rose—
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. There are 39 minutes available before the winding-up speeches. Four hon. Members hope to catch my eye and, with co-operation, they should all be successful.
  5.51 pm
  Mr. Michael Fabricant (Mid-Staffordshire): I had hoped to follow the hon. Member for The Wrekin (Mr. Grocott). I have nothing against the hon. Member for Southwark and Bermondsey (Mr. Hughes), but I sat on a Select Committee with the hon. Member for The Wrekin and he raised several important and interesting points about his constituency today. I felt that he did credit to the House by raising non-party political points, especially as he is the parliamentary private secretary to the Leader of the Opposition.
  I also give considerable credit to the hon. Member for Southwark and Bermondsey. At least his party has the courage and honesty to table an amendment that gives its view about the nurses' pay review body. The hon. Gentleman did not say how he intended to fund any recommendations, if his party were ever in office, perhaps because he believes that his party will never be in office.
  Mr. Simon Hughes: We have agreed to fund the commitment made in the amendment. I have cleared it with my Treasury colleagues and I can speak to and underwrite that commitment.
  Mr. Fabricant: The hon. Gentleman's party is clearly prepared to put its cheque book where its mouth is. That is more than can be said for the Labour party.
  I listened very carefully to the speech by the hon. Member for Peckham (Ms Harman)—I notice that she is not gracing us with her presence—and she did not say whether she supported the independent pay review body. Although she made several comments about the funding of nurses' pay, she made no commitment whatever—even when challenged by the Secretary of State—on how the funding might be achieved. It will be noted that she was not prepared to make any spending commitment on behalf of her party.
  In the constant whinge from the hon. Member for Peckham, she came up with no new ideas for patient care. The Labour party appears to be bereft of new ideas, and all it wants to do is to destroy the one policy that has increased morale in the medical profession—the formation of GP fundholders.
  I made the point, in an intervention in the speech by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Health, that it is not by chance that every GP in Lichfield will be a fundholder by April. I have spoken to many of them—for example, Barry Jones of the Minster practice. Unlike the hon. Member for Peckham, I am not frightened to mention the names of general practitioners who speak to me. Barry Jones has told me that he has become a fundholder because it helps him to be a better doctor and to give better care
  That is what the national health service is all about. We
  848
  have heard nothing from the Labour party except that it would destroy the system. We have not heard what new systems it might create.
  We should never forget—I do not believe the point has been mentioned in the debate so far—that the national health service is the biggest employer by far in the United Kingdom. It is bigger than the armed forces. Surely the Labour party does not want to go back to the system that existed in 1948. That was a huge and unworkable bureaucracy. The hon. Member for Fife, Central (Mr. McLeish) shakes his head, but the Labour party has spent most of its time today criticising bureaucracy. Whether one runs the national health service or a large corporation, one has to decentralise control and that is exactly what we are doing.
  Different criteria affect morale, as my hon. Friend the Member for Worcester (Mr. Luff) mentioned. One of those criteria is the facilities that are available. In Lichfield, we are blessed with modern facilities. The facilities in the constituencies of Mid-Staffordshire and of South-East Staffordshire mean that patients can be treated in modern hospitals. Stafford hospital was built no more than five years ago. The hospital in Cannock—I am surprised that the hon. Member for Cannock and Burntwood (Dr. Wright) is not present, perhaps because he would be the first person to recognise the truth of my point—is brand new. Massive improvements are being made at the Victoria hospital in my patch of Lichfield, where I live.
  Recent improvements at the Victoria hospital in Lichfield include a recent increase in out-patient capital spending by £200,000, and an increase in spending on day surgery by £400,000. The number of staff serving out-patients has increased and there has been a huge increase in activity. The number of out-patients has increased from around 11,000 in 1994 to 15,000 in 1995 and the number of day surgery cases from 231 to 670 over the same period. Those are examples of the changes that took place in the national health service partly under the leadership of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State, who used to be a Minister of State in the Department of Health.
  There has been a fundamental change and money now follows the patients, not the other way around. That is not just a slogan. Lichfield patients who previously had to go to Sutton Coldfield, Stafford or Burton are now treated in modern facilities in Lichfield. Consultants from Wolverhampton, Sutton Coldfield and Burton now send patients to Lichfield to be treated.
  I smile wryly when I hear that morale in the British Medical Association is low. I suspect that it was no lower in 1948 when the Labour Government brought in the national health service. I hesitate to say it, but the BMA is rarely enthusiastic about any form of change. The consultants were not at all enthusiastic about moving from Wolverhampton and treating patients in Lichfield. They would, of course, much rather have patients shipped over to Wolverhampton, as that is convenient for them.
  I had a sneaking sense of agreement with the hon. Member for Southwark and Bermondsey when he said that we should reconsider the tiers and structures that exist in the national health service, particularly the way in which people become junior doctors, housemen and junior and senior consultants. It almost reminds me of the way that one became a pilot in British Airways in the old days: it was not due to ability, but was a matter of moving into dead mens'

  849
  shoes. We certainly do not want that system in today's health service, and the practice is changing because of the current reforms.
  It is important to say that there are now new services at the Victoria hospital in Lichfield due not only to the national changes that have taken place because of Department of Health initiatives but to the Premier Health national health service trust. I pay tribute to Margaret Whalley, the chairman of Premier Health, and Mike Marchment, who lives in Lichfield and who is the chief executive of Premier Health. It is thanks to them and to the facilities that have been made available by the Government that new services have been installed at the Victoria hospital over the past 18 months.
  Those services include rehabilitation medicine, direct access surgery, an evening radiology service, an evening physiotherapy service and additional orthopaedic, dermatology and gynaecology out-patient services. Day case income is currently £50,000 above target. There has been a massive rebuild of in-patient facilities.
  Given the huge number of advertisements that we heard from the hon. Member for Southwark and Bermondsey, perhaps I might be allowed to say that I was recently invited to open a new wing at the Victoria hospital for out-patient care and minor surgery. There is an additional 20-place day unit, and the rehabilitation facilities have been extended. There are also more day surgery facilities.
  In an intervention, I mentioned the statement made by a ward sister at the Victoria hospital in Lichfield when she was asked about changes that continue to take place in the Lichfield area. When she was asked whether she was demoralised, she said that she was not because she could now use her training for the first time, whereas previously she had been more concerned with the narrow area of nursing care, which had meant that she was unable to provide the service that she wanted to give to her patients.
  The liaison that now exists between general practitioners—all of whom will be fundholders come this April—and the local hospital is almost returning to the sort of Tannochbrae system that used to exist before the formation of the NHS. There is a true community spirit and good patient care in Lichfield without the invidious systems that existed in the days of Tannochbrae, when people had to pay for patient care. That should never be forgotten.
  One constantly hears from the Labour party about two-tier systems that cannot be substantiated. There is no two-tier system—there certainly could not be in Lichfield, as all the GPs are fundholders. Patient care in Lichfield is free at the point of service. For the first time, some consultants are having to get off their bottoms and come to Lichfield to treat patients, rather than the poor patients having to visit the consultants. That is one of the most important aspects of the changes that have taken place. We have heard absolutely nothing from the Labour party, merely criticisms and talk about dismantling the GP fundholding service. We have heard no answer to the question, how would the Labour party pay for some of the changes about which it talks?
  There will never be enough money paid to nurses, but let us not forget that it was this Government who introduced an independent pay review body. This Government are keeping to their commitment of paying what the independent pay review body recommends. We should notforget that the average earnings of a nurse in 1979 were £67.80. We should not
  850
  forget—perhaps you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, were in the House at the time—that before 1979, under a Labour Government, nurses suffered a pay cut. It was not merely a cut in real terms, but an actual pay cut. Such a cut was unheard of.
  The ward sister in Lichfield told me that not only did she suffer a pay cut when she was a nurse, but she had to worry about where she would get the sheets laundered. She said that the health service was in such a dreadful state under the so-called Labour Government that not even the most basic things could be organised. The Labour Government always claimed that they cared—perhaps they cared, but they could not deliver.
  In 1979, the average earnings of a nurse were £67.80; they are now £310.90. If a nurse's average earnings had kept pace with the retail prices index—with inflation—since we inherited the 1979 wage level, nurses would now be earning only £186. A nurse now earns £310—£125 more than inflation, while the Labour party dares to teach us about how we should steward the health service.
  It ill behoves the Labour party to preach lessons to us. The hon. Member for Peckham sits on the Opposition Front Bench saying nothing and avoiding the eye of the Secretary of State for Health when he asks her how she would pay for Labour's policies and what sort of funding commitment she is prepared to make on behalf of her party. Anything that now follows can only be empty rhetoric.
  6.7 pm
  Mr. Kevin Hughes: After the rant from the Secretary of State, it is obvious that the Government did not want today's debate on health. We all know that there is no good time for the Government to have a health debate, but after a week when they announced a mere 2 per cent. increase for nurses and when the Prime Minister stood at the Dispatch Box and refused to condemn the massive golden handshake given to Cedric Brown of British Gas, we can certainly see why the Government do not want health issues on the agenda.
  The hon. Member for Mid-Staffordshire (Mr. Fabricant), in his closing remarks, mentioned an average nurse receiving £310 per week. I suspect that, at his advice surgery this weekend, there will be a queue of average nurses wanting to know where their share is. I do not believe that an average nurse receives £310. The hon. Gentleman may be able to ratchet the figure up by lumping together the money of consultants and chief executives, but he will not be able to arrive at that figure on the basis of the figures for nursing staff.
  Mr. Fabricant: The figures come from the earnings-related database and the standard payroll system. The information applies to nurses—it does not include any other bodies.
  Mr. Hughes: I certainly cannot accept that the average nurse receives £310 per week, and I do not think that the average nurse would agree with the hon. Gentleman.
  The Royal College of Nursing described the nurses' pay award as
  "derisory and out of touch",
  and it will not tackle the increasingly evident shortages and low morale in the service.

  851
  I pay tribute to the work of national health service staff in Doncaster and throughout the country who, despite the Government's policies, manage to provide an excellent service and much comfort and advice to patients. I am sure that, in initiating the debate, my Front-Bench colleagues wanted to recognise that service and to take the Government to task for what they have done to the morale of those dedicated staff over the years.
  The Government surely cannot fail to perceive that morale in the NHS is low and falling, that increased work loads are causing stress and that low pay awards and the strain of increased bureaucracy are producing outrage. The Government must realise that doctors are leaving the NHS due to poor working conditions and that, worryingly, nursing shortages are increasing.
  That is happening against the background of encroaching privatisation of the national health service. Beds are being shut and we hear daily honor stories of patients being shunted around the country in search of a bed. The latest, published in today's Standard, is entitled:
  "Meningitis scare boy faced 100-mile trip for hospital bed".
  His parents took him to the Frimley Park hospital in Camberley, but were told to take him to Poole in Dorset. That is what the national health service has been reduced to under the present Government. Patients are being shunted from hospital to hospital and from county to county.
  Artificial waiting lists are being created. Accident and emergency admissions have increased by 16 per cent. in the past five years. Do the Government not realise that doctors and nurses feel let down by a Government whose policies have made them unable to get on with the work to which NHS staff are dedicated—that of caring for patients?
  There is much anecdotal evidence about staff morale in the NHS. People are very anxious about the lack of resources and about short-term thinking. There are reports from the RCN that, in my constituency, the Doncaster Royal infirmary has a shortage of theatre nurses and there are not enough specialist nurses to cover the operating theatre; yet 32 senior nursing posts have been threatened in the Trent region alone as part of the Government's proposals for management cuts. Those are nursing cuts, not management cuts.
  Mr. O'Hara: My hon. Friend will not be surprised to hear about the position in a hospital in my area.
  Faced with the task of making a 5 per cent. cut in a £4 million management budget—£200,000—the management found that they had to invest an extra £200,000 to finance the internal market. They had to meet the costs of corresponding with general practitioners in connection with meeting contractual standards and enhancing their record keeping to meet the continued data requirements of the regional office. They had to spend £70,000 on correspondence, £80,000 on medical reports and £50,000 to meet the data requirements of regional office.
  Does it therefore surprise my hon. Friend to know that, when it came to the crunch, most of the cuts were in nursing staff and pharmaceutical staff and not in management?
  Mr. Hughes: My hon. Friend is right to draw attention to that position. No, I am not surprised. His words reinforce my arguments.
  852
  Today, we hear of six nursing sisters working in accident and emergency at Leicester Royal infirmary facing redundancy while at the same hospital parts of the accident and emergency department have recently had to be closed on occasions due to staff shortages. There are worrying reports that the use of bank and agency staff is increasing, which obviously denies patients all-important continuity of care.
  Nurse managers complain that non-clinical duties take up too much time and that they are not on the wards as much as they would like. They are consumed by paperwork. Those issues, in my constituency and others, reflect the position locally and nationally, which gives cause for concern.
  Unison officials in the Trent area have reported that nursing shortages are becoming worse and that increasing numbers of staff do double shifts to keep the service running. Between 1989 and 1994, the number of nurses in the Trent region was cut by 9 per cent. while the number of managers escalated by 470 per cent. A survey undertaken by the Institute for Employment Studies for the Royal College of Nursing shows that nearly 40 per cent. of nurses in the Trent region said that they would leave nursing if they could.
  The national statistics speak for themselves: 90 per cent. of nurses felt that
  "local pay will result in unfair deals"
  for some nurses, and 87 per cent. felt that local pay would increase uncertainty about future pay. Moreover, an increasing proportion of nurses regarded nursing as an insecure job. As nurses leave the profession, student places have nevertheless decreased dramatically—by two thirds since 1983.
  More and more hard evidence is emerging of increasing stress and low morale among doctors. As recently as yesterday, we heard of a survey carried out by Middlesex university among London GPs. It was a small survey, but the results were revealing: 98 per cent. of the doctors questioned complained that their paperwork had increased, and nine out of 10 said that they did not have enough time to keep up with medical developments. Two thirds of the GPs said that they had less time to spend with each patient since the NHS changes.
  The British Medical Association recognises that many doctors are leaving the medical profession. The reasons that it cites for that haemorrhage of staff are increasing work load, inflexible training, the internal market and the long hours worked by junior doctors. In a study of 229 doctors, it was found that half had thought of leaving the profession. A recruitment survey by the National Association of Health Authorities and Trusts noted a significant fall in the number of trainee doctors wanting to become GPs. It attributes that fall to the low morale and increased work loads in general practice.
  We may also consider more specific cases. Christopher Adams resigned as head consultant in February 1995 from the department of neurosurgery at Radcliffe infirmary, Oxford, after being asked to create waiting lists artificially. In an article in the British Medical Journal, Mr. Adams said that his department, which has the lowest average cost per case in England, at one point became
  "unsafe … hyperefficient …. with exhausted and demoralised staff"—
  his words, not mine.

  853
  The Government must answer some serious questions, not only for Opposition Members, but for nurses, doctors and patients. The Secretary of State must admit that NHS staff morale is at an all-time low, and he must admit the reasons for that and tell us what action he plans to take. Will the Secretary of State tackle the NHS staffing crisis and ensure that there are not shortages of senior nurses, especially in operating theatres and accident and emergency departments? Shortages of nurses and lack of planning for nursing needs are placing patient care at risk and contribute to low morale among nurses in the NHS. Exhausted and demoralised staff are putting patient care at risk. Medical experts express those anxieties. The Government must listen to the opinions of those professionals—the doctors and nurses who are struggling to keep the national health service running as well as it does.
  The Government do not seem to realise what they are doing. They cannot continue with low pay awards for nurses and longer working hours in the name of efficiency. They cannot continually cut nursing student places in the light of increasing shortages and they cannot continue to run down the morale of NHS staff still further. The Government tell us that the NHS is safe in their hands, but the doctors and nurses do not believe it; Opposition Members certainly do not believe it—and we know that the public do not believe it either.
  6.19 pm
  Mrs. Margaret Ewing: I shall be brief, as the hon. Member for South Suffolk (Mr. Yeo) also wishes to speak in the 10 minutes before the Front-Bench winding up speeches begin. I could employ the old Scottish trick of speaking extremely quickly and putting all of my comments on the record. However, I shall try to condense my points, which I want to make quite forcefully.
  The debate is about the morale of national health service staff. No hon. Member from any political party can be unaware of the fact that the morale of NHS staff at all levels has been severely affected over a considerable period—not just by one change, but by a series of changes which have created uncertainty. The British Medical Association produced documentation in November 1995 which pointed to a decline in morale among general practitioners, a steady decrease in the number of doctors entering training for general practice and so on.
  The Royal College of Nursing has produced its own statistics. It referred me, as a member of the parliamentary panel, to an independent survey on the recruiting, retraining and rewarding of nurses undertaken by the Institute for Employment Studies in 1995. It drew attention to the fact that 60 per cent. of nurses said that they could earn more for less effort if they left the profession and almost 40 per cent. of nurses said that they would leave nursing if they could. Those findings are indicative of the many references that have been provided to those hon. Members who are interested in the subject.
  I shall give the House just one example. A consultant in Glasgow picked up a copy of the British Medical Journal and found his post advertised in that publication. He had not been consulted and he did not know of any plan to replace him: he simply saw his job advertised in the British Medical Journal. Incidents of that kind do a great deal to undermine morale in the NHS.
  854
  All hon. Members are aware of the individual and joint views of those who work in our health service locally, including those of the Royal College of Nursing, Unison and the various local representatives of the General Medical Council. I am proud of the national health service developments that have taken place in Moray—I refer particularly to developments at Dr. Gray's hospital. However, we are far from complacent about the delivery of services as some areas continue to cause concern, and with the best will in the world, many of the issues that we have to address in Moray are related to funding.
  The argument about local versus national pay bargaining can be viewed in that context. Last year the Government cunningly—if I may put it like that—announced that nurses would receive a 3 per cent. pay increase. However, the Government said that they would fund only 1 per cent. and that the other 2 per cent. must be found at trust level. It was the first time that such an arrangement had been attempted. The Government argued that the trusts would be able to find the money and that there would be no differentials in pay, irrespective of where in the United Kingdom a nurse worked. Many trusts were expected to bring forward efficiency savings to fund the 2 per cent. pay increase.
  I was lucky, as my trust area managed to provide a staff pay increase of 3 per cent. across the board with no strings attached. However, that trust can make no further efficiency savings that will not impact directly on patient care. It is important to argue consistently against the idea that there should be competitiveness of that sort within the health service, but that is what is occurring with local pay bargaining.
  In the present round of pay bargaining, there appears to be a deliberate attitude of divide and rule within the medical profession. The philosophy of the NHS is to ensure that there is a direct relationship between the patient and whoever delivers the service—be it consultants, GPs, nurses or ancillary workers who often play a fundamental role in patient care. In the current pay round, we are witnessing the fracturing of that relationship—which is critical to the well-being of the national health service--and a rupturing of the partnership concept.
  I shall now address those problems, as I believe that every politician has a responsibility to offer constructive suggestions. We must look at the system and define what is good and what is bad; we must determine what can be retained and what must be changed. For example, do we need to spend so much money on media training for health boards? Must six people be involved in making referrals—rather than one, as was previously the case—as a result of the workings of the internal market? Should £30 million of taxpayers' money be squandered on Health Care International in Clydebank? HCI had the temerity to advertise in last Saturday's edition of The Scotsman and last Sunday's edition of the Scotland on Sunday inviting women to attend the medical centre for breast cancer screening. That undermines the idea of a national breast screening campaign, and I pay tribute to the hon. Member, for Edinburgh, Leith (Mr. Chisholm) who has been at the forefront of the campaign in Scotland.
  Most importantly, all political parties have a responsibility to put their money where their mouth is. This morning, I met representatives of the British Medical Association and I put before them the Scottish National party's budget proposals, which are open to public

  855
  scrutiny. We have said where we would spend money in the national health service. I believe that all political parties have the same responsibility, and I hope that they will follow our lead.
  6.25 pm
  Mr. Tim Yeo: I am grateful for the opportunity to contribute briefly to the debate and I thank the hon. Member for Moray (Mrs. Ewing) for abbreviating her remarks to accommodate me. I was attending a Committee of the House from a quarter to four until I entered the Chamber, which is why I was unable to hear the earlier speeches in the debate.
  I wish to participate in the debate because of my long-standing interest in health issues, which is due to many factors—not least the fact that my family and I have had no private medical insurance since the time that I entered this place, and I therefore rely to a considerable extent on the national health service.
  I obviously cannot comment on the earlier speeches in the debate, although I noted that the hon. Member for Southwark and Bermondsey (Mr. Hughes) referred to the absence of beef in Labour contributions. He questioned what the Labour party would do to improve the alleged low morale among staff in the national health service. The question of NHS staff morale is a very important one, but I do not recognise the motion's claim about growing demoralisation. No one would pretend that every detail of the NHS is perfect, but many staff are proud to work in the service: they are optimistic about its future and they relish the opportunities that the changes of the past few years offer.
  I shall make two points in the short time available. The first is a historic one. I recall the state of morale in the national health service in early 1979. In January of that year, my father was in hospital and nearing the end of his life. As he was nearly 90, that was no great surprise and not particularly tragic, as it was the end of a happy and successful life—much of it spent working in the national health service. When it was clear that the NHS hospital where he was being treated could do no more for him, my mother and I decided that he should be moved to a nursing home closer to her house to spend the last three or four days of his life.
  However, my father's last illness coincided with a period of industrial disruption in the national health service. I do not think that a strike is evidence of very high morale among NHS staff, but that is what occurred in the last few months of the last Labour Government. That strike may have had the consent—possibly even the active encouragement—of the trade unions which later merged to form Unison, whose support Labour Members are happy to accept.
  As a consequence of that industrial action, I had to smuggle my father out of the hospital just three days before his death and transport him in a privately hired ambulance across a picket line in the middle of the night. Many of the excellent staff who had treated him were embarrassed, distressed and ashamed at what was happening. Labour party policy on the national health service had reduced their morale to a level as low as could possibly be imagined. That was the state of play in 1979.
  My second point relates to this year's pay deal for NHS staff—particularly nurses. I shall not retread the ground that has been well covered by my hon. Friends, who dealt
  856
  with how badly nurses' pay suffered under Labour. I do not know how much nurses will get this year, although it is clear that they have every reason to be optimistic and confident about the outcome. As my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State pointed out at Question Time this afternoon, nurses have done extraordinarily well and much better under the Conservative Government.
  The system of local pay and negotiation is a key advantage. Anyone who has been involved in the management of any organisation, particularly one that operates at a large number of different locations, will know that staff are happiest and their morale is highest when decisions are taken at the lowest possible level and the decision making process is devolved as far down the line as possible. Nothing is worse for staff morale than the sense that their interests are being neglected at the sharp end, that they have no input in the decision making process and that key policies are being set centrally.
  The most important and influential policy decisions that affect morale inevitably concern pay, so local pay negotiations can make a huge contribution to achieving and maintaining high morale in the national health service. Those who oppose or criticise the system of local pay negotiation are actively undermining the morale of NHS staff. I particularly regret the fact that some people, both within and outside the House, have tried to distort the position by claiming that nurses have received a 2 per cent. pay offer. That is not the case. I am sure that, when my hon. Friend the Minister of State replies to the debate, he will confirm that last year's local pay decisions did more than protect nurses' interests—they produced a satisfactory outcome. This year, many local employers will add significantly to the 2 per cent. national pay increase.
  As local pay negotiations become the norm over the next few years, nurses will identify even more with the national health service in their communities and employers will recognise local conditions. As someone who is extremely concerned about the morale of national health service staff, I strongly commend the system of local pay and commend the Government amendment to the Opposition motion.
  6.31 pm
  Mr. Henry McLeish: I am pleased to reply to the debate. Let me begin with a point on which the whole House will unite. National health service staff do an excellent job year in, year out and over Christmas—a particularly difficult time—they did more than their pay levels would suggest. That reinforces the concern that has been expressed about the recent pay review, particularly by nurses. We should also praise the work of the London hospitals on Friday evening after the terrible outrage in the east end. Members will agree that the staff represent one of the most precious assets of the NHS.
  As usual, we have had an interesting debate. According to Conservative Members, there are no problems. They seem to say, "Read my lips: there are no problems with the national health service."
  Mr. Malone: No.
  Mr. McLeish: The Minister says, "No." He will have a chance to tell us about those problems when he replies to the debate. The Government intend to make no concessions to patients, the public or the Opposition.
  Mr. Malone: As far as I can recollect, the hon. Gentleman was listening to the speech by my right

  857
  hon. Friend the Secretary of State, who specifically acknowledged that there were problems in the NHS and spelled them out in detail. It is quite wrong of the hon. Gentleman to suggest that he did not, and I am sure that he would like to put that right.
  Mr. McLeish: I listened to Secretary of State, and I did not hear him enumerate the problems, but I await with interest the Minister's reply to the debate.
  The Secretary of State was highly selective about pay review quotes. The essence of the debate is morale and motivation in the national health service, hut the Secretary of State forgot to mention that, tucked away in the review body report published last week, was the following paragraph:
  "As we commented last year, changes in the wider business and labour market environment have affected the morale of employees in a number of sectors. However, the pace of change in the NHS: heavy workloads; significant and sustained pressure on resources; fears about job security; and, we suspect, the course of this year's pay dispute, will all have exacerbated staff anxieties."
  The Secretary of State joins us at a time when the pay review body has conceded that there are major problems of morale and motivation. Not only did he refuse to acknowledge them, but, by logical definition, he will do nothing about them.
  It is important that we put firmly on record what has happened to our national health service. It is indisputable that there are major problems that are recognised by all parties, but not by the Government. Why have we lost 60,000 beds and 50,000 nurses in five years? Ministers may quibble, but those are the Government's own figures.
  Ministers should not attack their own Department of Health and their own civil servants. We have 19,000 fewer nurses in training. The Government like to talk about customers, and there are now 20,000 more managers in the national health service. It is ridiculous for the Secretary of State to champion the nurses against the bureaucrats. In the past five years, we have seen front-line care disappear, and a management explosion in the national health service.
  This morning, my hon. Friend the Member for Darlington (Mr. Milburn) produced an excellent report highlighting the fact that an additional £1.1 billion has been spent on bureaucracy in the past five years. That represents £6 for every second in the past five years. It is hard to find the right word to describe that, but "scandal" is the first word that comes to my lips. All those factors make it easy to deduce why morale and motivation are major problems in the national health service.
  We no longer talk about bed availability; we shall soon be tabling questions about trolley availability. We shall talk not about ward closures, but about corridor closures, and, as I have said, Ministers no longer talk about patients; on a number of occasions, they have described them as "customers". Does that not underline what we have been saying over the past few years—that the Government see the national health service as a business and an internal market, but at the end of the day they do not wish to talk about the patients?
  Mr. Ian McCartney: An example of that occurred in my constituency recently, when a gentlemen
  858
  who had undergone an operation woke up in an ambulance, having been driven more than 30 miles to another hospital because his bed had been reallocated while he was in the operating theatre. Neither he nor his family had been informed before the operation.
  Mr. McLeish: My hon. Friend strengthens our attack on the Government. We are living in the real world, and the NHS is populated by real patients, with real anxieties and concerns. Why do they never seem to interface with Ministers or Conservative Back Benchers, although they recount their recent visits to hospitals? They do not want to acknowledge that, despite relentlessly pursuing five years of internal reforms, they simply have not got it right. Now, they are squandering the most precious resource of the NHS—the staff, their commitment and their skills.
  The debate is about morale, so we have to ask why it is at such a low ebb. The Government believe that everything in the garden is rosy, so why should we have a debate on morale in the national health service?
  Mr. Malone: It is habit-forming.
  Mr. McLeish: The Minister says from a sedentary position that it is habit-forming. We would love to have a debate on the health service every week in Government time. [Interruption.] I hope that the Minister passes that note to the Leader of the House and to the Conservative Chief Whip.
  Finally, I shall spell out our case against the Government. The first point that affects morale is that the Secretary of State is keen to tell interviewers that he believes that he should have private health care as a safety net. What does that do for the morale of doctors and nurses? It is not good enough. In recent interviews, he said, "We should try to make it as good as possible, but I still have private health care insurance." His predecessor, now the Secretary of State for National Heritage, may not have many qualities, but she does not have private health care. [HON. MEMBERS: "That is cheap."] It may be cheap, but it is accurate.
  In the Observer on 11 February, an advertisement for Norwich Union Health Care Ltd. took advantage of the hypocrisy of the Secretary of State and others, using a quote from the Minister of State and two quotes from the British Medical Journal, all about delays. But of course, the advertisement states:
  "The hospital says you can have a bed straight away."
  It adds:
  "When it comes to healthcare, we talk sense."
  One disgraceful aspect of Government policy is that it is driving people into the private sector.
  Mr. Malone rose—
  Mr. McLeish: I have little enough time left, and I have given way before to the Minister.
  The Secretary of State's lead on the private health care issue is only adding to the problem.
  As to the pay award, press comments read: "Anger over 2 per cent.", "Outrage at mean awards", "Nurses accuse Tories of contempt for the NHS", "Nurses to fight for rise of 5.6 per cent.", "Fury over NHS pay insult". One would have thought that the Government, faced with a battery

  859
  of problems, would have shown some contrition—just a bit of humility and recognition that nurses do a good job and should be rewarded. Not a bit of it. The award and the Government's response was not only insulting but provocative. Perhaps the Government want to provoke, rather than to ease the burden.
  The third issue on which our case is based is the health service's future direction. The Government will try to convince everyone that their agenda is not one of privatisation or commercialisation. No one believes them. There are in place the building blocks of further fragmentation, commercialisation and contractualisation over the next year. Ultimately, through the private finance initiative, market testing and other methods, there will be privatisation. That is the challenge for the Government. That is why the public do not believe that the health service is safe in Conservative hands.
  Mr. Dorrell indicated dissent.
  Mr. McLeish: The Secretary of State continues to interrupt, and I am happy that he should—but he must answer a question that he ignored earlier. What is the reason for the money-go-round of the internal market, with its bureaucrats in place? The Government lecture us on waste and fiscal prudence. It is time that official organisations within the House started to examine what the internal market is doing and its consequences.
  My hon. Friend the Member for Peckham (Ms Harman) rightly highlighted the problem of recruiting nurses and doctors. The Government simply walk away. For them, the problem does not exist. If a Government are to take the NHS seriously, recruitment is the only strategy to deploy when faced with the criticisms that we are making.
  Health service morale is being destroyed by the daily diet of regional and national newspaper reports of tragic incidents of hospitals posting "Full up" signs and patients having to travel across the Pennines. That issue should unite the House, as it threatens to undermine the fabric of a one-nation health service. The Government know the problems, but do not wish to do anything about them.
  The Government's first line of defence is, "It has nothing to do with us. We do not collect the information. That information is not centrally held." Only after a recent parliamentary question by one of my hon. Friends are we building up the picture in respect of paediatric intensive care beds. The Government did not have relevant information. The Secretary of State said, "That is nothing to do with me. We only pass the budgets. It is over to the NHS." Thankfully but belatedly, the Government now accept that they have a role to play. The Government's defence is, "Don't ask us"—a hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil, attitude.
  The Government's second line of defence is, "Blame it on the trusts. Blame it on the managers." God forbid, there are a lot of managers around. Can the Government really pass the buck? They cannot. They set the policy. They have relentlessly pursued internal reforms for five years. The trusts are only implementing Government policy, so it seems astonishing that the Government are still blaming trusts. Their answer to every issue raised in the House and elsewhere is, "It must be due to inefficient management." Sixty thousand beds have been lost, but, according to the Government, that is still a management problem.
  The Government's third defence is, "We spend more on the NHS year on year." If we accept that claim at face value and put aside inflation, technology and increasing
  860
  costs, are we to believe that more money is being spent? If it is, the logical question is, "Where is it being spent?" There has been extra spending on bureaucracy of £1.1 billion over the past five years, and £500 million is being spent on non-NHS provision. Under the PFI, deals are done secretly. What is the risk? What is the return? How much of the taxpayers' money is feather-bedding deals? The Government will not publish details, so Ministers should not argue and laugh.
  I want to clear up any confusion that lurks in the mind of the Secretary of State on these occasions. I think that something lurks there. The Government are wedded to three words—private finance initiative. As with many other issues, the Government see no alternative way forward other than their setpieces, and no reason for dialogue.
  Mr. Dorrell: The hon. Gentleman ought to be better informed about what his hon. Friends are up to, because, according to The Times today, the shadow Treasury Minister, the hon. Member for Edinburgh, Central (Mr. Darling)
  "is currently meeting City lawyers and seems to be whispering reassuring words"
  about the private finance initiative. The conclusion drawn by the people in receipt of those whispers is:
  "There may be a certain amount of rebadging, but the essentials would remain the same."
  Mr. McLeish: The Secretary of State raises an important issue, and must deal with it. He ought to deal with the Stonehaven issue. The right hon. Gentleman goes about England saying, "No clinical services: read my lips." In Scotland, the Secretary of State has sold off virtually everything in that state hospital to the private sector. Will policy in England be contrary to that in Scotland, or is Scotland being tested in respect of the NHS as it was with the poll tax?
  The Government do not like our attack on waste. There are also £100 million of GP fundholder surpluses lying unused. A recent article in the Observer suggested that NHS suppliers may be taking £400 million from the health service. It is vital that the Public Accounts Committee takes on board the workings of the internal market in the NHS. There is no accountability or no cost-benefit analysis by the Department of Health. The cost to the taxpayer and benefits to patients must be high up on such an appraisal.
  I urge the Minister for Health, when he winds up, to embrace and endorse that idea, to get to the bottom of whether the internal market is working, and—more importantly—in whose interest it is working. We need to know what is happening and where the money is going. It is a Government issue of massive waste in the NHS. The Government lecture us about where cash will be found for this or that. If one considers the £1.1 billion spent on bureaucracy, one sees that there is a significant difference between ourselves and Government Members. We believe in front-line care and in doctors and nurses. We do not believe in adding further to bureaucracy.
  When the Minister winds up, I would like him to answer this simple question: are the Government happy for £1.1 billion cash to be used merely to police the internal market?
  Mr. Dorrell: One question, after 17 minutes.
  Mr. McLeish: The Secretary of State says that, but the fact remains that we provided time for the hon. Member for South Suffolk (Mr. Yeo), who had not been in the Chamber for most of the debate, but who informed the Chair of his wish to speak.
  The Government do not like to be confronted with the waste argument. The Government's case is flimsy. Their arguments, "It is nothing to do with us" or "Blame it on the trusts", will not stand up. They are spending more and more money, but creating more and more waste.
  The Government pretend that bed closures are all about care in the community and continuing care. The Government simply cannot match bed closures with what is happening in care in the community. That defence will not wash with the public.
  The Labour party would like the Secretary of State to face the real issues. Today, he said nothing about the crisis affecting morale in the national health service. There is a crisis at the heart of the Government's policies, which reveals the unacceptable face of their policies for the NHS. We would like to see a reprioritisation of what is happening, and a refocusing on the important issues. The public, patients, taxpayers, doctors, all the staff of the national health service and the Opposition parties cannot be wrong. The Government must listen, because if they do not, we will.
  6.49 pm
  The Minister for Health (Mr. Gerald Malone): I will not exactly follow the stream of consciousness of the hon. Member for Fife, Central (Mr. McLeish) with respect to the health service, but I will deal with a number of the foundation stones with which the Opposition thought they would underpin their argument today—and there were precious few of those.
  I do not know why the Opposition called this debate. If it was to underpin morale on their Back Benches, they clearly have not succeeded, because no one bothered to turn up to listen.
  We have heard another debate predicated on a false assertion supported by an exaggeration that the health service is in a state of collapse. The Government admit that the health service is under tension, that it is delivering more health care than ever before, that its staff are working extremely hard, and that problems must be addressed. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State quite clearly said in his speech that the problems need to be addressed. However, we do not accept the grotesque image of the national health service, of those who work in it and of the way they feel about it that has been painted by Labour Members.
  Labour Members relied on a number of arguments, which I shall deal with individually. They referred to recruitment. They said that the NHS was now denuded of front-line staff, and that there simply are not enough people to provide a service. I shall cite some figures for the hon. Member for Peckham (Ms Harman) that might change her mind, although she is not interested in evidence; she prefers assertion. I shall refer to some medical manpower numbers.
  Between 1984 and 1994, the number of general medical practitioners increased from 23,640 to 26,567—a 12.38 per cent. increase. The hon. Lady would no doubt
  862
  argue, on the basis of assertion, that they have a far harder task. Those figures are accompanied by a decrease in the average list size from 2,089 to 1,900.
  When the Opposition refer to nursing figures, they always ignore—this is perhaps one of the most unforgivable ways in which they try to bend the figures—all the changes and transfers between nursing staff, the context in which they used to work and how they work now. One reason why fewer nurses work in hospitals is that 60 per cent. of the activity is to be found in day case surgery, where fewer of them are needed. There has been a great transfer across the service and the way in which nurses work. I refer to the number of GP practice staff.
  Ms Harman: From the private sector.
  Mr. Malone: The hon. Lady says, "From the private sector." I do not want to talk about the private sector; I want to talk about the NHS.
  In 1984, there were 25,994 GP practice staff, and now there are 51,833—an increase of 99.4 per cent. The number of nurses included in GP practice staff has increased from 1,924 to 9,099—an increase of 372.92 per cent.
  These staff increases have occurred in a service that the Labour party says is being denuded of people at the front line. Where is there more of a front line than in primary care? Whose policies have ensured that these talents are now being devoted to primary care, which was not the case in the past? Since 1979, the number of nurses has increased by some 55,000. Labour Members choose to ignore—
  Mr. McLeish rose—
  Mr. Malone: I may give way to the hon. Gentleman in a moment, but I do not have much time in which to speak, because he squeezed me out. I shall anticipate what the hon. Gentleman was going to say.
  Usually, Labour Members selectively quote figures and ignore what has happened in agency nursing and bank contracts. I was delighted that today, for the first time, they acknowledged the existence of such agency and bank nurses. Their failure to take those figures into account has resulted in the lower figures to which they have referred.
  The Labour party has also said that there are not enough nurses in training. This year, there are 14,920 in training, and next year there will be 17,080—they are all decided by training commissions across the country—an increase of 14.4 per cent.
  Mr. McLeish: In 1989, there were 62,100 training nurses in the health service, and in 1994, including the learners and Project 2000, there were 32,000—a decrease of 19,000. Will the Minister accept those figures as correct?
  Mr. Malone: My right hon. Friend explained why that was so: the wastage rate has decreased by 50 per cent. Of course there will be fewer people in training if more are staying in the service. I should have thought that the hon. Gentleman would welcome the fact that retention rates were up, and that more people were finishing their training and working in the NHS rather than leaving it.

  863
  The other point of strength that Labour Members always think they have is what is happening to senior house officers, and we heard that argument again in the debate today. I advise hon. Members that SHO strength is extremely good. My right hon. Friend and I were both concerned about what happened in accident and emergency departments on 1 February last year, and we undertook to monitor the situation.
  I am pleased to tell the House—although the Labour party will not welcome it—that SHO strength in the regions monitored to date now totals 945, and there are now 59 vacancies—only 6.3 per cent. Most trusts, when consulted, find that because of an agreement the Government have reached with the profession they are able to fill those posts with staff grade doctors. That has destroyed yet another myth that the Labour party has peddled.
  Labour Members claimed that there is low morale in the NHS. I am astonished that they ignored—in fact, they considered it a matter of ridicule—what we have done about junior doctors' hours. I remember when that was the test of whether the Government would be successful in raising the morale of those who work in the hospital sector. The targets that the Government have reached are remarkable, as is acknowledged by junior doctors.
  There is 99 per cent. compliance with the target to eliminate hard-pressed, on-call posts contracted for more than 72 hours a week. I inform hon. Members that 93 per cent. of the 27,994 junior doctors complied with the end of 1996 targets. That is a tremendous achievement, for which we have fought hard and in which we have invested a tremendous amount of money. It goes hand in hand with the creation of the specialist registrar grade which came into effect on 1 January, enabling junior doctors, when they get to the more senior posts, to spend more time in training than in providing service commitment.
  Labour Members' solution was a five-point plan. Conservative Members agreed with four of the points—they were all apple pie and motherhood. [Interruption.] We agree with the concept of fair pay. We established the independent review body that delivers fair pay on an annual basis, unlike the Labour party, which chose to cut it. Unfortunately, the fifth point appears to have been lost—doubtless we will learn about that in due course.
  The hon. Member for Peckham would not be drawn on the most important question. If she were serious about introducing a policy to improve the NHS if she were ever in government, she would say how much money would be provided. I ask her that question again—perhaps, during the debate, she has been able to have a word with the Member for Dunfermline, East (Mr. Brown) to find out the position of the Labour party in this regard.
  Will she now give the House a commitment that she would at least imitate what this Government has done since 1979 with respect to increasing expenditure on the health service? Well, as the whole House can see, the hon. Lady sits firmly in her place—unable, as the health spokesman of her party, to give such a commitment. And this is a debate in which she has claimed that morale in the health service is at an all-time low.
  The Opposition have been found out; the arguments they have put to the House this afternoon about the health service have amounted to no more than the usual innuendo and denigration of a service that provides
  864
  excellent care for the whole population. The hon. Lady's argument has been demolished. The country will recognise that, and the House will recognise it, too.
  Question put, That the original words stand part of the Question:—
  The House divided: Ayes 272, Noes 302.

  Division No. 52]

  [18.59 pm

  AYES

  Abbott, Ms Diane

  Dalyell, Tam

  Anger, Nick

  Darling, Alistair

  Ainsworth, Robert (Cov'try NE)

  Davidson, Ian

  Allen, Graham

  Davies, Bryan (Oldham C'tral)

  Alton, David

  Davies, Chris (L'Boro & S'worlh)

  Anderson, Donald (Swansea E)

  Davies, Rt Hon Denzil (Llanelli)

  Anderson, Ms Janet (Ros'dale)

  Davies, Ron (Caerphilly)

  Armstrong, Hilary

  Davis, Terry (B'ham, H'dge H'l)

  Ashdown, Rt Hon Paddy

  Denham, John

  Ashton, Joe

  Dewar, Donald

  Austin-Walker, John

  Dixon, Don

  Banks, Tony (Newham NW)

  Dowd, Jim

  Barnes, Harry

  Eagle, Ms Angela

  Barron, Kevin

  Eastham, Ken

  Battle, John

  Etherington, Bill

  Bayley, Hugh

  Evans, John (St Helens N)

  Beckett, Rt Hon Margaret

  Ewing, Mrs Margaret

  Beith, Rt Hon A J

  Fatchett, Derek

  Bell, Stuart

  Faulds, Andrew

  Benn, Rt Hon Tony

  Field, Frank (Birkenhead)

  Bennett, Andrew F

  Fisher, Mark

  Benton, Joe

  Foster, Rt Hon Derek

  Bermingham, Gerald

  Foster, Don (Bath)

  Berry, Roger

  Fyfe, Maria

  Betts, Clive

  Galloway, George

  Blunkett, David

  Gapes, Mike

  Boateng, Paul

  Garrett, John

  Bradley, Keith

  George, Bruce

  Bray, Dr Jeremy

  Gerrard, Neil

  Brown, Gordon (Dunfermline E)

  Gilbert, Rt Hon Dr John

  Brown, N (N'ette upon Tyne E)

  Godman, Dr Norman A

  Bruce, Malcolm (Gordon)

  Godsiff, Roger

  Burden, Richard

  Golding, Mrs Llin

  Byers, Stephen

  Gordon, Mildred

  Caborn, Richard

  Grant, Bernie (Tottenham)

  Callaghan, Jim

  Griffiths, Nigel (Edinburgh S)

  Campbell, Mrs Anne (C'bridge)

  Griffiths, Win (Bridgend)

  Campbell, Menzies (Fife NE)

  Grocott, Bruce

  Campbell, Ronnie (Blyth V)

  Gunnell, John

  Campbell-Savours, D N

  Hain, Peter

  Canavan, Dennis

  Hall, Mike

  Carlile, Alexander (Montgomery)

  Hanson, David

  Chidgey, David

  Hardy, Peter

  Church, Judith

  Harman, Ms Harriet

  Clapham, Michael

  Harvey, Nick

  Clark, Dr David (South Shields)

  Hattersley, Rt Hon Roy

  Clarke, Eric (Midlothian)

  Henderson, Doug

  Clarke, Tom (Monldands W)

  Heppell, John

  Clelland, David

  Hinchliffe, David

  Clwyd, Mrs Ann

  Hodge, Margaret

  Coffey, Ann

  Hoey, Kate

  Cohen, Harry

  Hogg, Norman (Cumbernauld)

  Connarty, Michael

  Home Robertson, John

  Cook, Frank (Stockton N)

  Hood, Jimmy

  Corbett, Robin

  Hoon, Geoffrey

  Corbyn, Jeremy

  Howarth, Alan (Strat'rd-on-A)

  Corston, Jean

  Howarth, George (Knowsley North)

  Cousins, Jim

  Howells, Dr Kim (Pontypridd)

  Cox, Tom

  Hoyle, Doug

  Cummings, John

  Hughes, Kevin (Doncaster N)

  Cunliffe, Lawrence

  Hughes, Roy (Newport E)

  Cunningham, Jim (Covy SE)

  Hughes, Simon (Southwark)

  Cunningham, Roseanna

  Hutton, John

  Dafis, Cynog

  Illsley, Eric

  865

  Ingram, Adam

  Pike, Peter L

  Jackson, Glenda (H'stead)

  Pope, Greg

  Jackson, Helen (Shefld, H)

  Prentice, Bridget (Lew'm E)

  Jamieson, David

  Prentice, Gordon (Pendle)

  Janner, Greville

  Primarolo, Dawn

  Jones, Barry (Alyn and D'side)

  Purchase, Ken

  Jones, Ieuan Wyn (Ynys MÔn)

  Quin, Ms Joyce

  Jones, Jon Owen (Cardiff C)

  Radice, Giles

  Jones, Lynne (B'ham S O)

  Randall, Stuart

  Jones, Martyn (Clwyd, SW)

  Raynsford, Nick

  Jones, Nigel (Cheltenham)

  Reid, Dr John

  Jowell, Tessa

  Rendel, David

  Kaufman, Rt Hon Gerald

  Robertson, George (Hamilton)

  Keen, Alan

  Robinson, Geoffrey (Co'try NW)

  Kennedy, Charles (Ross,C&S)

  Roche, Mrs Barbara

  Kennedy, Jane (L'pool Br'dg'n)

  Rogers, Allan

  Khabra, Piara S

  Rooker, Jeff

  Kilfoyle, Peter

  Rooney, Terry

  Kirkwood, Archy

  Ross, Ernie (Dundee W)

  Liddell, Mrs Helen

  Rowlands, Ted

  Litherland, Robert

  Ruddock, Joan

  Livingstone, Ken

  Salmond, Alex

  Lloyd, Tony (Stretford)

  Sedgemore, Brian

  Loyden, Eddie

  Sheerman, Barry

  Lynne, Ms Liz

  Sheldon, Rt Hon Robert

  McAllion, John

  Shore, Rt Hon Peter

  McAvoy, Thomas

  Short, Clare

  McCartney, Ian

  Simpson, Alan

  McCartney, Robert

  Skinner, Dennis

  McFall, John

  Smith, Andrew (Oxford E)

  McLeish, Henry

  Smith, Chris (Isl'ton S & F'sbury)

  Maclennan, Robert

  Smith, Llew (Blaenau Gwent)

  McMaster, Gordon

  Snape, Peter

  McNamara, Kevin

  Soley, Clive

  MacShane, Denis

  Spearing, Nigel

  McWilliam, John

  Spellar, John

  Madden, Max

  Squire, Rachel (Dunfermline W)

  Maddock, Diana

  Steel, Rt Hon Sir David

  Mahon, Alice

  Steinberg, Gerry

  Mandelson, Peter

  Stevenson, George

  Marek, Dr John

  Stott, Roger

  Marshall, David (Shettleston)

  Strang, Dr. Gavin

  Marshall, Jim (Leicester, S)

  Straw, Jack

  Martin, Michael J (Springburn)

  Sutcliffe, Gerry

  Martlew, Eric

  Taylor, Mrs Ann (Dewsbury)

  Maxton, John

  Taylor, Matthew (Truro)

  Meacher, Michael

  Thompson, Jack (Wansbeck)

  Meale, Alan

  Timms, Stephen

  Michael, Alun

  Tipping, Paddy

  Michie, Bill (Sheffield Heeley)

  Touhig, Don

  Michie, Mrs Ray (Argyll & Bute)

  Trickett, Jon

  Milburn, Alan

  Tyler, Paul

  Miller, Andrew

  Vaz, Keith

  Mitchell, Austin (Gt Grimsby)

  Walker, Rt Hon Sir Harold

  Moonie, Dr Lewis

  Wallace, James

  Morgan, Rhodri

  Walley, Joan

  Morley, Elliot

  Wardeil, Gareth (Gower)

  Morris, Rt Hon Alfred (Wy'nshawe)

  Wareing, Robert N

  Morris, Estelle (B'ham Yardley)

  Watson, Mike

  Morris, Rt Hon John (Aberavon)

  Wicks, Malcolm

  Mudie, George

  Wigley, Dafydd

  Mullin, Chris

  Williams, Rt Hon Alan (Sw'n W)

  Murphy, Paul

  Wlliams, Alan W. (Carmarthen)

  Oakes, Rt Hon Gordon

  Wilson, Brian

  O'Brien, Mike (N W'kshire)

  Winnick, David

  O'Brien, William (Normanton)

  Wise, Audrey

  O'Hara, Edward

  Worthington, Tony

  Olner, Bill

  Wray, Jimmy

  O'Neill, Martin

  Wright, Dr Tony

  Orme, Rt Hon Stanley

  Young, David (Bolton SE)

  Parry, Robert

  Pearson, Ian

  Tellers for the Ayes:

  Pendry, Tom

  Mr. Dennis Turner and

  Pickthall, Colin

  Mr. Malcolm Chisholm.

  866

  NOES

  Ainsworth, Peter (East Surrey)

  Dover, Den

  Aitken, Rt Hon Jonathan

  Duncan, Alan

  Alexander, Richard

  Duncan-Smith, Iain

  Alison, Rt Hon Michael (Selby)

  Dunn, Bob

  Allason, Rupert (Torbay)

  Durant, Sir Anthony

  Amess, David

  Dykes, Hugh

  Ancram, Rt Hon Michael

  Eggar, Rt Hon Tim

  Arbuthnot, James

  Elletson, Harold

  Arnold, Jacques (Gravesham)

  Emery, Rt Hon Sir Peter

  Arnold, Sir Thomas (Hazel Grv)

  Evans, David (Welwyn Hatfield)

  Ashby, David

  Evans, Jonathan (Brecon)

  Aspinwall, Jack

  Evans, Nigel (Ribble Valley)

  Atkins, Rt Hon Robert

  Evans, Roger (Monmouth)

  Atkinson, David (Bour'mouth E)

  Evennett, David

  Baker, Rt Hon Kenneth (Mole V)

  Faber, David

  Baker, Nicholas (North Dorset)

  Fabricant, Michael

  Baldly, Tony

  Fenner, Dame Peggy

  Banks, Matthew (Southport)

  Field, Barry (Isle of Wight)

  Banks, Robert (Harrogate)

  Fishburn, Dudley

  Bates, Michael

  Forman, Nigel

  Beggs, Roy

  Forsyth, Rt Hon Michael (Stirling)

  Bellingham, Henry

  Forsythe, Clifford (S Antrim)

  Bendall, Vivian

  Forth, Eric

  Beresford, Sir Paul

  Fowler, Rt Hon Sir Norman

  Biffen, Rt Hon John

  Fox, Dr Liam (Woodspring)

  Body, Sir Richard

  Fox, Rt Hon Sir Marcus (Shipley)

  Bonsor, Sir Nicholas

  Freeman, Rt Hon Roger

  Booth, Hartley

  French, Douglas

  Boswell, Tim

  Fry, Sir Peter

  Bottomley, Peter (Eltham)

  Gale, Roger

  Bottomley, Rt Hon Virginia

  Gardiner, Sir George

  Bowden, Sir Andrew

  Garel-Jones, Rt Hon Tristan

  Bowis, John

  Garnier, Edward

  Boyson, Rt Hon Sir Rhodes

  Gill, Christopher

  Brandreth, Gyles

  Gillan, Cheryl

  Brazier, Julian

  Goodlad, Rt Hon Alastair

  Bright, Sir Graham

  Goodson-Wickes, Dr Charles

  Brooke, Rt Hon Peter

  Gorman, Mrs Teresa

  Brown, M (Brigg & Cl'thorpes)

  Gorst, Sir John

  Browning, Mrs Angela

  Grant, Sir A (SW Cambs)

  Bruce, Ian (Dorset)

  Greenway, Harry (Ealing N)

  Budgen, Nicholas

  Greenway, John (Ryedale)

  Burns, Simon

  Griffiths, Peter (Portsmouth, N)

  Burt, Alistair

  Grylls, Sir Michael

  Butcher, John

  Gummer, Rt Hon John Selwyn

  Butler, Peter

  Hague, Rt Hon William

  Butterfill, John

  Hamilton, Neil (Tatton)

  Carlisle, John (Luton North)

  Hampson, Dr Keith

  Carlisle, Sir Kenneth (Lincoln)

  Hanley, Rt Hon Jeremy

  Carrington, Matthew

  Hannam, Sir John

  Carttiss, Michael

  Hargreaves, Andrew

  Cash, William

  Harris, David

  Chapman, Sir Sydney

  Hawkins, Nick

  Churchill, Mr

  Hawksley, Warren

  Clappison, James

  Hayes, Jerry

  Clark, Dr Michael (Rochford)

  Heald, Oliver

  Clarke, Rt Hon Kenneth (Ru'clif)

  Heathcoat-Amory, David

  Clifton-Brown, Geoffrey

  Hendry, Charles

  Coe, Sebastian

  Heseltine, Rt Hon Michael

  Colvin, Michael

  Hicks, Robert

  Congdon, David

  Higgins, Rt Hon Sir Terence

  Coombs, Anthony (Wyre For'st)

  Hill, James (Southampton Test)

  Coombs, Simon (Swindon)

  Hogg, Rt Hon Douglas (G'tham)

  Cope, Rt Hon Sir John

  Horam, John

  Cormack, Sir Patrick

  Hordem, Rt Hon Sir Peter

  Couchman, James

  Howard, Rt Hon Michael

  Cran, James

  Howell, Rt Hon David (G'dford)

  Currie, Mrs Edwina (S D'bylre)

  Howell, Sir Ralph (N Norfolk)

  Curry, David (Skipton & Ripon)

  Hughes, Robert G (Harrow W)

  Davies, Quentin (Stamford)

  Hunt, Rt Hon David (Wirral W)

  Deva, Nirj Joseph

  Hunt, Sir John (Ravensboume)

  Devlin, Tim

  Hunter, Andrew

  Dicks, Terry

  Hurd, Rt Hon Douglas

  Dorrell, Rt Hon Stephen

  Jack, Michael

  Douglas-Hamilton, Lord James

  Jackson, Robert (Wantage)

  867

  Jenkin, Bernard

  Nicholls, Patrick

  Johnson Smith, Sir Geoffrey

  Nicholson, David (Taunton)

  Jones, Gwilym (Cardiff N)

  Norris, Steve

  Jones, Robert B (W Hertfdshr)

  Onslow, Rt Hon Sir Cranley

  Jopling, Rt Hon Michael

  Oppenheim, Phillip

  Kellett-Bowman, Dame Elaine

  Ottaway, Richard

  Key, Robert

  Page, Richard

  King, Rt Hon Tom

  Paice, James

  Kirkhope, Timothy

  Patnick, Sir Irvine

  Knapman, Roger

  Patten, Rt Hon John

  Knight, Mrs Angela (Erewash)

  Pattie, Rt Hon Sir Geoffrey

  Knight, Rt Hon Greg (Derby N)

  Pawsey, James

  Knight, Dame Jill (Bir'm E'st'n)

  Peacock, Mrs Elizabeth

  Knox, Sir David

  Porter, Barry (Wirral S)

  Kynoch, George (Kincardine)

  Porter, David (Waveney)

  Lait, Mrs Jacqui

  Portillo, Rt Hon Michael

  Lang, Rt Hon Ian

  Powell, William (Corby)

  Lawrence, Sir Ivan

  Rathbone, Tim

  Legg, Barry

  Redwood, Rt Hon John

  Leigh, Edward

  Richards, Rod

  Lennox-Boyd, Sir Mark

  Riddick, Graham

  Lester, Sir James (Broxtowe)

  Rifkind, Rt Hon Malcolm

  Lidington, David

  Robathan, Andrew

  Lloyd, Rt Hon Sir Peter (Fareham)

  Roberts, Rt Hon Sir Wyn

  Lord, Michael

  Robertson, Raymond (Ab'd'n S)

  Luff, Peter

  Robinson, Mark (Somerton)

  Lyell, Rt Hon Sir Nicholas

  Roe, Mrs Marion (Broxbourne)

  MacGregor, Rt Hon John

  Ross, William (E Londonderry)

  MacKay, Andrew

  Rowe, Andrew (Mid Kent)

  Maclean, Rt Hon David

  Rumbold, Rt Hon Dame Angela

  McLoughlin, Patrick

  Sackville, Tom

  McNair-Wilson, Sir Patrick

  Scott, Rt Hon Sir Nicholas

  Maitland, Lady Olga

  Shaw, David (Dover)

  Malone, Gerald

  Shaw, Sir Giles (Pudsey)

  Mans, Keith

  Shepherd, Sir Colin (Hereford)

  Marland, Paul

  Shepherd, Richard (Aldridge)

  Marlow, Tony

  Shersby, Sir Michael

  Marshall, John (Hendon S)

  Sims, Roger

  Marshall, Sir Michael (Arundel)

  Skeet, Sir Trevor

  Martin, David (Portsmouth S)

  Smith, Sir Dudley (Warwick)

  Mawhinney, Rt Hon Dr Brian

  Smith, Tim (Beaconsfield)

  Mellor, Rt Hon David

  Smyth, The Reverend Martin

  Merchant, Piers

  Soames, Nicholas

  Mills, Iain

  Speed, Sir Keith

  Mitchell, Andrew (Gedling)

  Spencer, Sir Derek

  Mitchell, Sir David (NW Hants)

  Spicer, Sir James (W Dorset)

  Moate, Sir Roger

  Spicer, Sir Michael (S Worcs)

  Molyneaux, Rt Hon Sir James

  Spink, Dr Robert

  Monro, Rt Hon Sir Hector

  Spring, Richard

  Montgomery, Sir Fergus

  Sproat, Iain

  Needham, Rt Hon Richard

  Squire, Robin (Hornchurch)

  Nelson, Anthony

  Stanley, Rt Hon Sir John

  Neubert, Sir Michael

  Steen, Anthony

  Newton, Rt Hon Tony

  Stern, Michael

  868

  Streeter, Gary

  Walker, Bill (N Tayside)

  Sumberg, David

  Waller, Gary

  Sweeney, Walter

  Ward, John

  Sykes, John

  Wardle, Charles (Bexhill)

  Tapsell, Sir Peter

  Waterson, Nigel

  Taylor, Ian (Esher)

  Watts, John

  Taylor, John M (Solihull)

  Wells, Bowen

  Taylor, Sir Teddy (Southend, E)

  Wheeler, Rt Hon Sir John

  Temple-Morris, Peter

  Whitney, Ray

  Thomason, Roy

  Whittingdale, John

  Thompson, Sir Donald (C'er V)

  Widdecombe, Ann

  Thompson, Patrick (Norwich N)

  Wiggin, Sir Jerry

  Thornton, Sir Malcolm

  Wilkinson, John

  Townend, John (Bridlington)

  Willetts, David

  Townsend, Cyril D (Bexl'yh'th)

  Wilshire, David

  Tracey, Richard

  Winterton, Mrs Ann (Congleton)

  Tredinnick, David

  Winterton, Nicholas (Macc'f'ld)

  Trend, Michael

  Wolfson, Mark

  Trotter, Neville

  Yeo, Tim

  Twinn, Dr Ian

  Young, Rt Hon Sir George

  Vaughan, Sir Gerard

  Viggers, Peter

  Tellers for the Noes:

  Waldegrave, Rt Hon William

  Mr. Timothy Wood and

  Walden, George

  Mr. Derek Conway.

  Question accordingly negatived.
  Question, That the proposed words be there added, put forthwith pursuant to Standing Order No. 30 (Questions on amendments) and agreed to.
  MADAM DEPUTY SPEAKER forthwith declared the main Question, as amended, to be agreed to.
  Resolved,
  That this House pays tribute to the dedication and commitment of the NHS's staff; welcomes the investment in professional development for all NHS staff made by the Government since 1979, in particular the investment in high quality nurse training represented by Project 2000, the development of new nursing specialities, for example, in general practice and paediatric intensive care nursing, the increase in the number of doctors, nurses, midwives and consultants, the reduction in on-call hours for junior hospital doctors, the establishment of an independent Pay Review Body for nurses, the increase of nearly 70 per cent. in nurses' earnings, the establishment of the principle of local pay for nurses which has delivered fair and flexible settlements and the development of high quality NHS general management; commends the recent announcement by the Secretary of State for Health of an 8 per cent. real terms cut in administration budgets for health authorities and trusts next year, together with an efficiency scrutiny which will identify and eradicate unnecessary paperwork; and looks forward to the further development of the National Health Service.

  Private Security Industry
  Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Janet Fookes): Before I call the hon. Member for Blackburn (Mr. Straw) to move the motion on the private security industry, I must inform the House that Madam Speaker has selected the amendment in the name of the Prime Minister.
  7.15 pm
  Mr. Jack Straw: I beg to move,
  That this House requires Her Majesty's Government to implement the recommendations of the Home Affairs Committee contained in its First Report of Session 1994–95 (House of Commons Paper No. 17) on the private security industry.
  More people now work in the private security industry than in the police. The phenomenal growth in the industry is a direct result of one world record that the Government could fairly claim: the doubling of recorded crime in England and Wales since 1979.
  As crime and the fear of crime have increased, so there has been a huge expansion in the number of firms and employees in the private security sector and, more critically, a major change in the character of the work that the industry undertakes. Once, the industry was principally concerned with the relatively passive guarding of property, where in practice there was little contact with law-abiding members of the public. Today, the work of the industry brings it into far greater and more active contact with the public. In shopping centres, housing estates and parks, the public are more likely to see a private security guard than they are to see a police officer on the beat. Increasingly, private security guards are used where police officers would previously have been deployed. Today, security guards are used in sensitive public order situations, for example, to help to police protests against the building of major road schemes. Indeed, such is the extension in the role of the industry that in Her Majesty's criminal courts private security guards are now replacing police officers.
  In consequence, as the Home Affairs Committee indicated in its report, the dividing line between the activities undertaken by the private security industry and by the police is shifting and becoming "increasingly blurred".
  While the police are subject to the most detailed statutory regulation and accountability, the private security industry is subject to none. When a police officer is dishonest, uses unreasonable force or is just uncivil, he or she will run the gauntlet of a tough disciplinary process. But if a security guard is employed by a firm that is not a member of one of the national associations, he or she may be dishonest, violent and uncivil, but there need be no sanction whatever against the employing firm, and only the sanction of the criminal law against the individual. We are left with the extraordinary irony that an industry that exists to enforce certain minimum standards of behaviour of the public has no enforceable standards set for itself, that an industry that is there to catch thieves employs thieves, that an industry that is there to prevent drug dealing, employs drug dealers, and that an industry that is there to reduce the threat of violence to the public may use such violence in an unlawful way.
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  In its evidence to the Select Committee, the Association of Chief Police Officers said that it believed that the case for the continued self-regulation of the industry is untenable, and called for the regulation of the industry by statute.
  Mr. Walter Sweeney: Does the hon. Gentleman agree that the vast majority of people employed in the security industry are respectable, law-abiding, upstanding members of the community? Will he accept that perhaps his words on drug abusers and criminals in the security industry might be taken as an insult by the vast majority who are honourable members of society?
  Mr. Straw: I agree with the first part of the hon. Gentleman's remarks. It is those responsible, decent people in the industry, and their decent. respectable firms, who are the first to call for effective external statutory regulation of the industry.
  The evidence of the Association of Chief Police Officers about the current unregulated state of the industry was damning. The association presented nine case studies. As the Select Committee commented, the studies need only to be recited
  "to indicate how serious the issue is."
  I shall take only three of ACPO's studies. The first is headed "Escapee Murder". It reads:
  "A manned guarding system was subject to a routine police enquiry. During the course of this enquiry it became apparent that one of the employees used a false name. When his correct identity became known, it transpired that not only was the man an escapee from HM Prison, but that the offence for which he had been sentenced to his term of imprisonment was one of murder."
  Case study 8 is headed "Application for Shotgun Certificate". It reads:
  "An employee of a security company recently applied for a shotgun certificate. This application was endorsed by his managing director, who said of the applicant: 'I have known X for one year … He has worked for X (private security company) this length of time. X has a sociable nature and a good even temperament. I recommend him as an honest and a very reliable person who can be trusted.' The police enquiries into X revealed"—
  this was to the contrary—
  "that he had at least fifteen previous convictions for dishonesty and violence. One of these was for a burglary of a non-dwelling involving the use of explosives, even more disturbingly, the employee had a conviction for the manslaughter of his wife."
  I move on to case study 9, which is headed "Prevalence of Criminality". ACPO reported:
  "During a police investigation conducted into a theft believed to involve an employee of a security company, a full check of every employee was conducted. This company is involved in the manned guarding of sites and buildings. Of the 26 employees in the company, eleven had previous convictions. The…offences committed by the employees and their scope…include a total of 74 offences ranging from convictions for rape, threats to kill and firearms offences, to burglary … assault, vehicle theft and damage. The directors of the firm are not aware of their employees' previous convictions."
  ACPO's evidence was the most powerful of that calling for proper statutory regulation. The association was joined, however, by almost every group or individual that or who gave evidence, including all the trade associations.
  As I said in response to an intervention, there are many firms and individuals in the private security sector that set good standards for themselves and seek to meet them.

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  They have been in the forefront of calls for effective regulation because they are the first to recognise that in an unregulated market the strongest forces are those that pull operators down to the level of the lowest common denominator—in other words, to the cheapest, to those firms that are most ready to cut corners.
  Mr. Piers Merchant: Does the hon. Gentleman agree that the three examples that he quoted involved employees who had previous convictions? Does he accept that the way to deal with that problem is not necessarily regulation but to give employers a much easier right to obtain details about the possible criminal history of would-be employees?
  Mr. Straw: I do not agree with the hon. Gentleman. The Select Committee examined that issue carefully. There is a need for employers to have more access indirectly to the criminal records of employees. The Committee reported powerfully, however, that if only that is done there will be a perversely dangerous situation, because there will be no check on employers. In other words, there is no check on crooked employers who are pretending that their employees are honest. It is then implied by partial regulation that private security firms have been regulated and have proper probity when in fact they have not and do not.
  The Select Committee commented that support for regulation grew as its inquiry progressed, including support from the British Retail Consortium, which changed its position following a survey of its members. By the end of its evidence taking, the Committee reported that backing
  "for the introduction of compulsory regulation of the manned guarding sector…was almost universal. The trade associations…individual companies (large and small), customer and user groups all called for statutory regulation".
  The Select Committee spent six months studying the industry and considering whether it needed external regulation. I believe that its report is one of the best examples of a Select Committee report—it is short, well argued and unanimous. Moreover, members of the Committee were obviously at pains to put aside partisan issues on which they were unlikely to agree, and concentrate instead on making recommendations where they believed that there was a clear consensus for doing so.
  The Committee's conclusions were categorical. It stated that the growth of the industry, and the expansion of its work into areas previously the domain of the police, gave rise to increasing concerns about the industry's relationship with the public, and about standards within the industry. It stated also that external intervention in the industry would be justified in the public interest if it could be demonstrated that other mechanisms were unable to deliver an acceptable level of performance. It concluded that
  "current standards … in much of the…industry are unsatisfactory and below the level the public need and have a right to expect."
  The Committee agreed its report last May and published it in early June. The Chairman, the hon. and learned Member for Burton (Sir I. Lawrence), complained during an Adjournment debate that he initiated that
  "normally, we could have expected the Government to reply in about two months. Four months later, they have not yet replied, and I am not over-optimistic that we will have a response today."—[Official Report, 1 November 1995; Vol. 265, c. 215.]
  872
  The hon. and learned Gentleman's pessimism was not misplaced. Three months later, there is still no proper, considered response. We have had only a two-page letter from the Home Secretary, which was forced from him last night in anticipation of the debate. It takes the issue scarcely an inch further forward, save in respect of only one of the Committee's 24 recommendations, concerning guidance on best practice on the employment of "door supervisors", who are better known as bouncers.
  On the key recommendation of the Select Committee, however, the Home Secretary's letter is vintage Whitehall waffle. I ask my right hon. and hon. Friends to savour an especially bizarre passage. The letter reads:
  "I know that the industry and police see a need for additional regulatory measures, but I can speak less confidently about the general public, who in my experience rarely buy or complain about guarding services."
  First, because the sector is unregulated, no one knows or can know about the level of public complaint. I can tell the Secretary of State and his ministerial colleagues, however, that in my constituency I have received many complaints about a private security firm, Pendle Clamping, that operates what it describes as a wheel-clamping service. Some of my constituents think that it is more akin to an extortion racket. There is nowhere, however, that I can send my constituents' complaints with any chance of action.
  The Secretary of State wrote that in his experience members of the public "rarely buy…guarding services." I do not think that any member of the general public has had any experience of buying in guarding services. The idea is risible. The public may be directly affected by the service provided but they have no say over the terms on which it is provided, which blows apart the claim that standards can be set and maintained in the public interest by market forces alone.
  By definition the private sector industry operates within a market where firms compete for business on the basis of price, quality and suitability. Therefore, the inclusion of the industry within a market is not in issue. What is at issue is whether market forces, left to their own devices, can ensure that the public's interest in the good operation of the industry is safeguarded. The evidence gathered by the Select Committee points overwhelmingly to the conclusion that market forces alone cannot do the job.
  It is often asserted that the fundamental divide is between self-regulation and statutory regulation. In my view, it is not. The key divide is surely between self-regulation and external regulation. The question whether external regulation should be statutory or non-statutory is important but subsidiary.
  There are examples of where market forces external to a particular industry may provide sufficient regulation. The Select Committee report identifies some of those. For example, the systems installation sector, which puts in burglar alarms and the like, is the subject of external regulation imposed by insurance companies, which have an obvious interest in ensuring efficiency and the maintenance of proper standards, and which appear for the moment to have market clout to achieve that.
  The Committee came to a provisional conclusion that the regulation of "door supervisors" might be achieved by external but non-statutory means. I hope that its optimism about that is justified. It was plain to the Committee that the external market forces that operate in the manned guarding sector are wholly inadequate to secure effective, non-statutory regulation of the sector.

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  Voluntary self-regulation has palpably not worked because, as the Committee made clear,
  "companies operating at low standards have chosen not to join the system."
  Moreover, those companies then drag down others with them. The absence of any enforceable standards across the industry means that companies that provide no training and bother least about the personal capabilities, not to say the criminal records, of their employees can offer the lowest price. Wage rates in the industry are notoriously low, with one third of firms paying between £2.31 and £2.60 per hour. Those depressed wage levels lead to inordinate working hours and, in some cases, as the Committee heard, to systematic fraud of the Department of Social Security, in which employers take the lead.
  Mr. Chris Mullin: The other day, I received a letter from a security guard who said he had been
  "turned down for a security job, during the interview."
  The manager told him that it was not because he was not suited to the job, but because he
  "would not be able to live on the wage he was paying."
  The manager told him that if he had had a family, he would be able to claim family credit and would therefore be worth employing.
  Mr. Straw: My hon. Friend is right. That is a perfect example of where the state and public are subsidising the worst firms with the lowest standards and lowest wages.
  For all those reasons, the Select Committee recommended that there should be a statutory regulation system for both companies and their employees in the contract guarding sector. It accepted, as do we, that there would have to be transitional arrangements, with a phasing-in of the regulatory requirements. The Committee made it clear—I know that this was disappointing to some hon. Members—that, initially, the statutory scheme should be limited to the contract guarding sector alone, but that the statutory framework should be sufficiently adaptable to allow other sectors of the industry to be included at a later date should that become desirable.
  Anyone who reads the Select Committee's report will be struck by the fact that its recommendations are sensible, based on the evidence and proportionate to the problem. So the question before the House is why, given the agreement on all sides to the recommendations, the Government continue to drag their feet and to stand back while unregulated cowboy firms run by criminals, employing criminals and using unacceptable methods, put the public at risk. Why are Ministers acting as those villains' friends?
  We received our answer this morning. There are six Home Office Ministers. I am glad to see four of them on the Front Bench. None of them is exactly shy and retiring when it comes to seeking publicity—I say that as a compliment—but, astonishingly, no Home Office Minister was put up by the Government this morning to answer the case for the regulation of the private security industry. Instead, and most revealingly, it was left to a former Minister and failed Member of Parliament, Mr. Francis Maude, now special adviser on deregulation
  874
  to the Deputy Prime Minister. Mr. Maude confirmed what we have long suspected—that policy in this sector is led no longer by Home Office Ministers on the basis of public safety, but by that man, who is obsessed with deregulation to the point where he is ready to put the public's safety at risk, and I say that advisedly.
  When Mr. Maude was Minister with responsibility for consumer affairs before the 1992 general election, he resisted for as long as he could all calls for effective regulation against unsafe inflammable foam mattresses. I do not know how many people were burnt to death or badly injured while he resisted what was plain common sense. I do know that it was only after a number of fatal fires and mounting adverse publicity that Mr. Maude was forced to perform a complete U-turn and to introduce better regulation.
  This morning—Conservative Select Committee members may wish to bear this in mind—on the radio Mr. Maude derided all the people who sought proper regulation of the private security industry as having a "knee jerk" reaction to the issue. He implied that the only part of the industry that was a problem involved door supervisors, when manifestly it is not. He suggested that much of the anxiety about the industry would be solved if there were better access to individuals' criminal records. when, as the Committee makes clear, doing that could create as many problems as it would solve.
  There are hundreds of decent firms and thousands of decent employees in the private security industry. They want it to be regulated by statute, as do the police, the British Retail Consortium, local authorities and every Select Committee member. Against that weight of opinion and weight of evidence, the Government's failure to act to regulate the industry and their willingness to allow some villainous firms to continue their criminal ways is nothing short of irresponsible.
  The Government talk tough on law and order, but act soft on crime. They say one thing and do another and are putting their dogma about deregulation above the safety of the public. The Select Committee report is sensible and comprehensive. If the Government will not act promptly on it, the House should require them to do so.
  7.36 pm
  The Minister of State, Home Office (Mr. David Maclean): I beg to move, to leave out from "House" to the end of the Question and to add instead thereof:
  `recognises the valuable work done by the Home Affairs Committee in its First Report, Session 1994–95, on the private security industry (House of Commons Paper No. 17), welcomes the Government's plans to introduce the White Paper which will allow greater access to criminal records; and congratulates the Government on its firm and positive commitment to ensuring that standards throughout the industry are raised to the level of the best.'.
  My right hon. and learned Friend the Secretary of State for the Home Department explained to the hon. Member for Blackburn (Mr. Straw) that he was addressing a major conference today.
  I had hoped that, in the hon. Gentleman's speech, we would receive an answer to the question that has been intriguing colleagues, especially Labour Members, since last Thursday: why on earth has he selected this subject for debate? We know that Oppositions value their Opposition days and that they normally use them to discuss the burning issues of the day. Law and order is of

  875
  course a key issue but, when I checked with the Library, I discovered that, of more than 50 subjects tabled for debate by the Opposition in the past two years, never once have they asked to debate law and order issues. This is the first Opposition day debate on law and order that they have requested and what have they selected—the private security industry. No wonder Opposition Members have been asking me: what on earth is going on and what is our Front-Bench team up to?
  I have been defending the hon. Gentleman and have asked his colleagues to appreciate his predicament. [Interruption.] I would not dream of naming friends of mine in the Glasgow Labour party. I know that he really wanted to debate the issues that are at the forefront of our constituents' minds, but picture the scene with the hon. Gentleman and his advisers. They tell him that he must go on the attack against the Tories to recover his position. "Good idea," he says. "We will attack them on the police." "Oh, better keep off that," they say. "The Tories will remind people that, when Labour left office, we were 7,500 police short. With record funding for the police, that is not a strong issue."
  Mr. Straw: The Minister is not discussing the subject of the debate.
  Mr. Maclean: I shall come to that.
  "Right," says the hon. Gentleman, "what about drugs? That is better surely." "Oh, keep off drugs too," say the advisers. [Interruption.] I have much to say, but it is interesting that the hon. Gentleman had little to say in the time he took. This subject is obviously the most important to Her Majesty's loyal Opposition in the law and order arena. By selecting it, they show their sense of priorities. The hon. Gentleman has not taken the chance to debate the subjects that are of concern to our constituents.
  What about crime? The Opposition have not picked crime as the subject of the debate. We know why: crime has fallen by a record amount in the past two years—the biggest drop for 40 years. I understand that the hon. Gentleman is to make a big splash tomorrow about sentencing, and that he hopes to debate the subject with me on Radio Cumbria. I am intrigued by the publicity avenues that he chooses. Of course, Opposition Members do not want to discuss such topics on the Floor of the House because they are aware that they voted against all our major law and order measures.
  The hon. Gentleman is clearly becoming desperate for a subject on which to attack the Government. His advisers point out that the Home Office is still thinking about the Select Committee report on the private security industry—"so you can talk tough on that one." I suspect that that is the reason for today's debate. As the Daily Mail put it so sadly last week,
  "few spectacles are more inherently improbable than that of the Shadow Home Secretary periodically pumping himself up to talk tough on crime".
  It said that the hon. Gentleman's words were
  "ludicrously out of sync with both his own political nature and the instincts of his party."
  The editorial went on to list all the measures against which the hon. Gentleman and his hon. Friends had voted, and the crucial issues on which they had refused to give an opinion. It ended by saying that, "without impugning his motives", the newspaper "remained unconvinced that" the hon. Gentleman
  876
  "or new Labour really believes that prison works and that more of the vicious criminals who plague society should spend longer behind bars. This Home Secretary is implementing the toughest anti-crime agenda in modern times. And his Shadow is—well, just shadow-boxing."
  That is what we have seen today.
  We are grateful to the Home Affairs Committee for its report. The Committee wanted more access to criminal records, and an exception from the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974 for a widely defined private security industry. It was particularly concerned about certain parts of the industry, and proposed a number of solutions. We replied yesterday to many of the report's points, and a copy of that reply is in the Library.
  Today, the hon. Gentleman called for more regulation, more controls and more bureaucracy—I suspect that we shall hear a good deal more about that in the next two hours—but we have yet to hear a detailed and workable blueprint that identifies the benefits that would flow, at what cost and to whom. I do not want some vast bureaucracy to stifle a burgeoning industry, driving the smaller companies out of the market, and I question the need for it; but that is not to say that the Government have ruled out additional measures to tackle the alleged problems in the contract manned guarding sector.
  We have heard proposals from the Select Committee, as well as ideas from the police and the British Security Industry Association. Only this morning, the right hon. Francis Maude mentioned a solution that he favours. I happen to disagree with his suggestion, however, and I would point out that Francis Maude does not make Government policy. The deregulation unit makes suggestions and advises, but it is for the Government to make decisions on policy.
  As far as I know, no one in my office was asked by the media to speak this morning. I was ready to speak on Radio 4, along with the right hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Mr. Beith), about the Security Service Bill, which we shall discuss tomorrow. I should have been delighted to speak on the subject if the media had contacted my office. The hon. Member for Blackburn himself complained that Home Office Ministers were always speaking on the wireless.
  Sir Ivan Lawrence: I have been asked to speak to the media about almost every other subject that has been raised this week. The private security industry is the one issue on which I have not been asked to represent the view of the Government or anyone else.
  Mr. Maclean: My hon. and learned Friend makes a valid point. I have run a check, and to my knowledge—I shall apologise to the House if I am wrong—no media outlet asked a Home Office Minister to talk about the security industry on the wireless this morning. I should have been delighted to do so, but no bid was received by any Home Office Minister.
  Mr. Straw: Of course I accept what the hon. Gentleman says, but does he not think it improper for a special adviser in the position of a temporary civil servant to put himself in the position of a Minister and speak for the Government, as Mr. Francis Maude did this morning?
  Mr. Maclean: Not the way I heard it. The deregulation unit has a point of view; so has the Select Committee;

  877
  so has the BSIA; so have the police. In that sense, they are all legitimate pressure groups with a legitimate point of view. There is no question of Francis Maude's having pretended that he spoke for the Government. The Government will make their views clear in due course. [Interruption.] Of course Mr. Maude does not speak for the Government.
  Mr. Gordon McMaster: Who does he speak for, then?
  Mr. Maclean: He speaks for the deregulation unit, and for his point of view. We shall listen to his suggestions, as we shall listen to all other suggestions.
  Mr. Straw: The Minister has come out with a very bizarre comment. He said that Mr. Maude spoke for the deregulation unit. Is the deregulation unit part of the Government?
  Mr. Maclean rose—
  Madam Deputy Speaker: Order. Before we continue, let me point out that this is a relatively short debate. It would be interesting for the Chair if hon. Members debated the subject in hand.
  Mr. Maclean: I have made it clear that various organisations have views about what should be done about the private security industry, or the manned guarding sector. I have also made it clear that the Government will reveal their view in due course. Let me explain what we propose to do.
  The private security industry is a large, diverse industry encompassing a wide range of activities. In most of it, there is not the slightest suggestion of a problem. For example, the alarms sector, accounting for a large part of the market turnover and employing some 33,000 people, has no problems. The big sectors comprising locksmiths, safe manufacturers and cash in transit have no problems either, and the in-house sector—estimated to outnumber the contract sector by more than two to one—is sound. We are left with the contract manned guarding sector, comprising some 24 per cent. of the industry's employees, as the only part of the industry that may merit special attention. None of those employees has the powers that a police constable has, and none can carry out what we have identified as core policing functions.
  Calling for a bit of regulation and a bit of control, as the hon. Gentleman has just done, is very easy, but we must consider the machinery that is required for regulation. The Select Committee identified problems of standards, training and criminality within the contract manned guarding sector which it considered to require Government intervention. It proposed an agency to run new arrangements both for licensing individuals and for ensuring that companies fulfilled certain minimum criteria.
  Licensing would involve the checking of criminal record information, and the exercise—presumably by an independent body—of an element of discretion to ensure that there was no unfairness. For companies, common minimum standards would have to be laid down,
  878
  minimum levels of training specified and arrangements made for its provision. There would then have to be regular inspections to check compliance, and recourse to the criminal justice system in the event of non-compliance. All that could have a considerable impact on smaller companies. As paragraph 86 of the report acknowledged,
  "the pattern of the impact within the industry must also be considered if regulation is successfully to target weak companies rather than small companies."
  What is the justification for all that change? First, it is claimed that standards are low; but low in comparison to what? Is there some objective standard? The majority of buyers of private security guarding services are other companies, and it is for them as customers to weigh the relative cost and quality of services offered.
  Secondly, the commonest argument in favour of regulation is that many of those employed have criminal records. Figures submitted to the Committee following a study by the Association of Chief Police Officers seemed to indicate a high rate of offending among security guards. Further examination of those figures showed that 57 per cent. of the offenders were bouncers, accounting for 68 per cent. of the offences. Night club bouncers are a distinct category, and it is a distortion to include them in the manned guarding sector.
  We recognised some time ago that certain parts of the country had experienced problems with bouncers, and discussed with the police and other interested parties how we could work together to combat the problems. Local schemes set up by the police and local authorities were monitored and found to be successful in reducing the number of incidents; we have therefore drawn up and issued best practice guidelines to assist others in setting up schemes. As recommended in the report, we shall—with the help of the police—monitor the effectiveness of existing and new schemes.
  Mr. Ian McCartney: I was a member of the Home Office working party that investigated the industry. I thank the Minister for allowing Opposition Members to be part of that body, which sat for almost four years. Does he realise that the Select Committee report was issued before the working party had considered it? At its final drafting meeting, the working party concluded that the report's recommendations were inadequate to meet the needs of the industry. The private security industry, its associations, chief constables and representatives of the licensing trade and the brewing industry unanimously agreed that the Government's proposals were inadequate. As a result, the working party was not reconstituted. The report has been published without the working party's authority.
  Mr. Maclean: The point is that the guidelines are working, they have been welcomed throughout the country and they are dealing with problems associated with night club bouncers. There is little evidence of criminality across the board.
  Mr. Roger Stott: The right hon. Gentleman may not be aware of the great interest that my hon. Friend the Member for Makerfield (Mr. McCartney) and I take in the matter. Since the town of Wigan, which is in both our constituencies, has more local authority-licensed night clubs than Blackpool, we have had personal experience of

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  the bouncer industry over the past 15 years. I regret that the Minister thinks that the matter is frivolous, since our constituents have been subjected to gratuitous violence by bouncers. The only way to stop such violence is to adopt a scheme such as that introduced by my local authority, under which it is mandatory for bouncers to be registered and licensed. That does not present any problem to decent firms that provide door supervision. The cowboys are the problem. If they are not licensed, they move to St. Helens where such a scheme has not been introduced. That is why we are keen to get the regulation on the statute book.
  Mr. Maclean: The hon. Gentleman makes the point that the system is working perfectly because of a voluntary scheme in his area. Rather than wanting to duplicate that scheme around the country, he wants compulsory regulation to force it on others. We have developed guidelines to deal with bouncers, and they are working very well. There is no reason why such schemes cannot be spread through the country voluntarily, with the help of police, magistrates and local councillors. If the hon. Gentleman's scheme is so good—I have heard that it is good—it should be a model for others to follow voluntarily. We have issued guidelines and I understand that they are working.
  If bouncers are excluded from the manned guarding sector—bearing in mind that we have issued guidelines to deal with them—the number of ex-offenders employed in the industry is considerably lower than is claimed. Nevertheless, the industry is growing and private security guards are increasingly present in areas where they have frequent and close contact with the public. It is vital that public confidence in them should not be misplaced. It is therefore important to ensure that the bad reputations of a few unsuitable individuals or poor companies should not tarnish the reputation of the industry as a whole.
  Those calling for action to root out criminals have in mind the removal from the industry of those with past convictions for all or certain offences. To do that, they are seeking access to information about criminal records. Employers and customers in many occupations might envisage benefits for themselves and the public arising from greater access to criminal records. Such checks are, however, not the only way in which to establish the suitability of applicants for jobs. Security companies, like all employers filling positions of trust, should ensure that they check carefully applicants' employment records and references.
  At the moment, there is no legitimate method of obtaining information from criminal records other than by putting pressure on individuals to exercise their rights under the Data Protection Act 1988 for access to the information on convictions that is held on police computer systems. The problem is that that circumvents the safeguards available to individuals under the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974, which aims to strike a balance between giving offenders a chance to re-integrate themselves into society and the need to protect society from those who might offend again. It allows convictions which have become spent through the passage of time and the individual's subsequent good behaviour to remain unknown to prospective employers.
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  Some groups are exceptions to the Act, but they do not include any part of the private security industry. I know that parts of the industry would like that to be changed. That was also one of the Select Committee report's recommendations.
  In deciding whether it is right to accept that recommendation, we need to consider very carefully the safeguards that the Act provides to individuals who, by subsequent good behaviour, have lived down their past errors, against the need of employers to ensure that their employees are fit and proper persons. Designation of jobs in part or all of the industry as exceptions to the Act would mean that those who apply for such jobs could be asked to reveal convictions that were spent under the Act.
  A conviction becomes spent only when the rehabilitation period laid down in the Act has passed. That means, for example, that a conviction of more than six months would remain unspent for 10 years, and convictions incurring prison sentences of more than 30 months would never become spent. Few if any serious offenders are therefore likely to slip through the net even without an exception to the Act. The Government believe that a case cannot be made for accepting the recommendation for the vast majority of the industry, and in any event it needs to be put in the context of the more general matter of pre-employment vetting.
  The whole subject of pre-employment checks of criminal records has concerned the Government for some time. At present, criminal record checks are carried out by the police only for certain groups of employees. Most checks take place to protect vulnerable people such as children, while others are necessary for the purposes of national security or for probity in the administration of the law. The number of checks has grown over the years. Now, more than 1 million checks take place each year and significantly more than 600,000 are made on people seeking to work with children under the age of 18. That work places a considerable demand on the police, diverting resources from other tasks.
  The Government have therefore been reviewing very carefully the current arrangements for vetting. Towards the end of 1993, we issued a Green Paper "The Disclosure of Criminal Records for Employment Vetting Purposes", which posed 12 questions that had arisen from the Home Affairs Committee's deliberations on vetting. For example, what should be the broad criteria for authorising criminal record checks and what level of checks would be appropriate in each case? Who should handle the checks? Is there a role for a central agency and, if so, what should its functions be? What are the implications of the checks for the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act?
  More than 180 responses were received. They confirmed that there was a wide demand for checks not only from the private security industry but from financial organisations and those who work with vulnerable people other than children, such as elderly and disabled adults. The Government have therefore been considering a new approach to vetting. In doing so, we have taken into account the Home Affairs Committee's report on the private security industry.
  We intend to publish a White Paper on the subject very shortly and I cannot go into detail about its contents now. However, I can say that a more accessible and open system of pre-employment checks of criminal records, which will meet the needs of employers and other

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  organisations who need to employ people in positions of trust, is needed. We will discuss ways in which to enable a much wider range of employers to obtain relevant information about criminal records. The system should therefore meet the Home Affairs Committee's main recommendations for greater access to national criminal record checks.
  As I said when giving evidence to the Home Affairs Committee in December last year, one way in which to implement such a system would be to introduce an easily obtainable criminal conviction certificate. Such developments will largely be possible because of improvements in technology, particularly the development of a comprehensive criminal record database on the police national computer, which will provide access to a much wider range of information than was once available.
  Mr. A. J. Beith: The Minister used the phrase "employees who are in a position of trust" as if that were a good guide. Surely most employees are placed by their employers in a position of trust. Would it not be better to rely on his earlier expression, when he said that the provisions related to people who were vulnerable, such as children? Many of the public are vulnerable when the security industry, where power, and to some extent coercion, is exercised, where trust is placed in a uniformed official and where security staff have access to premises on such a basis that the lives and safety of people could easily be threatened by criminal intent.
  Mr. Maclean: I shall certainly reflect on the right hon. Gentleman's point. Whatever definition he uses, he will find that organisations will claim that they meet that definition and therefore want access to criminal records. There is no clearly logical place to draw a line between those who we think should have access and those who we think should not, but I shall reflect carefully on what the right hon. Gentleman has said.
  I believe that our proposals on vetting will go a considerable way towards meeting the concerns of the police, the private security industry and others. I listened carefully to the case studies produced by the hon. Member for Blackburn in his opening remarks, and I think that, in every case that he quoted, those firms would be caught by our plans on vetting. However, it is also fair to point out that criminal record checks on their own will not be enough. They are not, in themselves, a substitute for employers taking other steps, such as taking up references to ensure the exclusion of people whose previous conduct would make them unsuitable for employment.
  I should like to endorse the Select Committee's recommendation that each case should be considered on its merits, and that there should not be a blanket ban on employing people with criminal convictions irrespective of how long ago and irrelevant the convictions may have been. Not everyone with a criminal record is necessarily unsuited to all jobs, and not all of those who are unsuitable for employment in the private security industry will necessarily have a criminal record.
  Mr. Alun Michael: Since 1 November, the Minister has had plenty of time to answer the question: what about the criminal employers?
  Mr. Maclean: I shall address that point in my concluding remarks.
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  We have heard many calls for regulation, but, as I said earlier, the proponents of regulation have been rather less keen to produce detailed plans for how it should be done. Now that our plans to give the security industry greater access to criminal records will do so much, we are considering whether anything else must be done.
  Mr. Mullin: I hope that the Minister will at least make the point that we are not dealing only with criminal records. There are other factors to consider, such as minimum standards of training, the quality of service offered to the public by the companies, and—although I know that Minister will not be very keen on it—the way in which companies treat their employees.
  Mr. Maclean: I am delighted that I gave way to the hon. Gentleman. He has revealed that, while the hon. Member for Blackburn is, in some ways, calling for less regulation, the hon. Member for Sunderland, South is willing to get into training regimes. I know that he is keen on a minimum wage. The hon. Gentleman would like to see the largest, most bureaucratic, all-singing, all-dancing regulatory regime possible. While one certainly does not want to go down the route proposed by the hon. Member for Sunderland, South—
  Mr. Mullin: Why not?
  Mr. Maclean: Because, in the Select Committee, the hon. Member for Sunderland, South was obsessed with trying to get a minimum wage for security operatives. I read all of his questions and all of the evidence to the Committee.
  Mr. Mullin: Will the Minister give way?
  Mr. Maclean: No. The hon. Gentleman will have a chance to speak later. I have given way to him once already, and I want to push on. He has already stated that he is a believer in the minimum wage and, if he is consistent, he would want it for the security industry as well.
  Security industry regulation is a complex area, and we want to get it right. We have to weigh the views, problems and usefulness of various possible arrangements as accurately as we can to arrive at the simplest and most effective solution. That is why we are giving such detailed consideration to the central issue. The security industry has expanded enormously in the past 25 years. It has had 25 years of success and achievement, which has been brought about because Governments did not interfere with it.
  The Select Committee report is receiving careful attention and, while I hope to make a decision fairly soon on its proposals for regulation, I reject the accusation that we should have rushed a decision—[HoN. MEMBERS: "Rushed?"] Yes. In the 25-year history of the private security industry, we would have been rushing a decision if we came to conclusions in the past few months. If we want another 25 years of success, a few months more to get the right answers is entirely justified.
  The Home Affairs Committee recommended that we should issue guidance on door supervisors. We have done that. It recommended that we should provide access to criminal records, and we shall publish soon a White Paper

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  that sets out our proposals on that subject. Collectively, all of our actions will ensure that the minority of crooks and con men who currently inveigle their way into the security industry will not be able to do so in future.
  Several hon. Members rose—
  Madam Deputy Speaker: Order. It is clear that many hon. Members wish to speak. I ask, therefore, that hon. Members who are called make their speeches as concise as possible.
  8.4 pm
  Mr. Barry Sheerman: Madam Deputy Speaker, my contribution will be brief and to the point. I was surprised at the complacency which the Minister expressed in his contribution. I developed an interest in this subject when I spoke for the Opposition on the Committee that considered the Criminal Justice Bill, before the 1992 election. We spent a great deal of time considering these very matters, and we consistently argued with the private security industry, many chief constables and other people who knew about the dangers that were presented by the burgeoning private security industry. We argued about regulation with the Government—a Government who had had many years to consider the matter, not just the few months since the production of this most recent Home Affairs Select Committee report.
  The debate on the private security industry goes back a long way, and it has figured significantly for more than 10 years. I know that some of my hon. Friends and some Liberal Members have had a great interest in the topic. My hon. Friend the Member for Walsall, North (Mr. Winnick), in particular, took his devotion to the subject so far that he joined a private security firm to prove how easy it was to do so. He regaled us in Committee with that experience, which gave us food for thought and much amusement when he described it in graphic detail.
  The debates in the previous Session were characterised on all sides by clarion calls for proper and effective regulation of the private security industry. That was considered to be in the interest of the public, the police and the responsible companies which understood the damage that was being done—in the words of the Chairman of the Home Affairs Select Committee—by cowboys, villains and rip-off merchants. More sanguinely, I would say that disreputable elements were doing harm to the industry's reputation.
  Today, the tremendous growth of the industry means that private security firms and their personnel touch the lives of most of our citizens during most days. In my book, that is enough justification for the important debate which the Opposition has initiated. Every hon. Member has had complaints about private security firms. To take one recent glaring example, a security guard, who had an Alsatian dog, not only arrested but handcuffed to the railings an innocent citizen who happened to be pounced on at the local bus depot. What kind of society allows small companies, without controls, to do that to the individual citizen?
  A cursory examination of any Yellow Pages will illustrate the extent and influence of the private security industry in a myriad of spheres. We are not speaking
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  merely of bouncers, of a tiny part of the industry or of the vetting question, and the Minister does this debate no good by refusing to examine the issue in its entirety. The private security industry advertises the following wares in the Yellow Pages: property protection, store detection, insurance investigation, surveillance services, alarm systems, bodyguarding, security marking, bomb threat advice, escorting cash and valuables, key holding, dog handling, spy catching, anti-vandal patrols—the list of its activities is almost endless.
  The industry has grown like wildfire. It is regularly estimated to be at least the size of the entire police force of this country, and many experts and chief constables believe that it is twice the size the regular police force. That gives Labour Members some cause for concern. Eight thousand private security companies are operating in the United Kingdom, and only 280 are represented by the British Security Industry Association. There are other members of professional associations, but a minimum of 1,000 belong to no regulatory, or even voluntary, regime. The codes that the industry has introduced are sometimes used as an excuse by the Government for not introducing a regulatory regime.
  I pay tribute to the work that has been done by professional organisations, and congratulate them on their attempt to ensure high standards among their members. Even so, much still needs to be done in terms of vetting, training, managing and controlling staff. As in so many spheres, voluntary codes are no substitute for a proper regulatory framework from which reputable and responsible companies have nothing to fear and which provides the public with the protection from rogues in the industry which they deserve.
  Regulation is not about inhibiting just a few rogues; it is about securing peace of mind for the individual. Sadly, I am sure that many hon. Members will have had the same experience as my hon. Friends the Members for Wigan (Mr. Stott) and for Makerfield (Mr. McCartney) and I of the way in which some small—and some large—companies act irresponsibly.
  Calls for a proper regulatory regime do not necessarily have to lead to a vast bureaucracy. That is simply one of the excuses that the Government give. They say that there is not enough evidence of criminals in the industry, but, at the same time, they say that regulation would be a restraint on the industry and would create bureaucracy.
  I have spoken to many people in the industry and they do not believe that there needs to be a massive bureaucracy. They believe that regulation can be imposed with a light touch and a small administration. Indeed, if the newspapers are to be believed, the Home Secretary himself believed that that was the way ahead, until he came into contact with the President of the Board of Trade and lost the argument. In his innermost thoughts, the Home Secretary understands the need for a regulatory framework but cannot get past the more ideological members of the deregulation group within the Cabinet. They are the reasons the Government have failed to act.
  Often, the Government's pat response is that there is little evidence of criminality in the industry. We have already heard good examples this evening of the extent of criminality in the industry, but that could be a red herring. The Government prefer to ignore the evidence and the informed opinion of the industry in favour of their own narrow, ideological preoccupation with the free market.

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  For them, registration always equals regulation, and regulation is bad because it damages business—never mind the fact that regulation is the obvious way to improve standards in the industry and eliminate the numerous abuses of the system which, at the end of the day, harm the industry itself.
  Intelligent voices within this burgeoning industry will tell the Minister that if regulation is not introduced soon, the industry will get a bad name. As the right hon. Member for Old Bexley and Sidcup (Sir E. Heath)— a former Prime Minister—said in the House last week, the Government have an unhealthy obsession with privatisation. Surely it is impossible to ignore those voices which the Minister knows exist, especially in view of the Government's experience of sections of the private security industry which fail to uphold the standards of conduct that we expect from organisations that are increasingly taking on the peculiarly sensitive roles that were once the preserve of our police forces.
  Another matter of great concern to me and many other Opposition Members is the nature of the society that we are creating, a society in which people no longer feel secure in their own homes, on their neighbourhood streets or in their own communities but feel obliged to resort to private security firms for peace of mind and protection. Is it not a fact that the private security industry has grown so fast under this Government because law and order have not been upheld? The two are equal and apposite. I am afraid that it is symptomatic of the state of our nation that, after 17 years of Conservative rule, crime and the fear of crime preoccupy millions of our citizens and small businesses.
  The Minister did nothing but attempt to score points and present statistics in a ridiculous way. I heard him repeat yet again the nonsense that this country has just experienced the biggest fall in crime for 40 years. How many experts do we have to hear denounce that statistic as nonsense? The Minister knows that it is nonsense—it must have been minted at Conservative central office. If they really want to reduce the levels of crime that plague our towns, cities and villages, the Government must act on the root causes of the problem, causes which have been identified countless times and which lie in poverty, deprivation and unemployment.
  There may be a role for the private security industry, but there are serious questions to be answered about the worrying growth of private police forces. The Government have singularly failed to deal with the fundamental concerns about the legitimacy of commercial companies and policies that affect private citizens and impinge on them to an ever greater extent. They are impinging on the traditional rights of English people and their liberties. That is the real worry about the tenor of the Government's remarks.
  The Government always look to the short term; they are always picking up the superficial. The fact is that we have not had a debate about the real concerns expressed by Opposition, and some Conservative, Members about private police forces which are now, according to some estimates, twice the size of the regular police force. They can increasingly control and affect the lives of individuals without any input from the state or the approval of the House.
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  Those of us who are interested in the subject have been disappointed by the Minister's remarks this evening. Our concerns have been brushed aside. Indeed, they have been swept under the carpet, because the market rather than any higher concern is always the first priority of this sad Administration.
  8.16 pm
  Sir Norman Fowler: I shall be brief. Between 1990 and 1993, I was a director of the security firm, Group 4. I am no longer a director of that firm. However, as the hon. Member for Walsall, South (Mr. George) will recall, my interest in the subject of this debate goes back much further.
  In July 1973, I introduced the Security Industry Licensing Bill—a ten-minute Bill—which, although not opposed, did not reach the statute book. When introducing the Bill, I cited the case of
  "a company run by a man who admitted that he had twice been convicted of grievous bodily harm and who employed four or five staff with criminal records".—[Official Report, 4 July 1973; Vol. 859, c. 538.]
  It would be comforting to believe that, in the intervening 22 years, action had been taken to prevent anything of that kind from happening again. It would be comforting but, sadly, inaccurate, because men with criminal records are still employed by some security companies.
  I mention 1973 for two reasons. In spite of the slightly self-righteous speech made by the Opposition spokesman, the hon. Member for Blackburn (Mr. Straw), it has to be pointed out that the problem of private security firms is not a new one that has emerged suddenly. The same problem existed in the 1970s, and the Labour party certainly had the opportunity to legislate to deal with it between 1974 and 1979. I am bound to say that I was underwhelmed by what the Opposition spokesman had to say, including on wage control, a matter that has nothing to do with security licensing but on which the House should concentrate.
  Mr. Mullin: My hon. Friend did not mention it.
  Sir Norman Fowler: The hon. Gentleman cannot have been listening; if he consults Hansard, he will find that the hon. Member for Blackburn did mention it.
  Why has action not been taken? What are the reasons for what I shall, with the greatest respect, call the slow bicycle race between hon. Members on the two Front Benches? I suggest that both parties have tended to approach the issue of licensing the security industry from preconceived positions. The Labour party has traditionally been opposed to the private security industry and the hon. Member for Huddersfield (Mr. Sheerman) has given a flavour of that underlying opposition. The Labour party has opposed new roles for the security industry and it has feared in the past that licensing would give an unjustified degree of respectability to the security industry.
  The Conservative party's reluctance to act is a reluctance to impose new regulation. I understand that and I understand also—although I do not agree with it—the party's faith in self-regulation. As it happens, I believe that both parties' arguments are wrong.
  Mr. Michael: For the sake of accuracy and although I understand the right hon. Gentleman's description

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  of ancient history, I should like to say that the Labour party has found that companies in the private security industry understand our position and support our plea for regulation. Firms in the private security industry want regulation as much as we do.
  Sir Norman Fowler: I hear that point, but my description of the hon. Gentleman's party was entirely right, as hon. Members who know the subject better than he does will confirm. I have heard the hon. Gentleman's attacks on the private security industry over the past two or three years, so he should not make too much of an issue of my point.
  The aim of public policy should be not simply to curb the private security industry—as the hon. Member for Huddersfield implied—but to recognise that the industry has a legitimate role in the public interest. The aim should be to ensure high standards and, above all, to protect the public. Public policy should recognise that the private security industry is here for good and the only sensible question is how it can be best regulated. If the hon. Member for Cardiff, South and Penarth (Mr. Michael) wishes to endorse those words in his winding-up speech, I shall be very glad to hear him.
  The police must work to priorities when they face the challenge of crime and, of course, they have done so for as long as I can remember. The hon. Members for Huddersfield and for Blackburn tried to pretend that the problem of crime had suddenly emerged in the past five or 10 years, but that is simply crass. If that were the case, we would not have had similar debates 25 years ago. My point is that crimes of violence, such as armed robbery, will inevitably come higher in the list of priorities than, say, burglary. However, that is not to say that burglary is unimportant, because obviously it is extremely important to the individual.
  The implication for the public is that there will never be, under any Government in any circumstances, enough regular police to investigate every burglary and house break-in that takes place in our great cities, such as London or Birmingham. That has not happened in the past and there is no reason to believe that it will happen in the future. We may regret that, but we should learn a lesson from it. The public, business and industry must take the best possible care of their property. We must all learn to take crime prevention seriously; if we do that, good private security firms have a vital part to play. We should recognise that part, and good firms—there are some very good firms employing dedicated people—should be encouraged.
  I was encouraged to note what the Police Federation said in evidence to the Select Committee on Home Affairs. Significantly, the Police Federation's view has changed drastically over the years, and it said:
  "It needs to be said that the vast majority of established firms conform to excellent standards of commercial probity and make an important contribution to the prevention of crime."
  Regulation should deal with the cowboy firms, not the firms that the Police Federation mentioned.
  Too often in the past 20 years, policy makers have not recognised what the private security industry can and should do in a modern society. It can help the citizen and the company to prevent crime by guarding premises, by supplying alarms and by handling cash in transit. But the private security industry's role goes beyond that and it is
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  equally sensible to consider the duties carried out by the police and prison officers and ask whether those roles can be performed by the private security industry. We do not necessarily have to conclude that the duties should be transferred, but we should ask the question. For example, the Government were right to extend the work of the private security industry to escort duties and taking prisoners from prison to court. If the police are taken away from that job, they can concentrate on the more important crime fighting for which they are trained. It is also sensible to have an alternative provider to the Prison Service, because we can then discover other ways in which prisons can be organised.
  I speak as a great supporter of the extension of the private security industry's work, but if that is to happen, the public should be protected by some guarantee that the firms meet certain standards and, especially, that the people who work for them do not have criminal records. That is the case that other hon. Members and I have been making over the years.
  I see the attraction of self-regulation, but I am more persuaded by the argument of my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Burton (Sir I. Lawrence) in the Select Committee's consideration of self-regulation. I have some personal experience of self-regulation because I am chairman of the National House Building Council. That organisation grew out of concern about jerry-building in the 1930s. It has been working for 60 years and the problem has been tackled and largely eradicated.
  Self-regulation in the building industry is one thing, but self-regulation in the security industry is quite another. Different issues are involved. The access to criminal records involved puts the security industry in a class alone. Other issues which dominate relations between the police and the public include the inevitable conflicts that can arise between the demands of security and the demands of personal freedom. It is difficult to see how those issues can be dealt with entirely by a system of self-regulation.
  The Home Affairs Select Committee's proposals were helpful. I do not think that the security industry and others, who have been advocating some kind of licensing system for years, have been doing it to drive small security firms out of business or to prevent them from coming into the business. With great respect to my hon. Friend the Minister of State, I think that it is more accurate to say that those people are dedicated to the security industry and want the highest possible standards to be maintained.
  The private security industry is not the police, but it helps the police by helping the citizen to guard his property. However, some of the issues that the security industry faces are the same. No one needs to be persuaded how difficult it is to reconcile the issues of police and public relations.
  I hope that the end of this long debate—I mean not today's debate but the debate that has been going on for the past 20 years—is not caused by a scandal somewhere in the industry, with the result that legislation is rapidly produced as an emergency measure. Dare I say that we have seen one or two examples of that practice under Governments of both parties.
  I therefore hope that the White Paper that we are promised is the prelude to effective and well-thought-out action that will encourage, promote and ensure high

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  standards in the security industry. When my right hon. and learned Friend the Home Secretary sets out that White Paper, I hope that he will take the widest possible advice from colleagues on both sides of the House of Commons.
  8.29 pm
  Mr. A. J. Beith: The right hon. Member for Sutton Coldfield (Sir N. Fowler) made a persuasive speech. He demonstrated that this is an important issue and that successive Governments have had plenty of time to think about it, as the right hon. Gentleman brought the matter before the House before I was even elected to it—albeit only a matter of months before I was elected, but nevertheless 23 years ago. So the issue has been with us for a considerable time.
  One has only to consider relatively recent times to find that in 1990 the Select Committee on Defence examined the service that the Ministry of Defence was receiving from commercial security firms and recommended that no new sites be guarded by private security firms
  "until such time as there is legislation regulating commercial security firms and laying down minimum standards—which we would welcome."
  The report of the Select Committee on Home Affairs set out the issues well and clearly. The Liberal Democrats party conference passed a resolution in favour of a system of licensing in September 1994. There was a further debate in November that year. So there has been plenty of time to reach some conclusions on the subject.
  Part of the background to the concern involves the growing prevalence of the private security industry in all its forms. People are much more aware of it as we have had to become more security conscious. Uniformed security officers are to be seen in various places, from the test match to the social security office, and there is a concern that in some areas such firms may be taking over responsibilities and duties which should be left to the police.
  The job of maintaining law and order should be a job for accountable, trained and disciplined police officers. There have been instances when communities have felt compelled to use private security, not for its proper role, but to provide services that they believe that the police cannot currently supply due to problems with resources. I do not want us to pursue such practices. There is plenty of work for the security industry to do without becoming involved in areas which require the accountability, discipline and skills that characterise the police service.
  The industry has a large role to play and a wide range of work to do, and it involves many responsible firms and people. The leaders of the industry, most of its major firms and many of the smaller firms want a regulatory system. It is too easy for criminals to be employed—or, indeed, to be employers—in the industry. It is absurd that there is nothing to stop someone walking out of gaol, hiring or even stealing a van, buying a dog and setting up a private security firm. We cannot persist with a system which makes that possible. It poses a threat to the reputation and credibility of responsible firms in the industry. The evidence that the Home Affairs Select Committee gathered—much of it was quoted in the body of the report—showed how damaging that can be.
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  The report of the Association of Chief Police Officers, in which the chief constable of Northumbria took the lead, cited many incidents of criminal infiltration. Thousands of crimes are committed by employees of security firms, and many employees and proprietors of such firms have criminal offences on their records.
  In addition, parts of the industry have appallingly low rates of pay. This is not an argument about the merits or otherwise of a national minimum wage, but an illustration of a problem. Rates of pay are so appallingly low in some parts of the industry that they cannot be associated with high standards of recruitment or with a responsible attitude of employer to employee. In an unregulated industry in such a sphere, the cowboys undercut the reputable operators. In parts of the industry there is too little training and many people in the industry have no training at all.
  The public are being deluded into thinking that because someone is in a smart uniform, he is therefore part of a trained, disciplined and accountable service, but that is not necessarily the case. The industry has worked hard to build up its various systems of self-regulation, but in the guarding sector of the industry it has been repeatedly proved that self-regulation does not extend far enough and does not give reputable firms the protection to which they are entitled.
  I remain concerned that the Home Office itself employs companies which do not belong to a self-regulating system. I am not satisfied with the excuse that it would be unreasonable to impose such a condition because it would require membership of a trade organisation. Given that there is more than one such body, the Home Office can surely require that any security firm that it employs should subscribe to one of the recognised self-regulating organisations until something better is produced.
  There was recently an outcry at the misuse and sale of closed circuit television tapes. Much of the monitoring of CCTV is carried out by private security firms, some of them at the doubtful end of the industry. CCTV is a valuable tool in fighting crime, but there is no control over what happens to video tapes produced by it. The video that was produced for sale before Christmas was one example of the way in which CCTV can be abused. I participated in a radio debate with the man who was hoping to make a lot of money out of sales of footage over Christmas, and I am glad to say that the video was ultimately withdrawn, but the incident provided a vivid illustration of what can happen.
  New schemes supported by the Home Office for CCTV have to be subject to guidelines—to a code of practice—but that limitation does not cover existing schemes that the Home Office supports, let alone those which, although they exist in public places, are not funded by the Home Office. There is no adequate system of sanctions. I would expect any system for the regulation of security companies to cover their conduct in that sphere. It is also necessary to have specific limitations on the misuse of CCTV tapes. If that is not done, sooner or later people will start switching off the systems because they are being abused and public co-operation will be undermined. CCTV is a valuable tool to fight crime, but if it is used as a source of intrusive, salacious or violent videos, the exercise in crime prevention will be fatally damaged. We should not allow that to happen.

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  On the wider issue of the regulation of the industry, particularly the manned guarding sector, the Government's response has been inadequate. It is not satisfactory that we should have to wait even longer for a full Government response to the report of the Select Committee on Home Affairs. The Government should get on with it. Issues remain to be resolved, but we need an agency to carry out the licensing system. There must be provision for access to criminal records, there must be some provision for exemption from the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974 and there must be action to monitor CCTV.
  The private security industry needs regulation to carry out its job properly, and the public need the assurance that when they see a uniformed security guard they are seeing someone who has been subjected to a proper system of regulation and control. It was therefore right for the motion to be cast in terms that require the Government to get on and do the job. My right hon. and hon. Friends and I will support the motion and I invite other right hon. and hon. Members to do the same.
  8.37 pm
  Sir Ivan Lawrence: This is a short debate and other hon. Members wish to speak, so I shall not repeat the speech that I made on 1 November last year when I introduced to the House the report of the Select Committee on Home Affairs on the private security industry. I intend today to speak as briefly as possible of the Government's reactions so far.
  The Government have been a little slow in coming forward. The Select Committee reported in May 1995, we had our press conference in June—the Government usually reply to Select Committees within two months, although in this case we were approaching the long vacation—but I have only just received a letter from my right hon. and learned Friend the Home Secretary, dated yesterday, with responses which are not yet the full and final Government reaction, although it is now nine months since the Select Committee reported.
  I should be reluctant to blame the Government because the question of whether—and, if so, how—we regulate the private security industry, is complicated and involved. Although we tried to narrow its scope considerably by excluding many areas that we thought might eventually have to be addressed, we were unable to give the Government any help with the draft Bill or very much detail. I believe that we all appreciated that, and we did not expect the Government to make a speedy and detailed response to the report. But I do not completely excuse the Government for the delay because I suspect that part, if not much, of the reason was a conflict within the Government as to whether to regulate, which may not have been resolved. Perhaps the Minister of State, Home Office, my right hon. Friend the Member for Penrith and The Border (Mr. Maclean), will be able to throw some light on that.
  I join other hon. Members in paying tribute to the many good firms in the industry which behave reputably and go out of their way to try to ensure that everything is carried out properly in their part of the industry. Nevertheless, despite all the good voluntary regulation carried out by responsible and reputable companies and institutions recently, there is an urgent need for statutory regulation.
  We conducted our inquiry precisely because evidence was growing that there were too many cowboy companies in what was a fast-growing industry. Too many firms were
  892
  outside the scope of voluntary controls. Too many disreputable people worked in the industry. Too many offered a low standard of service. Too many were a danger to the public, and to themselves, as working conditions, quality of training and pay were unacceptably low.
  Some people consider that the industry should therefore be regulated, but a conflict exists because others say, "We are a deregulating Government; we are trying to get the Government off the backs of industry and business. Our deregulation drive not only distinguishes us from paternalistic Governments in other countries, but has been a principal reason for the success of British industry as we emerge foremost among our competitors from the last world economic recession".
  I agree with that, but I believe that that conflict within the Government machine has slowed down the decision-making process and that there may be a danger of its stopping altogether. That would be too bad for those suffering from the inadequacies of the 80 per cent. of the industry which does not subject itself to voluntary regulation and controls. A great many people in Britain are at the mercy of cowboys, crooks, incompetence and low standards.
  I, too, listened to Francis Maude—a former distinguished and able parliamentary colleague—who chairs the Government's deregulation task force, stating his reasons why statutory regulation was not necessary in a discussion on "Today" this morning in which I had not been invited to participate. Impressed as I usually am by my former right hon. Friend's wisdom and judgment, I was not overly impressed this morning, although I certainly do not share the personal strictures that were passed on him by the hon. Member for Blackburn (Mr. Straw).
  Francis Maude said, if I heard him aright, that only "one bit" of the private security industry needed attention—the manned guarding sector, as the Select Committee recommended. That "bit"—on the assumption that the private security industry would soon be, if it was not yet, double the size of the police force in this country, at 300,000—must be approaching the size of the entire police force. Some bit!
  According to Francis Maude, most of the trouble comes from bouncers, but I do not believe that that is the case. There must be more security guards guarding businesses, industries, factories, stores, private estates and building sites and patrolling the streets than there are bouncers in the entire country.
  I believe that Francis Maude said that it was unnecessary to make it a criminal offence for an unregulated company to offer guarding services without a licence or for companies to employ people who did not have a licence; all that was needed was for the individual to be prevented from offering himself for employment if he had certain convictions. That will not stop the cowboys or the crooks; still less will it stop those who employ cowboys and crooks in the knowledge that they are employing cowboys and crooks. That is why the police so strongly support statutory regulation.
  Francis Maude said that our proposals would mean more bureaucracy and more pressure on small business and would give false comfort to the public. He said that the police always want licensing systems and that they do not care about spending more of the public's money.

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  Frankly, I believe that Francis Maude has elevated deregulation to an exaggerated level. I am as deregulating a Conservative as anyone can be, but there is regulation and regulation: some regulation is necessary and some is not.
  In the opinion of the all-party Select Committee, this type of regulation is necessary. Some regulation is not wanted by industry and some regulation is—and this regulation is wanted by the private security industry. Some regulation is unnecessarily costly to the Government and to the people, and some regulation is not. The proposed regulation would be paid for by the industry: that alone makes it different. The industry is not complaining about regulation, licensing or statutory controls: it wants all those things so much that it is actually prepared to pay for them.
  I make the following plea to the Government. Let them consider more realistically the fact that the private security industry is growing fast and is reaching into areas which have hitherto been the province of police forces in Britain—the prisons, private escort services and street patrols. Let them consider the fact that public anxiety is growing, which is why the police are anxious for a more regulated—not less regulated—industry. Let them consider the fact that, uncharacteristically, the industry wants statutory regulation because it cannot cope itself.
  This morning, the Select Committee received a letter from the British Security Industry Association—one of the most responsible organisations in the industry. It says:
  "The issue has gained momentum in recent months"—since our report—
  "with the growth in companies offering residential street patrol services and the imminent review of police core activities, which is likely to have a major impact on the industry".
  The association concludes, as a representation to us:
  "BSIA will continue to work to persuade Government to introduce statutory regulation of the manned guarding industry".
  I ask the Government to consider that something positive must be done to stop crooks, or even people with previous relevant convictions who might be placed in positions of temptation and become crooks again, from taking up those positions. I ask them to consider, please, the deplorable level of training, of pay, of social security abuse, which exist in the industry and which cannot improve without statutory regulation. I ask them to consider that we are one of the few countries in western Europe in which the private security industry is not regulated, and to consider the commercial disadvantage to which our industry might be subjected if we do not statutorily regulate.
  I ask my right hon. and learned Friend the Home Secretary and my right hon. Friend the Minister of State to consider how greatly public confidence in the Government's approach to law and order and crime reduction would be increased if we controlled what is wrong in the industry in a clearly regulated way.
  Having said all that, if there is a Division today I shall not go into the Lobby with the Labour party, for obvious reasons. Unfortunately, the debate was made party political by the hon. Member for Blackburn, with strictures against the Government far wider than the single issue that we are debating requires. The tabling of the motion in prime time is itself a party political matter.
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  I was not elected to vote against the Government on law and order, of all issues, and my constituents would rightly be astonished and unhappy if I did.
  I deplore the political nature of what is, fortunately, only part of the debate, because I believe that more would have been achieved if we had not been party political.
  Mr. Michael: Will the hon. and learned Gentleman note that we stood back and allowed the opportunity for a non-partisan debate as long ago as 1 November 1995, when the hon. and learned Gentleman first drew attention to the issue, and that it might have been a non-partisan debate if Ministers had chosen to make it so?
  Sir Ivan Lawrence: That is not how it worked out today, when the hon. Member for Blackburn and his team made it a party political debate. The debate on 1 November was very good, but unfortunately it was too short and I am pleased that we are taking the matter up again today. However, I deplore the fact that, for a number of reasons, it has acquired a party political aspect—even though an all-party Committee released the report that we are discussing.
  If the Government were ignoring our report, I should be constrained—even in the face of my constituents' expectations—to vote with the Opposition in their Lobby. However, from my close association with my right hon. and learned Friend the Home Secretary and with the Minister of State, my right hon. Friend the Member for Penrith and the Border (Mr. Maclean), I know that they are treating the subject very seriously and I believe that the door supervisor guidelines are a very sensible and strong indication of that fact.
  We have raised complicated matters and I agree with my right hon. Friend the Minister of State that we cannot expect the Bill to contain detailed provisions about the licensing authority, its size, functions, powers and scope, about licensing individuals, rights of appeal, disclosure of criminal records, the relevance of the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974 and much else—even after a few months.
  My right hon. Friend has convincingly addressed the problems of vetting, which the Government are examining, and the work being done to produce a White Paper on such matters. I accept that the Government intend to ensure that the White Paper meets our concerns about the employment of dishonest and violent people in the private security industry.
  As my right hon. and learned Friend the Home Secretary says in his letter, it is extremely important to get the solutions right. As I see it, the Government are endorsing the principal recommendations of the Home Affairs Select Committee in important areas. I accept also that our report is receiving careful consideration. I regret that the letter does not go as far as I would like, but I believe that it is constructive—as were the remarks of my right hon. Friend the Minister of State today. So long as the Government are not diverted by those who believe that statutory regulation is out of place in this area—where the public are increasingly closely, and sometimes frighteningly, affected—I shall certainly give the Government the benefit of any doubts that I may have about their determination to adopt the Committee's recommendations.

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  Interestingly, the Home Affairs Select Committee report concludes:
  "We have…been impressed by the fact that the Government—once resolutely opposed to regulation in this sector, and even now going through a process of comprehensive deregulation—has an open mind about regulation in this field".
  That is what my right hon. Friend the Minister of State told us when he gave evidence before the Select Committee. I hope that we can rely utterly upon that statement and that my colleagues on the Home Affairs Select Committee were not too easily or wrongly impressed by my right hon. Friend's reassurance.
  8.52 pm
  Mr. Bruce George: The private security industry cannot and should not be the subject of partisan debate. People's safety and security should be more important than the Minister conveyed to the House this evening. His barnstorming speech failed to convince the Liberal party; the Opposition; the former chairman of the Conservative party, the right hon. Member for Sutton Coldfield (Sir N. Fowler); and the Chairman of the Home Affairs Select Committee, the hon. and learned Member for Burton (Sir I. Lawrence), who is a recidivist right winger. The right hon. Member for Sutton Coldfield received the Adam Smith award for services to economics and politics.
  Apart from the Home Office and, dare I suggest, some of the criminal classes, no one—including the right and the centre moderate wings of the Conservative party, almost all of the security industry, the Police Federation and the Association of Chief Police Officers—is unanimously in favour of the Government's response. I have also been approached by those in the criminal classes whose houses were burgled while they were supposedly being guarded by security firms, so not even all the crooks favour the Government's response.
  The Minister said that those who argue the case for regulation have not put forward alternative detailed proposals. I have introduced five Bills in the House of Commons and the last of them—which I introduced only a year ago—ran to 29 clauses. With that challenge in mind, I shall shortly introduce my next Bill which will make the Scott report look like a pamphlet. It will contain enormous detail about what I believe regulation should involve. My latest Bill was supported by six Conservative Members, all of whom were members of the Defence Select Committee. That clearly shows that the subject cuts across party political boundaries.
  I fear that the Minister's speech was misconceived. He criticised the Opposition for daring to raise an issue that was not "one of the burning issues of the day". I shall ask him afterwards why those remarks were, unwittingly, probably the sickest that have been uttered for some time. If the Minister watches the 9 o'clock news this evening, he will see the funeral of a young lady who it is alleged was burned as a result of a security guard's actions. The matter is yet to be decided by the courts.
  Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Michael Morris): Order. I must remind the hon. Member for Walsall, South (Mr. George) that the whole of the case is sub judice.
  Mr. George: I will not pursue the matter further and I said that it is yet to be proved in the courts. I know of three cases—I know that there are many more—involving pyromaniac security guards who set fire to the factories that they were employed to guard and caused enormous damage. I have details of those cases and, if pressed, I shall present them to the House.
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  I very much welcome the debate, which, unfortunately, is about 15 years too late. My interest in the industry dates back only to 1977—that of the right hon. Member for Sutton Coldfield goes back almost a quarter of a century. No one who has taken an interest in the industry is remotely satisfied with the way in which it has been conducted. When I talk to senior figures in the private security industry abroad, they are bemused to learn that there is no regulatory system of the industry in Britain. Some 42 states of the United States, Hong Kong and Singapore—those bastions of socialism—are regulated. All the states of Australia, the provinces of Canada, New Zealand, Japan, the Philippines, Turkey, Israel, Argentina, Chile, South Africa and even Trinidad and Tobago have regulated security industries.
  Is there something about our approach to industry that reflects a British genius that allows us to do things without regulation which less competent mortals and political systems must do with regulation? The club of countries with no regulation is diminishing as a number are working to produce regulatory regimes, and we shall soon be isolated. The Confederation of European Security Services—an employers' organisation—compiled a league table of European security industries based upon average working hours, wage levels, the number of hours' training that a guard received, industrial relations and the regulatory system. The United Kingdom came joint 13th with Ireland in the table for Europe alone. There is little of which to be proud. The Government's response to regulation has been total indifference. They are wedded to the philosophy of deregulation and letting the free market reign. Apparently, they oppose setting up a quango, although they have contributed significantly to the increase in the number of quangos.
  In 1991, a Home Office report on the security industry stated:
  "Inevitably, users of the industry get what they pay for. The Government considers that issues such as training and wages are fundamentally matters for the industry and its customers.
  It is ultimately for users to ensure that the company they choose is competent and reliable and to include strict requirement for employee vetting, training, supervision and performance in their contracts.".
  The private security industry must not be perceived in the same way as the purchase of a washing machine or a visit to the hairdresser. It is far too important to be left to market forces, which drive down wages and performance in the industry. The Government must do what almost every other Government does—they must not take over the security industry, but merely set the parameters within which it operates.
  Most purchasers of security, including the Government, buy the cheapest. One gentleman who gave evidence to the Defence Select Committee said that he would not put in a bid for a contract from the Ministry of Defence because the MOD would not like his prices. He could not run a competent security operation on the money that the Government were prepared to pay. I have here details of a job in security offered by the security department of the British Library paying a basic salary of less than £9,000, rising to about £11,000. Can we protect the nation's heritage for some £10,000 a year?
  Many purchasers of security—regrettably, even the Government—fail to set minimum standards. In Newbury, 700 security guards were chasing their tails pursuing people who were infinitely more competent than

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  themselves. They received minimal or no training. There were 700 guards, yet they could not provide the service for which their employers were paying.
  Poor security can have serious implications. The Deputy Prime Minister, the arch-deregulator, helped to create an amusing piece of history, although it is a serious matter. It concerned one of the first people to be gaoled after the ceasefire with the IRA. It was reported that
  "the younger of the pair, had worked as a security guard in London, his postings taking him to both Capital Radio and the Independent Television Commission where one of his tasks had been to escort Michael Heseltine, the Trade and Industry Secretary around the premises.".
  Should the right hon. Gentleman read that, perhaps he would review his opinion on regulation and licensing.
  The industry has appallingly low standards, low pay and long hours. One job that was advertised offered no pay but free access to a mobile phone. A survey by the Low Pay Unit in the west midlands identified salaries of £2.69 per hour for a 67-hour week. There are poor wages and low levels of training. The Government amendment wishes the House to congratulate the Government on raising standards. The Blue Ribbon security company offered only two days of formal training. What industry requires only two days' training? Some 555 guards in England and Wales and only 15 in Scotland have passed the NVQ level 2 in security guarding. Only about one in 10 guards has passed the professional guard part 1 qualification, which does not require the brains of a rocket scientist. Quality in the guarding industry is low and the Government are prepared to tolerate it.
  There is evidence of poor standards of performance throughout the guarding industry. There is a notable lack of accountability and self-regulation has been a dismal failure. Companies that do not wish to participate in the self-regulatory system do not put forward their names, so only a fraction of the companies in the private security industry are subject to what is often weak self-regulation. I could provide more details. The regulators themselves are not independent. The British Security Industry Association has a regulatory regime, but it is a trade association and it remains rather too closely connected with the inspectorate that it set up.
  In conclusion, the Government took nine months to reply to a report. The Select Committee on Defence, of which I am a member, would not accept a reply more than three months after the publication of the report. That demonstrates the Government's confusion. What the Minister said was appalling. It is a travesty that employers are denied access to criminal records. Many right hon. and hon. Members travel by air. How many of them are aware that the employers of UK airport security personnel do not have access to criminal records? That should be a salutary reminder to those of us who fly. Employers are refused the benefit of such access because the Government have not seen fit to bestow it upon them. Wide-ranging regulations should cover the industry progressively over time, and they should include background checks and beyond. There should also be minimum training standards and insurance, and the industry's regulation should be independent.
  I want the security industry to be respected. At the moment, it is seen as a bad joke. In a recent television programme, one character asked another, who was a policeman, "Does he have form?" The reply was,
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  "Of course he does—he is a security guard." How long can that situation be tolerated? I want a private security industry that is healthy and profitable, provides excellent services, and is efficient, accountable and honest. I want the people who work in the industry to be proud of doing so. Regulation is not a panacea—it must be the proper type of regulation.
  When the House has passed regulation of that sort—and clearly that will not be done by the present Government—the security industry can develop. It has not done so other than in numbers because the Government have not been prepared to lay down minimum standards. Self-regulation has exhausted itself. Even security firms that operate in a self-regulatory environment are pleading for statutory control. Regrettably, the present Government will not deliver that control, but perhaps another Government will.
  9.6 pm
  Mr. Piers Merchant: The interesting contributions to this debate and to that of last November, which I had the pleasure of attending, do not in any sense convey an impression of unanimity, because different views and shades of opinion exist in the House. The fine balance of arguments is illustrated by the excellent Select Committee report.
  The House has often rightly been condemned for rushing too quickly into legislation without proper thought—and if we acted on the speech of the hon. Member for Blackburn (Mr. Straw), we would be doing that. Although the hon. Gentleman hid behind the Select Committee report, he failed to make a convincing argument for regulation. He rightly referred to statistics indicating problems in the industry, which are not denied. Nor do I deny the need to address those problems. However, the hon. Member for Blackburn failed to make a strong case for tackling them solely by regulation. He was extremely thin on detail, failing to address any of the anomalies among the possibilities for regulation.
  There are two distinct parts to the argument for dealing with the problems that exist in the private security industry. One part relies on non-statutory methods to improve standards; the other relies on some degree of statutory or state regulation. I have no difficulty with the former. There is a way of considerably improving standards, by enhancing the ability of employers to consult national criminal records. It is entirely right that the law should be amended so that employers in the security industry can check on employees and prospective employees, to vet them far more thoroughly and ensure that persons with unsatisfactory criminal records are not employed.
  I was pleased to hear the Minister hint that there may be some hope of extending the law in this regard after the White Paper is published. The Government closely studied this issue following the Green Paper, and it would fit in very nicely with some of the recommendations in the Select Committee's report. All the examples that the hon. Member for Blackburn quoted referred to employees who have criminal records, and that issue could be dealt with via this mechanism. It would also deal with the majority of examples in the Select Committee's report.
  If employers are given access to Phoenix when it is fully on stream and to national records it would, to a large extent, deal with the problem of people with criminal

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  records being employed. I should like to find a way to deal with employers who have criminal records—an issue that the hon. Member for Blackburn was correct to raise.
  I wonder whether a mechanism could be found to allow those who sign contracts with manned guard companies either to examine the records of the employer or directors of the company or to find an alternative means to assure themselves that not only those who represent the contract company but those who run it have clean records.
  I support the extension of the exemptions under the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974 to this area of employment. The correct extension of exemptions in other forms of sensitive employment would rightly rest with an extension to this area as well.
  Another area of non-statutory regulation is self-regulation. The hon. Member for Blackburn was far too ready to dismiss self-regulation as a useful tool. He made a distinction between self-regulation and external regulation, but there is a role for both, as both have good track records in many other industries. For example, I refer to the advertising industry and to the security alarm sector of the security industry. The National Approved Council for Security Systems, the trade organisation involved, has worked to regulate that sector.
  I encourage further steps to achieve higher training standards and other standards within the industry. However, it must be borne in mind that this industry is diverse. For example, the following activities are quite different: guarding gold bullion; guarding a shop—a small newsagent, for example—against shoplifting, normally via presence; and guarding materials on a small building site.
  It would be virtually impossible to define in statute standards that should apply in all those cases. The simple solution would be to allow the industry, in its various forms, to promote high standards and internal regulation. That can be an effective way of dealing with potential problems.
  I am not against statutory regulation as such—it has a role in many industries—but I am simply lukewarm about it for this industry. There are always arguments in favour of it—although those arguments can be applied to almost every industry. One could make a very good case for statutory regulation of window cleaners as they enter private premises and have unparalleled opportunities to commit crime if they so wish. Other issues have been used as an argument for regulation, such as low wages. However, that does not mean that as a matter of course regulation is a good thing.
  Sir Ivan Lawrence: Can my hon. Friend think of any other industry that wants more regulation and is prepared to pay for it?
  Mr. Merchant: The House should not make a decision purely on the basis of what an industry wants or argues for. Of course, it is not the whole industry that wants statutory regulation; for that matter, there is no consensus on where the borderline should be drawn. As my hon. and learned Friend will know, one of the major trade organisations—it is mentioned in the Select Committee report—has criticised the recommendation in the report and has said that licensing should be put into effect right across the manned guarding sector, not just the contract part of the industry. In other words, it should apply to direct employment as well. There is thus no clear consensus on the exact form that regulation should take.
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  It is possible to argue in favour of regulation in an industry, but the arguments do not end there. We have to decide exactly what we intend to regulate, how to regulate it and where to draw the line. There is no consensus on that, either. No clear argument to explain where the line should be drawn has been advanced.
  The fact is that this is a very large industry. To be sure, it should behave properly and it should have high standards, but I am not convinced that introducing statutory regulations would achieve them. Would regulation automatically improve the industry? Would it avoid the possibility of criminals subverting parts of the industry? Would it stop crime altogether? I think not.
  Unfortunately, regulation is no guarantee that an employee will not use his position to commit a crime. After all, the police are heavily regulated. They are part of the state system, yet there are, unfortunately, quite a number of policemen and women who commit crimes. Regulation is therefore by no means a panacea.
  I am not at all clear where the manned guarding contract sector begins and ends. Should we, for instance, include commissionaires? They are employed to guard and are often part of a contract arrangement. Quite often, however, their sole duty is to sit at the entrance of a building and issue people with permits to enter or leave. Should we include caretakers? A major part of the role of some caretakers is to guard buildings. When other staff leave, they are responsible for ensuring security. All these problems must be dealt with.
  It is no use people like the hon. Member for Blackburn saying that the problem can be easily solved by producing regulations and by stipulating who can be employed. We must also define exactly which activities we are talking about. I fear that new Labour sees regulation not as a way of dealing with abuse in an industry but as a way of controlling it. It sees regulation as a way of reintroducing the state to an industry. Once Labour had opened the door to regulation of this sector, it would wish to use the opportunity to push the door completely open and control every aspect of the industry. The industry is certainly not calling for that, yet a number of speeches today seemed to show that that is what the Opposition want.
  Of course we want high standards in the industry. The question is: how to achieve them? The Minister is quite right to be cautious. He should take some time before grasping some of the superficially attractive solutions that might in the end do little to alleviate the problem. Instead, he should look in depth at every aspect of the industry before reaching a final decision on whether regulation is appropriate—and, if it is, on what form of regulation to introduce.
  9.19 pm
  Mr. John Hutton: Only the hon. Member for Beckenham (Mr. Merchant) has argued in favour of continued self-regulation of the private security industry. I am sure that he would want, in normal circumstances, to place proper emphasis on the views of the Police Federation and the Association of Chief Police Officers when forming his views, so I respectfully ask him to look once again at the evidence that the Select Committee took on self-regulation. The evidence against it is convincing.
  The Police Federation, for example, told the Committee that the whole system had broken down. There is little support across the industry for continued reliance on

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  self-regulation, which would not restore or maintain public confidence in the industry. Nor would it address some of the wider concerns that were argued before the Committee.
  The hon. Gentleman also made a rather unfortunate mistake in suggesting that the Committee's report was a Trojan horse that was engineered by Labour Members of Parliament, and that it was designed somehow to re-regulate whole sectors of the industry. I remind him that the Committee has a majority of Conservative Members and that its report was unanimous. The report was compelling because the arguments in favour of statutory regulation are overwhelming. Everyone who gave evidence supported the arguments in favour of regulation. To summarise for the hon. Gentleman's benefit, they included the police, the industry itself and all the main consumers of security services.
  When the Minister of State gave evidence to the Committee in December 1994, he told us that he was coming to the Committee with an open mind. He used that expression again tonight. I was rather disappointed with his speech tonight because I did not see any evidence of an open mind on statutory regulation—far from it; he tried to parody the arguments in the Committee's report and present them as some back-door red tape and bureaucracy that would stifle an important industry. All the members of the Committee were conscious of that argument. We do not want to adopt a system that would in any way act as a brake on the industry or bury it in red tape. We have had enough red tape from the Government in many other sectors—the health service and elsewhere—to know the problems. We do not want those problems to recur in the private security industry.
  That was not the model that we presented in our report, and the Minister did the Committee a disservice—and gave the game away to a large extent—by trying to pretend that it was. We are conscious of those arguments. We do not want to repeat the mistakes. We want an effective system of statutory regulation, as called for by the industry and the police, which will address some of the concerns that we heard about the operation of the industry.
  There are three specific arguments in favour of regulation of the industry. First, we want to deal with standards. Secondly, we want to deal with the chronic abuses in the industry: low pay, appalling working practices and conditions, and poor training. It is an abusive industry in many respects. Many of the small employers—the cowboy employers—abuse their staff and require them to work long hours. There is no holiday provision. It is a disgrace. That is not an argument for old-style regulation. The Committee examined the matter and felt that the evidence of abuse and of low standards was sufficiently compelling to warrant consideration by the agency that we propose to regulate the industry.
  Thirdly, we are extremely concerned about criminality in the industry. We heard from my hon. Friend the Member for Blackburn (Mr. Straw) and others some pretty grim examples. I do not want to repeat the arguments—anyone who wants to see the catalogue of miserable events should simply read the evidence that we published at the same time as our report. It is important to deal with some of the arguments raised by the hon. Member for Beckenham, and by the Minister of State, who suggested that the issue of criminality in the
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  industry could be dealt with solely by improving access to criminal records. I do not believe that to be the case, and nor, I believe, do my colleagues on the Committee, because there are well-documented examples of one-person businesses being set up by people with serious convictions for offences that make them unsuitable to provide private security services. We would not deal with the issue by disclosing or requiring greater access to criminal records.
  The evidence of criminality that was presented to the Select Committee came in part from the Lancashire constabulary, which undertook some research of its own. It revealed that criminality in the private security industry was 21 times higher than we would expect in the police service. That is the important comparison that we should be making. It is false to compare levels of criminality in the private security industry with those in the general population. The private security industry is moving into territory that has hitherto been the sole responsibility of the police, which have their own legal, ethical and moral code, backed by statutory force.
  I know that there are some methodological difficulties with the research undertaken by the Lancashire constabulary, but the results give us a pretty good background against which we can measure the performance of the private security industry. There is plenty of evidence that should give rise to real concern. Unlike the hon. Member for Beckenham, I do not believe that we can rely on self-regulation to deal with the problems.
  Perhaps there is a wider issue of public confidence that we should consider. The Association of Chief Police Officers, for example. was extremely articulate in presenting evidence to the Select Committee. It drew attention to the fact that there has been a shift in some of the roles and relationships between the private industry and the police.
  One example is the prison escort service. We see the private industry involved in the prison service. Such responsibilities have always rested in the public sector, but no longer. In any main shopping centre anywhere in the country we see uniformed patrols of staff employed in the private security industry. They are on the streets, they are visible and all our constituents come into contact with them. The need philosophically and jurisprudentially for a proper statutory context in which the private industry can function is overwhelming and compelling.
  I am sad to say that the Library told me today that the average time taken by all Government Departments to deal with Select Committee reports is 3.4 months. The Home Office takes an average of seven months to reply to such reports. That is not good enough. I know that the issues raised in this instance are extremely complicated—
  Sir Ivan Lawrence: And there are many of them.
  Mr. Hutton: My hon. and learned Friend says—well, I do not want to embarrass him. The distinguished Chairman of the Select Committee, the hon. and learned Member for Burton (Sir I. Lawrence), mentions that the Committee made many recommendations. In fact, that is not so. It is not the case either that our reports are so uniquely complex that the Home Office needs twice as long to respond to them as other Departments need to respond to other Select Committee reports. The problem

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  is that it is inefficient and involved in a battle with the Department of Trade and Industry, which is apparent to anyone who has been involved in the debate about the private security industry.
  The Home Office cannot make up its mind. It is torn between the need to do something to deal with a problem that it recognises and its ideological obsession to deregulate at every opportunity. It is increasingly the Government's trademark to pursue ideology at the expense of common sense. Before us is a classic example of the need for less ideology and more common sense, plus a commitment to do something sensible to tackle problems.
  If the Government continue to delay and to obfuscate the argument, they will damage the industry. Maintaining the status quo and tampering with or accepting, perhaps, some of the more marginal recommendations is not the best way in which to proceed. The Government should accept the main thrust of the Committee's recommendations. Only if they do that will they convince the House—that certainly applies to my right hon. and hon. Friends—that they have the best interests of the private security industry at heart.
  9.28 pm
  Mr. Ian McCartney: We have heard little so far about the victims—those who have been let down by an industry that has been infiltrated in certain key sectors by the criminal classes. I have in mind companies that have been set up as front organisations for organised crime. They sell their wares to unsuspecting licensees of public houses or the managers of hotel catering establishments. During the 1980s, such infiltration increased enormously, with the result that there was a huge increase in criminal activities. Such organisations realised from the outset that, if they controlled the door security industry, they would control access to clubs and leisure areas, the selling and distribution of drugs there, prostitution, and other key intimidation and protection rackets. As a consequence, they use violence against the companies who own the clubs and pubs and their customers.
  I could not believe it when the Minister of State made light of the issue and claimed that it was not one of law and order or of crime prevention, but of some obscure issue of regulation. In the past eight years, I have provided the Home Office with a dossier of violence, murder, grievous bodily harm and intimidation, leading to people having to give up their licence because of their refusal to allow these companies into their premises. There have been arson attacks, physical violence against people and their families and racketeering leading to companies' losing control of their premises.
  The dossier includes examples of constituents of mine who have been visited at home because they were witnesses in court cases against bouncer companies that had been violent. On two occasions, for example, they have been told that, if they proceeded as witnesses, their child would end up in a coffin with them. The dossier also includes examples of constituents who have been beaten up with baseball bats in mistaken revenge attacks against an enemy of a company and of rice flails being used against licensees who objected simply to the use of violence in their premises by the companies.
  904
  During the campaign, we have had the support of the security and leisure industries and the police. There is a strongly held view that, unless we register and regulate the industry, the expansion of criminal activities will continue.
  I say without exaggeration that the companies and criminals are ruthless. They will stop at nothing. They threaten the people who stand against them. For example, I gave evidence to the Home Office about personal threats to kill me and my family. My children were threatened and a wreath was nailed to my door by a company. My wife has received condolence cards about my death and I have received such cards about my wife's death. We have had telephone calls threatening that, if we continue the campaign in the local community, violence will be inflicted on me or any individual who associated with us in that campaign. Despite that, the Home Office has taken no action. It must do so not because of the threats against me—I am only one individual—but because thousands of people are experiencing daily attacks by these companies.
  I shall conclude soon because some of my hon. Friends want to speak. The Home Secretary has a full dossier of evidence about the extent of infiltration of this sector of the industry by organised crime. I raise one issue contained in the dossier that he has not yet revealed and refused to reveal in the debate. In Merseyside, a detailed report was supplied revealing widespread criminality, including drug dealing, organised violence and extortion, among door supervisors. A survey of 476 door supervisors found that three had convictions for murder and manslaughter, that another two were on bail charged with murder, that 25 had weapon convictions, that seven had firearm convictions, that 18 had drug convictions, that 101 had assault convictions and that 97 were claiming unemployment benefit while working as regular door supervisors. Those figures do not include the people who employ the door supervisors. A survey of the employers found that they had a similar record. The companies were just front organisations for organised crime.
  The Home Secretary should take action urgently. During Home Department questions, I asked the Minister of State if he would
  "bring forward proposals for statutory regulation of the security industry."
  He said that the Government had no plans to do so. In response, I said:
  "Was it not extraordinary that just before Christmas Conservative central office, through its security company, recruited one Bob King who had just served 15 years for armed robbery to work as a security guard at central office? Does that not prove that infiltration of the industry has gone right to the top, including the Government?"—[Official Report, 12 January 1995; Vol. 252, c. 263–64.]
  Having listened to the Minister and the complacency of his speech today, I believe that that just about got it right.
  9.34 pm
  Ms Janet Anderson: What has been most striking about the Government's utterances about the need to regulate the private security industry, and their inadequate and long-delayed response to the Select Committee's report—forced on them by this Opposition day debate—is the sheer complacency of Ministers. Despite statistics that occasionally suggest otherwise, the growth of fear of crime is now a disturbing social phenomenon. Since the Government came to office,

  905
  recorded crime has more than doubled. What the Government fail to recognise is that the expansion of private security is a direct reflection of that trend, and society's response to it.
  There is considerable public unease about the intrusion of the private security industry into areas that were previously the domain of the police. As a report in the Independent on Sunday in June last year pointed out,
  "Already, security firms have fingers in a staggering number of pies."
  Once it was exclusively the task of the police to keep the unruly at bay, marshal parades and check shop doors after dark. On rare occasions, special constables were sworn in to subdue riots. That is no longer true. Privateers escort prisoners to gaol, run prisons and guard installations; they repel anti-road protesters, and defend construction sites. They kept mourners in line at, for example, Ronnie Kray's gangster funeral. There are now at least as many people employed by private security firms as there are uniformed police. According to one estimate, the former—162,000—outnumber the latter by 4,000. According to another, there are as many as 250,000 privateers.
  Last year's Police Federation conference was warned by David French, chairman of the constables' central committee:
  "The growth in private security services means that those who can afford it are looking to hired hands to protect them. There is no plan behind it, no legislation. They're leaving it to market forces."
  The chief constable of Northumbria told police staff college recruits:
  "The private security industry has begun to enter areas of public life which, until recently, have been seen as the sole preserve of statutory regulated bodies such as the police and prison services."
  As the Independent on Sunday report also pointed out,
  "A glance in the Yellow Pages shows the extent to which unregulated private security firms have invaded aspects of our daily lives."
  The list of those aspects is almost endless. It ranges from property protection to surveillance services, from bodyguarding to dog handling, from investigations of theft, from fraud and product piracy to airport, bank and embassy security. Security firms' advertisements reveal men in police-like uniforms with German shepherd dogs, or on horseback, or at control desks. They wear shields and crests with lions rampant.
  Nearly 8,000 private security companies now operate in Britain, making the British industry the second largest in Europe, behind Germany's. It is a £3 billion industry, accountable to no one but itself. Counting the firms—never mind regulating them—is a problem. As BSIA spokesman Andrew Mackay has said,
  "There could be hundreds if not thousands of firms in London. Anyone can set up a security company using a mobile phone."
  In the face of all that evidence of the need to regulate the industry properly, the complacency of the Minister—who, as we know, has direct experience of the industry through Securicor—and, indeed, that of the Home Secretary is staggering. The Home Office has been presiding incompetently over an industry that is 30 years old. Every witness interviewed by the Select Committee called for statutory regulation at least of the manned guarding sector, making it plain that such a system could be self-financing, at no cost to the public purse. The Committee unanimously
  906
  "agreed with the overwhelming majority of the evidence we received that the advantages of regulation of the manned guarding sector … in terms of quality of service and protection of the public, of the industry's customers, and of its workforce, outweigh the loss of commercial freedoms which would be involved."
  Finally, let me tell the House which Conservative Members signed that unanimous Select Committee report. They are the hon. Members for North-West Leicestershire (Mr. Ashby), for Milton Keynes, North-East (Mr. Butler), for Ryedale (Mr. Greenway), for Birmingham, Edgbaston (Dame J. Knight), for Vale of Glamorgan (Mr. Sweeney), and of course the hon. and learned Member for Burton (Sir I. Lawrence), the Chairman. We shall see tonight whether those Conservative Members are willing to vote with their principles and support the Opposition motion or whether, yet again, we shall witness them saying one thing and doing another.
  9.39 pm
  Mr. Don Touhig: I should like to declare an interest. Since the beginning of this month, I have been a parliamentary adviser to the Police Federation, although I do not intend to refer to it in this debate.
  Over the past decade, the private security industry has expanded rapidly. Private security guards have become part of everyday life across Britain in shopping centres, business districts, hospitals and entertainment complexes. Indeed, as the Home Affairs Select Committee report noted, increasingly the private security industry is expanding into areas that were previously in the domain of the police. Although it is important to ask whether that development is to be welcomed, that is for another debate.
  The private security industry is becoming more and more involved in protecting people and property, patrolling and guarding and, because of that expansion, we must be concerned about the industry's relationship with the public. Security guards are protecting people's lives and guarding people's property. That task should be undertaken by people who have been properly vetted, trained and paid. Some security companies address those issues thoroughly and act responsibly; however, many private security firms do not, and that must concern us all.
  Self-regulation has not worked. The industry is dogged by cowboy firms that continue to damage the reputation of responsible companies. There is no legal requirement to comply with minimum standards or join professional associations. The lack of vetting procedures, which lead to the kind of incidents that hon. Members have cited, must cause considerable concern.
  Until the Government are prepared to legislate on regulation in the security industry, I commend to the House the Public Interest Disclosure Bill, which I shall introduce on 1 March. It will go some way towards protecting those who discover malpractice, especially in the private security industry, from being penalised.
  9.42 pm
  Mr. Alun Michael: We have heard it all tonight. The Home Secretary is not willing to listen. He is not willing to listen to decent employers, chief constables, the Opposition or the Home Affairs Select Committee, and he is not willing to act to protect the public.
  Last night, we received a pathetic so-called interim response addressed to the hon. and learned Member for Burton (Sir I. Lawrence). The Opposition have not chosen

  907
  to divide the House; the Home Secretary's reply has caused that to happen. It is an insult to the Home Affairs Select Committee and the House.
  It is almost two years since I commented that, sadly, it was difficult to find opponents of statutory regulation apart from Home Office Ministers and criminals who might be deprived of their jobs. Yet, since then, more examples of private security have arisen in different parts of the country. People have been approached by individuals who say that they operate a security system and look after homes in the area for a weekly payment. Such an approach is sometimes close to operating a protection racket and it is wholly unacceptable.
  There have been examples of people developing a security system on an estate, telling the police of their plans, then telling local people that they have the approval of the police when that was not the case. One group's circular offered patrols by staff free of criminal convictions, yet bore the name of a director who had several convictions for dishonesty and violence. Another firm was run by two men—one had a record for violence and the other for embezzlement. Perhaps in Conservative Britain that is regarded as a good partnership.
  A senior police officer told me:
  "I personally find it monstrous that people with convictions for burglary in dwelling houses are being allowed to run businesses and work for such companies whilst having strings of convictions for the offence for which they are purporting to protect the public".
  We have heard such comments from police officers in various parts of the country, and the Home Affairs Select Committee received specific evidence from the Association of Chief Police Officers which made exactly the same point.
  It is outrageous that no action has been taken and that the Government have failed to respond to the Select Committee's report. Indeed, the Chairman of the Select Committee has tried to persuade and cajole Ministers to act, but they have refused to do so, thus insulting him. He is handling that insult with great restraint, but members of all parties who worked to produce a coherent report calling for action by the House have the right to ask better from Ministers.
  The public have every right to ask why Ministers are not answering questions. To whom does a dissatisfied customer complain if there is no statutory body to monitor and regulate private security firms? What criteria are used to decide whether people are suitable for employment if there is no enforcement in the industry? How can we ensure that all employees are trained to an acceptable level if there is no power of oversight?
  The Minister always forgets that there is no point in allowing employers access to criminal records if the employers themselves are criminals. Such employers may be in the minority in the private security industry, but it is decent employers who are supporting us whole-heartedly in calling for sensible regulation. My hon. Friend the Member for Huddersfield (Mr. Sheerman) was right to say that decent companies in the industry would be seriously damaged if the Government failed to join the search for proper regulation.
  The right hon. Member for Sutton Coldfield (Sir N. Fowler) referred to staff with criminal records employed by someone with a criminal record for grievous bodily harm. He was right to say that this is not a new problem and that the only question to be asked is, how do
  908
  we achieve sensible regulation? I happily agree with his comments, but who is missing from the search for proper regulation? Only Ministers at the Home Office.
  The answer to the question how to find proper regulation was given in the unanimous cross-party report of the Home Affairs Select Committee. The right hon. Member for Sutton Coldfield was right to say that the private security industry is totally different from, for example, the housebuilding industry, where self-regulatory systems can work and be comprehensive. That is not so in the private security industry, which is why the Home Affairs Select Committee was so persuasive and why we have sought the sensible minimum in the debate—that we should unite behind the Select Committee's report.
  The unanimous report proposed proper regulation of the private security industry, but that regulation is obstructed by dogma and the obsession for deregulation displayed by Francis Maude and his like, even though it is obvious to the police, the public, the British Retail Consortium and decent companies in the industry that regulation on a statutory footing is urgent and essential.
  The Minister chose to ramble on about crime, the police, law and order and a series of issues on which the Conservatives are floundering and inept. He did so to avoid debating the issue before the House. He told us that he wanted to get any regulation of the private security industry right. He said that he had not rushed to make a decision, but, in truth, his contribution was pathetic. I know that the Home Secretary had a prior engagement but, by gosh, he must have been delighted and relieved to have missed such an embarrassing effort.
  The Minister tried to ridicule the serious commitment shown by my hon. Friends the Members for Wigan (Mr. Stott) and for Makerfield (Mr. McCartney), but he must take seriously the experience of those who have taken action in the interests of their constituents, as my hon. Friends have done at a local level. Tonight, the Government have struggled to appear serious.
  Why did a Home Office Minister respond to the debate when it is dogmatic Ministers at the Department of Trade and Industry who are blocking regulation that is in the public interest? Why is dogma standing in the way of protecting the public interest? That question was answered on the "Today" programme by a failed Conservative candidate who has been given a job by Ministers.
  More than a quarter of a century ago, Philip Sorenson, who was then the chairman of Group 4, said:
  "It is the responsibility of the security industry to work towards statutory backing for a system of control.
  That system should allay any fears about the role of private security companies in our society."
  Twenty-five years later, the Government offer only prevarication and delay.
  There are decent employers and decent employees in the private security industry. Their friends are on the Labour Benches. We are their friends, as we are the friends of the police and the public. There are also crooked employers and crooks employed in the private security industry. By Conservative Ministers' pathetic response to this debate, they have shown themselves to be the villains' friends.
  9.49 pm
  The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. Tom Sackville): I wish to make it clear that the Government have great respect for the

  909
  private security industry, which employs some 160,000 people and conducts the vast majority of its business without any problems. For example, the alarms sector, locksmiths, and cash-in-transit companies all operate well. The in-house part of the guarding sector is generally recognised to be sound. The one group that raises real concerns is the contract guarding sector.
  Legitimate concerns arise about the contract guarding sector, but no one should exaggerate the degree of criminality or security industry-related crime. A number of Opposition Members were guilty of that. Among other things, the hon. Member for Blackburn (Mr. Straw) accused Mr. Francis Maude of speaking for the Government. Although Mr. Maude probably will speak for the Government again, he is what one might call a resting Minister, to borrow a phrase from another profession. He spoke as an independent business man on a panel that advises the Government. This morning, I was waiting by my telephone to be asked to appear on the "Today" programme, as were all my colleagues and the chairman of the Home Affairs Select Committee. It was entirely the BBC's decision to ask Mr. Maude to speak and I hope that that is not a habit to which they will become accustomed.
  The hon. Members for Wigan (Mr. Stott) and for Makerfield (Mr. McCartney) mentioned the problems of bouncers in their area.
  Ms Janet Anderson: Will the Minister give way?
  Mr. Sackville: I will not give way because I have very little time.
  I think that the hon. Members for Wigan and for Makerfield exaggerated somewhat. I do not think that thousands of people are threatened by bouncers.
  Mr. Ian McCartney: Will the Minister give way?
  Mr. Sackville: I will not give way. The hon. Gentleman himself mentioned that there is an excellent voluntary scheme in Wigan, which makes my case that deregulation can work.
  My right hon. Friend the Member for Sutton Coldfield (Sir N. Fowler) demonstrated his long interest in this subject. He lamented the lack of regulation during the Labour Government and his interest goes back before the last Labour Government. I am sorry that my right hon. Friend did not manage, in one of the many seats that he occupied in the Cabinet in the past 15 years, to bring forward the regulatory measures that he suggested. Ireassure him that the Government are considering the Home Affairs Select Committee report carefully and we shall shortly produce proposals on vetting that may address his concerns. I certainly echo my right hon. Friend's call to avoid rushed legislation. He always showed remarkable prudence in introducing legislation in the many posts that he occupied in the Government.
  The right hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Mr. Beith) produced the old chestnut about the danger that closed circuit television video might be abused for commercial purposes. We had an isolated case, but that did not happen. That case demonstrates that it is possible
  910
  for the CCTV industry, which makes a huge contribution to crime prevention, to regulate itself. We should be careful about restricting CCTV unnecessarily.
  My hon. and learned Friend the Member for Burton (Sir I. Lawrence) made a characteristically wise speech. He chided us for being slow in replying to the report, but he conceded that he did not expect a speedy response given that the issue is complex and that any action we take has many ramifications. I can reassure my hon. and learned Friend that his report has been carefully studied. We need to do further work on a number of issues, but we shall introduce proposals soon. I noted the point that he made so vividly: the industry is growing and public concern is growing. Those matters need to be addressed.
  The hon. Member for Walsall, South (Mr. George) also showed a long-held interest and expertise in the subject, which we greatly respect. He warned us about the position of airline employees, the probity that is needed and the respect for the security industry.
  My hon. Friend the Member for Beckenham (Mr. Merchant) made an interesting point when he said that we cannot be too prescriptive about training, because there are many different sorts of jobs in the security industry. [Interruption.]
  The hon. Member for Barrow and Furness (Mr. Hutton) warned us against red tape. His was a timely warning. We may need to ensure that there is access to records for employers, but without unnecessary burdens—[Interruption.]
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. The House should listen to the winding-up speech and I should be grateful if hon. Ladies who want to have a giggle would have it outside the Chamber.
  Mr. Sackville: I shall not enter into that discussion, Mr. Deputy Speaker.
  The hon. Member for Makerfield mentioned violence. He made an interesting point, but we must be careful to keep it in context.
  The report of the Select Committee on Home Affairs covered the ground expertly and the Committee has done some excellent work in identifying the problems. However, we need to do more detailed work on tackling the problem, which is why we are considering some aspects of the report. As my right hon. Friend the Minister has said, we shall shortly be publishing our proposals on vetting, which should go a long way towards resolving the difficulties.
  The net effect of the contract guarding sector—even though there may be problems—is to deter crime. It reassures the public in many different ways. It has grown partly because of the lack of intrusive legislation. The vast majority of firms do a good job and add to the community's safety. They give businesses peace of mind and allow people to leave their premises at night; they do much to reassure vulnerable people in the high street.
  The hon. Member for Cardiff, South and Penarth (Mr. Michael) accused us of complacency. The Labour party's new-found interest in crime is hardly convincing. My right hon. Friend the Deputy Prime Minister made some remarks the other day about Labour and criminals. Some of us were disappointed by his remarks, as we felt

  911
  they were far too restrained. The gulf between what Labour says about crime and what it does about crime is striking.
  When we raised the maximum penalty for dealing in hard drugs to life, what did the Labour party do? It voted against it.
  Mr. Michael: Will the Minister give way?
  Mr. Sackville: No, I will not give way.
  When we raised the maximum penalty for taking guns to a crime, the Labour party voted against that measure. We gave the Attorney-General the power to appeal against lenient sentences; the Labour party voted against that. We gave the courts the power to make the parents of 16 and 17-year-olds pay their children's fines; the Labour party voted against that. We reformed the right of silence; the Labour party voted against that. We gave the police powers to take DNA samples; the Labour party voted against that. Where were Labour Members? Perhaps most significantly, every year that we renewed the prevention of terrorism Act, the Labour party voted against it. Labour Members voted to weaken our controls against terrorism and against the bombers.
  The debate is not about security; it is a piece of Labour party opportunism. Labour Members are trying to combine their new-found display of interest in crime with an attack on the thing that they hate most—an unregulated private sector industry.
  Question put, That the original words stand part of the Question:—
  The House divided: Ayes 263, Noes 294.

  Division No. 53]

  [9.59 pm

  AYES

  Abbott, Ms Diane

  Callaghan, Jim

  Ainger, Nick

  Campbell, Mrs Anne (C'bridge)

  Ainsworth, Robert (Cov'try NE)

  Campbell, Menzies (Fife NE)

  Allen, Graham

  Campbell, Ronnie (Blyth V)

  Anderson, Donald (Swansea E)

  Campbell-Savours, D N

  Anderson, Ms Janet (Ros'dale)

  Canavan, Dennis

  Armstrong, Hilary

  Carlile, Alexander (Montgomery)

  Ashton, Joe

  Chidgey, David

  Austin-Walker, John

  Chisholm, Malcolm

  Banks, Tony (Newham NW)

  Church, Judith

  Barnes, Harry

  Clapham, Michael

  Barron, Kevin

  Clark, Dr David (South Shields)

  Battle, John

  Clarke, Tom (Monklands W)

  Bayley, Hugh

  Clelland, David

  Beckett, Rt Hon Margaret

  Clwyd, Mrs Ann

  Beggs, Roy

  Coffey, Ann

  Beith, Rt Hon A J

  Cohen, Harry

  Bell, Stuart

  Connarty, Michael

  Benn, Rt Hon Tony

  Cook, Frank (Stockton N)

  Bennett, Andrew F

  Corbett, Robin

  Benton, Joe

  Corbyn, Jeremy

  Bermingham, Gerald

  Corston, Jean

  Berry, Roger

  Cousins, Jim

  Betts, Clive

  Cox, Tom

  Blunkett, David

  Cummings, John

  Boateng, Paul

  Cunliffe, Laurence

  Bradley, Keith

  Cunningham, Jim (Covy SE)

  Bray, Dr Jeremy

  Dafis, Cynog

  Brown, Gordon (Dunfermline E)

  Dalyell, Tam

  Brown, N (N'c'tle upon Tyne E)

  Darling, Alistair

  Bruce, Malcolm (Gordon)

  Davidson, Ian

  Burden, Richard

  Davies, Bryan (Oldham C'tral)

  Byers, Stephen

  Davies, Chris (L'Boro & S'worth)

  Caborn, Richard

  Davies, Rt Hon Denzil (Llanelli)

  912

  Davies, Ron (Caerphilly)

  Litheriand, Robert

  Davis, Terry (B'ham, H'dge HY)

  Livingstone, Ken

  Denham, John

  Lloyd, Tony (Stretford)

  Dewar, Donald

  Loyden, Eddie

  Dixon, Don

  Lynne, Ms Liz

  Dobson, Frank

  McAllion, John

  Dowd, Jim

  McAvoy, Thomas

  Eagle, Ms Angela

  McCartney, Ian

  Eastham, Ken

  McCartney, Robert

  Etherington, Bill

  McFall, John

  Evans, John (St Helens N)

  McLeish, Henry

  Fatchett, Derek

  McMaster, Gordon

  Faulds, Andrew

  McNamara, Kevin

  Field, Frank (Birkenhead)

  MacShane, Denis

  Fisher, Mark

  McWilliam, John

  Flynn, Paul

  Madden, Max

  Forsythe, Clifford (S Antrim)

  Maddock, Diana

  Foster, Rt Hon Derek

  Mahon, Alice

  Foster, Don (Bath)

  Mandelson, Peter

  Fyfe, Maria

  Marek, Dr John

  Galloway, George

  Marshall, David (Shettleston)

  Gapes, Mike

  Marshall, Jim (Leicester, S)

  Garrett, John

  Martin, Michael J (Springburn)

  George, Bruce

  Martlew, Eric

  Gerrard, Neil

  Maxton, John

  Gilbert, Rt Hon Dr John

  Meacher, Michael

  Godman, Dr Norman A

  Meale, Alan

  Godsiff, Roger

  Michael, Alun

  Golding, Mrs Llin

  Michie, Bill (Sheffield Heeley)

  Gordon, Mildred

  Michie, Mrs Ray (Argyll & Bute)

  Grant, Bernie (Tottenham)

  Milburn, Alan

  Griffiths, Nigel (Edinburgh S)

  Miller, Andrew

  Griffiths, Win (Bridgend)

  Mitchell, Austin (Gt Grimsby)

  Grocott, Bruce

  Moonie, Dr Lewis

  Gunnell, John

  Morgan, Rhodri

  Hain, Peter

  Morley, Elliot

  Hall, Mike

  Morris, Estelle (B'ham Yardley)

  Hanson, David

  Morris, Rt Hon John (Aberavon)

  Hardy, Peter

  Mullin, Chris

  Harman, Ms Harriet

  Murphy, Paul

  Hattersley, Rt Hon Roy

  Oakes, Rt Hon Gordon

  Henderson, Doug

  O'Brien, Mike (N W'kshire)

  Heppell, John

  O'Brien, William (Normanton)

  Hinchliffe, David

  O'Hara, Edward

  Hodge, Margaret

  Olner, Bill

  Hoey, Kate

  O'Neill, Martin

  Hogg, Norman (Cumbernauld)

  Orme, Rt Hon Stanley

  Home Robertson, John

  Parry, Robert

  Hood, Jimmy

  Pearson, Ian

  Hoon, Geoffrey

  Pendry, Tom

  Howarth, Alan (Strat'rd-on-A)

  Pickthall, Colin

  Howarth, George (Knowsley North)

  Pike, Peter L

  Howells, Dr Kim (Pontypridd)

  Pope, Greg

  Hoyle, Doug

  Prentice, Bridget (Lew'm E)

  Hughes, Kevin (Doncaster N)

  Prentice, Gordon (Pendle)

  Hughes, Roy (Newport E)

  Primarolo, Dawn

  Hutton, John

  Purchase, Ken

  Illsley, Eric

  Quin, Ms Joyce

  Ingram, Adam

  Radice, Giles

  Jackson, Glenda (H'stead)

  Randall, Stuart

  Jackson, Helen (Shef'ld, H)

  Raynsford, Nick

  Jamieson, David

  Reid, Dr John

  Jones, Barry (Alyn and D'side)

  Rendel, David

  Jones, leuan Wyn (Ynys MÔn)

  Robertson, George (Hamilton)

  Jones, Jon Owen (Cardiff C)

  Robinson, Geoffrey (Co'try NW)

  Jones, Lynne (B'ham S O)

  Roche, Mrs Barbara

  Jones, Martyn (Clwyd, SW)

  Rogers, Allan

  Jones, Nigel (Cheltenham)

  Rooker, Jeff

  Jowell, Tessa

  Rooney, Terry

  Kaufman, Rt Hon Gerald

  Ross, Ernie (Dundee W)

  Kennedy, Charles (Ross,C&S)

  Rowlands, Ted

  Kennedy, Jane (L'pool Br'dg'n)

  Ruddock, Joan

  Khabra, Piara

  Salmond, Alex

  S Kilfoyle, Peter

  Sedgemore, Brian

  Kirkwood, Archy

  Sheerman, Barry

  Liddell, Mrs Helen

  Sheldon, Rt Hon Robert

  913

  Shore, Rt Hon Peter

  Trickett, Jon

  Short, Clare

  Tyler, Paul

  Simpson, Alan

  Vaz, Keith

  Skinner, Dennis

  Walker, Rt Hon Sir Harold

  Smith, Andrew (Oxford E)

  Wallace, James

  Smith, Llew (Blaenau Gwent)

  Walley, Joan

  Snape, Peter

  Wardell, Gareth (Gower)

  Soley, Clive

  Wareing, Robert N

  Spearing, Nigel

  Watson, Mike

  Spellar, John

  Wicks, Malcolm

  Squire, Rachel (Dunfermline W)

  Wigley, Dafydd

  Williams, Rt Hon Alan (Sw'n W)

  Steinberg, Gerry

  Williams, Alan W (Carmarthen)

  Stevenson, George

  Wilson, Brian

  Stott, Roger

  Winnick, David

  Strang, Dr. Gavin

  Wise, Audrey

  Straw, Jack

  Worthington, Tony

  Sutcliffe, Gerry

  Wray, Jimmy

  Taylor, Mrs Ann (Dewsbury)

  Wright, Dr Tony

  Taylor, Matthew (Truro)

  Young, David (Bolton SE)

  Thompson, Jack (Wansbeck)

  Timms, Stephen

  Tellers for the Ayes:

  Tipping, Paddy

  Mr. Eric Clarke and

  Touhig, Don

  Mr. Dennis Turner.

  NOES

  Ainsworth, Peter (East Surrey)

  Clappison, James

  Aitken, Rt Hon Jonathan

  Clark, Dr Michael (Rochford)

  Alexander, Richard

  Clarke, Rt Hon Kenneth (Ru'clif)

  Alison, Rt Hon Michael (Selby)

  Clifton-Brown, Geoffrey

  Allason, Rupert (Torbay)

  Coe, Sebastian

  Amess, David

  Colvin, Michael

  Ancram, Rt Hon Michael

  Congdon, David

  Arbuthnot, James

  Conway, Derek

  Arnold, Jacques (Gravesham)

  Coombs, Anthony (Wyre For'st)

  Arnold, Sir Thomas (Hazel Grv)

  Coombs, Simon (Swindon)

  Ashby, David

  Cope, Rt Hon Sir John

  Atkins, Rt Hon Robert

  Cormack, Sir Patrick

  Atkinson, David (Bour'mouth E)

  Couchman, James

  Baker, Rt Hon Kenneth (Mole V)

  Cran, James

  Baker, Nicholas (North Dorset)

  Currie, Mrs Edwina (S D'by'ire)

  Baldry, Tony

  Curry, David (Skipton & Ripon)

  Banks, Matthew (Southport)

  Davies, Quentin (Stamford)

  Banks, Robert (Harrogate)

  Day, Stephen

  Bates, Michael

  Deva, Nirj Joseph

  Bellingham, Henry

  Devlin, Tim

  Bendall, Vivian

  Dicks, Terry

  Beresford, Sir Paul

  Dorrell, Rt Hon Stephen

  Biffen, Rt Hon John

  Douglas-Hamilton, Lord James

  Bonsor, Sir Nicholas

  Dover, Den

  Booth, Hartley

  Duncan, Alan

  Boswell, Tim

  Duncan-Smith, Iain

  Bottomley, Peter (Eltham)

  Dunn, Bob

  Bottomley, Rt Hon Virginia

  Durant, Sir Anthony

  Bowden, Sir Andrew

  Eggar, Rt Hon Tim

  Bowis, John

  Elletson, Harold

  Boyson, Rt Hon Sir Rhodes

  Emery, Rt Hon Sir Peter

  Brandreth, Gyles

  Evans, David (Welwyn Hatfield)

  Brazier, Julian

  Evans, Jonathan (Brecon)

  Bright, Sir Graham

  Evans, Nigel (Ribble Valley)

  Brooke, Rt Hon Peter

  Evans, Roger (Monmouth)

  Brown, Michael

  Evennett, David

  Browning, Mrs Angela

  Faber, David

  Bruce, Ian (Dorset)

  Fabricant, Michael

  Budgen, Nicholas

  Fenner, Dame Peggy

  Burt, Alistair

  Field, Barry (Isle of Wight)

  Butcher, John

  Fishburn, Dudley

  Butler, Peter

  Forman, Nigel

  Butterfill, John

  Forsyth, Rt Hon Michael (Stirling)

  Carlisle, John (Luton North)

  Forth, Eric

  Carlisle, Sir Kenneth (Lincoln)

  Fowler, Rt Hon Sir Norman

  Carrington, Matthew

  Fox, Dr Liam (Woodspring)

  Carttiss, Michael

  Fox, Rt Hon Sir Marcus (Shipley)

  Cash, William

  Freeman, Rt Hon Roger

  Chapman, Sir Sydney

  French, Douglas

  Churchill, Mr

  Fry, Sir Peter

  914

  Gale, Roger

  Major, Rt Hon John

  Gardiner, Sir George

  Malone, Gerald

  Garnier, Edward

  Mans, Keith

  Gill, Christopher

  Marland, Paul

  Gillan, Cheryl

  Marlow, Tony

  Goodlad, Rt Hon Alastair

  Marshall, John (Hendon S)

  Goodson-Wickes, Dr Charles

  Marshall, Sir Michael (Arundel)

  Gorman, Mrs Teresa

  Martin, David (Portsmouth S)

  Gorst, Sir John

  Mates, Michael

  Grant, Sir A (SW Cambs)

  Mawhinney, Rt Hon Dr Brian

  Greenway, Harry (Ealing N)

  Mellor, Rt Hon David

  Greenway, John (Ryedale)

  Merchant, Piers

  Griffiths, Peter (Portsmouth, N)

  Mills, Iain

  Grylls, Sir Michael

  Mitchell, Andrew (Gedling)

  Gummer, Rt Hon John Selwyn

  Mitchell, Sir David (NW Hants)

  Hague, Rt Hon William

  Moate, Sir Roger

  Hamilton, Neil

  Monro, Rt Hon Sir Hector

  Hampson, Dr Keith

  Montgomery, Sir Fergus

  Hanley, Rt Hon Jeremy

  Needham, Rt Hon Richard

  Hannam, Sir John

  Nelson, Anthony

  Hargreaves, Andrew

  Neubert, Sir Michael

  Harris, David

  Newton, Rt Hon Tony

  Haselhurst, Sir Alan

  Nicholls, Patrick

  Hawkins, Nick

  Nicholson, David (Taunton)

  Hawksley, Warren

  Norris, Steve

  Hayes, Jerry

  Onslow, Rt Hon Sir Cranley

  Heald, Oliver

  Oppenheim, Phillip

  Heathcoat-Amory, David

  Ottaway, Richard

  Hendry, Charles

  Page, Richard

  Heseltine, Rt Hon Michael

  Paice, James

  Higgins, Rt Hon Sir Terence

  Patnick, Sir Irvine

  Hill, James (Southampton Test)

  Patten, Rt Hon John

  Hogg, Rt Hon Douglas (G'tham)

  Pattie, Rt Hon Sir Geoffrey

  Horam, John

  Pawsey, James

  Hordem, Rt Hon Sir Peter

  Peacock, Mrs Elizabeth

  Howell, Rt Hon David (G'dford)

  Porter, Barry (Wirral S)

  Howell, Sir Ralph (N Norfolk)

  Porter, David (Waveney)

  Hughes, Robert G (Harrow W)

  Portillo, Rt Hon Michael

  Hunt, Rt Hon David (Wirral W)

  Powell, William (Corby)

  Hunt, Sir John (Ravensbourne)

  Rathbone, Tim

  Hunter, Andrew

  Redwood, Rt Hon John

  Hurd, Rt Hon Douglas

  Richards, Rod

  Jack, Michael

  Riddick, Graham

  Jackson, Robert (Wantage)

  Robathan, Andrew

  Jenkin, Bernard

  Roberts, Rt Hon Sir Wyn

  Johnson Smith, Sir Geoffrey

  Robertson, Raymond (Ab'd'n S)

  Jones, Gwilym (Cardiff N)

  Robinson, Mark (Somerton)

  Jones, Robert B (W Hertfdshr)

  Roe, Mrs Marion (Broxbourne)

  Jopling, Rt Hon Michael

  Rowe, Andrew (Mid Kent)

  Kellett-Bowman, Dame Elaine

  Rumbold, Rt Hon Dame Angela

  Key, Robert

  Sackville, Tom

  King, Rt Hon Tom

  Scott, Rt Hon Sir Nicholas

  Kirkhope, Timothy

  Shaw, David (Dover)

  Knapman, Roger

  Shaw, Sir Giles (Pudsey)

  Knight, Mrs Angela (Erewash)

  Shephard, Rt Hon Gillian

  Knight, Rt Hon Greg (Derby N)

  Shepherd, Sir Colin (Hereford)

  Knight, Dame Jill (Bir'm E'st'n)

  Shepherd, Richard (Aldridge)

  Knox, Sir David

  Shersby, Sir Michael

  Kynoch, George (Kincardine)

  Sims, Roger

  Lait, Mrs Jacqui

  Skeet, Sir Trevor

  Lang, Rt Hon Ian

  Smith, Sir Dudley (Warwick)

  Lawrence, Sir Ivan

  Smith, Tim (Beaconsfield)

  Legg, Barry

  Soames, Nicholas

  Leigh, Edward

  Speed, Sir Keith

  Lennox-Boyd, Sir Mark

  Spencer, Sir Derek

  Lester, Sir James (Broxtowe)

  Spicer, Sir James (W Dorset)

  Lidington, David

  Spicer, Sir Michael (S Worcs)

  Lloyd, Rt Hon Sir Peter (Fareham)

  Spink, Dr Robert

  Lord, Michael

  Spring, Richard

  Luff, Peter

  Sproat, Iain

  Lyell, Rt Hon Sir Nicholas

  Squire, Robin (Hornchurch)

  MacGregor, Rt Hon John

  Stanley, Rt Hon Sir John

  MacKay, Andrew

  Steen, Anthony

  Maclean, Rt Hon David

  Stern, Michael

  McNair-Wilson, Sir Patrick

  Streeter, Gary

  Maitland, Lady Olga

  Sumberg, David

  915

  Sweeney, Walter

  Ward, John

  Sykes, John

  Wardle, Charles (Bexhill)

  Tapsell, Sir Peter

  Waterson, Nigel

  Taylor, Ian (Esher)

  Watts, John

  Taylor, John M (Solihull)

  Wells, Bowen

  Taylor, Sir Teddy (Southend, E)

  Wheeler, Rt Hon Sir John

  Temple-Morris, Peter

  Whitney, Ray

  Thomason, Roy

  Whittingdale, John

  Thompson, Sir Donald (C'er V)

  Widdecombe, Ann

  Thompson, Patrick (Norwich N)

  Wiggin, Sir Jerry

  Thornton, Sir Malcolm

  Wilkinson, John

  Townend, John (Bridlington)

  Willetts, David

  Townsend, Cyril D (Bexl'yh'th)

  Wilshire, David

  Tracey, Richard

  Winterton, Mrs Ann (Congleton)

  Tredinnick, David

  Winterton, Nicholas (Macc'f'ld)

  Trend, Michael

  Wolfson, Mark

  Trotter, Neville

  Wood, Timothy

  Twinn, Dr Ian

  Yeo, Tim

  Vaughan, Sir Gerard

  Young, Rt Hon Sir George

  Viggers, Peter

  Walden, George

  Tellers for the Noes:

  Walker, Bill (N Tayside)

  Mr. Simon Burns and

  Waller, Gary

  Mr. Patrick McLoughlin.

  Question accordingly negatived.
  Question, That the proposed words be there added, put forthwith, pursuant to Standing Order No. 30 (Questions on amendments), and agreed to.
  MR. DEPUTY SPEAKER forthwith declared the main Question, as amended, to be agreed to.
  Resolved,
  That this House recognises the valuable work done by the Home Affairs Committee in its First Report, Session 1994–95, on the private security industry (House of Commons Paper No. 17), welcomes the Government's plans to introduce the White Paper which will allow greater access to criminal records; and congratulates the Government on its firm and positive commitment to ensuring that standards throughout the industry are raised to the level of the best.

Private Security Industry PETITION

  Retirement Pensions
  10.14 pm
  Mr. Jim Cunningham: I beg to present a humble petition addressed to the honourable the Commons of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland in Parliament assembled, from the residents of Coventry. The petition reads:
  The recent reports of plans for changes to retirement pensions has filled the people of Coventry and in particular its British pensioners and the Trades Unions Action Association of the Coventry Branch with deep concern because the threat to the universal basic retirement pensions will in the long term be to their detriment and cause great hardship to the least well off of the pensioners of Coventry and the Nation. Two thousand and six hundred and twenty four people of Coventry have expressed their concern by signing the petition because if these proposed changes are implemented, they would be neither economically nor socially justified.
  Wherefore your petitioners pray that your honourable House will approve no action that will be to the detriment of pensioners' entitlement and rights, instead commend the enhancement of pensions to at least one third of average earnings. And your pensioners, as in duty bound, will ever pray."
  To lie upon the Table.

  Coastguard Service
  Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Streeter.]
  10.16 pm
  Mr. Paul Tyler: I am delighted to have the opportunity to raise the subject of the coastguard service this evening, and I am particularly delighted with the choice of Minister to reply—the hon. Member for Epping Forest (Mr. Norris). That allows me to pay tribute to the Minister's erudition, wit and courtesy—which we will sadly miss when the hon. Gentleman leaves the House—and to say how much I anticipate with joy the description of the coastline of the Minister's constituency that he will no doubt give when he replies.
  The coastguard service is a serious subject, but it has not received much attention in the House in recent years. This is the first debate on the service in many years—in particular, the first since the publication of the Transport Select Committee's report on the future of the coastguard service that was published on 7 December 1994. I know that other hon. Members with coastal constituencies and those who are fellow officers of the all-party coastal group feel that this important issue should have been given Government time, but we welcome this opportunity. I am pleased that a number of my hon. Friends are present, as well as hon. Members of other parties.
  The Select Committee's report concluded with this important analysis:
  "The evidence we have received suggests that the operational personnel and equipment of the Coastguard are thinly stretched at present. The agency is dealing with many more incidents than in 1986, with fewer staff, and may recently have relied too much on the use of overtime and auxiliary coastguards to maintain service levels. We therefore welcome the fact that the Government has rejected the option of requiring the agency to produce efficiency savings of 20 per cent. Given the financial pressures under which the agency is presently operating, we are concerned that its present target of achieving a 6.4 per cent. saving in the next 18 months might adversely affect the provision of coastguard services. In view of the haste with which the agency was obliged to agree to the target, it may not in fact be possible for its management to find sufficient economies in non-operational elements of the budget to achieve such savings without compromising the effectiveness of the service."
  We are reaching the end of the period to which that conclusion relates, so this is a fitting moment to take stock.
  I pay tribute to the dedication, professionalism and sheer guts of those who serve in the Coastguard Agency throughout the country. There are nearly 500 full-timers and 3,700 auxiliaries. They have been, and still are, demoralised by five years of non-stop reorganisation. In 210 BC, the Roman General Petronius said:
  "I was to learn in later life that we tend to meet any new situation by re-organising, and a wonderful method it can be for creating the illusion of progress while producing confusion, inefficiency and demoralisation".
  That is precisely the impact that these continual reorganising proposals have had on this dedicated team of men and women.
  The current review is not the first in recent memory. The so-called Laver review, which was completed in 1978, recommended an increase in staff to more than 700. In 1987, cuts were imposed, resulting in the closure
  918
  of more rescue sub-centres. In the 1980s and early 1990s, the number of centres was reduced from 28 to 21. Recently, the following centres have closed: Wick, Peterhead, Tees, Shoreham, Ramsey in the Isle of Man, Land's End and Hartland Point on my constituency border.
  On 3 December 1991, the then Minister announced the latest comprehensive reorganisation, following a year-long review. There were elaborate plans to redesignate the auxiliary stations—some would be initial response teams, and some would be back-up teams. This caused confusion and consternation. The name games have played a major part in the confusion of recent years, including the curious suggestion that watch monitors be appointed—that seems more relevant to the classroom than to the serious occupation of watching the coast. This has contributed to the feeling that the service is unloved and misunderstood.
  On 9 May 1994, the then Secretary of State announced that he had set the service a 20 per cent. economy target, to be achieved over a two-year period by 1 April 1996. The chief executive anticipated the closure of seven rescue centres, and the loss of one third of the full-time jobs. As part of the Transport Select Committee exercise to which I have referred, Ministers subsequently back-tracked. The abrupt U-turn meant that the full implications were not, and are still not, apparent—they have not come out into the open, which is one of the reasons for continuing concern.
  Savings of some £1.4 million or £1.5 million by the end of next month are still being sought, but their manpower implications have not been fully explained to those most concerned. I know that my colleagues front Scotland, in particular my hon. Friends the Members for Orkney and Shetland (Mr. Wallace) and for Argyll and Bute (Mrs. Michie), will confirm that morale is low.
  One officer has written the following to me:
  "After almost 30 years as a regular officer and 5 years as an auxiliary, I more than most can see just how the service if falling apart…recent decisions in the Coastguard service leave staff astounded, disenchanted and with morale at an all-time low".
  Hon. Members may recall that the timing of this debate was announced only last Thursday. The fact that all this information has reached me so speedily suggests that many people share our concerns.
  Another officer has written:
  "Rumours were flying around that discussion had taken place, or even agreements reached, about a range of issues … it appears that these rumours may have emanated from some senior managers".
  That is no way to conduct an effective, constructive negotiation or to improve confidence in the service.
  As in any organisation, there is room for savings, and there may be waste in particular areas. If so, it should be identified and eradicated. For example, there seems to be widespread criticism of the vehicle policy of the service in relation to initial costs, replacement and running expenses. The rationale should surely be the improvement of the efficiency of the service, not a dogmatic and arbitrary cost-cutting exercise to a predetermined monetary target.
  Between 1986 and 1994, the total number of incidents dealt with by the coastguard service almost doubled, from 5,300 to 10,470; the number of persons assisted increased from 8,960 to 17,400; and, thankfully, the number of fatalities decreased from 286 to 272. That in itself is

  919
  a tribute to the quality of the service. With much less manpower and a reduced budget in real terms, it is already achieving a great deal more.
  The gales of the past few days around the west country coasts, and especially in my constituency, are a salutary reminder of what we owe to those who dedicate their lives to safety at sea. The current collapse in morale, following months of secret cost-cutting schemes, is surely too high a price to pay if it results in reduced standards and obstacles to high quality recruitment.
  We are already hearing reports of distress signals being missed. I have a dossier referring to reports from regular coastguards of information that they have passed on to their superiors about missed mayday calls and missed urgent transmissions on the new 2182 medium frequency. There are renewed fears of inadequate manual watch—the cover in known danger spots around west country cliffs and secluded coves. Our coastal seafarers are expressing their concern; just when their numbers are increasing, inshore surveillance is being reduced.
  In recent weeks—particularly since the announcement of this debate—I have received expressions of frustration, anxiety and dismay from members of the service. They are dismayed, because the future is still so shrouded in official mist. The coastguards simply cannot understand why the bureaucrats, safe behind their desks, are being so slow and so secretive.
  Why cannot we have the full picture now? Surely dogmatic insistence on a budget cut across the board—still rumoured to be a reduction of at least £1.5 million to be achieved by the end of March—is quite wrong for a service in which safety must be paramount. Saving lives must take precedence over saving money, if only because, in the long term, driving volunteers out of the coastguard service will cost huge sums to reverse.
  Tonight is an opportunity for the Minister to reassure the coastguards and all who depend on them and represent them that the current review will not be allowed to weaken the service. We need to be confident that this review will not be penny wise, pound foolish.
  10.26 pm
  The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport (Mr. Steve Norris): I am grateful to the hon. Member for North Cornwall (Mr. Tyler) for his kind words when introducing the debate. It is often said that a compliment from a colleague on the other side of the House is the kiss of death for a parliamentary career, but as mine has already received that self-inflicted wound, I shall accept the hon. Gentleman's kind words in the spirit in which they were intended. I can assure him that Epping Forest—when I last looked—had no coastline; but that no more diminishes my interest in the subject than if I were translated to the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, and were required to attend to matters there.
  I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on securing this debate. The staff of the coastguard service, regulars and volunteers, provide a vital maritime rescue service around our seas and coasts. I can assure the hon. Gentleman and the House that we in the Department, and my noble Friend the Minister for Aviation and Shipping, hold the coastguard in the highest possible regard.
  The hon. Gentleman will know that we have incorporated the coastguard in the Coastguard Agency. We have put it on a sound footing; we have given it some clear objectives; and we have provided it with the resources it needs to undertake its tasks.
  920
  I should like to say a word about the changes proposed to the service, which are expected to improve the already high level of service being delivered. I stress that the changes are supported by the chief executive of the Coastguard Agency and the chief coastguard—I have spoken to them both today, and they underlined the point.
  The sea is vital to our economy, and it provides many opportunities for us all to enjoy our coast line in a variety of recreational pursuits. But as the hon. Gentleman, my hon. Friend the Member for St. Ives (Mr. Harris), who takes a close interest in these matters, and many other hon. Members here tonight know all too well, the sea is also unpredictable and dangerous. When problems arise, we turn to the coastguard service to provide a quick and effective response to any maritime emergency. It is a coastguard service that is recognised as the most modern in Europe, equipped as it is with state-of-the-art communications equipment, sophisticated helicopters and coastal response teams manned by auxiliary guards, who are volunteers prepared to turn out at any time in any conditions to carry out rescues or searches along the 10,500 miles of our coastline.
  The House will recall the recent civil emergency on the Shetland islands, and I acknowledge the presence of the hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr. Wallace), who is an assiduous attender to these debates. He will know of the recent civil emergency over the Christmas and new year period. The local coastguards and the coastguard helicopter played a key role in maintaining vital communication links.
  The helicopter carried out 23 urgent medical and other evacuations. It undoubtedly saved a number of lives. Coastguard officers maintained a fully operational rescue centre on Shetland, despite the appalling weather and the travel difficulties. Many of them spent the festive period away from their families simply to ensure that vital emergency services were maintained.
  Many other examples of dedication and professionalism could be cited, and it is the unique mixture of highly trained professional coastguards, high-technology equipment and competent and well-trained volunteers that provides a first-class search and rescue organisation of which we can be proud.
  The men and women of the modern coastguard service can also be proud of the vital maritime services they provide. During 1995, they dealt with a total of 12,220 incidents, involving more than 19,000 people—a 17 per cent. increase on the previous year. Those figures hide many dramatic rescues and, sadly, tragedies, but more than 98 per cent. of the incidents were brought to a successful conclusion, in the sense that they managed to avoid any loss of live. It is that record of achievement and success that we are committed to maintaining, but at the same time ensuring that the vital maritime emergency service is delivered as cost-effectively as possible.
  I make no apology to the hon. Member for North Cornwall for asserting straight away that no organisation these days can afford to stand still. He is quite right to say that HM Coastguard completed a "coastal review" in 1991, which looked at the role, functions and numbers of sector officers around the coast. The implementation of that review took some four years, and has only recently been completed. More recently, the Coastguard Agency looked at the tasks, numbers and grades of staff at its headquarters.

  921
  It was then the turn of uniformed coastguards at rescue centres. The number of incidents dealt with by rescue centres, as the hon. Gentleman said, has increased remorselessly over the years. My figures are broadly comparable with his. There were just under 6,000 in 1985. There were more than 12,000 last year. New technology has been introduced, in particular the action data automation system—ADAS.
  The organisation has to adapt. The amount of overtime having to be worked by coastguard watch officers was increasing, and it was becoming harder to find auxiliaries with the time and skills necessary to provide us with the consistent and reliable backup that the service needed. It was decided to take a fundamental look at how the operational staffing of the 21 rescue centres could best be provided and organised.
  That review, as the hon. Gentleman knows, became known as "Focus for Change". It was tasked straightforwardly to determine the best use of staff at the 21 rescue centres by more flexible shift working and to ensure that the staffing levels reflected the loading at individual centres. The current arrangement is that there is a basic standard complement, irrespective of the rescue centre's work load.
  At the outset, it was fully appreciated that any such review had to take into account the special nature of the coastguard work if it was to achieve any credibility with the uniformed staff. Because of that, the review team was made up of three experienced coastguard officers of different grades in addition to the three Department of Transport staff inspectors.
  The team visited all 21 rescue centres. Its members are said to have interviewed in the process 80 per cent. of watch-keeping officers and about 25 per cent. of watch-keeping auxiliaries. Many of the review's findings stemmed from that staff input, and ensured that the "Focus for Change" document was about the most thorough review of the structure, workloads and running of the coastguard service that we have ever seen.
  The brief of the review team was to recommend the optimum staffing solution to meet the operational requirement. I should make it clear to the House that the team was given no instructions to meet any financial targets.
  The proposals were made for each rescue centre's complement, tailored to meet the work that it had to do. In no instance is it recommended that fewer than three qualified watchkeepers should be on watch. A flexible working pattern was evolved to ensure that the right number of people would be on watch at any time. The proposals will markedly reduce staff shortages at critical periods, and hence overtime. They will make the local use of manpower more efficient in a variety of other ways.
  Mr. Graham Allen: Will the Minister give way?
  Mr. Norris: I shall continue for the moment.
  The main thrust of the review was to recommend the restructuring of the uniformed staff. It was concluded that, first, it was becoming more difficult to find reliable voluntary auxiliaries who were trained, proficient
  922
  and familiar with the technical environment of the modern operations room. The review recommended the appointment of permanent coastguard watch assistants to replace the part-time voluntary service currently provided in operations rooms by auxiliary coastguards.
  It was concluded, secondly, that the person in charge of a watch should have the rank, training and experience to take most key decisions without referring to a superior. He or she should also be part of the local management team. The review recommends the new grade of watch leader to fill that post.
  Thirdly, it was found that coastguard officers in the management team of each district are too occupied with routine administrative work. The review recommended that they should have permanent administrative support, which would allow reductions in management. There was a variety of other recommendations, which are under review.
  Throughout "Focus for Change", there has been full consultation with the staff and their trade unions. Copies of the report have been made available to all staff, who have been invited to submit their comments. It is proposed that recruitment for the two new grades should start in April.
  Overall—I stress this against the background of the hon. Gentleman's remarks—the review requires an increase in employed staff. It means introducing 154 watch assistants, offset by a decrease in 51 watch officers and phasing out the use of auxiliaries in operations rooms. There will be a requirement for new higher grade watch leaders to replace the 84 senior watch officers. With proper administrative support at each centre, and taking into account the extra responsibility that the watch leaders have taken on, 21 fewer station officers will be required.
  Bearing in mind all the figures, the review provides an increase of 82 in the uniformed staff of the coastguard service. To underline the fact that the review is about making the best of available resources, the effect is expected to be neutral in terms of paybill costs. The savings that are rightly demanded of the service in operational terms will be made on overtime, and on a reduction in the payments to auxiliary coastguards who formerly worked in operations rooms.
  We have given repeated assurances about the future of the coastguard service, in the sense that efficiency savings can be achieved without compromising safety at sea and along the shoreline. That is something—
  Mr. David Harris: Will my hon. Friend give way?
  Mr. Norris: Of course.
  Mr. Harris: We have reached an important stage in the debate. There have been many allegations or suggestions about cuts facing the coastguard service. Is my hon. Friend able to give a categorical assurance that, especially in the south-west, there has been no reduction in the service provided by the coastguards, and there has been no cut in the Coastguard Agency's budget?
  Mr. Norris: I am happy to tell my hon. Friend that the agency's budget for 1996£97 has been set at £25.1 million. Additional temporary funding to implement the

  923
  "Focus for Change" strategy has also been provided. The budget will enable the agency to continue to provide its main functions in terms of search-and-rescue co-ordination, counter-pollution, and sea safety education at the same high professional level as before while continuing the drive to eliminate unnecessary work, waste and inefficiency.
  I can say specifically that no rescue centres will be closed and no staff will be made redundant. I repeat the remarks of the chief coastguard and the head of the agency: that the efficiency savings will not compromise safety at sea or along the shoreline.
  The House should appreciate that it is perfectly possible to deliver efficiency savings—to deliver more efficient ways of doing the jobs that the service is tasked to perform—without compromising safety, provided that that is the objective that is set.
  The hon. Member for North Cornwall is a serious observer of these matters. He mentioned the monitoring of distress signals and referred to the 2182 kHz frequency band now employed. All coastguard watch officers are trained in radiotelephony skills and distress communication procedures to a syllabus that is approved by British Telecom Maritime Radio Services. I checked the matter only today, when I discussed it with the chief coastguard. Neither I nor he is aware of any missed distress messages.
  If the hon. Gentleman has details, I should be genuinely grateful to him—I do not say this as a challenge, but as an invitation to share the data—if he would let me know what that evidence is. My noble Friend in another place will be happy to investigate.
  Our conclusion is that the 2182 kHz service monitoring is working well. That work being undertaken in-house—ironically, avoiding a dog-leg in the translation of information that previously went through a third party before it was received to be acted on by the Coastguard Agency—has made a saving to the service per annum of about £500,000 in running costs, without compromising efficiency.
  Mr. Allen: I thank the Minister for his courtesy in giving way, and I compliment the hon. Member for North Cornwall (Mr. Tyler) on his choice of subject for debate.
  Is the Minister personally reassured about the levels of skill and training of watch assistants who will replace the coastguard auxiliaries? We have heard some reports that those people will be trained to a lower level of skill than the auxiliary coastguards. If he cannot answer that now, it might be helpful if he wrote to the hon. Member for North Cornwall.
  Mr. Norris: I understand the hon. Gentleman's point. Because of the lack of time available to us this evening, I will write to the hon. Member for North Cornwall to set out the background of the present position.
  He is right to focus on the fact that we have changed the nature of the watch service in terms of both rank and responsibilities. It requires us to concentrate the attention of the skilled personnel on what they are essentially paid for, while, for example, administrative work and work that
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  can be undertaken by people who are less well qualified can be happily done in a safe environment. I understand that the chief coastguard remains content with the training level that is to be provided. I have had his personal assurance that he is determined that at no stage should the quality of the service's output be compromised by any lack of training in any part of the service.
  It is important that hon. Members from all parties should be given the opportunity to express legitimate concerns about the service—it is right that that should be possible. We have heard from hon. Members from all three principal parties in the House. They are evidence of the fact that the interest here is a non-party political interest in a service of which, I think, we are all extremely proud.
  The overwhelming evidence suggests that, although, with the greatest respect, it will always be possible to find one or two members in an organisation of this size who may express dissatisfaction, we have been able to deliver what the chief executive has frequently committed himself to: a more efficient service, able to deliver the better value for money that any Government have a right to demand of any public service, while at the same time ensuring that safety standards are not compromised.
  I have discussed with the chief executive the whole issue of search and rescue, auxiliary coastguards and fixed-watch lookouts. I understand that all those issues are of concern to hon. Members, not least my hon. Friend the Member for St Ives, who has been particularly anxious about fixed-watch lookouts in the south-west. I hope that, over time, the efforts that the agency is currently making will assure his constituents that a more than adequate service is being provided.
  As I said at the outset, our coastguard service is widely respected in Europe as the best in Europe. It is arguably the best in the world. The service that the agency and its staff provide is first-class. I know that hon. Members in all parties will wish to join me in complimenting them on that service.
  Mr. Harris: My hon. Friend mentioned the fixed watch, which is indeed a particular concern of mine. I made my maiden speech on the subject. Now that the coastguard has been withdrawn from fixed watches, will my hon. Friend, and my noble Friend the Minister for Aviation and Shipping, examine the possibility of closer co-operation between the voluntary sector—the Sea Safety Group and the National Coastwatch Institution, of which I am a trustee—and Her Majesty's Coastguard?
  Mr. Norris: I am happy to give my hon. Friend that assurance, but I hope he will accept that the Coastguard Agency is content that the service that it provides is fully compatible with the needs of seafarers of both kinds, both professional and recreational. My hon. Friend may be assured—
  The motion having been made after Ten o'clock, and the debate having continued for half an hour, MR. DEPUTY SPEAKER adjourned the House without Question put, pursuant to the Standing Order.
  Adjourned accordingly at fourteen minutes to Eleven o'clock