Commons Sitting of 6 July 1998

Preamble
The House met at half-past Two o'clock
PRAYERS
[MADAM SPEAKER in the Chair]
Oral Answers to Questions
  SOCIAL SECURITY
  The Secretary of State was asked—
  SOCIAL SECURITY

    Housing Benefit Fraud
    Mr. David Hanson: What steps she is taking to tackle housing benefit fraud organised by landlords. [47468]
    The Minister for Welfare Reform (Mr. Frank Field): I thank my hon. Friend for his persistence with this question. Since the general election, we have made it easier for local authorities to stop payments to bogus landlords, to recover such payments and to collect information on other properties that the landlords may have and from which they may be making bogus claims.
    Mr. Hanson: Will my right hon. Friend confirm that it is unacceptable for £4 billion-worth of housing benefit fraud to be perpetrated each year, and that the steps that he took in the regulations in November last year will go some way towards helping to prevent that abuse? Prevention is certainly better than the taxpayer being swindled by fraudulent landlords.
    Mr. Field: I can confirm all my hon. Friend's assertions. I draw to the attention of the House the record of his local authority, which has doubled its fraud savings target and introduced mechanisms for checking whether landlords are bogus, to prevent such claims from being made in the first place.

    Pensioners
    Mr. Gareth R. Thomas: What representations she has received on the Government's proposals to assist the poorest pensioners. [47469]
    Mr. Chris Mullin: What representations she has received on her proposals to assist the poorest pensioners. [47479]
    Mr. Phil Hope: What action she is taking to help the poorest pensioners. [47482]
    The Secretary of State for Social Security and Minister for Women (Ms Harriet Harman): We have received representations on a number of issues facing the poorest pensioners. An estimated 1 million of today's pensioners are not receiving the income support to which they are entitled. We are taking steps to tackle that by a programme of research into why so many pensioners do not receive their entitlement, and a programme of action involving nine pilot projects to test ways of getting more automatic help to pensioners.
    Mr. Thomas: Age Concern Harrow and Harrow Pensioners Action Group, two excellent organisations representing elderly people in my constituency, share my concern and that of my right hon. Friend about the number of elderly people not taking up their right to benefit. When does she expect her Department's research to be concluded, and can she assure the House that its findings will be acted on speedily?
    Ms Harman: We have already had interim findings from the research, showing that pensioners are losing out on between 24p and £51 a week in income support. We have also identified, through the interim report—I will let my hon. Friend have a copy—some of the reasons why they do not claim: the complexity; not understanding the system; and not wanting to have to prove that they are poor. We will take all those issues into account. The full report will be published at the beginning of next year, and we will certainly take action thereafter.
    Mr. Mullin: Is my right hon. Friend aware that, in the long term, the answer is not to offer pensioners more effective ways of claiming benefit but to make them independent of benefit, and is not the best way of doing that to phase back in the link with earnings?
    Ms Harman: In the long term, we need what has always been important to allow people to have a decent standard of living in retirement: the basic state pension topped up by a good second pension. We are committed to the basic state pension as the foundation of income in retirement, but we are also committed to extending occupational pensions and introducing stakeholder pensions so that people can put money aside and get good value for money from pensions on top of the basic state provision.
    Mr. Hope: Is not it an indictment of the system that 1 million pensioners are not claiming the benefit to which they are entitled—a situation that we inherited from the previous Administration? Is my right hon. Friend aware of the independent report, "We All Need Pensions—The Prospects for Pension Provision", by Tom Ross, which says that there is likely to be a rise in pensioner inequality and that the majority of the poorest pensioners are women? Can she assure me, and the pensioners in Corby, that the Government will make meeting the needs of the poorest pensioners an urgent priority?
    Ms Harman: We will take immediate action to meet the needs of the poorest pensioners without waiting for the results of our review, and we will create a better long-term framework. We want to tackle the problem of growing inequality among pensioners caused by the growing gap in retirement incomes. We must tackle the problem of

    721
    avoidable drops in income in retirement by making sure that people have a decent second pension. We must ensure that low earners or those who do not earn have a decent standard of living in retirement, which is the state's responsibility.
    Mr. John Whittingdale: How does the right hon. Lady justify the fact that 300,000 of the poorest pensioners who do not pay tax but who have small savings will be deprived of their income as a result of the abolition of dividend tax credits? Is she aware that despite assurances given during proceedings on the Finance Bill, Ministers have done nothing to help those pensioners?
    Ms Harman: The best way to ensure that everyone can enjoy security in retirement is to build a thriving, skilled, well-paid economy. The opportunity to work and to put money aside for retirement is important. Companies providing occupational pensions will benefit from the reduction in corporation tax. Rebates for personal pensions will increase from April 1999. There is no long-term problem for occupational schemes. The Government are taking a long-term view of the economy, and of sustaining the investment that will lead to strong pensions. The pensioners who are losing out are those who have no second pension, no state earnings-related pension scheme, no occupational pension and no savings. [HON. MEMBERS: "Answer the question."] I am.
    Mr. Dafydd Wigley: Will the Secretary of State take note of the question put by the hon. Member for Sunderland, South (Mr. Mullin) about the loss of the link between pensions and earnings? Her party campaigned vigorously in opposition for the re-establishment of that link. Pensioners have lost £20 a week as a result of the loss of the link, and those who are already pensioners have no opportunity to get a second pension. What will she do to make sure that the basic state pension is at an acceptable level, and that people do not have to revert to income support?
    Ms Harman: The Conservative Government's ending of the earnings link has certainly contributed to the growing gap in income in retirement. The poorest pensioners have been left behind. We have acted; within two years, an extra £400 million will be invested in support for pensioners, which will mean more money for pensioners than they would have had if we had reinstated the earnings link for this year and next.
    Mr. Steve Webb: The Government's plans for the poorest pensioners are believed to include a guarantee for older, poorer pensioners, if we are to believe the latest leak—and leaks from the Department of Social Security seem rather reliable. Will the Minister set out her thinking on how money can be guaranteed for the oldest, poorest pensioners?
    Ms Harman: In the short term, we want to see more pensioners on income support because we want all the pensioners entitled to income support automatically to receive their benefit. In the longer term, a combination of basic state pension and wider provision of second
    722
    pensions will mean that fewer people are left to depend on means-tested benefit. The basic state pension is part of that equation.
    Mr. Quentin Davies: The right hon. Lady failed spectacularly to answer my hon. Friend the Member for Maldon and East Chelmsford (Mr. Whittingdale). Let us hope that she does better with me.
    Why have the Government taken the heartless and thoroughly sickening decision to tell local authority social services departments to change the operation of the rules so that where poor pensioners have their assets eroded to £16,000 through payment of residential and nursing fees, they will no longer be allowed to top up fees from their remaining £16,000? As a result of that, many poor pensioners will be forced to move to cheaper homes. Does the right hon. Lady realise that a forced move can be threatening to the health of old, frail people? It may even threaten their lives. Do the Government care?
    Ms Harman: The Government are very concerned about health and social services for all pensioners, particularly the poorest pensioners. The responsibility for social services authorities and for health service provision for the elderly lies with my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Health. However, we work across Government to see how different departmental policies affect pensioners. The Under-Secretary of State, my hon. Friend the Member for Southampton, Itchen (Mr. Denham), is chairing a ministerial group to explore how Departments work together to ensure proper support and provision for pensioners.

    Child Support Agency
    Mr. Bob Blizzard: When she expects to announce her proposals for changes to the Child Support Agency. [47470]
    The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Social Security (Mr. Keith Bradley): My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Social Security will be making a statement within the hour.
    Mr. Blizzard: I thank my hon. Friend for that most surprising answer. I am sure that all hon. Members are hoping that the new system that my right hon. Friend is about to unveil will be fair to the child and to both parents, and will work administratively. As a valedictory to the present system—[HON. MEMBERS: "Oh."] I hope so. Does my hon. Friend agree that the current system has lost all credibility as a result of its record of inaccuracy, delay and failure to communicate? That system has been a nightmare for the many people caught up in it. In view of that fact, does not the new system deserve a new name?
    Mr. Bradley: It would clearly be totally inappropriate for me to give details at this stage of the proposed changes. However, I agree entirely with my hon. Friend that the Child Support Agency has experienced problems and that its staff have had difficulties dealing with the system that Parliament put in place. It is appropriate to put on record that the staff have worked extremely hard to make the system work as efficiently as possible against a background of legislation that is almost impossible to

    723
    understand. I am confident that the statement that will be made later this afternoon will address many of the problems that my hon. Friend has identified.

    Child Care
    Mr. Stephen Pound: What steps she is taking to improve the quality of child care. [47471]
    The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Women (Ms Joan Ruddock): Quality is one of the three watchwords of our national child care strategy, which aims to ensure good-quality, affordable child care for children in every neighbourhood.
    Our plans to raise quality of care include: better integration of early education and child care, a more consistent regulatory regime, and a new training and qualifications framework for early years workers.
    Mr. Pound: I thank my hon. Friend for that answer. In Ealing, North, many parents are becoming increasingly reliant on child minders and ensuring the quality of that care is becoming increasingly important. Many child minders are low paid and receive little or no formal training. Is my hon. Friend prepared to comment further on the present system? Does she have confidence in it?
    Ms Ruddock: Many parents have confidence in the present system but, as I have said, we are always looking to raise quality in this area. We want to improve the image of working with children and to make it an attractive career. We are concerned that 70 per cent. of child minders do not have formal qualifications. However, some local authorities—including my own—provide a great deal of training and advice for child minders. We want to encourage them to gain qualifications and to achieve nationally recognised standards, and we are doing a great deal of work in that field. My hon. Friend will be aware of the current consultation paper on regulations and the overall strategy in which I hope that all hon. Members will be involved.
    Mr. Simon Burns: Does the Minister accept that child benefit is important for many parents—particularly lone parents—when it comes to providing quality child care? Will the Minister confirm reports that the Secretary of State intends to change the date for payment of child benefit to 16-year-olds from the first Monday in September to 26 June? Will that not mean that some mothers will lose up to £856 and that all parents will lose £114 on average? Will the Minister tell the House why, given that state schools usually recess for the summer in mid to late July, the date of 26 June has been chosen? Is the Secretary of State confusing that date with the rising date of public schools, such as Fettes college and St. Paul's school?
    Ms Ruddock: I really do not know where the hon. Gentleman gets his information from. In respect of his benefits inquiry, the answer is definitively no.

    Child Support
    Mr. Tony McNulty: What action the Government have taken to improve support for children through the social security system. [47472]
    The Secretary of State for Social Security and Minister for Women (Ms Harriet Harman): Our commitment to support families and children is central to our policies to modernise the welfare state. We will increase benefits for all families with children by increasing child benefit for the oldest child by £2.50. We are increasing benefits for children in the poorest families by increasing the child allowance on income-related benefits by £2.50 from November. We are ensuring that parents can work, and that work pays.
    Mr. McNulty: I thank my right hon. Friend. Does she agree that the new Labour Government have done more in the past year to help children through the social security system than the Conservatives ever did? Given their record and policies, which caused so much neglect and abject poverty for children, rather than sneering at our policies, should not they hang their heads in shame?
    Ms Harman: I welcome my hon. Friend's points. We have not only taken action to give extra benefits to the families with the poorest children but, above all, by helping their parents into work, we are helping such children to become better off than they could ever be in workless households.
    Mr. James Gray: In that case, will the Secretary of State assure us that she has no plans to abolish child benefit for 17 and 18-year-olds still in full-time education?
    Ms Harman: We have said that child benefit for those over 16 will be subject to review. My right hon. Friend the Chancellor said that before the general election. He has expressed his commitment to child benefit and increased it. He has said that we want to do even more and that we are going to make it fairer by clawing it back from higher-rate taxpayers.
    Mr. Malcolm Wicks: Given that disproportionate numbers of our poorest citizens are children under five, will the Department consider reviewing the pros and cons of introducing an under-fives child benefit premium? That would not only target poverty without a means test, but give parents of children under five a proper choice about whether to seek employment in the labour market or stay at home to look after their children.
    Ms Harman: As ever, my hon. Friend raises an important point. It was always an assumption and a principle of benefit policy that as children get older, they get more expensive and therefore their benefit should be increased. It is also evident that some of the poorest children have been young children in poor families. My right hon. Friend the Chancellor took a step towards sorting this out when he introduced the premium for children in workless families under 11, on the basis of the Joseph Rowntree research report. My hon. Friend made a further point about the problems of children under five. We will carefully examine poverty among young children.

    Lone Parents
    Mr. Jim Cunningham: What progress has been made in increasing the take-up of work by lone parents. [47473]
    The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Social Security (Mr. Keith Bradley): The Government are committed to providing viable choices for lone parents who, in the past, were written off to a life on benefit. The new deal for lone parents is a major step in achieving this objective, and independent research has shown that it is having a clear effect on the number of lone parents getting off income support. Our approach is in tune with what lone parents want: the opportunity to work, and a better quality of life for their children. Progress is encouraging—10 per cent. more lone parents moved off income support and on to family credit in 1997 than in the preceding year.
    Mr. Cunningham: I thank my hon. Friend for that answer. How many personal advisers are employed in Coventry to help lone parents? How many lone parents in Coventry has it been possible to assist? I congratulate him on the last quarterly figures, which show that 30,000 lone parents have found employment. Put another way, the number of lone parents now out of work is below 1 million, which is a lot more than can be said for the time when the Conservative party was in power.
    Mr. Bradley: I thank my hon. Friend for his question, although I am not able today to give him the precise figures for Coventry alone; I shall look into that. I have visited the new deal for lone parents pilot area in the midlands and seen the quality of the personal advisers and of the support that they are giving lone parents, who welcome the opportunity to return to work. The national roll-out of the new deal for lone parents will follow in October and, currently, many more personal advisers are being trained, which will be of further major benefit to lone parents in the midlands.
    Mr. Graham Brady: Can the Minister explain why his Department has rejected the model set out in the new deal for the young unemployed, which is that the objective should be to increase employability, and adopted instead in the new deal for lone parents an objective of getting people into work?
    Mr. Bradley: I do not accept the hon. Gentleman's premise. The new deal for lone parents equally looks at the employability of lone parents, helps with the barriers to work such as child care, looks at the appropriate training they require and ensures that there is a link between that and the labour market. We have a common approach towards all unemployed people to ensure that they can maximise their opportunities to return to work, which is what they want to do.
    Mr. Derek Foster: My hon. Friend will know that I strongly support the new deal for lone parents and the making work pay strategy. Will he investigate the circumstances, which I am sure neither he nor my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State intended should arise, in which a lone parent on family credit with one child leaving school at the end of June can be £25 a week worse off than a lone parent in identical circumstances on income support?
    Mr. Bradley: I recognise that that matter has been raised in the press—the hon. Member for West Chelmsford (Mr. Burns) has already commented on it.
    726
    The press report is totally inaccurate: the date for child benefit has not changed. Similarly, we inherited the date for family credit, which was changed in July 1996. Any proposal that now has an effect on work disincentives that we inherited will be looked at by the Government.
    Mr. David Rendel: Does the Minister accept that the increase in the number of lone parents who are finding a job specifically as a result of the new deal is a mere 0.9 per cent., and that each costs about £22,000? Given the rate at which the money is being used, what plans has the Minister for continuing to help lone parents to get into work when all the money allocated from the windfall tax has been used up?
    Mr. Bradley: Yet again, the Liberal Democrats are interested only in criticising a scheme that, by their own admission, is helping lone parents to get back to work. I do not accept the hon. Gentleman's figures, because much of the cost arises from the initial expenditure on getting the scheme up and running. For once, the Liberal Democrats should applaud a Government who are trying to help people to get back into work, instead of adopting their usual practice of criticising anything that comes forward.
    Fiona Mactaggart: My hon. Friend will be aware that many lone parents in Slough and elsewhere have been able to get into work, in part because of individual advisers. However, a matter that concerns me is that lone parents in work have nobody to share the burden of family crises and other problems that occur while they are at work. Is there a case for continuing support once lone parents are in work, to help them to retain their employment by helping them to deal with family crises? Does my hon. Friend plan to give lone parents better support so that, having won a job, they can hang on to it and earn a better income for their family?
    Mr. Bradley: My hon. Friend is absolutely right. I have visited most of the lone parent schemes in the country and what is remarkable is not only the support given to lone parents trying to obtain work, but the fact that that support continues after they have got into work to ensure that any crisis can be addressed immediately, so that the person can remain in work and does not have to return to benefit. Linked to that is an obligation on employers to look closely at their own employment policies and to make them much more family friendly, so that they can appreciate the problems that a lone parent might experience and, in conjunction with the lone parent's personal adviser, sort out the problem and ensure continued employment.
    Mr. Iain Duncan Smith: Is not the Minister avoiding the point? The Liberal Democrat spokesman, the hon. Member for Newbury (Mr. Rendel), made exactly the right point, which is that at a cost of £22,000 to £23,000 per job, the programme is very expensive. It is no good the Minister saying that those are the wrong figures and that they include start-up costs when there is a continuing rolling cost, such as the recent advertising campaign of £2.15 million which was intended to get more lone parents involved.

    727
    Is not the real truth that the Minister avoids the fact that there is a series of failings in the programme, such as 15 per cent. of women who are lone parents falling out of work within three months and 75 per cent. of the women written to not even bothering to reply? The Government are going national with the programme in October, and they have absolutely no idea of how effective or ineffective it is because they will have no measurement available until, at the very earliest, next year.
    Mr. Bradley: Once again, I reject the figures that the Opposition spokesperson has identified. Independent researchers have said that the Opposition figures are "meaningless". Most importantly, we cannot afford to allow lone parents who want to work to remain on benefit without substantial help from the Government to get them back into work. The Opposition did nothing but leave lone parents to languish on benefit. No help was forthcoming; no schemes were brought forward which helped lone parents back into work. The Labour Government can be proud of the new deal for lone parents.
    If the hon. Gentleman went round the country, met the lone parents who have got back into work and talked to them, he would see a great beam on their faces. For the first time, they are getting the help and support that they require. If the hon. Gentleman talked to them, he would not ask ridiculous questions in the House on the adequacy of the scheme.

    Crime and Disorder Bill
    Mrs. Alice Mahon: What representations she has received on the impact of the Government's proposed crime and disorder legislation on women. [47474]
    The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Women (Ms Joan Ruddock): I thank my hon. Friend for her question. Women's organisations, many of which depend on volunteers, do not find it easy to enter into partnerships with public bodies such as local authorities and the police. In their representations, women's organisations have made the point that there is not enough working together of all the key players, including women's organisations. The provisions in the Crime and Disorder Bill for effective inter-agency working should, we believe, address these problems.
    Mrs. Mahon: My hon. Friend will be aware that one of these organisations, the Women's Refuge Movement, undertakes valuable work on domestic violence. However, quite often it does not get the co-operation at local level that we would all like to see. Will my hon. Friend ensure that the national guidelines for co-operation between local authorities, women's refuges and the police are implemented?
    Ms Ruddock: I thank my hon. Friend for that question and I want to give her the reassurance that she seeks. Co-operation at local level, as my hon. Friend says, between different agencies has not always been as good as it might be. For the first time, a statutory duty will be placed on local authorities and the police to create partnerships to tackle crime. One of the main duties of these partnerships will be to undertake audits to establish local crime statistics and experiences, with the idea that crime should be reduced. In looking to devise those audits
    728
    and carry them out, we expect that women's organisations will be able to give valuable expertise to the other partners that they might otherwise lack. I give the assurance that domestic violence will be one of the crimes that we regard as extremely serious and that we shall give guidance on the new partnerships.
    Miss Anne McIntosh: The Home Secretary gave a clear commitment to the House that women victims in rape cases would not be cross-examined by the defendant. Has that commitment been dropped and overturned by him?
    Last week, there was the tragic suicide of a woman prisoner. Will the Government now be minded to support my Prevention of Delay in Trials Bill, which provides that women should not be kept on remand for more than 110 days before being brought to trial?
    Ms Ruddock: I am sure that the hon. Lady should properly direct that question to my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary. I certainly have no knowledge of any change of heart on his part. We have made recommendations about the treatment of rape victims and they are now being consulted on. I will, of course, refer the hon. Lady's remarks to my right hon. Friend, and I undertake to write to her in due course.

    Housing Benefit Fraud
    Dr. Julian Lewis: What incentives she is giving local authorities to decrease the number of cases in which those committing housing benefit fraud are not prosecuted. [47475]
    The Minister for Welfare Reform (Mr. Frank Field): The Government have released £200,000 of taxpayers' money so that legal resources in the Department can be made available to local authorities to bring, we hope, successful prosecutions where they are so desired.
    Dr. Lewis: The Minister was recently reported as having told the Child Poverty Action Group that it is not true that most benefit fraud is accidental. He will be aware of the Public Accounts Committee's criticism that only one case of detected fraud in every 100 proceeds to prosecution. Will he explain what further measures might raise the prosecution rate? Will he confirm that any steps that are to be taken will be revealed first to the House, and not, like the Child Support Agency proposals, to the press—let alone to the dreadful Derek Draper to enable him to stuff his bank account with another £250 an hour?
    Mr. Field: Tomorrow, I shall meet the Chairman of the Public Accounts Committee to follow up the very points that the hon. Gentleman has raised. I hope that we shall shortly be able to make a statement to the House on our counter-fraud strategy.
    Mr. Jeremy Corbyn: Does the Minister recognise that one of the disincentives to local government in managing housing benefit is the enormous administrative cost associated with that benefit, which must be borne by local government? In effect, local government throughout the country is asked to subsidise

    729
    the Department of Social Security in that respect. Will the Minister make proposals fully to fund all the costs of administering housing benefit?
    Mr. Field: The answer to the first question is yes. The answer to the second question is that I shall think about it.
    Mr. Iain Duncan Smith): Does the Minister of State essentially agree with the Public Accounts Committee's report and its general criticism? Will he tell the House when he is likely to introduce a Green Paper on the changes?
    Mr. Field: The Public Accounts Committee's report is a serious document, and I drafted part of the reply to it. As with the Green Paper on welfare reform, counter-fraud proposals will be brought before the House soon.
    Ms Margaret Moran: Does my right hon. Friend agree that one of the reasons why we have such a legacy of fraud in housing benefit is the reduction in assistance to local authorities that the previous Government introduced in their final days, which prevents local authorities from effectively detecting and prosecuting fraud? Does he agree that another problem is the failure to ensure that we have a coherent information technology system linking the Benefits Agency and local government, as I witnessed when I worked in Luton Benefits Agency office for a day last week? The information technology system is crumbling and needs greater co-ordination. Will my right hon. Friend ensure that measures are taken swiftly so that we have a comprehensive review of the information technology system to link the Benefits Agency and local government and achieve more effective tracking of housing benefit and fraud?
    Mr. Field: My hon. Friend's second question is linked to the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Islington, North (Mr. Corbyn). That is an issue that we take seriously. We are also concerned that some local authorities do not bring any prosecutions whatever. The biggest fine that fraudsters can face is the loss of benefit, and they can then continue to claim in the same local authority area or that of a neighbouring local authority. I hope that shortly we shall put plans before the House which deal with each of my hon. Friend's questions.

    Minimum Wage
    Mr. Tim Loughton: What is her estimate of the net effect on benefit levels of the introduction of the minimum wage. [47477]
    The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Social Security (Mr. Keith Bradley): The national minimum wage is one element of the Government's strategy to make work pay. People receiving in-work benefits may see a reduction in the amount of benefit paid, as they would with any increase in income. However, the current benefit system is structured so that increases in income are not deducted pound for pound from benefit entitlement.
    The introduction of the working families tax credit and the child care tax credit will increase the return from work for low and middle-income families with children and
    730
    ensure that recipients keep more of any increase in income. In addition, major changes in the national insurance system from April 1999 will reduce contributions for low-paid workers.
    Mr. Loughton: Will the Minister confirm that, if a single mother of two who is working full time and currently earning £3 an hour is lucky enough still to have a job when the minimum wage of £3.60 is introduced, her family income will rise by just £3 per week, with £21 clawed back by the Exchequer in lost benefit? Only 7.5p per hour will go to that employee. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that, for all the soundbites about attacking poverty pay, the minimum wage is just a tax on business, designed as a revenue-raising exercise for the Treasury?
    Mr. Bradley: The national minimum wage is an essential part of our strategy to put a floor under in-work benefits and ensure, by combining the minimum wage with the working families tax credit and the child care tax credit, that people in work are significantly better off than they are currently. We shall ensure that, as the national minimum wage and the changes that we are making to in-work benefits through the tax system unfold, people see the benefit that the Government are bringing about by that combination of measures.
    Mr. Peter L. Pike: Is it not a fact that those on low pay throughout the country know that, as a result of what the Government are doing on the national minimum wage, national insurance, tax and benefits, they will get a much fairer deal than they ever would have done under a Tory Government? Is it not also a fact that employers paying a fair wage to their employees are fed up with paying in taxation to subsidise those who are paying poverty pay?
    Mr. Bradley: My hon. Friend is absolutely right on every point.
    Miss Julie Kirkbride: With several reports this morning showing that Britain sadly appears to be on the edge of a recession, I wonder what work the Department of Social Security has done to estimate what the impact of a minimum wage will be if the economy is to dip into recession, bearing in mind the fact that the minimum wage will not only increase the wage bill nationally for those on low pay, but have a knock-on effect on differentials.
    Mr. Bradley: I refer the hon. Lady to the appropriate Departments: the Department of Trade and Industry for the national minimum wage and the Treasury for the state of the economy. However, on the changes that we are making in the social security system, the working families tax credit and the child care disregard have been warmly welcomed throughout the country by those who recognise that work should pay, and that employers should pay a decent wage.
    Mr. David Winnick: Whenever a Conservative Member gets up to attack the minimum wage, would it not be useful to find out how many jobs that Tory Member has and the likely total income

    731
    received? Is it not the height of hypocrisy for such people to criticise a scheme which would give the lowest-paid workers something of a lift-up?
    Mr. Bradley: Once again, my hon. Friend makes a valid point. The previous Government were not prepared to put a floor under benefit levels. They allowed family credit and other in-work benefits to take the strain of low wages, ensuring that very poor employers did not take their responsibilities seriously and provide a decent wage for their employees.

    Part-time Workers Directive
    Judy Mallaber: What assessment she has made of the impact on women of implementing the part-time workers directive. [47478]
    The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Women (Ms Joan Ruddock): This Government are committed to part-time workers having at least the same rights as full-time workers. This is particularly important to women as 83 per cent. of part-time workers are women. Implementation of the part-time workers directive will remove discrimination against them and increase the status of part-time work generally. This, I suggest, is a positive step for all those who choose to work part time in order to balance work and family life.
    Judy Mallaber: I thank my hon. Friend for that answer. Does she share my regret that Britain, which has the second highest proportion of part-time workers in Europe, is one of the last countries in Europe to introduce legislation covering part-time workers? Does she agree that the 1984 equal pay directive was implemented inadequately, creating hurdles for women seeking equal treatment, and that such directives provide minimum standards on which Governments may improve? Will she therefore give an assurance that she will work closely with her colleagues in the Department of Trade and Industry to ensure that the directive is implemented in a way that gives effective rights to part-time workers?
    Ms Ruddock: I thank my hon. Friend for that thoughtful question. I very much share her concern that, as a result of the previous Government's failure to sign the social chapter, employees in this country were denied a raft of improvements to their working lives. She draws attention to the deficiencies of the equal pay legislation. I assure her that we share the concern that it has not brought equality of pay to women; at present, women are paid about 80 per cent. of the average for men.
    The Equal Opportunities Commission has been undertaking a consultation on that matter, and soon we, as a Government, will receive its recommendations. I assure my hon. Friend that the Ministers for Women are working closely with the Department for Education and Employment in considering those recommendations and preparing to give our opinions on them. We are also working closely with the Department of Trade and Industry to ensure that women's interests are served by the proper implementation, as my hon. Friend suggests, of the part-time workers directive in United Kingdom law.
    Mr. Nicholas Soames: Given the changing patterns of work in the United Kingdom, which are to be welcomed, and given the great value of part-time jobs to women and, indeed, to men, does the Minister agree that the steps rightly taken to protect those jobs should be balanced by our making sure that there is sufficient scope for latitude in regulation, so as not to hinder the creation of many more part-time jobs for women?
    Ms Ruddock: The hon. Gentleman has not asked me a specific question. The wording of his remarks is not at all clear. As he knows, the Government have repeatedly said that we want flexibility at the workplace, properly protecting workers but preserving the interests of employers who have taken advantage of flexibility and given us a vibrant economy.
    Lorna Fitzsimons: Does my hon. Friend agree that the part-time workers directive is part of the Government's acknowledgement that family-friendly employment is essential to create stable environments at home and at work? We must ensure that women can continue to play a vital role in employment—there has been an explosion in the number of women in part-time work—and that they can work secure in the knowledge that there will still be enough flexibility for them as mothers to play a full role in home life, especially when the children are sick. Can my hon. Friend assure me that the Ministers for Women will work with the Department of Trade and Industry team to ensure that the White Paper on family-friendly employment considers the responsibilities of women and families when children are sick, and when women need to dip in and out of employment?
    Ms Ruddock: My hon. Friend will be aware that the Government have in circulation a consultation document on fairness at work, which lists the ways in which the Government propose to legislate for a range of opportunities for people to combine their working lives with good parenting. For example, the parental leave directive which is to come into UK law will make provision for people to have time off work around the time of the birth or adoption of a child. We are also considering time off for family emergencies. The consultation will attempt to define such emergencies.
    We recognise overall that child care provision must underpin employability and opportunities, especially for women who still have the major caring responsibilities. For both women and men, family-friendly employment practices by employers will be encouraged and promoted by the Government, because we consider that appropriate in modern times.
    Mrs. Theresa May: As was evident from the figures that the Minister gave in response to the main question, part-time work offers many women opportunities to enter the workplace that flexibly meet their needs and those of their family circumstances. Conservative Members have noted that, when asked to do so by my hon. Friend the Member for Mid-Sussex (Mr. Soames), the Minister failed to support the continuing need for a flexible economy and an increase in the number of part-time jobs for women.

    733
    From the figures that the Minister gave, it is clear that any loss of part-time jobs will disproportionately affect women. What assessment has she made, therefore, of the number of women who will lose their part-time job as a result of the Government's policy to sign up to the social chapter? What discussions has she had with fellow Ministers on the impact of that policy on women, or was she absent when the discussion of the impact of that policy on women was held, as she was when her right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster announced the Government's new policy on the appointment of women to public bodies?
    Ms Ruddock: I shall answer the second point first. I am sure that the House is unaware that the hon. Lady referred to an occasion on which I was not present when the publication of an important document on public appointments of women and men was announced. The Ministers for Women had contributed substantially to that programme. We have a principled position of 50:50 women and men in public appointments. For various reasons, the date chosen for the announcement was one on which I was speaking at an important conference in Bristol. There is no difference between my right hon. and hon. Friends and me on these matters: 50:50 women and men in public appointments, which the previous Government signally failed to achieve.
    The hon. Lady asked whether any assessment had been made of the number of women who would lose their part-time jobs as a result of the Government's policy of signing up to the social chapter. The Government as a whole have examined the issue of the social chapter, and the various measures that we think will improve the conditions of United Kingdom workers in comparison with those in other member states. We have not concluded that those measures will result in a loss of jobs; on the contrary, the view of the Government, employers and workers themselves is that they will provide a flexibility in the workplace that will enable our workers to continue to enjoy opportunity and employment. We do not think that there is any question of the new measures' leading, in themselves, to a reduction in jobs.

    Pensioners
    Mr. Gordon Prentice: If she will review the 25p per week pension addition to pensioners aged over 80 years. [47480]
    The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Social Security (Mr. John Denham): The pensions review is looking at the central areas of insecurity for elderly people, including the value and uprating of the basic pension.
    Mr. Prentice: Is it not an absolute disgrace that the 25p age addition for pensioners over 80 has not been increased since its introduction in 1971? If it had been uprated since then, it would probably now be worth about £1.70 or £1.80. Is it not a fact that what pensioners
    734
    over80 really want is a decent state pension? If we are to continue with the age addition, it should be uprated—otherwise it should be scrapped.
    Mr. Denham: My hon. Friend is right: no Government have uprated the age addition since it was introduced. That is one of the reasons why a fundamental pensions review is necessary.
    Many older pensioners are the poorest, which is why the House has welcomed the pilot projects set up by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State to look into ways of securing more automatic help for the poorest pensioners. As the House has already heard this afternoon, we are finding that those pensioners—many of whom are the oldest—are going without between 24p and £51 a week, and we are taking action to deal with that problem for the benefit of the poorest and oldest pensioners.

    New Deal (Sick and Disabled People)
    Mr. Mark Oaten: If she will make a statement on the consultation process undertaken in connection with the new deal for sick and disabled people. [47483]
    The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Social Security (Mr. John Denham): The Government have four strategies for helping disabled people who want to work. We are providing the active help and encouragement that people with disabilities need to move into work under the new deal for disabled people; taking obstacles to work out of the benefits system; making sure that work pays; and promoting radical change in the workplace to ensure equality and opportunity.
    In developing the new deal, we have been consulting closely with disabled people and the organisations that represent them, and with other interested parties. We have ensured consultation at each key stage of the programme's development, and we will continue to do so.
    Mr. Oaten: Does the Minister share the concern felt by many disability groups about the fact that, of all the new deal programmes, those aimed at encouraging disabled people to return to work are taking the longest to get off the ground? We were promised that the contracts for the pilot schemes would be awarded in June, but to date there has been no announcement. Can the Minister reaffirm his Government's commitment to making progress, so that disability groups realise that getting disabled people back to work is at the top rather than the bottom of the Government's agenda?
    Mr. Denham: It is not true that disabled people are at the bottom of the Government's agenda. The new deal pilots are very important, as we need to establish what measures will be most effective in enabling disabled people to work.
    We received more than 120 bids in the first tranche of bidding for the new deal pilot projects. We aim to let the first contract shortly, and I hope that we shall be able to make an announcement very soon.

    Disability Living Allowance
    Mr. Jonathan Shaw: If the mobility component of disability living allowance related to people living in accommodation provided by the NHS will be included within the welfare benefits review. [47485]
    The Minister for Welfare Reform (Mr. Frank Field): Yes.
    Mr. Shaw: I am grateful for that reply, succinct as it was. Is my right hon. Friend aware that people with learning disabilities and physical handicaps who move from long-stay hospitals to live in community homes run by health trusts are classed as in-patients? As a consequence of changes to the higher mobility component within disability living allowance that were introduced in 1996, they are no longer able to claim it. Such people, however, are classed as out-patients in respect of prescription charges and are allowed to receive the benefits of that classification. Does my right hon. Friend agree that that is an anomaly, and that a review is required? Will he liaise with the Department of Health to ensure that that vulnerable group of people are able to get out and about, as they need to if they are to take part in community life?
    Mr. Field: Yes to the first question; yes to the second; and yes to the third.

    Additional Pension Contributions
    Mr. Julian Brazier: What representations she has received on the subject of individuals being required by law to make additional pension contributions into private sector funds. [47486]
    The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Social Security (Mr. John Denham): Many submissions to the pensions review have argued that compulsory second-tier pensions should be extended to groups not covered, and that the minimum second-tier contribution should be raised from current levels. We are looking at these proposals seriously, and will publish our response in a Green Paper on pensions later this year.
    Mr. Brazier: The previous Government were rightly proud of the growth in private sector pension provision and the rise in living standards for millions of pensioners which that has provided and will provide. Will the Minister none the less accept that if any Government went further than encouraging such provision, and coerced people by the force of law to engage in it, they would be morally obliged to stand behind any such fund which failed?
    Mr. Denham: As I said earlier, we are considering these issues carefully, and the type of pension vehicle that might be suitable for second pension savings is an important part of our consideration. It is certainly true that, whatever we do on pension policy, we need more cost-effective, value-for-money and flexible second pensions than are currently available, especially for those who cannot join an occupational pension scheme.
    736
    We must not, under any circumstances, have a repeat of the pension mis-selling scandal for which the previous Government were so clearly largely responsible.
    Madam Speaker: Dr. Iddon.
    Dr. Brian Iddon: Thank you, Madam Speaker. On a previous occasion—[HON. MEMBERS: "Question 19."] I beg your pardon, Madam Speaker; Question 19.
    Mr. Stephen Pound: My hon. Friend has a speech for every occasion.

    Benefit Integrity Project
    Dr. Brian Iddon: If she will make a statement on measures taken to improve the quality of treatment under the benefit integrity project of those suffering from mental illness. [47488]
    The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Social Security (Mr. John Denham): The benefit integrity project seeks to secure the correctness of certain awards of disability living allowance. In June 1998, we decided that people who have been awarded DLA because they fall within our definition of severe mental impairment should not be contacted directly as part of the project.
    We are working closely with disability organisations to improve the operation of the project.
    Dr. Iddon: It is Monday, I am afraid, Madam Speaker. On a previous—
    Mr. Stephen Pound: At least my hon. Friend has that one right.
    Dr. Iddon: On a previous occasion—if my hon. Friend the Member for Ealing, North (Mr. Pound) will allow me to continue—my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State kindly told the House that she was discussing with Mencap the way in which mentally ill people are dealt with by the benefit integrity project. My hon. Friend the Minister has also told the House that seriously mentally ill people might be excluded from it. I welcome what he has said this afternoon, but my concern is that a large number of mentally ill people are still losing their benefits by being put through the benefit integrity project. May I suggest that more sympathetic consideration be given and that specialist doctors be employed so that we can genuinely assess those people?
    Mr. Denham: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his support for the further changes that we have made to the operation of the benefit integrity project. I can of course assure him that we shall continue to meet and consult organisations of and for disabled people on the project's operation, and we shall always consider further proposals for the improvement of its running. We take steps to ensure that those who advise our adjudication officers on DLA decisions are properly medically qualified to deal with the range of conditions that come before them and to seek additional information where that is necessary.

    Home Buyers
    Ms Linda Perham: What plans she has to assist home buyers on income support following the recent further rise in interest rates. [47491]
    The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Social Security (Mr. John Denham): There are no plans at present to change the way in which help with mortgage interest is calculated, using a standard rate. The standard rate is based on variable rates of mortgage interest that are charged by the main building societies and excludes discounted and fixed-rate mortgages, which are available to many borrowers.
    Ms Perham: I welcome that answer. Actually, I do not welcome it; I am so used to saying that sort of thing.
    738
    Every time interest rates go up, another trickle of people come to my surgeries who are on income support and who find it very difficult to meet the payments. Will Ministers continue to liaise with the Council of Mortgage Lenders to take a sympathetic attitude on repossessions?
    Mr. Bradley: I am grateful to my hon. Friend. We have regular discussions with the Council of Mortgage Lenders and it assures us that it will take a sympathetic approach to ensure that people remain in their homes. I announced an increase in the standard rate to 8.34 per cent. from 31 May and the Government are committed, through their housing review, to ensuring that there is sustainable home ownership.

Child Support
3.30 pm
The Secretary of State for Social Security and Minister for Women (Ms Harriet Harman): Madam Speaker, with your permission, I will make a statement on the Government's Green Paper on reform of the child support system.
We promised to reform the welfare state, so that it is modern and fair and strikes the right balance between rights and responsibilities—reform on the basis of work for those who can, and security for those who cannot. Children are first and foremost the responsibility of their parents, but we have a responsibility as a Government to ensure that parents are in a position to support them—that they are working if they can—and that children get the support they need. That is why, as a Government, we place so much emphasis on policies for families. We have increased child benefit for all families. We have embarked on a major welfare-to-work programme to ensure that mothers and fathers can work and improve their children's standard of living.
The new deal for lone mothers will ensure that mothers work, if they can. The new deal for the long-term unemployed and the young unemployed will mean that fathers, many for the first time, can support their children through work. Those new deals, with the minimum wage and the working families tax credit, are important parts of banishing child poverty. Therefore, welfare to work, the first part of our welfare reform, is under way. The second step in welfare reform, to ensure that children are properly supported by their non-resident father, is what I bring to the House today.
The child support system is like no other part of social security. In most of the benefit system, there are just two stakeholders: the benefit recipient and the taxpayer. In child support, there are four: the child who needs an adequate standard of living and is entitled to the father's support; the father who has a responsibility to support the child and needs enough left to live on and to discharge his other responsibilities; taxpayers who need both to support their own children and to contribute through their taxes to prevent other people's children from living in poverty; and the mother, who needs a dependable source of income for her family.
Getting the system right and fair for all four is not an easy task. Few people would seriously disagree with those objectives of child support. Most agree that the current system is not working to deliver them.
In identifying the need for reform, I seek to make no party political criticism of the previous Government. We are all wiser with the benefit of hindsight. Nor will I dwell for too long on the statistics that show the failings of the child support system, except to remind the House that there are 1.8 million children living in families on income support or family credit, in respect of whom fathers pay no maintenance at all. One in six of all children in this country are being brought up supported only by their mothers working, or, more usually, by the benefits system. What message does it send to boys, who may one day become fathers themselves, when the financial responsibilities of fatherhood can be wholly delegated either to the welfare state or to the mother alone?
Seventy per cent. of lone mothers claiming income support try to avoid co-operating with the Child Support Agency. Their co-operation takes their time and energy,
740
and can cause further conflict with the child's father, but if they are not working, it brings no financial gain to their children, as all the maintenance paid by the father is deducted from their benefit.
The formula for assessing maintenance is so complicated that the CSA has to spend 90 per cent. of its time assessing maintenance or keeping assessments up to date, and it is left with only 10 per cent. of its time to chase up payments. The complexity of the formula means that fathers do not know where they stand, and often the first demand for maintenance tells them that they are already thousands of pounds in arrears. Complexity leads to errors.
Our reform of child support involves replacing the byzantine complexity of the current formula with a simple percentage. The assessment of maintenance will no longer require more than 100 separate bits of information. It will no longer require fathers to report their new partner's income. It will rely only on identifying the number of children the father has, where the children live and how much income he has after deduction of tax and national insurance.
We propose that, for one child, 15 per cent. is deducted from the father's net income and paid in maintenance; for two children, 20 per cent.; and for three or more children, 25 per cent. There will be special rules for fathers with a low income. For fathers who are on benefit or whose net income is below £100, we propose maintenance of £5 a week, with a sliding scale for those between £100 and £200.
In assessing the amount of maintenance, we propose to take into account children in a second family. Our Green Paper sets out, for consultation, two different options for reaching the right balance between the children in the first and second families, but both our options are about taking second families into account.
Moving from a complex formula to a simple percentage will have a number of advantages. Men who father a child with a woman with whom they are not living will know that they will have to pay 15 per cent. of their weekly income to that child for the next 16 years. Men who separate from their wife and children will know, before they take on other commitments, that they will have to put money on one side for their children. The CSA will be able to spend dramatically less time assessing maintenance, and more time ensuring that it is paid. Everyone will understand the system. The aim is to ensure that more fathers pay, rather than that fathers pay more.
There is also the issue of what the children receive when the fathers pay. Almost from the outset, the complaint has been made that, for every pound paid in maintenance by the father a pound is deducted from the mother's income support. When mothers who are not working co-operate with the Child Support Agency, it may mean that maintenance is paid by the father, but no maintenance is received by the child. Fathers who do not pay feel that they are merely defying the CSA, and are not disadvantaging their own children.
We are proposing to change that. The child will, in future, receive a child maintenance premium. The first £10 of maintenance paid will go to the mother for the child, and will not be deducted from her benefit. So when a father pays, he will know that he is fulfilling his responsibilities and that his child is better off. When a

741
mother on income support co-operates with the CSA, she will ensure that he is paying his fair share, and that the child gets up to £10 more a week.
As well as a simple percentage, we need a better child support service. We propose a three-stage process. First, when the mother applies for maintenance, the father will be contacted. In most cases, an assessment can be made over the telephone, and he can start paying right away. Secondly, if either parent has concerns about the assessment, there will be a review, where the situation can be explained or sorted out. Thirdly, if either parent wants to challenge the basis of the assessment—for example, the calculation of income—their case can be assessed by an independent tribunal.
We also propose that the tribunal should be able to set maintenance at a different percentage rate if the non-resident parent can show that he incurs special expenses in supporting the child—for example, where the cost of paying the maintenance will make him unable to afford the costs of visiting the child.
Although we propose these reforms, there will need to be time to consult, to take legislation through the House and then to change the computer systems. However, people currently in the system cannot wait that long to see progress. We need to do what we can within the existing system to make it work better for them.
We therefore intend to press forward with the introduction of more telephone lines, and service outside normal working hours. We will take further action to tackle the backlog. We will spend an extra £12 million this year, in addition to £30 million already committed over the next two years to sharpen up our service.
The CSA staff have borne much of the brunt of the complexity and unpopularity of the system. Much of the criticism that should have been directed at the system has been heaped on them—usually unfairly. However, we are counting on them—and I know we can do so—to improve the current system and then make a first-class job of the new system.
This is a Green Paper. Its proposals are for consultation until the end of November this year. We hope that there will be the widest possible debate. To ensure that fathers, mothers and the taxpayer all feel that the system is fair is not an easy task. The need for reform is obvious. The demand for reform has been voiced in hours of debate in this House, hundreds of pages of official reports and thousands of letters of public complaints. I believe that we have charted a new way forward.
I will conclude with a word of caution. Relations between men and women are not always easy. Relations between men and women who are parents of the same child but do not share the same home are often intensely difficult. No reform of the child support system can ever change that, but it can work better than it does now, and it can better serve those children who have a right to the support of both their parents, irrespective of where they live. It is above all for them that I present the Green Paper to the House today.
Mr. lain Duncan Smith: I thank the Secretary of State for her courtesy in giving us the Green Paper and her statement at 12.30 pm today. That was much appreciated, and gave us the opportunity to look at them in detail.
742
This is a very important statement—no one for one moment would downgrade it. The Opposition welcome the idea—stated by the Minister of State and the Secretary of State today—that, in essence, because the House of Commons was the place that put through the original legislation and agreed it, it is the House of Commons that must rectify the problems and inequities. We must all shoulder that requirement across the board, regardless of party.
I wish to concentrate on the questions arising from the statement. I hope that I can do so constructively, but some of the questions are detailed; if they cannot be answered now, I hope that answers will be placed in the Library or sent to me.
The Government claim that, as a result of the disregard, 75 per cent. of absent parents and parents with care will be better off. Will the Secretary of State give full details of the gainers and losers, as calculated by the Department? If those calculations have not been made, I hope that they will be. For example, will the disregard be for both in-work and out-of-work benefits? I am not sure of the answer, even after reading the statement and the Green Paper.
The Government also claim that the change to the system will be revenue-neutral, but have they included the cost of the £10 disregard and of the transitory arrangements in that calculation? How will the system apply? It is not clear whether the Secretary of State intends changes on that; will the new system apply to people on benefits, or to everyone regardless of whether one of the partners is on benefit?
The Secretary of State made much of simplicity, which is a great goal. However, the claim that the arrangements can be made over the telephone may be a touch optimistic, given some of the complex questions that arise. She said that there would be alterations for those with second families, and she offers alternatives. What is the basis for the two alternatives—which are very different—in the Green Paper, and what calculations will the Department make on the implications for both the taxpayer and the absent parents?
Paragraph 27 of the Green Paper deals with special expenses. It says:
"We therefore propose to allow a tribunal to set a different level of maintenance in certain, exceptional, circumstances."
That is part of the real key; it raises a huge issue, from which I do not think anyone should shy away.
What effect will a tribunal have on the system's simplicity? We could be shifting all the decision-making problems from the first part of the system to a second stage. I understand—I am not certain of this—that a similar problem has arisen in Australia. There is simplicity in the first instance, but all the tribunal cases and exemptions jam up the system later, so nothing is solved.
How much variation from the flat rate will a tribunal be allowed? What will the special expenses include? How will the new system deal with those on low incomes with high living and travelling costs, which currently count as protected income, but would not under a simple, flat-rate system?
Will a tribunal have the flexibility to include housing costs, high travel-to-work costs, high travelling costs to see the children, allowances for pensions, long-term

743
illness or disability, pre-separation debt that the absent parent took on for the benefit of the family, pre-1993 financial arrangements that cannot be stopped or that it would be unreasonable to stop, and pre-1993 transfers of property or capital that were not fully reflected in the maintenance assessment? If a tribunal has to assess all those matters, the system will quickly lose its simplicity and speed. Those issues must be addressed.
The Green Paper acknowledges the problem of dealing with existing assessments, which was one of the main problems that the Child Support Agency encountered. It is unclear in the Green Paper—I may be wrong—exactly what the Government plan to do. I think that the Secretary of State is being a touch optimistic when she says in paragraph 7 on page 40:
"We are simply suggesting a change in liability within existing agreements, similar to the re-assessment that takes place when parents' circumstances change."
That brief section of the Green Paper holds the key to whether the changes will be perceived as a success. What calculations has the Department made of the costs of option A and option B, which are outlined in the section?
Dealing with the backlog could be the biggest problem. The Green Paper does not seem to deal with the CSA's backlog and how those cases that still await assessment will be resolved under the new system. That will give rise to some of the most divisive issues; there may be iniquity between those who have co-operated and finalised their assessments and those who will now deliberately delay because they recognise that a new assessment may be made. How will the Secretary of State deal with those backlog cases? Does she recommend considering them on the basis of the new system, or is she saying that all cases are backlog? The Green Paper points to that, but I am not certain how it will work when the cases come in.
What research has the Department carried out into the setting of the percentage? Who will be the gainers and the losers in that area? The backlog will create some problems. Some people may say, "I would rather have been assessed under the new system than the old," and others may say the reverse.
When will the legislation be introduced? That is an important question for the Secretary of State. We have the Green Paper and presumably we will have a White Paper, and then the legislation. If the system is introduced around the millennium, it will have another impact, as she will be asking her Department to make major changes in the way it makes calculations through its computer system, at the same time as it is being asked to make such changes as a result of the millennium. The Government need to think about that carefully, and I wonder whether they have. What are the cost implications of those sorts of changes?
Finally, what did the Secretary of State mean when she said that the absent parent would be paying 15 per cent. of his net pay for the next 16 years at least? Might there be some other changes beyond 16 years, and what does she mean by net payments—what does she include or not include?
The main point about which many lone parents, particularly absent fathers, are concerned is the way in which the other partner in the marriage, the ex-marriage or the relationship often uses access rights as a tool against the absent father—or, in this case, the absent mother. What discussions has the right hon. Lady had
744
with other Departments to find out what can be done about that and whether there are other ways in which those problems can be resolved, when rights might already have been laid down by the courts?
To depart for a moment from the sense of common purpose, I must point out that much of this statement was already known to the public at large as a result of a series of leaks. Perhaps the Secretary of State could also say how, on 25 January, The Sunday Times and The Sunday Telegraph came up with the points that are in the Green Paper; how The Observer and The Sunday Telegraph reported the "extra cash" that lone parents were to receive on 28 June; and how The Daily Telegraph on 29 June reported that there would be a sliding scale reducing the assessments made for absent parents. How did The Daily Telegraph and the "Today" programme come up with the 15 per cent. calculation on Monday 29 June, and why did the story about the £10 bonus appear in The Guardian and The Times on 2 July?
This is a big issue for the House. It is the last chance for the Child Support Agency to prove itself—to prove whether it will work and whether it can resolve the problems with which it was meant to deal. To use a hackneyed expression, perhaps it is dining in the last chance saloon. Perhaps the CSA never can work—we do not know, but we will see. We want changes to be made to make the system work. Therefore, the question for the Secretary of State is whether it will work. We will judge that success against the answers to those questions. I wish it, as ever, the best of luck in securing that outcome.
Ms Harman: I thank the hon. Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Mr. Duncan Smith) for the genuinely constructive spirit in which he greeted the Green Paper. I, too, deplore the leaks. I have done no briefing of our proposals, and nor has anyone on my behalf. I regret the fact that the details were in the newspapers before they came to the House.
The hon. Gentleman asked a number of questions, which were all relevant and important, and I will try to deal with them quickly one by one to enable as many other hon. Members as possible to ask questions on this important topic.
There will be a £10 child maintenance premium for those on income support, which will be paid to the mother for the child only if the maintenance is paid. For family credit, the child maintenance premium will be £15, so there will still be that incentive to work.
The hon. Gentleman asked about the assertion that the system will be revenue-neutral. In calculating revenue neutrality, we took into account the cost of the child maintenance premium and the transitional cost that he rightly identified of moving from the existing to the new system. The system is for those on benefits as well as for what are described as private cases.
The point about tribunals is extremely important. If something has gone wrong in the assessment of income or there is a dispute about where the children are living, people must have the right to go to an independent tribunal. A large amount of people's weekly income is affected, so either side must have the opportunity to put a case before an independent tribunal, exactly as happens with tax affairs. That is essential for the credibility of the system.

745
The hon. Gentleman rightly identified the fact that the gateway to the tribunal will be critical in striking a balance between people perceiving that the system is fair, and not going back to all the complexities and individual variations that have bedevilled the current system and have been the central reason for its failure.
I believe that the tribunals should be able to consider matters of fact and assessment about income, the number of children, and where they live. We propose that the tribunal should be able to vary the percentage of income paid in maintenance if there are special issues relating to the cost of child support: for example, when there is a choice between making the payments or seeing the child. In the narrow circumstances in which the percentage may affect the emotional and financial support of the child, it is right to allow the tribunal not only to examine all the facts, disputed as they will be, but to assess whether, in an individual case, 15, 20 or 25 per cent. would be fair.
If we do not keep the gateway narrow, we will return to a situation in which everybody appeals automatically, the appeals system will cause delays, we will be back to the same old problems, and the promptness and fairness that we want to introduce will be lost.
The hon. Gentleman talked about people moving from the current system to the new system. New cases will obviously start with the new system once it is introduced. For existing cases, we canvassed two options. People could either move into the new system when they come up for review, which happens every two years, or we could review them in advance by assessing what they would have to pay under the new system; but there would have to be phasing, because it would not be fair for either the non-resident parent or the parent with care suddenly to have a big change in income. We need to do a great deal of work to reduce the backlog. Progress is being made, and that will continue.
The hon. Gentleman asked about timing. We have to hold consultations, do the drafting, introduce legislation and set up computer systems. There is an urgent need for reform, but we simply must get it right. As he said, we cannot afford to get it wrong. There are 1 million non-resident parents, 1 million lone parents, 2 million children and a great deal of money and concern at stake. We must act as fast as we can, but not so fast that we get it wrong.
The young man who has a baby with a woman with whom he is not living would have to pay 15 per cent. for 16 years, but that could be extended to 19 years if the child stays on in further and higher education. The payment for one child will be 15 per cent., but that could last for 16 years or more.
I agree absolutely with what the hon. Gentleman said about rights of access and maintenance. My starting point has always been that children have two parents, and have the right to both the financial and the emotional support of both. The mother does not have the right to deny access to the father when it is in the child's interests and has been ruled so by the courts. Children need not only their parents' money, but their time.
These matters are extremely complex, but I hope that we have made progress, and that that progress can continue.
Mr. Malcolm Wicks: Does the Secretary of State agree that the large number of children
746
in Britain affected by family insecurity and the resulting poverty and deprivation will burn a hole in Britain's future unless we make her reforms work? The House of Commons has been good at espousing the principle of parental responsibility, but somewhat shriller in attacking child maintenance in practice. Often, the voice of men has overcome the needs of children.
During consultation, will the Secretary of State do her best to build a true consensus in Parliament, including those parties that have previously attacked the principle? Will she also seek consensus among the public so that we can ingrain in our culture the idea that having a child—as mum or dad—brings rights and joys, but also responsibilities, including the financial responsibility to maintain the child?
Ms Harman: I absolutely agree, and I will do as my hon. Friend suggests. I pay tribute to his important work on child support, and the understanding and wisdom that he has brought to bear.
Mr. David Rendel: I, too, welcome the fact that someone is trying, at last, to do something about the Child Support Agency. I also welcome the Secretary of State's important judgment that there is a place for tribunals in the new system. The main question is the size of the gateway. If there is a narrow gateway, a great many people will feel that the system is unfair and that their circumstances have not been properly taken into account. If people cannot agree the amount of maintenance with their ex-partners, that disagreement will be bad for children.
Will not the Secretary of State find, as the experience of the CSA shows, that the small number of exceptions for which she has allowed is bound to grow, until most people, if not all of them, go through the tribunal system? Would it not be best to acknowledge that, and to get the system right now?
Ms Harman: I thank the hon. Gentleman for his congratulations, which I share with the Under-Secretary of State for Social Security, Baroness Hollis, who has done a huge amount of work to bring our proposals forward. The hon. Gentleman asked what would be taken into account. The principle is that the system will deal with a specific child, a specific father and the father's responsibility to pay for that child out of his net income. That is the simplification we seek.
A broad gateway, which would allow thousands of matters to be taken into account at tribunal, would take us back to the current system, which is not fair. We must remember that the current system tangled people up until they did not know where they stood. If our system sets a clear percentage, but allows the other parent to go to tribunal and to bring up hundreds of different circumstances that can change the percentage, we will return to lack of clarity. It is fair to set 15 per cent. of net income for one child. That leaves 85 per cent. of net income for the father to spend as he sees fit, or to live on.
The average assessment per father under the new set of formulae will be lower than that under the current system. I know that you, Madam Speaker, take a great interest in assessments, because of Child Support Agency cases in your own constituency. The average assessment per father is £38 under the current system, but the average payment

747
is only £25. Under our system, the average assessment will be about £29, but we expect the average payment to be proportionately higher, because more fathers will pay.
Mr. Terry Rooney: I should confess that I am the only Member who sat on the Committees that dealt with all three pieces of existing legislation. Will the Secretary of State promise us that, at the end of consultation, there will be a draft Bill, but also draft regulations? With social security, the devil is always in the detail, and no one who dealt with the first Bill foresaw how the regulations would turn out in practice.
Ms Harman: I am sure that my hon. Friend will play an important role in bringing forward this reform. He has had a long-standing interest in this matter on behalf of his constituents and on a wider basis. The number of reports that we have received—to which my hon. Friend has contributed—about the problems with the CSA bear testimony to the need for reform. It is now down to the Government and the House to take that reform forward.
Mr. Dafydd Wigley: In welcoming today's statement, may I ask whether the Secretary of State accepts that there could be a danger in moving from a system that is too complex to one that is too simplistic? Will she give an assurance that account will be taken of particular circumstances, such as high travel-to-work costs in certain parts of these islands? Will she ensure also that the net income of self-employed people is assessed? That can be an extremely difficult exercise. Will that sensitivity be built into the system, in order to ensure that it works fairly?
Ms Harman: When it comes to assessing the net income of the self-employed, we shall bring the situation into line with the Revenue, and calculate our assessment on the same basis as that used by the Revenue. There is a big problem with non-compliance with maintenance assessments on the part of the self-employed, and we must sort it out.
The right hon. Gentleman heralds the start of calls to make the system complicated again. We must resist those calls—we have a choice, and we are proposing that we must resist them. We cannot have fairness and complexity side by side. If a system is too complicated, it will be unfair because of its complexity. We think that we shall achieve clarity through simplicity and getting the system right by using the correct percentages. People will know where they stand, and they will be able to start paying right away. That amounts to fairness and justice.
If we are united in our criticism of the current system—and we are—we must recognise that there is only one way forward. Only one substantial change can make the difference: turning our back on the complexity and all the individual circumstances—we tried that approach, and it failed—and moving to a simpler system that is more like the tax system. People pay their taxes on a fixed percentage of their income, and they should be able to pay for their children in the same way.
Mrs. Gwyneth Dunwoody: The CSA has proved to be very adept at getting large sums of money from people who are salaried, but getting absolutely nothing from the self-employed. What is there in this newly proposed scheme that will carry the power
748
of enforcement so that lone parents do not go through the empty and deeply depressing exercise of asking for moneys that are never forthcoming, and that are constantly taken into account by other agencies?
Ms Harman: My hon. Friend makes a very important point. She, too, has been a well-informed and balanced critic of the Child Support Agency. Simplifying the formula will allow the Child Support Agency to spend more time on enforcement. Great frustration is experienced by parents with care, who report their circumstances and who believe that they are never looked into because the Child Support Agency is too busy assessing maintenance and has no time to chase up the payments.
If our basis for assessment is the same as that of the Revenue, the self-employed will simply need to show us the assessment that they have given the Revenue, which has been approved, and we can proceed. That is another benefit of simplification. [HON. MEMBERS: "Answer the question."] I have answered the question about enforcement: there will be more time and more co-ordination with the Revenue under the new system, so the situation will be clear.
Mr. Douglas Hogg: Does the right hon. Lady accept that many people believe that the Child Support Agency, as a decision-making body as opposed to an enforcement body, should be abolished? Does she understand that many people believe also that maintenance orders should reflect the individual facts and circumstances of every case? That cannot be addressed through a formula: it involves the exercise of inquiry and discretion.
If that is so, I think that the Secretary of State will accept that that cannot be done by officials. In all circumstances, is it not right to contemplate returning the whole process either to the courts or to quasi-judicial tribunals, and leaving to the agency only the enforcement function?
Ms Harman: One criticism of the court system that preceded the Child Support Agency was that, without a formula and with decisions left to judicial discretion, there was huge variation and a sense of unfairness. One set of parents might be awarded £15-a-week maintenance while another set with an identical income might be awarded £40 a week by a different court. Such unfairness led the previous Administration, with our support, to introduce a formula instead of judicial discretion.
I agree with the right hon. and learned Gentleman that there is a problem if we seem to give discretion to officials or a bureaucracy. It is much simpler and clearer if officials are responsible for ensuring that the calculation is made correctly, while we decide what is a fair percentage for maintenance. If something goes wrong with the calculations, the tribunals are a quasi-judicial element in the system.
Unfortunately, the courts did not work—I wish they had. The CSA, with its complicated formula, has not worked—I wish it had. We are trying to take it forward. I think that a simple formula with fair rights of appeal offers some hope.
Mr. Robin Corbett: Does my right hon. Friend think that someone should say a big

749
"sorry" to the thousands of people who have suffered anguish and misery from the monumental incompetence of the Child Support Agency? Will she reconsider the backlog? It is estimated that it will take three years to get through it. Is she really going to turn civil servants loose on the impossible task of going back over the ground to do the assessments on the basis that she now proposes? Would it not be sensible to a take some short-term measures to achieve brutal fairness, as it were, until the new formula is in place, in order to avoid expensive duplication?
Ms Harman: We should all say, "Sorry," to the children in respect of whom no maintenance has been paid, to the mothers, to the fathers who have been tangled up in a system that has presented them with thousands of pounds of arrears that they feel that they can never hope to pay, and to the staff who have been given an impossible job. We should all be determined to reform the CSA.
Mr. Archy Kirkwood: The Secretary of State deserves the support of the whole House in her attempt to reform the CSA. This is the last chance, because much work needs to be done to rebuild public confidence in the CSA after its past actions. I exhort her to hasten slowly. It is right that this be done with due dispatch, but, once this important consultation process is over and a draft Bill is available, will she consider allowing the Select Committee on Social Security to produce a pre-legislative, interim report, so that some of the points on consensus and the complexity of regulations can be properly considered?
Ms Harman: The hon. Gentleman, who is the Chair of the Social Security Select Committee, makes an important proposal by offering that his Committee will consider the legislation in draft and hold pre-legislative hearings. We all feel that, last time, the House agreed the principle but the implementation was not got right. There were some things that we could not have foreseen, but others that we could. I hope that proper consultation—certainly I take up his offer and will make the draft Bill available so that he can conduct pre-legislative hearings—will make the reform proceed on a stronger footing.
Mr. Dennis Skinner: Is my right hon. Friend aware that one of the problems with the original scheme in 1992 was that it was pushed through just before a general election? In my view and that of many who were around at the time, it was not properly scrutinised. One of the redeeming features of this scheme is that it will be dealt with in a proper manner. It will get a lot of time, and people will be able to scrutinise it to make sure that we try to get a decent result, notwithstanding the fact that we are talking about trying to find a formula against the changing social fabric of society, and that ain't easy.
Tribunals are important, because that falls into line with other social security tribunals, with many of which we have been involved over many years. May I enter a plea that there should be equal representation of men and women on those panels? May I also argue that there should be no more closures, such as those that took place under the previous Government, of industrial tribunal centres, because they will be used much more than they
750
have been in the past? If my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State manages to crack this hard nut, she could get the finest accolade of all—she could end up among Draper's 17 useful people.
Ms Harman: I am sure that my hon. Friend, who, above all, takes seriously his duties in the House, will be a key scrutineer of the Government's proposals. He makes a good point about equal representation: with a three or two-person tribunal, it is right that we should have equal numbers of men and women. He also makes the point about locally accessible tribunals, and that, too, is important. In every town, there are people who have concerns about child support, and we do not need to make it impossible for them to appeal by making them travel miles.
I shall discuss the issue with my right hon. Friend the Lord Chancellor to ensure that, when we introduce the tribunals, we have equal representation, and that the tribunals are locally accessible. I thank my hon. Friend for making those important points.
Mr. Edward Leigh: No doubt the Secretary of State will win plaudits for trying to simplify the system, until, that is, we hear in our postbag from the losers—we shall not hear from the gainers, I fear.
Is the right hon. Lady aware that she has created an essentially valueless system? Many people already feel that they can lose their spouse, their home and their children, without any account being taken in existing family law of their behaviour or that of their spouse. Now, it will make no difference whether one wants to go and see one's absent children, or whether one has high travelling costs—nothing will make any difference.
Is the right hon. Lady aware that that will cause much grief and despair, and that, while we might raise children out of physical poverty, we might well reduce them to psychological poverty? Is that the right way of going about things, or should we not have a proper, flexible system that takes account of people's desire, if at all possible, to look after their children, not only financially but physically? Looking after children is about care and compassion, not just money.
Ms Harman: I think that one need not exclude the other. It is important for children to know that their father is financially supporting them, as well as has time for them. I said that in response to an earlier question. There is a morality that runs through the proposal: it is that parents have a responsibility for their children and that children are, first and foremost, the responsibility of their parents. The role of Government is to make sure that children get the financial support to which they are entitled when they do not live with both parents.
I would not say that the system is valueless. It seeks to enforce the value that children are entitled to the financial support of their parents. However, what it does not do is make moral judgments about how families end up as they are. If a Government try to make it a public policy to make men and women stay happy in their marriages, they will not succeed. What we can do, as a Government, is make sure that men and women can work, that they can support their children and that there is a simple system of ensuring that, when the parents separate, the children do not lose financially.
Caroline Flint: I welcome the statement today, and the fact that children are put to the forefront

751
of the proposals. I am sure that all of us, when dealing with our case work and leaving our surgeries, wonder about the children who are caught up in the middle of a battle between so-called adults, who are at that time acting more like young children.
Will my right hon. Friend assure us that, in reducing the amount of time that has to be spent on assessment, the development of a more personalised service—one that helps to create better communication between both parents and a better understanding of what is necessary for parents to comply-is prioritised? People's dissatisfaction at not being able to have face-to-face meetings adds to the stress, and often to the hostility between the two parents.
Ms Harman: I can give my hon. Friend that assurance. CSA staff will need to spend less time sweating over a hot computer making endless calculations. Even if they can understand those calculations, they can never hope to explain them to those who will have to pay under the assessments. They will therefore be able to spend more time on enforcement and chasing up payment, and on explaining the payments and the basis of the assessments, so there will be a more personalised face-to-face service.
Miss Julie Kirkbride: The Secretary of State has been as clear as she possibly can be about the existing flexibility in the system, such as travel-to-work costs, housing costs and debt costs, which are all to be removed under the right hon. Lady's new plans. Bearing in mind the question of my hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough (Mr. Leigh), when he said that there will be losers in the system, who will be banging on our surgery doors, will the right hon. Lady give us an estimate of how many losers her Department thinks there will be?
Ms Harman: The hon. Lady talks about losers. How would she describe the 200,000 or more fathers who we think, with a simplified system, will end up paying maintenance for the first time? Presumably, on the hon. Lady's balance sheet, she would describe them as losers. Surely we could not possibly describe those fathers just as losers without explaining that their children will be gainers from their paying maintenance to the tune of up to £10 a week.
That is the difficulty that I tried to set out at the outset. There is a square formed by the taxpayer, the child, the father and the mother. Although it is important under the new system to consider what people's relative but different situations will be, the simple assertion of gainers and losers, which we are able to use in other parts of the benefits system, tells only part of the story in this instance.
Mr. Jimmy Hood: May I welcome my right hon. Friend's statement? I am sure that the House will appreciate its importance and the need for it. I am pleased to see my hon. Friend the Minister for the Armed Forces in his place, because last week I received a letter from a regimental sergeant after 22 years of service in the Army, serving his country. He has been charged more than £600 a month out of his salary by the CSA. Not one penny of that is going to his children or the wife. He has been forced out of employment. The position is the same throughout the gamut of employment. The CSA, which has been a disaster, has forced people out of employment into dependency, costing the taxpayer more, not less.
752
I make a special plea for the single parent, usually a mother, who is in employment, where the CSA has walked away from her because she was not in benefit and did not chase the other parent to pay a fair contribution to the children.
Ms Harman: My hon. Friend makes an important point about the CSA supporting the mother in work to ensure that the father pays a fair share, and that she has a reliable income stream to go towards the children.
Perhaps I can offer to look into the specific case to which my hon. Friend has referred just to check that everything is in order in the circumstances that he has outlined. Finally, may I say how good it is to see my hon. Friend back, and in what great shape he looks?
Sir David Madel: A frequent mistake made by the CSA is to add overtime and bonus payments to basic pay and assume that it is all basic pay. The result is that people receive demands for increased contributions during the financial year. Will the reforms stop the CSA demanding increases until the end of the financial year, when it and the Revenue will know how much has been earned?
As Members, will we have the power to call in tribunals to examine particular cases? Here is one such case. When an ex-wife stops earning because she has remarried to somebody who is not short of a bob, why should the ex-husband receive a demand for an increased payment to the CSA? There must be something wrong there.
As for CSA staff, my constituents are always polite and courteous, as I am sure are those of all other Members. All our constituents are polite and courteous. Therefore, we expect CSA staff to be equally polite and courteous to our constituents, with the result that everybody will be happier.
Ms Harman: The income of the first wife's new husband or partner will not be taken into account in the new system. We shall look only at the father's income, and his financial responsibility to the child. With the complexity in the investigation of countless different personal circumstances in which the CSA has been engaged, there has come a sense of invasion of privacy and of things being taken into account that really should not be. The simplicity of the new formula should remove that, and the CSA will not have to ask whether a man is a new boyfriend or whether he is just passing by.
We are not proposing that Members of Parliament should be able to take cases to the tribunals. The only parties who would be able to do so are the parents.
Mrs. Anne Campbell: Does my right hon. Friend agree that many parents who are living apart share not only custody but care of their children, and that such arrangements should be encouraged and supported? If necessary, will she consider making available taxpayers' money to pay for the extra travelling and housing costs that such arrangements might entail?
Ms Harman: My hon. Friend makes an important point. In the old days, it was very simple—the man and woman were married, they had children, and if he left, she kept the children and he saw them at weekends. Under the current system, that pattern is increasingly less

753
common. There are much more complicated arrangements of shared care, which are often in the interests of the children, who spend the maximum amount of time with both parents.
To reduce maintenance liability, the current system takes such arrangements into account only if the child spends 104 nights or more with the non-resident parent. We propose that, for the purposes of setting maintenance, the level should be 52 nights or more, and for every night that the child spends with the non-resident parent, his weekly maintenance liability should be reduced by one seventh. That is fair, and it is not a complexity that people could not understand or would not think was fair.
Mr. Nick Gibb: Given that most countries that have a fixed percentage formula apply the formula to the father's gross income, will the Secretary of State explain why she decided that her formula should apply to the net income? Secondly, will she confirm to the House that the criterion that brings the CSA into play in the first place—namely, that the spouse with care is on income support or that one of the spouses elects to involve the CSA—will not change as a result of her statement today or the Green Paper?
Ms Harman: The hon. Gentleman asks whether it is right to base the formula on an assessment of gross income or net income. The important point is that people are able to understand how much money they have left after deductions of tax and national insurance, which are then taken out of the picture, how much of their remaining income they should allocate for their child, and how much they then have left to live on. I am afraid that I did not catch the hon. Gentleman's subsequent question.
Mr. Gibb: It was about the criterion for involving the CSA.
Ms Harman: If a lone parent makes a claim for income support or family credit, that triggers an application for child support. If a lone parent who is not on benefit makes an application, that, too, triggers an application for child support. We do not envisage proposing to change either of those criteria.
Mr. Chris Pond: Given that between 40 and 60 per cent. of CSA decisions are deemed to be in error, I very much welcome the statement, as other hon. Members have. I welcome also my right hon. Friend's agreement that the Social Security Select Committee may have an opportunity to consider the proposals prior to legislation being introduced. Will my right hon. Friend
754
urge the Select Committee to include in its consideration and consultation process the inefficiencies and incompetence of the CSA's operations, without putting the blame for those on staff? Simplification will help, but it will not remove all the problems.
Ms Harman: I know that my hon. Friend takes very seriously his role on the Select Committee. He implied that he would like to examine further the administrative nitty-gritty of the system. I welcome that, and I am sure that the staff would also welcome it. He has played a key role in issues of child poverty. He is right to refer to the high error rate. We must deal with those issues, and I look forward to my hon. Friend's important and constructive involvement in the debate.
Mr. Simon Burns: May I wish the right hon. Lady well on the inevitable tightrope that she will have to walk in the coming months, before any legislation reaches the statute book?
Will the right hon. Lady please clear up an issue that is causing concern? As I understood it, she said, in answer to my hon. Friend the Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Mr. Duncan Smith), that the new arrangements would apply to parents on benefit as well as to those who are not on benefit but who make their own private arrangements. If that is what she said, it suggests that she is planning to extend the remit of the Child Support Agency to all families in which the relationship has broken down, and it is important that she tells us whether that is right.
If the right hon. Lady is planning to keep the criterion as it is, that is understandable; but if she is suggesting that she will extend it, in accordance with the original, 1991, plans—later abandoned—for the CSA to apply to all relationships that break down, regardless of whether any of the parents are on benefit, that would cause the Opposition great concern, because it would extend the remit and compound the problems that she is trying to mop up by making the system more effective, more efficient and more acceptable.
Ms Harman: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving me a chance to clear up a misunderstanding that, clearly, I have unintentionally caused. There is no intention that the CSA should extend its remit to cases where parents are not on benefits and where they have not called in the CSA. We have quite enough on our plate for the 1 million on income support, their 1 million former husbands, the 2 million children and all those who are not on income support or family credit who call in the Child Support Agency. I hope that I have put the hon. Gentleman's mind at rest on that.
I thank the hon. Gentleman for his best wishes; why do they give me a sense of unease, though?

ESTIMATES DAY
[1ST ALLOTTED DAY]
ESTIMATES DAY
  ESTIMATES 1998–99
    Class IX, Vote 1

      Further Education
      [Relevant documents: Sixth Report from the Education and Employment Committee of Session 1997–98, on further education, HC 264-I, and the Department for Education and Employment's departmental report: "The Government's Expenditure Plans 1998–99" (Cm 3910).]
      Motion made, and Question proposed,
      That a further, revised sum not exceeding £6,019,940,000 be granted to Her Majesty out of the Consolidated Fund to complete or defray the charges which will come in course of payment during the year ending on 31st March 1999 for expenditure by the Department for Education and Employment on voluntary and special schools; the Assisted Places Scheme; the provision of education for under-fives; city colleges and other specialist schools; grant-maintained schools and schools conducted by education associations; music and ballet schools; the school curriculum and its assessment; the youth service and other educational services and initiatives; careers guidance and services; payments for or in connection with teacher training; higher and further education provision and initiatives; loans to students, student awards and other student grants and their administration; the payment of access funds; reimbursement of fees for qualifying European Union students; compensation payments to teachers and staff of certain institutions; expenditure on other central government grants to local authorities; the provision of training and assessment programmes for young people and adults; initiatives to improve training and qualifications arrangements and access to these; the promotion of enterprise and the encouragement of self employment; payments for education, training and employment projects assisted by the European Community and refunds to the European Community; events associated with the UK presidency of the EU; the UK subscription to the ILO; help for unemployed people; the promotion of equal opportunities, disability rights, childcare provision and co-ordination of certain issues of particular importance to women; the payment of certain fees to the Home Office; the Department's own administration and research and that of Capita; the information and publicity services; expenditure via training and enterprise councils and amounts retained by them as surpluses and spent by them on training and other initiatives within their articles and memoranda of association; expenditure in connection with the sale of the student loans debt; and on expenditure in connection with Welfare to Work Programme and Millennium Volunteers.—[Dr. Howells.]
      4.31 pm
      Ms Margaret Hodge: The Government have placed education at the heart of their agenda but, although we have spent much time on lengthy debates on schools and on higher education, rarely does the House devote time to debating further education. Yet the sector is vital to Britain's future.
      It is FE which provides two thirds of all post-school education; which educates the majority of full-time students in the 16 to 19-year-old age cohort; which gives adults that crucial second chance to gain qualifications and skills if they failed at school; which creates the opportunities for access to higher education for those who have traditionally been excluded from it; which provides the vital bridge between education and employment, ensures that individuals have access to appropriate vocational qualifications and personal development
      756
      opportunities and offers specific training courses to meet employers' requirements; and which provides all adults with access to lifelong learning opportunities, whose purpose may be purely to enrich and where the reward is nothing other than sheer pleasure.
      FE plays a crucial role, both in enhancing the nation's competitiveness and in promoting our social well-being; yet, for years, the sector has been the Cinderella of education, and the area subject to the fiercest expenditure cuts. Perhaps that is because FE colleges are seen as less glamorous than universities and less emotive than schools; perhaps it is because, traditionally, Members of the House have had few links with the FE sector; or perhaps Governments have simply failed to realise its importance to the United Kingdom economy.
      In the first year of this new Labour Government, schools have rightly been at the forefront of the learning revolution. Schools must form the foundation of any culture of lifelong learning. If children learn the basics in school, they have a sound platform from which to move toward higher learning. However, that does not mean that further education should take a back seat. Indeed, in the view of the Select Committee, further education has a vital contribution to make.
      Five years on from the incorporation of colleges seemed a good time for the Select Committee to take stock of the sector, to assess its strengths and weaknesses, and to identify what we believe should be its and the Government's priorities for the future. We did not want to duplicate the valuable work done by Helena Kennedy and her committee, nor the study on lifelong learning recently presented to the Secretary of State by Bob Fryer's committee.
      We tried to focus on key areas of current concern and on matters that are vital to the Government's education agenda for qualifications, skills and lifelong learning. We were also determined to place on the political agenda specific recommendations for the Government that we believe that they need to address and on which we think that a public debate is needed. Our report contains 50 detailed recommendations that we believe should equip FE to meet the challenges of the new millennium. Some are more controversial than others; all are important to the future health of the sector.
      I know that many hon. Members wish to contribute to today's debate, so I shall focus on only some of the key recommendations. I shall first tackle the issue of funding. It is unquestionable that the FE sector was starved of resources by the previous Government. The Tories released the sector from the shackles of local authority control, only to burden it with unacceptable financial cuts. Although some colleges believe that the problem has been the distribution of the FE funding cake among colleges, the Select Committee believes that the real issue is the size of the FE cake itself. There is a funding crisis in the sector and it is left to the Government to confront it.
      Further education has had a raw deal, and a much harsher deal than other sectors in education. The figures speak for themselves. From 1993–94 to 1997–98, the real-terms funding of full-time equivalent students in FE was cut by 27 per cent., while the funding of students in universities was cut by 13 per cent. At present, two thirds of the post-school budget is spent on universities, despite the fact that two thirds of those who continue in post-18 education do so in FE colleges. Indeed, if we exclude the

      757
      controversial student maintenance, Government spending in HE stands at about £4,600 per student, whereas only £2,800 is spent on each full-time equivalent student in FE.
      Similarly, Government figures show that unit funding for students in FE has dropped a dramatic 10 times more in that sector since 1993–94 than it has for students in schools. Think what that has done for young people in sixth-form colleges who found themselves, almost by accident, part of the FE sector after incorporation. The position is so acute that the Further Education Funding Council has categorised more than 100 colleges as experiencing financial problems, with the percentage in the weakest category in financial terms having increased from 6 to 27 per cent. in the three years to 1997. I have no doubt that more up-to-date figures would show an even more dire position.
      Mr. Barry Sheerman: As my hon. Friend knows, I am entirely in sympathy with what she has said up till now, but one matter concerns me, and I hope that she will return to it. When the Public Accounts Committee examined the sector, it found a relationship between efficiency and financial viability, and the way in which the quality of management impacted on those aspects. I am a great champion of further education, but I am worried about bringing the two thirds up to the one-third best practice.
      Ms Hodge: We, too, considered the governance and management of the FE sector. I am not sure whether I understand my hon. Friend correctly, but we, too, found that there was not necessarily a direct correlation between financial resources and good management. Be that as it may, the FE sector has not been able to sustain quality, partly because of the financial cuts with which it has had to deal.
      If the Government are serious about their lifelong learning agenda, if they want to ensure that the new deal is successful, if they want the university for industry to bring real benefits and if they genuinely intend the individual learning accounts to provide new opportunities for the many, they must, through the comprehensive spending review, inject a considerable sum into the sector.
      The Select Committee warmly welcomed the measures that the Government have already taken to bring in extra money but, in our view, they represent only the first small step. I personally believe that the Committee took a pretty moderate view of what resources are needed. We did not attempt to reinstate amounts cut in the past, but we thought it wrong to expect greater efficiency savings from further education in the future than the Government expect from universities. We thought it essential to inject moneys for capital investment in both buildings and information technology. We considered the £10 million set aside by the Further Education Funding Council to widen participation in education and training derisory and grossly inadequate.
      We were conscious of the Prime Minister's pledge that an additional 500,000 students would enjoy further or higher education by 2002, which needed to be properly funded. In our view, all this means that, by 2001–02, further education will need at least an extra half a billion pounds each year to provide an efficient, high-quality service. That is a lot of money, but we consider it essential if we are to meet our pledges on education and training.
      758
      Britain's problem is not educating our high fliers; we do that as well as any country in the world. Our problem is our long tail of under-achievers—the 7 million British adults who have no qualifications at all. Nearly 30 per cent. of young people fail to reach national vocational qualification level 2 by the age of 19. Whereas 8 per cent. of adults in Sweden, and 14 per cent. in Germany, have no basic literacy skills, more than 20 per cent. of adults in Britain have not progressed past level 1 in basic reading. Investment in schools is obviously vital, but it should not be at the expense of further education. We must put right the failures of the Tory past if we are to equip our adults with the necessary skills and qualifications to ensure the competitive, productive economy that we need for the long-term wealth and stability to which we aspire.
      If we are serious about widening participation and improving skills, we must address the issue of student support. While undergraduates are adjusting to paying partial fees, many further education students have been paying full fees for years. While most higher education students are given access to subsidised loans as of right, the system of support for further education students is close to collapse. Most local authorities have cut their funding for student support in recent years. Today, access to such support is entirely a question of geography rather than need. It is simply not acceptable that a student in Cleethorpes can receive a maintenance award for a management course while a student on a similar course in Exeter cannot.
      It is further education students who most need that support. In contrast to students in higher education, two thirds of whom come from the top two socio-economic groups, many further education students are unskilled, out of work or, perhaps, taking time out from poorly paid jobs to better themselves. If we are serious about opportunity for the many, we must address that inequitable legacy of disadvantage for those who need it most. If we are serious about improving skills and tackling underachievement, we must provide better incentives to keep people in full-time education.
      It is outrageous that only half our young people continue in full-time education up to the age of 18. It is unacceptable that the participation rate has failed to increase over the past five years, and it is shameful that we have fewer people in full-time education after the age of 16 than any of our international competitors. That is why the Select Committee wants the Government to introduce a financial incentive to keep more young people in full-time education; that is why we have recommended that the Government abolish child benefit for those over 16, and use the £600 million thus released to help fund a means-tested allowance that would encourage those from disadvantaged backgrounds, in particular, to stay in full-time education and training.
      I know that changes in child benefit are controversial, but child benefit for 16 to 19-year-olds is not universal. It is paid only to those whose children stay in full-time education, and they tend to be the children from better-off families. Surely it is right to target the money better, to encourage those from poorer families to stay in full-time education. Surely that is a better route for the nation to follow to achieve both economic prosperity and social justice. We recommend that the Government consider the proposal seriously. We want them to work towards providing loans covering maintenance and tuition that would be available to all further education students on work-related courses.

      759
      Our inquiry poses a number of other important challenges to colleges, the FEFC and the Government. We recommend that the Government give clearer direction in regard to a range of matters. The Government should determine the funding priorities for the sector; failure to do so would, in our view, impede their ability to achieve solid progress in the nation's priority areas. In the immediate future, for example, work-related courses should take priority over leisure-related learning for Government funds. The Government must also take steps to create a level playing field between further education colleges and schools. They must always level up rather than down to maintain educational quality.
      The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education and Employment (Dr. Kim Howells): I agree with much of what I am hearing, but may I ask a question about what I still call schedule 2 and non-schedule 2 courses? What was the Select Committee's opinion about finance for courses that serve people with special needs, such as disabled people and those with severe learning difficulties? Such people will never be able to work towards some form of accreditation and recognition under schedule 2, but their education is a lifeline and a way of affording them basic skills.
      Ms Hodge: Our report contains a whole section dealing with qualifications and progressions. We hope for a more modular approach to qualifications. The instance cited by my hon. Friend would be seen in such a context—not as a leisure-related activity, but as a modular course that could lead to further qualifications, especially for people with specific disadvantages. Of course such activities should be supported.
      Mr. Don Foster: Does the hon. Lady agree that the Select Committee's aim in referring to "levelling up" to bring about a level playing field for post-16 education was to deal with full-time 16-to-19 education? That would not cover the schedule 2 type of education to which the Minister referred, which, although vitally important—as he rightly said—needs to be treated and funded rather differently.
      Ms Hodge: I think that my hon. Friend the Minister was taking advantage of a pause in my speech. I must, however, declare an interest in regard to post-16 full-time education. As two of my children are currently in that sector, I recognise more than others the way in which the quality of both enrichment activities and pastoral support has been threatened by some of the cuts imposed on sixth-form colleges.
      We believe that the Government should review the qualifications that they fund. It should not be left to the media to highlight questionable qualifications, and, in so doing, to bring the whole sector into disrepute. Similarly, although the Committee welcomes the steps taken by the FEFC to tighten the rules on franchising, we believe that further action is needed so that franchising really adds value to the nation's education and training. To quote my favourite example, funding courses in ambient display, which is more commonly known as shelf stacking, can hardly be said to add value to anything much.
      Done well, franchising can build valuable partnerships between further education, the private sector and the community. It can create training opportunities for some
      760
      who would not normally get involved further education, but we believe that colleges should not be allowed to franchise courses outside their area, except in exceptional circumstances. The Government should consider time-limiting the subsidy to the private sector so that resources can be recycled and the private sector encouraged to accept responsibility for the funding of training.
      Allowing a free market in FE in the name of consumer choice is nonsense. FE should be more actively planned, nationally and locally, to ensure the most effective and efficient use of resources. Our report recommends that local partnerships, led by the FEFC, should be established to bring together all those involved in further education, from local education authorities to training and enterprise councils to employers. The FEFC should set clear criteria for mergers, and encourage them.
      Mrs. Anne Campbell: Are not many opportunities missed by training and enterprise councils, which do not always take into account the fact that further education colleges are capable of delivering the training required by businesses? Does she also agree that it is important to encourage that kind of relationship, along with local authorities, to ensure that there is a coherent strategy for further education in a particular area?
      Ms Hodge: I agree entirely with my hon. Friend, which is why we have suggested a planning framework and a level playing field between not only FE colleges and schools, but FE colleges and private providers.
      I have talked about some of the most important recommendations in the Select Committee's report. We have laid down a strong challenge to the Government, and if my right hon. Friends are serious about lifelong learning, as I believe that they are, they must meet that challenge. After years of neglect, it is time for further education to emerge from the shadows: it has a vital role to play in the Government's central purpose of raising education standards; extending opportunity to the many, not the few; and creating a strong, competitive economy.
      Out there in the colleges—among the staff and among the students—people are waiting to play their part in turning the Government's vision into reality. That will require money, commitment and effort. I hope that our inquiry and our report will set that ball rolling, and that FE will gain its rightful place in the educational landscape.
      4.52 pm
      Mr. Damian Green: I congratulate the hon. Member for Barking (Ms Hodge) on her Committee's report, which has raised many thought-provoking issues. I merely regret that, although this is exactly the right debate to have about the future of an important part of our education system, we are, unfortunately, condemned to have it at exactly the wrong time: we are all waiting with bated breath for the results of the comprehensive spending review. To an extent, that will prevent the Minister from giving us as much information as he would wish to. Indeed, the luxury of making his speech before the comprehensive spending review is announced will allow him to play the sort of dead bat that would be extremely in order today in other parts of the nation, such as Old Trafford.
      The Select Committee raised many issues in its interesting and important report—funding, expansion of numbers, franchising, governance and standards—but the

      761
      greatest is money, as the hon. Member for Barking made clear. The distribution of money is a subject of infinite fascination in the FE sector. In the relatively few weeks in which I have been covering this brief, I have already discovered that discussions about the methodology of funding could, if we wanted, keep the debate going all evening, to the extent that we would squeeze out the debate on freedom of information. I shall resist the temptation to go down that route, and merely touch on some of the wider issues raised by the Select Committee report and by other important, recently published documents such as the Kennedy report.
      Mrs. Anne Campbell: Does the hon. Gentleman agree that one of the reasons why FE colleges are fairly obsessed with money at the moment is that the unit of resources fell so dramatically in the 18 years of Tory government, and that that is causing the stress?
      Mr. Green: I was about to come to the wider issue of funding and address the rather unbalanced presentation by the hon. Member for Barking of what happened to FE under the previous Government.
      All our arguments about FE are based on what has happened since incorporation. Incorporation and the reforms introduced by the previous Government have, broadly speaking, been hugely welcomed by the FE sector. Indeed, the FEFC memorandum to the Select Committee states:
      "Further education colleges have responded magnificently to the challenges of incorporation".
      They have obviously been placed under an obligation to produce efficiency gains, but the fact that they have done so year after year suggests that those gains were capable of being achieved. The result is that many more students have been able to gain the benefits of FE courses. Labour Members should welcome that.
      The Select Committee report states:
      "The number of colleges and their structure has changed only marginally, but there has been a rapid expansion in the number of student enrolments—up by nearly one-third since incorporation."
      If such an enormous expansion of numbers had taken place in a non-compulsory education sector under a Labour Government, the hon. Members for Barking and for Cambridge (Mrs. Campbell) would have been the first to get to their feet to ask the Under-Secretary or the Prime Minister to agree with them that the Government should be congratulated on that performance.
      Mr. Phil Willis: The hon. Gentleman is making an important point. Will he comment on the fact that the number of students at Harrogate college, which is in severe financial difficulties, increased from 7,899 in 1994–95 to 15,087 in 1996–97, although funding went up by less than £100,000 on a £7.1 million budget? That is the real issue, which his Government failed to address—more students, but less money.
      Mr. Green: There are more students and more money. Clearly the unit cost has gone down—no one can argue with the facts. I invite Liberal Democrat Members and Labour Members to acknowledge that the massive
      762
      expansion in the FE sector over the past five years is a matter for congratulation, not only for the FE colleges, which have done good work, but for the previous Government, who enabled it to happen.
      Mr. Sheerman: Perhaps I can help the hon. Gentleman. My hon. Friend the Member for Barking (Ms Hodge) had to make a couple of political points—one expects that in this place—but she more or less kept to the Select Committee report and the long-term challenge. I urge the hon. Gentleman to do that. He was absolutely right to say that no party can claim any real bonus over the years; after the passing of the Education Act 1944, Labour failed to introduce the crucial aspects of community colleges recommended in it. Labour has not been good: this area has been the Cinderella, and it has been neglected by all parties. We should take that as read and stop making party political points: let us get down to discussing the future of FE and what the hon. Gentleman intends to do about it.
      Mr. Green: I should be more than happy to do so; I mentioned that matter only because the hon. Member for Barking introduced it in her speech. Indeed, I have been making a point that has been interrupted by constant interventions from hon. Members on both sides of the House. Of course, I am always more than happy to take interventions. However, I am more than happy to do what the hon. Gentleman suggests, because the bulk of what I want to say is precisely to do with the future—where we are now, how we can go forward and the challenges and problems that face the Government as they attempt to improve the FE sector.
      The Select Committee makes some important long-term points, not least that FE colleges are now the main provider of education for 16 to 19-year-olds. The hon. Member for Barking was possibly right to refer to the sector as a Cinderella. One of the least-known facts outside the FE sector is that more 16 to 19-year-olds undergo education in FE colleges than in schools or higher education. That is a key point. The FE sector provides many students extremely cost-effectively—not just 16 to 19-year-olds, but those in other age groups—with a vital bridge between education and employment.
      That is where we are now and the future is likely to bring another huge expansion of the FE sector. The Select Committee calculates that, of the 500,000 students whom the Government wish to see going into further and higher education over the next few years, 430,000 will go into the FE sector, which provides 140,000 full-time equivalent places. That is where the main message of the debate arises: where will the money come from?
      If the Government are going to meet the aspirations of the sector itself, of the many students who want to go into it and indeed of the Select Committee, the central issue is whether the Government will be able to will the means as well as the ends, otherwise FE will continue to be a troubled sector. The issue of funding will continue to be the ghost at this evening's intellectual feast. If the Minister seeks to reassure, simply with warm words, hon. Members on both sides of the House, particularly his hon. Friends and the Chairman of the Select Committee, one will be entitled to be a little suspicious, because we have reached the stage, given the number of commitments that the Government have made to FE, when warm words will not be enough.

      763
      I agree with the hon. Member for Barking: it would be foolish to deny that there are difficulties in the FE sector. A number of colleges are experiencing financial difficulties. Indeed, the evidence that was given to the Select Committee suggests that the financial pressures on the sector are such that the achievements over the past five years are at risk, as well as any future improvements to the sector.
      Mr. Derek Twigg: On that point about the financial health of colleges, will the hon. Gentleman comment on this matter? Between 1994 and 1997, the percentage of colleges that were deemed reasonably robust went from 70 to 43 per cent. and, in category C, the percentage of colleges that were deemed financially weak went from 6 to 27 per cent. Why did that happen?
      Mr. Green: I should be grateful if Labour Members could get their act together. Those who have the brief to read out constantly try to push me backwards. Others who want the debate to go forward constantly urge me not to make party political points. I wish that Labour Members could decide what type of debate they want this to be. Do they want a sensible and constructive debate, or constantly to look backwards? I am happy to bandy figures about with the hon. Gentleman until the end of the debate, but I do not think that the more sensible Labour Members think that that is a useful way to spend our time.
      As I and, indeed, the Select Committee have observed, it is the quantum of money that will be available to the FE sector that is the key to the Government's meeting the ambitions that they have set themselves. The amount that they have given it so far simply does not meet the aspirations. If the Government are to meet their targets, there needs to be a balance between the various education sectors. Clearly, the main need is to balance the resources available among the three education sectors.
      Since the sector was set up many decades ago, FE has at times been the least regarded sector. The severe danger is that, with the Government's many commitments to schools and with the commitment that they like to make to higher education as well, FE will again fall into the hole. That will hugely disadvantage not just the sector itself, but the many types of students who find FE education much more congenial than other types of education, and the country as a whole. Clearly, we need a balanced education system which allows a range of people to reach their potential and to provide and enjoy the skills that this country needs if it is to continue the economic progress of the past 18 years or so.
      That is the key area with which I hope the Minister will deal in his speech. Are the Government going to move beyond mere rhetoric? If they are, will there be any losers in other educational sectors? It would be naive for anyone speaking in the debate to assume that simply more money will be available across the board in education. The Minister would make a serious contribution if he explained the priorities that the Government will take into the comprehensive spending review. Without that, we will be back to mere warm words.
      The concept of the level playing field for funding is clearly important, but the TEC National Council Ltd. has made an important point:
      "Whilst we want equity across post 16 funding we think equity is about treating everyone differently, not treating everyone the same."
      764
      One theme which I should like to impress on the Minister is that the idea that a level playing field means simply applying the same formula to different types of people in education is likely to prove both short-sighted and destructive. Whatever comes out of the comprehensive spending review, the Government's attitude to further education should be more subtle than that.
      To that degree, I agree with the Select Committee. It does not think it is sensible to create a common currency for the funding of post-16 education. That would be an unrealistic ambition. It is one of those areas where tidiness is the enemy of common sense, and I hope that the Government will not go down that route.
      The other great funding issue is convergence. Again, I hope that, when the Government move towards convergence, as I am sure they will, they do not do so in a way that is too mechanical. There have been arguments—I have heard them from South Kent college, the FE college in my constituency—that convergence inevitably creates losers as well as winners and that trying to move too far, too fast will mean that the losers outweigh the winners. This is an important issue when discussing other important issues such as access. In particular, one of the sectors that would be damaged by too quick a move towards convergence would be inner-city colleges, especially those in London. Indeed, as the Minister will be aware, the Inner London Colleges Group said:
      "If convergence continues at the current rate, then a sizeable portion of the FE infrastructure that will be necessary to deliver the Government's aims in the most deprived areas of the country will be dismantled".
      I am sure that he is aware of that evidence to the Select Committee and that he is conscious of the fact that he will need to be fairly nimble and light on his feet to avoid that type of, I am sure, unintentional damage to the sector.
      On the wider issue of the expansion of numbers, which is, to some extent, the central thrust of the Government's hope in this area, I should be interested to hear whether the Minister agrees with the Select Committee's figure—whether he thinks that 430,000 of the extra 500,000 will indeed be educated in the FE sector. If so, does he agree with the Select Committee's views on money? The hon. Member for Barking has made it clear that her bid is for £0.5 billion. She described that as modest, and I dare say that many people in the FE sector could come up with much bigger numbers fairly easily. She will know as well as I do that the Minister has to juggle with the various demands of the education brief. Battles are being fought across Whitehall, from which only the occasional strangled cry emerges through leaks to the outside world.
      The FE sector will be doing very well if it obtains the money that the Select Committee recommends. People in the sector would find it illuminating if the Minister could bring himself to give us any clues about whether the Select Committee is in the right ball park.
      Mrs. Anne Campbell: Is the hon. Gentleman not a little embarrassed by the almost total lack of interest in this subject shown by Conservative Members? Apart from the hon. Gentleman and his hon. Friend the Member for South-West Bedfordshire (Sir D. Madel) on the Front Bench, only one Conservative, the hon. Member for

      765
      Guildford (Mr. St. Aubyn), who is a member of the Select Committee, is present on the Back Benches. [Interruption.]
      Mr. Green: There are now two, and others have attended the debate. I hope that the hon. Lady will recognise the difference between quality and quantity.
      Support for students in the FE sector, especially if it is expanded, is an issue worth addressing. I must part company with the Select Committee on this matter. The hon. Lady seemed to elide the Select Committee's recommendation. She referred to loans as the recommended way of proceeding, whereas the Committee's report clearly refers to grants.
      Ms Hodge: Both are required.
      Mr. Green: The hon. Lady says that she is in favour of both. This is an extremely interesting area for the Minister to address, as the Government have already gone against the Dearing recommendation that maintenance grants for students in higher education should be continued. If the Minister has no intention of responding positively to the Select Committee's recommendation for FE students to have maintenance grants, he should say so this evening so that we know where we stand.
      The Opposition support the Dearing report. We believe that maintenance grants for students in higher education should be maintained. However, I part company with the Select Committee on the issue of converting child benefit money into grants. Wider aspects of the use of child benefit to hold families together are possibly not relevant to this debate.
      Ms Hodge: I am interested that the hon. Gentleman parts company with the Select Committee. He said that he recognises the pressures on public expenditure and the battle that the Minister will have to find the extra £0.5 billion by 2001–02. If he does not want maintenance grants for 16 to 19-year-old FE students to be funded through child benefit, how does he propose they should be funded?
      Mr. Green: I do not have to take that decision for a few years.
      Dr. Howells: That is convenient.
      Mr. Green: The Minister has to take that decision, and it would be extremely interesting to hear what he has to say about this matter. It will be a few years before we have to make that decision, and we shall do so. We take the use of child benefit to support the family and family values extremely seriously. We would consider carefully whether the hon. Lady's suggestion would be the best use of that money, even for 16 to 19-year-olds. I am at best dubious about her proposal. I would be fascinated to hear the Minister on the matter.
      Funding affects the wider issue of access. The Kennedy report, which is seminal in this area, is an interesting and radical document. What it boils down to is that there should be access for all, and that, if necessary, there should be discriminatory funding to achieve that. That is
      766
      a radical idea, and, to be candid, the Government's response was pretty thin. They are slightly worried and embarrassed about how to approach this issue, and they have not said anything concrete about what is required.
      There are dangers in the Kennedy approach, some of which were identified in the Select Committee report. Identifying favoured students from different areas in certain towns—the right postcodes—would give rise to discriminatory funding that may not, in individual cases, either be fair or be seen to be fair.
      Dr. Howells: It is interesting that the hon. Gentleman seizes on that aspect of the Kennedy report. I shall leap to the Baroness's defence. She was referring to partnerships with training and enterprise councils. Focus can be placed on specific postcodes and addresses where there are great difficulties. The previous Government looked into some of those projects carefully. I know of TECs that have fostered successful partnerships between education and business, and that has raised attainment in the area. The hon. Gentleman would surely acknowledge that such an approach has value.
      Mr. Green: It may have value if it is done sensibly. The crudity of the measures gives rise to concern. The term "Kennedy student" is already in the public domain. The Further Education Funding Council uses that term, and the Select Committee sensibly said that it did not want to go down that route. If students are identified as "Kennedy students", they may be stigmatised. The next phase will be "Kennedy estates". Such an approach has dangers.
      Dr. Howells: Sink estates.
      Mr. Green: The Minister uses the term "sink estates". I hope that he does not propose to introduce a method of funding that stigmatises individuals or people who come from a particular area. The danger implied by the Minister's well-meaning intervention is that he will go down that route.
      There are other dangers. It is interesting that the new deal, which should, broadly speaking, be welcomed by the FE sector, has already created a degree of danger. FE colleges have pointed out the disadvantages of the new deal for their funding. The Times Educational Supplement on 20 March ran a story under the headline "New Deal strains college coffers". I hope that the Minister will reassure colleges that that will not continue. That claim was based on the early pilot projects under the new deal. The article states:
      "Some inner-city colleges are looking at cuts in excess of £300,000, while having to increase significantly the time spent teaching trainees."
      Many people are taking courses under the new deal similar to those that they were previously taking, but they are doing more hours, so they cost more and are funded from a different pot, which pays the college less.
      The principal of Stoke-on-Trent college told the Select Committee:
      "the sum of money we will get through the New Deal will be somewhat smaller than what we are getting through the current 16 hour rule…It is not clear that the sum of money to deliver this will necessarily he totally adequate".

      767
      The Select Committee report says that the director of FE development at the Association of Colleges has stated:
      "the New Deal is a major area of uncertainty".
      Does the Minister have any concrete proposals to compensate colleges for the losses that they may incur as a result of the new deal?
      The Select Committee addressed some other important areas, including franchising, to which the hon. Member for Barking referred. The key point is not to be over-prescriptive. It is extremely dangerous to try to produce an all-embracing set of rules in which all good franchise courses fall inside and all bad ones fall outside. The danger is that, by trying to drive out all of the bad, some of the good will go as well. I am sure that the Select Committee would recognise that there are dangers, and that some courses may not bear much scrutiny—the hon. Member for Barking pointed out one. The danger of driving out the good with the bad is one that I hope the Minister will bear in mind.
      I take the Select Committee's point about the danger of confusion about the Government's criteria for funding the training of those in employment. That is another difficult technical matter which I hope the Minister will address.
      I wish to refer to an area that the Select Committee thought was important—the role of regional development agencies. Frankly, those are the potential fifth wheel on the coach. I am happy to agree with the noble Baroness Blackstone that RDAs will be too big to carry out the role of co-ordinating FEs. I think that RDAs will be too big to carry out the role of co-ordinating anything and will be dangerous in almost all areas, so I am happy that—in at least one area—the Government have recognised that the role of RDAs should be minimised rather than maximised.
      If the Government and the Liberal Democrats are—as they seem—so besotted with regionalisation, and if the Government are to move towards convergence in funding, perhaps regional convergence would be better than national convergence. At least then the Government would be following the logic of their own argument, false though it is on the issue.
      Mr. Derek Foster: Before the hon. Gentleman leaves regionalisation and training and enterprise councils, is he aware that the British Chambers of Commerce recently produced a powerful document which wholly endorsed the wish of the Education and Employment Select Committee to have all the funding for TECs routed through the RDAs? That is not the same as having the RDAs co-ordinating further education, I grant him, but let him not dismiss regionalisation, or even more of his erstwhile friends may desert him.
      Mr. Green: I commend the latest report of the British Chambers of Commerce, on the British economy, to the right hon. Gentleman. The friendship of chambers of commerce with the Government is about to disappear, given that their overriding view is that the Government are making a supreme mess of the economy on which all of their members depend. I will not dwell on regionalisation; I merely point out that it is inappropriate in this area, and I am happy that the Government have noticed that.
      On the standards, terms and conditions which the Select Committee thought were very important for those working in the sector, I urge the Minister again not to be
      768
      over-prescriptive. A degree of local freedom for the colleges to negotiate terms and conditions is extremely important. I hope that the Minister and the Government recognise that as time goes on.
      In summary, the Minister clearly has a number of balls to juggle, and the severe danger for him is inflated expectations. I am fully aware that the FE sector was one of those which welcomed the advent of a new Government who were going to cheer the sector up and provide everything that it needed. Already, those expectations are moving away from the Minister. Professor John Field of the university of Warwick is a professor of lifelong learning. There cannot be anyone who is more interested in the Government's project. He has said:
      "Imaginative and innovative proposals…will help if properly resourced. Nothing I see convinces me that the Government has got to grips with the task."
      Dr. Howells: He is a good bloke.
      Mr. Green: The Minister may say that, from a sedentary position. Unfortunately, we can see from that quotation that that is not reciprocated. The Minister will have to reassure Professor Field as well as everyone else.
      FE colleges will be vital in any lifelong learning prospectus. The hon. Member for Barking said that she had taken a modest view that £500 million would be required. These are the last few days when the Minister will get away with warm words. When we see the comprehensive spending review, we will know whether he will put his money where his mouth is. My great fear—which I hope is wrong—is that, after all the Government's words and rhetoric over the past few months, Cinderella will still not get to the ball.
      5.24 pm
      Charlotte Atkins: I hope that the Select Committee report will mark the beginning of the end of the Cinderella status of further education. A recent survey in my local area found that nearly a quarter of employers with more than 100 staff have identified gaps in skills in their work force, yet the percentage of school leavers in Staffordshire who are to remain in full-time education has fallen since 1994.
      Blame cannot be laid at the door of further education lecturers. Efficiency gains made by the sector since incorporation have been greater than in any other part of the education service. Over the past five years, student numbers have increased by a third, but costs per student have been cut by a quarter. That is not a matter for congratulation—the impact has been damaging.
      Staff have faced growing job insecurity and new so-called flexible contracts which mean teaching more hours but spending less time supporting students. The increasing numbers of part-time staff—and, worse still, agency staff—have meant that staff have been parachuted in just to lecture. Students inevitably suffer. Staff cannot get involved in curriculum issues, and student pastoral care flies out of the window.
      Some colleges have tried to make ends meet by franchising. While, at best, franchising can widen participation in further education, at worst it just pays the employer to provide the training needed to keep the employee on the payroll—he or she would have done that

      769
      anyway. Franchising can be a real money-spinner, particularly for those 20 colleges which carry out nearly 60 per cent. of all franchising.
      For other institutions, such as my local college in Leek—which chose not to franchise because it is a small college and felt that it might overstretch itself—the effects have been damaging. Effectively, colleges have been penalised by the distortion of the funding process by franchising. That has led to my local college having to close its creche—an important part of increasing participation—and its refectory. I strongly support the Select Committee recommendations on the funding and operation of franchising; it should grow from the college's primary task—helping students to learn—and should not be merely a way of maximising income.
      Ten miles from Leek, the college at Stoke-on-Trent demonstrates yet another weakness in the FE sector—college governance and accountability. There, the unhealthy control exercised by the previous principal and the chairman of the governors led to the college having to repay large sums of money to the funding council. That led to big cuts in courses and staff posts, devastating the college. What shocked me most about the whole episode was the hands-off approach of the funding council. Even when it was alerted to the problems several times by staff at the college, the funding council refused to intervene.
      One recommendation is that the funding council must have a duty to intervene at the first danger signal. That is vital. Colleges must be more open, and allow information from governors' meetings to be revealed and easily accessible to staff and students. Transparency is vital. Otherwise, we will have more colleges such as Stoke-on-Trent to worry about.
      FE students are very often those whom the school system has failed. Further education is not their second chance—it is their only chance to get back on track. No investment gives a better return than education, especially if it is focused on the most disadvantaged. Without it, we make potential design engineers into assembly workers, potential nurses into supermarket shelf stackers and potential retail staff into benefit liabilities. The under-realisation of potential is, in human terms, catastrophic; it condemns millions to unemployment or to boring jobs well below their potential. It is also catastrophic economically. The undereducated students whom we are currently turning out will be underperforming in the economy for the next 40 years.
      Underfunding FE is a bit like progressive arsenic poisoning; if one waits for the symptoms to show, it is too late. Additional financial support for FE students and additional funding for the FE sector are an essential investment in the future.
      5.29 pm
      Mr. Phil Willis: The Liberal Democrats welcome the Select Committee's report on further education—indeed, we warmly congratulate the hon. Member for Barking (Ms Hodge) and the Select Committee on producing what we believe is a powerful report; it has considerable cross-party support, broadly reflecting, as it does, the views of Liberal Democrats and, I hope, of the Labour party. I am sure that the hon. Lady and the Minister will accept that Liberal
      770
      Democrats offer a different perspective on some matters, reflecting our policies, but I trust that we shall be more positive than the hon. Member for Ashford (Mr. Green). It was distinctly disappointing to hear a Conservative Front-Bench spokesperson speak in such a negative and carping way when there is the will for us to move forward.
      The report reflects the strong recognition that the further education sector is in a state of crisis; it is good that that has not been hidden. That crisis was born not of a lack of commitment by the vast majority of college staff, principals and governors but of a lack of policy direction and, above all, of financial support.
      The Select Committee acknowledged the huge task that the FE sector faces if it is to help to solve the problem of underachievement, which was identified in the Green Paper on lifelong learning and which has been mentioned by all hon. Members who have spoken in the debate. The fact that 30 per cent. of young people fail to reach national vocational qualification level 3 by the age of 19 is depressing; the fact that 21 million adults do not have level 3 qualifications is even more depressing.
      What hit home hardest was the 1994 national literacy survey, which calculated that 8.4 million people aged between 16 and 65 had a level of literacy so low that they would be unable to compare and contrast simple pieces of information or to fill out a simple standard form. That is a terrible indictment of an education system that has failed so many people. In the words of the song, things can only get better.
      Mr. Sheerman: Never heard of it.
      Mr. Willis: My daughter's boyfriend sang it, so I have to plug it.
      The Select Committee's report must be judged against its vision of the size of the problem to be tackled. There is a recognition that, although incorporation in 1993 brought many benefits, strategic planning has been a problem. We fully support both Baroness Kennedy and the Select Committee in their view that central Government should not interfere in the detailed operation of the sector. We should not go back to those days, or, indeed, to the days when local education authorities were in control. Central Government's role is to make clear what they expect the sector to deliver and to set clear targets for evaluating performance.
      We welcome the Select Committee's proposals on regional and local planning, but we do not think that they go far enough. The reliance on planning through funding control alone has severe limitations. Although the Further Education Funding Council should have a greater role in strategic planning, we believe that the regional development agencies—and the regional assemblies that we hope will be their parent bodies—should also have a significant role.
      We accept that, under current legislation, RDAs have no direct educational responsibilities, but there is no reason why, as we move forward to the next millennium, they should not have. The RDAs should have a statutory responsibility to produce a lifelong learning development plan for the region, following detailed consultation with all relevant employers, organisations, FE colleges, private sector providers, the local education authority and the training and enterprise councils—indeed, the right hon.

      771
      Member for Bishop Auckland (Mr. Foster), who has now left the Chamber, made a powerful point about the recent report by the British Chambers of Commerce.
      If FE colleges are to have an enhanced role in the provision of lifelong learning, they must become more open and publicly accountable. The governance of many FE colleges since incorporation has given rise to grave concern, and the Select Committee's proposals on that are excellent. It is right to allow wider participation for staff, students, community groups and the local authority and to maintain a strong business community presence; that is a proper balance. Liberal Democrats also whole-heartedly support the proposals to appoint independent clerks, to open meetings to the public, to register the interest of governors and, in particular, to introduce a further education ombudsman.
      As well as changes in governance, there must be a change in attitude to teaching and support staff in further education. Frankly, the Select Committee report does not do justice to the significant achievements of the vast majority of FE lecturers and their support colleagues. Few sectors would have tolerated the changes to conditions of service and to career and salary structures which have been imposed on the majority of FE lecturers over the past four years.
      The report recognises the need to raise morale and to improve professional standards. The development of a national training organisation is a positive proposal, but greater emphasis must be placed on postgraduate training before entry to FE teaching. We believe that the General Teaching Council has an important role to play and that it should not be disregarded.
      Nothing will do more to improve the morale and status of FE lecturers than dealing with the basic conditions of employment. Liberal Democrats do not support a return to silver-book conditions of service. We recognise the need of colleges to be able to vary contracts and to meet changing needs but such changes must be achieved by negotiation, not by threat and imposition. The Select Committee's proposal for a model contract represents a way forward, but a minimum national entitlement, backed by regulation, is required. We hope that the Minister will confirm that that is what the Government intend. FE lecturers, both full time and part time, are waiting for him to give a strong signal, and I have no doubt that he will give one when he responds to the debate.
      Liberal Democrats welcome the Government's promise to investigate the casualisation of college lecturers. A strong signal must be sent to colleges immediately to start reversing the trend to casualisation. Flexibility is one thing; exploitation is another. If we want a dynamic and energetic work force in FE colleges, we must stop treating staff as expendable commodities as budgets come and go.
      We are pleased that the Select Committee did not lay the blame for casualisation entirely at the door of the colleges, the Education Lecturing Services or even Roger Ward. The root cause is the previous Government's gross underfunding of FE and their almost complete disregard for the sector's well-being. How else can the huge disparity of treatment between the different educational sectors be explained?
      There are many ways in which to present what has happened to FE college funding. The hon. Member for Barking did it in one way and, last week, the Select Committee heard another set of figures. However, let us
      772
      accept that school funding has been largely neutral since 1993, that higher education funding has declined to 86 per cent. of its 1993 level but that FE funding has dropped to 81 per cent. of its 1993 level, which is a significant reduction. It is no wonder that 60 per cent. of our colleges are operating with deficit budgets and that the number classified as weak by the FEFC has trebled since 1994.
      My college in Harrogate has been technically bankrupt for the past three year—indeed, it has been since incorporation. This year, it was unable to meet debts to the FEFC totalling £500,000 and I must thank the Minister and the Government for agreeing to the merger of Harrogate FE college with Leeds Metropolitan university, which was announced last week.
      Mr. Sheerman: May I say, merely in passing, that I think the Harrogate college needed an infusion from Huddersfield to help it over its crisis? Like the hon. Gentleman, I have three excellent further education colleges in my constituency: Greenhead, New college and Huddersfield technical college. We should not underrate the role of principals as managers, but does the hon. Gentleman agree that they are saying that they have been distracted from getting on with the job of delivering good teaching and learning by the constant barrage of bureaucracy, whether from the FEFC or as a result of worry about how they will carry on next year? That distracts them from their job, which is all about good learning and teaching.
      Mr. Willis: I am grateful for that intervention because of the hon. Gentleman's knowledge of the subject and because Huddersfield lent us Dr. Rossiter, who has been an excellent principal. The hon. Gentleman has a good point, but I think he would agree that many of our FE colleges have had to deal with another fundamental problem, which is managing debt. In 1993, many of the colleges began incorporation with significant debts, which they have retained—they have not been able to trade out of them. Judging from the FEFC report on colleges, some of those with the most severe debts are not criticised for poor management. The historic funding issue is a major problem. I want far more of the time of our college principals—their planning and structuring time—to be spent on dealing with moving their college forward rather than simply managing debt restructuring and reorganisation, as would the hon. Gentleman, I am sure.
      The Select Committee has recognised the problems of FE funding and the new resources that it proposes are welcome. However, the Treasury has seduced the Select Committee— [HON. MEMBERS: "Seduced?"]—although not the hon. Member for Barking, obviously. I would never accuse anyone of seducing her. [Interruption.] I think at this point I had better move on.
      Mr. Deputy Speaker (Sir Alan Haselhurst): Perhaps it would be helpful if the hon. Gentleman found another metaphor.
      Mr. Willis: I believe that the hand of the Treasury has been on Labour Members in the Select Committee. The hon. Member for Barking was honest enough to say that she did not feel that the Select Committee had gone far enough to give the FE sector what it needed, and I agree.
      Even if the proposed efficiency savings of a further 1 per cent. bring us into line with higher education funding reductions, they are unrealistic for a significant

      773
      number of colleges. The 1 per cent. saving will in fact mean further loss of provision in many colleges that are already facing major financial difficulties.
      The sector sought about £250 million to halt the decline and to meet the needs of existing students. There were variations on the figure, but it was roughly that total. The Select Committee has asked for somewhere in the region of £84 million, with a further £60 million for capital works. The widely quoted £500 million figure would come into play only when the additional students announced by the Prime Minister at the Labour party conference had been recruited—that is where that figure comes from. The £350 million extra suggested by the Committee would be on top of the money already requested.
      My hon. Friend the Member for Bath (Mr. Foster) last week questioned Michael Bishard, the permanent secretary at the Department for Education and Employment, and revealed that the Department does not know not only what proportion of those students will be full or part time, but what proportion will be FE or HE. What is more, until the comprehensive spending review has been concluded, targets for FE will not be clear. It has now emerged that the amount of money that the spending review allocates to FE will equate directly to the number of students that it can recruit, which is a different tale from the one that we have been told so far.
      The Select Committee may have worked on the basis of about 430,000 extra students, but as was revealed last week, only the Prime Minister knows where the original 500,000 extra students came from. The Minister may well be able to explain that figure in more detail—I am pretty sure that the Prime Minister will have brought him into his confidence.
      The Committee has suggested a further £350 million by the year 2000–02. Frankly, until we have the results of the review, that figure merely clouds the present crisis. It would be wrong to bandy about the figure of an extra £500 million when that is not really what the Select Committee report asks for.
      For those reasons, we ask the Government seriously to consider the future role and funding of training and enterprise councils. While they have never reached the £3 billion of expenditure that was first envisaged, their annual grant last year was around £1.46 billion compared with the FEFC budget of £3.1 billion. The huge bureaucracy of the TEC empire, with the lavish office complexes and even more lavish publicity materials, and the TECs' complex audit and monitoring proceedings
      "mean that for every pound of Treasury funding less than 20p actually gets down to the person that needs it."
      That is a direct quotation from the House of Commons Employment Committee report of 1995–96. Surely the Minister and his colleagues need to consider that funding and how it can be reallocated.
      Dr. Howells: I am sure that the hon. Gentleman will have noticed that four weeks ago, we announced the first ever review of training and enterprise councils. That subject will certainly be one of our major areas of focus.
      Mr. Willis: I am grateful, as always, for the Minister's intervention. Indeed, I would hurry that process along.
      774
      The transfer of a mere 20 per cent. of resources from bureaucracy to front-end delivery would meet the present FE shortfall. That is where a simple transfer could take place.
      Mr. Nick St. Aubyn: Perhaps the hon. Gentleman could help us by telling us how much, as a ratio of their own funding, the TECs receive from the private sector for spending on training?
      Mr. Willis: If the hon. Gentleman wants an answer, he should read research paper 97/48, "Training and Enterprise Councils", which contains much of the detail. We are talking about Government money and where FE will get its funding in the future. We Liberal Democrats propose that TEC funding should be studied carefully. If only 20p of every £1 is being used, a simple transfer of some of that money would solve many of the problems.
      However, it is not simply TEC funding that must be reappraised. The whole basis for funding post-16 courses must be examined. A level playing field needs to be created, as the Select Committee recognised. It cannot be right to fund a student taking three A-levels in a school sixth form differently from a student on an equivalent course at an FE college, although we understand that exact parity will never be possible.
      We do not want a levelling down of provision. I heard my hon. Friend the Member for Bath shout a stout "Hear, hear" when the hon. Member for Barking mentioned that, because it is at the root of the problem. There must be not a levelling down, with money taken from school sixth forms to fund something else, but a levelling up.
      We believe that the time may well have come to examine whether school sixth forms should be funded via the FEFC, rather than the LEA. We would like schools to be liberated to bid for more traditional areas of work in the FE sector. Schools are often ideally placed to offer aspects of FE provision to students of all ages, and should be given the freedom to do so, but only on an equal footing with FE colleges and other private sector providers.
      The Select Committee rightly recognised that, without an improved package of student financial support, the expansion that we urgently need is unlikely to take place. The damning conclusion of the Policy Studies Institute was:
      "Access to financial support for students is a lottery".
      The previous Government may have devastated the financial stability of the FE sector with their draconian cuts, but worthy of even greater condemnation was their almost total withdrawal of financial support for students, and especially part-time students. Let us not talk about widening participation unless we are prepared to offer greater support for students, and especially those who choose to study part time.
      It was a pity that the Select Committee did not have access to the Lane report, "New Arrangements for Effective Student Support in Further Education". That report estimates student support costs at £400 million a year—
      significantly more than was recommended by the Select Committee. I hope that the Minister will accept that students must be given support in the crucial areas of transport, fees, child care and maintenance, and that such support must be universally available.

      775
      Further education is at last receiving the attention that many of us have long wanted it to receive. Cinderella is preparing for the ball; a golden coach awaits; charming Prince Blunkett is already at the palace; and it only remains to be seen whether Baroness Tessa is a fairy godmother or a wicked witch. When the clock strikes midnight, and the results of the comprehensive spending review are announced, we will know whether further education can stay at the ball or whether, like Cinderella, it must return to its present lowly status.
      5.51 pm
      Mr. Michael J. Foster: It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Harrogate and Knaresborough (Mr. Willis). I remember his heartfelt contribution to a debate on corporal punishment; as I spent the six years before I became a Member of Parliament as a further education lecturer, my contribution today will be similarly heartfelt.
      I and all my former colleagues in further education are a little tired of the sector being called the Cinderella sector, and we should try to move away from that classification. We owe it to all our students and would-be students no longer to use that term; we should value more highly that crucial part of our education system. I had intended to make some comments about the Minister and Prince Charming, but as allegations have been made about Labour Members toadying, I am glad that the hon. Member for Harrogate and Knaresborough got there first.
      Much of what hon. Members say will allude to the comprehensive spending review. That will always be the case with further education, because it has been so poorly funded for so many years. In the review, the Government must deal not only with revenue funding but with the increased capital investment for which further education is crying out.
      The university for industry and universal access to all the information on the internet are very well-meaning ideas, but I remember that, in my old college, my department—the department of management and professional studies—had one computer for 26 staff. The ideas are fine, but we need the capital investment if they are not to become totally meaningless.
      When we talk about widening participation and encouraging the so-called "Kennedy students" into our colleges, we must consider the extra capital costs of, for example, increasing the number of creches that are available. The creche at my local further education college is booked out the year before people embark on their courses, such is the demand. If we are to encourage people back into education, we must consider the capital investment that is needed.
      The hon. Member for Harrogate and Knaresborough mentioned the bitter and prolonged dispute between lecturers and employers. I do not think that the previous Government did all they could to bring that to an end. They left it to local colleges to go their own way, but those colleges were more often than not encouraged by the then College Employers Forum to consider the most "productive" use of the lecturers' time.
      Lecturers such as myself bitterly resisted the attempt to force us to sign new contracts. No lecturer thinks that the silver book is there for ever, but we were faced with the decision of signing a new contract, and getting a pay
      776
      rise for doing so, but knowing that that would lead to a deterioration in the quality of teaching that we could provide.
      That dilemma has not yet been fully resolved. I hope that the Select Committee's proposal of an agreed standard contract will help. It will certainly be warmly welcomed by all concerned. I am glad that the Association of Colleges and the National Association of Teachers in Further and Higher Education are now talking to each other. That has been a long, long time coming, and it is most welcome.
      The previous Government washed their hands of their responsibilities for the governance of further education colleges. We were promised many things from incorporation. As a further education lecturer, I listened to the candidates in the 1992 general election campaign talking about what they thought would happen post-incorporation.
      In my college, the two staff governors suddenly found that their places were gone; we never had a student governor; and the LEA representatives disappeared from the governing body. A search and nomination committee was set up with the deliberate intention of recruiting "like-minded individuals" to run the corporation. I warmly welcome the idea of not only allowing but forcing corporations to have staff governors. A community facility cannot be run without stakeholder representatives. Student representation is also vital if we are to have a truly representative board to run a college.
      I have been lobbied by the chair and principal of my local college, who seem to think that there is something wrong with having democratically accountable representatives on the board, and prefer the idea of continuing to seek and nominate. They have two staff governors, whom they selected, and two LEA representatives, whom they also interviewed and selected. That is not in the spirit of democratic accountability in which I believe colleges should operate.
      On part-time and full-time students and the casualisation of labour, I speak as someone who has managed courses, and I know that it is great to have the flexibility of being able to bring in experts part-time, to do the hours that full-time lecturers may not be able to do, given the increased hours for which they are expected to teach. It is not possible to get all the people together at the same time and in the same place to discuss important quality issues about a course. With the comprehensive spending review in mind, I must say that the rate paid to part-time lecturers sometimes leaves a little to be desired, particularly if we expect them to do preparation and to contribute towards the assessment of students.
      I promised to keep my speech short, but there is a lot to be done in further education. Please let us not keep referring to it as a Cinderella; it is not.
      5.59 pm
      Mr. Nick St. Aubyn: I am delighted to speak tonight, just as I was to participate in the Select Committee on Education and Employment. I must apologise to the House because I shall have to leave before the debate ends for a service at Guildford cathedral to celebrate 50 years of the national health service. My speech will be somewhat shorter, therefore, than it would otherwise have been, and I know how much that will disappoint other hon. Members.

      777
      I do not want to sound a note of controversy, but the previous Government's decision in 1993 to give further education colleges their freedom may, with greater hindsight, come to be seen as almost as significant as the changes to our health system 50 years ago. Colleges of further education are to be the prime avenue for lifelong learning, and all of us share the belief that the development of lifelong learning lies at the heart of any modern society's efforts to improve itself.
      The hon. Member for Huddersfield (Mr. Sheerman) has told us that there were no prizes in further education until now. I am not here to claim prizes for the previous Government, but our debate must remain rooted in reality. We must examine objectively, as the Select Committee did, three vital events. The previous Government's 1993 act of independence for colleges changed their funding, changed their governance and promoted franchising. I am pleased that the Committee's sixth report treats objectively the way in which the subsequent five years treated the colleges in those three areas.
      Paragraph 88 of the report states:
      "while the sector has achieved much in the five years since incorporation, it will not be possible…if it continues to have to find the same levels of efficiency savings as in recent years."
      The critical point is that a significant one-off efficiency gain has been achieved by that sector, which is a great credit to the sector and to the policy that underpinned the saving. Many more people have gone into further education, and the resulting economies allow the Government to plan for hundreds of thousands more to have the benefit of further education.
      It is a measure of the current financial situation that the report proposes an additional £54 million to fund the service provided by the colleges. That is in the context of a budget of £.1 billion, so it means an increase on current provision of less than 1.5 per cent. There is a further proposal for £60 million—another 1.5 per cent. —for expenditure on capital improvements. We should use those terms to judge whether the service has been overfunded or underfunded.
      Ms Hodge: The hon. Gentleman quotes selectively from the report. I am sure that he would share the Select Committee's concern that more than 100 colleges are experiencing severe financial difficulties as a result of previous cuts. Does he agree with the point that he himself made during the Select Committee, that it is easier to find efficiency savings during a period of growth than during a period of standstill? It is the total quantum of £500,000 that will count if we are to see the institutions return to financial health.
      Mr. St. Aubyn: I am grateful to the hon. Lady for offering to help me to write my speech. There is no dispute between us that a critical juncture has been reached. The process of one-off efficiency gains and convergence has been highly successful, but, as the report suggests, there is a need to change tack. The question is how we do so.
      On the question of governance, we were all aware of one or two horror stories when the Committee began to look into the matter. However, the more we looked into it, the more we found that those were isolated cases.
      778
      Paragraph 160 of the report quotes from the second report of the Committee on Standards in Public Life—the Nolan committee—as follows:
      "we are dealing with isolated cases…that indicate no deep-seated trend. In the circumstances of challenge and change…the 'failure rate' has been creditably small."
      It is worth bearing in mind the evidence of the Further Education Funding Council that the total losses so far accumulated out of a budget of £3 billion a year for five years are about £9 million to £13 million, which is less than 0.1 per cent. of total expenditure. That is a great credit to the discipline and control that the FEFC has developed.
      My final point relates to franchising. There was proper concern at some of the stories that we heard before the Committee got under way. We were worried that qualifications in shelf stacking in supermarkets would be the genre of activity represented by franchising, but that has not happened. Paragraph 129 of the report states:
      "We believe that high quality franchising can play a valuable role in the FE system."
      That is an important finding. The report also discusses time limiting, and the amount of support that should be given to the development of new franchising schemes. On balance, that development was a successful initiative under the previous Government.
      Let me look ahead to the future funding of colleges. As with our earlier debate on child support, there is a balance to be struck between fairness and clarity. The FEFC has developed a formula that is complex, but which the colleges understand. It has achieved a high level of convergence. We hear of £2 billion being taken out of the sector, but let us remember that there has been a levelling down of those colleges that overspent or used resources inefficiently, and a levelling up of those colleges that had the lowest level of funding under the previous, local education authority-run system. That progressive change is why many colleges on low levels of funding look forward to further convergence.
      I endorse the Committee's finding that convergence is a process in which it is better to travel than to arrive. Working towards convergence has created greater fairness. However, absolute convergence would make the system more complex so that it could deal with individual anomalies at each college. That process would become self-defeating at some point. Convergence within a band is surely the right approach, rather than the reductio ad absurdum of what the FEFC was heading towards previously.
      It is instructive to consider convergence in the context of sixth-form colleges and provision in FE colleges. We condone the idea of convergence within a band of plus or minus 2.5 per cent. It is worth putting on the record the fact that table 5 on page xxiv of the report shows clearly that there is convergence of A level funding within a band of 5 per cent regardless of whether a pupil attends a school sixth form, a sixth-form college or a general FE college. While the differences remain significant—I agree that there should be some levelling up—they are not so great as to imply that those who have attended an FE college have been particularly disadvantaged compared with those who have attended a sixth-form college.
      One might go even further. It is in the nature of different types of provision for different children that there may be some funding variation. An even more

      779
      significant factor is whether the quality and nature of the course is relevant and helpful to a particular pupil. That is a much more important criterion when considering narrow band differences in funding.
      That brings me to my next point: whether we should develop a single qualification for those aged 16 to 19. I urge the House to reject that option, as I believe that there is a vocational path. While undertaking the report, the Committee also examined the plight of disaffected children over the age of 14. We found strong evidence for developing a vocational path for those for whom that is suitable not just from 16 but from 14. That would imply a different, but equal, route to qualification that is not inferior to the gold A-level standard, but more vocationally oriented and distinct.
      If we are prepared to be rooted in reality and to make those distinctions, we can credibly say that that is the right route for certain children in that age group to follow. They need not feel disadvantaged at the end of that path. In fact, someone who follows a vocational route from 14 or 16 may be far better off economically for at least the next 10 years than those who follow the classic academic university route, given the burden placed on them in the form of the cut in the maintenance grant and the loading of tuition fees.
      Dr. Howells: I will not take a natch out of the bait offered to me, but I will ask the hon. Gentleman a question. If young people follow the vocational route—it is an interesting idea about which there has been much talk—should universities recognise the equality of that qualification and allow those young people to take up degree courses? Does the hon. Gentleman believe that all universities should now recognise the validity of advanced GNVQs as a route to university?
      Mr. St. Aubyn: The fine university of Surrey, which is located in my constituency, does a great deal of work with the corporate sector in devising and assisting with courses that may lead to HND qualifications. There is also much growing co-operation between the college of further education in Guildford and the university at Kingston regarding which body offers the most appropriate courses for individual students. Rather than getting hung up on equality of accreditation, we should be concerned about ensuring that those who choose the vocational route can develop their skills and enter fields of higher education.
      To answer the Minister directly, it is misguided to suggest that someone who achieves a vocational qualification at 18 would have any complaint because a specific university preferred to take for a specifically tailored course a student with an A-level qualification. It is important that, having followed the correct route, such individuals can develop their skills at sound and able institutions for the rest of their careers.
      Mr. Vernon Coaker: In line with the Minister's comments, equality of accreditation is absolutely fundamental to the debate about vocational and academic education. Without that equality, we get first and second-rate courses based on whether pupils follow the academic or vocational route. The only way of overcoming that divide, with which we have been beset over the years, is by ensuring equality of accreditation and parity of esteem.
      Mr. St. Aubyn: I fear that the House is in danger of confusing equality of opportunity with equal opportunity.
      780
      Equal opportunity means that everyone must follow the same type of course, which is completely detrimental to the achievement of a diverse education system. Equality of opportunity means that there is no brick wall at the end of any route that the individual chooses to follow. Having followed the vocational route, nothing should prevent people from switching to a more academic course if they are late developers, develop a different interest, or discover a new educational aptitude.
      We must be flexible in this area, and I am worried about the Minister's comments. I shall read his speech carefully in Hansard, as, unfortunately, I cannot be present to hear it tonight. We must not have a dogmatic accreditation system that, in trying to achieve equality of outcome, destroys equality of opportunity. Genuine opportunity meets the needs of the individual, and is not the same for everyone.
      I think that I have spoken long enough on this diverse subject, but I conclude by urging the House to disregard the suggestion by the hon. Member for—
      Mr. Willis: Harrogate and Knaresborough.
      Mr. St. Aubyn: I shall one day remember both parts of the hon. Gentleman's constituency.
      We must disregard the hon. Gentleman's suggestion to abolish the TECs. In Surrey—evidence was presented from Manchester and other areas also—there are some excellent local partnerships between further education colleges and TECs. Through such partnerships, we shall develop the courses that the local economy needs.
      It is moonshine to suggest that a regional development agency covering the whole of the south-east could devote sufficient time to the needs of Surrey as distinct from those of Kent, East Sussex, West Sussex or any other area in that region. For us, that idea carries no weight. I commend the report on its excellent conclusion that the RDAs should be limited to a strategic role. In some ways, the report is more balanced than the debate that we have heard this afternoon.
      6.17 pm
      Valerie Davey: At this stage in the debate, I shall use the experience of one college to underline the importance of just two of the recommendations in the report of the Education and Employment Committee. The City of Bristol college is crucial both to the city and to younger students, and it announced last week its exciting plans to make provision in the city centre. That provision would be located next to the central library and adjacent to the harbourside, where developments for new centres in science, natural history and the performing arts are proposed. It is an obvious location for a college.
      We know that the majority of colleges are situated in the suburbs, in dilapidated buildings, with equipment that is long out of date. Therefore, by making plans to look to the future, the college is doing exactly what the report asks of the further education sector. However, those plans will not be realised without capital support. Therefore, I underpin the report's claim for further investment of £60 million per year. That capital investment must be allocated, year on year, to this crucial sector. These demands are made on behalf of students going into industry, who need to use updated equipment and to be attracted to the college by modern buildings.

      781
      The college's principal highlighted the fact that, with all the new equipment and the college's accessibility, it is not possible to deliver all that the Government ask without supporting the students. That is why the Committee asks for resources even greater than the £500 million for the institutions and the £400 million mentioned by the hon. Member for Harrogate and Knaresborough (Mr. Willis). The Committee seeks more than £1 billion to go into support for students. I believe that that is the balance needed in the further education sector. We must support the students.
      At a recent awards ceremony at the college, more than 80 students aged 20 to nearly 70 completed a year's course that gave them the qualifications to enter higher education. Not one of those students had a contribution from grants or loans to fees, books, child care or transport. They all completed the course on their own account, yet the principal knows that many more people would have had the qualifications, determination and enthusiasm to do the course and go on to higher education had they had the minimal support necessary to get them through that year.
      The House has been united in all our debates on getting more students from a more diverse background into higher education. Already, 30 per cent. of students going into higher education come through the further education route. Many more could do so, as the House wishes, if there were greater support.
      It has already been said that the Lane report was not available to the Committee, which is a pity. That report emphasises that the funding of transport should be a top priority. I talked to a small group in a country area not far from Bristol. A key demand of parents and lecturers was that their 16 to 19-year-olds should be able to get to whatever provision was available, whether a sixth form in their school, a sixth-form college or a further education college. To get there, they need transport to be available, and they need to have its cost funded. The Committee would have taken more account of that if we had had the Lane report to hand.
      Mrs. Anne Campbell: I am interested in my hon. Friend's remarks on transport. I agree that it is vital that young people are given opportunities through good transport. Is she aware that my constituency's further education college runs its own transport, giving people in rural areas the opportunity to travel into the city to take advantage of further education opportunities?
      Valerie Davey: I thank my hon. Friend for that contribution. I am delighted that her college is able to do that. Most colleges that I know have had to cut such provision, as have local education authorities. The Lane report notes that, in 1992–93, local education authorities were giving students £187 million a year in discretionary awards that included travel costs. That figure has fallen to well below £100 million. The injustice is that the ability to claim a discretionary award depends on where people live. The whole system must be considered carefully, and something like the Committee's proposals introduced.
      Unlike the Opposition, I think that this debate is timely, coming before the final statement of the comprehensive spending review. I urge the Government to realise that this crucial area of education must be very high on their
      782
      agenda. For the hon. Member for Ashford (Mr. Green) to describe the report as inflated expectation was very rich. His Government expected further education to go on increasing the number of students and continue producing quality education while reducing its funding. Theirs was the inflated expectation. The Committee's report is realistic, and I recommend it to the House and to the Government.
      6.25 pm
      Mr. Vernon Coaker: I shall be brief because many hon. Members wish to speak. My hon. Friend the Member for Worcester (Mr. Foster) rightly said that it was important to pay tribute to the work of the further education sector over the past few years, given the number of changes and challenges that have been presented to the people who work in it.
      From talking to the principal of my excellent local FE college, Arnold and Carlton college, I know the challenges that face it and many of the other colleges in and around Nottingham. In facing them, they have had a poor deal. Hon. Members agree that the funding of further education has been inadequate. The message to the Minister from the Select Committee report, from his experience and from the experience of all hon. Members is that we must address funding. We have started to do that, and we should recognise that the Government have already made some additional money available. We must continue with that and, in so doing, we shall address another issue: poor morale. We must reinvigorate the FE sector's work force so that they can start to deliver many of the things that we want.
      I forget which philosopher said that there is nothing as practical as a good theory, but if we want the FE sector to deliver what we want we must be clear what we want it to deliver. A multiplicity of demands is being made of it. Of course we want improved funding and to widen participation but to do that more money is needed. We must also address some of the other issues that my hon. Friends have raised, especially student support. Such issues are crucial in respect of the people whom we want to go back to education, such as women returners.
      For many of those people, alongside funding lies the issue of child care provision. The concept of lifelong learning is important, as is delivering training to support our economic needs. We must recognise that FE colleges often deliver courses in the most difficult circumstances and in remote areas. When the pits in my area shut, it was the FE college that moved in to try to retrain miners who had lost their jobs. We still have people out of work or in need of retraining and the FE colleges are trying to reskill them. We should pay tribute to the FE sector; we often fail to recognise the valuable work it does. It is not the grandiose, fantastic, multi-million-pound research that many universities proclaim—important though that is—but the small-scale individual courses delivered in a village hall or community centre that are vital if we are to provide opportunity to all our people.
      I am sorry that the hon. Member for Guildford (Mr. St. Aubyn) has gone, because I suspect that our views are not as far apart as he thinks. As deputy head teacher of a city comprehensive for a number of years I was involved in ensuring that further education colleges and the 14-to-16 school sector worked together to raise achievement and increase the participation and staying-on

      783
      rates of 16-year-olds. I am not saying that FE colleges are institutions solely for problem pupils, but they offer the sort of opportunity that schools often find it difficult to offer, in a different environment, which can often help disaffected young people to stay in the education system.
      We talk about social exclusion and about offering opportunity, so I ask my hon. Friend the Minister to consider ways in which FE colleges can work with the key stage 4 curriculum, which is the 14-to-16 curriculum, to increase participation rates and to encourage young people to stay on in education. I can see numerous ways in which colleges in Nottingham and the schools sector can work together, but that is extremely difficult to organise because of lack of flexibility in funding arrangements. It is to colleges' great credit that, in many cases, they offer courses at or far below cost to ensure that opportunities remain open.
      When talking about widening participation and trying to get more young people into colleges, we have to recognise that the colleges need support. Many city and inner-city colleges are trying to persuade among the most disaffected and difficult young people in society to stay on in or to return to education. Colleges need support to deal with those young people, but too often—this is not a party political point—they are left out on their own when there is a problem as though it is the colleges' fault that the problem has arisen. We need to work with colleges and to recognise that difficulties are likely to arise when we try to re-engage in education disaffected young people who have failed at school, who may have been in trouble with the police or out of work, and who have been left on the shelf.
      If we support colleges and avoid apportioning blame when the odd problem arises—I think all hon. Members know what I am talking aboutwe shall start to address some of the issues of social exclusion in our cities and of disadvantaged young people. I want to emphasise the role of the FE sector in helping schools to deal with disaffection and in dealing with some of the disaffected members of the post-16 age group. FE colleges have a fundamental role to play and we should support them in that role because they offer opportunities to enrich and extend the curriculum that schools cannot offer on their own.
      In my view we have to speak more of the 14-to-19 curriculum and less of the 16-to-19 curriculum. To my hon. Friend the Member for Barking (Ms Hodge), I say that I thought that the Select Committee report was excellent. It offers an opportunity and a way forward, but we have to grasp the nettle and recognise the way in which FE colleges can contribute to raising achievement in schools and tackling social exclusion and disaffection across the age range.
      6.34 pm
      Caroline Flint: One of my proudest moments this year came when I attended an awards ceremony at which my constituent, Mrs. Sheila Gravel, won the national vocational student of the year award. My hon. Friend the Minister met her afterwards.
      Sheila left school at 16 and went to work as a machinist in a garment factory. After decades of work, she found herself redundant. Despite having a family and a dependent father to look after, she decided to take the opportunity, which had not been open to her at 16, to go
      784
      into further education. In doing so, she embarked on a course that not only provided her with skills for the future, but enriched her life. Having completed her first course, she went on to take a higher education course, which she started at Doncaster college and is continuing at Leeds university.
      Sheila's achievement is one testimony among the many of mature students in Britain who have taken advantage of our further education system even though education and training have not played a role for large periods of their life. That is good and, as far as I am aware, the number of mature students returning to further education is increasing. However, our problem is the number of Sheilas who continue to leave school at 16 and wait decades before taking up education and training once more. We in Doncaster, where almost 50 per cent. of school leavers do not go on to further education, whether at school or at a further education college, recognise what a huge challenge faces us.
      It is important to consider the reasons why young people do not choose to continue their education. As has eloquently been said by my hon. Friends, the key is to treat 16-year-old school leavers as young people rather than as children—and therein lies the importance of financial support. I should like to point out to the hon. Member for Ashford (Mr. Green) that child benefit is taken up only by families whose child is in full-time further education; it is not available to families whose children have left school, perhaps to take up a low-pay, low-skill job, or to families whose children are unemployed. I agree that there are issues relating to support for family life and to recognition of parents' contribution toward their child's upkeep, but we have to look at the motivation and incentives for young people to continue their education. In its report, the Select Committee tried to highlight that as an issue for the Government to consider when determining different funding priorities. Child benefit has to be considered in that respect.
      Mr. Green: If the hon. Lady feels so strongly about maintenance grants for 16 to 19-year-olds, may I ask which way she voted on the issue of maintenance grants for students at university? Did she vote for them to be taken away, or is she consistent in her views?
      Caroline Flint: In the first place, students in higher education get loans. Let me make it clear: having in the past year dealt with several constituents in further education who pay for their courses, who combine that with work and who are on low incomes, I have no hesitation in supporting a fairer and more equitable system whereby people in further education, whether young or mature students, get a better share of taxes and more support for continuing their education, such as currently benefits those in higher education. I want a fairer and more equitable system and, for that reason, I had no hesitation in supporting the Government's recommendations.
      Many graduates understand that their future level of income is enhanced by undertaking a degree course. We have to get across to young people the message that undertaking further education can enhance their future employability and standard of living. A person with a level 3 qualification earns, on average, 25 per cent. more than someone with no qualifications. A person with a

      785
      degree earns, on average, twice as much as somebody without any qualifications. The unemployment rate among people with level 3 qualifications is half that of those with no qualifications. We must impress on young people that investment in their education and training at 16 will really make a difference to their prospects and those of their future families.
      Child care has been commented upon during the debate. Only 0.1 per cent. of Further Education Funding Council funding to colleges is devoted to child care. I am pleased that this year the Government granted an additional £5 million, but I hope that that is only the start.
      I shall give an example of how child care is important. I visited in my constituency a unit that is for young parents under 16—girls who find themselves pregnant and are able to continue their education with the support of a young parents unit working in harmony with schools. Child care and support is offered. However, once they reach the age of 16 and leave the school system, the project breaks down. The local FE college has a creche, but it is only for children aged two and above. That creates a vacuum. In the most difficult circumstances, young women are supported in continuing their school education, but they can find themselves at a loss when they have to leave the establishment.
      When I asked the person in charge of the young parents unit what happened in the vacuum that I have described, she said that young girls often seek to assume more parental responsibilities, thinking, "I might as well have more of my family now than delay for the future."
      We know from the evidence that nine out of 10 lone parents would like to go to work. The two major barriers to their succeeding are child care and access to education and training qualifications. I impress on my hon. Friend the Minister that this is an area that is regarded as important to the life chances of young people and their children.
      The hon. Member for Guildford (Mr. St. Aubyn), who had to leave the debate early, for which he apologised, mentioned that in the evidence given to the Education and Employment Committee on the governance and accountability of further education colleges it appeared that on the whole there were few examples of governance and accountability breaking down. The hon. Gentleman was right. It is testimony to the sector that it has successfully made the transition from incorporation, but it was made clear to the Committee that where governance and accountability had broken down it had been to the detriment of the entire sector. The scale of the difficulties caused by that breakdown was such that it left a slur on the whole sector. In addressing that, various suggestions have been made, including the appointment of an ombudsman.
      Mr. Ben Chapman: My hon. Friend makes an important point about governance. There are calls for more funding for further education, but unless governance and accountability are right, more money will not of itself serve the purpose. In my constituency, the board and management of the Wirral metropolitan college managed to create considerable debt by over-grandiose ideas, by straight mismanagement and by creating
      786
      over-dependence on European funding that did not continue. In those circumstances extra funding would not help, yet the very same board and management comprise people who are closing facilities to address a problem of their causing. They are entirely undemocratically unaccountable. That cannot continue. We need to address the issue of governance and management, which cannot be done separately from funding.
      Caroline Flint: I endorse my hon. Friend's comments. It is important, as in other sectors of public life, that governance and accountability in the FE sector are transparent and that people can put trust in our national further education service.
      As for model agreements in terms of staff, I do not think that anyone on the Select Committee felt that there was no need for flexibility. What was interesting was the evidence we received from the National Association of Schoolmasters/Union of Women Teachers on sixth-form colleges. When asked why there had been little publicity about rancour and disputes in its colleges, it said that flexible models based on a national framework had helped it to succeed, whereas in FE colleges the absence of national models had led to disputes.
      We have had a timely debate that has enabled us to draw attention to the importance of the FE sector. I know that under the Labour Government it will have a healthy future.
      6.44 pm
      Mr. Derek Twigg: I shall be as brief as possible because I know that other hon. Members wish to speak.
      My local college is an interesting case for examination, given the investigations that are taking place, but I welcome the debate, the Education and Employment Committee report and the Kennedy report that preceded it. Those reports have highlighted the important issues in the further education sector.
      As my hon. Friend the Member for Gedling (Mr. Coaker) said, it is important that we use the debate to highlight the tremendous work that goes on in FE and sixth-form colleges throughout the country, which involves both staff and students. They should be congratulated. Often the work goes unnoticed.
      The contribution to the country's economy, never mind local economies, and to cultural and social developments in communities, is outstanding. It would not be possible to take away a FE college or a sixth-form college without that being noticed. The removal of a college would be a massive blow to any community and to the economy of the country as a whole.
      Funding is crucial—I know that my hon. Friend the Minister has heard the argument about that. It is important that we fund the FE sector well. There are, of course, priorities to be determined and decisions to be made by the Government—and they have made a start. The previous Government incorporated colleges and established certain formulae. Many colleges have suffered as a result.
      I shall give a brief example. Widnes sixth-form college in my constituency is successful and has achieved tremendous educational attainment. It is used by many of my constituents. However, the college is about

      787
      25 per cent. worse off now than it was under previous local authority funding. The principal is in no doubt who is to blame. He says:
      "This is a direct consequence of the horrendous funding cuts imposed by the last Government."
      Demand-led funding has been mentioned briefly. The way in which the previous Government cut off funding was abominable. They did not just stop it; they stopped it overnight without warning. That created massive panic throughout the FE sector and in colleges throughout the country—I remember receiving a call from my local college. The Opposition will not respond to this issue. Similarly, they will not respond to the fact that more colleges are now in financial trouble. Why are more colleges now facing financial risk? The Opposition have sidestepped these issues. Earlier, the hon. Member for Ashford (Mr. Green) suggested that I was quoting from a party brief. Actually, the facts are in the Select Committee report. They also appear in the Library figures.
      The Government recognise the importance of further education. They have started to make that clear with their commitment to lifelong learning and the learning age. It is important that there is specific help for people on low incomes or with low educational attainment. We can help them improve their education.
      In Halton, there are major problems as a result of structural unemployment. Learning difficulties and low educational attainment are also important to my constituents and Halton college has a fundamental, pivotal role to play. There are special needs and young people with learning difficulties. What happens to them when they leave school, whether it be a special school or a school integrated within a normal comprehensive school? What happens to their education? What role can FE colleges play? It is clearly crucial.
      In terms of national and multinational companies and the economy as a whole, support for FE colleges and the courses that they put on should be recognised as important.
      Halton college is under investigation. The principal and deputy principal have been suspended. A number of allegations have been made. For obvious reasons, I shall not go into them, but the college will be an interesting study, given the current system, especially in terms of franchising. I shall say a little about the college because the investigation may have clouded the good work that goes on there.
      Halton college was formerly Widnes technical college and has existed for more than 100 years, so it is not a new innovation; it has been part of the community for a long time. In 1993 it was incorporated with other colleges. It has 38,000 students, but I bet that it is not the largest college. The students' programmes of study are at the college, in the local community or at their place of work, so they can choose how the courses are delivered, which has a massive impact.
      The college has not only a local impact—it has students from all over the country. A number of issues are under investigation at the moment, along with the franchise. Many colleges have students from all over the country, so they make an important contribution to the economy. The age profile of students is interesting; 12 per cent. are aged 16 to 19 and 88 per cent. are 20 or over. Forty-four per cent. are male and 56 per cent. are female. The college provides work for about 800 people, of whom about 50 per cent. live in the Halton area.
      788
      Crucially for the success of the economy and our future, colleges such as Halton offer a range of courses. Halton offers courses in hotel and catering studies, health and community care and humanities. It also teaches computing and information technology, multimedia and science and engineering, which are four of the most crucial areas for our economy in terms of reskilling and re-educating people.
      Halton college has recently won a number of beacon awards and been commended for its work. It does a tremendous amount of work on links with the local community. There has been specific investment and improvements in links with local schools, such as video conferences, computer link-ups and distance learning in schools. Those innovations will be very important in the next century.
      Several hon. Members have referred to better governance. I met the staff of Halton college last week. What was interesting was the clear split between those on the franchising side and those who delivered local courses. They seemed to be two separate bodies and I wonder whether that is linked to management and how the college has developed. It is important for the way in which the college is managed and assessed that there is wide community representation on the board of governors, including staff, students and members of the local authority. I welcome the Government's proposals on better governance, which will improve the situation tremendously.
      The Further Education Funding Council, which controls the further education sector, has been conducting the investigation at Halton college. We must examine the funding council's role in providing financial controls and checks and balances for the whole sector to ensure that colleges are correctly run, that we get the best value for money from our investment in the FE sector and that we can rely on the work carried out in that sector.
      The FE sector is vital to our economy and our local communities and it deserves the support that the Government can give it.
      6.52 pm
      Mr. David Chaytor: I welcome the debate and the Select Committee report. The points that have been made about the timing of the debate are worth dwelling on because, if it had taken place earlier in the year, it might have set the context for the debate on maintenance grants and tuition fees in the proceedings on the Teaching and Higher Education Bill. That would have strengthened people's awareness of the fact that the overwhelming majority of students aged 19 and over in further education have no maintenance grants and pay their tuition fees.
      The problem for FE is that it has a different meaning in different parts of the country. In my constituency, every 16-year-old in the state sector is in further education because we benefit from a highly coherent system of education whereby there are eight schools for 11 to 16-year-olds and two colleges—one Catholic sixth-form college and one general tertiary college. Both are of the highest reputation, and one has received an inspection report that was recently described as the best ever written of any similar college. Further education is particularly important for my constituents.
      As the years go on, we might need to think of a different term for further education. The boundary between further education and adult education is

      789
      increasingly irrelevant because the majority of students in further education colleges are now adults. The growth of tertiary colleges and the incorporation of sixth-form colleges into the sector mean that the old Cinderella image of FE is increasingly inappropriate. I congratulate the Government on getting lifelong learning firmly on the agenda and I hope that, in future, the House will have an annual debate on lifelong learning.
      I do not want to go over the previous Government's failures, but they bequeathed to the new Government a legacy of a chaotic and fragmented internal market and a chronic funding crisis leading to intense demoralisation in colleges throughout the country, which in turn led to disastrous industrial relations in many colleges. That is a sad and tragic bequest. I congratulate the new Government on the work that has been done in the past 12 months to remedy the deficiencies of the internal market that we inherited. I particularly welcome not only the Select Committee report but the Kennedy, Fryer and Lane reports, which have all contributed to an important debate on lifelong learning in the past 12 months. I welcome the Government's commitment to increasing by 500,000 the places in further and higher education.
      I want to dwell on three issues arising from the Select Committee's report and then comment on more detailed points. First, I cannot entirely agree that the problem of funding is merely one of the quantum. The funding methodology itself has created a bureaucratic nightmare. Although it does not, perhaps, rival that of the Child Support Agency, on which we had a statement earlier, it is not far short of it.
      I shall quote one example. Several hon. Members have referred to the problems of franchising and the fact that their colleges have experienced severe financial crises because of the vagaries and instabilities of franchising. That is because the funding methodology specifically encourages franchising without there being a full understanding of the consequences of that. I hope that my hon. Friend the Minister will take on board the fact that the specifics of the funding methodology have to be changed. We must bring about, exactly as we have done for the Child Support Agency and its formula, a simpler and more stable system. I am not entirely convinced that the changes that have been made to this year's funding methodology, particularly on franchising, will bring about that stability as quickly as is necessary.
      On funding, I also add my support for the proposed changes for maintenance for 16 to 19-year-old students via the reform of child benefit. That is a cause that I have long supported. It is self-evident that the reform proposed in the Select Committee report is the only way forward, and I hope that the Government take that on board.
      My second point on the report relates to planning. I welcome the acceptance that there has been a chronic lack of strategic planning in the sector. I also welcome the improved and enhanced role for the Further Education Funding Council regional committees and the voice that is given to the regional development agencies. Again, I am not sure that the report fully spells out exactly how strategic planning should be done. I agree with the hon. Member for Harrogate and Knaresborough (Mr. Willis) that we cannot plan through the funding mechanism alone. If we do that, we shall simply reproduce the mistakes of
      790
      the previous Government. The Government should spell out, in the near future, exactly what powers the FEFC regional committees and RDAs will have.
      I shall quote one brief example of the chaos that exists, particularly in the 16 to 19-year-old sector, in the constituency in which I live, which is not the constituency that I represent. I live in one of the smallest metropolitan districts in the country, in which education for 16 to 19-year-olds is provided by two private schools, two grant-maintained selective schools and five grant-maintained notionally comprehensive schools, which are becoming increasingly selective because of the inevitable dynamics of opting out. There are also four local authority comprehensive schools and a general further education college that has an associateship with a sixth-form college outside the district. In addition, many young people at one end of the district go to the Catholic school for 11 to 18-year-olds across the border and many at the other end of the district go to one of the two sixth-form colleges in the adjacent district.
      The result is chaos, fragmentation and a massive amount of unnecessary travelling by young people. There is inefficiency, duplication of courses and no concept of economies of scale. A generation of young people has lost out because of the failure of the previous Government—I hope that this Government will not do the same—to get to grips with the planning of provision for 16 to 19-year-olds.
      The third major issue in the report on which I shall comment is that of widening participation. I found the appendix to the Green Paper extremely valuable in giving us the figures of those who participate in HE and FE, in adult education, and of those who do not.
      This year, the Government, to their credit, have introduced a widening participation factor in the funding methodology to the tune of £10 million, but that is a drop in the ocean. If we are serious about implementing the Kennedy agenda, we should ensure that the widening participation factor—however calculated—is much greater.
      Most people working in the sector would acknowledge that one reason why it is difficult to encourage those who have been alienated by their school experience to return to continuing education is that they need a great deal of personal support, because they lack confidence and communication skills. I question whether the big policies emerging from the Green Paper—the university for industry, and individual learning accounts—will, in themselves, succeed in widening participation, because the very people whom we need to encourage to become more involved in lifelong learning are the ones who will find it most difficult to handle the new technology that is implicit in the concept of the UFI, and to put some money into an individual learning account. We need to rethink how we might widen participation for people who have not been involved in any education or training since school.
      Finally, I shall raise some specific points, to which I hope that my hon. Friend the Minister will respond in his reply, or take back to the Department. The first concerns schedule 2—specifically, the changes that have been made to the accreditation of courses under schedule 2(a). I understand that that is the subject of lively debate. Many colleges fear that the changes to schedule 2(a) will have

      791
      a severe financial effect on them because they have been introduced too quickly, after prospectuses for next year have been produced and students recruited.
      I hope that my hon. Friend the Minister will consider, and take a personal interest in, that issue, together with the issue of schedule 2(a) and the new deal. I understand that new regulations limit new deal over-25 participants to courses under schedule 2(a), whereas many of them will need to follow courses under schedule 2(c), 2(d), 2(e), 2(f) or 2(g). That point needs to be reviewed.
      I shall be brief, as other hon. Members wish to speak. On schedule 2, my hon. Friend the Member for Barking (Ms Hodge) raised a point about drawing the distinction between education for work and education for leisure. That point is strongly made in the report. I am not sure that it is easy to draw such a distinction. I do not believe that we can draw a line between that which prepares people for work and that which prepares them for leisure. I ask the Government to think carefully before making any changes to funding regimes on the basis of such a hard and fast division. Increasingly, as we move into the next century, as work patterns change completely and as people's working lives change, educating people for leisure time will be as important as educating and training them for work.
      The development of a credit accumulation and transfer scheme was also flagged up in the report. The difficulty is that, at the moment, there is no incentive for colleges to become involved in such schemes because the funding methodology works against it. That leads me to the important point that the funding methodology needs to be changed so that a fully flexible unitised curriculum can be developed.
      The national grid for learning is a crucial development, widely welcomed in the school sector. No reference has been made to how that might be extended to the further education sector. I hope that my hon. Friend the Minister will mention that in his reply.
      I welcome the work that the Minister and his colleagues have done in the past 12 months. There has been more discussion of lifelong learning than at any time in the past 30 years. All we need is for the Government to put their money where their mouth is.
      7.4 pm
      Mrs. Anne Campbell: I welcome tonight's debate and congratulate my hon. Friends serving on the Select Committee on Education and Employment, who were responsible for the report. It highlights the importance of further education and permits us to support it and to give it the recognition that it deserves.
      My hon. Friend the Member for Worcester (Mr. Foster) admonished us, telling us not to treat further education as a Cinderella service. He was right to do so; but when I look at those empty green Conservative Benches—on which one Back Bencher has just appeared—I can easily see why further education has been a Cinderella service. It is easy to see why, over the past 18 years, further education has been treated with appalling disrespect, funding has fallen and very few debates in the House have emphasised the importance of that crucial sector of the education system.
      Like many Labour Members, I have been a lecturer in both further and higher education. I have also been a member of the governing body of Cambridge regional
      792
      college, and chair of governors for three of the years that I was a governor. I was determined, in the years that I was a governor, to achieve a new building for Cambridge regional college. It was a matter of symbolic importance because, when I became a governor, Cambridge regional college existed in six ex-primary schools. It was run down; people did not identify with the place, and had great difficulty in finding it.
      Now we have a magnificent new building in the King Hedges area of Cambridge, which the Minister has visited. He will agree that it gives the college the status and importance that it deserves, and sends a very important message to the students, because it makes them realise that they are important to the people who fund the service.
      Recently, I had a meeting with the principals and chairs of governors of the three further education colleges that serve my constituency. I am very fortunate, in that my constituency has three excellent further education institutes, one of which, Hill's Road sixth-form college, is almost always the highest in the list of those state schools that achieve Oxbridge entrance. The other colleges are no less excellent, and produce a very high standard of education indeed. Nevertheless, funding is an issue, and one that must be addressed.
      Before I discuss funding, I shall mention the collaboration that exists between those three further education colleges; it is probably unique to Cambridge, and might be emulated elsewhere. There exists in Cambridge a collegiate board, consisting of all post-16 organisations in the area. The board's mission is to provide informed access for all students to a coherent, flexible and comprehensive programme of high-quality post-16 education and training. The collegiate board is the forum where the heads of the pre and post-16 establishments meet, and in their meetings they are always joined by representatives of the training and enterprise council, of the local education authority and of the schools that have access to, or send their students to, the further education sector.
      The areas of co-operation and collaboration include: common application procedures; guidance to students pre and post 16; strategic planning—which is important, and about which my hon. Friends have spoken a great deal tonight; curriculum development and curriculum mapping; staff development; personnel practices; marketing and promotional activities; and a host of other areas. That amply proves that a group of institutions, some of which are vastly different in character, can collaborate in a way that the previous Government did not think possible. The previous Government set one college against another, creating a competitive environment that was entirely destructive to the ethos of further education. The collaboration that we are now achieving is good for students, for lecturers, for further education and for the local economy.
      On the issue of funding, there are considerable concerns among my colleges. The three colleges this year are delivering 1.2 million Further Education Funding Council units, equivalent to more than 25,000 individual student enrolments. However, FEFC funding is available for only 1.1 million units, so not only are the units of funding smaller than in higher education, but they are not being properly funded.

      793
      All three colleges have been granted funding for about one third of the growth in the current financial year, which means that two thirds of the current shortfall will remain unfunded for next year, unless there can be some great influx into FE funding. I hope that my hon. Friend the Minister will have some good news for us later this year when the results of the comprehensive spending review are announced.
      Another important factor is the serious adverse gap that is beginning to emerge between salary levels for teachers in secondary schools and teachers in sixth-form colleges. One of my FE colleges, Hill's Road sixth-form college, must find substantial capital investment from within a greatly reduced funding allocation. Unlike general further education colleges, many of which have a long history of private income and investment, which often leads to commercial and vocational opportunities, sixth-form colleges are largely dependent on FEFC income. As a result, they are paying their staff less and the funding gap is growing ever wider.
      I hope that my hon. Friend the Minister will address those issues. I welcome the debate, and am grateful for my opportunity to participate in it.
      7.11 pm
      Mr. Ben Chapman: Incorporation has brought some benefits to the further education sector, but more needs to be done about the issue of governance. In my constituency, the board of the local college is cutting its costs by attempting to close facilities. That is presented as a move to a sort of education without walls or buildings, a virtual reality new and exciting world of education. There may be something in that, but to me, buildings, campuses and social interaction among students have been, are and will be a massive component of our further education. We cannot do away with that.
      The pity of what is happening in my constituency is that, although it is presented as educationally driven, in fact it is debt driven. College principals may well be good educationists, but they are not necessarily good managers. Sometimes an inverse ratio is in play. Those who are the best educationists may be the worst managers. Those who talk the best game are often the worst players.
      In simple terms, it is the principal who appoints the board, and the board that effectively supports the principal. That brings a false collateral and respectability to the business of governance. All appears to be well, but it is not. The proposed closure of a campus in my constituency comes on top of an earlier site closure, and presages the closure of a third. It follows the removal of creche facilities and of a theatre. It is a catalogue of disasters.
      There are 7,000 signatures to a petition protesting against the board's actions, there have been dozens of letters, and people have written to newspapers and spoken to me. Not one has supported the action of the governors of the college, but the board presses on none the less. It takes no account of the views of the people. We must find a mechanism to deal with that. Notices go up on a site announcing that it is available for other uses, students are thereby put off the courses, and a self-fulfilling prophecy is at work. It is not good for further education in general or for my constituents in particular.
      794
      I commend the Select Committee's report and the Government's consultation paper, and I look forward to hearing the Minister's reply.
      7.14 pm
      The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education and Employment (Dr. Kim Howells): I thank hon. Members on both sides of the House, although Opposition Members are in short supply, for an excellent and well-informed debate, which arose from an excellent and challenging report. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Barking (Ms Hodge) for chairing the Committee and introducing the report. It is an extremely important report. There have been many contributions; and I shall try to deal with them, but I hope that hon. Members will excuse me if I miss some.
      We in the Department are pleased to welcome the report, which is wide-ranging, comprehensive and perceptive. We are pleased that the Select Committee chose the further education sector as one of its first areas for scrutiny.
      The Government will respond in the next few weeks. That will provide the opportunity for a detailed assessment of the report and its recommendations, but I can say now that we welcome the general thrust of the Select Committee's report and its emphasis on the critical importance of FE. The sector requires all the encouragement that it can get.
      The previous growth-at-any price strategy had run aground earlier in the year, with the abrupt cancellation of the demand-led element—DLE—sby the previous Government, as my hon. Friend the Member for Halton (Mr. Twigg) made clear. They had promised to fund DLE payments due in the 1997–98 financial year, and we had to make good that promise. We had to find the money—£65 million—to fill the black hole in FE finances left behind by our predecessors, before we even started to work out what additional sums the sector required.
      The sector has been in bad shape. It has undergone continuing and swingeing efficiency gains. There is nothing wrong with efficiency gains, of course, as long as they are sensible and measured, and take full account of the sector's opportunities and needs, but when they become a constant factor in FE financing, they cease to be efficiency gains and become efficiency losses—not only a loss of good teaching staff, as many hon. Members have pointed out, but more seriously, a loss of morale, shared purpose, respect and, most important, a loss of direction. For far too many of our colleges, that has been the case.
      I have travelled around the country visiting FE colleges, and some of them have been the best educational institutions that I have set foot in, including all the universities that I have visited, if one takes into account the task with which those colleges are charged, the use that they make of their limited resources and the brilliance of some of the teaching and practice that go on there. However, some FE colleges are pretty dreadful. Many hon. Members have emphasised that management requires careful consideration. My hon. Friend the Member for Wirral, South (Mr. Chapman) made the point that being a brilliant teacher does not make one a brilliant accountant or manager. I know that college principals are giving close attention to that.
      Our first priority, having sorted out the financial mess for 1997–98, was to assess the position for 1998–99. Within the rigorous approach to public expenditure to

      795
      which we had committed ourselves, we have none the less, since last November, managed to make available more than £100 million for the sector, over and above our predecessors' plans. Further education occupies such a key place in our education and training system that the money must be well spent, and I have no doubt that it must be added to year on year. I entirely agree with what has been said about the need for adequate funds.
      Mr. Sheerman: Does that not depend on how many colleges my hon. Friend has visited, and on what percentage he considers truly excellent—the best ever? If the proportion is only 5 per cent., or only 10 per cent., whatever resources we can put in will not be well used. What are we doing to ensure that we bring the remainder up to the best standards?
      Dr. Howells: I will not hector college principals or managers about what they should or should not do. I think that Governments have been all too handy at telling other people how they should manage their businesses. I will say, however, that I think we are very bad at identifying and disseminating best practice in this country. All too often, we do not give credit where it is due. It is easy to use soundbites to criticise colleges, but colleges—some of the worst as well as some of the best—have been in dire financial straits. I will not appropriate blame in that way, and I do not think that there is a blanket method of doing so.
      My hon. Friend the Member for Bury, North (Mr. Chaytor) described the "bureaucratic nightmare" of the funding methodology. He is right: it is a bureaucratic nightmare—almost as bad a nightmare as the method of funding training and education councils, which we are reviewing. In many respects, we have inherited an awful bureaucratic mess, which we must help colleges to clear up—but through a partnership approach, rather than a "top down from Whitehall" approach.
      The Select Committee set out its view of the mission of further education, which I consider worth quoting. It said:
      "The further education sector supports the nation's economic competitiveness and social well-being by improving the skills of the existing and potential workforce and by creating opportunities for achievement for all members of the community."
      I do not think that the position could be summed up better; what worries me is that not everyone may share that view. I am not sure that many employers share it, and I am very sorry if they do not.
      There was a strong link between further education and polytechnics—in a different respect, but we saw the resulting service as being more seamless. I regret very much that, even now, many of our leading firms do not see the further education sector as a natural ally that could make it more competitive. It is vital that that trust and partnership are rebuilt, whatever we do with further education.
      It is not just a question of funds, although funds are important. More employers should realise that, if they invest money in education and training—work-based
      796
      training provided by colleges or other forms of training, perhaps campus-based—they, and we, will ultimately benefit.
      Mr. Eric Insley: Does my hon. Friend agree that restricting collaborative provision to local collaboration could damage relations between colleges and employers even further?
      Dr. Howells: I know that my hon. Friend is concerned about the excellent further education college in Barnsley, which has emerged at the top of the spectrum in the examination of colleges. It is a superb institution.
      We must look carefully at franchising arrangements, and I am glad that the Select Committee flagged them up. There is a variety of such arrangements, and there is no doubt that, even if they are at a distance, those that work must be encouraged. We must not be too prescriptive, and we must not barge in when we need to be sensitive.
      The hon. Member for Harrogate and Knaresborough (Mr. Willis) raised some important points. Most important, he told us that—I think—4.5 million people had great difficulty with literacy and numeracy and with simply expressing themselves to their peers. There can be no greater condemnation of an education system. Indeed, I have heard that the figure may be as high as 7 million. If further education is to widen access, and to engage people to whom education means nothing, it clearly faces a huge task. There can be no more important task. It has been called the Kennedy agenda, after Lady Kennedy. There is, however, another task for further education, which has not been talked about much tonight.
      Mr. Dennis Turner: I know that all Labour Members appreciate my hon. Friend's work for further education colleges. Before the debate finishes, however, may I raise a question about basic education? What is the position on new deal 25-plus? I am thinking especially of those—literally hundreds—who need basic education before they can proceed to courses that will give them the jobs that our Government want them to have. I hope that my hon. Friend will say that that is being addressed.
      Dr. Howells: It is being addressed. We are in constant contact with my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State, who is currently running the great new deal project.
      The Kennedy agenda must be one of the most important before the country. Its aim is to widen access to education, and to re-engage what is almost a lost generation. The hon. Member for Harrogate and Knaresborough is right to stress the importance of that.
      My hon. Friend the Member for Gedling (Mr. Coaker) spoke of the need for further education to deal with problems of social exclusion and disaffection. That is hugely important. Another issue was hardly discussed tonight—
      Mr. Gerald Howarth: Will the Minister give way?
      Dr. Howells: I am sorry, but I will not. The hon. Gentleman has only just entered the Chamber, and I must finish my speech.

      797
      There is another agenda: the agenda of training expert technicians. It could be described as the other end of the further education spectrum. In this country, we have not been very good at teaching intermediate skills. We were good at it once, but we stopped somewhere along the line.
      The hon. Member for Ashford (Mr. Green) spoke of the benefits of incorporation, and there is no doubt that that has brought benefits, but it has also caused terrible disruption to the relationship between companies and further education colleges. I hope that the bridges can be rebuilt. If we can rebuild them, and use imagination in returning to further education its automatic sense of dignity and self-esteem, I think that we shall succeed.
      7.28 pm
      Ms Hodge: With the leave of the House, Mr. Deputy Speaker.
      We ought to congratulate all who work in further education—not just on surviving, but on prospering over the past 18 difficult years, particularly the most recent. They have provided extended opportunity and improved training and qualifications for the many, and have begun to provide access for more people.
      I also congratulate the hon. Member for Ashford (Mr. Green), the only Conservative Member who has been present throughout the debate. I do not suggest that that is because he is on the Opposition payroll, but one Conservative Back Bencher and nine Labour Back Benchers have been present throughout. That says it all: that is why further education has been ignored for too long by Members of Parliament.
      The challenges facing the Minister are immense, and I have full confidence that he will rise to the occasion. FE is rich in its diversity, and it faces many difficult problems in the future. We have raised capital and revenue funding, and the funding of institutions and people. We have also made some controversial and challenging recommendations—we wanted deliberately to put them on the political agenda.
      I thank the members of my Committee—we all worked extremely hard to put together a comprehensive report. I also thank our advisers, those who gave written and verbal evidence to the Committee, and those who work and study in further education for ensuring that it is a sector in which we can have confidence. The matter passes over to the Minister. We wish him luck, and think that we have timed the debate appropriately. We look forward to a welcome outcome from the comprehensive spending review.
      Question deferred, pursuant to paragraph (4) of Standing Order No. 54 (Consideration of estimates).

Class XVII, Vote 1

  Freedom of Information
  [Relevant documents: The Third report from the Select Committee on Public Administration of Session 1997–98, on "Your Right to Know: the Government's Proposals for a Freedom of Information Act", HC 398, and the fourth report from the Select Committee on Public Administration of Session 1997–98, on "Ministerial Accountability and Parliamentary Questions", HC 820.]
  Motion made, and Question proposed,
  That a further sum not exceeding £55,642,000 be granted to Her Majesty out of the Consolidated Fund to complete or defray the charges which will come in course of payment during the year ending on 31st March 1999 for expenditure by the Office of the Minister for Public Service on the central management of, and delivery of services to, the civil service including the delivery of cross-departmental IT systems; expenditure resulting from the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster's chairmanship of the Ministerial Committee on Food and Safety; and certain other services.—[Dr. David Clark.]
  7.30 pm
  Mr. Rhodri Morgan: As Chairman of the Public Administration Committee, it is a privilege to commence the debate on the White Paper and the Select Committee's response to it. We published our report in May, and although it would have been beneficial to hear the Government's response to it today, we must bear it in mind that it was published only six or seven weeks ago. The Government are usually given two months to respond, and we hope that they will manage to do so within that time.
  Tonight, we need to emphasise how important it is to pass freedom of information legislation along the lines of the excellent White Paper produced just before Christmas by my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster. Draft legislation should be produced as soon as possible so that the Select Committee can go through it and listen to witnesses. A freedom of information Bill should also be in the Queen's Speech as part of the legislative programme for the 1998–99 Session, and I hope that we shall be enlightened on that subject.
  From the Labour point of view, it is important to remember that freedom of information legislation was in the 1974 election manifesto, as well as the 1992 and 1997 manifestos. We formed the Government in 1974, so it is legitimate to ask why people lost interest in the matter. Unfortunately, part of the history of freedom of information legislation to which all commentators refer is that Opposition parties always commit themselves to it, but that, funnily, that commitment always falls by the wayside when they come into government.
  I was told earlier today that, towards the end of their term in office from 1974 to 1979—just before they fell and when the Liberal party was committed to voting against them on a confidence motion—the Labour Government suddenly took an interest in Clement Freud's Back-Bench freedom of information Bill. By the time the Labour Government were buying, the Liberals were not selling, so the Bill fell and did not get through. We have an opportunity, 24 years later, to put that right.

  799
  The issue is always the same. People come into government with a flush of enthusiasm for freedom of information, but that needs to be driven forward to get the legislation on to the statute book before the iron of Administration enters the soul. We are at that exact point: the manifesto commitment has been made, the White Paper has been published, the Select Committee reported on it in May and we are waiting for the Government's response. We have been promised the draft Bill, although it will probably be published in the summer recess, and the expectation is that there will be a commitment to legislate in the next Session in the Queen's Speech later this year.
  The events of yesterday, and the revelations in The Observer, serve only to emphasise how important it is to state the principle that was at the heart of Labour's manifesto: I cannot say too emphatically that information should be for the many, not the few. Restricting information to the few would provide those interstices into which lobbyists would insert themselves, and boast about how they could obtain information that was not available to the general public. Absurd though such boasts may be, in a climate of denial of information to the many, the few would seek to profit from that denial. Perhaps yesterday's events were providential in the light of the timing of the debate and the messages that we hope to hear from my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster.
  When they come into office for the first time, Governments want to open up government, but there is also the perception that, from time to time, the availability of information will undoubtedly be inconvenient to the operation of government. All Governments have a control freak tendency and a liberationist tendency, and this Government are no different. The Select Committee's report could not be clearer in welcoming the White Paper, but the litmus test of a Government is not what they put in their manifesto or in a White Paper, but what they enact in legislation.
  We hope, therefore, that the draft Bill at least will be available before the 18-month period between last May's Queen's Speech and the next one, in November, has ended. We also hope for a commitment to legislate, although I do not expect my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster to give such a commitment tonight, because the content of the Queen's Speech has not yet been determined. It is important that we repeat the welcome that the Select Committee gave to the strength of the White Paper, and I hope that the House will back that.
  My right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster produced an excellent document, "Your Right to Know: the Background Material". The Government suggested how freedom of information legislation would work in practice by implementing the principle in respect of the White Paper—they published the document. It commits the Government to practising what they preach—what the Americans call walking the walk as well as talking the talk. This useful document states at paragraph 11:
  "The manifesto commitment implies that the Government intends the Act to go beyond the terms of the code of practice on access to Government information, quite apart from the obvious enhanced status of primary legislation over a non-statutory document. In keeping with this, the Government rejected within a few days of taking office options which would have involved simply translating the existing code into statutory form."
  800
  We expect that the legislation will be stronger than the previous Government's code of practice. Having gone back 24 years to the previous Labour Government's commitment, I can go back four years to what the previous Government did and the presumed reasons why they did it. The previous Government introduced a non-statutory code because they believed that a freedom of information Act would cut across the relationship between hon. Members and Ministers. Parliamentary questions could have been asked and not answered, but the Bill of Rights would have been cut across if that had been overridden by an information commissioner. Members of the public would have been put over and above Members of Parliament in their ability to gain access to information from Government Departments.
  A Minister may decide not to provide information through an answer to a parliamentary question, and there is little that we can do about that. We can ask another question in six months' time or whatever. A member of the public, on being denied similar information, could go to an information commissioner and that would disadvantage hon. Members, so the previous Government said, "Let us have just a non-statutory code."
  Unfortunately, as I think all hon. Members would accept, that code has not worked. It has not established rights clearly. The public are cynical about it. They do not use it much. When they do use it, they find the response is full of delays: Departments can always find reasons to fob off the ombudsman because there is no statutory backing.
  Let me cite a recent case. I had submitted a request for information on behalf of Friends of the Earth, Cymru about the Gwent wetland reserve and the mitigating measure for the Cardiff Bay development corporation. I shall not bore the House with the whole thing, but I made a complaint around about Christmas 1996 and it took until a couple of weeks ago—18 months—for the ombudsman to reach a verdict, simply because of the development corporation's dilatory tactics, which the ombudsman could do nothing about. That is the problem with a non-statutory code. The ombudsman, however hard he works, does not have enough stick to penetrate the defences of Departments, next steps agencies or quangos—whichever is seeking to hold the information back.
  That brings me to the most important point about the code. It is not merely the fact that it changes the relationship between Ministers, or could make us have to go to members of the public. One of the curiosities is that, if we do not do something about the House as well, by making freedom of information provisions apply much more effectively to information obtained by the traditional route of parliamentary questions, that route could fall into disrepute, and Members of Parliament could be asking members of the public to get information for them, rather than members of the public trying to get information via their Member of Parliament tabling parliamentary questions. What nonsense that would be. It would badly affect the reputation of the House if we did not sort that question out.
  I refer to the Committee's biggest difference with the Government's White Paper. I have already read out paragraph 11 of the background document that the Government produced, in which they said that they wanted the legislation to go beyond the content of the code. In one respect—law enforcement—the White Paper

  801
  retreats from what is in the code. We thought that that was a regrettable step. We believe that law enforcement should be subject to an exemption, as it is in the code, and not an exclusion, as it is in the White Paper.
  Why is that difference between two Latin words, which appear to mean the same, significant? With an exclusion, there is no appeal to the information commissioner. With an exemption, there is an appeal to the information commissioner, so there is a possible override from the information commissioner. That is a critical difference. It seemed to the Committee that, if that was good enough to be in the previous Government's code of practice, it should be good enough to be in the legislation, and should have been in the White Paper.
  We still recommend strongly that that should be in the draft Bill and in the eventual legislation. Otherwise, that area is untestable. Governments can abuse it if it is untestable and that will undermine the spirit of the freedom of information Bill, if and when we get it. Such a provision is not present in any overseas freedom of information legislation. That area is always testable, in the courts under the American system, or through a commissioner or a third party—an appeal body, if you like—under all the other systems, which do not use the courts as their ultimate court of appeal.
  That was the one big difference: we felt that the Government should not have withdrawn that provision. We still need a change of culture in Whitehall. All the arguments that we read in the press over the weekend—about the meetings last week, about cost and about the need to consider what the impact might be in changing the balance between the criminal community and those attempting to detect its members through law enforcement and so on—seem to tell us only one thing: the culture of Whitehall has not yet changed. We believe that that culture needs to change and to be retrained, so that civil servants will participate, in a proactive way, in the passing out of information and will not seek to find every reason either to delay or to deny information to the public.
  We also made points in the report about the need to co-ordinate the Data Protection Bill, which was working against the deadline of October this year, and therefore had to be finished in a great hurry, and the Human Rights Bill, which is another major Labour constitutional reform commitment. We said that they should be co-ordinated and linked.
  We said that hesitantly, because we do not want any of our recommendations to be used as excuses for delaying the freedom of information Bill. We fear that, almost every time we refer to the need to strengthen or improve the Bill, that can be used by the Sir Humphreys in Whitehall as a reason for deferring it and saying, "Even the Select Committee says that more work should be done on it, so do not put it in next year's Queen's Speech."
  That is the last thing that we want. Obviously, we want the Bill in next year's Queen's Speech, but we do not want it to be watered down. We want it strengthened and we want a commitment to it, but we believe that it should be closely co-ordinated with two other Bills that impinge on it—the Data Protection Bill and Human Rights Bill, which are still before the House.
  The new Government's constitutional reform agenda—parts of which are already nearing the statute book—over the past 14 months has been massive. The legislative
  802
  programme has been jam-packed generally and jam-packed with constitutional matters in particular—the Human Rights Bill, devolution to Scotland and Wales, the setting up of an executive mayor and council for London and other matters. Many matters have had to be taken on the Floor of the House because they are constitutional, but this Government's constitutional reform agenda cannot be considered complete without a freedom of information Bill because that is the Bill that will do most to change the culture of Whitehall and, therefore, the relationship between the people and the Government.
  For a Government to earn their corn as a great constitutional reforming Government, they need to implement freedom of information. Only then can they really say that they have completed the unfinished business of constitutional reform, modernising this country's constitution and joining the community of civilised nations, such as the United States, Australia, New Zealand, Canada and, most recently, Ireland, that have freedom of information legislation—let alone Sweden, which has had freedom of information legislation for more than 200 years. We cannot join that community unless we take that step of having freedom of information legislation.
  From everything that we have read in the newspapers over the past few days, the permanent secretaries and some Ministers have now drawn the covered wagons of Whitehall into a circle and are fighting back. They did not mind the White Paper—after all, what is a White Paper in the end? However, now that it looks as though there could be a Bill in the Queen's Speech in only three or four months' time, they have drawn the covered wagons into a circle.
  It is much worse than anything that ever appeared in any script in "Yes, Minister" because this is not a television soap about top civil servants and Ministers in Whitehall. This is the reality of a struggle at the heart of Whitehall and Westminster about what we are going to have in the Queen's Speech and whether, over the next few years, we shall get the culture change and shift in the relationship between the governed and the governing that we want, so that this Government can be seen to be truly a great reforming Government.
  The plea of the whole Committee, therefore, is that we want to make an honest woman out of the mother of Parliaments; that is why this issue is so important to the whole House.
  7.48 pm
  Sir Patrick Cormack: I thank the hon. Member for Cardiff, West (Mr. Morgan) for the manner in which he has introduced this debate, and I congratulate him and his Committee on some thorough work and an excellent report. I know that he will understand if I also say how good it is to see in the Chamber the hon. Member for Portsmouth, South (Mr. Hancock), who has taken part in the Committee, and, most particularly, my hon. Friend the Member for Aldridge-Brownhills (Mr. Shepherd), who has been in the House for almost 20 years and who has campaigned tirelessly, often to his discomfort, on this issue. No one could begin to doubt his impeccable credentials in this regard. I hope that we shall have the benefit of hearing him later in the debate if he has the good fortune to catch your eye, Mr. Deputy Speaker.

  803
  It is one of the quainter ironies of parliamentary life that we should debate the Government's policy on freedom of information the day after The Observer suggested that some Government information is freer than others—the hon. Member for Cardiff, West also referred to that—and the day before we debate the Government's practice on supplying information to one of Parliament's most important Select Committees.
  However, sufficient unto the day is the confusion thereof, and in spite of everything that the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster has said about the support he enjoys, it is fairly clear from articles written by normally well-informed commentators that the Government's policy on freedom of information is far from the seamless robe that he tries to wear. The hon. Member for Cardiff, West referred to that, and I hope that the Chancellor will tonight give us the latest insight into where the Government stand.
  It would seem that the Chancellor, backed by another Chancellor in the other place, is fighting off assaults on his territory by sundry ministerial colleagues who have rallied under the Home Secretary's banner. What Labour leaders were happy to proclaim as the ark of their covenant in opposition, they now see as a rather different, storm-tossed ark. A new freedom of inquiry and other intrusions would, some Ministers believe, threaten their ministerial freedom to act.
  We do not have to rely merely on press comment to know that there is anxiety in and around Whitehall. We just need to read the memos sent by the Ministry of Defence to the Select Committee on Public Administration. We are told that the Ministry anticipates
  "an increase in applications for information, which could impose a heavy administrative load…The change to a requirement to provide copies of documents, rather than providing information, will require time and effort to identify specific documents and"—
  these are the really important words—
  "to decide whether all or part are suitable for disclosure".
  It seems more than a few months since the Chancellor made his December statement. Although it was subject to one of the major leaks for which the Government have become notorious, it earned the Chancellor more plaudits than most of his colleagues have received for their statements to the House. I very much appreciated, as did many hon. Members, the thoroughness with which the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster sought to investigate that leak, having denounced it very roundly, and apologised to the House for it.
  This is the first occasion on which the House has had a chance to debate the White Paper. I make no particular complaint about that, but I do complain a little about the fact that we have yet to see the Government's response to the report of the Select Committee of which the hon. Member for Cardiff, West is Chairman. I appreciate what he said about the deadline of eight weeks, but the Government have chosen tonight for this debate, and it is a pity that they did not publish their response so that hon. Members could read it in time for the debate.
  The Chancellor of the Duchy will tell us, I am sure, that he is consulting widely in Whitehall. All I ask is that he tries to get his ministerial colleagues to speed up their replies, because it would be scandalous if we did not get the Government's response before the House rises for the summer recess.
  804
  I confess to being a little disappointed with the Chancellor. He is an old friend, and I hold him in high personal regard. In what he welcomed as a constructive response to his statement on 11 December, I said that the Opposition would be very glad to take part in talks with him. I pointed out that, although we did not share his zeal for constitutional reform—he knows that only too well—we would be more than willing to participate in a constructive spirit, not least because we are proud of our achievements in government.
  Unfortunately, the Chancellor has not yet responded to those overtures. I express the hope that tonight he will pledge himself to seeking to engage all parties, including the official Opposition, in substantive talks when the draft Bill is published, if not before.
  As I said on 11 December, if ever there were a subject on which consensus is desirable, this is it. It is a pity not only that the Chancellor has not responded to my offer, but, more importantly, that the White Paper is almost overtly political in the tone of its criticisms of the previous Government. Specifically, it makes light of the code of practice, which was a substantial step forward. It falls back on that code towards the end: in paragraph 7.3 it says:
  "Existing mechanisms for openness—including the Code of Practice on Access to Government Information—will remain in place…to smooth the transition to the fully-implemented legislation."
  The simple fact of the matter is that the previous Government, under the leadership of my right hon. Friend the Member for Huntingdon (Mr. Major), made very significant strides in opening up government. They established the code of practice and introduced the citizens charter, which the present Government have rightly retained, although with scant recognition of the man responsible for it.
  Where precisely do the Government stand now? I have to ask that question not only because of the recent press speculation and the concerns expressed by the Campaign for Freedom of Information, which, under Maurice Frankel, has done so much to advance this cause, but because we have not had the opportunity to discuss these issues in the Chamber. We need to know how the Bill will be handled and when it will be introduced.
  What about the Chancellor's comments about the White Paper having green edges? How much notice has been taken of the many representations that have been made to him direct—not just those made by the Select Committee—and of the often critical comments contained in the Select Committee report and in the detailed response by the Campaign for Freedom of Information? The campaign's document is substantial: it is even longer than the White Paper.
  I shall touch on some of the issues that exercise the Opposition, and that need clear, definitive comment from the Chancellor of the Duchy. How is reasonableness to be tested? After all, sometimes those with the greatest need for information are campaigning individuals or organisations that few would call reasonable. One wonders how a Wilberforce or a Shaftesbury would have fared if he had applied under these rules for information for fighting their, at the time, unpopular and unfashionable causes. What about "substantial harm"? Adjectives are notoriously difficult to define accurately or objectively. Why should the test be reduced to one of mere harm when it comes to Government Departments?

  805
  The White Paper tells us:
  "Experience from overseas suggests that the essential governmental functions of planning ahead, delivering solutions to issues of national importance and determining options on which to base policy decisions while still maintaining collective responsibility, can be damaged by random and premature disclosure of its deliberations under Freedom of Information legislation."
  One is tempted to say, "Quite so." Perhaps I can be forgiven a wry smile when I suggest that the Chancellor has had little success in persuading his ministerial colleagues, many of whom seem ready, for the sake of a soundbite headline, to proclaim to the "Today" programme what they have presumably agreed to keep confidential. There is little point in the White Paper defending rules which are so regularly broken unless there is to be a new determination to enforce them. Is there to be such a determination? We have a right to know.
  There is a powerful argument to be advanced against the White Paper here, and it has been so advanced with remarkable and persuasive lucidity by Professor Vernon Bogdanor in his memorandum to the Select Committee, published in volume II of the report. I warmly commend the memorandum to any hon. Member who has not read it. He argues:
  "To give Parliament the right to information, which may include official advice, is the only way in which Parliament can be enabled to fulfil its task of pinning responsibility on Ministers."
  In support of his case, Professor Bogdanor cites this fact:
  "Between 1994 and 1997, the minutes of discussions between the Chancellor of the Exchequer and the Governor of the Bank of England were released six weeks after these discussions took place. On a number of occasions, the minutes revealed serious differences of opinion between the Chancellor and the Governor."
  Why, I ask the Chancellor of the Duchy, does the White Paper not refer to that considerable advance in open government, which was quite revolutionary, and which has not continued?
  Professor Bogdanor also refers to New Zealand, which is cited in the White Paper on a number of occasions and has constitutional conventions rather similar to ours. In New Zealand,
  "It is now customary to release policy advice relating to decisions once they have been made. A New Zealand citizen can, for 20 dollars, purchase the official advice given to an incoming Government."
  I would have been happy to pay rather more than that on 2 May last year. I suspect that some of the gentlemen referred to in The Observer yesterday would doubtless have been happy to fill the Government's coffers a little more.
  Professor Bogdanor seeks to categorise those who take opposing sides on the issue as either embracing the Whig-Liberal view of the constitution—whose most prominent recent spokesman he cites as Sir Richard Scott—or the view
  "given elegant expression in recent years by two ex Foreign Secretaries, Lord Howe and Lord Hurd. This view starts from the requirements of Government rather than Parliament."
  At this point, I should ask who it was who appointed Scott, and gave directions that his report should be published. Again, there is a churlish refusal to acknowledge what the previous Government often did.
  Professor Bogdanor also argues that we might have escaped the poll tax fiasco had policy advice been readily available. I am sure that my right hon. Friend the Member
  806
  for North-West Hampshire (Sir G. Young) and I—who steadfastly opposed that item of Conservative legislation—would read that passage in the good professor's case with particular interest.
  Professor Bogdanor rests his case by saying that, in the last resort, the fundamental argument for freedom of information derives from the principle that, in a democracy,
  "the people have a right to know what Government is doing in their name."
  If the Chancellor intends to preserve his White Paper position unchanged, he will have to come up with convincing answers to the Bogdanor thesis.
  Central to the policy as advanced in the White Paper is the proposal to appoint an information commissioner. It is a pity that, in his enthusiasm for this new appointment, the Chancellor has—perhaps inadvertently— downgraded the role of the ombudsman. The Committee is rather tough on the Chancellor on that, recommending that he should,
  "in his response to this report, correct the statement on paragraph 5.7 of the White Paper relating to the independence of the ombudsman—and cease to draw the wrong inferences from it."
  I am bound to say that I am not persuaded that we need a wholly separate information commissioner. Much could be said for giving the extra responsibilities to the ombudsman, even though that would inevitably mean extending not only the scope, but the size, of his office. Such a move would certainly avoid the possibility of clash and confusion, which could arise if two similar but separate high officials exist side by side.
  Certainly, if an independent commissioner is appointed, there will have to be a clear understanding of where his responsibilities begin and end and where they are different from those of the ombudsman—who, after all, has a specific role under the code, which will, as we have seen, remain important during the transitional period. Combining both roles would have the added advantage of giving all the responsibilities under the Act to an officer accountable to Parliament. That is not something that should be lightly dismissed.
  Other points in the Select Committee report deserve the most careful answers. The Committee has serious doubts that the regime proposed by the White Paper strikes the right balance between privacy and openness, or whether it will be workable. It is important that the Chancellor takes on board the strong arguments advanced by the Committee in that context. The Committee goes further than the Opposition would wish with its comments on the excluded areas, but, again, the cogent case that it advances must be debated fully during discussion of the draft stage of the Bill.
  I can sum up the Opposition's position simply, as one of wishing to play a constructive part in all the discussions, but only on the basis of genuine consultation. There has been little enough over the Government's other constitutional policies. They are referred to by the Prime Minister in the preface to the White Paper:
  "We are committed to a comprehensive programme of constitutional reform. We believe it is right to decentralise power; to guarantee individual rights; to open up Government; and to reform Parliament."
  In response, I would say that we have seen little of a coherent strategy, but rather haphazard, piecemeal reforms based on inadequate consultation, and often no

  807
  attempt to think things out or to establish any consensus. When I think of the Government lurching from policy to policy in this field, I am reminded of the famous story of Winston Churchill dismissing the pudding at the Savoy because it had "no theme". Where is the Government's theme?
  On this policy, Mr. Hugo Young—writing in The Guardian last week—said that the answer to those specific questions is being decided in the secret places. He added that that answer
  "will be definitive for the entire life and meaning of the Blair Government."
  The opening sentence of the White Paper is particularly prescient:
  "Unnecessary secrecy in government leads to arrogance in governance and defective decision-making."
  I rather suspect that that is a sentence that will come to haunt Ministers. I hope that we shall not see a particularly troubling visitation of the spectre tomorrow night.
  8.6 pm
  Mr. Peter Bradley: It seems from the attendance in the House tonight that freedom of information is the best-kept secret in Westminster. That is a great shame, but I very much welcome the debate.
  I listened attentively to my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, West (Mr. Morgan) and to the hon. Member for South Staffordshire (Sir P.Cormack). I find it strange that the hon. Member for South Staffordshire cannot find the theme in the White Paper, or in the Committee's response. His speech was elegant, but he lost the thread. He should return to "Your Right to Know" and the Committee's response to it.
  Sir Patrick Cormack: I was not accusing the Chancellor in the White Paper—still less the Committee—of not having a theme; I was referring to the Government's policies as a whole.
  Mr. Bradley: Those who have read the White Paper attentively and with less cynicism will have found that it is proposing one of the most radical and irreversible departures from the culture to which we have become accustomed over the centuries—particularly in the past couple of decades; an obsession with secrecy by which, in the name of democratic accountability, previous Governments have limited rather than extended the freedoms enjoyed by citizens in this country.
  The well-known sociologist and political commentator, Noam Chomsky, said some decades ago that freedom of speech, valuable though it is, depends on those who have the power to define language. The same is true of information. Freedom of information depends very much on those who control the flow of that information, and the White Paper—and the legislation that we hope and expect will follow it—will do much to redress the balance between the governed and the governors.
  Until now, freedom of information has been curtailed by interests that are more concerned to limit participative democracy than to allow it to flourish. Ministers, civil servants and those with commercial interests understand that their authority, influence and power over our daily lives would be reduced if we had an automatic right to know and to question the way in which we are regulated
  808
  and controlled. Now, I believe, we have a right to demand access, accountability and transparency in the conduct of national and local government.
  Information is the oxygen of democracy; without it, our democratic system and our institutions cannot flourish. That is why I support what has recently become known as control freakery. I believe that it is important for Government to express messages that are clear, cogent and coherent. People want to know that their Government are under control. They want information to which they can respond and react. Without clear information, there can be no real dialogue or partnership between those who govern and those who are governed; there can be no real bond of trust, and there can be no real opportunity for people to react, to express their views and to participate in the management of their daily lives.
  The White Paper is truly radical. It proposes one of the most important constitutional changes that the Government will pursue—indeed, that any Government for many years have pursued. That change will enfranchise and empower every citizen in the country. As my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, West said, it should be seen in the context of a wide-ranging programme of reform that, as a whole, constitutes a new and mature contract between the Government and the citizen. That is what is known as stakeholding, an expression that was current a couple of years ago but has fallen out of fashion—sadly, I believe, as it is an important concept.
  The Government have been criticised for control freakery, but they are pursuing a wide-ranging programme of reform. That programme includes Scots and Welsh devolution, the return of democratically elected government to London, the introduction of regional development agencies and the modernisation of local government—as expressed in, I think, six recent consultation documents. There have been experiments with proportional representation, and Liberal Democrats have been put on to Cabinet Committees—I do not think that anyone could argue that that is entirely necessary, given the majority that the Labour party enjoys in the House, but it is welcome none the less.
  Moreover, the European convention on human rights will be incorporated into our legislation and a White Paper on better government will, I hope, be published in the autumn. I should also mention the reform of the House of Lords and the whistleblowers Bill, which was introduced by the hon. Member for Aldridge-Brownhills (Mr. Shepherd)—I join other hon. Members in paying tribute to his part in bringing forward legislation on both freedom of information and on whistleblowers.
  Freedom of information is the flagship of the programme but, as I said, it is a well-kept secret, which is a pity. That is partly because the press's obsession with personalities overwhelms its interest in policies. For example, when, a couple of months ago, the Lord Chancellor gave evidence for two and a half hours to the Select Committee on Public Administration on the Government's programme of constitutional change, he discussed the most far-reaching changes that citizens in this country will enjoy for a generation—indeed, for many generations to come. The press, however, were interested in one thing only. Those who recall that Select Committee meeting will remember that, the following day, the radio, the television and the newspapers were consumed by one issue—the Lord Chancellor's wallpaper. The story was

  809
  not even new; it was a reheated version of a story that had kept the newspapers going for a couple of days in the previous week. The media's failure to discuss important issues seriously and to involve people in a proper debate represents a great disservice to the citizens of this country.
  Mr. Mike Hancock: Does the hon. Gentleman agree that, on that occasion, the Lord Chancellor seemed to be grateful for the distraction provided by the cost of his wallpaper, as he did not want to talk about hon. Members' criticisms of the way in which judges are appointed? As the record of that meeting shows, the Lord Chancellor instigated most of the dialogue on the choice and the cost of his wallpaper.
  Mr. Bradley: My recollection is not the same; suffice it to say we discussed constitutional change for two of the two and a half hours, whereas for half an hour two members of the Committee—the hon. Member for Portsmouth, South (Mr. Hancock) was not one of them—pursued Lord Irvine on what can be described only as trivia. I put it to the House that the Lord Chancellor's home furnishings are far less important than those constitutional issues.
  This time last year there was much speculation about the delay in publication of the White Paper. When it was published, it was welcomed for its thoroughness; the delay had been caused by the pains the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, the Lord Chancellor and others involved in the drafting had taken to ensure that it was right. Indeed, the White Paper is exceedingly good.
  It is important that the Bill preserves and builds on the key principles identified in the White Paper. I am relaxed about whether the Bill will form part of this year's Queen's Speech; I hope that it will, but it is far more important to ensure that the Bill is right than to have it quickly. So long as it is worth waiting for, we should, having waited for centuries, wait a little longer. The key issue is that there should be no retreat from the principles set out in the White Paper.
  The Select Committee's report makes clear our disappointment at the relatively few examples of temerity in the White Paper. I hope that the lobbying done by and for the utilities—which is the subject of press speculation—so that they can escape public scrutiny will not be tolerated. When my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary gave evidence to the Select Committee, I found his reasoning unpersuasive that all police operations should be excluded from public scrutiny. If the public had had proper opportunities to know what happened in the tragic Lawrence case, for example, I doubt that we would be where we are now or that the Lawrence family would have suffered so much and for so long.
  I find it inexplicable that the public should not have the right of access to information about police operations, particularly failed police operations. I have in mind fairly humdrum examples, such as were discussed by the Select Committee, relating to the management of disorder or of football grounds and football crowds. Police plans to control public events should be confidential but, after the event, especially when something has gone wrong, the public have an absolute right to know the police's dispositions, what instructions were issued and what
  810
  accounted for the failure. That is a weakness in the Home Secretary's argument and the Select Committee stated its case plainly in the report. I hope that those who draft the Bill will resist any temptation to retreat from the report's recommendations on this important issue.
  The conflict between the right to privacy and freedom of information is a problem. I believe that the right to privacy is very important; I also accept that freedom of information, while important, is not an absolute right. It is crucial that the Bill, and consultation on its drafting, strikes the right balance.
  Once we have freedom of information legislation, the world will not be the same. It is doubtful whether the BSE crisis could have deepened as it did had the public had proper access to information. It is also doubtful that the arms to Iraq affair could have taken the course that it did had there been proper scrutiny through access to information. Quangos and utilities will not be able to operate under the cloak of secrecy as they do today.
  The role of the press will undoubtedly change, not least because there will be fewer leaks and less of a market for leaking information that ought to be in the public domain. One would hope that there will be less scandal because the people in control of information will be much more careful to ensure that they are beyond reproach and those whose job it is to scrutinise their activities will have more access to information about the way in which they are governing us and the country.
  Freedom of information will also come as something of a shock to Members of Parliament. As a new Member I frequently hear older Members in particular telling us about the sovereignty of the House and how important that is. In principle, in our parliamentary democracy, that sovereignty is important, but if it means a barrier being set up between Members of Parliament, Ministers and the people we serve, it is not a good thing. Freedom of information will do a great deal to lower the barrier between the people who sit up in the Strangers Gallery and the people who sit down here in the Chamber. Freedom of information will make truly participative democracy possible. In future, there will be a presumption to disclose information, instead of the culture of secrecy and denial.
  For 10 years I was a member of Westminster city council, which was the subject of possibly the greatest political scandal of the century. When I and other members of the opposition elected by our constituents to serve them as well as we could asked for information from council officers because we suspected that something was going on that should not have been, we were consistently denied access to the information. We were asked to demonstrate why we needed it—to demonstrate our need to know. Frankly, one can demonstrate one's need to know only when one has the information and can justify the request. That is simply unacceptable.
  One of the strongest features of the proposed legislation is that no one should be required to demonstrate why he or she wants certain information. There should be no denial of an individual's right to information on the ground that it is a fishing expedition. If my friends and colleagues on Westminster city council and I had had access to the information when we asked for it and had been given the right to scrutinise the administration as we were elected to do, many of the scandals with which everyone is so familiar about Westminster would not have

  811
  happened. That would have been far better for local democracy there and it would have saved thousands of our constituents a great deal of suffering.
  Freedom of information will make our democracy truly participative. When people have access to information, they can react and play their own role in decision making. It will no longer be possible for the great and the good, that small coterie of those elected and otherwise who dominate public affairs, to do so to the exclusion of our constituents. I enter a plea that, when we have an information commissioner, he or she should not merely have the common touch but common sense so that they can be truly representative of the people they are appointed to serve.
  One of the most pernicious features of social exclusion is the exclusion of individuals and communities from decision making. Freedom of information and the technology that is making information so much more accessible will bring a radical cultural change to the way in which our affairs are managed. The onus is on the Government to ensure that freedom of information is truly liberating—not merely a subject for Hampstead and Islington dinner parties, but something that will be meaningful to every man and woman in the country.
  In welcoming the White Paper, may I enter a plea to the Government? May it come soon, but above all may it certainly not be diluted. I hope that the White Paper is not diluted by those who are paranoid or retentive—by civil servants who feel that they will lose influence and control or by sectional interests who would rather cloak their activities in secrecy. The Government should keep up their courage and stick to the principles of the White Paper. If they do, it will be one of the enduring achievements of this reforming Government.
  8.24 pm
  Mr. Mike Hancock: Like all hon. Members present tonight, I am grateful for the opportunity to speak on this subject. Like the Chairman of the Select Committee on Public Administration, I and other hon. Members are disappointed that we are debating the matter when we have not yet had the Government's response to the report that the Committee worked so hard to achieve. I must pay tribute to our chairman, the hon. Member for Cardiff, West (Mr. Morgan) for all his work. I also compliment the hon. Member for Aldridge-Brownhills (Mr. Shepherd), who is the most experienced member of the Committee and who held the line on more than one occasion, preventing some of us from being misdirected. I am grateful for his help and that of my hon. Friend the Member for Lewes (Mr. Baker), who I am sure will want to make some observations, if he catches your eye, Mr. Deputy Speaker, about information that he has tried desperately hard to get out of Ministers in the past 12 months and the frustrations that have caused him to ask close on 1,000 parliamentary questions,
  Sir Patrick Cormack: An expensive fellow.
  Mr. Hancock: Yes, very expensive. I am glad to say that not all his questions were directed at the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster.
  The Committee's deliberations could have been entitled, "The tale of the two Chancellors" because we had a different approach from both of them. The hon.
  812
  Member for The Wrekin (Mr. Bradley) was right to remind us of the fun morning when we questioned the Lord Chancellor. Some of us expected a little more than we got and some were disappointed that he seemed to want to rush quickly on to discuss the quality of wallpaper, where he should buy it and his domestic activities, rather than the serious questions that we wanted to put to him. How different it was when we questioned the Chancellor of the Duchy and how right he was to take the issues so seriously and to spend some considerable time going into detail with Committee members on the rights and wrongs of the White Paper and his ambitions for how it would develop.
  I also hope that the White Paper will develop into a Bill in the Queen's Speech, and will become an Act. That will give us a terrific trinity of good new legislation, with major breakthroughs—data protection, human rights and freedom of information—a trinity of usefulness for the population as a whole to use. Hon. Members stressed to the Chancellor of the Duchy that we hoped that this aspect would not develop into legislation that is available only to the rich and powerful, to big business and the media. We hope that the people whom we represent will have access to it.
  In one of my contributions to the Select Committee, I reflected on the problems of my constituents. I considered five different areas. One was the nuclear test veterans—many of whom were national service men in the Army, the Royal Air Force and the Royal Navy—who went to the Pacific 30 or 40 years ago and took part in the tests, which affected their lives. Sadly, many of them are now dead, but there are still unanswered questions relating to the activities of some 40 years ago. Those involved have been stonewalled decade after decade and there is widespread frustration that the Ministry of Defence is still cloaking in secrecy what happened and the position of those men.
  Many Gulf war veterans live in the Portsmouth area. Once again, they are frustrated by their inability to get answers to questions. Service personnel in general are frustrated by what they come up against, particularly when they have recently left the service and want to query issues relating to their activities.
  Immigrants are often frustrated by the fact that they cannot get answers when relatives are refused entry or they are denied citizenship. Portsmouth prides itself on being a cosmopolitan city, and we have a large immigrant population. The most notorious citizenship case outstanding is that of Mr. Fayed. Under the legislation, he would still not be able to find out who said what about him to frustrate his application. That cannot be right.
  Only this morning, I had a conversation with a constituent who was a party to the arrest of two people who had robbed and assaulted him. He identified them to the police on not one but three occasions, including at an identification parade. When the case went to court, he was not even informed of the court date, and he subsequently received a letter saying that the police had dropped the case. There was no explanation from the Crown Prosecution Service or the police. He could get no answers and came to me in frustration. Under the current proposals, we shall never be told why that blatant crime went unpunished. The frustration will continue, and that cannot be right. Even at this late hour in the consultation on the legislation, we should consider those points carefully.

  813
  On 14 September 1996, the right hon. Gentleman who is now the Prime Minister said:
  "The case for a freedom of information act and the incorporation of the European Convention on Human Rights into British law is now generally agreed outside the Conservative Party and even by some within it. The onus must always be on public authorities to explain why citizens should not have access to information and not vice versa."
  In the Tribune of 29 September 1995, the right hon. Gentleman who is now the Home Secretary wrote:
  "Labour wants to see far greater openness in government. That is why we will introduce a Freedom of Information Act to give people clear rights of access to information collected by public authorities. The balance of the presumption must be reversed so that in most cases information will be made available to the public unless there is a good case for secrecy."
  I hope that both right hon. Gentlemen, who now hold high office, will remember their words and act accordingly. I was somewhat frustrated when the Home Secretary expressed to the Select Committee the view that we should still close the door on information from the police.
  The conflict between civil servants and the ballot box should be won by the ballot box every time. The House and the will of the people should not be subverted by powerful Whitehall mandarins who might feel that their past life style and the ease—the deft touch of the unaccountable—with which they have governed the nation are being interfered with. We cannot allow this opportunity to slip away, because the nation would not forgive us.
  The main purpose of the legislation is to allow people access to information that is pertinent to their personal lives. The balance has to be drawn carefully between the right to know and the privacy of the individual, but I believe that we can find the right blend when the Bill is drafted.
  Some of the most intimidating agencies have been wholly excluded. At present, the police, the security services, social security and immigration are all excluded, except for administrative records. We want that to change. It cannot be too late for that.
  Hon. Members have asked about the role of the commissioner, which is limited to a judicial review, concerning procedure rather than substance, so a Department has only to act "properly or reasonably", and if the statutes are drafted to give wide scope for what is proper and reasonable, the commissioner will have almost no opportunity to intervene. The hon. Member for South Staffordshire (Sir P. Cormack) made the same point when he said that the use of words could provide an easy route to stop information being made available. We should not allow ourselves to be frustrated by words. We must explore the situation positively.
  Committee members were frustrated when we could not further examine the position of the public utilities. The monopoly companies appear to have lobbied successfully to escape the provisions, except where their activities are directly accountable to the public. Southern Water, which serves my area, is an offshoot of a much bigger company, and the larger implications of that multinational company's activities have a bearing on what happens with water in the area that I represent.
  We need the right to question the parent company about its activities, and not only about its responsibility to provide clean water and decent sewerage. We need to
  814
  explore the motivation that leads to investment being contracted or expanded and the pressures that exist on the board. Companies working in the public interest must be open to public scrutiny. Anything short of that would be a travesty of what most reasonable people would expect from the legislation.
  We need time to scrutinise the legislation. I hope that the Select Committee will have that opportunity and that the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster will give us a timetable that will allow us to invite back previous witnesses and question new ones. Many groups would welcome that, and we would relish the opportunity of developing the draft legislation into the reality of a Bill to be introduced in Parliament.
  We must ensure that the legislation on data protection and that on freedom of information interface correctly and do not become a means of foiling one another. They should work in tandem to develop freedom, transparency and openness. We must insist that those points are taken on board. Anything short of that will leave people sadly frustrated.
  We must take careful note of the points made by the Campaign for Freedom of Information, whose submission to the Select Committee spoke of the harm test and how it is to be applied. In its report of March this year, it listed the factors that needed to be demonstrated to give real authority to that test. Those factors included which parts of the requested information would cause harm; the nature of the harm; the mechanism by which it was believed that the harm could be caused; why it was believed that it would be substantial; and the measures that had been considered for excluding part of the data or seeking the consent of a third party to make information disclosable.
  All those factors need to be a fundamental part of the legislation. The harm test—the protection test—should be there. It should go both ways. It cannot be good enough for a Department simply to say that information would be harmful. The Department should need to demonstrate publicly what the harm would be.
  Liberals have campaigned for the best part of five decades for freedom of information legislation. The White Paper goes a long way to delivering on our expectations of the incoming Labour Government. I am particularly grateful to the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster for his leadership and commitment in getting us this far. It would be a great disservice to the House to suggest anything other than that he is the right person to take freedom of information through its next stages, and I wish him well in his endeavours to do so. I congratulate him on what he has done so far, but ask him to take note of what hon. Members on both sides have said. Not one of us here—few though we are—wants anything but good from the White Paper, and 55 million people see it as a stepping stone to greater freedom to live better lives and to understand a little more about our country's government.
  8.40 pm
  Dr. Alan Whitehead: I apologise for any unintentional discourtesy to the Chairman of the Select Committee on Public Administration or to other hon. Members arising from my absence at the start of the debate. I received a late invitation to meet a Minister, whom I had asked to see, and I felt it best to accept. Unfortunately, that made me a little late.

  815
  From what I have heard, I realise how united is the House's welcome for the White Paper and the Government's clear-sighted commitment to freedom of information. I join the hon. Member for Portsmouth, South (Mr. Hancock) and my hon. Friend the Member for The Wrekin (Mr. Bradley) in commending the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster on his drive to ensure that the proposals are wide-ranging enough to create a climate in which open information is normal. I hope that the legacy of the legislation to arise from the White Paper will be that people will ask in future what all the fuss was about. People should find it normal to have access to information about what Governments, public bodies and elected representatives do, and there should be no question that it could be otherwise.
  We should not underestimate the revolution in public affairs that that will require. It is good to hear the official Opposition being generally supportive of proposed legislation. That is a revolution in itself. It has not always been that way, although some on the Opposition Benches have always been conspicuously courageous in their tireless advocacy of freedom of information. Indeed, a full 33 per cent. of those now sitting on the Conservative Benches fall into that category. It took a careful mathematical calculation to reach that figure.
  My hon. Friend the Member for The Wrekin said that the Opposition's new attitude towards legislation might create a climate in which we may receive, from someone, an apology for what happened in Westminster. No apology has been forthcoming from the Opposition leadership, but that case exemplified what can happen when there is a climate of secrecy in local government and when councillors and officers make sure that people do not have the information on which to make proper judgments. Things go dreadfully awry when that happens, and we do not want those circumstances to recur in local government.
  Nor do we want to see again in national Government the disgraceful circumstances of the arms-to-Iraq scandal. There was clear evidence in the Scott report of dissimulation by Ministers and civil servants, and that was engendered by the assumption that information was the property of those who had initial access to it, and was a privilege to be handed out in teaspoonfuls to anyone else.
  Some people dismiss freedom of information as a problem merely for the chattering classes. However, the problem for freedom of information—or, in our case, lack of it—is that change must come about in public perceptions of what politicians and public administrators are up to. We must demonstrate our good will, our good intentions, our probity and our willingness to engage in proper debate about the issues on which we legislate. Public trust has been lost because of what the public have seen of many people engaged in public administration in recent years. It will take a lot of hard work to restore trust. We cannot do it overnight, or by a single stroke of policy. It will require consistent application over many years. That is why freedom of information is so important.
  As the hon. Member for Portsmouth, South said, an Act such as the one that I believe that the Government will introduce will rank as one of the Labour Government's seminal achievements. It will create a climate in which the contract between the politicians and civil servants and the public can perhaps be built anew. Partnership and participation are essential to democratic government in any country, and especially so in ours.
  816
  I am pleased that the Select Committee's report broadly supports the Government's initiative. However, a thread—best described as fear of the implementation of legislation—runs through the report's examination of the White Paper and the evidence of witnesses. There were suggestions in the press and among those who gave evidence to the Select Committee that Ministers might seek to restrict the flow of information. It was suggested that Ministers might push for tight definitions of harm, or might argue for an extensive definition of commercial confidentiality.
  It also appears from the White Paper that such bodies as the police and the security services might be given a blanket exclusion, perhaps because of fears of the effects that freedom of information would have on them. I can well understand that substantial parts of the operations of the police and the security services must remain operationally confidential. The reports coming out about the history of the troubles in Northern Ireland tell us that there are matters of which the public cannot be made aware for national security reasons.
  However, we need not necessarily jump from those facts to the introduction of a class exclusion. The tremendous difficulty in making a distinction between policy and operations has systematically bedevilled implementation of freedom of information in local government. It also came to the fore in recent discussions between the Prison Service and the previous Home Secretary. A host of other examples exists. To put administration within freedom of information legislation, while other activities fall outside, could cause difficulties. The matter should be clarified, because the public must have confidence that the Government are conducting their business in an open, fair and even-handed manner. When it comes to the police, public confidence is vital at all times.
  I shall tell the House about the fears that many people justifiably—in some cases, less justifiably—have about implementing the legislation by relating my experience of attempting to introduce a freedom of information platform when I was leader of Southampton city council. When my party took control of the council in 1984, there was a very tight regime in place. It was generally presumed that information was the property of officers, and sometimes of councillors, and items that came before the council for discussion were coded on paper of different colours—hon. Members who have served on local authorities will be familiar with the colour-coding obsession in which those authorities have historically indulged.
  In the case of Southampton, an item coded on white paper could be talked about to anyone. If business came before the local authority on yellow paper, it meant, curiously, that one could not talk about it until the afternoon of the council meeting and subsequent to that. If it came before the council on pink paper, one could not talk to anyone about the matter before or after the council meeting—although most of the business on pink paper was systematically leaked to the press by persons unknown. Most importantly, that regime was put in place by officers who effectively had carte blanche in deciding what coloured papers went before the council for discussion. A catch-all definition allowed officers to grade the confidentiality concerns of the local authority.
  As soon as my party came to power and I became council leader, I decided that the system should be reversed and that papers would be regarded as

  817
  confidential only if the reasons for their confidentiality were written upon them. There were seven such reasons—including commercial confidentiality and the personal disclosure of details about a council employee—but no general catch-all clause that allowed someone to declare that a paper should be confidential. Every paper had to bear the reason for its confidentiality. That order completely turned around the atmosphere in the council. I am delighted that the White Paper says that Ministers or any other public servant who wishes to persuade the public that a matter should be confidential must make a case as to why that is so. The onus must be upon them to make that case, which is the right and proper way to proceed.
  At the time, I received advice both nationally, and particularly locally, from several local authority officers that I was a foolish council leader—many others have told me that since then, but, on this occasion, it related to the confidentiality issue.
  Mr. Hancock: You never heeded it.
  Dr. Whitehead: I seem to recall that the hon. Gentleman was particularly complimentary some years ago about the wonderful way in which Southampton city council was run. I am grateful for that historical compliment.
  It was suggested that my order would lead to a rash of inquiries and that the council would come to a standstill. The phrase "nutters' charter" was used—not an expression that I would choose—and I was accused of stirring up trouble. People said that, within a few months, I would regret my foolish actions and we would have to put the genie back into the bottle. However, there were no such complaints. The method of operation was not unmanageable and the system worked well. I believe that the public had much greater confidence in the city council as a result of the changes. The Local Government (Access to Information) Act 1985, in which the hon. Member for Aldridge-Brownhills (Mr. Shepherd) had a substantial hand, installed the regime across local government—although in a slightly different form from Southampton.
  There has been considerable resentment subsequently in local government circles about the difference between what local government is required to disclose, and how the House requires it to conduct its business, and the way in which central Government operate. There are startling differences in the level of disclosure required in the civil service and in local government service. Among other things, it is vital that freedom of information legislation rights that wrong: the same rules must apply across all public service. The public service generally must be required to give an account of what it does and the public should have access to that account in order to judge whether the public service is doing a good job on their behalf.
  In that context, it is also important to consider carefully the disclosure of parliamentary information. The Select Committee's background paper refers to
  "an implied repeal of the Bill of Rights, which declares that the freedom of speech in debates or proceedings in Parliament ought not to be impeached or questioned in any court or place out of Parliament."
  818
  I do not see how what we do in Parliament fits that description. I think that Parliament should take a lead in this area. We must restore our good name through our deliberations with the general public. In my short time as a Member of Parliament, I have observed that hon. Members overwhelmingly deliberate in good faith: they examine the details and think carefully about their actions. The Government take great pains to get their consultation right so that everything is in order and the public are protected properly by the legislation that we pass in the House. The more the public know about the process in this place, the more they will understand that, despite occasional press comments about us, the House is an effective guardian of probity in public life. If that is made apparent, public confidence in public life will be restored.
  My small contribution in this area was to publish in my annual report a full financial breakdown of my income and expenditure as a Member of Parliament. The lucky citizens of Southampton will receive about 20,000 copies of that document in the near future—whether they like it or not. That financial information may come as a surprise to people in the first year. However, if I publish that information every year, it will be assumed that that is a natural occurrence. As soon as it becomes the norm, no one will worry about the new regime and the new climate. If the legislation can bring about that new climate and the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster can ensure that it permeates the conduct of public life in this country, he will have done our country a great service.
  8.58 pm
  Mr. Richard Shepherd: The hon. Member for Southampton, Test (Dr. Whitehead) spoke about the difficulties of this process. Twenty years ago, the then Home Secretary, now Lord Merlyn-Rees, used to sit in a little room behind the Speaker's Chair with the representatives of the Liberal party to thrash out the details of freedom of information legislation. The splendid Lord Merlyn-Rees told us during various debates on official secrets legislation that he often used to nod off in those long dark nights as the Liberal party made a vigorous case.
  Lord Merlyn-Rees nodded off because he recognised three features. First, there was no will among his colleagues for freedom of information legislation. Secondly, he could not necessarily command a majority on it. Thirdly, the life of the then Labour Government was coming to an end and it was unlikely that the legislative programme would have allowed the legislation. Those were the conditions of 20 years ago and it has been a long haul since.
  There was Clement Freud's Official Information Bill. I notice that two great men are within the precincts of this building: a former chairman of the Campaign for Freedom of Information, who is now an adviser to the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, and the director of that organisation, Maurice Frankel, who is sitting under the Gallery. It is due to the efforts of extraordinary private citizens for little or no return that a society—a great society, I would argue—advances. It is undoubtedly the assiduity of such people in pushing, cajoling and helping Members of Parliament introduce a raft of important legislation that has given citizens rights of access to personal information and a range of other details.
  We are debating the Government's White Paper and the observations and comments of the Select Committee on Public Administration, on which I have the honour to

  819
  serve under the distinguished chairmanship of the hon. Member for Cardiff, West (Mr. Morgan). I hope that I can look forward to a positive Government response to some of our comments. The White Paper has introductions by the Prime Minister and the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster. They are the most positive advertisements and arguments for freedom of information. They forced to me to think of the arguments that I had adduced over the years in the House. Why do I believe that freedom of information is important? I do not have the eloquence of the Prime Minister or the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, or of the Cabinet Committees that brought this together.
  First, I had always argued that we want freedom of information because of who we are as a people. It is our sense of ourselves and our responsibilities, the nature of a public society, the relationship of the citizen to the Government. We are the elected representatives of the people, ours is a democratically elected Government. Freedom of information affects the relationship between the two. It is in our language. In his "Areopagitica", Milton says:
  "Give me the liberty to know, to utter, and to argue freely".
  Those are the essences of our society and who we are as a people.
  Secondly, I have always argued that freedom of information is central to accountable government. Again, we can invoke our literature, poetry, language and constitutional development. Remember Pope's "Essay on Man":
  "What can we reason, but from what we know."
  It is the knowledge of what Government are doing, the knowledge and arguments that form public policy, for which Governments are responsible to us in this House as elected representatives, that gives equality of argument. Governments in Britain have never feared the expression of public opinion. They fear the ability to argue on an equal basis about facts.
  That gives me my third reason for arguing for freedom of information. If we have open government with free access to the information that is available to Government, public policy is more likely to be better. We are likely to make better decisions and judgments. What the Government have done is not only important and purposeful but important in a very specific respect.
  In the first edition of his "Freedom of Information" Professor Birkinshaw notes:
  "Information is inherently a feature of power. So too is its control, use and regulation. Take away a government's preserve on information, and its preserve of when and what to release, then you take away a fundamental bulwark of its power".
  What the Government are going to do is remarkable, which is why we watch with anxiety the translation of a White Paper into a draft Bill. I would draw attention to certain causes of that anxiety: for example, the dark clouds that have gathered in the past week, whereby journalists were so much better informed than Back Benchers, seem to show some resiling as Ministers come to reflect on the burden of what the measure may mean. British government has always been deemed to be traditionally a secretive thing and I have tried to argue that that is a product of war, the Defence of the Realm Acts and "Careless talk costs lives".
  I noticed that my hon. Friend the Member for South Staffordshire (Sir P. Cormack), in his excellent speech from the Dispatch Box, referred to the distinction between
  820
  types. I think that I must be a Whig Liberal—whatever that means—in terms of constitutional development, so I give a cheer to what the Government have put down in the White Paper. That is not just my view, that of the Campaign for Freedom of Information, or that of Members of Parliament; it is the view expressed in an extraordinary report from the information commissioner in Canada, Mr. John Grace—a man for whom many of us have great affection and regard for his advancing of freedom of information in Canada. In his last report, a section reads, "Left in Britain's dust". He praises the Prime Minister and the Cabinet Minister responsible and observes of the Chancellor of the Duchy:
  "What he has drafted, represents nothing other than a breathtaking transformation in the relationship between the government and the governed."
  He quotes the Chancellor's words, that the legislation
  "would transform this country from one of the most closed democracies to one of the most open."
  That is a profound compliment, paid across the waters, for we should never forget that Canada is also a parliamentary democracy.
  All the arguments that have been adduced in the past—ministerial accountability, responsibility to the House of Commons—have been used to shore up secrecy, not to open up government, but, as I have argued, how can we have accountable government if we, as Members of Parliament, and informed public opinion cannot participate in understanding the balance of the argument? When I look back on the only period from which I can draw examples, I see that most of the major difficulties that previous Governments got into were a consequence of the extraordinary holding on to secrecy—the when and why and where to release information.
  Some of the most shaming and difficult episodes for our Government have lain in that culture of secrecy. We had a distinguished former Foreign Secretary defend the secrecy surrounding the change to the arms guidelines on the ground that, had the British public and the House of Commons known that they had been changed, they would have been outraged because they had been influenced by Saddam Hussein's bombing of the Kurds. He was defending the culture of secrecy on the highest grounds of grand bureaucracy, in the belief that only experts can know best. Ours is a public society: that is what the White Paper recognises and that is what my party now profoundly believes.
  I cannot give such an open-handed compliment to the major players in all this without also saying a few words about the exclusions, in respect of which hon. Members on both sides have made valid points. We are concerned about the role of the commissioner: I do not want to see any rowing back from the extraordinarily strong position identified by the Lord Chancellor, the Chancellor of the Duchy and the Cabinet Committee that issued the White Paper, but newspaper reports give one cause for pause. Another important issue is the nature of the damage test—"where it is necessary". Both the Select Committee and the Campaign for Freedom of Information have expressed concern about the proposal to exclude a number of bodies and functions from the scope of the legislation. The most serious of the proposed exclusions relate to the law enforcement functions of the police, police authorities and Government Departments such as the immigration service. Others include security services, prosecution functions of the Crown Prosecution Service, personnel records and legal advice.

  821
  I am particularly concerned about the police. There is, as far as I know, no other freedom of information Act, in the advanced democracies and parliamentary democracies that follow our model, that excludes the police wholesale. I must express some disappointment with the Home Secretary's evidence. The right hon. Gentleman was rather like the Queen in "Alice in Wonderland"—"Off with their heads." There was no reasoned argument. Instead, we had the assertions that we have heard under previous Governments—for example, that it is quite improper, that somehow by aggregation, by putting together little pieces of information, the entire law enforcement edifice of the United Kingdom would crumble.
  I do not think that anyone could take the argument at that level very seriously. It was so totalitarian and absolutist. No one has suggested that the operations of our police forces should be under the scrutiny of freedom of information legislation. However, every other society has enabled certain questions to be asked.
  The Home Secretary instigated—it was by his fiat, no one else's—the Lawrence inquiry, an inquiry into the murder of a fellow citizen. None of that information was available. As the evidence has come out in front of the Lawrence inquiry, we understand why some of the police want to be so secretive. It is the most appalling outlaying of information. It must be deeply damaging to many people's perception of the most important service for the protection and well-being of us all as a civic society. It is extremely important, so of course they say, "Keep it closed." In fact, it is only by opening it up that we can see where faults lie, that we can insist on improvements, that we can encourage and we can get it right.
  I represent, as does the hon. Member for The Wrekin (Mr. Bradley), a constituency in the west midlands. The serious crime squad there had to be disbanded. The Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis has told us that a high proportion of police officers are inadequate, dishonest and not suitable. These are drips of information which do not enable us to give a balanced view of what matters. That is a real argument for including certain aspects of the police in the legislation.
  I shall push that point to the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, as has the Select Committee on Public Administration and other hon. Members who have spoken in the debate. I know that these battles are not easy and I know that, instinctively, the Home Office is anxious about anything that could undermine the police and the integrity of law enforcement. I am suggesting that, on the periphery, inclusion can reinforce and elevate the esteem in which the police are held by their fellow citizens.
  The difficulty about exclusion is that no information about a body or its function would be available, even if disclosure would cause no harm. As I have said, no overseas freedom of information law adopts such an approach. Information should be available unless disclosure is shown to be potentially harmful. That is the test set out in the White Paper. I hope very much that, in managing the Committee with the continuing help of the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, the Lord Chancellor will ensure that the Bill features in the Queen's Speech for the next legislative programme; that is all-important. I am disappointed to note that it will not
  822
  be published until the summer recess, although the Committee on which I serve can meet in September to review it. I am concerned, as I said, when the Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis talks of his minority of officers who are corrupt, dishonest and unethical. However grave the misconduct, it should not be excluded.
  There was an important development in the years before the White Paper—the code of practice introduced by my right hon. Friend the Member for Huntingdon (Mr. Major). That seems so small a step now only because we are offered such a great prize, but it is still the governing principle of freedom of information. We should not forget that the code is more liberal than the White Paper in one important respect: access to information on immigration matters. That that should be a matter of difficulty in the White Paper disappoints me, but I commend my right hon. Friend the former Prime Minister on his action. Each time we take a step, it is forward, and the White Paper is also a step forward.
  9.15 pm
  Fiona Mactaggart: I want to reflect on why the right of freedom of information is so important and to focus not only on the big issues, as many hon. Members have done, but on some of the smaller issues. Freedom of information legislation is crucial, first, because the Government make mistakes. Unless we know what action they have taken, what they think and what information they have, we are unable to correct them. For many people, and in much decision making, that is one of the crucial reasons why we need a legislative guarantee of freedom of information.
  Secrets can have devastating effects on people's lives. It was, after all, only when a Minister went to court and admitted that he had lied that people who risked going to gaol because of arms exports were freed from that risk. It is essential that we have a robust mechanism that ensures that information about the truth is available.
  That is why I share the disappointment that many hon. Members have expressed about some of the exclusions in the White Paper. The hon. Member for Aldridge-Brownhills (Mr. Shepherd), whose record on freedom of information is second to none, referred to the information about policing that has come out as a result of the Lawrence inquiry. I cannot believe that the basic inadequacy of police officers' knowledge of the law and appropriate procedures has expressed itself only in that single case. Yet we know about that case only because of the inquiry. There should be a general presumption of the right to know about policing, and it should be subject to a harm test only on the grounds of prevention of crime, public order and so on.
  As many hon. Members know, I am particularly concerned about immigration issues. I praise the Government for showing greater openness than any of their predecessors on one important point: for the first time, the instructions to immigration officers and entry clearance officers overseas on how to interpret the immigration rules have been made publicly available. They are available in the House of Commons Library and will one day, I hope, be available on the Home Office website.
  Many of us who have been worried about the rights of people subject to immigration control have campaigned for that step for many years. It is a huge step forward on

  823
  openness. I am really depressed that a Government who have the courage to do that—unlike their predecessors, who consistently refused to do so—do not have the courage to say that the operation of the immigration service should be subject to freedom of information measures, provided that it does not harm the proper administration of immigration control.
  The effects on people's lives of what is done by the immigration service are devastating. It determines whether they can live with their families or whether they can ever see their grannies again. Such matters are the day-to-day concern of my constituents, and are not sufficiently subject to public scrutiny because of the inadequacies of parts of the appeal system.
  The other crucial issue is that, unless we have freedom of information, the relationship between the Government and the governed is one of feudalism—those who hold the information are the masters and the people are the servants. That is upside down. We are in government to serve the people of Britain. We cannot do that adequately unless they know, and can use that knowledge to hold us to account.
  In an information age, when information is power, when people are used to greater openness and trust in their dealings with others, the lack of that information, openness and trust between Government and the people is a key factor in creating disaffection and alienation from the political process. That can be overcome by stripping away secrecy and being open.
  I believe that many hon. Members share my horror at the behaviour of some young oiks who have been selling information, and have been ticked off by our newspapers for doing so. That reminds us all how valuable this information is, and reminds us that sometimes it is available only to people who can pay for it. There is a very simple way of changing that: give it to the many, not the few. The Government can give it away or, at least, allow such information to be made available without excessive charge. When the Bill is introduced, we must ensure that, as far as possible, information is given away, so that it can be the people's information. I urge the Minister to ensure that.
  Dr. Julian Lewis: I point out, for the record, that the type of information that The Observer managed to get, as it were, ahead of time, is not really that with which the Bill is concerned. The hon. Lady plays it down rather, but did not The Observer find that people from new Labour who were in the know, in the right pressure groups and lobbies, could get information of commercial value out to clients, perhaps 24 or 48 hours before it would have been released anyway?
  Fiona Mactaggart: I believe that the hon. Gentleman suffers from an excess of credulity. My reading of the piece in The Observer is that the charge was that these people claimed that they could provide such information. I did not see that any of them had actually done so. I called them oiks earlier; it is not very wise for anyone to trust oiks' claims.
  In the historical debate, since I have been a Member of the House, I have pooh-poohed those cynics who said that the strategy that the Government chose to use—to start with a White Paper, to have a debate and then to introduce legislation—would lead to the failure of the possibility of
  824
  legislation because, once we had tasted power, we would fall into the nasty habits that every other Government had shown, and would want to keep our secrets to ourselves and under our jumpers. I have always said that that is not true. I hope that I shall be proved right by what happens next.
  I believe that the evidence shows that I am right. The Government's record of giving away power and opening up the process of government shows that they have done that more dynamically than have any other Government this century. They have given power to the Welsh assembly and the Scottish Parliament. They have given the people rights through a "Bill of Rights"—the Human Rights Bill—and, let us make no mistake about it, that is how the incorporation of the European convention on human rights will work. That is one of the tools for fundamentally changing the constitutional relationship between the Government and the people. I believe that we will do that, but it is easy to be frightened, and there is ample evidence that the civil service is frit. Successive reports from ombudsmen show Departments scuttling around trying to find reasons why they do not need to provide information under the code—in the words of one of the ombudsmen, "haggling about issuing information". My message is that Departments should not be scared and Ministers should not listen to them.
  We have a chance to end the popular vision of government in this country as a bunch of Sir Humphreys pushing Ministers around intellectually. The Sir Humphreys must be put back into the cupboard and the secrets taken out of the cupboard. If we do that, we have a great opportunity to change Britain's democracy radically. We should ignore the fearful, be bold and implement the words that the hon. Member for South Staffordshire (Sir P. Cormack) quoted, predicting that they might prove to be our downfall. Those words were not only in the introduction to the White Paper, but in Labour's manifesto.
  We know what the truth is. Unnecessary secrecy in government leads to arrogance in government and ineffective policy decisions. We have a chance to show definitively that this Government will end the arrogance of government and improve the quality of policy. We will do that by introducing an effective freedom of information Bill. The White Paper is a step on the road. Let us take the next leap.
  9.26 pm
  Mr. Norman Baker: It is wonderful to be in the Chamber to speak on the subject of freedom of information and the Government's radical proposals. One of the reasons why I entered politics was my commitment to the freedom of information. It is a building block on which so much else rests, and if it is not right, so much else suffers.
  I agree with the hon. Member for Aldridge-Brownhills (Mr. Shepherd) in his analysis. Bad government follows from secrecy; better government follows from freedom of information. For that reason alone, every Member of Parliament should embrace proposals to open up government. Moreover, it is people's right to know what is going on. When Government get it wrong, people at large gain the information and pull Government back on track. For those two reasons, freedom of information is essential.

  825
  I pay tribute to the hon. Member for Cardiff, West (Mr. Morgan) and his Committee for keeping their eye on the ball and not being deflected; to hon. Members such as the hon. Member for Aldridge-Brownhills who have campaigned so hard on the issue; and especially to the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, who has been unswerving in his commitment since the election in May last year and, no doubt, before that as well. It is disgraceful that attempts are continually made through the national media to disparage the Minister, probably by people who are after his job, and I hope that, under the freedom of information proposals, we will find out who is responsible.
  Mr. Hancock: We should be so lucky.
  Mr. Baker: I hope so.
  The White Paper was very good indeed. I have only two main comments. The first relates to the total exclusion from the proposals of the security services and the police. Why is not the test of substantial harm applied to the security services, as it is in the rest of the paper? I accept that that means that a great amount of material relating to the security services would not be released, but if the substantial harm test were applied, some information would come out.
  Why are we not even allowed to know, for example, how the money allocated to the security services is split among MI5, MI6 and GCHQ? Why do we not know how many telephone lines are tapped, as opposed to warrants issued? There is much information that could be given out without in any way endangering national security. That will not be taken forward by the proposals in the White Paper.
  Secondly, I am disappointed that the 30-year rule is not to be reduced to 20 years. I note for the record that, last Friday, the Government Whip blocked my Bill to achieve that. I would be grateful if the Chancellor would explain whether the objection is on principle, or is on the basis of the cost or the practicality of reducing the limit.
  I do not wish to strike a note of discord, but there seem to be two sorts of Labour Member, at least in the Cabinet and possibly outside. That is one way of looking at it, anyway. Let me simplify what I am saying: some members of the Cabinet are good guys, and some are not. At present, a battle seems to be in progress for the soul of where the Government are going in regard to freedom of information. Members of the Cabinet have woken up to the fact that the issue may embarrass them, that it will produce difficulties for them and that it will mean matters they would prefer to remain secret becoming public. As hon. Members have said, a rearguard action is in progress in an attempt to stop the Bill—not overtly, because that would be too unpopular; to delay it for a Session, and then another Session. Then it will be a question of "It is too near the election, Minister. You cannot do it now."
  We have had that sort of thing before. In 1979 the Conservatives came to power having promised such an Act, no doubt in good will; that was put off and put off, and never materialised. I do not underestimate the forces of darkness, if I may call them that, which will conspire to stop such legislation.
  Sir Patrick Cormack: The Prince of Darkness.
  Mr. Baker: Perhaps.
  826
  I ask for a clear commitment from the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster that the Queen's Speech will include legislation, and that legislation will not be delayed for a further 12 months—and possibly 12 months after that, when everyone else has lost interest.
  I have spoken of the dichotomy between members of the Cabinet who wish to pursue matters openly and those who wish to keep them secret. Let me now say something about the other report, which has not been dealt with at much length. I refer to parliamentary questions—a subject that the Chancellor might be disappointed if I did not mention tonight. Contrary to what was said earlier, tabling written questions costs nothing; it merely means that civil service time is redirected towards answering questions from Back Benchers rather than matters raised by Ministers.
  It is clear from answers given that not everyone in the Government shares the commitment of the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster to freedom of information. The report from the Public Administration Committee recognises that written questions are crucial: that is the wording that it uses, and I am grateful for that endorsement. The Chancellor himself has said:
  "Ministers should be as open as possible with Parliament, refusing to provide information only when disclosure would not be in the public interest".—[Official Report, 16 December 1997; Vol. 303, c. 78.]
  I asked the minister Without Portfolio, in a parliamentary question, whether he would list
  "persons within his office who have complained to the media about the reporting of the Government's activities."—[Official Report, 10 November 1997; Vol. 300, c. 452.]
  The answer was
  "No."
  I asked him whether he would
  "estimate the percentage of his working time spent on…Ministerial duties",
  and was told:
  "I devote whatever time I judge necessary for the fulfilment of my ministerial and other duties."—[Official Report, 28 July 1997; Vol. 299, c. 25.]
  That is not a blocked answer—I refer to a point made in the report—but an answer that, although not blocked, tells us nothing.
  I asked the Prime Minister to
  "list the meetings and events since 2 May at which the Minister Without Portfolio has represented the Government."
  The answer was
  "Since 2 May my hon. Friend has had a wide range of meetings with ministerial colleagues and others."—[Official Report, 29 July 1997; Vol. 299, c. 114.]
  I knew that before I asked the question, but I was not told much more than I knew before I asked it. Such answers are designed to give no information. They are designed to cock a snook at Members of Parliament who want a freedom of information Act.
  Only recently, I asked the Prime Minister—I think this was very germane—whether he would list
  "Labour party events which have taken place since 14 May…at…10 Downing Street…11 Downing Street…Carlton House Terrace and…Chequers."

  827
  We know that such events are taking place, because they are in the papers. The Prime Minister said:
  "Any private receptions have been held in accordance with the Ministerial Code."—[Official Report, 25 June 1998; Vol. 314, c. 597.]
  In other words, he will not tell the House something that we ought to know.
  There are good guys and bad guys. My money is on the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, who is doing a splendid job. I hope that every hon. Member will support him in his attempt to bring about a freedom of information Act.
  9.34 pm
  Miss Melanie Johnson: I thank the hon. Member for Lewes (Mr. Baker) for curtailing his remarks so that I can contribute, although I wonder how many written questions he could have tabled in the time that he was on his feet. Perhaps we should have detained him a little longer.
  I was a little bemused by some contributions from Opposition Members. Do they see the vessel as largely full, half empty, or more than half empty? There is no doubt in my mind that a massive step forward is being made with the White Paper and the draft Bill, which I hope will be published later this year—that is the thrust of the report of the Select Committee, of which I am a member.
  We are on the brink of a revolution in information. That is being brought about not only by the White Paper and legislation, but by the advent of greater access to information via the internet and all the implications that that has for our society, for neighbouring societies and for the whole globe. That revolution will have a great impact on how much progress we make with the legislation and how we make that progress—although it is interesting that few hon. Members felt the need to refer to that.
  The hon. Member for South Staffordshire (Sir P.Cormack) commented on the code of practice and complained that we have not given it sufficient credit in the debate, but much larger steps forward will be taken through the White Paper. The Select Committee report refers to crucial differences between the code and the White Paper. For example, the scope of the code is much more limited in general; documents can be withheld under the code, whereas people will not be able to do that under the proposals in the White Paper; the test under the code has been one of harm, but we propose a test of substantial harm in many cases; and there is no means of enforcement under the code—the ombudsman only has powers of persuasion to bring to bear. All that makes a marked difference, which is one reason why the code, which was introduced four years ago, has not been given the place that it could have occupied.
  As hon. Members on both sides of the House have said, there is no doubt that freedom of information will change things for the vast majority of people: we have to introduce it for the many, and it will be a meaningful step forward for the general public. It is easy to forget that, although some hon. Members may be exercised by the burning issue of how many receptions have been held at No. 10 Downing street, for many members of the public freedom of information will mean that they can get from the Intervention Board, the Inland Revenue, the Milton Keynes development corporation, the Commission for the
  828
  New Towns, the Child Support Agency, the Benefits Agency or the Marine Safety Agency answers to the various questions and problems that they have had as individuals.
  Such matters—information on the fees paid to lawyers, for example—sometimes go beyond the individual, but are often confined to an individual's difficulties with gaining access or recourse to something to which, under the current system, he cannot gain access. Although hon. Members worry about access to information in the corridors of power, those other issues matter to many people—they affect their lives.
  As a society, we have developed many anxieties about the presumption that information should be accessible, and we have a secretive culture. It is interesting to look through the report of the Parliamentary Commissioner for Administration on what has happened with the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food in respect of contracts for the disposal of cattle infected with BSE. We have already commented in the report and again this evening on the fact that the course of the BSE saga might have been different, and the cost to the public purse and to farming might have been much less, if a freedom of information regime had been in place. It is clear from the commissioner's report that, in response to a question, the MAFF people would not release details about the contracts because they did not refer to the code of practice at all. The report shows that MAFF and many other Government Departments are only just—there is a list of the improvements that are being made by Government Departments in that document—beginning to take steps, with the civil service, to become much more open and that the anxieties to which I have referred are still to the fore.
  We need to have legal backing to the right to information, as the Government propose. That is crucial. When we went to Sweden and Ireland, we found that the improvements that need to be made in the civil service are important. Much time has been spent, particularly in Ireland, where this is a new issue, looking at the changes that need to to be made in the civil service, in civil service training and in codifying practice and manuals.
  We heard from my hon. Friend the Member for Slough (Fiona Mactaggart) about the improvements that have been made in the openness of immigration procedures and manuals, although she made other comments about that as well. However, there are other areas where we need to codify practice and make it more readily available to people. We need to explain what information is kept, how it is kept and why. Those are not the sexy parts of freedom of information, but they may make a big difference to people's lives.
  The confidence and competence of a Government are to be tested against the extent to which they will open information and against the belief that they represent the interests of many people, so that their interests will not differ from those of many people. A Government who are confident about their competence will be prepared to share with people, and to take the step towards freedom of information. Once that step is taken, I believe that we will not go back on it; we will only make progress. The prospective legislation is part of a major constitutional change towards more open and accountable government. It brings about the presumption of openness. For that reason, it is a major improvement.

  829
  We have heard much about striking the right balance on privacy. That will be difficult. When we went to Sweden, we heard how, if an under-age pregnant girl wrote a letter to Sweden's Prime Minister, that letter could, because of that country's freedom of information regime, become public property, which would be highly undesirable. If, however, the same girl wrote to Sweden's Ministry of Health about those matters, the letter would be protected and the privacy of the individual would be rightly preserved. We need to strike the right balance. It will be difficult, but we need to include safeguards to ensure that people in this country do not run into such problems.
  I endorse what we say in the Select Committee report: this is a
  "radical advance in open and accountable government",
  of which this Government should be justly proud.
  9.44 pm
  The Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster (Dr. David Clark): This has been an excellent debate. The House is indebted to the Chairman and members of the Select Committee for examining the White Paper and for persuading the Liaison Committee to recommend to the House that this item should be debated. I welcome the debate and I have listened carefully to the almost unanimous views of hon. Members on both sides of the House.
  It is interesting that the House appreciates how critical freedom of information is to our democracy. We have been through a difficult time and, because we are all aware of the breakdown of trust between Governments and citizens, we are beginning to realise, as we move into the next millennium, that democracy is more than casting a vote every five years, important though that may be. I am enthused by the mood of the House, which showed that hon. Members recognise that freedom of information and the right of our citizens to know information that affects them is a critical part of our democratic institutions. They also appreciate the fact that open government is good government. I have believed in that thesis for many years and I am delighted that others now share that view.
  I shall try, in the time at my disposal, to deal with as many as possible of the points that have been raised. I apologise to the Select Committee for not giving it a formal reply, but work on the Government's response is well advanced and I hope that we will meet the two-month deadline. We shall give the Committee a detailed and considered response.
  This is a well-produced and well-thought-out report. It has raised a number of issues that we are considering. We take the Select Committee's point that this is a particularly difficult concept to understand and get right. My hon. Friend the Member for Welwyn Hatfield (Miss Johnson) made the point forcefully that there is a fine balance between openness and privacy and that we should learn from the experience of other countries. In preparing the White Paper, we spent a long time studying the experience, often over many years, of other countries.
  830
  The Government take on board the Select Committee's 44 detailed recommendations. We may not agree with all of them, but we shall examine and test them. The Select Committee recognises how fine the balance is, and accepts that this is
  "an ambitious and highly complex piece of legislation".
  It is conscious of the fact that it has taken us a long time—rightly, in my view—to ensure that we attained the correct solution. It says:
  "we have some serious doubts…about whether the Government has been able to give sufficient attention to the relationship between the Freedom of Information Bill and the Data Protection Bill."
  As we have followed the debate and weighed up the results of the consultation, we have shifted our position slightly on the relationship between freedom of information and data protection and have looked anew at some of the concepts.
  No one should doubt our commitment to freedom of information. It is clear in our manifesto. My hon. Friends and hon. Members on the Liberal Democrat Benches have acknowledged that the Government intend to push ahead with a radical programme of constitutional change. Freedom of information is a key part—I would argue, a central part—of the programme to modernise British politics. As the Prime Minister said, freedom of information is not some isolated constitutional reform, but a change that is absolutely fundamental to how we see politics developing in this country. He is absolutely right and the overwhelming majority of hon. Members share that view.
  In our 1997 manifesto, we said that we would introduce
  "a Freedom of Information Act. leading to more open government"
  and we will. Both parts of that statement are correct. They are related, but not dependent on each other. Governments can, should and will be open in providing information to citizens and to Members of Parliament.
  Mr. Baker: Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?
  Dr. Clark: I shortened my speech to allow everyone to get in and I do not want to exclude anyone, but I hope that the hon. Gentleman will excuse me if I do not give way. I want to try to answer points raised by the hon. Gentleman and other hon. Members.
  We have to be more open. That is why we published the background papers leading to the White Paper and why we have published much more information on the internet.
  The hon. Member for South Staffordshire (Sir P. Cormack) criticised me for not acknowledging the code of practice, but we do acknowledge it in the White Paper. We have not laid great emphasis on the code because we intend to surpass it, but it has had a part to play. It has been the yardstick against which we have tried to measure our progress but, by and large, all hon. Members—including the hon. Gentleman—believe that the time has come to move on.
  I should point out that the annual monitoring report for the code—which I announced only last month—states that the Government recognise the continuing value of the code. In planning the transition to a statutory regime, the Government will therefore seek to build on the experience gained and the lessons learnt from operating the code. We acknowledge the importance of the code in taking forward the White Paper.

  831
  We have made progress in the White Paper. As has been pointed out this evening, we are extending the coverage to almost the whole of the public sector. We are widening and deepening the information available. It is no longer just information that people will have access to, but the original document. We are reducing the exemptions from 14 to seven. We are creating an information commissioner. Some hon. Members may not have quite understood the full powers of the information commissioner.
  The hon. Member for Portsmouth, South (Mr. Hancock) was a little critical—I put it no higher than that—because he felt that all the commissioner could judge was the reasonableness of the decision of the civil servant. That is not the case. Under our proposals, the commissioner will examine and rule on the merits of the refusal to disclose information. The point of reasonableness comes in when we have a final appeal—if there is one—under the judicial review. The hon. Gentleman can be reassured by that point.
  We have, for the most part, imposed harm tests that are much more stringent than any of the existing mechanisms. I think that the House will accept that we are moving forward from the code and that we are making a quantum leap.
  I am encouraged by the response of hon. Members on both sides of the House, particularly by that of the official Opposition, who are now prepared to change their stance and to support a statutory freedom of information regime. That is welcomed by Labour Members and by Liberal Democrats, who spent many years trying to persuade the previous Government that they were wrong on this matter.
  Hon. Members have also raised the issue of process, which is a difficult matter to get right. I assure the House that the process remains on course and that progress is good. I tell my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, West (Mr. Morgan) and other members of the Select Committee who have expressed concern that the Government have an agreed timetable to publish a draft Bill by the end of September for pre-legislative consideration. Indeed, nothing whatever has happened to affect the Bill's candidature for inclusion in the Queen's Speech later this year; I cannot be more open or definitive than that.
  The Government's declared intention is that there will be further consultation. That is why we are publishing the draft Bill and why the Select Committee will have the opportunity to consider it before the legislation is finalised and brought before the House after, I hope, the next Queen's Speech. The Opposition will have the opportunity to feed in their views on the draft Bill, but the issues are so difficult that, unless the Government give a lead after consultation—as is their duty—we shall have no framework within which to work. The White Paper "Your Right to Know" is a declaration of the Government's intent. It contains the principles on which the Government will build and from which they will derive their draft Bill.
  As has been acknowledged, we are going much further than other countries. That is right and proper, given that we have been so far behind. However, I want to correct one or two of the points that were raised today. It is
  832
  important that hon. Members understand that we intend to exclude only the security services; we shall not exclude the police or the immigration service per se. Paragraph 2.21 of the White Paper states that
  "the Act will exclude information relating to the investigation and prosecution functions of the police, prosecutors and other bodies carrying out law enforcement work such as the Department of Social Security or the Immigration Service."
  We do not intend to exclude administrative functions of the immigration service or the police.
  Deciding what constitutes administration and what constitutes investigation has taken up much of our time and attention; finding the right definition is a difficult task, but we are trying to do it. Once we decide that a matter is not excluded, we shall have to determine whether it belongs to one of the seven specified interests and, finally, whether disclosure is against the public interest.
  We are trying to bring forward a Bill that strikes the right balance between privacy and freedom of information.
  We have taken on board the fact that the Select Committee pointed out that we should integrate data protection and freedom of information. When the Lord Chancellor appeared before the Select Committee, he pointed out that the two pieces of legislation must be dovetailed. We are very much persuaded by the Select Committee's argument that we need to get that absolutely right. Probably, most of the applications on subject matter will be under the data protection legislation, but we are also aware that it does not go as far as we would like and does not cover as much as the freedom of information legislation.
  Question deferred, pursuant to paragraph (4) of Standing Order No. 54 (Consideration of estimates).
  It being Ten o'clock, MADAM SPEAKER proceeded to put forthwith the deferred Questions which she was directed by paragraph (5) of Standing Order No. 54 (Consideration of estimates) to put at that hour.

ESTIMATES 1998–99

  Class IX, Vote 1
  Resolved,
  That a further, revised sum not exceeding £6,019,940,000 be granted to Her Majesty out of the Consolidated Fund to complete or defray the charges which will come in course of payment during the year ending on 31st March 1999 for expenditure by the Department for Education and Employment on voluntary and special schools; the Assisted Places Scheme; the provision of education for under-fives; city colleges and other specialist schools; grant-maintained schools and schools conducted by education associations; music and ballet schools; the school curriculum and its assessment; the youth service and other educational services and initiatives; careers guidance and services; payments for or in connection with teacher training; higher and further education provision and initiatives; loans to students, student awards and other student grants and their administration; the payment of access funds; reimbursement of fees for qualifying European Union students; compensation payments to teachers and staff of certain institutions; expenditure on other central government grants to local authorities; the provision of training and assessment programmes for young people and adults; initiatives to improve training and qualifications arrangements and access to these; the promotion of enterprise and the encouragement of self employment; payments for education, training and employment projects assisted by the European Community and refunds to the European Community; events

  833
  associated with the UK presidency of the EU; the UK subscription to the ILO; help for unemployed people; the promotion of equal opportunities, disability rights, childcare provision and co-ordination of certain issues of particular importance to women; the payment of certain fees to the Home Office; the Department's own administration and research and that of Capita; the information and publicity services; expenditure via training and enterprise councils and amounts retained by them as surpluses and spent by them on training and other initiatives within their articles and memoranda of association; expenditure in connection with the sale of the student loans debt; and on expenditure in connection with Welfare to Work Programme and Millennium Volunteers.

ESTIMATES 1998–99

  Class XVII, Vote 1
  Resolved,
  That a further sum not exceeding £55,642,000 be granted to Her Majesty out of the Consolidated Fund to complete or defray the charges which will come in course of payment during the year ending on 31st March 1999 for expenditure by the Office of the Minister for Public Service on the central management of, and delivery of services to, the civil service including the delivery of cross-departmental IT systems; expenditure resulting from the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster's chairmanship of the Ministerial Committee on Food and Safety; and certain other services.

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. 115(3) (Northern Ireland Grand Committee (Delegated Legislation)),

DELEGATED LEGISLATION

  EDUCATION (NORTHERN IRELAND)
  That the draft Education (Northern Ireland) Order 1998, which was laid before this House on 8th June, be approved.—[Mr. Betts.]
  Question agreed to.
  Motion made, and Question put forthwith, pursuant to Standing Order No. 118(6) (Standing Committees on Delegated Legislation),

  EXPORT AND INVESTMENT GUARANTEES
  That the draft Export and Investment Guarantees (Limit on Foreign Currency Commitments) Order 1998, which was laid before this House on 11th June, be approved.—[Mr. Betts.]
  Question agreed to.
  Motion made, and Question put forthwith, pursuant to Standing Order No. 115(3) (Northern Ireland Grand Committee (Delegated Legislation)),

  APPROPRIATION (NORTHERN IRELAND)
  That the draft Appropriation (No. 2) (Northern Ireland) Order 1998, which was laid before this House on 16th June, be approved.—[Mr. Betts.]
  Question agreed to.

PETITION

  Overbuilding (West Sussex)
  10.1 pm
  Mr. Howard Flight: I present a petition on behalf of the citizens of my constituency in the county of West Sussex, which is further to three petitions presented to the Prime Minister in 10 Downing street. The petition expresses the concerns of the citizens at overbuilding in rural areas, in particular in West Sussex, and the requirement to build 12,800 new dwellings additional to the county's structure plan, all of which will be built on green-field sites.
  The petition has 507 signatures and, in addition to the previous petitions presented to the Prime Minister, makes a total of 45,000 signatures on the subject. It reads:
  The petitioners therefore request that the House of Commons urge the Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions, to ensure that more homes are built in city areas instead of in the countryside or in the Green Belt, both to breathe new life into our cities, and to protect the valuable countryside, and in particular, that of West Sussex, for future generations.
  To lie upon the Table.

Education (East Sussex)
Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Betts.]
10.2 pm
Mr. Nigel Waterson: The Prime Minister used to describe his three priorities as "education, education, education". We have heard rather less of that recently. Reducing class sizes was one of the Government's so-called "early pledges" when in opposition. The spin doctors now tell us that we got it wrong, and that, when we thought an early pledge was one that would be delivered early, it was in fact one that was made early. That minor embarrassment does not, of course, stop Ministers announcing all sorts of wonderful developments in education. However, after 14 months in office, I thought it was time to examine whether, in East Sussex at least, the reality on the ground matched the rhetoric.
Of course, education funding in East Sussex must be seen against the Government's general policy to switch funding from counties to urban areas. I pointed that out in the House during the debate on the revenue support grant on 5 February.
Since February, there has been a change in control in East Sussex. We now have a Lib-Lab pact, faithfully mirroring the one we have at national level. Voters in East Sussex will have noted that the net result of the pact was the installation of a Labour chairman of education. So far, he has not exactly bombarded me with protests at the effects of Labour Government policy on education in East Sussex.
Be that as it may, the effect of Government policy this year has been cuts in primary education of 1.53 per cent. or £886,000, and in secondary education of 1.85 per cent. or £1.178 million. I am sure that the Minister will say that an extra £9.2 million was given for education in East Sussex, and that it was passported through.
How does that convert into real cuts in education? The overall revenue budget allowed for East Sussex in 1998–99 was £324.8 million, but forecast committed necessary revenue was £329.7 million. Education needed £13.17 million extra, compared with the extra £9.2 million offered by the Government. In other words, there was an initial shortfall of nearly £4 million. Moreover, the previous Liberal Democrat administration ran the reserves down to almost nothing, making it impossible to cushion the blow by drawing on reserves.
At the same time, the Government changed the way in which capital debt was treated, at a cost to East Sussex of £1.67 million. To add insult to injury, the Government's raid on pension schemes cost the county council £800,000, and changes to what is now called the standards fund are costing a further £900,000. That is to say nothing of the extra cost to the local education authority of new Government initiatives; yet the cost of our central administration is only about half the national average.
How are those across-the-board cuts affecting individual schools in my constituency? Mr. Arthur Cornell, the head teacher of Cavendish school, says:
"we received £39,000 less than expected…There have been no redundancies because of retirements…There has been a 5% cut in spending on books and equipment".
836
Mr. Salmon, the acting head teacher of Ratton school, says:
"We have lost the equivalent of one and a half teachers".
The headmaster of Bishop Bell school, Mr. Terry Boatwright, says:
"Our annual growth in pupil numbers averages an impressive 13% per annum with an increase in number on roll from 520 to 660 pupils."
That is impressive in anyone's language, but he goes on to say:
"Our budget in the last financial year was £1,348,000 and, with a 13% increase in pupil numbers"
he would have expected
"a budget of £1,455,000 assuming that the teachers' pay award was fully funded…Our actual budget is…£60,000 less…This leaves us in real terms £38,000 short…When basic running costs and salaries are taken out…I have only around £150,000 per annum to spend on educational resources. You can imagine the effect of a cut of £38,000, or 25%, on that budget!"
One of my local infant schools is in a similar predicament, having lost £27,500 from its budget. The chairperson of the governors says:
"in September we will have to lose a teacher in order to balance the books…our S.E.N. teacher must take a class instead of being peripatetic…This makes a mockery of this claim of increased funding and apart from being very depressing for the school staff it means that the recruitment of caring governors will be even more difficult in the future."
I fear that those horror stories are replicated throughout my constituency and the whole of East Sussex. I am indebted to my right hon. Friend the Member for Wealden (Sir G. Johnson Smith) for passing me letters in a similar vein from his local schools.
The head teacher of Hellingly county primary school, in a letter to the Prime Minister, says:
"For the very first time ever in 39 years of my adulthood, I voted for your party at the last election, because as a Headteacher I was very disheartened with the Conservative Government's devastation of education. However, since your party took office"—
I am being very fair, and reading the whole of this—
"I have become more and more alarmed about your proposals for education and about the impact that your new legislation is having on my children in my school."
She says that her budget share is more than…25,000 short, despite a rising roll. She concludes:
"I have never been so disheartened and disappointed. If I could afford to retire after giving my life to the profession,…I would most certainly do so as the burden is intolerable. Many of my dedicated colleagues will be feeling the same."
That is not a ringing endorsement of the Government's education policy. History does not relate whether she received a reply from the Prime Minister, or, if so, to what effect.
A letter to my right hon. Friend from one of the governors of St. Philip's Roman Catholic primary school in Uckfield states:
"In 1997 we had 197 pupils with a budget of £297,000. This year we have 198 pupils…we now have £294,000, a 2.5 per cent. overall cut…We now have another staff vacancy—a loss of a very experienced employee—and here we are thinking this is a good opportunity to save money by employing another newly qualified teacher."
I have had representations from Conservative county councillors about the massive contradiction between the Government's policy on class sizes and their professed

837
support for parental choice. Ministers may insist on a maximum of 30 in a class, but in rural areas there is often no room to build extra classrooms, and in most areas there is no money to do so. Last weekend, a worried mother phoned to tell me that she wanted her son to go to St. Andrew's Church of England school, a choice that I can certainly understand, as it is an excellent school with a dedicated headmistress. The child is apparently unable to go to the school of his parents' choice, because admission numbers were reduced across the board this year. The boy is one of three children left out in the cold. My constituent and her father went to that school, and, she said, she received an excellent education in a class of 36.
Another assault on local education is the Government's intention to take away the right of parish and town councils to appoint a governor to their local schools. The Opposition fought that tooth and nail in Standing Committee, and I welcomed the Government's defeat on the matter in the other place last week. The Government's proposal caused concern in rural communities up and down the country, and I hope that the Minister will confirm that that ill-considered proposal will be abandoned.
The situation is not much happier in the pre-school sector. The nursery vouchers scheme was popular with private nurseries and playgroups in my constituency. I know that, because I took the trouble to visit them. I also met on several occasions members of the Independent Preschool Nursery Association, an excellent organisation based in Eastbourne. For purely dogmatic reasons, the former Liberal Democrat administration in East Sussex refused to participate in the pilot scheme. Then the new Labour Government abolished the scheme, again for reasons of dogma.
Nursery operators are supposed to be working in partnership with local education authorities through the early years development plan. It is some partnership. Nurseries must wait upwards of six weeks for payment, a serious burden for small businesses. Whether through incompetence or design, our LEA seems to be sitting on funds received from the Department. Barbara Davies of IPNA, who runs the Tots and Time Out nursery, contacted the Department to establish that the money was sent out on 29 May. Yet she received her money only in the past few days, and after threatening legal action. How many others are still waiting? The situation is wholly unacceptable, and I hope that the Minister will undertake to investigate it.
Let me turn finally to students' tuition fees. I do not recall the Labour candidate in my constituency saying that a Labour Government would impose fees. I know that many parents in Eastbourne feel betrayed on that issue, among others. For poor families, it could make the difference between a son or a daughter going or not going to higher or further education.
For once, I agree with the Prime Minister that education should be an important priority for any Government. That is why the Conservatives placed such emphasis on driving up standards in education and on parental choice. Children and young people are the future of any nation, and a Government who betrayed that future would deserve condemnation.
838
I call on the Minister tonight to accept that his policies are simply not delivering improved education to my constituents and to promise that he will put things right. Empty rhetoric may have been all right in opposition, but he and his colleagues are now in charge. I hope that we can expect the political equivalent of the Minister's staying behind after school and writing out 100 times, "I must try harder."
10.14 pm
The Minister for School Standards (Mr. Stephen Byers): I welcome the opportunity to put some facts before the House this evening regarding the Government's policies on education in East Sussex and across the country. The hon. Member for Eastbourne (Mr. Waterson) failed to acknowledge the good work that is being done in many schools in his constituency and in East Sussex generally. As Minister for School Standards, I put on record my thanks and congratulations to those schools in the hon. Gentleman's constituency and throughout East Sussex that are doing a very good job. One needs only to look at the standards being achieved to realise that real improvements are taking place in schools in East Sussex.
In 1997, at key stage 2, tests for level 4—the level that we expect 11-year-olds to achieve—revealed an average of 63 per cent. for English and 61 per cent. for mathematics. Those figures are broadly in line with the national average. What is particularly impressive is that they show a dramatic increase on the 1996 figures, when, in the key stage 2 tests, the figure was 55 per cent. for English and 52 per cent. for mathematics. Schools in East Sussex are making real improvements. Although the hon. Gentleman failed to do so, I congratulate those schools, the teachers and the parents on the improvements that have been made this year. I hope that standards will continue to rise.
I began my speech by referring to standards, because that is the Government's No. 1 priority. That is why, contrary to the hon. Gentleman's comments, we have provided a substantial increase in funding for schools in East Sussex and across the country. In light of the hon. Gentleman's remarks, it is worth reminding the House of the facts—we shall rely not on the prejudice that we have heard from the hon. Gentleman, but on what is happening and the actions that the Government have taken.
On capital spending, which is used to repair the fabric of school buildings, the new deal for schools means that we expect to spend some £2 billion repairing, renewing and improving school buildings, security and information technology by the end of this Parliament. In the March Budget, the Chancellor of the Exchequer allocated a further £100 million to support education capital spending in England. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Education and Employment announced details of that funding last Friday. On day-to-day spending, we have allocated an extra £835 million this year in England alone over and above the spending plans of the previous Administration—whom the hon. Gentleman supported.
Mr. Michael Jabez Foster: The Minister will be aware that Sussex has received more than £7 million extra funding this year. When I served on Sussex county council, there was a £12.6 million cut in central Government spending in 1995–96; an £11.5 million cut in 1996–97; and an £11.3 million cut

839
in 1997–98. The county council coped with those spending cuts by drawing on reserves, and it had to spend £22 million in order to maintain standards in East Sussex.
Mr. Byers: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that illustration of what went before. His experience of the county council is informative about the cuts that were made year on year by the Conservative Administration. That contrasts starkly with the steps taken already by this Government to remedy the wrongs imposed on our schools system by the actions over not three but 18 years of the Conservatives.
In the general election, we pledged to raise the proportion of national income invested in education as we cut the misuse of Government money elsewhere. We are delivering on that, and next week the outcome of the comprehensive spending review will be announced. I am confident that we will bring good news for schools in East Sussex and the rest of the country, and it will not only be about extra funding for priority areas such as education.
The review provides an opportunity to develop a new approach to public services, with targets for improvements set and outcomes publicly identified. All too often in the past, simply spending more was good enough. No thought was given to raising standards or improving the quality of education on offer. Those days have gone. Increased spending must be linked to specific, clearly stated outcomes. Funding to support reform and modernisation must be the key.
We have not simply awaited the outcome of the comprehensive spending review. We have taken action already and provided increased funding—real money—for East Sussex. The education standard spending assessment for East Sussex for 1998–99 represents an increase of 5.9 per cent., or some £9.2 million. That is well above the rate of inflation, and should be sufficient to meet the needs of schools in East Sussex, even after allowing for inflation, pay awards, rising pupil numbers and any other spending pressures that they might face.
It is informative to consider the per pupil increase. Total figures often do not clearly illustrate the amount of extra money that is being provided. This year's per pupil increases bring home the extra funding that the Government are providing. East Sussex is getting an extra £132 for every primary pupil and an extra £156 for every secondary pupil. In percentage terms, that represents an increase of 6.3 per cent. for primary pupils and 5.7 per cent. for secondary pupils. That is a real-terms increase of around 3 per cent., which we expect the county council to use for raising standards in schools.
It is worth contrasting those real-terms increases with the funding provided by the previous Conservative Government. It is only by considering those figures that we can find out whether they were committed to education. The figures reveal clearly the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Hastings and Rye (Mr. Foster).
Under the previous Government, it was cuts not in one year, but year on year, for the schools and the pupils of East Sussex. Over the final five years of the Conservative Government, education standard spending assessment in East Sussex was cut in real terms for secondary pupils by £218 per pupil, or 7 per cent. It says something about the different priority that this Government give education
840
that, in stark contrast to that reduction of £218, for secondary pupils there has been an increase in spending of £156 in one year. Those are real figures, affecting real children, in the schools of East Sussex.
While the Government have allocated an extra £9.2 million to East Sussex county council, we are disappointed that the full £9.2 million has not been passed on to its schools: £3.6 million has been held back. Schools are receiving only £5.6 million of the money allocated by the Government. That is bound to have an adverse impact on schools in East Sussex.
However, East Sussex gets a fair deal from the Government. It receives 4 per cent. more in the education standard spending assessment per pupil than the average for shire counties. The formula that the Government use to allocate resources through the education SSA is currently being reviewed, because we are not happy with the formula that we inherited from the previous Administration. We want to, and we shall, make it fairer, and many authorities and schools throughout this country want us to do so.
Decisions will not be taken until the autumn, and nothing has been ruled in or out, so it is too early to say how the review might affect funding in East Sussex or in any other authority. However, I can say that there will be a new system of allocating finance to local authorities that is both fair and transparent, which is not the case at present.
In addition to putting the extra £835 million into day-to-day spending through education SSAs, we have secured a substantial increase in specific grants for local education authorities, the most important of which is the standards fund—money that is specifically earmarked for raising standards and improving the quality of education. I shall mention just three of the 23 programmes that are helping to raise standards in East Sussex.
The first relates to class sizes. I was interested in what the hon. Member for Eastbourne said about St. Andrew's Church of England primary school and the difficulties there, but I have to tell him that that has nothing to do with the measures being introduced by the Labour Government. The legal powers that we are seeking for ourselves in the School Standards and Framework Bill are not yet on the statute book, so any action taken in respect of that school have nothing to do with the Government's proposals as they affect class sizes.
We have pledged to reduce class sizes for all five, six and seven-year-olds to 30 or fewer by September 2001 at the latest, and we shall do that. Positive steps are already being taken to achieve that goal, with £116,000 being made available to East Sussex that it must use to reduce infant class sizes. That is money redirected from the phasing out of the assisted places scheme, and is a good example of redirecting resources from a privileged few to benefit the majority.
By ring-fencing those funds, we shall ensure that every school in Eastbourne, in East Sussex and throughout the country will have classes of 30 or fewer by September 2001. That pledge will be delivered in a way that enhances parental preference. That is our commitment, and it is one that we shall deliver. We have also allocated an extra £1.3 million to schools in East Sussex for school improvement and raising standards, and £783,000 specifically for the national grid for learning.

841
We have been able to go beyond improvements in day-to-day revenue spending by providing additional funding for the maintenance and repair of the fabric of school buildings. The new deal for schools means that we were able to allocate East Sussex £2.1 million to improve school buildings. In addition to the new deal for schools, we have allocated more credit approvals in the form of annual capital guidelines.
For the financial year 1998–99, more than £10 million of credit approval has been allocated to East Sussex. In addition to the main allocation, £860,000 has been made available for capital expenditure on special educational needs. On top of that, a specific grant of £700,000 is being made available to Church schools, in recognition of the fact that such schools are often popular with parents, and offer a high standard of education.
Taken together, all that means that, through the actions of the Labour Government, East Sussex is receiving £225 capital funding for every pupil in the county. That is almost 90 per cent. more than the national average allocation of £120 per pupil. When people can see the facts, they will be in no doubt that the Government are investing in the children of East Sussex.
Eleven schools in the hon. Gentleman's constituency will benefit because of successful applications to improve and repair buildings, and to make them more efficient. Teachers and pupils will all benefit from a better environment in which to teach and learn. Investing in education in this way also means that, over time, more resources will be able to be spent in the classroom, rather than on premises costs. We are sure that that will help to raise standards.
842
In the end, it is for East Sussex county council to determine the level of budgets of the schools it maintains from within the resources made available by Government. The hon. Gentleman has talked about cuts for some schools in his constituency. It is certainly true that some schools have suffered budget cuts, but what is hard to explain are the differences in funding per pupil. Looking at primary and secondary schools in Eastbourne, in the hon. Gentleman's constituency, changes in per pupil funding range from about minus 8 per cent. to plus 8 per cent. I have to say that I find that difficult to accept. I would urge schools in the hon. Gentleman's constituency to ask the local education authority to explain precisely why that is happening.
It is not my job to set the budgets of individual schools, but the Government have allocated an extra £9.2 million. We are disappointed that not all that money has been passed on to benefit schools in East Sussex. The county council has to explain why it has withheld £3.6 million of that sum from the raising of standards in schools within the area covered by the county council. We believe that the Government have acted properly in relation to the schools and the pupils of East Sussex. It is for the county council to discharge its responsibilities.
There can be no doubt, as my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister has said, that education, education, education is the Government's priority. We have acted to demonstrate that that is the case. We have acted in a way that will benefit pupils in Eastbourne, in East Sussex and in the country generally. We look forward to working in partnership to deliver those improved standards.
Question put and agreed to.
Adjourned accordingly at twenty-eight minutes to Eleven o'clock.