Commons Sitting of 3 July 2000

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

    Missile Defence System
    Mr. Jeremy Corbyn: What recent representations he has received on the proposed US national missile defence system and its effects on the UK. [127255]
    The Secretary of State for Defence (Mr. Geoffrey Hoon): We have received a number of representations recently on the proposed US national missile defence system. The United States President has not yet decided whether to begin deployment of the proposed system. We would not expect a request for the use of facilities in the United Kingdom until after any such decision has been made. We have made it clear that we would consider such a request carefully in the light of circumstances at the time, including the implications for the defence of the UK.
    Mr. Corbyn: May I ask the Secretary of State to cast his mind back to May, when the five declared nuclear
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    powers—all of whom are permanent members of the Security Council—stated as their long-term aim the global elimination of nuclear weapons and total disarmament? Does he not think that the American proposal for a national missile defence system, with outlying stations based in the Pacific ocean and the UK, is not only an escalation of the danger of nuclear conflict, but flies in the face of the non-proliferation treaty? Instead of waiting for what President Clinton may or may not decide on Friday, on the basis of whatever tests are going forward, should we not say—here and now—that we shall have no part in any global extension of nuclear weapons or nuclear missile defence systems, but that we shall work wholeheartedly for worldwide nuclear disarmament? Does he not think that the proposed siting at Fylingdales in Yorkshire turns this country, once again, into a nuclear aircraft carrier for the US?
    Mr. Hoon: No, he does not. My hon. Friend is getting rather ahead of events. As yet, there is no US proposal as such. The US has not taken a decision and has not made any formal request to the UK. In those circumstances, I do not need to answer his question about Fylingdales.
    Mr. David Atkinson: Is the right hon. Gentleman clear about the nature of the long-term threats that motivated the US Congress to pass its national missile defence Act? Does he consider that such threats might apply also to this country and to Europe? Is he aware that the technological and aerospace committee of the Western European Union, together with his hon. Friends the Members for Leigh (Mr. Cunliffe) and for Sunderland, North (Mr. Etherington) and myself, is visiting the US in two weeks' time precisely to investigate those issues and to report back to the Assembly?
    Mr. Hoon: The UK recognises US concerns about the threat—specifically that posed in the short term by North Korea. That is why there is a differential reaction in Europe. Inevitably, North Korea could not threaten Europe in the short term. Our current assessment is that there is no significant threat to the UK from weapons of

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    mass destruction. However, I must emphasise that we continue to monitor developments closely. Obviously, we must have regard to the protection of UK interests should such a threat emerge.
    Mr. Paul Flynn: Does the Secretary of State really believe that there is a serious threat to Seattle from North Korea, when North Korea has trouble with the missiles it has targeted on South Korea? At this time of rapprochement, does that not mean that what is going on is not a perceived threat, but the perceived greed of the American defence industry, which wants to make more profits from a new arms race which will impoverish the planet even more and put us in great danger? The Secretary of State said that he had received no formal approach from the US. What approaches has he received?
    Mr. Hoon: I do not accept the way in which my hon. Friend puts his question. It is not for the UK to make assessments of the degree of threat perceived by the US, but there is a widespread recognition that North Korea is developing a capability that would undoubtedly pose a threat to the US. As for our position, it remains that we do not identify a current threat to the UK. However, it is important both that we monitor the situation and that we ensure that the UK's interests are properly protected.
    Mr. Iain Duncan Smith: I have some sympathy for the Secretary of State—I hope that he will accept that remark in the spirit in which it was meant. On one side of him are the US Government and his own Ministry of Defence, who tell him that there is a serious threat and a need to show some leadership on the matter because of the threat from rogue states. On the other side are his own Foreign Office, led by the two CND supremos, his right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary and the Minister of State, the hon. Member for Leicester, East (Mr. Vaz), and the French Government who are utterly opposed to the proposal. Now we hear that most of his Back Benchers give him no support either. Do we not have the right to expect Her Majesty's Government to show some leadership in this matter—as they would traditionally have done—and to make up their minds? Instead of that, they twist and turn, leaving us with one simple policy, Mr. Micawber's view—they hope something will turn up.
    Mr. Hoon: I anticipate that my hon. Friend the Member for Islington, North (Mr. Corbyn) would take as a criticism the statement that he represented the majority of Labour Back Benchers. Let me make it clear that the Government continue to monitor carefully developments of the situation. As yet, there have been no specific or formal requests from the US. There is no division of opinion in the Government on our approach to such matters. It is vital that we should give support to the US, if necessary, while recognising—as the US has done—that it is for the international community to decide on these matters and to make its views known to the US before any decision is taken to deploy.

    European Defence
    Ms Dari Taylor: What progress has been made since the Helsinki summit in improving European defence co-operation. [127256]
    The Secretary of State for Defence (Mr. Geoffrey Hoon): The package of measures endorsed by EU leaders at the recent Feira summit marks further practical progress on the European defence policy. In particular, we have successfully taken forward the commitment to improving European capabilities made at Helsinki, and agreed proposals to develop a close European Union-NATO relationship which recognises the key role of European allies that are not members of the EU.
    Ms Taylor: Is my right hon. Friend aware of the recent statements made by Strobe Talbott, a member of the Senate Defence Committee? He said that
    the US is for ESDI.
    Does my right hon. Friend, like me, also take comfort from the words of Lord Hurd of Westwell, a former Conservative Foreign Secretary? He said:
    I believe that the Government are right, with the French, to try to encourage our fellow Europeans to act together in humanitarian and peacekeeping tasks. I do not see that enterprise as a challenge or rival to NATO.
    Will my right hon. Friend state once again in the House that the European security and defence identity does not threaten or undermine the relationships that we have with the United States and that it does not in any way, shape or form alter the fact, the operation or the continuance of NATO?
    Mr. Hoon: I am grateful to my hon. Friend. I have great difficulty in understanding why the Opposition persist in decrying this development because any sensible commentator—my hon. Friend has mentioned some—undoubtedly recognises that strengthening the Europeans' contribution to NATO means that NATO itself will be stronger. I do not understand why Opposition Members have difficulty with that concept unless it has something to do with their knee-jerk opposition these days to anything to do with the European Union. In case it does, may I remind them of at least part of their policy? The European democrat group, of which the Conservative party is a member, has said:
    We want to have a defence policy in Europe…If we talk about European defence and if we put it into the Treaties then we must be able to fill it out and give it substance so we can have a capability available.
    Even the Conservative party does not seem quite sure what its policy is these days.
    Miss Anne McIntosh: Can the Secretary of State give the House the assurance that any European defence identity will proceed on the basis of an intergovernmental and not a supranational legal basis?
    Mr. Hoon: Yes, I can give that assurance. I assume that, as a former member of the European democrat group, the hon. Lady will approve of the policy that the Government have set out.

    Sierra Leone
    Mr. Jim Fitzpatrick: How many British troops are deployed in Sierra Leone. [127258]
    The Secretary of State for Defence (Mr. Geoffrey Hoon): More than 300 UK military personnel are currently deployed on the ground in Sierra Leone. These include members of the short-term training team, lead elements of the UK-led international military advisory and training team, support and protection elements, the British military liaison officer, and members of the United Nations mission in Sierra Leone and of the Department for International Development-sponsored Sierra Leone security sector reform project. In addition, HMS Argyll and the Royal Fleet Auxiliary Sir Percivale have crews totalling some 240 personnel.
    Mr. Fitzpatrick: I thank my right hon. Friend for that response. May I express the appreciation of my constituents—some of whom have relatives in Sierra Leone and others have simply expressed concern about the situation there—for the role that our troops have been playing? Will he advise the House what progress is being made to deal with the illegal diamond trade which is perceived by many as fuelling the civil war?
    Mr. Andrew Mackinlay rose—
    Mr. Hoon: I am extremely grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Thurrock (Mr. Mackinlay) for his offer of help.
    Britain wants international action to curb the illicit trade in conflict diamonds to be proceeded with as a matter of urgency. A new Security Council resolution on Sierra Leone provides a significant opportunity to focus the international community on addressing the problem and exploring measures to tackle it. Britain is certainly proposing ideas to prevent RUF access to Sierra Leone diamonds and the diamond markets, and to help the development of a regulated and sustainable diamond industry in Sierra Leone.

    Surplus Assets
    Ms Christine Russell: What progress is being made in achieving the target for disposal of surplus assets contained in the strategic defence review. [127259]
    The Secretary of State for Defence (Mr. Geoffrey Hoon): In the past two financial years, more than £400 million has been realised from the sale of surplus property assets. We are fully on course to achieve the £700 million target for gross receipts which is set out in the strategic defence review. The Defence Logistics Organisation was set a target to reduce the book value of spares holdings by some 20 per cent., and is on target to meet that by 2001.
    Ms Russell: I thank the Secretary of State for that reply and congratulate the MOD on achieving its target. May I further congratulate my right hon. Friend on the estates strategy that has recently been published? My constituency has a long military history and therefore significant MOD assets. I noted a strong commitment to sustainability in the strategy. The MOD has announced—I have no criticism of it—that it intends to dispose of Saighton camp on the rural fringe of my constituency. I therefore seek an assurance that it will conduct a full
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    environmental impact assessment, as promised in the strategy, and consult local planning authorities prior to the disposal of that asset.
    Mr. Hoon: I was about to say that I suspect—but I know that my hon. Friend knows a good deal more about the site than I do. None the less, I shall certainly ensure that the case is looked at and will write to her in due course. I hope to be able to give her the answer that she seeks.
    Mr. Menzies Campbell: Is not it a rather fragile and inadequate basis for the Secretary of State's budget to depend to such an extent on windfalls from surplus assets? Does he understand that there is great sympathy for him in the House as he prepares, once again, to repel the predatory swoop of the Chancellor of the Exchequer in the comprehensive spending review? Indeed, there is some sympathy for him in the House owing to the fact that briefing against him appears to have started already in this morning's national newspapers. Will he insist in the comprehensive spending review on a settlement that allows the MOD a proper budget, and one that does not rely on speculative returns from surplus assets?
    Mr. Hoon: The right hon. and learned Gentleman is wrong to describe asset sales as windfalls. All Departments—the MOD is no exception—must concentrate their activity on areas that they require, whether for training of people or testing of equipment. It is crucial that we retain only those assets that we need at any given time. Therefore, there is a vigorous programme of selling assets, as it is clearly important that land and sites are used for proper purposes rather than remaining redundant as part of our property portfolio. I disagree with him profoundly when he talks of the sale of such assets as windfalls. They are assets that the country can use more effectively than merely leaving them idle on the books of the MOD or any other Department.
    Mr. Barry Jones: Will the comprehensive spending review, to which the right hon. and learned Member for North-East Fife (Mr. Campbell) referred, consider the successor identification friend or foe system, and if it does, as I suspect it will, will there be sufficient funding for it from my right hon. Friend's Department? My constituency, Raytheon and RAF Sealand want to help my right hon. Friend and offer their services on the contract—
    Madam Speaker: Order. We are getting quite a way from the original question. I shall try Sir Michael Spicer, who I hope will return to it.
    Sir Michael Spicer: One organisation that seems to be coming quite close to being surplus to requirements in the Government's mind is the Defence Evaluation and Research Agency. In the light of the Select Committee's report on DERA and its importance to Anglo-American relations particularly, will the Government reconsider their position on it?
    Mr. Hoon: The Government have put out a further consultation paper in relation to the proposed sale of DERA. The hon. Gentleman refers to Anglo-American

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    concerns; I assume that what he really means is anxieties in the United States. If he checks the situation carefully, he will find that the United States is content with the latest proposals, so that criticism does not arise. I have studied carefully and discussed with members of the Select Committee their reservations about the proposals. Clearly, we will take that into account before any final decisions are taken.
    Mr. Dafydd Wigley: I welcome the statement of the Secretary of State with regard to the disposal of surplus land and buildings. Will he give an assurance that if there are opportunities to dispose of those in a way that is economically helpful to those communities, he will not stand by the last penny that he can get by holding out, but that he will co-operate with other Departments for the general benefit of those communities?
    Mr. Hoon: I can give the right hon. Gentleman an assurance that I may not stand by the last penny, but I shall certainly stand by the last £100 million.
    Mr. Peter L. Pike: I welcome the progress announced by my right hon. Friend in the disposal of surplus assets. Instead of the cash value, can he tell the House how many housing units have been released and how many acres of land have been disposed of by his Department?
    Mr. Hoon: As my hon. Friend knows, the great majority of houses in the possession of the Ministry of Defence are owned by a private company, from which we lease them—a decision taken by the previous Government. We have 63,000 families quarters, but some 53,000 of those are leased from a commercial company. The remainder are owned, and we have a further 20,700 houses in our overseas garrisons, so there is a considerable amount of property. We review it carefully and, as I said earlier, we ensure that we retain only the property that the country needs at any given time.

    Army Exercises
    Mr. James Gray: If he will make a statement on the Medicine Man exercises which will take place this year at the British Army training unit, Suffield. [127260]
    The Minister for the Armed Forces (Mr. John Spellar): Normally, five Medicine Man exercises at battle group level are conducted at BATUS in Canada each year. This year, however, there is only one standard Medicine Man; two have been cancelled because the units originally earmarked are committed to operations in the Balkans, and the final two exercises are being combined into Exercise Iron Hawk. That will be a brigade level exercise and will involve 3,200 soldiers from the lead reconnaissance taskforce and the lead aviation taskforce. It is an exciting development and will be the first time that helicopters have exercised at BATUS on such a scale. It will be an excellent opportunity for the troops involved to operate at that level.
    Mr. Gray: Will the Minister join me in congratulating the 250 permanent staff whom we have in the training
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    facility in Canada, which is larger than all the British Army's other training areas put together—a superb facility for training in high-intensity warfare? The Minister speaks about Iron Hawk. Was that not put together at the last minute, to cover up the fact that of the five full battle group exercises that are normally allowed in BATUS, only one can be carried out this year, for two reasons: first, because of overstretch, as the Minister correctly mentions—we simply do not have the troops to go there to take part in an exercise—and secondly, because of budgetary cuts? Is that not a disgraceful waste of one of the finest assets that the British Army has?
    Mr. Spellar: The hon. Gentleman has got that quite wrong. Does he think that we should not contribute troops to the international effort in Kosovo and Bosnia? The moneys allocated for Medicine Man 2 and 3 have been put into Medicine Man 4 and 5, which have been combined into a brigade level exercise. That is an enhancement of capability, a better kind of training and, if successful, could well be the template for the future. It is an interesting and successful story, and I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving me the opportunity to draw it to the attention of the House.
    Mr. Robert Key: That was a remarkable display of smoke and mirrors. The fact of the matter is that training at BATUS in Canada has been cut, which is bad news when we need to train for high-intensity warfare. Does the Minister recall that the Royal Marines cancelled their winter exercises in Norway? Has he noticed that only a handful of units have had time for biological and chemical defence training? Does he recall that HMS Westminster was pulled off an exercise and sent to enhance the millennium party on the Thames? Is he aware that in the spearhead battalions of the rapid reaction corps, only one in seven Lynx helicopters is fit to fly, and the pilots are queuing up for one-hour trips round the bay to keep their hands in? The Minister must stop the downward spiral. What does he intend to do—cut commitments or increase defence spending?
    Mr. Spellar: The hon. Gentleman excels himself. He referred to Lynx helicopters. Let us be clear that there is a technical problem with rotor heads. I suspect that those rotor heads were probably ordered under a previous Conservative Administration. However, armies, air forces and, indeed, airline companies face such inevitable problems.
    The hon. Gentleman also mentioned a Royal Marines exercise in Norway. I went there, and several hundred troops were engaged in the exercise, notably the Royal Logistic Corps, which provided the logistics for the majority of the exercise, and the Air Force. The Royal Marines had been detached to other duties. The hon. Gentleman may have noticed that we were rather busy last year. We have been engaged in several operations.
    Once again, we have to return to the core question: if Conservative Members keep returning to the Dispatch Box to make points about overstretch, they should tell us what commitments they would cut.

    Troop Deployments
    Mr. John Bercow: How many Army personnel are deployed overseas. [127261]
    The Minister for the Armed Forces (Mr. John Spellar): Some 32,600 regular Army personnel, including Gurkhas, are currently serving overseas.
    Mr. Bercow: I am grateful to the Minister for that reply. Will he accept that the infantry are currently 1,600 men under authorised strength, that the shortages are almost entirely in the lower ranks and that the regular battalion of the Royal Irish Regiment, which is currently 134 men under strength, is worst affected? Has it occurred to the Minister that the crisis in manpower and morale is the direct result of his folly in expecting more from less?
    Mr. Spellar: Last year marked a 10-year high in recruitment. The figure for this year is slightly less, but remains extremely good. There are difficulties in retention, and it is surprising that recruitment is so good when unemployment is at a 20-year low. There is traditionally a direct correlation between recruitment and unemployment levels. It is a tribute to our recruiters that they have been able to maintain high recruitment.
    There has been an increase in pre-sifting recruits and in sending them for fitness training so that they are better able to undertake training. That is good, because more trained strength is resulting from recruitment, and fewer are falling by the wayside during the recruitment process.
    We do not underestimate the impact of many of the difficulties that we inherited, not least housing, which was mentioned earlier. It is a particular grievance of families, and we must address it. We have spent tens of millions of pounds in trying to tackle it. It is a major difficulty, which has an impact on retention. We have been engaged with the Families Federation on the matter. I have reported several times that, through the service families taskforce, we have dealt with many other difficulties that face service families in their engagement with other Government agencies. We have also consulted other Departments and made something happen.
    Mr. Andrew Mackinlay: When our armed forces are deployed overseas, what are the rules of engagement when they, perhaps inadvertently, have an interface with outfits such as Sandline and Executive Outcomes? Are there strict instructions about the way in which they should respond and whether they should collaborate? The matter worries many hon. Members as a consequence of the Sierra Leone problems. Those problems also apply to other parts of the world. What instructions are given to our armed forces personnel?
    Mr. Spellar: I am not aware that Sandline is operating in Sierra Leone, but my hon. Friend is right to draw attention to the existence of private operations. If our forces are engaged in an operation in support of a Government, they are instructed to report any discussion that arises regarding any private operation. Of course, there is a question about an individual Government's right to engage personnel in support of their own operations which, inevitably, relates to the sovereignty of that country. Our forces are under clear instructions that, should they encounter such groups in any way, they should report that, although, as I said, I have no evidence that Sandline or any other group is operating in Sierra Leone.
    Mr. Julian Brazier: It is always a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Thurrock (Mr. Mackinlay). Will the Minister confirm that the overstretch on the Royal Engineers and Royal Signals in relation to their tour cycle is even greater than that on the infantry? Will he confirm that wastage is so bad that the Army is now at its smallest since the Crimean war? Where, in the list of items that he gave my hon. Friend the Member for Buckingham (Mr. Bercow), does he fit the £11 million cut in married quarters repairs, the horrendous state of our single persons' accommodation and a string of penny-pinching savings, which go right down to failing to repair the Royal Engineers' gym at Chatham so that it cannot be used for fitness training?
    Mr. Spellar: I assume that the hon. Gentleman was a Member of the last Parliament when, as I recall, many of the problems that we inherited were building up. I will exonerate him a little as he made a bit of a fight about married quarters, although he buckled at the last minute in the face of the reaction from his Government. However, single living accommodation in particular is an ongoing problem and we are clear that we need to address it fully.
    I fully accept the hon. Gentleman's point about numbers in the Royal Signals. He will accept that there has been an explosion in the telecommunications industry outside but, unfortunately, that industry does not see fit to train enough people for its own requirements and is actively recruiting from our extremely well-trained telephone and communications experts in the Royal Signals. That is a tribute to the training that we give but, unfortunately, adds considerable pressure which, of course, is why we are putting a lot of emphasis on the Royal Signals' reserve component. I take the hon. Gentleman's point: we are putting considerable work into the matter, including, as he will know from his constituency area, training Gurkhas in the Signals' role.
    Mr. Iain Duncan Smith: The Secretary of State knows that retention is one of the key problems in overstretch, and that morale is a key feature of that. When troops are deployed overseas with their rifles, they ask how they will be supported. Will the Minister therefore explain simply why, when the Government undertook the upgrade programme, they did not insist that it went to the UK, rather than Germany? Was it because the Secretary of State said that he did not care about metal bashing in the UK?
    Mr. Spellar: That is a sort of urban myth that the Opposition are trying to propagate—[Interruption.] It is not true. The question concerns the capability of BAE Systems and its ability to undertake that work. We had to consider its capability in Germany compared, unfortunately, with its declining capability in the UK which has been a long-standing position. As the hon. Gentleman knows, the main capability, even at Nottingham, was in large systems, rather than rifles.
    The hon. Gentleman should really look at how the Conservative Government let that capability run down over the years in which they were in office. If Conservative Members thought that there was a problem with the SA80 which should have been dealt with earlier

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    after the Gulf war, they should have instigated that. However, it is yet another problem that they left us when we came to power.
    Mr. Duncan Smith: That is utter nonsense. The Minister should go and talk to the Nottingham facility which believes that it can clearly undertake that work. He is therefore not telling the whole story. Does he not realise that, if what he says is the case, and we lose small arms production in the UK and cannot support such production, our service men will look round and see that their gloves are made in eastern Europe, their combat clothing in Belgium and their boots in Spain and Brazil? They will therefore be able to ask legitimately whether the trading standards officer might not arrive at the door of the Secretary of State one day and say that, under trade descriptions, the British Army should no longer be called British?
    Mr. Spellar: What a slur that is on all the British soldiers, who are very much British. About 83 per cent. of clothing orders go to British firms. There have been some headline stories about production going abroad, but actually, a considerable amount of production, of clothing and textiles, for example, has taken place in this country. At the same time, a number of British firms specialising in defence clothing and equipment are securing orders from elsewhere in Europe, under the European procedures.
    We are governed by value for money and the European procedures, but we are working with British industry to ensure that wherever possible, it gets the contracts. The success of that policy, ultimately, is shown by the fact that Britain is still a major exporter of defence equipment—it was second in the world last year—and sells to a number of areas.
    The hon. Gentleman must say whether he wants to go back to fortress Britain, or to engage successfully in the international defence equipment market. There is a case for looking carefully at whether we are getting fair trading conditions from other countries, and where we are not, for looking extremely closely at orders relating to those countries—but the matter is not as simple as the hon. Gentleman tries to present it.

    Aircraft Weaponry
    Mr. John Randall: Which RAF aircraft are armed with cannon; and if he will make a statement. [127262]
    The Minister for the Armed Forces (Mr. John Spellar): Cannon are carried on Jaguar, Tornado and Royal Navy Sea Harrier aircraft. They can also be fitted to Hawk aircraft for training purposes.
    Mr. Randall: I thank the Minister for that reply. Does he share my dismay at the decision not to equip the Eurofighter with the Mauser cannon? Has he spoken to RAF pilots about that decision, and if so, what was their response?
    Mr. Spellar: May I point out that a number of our other aircraft do not have cannon either? I draw the
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    hon. Gentleman's attention to the letter in The Daily Telegraph from Air Vice-Marshal Nicholl, who I presume knows something about aircraft. He wrote:
    It is for that reason that I, not ministers, recommended to the MoD's most senior management group that we put no further effort into the gun.
    The role of air-to-air combat aircraft depends on short, medium and long-range missiles. Therefore, cannon are not now an appropriate weapon for such aircraft, which are not for close combat over the channel. The reason is in the world of technology. Cannon have an impact, particularly on the fatigue life of aircraft.
    Mr. Quentin Davies: In talking about close combat, the Minister is trying to bamboozle the House. He knows perfectly well that in recent years cannon have been effective against helicopters, for ground strafing, and, occasionally, against ships. Do the Government not realise that when other European countries that have ordered the Typhoon are taking delivery of it with cannon as planned, and when the United States is fitting a cannon to its latest generation combat aircraft, the F22, and would not dream of doing otherwise, the Government are making a total fool of themselves and of this country by trying to pretend that the RAF will be better off without cannon on the nose of its Typhoon, which instead has a lump of metal as a counterweight?
    Mr. Spellar: I think that the hon. Gentleman, who managed to keep just below the excitability level today, gave it away when he talked about ground strafing. This is a very capable air-to-air combat aircraft. That is its role. If we wish to attack targets on the ground, not only do we have a number of other aircraft, we also have the extremely capable Apache.
    The hon. Gentleman needs to look at what role the aircraft will have and what advice we took from technical experts in the RAF, who saw that, with increasing capability, and with the distances involved, modern missiles are the key weaponry for that aircraft. Indeed, there is a good argument that says that if a pilot were close enough to be able to line up the cannon, he would have to be head-on to the other craft, which would be detrimental to the evasion tactics and the anti-missile technology that he would want to use. It is all very well for all the amateur technologists on the Conservative Benches to make those comments. We have asked the people who know about the subject, and that is their advice.

    Naval Funding
    Mr. Nigel Evans: How much funding his Department has allocated to naval operations this year. [127263]
    The Secretary of State for Defence (Mr. Geoffrey Hoon): Responsibility for routine operations lies with the Commander-in-Chief Fleet. His cash budget is some £1.1 billion this year. Additionally, the Second Sea Lord and the Defence Logistics Organisation, which are funded separately, provide support and maintenance to the fleet.
    Mr. Evans: I thank the Secretary of State for that response but—without blaming the previous Government, as this Government have been in power for three long

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    years—can he say something, if not apologise, for the fact that the Navy has had to borrow submarines from Turkey and Germany for training purposes because it has insufficient submarines for its own needs, and that sailors at the HMS Cambridge gunnery school have been told that to save money, instead of firing live rounds when practising, they should shout "Bang!" into a microphone? That may be the Secretary of State's idea of megaphone diplomacy, but what does he believe it does for the morale of our sailors and our Navy?
    Mr. Hoon: The hon. Gentleman needs to get serious. He will know that such training exercises have always been conducted in that way at the very lowest levels in the armed forces. Raising such matters in that way simply cheapens his party's attitude to them. If he complains that such activities are the result of cuts, let me make it clear that his party was responsible for cutting the Navy over a long period from the mid-1980s onwards. The annual budget for the Ministry of Defence was cut each year from 1995–96 to 1997. If the hon. Gentleman is concerned about cuts in the Navy, he should know that his party halved the number of destroyers and frigates, and cut Navy numbers by some 27,000 in that period; given that history, he should not make too many complaints.
    Instead, this country's shipbuilding industry can now look forward to the largest programme of new warship construction since the second world war. We plan to procure two new aircraft carriers. We are investing in new type 45 destroyers, new submarines, new ro-ro ferries and new amphibious shipping. We have just ordered two new survey vessels for the Royal Navy—an order that will be worth £130 million for the Appledore shipyard in Devon. That is a programme to be proud of, unlike the series of cuts over which he and his party long presided.
    Ms Rachel Squire: With regard to naval operations support, will my right hon. Friend confirm that regular discussions take place with defence manufacturers not only on ship maintenance, refitting and repair facilities, but on promoting defence diversification? Given the job losses that were announced at Rosyth dockyard on Friday—a direct result of the previous Government's decision to remove submarine work from Rosyth—will he reassure my constituents about the Government's commitment to maintaining ship repair and refitting facilities, and promoting defence diversification, in areas still heavily dependent on defence work?
    Mr. Hoon: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for the measured way in which she asked her question. Certainly, the Government are concerned about the redundancies that have taken place. They are not connected with any work to consider the problem of overcapacity in warship maintenance and support; that is a matter for Babcock Rosyth Defence Ltd.—the owner of Rosyth dockyard. I understand that its announcement reflects its determination to improve efficiency and restructure its operation, but the Government certainly maintain their commitment to warship refitting, and we want to maintain in an efficient way the facilities that we have available. The key for the future of Rosyth lies in establishing its position as a fully competitive surface shipyard.
    Mr. Mike Hancock: Will the Secretary of State give a similar assurance that Fleet
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    Support Ltd. in Portsmouth dockyard will maintain its share of naval repair and maintenance work? Also, if the headquarters of naval operations, at Northwood, is to close and may move to Portsmouth, will some of the savings go into putting more and better crewed ships at sea and providing more operational time?
    Mr. Hoon: I cannot give the hon. Gentleman the precise assurance that he requests, because clearly those are commercial matters involving private sector companies, which have to ensure that they are efficient and effective, and secure the work that provides appropriate levels of employment for their employees. However, I can assure the hon. Gentleman that the level of work presently available will continue. Indeed, with the programme that the Government anticipate, I expect there to be work in the long term. However, that depends on each yard being efficient and commercially able to attract the kind of work that it needs to secure employment for its employees.

    Former Prisoners of War
    Mr. David Winnick: When he will make a statement on compensation for former British prisoners of war held by the Japanese. [127264]
    The Minister for the Armed Forces (Mr. John Spellar): As I explained to my hon. Friend during the debate on 6 June, we expect to make a decision soon on the matter of further compensation for former British prisoners of war held by the Japanese.
    Mr. Winnick: In view of what the Prime Minister has already told the House, can we expect that statement before the House rises for the summer recess? Bearing in mind the terrible brutality that prisoners held by the Japanese suffered, and the fact that 25 per cent. of them never returned, does my hon. Friend accept that there is much support, both in the House and in the country, for adequate compensation? I hope that a favourable decision will be made very shortly. Let us follow what the Canadians have done.
    Mr. Spellar: As my hon. Friend knows from several debates and questions on the subject, the Government fully recognise the bravery of those who were held as prisoners of war in the far east, and elsewhere, during the second world war and in subsequent conflicts. From meetings with the Royal British Legion, the Prime Minister and my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State, he also knows of our great sympathy for their suffering and that of their families. From previous replies, he is aware that the matter is still under consideration by the Government. No conclusions have yet been reached, and we are therefore unable to give a date on which an announcement will be made.
    Mr. Martin Bell: Does the Minister accept that this is a matter not of money but of honour, and of giving recognition to people who made sacrifices and endured ordeals that we cannot begin to imagine? That takes time, granted—but surely too much time has already passed. How can the Government say no?
    Mr. Spellar: At this stage I can only reiterate what I said to my hon. Friend the Member for Walsall, North

    15
    (Mr. Winnick): those matters are still under consideration and no decision has yet been made. We hope to make an announcement soon, but I cannot put a time on that at the moment.
    Dr. Julian Lewis: Does the Minister accept that the prisoners of the Japanese are in a separate category because they were the subject of war crimes? I am reading the autobiography of Mr. Bill Griffiths, who while a prisoner of the Japanese was subjected to a war crime that cost him both his eyes and both his hands. How does the Minister think Mr. Griffiths feels about the compensation culture in this country, which pays out huge awards to people whose feelings have been hurt by careless remarks made at work, to service women who have become pregnant and cannot fulfil their duties, and to policemen who suffer stress caused by doing their duty? How do the far east prisoners feel when such payouts are made for situations that do not begin to compare with what they suffered?
    Mr. Spellar: Yes, I fully understand those sentiments. However, I should point out that many of the circumstances have existed for much of the time since 1955, when a previous Conservative Government decided not to proceed further. I should also point out that the Conservative party was in power for 18 years and chose not to make a decision. These are difficult issues—[Interruption.] It ill behoves Conservative Front Benchers who were Members of the House in that period, and did nothing, to shout out. These are complicated issues, which is why the discussions between Departments are taking some time—but we still hope to make an announcement soon.

    Defence Medical Services
    Dr. Brian Iddon: How many extra personnel the Government aim to recruit to the defence medical services over the next three years. [127265]
    The Minister for the Armed Forces (Mr. John Spellar): We aim to recruit some 3,300 regular personnel into the defence medical services over the current financial year and the next two financial years. However, recruiting targets are dynamic and could be subject to change. The figure of 3,300 includes all trades and specialties within the medical and dental fields, and covers recruiting into training, as well as direct-entry qualified personnel.
    Dr. Iddon: Will my hon. Friend confirm that by contrast, the Conservative Government had planned a massive £600 million cut in the defence medical services budget? Does that not illustrate their attitude towards not only the defence budget but the national health service? I say that because I am aware of the enormous amount of work carried out for the NHS by defence medical services staff in peacetime.
    Mr. Spellar: I thank my hon. Friend; he is absolutely right. The real tragedy of the notorious defence costs study 15, which slashed the defence medical services, is that the long training times required for medical specialties mean that it takes an enormous amount of time and effort to retrieve the situation, particularly when the
    16
    demand for health services elsewhere in the country is rising. I am pleased to say that in several areas, the number of people undergoing medical training has increased, and we shall work with the NHS in that regard.
    There is also the question of reserve forces and reserve medical services. I am pleased to say that my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary has had a meeting with his opposite number in the Department of Health to ensure maximum co-operation between the NHS and the defence medical services, both regular and reserve.
    Mr. Peter Viggers: It is easy for the Minister of State to say what he hopes for, but what are the facts? What has been the effect on recruitment and retention of the proposed closure of the only tri-service military hospital, at Haslar hospital in my constituency? Can he confirm or deny that that decision was so serious that our forces' ability to deploy overseas is now seriously constrained by a shortage of medical staff?
    Mr. Spellar: The hon. Gentleman will be aware—he certainly should be from the number of parliamentary answers that I have given him on the subject—that the closure of Haslar was driven mainly by the difficulties in retaining training accreditation from the various royal colleges in their specialties, precisely because of the level and variety of throughput. Indeed, that has been the experience of other separate medical hospitals, including those that have now gone into national health service hospitals. I have spoken to the staff who have made that transfer and they say that, although in the medical units within the hospitals the work is harder, it is more fulfilling and professionally much more satisfying. That reflects the judgment of the medical colleges, from which we were in danger of steadily losing accreditation because of the level of throughput.
    As I have told the House a number of times, many small hospitals face that problem, and it has affected those medical hospitals. Not only have those changes been welcomed, but there has been considerable interest in, and welcome for, the centre for defence medicine, based at Birmingham university, which will also provide an excellent facility.
    Mrs. Linda Gilroy: May I welcome my hon. Friend's statement? He will know of the vital and valued service provided by royal naval hospital staff at Plymouth Derriford. He will also probably know of the recent announcement that there is to be a new medical school, the Peninsula medical school, based in Plymouth and Exeter. Can he confirm that the co-operation with the NHS that he was talking about will extend to working with that new medical school? The extra investment will mean that 100 of the 1,000 extra doctors in training in the NHS will be trained in Plymouth and Exeter.
    Mr. Spellar: I welcome not only that, but the expansion into East Anglia, which is another area that has not traditionally had a medical training facility. That is good news for the country because of the extra number of medics, and it is good news for those areas. There has also been an expansion into the black country, based on Birmingham university. Again, that means medical training in areas that had not previously experienced its benefits, and we shall work with the health service in that regard.

    17
    When I was at Derriford a few months ago, I talked to our people on the naval side, and to people in the hospital administration. They were keen to have the medical training facility, and to work with our naval people in a combined operation. There were some initial teething troubles, but the two systems began to mesh, and they are now working extremely well, to the mutual benefit both of the people of Plymouth and of the Royal Navy. I am sure that that will be true in other centres as well.

    Territorial Army
    Mr. Christopher Fraser: What the current strength is of the Territorial Army. [127266]
    The Minister for the Armed Forces (Mr. John Spellar): The latest available official figures give the total strength of the Territorial Army as 43,334.
    Mr. Fraser: Does the Minister accept that if there is to be a recruitment campaign for the Territorial Army, he must first deal with the severe morale and retention problems that have devastated the TA because of the misjudged cuts that the Government have made?
    Mr. Spellar: The hon. Gentleman will be surprised to know that I do not accept that analysis. I repeat the fact that we reoriented the focus of the Territorial Army away from the cold war features, which were primarily intended to provide reinforcement in a conflict in central Germany and to protect key installations in this country. We wanted to move to territorial, or, indeed, reserve forces. Reference is always made to the TA, but there has been an increase in Navy, Air Force and Marines reserves. We wanted to reorient the TA, in particular, as a force that is usable and used, and that is what we have been successfully undertaking.
    We have visited several TA units that are working on that programme. They do not fit the picture of low morale that the hon. Gentleman describes, although I fully accept that there has been concern and dissatisfaction on the infantry side in some areas, and we are working with those units to repair that situation. The hon. Gentleman should consider the other side of the picture, in which a number of support services are getting new equipment, and morale is good.

    Naval Procurement
    Mr. David Heath: What progress he has made in the procurement of (a) new aircraft carriers and (b) future carrier-borne aircraft. [127268]
    The Secretary of State for Defence (Mr. Geoffrey Hoon): Competitive assessment contracts to develop
    18
    design options for the future aircraft carrier, each worth up to £30 million, were awarded in November 1999 to BAE Systems and Thomson-CSF Naval Systems. The carriers will form the principal platform for the joint Royal Navy and RAF future carrier-borne aircraft and the future organic airborne early warning system. We are assessing options for the FCBA and a decision is planned for later this year. We are in the early stages of discussions with industry on the early warning system.
    Mr. Heath: Given the vital importance of the aircraft carriers to the future expeditionary policy, and given that the two procurement programmes go together, the platform must be designed for the aircraft and the aircraft must be designed for the platform. What is the time scale for the future carrier-borne aircraft? No one wants a bodged last-minute "marinisation" of an aircraft designed for land-based use.
    Mr. Hoon: The hon. Gentleman is right that it is necessary to consider both the decisions together. Although two teams are considering the two issues separately, they work closely together. The three designs under consideration for the two aircraft carriers reflect the three types of aircraft that could be embarked on the carriers. As this work is complex and depends on ensuring that both decisions proceed in parallel and complement each other, the assessment phase will be complete in 2003, when bids for the demonstration and manufacture phase will be delivered. That will inform a decision by Ministers in late 2003, with contract placement for the carriers planned for 2004.
    Mr. Lindsay Hoyle: Will full consideration be given to Eurofighter, especially a Fleet Air Arm version, which would not only provide jobs in the north-west but give a further role to a much needed aircraft?
    Mr. Hoon: Certainly a version of the Eurofighter is one of the candidates.
    Mr. John Wilkinson: Her Majesty's Government have already put funds into the joint strike fighter. Given the need for transatlantic defence co-operation and the huge market for the aeroplane in the United States armed forces, as well as, potentially, in our own, is it not important for the Government to take advantage of the investment that has already been made?
    Mr. Hoon: The hon. Gentleman is right. There are a number of other options, including two versions of the joint strike fighter. They will certainly be strong contenders.

Point of Order
3.30 pm
Mr. James Clappison: On a point of order, Madam Speaker. Have you received a request from a Minister in the Foreign Office to be allowed to give the Government's response to the recent news of the conviction of 10 members of the Jewish community in Shiraz, Iran, and of their sentencing to terms of imprisonment of between five and 13 years, following a trial that was widely accepted to have violated the principles of justice—not least the principle of open justice? Such a statement would also give the Government an opportunity to say whether they share the deep concern expressed today by President Clinton.
Madam Speaker: I have received no notification that a Minister is seeking to make a statement today.

Opposition Day
[16TH ALLOTTED DAY]
Opposition Day

  Prisoners (Early Release)
  Madam Speaker: I have selected the amendment in the name of the Prime Minister.
  3.31 pm
  Miss Ann Widdecombe: I beg to move,
  That this House condemns the Government's policy of giving prisoners special early release on the Home Detention Curfew scheme; deplores the fact that more than 20,000 convicted criminals, including thousands of drug dealers and traffickers, robbers, burglars and violent offenders, have been released from prison under the scheme before serving even half the sentences they were given by the courts; regrets that child sex offenders and others have been released on the scheme before serving the minimum period required by law and contrary to the explicit assurances given to the House by Ministers; notes the contradiction between the recent comments of the Home Secretary and the Prime Minister's spokesman that violent criminals should serve longer prison sentences and the Government's policy that has resulted in the special early release of thousands of violent criminals on the scheme; calls on the Home Secretary to act on his word and end the release of robbers and other violent criminals on the scheme immediately; calls for the scheme to be abolished completely; and calls on the Home Secretary urgently to clarify the Government's prisons policy.
  For all their rhetoric, the Prime Minister and the Home Secretary have not shown the toughness on crime that they promised to show. The more desperate they get, the bigger fools they make of themselves; but the electorate, at least, can no longer be fooled. The facts are that police numbers have fallen by more than 2,300 since the Government came to power, the number of constables has gone down, and crime—especially violent crime—is on the rise once more, after the substantial falls brought about during the last Parliament.
  One of the Government's responses to a rising crime rate is to resort to gimmicks, such as the Prime Minister's announcement of £100 spot fines, which senior police officers are queueing up to describe in the media as ludicrous and ridiculous. This was the usual exercise of headlines and spin, reannouncements of old policy, and gimmicks designed to grab a cheap headline. I am sure that the Prime Minister hopes that the fines will not go the way of his other gimmicks, such as the child curfew orders. After 20 months, we are still waiting for one to be used.
  On this occasion, the Prime Minister has made an utter fool of himself. He has solemnly proposed that a policeman should approach a drunken yob and demand a £100 fine. When said drunken yob has managed to straighten himself enough to explain that he does not have £100 on him, the policeman—according to the Prime Minister—will accompany him to a cash dispenser, where he will in his drunken state instantly recall his PIN and solemnly produce his bank card, then withdraw £100 and give it to the officer. If that is the best that the Prime Minister can manage in the face of rising crime, it is pathetic.
  Mr. Douglas Hogg: Will my right hon. Friend include in her criticism of the

  21
  Prime Minister the point that that is manifestly incompatible with the European convention on human rights, which the Home Secretary recently incorporated into our law?
  Miss Widdecombe: The Prime Minister, however, does not concern himself with details like that. He just wanted a quick headline. He just wanted to say something that sounded tough, regardless of whether he could implement it—never consulting the police, never asking whether the measure was practical and never testing his proposal. He just wanted a "Let's sound tough" headline, which has rebounded thoroughly and deservedly on him.
  The Home Secretary will probably be relieved that we are not debating those fines today. Opposition Members would love to do so, but I am afraid that they had not been announced when we tabled the motion, so we are going to debate another of the Government's responses: letting more and more prisoners out of jail earlier and earlier.
  Mr. Simon Hughes: As the right hon. Lady knows, I do not always agree with her. However, on that general issue, and before she moves on to address the specific issue of this debate, let me ask her a question. Is she aware that the Prime Minister's announcement to the academics of Tübingen—who might not have been overly interested in that particular bit of ethical, theological or international political reflection—was made without information on it being passed to the Home Office? On Friday, the Home Office said that it knew nothing about the proposal, and, therefore, could not comment on it.
  Miss Widdecombe: I do not think that I want to intrude on the private grief of this very unjoined-up Government—let us spare them any more blushes. I notice, however, that no Labour Members have jumped up to defend that ludicrous policy and that ludicrous announcement. They have failed to do so because, of course, they have absolutely no defence. Even those who are in places that we cannot see are falling apart laughing.
  The far more dangerous policy, which we should be discussing now, is that of prisoners coming out of jail early. The Home Secretary's special early release scheme has seen more than 20,000 convicted criminals released before serving even half the sentence that they were given in court. Of course, it is likely that the up-to-date figure is substantially higher than that—I would estimate that it is probably about 23,000—but I am unable to say that certainly because, so far, there has been no answer to the parliamentary question tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Aylesbury (Mr. Lidington), although he tabled it for answer two weeks ago.
  Those who have been released on the scheme may be so-called short-term prisoners, but they are definitely not minor criminals. They are criminals guilty of some of the very worst crimes, such as manslaughter, attempted murder, drug dealing, violent assaults, robbery and burglary. They have been given the "get out of jail free" card by the Prime Minister and the Home Secretary. Criminals sentenced by the courts to six months are getting out of jail in just six weeks-tough on crime, indeed.
  Opposition Members completely support the use of electronic tagging, but not as a substitute for serving the right jail sentence. Indeed, we pioneered tags in the face
  22
  of opposition from Labour Members. What we do not support is the Government's decision to hide behind tagging to let tens of thousands of criminals out of prison before they have served even half the sentence handed down by the courts. We have made that crystal clear from day 1.
  When the Home Secretary first announced that ludicrous policy, in November 1997, my right hon. Friend the Member for North-West Cambridgeshire (Sir B. Mawhinney) said:
  Today, we have seen a significant shift in this country's penal policy…when this bit of the crime and disorder Bill comes before the House, we will resist it—[Official Report, 20 November 1997; Vol. 301, c. 456.]
  And we did.
  When the Bill came before the House, my hon. Friend the Member for Ryedale (Mr. Greenway) said:
  We oppose the early release of prisoners under the scheme.
  He also said that
  what the Government are doing is wrong—[Official Report, 23 June 1998; Vol. 314, c. 925–28.]
  Therefore, the Home Secretary's previous attempts to portray this as a policy supported by the Opposition are every bit as bogus as his fiddled pledge on police numbers.
  Today's debate is all the more relevant in the light of the recent comments of both the Home Secretary and the Prime Minister's spokesman. During the policing of London debate, 10 days ago, the Home Secretary told the House:
  We want to send a clear message to violent criminals that they can expect the stiffest penalties if they commit robberies or other street crimes.—[Official Report, 23 June 2000; Vol. 352, c. 560.]
  The Home Secretary told the House that he could see no justification for the over-lenient sentences being imposed for robbery in the Crown court. However, he knows very well that he himself has let hundreds of robbers out of prison before serving even half their sentence. What is the point of condemning the courts for over-lenient sentences when, by his personal decree, even those that they give are not served?
  When I called on the Home Secretary, in the light of his comments, to stop letting robbers out on his special early-release scheme, he wrote to me saying that his "tough stance on robbers" was not inconsistent with continuing to allow them to serve less than half their jail terms. He said that he saw
  no justification for the automatic exclusion of robbers
  from the special early-release arrangements. Indeed, he tried to justify his policy by arguing that he was not really releasing serious robbers—only minor robbers.
  The Home Secretary wrote that
  the average sentence length of the convicted robbers placed on home detention curfew was just over two years, which is well below the current average of three years. Without detracting at all from the seriousness of each individual crime. I think you will nonetheless agree that this gives an indication of the relative seriousness with which the courts regarded each of the offences in question.
  However much the Home Secretary tries to wriggle out of the situation that he has created, he has palpably failed to ensure that robbers have faced the stiffest penalties. Some 811 convicted robbers were released on his scheme up to 30 April this year. The average sentence given to them by the courts was 26 months. The average sentence

  23
  served was just 11 months. Far from ensuring stiffer penalties, that is ensuring lighter penalties. The courts are not to blame—he is to blame.
  The Home Secretary has made it clear, with considerable effrontery, that the policy will continue. On Thursday, The Sun—a splendid paper, which appeared to have been briefed extensively by the Prime Minister's spin doctors—reported:
  New figures show that there are 4,000 "vacancies" in Britain's jails.
  No doubt the Home Secretary will explain exactly to the House what these new figures are. If there are 4,000 vacancies and if the Prime Minister really is so committed to seeing violent and serious criminals locked up, why not use half of those spaces for the 2,000 criminals who, even as we speak, are on special early release?
  Are there indeed 4,000 spaces? Why are there 4,000 spaces? Where are the 4,000 spaces? I was surprised when I read that story and I will give the Home Secretary every opportunity to tell us whether it was a mistake. Does he want to correct it from the Dispatch Box now? Apparently not.
  A spokesman was reported as saying:
  There is a growing problem with violence in Britain. The Prime Minister is convinced there is only one way to deal with it and that is to send the message that those responsible will be caught and put away for long periods. There is no excuse for dealing with the situation in any other way.
  Perhaps the Prime Minister's office might like to have a word with the Home Secretary's office, because that has not been the Government's policy up to now. I was under the impression that the Government's thinking on prison sentences was summed up by the words of the Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department, the hon. Member for North Warwickshire (Mr. O'Brien), who said:
  We should not make a totem of the length of time spent in prison.—[Official Report, Standing Committee B, 4 June 1998; c. 697.]
  No doubt the Prime Minister's spokesman will be seeking an early opportunity to have a quiet word with the Under-Secretary and hear his excuses.
  The Government's actions in releasing thousands of violent criminals early fly in the face of the Prime Minister's personal promises and those of his Ministers. Perhaps the Prime Minister—who promised in his manifesto to support the police—took time today to explain to the chief constables attending his so-called crime summit exactly why his Government have allowed out more than 100 criminals convicted of assaulting police officers on his special early release scheme, and why he ordered Labour Members to troop into the Lobby on 12 July to support that policy and to vote against the Opposition's amendment to stop it? Perhaps he will now order them to present themselves within seven days at their local police stations to explain their actions. That was yet another kick in the teeth from the Labour Government for the men and women of our police service.
  Did the Minister of State, Home Office, the hon. Member for Norwich, South (Mr. Clarke), tell the chief constables why, after he called over the new year for dangerous drivers who killed to be locked up for life, the Government have allowed more than 100 of them to serve
  24
  less than half their sentences? Perhaps the Prime Minister—who promised to fight the drugs menace—told the chief constables why thousands of drugs dealers and traffickers have been let out of jail on special early release. Or did the Home Secretary explain why, when the Government have in recent days promised—yet again—to crack down on violence and yobbery, hundreds of violent yobs, convicted of affray and even violent disorder, have also been let out early on the special early release scheme?
  The Government's prisons policy is a shambles. Far from being tough on crime, they have let out more than 20,000 convicted criminals to the comfort of their own homes. We even heard yesterday of one prisoner being let out on the scheme having been tagged on his wooden leg. He substituted the tagged leg for another false leg and went out drinking until all hours. Home Office business as usual. Dozens of criminals have been tagged and let out early, and have disappeared completely.
  Dr. Julian Lewis: In this lighter mood, does my right hon. Friend think that the new haircut being sported by the Minister of State is part of the Government's attempt to acclimatise society to what we can expect when more and more people are released early?
  Miss Widdecombe: I had better let the Minister speak for himself on that score. The hairstyles of Members on both sides of the House have recently come in for some comment.
  Mr. John Bercow: My right hon. Friend referred to drugs. Given that—quite apart from statements by the Prime Minister—the Labour manifesto promised a battle against drugs and gave a commitment to tackle the modern menace of drugs in our communities, is it not a particular disgrace that no fewer than 2,767 drug dealers have been let out early on the Government's ridiculous scheme?
  Miss Widdecombe: It is a disgrace, and it is proof positive of the utter cynicism that the Government bring to the serious subject of maintaining law and order.
  Other aspects of the problem deserve the House's attention. Despite the so-called vacancies in our prisons, and despite the early release of thousands of prisoners, which is the Home Secretary's response to a rising prison population, conditions in our prisons are not improving. Despite the valiant efforts of the Prison Service, overcrowding is up, with an increase in the percentage of prisoners sharing two to a cell designed for one. If the Home Secretary could give them to me, I would be grateful for the numbers sharing three to a cell designed for two, because they are not up to date. Slopping out has reappeared in some of our prisons.
  The rate of purposeful activity has declined significantly from more than 26 hours five years ago to around 23 hours today. If one puts criminals in prison, a proper effort must be made to rehabilitate them, or the result is more crime and another sentence. The Government's policy appears to be fewer purposeful hours and earlier and earlier releases. One wonders why the Home Secretary puts people in prison at all.
  Distressingly, suicides in our prisons have also increased, alarmingly so—from 59 in 1995 to 91 in the last calendar year. During the debate on the Criminal

  25
  Justice and Court Services Bill on 12 June, the Minister of State said that the early release scheme
  has had a highly successful performance record in the 16 months since its implementation.—[Official Report, 12 June 2000; Vol. 351, c. 659.]
  However, more than 700 further crimes, which include rapes, burglaries, assaults, threats to kill and drug dealing, have been committed by prisoners released on the scheme while they should still have been in jail. Is that a highly successful implementation? It does not say much for the Government's much-vaunted risk assessment or for the chief inspector's analysis that the scheme works because we can monitor what the released prisoners are doing. No. We can monitor where they are—not what they are doing.
  What does the Home Secretary have to say to the 700 victims of crime, who have been subject to what must, in some cases, have been horrendous ordeals as a direct result of his allowing those people to out on the loose when the courts said that they should be in jail? He has taken responsibility for the policy. He must take responsibility for its effects.
  Mr. James Clappison: My right hon. Friend has spoken about new victims, but how does she think that old victims will feel when the people sentenced to long periods in prison for the offences that they have committed suddenly appear on the streets after serving only a fraction of their sentences?
  Miss Widdecombe: My hon. Friend is absolutely right to ask that question, which highlights why the Government's policy is such an insult and such a cynical way to treat victims. The Conservative party is pledged to introduce honesty in sentencing so that the sentence that victims hear being given will be the sentence that prisoners serve.
  The Home Secretary has betrayed the police. He has also betrayed the victims of crime by letting criminals out on his scheme. He has hit the public with a double whammy, allowing hundreds of criminals to commit further crimes when, but for his policy, they would have been locked up.
  Mr. Gerald Bermingham: I thank the right hon. Lady for giving way, and I declare an interest as a practising lawyer. Will she explain, to someone as old and tired as I am, why her party when in government was so keen to increase the remission period from one third to one half? That let thousands of people out of prison before their original sentences were complete. What is the difference between that policy all those years ago, and the current policy of trying to get people rehabilitated in the community?
  Miss Widdecombe: The hon. Gentleman said that he was old and tired. He is living in the past. The policies that I have announced today are our policies now. [Interruption.] If the Government want the Conservative party to justify past policies, let them justify past Labour policies. Let the Home Secretary tell us why he has changed his mind on trial by jury and on the numbers in prisons. Let the Home Secretary tell us why he has changed his policies on illegal working. Let the Government explain why, in the past, they have had policies that they have changed now.
  26
  The fact is that the policies of the previous Conservative Government brought about a sustained and significant fall in crime. All that the Home Secretary has delivered is a rise in crime.
  The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. Jack Straw): I am always happy to justify any changes in approach that I have adopted when those changes are put to me accurately. As far as I could hear the right hon. Lady's extraordinary rant, nothing that she said could be described as that. My hon. Friend the Member for St. Helens, South (Mr. Bermingham) asked about the remission changes announced in 1989 by Lord Hurd, when he was Home Secretary, and introduced some months later. The right hon. Lady was a supporter of that Conservative Government. Is she saying now that Lord Hurd got that policy completely wrong? If so, will she say why she and the right hon. and learned Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Mr. Howard) never changed that policy when they were in office?
  Miss Widdecombe: If we were to go back to 1989, the Government would have some interesting policies to answer for. That was before the Prime Minister decided to change all Labour's policies because the party could not win elections with the ones that it had. The Labour party had lost three elections in a row, and its policies meant that it did not have the confidence of the electorate. I should be quite willing to rehearse all the policies that the Labour party has overturned since 1989—on defence, Europe, and law and order—but the electorate are interested in 2001. The next general election cannot come soon enough for them, as they cannot wait to get rid of this incompetent Prime Minister and Home Secretary.
  Mr. Straw: Will the right hon. Lady now answer a simple question, which she has so far refused to answer? If she disagreed so fundamentally with Lord Hurd's approach, why did she not change that approach—[HON. MEMBERS: "She did."] No, she did not. The Criminal Justice Act 1991 stayed in force and the two thirds remission stayed at a half. Why did she not change it?
  Miss Widdecombe: We did. The right hon. Gentleman must have the shortest memory of any Labour Member. Does he remember the honesty in sentencing proposals that we introduced and had ready to put into law, and that he overturned in his first few weeks as Home Secretary? I remember asking him from the Back Benches whether the Home Secretary had therefore abandoned honesty in sentencing, and he said yes. So we did change the policy—my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Mr. Howard) changed it. It was opposed by the right hon. Gentleman, so we are being consistent, because we will reintroduce it when we are elected next year. We have been totally consistent, and the right hon. Gentleman has not.
  Mr. Straw: Will the right hon. Lady give way?
  Miss Widdecombe: Once more.
  Mr. Straw: I am grateful to the right hon. Lady.
  Miss Widdecombe: Three strikes and you are out.
  Mr. Straw: Three and I am in. Will the right hon. Lady now own up to the fundamental flaw in her so-called

  27
  honesty in sentencing approach? The provisions in the Crime (Sentences) Act 1997 would have made no difference whatever to the length of sentence laid down in the 1991 Act.
  Miss Widdecombe: If the right hon. Gentleman had been listening, he would know that I said to my hon. Friend the Member for Hertsmere (Mr. Clappison) that the virtue of honesty in sentencing is that the sentence that the victim hears handed down will be the sentence served.
  Mr. Simon Hughes: Will the right hon. Lady give way?
  Miss Widdecombe: This is absolutely the last time.
  Mr. Hughes: This is a very important point. Will the right hon. Lady give us a simple answer on honesty in sentencing? Does she expect, that if her policy were implemented, longer sentences would be served on average and in total? What would be the effect on the number of people in prison?
  Miss Widdecombe: The sentence served would be the sentence handed down. Judges would be expected to take into account what they would have expected someone to serve. At present, a judge will sentence someone to five years, meaning two and a half. In future, he will say two and a half and he will mean two and a half.
  In deliberately letting thousands of convicted criminals out of jail before they have served less than half their sentences, the Prime Minister and the Home Secretary have shown the House and the country exactly what their promises to be tough on crime were worth. They have been tough on crime fighters and soft on criminals. Their special early release policy is an insult to the police, the victims of crime and the people of this country. That is the way in which the Labour Government conduct themselves in office.
  The Government swagger and they posture; the Prime Minister grins and he spins. The rhetoric of the Government is as vainglorious as any action that they take is vacuous. The fact remains that none of the Government's flagship policies on crime has worked. There are no child curfew orders—only a handful of anti-social behaviour orders. Prisoners are let out early, despite all the tough talk about the sentences that the courts should set. Those responsible for arresting criminals are reduced to the point at which they can hardly take any sensible action because there are simply not enough of them to do so.
  It is a shambles of a record. What baffles me is that the Home Secretary, who, when he started in office, used at least to admit when things were going wrong, has recently taken to pretending that everything is absolutely fine. He calls a policy that results in 700 crimes being committed while their perpetrators should have been in jail, but who were out only because he decided that they could be, a successful implementation. It is cynical, it is disgraceful, and it is a betrayal of victims.
  The change in government, which I believe will happen, cannot come soon enough. When it comes, criminals will serve the time that the judges have said that they should serve. No criminals will be released early just
  28
  because it is an easy way of coping with a rising prison population. If we have a rising prison population, we will build the necessary prisons to house that population, as we did before. We will ensure that prisons are purposeful and worthwhile places, not merely empty warehouses where prisoners kick their heels waiting to be released to commit more crime. That is what I envisage as a sensible way of coping with crime. Both the Prime Minister and the Home Secretary should do one thing and do it now; they should apologise for the total shambles.
  4 pm
  The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. Jack Straw): I beg to move, To leave out from "House" to the end of the Question, and to add instead thereof:
  `notes that the introduction of Home Detention Curfew with electronic tagging as in the Crime and Disorder Act 1998 was specifically welcomed in the unanimous Third Report of the Home Affairs Select Committee, Session 1997–98 (HC 486-I), whose members endorsing the report at that time included the honourable Members for Woking, Surrey Heath and Aldershot; believes that one of the major factors contributing to re-offending is an inadequate transition between custody and life outside prison in the community; applauds the work initiated by HM Government better to manage that transition, through Home Detention Curfew, more effective drug treatment, Welfare to Work and greater emphasis on education, work and offender behaviour programmes; notes that short term prisoners are only released on Home Detention Curfew after a careful risk assessment, that about 94 per cent. of prisoners have completed Home Detention Curfew successfully, and that the latest information indicates that fewer than 2 per cent. have been arrested, prosecuted or convicted for offences committed on Home Detention Curfew; applauds the Government's toughening of the sentencing regime, its practical approach to honesty in sentencing, and its establishment of a comprehensive review of the sentencing framework; and further notes the Opposition's action in opposing strong measures against anti-social behaviour, benefit sanctions for probation offenders and reform of mode of trial, comforting only the miscreant at the expense of the victim and the community.'.
  I greatly welcome the debate, not least because it provides a timely opportunity to contrast the Government's strategy for sentencing offenders with the huge contradictions at the heart of the Opposition's approach. We saw those contradictions exposed as the right hon. Member for Maidstone and The Weald (Miss Widdecombe) twisted in the wind on the effect of her so-called policy of honesty in sentencing, to which I shall return. To manufacture her specific case in respect of the home detention curfew she had to dissemble and to build her argument on two insinuations that are demonstrably incorrect. I shall begin by putting the facts straight about the HDC.
  The Opposition's motion claims explicitly that the home detention curfew scheme is operating outside the normal sentencing regime set down in law. That is simply untrue. The HDC is an integral part of the operation of the Criminal Justice Act 1991, which lays down the current sentencing framework. Within that framework, the Crime and Disorder Act 1998 creates a new threshold for the release of prisoners serving less than four years. It allows for the placement of a short-term prisoner on curfew after he or she has served
  the requisite period for the term of his sentence.
  It further defines in statute what is meant by "the requisite period". The meaning and intent of the HDC provisions in law are clear.
  Contrary to what is asserted in the motion, the HDC scheme does not allow release from prison before the minimum period required by law. Instead, the scheme has

  29
  changed the minimum period required for short-term prisoners serving sentences of at least three months but less than four years. It provides for release on a scale linked to the overall sentence up to a maximum of 60 days before the halfway point of the sentence for someone sentenced to just under four years.
  There is nothing novel or radical about that concept. The sentencing framework laid down by the 1991 Act sets out the concept of discretionary release for prisoners serving four years or more. The Act was introduced by the previous Conservative Government, of whom the right hon. Member for Maidstone and The Weald and many other right hon. and hon. Members were members. It was operated by the right hon. Lady when she was a Home Office Minister. The scheme—parole—is a familiar part of our criminal justice framework. The HDC extends the same principle of discretionary release and applies it to those sentenced to less than four years.
  Parole and the HDC also share another common characteristic. In both instances, while the majority of prisoners are eligible for the HDC, decisions as to who to release are taken only after careful risk assessment. In both instances, it is only a minority of those eligible who are placed on curfew.
  Like parole, the fact that a particular custodial sentence will make an offender eligible for the HDC is something of which the courts are fully aware when sentencing. The courts are now well used to the idea that there is an earliest and latest point at which a prisoner might be released.
  What is new about the HDC is that it aims to improve the effectiveness of the period spent by prisoners on licence or under supervision. The right hon. Lady talks about the need for prisons and sentencing better to rehabilitate prisoners. I accept that entirely. One of the major problems, of which she must be aware, is high levels of reoffending by prisoners, who come out on their normal release date or later. Securing a better transition between custody and the community must be one of the aims behind any sentencing policy designed to ensure that prisoners are less likely to reoffend. The right hon. Lady's description of the scheme as an early release scheme fails—as her entire approach does—to take account of the significant curtailment of liberty imposed by a curfew backed up by electronic monitoring.
  Mr. Crispin Blunt: Just what would the Home Secretary say to the two women who were raped by prisoners who were in the community rather than in prison?
  Mr. Straw: I should say the same to those victims of crime as I would to anyone else who had suffered a serious crime, perhaps committed by someone released on parole under schemes operated by the Conservatives, or even by someone released on the normal release date. I would deeply regret that those crimes happened, but the overall aim of the scheme is better management of prisoners' transition between custody and the community.
  The right hon. Member for Maidstone and The Weald insinuated, entirely falsely, that if people served the extra period—never more than 60 days, and typically 30 or 40—of their sentences before normal release, they would never, ever reoffend. In fact, we know that well over 55 per cent. of people released at normal points of their
  30
  sentences reoffend. One of the great crime challenges facing us—it should be a cross-party matter—is how to reduce the number of those who reoffend.
  Miss Widdecombe: The right hon. Gentleman has put into law a scheme that has meant that a large number of criminals—20,000 at the latest published count, and probably more—have been released before the point in their sentences at which they would have been released had he not done so. Some 700 crimes have been committed. It would be bad enough if all of them were trivial, but some them crimes have been extremely serious. In addition, dozens of those who have been released have disappeared.
  The point is that but for the right hon. Gentleman's intervention, those criminals would still be in prison, and the particular victims probably would not have suffered. I am not suggesting that those people would never reoffend if they were kept longer in prison, but they would not have committed the particular offences that they committed, and the victims of those offences, who should have been protected by the fact that those criminals were in prison, were not protected. That is the point.
  Mr. Straw: The right hon. Lady may not be making that suggestion now, but it was the precise implication of her speech. Any system in which prisoners are released subject to a risk assessment requires us to do our best to get that assessment correct. In some cases, risk assessment will not work. That is true even at the most serious end of the sentencing regime in respect of those subject to life sentences for murder. The right hon. Lady well knows that successive Secretaries of State have taken very seriously their responsibility to ensure that there is a proper risk assessment, but, with the best will in the world, about 8 per cent. of prisoners subject to mandatory licence are recalled to prison for reoffending or because they are subject to a further risk assessment. I shall later outline the defects inherent in the right hon. Lady's proposals for so-called honesty in sentencing, which, in my view, would put the public at greater risk than our carefully calibrated system.
  Miss Widdecombe: The right hon. Gentleman will be aware that we have pledged to abolish his scheme. Will he say from the Dispatch Box that he believes that abolishing the scheme will result in a rise in crime above the 700 extra crimes that he has brought about?
  Mr. Straw: That is impossible to say. If our scheme works successfully, however, the overall result should be less reoffending by prisoners. The only figures that we have—we have done our best to provide the maximum information—relate to the number of offences committed on curfew. If we look further down the track, we hope—although it remains a matter for research—that, overall, fewer offences will be committed.
  Only about a third of those eligible for the scheme are accepted. The point of the scheme is that those people are subject to a strict curfew of a minimum of nine hours a day—more usually 12—during which time they are not allowed to leave the confines of their home or probation hostel. Moreover, the scheme helps to impose a structure on what can often be chaotic lives. It forces curfewees to

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  think and plan ahead, to establish a proper home address, to follow daily routines, and to submit to an ordered—if no longer institutional—life style.
  Mr. Michael Howard: How many orders under the scheme are in force for more than 12 hours a day—if, indeed, any are? If they are not, and to the extent that they are not, does he agree with Frances Crook of the Howard League for Penal Reform—with whom I have not agreed too often in the past—when she says of those released under the scheme that they can always commit their burglaries during the day?
  Mr. Straw: Like the right hon. and learned Gentleman, I have never found Frances Crook's interventions in penal debates—
  Mr. Bercow: She is a member of the right hon. Gentleman's party.
  Mr. Straw: I do not know whether she is a member of my party—[Interruption.]—The hon. Gentleman assures me that she is. I do not usually find her interventions on such issues particularly helpful, and I do not in this case.
  The right hon. and learned Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Mr. Howard) is right to assert that curfew lasts for a maximum of 12 hours. Of course, we accept that that is not prison; it is curfew and there has never been any suggestion otherwise. Later, I shall try to tease out from the Opposition the difference in principle between the arrangements for curfewing offenders, which are worrying the Opposition, and those that the right hon. and learned Gentleman and the right hon. Lady introduced in 1995 on the back of the Criminal Justice Act 1991 for the use of curfew not only at the end of a prison sentence, but as an alternative to prison.
  I have already explained to the House that the implication of the right hon. Lady's comments was that, but for the home detention curfew, people would be incarcerated in prison for months, if not years, beyond the date on which they were released on curfew. That is palpably untrue. It deceives the public to pretend that such people are not short-term prisoners and are not always due for release within a matter of weeks. The scheme is about improving the arrangements for the return of those people to the community and, hopefully, enhancing public protection.
  Since the scheme began, 72,500 prisoners have been eligible for it, but just 22,000 of them were placed on it. Of those, about 94 per cent. successfully completed the curfew period, and just 2 per cent.—although even that is too many—are known to have reoffended while on curfew. Preliminary research published by the Home Office in January 2000 shows that, notwithstanding the complexity and large scale of the scheme, the home detention curfew operated successfully in its first year.
  Mr. Bermingham: Does my right hon. Friend agree that if we compare the number of people who successfully completed the home curfew scheme with that for the parole scheme or the licence scheme, there are a small minority of failures under all those schemes? At least there is progress when people can live a stabilised life at home.
  Mr. Straw: My hon. Friend is entirely correct. Although, like any Minister in my position, I regret any
  32
  reoffending while people are on licence—of whatever kind—the HDC success rate on reoffending is significantly better than that for other systems of release on licence.
  Occasionally, the right hon. Member for Maidstone and The Weald is constructive and makes constructive suggestions about the scheme. When we discussed the Criminal Justice and Court Services Bill on Report, she and her hon. Friend the Member for Aylesbury (Mr. Lidington) tabled an amendment on sex offenders. I hope that the House will be pleased to hear that I agree that the protection of the public may best be served by excluding—as the amendment proposed—all sex offenders, subject to notification under the Sex Offenders Act 1997, whether or not their current sentence was for a relevant offence under that Act. We shall introduce an amendment in another place to achieve that.
  Mr. Bercow: The Home Secretary's problem is the chasm between Labour's pre-election rhetoric and post-election reality. Will he tell the House where in the Labour party manifesto, which promised a "battle against drugs" and a
  commitment to tackle the modern menace of drugs in our communities
  it was also stated that the Government intended to let out thousands of drug dealers early?
  Mr. Straw: It was not intended that the Government should let out thousands of drugs dealers early, and nor have we done that.
  I return to the point about the wilful dissembling in the Opposition's amendment, which suggested that people are released before they serve the minimum period required by law. Of course they are not released before they serve the minimum period required by law—
  Mr. Hogg:You changed the law.
  Mr. Straw: There is a huge and fundamental difference between changing the law, as we have done in the open, and what the right hon. Member for Maidstone and The Weald suggests, which is that we have evaded the law and are releasing people before the minimum period required by law. That is simply not the case, and she knows it.
  Miss Widdecombe: The Home Secretary has not answered the question from my hon. Friend the Member for Buckingham (Mr. Bercow). If the right hon. Gentleman had said before the last election, "Our answer to the drugs problem is to reduce the amount of time that drugs offenders will serve in prison and then let them out—tagged as they may be—so that they will still nevertheless be perfectly able to deal in drugs", does he think that that would have inspired the confidence of the electorate?
  Hon. Members: Answer the question.
  Mr. Straw: I am just about to answer the question. Of course nobody would present a parody of that kind.
  Miss Widdecombe: That is exactly what the Government have done.
  Mr. Straw: That is not exactly what we have done. What we said repeatedly before and after the election—

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  and it is what we are doing—is that we need better to manage the transition between custody and the community so as to reduce the risk of reoffending. We are talking about whether prisoners should be released one week or five or six weeks later, having served a period in custody before that.
  We have significantly increased the investment that we are putting into fighting the drugs menace both inside and outside prison. We commended without reservation what the right hon. and learned Member for Folkestone and Hythe did through the introduction of mandatory drug testing in prisons. We supported that measure, continued it and doubled enforcement of it. Following representations in my constituency, I have considerably tightened up the regime to prevent visitors and staff from bringing drugs into prisons. The overall result of mandatory drug testing and what we are doing with visitors and staff has been a further reduction in the number of prisoners testing positive for any kind of drugs in their blood.
  We are also introducing what is called the counselling, assessment and throughcare scheme—CARATS—to provide far better treatment in prison. Alongside that, we have provided £20 million to police forces around the country so that they can establish arrest referral schemes in every major custody suite. When people are arrested, they can be put in touch in the custody suite or in the cells with a drugs worker, so that arrangements can be made alongside whatever sentence the court decides to issue to get them quickly into treatment. Everyone knows that if we delay getting drug addicts into treatment, we often delay beyond their life expectancy. In addition, as all the evidence shows, getting them quickly into treatment means that the number of offences they commit goes down rapidly.
  We were responsible for the home detention curfew scheme and take the credit for it. I am, however, concerned that the Government should not claim all the credit for innovation in the use of electronically monitored curfews as an alternative to custody. I always want to give credit where it is due. As the right hon. Member for Maidstone and The Weald will recall, it was the Conservatives who in 1995, commenced the provisions of Criminal Justice Act 1991, which allowed the courts to pass curfew orders supervised through electronic tagging.
  Mr. Howard: The courts.
  Mr. Straw: The right hon. and learned Gentleman says "the courts", but under the provisions that he and I have exercised as Home Secretary and to which we are both committed, it is not the courts that finally make a risk assessment of the most heinous of criminals—namely murderers—and then determine release and licence conditions; it is whoever occupies the position of Secretary of State. As I said earlier, the courts know full well the minimum and maximum time that is likely to be served when they hand down sentence.
  The availability of such a community curfew order meant that some offenders who would otherwise be considered for a custodial sentence could be dealt with by electronically monitored curfew instead. The previous Government accepted that curfew with electronic monitoring was a useful alternative to prison, not only for the last few weeks or days, but in place of the whole custodial sentence.
  Mr. Howard: Is the Home Secretary incapable of understanding the difference in principle between making such an order available as an option to the courts when they come to pass sentence before any sentence is served, which is indeed what we did, and the use of that procedure by the Home Secretary to release people from prison earlier than they would otherwise have been released? Is he incapable of recognising that distinction?
  Mr. Straw: Obviously I am capable of recognising the differences in the regime, but the right hon. and learned Gentleman questions whether there is a difference in principle. I go back to the debate 10 years ago when the proposal for such a system was before the House—[Interruption.] It is no good the right hon. and learned Gentleman waving his hand because the key point, the gravamen, the burden of the argument of the right hon. Member for Maidstone and The Weald, is that such people should not be let out into the community even with an electronic tag. She thinks that they should be in prison. However, the principle that binds the home detention curfew and the system of curfew which was enacted in 1991, and implemented by the Conservatives in 1995, is, as the then Home Office Minister John Patten said, to put someone under curfew
  for certain periods during the day or night to keep him out of prison.—[Official Report, Standing Committee A, 18 December 1990; c. 258.]
  The provision was designed to keep people out of prison not just for a few weeks of their sentences, but for the whole of their sentences. It was seen as a direct alternative to prison up to the highest end of community sentencing. Virtually every one of those people put under that curfew would otherwise have gone to prison. Its aim was explicitly to keep people out of prison.
  Mr. Hogg: The right hon. Gentleman must focus on the point made by my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Mr. Howard). Under the home detention curfew scheme, release on tagging is an Executive discretionary decision—not one made by the judge—whereas the order to which my right hon. and learned Friend referred is a judicially imposed curfew. They are different.
  Mr. Straw: In one respect, they are fundamentally the same: they are alternatives to prison. I shall go halfway towards the right hon. and learned Members for Sleaford and North Hykeham (Mr. Hogg) and for Folkestone and Hythe in a second. They and the Conservative party must recognise that, in the debates 10 years ago, there was no question but that the curfew orders were alternatives to custody. Yes, they were judicially decided, but they were alternatives not just to a few weeks of a sentence, but to any period in custody.
  Miss Widdecombe: Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?
  Mr. Straw: I will reply first to the right hon. and learned Member for Sleaford and North Hykeham. If the only issue separating us on the home detention curfew is whether the decision to curfew a prisoner should be made at the beginning of a sentence by the court, which would obviously be a judicial decision, or whether it should be

  35
  made towards the end of a sentence by the Executive, which in practice would be prison governors, we could have an interesting debate.
  I said that I would come to the fact that, as the House may be aware, we have established a major review of sentencing policy because it is plain that the 1991 Act is in need of reform. One arrangement that we are proposing is a better mixture of custody and community sentences, which will make it possible for the court to lay down that an element of the sentence should be spent in custody, then an element spent on electronic curfew and an element spent on licence.
  Mr. Patrick McLoughlin: Will the Home Secretary give way?
  Mr. Straw: No; I promised to give way to the right hon. Member for Maidstone and The Weald.
  Miss Widdecombe: I am grateful to the Home Secretary for giving way yet again. It is almost disingenuous to compare letting someone out of prison with not putting him in prison in the first place. The point of tagging as an alternative to prison is exactly the same as that of a community sentence as an alternative to prison, or probation as an alternative to prison—that is, a decision has been taken by a court that prison is not yet appropriate. In the case of people who are let out of prison, a decision has been taken by the court that prison is appropriate. That is the distinction between the two. They are wholly different approaches to criminal justice, and the right hon. Gentleman should acknowledge that.
  Mr. Straw: No, those are not wholly different approaches to criminal justice. The right hon. Lady simply had not spotted the huge inconsistency in her approach and is now embarrassed by it. The two approaches are the same. The record shows that an electronic curfew was introduced in the 1991 Act in respect of offenders who would otherwise have been sent to prison and whom it was not safe to put on the normal range of community sentences.
  The hole in the right hon. Lady's argument—I repeat the point so that she understands it—is that if she has objections to the electronic monitoring of people coming towards the end of their custodial sentences, she must have much greater objections to those who are put on electronic curfew for the whole of their sentences when otherwise they would palpably have been sent to prison.
  Mr. Bermingham: I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for giving way. Does he agree that the absurdity of the right hon. Lady's position is best demonstrated by the fact that as people come towards the end of their sentences, they are allowed home on home leave. From some prisons, they are sent out to work every day. They are allowed other forms of liberty. In other words, controlled liberty is a stage in rehabilitation, and that is all that we are discussing.
  Mr. Straw: That rehabilitation is extremely important and it needs to be regulated properly. If longer-term prisoners in particular are to re-make a life and, hopefully,
  36
  get away from crime, a gradual reintroduction to community life is essential, otherwise further reoffending will occur.
  Before I leave the 1990 debates, the House, especially Opposition Members, may be interested to learn that during the debate a then very young hon. Member said that prison
  clearly does not do many people a great deal of good and does not turn them away from crime.—[Official Report, 12 November 1990; Vol. 180, c. 408.]
  That observation was made by the right hon. Gentleman who is now the Leader of the Opposition.
  Mr. Clappison: Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?
  Mr. Straw: I will come back to the hon. Gentleman.
  It is a matter of record what approach the Conservative party officially took to the home detention curfew when that was discussed in Standing Committee. It is also a matter of record than when the Home Affairs Committee considered the issue in a good deal of detail, and spent some months taking evidence about it, it concluded unanimously that the HDC scheme
  would provide adequate protection to the public because of the tagging element, and will give prisoners an opportunity to readjust to life outside prison.
  [Interruption.] The hon. Member for Surrey Heath (Mr. Hawkins) signed the report, along with the hon. Members for Woking (Mr. Malins) and for Aldershot (Mr. Howarth). The hon. Member for Surrey Heath says now from a sedentary position that they were not talking about this or that. The evidence shows clearly that the Committee discussed the home detention curfew scheme, which was in draft in the Crime and Disorder Bill. That is what the hon. Gentleman signed up to.
  Mr. Nick Hawkins: There is no doubt that my hon. Friends and I would never have agreed to the report if anyone had suggested that the Home Secretary would release drug suppliers and importers, those convicted of manslaughter and those who killed through dangerous driving. The Home Secretary's argument is utterly specious.
  Mr. Straw: All the detail and all the criteria of the scheme were placed before the Committee. We have used it less than was anticipated when I made my statement in November 1997. The last time I put it to the hon. Gentleman that he signed up to the report, he had a different excuse. Earlier, he said that he knew what he was signing, but that it was different from the scheme that exists today. On a previous occasion, his excuse was that he did not know to what he had signed up because he had not been a member of the Committee for the whole time that the Committee considered the matter.
  Mr. Hawkins: That is true, too.
  Mr. Straw: The hon. Gentleman says that that is true, but he was appointed to the Committee in early March, and the Committee did not report until the end of July. We can draw a new rule from that experience: the Hawkins rule of personal responsibility. Individuals are not responsible for any decision to which they sign up if

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  it has taken less than four months to reach a conclusion. Whatever the excuse, which changes time and again, it is poor. The hon. Gentleman backed the home detention curfew two years ago, and his explanation for his volte face is demeaning to him as well as the Committee.
  Let us consider honesty in sentencing.
  Mr. McLoughlin: Will the Home Secretary give way?
  Mr. Straw: I shall give way in a moment.
  The right hon. Member for Maidstone and The Weald claimed today that she would scrap the home detention curfew and all automatic early release on licence. Of course, we all understand that when we talk to the public, they instinctively want not so much honesty, but complete certainty in sentencing. We all understand that instinct. People want 10 years to mean 10 years, and two years to mean two years. However, I suggest that anyone with an understanding of the penal system must acknowledge that there is bound to be tension between absolute certainty in sentencing and the need to maintain good order in prisons, to provide incentives to address offending behaviour, and to support effective reintegration into the community. The way in which that tension is resolved is at the heart of the debate.
  The right hon. Lady accepted, not least by her silence, that the practical effects of her proposals for so-called honesty in sentencing would not add one day to the time that any prisoner served in prison under a sentence that he or she received today. However, she also said that the sentence given would be the sentence served. Under her scheme, as far as one can understand it, there would still be flexibility in the length of time that a prisoner served, as there was under the Crime (Sentences) Act 1997. Under that Act, up to one sixth of a sentence could be cut for good behaviour. Thus an offender who received a 12-month prison sentence could be released two months earlier than the time laid down by the court. However, there is a difference between the right hon. Lady's scheme and ours. Under her scheme, unlike ours, prisoners would be released without any electronic curfew system.
  Mr. Hogg: Will the Home Secretary give way?
  Mr. Straw: In a moment.
  The problem with the right hon. Lady's so-called honesty in sentencing is wider and more fundamental. Indeed, the drastic way in which proposals were brought before the House in early 1997 and frequently changed, as we all remember, shows that it was ill-considered and poorly thought through. Prisoners would be assessed for early release on the basis of their behaviour in prison, not on the basis of the risk they posed to the public. Once released, offenders who breached their supervision requirements could be recalled to custody only by bringing them before the courts and charging them. Of course I am worried about the number, albeit small, of people who commit offences while on curfew, but the numbers who committed offences under the right hon. Lady's early-release scheme were bound to be greater because it provided for no quick recall. That contrasts with the quick system that section 103 of the Crime and Disorder Act 1998 established.
  Mr. Hogg: Will the Home Secretary give way?
  Mr. Straw: I shall give way to the right hon. and learned Gentleman's hon. Friend the Member for West Derbyshire (Mr. McLoughlin) in a moment.
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  The Government believe in honesty in sentencing. No one disagrees with that principle. The question is how we achieve it, given that there is no system—none is proposed by the Conservative party—that would achieve what the public want: absolute certainty in sentencing. In our manifesto, we proposed that courts should spell out in the sentence the period that an offender was likely to serve in custody and the period that he was likely to serve in the community. The Lord Chief Justice's practice direction, issued by Lord Bingham in January 1998, when he was Lord Chief Justice, ensures that the courts do just that.
  Mr. McLoughlin: The Home Secretary spoke about honesty in sentencing. Will he give us an honest answer on when he expects to introduce legislation to follow the Prime Minister's pledge on on-the-spot fines?
  Mr. Straw: We shall introduce legislation as soon as possible.
  Mr. Hogg: Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?
  Mr. Straw: I shall give way in a second, but first I want to answer the rest of question asked by the hon. Member for West Derbyshire. We shall introduce legislation, but not in the next couple of weeks.
  Mr. Hogg: Reverting to the question of honesty in sentencing, I personally accept that it is necessary to give a degree of discount to maintain order in prisons. However, the right hon. Gentleman must address whether, in sentences up to four years, that discount needs to be one half. Most people think that that is far too much to achieve the purpose of maintaining order in prisons and better integration in society. A discount of 20 per cent., which should be earned, might be altogether more appropriate.
  Mr. Straw: There is no particular magic about the current arrangements, which were introduced under the Criminal Justice Act 1991. I had objections to the proposals in the Crime (Sentences) Act 1997, of which I am happy to give further particulars, not because I disagreed in principle with what the right hon. and learned Member for Folkestone and Hythe was trying to do, but because the more I looked at their detail, the more I thought that all that would be produced was some high degree of chaos on sentencing for no purpose. As the right hon. and learned Member admitted in government and subsequently in opposition, the proposals would not have made any difference to the overall sentence that an individual served.
  Having served as an Under-Secretary in the Home Office between 1986 and 1989, the right hon. and learned Member for Sleaford and North Hykeham knows that these are complicated issues. I established a review of sentencing so that, in slower time, we can work out a better sentencing regime—or what I would call a seamless sentence in which, for example, there is greater use of suspended sentences, short-term time in custody and, in some cases, day prisons, evening custody and night custody as appropriate, along with electronic tagging and periods spent under supervision. I hope that we can have a serious debate about that, as it is an important issue.
  If we are to try to reduce reoffending in our society and have that flexibility which is related principally not to good behaviour in prison—although that should be a

  39
  factor—but to likelihood of reoffending, a degree of discretion should be given to those administering the sentences, which, to some extent, collides with the issue of the court's control. One way of squaring the issues in that important debate is to ensure that the courts manage sentences in a way that they do not at the moment. We have introduced that in the drug treatment and testing order, and I believe that if sentencers—judges and magistrates—are the managers of the sentence, we will secure better sentences targeted at an offender's individual circumstances. We will also increase hugely the information available to sentencers about the effect of their sentencing decisions.
  Sir Peter Lloyd: I should like to follow up the point that the Home Secretary is making. If his policy of early release, which he feels is successful, is designed to help to reintegrate prisoners into law-abiding society, surely it is needed even more for high-risk prisoners than for low-risk prisoners, who are unlikely to offend when they are released. He needs the release programme for the high-risk prisoners if he is going to reduce the likelihood of them reoffending. Surely the Home Secretary is dealing with the easy end of the problem, rather than the harder end.
  Mr. Straw: The right hon. Gentleman's criticism comes from the opposite direction from that of the right hon. and learned Member for Sleaford and North Hykeham. I happen to believe that it is better to start such arrangements at the lower-risk end of the scale; it would have been impossible to justify starting at the other end. I can understand that, right at the other end of the scale, if someone was released after a very long period in prison it might well be sensible for him or her to be tagged for quite a period, not as an alternative to time in custody at that stage, but to strengthen supervision in the community.
  I admit that there was a high degree of scepticism about electronic monitoring systems when they were first discussed 10 years ago, but I have no doubt that they are proving increasingly effective technically and, I believe, in terms of reoffending and the control of prisoners. I know that the right hon. Gentleman has a particular interest in sentencing policy, and I hope that he will make observations to the sentencing review, which we intend will be an entirely open affair.
  As ever, the right hon. Member for Maidstone and The Weald used some extravagant language this afternoon.
  Miss Widdecombe: Very accurate language.
  Mr. Straw: The right hon. Lady says "very accurate" from a position of complete impartiality, but I think that that is for others to judge. Time and again, her rhetoric, and that of her party, is belied by her actions. We saw that only too clearly on asylum, where Conservative Members' publicly stated approach was belied by what they did on the civil penalty for hauliers and by their support of the retention of cash benefits for all asylum seekers. We have seen it on the mode of trial, where the Opposition appear to believe that the interests of the law-abiding public are best served by persistent offenders working the system by insisting on a jury trial against the decision of an independent court. We have also seen it on
  40
  anti-social behaviour orders, which the Conservatives have pledged to tear up, despite increasing evidence of their effectiveness.
  Mr. Clappison rose—
  Mr. Howard rose—
  Mr. Straw: I will give way in a moment.
  Only last week, Conservative Front Benchers in the other place voted against the benefit changes that we are putting in place to ensure that community punishments are better enforced.
  Mr. Howard: The Home Secretary seems to have left the subject of custody orders and imprisonment—he may even conceivably be in the middle of his peroration—but I hope that he will not sit down without answering the questions that my right hon. Friend the Member for Maidstone and The Weald (Miss Widdecombe) asked about the 4,000 prison places identified by the Prime Minister. We are keen to know about them and whether the Home Secretary agrees with the Prime Minister's figure. Are there 4,000 prison places?
  Miss Widdecombe: Where are they?
  Mr. Howard: Indeed, as my right hon. Friend asks, where are they?
  Mr. Straw: The right hon. and learned Gentleman probably knows better than I do that the right hon. Lady asks so many questions that it is never possible to answer them all at the same time. I had forgotten about that particular question, but the answer is already on the record in the prison service projections. The current prison population is about 65,000 and the capacity is about 69,000—the difference is 4,000. The reason for that change is partly the effect of the home detention curfew, which has reduced the prison population by about 2,000.
  Mr. Howard: Will the Home Secretary give way?
  Mr. Straw: No, I will not.
  The other aspect of that is the effectiveness of the Narey changes, which have made a considerable difference.
  Mr. Howard rose—
  Mr. Straw: I shall give way to the right hon. and learned Gentleman for the last time in a moment, but now I shall answer his first question. The Narey changes have made a difference of about another 2,000 places.
  Mr. Howard: I am grateful to the Home Secretary, who has been generous in giving way, but I am sure that he would like to deal with the question on the basis of the facts. According to Home Office figures, at the end of April this year—I do not imagine that the position has been transformed as dramatically as the Prime Minister might think since then—the prison population exceeded certified normal accommodation by 1,200.
  Mr. Straw: The right hon. and learned Gentleman knows that the so-called certified normal capacity has usually been exceeded. For example, it was exceeded by 4,500 in the year in which he was Home Secretary.

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  What is crucial is the usable operational capacity, which the Conservatives always took account of—[Interruption.] Of course, it depends what is meant by overcrowding. As everybody knows, there is a grave distinction between so-called certified normal capacity, which is now 62,300—the prison population is some 65,000—and the usable operational capacity, which is 69,000. That is the difference.
  Several hon. Members rose—
  Mr. Straw: I have spoken for 45 minutes. I know that a number of right hon. and hon. Members wish to speak, but—
  Mr. Clappison: Will the right hon. Gentleman give way on this point?
  Mr. Straw: Oh, come on then.
  Mr. Clappison: The Home Secretary brought up the question of mode of trial. May I gently suggest to him that, on this matter, consistency may not be his strongest suit? Can he name one thing that has changed since 1997, when he described the proposal that he is now bringing forward on mode of trial as wrong, short-sighted and likely to prove ineffective?
  Mr. Straw: One thing that has changed in my mind—I am sure that we do not want a full debate on this matter, but I have been over it in great detail—is the introduction in legislation of a full right of appeal, so that the final decision will be made by a Crown court judge.
  The right hon. Member for Maidstone and The Weald began her speech by commenting on our record on crime. Crime today is still lower than it was in 1997, and that record compares extremely well with any previous post-war Government, particularly post-war Conservative Governments. Crime is down: home break-ins are down by a fifth and car crime has fallen by 15 per cent. Compare that with the indelible record of the Conservatives, under which crime doubled in their 18 years in office, while the number of people convicted of those crimes fell by a third.
  We are delivering the most radical reform of our youth justice system in 50 years and are on track to deliver our pledge to halve the time that it takes to process persistent young offenders through the courts. We are getting on top of the long-term trend in crime—in very sharp contrast to the Conservatives' record. While the Opposition rant, we deliver. I ask the House to support the amendment.
  4.48 pm
  Mr. Simon Hughes: This is an important debate. The right hon. Member for Maidstone and The Weald (Miss Widdecombe) reminded us, however, that it has a comic side, which was portrayed by the splendid article in yesterday's News of the World about a man from Bridgnorth, Mr. Tony Higgins, who hopped off to the pub
  after daft prison staff tagged his false leg by mistake.
  The article was entitled "Out on a Limb".
  The subplot to today's debate is that, twice in four days on law and order policy and criminal justice policy, it is the Prime Minister who is out on a limb. Without talking
  42
  to the Home Office, he first announces a new sort of offence whereby people get marched off to the cashpoint, and then cites spare prison capacity. If one tries very hard, as the Home Secretary was doing at the end of his speech, one can almost justify the Prime Minister's figures, but they are inconsistent with all the figures used in recent times. I hope that one lesson that has been learned in Downing street in the past few days is that it is as dangerous for Prime Ministers to make policy on the hoof as it is for leaders of the Tory party. I also hope that we shall see a reduction in that sort of policy making by both.
  I gather that the Government fixed some time ago what they now call the crime summit. Even over the weekend, the terminology changed—one newspaper called it a convention and it had become a seminar by this morning.
  The Conservative party has understandably chosen to use an Opposition Day debate to highlight the early release of prisoners. The Prime Minister responds by announcing in Germany his policy for dealing with thugs, then the police spend the weekend saying what a silly idea it is.
  All that apart, we are glad that at last violent crime and the influence of alcohol on violent crime is on the agenda. Ever since I took over this job, I have repeatedly asked that we prioritise that problem. We have spent a lot of time in this Parliament talking about the effect of the misuse of drugs on crime and have spent far too little time discussing the effects of the misuse of alcohol, and I am glad that we are correcting that imbalance.
  I hope that we are learning how to make better policy on difficult issues such as sentencing and penal policy. The right way to create policy in a democracy is fairly well established. The Government should establish what research has been carried out, and if there is not enough they should commission it. They should discuss possible ways forward with people who know what they are talking about. They should seek the advice of colleagues in Parliament across the parties who have relevant experience and interest, and a desire to express their view—we have the Select Committee system for that. They should have a discussion with the political parties. When they are ready and have tested the ideas they should legislate. Careful legislation after careful deliberation often produces good results. The experience of all of us who have been in the House any length of time is that hasty legislation after little or no deliberation is often useless and not used either.
  I gently suggest to the Prime Minister that it is usually a good idea to have a discussion with the experts before announcing policy proposals, rather than announce policy proposals and talk to the experts afterwards. We should now get rid of this new item on the agenda, because new offences and new punishments—let alone offences and punishments for which the same person arrests, charges, tries and finds the accused guilty—require careful political consideration, especially if they go in a direction in which we have not gone before.
  Like others, I have looked back to see how much Home Office law and order legislation there has been over the years since the Home Secretary and I entered the House. Although this year is a bumper year for Home Office initiatives, some of which are understandable and entirely appropriate—I think that there have been more than in any other year—there has not been a year since we entered Parliament without many Home Office Bills. That does

  43
  not mean to say that they have always been successful, lasting or good. When I consider the legislation that has been passed and look back over the press coverage and ministerial speeches, I see that the road of law and order policy has been littered with failed criminal justice initiatives launched sometimes with good and sometimes with less honourable intentions. We need to stand back from all that.
  Today's debate is the first debate we have had this year on penal policy. That is a wider issue than the early release of prisoners. I want to flag up five issues that Parliament should address once a year more coherently and better than we do at the moment.
  We should discuss how to reduce criminality—the propensity to crime. My hon. Friends and I believe that the initiative that the Government announced today is a good one. We should provide young people with constructive activity so that they are not bored and thus prone to criminality, which they may otherwise not get into. The more the youth service, schools, the education and training system and the Employment Service can do, the more positive the role young people can play in the community, and the more likely it is that they will not commit offences. I commend the Youth Justice Board's initiative, and the Government's and the Prime Minister's support for it.
  We should have a debate about how to prevent crime and detect crime. They are two separate parts of the process. We should have a debate about clearing up crime. We had a debate in the House recently, in which we highlighted the fact that there are only three convictions or cautions for every 100 British crime survey registered offences. The last debate we should have is the one we are having today about how to reduce reoffending, including how effective punishment is and what punishment works. Unless we try coherently and regularly to consider all those five issues, we are unlikely to have a more orderly and less criminal society.
  We are happy that the Conservatives have chosen this subject for debate. It is a perfectly proper issue to consider, but I wish it had been a wider debate on penal policy. I hope that we can have that wider debate later in the parliamentary year.
  The Crime and Disorder Act 1998 for the first time permitted home detention curfews. That Act became law two years ago this month, although it was another six months before home detention curfews were permitted as a result of the phased implementation of the legislation. It is entirely proper for us to review how it has worked 18 months or two years later, and we welcome the opportunity to do so. To their credit, Conservative Front Benchers—notably the hon. Member for Aylesbury (Mr. Lidington)—have tabled numerous questions about the issue, and the Government have supplied answers without seeking to hide the facts.
  We should review regularly all five priority areas—the effectiveness in reducing the propensity to crime, in preventing crime, in detecting crime, in clearing up crime and in reducing reoffending. The more we can do that on the basis of the evidence, the better.
  Let me say something about an issue that is relevant to the set of factors that put people in prison in the first place. I said a word or two about the need to reduce the
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  propensity to crime; let me now say a topical word about reducing crime itself—preventing crime. Perhaps at this very minute, chief police officers are having tea with the Prime Minister up the road. It is to their credit that, ever since the Government were elected and before, they have kept on saying that they need enough colleagues to do the job. Whatever else we do later in the cycle of criminal justice measures, we need to ensure that the police service is adequate to prevent crime in the first place.
  When anti-social behaviour takes place on a Friday night outside a pub in Brent, Southwark or anywhere else in the country, the lay person can do some things and the publican can do others, but if crime is to be prevented there must be enough police patrolling the streets. I hope—as do my colleagues, whether their seats are in the north-west, the south-east or anywhere else—that, when the Chancellor announces his comprehensive spending review conclusions later this month, we shall find that representations made by the Home Office, Opposition Members and the police themselves have been heeded. I hope that there will then be enough in the kitty to allow the police to recruit the number of full-time, retained part-time or special police to do the job—if they can recruit them, of course. That is a separate issue.
  New York's policing has been more successful recently, and people apparently feel more confident in Paris than in London, because—as the Minister will note from the figures—those cities have considerably larger police forces than our capital has. Of course, more police do not necessarily mean less crime; but, as I have said before in this place, I have never heard anyone argue that fewer police provide a better chance of preventing crime.
  Mr. Bermingham: As recent examples show, the period between application to admission to the police force for training can be as long as 18 months. Admission procedures and the funding of new recruits need to be re-examined.
  Mr. Hughes: I agree. I hope that we can soon have a debate about recruitment. I think that we could usefully pool the various initiatives that have been suggested by my hon. Friends and me, and by members of other parties, to make the police service more appealing to school leavers.
  Mr. Ronnie Fearn: The chief constable in Merseyside proposes to ignore traffic accidents, as long as they do not involve human lives—as long as they are not "true" accidents—in order to put more bobbies on the beat. I think that that may be a good move.
  Mr. Hughes: There is a big debate about it. I support a move in that direction. At the weekend, there was a story in the Financial Times about the Prime Minister's willingness to change the structure of the police. I do not know whether he consulted the Home Secretary about that, but, as I have said to, for instance, chief police officers, I think that jobs that could be done by others should not be done by the police. To her credit, the right hon. Member for Maidstone and The Weald (Miss Widdecombe) has made similar proposals. We need a debate on the subject. We should ensure that the police concentrate on what only the police can do, while others

  45
  deal with matters such as certain motoring offences—although we shall continue to need the police to deal with some traffic matters, both in Merseyside and elsewhere.
  Mrs. Gwyneth Dunwoody: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that many of us believe that maintenance of a good traffic police service would not only revolutionise road safety, but make an enormous impact on the numbers of road deaths and injuries? The suggestion that it is possible to hive off bits of traffic policing is a rather dangerous one that needs to be considered very carefully before the House accepts it.
  Mr. Hughes: Not only has the hon. Lady long been a Member, but she has a specific interest in transport issues, on which she speaks with authority. I understand the point that she makes. I am not saying that traffic issues should not concern police. However, there is an argument—I shall not go into its detail now—that restructuring the police service would perhaps allow traffic, transport and safety matters to be dealt with far more comprehensively. British Transport police, for example, are a stand-alone part of the system, but perhaps they should be more integrated. Perhaps we should have more regional police forces, rather than county police forces. I hope that we shall be able to have that debate, as reform of the police service is on the agenda. I am sure that we will return to that agenda.
  I believe that police are making clear representations to the Government on crime clear-up rates. We shall be better able to clear up crime if we better support and protect witnesses. We often fail to obtain convictions because witnesses either refuse to talk to police and the courts about the crime or, after talking about it initially, stop talking. Although I shall not elaborate now on how we can redress that situation, I have partly communicated thoughts on the matter to the Home Secretary. However, unless we devise a much better set of protection mechanisms for witnesses, we are likely to continue having a very poor conviction rate. Additionally, for those who interfere with witnesses and jurors, we should have more severe and automatic sentences. People who interfere with justice in this way should know that their action is an aggravating factor and that they will be additionally punished for it.
  This debate—on when to release prisoners—is really about how we can reduce our appalling reoffending rates and make prison more effective. In the words of the former Home Secretary, the right hon. and learned Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Mr. Howard), we have to do what works. That is not a party political sentiment. In the past week, another previous Tory Home Secretary has made it very clear that he still believes that prison does not necessarily prevent re-offending. The specific issue that we are addressing is whether home detention curfew helps to prevent re-offending.
  Two years ago, in our consideration of the Crime and Disorder Act 1998, the Government introduced the provision for home curfew detention. My right hon. Friend the Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Mr. Beith), who was then our Home Affairs spokesman, supported that proposal. Subsequently, Liberal Democrat Members supported the new clause introducing the proposal. Although the provision may not be operating perfectly, we shall not change our view on it today.
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  Interestingly, on Third Reading of the 1998 Act, Conservative Front Benchers supported the provision for home detention curfew. The then shadow Home Secretary, in his speech on Third Reading, said not a word about the provision's iniquity or inappropriateness. Although he talked about other things, he did not talk about that. Home detention curfew was not the big issue that the current shadow Home Secretary suggests it has become.
  I do not want to add to the debate about the role of the Select Committee on Home Affairs. However, as the Home Secretary rightly said, the Committee examined the issue of home detention curfew, as it should have done, and its members—who were from all three parties representing English constituencies—unanimously supported its introduction. That is the deliberative way in which such proposals should be implemented. The proposal was enshrined in law in the right way, with the support of this place and of the other place.
  The Government's amendment to the motion correctly flags up the success rate of home detention curfew. The fact is that 18,800 of the 20,000 people participating in the scheme have not re-offended. Ideally, there would have been no failures. However, there have been a considerable number of successes. We should not forget the basic facts in this debate.
  Before today's debate, the Home Secretary announced that the Government are reviewing sentencing policy. We believe that such a review is a good idea, and we welcome it. Although I have not heard that the review will be entirely independent of the Government, I think that it would be more authoritative if it were.
  The home detention policy, together with electronic tagging and all other alternatives to custody—as well as custody itself—should be included in the review. It is no good having a review if we do not look at how successful prison is on the one hand and how successful the alternatives are on the other. The Select Committee on Home Affairs provided a useful check list of the alternatives and looked at them all. It would be good to have such an independent review again, as well as a look at sentencing.
  The Committee listed not only home detention curfew and electronic tagging, but suspended sentences, weekend prison or short prison sentences and fines. "What works?" is the question. Is it better to have a punishment that is inside, outside with a restriction or outside all the time? I would be grateful if the Minister confirmed that the review of sentencing in general will specifically include a review of home detention curfew and if he will tell us by when the Government expect the review to be completed. I suggest that it would be sensible for the review to be completed by the end of this calendar year, two years after the provisions of the Crime and Disorder Act 1998 came into place. The Liberal Democrats will play a full part in the process and will be happy to do so.
  Parliament and the Government should commission independent reviews of sentencing regularly because we are not doing terribly well at the moment. Whether prison numbers are going up or down, we are not consistently bringing down crime figures, nor are we consistently bringing down the numbers of those who reoffend. If we are not doing that, clearly we are not succeeding. In our amendment, we propose a review of the policy, which we hope could be incorporated into a more general review of sentencing.

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  The review will be no good if it is not linked with other parts of the penal policy that the Government say are important but where we are making slow progress. For most people, we still do not have a fully constructive regime in prison. My view is that people in prison should do, in effect, 35 or 40 hours of work a week in prison. Until we get to that figure, we are failing.
  We should support, but go further than the Government, the introduction of rehabilitative programmes for people while they are in prison—particularly for drugs and the like—and continue them in a more guaranteed way when people leave prison. All the prisoners to whom I have spoken have said that they need support when they go through those doors so they do not get back into the old habits, the old company and the old patterns of life. We need particular support for people in the years immediately after they are released, as that is when the risk is highest and when the risk assessment comes to the conclusion that they need the maximum support.
  The Home Office guidelines for home detention curfews are concerned with the right matters. We must assess whether the right people are eligible; how we calculate the sentence; what preparation there should be; who does the risk assessment, how effective it is and how it is done; what the licence conditions should be; what we say to the prisoners and what they understand by the process; what the procedures are around release and what the post-release arrangements are. That list is clear and I do not quibble with it.
  That is where the criteria set by the Conservatives for this debate are shown to be wrong. When I asked the right hon. Member for Maidstone and The Weald about the honesty in sentencing principle—which appears to be her great answer to the problems of the present system—she failed on each count to answer the three specific questions I put to her. The House will be able to read that exchange, which is clear.
  I understand, having read what the Conservatives have said on the subject in the past few months, that their policy would not mean longer sentences on average or cumulatively longer sentences in total. Nor would it mean many more people in prison. If that is the case, to pretend otherwise is to perpetrate a deception on the public.
  We also cannot support a proposal that an incoming Government would abolish the home detention curfew scheme without any proper, objective review. It has been in existence for less than two years. It has not worked perfectly, but the answer to something that might not have worked perfectly but has worked rather well is to improve it, not abolish it. It is a hasty, inappropriate and ill-researched conclusion to say that it should go.
  There is no proof that longer sentences work. Longer sentences punish more, but, as our amendment points out, almost everyone is eventually released. The scheme covers those who would be released between six months and four years later. Their sentences are shortish, and it is ludicrous to reject a scheme for their sensible, phased reintroduction into society, as the hon. Member for St. Helens, South (Mr. Bermingham) pointed out. As I have said, we must ask what works.
  It would be helpful if the Minister of State would give a considered response to the question that the Conservatives, people outside and I have asked about
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  whether we can now work on the basis that we have 4,000 spare prison places—even though prison governors tell me that their prisons are overcrowded and they cannot cope. I understand that any spare capacity is mostly in open prisons. If that is the case, the Government may need to review whether we are using our prison establishment appropriately. The Government could also review the categorisation of prisoners, because they might be able to reallocate prisoners more effectively. That could reduce overcrowding in some places and stop some prisons trying to do several things at once. Some are asked to act as a local prison, a prison for lifers, a prison for immigration offenders awaiting deportation and a remand prison, and it is difficult to do all those jobs at the same time. A review of the use of the prison establishment—why some prisons are overcrowded and some are comparatively under-occupied—could be appropriate and I hope that the Minister will let us know when he winds up whether the Government will consider a review of this too. It could discover whether we have a sufficient prison stock for future projections and can save lots of money by not having to build all the additional prisons, which will not be cheap.
  Let us have a coherent prison and penal policy debate, but let us not believe that being tough on crime and on the causes of crime is proved only by the punishment meted out. That is not the only test. Longer sentences do not by themselves lessen the chance of reoffending.
  Some of the Government's suggestions are out on a limb. For example, in their amendment, they suggest two policies that we believe would be unhelpful in obtaining the right balance between rehabilitation and punishment. The first is the proposal that offenders on benefits would lose their benefits. The second is the removal, at a stroke, of the right to choose jury trial, which will have no great benefit in reducing crime, or the causes of crime.
  When the Prime Minister was shadow Home Secretary, his policy became, "Tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime". That soundbite worked well then, but I hope that what has happened over the weekend has taught us that we must be equally tough on soundbite policy, and tough on the causes of soundbite policy. Policies must not be made up on the back of an envelope, or according to the latest wheeze. It would be helpful if the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition came up with fewer unsupported and insufficiently developed ideas.
  The lessons from criminal justice policy over the years are that what sounds tough often does not work, and that what works often requires a much more sophisticated balance between punishment and rehabilitation. After this debate and the events of the past few days, the arguments about criminal justice and penal policy would be best served if all parties resolved to have fewer gimmicks and to be less intent on grabbing immediate headlines. An additional benefit for the House might be that political leaders might also look a little less foolish.
  5.15pm
  Mr. Gerald Bermingham: I shall be brief, as I shall stick to the specific subject of the debate and refrain from going over all the things that have or have not gone wrong over the 30 years that I have been in the House. I declared my interest as a practising lawyer in my intervention in the speech by the right hon. Member for Maidstone and The Weald (Miss Widdecombe). I have many years of practical experience as a solicitor and a barrister.

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  The right hon. Lady's speech saddened me, as it combined prejudice with ignorance. It also coupled a lack of knowledge with an inability to foresee results. I do not mean that in a rude way, because the tragedy of the past 30 years is that we have failed to grapple with the simple, practical problem of why people who have been in prison commit crime again. Why has prison, supposedly such a great deterrent in the criminal justice system, failed to work?
  When I was a young man, not so very long ago, I was a primary school teacher in the poorer part of Rotherham. My headmistress told me that the father of a child in my class was in prison, and that that was a great disgrace—to the street and to everyone. However, I know of streets today in which almost every resident has been to prison at some stage. Does that mean that we have become a much more criminal society or have we failed, for reasons of expediency, to tackle the problems of why people commit crime, and of what to do with criminals?
  I fear that the answer to the second question is yes. I have heard many a speech over the past 30 years extolling the virtues of tough prison sentences and punishment, but the crime rate has not gone down. It has gone up, although it is falling again now. Even so, the prison population has risen, not fallen—so what has gone wrong?
  I concede immediately that imprisonment is necessary in certain cases. I am neither a fool, nor a soft libertarian. I believe that people who rape and rob, harm and murder should go to prison, and that prison must meet three criteria. It must be a place for punishment, rehabilitation and repayment. By the latter term, I mean that prisoners must be able to repay their debt to society.
  At present, overcrowding means that many prisons lack any form of educational provision and provide no means of rehabilitation. They fail on every conceivable score. That has not always been the case, so who is to blame for the present situation? That question immediately reopens the debate, and the slanging match about where the fault lies begins again.
  I have always found that counter-productive, even though it was I who posed the question that sent the House into a spiral earlier. I asked why the Conservative Opposition criticise prisoner releases when the previous Conservative Government a few years ago increased the amount of remission that could be earned in a sentence.
  Penal reform over the past 25 or 30 years has taken us away from the absolute deterrent of the death penalty and towards incarceration. Life sentences do not last for life, but for a set period of time. People serving a very long prison sentence are often released on parole or on licence, which contains a degree of supervision and of reintegration into society. That is a good thing.
  The judiciary would say, almost to a man, that they wish that the suspended sentence could be reintroduced tomorrow. It was a very effective sentence, with the sword of Damocles hanging over what I call the middle-range offender's head. It was a deterrent, and it worked. It was abolished, which was a mistake. I will not lay blame for that: it happened, and we must look at the reality of today.
  Remission rose from a third to a half for sentences of less than four years, although why we have that arbitrary limit of four years, I have never yet understood. Someone can receive a sentence of three years, 11 months and three weeks and get remission of a half, but someone who gets
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  a sentence of four years—one week longer—serves three years. The remission in that case is a third, not a half. It is an arbitrary and pointless policy which has led to resentment in the prison system, as anyone who knows anything about the subject will readily concede. I have in the past asked the Home Secretary what is the point of this arbitrary four-year line. Why cannot we reconsider that, for example?
  Home leave has been in place for a very long time; it is a means of reintegrating the long-serving prisoner towards the end of his or her sentence. We have seen the introduction of day release, work in the community and the development of open prisons. Far more development in this field could take place and with it, again, the policy of reintegrating the offender into society. If we can succeed in reintegrating the offender, we have achieved our purpose—he or she does not commit a further offence. That is good; it is what the whole thing is all about. That is how we develop our penal policy.
  On home curfew towards the end of a sentence, I heard the figure of 700 crimes—gosh, shock, horror. It is a 2 per cent. failure rate.
  Miss Widdecombe: It is 700 crimes.
  Mr. Bermingham: The right hon. Lady, from a sedentary position, throws her eyes to heaven and says "700 crimes". Did she, in her experience at the Home Office, ever look at the figures of crimes committed by those released on licence and on parole, or when they were under a suspended sentence? If those were totalled up, noughts would be added to that figure of 700. I concede, from the word go, that 700 is 700 too many. However, in terms of success and failure, in looking at things realistically, it is a 2 per cent. failure rate, or a 98 per cent. success rate. I reckon that 98 per cent. success is pretty good, bearing in mind—[Interruption.] The right hon. Lady has an annoying habit—[Interruption.] No, just one. She sits there and mumbles like a little furry mole stuck in a corner with its snout out of the ground. Up come the little puffs of rubbish, disseminated frequently, and taking us nowhere.
  Is someone is raped or murdered in this land, that is a horror for which there is no justification. However, no one has ever devised a policy—whether it is licence, parole or probation—that prevents all rape, all murder and all crime. How about those who commit crimes while on home leave and never come back? Despite that, we are not stopping home leave. No one will get it perfectly right.
  We should look at the overall picture. If, by and large, the system is working—and to a very large extent, it is—we can look at the ways in which we choose those who are eligible to participate, learn lessons from our failure and improve our success in the future. That is a positive way forward.
  Fair sentencing sounds wonderful. We will say to the prisoner, "You will go to prison for three years." Three years later, the door opens and out he or she comes. My experience extends across half the world. I have seen prison systems in the east and in the west, in Europe and elsewhere, and I have never yet found a system that works in that way. The one thing that a prison needs is the ability to encourage prisoners and to give them an incentive or a goal, whether that is done by remission or privileges, or a combination of the two. In that way, discipline is

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  retained and the progressive behaviour of the prisoner is enhanced. In other words, his or her rehabilitation is enhanced.
  If we say to prisoners that there is no hope, no matter how good they are, that is a policy of despair and disaster. It is dishonest and counter-productive; it takes us nowhere. If that is what the Opposition mean by honesty in sentencing, it is a recipe for disaster.
  Mr. Simon Hughes: I am sure that the hon. Gentleman knows that that is the view of all prison governors and their staff. They need not only an end of sentence period, but an earlier date of release period. That gives prisoners an incentive. They realise that if they behave themselves, they will get out more quickly. Without that, the job of prison staff would almost certainly be impossible everywhere.
  Mr. Bermingham: I could not agree more; that is absolutely right. That has been my experience in the conversations that I have had over the past 30 years.
  I said that I did not intend to take long, and I hope that I have not. I end as I began, by saying that we are discussing an experiment that is in its early days. To date, it has been 98 per cent. successful. That is not bad for a first shot. It is a block upon which we can build. We can develop other sentencing theories and schemes, and perhaps rehabilitation. There may come a time in the not too distant future—I suspect long after my time professionally and politically—when it can be said that it is the minority of prisoners who reoffend. We shall then have developed a penal policy that is a success and a credit to us. We have taken a step on that road. It is a long road and we have a long way to go. I wish the Government well with it.
  5.27 pm
  Sir Nicholas Lyell: The Government's policy on law and order is plainly in a serious muddle. It is ill thought out. It is designed to sound tough, but in practice it is weak on real criminals. It is becoming increasingly illiberal and increasingly oppressive on the rights of the ordinary citizen who is on the margin of crime or who may find himself accused unfairly. His rights are being diminished.
  A sensible law and order policy requires a clear and consistent message which tells those who seek to make their living out of crime that crime does not pay. That message was clearly spelled out by my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Mr. Howard) during the last five years of the previous Conservative Government. Sentences for housebreaking and burglary increased. They were served for more substantial periods and the degree of housebreaking and that sort of crime fell during the period. It was a matter of cause and effect.
  We in the United Kingdom believe in a firm policy on law and order. Certainly we in the Conservative party believe in that. But the Briton, the Englishman, requires a policy that is fair. An important part of that fair policy is a fair trial by jury if the individual chooses that right, not if it is granted to him from on high by a court.
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  The problem with the Government is that on all matters of serious crime, what they say and what they do are different. What they are doing in practice is deceptive and weak. On the rights and freedoms of the subject, however, they are becoming oppressive and illiberal.
  This debate centres on early release and the home detention curfew. The problem is the extent to which home detention has not been used for the purpose for which it was introduced—as an alternative to custody so that borderline offenders could be kept out of prison. It is being used instead as a method by which to keep down the prison population and, thereby, to save money.
  That is deeply disillusioning to the public. How can it be otherwise if someone rightly sentenced to six months imprisonment comes out in six weeks? It is equally disillusioning when the same applies to more serious offenders; for robbery, for example, people sentenced to an average of 26.3 months are being let out in 11.4. That sends the wrong message, which dissipates the deterrent effect on criminals, which in turn results in what is happening now: the incidence of crime in areas in which it was falling under a Conservative Government is now rising under the Labour Government. The Government are making a grave mistake.
  The same error is about to be repeated in relation to the Criminal Justice (Mode of Trial) (No. 2) Bill on trial by jury. The rights of ordinary citizens will be reduced and removed. Meanwhile, serious criminals, who should be kept in prison for reasonable periods in order that the public may be protected, will serve reduced terms of imprisonment. If Home Office answers to parliamentary questions are correct, the term in prison of an average thief or handler will reduce from just under 11 months to just over 3.5 months.
  The policy is designed simply to save money. The Criminal Justice (Mode of Trial) (No. 2) Bill is expected to save £120 million, but close questioning has revealed that the Government expect £84 million to result from reductions in periods of imprisonment among precisely the type of criminal who should be in prison—the experienced, repeat, dishonest offender who is alleged to be playing the system. Far from suffering, those criminals will serve only one third of the sentence that presently faces them. The Government's policy on trial by jury is deeply mistaken. It is relevant to this debate because it will reduce sentences for serious crimes committed by recidivist offenders from whom the public should be protected. That ought not to happen.
  The public should see that the Home Secretary's policy to prevent wrongdoers from playing the system will in fact assist wrongdoers; and, far more seriously, it will take away the centuries-old right of the people of England and Wales which is an absolute foundation of our liberties. Much is said about democracy in current jargon, and even in the European convention on human rights—in almost every article of which the word "democracy" and stipulations of what is needed in a democratic society are mentioned. However, those who enjoy the privileges of this country should never forget that one of the greatest protections of our democracy, and one of the greatest protections that our citizens enjoy against oppression and—in Lord Devlin's word—tyranny, is the fact that, when they are accused by the public prosecutor and tried in the public courts, the decision on whether they are

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  guilty is tempered and decided by ordinary citizens sitting in the mini-parliament of 12 good men and women and true—the English jury.
  It is that right to an English jury that this oppressive Government are setting out to reduce. One of the frightening aspects of the matter is that they are stumbling into it semi-blind; they have not thought about it. They do not believe that they are doing what I described; they think that what they are doing does not really matter, but they are wrong. They should wake up.
  There is a real place for tagging and for the home detention curfew. About half an hour ago, that matter was properly debated by the Home Secretary and by my right hon. Friend the Member for Maidstone and The Weald (Miss Widdecombe), who tried to pin down exactly which cases home detention curfew should deal with. I speak with some knowledge of and affection for the policy: I am proud that I was the first person to suggest such a scheme to the House—in 1981 during the Committee stage of the Criminal Justice Act 1982.
  The idea was sensible; it had been proposed by Hertfordshire magistrates and carefully worked up—unlike the Prime Minister's policy proposals at the weekend. The scheme was introduced in a small way through night restriction orders and, with the development of electronic tagging and scientific testing, has become much more practical. The problem—then and now—is to ensure that people will remain at home if they are given a home detention order as an alternative to custody.
  The scheme is about a tough law and order policy. My right hon. and hon. Friends—including my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Sleaford and North Hykeham (Mr. Hogg) who is in the Chamber—constantly tried to persuade our colleagues and the House that to be tough on law and order, one does not have to demand long sentences on every occasion. The courts must have a range of sentences and disposals—in the jargon—so that they can impose a penalty that fits the particular offence and the particular offender. I am proud that, during 18 years, we built up a fine quiverful of penalties and disposals for the range of offences met by the courts.
  Nowadays, the home detention curfew will play an increasingly important part in dealing with offenders who represent only some risk to the public. If we can be sure that they are at home and if we can give their family. the police and the probation service some opportunity to check that they are where they should be, the scheme provides a valuable penalty and disposal. It keeps people out of prison—as it is much better to do. Recidivism rates after the home detention curfew are likely to be much lower. When people go to prison, they do tend to get into colleges of crime. It would not be sensible to say that much reform is undertaken in prison; it is right to attempt reform, but difficult to succeed.
  The home detention curfew was introduced in 1991. I should be happy to see it develop—provided it is used for the right purpose. It has a real place in that quiverful of remedies. However, it is not being used rightly at present.
  I end as I began—attacking the Government for deceiving themselves and the public. The Government are not being tough; they are being soft on serious criminals and letting them out too soon. The Government are abusing—if that is not over-harsh—or misusing a remedy designed to keep borderline offenders out of prison; they are using it to help to reduce the number of people in
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  prison, to save money, to give a false impression, to send the wrong signal and, in the end, to weaken the criminal justice system that it is their duty to strengthen. The debate has brought that out. I commend our motion to the House.
  5.39 pm
  Mr. Douglas Hogg: It is always a great pleasure to follow my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for North-East Bedfordshire (Sir N. Lyell).
  I congratulate my right hon. Friend the Member for Maidstone and The Weald (Miss Widdecombe) on bringing this debate before the House. We do not discuss prisons sufficiently and there are a variety of reasons why we should. One is that we should be concerned by what goes on inside prison. There is plenty of scope for abuse and, unless that is subject to harsh scrutiny in the House and elsewhere, the chances are that abuses in prison will continue. Anyone who has been involved with the Prison Service knows that prison life has its unsatisfactory features that should trouble any humane and compassionate person.
  The Home Secretary reminded the House that I was the Under-Secretary responsible for prison policy in the late 1980s. At that stage, we were deeply troubled by, for example, overcrowding. I remember, too, being deeply troubled by the condition of hospitals in prisons. Some of the circumstances in which offending prisoners were kept were wholly deplorable and it is right that the House should focus as often as it can on the conditions in prison. If we do not, most assuredly, no one else will. My right hon. Friend is to be congratulated on introducing this debate.
  In the first instance, I shall focus on the immediate subject under discussion—the use of home detention orders. My right hon. Friend is doing me the courtesy of staying here to listen to my speech, but I know that she needs to go and I shall certainly not take it amiss if she does. However, she articulated clearly the arguments that are to be advanced against the orders, and I wish to emphasise two of them.
  First, the orders are a serious departure from honesty in sentencing, which is an important policy objective. I know perfectly well that I was a member of a Government who did not achieve that aim, but that does not mean that we should not achieve it. Broadly speaking—I shall come to the detail shortly—I am very much in favour of honesty in sentencing. It is profoundly unsatisfactory that, for sentences of up to four years, an individual can be let out of prison having served less than half the sentence.
  I find that extremely difficult to justify and I believe that the public also find it extremely difficult to justify. Although I do not argue that the public should necessarily have the determinate say on penal policy—they tend to be unduly severe—we must have a penal policy that commands public support. If the public fully understood that, under the home detention curfew order system, it is possible to release people—and very serious offenders, too—who have served less than half their sentence, there would be a serious loss of confidence.
  Such a loss of confidence would be compounded by the fact—the Home Secretary was fair in admitting this—that the process is an executive and not a judicial one. He said that, generally speaking, such decisions are made by

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  prison governors and I am unhappy about the fact that a prison governor is able to substitute his or her decision on the appropriate sentence to be served for that of the trial judge. I know that an offender with a sentence of up to four years may be released when he has served half the sentence, but the trial judge at least knows that fact when he or she imposes the penalty. However, in the case of the orders, an executive decision is taken by an official, namely a prison governor.
  The motives for the decision may be mixed. I do not dispute the fact that many prison governors will try to use the policy simply and solely to give a defendant a better chance of reintegrating into society. I am perfectly willing to accept that, because I have always had a high regard for prison governors. However, overcrowding is also bound to be a factor in the decision.
  I have not done any research on the matter, so I may well be wrong. However, we may find that many of the orders are made by prison governors in charge of the local prisons. The overcrowding is in local prisons, as opposed to training or open prisons. I would be very disturbed if I found a high concentration of home detention orders made by prison governors of local prisons because I would be suspicious that they were made primarily to reduce overcrowding. So, I do not like the orders in principle, partly because they depart from the principle of honesty in sentencing, and partly because they are executive decisions, and that troubles me.
  I also support the point made by my right hon. Friend the Member for Maidstone and The Weald that a number of offences have been committed by persons who have enjoyed the benefit of the orders. It is perfectly true that the failure rate—I am using jargon—is relatively low, as the hon. Member for St. Helens, South (Mr. Bermingham) said, but that is of precious little benefit or consolation to the victims of crimes including grievous bodily harm, robbery, burglary and rape. In one sense, the offenders might have committed the offences any way, but they would not have committed those particular offences. Therefore, the Home Secretary has some difficulty uttering reassuring words to the victims of offences committed by persons let out under such orders.
  I shall go a little further to address, as other right hon. and hon. Members have, the question of honesty in sentencing. We should move away from what is in effect automatic release—in respect of sentences of up to four years at the half-way point and thereafter at two thirds. In general, a sentence should mean what it says. If one went up and down the high street, one would find that most people felt that, broadly speaking, the sentence means what it says, and that they would be surprised to learn the extent to which it does not. That broad principle is subject to two provisos.
  I agree with the proposition that a discount needs to be earnable. I agree with what the Home Secretary said in response to my intervention—that it would be difficult to maintain order in prisons if there were no discount. Indeed, the process of discounting may have a role in integrating a person more fully into the community, where they are going in any event in almost the universality of cases. However, a discount of one half for sentences of up to four years is too much. I would like about 20 per cent. discount, with a requirement that it be earned. Discount should not be automatic; it ought to be able
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  readily to be withheld, which is not so now. In other words, the person seeking the discount must establish an entitlement to it.
  The other point is an overlapping one. I am sure that it is necessary for people to be released under supervision before their final release date, simply and solely to make the process of integration readier. Therefore, I strongly support the concept advanced by my right hon. Friend the Member for Maidstone and The Weald of honesty in sentencing, but in doing so I make it subject to the two provisos that I have just articulated.
  I should like to make one other point in that connection, which concerns the question of life sentences and homicide cases. I am very attracted by one offence of homicide rather than the distinction between murder and manslaughter as in current law. I hope that, from time to time, the Government or the Opposition will address that question.
  The second and related point is this: I am also very attracted by determinant sentences for homicide cases. I am very uneasy with the concept of the life sentence, simply because it does not mean what it says. There are very few whole-life sentences. In fact, the average time served—at least in my day at the Home Office, and I do not think that it has changed much—is about 12 years. There is a strong case to be made for giving the trial judge a power to impose a determinate sentence.
  There is one problem with that which I must address, and I have not reached a final conclusion—that is, with regard to risk. At present, in life sentence cases in respect of murder, when a person has served the tariff, there is a discretion as to whether to let that person out, determined by an assessment of risk as to whether the person will reoffend. It must be accepted that the determinate sentence does not take full account of that.
  There would be a way round that, which would enable the prosecution authorities to apply to the trial judge, but there is a problem. Perhaps, at least for the present, in murder cases where the life sentence is mandatory, the solution is a different one—to give the trial judge the right to set the tariff. It would be set in open court and might be subject to appeal, but it would be a judicial act.
  I had to set tariffs. Subject to the supervening view of my right hon. Friend Lord Hurd, I set the tariff in about 600 cases. I had no inhibitions about doing so. Indeed, we ratcheted the tariffs up. I make no bones about that. However, I feel strongly that Ministers should not set the tariffs. I used to do it. Reading the documents, often late at night, I gave them as much consideration as I could, but obviously I knew but a part of what the trial judge knew.
  I did not think that that was a proper exercise for a Minister. It was capable of constituting unfairness. I suspect that, in the fullness of time, it will be struck down by the Strasbourg Court, and we would do well to anticipate that by deciding that, in murder cases with mandatory life sentences, the tariff should be set by the trial judge.
  Sir Nicholas Lyell: My right hon. and learned Friend is making interesting points, many of which I agree with, but the sentence for murder—a mandatory life sentence—requires review over a long period, and the approach to that review is inevitably part of the governance of the nation. Does my right hon. and learned Friend agree that,

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  in a sense, that is always political, and there is more wisdom than is sometimes recognised in leaving it with the Government of the day?
  Mr. Hogg: Of course, what my right hon. and learned Friend says on this matter and on all matters should be listened to with great respect. He is right for a number of reasons, one of which I think that he would emphasise: confidence in the criminal system depends, at least in part, on a response by those administering sentences to the public sense of what is right and wrong. One must concede that, oddly enough, politicians are rather better at sensing that than are judges.
  I suspect that at the back of my right hon. and learned Friend's mind is a fear that the tariffs to be set by the trial judge might be somewhat on the low side. I share that anxiety, but in the end my conclusion is that it is important that the trial judge sets the tariff. However, it is a difference of degree. We have so much in common, that I am sorry not to agree with my right hon. and learned Friend on this narrow point.
  Sir Nicholas Lyell: I am grateful to my right hon. and learned Friend. I do not disagree with him about the judge setting the tariff, providing that it is a minimum. What is important is that the overview of life sentences for the most serious offence should remain with the Government of the day, answerable democratically to the people of the country.
  Mr. Hogg: We are very close, my right hon. and learned Friend and I, on the matter. I think that I do not agree with him, but it is a matter on which two friends may disagree without any acrimony, so I hope that he will forgive me if I do not entirely accept what he said.
  I shall make two final points. The first is about the nature of imprisonment. It is extremely important that the House should go on saying that the deprivation of liberty is the penalty. I say that because, like all constituency Members, I am often approached by people who want conditions in prison to be harsh. I do not. I want conditions to be sparse and rigorous, but I do not want to dishonour people.
  The punishment lies in the deprivation of liberty, and one should not humiliate people unnecessarily. There are good pragmatic reasons for that. The first is that, if one dehumanises people, which comes from unnecessary humiliation, one yet further alienates them from the mores of society, to which they must ultimately return. Leaving aside reasons of humanity, I am pragmatically very much against that.
  Secondly and differently—this goes back to a point that I made at the beginning of my speech—if one dehumanises people, one removes the inhibitions that others have about ill-treating them. If one coops them up in extremely unsanitary conditions and generally treats them as animals, one should not be at all surprised if the prison officers misbehave towards them. For those two pragmatic reasons, I am not in favour of unnecessarily humiliating prisoners.
  That takes me to the next point, which was touched on by my right hon. Friend the Member for Maidstone and The Weald, who spoke eloquently on the same point at the Conservative conference two years ago, I think—the need to make prison as purposeful as possible. One of the
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  things that struck me forcibly when I was prisons Minister and when I have gone round the prison in my constituency, Morton Hall, is the degree to which prisoners lack basic skills and social skills.
  For an enormous number of prisoners, numeracy and literacy have no meaning at all. I am very much in favour of pursuing vigorous educational programmes to the extent possible in prisons, and related to that, taking every opportunity to give prisoners skills relevant to their employment prospects in the future. That, too, needs to be done in prisons to the maximum possible extent.
  An overlapping but equally important point is that efforts should be made to get prisoners out of their cells, for association, yes, but for work as well, within the prison and sometimes—at Morton Hall it is possible—work outside the walls of the prison. Their time should be occupied in a fulfilling and purposeful way. It contributes a little to rehabilitation—I am not one of the great optimists about the prison system, but it makes a contribution.
  My final point goes to the status of the inspector of prisons. During the greater part of the time when I was prisons Minister, the inspector of prisons was Judge Tumim, who was a highly distinguished inspector of prisons. I have a high regard also for the present inspector, Sir David Ramsbotham. The status of the inspectorate of prisons is important, and I do not want it to be in any way downgraded or its authority or status diluted.
  The truth is—this goes back to a point that I made earlier—that there is too little external insight into the way in which prisons are run. We are greatly indebted to the boards of visitors. I used to read the report of the board of visitors in respect of every prison when I received it. The boards of visitors are valuable and have an important role to play, but it is not a sufficient role, partly because they spend a considerable time working with a particular prison, which means that their experience and judgment is focused on that prison and does not necessarily have the wider perspective that I would wish.
  I know perfectly well that reports from the inspector of prisons can be extremely embarrassing to the prisons Minister. I must have had 20 reports while I was prisons Minister, and from time to time I was, indeed, embarrassed by what Judge Tumim stated. We were called upon to answer his criticisms. I would say to the Minister of State, Home Office, the right hon. Member for Brent, South (Mr. Boateng), that, although it is tiresome and one may be embarrassed at the time, for goodness sake, take a broad view.
  Let us recognise that prisons are places where abuses can happen only too readily, and where they are never discovered. I hope that nothing will be done to undermine the authority, status or importance of the inspector of prisons. Above all, his office should not be merged with the inspectorate of probation. That would undermine and dilute it.
  My right hon. Friend the Member for Maidstone and The Weald has returned. That is most kind. I congratulate her on introducing the debate. When she is responsible for implementing penal policy, could we please have regular debates on the prisons?
  Miss Widdecombe: Yes.
  Mr. Hogg: That is reassuring. Will she also ensure that we get rid of the home detention curfew order scheme?
  Miss Widdecombe: Yes.
  Mr. Hogg: The answer is yes. Subject to my proviso, which she did not hear, but can read, will she be careful to ensure honesty in sentencing?
  Miss Widdecombe: Yes.
  Mr. Hogg: I know that my right hon. Friend attaches great importance to making prison life purposeful through education and work. I am sure that it will be one of her priorities.
  Miss Widdecombe: Yes.
  Mr. Hogg: Finally, my right hon. Friend should maintain the status, importance and authority of the inspector of prisons.
  Miss Widdecombe: Hmm.
  Mr. Hogg: Yes! That is all I wish to say.
  6.1 pm
  Mr. William Ross: The main purpose of the debate is to discuss early release from prison in England and Wales. However, this Parliament covers the United Kingdom, and it is important to bring to the House a perspective on the early release of prisoners from the Celtic fringe, as it were. I listened to the comments of the right hon. and learned Member for Sleaford and North Hykeham (Mr. Hogg) on early release and large amounts of remission. I also listened with interest to the remarks of the hon. Member for St. Helens, South (Mr. Bermingham) on the same subject. Both appeared to believe remission should be earned. I suggest to the Minister that, regardless of the amount of remission, it should be earned more easily by a first offender who is serving his first prison sentence than by a chap who is serving a second or a third term and proving himself to be a persistent offender and professional criminal.
  I hope that those who are in prison for the first time for lesser offences might be less willing to go back, and could have an early release target towards which to work. Thereafter, there should be harsher honesty about sentencing and remission. Folks should know that if they return to prison for the second, third or fourth time, it will be more difficult to get out early than it was the first time around.
  I want to consider the consequences of the early release of prisoners that resulted from the Belfast agreement. We have heard that the Government have seen fit to grant early release to some 20,000 convicted criminals on the mainland, including drug dealers and traffickers, robbers, burglars, violent offenders, sex offenders and God knows what other sort of offender. The motion does not mention murderers. However, for anyone from Northern Ireland, the debate is a case of, "I've heard all this before; I've been there, done that."
  I can give the right hon. Member for Maidstone and The Weald (Miss Widdecombe) some good news: early release of prisoners in Northern Ireland means that there
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  will be many unemployed prison officers in Northern Ireland and two empty prisons of which good use could be made. It might be a little far to go to visit prisoners, but the accommodation is there. If the number of prisoners and misbehaviour is decreasing, use of Northern Ireland prisons for mainland prisoners would be a short-term answer. However, it would be useful, and would save money that would otherwise be expended on building a new prison on this side of the Irish sea.
  As hon. Members will recall, the Belfast agreement was sold to the people of Northern Ireland as the answer to all their problems. Under the terms of the agreement, all terrorist prisoners—who are in a slightly different category from the prisoners that we have been discussing, but nevertheless wind up in prisons—were to be released in two years, no matter what their crime. Those two years end in four weeks. At the end of that time, every person convicted of terrorist murder up to a specific date will be out. We were told that peace and tranquillity would ensue if those mass murderers were released from prison and permitted to roam the streets freely. "Freely" is the operative word because none has something attached to his ankle to enable him to be watched. They are out, full stop. They are not electronically tagged.
  The news for the people of Northern Ireland was not all bad. During the referendum campaign in 1998, the Prime Minister appeared in Coleraine in my constituency. He gave five handwritten pledges to the people of Northern Ireland, and asked them to vote for the agreement on that basis. I cannot stress enough the importance of those pledges to many Unionist people who were prepared to give the agreement a chance—wrongly, I believed. Those folk believed the Prime Minister when he promised them that those who threatened or used violence would be excluded from the Government of Northern Ireland and that prisoners would be kept in prison unless violence was given up for good.
  When I dealt with a terrorist organisation, I did not believe in Santa Claus. I rarely believe it when a Government promise Santa Claus. Experience has taught us that those pledges, like so many from the Government, are merely the product of a highly sophisticated spin machine. The Government seem to us to have no clearer policy or strategic vision than to buy off terrorist organisations and to see themselves through whatever dominates the news headlines. They give no thought to the long-term consequences for the citizens who must live with them.
  Mr. Michael Fabricant: I wonder whether the hon. Gentleman has read the intelligence reports that I have seen from time to time, which suggest that several terrorist prisoners who have been released early have since joined the Real IRA and the Continuity IRA. What does that say about recidivism?
  Mr. Ross: I shall come to that in a moment. The hon. Gentleman pre-empted me by a few moments.
  The Government did not give detailed, comprehensive thought to the effects of creating circumstances in which a well-organised terrorist structure could claim success in getting prisoners out before they had completed their sentences. That unquestionably happened. Hundreds of such people from both sides of the community have benefited from early release.

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  The first releases took place on 11 September 1998. Those released include some of the most violent criminals that the United Kingdom has ever had to tackle. For example, the IRA Brighton bomber, Patrick Magee, was one of them—even the Home Secretary had reservations about releasing him early. Sean Kelly, who murdered nine people in the explosion in a fish shop on the Shankill road, was released early. That is only the IRA side. On the loyalist side, the men who murdered eight people in the Rising Sun bar in Greysteel, again in my constituency, will soon be released, if they are not already out. It cannot have escaped hon. Members' notice that the recent tension in the Shankill road has not been helped by the release of the area's former UFF commander. That also happened under the terms of the Belfast agreement.
  It seems to the people of Northern Ireland that those people who have been released early are the untouchables in the criminal structures of Northern Ireland. Two weeks ago, a bomb exploded in the garden shed of a house in Ballymurphy. There are strong rumours that one of the individuals involved is the IRA quartermaster for the area, who is out on early release. Several months ago, a car carrying a bomb was intercepted near Lisburn. One of those involved was also an IRA man on early release. During an Orange order parade the weekend before last, two IRA commanders, out on early release, were spotted stoning the RUC.
  In Northern Ireland, early release has aided the growth of a mafia sub-culture, which is steadily increasing. Legitimate business men are faced with demands for money from people who have literally got away with murder. Such demands have been made for a long time, but they are now more subtle. When a convicted killer who has served his two-year sentence walks into someone's shop or business and requests a donation to his cause, or suggests that he provides the doorman for his bar or nightclub, what should that person do? Does he go to the police who, seemingly, often cannot help? He can try to ignore that killer, but that is not a wise policy—or he can do as the Government have done and simply surrender to the demands.
  This has all come about as the result of a completely wrong reading of the situation. When I look at the system of early release of prisoners on the mainland in the light of my own experience, I wonder whether we are not taking too soft a line with many of the people involved. The real tragedy of Northern Ireland is that, rather than try to ensure that terrorists conform to the normal standards of democratic behaviour—namely, to respect the rule of law and the decision of the ballot box—the Government have sought to turn logic on its head and accept the terrorists' propaganda. They are now trying to persuade the law-abiding majority that it is acceptable for murderers to sit as Ministers, for decisions on the police force to rely on the good behaviour of the very criminals and murderers whom that same police force has fought for 30 years, and for vast terrorist arsenals to remain under the control of those terrorist organisations.
  Since some of the dumps in the Republic of Ireland have been inspected, I assume that the whereabouts of such weapons is now known. If not, our security forces, never mind those in the Republic, are failing in their duty. I therefore hope that they will act properly and pick up those weapons. In Northern Ireland, the results of the early release of prisoners are plain for everyone to see. The RUC is demoralised and saying to itself, "Why bother
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  to catch them?" That exists in a lesser form on this side of the Irish sea. In Northern Ireland, there is a rejuvenated criminal class, drugs and spiralling crime rates and an increasingly angry and frightened populace. It is hard for parents and teachers to teach children and young people the difference between right and wrong when one of the principal wrongdoers is now the Minister of Education and when they can see people who have literally got away with murder walking the streets.
  Early release has massive implications for the criminal justice system. If someone can shoot eight innocent people dead in a bar because they believe them to be Roman Catholics, or blow up nine innocent people in a fish shop because they believe them to be Protestants, and then, after being caught, be released after serving less than two years for such mass murder, how can we possibly decide a reasonable tariff for a thief or a burglar? Early release has been a disaster in Northern Ireland. It was misconceived there and is equally misconceived here, because it lets criminals off too lightly and forgets that there is not only a rehabilitation but a payment to be made for crime. It is therefore an insult to the victims of crime. The sentences of innocent victims cannot be reduced. Why, therefore, should there be a reduction of sentence, except in limited circumstances, for those who do the injuring?
  6.13 pm
  Mr. Michael Fabricant: It is a privilege to follow the hon. Member for East Londonderry (Mr. Ross) who, of course, is right: the purpose of prison is not only to punish and rehabilitate, but to protect people from crimes that criminals might commit if they were not in prison. As he said, in Northern Ireland terrorists have left prison early, joined Real IRA and Continuity IRA and committed terrorist offences in Northern Ireland and on the mainland of Great Britain.
  It is a privilege to speak in this debate as a member of the Select Committee on Home Affairs. I am the only Committee member here today, although that is not the result of my colleagues' negligence—they are off on a visit to Europe, examining the integrity of ports in respect of asylum seekers and others trying to enter the United Kingdom. The Government's policy on asylum seekers demonstrates the Home Office's effectiveness on that, as does its policy on early releases. The Government have become notorious for the use of spin, re-launching existing policies and announcing new sums of money which, time and time again—as a little examination demonstrates—double, treble or quadruple the actual amounts that are given.
  In considering whether we are soft on asylum seekers and why they seek out this country, the Home Affairs Committee visited Sangette, on the outskirts of Calais, where we saw 600 or 700 asylum seekers living in the most appalling conditions. Those who spoke English told us that they had travelled across Europe from locations as varied as Iraq, Kurdistan, Iran and Syria.
  Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Michael Lord): I am sure that the hon. Gentleman will appreciate that the title of the debate is "Prisoners (Early Release)". I should be grateful if he would direct his remarks to that.
  Mr. Fabricant: I was going to point out a continuity, as those people had the sole objective of coming to the

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  United Kingdom—[Interruption.] I shall answer the hon. Members for Basildon (Angela Smith) and for High Peak (Mr. Levitt), who question why I am raising the issue—not that they have participated in the debate. There is a continuity, as the Government try to claim that they are achieving many things, but they have not achieved anything on crime and punishment in this country. Indeed, my right hon. Friend the Member for Maidstone and The Weald (Miss Widdecombe) asked the Home Secretary two questions to which we still have not had a proper answer. The first question was, where are the 4,000 prison places that are now available? The Home Secretary tried to answer, but could not reach the figure of 4,000.
  The right hon. Gentleman was asked another question that he could not answer—perhaps, in fairness, because my right hon. Friend the Member for Maidstone and The Weald asked him several questions. However, I shall repeat it in the hope that the Minister may be able to answer it in his summing-up. How many double cells are now occupied by three prisoners? That follows on from points made by my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Sleaford and North Hykeham (Mr. Hogg), who pointed out that prison conditions are important too. As I said in my opening remarks, prison should be a place in which rehabilitation can take place, perhaps, as my right hon. and learned Friend pointed out, through the acquisition of new skills.
  The Home Secretary tried to maintain that our support for electronic tagging somehow allowed the use of the home detention curfew scheme. The two do not go together, and it is not right and proper that a tagging system should mean that people can leave prison early. Indeed, as my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Sleaford and North Hykeham said, to ensure discipline in prisons, there should be a system of rewards as well as punishments for prisoners' behaviour.
  Clearly, a system of reward, as well as allowing prisoners to perform certain functions in prison that they might not otherwise be allowed to perform, should include the reward of early release. I am inclined to follow the argument presented by my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Sleaford and North Hykeham that early release should amount to perhaps only 20 per cent. of the prison sentence set down by the judge. A 50 per cent. release is certainly not fair and is not safe for society, as my hon. Friend the Member for East Londonderry pointed out.
  It is worth bearing in mind that between the introduction of the scheme on 28 January last year and 30 April this year, more than 20,000 convicted prisoners were released early. They were not released early for light crimes, as the Home Secretary referred to them: 53 people had committed manslaughter; six, attempted murder; and 2,562 wounding, aggravated bodily harm and grievous bodily harm. Most awful of all, in some respects, 2,767 had been sentenced to prison for drug dealing; 23 for cruelty to children; 20 for sex offences; 1,887 for burglary; 811 for robbery; 237 for violent disorder, and 535 for affray.
  Perhaps if those convicted prisoners had learned their lesson and society was now safe from them, that would be justification, yet 700 prisoners on special early release have breached the conditions of their curfew and 40 have disappeared and remain unlawfully at large. Nearly
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  400 of those released on the scheme have committed further offences—offences that they would not otherwise have been able to commit had they still been in prison. They include two rapes, five threats to kill, 119 offences of burglary, theft and robbery and 43 assaults.
  We should remind ourselves that those offences were committed by people who could not have committed them had they still been serving a prison sentence, yet what does the Home Secretary say? He has said:
  the introduction of home detention curfew has been remarkably successful.
  That is no remarkable success.
  It is not my intention to speak at length. The Government have been successful up to now in one thing and one thing only: playing with the imaginations of the electorate by launching and relaunching initiatives and by doublilkng, tripling and quadrupling the money available for those initiatives, at least in the imagination. However, like the little boy who cried wolf once too often, Ministers are finding that they are no longer believed. Even their core supporters can see that the Government score full marks only on rhetoric, but continue to fail in delivery, as we have heard in this debate on crime and punishment.
  The early release scheme is a clear demonstration that, far from being tough on crime, as is the case with asylum the Government and the Home Secretary are regarded as a soft touch by criminals. He does not deter them. To the majority of people who are law abiding and just want justice to be done and our streets to be safe, that is unforgivable. Criminal sentences must be just, but sufficiently harsh to deter future criminal acts. They must succeed wherever possible in rehabilitation, as my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Sleaford and North Hykeham said, and must keep criminals away from society if they are unwilling to abide by the decent rules of society. The Government and the Home Secretary have failed the British people on all four counts.
  6.23 pm
  Mr. David Ruffleythe scheme, the more I realise that it could be described as the camel that broke the Straw's back because it is nothing less than a disgrace. We know—the prisons Minister, the right hon. Member for Brent, South (Mr. Boateng), has told the House—that it is possible for those sentenced to six months to get out in just six weeks because the scheme means that a prisoner can be released up to two months earlier than would otherwise be the case.
  That raises interesting questions on the whole issue of honesty in sentencing. My right hon. Friend the Member for Maidstone and The Weald (Miss Widdecombe), the shadow Home Secretary, and my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition have been very clear over the past weeks and months about the need for radical reform, so that there is honesty in sentencing. The scheme that is before us makes a bad situation considerably worse.
  The figures do not make happy reading. There are some chilling statistics on the period between the introduction of the scheme in January 1999 and 30 April this year. The following number of people have been let out early under the home detention curfew scheme: 53 who were convicted of manslaughter; six who were convicted of attempted murder; a staggering 2,767 who were convicted

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  of drug dealing; 20 who were convicted of sex offences; 811 who were convicted of robbery; and 237 who were convicted of violent disorder.
  The question that we have must ask is: did the Government intend that? Looking at the record and the comments of the Home Secretary, we are forced to conclude that they did not. He said:
  We have no plans or intention whatever to provide for electronic tagging to facilitate the early release of serious or sexual offenders. Let me make that clear, with a full stop—none whatever.—[Official Report, 29 November 1999; Vol. 340, c. 27.]
  The statistics that I have alluded to make it clear beyond peradventure that he was being economical with the truth when he made that statement. As such, he should apologise to the House for making it.
  It is true, as my hon. Friends have said, that Labour acts soft, but talks tough. I am reminded of the comments by the then Home Office Minister, the right hon. Member for Gateshead, East and Washington, West (Ms Quin), when putting forward the scheme:
  Prison is the right place for those who have committed serious crimes.
  However, the facts show that those committing serious crimes—sexual offences, manslaughter, attempted murder—are being let out on the scheme.
  The Conservative position is simple and straightforward, as we would expect from this Conservative Front-Bench team. We have common-sense policies. Our common-sense policy on electronic tagging is that it should be used not as a mechanism of early release, but as a form of punishment in its own right. Therefore, we will not have any nonsense about our support for electronic tagging. Where we have suggested that it may be a useful disposal, it is in connection with punishment, not early release.
  I often read that great work of fiction, which is worthy of entry into the next Booker prize contest. It is the called the Labour party manifesto 1997. It promised a "battle against drugs" and
  a commitment to tackle the modern menace of drugs in our communities.
  We look at that at face value and then see the statistics disclosed under the scheme. As I have reported, that Government initiative has allowed 2,700-plus convicted drug dealers to be let out.
  I could go on. In fact, I will. The manifesto said that
  the police have our full support.
  Those are warm words from the Labour party, but more than 100 criminals convicted of assaulting our police officers and of resisting arrest have been let out early after serving less than half their sentences. I give another example. The Government talk toughly about toughening sentences for causing death by dangerous driving and they want to increase it to a life tariff. The Minister of State, Home Office, The hon. Member for Norwich, South (Mr. Clarke), said that
  the public have a right to expect…long and heavy sentences.
  They do, but they do not expect it from this Government because 126 dangerous drivers who have killed on the roads have been let out early under the scheme.
  I am surprised that Ministers show their faces. It is not difficult to understand why their Back Benchers have not bothered to show their faces today. It is an absolute disgrace that they have not been willing to be here.
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  Even Millbank has been unwilling to page them and to tell them to come to the House to defend their own Government's policy.
  Mr. Fabricant: Does my hon. Friend realise that it is worse than that? Not only are Labour Back Benchers not here now, but only one bothered to take part in what is an important debate.
  Mr. Ruffley: Labour Back Benchers are frit and we know why. It is a disgraceful piece of law and order policy and it will be judged as such at the next election by my constituents. In the aftermath of the Tony Martin case, they saw the robustness and clarity of the Conservative party position as articulated by my right hon. Friend the Member for Maidstone and The Weald and the Leader of the Opposition, and the pathetic, lily-livered, duplicitous talk and triple counting by the Government. We even heard Labour rubbish about "more money" for rural constabularies. My Suffolk constabulary has yet to hear any firm details in the wake of the furore that was created on the back of the Tony Martin judgment.
  I shall give another example of how the Home Secretary talks about being tough on violent crime. We all read the spin that Labour put into the public domain to soften the bad news when it finally hit us, which is that violent crime has increased and is getting worse under this Government. We know why: fewer police officers and the soft, woolly minded, sandal-wearing policy of Home Office Ministers. They have no claim to be the custodians of proper, tough and effective law and order in this country.
  I shall quote another statistic. I hope that the Minister can deal with it—probably not, if experience is anything to go by. The Home Secretary called for tougher sentences for street robbers in the light of the rise in violent crime, but he has let out more than 800 convicted robbers early under the special release scheme.
  There is confusion in prisons policy. I am glad that at least one Minister has decided to turn up for this debate; it happens to be the prisons Minister—the right hon. Member for Brent, South (Mr. Boateng). Perhaps, in his summing up, he will tell us how he will be able to afford the burgeoning prison population. At the end of December 1999, the prison population was 62,060 and the certified normal accommodation—the prison capacity with no overcrowding—was 62,480. Some 17.8 per cent. of those prisoners were on remand. Projections based on those statistics show that the trend is upwards. If the custody rate and sentence length remain at 1999 levels, the projected prison population will be 70,400 by 2007—in the unlikely event that a Labour Government are running law and order then. If the custody rates and sentence lengths increase, the figure is predicted to be as high as 80,300.
  The Minister has probably been doing his best with the Treasury to fund Home Office policy, but we want more money for our police, and he should tell us whether he has the money to fund the increase in the prison population. If he has not, the policy is more of a shambles than it first appears.
  6.32 pm
  Mr. Nick Hawkins: It is always very interesting to discover what has been going on while a debate has been in progress. It is of particular note that

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  we have some more up-to-date figures on the number of people released under the home detention curfew scheme. Those figures were released in a written answer at 3.30 this afternoon to my hon. Friend the Member for Aylesbury (Mr. Lidington). I shall return to those figures later. It is always a pleasure to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Bury St. Edmunds (Mr. Ruffley), but I have to tell him that the figures are worse than those that he mentions.
  In response to an intervention from my hon. Friend the Member for West Derbyshire (Mr. McLoughlin), the Home Secretary said that the Government would introduce a proposal on the Prime Minister's much vaunted announcement about on-the-spot fines as soon as there was legislative time, but despite that fact, this evening's BBC news reported that No. 10 Downing street is now saying that the idea of on-the-spot fines has been dropped. It has spun off into oblivion, so what price the Home Secretary's response to my hon. Friend now?
  I do not think that the Home Secretary has the guts to try to explain away the fact that that policy has spun off into oblivion between 4 o'clock this afternoon and 6 o'clock this evening. What has happened to the policy, which, as the hon. Member for Southwark, North and Bermondsey (Mr. Hughes) said, must have puzzled the theologians of Tubingen? It reminds me of the nursery rhyme about Solomon Grundy that we all learned as children. We now find that Labour policy is born on a Friday and buried on a Monday. Undoubtedly, we shall see much more spinning, angels dancing on the point of a pin and the Minister's usual sophistry to try to explain away that policy.
  I turn to some of the serious points that have been made. In answer to my hon. Friend the Member for Reigate (Mr. Blunt), the Home Secretary said that he would tell those who sadly and tragically have been the victims of rape committed by someone who was released on home detention curfew that it is "better to manage the transition from custody to the community" of the criminal. Frankly, that is a disgrace. Are the Government concerned about law-abiding citizen or the criminal?
  All the Home Secretary's words suggested that the Government are far more concerned about better managing the criminal's transition from custody to the community, but we on this side of the House are more concerned about the law abiding. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Maidstone and The Weald (Miss Widdecombe) said, the routine of someone who should be serving a custodial sentence in full, but has been released early on home detention curfew, may involve drug dealing from home.
  I shall now deal with the figures that were announced in a written answer after the start of the debate. The Government said that they would be
  "tough on crime and tough on the causes of crime",
  but in which group of offences have the largest number of offenders been released on home detention curfew? We had the figures to the end of April; we now have the figures to the end of May, and drug offenders comprise the largest group. No fewer than 3,480 of those convicted of drugs offences have been released, including 122 offenders whose convictions were for the production of drugs and 1,156 whose offence was the supply of
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  drugs—the most serious drugs offence of all. Some 1,476 had been convicted of possession with intent to supply and 462 with possession. No fewer than 222 of those who have been released early have been involved in the unlawful import or export of drugs, so international drug smugglers are being released early.
  Home detention curfews are not a sensible alternative. We know that the Government say that they regard that policy as a success, but they should tell that to the victims of the criminals who have been released early. The victims do not accept that; the public will not accept it, and neither will we.
  As my hon. Friend the Member for Bury St. Edmunds said, as recently as November 1999, the Home Secretary said:
  We have no plans or intention whatever to provide for electronic tagging to facilitate the early release of serious or sexual offenders. Let me make that clear, with a full stop—none whatever"—[Official Report, 29 November 1999; Vol. 340, c. 27.]
  That was long after the Select Committee report, although the Home Secretary claimed that its members knew all about what the Government had in mind. Of course they did not. As late as last November, long after the report, the Home Secretary told the House that the Government had no plans to apply the scheme to serious or sexual offences.
  I shall quote the number of sexual offenders who have been released under the scheme in direct contravention of what the Home Secretary told the House. Nineteen offenders convicted of indecent assault, one of unlawful sexual intercourse and one of buggery have been released. Those figures completely undermine what the Home Secretary said as recently as last November.
  I shall deal with one or two of the other contributions to the debate. We agree with the hon. Member for Southwark, North and Bermondsey about the need for constructive work to be done in prison. He is well aware that Coldingley prison, which is in my constituency, is an extremely good example of a prison where constructive work is done. I know that the Minister has visited it and, while considering legislation in Committee, we have agreed that we want to encourage such prisons, but there is no purpose in releasing people under the scheme and denying them the opportunity to take part in constructive work in prison when their offences should justify a lengthy custodial sentence.
  The hon. Gentleman also said that longer sentences do not lessen the risk of reoffending. That may be true, but we on these Benches say that offenders cannot commit offences while they are in custody. He said that there should be fewer headline-grabbing initiatives. Perhaps that applied particularly to the one to which the Prime Minister referred last Friday, which has already been dropped. We need to be concerned about the protection of the public: once sentenced by a judge to a substantial custodial sentence, a person ought to serve that sentence. There should be honesty in sentencing.
  Mr. Simon Hughes: May I ask a follow-up question? Given that, at the moment, almost everybody sentenced to prison is released, do the Conservatives believe that more people should be sentenced to prison with no chance of ever being released?
  Mr. Hawkins: That simply does not address the issue of home detention curfew, which is what we are

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  discussing, and the hon. Gentleman has raised a canard that has no relevance to the debate. We have said that there should be honesty in sentencing and that the sentence imposed by the judge, which the public believe will protect them, should be served.
  I refer to some of the remarks made by my right hon. and hon. Friends. From his great experience as a former Attorney-General, my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for North-East Bedfordshire (Sir N. Lyell) pointed out that the Government's law and order policy is in a mess, saying that although the Government sound tough, in practice the policies are weak and designed to save taxpayers' money. Reducing periods spent in prison, especially for the serious offender, saves the Treasury money, but does not protect the public.
  My right hon. and learned Friend spoke with particular authority. In 1981, during the debates in Committee on what became the Criminal Justice Act 1982, he was the first person to suggest a type of curfew scheme, which those in Hertfordshire who pioneered the idea called the night restriction order. He pointed out that it was intended for borderline offenders who might not get custodial sentences. It was never intended for serious offenders, to whom the Government are now applying it.
  My right hon. and learned Friend also pointed out that over our 18 years in government we built up what he described as a fine quiverful of disposals and sentences that are open to the courts. By using the policy as an Executive act, the Home Secretary has undermined the integrity of sentencing judges and magistrates in the court. That is the most serious condemnation of the Government.
  My right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Sleaford and North Hykeham (Mr. Hogg), who always makes a powerful speech to the House, supported honesty in sentencing and talked about the need for the public to feel that sentences are appropriate. He stressed that the problem with home detention curfews as the Government use them is that they represent an Executive decision, which departs from the principle of honesty in sentencing, and made a powerful call for moving to a sentence discount of no more than 20 per cent. and for that discount to be earned with good behaviour and work in prison.
  My right hon. and learned Friend also made the important point that so many prisoners, as I know from my own experience at the Bar, lack basic skills such as literacy and numeracy. Therefore, one needs to provide incentives and to try to ensure that prisoners are asked to do worthwhile work in prison.
  In an extremely powerful speech, the hon. Member for East Londonderry (Mr. Ross) called for a tough approach to those who have committed the most serious offences—in particular, terrorist offences in Northern Ireland—and drew parallels with what happens in Ulster. He knows that we on these Benches have repeatedly called for an end to early releases until there is actual surrender of guns and explosives and he is aware that we strongly support what he said about that: too many concessions were made to the terrorists and too soft a line has been taken.
  As the hon. Gentleman said, based on their highly sophisticated spin machine and to get over the short-term difficulties, the Government made promises without giving any thought to the long-term consequences for law-abiding citizens. I say to him that that is true not only in relation to Ulster. Sadly, the Government cause the same problems—spin as opposed to substance—on the
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  mainland. My hon. Friend the Member for Lichfield (Mr. Fabricant) drew attention to the double counting and the re-announcement of Government policies with which we are so familiar in this policy area as in so many others.
  The Home Secretary made desperate stabs into political history to try to bolster his argument, but got into trouble when he talked about the so-called vacant prison places. My right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Mr. Howard) pointed out the difference between certifiable normal capacity and usable operational capacity. Just like the initiative for on-the-spot fines, we know that that is another matter that the Prime Minister has completely misunderstood. On home detention curfew as on so many other law and order policies, we can be absolutely certain that what is vacant and certifiable is Labour policy.
  6.45 pm
  The Minister of State, Home Office (Mr. Paul Boateng): We can be equally clear that crime doubled under the Conservatives while the number of criminals convicted by the courts fell by a third. That is the base from which we were required to move. Protecting the public and ensuring that we use prisons as an opportunity to address the underlying causes of offending with far greater success than the Opposition ever managed when they had stewardship of these matters are at the heart of what we seek to achieve. Therefore, it is disappointing that the Opposition have chosen to use this, their day, in such a way.
  Let us not forget that today is the Opposition's day, not ours. We do not have to come into the Chamber to listen to them, but when one considers who turned up to listen to whom, it is interesting that the maximum number present on their side when Opposition spokespersons were not speaking was four on my count. Indeed, at one time they were outnumbered by Ulster Unionist Members, so let us be clear about who attended the debate.
  Dr. Julian Lewis: Will the Minister give way?
  Mr. Boateng: No, I have no intention of doing so.
  Let us be clear: despite all the shilly-shallying and all the ranting and raving that we have heard from the Opposition, they cannot get away from the fact that the overwhelming majority of those placed on the home detention scheme have successfully completed their curfew. The overwhelming majority have not offended on curfew and the scheme has helped thousands of short-term prisoners to make the difficult transition back into the community. That is what it was designed to do—that was its purpose—and it is better to protect the public by ensuring that we better manage the transition of offenders from custody into the community.
  Let us have a brief look at where all this began. The home detention curfew scheme was universally approved, without dissension, by the all-party Home Affairs Committee. The hon. Member for Surrey Heath (Mr. Hawkins) put his signature to its report and no amount of slithering and sliding can get him away from that fact. His fingerprints are all over the report—we do not need DNA to tell us that. Furthermore, I have here a record of the debate of 8 April 1998, in which he spoke. He had this to say:
  I particularly welcome the provisions on electronic tagging.—[Official Report, 8 April 1998; Vol. 310, c. 417.]

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  There it is. He cannot say that he did not know—it was all in the Bill and it received not just a welcome, but a particular welcome.
  Mr. Fabricant: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. In the light of the news that the Prime Minister has announced that there will not be on the spot fines, has the Home Secretary said that he wishes to make a statement in that regard?
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: I have no knowledge of those matters. In any case, it is not a matter for the Chair.
  Mr. Boateng: Even the speech of the hon. Member for Lichfield (Mr. Fabricant) was better than that intervention, and that is saying something.
  We need to be clear that the home detention curfew scheme is just one of the many measures that we have introduced to help prepare prisoners for release, as part of our strategy for reducing reoffending and protecting the public.
  Some good points have been made in this afternoon's debate. One was made by the right hon. and learned Member for Sleaford and North Hykeham (Mr. Hogg), who spoke of the importance of ensuring that we take care to reflect on what we do in prisons to address recidivism. That point was taken up with some force by my hon. Friend the Member for St. Helens, South (Mr. Bermingham), who endorsed the Government's approach on this issue. The right hon. and learned Gentleman spoke about how, on occasion, he was "deeply troubled" by the failure of his Government and the Prison Service better to address that issue. Well, we have been addressing the issue. We have been applying additional resources to addressing basic skills in literacy and numeracy, which were neglected for 18 years by the previous Conservative Government. It has taken a Labour Government to begin to address those deficits.
  Miss Widdecombe: Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?
  Mr. Boateng: No. [HON. MEMBERS: "Give way."] If I may finish the point that I am making, the right hon. Lady can then make her point in her own inimitable fashion.
  We are spending additional resources: £26 million has gone into education—basic literacy and numeracy skills—to address the causes of offending. That is money that was never spent by the Conservative Government when they had stewardship of the Prison Service. Now, without costing their proposals, they seek to renege on their previous commitment to developing a penal policy that would have recognised the benefits that the home detention curfew scheme presents in terms of better protecting the public by better managing the transition from prison into the community.
  Miss Widdecombe: Will the right hon. Gentleman confirm one very simple fact: that under our stewardship of the Prison Service, purposeful activity rose to a peak of 26 hours, whereas it is now down to below 23 hours? How on earth is that developing prisoners' potential?
  Mr. Boateng: The right hon. Lady knows, because in her serious moments she has done some serious thinking
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  on the issue, that the definition of purposeful activity is seriously flawed. In fairness, she will admit that. She also knows that, by any definition, this Government are spending more money on, and devoting more energy and resources to, basic literacy and numeracy than her Government ever did. [Interruption.] All the baying in the world cannot get over that basic fact.
  Let us go back to the subject of home detention curfews. We have not sought to renege on that in the course of our stewardship of the Prison Service. It is but one element of our overarching strategy for reducing reoffending and protecting the public—one important element. However, let us examine what we need to do and should be doing better to protect the public, and what we are doing. A basic part of the structure of the home detention curfew scheme is the better assessment of risk, the reduction of risk and the managing of risk after release.
  The Government are addressing the long outstanding issue of the partnership that needs to exist between the Prison Service and the probation service. That partnership was not in place under the Conservative Government, but it is now in place and the public are better protected for it.
  In their consideration of these issues, the Opposition have failed to recognise the importance of ensuring that the criminal justice system as a whole works better. We need a Crown Prosecution Service, a court service, a probation service, a Prison Service and a police service that work in ways that are better designed to reduce the impact of reoffending and to protect the public. Importantly, they must also be based on recognition of the vital role that can be played by the home detention curfew scheme in terms of the transition from prison into the community.
  It really is disappointing that, on a day on which the Conservative Opposition should have addressed the real issues—[HON. MEMBERS: "We have."] No; I mean the issues that show that it is possible to do as we have done, effectively to redress the impact of burglary and vehicle crime, and to take measures that have led domestic burglary and vehicle crime to fall. That is our record. Under the Conservatives' stewardship of the criminal justice system, crime doubled and the number of criminals convicted by the courts fell by a third.
  This Government are reversing the fall in police numbers—[HON. MEMBERS: "No."] Oh yes.
  Miss Widdecombe: Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?
  Mr. Boateng: No. [HON. MEMBERS: "Give way."] I shall give way when I have finished this point.
  Our crime fighting fund is providing the police with an extra 5,000 recruits over this financial year and the next. Under the previous Government's stewardship of the police service, the number of police officers fell. That is the record, and we are in the process of reversing that.
  Miss Widdecombe rose—
  Mr. Boateng: No; let me finish. Opposition Members hate being—[Interruption.]
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. There are far too many sedentary interventions. The Minister has said that he will give way, but not at the moment.
  Mr. Boateng: The Opposition hate to hear about their record in government. This Government's actions include

  73
  the home detention curfew scheme, the crime fighting fund and £180 million spent on CCTV schemes. We have paid attention to anti-social behaviour, with the introduction of anti-social behaviour orders, which the Opposition opposed. It is this Government who, time and again, have taken the hard decisions. We have addressed the basic causes of offending and created a real partnership between the police, the probation service and the Prison Service.
  It is our Government who will deliver increased numbers of police and steadily falling reconviction rates for offences such as burglary and vehicle crime. We will succeed with our policies in better protecting the public. That is why we must oppose the motion that the Conservatives have proposed. I ask the House to support our amendment and to oppose the Conservative motion.
  Question put, That the original words stand part of the Question:—
  The House divided:Ayes 137, Noes 319.

  Division No. 245]

  [7 pm

  AYES

  Ainsworth, Peter (E Surrey)

  Green, Damian

  Amess, David

  Greenway, John

  Arbuthnot, Rt Hon James

  Grieve, Dominic

  Atkinson, David (Bour'mth E)

  Gummer, Rt Hon John

  Atkinson, Peter (Hexham)

  Hamilton, Rt Hon Sir Archie

  Baldry, Tony

  Hammond, Philip

  Bercow, John

  Hawkins, Nick

  Beresford, Sir Paul

  Hayes, John

  Blunt, Crispin

  Heald, Oliver

  Body, Sir Richard

  Heathcoat-Amory, Rt Hon David

  Boswell, Tim

  Hogg, Rt Hon Douglas

  Bottomley, Peter (Worthing W)

  Horam, John

  Bottomley, Rt Hon Mrs Virginia

  Howard, Rt Hon Michael

  Brady, Graham

  Hunter, Andrew

  Brazier, Julian

  Jack, Rt Hon Michael

  Brooke, Rt Hon Peter

  Jackson, Robert (Wantage)

  Browning, Mrs Angela

  Jenkin, Bernard

  Bruce, Ian (S Dorset)

  Key, Robert

  Butterfill, John

  King, Rt Hon Tom (Bridgwater)

  Chapman, Sir Sydney (Chipping Barnet)

  Laing, Mrs Eleanor

  Lait, Mrs Jacqui

  Chope, Christopher

  Lansley, Andrew

  Clappison, James

  Leigh, Edward

  Clark, Dr Michael (Rayleigh)

  Letwin, Oliver

  Clarke, Rt Hon Kenneth (Rushcliffe)

  Lewis, Dr Julian (New Forest E)

  Lidington, David

  Clifton-Brown, Geoffrey

  Lilley, Rt Hon Peter

  Collins, Tim

  Lloyd, Rt Hon Sir Peter (Fareham)

  Cran, James

  Loughton, Tim

  Curry, Rt Hon David

  Lyell, Rt Hon Sir Nicholas

  Davies, Quentin (Grantham)

  MacGregor, Rt Hon John

  Davis, Rt Hon David (Haltemprice)

  McIntosh, Miss Anne

  Day, Stephen

  MacKay, Rt Hon Andrew

  Dorrell, Rt Hon Stephen

  Maclean, Rt Hon David

  Duncan Smith, Iain

  McLoughlin, Patrick

  Evans, Nigel

  Madel, Sir David

  Faber, David

  Maples, John

  Fabricant, Michael

  Maude, Rt Hon Francis

  Fallon, Michael

  May, Mrs Theresa

  Flight, Howard

  Moss, Malcolm

  Forth, Rt Hon Eric

  Nicholls, Patrick

  Fowler, Rt Hon Sir Norman

  Norman, Archie

  Fox, Dr Liam

  O'Brien, Stephen (Eddisbury)

  Fraser, Christopher

  Ottaway, Richard

  Gale, Roger

  Pickles, Eric

  Garnier, Edward

  Portillo, Rt Hon Michael

  Gibb, Nick

  Prior, David

  Gill, Christopher

  Redwood, Rt Hon John

  Gorman, Mrs Teresa

  Robathan, Andrew

  Gray, James

  Robertson, Laurence

  74

  Roe, Mrs Marion (Broxbourne)

  Townend, John

  Ross, William (E Lond'y)

  Tredinnick, David

  Rowe, Andrew (Faversham)

  Trend, Michael

  Ruffley, David

  Tyrie, Andrew

  St Aubyn, Nick

  Viggers, Peter

  Sayeed, Jonathan

  Walter, Robert

  Shephard, Rt Hon Mrs Gillian

  Waterson, Nigel

  Shepherd, Richard

  Wells, Bowen

  Simpson, Keith (Mid-Norfolk)

  Whitney, Sir Raymond

  Smyth, Rev Martin (Belfast S)

  Whittingdale, John

  Soames Nicholas

  Widdecombe, Rt Hon Miss Ann

  Spelman, Mrs Caroline

  Wilkinson, John

  Spicer, Sir Michael

  Willetts, David

  Spring, Richard

  Wilshire, David

  Stanley, Rt Hon Sir John

  Winterton, Mrs Ann (Congleton)

  Swayne, Desmond

  Winterton, Nicholas (Macclesfield)

  Syms, Robert

  Yeo, Tim

  Tapsell, Sir Peter

  Young, Rt Hon Sir George

  Taylor, Ian (Esher & Walton)

  Taylor, John M (Solihull)

  Tellers for the Ayes:

  Taylor, Sir Teddy

  Mr. John Randall and

  Mr. Peter Luff.

  NOES

  Ainsworth, Robert (Cov'try NE)

  Clark, Paul (Gillingham)

  Alexander, Douglas

  Clarke, Eric (Midlothian)

  Allan, Richard

  Clarke, Rt Hon Tom (Coatbridge)

  Allen, Graham

  Clarke, Tony (Northampton S)

  Anderson, Donald (Swansea E)

  Clelland, David

  Armstrong, Rt Hon Ms Hilary

  Clwyd, Ann

  Ashton, Joe

  Coaker, Vernon

  Atherton, Ms Candy

  Coffey, Ms Ann

  Austin, John

  Cohen, Harry

  Barnes, Harry

  Coleman, Iain

  Barron, Kevin

  Colman, Tony

  Battle, John

  Cook, Frank (Stockton N)

  Bayley, Hugh

  Cooper, Yvette

  Beard, Nigel

  Corbyn, Jeremy

  Beckett, Rt Hon Mrs Margaret

  Cotter, Brian

  Begg, Miss Anne

  Cousins, Jim

  Bell, Martin (Tatton)

  Cox, Tom

  Bell, Stuart (Middlesbrough)

  Crausby, David

  Benn, Hilary (Leeds C)

  Cryer, Mrs Ann (Keighley)

  Benn, Rt Hon Tony (Chesterfield)

  Cryer, John (Hornchurch)

  Bennett, Andrew F

  Cummings, John

  Benton, Joe

  Cunningham, Rt Hon Dr Jack (Copeland)

  Bermingham, Gerald

  Berry, Roger

  Darling, Rt Hon Alistair

  Blizzard, Bob

  Darvill, Keith

  Blunkett, Rt Hon David

  Davey, Edward (Kingston)

  Boateng, Rt Hon Paul

  Davey, Valerie (Bristol W)

  Borrow, David

  Davies, Rt Hon Denzil (Llanelli)

  Bradley, Keith (Withington)

  Davis, Rt Hon Terry (B'ham Hodge H)

  Bradley, Peter (The Wrekin)

  Bradshaw, Ben

  Dawson, Hilton

  Brake, Tom

  Denham, John

  Brand, Dr Peter

  Dismore, Andrew

  Breed, Colin

  Dobson, Rt Hon Frank

  Brown, Russell (Dumfries)

  Donohoe, Brian H

  Browne, Desmond

  Doran, Frank

  Burden, Richard

  Dowd, Jim

  Burgon, Colin

  Dunwoody, Mrs Gwyneth

  Burnett, John

  Eagle, Angela (Wallasey)

  Burstow, Paul

  Eagle, Maria (L'pool Garston)

  Butler, Mrs Christine

  Edwards, Huw

  Byers, Rt Hon Stephen

  Efford, Clive

  Caborn Rt Hon Richard

  Ellman, Mrs Louise

  Campbell, Rt Hon Menzies (NE Fife)

  Ennis, Jeff

  Etherington, Bill

  Campbell, Ronnie (Blyth V)

  Fearn, Ronnie

  Campbell-Savours, Dale

  Field, Rt Hon Frank

  Caplin, Ivor

  Fisher, Mark

  Caton, Martin

  Fitzpatrick, Jim

  Chapman, Ben (Wirral S)

  Fitzsimons, Mrs Lorna

  Clapham, Michael

  Flynn, Paul

  Clark, Rt Hon Dr David (S Shields)

  Follett, Barbara

  75

  Foster, Rt Hon Derek

  Liddell, Rt Hon Mrs Helen

  Foster, Don (Bath)

  Livsey, Richard

  Foster, Michael Jabez (Hastings)

  Lloyd, Tony (Manchester C)

  Foster, Michael J (Worcester)

  Llwyd, Elfyn

  Foulkes, George

  Lock, David

  Fyfe, Maria

  Love, Andrew

  Galloway, George

  McAvoy, Thomas

  George, Bruce (Walsall S)

  McCabe, Steve

  Gerrard, Neil

  McCafferty, Ms Chris

  Gibson, Dr Ian

  McCartney, Rt Hon Ian (Makerfield)

  Gilroy, Mrs Linda

  Godman, Dr Norman A

  Macdonald, Calum

  Goggins, Paul

  McDonnell, John

  Golding, Mrs Llin

  McGuire, Mrs Anne

  Gordon, Mrs Eileen

  Mclsaac. Shona

  Griffiths, Jane (Reading E)

  Mackinlay, Andrew

  Griffiths, Nigel (Edinburgh S)

  McNulty, Tony

  Griffiths, Win (Bridgend)

  MacShane, Denis

  Grogan, John

  Mactaggart, Fiona

  Hall, Mike (Weaver Vale)

  McWalter, Tony

  Hall, Patrick (Bedford)

  McWilliam, John

  Hancock, Mike

  Mallaber, Judy

  Hanson, David

  Marsden, Gordon (Blackpool S)

  Harman, Rt Hon Ms Harriet

  Marsden, Paul (Shrewsbury)

  Harvey, Nick

  Marshall, David (Shettleston)

  Healey, John

  Marshall, Jim (Leicester S)

  Heath, David (Somerton & Frome)

  Marshall-Andrews, Robert

  Henderson, Doug (Newcastle N)

  Meacher, Rt Hon Michael

  Henderson, Ivan (Harwich)

  Meale, Alan

  Hepburn, Stephen

  Michael, Rt Hon Alun

  Heppell, John

  Michie, Bill (Shef'ld Heeley)

  Hesford, Stephen

  Michie, Mrs Ray (Argyll & Bute)

  Hewitt, Ms Patricia

  Milburn, Rt Hon Alan

  Hinchliffe, David

  Miller, Andrew

  Hoey, Kate

  Mitchell, Austin

  Hoon, Rt Hon Geoffrey

  Moffatt, Laura

  Hope, Phil

  Moore, Michael

  Hopkins, Kelvin

  Moran, Ms Margaret

  Howarth, George (Knowsley N)

  Morgan, Ms Julie (Cardiff N)

  Howells, Dr Kim

  Mountford, Kali

  Hoyle, Lindsay

  Mudie, George

  Hughes, Ms Beverley (Stretford)

  Murphy, Denis (Wansbeck)

  Hughes, Kevin (Doncaster N)

  Murphy, Jim (Eastwood)

  Hughes, Simon (Southwark N)

  Naysmith, Dr Doug

  Humble, Mrs Joan

  O'Brien, Bill (Normanton)

  Hurst, Alan

  O'Hara, Eddie

  Hutton, John

  Olner, Bill

  Iddon, Dr Brian

  O'Neill, Martin

  Illsley, Eric

  Pearson, Ian

  Jackson, Ms Glenda (Hampstead)

  Pendry, Tom

  Jackson, Helen (Hillsborough)

  Pickthall, Colin

  Jenkins, Brian

  Pike, Peter L

  Johnson, Alan (Hull W & Hessle)

  Plaskitt, James

  Jones, Rt Hon Barry (Alyn)

  Pollard, Kerry

  Jones, Helen (Warrington N)

  Pond, Chris

  Jones, Jon Owen (Cardiff C)

  Pope, Greg

  Jones, Dr Lynne (Selly Oak)

  Pound, Stephen

  Jowell, Rt Hon Ms Tessa

  Prentice, Ms Bridget (Lewisham E)

  Keeble, Ms Sally

  Prentice, Gordon (Pendle)

  Keen, Alan (Feltham & Heston)

  Primarolo, Dawn

  Keen, Ann (Brentford & Isleworth)

  Prosser, Gwyn

  Keetch, Paul

  Purchase, Ken

  Kelly, Ms Ruth

  Quinn, Lawrie

  Kemp, Fraser

  Radice, Rt Hon Giles

  Kennedy, Jane (Wavertree)

  Rapson, Syd

  Kidney, David

  Raynsford, Nick

  Kilfoyle, Peter

  Reed, Andrew (Loughborough)

  King, Andy (Rugby & Kenilworth)

  Rendel, David

  King, Ms Oona (Bethnal Green)

  Robinson, Geoffrey (Cov'try NW)

  Kirkwood, Archy

  Roche, Mrs Barbara

  Ladyman, Dr Stephen

  Rogers, Allan

  Laxton, Bob

  Rooker, Rt Hon Jeff

  Leslie, Christopher

  Rooney, Terry

  Levitt, Tom

  Ross, Ernie (Dundee W)

  Lewis, Ivan (Bury S)

  Rowlands, Ted

  Lewis, Terry (Worsley)

  Roy, Frank

  76

  Ruane, Chris

  Temple-Morris, Peter

  Ruddock, Joan

  Thomas, Gareth (Clwyd W)

  Russell, Bob (Colchester)

  Timms, Stephen

  Russell, Ms Christine (Chester)

  Tipping, Paddy

  Salter, Martin

  Trickett, Jon

  Sanders, Adrian

  Turner, Dr Desmond (Kemptown)

  Savidge, Malcolm

  Turner, Dr George (NW Norfolk)

  Sedgemore, Brian

  Turner, Neil (Wigan)

  Sheerman, Barry

  Twigg, Derek (Halton)

  Sheldon, Rt Hon Robert

  Tyler, Paul

  Short, Rt Hon Clare

  Vis, Dr Rudi

  Simpson, Alan (Nottingham S)

  Walley, Ms Joan

  Skinner, Dennis

  Ward, Ms Claire

  Smith, Angela (Basildon)

  Wareing, Robert N

  Smith, Rt Hon Chris (Islington S)

  Watts, David

  Smith, Jacqui (Redditch)

  Webb, Steve

  Smith, John (Glamorgan)

  White, Brian

  Soley, Clive

  Whitehead, Dr Alan

  Southworth, Ms Helen

  Williams, Rt Hon Alan (Swansea W)

  Spellar, John

  Squire Ms Rachel

  Williams, Alan W (E Carmarthen)

  Starkey Dr Phyllis

  Williams, Mrs Betty (Conwy)

  Steinberg, Gerry

  Willis, Phil

  Stevenson, George

  Wills, Michael

  Stoate, Dr Howard

  Winnick, David

  Strang, Rt Hon Dr Gavin

  Winterton, Ms Rosie (Doncaster C)

  Straw, Rt Hon Jack

  Wood, Mike

  Stringer, Graham

  Woodward, Shaun

  Stuart, Ms Gisela

  Woolas, Phil

  Stunell, Andrew

  Worthington, Tony

  Sutcliffe, Gerry

  Wright, Anthony D (Gt Yarmouth)

  Taylor, Rt Hon Mrs Ann (Dewsbury)

  Wright, Tony (Cannock)

  Taylor, Ms Dari (Stockton S)

  Wyatt, Derek

  Taylor, David (NW Leics)

  Tellers for the Noes:

  Taylor, Matthew (Truro)

  Mr. David Jamieson and

  Mr. Don Touhig.

  Question accordingly negatived.
  Question, That the proposed words be there added, put forthwith, pursuant to Standing Order No. 31 (Questions on amendments):—
  The House divided: Ayes 272, Noes 153.

  Division No. 246]

  [7.14 pm

  AYES

  Ainsworth, Robert (Cov'try NE)

  Brown, Russell (Dumfries)

  Alexander, Douglas

  Browne, Desmond

  Allen, Graham

  Burden, Richard

  Anderson, Donald (Swansea E)

  Burgon, Colin

  Armstrong, Rt Hon Ms Hilary

  Butler, Mrs Christine

  Atherton, Ms Candy

  Byers, Rt Hon Stephen

  Austin, John

  Campbell, Ronnie (Blyth V)

  Barnes, Harry

  Campbell-Savours, Dale

  Barron, Kevin

  Caplin, Ivor

  Battle, John

  Caton, Martin

  Bayley, Hugh

  Clapham, Michael

  Beard, Nigel

  Clark, Rt Hon Dr David (S Shields)

  Beckett, Rt Hon Mrs Margaret

  Clark, Paul (Gillingham)

  Begg, Miss Anne

  Clarke, Eric (Midlothian)

  Bell, Stuart (Middlesbrough)

  Clarke, Rt Hon Tom (Coatbridge)

  Benn, Hilary (Leeds C)

  Clarke, Tony (Northampton S)

  Benn, Rt Hon Tony (Chesterfield)

  Clelland, David

  Bennett, Andrew F

  Clwyd, Ann

  Benton, Joe

  Coaker, Vernon

  Bermingham, Gerald

  Coffey, Ms Ann

  Berry, Roger

  Cohen, Harry

  Blizzard, Bob

  Coleman, Iain

  Boateng, Rt Hon Paul

  Colman, Tony

  Borrow, David

  Cooper, Yvette

  Bradley, Keith (Withington)

  Cousins, Jim

  Bradley, Peter (The Wrekin)

  Cox, Tom

  Bradshaw, Ben

  Crausby, David

  77

  Cryer, Mrs Ann (Keighley)

  Jones, Jon Owen (Cardiff C)

  Cryer, John (Hornchurch)

  Jones, Dr Lynne (Selly Oak)

  Cummings, John

  Jowell, Rt Hon Ms Tessa

  Cunningham, Rt Hon Dr Jack (Copeland)

  Keeble, Ms Sally

  Keen, Alan (Feltham & Heston)

  Darling, Rt Hon Alistair

  Keen, Ann (Brentford & Isleworth)

  Darvill, Keith

  Kelly, Ms Ruth

  Davey, Valerie (Bristol W)

  Kemp, Fraser

  Davis, Rt Hon Terry (B'ham Hodge H)

  Kennedy, Jane (Wavertree)

  Kidney, David

  Dawson, Hilton

  Kilfoyle, Peter

  Dismore, Andrew

  King, Andy (Rugby & Kenilworth)

  Dobson, Rt Hon Frank

  King, Ms Oona (Bethnal Green)

  Donohoe, Brian H

  Ladyman, Dr Stephen

  Doran, Frank

  Laxton, Bob

  Dowd, Jim

  Leslie, Christopher

  Eagle, Angela (Wallasey)

  Levitt, Tom

  Eagle, Maria (L'pool Garston)

  Lewis, Ivan (Bury S)

  Edwards, Huw

  Lewis, Terry (Worsley)

  Efford, Clive

  Liddell, Rt Hon Mrs Helen

  Ellman, Mrs Louise

  Lloyd, Tony (Manchester C)

  Ennis, Jeff

  Lock, David

  Etherington, Bill

  Love, Andrew

  Field, Rt Hon Frank

  McAvoy, Thomas

  Fisher, Mark

  McCabe, Steve

  Fitzpatrick, Jim

  McCafferty, Ms Chris

  Fitzsimons, Mrs Lorna

  Macdonald, Calum

  Flynn, Paul

  McDonnell, John

  Follett, Barbara

  McGuire, Mrs Anne

  Foster, Rt Hon Derek

  McIsaac, Shona

  Foster, Michael Jabez (Hastings)

  Mackinlay, Andrew

  Foster, Michael J (Worcester)

  McNulty, Tony

  Foulkes, George

  MacShane, Denis

  Fyfe, Maria

  Mactaggart, Fiona

  George, Bruce (Walsall S)

  McWalter, Tony

  Gerrard, Neil

  McWilliam, John

  Gibson, Dr Ian

  Mallaber, Judy

  Gilroy, Mrs Linda

  Marsden, Gordon (Blackpool S)

  Godman, Dr Norman A

  Marsden, Paul (Shrewsbury)

  Goggins, Paul

  Marshall, David (Shettleston)

  Golding, Mrs Llin

  Marshall-Andrews, Robert

  Gordon, Mrs Eileen

  Meale, Alan

  Griffiths, Jane (Reading E)

  Michael, Rt Hon Alun

  Griffiths, Nigel (Edinburgh S)

  Michie, Bill (Shef'ld Heeley)

  Griffiths, Win (Bridgend)

  Milburn, Rt Hon Alan

  Grogan, John

  Miller, Andrew

  Hall, Mike (Weaver Vale)

  Mitchell, Austin

  Hall, Patrick (Bedford)

  Moffatt, Laura

  Hanson, David

  Moran, Ms Margaret

  Harman, Rt Hon Ms Harriet

  Morgan, Ms Julie (Cardiff N)

  Healey, John

  Mountford, Kali

  Henderson, Doug (Newcastle N)

  Mudie, George

  Henderson, Ivan (Harwich)

  Murphy, Denis (Wansbeck)

  Hepburn, Stephen

  Murphy, Jim (Eastwood)

  Heppell, John

  Naysmith, Dr Doug

  Hesford, Stephen

  O'Hara, Eddie

  Hewitt, Ms Patricia

  Olner, Bill

  Hinchliffe, David

  O'Neill, Martin

  Hoon, Rt Hon Geoffrey

  Pearson, Ian

  Hope, Phil

  Pickthall, Colin

  Hopkins, Kelvin

  Pike, Peter L

  Howarth, George (Knowsley N)

  Plaskitt, James

  Howells, Dr Kim

  Pollard, Kerry

  Hoyle, Lindsay

  Pond, Chris

  Hughes, Ms Beverley (Stretford)

  Pope, Greg

  Hughes, Kevin (Doncaster N)

  Pound, Stephen

  Humble, Mrs Joan

  Prentice, Ms Bridget (Lewisham E)

  Hurst, Alan

  Prentice, Gordon (Pendle)

  Hutton, John

  Primarolo, Dawn

  Iddon, Dr Brian

  Prosser, Gwyn

  Illsley, Eric

  Purchase, Ken

  Jackson, Helen (Hillsborough)

  Quinn, Lawrie

  Jenkins, Brian

  Rapson, Syd

  Johnson, Alan (Hull W & Hessle)

  Jones, Rt Hon Barry (Alyn)

  Jones, Helen (Warrington N)

  78

  Raynsford, Nick

  Sutcliffe, Gerry

  Reed, Andrew (Loughborough)

  Taylor, Rt Hon Mrs Ann (Dewsbury)

  Robinson, Geoffrey (Cov'try NW)

  Roche, Mrs Barbara

  Taylor, Ms Dari (Stockton S)

  Rooney, Terry

  Taylor, David (NW Leics)

  Ross, Ernie (Dundee W)

  Temple-Morris, Peter

  Rowlands, Ted

  Thomas, Gareth (Clwyd W)

  Roy, Frank

  Timms, Stephen

  Ruane, Chris

  Tipping, Paddy

  Ruddock, Joan

  Trickett, Jon

  Russell, Ms Christine (Chester)

  Turner, Dr Desmond (Kemptown)

  Salter, Martin

  Turner, Dr George (NW Norfolk)

  Savidge, Malcolm

  Turner, Neil (Wigan)

  Sawford, Phil

  Twigg, Derek (Halton)

  Sedgemore, Brian

  Vis, Dr Rudi

  Sheerman, Barry

  Walley, Ms Joan

  Sheldon, Rt Hon Robert

  Ward, Ms Claire

  Short, Rt Hon Clare

  Wareing, Robert N

  Simpson, Alan (Nottingham S)

  Watts, David

  Skinner, Dennis

  White, Brian

  Smith, Angela (Basildon)

  Whitehead, Dr Alan

  Smith, Rt Hon Chris (Islington S)

  Williams, Rt Hon Alan (Swansea W)

  Smith, Jacqui (Redditch)

  Smith, John (Glamorgan)

  Williams, Alan W (E Carmarthen)

  Smith, Llew (Blaenau Gwent)

  Williams, Mrs Betty (Conwy)

  Soley, Clive

  Wills, Michael

  Southworth, Ms Helen

  Winnick, David

  Spellar, John

  Winterton, Ms Rosie (Doncaster C)

  Squire, Ms Rachel

  Wood, Mike

  Starkey, Dr Phyllis

  Woodward, Shaun

  Steinberg, Gerry

  Woolas, Phil

  Stevenson, George

  Worthington, Tony

  Stewart, Ian (Eccles)

  Wright, Anthony D (Gt Yarmouth)

  Stoate, Dr Howard

  Wright, Tony (Cannock)

  Strang, Rt Hon Dr Gavin

  Wyatt, Derek

  Straw, Rt Hon Jack

  Stringer, Graham

  Tellers for the Ayes:

  Stuart, Ms Gisela

  Mr. David Jamieson and

  Mr. Don Touhig.

  NOES

  Allan, Richard

  Davey, Edward (Kingston)

  Amess, David

  Davies, Quentin (Grantham)

  Arbuthnot, Rt Hon James

  Davis, Rt Hon David (Haltemprice)

  Atkinson, David (Bour'mth E)

  Day, Stephen

  Atkinson, Peter (Hexham)

  Dorrell, Rt Hon Stephen

  Baldry, Tony

  Duncan Smith, Iain

  Bell, Martin (Tatton)

  Evans, Nigel

  Bercow, John

  Faber, David

  Blunt, Crispin

  Fabricant, Michael

  Body, Sir Richard

  Fallon, Michael

  Boswell, Tim

  Fearn, Ronnie

  Bottomley, Peter (Worthing W)

  Flight, Howard

  Bottomley, Rt Hon Mrs Virginia

  Foster, Don (Bath)

  Brady, Graham

  Fowler, Rt Hon Sir Norman

  Brake, Tom

  Fox, Dr Liam

  Brand, Dr Peter

  Fraser, Christopher

  Brazier, Julian

  Gale, Roger

  Breed, Colin

  Garnier, Edward

  Brooke, Rt Hon Peter

  Gibb, Nick

  Bruce, Ian (S Dorset)

  Gill, Christopher

  Burnett, John

  Gorman, Mrs Teresa

  Burstow, Paul

  Gray, James

  Butterfill, John

  Green, Damian

  Campbell, Rt Hon Menzies (NE Fife)

  Grieve, Dominic

  Gummer, Rt Hon John

  Chope, Christopher

  Hamilton, Rt Hon Sir Archie

  Clappison, James

  Hammond, Philip

  Clark, Dr Michael (Rayleigh)

  Hancock, Mike

  Clarke, Rt Hon Kenneth (Rushcliffe)

  Harris, Dr Evan

  Harvey, Nick

  Clifton-Brown, Geoffrey

  Hawkins, Nick

  Collins, Tim

  Hayes, John

  Cotter, Brian

  Heald, Oliver

  Cran, James

  Heath, David (Somerton & Frome)

  Curry, Rt Hon David

  Heathcoat-Amory, Rt Hon David

  79

  Hogg, Rt Hon Douglas

  Rowe, Andrew (Faversham)

  Hughes, Simon (Southwark N)

  Ruffley, David

  Hunter, Andrew

  Russell, Bob (Colchester)

  Jack, Rt Hon Michael

  St Aubyn, Nick

  Jenkin, Bernard

  Sanders, Adrian

  Keetch, Paul

  Sayeed, Jonathan

  Key, Robert

  Shephard, Rt Hon Mrs Gillian

  King, Rt Hon Tom (Bridgwater)

  Shepherd, Richard

  Kirkwood, Archy

  Simpson, Keith (Mid-Norfolk)

  Laing, Mrs Eleanor

  Soames, Nicholas

  Lait, Mrs Jacqui

  Spelman, Mrs Caroline

  Lansley, Andrew

  Spicer, Sir Michael

  Leigh, Edward

  Spring, Richard

  Letwin, Oliver

  Stanley, Rt Hon Sir John

  Lewis, Dr Julian (New Forest E)

  Stunell, Andrew

  Lidington, David

  Swayne, Desmond

  Lilley, Rt Hon Peter

  Syms, Robert

  Livsey, Richard

  Taylor, Ian (Esher & Walton)

  Lloyd, Rt Hon Sir Peter (Fareham)

  Taylor, John M (Solihull)

  Loughton, Tim

  Taylor, Matthew (Truro)

  Lyell, Rt Hon Sir Nicholas

  Taylor, Sir Teddy

  MacGregor, Rt Hon John

  Townend, John

  McIntosh, Miss Anne

  Tredinnick, David

  MacKay, Rt Hon Andrew

  Trend, Michael

  Maclean, Rt Hon David

  Tyler, Paul

  McLoughlin, Patrick

  Tyrie, Andrew

  Madel, Sir David

  Viggers, Peter

  Maude, Rt Hon Francis

  Walter, Robert

  May, Mrs Theresa

  Waterson, Nigel

  Michie, Mrs Ray (Argyll & Bute)

  Webb, Steve

  Moore, Michael

  Wells, Bowen

  Moss, Malcolm

  Whitney, Sir Raymond

  Nicholls, Patrick

  Whittingdale, John

  Norman, Archie

  Widdecombe, Rt Hon Miss Ann

  O'Brien, Stephen (Eddisbury)

  Willetts, David

  Öpik, Lembit

  Willis, Phil

  Ottaway, Richard

  Wilshire, David

  Pickles, Eric

  Winterton, Mrs Ann (Congleton)

  Prior, David

  Winterton, Nicholas (Macclesfield)

  Redwood, Rt Hon John

  Yeo, Tim

  Rendel, David

  Young, Rt Hon Sir George

  Robathan, Andrew

  Robertson, Laurence

  Tellers for the Noes:

  Roe, Mrs Marion (Broxbourne)

  Mr. John Randall and

  Mr. Peter Luff.

  Question accordingly agreed to.
  MR. DEPUTY SPEAKER forthwith declared the main Question, as amended, to be agreed to.
  Resolved,
  That this House notes that the introduction of Home Detention Curfew with electronic tagging as in the Crime and Disorder Act 1998 was specifically welcomed in the unanimous Third Report of the Home Affairs Select Committee, Session 1997–98 (HC 486-I), whose members endorsing the report at that time included the honourable Members for Woking, Surrey Heath and Aldershot; believes that one of the major factors contributing to re-offending is an inadequate transition between custody and life outside prison in the community; applauds the work initiated by HM Government better to manage that transition, through Home Detention Curfew, more effective drug treatment, Welfare to Work and greater emphasis on education, work and offender behaviour programmes; notes that short term prisoners are only released on Home Detention Curfew after a careful risk assessment, that about 94 per cent. of prisoners have completed Home Detention Curfew successfully, and that the latest information indicates that fewer than 2 per cent. have been arrested, prosecuted or convicted for offences committed on Home Detention Curfew; applauds the Government's toughening of the sentencing regime, its practical approach to honesty in sentencing, and its establishment of a comprehensive review of the sentencing framework; and further notes the Opposition's action in opposing strong measures against anti-social behaviour, benefit sanctions for probation offenders and reform of mode of trial, comforting only the miscreant at the expense of the victim and the community.

  Neill Committee (Ministers and Special Advisers)
  Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Michael Lord): I inform the House that Madam Speaker has selected the amendment in the name of the Prime Minister.
  7.25 pm
  Mr. Andrew Lansley: I beg to move,
  That this House notes the recommendations in the Sixth Report of the Committee on Standards in Public Life, "Reinforcing Standards", concerning Ministers and Special Advisers; regrets that the Government has failed to respond to that report; notes that the Prime Minister will not accept responsibility for adjudicating on the compliance of Ministers with the Ministerial Code of Conduct; further notes that the number and cost of Special Advisers continue to increase; believes that Ministers should be accountable for conflicts of interest and failures to comply with the spirit as well as the letter of the Ministerial Code of Conduct; further believes that the number, and activities, of Special Advisers is prejudicing the impartiality of the Civil Service and accountability of government; and calls upon the Government to accept in full the recommendations of the Committee on Standards in Public Life in relation to Ministers and Special Advisers.
  It would not have been necessary for the Opposition to table this motion if the Prime Minister and the Government had responded promptly and positively to the sixth report of the Committee on Standards in Public Life, which was published in January, and particularly to the recommendations on the ministerial code of conduct and special advisers. As it is, far from there being a positive response to the Committee's recommendations, we have seen further evidence of the Government's arrogant disregard for standards in public life, which they claim to have been elected to uphold.
  On 7 May 1997, the Prime Minister told the parliamentary Labour party that Labour was not elected
  to enjoy the trappings of power but to do a job and uphold the highest standards in public life—[Interruption.]
  That reaction from Opposition Members clearly illustrates my point—that such a remark would be farcical if it were not so tragic for the public interest.
  We did not need Lady Richard's diaries to know that, from the outset, Ministers were more determined to secure their privileges and perks than to deliver on their election promises. However, Ministers' petty pursuit of privileges and perks is not the point of this debate. The purpose of this motion and the debate is to press the Government, particularly the Prime Minister, to take responsibility for Ministers' compliance with the ministerial code of conduct and to curb political advisers and their corrosive influence. We have warned the Government about that almost from day one.
  Mr. Andrew Miller: The hon. Gentleman started by referring to the sixth report. Does he acknowledge that that report actually says that special advisers play a valuable role? Is it not therefore inappropriate to use words such as "corrosive" to describe that role?
  Mr. Lansley: Later in my speech, I shall explain at length to the hon. Gentleman—whom I suspect knows it, but will not admit it—why we are saying not that special advisers or political advisers have no role to play, but that

  81
  the manner in which the Government have deployed them, the number of advisers whom they have employed, and the way in which the advisers have done their job has made that role utterly corrosive rather than valuable, as it was under the previous, Conservative Administration.
  Mr. John Gummer: Will my hon. Friend contrast the position in the Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions—which has no advisers to help in addressing detailed and expert issues in, for example, design, architecture and planning—with that which prevailed in the former Department of the Environment? When a Conservative Member was in power at that Department, many of the advisers whom we had did not have party political allegiances. Although one of the advisers had been a Liberal Democrat candidate, he also happened to be the best expert on environmental issues that we could find. Would my hon. Friend also like to contrast advisers and political appointees?
  Mr. Lansley: I am grateful to my right hon. Friend. He has demonstrated from his own experience as a former Secretary of State for the Environment the way in which the previous Administration not only employed fewer special advisers, but employed those who could help the Government to serve the public interest, rather than only those who would serve a party and a partisan interest.
  We saw what the Government intended almost from day one. It all began with the spin doctors pushing out the civil service Government information officers. Andy Wood, the former director of information at the Northern Ireland Office, described the
  trashing of reputations of certain members of the then Government Information Service by special advisers.
  The spin doctors then turned to members of the Government. Lord Hattersley described how a former Minister was rubbished to him by Downing street. Then, they got hold of Government statistical presentation, triple counting spending plans on health, and announcing the same education initiative 17 times; £500 million for farmers that turned out to be £1 million; and the 5,000 extra police who turned out to be no extra police at all. And so it went on.
  Mr. Brian White: Will the hon. Gentleman remind the House how many times the Conservative Government changed the unemployment statistics when they were in power?
  Mr. Lansley: I do not accept the hon. Gentleman's stricture but, even if I did, is he arguing that before the election the Labour party decided that it had seen things that the previous Conservative Administration did that it believed were wrong, and proposed to imitate them? Or did Labour believe that it was coming to office to do things differently? It did not do things differently—it did things worse.
  So it went on. The more the spin machine has grown, the more it has fed on the legitimate role of Ministers and the civil service: promoting its own interests, feeding the egos of those involved by manipulating the careers of others—all the classic techniques of the palace courtiers. Not only does the Prime Minister demand to be treated
  82
  like the Chinese emperor, with everyone kowtowing to him, but he needs his equivalent of the eunuchs to do his bidding.
  Mr. Fraser Kemp: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
  Mr. Lansley: On that apposite note, I will happily give way to the hon. Gentleman.
  Mr. Kemp: I share the hon. Gentleman's concern about the improper use of taxpayers' money for people to operate in a party political role. Will he assure the House that none of the Short money allocated to the Opposition—more than £3 million—is spent in Conservative central office and specifically the war room within Conservative central office? The right hon. Member for Wokingham (Mr. Redwood) was asked three times on the "Today" programme to give that assurance; on each occasion, he failed to do so.
  Mr. Lansley: I am pleased that the hon. Gentleman did not disappoint me; he made precisely the point that I expected. He will know that the Leader of the House provided precisely the answer. She said:
  Recipients of Short money have to furnish the Accounting Officer of the House with the certificate of an independent professional auditor in a form determined by the Accounting Officer to the effect that all expenses in respect of which the party received financial assistance during the period ending with that day were incurred exclusively in relation to the party's parliamentary business under the House's resolution.—[Official Report, 13 April 2000; Vol. 348, c. 272W.]
  In the context of a debate on the Neill committee recommendations, it is interesting that the hon. Member for Houghton and Washington, East (Mr. Kemp) did not make it clear that the increase in the Short money was voted by this House and was in response to a recommendation from the Committee on Standards in Public Life. We are here to see why the Government, having pursued that recommendation successfully in the House, are not willing in the same way to impose on themselves recommendations which stem from the Committee.
  Mr. Gummer: Will my hon. Friend tell the House whether the Government provide similar assurances for the money spent from the public purse on all their special political advisers?
  Mr. Lansley: My right hon. Friend is absolutely right to raise that point. We will get no such assurance or accountability. It will be hidden in the increases in running costs of Government Departments, which have gone up by £2 billion in comparison with what would have been spent by the Conservative Administration at this stage. Special advisers cost £1.8 million in the last year before the election; the figure is now up to £4.3 million—some £2.5 million extra.
  Even the new Labour backers and Labour Back Benchers have now noticed that the emperor has no clothes, and they have rebelled. They know the malign effect of the spin machine. The dam has burst and Labour's own people are speaking out.
  Tony Wright: I agree with the hon. Gentleman that it would be unfortunate if the Short money

  83
  issue distracted us from the debate, but we shall get distracted only if the hon. Gentleman does not gives the assurance for which he has been asked. At least we know who the special advisers are, what they are paid and so on. Short money is designed to be used for the parliamentary activities of the Opposition parties. Is it being used only for such activities? Can he give us that categorical assurance?
  Mr. Lansley: I am surprised that the hon. Gentleman should make that point. I have made it clear that the Leader of the House has set out the way in which the Short money is to be accounted for. It will be accounted for in precisely that way. There will be no difficulty about that.
  The condemnation that is now falling on the Government for their spin machine is something for which they have only themselves to blame. We told them it was wrong. The Neill committee took evidence and made recommendations. Even six months ago, changes could have been made in response to those recommendations, and the corrosive influence of Labour's spin machine would have been rolled back.
  Labour's reaction to criticism illustrates the problem—there is no contrition or humility, only an arrogant denial of what everyone knows to be true. We are asked now to believe that every one of the stories from "sources", rubbishing Labour Ministers, is an invention of the press. All critics are dismissed and their motives questioned. They are described as "self-indulgent"—meaning they will not stay on message and have the effrontery to say what they think and what they know to be true.
  The Prime Minister said two years ago, that Labour had to be very careful
  that we are purer than pure.
  The Prime Minister has failed and it is his personal responsibility. It is no good the Prime Minister delegating responsibility to the Parliamentary Secretary, Privy Council Office; it is the Prime Minister's power that is being used to ill effect and it is his abdication of responsibility which has brought this condemnation on his Government.
  Not least, it was the Prime Minister's responsibility to uphold the highest standards in public life by following the recommendations of the Committee on Standards in Public Life and he has not done so.
  Mr. John Redwood: The House will notice tonight that the Minister for the Cabinet Office is not in her place to reply to the debate. Does my hon. Friend think that that is because she has consistently been badly briefed against by senior Labour spin doctors; that she does not accept the feeble line put out by Labour that it was all made up by the press; and that she has wisely stayed away because she does not want to lie to the House?
  Mr. Lansley: My right hon. Friend will be interested to know that the Minister for the Cabinet Office is attending a meeting in Paris to discuss drugs policy. The Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office is here. The Leader of the House was replying in detail to media questions yesterday. I am surprised that as the Minister
  84
  for the Cabinet Office could not attend this debate, the Minister of State, Cabinet Office, and the Leader of the House have not. The Government have searched carefully for Ministers who have neither sinned in this respect nor been sinned against. They had to look very far down what the Leader of the House described in an interesting aside—it gives away what they think about this matter—as the feeding chain.
  On the ministerial code of conduct, the Prime Minister sold the pass in the first instance by failing to adopt in particular the formulation proposed by the Committee on Standards in Public Life:
  It will be for the Prime Minister to determine whether or not Ministers have upheld the highest standards in particular circumstances.
  However, the code, published in July 1997 read
  It will be for individual Ministers to judge how best to act in order to uphold the highest standards. They are responsible for justifying their conduct to Parliament and they can only remain in office for so long as they retain the Prime Minister's confidence.
  In the light of the evidence, the Neill committee has now proposed that this be replaced by a text, the final sentence of which reads:
  The Prime Minister remains the ultimate judge of the requirements of the Code and the appropriate consequences of breaches of it.
  There is a critical issue at stake. It has always been true that a Minister who loses the confidence of the Prime Minister, or that of this House, cannot continue in office. We did not need a code to establish that. The purpose of the code is to set ministerial conduct within an ethical framework, with a mechanism for accountability. The present formulation makes compliance with the code a matter essentially for the Minister concerned. The Minister becomes judge and jury in his or her own case.
  The Prime Minister can avoid—and, in practice, has avoided—becoming the arbiter and defender of the code. The authority of the office of the Prime Minister has not been harnessed to compliance with the code. Yet that is precisely what the Prime Minister implied in July 1997, when he wrote a foreword to the code and said that he expected
  all Ministers to work within the letter and spirit of the code.
  One important case will serve to illustrate the problem. The Deputy Prime Minister has had the benefit of a flat leased to him by the RMT on the basis of a statutory secure controlled tenancy. This tenancy continued after the RMT's sponsorship of the right hon. Gentleman ended. Questions relating to the registration of this as a benefit and a conflict of interest in relation to parliamentary proceedings were examined by the Standards and Privileges Committee. I make no comment about that. However, it is important to be aware that the Committee was concerned only with the right hon. Gentleman's position as a Member of Parliament, not his position as a Minister.
  Separately, my hon. Friend the Member for Tunbridge Wells (Mr. Norman) wrote to the Prime Minister about the conflict with the ministerial code. The code is specific. Paragraph 113 states that while Ministers can be trade union members,
  care must be taken to avoid any actual or perceived conflict of interest.
  It adds that Ministers
  should receive no remuneration from a union.

  85
  After its inquiry, the Standards and Privileges Committee invited the Deputy Prime Minister to enter his tenancy of the union flat in the Register of Members' Interests as a registrable benefit, so the breach of the code could not be clearer. In the view of the Committee, the Deputy Prime Minister receives a benefit from the tenancy and should register it.
  Mr. Michael Jabez Foster: The hon. Gentleman's recollection of the decision of the Committee might be inaccurate. It did not decide that the tenancy was registrable, but that it would be better to register it. That is a different matter.
  Mr. Lansley: And how many angels will fit on the head of a pin?
  So what did the Prime Minister do about the case? To start with, he replied to a written question on 4 April by saying that the letter from my hon. Friend the Member for Tunbridge Wells had been passed to the office of the Deputy Prime Minister for reply. A further letter from my hon. Friend was referred to a Minister in the Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions for reply. The absurdity of that should be obvious even to Labour Members—that one of the Deputy Prime Minister's junior colleagues should be asked to pass judgment on his boss.
  After two further letters, eventually my hon. Friend got a prime ministerial reply. The Prime Minister used two arguments. First, he said that the Standards and Privileges Committee report had—in his view—vindicated the Deputy Prime Minister. Secondly, he said that the Deputy Prime Minister continued to have his confidence and that no actual conflict of interest had occurred. It is clear that the Prime Minister is willing to blur the issue of the position of Member of Parliament and Minister, and to use a test of confidence, not compliance with the code. There is no evidence in the Prime Minister's reply to my hon. Friend of an understanding of the requirements of the code, no evidence of an investigation and no explanation of how he has applied the code.
  It should not be acceptable to this House that the Prime Minister will not secure scrutiny of the code or any investigation of substantive complaints, nor provide an impartial account of the findings of such complaints. The power of the Executive in our constitution is so little fettered that the highest ethical standards must be maintained, and be seen to be upheld.
  Tony Wright: I know that the conservatives have decided to elevate amnesia to an ideology, but I remind the hon. Gentleman that it was the first Nolan report, in 1995, that made the recommendation about the role of the Prime Minister in relation to the code. That recommendation was explicitly rejected by the previous Government.
  Mr. Lansley: The hon. Gentleman is an expert on such matters and he will know that the point at which the code of conduct is customarily reissued is when a new Administration are formed. There was not a new Administration until 1997—two years after the 1995 recommendations. A Labour Prime Minister then had responsibility for reissuing the code. Therefore, it falls to the present Prime Minister to explain himself. I will take no criticism of my right hon. Friend the Member for
  86
  Huntingdon (Mr. Major), who established the Nolan committee in the first place and has an honourable record in the matter.
  The Prime Minister has ignored both the letter and spirit of the code. It is another case of a Prime Minister who will say whatever he thinks will garner him support, but do whatever he finds expedient in his personal and party interest. The pursuit of party interest rather than the public interest is the hallmark of this Government. It is true also in the way in which Labour has packed Government with its political placemen.
  Mr. Nigel Beard: The hon. Gentleman alleges that the Government pursue party interest, not the public good. Would he care to comment on the case of Michael Simmonds, who was the political adviser to the chairman of the Conservative party in 1996–97 and not only on the Government payroll, but based in Conservative central office?
  Mr. Lansley: The hon. Gentleman should have given me notice of that question before he asked it. However, I can answer it from the Conservative party's experience. In the run-up to the 1992 election, I was a paid official of the Conservative party and I was appointed as a special adviser. However, the Conservative party paid my salary. It provided me with, as it were, board and lodging. Under present circumstances, people who act exclusively in the party interests of the Labour party are scattered across Whitehall, at the taxpayer's expense.
  Mr. Andrew Robathan: The Neill committee specifically referred to the foreword to the ministerial code of conduct. It said that the effect of the foreword is to underline the status of the code as the Prime Minister's document, written not only as guidance for Ministers but as a pledge to the public. Does my hon. Friend think that the current behaviour of some Labour Members shows that they take that pledge to the public seriously?
  Mr. Lansley: I take my hon. Friend's point. Labour Members do not take that pledge seriously. All the promises that were made at the election were about securing office. They are concerned with power, not with serving the public interest.
  Mr. John Bercow: Does my hon. Friend recall that only last year the Prime Minister, abandoning his high-mindedness of 1997, boasted at Question Time of the effectiveness of his press secretary—someone paid from the public purse—in attacking the Conservative party? Was not that an absolute disgrace?
  Mr. Lansley: My hon. Friend is right, and his point aptly brings me to the points I wish to make about special advisers. Three years ago, before the election, there were 38 special advisers; now there are 79. Earlier this year, there were 74 at the point at which the Neill Committee recommended a limit on numbers. Since then, the Government have not only ignored that recommendation but continued to add to their number.
  Let me make it clear—the question was raised earlier—that I am not opposed to the appointment of special advisers. There is a defined role in offering political advice to Ministers, and in keeping that separate from the impartial advice of the civil service. But that is not the

  87
  way Labour's special advisers work—they seek to act as gate-keepers to senior Ministers, take executive roles, speak at party meetings, make overseas visits, engage in political briefing of journalists, subvert the work of the Government information service and blur the boundaries between civil service and party. They act not as a complement to the disinterested advice of civil servants, but as a partisan operation, devising policy for the presentational benefit of the Labour party. To those people, the Labour party's interest and the public interest are the same.
  It is no wonder that Labour is all spin and no substance. It is dominated by spin doctors. It thinks only of the short-term presentation, not the long-term public interest. Those Ministers who do not do the same are done down by the mischievous briefings of the spinmeisters and their apprentices.
  Most dangerous of all is the tripling of the number of advisers in 10 Downing street. In the past, party officials going to Downing street knew that they were entering the heart of the Government machine. They were the outsiders. Now it is civil servants who feel that they are the outsiders. No. 10 is a Labour party office. It is the recreation of the Millbank tower operation inside Government. The Labour party cannot or will not stop being an Opposition. It still believes that it can spin its way out of the reality of the public's experience.
  Dr. Julian Lewis: Is it not typical of the Government's attitude that in their amendment to our motion they quoted from the Neill report the comment that
  special advisers have a valuable role to play.
  However, the Government have omitted the remarks later in the same paragraph:
  There is the argument, however, that if the numbers of this type of public servant, and their degree of influence, rise to a point where the influence of the "objective" public servants is outweighed, the effectiveness of the principle of objectivity in public life is diminished.
  Is not that precisely what is happening?
  Mr. Lansley: My hon. Friend is right. What he says does not surprise me, as it is in the nature of spin to extract from a paragraph the half sentence that suits the Government's purpose, and to ignore all qualifications and additions.
  The Government do not understand that, ultimately, they will be judged by reality. They will be judged by delivery and not by spin. Reality influences perception, not the other way around.
  Special advisers cost £1.8 million in 1997, and they cost £4.3 million now. Running No. 10 Downing street cost £3.4 million before the election, and costs £5.9 million now. The Government are setting up the knowledge network—dubbed the Ministry of Truth in Whitehall—at a cost of £240,000 and rising. The research and information unit has eight staff, and no one knows what they do. The strategic communications unit used to have six staff, but now Mr. Alastair Campbell is its operational head and it has 11.
  88
  We know that, technically, Mr. Campbell is allowed to undertake partisan political work only in his lunch hour and tea break.
  Dr. Julian Lewis: A long lunch.
  Mr. Lansley: My hon. Friend anticipates me. Mr. Campbell must be breakfasting, lunching, dining and taking tea for the benefit of his party these days.
  I know that Mr. Campbell cannot answer back in the House of Commons, but that does not matter as everyone knows that he will be answering back in unattributable briefings. However, spin and Mr. Campbell himself have become the story—and there, as Mr. Charles Whelan will tell him, lies the danger.
  Ken Follett attacked the Labour spin machine and the Prime Minister's responsibility in particular. He was right in the most important thing that he said: he noted that the main problem was not who said what, but that the Prime Minister was responsible for what was happening and had not stopped it. The reason for that is that he cannot; he knows no other way.
  The Labour Government have no purpose other than power. They are more concerned with who is up and who is down than with what they are achieving. They applaud spin over substance. They need to cut the numbers of special advisers.
  We have a commitment to differentiate specialist advisers from political advisers, and to ensure that those specialist advisers are appointed according to Nolan rules. The Government will not do that. We will cut the number of political advisers close to the level inherited by this Government at the general election, which means that we will virtually halve the present total. We will restore clear boundaries between the political function in government and the civil service functions that should properly be impartial and disinterested.
  That is the challenge to the Government in this debate. Why have they failed to make any response to the Neill committee on its important recommendations? Will they respond now? Will they understand the importance of the problem, and act on it? The Government have not understood that, and I know that they will not. This is a Government who have lived by spin, and now will die by it.
  7.53 pm
  The Parliamentary Secretary, Privy Council Office (Mr. Paddy Tipping): I beg to move, To leave out from 'House' to the end of the Question, and to add instead thereof:
  'welcomes the statement by Lord Neill that there is now less cause for concern about standards in public life than when the cash for questions affair led to the setting up of the Committee in 1994; restates the Government's commitment to maintaining a non-political permanent civil service; agrees with the Sixth Report of the Committee on Standards in Public Life that "special advisers have a valuable role to play"; acknowledges that the Report deals with the serious issues across a wide range of subjects; and notes that the Government plans to respond before the summer recess.'
  Perhaps I should begin with an apology, as I am delighted to hear that I have neither sinned nor been sinned against. I am grateful for that double blessing from the hon. Member for South Cambridgeshire (Mr. Lansley), and I shall try to keep up the record, keep my night job, and shine my halo.

  89
  At the outset I wish to make it clear that the Government value the work of the Neill committee highly. We strongly supported the establishment of the Committee on Standards in Public Life in October 1994, which took place amid deep disquiet at the conduct of some Conservative Members. Labour's 1997 manifesto promised to clear up politics and to rebuild the bond of trust between the British people and the Government.
  We said that we would clean up politics. Our system of government is centralised, ineffective and bureaucratic. There is unquestionably a national crisis of confidence in our political system. An early decision in November 1997 was to extend the remit of the Neill committee's work to review issues relating to the funding of political parties, and to make recommendations as to any changes in the present arrangements.
  The Committee's sixth report, "Reinforcing Standards", is a review of its first report. We therefore welcome Lord Neill's statement that there is now less cause for concern about standards in public life than when the affair about cash for questions led to the Committee being set up in 1994.
  Mr. Redwood rose—
  Mr. Tipping: I am sure that the right hon. Gentleman will remind us all about the allegations of corruption that were made while he was a Cabinet Minister.
  Mr. Redwood: I am grateful to the Minister for giving way. He probably needs an intervention, as he is wallowing badly. Will he explain where all the stories in the press come from about his boss, the Minister for the Cabinet Office? She is not here tonight, but the stories say that she is on the way out, that she is useless and not a team player, and that she has fallen out of love with Downing street. Does he take the line that Conservative Members take, which is that the stories came from senior Labour spinners and members of the Government? Or does he take the line being put out by Downing street—that all the journalists who wrote those stories are liars?
  Mr. Tipping: The right hon. Gentleman ought to stick to his spinning on the cricket pitch. As the new leader of a political unit, he should do a bit of research. My boss is not the Minister for the Cabinet Office. If the right hon. Gentleman cannot get the small points right, what hope is there for the new campaign that he is to lead forth?
  Mr. Redwood: The Minister for the Cabinet Office is clearly the Minister's boss in this debate, because she should be here to answer it. I hope that the Minister talked to her before producing this drivel. Will he answer the question? Did the stories about the right hon. Lady come—as we all know that they did—from Labour spinners and senior members of the Government, or is the Minister going to say that all journalists are liars?
  Mr. Tipping: I think that the right hon. Gentleman needs to look at what my right hon. Friend the Minister for the Cabinet Office said. She said that there was no substance in allegations that the Prime Minister or his official spokesman spun against her.
  Dr. Julian Lewis: If the stories were made up by journalists, how is it that items rubbishing the right
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  hon. Members for South Shields (Dr. Clark) and for Edinburgh, East and Musselburgh (Dr. Strang), and the Minister for the Cabinet Office when she was Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, were followed rapidly by the demotion of those Ministers? If the stories were made up by journalists, those journalists are remarkably well informed. The reality is that they did not make the stories up—the stories were fed to them by spin doctors paid for out of the public purse.
  Mr. Tipping: I sometimes wish that journalists were remarkably well informed and researched. If they were, they would write stories about the numbers of doctors and nurses in training and about standards rising in our schools. They would be interested in the comprehensive spending review and the transport plan, both of which are to be announced shortly. None of those stories appear, and that is a measure of how out of touch many journalists are.
  Mr. Andrew Tyrie: That sounded a bit like Pravda. My right hon. Friend the Member for Wokingham (Mr. Redwood) asked where all the stories about the Minister for the Cabinet Office came from. Are they all a complete fiction? What did the right hon. Lady mean when she told Saga magazine, in response to that very question, that someone was out to get her?
  Mr. Tipping: I am always delighted to give way to an hon. Member who was special adviser to two successive Chancellors of the Exchequer between 1986 and 1989. The hon. Gentleman makes the allegation, but he must tell the House where the stories come from. My right hon. Friend the Minister for the Cabinet Office has made it absolutely clear that she has no idea as to the provenance of those stories. She has said that she disbelieves the claim that the Prime Minister and his official spokesman were spinning against her.
  Mr. Gummer: Will the Minister give way?
  Mr. Tipping: The right hon. Gentleman, of course, employed special advisers during his long career.
  Mr. Gummer: As the special advisers that I employed included members and candidates of other parties, it is difficult for the hon. Gentleman to attack me. May I bring him back to a point that he made earlier, when he repeated the Prime Minister's view that the new Labour Government would re-create confidence in these matters with the British public? Given that they have failed even to re-create confidence with Mr. Follett, what hope have they of convincing people who were not on their side in the first place?
  Mr. Tipping: Mr. Follett writes interesting books, which are pure works of fiction. I am very sorry that my friend Ken Follett cannot distinguish fact from political fiction. I think that he should stick to his real job of writing novels.
  I remind the right hon. Gentleman that Lord Neill said that standards in public life were higher now than in 1994. The criticism tonight is that the Government are not responding quickly enough to the committee's report. Our position is unchanged—we will respond to the 41 detailed recommendations by the end of July, which is just 18 parliamentary working days away. Conservative

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  Members express surprise and astonishment at what I have just said, but the position is extremely clear. My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister wrote to the Chairman of the Select Committee on Public Administration, who has already intervened in the debate, way back on 26 May, and said clearly that he would respond before the summer recess. The hon. Member for Chichester (Mr. Tyne), who will be winding up for the Opposition, is a member of that Committee, and rightly prides himself on being in touch with issues of this sort. He must have seen the Prime Minister's letter.
  Similar commitments have also been given on several occasions in the House, particularly during business questions and through parliamentary answers.
  Mr. Lansley: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
  Mr. Tipping: Let me just make this point, as it might help the hon. Gentleman.
  No time limit is set down by which a response must be made to the committee. I remind the House that the previous Administration took nine months to respond to the second report of the committee, then under the chairmanship of Lord Nolan. It is less than six months since the sixth report was published, and so that there is no confusion, I will reaffirm that we intend to respond before the end of the month.
  Mr. Lansley: I am grateful to the Minister for giving way. Is it not true that when Lord Neill went to the Public Administration Committee, he said that he wished that the Government had made a response sooner, and that they had made it by now? Secondly, is not the point that the Government are getting into all kinds of disasters because they should have responded—and positively—at an earlier stage?
  Mr. Tipping: I am grateful for the hon. Gentleman's good wishes and good news. I wish that he would give us more support of this kind. However, these are complex matters, and we will be responding to them. There are 41 recommendations covering a wide range of issues, some of which have important constitutional implications.
  Several hon. Members rose—
  Mr. Tipping: Just a minute. The recommendations that relate to the conduct and privileges of Members of Parliament are particularly complex. The House will want to consider those issues carefully. They have already been subject to some preliminary discussions by the House.
  I am in a position of slight embarrassment, in that two special advisers are among those who wish to intervene. I refer to the hon. Member for Epping Forest (Mrs. Laing), who was special adviser to the right hon. Member for South Norfolk (Mr. MacGregor) from 1989 to 1994—she is sitting next to her former boss—and to the hon. Member for Buckingham (Mr. Bercow), who was special adviser to Jonathan Aitken and to the right hon. Member for South—West Surrey (Mrs. Bottomley) from 1995 to 1996. So I will give way first to special advisers.
  Mrs. Eleanor Laing: I thank the hon. Gentleman very much for giving way. He may not have
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  been sinned against before this evening, as was said earlier, but, given his position, he is certainly being sinned against now. How can the Government justify the enormous increase in taxpayers' money to fund special advisers who are carrying out Labour party policy and working for the Labour party but paid for by the taxpayer? Why do the Government need to spend so much more in taxpayers' money on propaganda, when it should be spent on schools and hospitals?
  Mr. Tipping: Substantial sums of extra money are being invested in education and schools, in health and hospitals. The amount of money spent on the civil service is declining from that spent by an Administration to whom she was a special adviser.
  Mr. Bercow: I am very grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving way. Why, in 1998, did the then Minister for School Standards, the right hon. Member for Tyneside, North (Mr. Byers), complain to the permanent secretary at the Department for Education and Employment when the press officer, Mr. Jonathan Haslam, refused to insert party political material into an official Government news release?
  Mr. Tipping: I am clearly not in a position to answer that question. It may well be relevant to this debate, but I cannot take responsibility for the intimate workings of all 3,600 senior civil servants.
  Mrs. Gillian Shephard: The Minister seems to be accusing Conservative Members of having been special advisers. Are we to infer, therefore, that the hon. Gentleman disapproves of special advisers, in which case he disapproves of his Government's policy? What is his problem with this? Does he not understand that the debate is about elected accountability, and that his Government's reliance on spin and the use of special advisers blurs elected accountability and damages democracy? That is the point of the debate.
  Mr. Tipping: The right hon. Lady is a former Minister and has been a distinguished Secretary of State. She will know that special advisers are responsible, through their Ministers, when it comes to criticisms and accountable to the House. Nothing has changed there. The hon. Member for South Cambridgeshire (Mr. Lansley) made it quite clear that he supported special advisers, and so do I.
  I wish to make a bit of progress.
  Mr. Robathan: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
  Mr. Tipping: As the hon. Gentleman is pushing his luck, I will give way to him. However, I have given way many times already, and I will make some progress after this intervention.
  Mr. Robathan: The Minister has been characteristically courteous. He has given way a great deal, and for that I thank him. However, he seems to be trying to get off the hook by saying that the Government will respond to the Neill committee's sixth report by the end of the month. Part of the debate refers to the ministerial code, which can be enforced now. Why will the Prime Minister not enforce paragraph 113 of the ministerial code relating to the relationship with trade unions, of which he is very well

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  aware, as regards the Deputy Prime Minister and his flat in Clapham? It can be done now—the Prime Minister does not have to wait.
  Mr. Tipping: The hon. Gentleman took me back to where I was before I took a number of interventions. There are 41 recommendations in the report. Some are complex, some affect the House, some relate to proposed legislation on the criminal law on bribery. These are serious matters, which require careful attention.
  My right hon. Friend the Home Secretary has recently produced proposals for discussion. The sixth report, however, is a package of proposals, and the Government will respond to the package. We are giving these matters the serious consideration that they deserve rather than producing a knee-jerk reaction, for which we would no doubt be criticised by Conservative Members, who now characterise mature reflection as delay. The time for a debate on the sixth report will be after the Government's response. The debate this evening is premature. It is characteristic of an Opposition who will try to jump on any passing bus. Opportunism for all and everything now appears to be their cry.
  As they say, a week is a long time in politics. When it comes to major parliamentary and constitutional changes, 10 years may come too soon. It is important to try to get these things right.
  Mr. Kemp: Does my hon. Friend share my concern about a disjointed response to questions from the Opposition? Earlier, I asked whether not one penny of Short money—£3.5 million-worth of taxpayers' money—should be spent on party political purposes, when we know that it is being spent on the Conservative party's war room. The hon. Member for South Cambridgeshire (Mr. Lansley) did not answer that question and refused to give an assurance. Does my hon. Friend share my concern about a quote from the right hon. Member for Devizes (Mr. Ancram)? He said, "We have spent this money in many ways. One of these is for support for the shadow Cabinet in the war room."
  Mr. Tipping: I noted what the hon. Member for South Cambridgeshire said about the matter. He said that the Conservative party would be duly accounted and audited. The comment from the chairman of the Conservative party is clearly a quotation that any audit would want to take into account.
  Mr. White: Will my hon. Friend give way? [HON. MEMBERS: "Give way."] If the Conservatives have nothing to hide on Short money, why did they try so hard to prevent the Select Committee examining it?
  Mr. Tipping: I am sorry but I missed my hon. Friend's point. Conservative Members were complaining that I am not giving way often enough. I have given way many times to Opposition Members, and only twice to my hon. Friends.
  A number of charges have been made about Ministers and special advisers. I do not intend to reply to them in detail or to get drawn into discussion of individual cases. However, I will say that the ministerial code is working and is effective. We welcome Lord Neill's conclusion that
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  there is no need for an independent ethics commission to investigate alleged ministerial abuse. That speaks volumes.
  The party that gave us the A team—Archer, Aitken and Ashcroft—can speak only from weakness. If there is a crisis of confidence, the previous Conservative Government have much to answer for. What is more, I have not mentioned the H Word—Hamilton.
  Much has been made about the growth in the number and influence of special advisers. I suspect that some Conservative Members are coming to believe the magic and mystery that is alleged to surround some of these postholders. It is inconceivable that 78 special advisers can corrupt and politicise the senior civil service of 3,700, or a civil service of 466,500 permanent staff. We remain committed to an independent and impartial civil service.
  It seems that no one has denied—it has been a theme of the debate—the need and role of special advisers. The Opposition Benches are littered with a handful of distinguished former occupants of the post, and we have heard from some of them. Perhaps we should note what the Neill committee says on the matter. It acknowledged the valuable role of special advisers, but no judgment was passed on the numbers considered appropriate.
  Nevertheless, the Opposition complain about the numbers and costs of special advisers. Special advisers existed under Conservative Administrations, and guidelines then were far from clear. It was this Government who were responsible for publishing the model contract for special advisers. The contract is explicit and public about their role. That is a transparency that did not exist under the previous Administration. We have also been open—it has been quoted back to us—about the number of advisers and their costs.
  For healthy debate, politicians need support and assistance. I was delighted at the decision to increase financial aid to the Opposition parties. There was a 270 per cent. increase to £3 million in Short money for the Conservative Opposition alone. That sum has risen to £3.4 million in the current year. The Leader of the Opposition also receives an additional £500,000. Whether value for money is being achieved remains a moot point. The carping that we are hearing tonight needs to be set in the context of the public support that the Opposition parties have received.
  Select Committees deserve support, too. Recent changes in our procedures have provided more time to debate Select Committee reports. There is a continuing debate on the need for the appropriate level of support for Select Committees.
  My right hon. Friend the Deputy Prime Minister has been mentioned. I remind the House that the twelfth report of the Select Committee on Standards and Privileges cleared my right hon. Friend of complaints against him. It concluded that he should register his tenancy only because
  in the current climate it would be better
  if he were to do so.
  Mr. Robathan: I can see the Minister's embarrassment from this side of the Chamber. Will he confirm that the

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  Select Committee on Standards and Privileges has no role in commenting on, or enforcing, the ministerial code of conduct? That code is the responsibility of the Prime Minister. I am sorry to embarrass the hon. Gentleman because I think that he is a decent person. The ministerial code has been blatantly flouted and the Prime Minister is taking no action whatsoever.
  Mr. Tipping: I am not embarrassed at all. It is the hon. Gentleman who should be embarrassed. He was one of those who made the complaint against my right hon. Friend the Deputy Prime Minister, and the Select Committee dismissed it out of hand.
  Despite all the concerns and the accusations that will be made this evening, the House and the public should be encouraged by Lord Neill's statement that there is now less concern about standards in public life than when the committee was established in 1994. The Labour party said that we would clean up politics, and we are. We will take no lessons from the Tories on cleaning up politics.
  Mr. David Winnick: Is it not rather odd to be lectured on integrity in public life by Opposition Members who supported the most sleaze-ridden Parliament since the times of Lloyd George? Surely they are the last people to give us lectures on integrity.
  Mr. Tipping: My hon. Friend has made his point in his own way.
  Mrs. Virginia Bottomley: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
  Mr. Tipping: Yes, but for the last time.
  Mrs. Bottomley: As the hon. Gentleman is seeking to reassure the House of his commitment to maintaining high standards in public life, will he speak to the Secretary of State for Health, who has apparently not found time to see Dame Rennie Fritchie after her extremely critical report on the abuse of the appointments system in the health service? There has been the most disgraceful stuffing of NHS boards with Labour councillors, and that has been repeated with primary care trusts. There has been no response to the report and apparently Dame Rennie has not even been seen by the Secretary of State for Health.
  Mr. Tipping: The sixth report of the Neill committee draws attention to public appointments. I have said that we shall respond within 18 working days. A factor that came out of the Fritchie report was that the numbers of women who have been appointed to trust boards, along with people from the black and Asian communities, have increased substantially. We should be proud of that.
  Several hon. Members rose—
  Mr. Tipping: No, I shall make some progress.
  At the end of the day,
  it is easy to overstate the magnitude of the House of Commons' problems. It is equally easy to exaggerate the attractions of the House in its "golden age".
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  Those words are from a recent pamphlet of a former special adviser to successive Chancellors of the Exchequer between 1986 and 1990. Despite his words, I suspect that, unfortunately, we shall hear about problems along with exaggerations in bucketfuls throughout the rest of the debate.
  8.19 p.m
  Mr. John MacGregor: The House knows that I am a member of the Neill committee. However, I do not propose to speak mainly in that capacity this evening. I have another interest to declare, because I think that I was one of the earliest special advisers, although that was not our title at that time. Way back in my youth in the early 1960s, I was a special assistant to Sir Alec Douglas-Home, when he was Prime Minister. There were two of us at No. 10. I hasten to add that we were paid by the Conservative party and not out of public funds.
  Of course, I have had special advisers. Two distinguished special advisers who have made an admirable contribution are both in the Chamber. I recognise the value of special advisers, but their value is not the issue this evening. We all realise that special advisers have a role to play. I am not criticising the concept, and I think that the model contract brings the point out well. It states:
  Special advisers are appointed to advise the Minister in the development of Government policy and its effective presentation.
  The point is that both the role and number of special advisers have changed under this Government. That is why there is so much scrutiny of them and of spinning.
  I heard the Leader of the House speaking on "The World This Weekend" yesterday. I understand why the Minister for the Cabinet Office cannot be here this evening, but I believe that the Leader of the House should have taken this debate. Certainly, when I was Leader of the House I would have done so. The Parliamentary Secretary, Privy Council Office is a nice, decent man, but, with respect, he has floundered this evening, and it would have been proper for the debate to be taken by a Cabinet Minister. One wonders why it was not. Either the Government are attempting to spin down the issue—in which they will not succeed—or the Leader of the House is all too aware of how much substance there is to our charges.
  Dr. Julian Lewis: I can enlighten my right hon. Friend, I think. The fact is that the Leader of the House was herself the target of a vicious campaign of leaking and briefing. Her own position was in jeopardy, and it was only when three Conservative Back-Bench Members—among whom I am proud to include myself—spoke up for her that the campaign finished.
  Mr. MacGregor: My hon. Friend offers a third reason, and he may well be right—I suspect that the answer may be a combination of all three.
  When I listened to the Leader of the House yesterday, it struck me that she was commenting on the kind of issues that inevitably arise in the run-up to a general election. I was Leader of the House from 1990 to 1992 in the run-up to the general election, and I understand her point. However, we were extremely careful to distinguish between the work that civil servants should do and the

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  work of those employed on party activities. If the description of what Alastair Campbell does is anything like right, he is coming dangerously close to a position in which he ought to be funded by party funds, not public funds.
  The Leader of the House seemed surprised yesterday that special advisers had become an issue of public debate. She has overlooked two points. First, everyone realises that news management is more important to the Government than policy. How things look matters more than what the Government do. Spin matters more than substance. so it is not surprising that that has become part of the public debate. What is surprising is that it did not happen earlier—I thought that that would happen last year.
  The whole process of spinning has gone on for a long time and has been increasingly commented on, so the danger for the Government is that it has become a real issue. Spin is like a fire that has smouldered under the surface for a long time and which suddenly blazes out. The issue has been commented on so often and so many examples have been given that it has become a liability for the Government—and one that they will not easily shake off. As my hon. Friend the Member for South Cambridgeshire (Mr. Lansley) said, those who live by spin will fall by spin. The second reason for the issue's importance is that the numbers of special advisers have greatly increased, particularly at No. 10. I had misgivings about the way in which information officers were treated early in the Government's life. We never contemplated doing anything like that.
  Mr. Ken Follett is not the only commentator; indeed, he has come rather late to the debate. It was fortuitous that his article appeared in The Observer on Sunday and it is revealing that he has come out in public. It fits my bonfire point that Labour Back-Bench Members are beginning to express misgivings that have existed for some time and that are now coming to the surface. Mr. Follett is not alone, and I cannot believe that all the stories about malicious remarks about colleagues are simply invented. We all know what the Lobby is like, and that its stories often have some substance.
  My own admirable daily newspaper, the Eastern Daily Press, contained its Commons diary on Friday, in which the political editor commented on the closure of the Press Gallery over the weekend because of air conditioning problems. He wrote:
  The air conditioning has gone wrong and part of it is leaking fluid into MPs' offices downstairs. This is one of the few leaks in recent times not to have originated in 10 Downing Street.
  Mr. Peter Kellner, in the Evening Standard today, gives several instances of leaking and details Labour Back-Bench concern about it.
  Mr. Winnick: If there were any lobbying against Ministers in the way alleged by the right hon. Gentleman, I should be against it. I always have been against such briefing. May I remind the right hon. Gentleman of the role played by Bernard Ingham? Time and time again when a Minister was to be sacked, we knew beforehand. John Biffen is the best-known example, but there were many others, including a Foreign Secretary. When one considers what Ingham did, whatever Mr. Campbell may
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  or may not have done seems slight by comparison. Did the right hon. Gentleman protest at the time against the actions of Ingham?
  Mr. MacGregor: I have read Bernard Ingham's autobiography, in which he makes it clear that he did not engage in that kind of activity. Indeed, he has been extremely robust in drawing a contrast between his behaviour and that of Mr. Alastair Campbell.
  Mr. Michael Jabez Foster: The right hon. Gentleman obviously has enormous confidence in Mr. Ingham's denial. Bearing in mind that Mr. Campbell has also denied such action, and from a forensic point of view, does the right hon. Gentleman have even a shred of evidence for what he is suggesting? Does he have any concrete proof to support his comments?
  Mr. MacGregor: I am not sure to which comments the hon. Gentleman is referring. I believe that leaking is taking place. Ex-Ministers are discussing it publicly. The hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne, North (Mr. Henderson) said on the "Today" programme this morning that spin doctors and political advisers now have disproportionate influence and that too much goes through the sieve of the policy unit at No. 10. The burden of the hon. Gentleman's charge is precisely the sort of thing that I have talked about. Leaks are taking place.
  No. 10 and Mr. Alastair Campbell deny that any of the leaks come from them. The Leader of the House said yesterday that leaks could have come from lower down the food chain. I think that she meant by that that they might have come from special advisers and their ilk. It is an important point. The role of special advisers has clearly changed since our Government were in power. None of our special advisers would have made comments about colleagues or spread mischief. Something is wrong in the Government's body politic.
  Tony Wright: To avoid confusion, would the right hon. Gentleman say exactly where he comes from on this matter? The Opposition motion states that the Opposition
  believes that the number, and activities, of Special Advisers is prejudicing the impartiality of the Civil Service and accountability of government,
  but the Neill committee inquiry and report explicitly repudiated that view. Is the right hon. Gentleman making a party speech, or does he claim to speak on behalf of the Neill Committee, which said something completely opposite to what he is saying?
  Mr. MacGregor: I made it clear when I began, and shall do so again later when I refer to the Neill recommendations, that I am speaking mainly on my own observations of the situation as someone who has been involved in these matters for a long time. The Government are damaging themselves greatly by allowing the type of activity to which I have referred to continue. Often, I suspect, it is being conducted by special advisers.
  There have also been many mutterings from civil servants about the way in which special advisers have increased their role in private offices and similar areas, and I think that that is highly dangerous. We limited the role of special advisers. As anyone who had special advisers will know, ministerial meetings would be

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  attended by at least five or six civil servants and only one special adviser. It seems that the balance may have switched the other way.
  Mr. Bercow: Will my right hon. Friend confirm that under the previous Government, it was not merely that special advisers were not encouraged to brief against Ministers in other Departments, but that such activity was specifically prohibited? I recall that on day one as a special adviser to my right hon. Friend the Member for South-West Surrey (Mrs. Bottomley), she made it clear to me—quite rightly—that no such activity would be tolerated.
  Mr. MacGregor: I shall come to that point later, but I agree with my hon. Friend. Indeed, I am sure that my hon. Friend the Member for Epping Forest (Mrs. Laing) would have said exactly the same. I can say with confidence that we did not do what this Government have done.
  Why are the Government doing it? It is part of the climate of spin. Either advisers are being tipped off by Ministers to do a hatchet job for them, or they have an inflated idea of their own importance, fed by flattering encounters with journalists.
  Mr. Kemp: I share the right hon. Gentleman's concern about the need for democratic accountability among special advisers. Is he aware, however, that an inquiry was held two years ago into special advisers? The Select Committee on Public Administration invited Mr. Alastair Campbell to sit before it for five hours of tough questioning. I recall that the hon. Members for Chichester (Mr. Tyrie), for Bury St. Edmunds (Mr. Ruffley) and for Aldridge-Brownhills (Mr. Shepherd) led the questioning, asking everything possible. There was not a scintilla of truth to the accusations, and no evidence that Mr. Campbell or any other special adviser had briefed against anyone. That was democratic accountability in action. Few other Parliaments in the world operate in that way. That happened less than two years ago, and no evidence was produced that people had behaved improperly in any way.
  Mr. MacGregor: The stories have not gone away—nor has the flavour or the smell. Now, it is very often Members on the Government Benches and Government supporters who complain about the Government's approach and activity.
  The Neill committee's recommendations on special advisers will help by providing a framework to put the role of special advisers on a proper basis. However, they do not get to the heart of the problem to which I referred. Although desirable in themselves, the recommendations do not address the concerns currently being expressed about the Government's methods and priorities. That is a matter for Ministers—especially the Prime Minister—to deal with, but, clearly, that is not happening.
  I am disappointed that the Government have not already acted; I look forward to what will be said in a few days time, but I cannot understand why they have not acted on limiting the number of special advisers. The Neill committee recommended that such provisions might be incorporated in a civil service Act. I fully accept that such a measure would take time; that is why the
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  committee also recommended that, in the interim, the House could introduce a statutory instrument. If the House could vote on the matter, that would be the way to proceed. That is exactly how the issue of special advisers has been dealt with in the Scottish Parliament and the Welsh Assembly, where there are statutory limits on their numbers.
  The Government could at least deal with the Neill recommendations. Perhaps that would help to overcome the feeling that they do not want to face up to the problem, because they cannot control the numbers.
  The sixth report contains other important recommendations—for example, on the procedure in seriously contested cases in the House. That is probably the matter that the Parliamentary Secretary had in mind when he said that it raised big issues. The proposal has been well thought through—with much support in the House and elsewhere—as a way of achieving natural justice for Members who find themselves in such situations.
  There are important recommendations on the composition of the Select Committee on Standards and Privileges, and on a change in the advocacy rules to enable Members who have a direct interest in a matter, but who know what they are talking about, to initiate debates and propose amendments. I cannot understand why we do not implement that quickly; it would greatly help the proceedings of the House. The recommendations on a civil service Act and on the sponsorship of Government activities are also important.
  It is a pity that the response to the report will not come out until the end of July. I hope that the Government will not dribble it out on the last day before the summer recess so that we do not have a chance to consider it. I hope that it will be published well before Parliament rises and that there will be quick action on the recommendations. The matter should not be allowed to drag on; the recommendations are widely supported.
  Tonight's debate is, above all, about the manner in which the Government conduct their business—the way in which they have allowed this tremendous feeling of conflict to take root, with a concentration on spin rather than on policies. I warn the Government that the issue will not go away; they have not tackled it quickly enough.
  8.33 pm
  Tony Wright: I declare an interest in that the Select Committee on Public Administration, which I have the honour to Chair, is currently considering the issues of special advisers and the ministerial code. We hope to say something useful to the House on those matters in due course.
  I take the House back a brief six years to 25 October 1994. I remember that day vividly. I sat on the Opposition Benches, watching John Major—a Prime Minister who was beleaguered—
  Mr. Deputy Speaker (Sir Alan Haselhurst): Order. The hon. Gentleman should know how to refer to another hon. Member.
  Tony Wright: I apologise, Mr. Deputy Speaker.
  The right hon. Member for Huntingdon (Mr. Major) was beleaguered and under siege. Each day brought a new revelation. It was the high point of the age of sleaze.

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  We could hardly believe many of the revelations; it was so extraordinary that people could behave in such a way—bringing themselves, the House and the whole of public life into disrepute. Worst of all was the fact that we got used to such things; they became so routine and casual that they ceased to astonish us. They ceased to outrage us. We expected them to happen and they did.
  That is why the right hon. Gentleman had to announce, in extremis—under pressure—the establishment of the Committee on Standards in Public Life. That evening, I stood in the taxi queue downstairs, listening to the conversation among a group of Conservative Members of Parliament. One of them said, nodding his head darkly, "This is a bad day. It will cause us nothing but trouble because this will not go away." That was the point.
  The right hon. Gentleman's action was brave and necessary, because public life was being rocked. The most important fact was that the committee was set up not as a short, sharp fix in order to get over one day's, or one week's, bad news, but on a standing basis so that it would continue to report to this House—as it were, constantly delivering bad news and challenging the House to do something about it.
  Mrs. Laing: In the light of what the hon. Gentleman says, is he paying tribute to my right hon. Friend the Member for Huntingdon (Mr. Major) for his decency and honesty in taking that action?
  Tony Wright: I frequently pay tribute to the right hon. Gentleman. In a moment or two, I may well do so again, because he was the first Prime Minister to publish the ministerial code. I think he was embarrassed—who would not be?—by what was going on around him. I think he was embarrassed by his party, and in considerable distress that the behaviour of members of his party had brought both the party and public life into disrepute.
  Dr. Julian Lewis: I do not contest the general thrust of the hon. Gentleman's remarks, but does he acknowledge that, at that time, as at present, there were more than 650 Members of the House? If he were to add up the scandals, he would find that only a small number of people were involved. It is not fair of the hon. Gentleman to try to smear an entire political party for the sins of a few—especially as many current Members from that party were not Members of the House at the time.
  Tony Wright: That is a most interesting and revealing intervention. It is best answered by a short extract from the first report of the Committee on Standards in Public Life, published in 1995. In the section on Members of Parliament, paragraph 13 states:
  Whatever the reason, there has been a significant growth in the number of Members of Parliament who have entered into consultancies or other forms of agreement which might reasonably be thought to influence their Parliamentary conduct. Analysis of the 1995 Register of Members' Interests suggests that 26 Members have consultancy agreements with public relations or lobbying firms and a further 142 have consultancies with other types of company or with trade associations. These 168 Members hold between them 356 consultancies. If Ministers and the Speaker are excluded there are 566 MPs. Thus almost 30% of eligible Members of Parliament hold consultancy agreements of these types.
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  Paragraph 15 states:
  While the lack of detail in the Register makes precise analysis difficult, it appears in their different ways that some 389 of the 566 eligible MPs—almost 70%—have financial relationships with outside bodies which directly relate to their membership of the House.
  We are not talking about a small handful.
  Mr. Robathan: The hon. Gentleman quotes accurately from the first report of the Nolan committee. However, he will admit that, after we take away Ministers, there were about 230 Conservative Members in the previous Parliament. I was one and I did not have any consultancies, and many of my hon. Friends did not, either. Out of the 389 Members of Parliament mentioned, quite a few—at least 150 and possibly more—were from parties other than the Conservative party. Indeed, most of them were from the Labour party, and I make that point in a spirit of bipartisanship.
  Tony Wright: That is a nice try, but it is simply not true. The figures are entirely clear. I do not make my point in a churlish or ungenerous spirit, because it is a matter of historical record that the previous Parliament, I am afraid, was contaminated by the behaviour of large numbers of Conservative Members of Parliament. We ought to put that point on the record, but we should put it behind us. Thank goodness, the Neill committee was set up to do something about the problem and, thank goodness, it managed to do things that the House had failed to do over many years.
  Paragraph 49 of the first report of the Nolan committee sums up the position. It states: In recent years Members have acquired paid consultancies on a large scale. Over the same period public scepticism about MPs' financial motives has increased sharply. It must be more likely than not that these two developments are related, but in any case their combination can only tend to undermine the dignity of Parliament as a whole.
  Mr. Bercow: I am a little worried by the hon. Gentleman's propensity to smear or, at least, to seek to smear. Will he, therefore, tell the House how many of the people to whom he has just referred were found to be guilty of wrongdoing?
  Tony Wright: I am surprised when hon. Members ask such questions, because they are almost an invitation to go through the whole wretched roll call again. I am more than happy to do that. I have the roll call with me, but I assure the hon. Gentleman that going through it would embarrass him far more than it would detain me. In a spirit of generosity towards him, I do not think that it would be helpful to do that. However, I am sure that I have friends here who would be more than happy to toss names into the pot and to remind the House of these great episodes of the past.
  I am perplexed by the Opposition's approach to this issue. Why on earth do they want to return to the issue of the Committee on Standards in Public Life? Every time that they return to the issue, it revives all these blessed memories. It tells the British public again why the committee was set up in the first place and what its history is.
  Even more, I cannot understand why the Conservative party wanted to ennoble the wretched Ashcroft. All that it did was revive the same memories. Why, having spent

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  years trying to bury that history, do Conservative Members want to resurrect it by such an outrageous act? It brings back all the memories of why on key issues, such as party funding, the previous Government resolutely refused—despite being asked many times—to refer the issue of party funding to the Committee on Standards in Public Life. They would not do it, because they were dreadfully embarrassed about the secrecy surrounding the Conservative party's accounts and the fact that it was funded by a small number of individuals, most of whom were based abroad. Therefore, we were not able to have the type of public scrutiny that we should have had. It took this Government to refer the issue of party funding to the Committee on Standards in Public Life and to proceed with detailed legislation following from that inquiry.
  Dr. Julian Lewis: If the hon. Gentleman will not give us a number, will he not tell us whether he is trying to suggest that the many people who held consultancies were all guilty of wrongdoing? If he is not trying to suggest that, what was the point of his saying what he said? He seems to think that the previous Government included people who were guilty of wrongdoing and that they were manifestly punished at the polls by being ejected from office in such large numbers. However, if he thinks that that will stop the present Opposition from holding this Government to account, he has got another think coming. We will expose their wrongdoing as rigorously as though there had never been the problems for which most of us were not responsible in the past.
  Tony Wright: The words and the figures that I gave were not mine; they were Lord Nolan's. I merely reminded the House of the context in which his inquiry was established, the evidence that he pointed to and the links that he made.
  However, as the hon. Gentleman invites me to reflect more on this serious issue, I shall consider what has happened to trust in public life in the same period. We can have a party political battle and it is the Opposition's job to make useful political mischief out of the headlines of the day. We all know that is what it is about. However, the underlying issue is how people perceive the political system and the trust that they have in it. That is far more fundamental than the party political battle.
  The biggest indictment that I would level against the Conservative party is not so much the individual incidents that took place, but the corrosion over that period of the fundamental trust that people have in public life, politicians and the political process. If we lose that trust and it is eroded, it is very hard to claw it back. Lest the hon. Gentleman is about to intervene to ask me whether I am making that up, let me assure him that I am not. According to the annual British attitudes social survey, by the mid-1990s fewer than one in four people trusted British Governments to put the interests of the nation above those of party. That is a fall of 16 percentage points on the previous decade. That was the effect on trust in politicians and public life in that period whereas the proportion had been more or less constant for the decade before the mid-1980s.
  I referred to a period of steep decline in public trust, but that began to recover just before the 1997 election. In fact, its recovery was associated with the establishment
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  of the Nolan committee. When people saw that something was being done about the problem, there was the beginning of a recovery in the figures for the trust that people have. I do not make the point in a partisan sense, but that trust grew sharply during the 1997 election and grew even more sharply afterwards. In 1996, although 25 per cent. of people strongly agreed with the statement that parties were interested only in their votes and not in their opinions, that figure had fallen to 20 per cent. by the time of the 1997 election. After polling day, it fell to 14 per cent. The cheering news from those figures is that, despite the catastrophic erosion of people's trust in politics and public life in the 1990s, it has been possible to reverse the trend. I take that to be a rather good development.
  Mr. Bercow: The hon. Gentleman is a versatile specimen, so I should like to tax him on the breach of trust involved in briefings against Ministers. If Alastair Campbell was not, as is widely supposed, responsible, who was responsible for describing the Chancellor of the Exchequer in every national newspaper as "psychologically flawed"?
  Tony Wright: As I said, it is the Opposition's job to make political mischief and they are fully entitled to do that. I wish them well, but it is a wearisome business. As I have been invited to say something about the issue, however, may I point out that I am astonished by the outbreak of what one might call political virginity among the political classes? It is though it is a shock and a revelation to learn that politicians like to be liked, like to be liked more than their colleagues and try to ensure that the world knows that they are liked more than their colleagues. [HON. MEMBERS: "Ah."] As I said, this bogus political virginity is extraordinary. I take the fact that politicians want to be liked as an axiom of political life at all times in all places. The idea that that fact is somehow something about which the world should know is extraordinary. It is an interesting political game to play; it is probably more interesting than chasing after real issues.
  I should like to make one further, perhaps more substantial, point on the matter, because it concerns me.
  Mr. Bercow: The hon. Gentleman has said that before.
  Tony Wright: I am on to a more serious, not trivial, point.
  The political class—not just here but across the world—is far more adept than ever before at controlling political communication. If politicians can control the news, they will do so. That is, in a sense, their job in life. It is the job of the media to stop them controlling the news. Two dangerous developments are occurring. First, there is the idea that we must all speak with one voice. We have a political class that is more control-minded than ever before—I talk not in a party sense but across the board, as all politicians want to control the news, and technology helps them. Secondly, the ability to translate that idea into day-to-day politics is far more developed than ever before. The effect is to close down political debate; to create a suffocatingly narrow area within which genuine political debate can take place.
  How do the media respond? Do they respond by ensuring that political debate comes out and that the issues are pursued? Of course not; they respond by seeking a

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  cigarette paper's difference between two people from the same party. The story becomes one of division and split. No one cares about the issue involved, yet the media claim that they are acting in the interests of something called—perhaps—public service broadcasting. The only thing that they are interested in is trying to find three words that someone might utter that can be set against three words that someone else might have uttered in order to write a story about split and division.
  If one puts together the two abdications—if I may call them that—of the political class from open political debate, which is a feature of modern life, and of the media from the real pursuit of issues, beating, playing and overcoming the spin, I am afraid that one has the atrophy of political life. That is the real condition of politics in Britain today. That is where political debate is going. We should be concerned not with silly arguments about who briefed what against whom, but with what is happening to the quality and character of our political life owing to such developments. If the Opposition were at all serious, that is the issue on which they would be challenging the Government. I am sorry; that was a diversion and a distraction.
  There is a history to all this. As I sought to remind the House earlier, the previous Government refused even to send the issue of party funding to the Nolan committee. It was the previous Government who, when presented with the first report of the Nolan committee on the ministerial code and the role of the Prime Minister, rejected it. It was a good try of the hon. Member for South Cambridgeshire (Mr. Lansley), but the question was not one of waiting for another Government to come along. The fact is that the Government of the day produced a detailed response to Nolan and specifically would not accept it. One cannot blame the Prime Minister of the day, the right hon. Member for Huntingdon. Who would accept that they had to take responsibility for such stuff going on around them?
  Mr. Winnick: My hon. Friend made mention of consultancies and the rest, but does he accept that the Nolan committee, as it became known, was appointed by the Prime Minister only as a result of cash for questions? Although I accept a great deal of what my hon. Friend has said about the media and triviality, tribute should be paid, as I said in debate in 1994, to The Sunday Times. Although the paper suffered tremendous criticism for the way in which it tried to trap Members on the tabling of questions for money, it is extremely unlikely that the Nolan committee would ever have been appointed but for its series of articles. Therefore, I have always paid tribute to The Sunday Times in that respect.
  Tony Wright: I very much agree. I regret that serious investigative journalism is much diminished these days in the pursuit of the other material that I have described. That is part of the abbreviation, the attenuation of public life that we are seeing.
  I do not want to detain the House very much longer, but I want to say a word about the issues raised in the Opposition motion arising from the Neill report. The special advisers issue is an interesting one. It is of course fertile territory for such exchanges, but it must be recorded that Neill has conducted the only extensive inquiry into the matter. Having considered the matter, the Neill committee thought that special advisers were in
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  essence a good thing. I shall not quote the sentence that has already been quoted, but point out that, in summing up the evidence, the report said:
  Almost all witnesses made clear their view that special advisers were valuable components of the machinery of Government.
  Mr. Tyrie: That is not in dispute. Nobody is suggesting the abolition of the adviser system. We are asking the Government to implement Lord Neill's recommendations. So far, they have been determined to refuse to do so.
  Tony Wright: We are all going to agree about that. The hon. Gentleman invites me to point out that his evidence to the Neill committee on the matter of special advisers sharply contrasts with the evidence given by the shadow Leader of the House, the right hon. Member for North-West Hampshire (Sir G. Young). On the key issue of who should pay for certain categories of advisers, Lord Neill preferred the right hon. Gentleman's evidence.
  Mr. Tyrie: I am sorry to delay the House, but as a matter of record, I made four recommendations to the Neill committee. Three became three of the Neill report's main recommendations and the fourth, to which the hon. Gentleman referred, is now beginning to be widely discussed by people questioning Alistair Campbell's behaviour. If he is exclusively to do party political work, perhaps his salary should be paid from Labour party funds.
  Tony Wright: I simply make the point that the Conservative party could not even manage to put one voice before Neill on these issues, but that is unworthy and I withdraw it.
  Perhaps the more revealing comment during the inquiry came from the Cabinet Secretary, Sir Richard Wilson, who, when asked whether the number of special advisers was damaging the civil service, as the motion claims, and whether there was politicisation of it, said:
  My short answer to your question on that is that I do not think the Senior Civil Service of 3,700 people is in danger of being swamped by 70 special advisers. That is not what is happening and I do not see it as creeping politicisation.
  Even in their motion, which in some sense claims to support Neill, the Opposition directly contradict the Neill inquiry.
  The Neill inquiry was important. The committee has made some important recommendations on a new code for advisers—to which I hope the Government will respond positively—and on numbers. Parliament should have an opportunity to decide, broadly speaking, on the numbers.
  I want to say a word about the code, a subject that has surfaced during the debate and in which I have taken an interest over the years. There are a number of questions to be asked about the ministerial code, and I am not entirely sure that the Neill committee got it quite right. There are questions about who the ministerial code belongs to. I am not persuaded that the Prime Minister should have it in his back pocket as an informal rule book. I would be happier if the code belonged to the House of Commons and fitted into a larger framework of parliamentary accountability, but I may not be able to persuade the Government of that.
  I am not sure that Neill got it right on the question who investigates alleged breaches of the code. That is an important issue. The Public Administration Committee

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  has spoken to Lord Neill about it, and I was not entirely persuaded by what he told us. His broad answer was that the Prime Minister can get anyone in the land to help him to make inquiries.
  That is not a satisfactory position. The Cabinet Secretary said to Neill, "It is not my job to find out what went wrong. I am not that kind of investigating officer." Permanent secretaries have said to Neill, "It is not our job to find out whether our Ministers have been in breach of the terms of the code." Whose job is it to go and find out, so that we can have some real assurance that there has been a proper investigation, and so that Parliament will know what happens? The Government need to think carefully about that.
  A further question is where the buck stops. I referred earlier to the recommendation in the first Nolan committee report, which basically stated that under the terms of the code, given its ownership and its status, the buck must clearly stop with the Prime Minister. That was not accepted by the previous Government. It has been stated again in rather different language in the sixth report from the committee, and the Government must now accept it. If the code is to be a prime ministerial document, there is no avoiding the fact that there must be prime ministerial responsibility for deciding whether breaches of the code have occurred.
  If we could detach ourselves from the happy exchanges during the debate, there are some serious issues to consider. There is need for eternal vigilance on these matters. The fundamental issues are important. It is essential to ensure that the boundary lines are properly transparent and are properly policed between the different elements of the system. I do not for a second underestimate the importance of that.
  There are challenges for all of us. If I may say so, the challenge for the Opposition in tabling such a motion is to show a certain amount of what might be called constructive humility. They have a past to account for. Collectively, they did great damage to British public life over an important period, and I hope that now, in a constructive way, they might seek to help us to rebuild it.
  On our side, as my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary said, we came in with a challenge and a promise. We said that we would develop a new kind of politics and that there was to be a new kind of trust. A huge responsibility comes with saying that, and we have to make sure daily that we discharge it. Anything that departs from that is a derogation from the promise that we made to the electorate three years ago.
  9.2 pm
  Mr. Paul Tyler: I am pleased to follow the hon. Member for Cannock Chase (Tony Wright). He may recall that it was my question at Prime Minister's questions in the previous Parliament that prompted the right hon. Member for Huntingdon (Mr. Major) to set up the Nolan inquiry. My question was
  …can the Prime Minister reassure the House that his Administration is now a sleaze-free zone?—[Official Report, 18 October 1994; Vol. 248, c. 142.]
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  It was not first and foremost about Parliament, nor about civil servants or special advisers. It was about members of the right hon. Gentleman's Government. Conservative Members are foolish to have raised the question in the way that they have done this evening.
  For all that, I believe that the Nolan committee and now the Neill committee have done the House and the country a great service. They have shone the searchlight of inquiry into the far reaches of Whitehall and Westminster to good effect.
  Spinning may be considered a political disease by the professionals, but in the eyes of the public, the besetting sin of politicians is hypocrisy. We have all found that in our dealings with our constituents. Conservative spokesmen this evening are probably too young to recall that great spinner—the godfather of spinning—Bernard Ingham, but I well recall the occasions when he spun so effectively, as has been mentioned, about Ministers who had fallen out of favour with his mistress, the right hon. Member for Finchley, as she then was. When he referred to the then Leader of the House as being a semi-detached member of the Cabinet, sure enough, very soon afterwards he was completely detached.
  In that connection, I was amused to see that Baroness Thatcher was warning us today about the danger of spin doctors and soundbites. It sounds very much like Queen Boadicea giving a lecture on road safety.
  Special advisers, politicisation in the civil service and negative briefing are not the monopoly of the new Government. Indeed, I read in The Daily Telegraph this morning:
  Mr. Follett is plain wrong, though, about his other main contention, that this government is much more prone to internecine briefing than are other parties or were other times. It is simply not true. The Tories are at it like cats in a bag, constantly.
  That is from The Daily Telegraph, which many of us regard as the house magazine of the Conservative party.
  In that great work on the civil service, "Yes, Minister", Jim Hacker once memorably observed that the British Government had the engine of a lawnmower and the brakes of a Rolls-Royce. The Government have responded to the sixth report of the Neill committee with brakes rather than an accelerator. We urgently need to know the Government's intentions, especially as we anticipate that legislation will be necessary and, as the spinners constantly remind us, we may not have a full Session after this year's Queen's Speech.
  Much emphasis has been placed on the number and cost of special advisers. Surely the most important question is not their number or their cost, but their actions. The debate is especially relevant in that context. As Lord Neill's committee made clear, there is a strong case for limiting the numbers and the cost. However, as the right hon. Member for South Norfolk (Mr. MacGregor), who was a member of the committee emphasised, their function in the body politic is more important and raises wider issues.
  In the past, political advisers existed largely to stop Ministers going native and to prevent them, once they were ensconced as head of a Department, from being drained of every drop of radicalism from the right or the left. However, that role has been subtly reversed. Today, a special adviser exists not to prevent a Minister from becoming too dogged by the Department's agenda, but to ensure that he remains on message about the party agenda

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  and to make that other Members of Parliament follow the same agenda. Outwith the usual competitive system for appointments, special advisers find themselves acting as intermediaries between members of the party and members of the Government. There has been a sea change in their role since it was first invented.
  Before the last general election, there was an agreement between the two Opposition parties that we urgently needed a civil service Act to underpin the political neutrality of the civil service. I am delighted that chapter 5—a well argued chapter—of the Neill report reverts to that, and that recommendation 17 makes it explicit. I shall not refer to the chapter in detail, but it contains an explicit commitment by the former Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster to a civil service Act. I hope that, later this evening, we shall hear when such legislation will be introduced.
  While in opposition, the right hon. Member for Hartlepool (Mr. Mandelson) stated in a debate on 2 November 1995:
  we must be very vigilant about using civil servants to perform party political tasks, such as writing conference speeches, briefing Government Back Benchers on party points and so on.—[Official Report, 2 November 1995; Vol. 265, c. 482.]
  I am not sure whether his successors or his Department have followed his advice. He continued:
  Almost one third of the current flock of advisers have been taken on directly from Conservative central office. Are they helping Ministers in pursuit of better government, which would certainly justify the public expenditure involved, or are they merely assisting politicians in pursuit of their party careers, in which case the payment of their salaries should revert to Conservative central office?—[Official Report, 2 November 1995; Vol. 265, c. 483.]
  The Labour party was worried about the politicisation of the civil service under the Conservative party. So were we. We remain worried; we have good cause. Now that the Labour party is in power, the story has changed. In May 1997, the new Government reworked the model contract for special advisers, but Parliament was not informed. A major change was made, but nothing was said about it.
  In July 1996, the model letter of appointment for special advisers obliged them not to
  engage in activities likely to give rise to criticism that you are being employed at the public expense for purely party purposes.
  That might appear a flimsy protection of the public interest.
  However, in May 1997, it was clearly felt to be too rigorous for the new Government and it was watered down and effectively taken out. A new clause was put in, giving special advisers a specific role in the briefing of Members of Parliament. The justification for that role appears in paragraph (iii) of schedule 1 (part I) of the contract which my hon. Friend the Member for Bath (Mr. Foster), an avid watcher of special advisers, refers to as the control freak clause. It states:
  It would be damaging to the Government's objectives if the Government Party took a different approach to that of the Government itself, and the Government will therefore need to liaise with the party to make sure that the party publicity is factually accurate and consistent with Government policy. To secure this consistency the Government will also want to make sure that Party MPs and officials are suitably briefed on issues of Government policy.
  That watered down the previous advice and made it clear that special advisers now have a direct role in ensuring that party members in this House and, no doubt, the other place, toe the party line.
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  The degree of briefing that these people undertake, examples of which have been quoted this evening, has, of course, been considerable. Again, my hon. Friend the Member for Bath has done some useful analysis of briefings by special advisers. He has obtained, for example, a briefing from the Department for Education and Employment which included details of the Government's Green Paper on teachers and suggested rebuttals of the Opposition's attacks on that policy. That is not just promoting the Government, but suggesting how to respond to the Opposition: if that is not political, nothing is.
  My hon. Friend put questions to Ministers on those written briefings, but he was simply fobbed off with an answer which stated:
  similar arrangements have applied under successive Governments.
  That is a subjective reply, if ever there was one. My hon. Friend was also told:
  Records are not held of when such briefings were given.—[Official Report, 14 July 1999; Vol. 333, c. 251W.]
  Such records should be held and should be publicly available.
  Despite the fact that the DFEE briefing given to my hon. Friend was clearly numbered and dated, and referred to similar documents and where to get hold of further copies, we need a real freedom of information Act and we need it fast. Other Departments seem to suggest that they do not have such information to hand. Perception is sometimes as important, if not more important, than reality. Inevitably, we are given the impression that, by stealth, the taxpayer is funding more and more party political work. The number of special advisers is significant but, as I said earlier, their role, surely, is important too.
  Civil servants' role and neutrality is under attack from other directions. Included in that attack is the growing number of taskforces, to which the Neill committee referred and which are completely unelected bodies, set up to discuss particular issues. They may include civil servants from many Departments, but they also include so-called outside experts. Common to all is a lack of guidelines, context and accountability. Again, the Neill committee's recommendations deserve a clear and positive response from the Government.
  Similarly, there has been an explosion in the number of secondments from private sector companies to Departments. Surely, that should be monitored and governed by clearer guidelines. I feel uneasy when I see how many companies have been negotiating large contracts with Departments and, at the same time, placing staff with those Departments—a potential conflict of interest, if ever there was one.
  Mr. White: Does the hon. Gentleman accept that a perennial criticism of the civil service is that it has not been aware of what happens in industry, and secondments are a way of dealing with that fundamental criticism, which has endured for a long time?
  Mr. Tyler: That question remains open. Is there a hotline or an inner track from those companies to Minister's decision-making roles? Giving advice is one thing; being in on the decision-making process is another. At the very least, guidelines should be publicly available, be seen by this House and be considered by the Public Administration Committee to ensure that the position is clear and does not involve a conflict ohf interest.

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  In an article in The Observer on 25 June, under the heading "'Staff for Favours' row hits Treasury", Anthony Barnett wrote:
  Financial consultants Price Waterhouse Coopers, Ernst & Young and Pannell Kerr Forster have all donated staff to Brown since the election. All have won lucrative consultancy contracts from the Treasury, at least one without a competitive tender. These firms have also had success in forcing Brown to backtrack on plans to stop their multinational clients avoiding tax by channelling profits through offshore companies.
  That is the answer to the hon. Member for Milton Keynes, North-East (Mr. White). If it was absolutely clear that there was not just a Chinese wall, but an iron curtain between the responsibilities of those advisers or consultants and the decision-making process, we would all be more confident that the proper procedures were being followed. Whereas the civil service is subject to proper controls, that type of taskforce and those types of adviser are subjected to no such guidelines. We need them urgently.
  I come to the issue of propaganda, which again has featured in the debate. The Liberal Democrats are concerned about the extent to which civil servants are under pressure to politicise their work. It is an old story; it did not start on 1 May 1997. There was evidence enough under the previous Government, but sadly there is plenty of new evidence that there is a new problem.
  The Government information and communication service, headed by the chief press secretary Mr. Alastair Campbell, spent £126 million in 1998–99 alone publicising the Government. It issues press releases and maintains Government departmental websites. Since 1997, it has spent £634,000 on press releases and £4.8 million a year on websites. Again, the rules that are supposed to prevent such activities from being "polemical" have clearly failed. They are simply impossible to police.
  The increase in press releases since the Labour Government came to power is huge. There are 40 per cent. more than in 1996, and 80 per cent. more than in the previous mid-term year: 1995. The working guide for government information officers says that all Government publicity should be
  relevant…objective and explanatory, not tendentious or polemical
  and should not
  be or be liable to misrepresentation as being, party political.
  Mr. Kemp: The hon. Gentleman has made the point about press releases and what they should and should not do. Can he give one example where a press release has breached those guidelines?
  Mr. Tyler: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman. If I did not know him better, I would think that that was a planted question. I am just coming to that. He must have seen my text—another leak.
  Press releases issued by the Government do not always abide by that code. For example, a press release about the new deal, which was numbered DFEE 550/98 and issued on 26 November 1998, attacked political opponents. It was headlined "Smith Slams Cynical Fabrication of New Deal Figures." That was specifically about the Opposition. It was not about Government policy. Some press releases
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  deal with re-announcements, rather than news. Repetition is a propagandist tool, not a neutral representation of Government policy.
  Perhaps the prime example of party having undue influence is the No. 10 website. I do not know whether you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, are a frequent visitor, but I can tell you that it has a number of "manifesto commitments" under the heading, "Facts." My colleagues have researched some of those "facts" and found them to be misleading.
  The first fact is about education spending and is belied by the figures that we can obtain from the House of Commons Library. The pledge on the website is as follows:
  Over the course of a five-year parliament we will raise the proportion of national income spent on education.
  Underneath, it says:
  The proportion spent on education will rise by 0.1 per cent. in 2000/01 and 0.2 per cent. in 2001/02.
  As we all know, that is a selective statistic. Between the financial years 1992–93 and 1996–97, 4.98 per cent. of gross domestic product was spent on education. The forecast is that, between 1997–98 and 2001–02, 4.67 per cent of GDP will be. It is a drop—lies, damned lies and statistics.
  No one who visits the Prime Minister's website can be under any illusion about its primary purpose. It exists to build the image of the Prime Minister, but what do the rules state? They state that it is okay to build the image of a Minister so long as that is a by-product of the Government's publicity operation.
  The civil service code states that Ministers have a duty to use public resources for party political purposes. [Interruption.] I am sorry; that is an extra spin on the meaning. It states:
  duty not to use public resources for party political purposes.
  In addition, there is no accountability over the use of sponsorship and advertising on Government websites. I could quote several such examples, but I want to be brief. The Neill report hardly examines websites, and reaches no great conclusion. However, it acknowledges that such sponsorship needs to be properly monitored.
  The new GICS handbook states:
  Sponsorship should not be sought or accepted from firms which are involved in significant commercial negotiation with the host Department (whether or not linked to the event), or which may be affected by the exercise of that Department's regulatory or licensing work.
  There is no effective monitoring or policing of that particular requirement.
  I turn to partisan research. In the past, civil servants would vet parliamentary questions and refuse to handle any that seemed to be simply about Opposition policies, and rightly so. The Labour party has its own resources and researchers to carry out such research. However, in October 1999, Richard Foster, chief executive of the Employment Service, costed the Tory policy of making the jobless sign on once a day for his Labour ministerial masters. That seems to be in gross conflict with all the indications that we have been given, not only by the Cabinet Secretary, but throughout the history of the civil service. Today, it seems that civil servants are expected not only to evaluate Government policies, but to help the Government to attack Opposition policies and discredit them.

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  Such politicisation is compounded by the increasing number of gagging clauses that Departments place on the research that they commission. During this Session, my hon. Friend the Member for Oxford, West and Abingdon (Dr. Harris) has asked Ministers a series questions about research. He found that 12 out of 15 Ministers included the power to veto publication in their contracts with academics and that 13 out of 16 required academics to ask the civil service for permission to discuss the research with the media, often in perpetuity and not merely at the time of publication—a gagging clause if ever there was one. The implication is that, although the taxpayer foots the bill, if the research outcome is disagreeable to the party in power, it may be indefinitely suppressed.
  The same is true of the opinion polls carried out by the Government. Two thirds of the poll results paid for from the public purse, for which the House gives appropriate funding, never see the light of day. My hon. Friend the Member for Bath has questioned the Government on that issue over many months and has exposed the extent to which the results are simply kept secret. The Cabinet Office has produced guidelines requiring Departments to make the results publicly available, but so far very few have done so. However, we live in hope, and it will be interesting to see the results of the polling that has taken place since the general election. That shows how important it is to have a really comprehensive freedom of information Act.
  At all levels, there is a worrying elevation of the party good over the public good and a problem with accountability, neutrality and transparency. The Library research paper makes it clear that
  there are three features of the British senior civil service which set it apart from American and European models. These are
  Accountability through Ministers to Parliament
  Selection and promotion on merit, and
  Political neutrality.
  Traditionally, the purpose of the senior civil service has been to serve the Government of the day, and thus the electorate. It is alarming to find that the Government are not only indirectly withdrawing power from the electorate, through the use of extra-civil service bodies and political appointees, but politicising their work and using research commissioned by them by the back door. It is no excuse to say that the process started under a previous Government. This Government came to office with a mandate to clean up the Augean stables, and we want them to do just that.
  9.25 pm
  Mr. Martin Bell: I see from the course of the debate that my campaign for briefer speeches is unlikely to succeed. I shall pursue it unilaterally.
  More than any other Member of the House, I was elected on an issue of public trust. Public trust matters to me, as it does to all other Members, and the reputation of the House has improved marginally—maybe even substantially—over that which it had in the previous Parliament. That is due partly to Members themselves, who are being more careful to avoid conflicts of interest, and partly to the machinery set in place. I am pleased to see the right hon. Member for Ashton-under-Lyne (Mr. Sheldon), the Chairman of the Standards and Privileges Committee, in his place. He has done great
  114
  work, as has the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards herself. I very much regret the whispering campaign against her.
  Members of the House signed on to a set of rules, and they are beginning to realise how stringent those rules are, but it is much better to be criticised for being too zealous in applying them than for being lax. Does that mean that the spectre of corruption has gone away and that public trust is completely restored? Of course not. The beast is out there, lurking somewhere beyond the nets and harpoons of the parliamentary policing system. It lies down there at the other end of this great building on issues of party funding and honours. Peerages have been and are being bought, as are knighthoods. We must get to grips with that and hope that we do so when the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Bill comes back to us.
  I do not expect widespread support when I say that the power of the parties has increased and is increasing, but ought to be diminished. That is what I believe, however, and special advisers are a relevant issue: by all means, let the parties have their placemen and placewomen in ministerial offices if they must and if that improves their liaison, but I cannot see any reason why they should be paid for from the public purse. They should be paid for by the parties.
  Shortly after being elected, I attended one of those meetings of the supposedly great and good—academics and politicians from both sides of the Atlantic—on precisely the issue of how to increase public trust. I put forward the heretical notion that behaving better was one way for us to achieve that. There was a sharp intake of breath around the table and an American Congressman in trouble with his state police and press over an issue of corruption said, "Sir, they will nickel and dime you to death." Well, so far they have not.
  So far, we are doing better, but we have to improve what we are doing to curb the power of the parties. I have to tell you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, that the parties are not as popular in the nation at large as they think they are or think they should be. We need the parties to make government work, but let them not overreach themselves. I believe that they are overreaching themselves on the issue of special advisers.
  9.28 pm
  Mr. Hilary Benn: I have listened to the speeches of Conservative Members with considerable interest and one theme that has emerged is that before 1 May 1997, special advisers were paragons of rectitude and that they have since become subverters of democracy. On that subject, I can do no better than quote Sir Bernard Ingham, who, talking of special advisers, said that
  some of them can cause immense chaos.
  As he was talking about his time in government, I hope that that does not reflect badly on some of the former special advisers on the Opposition Benches. All I shall say on spinning—I hate the term—is that in my experience, those who spin are likely to become dizzy. It is not a practice that I would recommend.
  I have some experience in this matter as a former special adviser, as do other Members, and I would be the first to acknowledge that there is a serious debate to be had about the role of special advisers in government. As other Members have said, the Government have been open about the work of advisers and I am genuinely sorry

  115
  that instead of engaging in the serious debate to which my hon. Friend the Member for Cannock Chase (Tony Wright) referred, the Opposition have chosen to create an atmosphere of dark intrigue, which I must tell the House is far from what I remember in my job at the Department for Education and Employment, which I did for two years.
  The two key questions concern legitimacy and influence. I think that the House agrees that special advisers are legitimate, not least because of how long they have been in existence but also because it is recognised that Ministers need a particular type of support. That has been acknowledged by the Neill committee, the 1968 Fulton committee, the 1976 Expenditure Committee and the 1985–86 Treasury and Civil Service Select Committee. That Select Committee report said:
  we have formed the impression from talking to witnesses that in general special advisers and career civil servants have been able to work creatively and harmoniously together.
  That is certainly how I recall my time at the Department for Education and Employment.
  Reference has been made to whether special advisers should be paid for out of public funds. The hon. Member for Tatton (Mr. Bell) touched on that a moment ago. I see no problem with it, given that they help the Government to do their job more effectively. As the hon. Gentleman knows, the Neill committee endorsed that view and said that it could see no reason why special advisers should not continue to be paid out of public funds.
  The point has been made forcefully that Short money is used to employ the equivalent of special advisers on the Opposition Benches. That is unquestionably the case, so I see nothing wrong with that system.
  Mr. Bercow: In the light of what the hon. Gentleman says about the means by which special advisers are paid, does he believe that it is acceptable for a serving special adviser to speak at a party political gathering? It was not the normal practice under the previous Government; regrettably, it has become so under this one.
  Mr. Benn: As I recollect my contract of employment, it said specifically that I was not to take part in party political conferences. That should be pursued in all cases.
  The central question is whether special advisers undermine the impartiality of the civil service. All the evidence is that that is not the case, because their existence helps to protect that impartiality by acknowledging that Ministers require particular forms of support and advice, which they need from a distinct source. The code of practice that has been published specifically recognises that.
  There is a considerable volume of work in a modern Government Department. Government is more complex than ever, and because of their background and expertise, special advisers, who have—or at least should have—a unique knowledge of the governing party's background, history and policies, are able to give advice which it would be wrong to expect a civil servant to give. They have a different perspective, which is why they have a different status. I genuinely believe that that is no different now from how it was under the previous Government.
  116
  I see with interest that Professor Anthony King, remarking on the status of special advisers, said that they were
  neither hog, dog, nor mutton.
  I had not come across that expression before. If I was ever the dog of the Secretary of State for Education and Employment—I thought that somebody else had that job—I tried to fetch and carry diligently; if I growled, I did so with discretion; and if I barked, I never ever did so in public.
  More seriously, advisers also help officials to do their job. I was interested to see that, in its evidence to the Neill committee, the First Division Association specifically acknowledged that that was so.
  Let me deal with the central question of the charges of wrongdoing, which appear to be the substance of this debate. Having said early on in his speech that he would back up his charges, the hon. Member for South Cambridgeshire (Mr. Lansley) miserably failed to do so. Where is the evidence of corrosive influence? As others have said, if such evidence exists, why was it not submitted to the Neill committee? More important, why did the Neill committee comment so favourably on the role that special advisers perform? Why did Sir Richard Wilson, in answer to specific questions when giving evidence to the Neill committee, say, first, that he could see no evidence of abuse and, secondly, that he was not concerned about politicisation?
  On the subject of briefing the press, Sir Richard Wilson told the committee:
  not just under this Government, but under previous governments, in my experience, political advisers have spoken to and briefed the media.
  It is important that that is put on the record.
  My final point concerns the question of influence. Ultimately, it is for Ministers to decide whose advice they wish to take in reaching decisions, with the understanding that they will then take the consequences. In other words, the buck stops with Ministers, not with their special advisers. Special advisers should never become the story in themselves, because that makes it much more difficult for them to do the job that they are supposed to do. I have no problems whatever with the Neill committee recommendations in relation to special advisers.
  Much of the debate this evening has been hot air about advisers. It has been a substitute for a debate about the nature and practice of our political process. I very much endorse the comments of my hon. Friend the Member for Cannock Chase. In the courts of days gone by, if one wanted to criticise the king but did not have the guts to do so, one said that he was badly advised. If the Opposition are unhappy about the Government's policies, they should say so directly. If the Opposition did their job more effectively, they would not be so obsessed with special advisers.
  No Government can survive on spin, and that includes this Government. This Government will succeed because of their achievements. They have a lot to be proud of. They have achieved a great deal and have much yet to do. I believe that that is what the public also think, and I suspect that that is what rankles with the Opposition so much.
  9.35 pm
  Mr. Andrew Tyrie: The hon. Member for Leeds, Central (Mr. Benn) was doing very well until the end. His father is a consummate spinner, and the hon. Gentleman could learn a few tricks from him. At the end he lost the plot completely, but I shall not pick up all the things that he got wrong. I would rather make a few points about the debate, and more particularly about the way Britain is being governed.
  It has been an interesting debate about advisers. I think that everyone is agreed that advisers have a legitimate role. However, as many hon. Members know, I for one—I have now been joined by a large number of others—have become increasingly concerned about the role of advisers in this Government. I encouraged Lord Neill to look into their role, and I made some proposals for reform in my evidence to him. In particular, I suggested that a cap should be placed on the number of advisers—which has risen from 70 to about 80 since I wrote that evidence—that advisers should be subject to a statutory code of conduct, and that the code should be enforced by permanent secretaries, because at the moment there is no means of enforcing the code. I am pleased that Lord Neill has accepted all those recommendations.
  Many of us are concerned about advisers not just because their numbers are up or because they have started travelling abroad on a huge scale—they have been on something like 500 trips since 1997—or because they gossip to the media. Those are just symptoms of something much more fundamental. Advisers are assuming new roles in Government that they have not had in the past. The plain fact is that No. 10 Downing street—the very heart of Government—is being taken over by advisers.
  A few months ago, I asked the Cabinet Secretary for a chart showing the structure of No. 10 Downing street and how it operates. Excluding the support staff, there are 67 staff in mainline jobs, of whom 27 are special advisers. What is more, the whole building now answers to a special adviser, Jonathan Powell. That was explicitly denied when I asked the question of the then Cabinet Secretary, Sir Robin Butler, but it has now been confirmed in a letter to me from his successor.
  The truth is that No. 10 has ceased to be merely the centre of a civil service machine at the heart of Government, but is becoming a Labour party headquarters. It is an open secret that the Prime Minister takes far more notice of his advisers than he does of his ministerial colleagues. Cabinet Government is dead; even Cabinet Committees do not count for much. Ministers may have the red boxes but their contents are increasingly being provided by the Prime Minister's advisers.
  Special advisers are part of the reason why Britain is steadily moving towards presidential government. The Prime Minister does his best to ignore Parliament. He hardly ever comes here, as I am sure you notice, Madam Speaker. He rarely votes, and he hardly ever speaks in the House. It goes further than that. He lets it be known that he ignores his colleagues, and prefers the advice of his advisers. His political companions are not his Ministers: they are his advisers, who are chosen by him, trusted by him and accountable to no one but him.
  The fact is that, as a result of placing No. 10 in the control of advisers, doubling the number of advisers in Whitehall and releasing them from many of the
  118
  constraints on what they can do, there has been a fundamental change in the way in which Britain is governed. That has had profound effects. It has undermined, or is in the process of undermining, the traditional checks on power that come from a politically neutral civil service. It is undermining the customary ways of making decisions through Cabinet Sub-Committees; and, because Parliament now has no contact with many of the real decision makers in this Government—the policy advisers at No. 10 Downing street—it is beginning to undermine Parliament itself.
  Mr. Beard: Can the hon. Gentleman tell us what evidence he has to back up the saga that he is spinning, and why it should be treated as anything other than media gossip and tittle-tattle?
  Mr. Tyrie: The evidence is overwhelming.
  Dr. Julian Lewis: If the hon. Gentleman had been here for the whole debate, he would have heard it.
  Mr. Tyrie: Indeed.
  The hon. Gentleman should, for instance, have a look at a piece by Peter Kellner in the New Statesman, which makes it clear that a large number of his hon. Friends agree with what I have just said—although they probably will not stand up and say so tonight. Let me quote directly from what Mr. Kellner has written—unless, of course, he is making it up and writing fiction just as everyone else is said to be doing at the moment. He wrote:
  Tony has contempt for Parliament, and it shows. He doesn't even turn up to vote.
  Tony's handling of Wales and London was terrible. He came to office with people believing he'd do politics differently, better. Now he looks as if he's just as bad as everyone else.
  All those kids in their twenties making policy in No. 10. What do they know about anything?
  Those are just a few quotations given to Peter Kellner by some of the Prime Minister's colleagues, presumably over the past few days.
  I do not believe that the British people want this. In fact, I do not think that many Labour Back Benchers want it. I do not even think that Ministers really want government of this kind, any more than anyone else does. It should therefore come as no surprise that many people have begun to raise their voices. At first they just criticised the advisers, but now they are beginning to criticise the Prime Minister himself.
  What those people dislike most is the impotence that comes from playing out a parliamentary ritual in an increasingly presidential Government. Of course that is what one would expect the Opposition to say, but those who are speaking loudest are from the ranks of the Labour party. They are the old Labour supporters, and the new Labour luvvies. Such people are sick of watching or, worse, suffering political assassination by briefing from No. 10 Downing street—the back-stabbing whispers. This is a political culture that has more in common with Medici Florence than with 21st-century Britain.
  There is a long list of victims: the Chancellor, the Minister for the Cabinet Office—although she seems to have recanted recently—the right hon. Members for Camberwell and Peckham (Ms Harman) and for Copeland (Dr. Cunningham) and the Chief Whip, to name but a few.

  119
  As for the list of those complaining, Lord Hattersley says that he was briefed by a No. 10 press officer and encouraged to rubbish a Minister in an article that he was writing.
  The hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne, North (Mr. Henderson) has, in many ways, been even more blunt than Ken Follett. He says:
  Too many people believe that spin doctors and policy advisers are running the government's policies…rather than the members of the cabinet and other ministers who were elected to do the job.
  He also says:
  There is too much reliance on the presidential system.
  That is my view, and I suspect that, on a free, secret vote, it would prove to be the view of most Members of the House
  Ken Follett really went for the advisers. He called them
  the rent boys of politics.
  That is a bit over the top, but it does rather stick in the gullet that we are paying the rent.
  Ken Follett's most stinging remarks, however, came when he explained why the Prime Minister was not doing anything about the situation. He said:
  Tony's sure touch deserts him when he faces a decision which cannot be based on expediency…he seems not to possess the inner core of strong convictions.
  Ken Follett then lists a series of moral rocks on which the Government have foundered: the Bernie Ecclestone affair, arms to Indonesia, and much more.
  According to Alastair Campbell, all those people are presumably
  peddling the propaganda of the right
  or are
  better known for their fiction than their judgment.
  at least that is what he has been telling the media today.
  Is that not, however, the heart of the matter? The first instinct of the Government, particularly of the Prime Minister and of the Prime Minister's press spokesman, is to disparage and rubbish anyone who suggests that the Government's manipulation of the media has anything to do with the decline in the Government's popularity.
  Mr. Kemp: The hon. Gentleman asked who pays the rent for special advisers at No. 10 Downing street. Who pays the rent for the special advisers, particularly the press secretary, to the Leader of the Opposition—the Tory party or the taxpayer?
  Hon. Members: Killer question.
  Mr. Tyrie: Yes, that really was a killer question. As the hon. Gentleman has been in the Chamber for the whole debate, he will know very well that the Short money is fully audited. As he is quite experienced, he should also know that Short money pays primarily for the office of the Leader of the Opposition.
  The hon. Gentleman also knows very well that Short money is a quid pro quo for many services provided to the Prime Minister by the civil service. To give just one simple example, the Leader of the Opposition has a team of people to help him to reply to his correspondence. Who does that for the Prime Minister? It is done by a large
  120
  team in Whitehall, which is quite independent of the new team of special advisers. There is little comparability between those employed on Short money and special advisers. Any such comparison is a smokescreen put up by the Labour party to try to avoid dealing with the truth, which is that the Government have hired a huge cadre of people who are becoming a campaign team for the re-election of the Labour party.
  I believe that a good press team—I acknowledge that Alastair Campbell ran a good press team in opposition—is no substitute for good government. The Prime Minister's style of government is destroying ministerial accountability and corroding parliamentary accountability. Above all, it has started to erode respect for our democratic institutions.
  The Prime Minister can do something about that. The first thing that he should do is to curb the power and activities of Alastair Campbell. If the Prime Minister wants a political hatchet man, he cannot expect the taxpayer to provide the funds. If Alastair Campbell is doing exclusively party political work, he had better resign and be paid for by funds from the Labour party.
  Secondly, the Prime Minister had better clean up his act at No. 10 Downing street. He had better put the building back in the charge of civil servants. He had better start using Cabinet Sub-Committees for some genuine decisions, rather than working out how to implement decisions. He should also show some respect for Parliament.
  Thirdly, the Government should implement in full Lord Neill's recommendations on advisers. Lord Neill has made it plain that he cannot understand the Government's delay in responding to his report; neither can many Opposition Members. Now, let us have a response.
  9.48 pm
  The Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office (Mr. Graham Stringer): It would have been easy to respond to the hon. Member for Chichester (Mr. Tyrie) if he had bothered to give any facts in his statement, but it was almost pure rhetoric. We cannot, however, be surprised that we get almost pure rhetoric from him. He writes books and gives evidence in which he says that Select Committees should have more power in the House and that that is the way forward in ensuring greater Government accountability, whereas he has attended the Public Administration Committee—his own Select Committee—for only seven of its previous 36 sittings.
  Mr. Tyrie: As it happens, a large number of Public Administration Committee sittings clashed each week with sittings of the Standing Committee considering the Financial Services and Markets Bill, which I attended regularly. The Labour party has for months been peddling the nonsense that I have not attended Select Committee meetings, and I am sick of hearing about it at every television studio that I go to. It is a load of rubbish.
  Mr. Stringer: The hon. Gentleman does not contest the fact that he has managed to attend only one in five of those Select Committee sittings. It is not surprising.
  Mr. Patrick McLoughlin: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
  Mr. Stringer: No; I shall not give way again. I am not surprised by the hon. Member for Chichester. In his book,

  121
  he mentioned the Prime Minister's attendance in this House at votes. He forgot to mention the fact that the Prime Minister has answered more questions and made more statements than any other Prime Minister.
  Mr. Tyrie: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
  Mr. Stringer: No, I will not. My hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary, Privy Council Office gave way many times in his opening speech. We have 10 minutes left of an important debate and I shall not give way.
  My hon. Friend the Member for Leeds, Central (Mr. Benn) was characteristically precise in destroying the argument of Opposition Members. He pointed out, as others have done, that no evidence was put forward of the corrosive effect on the civil service that the Conservatives claimed existed.
  My hon. Friend the Member for Cannock Chase (Tony Wright) made an interesting speech; his diversion was more interesting than many of the Opposition speeches. He reminded us of why the Nolan committee and the Neill committee existed. They existed because the Conservative party did not control sleaze; this House and the Conservative party were riven by sleaze in the mid-1990s.
  All of us in the House owe a debt to the hon. Member for Tatton (Mr. Bell) for ridding it of the previous honourable, or dishonourable, Member for Tatton, Neil Hamilton. He made a characteristically independent speech. I could not agree with every word and every point, but there is no doubt that the hon. Gentleman has helped to improve standards in this House through his work on the Select Committee on Standards and Privileges. I pay tribute to him for that.
  The hon. Member for North Cornwall (Mr. Tyler) made a large number of points and there is not time to answer all of them. I will give the commitment again that it is the intention of the Government to produce a civil service Act. He would be surprised if I said when that will be, as that is a matter for the Queen's Speech.
  I strongly disagree with the hon. Member for North Cornwall in his reluctance to support the idea of secondments from and into the civil service. The Government support the impartiality and objectivity of the civil service, but there is no doubt that it has developed insularity over the years which is not good for the governance of this country. Seconding people with experience of industry and the outside world into the civil service is an extraordinarily good thing, as is taking civil servants out and giving them experience of industry.
  Mr. Redwood: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
  Mr. Stringer: No, I will not give way.
  I was absolutely staggered by the intervention from the right hon. Member for South-West Surrey (Mrs. Bottomley) who complained about appointments to health bodies. Does she not recall Baroness Denton saying that she had never knowingly appointed a Labour person to a health body? That was the record of the previous Conservative Administration.
  Mrs. Virginia Bottomley: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
  Mr. Stringer: No, I will not. The right hon. Member for South Norfolk (Mr. MacGregor) made a number of
  122
  interesting points. He said that the number of special advisers had changed and that the role had changed. Like a lot of his right hon. and hon. Friends, the right hon. Gentleman failed to produce any direct evidence that the role had changed. He made one mistake when he said that it was not the role of special advisers to brief the press. I have to tell him that his successor had a special adviser who regularly briefed the press, so there has been no change between the previous Administration and this in the role of special advisers.
  My hon. Friend the Member for Cannock Chase made the point that he was surprised that Opposition Members kept coming back to the Nolan and Neill reports. They kept returning to their party's appalling record of sleaze in the mid-1990s. Why did they do that? There is a simple reason that I am happy to explain to my hon. Friend. Opposition Members do not want to talk about this Government's record on jobs. Opposition Members are the spinners, because they do not want the public to know that a million jobs have been created in the past three years, at the rate of one job every two minutes. Nor do Opposition Members want to talk about the extra money going in to hospitals or the extra £40,000, on average, for every school. They do not want to talk about the working families tax credit, because they would abolish it.
  Opposition Members have a straightforward right-wing agenda. They want to create fear by talking about immigration and asylum seekers. The hon. Member for South Cambridgeshire (Mr. Lansley) himself has not been afraid to advise on using the race card. [Interruption.] It is Opposition Members who are embarrassed by the facts—
  Mr. Tyrie: On a point of order, Madam Speaker.
  Madam Speaker: I fear that it is a point of frustration, but I shall listen to the point of order.
  Mr. Tyrie: As I understand it, the debate is about special advisers. We have just had five minutes of propaganda written by Alastair Campbell about every other area of Government policy. May we have answers to some of the points raised in the debate about special advisers?
  Madam Speaker: As I thought, that is a matter for argument and not a point of order for me.
  Mr. Stringer: Opposition Members do not want to talk about the Government's record. They want to keep the agenda away from the facts. What embarrasses them more than anything else is the detailed record of what they did in government. I can give the House a list of the names of Tories who were the reason for the Nolan and Neill committees. We all remember David Mellor, who left the House; Tim Smith, who was forced to stand down as the candidate for Beaconsfield; Neil Hamilton, who was defeated by the hon. Member for Tatton; Graham Riddick, who was defeated in Colne Valley and who accepted cash for questions; Jonathan Aitken; Michael Brown; and Angela Rumbold. They were the reasons why—
  Mr. James Arbuthnot rose in his place and claimed to move, That the Question be now put.
  Question, That the Question be now put, put and agreed to
  Question put accordingly, That the original words stand part of the Question—
  The House divided: Ayes 165, Noes 295.

  Division No. 247]

  [10 pm

  AYES

  Ainsworth, Peter (E Surrey)

  Grieve, Dominic

  Amess, David

  Gummer, Rt Hon John

  Arbuthnot, Rt Hon James

  Hammond, Philip

  Atkinson, David (Bour'mth E)

  Hancock, Mike

  Atkinson, Peter (Hexham)

  Harris, Dr Evan

  Baldry, Tony

  Harvey, Nick

  Bell, Martin (Tatton)

  Hawkins, Nick

  Bercow, John

  Hayes, John

  Beresford, Sir Paul

  Heald, Oliver

  Blunt, Crispin

  Heath, David (Somerton & Frome)

  Body, Sir Richard

  Heathcoat-Amory, Rt Hon David

  Boswell, Tim

  Hogg, Rt Hon Douglas

  Bottomley, Peter (Worthing W)

  Horam, John

  Bottomley, Rt Hon Mrs Virginia

  Howard, Rt Hon Michael

  Brady, Graham

  Hughes, Simon (Southwark N)

  Brand, Dr Peter

  Hunter, Andrew

  Brazier, Julian

  Jack, Rt Hon Michael

  Breed, Colin

  Jackson, Robert (Wantage)

  Brooke, Rt Hon Peter

  Jenkin, Bernard

  Browning, Mrs Angela

  Keetch, Paul

  Bruce, Ian (S Dorset)

  Key, Robert

  Burnett, John

  King, Rt Hon Tom (Bridgwater)

  Burstow, Paul

  Kirkwood, Archy

  Butterfill, John

  Laing, Mrs Eleanor

  Cable, Dr Vincent

  Lait, Mrs Jacqui

  Campbell, Rt Hon Menzies (NE Fife)

  Lansley, Andrew

  Leigh, Edward

  Chapman, Sir Sydney (Chipping Barnet)

  Letwin, Oliver

  Lewis, Dr Julian (New Forest E)

  Chope, Christopher

  Lilley, Rt Hon Peter

  Clappison, James

  Livsey, Richard

  Clark, Dr Michael (Rayleigh)

  Lloyd, Rt Hon Sir Peter (Fareham)

  Clarke, Rt Hon Kenneth (Rushcliffe)

  Llwyd, Elfyn

  Loughton, Tim

  Collins, Tim

  Lyell, Rt Hon Sir Nicholas

  Cran, James

  MacGregor, Rt Hon John

  Curry, Rt Hon David

  McIntosh, Miss Anne

  Davey, Edward (Kingston)

  MacKay, Rt Hon Andrew

  Davies, Quentin (Grantham)

  Maclean, Rt Hon David

  Davis, Rt Hon David (Haltemprice)

  Maclennan, Rt Hon Robert

  Day, Stephen

  McLoughlin, Patrick

  Dorrell, Rt Hon Stephen

  Madel, Sir David

  Duncan Smith, Iain

  Maples, John

  Evans, Nigel

  May, Mrs Theresa

  Faber, David

  Michie, Mrs Ray (Argyll & Bute)

  Fabricant, Michael

  Moore, Michael

  Fallon, Michael

  Moss, Malcolm

  Fearn, Ronnie

  Nicholls, Patrick

  Forth, Rt Hon Eric

  Norman, Archie

  Foster, Don (Bath)

  Oaten, Mark

  Fowler, Rt Hon Sir Norman

  O'Brien, Stephen (Eddisbury)

  Fox, Dr Liam

  Öpik, Lembit

  Fraser, Christopher

  Ottaway, Richard

  Gale, Roger

  Paice, James

  Garnier, Edward

  Pickles, Eric

  Gibb, Nick

  Portillo, Rt Hon Michael

  Gidley, Sandra

  Prior, David

  Gill, Christopher

  Randall, John

  Gorman, Mrs Teresa

  Redwood, Rt Hon John

  Gray, James

  Rendel, David

  Green, Damian

  Robathan, Andrew

  Greenway, John

  Robertson, Laurence

  124

  Roe, Mrs Marion (Broxbourne)

  Townend, John

  Ross, William (E Lond'y)

  Tredinnick, David

  Rowe, Andrew (Faversham)

  Trend, Michael

  Ruffley, David

  Tyler, Paul

  Russell, Bob (Colchester)

  Tyrie, Andrew

  St Aubyn, Nick

  Viggers, Peter

  Sanders, Adrian

  Walter, Robert

  Sayeed, Jonathan

  Waterson, Nigel

  Shephard, Rt Hon Mrs Gillian

  Webb, Steve

  Shepherd, Richard

  Wells, Bowen

  Simpson, Keith (Mid-Norfolk)

  Whitney, Sir Raymond

  Soames, Nicholas

  Whittingdale, John

  Spelman, Mrs Caroline

  Wilkinson, John

  Spicer, Sir Michael

  Willetts, David

  Spring, Richard

  Willis, Phil

  Stanley, Rt Hon Sir John

  Wilshire, David

  Stunell, Andrew

  Winterton, Mrs Ann (Congleton)

  Swayne, Desmond

  Winterton, Nicholas (Macclesfield)

  Syms, Robert

  Yeo, Tim

  Tapsell, Sir Peter

  Young, Rt Hon Sir George

  Taylor, Ian (Esher & Walton)

  Taylor, John M (Solihull)

  Tellers for the Ayes:

  Taylor, Matthew (Truro)

  Mr. Geoffrey Clifton-Brown

  Taylor, Sir Teddy

  and

  Mr. Peter Luff.

  NOES

  Ainsworth, Robert (Cov'try NE)

  Coffey, Ms Ann

  Alexander, Douglas

  Cohen, Harry

  Allen, Graham

  Coleman, Iain

  Anderson, Donald (Swansea E)

  Colman, Tony

  Anderson, Janet (Rossendale)

  Cook, Frank (Stockton N)

  Armstrong, Rt Hon Ms Hilary

  Cook, Rt Hon Robin (Livingston)

  Ashton, Joe

  Cooper, Yvette

  Atherton, Ms Candy

  Corbyn, Jeremy

  Austin, John

  Cousins, Jim

  Barnes, Harry

  Cox, Tom

  Barron, Kevin

  Crausby, David

  Battle, John

  Cryer, Mrs Ann (Keighley)

  Bayley, Hugh

  Cryer, John (Hornchurch)

  Beard, Nigel

  Cummings, John

  Begg, Miss Anne

  Cunningham, Rt Hon Dr Jack (Copeland)

  Bell, Stuart (Middlesbrough)

  Benn, Hilary (Leeds C)

  Darling, Rt Hon Alistair

  Bennett, Andrew F

  Darvill, Keith

  Benton, Joe

  Davey, Valerie (Bristol W)

  Bermingham, Gerald

  Davidson, Ian

  Berry, Roger

  Davies, Rt Hon Denzil (Llanelli)

  Blizzard, Bob

  Davis, Rt Hon Terry (B'ham Hodge H)

  Blunkett, Rt Hon David

  Borrow, David

  Dawson, Hilton

  Bradley, Keith (Withington)

  Denham, John

  Bradley, Peter (The Wrekin)

  Dismore, Andrew

  Bradshaw, Ben

  Donohoe, Brian H

  Brown, Russell (Dumfries)

  Doran, Frank

  Browne, Desmond

  Dowd, Jim

  Burden, Richard

  Eagle, Angela (Wallasey)

  Burgon, Colin

  Eagle, Maria (L'pool Garston)

  Butler, Mrs Christine

  Edwards, Huw

  Byers, Rt Hon Stephen

  Efford, Clive

  Caborn, Rt Hon Richard

  Ellman, Mrs Louise

  Campbell, Ronnie (Blyth V)

  Ennis, Jeff

  Campbell-Savours, Dale

  Etherington, Bill

  Caplin, Ivor

  Field, Rt Hon Frank

  Caton, Martin

  Fisher, Mark

  Chapman, Ben (Wirral S)

  Fitzpatrick, Jim

  Clapham, Michael

  Fitzsimons, Mrs Lorna

  Clark, Rt Hon Dr David (S Shields)

  Flynn, Paul

  Clark, Paul (Gillingham)

  Follett, Barbara

  Clarke, Charles (Norwich S)

  Foster, Rt Hon Derek

  Clarke, Eric (Midlothian)

  Foster, Michael Jabez (Hastings)

  Clarke, Rt Hon Tom (Coatbridge)

  Foster, Michael J (Worcester)

  Clarke, Tony (Northampton S)

  Foulkes, George

  Clelland, David

  Fyfe, Maria

  Clwyd, Ann

  Galloway, George

  Coaker, Vernon

  George, Bruce (Walsall S)

  125

  Gerrard, Neil

  McGuire, Mrs Anne

  Gibson, Dr Ian

  McIsaac, Shona

  Gilroy, Mrs Linda

  McKenna, Mrs Rosemary

  Godman, Dr Norman A

  Mackinlay, Andrew

  Godsiff, Roger

  McNulty, Tony

  Goggins, Paul

  MacShane, Denis

  Golding, Mrs Llin

  Mactaggart, Fiona

  Gordon, Mrs Eileen

  McWalter, Tony

  Griffiths, Jane (Reading E)

  McWilliam, John

  Griffiths, Nigel (Edinburgh S)

  Mallaber, Judy

  Griffiths, Win (Bridgend)

  Marsden, Gordon (Blackpool S)

  Grogan, John

  Marsden, Paul (Shrewsbury)

  Hall, Patrick (Bedford)

  Marshall, David (Shettleston)

  Hanson, David

  Marshall, Jim (Leicester S)

  Harman, Rt Hon Ms Harriet

  Marshall-Andrews, Robert

  Healey, John

  Meacher, Rt Hon Michael

  Henderson, Doug (Newcastle N)

  Meale, Alan

  Henderson, Ivan (Harwich)

  Michael, Rt Hon Alun

  Hepburn, Stephen

  Michie, Bill (Shef'ld Heeley)

  Heppell, John

  Milburn, Rt Hon Alan

  Hesford, Stephen

  Miller, Andrew

  Hewitt, Ms Patricia

  Mitchell, Austin

  Hill, Keith

  Moffatt, Laura

  Hinchliffe, David

  Moran, Ms Margaret

  Hoey, Kate

  Morgan, Ms Julie (Cardiff N)

  Hoon, Rt Hon Geoffrey

  Mountford, Kali

  Hope, Phil

  Mudie, George

  Hopkins, Kelvin

  Murphy, Denis (Wansbeck)

  Howarth, Alan (Newport E)

  Murphy, Jim (Eastwood)

  Howarth, George (Knowsley N)

  Naysmith, Dr Doug

  Howells, Dr Kim

  O'Brien, Bill (Normanton)

  Hoyle, Lindsay

  O'Hara, Eddie

  Hughes, Ms Beverley (Stretford)

  Olner, Bill

  Hughes, Kevin (Doncaster N)

  O'Neill, Martin

  Humble, Mrs Joan

  Pearson, Ian

  Hurst, Alan

  Pendry, Tom

  Iddon, Dr Brian

  Pickthall, Colin

  Illsley, Eric

  Pike, Peter L

  Jackson, Helen (Hillsborough)

  Plaskitt, James

  Jamieson, David

  Pollard, Kerry

  Jenkins, Brian

  Pond, Chris

  Johnson, Alan (Hull W & Hessle)

  Pope, Greg

  Jones, Rt Hon Barry (Alyn)

  Pound, Stephen

  Jones, Helen (Warrington N)

  Prentice, Ms Bridget (Lewisham E)

  Jones, Jon Owen (Cardiff C)

  Prentice, Gordon (Pendle)

  Jones, Dr Lynne (Selly Oak)

  Prescott, Rt Hon John

  Jones, Martyn (Clwyd S)

  Primarolo, Dawn

  Jowell, Rt Hon Ms Tessa

  Prosser, Gwyn

  Keeble, Ms Sally

  Purchase, Ken

  Keen, Alan (Feltham & Heston)

  Quinn, Lawrie

  Keen, Ann (Brentford & Isleworth)

  Radice, Rt Hon Giles

  Kemp, Fraser

  Rapson, Syd

  Kennedy, Jane (Wavertree)

  Raynsford, Nick

  Khabra, Piara S

  Reed, Andrew (Loughborough)

  Kidney, David

  Robinson, Geoffrey (Cov'try NW)

  Kilfoyle, Peter

  Roche, Mrs Barbara

  King, Andy (Rugby & Kenilworth)

  Rogers, Allan

  King, Ms Oona (Bethnal Green)

  Rooker, Rt Hon Jeff

  Ladyman, Dr Stephen

  Rooney, Terry

  Laxton, Bob

  Ross, Ernie (Dundee W)

  Leslie, Christopher

  Rowlands, Ted

  Levitt, Tom

  Roy, Frank

  Lewis, Ivan (Bury S)

  Ruane, Chris

  Lewis, Terry (Worsley)

  Ruddock, Joan

  Liddell, Rt Hon Mrs Helen

  Russell, Ms Christine (Chester)

  Lloyd, Tony (Manchester C)

  Salter, Martin

  Lock, David

  Sarwar, Mohammad

  Love, Andrew

  Savidge, Malcolm

  McAvoy, Thomas

  Sawford, Phil

  McCabe, Steve

  Sedgemore, Brian

  McCafferty, Ms Chris

  Sheerman, Barry

  McCartney, Rt Hon Ian (Makerfield)

  Sheldon, Rt Hon Robert

  Short, Rt Hon Clare

  McDonagh, Siobhain

  Simpson, Alan (Nottingham S)

  Macdonald, Calum

  Skinner, Dennis

  McDonnell, John

  Smith, Angela (Basildon)

  126

  Smith, Rt Hon Chris (Islington S)

  Turner, Dr George (NW Norfolk)

  Smith, Jacqui (Redditch)

  Turner, Neil (Wigan)

  Smith, John (Glamorgan)

  Twigg, Derek (Halton)

  Smith, Llew (Blaenau Gwent)

  Twigg, Stephen (Enfield)

  Soley, Clive

  Walley, Ms Joan

  Southworth, Ms Helen

  Ward, Ms Claire

  Spellar, John

  Wareing, Robert N

  Squire, Ms Rachel

  Watts, David

  Starkey, Dr Phyllis

  White, Brian

  Steinberg, Gerry

  Whitehead, Dr Alan

  Stevenson, George

  Wicks, Malcolm

  Stewart, Ian (Eccles)

  Williams, Rt Hon Alan (Swansea W)

  Stoate, Dr Howard

  Strang, Rt Hon Dr Gavin

  Williams, Alan W (E Carmarthen)

  Straw, Rt Hon Jack

  Williams, Mrs Betty (Conwy)

  Stringer, Graham

  Wills, Michael

  Stuart, Ms Gisela

  Winnick, David

  Taylor, Rt Hon Mrs Ann (Dewsbury)

  Winterton, Ms Rosie (Doncaster C)

  Wood, Mike

  Taylor, Ms Dari (Stockton S)

  Woolas, Phil

  Taylor, David (NW Leics)

  Worthington, Tony

  Thomas, Gareth (Clwyd W)

  Wright, Anthony D (Gt Yarmouth)

  Timms, Stephen

  Wright, Tony (Cannock)

  Tipping, Paddy

  Wyatt, Derek

  Touhig, Don

  Trickett, Jon

  Tellers for the Noes:

  Turner, Dr Desmond (Kemptown)

  Mr. Mike Hall and

  Mr. Gerry Sutcliffe.

  Question accordingly negatived.
  Question, That the proposed words be there added, put forthwith, pursuant to Standing Order No. 31 (Questions on amendments):—
  The House divided: Ayes 293, Noes 163.

  Division No. 248]

  [10.14 pm

  AYES

  Ainsworth, Robert (Cov'try NE)

  Caton, Martin

  Alexander, Douglas

  Chapman, Ben (Wirral S)

  Allen, Graham

  Clapham, Michael

  Anderson, Donald (Swansea E)

  Clark, Rt Hon Dr David (S Shields)

  Anderson, Janet (Rossendale)

  Clark, Paul (Gillingham)

  Armstrong, Rt Hon Ms Hilary

  Clarke, Eric (Midlothian)

  Ashton, Joe

  Clarke, Rt Hon Tom (Coatbridge)

  Atherton, Ms Candy

  Clarke, Tony (Northampton S)

  Austin, John

  Clelland, David

  Barnes, Harry

  Clwyd, Ann

  Barron, Kevin

  Coaker, Vernon

  Battle, John

  Coffey, Ms Ann

  Bayley, Hugh

  Cohen, Harry

  Beard, Nigel

  Coleman, Iain

  Begg, Miss Anne

  Colman, Tony

  Bell, Stuart (Middlesbrough)

  Cook, Frank (Stockton N)

  Benn, Hilary (Leeds C)

  Cook, Rt Hon Robin (Livingston)

  Bennett, Andrew F

  Cooper, Yvette

  Benton, Joe

  Corbyn, Jeremy

  Bermingham, Gerald

  Cousins, Jim

  Berry, Roger

  Cox, Tom

  Blizzard, Bob

  Crausby, David

  Borrow, David

  Cryer, Mrs Ann (Keighley)

  Bradley, Keith (Withington)

  Cryer, John (Hornchurch)

  Bradley, Peter (The Wrekin)

  Cummings, John

  Bradshaw, Ben

  Cunningham, Rt Hon Dr Jack (Copeland)

  Brown, Russell (Dumfries)

  Browne, Desmond

  Darling, Rt Hon Alistair

  Burden, Richard

  Darvill, Keith

  Burgon, Colin

  Davey, Valerie (Bristol W)

  Butler, Mrs Christine

  Davidson, Ian

  Byers, Rt Hon Stephen

  Davies, Rt Hon Denzil (Llanelli)

  Caborn, Rt Hon Richard

  Davis, Rt Hon Terry (B'ham Hodge H)

  Campbell, Ronnie (Blyth V)

  Campbell-Savours, Dale

  Dawson, Hilton

  Caplin, Ivor

  Denham, John

  127

  Dismore, Andrew

  Kennedy, Jane (Wavertree)

  Donohoe, Brian H

  Khabra, Piara S

  Doran, Frank

  Kidney, David

  Dowd, Jim

  Kilfoyle, Peter

  Eagle, Angela (Wallasey)

  King, Andy (Rugby & Kenilworth)

  Eagle, Maria (L'pool Garston)

  King, Ms Oona (Bethnal Green)

  Edwards, Huw

  Ladyman, Dr Stephen

  Efford, Clive

  Lammy, David

  Ellman, Mrs Louise

  Laxton, Bob

  Ennis, Jeff

  Leslie, Christopher

  Etherington, Bill

  Levitt, Tom

  Field, Rt Hon Frank

  Lewis, Ivan (Bury S)

  Fisher, Mark

  Lewis, Terry (Worsley)

  Fitzpatrick, Jim

  Liddell, Rt Hon Mrs Helen

  Fitzsimons, Mrs Lorna

  Lloyd, Tony (Manchester C)

  Flynn, Paul

  Lock, David

  Follett, Barbara

  Love, Andrew

  Foster, Rt Hon Derek

  McAvoy, Thomas

  Foster, Michael Jabez (Hastings)

  McCabe, Steve

  Foster, Michael J (Worcester)

  McCafferty, Ms Chris

  Foulkes, George

  McCartney, Rt Hon Ian (Makerfield)

  Fyfe, Maria

  Galloway, George

  McDonagh, Siobhain

  George, Bruce (Walsall S)

  Macdonald, Calum

  Gerrard, Neil

  McDonnell, John

  Gibson, Dr Ian

  McGuire, Mrs Anne

  Gilroy, Mrs Linda

  McIsaac, Shona

  Godman, Dr Norman A

  McKenna, Mrs Rosemary

  Godsiff, Roger

  Mackinlay, Andrew

  Goggins, Paul

  MacShane, Denis

  Golding, Mrs Llin

  Mactaggart, Fiona

  Gordon, Mrs Eileen

  McWalter, Tony

  Griffiths, Jane (Reading E)

  McWilliam, John

  Griffiths, Nigel (Edinburgh S)

  Mallaber, Judy

  Griffiths, Win (Bridgend)

  Marsden, Gordon (Blackpool S)

  Grogan, John

  Marsden, Paul (Shrewsbury)

  Hall, Patrick (Bedford)

  Marshall, David (Shettleston)

  Hanson, David

  Marshall, Jim (Leicester S)

  Harman, Rt Hon Ms Harriet

  Marshall-Andrews, Robert

  Healey, John

  Meacher, Rt Hon Michael

  Henderson, Doug (Newcastle N)

  Meale, Alan

  Henderson, Ivan (Harwich)

  Michael, Rt Hon Alun

  Hepburn, Stephen

  Michie, Bill (Shef'ld Heeley)

  Heppell, John

  Milburn, Rt Hon Alan

  Hesford, Stephen

  Miller, Andrew

  Hewitt, Ms Patricia

  Mitchell, Austin

  Hill, Keith

  Moffatt, Laura

  Hinchliffe, David

  Moran, Ms Margaret

  Hoey, Kate

  Morgan, Ms Julie (Cardiff N)

  Hoon, Rt Hon Geoffrey

  Mountford, Kali

  Hope, Phil

  Mudie, George

  Hopkins, Kelvin

  Murphy, Denis (Wansbeck)

  Howarth, Alan (Newport E)

  Murphy, Jim (Eastwood)

  Howarth, George (Knowsley N)

  Naysmith, Dr Doug

  Howells, Dr Kim

  O'Brien, Bill (Normanton)

  Hoyle, Lindsay

  O'Hara, Eddie

  Hughes, Ms Beverley (Stretford)

  Olner, Bill

  Hughes, Kevin (Doncaster N)

  O'Neill, Martin

  Humble, Mrs Joan

  Pearson, Ian

  Hurst, Alan

  Pendry, Tom

  Iddon, Dr Brian

  Pickthall, Colin

  Illsley, Eric

  Pike, Peter L

  Jackson, Helen (Hillsborough)

  Plaskitt, James

  Jamieson, David

  Pollard, Kerry

  Jenkins, Brian

  Pond, Chris

  Johnson, Alan (Hull W & Hessle)

  Pope, Greg

  Jones, Rt Hon Barry (Alyn)

  Pound, Stephen

  Jones, Helen (Warrington N)

  Prentice, Ms Bridget (Lewisham E)

  Jones, Jon Owen (Cardiff C)

  Prentice, Gordon (Pendle)

  Jones, Dr Lynne (Selly Oak)

  Prescott, Rt Hon John

  Jones, Martyn (Clwyd S)

  Primarolo, Dawn

  Jowell, Rt Hon Ms Tessa

  Prosser, Gwyn

  Keeble, Ms Sally

  Purchase, Ken

  Keen, Alan (Feltham & Heston)

  Quinn, Lawrie

  Keen, Ann (Brentford & Isleworth)

  Radice, Rt Hon Giles

  Kemp, Fraser

  Rapson, Syd

  128

  Raynsford, Nick

  Stuart, Ms Gisela

  Reed, Andrew (Loughborough)

  Sutcliffe, Gerry

  Robinson, Geoffrey (Cov'try NW)

  Taylor, Rt Hon Mrs Ann (Dewsbury)

  Roche, Mrs Barbara

  Rooker, Rt Hon Jeff

  Taylor, Ms Dari (Stockton S)

  Rooney, Terry

  Taylor, David (NW Leics)

  Ross, Ernie (Dundee W)

  Thomas, Gareth (Clwyd W)

  Rowlands, Ted

  Timms, Stephen

  Roy, Frank

  Tipping, Paddy

  Ruane, Chris

  Touhig, Don

  Ruddock, Joan

  Trickett, Jon

  Russell, Ms Christine (Chester)

  Turner, Dr Desmond (Kemptown)

  Salter, Martin

  Turner, Dr George (NW Norfolk)

  Sarwar, Mohammad

  Turner, Neil (Wigan)

  Savidge, Malcolm

  Twigg, Derek (Halton)

  Sawford, Phil

  Twigg, Stephen (Enfield)

  Sedgemore, Brian

  Walley, Ms Joan

  Sheerman, Barry

  Ward, Ms Claire

  Sheldon, Rt Hon Robert

  Wareing, Robert N

  Short, Rt Hon Clare

  Watts, David

  Simpson, Alan (Nottingham S)

  Whitehead, Dr Alan

  Skinner, Dennis

  Wicks, Malcolm

  Smith, Angela (Basildon)

  Williams, Rt Hon Alan (Swansea W)

  Smith, Rt Hon Chris (Islington S)

  Smith, Jacqui (Redditch)

  Williams, Alan W (E Carmarthen)

  Smith, John (Glamorgan)

  Williams, Mrs Betty (Conwy)

  Smith, Llew (Blaenau Gwent)

  Wills, Michael

  Soley, Clive

  Winnick, David

  Southworth, Ms Helen

  Winterton Ms Rosie (Doncaster C)

  Spellar, John

  Wood, Mike

  Squire, Ms Rachel

  Woolas, Phil

  Starkey, Dr Phyllis

  Worthington, Tony

  Steinberg, Gerry

  Wright, Anthony D (Gt Yarmouth)

  Stevenson, George

  Wright, Tony (Cannock)

  Stewart, Ian (Eccles)

  Wyatt, Derek

  Stoate, Dr Howard

  Strang, Rt Hon Dr Gavin

  Tellers for the Ayes:

  Straw, Rt Hon Jack

  Mr. Mike Hall and

  Stringer, Graham

  Mr. Tony McNulty.

  NOES

  Ainsworth, Peter (E Surrey)

  Curry, Rt Hon David

  Amess, David

  Davey, Edward (Kingston)

  Arbuthnot, Rt Hon James

  Davies, Quentin (Grantham)

  Atkinson, David (Bour'mth E)

  Davis, Rt Hon David (Haltemprice)

  Atkinson, Peter (Hexham)

  Day, Stephen

  Baldry, Tony

  Dorrell, Rt Hon Stephen

  Bell, Martin (Tatton)

  Duncan Smith, Iain

  Bercow, John

  Evans, Nigel

  Beresford, Sir Paul

  Faber, David

  Blunt, Crispin

  Fabricant, Michael

  Body, Sir Richard

  Fallon, Michael

  Boswell, Tim

  Fearn, Ronnie

  Bottomley, Peter (Worthing W)

  Forth, Rt Hon Eric

  Bottomley, Rt Hon Mrs Virginia

  Foster, Don (Bath)

  Brady, Graham

  Fowler, Rt Hon Sir Norman

  Brand, Dr Peter

  Fox, Dr Liam

  Brazier, Julian

  Fraser, Christopher

  Breed, Colin

  Gale, Roger

  Brooke, Rt Hon Peter

  Garnier, Edward

  Browning, Mrs Angela

  Gibb, Nick

  Bruce, Ian (S Dorset)

  Gidley, Sandra

  Burnett, John

  Gill, Christopher

  Burstow, Paul

  Gorman, Mrs Teresa

  Butterfill, John

  Gray, James

  Cable, Dr Vincent

  Green, Damian

  Campbell, Rt Hon Menzies (NE Fife)

  Greenway, John

  Grieve, Dominic

  Chapman, Sir Sydney (Chipping Barnet)

  Gummer, Rt Hon John

  Hammond, Philip

  Chope, Christopher

  Hancock, Mike

  Clappison, James

  Harris, Dr Evan

  Clarke, Rt Hon Kenneth (Rushcliffe)

  Harvey, Nick

  Hawkins, Nick

  Collins, Tim

  Hayes, John

  Cran, James

  Heald, Oliver

  129

  Heath, David (Somerton & Frome)

  Paice, James

  Heathcoat-Amory, Rt Hon David

  Pickles, Eric

  Hogg, Rt Hon Douglas

  Portillo, Rt Hon Michael

  Horam, John

  Prior, David

  Howard, Rt Hon Michael

  Randall, John

  Hughes, Simon (Southwark N)

  Redwood, Rt Hon John

  Hunter, Andrew

  Rendel, David

  Jack, Rt Hon Michael

  Robathan, Andrew

  Jackson, Robert (Wantage)

  Robertson, Laurence

  Jenkin, Bernard

  Roe, Mrs Marion (Broxbourne)

  Keetch, Paul

  Ross, William (E Lond'y)

  Key, Robert

  Rowe, Andrew (Faversham)

  King, Rt Hon Tom (Bridgwater)

  Ruffley, David

  Kirkwood, Archy

  Russell, Bob (Colchester)

  Laing, Mrs Eleanor

  St Aubyn, Nick

  Lait, Mrs Jacqui

  Sanders, Adrian

  Lansley, Andrew

  Sayeed, Jonathan

  Leigh, Edward

  Shephard, Rt Hon Mrs Gillian

  Letwin, Oliver

  Shepherd, Richard

  Lewis, Dr Julian (New Forest E)

  Simpson, Keith (Mid-Norfolk)

  Lilley, Rt Hon Peter

  Soames, Nicholas

  Livsey, Richard

  Spelman, Mrs Caroline

  Lloyd, Rt Hon Sir Peter (Fareham)

  Spicer, Sir Michael

  Llwyd, Elfyn

  Spring, Richard

  Loughton, Tim

  Stanley, Rt Hon Sir John

  Lyell, Rt Hon Sir Nicholas

  Stunell, Andrew

  MacGregor, Rt Hon John

  Swayne, Desmond

  McIntosh, Miss Anne

  Syms, Robert

  MacKay, Rt Hon Andrew

  Tapsell, Sir Peter

  Maclean, Rt Hon David

  Taylor, Ian (Esher & Walton)

  Maclennan, Rt Hon Robert

  Taylor, John M (Solihull)

  McLoughlin, Patrick

  Taylor, Matthew (Truro)

  Madel, Sir David

  Taylor, Sir Teddy

  Maples, John

  Townend, John

  May, Mrs Theresa

  Tredinnick, David

  Michie, Mrs Ray (Argyll & Bute)

  Trend, Michael

  Moore, Michael

  Tyler, Paul

  Moss, Malcolm

  Viggers, Peter

  Nicholls, Patrick

  Walter, Robert

  Norman, Archie

  Waterson, Nigel

  Oaten, Mark

  Webb, Steve

  O'Brien, Stephen (Eddisbury)

  Wells, Bowen

  Öpik, Lembit

  Whitney, Sir Raymond

  Ottaway, Richard

  Whittingdale, John

  130

  Wilkinson, John

  Yeo, Tim

  Willetts, David

  Young, Rt Hon Sir George

  Willis, Phil

  Wilshire, David

  Tellers for the Noes:

  Winterton, Mrs Ann (Congleton)

  Mr. Geoffrey Clifton-Brown

  Winterton, Nicholas (Macclesfield)

  and

  Mr. Peter Luff.

  Question accordingly agreed to.
  MADAM SPEAKER forthwith declared the main Question, as amended, to be agreed to.
  Resolved,
  That this House welcomes the statement by Lord Neill that there is now less cause for concern about standards in public life than when the cash for questions affair led to the setting up of the Committee in 1994; restates the Government's commitment to maintaining a non-political permanent civil service; agrees with the Sixth Report of the Committee on Standards in Public Life that "special advisers have a valuable role to play"; acknowledges that the Report deals with the serious issues across a wide range of subjects; and notes that the Government plans to respond before the summer recess

  DELEGATED LEGISLATION
  Motion made, and Question put forthwith, pursuant to Standing Order No. 118(6) (Standing Committees on Delegated Legislation),
  DELEGATED LEGISLATION

    NORTHERN IRELAND
    That the draft Northern Ireland Act 1998 (Designation of Public Authorities) Order 2000, which was laid before this House on 8th June, be approved.—[Mr. Touhig.]
    Question agreed to.
    Ordered,

    STAKEHOLDER PENSION SCHEME REGULATIONS 2000
    That the Stakeholder Pension Scheme Regulations 2000 be referred to a Standing Committee on Delegated Legislation.—[Mr. Touhig.]

  Airport Regulation
  Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Touhig.]
  10.26 pm
  Dr. Vincent Cable: I have great pleasure in introducing an Adjournment debate on the subject of airport regulation. I sought the debate because I am one of those Members with a constituency near to Heathrow. Those of us in that position have many constituents who work at the airport, who use it for business and, most importantly, are affected by environmental costs and aircraft noise.
  Several neighbouring Members have introduced Adjournment debates about Heathrow and particularly about aircraft noise, but I approach the subject in a slightly different manner. I am not so much concerned by what I regard as the symptoms of the problem, but with the underlying causes, such as the way in which airports are regulated. That is the spirit in which I gave evidence to the terminal 5 inquiry a couple of years ago.
  I shall summarise my conclusions and then develop my arguments in a little more detail. The first of the two central points that I want to make is that the system of regulating airports, and Heathrow in particular, is drastically in need of overhaul. The Government have overhauled the system of regulation for other infrastructure industries—notably the railways—but airport regulation is calling out for reform in much the same way. It was introduced in the mid-1980s, at a time when the previous Government wanted to privatise the industry as a monopoly. They did that in a way that made it attractive to potential buyers of shares in the privatised industry without affecting the interests of the recently privatised British Airways. The wider public and social interest was not a dominant concern, but it have should been. That oversight now needs to be corrected in a reform of the regulatory system.
  My second concern flows from the first. The cost of landing at Heathrow airport is very cheap. I would argue that it is ludicrously cheap, because it fails to take into account the economic costs of congestion, environmental costs and, probably, it does not even cover the basic running costs of the operation. That is damaging from a variety of standpoints. It leads to the airport being overused; it leads to the relative neglect of provincial airports, such as Stansted, where there is probably a much greater willingness to see expansion; and, most important, it leads to a substantial shortfall in revenue that the Government could derive from airports for public expenditure, but that they currently do not.
  I shall develop those points in a little more detail. The first element in the system of regulating the airports that needs overhaul is what is called the single till system—the principle whereby two thirds of the profits of BAA derive from parking, property and shop rentals and the other third derives from landing charges. Those revenue streams are pooled. Under the regulatory system, the landing charges are directly regulated under a retail prices index minus X formula, which is referred from time to time to what is now the Competition Commission, whereas the other two thirds of the business are not regulated, although BAA has a substantial monopoly in them.
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  That results in a massively grossly distorted system of airport charging. It means that Heathrow has become one of the cheapest airports in the world in which to land, despite the enormous congestion and pent-up demand associated with it. BAA quite openly acknowledges that. It recently commented:
  charges to airlines are among the lowest in the world, and have fallen by at least 15 per cent. in real terms over the past ten years."
  The regulators acknowledge that the landing charges are very damaging, although they cannot do anything about them. The Monopolies and Mergers Commission, as it then was, said when asked to review charges:
  Any environmental problems, far from being reflected in higher airport charges, are exacerbated by further stimulus to demand as a result of low charges.
  It was highly critical of the system that it was required to operate.
  Moreover, BAA operates one of the biggest retail monopolies in the world through its control of the shopping system at the airport. That aspect is not regulated. Arguably, it results in considerable pressure to over-expand that part of its business at the expense of normal airport passengers. The pressures for T5 primarily come from that source.
  So that is the problem—what could and should the Minister do about it? I understand that the Government are reviewing the system of regulation from which the following elements need to emerge. There should be a proper system of independent regulation that takes into account the wider public interest and not simply the interests of aircraft users. There needs to be a proper system of economic charging, which would almost certainly be substantially greater than the present one.
  The Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions has conducted its own studies into the matter, and I shall quote just one of them:
  given the extent to which demand for slots exceeds supply at Heathrow and (to a lesser degree) at Gatwick, it is logical to expect that a several fold increase in airport charges would be necessary to reach market clearing level.
  A system of charges based on economic principles could and should be introduced. Under the present structure, such a system would result in BAA making enormous profits. There is no reason why that should be allowed. The Government could deal with that by taxing away the windfall profits, as they did in 1997.
  The objection is sometimes made that such an attempt to change the charging structure would fall foul of international rules. The 1948 Chicago convention imposes constraints on Government charging. However, to the extent that I understand matters—the Minister can correct this—it should be possible to do a great deal. After all, Heathrow's charges are about half those of major European airports such as Paris and Amsterdam, as well as of those of Manchester and some of the provincial airports. Given that Heathrow's charges are substantially lower than comparable airports, there is considerable scope for increasing them.
  Mr. David Taylor: As East Midlands airport is in my constituency, I have a keen interest in the debate. Is the hon. Gentleman aware of the estimate that it would be necessary for airport charges to treble to ensure that the market-clearing mechanism removed the excess demand for slots at Heathrow and

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  Gatwick, and that charges at the moment bring in £450 million a year, or thereabouts, and the excess charge would bring in about £900 million a year. Is not that an issue?
  Dr. Cable: Yes, that is an issue. The hon. Gentleman's arithmetic and conclusions are entirely right. Charging is a substantial revenue source, which currently accrues primarily to the airlines—many of them foreign-owned—that benefit from the cheap charges. That revenue should ultimately go to the British public. There are mechanisms by which that could happen.
  My second basic source of criticism is related, and concerns the slots. The right to land at Heathrow is effectively given away: under the grandfather principle, slots are allocated on the basis of historic use of routes, which is convenient for airlines that have traditionally had them, and less convenient for new airlines such as Virgin and British Midland, which are trying to get into the business. That is increasingly accepted as a damaging and inefficient way to run a system. An extremely valuable commodity is handed out free, competition is suffocated, and new airlines are prevented from entering the business.
  It has become clear that there are alternative ways of allocating slots, notably by auctioning. American Airlines now auctions slots for domestic flights and earns substantial revenue by doing so. The Government have demonstrated through the third generation mobile phone licences that it is possible for auctions to be extremely effective, well conducted and lucrative. There is no reason why the same principle should not be adopted in an airport context.
  I recognise that there are practical problems, particularly the problem of bilateral treaties and the fact that a plane that takes off must land somewhere. However, consultant studies have been done for the Civil Aviation Authority which show that, within limits, auctioning could be applied at Heathrow. At the very least, it could be employed for take-off and landing at British airports or within Europe, or to allow for competition between British airlines on transatlantic routes, for example. If the Government wanted to be bold and show that they believed in open skies, they could simply employ an open approach unilaterally. Clearly, there is scope for introducing auctions. That would raise the cost of landing to a more appropriate level and would be an alternative or additional way of dealing with the problem, beyond the reform of the single till system.
  The third element of regulation that needs reform is the lack of independent regulation and the constraints imposed on the two regulators, the CAA and the Competition Commission. It is worth quoting from the commission, which described the difficulties under which it labours. It stated that the CAA said that it
  has no duty in respect of the "national interest" and no duty to consider those living near airports.
  On the contrary,
  the CAA's obligations are to satisfy anticipated demands by users of airports.
  That is part of the evidence to the terminal 5 inquiry. Under the present system, then, the regulators are unable to take into account the public interest or the national interest, widely defined. That needs attention.
  The last aspect of regulation that requires attention is the overall context of taxation of airlines. The airlines enjoy enormous taxation privileges. They do not pay fuel
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  duty in the way that motorists do. There are international treaty reasons why that is difficult to enforce, and even if we tried to enforce it, there is the practical problem of planes landing with full tanks in order to avoid taxation. Any change would have to take place on an international level or, at the very least, on a European level.
  Estimates suggest that as a result of the airlines' ability to escape from fuel duty and also from value added tax, revenue of the order of £5 billion a year probably goes begging. I appreciate that there are obvious practical difficulties in recouping that, but it underlines the extent to which the airports operate with the benefit of considerable regulatory privileges. Whether that is dealt with through the tax route, the charges route or the slot route—there are various options for pursuing the same objective—it is clear that something should be done.
  One of the consequences would be that the demand for the use of Heathrow would significantly contract. The models used at present to predict the demand for Heathrow and, to some extent, Gatwick assume a virtual doubling of demand within the next generation. That is clearly conditional on the price. I believe that the model exercise has been done by the Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions. It suggests that if charges were doubled, which is roughly what the hon. Member for North-West Leicestershire (Mr. Taylor) suggested, the demand would be reduced by 15 per cent. below what it otherwise would be. If the full slug of taxes were imposed, and the cost was increased by 50 per cent.—
  Mr. Taylor: I thank the hon. Gentleman for giving way again. Does he agree, at least on the principle of the polluter pays, that there is an argument for taxing aviation fuel? The amount of pollution generated per passenger mile exceeds that of road vehicles. Is not the system inequitable?
  Dr. Cable: It is inequitable, environmentally nonsensical and extreme. We are not considering a minor disparity; motor fuel is taxed at more than 300 per cent., but tax on aviation fuel is zero. That enormous distortion in the market clearly needs correction.
  I shall make a couple of points in conclusion. Charges need to increase to deal with the severe distortions that the current system of regulation creates. There are several methods of doing that and I have suggested some of them. Introducing such measures would be environmentally friendly and economically sensible; it would lead to better use of the airports, for example, by discouraging small airlines from using the airport. That would mean better capacity utilisation. The measures would encourage a better balance between Heathrow, Gatwick and the regional and smaller airports.
  The introduction of such a programme would be contentious and the Government would face severe criticism from some of the affected interests. Recently, Mr. Ayling responded to the suggestion of removing slots from his airline by describing it as
  wrong, irrational, unfair, potentially corrupt and against the public interest.
  I note that Mr. Richard Branson describes the current system in almost exactly the same language. The established interest and the potential new order fiercely contest rights.

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  It would be argued that any system of economic charging would drive business away from Heathrow. The rate of growth could not—and perhaps should not—be sustained. I live in west London, and it could be argued that development around the airport is excessive, not insufficient. One of the main reasons for the enormous problems that local hospitals suffer in recruiting nurses is the competing salaries in the airport-based industries. Unlimited growth around the airport is therefore not an unmixed blessing. Perhaps some restraint on growth through better regulation would be economically beneficial.
  Critics would argue that measures such as those that I advocated would lead to increased fares. They might do that, although fares are largely set in an international market. Any measure that reduced some of the silly fares, which mean that it costs far less to travel to Madrid and Rome than to get to Edinburgh by train, would be welcome. Some of the irrational pricing in the airline market would almost certainly be eliminated by some of the measures that I described.
  I am grateful for the opportunity of introducing the Adjournment debate, and I look forward to the Minister's reply.
  10.43
  The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions (Mr. Keith Hill): I congratulate the hon. Member for Twickenham (Dr. Cable) on obtaining a debate on an important subject, which is acquiring increasing public prominence. I also express my thanks to the hon. Gentleman for his courtesy in giving me advance notice of the key issues that he wished to raise. I shall attempt to address many of them in my response.
  It is especially timely that the hon. Gentleman should raise the subject of airport regulation now. As he knows, my right hon. Friend the Deputy Prime Minister has been leading a review of airport competition, aimed at ensuring that the regulatory and other arrangements in the sector best further the long-term interests of the travelling public. The Government will make a statement on the outcome in due course.
  Let me set out the wider context. In our 1998 White Paper, "A New Deal for Transport", the Government undertook to produce a new airports White Paper, taking a 30 year forward look at the way in which the sector might and should develop, and fully considering the economic, environmental and social implications. Subsequently, the scope was widened to address the whole of air transport policy and thus cover both airports and civil aviation.
  Work is in progress to lay the foundations for that White Paper and we shall consult widely while doing so. At this stage, the Government are ruling nothing in and nothing out, but we have made it clear that that is not an exercise in predict and provide: the scenarios that we are considering include those in which capacity might be lower than the forecast level of demand. In such cases, the management and control of existing infrastructure would assume even greater prominence. Whatever emerges from that work, we have a situation at least in the short term in
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  which demand to use the airports of the south-east is moving towards the point at which capacity will be exhausted.
  The increasing imbalance between supply and demand potentially places airport operators in a strong bargaining position when it comes to negotiating user charges with airlines and other airport users. It is to counter that potential that airports are subject to economic regulation. That requires airports to maintain transparent accounts and to notify their scale of charges to the Civil Aviation Authority each year. The CAA has powers to investigate complaints of abuse of position and to issue conditions to prevent or to provide redress for abuse.
  At four UK airports—Heathrow, Gatwick, Stansted and Manchester—economic regulation takes the form of a cap on user charges. That is set for a five-year period by the CAA, following an investigation by the Competition Commission. That provides downward pressure on charges, while giving the airport an incentive to greater efficiency.
  The hon. Gentleman argues that charges at Heathrow are too low and should be set at, or at least nearer to, market clearing levels. I admit that it is on the face of it odd that user charges should be falling in real terms at airports where demand considerably exceeds supply, but we must bear in mind that aviation is an international business and that the UK is party to a number of international agreements, as well as subject, in some areas, to European law.
  Guidelines for the setting of airport user charges are produced by the International Civil Aviation Organisation, to which the UK is a contracting state. Those guidelines currently start from the principle that charges should be cost related. They state that the calculation of cost should reflect the full cost of providing the airport and its essential ancillary services. They also state that revenue from non-aeronautical airport operations, such as retail and commercial activity, should be taken into account when setting airport charges. That is, as the hon. Gentleman reminded us, the so-called "single till" principle.
  ICAO guidelines provide a basis for the operation of airports and aviation throughout the world. Any decision to depart from them opens the possibility of reciprocal action in other countries. In the case of the UK, the guidelines are given greater weight by the fact that they were used in the preparation of the current bilateral air services agreement between the UK and the United States. We are committed to airport charges that are cost related; at present, we also apply the single till.
  Both the Competition Commission and the CAA will no doubt want to consider the impact of the single till and the ICAO guidelines during the investigation that will precede the setting of a new cap for Heathrow charges. Their preparatory work will start shortly and their freedom of action may be increased by recent developments at ICAO.
  I bring the hon. Gentleman news hot off the press. An ICAO conference in Montreal last week agreed to recommend to the ICAO ruling council that the current guidelines be amended to allow economic principles other than pure cost recovery to be taken into account when setting airport user charges. That may make it easier for charges to be modulated to demand patterns—which in

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  plain English means higher charges at peak times than at others—or to rise to reflect overall demand for use of the airport.
  Mr. David Taylor: Does that new departure allow for the incorporation into the charging regime of a contribution towards the environmental costs that are incurred by people who live in and around airports?
  Mr. Hill: I hope to come to that point in due course. It is important. The hon. Member for Twickenham has already raised it. It is a point very well taken.
  The conference considered the future of the single till. There was widespread agreement that full cross-subsidy of airport user charges from other sources of income may, at some airports, be inappropriate, having regard to local circumstances. The ICAO secretariat is to undertake a study of the implications of injecting more flexibility into the organisation's guidance on the subject. The results are due to be presented to the ICAO council in November. We await that report with interest.
  As the hon. Member for Twickenham said, in addition to airport charges, the allocation of take-off and landing slots is another key component that affects the efficient operation of airports. He will be well aware, I suspect, that that process is governed by European regulation EC 95/93. Where a slot co-ordinator is appointed, the Government approve the appointment, but have no other role in the process. The co-ordinator is charged with acting in an independent, neutral, transparent and non-discriminatory manner when allocating slots to airlines.
  Under the regulation, an airline that holds a slot in one operating season has first claim on it in the next equivalent season and indefinitely thereafter. Slots may be removed from their holder only when the airline fails to use them for at least 80 per cent. of the season. There is no other power of confiscation. At Heathrow, the overwhelming majority of slots are claimed under those grandfather rights. The remainder, together with any newly created ones, are placed in a pool for allocation.
  Although the regulation's purpose was to encourage competition and promote new entry to the market, a CAA study suggests that it has not been successful in that objective and because of the scarcity of slots—particularly peak hour ones at Heathrow—it has proved virtually impossible for a new entrant airline to obtain sufficient slots at suitable times to establish commercially viable services. It has also been difficult for an incumbent to get new slots to start a service—for example, to compete on a route already served by a rival. To develop new services or to increase frequency on an existing one, airlines have had to shuffle the portfolio of slots that they already hold, or reduce or even end other services.
  If the current system is not working well, what are the options for change? Obviously, the most suitable solution for airport users would be enhanced capacity so that there would be no difficulty in getting slots at the time that they want. While the White Paper work is in progress, I have to leave that option to one side. However, assuming
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  continued slot constraints, there are two possible routes: a different regulatory regime—which would, by its nature, have to be more interventionist—or use of the price mechanism. We await European Commission proposals for changes to the regulation. Those are expected later this year, and I cannot pre-empt the Government's response. Much will depend on the overall package proposed by the Commission, but I can consider the options in general terms.
  The basic problem is one of turnover. Incumbents have an indefinite hold over the slots that they have been allocated. The European Commission floated the idea that they should be required to hand back a percentage of slots each operating season so that those could be put in the slot pool and allocated from there, but it was not well received by member states and not pursued, although it remains a possibility. I would rule out direct Government intervention in the allocation process. The important principle of an independent co-ordinator has recently been affirmed by the ICAO at its conference. The Government are not attracted to the concept of ring-fencing slots for particular types of service. That would inhibit airlines' ability to respond to market demand without offering a solution to the real problem.
  If changed regulation has its limits, what of the price mechanism? The possibility of airlines trading slots among themselves has often been mooted. Some operate at Heathrow for reasons of prestige, although they could be accommodated elsewhere in the London airport system, but there is no incentive in the current system for them to surrender their slots. If such airlines could sell their slots in an open market, that would encourage them to think more carefully about the scale and location of their UK operations and enable use of the slots by a carrier that valued them more highly.
  It is common knowledge that airlines already use their ability under the European regulation to swap slots with each other as means of buying and selling on a grey market. That is, of course, imperfect. There is no transparency in the process and it is unlikely to be a mechanism for bringing new entrants into the market. For that reason, it has been argued that trading should be legitimised, with the availability of slots for sale made public and all parties open to bid. It has also been suggested that the traded slots should carry only time limited rights. There are arguments against slot trading that must be taken seriously. It would appear to favour the airlines with the deepest pockets, which would compound the dominance of the big airlines and alliances at a particular airport. However, that trend is already inherent in the airline industry.
  It is sometimes suggested that all slots should be surrendered and sold. That is not possible under the current European regulation, as there is no power of confiscation. Pressure will no doubt be put on the Government to argue for a change to enable that to happen when the European Commission publishes its proposals. One option for moving in that direction might be to auction the pool slots. Most of the existing slots in the pool would carry no significant value, but if newly created ones were subject to auction, that might be a start, particularly if such slots carried only a time-limited right of possession.
  The Government wish to see existing airport infrastructure used in a way that maximises benefit to the travelling public and to the British economy, within the

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  framework of sustainable development and environmental protection. Airport pricing policy and slot allocation are two key areas. We shall take careful account of the points that the hon. Member for Twickenham has made as we respond to the commission and prepare our consultation document on air transport policy.
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  Following the issue of that consultation document, there will be an opportunity for much more debate. I expect that the hon. Gentleman will wish to contribute. We shall welcome and look forward to that.
  Question put and agreed to.
  Adjourned accordingly at four minutes to Eleven o'clock.