Commons Sitting of 29 July 1998

Preamble
The House met at half-past Nine o'clock
PRAYERS
[MADAM SPEAKER in the Chair]
PRAYERS

  Adjournment (Summer)
  Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Kevin Hughes.]
  9.34 am
  Mr. Jimmy Hood: I am grateful for the opportunity to raise the issue of dignity at work before the House rises for the summer recess. I wish to put down a marker, and I give notice that I shall return to the matter after the recess. I should also mention the good work already done in another place by the noble Lord Monkswell on bullying at work.
  Bullying at school is usually our first taste of the cowardly and thuggish behaviour of individuals. The perception of a bully is usually male—someone who picks on those smaller than himself—and his actions usually involve petty crime, such as stealing or demanding money. What I have just described happens, but the crude thuggery of bullying away from the school yard is commonplace in the workplace. It is often perpetrated through psychological abuse—often by women against women—and does not get the publicity it should. We often hear about sexual harassment at work, but there is substantial evidence of harassment by someone of the same sex.
  Another form of bullying can best be described as career assassination. Let me cite a constituency case in Lanarkshire involving a woman boss in charge of a dozen other women in an education department caring for children with special needs. I shall not name my constituent, but Mrs. X, as I shall call her, is a middle-aged, well-qualified, professional educationist. She is an excellent worker, conscientious and caring, and, because of her confidence in her own ability, she is the ideal caring professional whom we would all want to care for our own children if they needed her special care.
  However, because Mrs. X was popular and respected by her fellow professionals, her newly appointed boss saw her as a threat, and began undermining, demeaning and intimidating her. My constituent decided to deal with the problem by ignoring it, hoping that it would resolve itself when her new boss had got her feet under the table—but that did not happen. Unfortunately, Mrs. X's attempts to ignore her boss only made her all the more unreasonable, vicious and sly, and the psychological abuse continued.
  How can we deal with bullying? Perpetrators of such behaviour are usually sick. Their cowardly actions suggest that they have a form of mental illness.
  As a result of prolonged intimidation and psychological abuse, my constituent became ill, and took time off work. An expert in a profession where her skills are at a
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  premium has been off work for a considerable time, has lost thousands of pounds in earnings and her services to children who need her special care have been lost.
  The House may think that that is an extreme case—I should like to think so, too—but I suspect that such abuse is quite common. I suspect that every hon. Member present could give some example of similar bullying in their constituency. I therefore welcome the Dignity at Work Bill, promoted by Lord Monkswell, which was given a Second Reading on 4 December 1996. I give notice of my intention to persuade the Government to include protection for employees against bullying in the workplace in their legislative programme. I am pleased to have been successful in raising this important issue. I know that right hon. and hon. Members want to raise their concerns on other issues, so I will soon conclude.
  I was proud to be raised in a working-class home in a mining community—a humble background to some, but a very proud and particularly character-building experience for me. My parents instilled in me an ethos of always being considerate and respectful to others. One should be respectful to others if one wants to be treated as an equal. The right to dignity is not just about good manners, or even buzz words such as "good practice". It is a human right which should be available to all. The right to dignity at work is a human right, too.
  Employers—and, on occasions, some politicians—may indulge in such abuse. They could be called control freaks. Control freaks use many tools, such as the tools of patronage—a posh word for rewarding obedience. Careers are controlled by the carrot and stick of political patronage. Career assassination is viewed in this place not as a dastardly act, but more as an occupational hazard.
  The carrot takes many forms: a position in the Government—if it is a big carrot—a promise of a seat on a quango, or even a trip to Mauritius or some such exotic place. If everything else fails, the occasional knighthood or peerage has been known to thaw strong resistance. This week, some of my right hon. and hon. Friends who have had a lifetime of political carrots experienced a wee bit of the stick. A part of me thinks, "What did they expect?"
  I close my contribution by making a proposal that will send shivers down the spines of some of my political colleagues. If we are to protect and extend to our citizens the democratic process, we must open up government to them. Transparency, scrutiny and openness should be our three watchwords. When we talk of an inclusive process, radical constitutional change, and honour and integrity in public service, let us, in the words of the Prime Minister, say what we mean and mean what we say. If we are to do that, we must look radically at how the House of Commons and its whipping system operate. At best, the whipping system must be reformed—although there is a good democratic argument for abolishing it.
  9.44 am
  Mr. Patrick McLoughlin: The hon. Member for Clydesdale (Mr. Hood) may have been referring to the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry—the post previously held by the Leader of the House—when he talked of character assassination. The right hon. Gentleman has been well known for some time for the character assassination of several of his colleagues. The hon. Gentleman has focused our attention on some of the events of the past few days.

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  I welcome the Leader of the House to her new post. She and I represent neighbouring areas in Derbyshire. As Leader of the House, I expect that she will become Chairman of the Modernisation Committee, and therefore provide a lead on several important decisions in the not too distant future.
  The hon. Member for Clydesdale talked of character assassinations, of which we have seen some interesting examples this week.
  Mr. Hood: I do not want the hon. Gentleman to misunderstand my point—and I certainly do not want him to mislead the House. I talked about career assassinations, not character assassinations.
  Mr. McLoughlin: I stand corrected—although, given the machinations of the week, the two could be linked. We saw the departure from the Government of the right hon. Member for Birkenhead (Mr. Field), the former Minister for Welfare Reform, who was originally asked by the Prime Minister to "think the unthinkable". Perhaps he did, and that was why he could not stay in the Government for very long. Perhaps we shall now be able to hear those thoughts expressed in the Chamber.
  My main reason for catching your eye,in this short debate, Madame Speaker, is to raise the issue of the proposed closure of magistrates courts in Derbyshire—particularly West Derbyshire. I want to do so because, as it happens, this morning I received a letter from the Parliamentary Secretary, Lord Chancellor's Department, in which he explained to me that decisions on such matters are usually made within three months of the receipt of objections. For objections to be considered by the Lord Chancellor, the county council must first object to the proposals. Derbyshire county council made such an objection on 16 June. Given the three-month procedure for determining appeals, we may expect the Government to make an announcement before the House returns.
  There is, without question, a need for a magistrates court to serve West Derbyshire. I support the retention of the three magistrates courts in Ashbourne, Bakewell and Matlock until a magistrates court is built solely to serve West Derbyshire. If that long-term objective were proposed, I would consider a possible reorganisation of the courts structure in West Derbyshire.
  It is vital that justice is administered locally, and is seen to be so. It is a fundamental tenet of the system. The 1989 Le Vay report included the following nationally accepted definition:
  "the function of magistrates' courts is the delivery locally of local justice by local lay people. Justice in a given locality should be administered by lay people from among that community, who can bring to their judgements in court a knowledge of the area and an understanding of the community's values."
  Particularly in rural areas, people are concerned that more remote benches will not understand the rural way of life and the importance of the matters being brought before them. Furthermore, there are particular problems with rural accessibility contained in the proposals submitted by the magistrates courts committee in Derbyshire.
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  Nor does local justice stop at the court itself. The editor of the Ashbourne News Telegraph said in a recent article:
  "I know from experience that many defendants fear publicity more than the sentence. It would seem extremely unlikely, unless Ashbourne area cases had their own specific day for hearing, that we would travel to Chesterfield day after day in the hope of picking up a case involving a local defendant."
  However, it is accepted that blame and shame have a notable effect on local offenders and their victims.
  In coming to its decision, the magistrates courts committee suggested a travelling time of
  "60 minutes by public transport and within 15 minutes' walk from the nearest public transport node".
  It shows a marked lack of understanding of rural transport to assume that it is possible to travel via public transport from Sudbury, Hartington, Youlgreave, Fenny Bentley and many other villages throughout my rural constituency—which the Leader of the House knows well—to Chesterfield or Derby within an hour. I would argue that it is only just possible to do so in one's own vehicle in an hour, and that is in good weather. In winter, it would take considerably longer.
  If the proposals go forward, magistrates have said that there will be
  "a high probability of non-attendance and increased adjournments, adding to the usual list of excuses for non-attendance. Sophisticated bailees will simply wait for the Police to collect them."
  I received a letter the other day from one of the local magistrates who serves West Derbyshire. It pointed out West Derbyshire is not only a huge geographical area, but is one of the most visited parts of the United Kingdom, with more than 20 million visitors every year. The letter said that the magistrates court committee's proposal to split the division and to take the court work to Chesterfield and Buxton
  "was rejected after considerable public outcry, and in July 1995 the Committee stated then that 'Commitment should be given to provide a court in the West Derbyshire division in the long term.'
  This commitment was short-lived."
  We now have the proposals that the Government are considering.
  The magistrate's letter continued:
  "The Committee has also produced figures of court-hours to justify their proposals for the sitting of the courts. In 1995, the Home Office Courts Service Inspectorate severely criticised the Committee for the poor state of maintenance of the courts and lack of secure facilities, and instructed them to provide the latter. Their immediate response was to move West Derbyshire custody cases to Buxton and Chesterfield. Moving cases causes inconvenience to victims, defendants, witnesses, lawyers, police, probation and social services. There is also a considerable increase in expenditure in travelling, subsistence, and increased legal aid costs.
  There is a point that the magistrate particularly wanted me to make. The letter said:
  "Significantly it alters the court-hours differential between the `losing' and 'receiving' court by a factor of two. A court hour added to Buxton or Chesterfield and lost from West Derbyshire becomes two hours for the purpose of comparison of court needs for the area."
  The magistrate added that, during 1995 and 1996, many custody cases were moved from West Derbyshire:
  "The Bench were assured that these hours would be credited back to them, but this does not appear to have been done, and the Bench have not been able to obtain any figures, or access to court registers."

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  The magistrate said that a new dock and secure facilities were installed at Bakewell for 1997, and added:
  "Suggestions which would have enabled all West Derbyshire youth cases to be heard there, thus ensuring that young people were dealt with as near to their home as possible, which is the legal recommendation, were ignored. Youth Courts in West Derbyshire were cancelled, or held irregularly, and on some occasions, magistrates, staff, solicitors, co-defendants, police and social workers … waited in vain for the return of young offenders who had been improperly taken to Chesterfield and dealt with there. Some young defendants travelled from Clay Cross to Matlock (for Matlock offences) to a court which had been cancelled, as did a young defendant with a social worker who had travelled from secure accommodation in another county."
  At the same time, the youth court sittings at Buxton were increased from 25 to 38 days for the year, and a policy of adjourning all youth cases to the first available venue, regardless of the site of the crime, was instituted, without any consultation with the West Derbyshire members of the joint High Peak and Glossop panel.
  As one of the venues has 38 sittings and the other 12, the outcome is apparent; youth work has been taken to Buxton and Chesterfield from West Derbyshire. That is very expensive for social services. Time and money are being wasted on transport and waiting, and a day can be spent on one youth. The committee failed to make use of the facilities at Bakewell, provided at a cost of £18,000 from public funds.
  It seems that the committee has neglected to provide basic facilities for a large area of Derbyshire. When it was reprimanded, its reaction was to remove cases from that area to other courts. The committee has used the hours generated by those moves to increase the apparent need for courts in the receiving areas. That ensures that courts are built in the receiving areas, which already have reasonable court facilities, and the people of West Derbyshire are denied the facility for which they are paying.
  This may be a familiar subject to you, Madam Speaker. On 20 May—in a debate before the Whitsun recess—the hon. Member for South Derbyshire (Mr. Todd) raised the subject of magistrates courts in South Derbyshire, and I agree entirely with his comments near the end of his speech. He said:
  "Clearly, the proposal is ill founded and I very much hope that the paying authorities, Derbyshire county council and Derby city council, will not endorse it when they decide their position. The project will also be expensive—this is not a PFI that will save us a lot of money."—[Official Report, 20 May 1998; Vol. 312, c. 884.]
  The issue has moved on since the last time the House debated it, and both Derby city council and Derbyshire county council have now objected. The proposals are now before the Lord Chancellor.
  I accept that the Leader of the House will not be able to comment in detail on the proposal before the Lord Chancellor, but I hope that she will assure me that my comments this morning will be brought to the Lord Chancellor's attention, so that, when he comes to make his final decision, he will be aware of the strong misgivings—shared by hon. Members on both sides of the House—about the court relocations. I hope that he will decide to reject the proposals, and to keep open the magistrates courts in West Derbyshire, and in other parts of Derbyshire which have made a similarly good case.
  9.57 am
  Mr. Lawrence Cunliffe: First, may I record my appreciation and gratitude to the Leader of the House, my right hon. Friend the Member for Derby, South (Mrs. Beckett), for her radical and remarkable tenure in office during the past 15 months or so? Following the reallocation of her duties, she will inspire the House with her leadership in terms of the programming of the House in the future.
  The subject I wish to discuss is the state and the future of the British horse racing industry. I must record my interest—not a pecuniary one—as the senior chairman of the renowned and famous bloodstock and horse racing group, Lords and Commons. Horse racing has been known as the sport of kings, but it is very different now. Satellite and terrestrial television bring sporting activity into our living rooms.
  What used to be a sport a couple of hundred years ago is now a major industry. The racing and betting industry involves 100,000 jobs, with an annual turnover in off-course betting of £4.6 billion. The Exchequer is always around to cream something off: £300 million in taxation and another £150 million for racing and breeding. That is no small change. When Chancellors are looking for a bob or two, they make statements that frighten the industry.
  Regular attendance at racing has topped 5 million. That is the highest figure since the 1960s. Obviously, with a Labour Government in office, there are a few more shillings to be spent, and more pleasure and adaptation to leisure to be had. After the world cup, racing is the most televised sport on terrestrial television.
  Despite its popularity, the industry is in turmoil. The new chairman of the British Horseracing Board is slugging it out with the director general of the Betting Office Licensees Association. The Horserace Betting Levy Board is, in my view, an unnecessary stratum of administration, and it is rowing with the National Association of Bookmakers. There is constant verbal jousting, which is not improving the industry's image or public relations. The family is at war in the racing industry.
  Unfortunately, the bookmakers cream off substantial amounts that should go to the levy board to be ploughed back into maintaining and improving the standard of British racing. One would not have said this as a Labour Member of Parliament some years ago, but I believe that Government should get out of the industry, which should stand on its own two feet, as it is no different from the chemical industry or any other.
  The Government are forced to adjudicate between the bookmakers, the British Horseracing Board and all the other organisations. My right hon. Friend the Leader of the House, who used to be Secretary of State for Trade and Industry, must know all about it. The industry needs to be competitive and to sell its product. The new BHB chairman, Peter Savill, would want to find the highest bidder and plough the money back into the industry. We could have open competition, rather than the three monopolies that we have at present.
  As my right hon. Friend well knows, the Ladbroke-Coral issue is entirely clear. She referred it to the Monopolies and Mergers Commission. I must talk to her successor, because, when the commission reports

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  back, it will be for the new Secretary of State to make the decision. It is an interesting scenario, and we shall want to see what happens.
  I have made it clear to all the major figures in the industry that the poor old punter is stuck in the middle. Off-course betting in local betting shops accounts for 96 per cent. of the money. The poor old punter pays 9 per cent., and certainly does not get value for money in the sporting odds offered by bookmakers.
  The Exchequer takes £300 million a year, and the bookies make £100 million profit and are the majority shareholders in the satellite services company, which is a lucrative cream-off, yet the racing industry makes only about 1p in every £1 bet, which is the lowest proportion in the world.
  The BHB financial plan, drawn up by Peter Savill, is to be welcomed. The racing industry never had a strategy before. There are arguments about the money. The plan is for £25 million to be raised by the sport itself, and, it is hoped, for £80 million to come from the Government; but there is no way that will happen. The money must come from the industry itself, and, frankly, the bookmakers should be targeted. They should put more money back into the industry, and give a fairer share to both the industry and those who patronise it: the punters.
  Four separate Departments are involved in the racing industry: the Treasury, because of the huge tax contributions; the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, because it is a sport, although it should really be considered an industry; the Home Office, because of licensed betting; and the Department of Trade and Industry, because it is an industry. How many other industries have so many different Departments to deal with them? It is ludicrous.
  Bureaucracy in the sport must be reduced. The levy board is like a middleman. It collects and redistributes the money as it sees fit—I suppose there are criteria—although it is bound by regulation and bureaucracy. To be honest, it is an unnecessary stratum of administration. The distribution of money should be put under the auspices of the British Horseracing Board. Having one board to deal with the whole industry would be far more sensible. In the coming year, there will be a reduction of £5 million in the levy takings going back to the industry.
  My right hon. Friend knows very well about the merger I mentioned. I opposed it, and made a submission to the Monopolies and Mergers Commission, because I believe that it would be against the public interest, especially for the punter, and that competition would go out of the window.
  I pay tribute to the Tote. Under Peter Jones, a determined and dedicated chairman, it has advanced no end in a short period. It gives efficient service, and distributes the money back to those who have put it in. Nobody plays around, creaming off profits here and there. It makes a remarkable investment back into the industry. I commend the initiative taken by the Tote, and hope that it will be successful. I hope that the Monopolies and Mergers Commission allows the Tote to buy the 830 Coral shops that are for sale.
  I applaud the BHB plan and hope that it will be successful. It would create 9,000 new jobs immediately. I commend the Racecourse Association. Remarkable
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  improvements have been made at Haydock Park, a beautiful racecourse which lies between Liverpool and Manchester. The initiative that has been taken means that families can go nearly any day of the week to enjoy not only racing but other leisure activities.
  The industry needs total deregulation, so that it can function like any other competitive business, offering the best services, standards and quality to the public and those who sponsor it. If we do not reform racing, more top racing and top owners will go abroad. We will lose our lead in the racing world, along with the revenue and prestige that the horse racing industry has always brought to the United Kingdom.
  10.10 am
  Mr. Paul Burstow: I want to discuss two issues that concern my constituents. The first arises from a visit to my surgery by Mrs. Gladys Peckham. She is widow of 85 who lives in a council flat. She feels very alone. Her only companion is her chihuahua, whose name is Penny. Gladys has a friend who lives a considerable distance away in Cobham. She wants to move nearer to her friend so that she does not feel so lonely, and she sought a transfer to sheltered accommodation. She received what at first seemed like a positive reply from the local authority involved, but she read on and found that she was being told that she would have to make alternative arrangements for her pet. She would not be allowed to keep Penny in the residential accommodation.
  The bond between people and their pets can be strong, especially with older people who rely heavily on their pets for companionship. Sadly, the emotional importance of pets to older people is not taken seriously enough by many local authorities and housing associations. In some cases, official indifference can result in heart-breaking consequences. More than 140,000 pets are taken to vets or animal sanctuaries each year because their elderly owners are moving to alternative accommodation, and 38,000 of those pets, are put down.
  It cannot be right for older people to be forced to choose between ensuring that they can keep their pets, the prospect of their beloved pets being destroyed or placed in other care and rehomed if they are lucky, and the desire to move into more appropriate sheltered or residential accommodation.
  I hope that more local authorities and housing associations will, in the first instance, take voluntary action to review their policies and practices, consult older people and draw up and develop pet-friendly policies. There is much good practice in the voluntary and housing association sector and local government. My local authority has good practice, but that is no help to Gladys, because she wants to move to another area.
  I am grateful to those hon. Members who have signed early-day motion 1573 on this issue. I hope that local authorities and housing associations that have not yet examined good practice will do so. If they are reluctant, I hope to persuade Ministers not to legislate but to advocate, persuade and be more active on the matter.
  Pet-friendly policies should include entitlement to own a pet if the resident can care for it and it is no danger or health hazard to others. If the pet dies, it should be possible to replace it. Residents must take responsibility for the health, safety and welfare of their pets, and ensure

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  that they are kept under proper control. If a pet must be rehomed, the housing provider must advise an appropriate animal welfare agency that can help. Social services departments should keep registers of private and public sector residential care providers with such policies. The worst thing is for older people to go to housing or social services departments only to be told that they must get rid of their pets, rather than being able to examine the available options.
  I hope that the Leader of the House will tell her colleagues in the Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions that this issue affects not only my constituent but many people who feel that having to abandon their pets to get appropriate housing is unacceptable.
  The second issue goes wider than my constituency. If we are honest, standard spending assessments are a mystery to most of us, and probably even to the officials who have to deal with this science, if one can call it that. A recent paper by the Association of London Government deals with some changes that are being considered by the DETR and the Department for Education and Employment that seriously affect the resources available to London boroughs and thus the services that they provide.
  Three changes are being considered: to the additional educational needs index; to the area cost adjustment, which was the subject of numerous inquiries at Environment Question Time; and to the children's personal social services formula. The main changes affect additional educational needs and children's personal social services.
  For AEN, it is proposed to drop lone parents, income support claimants and ethnic minorities from the index used to allocate funds. As a result, the index will under-predict inner London's unit costs for providing education services by about 10 per cent. Over the next three years, a council such as Tower Hamlets could lose up to £50.7 million from its education budget. My local education authority in Sutton could lose about £9.5 million.
  The second big change affects children's personal social services. If the new methodology had been used in 1997–98, London would have lost about £88 million, with 12 London boroughs losing more than 25 per cent. of their children's personal social services SSA. Over three years, that would cost London social services, and thus the services provided to children, around £300 million. The Health Committee has rightly identified that inadequate resourcing has been a major cause of failure in children's services, but we face the prospect of a reduction in funding for those very services in the capital. We know that, in parts of the capital, those services are already failing, and need greater investment and support to do their job properly and effectively.
  Taken together, the three changes could cost London and London services up to £1.5 billion over the next three years. Those resources are vital to the delivery of services. The welcome additional investment in resources for services by the Government has raised expectations that there will be improvements to services and standards. The changes will undermine the Government's efforts to raise standards in education and social services.
  To put that figure of £1.5 billion another way, if councils were allowed to raise their council tax to bridge the gap—it is certain that they would not be
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  allowed to do so—approximately a 70 per cent. increase in council tax would be required, which would add £485 a year to the average band D council tax across London. That is far too much, and would have a devastating effect on many of those who rely on the services. I hope that the Leader of the House will communicate that concern to the Department.
  I understand that this subject was to have been raised in an Adjournment debate later this week, but that, sadly, hon. Members will not now have that opportunity to raise their concerns. However, the Association of London Government, Labour leaders of many councils and many of my colleagues who lead London councils are seriously concerned about the impact on children's services and education. Therefore, I hope that, before final decisions are made, our representations will be taken into account.
  10.20 am
  Mr. Tom Cox: First, I join other hon. Members in congratulating the President of the Council and Leader of the House of Commons, my right hon. Friend the Member for Derby, South (Mrs. Beckett) on her appointment. I am sure that her new responsibilities will be both varied and interesting, and I wish her great success.
  In this Adjournment debate, I shall talk about Cyprus. At the outset, I declare that I am chairman of the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association Cyprus group, to which hon. Members of all political parties in the House belong.
  I shall not go over in detail the events since the Turkish invasion of the Republic of Cyprus 24 years ago, because they are well known, as are the efforts made, year after year, to try to reach an honourable settlement, and the United Nations resolutions on Cyprus which have repeatedly called for a settlement. All hon. Members who belong to the CPA Cyprus group want an honourable settlement that recognises the rights and security of Turkish Cypriots just as much as Greek Cypriots; and we want a Cyprus in which all its people can live in peace and share in the development and prosperity of their country.
  As many hon. Members know, this country's links with Cyprus go back well over 100 years. It is a Commonwealth country, and we are one of the guarantor powers for Cyprus, yet Cyprus is today the only European country that is divided by a wall and barbed wire. A great deal of its territory is occupied by a foreign army, that of Turkey. There is a so-called "independent state" in northern Cyprus, which was set up in 1983; but, after all those years, the only country that recognises it is Turkey. The United Kingdom, the European Union, the Council of Europe, the United Nations and the United States of America all refuse to recognise that so-called independent state.
  For some time, the Republic of Cyprus has sought membership of the EU, and it is widely supported by many countries in that endeavour. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs has left no one in any doubt of the UK Government's support for that application, and I warmly welcome that clear commitment.
  Despite that support, and despite President Clerides of Cyprus having made Turkish Cypriots a constructive and generous offer of a meaningful role in the discussions on membership, which has been refused, threats have been

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  made that, if the application continues and is successful, Turkey will annex northern Cyprus into its mainland; and Turkey has insisted that it should be admitted to the European Union before Cyprus. Those threats are totally unacceptable.
  I serve as a member of the British delegation to the Council of Europe. At the assembly meeting of the socialist group in Strasbourg in June this year, I opened a debate on Cyprus. The chair of the political affairs committee of the Council of Europe, Andras Barsony of Hungary, commented on the attitude of Mr. Denktash, the spokesman for the Turkish Cypriots, and on Turkey's attitude towards Cyprus's right to seek membership of the EU.
  I subsequently asked the House of Commons Library about the British Government's view; a reply dated 3 July stated a clear commitment. The Library wrote to me as follows:
  "The Foreign and Commonwealth Office have supplied the following statement in response to my inquiry about the Government's position on the Treaty of Guarantee in relationship to Cyprus' application for European Union membership:
  Her Majesty's Government does not believe there is any legal obstacle to the accession to the European Union of the Republic of Cyprus. The Governments of the other 14 member states of the European Union, and the Legal Services of the European Commission and the Council, all share this view. We consider the Government of the Republic of Cyprus to have acted legally in submitting its application to join the EU, and in pursuing it."
  I warmly welcome that clear statement. I hope that Turkey and Mr. Denktash are made fully aware of the Government's view.
  To my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House I say that I hope that the UK will now work actively with our colleagues and friends in the Austrian Government, who currently hold the presidency of the European Union, to continue that commitment to Cyprus. There can be no doubt that membership will benefit the whole of Cyprus, both Greek and Turkish communities. It will also bring security and prosperity to Cyprus. That is what I want, what many hon. Members want, and, indeed, what many Turkish Cypriots want. Regrettably, Mr. Denktash continues to refuse.
  As I said, Cyprus has had a long association with this country. Cyprus threatens no one, but it is now repeatedly threatened. I have here a cutting from The Daily Telegraph of 21 July, which states that the Turkish Prime Minister, Mr. Yilmaz, renewed threats of force against Greece and the Greek Cypriots on the 24th anniversary of Turkish military intervention on the island. We know of the presence of more than 30,000 Turkish troops in the north of the island of Cyprus; and we know that those troops have some of the most modern and sophisticated weaponry in the world. For years, President Clerides has called for the full demilitarisation of the island, and he has outlined proposals on that subject, but they have been rejected by Mr. Denktash and by Turkey.
  Every Member of the House knows of the crucial role played by Cyprus in the eastern Mediterranean. Yet Cypriot airspace is repeatedly overflown by Turkish military aircraft. Turkey has repeatedly threatened to annex the northern area of Cyprus. Now the Republic of Cyprus is discussing the establishment of missiles in the south of the island.
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  I should much prefer that there were no missiles, but every country has a right to protect its territory from aggression. That is why the issue is so important, and all efforts need to be made to try to resolve it. Certainly, the Republic of Cyprus, the United Kingdom, Greece—which is another guarantor power for Cyprus—the United States and the United Nations all want a settlement. Turkey can undoubtedly play a major role in working towards such a settlement.
  Turkey talks about its future European role and its wish to be a member of the European Union, and I am in no doubt that it will, one day, join the European Union. However, it must begin to understand that, unless it changes its record on Cyprus and on human rights in Turkey, its action against trade unions and the press in Turkey and its treatment of Kurdish communities, it will make little progress towards achieving a role in Europe. Turkey must be told that, clearly and firmly.
  As I said, 24 years ago the Republic of Cyprus was invaded. Some 30 per cent. of its territory is still occupied. No UK Government can say, "That is sad, but it is not up to us to find an honourable solution." For the reasons that I have given, it is up to us. That is why I and many hon. Members on both sides of the House will repeatedly return to the issue of Cyprus until there is an honourable settlement for the island that will benefit all the people who live there, whether they are Greek or Turkish.
  I realise that my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House may not be in a position to respond in great detail to my comments, but I am sure that she will convey them to my right hon. Friend the Foreign and Commonwealth Secretary.
  10.32 am
  Mr. David Maclean: I also welcome the Leader of the House to the Dispatch Box. Perhaps she belongs to the modernising faction in the Labour party, but I am sure that she will have a deep respect for the traditions and customs of the House, and an open ear for Madam Speaker's entreaties not to wreck some of the cherished procedures of the House in a frantic drive to over-modernise.
  I want to address a few issues that worry us in Cumbria, which the House ought to consider before it rises for the recess. I am also prompted by the comments about pet animals by the hon. Member for Sutton and Cheam (Mr. Burstow)—who, sadly, is no longer in his place—to make a few introductory remarks to bring the House up to date on exciting developments in the puppy farming business.
  I am the right hon. Member who poked his head above the parapet and said that the Breeding and Sale of Dogs Bill was flawed, and I blocked it. That caused outrage from the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. I discovered that the Petcare trust, the National Canine Defence League, the Blue Cross, the Kennel Club, the British Dogbreeders Council and Justice for Dogs also had concerns about the Bill, and thought that it could be improved. I chaired meetings of those organisations, which wanted to work for a better Bill.
  I am pleased to tell the House that the RSPCA and the British Veterinary Association have now joined that working party, which is working to draft a better Bill that it hopes to have ready for an hon. Member who, in November or December, may be willing to

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  introduce it. I am delighted that I was the catalyst for that Bill, but I thought that it would be best if I backed out in favour of someone who is seen to be totally independent. The noble Baroness Wharton has taken over the chairmanship of that group, and is now working with all those animal welfare organisations, the Kennel Club and the British Dogbreeders Council to draft a better Bill.
  Compromises must be made, but I am certain that, when the group has drafted the Bill, with Government help in due course, it will represent a wider coalition of interests than the one drafted only by the RSPCA, which satisfied almost no one.
  My concerns about Cumbria relate, first, to the county council. For some extraordinary reason, it has decided to reorganise itself into what I can only describe as a politburo structure. We have passed no legislation saying that county council structures are improper or not working, but Cumbria county council heard a speech by the Prime Minister and assumed that, if it did not totally change its organisation, it would be attacked or criticised for not being modern enough.
  The council has come up with a structure that practically rules out the contribution in proper debate and scrutiny of Labour, Liberal, Conservative and independent council members, and concentrates all decision making on a little politburo of eight "cabinet ministers" and eight executives who will meet in closed session to decide the whole council policy. That has been described as a much more executive form of decision making. It will cut out many council committees and some bureaucracy, but I am afraid that it will also cut out much accountability to the electorate.
  That is a foolish move, which council members will one day regret, because their constituents, of all political persuasions, will find that the councillors cannot represent them because they cannot stand up in a committee or full council and make points on their behalf.
  I want also to make a point about education. The Queen Elizabeth grammar school in Penrith is working side by side and hand in glove with Ullswater high school. A few years ago, there was tension between the schools, mainly because the county council wanted to close one or other of them. I chaired meetings of staff, headmasters and governors, and they worked out a good working relationship. The Government then sensibly extended the scope of Ullswater high school so that it could offer A-levels, and of the grammar school so that it could take in younger pupils. The schools offer complementary courses, and are working together well.
  That is all in danger of being overturned by the decision of the Secretary of State for Education and Employment to extend the voting procedure determining the status of grammar schools to catchment schools which may or may not send pupils to the grammar school. That doctrine of the franchise will create instability in a market town of 12,000 people which has two schools, both of which are centres of excellence. There is now no stigma for pupils attending Ullswater high school, because it is a centre of excellence offering courses different from those at the Queen Elizabeth grammar school. It is unfortunate that that should be destabilised in a frantic bout of political correctness.
  I suggest that the Leader of the House examines the guidelines that have been issued by the Secretary of State for Education, in which the procedure for voting on
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  school status is an extension of voting powers to people who have no legitimate say whatever in how a school is run. That procedure can be used to bring about a settlement for schools that is motivated by politics rather than local practicality and need.
  Another cause of concern in Cumbria is transport, which is vital to us in the far north-west of England. I know that many colleagues have long distances to travel, and there is always tremendous sympathy for Scottish colleagues who may want to go home on a Thursday evening. I have no sympathy for them. The last plane may be the Glasgow shuttle, which leaves at half-past 8—[HON. MEMBERS: "Eight o'clock."]—the 8 o'clock shuttle—[HON. MEMBERS: "Nine o'clock."]—the 9 o'clock shuttle to Glasgow, Edinburgh or Inverness. It is a tremendous distance. Those hon. Members will be home by 8 o'clock, 9 o'clock or 10 o'clock. The last train for Cumbria leaves at half-past 6. There is a slight extension in the summer—remarkably, we have Mr. Branson to thank for that. Currently, the last train for Cumbria leaves at half-past 7.
  That is not a personal sob story. I do not mind; I have become used to it over 15 years. I am merely illustrating the point that, whereas colleagues in other parts of the United Kingdom may live further from London, the transport links are infinitely better than those with Cumbria and the north-west. To reach our nearest airport, we must cross the Pennines to Newcastle or travel south to Manchester. We therefore depend fundamentally on motorway links and rail links, and on the forthcoming improvements to the west coast main line.
  Today I wish to focus on more parochial issues—well, not parochial, but not mega-stuff such as the £2 billion investment in the west coast main line. I wish to talk about the need to close the Cumberland gap—the last remaining stretch of dual carriageway at the top of the M6 before we hit the M74 and the improvements being made to it. That short stretch of dual carriageway is a death trap, because there is motorway either side.
  The contracts for upgrading that stretch of road to dual carriageway standard were ready a year ago last May. It is a private finance initiative thing, on which, naturally, the general election brought the shutters down. One cannot let contracts with an election in the offing. Then, unfortunately, we were caught up in the roads review.
  It is a small contract. Everyone knows that the work must be done. I expect that the Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions will announce it today. I should be appalled if it were not announced today. We have wasted 15 months because that small contract was caught in the roads review. Although it was right for the Government to review their road strategy, it was unfortunate that such a small, necessary thing was caught in it.
  I do not know what announcement the Secretary of State will make about the A66 today. I merely say, as someone living in the north-west of England, in Cumbria, that, whereas some parts of the United Kingdom may have decided that they do not want more bypasses or roads, and that they are anti-transport, we have not. There is quite a list of roads that need improvement in the constituency of the hon. Member for Barrow and Furness (Mr. Hutton), in Workington and in my constituency—especially the A66.

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  We would all welcome that funding. I ask the Leader of the House to convey to the Deputy Prime Minister the message that, if the Government announce today that they plan improvements to the A66, the A69 and other roads in Cumbria, no protest groups will lie down in Cumbria, saying, "No road improvements, thank you." If Mr. Scrumpy, Mr. Swampy, Mr. Stumpy, or whatever his name is, comes to Cumbria—he can bring some scrumpy to Cumbria—he will not be made welcome. Although we desperately care for our wonderful lakeland environment—for our Pennines, the Solway plain and all the other wonderful areas of Cumbria—we depend on road improvements, and we shall welcome them if the Government care to spend money on them.
  We are also worried about the Territorial Army. Following the strategic defence review, the Government announced in the White Paper that the Territorial Army would be cut from 56,000 to 40,000, and that the cuts would be concentrated in the infantry and the yeomanry. That announcement desperately affects us in Cumbria, because the only real Territorial Army units in Cumbria are infantry.
  The Fourth Battalion King's Own Royal Border Regiment has a company each in Carlisle, Workington and Barrow, and headquarters in Lancashire—as the Leader of the House knows, all Labour-held constituencies. It also has two platoons in Kendal. I believe that 24 per cent. of the members of that Territorial Army regiment are unemployed. It is a vital source of employment to young men and women in Cumbria. Each year, about 100 of them enter the Regular Army.
  It is a mistake to cut the Territorial Army infantry. They can be used even in the modern, high-tech mobile brigades that the Government envisage. A few years ago I, and many other colleagues, were thought good enough, as territorial infantry soldiers, to be part of the First British Corps on the Rhine. When we faced the Soviet Union—which was regarded as the most powerful adversary that the world and the western forces could have—the infantry were not told, "I am sorry; these Russians are too good for you. You people are not suitable." Tens of thousands of us had a role, integrated with the rest of the infantry, integrated with armour, in First British Corps, in a task facing the Soviet forces.
  Thank God, that has changed, but now we are told, "Terribly sorry; there is no role now for all you guys who were good enough to be part of the force facing the Russians. We shall have these new air mobile brigades. There will be rapid deployment, with all sorts of new things to do, but there is no role for you." That is wrong; of course there is a role. We do not need the same numbers, but the Territorial Army infantry could be used in the new role envisaged. Ten per cent. of our Territorial Army forces are in Bosnia; they can be used there.
  Although I believe that the cuts being made in the Territorial Army are wrong in principle and short-sighted, the White Paper is long-sighted enough to consider two new aircraft carriers—if we ever get them. If we get them, it will be wonderful. I believe that we might reconsider the Territorial Army infantry.
  Leaving that aside, we have a problem in Cumbria. If the Government are to make cuts of 16,000, the infantry must bear the brunt, and that could devastate us in
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  Cumbria. I plead with the Government to keep the Fourth Battalion King's Own Royal Border Regiment, or not to cut it so much that it is reduced to a meaningless shell.
  We may lose a company in Workington. Presumably Carlisle will have a case to keep a couple of platoons. Lancashire will have to keep something. It would be nice if we could keep something in Barrow. The whole thing may be cut drastically, and the Queen's Lancashire Regiment, to the south, may be cut drastically. The whole thing may be cobbled together to form a new battalion composed of a couple of platoons in Carlisle, a couple in Barrow and so on, which will have no real identity or core, and whose platoons will be unable to train together.
  The final point on which I wish to conclude is the plight of rural areas in Cumbria. We are worried about what is happening in the countryside. Undoubtedly agriculture is suffering because of the strength of sterling. Everyone who relies on agriculture is suffering. We are already seeing redundancies among agricultural supply companies, and cuts in a range of rural industries.
  Farm incomes fell by 46 per cent. in the year to March 1998, and are likely to fall by at least the same percentage this year. That is an incredible cut in income. We know how devastating it would be if our salaries were cut by 46 per cent. Only when that happens do we begin to realise how many industries rely on agriculture. One then becomes aware of the suffering of industries that one never imagined had such a key input from agriculture, and depended so much on it for their livelihood.
  The effects are widespread. Everyone in rural parts of Cumbria is suffering from the effects of the drop in farm incomes. If farm income drops 46 per cent., it is not a few wealthy farmers who are affected: in Cumbria, it is tens of thousands of hill farmers—small farmers. We do not have big grain barons with 10,000 acres. It is all small farmers in the sheep, beef and dairy sectors, and all those sectors are affected.
  The effect of BSE and the European beef ban continues to be felt. There can be no confidence in the future of agriculture unless we can find ways to speed up the lifting of that ban and to extract a date from the Commission.
  On a further point, we must keep green-top milk. The Government have sensibly kicked this into touch, and I hope that there is not one of those announcements that sneak out at four o'clock, hidden behind other announcements that the Prime Minister may make today, stating that it is abolished. Green-top milk is a small part of the overall milk trade in Cumbria and in the UK. Nevertheless, it is purchased by consumers who know what they are doing. There are adequate warnings, and there must be consumer choice. I am a great believer in labelling products, telling people what the risks are—we know that the risks of green-top milk are negligible—and leaving consumers to make a free choice. I could say that the same applies to beef on the bone, but I shall not go down that route now.
  I anticipate that many hon. Members will want to speak in the debates tonight. As I do not expect to get in then, I hope that one of them will mention the calf processing aid scheme, and point out to the new Minister of Agriculture how important it is that that scheme is kept going as a vital lifeline to livestock producers. I am sure that the right hon. Lady and her admirable staff will make sure that that point is conveyed to the new Minister of Agriculture.

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  I hope that the Monopolies and Mergers Commission will intervene, following a further breakdown in talks between Milk Marque and the dairy trade. Dairy farm incomes alone have fallen 35 per cent. this year, and entire areas of dairying country such as Cumbria will suffer untold damage unless trends are reversed, with milk prices to the farmer rising. I am not making a plea for the doorstep pinta to be more expensive, but there is a widening gap between the price paid on the doorstep or at the supermarket, and the price that the farmer gets. Farmers' income is being cut drastically.
  The final point on rural areas—
  Mr. McLoughlin: The sixth final point?
  Mr. Maclean: Never trust a politician.
  The final point on rural areas is our concern about the new regional development areas. The northern part of Cumbria is to be amalgamated with Liverpool. That means that representation from Cumbria, which would have been small in the north-western area, is likely to be even smaller in the combined area of Liverpool and north-west Cumbria.
  Ideally, if a county such as Cumbria, which does not properly fall in with the north-east or the north-west, is in the north-west development area, it needs three representatives on the board. It needs someone from the industrialised west country who shares the concerns of west Cumbria and understands the needs there, as well as the industrial needs of Barrow, which are similar; it needs someone from the central lakes and the uplands there, who understands the needs of tourism and England's most important tourist area; and it needs someone from the agricultural areas and the Eden valley, to express the concerns of that part of the county.
  It is likely that, for the whole of Cumbria, we might end up with one person on the board. I should hate to have to suggest who, from such a gigantic county, should serve on a regional development agency that covers Liverpool, Manchester, Lancashire and the entire huge and important north-west area. Who in the name of goodness could we get to represent Cumbria, where we have important industries such as Sellafield—the nuclear industry—and England's biggest tourist area, as well as the agricultural areas? I plead with the right hon. Lady to tell the new Secretary of State for Trade and Industry, without setting any quotas, that Cumbria needs three people on the new regional development board, covering skills and disciplines wide enough to represent the whole county.
  On that point, which I am sure the right hon. Lady will take on board, I once again wish her success in her new job, and successful and happy holidays, when they come.
  10.54 am
  Mr. Lindsay Hoyle: I shall try not to raise as many points as the right hon. Member for Penrith and The Border (Mr. Maclean), or no other hon. Members will get in.
  I welcome the Leader of the House to her new position. She will be sadly missed as President of the Board of Trade.
  The topics on which I shall speak are car pricing, vehicle emissions and public transport. There are 24 million cars on the road in the United Kingdom, and the number is rapidly increasing. The UK car industry is extensive.
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  It is well documented that car prices in the UK are massively different from those in the rest of the European Union. The EU publishes the figures in six-monthly reports, and the UK is consistently at the top of the list for car prices. On 1 May, the European Commission published its 11th report on car prices, which shows that cars in Britain are 58 per cent. dearer than anywhere else in the EU. Of the 74 best-selling models, 60 were dearest in the UK.
  The greatest discrepancy involves the Ford Mondeo—the car for the world. That leading model from Ford costs us in the UK a staggering 58.5 per cent. more than elsewhere. The Ford Fiesta costs 44.7 per cent. more in the UK than in Spain. The Rover is built in Britain, but the 214, the 414, the 620 and the Land Rover Discovery models are 50 per cent. more expensive in Britain than in Holland. The Renault Clio, which we see in the advertisements—the sexy car, as it is called—costs 33.8 per cent. more in the UK than in Italy. The list goes on and on.
  Why is there such a difference? Why should UK consumers have to pay more for a car than our continental friends? What is good for the EU should be good for this country. We are part of the EU, and we should have the same benefits.
  The list price of cars is determined by general market conditions. Manufacturers tend to take account of the tax linked to car purchase. Therefore, it is believed that, in countries where special taxes are due for cars, the manufacturers will ensure that net car prices are among the lowest for any models. That is the case in Ireland, Holland and Portugal. However, where no such taxes are due, as in Britain, pre-tax prices are set at a higher level. That has a knock-on effect, which results in the higher retail price.
  Manufacturers argue that factors such as exchange rate differences, differences in specification and discounts offered by dealers account for the variation in price between Britain and the rest of Europe. That is not the case. Even if those factors are taken into account, Britain still pays about 10 per cent. more than other EU countries.
  Car manufacturers argue that the costs involved in producing right-hand drive vehicles are higher. That holds little water. In any case, under EU competition laws, all EU countries are required to produce right-hand drive cars. It is still possible to buy such a car on the continent and bring it back to the UK more cheaply than to buy it in the UK. That anomaly must be resolved.
  The strong pound has not made foreign vehicles such as BMW, Mercedes, Volkswagen, Renault, Fiat and those from other continental producers any cheaper. The prices are pegged and held deliberately. For example, one can buy a Nissan hatchback from Holland for £10,000. Even after paying VAT and bringing the car to Britain, one will still have made a considerable saving.
  Although car dealers are permitted to set their own prices, it is alleged that they are reluctant to lower prices because of agreements with the manufacturers. The manufacturers comprise that great body of people who claim to look after those who buy cars, but that is not the case. Manufacturers have been known to manipulate prices by threatening to remove the franchise from dealers should they lower their prices. Manufacturers are pegging prices, and that is not fair to the consumer.

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  Car pricing was raised at a meeting of EU Finance Ministers at York in March. That initiated an investigation into price disparities between EU markets. I hope that the outcome of that study promotes positive action. Something needs to be done to remedy the problem, as the consumer is already becoming more and more dissatisfied and more and more taken for a ride—if the House will excuse the pun.
  We do not want people to be forced to shop abroad for their cars. We should be encouraging people to buy cars from United Kingdom dealers. Personally, I should like to see them buy cars that are built in the UK. An important factor is to introduce measures to lower car prices. I hope that the Government will make that a priority, and take action on this important matter. First, that approach would certainly help UK manufacturing. Secondly, it would help to secure more jobs in that sector.
  There is a link between new cars, pollution and emissions. Perhaps, if car prices were lowered, the result would be more new cars with reduced emissions, which would have a beneficial effect on global warming. It would also allow us to get rid of the old bangers—the polluters that we see throughout the country. Lower new car prices would make more emission-efficient cars available to the public, which would be better for the community. Much could be done in that direction. As I have said, the problem of global warming could be reduced through this factor.
  I am keen to know whether the Government will assist in promoting the use of more environmentally friendly fuel for vehicles. Already the Government provide funding for energy savings—the powershift programme, which gives grants of up to half the capital cost of converting vehicles to run on alternative fuels. I would welcome that factor being taken on board.
  The Government have also conducted research into the use of alternative fuels. Local authority fleets and taxis have been tested. However, it is important to understand that fewer than 1 per cent. of vehicles in the UK rely on an alternative fuel. In 1997, 9,100 vehicles were registered as running on gas. There were 17,400 vehicles running on electricity. I would like to see these numbers increase. With an ever-increasing number of vehicles on the roads, I hope that the Government will continue seriously to consider the environmental damage that is caused by car pollution and all its implications.
  I hope that the Government will work on measures to improve the assistance that is given to the public and private firms who wish to convert their vehicles. Perhaps incentives can be offered to car manufacturers to produce more cleaner vehicles for general use.
  I recently supported an early-day motion that calls on the Government to look into the possibility of providing incentives to bus and taxi companies to convert their vehicles to liquefied petroleum gas or natural compressed gas. The motion has been supported by about 50 Members so far. Traffic pollution would be significantly alleviated if we set targets for converting vehicles to run on LPG or natural compressed gas.
  Vehicles such as buses and taxis run through our cities all day and all night. They are continually polluting our cities and the countryside. There is a golden opportunity
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  for the Government to undertake some radical tests, and to conduct trials to clean up our cities. That would not take much doing. I believe that LPG and compressed natural gas are the ways forward, and we should take that on board.
  My hon. Friend the Member for Burnley (Mr. Pike) represents a constituency that is a near neighbour of mine. He will initiate an Adjournment debate tonight on the cylinders that are produced by Lucas in his constituency. They are made for cars that run on LPG or compressed natural gas. Unfortunately, Lucas will close that factory, which is sad. I think that there should be investment to keep production in the United Kingdom. I welcome my hon. Friend's Adjournment debate.
  We should not lose sight of the fact that the car has an important role, but there should be an alternative to it, and that is public transport. Public transport must play a part, but it must be more widely available. That is why I welcome the important White Paper presented by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions. We must ensure that public transport is not only available but more welcoming and more efficient, and that applies to bus stations and train stations. They must feel friendly and welcoming to the travelling public as well as safe at night. They must provide facilities.
  I shall give an example that shows how bad some companies are. Stagecoach, in my constituency, operates the bus station at Chorley, on land owned by the local authority, on a peppercorn rent. The bus station itself is owned by Stagecoach. When Stagecoach took over the bus station, the lease clearly stated that a public toilet must be provided. Everybody would expect that the general public could use that toilet. Stagecoach was taken to court by the local authority to be asked why the toilet had not been opened. Stagecoach objected, saying, "It states in the lease that a toilet must be provided, but it does not say that it should be open to the general public."
  That approach will not allow improvements to be made to public transport in bus and train stations. Improvements will not be made if companies do not provide facilities for the travelling public. That approach is not good enough, and it is not the way forward.
  I wish to take the view forward that there should be cheaper vehicles, alternative fuels, better public transport and better facilities for those who use public transport.
  Several hon. Members rose—
  Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Michael Lord): Order. I wish to say before I call the next speaker that a number of hon. Members are seeking to catch my eye. If contributions are reasonably brief, it will be possible to call most hon. Members who wish to speak. If contributions are not brief, many hon. Members will be disappointed.
  11.5 am
  Mr. Nigel Evans: I shall heed what you have said, Mr. Deputy Speaker, and try to keep my remarks to within about five minutes.
  I welcome the right hon. Member for Derby, South (Mrs. Beckett) to her new position of Leader of the House. I wish her well in her arduous duties, particularly at a

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  time of constant change. The right hon. Lady will certainly receive support from the Opposition for sensible change.
  As we enter the holiday season, and for us at Westminster the summer recess, with I am sure a short holiday somewhere along the line, it is appropriate to raise the subject of quarantine laws. I am pleased to see my hon. Friend the Member for Southend, West (Mr. Amess) in his place. I know that he has introduced a ten-minute Bill on this subject and has worked extremely hard in trying to ensure that we have sensible changes in our quarantine laws. I hope that he, like me, will be pleased very shortly by some announcements that the Government may be making. An announcement is long overdue.
  There are 12 million pet owners in this country. Between 1972 and 1995, 170,000 pets were put into quarantine. During that period 2,500 of those pets died.
  People go abroad for many reasons, not only for holidays. Some do so by force of work. Indeed, the hon. Member for Tooting (Mr. Cox) mentioned Cyprus, where we have air force bases. One person came to my attention. He was forced, when he finished his three-month stint in Cyprus, to return to this country. His dog had to go into quarantine for six months. That is a long time. If someone is in the armed forces, he might be moved somewhere else fairly shortly after returning to this country. Quarantine law is something that we should consider.
  A former Member, David Waddington, became governor of Bermuda. He took his dog with him. In due course he returned to this country and the dog went into quarantine. Unfortunately it died when in quarantine.
  The question that must be asked is whether there is room for sensible change. I know that a committee of experts is currently examining these matters. It is to be hoped that shortly it will make some recommendations. We would like early recommendations to come forward because there are many people who would delay holidays while waiting for an announcement while others would not take holidays: because they do not want to be separated from their pets, going abroad is completely alien to them.
  There are variable kennel standards within the United Kingdom. However, people do not want to be separated from their pets for six months, even if their pets are in the best kennels.
  None of us wants to see rabies introduced into this country, or even the threat of that happening. That applies to any other diseases for that matter. However, we must look at the facts. If there is a sensible alternative, which I believe there now is, particularly with the introduction of new technology and such things as passports for pets, we could take a sensible step and ensure that people could go abroad with their pets without being separated from them for six months.
  In 1995, the Select Committee on Agriculture recommended changes for cats and dogs and passports for pets. If we carry on with the current quarantine laws, some people will take their pets abroad illegally and smuggle them back into this country, which will be a problem. Between 1988 and 1995, 769 animals were detected and officially reported as being smuggled back into this country, so one can only imagine how many more pets were brought back in—they are a real threat.
  We need a properly regulated system under which we know that pets have been properly inoculated and have in their necks microchips which can be properly scanned.
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  That would ensure that pets are clean going out and clean coming back in. Now that new technology is available, we can do that. Some people will be deterred from the introduction of passports for pets by the expense, but putting pets in quarantine is extremely expensive. The cost is reckoned to be between £800 for cats and £1,500 for dogs, but that is not the only issue. People are concerned about the emotional separation of the pet from the owner.
  National Opinion Polls conducted a poll on the subject in 1996, and 86 per cent. of the sample said that they would prefer sensible change, if available. A sensible alternative is available. Will the Leader of the House take on board the fact that some people—for example, the blind, who have guide dogs—have no choice? They are unable to go abroad because the quarantine laws state that they would have to be separated from their guide dogs when they returned.
  If we cannot have an early announcement about quarantine laws generally, may we have one for those who rely on their dogs, such as the blind, so that they might at least have the opportunity to go abroad? Passports for pets are backed by the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, and 12 million pet owners are waiting to hear what the Leader of the House has to say about them.
  11.11 am
  Mr. David Kidney: I have abiding memories of a speech of some urgency made recently by my hon. Friend the Member for North-East Derbyshire (Mr. Barnes), who spoke strongly about an escape of acid gas in his constituency. I echo the pleasure expressed by Madam Speaker at my hon. Friend's reappearance in the Chamber last Friday, following a recent stroke. I send him my best wishes for a full and speedy recovery.
  This issue has been pursued for some years by a constituent, Mr. G. Badley, of Stafford, who has pressed successive Home Secretaries and even petitioned the Queen on a subject about which he feels strongly. I support my constituent, a retired prison officer, on the issue of introducing a long service medal for prison officers. There were calls for such a medal in the previous Parliament and, for completeness, I should say that hon. Members also spoke of its covering good conduct and bravery. Although those are commendable criteria for recognition, I shall confine my remarks to a long service award.
  There has been a prison in my constituency for hundreds of years. Stafford prison is currently a category C training prison with a prisoner population of more than 600. I last visited it in March and, although some facilities are clearly not up to modern standards because of the prison's age, the regime is excellent, with reasonable but firm control by prison officers. A good job is done in demanding circumstances. Budgetary matters were raised with me by the management, and I took them up with the Home Office. I also canvassed serving prison officers about a long service medal, and there was overwhelming support for its introduction.
  The Imperial Service medal, which was introduced in 1903 for junior grades of civil servants in this country and abroad, is available to prison officers. It is a silver medal with the sovereign's crowned head on the obverse and the inscription "For Faithful Service" on the reverse. I asked

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  prison officers for their comments about it. One said, "Some staff are recommended for it after retirement and it appears to be awarded in an haphazard way." Another said, "Numerous staff are recommended for the award, but only a few receive it". A third member of staff wrote that
  "as it is only awarded after completion of service, the pride of wearing it on our uniform is not there."
  That is an important point to bear in mind in respect of the call for an award given during service.
  Other regular and volunteer services have long service awards. Perhaps the best example is the police service, whose current long service award was instituted in June 1951. The basic qualification is 22 years' service. I was reminded that the police have a long service award during the dispute between the Home Secretary and the Prison Officers Association about recognising the right to industrial action. Part of the Home Secretary's argument was that prison officers are office holders, not employees, and should not have such a right, just as the police are office holders and have no such right. Could not prison officers be like police officers and have a long service award?
  Curiously, my research about medals led me to the Colonial Prison Service long service medal, which still exists. It was instituted in October 1955 for 18 or more years of service in colonial prisons. It is odd that there should be such an obscure and backward-looking award, but not one that is modern and relevant.
  For several months, I have been asking the Prison Service and the Home Office to support my constituent's call for such an award. In January 1998, Mr. Richard Tilt, the Director General of the Prison Service, told me in a letter that the question has been under consideration for a number of years. It was kind of him to say that that consideration had been prompted from several sources, including Mr. Badley. Mr. Tilt confirmed that the Imperial Service medal was awarded for more than 25 years' service and only on retirement. Officers can of course be nominated for the OBE and the MBE.
  I have continued to press for a new long service award. In April, the then Minister of State, Home Office, my hon. Friend the Member for Gateshead, East and Washington, West (Ms Quin), wrote to me that, although the Home Office was willing for such an award to be created, the decision was in the hands of the ceremonial branch of the Cabinet Office. I am told that discussions have been going on for some time, but, at that stage, there were still outstanding concerns.
  I wrote again. The latest letter from my hon. Friend, which arrived in June, said that the Home Office was still willing to create a Queen's prison service medal to recognise long service, but was still waiting for news from the Cabinet Office. Interestingly, the letter also said that the future of the Imperial Service medal was under consideration, so the time is clearly right to consider introducing a new medal.
  I hope that this airing of the issues will speed a decision to institute a new long service medal for serving prison officers. To prepare for the debate, I read the Prison Service annual report for 1996–97, which was the most recent that I could find. If I have totalled up the columns correctly, assaults on staff in that year totalled 2,531, so
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  it is fair to say that they bravely carry out a tough job and fulfil part of the necessary task of maintaining public order. Prison officers deserve the recognition for which I am calling.
  11.19 am
  Mr. Andrew Stunell: I add my congratulations to the new Leader of the House on her appointment, and wish her well in the work that she will be doing to serve the House. Our congratulations are tinged with a little regret, because the precise timing of her appointment may lead to some delay in the much-needed work of the Modernisation Committee. It was something of an irony that 18 years of Conservative rule led to a thorough overhaul of every public body and institution in the land, except Parliament. I am sure that the new Leader of the House, when she reflects on her former role at the Department of Trade and Industry, will remember that she has not merely accepted, but often welcomed, the moves that the previous Government made, to improve the responsiveness, effectiveness and accountability of public bodies. I hope that, as the new Chairman of the Modernisation Committee, she will want to press ahead with reform of the House.
  I counsel the right hon. Lady not to listen to the right hon. Member for Penrith and The Border (Mr. Maclean) when he asks her to slow down the pace of reform. Were he present, I would remind him that he was an active supporter of a Government who believed that reform of public institutions should be undertaken vigorously, regardless of the special pleading of those who held office in such bodies.
  My regret about the delay is not because the new Leader of the House has shown any unwillingness to continue with reform, but because on Monday of this week the Committee was due to meet Madam Speaker and we were unable to do so because of the timing of the right hon. Lady's appointment. I well understand the reasons for that, but the projected report of the Committee will not now be available before the recess. In all probability, it will not be feasible to debate the report in the spillover session in October. I fear, therefore, that none of the proposals will be implemented in time for the new Session starting in November. We hope that the right hon. Lady will pick up the baton and run with it as vigorously as possible, and that she will help us to make up for the unavoidable lost time.
  The Modernisation Committee has been privileged to receive a great deal of material, including many letters from Members, encouraging us to go further and faster. We have also received the timetable for the Parliament in Canada. I can tell hon. Members, if they are interested, when the Canadian Parliament will rise for the Christmas recess in 2003, but I cannot tell them whether we shall be sitting in the first week of November 1998. That contrast between the capacity and ability of legislatures in other parts of the world to come to terms with the modern age; our reluctance and inability to do so are at the heart of my argument.
  If the Leader of the House wants to encourage us to adjourn for the summer recess, I hope that she will assure us that her commitment to pressing ahead with her predecessor's urge to reform and modernise the House and bring it into the 20th if not the 21st century is undiminished.

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  I remind the right hon. Lady that a distinguished former Member, Mr. Belisha, gave the country his beacons, and that another distinguished former Member, Kenneth Baker, now in the other place—[Interruption.] Perhaps there is some dispute about the qualifying adjective that I used. He has given every school staff room of the country Baker days. The new Leader of the House has the opportunity to give us Mrs. Beckett's calendar, and I hope that she will do so.
  11.23 am
  Caroline Flint: May I join my colleagues in congratulating my right hon. Friend on her appointment as Leader of the House? I am sure that, as the former President of the Board of Trade, she will bring experience in dealing with employers, who often do not want to consider change. When she addresses the issue of modernisation, and compares it with her task at the Board of Trade, she will realise that people in the House are a much harder bunch to crack than some of our major employers.
  I want to continue on the same theme as the hon. Member for Hazel Grove (Mr. Stunell), and specifically to deal with the issue of child care and family-friendly policies in the House, not just for the 659 MPs but for the many thousands of employees who work here every day for MPs and for the House. In the past 15 months, as a new Member of Parliament, I have tried not to rush in and suggest ways in which the House could improve and modernise. I have got involved in my work in the Chamber and in the Select Committee on which I am proud to serve, and I have thought about how my work has been affected and have listened to other hon. Members who are more experienced than I am. I have come to the conclusion that there is room for change.
  More than 300 of my constituents have visited the House in the past year, and, whenever possible, I have guided them round. In preparation for that, I have learnt about the building and its history. I have been struck by how much this place has changed. It has accommodated parliamentary reform: the people who are elected to the House have changed, and the enfranchisement of the population has brought about changes. The building has been adapted and modernised to accommodate the changes. Change has unfortunately sometimes been necessary as a result of fires or bombs. I hope that we do not have to resort to such drastic measures before the Modernisation Committee recognises that we can develop and change the building while maintaining the traditions that my constituents enjoy and like to see when they visit the House.
  My constituents enjoy learning about the history of the struggles for democracy in the United Kingdom and about the traditions of the House, as do I, being a history graduate. However, they are bewildered by our legislative procedures and by the working lives of MPs and those who work with them. The Modernisation Committee could take the lead on this issue, and could make ground-breaking progress towards making the House fit for the 21st century while respecting its traditions. It must be a modern place of work.
  We need fully to consider how this place can become a family-friendly environment. We must remind ourselves what the Government are asking employers outside the House. In their Green Paper, "Meeting the Childcare Challenge", they said:
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  "Employers have a vital role to play in delivering the strategy. We want to encourage and enable more employers to support childcare and adopt family friendly employment practices to help their employees to balance work and family life."
  If we face that challenge in the House and improve the opportunities for staff to combine family life and work, we will send out a good message to employers throughout the country. If we can find solutions in this place, they can certainly be found in other places of employment.
  I welcomed the Administration Committee's decision to conduct a survey of the child care needs of staff and MPs. However, I was disappointed with the outcome of that survey, as were the hon. Members who signed my early-day motion 1556. Rather than being a springboard for further debate on this important issue, it drew a line in the sand and said that we now needed closure.
  The Administration Committee pointed out that only just under 300 people said that they would be keen to use a child-care facility on site. The Committee considered that a poor response, but I think that it was pretty good when one considers that people were responding to a survey in a situation where there are no child care facilities on site. Having established two workplace nurseries, my experience is that demand increases once a facility is established. The number using such facilities would be greater once they were provided and staff could plan their child care better. Many probably already have to look elsewhere for such provision.
  It is interesting to note that of those who replied to the survey, 79 per cent. were in favour of child care and, of those, only 23 per cent. had children aged 12 and under. That is important because it demonstrates that staff, whether or not they have children, recognise that family life is important and that they could support better child care provision to help their colleagues with young families.
  If we started with a blank sheet it would be easy to improve facilities in the House, and outlooks and attitudes. I have high hopes that the Scottish Parliament and the Welsh Assembly will address such issues from the outset. For us, the challenge is greater. We must stretch our imagination to envisage a different way of organising things.
  My hon. Friend the Member for Lancaster and Wyre (Mr. Dawson) has tabled an amendment to my early-day motion. As someone who is concerned about issues relating to children who are looked after, I respect his opinion, but I challenge his statement that
  "the payment of childcare vouchers allows parents to choose high quality childcare closer to home in a more child-centred milieu than the Palace of Westminster."
  In addressing the child care needs of people in this place, rather than presenting them with something which they have to accept, we must offer diversity and variety.
  It is important to remember that child care initiatives have developed in the most unusual places. During the second world war, child care was much in demand when women had to service industries while men were away at war. That challenge was taken up by creating child care in the factories and workplaces, enabling women to work so that we could win the war.
  If we look outside the House, which it is important to do, we find imaginative schemes have been established by employers, sometimes on their own and sometimes in partnership with others, in order to develop imaginative

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  solutions to their employees' child care needs. The European Parliament has already established a nursery. Therefore, we should not be too constricted by the need to provide a child-centred facility. What is important is that what we provide should be of good quality and accessible. As I have said, the building has adapted many times during the centuries and can adapt again.
  The Administration Committee made several points in objecting to considering child care in more detail. One point that it made was that it is unreasonable to expect the taxpayer to subsidise child care in this place. That is a bit rich because the taxpayer subsides many facilities in the House, whether catering, staff or offices. Facilities are subsidised in all sorts of ways to create a good working environment so that staff and Members of Parliament can do their job, and child care should be no exception. Child care provided for employees has been proven to go some way towards retaining skilled staff while helping people to cope with family life and work. That argument by the Administration Committee was a bit below the belt and did not fit in with all the other facilities subsidised by the taxpayer in the House.
  Just down the road in Whitehall, Departments are addressing child care issues and family friendly policies: the Administration Committee and others concerned with the issue have plenty of examples in their search for advice and other options.
  Most disappointing was the fact that the Administration Committee, having conducted a survey, which I welcome and applaud, and having received the report from the organisation which conducted that research, refused to hear from anyone else. My early-day motion asks the Committee to invite others with an interest in the area, perhaps employers who may be able to show by example what can be achieved, to contribute in order further to open up the debate.
  I am chair of the all-party group on child care, which, after the recess, is looking forward to hearing a representative from the Department of the Serjeant at Arms speak on child care in the House. I welcome all hon. Members to that meeting.
  It is vital that child care is one part of a modernising agenda and that we recognise that if we cannot find solutions it is difficult to ask others to do so elsewhere. I invite the Administration Committee to think again about the matter and allow the debate to be opened up once more.
  11.35 am
  Mr. Bob Blizzard: It is said that politicians develop thick skins, but, in health terms, we often do not think too much about skin. We tend to concentrate on the health of our internal organs, eyes and limbs, but not on our skin—until people suffer burns. People with serious burns need skin grafts or skin transplants. Skin can be taken from other parts of a patient's body, but when a person suffers extensive burns, that is not possible. Other people's skin has to be used. Therefore, it is important that Britain has skin-banking facilities. Skin transplants are permitted under the Human Tissue Act 1961, but we do not have a national skin bank and that is one of the deficiencies of our health service.
  We do, however, have one purpose-built skin bank, at Queen Mary's hospital, Roehampton—the Stephen Kirby skin bank. It is the only dedicated establishment in Britain
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  where skin can be retrieved, treated and stored. Its very existence is the result of a tragic but remarkable story that is dear to the hearts of people in my part of the country.
  In May 1994, Stephen Kirby and his family were taking a camping holiday in France when, in the early hours of one morning, their tent caught fire. Stephen helped his wife and daughter out of their tent but, sadly, his five-year-old son died. In rescuing his family, Stephen suffered 90 per cent. burns, and his daughter 25 per cent. burns. Stephen's wife, Kim, was devastated.
  Stephen was taken to the burns unit at Queen Mary's hospital, but his family were told that without skin he would die within three days. At that time, there was no facility to provide a supply of skin, so 12 members of his family and friends donated skin. Skin was removed from their bodies under general anaesthetic, but their recovery was extremely painful. Stephen's eventual death gave them even greater pain.
  Stephen's wife Kim decided that something must be done, so, with the help of a family friend, Nick Brighouse, they persuaded the Eastern Daily Press—the daily paper serving our area—to launch an appeal, with a view to establishing the first skin bank in the United Kingdom. That appeal captured the imagination and the hearts of people in Norfolk and north Suffolk and the target of £100,000 was reached in 14 weeks. Schools throughout the area, including the one at which I was teaching at the time, vigorously supported the appeal, and pupils found all sorts of ways of gathering money.
  Eventually, £250,000 was raised, and the Stephen Kirby skin bank was opened in March 1986 by Kim Kirby and Simon Weston—who, hon. Members will remember, was the officer who suffered appalling burns during the Falklands war. When he performed the ceremony he said that, had a skin bank existed then, he would have been saved 28 operations.
  Today, the skin bank stands as a memorial to the late Stephen Kirby. It is the first purpose-built dedicated skin bank in the country and it stores skin from cadaver donors. No other replacement for skin is as effective as skin itself, which prevents infection and loss of blood, encourages healing, reduces pain and can reduce the length of time spent in hospital. The Stephen Kirby foundation has established a research facility continually to refine and improve methods of storing, processing and using donated skin.
  Each year, numerous people sustain burns, many so extensive that those people have not enough of their own skin to replace the burnt skin. Burns units throughout the country must therefore obtain donated skin, and they can do so only from the Stephen Kirby skin bank—although skin is sometimes brought in from Holland and other countries. The Stephen Kirby skin bank is successful: this year there were 40 donors, and the bank is continuing despite the transfer of the burns and plastic surgery units to Chelsea and Westminster hospital under the current trust reconfiguration. The Stephen Kirby unit will remain on the Roehampton site, and the company Smith and Nephew is to use it as a service base for tissue culture work later in the year.
  Nevertheless, we do not have a proper skin bank system with nationwide cover. Two developments are needed for that to happen. First, we need more skin. I feel strongly—as do the supporters of the skin bank—that skin should feature on donor cards. The position of the Department of

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  Health, as set out in various letters from Ministers in the last and the present Governments, is that it is reluctant to allow that.
  A study conducted in 1995 revealed that people were put off the idea by the belief that taking skin from bodies after death would mutilate them. That is not the case. Nick Brighouse, whom I mentioned earlier, suffered a further tragedy when his wife died. He gave me permission to tell the House that, according to her wish, nearly all the skin was removed from her body for use in the skin bank. Having seen her body after the skin had been removed, he said that no one would have any idea that it had been removed. That is the most compelling piece of evidence that the use of skin for donor purposes does not mutilate a deceased person.
  I ask the Department to repeat its research, but to include a "priming" question making it clear that the process does not mutilate the body. I believe that those who support the idea of organ donation would then be keen for skin to be included on donor cards.
  I understand that the Department plans to improve publicity relating to organ transplants, that a committee has been formed and that a campaign will be launched in the autumn. My friend Mr. Brighouse would welcome the opportunity to be involved in the committee.
  Some people fear that, if the idea of skin transplants is taken up with too much enthusiasm, skin will be sold and donors exploited; but that is prohibited by the Human Organ Transplants Act 1989. Our second problem, however, is that there is no national network or national funding for skin transplants. At present, the Stephen Kirby skin bank supplies eight burns units countrywide, in areas as diverse as Glasgow, Belfast, Dublin and London. As the bank's work and produce becomes increasingly recognised, the number of burns units involved is expected to increase. It seems that the present collection of units may be "rationalised" into larger supraregional units, but at present they are having to be fed, and the whole system relies on one hospital trust. I think that it is too much to expect one trust to support a national system.
  I want a system of national funding, which would realise the full ambition of Stephen Kirby's widow and friends, and that of the people of East Anglia who supported the cause. The Government have an opportunity to make an innovative advance in the health service at very little extra cost—just a tiny drop of the £21 billion. That would be a credit to the party that founded the national health service.
  Mr. Ian Bruce: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I am sorry to interrupt the House's proceedings on important matters, but this morning I have been trying to table questions to the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster. The Table Office is unclear about what title that Minister will use when answering questions after the recess. Will it be "Minister for the Cabinet Office" or "Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster"? I am not sure what the Minister's responsibilities will be.
  The Leader of the House is present. I could not ask her this question outside, and I hope that she has heard my point of order. Surely we should know exactly what we can ask the Minister, whose title may well have changed by the time we return after the recess.
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: That is not a matter for the Chair, but no doubt the Leader of the House has heard what the hon. Gentleman has said.
  11.45 am
  Mr. David Amess: I join others in congratulating the Leader of the House on her appointment, and wish her well for the future.
  This is my fourth Parliament. During my time here, I have found that this place has been devalued. We all have different perspectives. I listen carefully to the cry of "modernisation", but I feel that, in certain respects, modernisation may be the problem rather than the solution.
  I congratulate the hon. Member for Tooting (Mr. Cox) on his splendid speech about Cyprus. He was right to draw our attention to the issues that he mentioned. I also congratulate my right hon. Friend the Member for Penrith and The Border (Mr. Maclean). I agreed strongly with what he said about grammar schools. One hon. Member—not a Conservative, sadly—benefited from a grammar school education in my constituency. I was concerned to learn of the arrangements for ballots; we have four splendid grammar schools in Southend, and I hope very much that we will keep them.
  I also agreed with what my right hon. Friend the Member for Penrith and The Border said about roads. One reason why I was not present at 9.35 am is the disgraceful length of time that it has taken for the A12 to be improved between the Leytonstone and Gants Hill roundabouts. The fiasco that originally involved Swampy, or whatever he is called, has now been going on for more than five years, and there has been so much delay that the sign announcing the opening of the new road has been taken away.
  I agreed with what my hon. Friend the Member for Ribble Valley (Mr. Evans) said about quarantine measures, and I hope that the Leader of the House will take it on board.
  I want to make four points. The first concerns the fire service. All hon. Members praise the fire service, but it seems to have gone unnoticed that there is already a strike in Essex, and there is shortly to be another in Surrey. I am rather concerned about that. No doubt the Leader of the House will say that it is not the Government's business to become involved, but there is growing anxiety about the disruption.
  In 1997, the average amount spent on the fire service in England was £25.77 per head. In Essex, we delivered a service on £23.92 per head. In 1997, the 38 Essex control-room staff handled about 40,000 calls, a 50 per cent. increase since 1988. The speech of the hon. Member for Waveney (Mr. Blizzard) showed how much we owe the fire service. I am not taking sides in the dispute, but I represent my constituents, and we want an end to it.
  The chief fire officer has made five pledges. He has said that there will be no compulsory redundancies; that the number of pumping appliances will not be reduced; that no fire stations will be closed during the year—certainly I will not allow Leigh fire station to close—that minimum standards of fire cover will be unaffected; and that public and firefighter safety will not be adversely affected. The Fire Brigades Union disputes all five points; it is very upset. I do not wish to be political, but there is some confusion in the House. Essex county council is not Conservative controlled: nothing can be done without the agreement of the Labour and Liberal parties. The fire authority has a Labour chairman and a Liberal deputy chairman. The Fire Brigades Union is rather upset by the

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  fact that no formal meeting has taken place. I hope that the Leader of the House will consider asking Ministers to assist.
  Secondly, I should like to raise a matter that concerns the Minister with responsibility for school standards. We all salute the efforts of teachers and head teachers, but I am becoming increasingly concerned about some practices. Some teachers and head teachers take early retirement on grounds of stress. That is understood, but it is a little surprising that some of them return rather quickly to the classroom. Another extraordinary practice relates to school inspectors. A minority of teachers and head teachers whose schools have been critically inspected seem to retire early and become inspectors. I took the matter to the Secretary of State for Education and Employment who passed it to the chief inspector. He does not necessarily disagree with me, but says that his legal advice is to the effect that a poor teacher or a poor head teacher will not necessarily be a poor inspector.
  All hon. Members know about the nightmare that teachers go through when a school is inspected. It can be a traumatic experience and it will not fill teachers with confidence when they realise that some inspectors may have been poor teachers or head teachers. The legal advice is barmy, and perhaps the Leader of the House will have a quiet word with her right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Education and Employment and ask him to check it. School inspection is a serious matter. Teaching is a vocation, and a school inspector's job should not be a soft option. The House should take the matter more seriously.
  My third point relates to pre-school playgroups. Each year hon. Members attend a splendid tea party in the Members' Dining Room. We like to have our photographs taken as we make fools of ourselves drawing matchstick figures. We say that pre-school teachers are marvellous, but that seems to be as far as we go in supporting them. All my children have benefited from pre-school playgroups, but the modern trend towards nursery education pre-empts the role of the pre-school playgroup. The groups are right to be concerned about the way in which they are being undermined. Over the past 37 years, 20 million children have benefited from pre-school playgroups. They do a splendid job. Southend has 87 groups serving 3,500 people; the children are aged two, three and four.
  In some respects, the growth of nursery education is destroying the value of pre-school playgroups. The Government made a rather clever announcement at our most recent tea party, but I am not sure that all practitioners were convinced. Do the Government value the work of such groups? There is no doubt that all hon. Members witness the consequences of inadequate parenting, and pre-school playgroups have a valuable role in supporting parents. They introduce young children to activities that will later help them to make a success of their schooling.
  My final point for the Leader of the House, who is the former Secretary of State for Trade and Industry, concerns consumer protection. There are many senior citizens in my constituency, which, in that context, ranks 33rd in Britain. Some people whom I would describe as odd job men are exploiting the slight confusion of some senior citizens who want home improvements. Those elderly
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  people are being hoodwinked. I salute an organisation in my constituency that is addressing the problem. Two outstanding gentlemen, one of whom has had nine years experience in the Prison Service, have set up an organisation called the Official Consumer Protection Company to supply a service to homes and businesses and for vehicles. The company is checking on some of those odd job people.
  A classic example of one of the company's success stories is that of a local man who was tricked into paying £7,000 in advance for a conservatory. The company to which the money was paid vanished, leaving the job uncompleted. The man is 83 years of age, has suffered a severe stroke and has other health problems. That splendid protection company successfully negotiated with one of its member companies to finish the job free of charge. The Government should encourage such organisations.
  11.55 am
  Mr. John McDonnell: I shall try to deliver my speech in five minutes. I congratulate the Leader of the House on her appointment. I was one of those who supported her in her bid to become deputy leader of the party—never mind Leader of the House.
  I again draw the House's attention to the case of Diarmuid O'Neill. Some hon. Members will recall that, on the morning of 23 September 1996, radio and television news bulletins reported that an IRA suspect had been shot dead in west London. As the news developed, there were reports that the man had been shot in a gun battle and that there had been a bomb factory in the house. The man was Diarmuid O'Neill. It later transpired that Diarmuid was not armed; that no weapons were found on the premises; that the shots had come only from police weapons; and that there had been no explosives on the premises.
  The case raises many serious questions about the role of, and reasons for, police media briefings. It also transpired that Mr. O'Neill had been shot six times; that CS gas canisters had been fired at his back; that, with blood pouring from him, he was dragged down the house steps; and that he was denied medical treatment for 25 minutes. Curiously, a similar operation had been carried out at another house that morning, the O'Neill family house, where his brother Shane was arrested, although he was later freed. There were no shots fired at that house and no one was injured. The matter was referred to the Police Complaints Authority and is still with it.
  When the issue was raised in the House, my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary reported that the progress of the inquiry had been delayed by court proceedings which were about to take place. Those proceedings were held in October, and at them taped evidence confirmed that Diarmuid O'Neill and the people who were with him were seeking to surrender while they were being shot. Six bullets were pumped into Diarmuid O'Neill, although the taped evidence made it clear that his hands were up and that he had informed the police officer that he had no weapons.
  The tape-recorded evidence draws out questions that need to be considered by the Police Complaints Authority. For example, why were six bullets pumped into Mr. O'Neill? Why was the action allowed to continue after the officer in charge had left the premises? Why was

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  there no deputy in command of the operation? Why was it decided to shoot Diarmuid O'Neill, and who was responsible for the decision? Why did the police give a false briefing when it was quite clear that morning, soon after the house was examined, that there were no arms or weapons on the premises? Why was Mr. O'Neill carried into the street for medical treatment when paramedics were on hand outside and could have treated him where he lay? Why was medical treatment delayed for so long? Why was it decided to effect the arrests in the manner that has been described, and who was responsible for that decision? Why was CS gas used in breach of the operational plan to use it only to cover withdrawal? In fact, it was used almost as an offensive weapon. Another key question is this: why did a marksman of—as we now gather from the trial—seven years' experience shoot Diarmuid O'Neill six times?
  There are questions about the Police Complaints Authority inquiry itself. Why is it that the Metropolitan police itself constitutes the inquiry team? Why is it examining its own actions? That is unusual for a PCA inquiry. In addition, why has there been such a huge delay? PCA inquiries have a service standard: they should report 120 days after an issue is first referred to them. It is now nearly two years since the issue was first referred to the inquiry on 24 September 1996. Why was the officer originally carrying out the PCA inquiry selected when he was about to retire, the discovery being made that he would have to be replaced?
  We have now discovered that the PCA team has not so far interviewed the officers who were also in the house at the time of the arrest. This inquiry, the inquiry in relation to my constituent Mr. Ricky Reel and the Lawrence inquiry demonstrate the need for the PCA system to be reviewed. We should go towards a new system of separate professional inquiry teams that produce public inquiries and public reports. I hope that the Leader of the House will be able to take that matter back to the Home Secretary.
  12 noon
  Sir Patrick Cormack: I welcome the right hon. Lady to her new position as the Leader of the House and, in doing so, echo many hon. Members in all parts of the House. She is not entirely unacquainted with that responsibility, although the previous time, she was the shadow Leader of the House. During the time that she held that office, she showed that she had a high regard and affection for this place and we look forward to enlightened leadership under her.
  It would also be remiss of me not to pay a brief tribute to the right hon. Lady's predecessor, who is now the Government Chief Whip, a rather interesting transition. It is a bit like going from being lord of the manor to gamekeeper, but I am sure that she will bring great distinction to her new role; she certainly brought distinction to her previous one. I know that I speak for hon. Members in all parts of the House in paying tribute to her for the way in which she sought to discharge what is, by any standard, a very difficult job.
  I have referred to it before as a schizophrenic job because the Leader of the House is the Leader of the House of Commons and, in that sense, has a responsibility second only to the Speaker, but, at the same time, the Leader of the House is also a pivotal member of Her
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  Majesty's Government with responsibility to get legislation through. To balance the two duties is not easy. Although we were, from time to time, critical of the previous Leader of the House, I think that, without exception, we felt that she discharged her duties with good faith and real conscientious endeavour.
  I hope that the summer Adjournment debate, which is a feature of our proceedings, will never be modernised out of existence because it gives hon. Members in all parts of the House an opportunity to raise matters of particular concern to them. Today, we have ranged from a pet called Penny to Cyprus, an issue of great global importance. Indeed, the speech of my right hon. Friend the Member for Penrith and The Border (Mr. Maclean) was an omnibus speech in itself. He has just about snatched the Amess award for omnibus speeches. He certainly supplied enough headlines for his local paper to last him through the recess.
  Mr. Maclean: That was the object of the exercise.
  Sir Patrick Cormack: My right hon. Friend certainly discharged it very faithfully.
  I refer, alas not in great detail, to each of the speeches that we have heard. The hon. Member for Clydesdale (Mr. Hood) talked about dignity at work and the problems of bullying. He raised many a wry smile when he talked about career assassination in the context of some of this week's developments, but he made a serious point point I am sure that the Leader of the House will wish to address, if not in detail today, at least in correspondence later. Whether she will wish to deal, especially bearing in mind what has happened to her predecessor, with his call for the abolition of whipping is another matter entirely, but, in the spirit of bonhomie at this time of the year, if the Government do decide to abolish whipping, we shall carefully consider whether we can do the same.
  We then had a very good speech from my hon. Friend the Member for West Derbyshire (Mr. McLoughlin), the shadow Deputy Chief Whip. He raised what has happened to the man charged with thinking the unthinkable. All I will say is that we look forward to many distinguished contributions from the Back Benches from the right hon. Member for Birkenhead (Mr. Field); there is no more distinguished Member of the House.
  My hon. Friend's main argument was a powerful plea for the retention of magistrates courts in those delightful Derbyshire towns of Ashbourne, Bakewell and Matlock. As one who also comes from a largely rural area where we have magistrates courts, I say that this is a serious matter. I hope that the Leader of the House will draw the attention of the Lord Chancellor to my hon. Friend's speech. I hope that the Lord Chancellor will, in turn, take those points carefully into account and, as he does so, bear in mind the origin of the magistracy and how important it is that it should have a local base.
  The hon. Member for Leigh (Mr. Cunliffe) is a great expert on horse racing. He made a powerful plea that Ladbrokes and Coral should not be allowed to merge. He talked about the need for total deregulation, but, throughout his speech, he was casting himself in the role of the punter's friend. I am sure that the punter could have no better friend, other than, perhaps, the Foreign Secretary.
  The hon. Member for Sutton and Cheam (Mr. Burstow) was eloquent on the subject of the chihuahua called Penny and talked about pets and old people. All I will say is that

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  he made an important point and I hope that it will always be regarded with sensitivity, but there are issues, such as hygiene, which those who have charge of local authority dwellings and other such places must always take carefully into account.
  The hon. Member for Tooting (Mr. Cox)—I am glad to see him here—who has worked indefatigably for the Cypriot cause, made a speech that was no surprise to any of us, but was none the less powerful. The underlying tensions in Cyprus are crucial to NATO as a whole. The thought of having two NATO countries at war with each other should fill us all with grave foreboding. It is crucial that efforts to achieve an honourable settlement in Cyprus, as he called it, should be pursued. We must all hope that that honourable settlement, which has so long evaded those who have pursued it, will be reached sooner rather than later.
  My right hon. Friend the Member for Penrith and The Border made so many pleas that I cannot refer to them all, but I was interested in his talk about the politburo in Cumbria. I totally support his general lines on grammar schools and on the Territorial Army. I hope that the Fourth Battalion King's Own Border Regiment is indeed reprieved and that it will not be reduced to the sort of numbers where it can supply merely the three members that he wanted for the rural development board.
  My right hon. Friend talked of the many needs of rural areas and made a powerful point about the loss of farm incomes—46 per cent. down—and the particular plight of hill farmers. They cannot have a more doughty champion than him.
  The hon. Member for Chorley (Mr. Hoyle), a veritable chip off the old block of his noble father, talked about the car industry and raised the point about the incredible discrepancy in price. His plea should certainly elicit a good response from the right hon. Lady. We are told that the Labour party was elected by Mondeo man and as the Mondeo is apparently 58 per cent. more expensive here than in any other country, the right hon. Lady will wish to respond positively, if only to maintain the garnering of votes.
  My hon. Friend the Member for Ribble Valley (Mr. Evans) talked about the need for passports for pets and quarantine laws. None of us should lose sight of the crucial importance of making sure that the United Kingdom is rabies-free. However, few hon. Members are not persuaded that there is an extremely strong case for careful reconsideration and I hope that we shall soon have a definitive announcement from the Government.
  My neighbour, the hon. Member for Stafford (Mr. Kidney) talked about the need for a long service medal for prison officers. As one who also has an important prison in his constituency, I echo his request. For some time, I have paid a quarterly visit to Featherstone. Indeed, I have been visiting that prison since before it had any inmates and I am always impressed by the dedication of the staff. There is no more difficult job than being a prison officer, and the plea that prison officers should have a long service medal similar to that for the police should not fall on deaf ears. I trust that we shall have a sympathetic response from the right hon. Lady and that she will add her considerable powers of advocacy to the plea made by the hon. Gentleman.
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  The hon. Member for Hazel Grove (Mr. Stunell) would doubtless support that plea as he is a distinguished holder of the OBE. Today, he talked about modernisation. I understand his impatience, but I hope that he will not hassle the right hon. Lady and that she will have a chance to look at the papers. In particular, I hope that she will have the chance to take most carefully into account the considered comments of Madam Speaker on the recent proposals by the Modernisation Committee.
  The comments of the hon. Member for Don Valley (Caroline Flint)—who could not be bewitched by her appearance or her arguments?—should be taken carefully into account, but she was a little dismissive of the thoroughness with which the Administration Committee has looked at the issue that she raised. Although she is right to campaign for something in which she believes so strongly, she should realise that hon. Members have looked at the matter sympathetically, as was demonstrated by the report of the Administration Committee.
  The speech of the hon. Member for Waveney (Mr. Blizzard) made classic use of the debate in an eloquent and moving plea for the establishment of proper skin banks. Nobody listening to his speech could fail to have been deeply touched by the account of the tragedy that afflicted the family of Stephen Kirby. Although I had never considered the donor card point that he made, I hope that the Secretary of State for Health will consider it carefully.
  My hon. Friend the Member for Southend, West (Mr. Amess) was not quite up to his mammoth performance before Christmas when his speech ranged from world peace to the palace of varieties at Southend, but still contrived to raise four or five subjects and to make passing reference to two others. I was interested in what he said about standards in schools and the qualifications needed for school inspectors. His points about pre-school playgroups and consumer protection are also important.
  The hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington (Mr. McDonnell) raised a disturbing case. I could not begin to comment as I am not familiar with it. Although it would be uncharitable to hope that the right hon. Lady could give a definitive response, it is perhaps a subject that would lend itself to a specific half-hour Adjournment debate when we return in the autumn, and I would advise the hon. Gentleman to apply for one. Obviously, it is important that a Home Office Minister should have a proper opportunity to place on record the official response to the disturbing questions that he raised.
  We are approaching the end of a fairly long, gruelling time—not the end of the Session because we have a spillover period in the autumn—and it is good that, once again, we have had the opportunity of this debate. As I said at the outset, I very much hope that it is a tradition that will be maintained under the right hon. Lady's leadership of the House.
  Finally, I hope that right hon. and hon. Members on both sides of the House will take a little time off from the constituency duties that inevitably occupy us for most of the recess to have a good holiday and I wish you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, and all in the House a very pleasant summer.
  12.14 pm
  The President of the Council and Leader of the House of Commons (Mrs. Margaret Beckett): I thank right hon. and hon. Members for the kindness with which

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  they have welcomed me back to the Dispatch Box in a slightly different capacity. As the hon. Member for South Staffordshire (Sir P. Cormack) said, it is one in which I have had experience earlier in my career, albeit in opposition. As a result, I am aware of the value of debates such as this one to right hon. and hon. Members on both sides of the House and I am very conscious of the importance of preserving it, whatever steps may be taken to modernise the House, as has been the pattern of our development down the years.
  Like the hon. Member for South Staffordshire, I shall endeavour to touch on the contributions of the 14 right hon. and hon. Members who have spoken, raising a rich variety of subjects. However, if I inadvertently omit something or do not have the time to cover all the points, I shall write to the hon. Members concerned.
  My hon. Friend the Member for Clydesdale (Mr. Hood) raised the important issue of dignity at work and the difficulties that can be involved. He and all hon. Members will know that the Government are determined to encourage the new culture of co-operation and understanding in the workplace that has been developed voluntarily over recent years as many employers realise that it is the way to bring about innovation and to run successful modern companies. I certainly share my hon. Friend's view that we need to spread that culture of co-operation and partnership much more widely. I fear that I would not go so far as to agree with him that abolishing the Whips would contribute to that. Indeed, I do not think that I would dare do that. Perhaps I could gently remind my hon. Friend and the House that, despite what is at times a difficult role, the Whips are very much part of the management of the House and if we were to abolish the present system, I have absolutely no doubt that we should have to find a different way of managing the affairs of so many right hon. and hon. Members with many different concerns, as the debate has shown.
  The hon. Member for West Derbyshire (Mr. McLoughlin) also said a little about the Modernisation Committee, but mostly spoke about the concerns that he and other Derbyshire Members including my hon. Friend the Member for South Derbyshire (Mr. Todd), have raised before, about the proposed closure of magistrates courts there. I am sure that my right hon. Friend the Lord Chancellor will have taken on board the concerns that have been expressed widely in the locality and in the House. I certainly undertake to draw them to his attention. In particular, I know that he will take on board the observations that the hon. Gentleman made about the concerns of those in rural areas as to whether or not they have what they see as secure access to justice in the locality.
  My hon. Friend the Member for Leigh (Mr. Cunliffe) made a most distinguished speech, drawing on his long experience and involvement with the horse-racing industry. He said that his interest was not a pecuniary one. I shall not stray into the comments by my hon. Friends as to whether or not that was because he was not as successful as he might be in the hands of the tipsters, although I am confident that, if he takes the advice of my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary, he will not go far wrong. Certainly, he will know only too well that, even now, I am unable to comment on issues of merger policy. The House will understand his strong defence of the punter in horse racing and of the work and value of that
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  industry, and, indeed, share his view that it is very important that the industry continues to thrive and prosper.
  The hon. Member for Sutton and Cheam (Mr. Burstow) gave us a flavour of the rich variety of a Member of Parliament's postbag, case load and concerns. I understand, as I am sure does the whole House, the concern of people, particularly of elderly people, who have pets and who value their relationship with them. I shall draw his concerns and his constituent's anxieties to the attention of my right hon. Friend the Deputy Prime Minister.
  The hon. Gentleman raised a separate issue about the potential impact of different methodology on standard spending assessments. I hope that he is aware that such issues are under review; no decisions have been made. It might have been possible from the flavour of his comments to assume that decisions had already been made and announced. That is of course not so. All such issues are under consideration. His comments and the concerns of the different local authorities that he quoted are certainly being taken into account and will be taken into account before any announcements are made.
  I have a long-standing relationship with my hon. Friend the Member for Tooting (Mr. Cox), which goes back, if I recall correctly, to our previous occupancy of the Whips' Office when things were a little different, since the Government then had no majority to speak of. It was a close, comradely and successful relationship—because it had to be. I know that he has long taken an interest in Cyprus and has long been a strong and powerful advocate of the people of that divided island. He is entirely right to say that it is very important to pursue an honourable settlement. The Government strongly agree with that. We shall do everything that we can in a variety of ways to assist and promote such a settlement.
  The right hon. Member for Penrith and The Border (Mr. Maclean) raised a rich variety of issues—I counted seven. I shall touch only very lightly on some of them. He mentioned, for example, balloting on schools—as did other hon. Members—and how those issues are decided. A casual listener might not have understood that consultation is taking place on how such ballots should be carried out. One might also not have entirely understood from his remarks that those who participate in such ballots are not a random selection of people who are entirely unconcerned with the fate of schools, but local parents. I understand his concerns; no doubt they will be taken on board by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Education and Employment. The issue is under continuing discussion and we hope and believe that we can get a satisfactory answer.
  The right hon. Member for Penrith and The Border also referred to the closure of the Cumbrian gap and the fact that announcements about the roads programme may be made a little later this week. The House will have to debate the issue that he raised concerning the Territorial Army in due course, as it will the wider issue of rural affairs. He will not expect me to comment on the restructuring of Cumbria county council, which is of course a matter for the council. I was certainly glad to hear, as I am sure that the House and country will be, that he believes that a satisfactory outcome to legislation on puppy farming may be within everyone's grasp. I know that there was considerable concern at the loss of the previous legislation.

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  I was reading this morning comments about political dynasties, to which my hon. Friend the Member for Chorley (Mr. Hoyle) referred. I am not sure how he came to be omitted from those comments. He is certainly following in a fine tradition not only as an hon. Member but in pursuing the very interests so frequently pursued by his distinguished father. He drew starkly to our attention the important issues raised, particularly in "Panorama". Material raised in that programme has been passed to the Director General of Fair Trading. My hon. Friend may know that, following an approach by the Government, the European Commission is also investigating price disparities in different European Union markets. He also spoke of the need to save energy and to use less-polluting materials. He will be aware that the Government have done what we can to provide fiscal incentives on the matter, including funding for the Energy Saving Trust's powershift programme, which we shall continue to pursue.
  The hon. Member for Ribble Valley (Mr. Evans), who was courteous enough to let me know that he had a meeting and would not be able to remain in the Chamber for the winding-up speech, raised the very important issue of quarantine laws, which concern many. I must admit that I flinched slightly when he warned me in stentorian tones that 12 million pet owners would be hanging on my every word. I fear that I cannot at this moment give him the answer that he sought, but I assure him that I shall ensure that his concerns are drawn to the attention of the proper authorities.
  My hon. Friend the Member for Stafford (Mr. Kidney) raised the important and interesting issue of the lack of a long service medal for prison officers. Like the hon. Member for South Staffordshire, I believe that those people provide a little-sung and much-needed public service and do not always receive the support and sympathy that they deserve. Let me assure my hon. Friend that there is undoubtedly a growing consensus on the merits of a proposal of the kind that he raised. Consultation is under way. I shall ensure that his concerns are drawn to the attention of my Government colleagues.
  The hon. Member for Hazel Grove (Mr. Stunell) expressed support for modernisation of the House and hope that the slight change that occurs whenever there is a reshuffle will not significantly delay the Modernisation Committee's work. I am grateful to the hon. Member for South Staffordshire for his comments on the point. Of course, there may be some slight delay—I wish more deeply to familiarise myself with the issues in my new capacity—but it will be only small. I look forward to continuing to work with the hon. Member for Hazel Grove and other colleagues on the Select Committee on Modernisation of the House and hope to continue the good work of my right hon. Friend the Member for Dewsbury (Mrs. Taylor), who previously held my post.
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  My hon. Friend the Member for Don Valley (Caroline Flint) raised several important issues about child care. I understand the strength of her case, which she expressed so firmly and clearly. I shall certainly ensure that her views and concerns are brought to the attention of the Administration Committee. I was interested to hear that the Department of the Serjeant at Arms will be represented at a meeting in the overspill period. I am confident that that will assist in taking forward the debate in the way that she sought.
  My hon. Friend the Member for Waveney (Mr. Blizzard) made a most moving and deeply serious speech on the availability of skin. I think that everyone in the House felt deep sympathy for the family whose appalling tragedy led to the foundation of the skin bank to which he referred. I shall draw his views to the attention of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Health. My hon. Friend made an interesting point on record—so that will get wider publicity—about how the statement on the donor card may deter people from donating skin. Everyone will have heard and understood his important points and will, I am sure, take them seriously and take them on board.
  The hon. Member for Southend, West (Mr. Amess) also raised the issue of grammar schools; I have dealt with that. He raised several other points, including the issue of Essex fire service. I am aware that Her Majesty's inspectorate has suggested that the proposals for reform of the Essex fire service have some sound foundation. The inspectorate is also looking at proposals for Surrey. Although it is of course regrettable that a dispute has arisen over the proposals for Essex, I express the hope that it will be readily resolved. He also made comments about teachers taking early retirement and then returning to work, which I shall pass to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Education and Employment, as I shall his remarks about pre-school playgroups. He asked whether teachers are valued in this House. I recall occasions in the previous 18 years when they suffered blows and knocks. However, I can assure him that this Government value their work, as we do the work undertaken on consumer protection—another important issue that he raised.
  My hon. Friend the Member for Hayes and Harlington (Mr. McDonnell) raised a serious case and asked a number of extremely pertinent and detailed questions, which I know he will wish to have brought to the attention of my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary. I undertake to do so. I have little doubt that, as the hon. Member for South Staffordshire said, it is an issue that will be aired in the House again.
  A point of order was raised regarding questions to my right hon. Friend the Member for Copeland (Dr. Cunningham). His responsibilities will be set out in detail shortly.
  I join the hon. Member for South Staffordshire in his regards to the Parliamentary Secretary to the Treasury, my right hon. Friend the Member for Dewsbury, who previously occupied this post. Her service was distinguished and was warmly welcomed and applauded in the House.

  Railway (Lewes-Uckfield)
  12.30 pm
  Mr. Norman Baker: I am delighted to have the opportunity to raise the important question of the possible reopening of disused rail lines, and the Lewes-Uckfield line in particular. The debate comes at an opportune time, following as it does the publication of the Government's White Paper on transport.
  The last time I secured an Adjournment debate was on the subject of Newhaven port. On that occasion, the Minister, the hon. Member for Hampstead and Highgate (Ms Jackson)—who I am pleased to see has not been shunted anywhere—confidently predicted that I would be pleased by the contents of the White Paper. I am happy to say that she was probably correct. At last, after so many years, the country is moving towards a sensible transport policy. As part of that, the train is at last emerging from the tunnel.
  As an aside, I was particularly pleased to see that the Government have at last put a stop to the sale of so-called redundant rail land. During my last Adjournment debate, I raised that issue on the basis that if I did so often enough, I might get what I wanted. The Minister on that occasion called it a drip, drip approach. Buoyed by the success of that tactic in respect of redundant railway land, I am hoping that perseverance on my part can bring a similar result in respect of the Lewes-Uckfield railway line.
  The line was closed in 1969 after more than 100 years of operation—not by the Beeching cuts, which destroyed so much of our rail network, but by East Sussex county council. The council wanted to put a new road bridge into Lewes and forced the line to close, effectively, to achieve that. That was an act of stupidity and environmental vandalism. Although none of the officers or members involved are still connected with the council, I believe that that body has a moral responsibility to try to make amends and help to secure the reopening of the line. I am pleased to say that it is now doing so.
  The Lewes-Uckfield line can and should be reinstated. That statement is born not of romanticism but of a hard-headed view that it makes economic, social and environmental sense. Almost as soon as it closed, a campaign was begun to secure the reopening of the line. The Wealden line campaign—as it is known—has consistently put the case for the reopening and has helped to keep the issue in the local papers for years. I congratulate those involved on their diligence and commitment in that respect.
  A cursory glance at the map shows how illogical it is that there should be no railway between the two towns. A line straggles down from London to Uckfield, and then there is a seven-mile gap between there and Lewes, the latter a major rail junction with access to Brighton to the west, Newhaven and Seaford to the south and Eastbourne to the east.
  North of Uckfield, on the London line at Eridge, there is an even shorter network gap between there and Tunbridge Wells. I should say that the evaluation for reinstatement which is taking place—and to which I shall refer in more detail later—is considering what is called the central rail corridor in total.
  There are essentially three parts to the central rail corridor. The first section, from Tunbridge Wells to Eridge, is held by a preservation society, and the track
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  bed and tracks are intact. The logistical problem of how to reconnect with the existing services at Tunbridge Wells has been solved by the consultants looking into the feasibility of reopening that stretch of the corridor.
  The second section comprises the existing Eridge to Uckfield railway line, currently operated by Connex South Central. The third section is a seven-mile gap south to Lewes. Here the track bed has been protected from Uckfield southwards, even through the new industrial estate, although much is now in the private ownership of farmers and the like.
  One section near Isfield continues to operate as a preservation railway, now called the Lavender line. Because of the new road bridge into Lewes, a reinstatement on the original alignment would be hugely expensive—perhaps even impossible—but there are two other solutions which could be put in place at much less cost. One is to follow the route of the track bed down to Hamsey just north of Lewes and then to create a new short stretch eastward to join the existing Lewes-London line. The other, more expensive, option is to create a new stretch westwards from the track bed to provide a new station at Ringmer, a fast-growing village in my constituency, and then to join the Lewes-Eastbourne line near Glynde. I happen to think that the first option is the more practicable.
  In the past two or three years, there has been a renewed momentum from the local authority sector in particular to push for the reinstatement of the link. The county council, not long after killing the line, adopted a structure plan policy that is still in place today, protecting the track bed from development so as not to prejudice possible reinstatement. That has been mirrored by the Wealden district and Lewes district local plans.
  In 1996, the county council commissioned a feasibility study into what it calls the East Sussex rail corridor which considered not just the Lewes-Uckfield line but another short stretch from Eridge to Tunbridge Wells. The Minister may recall that I presented her with a copy of the report when she was kind enough to meet me last year. The report, by Mott MacDonald, concluded that it was perfectly feasible to reopen the two closed lines and ended:
  "In summary, it may be concluded that at a reinstatement cost of £20–25 million such a long-term infrastructure facility (which might substitute for more expensive investment in road infrastructure elsewhere) might be considered a relatively cheap option."
  Since then, the county council and other local authorities—with some financial support from Connex South Central—have commissioned further work on a business case. That work is due to be finished shortly and will be discussed with Connex and Railtrack. I would like to present a copy to the Minister as soon as possible, if I may.
  Let there be no doubt that the matter is being treated seriously. The draft report confirms that there are no engineering and operating problems that cannot be overcome. Illustrative timetables have been produced to confirm the operational feasibility of a through line from Lewes to Tunbridge Wells, connecting with the London line at Eridge, and integrating with Connex South East services at Tunbridge Wells, and Connex South Central services at Eridge and at Lewes. These are based on a 30-minute frequency service, with a journey time from Lewes to Tunbridge Wells of around 50 minutes.

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  Financially, the business case has been developed using a local demand model based on travel times and costs for cars and public transport using the corridor. The results from that model have been validated by comparison with independent forecasts produced using Opraf's own regional planning tool, called Planet.
  Provisional assessments suggest that it will be possible for the route to cover its operating costs but not necessarily the capital costs of reinstatement. That, in effect, is the same conclusion as the one reached by Network SouthEast in 1986. It is worth mentioning that, in 1986, the then director of Network SouthEast, Chris Green, ordered a serious review of the case for reopening, and inspected the disused line personally in February 1987. British Rail at the time indicated that it was minded to allocate £1.5 million towards the estimated cost of £6 million, but no other sources of funding were forthcoming at that time.
  There has been interest from the rail operators for a long time, and it is worth drawing to the Minister's attention the fact that even in the Beeching days, British Rail recognised the value of the line. When the road bridge idea was first mooted, British Rail went so far as to secure parliamentary approval in the 1965–66 Session for a new route into Lewes—the same route used between 1858 and 1868—which would have kept the link open.
  In the event, the permission was allowed to lapse. I am sure that the right hon. Member for Wealden (Sir G. Johnson Smith), who is here today—and who represents the Uckfield end of the line—will remember that point, as he was in the House at the time.
  Why do we want the line reinstated? It would make considerable sense from an integrated network point of view as it would link existing rail infrastructure at relatively little cost by means of new short stretches. That would improve the viability and profitability of the lines to which it connected, as journeys previously impossible suddenly became viable propositions. For example, many who drive from Uckfield to Brighton might now take the train, thereby improving the use of the existing Lewes-Brighton line. Two members of my staff live in Uckfield and commute each day by car. They would prefer to use the rail line. There are many in that situation.
  The reinstatement would provide an important alternative line to London from Brighton and Lewes. There is a bottleneck on the current network north of Haywards Heath, so there are no more paths for trains despite the considerable potential for increased passenger numbers to London, and for freight movement to Newhaven.
  Connex South Central tells me that its figures show an increase in passenger numbers of about 12 per cent. over the past year, but the numbers cannot be pushed up further without an alternative route, because of the lack of train paths. Congestion has become so bad that Connex has to join trains at Haywards Heath to maximise use of the paths, leading to delays. Furthermore, if there is a problem on the London line, the nearest alternative routes north are via Hastings or Littlehampton: a very long way in either case.
  The line would provide a real alternative for those who currently pour into Lewes, or indeed Tunbridge Wells, every morning on the A26, as well as being a speedy
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  means of reaching key towns such as Brighton for those without access to the private car. A third of people do not have access to private cars, and their needs must be considered.
  The White Paper commits the Government to working to get people out of cars and on to public transport. Here, in my view, is an example of how that might be achieved. Uckfield, stranded at the end of the present line, is, I understand, the fastest-growing town in East Sussex, and there is no question in my mind but that there is considerable potential custom for a reopened line. I hope that the right hon. Member for Wealden will be able to speak about that.
  The line would provide rail access for communities currently not served by rail, such as Barcombe in my constituency, again helping to take cars off the road. By providing an alternative means of accessing Lewes, where many come to work in the public sector, the line would also help to protect from further damage by the motor car what is accepted as one of the top 50 heritage towns in the country.
  I was pleased that the Minister said that the Government were prepared to invest public money, where necessary, in rail capital projects. In a parliamentary answer to me, she wrote:
  "Such proposals could include new or enhanced local rail services, better facilities for passengers and re-opening of disused lines."—[Official Report, 23 July 1998; Vol. 316, c. 679.]
  For some years, we have had the ludicrous situation of a huge roads programme being funded directly by the taxpayer while railways have been told that they have to fund their own improvements, with a requirement that they show an 8 per cent. rate of return—which is ridiculously high—when no such barrier has been applied to roads.
  The Government have said that they want to consider transport corridors, and it is absolutely right to take that view. Any sane assessment of the A26 transport corridor north of Lewes will conclude that rail investment makes much more sense than spending more money on roads, as is the case in many areas.
  A few years ago, the county council spent £1.5 million—probably borrowed from, or with the permission of, the Government—on straightening a couple of bends on the A26 north of Lewes. A similar amount pledged at that time would have matched the investment that Network SouthEast was prepared to put in, and might have been the catalyst for reopening the line. Too often in the past, the county council and the Government of the day were prepared to improve marginally an existing road facility rather than creating a brand new rail facility for the same money. We must not make such mistakes again.
  Might the Lewes-Uckfield line, and indeed the central rail corridor project as a whole, qualify for capital investment from public funds, under the terms of the parliamentary answer that I quoted? I appreciate that the Minister has not yet seen the business case, and I will be happy to give that to her as soon as it is ready, but I would like an in-principle answer.
  The line has considerable public support. I have with me a petition carrying 3,400 signatures, presented to me by George Yerby of Friends of the Earth, which I will hand to the Minister after this debate, if I may. I know that she is familiar with the project, and I hope that she

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  will agree that the time has come to forge again the link between Lewes and Uckfield. If the Government are looking for a relatively cheap rail project to demonstrate their new transport priorities, which I support, to symbolise what can be achieved by rail investment and to show that the reopening of rail lines has a part to play in the future, I can think of no better example.
  12.43 pm
  Sir Geoffrey Johnson Smith: I am most grateful to the hon. Member for Lewes (Mr. Baker) for raising this important matter, especially in the light of the recent transport White Paper. Unfortunately, this debate comes in the shadow of the franchising office's refusal to extend Connex South Central's franchise, but the company has a strong determination to reapply in 2003 and to go ahead with electrification. There is no doubt that the line needs modernising.
  It was most certainly a great mistake to break the link. I thought that the whole line was to be closed, but my strong protest and that of many others at least retained the line to Uckfield. In the years during which I have been a Member of Parliament, since 1965, there has been an enormous increase in the population, and there will be great development in Uckfield in the near future. No road infrastructure could make it easy for people to travel by road from the south of Sussex to the places where the jobs are. The job increases have been along the coast and up in south Croydon, so there is a crying need for a rail link.
  A truly integrated transport system must include not only modernisation of the line running north but the link between Uckfield and Lewes. I am happy to support everything that the hon. Member for Lewes said.
  12.45 pm
  The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions (Ms Glenda Jackson): From the remarks made by the hon. Member for Lewes (Mr. Baker) and by the right hon. Member for Wealden (Sir G. Johnson Smith), it is clear that there is cross-party unity on the necessity for a properly integrated transport strategy. That is the Government's informing policy for the coming years.
  I congratulate the hon. Member for Lewes not only on securing this debate but on ending the Session as he began it: he has consistently presented his constituents' concerns in a most detailed and informed way. The proposal to reopen the Lewes-Uckfield line is but one such concern. On the previous occasion when we spoke across the Chamber, I said that his policy was drip, drip; the energy, commitment and detail with which he presented his argument today are more of a gush, gush.
  There is strong support for the reinstatement of a rail link between the Hurst Green-Uckfield line and Lewes, not only from the hon. Member for Lewes and the right hon. Member for Wealden, but from those who live and work in the area, as I learned from my visit to Lewes before the general election. The hon. Gentleman has written to me on the subject on several occasions and I have answered his questions in the House.
  Last week, we announced our plans for the future of public transport in our White Paper, "A New Deal for Transport". I thank the hon. Gentleman for the welcome that he gave that document, which reiterates the great emphasis that the Government place on the role that the
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  railway can play in achieving a properly integrated transport policy. We also set out our proposals for the establishment of the strategic rail authority and the future arrangements for regulation of the railway in our response to the Environment, Transport and Regional Affairs Committee's report.
  Those statements demonstrate our commitment to public transport enhancements at national, regional and local level, to the benefit of all sectors of our community. The functions of the strategic rail authority will include promoting the use of the railway within an integrated transport system; working closely with local and national organisations to promote better integration; and participating actively in the development of regional and local land use planning policies to ensure that, as far as possible, decisions on the provision of rail services dovetail with those policies.
  The White Paper is not the first initiative that the Government have taken concerning our railways. In November last year, we issued the franchising director with new objectives, instructions and guidance, dealing with the real issues that matter most to passengers. The objectives require the franchising director to facilitate investment in the railway, and to that end we approved—also in November last year—interim planning criteria for the reallocation of financial support, in order to provide an effective framework for developing and implementing worthwhile rail investment. The criteria will be revised in the light of "A New Deal for Transport" to take account of the development of multi-modal appraisal techniques that establish a level playing field between the transport modes.
  We also required the franchising director to produce an assessment of the sort and level of services that the railway network should provide. He is drawing up that assessment, having consulted widely with the rail industry, local authorities, passenger representatives and other parties, and will submit his conclusions to Ministers shortly.
  The hon. Member for Lewes referred to an answer that I gave which said that the Government could find new funding for capital investment in our railways in some instances. I am pleased to reiterate our announcement in the White Paper of two new sources of investment funding for the railway. More than £100 million will be made available over the next three years. The infrastructure investment fund and the rail passenger partnership scheme are aimed at supporting new investment proposals that produce significant wider benefits for integrated transport and a modal shift to rail that could not be taken forward without public sector financial support. Railtrack remains responsible for funding investment in rail infrastructure where there is a commercial case.
  The infrastructure investment fund is a new fund to support investment projects aimed at addressing capacity constraints at key infrastructure pinch-points on the rail network. As the hon. Member for Lewes said, such difficulties are already being experienced by Connex South Central. The rail passenger partnership scheme is a private-public partnership designed to encourage and support at regional and local level innovative proposals that develop rail use and promote modal shift. It will support innovative proposals to develop rail use, for example, by improving interchange with other modes, improving passenger security or accessibility, enhancing

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  local rail facilities, or introducing new local rail services. Funding for the scheme will be awarded through open competition, with financial support channelled through franchised train operating companies. I hope that that answers the hon. Gentleman's question about that.
  I encourage local authorities and others to present to the franchising director proposals consistent with the strategies set out in the White Paper. The new schemes will be co-ordinated with other Government programmes to ensure overall coherence in the provision of publicly supported rail services and ensure that proposed new schemes are complementary to existing ones. We will announce further details of both schemes in the autumn.
  There need to be partnership and accountability in developing the railways as part of an integrated transport system. The Government are determined to play their part in creating an effective public transport network that people will choose to use, but local authorities and the private sector, whether operators or developers, also have a vital role. Private sector initiative is already bringing some welcome improvements to our railways. For example, the franchisee for Chiltern Railway, and Railtrack, have taken forward a multi-million pound scheme to double-track capacity between Princes Risborough and Bicester North, where there were 19 miles of single track—a victim of the Beeching era. Half-hourly, rather than hourly, services have been introduced between Princes Risborough and Banbury, and the number of services to Birmingham Snow Hill has been increased. The introduction of new 100 mph trains has permitted a reduction in journey times of up to 18 minutes.
  Another example is the construction of a new Parkway station to serve Luton airport. My Department is providing £2.8 million of transport policies and programme funding, with Railtrack funding the remainder—the bulk—of the project. When complete, the new station is expected to divert car journeys from the existing station in the centre of Luton, increase the percentage of people accessing the airport by public transport, and divert some London-bound M1 car journeys by providing an attractive alternative rail option into the capital.
  We anticipate further initiatives between the private and public sectors, as well as closer liaison between central and local government on local transport planning. To that end, we will give the new strategic rail authority obligations to work with local authorities and regional planning authorities on local transport planning and integration.
  We are clear that local authorities have a fundamental role in initiating investment in local schemes, whether or not they involve support from the Government. Local authorities have a responsibility under the Transport Acts for planning and arranging public transport services in their areas, and they have a role in working up schemes with operators and third-party investors that will benefit passengers in their areas.
  Sponsors of schemes that may require financial support from the franchising director's budget should prepare a business case in consultation with the relevant train operator and Railtrack. The business case would allow the franchising director to estimate the likely level of public
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  sector funding required to support the scheme. He could then decide whether that funding was available from his budget, and whether the proposed expenditure represented value for money. I understand that East Sussex county council is considering the viability of a scheme to reinstate the Uckfield-Lewes line.
  The franchising director's interim planning criteria provide guidance to any party putting a proposal to him for changes to the passenger rail services for which he provides financial support. Under those criteria, he would look for genuine value for money and a real passenger benefit from schemes that he is asked to support. The Government expect him to undertake the appraisal of any proposal that is put to him objectively and to give fair consideration to all the proposals for new services that he receives.
  The franchising director has powers under the Railways Act 1993 to grant experimental status to new passenger services where they are operated over lines not previously served by passenger trains, and to new or reinstated stations. Experimental status can be granted for up to five years and enables the viability of a new service to be tested without the need to exercise the statutory closure procedure if it is decided to withdraw it. In certain circumstances, experimental designation could provide a disincentive for investors to open new services, so the franchising director can use his discretion not to designate a new service as experimental to ensure that it will remain an integral part of the rail network unless an application for closure is approved.
  The hon. Member for Lewes was concerned about the need to preserve the track bed that would permit reinstatement of the line from Uckfield to Lewes and about the implications of a possible redevelopment of the original Uckfield station site. I understand that it remains structure plan policy to restrict development that would significantly prejudice the possible reinstatement of the line. As Railtrack has no plans to reopen the line between Uckfield and Lewes, and in the absence of a financial commitment from the county council, I understand that the local authority felt that a land use policy to restrict development around the former route could not be justified and thus was not included in the local plan. I understand that any development of the original Uckfield station site is subject to the condition that the station buildings be retained and refurbished, as the local authority rightly considers them part of the town's heritage.
  It is open to the rail industry, the local authority or third party sponsors to propose investment in reinstatement of the Lewes-Uckfield line. The hon. Member for Lewes will, I am sure, continue to make his case to interested parties and will no doubt press the county council for an early statement about whether it believes that there is a case to support the reopening of the line. I am sure that the right hon. Member for Wealden will support his actions.
  I assure the House that the strategy and commitments that the Government announced in the White Paper "A New Deal for Transport" will serve generally to benefit rail passengers and facilitate worthwhile investment in new schemes, through partnership between Government, regional and local authorities and private sector operators and sponsors. Where there are genuine local needs, the local authorities—and the service providers—have the avenues to seek to address them. We want the railway to play its part in shifting traffic from

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  roads to rail, as no doubt do the constituents of the right hon. Member for Wealden and the hon. Member for Lewes.
  I will most happily accept the petition to which the hon. Member for Lewes referred. We all have an interest in enhancing the overall availability and quality of public transport options in the integrated transport network.

  Concessionary Television Licences
  12.58 pm
  Mr. Peter Bradley: I welcome my hon. Friend the Minister to the Dispatch Box. While this is her first engagement in her new capacity, I am sure that she will grace the office for many years to come.
  It is one of the few privileges of a Member of Parliament to have the opportunity to air the grievances that have accumulated over a lifetime. I first encountered the concessionary television licence scheme and the anomalies that go with it more than 10 years ago, when a resident of Glastonbury house, a tower block of 160 flats not far from here, contacted me to ask why, although she and about 155 other tenants of those flats were of pensionable age, because of the presence of a handful of people below pensionable age, neither she nor her neighbours could qualify for a licence concession. For many years since, that anomaly, the lack of logic in the system and the injustice caused to so many have nagged away at me.
  It is clear from recent early-day motions that other hon. Members, of all political persuasions, share my concern. Early-day motion 1483 standing in the name of my hon. Friend the Member for Walsall, North (Mr. Winnick) has already gathered 177 signatures. A second early-day motion currently circulating in the name of my hon. Friend the Member for Rugby and Kenilworth (Mr. King) has collected 52 signatures. The sense of grievance is felt not only by Members of Parliament, local councillors and council officials, but by pensioners who are excluded from the scheme. It is impossible to quantify the resentment that many pensioners feel. A previous Minister from the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, the Minister for Arts, my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent, Central (Mr. Fisher), said that the Department receives more correspondence on that issue than on almost any other issue that comes within the Department's control.
  The scheme's history is complicated. It was first introduced as a somewhat ad hoc arrangement by officials at the Post Office who, I believe exercising their discretion, granted concessions to some pensioners living in residential homes. The first statutory scheme was introduced in 1969, but it contained anomalies which, despite the passage of time, remain the cause of considerable grievance. More experienced Members of Parliament than me have tried to grapple with those anomalies. My hon. Friend the Member for Walsall, North has been a champion in the campaign for many years: he proposed that concessions should be extended to all pensioners and promoted a private Member's Bill as long ago as 1987—which, surprisingly, was the last time the issue was debated in the House.
  Successive Governments have tried to improve the scheme, but each option that they have considered has given rise to a fresh batch of problems. It is my strong conviction, however, that the fact that it is difficult to right something that is wrong is all the more reason to seek to do so. The problem with the current scheme is that no one understands the regulations; no one believes that they are just; no one believes that they fulfil their

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  purpose; and no one thinks that they provide value for money. A letter to me from TV Licensing set out the details of the scheme, saying:
  "It is available to people living in

  (i) Residential homes; or

  (ii) Sheltered accommodation which

  (a) forms part of a group of at least four dwellings within a common and exclusive boundary (though up to 25 per cent. of units in a scheme can be properties purchased under the 'right to buy' legislation); and

  (b) is specially provided for occupation only by disabled people, people with learning disabilities or retired people of pensionable age; and

  (c) is provided or managed by a local authority or a housing association; and

  (d) has a person whose function is to care for the needs of the residents (eg a warden) and who either lives on site or works there for at least 30 hours a week."

  It is a fitting irony that the new regulations were introduced on 1 April 1997.
  The problem is that the scheme is not linked to individual need—although it does at least try to address that need—but, to quote the letter again, it is linked
  "to the kind of accommodation occupied and the way that it is provided or managed".
  The limitations of the scheme are clear: it is solely for narrowly specified groups whose accommodation must be run by a local authority or a housing association, and must contain at least four homes; and residents must have the services of a warden for at least 30 hours a week.
  I am indebted to the National Association of Citizens Advice Bureaux, which in March this year published its report, "TV Sinners", which included several examples of the anomalies which occur under the scheme. I shall quote three. First:
  "A CAB in Hertfordshire reported an elderly woman living in sheltered accommodation. The client had been paying the reduced rate … licence fee of £5. Residents were informed that the warden's hours were being reduced from 35 to 20, and that as a result they would all become liable to pay the full fee."
  Secondly:
  "A CAB in Norfolk reported two pensioner clients living in sheltered accommodation. The housing association responsible for the development began to provide housing to single homeless people in addition to elderly people, and as a result elderly residents lost their … concession."
  Thirdly:
  "A CAB in Essex reported a man aged over 60 who was living in sheltered accommodation and paying £5 for a … licence. The housing association responsible for the accommodation took a decision to lower the qualifying age for residents to 55. This meant that the development was no longer exclusively available to pensioners, and TV Licensing decided that the concession could no longer apply. The client was therefore required to find the full fee."
  Mr. Martin Salter: Does my hon. Friend agree that it is an absolute disgrace that those anomalies remain and that this country does not have a comprehensive concessionary TV licence scheme specifically targeted on pensioners? Will he give examples of other nations—especially European nations—that treat their old folk a little better than we do?
  Mr. Bradley: My hon. Friend is quite right, and I should pay tribute to his long-standing commitment to the
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  cause. For a number of years, both in the community and in this House, he has served his constituents very well in respect of this issue. Although the proposals that I shall put forward later in my speech might not meet fully the needs that he has identified, I can tell him that several European nations recognise the importance of caring for their pensioners. Austria, France, Finland, Germany, Hungary, Switzerland and Ireland are just a few of the countries that grant a full concession to pensioners. Several other European nations make similar concessions to people with disabilities, whether they are blind, deaf, or suffer from impaired mobility.
  The anomalies in the existing UK scheme mean that, while many are targeted by the spirit of the regulations, many more are excluded by the letter. Currently, 651,000 pensioners receive concessions, but about 10.5 million do not. Many people benefit who do not need to benefit because they have sufficient income to pay the full licence fee, whereas many of those who are not in receipt of the concession are on low incomes. It is not difficult to see the source of the resentment that has accumulated over the years.
  The next problem is the cost of the scheme to the BBC. Currently, it costs £60 million a year. If the £5 licence were to be extended to all pensioner-only households, the cost would rise to £437 million. The problem with such a universal solution is that it would apply equally to those on relatively high incomes as to those on relatively low incomes. Therefore, the large majority of members of the other House would qualify for a concessionary licence—although it might be argued that they would be better off at home watching "Men Behaving Badly" than coming here and ensuring that life imitates art. It would be difficult to sustain the argument for a concession that covered those who had no particular need of it.
  Extending the concession in that way would add £28 per annum to the cost of the licence fee. A free licence for all pensioners would cost about £628 million and result in a £36.50 increase in the price of a licence. That would severely affect those on low incomes who do not happen to be pensioners, and it was rightly rejected as a solution by the Secretary of State as recently as last November.
  There have been several proposals for change. As long ago as 1977, the Annan committee criticised the lack of relationship between cost and need, and recommended the phasing out of the current scheme. In 1986, the Peacock committee proposed that pensioner households on income support ought to receive a concession in recognition of their low-income status. Sadly, the previous Government rejected that proposal and said that the best way to meet need was to increase the level of pension. Most Labour Members—it is interesting to see that no Opposition Members are present—would agree with that proposition. The problem is that, far from increasing provision to pensioners, the previous Government cut it year on year.
  In the last debate on this matter, on 16 January 1987, David Mellor, then a Home Office Minister on his way up the slippery pole down which he more speedily descended, criticised Labour Members for raising the issue and proposing to extend concessionary licensing. He accused them of the "cynical exploitation of pensioners". The payroll vote on that occasion ensured that the Free Television Licences for Pensioners Bill,

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  which was a private Member's Bill in the name of my hon. Friend the Member for Walsall, North, was defeated by just 21 votes.
  This Government can do better and I welcome the Department's proposal to review the licence fee beyond 2002 and the fact that the review will include consideration of the concessionary scheme. I should like to contribute by making a proposal. We should return to the basic principle of need, both income related and dependency related. There are people who rely on television not only for entertainment or information, but for company, and they are not exclusively pensioners. I urge the Government to include in the scheme people on low incomes and on benefits, and people who are housebound and dependent. The problem at present is that those people are not targeted.
  Not all pensioners would benefit from that scheme because a third of pensioners are in the upper half of the income bracket, but many people would benefit, including those who are of non-pensionable age, but who suffer from disabilities. I have tried to quantify those who would benefit, the costs of introducing the benefit and the practical means of offsetting those additional costs. I am indebted to a number of sources for the information on which I draw. The House of Commons Library has been helpful; answers to parliamentary questions have been illuminating; the BBC has co-operated and I am grateful for advice received from Age Concern. I have tried to be fair but practical in my proposal because although it is right that the scheme should be improved and more people should benefit, it is also right that the costs should be contained.
  Mr. David Drew: I welcome the debate on this important matter, during which my hon. Friend has put forward an excellent case. One anomaly that he has not mentioned, and about which I receive many letters, is the example of bungalows in a shared complex which may be connected by a joint alarm scheme, but which are excluded from the concessionary licence arrangements. That is unfair because many people living in such bungalows are on low income and feel particularly discriminated against. Will my hon. Friend comment on that?
  Mr. Bradley: My hon. Friend illustrates an important anomaly within the scheme. Another example was given by NACAB in its excellent report, which said:
  "A CAB in Greater Manchester reported a man over pension age who came to the bureau to ask why he had to pay the full licence. The client was living in accommodation fitted with an emergency alarm, and was identical to neighbouring properties. The properties were not classed as sheltered accommodation, and the client therefore had to pay the full price for his licence. However, because his neighbours had enjoyed a concession since before 1988, they continued to qualify for a concessionary … licence."
  That is not an isolated incident, but one of the many anomalies caused by the scheme's flawed provisions which affect people throughout the country. If I listed all the others, we would probably be here well into October, and I am sure that Members would dwindle in number. There are still no Opposition Members present—my reputation has obviously preceded me.
  My proposal is to phase out the existing scheme and replace it with a concessionary scheme that would require beneficiaries to contribute 25 per cent. of the fee. That is
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  reasonable because it would enable the scheme to include many more people. That would be a weekly payment of 50p, which is not unreasonable for people who enjoy full use of their television set. I propose that the scheme be extended to pensioners on income support, all those on disability living allowance and attendance allowance, and the registered blind and deaf.
  On that basis, I calculate that while 651,000 people currently enjoy the scheme, about 4 million would benefit from my proposals. That includes the following groups: 1.5 million pensioners on income support, at a cost of £84 million; 1 million pensioners on attendance allowance but not income support, at a cost of about £38 million; 1.2 million non-pensioners on disability living allowance, at a cost of £76 million, and the blind and deaf, at a cost of £16 million. The total cost would be £214 million.
  As I said earlier, the current scheme costs £60 million, so there would be a significant but containable increase. It would be containable because the costs could be reduced by ending the concession to hotels, which currently pay only for the first 15 rooms that contain a television set and then for each set of five rooms. If that concession were ended, the BBC estimates that an additional £31.5 million would be raised.
  If we went further and required offices and commercial premises to license individual sets, we could expect to raise a sum so significant that the BBC, with which I discussed the issue this morning, could not quantify it. It is not unreasonable to suggest that the figure would be at least equivalent to the £31.5 million raised from abolishing the concession to hotels. In the Palace of Westminster and surrounding parliamentary buildings, there must be at the very least 1,000 television sets. I understand that the privilege of the Crown means that we pay for only one, which seems a little absurd.
  If we included that additional revenue, we could expect to bring down the cost of the new regime that I am proposing to £150 million or less compared with the current cost of £60 million, which would be phased out. I should say at this point that those who currently enjoy the benefits of the scheme should not be deprived of them. Their rights should be reserved.
  The Government have introduced welcome concessions to pensioners. The winter fuel payments go a long way towards meeting need, and the national travel scheme, announced last week by the Deputy Prime Minister, will be extremely welcome in my constituency and elsewhere. The concessionary television licence scheme should in future be administered not by the BBC, but through the benefits system. That will have a number of advantages. It will preserve the BBC's integrity by removing any suggestion of the Government paying subsidy to the BBC to finance the scheme. It will relieve pressure on BBC budgets and, as the BBC will no longer have to bear the cost of the scheme, the full licence fee could be cut by about £3.50.
  Those proposals may or may not prove attractive to the Treasury or the Department, but I have another specific plea which I hope will receive a positive response. At present, 34,400 blind people who have a television set receive a concession of £1.25 on the £97.50 licence fee. That is a scandal. The amount has remained the same since 1965; it equates to the radio licence fee, which was phased out in 1971. Generously, the Government of the

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  day ensured that blind people would continue to enjoy the benefit of the £1.25 concession. It has not been increased since. That is shameful and utterly unjustified. It is the worst of the penny-pinching anomalies in the scheme. Surely it must end.
  The Government must devote urgent attention to the needs of blind people currently in receipt of a licence. They surely must enjoy a fairer deal. I calculate that the cost of abolishing the cost of the licence for those 34,400 people would be little more than £3⅓ million. If the cost were transferred to the full licence payer, it would be equivalent to about 19p a year on the licence—a cost which I am sure that the people of this country would be happy to bear. I hope that, if nothing else, the Minister will say that that petty injustice will be ended.
  I hope that these proposals, although imperfect, may at least help to refuel the debate and inform the thinking of Ministers, who must agree that the current scheme is not only inefficient and inequitable, but unsustainable.
  1.20 pm
  The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport (Janet Anderson): I thank my hon. Friend the Member for The Wrekin (Mr. Bradley) for his well-timed congratulations, and I congratulate him on securing the debate. I also pay tribute to my hon. Friends the Members for Reading, West (Mr. Salter) and for Stroud (Mr. Drew), who have campaigned on the issue; to my hon. Friend the Member for Rugby and Kenilworth (Mr. King), who sponsored an early-day motion on the issue; and to my hon. Friend the Member for Walsall, North (Mr. Winnick), who has campaigned on it for many years.
  I am sure that most, if not all, Members of the House have received numerous representations about concessionary television licences, not only for pensioners, but for other groups such as the disabled, the unemployed and those on a low income. The subject frequently crops up in my constituency mailbag. My hon. Friend the Member for The Wrekin specifically mentioned the position of people who are blind, and we listened carefully to what he said. As he said, and as the Government are very much aware, the system is illogical. It produces a great deal of resentment and a sense of grievance.
  The Government are keenly aware of the importance of television to many people, especially to those who are socially isolated as a result of old age, illness or disability, or who are unable to afford other types of leisure activity. I am only sorry that, for the majority of this important debate, the Opposition Benches have been empty. I can only conclude that Opposition Members do not accord this issue the importance that Labour Members do.
  Although we believe that the television licence fee, at 27p a day for colour and 9p for black and white, represents good value for money, we appreciate that it is a significant expense for people on a low income. The difficulty is that, for a large number—in fact, a substantial proportion—of households, a persuasive case can be made for a concessionary television licence. My hon. Friend the Member for The Wrekin has gone some way to make the case for several categories of people.
  However, the BBC depends on television licence fee revenue for its home broadcasting grant. The Government's current agreement with the BBC
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  guarantees the licence fee as the mechanism for funding the corporation until at least March 2002. Any broadly based concession at a rate likely to be of real help to recipients would lead to a considerable loss of licence fee revenue. As a result, to maintain the level of the BBC's grant, everyone else's television licence fee would have to rise sharply.
  I give a few examples. The provision of concessionary television licences for all pensioner-only households would lead to an estimated loss of £489 million in licence fee revenue, and would require an increase of approximately £29 in the standard licence fee. Free licences for all pensioner-only households with at least one member in receipt of income support would cost an estimated £112 million, and would require an increase of about £5 in the full licence fee—an increase which would also fall on non-qualifying pensioners.
  Many non-pensioners may be thought to have an equally good case for a concessionary licence, as my hon. Friend the Member for The Wrekin eloquently argued. An estimated 19 per cent. of households with television have one or more members in receipt of income support, more than 5 per cent. have a member in receipt of disability living allowance and nearly 4 per cent. a member in receipt of attendance allowance. It would be very difficult to justify to a non-pensioner in such circumstances an increase of as much as 30 per cent. in his or her licence fee to provide a general concession for pensioners.
  It is sometimes suggested that the solution is for the Government to make good from public funds the cost of any concessionary arrangements. However, for good reason, the arrangements for funding the BBC have always been kept separate from Government spending. In addition to providing the BBC with a secure source of revenue, licence fee funding of the BBC grant preserves the traditional arm's-length relationship between the corporation and the Government. To abandon that arrangement might be regarded as prejudicing the corporation's independence.
  The possibility of funding concessions by charging hotels and other businesses a full licence fee for each television set installed has also been suggested. An estimated £33.5 million in additional revenue might be raised by charging hotels a full licence fee for each television set in use. However, no information is held centrally on the number of television sets installed at other business premises. In any case, the Government are not persuaded that it would be right to impose a significant extra burden on businesses to fund concessionary television licences.
  Charging a licence fee for each television set, whether for business premises or generally, would at present also require a significant increase in the costs of administering and enforcing the licensing system, which the Government believe would be unacceptable. Such a system may become possible in future, as digital receivers become the norm, but that day is some way off. Nevertheless, I assure my hon. Friends that it is a possibility, and that we shall keep it under consideration.
  Many hon. Members are also familiar with problems arising from the existing concessionary television licence scheme. Under that scheme, television licences are available for £5, but only to pensioners and disabled people living in nursing or residential homes, or in

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  directly comparable sheltered accommodation provided or managed by a local authority, a housing association or a development corporation. Those complications of the present scheme make it very difficult for people to understand how it works.
  The Government receive frequent pleas for changes to the concessionary scheme to tackle its perceived shortcomings, usually in relation to specific cases where an individual or a sheltered housing scheme fails to qualify. The concessionary scheme does give rise to many anomalies. Its shortcomings are of particular concern because they directly affect some of the more vulnerable members of our society. Since it was formally established in the 1960s, the scheme has undergone several amendments and extensions. None of them has succeeded in making it more popular, easier to administer or more comprehensible to the layman.
  It is clear from the history of the scheme, and from the wide range of criticisms levelled at it, that there is no possibility of resolving its shortcomings by fine-tuning the regulations. The amendments most frequently proposed involve extending the scheme to accommodation that is currently excluded. Examples include sheltered accommodation interspersed with mainstream housing, accommodation without a full-time or resident warden and private sheltered housing. However, such changes would leave out many people who, on grounds of health, social or financial circumstances, deserve a concession just as much.
  Another proposal that is often made in relation to the concessionary scheme is that the regulations should be flexible, to allow common sense to prevail in difficult or marginal cases. However, that flexibility would be likely to erode the framework provided by the regulations, increase the number of disputed cases and, in the longer term, make the concessionary scheme impossible to administer.
  The Government are by no means complacent about the concessionary scheme. I assure my hon. Friends that we accept that it is less than satisfactory, but we do not believe that changes to the existing scheme would result in arrangements that would be generally acceptable. On the contrary, it is almost certain that pressure for further changes would continue unabated.
  As hon. Members know, the Government's current agreement with the BBC guarantees the licence fee as the mechanism for funding the BBC only until March 2002. The agreement provides for a review of the funding arrangements before that date. I give the House an assurance that the Government intend to carry out such a review in good time to allow decisions to be taken before then. We shall use that opportunity to consider in detail not only the future of the existing concessionary scheme, but the wider matter of concessions.
  In conclusion, I thank my hon. Friend the Member for The Wrekin for introducing this important debate. We have listened to him and others of my hon. Friends, and we shall certainly take their views into account in our deliberations.

  Pig Industry
  1.30 pm
  Mr. Christopher Gill: I preface my remarks by declaring my interests. My financial interests in the pig industry are recorded in the Register of Members' Interests, of course. I have initiated the debate in my capacity as president of the British Pig Association.
  By common consent, the British pig industry is in a parlous state. I shall set out the industry's not inconsiderable achievements, summarise the main problems currently affecting the industry, and suggest how Ministers might help to ensure a viable future. I draw Ministers' attention to the high level of interest generated by the debate, as evidenced by the large number of pig industry representatives in the Public Gallery.
  Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Michael J. Martin): Order. I would not want the hon. Gentleman to make any reference to anywhere outside the House.
  Mr. Gill: I beg your pardon, Mr. Deputy Speaker.
  I am pleased that, notwithstanding the awkward time of the day, many of my hon. Friends are present, including my right hon. Friend the Member for Wealden (Sir G. Johnson Smith), who has brought to my attention the problems faced by his pig producers; my hon. Friend the Member for Beverley and Holderness (Mr. Cran), who has a large pig population in his constituency; my hon. Friend the Member for Mid-Worcestershire (Mr. Luff), who is the Chairman of the Agriculture Committee and has brought to my attention the unfair competition that pig producers are experiencing as a result of the United Kingdom having higher welfare standards than other parts of the European Union; my hon. Friend the Member for South-East Cambridgeshire (Mr. Paice), who is on the Front Bench; my right hon. Friend the Member for Suffolk, Coastal (Mr. Gummer); my hon. Friend the Member for North Norfolk (Mr. Prior), who tells me that some of his constituents are contemplating, if not already carrying out, the gassing of in-pig sows because the situation is so serious and they see no future; my hon. Friend the Member for Mid-Norfolk (Mr. Simpson), who instances pig producers losing up to £25 per head on the pigs that they produce; and my hon. Friend the Member for New Forest, West (Mr. Swayne), who has sent me correspondence from one of his constituents, who says that he is not likely to survive the present crisis beyond September this year.
  Mr. Jimmy Hood: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
  Mr. Gill: No, I shall not give way, as I have much to say and little time to say it.
  The hon. Member for West Tyrone (Mr. Thompson) has asked me to instance the acute problems of the Northern Ireland pig industry, which have been exacerbated by the destruction of 40 per cent. of Northern Ireland's pig slaughtering capacity as a result of the recent fire at the Ballymoney pig abattoir.
  Mr. Hood: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
  Mr. Gill: No.

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  The UK pig industry is not a subsidised industry; nor does it want to be. One of the industry's proudest boasts is that what it has achieved, it has achieved by its own efforts. It has responded magnificently to customer demand for a consistent, healthy, lean and nutritious product. It has adopted the highest animal welfare standards in the world. It has instituted farm assurance schemes to authenticate the welfare and quality standards that customers increasingly demand. The industry itself is auditing those schemes to demonstrate its total commitment to high standards and traceability.
  The UK's genetic base makes it pre-eminent in the world as a source of breeding stock, which is exported to the four corners of the globe. In spite of all the difficulties, exports of pig meat this year are likely to be twice the tonnage exported in 1993, which was 100,000 tonnes.
  Until now, the pig industry has been a success story, making no demands on the public purse; making the UK self-sufficient in fresh pork and 50 per cent. self-sufficient in bacon; contributing substantially to the balance of payments; and creating employment in the countryside, in the processing industry, in the ancillary industries and in manufacturing industry. Clearly, it is in Britain's national self-interest to keep the industry going, but it is in crisis, and it needs help.
  Chief among the industry's problems are the weakness of continental currencies, which self-evidently makes imports highly competitive; the high cost of UK feedingstuffs, relative to other countries that continue to feed meat and bone meal; and the burden of additional costs incurred as a result of adopting the highest possible welfare standards. I remind the House that, from 1 January next year, sow stalls and tethers will be a thing of the past in the UK, but not in continental Europe, which will put us at an increasing competitive disadvantage.
  Other difficulties facing the industry are the ever-increasing costs of meat inspection and offal disposal, and the escalating cost of road transport, to which there is no alternative for the meat and livestock industry.
  There are various ways in which the Government could help. They could follow the commendable example set by the House of Commons Refreshment Department. I quote from a written answer that appeared in the Official Report on 20 July, when the hon. Member for Wolverhampton, South-East (Mr. Turner), the Chairman of the Catering Committee, reported that
  "the procurement of fresh meat and poultry"
  will be
  "only from sources approved under an accredited 'farm assurance' scheme".—[Official Report, 20 July 1998; Vol. 316, c. 406.]
  That example should be made applicable to all Government and local authority contracts.
  By making all imports subject to the same feed, health and welfare requirements as domestic production, Ministers would strike an important blow for the future well-being of the British pig industry.
  The Government could help further by giving encouragement to the rendering of exclusively pig offal in plants dedicated to that purpose, with the end product being exported or sold to the poultry industry, where I understand that it would be welcome. That would create
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  value in a part of the animal which, through no fault of the pig industry, has been made worthless by the offal ban. Offal is banned from being used in animal feedingstuffs because of the problems associated with BSE, but there is no evidence of BSE in the pig herd. It is unfair that the industry is penalised because that offal cannot be used.
  The Government should adopt a self-denying ordinance that neither the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food nor any other Government Department, will impose any further cost burdens on the livestock industry, unless it can be clearly demonstrated that imports are bearing the same level of overheads.
  As for transport, the new Labour Government have increased the rate of duty on diesel fuel by no less than 22 per cent. since coming into office on 1 May last year. Higher duty in this country combined with much higher vehicle licence fees than those in continental Europe mean that the cost of producing a kilogram of pork in Britain is about 2.6p higher than on the continent. That is purely on account of the higher cost of transport in the United Kingdom occasioned by higher road licence fees and the higher duty on diesel oil.
  Equally important, the Government could help the industry by using their best offices to cajole and persuade caterers and retailers to sell only pork and pigmeat products that meet the high welfare and quality assurance standards of home-produced pigmeat. Given that Safeway, for example, has given an assurance that all its pork is United Kingdom-sourced, I trust that it will not prove too difficult to get other retailers to make the same commitment. I would not wish Ministers to underestimate the influence that they can have on caterers and retailers of British pork. I hope that, in responding to the debate, the Minister will undertake that responsibility.
  The Government could help also by changing the legislation that prevents products being mandatorily labelled with the country of origin. Many pig producers feel strongly that it would be a great step in their best interests to see all British pork labelled clearly as British. By the same token, it would be helpful if the British public were able to see where pork was not British and from where it was imported. They could then exercise customer choice. As Ministers will appreciate, under the rules of the European Union there is no means by which that sort of labelling can be made mandatory, but it is an area that we need to revisit.
  I ask the Government to leave no stone unturned in helping exporters to take advantage of whatever financial assistance the European Union provides in the way of export refunds, export restitution, export credits or whatever. That sort of help would be of positive assistance to the industry. Finally, the Government could help by initiating research into alternative uses for meat and bonemeal, and helping to regenerate the market for tallow.
  With the spot price for pigs at its lowest this decade, pig producers are desperate for hope. Hope is an important thing to us all; we need to have hope for the future in whatever career we pursue. All things being equal, I have no doubt—I hope that the Minister has no doubt—that the British pig industry can compete with the best. However, if the industry is to survive, it urgently needs a signal of confidence. The alternative—I know that the message will not be lost on the Minister—is a high-welfare but decimated pig industry, and that would be in nobody's

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  interests—not those of the country, the industry, the retailers or the consumers. I venture to suggest that it would not be in the Government's interests, either.
  Pig farmers stopped producing fat years ago, but I trust that the Minister will recognise that such fat as they had on their own backs has long since gone. Previous years' profits have all been reinvested for a welfare-friendly future, in line with consumer preferences and legislation. The entire industry is now looking to see what Government are willing to do to help, and I look forward to the Minister's response.
  1.43 pm
  The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (Mr. Elliot Morley): The situation facing the pig industry is a matter of concern for the Government. I think that that concern is demonstrated by the fact that I have been joined by my right hon. Friend the recently appointed Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food and by my hon. Friend the Minister of State. We discussed the situation this morning. As I have said, we are concerned about the situation that is facing the industry.
  The hon. Member for Ludlow (Mr. Gill) put the case for the pig industry well and knowledgeably. As he will know, it goes through periodic cycles. It is now in a down cycle, but there is no doubt that, in terms of the down cycles that it goes through, this is a particularly bad one. There is certainly major concern about prices.
  The issue is not one for the United Kingdom pig industry alone. It is a European situation. Pigmeat prices have fallen by 25 per cent. on the continent as well as in the United Kingdom.
  I whole-heartedly endorse the points made by the hon. Member about the UK pig industry. As he rightly says, it is an unsupported sector of agriculture. It has always operated within its own markets. It has not asked for financial support. It is a very successful industry, which has increased market share within the UK in all sectors of pigmeat. It has been very successful in relation to welfare standards.
  We need to pay tribute to what has been done in the industry. The improvement in welfare standards—the phasing out of sow stalls and tethers—is being brought about by UK legislation. I know from my contacts with the industry—I have a constituency interest in the matter—that it wants to go for the highest welfare standards. It has invested at its own cost in high welfare standards, and that deserves to be recognised.
  Much attention is focused on the quality of the product. It is a fact that we do not feed meat and bonemeal to pigs in the UK, while it is still legal to do so on the continent. That is something that not many people know about. It is not only an issue of high quality standards but one of high welfare standards. That needs to be recognised.
  Mr. Paul Tyler: I entirely endorse the point that the Minister is making, but surely the point is that, in relation to both feed and welfare standards, the improvements that we are seeing in this country, of which the industry is rightly proud—although concerned about costs—are not only not being matched by our continental partners: they are not even moving in the same direction. Does the Minister accept that the speech by the hon. Member for Ludlow (Mr. Gill) could have been made
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  about two years ago in that respect? The sad thing is that the previous Government never tackled the problem of the uneven playing field.
  Mr. Morley: There is a great deal of truth in that. However, some continental producers have voluntarily introduced the same welfare standards that apply in the UK. They have been concerned about losing market share in the UK because of the growth of quality assurance and welfare schemes here. I shall touch on that in a moment, because I think that it is important.
  I emphasise that support, and reassure the hon. Member for Ludlow—I think that he knows this—that all of us as a ministerial team, at every opportunity in recent weeks, have taken the opportunity publicly to emphasise the high standards of the UK pig industry and the fact that British consumers want those high standards. We know that. They can have those standards and support the investment that has been made by supporting the UK industry through their pockets and their buying policies at the supermarket shelves.
  Mrs. Gwyneth Dunwoody: Will my hon. Friend therefore lead a campaign to involve supermarkets in country-of-origin marking, which they could do, which would transform the situation and get rid of the surplus of pork?
  Mr. Morley: My hon. Friend is right. I shall come to that point, because it is something which I want to address.
  The issue is what we can do in supporting the industry. As I was saying, as a ministerial team we emphasise that. I recently held a press conference at the East of England show, in which I concentrated on supporting the UK industry. I drew the public's attention to the points that have been made. I spoke at a seminar on freedom food, which was attended by most of the main retailers in this country. Again, I emphasised that the standards we want to see, and the public want to see, are being maintained by the United Kingdom pig industry, but that they can be undermined by cheaper imports from countries with lower standards. Those retailers have the power to do something about that through their buying policies.
  I emphasise that my colleague, Lord Donoughue, recently hosted a successful seminar with the catering industry, which is a big outlet for pigmeat in this country. We want to ensure that the seminar is not the end of our contacts with the industry, or of our efforts to promote them, but the start of efforts to encourage caterers and processors to source more pigmeat from the United Kingdom.
  Mr. John Gummer: Given that the industry writes so much on menus—everything is "morning picked" and the like—will the Minister ask whether it would be sensible to make clear the ways in which British pigmeat is welfare-friendly? One in four meals are eaten outside the home, so putting that on every menu would remind diners of the advantage of eating British-produced pork.
  Mr. Morley: I agree, and hope that the industry notes those comments. They also apply to British veal, which is also produced to high welfare standards.

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  I note the particular problem in Northern Ireland, to which the hon. Member for Ludlow referred. The fire at the Lovell and Christmas bacon factory at Ballymoney has caused extra problems for the Northern Ireland pig industry. My colleague, Lord Dubs, rang me this morning to express his concern. He is holding discussions with the industry in Northern Ireland, and is trying to assist it with that problem.
  Mr. William Thompson: May I emphasise the critical situation in Northern Ireland? Many farmers cannot get their pigs away; the backlog is building up, and the pigs are getting heavier and heavier. Those farmers who can get their pigs away are getting a bad price.
  Mr. Morley: I understand. The hon. Gentleman draws attention to the problem that is being faced in Northern Ireland; Lord Dubs is talking with the industry, and exploring ways in which it can deal with it.
  The hon. Member for Ludlow asked me to consider a list of issues, and I shall deal with them in some detail. First, on buying policy, central and local government can have a significant impact, but they are restricted on sourcing, price and value for money by certain rules, some of which were introduced by the Conservative Government in 1988. That can make it difficult when cheaper imports are available. The hon. Gentleman will know, however, that we have already made representations to the Ministry of Defence, which is a major buyer of beef.
  I am glad to report that considerable progress has been made in getting Departments to source more from United Kingdom producers. Local authorities want to do the same, within the restrictions they face. I am sure that the issue will be considered.
  The hon. Gentleman mentioned applying similar standards to imported pigmeat. We want welfare, quality and traceability standards to be raised in the European and international contexts, and are pursuing those issues through the European Union. I do not think that the hon. Gentleman was arguing that we should allow imports produced at lower welfare standards to drag us down to the lowest common denominator. He would not want that, and nor would the industry, but imports are a concern in respect of competitiveness, and we take that into account.
  Mr. Gill: So that there is no misunderstanding, it is far more important that we drag others up to our standards, so that we can compete on the so-called level playing field.
  Mr. Morley: Absolutely—there is nothing between us on this issue. We are pursuing improved standards in the European and international contexts as well as in the United Kingdom context.
  On the hon. Gentleman's third point—dedicated offal rendering—I can give him an assurance that I will take his suggestion away for discussion with officials, and within the industry, to discover whether there is any scope for pursuing it.
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  Fourthly, the Government have to take into account the impact of cost overheads on all agricultural sectors, and all sectors of industry. We do that in the context of our national priorities and decisions. We also support industry: we doubled capital allowances to help all producers who are making capital investments.
  We take seriously the hon. Gentleman's fifth point, on urging United Kingdom-sourced meat from retailers. We meet the heads of the retail chains regularly, and I can assure him that we will raise the matter with them. We also want to ensure that there is adequate labelling in that respect. We are pursuing through the EU a new directive on labelling to achieve stronger powers on common standards, which would give consumers more information, especially about the source of meat, when they are making consumer choices.
  My hon. Friend the Member for Crewe and Nantwich (Mrs. Dunwoody) referred to labelling. At present, supermarkets can voluntarily introduce such standards and labelling. They have introduced quality assurance standards, and some have introduced freedom food labelling. I strongly support that approach, because it benefits United Kingdom producers. Although our producers can meet the high standards that consumers and retailers want, that would be undermined if cheaper, lower-quality and lower-standard pigmeat were imported after we had encouraged them to meet those standards and introduce their own quality assurance schemes through farm-assured British pigs.
  That decision is obviously for supermarkets and retailers to make, but I hope that they listen to what has been said in the debate. The Government are saying that our industry has the highest standards in Europe, if not the world, and that should be recognised in terms of sourcing. Consumers need information so that they can make an informed choice and support the industry.
  Promotion is an important area. The comprehensive spending review settlement will be announced today, and more money for promotion will be made available to Food From Britain. Its budget was frozen by the previous Administration, but we believe that marketing is important, and we intend to give it increased support wherever we can.
  One of the most important things we can do in the short term to assist the industry is to discuss market support with the European Commission. I can tell the hon. Gentleman that we have already asked it to take urgent emergency action because of the crisis facing the United Kingdom industry—and, indeed, the European industry.
  I am informed that a decision on what the Commission can do to improve market support is likely to be taken tomorrow. I hope that the announcement will bring some comfort to the pig industry, given the particular problems that it faces, and that the hon. Gentleman realises that we are taking what action we can, within the restrains under which we operate and the limits of our own powers, to support the industry.
  I come back to my original point: when the industry has gone through its periodic down cycles, it has never come to the Government with its hand out. It has always invested and planned, identified its own customer base, and been successful. It has also recognised the concerns about welfare standards, and is working with us to improve welfare across the board. We recognise that it is

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  ahead of European producers in the abolition of sow stalls and tethers; although that is a cost disadvantage, it will not be a marketing disadvantage, as long as retailers keep their side of the bargain and keep faith with the industry, which has invested and constructed itself in the way that I have described.
  The attendance today of hon. Members from all parts of the House shows the concern about the problems being faced by the industry. Earlier today, I met a pig industry delegation led by Ben Gill and John Godfrey, and gave assurances similar to those that I have given to the hon. Member for Ludlow. I hope that the industry will survive this down cycle; it certainly deserves to, given its
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  efficiency, its record and the way in which it has succeeded in the past. The people of this country can be proud of its product.
  It being Two o'clock, the motion for the Adjournment of the House lapsed, without Question put.
  Sitting suspended, pursuant to Standing Order No. 10 (Wednesday sittings), till half-past Two o'clock.

  PRIVATE BUSINESS
  COMMITTEE OF SELECTION
  Ordered,
  That Mr. George Mudie be discharged from the Committee of Selection and Mr. Keith Bradley be added to the Committee.—[Mr. Pope.]

Oral Answers to Questions
  INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENT
  The Secretary of State was asked—
  INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENT

    Micro-credit Projects
    Mr. Andrew George: What support she is offering less developed countries to promote micro-credit projects. [51320]
    The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for International Development (Mr. George Foulkes): We strongly support the provision of savings and credit to poor people. Experience shows that the poorest women use such schemes very creatively to enhance their family incomes, and are very reliable at repaying. Our current projects amount to about £60 million, and we anticipate increasing that figure. We are also working internationally to ensure that efforts are co-ordinated, and that we avoid the danger of a spread of badly organised micro-credit schemes.
    Mr. George: I am grateful to the Minister for that reply. Does he agree that the guiding principle of micro-credit schemes in less-developed countries is that of empowering the poorest in society, especially women? Micro credit is one of the most effective initiatives available to donor countries and non-governmental organisations. What steps is the Minister taking to establish a programme of partnerships with others, including United Kingdom banks, to build on the good work achieved so far?
    Mr. Foulkes: The hon. Gentleman is right about involving women and getting them to participate. We took part in the summits on micro-credit schemes: the first was held in Washington, and the second in New York on 28 and 29 June. We discussed expanding our activity in partnership with non-governmental organisations and banks. There are about 10,000 micro-finance programmes lending to about 15 million people. We want to increase that to 100 million people, so we have a huge task ahead of us, but we are ready to do everything that we can to meet that challenge.
    Mr. Andrew Reed: I welcome the announcement of £60 million for micro-credit schemes. That is an increase on the £42 million that was available one or two years ago. Does the Minister agree that micro-credit schemes offer the best opportunity for people to develop their skills, to make money and to assist their local communities? Will he ensure that micro-credit schemes gain from the increase in the aid programme over the next three years?
    Mr. Foulkes: My hon. Friend is right that micro-credit schemes are cost effective: the repayment rates are high, and the schemes soon become self-sustaining. But we must not forget our other priorities, particularly health and education. I hope that the Opposition will recognise that, as a result of the settlement in the comprehensive spending review, which the hon. Member for South-West
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    Devon (Mr. Streeter) pooh-poohed at our previous Question Time, we shall be able to do a great deal more in those areas.

    Debt Relief
    Mr. David Stewart: If she will make a statement on the spending plans for her Department in relation to debt relief for developing nations. [51321]
    The Secretary of State for International Development (Clare Short): The Government's policy is to speed up the implementation of the heavily indebted poor countries initiative and to apply it more flexibly to post-conflict countries. Our aim is that all eligible countries are on track for debt forgiveness by 2000. HIPC debt relief draws on resources not from budgets such as mine, but from the World bank, IMF and export credits. My Department continues to provide resources to help countries to qualify for HIPC and is helping countries committed to poverty reduction to pay debt while awaiting HIPC relief. We will continue to work in similar ways to secure debt relief for poor, heavily indebted countries that are committed to poverty reduction.
    Mr. Stewart: I am grateful to the Secretary of State for her reply. Will she give an undertaking to speed up debt relief for heavily indebted countries and make a clear and transparent link between debt relief and poverty reduction in developing nations?
    Clare Short: As I have said, we are strongly committed to speeding up the implementation of HIPC. Shortly after we formed our Government, my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer announced at the Commonwealth Finance Ministers meeting the target to bring three quarters of eligible countries on track by 2000. He and I went immediately to a meeting with the World bank and the IMF, but could not reach agreement on that. We obtained that agreement at the G8 summit, so we are having some effect, but there is more to be done. In particular, post-conflict countries do not have the track record that enables them to qualify, so we must be more flexible there. We are doing all that we can not to impose specific new health and education conditions but, rather, to require a good economic policy to obtain good economic growth to benefit the poor.
    Mr. Bowen Wells: What proposals and initiatives will the Secretary of State put forward for the annual meeting of the World bank and the IMF this autumn to relieve debt?
    Clare Short: As I have said, we must now seek to implement the agreement reached at the G8 summit between all the major donor countries to speed up the implementation of HIPC—a shift in the position of a number of countries—and the agreement to be more flexible about post-conflict countries, such as Rwanda, about which the hon. Gentleman and the Select Committee are worried. Rwanda has come out of chaos and does not have the track record over the years that would enable it to qualify for HIPC, but the levels of poverty there were so great that, without help to reduce

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    poverty, chaos could well return. Therefore, we need more flexible conditions and we shall be working on both fronts at the meeting.
    Mrs. Maria Fyfe: This Question Time should not go by without my taking the opportunity to congratulate my right hon. Friend on the large increase in her budget which she won from the Treasury. That will be welcome throughout the country. Will my right hon. Friend soon be able to announce how much more might be able to be done for health and education, given, as she has pointed out herself, that many countries are so heavily indebted that they spend more on repaying their debt than on the health and education of their populations?
    Clare Short: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for her congratulations. The Labour party has kept its commitment to reverse the decline in development assistance which went on so shamefully under the previous Administration. Immediately after the election, we announced that we would increase by 50 per cent. our spending on health, education and water in Africa, and that is now being implemented.
    I caution everyone involved with debt relief not to see it as the only remedy for poverty. We need debt relief in order to reduce poverty, but there are some poor countries without debt, and debt relief must be seen in that context. We shall be disbursing our increased resources and making announcements in the autumn. I can promise my hon. Friend that a commitment to improve spending on education, health and clean water will be a theme of those.
    Mr. Gary Streeter: I welcome what the Secretary of State has said about the HIPC initiative and wish her well in speeding up that process. Can she clarify the extent to which the Government support and intend to honour the specific aims and objectives of the Jubilee 2000 campaign?
    Clare Short: As I have made clear before, we welcome the Jubilee 2000 campaign. In the various cathedrals in Birmingham at the time of the G8 summit, I addressed groupings from all over the country campaigning on debt. I was proud that so many of the British people came to Birmingham to ask the representatives of the richest countries in the world not to forget the needs of the poorest. We are highly committed to making improvements. It depends to which of the demands of the Jubilee 2000 campaign one listens. Sometimes it talks as though all debt should be relieved unconditionally. We do not agree with that. There are countries with high levels of debt that have spent their money on luxuries or have excessive military expenditure. We believe that debt relief should be linked to a commitment to poverty reduction and sensible economic management. We believe in implementing HIPC more flexibly, not in cancelling all debt unconditionally.

    Palestine (Development Aid)
    Dr. Phyllis Starkey: What plans there are for future development aid to the Palestinian Authority. [51322]
    The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for International Development (Mr. George Foulkes): We expect to maintain a substantial bilateral programme of development projects that target the poor, promote sustainable livelihoods and encourage good government. We aim to help the Palestinian Authority to build its capacity as an efficient and accountable Government. We are conscious, however, that lack of progress in the peace process is causing increased poverty in the occupied territories. That undermines much of the work.
    Dr. Starkey: I thank my hon. Friend for his answer. I have seen for myself the obvious benefits that the Palestinian economy can gain from projects that we, and the European Union, have funded; but, as my hon. Friend mentioned, its ability to benefit is undercut by the obstructions that the Israeli Government are putting in the way of the development of trade between the different parts of the Palestinian Authority, and between the Palestinian Authority and its neighbours. I am thinking particularly of obstruction on the border between Gaza and Egypt, where spurious security concerns are being used to limit the ability to trade. What representations is my hon. Friend making to his colleagues in the Foreign Office with the aim of removing those obstructions?
    Mr. Foulkes: I commend my hon. Friend for her sustained interest in this topic following her visit to the area. She has been to see me, and has pursued the matter through questions and by all other possible means. We share her concern, and I assure her that, through officials and Ministers, we are regularly in touch with our Foreign Office colleagues. All the good work that we are doing could be jeopardised—indeed, it is already being jeopardised—unless we receive full co-operation from the Israeli Government. As my hon. Friend has said, we are not receiving it now.
    Mr. David Atkinson: Does the Minister agree that, as well as giving aid to the Palestinian Authority and the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for the Near East, the international community will in due course be required to fund the outcome of the final-status negotiations relating to Palestinian refugees, which are due to be completed by May next year? What consideration is the Department giving to the establishment of a new United Nations fund for that purpose—as proposed in the Atkinson plan, which the Council of Europe endorsed earlier this year?
    Mr. Foulkes: I do not think we need ask who the Atkinson plan is named after. I am glad that the author of that plan is here to present it to us. I must add, however, that we are not enamoured of the idea of establishing new United Nations funds. We are trying to streamline and improve the efficiency of the UN and its agencies in the delivery of assistance, and I feel that such tasks might be performed better by one of the existing agencies.
    Mrs. Louise Ellman: Does the Minister agree that it is essential for the Palestinian Authority to develop accountable and democratic institutions to ensure that funds go to those for whom they are intended—the mass of people in its territories?

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    Does he agree that the responsibility for doing that lies firmly with the Palestinian Authority, and not with the Government of Israel?
    Mr. Foulkes: We continue to do a great deal to build up the capacity of the Palestinian Authority. We have been concerned about the financial arrangements, and have given advice in that regard. I assure my hon. Friend that all bilateral assistance given to the Palestinian Authority is used for the purpose for which it is intended: we make sure that that happens.
    Mr. Nicholas Soames: Does the Minister agree that, in view of the catastrophic failure of American policy in the middle east and the grave instability that continues to arise therefrom, a special duty now falls on the European Union to assume leadership in the region? Will he talk to his American counterpart to ensure that the Americans follow our very successful programme to help the Palestinians, and that an even-handed approach is adopted to aid in the area? That is the only way in which we can hope eventually to see peace.
    Mr. Foulkes: Most of what the hon. Gentleman has said is principally a matter for the Foreign Secretary and the Foreign Office. I assure him, however, that the whole Government—from the Prime Minister downwards, and including the Department for International Development—are committed to making an extra effort to ensure that the peace process is enlivened, so that the money that we spend is used effectively and the Palestinian people do not continue to experience the poverty that they are suffering now.

    Cyprus
    Mr. Nigel Evans: If she will make a statement on the level of assistance her Department gives to Cyprus. [51323]
    The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for International Development (Mr. George Foulkes): Cyprus is a high-income country with gross domestic product per head of $13,000. Under our small grants scheme, we are completing some education projects valued at about £75,000 in the current financial year. We have no plans for future assistance of this kind. The European Union has allocated £51 million to Cyprus, of which the share attributed to our Department is £8.16 million.
    Mr. Evans: The European Union is putting a great deal of money into Cyprus. In the context of those funds, could the Minister ensure that people in the north of the island are recognised? I fully understand why the money has to go through the official Government of Cyprus. Does the Minister agree that if aid is spread throughout the island, people on both sides of it and the two Administrations will have to work and talk together about projects?
    Mr. Foulkes: Much of the European Union assistance relates to the accession process. The British preference is for a bi-zonal, bi-communal Cyprus joining the European Union. That process can bring a new impetus to efforts to reach a settlement in Cyprus.
    Mr. Robin Corbett: Can my hon. Friend assure me that he will do his best to see that the money is used to facilitate contacts and meetings between members of both Cypriot communities? Will he join me in appealing to Mr. Rauf Denktash, the leader of the Turkish Cypriot community, to lift his ban on contacts between those living in the north and those in the south of the island?
    Mr. Foulkes: I am wary of entering into issues that are more correctly matters for the Foreign Secretary and the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. Our aim is to ensure that money is spent effectively. As I said earlier, accession to the European Union is used as part of a process for getting better agreement between the two parts of Cyprus.

    European Markets (Access)
    Dr. Vincent Cable: What action her Department is taking (a) with other Government Departments and (b) with its EU counterparts to improve freedom of access to European markets for exports from low-income countries. [51324]
    The Secretary of State for International Development (Clare Short): During the United Kingdom presidency we worked with other Departments to reach agreement on the European Union mandate for the negotiations for a successor to the current Lome convention. The UK objective was to ensure that the mandate reflected our commitment, as set out in the development White Paper, to improve freedom of access to European markets for exports from the least developed countries, as well as protecting the current access arrangements for the non-least developed countries. Those objectives were secured in the mandate, and the negotiations themselves will open at the end of September.
    Dr. Cable: I thank the Minister for that reply. Does she agree that the considerable value of her aid programme is somewhat undermined by the persistence of trade barriers, notably on agriculture, and also by such measures as were introduced today—the big increase in textile tariffs at the behest of France with the acquiescence of the British Government? Does she further agree that she should take a lead in Whitehall in arguing for a liberal trade regime in Britain's interests and in the interests of low-income developing countries?
    Clare Short: I agree with the hon. Gentleman that we must give good trade access to the poorest countries. The least developed countries' share of world trade is less than 0.5 per cent., so we can afford to be generous and build up the frailest economies. It has been agreed that the least developed countries should have zero tariff access to European Union markets, and we hope to entrench that agreement in the World Trade Organisation. I agree with the principle that the hon. Gentleman has expressed. The Lome record shows that the ability of the African, Caribbean and Pacific countries to take up trade access has been disappointing. Their share of EU markets has fallen during the existence of the Lome trade concession. Therefore, we need to help countries to build up their capacity to take up trade preferences and use them. We should work on both fronts.
    Mr. Tom Clarke: May I warmly congratulate my right hon. Friend on arresting the

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    decline, year by year, in achieving the United Nations target of 0.7 per cent? On Europe, may I ask her to support sustainable tourism, including the protection of rain forests and greater monitoring of the transportation of dangerous materials?
    Clare Short: I am grateful to my right hon. Friend. I pay tribute to him for his work in this area, which I am sure helped to bring about that outcome. On sustainable tourism, I agree that many of the poorest countries are tourist destinations. If we can get high-quality tourism, with good training and good rates of pay for local people, it could be an important asset. Similarly, he will know of the Commonwealth-backed Iwokrama rain forest project in Guyana, which is meant to be an exemplar of good tropical forest management. One of the ideas to make that sustainable is to have high-quality ecological tourism. If we arrange that properly, it could be beneficial to all parties.
    Mr. John Bercow: Freedom of access to European markets for exports from low-income countries is obviously of the greatest importance, but will the right hon. Lady, in the name of international development, press for global free trade by 2020?
    Clare Short: As the hon. Gentleman will probably know, Mr. Ruggiero has called for universal zero tariff access for the least developed countries through the World Trade Organisation and we strongly support that. The hon. Gentleman will also know that another GATT round is coming up in 2000. My Department is doing all that it can to provide access to expertise for developing countries, which make up the majority of WTO members. If they together can decide what they want out of the next round, we could get a beneficial settlement, increase world trade, and ensure that it is equitably distributed and that the poorest countries benefit from globalisation.

    Sudan
    Mr. Bill O'Brien: What representations she has made to the international community on hardship in the Sudan; and if she will make a statement. [51325]
    The Secretary of State for International Development (Clare Short): On 18 May, I chaired a discussion held by EU Development Ministers on Sudan. Since then, I have discussed Sudan with the executive director of the UN World Food Programme, the United Nations Children's Fund and others. I am particularly concerned that the international community should take full advantage of the recently announced temporary ceasefire in the Bahr el Ghazal region of southern Sudan, and that we should seek to build on that to reach a negotiated settlement in Sudan, which is the real answer; otherwise, the war will cause a continuing threat of humanitarian crisis.
    I wrote to my EU Development Minister colleagues on 14 July, urging them to make additional resources available, but the situation remains very worrying and it looks as though the famine will continue through this year into next.
    Mr. O'Brien: I thank my right hon. Friend for her reply. Like her, I, other hon. Members and people throughout the UK share the concern over the suffering
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    of women and children in Sudan, particularly southern Sudan. What response has she received from other EU Governments to her appeal for more resources for Sudan and what advantage are EU Governments taking of the ceasefire in Sudan to help those people who are suffering, through no fault of their own? Will she give us some indication of what the future is for the people of Sudan?
    Clare Short: I am grateful to my hon. Friend. The World Food Programme has said that, for the next couple of months, it has enough resources to deliver the food that is needed in southern Sudan, but let me repeat that 90 per cent. of the spend is going on air drops. That is terrible. People are hungry, and the international community is spending masses of money on aeroplanes. That is why the ceasefire, for which Britain has worked so hard, is so important. It means that we can move in trainloads of food. We are anxious to take advantage of the ceasefire. I have not yet received responses from my EU colleagues, but I stress again that food that is getting in for hungry people is being diverted by fighters. We have to extend the ceasefire. There needs to be a negotiated settlement in Sudan, or we will go from crisis to crisis.
    Mr. Andrew Robathan: The Secretary of State and I agree that peace is the key to solving the famine in Sudan and I pay tribute to her Foreign Office colleague who I believe was instrumental in achieving the ceasefire recently. Does she agree that famine is being used as a weapon of war in Sudan by both sides, particularly by the Government of Sudan? Their ambassador stated at the International Development Committee recently that Sudan had sufficient food and was even exporting it, but was unwilling to provide food to its own people in the south of the country.
    Clare Short: I agree very much with the hon. Gentleman that peace is the answer. The real problem is that the international community has almost given up on Sudan and that humanitarian aid just props up the terrible war economy in which the conditions of the people get ever worse. I also agree that the Government of Sudan and the leadership of factions in the south care little for the welfare of the people and continue prosecuting this endless war. Both should be criticised, but we should all use our influence to extend the ceasefire and achieve a negotiated settlement, as that is the only way forward.
    Dr. Jenny Tonge: Does the Secretary of State accept that her opposition to humanitarian emergency appeals to help the starving people of southern Sudan may—and I emphasise that word—have led some people to think that the British Government are allowing the Government of Sudan to get away with using starvation as a weapon of war? Does she accept that the USA is reported by some sources to be backing the rebels in southern Sudan, where there are oil deposits? In view of that perception, what discussions have taken place with the USA about its potential role in the peace process? [Interruption.]
    Madam Speaker: Order. Before the Secretary of State replies, the House must come to order as one can very seldom hear the Members who are speaking. I want to

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    hear the response of the Secretary of State. [Interruption.] Order. The House must come to order. Conversations are much too noisy.
    Clare Short: Thank you, Madam Speaker.
    No. I do not accept that my suggesting that there needs to be international pressure on both sides to gain access rather than telling the public that the problem was lack of resources was in any way an error. The pressure of international public opinion made the Government of Sudan change their mind on flights and access and led the Sudan People's Liberation Army to agree to the ceasefire which, as the hon. Lady knows, it was unwilling to do at first.
    It is true that the USA is providing support for capacity building to the factions in the south. I have spoken to Brian Attwood, the head of USAID, about the need to back the ceasefire. Others worry that some elements in the Administration take the position that the hon. Lady put forward. It is absolutely crucial that countries do not line up on the war because of their criticism of the Government of Sudan and allow the people of Sudan to continue to suffer. We must do better to get everyone to work seriously for a negotiated settlement in Sudan.
    Mr. Gary Streeter: While I understand entirely what the Secretary of State is saying about the need for peace, and wish her well in her pursuit of a long-term political settlement, will she take the opportunity this afternoon to give a clear and unequivocal message to the British people that she now accepts that in the south of Sudan at least, more money, food and medical supplies are urgently needed to keep people alive? Will she whole-heartedly endorse the public appeals now being made by UK aid agencies?
    Clare Short: No. As I said to the hon. Gentleman, no one should play games with the crisis in Sudan. Millions of people are in danger of dying while 90 per cent. of the money that is provided goes on air drops. We are spending money on aeroplanes while people starve. Much of the food that is getting in is being diverted by fighters from the people in need. We need international concern about Sudan to keep pressure on both sides, first to get in massively more food—and we need the ceasefire for that—and secondly, to press for a negotiated settlement. That is what is needed and that is what I ask British public opinion to seek.

    Southern Africa
    Helen Jackson: What assessment she has made of the impact of the measures announced in the comprehensive spending review on aid to community development in southern Africa. [51326]
    The Secretary of State for International Development (Clare Short): We are reviewing our programmes in southern Africa to ensure that they deliver poverty reduction and sustainable development. Community involvement is essential to ensure that services meet the needs of poor people. Total expenditure in the region will be about £70 million this year.
    Helen Jackson: I thank my right hon. Friend for that reply. Like my colleagues, I congratulate her and the
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    Government on reversing the decline in aid spending that took place under the previous Government. I understand that she has recently visited Mozambique, which is of course one of the poorest nations in southern Africa. Does she plan—and if so, how—to increase the percentage of aid that goes to local, community-based projects in such countries, which help the people there?
    Clare Short: I am grateful to my hon. Friend. Yes, I have just visited Mozambique. It is one of the poorest countries in the world, where 65 per cent. of people live on the equivalent of less than half a dollar a day. The World bank reckons that living on a dollar a day is abject poverty. It is incredible that, despite Mozambique suffering everything monstrous that history can throw at a country, the people and the Government at all levels are determined to make progress—and are making it. I am very optimistic about likely progress in Mozambique. We are likely to treble our programme over the next few years from the extra resources made available, and we shall work with the Mozambique Government and local communities to involve all in improving health, education, economic management, enterprise development and crop-growing. There is lovely land in Mozambique, but much of it is under-used. Government systems and local communities need to work together to sustain progress in Mozambique.

  The Prime Minister was asked—
  PRIME MINISTER

    Engagements
    Mr. Lawrence Cunliffe: If he will list his official engagements for Wednesday 29 July.
    The Prime Minister (Mr. Tony Blair): This morning, I had meetings with ministerial colleagues and others. In addition to my duties in the House, I shall be having further such meetings later today.
    Mr. Cunliffe: Does my right hon. Friend agree that legislation to abolish the cruel hunting of animals with dogs for human entertainment will never be accepted by the committed anti-democratic Members of Parliament on the Opposition Benches? Will he assure me that he will find ways in which to honour his and our party's pledge to accommodate a Bill similar to that promoted by my hon. Friend the Member for Worcester (Mr. Foster) so that, once and for all, we can abolish the despicable, barbaric practice of hunting animals with dogs?
    The Prime Minister: Hon. Members have made clear their view, with a very large majority indeed in favour of banning hunting. My right hon. Friend the Member for Worcester—[HON. MEMBERS: "Right honourable?"] My apologies; no doubt he will be in due course, but not quite yet. Of course, the private Member's Bill promoted by my hon. Friend the Member for Worcester (Mr. Foster) failed through the action of its opponents, not the Government. My right hon. Friend the Home Secretary has discussed with him and others ways in which we can make progress on this issue. I cannot, of course, speculate about the next Session, although the Government's

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    priority will be to ensure both that our full legislative programme is intact and that we honour our manifesto commitments.
    Mr. William Hague: If the Prime Minister's welfare reforms are going as well as he has always said, why did he sack the Secretary of State for Social Security and provoke the resignation of the Minister for Welfare Reform?
    The Prime Minister: I assure the right hon. Gentleman that welfare reform will continue as we have set out in our Green Paper. Indeed, we have accomplished more welfare reform in our 15 months in office than the Conservatives did in 15 years. Of course, most of that reform has been opposed by his party.
    Mr. Hague: Is it not time for the Prime Minister to drop the pretence and admit that his programme of welfare reform in the past year has been an abject failure? Did he call in the former Secretary of State on Monday and say, "Congratulations on your numerous successes. You are fired."? Did he call in the former Minister for Welfare Reform and say, "You are so important to the Government in this Department that it is time you moved to another one."? Is not the truth that he has lost one of the few men of principle in his Government, whose name he has traded on and whose reputation he has used as a substitute for action? Is it not a fact that that Minister found that he did not have sufficient authority to act, demonstrating that, on this subject, the Prime Minister has been talk, talk, talk without a clue as to what to do?
    The Prime Minister: Let us deal with the facts, Madam Speaker. In relation to my right hon. Friend the Member for Birkenhead (Mr. Field), I have the greatest respect for him—but I must decide who is in the Cabinet. The decision as to who is in the Cabinet is mine alone.
    In respect of the specifics, over the past 15 months, we have reformed student finance; brought in proposals to reform legal aid; changed lone parent benefits; introduced £3.5 billion for young people getting off benefit and into work; proposed a fundamental reform of the Child Support Agency; and put together the first ever comprehensive strategy on benefit fraud. Each of those actions—plus the working families tax credit and the action to get disabled people off benefit and into work—has been opposed by the Opposition. They still will not say—perhaps the Leader of the Opposition will do so now—whether there is a single part of the welfare budget that they propose cutting. Perhaps he will do it now.
    Mr. Hague: It is my job to ask the questions and the right hon. Gentleman's job to answer them. He talks about his respect for the right hon. Member for Birkenhead (Mr. Field). Other Ministers must be hoping that, by this time next year, he has not developed the same respect for them. He talks about the importance of welfare reform, but no new Minister for Welfare Reform has even been appointed.
    Will the annual report of the Government, to be published today, tell the real story of the last year—that welfare bills are higher than a year ago; that waiting lists are higher; that class sizes are higher; that taxes are higher; that interest rates are higher; that inflation is higher; that exports are falling; that unemployment
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    is rising; that output is stagnating—[Interruption.] Labour Members had better listen to this list because it will haunt them. Exports are falling; unemployment is rising; output is stagnating; industry is on the brink of recession; agriculture is in recession and the cronies are in clover. When will the Prime Minister stop his power struggles with the Chancellor and tackle the real problems of this country?
    The Prime Minister: The right hon. Gentleman accused me of not giving any specifics, but I have just given him a long list of our specific reforms. We have had two weeks since the comprehensive spending review. He still does not tell us whether he is in favour of more spending or less. We have given him a list of the social security changes. He still does not tell us whether there is a single one of those that he supports or opposes—indeed, he still will not tell us whether he supports the independence of the Bank of England or not, whether he supports any interest rate rises or not or whether he supports the minimum wage or not. He is all very well at the level of generality, but when it comes to specifics, he is Mr. Vague.
    We will put through the annual report detailing the changes that we have made. Above all, we shall show how the extra money that we are getting to schools and hospitals will give this country the public services it wants. People can then contrast that record of achievement with the 18 failed Conservative years that the right hon. Gentleman supported.
    Mr. Ken Livingstone: Given that 14 of the 20 most deprived council areas in Britain are in London, can the Prime Minister understand the concern among teachers and providers of social services at press speculation that the Government are considering switching £500 million of Government grant from London to tackle poverty elsewhere? Can he give the House an undertaking that will set that concern at rest by making it clear that poverty elsewhere will be tackled out of new resources that have been set aside, and will not involve taking resources from some of the poorest boroughs in Britain in London?
    The Prime Minister: There are no such proposals to cut hundreds of millions of pounds from the education budget—or, indeed, any other sum from any other service—in London. There are always such scares before the negotiations on standard spending assessments. The Government recognise that it costs more to provide services in London than in most of the rest of the country, and that there are many deeply deprived areas of London. We are determined to let nothing get in the way of our getting those extra resources that we have provided to the schools and hospitals. My hon. Friend will be aware that what some of the most deprived areas in London and elsewhere need is the new deal for tackling unemployment, the new deal for communities, the extra money for housing and the extra help for education, which will lift the standards and spirits of people living in the inner city of London.
    Mr. Paddy Ashdown: The Prime Minister talks about specifics. May I ask him a very specific question on the central issue of welfare reform? When the outgoing Minister for Welfare Reform, who resigned on

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    Monday, told his colleagues that the Chancellor was opposed to compulsory second-tier stakeholder pensions, was he right?
    The Prime Minister: We have made it clear several times that our welfare proposals on pensions will be published later, in the autumn. As I said a moment or two ago, who goes in the Cabinet, no matter how much respect I have for them, is in the end a matter for me as Prime Minister, and me alone.
    Mr. Ashdown: This is nothing to do with who goes in the Cabinet: it concerns whether we are to have genuine welfare reform policies. If the Prime Minister adopts the proposal to which I referred, this Opposition party will support it. Why do the Government not realise that there is only one viable, affordable way of ending pensioner poverty: to ensure that those in work contribute to the funding of their own retirement by using this new and innovative scheme? If the Government do not grasp that nettle on welfare reform, how on earth will they grasp the others?
    The Prime Minister: We are grasping that nettle. That is why we will publish our proposals in the autumn, at which time we can debate them. I have just listed some of the areas of welfare reform that we have engaged with over the past year. They are fundamental areas of reform: tackling unemployment; lone parents; student finance; and legal aid. We have more reform proposals coming up on asylum, on the working families tax credit and on other matters, but so far the right hon. Gentleman's party has opposed every single one of our proposals, and the Conservative party, which says that it is in general in favour of cutting social security, is not prepared to name one specific item that it would support changing. In those circumstances, people would prefer to stick with the strategy that we have proposed.
    Mr. Paul Flynn: Has the Prime Minister seen the tribute paid this morning to my hon. Friend the Member for Bridgend (Mr. Griffiths), saying that he has served his country and his party remarkably well as a Welsh Office Minister? Is he aware that the Welsh group of Labour Members is bewildered and unhappy about the decision to sack him? What is the Prime Minister's assessment of the value of my hon. Friend's work as a Welsh Office Minister?
    The Prime Minister: Of course I value the work that my hon. Friend the Member for Bridgend (Mr. Griffiths) has done. I understand the fact that when people leave the Government, for whatever reason, they may feel concerned about it, but I, as Prime Minister, have to decide who should serve in the Government, and in what position. That has always been the case with Prime Ministers, and it will continue to be the case with me.
    Mr. Geoffrey Clifton-Brown: Is the Prime Minister aware that, earlier this year in the Keith Joseph memorial lecture, the former Minister for Welfare Reform said that 1998 would be a year to remember in welfare reform and added, "Watch this space."? Was he referring to a sacking or a resignation?
    The Prime Minister: I have already listed the areas that we have reformed. Let me now list the areas that are
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    set out in the Green Paper on welfare reform that we shall carry through over the next year: new proposals on disability living allowance; fundamental reform of incapacity benefit; a minimum income guarantee for pensioners; a single work-focused gateway into the benefit system; asylum and legal aid reform. These are proposals for welfare reform. The hon. Gentleman can shout about it as much as he likes but the truth is that we are reforming the welfare state, and we are doing it in the teeth of opposition from the Conservatives.
    Mrs. Sylvia Heal: The Prime Minister knows that certain sectors of industry have been somewhat critical of the strength of the pound recently. Despite that, some sectors of industry are by their own efforts achieving high exports. I am thinking in particular of a company in my constituency which for the third time has won the Queen's award for export achievement. In 1997–98, Griffin-Woodhouse increased its exports by more than 50 per cent. through the efforts of staff ranging from the managing director down to the people on the shop floor—a great team effort.
    The Prime Minister: I congratulate my hon. Friend's firm. Although we of course understand the difficulties for manufacturers with the strength of the pound at the moment, the Conservative policy of perpetual devaluation is not the answer to Britain's manufacturing problems. Yes, we have had to raise interest rates since the election. They have gone up to 7.5 per cent., but let us never forget where they were under the Conservative party: interest rates were at 15 per cent. for a year or more and there was a 7 per cent. fall in manufacturing output. The Conservatives were the party of boom and bust, and we are not going back to that.
    Mr. Archie Norman: I was interested in the Prime Minister's answer to the previous question. He will be aware that in recent weeks the Chancellor of the Exchequer has taken to berating business men for the productivity gap in British business, as if the deteriorating state of the economy is nothing to do with him. The Prime Minister will also be aware that future productivity is a function of investment today and the prospects for investment in this country are declining rapidly, as recent surveys have shown. For instance, the Institute of Management—
    Madam Speaker: Order. We want no for instances; we want questions at Question Time.
    Mr. Norman: Will the Prime Minister comment on recent surveys of business confidence that have shown that business confidence is plummeting to an all-time low and that export prospects, as shown by Dun and Bradstreet, are at their lowest level for 10 years? Is this what the Prime Minister had in mind when he said that the Labour party—
    Madam Speaker: Order. I require the hon. Gentleman to resume his seat.
    The Prime Minister: It is important that we come through this period without returning to the boom-and-bust policies that did so much damage to British industry and investment over a long period.

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    We have to avoid the situation that we had in the late 1980s and early 1990s, which the Government whom the hon. Gentleman used to support put us into. Of course I understand the difficulties caused by the strong pound in certain sectors of manufacturing, but productivity is an issue in British industry. Devaluation is not the answer to all British industry's problems. As for productivity, I suggest that he concentrates a bit on that at Conservative central office.
    Mr. Tony Benn: Whereas the Prime Minister's power to appoint and dismiss members of the Cabinet has always been totally unchallenged, and rightly so, will the Prime Minister give the House an absolute assurance that he will not promote the Liberal leader, the right hon. Member for Yeovil (Mr. Ashdown), from a Cabinet consultative committee, about which I asked last year, to the full Cabinet post that he has been longing for, having failed to get elected?
    The Prime Minister: I think I shall stick with the conventions that I outlined a moment or two ago.
    Hon. Members: Oh!
    Mr. Hague: I think that we would all have welcomed a straighter answer to that question. Where in the Labour manifesto did it say that a Labour Government would make it more expensive for council tenants to exercise their right to buy their homes?
    The Prime Minister: I assume that the right hon. Gentleman is referring to the proposals on the right to buy, where we have restricted that right in terms of the amount of expenditure. The reason, of course, is precisely to save money on the benefit bills.
    Mr. Hague: Clearly that idea was not in the Labour manifesto. What we object to is cuts in help for people who are trying to be independent of the state—[Interruption.]—while the Government spend billions more on making people dependent on the state. Before the election, the Labour party went out of its way to stress its support for the right to buy. In "New Labour—New Britain", a useful little book, in answer to the question,
    "Doesn't Labour oppose council tenants' right to buy their homes?",
    why did it say,
    "No, we fully support the right to buy."?
    Why has the Prime Minister now gone back on that right to buy? Thousands of people will now find it more difficult to buy their homes. They have been hit hard and they do not know why—they are not even friends of the Chancellor. Is the Prime Minister going to guarantee no further reductions during this Parliament?
    The Prime Minister: Now the right hon. Gentleman is saying that we have got to guarantee no cuts—that is his cry. It is pathetic to see such opportunism on the part of the Opposition. For two weeks, he has opposed in general the increases in spending, yet he has supported every one in particular, and asked for more money. He has opposed the social security spending in general, yet he has opposed any measure to improve the situation in particular. His position is one of hypocrisy and opportunism, and typical.
    Mr. Hague: Is it not thoroughly pathetic for a Prime Minister to parade himself before the election as a friend of tenants who wanted to buy their home, and then to leave thousands of people wondering today whether they can still do so? Are they not entitled to feel deceived by that utter hypocrisy?
    The Prime Minister: They are actually still being given very considerable taxpayers' help in discounts. I repeat my question—and perhaps the right hon. Gentleman can tell us now: is there a single item of the social security budget that he would cut?
    Mr. Hague: The Prime Minister answers the questions; I ask them.
    The Prime Minister: I appreciate the fact that it is I who answer the questions and the right hon. Gentleman who asks them, but, perhaps he will answer, just this once. He has been in power as Leader of the Opposition for 15 months, so surely he can tell us whether there is one spending proposal that he opposes or one social security spending cut that he would make. Can he not at least give some leadership to his party?
    Ms Bridget Prentice: It is quite fun getting used to the sound of my own voice again. Is my right hon. Friend aware of the delight that will be felt on the Government Benches about the fact that, for the first time since 1995, there has been a downturn in the number of people waiting for hospital treatment? Given that that is something about which the Leader of the Opposition and the shadow health spokesperson have been banging on for some time, has my right hon. Friend received a message of congratulation from them? Has our right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Health received a message of congratulation from either of those people? If not, is my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister either surprised or dismayed?
    The Prime Minister: I am certainly not surprised. Waiting lists are now coming down for the first time in years, and class sizes will start to fall for the first time from September. The Conservatives used to say that that was the test of whether we were serious about schools and hospitals, but we have not heard much from them since we started to deliver on those promises.
    Mrs. Teresa Gorman: Did the Prime Minister have time yesterday to read the extremely gloomy economic forecast in the Financial Times, which said that small businesses in the north-east are getting smaller every day? Does he agree that for workers in the north-east, size is, indeed, everything?
    The Prime Minister: I appreciate the difficulties experienced by some companies when there is an economic downturn, but, as I said to the hon. Member for Tunbridge Wells (Mr. Norman), we have a simple choice—we can go through the economic cycle and return from the boom to bust that we had under the Conservatives, or we can take the measures that promote monetary stability and allow us to reduce interest rates in the long term. The hon. Lady should remember that long-term interest rates have fallen since this Government were elected. We have taken measures to cut the Budget deficit that we inherited from her Government.

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    In addition, we shall tackle the problems of productivity to which the hon. Member for Tunbridge Wells referred by investing in education, skills, the transport infrastructure, technology and science, which this country needs. I understand the difficulties experienced by some firms at the moment, but the worst thing for them would be a return to the recession-led days of the Conservatives.
    Maria Eagle: What policies will the Government develop to assist those council tenants who exercised their right to buy during the Conservative years only to find, to their dismay, that they had purchased defective dwellings that were not designated defective and who are now stuck in crumbling homes which they have absolutely no chance of selling?
    The Prime Minister: My hon. Friend is absolutely right to draw attention to that matter. The programme that we have implemented for housing will give those people at least some help with the problems caused them by the Conservative Government.
    Mr. Humfrey Malins: Why does the Prime Minister's White Paper on immigration and asylum fail to deal with the huge problem of the tens of thousands of people in this country who have lost all their immigration appeals and should no longer be here, who have gone to ground and are at addresses that are not known to the authorities and who are effectively a huge burden on the taxpayer? I appreciate that the problem has existed for a long time. [HON. MEMBERS: "Oh."] I am being honest. Is the Prime Minister prepared to act on that? Will they be deported or given an amnesty? What will be done?
    The Prime Minister: The hon. Gentleman should be congratulated on realising that the problem has been going on for a long time. We inherited a backlog of more than 30,000 cases concerning people who have been here for five years or more. We have to try to deal with that as best we can by ensuring that we set up a new system in which we spend resources on dealing with cases quickly rather than allowing a backlog to build up over a long period.
    I am glad that the hon. Gentleman mentioned asylum, because the measures proposed by my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary will dramatically reduce the costs of asylum. If we continued operating under the Conservatives' proposals, we would be spending roughly double the amount. Yet again, the Conservatives say that they want reduced spending but oppose our proposals to reduce it.
    Mrs. Rosemary McKenna: My right hon. Friend will be aware that those of us involved in working with local partnerships to develop the new deal very much welcome this week's announcement of help for homeless young people to have early access to the new deal. Does he agree that that will give many thousands of young people hope for the future for the first time in a long time?
    The Prime Minister: The initiative set out by the social exclusion unit should cut the numbers of people sleeping rough, by two thirds in three years. The essential elements of that are to try to ensure that we give people a roof over their head so that they can then get a job if
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    they are given the right help with skills, and also to try to prevent them from becoming homeless in the first place. That is precisely the type of strategy, which operates across Government Departments, that has been advanced by this Government but was wholly lacking under the previous Administration.
    Mrs. Angela Browning: May I remind the Prime Minister of one of his welfare reforms that he has not mentioned this afternoon—the benefit integrity project? During the next five weeks, three of my constituents with disabilities will, quite separately, go through the appeals procedure, because in the past few weeks they have lost the benefit that allows them to drive a Motability car. If, while the Prime Minister is sitting by his pool in Italy, he were to write a postcard to send to those people, what would he write on it?
    The Prime Minister: The benefit integrity project exists to ensure that those who are entitled to benefit get it but that those who are not entitled do not, and there is an appeals procedure that the hon. Lady's constituents can use. Yet again, we have a proposal that is designed to try to curb the rising costs of welfare, and the hon. Lady's question shows that, although the Conservatives say that they are in favour of welfare reform, they oppose every specific measure to do it. I also remind her that the benefit integrity project was introduced by the Government in which she served.
    Ms Helen Southworth: The Prime Minister is aware that, in the community of Warrington, people have raised £1 million in the past three months to build a peace centre. It is a place where younger people, living in areas that have been affected by the troubles in Northern Ireland, in southern Ireland and in England, will be able to meet, build some bridges, break down some barriers and make some friendships in an atmosphere of tolerance and understanding.
    Will my right hon. Friend give his full support to the people in communities all across these islands—[Interruption.]
    Madam Speaker: Order. Members should read the latest Modernisation Committee report before calling those words out. Continue.
    Ms Southworth: Thank you, Madam Speaker, for your support on this crucial issue. I am asking my right hon. Friend for his support for people in communities all across these islands who dare to believe that the future can be different from the past.
    The Prime Minister: We have, of course, given a lot of support to projects right across the islands which, as my hon. Friend says, promote the cause of peace. The Warrington peace centre and the Tim Parry exchange are two especially worthwhile projects. They show, above all else, that the progress that we are making in Northern Ireland, difficult though it is, is supported by people not only in Northern Ireland but throughout the United Kingdom. They deserve, and will get, the better future that we are prepared to give them.

Personal Statement
3.31 pm
Maria Eagle: On a point of order, Madam Speaker.
Madam Speaker: No. I must take the personal statement first.
The Prime Minister (Mr. Tony Blair)rose—
Hon. Members: Order!
Madam Speaker: Order. This House must come to order. That is disgraceful behaviour from Members on the Front Bench.
Mr. Frank Field: Madam Speaker, as I was saying, before I was interrupted by the privileges of office.
For a decade before entering Parliament, I worked on behalf of poor people, attempting to make their needs and views better known to the nation. In Parliament, to which I was elected in the political watershed election of 1979, I argued for welfare reform, and helped campaign to make Labour acceptable again, while representing the interests of my constituents in Birkenhead. In so many respects, all three battles overlapped.
My past 30 years have been characterised by helping to get changes made—calling for the sale of council houses, and for the money to be used to build new homes and repair old ones; initiating the one member, one vote, campaign; and spearheading the political drive for the introduction of child benefit. On those and other issues, the stress was on seeing reforms through.
Before my right hon. Friend the Member for Sedgefield (Mr. Blair) became the leader of the Labour party, I put it on the record that I did not believe that Labour would ever win an election again. My right hon. Friend transformed that position. The 1997 election result indicated the electorate's wish to embrace political change on a scale equal to, but radically different from, that made by Mrs. Thatcher.
On the Saturday after my right hon. Friend's election triumph, I was offered the post of Minister for Welfare Reform. I sensed then, only tentatively, that to reform welfare required a position of executive authority. I was to learn the full importance of that only later. In the end, I settled for a non-executive position, wishing as I did, and still do, for the welfare reform programme to be the big success for which the country longs, and wishing to play some part in that revolution.
I also knew that not to have taken that opportunity could have led to accusations that I had never been a team player, for that was a charge to which I was particularly open. I had spent most of my political life here in Parliament, where there was no Labour team worth playing for, and in trying to maintain some political sanity when others had lost their heads. I am pleased to see that so many are back in order.
On the Monday after the election, I talked to the Prime Minister about the welfare reform strategy. He gave me his immediate agreement to the production of a Green Paper. The idea was to produce a route map guiding the
374
way in which reform should be conducted. Then the difficulties began. However, it is not true that the Prime Minister ever vetoed earlier versions of the Green Paper as being too radical. Nothing could be further from the truth.
Over many years, the Prime Minister has commented on my publications. There was much about the way in which welfare was impacting on people's lives on which we agreed—how it affected behaviour, and how individuals saw or did not see their personal responsibilities and their duty to self-improvement. Here, then, was the central theme of the welfare reform strategy. People's natural wish to improve their lot and that of their families had to become once again the great engine force of social advance in Britain.
Much of current welfare expenditure counters that objective. Although the level of expenditure is an issue, the main concern is the cancerous impact that much of welfare has on people's motivations, their actions and thus their character. Those are the beliefs underpinning the Green Paper. There, the objectives of welfare reform are spelled out, together with 32 success measurements. No democratically elected Government have ever before stated so clearly at the start of their stewardship the measures by which they wish to be judged.
The process of reform was put out to consultation, which ends on Friday, although not before I had travelled more than 9,000 miles and listened and talked to more than 2,000 people.
The Green Paper lays down the framework within which welfare reform is to be conducted. Other Green Papers on specific topics are to follow. One on the Child Support Agency is already out for consultation. Again on the Prime Minister's authority, I and the DSS team produced within eight weeks a Green Paper on countering fraud.
Bigger decisions are now awaited. The reform of disability benefits is urgent. Housing benefit cannot be left providing millions of tenants with a free good for life, at the cost of giving landlords open access to taxpayers' money.
The biggest of all reforms should be heralded in the pensions Green Paper, where the battle is joined by those who see a limited operation as desirable, with a major role for means-tested provision not only for now but for many generations to come.
The alternative centres on proposals that I have made for a universal stakeholder pension. That would guarantee a pension from national insurance and from funded sources which links the interests of rich and poor into a single scheme. It involves some redistribution from richer people to their poorer neighbours, in return for guaranteeing a pension level that only the community can offer. I wish my right hon. Friend the new Secretary of State for Social Security every success in that debate.
If the past 15 months have taught me anything, it is not only that the biggest of all reforms requires an executive position for a person with convictions about welfare reform, but that the entire Cabinet, especially the Chancellor, shares beliefs about that common endeavour.
I went into Government to see the welfare reform programme through. When my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister offered me other tasks on Monday, I resigned. It was from the other side of the House that I

375
put together the philosophy underpinning our welfare reform programme. It is from this side that I shall attempt once again to help to build a consensus for radical change which, while accepting the pivotal role of self-interest and its crucial link to self-improvement, does not collapse into a selfishness which excludes the poor.
May I thank you, Madam Speaker, for allowing me to make this statement? Through you, may I thank the House for listening to me?

Points of Order
3.40 pm
Mr. Paul Burstow: On a point of order, Madam Speaker. You have made it plain several times how much you deprecate the leaking of Government information in advance of statements in the House. I would ask you to rule on another example that has occurred today, when the Secretary of State for Health issued press releases signalling a substantial change in direction in the policy of care in the community, which had not been the subject of a statement in the House this afternoon.
Can it be right, Madam Speaker, that the House is not to be given the opportunity to question the Secretary of State about his intentions for mental health services, an issue that concerns many of our constituents, and which concerns the community at large? Surely the House should have had the opportunity adequately to question the Secretary of State. Will you give us a ruling, Madam Speaker?
Madam Speaker: A written question was answered at 10 o'clock this morning. Next.
Maria Eagle: On a point of order, Madam Speaker. As a relatively new Back-Bench Member, may I secure guidance on the appropriate behaviour when, as a Back Bencher, one receives, clearly inadvertently, a fax at the office from a senior member of an Opposition party? Should one be good enough to return it? Are there any matters of privilege that arise as a result?
Madam Speaker: That really is a poser. I would say that it depends on what it says. On the whole, I would be honest and return it with affectionate greetings and, "Have a good recess."
Sir Peter Tapsell: On a point of order, Madam Speaker. Is it not almost unprecedented when a Minister makes a personal resignation statement in the House that the Prime Minister of the Administration that he or she is leaving does not show the retiring Minister and the House the courtesy of being in his place to listen to the statement?
Madam Speaker: I said only this week, on a similar matter when statements were being made, that it is a question for Ministers whether they remain in their places, or whether they have other duties to which they need to attend.

Parliamentary Oaths (Amendment)
3.43 pm
Mr. Kevin McNamara: I beg to move,
That leave be given to bring in a Bill to enable a person lawfully elected to the House of Commons to take his seat without swearing the present oath or affirming; and for connected purposes.
On 4 December 1997, following a meeting with the Members for Belfast, West (Mr. Adams) and for Mid-Ulster (Mr. McGuinness), you informed the House, Madam Speaker, as follows:
"Having listened carefully to their representations, I reaffirmed my decision of 14 May that those who choose not to take their seats should not have access to the benefits and facilities … in the House."
You said
"that it was their refusal to swear or affirm that prevented them from taking their seats, not any action by the Speaker."
Madam Speaker, you further explained that,
"as Speaker, I am bound by the law. Swearing the Oath, or affirming it, is a legal requirement that cannot be set aside by whim or any administrative action. Primary legislation would be needed to change the Parliamentary Oaths Act 1866 or the form of the Oath."—[Official Report, 4 December 1977; Vol. 302, c. 487.]
I beg leave to introduce such a Bill. I do so with some trepidation, because the taking of an oath and the act of its swearing or affirmation is a matter of great moment in the life of a person or of a nation. No democratic institution would demand that its participants take an oath without reason. No person seeking election to perform a public service would take an oath without understanding the significance of such an act. It is considered a public, solemn and sacred undertaking. Believers swear on their holy books, which is why I always ask for the Douai testament.
I seek to challenge the reason and purpose of the current oath, and suggest an alternative for those who may not wish to take it. The era in which it was thought to be appropriate or fit for legislators to set a political or religious test for those deemed acceptable to enter the parliamentary club has long since passed. Our vision, and that of the Government, is inclusive representation. Parliament must be open not only to Catholic, Protestant or dissenter, but to involvement and engagement with those of all religions or of none.
We aspire to a democracy in which discrimination on grounds of race or religion might be assigned to the history books. The only test for inclusion and membership of this House should be the will of the electorate, freely expressed. This year, we celebrate the 50th anniversary of the universal declaration of human rights. Article 21.2 provides:
"Everyone has the right to take part in the Government of his country, directly or through freely chosen representatives".
We recognise that the law must, without discrimination, respect the rights of citizens to seek political or public office, individually or as representatives of political parties or organisations, to ensure that the will of the people serves as the authority for government. We also recognise that parliamentary privilege is not for the benefit of Members, but protects the rights of the electorate, who depend on those whom they have elected to uphold their rights and interests in Parliament.
When we are heralding the potential of the Belfast agreement to advance an agenda of human rights and equality for all, to transform that sad political landscape
378
and the political landscape of these islands, and to create a new framework for the reconciliation of a divided country, it is ironic that we can be so unaware of the need to be seen to get our own house in order.
Every hon. Member understands that at least one source of the alienation and disaffection in Northern Ireland stems from the belief of a substantial number of the population that their identity is Irish, not British; that, given the choice, they would prefer to live in a united Ireland, rather than the United Kingdom; and that they do not want to be British, whether citizens, subjects or stakeholders.
Successive Governments have rightly proclaimed the superiority of the ballot box over the Armalite, and demanded that those from the Irish republican tradition renounce the use of violence and seek change exclusively by democratic and peaceful means. Is it not hypocrisy of the first order to argue that Irish republicans should contest elections, only to find when they have succeeded in winning that they are denied the right to fulfil their mandate and represent their electorate?
I have used the word "republican" mainly in an insular and Hibernian sense, but republicans from the rest of these islands are denied access to this House not only in that sense. For what democratic reason should a person of republican beliefs be required to renounce his or her political opinions to take a seat in this Parliament? How can a law requiring Irish or other republicans to take an oath of allegiance to a British sovereign be compatible with the principle of parity of esteem or equality of treatment?
Whether Sinn Fein republicans, because of their party's constitution, would or would not take their seats if the oath were removed or an alternative supplied is beside the point for the purpose of setting out the principles that should govern the law of admittance to this House. The question whether they would choose to take their seats is a matter for them and their constituents; it is not for this House to pose a barrier to them.
The law should require that all discriminatory barriers to participation in the political process be removed; as it stands, it denies access to the political process to people who elect republican Members of Parliament. Such a barrier protects Parliament from hearing the voices and views of sections of the electorate that sometimes it would prefer to ignore, but I do not believe that the Government would want to be associated with a policy of ignoring uncomfortable truths. After all, they boast about the tough decisions that they have had to take.
I believe that providing an alternative to the oath as it stands is a vital part of the modernisation of our democracy and of the House. To treat the oath as "traditional" in the sense of a folklore heritage would be to undermine and trivialise the significance of such a solemn undertaking. As with the great debate on the televising of proceedings of the House, once change was accomplished, a return to the old system would be inconceivable.
We should not duck this issue. Individuals, such as my right hon. Friend the Member for Chesterfield (Mr. Benn), may add their own personal preface to the oath of allegiance. Others, such as the Minister for Sport, my hon. Friend the Member for West Ham (Mr. Banks), may regress to infancy in the belief that crossed fingers can undo a promise that they do not want to make. Who

379
knows what other unheard or unobserved acts hon. Members have performed when taking the oath? The oath is a serious and public matter. It may assuage the consciences of individuals to act in that way, but it does not resolve the issue of how we, as a Parliament, deal with this problem. If we provide an alternative, we could overcome that difficulty. We could draw upon the oath taken by Scottish constables, who must swear before a sheriff or a justice of the peace:
"I hereby and solemnly and truly declare and affirm that I will faithfully discharge the duties of the office of constable."
We could do that as Members of Parliament. We could adopt the oath proposed by my right hon. Friend the Member for Chesterfield, which stated:
"I do solemnly Declare and Affirm that I will, to the best of my ability, discharge the responsibilities required of me by virtue of my membership of the House of Commons and faithfully serve those whom I represent here."
I am not suggesting anything revolutionary. I am merely saying, in good conscience, that we should provide an alternative for those who, by taking an oath of allegiance to the sovereign so as to take their seat in the House, may be starting their parliamentary career on a note of deception and hypocrisy.
3.51 pm
Mr. Peter Brooke: Madam Speaker, I thank you for affording me the opportunity to oppose the motion proposed by the hon. Member for Hull, North (Mr. McNamara). He was the first Member of the House to make representations to me in person when I became a Minister, and he has always been assiduous in pursuit of his constituents' interests, but he is perhaps even more widely known in the Chamber for his attention to Northern Ireland affairs, and to Irish issues in general.
By seeking leave to bring in the Bill, the hon. Gentleman will no doubt enlarge that reputation. His Bill addresses a larger constitutional issue at the strategic level, but alludes to a particular Irish dimension at the tactical level. The larger issue is whether the oath of allegiance, which has passed through many vicissitudes and variations, not least in the oaths that have sometimes replaced it and sometimes accompanied it, since the eras of Henry IV and Henry VI, should be changed again.
In 1964, an article in the Table—the journal of the Society of Clerks-at-the-Table in Commonwealth Parliaments— said:
"the modern wording of the Oath, as settled by the Promissory Oaths Act 1868, and of the affirmation permitted by the Oaths Act 1888, now conforms fairly closely to the medieval Oath of Allegiance. The circle is therefore complete: the old Oath of Allegiance which had disappeared was replaced by a series of religious Oaths; but the religious contents of those Oaths has been steadily purged away, until nothing remains but an Oath of Allegiance very nearly in the ancient form."
This has always been essentially a matter for the House. The legal cases ring down the ages: Burdett v. Abbot; Stockdale v. Hansard; and Bradlaugh v. Gossett—Gossett being the predecessor in 1883 of our present much-respected Serjeant-at-Arms. Blackstone says:
"The whole of the law and custom of Parliament has its original from this one maxim, that whatever matter arises concerning either House of Parliament ought to be examined, discussed and adjudged in that House to which it relates, and not elsewhere."
380
As Lord Chief Justice Coleridge, in the judgment on Bradlaugh v. Gossett, said:
"the jurisdiction of the House over their own Members, their right to impose discipline within their walls, is absolute and exclusive."
He went on to quote the words of Lord Ellenborough:
"they would sink into utter contempt and inefficiency without it."
I am not a lawyer, but it was on that rock of Parliament's exclusive jurisdiction within our own walls that the application for judicial review of your decisions, Madam Speaker, of 14 May last year with regard to the hon. Members for Belfast, West (Mr. Adams) and for Mid-Ulster (Mr. McGuinness), fell in the High Court in Belfast last October, although I read in the press that, after the two hon. Members visited you in December last year, they were intending to challenge you at the European Court of Justice. I have no further intelligence on the progress of that case.
Her Majesty's Government made it clear last summer that they were not minded to take action in these matters. In answer to a question from a Government Back Bencher about the oath of allegiance, the then Leader of the House said:
"I do not accept the basic idea behind my hon. Friend's question: that we should either abolish or change significantly the oath itself."—[Official Report, 17 June 1997; Vol. 296, c. 115]
That does not mean that the idea has not been visited in recent years—most notably, as the hon. Member for Hull, North said, by the right hon. Member for Chesterfield (Mr. Benn). He would pale at any suggestion on my part of verisimilitude to an archdeacon, but he is a venerable Member, and his views, though sometimes idiosyncratic, are venerated throughout the House.
Rather in the manner of an elderly gentleman in Hampstead in my youth, who used, at regular intervals, to walk through private gardens in order to preserve an ancient right of way, so the right hon. Member for Chesterfield ventilates his views at intervals of a decade in Bills entitled, in 1988, Democratic Oaths, and, in 1998, Parliamentary Declaration, which are presented, printed and published, but then lie on the Table as written statements without further oral advocacy.
The oaths have been changed in the past. It was a predecessor in my constituency who was the first professing Jew to serve in the House as a result of just such a change. But if and when we come to make the change, it should be a considered judgment and not to solve a local difficulty.
In so far as there is a current local difficulty, we are accused by commentators outside of hiding behind the oath as a way of either excluding those we do not like or punishing those who voted for them. As I got into some trouble myself during the first ceasefire for saying that I thought that the hon. Member for Belfast, West, as he then was not, had been courageous in helping to create the ceasefire, I hope that I stand personally acquitted of that charge.
The hon. Member for Mid-Ulster himself has accused some British politicians of not adequately understanding Irish history; but it is not unreasonable for us to ask those who pride themselves on their Irishness and their Irish history to pay some attention to our own history.
The oath of allegiance cannot be regarded as a recent instrument of Parliament. In one form or another, it has been part of our constitutional procedures for centuries.

381
Anyone standing for Parliament knows the obligation that the oath involves. It may not have concerned those who wish to be abstentionist Members, but they cannot accuse us of having invented it to exclude them. Even Bradlaugh was not initially excluded because he would not swear the oath: it was Parliament which would not let him swear it. No such prohibition is present today.
Moreover, the Belfast agreement, to which the hon. Member for Hull, North alluded, which I acknowledge follows on from last year's events and upon the threat to take Madam Speaker to the European Court, underlines, underpins and copper-bottoms the principle of consent within the United Kingdom. If a man or woman seeks to sit in the House, the oath of allegiance is essentially the password to entry. Once the password has been uttered, it does not prevent an hon. Member from seeking to change the arrangements of our constitution, as the hon. Gentleman is seeking to do today, having himself sworn the present oath a year ago.
I call on the House to reject the motion moved by the hon. Gentleman:
"That leave be given to bring in a Bill to enable a person lawfully elected to the House of Commons to take his seat without swearing the present oath or affirming; and for connected purposes."
Question put, pursuant to Standing Order No. 23 (Motions for leave to bring in Bills and nomination of Select Committees at commencement of public business):—
The House divided: Ayes 137, Noes 151.

Division No. 350]

[3.58 pm

AYES

Atherton, Ms Candy

Dalyell, Tam

Austin, John

Davey, Valerie (Bristol W)

Baker, Norman

Dean, Mrs Janet

Ballard, Jackie

Dismore, Andrew

Barron, Kevin

Dobbin, Jim

Benn, Rt Hon Tony

Eagle, Angela (Wallasey)

Bennett, Andrew F

Efford, Clive

Berry, Roger

Ellman, Mrs Louise

Best, Harold

Etherington, Bill

Bradley, Peter (The Wrekin)

Fearn, Ronnie

Brand, Dr Peter

Fitzpatrick, Jim

Brinton, Mrs Helen

Flynn, Paul

Brown, Russell (Dumfries)

Foster, Rt Hon Derek

Bruce, Malcolm (Gordon)

Foster, Don (Bath)

Buck, Ms Karen

Foster, Michael J (Worcester)

Burgon, Colin

Fyfe, Maria

Butler, Mrs Christine

Gardiner, Barry

Cable, Dr Vincent

George, Andrew (St Ives)

Campbell, Ronnie (Blyth V)

Gibson, Dr Ian

Canavan, Dennis

Gilroy, Mrs Linda

Cann, Jamie

Godman, Dr Norman A

Caton, Martin

Goggins, Paul

Chaytor, David

Golding, Mrs Llin

Clapham, Michael

Gorrie, Donald

Clark, Dr Lynda(Edinburgh Pentlands)

Hall, Patrick (Bedford)

Harris, Dr Evan

Clarke, Tony (Northampton S)

Heal, Mrs Sylvia

Cook, Frank (Stockton N)

Heath, David (Somerton & Frome)

Cooper, Yvette

Hepburn, Stephen

Corbett, Robin

Hinchliffe, David

Cousins, Jim

Hopkins, Kelvin

Cox, Tom

Hughes, Ms Beverley (Stretford)

Crausby, David

Iddon, Dr Brian

Cryer, Mrs Ann (Keighley)

Jones, Helen (Warrington N)

Cryer, John (Hornchurch)

Jones, Ms Jenny(Wolverh'ton SW)

Cummings, John

Cunliffe, Lawrence

Keen, Ann (Brentford & Isleworth)

Cunningham, Jim (Cov'try S)

Kemp, Fraser

382

Kidney, David

Ryan, Ms Joan

King, Andy (Rugby & Kenilworth)

Salmond, Alex

Kingham, Ms Tess

Salter, Martin

Kumar, Dr Ashok

Sanders, Adrian

Laxton, Bob

Sarwar, Mohammad

Levitt, Tom

Savidge, Malcolm

Lewis, Terry (Worsley)

Sawford, Phil

Linton, Martin

Shaw, Jonathan

Love, Andrew

Simpson, Alan (Nottingham S)

McAllion, John

Skinner, Dennis

McDonnell, John

Soley, Clive

McNamara, Kevin

Southworth, Ms Helen

McWalter, Tony

Stewart, Ian (Eccles)

Mallaber, Judy

Stinchcombe, Paul

Marek, Dr John

Stunell, Andrew

Maxton, John

Taylor, David (NW Leics)

Michie, Bill (Shef'ld Heeley)

Todd, Mark

Mitchell, Austin

Turner, Dr Desmond (Kemptown)

Moffatt, Laura

Vis, Dr Rudi

Moran, Ms Margaret

Webb, Steve

Morgan, Alasdair (Galloway)

White, Brian

Morgan, Ms Julie (Cardiff N)

Williams, Alan W (E Carmarthen)

Morgan, Rhodri (Cardiff W)

Willis, Phil

Naysmith, Dr Doug

Winnick, David

Olner, Bill

Winterton, Ms Rosie (Doncaster C)

Plaskitt, James

Wise, Audrey

Pollard, Kerry

Wood, Mike

Pond, Chris

Wright, Anthony D (Gt Yarmouth)

Pound, Stephen

Wyatt, Derek

Prentice, Gordon (Pendle)

Prosser, Gwyn

Tellers for the Ayes:

Rapson, Syd

Mr. Gerald Bermingham

Reed, Andrew (Loughborough)

and

Russell, Ms Christine (Chester)

Mr. Alan Johnson.

NOES

Ainsworth, Peter (E Surrey)

Fallon, Michael

Allan, Richard

Flight, Howard

Ancram, Rt Hon Michael

Forth, Rt Hon Eric

Arbuthnot, James

Fowler, Rt Hon Sir Norman

Atkinson, David (Bour'mth E)

Fox, Dr Liam

Atkinson, Peter (Hexham)

Fraser, Christopher

Beard, Nigel

Gale, Roger

Beggs, Roy

Garnier, Edward

Beith, Rt Hon A J

Gibb, Nick

Bercow, John

Gill, Christopher

Beresford, Sir Paul

Gillan, Mrs Cheryl

Body, Sir Richard

Gorman, Mrs Teresa

Boswell, Tim

Gray, James

Bottomley, Rt Hon Mrs Virginia

Green, Damian

Brady, Graham

Grieve, Dominic

Brazier, Julian

Hague, Rt Hon William

Brooke, Rt Hon Peter

Hamilton, Rt Hon Sir Archie

Browning, Mrs Angela

Hammond, Philip

Bruce, Ian (S Dorset)

Hancock, Mike

Burnett, John

Harris, Dr Evan

Burns, Simon

Harvey, Nick

Campbell, Menzies (NE Fife)

Hawkins, Nick

Chapman, Sir Sydney(Chipping Barnet)

Hayes, John

Heald, Oliver

Chope, Christopher

Heath, Rt Hon Sir Edward

Clappison, James

Horam, John

Clark, Rt Hon Alan (Kensington)

Howarth, Gerald (Aldershot)

Clark, Dr Michael (Rayleigh)

Hunter, Andrew

Clifton-Brown, Geoffrey

Jack, Rt Hon Michael

Collins, Tim

Jenkin, Bernard

Colvin, Michael

Johnson Smith,

Cormack, Sir Patrick

Rt Hon Sir Geoffrey

Cotter, Brian

Jones, Nigel (Cheltenham)

Cran, James

Keetch, Paul

Donaldson, Jeffrey

Key, Robert

Duncan, Alan

King, Rt Hon Tom (Bridgwater)

Duncan Smith, Iain

Kirkbride, Miss Julie

Evans, Nigel

Laing, Mrs Eleanor

Faber, David

Lait, Mrs Jacqui

Fabricant, Michael

Lansley, Andrew

383

Leigh, Edward

Ruffley, David

Letwin, Oliver

Russell, Bob (Colchester)

Lidington, David

Sayeed, Jonathan

Lilley, Rt Hon Peter

Sheerman, Barry

Lloyd, Rt Hon Sir Peter (Fareham)

Shephard, Rt Hon Mrs Gillian

Loughton, Tim

Simpson, Keith (Mid-Norfolk)

Luff, Peter

Smith, Sir Robert (W Ab'd'ns)

Lyell, Rt Hon Sir Nicholas

Smyth, Rev Martin (Belfast S)

MacGregor, Rt Hon John

Spelman, Mrs Caroline

Mcintosh, Miss Anne

Spicer, Sir Michael

MacKay, Andrew

Spring, Richard

Maclean, Rt Hon David

Steen, Anthony

Maclennan, Rt Hon Robert

Stewart, David (Inverness E)

McLoughlin, Patrick

Streeter, Gary

Madel, Sir David

Swayne, Desmond

Major, Rt Hon John

Syms, Robert

Taylor, Ian (Esher & Walton)

Malins, Humfrey

Taylor, John M (Solihull)

Maples, John

Taylor, Matthew (Truro)

Marsden, Paul (Shrewsbury)

Taylor, Sir Teddy

Mates, Michael

Thompson, William

Maude, Rt Hon Francis

Tredinnick, David

Mawhinney, Rt Hon Sir Brian

Trend, Michael

May, Mrs Theresa

Tyrie, Andrew

Michie, Mrs Ray (Argyll & Bute)

Viggers, Peter

Moss, Malcolm

Wells, Bowen

Öpik, Lembit

Whitney, Sir Raymond

Ottaway, Richard

Whittingdale, John

Paice, James

Widdecombe, Rt Hon Miss Ann

Paterson, Owen

Wilkinson, John

Pickles, Eric

Willetts, David

Powell, Sir Raymond

Wilshire, David

Prior, David

Woodward, Shaun

Randall, John

Woolas, Phil

Redwood, Rt Hon John

Young, Rt Hon Sir George

Robathan, Andrew

Robertson, Laurence (Tewk'b'ry)

Tellers for the Notes

Robinson, Peter (Belfast E)

Mr. Stephen Day and

Roe, Mrs Marion (Broxbourne)

Mr. Nigel Waterson.

Question accordingly negatived.

Parliamentary Oaths (Amendment)
  Opposition Day
  [19TH ALLOTTED DAY]
  Opposition Day

    Government Policy (Presentation)
    Madam Speaker: I have selected the amendment in the name of the Prime Minister.
    4.10 pm
    Mr. Peter Ainsworth: I beg to move,
    That this House notes the view of the Committee on Culture, Media and Sport in its Fifth Report (HC 742) that the Department of Culture, Media and Sport is focused on trivial matters at the expense of important industries like tourism; believes this to be symptomatic of a Government which places undue emphasis on presentational issues in order to mask policy deficiencies; and deplores the culture of cronyism which is discrediting political life.
    This debate is not some end-of-term tease at the expense of the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport. It goes to the heart of the way in which this Government do business. This afternoon, Conservative Members will set out to expose the shallow, superficial and cynical way in which the Government approach their task.
    Fifteen months into this Parliament, there is more than ample evidence that power has gone to the heads of Ministers. I exclude, of course, those Ministers who lost their heads in Monday's reshuffle. Power in that case has gone to someone else's head. I welcome the two new members of the ministerial team to what one person in the museum world has described to me as the battlefield of art. I look forward to debating with them in the months ahead.
    We have a Government composed of a Prime Minister who thinks he is a president, a Chancellor of the Exchequer who thinks he is Prime Minister, a Lord Chancellor who thinks he is a cardinal, and a press secretary who thinks he is the whole lot rolled into one. But let us start with the Secretary of State, otherwise known as Mr. Cool, or, in the words of the novelist A. N. Wilson:
    "a philistine who talks twaddle and does nothing."
    I know that that description is not entirely fair. The Secretary of State will probably claim that it was a misleading headline. He should know, because, with the Prime Minister and the rest of the Government, he is an expert in misleading headlines.
    It is not hard to work out exactly why the Secretary of State attracts that type of adverse criticism. Consider his oeuvre "Creative Britain", produced to loud fanfares earlier this year. I will not embarrass him by referring to the critical reviews: I observe merely that it was described as a book. It looks and feels like a book and has a nice cover, but it is not a book. It is a pamphlet full of old speeches. Full marks for style; zero for substance.
    What about the allegation that the Secretary of State does nothing? When the Royal Opera house gets into difficulty, what does he do? He commissions a review. When the results of the review are published, what does he do? He sets up a committee to review the review. In sport, after eight months of delay, he finally announces, in a blaze of publicity, that the United Kingdom sports institute is to be set up in Sheffield. Since

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    then, he has almost nothing to show for his efforts. Have any contracts been announced? No. Have any been put out to tender? No.
    When the BBC suddenly announces out of the blue that it wants to renegotiate the terms of its licence fee, what is the response from the Secretary of State? Nothing. His Department is keen on putting out lengthy documents about media convergence, new broadcasting technologies and digital television, but does he understand who is going to pay for all that? Who will be the driver behind it? Advertising will pay for it. Nor do we hear anything from the Secretary of State about what he is doing to prevent the tide of politically correct EU and other home-grown initiatives that are designed to restrict and impede the advertising industry.
    Last December, the Secretary of State promised a much-vaunted tourism strategy by the early summer. Where is it? It is delayed until the autumn, or even the winter. Perhaps the Secretary of State is indulging in a bit of pathetic fallacy. He will know what I mean by that. He is imitating the weather, and turning summer into winter.
    There has been a lot of doing nothing over the past several months, but, when one considers what the Secretary of State is doing, that is probably just as well. Last Friday, he published his Department's comprehensive spending review: "A new approach to investing in culture". He chose to make it coincide with a photo opportunity sitting on a magic carpet.
    I shall return later to the bogus claims of the Secretary of State about the extra funding that he announced that day, but let us first have a quick look at the document, which is a fairly thick one. Across the board it presages a new era of meddling, interference and state control. When the Secretary of State finally got around to doing something, he chose to abolish the English tourist board, despite the fact that opinion polls in the industry suggest 97 per cent. support for the board. People wanted it to be enhanced and strengthened, not abolished. His decision comes at a time when the English and the Welsh tourist industries are going through a particularly difficult time, not just because of the bad weather, but as a consequence of the Chancellor's high pound. They also face a new tide of Government regulation. That is a particularly bad start for the Secretary of State.
    Across the board we see new structures to
    "develop new policies and spending programmes to deliver those objectives which focus on real outputs".
    The Government want to
    "develop tangible indicators of performance linked to our key policy aims".
    It may sound like officialese, but what it points to is more state control.
    There is much talk about new regional executive bodies acting as the Government's local agents. No doubt they will also be required to develop tangible indicators of performance linked to the Government's key policy aims. The dismemberment of autonomous national bodies will leave the regions exposed more directly than ever before to the Government's key policy aims. Just to make sure
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    of that, the Secretary of State proposes a new national watchdog which would
    "review and report to us on performance in achieving standards set, meeting aims and objectives and efficiency targets."
    I have been speculating about the new watchdog and wondering what it should be called. I thought that it might be called "Ofcult". Somebody else suggested "Ofart", but I am not sure that the Secretary of State will take up that suggestion. Nowhere is that idea more misguided, and nowhere will it be more resented, than in the arts.
    The music critic Norman Lebrecht has taken the promise of extra funding for the arts at face value. Even so, he realises what is going on. He writes:
    "The state has taken control of the arts for a mess of potage."
    The Government's approach to the arts is dirigiste, paternalistic old Labour. As if to reinforce the point, when the Association of Business Sponsorship of the Arts held a recent awards ceremony at the Globe theatre in London to celebrate a record year of business investment in the arts, not one Minister from the Department for Culture, Media and Sport bothered to turn up.
    Mr. John Bercow: My hon. Friend has given a fair assessment of the Secretary of State's performance to date. Has he, by any chance, seen the commentary of the distinguished parliamentary sketch writer, Quentin Letts, in yesterday's edition of The Daily Telegraph, in which he said:
    "By any gauge of parliamentary ability Mr. Smith would be lucky to have kept his job. He has an irritating tick of saying `er' and 'um', which might go down as coquettish in some parts of Islington but is just irritating in SW1"?
    Mr. Ainsworth: I did see the piece in question; and, er, we, er, look forward to hearing the Secretary of State's speech.
    Mr. Gerald Bermingham: I have listened with great care to what the hon. Gentleman has said. Now we are the Government who are to blame for everything—naturally, they always are—including the weather, will he turn his mind to the following tiny fact? Why do more and more people want to come to this country for their holidays, why do we have a developing film industry, why do we produce some of the best music, and why are our people some of the most creative in Europe if this country is ruled by a Government who are not encouraging all those fields?
    Mr. Ainsworth: I am sorry to correct the hon. Gentleman, but he may have missed the fact that, in the first three months of this year, there was an overseas visitors deficit of £1.7 billion. I am afraid that the Chancellor's policies, mismanagement of the economy and the high pound have been a major deterrent to people visiting this country.
    I wonder whether the arts are safe in the hands of a Secretary of State who is on record as saying that Bob Dylan is the artistic equal of John Keats.
    The Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport (Mr. Chris Smith): Will the hon. Gentleman tell me exactly where I said that—because I have never done so?
    Mr. Ainsworth: I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for putting the record straight. He had better address his comments to The Spectator. He is also quoted in The Spectator as saying:
    "The distinctions between higher and popular arts are meaningless."
    If he really believes that, is it surprising that he has remained so dumb amid all the accusations that the BBC is dumbing down its programme quality? This Government are dumbing down politics altogether.
    Mr. Ivor Caplin: I assumed that the hon. Gentleman would say a little more about the arts. Will he reflect on comments on the proposals in the Evening Standard on Friday? It said that they were
    "genuinely radical proposals, and some financial news which delight those of us who have been fighting to ensure our great arts institutions do not crumble entirely."
    Mr. Ainsworth: It was not worth giving way, was it? When those at the Evening Standard consider the Secretary of State's proposals more carefully, they will realise that they are not the salvation that they think.
    "I don't mind Radio 1 trying to be trendy, but I can do without the Labour party trying to strut its funky stuff."
    Those are not my words; they are the words of Ben Elton, who is hardly a well-known Conservative supporter. He went on:
    "The present Government should be very careful: style is no substitute for substance.
    It's no good going on about our great designers if everything they design is made in China. Jobs are cool … I didn't vote Labour because they've heard of Oasis."
    The departmental Select Committee picked up a similar point. Its report on the Secretary of State's handling of his Department derided his promise that he would promote
    "everything from Beefeaters to Britpop".
    It was astonished that tourism, which is
    "far and away the largest industry for which the Department is responsible",
    was being
    "subordinated in favour of more glamorous and trivial matters".
    That is not surprising, given that the Prime Minister lent his name to an article in the national press that contains, among a heap of other vacuous platitudes, the following immortal line:
    "We are forging a new patriotism focused on the potential we can fulfil in the future."
    What on earth does it mean? It is a strange sort of patriotism which halves the British zone of the millennium exhibition and then spends £500,000 on a survey to discover what Britishness is.
    The millennium dome stands like a paradigm of the Government's approach to presentation. It is a fine structure—all are agreed about that—but what is inside it? At the moment, we are told that it is a distorted human shape with two heads and a single pair of legs. There is something equally disturbing at the heart of the Government, which stands where their principles should be—a void. In order to clothe it, the Government have created a whole new industry devoted to weaving and spinning. You, Madam Speaker, have had cause in the past to comment
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    unfavourably on the number of apparatchiks working in Government Departments.
    Mr. Ian Bruce: My hon. Friend appears to be leaving the subject of tourism, but I am sure that he will agree that, if the Prime Minister needed a free holiday, any one of us could have found a wonderful place in our constituencies for him and his family to stay. All he wants to do is advertise that people ought to spend their time overseas in Italy, instead of using the wonderful facilities available in south Dorset—where many Labour Members come on holiday.
    Mr. Ainsworth: There are many wonderful opportunities in south Dorset for holidays, as there are in Scarborough, where I am going tomorrow. Perhaps the Secretary of State would like to come with me—on second thoughts, perhaps he might not.
    The job of the apparatchiks is quite clear—it is to engage in the cynical manipulation of news, irrespective of truth, to the advantage of the Government. This is not only a Government for journalists, but government by journalists. The press machine of the Government is headed by Alastair Campbell, as we all know, the Prime Minister's press secretary—formerly of The Mirror. It includes a number of other prominent former journalists, including—in a selective list—Lance Price, formerly of the BBC, now at No. 10; David Bradshaw, formerly of The Mirror, now at No. 10; Martin Sixsmith, formerly of the BBC, now at the Department of Social Security; John Williams, formerly of The Mirror, now at the Foreign Office, where he is not doing a good job; Sherrie Dodd, formerly of The Mirror, now at the Northern Ireland Office; and Phil Bassett, formerly of The Financial Times, now running something called the strategic communications unit at No. 10. I imagine that their meetings are rather jolly; it is probably a bit like an El Vino' s reunion party. They probably get the Liberal Democrats to come round and pour the claret.
    Mr. Andrew Robathan: Before my hon. Friend leaves the subject of Alastair Campbell, is he aware that it is not two years since a judge referred to him as a witness in whom one could not have a great deal of confidence? Does my hon. Friend think that he is therefore an appropriate man to have running the press machine from No. 10?
    Mr. Ainsworth: I could not agree more with my hon. Friend. I would have no confidence in a press machine run by Alastair Campbell, or any of the other cronies with whom the Government surround themselves.
    Mr. Robert Maclennan: I want to be clear—is the hon. Gentleman attacking the role of journalists, or the lack of economy in the use of journalists by the present Government? We all remember Bernard Ingham.
    Mr. Ainsworth: Bernard Ingham is going back a bit, but I am certainly not attacking journalists—I am attacking the way in which the Government seek to manipulate journalists in a systematic way.
    Around the media men in the Government are a host of other figures—the cronies. These include people such as Roger Liddle of the policy unit, who, together with the

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    new Secretary of State for Trade and Industry, so memorably prefaced their book "The Blair Revolution" with the words:
    "Both of us owe a special debt to Derek Draper, Peter Mandelson's former assistant … New Labour is fortunate indeed that it can boast a whole new generation with his quality of organisational energy, political commitment and realistic vision."
    O brave new world, that has such people in it.
    Ben Lucas, who ran the Prime Minister's political briefing unit during the general election campaign, has now set up his own lobbying firm, where he expects clients to
    "reshape their core corporate culture"
    that is not trivial—
    "in order to get in line with New Labour's vision."
    He neatly sums up the quality of that vision:
    "This is a Government that likes to do deals."
    The Government have created a political culture that would have done credit to a late mediaeval principality, and it is spreading outwards. Tucked away in a recent edition of The Times Educational Supplement, I came across an article entitled "Councils urged to spin, not whinge". It is a report of the recent Local Government Association conference, covering a speech made by Mr. Greg Wilkinson, who was until recently at the Audit Commission and is now a Labour councillor for Hammersmith and Fulham. To the assembled delegates, he said:
    "Learn the fine art of spin … In a world where perception is sometimes more important than reality, it is no longer enough to do well."
    The insidious culture of cronyism is discrediting political life. The Secretary of State is already a victim of it, and will become even more of a victim of a political culture that is moving ever further from the reality of life in Britain. No amount of media manipulation or photo calls on magic carpets will help the crisis in regional theatres; help manufacturing industry as it goes into recession—remember: jobs are cool; help people who are worried about their mortgages; or help the sportsmen and sportswomen who are waiting for the Government to fulfil their promises.
    No amount of spin will undo the damage to our constitution or offer comfort to thousands of small businesses in tourism and other industries. Fashionable ideas such as cool Britannia and the rebranding of Britain have precious little meaning to the people who live in the real world of Labour's Britain. They do not need to have their own money spent on telling them who they are. They know who they are. The majority of them do not live in Islington as the Secretary of State and the Prime Minister do, along with any number of Cabinet members; it appears almost to be a qualification for getting into the Cabinet to have an address in Islington.
    The majority of people do not share the Cabinet's metropolitan values. Their values are deeper; they are not glamorous, but they are strong. We saw people marching to protect the countryside, and we see them every day in suburban streets and city estates. They are increasingly bewildered by a Government who have abandoned their principles and placed style over substance. Nowhere is that more true than in the Department for Culture, Media and Sport.
    4.32 pm
    The Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport (Mr. Chris Smith): I beg to move, To leave out from "House" to the end of the Question, and to add instead thereof:
    `commends the Government for its progress on major matters of substance across all fields of responsibility, and in particular for its recognition of the cultural, social, educational and economic value of the areas of activity sponsored by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, and for the concrete action taken across all parts of the Department's responsibilities over the last year to maximise that value; welcomes the outcome of the Comprehensive Spending Review, which provides for a significant investment in culture, sport, heritage and tourism alongside positive steps to reduce bureaucracy and ensure the most effective use of public money; and notes that this brings to an end a damaging period of real cuts presided over by the Opposition.'.
    The speech of the hon. Member for East Surrey (Mr. Ainsworth) demonstrated neither style nor substance. I wanted to take notes as he was speaking, but there were absolutely no points for me to answer. Quite apart from the fact that he could not get his quotations from me right, he could not get his quotations from Shakespeare right.
    Mr. Peter Ainsworth: I am stung to my feet. I may have said, "O brave new world, that has such people in it", rather than "has such people in't", but the Secretary of State is being a little pedantic.
    Mr. Smith: It is important to get these things right; the hon. Gentleman did not.
    Last Tuesday, the Liberal Democrats launched an important debate about the relationship between Government and Parliament, which lies at the heart of some of the things that I think the Opposition are trying to get at. Not one Tory Back Bencher was in the House to listen. This morning, we had an important debate on concessionary television licences for pensioners, which was brilliantly handled by the new Minister in my Department, my hon. Friend the Member for Rossendale and Darwen (Janet Anderson). Not one Tory was in the House. Those were matters of substance but they were clearly not interested.
    Mr. Michael Fabricant: It is all right to say that we had a debate this morning on a question of substance, but what have the Government decided? Are they going to give pensioners concessionary licences, yes or no?
    Mr. Smith: No. Had the hon. Gentleman been here to listen, he would have heard the arguments.
    The Tories cannot stand the Government's success on matters of substance across the board. All they can come up with is an obsession with the froth of whether there are six or seven journalists working at No. 10 Downing street. They are not interested in our investment in the national health service; the money that we have provided for education; how we are genuinely tackling crime across the country; how we are integrating transport; the help for pensioners with their winter heating bills; the reduction of VAT on people's fuel bills; the new deal that is taking hundreds of thousands of young people off the dole and putting them into work; signing up to the social chapter; the introduction of the national minimum wage; the use of

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    capital receipts to allow local authorities to start building houses again; devolution for Scotland and Wales; a mayor and elected assembly for London; investment for the first time on a proper basis in science; the banning of trade in landmines; the banning of ownership of handguns; building on the work of the previous Government in the search for peace in Northern Ireland. Those are matters of substance but they are not interested in them.
    Mr. Ian Bruce: Like the comprehensive spending review, the Secretary of State did not include tourism in his list. Why is the British Tourist Authority's chairman rushing down to see us in Dorset about the Secretary of State dismantling support for tourism? What are the Government going to do? This is one of our largest industries and important to my constituents. Will he give us a substantial answer?
    Mr. Smith: I shall come to tourism because it is referred to specifically by the Select Committee. If the hon. Gentleman is interested in tourism, perhaps he noticed the press release on the comprehensive spending review issued on Friday by the British Hospitality Association. Its chairman welcomed our announcement that we are increasing funding for tourism. That is precisely what we are doing. He said:
    "Chris Smith's announcement today that an additional £6 million has been allocated to tourism … is welcome news."
    That is the industry's response to last Friday's announcements. I shall deal with that in more detail later.
    I have described real, solid achievements by the Government. They have nothing to do with style, glamour, trivia or any of the things that the Opposition go on about. They are real and they matter to people. It was breathtaking chutzpah for the hon. Member for East Surrey to accuse us of endorsing the idea of cool Britannia. He said that it had precious little meaning to people in the real world. Perhaps he would care to look at the press release issued by the right hon. Member for South-West Surrey (Mrs. Bottomley) on 6 November 1996, when she was Secretary of State for National Heritage. It was headed:
    "Cool Britannia as Latest Tourism Figures Reveal Best August Ever".
    On 5 February 1997, the right hon. Lady issued a press release saying that we must ensure that more overseas and British tourists made "Cool Britannia" their first choice. On 5 March 1997, she issued a press release headed:
    "Cool Britannia rules the way."
    On 9 March 1997, she claimed:
    "'Cool Britannia' is now an internationally recognised phenomenon."
    Best of all, she used the phrase twice in her press release of 4 December 1996, describing
    "London's place as the coolest city on the planet"
    and adding that
    "'cool Britannia' rules."
    I have them all here—the hon. Member for East Surrey can have a look at them if he wants to, but certainly he cannot criticise us for leaping on some "Cool Britannia" bandwagon.
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    Turning to my own Department and related matters of substance, we inherited a situation in which all the areas for which the Department is responsible had faced neglect and cuts for many years; the arts in particular had suffered for years from cuts or standstill funding. The enormous opportunity offered by the lottery had been mishandled. School playing fields were being sold as local authorities throughout the country were forced to sell them. Some of our main national museums were having to introduce entrance charges and important arts organisations were staring closure in the face. The film industry was, as Bob Hoskins described it, like flowers
    "grown like grass through the concrete."
    Mr. Robathan: The right hon. Gentleman said that local authorities were forced to sell off playing fields, but nothing could be further from the truth. At that time, I was parliamentary private secretary to the then Minister of Sport, who worked extremely hard—as I know his successor has done—to prevent local authorities from selling off playing fields. We looked into the possibility of having a register, but the truth is that we did not have a right to order local authorities not to sell off the playing fields. Nevertheless, we tried very hard to stop them so doing.
    Mr. Smith: First, I am tempted to observe that the hon. Gentleman was not very successful if that was what he was trying to achieve. Secondly, he did nothing at all to ensure the withdrawal of the circular from the then Department of the Environment which insisted that local authorities throughout the country should look at the asset value of playing fields. That is the sort of thing that he ought to have done.
    Even within the self-agreed spending constraints that we have rightly imposed on ourselves for the first two years of the Labour Government, we have within the field of culture, media and sport been able to make a real difference. We introduced substantial reform of the national lottery, with our White Paper which was published a year ago and is now enshrined in the National Lottery Act 1998. New sets of directions are in place for the lottery distributors. We have established the new opportunities fund to make lottery funding available for projects related to health, education and the environment. We have established the National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts, or NESTA. We have ensured that lottery distributors place new emphasis on small-scale community grants and on making sure that more money goes to support people and activities, rather than to bricks and mortar. All that has been put in place in the last year.
    Mr. Bermingham: My right hon. Friend knows of my interest in the lottery. Will he undertake to continue to press the lottery distribution bodies to accelerate the rate at which money is distributed? Currently, much of it sits gaining interest when there is so much to be done on the types of project that he has just described.
    Mr. Smith: I will certainly do that. However, one of the issues that has to be addressed is the speed with which those organisations that have been awarded grants manage to get their projects off the ground and take up their grant.
    Our other achievements include the introduction of fiscal incentives in British film making; those are to be applicable for the next five years, rather than for three

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    years, which was the period in the measure that we introduced within weeks of coming into office. We have sorted out the Channel 4 funding issue with a requirement that Channel 4 puts more emphasis on original programme making and film making. We brokered the agreement that saved the Old Vic theatre in London for serious theatre.
    We have developed the new audiences fund to make money available to theatres and orchestras around the country to bring in new audiences to enjoy our greatest arts. We have developed the schools youth music trust to make available an additional £10 million a year for instrumental tuition for young people. There has been a savage decline in that over the past 15 years, which was presided over by the Conservative party. We are taking action on that.
    We are developing new technology in the public library service. We have made available £50 million for the digitisation of content and £20 million for the training of librarians. We have set up the Wolfson Challenge fund to assist with the development of infrastructure.
    We have stopped the unnecessary sale of school playing fields, which was achieved by co-ordination between my Department, the Department for Education and Employment and the Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions. We have established the UK Sports Institute. We took an idea that was completely unformed and off track under the previous Government and made it a reality. The institute will open in 2000, as everyone intends. We are providing backing for the 2006 world cup bid, transforming it from a gleam in the eye to a genuine possibility, which we are intent on pursuing in the coming years.
    We have saved Newstead abbey, which faced the threat of being undermined by coal mining. There is the prospect of a solution to the problems of presentation at Stonehenge, which is our greatest ancient monument. We are very close to reaching agreement between all the local communities, English Heritage, the National Trust, the Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions and the Ministry of Defence to ensure that the landscape of Stonehenge can be restored. That will be a major achievement, which has required painstaking, difficult and patient negotiation and government of substance, not glamour or trivia.
    We have introduced a common grading scheme for hotels. There has been agreement between the English tourist board, the Automobile Association and the Royal Automobile Club. We are ensuring that the tourism and hospitality industries take advantage of the new deal so that they can train more young people and solve their labour shortages. We have established the tourism forum, which regularly draws together all representatives of the major tourism organisations to consider tourism issues seriously.
    Those are all measures that we have introduced in the 14 months since we came into office, and that is a pretty good record for any Government.
    Several hon. Members rose—
    Mr. Smith: I give way to my hon. Friend the Member for Blackpool, North and Fleetwood (Mrs. Humble).
    Mrs. Joan Humble: Does my right hon. Friend agree that tourism initiatives, especially the industry's involvement in the new deal, will improve the quality of services that so many of our resorts, including my constituency, need to offer to their thousands of visitors, or millions, in the case of Blackpool? Greater quality in staff training and recruitment is vital to improve our tourism industry, which is why the industry welcomes Government initiatives and its involvement in the new deal.
    Mr. Smith: My hon. Friend is absolutely right and I am looking forward to going to Blackpool in two months to enjoy the best that it has to offer. She is right to point out that it is quality of service that counts in the tourism industry and draws visitors back to resorts. Quality of service depends on decent remuneration, career prospects, motivation and training opportunities for staff. The tourism industry recognises that, which is why it has welcomed initiatives on the new deal, the minimum wage and the quality benchmarks that we are putting in place. That is why the Opposition, in their opposition to all those measures, are completely out of touch with modern tourism.
    Mr. Peter Ainsworth: The Secretary of State has boasted a lot about the achievements that he is claiming in the arts, but he has not answered the question about the erosion of the arm's-length principle, and the extension of ministerial control into areas that had a degree of autonomy until the Government came to power. If he is so proud of his achievements in the arts, how does he account for the article written by Peter Hall as recently as a month ago, in which he says:
    "In a hundred years' time, our new government will, I am sure, be seen as having been in the great tradition of English Puritanism—narrow-minded and joyless. They are also indifferent to what really matters in life. If they destroy the British arts, they will look fools in the eyes of history"?
    Mr. Smith: Well, Peter Hall has now realised that we are not in the process of destroying the arts. On Friday last week, he said the following:
    "I am delighted that the deprivations of the last 20 years"—
    for which that lot are responsible—
    "have been stopped and that the government has at last realised that there is a serious crisis in the performing arts. Every pound put into the arts will earn its money back many times over … I hope this is the beginning of really progressive thinking about the arts by the government".
    Peter Hall recognises that it is, and the hon. Gentleman should get his facts up to date, not a month old.
    Mr. Ainsworth: Unquestionably, we all want the arts to flourish in this country, but the public will be gravely disappointed when they discover that the money that the right hon. Gentleman is talking about is not as much as he claims, and that it will be, as never before, under the control of the Secretary of State instead of under the control of people in whom they can have confidence.
    Mr. Smith: The hon. Gentleman is wrong on both counts. First, the money is exactly what it says it is. It is £30 million, in cash, next year, £40 million extra, in cash, the year after and £55 million, in cash, in the third year—each of those sums in addition to this year's figures. Over

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    three years, it adds up to £125 million for the arts. In addition, there is £100 million for museums and galleries and £65 million for all the other activities that the Department sponsors. That adds up to the biggest enhancement ever for all the fields of cultural activity in this country. It will enable—
    Mr. Bercow rose—
    Mr. Smith: I am so fond of the hon. Gentleman that I shall give way.
    Mr. Bercow: I am most grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for generously giving way. Does he agree with the view expressed by his hon. Friend the Minister for Sport in the debate on 5 June 1998, at column 679, that children should receive an irreducible minimum of three hours per week of physical education? If he agrees with that view, why has he downgraded physical education as part of the curriculum?
    Mr. Smith: In a debate about the creative industries, we shall take no lessons from the hon. Gentleman about designer style.
    My hon. Friend the Minister for Sport was expressing an ideal aspiration that he has for children. The hon. Gentleman ignores the fact that sport and physical recreation remain part of the national curriculum. They must be taught by schools. There is flexibility in when the school decides to time them in the school week, but they must be taught. They are part of the curriculum; to try to pretend otherwise is to mislead the public and the House.
    Mr. Richard Spring: Can the right hon. Gentleman confirm that the Secretary of State for Wales has rejected that view, and has insisted that physical education remains part of the core curriculum in Wales?
    Mr. Smith: Sport and physical recreation never were part of the core curriculum. They have the same status in the curriculum as they have always had—they must be taught. That has been confirmed many times in the House by me, by my hon. Friend the Minister for Sport and by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Education and Employment.
    To return to the £290 million that we have made available under the comprehensive spending review over the next three years—
    Mr. Ian Bruce: That is not what the right hon. Gentleman said before.
    Mr. Smith: If the hon. Gentleman had been listening, he would have realised that £125 million for the arts, £100 million for museums and £65 million for other activities adds up to £290 million. I am glad that he is not an Education Minister.
    The £290 million has enabled us to ensure that there will be improved access to our major national galleries and collections, with—if the trustees wish it—free entrance for all children next year, free entrance for all pensioners as well in the second year, and in the third
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    year of the settlement, free entrance for all, universally. That development will be welcomed by many people around the country, although not, I expect, by the hon. Gentleman.
    Mr. Peter Ainsworth: Will the Secretary of State deduct £912 million from £1,038 million? He said that Conservative Members could not do their arithmetic. The answer is £126 million. That is the figure in the Chancellor's Red Book, resulting from the comprehensive spending review, and that is the increase to which the Secretary of State referred—not £290 million, but £126 million. I am sorry to have to do the right hon. Gentleman's arithmetic for him.
    Mr. Smith: The hon. Gentleman does not understand what is being done. The figure that he cited is the year 3 figure, as compared with the current figure. That indeed represents a cash-terms increase of £126 million in the third year over the current position. There are also to be increases next year and the year after. By adding up the extra money for year 1, year 2 and year 3, we get the figure of £290 million. That is additional money for the arts, museums, culture, sport and tourism that was not in the Conservative Government's plans, which would not have been spent by them and will be spent by us. That is the difference. It is real money in cash—new money—and the Conservatives cannot accept it.
    We shall ensure free access to our great national collections. I would have hoped that the hon. Gentleman would welcome that, but he has not done so, because the Conservatives were the party that presided over the introduction of entrance charges. Perhaps they could have welcomed the new money that we have allocated for the designated museums of national importance around the country. They put in place the designation system, but it was meaningless, because no money came with the act of designation. We are putting the money in place to make sure that designation means something.
    We are ensuring that the performing and visual arts develop new audiences and, perhaps even more important, that they develop more education sessions so that pupils have the chance to learn at first hand from people who are involved in the theatre and in music about the delights that the arts can bring. The Arts Council will have control of the money. It will be up to the Arts Council to make decisions, and I hope that it will use some of that money to keep some of our best arts organisations alive.
    We have ensured that there will be enhanced funds above inflation for the British Tourist Authority. We have also ensured that extra funds will be available for the United Kingdom Sports Council to make sure that it gets off the ground well in its new form. We are ensuring that we put right the cuts that we had to make this year in the national heritage memorial fund, and we have given a guarantee of future lottery income to the arts, sport, charities and heritage.
    Of course we have not said that that will be something for nothing; of course conditions must be attached. I am accused of being meddlesome, and I plead guilty to that. Presumably the Opposition would have given something for nothing. They would not have been interested in ensuring that taxpayers' money was well, efficiently and properly spent. However, that is what we are doing; that is all that we are doing. We are not dictating what happens

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    to that money. We are simply ensuring that it is spent in the right way, and it is absolutely right that we should do so.
    Mr. Gordon Prentice: Was it not a disgrace that, year after year, the previous Government did nothing to ensure that people with conditionally exempt works of art opened up their houses to allow members of the public to see them, when the owners were given enormous tax breaks by that Government?
    Mr. Smith: My hon. Friend is right to identify the enormous importance of making sure that we support excellence in this country—the best performances, the best companies and the best collections that are in our museums and galleries—and that ordinary people can get to see those performances, companies and collections, and enjoy them in ever greater numbers. That is the kernel of our arts policy: excellence and access going hand in hand. Conservatives, of course, do not understand any of that because they are interested only in tittle-tattle.
    Mr. Tim Loughton: Will the Secretary of State acknowledge that the effect of the Budget changes on historic asset items will be, as many hon. Members on both sides of the House have had letters to say, that people will be forced to sell historically important artefacts, which will go into foreign hands, with the result that there will be no access for anyone in this country because those artefacts will no longer be in this country?
    Mr. Smith: If the hon. Gentleman had followed the debates that took place in Committee on the Finance Bill, he would know that my hon. Friend the Financial Secretary to the Treasury is at this very moment conducting discussions with the Historic Houses Association, to try to ensure that we do not lose out in terms of heritage as a result of the tax changes that have been genuinely brought in to ensure that the loophole in the tax system could not be exploited by hundreds of people with no genuine heritage reason for doing so.
    The hon. Member for East Surrey mentioned tourism, as did the Select Committee on Culture, Media and Sport. The Select Committee, rather interestingly, said that I was somehow not interested in tourism. In coming to that conclusion, it ignored the fact that we have ensured that tourism has a real and prominent role in the work of the regional development agencies; that we have made sure that a proper grading scheme for hotel and guest house accommodation in England can be put in place; that we have established the tourism forum, which I chair on a regular basis, to bring all representative bodies from the world of tourism together; that we have a monthly meeting of the strategic tourism working group—which again I chair—to bring leading representatives of tourism together to put our tourism strategy in place; that we have ensured that the British Tourist Authority and the British Council have developed good working relationships abroad so that we can have real synergy—
    Mr. Peter Ainsworth rose—
    Mr. Smith: Wait. There is a longer list to come.
    Those relationships have been developed so that we can have real synergy between the work of these important bodies. We have ensured that there will be enhanced
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    funding for the British Tourist Authority and the important work that it does. We have gone out to proper nationwide consultation on the future of the structures of support for tourism in England, which has been a consultation exercise welcomed by many people in the industry. We have guaranteed to ring-fence the funding of tourism support in England. It is a consultation exercise about the best structures rather than anything that is driven by the need to obtain finance or cuts
    Mr. Ainsworth: Will the Secretary of State now give way?
    Mr. Smith: I will now.
    Mr. Ainsworth: Has the right hon. Gentleman finished his list?
    Will he explain why it was that on Thursday 18 December 1997, he answered a written question from my predecessor, my right hon. Friend the Member for Horsham (Mr. Maude), stating:
    "I aim to publish a comprehensive and detailed tourism strategy next summer, spelling out how the Government intend to create and sustain an improved framework within which tourism, hospitality and leisure can flourish."[Official Report, 18 December 1997; Vol. 303, c. 249.]?
    Yet nothing has happened.
    Mr. Smith: The reason for that is precisely the consultation exercise that we have launched. It would have been sheer folly to publish a strategic tourism document while we were consulting on an essential aspect such as the structure of support for English tourism. We intend to publish our tourism strategy in October, once the responses to the consultation have been received.
    There were some interesting responses when the Select Committee produced its report. Conservative Members thought, "This is useful; we can make some fun and have a go at the Secretary of State with bits and pieces of the report." Incidentally, those bits and pieces were inserted by Conservative Members. Let us consider what the sensible parts of the tourism industry had to say.
    Mr. Fabricant: Will the Secretary of State give way?
    Mr. Smith: Talking of the sensible men, I will of course give way.
    Mr. Fabricant: I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for giving way. He was not privy to the private discussions of the Select Committee—I was there. At that time, there were 10 members of the Committee. Is he saying that my talents are so all-embracing, and my powers of persuasion so great, that one other Tory and I dissuaded a Committee including one Liberal Democrat Member and seven Labour Members, including the Chairman, from producing a glowing report saying how brilliant the Secretary of State was? Is he saying that I single-handedly persuaded those hon. Members to change their mind? The right hon. Gentleman's Parliamentary Private Secretary, the hon. Member for Slough (Fiona Mactaggart), told everyone that, but is he so naive that he believes it?
    Mr. Smith: I am tempted to say yes, but, given the nature of the hon. Gentleman, such a response would

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    clearly be absurd and untrue. The records of the Select Committee proceedings and the list of amendments tabled to and included in the report clearly show that the report's final form differed substantially from that which it took when it was first considered by the Committee, but the important aspect is the difference between what the report said and what the tourism industry thinks.
    Let me tell the hon. Member for Lichfield (Mr. Fabricant), who is a member of the Select Committee, what the chairman of the Tourism Society had to say. On 11 June, immediately after the Select Committee had issued its report, he wrote to me, saying:
    "It is extremely regrettable that the Select Committee Report created such a critical impression when the reality is the opposite."
    In a press release, the British Hospitality Association said:
    "The industry has never received so much interest from government and we are happy that we have built up a very fruitful relationship with both ministers and officials in government generally and at the DCMS in particular."
    On 12 June—[Interruption.] Conservative Members laugh, but these are important representative bodies—the lifeblood of the industry in this country, not piddling little Conservative Members who do not know what is happening in tourism.
    Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Michael Lord): Order. I remind the House that contributions are normally made when hon. Members are on their feet. There are far too many sedentary interventions, and I should be grateful if they stopped.
    Mr. Smith: I have suddenly realised, Mr. Deputy Speaker, that I perhaps got carried away and was verging on unparliamentary language. I withdraw the word "piddling" and insert the word "two-bit".
    The Joint Hospitality Industry Congress wrote to me on 12 June saying:
    "Dear Secretary of State,
    I feel I must write and express my fullest support to you following what I consider to be uninformed and incorrect criticisms by the Select Committee concerning your interest and that of your Department in Tourism and, by implication, Hospitality as well. Nothing could be further from reality. Your personal keen involvement, coupled with the immense input from your officials, brings a clear-sighted leadership to our deliberations."
    That is the reality.
    This is a debate on an Opposition motion that demeans Parliament and brings discredit on those who tabled it. There are real issues and real matters of substance to be discussed, real progress to be made, real achievements to be heralded, and genuine difficulties to be tackled, some of which will not be easy.
    In the past few days, we have announced the largest ever new investment in the cultural life of our country. We have set in motion a widespread consultation that could lead to a radical restructuring, for the better, of the cultural heritage, tourism and sporting fields of activities and of Government support. That is what we should concentrate on, and what the world outside has welcomed and will study. It is a pity that the Opposition cannot find the seriousness of purpose to do likewise. Perhaps that is why they are, and will remain, the Opposition.
    5.10 pm
    Mr. Robert Maclennan: I, at least, am glad that the official Opposition chose to have a debate that enables us to focus on the work of the Secretary of State's Department, although they seem to have done so inadvertently. They have not chosen the debate to outline any constructive views of their own, never mind focusing sharply on the criticisms that could be made of the Government's record in this area over 14 months.
    Before I turn to the two matters on which I want to spend a little time in this rather short debate, I want to pay a personal tribute to the two Ministers in the Department of Culture, Media and Sport who have left office. Both were well-known enthusiasts for their subjects, particularly films and the performing arts, and both were unfailingly courteous in their dealings with me and, I believe, with all those with whom they worked. I also want to wish the new Ministers well in their very important roles.
    Mr. James Gray: Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?
    Mr. Maclennan: No, I shall not give way. Interventions have already been on the generous side, and it would be unfortunate to give way before I have even embarked on the substance of my speech. I shall give way later if the hon. Gentleman wants to intervene then.
    I should like to deal with tourism, which is the big spending industry for which the Secretary of State has responsibility. I think that he would acknowledge that the perception of representatives of the industry is that his Department does not give it the priority that is given to other more glamorous matters for which it has responsibility.
    It is clear from what the Secretary of State said today, and more importantly from the paper that he published on Friday, that important matters are being considered and are in the pipeline. He began his speech with a quick round-up of what he saw as the Government's general achievements, and I shall not follow him down that route, save to say that I do not entirely share his perspective on the Government's management of the economy. The reliance on the Bank of England as the sole controller of inflationary tendencies has resulted in an overvalued pound, which has made life exceedingly difficult for the tourism industry, and has almost certainly contributed both to the reduction in the number of visitors to this country and to a pretty lean summer.
    On the wider policy point, it is the view of the Liberal Democrat party that if we were to seek early entry into European monetary union, it would be of particular benefit to the tourist industry. It would not only reduce the transactional costs of tourism, but stabilise our currency in relation to Europe at a lower level, and, as a result, increase our competitiveness. Those matters will be debated in extenso on other occasions, but they seem to be conditioning the difficulties that are currently faced by the tourist industry.
    I want to focus on the Secretary of State's proposals for restructuring the public bodies for which he has responsibility. He has allowed a fairly short period for consultation, but, given that this matter has been considered before, it is not too short. I am happy to supply

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    the views of my party, as we published today our own consultative document, "Tourism Tomorrow". That will be a direct and first response to some of the issues that the Secretary of State has raised.
    However, I should like to supplement that by responding directly to the Secretary of State's paper setting out options and choices. I hope that some matters are not cast in stone and that he will be prepared to rethink in the light of responses. I am unclear whether the Secretary of State has fully taken into account the consequences of devolution for his departmental responsibilities, and its impact on the British Tourist Authority. The paper mentions devolution, but the main clients who should be concerned about the promotion of tourism abroad will, following the completion of the Government's decentralisation exercise, be the nations of the United Kingdom. It is more important that their representative voice be heard at national level. They should decide co-operatively how best to promote the separate and distinctive interests of the four constituent nations, rather than start from the proposition that the British Tourist Authority is the right body upon which to build.
    I like much in the Government's approach, but I do not think that the proposals for the English regions are apt. My experience of the tourist industry is that it looks to a higher level than the regions of England to determine strategic issues and national policy towards tourism. For the delivery of particular services, it looks to a unit much closer to the locality in which it operates than the regions. Notwithstanding the role of regional development agencies—which I am not seeking to diminish, because they will sometimes be deployed to the benefit of tourism—the proper unit for local provision of tourist services is the locality. Lumping the Lake district together with Liverpool in a region does not greatly assist: it creates a bureaucracy at an unnecessary level.
    In his paper, which covers many subjects for which he is responsible, the Secretary of State is clear that some streamlining of the bureaucracy is desirable. Perhaps that is what the right hon. Gentleman should look at with the coolest and most detached eye.
    I am however aware that, even in my northern constituency, for which the right hon. Gentleman has no direct responsibility save perhaps through the British Tourist Authority, there is discontent with the establishment of a local tourist board which covers half the land mass of Scotland as a region, when it is clear that the interests of even Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross would be better looked after locally by a body that does not seek to represent such disparate interests as are contained in the wider highland region. Big does not necessarily mean better here. We should not look to a building up of the regional dimension of tourist provision.
    I want to question the right hon. Gentleman a little about the tourism forum to which he referred. There is the germ of an important idea here, but I understand that, for the representatives of the industry, it is too large and in a sense, in respect of Government Departments, it is not sufficiently strong. It would be preferable to have, as suggested in the Liberal Democrats' paper, some commission to bring together under the right hon. Gentleman's chairmanship Departments that will also impact upon the development of tourism—such as the Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions for planning matters, and the Department for
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    Education and Employment for the important task of bringing quality education for management and service delivery to the forefront.
    Those structural changes seem desirable not only to ensure that there is no passing of the buck from the Secretary of State's Department to other Departments, which I do not suppose he would wish to do, but to give added clout within Government to the forum as the voice of tourism: as the strategic powerhouse for the industry which is so massively important and has such enormous growth potential.
    In some parts of the country, there is also another problem that must be recognised. Tourism must be sustainable and there are some parts of the country where setting up bodies to encourage tourism would be regarded as positively perverse. That adds to the force of my view that local tourist boards are better adapted than regional ones to tackle the particular needs of the tourist providers.
    I move from tourism to the arts, which have great importance not only in relation to tourism—they are one reason why many people come to Britain—and not only in respect of the cultural industries, to which the Secretary of State has referred on a number of occasions. I welcome the steps that have been taken, particularly in relation to the film industry and, to some extent, the music industry, and I hope that that will lead to a more powerful British film industry.
    I want to put into a little perspective some of the claims that have been made about the new spending directions and decisions. I read the Select Committee's report without a whole-hearted recognition of what it was talking about. It was a patchy report. However, it made a number of telling points. One of the legitimate points that it made was that there has been real underfunding of many of the Departments' dependent bodies of clients for a number of years, for which the Government cannot be wholly blamed. However, I do blame them for having accepted the budgetary settlements that were projected by the outgoing Administration. If they had a damaging effect in the health and education sectors, as I believe they did, they have also had a real and damaging effect in the arts and cultural sectors.
    When the Secretary of State speaks, as he did, about this being a record settlement, we must remember that we have had some pretty lean years and that, at the end of this triennial period, we shall only be roughly back where we were in 1992.
    Mr. Chris Smith: I have enormous respect for the right hon. Gentleman and I hesitate to put him right. The arts underfunding in real terms during the past five to six years, to which he refers, has been of the order of £35 million. In the first year of this new settlement we shall almost put that right. By the time we get to the third year, we will have done a lot more than put it right.
    Mr. Maclennan: I concede the point that the right hon. Gentleman makes, but I think that I am correct in saying—if I am not, I am happy to give way again—that if one takes into account his Department's expenditure as a whole, it roughly restores the position to where it was in 1992–93.
    Mr. Smith: The reason for the difference is that the Department' s responsibility for voluntary organizations

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    was transferred back to the Home Office so, given the Department's responsibilities, that enhances what we are able to do.
    Mr. Maclennan: On that I congratulate the Minister, although it is not a bonanza, and I do not think that he would claim that it was. Moreover, it might not be worth while. I take the point made by Sir Peter Hall, which the right hon. Gentleman quoted, about the value of investment in the cultural industries and how that money fructifies in the sector when it is invested. In considering the settlement, it is necessary to recall just how little money we are talking about in terms of Government spending as a whole. During the last financial year, the Government's cultural spend was one third of 1 per cent. of total Government spending. The new injection will increase that total by 0.03 per cent. per annum during the next three years.
    Britain has the balance wrong when it spends so little. If our expenditure on the cultural industries is compared with that of other countries—that is difficult because there are different parameters for measurement—we do not seem to be doing as well as other western European countries of comparable wealth. That fact has been brought out recently in some new research which has not been challenged; that should lend support to the Secretary of State's efforts to enlarge Government spending on the arts in Britain.
    Looking at the structural proposals for the arts, whose purpose is similar to those for the tourist industry, in that the Secretary of State is trying to slim them down, I must question whether the right hon. Gentleman has got it right. First, however, I strongly agree with him on a number of things. In the case of the arts, the right hon. Gentleman is entirely right to recognise that the regions are the appropriate level at which public funding should be spent, and I applaud the increased emphasis on the regional bodies. But it is not entirely satisfactory that they should be predominantly appointed, if that is his intention, by the Department or by himself. I would hope that the regional bodies would be more home grown.
    A second structural change that I think would help the arts is the introduction of improved planning arrangements, along with three-year funding settlements. Uncertainty about the future has forced many arts providers to devote a disproportionate amount of time to financial planning, particularly to the justification of planning applications before a proper outturn can be seen.
    I must question the Secretary of State about a number of other proposals. He said that he recognised the importance of the Arts Council as an advisory body—I think that should be its principal role—but qualified that by saying that he did not want it to have an adversarial relationship with the Government. The Secretary of State must surely acknowledge that, if advice is freely given, it may involve free criticism from time to time. I do not think that criticism from that body, or indeed from any body that is charged with giving advice, should be inhibited by the Secretary of State's talk of partnerships. I do not like the idea of a partnership between advisers and Government; I find it too cosy. I think that it would be sensible to enhance the independent aspect of the Arts Council's advisory role.
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    Here I enter more controversial territory. I feel that it is time to question fundamentally the arm's-length principle to which the Secretary of State has at least paid lip service. In fact, I think that he has embraced that principle. I am puzzled. Most of the elements in the package of measures proposed on Friday struck me as being designed to increase accountability—through the right hon. Gentleman's Department, ultimately—for strategies and policies set by the Department; but, at the same time, the right hon. Gentleman wants the arm's-length principle to apply to the delivery of those measures. I find that odd. Is the Secretary of State saying that his Department is not capable of making assessments of how money is being used? If he is making such a self-critical judgment, he ought to beef up his Department so that it is capable of ascertaining whether its strategies and policies are being implemented, rather than commissioning others to perform the task or seeking to fulfil its role of accountability in another way.
    There is one oddity—one innovation—in the package of proposals: the proposal for a powerful watchdog. I am not sure what that means, if it does not mean another tier of bureaucracy. I hope that the intention is not to sideline the work of the National Audit Office where it is responsible for such matters, or that of the Audit Commission where it is responsible for local government activities in this context. As the Secretary of State knows, such action certainly would not take the attention of the Public Accounts Committee away from the Department's activities.
    I fear that this could constitute a fifth wheel—or worse, an alibi enabling the Department to seek to avoid responsibility for the outturn of the strategies and policies that it is embracing and, indeed, requiring other bodies to have in mind when spending public money. Any such move would be a failure. It is becoming increasingly unacceptable for the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, alone among the great Departments of State—for I think of it as a great Department of State—to be able to wash its hands of the way in which its strategies and policies are being implemented, and say, "That is not for us, because of the arm's-length principle".
    The arm's-length principle was dreamt up—probably by that liberal John Maynard Keynes or one of his friends—in the mid-1940s, against the background of the abuse of Government power with respect to culture by Nazi Germany, fascist Italy and, indeed, the Soviet Union in the 1920s and 1930s. There were legitimate and understandable fears about Government involvement, Government meddling, Government dictation to the arts, and about the abuse of power. Today, however, we live in a very different world. If a Government sought to meddle in decisions about which play should be staged by which company, or about which composer was acceptable, or sought to burn the vanities, there would be—given the multi-media outlets that we have in this country—howls of abuse. I think that the time has come to dispose of the mantra about the arm's-length principle, and to recognise the reality that Ministers are expected to intervene when there is a problem.
    The Conservative party recognised that in government. The Conservative party saw that it was important to give English National Opera more stability by providing it with a home in the Coliseum. Mr. David Mellor did not hesitate, just before a general election, to ignore the arm's-length principle and provide ENO with the

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    Coliseum. Similar provisions were made by the Conservative Secretary of State for Wales to help fund Welsh National Opera when it was touring England. Again, the arm's-length principle was simply forgotten—rightly, in my view.
    There is now no case for distinguishing between the approach of Government to the funding of great national companies from that applying to, for instance, the British Library. There is no interposing body deciding what sort of money should go to the British Library; there is no "arm's-length" argument, although it would be possible to present such arguments. I think that the time has come to be frank, and to say that the Government are dealing with these matters and should be judged accordingly.
    Responsibility for wider funding of the arts, in which the issues are not so much national as local or regional, should be delegated to other bodies—preferably elected bodies—which should be judged according to their response to the perceived needs of regions and localities. That would build up a degree of competition in provision, which would be very healthy. East Anglia, for instance, is almost the only region not to have a resident orchestra. Although I do not think that it would be sensible for central Government to tell East Anglia that it should have a resident orchestra, I do think that the regional tier of government should consider the matter. That has been done in other parts of the country.
    I am not saying that, having abandoned the arm's-length principle, the Secretary of State should intervene at every level of decision-making, although what I am saying could be interpreted in that way. I believe, however, that the Secretary of State should be responsible for the future of major companies—responsible, as effectively he is, for the future of major museums and libraries. That would get rid of many illusions about what is needed, and would avoid the fantasy that, if the Royal Opera House gets into difficulties, it is all because of personal problems between its director and the chief executive of the Arts Council—or something or that sort. If tens of millions of pounds of public money are being spent, the Government must be involved.
    I do not want to speak for much longer, as this is a short debate; but I want to raise a specific structural issue. I hope that the Minister will look again at his proposal to graft the Crafts Council on to the new arts body that will replace the Arts Council. The Minister acknowledges in his paper that the Crafts Council commands widespread support among its clients. Its function is somewhat different from that of the Arts Council. It is closer to the Design Council in some respects, in that it assists people who seek to create little businesses trading in the decorative arts or crafts in which they are engaged.
    Scotland has experience of a unified body which the Minister might like to examine. I make no criticism of how the matter is handled in Scotland, but there has been a feeling in the Scottish crafts world that English crafts people were advantaged by a separate and separately run Crafts Council. No doubt the Crafts Council will consider the matter and make recommendations in due course.
    The Secretary of State has one of the most important portfolios in the Government. There has been a long gestation period for the proposals and I hope that we shall soon reach conclusions so that the structure for dispensing public money can be settled to enable people to get on
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    with the job. In framing that structure, it is important to bear in mind the fact that if artists and art providers have to spend too much time checking whether they are fulfilling strategies, meeting criteria and devising or contributing advice on new criteria, there will be much less time for the activity that is at the core of the arts and the work of artists. For that reason, a bloated bureaucracy is to be avoided.
    5.41 pm
    Mrs. Joan Humble: I agree with the right hon. Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross (Mr. Maclennan) that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport has one of the most important jobs in the Government. I say that not just because of the Department's great importance to our economy but because I enjoy so many of the facilities that it covers. I am pleased to take part in a debate that highlights the Government's exciting initiatives. Such proposals are sadly lacking among Conservative Members.
    I listened carefully to the speech by the hon. Member for East Surrey (Mr. Ainsworth), but there was no substance and, I fear, no style in his presentation. We should all welcome the biggest ever increase in resources for culture, and the fact that it has been placed in the context of a wide-ranging consultative document. There have been other initiatives in the past 15 months that are especially important to tourism in view of the difficulties that face many of our tourist resorts, especially seaside towns. I represent such a town, as does my hon. Friend the Member for Blackpool, South (Mr. Marsden), whom I am pleased to see in his place. We are both aware of the difficulties that seaside towns faced for many years because the previous Government did not support them. At last, we are looking forward to the support that we need.
    Mr. Gray: Has the hon. Lady heard from the Labour party whether it intends to return to Blackpool for the annual conferences? Her constituents must have been concerned by the recent announcement that the standard of hotels and restaurants in Blackpool did not come up to the high standards that Labour has come to expect in Islington and elsewhere.
    Mrs. Humble: My colleagues and I look forward to enjoying the party conference in the autumn in Blackpool, and to enjoying the hotel accommodation and restaurants and all the other facilities that Blackpool offers. We might go to see the illuminations. Seaside resorts should not be treated with the contempt that the hon. Gentleman has displayed. They have serious problems. Those who visit Blackpool in the summer and autumn see the bright lights, the theatres and a bustling town. They do not see behind those attractions the problem of unemployment and the difficulties that have been caused by many years of underfunding.
    At last, Britain has a Government who are investing not just in tourism but in housing to improve the housing stock. They are investing in health, education and new jobs. In north Blackpool, a new technology park is being built, and already there is a queue of people waiting to develop new technology and new jobs on that site. In recent years, Blackpool council and the tourism and hospitality trade have taken steps to ensure that Blackpool

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    remains Britain's premier seaside and tourist resort. However, local support, initiatives and endeavour will not be enough. The Government must be equally committed not only to Blackpool but to other seaside towns and to tourism as a whole. That is why all those who are involved in tourism and hospitality welcome many of my right hon. Friend's initiatives.
    Training and the new deal initiative are important. I was pleased to attend the higher awards ceremony at Blackpool and the Fylde college. The degree ceremony there is held in conjunction with Lancaster university, and many of the degrees are in tourism, hospitality and catering to enable people to provide for the many visitors who come not just to Blackpool but to other parts of the country. I felt proud of those students as they walked across the stage to receive their degrees. Those well-educated young people will deliver the quality service that we want, and that will encourage more overseas visitors and make life more enjoyable for those who take their holidays at home.
    There have been many plaudits for the minimum wage legislation. How can we develop quality services if we do not pay the rate for the job to the people, many of whom are young, who are engaged in the direct delivery of services? Those initiatives are sponsored by many Departments which have co-operated to develop a key industry. The Department for Culture, Media and Sport has been involved in many other initiatives. I recently took part in the debates on the Bill that became the National Lottery Act 1998. I fear that my constituency is among those that have received the lowest lottery funding.
    Under the new legislation, there is hope for a more equitable allocation of resources so that the many deserving causes in my constituency and in many regions that have dropped off the list will be viewed much more sympathetically. People are already approaching me to know more about the sixth good cause, the after-school clubs and the healthy living centres. They are excited by the Government's new initiatives.
    I welcome the arts initiative. When my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State is considering museums and art galleries, I hope he will remember that there are many excellent examples in the regions. A museum in Fleetwood has concentrated on the history of the fishing industry there. Unfortunately, that industry has declined in recent years, but many children can visit that museum to learn more about their heritage and about the industry in which their fathers, grandfathers and uncles worked. That museum is a centre of education, as well as providing an interesting afternoon out for many families. On Friday evening, I will attend the Grundy art gallery in Blackpool, where a new exhibition is to be unveiled. It regularly has new exhibitions which highlight local as well as national talent. There are many such art galleries and museums throughout the country, so, when we look at the arts, let us remember that we are talking not just about the royal opera or metropolitan organisations, however much we all wish to support them, but about local initiatives.
    I could talk at length about the theatre and the plays that I have seen in Blackpool. Instead, let me say that I just hope that the Secretary of State, when he visits Blackpool in the autumn, will take the opportunity to visit local arts establishments, as well as entering into debates
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    with the tourism and hospitality industries, and will see why many people enjoy coming to Blackpool and want to keep coming back.
    5.50 pm
    Mrs. Virginia Bottomley: I am very happy to follow the hon. Member for Blackpool, North and Fleetwood (Mrs. Humble). Having had many discussions with the people of Blackpool about the tourism and leisure industry—having visited Blackpool pleasure beach and talked about the importance of tourism—I endorse many of her points about the industry in Blackpool. I was especially pleased to hear the hon. Lady comment on the importance of training. At the recent British Hospitality Association annual lunch, Adair Turner commended the document that was produced by the Department of National Heritage on training and manpower issues in—I think—1996. That makes the point that the industry needs to train young people. I hope that the hon. Member for Newport, East (Mr. Howarth), whom I welcome to the ministerial team, will be able to deploy some of the expertise that he has developed at the Department for Education and Employment in the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, because human resource issues are so important.
    Enjoyable though it has been, the debate so far has been characterised by a degree of selective memory. I hope that the Minister for Sport will be able to inform the House on these points in his winding-up speech. Surely, the biggest single increase in funding to culture in this country has arisen from the incredible significance of the national lottery. I hope that the hon. Gentleman will inform the House precisely how many museums, galleries, theatres and orchestras have benefited from the national lottery. For all the credit that should be given to the Department for its work, and to Britain's extraordinary ability to achieve a reputation throughout the world for its excellence in arts, sports and heritage, the person who must take the most credit is my right hon. Friend the Member for Huntingdon (Mr. Major), who said, of his founding of the Department:
    "Man cannot live by GDP alone … A country can only be strong, healthy and contented if it burnishes its heritage, encourages its citizens to pursue excellence in sport and cultivates widespread appreciation of the arts … It was in that spirit that I set up the Department of National Heritage. Its creation was a sign that Government should take such activities seriously. For millions of people, they are not optional extras, they are worth valuing in their own right."
    The most incredible boost in funding has resulted from the national lottery, which has enabled many more people to participate in the arts, sport, heritage, culture—the things that draw people together. A dilemma of modern life is that people's lives are more fragmented and more isolated. Now, however, they have the opportunity to build communities in a way that they never previously had.
    The Secretary of State was less than generous to my right hon. Friend the former Prime Minister. Anyone who has served in a Department inevitably has a tremendous commitment and concern for the activities of that Department. The former Minister for Arts, the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent, Central (Mr. Fisher), consistently and generously paid tribute to those elements of policy for which the team that was present when I last held office had been responsible.

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    The Secretary of State mentioned many initiatives that had a remarkably familiar ring. I seem to remember setting up a working group involving the British Council, the British Tourist Authority and the Department, and changing the lottery rules to allow lottery money to go into touring, to encourage access, participation and education. I remember many other themes. I was sorry that the right hon. Gentleman presented those in classic Labour fashion, rebranding and rebadging any good idea from the past, without any recognition of what had gone before.
    The one respect in which the Secretary of State did give me recognition concerned the adoption of the phrase "cool Britannia." I was Secretary of State for National Heritage. I am a Conservative who is proud of our past and who believes that there is continuity. Therefore, I was happy to adopt and to apply a phrase that identified the creative, dynamic, forward-looking potential of Britain.
    Mr. Chris Smith: Does the right hon. Lady agree with the hon. Member for East Surrey (Mr. Ainsworth), who said this afternoon that "cool Britannia" is a phrase that has precious little meaning to people in the real world?
    Mrs. Bottomley: I am going to explain why the use of the phrase "cool Britannia" has been hijacked and abused by the Labour party, why it is absolutely to the point and why the Opposition motion is so appropriate.
    New Labour believes in rubbishing the past. It really went for cool Britannia, the rebranding and rebadging of Britain, as if there were was no tomorrow, because it did not want to remember the past.
    Mr. Smith: During her time at the Department of National Heritage, the right hon. Lady issued at least five press releases about cool Britannia. I have issued not a single one since I took over after the election last year.
    Mrs. Bottomley: My purpose in speaking was not to engage in trivial exchanges with the right hon. Gentleman. I will talk about his record in a moment, but I wanted to make a more profound point about the significance of the phrase "cool Britannia" and its use by the Labour party, as opposed to its use by me in the context of tourism.
    I was Secretary of State for National Heritage, a Department that took great pride in our history, architecture and cultural traditions and wanted to convey the message that we were creating a country that was innovative in film, tourism, hospitality and food. The Secretary of state rightly praises the film industry. He will know that all the filming for "The Full Monty" and "Mrs. Brown" was completed way before the last election. The reason why the phrase has been wrapped around new Labour's necks, whether or not the right hon. Gentleman used it, is that the Prime Minister has exploited that message comprehensively.
    On the day when the House was cutting lone-parent benefit, the Prime Minister was entertaining another 400 celebrities, media personalities and pop stars at No. 10. This is a Prime Minister who has systematically sought to exploit the "cool Britannia" phrase, which has been spun out of No. 10. It has boomeranged into Labour's face because new Labour dislikes the past—anything that
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    represents the flourishing economy that the Conservatives left in place and anything that represents old Labour. Each is equally unappetising to new Labour.
    Mr. Loughton: Far from distancing himself from the ethos of cool Britannia, as the Secretary of State is now doing, does my right hon. Friend recall that in April, the Prime Minister interrupted his tour of the middle east—specifically, Saudi Arabia—to hold a press conference in defence of cool Britannia? Such was the importance that the right hon. Gentleman attached to the issue that he interrupted an extremely important foreign tour for it.
    Mrs. Bottomley: My hon. Friend has the message precisely right. When I was Secretary of State for National Heritage, my right hon. Friend the then Prime Minister would not have uttered the words "cool Britannia" for any amount of persuasion had I tried to encourage him. It was an appropriate phrase to promote the tourism industry, but it is not the way to badge a Government. That is its significance in the context of the motion tabled by my right hon. Friend.
    Mr. Nicholas Soames: I endorse entirely what my right hon. Friend says. We all know exactly what the Prime Minister and the Labour Government were trying to do in rebranding this country cool Britannia. Does my right hon. Friend agree that it does not matter who is in power, as these great renaissances in the arts, music, poetry and painting in capital cities go in cycles? I am now an old man of 50 and twice in my lifetime London has been deemed to be the cultural capital of the world. If the good Lord spares me, it may happen once again, but it has absolutely nothing to do with anything that Labour has done, and very little to do with what we did.
    Mrs. Bottomley: I beg to disagree with my hon. Friend, as I think that it has a great deal to do with what the Conservative Government did. The fact that, under the Conservatives, Britain set an economic and cultural framework in which initiative could flourish has meant that Britain has been the place in which many mobile and creative industries have wanted to invest. The growing pressure towards regulation, the introduction of a minimum wage and Labour's municipalising tendencies threaten to stultify much of the innovation that is taking place. That leads me to other serious issues surrounding today's motion.
    It is disappointing that the Secretary of State lost responsibility for voluntary organisations, volunteering and the voluntary sector, as they gave the Department a serious flavour and registered the significance of that work and that theme in community development. I endorse the approach of working with the regions. The Department is an important lever for economic and social development, and I frequently emphasised that role.
    Let me return to today's motion and the Government's preoccupation with style over substance. Various hon. Members have referred to the biggest ever increase in funding. I suggest that the biggest ever increase in funding was the input of well over £1 billion a year to the sector from the national lottery. Last week's announcement may have meant £290 million more in taxpayers' money, but in the same time frame the sector has lost £1 billion in lottery money. Worse, the Secretary of State has

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    essentially allowed the Chancellor to do what successive Chancellors will inevitably want to do—to nationalise the lottery. Not only is lottery money going into education and health but the document issued last week is full of ways in which the Secretary of State is seeking to control, nationalise or municipalise the lottery stream. That is why it is so dangerous to the arts, culture and sport.
    Mr. Caplin: I realise that the announcement was on Friday, but did the right hon. Lady miss the point made by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State that lottery funding for sport, arts, heritage and charities has been reinforced for 2001 onwards? That has been widely welcomed by all those sectors as the guarantee that many Conservative Members were seeking during the passage of the Lottery Bill.
    Mrs. Bottomley: I regret to disagree with the hon. Gentleman. Those sectors now receive only one sixth of the lottery stream instead of one fifth. The document is riddled with implications that there will be more interference and control over the way in which the money is spent. It suggests that there will be more influence from regional development agencies, and more control—other ways of municipal agencies getting their hands on the money.
    That brings me to another profound difference between Labour and the Conservatives. Labour's preoccupation with the concept of cool Britannia—from which the Secretary of State rightly now distances himself—is all about the future, not the past. The millennium dome is a futuristic building with little interest in the past history of Britain or the naval college alongside it. It is all part of Labour's branding, its image and its much-repeated phrases.
    The other true reflection of the nature of the Labour Government is their renaming of the Department as the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, by which they could not have said more. The Labour Government have a soviet approach to culture. Their controlling, municipalising instincts are always there. They also have a soviet use of language. Time and again, the Prime Minister talks about the people's decision, the people's party, the people's palace and goodness knows what else. That is really a way of saying, "We have decided and we shall railroad our policies through, come what may".
    The Conservative approach is much more to recognise that culture cannot be dominated and controlled from the centre and that it requires plural sources of funding. It is interesting that no Minister went to the Association for Business Sponsorship of the Arts event. During my term of office, I do not believe that I missed a single ABSA event. If I did, I am sure that a deputy stood in for me. I recall going time and again to ABSA events because I wanted to demonstrate as a Minister the degree to which what mattered was not only central Government funding, local authority funding, the box office and the philanthropy of individuals: it was businesses and others saying, "We want to play a part in the cultural life of this country". Labour always demonstrates that centralising, controlling tendency. The gut instinct comes through, come what may.
    The real truth about last week's statement is that it was an effort to get the spin through in advance. This morning, I was asked to speak on the "Today" programme about
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    today's statement on mental health reform. I said, "I do not know anything about it. I am only a Member of Parliament. I am not a journalist who gets all the information leaked in advance." I was given the information that the programme had at its disposal and I was then able to do the interview.
    Earlier this week, we had the Legg report. Again, I was telephoned by a journalist asking me to comment. I said, "I am only a humble Member of Parliament. I am not a journalist who gets all the information leaked in advance."
    Similarly, last Friday, from early in the morning, we had a distorted account of what was about to be announced because the Secretary of State did not want the confiscation of £1 billion from the lottery to be highlighted; he wanted the additional £290 million in taxpayers' money to appear in flashing lights. In addition, he was concealing the most serious aspect of that announcement—the death knell of the English tourist board. His consultation paper set out four options, none of which recognised the possibility that the English tourist board—with its weakness and its strengths—would continue in the role that it has performed over many years, and with increasing authority.
    It was on tourism that the Select Committee rightly condemned the Department under the leadership of the Secretary of State. Tourism was slighted by the new title of the Department, which includes almost everything else one can imagine. It is difficult enough to decide what to call a Department, but why omit tourism, which generates more new jobs, great prosperity for Britain and a vital industry throughout the country?
    I return to my right hon. Friend's motion on the emphasis on spin and style over substance. The Secretary of State is shameless in his selective reading of quotations. He did it again on Monday, when he referred to the English tourist board's press release following the statement, and he has done it time and again today. If he will forgive me, I shall complete some of the quotations that he used. He referred to the English tourist board's so-called welcome. David Quarmby, chairman of the ETB, said:
    "We believe that the tourism industry and local government want to see a national independent tourism body for England. They made this clear during last year's Agenda 2000 consultation exercise. This role cannot be fulfilled effectively by a committee or government Department, or a conglomeration of competing regional bodies with no natural national remit."
    That does not sound like a whole-hearted endorsement of a consultation exercise that leaves no scope for the English tourist board to continue.
    There has been an outcry because the Secretary of State not only made the announcement outside Parliament but allowed only seven weeks for consultation. Does it occur to hon. Members that the following seven weeks are the busiest of the year for the tourism industry? August is also the time when local authorities tend not to meet; it is a time of year when people go on holiday. The regular cycle of such meetings often omits August.
    Fiona Mactaggart: As I recall, the former Government constantly consulted on matters relating to schools, which, as we know, are shut at the moment and do not open until September, between July and the end of September. We are doing a little better than they did.
    Mrs. Bottomley: In making that comment, the hon. Lady implied that the reason for taking such an approach

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    to consultation was somehow devious and an attempt to railroad policy through. On such an important issue, surely the Government should not be afraid of a proper, open debate. To allow seven weeks at the peak of the tourism trade's year, and when local authorities often do not meet, inevitably creates suspicion, outrage and a sense that the Government are railroading policy for their own ideological reasons.
    Mr. Chris Smith: The right hon. Lady might like to know that the reason for the relatively short seven-week period for consultation on the paper is that that is precisely what representatives of the tourism industry in our strategic working group asked for. It was their recommendation that we followed when we set the consultation period.
    While the right hon. Lady is on the subject of selective quotations, might I complete for her the comments of the English tourist board on the document that we issued on Friday?
    "The English Tourist Board welcomes the DCMS' recognition of its Agenda 2000 consultation, its acknowledgement of the need for a national co-ordinating role, and its appreciation of the real value of the England mark, launched by the ETB last year."
    The ETB also welcomes our intention to continue to fund English tourism. That was a welcome.
    Mrs. Bottomley: I shall help the right hon. Gentleman by continuing the quotation of the English tourist board's press notice.
    "We will be making strong representation to Government for the continuation of an effective national body independent of commercial interests."
    On the launching of the England mark, he knows full well that the process began a little before he took office. Be that as it may, I shall return to our quotation competition.
    Ken Robinson, chairman of the Tourism Society, who was also quoted by the Secretary of State, commented:
    "It is illogical, unjustified and a non-sequitur to all the good work that the Department is doing. The money being saved is peanuts in the context of Government spending, but the consequences of doing away with the ETB are catastrophic for the tourism industry."
    Will the Secretary of State keep open the option of extending the consultation? Although the industry may have wanted to get uncertainty out of the way, I doubt whether it realised that the consultation would be in its busiest time. Will he make clear that, contrary to the impression in his document, he will consider allowing the English tourist board to continue—albeit following clarification of its relationship with the regions and tourist information centres? David Quarmby—also of the British Tourist Authority—and Tim Bartlett of the ETB do a remarkably good job. Their authority needs to be enhanced, yet the process that the Secretary of State has instigated simply offers them months of skirmishing over their future. Now, as never before, there is an opportunity for the Confederation of British Industry, the Government and the nation to argue that tourism is a huge boost to the economy and an industry that should be recognised in its own right. I ask the Secretary of State to look again at that area.
    I ask the Secretary of State to be more truthful about the degree to which he has raided—or allowed the Chancellor of the Exchequer to raid—the lottery. I commend him for changes in the Arts Council. Gerry
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    Robinson and Peter Hewitt are excellent appointments. Taking a more rigorous approach to their work is vital to our interests. Finally, when the Secretary of State speaks on these matters in the future, will he give more credit to the person who deserves the greatest credit for the flourishing nature of culture and the arts: my right hon. Friend the Member for Huntingdon?
    6.15 pm
    Mr. Tom Levitt: I shall try to be brief, and to spend most of my time on matters of substance—unlike the right hon. Member for South-West Surrey (Mrs. Bottomley).
    My constituency covers much of the Peak national park, which attracts 22 million visitors a year. That is the highest visiting figure for any national park in the world except Mount Fuji. Of those visitors, 2.5 million find their way to just one village—Castleton—in the heart of the constituency. It is a very small village at the foot of Winnat's pass, which will, I regret to say, be nothing more than a traffic jam for the next few weeks.
    Given that the Peak park is within an hour's drive of one third of the population, and that so many of the 22 million visitors are day tippers, the area is crying out for a sustainable tourism strategy. It sends the strongest message that a tourism strategy must be integrally linked with our transport strategy. I believe that, given the Government's direction, the two will work together in coming years.
    The car is causing not only congestion but chemical erosion. The very moorland that people visit is being eroded by the toxic products in car fumes. In addition, the Pennine way in parts of my constituency is being worn out—not by the use of the car but by people's feet. We must keep the needs of visitors, residents and people who work in the area very much in balance in a sustainable tourism strategy.
    I welcome the initiatives taken by the Peak national park authority, which has received European funding, to put traffic management for tourism at the heart of their management of the national park. I stress that a tourism strategy must link not just transport but housing, planning and environmental strategy—the very policies at the heart of national parks.
    My constituency is not just open countryside. There are several towns and villages in the area. Three of them—Buxton, New Mills and Glossop—have conservation areas in the town centre, which are funded by English Heritage. Buxton is a magnificent spa town; it makes Bath look like a tub with a leg at each corner. One only has to look at the 18th-century Georgian crescent to see its potential as a major tourism centre.
    Just behind the crescent, we have the unique dome—dare I mention the word—of the Devonshire Royal hospital which, like the crescent, is very much in need of large amounts of funding to preserve, maintain and enhance its heritage value. Literally, the funding is needed to save them for the nation. They are potential beneficiaries of lottery funding, and the Pavilion gardens in Buxton is an actual beneficiary. The gardens are being restored to their Victorian splendour.
    I have been delighted by the way in which the former chair of the heritage lottery board, Lord Rothschild, and his successor, Mr. Anderson, have expressed an interest

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    in the future of Buxton and its heritage value. They would be the first to agree that a heritage strategy should be just that, and not a series of piecemeal responses to situations as they arise. A strategy is needed for conserving our heritage to make sure that we do not just conserve, but that we enhance and promote access to our heritage and celebrate it. That, too, is something that the Department will do.
    There is another heritage building, if I can call it that, in Buxton—the 1902 Buxton opera house, which is a Matcham theatre. My hon. Friend the Member for Blackpool, North and Fleetwood (Mrs. Humble) has acknowledged that she has a Matcham theatre in her constituency. The two are joined by a rather slow and unreliable railway line between Buxton and Blackpool.
    There is no resident company at the opera house, and it is perhaps the least subsidised theatre in the country. It has—it must be admitted—less than perfect facilities. It is the subject of bids for lottery funding from both heritage and arts sources, and it has not been easy to get the two wings working together and co-operating for the future. We are working on that, and the local borough council has been committed to getting the funds operating together.
    In arts, it is not just the building, but what goes on in the building, that counts. At Buxton opera house, we have opera—as the name suggests—traditional and modern theatre, comedy, the choir of the year competition and lots of music. People my age enjoy the opportunity once a year to see Robert Plant and Jimmy Page reminding us of what Led Zeppelin were like at their best. [HON. MEMBERS: "Hear, hear."] They are appreciated not only on this side of the House.
    Currently, the Buxton opera house has the Buxton opera festival, and a magnificent first night a couple of weeks ago was enjoyed not only by myself and the former Minister for Arts, my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent, Central (Mr. Fisher), but by the Chairman of the Select Committee, the mayor, the leader of High Peak council, the leader of Derbyshire county council and the local Member of the European Parliament—a Labour clean sweep, I hasten to add. The theatre lacks subsidy, and the festival deserves assistance to guarantee its future. It has a thriving and growing fringe, and Buxton fringe festival is now one of the premier fringe festivals in the country.
    This weekend, when the opera festival ends, the Gilbert and Sullivan festival starts, and after that we have the festival of musical theatre—the arts are well and truly alive in Buxton. Again, that is an example of the need for strategy in the arts and in promoting arts. It is not just a question of people coming to see them in all their various forms, but of their becoming involved and taking part in the arts. The Department has a vital role to play in that.
    A major television series may be relocating its permanent film base to High Peak, and that would be welcome. I regret that I do not have the time to go into all the ways in which the voluntary sector has benefited from lottery funding, and the sport sector is benefiting from lottery funding within my constituency. However, all that is welcome.
    I am delighted to say that, over the past few days, it has been noticeable that a number of people from local and national voluntary organisations have expressed their
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    appreciation of the fact that the £1.8 billion that they knew they would get from the current lottery contract has now been guaranteed. In addition, many of them will have the opportunity to bid for funds from the new opportunities fund as well. I was delighted by the Secretary of State's announcement that Baroness Pitkeathley will chair that fund. That is a welcome appointment.
    All the issues I have raised point to the need for strategies and co-ordination, and for people to talk together to make sure that they are not going off in contrary directions. There is a need to break down barriers and to ensure that strategies for the arts, tourism, sport and the media are delivered through the various avenues that are available. This is an example of what has been called joined-up government, and represents fields in which my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State and his team have made an excellent start. The further £290 million in his budget will go a long way, and will have a significant effect in putting strategies further into place.
    I am certain that, as a result of that further investment, things will be better, not just for the people of High Peak but for all the very welcome visitors who will continue to come to my area.
    6.25 pm
    Mr. Michael Fabricant: The hon. Member for High Peak (Mr. Levitt) is a good advocate for High Peak, but I do not want to talk exclusively about the Department of Culture, Media and Sport. This is a question of style over substance.
    We should have known long in advance that style would play the predominant role in this Government's life. Before the election, the clues were all there. I call it "The Colour Purple"—but not because of the film about racial discrimination in the deep south. That was far more subtle.
    First, we saw the future Prime Minister change his tie. It was a gradual process. The tie changed from red to red with blue polka dots. Then there was a further transformation—a blue tie with red polka dots; then a blue tie; then the final transmogrification took place—the colour purple.
    The backdrop at the Labour party conference—sadly, for the last time in Blackpool—changed colour from red to puce. It would have been pale blue, but that would have clashed with Tony's tie. Of course, those were the days when Labour considered Blackpool. After September, Blackpool will be no more—[Interruption.]—despite the protestations from the Minister for Sport.
    It is not just about colour. The Government are about alliteration. Government policies must all begin with the same letter. We have seen welfare-to-work, but, sadly, all the predictions now are for work-to-welfare. Almost every day we hear of boom and bust—the Prime Minister used the expression twice today at Prime Minister's Question Time. Yet the Government are the product of bust before they have even boomed.
    It is also a question of history. Drawing from the dustbowl of the American 1930s, there is Roosevelt's new deal. Away with YOPs—youth opportunity programmes, for those too young to remember. We have brought in the new deal. Is nothing original? Is nothing sacred?
    We also have Americana. Spin-doctoring is an American expression, seized with enthusiasm here following the new Secretary of State for Trade and

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    Industry's internship with the Clinton re-election campaign. However, I am pleased to inform the House that, thanks to the tastes of President Clinton, the prince of darkness has not had to reach an immunity deal with special prosecutor Kenneth Starr, and will not have to give evidence to a grand jury without fear of prosecution.
    If you want to know how the Prime Minister and the prince of darkness work, worry not about the dome. Just watch John Travolta in the movie "Primary Colours"—on release at a cinema near you soon.
    Lottery money has been plundered, as my right hon. Friend the Member for South-West Surrey (Mrs. Bottomley) said, from the Department of Culture, Media and Sport, and the additionality principle has been cast aside like an unwanted toy, as have the Labour party's principles. Money earmarked for charities, the arts, heritage, the millennium and sport—normally starved of cash—has been diverted to health and education, because the Chancellor got his sums wrong when he was in opposition. Of course we value the national health service and education, but they have always been paid for by taxation.
    What is the current spin? The hapless Secretary of State has just triumphantly announced that he can maintain the current spending on charities, the arts, heritage and sport into the next decade. A big hurrah. Where will the hundreds of millions of pounds a year from the millennium fund go when that is completed at the end of 2001? Will that be robbed from the Department, too? I invite the Secretary of State, who is leaning back comfortably, to say whether the hundreds of millions of pounds currently allocated to the millennium fund will be drawn back into the arts, heritage and sport. Will he answer me now? The silence is telling.
    I should have thought that the Secretary of State would thank the Select Committee for its support. By branding him nice but weak and ineffectual, we have preserved his place in the Cabinet. It is clear that the Prime Minister decided that he would not be dictated to by the press or Select Committees, as witnessed by embarrassments such as the Paymaster General and the Foreign Office Minister responsible for Sierra Leone, who have also retained their salary cheques and Government drivers.
    It is nice to see that both the hon. Member for Newport, East (Mr. Howarth)—who once served as a member of my party on the National Heritage Select Committee in the previous Parliament—and the hon. Member for Rossendale and Darwen (Janet Anderson) are members of the team. The latter was also, in effect, on the same side as me, when we, alone except for Angela Rumbold, fought in Committee for Sunday trading and for ordinary people throughout the country who thought that they should not be dictated to by the nanny state.
    The biggest example of style or spin, and one that I believe is an attempt to mask the Government's biggest mistake, is the so-called independence of the Bank of England. It is not truly independent. Alan Greenspan enjoys an independent Federal Reserve in Washington. "Independent" means that he can set interest rate and inflation targets; but the Bank of England has no such authority in the United Kingdom.
    Eddie George has to act like a high street bank manager, obeying memos from the Chancellor saying, unreasonably, that inflation targets should stay as they are while they drift up slightly in Europe and the United
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    States of America. The object of having low inflation is to keep our goods competitive, but they are not competitive, because the value of the pound is so high.
    With brooding eyes and a dour face, Brown—I am sorry, I meant to say Brezhnev—used to write out spending and income proposals in the naive belief that, if it was written in his grand office, it would be done. It is not like that: one cannot set a three-year plan—a Gosplan. Despite all the spin, the welfare-to-work programme and all the other measures have failed to get welfare spending under control.
    Every week, another statement is issued on new Government spending, as a product of the departmental commissioning of yet another focus group paid for by our—the taxpayers'—money, yet every week analysis shows that there is double counting, with the inclusion of initiatives announced only the previous week. If the Government were a company, the Serious Fraud Office would already have launched a dawn raid, and the books would have been carted off in police vans.
    A Government who treat their electorate as gullible fools—with contempt—ignore the lessons of history. The Mississippi cardsharp and trickster may win in the short term, but he ends up with the bullet in the head. Democracy gives the electorate the loaded gun. The Government will be judged on what they can deliver, not on promises, style or spin.
    6.34 pm
    Mr. Ronnie Fearn: I want to dwell on the serious subject of tourism, which does not feature strongly in the Government's current priorities. I thank the Secretary of State for meeting the officers of the all-party tourism group this morning. It was a good meeting, and I hope that the discussions may be a spur to his Department to concentrate more on tourism.
    Tourism is a large and vital industry, worth £40 billion a year. It has grown successfully, largely unaided by Government—a fact which I applaud. My constituency is a seaside resort, and relies heavily on tourism. Tourism has grown to the point where strategic planning is essential to overcome the problems caused by fragmentation, and to protect the environment.
    The Department of Culture, Media and Sport—a new spin doctor title which does not even recognise Britain's fifth biggest industry—has produced a spending review document in which an industry of such importance to the creation of new jobs appears to have been tagged on at the end as a flimsy four-page afterthought.
    I join the many who applaud the increase in funding for the British Tourist Authority, which markets Britain so well abroad, but I cannot understand why England alone in the British isles should be singled out and—probably—left without a national tourist board that is independent of commercial and big business interests.
    Small businesses in England have already lost out over section 4 grants, which used to be available to improve and upgrade individual premises. The previous Government abolished them in England, but not, strange as it may seem, in Scotland, Wales or Northern Ireland, despite the fact that England plays host to 80 per cent. of the tourists who come to Britain. What will the Government do for small businesses in our resorts and tourist attractions to make up for that loss of funding?

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    The existing accommodation facilities in many of our seaside resorts are falling below the standards acceptable to visitors. The owners can no longer find funding to upgrade, and they are shutting down in large numbers. What will the Government do to prevent seaside areas from turning into boarded-up streets with rundown houses in multiple occupancy? The appearance of such streets at the heart of our resorts drives visitors away, and whole communities are in danger of being lost for ever.
    I am talking not about old-style manufacturing industries for which there is no longer a market, but about viable communities that are relevant in the service industry age, and they require only modest funding to upgrade. Will the funding from regional development agencies pay only for grand projects, or can funds be directed to smaller businesses?
    Those agencies could become quangos—I hope not—and regional tourist boards are private companies, of which only 20 per cent. of the industry are members. The remaining 80 per cent. are small businesses. They are often excluded from regional tourist boards' information services, and almost always seek the advice and information that at present is provided free by the English tourist board. Who will provide that direct service for our severely pressed small businesses—a private company, the mandarins in the Department or the most sensible body: the English tourist board?
    In the Secretary of State's own words, the tourist industry is "byzantine and complex", which I am sure refers to the severely fragmented nature of the industry. He appears to want to pass strategic control to so many businesses in so many fields of the industry. Private companies compete—it is the nature of the market economy—rather than co-ordinate with one another. The English tourist board, as an independent organisation free from commercial interest, works hard to co-ordinate with local authorities, which have long been the greatest investors in tourism. Many private organisations still regard local authorities as an obstruction rather than a resource.
    The English tourist board, as a publicly funded organisation, is concerned with the 30 or 40 per cent. of the population who do not take any holidays at all. Many of those people are socially excluded: people with disabilities, carers, and the poor. The English tourist board has worked strenuously to promote such aspects as access at visitor attractions, accommodation, and other tourist facilities. It is not only the income-producing side of tourism that is of value; the cultural, educational and leisure side provided to the consumer indirectly benefits us all. The private sector is most unlikely to promote greater accessibility without a clear profit motive.
    The English tourist board has recently helped introduce, and is actively promoting, a new nationwide hotel accommodation rating system, as mentioned by the Secretary of State. We are finally starting to move away from the quaint and quirky stars and crowns that confuse many people, especially overseas visitors. The new system is simple, and facilities-based. It is being introduced across England, and the consumer is finally getting some clarity. Would competing regional tourist boards and development agencies introduce such a
    420
    system, or would they hold out for one that favoured their providers, as has occurred in other areas of the UK? We would then end up with no progress being made.
    Much of the work of the Department of Culture, Media and Sport has been concerned with image, but important issues such as the strength of the pound and the second highest level of VAT in Europe being levied on our accommodation providers are brushed under the carpet. An extensive report by Deloitte and Touche commissioned by the British Tourist Authority into the likely effects on the industry, and revenue to the Treasury, of cutting VAT on accommodation to average European levels has brought little response, positive or negative, from the Department or the Treasury, despite having being on the table for five months. Are its findings to be rejected outright, investigated further or ignored entirely?
    After 15 months, everything still appears to be under review. The enduring strength of the pound is a great concern to all tourism service providers, yet the Treasury appears not to recognise that the issue is crucial to businesses that seek to attract overseas visitors, who are increasingly discouraged from travelling to Britain, and to the small businesses of our resorts which are suffering from the loss in trade as customers take advantage of the cheapness of travelling abroad. Tourism is crying out for direction, but I do not think that the Government are giving it.
    6.42 pm
    Mr. Richard Spring: I thank all right hon. and hon. Members who have participated. As Opposition spokesman, I pay tribute to the right hon. Member for Coatbridge and Chryston (Mr. Clarke) and the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent, Central (Mr. Fisher), who were unfailingly polite and helpful. I wish them well in future.
    On Friday morning, the Secretary of State made an announcement about his departmental budget. Characteristically, he did not make it on the Floor. He said that it was the biggest increase in cultural funding and talked of a sum of some £290 million, which he used again today. I am afraid that he is arithmetically challenged. On his birthday recently, he turned 47. God willing, in a year's time, he will turn 48. Using the methodology employed in his departmental totals, he will not turn 48 but 95. Analysis of his figures shows that that is what has happened.
    The spin on the figure of £290 million is symptomatic of the media hype and distortion characteristic of the Government. If the right hon. Gentleman disbelieves me, he can check with the Library. He could send his parliamentary private secretary to the Members' Lobby to check the letter board, where there is a detailed explanation of how the figure is so entirely wrong. It is not £290 million or even half that. In real terms, allowing for 2.5 per cent. inflation, the figure is £52 million. So much for his fantasy figure.
    If one thing in the lifetime of this Government sums up everything that my hon. Friend the Member for East Surrey (Mr. Ainsworth) talked about, it is tobacco sponsorship of sport. The Minister for Sport knows that angling is 85 per cent. supported by tobacco manufacturers, darts 95 per cent., and pool 75 per cent. It is the same for billiards, snooker, greyhound racing, show jumping and so on. All those sports are dependent

    421
    on this form of sponsorship, yet, out of the blue, the Secretary of State for Health announced that the situation would change. No one was consulted and no sports governing body was forewarned.
    In the following autumn, Bernie Ecclestone got an audience with the Prime Minister at No. 10 Downing street. The great principle that we had heard about vanished overnight, and formula one got an exemption. The only thing lacking was lavender writing paper. The explanation given by the new Secretary of State for Trade and Industry about this fiasco and the betrayal of sporting bodies and interests was:
    "The Government behaved out of character. We acted against our own principles—that honesty is the first principle of good communications."
    Early in the year, representatives of the sports facing decimation met the Prime Minister to discuss the exemption. They were told that help would be forthcoming. In May, the Minister for Sport said that there was an adequate possibility of adequate substitutes being found. It is disgraceful that, again, the decision was made without consultation, or any knowledge of the level of sponsorship or the impact on individual sports. However, an exemption was given for a rich and powerful person, who was able to go to No. 10 having given a large amount of money to the Labour party. That is the truth because the task force has never met. Sporting bodies up and down the country are horrified about their treatment by the Government.
    The Government and the Labour party are controlled by a magic circle. We have heard about Derek Draper's 17 most powerful individuals, and the lobbyists and spin doctors with the ear, and influence, of politicians. They meet over endless quantities of champagne and canapés. In July, the magazine Tatler, which is widely read in Labour clubs, produced a list of the most sought-after guests in the best circles—the top party people.
    On 7 July, the Daily Mail printed the list of people described as the top 50 "Hot Guests". I am sorry to say that the Secretary of State was not among them—he was only No. 68—but, lo and behold, even ahead of Sarah, Duchess of York was the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry. We read that these:
    "Party-goers from the worlds of modelling, showbusiness, the arts and politics are among the most wanted guests."
    It must be a great pleasure to the members of the Hartlepool Labour Association to know that, when they sent their man to the House of Commons, not only did he come to have such great influence, but he came to mix in the extraordinary world that has been brought to our attention so dramatically in the past few weeks. How proud they must be of his achievements. The article starts:
    "Gilt-edged invitations spill from the mantlepiece and their champagne glasses run over. Seen at the best gatherings and sometimes known to host their own, their presence guarantees a party to remember".
    That is what the Labour party has come to: if one is rich and powerful, one gets favours from the Prime Minister, and influence is derived through a charmed magic circle of people who drink champagne and eat canapés together. I am sorry that the Minister for Sport is not a part of all that.
    The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport (Mr. Tony Banks): I do not get invited.
    Mr. Spring: The Minister will just have to try harder.
    The one thing that has brought to light the whole spinning fiasco of the Government is the handling of the millennium dome—£758 million of public money has been allocated to the dome project, along with yet more spinning, more misinformation and more interference. On 22 February on "Breakfast with Frost", the new Secretary of State for Trade and Industry spoke about the birth of a baby dome. I had been to the dome a matter of days previously and did not recall having seen anything like that. Nevertheless, the remark achieved the desired effect—the right hon. Gentleman got his headlines—but it was, of course, utter rubbish and no such thing as a baby dome existed.
    Other announcements that have brought the whole dome project into disrepute include the original proposals for a recumbent, androgynous figure. The figure was to have a baby in a nappy, but there was something wrong with the nappy and a case of infanticide ensued. Gradually, the recumbent, androgynous figure turned into a figure that was sitting up. Now, finally, the British people are being treated to the sight in their newspapers of Siamese twins—a combination of chest and breasts, seated, with only one pair of legs. The point is that that is no way to deal with an important project in the life of our country; it has been spun out of control and has turned the project into an utter laughing stock.
    Incidentally, we heard from the same right hon. Gentleman that the great millennial sport was to be something called surfball. However, we discovered that no such game existed—it was purely illustrative—and that, throughout, the right hon. Gentleman had been talking complete and utter surfballs himself.
    The Labour Government inherited what the International Monetary Fund called the finest economy anywhere in western Europe, but even Der Spiegel this week talks about the culture of cronyism, the atmosphere that surrounds the Government, the sense of decay and the setting in of recession. When the British people come to judge the Government, as they surely will, the issues of spin over substance and the appalling way in which major national projects and the economy have been treated will come home to roost. The part played by the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport and those like him will be central in making the people turn on the Government for leading them up the garden path.
    6.52 pm
    The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport (Mr. Tony Banks): I have little time in which to respond to some of the points that have been raised. I have to say that the Opposition's contribution to the debate has not been a triumph of style over substance; as my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State said, there has been no style and no substance. It is amazing that the hon. Member for West Suffolk (Mr. Spring) should come along here, and moan and whinge about my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry, when it seems that his main complaint is that he does not get invited to all the parties to which my right hon. Friend receives invitations.
    I did note that, when the hon. Gentleman mentioned the amount of champagne that apparently gets drunk at those parties, the hon. Member for Mid-Sussex (Mr. Soames) squeaked into life. When champagne is mentioned,

    423
    his interest is aroused. A little while ago, he ambled in from his club like some gargantuan summer pudding; he stayed for 15 minutes, made a wholly irrelevant point and then wobbled off back to his club. That is the sort of attitude displayed by Conservative Members that we have to deal with.
    The fact is that style is not a substitute for substance—of course one understands that point. However, style is important and the Labour Government are committed to a style of government that is open—a modern style of state in respect of constitutional change, and a greater democratic style through devolution. The idea that there is no substance behind the style of the Government is arrant nonsense, and the Opposition should understand that. After all, it was not the leader of the Labour party who went around wearing a baseball hat with his name on the front. I do not know whether the right hon. Member for Richmond, Yorks (Mr. Hague) was trying to remind others who he was, or trying to remind himself. Do not talk to us about style.
    As for the hon. Member for Lichfield (Mr. Fabricant), I thought at one point that he had taken leave of his senses and that Madam Speaker was contemplating using her powers under the Mental Health Acts to certify him. He spoke about purple ties and I do not know what he was going on about, but I should greatly prefer a purple tie worn by my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister to the abortion that the hon. Gentleman is currently wearing around his neck. He was doing his impersonation of the boy standing on the burning deck, but let me tell him why the boy was standing there alone: everyone else had had the good sense to get off when they smelt burning. The hon. Gentleman still does not know when to get out of one of his own speeches.
    The speeches with which I should have liked to deal in some depth were the thoughtful ones made by the right hon. Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross (Mr. Maclennan) and the hon. Member for Southport (Mr. Fearn), who both made some very good points. I join Opposition Members in paying tribute to my right hon. Friend the Member for Coatbridge and Chryston (Mr. Clarke) and my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent, Central (Mr. Fisher). Both worked hard and assiduously, and did a lot of excellent work. We all know that, at times, politics is a rough trade, and that we might share their experience in future.
    The comments of the right hon. Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross about the arm's-length principle were extremely significant. He knows my personal feelings on that point—I feel that it is something that belongs to the past. We should be able to trust ourselves as politicians and as Ministers in terms of what we do because if we cannot, how can we expect others to trust us? The subject is worthy of being returned to and given careful consideration.
    It is not that we want to intervene daily in the arts or in sport. The right hon. Gentleman understands that. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State wants to set out a broad strategy for arts, sport and culture in this country, while leaving the detailed working to those bodies that we have set up—the arts councils and the sports councils. In many ways, my right hon. Friend sees his relationship to those bodies as being like the Home Secretary's relationship to the police authorities: the Home Secretary
    424
    sets out a broad strategy, but does not interfere in the day-to-day operations of the police. The House should return to that subject, because it belongs to the days of Keynes. He said, in effect, "When circumstances change, I change my mind—what do you do?" That is a perfectly reasonable approach for us to adopt.
    On the question of the tourist boards, let me tell the right hon. Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross that the chairmen of the Scottish, Welsh and Northern Ireland tourist boards attend the British Tourist Authority board meetings. The BTA co-operates closely with them and that will continue. A consultation period is currently under way, and we shall listen carefully to representations and take them into account. However, it is a fact that we have to look at the adequacy of the existing structures for supporting the tourism industry and it is right that we should do so.
    I have to tell the right hon. Member for South-West Surrey (Mrs. Bottomley) that it was she who coined the phrase "Cool Britannia". I wish that she had not done it, because nothing appears so silly as politicians using phrases that they think are cool in an attempt to seem in touch with popular culture. Of course we want to be popular, but not by trying to hijack other people's language.
    I pay tribute to the right hon. Member for Huntingdon (Mr. Major), whom we supported in setting up the lottery. The right hon. Lady was right to say that it has brought enormous benefits to sport, arts and culture. We warmly supported the lottery when we were in opposition, so we need no lessons about how it benefits people.
    There are many other points that I should like to make. On Blackpool—[Interruption.] I simply do not have enough time because so many Opposition Members used it up. We shall go back to Blackpool. We are taking the Labour party conference around the country to another good seaside town—Bournemouth—but I assure the House that I will again be seen walking down the front at Blackpool with my kiss-me-quick hat and a little stick of Blackpool rock in my hand. It is a great town and we love going there. I can assure the House that the Labour party will always return to Blackpool, knowing that there is no fear of contradiction from anyone.
    Question put, That the original words stand part of the Question:—
    The House divided: Ayes 135, Noes 355.

    Division No. 351]

    [7 pm

    AYES

    Ainsworth, Peter (E Surrey)

    Chapman, Sir Sydney (Chipping Barnet)

    Amess, David

    Ancram, Rt Hon Michael

    Clappison, James

    Arbuthnot, James

    Clark, Rt Hon Alan (Kensington)

    Atkinson, David (Bour'mth E)

    Clifton-Brown, Geoffrey

    Atkinson, Peter (Hexham)

    Collins, Tim

    Bercow, John

    Cormack, Sir Patrick

    Beresford, Sir Paul

    Cran, James

    Body, Sir Richard

    Davies, Quentin (Grantham)

    Boswell, Tim

    Davis, Rt Hon David (Haltemprice)

    Bottomley, Rt Hon Mrs Virginia

    Donaldson, Jeffrey

    Brady, Graham

    Dorrell, Rt Hon Stephen

    Brazier, Julian

    Duncan, Alan

    Brooke, Rt Hon Peter

    Duncan Smith, Iain

    Browning, Mrs Angela

    Evans, Nigel

    Bruce, Ian (S Dorset)

    Faber, David

    Burns, Simon

    Fabricant, Michael

    Cash, William

    Fallon, Michael

    425

    Flight, Howard

    Maude, Rt Hon Francis

    Forth, Rt Hon Eric

    Mawhinney, Rt Hon Sir Brian

    Fox, Dr Liam

    May, Mrs Theresa

    Fraser, Christopher

    Moss, Malcolm

    Gale, Roger

    Ottaway, Richard

    Garnier, Edward

    Paice, James

    Gibb, Nick

    Paterson, Owen

    Gill, Christopher

    Pickles, Eric

    Gillan, Mrs Cheryl

    Prior, David

    Gorman, Mrs Teresa

    Randall, John

    Gray, James

    Redwood, Rt Hon John

    Green, Damian

    Robathan, Andrew

    Grieve, Dominic

    Robertson, Laurence (Tewk'b'ry)

    Hague, Rt Hon William

    Robinson, Peter (Belfast E)

    Hamilton, Rt Hon Sir Archie

    Roe, Mrs Marion (Broxbourne)

    Hammond, Philip

    Ruffley, David

    Hawkins, Nick

    Sayeed, Jonathan

    Hayes, John

    Shephard, Rt Hon Mrs Gillian

    Heald, Oliver

    Shepherd, Richard

    Heathcoat-Amory, Rt Hon David

    Simpson, Keith (Mid-Norfolk)

    Hogg, Rt Hon Douglas

    Soames, Nicholas

    Horam, John

    Spelman, Mrs Caroline

    Howarth, Gerald (Aldershot)

    Spicer, Sir Michael

    Hunter, Andrew

    Spring, Richard

    Jack, Rt Hon Michael

    Stanley, Rt Hon Sir John

    Jackson, Robert (Wantage)

    Steen, Anthony

    Jenkin, Bernard

    Streeter, Gary

    Johnson Smith, Rt Hon Sir Geoffrey

    Swayne, Desmond

    Syms, Robert

    Key, Robert

    Tapsell, Sir Peter

    King, Rt Hon Tom (Bridgwater)

    Taylor, Ian (Esher & Walton)

    Taylor, John M (Solihull)

    Kirkbride, Miss Julie

    Taylor, Sir Teddy

    Laing, Mrs Eleanor

    Tredinnick, David

    Lait, Mrs Jacqui

    Trend, Michael

    Lansley, Andrew

    Tyrie, Andrew

    Leigh, Edward

    Viggers, Peter

    Letwin, Oliver

    Wardle, Charles

    Lidington, David

    Wells, Bowen

    Lilley, Rt Hon Peter

    Whitney, Sir Raymond

    Lloyd, Rt Hon Sir Peter (Fareham)

    Whittingdale, John

    Loughton, Tim

    Widdecombe, Rt Hon Miss Ann

    Luff, Peter

    Wilkinson, John

    Lyell, Rt Hon Sir Nicholas

    Willetts, David

    McIntosh, Miss Anne

    Wilshire, David

    MacKay, Andrew

    Winterton, Nicholas (Macclesfield)

    Maclean, Rt Hon David

    Woodward, Shaun

    McLoughlin, Patrick

    Yeo, Tim

    Madel, Sir David

    Young, Rt Hon Sir George

    Major, Rt Hon John

    Malins, Humfrey

    Tellers for the Ayes:

    Maples, John

    Mr. Nigel Waterson and Mr. Stephen Day.

    Mates, Michael

    NOES

    Abbott, Ms Diane

    Beith, Rt Hon A J

    Adams, Mrs Irene (Paisley N)

    Bell, Stuart (Middlesbrough)

    Ainsworth, Robert (Cov'try NE)

    Benn, Rt Hon Tony

    Alexander, Douglas

    Bennett, Andrew F

    Allan, Richard

    Benton, Joe

    Allen, Graham

    Bermingham, Gerald

    Anderson, Donald (Swansea E)

    Berry, Roger

    Anderson, Janet (Rossendale)

    Best, Harold

    Armstrong, Ms Hilary

    Betts, Clive

    Ashdown, Rt Hon Paddy

    Blackman, Liz

    Atherton, Ms Candy

    Blair, Rt Hon Tony

    Atkins, Charlotte

    Blears, Ms Hazel

    Austin, John

    Blizzard, Bob

    Baker, Norman

    Boateng, Paul

    Ballard, Jackie

    Borrow, David

    Banks, Tony

    Bradley, Keith (Withington)

    Barron, Kevin

    Bradley, Peter (The Wrekin)

    Battle, John

    Bradshaw, Ben

    Bayley, Hugh

    Brake, Tom

    Beard, Nigel

    Brand, Dr Peter

    Beckett, Rt Hon Mrs Margaret

    Brinton, Mrs Helen

    426

    Brown, Rt Hon Gordon(Dunfermline E)

    Fearn, Ronnie

    Field, Rt Hon Frank

    Brown, Rt Hon Nick (Newcastle E)

    Fisher, Mark

    Brown, Russell (Dumfries)

    Fitzpatrick, Jim

    Browne, Desmond

    Foster, Rt Hon Derek

    Bruce, Malcolm (Gordon)

    Foster, Don (Bath)

    Buck, Ms Karen

    Foster, Michael J (Worcester)

    Burden, Richard

    Foulkes, George

    Burgon, Colin

    Fyfe, Maria

    Burnett, John

    Gapes, Mike

    Butler, Mrs Christine

    George, Andrew (St Ives)

    Byers, Stephen

    Gerrard, Neil

    Caborn, Richard

    Gilroy, Mrs Linda

    Campbell, Alan (Tynemouth)

    Godman, Dr Norman A

    Campbell, Mrs Anne (C'bridge)

    Godsiff, Roger

    Campbell, Menzies (NE Fife)

    Goggins, Paul

    Campbell, Ronnie (Blyth V)

    Golding, Mrs Llin

    Canavan, Dennis

    Gorrie, Donald

    Cann, Jamie

    Griffiths, Win (Bridgend)

    Caplin, Ivor

    Grocott, Bruce

    Caton, Martin

    Hain, Peter

    Chapman, Ben (Wirral S)

    Hall, Mike (Weaver Vale)

    Chaytor, David

    Hall, Patrick (Bedford)

    Chidgey, David

    Hamilton, Fabian (Leeds NE)

    Chisholm, Malcolm

    Hancock, Mike

    Clapham, Michael

    Hanson, David

    Clark, Dr Lynda(Edinburgh Pentlands)

    Harris, Dr Evan

    Harvey, Nick

    Clarke, Charles (Norwich S)

    Heal, Mrs Sylvia

    Clarke, Tony (Northampton S)

    Healey, John

    Clelland, David

    Heath, David (Somerton & Frome)

    Coaker, Vernon

    Henderson, Doug (Newcastle N)

    Coffey, Ms Ann

    Henderson, Ivan (Harwich)

    Cohen, Harry

    Hepburn, Stephen

    Coleman, Iain

    Heppell, John

    Colman, Tony

    Hesford, Stephen

    Connarty, Michael

    Hill, Keith

    Cook, Frank (Stockton N)

    Hinchliffe, David

    Cooper, Yvette

    Hodge, Ms Margaret

    Corbett, Robin

    Hoey, Kate

    Corbyn, Jeremy

    Hood, Jimmy

    Corston, Ms Jean

    Hoon, Geoffrey

    Cotter, Brian

    Hope, Phil

    Cousins, Jim

    Hopkins, Kelvin

    Cox, Tom

    Howarth, Alan (Newport E)

    Cranston, Ross

    Howarth, George (Knowsley N)

    Crausby, David

    Hoyle, Lindsay

    Cryer, Mrs Ann (Keighley)

    Hughes, Ms Beverley (Stretford)

    Cryer, John (Hornchurch)

    Hughes, Kevin (Doncaster N)

    Cummings, John

    Hughes, Simon (Southwark N)

    Cunliffe, Lawrence

    Humble, Mrs Joan

    Cunningham, Jim (Cov'try S)

    Hutton, John

    Curtis-Thomas, Mrs Claire

    Iddon, Dr Brian

    Dalyell, Tam

    Illsley, Eric

    Darling, Rt Hon Alistair

    Ingram, Adam

    Darvill, Keith

    Jackson, Ms Glenda (Hampstead)

    Davey, Edward (Kingston)

    Jackson, Helen (Hillsborough)

    Davey, Valerie (Bristol W)

    Jenkins, Brian

    Davies, Rt Hon Denzil (Llanelli)

    Johnson, Alan (Hull W & Hessle)

    Davies, Geraint (Croydon C)

    Jones, Barry (Alyn & Deeside)

    Davies, Rt Hon Ron (Caerphilly)

    Jones, Helen (Warrington N)

    Dean, Mrs Janet

    Jones, Ms Jenny (Wolverh'ton SW)

    Denham, John

    Dismore, Andrew

    Jones, Jon Owen (Cardiff C)

    Dobbin, Jim

    Jones, Martyn (Clwyd S)

    Dobson, Rt Hon Frank

    Jowell, Ms Tessa

    Doran, Frank

    Kaufman, Rt Hon Gerald

    Dowd, Jim

    Keen, Alan (Feltham & Heston)

    Drew, David

    Keen, Ann (Brentford & Isleworth)

    Dunwoody, Mrs Gwyneth

    Keetch, Paul

    Eagle, Angela (Wallasey)

    Kemp, Fraser

    Eagle, Maria (L'pool Garston)

    Kennedy, Charles (Ross Skye)

    Efford, Clive

    Kennedy, Jane (Wavertree)

    Ellman, Mrs Louise

    Kidney, David

    Ennis, Jeff

    Kilfoyle, Peter

    Etherington, Bill

    King, Andy (Rugby & Kenilworth)

    427

    Kingham, Ms Tess

    Morley, Elliot

    Kirkwood, Archy

    Morris, Ms Estelle (B'ham Yardley)

    Kumar, Dr Ashok

    Mowlam, Rt Hon Marjorie

    Ladyman, Dr Stephen

    Mudie, George

    Lawrence, Ms Jackie

    Mullin, Chris

    Laxton, Bob

    Murphy, Denis (Wansbeck)

    Levitt, Tom

    Murphy, Jim (Eastwood)

    Lewis, Terry (Worsley)

    Murphy, Paul (Torfaen)

    Linton, Martin

    Naysmith, Dr Doug

    Livingstone, Ken

    Norris, Dan

    Livsey, Richard

    Oaten, Mark

    Love, Andrew

    O'Brien, Bill (Normanton)

    McAllion, John

    O'Brien, Mike (N Warks)

    McAvoy, Thomas

    O'Hara, Eddie

    McCabe, Steve

    Olner, Bill

    McCafferty, Ms Chris

    Öpik, Lembit

    McCartney, Ian (Makerfield)

    Pendry, Tom

    McDonagh, Siobhain

    Perham, Ms Linda

    Macdonald, Calum

    Pickthall, Colin

    McDonnell, John

    Pike, Peter L

    McGuire, Mrs Anne

    Plaskitt, James

    Mclsaac, Shona

    Pollard, Kerry

    McKenna, Mrs Rosemary

    Pound, Stephen

    Mackinlay, Andrew

    Powell, Sir Raymond

    McLeish, Henry

    Prentice, Ms Bridget (Lewisham E)

    Maclennan, Rt Hon Robert

    Prentice, Gordon (Pendle)

    McNamara, Kevin

    Primarolo, Dawn

    McNulty, Tony

    Prosser, Gwyn

    Mactaggart, Fiona

    Purchase, Ken

    McWalter, Tony

    Quin, Ms Joyce

    McWilliam, John

    Raynsford, Nick

    Mahon, Mrs Alice

    Reed, Andrew (Loughborough)

    Mallaber, Judy

    Rendel, David

    Mandelson, Peter

    Rogers, Allan

    Marsden, Gordon (Blackpool S)

    Rooker, Jeff

    Marsden, Paul (Shrewsbury)

    Rooney, Terry

    Marshall, David (Shettleston)

    Ross, Ernie (Dundee W)

    Marshall, Jim (Leicester S)

    Rowlands, Ted

    Marshall-Andrews, Robert

    Roy, Frank

    Martlew, Eric

    Ruddock, Ms Joan

    Maxton, John

    Russell, Bob (Colchester)

    Meacher, Rt Hon Michael

    Russell, Ms Christine (Chester)

    Merron, Gillian

    Salter, Martin

    Michael, Alun

    Sanders, Adrian

    Michie, Bill (Shef'ld Heeley)

    Sarwar, Mohammad

    Michie, Mrs Ray (Argyll & Bute)

    Savidge, Malcolm

    Milburn, Alan

    Sawford, Phil

    Miller, Andrew

    Sedgemore, Brian

    Mitchell, Austin

    Shaw, Jonathan

    Moffatt, Laura

    Sheerman, Barry

    Moore, Michael

    Sheldon, Rt Hon Robert

    Moran, Ms Margaret

    Shipley, Ms Debra

    Morgan, Ms Julie (Cardiff N)

    Short, Rt Hon Clare

    Morgan, Rhodri (Cardiff W)

    Simpson, Alan (Nottingham S)

    428

    Singh, Marsha

    Truswell, Paul

    Skinner, Dennis

    Turner, Dennis (Wolverh'ton SE)

    Smith, Rt Hon Andrew (Oxford E)

    Turner, Dr Desmond (Kemptown)

    Smith, Angela (Basildon)

    Twigg, Derek (Halton)

    Smith, Rt Hon Chris (Islington S)

    Twigg, Stephen (Enfield)

    Smith, John (Glamorgan)

    Tyler, Paul

    Smith, Llew (Blaenau Gwent)

    Vaz, Keith

    Smith, Sir Robert (W Ab'd'ns)

    Vis, Dr Rudi

    Soley, Clive

    Wallace, James

    Spellar, John

    Ward, Ms Claire

    Squire, Ms Rachel

    Wareing, Robert N

    Steinberg, Gerry

    Webb, Steve

    Stevenson, George

    White, Brian

    Stewart, David (Inverness E)

    Williams, Rt Hon Alan (Swansea W)

    Stewart, Ian (Eccles)

    Stinchcombe, Paul

    Williams, Alan W (E Carmarthen)

    Straw, Rt Hon Jack

    Willis, Phil

    Stunell, Andrew

    Wills, Michael

    Sutcliffe, Gerry

    Winnick, David

    Taylor, Rt Hon Mrs Ann (Dewsbury)

    Winterton, Ms Rosie (Doncaster C)

    Wise, Audrey

    Taylor, Ms Dari (Stockton S)

    Wood, Mike

    Taylor, David (NW Leics)

    Woolas, Phil

    Taylor, Matthew (Truro)

    Worthington, Tony

    Temple-Morris, Peter

    Wright, Anthony D (Gt Yarmouth)

    Thomas, Gareth (Clwyd W)

    Wright, Dr Tony (Cannock)

    Timms, Stephen

    Wyatt, Derek

    Tipping, Paddy

    Todd, Mark

    Tellers for the Noes:

    Tonge, Dr Jenny

    Mr. David Jamieson and Mr. Greg Pope.

    Touhig, Don

    Question accordingly negatived.
    Question, That the proposed words be there added, put forthwith, pursuant to Standing Order No. 31 (Questions on amendments), and agreed to.
    MR. DEPUTY SPEAKER forthwith declared the main Question, as amended, to be agreed to.
    Resolved,
    That this House commends the Government for its progress on major matters of substance across all fields of responsibility, and in particular for its recognition of the cultural, social, educational and economic value of the areas of activity sponsored by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, and for the concrete action taken across all parts of the Department's responsibilities over the last year to maximise that value; welcomes the outcome of the Comprehensive Spending Review, which provides for a significant investment in culture, sport, heritage and tourism alongside positive steps to reduce bureaucracy and ensure the most effective use of public money; and notes that this brings to an end a damaging period of real cuts presided over by the Opposition.

    Rural Areas
    Mr. Deputy Speaker (Sir Alan Haselhurst): At the outset, I should say that Madam Speaker has selected the amendment in the name of the Prime Minister.
    7.14 pm
    Mr. Tim Yeo: I beg to move,
    That this House deplores the Government's continued failure to protect both the Green Belt and greenfield sites from excessive development; is concerned about how transport and housing policy is neglecting the needs of the countryside; condemns the recent government proposal to cut the discount available to council tenants exercising the right to buy; and calls on the Government to end its systematic attack on the quality of rural life.
    I congratulate the Minister for the Environment, the right hon. Member for Oldham, West and Royton (Mr. Meacher), on surviving this week's reshuffle. I do not know whether he was helped by the scorn poured on his head by a disgraced lobbyist a few weeks ago; he may care to enlighten us later. Even if the Prime Minister shared the lobbyist's view, he may have been reluctant to show it by moving the Minister from his post. I wondered whether the new Under-Secretary, the hon. Member for Mansfield (Mr. Meale), would attend the debate, but, apparently, he is not present. We may at least be relieved that the Minister of State, the hon. Member for Sheffield, Central (Mr. Caborn), will not reply to the debate; he is famous for his comments that the green belt was up for grabs and that the green belt west of London was a tip.
    It is six months and two days since the House debated the protection of the countryside, and that debate—like today's—took place in Opposition time. In that debate, the motion deplored the Government's decisions to allow large-scale development in the countryside. It expressed concern that the protection of the green belt and green spaces was being weakened. It urged the Government to increase the share of new housing built on previously development land. Such is the cynicism of the Government's approach that those concerns are as relevant today as they were six months ago. On that issue, as on so many others, the Government's rhetoric is not matched by substance; actions do not follow words.
    Sadly, we are getting used to the fact that new Labour breaks its promises on a huge scale—on taxes, on NHS waiting lists and on school class sizes. I suppose that we can at least say that those promises were all made before the Government took office. What is so disgraceful about Labour's approach to the countryside is the fact that it cannot even honour the pledges that it made six months ago.
    Today's debate, however, is about more than broken promises. It is about the damage being done, week in, week out, to the countryside and to rural communities throughout England—damage to environments that have been cherished for generations, environments that Labour is destroying with a ruthlessness that no previous Labour Government, however left wing, ever showed. [Laughter.]
    The debate is about the destruction of the green belt, a subject that Labour Back Benchers—this will not be recorded in Hansard unless I say it, so it needs to be said—find hilariously funny. The cornerstone of the protection that the planning system has offered the country for half a century is being destroyed by the Government and laughed at by Labour Back Benchers.
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    The debate is about the development on green fields that should be protected; about the erosion of the role of local authorities; about the transfer of power to remote and bureaucratic regional quangos; about how the rural areas are being starved of cash; about the record increases in council tax; about housing and transport policies that ignore the needs of the countryside; and about tenants who want to buy their own homes and who are now being penalised. The tragedy is that so much of that damage is irreversible.
    All that is made worse by the collapse of farm incomes—a collapse caused by new Labour and overseen by a Minister now promoted to the role of great enforcer. "Great executioner" would be a more apt title, after what he did to British farmers.
    Mr. David Taylor: I have frequently heard the hon. Gentleman, in Committee and elsewhere, mention the Government's damaging actions on the green belt. Does he agree that, considering the area of land on brown-field sites that has been built on since Labour came to power, our track record has been better—as have our targets for the next two or three years—than the last five years of the Government of which he was a member?
    Mr. Yeo: I did my best to follow the hon. Gentleman's point. With regard to the target, under the previous Government, the proportion of houses built on previously developed sites rose from 38 to 50 per cent. and was steadily rising, year on year. That is a record of which the previous Government could rightly be proud. It was only under pressure from the Opposition that the Labour party accepted that the target should continue to be set at a higher level.
    The Secretary of State—who is absent from his place today, as he was at the end of January when we debated protecting the countryside—made a statement in the House, on 23 February 1998, Official Report, columns 21–25, about planning for the communities of the future. He described the introduction of a sequential approach to the location of new housing and a phased approach to the release of land as "an important element" in his proposals. Recycled land in urban areas should be built on first, he said, before green-field sites were bulldozed. I agree.
    What has the Secretary of State done to carry out that pledge? What has he done to take forward that important Government policy? Nothing. Six months later, we are still waiting for a single action to be taken in support of the policy. No new planning policy guidance has been issued. Not a single county has been allowed to revise its structure plan. There is no sign whatever that the Secretary of State has the remotest intention of altering his policy of forcing more and more development on to green-field sites—a policy that he pursues regardless of local opinion and the damage that his decisions cause.
    On 23 February, the Secretary of State identified the first key element, as he called it, of the Government's new approach as "increased flexibility." Despite that, he has persisted in a totally inflexible manner with his legal battle to impose an extra 12,800 new homes on West Sussex, in defiance of the wishes of all three political parties on the county council. Even at this 11th hour, with the decision of the court expected any

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    day, the Secretary of State could repent. His refusal to do so makes it clear that the Labour group leader on West Sussex county council spoke the truth when he said:
    "This is the starkest possible illustration that the Government has no intention of trying to provide a greater share of the new homes said to be required by 2016 on brown field sites, rather than on green field sites in the countryside."
    Next door, in Hampshire, the county council has made clear its wish, in the light of the Government's February statement, to reduce the total of 56,000 houses in its draft structure plan to 42,000. As the leader of Hampshire county council said:
    "The people of Hampshire expect us to do this."
    What will the Minister tell the people of Hampshire tonight? Does he accept their view, or is new Labour's claim that the top-down system of fixing the number of new homes needed in a county would be abolished just another empty promise—a promise given to get through an awkward debate and then consigned to the rubbish bin?
    Mr. Tom King: I have the report of Somerset county council's consideration of the examination in public panel report. The county council is fighting against the proposal for more than 50,000 houses to be built in Somerset. It is as though the welcome statement from the Secretary of State those many months ago had never been made. The entire policy and process continue, with no move by the Secretary of State or the Department to draw up new rules and arrangements. Is not the situation grave? Pressure on green-field sites will not change, given the appalling crisis that agriculture faces, with farm incomes in the south-west—the worst affected region—predicted to be 80 per cent. below those of the previous year. The temptation for many farmers facing no prospect of a future in farming will be to sell their land for development.
    Mr. Yeo: My right hon. Friend is right. The words that the Secretary of State spoke in February and when he replied to our debate in January were empty phrases, devoid of meaning and lacking any follow-up action. As my right hon. Friend points out, this is a crisis of particularly serious proportions because of the difficulty faced by farmers throughout the country.
    The damage that results from the crisis and directly from the Government's failure to act on their previous statement is irreversible. In some senses, it is even more serious than the problem of someone who may be made redundant. It takes a week or two to get another job, but he does find another job. Once a green field has been built on, it practically never reverts to its original use. The damage that results, which my right hon. Friend correctly identified, is serious and permanent. It makes a mockery of the Government's claim in their amendment to tonight's motion that they are in favour of sustainable development. There is nothing sustainable about their present policy.
    Mr. Eric Martlew: Does the hon. Gentleman agree that redundancy is a serious matter, although he did not present it as such a moment ago? Does he also agree that unemployment in rural areas continues to fall? In the two rural constituencies in Cumbria, unemployment is 2 per cent. or below.
    Mr. Yeo: Of course redundancy is a serious matter. The distinction that I tried to draw is that it is a problem that has a solution, but, once a green-field site has been concreted over, there is no solution. With regard to the figures that the hon. Gentleman cites, they vary from one part of the country to another.
    Mr. Gordon Prentice: One in 20 homes in the north-west lies empty. There are more empty houses in England than all the houses in Birmingham. One and a half million homes are unfit for human habitation; 1997 was not year zero. What did the previous Government do to address those issues, which would have relieved the pressure on green-field sites?
    Mr. Yeo: The hon. Gentleman conveniently overlooks the fact that a high proportion of those empty homes belong to, and are managed by, Labour local councils. The worst 10 councils in the country for keeping council properties empty are all Labour. If the hon. Gentleman is concerned about resources, why do five Labour councils have £.100 million of uncollected rent on their council properties? Up to one fifth of the rent roll in five Labour councils remains uncollected. No wonder there are some repairs that need attention.
    In Berkshire, 2,500 homes are proposed for a green-field site around the village of Grazeley. Wokingham council does not want such a big development there. The people of Grazeley do not want such a big development. Alternative brown-field sites exist nearby—sites that are closer to where all those new residents would work—but the Government refuse to act. This week, Wokingham council unanimously passed a motion urging the Government to redraft the relevant planning guidance. When will they do so?
    Those examples make a mockery of the Government's claim that they want to achieve a target of 60 per cent. of new homes on previously developed sites. The Secretary of State is a modern-day Nero, but worse—not just fiddling while Rome burns, and not just dithering while the bulldozers move in, but going to court to cover England with concrete against the wishes of the people.
    If the Government are to regain credibility, the Minister must first announce that all county structure plans currently in review must be halted to allow the counties concerned to change them in the light of the 60 per cent. target. Secondly, he must publish new planning guidance introducing the sequential approach. Six months have been wasted. No more time can be lost.
    The second key element in the Government's approach was "more decentralisation". That claim was made at the very time when the House was considering the Regional Development Agencies Bill, which proposed new powers for the Secretary of State to abolish the planning role of any elected council in England. The new powers would allow him to transfer that role to an unelected quango answerable only to himself. Opposition pressure forced the Government to abandon that outrageous idea.
    Regional development agencies will still take power and resources away from elected councils. Members of RDAs are appointed by Ministers, their budgets are set by Ministers, their strategies are determined by Ministers and they are accountable only to Ministers. Their entire agenda is urban based. It reflects what

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    Country Life described as the Government's "fixation with Britain's cities." As the Rural Development Commission pointed out in its dying breath,
    "policy makers are ignoring the problems"
    of rural areas and
    "the result is that rural areas lose out on essential programmes and funding."
    No wonder the commission is being abolished. Spelling out inconvenient truths is not acceptable to Labour's control freaks.
    The Government's response is to cut the resources of local councils in rural areas. This year, the Government slashed £94 million from the standard spending assessments of rural local authorities. Support for the police in Lincolnshire and Wiltshire was cut in cash terms. Oxfordshire's SSA was cut by £8 million, Kent's by more than £7 million and Suffolk's by £4 million.
    Two weeks ago, the small print of the comprehensive spending review warned that council tax will rise year on year on year as the Government cut their help for local councils. Council tax will rise in real terms by 5 per cent. in each of the next three years even if councils do not increase their services. Those rises will come on top of the record rises that we have already seen this year. In the current year, rural authorities are bearing the brunt of council tax rises. On average, council tax in the shire districts rose by more than 11 per cent., more than double the average increase in London. Many county councils fared even worse. In Norfolk, where central Government help was slashed, council tax rose by 15 per cent. How much worse will all this get?
    Mrs. Virginia Bottomley: Will my hon. Friend confirm that, alongside the swingeing attacks on standard spending assessment provision, there is a group of local authorities that is having special difficulties? Those groups are represented by the Town and Country Issues Group. They have combined rural and urban characteristics and, under the present regime, they are facing special difficulties that should be considered.
    Mr. Yeo: My right hon. Friend is right. There are particular difficulties for councils whose populations straddle two very different types of area. The danger is that rural councils and the taxpayers who live in rural areas will be penalised yet again.
    Last Wednesday, the Government sneaked out, by way of a press release, an important change in housing policy, using a procedure that prevented any hon. Member from asking a question. The document contained a warning that tenants wanting to buy their homes will now have to pay more than before. For almost two decades, council tenants enjoyed increasingly favourable opportunities for home ownership. This week, that policy has been reversed. From now on, councils will receive extra help to buy up privately owned homes in their areas.
    The right to buy transformed the lives of more than 1 million families, including many in rural areas. This week, new Labour has started to dismantle the right to buy. The changed housing policy involves a big role for councils, a very old Labour approach. Predictably, the needs of rural areas were scarcely mentioned in last week's document. That is another example of how new Labour always puts the interests of the countryside at the bottom of its agenda.
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    My hon. Friend the Member for North Essex (Mr. Jenkin) will refer to transport when he winds up on behalf of the Opposition. The Government's approach to transport appears to be based on old Labour tax-and-spend instincts. There have been three huge increases in petrol tax—
    Mr. Gordon Prentice: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
    Mr. Yeo: No. I have given way too often.
    There have been three huge increases in petrol tax in less than a year, which have hit rural motorists hard. No amount of public spending, particularly that which is confined to buses and does not extend to taxis, can prevent people in small rural villages from remaining dependent on their cars.
    Mr. Geoffrey Clifton-Brown: Is my hon. Friend aware that the fuel tax inflator mechanism that was put in place in the Budget, resulting in price rises of 6 per cent. over and above inflation, will result in a rise in diesel and petrol prices this year of more than 45p per gallon? Will that not hit people in rural areas especially hard, and is it not a mean measure from the Government?
    Mr. Yeo: My hon. Friend is absolutely right about that. It is a most shocking increase. It is a huge burden and one which is disproportionately borne by those who live in rural areas.
    I want to help the Minister when he responds to the debate because I shall ask for three assurances that are easy for him to give. None will result in extra public spending or require new legislation, but his answers will be the litmus test of whether his Government are willing to learn from their past mistakes. First, will the right hon. Gentleman publish immediately, without more delay, planning guidance incorporating the sequential approach supported by the Opposition and by many outside the House? Secondly, will he halt immediately further progress on all county structure plans in review so that counties may reflect the Government's target of 60 per cent. of new houses to be built on recycled land? Thirdly, will the right hon. Gentleman stop penalising rural councils and rural taxpayers by fiddling with the formula for distributing central Government cash to local authorities?
    Unless the Minister gives those assurances, the House will know that Labour's claim to be concerned about the countryside is just another failed soundbite. The Government's attitude to the countryside started with denial that any problem existed. From denial, it moved into panic at the huge level of public concern that was so effectively demonstrated in the march last spring. The Government now rest in confusion about how to tackle the mess that their policies have created. That is confusion for which all men, women and children in rural areas throughout the country are paying. It is confusion that is permanently damaging our rural heritage. This evening, we can take the first step to ending that confusion by approving the motion, and I commend it to the House.
    7.36 pm
    The Minister for the Environment (Mr. Michael Meacher): I beg to move, To leave out from "House" to the end of the Question, and to add instead thereof:
    `congratulates the Government on its commitment to promote sustainable development in all areas of the United Kingdom including rural areas; recognises the progress which has been made on improving rural services over the last fifteen months; welcomes the creation of powerful Regional Development Agencies which will promote prosperity in both towns and countryside; welcomes the creation of a new agency to promote the interests of the countryside in England by bringing together the Countryside Commission and parts of the Rural Development Commission; recognises the Government's determination to increase the proportion of new houses built on brownfield sites; and supports the Government's desire to give greater freedom for people to explore the open countryside.'.
    Having spent quite a long time in the House, I must say that I have rarely listened to such an over-the-top litany of synthetic whingeing. More than half the griping of the hon. Member for South Suffolk (Mr. Yeo) was about green belt. No one would guess from his speech that 30,000 more hectares have been added to the green belt than have been taken away since the Government came to office.
    As for Hertfordshire, which the hon. Gentleman made much of, more than five times as much new land will be designated as green belt than the area proposed for development. Interestingly, and perhaps not surprisingly, the hon. Gentleman did not mention Newcastle. It is true that 500 hectares will be deleted from the green belt compared with 25,000 which the other local authorities in the north-east propose adding to it. In both Hertfordshire and Newcastle, more than 50 per cent. of new houses will be built on brown-field sites. In Newcastle, 8,250 of the 10,750 new homes needed will be built within existing built-up areas—more than 75 per cent.
    I ask—the House is bound to ask—what did the previous Government do? The previous Government—interestingly, this apparently escaped the hon. Gentleman's notice—directed three counties to increase their housing figures above those that they had proposed. In the case of Berkshire, that was an increase of 3,000 houses. It was an increase of just under 3,000 for Kent and one of more than 2,000 for Bedfordshire. As for West Sussex, which the hon. Gentleman also made much of, the proposal was that it should produce a 12,800 housing shortfall as against regional planning guidance, a cut of 25 per cent. What hypocrisy to suggest that the previous Government, having enforced increases on those three authorities, should have simply ignored the fact that there was to be a 12,800 shortfall in West Sussex.
    Mr. Malcolm Savidge: Does my right hon. Friend agree that all the Tories do when they loudly proclaim their love for the countryside is reveal their affinity for sheep? In power, they fleeced the rural areas; out of power, they bleat about them.
    Mr. Meacher: There are indeed quite a few fleecers and bleaters on the Conservative Benches, as this debate has shown.
    Listening to Conservative Members, one might think that the countryside was in crisis and that that situation had arisen since 1 May 1997. That is not only untrue, but laughable. The Rural Development Commission's most
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    recent survey showed what has been happening in rural parishes over the past two decades: 83 per cent. had no general practitioner; 75 per cent. had no daily bus service; 49 per cent. had no school; 43 per cent. had no post office; and 42 per cent. had no permanent shop. That survey was published in 1997, so which party presided over that unprecedented decline in rural services? Not Labour. It may be hard to believe that the motley crowd on the Conservative Benches were ever in government, but they were—for 18 years. What was their concern for rural Britain then?
    We came to power to put an end to the decline in rural services. Tonight, I have heard the most selective misrepresentations that I have ever heard, so I intend to set the record straight, in detail. In our first 15 months, we have provided an extra £50 million for rural transport; there are new proposals for supporting rural bus services; there is new rate relief for village shops to protect—
    Mr. Peter Luff: That was our policy.
    Mr. Meacher: Perhaps the hon. Gentleman is not concerned about extra shops. The aim of the relief is to protect single shops in some of our smallest communities. We have also provided extra protection for rural schools, so that any closure proposals must go to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Education and Employment before a school can be closed. We are giving £150 million of extra support to the agricultural community as it begins to recover from the bovine spongiform encephalopathy crisis, which certainly began under the previous Government. And we are providing financial support to the dispensing services of pharmacists who are more than 1 km from another pharmacist.
    This afternoon, I announced details of my Department's proposed spending on rural programmes in the light of the comprehensive spending review. I am pleased to tell the House that spending will increase—[Interruption.] I do not think that that is particularly funny. If the hon. Member for South Suffolk was interested in the subject he purported to speak about, he would think it significant that spending will increase by more than 35 per cent. over the next three years. I shall discuss the announcement later.
    Mr. Christopher Gill: If all the Minister has said is true, why has the Labour MEP for Hereford and Shropshire said that the Government should listen to country people? He writes in Tribune:
    "In Shropshire, people genuinely thought that a Labour government would see the end of cuts in services such as education and social services.
    They were bitterly disappointed".
    Mr. Meacher: That is exactly what we are planning. There was a stream of closures under the previous Government, but we propose to put a stop to that, and any decision to close a school must come before my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Education and Employment. We are also concerned about the decline in social service provision in urban and rural areas, and the comprehensive spending review will make a massive difference after the decline of the past three to five years.

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    The hon. Member for South Suffolk is one of those who have continually said that Labour is an urban party and does not understand the countryside. Even he might have noticed that the electorate gave rather short shrift to that view, which is why the number of Labour Members representing rural constituencies is greater than the number of Conservative Members representing them. In fact, there are probably more Labour Members representing rural constituencies than there are Conservative Members.
    Judgment is not exactly a Conservative strong point. I too looked back at the countryside debate of 3 March. The right hon. Member for Fylde (Mr. Jack) argued then that there was division between the Prime Minister and the then Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, my right hon. Friend the Member for Copeland (Dr. Cunningham) over the countryside march. No doubt thinking that he was scoring a clever little point, he concluded:
    "It will not have done the right hon. Gentleman's career any good to have departed from the Prime Minister's line on the march."—[Official Report, 3 March 1998; Vol. 307, c. 914.]
    The career of my right hon. Friend, who is now the Minister for the Cabinet Office and Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, is rather more successful than that of the right hon. Member for Fylde. With predictive powers such as that, no wonder the Tory Opposition lack credibility.
    The hon. Member for South Suffolk also forgets his history. I remind the House that a Labour Government created the town and country planning system, which has done so much to protect our rural areas from American-style urban sprawl, the green belt, national parks and areas of outstanding natural beauty. I admit that Labour did not create the Rural Development Commission, but then nor did the Conservatives. That was achieved by Lloyd George in 1909, in the teeth of fierce Tory opposition.
    Mr. Yeo: The Minister claims for Labour the credit for introducing the current system of planning controls. Be that history as it may, what a tragedy it is that the current generation of Ministers so fail to understand the purpose of the green belt that they think that building on one section of it is justified if, further out, they create more land that is designated green belt. The green belt surrounds an urban area; once that urban area starts to expand, the very purpose for which the green belt was created is destroyed.
    Mr. Meacher: That is simply nonsense. The purpose of the green belt is to provide an area surrounding cities for recreation in open countryside, but, as populations grow, as towns change in size, and as new towns are built, it is perfectly reasonable to intervene in the green belt if the overall impact is to increase its size. That has always been part of regional planning guidance note 2, and it is exactly the line that we have taken. Under the previous Government, there were interventions in the green belt without a corresponding increase in the size of the green belt overall.
    Mr. Clifton-Brown: Does the Minister recall the Deputy Prime Minister saying that the green belt was a great Labour achievement and that we must build on it?
    Mr. Meacher: I remember that; my right hon. Friend has his own inimitable form of humour. As is always the case, we knew exactly what he meant and we agreed with him entirely.
    Labour is once again addressing the key issue of jobs and growth in rural areas through the regional development agencies. Average unemployment rates in rural areas have been coming down and are lower than those of urban areas. Business creation is strong and there is a high level of self-employment, but it is undeniable that some of the more peripheral rural areas have particular difficulties. Even in more prosperous areas, there are black spots. Thanks to the Conservative party, rural coalfields have lost almost 60,000 jobs in the past 15 years. Conservative Governments treated rural coalfields with the same vindictiveness as they showed towards urban coalfields. By contrast, we are determined to tackle rural unemployment head on through our coalfields regeneration programme and the regional development agencies, which will be established in April next year.
    We have been criticised for giving part of the Rural Development Commission's functions to the RDAs. That criticism is wholly misplaced. RDAs will be the key institutions for achieving sustainable economic development in their regions. It would not be sensible to exclude rural areas and to leave them isolated in a ghetto, as if there were no links between urban and rural economic activity. Integration is clearly the right route, but with safeguards.
    I give the hon. Member for South Suffolk these assurances. First, RDAs will have a specific remit to promote rural development. Secondly, each RDA will have at least one member—probably more—with a background in rural development. Thirdly, the money spent by the RDC on rural development will be ring-fenced, and will continue to be spent on rural development by the RDAs.
    Mr. David Heath: Before the right hon. Gentleman moves off the subject of planning, will he address the important point made by the right hon. Member for Bridgwater (Mr. King)? Six months ago, the Deputy Prime Minister made a welcome announcement. However, it has had no effect in areas such as Somerset. There has been public examination of a structure plan that has increased, not reduced, the number of houses required in the county. That is not sustainable. We want the Government's policy to be applied in the context of a structure plan. How will that happen?
    Mr. Meacher: That is a fair point, and it is our intention to publish the regional planning guidance as soon as we can, which I expect to be shortly. The House should be in no doubt that we are still committed, as were the previous Government, to the best demographic data on housing requirements, which show that we need an extra 4.4 million houses in the 25 years to 2016. About 1 million of them have already been built.
    We do not propose a reduction in the number of houses to be built, but we accept that there should be greater flexibility in the planning process. The regional planning

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    guidance should allow regional and local planning authorities to have more responsibility for where those houses should be built.
    Mr. Peter Bradley: My right hon. Friend's comment about the possibility of there being more than one rural member on the board of RDAs will be widely welcomed in rural communities. When the Tories left office in 1979—[Interruption.] When was it? It seems so long ago now. Anyhow, when they left office, men in the rural county of Shropshire were 125th in a low wages league table of 151, and women were in 150th position. That is why they will profoundly welcome the introduction of a national minimum wage, which the Conservative party has consistently opposed, just as it did the introduction of RDAs.
    Is my right hon. Friend aware that, when my hon. Friend the Member for Forest of Dean (Mrs. Organ) secured an Adjournment debate on rural poverty, only three members of the Conservative party thought it important enough to attend? One was the shadow Minister, who sat down after five minutes because he wanted to hear from the Minister; one was a rural Member and the other was—
    Hon. Members: Speech!
    Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. The hon. Member must sit down when I am on my feet. That was too long for an intervention. The art of an intervention is to be concise—but it seems to be a disappearing art.
    Mr. Meacher: It may have been a long intervention, but it was a very good point. My hon. Friend the Member for The Wrekin (Mr. Bradley) is absolutely right that the minimum wage will have a great impact on improving household incomes in rural areas. There is no evidence that it will destroy jobs if it is pitched at a sensible level. I do not believe that it will do so: it will be very welcome in rural households on extremely low incomes.
    Mr. Tom King: Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?
    Mr. Meacher: Yes, but this is the last time.
    Mr. King: I thank the right hon. Gentleman for seriously addressing the issue that the hon. Member for Somerton and Frome (Mr. Heath) and I have raised. The regional planning conference has already produced revised guidance, with lower figures for the south-west. Somerset county council is producing figures that should be published in September. Can the council be sure that, if it produces proposals that are in line with the guidance that the Deputy Prime Minister has produced, no attempt will be made to override them and to go back to the old policy that has now been discarded?
    Mr. Meacher: The old policy to which the right hon. Gentleman refers is the previous Government's policy of predict and provide. We are trying to move away from that deeply unpopular policy. I am grateful for the right hon. Gentleman's comments about the Deputy Prime Minister's welcome statement. If Somerset county council
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    can produce proposals that are compatible with the regional planning guidance, we shall consider them extremely carefully. I cannot give the right hon. Gentleman a commitment that we will necessarily accept them. We may, but we may not: it depends on the full content of the proposals.
    The Opposition motion mentions housing. I presume that that was another mistake, because one of the greatest indictments of the previous Conservative Government was their 80 per cent. cut in the housing budget, and all the misery that that caused. We recognise that a fine balance must be struck between building new houses to ensure that there are enough places for people to live in and controls on development to protect the countryside. Housing is an issue on which the Conservatives have campaigned. I remember seeing the Leader of the Opposition posing in an anorak outside Stevenage. I suppose that that is better than the baseball cap.
    The Opposition called on us to set a target of 75 per cent. of new houses to be built on brownfield sites. Or was it 66 per cent. or 60 per cent? The figure changes with bewildering speed, so I do not know what their position is. When they were in government and could do something about this matter, they actually achieved a figure of 42 per cent.—that is the most telling statistic. The hon. Member for South Suffolk alleged that there had been an increase, but the average figure was 42 per cent.
    Mr. Yeo: Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?
    Mr. Meacher: Hold on. The hon. Gentleman need not look through all his papers. We know what the figures are: they show an average of 42 per cent. He might as well throw his figures away, because we know what the facts are. Only since their election defeat have the Opposition discovered a concern to protect the green belt from housing. By contrast, we have recognised these pressures and have announced a new approach to future provision.
    Mr. Yeo rose—
    Mr. Meacher: The hon. Gentleman has found his figures, but we have now moved on. I am afraid that I must make progress.
    Mr. Yeo: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. The Minister, unwittingly I am sure, has just quite seriously misled the House. The document that he—
    Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. I can tell already that that is not a genuine point of order. It is a matter of debate, and if the Minister will not give way, he has the Floor of the House.
    Mr. Meacher: Once again, Mr. Deputy Speaker, you have saved the hon. Member for South Suffolk from himself.
    By contrast, we continue to support the provision of affordable housing—for example, through the Housing Corporation's rural programme and the release of capital receipts of nearly £1 billion in the first two years. Following—I repeat again—the comprehensive spending review, which the hon. Gentleman somehow glided over, during the next three years an additional £3.5 billion will

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    be allocated to start tackling the backlog of repairs to the housing afnd stock throughout England, including in rural areas.
    Significantly, the Opposition motion says nothing about the Government's support for countryside and rural programmes—I presume because it is so good. As I announced this afternoon, money for my Department's countryside and rural programmes will rise from £128 million this year to £146 million next year, £162 million the year after and £174 million in 2001–02. That is an increase of more than 35 per cent. over a three-year period.
    Nothing shows the Conservative party in its true colours more clearly than its opposition to our proposals to improve access to the countryside, so that all those who love the countryside, not just those who are lucky enough to own large chunks of it, will in future be able to visit more of the countryside than ever before. For all their rather feeble attempts at modernisation, the Tories remain rooted in the 18th century—the party of exclusivity and inherited privilege; the party of the few determined to shut out the many.
    We will open up the countryside of England and Wales. Let no one be in any doubt about that. We have consulted on the means and we are still considering the responses. But the ends are not negotiable. We will deliver to walkers new opportunities to roam over mountain, moorland, heath, down and registered common land. If we decide to rely on the voluntary approach, we will need to be convinced that the access delivered will be of the same extent, quality and permanence as would be achieved through a statutory right.
    The Government have done more for rural areas in the past 15 months than the previous Government did in nearly two decades. The sheer vacuousness of the Opposition's motion is patent for all to see, and I invite the House to reject it with all the contempt that it deserves.
    8.2 pm
    Mr. Matthew Taylor: I shall not follow the Minister all the way in his self-congratulation at the end of his speech, but I shall follow him a considerable way in his attack on the Opposition's extraordinary motion and the no less extraordinary speech of the hon. Member for South Suffolk (Mr. Yeo). The Conservatives' record of 18 years has magically disappeared. I thought that the motion was rather like a shooting gallery, with a set of feet neatly lined up for Conservative Members to shoot themselves in before our turn came.
    The range of issues for which people in rural areas have far from forgotten—let alone forgiven—the Conservative Government is immense: a debate as short as this does not allow us to cover it fully. We could consider what they did in relation to farming or fishing, which has affected many of the communities in my part of the world. We could consider the erosion of traditional industry in many rural areas, particularly heavy engineering in my part of the world. We could consider the extraordinary lack of funding for local authorities, not least in rural areas, many of which were discriminated against by the Conservative party's funding formulas, particularly in the rural and more peripheral areas of the United Kingdom.
    Mr. David Heath: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for giving way so early in his speech. Does he agree that it is.
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    extraordinary that the hon. Member for South Suffolk (Mr. Yeo) should have talked about the funding of rural counties, given that, in my 12 years' experience of leading and being a member of a county council under a Conservative Government, there were reductions each year in essential services in rural areas and a capping regime which caused enormous trouble? The tragedy is not that something has changed but that nothing has changed.
    Mr. Taylor: My hon. Friend is exactly right. We do not have time to pursue every area, however, so let us concentrate on the matters dealt with in the Opposition's motion. I had assumed that that was what the hon. Member for South Suffolk would do, but, having written the motion last night, he clearly thought better of it, realising that there was little Conservatives could say on transport or on rural housing, homelessness and council house sales. I shall not let him off from my attack, but I understand why he did not mention those, and that may become a little more obvious later.
    The motion starts by concentrating on development in the countryside. Development in the countryside, indeed: we are talking about a policy of predict and provide; about 4.4 million homes; and about the real concern in county after county about the impact that that will have on the countryside and in some-green belt areas.
    All that concern is about policies pursued by the Conservative Government in their 18 years in office. Those policies were at their most rampant some years ago, when, as Secretary of State for the Environment, Nicholas Ridley approved every possible development in the countryside, encouraging out-of-town shopping, which has done so much to destroy our market town centres, and abolishing the Nature Conservancy Council because it so effectively argued the case for the protection of rural areas, leaving us instead with an emasculated and underfunded English Nature.
    Those developments did not stop, even in the last years of the previous Government under the then Secretary of State, the right hon. Member for Suffolk, Coastal (Mr. Gummer), who, sadly, is not here to defend his policies. In Berkshire, the right hon. Gentleman forced up housing numbers against the wishes of local people. The same thing happened in Kent, and 400 acres of woodland in an area of outstanding natural beauty were turned over to the holiday village of West Wood, which includes 1,200 parking places. It is rather ironic that, on the site itself, cars are forbidden, in order to protect the rural nature of what is left of the wood.
    It is precisely the Conservative party's record that is under attack in the motion. The Government might have taken inadequate steps to change that—that they have not acted with enough speed is a realistic criticism—but for the hon. Member for South Suffolk to argue against the policies in such terms is an act of outstanding forgetfulness, if not hypocrisy.
    The Labour party's record has been mixed. There have been some wrong decisions, but the Deputy Prime Minister promised to break the mould and to abandon the predict and provide premise. The trouble is—the Minister did not adequately address this—that predict and provide is still all too much with us. For example, after his statement, Hertfordshire county council requested that the Deputy Prime Minister reconsider the number of houses

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    in the structure plan, and the proposals for the release of green-belt land around Stevenage, but they were adopted unchanged.
    Last December, the Deputy Prime Minister overruled West Sussex county council's argument for lowering housing figures and imposed an extra 12,800 houses—despite the fact that its case was well argued. The county council then applied for judicial review on the basis of what it understood from the Deputy Prime Minister to be the new policy, but there has been no change.
    Today, the Government approved a major opencast coal-mining site on green-belt land in Nottinghamshire, against local opinion and planning guidance and against the position taken by Labour before the election on opencast mining and green-belt development.
    Labour's rhetoric is good, and I think that the Government's intentions are genuine, but the practice clearly lags some way behind. Much worse than any individual examples is the fact that, on 1 April this year, the Department for the Environment, Transport and the Regions issued a statement outlining the implications for development plans and regional planning guidance of the Government's White Paper "Planning for the Communities of the Future".
    That statement on transitional arrangements showed that the full implications of the new policy await not only new regional planning guidance, which has yet to be seen—I hope the Minister is right when he says that it will be soon; he will forgive us if we are a little suspicious, but we have been used to 18 years of misleading statements from the Conservative party, and need proof rather than promises—but the reviews of the structure and local plans already in place. That process could take about 15 years. No wonder many developers are acting on a "business as usual" basis. It is hard to see how anyone could, as yet, act in any other way.
    The plans are already there. Much of the development has already been given permission, and more is being given permission all the time on the basis of outstanding policies. Exactly that case was argued for Somerset by my hon. Friend the Member for Somerton and Frome (Mr. Heath) and the right hon. Member for Bridgwater (Mr. King), and exactly the same problems are arising in Devon. We have seen them in Cornwall in the past, and we shall doubtless see them again. Indeed, we see them throughout the country. Hard work will be needed to change what is perhaps not yet set in stone—but the stones are rolling down the hill in a process that it will not be easy to stop. Change will have to be made within a certain time if it is to make a real difference, enabling people to judge Labour not by what it says it wants, but by what has happened at the end of the current Parliament—or the next, or, even worse, the one after that.
    Labour's argument that more green-belt land is being given than is being taken away misses a fundamental issue. Of course nothing can be guaranteed for ever, but the principle of the green belt is that, once allocated, it provides a protection on which people can rely. If new green-belt land is allocated, that is a bonus; but we are not talking about a mathematical equation in which people say, "We will take two pieces from here and add two here, and that will be all right. We might even add another half
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    piece on top to make it look a little sweeter". The green belt is intended to provide genuine protection for the countryside around developed areas. If we are to provide that protection, it must be long-term protection; it must not be eroded as needs are seen to arise.
    The Minister said that the figure for new homes was still 4.4 million. We could argue for ever about whether that figure is right, but there will certainly be a good many. It seems to be assumed that, county by county, broadly the same allocations should continue to apply as now, even if they do not apply to exactly the same locations within counties. An extraordinary feature of this country, however, is the erosion caused by people moving out of cities into rural areas. They are doing so for a number of reasons, but one of those reasons is clearly our failure to make our cities attractive places in which to live.
    People do not aspire to live in the centres of our great cities. I understand that London is virtually the only capital city in Europe to experience a major reduction in its central population—a reduction which is continuing. For a number of social reasons, if for no other reasons, policy must aim to reverse that process, and to make cities attractive. That does not simply mean that Sussex or Surrey must change where their new housing is, opting to use a little less green-field land and a little more brown-field land; it means that there should be less housing overall in the counties.
    Mr. Martlew: In other parts of Europe, the problem is that populations are leaving rural areas and moving into cities. Does the hon. Gentleman advocate that?
    Mr. Taylor: I do not want a problem to be caused. I want to see vibrant cities in which young couples with children can live and work, benefiting from good schools, freedom from crime and an attractive environment. That is important from the point of view of those living in cities now, as well as those whom we would like to live in them.
    Mr. David Drew: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
    Mr. Taylor: I will, but I shall take no more interventions after this.
    Mr. Drew: I thank the hon. Gentleman. No doubt he knows of the Richard Rogers task force. Surely that is one of the most fundamental and innovative projects that any Government could take on, and we look forward to the results.
    Mr. Taylor: I do not think that a task force is ever fundamental or innovative, although its conclusions may be. Let us hope that the conclusions of this task force will be.
    The Liberal Democrats published detailed proposals today, including a proposal for immediate revision of planning policy guidance note 3 on housing, and a proposal for the calling in of controversial major development plans to be assessed in the light of the new PPG3. I believe that that would mean the calling in of plans for Stevenage new town, and no increase in housing figures for West Sussex. We propose a clear development hierarchy, with real backing from Ministers—particularly as regards the reuse of existing buildings, as well as

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    redevelopment of old sites, before the development of green-field sites. We believe that there should be a levy on green-field development, which could fund urban regeneration and provide new parks. That could improve the urban environment and, perhaps, lower council tax for all.
    I also believe—this is a more difficult issue—that we should consider the difference between the nil value added tax on new build and the 17.5 per cent. VAT on renovation. The equalisation of VAT could fundamentally change the way in which older buildings in urban areas are treated, and the state of existing housing stock. All those measures could minimise new development. I understand that some work has been put into that. Belgium, for example, imposes a low rate of VAT, not just on energy conservation materials—as is often said—but on all renovation work on buildings that are more than 20 years old. Some balance between VAT on renovation and new build might be needed so the programme could be self-financing, which would doubtless be controversial for new build. It should, however, be considered.
    There are two other key issues. I must be brief, because I have already used too much time. The first is transport. Not tonight, but on many other occasions, the Conservatives have attacked the fuel escalator. How ironic that is, coming from the party that introduced it in the first place. Over 18 years, the Conservatives increased excise duty on fuel by 600 per cent. Between 1992 and 1996 alone, they raised £58 billion from fuel tax, as well as selling off public transport services, taking no action over the loss of rural bus routes and cutting money for transport packages for local authorities. However, they cannot possibly claim to be friends of the motorist—quite apart from their ignoring the fact that one in four people in rural areas have no access to a car. Incidentally, whereas the real total cost of running a car has fallen since the early 1970s, bus and train fares have nearly doubled.
    Labour has tried to tackle one element of the problem by providing extra money for bus routes in rural areas over the next few years, but it is still a drop: £50 million is a small amount. If it were all spent on new buses, it would not even be enough to provide one new bus for every major town. Although the rhetoric is good, we must compare that with the extra £9 billion that Labour plans to raise in fuel duties.
    I believe in environmental taxation. I believe in a fuel duty escalator. I am not attacking that; I am attacking the hypocrisy of those Conservatives who now say that they oppose it, having implemented it in the first place. I also make a fundamental point about environmental taxation. I do not think that it will command public support if it is always "take" and never "give": it needs to be about changing taxes, not increasing them. That is why Liberal Democrats have consistently argued that the fuel escalator could be used to abolish vehicle excise duty for all cars up to 1,600 cc—two thirds of cars—and so encourage people to buy smaller, more fuel-efficient vehicles. The proposal means that people are getting something back in return for the increases that they are paying. It is supported by the Automobile Association, the Royal Automobile Club and other motoring organisations. It is supported by the public in general. It means that people pay as they go—rather than paying to tax the vehicle up front, which gives them an incentive to maximise their return by using it as much as possible.
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    Although Labour has suggested that it will consider a small cut in vehicle excise duty to just £100 for some more environmental vehicles, it is not clear which vehicles will be covered. It does not appear that many will be covered, and I do not think that the public will see this as a bargain. I do not think that it is enough to make a difference; for the amounts involved, more could be done.
    Finally, let me say a little about rural housing. The real issue of council house sales, which is touched on in the motion, is the lack of replacement affordable homes for rent—either council or housing association homes—under the Conservatives. The percentage of socially affordable rented accommodation was always lower in rural areas. Between 1980 and 1991, 30 per cent. of rural local authority housing was sold—95,000 properties. In the same period, housing associations built just 10,800 rural properties, and much of that involved shared ownership schemes.
    That has meant that, while the wealthy have been moving into rural areas, displacing rural people and forcing up house prices so that private accommodation has become harder and harder to afford, there has been an increase in rural homelessness. According to the Rural Development Commission, homelessness is increasing fastest in rural areas—fastest of all in the deep rural areas, and especially in the south, where prices have risen as people have moved out of the cities and bought holiday and second homes, while also investing in homes to rent for the holiday market rather than full-time homes.
    My county of Cornwall is thought to be the one with the biggest gap between house prices and incomes, which are the lowest in the country. It does not have Britain's highest house prices, but they are fairly high and incomes are very low. Such poor rural areas have been devastated by council house sales, and matters have been made worse by the benefit restrictions that apply to the under-25s. They hit hardest in rural areas where private accommodation is limited. Many people do not get housing benefit that is equivalent to the rents that they pay. One of my local authorities, Carrick, has asked for a meeting with the Minister for Local Government and Housing to address the fact that it already has 88 people in unsuitable temporary accommodation and that there will be 27 more in the next three weeks for whom the council cannot find public housing. That escalator will continue to rise.
    A recent survey researched the number of those sleeping rough in rural Cornwall. They proved difficult to identify because, unlike such people in urban areas, those in rural areas may be in fields and will not necessarily remain in the same place. They move between towns and between short-term jobs, such as fruit or flower picking. The survey nevertheless showed that a significant number of rural homeless people were sleeping rough. That should not happen and it is an often forgotten rural problem. I hope that the Government will address it, and that the House can be united on the issue.
    8.20 pm
    Mr. Eric Martlew: The hon. Member for South Suffolk (Mr. Yeo) described a trip around Britain. In fact, it was around the south-east. The Official Report will show that he probably went as far west as Somerset and as far north as Lincolnshire, and ignored the north-west, Yorkshire, Cumbria, Northumbria and the midlands. Perhaps the hon. Gentleman should be the Opposition spokesman for the south-east.

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    I am worried by Conservative rhetoric, by the propagation of the myth of town against country. Opposition Members want to divide the country to win back rural seats, but that is dangerous. My local paper, The Cumberland News, carried reports of Cumberland agricultural show, which is the largest one-day show in Britain and which is held in Carlisle. The British National party was there trying to recruit people, and it used the same language as the hon. Member for South Suffolk.
    Mr. Howard Flight: Shame.
    Mr. Martlew: I do not accuse the hon. Gentleman of being a fascist, but I issue the warning that people should not try to set one part of the country against the other. That is what the Conservatives have done.
    Cumbria has done well under a Labour Government. It received extra money for rural transport. Deregulation and the abolition of cross-subsidy were not mentioned by the hon. Member for South Suffolk. The people of Carlisle were happy to subsidise rural bus services, but the previous Government made sure that that was not possible. As a result, many rural bus services were lost, and the Government's grant of £50 million will help to restore them.
    Cumbria got an extra £7 million in its education budget. I was a county councillor for many years, and during that time such an amount was never put into the budget. Some of that money will pay for rural transport for schoolchildren. The pupils in Cumbria's rural schools probably do better in Ofsted reports than children in urban schools. Perhaps that should be tackled in urban areas.
    The county council is trying to introduce information technology to villages. Its two projects, Credits and Genesis, will take IT into village schools and also to the villages. The Department of Social Security is discussing with the county council a system under which people can communicate with a jobcentre from a kiosk. That gets rid of the need to take a bus, if there is one, into Carlisle to sign on. Village schools face a strange dilemma, because, although it is said that we should not close village schools, it is also said that we should not build any more houses. Lack of pupils poses a danger to such schools. In some way, affordable houses must be provided for young families, because it is often primary schools that are at risk.
    It is said that 60 per cent. of building should be on brown-field sites, and that is obviously pertinent to places such as London. Perhaps we should see whether there are brown-field sites in villages. Sometimes there are, but in my constituency one or two factories would have to be closed to meet the 60 per cent. requirement, and I am sure that that is not what the Government are about.
    Unemployment in my constituency is 4.9 per cent. In the neighbouring constituency of Penrith and The Border, it is 2 per cent., and the rate has fallen by 20 per cent. in the past two years. There is no crisis in the countryside there, but, even so, the Government have tackled the problem. They have made Cumbria a pilot area for the new deal. It started in January, and in urban and rural areas, it is getting young people back to work.
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    My constituency is to get a new district general hospital costing £80 million to serve Carlisle and the rural area. There were many objections when it was suggested that the name of the hospital should be changed. It is called the Cumberland infirmary, which shows that it will meet the needs of people in rural and urban areas. Rural north Cumbria is a health action zone. The Government have specifically designated it as such, and one of the key objectives is to tackle ill health in rural areas. I understand that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Health will visit Cumbria next week to launch that.
    Mr. John Hayes: I do not claim the hon. Gentleman's expertise on Cumbria, but does he think that people in remote rural villages will welcome the building or the improvement of hospitals to which many of them will have to travel 10 or 15 miles, as would be the case in my constituency? That is not delivering health care where people need it in rural communities, is it?
    Mr. Martlew: If I had a heart attack, I should prefer to go to a district general hospital rather than to a cottage hospital down the road. Does the hon. Gentleman suggest that we should spend even more to build district general hospitals in villages? That would be nonsense. We should have had a new hospital 18 years ago, but the Conservative Government did nothing about it. We are now to get one that will also serve the rural community.
    Agriculture is facing difficulties, although they are not showing up in the unemployment figures. BSE is a major problem in a dairy area such as Cumbria, and we all know who caused BSE. Opposition Members cannot say that problems in farming have been caused by the present Government. I hope that the common agricultural policy is reformed, and that Agenda 2000 works. We must help farmers, and especially those in the uplands and the national park—another innovation by a Labour Government. The Lake District national park suffers from overgrazing. Such problems need to be examined and resolved.
    Cumbria does not do enough to add value to its food products. The European Commissioners want to get rid of Cumberland rum butter, but I think that we may win that battle. We seem to have forgotten how to market Cumbrian food. The county has millions of tourists, and the tourist board, the county council and the National Farmers Union should work together to ensure that tourists to Cumbria eat food that has been sourced there. That has to be done.
    Even when we had a problem with BSE, this Government did something about it for the Cumbrians. We need a British Cattle Movement Service headquarters because of BSE. I understand that civil servants were going to put it in deepest Guildford; we may have a Labour Member for Guildford, but I am not sure.
    What happened? It was decided to put the headquarters in Cumbria. The Tories attacked the Ministry of Agriculture for sending 200 jobs to Cumbria—Workington, in fact: an area of high unemployment. Where else should they have gone than to a rural area, but the Tories said that they wanted to put the headquarters in Guildford.
    Therefore, we have done well under a Labour Government. We have had extra money for rural buses, for rural schools and for a health action zone, a new

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    hospital, extra money for the new deal and more than 200 extra jobs at the British Cattle Movement Service headquarters. The Labour Government have not let down rural areas in Cumbria. I look forward to the further expansion of the rural economy and to the bringing together of urban and rural people. This division between the two that has been created by the Conservatives has to stop, because it is in no one's interest.
    8.30 pm
    Mrs. Theresa May: When I came into the Chamber, I was intent on making some comments about the position of Berkshire and the threat to countryside and open space in the county in which my constituency lies, but, having heard the speeches of the Minister and of the hon. Member for Carlisle (Mr. Martlew), I want to comment on what they have said.
    First, may I say something about the frankly disgraceful opening remarks of the hon. Member for Carlisle. At the end of his speech, he returned to the issue of division between town and country. If anything is dividing town and country, it is the policies of the Labour party. It is the Labour party that has shown, time and again since May 1997, that it fails to understand the needs of rural areas and of the countryside.
    Personally, I have always said that we should look for a better balance of development between town and country, but the Government do not help the towns and cities by putting all the development into green-belt and green-field sites. The hon. Member for Carlisle should think again, reflect carefully on his remarks, and look at the policies that his party has produced, because it is those policies which are dividing town and country.
    The Minister will genuinely come to regret having said in the House that it was perfectly reasonable to make inroads into the green belt. I think that that statement will come to haunt him and the Labour Government. Throughout this country, Members of Parliament and councillors are desperately trying to defend their green belt from development proposals, and what do we see tonight? This Government are giving yet more comfort to developers that it is okay to build on the green belt. That is what the Minister said.
    Mr. Meacher: May I just help the hon. Lady by making it clear what I did say? I said that it is reasonable to go into the green belt as a last resort if no alternative means of expansion are available, and if there is a compensatory, much greater increase in green belt. In those circumstances, it is very different. I am not suggesting that there should be ready intrusion into the green belt. It is reasonable to go into the green belt only in exceptional circumstances, and in the two circumstances that I have mentioned.
    Mrs. May: It is obvious from that intervention that the Minister is already ruing his earlier statement. Hansard will show what he said, and I do not recall his making any reference to a last resort.
    Even so, what the Minister has just said again shows a complete lack of understanding about the purpose of the green belt. It is there as a protection and as an area of open space around an urban development. It is not something where we can say, "If we get a few more
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    people, we'll build into this and stick another bit somewhere else." That would fail to act as a protection. That is what the Government seem to be saying about green belt—that they can mix and match green belt and urban development here and there, and it does not make any difference.
    Mr. Colin Pickthall: Has the hon. Lady discussed what she has just said with the Country Landowners Association, which in the briefing that it sent us this week says:
    "The CLA accepts that some Green Belt areas will have to go to protect other countryside areas of even greater importance"?
    Mrs. May: The Labour party is desperately attempting to show that it is suddenly the friend of the Country Landowners Association. The Minister's remarks on open access and the right to roam will have been listened to with great interest by the CLA.
    Mr. Meacher: Will the hon. Lady give way?
    Mrs. May: No. I have to make some progress.
    The Minister referred to rural schools and their closure. I tried to intervene on him at that stage and he did not accept my request, but he stated that the Government were protecting rural schools and stopping their closure. The House should be aware of exactly what happened on rural school closures.
    On the eve of the countryside march, the then Minister for School Standards, who has been promoted to the Cabinet, possibly because of all the mistakes that he was making in the Department for Education and Employment, stated that people need not worry about rural school closures, because, although the procedure for deciding on the closure of schools had been changed in the School Standards and Framework Bill, so that the Secretary of State for Education and Employment no longer had a role, the Secretary of State would have a role in the case of rural schools, and the Government would ensure that all rural school closures went to the Secretary of State before the decision was made.
    When pressed several times by Opposition Members, myself included, to enshrine that intent in legislation, the Government refused to do so—little wonder that people often feel that what they say is mere empty words. Again, we saw that the reality of their policy was different from the rhetoric. Their soundbite in the television studio did not reflect what the Government intended to do. Rural school closures are a prime example of that.
    I said that I wanted to comment on the position of Berkshire. My hon. Friend the Member for South Suffolk (Mr. Yeo) has already referred to the problem faced by Wokingham district council over the proposed development of 2,500 houses at Grazeley. Those are the development pressures that Berkshire already faces, but I want to take the debate forward, to look at future pressures and the problem that we have at present.
    The south-east regional planning committee—Serplan—is putting forward proposals for the number of houses to be developed in Berkshire and the rest of the south-east by 2016. Once again, we have the difficulty that, despite all the rhetoric from the Government about 60 per cent. of development being on brown-field sites and protecting the green belt, planning conferences are

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    having to prepare their proposals for the future without the changed guidance in respect of planning policy guidance 3 that is required.
    Berkshire is the smallest county in the south-east—it represents only 4.9 per cent. of the area. Despite that, 15.4 per cent. of the county has been built on. It is three times more urbanised than Oxfordshire, for example, but the proposals from Serplan are that 46 per cent. of the additional green-field development in the south-east until 2016 would be in Berkshire.
    The plans provided by Serplan in respect of current potential supply from the housing capability study and in terms of options for the future show that, in every other county, the additional number of houses over and above the potential supply is either relatively small or reduced. In Berkshire, they envisage up to an extra 50,000 houses being required in the period to 2016.
    One of the difficulties in the way in which Serplan has put together its proposals relates to the guidance from the Government. The Berkshire housing development figures have been set so high because the Serplan planners say, "All the jobs are in Berkshire, and we need economic regeneration elsewhere in the south-east if we are to put housing development there." Yet the Government have asked Serplan to produce housing development figures before the regional development agencies—on which I take a different view from the Government—that the Government claim will be involved in the economic development of their areas, are in place.
    The Government have got it the wrong way round. They are requiring housing development figures based on the current economic position to be prepared, agreed and in place before the RDAs look at potential economic regeneration in other parts of the south east. I hope that the Minister will be able to explain why the Government are so keen to have the housing development figures in place before the RDAs are up and running and doing what the Government intend them to do in economic regeneration. The housing development needs could be so different if the figures were produced once the RDAs were in place.
    I am conscious that a number of hon. Members wish to speak on this very important issue. I have outlined just a few of the problems we face in Berkshire in respect of pressure for development. That pressure does not apply just to housing. We are also facing pressure for the development of a motorway service area, as are other parts of the country. The potential for noise pollution, light pollution and the impact on countryside areas is significant, and I sincerely hope that the Government will be able to give us some comfort in terms of reviewing the minimum distance rule between motorway service areas, which is currently 15 miles.
    I hope that the Government will take action on such issues. So far, we have heard a lot of words and seen a lot of glossy brochures, but the Government are failing to act. As in so many other sectors, Government policy does not match their rhetoric.
    8.41 pm
    Mr. Cohn Pickthall: I start by welcoming the remarks made by my right hon. Friend the Minister for the Environment at the end of his speech on
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    access to the countryside. He has been steadfast on the issue. I agree with what I think lies behind what he said—that it is unlikely that landowners will be able to deliver a watertight voluntary system, and that sooner or later, legislation will be inevitable.
    The Opposition motion
    "deplores the Government's continued failure to protect both the Green Belt and green-field sites from excessive development".
    During the past couple of months, the Labour Back-Bench rural affairs group, led by my hon. Friend the Member for The Wrekin (Mr. Bradley), has met some 25 organisations concerned precisely with the quality of life in rural areas. Almost without exception, they urged on us the need for flexibility in planning in green-belt areas, and raised that as a major issue. Their plea was reiterated by the Country Landowners Association in the quotation that I used in my intervention on the hon. Member for Maidenhead (Mrs. May).
    My constituency is almost all in the green belt which prevents the spread of urban Merseyside and Greater Manchester towards the Ribble and the Irish sea. To that extent, the green belt performs the function described by the hon. Member for Truro and St. Austell (Mr. Taylor). The green belt is very jealously guarded by West Lancashire district council, although some farmers and landowners are very adept at getting around the restrictions. I could take my right hon. Friend the Minister for the Environment to an agricultural worker's cottage that was built about 10 years ago in the middle of the green belt, which has 10 bedrooms, four bathrooms, and a kitchen—the only room I was allowed into—which is larger than my house.
    There is a serious and detailed debate to be had, which the terms of the motion and the recent sloganising about the countryside obscure. There is clearly a need for some appropriate development in the green belt. In my area, there is a desperate need for small industrial estates to serve the interests of packers and transporters who service the horticultural industry. There is clearly, too, a need, which I think is recognised generally on both sides of the House, for small housing developments, covenanted—hopefully—to needs in villages and hamlets. In the Lancashire green belt, however, it is vital that large residential and industrial development is strongly resisted. That is made more possible and important in my area due to the large concentration of brown-field sites in the north-west.
    Last week's report by the Parliamentary Office of Science and Technology—I pay tribute to its reports, which are always timely and very informative—showed that, in the north-west of England, 21.8 per cent. of the total area can be classified as derelict land. That is far and away the largest percentage of any English region. At the same time, the projected increase in demand for new homes in the north-west is 10.2 per cent.—the sixth lowest of all English regions.
    Obviously, the availability of such land and the demand for new homes differ from region to region. The needs and pressures in the north-west are obviously very different from those in some of the areas represented by Opposition Members. I strongly welcome the Deputy Prime Minister's policy to devolve strategic land use decisions to the regions, to Regional Development Agencies—and I hope, ultimately, to regional government.
    Mr. Hayes: I acknowledge the hon. Gentleman's interest in these matters. On the Library's figures,

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    he represents the 97th most rural constituency in Britain, which is pretty high as Labour Members go, as I shall explain in my speech. Will not rural Britain—this is certainly true of Lincolnshire and, I am sure, his area—be dominated by urban areas? People in Lincolnshire are frightened that the regional development agency will be dominated by Leicester, Derby and Nottingham. What will such cities care about south Lincolnshire, the Lincolnshire fens and other rural areas?
    Mr. Pickthall: I understand what the hon. Gentleman is saying. If he will allow me, I shall come precisely to that point a little further on in my speech.
    The use and abuse of green belt and other countryside areas must be subject to the most sensitive planning considerations, and decisions must be made as locally as possible. I hope that, as far as possible, the presumption will always be against building in such areas except in the direst necessity. I was pleased to hear my right hon. Friend the Minister for the Environment say almost exactly that in his intervention a few moments ago.
    Mr. Oliver Heald: It is of course said that the presumption will always be against building except in the direst circumstances, yet, in Hertfordshire, we are being asked to agree the building of 10,000 homes on a piece of unspoilt green belt west of Stevenage. The Deputy Prime Minister was personally approached and asked to intervene to save that green belt, but he totally ignored the request. Does the hon. Gentleman really believe all the Government's crocodile tears and weasel words?
    Mr. Pickthall: Of course I believe my right hon. Friend—what a silly question. The hon. Gentleman describes a region and county with which I am not intimately familiar, but, clearly, the pressures of population and the need for new homes are much greater in his region than in mine.
    The megaphone debate about rural areas has done no favours to the sensitive issues of green-belt and rural development. That is true also when we consider any aspect of rural life and conservation. We have had an extraordinary period of ersatz claims by the Conservative party that it represents, in some mystical way, rurality. The hon. Member for Tiverton and Honiton (Mrs. Browning) recoined the phrase "truly rural" to describe herself and her colleagues, in an attempt to show that Labour Members, such as me, who represent rural areas—and Liberal Democrats—are not rural. On the other hand, she might simply have been proving that she could pronounce "truly rural".
    The hon. Member for Tiverton and Honiton spoke with real knowledge of the problems of rural areas, but that is not, by and large, the Opposition's concern in this debate. The trumpeting of "We are the party of rural England" by the Opposition has prevented the proper discussion in this place of the complex needs of people in rural areas, and has prevented us from asking—let alone answering—some awkward and serious questions. I am thinking of the sort of debate that the Local Government Association has undertaken in its recent document, "Behind the Scenery".
    There has been a tendency to separate the nature of rural life completely from urban life, as my hon. Friend the Member for Carlisle (Mr. Martlew) pointed out,
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    ignoring, incidentally, suburban life in the process. Conservatives and the Countryside Alliance paint a picture of Britain where towns and cities are dark conglomerations of howling multitudes, whose involvement in rural Britain is to plunder—or, at best, ignore—it, while those in rural areas cower in fear of proletarian invasions.
    Life is not like that. My area is not untypical of the countryside. I have Skelmersdale in one corner of a huge rural area which has the small market town of Ormskirk in the centre.
    Mr. Hayes: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
    Mr. Pickthall: I will not give way, if the hon. Gentleman will excuse me. I want to sit down as soon as I can to allow as many hon. Members as possible to contribute.
    The area is surrounded by Liverpool, Southport, Preston and Greater Manchester. All the transport systems, rail and road, have their roots in those towns, and serve the rural areas—however unsatisfactorily—on the way through. That interdependency of rural and urban areas is reflected in the county of Lancashire as a whole, which has vast rural areas edged by quite large towns. The county council—and, on a smaller scale, my district council—has worked over many years to hold together the interests of urban and rural areas and to explain each to the other in terms of their needs.
    The problems of service provision in areas of sparse population are well recognised and, at least in part, addressed by Lancashire, involving some redistribution of wealth from towns to rural areas. Urban areas constitute the largest part of the tax base of this country. Three of my villages have libraries, one of which is brand new. Two have sports complexes, and one large village has two sports centres. All of those have been provided largely by urban taxpayers.
    As bus deregulation destroyed rural bus services, the council has had to provide what alternatives there are, financed by urban and rural taxpayers. I am not trying to suggest that the rural areas of Lancashire are okay—far from it—but I am asserting their interdependency with urban areas and the need for greater understanding, rather than the constant drive to polarise.
    I wish to refer to a report by the Rural Development Commission, which—I ought to point out to the hon. Member for South Suffolk (Mr. Yeo)—has not been abolished; it has merged, and is still going strong. We have received briefings from it this week. The report states that, in rural Lancashire, the average weekly earnings are £45 lower than the national average, £41 lower than neighbouring Cheshire and £14 below neighbouring Cumbria. It is a fact that earnings in rural areas for those who work there are lower than those in urban areas. Employment is harder to come by and the new deal is harder to deliver. Services are much more sparse.
    Those crucial disadvantages must be addressed. I want to highlight the disadvantage of isolation. Of course, it is more than possible to be isolated physically and psychologically in urban areas, but the possibility of help or of pursuing solutions is much less in the countryside. There is a sort of gulag archipelago, and generally prosperous and thriving rural communities,

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    often composed of those who travel into urban areas to earn a living, disguise pockets of poverty and misery. Elderly people and those with mobility problems often occupy the gulag.
    The services—whether medical, environmental or housing, and whether public or private—are at best problematic and often non-existent. Where the services are supplied, they are vastly expensive, and shire authorities are well aware of the cost disparities. Lack of transport also isolates young people, leading to problems in many villages, including the importation of some of the difficulties that we more usually associate with towns and cities.
    Those with access to private transport travel to towns or to out-of-town supermarkets to shop, while lamenting the collapse of their village shops and post offices and demanding public funds, through council tax rebates, Rural Development Commission grants, or whatever, to shore them up.
    Many projects are designed to pick away at the problems of economic hardship and isolation in country areas, and they are all valuable, but, in the face of the dwindling of employment in agriculture, the slowness of replacing those jobs through new small enterprises and the collapse in transport, their impact is limited.
    To begin to resolve some of the social difficulties in the countryside, we need vision and determination such as is being exhibited in local government in the shires and shire districts. "Behind the Scenery" encapsulates that, and I congratulate the Local Government Association on it.
    Mr. Hayes: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
    Mr. Pickthall: No, I want to finish as soon as I can.
    "Behind the Scenery" concentrates on identifying social exclusion in rural areas and seeking solutions to it. The Local Government Association sees a large part of the solution lying in increased resources, and we have heard this evening how some of that, at least, is happening. The need to carry the rest of the tax-paying population along with that view has not been addressed.
    Maintenance and improvement of the quality of life in rural areas depend largely on enlightened local government and on the success of regional development agencies in improving economic performance and investment. There has been much debate about rural representation on RDAs. Personally, I do not think that putting one member from a rural area on the board is any answer. It would be all too easy for the rest of the board to listen respectfully and then carry on regardless, rather like the role of Dr. Weakling among the 40 thieves in "The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists".
    The RDAs—I am speaking especially about the north-west—should have a rural filter so that every decision involves enhancing the rural economy as well as protecting the landscape, ecology and biodiversity of a region.
    I have long believed that the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food should be replaced by a rural affairs Ministry, but further thought and discussions have changed my mind—not that I want to retain MAFF as it
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    stands—and I now believe that plucking rural bits out of so many different Departments would be likely to produce paralysis. There is, however, a need for a body that considers the needs of rural areas across the boundaries of existing Departments, and the LGA's suggestion of a Select Committee has some attractions.
    The megaphone debate on rural affairs has prevented us from asking some serious questions, which I would like to ask now. What do we do if and when people in rural areas wake up to the fact that 93 per cent. of public support for rural areas goes to agricultural production—excluding horticulture, pigs, poultry and egg production, which are the backbone of the industry in my constituency? What happens if, and perhaps when, common agricultural policy reform fails to curb production subsidy?
    What relationship should we foster between agriculture, tourism and leisure? Can we justify organising agricultural subsidy to run stock in inhospitable hill areas to keep the fells trim for tourists? Is there anything that Government or Parliament can do to check the power of the big supermarket chains that control farmers and growers? They tear up contracts at a minute's notice and switch their buying policies at the drop of a hat, to the ruin of certain sectors and regions.
    We do not discuss those important questions because we are too busy shouting about who is more rural than thou. We do not live in two countries, however much the hon. Member for South Suffolk sought to suggest it. I thank him for visiting my constituency—without telling me, of course. He figured prominently in my local newspapers, standing in the middle of an empty street. I am not sure whether he was trying to comment on the disappearance of rural shops.
    The Opposition are seeking to create a party political war between rural areas and the rest. If their pursuit of that objective is not ended, rural areas can only lose out as the rest of the country has forced down its throat what the Tories present as a rural whinge. In my patch at least, I do not hear that from rural people.
    9 pm
    Mr. Howard Flight: West Sussex has been mentioned several times and my constituency forms the greater part of it. There are four important points about the case of West Sussex.
    First, 45,000 people have signed the petition against the imposition of an extra 12,800 houses. Petitioners come from across the full range of party politics and there is cross-party support on the county council. An important plank of the new policy announced by the Deputy Prime Minister—something that will help judgment on whether it is to be believed—is that the new approach to housing should involve an element of bottom-up consideration and dilution of what has been accepted across the board as too many orders from on high under the old predict and plan. West Sussex is a classic test case from which we will judge whether the new policy is for real. The citizens of West Sussex have spoken more than loudly with those 45,000 names opposing the extra homes.
    Secondly, simple arithmetic shows that, under the structural plan, about 40 per cent. of the new housing will be on green-field sites and 60 per cent. on brown-field sites. With the extra 12,800 houses, the balance swings the other way. Such housing would have to be entirely on

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    green-field sites and the balance would change to 60 per cent. on green-field sites and 40 per cent. on brown-field sites. In deciding whether the Government's policy objective of reducing the extent of green-field sites is to be believed, their decision on cancelling their order to add the 12,800 houses, or reducing the number, will be important.
    Thirdly, West Sussex went to the length of having an independent environmental audit, for which it won a significant award. It succeeded in convincing the Department's inspectorate. In effect, the Minister overruled his own inspectorate. If we are to have a rational approach to the amount of additional housing with which rural areas can cope, without—in the words of the Minister—turning them into American rural suburbs, the principle of independent environmental assessments is important. They should be encouraged.
    Fourthly, and I am surprised that this has not come out in the debate on green-field and green belt, in a large metropolis such as Birmingham or London, one effect of the success of the green belt has been to tip the pressure out to the next layer, to the perimeter lying on a 40-mile radius. Country areas have been hit by issues such as overbuilding and whether the Government's change of policy is for real; the problem of agriculture going seriously bust; and the gerrymandering of the standard spending assessments with the result that counties such as West Sussex have had a 10 per cent. increase in rates but no effective increase in real spending. To put it candidly, country areas like my own want to stop being dumped on by the Labour Government.
    9.5 pm
    Mr. David Drew: In an effort to allow as many people as possible to contribute to the debate, I shall keep my remarks brief.
    Contrary to what might be imagined, I welcome this debate on the basis that, although we have debated similar topics five or six times before, the Opposition have yet to land a glove on us. I see that that proud record is continuing tonight. Much of the rhetoric in the Opposition motion is understandable, although their points about the green belt and green-field sites stick in the craw of Labour Members who spent the past 15 years working under Tory planning procedures, fighting those procedures through appeals and all manner of other processes, only to find that central Government had undermined what we were trying to achieve, with the result that we lost out to developers—developers who were often contributors to the Conservative party. Let that not be misunderstood.
    There are more important issues that should be discussed in a debate about rural Britain. I am sure that the fact will have escaped no Labour Member that all is not well in rural Britain, but we shall look at what we consider to be the real analysis of the real problems and the real dilemmas facing rural Britain—poverty, disadvantage and social exclusion. As my hon. Friend the Member for The Wrekin (Mr. Bradley) pointed out, earlier this year there was an Adjournment debate introduced by my hon. Friend the Member for Forest of Dean (Mrs. Organ), but only a limited number of Conservative Members bothered to turn up for that debate, albeit more than were present at this morning's debate on concessionary television licences.
    The Labour Government are prepared to accept that rural poverty exists, although it might be dispersed and difficult to measure. One of the previous
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    Government's legacies, and something that should never be forgotten, is that they commissioned a report on rural poverty during the mid-1980s. Even though it was their own report, they chose not to publish it or to own up to it; instead, they buried it. That is a disgraceful record. As my right hon. Friend the Minister for the Environment said, that report would have shown the scale of the problems of deprivation that were identified in the Rural Development Commission report published in 1997. I shall not reiterate the figures given by my right hon. Friend, but it is important that we understand how many communities suffer the problems of not having public transport or easy access to a GP.
    Why have the problems occurred? There are five key elements in the Conservative's legacy of failure. First, there are village services, which have declined out of all recognition. It was not without remorse that the right hon. Member for Suffolk, Coastal (Mr. Gummer) recognised at last the folly of the policy that he kept in place for so long—out-of-town shopping development. He came to realise the damage that that was doing to villages and market town centres.
    Secondly, deregulatated public transport—which has been mentioned several times by my hon. Friends—and rail privatisation have done immense damage to our rural communities.
    Thirdly, I could speak at great length about housing, but I shall concentrate on the provision of affordable housing. It is all very well to talk about taking away people's rights to a discount on a council house sale, but what about the people who have no access to housing in rural Britain? The Conservative party practised social exclusion because it failed to allow any reprovision of council stock and denuded rural housing associations of any opportunity to provide the housing that is desperately needed. That is social exclusion of the worst sort.
    Fourthly, low pay is ever present in many rural areas, including my constituency. The Government can be proud that they have been able to introduce the national minimum wage, which will deal with low pay in all areas, whether urban or rural.
    Finally, there has been an overall deterioration in services such as health, education and social services, which of course has a disproportionate effect on the old, the young, the disabled, the low paid, the unemployed, lone parents and parents who are left at home.
    There is therefore no reason for the Opposition to warn us or tell us what we should be doing because the previous Administration let us down badly on rural matters. This Government take rural issues very seriously. We are fortunate to have so many Members who represent rural constituencies that we were able to form the rural Back-Bench group a year ago.
    Mr. Hayes: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
    Mr. Drew: No, time is very short.
    We formed that group and, only the other day, the Conservatives aped us. It is pleasing that they are now taking rural issues seriously.
    We have considered many rural matters and we shall continue to battle to get across our point of view on transport, on the reprovision of services and on dealing

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    with the ever-present rural housing issues. The Government will continue to listen to people in rural Britain and act on their views.
    9.11 pm
    Mr. James Clappison: This is an important debate on a subject that is of great interest to my constituents. The Government now know, if they did not before—I suspect that when they took office, they did not fully appreciate—how important the green belt is to many people, particularly those in certain parts of the country, including my constituents in Hertfordshire. More than anything else, those people want the full force of existing protection to be given to the green belt. There has been a change in the Government's pronouncements on this issue and, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Bridgwater (Mr. King) said, we shall seek proof of that in the Government's actions in future.
    We want full protection for the green belt and development to be permitted there only in exceptional circumstances. I was slightly concerned by what the Minister said about the contents of the White Paper, particularly the doctrine of compensation in other places through extension of the green belt, rather than protection of the existing green belt. I counsel the Government against moving too far in that direction. People want the existing green belt to be protected.
    I know that the Department is responsible for protection and conservation of wildlife as well as environmental protection. It would be strange if it applied its green belt principle to the conservation of wildlife. Ministers might say, for example, "The song thrush has become extinct, but never mind because we have added the skylark and the sand martin to the protected species list, which is a great triumph for conservation." They might say, "The Siberian tiger has become extinct, but we are now giving protection to the Indian elephant and the white rhino." We want a better policy than that.
    I was also concerned by the Minister's comment that, under the previous Conservative Government, there had been no corresponding increase in the size of the green belt. That is strange, and I seek an explanation because, under the previous Government, the green belt doubled, with the addition of 837,000 hectares.
    The Minister for the Environment produced an interesting figure of a 30,000 hectare increase, under the Government, in the area of green-belt land. It was an improvement on the one that the Prime Minister recently gave, when he told the House at Prime Minister's Question Time:
    "We have always made it clear that we will protect the green belt. In fact, there has been an increase in the amount of green-belt land since 1 May, so we do not need any lessons from the Conservative Opposition".-[Official Report, 4 February 1998; Vol. 305, c. 1046.]
    When the Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions was asked about the Prime Minister's answer in a written question, we were told that the basis of the Prime Minister's boast was
    "a net increase of nearly 4,000 ha"—[Official Report, 11 February 1998; Vol. 306, c. 234.]
    in the green belt. That compared with an increase under the previous Government, between 1979 and 1993, of 830,000 hectares. According to my—admittedly
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    shaky—maths, that means that, if the present rate of increase continued, we would have to wait until 2205 for the Government to match the previous Conservative Administration's record. Even if the figure of 30,000 is correct, it would take the Government about 26 years to achieve what the previous Government achieved in 14 years. Has the figure of 30,000 been achieved, or does it represent an aspiration for the future? Perhaps the Under-Secretary, the hon. Member for Hampstead and Highgate (Ms Jackson), will tell us. She is bound to know the answer.
    The Under-Secretary can help us on another point. I listened carefully to the Minister's comments and claims about the Government's achievements. Some of them, especially on village shops, had a familiar ring; I wondered where I had heard them before. Then it occurred to me that, in the previous Parliament, I served on the Committee considering what is now the Local Government and Rating Act 1997, which introduced the rating discount for village shops. I know that it was late in the previous Parliament and, to give the Government credit, the then Opposition did not oppose the Bill, but the legislation was carried through by the previous Government. I am pleased to note that it is now an achievement of the present Government.
    More than anything else, we want proper protection of the existing green belt—the full force of existing protection. That is what my constituents want in Hertfordshire, that is what we want in the rest of the country and that is what Conservative Members will press for.
    9.16 pm
    Mr. Mark Todd: The 1997 general election result produced a major benefit for rural areas—it introduced political competition into parts of the country that had not experienced it for many years. We have a—
    Mr. Hayes: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
    Mr. Todd: My goodness; I have only just started. Time is short, so I am afraid that I must decline.
    As I have said to rural voters in my constituency—many of them have agreed—that political competition will be of benefit, because we are starting seriously to discuss issues that had previously been dealt with complacently by the Conservatives and with relatively little interest by Labour.
    The misguided Opposition motion fails to address the rural quality-of-life issues that my constituents care about. They are the ones that would be familiar in an urban constituency—the quality of schools, the availability of jobs, decent transport, affordable homes, crime and the quality of our environment. Those are the issues which most people in South Derbyshire care about, as I suspect do most constituents throughout the country.
    The previous Government's record on some key indicators reveals why their motion has been severely rubbished by all participants in the debate from other political parties. For example, in Derbyshire, in the last six years of the previous Government, the percentage of parishes with no rural daily bus service increased from 54 to 62 per cent. Eighty-seven per cent. of parishes in Derbyshire had no nursery, and there was a massive loss

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    of council housing in the rural areas. Many villages in my constituency have less than half the council housing that was once constructed, substantially reducing my constituents' choice of housing.
    The Government have focused on addressing those key issues. First, the additional £700,000 plus given to Derbyshire county council for rural bus services is gratefully received, with very many thanks. It will provide the platform for restoring services cut in the past—even for introducing new ones—and must be applauded.
    Secondly, the emphasis, within the comprehensive spending review, on nursery provision and on pre-school education generally, will increase the availability of pre-school places in rural communities in my constituency. I am delighted with that, too.
    Thirdly, if one examines the state of schools in my area, one sees that there has been a transformation, even in the 15 months since the last election. Schools in Findern, Hartshorne, Long Lane, Hilton, Barrow on Trent, Netherseal, Rosliston, Melbourne, Overseal and Egginton have already received promises of money from last year and during this year. By my reckoning, perhaps one of those schools would have received some resources under the previous Government. To put the matter in context, more than £1 million has been committed to those rural schools, as against the Conservative Government pledging in their last year just £2.1 million for the entire county of Derbyshire. That is the kind of thing that my constituents care about most.
    There remain issues to address. First, we must have a self-sufficient rural economy, diversifying away from agriculture. We must ensure that homes are available for workers in rural areas. We must sustain the environment of rural Britain and ensure that our citizens can enjoy it. We must recognise the increasing threat and fear of crime in rural areas, and we must maintain viable key services such as pharmacies and post offices.
    We must address those concerns holistically. If we accept a rural economy dependent on commuting, we shall damage our environment, force up housing costs in our rural areas, undermine critical rural retailers and other key services, and entrench a stratified society with a hidden minority of seriously deprived individuals concealed in our midst.
    Farm diversification is clearly critical to the task. The focus should be on trying to build local small businesses based around the food industry and providing additional jobs through that route. Local low-cost housing is essential to support that economy, together with cheap, reliable public transport. We do not need sprawling suburbia or protective nimbyism. In South Derbyshire, we require a clear balance between extra housing in our local plan and job growth. I would criticise the current county structure plan for lacking that balance in my area.
    We must build around local successes. We have many attractive, highly successful local primary schools. We should aim to build other key services around those schools, making them the focus of community life and maximising the efficient use of scarce resources. We must recognise the shortcomings of existing deprivation indicators in the standard spending assessment—in this context, I have considerable sympathy with some of the points made by Opposition Members, but they should recall that the rules were drawn up under their own Government.
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    The useful Rural Development Commission report on that shows that the current disadvantage indicators in the standard spending assessment are built around an urban slant, which clearly needs to be substantially altered. Deprivation is hidden in rural areas. Lack of advice services, paternalism and self-help often hide disadvantage that would be much more evident in an urban setting. Regression analysis based on past spending levels also works against low-spending rural authorities. Key services face higher unit costs than in urban areas. The Government's promised review of the SSA should correct those faults.
    The development of rural development agencies obliged to produce rural employment strategies should start to address farm diversification, as should the Government's lead on Agenda 2000. Other initiatives include the minimum wage, which has been applauded already by some of my colleagues, the new deal for unemployed groups and the work of the coalfield task force. My community has a significant coalfield legacy. The coalfields were largely in rural areas. The task force will be an important component in redressing the balance for our rural communities. All those initiatives will provide a platform for improvements in rural quality of life.
    Extra health spending will allow us to address the alarmingly poor performance of the Derbyshire Ambulance Service NHS trust, which currently produces the worst performance in the country in terms of response times—something which is a particularly acute problem in a rural constituency like mine. That is something that I am keen to see addressed.
    The Government are taking on board the key quality concerns of my rural constituents while the Opposition motion addresses the Opposition's old obsessions in their old way and offers no future.
    9.24 pm
    Mr. Owen Paterson: Representing as I do one of the most rural constituencies in the country, I can inform the House that the Government's long-term policies will cause extreme difficulties for rural areas.
    In Shropshire, an extra 36,000 houses are due to be built between 1996 and 2011, to conform to the ludicrous plan to build 4.4 million that the Secretary of State will impose on the country. That will lead to a 10 per cent. increase in the population of Shropshire, with an increase of 34 per cent. among those of retirement age. It will lead also to jobs and homes not being in balance with the economy—and certainly not with the services offered to the public by local agencies. The local council says that in Oswestry, for instance,
    "all options will require environmental capacity to be breached."
    The provision of 2,400 houses a year is being made at twice the rate required to cope with the natural change that would occur if immigration were ignored.
    In 1891, there were 236,000 people and 49,000 houses. Since then, there has been an incredible 70 per cent. increase in population and an amazing 330 per cent. increase in housing. That is partly due to social changes, but the Government must think about their long-term policies because so many more people will be divorced and single. By 2011, one-person households will take up one third of all houses in Shropshire.

    463
    The pressure on local services has not been taken into account. Funding in Shropshire has been cut drastically since the Government came to power. For example, £100 million has been taken from the rural areas to the inner cities. It is ludicrous that an area such as Shropshire should have a standard spending assessment only 80 per cent. of Newcastle upon Tyne's. Shropshire is twice the area of London, but has only 4 per cent. of London's population. The Government do not understand that it costs more to provide services in a sparsely populated rural area.
    There are 522 settlements in Shropshire with fewer than 2,000 people. That is 26 per cent. of all our settlements. We need seven primary schools to serve 1,000 people—twice the number required in an urban area. However, we have an urban Government who do not understand that.
    Mr. Hayes: I notice that the hon. Member for Stroud (Mr. Drew), who represents the 110th most rural constituency, according to Library figures, is laughing. I hope that my hon. Friend will agree that, despite the claims made by the Labour party, the truth is that it does not represent rural Britain psychologically. If we take the 50 most rural seats in Britain, the Labour party is the third party of Britain after the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats. Perhaps that is why the Government do not understand the issues that my hon. Friend is speaking about.
    Mr. Paterson: That was a most helpful intervention; I entirely agree with my hon. Friend. The Labour party won many rural seats last year, but it does not understand rural issues. Nothing more clearly showed that than the local government settlement this year, when £10 million worth of cuts were imposed on Shropshire and there was a 17 per cent. increase in council tax. It was only after I led a march of 4,000 people, with the Bishop of Ludlow, who I suspect is not of my political persuasion, that the Government graciously lent Shropshire another £2.5 million.
    These circumstances will lead to real pressures to resist an increase in population. Cuts in services have not been thought through. There are real costs involved in delivering services to a rural area, and the most obvious is transport. The Government do not understand that. The White Paper which was introduced last week—[Interruption.] The Minister jumps up and down, and laughs, but 60 per cent. of people in Shropshire drive to work. It is just not on to pretend that we can impose a Gosplan-type fixed system—[Interruption.] It is not possible to impose a coherent publicly planned transport policy on an area such as Shropshire. In my constituency, which has 98 villages, that cannot be done. As I have said, 60 per cent. of people drive to work. [Interruption.] The escalator tax on petrol is a tax on every business throughout north Shropshire, as is the increase in the price of diesel. Distribution is a major business in north Shropshire. Diesel costs 30 to 40 per cent. more in this country than on the continent, the rate of vehicle excise duty in France is a sixth of the rate in this country—and the Minister laughs, even though 95 per cent. of goods are transported by road freight. [Interruption.]
    Mr. Deputy Speaker(Mr. Michael J. Martin): Order. Until now, the debate has been very good natured. Hon. Members should not be shouting across the Chamber.
    Mr. Paterson: Thank you, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I have used the last minute of my speech to show how exasperated my constituents are at the policies that are being imposed by an urban Government who do not understand rural areas.
    9.29 pm
    Mr. Bernard Jenkin: As often happens in such debates, Back Benchers have provided original and relevant contributions. The hon. Member for West Lancashire (Mr. Pickthall) posed a number of questions that the Government would do well to answer, my hon. Friend the Member for Arundel and South Downs (Mr. Flight) raised the West Sussex drama once again, and my hon. Friends the Members for Hertsmere (Mr. Clappison) and for Maidenhead (Mrs. May) made striking comments about the extraordinary admissions by the Government in respect of their new and bizarre philosophy for the green belt, which has turned it into an ever-moveable feast for developers.
    The hon. Member for South Derbyshire (Mr. Todd) forgot to mention that the Government have rate-capped his county council, which is the only one in the country that has been capped. My hon. Friend the Member for North Shropshire (Mr. Paterson) spoke of the 10 per cent. increase in population that is being been forced on Shropshire by the Government; and I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for South Holland and The Deepings (Mr. Hayes) for making such a welcome and useful intervention about the nature of the Labour party.
    When he replied to my hon. Friend the Member for South Suffolk (Mr. Yeo), the Minister for the Environment did it again—new Labour has consistently shown that it does not understand the countryside. Nothing showed that better than the countryside march in the spring, and nothing surprised country dwellers and their supporters more than the strength of feeling that was mobilised against the Government, who were evidently surprised as well.
    New Labour means new taxes on the countryside. The people who live there know that, because they are already feeling the pain and bearing the brunt of the record council tax increases that the Government have imposed on the counties and the rural districts. The Minister for the Environment comprehensively failed to answer that point, which was made by my hon. Friend the Member for South Suffolk.
    The other taxes targeted on rural areas are taxes on the motorist. The Government will raise an extra £9 billion in fuel duties during this Parliament, over and above what would have been raised by our tax plans had they remained in place. The impact of Labour's tax rise is most cruel for those in far-flung areas, where there is no practical alternative to the car for the vast majority of journeys.
    In many cases, the car makes it possible for rural communities to survive. The Government campaigning against the car in today's countryside is as paradoxical as making a film about the wild west without horses. The urban dweller does little mileage, so increased fuel

    465
    costs are of little consequence. Country dwellers have to travel much greater distances; moreover, they have to pay the taxes, because they have no alternative to the car.
    The purpose of these taxes is to raise tax for the Treasury. The Government say that they are against regressive taxation. What is the choice for rural people? Pay the taxes and use the car, or lose their jobs, incomes and businesses, their contact with friends and family in neighbouring towns and villages and their ready access to public services and benefits that should be theirs by right.
    These motoring taxes do not redistribute wealth from the rich to the poor. Excessive motoring taxes hurt the poorest most, and those who need the car are often those who can least afford it: single mothers in part-time work; pensioner households, for whom the car is the last and most precious luxury; people on low incomes; and in particular, the self-employed. Come to rural areas and find forms of social exclusion that simply do not register on new Labour's urban radar.
    Under the Conservatives, there was a huge increase in access to cars across rural communities, and women and pensioners were the biggest beneficiaries. The car brought them freedom to travel and unparalleled opportunities to improve the quality of their lives. New Labour does not realise that, or it does not care. It may think that it is modernising, but it seems determined to turn the clock back. Those are the very people whom new Labour says it champions. Under new Labour, people who need their cars suffer most. If fuel poverty is bad, why is car fuel poverty acceptable?
    Yes, there are some public transport alternatives scattered across rural Britain. The Minister said that 75 per cent. of rural parishes have no daily bus service. Community transport alternatives are on the increase. Parishes with dial-a-ride schemes increased from 8 per cent. in 1991 to 15 per cent. in 1997. Conservatives will support any practical alternatives to the car in rural areas and anywhere else, particularly if they harness the enterprise of the private sector and the good will of the community. We have never pretended to have all the answers.
    Mr. David Taylor: I am pleased to hear the shadow Front-Bench spokesman say that the Conservatives will support any alternatives to the car. How does that sit with the deregulation of bus services, which removed much of public transport from the most rural areas which hon. Members on both sides of the House now represent?
    Mr. Jenkin: The hon. Gentleman cannot have been listening to what I was saying. One of the reasons for the decline in rural bus services is that people have the superior alternative of the car. In the last six years we were in office, there was a big increase in dial-a-ride services and community transport, which is much more applicable to rural areas.
    New Labour is a byword for wanton cynicism and opportunism. In March this year, the Chancellor announced that the Government were to devote an extra £50 million to rural bus schemes. That is a classic example of new Labour spin, and the Minister wantonly
    466
    spun it again today. This tokenism has gained publicity out of all proportion to the scale of the commitment. It would be instructive to compare that figure with the amount of extra money that the Treasury will suck out of the countryside through its draconian increases in fuel duty. The Library estimates that to be at least twice as much every year.
    As for the Minister's announcement of an increase in money for the countryside, the real increase is 26 per cent. spread over three years. The increase of 11 per cent. in the first year is only £18 million. How does that compare with the £9 billion in extra fuel duties? How many new bus services per village would £50 million buy? Even if it were to double the provision of rural bus services, a village would get perhaps four services a day instead of two. What alternative is that to a car? [Interruption.] The answer to that question was thought to be the transport White Paper. [Interruption.]
    Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. The House must calm down: we need to hear the hon. Gentleman.
    Mr. Jenkin: I shall take it out of the Minister's time. The answer to that question was thought to be the transport White Paper, "A New Deal for Transport: Better for Everyone", but it is a very poor deal for rural areas. Like the bad old days of British Rail, the Chancellor's £50 million for rural transport is announced again and again throughout the White Paper, but the policy itself never arrives.
    The White Paper is almost exclusively about urban and inter-urban transport. Virtually nothing in its 170 pages of waffle pays more than lip service to the transport problems of rural areas. Its central thesis is "pay up now and benefit some time in the future"—by way of little more than the faint prospect of improvements to public transport. When the Deputy Prime Minister made his statement last week, he called that hypothecation. In the here today, gone tomorrow world of Labour's Transport Ministers, that is what passes for a victory over the Treasury.
    The only other money the Government have to spend for the next five years comes as a direct benefit of rail privatization—the money freed up by reducing rail subsidies. The Government will take people off the road long before adequate alternatives are in place. The Council for the Protection of Rural England complains that the Government are creating a two-tier transport system—a new deal for the towns, but no deal for rural areas. It is new Labour tax on tax on tax from the party which, before the general election, solemnly promised no new taxes at all. No concessionary fares scheme can possibly compensate people in isolated communities for being priced out of their cars.
    In the section "Reducing social exclusion", the Government come up with another novel solution. Paragraph 4.88 states:
    "Planning has a role here, for example, in promoting the growth of key villages."

    467
    What exactly does that mean? I am reminded of the words of Jon Mendelsohn, the famous lobbyist and crony of the Prime Minister:
    "Tony is very anxious to be seen as green. Everything has to be couched"—
    Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. When we refer to the Prime Minister or any other hon. Member we use his constituency name.
    Mr. Jenkin: Speaking of the Prime Minister, the lobbyist said:
    "Everything has to be couched in environmental language—even if it is slightly Orwellian."
    In this Orwellian world, what is a key village and what do the Government mean by growth?
    The integration of planning and transport is meant to be a key part of the Government's integrated transport strategy. But the Government's house building policy flies in the face of what they say about land use planning.
    The Government rightly acknowledge the Conservative Government's changes in planning policy guidance. It was the Conservatives who took the first initiatives towards the integration of transport and land use planning—in PPG 13. However, the Government have not only accepted unquestioningly the projection that 4.4 million new homes will need to be built in the next 20 years, but the Deputy Prime Minister has set about the task of ensuring that they are built. Moreover, half of them are to be targeted on rural areas.
    We are pushing for two thirds of new build to be situated on brown-field sites; for the planning guidance which the Minister has yet to produce to reflect changes in Government policy; and for a halt to the structure plans until the guidance is issued—another point to which the right hon. Gentleman did not refer, not least because the Government do not seem to appreciate that the people who choose to live in those houses on green-field sites will need to own cars.
    Does the Deputy Prime Minister understand that, even if he realises his golden age of racehorse buses, his integrated transport policy will be no more than a pantomime horse if more and more people live away from the large conurbations and continue to use their cars? The whole purpose of land use planning is that people should live nearer where they work and the shops, offices and facilities that they need so that alternatives to the car can become available by choice.
    The Government's policy is a mess. The transport White Paper is the most manifest evidence that they have failed to appreciate the problems facing rural areas. The CPRE has made public its fear that
    "Transport corridors could become a location for 1990s-style ribbon development."
    As every schoolboy knows, that is exactly what the green belt was designed to prevent. As well as hammering the rural motorist with ever higher taxes and creating rural car fuel poverty, they are targeting housing in rural areas or, to reuse their Orwellian rhetoric,
    "promoting the growth of key villages".
    468
    That is not integration; it is a massive fudge. The Government's policies are destructive of the environment and ultimately self-defeating. But that should come as no surprise when key former advisers regard key green-belt areas as
    "just a bunch of mud tracts on the edge of town".
    Those are the words of Derek Draper, whose key contact in the Government is Mr. Geoff Norris of the No. 10 policy unit. It was he who ripped the guts out of the transport White Paper even before it had reached the dim world of off-the-record briefings.
    What happened to the environment? Let Mr. Draper explain:
    "He"—
    the right hon. Member for Oldham, West and Royton (Mr. Meacher)—
    "is very weak and basically he's irrelevant and nobody should have to take him into account … He's nobody going nowhere. I don't think he'll be in his job much longer."
    Mr. Draper got that bit wrong. I pay tribute to the outgoing Minister of Transport. The Government might well have done better to listen to his advice. I welcome his successor, the hon. Member for Hamilton, North and Bellshill (Dr. Reid), but he has some catching up to do to win an Oscar nomination like that of the Minister for Transport in London.
    The real problem lies in the Government's mindset—in the Labour party's fundamental bias in favour of its urban heartlands. New Labour's first-hand knowledge of the countryside is from an Islington perspective: it is a mixture of James Herriot, "The Archers" and Postman Pat, laced with the poison of coercion and political correctness. The Liberal Democrats are completely divided on the countryside. They say what they want, depending on where they happen to be at the time. It therefore falls to the Conservatives to speak for rural Britain.
    The Government are determined to make the countryside pay for their failures and their policies. They are not just harming those who live and work in the countryside; they are failing Britain as a whole. Today, the populations in our great towns and cities may far outnumber those in the countryside, but the few are no less a part of our nation's history and greatness. When we sing
    "And did those feet in ancient time
    Walk upon England's mountains green?",
    we want to sing about the England of today, not about an England that has been laid waste by the Government's dogma and incompetence. While the Government and their cronies are trying to build some new Jerusalem of their own, the rest of us can see that the countryside is already our inheritance. It must not be squandered.
    9.45 pm
    The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions (Ms Glenda Jackson): This is, I believe, the third Opposition day on which Opposition Members have chosen to debate rural issues. On each occasion, they have markedly failed to convince either the House or the country that they are even vaguely what they continually claim to be—the party that speaks for rural interests.

    469
    What we have heard tonight has been the usual recycling of, in the main, inaccurate statistics, along with empty insults directed at the Labour Benches—where sit a Government and a party committed to the interests of our rural communities. If the Conservative party genuinely wishes to present itself as a party with even the slightest interest in the countryside and its people, all that it needs to do is apologise for the grievous damage that it inflicted on rural communities during the 18 years of its lamentable Government. It is the party which was responsible for vast unemployment in rural areas, for the reduction of housing in rural areas, for taking away public transport in rural areas and for causing grievous damage not only to agriculture but to the human food chain. It sat idly by and allowed BSE to take a poisonous grip on the country, and taxpayers are still paying vast amounts as a result.
    Let me now adopt a rather more factual approach to the issues raised tonight, and, perhaps, set the record straight on some of the issues that Opposition Members introduced time after time. The most obvious is the canard that the Government—and, indeed, the Labour party—are giving away the nation's green belt. As my right hon. Friend the Minister for the Environment pointed out, it was the Labour Government who introduced a green belt. It may interest the hon. Member for Hertsmere (Mr. Clappison), who asked a direct question, to know that, since 1 May last year, the green belt has increased by 29,547 hectares.
    The hon. Member for North Essex (Mr. Jenkin) and, I believe, the hon. Member for North Shropshire (Mr. Paterson) were much exercised by what they claimed to be the Government's plans for new house building over the coming decades. I understand that the need for 4.4 million new houses was first suggested by the previous Government who significantly failed to meet their target of 50 per cent. of new build on brown-field sites. They managed to average only 42 per cent. on such sites.
    The hon. Member for Arundel and South Downs (Mr. Flight) was much concerned about the effect of new build on Sussex. It is impossible for the Government, and it would have been impossible for the previous Administration, to accept a shortfall of 12,800 houses in that area. The hon. Gentleman claims that 60 per cent. of them will have to be built on green-field sites. The figure for the previous Government was 58 per cent., and our clear commitment is that the majority of our houses will be on brown-field sites.
    Mr. Yeo: Will the hon. Lady give way?
    Ms Jackson: No, I will not.
    Mr. Yeo: Give way.
    Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. The hon. Lady is not giving way.
    Ms Jackson: Thank you, Mr. Deputy Speaker. Despite being exhorted by their leader to listen, Opposition Members are totally incapable of doing so. When I say no, I invariably mean no.
    Opposition Members have dwelt on the issue of the Government overruling local councils that want to build on the green belt. Their assertions were untrue. The Tories
    470
    overruled councils and approved building on green-belt land in Manchester, South Bedfordshire, Kent and Woking. In one of his last decisions as Secretary of State for the Environment, the right hon. Member for Suffolk, Coastal (Mr. Gummer) approved development on 50 hectares of metropolitan green belt in Surrey.
    I hope that the hon. Member for Maidenhead (Mrs. May) expressed her concern to the previous Administration. As I have said, Berkshire was one of the three counties that the previous Government directed to change its plans by increasing the number of houses to be built by 3,000. That direction resulted in adjustments to Berkshire's green-belt boundary. The hon. Lady spoke about the number of houses that the south-east regional planning conference has announced, but those are for consultation only. She also asked about motorway service areas. I am sure that she is aware that my noble Friend the Minister for Roads was paying particular attention to that issue and examined it in no small detail.
    The hon. Member for Maidenhead castigated the Government for what she decried as a policy for the closure of rural schools. We have made it abundantly clear that a proposal to close any rural school will have to be submitted to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Education and Employment for a decision. The hon. Lady may be interested to know that, in 1997, a rural council survey highlighted the fact that, in 49 per cent. of rural areas, there was no school at all.
    In a sense, the debate began with the contribution by the hon. Member for Truro and St. Austell (Mr. Taylor) who touched on the issues that are genuinely important to people in rural areas. We would argue that they are also important to people in urban areas. Those issues relate to improving the quality of life. The hon. Gentleman made a valid point to which the Government have paid, and will continue to pay, particular attention. It was about how the previous Administration for 18 years allowed the quality of life in urban areas to deteriorate so lamentably that people moved from towns to rural areas. That happened despite loud pronouncements by the then Prime Minister, now Baroness Thatcher, that that Government had to take action on the cities. They markedly failed to do that. That is an issue to which we are, indeed, directing attention.
    The hon. Gentleman will know of Lord Rogers's task force. The whole thrust of our transport policies, as the hon. Gentleman will know, is to offer genuine alternatives to over-dependence on the private car. We are looking at issues such as home zones and the use of information technology to ensure that traffic does not pollute urban areas to such an extent that not only people but industry, business and retail outlets wish to move from urban areas.
    Mr. Matthew Taylor: I touched on rural homelessness. I have now had information that, in Devon and Cornwall, the Government office has confirmed a 23 per cent. increase in homelessness acceptances. There seems to be a genuine problem, with the increase in homelessness perhaps linked to the increase in repossessions and to benefit changes. I hope that the Minister will ask some of her team to look at that problem.
    Ms Jackson: I have little doubt that my colleagues will read this evening's debate because, as I have made abundantly clear, rural issues and the quality of life in rural areas are of prime importance to this Government, but I will certainly draw the hon. Gentleman's point to my hon. Friends' attention.

    471
    It was Labour Members, who have direct experience of life in rural areas because they represent those areas, who touched on the issues that are of real concern to people who live in rural areas. As my hon. Friend the Member for Carlisle (Mr. Martlew) pointed out, those issues include unemployment. He paid tribute to the Government's policy on the new deal. He also touched on the health needs of rural areas, again an area which was mercilessly attacked by the previous Administration, and highlighted again the Labour Government's health action zones.
    My hon. Friend the Member for West Lancashire (Mr. Pickthall) also raised many precise, particular and detailed points as they affect his constituents in a rural area. He again made the point that it is only Conservative Members who have a desire to foster the entirely false premise that there is a difference between rural and urban. He made the point, as he has on previous occasions, that town and country are mutually dependent. It is certainly this Government's policy, as we have said on more than one occasion, to govern for all the people, which is why we are targeting so many of our activities and, indeed, so much of our finance, towards redressing the appalling damage that was inflicted on rural areas by the Conservative party. [Interruption.]
    Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. There is far too much noise in the Chamber. Too many conversations are going on.
    Ms Jackson: Thank you, Mr. Deputy Speaker.
    I repeat that it was left to Labour Members to introduce into the debate the issues that are of real importance to people in rural areas. My hon. Friend the Member for Stroud (Mr. Drew) touched on the total lack of transport in many rural areas because of the previous Administration's approach to public transport as a whole. They deregulated the buses and privatised our railways, leaving many rural areas totally isolated.
    My hon. Friend touched on social exclusion, which was introduced by the previous Administration: they denuded many rural areas of affordable housing and refused to allow rural housing associations to attempt to redress the balance. My hon. Friend paid tribute to the historic introduction by this Government of a national minimum wage, which will do much to redress the appallingly low pay that exists in rural areas.
    My hon. Friend the Member for South Derbyshire (Mr. Todd) again touched on the real issues—it was my hon. Friends who raised many of them for the first time in the debate—including crime. That is an issue, as this Government are aware, which is and can be as prevalent in rural areas as it has been in urban areas. Here, too, we are taking steps to attack and tackle the problem so that the quality of life in the rural environment can be improved.
    The Government are determined to address the real, everyday concerns of people in rural areas. They are the same concerns as those of their neighbours in towns and relate to jobs, schools, health, transport and the provision of services. As my right hon. Friend said earlier, the Government have a clear vision for rural areas—a living, working and sustainable countryside that contributes to the general prosperity of the country.
    Question put, That the original words stand part of the Question:—
    The House divided: Ayes 159, Noes 304.

    Division No. 352]

    [9.59 pm

    AYES

    Amess, David

    Howarth, Gerald (Aldershot)

    Ancram, Rt Hon Michael

    Hunter, Andrew

    Arbuthnot, James

    Jack, Rt Hon Michael

    Atkinson, David (Bour'mth E)

    Jackson, Robert (Wantage)

    Atkinson, Peter (Hexham)

    Jenkin, Bernard

    Beggs, Roy

    Johnson Smith,

    Beith, Rt Hon A J

    Rt Hon Sir Geoffrey

    Bercow, John

    Keetch, Paul

    Beresford, Sir Paul

    Kennedy, Charles (Ross Skye)

    Boswell, Tim

    Key, Robert

    Bottomley, Rt Hon Mrs Virginia

    King, Rt Hon Tom (Bridgwater)

    Brady, Graham

    Kirkbride, Miss Julie

    Brand, Dr Peter

    Kirkwood, Archy

    Brazier, Julian

    Laing, Mrs Eleanor

    Brooke, Rt Hon Peter

    Lait, Mrs Jacqui

    Browning, Mrs Angela

    Lansley, Andrew

    Bruce, Ian (S Dorset)

    Leigh, Edward

    Burns, Simon

    Letwin, Oliver

    Campbell, Menzies (NE Fife)

    Lidington, David

    Cash, William

    Lilley, Rt Hon Peter

    Chapman, Sir Sydney (Chipping Barnet)

    Livsey, Richard

    Lloyd, Rt Hon Sir Peter (Fareham)

    Clappison, James

    Loughton, Tim

    Clifton-Brown, Geoffrey

    Luff, Peter

    Collins, Tim

    Lyell, Rt Hon Sir Nicholas

    Cormack, Sir Patrick

    McIntosh, Miss Anne

    Cotter, Brian

    MacKay, Andrew

    Cran, James

    Maclean, Rt Hon David

    Davies, Quentin (Grantham)

    McLoughlin, Patrick

    Donaldson, Jeffrey

    Madel, Sir David

    Dorrell, Rt Hon Stephen

    Malins, Humfrey

    Duncan, Alan

    Maples, John

    Duncan Smith, Iain

    Mates, Michael

    Evans, Nigel

    Maude, Rt Hon Francis

    Faber, David

    Mawhinney, Rt Hon Sir Brian

    Fabricant, Michael

    May, Mrs Theresa

    Fallon, Michael

    Moss, Malcolm

    Fearn, Ronnie

    Oaten, Mark

    Flight, Howard

    Öpik, Lembit

    Forth, Rt Hon Eric

    Ottaway, Richard

    Foster, Don (Bath)

    Paice, James

    Fowler, Rt Hon Sir Norman

    Paisley, Rev Ian

    Fox, Dr Liam

    Paterson, Owen

    Fraser, Christopher

    Pickles, Eric

    Gale, Roger

    Prior, David

    Garnier, Edward

    Randall, John

    George, Andrew (St Ives)

    Redwood, Rt Hon John

    Gibb, Nick

    Robathan, Andrew

    Gill, Christopher

    Robertson, Laurence (Tewk'b'ry)

    Gillan, Mrs Cheryl

    Robinson, Peter (Belfast E)

    Gorman, Mrs Teresa

    Roe, Mrs Marion (Broxbourne)

    Gorrie, Donald

    Ross, William (E Lond'y)

    Gray, James

    Ruffley, David

    Green, Damian

    Russell, Bob (Colchester)

    Grieve, Dominic

    Sanders, Adrian

    Gummer, Rt Hon John

    Sayeed, Jonathan

    Hague, Rt Hon William

    Shephard, Rt Hon Mrs Gillian

    Hamilton, Rt Hon Sir Archie

    Shepherd, Richard

    Hammond, Philip

    Simpson, Keith (Mid-Norfolk)

    Hancock, Mike

    Smyth, Rev Martin (Belfast S)

    Harris, Dr Evan

    Spelman, Mrs Caroline

    Hawkins, Nick

    Spicer, Sir Michael

    Hayes, John

    Spring, Richard

    Heald, Oliver

    Stanley, Rt Hon Sir John

    Heath, David (Somerton & Frome)

    Steen, Anthony

    Heathcoat-Amory, Rt Hon David

    Stunell, Andrew

    Hogg, Rt Hon Douglas

    Swayne, Desmond

    Horam, John

    Syms, Robert

    473

    Tapsell, Sir Peter

    Whitney, Sir Raymond

    Taylor, Ian (Esher & Walton)

    Whittingdale, John

    Taylor, John M (Solihull)

    Widdecombe, Rt Hon Miss Ann

    Taylor, Matthew (Truro)

    Wigley, Rt Hon Dafydd

    Taylor, Sir Teddy

    Wilkinson, John

    Thompson, William

    Willetts, David

    Tredinnick, David

    Wilshire, David

    Trend, Michael

    Winterton, Nicholas (Macclesfield)

    Tyler, Paul

    Woodward, Shaun

    Tyrie, Andrew

    Yeo, Tim

    Viggers, Peter

    Young, Rt Hon Sir George

    Wardle, Charles

    Tellers for the Ayes:

    Webb, Steve

    Mr. Nigel Waterson and Mr. Stephen Day.

    Wells, Bowen

    Mr. Stephen Day.

    NOES

    Abbott, Ms Diane

    Colman, Tony

    Adams, Mrs Irene (Paisley N)

    Connarty, Michael

    Ainger, Nick

    Cook, Frank (Stockton N)

    Ainsworth, Robert (Cov'try NE)

    Cooper, Yvette

    Alexander, Douglas

    Corbett, Robin

    Allen, Graham

    Corbyn, Jeremy

    Anderson, Donald (Swansea E)

    Corston, Ms Jean

    Anderson, Janet (Rossendale)

    Cousins, Jim

    Armstrong, Ms Hilary

    Cox, Tom

    Atherton, Ms Candy

    Cranston, Ross

    Atkins, Charlotte

    Crausby, David

    Austin, John

    Cryer, Mrs Ann (Keighley)

    Banks, Tony

    Cryer, John (Hornchurch)

    Barron, Kevin

    Cummings, John

    Battle, John

    Cunliffe, Lawrence

    Bayley, Hugh

    Cunningham, Jim (Cov'try S)

    Beard, Nigel

    Curtis-Thomas, Mrs Claire

    Beckett, Rt Hon Mrs Margaret

    Dalyell, Tam

    Bell, Stuart (Middlesbrough)

    Darling, Rt Hon Alistair

    Benn, Rt Hon Tony

    Darvill, Keith

    Bennett, Andrew F

    Davey, Valerie (Bristol W)

    Benton, Joe

    Davies, Rt Hon Denzil (Llanelli)

    Bermingham, Gerald

    Davies, Geraint (Croydon C)

    Best, Harold

    Davies, Rt Hon Ron (Caerphilly)

    Betts, Clive

    Dean, Mrs Janet

    Blackman, Liz

    Dewar, Rt Hon Donald

    Blears, Ms Hazel

    Dismore, Andrew

    Blizzard, Bob

    Dobbin, Jim

    Boateng, Paul

    Dobson, Rt Hon Frank

    Borrow, David

    Doran, Frank

    Bradley, Keith (Withington)

    Drew, David

    Bradley, Peter (The Wrekin)

    Dunwoody, Mrs Gwyneth

    Bradshaw, Ben

    Eagle, Angela (Wallasey)

    Brown, Rt Hon Nick (Newcastle E)

    Eagle, Maria (L'pool Garston)

    Brown, Russell (Dumfries)

    Edwards, Huw

    Burden, Richard

    Efford, Clive

    Burgon, Colin

    Ellman, Mrs Louise

    Butler, Mrs Christine

    Ennis, Jeff

    Byers, Stephen

    Etherington, Bill

    Caborn, Richard

    Field, Rt Hon Frank

    Campbell, Mrs Anne (C'bridge)

    Fitzpatrick, Jim

    Campbell, Ronnie (Blyth V)

    Flynn, Paul

    Canavan, Dennis

    Foster, Rt Hon Derek

    Cann, Jamie

    Foster, Michael J (Worcester)

    Caplin, Ivor

    Foulkes, George

    Caton, Martin

    Fyfe, Maria

    Chapman, Ben (Wirral S)

    Gapes, Mike

    Chaytor, David

    Gerard, Neil

    Chisholm, Malcolm

    Gibson, Dr Ian

    Clapham, Michael

    Godman, Dr Norman A

    Clark, Rt Hon Dr David (S Shields)

    Godsiff, Roger

    Clark, Dr Lynda (Edingburgh Pentlands)

    Goggins, Paul

    Golding, Mrs Llin

    Clarke, Charles (Norwich S)

    Griffiths, Win (Bridgend)

    Clarke, Tony (Northampton S)

    Grocott, Bruce

    Coaker, Vernon

    Hain, Peter

    Coffey, Ms Ann

    Hall, Mike (Weaver Vale)

    Cohen, Harry

    Hall, Patrick (Bedford)

    Coleman, Iain

    Hamilton, Fabian (Leeds NE)

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    Hanson, David

    Mallaber, Judy

    Heal, Mrs Sylvia

    Mandelson, Peter

    Healey, John

    Marsden, Paul (Shrewsbury)

    Henderson, Doug (Newcastle N)

    Marshall, David (Shettleston)

    Henderson, Ivan (Harwich)

    Marshall, Jim (Leicester S)

    Hepburn, Stephen

    Marshall-Andrews, Robert

    Heppell, John

    Martlew, Eric

    Hesford, Stephen

    Maxton, John

    Hill, Keith

    Meacher, Rt Hon Michael

    Hinchliffe, David

    Meale, Alan

    Hodge, Ms Margaret

    Merron, Gillian

    Hoey, Kate

    Michael, Alun

    Hood, Jimmy

    Michie, Bill (Shef'ld Heeley)

    Hoon, Geoffrey

    Milburn, Alan

    Hope, Phil

    Miller, Andrew

    Hopkins, Kelvin

    Mitchell, Austin

    Howarth, Alan (Newport E)

    Moffatt, Laura

    Howarth, George (Knowsley N)

    Moonie, Dr Lewis

    Howells, Dr Kim

    Moran, Ms Margaret

    Hughes, Ms Beverley (Stretford)

    Morgan, Ms Julie (Cardiff N)

    Hughes, Kevin (Doncaster N)

    Morgan, Rhodri (Cardiff W)

    Humble, Mrs Joan

    Morley, Elliot

    Hutton, John

    Morris, Ms Estelle (B'ham Yardley)

    Iddon, Dr Brian

    Mowlam, Rt Hon Marjorie

    Illsley, Eric

    Mudie, George

    Ingram, Adam

    Mullin, Chris

    Jackson, Ms Glenda (Hampstead)

    Murphy, Denis (Wansbeck)

    Jackson, Helen (Hillsborough)

    Murphy, Jim (Eastwood)

    Jamieson, David

    Murphy, Paul (Torfaen)

    Jenkins, Brian

    O'Brien, Bill (Normanton)

    Johnson, Alan (Hull W & Hessle)

    O'Brien, Mike (N Warks)

    Jones, Barry (Alyn & Deeside)

    O'Hara, Eddie

    Jones, Helen (Warrington N)

    Olner, Bill

    Jones, Ms Jenny (Wolverh'ton SW)

    Pearson, Ian

    Pendry, Tom

    Jones, Jon Owen (Cardiff C)

    Pickthall, Colin

    Jones, Martyn (Clwyd S)

    Pike, Peter L

    Jowell, Ms Tessa

    Plaskitt, James

    Kaufman, Rt Hon Gerald

    Pollard, Kerry

    Keen, Alan (Feltham & Heston)

    Pope, Greg

    Keen, Ann (Brentford & Isleworth)

    Pound, Stephen

    Kennedy, Jane (Wavertree)

    Powell, Sir Raymond

    Kidney, David

    Prentice, Ms Bridget (Lewisham E)

    Kilfoyle, Peter

    Prentice, Gordon (Pendle)

    King, Andy (Rugby & Kenilworth)

    Prescott, Rt Hon John

    Kingham, Ms Tess

    Primarolo, Dawn

    Kumar, Dr Ashok

    Prosser, Gwyn

    Ladyman, Dr Stephen

    Purchase, Ken

    Lawrence, Ms Jackie

    Quin, Ms Joyce

    Laxton, Bob

    Raynsford, Nick

    Leslie, Christopher

    Reed, Andrew (Loughborough)

    Levitt, Tom

    Reid, Dr John (Hamilton N)

    Lewis, Terry (Worsley)

    Rogers, Allan

    Liddell, Mrs Helen

    Rooker, Jeff

    Linton, Martin

    Ross, Ernie (Dundee W)

    Livingstone, Ken

    Rowlands, Ted

    Love, Andrew

    Ruddock, Ms Joan

    McAllion, John

    Russell, Ms Christine (Chester)

    McAvoy, Thomas

    Ryan, Ms Joan

    McCabe, Steve

    Salter, Martin

    McCafferty, Ms Chris

    Sarwar, Mohammad

    McCartney, Ian (Makerfield)

    Savidge, Malcolm

    McDonagh, Siobhain

    Sawford, Phil

    Macdonald, Calum

    Sedgemore, Brian

    McDonnell, John

    Shaw, Jonathan

    McFall, John

    Sheerman, Barry

    McGuire, Mrs Anne

    Sheldon, Rt Hon Robert

    McIsaac, Shona

    Simpson, Alan (Nottingham S)

    McKenna, Mrs Rosemary

    Skinner, Dennis

    McLeish, Henry

    Smith, Rt Hon Andrew (Oxford E)

    McNamara, Kevin

    Smith, Angela (Basildon)

    McNulty, Tony

    Smith, John (Glamorgan)

    Mactaggart, Fiona

    Smith, Llew (Blaenau Gwent)

    McWalter, Tony

    Soley, Clive

    McWilliam, John

    Spellar, John

    Mahon, Mrs Alice

    Squire, Ms Rachel

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    Steinberg, Gerry

    Vaz, Keith

    Stevenson, George

    Vis, Dr Rudi

    Stewart, David (Inverness E)

    Ward, Ms Claire

    Stewart, Ian (Eccles)

    Wareing, Robert N

    Stoate, Dr Howard

    White, Brian

    Straw, Rt Hon Jack

    Williams, Rt Hon Alan (Swansea W)

    Sutcliffe, Gerry

    Taylor, Rt Hon Mrs Ann (Dewsbury)

    Williams, Alan W (E Carmarthen)

    Wills, Michael

    Taylor, Ms Dari (Stockton S)

    Winnick, David

    Taylor, David (NW Leics)

    Winterton, Ms Rosie (Doncaster C)

    Temple-Morris, Peter

    Wise, Audrey

    Timms, Stephen

    Wood, Mike

    Tipping, Paddy

    Woolas, Phil

    Todd, Mark

    Worthington, Tony

    Touhig, Don

    Wright, Anthony D (Gt Yarmouth)

    Truswell, Paul

    Wyatt, Derek

    Turner, Dennis (Wolverh'ton SE)

    Turner, Dr Desmond (Kemptown)

    Tellers for the Noes:

    Twigg, Derek (Halton)

    Mr. David Clelland and Mr. Jim Dowd.

    Twigg, Stephen (Enfield)

    Question accordingly negatived.
    Question, That the proposed words be there added, put forthwith, pursuant to Standing Order No. 31 (Questions on amendments) and agreed to.
    MR. DEPUTY SPEAKER forthwith declared the main Question, as amended, to be agreed to.
    Resolved,
    That this House congratulates the Government on its commitment to promote sustainable development in all areas of the United Kingdom, including rural areas; recognises the progress which has been made on improving rural services over the last fifteen months; welcomes the creation of powerful Regional Development Agencies which will promote prosperity in both towns and countryside; welcomes the creation of a new agency to promote the interests of the countryside in England by bringing together the Countryside Commission and parts of the Rural Development Commission; recognises the Government's determination to increase the proportion of new houses built on brownfield sites; and supports the Government's desire to give greater freedom for people to explore the open countryside.

    Northern Ireland (Sentences)
    10.14
    The Secretary of State for Northern Ireland (Marjorie Mowlam): I beg to move,
    That the draft Northern Ireland (Sentences) Act 1998 (Specified Organisations) Order 1998, which was laid before this House on 28th July, be approved.
    The Good Friday agreement commits the Government to providing for an accelerated programme for the release of prisoners convicted of scheduled or similar offences. The Government introduced legislation to meet that commitment, and that legislation, the Northern Ireland (Sentences) Act 1998, received Royal Assent last night.
    The Good Friday agreement was overwhelmingly endorsed by the people of Northern Ireland, and it is our duty is to implement it as faithfully and as fully as possible. The agreement will work only if all parties honour the commitments that they have made.
    The purpose of the order is to specify organisations under section 3(8) of the Northern Ireland (Sentences) Act 1998. The order is important and forms a key part of the scheme provided for by the legislation. Under section 3 of the Act, a prisoner will not be eligible for early release if he or she supports an organisation that is specified.
    In addition, prisoners may have their licences suspended and be recalled to prison if they support an organisation, regardless of whether it was specified when they were released.
    Mr. Tam Dalyell: If my right hon. Friend has seen Mrs. McBride, ought she not also to take an early opportunity to see Mrs. Wright and Mrs. Fisher or the Scots Guards Association?
    Marjorie Mowlam: I am aware of that point. I saw the family of the man who was killed in the incident, and my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Defence saw the Scots Guards Association. In that sense, both have had their voices heard by Government. I know the interest that my hon. Friend takes in the matter, and I assure him that I am well on the way to reviewing the case, and will make an announcement as soon as possible.
    Mr. Andrew Hunter: Is it not the case that, last year, the Secretary of State informed the release committee that she felt that it was inappropriate for her to become involved in individual cases? The impression that she has given by seeing the McBride family or its representatives is that she has contradicted her stated opinion and consulted one side and not the other in a matter for which, ultimately, she has responsibility.
    Marjorie Mowlam: The situation changed when I announced that the review was on, and the parents, who were extremely upset at the possible releases, wanted to express their views to me. That does not bias me one way or the other. I discussed the matter with my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Defence, who has seen the association that is fighting the case for Mr. Fisher and Mr. Wright. I am reading the facts and making my own judgment, not talking to one side or the other in any way. I would have preferred to remain outside both, but, when the Secretary of State for Defence saw the one side,

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    and the parents were very upset, I thought that it would do no harm to hear of the pain that they felt they would continue to suffer.
    The conditions that I specified are not the only ones that a prisoner must satisfy. In addition to the requirements regarding the nature and length of the sentence, the commissioners who will make decisions under the Act must consider that the prisoner would, if released, not be likely to become a supporter of a specified organisation or become concerned in the commission, preparation or instigation of acts of terrorism concerned with the affairs of Northern Ireland.
    Dr. Norman A. Godman: Can my right hon. Friend estimate the approximate numbers of republican and loyalist prisoners who might be affected?
    Marjorie Mowlam: There are approximately four to five hundred—probably 420—scheduled offence prisoners in the Maze. Their eligibility is for the commission, under the criteria that I am outlining, to decide. I do not have in my head the numbers of loyalists or republicans. My hon. Friend will understand that the numbers depend on which groups are specified; their prisoners will not be eligible for early release, and the commission will consider each individual case and make its decision.
    Rev. Ian Paisley: I think that the Secretary of State said forty-five hundred—[HON. MEMBERS: "Four to five hundred."] I thank hon. Members.
    Marjorie Mowlam: Some reports say 400, some 500. The figure depends on the organisations that prisoners identify with, on whether they are transferred prisoners under scheduled offences, and on whether they are on remand. There are variations. I think that about 420 will in the end be eligible.
    Prisoners will not be permitted to be part of the scheme if they support a specified organisation or become involved in the commission or preparation of terrorist offences. A life sentence prisoner will not be released if he or she would be a danger to the public. The commissioners make that decision.
    Mr. David Wilshire: If a Sinn Fein-IRA murderer is released and Sinn Fein-IRA break their ceasefire, will that murderer be returned to prison?
    Marjorie Mowlam: If that individual supports Sinn Fein-IRA actively by leafleting, raising money or committing terrorist acts, yes.
    Mr. Wilshire: Will the Secretary of State give way?
    Marjorie Mowlam: No. I am sorry, but I have given way once to the hon. Gentleman. I beg the forbearance of the House to allow me to make some progress before taking further interventions.
    In deciding whether to specify an organisation, I am required to make a judgment on two matters. First, I must judge whether the organisation is concerned with terrorism connected with the affairs of Northern Ireland,
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    or in promoting or encouraging it—that is, that it is a terrorist organisation. The second matter follows directly from the words of the agreement, which states:
    "Prisoners affiliated to organisations which have not established or are not maintaining a complete and unequivocal ceasefire will not benefit from the arrangements."
    Mr. Peter Robinson: Will the right hon. Lady give way?
    Marjorie Mowlam: If the hon. Gentleman will let me make a little more progress, I shall certainly give way.
    In deciding whether an organisation has established and is maintaining a complete and unequivocal ceasefire I must in particular take into account the following factors: first, whether an organisation is committed to the use now and in future of only democratic and peaceful means to achieve its objectives; secondly, whether it has ceased to be involved in any acts of violence or preparation of violence; thirdly, whether it is directing or promoting acts of violence by other organisations; fourthly, whether it is co-operating fully with the decommissioning commission. Those factors are familiar to many hon. Members, and follow directly from the Prime Minister's speech at Balmoral on 14 May. I can, in addition, take into account other relevant factors, but, in making my overall judgment, I must take account of each of those.
    I have considered which organisations I am required to specify under the Act, and have decided to specify the Continuity Irish Republican Army, or CIRA; the "Real" Irish Republican Army; the Irish National Liberation Army, or INLA; and the Loyalist Volunteer Force, or LVF.
    Mr. Peter Robinson: Will the Secretary of State give way?
    Mr. Andrew Robathan: Will the Secretary of State give way?
    Marjorie Mowlam: I shall give way to the hon. Member for Belfast, East (Mr. Robinson) first.
    Mr. Robinson: During the referendum campaign, the Prime Minister came to Northern Ireland. He indicated that no prisoners would be released unless the organisation of which they were part had given up violence for good. Over the past few weeks, the Provisional IRA has killed one man and brutally beaten another. Why is it not on the list?
    Marjorie Mowlam: If the hon. Gentleman will allow me, I shall refer to that matter in two or three points' time, when I shall go into some detail and answer him directly. Will the hon. Member for Blaby (Mr. Robathan) wait until then as well?
    Mr. Robathan indicated assent.
    Marjorie Mowlam: Good.
    Prisoners who support the organisations that I have specified will not be eligible for early release. I have reached those decisions on the basis of security assessments and following consideration of advice from the RUC; but, in the end, the judgment is mine.

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    I should like to say a little about my decision in each case as to whether or not an organisation has been specified. The Continuity IRA has been involved in acts of terrorism since 1994, and there are no indications that either CIRA or its political wing, Republican Sinn Fein, has any intention of abandoning violence as a means of pursuing its political objectives. I have therefore specified the Continuity IRA.
    The Real IRA has carried out a number of attacks so far this year, which have included car bombings and mortar attacks. There are no indications that the Real IRA intends to call a ceasefire, and I have therefore specified that organisation.
    The Irish National Liberation Army is a more established organisation, having been in existence since 1975. At no time since then has it declared a ceasefire. It has been responsible for many appalling attacks, and there are no indications that the INLA is yet ready to declare a ceasefire. Its political wing, the Irish Republican Socialist party, has spoken of the possibility of a ceasefire, but there are no indications yet that there is a serious prospect of that being delivered. I have therefore specified the INLA.
    The Loyalist Volunteer Force or LVF has been responsible for many murders. In May this year, the LVF declared a ceasefire—a welcome step. It has also named a contact person with the decommissioning body, and meetings have taken place. However, a ceasefire must be demonstrated in acts as well as words. I hope that that will be the case—[HON. MEMBERS: "Oh!"]—but I have yet to be convinced that the LVF ceasefire is complete and unequivocal; therefore, I have specified the LVF.
    The three other organisations that I have decided not to specify in this order are the Provisional IRA, the Ulster Defence Association and the Ulster Volunteer Force. In each case, the advice I have received does show that there have been serious deficiencies. In particular, although all three organizations—or in the case of the Provisional IRA and the UDA, the political party with which they are associated—have had discussions with the decommissioning body, there has been much less progress than I would wish to see.
    I take that extremely seriously, and will expect to see the progress on decommissioning that is envisaged in the Good Friday agreement. However, viewing the matter in the round, as I am required to do by the Act, I have concluded that all three of those organisations are maintaining complete and unequivocal ceasefires.
    Mr. Robathan: As always, the right hon. Lady is generous in giving way. Will she tell the House whether she has received information, intelligence or advice from the RUC to the effect that Direct Action Against Drugs is a front organisation for the Provisional IRA; and whether she has received information that Direct Action Against Drugs has carried out several punishment beatings and probably one murder? If she has not received such advice, will she go and walk the streets of west Belfast, where everyone will tell her that Direct Action Against Drugs is the same as the Provisional IRA, and is carrying out so-called punishment beatings and brutal acts of terrorism?
    Marjorie Mowlam: I shall turn to punishment beatings in a moment, when I shall respond to the hon.
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    Gentleman's point. There have been 960 punishment beatings by both sides since the first ceasefire. I have made it clear that I think that punishment beatings are appalling—[interruption.]
    Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Michael J. Martin): Order. I do not want hon. Members to speak while the right hon. Lady is addressing the House. That is unfair.
    Marjorie Mowlam: My point is that the previous Administration realised that these are difficult matters. I have made it clear that punishment beatings have to stop. I shall explain later how I view that matter in the context of the judgment that I have had to make. That judgment has not been easy. I had to judge in the round, according to the four criteria, whether all four organisations should be specified. I shall explain in more detail why that is the case. I have taken the matter extremely seriously, and expect to see progress on decommissioning and other aspects very soon.
    Having viewed the matter in the round, as the Good Friday agreement says I should, I have concluded that the three organisations that I have not specified are committed to maintaining a complete and unequivocal ceasefire. I have taken into account the four factors. I know that certain hon. Members are dissatisfied with my conclusion, but it was far from an easy judgment. It was inevitably a balanced judgment, in which any specific failure by an organisation has to be weighed alongside all the other available information, and that is what I have done.
    There are organisations, particularly the Loyalist Volunteer Force, that have yet to establish a complete and unequivocal ceasefire, but appear to be moving in the right direction. I hope that those organisations will now embrace the democratic process that has been endorsed by the vast majority of people in Northern Ireland. If they establish and maintain complete and unequivocal ceasefires, I will reassess their position. The process will be under continuous review, so other organisations, such as PIRA, the UDA and the UDF, which have established such a ceasefire, will have to continue to demonstrate that they are maintaining it to avoid being specified in future. That is the crucial test.
    Mr. Wilshire: The right hon. Lady speaks of an unequivocal ceasefire. Will she explain how many murders and punishment beatings an organisation is allowed to perform before a ceasefire stops being a proper ceasefire?
    Marjorie Mowlam: I have, I hope, made it clear to the House what the agreement asks me to do, including informing the House, as I am doing this evening. The agreement requires me to consider whether organisations are completely and unequivocally maintaining a ceasefire. There are four criteria by which I judge that.
    I have to make a judgment in the round, so, in answer to the hon. Gentleman, I cannot respond to hypothetical cases. I will make that judgment when I am given facts. That is the job I have been given, and I am making that announcement in line with the criteria and the information with which I have been provided. Clearly, the hon. Gentleman does not agree with my judgment. I have information that I have presented to the House, and I have other information that it is difficult to present to the House. I assure him that the judgment was difficult, but I have made it as fairly and justly as possible.

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    The process will be under continuous review, so it will be possible for groups to be specified and then removed from the list if the position changes. I shall monitor it carefully. I point out, to try to allay some of the fears of the hon. Member for Spelthorne (Mr. Wilshire), that the judgment will become more stringent over time, as the Prime Minister said when he announced the criteria, both for specified and unspecified organisations.
    The judgment will become more stringent in relation to progress made elsewhere. For example, people do not expect the dismantling of paramilitary organisations overnight, but dismantling must increase over time. Similarly, there should be progress on decommissioning over time. As I have said many times in the House, all forms of sectarian intimidation and so-called punishment attacks must end.
    I should like to say some more about that, in answer to the hon. Member for Blaby. Since the first IRA ceasefire was announced, in September 1994, there has been an appalling catalogue of punishment attacks—committed by both loyalist and republican groups. In each case, the RUC has done all it can to find those responsible.
    Despite the Good Friday agreement, those attacks have continued. As the RUC Chief Constable, Ronnie Flanagan, has said, members of both republican and loyalist organisations have been involved in violent criminal acts in recent weeks, which the hon. Gentleman listed. In particular, the RUC has said that it is pursuing a line of inquiry that assumes that the recent brutal murder of Andrew Kearney was committed by the Provisional IRA.
    This pattern of brutal punishment attacks is wholly unacceptable. It must come to an end. Paramilitary organisations have shown their ability to stop those activities in the past. Now they must stop them for good. As I have said, the judgments that I have made today will be kept under continuous review, and will become more and more stringent over time.
    Mr. Dominic Grieve: During the run-up to the Good Friday agreement, there was a period when the Provisional IRA was effectively excluded because of the Chief Constable's judgment and opinion that it was behind the commission of certain acts of terrorism. The right hon. Lady has now told the House that it is the Chief Constable's opinion that at least one recent act is also the responsibility of the Provisional IRA. In those circumstances, how can we justify not placing the Provisional IRA on the list?
    Marjorie Mowlam: I chose my words very carefully. I said:
    "In particular, the RUC has said that it is pursuing a line of inquiry that assumes that the recent brutal murder of Andrew Kearney was committed by the Provisional IRA."
    I shall keep the situation under continuous review and, if the situation changes, I shall look at it again. I judge the situation now—and I can judge over time—in relation to the four Balmoral criteria, as to whether, in my judgment, groups are maintaining an unequivocal ceasefire.
    I consider the early release of prisoners an essential part of the Good Friday agreement, but it has to be matched alongside others. As we have said so often in the House, the agreement cannot be cherry-picked; it is an overall package, which I believe must be implemented in full.
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    I hope that we stick to that. We have all made solemn commitments to try to reach that goal. The future of the success of the agreement depends on it. I commend the order to the House.
    10.36 pm
    Mr. Andrew MacKay: This is a very sad day for the House of Commons, a sad day for democracy and a sad day for the rule of law in the United Kingdom. I regret to say that our worst fears about the Northern Ireland (Sentences) Bill—now enacted—are being confirmed.
    You will recall, Mr. Deputy Speaker, that I described the Bill as fatally flawed when, sadly, the Government and the Secretary of State felt unable to accept an amendment in my name and those of my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition and the right hon. Member for Upper Bann (Mr. Trimble)—now First Minister in the Assembly. That amendment would have said that any paramilitary organisation had to prove that it had renounced violence in all shapes and forms, and was co-operating with the decommissioning commission.
    Instead, clause 2(9) of the Bill says that the Secretary of State merely has to take into account—and tonight the Secretary of State has let the House know that she has taken into account—a series of criteria. One of those criteria is that the organisation is
    "committed to the use now and in the future of only democratic and peaceful means to achieve its objectives".
    Another is that the organisation has
    "ceased to be involved in any acts of violence or of preparation for violence".
    I am grateful to the Secretary of State for being so frank and honest with the House; I know that the House will appreciate that. She has said that acts of violence are still being committed; she described them as wholly unacceptable. She was absolutely right, as every Member of the House would confirm. She has said that there are very serious deficiencies in so-called ceasefires. I agree with that, as would the entire House, and yet, when we read in the order the specified organisations that are listed as continuing to commit crimes of violence, we find that the Provisional IRA, the Ulster Volunteer Force and the Ulster Defence Association are excluded.
    You will recall, Mr. Deputy Speaker, that, since the Assembly elections, there have been a series of punishment beatings and worse. I draw two of those to your attention tonight. I drew them to the attention of the House last week when the Northern Ireland Bill was proceeding through this place. First, there is the case of Mr. Andrew Kearney, who was dragged from his flat, knee-capped in a lift and left to die, which he subsequently did. That is believed to be the work of the IRA. Secondly, there is the case of the beating of Vincent McKenna, who was a peace worker in Belfast. He clearly recognised his assailants as being members of Provisional IRA.
    In the debate on the Bill, my hon. Friend the Member for Blaby (Mr. Robathan) intervened on the Secretary of State and rightly raised the question of punishment beatings. In her reply she said:
    "It is clear that I will make a judgment on the four factors, in which are included punishment beatings and the instigation of paramilitary activity. That is one of the factors that, in the round, will be part of that judgment."

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    The rest of the quote is important. The Secretary of State continued:
    "Like the hon. Gentleman, I find punishment beatings obscene."—[Official Report, 10 June 1998; Vol. 313, c. 1084.]
    There is absolutely no doubt that the Secretary of State and I share that view. In criticising her, I never question the fact that she finds as deplorable as the rest of the House the punishment beatings that are conducted by the Provisional IRA and loyalist paramilitary groups. Although it is known that that is happening, they have been excluded from the list.
    I shall quote from The Irish Times, a newspaper which is usually considered to be a fair and reasonable commentary on events in Northern Ireland. An article on the front page of last Saturday's edition states:
    "In a statement released yesterday, the RUC said: 'Detectives investigating the murder of Mr Kearney are pursuing a line of inquiry that suggests it was carried out by the Provisional IRA.'
    According to republican sources in north Belfast, it appears that Mr Kearney was killed at the behest of a senior IRA figure from Belfast. It is known Mr Kearney was in a brawl with the IRA man, who was linked to the Shankill Road bombing in October 1993 when 10 people were killed.
    Eight IRA men went to Mr Keamey's flat in the New Lodge area last Sunday and took over the entire block in what the Ulster Unionist negotiator, Mr Reg Empey, described as a 'military-style' operation.
    Mr Kearney (33) was cradling his two-week-old baby girl in the flat when an armed gang dragged him out and flung him into a lift before shooting him in both legs. Mr Kearney bled to death."
    That is the work of the Provisional IRA, and those people are not on the list tonight. Therefore, Provisional IRA prisoners will be allowed early release while the House is in recess, if the order is passed.
    Rev. Martin Smyth: I appreciate the right hon. Gentleman's giving way. Does he accept that the mythology is a misunderstanding of the workings of Provisional IRA? The security advice now to the Minister, as I understand it, is that it has not been centrally directed, and that it has been working on the basis of closed cells doing their own work.
    Mr. MacKay: The hon. Gentleman makes an important point, which is underlined by the Chief Constable, who said in a BBC interview two days ago, on 27 July, referring to the Provisional IRA, the Ulster Defence Association and the Ulster Volunteer Force:
    "If they think because their definition of a cessation of violence is a cessation of military operations they must be disabused of any notion that any other acts of criminality are any more acceptable."
    That is the point.
    What worries us is that because the Provisional IRA and the two loyalist paramilitary groups have caused a so-called military ceasefire, so that military and police targets and major so-called spectaculars on shopping precincts and elsewhere are not going on, it is thought by some that there is a complete and absolute ceasefire. There is not.
    Life is still hell for many ordinary, decent people on many estates in the Province because paramilitaries are dominating the estates. Punishment beatings and intimidation are taking place. We owe it to ordinary,
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    decent people to make sure that that activity ceases. The one way in which it can cease is if prisoners are not released unless the punishment beatings end. The message tonight, if we pass the order, will simply be that the punishment beatings can continue and the prisoners can be released. The people whom the House will be letting down are those who cannot speak for themselves on the estates. They are largely unemployed or on low incomes, and are not necessarily as articulate as we are. It is the duty of the Opposition to protect these people.
    I do not ask the Secretary of State or other Labour Members merely to accept my view. I shall refer to a press release that was issued today by Families Against Intimidation and Terror, an outstandingly brave cross-community organisation which has done much to help in the Province. The press release states:
    "The Good Friday Agreement states that these organisations"—
    the IRA, UVF and UDA—
    "can only qualify for early prisoner release if their cease-fires are intact. Since the agreement was signed, the IRA, UVF and UDA have all been engaged in acts of violence and have repeatedly breached their cease-fires. Are the Government really accepting a definition of a paramilitary cease-fire which allows paramilitary groups to beat, shoot and intimidate people? What sort of cease-fire is that? We do not believe that these organisations can in any way qualify for this scheme."
    The press release continues:
    "Many victims of the paramilitaries had problems with this section of the Agreement that related to the early release of prisoners, but nevertheless voted for the Agreement because they believed that it would stop the violence and create no more victims. With the death of Mr. Kearney, the beating of Vincent McKenna, the shootings at Derry and last night's shooting of a man in Newtownabbey, no one could possibly claim that the paramilitaries have ended violence."
    Families Against Intimidation and Terror concludes its powerful press release with this plea:
    "We continue to support the Agreement"—
    as we do on the Opposition Benches—
    "but we are saddened that the Government have dangerously compromised it with turning a blind eye to paramilitary violence."
    Mr. David Winnick: We all condemn the terrible crimes to which the right hon. Gentleman has referred. No one in the House, for one moment, would try to justify them; obviously these are crimes that must always be condemned. However, when the previous ceasefire took place, which the IRA was to break—I am referring to 1995–96—the front organisation of the IRA, Direct Action Against Drugs, murdered quite a number of people. The then Secretary of State, now Lord Mayhew of Twysden, said to the House that the ceasefire was continuing, despite the crimes that were being committed by an IRA front organisation. The present situation is nothing new; it is a question of balance and what sort of conclusion should be reached by the Secretary or State in any given situation—[Interruption.] I do not know what the hon. Member for North—East Cambridgeshire (Mr. Moss) is heckling about.
    Mr. MacKay: Let me answer the hon. Gentleman clearly and precisely. It was clearly outlined in the agreement that the violence had to cease. We thought that that was outlined in the Bill, but not strongly enough.

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    That is why we sought to amend it. We were right to do so in the light of what has happened tonight. Let me say in answering the question—
    Mr. Stephen Hesford: Yes, answer it.
    Mr. MacKay: Yes, I would like to, if the hon. Gentleman would care to allow me to do so. The hon. Member for Walsall, North (Mr. Winnick) has great experience of these matters and I think that he would like to hear my answer.
    The answer to the hon. Gentleman's question is clearly this: it was a tough and difficult decision that my Government, and, in turn, the present Government, took about whether they would continue with the talks, when there were clearly punishment beatings taking place. On balance—it was a hard call, but it was probably the right one by both Governments—it was decided that the talks would continue.
    We are now in an entirely different situation. We are asking whether the prisoners should be released, because we have the unique opportunity to stop punishment beatings and intimidation straight away by saying that the organisations' friends and colleagues will not be released. The beatings would stop and, in due course, organisations could be removed from the list and the prisoners could be released.
    I do not think that the hon. Member for Walsall, North has any doubts that this is a unique opportunity, because he is very experienced in matters relating to Northern Ireland. If he does, let me take him back to the Assembly elections. In a speech from the Back Benches that was so powerful that she has, I am glad to say, been appointed a Home Office Minister, the hon. Member for Vauxhall (Kate Hoey), whom we congratulate on her appointment, said that IRA-Sinn Fein could turn the tap of violence on and off at will.
    Throughout the three weeks of the Assembly elections, there were no knee-cappings or punishment beatings; the people who carry them out were told to cease, because that was in the electoral interests of Sinn Fein-IRA. We know that such a ceasefire could happen again, but I deeply believe that it will not happen if the prisoners whom we are discussing are released. The two issues are inextricably linked.
    I am pleased that the Secretary of State has again made it clear that she has complete flexibility in these matters. One of the more attractive parts of the Northern Ireland (Sentences) Bill is that paramilitary organisations can be added to the list, or taken off it, at short notice. That flexibility is essential. It is in the interests of the House to add the UDA, the UVF and PIRA to the list, because I believe that that would halt punishment beatings. Should that happen, I would welcome the Secretary of State removing their names from the list after a reasonable period so that prisoners could be released.
    On Friday, the House goes into recess until the middle of October, so I should like an undertaking that no terrorist prisoner will be released during that time if beatings are still going on. Perhaps I have misinterpreted the Bill and the order, but my interpretation is that excluding those organisations from the list would mean that any prisoner who applied who was otherwise eligible because of time served could be released during the recess. Punishment beatings could be going on in one part
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    of Belfast while paramilitary prisoners were being released down the road at the Maze. That would be horrendous. It would also be would be wrong, it could be damaging to the agreement and it would not be in the interests of democracy.
    Marjorie Mowlam: We should listen carefully to the right hon. Gentleman. All that he is doing is making a different judgment from mine about how to move forward. It is a matter of putting groups on the list or removing them. He suggests that adding organisations to the list would stop punishment beatings, but we do not know that to be the case and I cannot play that kind of game. I have to make a decision on the basis of the available information, which is what I am doing. This is not an easy situation, but I have made a judgment on the balance of the information that I have been given. I have made that overall judgment in relation to all the information that I have.
    When we were in opposition, I had to trust my predecessor when he had more information than I had. I did so, and I gave him that trust. When Lord Mayhew was in that position, I backed him—regardless of not having all the information. I am making this judgment on the basis of the information that I have, and I can assure the right hon. Gentleman that it is important to stick by the Good Friday agreement.
    The right hon. Gentleman said that I could not do anything during the summer if there was continuous review. Well, I can. I can continuously review and decide to specify or unspecify, and then come back to the House after the recess to debate the order. It does not tie my hands in the way that the he suggests.
    Mr. MacKay: May we assume that, if the people who have been arrested are subsequently charged for the murder of Kearney and are found to be members of the Provisional IRA, their organisation will be added to the list while we are in recess?
    Marjorie Mowlam: The right hon. Gentleman is asking me to do exactly what other hon. Members asked me to do. I have said that punishment beatings must stop, and that I will make a judgment as the situation develops. I cannot give him a categorical assurance, because it is my job to consider all four criteria in relation to the Balmoral statement, and to make a judgment on whether the ceasefire is being maintained unequivocally. I cannot make an ad hoc decision now, but I assure the House that I will make it during the summer if it is demanded on the basis of the information with which I am provided.
    Mr. MacKay: All the available evidence shows that punishment beatings, murders and knee-capping are continuing. They are being committed by PIRA, the UVF and the UDA. In such circumstances, it is wrong that those organisations are not on the list, and that it is perfectly possible for their prisoners to be released while the House is in recess. We believe that that is wrong, so, in the interests of the ordinary, decent people across the Province who are being petrified, I urge the House to vote against the order.
    10.57 pm
    Mr. Tam Dalyell: I speak in anger, and I expect that the Secretary of State will doubtless reply in kind. I do not know how many hon. Members have read

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    the transcript of the trial of Guardsmen Fisher and Wright. That trial was a travesty. For example, the judge came to the conclusion that those two young guardsmen could not have thought that they were in any danger. Did he not understand that their colleague, Guardsman Shackleton, had been killed on the very same streets of New Lodge only weeks before? That is just one example, but there are others.
    I must not take up the time of the House, but I must tell my right hon. Friend that, for months, we have been told by Secretaries of State for Defence from both sides of the House that this is the business of the Northern Ireland Office. The truth of the matter is that the Ministry of Defence has behaved badly these six years, but that is by the by. It has repeatedly told us, "You must go to the Northern Ireland Office. This matter has little to do with us. We may be sympathetic, but it is up to the Northern Ireland Office."
    The fact of the matter is that, if my right hon. Friend, for perfectly humane reasons which I understand, sees Mrs. McBride, she is under a moral obligation to see Mrs. Fisher and Mrs. Wright and the Scots Guards Association. I beg her to do so.
    10.58 pm
    Rev. Ian Paisley: This is a very sad night for Northern Ireland. Those on both sides who have committed atrocious acts of murder and atrocious terrorist acts will be let loose on the community. During the Secretary of State's speech, there was an argument about whether organisations such as the IRA should have come into the talks. There is a great difference between talking to people and letting prisoners out. Let us not introduce that red herring across the Floor of the House on this issue. There is no comparison between the two. We know what happened in the talks. Those organisations were to come into the talks on certain conditions, but two of the parties to the talks did not keep to them. It was interesting to notice that, when the Secretary of State was considering the matter, the IRA could switch off the violence. While she was making the assessment, there was no violence, but, afterwards, the violence continued.
    I have in my hand tonight the speech made at Balmoral by the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. He said:
    "People want to know that if these parties are going to benefit from proposals in the Agreement such as accelerated prisoner releases and Ministerial posts, their commitment to democratic non-violent means must be established, in an objective, meaningful and verifiable way."
    When has the IRA met that condition? Is the murder of Mr. Kearney a verifiable way to tell the world that it has given up its violence? Do the shootings that took place in Londonderry from the other side verify anything? They tell the world that those people are still linked to violence. They are still carrying out violent acts. I heard it argued that, as punishment beatings had been carried out with batons and sticks, and, thank God, no guns were used, the ceasefire still held. Guns now have been used, so there is not a ceasefire—there is no complete ceasefire and no unequivocal ceasefire. Yet the Government go on with their plan to release those prisoners.
    What is more, the Prime Minister made it clear that there can be no fudge between democracy and terror; the agreement has to be implemented in all its parts.
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    The agreement has not been implemented in all its parts. We find tonight that the Government are prepared to fly in the face of what is happening and let those prisoners out.
    The Prime Minister, in clarifying whether the terms and spirit of the agreement were being met and whether violence has genuinely been given up for good, said:
    "there are a range of factors to take into account".
    What are they? He went on:
    "first and foremost, a clear and unequivocal commitment that there is an end to violence for good on the part of republicans and loyalists alike".
    Have we had that? Have we seen that? Have we heard the IRA leaders yet confirming that? I have heard that the IRA leadership was perfectly happy about its meeting with the Secretary of State, and happy that its prisoners would all get out, but there has been no keeping of the agreement.
    What is more, the Prime Minister said that we must be sure
    "that the so-called war is finished … gone".
    Go and tell the people in sorrow in Belfast tonight about what has happened in these past few weeks, and they will tell you that the sorrow has not gone. Evidence about that has been read from the Front Bench tonight. The Prime Minister expressly said:
    "the ceasefires are indeed complete and unequivocal: an end to bombings, killings and beatings".
    The Secretary of State gave us a list of what is happening. On the basis of the list that she mentioned, she should be saying to the House, "We cannot go ahead with releasing anybody until such time as the terms have been kept and have been seen to be kept, and they have not been kept."
    In an aside, I might say that I do not think that the Scottish guardsmen should be treated in the way that they have been treated. We should not be talking about a law to release terrorists in the same breath as we talk about men who did not go out to kill. They were only young men doing their duty. They may or may not have failed in certain parts of their duty, but they are in no way on a par with what we are dealing with here tonight. I say that with all the strength that I can.
    People in Northern Ireland are worried, because those who are coming out of prison are experts. They know how to make and use mortar bombs, and they know how to carry out desperate deeds of violence. The question for the House tonight is simple: can we afford to release such men into the Northern Ireland community? I say that we cannot afford to release them on to the streets of Belfast, or the streets of any town or village in Ulster. They should be kept behind bars until their organisations meet the criteria set for them by the Prime Minister.
    We hear much talk about what was voted for in the referendum. What the people voted for was what the Prime Minister said, and that has not been kept to. The Secretary of State has given us evidence of beatings and killings, and of the association of these people with those beatings and killings. On that basis, she should say, "I am sorry, but I must tell them that they have not met the criteria that we have set and, until those criteria are met, it will be dangerous to let those people out on to the streets."
    The Secretary of State was asked whether, if a prisoner who belonged to a certain organisation was released from prison and that organisation returned to violence,

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    the prisoner would be recalled. The Secretary of State said that would happen only if the prisoner were no longer associated with the organisation—but he would have been released from prison precisely because of such an association. He would have no credentials for release apart from his membership of the organisation. Does the Secretary of State think that he would cease to be a member of it after his release, or that the IRA would be stupid enough to let him be released in such circumstances? It will have a tight control on every one of its members who is released from prison.
    I say that if an organisation reverts to violence, all its freed members should be put back in prison. That is the way in which the system should work if we are to secure peace in Northern Ireland.
    From the beginning, those of us who represent constituencies in Northern Ireland have told the House what has been repeated here tonight. We have not been heated, but I say now that we shall see greater acts of violence if this continues. The people will say, "We could get our prisoners out anyway. We do not need to worry." But we have a great deterrent. The greatest deterrent that the Government can offer is to say to the IRA and other groups, "Unless you meet the criteria, your prisoners will not be released." That would show us their attitude, and that is what the Secretary of State should do: she should use that as a deterrent to stop the violence in our country.
    11.8 pm
    Mr. Kevin McNamara: I was enthralled by the rigorous defence of the Belfast agreement that we heard from the hon. Member for North Antrim (Rev. Ian Paisley). I never knew that we had such a firm defender of the agreement and the principles contained in it, and I welcome the fact that he has joined its supporters. Indeed, we should all welcome his raising of the very issues raised by the Prime Minister as being part and parcel of the agreement, and his demonstration of support for every issue in it when lesser mortals might have fallen by the wayside.
    As I listened to the right hon. Member for Bracknell (Mr. MacKay), I wondered whether he was the same person who spoke on behalf of his party in the autumn of 1995 when the previous Government introduced the Bill that was to become the Northern Ireland (Remission of Sentences) Act 1995. Colleagues may recall that that was during a ceasefire when, although punishment beatings and other evil and dastardly acts were going on, prisoners were being regularly released under the terms of legislation that was presented by the then Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, now Lord Mayhew. What is the difference between what was happening then and what is happening now, apart from the more rigorous conditions that the Government are imposing on the releases? My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State spoke about that.
    The right hon. Member for Bracknell was right when he said that such matters must pose difficult problems for the Secretary of State, as they did for Lord Mayhew. Decisions about releases and attempts to form an overall view of the situation cannot be easy. Such matters must be given the same consideration and accorded the same weight, and the understanding of my right hon. Friend's judgment must be the same, as that which was given when we were in opposition when the then Secretary of State,
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    in exactly the same situation, introduced the Bill that was to become the Northern Ireland (Remission of Sentences) Act. That is the least that we should be entitled to expect from the right hon. Member and his right hon. and hon Friends.
    Mr. MacKay: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
    Mr. McNamara: Perhaps I may be allowed to finish this point. On second thoughts, I shall give way now and return to my speech.
    Mr. MacKay: The hon. Gentleman was shadow Secretary of State for Northern Ireland. He says that the bipartisan policy should be total and that the Opposition should always offer a blank cheque. Why, year after year, did he fail to support the renewal of prevention of terrorism orders? On some occasions, he led his Opposition colleagues into the No Lobby. Does not that make his assertions somewhat flimsy, to say the least?
    Mr. McNamara: Far from it. We are not comparing like with like. We are debating the wisdom or otherwise of releasing prisoners, something which happened under the Northern Ireland (Remission of Sentences) Act and is likely to happen under the current legislation. While internment, which was the biggest recruiting sergeant that the Provisional IRA ever had, was still on the statute book, it was my duty to try to alter the Government's attitude and to tell my colleagues that we had to do it. If we had time, I could go through the other blunders that were committed by the previous Government and that helped IRA recruitment. Bloody Sunday is one that immediately springs to mind, and there were others.
    When I listen to Opposition Members, I sometimes feel that perhaps they do not want the Belfast agreement to succeed. I also sometimes think that they are striking poses in relation to that agreement because, if their proposals were carried through, the whole edifice would fall. I understand that from the dissident Unionists, from the Democratic Unionist party and from the United Kingdom Unionist party, but the attitude that has been taken by Her Majesty's Opposition on this matter seems specifically designed to weaken the whole of the Belfast agreement and to bring it down. [Interruption.] The right hon. Member for Bracknell is sitting there with a sneer on his face and muttering away. I shall give way to him if he wants to say his piece. I see. From the comfort of a sedentary position, the Opposition spokesman on Northern Ireland can twitter away but, when challenged, he is not prepared to say anything.
    I come back to the point that I started on. My right hon. Friend has had to take an important decision. It deserves the support of the whole House. It cannot have been easy for her, but the success of the Belfast agreement depends on that decision's success and on her judgment of those matters, as do so many other things.
    11.15 pm
    Mr. Lembit Öpik: Before us is a list of the four organisations that have yet to abandon violence; I think that we can all agree on that point. I use the word "yet" because I am basically an optimist and I sincerely hope that, in the months to come, they may conceivably give up violence, with the other

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    organisations, and wake up to the political realities of the 1990s. Evidence is abundant that the one way to make progress in Northern Ireland is to participate peacefully in the conduct of Northern Irish politics.
    We can all agree that those who still seek to promote themselves through violence should not benefit from the peace. Again, I do not imagine that there is a single person in the Chamber who would question that point, or the fact that, if they do not accept the agreement, the agreement cannot accept them. However, I am confident that the list that has been drawn up by the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland was based on comprehensive advice from the general officer commanding and the Chief Constable of the Royal Ulster Constabulary.
    I am also confident that the Secretary of State's view is that the right organisations have been included and the right organisations excluded. In simple terms, it is a rather poor demonstration of bad faith for anyone in this Chamber to question the idea that the Secretary of State has sincerely attempted to make the best decision that she possibly can with the information that she has at her disposal.
    Let us not pretend that we all have the same quality of information before us. The Secretary of State, by the very nature of her job, has access to more insightful and more detailed information than others. [Interruption.] I hear a Conservative Member say that that is absurd.
    Mr. John Bercow: I said "subservient."
    Mr. Öpik: I am confused. I give way so that the hon. Gentleman can perhaps explain what he means.
    Mr. Bercow: I simply said that the hon. Gentleman was guilty of subservience. I certainly did not suggest that he was in any way suggesting that our position was that the Government's attitude was absurd. I said that his position towards the Government was subservient.
    Mr. Öpik rose—
    Mr. Deputy Speaker (Sir Alan Haselhurst): Order. We have a very limited amount of time for an extremely serious debate. Sedentary comments, whether from the Front or Back Benches, do not help.
    Mr. Öpik: Thank you, Mr. Deputy Speaker. It is appalling that any Opposition Member should imply that any one of us is here to be subservient to the Government. I grew up in Northern Ireland and one reason why I feel so strongly about this is that it affects the lives of individuals with whom I grew up. I sincerely hope that, by helping to try to make the right decision tonight, I might make the life of those people a little better. I hope that the hon. Gentleman will have the good grace to accept that view.
    Mr. Peter Robinson: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
    Mr. Öpik: I give way for the last time and then I must go through my speech very quickly because I know that other hon. Members wish to speak.
    Mr. Robinson: Has the hon. Gentleman been in contact with his sister party in Northern Ireland,
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    the Alliance party? Has he spoken to Glyn Roberts, a representative of Families Against Intimidation and Terror, who takes an entirely different view from his own? Is there a split?
    Mr. Öpik: I do not know whether it is relevant to the debate, but let me assure the hon. Gentleman that I am speaking on behalf of the Liberal Democrats tonight. I certainly encourage him to speak to any parties with whom he wishes to speak if he wants their views. I must now make progress and, for the sake of time, I shall take no more interventions.
    I want to make two brief points—one about the LVF and the other about the UVF. First, will the Secretary of State confirm that, in her view, the less than whole-hearted declaration from the LVF that accompanied the ceasefire is the key reason why that organisation has been specified; and that if its representatives can reassure us that they are no longer willing to engage in acts of terrorism or violence, they can benefit from the order? Secondly, I would welcome clarification that the Secretary of State regards the UVF as having the potential to benefit from the order as long as its representatives continue to show a genuine commitment to the ceasefire; more to the point, if evidence comes forward that they are not adhering to it, they can, I trust, be easily specified and will not benefit from the order. In essence, it works both ways. If I understand the order correctly, it is not a one-way ticket for organisations to enjoy prisoner release and then return to acts of violence and terrorism.
    I have had discussions with others outside the Chamber and I recognise that it would be difficult—in some cases almost impossible—to re-imprison anyone. Nevertheless, we must acknowledge that this is a two-way process and that the mechanism exists to withdraw the privilege afforded by the order.
    It appears that the official Opposition are entering the debate in rather bad faith. I say that as they have gone beyond questioning the outcome of the assessment made by the Secretary of State and may be suggesting some other motive. I am disappointed by that. Obviously, hon. Members are entitled to differ with the Secretary of State's view, but we should all assume that the Secretary of State and the Government are acting in good faith. I always made that assumption in respect of the previous Government.
    Mr. MacKay: As I am the only hon. Member who has spoken for the official Opposition, will the hon. Gentleman say at what point in my speech I questioned the Government's good faith? I am disagreeing with the Secretary of State on a matter of judgment, nothing else. It is uncharacteristically unfair of the hon. Gentleman to misinterpret me.
    Mr. Deputy Speaker: The right hon. Gentleman is not conducting a conversation with the hon. Member for Montgomeryshire (Mr. Öpik). He should be addressing the Chair.
    Mr. Öpik: The right hon. Gentleman has made a reasonable request. I am not casting aspersions on his position, but I was unhappy with a specific phrase that he used. He began his speech by saying that this is a very

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    sad day for this House and for democracy. If he is merely questioning the judgment of the Secretary of State, why is it a sad day for democracy? Ultimately, the judgment may be wrong in his view, but it does not entitle him to imply a failure of democracy in the House.
    I am in danger of straying far from my purpose tonight. I hope that the right hon. Gentleman is assured of my good will towards him as an individual. I am just concerned that he is mixing up his views on democracy with questions about the judgment of the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland.
    Let me move on to a point on which I agree with the right hon. Gentleman. The punishment beatings must stop. If they do not, it behoves the Secretary of State to reconsider whether some organisations currently excluded from the list should be included. I wholeheartedly agree with the right hon. Member for Bracknell (Mr. MacKay) on that point.
    Nevertheless, step by step, yard by yard, we must find ways of making progress. We will have to take some risks as we move forward. Is this order a risk? Yes, it is a risk; but which is the bigger risk: not proceeding in the spirit of the agreement or taking the risk of approving the order? Let us not pretend that there would be no opportunity cost if we voted down the order; of course there would be. Many would feel that we had acted in bad faith with regard to the Good Friday agreement.
    Mr. Grieve: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
    Mr. Öpik: I do not have the time to do so. I have nearly come to the end of my comments. Perhaps the hon. Gentleman will attempt to catch your eye, Mr. Deputy Speaker.
    It is not only a question of the risk. In the real world, we are dealing with people's lives. There is a risk of harming the democratic peace process if we do not act responsibly and attribute good faith to the very people whom we need to convince to stay in the political process.
    Mr. Roy Beggs: Will the hon. Member give way?
    Mr. Öpik: I am sorry; I feel that I cannot do so.
    The public will take a very dim view if political cynicism is allowed to take over from the profound need to drive this matter forward. The public are also desperately in need of seeing us act in a non-partisan, non-party political way in the interests of the people of Northern Ireland. I personally feel that, given the necessarily limited evidence and the Secretary of State's assurances, the best way forward is to take the risk of agreeing to the order.
    Mr. William Cash: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
    Mr. Öpik: I will not give way.
    Several hon. Members rose—
    Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. It is quite clear that the hon. Member is not giving way.
    Mr. Öpik: I appeal to the official Opposition to think again about their pessimism concerning the order. I appeal
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    to all hon. Members to think very hard before they consider voting against the order. Tonight is a sad night only if we make it so. It is only a divisive night if we choose to obscure the issue before us with other considerations. It is a night for sombre reflection, judgment and the courage to see beyond our personal party political views toward the interests of the people of Northern Ireland. Above all, it is a night to remember that, if we fail to create the circumstances for peace, we will also be guilty of obstructing the process.
    To break with the past is to take a risk. The Liberal Democrats feel that that risk is worth taking. In supporting the Secretary of State's decision, we hope with all our hearts that she is right. Let us not pretend that anything besides history will prove us either right or wrong.
    11.27 pm
    Dr. Norman A. Godman: Down the years, I have had a thoroughgoing detestation for the activities of the so-called volunteers of the Provisional IRA. I think that Opposition Members would confirm that they have heard me say that I regard as absurd and obscene the Provisional IRA's claim to be conducting a military campaign in a mature parliamentary democracy.
    I know that we Scots Members of Parliament have largely been immune from such activities, even though we have young constituents in Northern Ireland. Indeed, I recently met members of the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders. Across that narrow stretch of water that divides the west of Scotland from Northern Ireland, members of families in my constituency have suffered death and injury. However, for some curious Celtic reason, the Provisional IRA took the decision not too extend their so-called military campaign to Scotland. There have been one or two incidents, and we have had lots of incidents of Protestant or loyalist extremists running guns and explosives across to Northern Ireland, as every hon. Member from Northern Ireland knows. Some of those extremists are still—rightly and properly—serving time in Scottish gaols.
    I wish to tell my hon. Friend the Member for Hull, North (Mr. McNamara) that back in 1972—as someone with recent military experience—I knew that something had gone dreadfully wrong on that dreadful Sunday.
    Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. The hon. Gentleman must bear in mind the fact that there is very little time left and he is straying rather wide of the matter before us.
    Dr. Godman: I beg your pardon, Mr. Deputy Speaker.
    It is the easiest thing in the world for the Opposition spokesman, the right hon. Member for Bracknell (Mr. MacKay), to offer comprehensive solutions to problems that appear to bedevil the administrators. The Secretary of State has to make enormously difficult decisions.
    I deeply deplore the dreadful punishment beatings that continue to take place in Northern Ireland. We must do as much as we can where those dreadful, vicious people are concerned. I will support my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State's courageous decision, but I urge her to keep under surveillance the people who are conducting those dreadful beatings.

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    May I tell the Secretary of State that there is a great deal of sympathy for Guardsmen Fisher and Wright? Many of us deal in our surgeries with people who come to plead on behalf of those two young soldiers. I wish to remind my right hon. Friend of that concern for those two young soldiers, who—as I have said in the past—were rightly and properly gaoled for what they did to that young man, McBride. I shall support the Secretary of State, but we need to keep a close watch on what is going on over there.
    11.31 pm
    Rev. Martin Smyth: I appreciate the interest of the hon. Member for Greenock and Inverclyde (Dr. Godman) over the years, but I would suggest that if the security services kept a watchful eye on those being released, the media and others would immediately start screaming, "Intimidation". That should be borne in mind.
    There is a degree of hypocrisy. The Loyalist Volunteer Force—I have no time for it—has had a ceasefire, and has renewed that claim. It is one of the two bodies that have appointed people as executors who are prepared to liaise with the decommissioning committee. The interesting thing is that the Ulster Volunteer Force is the other. Yet the security forces and the police have said that the UVF has been responsible for the blast bombings.
    We have had it reported in the press—without any correction from the Chief Constable—that the culprits around Carrickfergus who have been causing the depredation there were members of the Ulster Defence Association. It seems to me strange, meanwhile, that a judgment is being made about other organisations which are not to be acceptable—the LVF, the Irish National Liberation Army, the Continuity IRA and the real IRA. We accept that judgment, but the Provisional IRA battalion in Ardoyne was clearly responsible for the murder of a person in Belfast. The UDA is continuing its depredations—elements of the UVF likewise—and it has been judged to have been acting in a way that would allow the release of its prisoners.
    Some people outside may be acting as calmly as they can and trying to keep a lid on the situation because they have already heard from some of those in the prisons that, if they do not get out, their throats will be slit. That is not scaremongering; it is the reality of what is going on. We should not convey the message that we are prepared to let convicted offenders out without any prior response from them.
    I am speaking from my conscience and for my people. Most of my people did not vote for terrorists to be released or for their representatives to be in government in any shape or form. Those who keep talking about the Belfast agreement as the Good Friday agreement might have a point of connection: Good Friday was when the innocent was crucified and the prisoners were released.
    11.35 pm
    Mr. Andrew Hunter: There is a shameful and sordid predictability about the schedule to the order. The same comments may be applied to the
    496
    UDA and the UVF, although I am less certain of the evidence in their case, but the omission of the IRA from the schedule, although predictable, further undermines confidence in the Government's handling of the process and in the Secretary of State's objectivity and judgment.
    The core of the argument is straightforward: there is no compelling, unambiguous or unequivocal evidence that Provisional IRA falls outside the two subsections of clause 3(8) or that it complies with any of the requirements of the four subsections of clause 3(9). PIRA should be included in the schedule.
    On Second Reading, the Secretary of State and the Minister—the hon. Member for East Kilbride (Mr. Ingram)—made much of the four clarifications in the Prime Minister's speech at Balmoral on 14 May. They were ultra-selective in their quotations. The Prime Minister's speech was much more precise than the requirements in the Bill or in the order. He talked about an end to bombings, killings and beatings. There has been no end to those beatings; everyone knows which organisations are involved, and they should be included in the schedule.
    Some of us needed no further evidence, but the order has provided us with it. What started as a peace process has turned into a process of appeasement, and we should all be ashamed of it. It is too late now—the Act is the Act—but would that we could have nothing to do with the Act or the order.
    11.38 pm
    Mr. Andrew Robathan: Guardsmen Fisher and Wright still languish in gaol, having been sent by the Government to protect this country. Like every policeman and service man on the streets of Northern Ireland, they went out to do their duty. They made a grievous error, but for them to be still languishing in gaol when we are talking about releasing convicted murderers who went out to do murder is a disgrace. If the Secretary of State cannot reply now, will she write to me to say when she will make the decision on whether they are to be released?
    About a year ago, I said to the Secretary of State at a meeting of the British-Irish parliamentary body that all the concessions were coming from one side. She said that I had got it entirely wrong, that it was a peace process, and concessions had to be made by all sides. Once again, all the concessions have been made by the Government and none by the Provisional IRA, which has killed someone within the past fortnight and is carrying out punishment beatings. No one doubts the good faith of the Secretary of State, but the path to hell is paved with good intentions. She is making a fudge to keep Sinn Fein on board by failing to put the Provisional IRA—loyalist parties as well, but I home in on the IRA—on the list of specified organisations. If she wants peace to succeed, she must make a stand and say that the Provisional IRA and its political side, Sinn Fein, cannot take part in the peace process until they subscribe to all the parts of the peace process to which they have signed up.
    11.40 pm
    Mr. Jeffrey Donaldson: I want to home in on the criteria that the Secretary of State has used to reach her decision. The Belfast agreement states that there must be a complete and unequivocal ceasefire

    497
    for organisations to benefit from it. What does that mean? When the Prime Minister came to Balmoral during the referendum campaign he spelled it out clearly when he said that a complete and unequivocal ceasefire is
    "an end to bombings, killings and beatings, claimed or unclaimed; an end to targeting and procurement of weapons; progressive abandonment and dismantling of paramilitary structures actively directing and promoting violence".
    None of the terrorist organisations of which I am aware in Northern Ireland meets those criteria. There are murders, beatings and bombings. If they are not carried out by those organisations, one suspects that they are done with the assistance of their members. There has been no abandonment and dismantling of paramilitary structures by the Ulster Volunteer Force, the Ulster Defence Association or the Provisional IRA. Not one weapon has been decommissioned by any of the terrorist organisations. The Provisional IRA has so far failed even to appoint someone to liaise with the decommissioning commission. Under the terms of the legislation, how can the Secretary of State argue that the Provisional IRA is co-operating with the commission? It is not co-operating or decommissioning, and violence is continuing.
    The Prime Minister came to Northern Ireland and wrote some pledges for the people of Northern Ireland. He gave them his word. He wrote:
    "Prisoners kept in unless violence is given up for good."
    Are not the murder of Andrew Kearney and the beating of Vincent McKenna violence? Violence has not been given up for good. If the prisoners are to be released in circumstances where violence continues, the Prime Minister has broken his pledge to the people of Northern Ireland.
    I appeal to the Secretary of State. Last weekend, the Truesdale family, whose brother Norman was murdered by the Provisional IRA, invited the Prime Minister to watch the video of his murder so that the Prime Minister could get some of the hurt that they feel because his murderer is going to be released on to the streets. I invite the Secretary of State to watch that video. Perhaps the Minister of State, Northern Ireland Office, the Member for East Kilbride (Mr. Ingram) has watched it and understands. I spoke to the family yesterday. They live in fear because the man who murdered their brother lives just up the street. When he is released, he will be in the heart of their community. They live in fear because of what is being proposed. The Minister may think that that is unfair, but he must understand how people feel. The feelings and fears are real. People in Northern Ireland do not understand why, when violence and murder continue, murderers will be released on to the streets. I ask the Government to think again.
    11.43 pm
    Mr. William Cash (Stone): I have never witnessed so much nervous twitching as I did while the Secretary of State listened to the Opposition's arguments. This is the biggest sell-out that I have seen in my time in Parliament. The release of the prisoners and the arrangements to allow members of the Northern Ireland Executive to take part in running Northern Ireland when
    498
    they unquestionably have guns, either on or under the table, is one of the most abhorrent—
    Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order.
    It being one and a half hours after the commencement of proceedings on the motion, MR. DEPUTY SPEAKER put the Question, pursuant to Standing Order No. 16.
    Question put:—
    The House divided: Ayes 219, Noes 86.

    Division No.353]

    [11.44 pm

    AYES

    Adams, Mrs Irene (Paisley N)

    Doran, Frank

    Ainger, Nick

    Dowd, Jim

    Alexander, Douglas

    Drew, David

    Allen, Graham

    Efford, Clive

    Anderson, Janet (Rossendale)

    Ellman, Mrs Louise

    Atherton, Ms Candy

    Ennis, Jeff

    Atkins, Charlotte

    Etherington, Bill

    Austin, John

    Fitzpatrick, Jim

    Barron, Kevin

    Flynn, Paul

    Battle, John

    Foster, Rt Hon Derek

    Bayley, Hugh

    Foster, Michael J (Worcester)

    Beard, Nigel

    Foulkes, George

    Beckett, Rt Hon Mrs Margaret

    Fyfe, Maria

    Benton, Joe

    Gapes, Mike

    Bermingham, Gerald

    George, Andrew (St Ives)

    Berry, Roger

    Gerrard, Neil

    Best, Harold

    Gibson, Dr Ian

    Betts, Clive

    Godman, Dr Norman A

    Blackman, Liz

    Godsiff, Roger

    Blears, Ms Hazel

    Goggins, Paul

    Blizzard, Bob

    Golding, Mrs Llin

    Borrow, David

    Griffiths, Win (Bridgend)

    Bradley, Keith (Withington)

    Hain, Peter

    Bradshaw, Ben

    Hall, Mike (Weaver Vale)

    Brown, Russell (Dumfries)

    Hamilton, Fabian (Leeds NE)

    Burgon, Colin

    Hanson, David

    Caborn, Richard

    Heal, Mrs Sylvia

    Campbell, Mrs Anne (C'bridge)

    Healey, John

    Campbell, Menzies (NE Fife)

    Heath, David (Somerton & Frome)

    Canavan, Dennis

    Henderson, Doug (Newcastle N)

    Cann, Jamie

    Hepburn, Stephen

    Chapman, Ben (Wirral S)

    Hesford, Stephen

    Chaytor, David

    Hill, Keith

    Chisholm, Malcolm

    Hoey, Kate

    Clapham, Michael

    Hood, Jimmy

    Clark, Rt Hon Dr David (S Shields)

    Hoyle, Lindsay

    Clark, Dr Lynda (Edinburgh Pentlands)

    Hughes, Ms Beverley (Stretford)

    Hughes, Kevin (Doncaster N)

    Clarke, Charles (Norwich S)

    Hughes, Simon (Southwark N)

    Clarke, Tony (Northampton S)

    Hutton, John

    Clelland, David

    Iddon, Dr Brian

    Coaker, Vernon

    Illsley, Eric

    Coffey, Ms Ann

    Ingram, Adam

    Cohen, Harry

    Jackson, Ms Glenda (Hampstead)

    Coleman, Iain

    Jackson, Helen (Hillsborough)

    Colman, Tony

    Jamieson, David

    Connarty, Michael

    Jenkins, Brian

    Corbyn, Jeremy

    Johnson, Alan (Hull W& Hessle)

    Cotter, Brian

    Jones, Helen (Warrington N)

    Cousins, Jim

    Jones, Ms Jenny (Wolverh'ton SW)

    Cox, Tom

    Crausby, David

    Jones, Martyn (Clwyd S)

    Cryer, Mrs Ann (Keighley)

    Kaufman, Rt Hon Gerald

    Cryer, John (Hornchurch)

    Keen, Alan (Feltham & Heston)

    Cunliffe, Lawrence

    Keen, Ann (Brentford & Isleworth)

    Cunningham, Jim (Cov'try S)

    Keetch, Paul

    Dalyell, Tam

    Kidney, David

    Darvill, Keith

    Kilfoyle, Peter

    Davies, Rt Hon Denzil (Llanelli)

    King, Andy (Rugby & Kenilworth)

    Dobbin, Jim

    Kingham, Ms Tess

    499

    Kirkwood, Archy

    Reid, Dr John (Hamilton N)

    Kumar, Dr Ashok

    Rogers, Allan

    Ladyman, Dr Stephen

    Rowlands, Ted

    Linton, Martin

    Ruddock, Ms Joan

    Livsey, Richard

    Russell, Bob (Colchester)

    Love, Andrew

    Russell, Ms Christine (Chester)

    McAllion, John

    Salmond, Alex

    McAvoy, Thomas

    Salter, Martin

    McCabe, Steve

    Savidge, Malcolm

    McCartney, Ian (Makerfield)

    Shaw, Jonathan

    McDonagh, Siobhain

    Sheerman, Barry

    Macdonald, Calum

    Short, Rt Hon Clare

    McDonnell, John

    Simpson, Alan (Nottingham S)

    McFall, John

    Skinner, Dennis

    McGuire, Mrs Anne

    Smith, Rt Hon Andrew (Oxford E)

    McNamara, Kevin

    Smith, John (Glamorgan)

    McNulty, Tony

    Soley, Clive

    Mactaggart, Fiona

    Squire, Ms Rachel

    McWalter, Tony

    Steinberg, Gerry

    McWilliam, John

    Stewart, David (Inverness E)

    Mahon, Mrs Alice

    Stewart, Ian (Eccles)

    Marsden, Paul (Shrewsbury)

    Straw, Rt Hon Jack

    Marshall, Jim (Leicester S)

    Stuart, Ms Gisela

    Martlew, Eric

    Stunell, Andrew

    Meacher, Rt Hon Michael

    Sutcliffe, Gerry

    Meale, Alan

    Taylor, Rt Hon Mrs Ann (Dewsbury)

    Michael, Alun

    Michie, Bill (Shef'ld Heeley)

    Taylor, Ms Dari (Stockton S)

    Milburn, Alan

    Taylor, David (NW Leics)

    Miller, Andrew

    Temple-Morris, Peter

    Mitchell, Austin

    Thomas, Gareth (Clwyd W)

    Moonie, Dr Lewis

    Tipping, Paddy

    Morgan, Ms Julie (Cardiff N)

    Touhig, Don

    Morgan, Rhodri (Cardiff W)

    Turner, Dennis (Wolverh'ton SE)

    Morley, Elliot

    Turner, Dr Desmond (Kemptown)

    Mowlam, Rt Hon Marjorie

    Twigg, Derek (Halton)

    Mudie, George

    Twigg, Stephen (Enfield)

    Mullin, Chris

    Vis, Dr Rudi

    Murphy, Paul (Torfaen)

    Ward, Ms Claire

    O'Brien, Bill (Normanton)

    Wareing, Robert N

    Olner, Bill

    Webb, Steve

    Öpik, Lembit

    White, Brian

    Pendry, Tom

    Wills, Michael

    Pickthall, Colin

    Winnick, David

    Pike, Peter L

    Wise, Audrey

    Plaskitt, James

    Wood, Mike

    Pope, Greg

    Woolas, Phil

    Prentice, Ms Bridget (Lewisham E)

    Worthington, Tony

    Prentice, Gordon (Pendle)

    Wright, Anthony D (Gt Yarmouth)

    Prosser, Gwyn

    Purchase, Ken

    Tellers for the Ayes:

    Quin, Ms Joyce

    Jane Kennedy and Mr. Robert Ainsworth.

    Reed, Andrew (Loughborough)

    NOES

    Amess, David

    Fabricant, Michael

    Atkinson, David (Bour'mth E)

    Flight, Howard

    Atkinson, Peter (Hexham)

    Forth, Rt Hon Eric

    Beggs, Roy

    Fraser, Christopher

    Bercow, John

    Garnier, Edward

    Beresford, Sir Paul

    Gill, Christopher

    Boswell, Tim

    Gillan, Mrs Cheryl

    Bottomley, Rt Hon Mrs Virginia

    Gray, James

    Brady, Graham

    Grieve, Dominic

    Brazier, Julian

    Hammond, Philip

    Brooke, Rt Hon Peter

    Howarth, Gerald (Aldershot)

    Bruce, Ian (S Dorset)

    Hunter, Andrew

    Burns, Simon

    Jack, Rt Hon Michael

    Cash, William

    Jenkin, Bernard

    Chapman, Sir Sydney (Chipping Barnet)

    Johnson Smith,

    Rt Hon Sir Geoffrey

    Clappison, James

    Key, Robert

    Donaldson, Jeffrey

    Kirkbride, Miss Julie

    Dorrell, Rt Hon Stephen

    Laing, Mrs Eleanor

    Duncan Smith, Iain

    Leigh, Edward

    Evans, Nigel

    Letwin, Oliver

    500

    Lilley, Rt Hon Peter

    Spicer, Sir Michael

    Lloyd, Rt Hon Sir Peter (Fareham)

    Spring, Richard

    Loughton, Tim

    Stanley, Rt Hon Sir John

    McIntosh, Miss Anne

    Swayne, Desmond

    MacKay, Andrew

    Syms, Robert

    McLoughlin, Patrick

    Tapsell, Sir Peter

    Maples, John

    Thompson, William

    Mates, Michael

    Tredinnick, David

    Maude, Rt Hon Francis

    Trend, Michael

    Mawhinney, Rt Hon Sir Brian

    Tyrie, Andrew

    Moss, Malcolm

    Wardle, Charles

    Ottaway, Richard

    Wells, Bowen

    Paice, James

    Whitney, Sir Raymond

    Paisley, Rev Ian

    Whittingdale, John

    Paterson, Owen

    Widdecombe, Rt Hon Miss Ann

    Pickles, Eric

    Wilkinson, John

    Prior, David

    Willetts, David

    Randall, John

    Wilshire, David

    Robathan, Andrew

    Winterton, Nicholas (Macclesfield)

    Robertson, Laurence (Tewk'b'ry)

    Woodward, Shaun

    Robinson, Peter (Belfast E)

    Young, Rt Hon Sir George

    Ross, William (E Lond'y)

    Sayeed, Jonathan

    Tellers for the Noes:

    Smyth, Rev Martin (Belfast S)

    Mr. Nigel Waterson and Mr. Stephen Day.

    Spelman, Mrs Caroline

    Question accordingly agreed to.
    Resolved,
    That the draft Northern Ireland (Sentences) Act 1998 (Specified Organisations) Order 1998, which was laid before this House on 28th July, be approved.

    LEGAL SERVICES
    Motion made, and Question put forthwith, pursuant to Standing Order No. 118(6) (Standing Committees on Delegated Legislation),
    That the draft Conditional Fee Agreements Order 1998, which was laid before this House on 16th July, be approved.—[Mr. Allen.]
    Question agreed to.

    SECTION 5 OF THE EUROPEAN COMMUNITIES (AMENDMENT) ACT 1993
    Motion made, and Question put forthwith, pursuant to Order [21 July].
    That this House approves the Government's assessment as set out in the Economic and Fiscal Strategy Report 1998 and Comprehensive Spending Review for the purposes of section 5 of the European Communities (Amendment) Act 1993.—[Mr. Allen.]
    Question agreed to.

    EDUCATION (SCOTLAND)
    Motion made, and Question put forthwith, pursuant to Standing Order 118(6) (Standing Committees on Delegated Legislation),
    That the draft Education (Student Loans) (Scotland) Regulations 1998, which were laid before this House on 17th July, be approved. —[Mr. Allen.]
    Question agreed to.

    EDUCATION
    Motion made, and Question put forthwith, pursuant to Standing Order 118(6) (Standing Committees on Delegated Legislation,
    That the draft Education (Student Support) Regulations 1998, which were laid before this House on 17th July, be approved.—[Mr. Allen.]
    Question agreed to.

    REGISTERS OF INTERESTS
    ordered,
    That the Resolution of 17th December 1985 be amended in line 31, by leaving out the words 'copies of the Registers be placed in the Library for the use of Members' and inserting the words `the Registers be made available for public inspection under arrangements to be approved by the Committee on Standards and Privileges'.—[Mr. Allen.]

    SELECT COMMITTEE ON MODERNISATION OF THE HOUSE OF COMMONS
    Ordered,
    That Mrs. Ann Taylor be discharged from the Select Committee on Modernisation of the House of Commons and Mrs. Margaret Beckett be added to the Committee. —[Mr. Allen.]

    Compressed Natural Gas Vehicles
    Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Graham Allen.]
    11.55 pm
    Mr. Peter L. Pike rose—[Interruption.]
    Mr. Deputy Speaker (Sir Alan Haselhurst): Will Members who are leaving please do so quickly and quietly?
    Mr. Pike: I want to draw attention to an important issue—the use of compressed natural gas in vehicles on our roads. It is an important environmental issue. It also has important implications in my constituency, where, in a few months, 70 people are likely to be made redundant as a result of lack of orders for the gas bottles they make for natural gas vehicles.
    Lucas Aerospace converted from defence production to the manufacture of a consumer product, and has done so extremely well. I have taken a close interest in the product since the idea was first considered, when the then site manager of the factory, Mr. Gardiner, invited me to the site to discuss it with the unions and management. The unions and management co-operated extremely successfully in finding a product that could use the existing skills of the work force and could transfer from defence to consumer use.
    The product started in production last year. On 24 April this year, I toured the factory, with the bottles, with their finished covering, in full production. I was very impressed by what I saw.
    On 17 February, the management sent me a detailed letter, making the case for compressed natural gas. That was from Jon Matthews, who is general manager now. At the time, I sent that letter to Treasury and Trade and Industry Ministers, and subsequently received replies.
    The point that Lucas Aerospace made in that letter; as a member of the Natural Gas Vehicle Association, was that it wanted to promote the use of natural gas as a clean, safe and efficient fuel. Its view was:
    "Of all the alternative fuel options, world-wide natural gas has become the preferred"
    option,
    "safe in use and storage,"
    with
    "world-wide availability".
    I accept that there is also an argument for liquid petroleum gas. One of the problems is that the two are competing with each other. That may be right, but it means that those in the retail trade find it difficult to know which product to supply.
    I am glad to see the Minister for Science, Energy and Industry in his place, because he has corresponded with me and met me to discuss the industry, and has been extremely positive and helpful. The work force recognise that he has tried to be positive in the way in which he has tried to help in tackling the problem. On 17 May, he wrote to me:
    "I am convinced that there is an environmental case for natural gas vehicles to take a share of the UK car population."

    503
    We all agree on the objective. The problem is how we achieve it.
    On 22 May, I received a fax from Lucas announcing 70 redundancies. Following that, the union representatives came to London and, together with me, Mr. Maciver, the divisional managing director of Lucas Aerospace, Terry Burns, the works convenor, and others, met the Minister for Science, Energy and Industry on 9 June. The unions had prepared an excellent brief, and presented a petition with a large number of signatures that had been gathered in the town centre in support of the work.
    The brief stated:
    "CNG vehicles are better for the environment. Natural gas is virtually pollution-free. Compared to gasoline powered vehicles, natural gas vehicles emit almost no carbon monoxide, much lower levels of nitrogen oxides, and less than half the amount of reactive hydrocarbons."
    The brief gave a number of reasons why we should change to CNG and pointed out what Lucas had done in this field. An extract from the Leifeld News, under the headline "Peace dividend a real bonus", stated:
    "The Lucas Aerospace facility at Burnley has for 15 years been one of the West's leading suppliers of steel rocket motor cases for missiles. In 1990 it was recognised that future reductions in defence spending would result from the ending of the Cold War.
    A resourceful management therefore initiated a search for non-defence related products which could be made drawing on in-house expertise in metal forming and utilising existing plant with a minimum of additional investment. The answer—high pressure seamless steel gas cylinders."
    That has been done extremely well, and represents a remarkable feat of co-operation between management and the work force.
    Unfortunately, another letter from Lucas on 15 June reported:
    "There is no visibility of any future orders for this product and therefore the action in respect of our employees will unfortunately have to continue.
    However, as far as the production equipment is concerned, I can confirm that no action will be taken to dispose of it within the next 3 months."
    Early-day motion 1443 has been tabled on the subject, and, as of last Thursday, 124 hon. Members from all parties in the House had signed it.
    Enterprise plc, Burnley borough council, and Members of the European Parliament Mark Hendrick and Michael Hindley have all tried to find a way forward. We all know that, in a few years, there will be a market for the product, even though the market is not sufficient to justify production at present. The danger is that, if Lucas goes out of production, when the market develops the gas bottles will not be made at Lucas in Burnley or anywhere else in the United Kingdom—we will end up importing them. That is why it is important to find a solution.
    In the local government magazine talkback, the Minister for Transport in London, my hon. Friend the Member for Hampstead and Highgate (Ms Jackson), is pictured launching an LPG vehicle. The accompanying article states:
    "Due to drastic reduction in emissions, both LPG and CNG powered engines are ideal for use in urban environments—one of the strong reasons why many municipal authorities have already added Ford alternative fuel vehicles to their fleets.
    504
    LPG is currently available from more than 80 sites nationally, and CNG from about 12; any lack of local refuelling facilities need not be a problem, however, because a mobile LPG refuelling unit or overnight CNG refuelling unit can be installed at a fleet depot."
    Matters are not quite as simple as the article would lead one to suppose.
    I have had letters from various Ministers, including the Financial Secretary and the Minister for Roads. There has also been correspondence with Moscow, where we tried to find a market for the product. Unfortunately, the market in Russia is falling. In addition, the Russians do not use such a high-quality gas bottle. As a result, they want a much cheaper product.
    On 8 July, Mr. Maciver from Lucas wrote to tell me that there was an additional six weeks' work, which will take work to mid-September, when the redundancies will now take place.
    I received today a letter from Ford. I had written to the company in the USA. The letter that I received was written by Peter Pestillo, the executive vice-president. He wrote:
    "We believe that in the long-run there will be a natural gas market, but as you know, it remains an emerging market. Underscoring our belief in the long-term strength of the CNG market is Ford's substantial investment in CNG vehicles."
    The letter continues:
    "Towards that end we welcome government assistance in developing much needed infrastructure."
    The key issue is securing that infrastructure.
    My hon. Friend the Minister for Science, Energy and Industry sent me a detailed letter on 22 July, in which he set out what the Government are trying to do and pointed to where he sees the problems. My hon. Friend has to admit at the end of the day that the Government are not able to come forward with the type of package that, in the short term, would secure the production of these gas bottles at Lucas at Burnley.
    British Gas, or whatever it is called these days—I never remember what its new name is—has written to me as follows:
    "Natural gas has significant environmental advantages over petrol and diesel and could, given the right incentives, play a major role in cutting vehicle emissions: it is virtually free of lead, sulphur and aromatic hydrocarbons. It produces less Carbon Monoxide, Nitrogen Oxides, Benzene, Carbon Dioxide and particulates than petrol and diesel. Natural gas buses have a quieter car-like ride and therefore have a significant role to play in attracting people to make better use of public transport, meeting the objectives of the Transport White Paper. Urban depot-based transport operators often have restricted operating hours because of the noise impact of diesel-engine HGVs on the neighbourhood. HGVs powered by natural gas are significantly quieter, allowing these constraints to be lifted. This could lead to less congestion at peak hours."
    British Gas adds:
    "the Government could reduce the duty on natural gas … towards the EU minimum."
    It believes that that would be a help.
    Metrocab has written to me as follows:
    "The key issues seem to be:

    1. The additional initial cost of the gas vehicle. Maybe £1500—£2000

    2. The operating costs even with the differential in pricing between diesel and gas,
    are marginally higher.

    505

    3. The limited number of refuelling points."

    That is another problem. The fourth one is described as
    "the lower range between refuelling for a given size of tank."
    Those are the situations that Metrocab sees as problems.
    The Energy Saving Trust has a powershift programme that
    "aims to encourage demand for these fuels from businesses, local authorities and, ultimately, the general public".
    That is something that may well need to be followed up and encouraged, because it could lead to a solution.
    The letter from Energy Saving Trust adds that that aim is
    "accompanied by commitments from fuel companies and vehicle manufacturers. It seeks to make clean fuel vehicles more affordable through stimulating demand. This is being done by bringing companies and local authorities together to wield enough collective purchasing power to ensure substantial capital cost reductions, and offering up to 75% of the difference in the cost of clean fuel vehicles above the price of petrol/diesel vehicles."
    We all know of the situation which existed when we first had unleaded fuel. It was only when the Government introduced a sufficiently wide price differential that garages began to supply the fuel. It was only when we knew that we could go to any garage and obtain unleaded fuel that we were reasonably confident of buying a vehicle that operated on it.
    London Taxis International, makers of the famous black cab, says that it is "dedicated to producing a fully accessible low emission' taxi.
    As part of a study towards this end we have produced a vehicle which is in service, running very successfully on either petrol or CNG and we have also built a dedicated CNG vehicle …
    Whilst CNG creates lower local emissions, the difficulties for Taxi operators are that the vehicles do not follow a defined route nor necessarily return to a base at night, hence the need for a comprehensive refuelling infrastructure or a large driving range for the vehicles, both of which seem to be beyond us at the moment."
    Mobil CNG has also written to me. It
    "welcomes the Government's 'New Deal for Transport' … in particular the call for environmentally cleaner fuels and quieter vehicles.
    Mobil CNG offers the UK the most viable fuel option that is significantly cleaner and quieter than diesel vehicles. This means that it is particularly suitable for the commercial sector and bus fleets, being ideally suited to Mr. Prescott's bus for the 21st Century … We believe that CNG is the fuel for the future and that the Government should combine with industry to develop and manufacture environmentally friendly vehicles for the new millennium."
    Today, I received a fax from the unions. They think that Lucas has not done all it could. They recognise that investment in the aerospace industry takes a long time to pay back, but they also believe that a more positive approach could be achieved if Lucas Aerospace took such a view about CNG bottles. They think that the Government are committed to CNG, but are perhaps not doing quite as much as they could to get over this short-term difficulty.
    I recognise the problem, but we are considering something that will have a market in the next century. It would be a tragedy if we failed to save this production unit and did not encourage CNG vehicles to ensure that, when we have more of them on the road, their gas bottles are not imported, but made in this country.
    12.11 am
    Mr. Gordon Prentice: I shall spend no more than a couple of minutes emphasising the points made by my hon. Friend the Member for Burnley (Mr. Pike).
    Many of my constituents work at the Burnley plant, and it is simply inexplicable that the management over in the United States has decided to pull out of the market when it is about to take off. In the United Kingdom, 9,100 vehicles run on gas, or a mixture of petrol and gas, and the management at Lucas in Burnley forecasts that the market could be as high as 200,000 vehicles in six years.
    There is a colossal market out there, but how can we kick-start it? The Government have reduced fuel duty to achieve a differential between clean fuels and petrol, which is good. They have introduced the £500 reduction in vehicle excise duty for vehicles converted to run on clean fuels, which is good. They have also set up the cleaner vehicles task force, which is up and running and doing a good job. That is splendid, but what should they do beyond that?
    First, we need to set the road fuel duty for natural gas at the European Union minimum, like France, and like Germany. Secondly, we must provide grants to public service vehicle operators to convert to gas. There should be a 100 per cent. allowance for fleet operators who do the business and convert dirty, polluting vehicles to run on clean natural gas.
    Thirdly, only 50 or 55 local authorities out of more than 300 in the United Kingdom run vehicles on compressed natural gas. I should like my colleagues in the Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions to urge local authorities nationwide to do the business, and convert their rubbish vehicles and other depot-based vehicles to run on this clean, environmentally friendly fuel.
    12.13 am
    The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions (Ms Glenda Jackson): I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Burnley (Mr. Pike) on securing this debate on an issue that he has raised with ministerial colleagues from my Department, from the Department of Trade and Industry, and from the Treasury. The importance that the Government attach to the issue he has raised is reflected in the presence on the Front Bench of the Minister for Science, Energy and Industry.
    My hon. Friend the Member for Burnley is not alone in highlighting this issue, which is clearly of particular and grave concern to his constituency and to his constituents. My hon. Friends the Members for Pendle (Mr. Prentice) and for Chorley (Mr. Hoyle) have also raised this issue in recent weeks.
    Air pollution has become a matter of increasing public concern and political importance in recent years. The Government are committed to improving the quality of the air we breathe, and we have set ourselves demanding objectives on air pollution. Road transport is responsible for a significant proportion of air pollution—around 50 per cent. of nitrogen oxides come from that source. Any attempt to improve air quality needs to address the problems that road transport causes.
    Environmental considerations are at the heart of the integrated transport White Paper, which was published last week. My hon. Friend the Member for Burnley made

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    the point that we are discussing how we can create a more environmentally friendly mode, not only through vehicles but through fuel. Alternative fuels, such as compressed natural gas, have an important role to play in helping us to meet those objectives. Provided that the latest conversions are used, CNG can offer substantial reductions in emissions of pollutants such as carbon monoxide, sulphur dioxide, nitrogen oxides and particulate matter, compared with vehicles running on diesel.
    CNG vehicles also emit less carbon dioxide, which is the main gas produced by road transport that is implicated in climate change. They also emit less visible smoke and odour than diesels, which is an important factor in urban areas. Vehicles running on CNG are also significantly quieter than their diesel counterparts. Compared with petrol engines, CNG can offer some emissions benefits for pollutants such as benzene.
    We are committed to a policy of encouraging the use of fuels, such as CNG, through a package of measures, including fiscal incentives. In his last Budget, the Chancellor announced that the extra cost of enabling company cars to run on road fuel gases will be disregarded in calculating the income tax charge on company cars. He also froze the duty on road fuel gases for the second year in a row, and, to provide some certainty to the market, we are committed to retaining the differential in duty rates between gas fuels and diesel that existed at the time of the Budget last year.
    There is now a significant difference in the duty on CNG and liquefied petroleum gas and the duty on conventional fuels. In fact, the duty on CNG is about one third that on diesel. That provides a significant fiscal incentive to switch from diesel to gas.
    Other cost savings are associated with road fuel gases: for instance, lower maintenance costs. The Government car service showed that there is a strong economic case for fleet operators to use gas fuels. It announced last year that the economic grounds for using road fuel gases, plus the environmental benefits, were strong enough to persuade it to convert its entire car fleet to run on CNG or LPG over the next five to six years.
    Mr. Pike: That is the key point. The quickest way of encouraging the market for CNG, and ultimately the gas bottles that are of consequence to Lucas, is to get fleets to convert. The measures to which my hon. Friend is referring are extremely important.
    Ms Jackson: I strongly agree with my hon. Friend.
    The price premium on larger gas-powered vehicles, such as buses and lorries, is more significant than for cars. That is partly because not enough vehicles are currently purchased to introduce significant economies of scale.
    In order to develop the market for alternative fuels further and to encourage people to buy gas-powered vehicles that are more expensive than their conventionally fuelled counterparts, my Department is providing £6 million of funding for the powershift programme run by the Energy Saving Trust.
    The aim of the three-year programme is to create a sustainable market for alternatively powered vehicles. It does that by setting up demonstration projects,
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    by assisting different companies and local authorities interested in purchasing alternatively fuelled vehicles to form partnerships, thus increasing economies of scale, and by providing grants for up to 50 per cent. of the additional cost of purchasing an alternatively fuelled vehicle.
    Another measure to offset some of the additional costs associated with gas-powered vehicles is the vehicle excise duty incentive which will be available from 1 January next year. Buses and lorries meeting stringent emission standards will be entitled to a reduction in VED of up to £500. Vehicles running on gas should qualify for that incentive. Bus operators operating routes eligible for fuel duty rebate who run their vehicles on gas are already entitled to reclaim all the duty that they pay on the fuel from the Government.
    The gas fuel industry should be further stimulated by measures designed specifically to reduce emissions from vehicles in urban areas. The alternative traffic in towns project, launched by my right hon. Friend the Deputy Prime Minister in April, is designed to produce concerted action by cities across Europe to give preferential access in certain areas to vehicles with zero or low emissions.
    Under the process of local air quality management, local authorities must put in place action plans to deal with poor air quality. It is likely that many of the actions needed to improve air quality in urban areas, where air quality tends to be poorest, will focus on transport, and some local authorities may look to introduce low emission zones, where only vehicles producing very low emissions will be allowed to enter certain areas of towns or cities.
    We have also been active in raising the profile of alternative fuels as much as possible. Ministers have launched a variety of gas-powered vehicles, including those purchased under the powershift programme. For instance, last year I launched the conversion of Adur district council's refuse collection fleet to CNG. I have not visited every local authority, but I assure my hon. Friend the Member for Pendle that I and my Department are closely engaged in that activity. My Department also played a major role in organising a high-profile exhibition of alternatively powered vehicles in Chester in April this year. More than 20 alternatively fuelled vehicles were on display, showing just how far the market has already come.
    Therefore, substantial progress has been made in encouraging the introduction of alternative fuels. The Natural Gas Vehicle Association estimates that 50 local authorities and a number of private sector fleet operators have one or more vehicles that run on natural gas.
    However, we are aware that there remain a number of barriers to the further uptake of these vehicles. Some of these are inherent properties of the fuel—for instance, the tank required to store CNG is large and heavy enough to reduce bus capacity by one passenger, or a lorry's payload by around a tonne. However, there are also other problems, and the cleaner vehicles task force has set up a working group to consider the role for alternative fuels and what barriers stand in the way of their fulfilling that role. One of the most obvious barriers is the lack of refuelling infrastructure for both CNG and, to a slightly lesser extent, LPG. That is an area which we must look to the industry to resolve.
    As I have mentioned, CNG can offer significant environmental advantages, particularly over diesel and in terms of emissions on nitrogen oxides and particulate matter.

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    We have already taken a number of actions to promote the use of alternative fuels—including freezing the duty on road fuel gases, raising the profile of gas power through ministerial launches and the powershift programme, as well as exhibitions and contribution towards material such as the Natural Gas Vehicle Association's annual report. Officials in my and other Departments have had a number of discussions about the merits of conversion to alternative fuels, including in niche markets, such as buses and taxis.
    Officials have discussed with the Public Carriage Office the possibility of persuading more taxi drivers to consider the use of gas fuels, and have also discussed the issue with bus operators. The House will be aware that my right hon. Friend the Deputy Prime Minister has a gas-powered car, as do my hon. Friend the Minister for London and Construction, and my noble Friend the Minister for Roads.
    Through this package of measures, plus initiatives taken by local authorities, business and others, the number of gas-powered vehicles on the road has increased substantially. The Natural Gas Vehicle Association estimates that the number of natural gas vehicles on the road has doubled since 1995, while the LP Gas Association believes that around 200 new LPG vehicles are appearing on the road every month. Many of the vehicles running on both fuels are operated as part of fleets by both the private sector and local authorities.
    Despite those measures, I know that my hon. Friend the Member for Burnley is disappointed that the Lucas Aerospace factory in Burnley has recently announced that
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    it will be closing the unit of the factory that had been converted to produce gas bottles for gas-powered vehicles because of a decline in the demand for this equipment.
    I understand—my hon. Friend referred on more than one occasion to his activities—that my hon. Friend the Minister for Science, Energy and Industry has been pursuing a number of avenues to see if there is any scope for providing regional assistance to the factory. My hon. Friend the Minister wrote to my hon. Friend the Member for Burnley on 22 July, saying that he and officials
    "have explored all avenues of selective and regional assistance for the plant, but none has proven suitable".
    I appreciate that that was not the news that the my hon. Friend wished to hear. However, the Government are taking many steps to encourage the wider use of gas fuels, and I hope that industry will respond to that.
    Our primary aim in this area is to improve air quality, and to target climate change. We have received a number of representations—they were made in the Chamber tonight—saying that the duty on road fuel gases should be reduced to the European Union minimum. However, we have a duty to pursue our policies on air quality and climate change in as cost-effective a manner as possible. Government policy is aimed at encouraging the use of low emission vehicles, rather than being prescriptive about the type of technology used.
    The incentives to persuade people to switch to road fuel gases—
    The motion having been made after Ten o'clock, and the debate having continued for half an hour, MR. DEPUTY SPEAKER adjourned the House without Question put, pursuant to the Standing Order.
    Adjourned at twenty-five minutes past Twelve midnight.