Commons Sitting of 8 March 2000

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

  CITY OF LONDON (WARD ELECTIONS) BILL (BY ORDER)
  Order for further consideration, as amended, read.
  To be considered further on Wednesday 15 March.

Oral Answers to Questions
  CABINET OFFICE
  The Minister was asked—

  Public Appointments
  Mr. David Amess: What recent representations she has received on the criteria used for making public appointments. [112254]
  The Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office (Mr. Graham Stringer): My right hon. Friend occasionally receives representations on the matter. To my knowledge, she has received no such representations in the past six months.
  Mr. Amess: Will the Minister confirm that there is no political bias whatsoever in health authority appointments? If there is no such bias, will he explain to the House why, when Southend primary care trust was established against doctors' wishes, we were presented with a choice between two Labour activists to serve on the trust, and that the Labour activist who was appointed happened to be the chairman of South Essex health authority, which had been the subject of a critical report? Will the Minister also explain why the Government have allowed Thurrock community trust to take over the Southend trust—again allowing the appointment of a chairman who suits the Government's agenda?
  Mr. Stringer: I can confirm that appointments to NHS bodies are made solely on merit. I find the hon. Gentleman's comments absolutely astonishing. He is a representative of the Conservative party whose spokesperson said, when it was in government, that she had never knowingly appointed a Labour person to any body. That is one reason why we have a transparent system and people are appointed on merit.
  Mr. Steve McCabe: Will my hon. Friend also confirm that one of the substantial
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  differences in appointments to public bodies under this Administration is the significant increase in the number of women and people from ethnic minority backgrounds who are now represented on such bodies?
  Mr. Stringer: I thank my hon. Friend for that question. I can confirm that, at present, 50 per cent. of the new appointments to non-departmental public bodies are women. That has led to an increase in the proportion of women on all bodies from 34 to 39 per cent. The number of people from ethnic minority communities who are being appointed is now at 12.5 per cent. of all appointments. That means that, in the total composition of the bodies, their number has gone up from 4.7 to 8.5 per cent. That is in line with the Government's commitment to increase the diversity on non-departmental public bodies.
  Mrs. Virginia Bottomley: I listened to the Minister's comments, but was there anything in the Nolan report that criticised the process of selection and appointment to health bodies?
  Mr. Stringer: I assume that the right hon. Lady refers to the latest Neill report. Under the previous system, independent assessors were not within the remit of the Commissioner for Public Appointments. In future, independent assessors, who were not part of the Nolan procedures, will come under the guidance of Dame Rennie Fritchie.

  Anti-drugs Strategy
  Dr. Brian Iddon: What role the drug action teams are playing in the delivery of the Government's anti-drug strategy. [112256]
  The Minister of State, Cabinet Office (Mr. Ian McCartney): Drug action teams have a crucial role in the delivery of the national drugs strategy. They consist of agencies, such as probation, health, education, police authorities and local authorities, and they are the main mechanisms for delivery on the ground.
  All drug action teams are required to plan and deliver an effective programme of anti-drug activities in their area that is in line with the national strategy.
  Dr. Iddon: In the Bolton drug action team area, the community drug team has been hitting a target of four weeks waiting lists. Unfortunately, the waiting list has increased to six weeks because of a difficulty in recruiting staff, and, of course, waiting times in other DAT areas are much longer. What are the Government doing to ensure that more trained staff are made available, especially in view of the new demand expected from arrest referral schemes?
  Mr. McCartney: This week, advertisements will be placed in a range of the press in Britain for applications to be made for the 300 new personnel to work at a local level. In addition to that, my hon. Friend's borough, Bolton, has benefited from an allocation of resources for the new arrest referral schemes. A total of £20 million has been allocated nationally and £1.3 million has been allocated for Greater Manchester. A range of schemes is

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  also in place, including an aftercare programme in Bolton, for those who need to reintegrate into the community as they recover from drugs misuse.
  Rev. Martin Smyth: Does the Minister agree that politics should not be involved in dealing with such a pernicious scourge to the nation? Is it not strange that a Minister in the Northern Ireland Executive was not prepared to preside over a meeting of agencies because the Royal Ulster Constabulary, which has done such a splendid job in dealing with drugs misuse, was present?
  Mr. McCartney: The hon. Gentleman is right about the need for a non-partisan, non-political approach. I say that each time I come to the Dispatch Box both at Question Time and in Adjournment debates. I concur with that.
  In relation to Northern Ireland, it is our job to encourage all UK agencies to co-operate with the police, the health and probation services, community groups, local authorities and parent organisations to ensure that we have a co-ordinated approach in the prevention of drug misuse and to bring to justice, and have jailed, those who sell drugs to our young people.
  Mrs. Ann Winterton: The Opposition welcome the apparent fall in the number of young people taking drugs following the successful foundation of drug action teams, which were a primary feature of the White Paper, "Tackling Drugs Together", introduced by the then Leader of the House, Tony Newton, who is now in the other place. Will the Minister confirm that, while that trend is encouraging, there must be no let up in drug prevention efforts? Will he outline what action is being taken to support drug action teams in the nationwide introduction later this year of drug treatment and testing orders?
  Mr. McCartney: I, too, welcome the figures from Exeter university, but we should be cautious because much more needs to be done. However, they are another welcome sign that the 10-year strategy is beginning to bear fruit. We must now build on the clear indication that, although young people are more likely to be approached about drugs, there is a growing awareness among them about the dangers of drug abuse, which should be welcomed by all. We shall shortly make an announcement about measures to ensure that each drug action team correlates with its local authority area, and we shall be making decisions about cross-cutting and funding, which I think the hon. Lady will find satisfactory and will support.
  I make this commitment to the hon. Lady: drug action teams are at the heart of our planning and decision making to ensure that the referral schemes are successful. I invite the hon. Lady to meet me to discuss our decisions on funding and cross-cutting issues.

  Business and Civil Service Secondments
  Sir Sydney Chapman: If she will make a statement on progress in temporary secondments of (a) people from business and industry to Government Departments and (b) civil servants to business and industry. [112257]
  The Minister for the Cabinet Office (Marjorie Mowlam): The "Modernising Government" White Paper and Sir Richard Wilson's recent report to the Prime Minister on civil service reform made it clear that the Government are keen to promote the exchange of people and good practice between the civil service and other organisations. Such opportunities can take many forms, ranging from temporary secondments, to short-term attachments, to job sharing and joint training.
  Sir Sydney Chapman: Will the right hon. Lady confirm that the initiative has been gathering pace year on year since at least the mid-1980s? In accepting that the country can benefit from the exchange of ideas and experience between business and the civil service, will she consider the possibility of making it the practice that civil servants above a certain grade should be seconded, as a sabbatical, to industry or business, if not for a year every seven years, at least for three months?
  Marjorie Mowlam: The scheme has been running since the 1970s and recently we have done what we can to expand it because there is no doubt about the advantages that it brings in terms of the exchange of ideas, creativity and a learning process from which all can benefit. We have recently tried to expand it beyond the business community, which has been the focus of the scheme since the 1970s, to include all groups represented in the community, such as the voluntary sector and trade unions, so that there is a greater exchange of ideas and practices between bodies across our communities.
  The idea of a sabbatical has potential and I shall consider it, but, at the moment, we are considering inequalities in funding between exchanges which limit many in the voluntary sector from benefiting from such a scheme. However, we shall include the idea in our consideration of the expansion of the programme.
  Mr. Peter L. Pike: Does my right hon. Friend agree that our manufacturing sector still has a great role to play in the creation of wealth, even though that was not accepted in the Thatcher era? Is not it important to ensure that there are more secondments in that area so that civil servants understand the problems facing manufacturing industry?
  Marjorie Mowlam: There is no doubt that manufacturing industry did an enormous amount for this country in the 1970s and we owe it a great debt. We will benefit from exchanges in the manufacturing, retail and voluntary sectors, because only through the exchange of ideas is progress made. The numbers are increasing in business and the voluntary sector, and trade unions have made an important contribution, with discussions between the National Audit Office and the Trades Union Congress about the possibility of exchanges. We look forward to further progress. I concur with my hon. Friend's sentiments.
  Mr. Andrew Lansley: Will the Minister ensure that when there are secondments or short-term contracts for appointments in the civil service,

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  the question of compromising the duty under "Questions of Procedure for Ministers" that public resources should not be used for party political purposes will never arise?
  Marjorie Mowlam: I am not sure what that has to do with secondments, but I can assure the hon. Gentleman that public resources are not used for political purposes, as has been made clear time and again from the Dispatch Box.
  Mr. Lansley: How then can the Minister reconcile that duty with the appointment of Mr. Joe McCrea, who was for eight years special adviser to the right hon. Member for Holborn and St. Pancras (Mr. Dobson) as the head of the so-called knowledge network inside the Cabinet Office? Will she undertake to ensure that in that role and with his responsibility for other permanent civil servants he will play absolutely no part in the London mayoral election campaign? Will she ensure that no material produced by that unit in the Cabinet Office will be used in that campaign, or that if London material is produced it is all published on the internet between now and 4 May?
  Marjorie Mowlam: All the work done in that unit will be put on the net so there will be no question of work being done that even the hon. Gentleman will not see. Whatever individuals' past may be, and whatever political party or business they may have been involved in, we will work by the recruitment procedures outlined in the Civil Service Commissioner's recruitment code: for secondments of more than 12 months, there has to be a field of candidates; all secondees are told that they are subject to the Official Secrets Act; all secondees are required to observe the civil service management code, including the code of confidentiality; and consideration will be given to any potential conflicts of interest, and if there is any suspicion of such a conflict, the secondment will be abandoned.

  Performance and Innovation Unit
  Mr. Christopher Chope: What action she has taken, pursuant to the report of the performance and innovation unit about cross-cutting in Government. [112258]
  The Minister for the Cabinet Office (Marjorie Mowlam): Action is being taken on the report, "Wiring it up: Accountability and Incentives for Joined-up Government", and implementation will be monitored by the modernising government project board, chaired by the permanent secretary in the Cabinet Office. My right hon. Friend the Chief Secretary to the Treasury and I will report on progress across the whole broad front early next year.
  Mr. Chope: Does not last week's shambles over Mozambique expose the whole myth of joined-up government? Over two days, two Departments were arguing over £2 million at the same time as the Government were announcing that they had spent £92 million of taxpayers' money on their own advertising
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  last year. Does the Minister agree with the conclusion of the leading article in The Times on Saturday, which says:
  This clash of budgets and egos cost lives that speed could have saved …The No. 10 boast of fast delivery rings hollow.?
  Marjorie Mowlam: No, I disagree, for the simple reason that the Government have succeeded in doing more, faster, than any other in terms of giving aid to Mozambique, getting real help to the people there. The most important thing was to get the most help possible to the people who needed it quickly. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for International Development made it clear from the start that we could get more help quickly to the people in the region by using helicopters hired in the region. Subsequently, further help has been dispatched, and the detail has been in the papers about what we have done in water purification, sanitation and temporary housing. The reality is the exact opposite of what the hon. Gentleman has said. We have delivered real help in a pragmatic, practical way.
  I am not ashamed of what we spent on advertising. We have advertised policies that will make a difference to people's lives and we want to ensure that people know what is happening so that they can benefit.
  Mr. Hilton Dawson: Does my right hon. Friend agree that her visit to the glorious city of Lancaster only a couple of weeks ago was the epitome of joined-up government, because she met people who are bringing excellent education, health and economic development policies to bear on most socially excluded communities in the city, in line with excellent Government policies to reduce unemployment? All that is aiding the city enormously.
  Marjorie Mowlam: It was an enjoyable visit to Lancaster, not least because it showed that when a community buys into the changes that have been proposed—I met people from the business community and the voluntary sector, local politicians and trade unionists to see how best the policies could be implemented—it has a real chance of succeeding.

  Civil Service (Disabled People)
  Mr. Desmond Browne: If she will make a statement on the progress being made in the achievement of civil service recruitment targets for people with disabilities. [112260]
  The Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office (Mr. Graham Stringer): The Government are determined to tackle the under-representation of disabled people in the whole civil service. To that end, the Government have set a target to have people with disabilities comprising 3 per cent of the senior civil service by 2005.
  Mr. Browne: I thank my hon. Friend for that reply and I welcome the fact that a target of doubling the number of people with disabilities in the senior civil service has been set for the next five years. To my knowledge, there are no senior civil servants based in my constituency, but there are civil servants, and people with disabilities are conspicuous by their absence from their ranks. Does my hon. Friend agree that more needs to be done to increase

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  the proportion of people with disabilities at all levels in the civil service? Can he give an indication of when the commitment to require Departments to set targets at all levels, which was set out in chapter 6, paragraph 25 of the White Paper, will be achieved?
  Mr. Stringer: I agree with my hon. Friend that we need to improve the representation of disabled people throughout the civil service. At present, all Departments and the lower echelons of the civil service are setting targets that will be achievable by those Departments, and those targets will be made public in the near future. To encourage a positive attitude to people with disabilities, the Government are supporting the two ticks symbol, which has been awarded to the Cabinet Office today.
  Mr. John Bercow: Given that sufferers from multiple sclerosis are today staging an important rally in Parliament, backed by—among others—the all-party group on the subject, will the Minister take this opportunity to confirm that the victims of that appalling degenerative disease will invariably find Government Departments to be model employers?
  Mr. Stringer: The hon. Gentleman makes an important point. I can confirm that there is no sense in the Government setting targets for disabled people within Departments without having the will and the money to adapt offices and machinery to enable disabled people to work there. That certainly applies to people who are suffering from multiple sclerosis.
  Mr. Tom Clarke: Will my hon. Friend consult the Disability Rights Commission, whose presence we all welcome, for practical advice on issues such as hearing loops, Braille and physical access? Will he seek to ensure that Government Departments become a beacon for best practice for the whole of British industry and commerce, in both the private and public sectors?
  Mr. Stringer: I agree with my right hon. Friend that the Government should be a model employer to set an example to the whole employment sector. There is often much good will towards people with disabilities, but employers do not always know how to make it possible for people with disabilities to enter the work force.
  Although the Disability Rights Commission will not be up and running until 1 April, we shall certainly be taking advice about adaptations, as my right hon. Friend suggests.

  Correspondence
  Mr. Ian Bruce: What progress is being made on reducing the time taken by Ministers to respond to hon. Members' letters. [112261]
  The Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office (Mr. Graham Stringer): The Government are determined to improve the response time to letters from hon. Members. We are making steady progress to that
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  end. Within the next month, a table will be published that compares the timing of departmental replies against the targets set for each Department.
  Mr. Bruce: The Minister will know that every table on the subject published by the Government shows that things are going backwards, not forwards. I am sure that every hon. Member will recognise the example that I shall give. A Mr. Newsham of Weymouth wrote to me on 9 January 1999. I sent a two-page letter off to him on 11 January, and I also sent a copy to the Minister, which was acknowledged on 14 January. A delegation—
  Madam Speaker: Order. That is enough of the example. The hon. Gentleman should now ask the Minister how long it took to reply to the letter. That is the bottom line.
  Mr. Bruce: The target is 20 days for a reply, but in this case we are at 424 days, and counting. When will the Government do something about a reply?
  Mr. Stringer: If the letter is as long as the question, it is probably still being read. The hon. Gentleman said that matters are going backwards. I think that he will be pleasantly surprised when he sees the tables to be published later this year. I think that he will be pleased at the progress being made.
  Mr. Paul Tyler: I am sure that the Minister will accept that hon. Members of all parties have similar horror stories, and I shall not quote another to him. However, does he accept that being encouraged to table parliamentary questions is not a satisfactory alternative when the delays in answers to letters are so long? Hon. Members are put in an invidious position. I have figures showing the number of written questions on a named date that are answered in time. Responses are getting distressingly late. Although only a third of Cabinet Office responses are late, the figure is two thirds for both the Treasury and the Department of Trade and Industry.
  Does the Minister accept that, although some Departments have made some improvements, the general position is deteriorating?
  Mr. Stringer: I do not accept that the general position is deteriorating. In fact, it is improving. However, I agree that the targets set by the Government are not being met at present. The Government are doing everything possible to improve response times.

  Social Exclusion
  Mr. Neil Turner: What progress has been made in implementing the reports of the social exclusion unit. [112262]
  The Minister for the Cabinet Office (Marjorie Mowlam): I can confirm that good progress is being made towards achieving the Government's targets on the four reports that have been published by the social exclusion unit. Those reports were "School Truancy and Exclusion", published in May 1998, "Rough Sleeping",

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  published in July 1998, "Teenage Pregnancy", published in June 1999, and "Bridging the Gap", published in July 1999.
  A draft report for consultation, on the national strategy for neighbourhood renewal, is due to be launched in early April.
  Mr. Turner: I thank my right hon. Friend for that reply, and I am sure that we all look forward to the report coming out in April. However, does she accept that strategies by themselves are not enough, and that what is needed is action on the ground to deliver services? In particular, does she agree that, to deliver those strategies, we need the required investment, and the involvement with local communities of all levels of government?
  Marjorie Mowlam: I agree very much with my hon. Friend. Change is effective only when people have ownership of it. That is why the new deal for communities is a key element in neighbourhood renewal. It will provide £800 million over the next three years to ensure that the pathfinder projects are in place. If communities buy into those projects, we will have a much better chance of achieving good success.
  Dr. Julian Lewis: Will the social exclusion unit be turning its attention to the plight of the hon. Member for Brent, East (Mr. Livingstone), who has now been excluded from the Labour party, or to the plight of the right hon. Member for Holborn and St. Pancras (Mr. Dobson), who is increasingly excluded from any possibility of getting Labour votes?
  Marjorie Mowlam: Neither.

  The Prime Minister was asked—
  PRIME MINISTER

    Engagements
    Mrs. Helen Brinton: If he will list his official engagements for Wednesday 8 March.
    The Prime Minister (Mr. Tony Blair): This morning, I had meetings with ministerial colleagues and others. In addition to my duties in the House, I shall be having further such meetings later today.
    Mrs. Brinton: Is the Prime Minister aware that one of the first 19 health service walk-in centres opens in my constituency on 10 April? Furthermore, will he take this opportunity to agree that such town and city health centre provision not only helps make health care more accessible but is a very good first step towards reducing health inequality?
    The Prime Minister: National health walk-in centres are a very important innovation in making the health service more accessible to people. It is all part, of course, of the extra money that we are putting into the health service. We are going to build on the success this week of the 2,000 nurse recruitment campaign which was launched last week. It will become a permanent feature of
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    the national health service. I can tell the House that, as at noon today, almost 15,000 calls had been taken by the national health service careers line from nurses who want to work in the national health service.
    Mr. William Hague: Will the Prime Minister give the latest figures for the fall in police numbers in London and the rise in street crime in London since he took office?
    The Prime Minister: The strength of the Metropolitan police fell by more than 2,000 between 1993 and 1998. It is correct that there has been another slight fall between then and now, but I am pleased to say that the Metropolitan police force has been allocated additional funds from the crime fighting fund which will enable it to recruit some 1,100 new officers over the next three years.
    Mr. Hague: The actual fall in the number of police officers in London is 792 since the right hon. Gentleman took office. Police numbers rose by 16,000 under the previous Government. Metropolitan police studies show street crime up by 50 per cent. It does not take a genius to work out the link between the two. Was not the hon. Member for Brent, East (Mr. Livingstone) right for once when he said:
    The real deterrent to crime is police on the streets, and we have less police on the streets today than the day Labour was elected.
    And he knows, because he has had something stolen from him. Will the Prime Minister now give us the forecast change in the number of officers in the Metropolitan police force for the next three years?
    The Prime Minister: I have just said it. As a result of the funds from the crime fighting fund, we can now recruit an extra 1,100 officers. As for the quotation from my hon. Friend the Member for Brent, East (Mr. Livingstone), it is pretty obvious whom the Conservative party is supporting, and it is not its own candidate.
    Mr. Hague: It is pretty obvious that the Prime Minister is not even able to give a factual answer to a factual question. He should have another look in his folder—this is not under F for falsehoods but under D for disasters.
    The actual numbers were given by the Home Secretary in parliamentary answers last month. Some 2,800 officers will be joining the police force in London in the next three years and 3,900 will be leaving. That is the Home Secretary's own expectation. Burglary in London is up by 5 per cent., car crime is up by 9 per cent., street crime is up by 50 per cent. and ballot rigging is up by 100 per cent. Is not this appalling situation the direct responsibility of a Prime Minister who is, yet again, all mouth and no delivery?
    The Prime Minister: First, let me correct the right hon. Gentleman on the numbers when he was a member of the Conservative Government: police numbers fell rather than rose, and crime in London doubled during the time of that Government. It is correct that without the additional funding we would not be able to recruit additional officers, but the right hon. Gentleman's party is opposed to that extra funding. As for crime and street crime, his party is opposed to the tough measures on drug offending that this party is introducing in the teeth of Conservatives'

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    opposition. If his party were to support the Bill that the House considered last night, we would have an extra £120 million to fight crime and recruit police officers, but he prefers to spend it on lawyers instead.
    Mr. Ian Cawsey: Will my right hon. Friend update the House on his plans to meet farmers' leaders? When he does, will he give special attention to the unsubsidised pig and poultry sector? The sector's high-quality standards, such as those at Premier Poultry and many pig farms in my constituency, are being undermined by the strong pound and the cost of BSE precautions.
    The Prime Minister: Of course the pig farming industry is in serious crisis, and there are a number of problems, not the least of which are BSE-related costs. Another problem is the additional cost of high animal welfare standards: for example, pig tethering. That was introduced in a Conservative private Member's Bill. It was a perfectly justifiable measure; but when we hear that the Leader of the Opposition is going to the National Farmers Union complaining about BSE costs when his lot gave us BSE, and complaining about pig tethering when he voted for it, we know where true hypocrisy lies.
    I am meeting the farming industry. We are going to sit down and work out a short-term plan to get the industry through its immense short-term difficulties and a long-term plan so that we do not carry on simply giving out more subsidy without its being tied to a proper strategy for the future.
    Mr. Charles Kennedy: Is not the fair conclusion to draw from the events of the past few days that far from the Prime Minister being a control freak, he is in fact a control failure? The Leader of the Opposition asks him which of the candidates for London mayor he supports. Assuming that the Prime Minister is supporting the Labour candidate, to whom is he inclined to give his second preference vote?
    The Prime Minister: As I am confident that we will be winning the campaign, we do not have to offer a second vote to anybody.
    Mr. Kennedy: It is a sure sign that a Government are on the skids when they start to ignore the opinion polls. Will the Prime Minister acknowledge that both the Labour candidate and the independent candidate voted in the Division Lobby for the Government's plans for the tube, and that Steve Norris, the Conservative candidate, has expressed some sympathy with them? Now that we are on to the issues of the election, is it not fair for Londoners to conclude that if they want a bond issue and a continuing legitimate public stake in a modernised tube, the only candidate who has put that forward is the Liberal Democrat, Susan Kramer?
    The Prime Minister: To be blunt, I do not think that the opinion polls are particularly in favour of anyone on either side of the House. On the public-private partnership, surely the best plan is to get the private sector to do the construction work and the public sector to run
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    the trains and be responsible for safety. That is why the PPP is sensible, and I could not put it better than this:
    The Docklands Light Railway Extension, financed through a public-private partnership, was completed early with no cost overrun. That shows that PPP can work.
    That was my candidate in the London elections.
    The alternative is what Norris, the Conservative candidate, was in charge of during the four years he was Minister of Transport in London—the Jubilee line, which had an £1.5 billion overrun and was two years late. Only the Liberal Democrats could be silly enough now to be supporting it.
    Lorna Fitzsimons: I am sure that you, Madam Speaker, and my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister are aware that today is international women's day; I trust that all hon. Members will join me in celebrating the contribution of all women to our societies, communities and families. Will my right hon. Friend welcome today's target, published by the women's unit and Ministers for Women, of 50 per cent. representation of women in public life? Does he agree with the comment of the chairman of Unilever that any woman who has brought up any children is one of the most experienced project managers? Is he surprised, therefore, that the Opposition's document "Clear Blue Water" suggests scrapping the Sex Discrimination Act 1975, the Equal Opportunities Commission and all other fair pay provisions? Is that not utterly out of step with today's society?
    The Prime Minister: What I heard of my hon. Friend's question, I agree with. She is absolutely right. One thing that has of course changed is that, whereas there were only 19 women in Parliament in 1979, today there are 121, of whom 101 are Labour. We recognise, as others do, that there is still a long way to go, and we intend to get there.
    Mr. Crispin Blunt: Why are the people of Reigate and Banstead and their elected councillors unfit to decide how many new houses should be built in their borough?
    The Prime Minister: It is not that they are unfit to do that. We must respond, under normal procedure, to the plans that have been put forward—both the Serplan and the independent consultants'. The Deputy Prime Minister's statement was a very sensible way through, which allows us to increase brownfield building. It makes allowances for the fact that we are to have more housing in the south-east, but does so in a sensible way that allows us to match and monitor it as years progress.
    It does no good for Conservative Members to think that, if they were in government, they would be coming up with a solution that entailed no new homes in the south-east. It would not be like that at all. We must balance the need for more homes with the need to protect our countryside, and I think that the Deputy Prime Minister has achieved that balance.
    Mr. Phil Sawford: Would my right hon. Friend consider a visit to Rothwell, in my constituency? Is he aware that, following 18 years of government by the Conservative party, it was possible for children in that

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    town to spend their entire school life in a mobile classroom? By the end of this year, however, owing to the policies of this Government, no children in that town will be taught in a mobile classroom.
    The Prime Minister: More than 300,000 five, six and seven-year-olds are in classes of under 30, and as a result of the new deal money, thousands of schools have had the additional classrooms that they need. There are still, however, schools that require more work, and we hope to get there as soon as we possibly can.
    Mr. David Heath: To return to health, is the Prime Minister aware that waiting lists in the south-west are now worse than on the day he was elected? Does he know that one cannot get an NHS dentist for love or money? Does he know that there are fully equipped wards, such as one in the Verrington hospital in my constituency, which have been closed since Christmas because they cannot get staff? Does he realise that people believe what they see and not what he tells them? Is it not time for a Budget that forgets the spin and is squarely aimed at putting the NHS back on its feet?
    The Prime Minister: Let the hon. Gentleman not pretend that the Liberal Democrats could fund all the promises that they make on schools, hospitals, pensions, local government, industry and whatever comes into their minds from a 1p increase in taxation, because that is not true. Yes, there are hospitals that need more nurses and staff. That is why we have launched the recruitment campaign and why there are now 4,500 more nurses and midwives in the health service than when we took office. Latest figures show an 80 per cent. increase in those registering for training. Over the next few years, as those recruits come through, there will still be wards that need more nurses, but nurses are being trained, they will get there and the health service will be rebuilt.
    Mr. David Crausby: Although the threat of drowning has receded for the people of Mozambique, the dangers of starvation and economic instability certainly have not. Will my right hon. Friend assure me that this Government will do all in their power to alleviate those longer-term problems and urgently consider the cancellation of Mozambique's debt?
    The Prime Minister: Of course, the Chancellor has given the commitment to 100 per cent. cancellation of the Mozambique debt. The lead that he has given on debt relief throughout the developing world is appreciated in that part of the world. In respect of Mozambique, we have acted more quickly and given more than probably any other country—not only £8 million in direct emergency aid, but more assistance. Both the United Nations emergency co-ordinator, Ross Mountain, and President Chissano of Mozambique, have paid tribute to this country's efforts. However, I should like to pay tribute to our service people and aid workers who have performed heroically in difficult and harrowing circumstances.
    Mr. William Hague: When the Deputy Prime Minister told the Financial Times yesterday that he was not a fan of directly elected mayors, was he making a statement of Government policy?
    The Prime Minister: I think that that is hardly news, but my right hon. Friend is perfectly entitled to his view. However, I believe that a directly elected mayor for London is the right course.
    Mr. Hague: First, will the right hon. Gentleman remind the Deputy Prime Minister, who says that he is not a fan of the idea, that he is introducing the Bill bringing it in? [Interruption.] Well, at least he now knows that he is introducing that Bill. Secondly, before we set up more devolved institutions and positions, has the Prime Minister learned the lesson that it is totally pointless and ultimately self-defeating for the selections and elections to those positions to be rigged, manipulated and dictated from No. 10 Downing street?
    The Prime Minister: We are the Government who have, in accordance with our manifesto commitment, given people the vote back in London. The right hon. Gentleman supported the party that took the vote away from them. As for procedures in the Labour party, I will be responsible for those, because I believe in being responsible for my party. It is completely pathetic that the right hon. Gentleman, as Leader of the Opposition—leader of the Conservative party—is driven, first, to support Lord Archer; then, when he cannot get Lord Archer, Mr. Norris; and, now that he cannot get Mr. Norris elected, Ken Livingstone. What a comment on his leadership of the Conservative party.
    Mr. Hague: What a comment on the right hon. Gentleman's leadership that he has obviously learned nothing from what has happened. Only a Prime Minister of breathtaking arrogance could have learned nothing from what has happened. He imposed on Wales a First Secretary whom nobody wanted in the job, including the First Secretary himself. He has imposed a stooge candidate in London, then tried to deny free post to candidates so that he can impose the stooge candidate on everybody else. Now we hear claims that Lord Rodgers, the Liberal leader in the House of Lords, was offered more Liberal peers in return for a pledge of good behaviour. Are not the Government creating a rotten political culture of cronyism and rigging? Does not the responsibility for that rest with the Prime Minister?
    The Prime Minister: Oh, I see—having backed the independent candidate for London mayor, the right hon. Gentleman is now backing the Liberal Democrats in the House of Lords. May I point out the figures? The previous Prime Minister gave the Liberal Democrats 13 peers in seven years. I have given them 24 in two and half years—what generosity.
    Mr. Charles Kennedy: More, more.
    The Prime Minister: I know they want more. The thing about the Liberal Democrats is that they always want more.

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    As for democracy, we have given the Scots a Parliament and the Welsh devolution; the Leader of the Opposition opposed that—[HON. MEMBERS: "We?"] Yes, we, the Labour Government, have given them democracy. We have given people back the vote in London that the Conservatives took away. Who are the democrats? The ones who scrapped the Greater London council and took away the vote, the ones who refused devolution in Scotland and Wales, the ones who never introduced change in the House of Lords—or the ones who have made our constitution fit for the 21st century?
    Ms Claire Ward: Is my right hon. Friend aware that today is national no smoking day? It encourages people to quit smoking and is supported by many national newspapers and the BBC. Does he agree that the most important priority is to stop children starting to smoke, as more than 500 under-age boys and girls every day take their first puff? By the age of 20, more than half of them will be hooked. Does my right hon. Friend have a plan?
    The Prime Minister: As someone who gave up smoking, I thoroughly applaud national no smoking day. Smoking causes some 46,000 cancer deaths a year, and more than 120,000 people a year in the UK die from smoking-related causes. Smoking costs the national health service £1.5 billion a year, which is the equivalent of 15 new hospitals. When we rebuild the health service, it is important that we also take the measures on prevention and public health care which allow us to put the resources into the health service where they are really needed.
    Mr. Stephen Day: On 5 December 1999, the Prime Minister said that the north-south divide did not exist. Yesterday he denied that he had said that, and claimed that it did exist. That is par for the course for the Prime Minister. If he had spent more time in Sedgefield and less in Chequers and Islington, where he no doubt spends his time seeking ways to do over members of his party who have the courage to disagree with him, he might have come to that fairly obvious conclusion somewhat earlier.
    The Prime Minister: The premise of the hon. Gentleman's question is wrong. When I issued the north-south report—[Interruption.] When was I last in Sedgefield? Last weekend. As for the premise of the hon. Gentleman's question, it is wrong. I did not say that the north-south divide did not exist. I said that the disparities within a region are as great as, if not greater than, the disparities between regions.
    In respect of the region that the hon. Gentleman represents, what would a Government who cared about such matters do? They would introduce the new deal for the unemployed, because the region contains areas of high unemployment. What did the hon. Gentleman do? He opposed the new deal. Such a Government would introduce the working families—[Interruption.] No, the hon. Gentleman will have to listen now. Such a Government would introduce the working families tax credit for low income families, to make work pay. What did the hon. Gentleman do? He opposed the working families tax credit.
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    We introduced the development agency for the north-west that allowed us to bring in business investment. What did the hon. Gentleman do? He is committed to scrapping the north-west development agency. Finally, we introduced the minimum wage for low-paid workers and he opposed it.
    Mr. Tam Dalyell: On Monday night, some 5 million or 6 million of our fellow citizens watched a programme produced by John Pilger, showing horrendous scenes of what was happening in Iraq. Can we be happy to pursue a policy for nine years that has such an effect?
    The Prime Minister: No, we cannot be happy to pursue such a policy at all. We are not happy to pursue it, but the way to get the sanctions lifted is for Saddam Hussein and his regime in Iraq to come into line with UN resolutions, and stop trying to develop weapons of mass destruction.
    This Government have taken the lead in the United Nations in trying to find a better method of ensuring that food and medicine get through to the Iraqi people. The opportunity exists for Saddam Hussein to feed his people and to provide them with medicines. He has billions of oil dollars that he could use for that purpose, but he does not. He uses the money to prop up his regime, and spends it on weapons of mass destruction.
    If my hon. Friend wants to help the people in Iraq, I urge him, as I have urged him often, to help put pressure on the Iraqi regime and Saddam Hussein to fulfil their humanitarian obligations. The way to end sanctions is for them to come into line with the United Nations resolutions. If they do that, no one will be more pleased than the Government.
    Sir Archie Hamilton: Now that the Deputy Chief Whip has joined the ranks of Labour Members who send their children to selective schools, will the Government drop their ideological hostility to selection?
    The Prime Minister: People are perfectly entitled to send their children to whatever school they wish. However, if they send their children to selective schools, the taxpayer should not subsidise them. The difference between us and the Conservative party is that the Conservative party would reintroduce the assisted places scheme. That would mean that, for the sake of a few children who are able to get into a private school, hundreds of thousands of kids in primary schools would be in larger classes. People are entitled to spend their money however they wish, but the state should spend its money on state schools.
    Mr. Nigel Griffiths: When every Member of Parliament has young constituents whose lives are blighted by drugs, will my right hon. Friend applaud the initiative taken in Scotland, and will he give a positive lead in Europe to fight the scourge that blights so many lives and knows no national boundaries?
    The Prime Minister: I agree with my hon. Friend entirely and I welcome the drug enforcement agency in Scotland. It plays a major part in Scotland's fight against

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    drugs. As my hon. Friend knows, it is vital that the United Kingdom work together on the matter. When I speak to the Scottish Parliament tomorrow, I shall set out the ideas that we have been developing with Keith Hellawell, who is in charge of the Government's drugs programme, to take forward the war on drugs on an international level to deal with drug dealers and break the drug chain.
    As the European Union enlarges, such co-operation will become increasingly important. Scotland needs to work with England in the United Kingdom, the United Kingdom needs to work with Europe and Europe needs to work with the rest of the world.
    Mrs. Virginia Bottomley: In a prosperous country with a modern health service, it is unacceptable for people who have seen a consultant to wait more than a year for treatment. The Prime Minister knows that since he took over stewardship of the health service, the percentage of people who wait more than a year has doubled. My constituents were mesmerised by the Prime Minister speaking on the Frost programme and on "Newsnight", because one in 10 of them has to wait more than a year for treatment, yet in the Prime Minister's constituency, the figure is only one in 100. People who live in TS21 or 28 receive over £115 more for their health care than people who live in GU7 or 8—[Interruption.]
    Madam Speaker: Order. The right hon. Lady must put her question.
    Mrs. Bottomley: Does such a system put an end to the lottery of care or tackle inequalities?
    The Prime Minister: The right hon. Lady certainly gets the award for brass neck, given her stewardship of the health service. Yes, we want to reduce waiting lists. Waiting lists and waiting times have been reduced, but they have much further to fall. The only way to reduce them and keep them down is through additional investment in the national health service.
    Mrs. Bottomley indicated dissent.
    The Prime Minister: She may shake her head, but it is true. We need more resources, and change and modernisation in the health service. The Labour party is committed to that; the Conservative party is committed to cancelling it.
    Mr. David Winnick: Is it not unfortunate that the person who made the programme that
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    has been mentioned and which was broadcast on Monday night minimised the responsibility of the criminal dictator of Iraq for the suffering of the people there? In acknowledging the necessity for sanctions, is it not important to try to find ways in which to assist the children who urgently need medicine, while bearing it in mind that the criminal dictator has never shown the slightest interest in the people who live in that country?
    The Prime Minister: My hon. Friend is absolutely right. If Saddam Hussein co-operated with United Nations resolutions, money could go into Iraq to feed his country; the sanctions would be lifted and there would be no difficulty. However, he refuses to co-operate with the inspectors of weapons of mass destruction or to get money to his people through the oil for food regime. It is a tragedy; what is happening in Iraq to children and their families is terrible, but the answer is to ensure that Saddam Hussein comes back in line with international law. If he does not, the money will go to him, not to families in Iraq. It will be spent on weapons of mass destruction and we will be back where we were a few years ago.
    Instead of producing a programme that presented only one point of view, the makers of Monday night's programme should understand that the international community is desperate to get help to families in Iraq, but that we cannot do it at the expense of allowing Saddam Hussein to develop weapons of mass destruction.
    Mr. James Paice: Does the Prime Minister recall coming to Cambridge during the election campaign and promising to reform the area cost adjustment, bearing in mind the fact that next year Cambridgeshire will spend £4.7 million above its education standard spending assessment and £8.4 million above its social services SSA to maintain current expenditure? It is absolutely clear that there will be no change in the formula this year, so what is his excuse for that broken promise?
    The Prime Minister: The area cost adjustment was the system that Conservative Members were perfectly happy to support for 18 years, but now we are getting extra money into social services, extra money into education and extra money into local authorities and health. I remind the hon. Gentleman, as I remind every Conservative Member present, that they oppose that additional investment and the extra spending—they call it reckless and irresponsible. With typical Tory opportunism, they call for tax cuts and more spending at the same time. There is only one way that would lead—to boom and bust and cuts in services.

Protection of Human Genetic Sequence
3.31 pm
Mr. Richard Allan: I beg to move,
That leave be given to bring in a Bill to give protection to the human genetic sequence; to prevent the patenting of human genes; and for connected purposes.
There is a great deal of debate about science, including genetics, in the media at present, which makes the Bill somewhat topical. That topicality has been reinforced by the submissions that I have received since proposing to introduce it. I thank all those who have supplied me with background information to prepare for the debate, including the BioIndustry Association, which made its arguments on behalf of the industry. Although it may disagree with some of the points that I want to make, I appreciate it putting its case to me.
In 1996, the Parliamentary Office of Science and Technology produced a useful report entitled "Patents, Research and Technology", which kept ahead of the debate at that time—I recommend it to hon. Members—and the hon. Member for Lewisham, Deptford (Joan Ruddock) has tabled the very good early-day motion 298 on the subject. I agree with its sentiments entirely. However, some of the media debate can be disturbing in respect of the assumptions being made, especially about the public understanding of public policy issues in science and genetics in particular.
It is clear that the public contribution to the debate often lags behind the discussions in scientific and sometimes even political circles. That leaves many members of the public with the real worry that deals have already been done, which in turn leads to wider opposition and the polarisation of views. That was very clear in the debate about genetically modified organisms. My concern is that the gene patenting debate may represent a real risk of significant future public anger if we do not have a more comprehensive discussion now. That is part of my motivation for introducing the Bill to the House today.
Some of those who talk about science policy seem to think that only those with the relevant qualifications can understand and that ordinary people should be left out of the debate. Such a position is offensive in a democracy, as we shall all have to live with the results of decisions taken in science public policy. It also seriously underestimates most people's interest in, and understanding of, those issues. That attitude is more likely to generate an anti-science mood as people respond negatively to what they perceive to be scientific and technological arrogance.
The citizens of this country—men, women and children—are perfectly able to participate in the debate and will do so. We need to look for ways to improve public participation and to involve them better, rather than seek to restrict decisions to committees of experts. Some coverage does not help by referring to absurd examples that owe more to science fiction than science fact. For example, the debate about genetic patenting has been expressed in terms of private companies owning the biological material that is inside all of us so that, somehow, we would have to pay royalties to produce new cells containing those genes. That is no more the real issue than that the human cloning debate should be about brainless automata being created to donate their organs to the rest of us, although, when one listens to the questions
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in Prime Minister's Question Time, one wonders whether the Government already have the job of creating automata in hand.
The heart of the debate is about how to create the greatest benefit for the greatest number of people from the incredible potential that is now being realised by our ability to decode the human genetic sequence. Patent law is difficult to grasp, and the uncertainties will keep lawyers happy and well fed for many years to come. It is based on certain key principles that we established through legislation and through our international agreements, especially at European Union level, but increasingly at international level.
The most relevant legislation is the 1998 EU directive on the legal protection of biotechnological inventions, article 5 of which states:
The human body, at the various stages of its formation and development, and the simple discovery of one of its elements, including the sequence or partial sequence of a gene, cannot constitute patentable inventions.
It goes on to say:
An element isolated from the human body or otherwise produced by means of a technical process, including the sequence or partial sequence of a gene, may constitute a patentable invention, even if the structure of that element is identical to that of a natural element.
Hence the work created for lawyers in this area. The directive leaves major room for debate about what should constitute a patentable invention. There is some uncertainty about whether sequences can be patented, or only their specific applications.
The view of Myriad Genetics is that it can patent the genes, which is why it has attempted to secure patents on the breast cancer susceptibility genes BRCA and BRCA2. That has caused much of the current debate. Other companies are similarly seeking exclusive rights on particular genes through the EU patenting process. Their argument is that the only way to keep research going is by generating income from the results. I would argue that the rewards can instead come from the proper patenting of specific applications of the technology without granting patents on the genes themselves.
The analogy of a mousetrap patent has been used. It is better for a company to secure a patent on a mousetrap design than on the process of killing a mouse. However, I would argue that the patenting of human genes is equivalent to securing a patent on dead mice, rather than on a mousetrap. If that patent were secured, the dead mouse patent holder could seek royalties from anyone else who invents other methods for killing mice. It is that exclusivity over the material rather than the applications that is the major source of concern.
There will be some serious implications if we allow such an environment to develop. What will the costs be to the health service if the costs for genetic testing have to include royalties to the holder of the patent for that gene? What will be the effects on public research if the incentive to develop novel applications is tempered by the knowledge that those applications cannot go to market or be used for the public good in the public domain without negotiating with, and making payment to, the gene patent holder?
There are real ethical considerations. Although I do not subscribe to the notion that this will lead to the ownership of bits of our cells, there are nevertheless genuine concerns about where the commercial exploitability of such material should begin and end.

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In September last year, the Government sent out signals that they were looking to defend the public interest on this issue. It was reported that the Prime Minister was holding discussions with United States President Bill Clinton. When I recently asked the Prime Minister a question in the House, I was a little surprised to hear him say that no negotiations were taking place. I find it difficult to square that response with the report in The Guardian of 20th September 1999 entitled "Blair and Clinton push to stop gene patents". The report states:
Tony Blair and Bill Clinton are negotiating an Anglo-American agreement to protect the 100,000 genes that control the human body. … The extraordinary deal—initiated by Mr. Blair—aims to prevent entrepreneurs profiting from gene patents and to ensure that the benefits of research are freely available.
Reports of discussions have been released under US freedom of information legislation, but the Government have gone strangely quiet since then.
There is an urgent need for a debate about our approach to the use of human genetic information. This urgency is reinforced by Tuesday's report in The Guardian, headed "Protocol on gene research is at risk as firm demands exclusive rights". Dr. John Sulston, the well-respected director of the Sanger Centre—one of the leading research institutes in the world and a proud British institution—has said of the US company Celera:
The emerging truth is absolutely extraordinary. They really intend to establish a complete monopoly … on the human genome for … at least five years."
Dr. Sulston says:
People ought to know about it.
I think that people are becoming aware of it, and that that awareness is growing daily. I believe that the Government can no longer refrain from making their view clear, and that they should, on an urgent basis, make progress with the negotiations begun so admirably in, I believe, September 1999—although that is now denied by the Prime Minister. I urge the House to demonstrate that it, too, takes the issue seriously by supporting the Bill.
Question put and agreed to.
Bill ordered to be brought in by Mr. Richard Allan, Dr. Ian Gibson, Mr. David Heath, Dr. Brian Iddon, Jackie Ballard, Mr. Norman Baker and Dr. Jenny Tonge.

PROTECTION OF HUMAN GENETIC SEQUENCE
Mr. Richard Allan accordingly presented a Bill to give protection to the human genetic sequence; to prevent the patenting of human genes; and for connected purposes: And the same was read the First time; and ordered to be read a Second time on Friday 24th March, and to be printed [Bill 84]
Opposition Day
[7TH ALLOTTED DAY]

The National Health Service
Madam Speaker: I have selected the amendment in the name of the Prime Minister.
3.41 pm
Dr. Liam Fox: I beg to move,
That this House deplores HM Government's clinical and financial mismanagement of the NHS; condemns the distortion of clinical priorities resulting from the Prime Minister's refusal to abandon the Government's flawed waiting list initiative, which is described by the medical profession as anathema to them and which has resulted in some of the sickest patients waiting longer than necessary for treatment; notes the financial chaos in Trusts and Health Authorities as a result of ministerial incompetence; and deprecates the misleading of the public about funding as a result of the Treasury's culture of repeatedly re-announcing financial decisions, and the practice of using the NHS as a means of providing publicity and photo opportunities for Ministers, putting political priorities before the morale of dedicated and hard-working NHS staff and to the detriment of patient care.
When the Government came to office nearly three years ago, their message was that there was nothing essentially wrong with the model of the national health service, but that the Conservatives in government had not wanted it to work properly, and that therefore it had not worked properly. The message was "Vote Labour and save the NHS", and a great deal of the Prime Minister's personal prestige was invested in that pledge. Huge expectations were raised about what the Government would be able to do, and on what time scale they would be able to do it. Today, we shall ask where those expectations are now and what has become of the NHS under Labour management.
Most countries are grappling with the health care debate, and our debates here resonate throughout Europe and the rest of the western world. Most western countries generally accept some form of mixed health provision, and engage in relatively mature debate. Our Prime Minister says that he has no ideological problem with the private sector, but the Secretary of State has. We have financial mismanagement, with repeated announcements of funding to secure headlines for Ministers. We have, at the centre of the Government's plans, a waiting list initiative that is almost universally condemned by the medical profession, which considers that it distorts clinical priorities. We have a system of management and a culture that are corroding the system from within, eating away at morale in the NHS and destroying the considerable good will, which, it must be admitted, the Government enjoyed when they came to office.
We intend today to examine the questions of finance and the waiting list initiative in detail, but first I want to deal briefly with the Government's style of management and the organisational structures. The last Government abolished a tier of NHS management to give more autonomy to trusts. We now have, roughly, an 80:1 management ratio, with 80 trust chairmen reporting to one regional authority. This Government, however, have insisted on a highly centralised style of management, involving a flood of policies, targets and directives that are entirely beyond the capacity of trusts. The result is poor communication, with a devolved structure of management but centralised control of management from Whitehall.

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We are seeing a non-stop series of knee-jerk reactions. It seems that, in the case of the present Government, the best way in which to get anything done—the best way in which to secure any new initiative—is to embarrass the Prime Minister, either in public or, especially, on television. The Prime Minister's embarrassment fund seems to be a bottomless pit: it is necessary only to ask him a difficult question on "Newsnight" and throw him a few embarrassing statistics, and he will have the Secretary of State running off to the next Department on Monday morning with a new initiative, pledging money—probably the same money that has been pledged before, but money none the less. We therefore have a fragmented finance process with arcane bidding mechanisms, in which no one really knows what is going on. The losers are the patients. Morale among staff is reduced. I hope that the Secretary of State will deal with the problem of morale among general practitioners.
Mr. Michael Fabricant: My hon. Friend mentions problems of morale in the NHS. Is he aware that the head of staff recruitment at Victoria hospital in Lichfield has told me that it is virtually impossible to recruit nurses to the hospital as, for the first time, its future and its services are under threat? Does he agree that that is appalling? For 18 years, the future of the Victoria and Hammerwich hospitals was assured. Now, both hospitals and their services are under threat.
Dr. Fox: I am more than happy to take my hon. Friend's word about the problem of recruiting nurses. The more general problem is retaining them once they have been recruited. We have been over the factors involved in the House: pay; conditions; lack of professional esteem from other colleagues, and sometimes from the public; and shift patterns in the NHS, which do not entice many who would like to stay in nursing. I am sure that my hon. Friend is more than capable of making sufficient political capital out of the difficulties in his area.
GPs throughout the country have complained about their loss of status, the steady erosion of their position in the medical profession and, in particular, the loss of their role of gate-keeper, which many were developing very well, especially towards the end of the previous Government's term of office.
GPs feel, for example, that there is a complete lack of co-ordination between NHS Direct and the rest of the primary care system. The many problems with NHS Direct are increasingly showing up. It is expensive, and consultants have complained that it is stripping nursing staff, especially from accident and emergency departments. We are at the ridiculous stage where nurses who are part of NHS Direct are pretending to be answerphones and being caught out only because they happen to cough. That is indicative of the ridiculous system that the Secretary of State is forcing through at pace. However, the morale problem among GPs will inevitably result in reduced patient care if the Government do not address it. Will the Minister mention that in particular when he replies?
Let us look at finance. We have two questions to ask: what is really happening to finance in the NHS and how is it affecting health care? The NHS Confederation says
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that 2000–01 is likely to be one of the toughest years on record. There are several reasons for that. The first is the front-loading of the comprehensive spending review. The rise in NHS spending is 4.7 per cent. in real terms in 1999–2000, falling to 4.5 per cent. this year and to 3.9 per cent. next year. However, we then have the unfunded pay awards. Although those are entirely laudable and I am sure that no one would object to any NHS staff receiving higher remuneration, as the average trust pay bill is rising by about 4.2 per cent. this year—not the 3.5 per cent. that the Government predicted—and as funding is likely to go down, as predicted, over the next three years in real terms, the recurring cost of the awards can be met only by a reduction in patient care. That is not a political judgment, but simple arithmetic. The Government will have to tell health authorities and trusts how to deal with that; otherwise, there will be a reduction in patient services.
Health authorities and trusts are being asked to deal with additional financial burdens. The European Union working-time directive is one. Holiday pay, for example, will cost more. Nurses will have to be paid the average rather than basic pay for nursing leave. Again, no one would begrudge nursing staff that, but it will be an extra financial burden on health authorities. Prescribing budgets in primary care will rise, with the drugs budget perhaps up by 11 per cent. this year.
Structural deficits are carried over from year to year. They are increasing and make the first claim on funds that are available in April. For example, I shall randomly pick hon. Members and look at the deficits that their health authorities face. It is predicted that the deficit of the health authority that serves the constituency of the Under-Secretary of State for Health, the hon. Member for Birmingham, Edgbaston (Ms Stuart), will be £8.5 million. The health authority in the constituency of the Minister of State, Department of Health, the hon. Member for Barrow and Furness (Mr. Hutton), has a deficit of more than £1 million. The deficit for the health authority in the constituency of the Under-Secretary of State for Health, the hon. Member for Pontefract and Castleford (Yvette Cooper) is predicted to be more than £5.5 million.
Those Ministers will be pleased to know that—by complete coincidence—the one member of their team whose health authority is not facing a deficit is that of the Secretary of State. Although I am sure that hon. Members will agree that the location of health authorities among constituencies is entirely coincidental, not all hon. Members—not even all health Ministers—have been able to obtain such privileged funding for our own health authorities.
What does the funding problem entail for a typical trust? Ministers say that they have been extremely generous in providing a 6.7 per cent. funding increase, which includes the extra allocation made at the end of last year, but basic inflation has been running at 2.6 per cent. If we add to the inflation figure the effects of superannuation, the working-time directive, reduced hours for junior doctors and capital charges excess, the 2.6 per cent. figure increases to about 5.78 per cent. If we add to that the costs of clinical governance and increases in drug costs, the figure increases by another 0.5 per cent. If we add to it the costs of dealing with the maintenance backlog, winter and ensuring a nursing skill mix, the figure increases by about another 1.8 per cent. Finally, if we add the 3 per cent. deficit, it becomes clear that, before we treat another patient or

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increase any type of patient care, there is 10.5 per cent. in extra costs. However, only 6.7 per cent. extra has been provided. That is not generous.
People will be wondering why the extra £21 billion that the Chancellor announced for NHS spending is not being spent on patient care. They will be wondering where all that money has gone. I am grateful to Peter Kellner for his very simple analysis of the matter. After inflation, the £21 billion—of which England is receiving £17.6 billion—yields a real increase, over three years, of £10.9 billion. We must then subtract from that figure the costs of unfunded wages, more elderly patients and the drug budget—in short, the costs of medical inflation—which yields an increase of only £5 billion over three years.
If we also take into account the deficits, we can appreciate why Lord Winston came to the view that the national health service was being starved of funds. Health authorities are beginning the year with negative funding.
Ministers try to pretend that they have provided much more money to the NHS than they have, but I caution them about that. In future, the public will not believe them when they promise—like the boy who cried wolf—more money for the NHS.
Miss Julie Kirkbride: I have written to the chairman of Worcestershire health authority to raise precisely the point that my hon. Friend is making. Although she could not give me a substantive reply, when I asked her about all the costs that my hon. Friend has mentioned so far in his speech, she could not assure me that there would be one extra penny for improved patient care for anyone in Worcestershire. The situation is shameful. I am awaiting a further reply from the chairman.
Dr. Fox: The shame is not that the money is not available—although all hon. Members are worried about the lack of expansion in patient care—but that Ministers pretend that more money is being made available than they are providing. People find unacceptable the essential dishonesty of the process. My hon. Friend has described a part of the pattern of constant re-announcements and the distortion of information that is at the heart of the culture of the Government.
Helen Jones rose—
Dr. Howard Stoate: A moment ago, the hon. Gentleman said that he thought that 6.7 per cent. was not generous. What sum would he consider to be generous, and what would Conservative Members do, if they were in power, to provide the increased funding for which he seems to be calling?
Dr. Fox: I did not say that the settlement was not generous, but that it was insufficient. I said that, given the added pressures that the Government have introduced—including the working time directive and all the other costs that I mentioned—extra pressure is being placed on the NHS budget. The Government are being dishonest with us. Although they say that they are providing a real increase, we all know that it is not a real increase. Across the country, people are asking why they are not seeing that extra money.
As I said, the Government came to power by raising expectations to a level that they themselves knew they could never fulfil. That promise of improving the situation
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far beyond what they knew they could accomplish has diminished the standing of politics in society and resulted in, for example, lower turnouts at elections.
Helen Jones: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Dr. Fox: I may give way in a moment.
There has been a pattern of distortion and reannouncements. For example, this week, the Secretary of State has talked about an increase in the number of cardiologists. On "On the Record", John Humphrys said:
The point is they are there, they're waiting, they're registrars, senior registrars or whatever. Professor Alberti—
the Government's adviser—
himself the source on these matters says they are there, but there is not the money to create the consultancy posts.
The Secretary of State replied
But that isn't true … That simply isn't true.
He has been taking lessons from the Prime Minister at Prime Minister's Question Time. When confronted with a fact that they do not like, they simply deny that it exists.
Yesterday, I received a letter from a cardiologist who wrote as a result of comments that the Secretary of State made on the BBC. The cardiologist wrote:
He claimed that an expansion of consultant cardiologists could not take place immediately because it would take time to train such specialists. He stuck to this view despite the comments of Professor George Alberti to the contrary.
As a trained cardiologist looking for a consultant position, I take great issue with these comments because they are incorrect. There is in fact a surfeit of trained cardiologists in this country compared to consultant posts arising and projected to arise. It is estimated that there are about 50 trained cardiologists currently seeking consultant posts. I am one of three fully trained cardiologists … who face unemployment in the next few months following termination of our training posts under the new Calman scheme hellip; On the 21st January, I met with my local MP—
A Labour MP—
… to discuss the situation. I provided her with the above information, which she immediately relayed to Alan Milburn's department for comments. One would assume therefore that he was aware of the situation when he made his comments on the Today programme.
I do not know whether he was aware of that information or whether it was passed to him, but, as Secretary of State, I would expect him to know about it.
The Secretary of State for Health (Mr. Alan Milburn): The hon. Gentleman mentioned Professor George Alberti. I wonder whether he has seen the statement issued, I think, today by the Royal College of Physicians. It says that
the College does not expect there to be any fully-trained unemployed cardiologists by the end of 2000 and indeed there are several unfilled posts at present.
Dr. Fox: Time will tell what will come to pass. I take the Secretary of State's comment to be a pledge that all those who are trained in cardiology will be found consultant posts by the end of the year. If any trained cardiologists have not been given new consultant posts created by the end of the year, we will know that what he has just said are simply words to get him through the debate and not a serious matter of policy.

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The Secretary of State told us to judge him on his record. In October 1999, he said that a £50 million boost to cardiac surgery was there to increase the number of operations by 10 per cent. over the next two years. However, of course, that was not new money as he was forced to admit later. He said that it was part of the extra £21 billion that the Government were putting into the NHS. It seems that the words "new" and "extra" in the Department of Health mean the same as the Home Office's use of the word "extra" in relation to policemen.
When the Secretary of State spoke about consultants, he said that there would be an increase in the number of heart specialists by more than 400 in the next six years. However, Dr. Peter Hawker of the British Medical Association's consultants committee said:
The 400 additional heart specialists announced today are already in the NHS as specialist registrars on the training ladder.
The Secretary of State is trying to create numbers that do not exist. That can lead only to the dashing of the expectations of those who work in the medical profession and the patients who would be treated by them.
The Government's greatest trick is to reannounce. When one makes one announcement, one might as well make it many times. Let me give the House an example. On 29 September 1998, the Government announced—it was a welcome announcement—£30 million to modernise 50 accident and emergency units. On 28 October, they announced that there would be £30 million extra for A and E and, on 17 November, that there would be £30 million extra to fund A and E. On 16 February in the following year, on 15 March, 15 April, 7 May and 28 May, they announced each time that an extra £30 million was being made available for accident and emergency units.
Anyone outside the House might believe that if one announces seven times that £30 million extra will be spent on A and E in the NHS, that means that one is spending more than £200 million. However, in fact, only £30 million will be provided. That is the elastic arithmetic of the Government and a total inversion of the truth.
Mr. Christopher Gill: Is my hon. Friend aware that, on 21 July, the Prime Minister said:
We are renovating every accident and emergency department in the country?—[Official Report, 21 July 1999; Vol. 335, c. 1188.]
In reality, my constituents have found that the accident and emergency department serving them in south Shropshire is being scaled down.
Dr. Fox: If I may, just for once, be fair to the Prime Minister, I think that he said that every accident and emergency department that needs it will be upgraded. What beats me is where we can find the criteria by which "needs it" will be judged. Throughout Britain, many departments that I would regard as needing improvement do not seem to be eligible for the magical £30 million that the Government are bringing forward. It would be entirely justifiable if my hon. Friend were to table parliamentary questions to discover those criteria. I wish him good luck, because we have not been able to discover them.
Helen Jones: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Dr. Fox: I shall give way to the hon. Lady in a moment because she has already tried to intervene twice.
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What we see in terms of waiting lists is probably the greatest deception of all. Again, in "On the Record" this week, the Secretary of State said that, as everyone knows, waiting lists had peaked but were coming down, yet last month his Department announced a 36,000 rise, and the waiting list for the waiting list has more than doubled since Labour took office. Only the Government, with their Alice in Wonderland interpretation of data, could regard such figures as going down.
Helen Jones: The hon. Gentleman talks about spending plans and the information given to the public, but who should the public believe—the hon. Gentleman when he says that Government spending plans are insufficient, or the former shadow Chancellor who said that they were reckless?
Dr. Fox: The lap dogs are all out today. I should have expected that, by now, the Labour Whips would have done a little work and got some new interventions.
The amount of money that has been made available, although described as "generous", is nothing of the sort. In fact, the money announced by the Government is not the amount that has been given to health authorities. It is becoming increasingly clear that the Government have perpetrated a con trick on the health authorities and the trusts, and on patients in Britain.
Miss Kirkbride: I share the accident and emergency department referred to by my hon. Friend the Member for Ludlow (Mr. Gill). The Government talk about changes and improvements to such departments, but at Kidderminster general hospital and the Alexandra hospital in Redditch, those departments are being downgraded to minor injuries units, which is why money is being spent on them.
Dr. Fox: That is an example of something else that the Government do continually: regrade things and give them a different title so that we are supposed not to notice that we are being given an inferior level of service. They must think that the public are as gullible as their own Back Benchers if they think they will get away with that for any length of time.
Mr. Geraint Davies: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Dr. Fox: No, I have just given way three times.
I come to clinical priorities. This is probably the most serious part of today's debate. The Government were warned at the outset by the Conservative party and, to be fair, the Liberal Democrat—the hon. Member for North Devon (Mr. Harvey)—and the medical profession, that its waiting list initiative was dangerous. Last week, Dr. Peter Skolar described it as complete anathema to the medical profession. Increasingly, that is how it is. It is dangerous because, with its obsession with numbers, it treats all patients as having equal clinical weighting, which is unfair. It is a manipulation of clinical priorities because, by penalising health authorities for not bringing numbers down quickly enough, health authorities are being encouraged, within any one given budget, to treat more minor conditions to satisfy the political masters, rather than treat them according to clinical priority. That is an unethical, unfair and immoral way in which to run a health care system.

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Dr. Peter Wilde confronted the Prime Minister last week on "Newsnight" and said that, as a cardiologist in Bristol, he believed that patients had died unnecessarily waiting for cardiac surgery. The scandal lies in the fact not simply that patients were waiting too long, but that the health authorities were still treating minor conditions while those patients were waiting for more serious surgery. That distortion of a simple clinical priority is the ethical flaw in the Government's policy.
There is still time for the Government to abandon that policy. I have no intention of raising individual cases of patients who have suffered, but surely we can all see that it cannot be right, in any medical system with finite funding, to ration on the basis of getting the numbers down quickly rather than treating the appropriate patients and ensuring that the sickest are treated first.
Surgeons throughout the country tell us that they are under pressure from their managers to get the numbers down quickly to avoid being penalised financially by the Government. We most object to the culture that is driving the process. There is a corrosive—and, I believe, disreputable and dishonest—code driving not only the policy but its presentation. That is partly because the Government have no coherent philosophy. The Secretary of State told managers when he was a junior Minister that he would come down like a ton of bricks on anyone who dealt with the private sector, but the Prime Minister said on "Newsnight" that he had no ideological problem with the private sector.
There was no adequate consultation to avert the winter crisis. From April, employers who dare to give private sector cover to their employees as a benefit will be subject to a new tax. Hon. Members may want to know that yesterday the Fees Office said:
I am writing to confirm that there will be a National Insurance liability on Health Care payments …
All such payments should go through the payroll and will incur Employer's NI at a rate of 12.2 per cent.
Any Members of Parliament who dare to give their secretaries or researchers health perks will be taxed by a Government who do not have a problem with the private sector.
It goes to the root of the Government's culture that they say one thing and do another. They would say black was white if they thought they had to. They are so duplicitous that they would not ask for water if they were thirsty. What is more, they can never be wrong. The Secretary of State said last week that Professor Alberti—his own adviser—Stephen Thornton of the NHS Confederation, the Institute for Fiscal Studies and Rabbi Julia Neuberger of the King's Fund were all wrong. On "Newsnight", the Prime Minister said that the managers, the doctors and the public were wrong, and moreover that the media were to blame.
The Government have no core values and exist only to be in office. We have the sad spectacle of Back Benchers, rather than holding the Executive to account, worshipping at the altar of the Prime Minister's ego. If one statement said it all, it was when the Prime Minister was asked whether the distortion of clinical priorities by the waiting list initiative should be changed. He said:
If we abandoned waiting lists, you guys—
the press—
would come down on us first and then patients would come down on us.
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That means that Ministers' reputations come first and patient care comes second.
We have a health care system run by politicians for politicians, not by doctors for their patients. On health care, the public expected much from the Government, but have been bitterly disappointed. The Government have replaced ethics with spin, hope with cynicism and dedication with dismay. The great Labour lie has turned into the great Labour betrayal.
4.9 pm
The Secretary of State for Health (Mr. Alan Milburn): I beg to move, To leave out from "House" to the end of the Question, and to add instead thereof:
"welcomes the Government's modernisation programme for the NHS and the reduction in waiting lists and times that are being achieved through the dedication and hard work of NHS staff; notes the progress being made on recruiting more doctors and more nurses, building more hospitals, treating more patients and modernising more services; applauds the Government's decision to make tackling cancer, coronary heart disease and mental illness a priority; believes that financial provision for the NHS would be reduced as a consequence of the Conservatives' Tax Guarantee and that clinical need would be abandoned in favour of ability to pay under the Conservatives' health plans."
I apologise at the outset for the fact that I will not be here for the winding-up speeches, as I have a prior speaking engagement.
The Opposition have called for a debate on financial provision and clinical distortion in the NHS. I am pleased to tell the House that financial provision for the NHS has never been greater. The NHS is now benefiting from the largest cash injection it has ever seen. I am also pleased to tell the House that the assault on clinical distortion caused by the postcode lottery of care has never been greater either: the failed, disastrous, divisive internal market in the NHS has been consigned to the dustbin of history, where it belongs.
Mr. Simon Burns: Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. Milburn: Yes. I believe that the hon. Gentleman was a supporter of the internal market.
Mr. Burns: If everything is so wonderful for funding in the national health service, why is it that, this financial year, the Mid Essex hospital trust will have the largest deficit it has had in its history, and three wards, containing 84 beds, will be closed?
Mr. Milburn: I do not know about that particular case, but the hon. Gentleman was a Minister at the Department of Health in 1996–97 when the NHS ran up a combined deficit of £459 million. He shares at least some of the responsibility for that, as I am sure he accepts. By the beginning of this financial year, that deficit had come down to £18 million, so we will not take any lectures from the hon. Gentleman or the Conservative party on deficits in the NHS.
Mr. Edward Garnier: If the Secretary of State could not answer the previous question, perhaps he can answer mine. In November last year, his predecessor, the right hon. Member for Holborn and St. Pancras (Mr. Dobson), opened a brand new breast

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cancer unit at the Glenfield hospital in Leicester. That unit was opened thanks to private subscriptions and was not funded by NHS money. It will now be closed. Why?
Mr. Milburn: The hon. and learned Gentleman is talking about the Leicestershire area and he will be aware that consultation is still taking place about some of the proposals. There are always difficult decisions to make about health care funding and services, and that is as true for this Government as it was for the previous Government. The consultation continues and I urge the hon. and learned Gentleman to take part in it.
The Conservatives' motion condemns financial mismanagement when the Conservatives are past masters of it. I remind the hon. Member for Woodspring (Mr. Fox), who was rattling on about financial mismanagement, that it was his Government who managed to spend a small fortune on financial mismanagement in the NHS, including more red tape and bureaucracy than it has had in its history. This Government are taking £1 billion out of red tape to put directly into front-line patient services. We are doing that because it is the patients' priority, the staff's priority and our priority. Needless to say, the hon. Gentleman and his party oppose it.
Mr. Gerald Howarth: The Secretary of State referred a couple of moments ago to the ending of what he called the postcode lottery. Can he explain to me, so that I can explain to those of my constituents suffering from multiple sclerosis—some of whom are now in Westminster Hall—why one of my constituents from Hampshire is unable to obtain beta interferon and will have to wait 18 months, while another person from Surrey is able to obtain it immediately and tells me that it is down to the postcode lottery? Rather than going back to the past, will the Secretary of State recognise that people want to know what the Government whom they elected are going to do to improve their health care instead of making it worse?
Mr. Milburn: I shall tell the hon. Gentleman precisely what we will do about it. Every hon. Member is aware of the situation in relation to beta interferon, and the first thing to say is that nobody should hold out beta interferon or any such product as a cure for MS. It is not a cure, because there is no such cure. However, this Government recognise that there is a lottery of care—unlike the previous Government who denied it—and, what is more, we are taking action to tackle it. That is why the National Institute for Clinical Excellence is considering beta interferon. I want to see a fair system of care that does not depend on where someone lives, or who their GP happens to be. Care should be determined according to clinical need. As the hon. Gentleman will be aware, the current guidance on beta interferon, which will be superseded once NICE has reported, is guidance that the Tory Government issued in 1995.
Mr. James Gray: My constituent Stephanie Millward will be keen to hear when NICE is to report. If the Secretary of State is happy about the treatment of MS, will he explain why the Government
1020
spend a laughable £640,000 a year on research into the causes of MS? That is a ridiculous sum, so will the Secretary of State commit himself to increasing it?
Mr. Milburn: There are always many demands on the NHS research and development budget—including for research into prostate cancer. We try to ensure that the R and D programme is best geared to meet patients' interests. We will, of course, look at the resources devoted to MS research. With regard to beta interferon, I can tell the House that we expect NICE to report in late summer or early autumn. We will try to make that report available to the national health service as quickly as possible, as we all have a shared interest in getting the matter right. I am afraid that, in the past, the problem has been swept under the carpet.
The Conservative motion also complains about
using the NHS as a means of providing publicity and photo opportunities …
The hon. Member for Woodspring has been caught short once already, so he ought to check his facts more carefully, especially with regard to photo opportunities. For some time, the BBC's "Panorama" programme has been contacting NHS hospitals up and down the land asking if filming could be conducted on their premises. At least 23 hospitals have been contacted, including Basildon hospital, Kettering general hospital, the Princess Royal hospital in Telford, the Royal Shrewsbury hospital, and Kidderminster general hospital. One might think that there is nothing unusual in that, but the filming is not for a factual programme. It is for a fictional programme—the story of one man's experience as a television extra.
I have a copy of the fax from the BBC about the programme, dated 20 January this year. Given the concern expressed in the motion about photo opportunities and the misuse of the national health service, I am sure that the House will be interested to know the proposed star of the extravaganza. The fax states:
William Hague has agreed to be filmed in a variety of situations.
There is more to the story than that. According to the fax, the Leader of the Opposition is to
take on a role in the hospital for half a day; a porter's job or something similar.
I suppose that we should at least be grateful that he is not going to masquerade as a brain surgeon. So much for the Opposition's complaint about photo opportunities: the hon. Member for Woodspring should check his facts before he comes before the House.
Mr. Patrick McLoughlin: Will the Secretary of State give way?
Mr. Milburn: In a moment, as I have given way six times already.
Mr. McLoughlin: Will the Secretary of State give way on this point?
Mr. Milburn: The hon. Gentleman, who is a Whip, should sit down. I might give way to him later—if he learns to behave himself.
I shall deal with each of the claims in the Opposition motion, and I shall start with the question of financial provision for the national health service—a subject that we are more than happy to debate.

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Over the period of the comprehensive spending review—that is, this year, next year and the year after—the NHS is experiencing average real-terms growth of about 5 per cent. In the present financial year, real-terms growth is actually around 6 per cent. Health authorities are getting cash increases that average 6.8 per cent.
Let me put that in context. The average real-terms growth for the NHS over the full 18 years of the Conservative Government was around just 3 per cent—half the growth in this financial year. During the previous Conservative Government's final five years in office, they did not even manage 3 per cent. growth. They averaged growth of only 2.6 per cent. per year in that time.
It is little wonder, then, that the NHS that this Government inherited had too few doctors and too few nurses; that three quarters of accident and emergency units needed modernising; that the NHS was crying out for the biggest hospital building programme in its history; that waiting lists were too long and were rising; and that our country's record on coronary heart disease and cancer lagged so far behind that of other European nations.
It is also little wonder, after those 18 years of neglect and mismanagement, that we inherited an NHS that was on its knees. We intend to get it back on its feet, but of course that will take time. We will not be happy until it is up and running again as the pride of Britain and the envy of the world. Conservative Members want always to run down and talk down the national health service, but the Government are making progress towards "making political capital" out of the NHS, to borrow the graphic phrase used by the hon. Member for Woodspring.
There are 2,000 more doctors in the national health service than there were when we came to office. We are beginning to turn the corner, too, on nurse shortages. There are 4,500 more nurses in the NHS than there were a year ago, thanks in part to the largest real-terms increase in pay that nurses have had in a decade and a half. It was paid in full—without staging, as happened under the previous Government. The biggest hospital building programme that the NHS has ever seen is under way. Every casualty department that needs it is being modernised.
The hon. Gentleman was talking about difficult decisions. For the first time, we have a means of setting national standards, through the National Institute for Clinical Excellence, to tackle precisely the lottery of care that the Conservative created and connived at. We have also, for the first time, a means of monitoring and inspecting those standards through the Commission for Health Improvement.
Miss Kirkbride: The Secretary of State has mentioned NICE a number of times, and its views on beta interferon. He will be aware that many people in Westminster Hall right now are very concerned about that. In Worcestershire, only two people out of hundreds with multiple sclerosis are receiving beta interferon. If NICE agrees that beta interferon is a cost-effective treatment, as the right hon. Gentleman's Government would put it, does he promise that everybody in Worcestershire who is able to benefit from receiving beta interferon will have it, and will he make up the shortfall in Worcestershire health authority's budget as a result?
Mr. Milburn: We have NICE for a very simple and straightforward reason. As both the hon. Lady and I know,
1022
different health authorities take different decisions about prescribing important drugs and making available different forms of treatment and intervention. We want to put that right, because we believe in a fair system of health care in which care is made available according to clinical need and not any other factor. When NICE produces its guidance, we expect health authorities, primary care groups, doctors, nurses and others to take full account of what it says.
Mr. Nick Harvey: Does that mean that, should NICE decide that beta interferon is not cost-effective and clinically effective, patients who currently receive it can anticipate ceasing to have it in the future?
Mr. Milburn: That is not the position. We have discussed this issue with NICE, which is under an explicit instruction to look at the ramifications of any decision that it takes—for example, if it decides that in future a drug that patients currently receive is not cost-effective or clinically effective. The important thing about NICE is that it does not substitute for doctors or for other clinicians' decisions. It is there to help and support them and make their job easier. Ultimately, the individual clinician dealing with the individual patient will have to decide. Frankly, I cannot decide that; neither can the hon. Gentleman—and neither, with the best will in the world, can the NHS Executive or the National Institute for Clinical Excellence. It is a clinical decision, but it must be an informed clinical decision, based on what works and what does not, on what is effective and what is not.
Dr. Fox: It is a very important point that there is a distinction between cost-effectiveness and affordability. Although it might be a legitimate role of NICE or any similar body to examine the cost-effectiveness of any treatment—an aim which I am sure is widely shared—the decision on affordability should not be left at arm's length, but should rest with Ministers. Will the right hon. Gentleman confirm that if NICE agreed that beta interferon was a cost-effective treatment—especially, as seems increasingly likely, in the early stages of multiple sclerosis—Ministers would not stand in the way by saying that it was not affordable to the NHS?
Mr. Milburn: There are clearly two separate sets of decisions to be made. One is about effectiveness. It is right and proper that NICE should look at clinical and cost-effectiveness side by side. That is the right thing for it to do; and it is best equipped to do it. The national health service has never had an independent means of considering those matters and it seems sensible to have one if, as Conservative Members claim—I am sure they are genuine in this—they want to deal with these problems.
There is a separate set of decisions which, in the end, I take. I take decisions about affordability. Those are my decisions. That is right and appropriate, and I will be held to account for them. When NICE comes up with its recommendations, we will of course consider what it says. That is the right thing to do.
I can tell the House that there has been no greater clinical distortion than allowing the NHS, as the previous Government did, to provide the lowest level of cardiac services in precisely the areas where coronary heart disease is highest. That is what we inherited, and that is

1023
what we are trying to change. We shall improve the health of the population as a whole, but we shall improve the health of the poorest fastest.
Yes, there are many things wrong in the health service, but there are many things that are going right. Slowly but surely the expansion of the NHS is under way. It is underpinned by the extra resources that we have committed to the service. Of course, it takes time to deliver results and they are always dependent on what we can afford, but we have achieved 5 per cent. funding increases on average during the current spending review. If we continue to manage the economy successfully, we can be confident that we will be able to make the sustained increases in funding that our health service needs, and get up to the European Union average.
The hon. Member for Meriden (Mrs. Spelman) has said that none of that is certain. One thing is certain—the Conservatives would not and could not match our commitment to the NHS. The first reason for that is that Conservative Front-Bench Members have already condemned Labour's investment levels as reckless and irresponsible and as madness. Secondly, the Conservatives' tax guarantee, far from delivering the growth in NHS capacity that the service needs, would result in
swingeing cuts in the health service.
Opposition Members shake their heads, but those are not my words; they are the words of the former Prime Minister, the right hon. Member for Huntingdon (Mr. Major).
Opposition Front-Bench Members cannot have it both ways. They cannot bemoan the improving financial position of the health service while proposing swingeing cuts. They cannot complain about NHS deficits while threatening to make them worse. What the Conservatives propose is not so much a tax guarantee as guaranteed attacks on the future of the NHS.
That is not what the NHS needs. It needs more investment and more reform. The only guarantee is that it will get neither from the Conservative party. The hon. Member for Woodspring says that, philosophically, the Conservatives have moved on from the NHS. The Government believe that the principles of the NHS are right, but we believe with equal passion that its practices have to change fundamentally.
Mr. Geraint Davies: Does my right hon. Friend agree that to say that waiting lists are unethical is to say that minor ailments should always be trumped by major ailments, and that under Tory rule someone with a cataract would never have treatment? Does he agree also that to say that a 6.8 per cent. funding increase is not sufficient and yet not to pledge any more is to open up the hidden agenda of privatisation behind the tax guarantee?
Mr. Milburn: My hon. Friend is absolutely right, and I am coming to precisely those points.
The Conservatives cannot have their cake and eat it. They cannot have the tax guarantee and then complain about lack of investment in the NHS. That will open them up to the charge of hypocrisy, and that charge will stick as we go into future general elections. The hon. Member for Bromsgrove (Miss Kirkbride) and her colleagues on the Back Benches, who complain that there is not enough
1024
money going into the NHS, ought to take up their complaint with the new shadow Chancellor and the Leader of the Opposition because their policy, the tax guarantee, places an artificial straitjacket around NHS spending.
Our view is straightforward: we want to invest more in the NHS. We know that more investment is needed in the NHS, and that is precisely what we intend to provide.
Dr. Fox: Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. Milburn: One more time, and then I want to get on to clinical distortion.
Dr. Fox: It surprises me that the Secretary of State wants to get on to that subject. On taxation, he makes the ridiculously simplistic argument that it is impossible to reduce the burden of taxation and increase expenditure on the health service. In the 1980s, the NHS saw its biggest funding expansion in history, at the same time as the tax burden diminished. If the right hon. Gentleman asserts that that is impossible, how does he reconcile his two statements today about increasing and improving NHS funding and the Government's reduction in the standard rate of tax by 1p next month?
Mr. Milburn: I presume, therefore, that the hon. Gentleman disagrees with the right hon. Member for Huntingdon. Is that right? Does he agree or disagree with what the former Prime Minister had to say about the tax guarantee?
As the Prime Minister has said many times, cutting income tax rates is the right thing to do—not least to compensate for other changes in the tax system. We can do that precisely because we are giving the NHS the biggest cash injection in its entire history. Let us not forget that the hon. Gentleman and his party opposed that at the time, and do so now, but do not have the guts to say so.
On the question raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Croydon, Central (Mr. Davies), clinical need drives our determination to speed up care. Faster care means better health. Let us be clear: the NHS is expected to treat all patients according to their clinical priority. Emergencies should be treated immediately, and urgent cases should rightly be given top priority. Our determination to get waiting lists down has not changed that one bit, and the figures prove it.
Compared with 1997–98—these are complex procedures; precisely the sort that the hon. Member for Woodspring says are not happening in the NHS because of all the toes and nails that are being done—last year, there were more than 6,400 additional hip replacement operations, more than 4,700 additional knee replacements and more than 1,400 additional coronary heart bypass grafts. Let us have no more of the argument that clinical priorities are distorted by waiting lists. Waiting lists are down, and we will go on to meet our manifesto commitment. What is more, we have turned the corner on out-patient waiting, too.
The hon. Member for Woodspring says that the lists are not coming down. Over Christmas and new year, hospitals rightly prepare to deal with the inevitable rise in attendance that extra winter pressures cause. This winter

1025
was no exception. We saw a rise in the number of people waiting for in-patient treatment in December. We will probably see a further rise in the January figures.
Imagine what a performance there would have been from the hon. Gentleman if those waiting lists had not risen this winter. He would have endlessly repeated the charge that waiting lists had distorted clinical priorities. Indeed, December must have been the only month of the year when he wanted waiting lists to go down. I am sorry to have disappointed him. The NHS did the right thing this winter. It put emergencies before elective cases. In the process, it has given the lie to those who claim that cutting waiting lists distorts clinical priorities. It has not, it does not and it will not in the future either.
Mr. John Bercow: In responding to my hon. Friends the Members for North Wiltshire (Mr. Gray) and for Bromsgrove (Miss Kirkbride), the Secretary of State wriggled like a belly dancer. For the benefit of the 1,000 multiple sclerosis sufferers and their supporters congregating this afternoon in Westminster Hall, will he tell the House in the form of a simple yes or no answer whether he stands by his statement that
No one will be denied the drugs they need. That is guaranteed … ?—[Official Report, 30 June 1998; Vol. 315, c. 143.]
Yes, in all circumstances, or no?
Mr. Milburn: That is precisely what we want to do and that is precisely why we have established the National Institute for Clinical Excellence, which the hon. Gentleman opposed. I can therefore only presume that he and his hon. Friends are quite content, apart from specific instances of drugs and treatment, to let the lottery of care continue. I say one thing to him: we are not. Yes, we want to ensure that people receive the treatment that benefits them most. That is precisely what NICE will do.
What the NHS did not do was turn people away because they had the wrong sort of illness, or expect them to take out private medical insurance for a range of conditions deemed by politicians to be no longer necessary on the NHS. To do so would genuinely be to distort clinical priorities and put political priorities ahead of patient need. That is precisely what the hon. Member for Woodspring and the Conservative party propose to do.
Dr. Stoate: My right hon. Friend has told the House how many more hip and knee replacements were carried out on the NHS last year. Will he tell me what would have been the increased burden on an average family, especially a pensioner family, had those treatments been carried out in the private sector with private insurance?
Mr. Milburn: I was coming to precisely that point. I think that the average cost of a hip replacement on the NHS is about £5,000, and that of a cataract operation is about £2,000. Those are NHS costs, and the NHS is cheaper than the private sector.
My hon. Friend makes an extremely good point. To an overwhelming extent, cataract operations and hip and knee replacements are the operations of old age. Why, on 16 January, did the hon. Member for Woodspring tell The Sunday Times that private medical insurance companies should cover conditions such as
hip and knee replacements, hernia and cataract operations
1026
leaving the NHS to do other things? It was not a slip of the tongue: later that month, on "Sky News", the hon. Member for Runnymede and Weybridge (Mr. Hammond) made it absolutely clear that, under Conservative plans, people would look to the NHS
when they had serious life-threatening conditions and would look to their private insurance to help them
with the rest.
There is no ambiguity and no weasel words—the message could not be clearer. Conservative policy is to reduce the NHS to a core service for life-threatening conditions, thereby leaving other conditions—such as hip and knee replacements and hernia and cataract operations—to the private sector. Surely, there can be no greater distortion of clinical priorities than the Conservatives writing off the 300,000 people—many of them pensioners—who rely on those operations every year. Pensioners are the people who most need health care and can least afford private health insurance. The Conservatives' policies amount to no more and no less than a new Tory tax on old age.
Dr. Fox: The right hon. Gentleman should read more than a few misquoted columns in The Sunday Times. Had he read this week's newspapers, he would know that I stated explicitly last week that, for many reasons, a core model NHS could not work in the United Kingdom. However, does he accept that if we do not have a core model, any rationing in the NHS has to be done by means of waiting times and proper prioritisation of cases? Does he also accept that if people were encouraged to take out greater private coverage, either individually or through their employer, it would reduce pressure on the NHS and produce an expansion of total health care, which would help to achieve the outcomes that everyone wants?
Mr. Milburn: The last time the hon. Gentleman and I had exchanges about The Sunday Times article, he said that he was going to write to the newspaper to demand a retraction.
Dr. Fox indicated dissent.Dr. Fox indicated dissent.
Mr. Milburn: Yes he did—it is in the Official Report. Has he written that letter or not? If he has not, I can only assume that the article was an accurate reflection of what he told The Sunday Times about Conservative party policy.
Dr. Fox: Ridiculous.
Mr. Milburn: If it is ridiculous, the hon. Gentleman should send The Sunday Times a letter demanding a retraction two months after the publication of the article in question. In fact, he knows that I am telling the truth—that is the Conservatives' policy.
If individuals want to take out private health insurance, that is a matter for them, but the idea that that could be a panacea for our health care system is fatuous. There is no army of unemployed oncologists—or, according to Sir George Alberti, unemployed cardiologists or cardiac surgeons—waiting for the private call to arms.
An expansion of the private sector must inevitably mean a contraction of the public sector. We have been down that route. We tried that model of care during the 1990s.

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The then Conservative Government spent £150 million a year subsidising old people to take out private medical insurance. It did not make a jot of difference to the numbers taking out private health insurance. The idea that that somehow acts as a safety valve for the national health service is simply wrong and fatuous.
Mr. Desmond Swayne: Will the Secretary of State give way?
Mr. Milburn: No, I am not giving way.
The contrast could not be clearer. Yes, the NHS needs modernising, which is what the Government are doing, but no, the NHS does not need privatising, which is what the Conservatives propose to do. Conservative health policy would indeed distort clinical priorities and mean financial under-provision for the NHS.
No one pretends that everything in the garden is rosy. It is not, but step by step we are making the NHS better. It takes time, but we are making real progress. The country and the service will recognise that. There are more doctors, treating more patients in the NHS; more nurses, training and working in the NHS; new hospitals beginning to be completed for the NHS; modern casualty units coming on-stream throughout the NHS; and fewer in-patients waiting and more out-patients being treated.
That is our record so far, but it is only the start. There is a lot more to do, but I say to the hon. Member for Woodspring and the Conservative party that we have only just begun and we intend to finish the job, because it is what patients and staff want. They want a national health service modernised and reformed, and that is what they will get with this Government.
4.42 pm
Mr. Nick Harvey: I congratulate the hon. Member for Woodspring (Dr. Fox) on securing an opportunity for another debate in the House about health care provision. I agreed with a number of the points that he made. As he explained, the arbitrary waiting list initiative and the targets that were set have in many instances distorted clinical priorities, despite the protestations to the contrary from the Government Front Bench.
Anyone who visits hospitals and speaks to representatives of the professional organisations in the NHS knows that every time hospital managers are called upon to make decisions and set priorities, they are not making the decisions or setting the targets that they would otherwise have done, because they have to meet the waiting list targets.
Mr. Geraint Davies: The hon. Gentleman makes much of priorities, but is he aware that the National Audit Office found that last year the NHS performed an extra half a million operations? Will he give a big clap to the NHS, irrespective of priorities, for the fact that the overall amount of treatment is escalating rapidly, and we are committed to keep it going up?
Mr. Harvey: I congratulate NHS staff on achieving the objective of performing more operations. It is entirely
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right that they should do so, and they deserve congratulation. However, there are still more people waiting longer for operations.
In its 1997 general election manifesto promise, the Labour party stated:
The Conservatives have cut Government spending … by the equivalent of more than £3 billion as spending on the bills of economic and social failure has risen. We are committed to reversing this trend of spending. Over the course of a five-year Parliament, as we cut the costs of economic and social failure we will raise the proportion of national income"
that is spent on health.
That was a sensible and laudable aim, but, despite the fact that extra money has gone into the health service—a matter to which I shall return—it was clear that demand would continue to rise over time. It always does. If the Government did not anticipate that the number of people needing those extra operations would rise, it was extremely shortsighted of them to frame the policy commitment in that way. The hon. Member for Woodspring was right to say that, from the outset, warnings were given about that. In the Liberal Democrat manifesto our policy commitment was measured on the length of time that people had to wait, not on the number of people on the waiting list.
The number of other people on the list is of relatively little interest to people who are in the unfortunate position of waiting for an operation. They want to know for how long they will have to wait. It would have been more sensible of the Government to set themselves targets on the length of time that people have to wait. People are having to wait longer.
I am slightly puzzled by the Opposition's political objectives in choosing the subject of this afternoon's debate. They have made some important, serious points, but none are new. The ground has been fairly well covered. If the hon. Member for Woodspring hoped to secure news coverage, he would have aroused more news interest if he had told us more about the Conservative policies that he was distilling, and especially the role that he envisages for the private sector. I suspect that more journalists would have been in the Gallery, waiting to hear that. We await more information with interest.
In the rush to get people off in-patient waiting lists, the number of people on out-patient lists has increased. It has more or less doubled since the election from 250,000 to more than 500,000. Although a small downturn occurred recently, the number of people on those lists has increased massively. That more than compensates for the Government's limited progress on the objectives that they set themselves of trying to reduce in-patient waiting lists.
The Secretary of State made a fair point in his speech when he said that we should not be too carried away by figures that appear over a couple of months, especially if they cover the mid-winter period, because authorities and trusts will set different short-term priorities to cope with winter pressures. He is right. However, the overall trend has been upwards for the number of people who wait for unacceptable lengths of time.
It is interesting to consider regional variations. In the south-west—my region—there has been an overall increase in NHS in-patient lists, never mind out-patient waiting lists, since the general election. In the last quarter of last year, 159,000 patients waited more than 26 weeks for an appointment with a consultant after a written

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referral by their general practitioner, compared with 149,000 in the previous quarter. Even before the Christmas problems and the winter worries, matters were deteriorating.
It should be no surprise that the winter pressures caused such havoc in the health services. Despite promises, and the analysis made in the Labour party manifesto commitment that I quoted, the vast, generous allocation of funding that the Secretary of State describes is not being made to the health service. In a Liberal Democrat Opposition Supply day debate, I said that the Government's methods of accounting are, to put it mildly, unusual.
Those methods have never been used previously, in other walks of life or in other countries. However, as a doctor put it to me, "If my child grows 3 inches in the first year, 3 inches in the second year and 3 inches in the third year, surely the child has grown 9 inches, but under the Government's accounting methods, the child has grown 18 inches." That is the truth about the £18 billion that has gone into the NHS.
I listened with interest to the hon. Member for Woodspring, who, assisted by interventions from his colleagues, went through some of the difficulties that the health service faces. He referred to those that the NHS Confederation had mentioned, and explained how they wiped out some of the money that appears to have been put into the health service. The hon. Gentleman was right to say that several important points needed to be made, not least on pay awards and the costs of coping with improved working rights and conditions, among others, that managers have to tackle. However, as he went through the list and as Conservative Members referred to the difficulties that those issues cause, I could not help but think back to the number of delegations of which I was a member during the previous Parliament that pressed Ministers for more funds on behalf of local education authorities, local councils and health authorities.
In those presentations, we invariably said to the Conservative Ministers facing us, "Look at the terrible pressures that the authority will face, not least funding pay rises." Unfortunately, I do not recall the provision of more cash ever being part of the response. I recall their saying, "These are simply the facts of life and local education authorities and the like are no different from businesses. Everybody has to face those additional costs." Although I very much agree with what the Conservatives have said today, on that particular aspect there seems to be a marked distinction between what they are saying in opposition and what I recall even the kindliest Conservative Minister saying in government when one petitioned for more cash.
The Secretary of State made the point that part of Government policy has been to set about a modernisation programme. In general terms that must be right and, indeed, in some specific terms it has headed in the right direction. We have detailed points of dispute with them over a number of changes, but their reforms of primary care, the introduction of the National Institute for Clinical Excellence and the Commission for Health Improvement, and the development of national service frameworks are all sensible policies that move in the right direction. However, the danger is that they will convince themselves that modernisation is in some sense an alternative to putting additional funding into the national health service. The reality is probably the reverse.
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If the modernisation policy works as well as I hope it will, it will result in an improving NHS that will probably cost even more to run. I remember the Conservative Government setting about the process of introducing care in the community. The only thing that was wrong with what otherwise seemed to be an entirely laudable policy objective was the belief that it would somehow cost less. Anybody could see that closing down those appalling old mental asylums and putting people into care in the community was entirely right, but it was a banking certainty to cost a lot more money. We have found precisely that in practice.
For the first two years of this Parliament, the Government decided to saddle themselves with the spending objectives left in place by the previous Conservative Administration. Only in the last three, under the comprehensive spending review, have they started to load significant sums into public services. The result will be that, by the end of this Parliament, they will struggle to convince the electorate that they have expanded health service funding by any more than their Conservative predecessors. Were the election to be called next spring, which seems to be a fashionable bet in some quarters, they would have had only a four-year Parliament of two lean and two slightly better funded years. They would not even have achieved a real-terms increase year on year as great as that managed by the previous Conservative Government.
Unless the Government take radical action pretty quickly, they will face the electorate in May next year having to explain why their increases in health service spending have not even kept up with those of the Conservatives. With the Budget only three weeks away and the comprehensive spending review to be published in July, I can only hope that they find extra money that goes some way to meeting the objective—which the Prime Minister seemed to come up with on the hoof a few weeks ago—of trying to achieve average European Union health spending within five years.
That commitment does not stand close scrutiny because the EU' s membership might change considerably over the next five years, the economic cycle could make average EU health spending a completely different proportion of gross domestic product in any or all EU countries and exchange rate fluctuations could completely distort the figures in any event. The United Kingdom, as one of the largest EU countries, will push the European average up as the situation here improves, so we would be chasing a target that got further and further away.
It would be helpful if the Government nailed down what the Prime Minister meant, what they are seeking to achieve and over what period. If they were seriously to achieve the objective of getting up to EU average spending within five years, it would begin to address the serious funding and resourcing problems in the health service. The measure of success will be whether they achieve the objective that has been set.
Mr. David Hinchliffe: Bearing in mind the fact that this Opposition day debate was mounted by the Conservative party, does the hon. Gentleman share my surprise and concern that only two Back-Bench Tory MPs are present to discuss these issues?
Mr. Harvey: It seems surprising that, having chosen this subject for debate, there are not more Conservative

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Members wanting to participate in it. I am not sure how they will keep it going until 7 o'clock, but I suspect that some of them are frantically running round the Tea Room. I suspect that they are relying on me to keep it going. Other than that, we are looking forward to a long contribution from the hon. Member for Meriden (Mrs. Spelman). I shall see what I can do to help her.
Miss Kirkbride: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. Harvey: I shall give way to help out in these circumstances.
Miss Kirkbride: In the interests of fairness, the hon. Gentleman may like to know that many of my hon. Friends who were present during the speeches of the Front-Bench spokesmen are now downstairs in Westminster Hall seeing off the multiple sclerosis sufferers who came to lobby Parliament. Labour Members were absent from that lobby.
Mr. Harvey: It is correct that a lobby on behalf of MS sufferers is taking place today, and I am sure that hon. Members from both sides of the House will want to hear what they have to say and to play a part in that.
Funding for the coming year will be hard for many authorities and trusts, which carry the deficits that have accumulated in previous years. The Government, the public and the media are expecting more and more of the national health service. If authorities and trusts are to achieve what everyone wants them to achieve, they will have to have more money than they are getting at the moment. We shall have to wait and see what the comprehensive spending review comes up with, but we hope that the method by which calculations are made in that review and the sums that the Government are able to announce will be clearer and more transparent than they have been to date.
The Secretary of State referred to spending announcements. I looked into 63 spending announcements during 1999, which emerged in the form of Department of Health press releases. Umpteen were already covered by earlier announcements—fair enough, we have got used to that—but several were straightforward repeats. The distance and time that the Government allowed to elapse before reheating the old spending announcements varied from two months at the cheekiest to about eight months, when they hoped that enough people had forgotten about it.
We need to see real money, calculated in a universal fashion that everyone understands and that bears historical and international comparison. When the comprehensive spending review comes out, it is essential that the laudable goal of getting up to the EU average within five years that the Prime Minister has mapped out can be achieved.
Dr. Stoate: The hon. Gentleman has made a number of comments about funding, and I share his concern that we must ensure that the health service is properly funded. He claimed that the £18 billion that we promised for England does not add up, but were we to put in £6 billion in each of three years, he would have to agree with me that that would mean no growth in the second and third years.
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Time and again, the Liberal Democrats have asked for money for the health service—there is nothing wrong with that—but they have not explained how they would fund the NHS, and have not said how much money they would put in. I have heard nothing from the Liberal Democrats that makes me feel happy that they have a viable alternative to the vast sums of money that Labour is putting in and will to continue to make available in the future.
Mr. Harvey: I have a sneaking suspicion that the hon. Gentleman will never be entirely happy that the Liberal Democrats have a solution to the problems of the health service. Nevertheless, we shall continue to do our best to persuade him that that is so. We had a costed manifesto at the last election, which promised real-terms increases far in excess of what the Government have achieved, and we explained how those would be paid for.
Each time there has been a Budget we have produced an alternative Budget, and we shall do so again in a couple of weeks' time. After the July comprehensive spending review, both opposition parties will be able to take stock of the state of the nation's finances, and will begin the process of explaining to the nation before next spring's election what our spending priorities are and how we would pay for them. We will take those policies into an election next spring to try to convince the public that there is a better way of doing it. If the hon. Gentleman will hold his breath for a couple of weeks, he will be able to see our alternative Budget.
I remind the hon. Gentleman that last week we debated why the Government had decided on a tax cut this April, although all the polling evidence suggested that people did not want it. According to the polls, at least 80 per cent. said that they would prefer the money to be spent on public services. The Bank of England is raising interest rates almost every month because it is worried about a consumer boom, yet the Chancellor is considering putting the extra money into the pockets of consumers who do not even want it. It is a bit rich for the hon. Gentleman to claim that Liberal Democrats do not say how things should be paid for, just when we are saying that £2.6 billion could easily be found for the purpose.
The long and the short of it is that health service professionals, health authorities and trusts continue to struggle with adverse circumstances. Patients can see the state of hospitals: they can see that there is a lack of staff and that the staff who are there are so overworked that they are having to rush around like scalded cats, and they find it unacceptable that more people are still waiting for longer than they were at the time of the last election.
The Government have introduced some policy initiatives, which we applaud, but those initiatives are no substitute for adequate funding of the health service. The Prime Minister has now set an ambitious goal; we await the Budget and the July comprehensive spending review to see whether the Government are sincere and serious in their attempt to achieve it.
5.1 pm
Mr. David Hinchliffe: I realise that not many Conservatives wish to speak—although their numbers have doubled in the past few moments: four Tory Back Benchers are now in the Chamber, which is encouraging—but several of my hon. Friends want to say a word, so I shall be brief.

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This morning I read a piece in the paper—I cannot remember which one—by some learned professor who argued that the ablest Conservatives were now leading a move back to the centre ground. I have observed no move in that direction on the part of Conservative Front Benchers today. There has been no departure from the clear commitment to a move towards a privatised system that we have heard consistently from successive Tory health spokesmen since the election. Significantly, however, the motion makes no mention of the Tories' privatisation solutions.
Mr. Burns: That is because we are not going to privatise.
Mr. Hinchliffe: I have a degree of respect for the hon. Gentleman, who, like me, is a member of the Select Committee on Health. He works hard on the Committee, and understands some of the issues—not all, but some. However, I have read statements made by the hon. Member for Woodspring (Dr. Fox) in The Sunday Times, which we discussed during our last debate. Those statements make clear the direction in which the Conservatives intend to go, and, although this is not in the motion, it has been made clear again from the Front Bench that they see the NHS as a core service to deal with serious conditions, and expect people to seek private treatment for conditions that are less serious.
Mrs. Caroline Spelman: At 2.40 pm, the hon. Gentleman and I engaged in a debate on "Westminster Live", in which I plainly stated that both my right hon. Friend the Member for Richmond, Yorks (Mr. Hague) and my hon. Friend the Member for Woodspring (Dr. Fox) had said explicitly that the Conservative party would not privatise the NHS. My statement could hardly have been made more recently; I hope that it was clear.
Mr. Jon Trickett: Playing with words.
Mr. Hinchliffe: Indeed it is. The Conservatives say that they will not privatise the NHS, but the hon. Lady's colleagues say that a number of patients will be encouraged to seek a private alternative to the NHS. That is on the record, and has been on the record consistently throughout all our debates in the current Parliament. It is the Conservatives' clear commitment. The point that I am making is that their motion makes no mention of any of their policies. In a sense, it treats the House with contempt to table a motion that simply comments on Government policy and sets out no alternative whatever. It has happened before. More than halfway, possibly, through the Parliament, the public deserve some explanation of what the Opposition stand for. The picture that we get is that they stand for moving away from the state health care system.
Miss Kirkbride: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. Hinchliffe: No. I want to make some progress.
As I have said, the debate on 18 January focused around the interview in the latest edition of The Sunday Times with the hon. Member for Woodspring and his detailed thinking on the future direction of health care under the Conservatives. I made a point of mentioning one specific part of the article. I did not quote his words
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out of context; I quoted them exactly within the context of the article. It quoted his views on the direction of Conservative policy:
The Conservatives are no longer concerned with the maintenance of the NHS as the primary provider.
There was a clear message there.
There was some mumbling from the Front-Bench team at that time. The Secretary of State said that the Conservative Front-Bench spokesman intended to write to The Sunday Times. I have read it every week since. I have seen no corrections. I have seen no suggestions from the Conservatives in the letters column or elsewhere that it was a misrepresentation, because it is exactly what the hon. Member for Woodspring said. The key point that the Secretary of State made is that the tax guarantee will reduce public funding. Clearly, the expansion of private health care is allied to that.
The problem that the Tories face—they have never answered the question, although I have raised it in every health debate since the last general election—is that, if they expand private health care, where will the staff come from? They will come directly from the NHS, so it is their policy to expand the private sector—whether we call it privatisation or peripheral—with people being encouraged, as they have been today, to take out private insurance and use the private sector for hip replacements, cataract operations or whatever. The purpose is to expand and increase use of the private sector.
The Tories do not seem to understand that the private sector does not train its own staff. It recruits them directly from the NHS, so their policy is all about robbing the NHS of its staff and skills.
Mr. Swayne: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. Hinchliffe: No. I want to carry on because many Members want to take part in the debate. I have taken one intervention. I hope that I responded to the point that was made.
The simple political fact is that the Tory party has given up on the NHS. I made the point during the speech of the hon. Member for North Devon (Mr. Harvey): two Tory Back Benchers were in the Chamber for a Tory debate. That shows their commitment to discussing concerns about the NHS. If they are getting hammered by their constituents about problems in the NHS, look at the Tory Benches: there is no one there. That shows that they are doing nothing but going through the motions. They see the private sector as the way forward. It is no surprise because, as we all know, the Conservative party has never believed in the NHS.
Mr. Burns: May I try to put the hon. Gentleman out of his misery? I know that he is keeping to a script that he obviously wrote some hours ago, but just to reassure him: Conservative Members do believe in the NHS, free at the point of delivery. That is why we are so concerned on behalf of our constituents about what is happening with waiting lists, out-patient lists, ward closures and the lack of funding.
Mr. Hinchliffe: I am still mystified. If there is such concern, why do we constantly hear about the mixed economy? The first statement—I will check the record—

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of the hon. Member for Woodspring was about that. That gives a clear message: the Tories want not the state health care system, but the mixed economy.
Mr. Burns: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. Hinchliffe: No. With the greatest respect, I have to make progress.
That has been the consistent message for nearly three years. It has not changed, so people understand the direction of Tory policy and will make up their own minds, as they did at the last general election.
I should like to deal specifically with the subject of this debate, as described on the Annunciator: the Government's waiting list pledge at the previous general election, and the alleged distortion of clinical priorities. I have long examined the issue, and I know that there are 101 ways of measuring activity and progress—or the lack of it—in the national health service. As I have said many times, I should not have chosen waiting lists as the best way of measuring progress made in the health service, but should have thought that progress in public health is the best overall guide in judging Government policy. Nevertheless, I accept that I was elected on that pledge, and I believe that I have a duty to ensure that the Government deliver it.
I recommend to hon. Members an exercise that I performed the other day—read the manifesto on which we stood at the general election. I re-read the manifesto that I issued at the election, and it included the pledge on waiting lists. It seems—looking at my picture on the manifesto cover—that I look younger now, under Labour, than I did then, but that is a separate issue. The point is that, with the exception of that one pledge, on waiting lists, we have delivered all of our promises, and I am damned proud of that. I also have a vested interest in ensuring that I can tick the last promise, on waiting lists. Although I had reservations about including the pledge, I believe that we have to deliver it, and that we will deliver it.
Is the pledge distorting priorities in the NHS? A couple of weeks ago, the Health Committee conducted a brief inquiry into the winter pressures initiative. The hon. Member for West Chelmsford (Mr. Burns) attended the inquiry, so I hope that he will concur on this.
At the inquiry, I asked a question of the Under-Secretary of State for Health, my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Edgbaston (Ms Stuart), which I couched in these terms: "If I were the chief executive of an NHS trust and I faced the dilemma of choosing between meeting the Government's waiting list target or treating people on the basis of clinical need, what should I do?" She was absolutely clear and categoric in her reply: "You treat people on the basis of need. The health service should treat urgent clinical needs first." The Secretary of State made precisely the same point today.
If hon. Members say that that is not happening in various parts of the country, I shall need to see the evidence of it. Although I have heard anecdotal evidence that urgent clinical priorities are not being treated first, I have not seen concrete evidence of it. I listen to people and, every day, I receive many letters from people who work across the NHS, but I have not yet received a
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concrete example of the practice. If I receive such an example, I shall examine it. I shall also say that the people in the health service who are involved in the practice have not been listening to the Government's statements, which have made it quite clear that urgent clinical needs should be treated first.
At that Health Committee inquiry, we also compared the performance of two acute NHS trusts, one of which was in the constituency of the hon. Member for West Chelmsford, in Essex, with the other in the north-west of England, in Cheshire. Allegedly, one of the trusts was failing, and the other was succeeding. What I learned in the inquiry—perhaps the hon. Member for West Chelmsford took from it a different message—is that, when we examined in depth the two trusts' figures, we were not comparing like with like. I also learned that one of the trusts was intervening earlier than the other trust in certain medical conditions, and that that practice was increasing its out-patient waiting list.
One trust gave the Committee the specific example of cataract operations. That trust tackled cataract cases earlier than it had before, on an out-patient basis, and did not leave them for the condition to worsen. However, the change in procedure increased the number of people on the out-patient waiting list. The size of waiting lists is, therefore, not the most reliable way of measuring local performance.
I hope that, at the next general election, we might consider including in our manifesto pledges on measurements other than waiting lists. Although I have no problem with including waiting lists, we should do so within the wider context of measuring progress, or lack of it, on other health issues, not only in the health service, but in public health.
As other hon. Members wish to speak in the debate, I shall make only one or two brief points on issues that the Government still have to address. I believe that the biggest distortion in clinical priorities has been caused by private medicine. Part-time NHS consultant status leads to a scandalous distortion, often placing treatment of those who are able to pay before treatment of those on NHS waiting lists who are in greater need. The same consultants are treating people in both sectors.
I ask my hon. Friend the Minister whether the Government will consider conducting a sample audit of NHS and private operating lists of part-time NHS consultants and comparing the clinical needs of patients in each sector. I know for a fact that the outcome of such an audit will show that the clinical needs of those who are on NHS waiting lists are far greater than those of people being treated in the private sector.
The message that I want to give the Government is that the waiting lists problems that we are facing will be dealt with seriously only when moonlighting in the private sector is ended once and for all. We have faced that problem ever since the inception of the national health service, and it is about time the Government dealt with it seriously, on behalf of those—the vast majority of people—who use the national health service.
We could fund that solution by using within the NHS the money that is currently being spent by the NHS on buying care in the private sector. A lot of money is being spent on buying private sector care that could be devoted to the NHS. I hope that Ministers will consider doing that,

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because such a change would fundamentally alter the treatment received by NHS patients waiting on NHS waiting lists.
I also hope that we shall make much better use of the scarce resources that we do have. When one has been an hon. Member as long as I have, one will—as the hon. Member for West Chelmsford is well aware—have heard it all before. We simply move to the Benches on the other side of the House and carry on dealing with the same matters as we dealt with before. The current Government are bolstering the health service with ever more money, just as the previous Government did. I am always mystified as to where all the money the Tories provided went. In my backyard, all I could see was things getting worse by the week. The money seemed to disappear into a black hole somewhere. There still seems, to some extent, to be a black hole.
We have talked about ending the internal market, which I fully accept. I have also commended the Government on ending competition, which is now officially gone, as the Health Act 1999 made absolutely clear. As an analogy, however, when I go to a market, I see various stalls selling similar products. In health provision, we still have a whole load of stalls that are selling very similar products. I should like some of those stalls to be combined.
I should also like us again to address the purchaser-provider split. I remain to be convinced, when I see what has happened in my own backyard, that such a split makes sense. I talk to people who know far more than I do about local operation of the NHS, and they think that there is huge duplication and a lot of money—which should be spent on patient care—being wasted. I hope that we will revisit that issue. I also urge Ministers to re-examine the framework, to make it more sensible and to cut more of the bureaucracy and waste still in the system.
It would not be a speech by me if I did not also argue that there has to be a much closer relationship between the NHS and local authority social services. I commend the Government on the way in which they have moved the two spheres much closer together. However, like many hon. Members, I fundamentally believe that there should be formal integration of the services. It does not make sense to keep the two systems separated.
I was struck by figures provided, a couple of weeks ago, in the conclusion to the national bed inquiry, showing that two thirds of NHS beds are occupied by over-65s. Since the mid-1990s, one half of the increase in emergency admissions has been of people over 75. Since the early 1990s, one half of the extra emergency admissions of over-75s have been for frailty, not medical need. The inquiry report, which was very comprehensive, provides concrete evidence showing that a substantial proportion of NHS admissions arise as a direct result of the failure to offer people alternative care in the community. In a previous health debate, my hon. Friend the Member for Dartford (Dr. Stoate) gave an example of how he was able to provide such alternative care. We have to provide it, and combining the NHS with local authority social services would make it much easier to do so.
I am very proud of my Government's achievements on the NHS. I am proud that they are addressing the issue of quality, and that they are re-establishing public health as a key public policy issue. I am proud that, so far, they have managed to increase NHS funding, although I look forward to more funding. However, as I said, improving
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the NHS is not only about money, but about organisation. I am proud also that the Government have ended competition and restored to the NHS the philosophy of collectivism.
The hon. Member for Woodspring said that the Government have no core values. For goodness' sake, we represent the values of the vast majority of people in the United Kingdom. We believe in the values of the NHS that have stood this country in good stead since the 1940s. The NHS has an excellent future in the hands of the Labour Government.
5.20 pm
Mr. Simon Burns: It is a pleasure to follow the Chairman of the Select Committee on Health, the hon. Member for Wakefield (Mr. Hinchliffe). Like the Minister, I listened with great care—the Minister was probably a little aghast—to the hon. Gentleman's comments on what should happen to consultants. I hope that the Minister will fully answer the important points that the Chairman of the Select Committee made. Conservative Members will be fascinated to hear how much the Minister agrees with the hon. Gentleman.
It was also a pleasure in some ways to listen to the characteristically robust, but somewhat worn speech of the Secretary of State. In places, his speech was extremely interesting and non-partisan, and there were even points in it with which no fair-minded person could disagree. The trouble was that he, like many other Ministers in this Government, got hooked on the Millbank syndrome and had to repeat the same catch-phrases, buzz words and on-line messages that the Government try to get across to the country, regardless of whether they are based on fact. Sadly, the hon. Member for Wakefield could not resist clutching at the Secretary of State's coat tails. I refer in particular to the bogus argument about privatisation.
As the hon. Gentleman well knows, we were in government for 18 years. We did not, in any shape or form, in those 18 years seek to privatise the health service. In every year that we were in office, we increased the real-terms funding to the health service. Just to try to convince the hon. Gentleman, may I point out that I certainly believe passionately in the national health service? Under no circumstances would I tolerate its privatisation, in any shape or form.
Mr. Hinchliffe: I accept that the hon. Gentleman personally believes in the NHS. However, he supported and was a member of a Government who had a key fiscal policy of encouraging people to use the private health sector. His Government gave people tax breaks to do that. That does not suggest to me that they believed in the NHS. They wanted to get people out of the NHS and into the private sector, with a consequential drain on staff in the NHS.
Mr. Burns: The hon. Gentleman says that we encouraged people to use private health care. That may well be true in certain areas, such as tax relief on insurance premiums for the elderly, but it is not privatisation.
If one makes it attractive, through tax breaks for individuals, totally voluntarily to spend the money that they earn as they wish on private health care, that relieves the pressures on the national health service and must be beneficial to the people on waiting lists. I see no conflict

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between the principle of a free national health service and some members of the public wishing to spend their own money to make their own provision. There is nothing wrong with that and it is not privatisation.
I do not want to speak at great length on this subject, but shall make one final point about it. The Government are not averse to using the private health care sector to treat patients, albeit, rightly, free at the point of delivery to those patients. One of the Government's cherished promises—which was that no one would wait more than 18 months for hospital treatment—was broken in my constituency at the end of November and the beginning of December last year. Fourteen people had waited more than 18 months for treatment and the trust picked up on that problem. It was so terrified that it had embarrassed the Secretary of State and that the Government's cherished promise had been broken that it wrote to all those people to say that they could have their operations as quickly as possible whenever they liked, and the private sector carried out the operations. I am delighted for my constituents, because they quickly received their treatment, having waited longer than the Government said they would have to wait. That shows that the Government are not averse to using the private sector when there are problems.
Mr. Hinchliffe: I do not want to pursue this point, but I want to try to get one thing on the record. The hon. Gentleman is probably a good deal brighter than the average Conservative Front Bencher, so perhaps he can answer a fundamental question that none of his Front-Bench colleagues appear able to answer. When one pushes people into the private sector and expands it, where do the staff come from to service the private sector? They come directly from the NHS; that is the central point.
Mr. Burns: The hon. Gentleman's question suggested that people are forced into the private sector. No one forces people to take out private health insurance or to use private health care. As he has alluded to, there were in the past encouragements through the tax system for the elderly, but no one forced them to use the private sector.
There are two ways in which staff can be trained for health care in this country. The first—it trains the largest proportion—is through the health service and the second is through the private system, which trains a much smaller proportion.
Dr. Stoate: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. Burns: No, I will not give way, because I want to finish my point.
The hon. Member for Wakefield raised the issue of consultants and seems to be obsessed by it. I think that I can anticipate the Minister's answer to his suggestion. He will say no, but the hon. Gentleman probably thought it was worth a try to raise the issue. It will reassure the profession and bring relief to the Government when the Minister says that he does not agree with him. Significantly, he did not mention general practitioners, who are all self-employed. It was interesting that he
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mentioned consultants, but did not, for some reason, refer to GPs. I assume that that was an omission and that he would like to include them in his system.
Mr. Hinchliffe: No.
Mr. Burns: The hon. Gentleman says no. That suggests that he has a contradictory view. However, I want to move on, or we shall get bogged down in what is a minor part of my speech.
I read the Government's motion with interest and I listened to the glowing picture that the Secretary of State painted of NHS funding. He suggested that everything was absolutely magnificent in the health service. I agree that some things are magnificent. The staff—the doctors, nurses, consultants and ancillary staff who deliver health care to all our constituents—are excellent. I also concede that the additional money that the Government, like the previous Government, have given to the NHS is welcome. As the country's financial position dictates, and when the economy is healthy and more money pours into the Treasury from tax receipts and other sources, I would like more investment in the health service. I hope that the Chancellor of the Exchequer's war chest for the general election is not squandered buying up different target groups of the electorate for polling day some time, presumably, next year. I hope that more money is given to the health service.
My hon. Friend the Member for Woodspring (Dr. Fox) said that the £21 billion over three years for the whole of the United Kingdom is not as spectacular as the headline figure suggests. He said that, once it is broken down and analysed, and if one takes into account the partial funding of pay awards and medical insurance, in effect, it works out at £5 billion. When the country can afford it—we are perhaps at a unique point in my lifetime because the country can afford it—I hope that substantially more money will be put into the health service. I say that because of what has happened in my constituency, which is causing grave concern to my constituents. Sadly, they have not enjoyed health care that is as good and glowing as the Secretary of State suggested was the case throughout the land.
I shall be fair and say from the outset that, under the Labour Government of the 1970s and my Government from 1979 until the early 1990s, health service spending was allocated under the resource allocation working party system down to the health authority, and what is now the health trust. RAWP was a crude and painful exercise for my constituents because we were part of the North-East Thames regional health authority, which lumped together places such as mid-Essex with Hackney, Tower Hamlets and other east London boroughs, which, to be frank, have worse social problems than mid-Essex. As a result, a disproportionate amount of health care funding, which, on a pound per head of the population basis would have gone to mid-Essex where the population was expanding, went to the east end of London. At the end of RAWP in 1990–91, it was calculated that mid-Essex alone had lost out to the tune of £15 million a year.
My right hon. Friend the Member for South-West Surrey (Mrs. Bottomley) abolished RAWP and, in crude terms, introduced a pound per head system. From 1990–91 until 1997–98, mid-Essex did much better on a pro rata basis and started to recoup some of the

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£15 million lost as a result of RAWP. Unfortunately, one of the first things that the Secretary of State did as Minister of State when the Labour Government took office in 1997 was to tweak the funding formula. To be fair, it was only a small tweak, but it meant that more money went back into the east end of London and mid-Essex is losing about £1 million a year that it would have had under the system that existed in 1997–98. I regret that.
As I said in an intervention on the Secretary of State, at the end of this month the Mid Essex Hospital Services NHS trust will have the worst deficit that it has ever had—£4.2 million. Last summer, when the trust believed that the deficit would be £1.8 million by the end of this year, it closed three wards. Owing to the community health council's representations that autumn, it agreed to keep one ward open and, subsequently, due to the winter pressures, it was forced to use part of a second ward, but that was guaranteed only until March. Since then, the deficit has exploded from £1.8 million to £4.2 million. Even the closure of all three wards will not meet the trust's deficit, because that was expected to save only £900,000. One wonders how on earth that deficit would be removed in a recovery plan without even more adverse effects on health care, unless the Government were to provide more money.
The Government's amendment says that my constituents and those of my hon. Friends should welcome the Government's
reduction in waiting lists and times that are being achieved through the dedication and hard work of NHS staff.
I wholeheartedly concur with the second half of that sentence, but the first half causes me problems. Once again, it is Government spin, which bears little relation to reality.
As my hon. Friend the Member for Woodspring said, the waiting list to get on to the waiting list has increased during the past two and a half years from 250,000 to just over 500,000. The Government have pledged to reduce in-patient waiting lists by 100,000 in the lifetime of this Parliament. We may have only 12 or 14 months to go, so they have an uphill battle. In the Government's first year, waiting lists escalated almost out of control. They then started to come down—to be fair, they came down to 50,000—then they rose again. The Government will say, with some credibility and accuracy, that that was due to winter pressures, but it remains to be seen in the coming months how much of that rise was due to winter pressures and how much to financial pressures and demand on patient care.
Sadly, we in mid-Essex have not shared in that so-called improvement. If only we had, my constituents would not write to me so often about their problems. In mid-Essex in March 1997, 8,361 people were waiting for hospital treatment. In December 1999, the latest available figure, it was 9,851. In March 1997, 104 people, and falling, were waiting 12 months or more for treatment. In December 1999, the figure was 1,060, and rising. We have the added indignity that, at the end of November, early December, the Government's most cherished promise that no one would wait more than 18 months for treatment was also breached, yet we had no apology.
On out-patient lists, the Government thought that they had come up with a wonderful little wheeze. Some bright spark, realising the problems faced by the previous
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Secretary of State, the right hon. Member for Holborn and St. Pancras (Mr. Dobson), because the figures were not falling and he had rashly said on the "Today" programme one morning that if they did not come down he would resign, decided to save the right hon. Gentleman's bacon—that was before the Prime Minister decided to save it for him by making him the Labour candidate for the mayor of London—by stringing out the length of time before anyone ever sees a consultant after having seen the GP, so creating a significant waiting list to get on to the waiting list for treatment. Nationally, that has been a disaster. The figure has risen from 250,000 to more than 500,000.
In my constituency, matters are even worse. In March 1997, a total of 555 people were waiting 13 weeks or more to see a consultant. Now, the figure is 3,699, which is unacceptable. That is why we need more money.
I come now to the distortion of clinical needs. The Secretary of State said that that does not exist and the hon. Member for Wakefield confirmed that. But, as Mandy Rice-Davies once said, they would say that wouldn't they? It is in their interests to try to spin that line. Unfortunately, to use a stockbroker term, what we are seeing is churning. If an operation is relatively minor, cheap and quick to do, it will be done more quickly than a non-emergency operation that is more complicated, expensive and time consuming, because of the pressures being placed on hospitals and trusts to deliver the Government's deadlines and targets.
As a general election approaches, the pressures will build even more, because the Government will have to show, by hook or by crook, that they have honoured their pledge on waiting lists. They may do it with mirrors or spin, but, whatever the real situation, they will claim to have achieved it because it would be too politically embarrassing for them to admit otherwise. People in the real world, waiting for treatment, will know what the Government are up to.
There is the further problem of trolley waits. Unison did a survey of my local hospital, Broomfield hospital, from 31 October to 5 December 1999. That end date is slightly before the problems of the winter pressures kicked in, so that cannot be used as an excuse. In that period, the number of people having to wait on a trolley from four to 12 hours for a hospital bed was 120. Even worse, the number waiting from 12 to 24 hours was 47. It is unacceptable to have people waiting around in A and E departments or elsewhere to get onto a ward.
Chelmsford has a problem that is shared throughout the country: the cancellation for non-clinical reasons of non-emergency treatment. A survey conducted at Broomfield between October and 22 December 1999—again, just before the winter pressures began to have a significant impact—showed that the number of people whose operations had been cancelled a month before admission was 118, but the number whose operations had been cancelled on the day of admission was 201.
Imagine being psychologically prepared for an operation, with the mental anguish and worry, and turning up at the hospital only to be told that, for non-clinical reasons, the operation has been cancelled. That is unacceptable. Everyone accepts that, if there is a major road accident or a disaster, operations will have to be cancelled to give precedence to emergency treatment, but for those 201 people, that was not the case. That is terrible.

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The half-baked solution, which will not work, was to announce the closure of three wards in my constituency, with the loss of 84 beds. To be fair, part of the solution was to eliminate the problem of delayed discharge, and I welcome that, but the wards should not have been closed: they should have been used to bring down the waiting lists. I see the hon. Member for Harwich (Mr. Henderson) nodding in agreement. I wonder whether he knows that, six months after the introduction of the policy of working with social services to eliminate the problem of delayed discharge patients in hospitals, the number of people in Broomfield as delayed discharges is 89.
Mr. Trickett: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. Is it in order for the hon. Gentleman to filibuster the debate when many Back Benchers want to take part in this very important discussion?
Mr. Deputy Speaker (Sir Alan Haselhurst): That is not a point of order for the Chair, as the hon. Gentleman knows.
Mr. Burns: Thank you, Mr. Deputy Speaker. It is a sign of the hon. Gentleman's embarrassment that he has to call my speech a filibuster. He does not like to have to listen to what is going on in the real world, as it does not dovetail with the spin from Millbank. He should learn, because I cannot believe that his constituents do not write to him complaining about delays in their local hospital.
Everything is not as rosy in the NHS as the Secretary of State would have us believe. I am the first to wish him well, because we all want the most effective and efficient provision of health care for our constituents within the health service, for those who choose to use it. I only wish that, instead of trying to convey a situation that does not exist, the Government would be a little more honest and consider some of the tough decisions that will have to be taken to ensure that the health service continues to develop and improve, providing the health care that we all want for our constituents.
Several hon. Members rose—
Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. So far, there has been no speech shorter than 18 minutes in this debate. I appeal to hon. Members to realise that shorter speeches make more friends.
5.46 pm
Mr. Eric Martlew: Thank you for calling me, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I have told my Whip that if I take more than 10 minutes he must pull me down.
The hon. Member for West Chelmsford (Mr. Burns) said that his party was in power for 18 years and did not privatise the national health service. The reality is that it did. Anyone who knows how difficult it is for a constituent to get on an NHS dentist's list will realise that the Tories deliberately and cynically pushed dentistry out of the national health service. The vast majority of people who need dental treatment now have to pay for it. I needed dental treatment and refused to go private, but I
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had to wait three months for an appointment. That is what the Tories did: they privatised the NHS and they would do even worse next time.
Miss Kirkbride: Dream on.
Mr. Martlew: The hon. Member for Woodspring (Dr. Fox) encouraged his colleagues to make political capital out of the problems. The Conservatives are too stupid to realise that they cannot make political capital out of the NHS, because the public will not forgive them for the state that they left it in: there is nothing in it for them. They are a bit like a—[Interruption.] They are a bit—
Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. I have tried by silent entreaty to silence the hon. Member for Bromsgrove (Miss Kirkbride). I must now tell her that I have had enough of her sedentary comments. They are delaying the debate.
Mr. Martlew: The Conservatives are a bit like a punch-drunk boxer: they do not know why they have come here—and most of them have disappeared. Politically, on the health service, they are brain-damaged.
The benefits of the £21 billion—the increase in nurses' pay, the increase in the number of nurses, and the increase in the number of doctors—are starting to show through. That may be even more the case in my constituency than elsewhere. In a way, that has been easy, because although I would not say that the NHS in my constituency was decimated, it was certainly starved of investment in the 18 years of Conservative Government.
Since we have had a Labour Government, we have closed the Victorian mental asylum and opened the brand-new Carleton clinic, which has provided an excellent service since opening last year. At the beginning of April, we will have a brand-new district general hospital—which we have waited more than 20 years for—under a contract that was signed after the Labour Government took over. Five attempts to build a new hospital were aborted under the Conservatives.
It may take seven years to train a doctor and three years to train a nurse, but under the Labour Government we have got a brand-new hospital in less than three years. It will be an excellent hospital, providing services—especially maternity services—that used to be on a split site. We have heard about various factors—lack of cardiac surgeons, for instance—that have led to the loss of lives. The fact that the paediatricians were on one site and the maternity unit on another cost babies' lives year after year—under the previous Labour Government, too, it must be said. The new hospital is coming and people are certain to see an improvement. That is why people will say that the Labour Government are doing their best. The NHS is like a supertanker, and turning it round has not been easy, but we are now seeing the effect of a good health service in Carlisle and the rest of the country.
NHS Direct will also come on stream locally in the autumn and provide an extra facility for my constituents. The hon. Member for Bromsgrove (Miss Kirkbride) can pull faces about that, but the people who ring NHS Direct when they have a problem will be pleased by it.
There is no doubt that things are improving, but I cannot let the Secretary of State off completely. We still face challenges in North Cumbria. We have two district

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general hospitals, one in Whitehaven and one in Carlisle, which are separated by 40 miles of very bad roads. The population of the area dictates that we should have only one hospital, but that is not feasible, sensible or practical. However, the funding formula used takes no account of the fact that we need two district general hospitals. We need to keep the facilities of a district general hospital on both sites.
The two existing trusts will be merged in the near future, and we will have one acute trust and two district general hospitals. However, services will not improve as they should unless the Secretary of State is prepared to accept that there are rural areas whose needs the Conservatives did not address in the past and this Government need to address in future. We need to take account of the fact that North Cumbria is a massive area that includes the lake district, not an urban area in which everyone lives near the hospital.
The situation is improving, but we face many challenges. We need more nurses in our area. A recent scare put out by Unison claimed that a move to a single site would cost 180 jobs. That created much distress among the nursing staff and for my constituents. They thought, "Here we have a Labour Government who said that they were going to improve the NHS, but they are going to sack 180 nurses." The story was a fabrication, and in reality those 180 jobs are safe—and we will take on extra nurses in the future.
The people of Britain have a choice. Do they want partial privatisation of the NHS by the Conservatives—I suspect that even their focus groups are telling them that people do not want to pay for private insurance—or do they want the Prime Minister's pledge that if the economy is going right—and it would be stupid to commit to spending the extra money if there is a slump—spending will be brought up to the European average?
People who work in the NHS in my constituency are looking forward to that extra spending. For too long under the Conservatives, NHS staff did not know where the money was coming from. They have heard the platitudes—we heard them today from the hon. Member for West Chelmsford (Mr. Burns)—about how magnificent they are.
Mr. Burns: They are.
Mr. Martlew: In that case, it is a pity that the Conservatives did not pay them properly.
Under the Labour Government, the nurses will get the best increase that they have had for 10 years. It is easy to say that the staff are magnificent, but the Conservatives never provided the resources to match their magnificence. A Labour Government created the NHS and we are committed to it. We will modernise it and we will give the people of this country the health service that they deserve.
5.54 pm
Mr. John Hayes: Above all else, this debate is about expectations—the expectations by the people of Britain of a decent and healthy life, and a good quality of life, and the expectation that Governments will do what they say they will do.
Unlike many of those who have spoken, I wish to start with the common ground between hon. Members on both sides of the Chamber, which is that those expectations—
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the public perceptions of what they can expect out of life in terms of health—have changed and are changing. I do not want to become too philosophical in a debate on health—indeed, in any debate, that might be a disadvantage—but it may be true to say that as people have become less sure about their journey to the next life, they have become more interested in preserving this one for as long as possible. Certainly, the nature of people's expectations of their time on this planet is affected by whether they think they can look forward to going anywhere else.
It is also true that as ageing has changed—not just in terms of how long people live, but in terms of what they expect to do when they are older—that has altered people's expectations of health. It is said that in my grandparents' time people were regarded as old at the age of 50. Now my 83-year-old father looks forward to travelling across Europe at regular intervals—at considerably more regular intervals than I do—and expects to be able to do so in good heart and health.
All that is common ground because those problems would confront any Government of any political persuasion. My disagreement with Labour Members is that they do not seem to appreciate that Conservatives recognise that common ground and have, in their hearts, the same desire to see good health for all the people—not only for personal and familiar reasons, but because we care about the welfare and well-being of all our constituents. It is nonsense to pretend otherwise, and facile to have a debate about who does not care about public health standards. All hon. Members care about health—
Mr. Martlew indicated dissent.
Mr. Hayes: The hon. Gentleman shakes his head, but the reason why I care about health is that before we had an NHS, my grandparents and great-grandparents had to buy their false teeth, let alone their spectacles, second-hand from Woolworths. When my father was a boy going to school in London, there were children there with no shoes on their feet and with rickets. Conservative Members do care about decent public health for all, including working-class people, because many of us come from such backgrounds.
The difference between the parties is that we understand that if we are to address the changing expectations, we must do so with a coherent strategy, and that is incompatible with short-term political stunts and spin. That is what the Government's waiting list priority smacks of, not a long-term strategic view of requirements.
The second type of expectation is the expectation that a Government will do what they say they will do. I mean specifically the mismanagement of expectations—the cynical business of making the electorate believe before the general election that the problems could be easily solved. I refer hon. Members to the Labour party manifesto, which makes no judgment about the difficulties and gives no preamble about how hard the problems will be to solve. It says, in clear and specific terms, that the new Labour Government
will do better … We will restore the NHS as a public service.
It pledges to spread best practice and ensure rising standards of care. Those are not guarded or considered words, but bold claims which—if they are not realised—will lead to disappointment and, ultimately, to despair.

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Labour suggested to the electorate, many of whom were fooled into supporting that party at the general election, that the problems would be solved in a straightforward, fast and simple way. If one sows seeds of hope of that kind, one harvests despair. When the Government consider their record on health over five years—perhaps four—there will be no point in their saying to people, "We couldn't do what we hoped to do or what we said we were going to do. We couldn't deliver on the pledges that the electorate accepted as straightforward and honest. We need more time." No Government can say that unless they are straightforward and honest when they make the initial claims and promises.
If the Labour party election manifesto had talked about strategic difficulties, long-term plans and matters that would not be dealt with in the lifetime of a Parliament by straightforward means, we might have some sympathy. It is possible that we would be less critical than we are obliged to be today, in the interests of our constituents and of our country.
I hope that the Minister of State, when he replies to the debate, will respond to five specific points that I shall make very briefly. First, will he ensure that new NHS treatments are not introduced at the cost of cuts in the existing health service? For example, a new drug that treats a particular condition should be introduced without a parallel decline in a traditional service such as nursing. The resonance of the old truth that people are nursed back to health should not be lost in the push for ever more sophisticated solutions.
Secondly, we must look again at the variety of health needs that are not currently identified as separate and distinct problems. I have a particular interest in acquired brain injury—head injury. The problem with acquired brain injury is not that people are not treated well and properly when the accident that causes the injury—it usually is an accident and one that requires intensive care and emergency treatment—nor that their neurological problems are not dealt with. The problem is that the patient's subsequent needs and treatment are not considered to be worthy of separate attention.
Injuries to the brain and head are not identified as a discrete and separate subject, with the result that many of a patient's subsequent needs are left to haphazard, piecemeal provision. That provision depends on the particular policy of the health authority, hospital or professionals involved.
Thirdly, I hope that the Minister will ensure that, when NICE studies treatments with a view to recommending a policy on them, the people already receiving those treatments will not be disadvantaged. No better example of that problem exists than the case of beta interferon. A number of people receive that drug already, and we know that there is an inequality about the way in which it is provided. However, we do not want those already receiving the drug to be disadvantaged by a new policy.
Fourthly, I am sure that aftercare services, such as convalescence services, will increasingly be moved into the community. When that happens, the Government must ensure that resources follow the patient. It is often more expensive to look after a person at home than it is in hospital, where economies of scale can be made. The small hospitals in many of our smaller towns and
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rural communities are disappearing, in accordance with the strategy of moving aftercare services into the community.
I do not necessarily disagree with that strategy, but I worry that the resources will not follow the patient, with the result that the funds devoted to such care will decrease over time, and that the quality of care will diminish accordingly. We need good liaison between social services and other agencies involved in that care and health authorities. If necessary, the structure for that communication and liaison must be formalised.
Finally, I hope that the Minister will reconsider the impact of sparsity on the delivery of rural health services. We must take on board the complaints of people who live in remote communities, such as my constituency. The Minister will understand that there is a difference between a sparse population and a scattered one. The degree of sparsity and scatter affects the ability of emergency services to respond to need, but it also impacts on less "glamorous" difficulties, such as those faced by people visiting relatives in hospital. For example, if an elderly spouse is taken into hospital, the healthy partner may have to make a round trip of 50 miles to visit. That problem may not be glamorous, but it is important to those whom it affects.
I have a letter from my constituent Mrs. O'Toole of Spalding, in which she makes the point about rurality. She tells me that, since the provisions in Spalding were reduced, her family has been forced to travel to Peterborough for casualty facilities, a round trip of 50 miles.
Two still more fundamental problems remain with the Government's approach. The first was mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Woodspring (Dr. Fox) in his opening remarks, and it concerns the difference between clinical and political judgments. I shall elucidate by identifying the differences between efficacy and priority, and between cost-effectiveness and affordability.
The second fundamental problem concerns the measurement of outcomes, alluded to by the hon. Member for Wakefield (Mr. Hinchliffe). He made two or three very good points, but unfortunately shrouded them in a good deal of prejudice and bile.
Mr. Hinchliffe: I thought that the hon. Gentleman was pleased with me.
Mr. Hayes: My remark was kindly, an example of me at my most generous.
The Labour manifesto states:
With Labour, the measure will be quality of outcome.
However, all hon. Members know that there is a tendency to measure expenditure and the numbers of people passing through the service. Those measures may be perfectly appropriate, but they do not measure the quality of outcome. We must differentiate between discussions of waiting lists, numbers and the amounts of money being spent, and the need to investigate how effectively money is spent, and how that is being delivered in terms of outcome.
The harvest of disappointment is turning into a harvest of despair. The Secretary of State said that urgent cases had been given priority over the winter. That is not the experience of all of my constituents, however. The daughter of a Mrs. Wendy Allen wrote to me to tell me

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that her mother, who suffers from a serious condition, was admitted to Leicester royal infirmary on Tuesday 4 January to prepare for an operation to remove half of her liver the next day. However, on Wednesday morning, Mrs. Allen was informed that her operation could not go ahead due to a lack of intensive-care beds.
That is precisely the sort of case to which my hon. Friend the Member for West Chelmsford (Mr. Burns) referred in his remarks. It is not the experience of my constituents—and I believe that the same is true for the constituents of all hon. Members—that the prioritisation of urgent cases has been delivered in practice.
I do not fear what will happen politically if the Government do not address problems such as those I have described. However, as an honourable and dutiful Member of Parliament, I fear for my constituents, among whom not only cardiac patients will continue to regard the Government as heartless, and not only those seeking maternity care will consider them to be all mouth and no delivery.
6.8 pm
Mr. Stephen Hesford: I shall begin with a word about the position adopted by the Liberal Democrats. My hon. Friend the Member for Dartford (Dr. Stoate) asked the hon. Member for North Devon (Mr. Harvey) what the Liberal Democrats would do to fund their approach to the health service. As I sat in the Chamber listening to the debate, I noted the rather idiosyncratic response of the hon. Member for North Devon. Although he did not respond at the time, he wrote at least one cheque while the debate continued. That is a novel solution to the problem. I look forward to the cheque being cashed on behalf of the national health service, and I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on his contribution.
My hon. Friend the Member for Wakefield (Mr. Hinchliffe) deserves congratulation for raising the matter of public health—a vital matter that needs to be emphasised at every opportunity. One of the sadnesses of the cycle of debates is that we never get on to such issues.
I come now to the subjects that Conservative Members seem not to want to mention. The debate has been about financial provision, but they did not mention the pledge from my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister that, over five years, the proportion of gross domestic product devoted to the NHS would reach the European average. They never mentioned that, yet it is a key issue. One reason for not mentioning it is their crazy tax pledge, to which my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State referred.
The Prime Minister's pledge requires, year on year for five years, stable and effective growth in the economy. The Tories do not want to discuss the issue because they cannot promise that. Their handling of the economy over 18 years was a cycle of boom and bust. They cannot promise that steady growth, which is why they will not talk about the proportion of GDP matching European funding.
Mr. Swayne: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. Hesford: If I must.
Mr. Swayne: Surely the hon. Gentleman recognises that the easiest way to achieve a proportion of GDP as a
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target would be to engineer an economic downturn. That would secure it quicker than any other method. Does the hon. Gentleman recognise that at the current growth rate of 5 per cent. per year, as claimed, it will take us 19 years to reach the level of funding enjoyed by France, and 25 years to reach that enjoyed by Germany?
Mr. Hesford: I wish that I had not given way, but I am generous to a fault.
The other matter that the Tories would not discuss today was their approach to health insurance. It seems surprising in a debate on financial provision that they should say nothing about that. I call it their "one club" approach, and I suspect that they have begun to realise that they have been beating themselves over the head with it. Whether they have abandoned the club, I do not know. If they finally put away the nonsense about privatisation and health insurance, I would be the first to welcome their conversion. I suspect, however, that that is not the case. They privately harbour that wish, but have not had the courtesy or decency to mention it in the debate.
I listened to the hon. Member for Woodspring (Dr. Fox) address a conference of general practitioners in Bristol. He was asked how far we could push the burden, and who would pay for the expansion of private health insurance. He said two strange things, which may explain why he will not talk now about this aspect. He was asked whether, if he were Secretary of State and he thought that people should take out private health insurance, he would he give all members of public sector services private health insurance. He burst out laughing and said no, he would not. Why would he not give that commitment if it is such a sensible way forward? The answer is cost.
More telling was the hon. Gentleman's remark that the burden should be put on to private business. That answer went against his own logic. Pressed on how far that could be taken, he said, "But not too much." He recognised the flaw in the argument—that lumping private health insurance on to private business would burden it with a cost that it does not now face. The Tories are seeking to impose burdens on the private sector business community. The hon. Gentleman had to say, in a lighthearted way, that the burden should not be put on too many companies. What does that mean? Who will pick up that bill? It is a chaotic approach.
Bearing in mind that the hon. Gentleman was addressing an audience of GPs, it is not surprising that he was asked from the floor, "If you want to bring private sector money into the health service, where does that leave us?" The hon. Gentleman said something like, "It's not for you; it would be too much trouble to introduce those arrangements for GPs." So GPs, who make up 90 per cent. or so of the health service in terms of seeing patients, would not be included in those insurance provisions.
When the right hon. Member for Maidstone and The Weald (Miss Widdecombe) spoke for the Opposition on health, she said:
I think if someone wants to pay to see their GP, they should be encouraged to do so … The problem with the NHS is that we do not charge for much of what we do."
Which is it? Do the Tories really have no intention of funding visits to the GP by imposing charges?
Dr. Fox: I will put the hon. Gentleman out of his misery for a moment while he gathers his thoughts. It is

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obvious that very few insurers offer any cover anywhere for general practice problems. It is common sense that any expansion of the non-NHS sector would be unlikely to focus on general practice. That is blindingly obvious to anyone—except, it seems, the hon. Gentleman.
Mr. Hesford: I am amazed by that intervention, which brings me to my next point.
Rather curiously, the hon. Gentleman also said at that meeting—and I have seen it reported elsewhere on a number of occasions—that the insurance sector, on his own estimation, is not up to the job. It is diabolical at the moment; it does not serve the public. When will it start serving the public? When will this be a credible policy? As the Prime Minister has said in Question Time, it is a Trojan horse. It is, as my hon. Friend the Member for Wakefield said, privatisation by any other name.
To paraphrase a former Member of this House, I say this to members of the public who take note of these debates, "Under the hon. Gentleman's regime, don't become elderly, don't need a hip operation, don't need a knee operation, don't need a hernia operation, don't need a cataract operation. If you do, they will make you pay for it, and if you can't afford it, you won't get it."
I want to discuss what is happening in my constituency. I cannot believe that Wirral is unique in this regard. It was interesting that in his opening remarks, the hon. Gentleman refused to go into detail or give any examples—I wonder why, considering that this is an Opposition debate. It may have been because of a lack of clear examples. I contacted the chief executives of my community trust, the health authority and the acute trust. I read them the title of the debate and asked them to comment on it in the light of their experience in Wirral.
The chief executive of the community trust said that he is satisfied with the current year's financial position. He went on to say that the trust has benefited considerably from the modernisation agenda, and gave the example of NHS Direct. I welcome the introduction of that in the Wirral.
The chief executive of the health authority said that there are sufficient resources to address the current programme and there is no evidence on the Wirral of a skewing of clinical priorities. He knows of no local consultants who are saying that such a distortion is happening. On the Wirral, local consultants with waiting lists and other priorities to take into account have been able to show sensitivity and flexibility and deal with each priority to the satisfaction of all concerned. The chief executive described that to me as a clinically sound case mix. Skewing clinical priorities is not an inherent part of the waiting list initiative, as is claimed by Conservative Members.
The chief executive of the acute trust, who is, perhaps, put on the spot more than anybody by the waiting list initiative, said that he has not been under any financial pressure at all in the current financial year, and in terms of capital investment this is the best year that the trust has had since its inception in 1991.
Mr. Hayes: As the hon. Gentleman is fond of quoting health professionals and their confidence in the Government's ability to deliver, will he reflect on the British Medical Association's view? It has written to the
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Prime Minister to tell him that the Government's habit of constantly reannouncing the same figures is making it impossible for the health professionals, whom the hon. Gentleman is quoting, to plan the effective delivery of the service. The BMA has not had a reply from the Prime Minister. Would the hon. Gentleman care to reply?
Mr. Hesford: If I may, I will leave that to the parties concerned.
I endorse the Secretary of State's remark in a recent speech in Birmingham:
There is no funding system or health care system that is fairer or more efficient than the NHS.
Mr. Deputy Speaker: I call the hon. Lady—
Mr. Swayne rose—
Mr. Deputy Speaker: I call the hon. Gentleman.
6.22 pm
Mr. Desmond Swayne: The greatest potential distortion of clinical priorities—[Interruption.]
Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. Perhaps I might just say to hon. Members that it is as well to pay attention to the debate. If no one had risen on the Opposition Benches, an hon. Member on the Government Benches could have been called. I hope that hon. Members will concentrate and not spend too much time gossiping.
Mr. Swayne: I hope that your stricture was not aimed at me, Mr. Deputy Speaker, for I am bereft of anyone with whom to gossip.
It strikes me that the greatest potential for distortion of clinical priorities lies with the very mechanism that the Secretary of State has set up to do away with those distortions: the National Institute for Clinical Excellence. When the Health Act 1999 went through the House, we were assured that the institute's terms of reference would be merely clinical efficiency and effectiveness and cost-effectiveness. In Committee Room 16 last July, the Minister introduced a change to those terms of reference, under which the institute had to consider also the overall affordability to the health service of any decision that it made. In other words, the Secretary of State would be able to hide behind the implications of any decision by NICE.
I welcomed the Secretary of State's answer to my hon. Friend the Member for Woodspring (Dr. Fox), when he said, "No, I will make decisions on funding and on whether to make provision for certain treatments." The exchange was about beta interferon, which is appropriate given the lobby today. I am glad to hear that the Secretary of State will make those decisions, but it strikes me as rather odd that he introduced the change last July.
It is, of course, appropriate that the question of whether a treatment should be available is one of overall funding to the health service. We have flogged the question of funding this evening, but it is only the Government who are to blame for the general lack of confidence in their figures. The fact that they claim to have provided an additional £21 billion for the health service in this Parliament was interestingly questioned by Mr. Kellner's article in the Evening Standard on 14 January. He said

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that there had been a process of triple accounting, and the actual figure was nearer £5 billion. The fact that the Government's figures should be questioned in that way is a consequence of their own systematic spinning.
The hon. Member for Wirral, West (Mr. Hesford) referred to the Government's latest pledge. They aspire to spend on health care a percentage of gross domestic product equivalent to the European Union's average spend on health care. That begs one or two questions. It is estimated that it will take us eight years to get there, at an annual increase of 5 per cent. in real terms, but by then the European average may have significantly increased, and I do not doubt that it will.
Why do UK patients deserve a lower level of health care outcomes than that enjoyed by patients in France and Germany? Those countries enjoy a much higher proportion of health care expenditure than the European average. As I said to the hon. Gentleman, the current aim of increasing health care expenditure by 5 per cent. in real terms each year means that it will take many years to reach the levels of expenditure in France and Germany-19 and 25 years respectively.
Mr. Hayes: I do not want to indulge in gossip, but will my hon. Friend illustrate his point by reference to beta interferon? The number of multiple sclerosis sufferers prescribed beta interferon in France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Finland, Greece, Ireland and Turkey is considerably greater than in Great Britain. Perhaps that is why my constituent Mr. Kevin Keeble, of Roman Bank, Holbeach Bank, cannot get the drug.
Mr. Swayne: I have no need to illustrate the point because my hon. Friend has done it so effectively.
It is all very well saying that in a few years' or, indeed, in many years' time we will achieve European levels of expenditure on health care, because the crisis is happening now. It may be stretching the point to say that, in some respects, this country has a third-world level of health care, but anyone who read the series of articles in The Daily Telegraph just before Christmas about the level of treatment available to many of our elderly people would not think it an exaggeration. We have much lower levels of satisfactory health outcomes for critical diseases such as heart conditions and cancer care than in Germany, France, the Netherlands and Belgium, and that is not acceptable.
Returning to clinical distortion, we know that out-patient waiting lists have risen by 248,000 since the election. Even in-patient waiting lists—a higher priority target for the Government—rose by 36,000 in December alone. However, the greatest potential clinical distortion is the alarming growth in the number of patients waiting to get on to a waiting list, and who are awaiting their first appointment with a hospital consultant. That number has risen by some 500,000. Those people represent a clinical distortion because we do not know what is wrong with them and they have not been assessed by a consultant.
It is all very well the Secretary of State making a gibe at our proposals by saying about the winter crisis, "We wouldn't be guilty of turning people away because of the wrong sort of illness." The fact is that, at the moment, people with critical conditions are being turned away.
A constituency case was brought to my attention of an elderly lady who was seriously ill with bowel cancer. Her operation was cancelled because of the winter crisis.
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Last week, Dr. Peter Wilde, consultant cardiologist at the Bristol Royal infirmary, told the Prime Minister clearly that, if he had been able to operate on all the patients with heart conditions under his care, he would have saved the lives of half of them.
The Secretary of State and, indeed, the hon. Member for Wakefield (Mr. Hinchliffe) have made it clear that there is no certainty of any relief from the private health care sector. The Secretary of State said that there was not an army of under-employed surgeons who could suddenly take up the slack. That is, of course, true, because often enough—in fact, usually—the very same people operate in both the private and public sectors.
However, it is monstrous to suggest that the private sector cannot provide some capacity. We all know—I certainly know, and I doubt whether I am the only person who has had this brought to his attention—that NHS operations are being cancelled because of cash shortages. Such operations could take place using resources available in the private sector—and they ought to do so. That was the basis of the comments of my hon. Friend the Member for West Chelmsford (Mr. Burns), and it goes to the heart of our patients guarantee.
Our solution, which has of course been much criticised by the Secretary of State, is to provide a core NHS in which those with, let us say, Cinderella conditions such as hernias and in-growing toenails would be treated elsewhere and would pay for it. I reject any such suggestion. In fact, it strikes me as monstrous that any such health service could be devised. It is ridiculous to suggest that, for example, varicose veins would have to be treated outside the NHS because the condition was not critical or life threatening and therefore did not meet the criteria that might be devised for a core health service. Although a varicose vein might almost be a matter of cosmetic surgery to one person, it might be a life-threatening condition, causing severe ulcers, to another.
The Minister of State, Department of Health (Mr. John Denham): Will the hon. Gentleman help me and other hon. Members by giving his interpretation of the comments of the hon. Member for Runnymede and Weybridge (Mr. Hammond), a Conservative Front-Bench spokesman, who told "Sky News" that, under the Conservatives, people would look to the NHS
when they had serious life-threatening conditions and would look to their private insurance to help them
with the rest? The hon. Gentleman seems to be arguing a rather different point.
Mr. Swayne: I do not think that that is so. I am not here to speak for my hon. Friend, but I shall honestly tell the Minister what I think my hon. Friend meant—I shall certainly tell him what I mean.
If we are honest and work within the same resource restraints, reprioritising the NHS so that the sickest patients are given the highest priority and treated first—I assume that that would be entirely reasonable to all people—will of necessity mean that people with less critical conditions will wait longer.
One problem that results from fixation with the overall size of the waiting list is that some people are not waiting long enough. Simple conditions are treated quickly to massage the overall figures while those with more critical conditions are waiting. If, as a result of a patients

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guarantee, the sickest patients are treated first, those with lower clinical priorities might consider other possibilities. That is, after all, the basis of freedom of choice. Such a structure would crystallise and focus the private insurance market, unlike the current position, and might result in the development of products that addressed many of our people's needs.
Mr. Trickett: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. Swayne: No, I am afraid that I do not have the time to give way.
In addition to prioritisation of existing resources, we must of necessity seek to increase such resources. Labour Members believe that spending in the existing NHS model, almost alone in providing for the health care needs of the United Kingdom, can reach the European average. I suggest that they look elsewhere in the world—they are alone. In no other nation is such a proportion of gross national product spent without a much healthier contribution from the private sector.
There has been much criticism of our ability to continue to fund the health service as in the past owing to our overall tax guarantee.
Mr. Trickett: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. Swayne: No, I will not give way; I have told the hon. Gentleman so.
It should have been obvious to anyone with experience of the 1980s that cutting the burden of taxation generates additional tax revenue.
6.36 pm
Dr. Howard Stoate: I appreciate that I do not have much time to speak, so I shall be brief and not indulge in too much rhetoric.
We have heard a great deal of rhetoric from Opposition Members—despite the fact that there have been only two to four of them in the Chamber throughout—but we have not heard anything approaching a policy. We have also heard much gloom, doom and despondency from them, which saddens me. Frankly, they need to get out more. They need to go to hospitals, to visit general practices, and to speak to nurses, doctors, health workers and, above all, patients. If they did so, they would find that most patients are very satisfied with the health service. Survey after survey has revealed a very high degree not only of satisfaction but of trust in those who provide health care—more than can be said of politicians.
It is obviously the job of the Opposition to rubbish the Government, and they are doing what they consider a good job—others may have other views and I could not possibly comment. However, it upsets me greatly when I hear the health service being run down. The hon. Member for Bromsgrove (Miss Kirkbride), who is no longer present, said several times that we have the worst health service in Europe. The hon. Member for New Forest, West (Mr. Swayne) talked about the third-world status of our health service. Those are disgraceful comments, which I deplore. They drive down public confidence,
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morale and the standards that the 1 million people working in the health service strive daily to achieve for their patients. I shall give an example of that.
I recently visited a very elderly patient, of whom I do not see much—I still do some GP work, as hon. Members know. She asked me to look at a lump in her breast. When I examined her at home, I found that she had a fungating breast cancer, which is a very advanced form of cancer, unpleasant to deal with, a nasty thing to have and medically very bad news. I asked her why she had waited so long before calling me, and she said that she had discovered the lump only the week before. I said, "That is not true, is it?" She said that it was not but that she did not want to trouble me. I told her that I had known her for many years and that she knew that she was not troubling me. The truth was that she had read in the paper that elderly people did not matter in the NHS, and concluded that there was no point in calling me because there was nothing much that I could do.
What saddens me is that I know that, within two weeks of seeing that lady, I could guarantee that she would be seen by a cancer specialist in the local hospital's breast unit, where she would receive expert care. She had read in the papers not the good news that this Government have made cancer treatment a priority, so that people can be seen within two weeks of their GP referring them, but that elderly people did not matter. If we talk down the health service and those who work in it, we drive down patient expectation. People expect bad treatment before they even start.
Another patient whom I saw recently told me not to bother referring her because she would never get to the top of the queue of those waiting to be seen. That is not true; I know that my health trust has relatively modest waiting lists for her condition.
Opposition Members have every right to rubbish the Government—that is what they do—but they have no right to drive down the NHS and the morale of its staff, or to frighten patients. If they are to rubbish us, they should at least have the goodness and decency to come up with their own policies—which are lacking.
6.40 pm
Mrs. Caroline Spelman: As a relatively new Member of Parliament, I am disappointed by the debate. We have again missed an opportunity to lay aside cheap political points and to debate health care in this country with honesty.
Criticisms of the Opposition motion overlook the fundamental point. The Opposition can, of course, choose what to put in their motion. Our last health debate, on 18 January, was held in close proximity to what the Government then described as a flu epidemic. I note that today the Secretary of State described the winter just passed as "no exception". That is what general practitioners told us at the time. The purpose of our motion on that occasion was to allow debate on the impact of the flu crisis. Today's debate is held very near the end of the financial year for health trusts and authorities, so it strikes me as perfectly sensible to make that the main focus of our debate. However, although the debate has ranged far and wide, it has not focused on the roots of the financial crisis facing the national health service, or on the impact on patients of the distortion of clinical practice.
Patients who have to wait and who have operations cancelled no longer feel that they come first. The Government's waiting list initiative has undermined

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clinical priorities; and to those who have to wait, it appears that the Government's priorities come first. That is anathema to health professionals who are trained to treat patients according to clinical need: they are trained to be able to rush into casualty in time of crisis and to decide within minutes who should be treated first. That is what prompted GP Sharon Bennett to tackle the Prime Minister on "Newsnight". She pointed out that
Most managers are under extreme pressure to reach the targets. Waiting lists are being manipulated and as a doctor I find that completely unethical.
Ask doctors to do the unethical and they soon become demoralised. Ask patients to submit to the unethical and they soon lose faith in the service.
My hon. Friend the Member for South Holland and The Deepings (Mr. Hayes) hit the nail on the head when he said that one of the main purposes of the debate was to tackle the issue of unrealistic expectations. The Government have raised expectations so high that they now fail even approximately to match people's experience. The extra billions that we have heard about mean nothing to the patients waiting anxiously for the treatment they need. It is as well if we as politicians remind ourselves of that. My hon. Friend the Member for West Chelmsford (Mr. Burns) told us of 14 people who have had to wait more than 18 months. The extra billions do not appear to have reached them. To his information about cancelled operations, I should like to add that, in the last financial year, 57,000 operations were cancelled, and 9,000 of those who suffered cancellation were not recalled within a month. To them, some of today's debate will have been meaningless; they just want to get their treatment.
We as politicians and as the Opposition have the job of asking questions about the money that has been spent. I pay tribute to the hon. Member for North Devon (Mr. Harvey) for having summed up as neatly as anyone could the problem with the Government's elastic arithmetic. He did so in inches; as I see my children grow, I can relate to his methods. He said that if three inches, three inches and three inches are added together, the result is nine inches. That is pretty easy. In simple mathematical terms, three times three is nine. My hon. Friend the Member for Woodspring (Dr. Fox) referred to Peter Kellner's article, which pointed out that the claimed £18 billion is more akin to £5 billion once general inflation has been stripped out. Lord Winston was right about that; he was also right to speak his mind.
From that £5 billion, we have to take the £500 million deficit accrued by trusts and health authorities. My constituency is sandwiched between Birmingham health authority, which, as we have already heard, has a deficit of £8.6 million, and Warwickshire health authority, which has a deficit of £8.2 million. Managers in both trusts have told me that the problem is not only money that is promised but never received or that fails to match spiralling costs, but the parcelling of money in a way that makes operating based on clinical priority far more difficult: attaching money to particular uses creates great inflexibility.
The hon. Member for Dartford (Dr. Stoate) is keen on surveys, so here is one for him. Last year, the NHS Confederation carried out a survey of trusts and health authorities. It showed that 64 per cent. of trusts were less confident about their financial position than they were 12 months ago, and the figures we have discussed today
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tell us why that is; 55 per cent. of trusts believed that income would exceed expenditure by up to £5 million—my hon. Friend the Member for Woodspring showed how costs increase; 37 per cent. of trusts believed that they would have to make cuts in direct service provision during the coming financial year to balance their budget; 24 per cent. of trusts said that their financial position meant that they would have to postpone or cancel developments in the Government's priority area, mental health; and 20 per cent. of trusts said that their financial position meant that they would have to postpone or cancel developments in the area of reducing health inequalities. That all makes unattractive reading, but we are debating the financing of the NHS and whether or not it is in crisis, and that is the right debate to be having at this point in the financial year.
It does not help public confidence one iota to re-announce money. We heard about an especially bad example, in which £30 million spent on accident and emergency facilities was announced seven times—that is right over the top. The Government appear to have reached the stage of believing their own rhetoric. In one breath, the Secretary of State said of the £50 million boost to cardiac surgery that it was new, extra money; with the next breath, he said that it was part of the extra £21 billion that the Government are putting into the NHS. I guess that, if it is said enough times, even a Minister believes it. That sort of thing has undermined confidence in the Government's pledges. On the question of matching European funding for health care, even the Prime Minister is caught between a firm pledge and an aspiration. Everything depends on a great "if'—if the economy performs well, and if the Government can afford it. That is the biggest "if' we have ever heard.
In a recent speech delivered in South Ribble, my hon. Friend the Member for Woodspring said:
The British people want a system which guarantees that nobody ever has to endure the harrowing experience of someone whose treatment was postponed so often it became inoperable. They want a system that doesn't put half a million patients on the waiting list to get on the waiting list … a system in which doctors decide who should be treated, when and … no wait exceeds a clinical maximum. The Government has meddled with the system, making the sickest wait longest, which is … simply wrong. Staff are demoralised because they can't do what they were trained to do. The Government has raised expectations but they don't match people's experience. For the first time in a generation, we have a chance to hold an honest debate on how to buttress the NHS but the Government has closed its mind. The Prime Minister says there is "no alternative" to the Government's present strategy. What a missed opportunity! There is debate everywhere—in the press, in the professions and amongst the public. But the Government won't debate the options.
Like my hon. Friend, I believe that the NHS deserves better.
6.49 pm
The Minister of State, Department of Health (Mr. John Denham): This has been an Opposition-day debate on a topic chosen by the Opposition. It is therefore a shame for the Opposition that, from the opening speech of the hon. Member for Woodspring (Dr. Fox), the debate from the Opposition side has lacked focus, facts, policy alternatives, analysis and, for a good deal of the time, an audience. It speaks volumes that, for a considerable part of the afternoon, only two Members from the Opposition party bothered to turn up for an Opposition-day debate.

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On the subjects covered in the motion under discussion—financial management and deficits—the worst that we could deduce from the facts that emerged in the debate was that the situation was at least twice as bad in the last two years of the Tory Government as the worst that has been projected for the current year, and that does not take into account the extra funds that we have put into the health service over the past couple of years.
Cancelled operations were raised by the hon. Members for Meriden (Mrs. Spelman) and for New Forest, West (Mr. Swayne), yet there was less chance of an operation being cancelled during the first two years of the present Government than during the last two years of the previous Government. That does not mean that the situation is good, or that we are happy that anyone's operation is cancelled, but the situation is better than it was before.
My hon. Friend the Member for Wakefield (Mr. Hinchliffe) raised a number of issues, principally private medicine. I understand his continuing concern, but the Government's view is that our priority should be to concentrate on the time for which consultants are contracted to work for the national health service, and to ensure that we get the best contribution during that time. That is where we are focusing our effort in our discussions with the British Medical Association about a new contract.
The hon. Member for West Chelmsford (Mr. Burns) had the same difficulty as other Opposition Members who spoke—he did not understand the policy of his own party, when he said that he did not want the privatisation of many services provided by the NHS.
My hon. Friend the Member for Carlisle (Mr. Martlew) is right to be proud of the new hospital that the NHS and the Government are delivering for his constituents. He raised the question of the funding formula, as did the hon. Member for South Holland and The Deepings (Mr. Hayes). A review of the funding formula is under way. There will be no changes, other than the statistical changes, until we have the findings of the review. A wide range of factors will be taken into account in the review, and I cannot prejudge the outcome.
My hon. Friend the Member for Wirral, West (Mr. Hesford) correctly pointed out the huge unanswered questions at the heart of what we know about current Opposition policy.
The hon. Member for New Forest, West made me wonder, as he always does, what the other candidates in his selection conference were like.
My hon. Friend the Member for Dartford (Dr. Stoate) rightly underlined the good work of the NHS. It is important to strike a balance between the proper discussion of issues that have yet to be resolved in the health service, and the presentation of a negative view that might persuade some patients not to take up the services on offer.
To the extent that there was any focus in the debate, it was the attack on the Government's pledge to reduce waiting lists and our determination to honour the promise that we made to voters at the last election. We will reduce waiting lists and honour that election promise, and we will do so for good reason. Fewer people on waiting lists means fewer people waiting for treatment. The main way in which we cut waiting lists is by treating more patients.
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It is as simple as that. More patients were treated last year, more are being treated this year and more will be treated next year. Those who say, as the Opposition do by implication, that we should let waiting lists rip are effectively saying that we should treat fewer patients.
Dr. Fox: That is not the case. The question is whether the correct patients are being treated, and whether patients are being treated in the right order. The Secretary of State said that under the waiting list initiative, there had been and would be no clinical distortion, but almost the entire medical profession says the opposite. When Dr. Wilde says that his patients died unnecessarily, having to wait because of clinical distortion, is he wrong or is he lying?
Mr. Denham: Let us look at the evidence. The charge that is made not infrequently is that the complex, difficult operations and those that are likely to require a stay in hospital are being reduced. The facts are as my right hon. Friend said earlier. There were 1,000 extra bypass operations last year. There were more hip operations and more knee replacement operations. There is no evidence that those complex, time-consuming operations have been cut to allow other operations to be carried out.
Mr. Burns rose—
Mr. Denham: I shall make progress.
The hon. Member for Woodspring produced no evidence to sustain his charge. Those who say that we should not be reducing waiting lists ought to tell us which of the extra half a million people who had operations last year would not have had them had the Conservative party been in power.
To be fair to the hon. Gentleman, in the past there was always a deathly silence when we asked which patients should not be treated. The hon. Gentleman has changed all that. He has told us, through The Sunday Times, which operations should not be done, unless people can pay for them: hip replacements, knee replacements, cataracts and hernias. That is an outrageous attack on the rights of patients, mainly elderly patients, to the NHS treatment for which they have paid all their lives.
On 16 January, the hon. Gentleman told The Sunday Times that private medical insurance companies should cover such conditions as
hip and knee replacements, hernia and cataract operations,
and his hon. Friend the Member for Runnymede and Weybridge (Mr. Hammond) told Sky News that the Conservatives wanted people to look to the NHS
when they had serious life-threatening conditions, and . . . to their private insurance to help them
with the rest.
The hon. Member for Woodspring should clarify the situation and get The Sunday Times to retract. He has had two months to do so, but he has not done so yet. He had the entire debate this afternoon during which to do so, but he did not.
Dr. Fox rose—
Mr. Denham: Let us hear from the hon. Gentleman. It would be interesting to hear a quick retraction and an assurance that there will be no change in people's ability to get those operations on the NHS.
Dr. Fox: As I said this afternoon, if it is a question of maintaining the NHS as a comprehensive service, I absolutely accept that. What the Minister and his colleagues cannot conceive is that additionality is possible, and that an increase in capacity and more cases treated by the private sector would offload the NHS. That would be a total increase in capacity, and it is only the Government's ideological bigotry that prevents them from being able to accept the truth.
Mr. Denham: The entire House will have noted that I gave the hon. Gentleman time in my speech to reject the charge that we have made and to withdraw any misconstruction that we had put on what he said. The entire House now knows that he failed to reject the charge and failed to ask us to withdraw. He has confirmed the information. The 300,000 elderly people who had those operations last year and those who are waiting for them this year—for hips, cataracts, hernias and knees—now know that they would have to pay under a Tory Government.
We shall get waiting lists down not by trading in-patients against out-patients, not by doing one instead of the other, but by doing more of both. Clinical priority will continue to be the main determinant of who is treated.
Of course, we must do more, because the waiting list initiative alone is not enough to meet need. We acknowledge that, and we have therefore included in the waiting list initiative the two-week target for cancer waits. That will be introduced this year, because some people must be seen as quickly as possible. The Conservative party did not introduce such measures.
Although 1,000 extra heart operations will be done next year, we need more. We will therefore allocate £50 million so that 3,000 extra heart operations can be carried out. We give priority where it is needed.
The Conservative party chose the debate. Its members failed to score any points; they largely failed to turn up. They have confirmed that, under a Tory Government, many important procedures would no longer be available on the NHS. To that extent, the debate has been useful.
Question put, That the original words stand part of the Question:—
The House divided: Ayes 179, Noes 307.

Division No. 97]

[7.1 pm

AYES

Ainsworth, Peter (E Surrey)

Brazier, Julian

Allan, Richard

Breed, Colin

Amess, David

Brooke, Rt Hon Peter

Ancram, Rt Hon Michael

Browning, Mrs Angela

Arbuthnot, Rt Hon James

Bruce, Ian (S Dorset)

Ashdown, Rt Hon Paddy

Burnett, John

Atkinson, Peter (Hexham)

Burns, Simon

Baker, Norman

Burstow, Paul

Baldry, Tony

Butterfill, John

Ballard, Jackie

Cable, Dr Vincent

Beggs, Roy

Campbell, Rt Hon Menzies (NE File)

Berth, Rt Hon A J

Bercow, John

Cash, William

Beresford, Sir Paul

Chapman, Sir Sydney (Chipping Barnet)

Blunt, Crispin

Boswell, Tim

Chope, Christopher

Bottomley, Peter (Worthing W)

Clappison, James

Bottomley, Rt Hon Mrs Virginia

Clark, Dr Michael (Rayleigh)

Brady, Graham

Clarke, Rt Hon Kenneth (Rushcliffe)

Brake, Tom

1062

Clifton-Brown, Geoffrey

Maples, John

Cormack, Sir Patrick

Mates, Michael

Cotter, Brian

Maude, Rt Hon Francis

Cran, James

Mawhinney, Rt Hon Sir Brian

Davey, Edward (Kingston)

May, Mrs Theresa

Davis, Rt Hon David (Haltemprice)

Michie, Mrs Ray (Argyll & Bute)

Day, Stephen

Moore, Michael

Dorrell, Rt Hon Stephen

Nicholls, Patrick

Duncan, Alan

Norman, Archie

Duncan Smith, Iain

Oaten, Mark

Emery, Rt Hon Sir Peter

O'Brien, Stephen (Eddisbury)

Evans, Nigel

Öpik, Lembit

Faber, David

Ottaway, Richard

Fabricant, Michael

Paice, James

Fallon, Michael

Paterson, Owen

Feam, Ronnie

Pickles, Eric

Forsythe, Clifford

Portillo, Rt Hon Michael

Forth, Rt Hon Eric

Prior, David

Foster, Don (Bath)

Randall, John

Fox, Dr Liam

Redwood, Rt Hon John

Fraser, Christopher

Rendel, David

Gale, Roger

Robathan, Andrew

Garnier, Edward

Robertson, Laurence

George, Andrew (St Ives)

Roe Mrs Marion (Broxbourne)

Gibb, Nick

Rowe, Andrew (Faversham)

Gill, Christopher

Ruffley David

Gray, James

Russell, Bob (Colchester)

Green, Damian

St Aubyn, Nick

Greenway, John

Sanders, Adrian

Grieve, Dominic

Sayeed, Jonathan

Gummer Rt Hon john

Shepherd, Richard

Hague, Rt Hon William

Smith Sir Robert (W Ab'd'ns)

Hamilton Rt Hon Sir Archie

Smyth, Rev Maritn (Belfast S)

Hammond, Philip

Soames, Nicholas

Hancock.Mike

Spelman, Mrs Caroline

Harris, Dr Evan

Spicer, Sir Michel

Harvey, Nick

Spring, Richard

Hayes, John

Stanley, Rt Hon Sir John

Heald, Oliver

Steen, Anthony

Heath, David (Somerton & Frome)

Heath, Rt Hon Sir Edward

Streeter, Gary

Heathcoat-Amory, Rt Hon David

Stunell, Andrew

Heseltine, Rt Hon Michael

Swayne, Desmond

Hogg, Rt Hon Douglas

Syms, Robert

Horam, John

Tapsell, Sir Peter

Howarth, Gerald (Aldershot)

Taylon Ian (Esher & Watton)

Hughes, Simon (Southwark N)

Taylor, Rt Hon John D (Strangford)

Hunter, Andrew

Taylor, John M (Solihull)

Jackson, Robert (Wantage)

Taylor, Matthew (Truro)

Jenkin, Bernard

Taylor, Sir Teddy

Jones, Nigel (Cheltenham)

Thompson, William

Keetch, Paul

Townend, John

Kennedy, Rt Hon Charles (Ross Skye & Inverness W)

Tredinnick, David

Trend, Michael

Key, Robert

Tyler, Paul

King, Rt Hon Tom (Bridgwater)

Tyrie, Andrew

Kirkbride, Miss Julie

Viggers, Peter

Lait, Mrs Jacqui

Walter, Robert

Lansley, Andrew

Waterson, Nigel

Leigh, Edward

Webb, Steve

Letwin, Oliver

Wells, Bowen

Lewis, Dr Julian (New Forest E)

Welsh, Andrew

Lidington, David

Whitney, Sir Raymond

Lilley, Rt Hon Peter

Whittingdale, John

Lloyd, Rt Hon Sir Peter (Fareham)

Widdecombe, Rt Hon Miss Ann

Loughton, Tim

Wilkinson, John

Luff, Peter

Willis, Phil

MacGregor, Rt Hon John

Winterton, Mrs Ann (Congleton)

McIntosh, Miss Anne

Winterton, Nicholas (Macclesfield)

MacKay, Rt Hon Andrew

Young, Rt Hon Sir George

Maclean, Rt Hon David

Maclennan, Rt Hon Robert

Tellers for the Ayes:

McLoughlin, Patrick

Mrs. Eleanor Laing and

Malins, Humfrey

Mr. Keith Simpson.

1063

NOES

Ainger, Nick

Davies, Rt Hon Denzil (Llanelli)

Ainsworth, Robert (Cov'try NE)

Davies, Geraint (Croydon C)

Alexander, Douglas

Dawson, Hilton

Allen, Graham

Dean, Mrs Janet

Armstrong, Rt Hon Ms Hilary

Denham, John

Ashton, Joe

Dobbin, Jim

Atherton, Ms Candy

Doran, Frank

Atkins, Charlotte

Dunwoody, Mrs Gwyneth

Austin, John

Eagle, Angela (Wallasey)

Barnes, Harry

Efford, Clive

Battle, John

Ellman, Mrs Louise

Bayley, Hugh

Ennis, Jeff

Beard, Nigel

Etherington, Bill

Beckett, Rt Hon Mrs Margaret

Field, Rt Hon Frank

Begg, Miss Anne

Fisher, Mark

Benn, Hilary (Leeds C)

Fitzpatrick, Jim

Benn, Rt Hon Tony (Chesterfield)

Fitzsimons, Lorna

Bennett, Andrew F

Flint, Caroline

Benton, Joe

Flynn, Paul

Bermingham, Gerald

Follett, Barbara

Berry, Roger

Foster, Michael Jabez (Hastings)

Best, Harold

Foster, Michael J (Worcester)

Betts, Clive

Fyfe, Maria

Blackman, Liz

Galloway, George

Blears, Ms Hazel

Gardiner, Barry

Blizzard, Bob

George, Bruce (Walsall S)

Blunkett, Rt Hon David

Gerrard, Neil

Bradley, Keith (Withington)

Gibson, Dr Ian

Bradley, Peter (The Wrekin)

Gilroy, Mrs Linda

Bradshaw, Ben

Godsiff, Roger

Brinton, Mrs Helen

Goggins, Paul

Brown, Rt Hon Nick (Newcastle E)

Golding, Mrs Llin

Browne, Desmond

Gordon, Mrs Eileen

Buck, Ms Karen

Griffiths, Jane (Reading E)

Burden, Richard

Griffiths, Nigel (Edinburgh S)

Burgon, Colin

Griffiths, Win (Bridgend)

Butler, Mrs Christine

Grocott, Bruce

Byers, Rt Hon Stephen

Gunnell, John

Campbell, Alan (Tynemouth)

Hall, Mike (Weaver Vale)

Campbell, Mrs Anne (C'bridge)

Hall, Patrick (Bedford)

Campbell, Ronnie (Blyth V)

Hamilton, Fabian (Leeds NE)

Campbell—Savours, Dale

Hanson, David

Cann, Jamie

Heal, Mrs Sylvia

Caplin, Ivor

Healey, John

Casale, Roger

Henderson, Doug (Newcastle N)

Cawsey, Ian

Henderson, Ivan (Harwich)

Chapman, Ben (Wirral S)

Hepburn, Stephen

Chaytor, David

Heppell, John

Clapham, Michael

Hesford, Stephen

Clark, Dr Lynda (Edinburgh Pentlands)

Hewitt, Ms Patricia

Hill, Keith

Clark, Paul (Gillingham)

Hinchliffe, David

Clarke, Charles (Norwich S)

Hoey, Kate

Clarke, Tony (Northampton S)

Hood, Jimmy

Clelland, David

Hope, Phil

Clwyd, Ann

Hopkins, Kelvin

Coffey, Ms Ann

Hoyle, Lindsay

Cohen, Harry

Hughes, Kevin (Doncaster N)

Colman, Tony

Humble, Mrs Joan

Connarty, Michael

Hurst, Alan

Cooper, Yvette

Hutton, John

Corbett, Robin

Iddon, Dr Brian

Corbyn, Jeremy

Jackson, Ms Glenda (Hampstead)

Corston, Jean

Jackson, Helen (Hillsborough)

Cousins, Jim

Jenkins, Brian

Cranston, Ross

Johnson, Alan (Hull W & Hessle)

Crausby, David

Johnson, Miss Melanie (Welwyn Hatfield)

Cryer, John (Hornchurch)

Cummings, John

Jones, Rt Hon Barry (Alyn)

Cunningham, Jim (Cov'try S)

Jones, Mrs Fiona (Newark)

Curtis—Thomas, Mrs Claire

Jones, Helen (Warrington N)

Dalyell, Tam

Jones, Ms Jenny (Wolverh'ton SW)

Darvill, Keith

Davey, Valerie (Bristol W)

Jones, Jon Owen (Cardiff C)

Davidson, Ian

Jones, Dr Lynne (Selly Oak)

1064

Kaufman, Rt Hon Gerald

Prentice, Gordon (Pendle)

Keeble, Ms Sally

Prescott, Rt Hon John

Keen, Alan (Feltham & Heston)

Primarolo, Dawn

Kelly, Ms Ruth

Prosser, Gwyn

Kemp, Fraser

Purchase, Ken

Khabra, Piara S

Quin, Rt Hon Ms Joyce

Kidney, David

Quinn, Lawrie

Kilfoyle, Peter

Radice, Rt Hon Giles

King, Andy (Rugby & Kenilworth)

Rapson, Syd

Ladyman, Dr Stephen

Raynsford, Nick

Laxton, Bob

Reed, Andrew (Loughborough)

Lepper, David

Reid, Rt Hon Dr John (Hamilton N)

Leslie, Christopher

Robinson, Geoffrey (Cov'try NW)

Levitt, Tom

Roche, Mrs Barbara

Lewis, Ivan (Bury S)

Rooker, Rt Hon Jeff

Linton, Martin

Rooney, Terry

Lloyd, Tony (Manchester C)

Ross, Ernie (Dundee W)

Love, Andrew

Ruddock, Joan

McAvoy, Thomas

Russell, Ms Christine (Chester)

McCabe, Steve

Ryan, Ms Joan

McCafferty, Ms Chris

Salter, Martin

McCartney, Rt Hon Ian (Makerfield)

Sarwar, Mohammad

Savidge, Malcolm

McDonagh, Siobhain

Sawford, Phil

Macdonald, Calum

Sedgemore, Brian

McDonnell, John

Sheerman, Barry

McFall, John

Simpson, Alan (Nottingham S)

McGuire, Mrs Anne

Singh, Marsha

McIsaac, Shona

Skinner, Dennis

McNamara, Kevin

Smith, Rt Hon Andrew (Oxford E)

McNulty, Tony

Smith, Angela (Basildon)

MacShane, Denis

Smith, Jacqui (Redditch)

McWalter, Tony

Smith, Llew (Blaenau Gwent)

McWilliam, John

Snape, Peter

Mahon, Mrs Alice

Soley, Clive

Mallaber, Judy

Southworth, Ms Helen

Marsden, Gordon (Blackpool S)

Spellar, John

Marsden, Paul (Shrewsbury)

Squire, Ms Rachel

Marshall, David (Shettleston)

Steinberg, Gerry

Marshall, Jim (Leicester S)

Stevenson, George

Marshall—Andrews, Robert

Stewart, Ian (Eccles)

Martlew, Eric

Stinchcombe, Paul

Maxton, John

Stoate, Dr Howard

Meacher, Rt Hon Michael

Strang, Rt Hon Dr Gavin

Meale, Alan

Straw, Rt Hon Jack

Merron, Gillian

Stringer, Graham

Michie, Bill (Shef'ld Heeley)

Stuart, Ms Gisela

Mitchell, Austin

Sutcliffe, Gerry

Moffatt, Laura

Taylor, Rt Hon Mrs Ann (Dewsbury)

Moonie, Dr Lewis

Morley, Elliot

Taylor, Ms Dari (Stockton S)

Morris, Rt Hon Ms Estelle (B'ham Yardley)

Taylor, David (NW Leics)

Temple-Morris, Peter

Morris, Rt Hon Sir John (Aberavon)

Thomas, Gareth (Clwyd W)

Thomas, Gareth R (Harrow W)

Mountford, Kali

Thomas, Simon (Ceredigion)

Mullin, Chris

Timms, Stephen

Murphy, Denis (Wansbeck)

Touhig, Don

Murphy, Rt Hon Paul (Torfaen)

Trickett, Jon

Naysmith, Dr Doug

Truswell, Paul

O'Brien, Bill (Normanton)

Turner, Dennis (Wolverh'ton SE)

O'Hara, Eddie

Turner, Dr Desmond (Kemptown)

Olner, Bill

Turner, Dr George (NW Norfolk)

O'Neill, Martin

Turner, Neil (Wigan)

Osborne, Ms Sandra

Twigg, Derek (Halton)

Palmer, Dr Nick

Twigg, Stephen (Enfield)

Pearson, Ian

Tynan, Bill

Pendry, Tom

Vis, Dr Rudi

Perham, Ms Linda

Ward, Ms Claire

Pickthall, Colin

Wareing, Robert N

Pike, Peter L

Watts, David

Plaskitt, James

White, Brian

Pollard, Kerry

Whitehead, Dr Alan

Pond, Chris

Wicks, Malcolm

Pound, Stephen

Williams, Rt Hon Alan (Swansea W)

Prentice, Ms Bridget (Lewisham E)

1065

Williams, Alan W (E Carmarthen)

Worthington, Tony

Wills, Michael

Wray, James

Wilson, Brian

Wright, Anthony D (Gt Yarmouth)

Winnick David

Wright', Dr Tony (Cannock)

Winnick, David

Wyatt, Derek

Winterton, Ms Rosie (Doncaster C)

Wise, Audrey

Tellers for the Noes:

Woodward, Shaun

Mr. Jim Dowd and

Woolas, Phil

Mr. Greg Pope.

Question accordingly negatived.
Question, That the proposed words be there added, put forthwith, pursuant to Standing Order No. 31 (Questions on amendments) and agreed to.
MR. DEPUTY SPEAKER forthwith declared the main Question, as amended, to be agreed to.
Resolved,
That this House welcomes the Government's modernisation programme for the NHS and the reduction in waiting lists and times that are being achieved through the dedication and hard work of NHS staff; notes the progress being made on recruiting more doctors and more nurses, building more hospitals, treating more patients and modernising more services; applauds the Government's decision to make tackling cancer, coronary heart disease and mental illness a priority; believes that financial provision for the NHS would be reduced as a consequence of the Conservatives' Tax Guarantee and that clinical need would be abandoned in favour of ability to pay under the Conservatives' health plans.

Small Business
Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Michael J. Martin): Madam Speaker has selected the amendment in the name of the Prime Minister.
7.15 pm
Mrs. Angela Browning: I beg to move,
That this House opposes the growing regulatory burdens that the Government has added to business costs; deplores the failure of the Government to understand the contribution that the small business sector makes to employment, growth and UK trade; calls on the Government to recognise the failure of the Better Regulation Task Force and the consequences of ill-thought-through legislation and regulations that have damaged small business; and condemns the Department of Trade and Industry for unco-ordinated policy initiatives and for diminishing the status of small business debate in the House of Commons.
I am pleased to welcome the Secretary of State to the Dispatch Box for tonight's debate. He is here to discuss, at our request, small business and the burden that it bears. I believe that this will be the first time that he has addressed the House on that subject at any length since taking office and I am therefore pleased to see him. I look forward with interest to hearing what he has to say.
New Labour promised small business a lot when it came to office. Indeed, its manifesto said:
Support for small businesses will have a major role in our plans for economic growth. We will cut unnecessary red tape.
Three years down the track, the Government avoid debates on small business and have deliberately done the subject down. There is a reason for that, of course, which is that their track record over the past three years has been to add £9.6 billion of regulatory costs to business. They fall disproportionately on the small business sector.
The Government also implement regulations in such a way that even their own chairman of the better regulation taskforce called it a dog's dinner. They were described in a Trade and Industry Committee report in terms that have not previously been seen in such reports on this subject. For example, the 13th report, on small businesses and enterprise, stated:
From the situation as we saw it a year ago, where there seemed to be something of a policy vacuum on SMEs—
small and medium-sized enterprises—
we have moved to one where there is some risk of an excess of loosely connected and apparently uncoordinated policy initiatives shooting off in all directions, generating noise and interest, but not commensurate light.
When the Government came to power, they promised an annual debate on small firms and made quite a virtue of that. We certainly do not disagree with holding such a debate, but the then Minister for Small Firms, Trade and Industry began the debate in the first year of the Parliament by saying that it
fulfils a commitment that the Government gave while in opposition, when we said that we would institute an annual parliamentary debate about the small business sector in the United Kingdom.—[Official Report, 19 June 1998; Vol. 314, c. 606.]
They did not have a small firms debate the following year. Indeed, at business questions, my right hon. Friend the Member for North-West Hampshire (Sir G. Young), the shadow Leader of the House, kept asking when we might

1067
have such a debate. A whole year went by. When it eventually took place, it was relegated to Westminster Hall. As the British Chambers of Commerce said:
From our perspective this has to be a downgrading of the importance of small firms. This debate should be in the House of Commons with the Prime Minister. It does not signal that the government is taking small firms seriously.
Even when the Government appear to have proposals to help small firms, the Secretary of State remains silent. Last June, they produced two documents, one of which was specifically about small firms and the Small Business Service. The Secretary of State for Education and Employment made a statement on post-16 training and the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry sat next to him as both documents were important to business, but the only reference to the Small Business Service document throughout the statement amounted to some 21 words.
The Secretary of State for Education and Employment referred to
the parallel consultation on the Small Business Service announced today by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry.—[Official Report, 30 June 1999; Vol. 334, c. 345.]
There was no detailed presentation in that statement. It is a mystery why, if the Small Business Service is to be of such value to the small business community, the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry remained silent in his seat and did not take the opportunity to make a statement and, perhaps more pertinently, submit himself to questioning from the House about the new proposal that he was introducing on behalf of small businesses.
The Secretary of State will do anything rather than answer publicly for his failure to understand small businesses. Most important of all, by last year it was apparent to everyone, including small businesses and their representative organisations, that the Government and these Ministers are all talk and no delivery.
Mrs. Claire Curtis-Thomas: Would the hon. Lady be kind enough to tell us how often her Administration held lectures, or rather debates, on small business services?
Mrs. Browning: We did not lecture the House, whereas we are used to having lectures from this Administration, not only on small business, but on just about everything. We held regular debates but, more important, Ministers in the previous Administration made statements to the House and held full debates. On both occasions, they were subject to questioning, whereas this Administration, especially the Secretary of State and his team, are reluctant to submit themselves to the scrutiny and questioning of hon. Members.
Mr. Gerald Howarth: Does my hon. Friend recall that, in the early part of the Conservative Administration, we had Ministers, such as Sir David Mitchell, who understood businesses because they had run small businesses and brought their experience to the House?
Mrs. Browning: It is an added bonus when Ministers who speak on a subject actually know what they are talking about. That is one of the distinctions between the previous and the present Governments when it comes to any matter to do with business, but especially small businesses.
1068
Not only are this Administration adding to business costs they have completely lost the plot.
Mr. Geraint Davies rose—
Mrs. Browning: I am happy to give way on that point.
Mr. Davies: How very amusing. Will the hon. Lady confirm that the figure of £9.6 billion is based on old regulations? It is based primarily on the minimum wage, which I understand she will support, so the Conservatives would have that cost. Does she accept that the figure for the working time directive is massively inflated? Would she reverse the working time directive should the Tories come to power? I suggest that she could not do so, because of EU law.
Mrs. Browning: All the burdens that the hon. Gentleman's Administration are putting on business are under review. They are all on the table, and are being closely considered.
The figure that I quoted for the total of the aggregate cost that the Government have put on business was produced by the British Chambers of Commerce. It was challenged by the Minister for Small Business and E-Commerce in the debate in Westminster Hall. The British Chambers of Commerce subsequently issued a press release, which I shall quote as it may be helpful to the hon. Gentleman. It was responding to the fact that the Minister for Small Business and E-Commerce had claimed that the figures were inaccurate—along the lines of the hon. Gentleman's argument. Chris Humphries, the director general of the British Chambers of Commerce, said:
What matters to business is the overall cost of government regulation. We therefore stand by our overall figure of £10 billion and, in particular, the costs of the Working Time Directive.
The Working Time Directive is by far the biggest cost facing business at £7.65 billion over the life of the Parliament. This includes the cost of minimum daily and weekly rest periods and a minimum paid annual leave, and the additional week's paid leave introduced from November 1999. This is of course the result of a European Directive but regardless of the source, business has to bear the cost.
However, I must stress that, contrary to reports—
that is the reports from the Department of Trade and Industry—
BCC's figures do not include the cost of paying the minimum wage, which we do not treat as a regulation. If we were to add the recurring financial costs of paying the minimum wage, the total cost of red tape on business would increase to a massive £17 billion.
I hope that that has been helpful to the hon. Gentleman.
Mr. Davies: Will the hon. Lady confirm that those costs would continue under a Conservative Administration, and that there is no plan to reverse either the minimum wage or the working time directive? What is the point of bringing these matters to the table? It is not even true.
Mrs. Browning: I am happy to assist the hon. Gentleman. One thing that is pertinent to small business in particular and to business in general is the cumulative cost of regulation. It is not this regulation or that regulation, but the cumulative cost of regulations and the point at which that has an impact on whether a business can expand, move to new premises or take on new

1069
employees. That is why the British Chambers of Commerce say that it is the overall cost of Government regulation.
Mr. Davies rose—
Mrs. Browning: I have given way twice to the hon. Gentleman. I will now give way to my hon. Friend the Member for Banbury (Mr. Baldry).
Mr. Tony Baldry: Does my hon. Friend agree that it is not only the British Chambers of Commerce that is reporting such burdens on business? I understand that, this coming Friday, Lord Haskins, who was appointed by the Government to monitor regulation, will report that the administration of the working families tax credit costs small businesses £25 million a year. One of the Government's own appointees is reporting that.
Mrs. Browning: Lord Haskins chaired the better regulation taskforce. The Government claim to have tackled regulation, but they have had two key problems. When they have regulated, especially in the area of employment law, they have regarded it not as a cost on business, but as a social benefit that they have provided to people. The tab has always been picked up by business.
It is a little disingenuous for the Government to add regulation to regulation, thus adding to businesses' costs, and then to say, "Aren't we wonderful? We are providing workers with extra benefits. Someone else will have to decide how to pay for it". That is part of the problem that the Government have created, and it is the main reason why their better regulation taskforce failed.
Despite the efforts of Lord Haskins and others on the taskforce, regulation was moving apace, and they could not keep up with it, let alone cut it. The taskforce could not even make it better as time went by, given the Government's mismanagement by continually introducing new regulations on business, and given the inept way in which they went about their business and implemented regulations that they had put on the statute book. The Government had a manifesto pledge to cut red tape, but they added to the amount of regulation and cost until it became so out of control that they had to abandon the better regulation taskforce.
I have just had an exchange with the hon. Member for Croydon, Central (Mr. Davies) about the views of the British Chambers of Commerce. The Government consult, or so they say, but I am only too well aware that such consultation is meaningless when it comes to the legislative process. The views of business and its representative organisations are not taken into account. We constantly see a pattern in the regulations on small business and in other areas introduced by the Department of Trade and Industry and other Government Departments. They legislate and suddenly realise the inept way in which they have gone about it. They then have to shore up the situation by changing the regulations at the last minute. They parade that as listening to business, but the time to listen to business is at the beginning, during the consultation, not after the regulations are on the statute book and have had a damaging impact on people's businesses.
I should like to draw attention to some of the businesses and the varying sectors that have suffered under the Government. It is all very well to talk of £9.6 billion and
1070
of different sectors, but, at the end of the day, small business is about individuals—individuals who work hard. In many cases, we are talking about small family firms established by someone who may have gone as far as putting his or her house on the line to raise the necessary capital.
As all of us who have run our own companies know—I had 10 years' experience of running a company—it is necessary to get up, go out and secure business every day. Every aspect of the company must be managed. It is exciting; it is challenging; it is rewarding; but it is pretty scary at times. One of the key messages that I receive as I go around the country talking to those running businesses in various sectors is that they want the Government off their backs.
I can give the Government examples of what has happened to businesses in less than three years. A Mr. Chetwynd, who has a machining business in Warwickshire, writes:
I have been in business now for 18 years and I have survived three recessions.
Dr. George Turner: How many did not survive?
Mrs. Browning: Are Labour Members suggesting that, if they were in charge for 18 years—which they will not be—the economic cycle would be as it is today? No one but a fool would say that. I suspect that even their prudent Chancellor would not make such a prediction. I must not allow myself to be distracted from what a real person running a real business has to say, in deference to some apparatchik who has a view on the subject. Mr. Chetwynd continues:
I have expanded my company from 4 employees to 33 in this decade, all without the aid of grants, which I have not been clever enough to exploit.
He believes that most of the problem is
due to this government and their total nonchalance at our predicament and unforgivable lack of knowledge and understanding of what it is like to employ people.
Mr. Geraint Davies: Will the hon. Lady give way?
Mrs. Browning: No. I am reading an important letter from someone who is at the sharp end, rather than sitting here and talking about it.
Mr. Chetwynd writes:
The increasing burden on us is intolerable. Do you think they know about the constant cost reductions which we operate under? There is no spare money to keep jobs open to people, or to administer more and more of their responsibilities.
Those responsibilities were formerly paid for by the Government, but Government have now dumped them, as costs, on to businesses. Mr. Chetwynd adds a list showing how his costs have changed since the Government came to office.
The Government say that they listen to, and consult, business. As I have said to business organisations, that sounds all very warm and cosy, but, after three years, are the Government really listening? One would have thought that, during this great consultation period, they would at least have listened, and would have recognised nonsensical regulations, disproportionate regulations, or regulations that do not smack of fairness and justice.

1071
I have a letter from someone who runs a privately managed residential and nursing home. That sector is very concerned. The lady in question writes:
While everybody has to applaud the idea of higher standards for the provision of Care for the Elderly … it has to be understood that it can only be achieved at a higher cost.
It is clear that, although the Government engaged in some form of consultation exercise in regard to changing the regulations for residential and care homes, that does not satisfy this particular home—and I have received many similar letters.
The letter that I have been quoting continues:
The proposals exclude any choice for the Client or their families in deciding that maybe they prefer to pay less for their Care package and are happy with things as they are.
The letter mentions the widening of doorways by 1.5 in, 10 sq m of usable space—not to include a door opening space—additional sitting and lounge areas, plus another room in which families can meet, and the provision of furniture over and above that provided. It appears that the Government are now to decide what sort of furniture each room should have. The letter also refers to the number of care assistants under 18, and asks how such assistants are to be trained for national vocational qualification 2. No one aged under 21 is to be in charge, so how can such people be trained for the important NVQ 3, which can be obtained at the age of 19?
I should have thought that, when the Secretary of State sat next to the Secretary of State for Education and Employment last June, joined-up government in regard to training would have been one of the things that we could expect; but here we have a whole sector under pressure. The lady writes further:
Government should not be able to suddenly change the regulations and send so many Private Businesses to the wall.
One of the problems is that those whom the Government consult tend to be those with a vested interest in seeing this sector develop into something like Trusthouse Forte. What will happen if all the little individual residential and nursing homes, with their funnily shaped rooms and, perhaps, not the right width of doorway, are forced to spend money—[Interruption.] Hon. Members are shouting "Wheelchairs". That may be appropriate in the case of new build, but some homes do not accommodate wheelchair users, and it is not reasonable to insist that they incur the capital expense involved in making changes on the chance that a particular person will need the facility.
We will end up—perhaps this is the Government's plan—not with privately owned residential and nursing homes, but with big Trust House Forte-style rooms where every piece of furniture is the same and every room is the same size, with the same wallpaper and the same carpet. I can think of no more sterile experience than that of people who must end their days in such an atmosphere. Institutions of that kind must be contrasted with some of the caring residential and nursing homes, catering for the individual, that my constituency—along with others, I am sure—contains.
Mr. Martin O'Neill: Will the hon. Lady tell us when the regulations to which she has referred were
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introduced, and at whose behest? I understand that they were the product of the Conservative Government's processes.
People who live in homes are entitled to the best possible conditions. Second-rate accommodation of the kind that the hon. Lady supports is an insult to the elderly.
Mrs. Browning: No, it is not. The Government have consulted on the regulations; they are not inherited from the last Government. Moreover, a Bill is proceeding through the other place. When it comes to the House of Commons, I will go into more detail.
The lady writes:
We are at present registered for 25 Residents and have 2 double rooms, to accommodate the physical changes required we would have to reduce to 19 Residents. It is unlikely that our running costs would then be covered by the fees we are currently able to charge.
The Government have paid no attention, but I have raised the subject of nonsensical rules of this kind on the Floor of the House. There is the construction industry tax scheme, which involves the absurdity of people having to present themselves in all four corners of the country. We still have the dreaded climate change tax—I received a letter from someone who runs a nursery, who will be buying all the plants from Belgium this year—and, of course, there is the much-publicised IR35 legislation, which is sending many businesses abroad.
The Government's answer is to abolish their better regulation taskforce, and to set up a star chamber in the Cabinet Office. The first Labour Minister for the Cabinet Office said that there was a difference between deregulation and better regulation. If only that had been true. There has been no better regulation; there has been chaos ever since, given the way in which the Government have implemented legislation. They have implemented it late, and have not given businesses the lead time that they need just to read the literature.
It seems that, when the present Government make a mistake of this kind and businesses are clearly in difficulty, their answer is not to take practical action to relieve businesses, but to re-budget, give it a smart title and send it off to the "cutting edge of business" in the Cabinet Office, of all places.
Mr. Ian Bruce: Will my hon. Friend give way?
Mrs. Browning: I will, but for the last time.
Mr. Bruce: My hon. Friend is perhaps unfair to the Secretary of State because, at a stroke last week, he halved the regulations on the utilities by abandoning half the Utilities Bill, which was supposed to be so important to consumers.
Mrs. Browning: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that intervention. I hope that the Secretary of State was listening to my hon. Friend because, last Wednesday, I tabled a named-day question asking the Secretary of State whether he was going to remove water and telecommunications from the Bill. Yesterday, I received a holding answer saying that I would receive an answer shortly. If he did not know five days after he had done it that that was what he had done, what hope is there that

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there will be any businesslike management in the Department of Trade and Industry? I hope that I shall get an accurate reply from him in short order.
The Government and the Secretary of State have learned the language of business, but they do not understand it; the regulations that they place on small businesses are testimony to that. The Conservative party will change that.
Mr. O'Neill: How?
Mrs. Browning: I am just about to tell the hon. Gentleman. When we come to office, we will set regulatory budgets. Every Secretary of State, after an independent audit, will be required over the lifetime of a Parliament to reduce the costs that the Department puts on business through regulation. Every year, that Secretary of State, unlike the present one, will stand at the Dispatch Box and account progress to the House: the right and proper place for such announcements.
We shall exempt small businesses from much regulation that the Government have put on them and have proper independent impact assessments before a Bill proceeds through the House, so that the consultation becomes a key part of the way in which a Bill is fashioned, we do listen to what business has to say and independent assessment plays its part in ensuring that we get it right. There will be no tsars or star chambers, just honest, common-sense policies that business supports from Departments where Ministers manage in a businesslike way.
7.42 pm
The Secretary of State for Trade and Industry (Mr. Stephen Byers): I beg to move, To leave out from "House" to the end of the Question, and to add instead thereof:
welcomes the action taken by Her Majesty's Government to foster an environment in which small business can flourish, with macro-economic stability, a 10 per cent. starting rate of corporation tax, a research and development tax credit, regulation introduced in ways that minimise burdens on business, and the creation of the Small Business Service through which for the first time there will be at the heart of Government an institution dedicated to representing the interest of, and improving the services to, small firms; congratulates the ongoing work being undertaken by the Better Regulation Task Force, chaired by Lord Haskins, in spearheading the Government's campaigning for better regulation; and contrasts this with the boom and bust policies of the previous administration, which led to 15 per cent. interest rates, double digit inflation and the collapse of thousands of small firms.
May I put the situation of small businesses in context? We have not been given a true picture of the strength of the small business sector. I regret that, but I can understand the reluctance of the hon. Member for Tiverton and Honiton (Mrs. Browning) to address the sector's success under this Government: it stands in stark contrast with the neglect that it suffered under 18 years of the Conservative Administration of which she was a member.
The hon. Lady will know, then, of the hardship and record level of insolvencies that were inflicted on the small business sector as a result of the three recessions about which she kindly reminded the House. She is right. There is an economic cycle. The Government have ensured for the first time that no recession has resulted from the economic cycle and the slowing down in economic growth.
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The Government of whom the hon. Lady was a member three times imposed a recession, as she kindly reminded the House, but, if we look at the facts and get away from the prejudice that we have heard from her this evening, we will see the true value that the Government have been able to bring to the small business sector. More than 1 million businesses have started up in the lifetime of the Government. On average, 8,000 more businesses have started up every quarter under the Labour Government than in the first half of the 1990s. That is the record. That is because of the economic climate that we have been able to engineer.
In the past two years, the overall number of business closures has been lower than at any other time in the whole of the past decade. There has been a net gain of 140,000 small firms since the middle of 1997. That is because, under the present Government, with the economic stability that we have been able to create, small businesses can be formed and can plan ahead with confidence.
That is why, on taking office, we took immediate action to provide independence to the Bank of England and to ensure that we did not repeat the cycle of boom and bust about which the hon. Lady has kindly reminded the House.
Mr. Geraint Davies: Will my right hon. Friend give way?
Mr. Byers: I shall in a minute.
It is worth reminding the House that, 10 years ago this week, interest rates went up to 15.5 per cent. Inflation was in double figures. [Interruption.] Conservative Front Benchers say, "Oh dear." The thousands and thousands of small businesses that went into insolvency because interest rates were at 15.5 per cent. will not like them saying that so cynically.
Mr. William Cash rose—
Mr. Byers: Jobs and businesses were lost as a result of the Conservative party engineering boom and bust.
Mr. Cash rose—
Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. I will not tolerate the hon. Gentleman standing when the Secretary of State is speaking.
Mr. Byers: I will give way to the hon. Member for Stone (Mr. Cash) in a second, but someone has already asked me to give way—my hon. Friend the Member for Croydon, Central (Mr. Davies).
Mr. Geraint Davies: Does my right hon. Friend not agree that the main point of Mr. Chetwynd's letter was that he had miraculously lived through three Tory recessions? As he knows, I have started a number of successful small businesses. What small businesses want is stability and growth to plan ahead, with low interest rates, more employment and a prosperous Britain in an uncertain world. That is what we are delivering.
Mr. Byers: My hon. Friend puts it extremely well: that is what we are delivering. I am grateful to him for

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pointing out, from his personal experience of running several small businesses—[Interruption.] He does not regret it. He knows the way in which small businesses operate.
There has been a net gain of 140,000 small firms since the middle of 1997, when the Government took office, as a result of the economic stability that we have been able to create.
Mr. Cash: When the right hon. Gentleman is going on about the thousands of jobs that were lost during that regrettable period up to 16 September 1992, does he accept that the reason for the loss was the exchange rate mechanism, which many of us fought against all the way down the line? The real reason why the present Government have a more beneficial economy is precisely that they are out of the exchange rate mechanism and not in economic and monetary union. Does he not accept that those two things run together?
Mr. Byers: The hon. Gentleman has been a powerful advocate in the House for a particular position on Europe. Giving the Bank of England independence over the setting of the exchange rate in 1997 and getting public finances under control for the first time have laid the foundations for the economic stability that we are seeing.
I know that I will never convince the hon. Gentleman of the argument. He has a particular view. We talked about it for hours during the debates on the Maastricht treaty. Thankfully, we are not going back to those days—at least I hope not—but if he looks back at what we have been able to achieve since May 1997, he will acknowledge that one of the great foundations of that economic stability was laid by the politically difficult decisions that we took in the early days of office. They have been proved to be absolutely right, so we have created the economic stability in which businesses can start, succeed and grow and in which people can invest with confidence. That is the framework that we have been able to establish.
Because we were able to do that, there has been a dramatic increase in small businesses starting up. It is a tangible demonstration of our success that more and more people are deciding to start their own businesses. That is a far better test than anything that we hear from Conservative Members in relation to the success, or otherwise, of the Government's policy: the fact that, day in, day out, more and more people choose to start their own businesses. Small businesses are starting at a rate that we have not seen for generations.
That is because of Government policies, not because of anything that the Conservatives are doing. They will go on about the burden of regulation and so on, but, day in, day out, people start small businesses. Those people will make a clear distinction between the need to provide their employees with decent minimum standards in the workplace—there is broad support for that approach there—and the cost of administration, red tape and bureaucracy. The big mistake that Conservative Members always make is to confuse the two. They cannot distinguish between red tape and bureaucracy and providing decent standards for people in the workplace.
Mr. Ian Bruce: The right hon. Gentleman will know that, six months ago, we debated on the Floor of the
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House regulations on employment agencies. Why did he introduce those regulations, which occupied the attention of the House for about 18 months, but subsequently do a complete U-turn on temporary-to-permanent employment fees and on abolishing—as he was asked to do initially—value added tax on certain services?
Mr. Byers: I know that Conservative Members find it difficult to understand that there are a Government and a Secretary of State who are prepared to listen. I hope that it will not affect the digestive system of the hon. Member for Tiverton and Honiton if I say that I shall not apologise for the fact that I very carefully examined the regulations, realised that a very powerful case on temp-to-perm was made by the hon. Member for South Dorset (Mr. Bruce), examined the regulations again, and said, "There is merit in the argument—so we'll change regulation of the matter." The whole point of consultation is to listen, and I have listened. I believed that the suggested approach was better, and we adopted it.
I also considered the value added tax issue. I said, "There is a better approach here. I have the agreement of my colleagues in the Treasury that we should not impose VAT", and we adopted that approach. Consequently, we have a far better provision, which has been applauded by the industry itself, which realizes
Mr. Bruce: There was no need to change the regulations in the first place.
Mr. Byers: As the hon. Gentleman will know, the industry itself is applauding our action—which stands in stark contrast to the 18 years of inaction by the previous, dogmatic Government, who listened to no one apart from themselves. That is the reality of the situation, and I make no apology for it.
Mr. Christopher Fraser: Will the right hon. Gentleman concede that, given the debacle in the Department's handling of the Utilities Bill, the press are not complimentary to the Government? Rather, they are talking about a dog's dinner of a Government and are waiting to see the Secretary of State depart from the Department.
Mr. Byers: The phrase "dog's dinner" is being over-used in the debate. The hon. Member for Tiverton and Honiton used it, in quoting Lord Haskins—who is chairman of the better regulation taskforce—on the working time directive. The hon. Lady will be delighted to know that the better regulation taskforce is not being abolished. I know that she will be celebrating that great news tonight. She said in her speech that it is to be abolished, but it is not.
Mrs. Browning: Star chamber.
Mr. Byers: The star chamber is quite different. It is a very powerful body at the heart of Government. There are no tsars or tsarinas, but there is a star chamber—presided over by my right hon. Friend the Minister for the Cabinet Office.
Mrs. Browning: The tsarina.
Mr. Byers: I do not think that my right hon. Friend would like to be called a tsarina. There are many ways of

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describing her, but I do not think that that is one of them. The star chamber is working, and it is already doing some excellent work. We look forward, in the not-too-distant future, to announcing the product of its labours, which I hope will be welcomed by all hon. Members.
I was trying to provide the framework within which small businesses are able to prosper, and explain why so many small businesses have been created under this Government. There have been so many start-ups because of the economic stability that we have been able to create and the fact that we have been able to get interest rates down, inflation on target and public finances sorted out. Another reason is that we have introduced some of the lowest corporation tax rates ever. We have also introduced special tax rates for small businesses. We have created a situation in which a record number of small businesses are being established.
To encourage investment in new companies, the small business tax has been reduced to 20p in the pound, and we have introduced a new starting lop corporation tax rate for small companies. That will benefit 270,000 companies. We have also abolished advance corporation tax, thereby simplifying the tax system.
We also have to tackle the barriers that exist to enterprise flourishing in the United Kingdom. I accept that, currently, barriers stand in the way of many small businesses starting up and obtaining the finance that they need for success. Small businesses often have real problems and fail in their first three or four years because they have inadequate finance in their early days, when money has to be borrowed. In the early days, people over-extend themselves in credit and borrowing, then pay the price for it three or four years later. The Government therefore have to find ways of providing finance for small businesses to start up.
We have to recognise that one of the main issues concerning small businesses is the fact that some banks feel very reluctant to provide finance. The banking review that has been established by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, with Don Cruickshank as chairman, is very carefully examining the ways in which banks provide support, particularly to small businesses. The review will be reporting in the next few weeks. However, we shall have to take action over and above the recommendations that may be in the Cruickshank report.
We have to review all sources of finance available to small firms. One issue that we have been examining and that demonstrates a clear lack of support is provision of finance up to £500,000. Small businesses find it very difficult to access that level of finance. It is particularly difficult for some hi-tech start-ups and for small businesses in certain parts of the country to gain such finance. There is a real regional disparity in the finance made available to small businesses.
Mr. Brian Cotter: Will the Minister consider encouraging mutual guarantee schemes as a way in which small businesses might combine together to provide self-financing? Such schemes have operated in many other countries, and there have been trials of them in the United Kingdom.
Mr. Byers: The hon. Gentleman makes an important point. There have been trials in the United Kingdom, and we should learn from them. There are some very good
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examples of small businesses collaborating with each other. Although that did not happen before, small businesses are increasingly recognising that they can learn from each other, particularly on finance. I shall certainly draw such schemes to the attention of the Chancellor. I shall perhaps do so in the next few weeks, as he prepares, on 21 March, to unveil an undoubtedly hugely successful and popular Budget. That may be one of the issues that he will wish to address.
I was trying to identify the small business groups, such as those in the hi-tech sector, for which the market is not providing the financial support necessary for development. As I said, there are also regional disparities in access to finance. The third main group without sufficient financial support are small businesses in some of the United Kingdom's most deprived communities, where people who want to start businesses have huge difficulties in raising finance.
We have separate proposals to deal with the deficiencies affecting each of those groups—whether in the regions, hi-tech start-ups or business start-ups in deprived communities. In total, we have provided £180 million for an enterprise fund, within which we have targeted particularly those three groups.
There will be a hi-tech venture capital fund that will provide financial support to start-ups in the hi-tech sector. The United Kingdom—particularly United Kingdom pension funds—has been very bad in providing financial support to that sector. It is a bit of a condemnation that much of the investment for United Kingdom hi-tech companies is coming not from United Kingdom pension funds, but from the United States. We have to do something to encourage United Kingdom pension funds to invest in United Kingdom hi-tech companies.
We also have to do something about regional disparities. I am pleased that we have been able to establish, for the first time, a regional venture capital fund, which we hope to launch in the next few months and which will be able to offer finance to business start-ups in those regions which, perhaps historically, have not regarded the business start-up route as the way forward and the way of regenerating their local communities. The Phoenix fund, which we have established for deprived communities, is worth £30 million annually and will make a real difference. [Interruption.] The hon. Member for Buckingham (Mr. Bercow) may snort at the idea of a Phoenix fund; it may not be needed in Buckingham. However, it is needed in Barnsley, Bradford and many parts of the country where access to funds is simply not available at present. It will make a real difference to decent, hard-working people in deprived areas who want to start their own businesses, but cannot access finance at present.
Mr. John Bercow: I sincerely hope that the Secretary of State is not suggesting that there are no needy people in Buckingham, because there are. They need sound policies and Conservative representation. They do not have not the former, but they have the latter.
Will the Secretary of State tell us what further plans he has for sunset regulation? He dipped his toes in the water with the Electronic Communications Bill, which, I am pleased to say, was based on advice that I have proffered him for the past two years.
Mr. Byers: I am in danger of agreeing with yet another Conservative Member. The hon. Gentleman quite rightly

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says that he drew to my attention on several occasions the potential benefits that may come from sunset regulations. As I said to him at the time, they were worth investigating and we have done that. I am pleased that we shall be able to take a small step through provisions in the Electronic Communications Bill, but we can do more. However, that means breaking down a culture.
We are having an adult debate and, as the hon. Member for Tiverton and Honiton said of her experience as a Minister, there is a culture in Whitehall that is inclined to regulate first, because that is a soft option. If there is a problem, it is easy to regulate. What we must do is create a culture which asks, "If there is a problem, why do we not consider alternative means, such as guidance on best practice, codes of conduct and so on?" They are often a better way of approaching such problems. I know that the hon. Lady has said in the Chamber that, during her time as Minister, the previous Government did not do enough.
Mrs. Browning rose—
Mr. Byers: Let me finish my point, because it is a serious one. There will be political point scoring about regulation and the burdens of regulation, and I understand why that is necessary. However, if we can raise the debate slightly above that, there is an issue of the culture of government which we all need to address. How can we ensure that we provide minimum standards for people in the workplace that businesses will accept? The debate on the minimum wage, for example, has been interesting because most employers now agree with the principle. I am delighted that the Conservative party now endorses the principle of the national minimum wage. [Interruption.] Some Conservative Members do not endorse the principle. I am inclined to ask which of them do not agree with it, but I think that a majority of those present do not.
I am not altogether sure what the result would be if the five people on the Opposition Front Bench voted. I think I can spot one who is in favour of endorsing the national minimum wage, but I am not sure that the other four would. In fact, I can see that there is a four to one majority against the national minimum wage. That is interesting, and they clearly do not disagree with my analysis. However, we had better move on quickly.
The important issue is that, where there is a need to regulate—there will occasionally be such a need—it is done in a way that is as light-touch as possible. Figures from the British Chambers of Commerce that were cited by the hon. Member for Tiverton and Honiton show that there is confusion in terms of what is being covered. I can understand people being critical of the administrative burden that arises, but the hon. Lady kindly read out the letter from Chris Humphries, in which he confirmed that the figure of just under £10 billion that the British Chambers of Commerce quoted included the cost of providing four weeks paid holiday entitlement.
If the hon. Lady wants to go on the record as saying that the Conservative party regards such costs as unacceptable, the implication of her argument is that four weeks' paid holiday, which is part of the working time directive, is something with which she disagrees. A clear distinction must be made between administration and red
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tape, which we should all be against, as opposed to the costs of providing entitlements for people in the workplace. The figures that she cited referred to the costs of providing four weeks' paid holiday entitlement, which comes in under the working time directive. There is a cost there, but I think that most businesses are prepared to bear it. It is a matter of regret that the British Chambers of Commerce has included that figure in its costings.
Mrs. Browning: Does the Secretary of State not understand why businesses have been placed under such pressure by the regulatory burdens that this Government have placed on them? They are under pressure because of the cumulative cost. It is not the number of regulations or any one regulation that has caused the problem. The cumulative cost has reached the point at which it impacts on the viability of businesses, and it is that cost that we intend to reduce. That is the difference between the Secretary of State's perspective and that of the Conservative party and small businesses. The right hon. Gentleman has come to the point where he has done so much cumulative damage to business that an individual regulation becomes the straw that breaks the camel's back, however worthy he may think it is.
Mr. Byers: The hon. Lady drew the House's attention to the detail provided by the British Chambers of Commerce. I pointed out that it includes in its figures the costs of providing four weeks entitlement for paid holiday. The implication of the hon. Lady's argument is that the Conservative party does not support that entitlement. People need to be aware of that.
The question is the balance that needs to be struck between providing minimum rights and entitlements to people in the workplace, which we support, and doing so in a way that is light-touch and does not create the over-regulation that can often result from doing that inappropriately. I should like to think that, in my time as Secretary of State, we have been able to change the regulations affecting the national minimum wage so that they are far more light-touch than they were when I came to office. We have taken steps to change record keeping in relation to the working time directive, That is far more friendly in terms of how it can be applied in practice without losing the entitlement for people not to have to work more than 48 hours a week if they do not wish to do so. That is the appropriate approach to take.
We have laid good foundations for small businesses as a result of the economic stability that we have created. At the beginning of April, we shall establish the Small Business Service which, for the first time at the very heart of government, will ensure that the small business sector has a voice and can argue for its interests. I am confident that the Budget on 21 March will be a Budget for enterprise and fairness. What has struck me in my conversations throughout the country with small businesses is that they are asking not for some form of special treatment, but for enterprise and fairness. That is exactly what the Government are delivering and we will continue to do so.
Mr. Ernie Ross: What message would my right hon. Friend send to the small business federation which is to meet tomorrow night in Tayside? Among its members are a number of sub-postmasters. Initially, they ran scare stories that sub-post offices were likely to close

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and they organised petitions. We dealt with those issues and we made it clear that the Government intend there to be choice even after 2003. They then switched the spotlight and now they allege that the administration of the working families tax credit is liable to threaten small businesses. What message would my right hon. Friend like to send to them?
Mr. Byers: The strong message that I can give is that we understand the concerns. That is why we are expanding the Inland Revenue's new enterprise support initiative, which will specifically help small businesses with payrolls so that they will not experience the sort of difficulties about which my hon. Friend, as well as postmasters and postmistresses, are concerned.
Let me remind the House of some facts. More than 1 million businesses have been started under this Government. That is the clearest demonstration of the fact that we are getting things right. However, there is no complacency. We will continue our efforts to reduce regulation and to cut red tape. I invite the House to support the amendment in the name of my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister.
8.9 pm
Mr. Brian Cotter: I welcome the debate, although a motion such as this comes rich from the Conservatives. As the Secretary of State rightly pointed out, their record on the matter was not brilliant. At their peak, interest rates were 15 per cent., and they were in double figures for four of the Conservative party's 18 years in office.
Liberal Democrats were pleased when the Government gave the Bank of England independence as a way forward for the economy, a policy which we had advocated for many years. The right hon. Member for Kensington and Chelsea (Mr. Portillo) now says that that is a good idea. I wonder whether his colleagues on the Front Bench agree with him. I am glad to see that they support that policy, although the minimum wage may be a different matter.
I ran my business throughout the time of the previous Government when there was a tremendous number of business failures. I believe that during the last five years of that Government one business went bust every three minutes of every working day. Coming from manufacturing industry, as I do, I also remember the way in which that Government concentrated on investment in City jobs. Valuable as they are, that was at the expense of manufacturing industry and the small business sector.
In their last three years, the previous Government introduced about 3,000 additional regulations each year. I give them credit for their deregulation initiative, but it was not particularly successful. The Deregulation Committee is not brilliantly successful now. During those years, the Conservatives introduced about 15 times as many regulations as they managed to get rid of through deregulation.
I join Conservative Members in their concern about the present situation facing small businesses. We are still waiting for the Government to fulfil the many promises that they have made. In particular, I welcome the concept of the Small Business Service. We have long needed a one-stop shop. Training and enterprise councils, business links and so on have proliferated. The Small Business
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Service is dedicated to reducing regulation from April and to concentrating on firms with up to 250 employees. It is important that that service should address the micro-businesses, something which the business links system failed to do.
I can attest to the way in which the administrative burden falls disproportionately on small companies, particularly when it comes to taking on an extra employee. Having just taken on an extra employee in my company, I know how discouraging it is. I need someone who can do a number of different jobs and I had to search hard to find such a person. Large companies have personnel departments to do such work, whereas I had to do the job with others in the company. Taking people on is a big cost to business. Everyone would accept that if every small business took on one additional employee we would have a real solution to the unemployment problem.
I reiterate what Conservative Members have said about the better regulation task force. We have not seen what we were looking for from that. It tried to do its job with insufficient resources, although I take my hat off to its chairman, who does an extremely good job. The different areas that it has chosen have been rather arbitrary. I hope that the Small Business Service will address the issue. In a debate on small businesses in January, it was announced that each Department would have a Minister responsible for regulation, and I should be interested to know whether that is now the case, and to have some sort of feedback.
Mr. Byers: I can confirm that in each Department a Minister has been appointed with specific responsibility to monitor the development of regulations within their Department and to report to the new Cabinet Committee.
Mr. Cotter: That is welcome news.
A key issue that I have raised before concerns regulatory impact assessments. Having served on a number of Standing Committees I have been struck by the poor quality of the information that those assessments contain. Moreover, I urge the Secretary of State, if he has not already done so, to ensure that they should come at an early stage. The Secretary of State talked about consultation, and an impact assessment should be available at that stage so that an appropriate assessment can be made. I would also urge him to implement an annual report to Parliament on the impact of such assessments on Bills and new regulations.
The Secretary of State sets up the Government to be conscious of small business issues, and one way of achieving that would be if civil servants and Ministers were aware of the work involved in running a small business. We have an interchange scheme whereby civil servants and others go into companies such as the Shells and BPs of this world. I urge the Secretary of State to consider the value to the small business sector if civil servants and others on that scheme worked in the smallest of businesses—the garage, pub or shop. Only a few days would be needed to recognise the enormous problems involved in running a small business.
One of the biggest problems in business is seeing regulation coming down the line. The way in which it pops up from nowhere at short notice and is dumped on business is a problem. A taxi driver came to my surgery recently wanting to take on a black taxi in Weston-super-Mare. As things stand at the moment, he could just

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about manage the investment, but he was worried about rumblings to the effect that in one, two or three years changes in regulations could affect him badly. I should be grateful if the Secretary of State could take that issue on board.
I am glad to hear the Secretary of State welcome sunset regulation, which has been implemented in the Electronic Communications Bill. I hope that he will consider that as a way of ensuring that regulation is allowed to wither away if it is no longer appropriate.
Liberal Democrats have always proposed regional development agencies as a way forward, and we wait to see what the Government intend to do about them. I hope that there will be a means by which the Small Business Service can be relevant to local communities. When I intervened earlier, the Secretary of State accepted the regional guarantee scheme as a possible way forward. We want to see such local initiatives rather than the Government issuing diktats from the top.
Mr. Geraint Davies: What is the hon. Gentleman's view on regionally based venture capital funds? Does he agree that US venture capital funds are highly diversified, from corporate re-engineering to small and high-tech companies, and that we need to have such diversification to re-engineer British industry and take advantage of small business opportunities in the European market.
Mr. Cotter: That is an excellent point. More than that, we want the RDAs to have real money following them, not just a rejigging of the deckchairs on the Titanic.
I welcome the Secretary of State's point about flexibility of enforcement. We support the small business community being excluded to some extent from regulation, but it is important to have flexibility. Inspectors should have the sense not to march in on day one and say that all the doors have to be a certain width, even if it is clearly impractical to get that done by next week.
Apprenticeships are very important. This country has a tradition of apprenticeship schemes, and many of us would like them to return. My party has been considering the concerns that people have about builders and others not doing work to the right standard, and a lot of that comes from the lack of apprenticeship schemes. When traders try to have apprenticeships, they find that the burden of paperwork is too much, and they are put off.
We look to the Government to deliver on what they say. We are concerned that the Small Business Service will not meet local needs if it is not linked in locally. The regional development agency concept must be sharpened and made clearer. I hope that the Secretary of State will bear in mind the extra costs involved in hiring people because of regulation. I urge him to ensure that when the Small Business Service begins its work in April, it delivers what he has promised. We shall be watching. We have long believed in the RDAs' local one-stop shop delivery of services, and we look to the Secretary of State to deliver on his promises.
8.22 pm
Mr. Martin O'Neill: We debated this subject on 20 January in Westminster Hall. On that occasion, I believe that only three Conservatives attended the
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debate; there were certainly only three Conservative contributions. At the start of tonight's debate there was a sizeable Conservative presence, but we quickly got to the stage where there were more Conservatives on the Front Bench than on the Back Benches. It ill-behoves them to lecture us on the diminishing status of small business debates.
The most depressing factor about Conservative Members' contributions to small business debates has been the persistent complaining and whingeing about regulation. I suspect that they do that because they are unable to complain about inflation; about business rates, in any serious way; about industrial relations; or about the general level of economic activity.
If there is one thing that encourages people to set up small businesses, to take the risk and put their house on the line, it is the prospect of a stable environment in which to get the business up and running. That is what the Government have provided over the past two and a half years. That is what sickens Conservative Members. They told lies before the general election about our irresponsibility and how we would spend money on needless projects. They raised many questions about how we would handle the unions and establish decent pay and conditions while keeping inflation in check, but we have achieved all that.
Small businesses now express a sense of relief. Since just before Christmas, I have spent part of almost every Friday talking to small business people in my constituency. I can think of two firms in the construction industry, one of which is in building supply. There is a company that makes double glazing—and sells it, too, much to its embarrassment, as after politicians and, I think, journalists, double glazing salespeople are about the least popular group in the country.
People in those firms tell me that they are confident. That is in an area of Clackmannanshire where, because of the collapse in the textile industry, some large employers have gone to the wall and there is considerable disadvantage. The firms sense that people are willing to invest in their houses, so they feel that they are in a position to start employing new people.
I do not disagree with the hon. Member for Weston-super-Mare (Mr. Cotter) on many points on this subject—we have debated it before—but credit should be given to the variety of schemes that enable employers to take on extra labour. He spoke about apprenticeships. We tend to get hung up on old language, and I would rather we talked about progressive training programmes whereby people outwith the traditional skills areas can get formal qualifications to enable them either to go on to subsequent employment in the relevant area or simply to show that they are trained personnel, capable of undertaking work.
There is a plethora of schemes that are not too difficult to administer and which afford employers tremendous support in the early stages of a person's working career. To put an old-fashioned name to it, there is a subsidy to get people into work. Young people have been recruited by firms through schemes such as the new deal, and those firms have not said that that was the downside of regulation or an aspect of Government policy that they find reprehensible. Employers and small business people express quiet confidence and pride because they have been able to take on additional people with Government support.

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A woman in my constituency has started a catering operation running factory canteens and the like. In two and a half years, she has gone from no employees to more than 50. She said that she has no objection to paying the national minimum wage—she recognises that catering is a low-paid industry—but that she would like due notice of an increase.
I pay tribute to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for the prudent way in which he has dealt with that issue. There was speculation about a rise, and now we have what most people would agree is a fair increase. It is just ahead of inflation and will probably be in line with it by October. People were given about six months' notice of the increase. It is important to small businesses to be able to make the appropriate calculations, feed them into their business plans and accommodate the change, rather than facing a drastic lurch into having to pay more.
Most of us would regard the national minimum wage as unreasonably low and would like people to be paid more, but we know that some fledgling businesses have serious cost problems, and those issues must be addressed. We all agree that workers are entitled to fairness and a decent crack of the whip, be it in their pay or, what is equally important, the number of weeks' holiday that they get. It will be interesting to learn whether the Opposition spokesman is able to tell us when he winds up whether the Tories will abandon the commitment to four weeks' paid holiday. Will they work through the EU regulations and find a way to renege on the undertaking of the Labour Government—in the unlikely event that the Conservatives ever again secure a majority in the House?
I know a small IT company that was woefully undercapitalised and going through a difficult spell. It found that by working with agencies such as 3Is, which works alongside Government but is not Government owned or controlled, it has been able to secure the continuing assistance that is necessary for its endeavours.
In the past couple of days, we have seen a dramatic shift of opinion on e-commerce. If one thing will assist an abundance of small businesses, it will be access to the net. When we last spoke on this subject, a Conservative Member was dubious about whether we would ever have free access to the net. Of course, access will never be completely free because a bill must be paid at some stage. There is no such thing as a free telephone call in any country under any circumstance. Payment is made through the rent, a standing charge or the metered call. However, as a consequence of the intervention of my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer—we recall the abuse that he received for intervening, even though he did so having consulted the Director General of Telecommunications and with his authority—he virtually shamed BT into providing free access to the net. First AltaVista announced its plans and then—surprise, surprise—along came BT. BT cannot be accused of the power of original thought, but it can be credited with speed of response.
I remember when the director general was to appear before the Select Committee on Trade and Industry, which I chair. Less than an hour before the Committee was due to meet, we received faxes informing us that BT intended to introduce an ultra-cheap scheme.
Mr. Ian Bruce: The hon. Gentleman knows that as soon as BT saw competition in the market, it was going to act. I
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wish it had been first, instead of just a follower. Did the hon. Gentleman notice that on the same day that Oftel said that it would not accept BT's first offer for internet access, the Minister for Small Business and E-Commerce announced it to the world as the way ahead? She obviously gave way too quickly.
Mr. O'Neill: The point is that we have had the breakthrough we all wanted. The service providers are now confident that we have a climate in which the importance of electronic commerce is recognised. That is encouraging and important, because it will enable small businesses to expand their range of activities. It is clear that the experience of the United States is that cheap access has enabled small businesses to take advantage of the opportunity.
The Small Business Administration in the US, which is one of the great success stories of the American Government, has been the model for our Small Business Service. It is depressing that in the two speeches that I have heard the hon. Member for Tiverton and Honiton (Mrs. Browning) make on small businesses, she has not even deigned to mention the Small Business Service. She has never made any serious attempt to offer what should be the responsibility of the Opposition—an analysis of a Government proposal. She should tell us what parts of it she thinks are worth proceeding with and, before 1 April, what parts are dangerous and should not be included.
Mrs. Browning: When the news was given to the House, the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry did not even stand at the Dispatch Box and present it; he just left it in the Vote Office, and the Secretary of State for Education and Employment referred to it in a passing sentence. That is hardly an inspiration to treat the proposal as a major plank of Government policy.
Mr. O'Neill: That is not an excuse for abdicating your responsibilities as an Opposition Front-Bench spokesperson. You have a duty—
Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Michael Lord): Order. The hon. Gentleman must remember to use the correct parliamentary language.
Mr. O'Neill: The hon. Lady has a duty to the country, if not to her party, to let us know what she thinks about these matters. She has had two opportunities in my company to argue the case and on neither occasion has she addressed the issue with any seriousness. All we have had is whingeing and moaning about the fact that on a particular date the Secretary of State for Education and Employment made a statement and the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry sat alongside him. That is the best that the Tories can give us on the Small Business Service, which is probably the best opportunity that small businesses will have had in the past 20 years.
We will have a consistent service across the country, and small businesses will be guaranteed a good service regardless of their location. The previous Government introduced business links, but they were not an overwhelming success. Provision was patchy and depended on relations with chambers of commerce and the local training and enterprise councils. Some of those impedimenta have now been removed.
Mrs. Browning rose—
Mr. O'Neill: I cannot give way because I wish to leave time for other hon. Members. Several of my hon. Friends wish to speak and it is important that as many people as possible have that opportunity.
Small businesses have a better chance now than they have had for many years, with the Small Business Service and the support that it will be able to offer. There will be an ally of small businesses at the heart of Government, which will be similar to the position enjoyed by Mrs. Alvarez of the Small Business Administration in the US, who sits in President Clinton's Cabinet.
The debate tonight is a welcome opportunity for the Government to make the position clear. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State and I have disagreements from time to time about presentational matters, but the presentation is not in doubt on this issue. The core position is that we have a climate of opinion in this country that is capable of supporting more small businesses, and that becomes ever more evident with every new business that starts. They receive encouragement from the Government and the institutions that surround the Government. I support the amendment and I am happy to do so.
8.37 pm
Mr. John Bercow: In April 1997, the right hon. Member for Dunfermline, East (Mr. Brown)—then shadow Chancellor—declared in the foreword to Labour's business manifesto, which was entitled "Equipping Britain for the Future":
We will not impose burdensome regulations upon business because we understand that successful businesses must keep costs down.
Nineteen months later, the right hon. Member for Hartlepool (Mr. Mandelson), then Secretary of State for Trade and Industry, told the House, apparently with a straight face, that
we have no intention of introducing any legislation that presents a burden on business and reduces the competitiveness of British firms.—[Official Report, 25 November 1998; Vol. 321, c. 214]
Sadly, only a matter of weeks after the first statement, and fully 18 months before the second, the Government had begun the process of betrayal that has so far resulted in an additional 2,700 regulations impacting adversely on British business.
As recently as 20 January, Mr. Chris Humphries, director general of the British Chambers of Commerce, put his view, on behalf of his members, fairly and squarely on the record. He said that
despite all its rhetoric, the reality is that government has dramatically increased the regulatory burdens that threaten small business competitiveness.
Frankly, if I had to choose between the sayings of the Chancellor of the Exchequer and of the former Secretary of State for Trade and Industry, and the considered judgment of a person at the coal face—the director general of the British Chambers of Commerce—I would opt for the verdict of the latter every time. Mr. Humphries knows the facts, recognises the realities and hears the stories of his members who are struggling under the dramatic imposts of this Government. He knows the truth—that the burden of regulation is greater now than at any time in the history of the United Kingdom.
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In her sparkling opening speech, my hon. Friend the Member for Tiverton and Honiton (Mrs. Browning) set out some of the sins, of commission and of omission, perpetrated by the Government since they came to office 34 months ago. There are several examples, and I shall illustrate some of them this evening.
The first example that springs to mind has to do with the Part-Time Employees (Prevention of Less Favourable Treatment) Regulations 2000. Their purpose is to give effect to the European directive on part-time working by 7 April. Conservative Members have two principal objections to the way in which the Government have proceeded. First, the consultation process has been a sham and a disgrace. We deserve an apology from the Minister for Small Business and E-Commerce, who is winding up the debate. She should apologise to all those people in business who have suffered as a result of that process.
The Government knew in April 1998 that they would implement the directive. They agreed to the directive, and intended to give it effect. However, in the intervening 21 months up to January this year, the Government chose to do nothing by way of consultation with the affected businesses in this country. Eventually, on 17 January, the Government issued their draft regulations for the purposes of incorporation of the directive in British law.
With a sniffy disdain unworthy of Government representatives, Ministers indicated that they expected that businesses might have some comments to make in response to the draft regulations, although it was not clear that the Government were inviting a full-scale consultation. Moreover—and this is a further indicator of the Government's frivolous approach to this partial consultation—Ministers said that all responses from businesses had to be received by 27 February.
That meant that businesses—and most of them were the small businesses for which a substantial proportion of part-time employees work—had 44 days in which to respond. That is risibly inadequate. If Ministers do not realise that, it is about time they did.
The Secretary of State made much of the fact that he had amended the regulations on the national minimum wage and those pertaining to the working time directive. In saying what he said, he was delivering an indirect and not very subtle attack on his predecessor, who is now Secretary of State for Northern Ireland.
We rightly castigated the former Secretary of State for Trade and Industry for the feebly inadequate period of consultation that he provided in respect of the working time regulations. According to my calculation, however, the present Secretary of State has done even worse with regard to the consultation period on the part-time employee regulations. He has allowed only 44 days for it, which is worse than the most palpable of the sins committed by his predecessor.
There is no good reason for that carelessness, for which Ministers should apologise. They do not have to apologise to Conservative Members: I know that to do so would stick in the Minister's gullet, and I could not give a tinker's cuss for any apology made to us. However, she has an obligation to apologise to this country's small businesses. She should remember that 99.6 per cent. of companies in this country employ fewer than 100 people, yet they account for almost 50 per cent. of the private-sector work force and generate two fifths of the national output.

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Those business will be awaiting, with eager anticipation, bated breath and beads of sweat on their brows, an apology from the Minister for Small Business and E-Commerce tonight. If it is forthcoming, I will thank her and say no more on the subject.
The second objectionable feature of the proposals is that, not for the first time, and doubtless not for the last, the Government have gold-plated a European directive. How have they done so? Ministers have decided that if businesses do not wish to apply exactly the same treatment to part-time employees as they confer upon their full-time equivalents, they shall be obliged, in the form of a written statement within 14 days of a request so to do, to justify a continuation of differential treatment. That is not in the directive. There is no such requirement. Nor is it a simple matter of a brief memo bashed out by someone in a company's personnel department. Such memorandums or notifications will constitute admissible evidence in the event of a case going to an industrial tribunal. They therefore acquire a legal significance which any company anxious to limit its costs would be foolish to ignore.
Once again, this hits small companies particularly hard. It is all right, perhaps, for large businesses with in-house legal departments; it is a relatively trivial matter for them to attend to this legal requirement. But for the small companies for which, as I emphasised, a large proportion of part-time employees work, it is a costly burden and they could well do without it.
Once again, I suspect that consideration of the need to avoid such burdensome regulation did not even penetrate the inner recesses of ministerial minds at the Department of Trade and Industry. It probably did not even occur to them. Well, it should have done and it should do in the future.
Those, I believe, are two cogent objections to the Government's proposals for part-time employees. There are other legitimate criticisms of Government policy on regulation. The first that occurs to me is in relation to the parental leave directive. [Interruption.] As my hon. Friend the Member for Mid-Dorset and North Poole (Mr. Fraser) observes from a sedentary position, it has a chequered history. The House should be aware, and the country should know, that there was no obligation to implement that directive. It was specifically the result of a bone-headed decision by the Government voluntarily to sign up to the European social chapter. If we had been in office, it would not have happened.
Appearing before the Select Committee on Trade and Industry, chaired by the distinguished hon. Member for Ochil (Mr. O'Neill), on 4 November 1998, the then Secretary of State, the right hon. Member for Hartlepool, declined to accept the Confederation of British Industry estimate of the likely cost of the directive. Instead, he indicated that a cost to business of approximately £29 million a year was roughly accurate. I note that the figure has been creeping up since then. I believe that I am right in saying—although sometimes it is difficult to establish this for certain, because of the differences between what Ministers say on a Monday, a Wednesday and a Friday—that Ministers now estimate that implementing the directive will cost £42.3 million annually.
There are two points to be made. First, it was, frankly, shameful for the then Secretary of State—and he has not been disowned by his successor—to observe sniffily to
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me on 4 November 1998, in response to interrogation, that the cost was merely a tiny fraction of the total cost borne by businesses. That is both true and staggeringly irrelevant.
Mr. Ian Bruce: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for giving way—I did not want to upset his customary flow. However, he has left the Chairman of the Select Committee on Trade and Industry under-reported. The hon. Member for Ochil (Mr. O'Neill) was extremely unkind to Conservative Members for moaning about the Department of Trade and Industry. Does my hon. Friend agree, that the hon. Gentleman himself is an even better moaner, and is quite right to keep criticising the DTI for its total failure to do its business properly?
Mr. Bercow: My hon. Friend is entirely correct, and it has to be said that the hon. Member for Ochil has something of a Jekyll and Hyde quality. He is a very agreeable individual, but in political terms he has two faces. He has the face that is on display when he is chairing the Select Committee, on which occasions he demonstrates a remarkable independence of spirit. He is prepared to demonstrate his resolve to interrogate witnesses fiercely and to hold the Government to account, and he is not averse, from time to time, to insulting Ministers, if not about their personalities, at any rate about their policies.
When, however, the hon. Gentleman is in the Chamber, possibly conscious of the imminence of a hostile pager message from the Government Chief Whip, he is converted to an altogether different specimen. Suddenly, the criticisms that he habitually volunteers in the Select Committee and in the media are subdued or removed, and instead we have what amounts almost to a panegyric of Government policy from him.
So far as the hon. Gentleman's inner contradictions are concerned, I cannot be held responsible. I hope that appropriate treatment will be made available to him. I am a compassionate individual, and I am willing to assist. If he would like a quiet word in one of the darker and more pleasant recesses of the Palace of Westminster about this innate contradiction in his thinking and practice, I would be happy to oblige.
Mr. O'Neill: I cannot resist the temptation to respond to the hon. Gentleman on one issue. We had similar exchanges when we were on the same Committee. He had a brief stay on that Committee before he was relegated to the Opposition Front Bench. In none of the reports that were both favourable to and, on occasion, critical of the Government did he find grounds to disagree with the Committee's conclusions and recommendations. In some respects, the Janus-like qualities that he is attributing to me are perhaps more a function of his own experience in front of the mirror.
Mr. Bercow: I think that there is a certain revisionist rewriting of history taking place. I always made my position and that of my right hon. and hon. Friends on these matters abundantly clear, and I am sure that the hon. Gentleman and I can agree on that point.
I said that there were two problems with the Government's position on the parental leave directive. The first was the rather silly comment by the former

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Secretary of State about its constituting only a tiny fraction of the costs borne by business, when what matters of course is the cumulative impact of all the regulation that the Government have foolishly foisted on the businesses of this country.
The second point is that there is no reason to believe that the Government's estimate is accurate in any event. A national opinion poll last year suggested that up to 15 per cent. of the relevant cohort—working parents with children under eight—might decide to take advantage of the directive and avail themselves of three months' unpaid leave. If they were to do so, and companies, believing that their services were indispensable, decided to recruit staff, perhaps to retain an important contract, and paid them, for the sake of argument, £10 an hour for a 40-hour week for 12 weeks, the cost would not be £42.3 million a year; it would be no less than £360 million a year.
We do not know precisely what the total cost will be, but we know that the Government have a habit of understating the pain and overstating the gain. There is no reason to believe that their behaviour on this occasion will be any different.
Another example of burdensome regulation from the Government is the working families tax credit. The Government have an unfortunate habit of celebrating the measure's apparent merits without acknowledging its drawbacks. I urge them to take account of the views of businesses, because they are petrified by the likely costs of operating the working families tax credit. We know that there is to be a recurring cost of £105 million a year; we know also that almost half that annual sum, £52 million, will be borne by small businesses that employ fewer than 100 people. That is a significant problem about which we have not heard anything from Ministers.
Mr. Ian Bruce: Surely the effect on the cash flow of small businesses is even more damaging. They suddenly have to find money up front rather than paying taxes to a Government official a month or so after they have paid wages.
Mr. Bercow: My hon. Friend is invariably helpful and that intervention was no exception. There is certainly a problem with cash flow.
There is also the consideration that, for small businesses, costs incurred through regulation are proportionately much greater than they are for large. For the smallest firms, we are talking about a cost—calculated by the Inland Revenue among others—of over £288 per person per year, whereas for the largest businesses, with more than 5,000 employees, the cost is of the order of £5 per person per year. Nowhere in the honeyed words of Ministers—veritably the Dr. Panglosses of our age—do we hear anything about the downside that flows from those Government policies.
Yet another example is agriculture, which has been consistently downgraded and hit by an insensitive Government for nearly three years. The extensification premium on beef animals, for example, will require farmers to submit detailed forms up to six times a year in order to get their just entitlements.
Then there is the consideration of the Draft Feeding Stuffs Regulations 2000, which have been handed down from Brussels and will effectively prevent farmers from
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feeding health-boosting vitamins or minerals to their herds, with the limited exception of compound feed. All that regulation is burdensome. The National Farmers Union says that there is no need for such regulation, but of course the Government have cow-towed, gone along with it, made no complaint and tried to put a brave face on it.
We were promised much and have been delivered little. The record of Ministers to date has been a litany of promises broken, trust betrayed and hopes destroyed. If the Minister for Small Business and E-Commerce is not aware of that important fact, it is about time she visited small businesses—not just for convenient photo opportunities, but to learn in detail from those in the know how they are suffering from the damaging regulatory policies of this anti-business Government.
Ms Linda Perham: I have thought about a couple of examples that the hon. Gentleman has raised. I am sorry that he is not in favour of rights for working parents and low-income families—parental leave and the working families tax credit. I am very impressed by his grasp of figures and the way in which he does not use notes. Will he tell me the cost of the 3,000 regulations introduced by the previous Government for each of the past three years?
Mr. Bercow: The answer is very simply no. I do not have the square root of a clue off the top of my head, but I would be happy to engage in correspondence with the hon. Lady, if she would find that an enjoyable experience. I put it on record, just to cleanse the soul, that she, who, if I may say so, is a parliamentary virgin, was not in the previous Parliament, just as I was not.
I am not responsible for what happened under the previous Government. I accept that their record was mixed. My right hon. Friend the Member for Henley (Mr. Heseltine) made strenuous efforts on the subject of regulation. If the hon. Lady is asking me whether I believe that his record was one of unfettered perfection, the answer is no. My right hon. Friend is an estimable individual, but I am not responsible for his policy decisions and I am not going to be held responsible for them. I am concerned about what is happening now, and the fact that the regulatory burden is greater than ever. I am concerned that the Government have broken their promises and have no idea how to chart a better course.
I conclude—I know that other right hon. and hon. Members want to contribute to the debate—simply by saying this about the Government's record. There are three central problems for Ministers. The first is that there are six DTI Ministers in the House of Commons, and all of them have one thing in common. I appeal to the fertile minds on the Government Back Benches to discover their common characteristic. I shall tell the House what the right hon. Members for Tyneside, North (Mr. Byers), for Airdrie and Shotts (Mrs. Liddell) and for Sheffield, Central (Mr. Caborn), and the hon. Members for Leicester, West (Ms Hewitt), for Pontypridd (Dr. Howells) and for Hull, West and Hessle (Mr. Johnson) all have in common: they have never run a business. They have not the slightest experience of the private enterprise sector of our economy. That stands in stark contrast to the experience of the Opposition Front-Bench team, comprising my hon. Friend the Member for Tiverton and Honiton, who is a distinguished and successful business woman, and my

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hon. Friend the Member for Rutland and Melton (Mr. Duncan), who has an enviable business record. No Minister can compete with them, not least because none of these Ministers has ever run a business. The current team of Ministers has no feel for the issues.
The second problem is that, almost to a man or a woman, Department of Trade and Industry Ministers are fanatical European federasts. All of them believe in extensive European integration, they want to abolish the pound as soon as possible, they favour increased qualified majority voting, and they adhere to the European social model. They do not believe in the free enterprise, capitalist economy that has made this country great, developed living standards, created wealth and made Britain the success story that it has been for such a long time. Their hallmark is craven submission to every diktat from Brussels: diktats about the content of regulations; diktats about the period of consultation; diktats about the short notice of the requirement for implementation. In a shameful, risible performance, they prostrate themselves before the European Union and are not prepared to champion the legitimate commercial interests of United Kingdom plc.
The next problem with Ministers is that they have made no estimates of the costs of regulation and continue to refuse to do so. They have no ambition to deregulate. Above all, they simply do not understand the means by which to achieve such beneficial deregulation.
On a personal level, Department of Trade and Industry Ministers might be entirely convivial company, but as ministerial performers, they are hopeless—I use the word "hopeless" advisedly. They are a useless shower, they are totally complacent, they are failing to deliver, and they are letting business down. They should either get their act together and deliver for British business, or make way for my hon. Friends on the Opposition Front Bench who assuredly can do so.
9.2 pm
Mrs. Claire Curtis-Thomas: I welcome the opportunity to participate in the debate. Unlike the hon. Member for Buckingham (Mr. Bercow), I shall have to use notes but, as a consequence, most of my references will be reliable. I promise not to use the words "sniffy", "Euro-federast" or "risible". I can offer plain speaking from one who has worked in business, albeit one who has never run her own business. I have been extensively involved in business and I take a passionate interest in regulation. Those hon. Members who read parliamentary questions will know that I have asked more questions about that subject than about any other since becoming a Member of Parliament. The Opposition Members who usually participate in debates on small businesses are here, but it is sad that there are not more present—not just more Members on the Opposition Benches, but more Members on both sides of the House.
I shall confine my comments to the first part of the motion, which says:
That this House opposes the growing regulatory burdens that the Government has added to business costs.
I shall examine the authenticity of the claim and then refer to points made by the hon. Member for Buckingham when he presented his Regulations on Small Businesses (Reduction) Bill to the House on 27 April 1999.
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Let us examine the record on the imposition of regulatory burdens. In 1995, the previous Administration introduced 21 Bills that had an impact on business. There followed a slight slump: only eight Bills were introduced in 1996 and five in early 1997. The present Administration introduced five such Bills in 1997, 13 in 1998 and 12 in 1999.
Those are interesting statistics but, like other statistics that we have heard this evening, they are meaningless unless they are set in context. Nevertheless, it is right to say that the amount of regulatory legislation introduced by the previous and the present Administration is roughly balanced.
So much for Bills. What about assessment?
Mr. Keith Darvill: Will my hon. Friend take the opportunity to discuss the merits of the compliance cost assessments introduced by the previous Government?
Mrs. Curtis-Thomas: I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention. I am about to deal with that matter.
Under the previous Administration, and for a short time under the present Government, compliance cost assessments were the only vehicle available to assess the impact of Bills on business. Unfortunately, they were not carried out independently, as is currently being advocated, and there were no exemptions for small business in those assessments. Compliance cost assessments were required only when costs might be incurred by a business, and there were no assessment orders which evaluated how money could be saved. It was this Administration who introduced such assessment late in 1998.
The compliance cost assessment was initiated by the Conservative Government in 1993 and was considered to be central to the deregulation initiatives, which we would all applaud. The assessment introduced in 1993 was an assessment of likely cost to business of proposed legislation, and was used to help parliamentary consideration of regulatory proposals. It was considered a vital part of the consultation process and gave businesses the opportunity to respond to proposals. In their speeches this evening, Opposition Members have commended that approach.
I note with regret that, although CCAs were introduced in 1993, it was decided only in 1994 that they would also have to show the effect of proposed legislation on small business. Clearly, when the assessments were introduced in 1993, small business was not at the forefront of the present Opposition's mind.
Unfortunately, like many of the "buzz" initiatives introduced by the previous Administration, apart from the inclusion of small businesses after a period of reflection, the CCA did not develop. It remained a document that discussed cost. There was neither the opportunity nor the desire to review its effectiveness, even though, as we have heard, there was considerable concern about that.
Yesterday, in the Library, I picked up a typical CCA at random. It related to the Firework Safety Regulations 1996. The document is dominated by cost consideration, and there is some reference to consultation. Given what we have heard this evening from the Opposition,

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who extol the importance of consultation, I am disappointed to tell the House that that document states that
it has not been possible to undertake the usual consultation with industry on this occasion.
Much was promised but not always delivered, as a random sample proves.
The compliance cost assessment was a minimalist approach. It referred to cost, but not to the innate value of, or the need for, regulation. In 1998, after a year in government, the Cabinet Office reviewed the deregulation agenda and the regulation appraisals initiative of the previous Administration and concluded, in the words of the teacher's report, "Must try harder."
Deregulation, which had been made almost impossible because of the restraints of the Deregulation and Contracting Out Act 1994, was subsumed by the far more onerous task undertaken by the Government—that of producing better business regulation. In 1998, the Government published "The Better Regulation Guide". For the first time, standard reports can be compared and contrasted.
If we are to have a meaningful debate, we must acknowledge that an attempt was made to understand the impact of regulation on business. However, no such attempt was made to ensure that reports from each Department were standardised. Any requests about costs, cumulative costs or impact have been impossible to tackle. The answer that the hon. Member for Buckingham suggested: "No, I can't tell you what the total cost would be" was valid. Even if he tried to find the answer today, he would fail because insufficient analytical rigour was exercised previously. That remains a problem. It is inordinately difficult to get the myriad Departments that have a significant impact on business to produce reports in a way that permits review and understanding of the total impact of any proposed legislation on business.
The compliance cost assessment has been swept aside and replaced by regulatory impact assessments. That is a step improvement, which requires not only the focus on cost that existed previously—we are building on previous measures—but a focus on benefits. Compliance cost assessments also refer to non-business costs, which had previously been ignored, and consider who would be affected by the Bill. More importantly, as my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State pointed out earlier, they require over-zealous civil servants who are keen on increasing the legislative tally to consider non-regulatory approaches to legislation. They include best practice and codes of conduct, which might be sufficient to achieve the Government's objective while not placing direct, burdensome regulations on industry.
What regulatory impact assessments have been undertaken to date? No Bill that has a bearing on business comes before the House without an associated regulatory impact assessment. The RIAs are detailed and expansive and they are required to include non-regulatory alternatives. They also emphasise consultation.
Let us consider the great deregulation crusade that was supposed to follow the Deregulation and Contracting Out Act 1994. For anyone who worked in business, the title alone was a joy. However, what did it mean and what could it achieve? It could not deregulate any Act that had
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been passed before 1994. Furthermore, any orders made under the Act could not impose costs. That restraint means that little deregulation has happened since 1994.
We are committed to trying to deconstruct the house that Jack built on regulation that was not reviewed. We must consider how many orders have been successfully executed under the 1994 Act. I am sorry to say that great enabling legislation, which was designed to cut red tape, led to only 42 orders because it was so constraining. I hope that, during this Parliament, a better deregulation Act will be passed. I hope that it will build on the 1994 measure, extend its powers and enable the Administration to provide what we all support: effective reduction in some of the bureaucracy and red tape that business experiences. The 1994 Act has not enabled us to do that.
I have asked each Department to inform me about the orders they seek or might seek, because people have discussed potential regulation. The long and the short of it is that, with the best will in the world, only so many orders can be made under the 1994 Act.
I shall consider some of the pleadings—and what pleadings they were—of the hon. Member for Buckingham, who is a zealot in matters that relate to small businesses. I offer that as a compliment. Like me, the hon. Gentleman is keen to learn the cost of all new regulation. That is important. I do not have to encourage him to visit the Library, examine the regulatory impact assessments and find the information for himself.
The hon. Gentleman's second heart's desire is to discover whether the Government intend to reduce regulatory costs in the coming year. If he puts such a request before them he will find, like me, that they are very amenable and will respond to his correspondence. If he has no joy in the short term, perhaps he would like to consult me later and I shall let him have a copy of my response.
In respect of the hon. Gentleman's desire to remove gold plating of European Union directives—I think that there is a general consensus here—he will be pleased that the Government, by and large, tend to be objective and conciliatory. They are keen to achieve the best and adopt a belt-and-braces approach. We know that that can have a significant impact on small businesses. I hope that they will do their best to encourage civil servants to take a minimalist approach when introducing European legislation. Having spoken to the regulatory impact unit and the better regulation taskforce, I have been assured that they would like to deliver on that pledge.
I must offer a plug here: I am also pleased that the Government have at least tried to take the research assessment initiative to Europe. We have produced guidelines for European legislation, which must have an assessment attached to it before it is considered here. Unfortunately, we have not made the progress with our European partners that we would have wished to make because the initiative has not been adopted universally, but everybody present would want that to happen. However, discussions are on-going. The hon. Gentleman is also keen for six-monthly reports reflecting the progress of deregulation to be made. Those may come from the Cabinet Office in due course.
Hon. Members on both sides of the House have done a substantial amount of talking during the debate, but we have yet truly to deliver. That is not through want of trying. I believe that we do not have the enabling

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legislation that we need to dismantle some of the past. However, I also believe that we have put in place suitable structures to evaluate what we are doing now. As hon. Members have said, they are not perfect, but we are administering a rapidly growing nation. Small businesses are proliferating, for which we are all grateful, but they present constant consultation problems. Getting it right at any time and achieving perfection is almost an ambition to which mere mortals can never aspire. That said, I welcome the Government amendment and shall not hesitate to support it.
9.18 pm
Mr. Ian Bruce: I am grateful to be given time to speak on this important subject—[Interruption.] I was about to say that we have cleared the Gallery, although we are not supposed to mention it, but I am being told that I am wrong. People entered suddenly as soon as I got to my feet and I am glad to see them.
In some ways, the Government are doing well for small businesses—they have turned a large number of this country's big businesses into small ones. We notice in today's FTSE that a number of solid companies dealing with British industry and commerce have been replaced by candy-floss companies. That is the Government's hallmark: they are all spin and no delivery, and the candy-floss companies' lack of profitability represents the lack of delivery from the Labour party.
May I declare my interests? I am the chairman of Ian Bruce Associates Ltd., which is my own small company. It does not pay me anything. I advise the Telecommunications Managers Association and a firm of expert witnesses, Trevor Gilbert and Associates, which has employment agency and employment business interests.
Members of the House are small business people in some ways, as we all have thousands of constituents who want us to deliver for them. We understand some of the stresses and strains, but not all of them. However good or bad a job we do, at the end of the month we get a salary cheque. We know exactly what our expenses are, and we do not have to worry about the Government upsetting what we are doing. They always give us more money, because they want their Back Benchers to vote for them. We are in a privileged position.
I shall briefly run through some areas for which the Government are responsible. We can exchange comments about what happened in the 18 years of Conservative Government and spend the whole time looking backwards, but we should examine what the Government are currently doing.
I am surprised that many people do not understand IR35, which targets a small group of entrepreneurial business men. The limited company rules affect everyone, from the greengrocer to the garage proprietor, but that group will be treated in a special way. They get large salaries on which they pay large amounts of tax, but because there is a way of avoiding paying some of the national insurance moneys, the Government feel that they have to take action. Those people are paying enormous amounts of tax, and they feel insulted when the Government say that they are trying to avoid paying taxes. The way to avoid paying taxes is to put money into the business and invest for growth. That will provide the type of businesses that we need.
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The Secretary of State seemed a little unhappy when I congratulated him on doing a complete U-turn on employment agencies. I should have said how pleased the agencies were. Employment agencies are pleased. They are a bit like hostages who are held in a darkened room with a knife to their throats and told that their businesses will be taken away from them. When the knife is removed, and the Government say "We ain't going to do that any more", they rush round saying "What a nice kidnapper. What a nice terrorist." They are all smiling because their businesses are not going to be destroyed. Why did the Government leave them in that position for 18 months?
I have been a strong critic of the new deal, because micro-companies could have put the long-term unemployed back to work, but they will not go through the bureaucracy that is necessary to set up the training schemes for individuals. The Government have lost sight of that. Please will the Government consider that issue sensibly?
A group of people want to take over the sports centre in my constituency which the Ministry of Defence has left empty for the past year or so. It would provide swimming and other sports facilities. I have been waiting 242 days for an answer from the Government in response to a letter from one of those people, who has been trying to find out how they can take it over. A big company came along and wanted to take over the facilities. It promised that it would do things for the community, and although it came late, the Government still gave permission, because they love large organisations, not small companies.
It is important to understand what happens to an employer who suddenly has to administer the working families tax credit, rather than his employees receiving family credit. Small businesses tend to have lower-paid workers, and administering the system gives them cash-flow problems. They will be hit hard, and it could put them out of business.
The Government are missing the point about Post Office businesses. My right hon. Friend the Member for Hitchin and Harpenden (Mr. Lilley), who was Secretary of State for Social Security, came from the Department of Trade and Industry realising that post offices would be closed down if the Department of Social Security decided to use automated credit transfer without introducing a measure to prevent post offices from going out of business. The Government do not understand that.
We have not mentioned local authorities. There is a Lib-Lab pact in my area, and the authority holds up businesses when they come along with a simple request. Sometimes it goes overboard. It grants permissions to larger businesses, but if a taxi driver wants to use his mobile phone in his taxi, it suddenly decides that it will change the rules for taxis and private hire cars to stop people for having dogs in their cabs. It will do anything to prevent people from making a few pennies.
We are currently considering the Utilities Bill, which I am afraid is beginning to become the futilities Bill. In that legislation the Government have halved regulation at a stroke, but they have threatened all the industries concerned with worse regulation.
There is very little time this evening. I am sorry that I cannot make the speech that I intended to make; I shall end by pleading with the Minister to think carefully before she acts. I am sure that she wants to remain Minister for Small Business, rather than Minister for only a small number of businesses.
9.25 pm
Dr. George Turner: The majority of my constituents, like those of most Members, are employed in small or medium-sized businesses. We should put aside the party rhetoric that we expect in this place, and try to recognise the existence of a common wish—a core of intent—to seek improvement.
The Government should be congratulated on their general economic management. If economic management is wrong, the problems of regulation will be tiny in comparison. They should also be congratulated on the Competition Act 1998, which has not been mentioned this evening. Only today, I met representatives of the National Federation of Retail Newsagents, who told me that, for the first time, they as small businesses were being enabled to plead their case that big companies were using anti-competitive measures against them. I think that the legislation will help many small businesses.
On other occasions, I have identified a common fault exhibited by the House and by Governments of all political colours. When something is wrong, there is a feeling that the law or the regulation must be changed. I believe that Governments need better management techniques. If companies continually tried to change their procedures by issuing new rule books, they would not survive. I think that my hon. Friend the Member for Crosby (Mrs. Curtis-Thomas) also made that point, to which I believe the Government are, in fact, paying attention.
Ministers should also be aware that we need to change the culture in the civil service and in Government agencies, so that we do not administer the law as rule-bound bureaucrats. Let me cite the case of one of my constituents, who is a small business man—a hairdresser. I do so because his problem began under the last Government, and has continued under the present one. Mr. Tice found, to his surprise, that his company had been struck off. He believed at the time that there had been maladministration at Companies House, and that he had not been given the necessary warnings by registered post or some such method. He is convinced to this day that he never received those warnings. There was a full and lengthy investigation by the parliamentary ombudsman, who could not find the case proven for maladministration. My predecessor began work on the case; I had to pass the bad news to Mr. Tice.
I have corresponded with my hon. Friend the Minister for Competition and Consumer Affairs about Mr. Tice's case. Apparently, under the existing regulations, if he wants to reinstate the company that has been struck off, he must pay late filing fees for his accounts for the years during which he fought to reinstate it. I am certain that the law has been administered, but I do not think that that is good management, and I do not think it looks good when Government cannot use some discretion and say, "Here is a small business man who is an exceptional case. We will waive the fees." All Governments need to be more careful about the way in which they administer the law.
Another point has not really been raised this evening, although I understand why Ministers have not yet mentioned it. The agenda for opposition on Europe is a false agenda. The real agenda for the Government must be reform. I had the pleasure of being part of the all-party group on small business delegation that went to Brussels
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recently; I am pleased to see its chairman, the hon. Member for St. Albans (Mr. Pollard), in the Chamber. We talked to representatives of small businesses Europe-wide. The consensus was—indeed, it has fertile ground in the Commission—that there is a need for reform of Europe: Europe needs to be more people-friendly and more small-business friendly.
I have heard much said in private about the intention, but I hope that the Minister can give us a reassurance that the Government recognise the importance of ensuring that we deal with that agenda. It is not about whether we should be in or out, but about ensuring that Europe actually works.
I hope that, in reacting to Opposition attacks, Ministers will recognise that many Labour Members know that the strength and health of small businesses will help our economy to grow and to continue to deliver the prosperity that all our constituencies need. At the same time, increasingly, I find that small businesses recognise that we need family-friendly policies, so let us not give those up, but let us also ensure that we take the agenda forward and reduce the burden on small businesses.
9.31 pm
Mr. Christopher Fraser: There is a lot to be said about the detail of Government policy. I am afraid that there is not much time to make all the points, so I shall stick to a few.
The Secretary of State refused to recognise the entrepreneurial spirit that was created in the 1980s by the last Conservative Government, from whom his right hon. and hon. Friends have much benefited, particularly the hon. Member for Croydon, Central (Mr. Davies), who, I am afraid to say, is not in the Chamber.
One point was made earlier about the British Chambers of Commerce. It has made a substantial contribution in highlighting the expenses that regulations have imposed on business, amounting to about £10 billion. The burdens barometer that it has published makes interesting reading.
I am particularly concerned about the increasing payroll burden. One area is the cost of compliance. It is highly regressive against small employers, in that the "bottom" 30 per cent. shoulder 75 per cent. of the compliance costs.
Small businesses have become unpaid tax collectors, administering the working families tax credit, student loans and stakeholder pensions, although I accept that the smallest employers have been exempted from the latter. The Government have already imposed a huge raft of burdens on small businesses through central policy planks that are highly unlikely to be repealed.
We must remember that the first year of a new business is the most important and difficult. If the business has an accumulation of regulation to apply, it will be a lot less effective in achieving its initial goals. It can be crippling at a time when the company should be spending time building itself up.
The hon. Member for Ochil (Mr. O'Neill) talked about analysis of Government regulation. Key new regulations on business have been introduced by the Labour Government through "Fairness at Work", which includes statutory trade union regulation and changes to dismissal; and the European Union social chapter, which includes parental leave and the working time directive, as my

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hon. Friends have so well articulated. That particularly affects areas such as the one that I represent, given that it relies so much on the tourism industry.
The "Making Work Pay" provisions include minimum wage administration and the working families tax credit. The environmental burdens include the climate change levy and the fuel escalator. There are other burdens, including administration of quarterly payments of corporation tax and, dare I say it, the ubiquitous IR35.
The area of social chapter regulation that concerns me was mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Buckingham (Mr. Bercow): the parental leave directive. We must remember that the costs of applying that will arise in three areas: arranging cover for people while on leave; obviously, additional administration; and defending unsuccessful applications to employment tribunals.
My hon. Friends have already pointed out some of the problems with the working families tax credit, but it must be said that business groups have focused their sternest criticism on the administrative burden that will result from companies being asked, effectively, to administer the welfare state. That cannot be good.
The Federation of Small Businesses has criticised the Government for failing to advise benefit claimants that they do not necessarily have to receive the working families tax credit in their pay packet. As the Government have failed to make that clear, the FSB itself is informing employees by sending leaflets to its 150,000 members, advising them of the option and by posting details on its website. It should not have to do that—the Government should be responsible for it.
The part-time workers directive is the latest burden introduced in the United Kingdom as a consequence of the Government signing the social chapter. According to the British Chambers of Commerce, under the Government's proposal for implementation of the European Union part-time workers directive, United Kingdom businesses will face increasing legal costs. I read much of the material that the British Chambers of Commerce publishes, simply because it gleans much information from those who are out there in the business world—unlike the Ministers mentioned by hon. Friend the Member for Buckingham, who do not have that experience.
Another problem that will arise if part-time and full-time workers have the same rights is the way in which company pensions are allocated.
One of the biggest criticisms of the part-time work regulations, besides the regulations themselves, is the manner of the consultation on them. The Government have consistently been criticised for the way in which they have conducted consultation on important regulations, allowing little time for scrutiny and business preparation.
The burdens on business introduced by the Government have a profound effect. Let us not forget that small business was the backbone of the 1980s and 1990s economic success that was led by the previous Government. This Government must ensure that there is a reduced regulatory burden on small businesses.
A more entrepreneurial spirit is the order of the day. Cumulative regulation stifles business, and it has a disproportionate effect on small businesses at a time when they can least afford to apply them.
9.37 pm
Mr. Kerry Pollard: Much has been made by Opposition Members of a lack of experience in the Department of Trade and Industry in running a small business. I ran a small business for many years before being elected to the House. Should such experience become a requirement in the job description for future Ministers, I am available.
I should like to mention quickly a small business in my constituency, Groot and Hartman, which is working double shifts to cope with demand for its product. That is quite typical of what is happening in my constituency—all small businesses are doing exceptionally well.
Small businesses require three things: stability, low inflation and low interest rates. The Government are delivering all three of those, with continuity. All small business people will, of course, say that they want no regulation at all—not one bit of it—which, as we know, and as they accept, is an impossibility. They certainly want less regulation.
The week before last, I was in Brussels, with my hon. Friend the Member for North-West Norfolk (Dr. Turner). Our counterparts from other European Parliaments said that the United Kingdom is far ahead of them in deregulating small business. There was no question but that they were envious of the action that we have taken on the issue. That is not to say that we have it right, but we are getting it better.
We want stability, and we want continuity. Above all, our small businesses want a trained and enthusiastic work force and less regulation. We are doing that very well, and we are moving in the right direction. I shall be supporting the Government's amendment.
9.38 pm
Mr. Alan Duncan: We have had a very lively debate in the three hours allotted to us today. It is difficult, however, to add to the scope and detail of the opening speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Tiverton and Honiton (Mrs. Browning), who, with her own experience of running a business, brings to the debate the detail and knowledge that Labour Members lack. She lamented the fact that the debate on small business has been downgraded by the Government and put into the Westminster Hall annexe. It has taken Conservative Members to bring it back to the main Chamber of the House of Commons.
My hon. Friend's main message was that people who run a small business are increasingly saying to the Government, "Get off our back." Indeed, my hon. Friend quoted a business man who said that the Government are showing an unforgivable lack of understanding of what it takes to employ someone. I shall address that issue in a moment. We see that interference extended further to the likes of nursing homes, with the absurdity of instructions to widen doorways by 1.5 in. When the Conservatives are in government, we shall have a full audit of regulations with a view to ensuring that there are fewer of them.
In sad contrast to my hon. Friend the Member for Tiverton and Honiton, the Secretary of State appeared disdainful of the problems caused by over-regulation. He simply does not understand what it takes for a small company to grow. In his policy, we see the absurdity of his making it hard for business to take risks, then setting up regional venture funds to tackle the problems that his Government have exacerbated.

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The hon. Member for Weston-super-Mare (Mr. Cotter) made a pertinent point when he said that there are increasing disincentives to taking on apprentices. The hon. Member for Ochil (Mr. O'Neill), as the House heard, takes a slightly inconsistent approach to the topic. We all welcome his robust comments in the reports of the Select Committee, which he oversees. However, as if to atone for being so critical, he takes a different attitude in debates such as these. As my hon. Friend the Member for Buckingham (Mr. Bercow) said, the hon. Gentleman seems to have something of a Jekyll and Hyde character, taking the opposite view in these debates from that which he takes when he chairs the Select Committee, as he does so well. My hon. Friend the Member for Buckingham made a remarkable parliamentary contribution, characterised by his usual dynamism, authority and forensic and analytical skill.
The hon. Member for Crosby (Mrs. Curtis-Thomas) lamented the fact that it has not always proved easy for central Government to estimate the costs of regulation. That may be so, but the Government should appreciate the fact that there is another litmus test: if in doubt, they should just go and speak to those running small businesses, who will tell them whether the regulations are punitive—as they feel increasingly strongly they are.
We also had very helpful contributions from my hon. Friends the Members for South Dorset (Mr. Bruce) and for Mid-Dorset and North Poole (Mr. Fraser)—a sort of Dorset double—and from the hon. Members for North-West Norfolk (Dr. Turner) and for St. Albans (Mr. Pollard).
However, perhaps the tone of the debate was set by a recent document from the Forum of Private Business. On the front page, it says that employment regulations are a top priority for action. Later, it adds:
There is evidence that firms are facing extra costs from a range of increasing burdens, mainly in the form of employment regulation … There are also pressures on sectors, such as the construction industry tax scheme, regulation of care homes … and security companies.
Many sectors of small business activity are feeling the strain of the Government's intervention. Many references have been made to the document produced by the British Chambers of Commerce, which puts the cost of the burdens on its businesses at something approaching £10 billion. That is dwarfed by the calculation on the next page in which the BCC says that the stealth taxes affecting its sector equate to something approaching 32 billion dollars, which is another cost that it, like other areas of business, has to face. [HON. MEMBERS: "Dollars?"] I meant pounds. Having been so long in international trade, which is something that Labour Members do not understand, I occasionally make a slip and take an international rather than a parochial view.
In taking such an international view, I note that, despite many weeks and months of campaigning by Conservative Members—and despite increasing evidence of the detrimental effects of the Government's policy—the Government still refuse to appreciate the bad decision that they have taken in adopting IR35. Even last night—and in this morning's debate in the Westminster Hall annexe about the internet—it became increasingly clear that their approach to IR35 will drive people out of this country.
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I have here one of many hundreds, if not thousands, of letters from a person in such a predicament, who writes:
It makes little difference to me. I will be long gone by the time the damage has been done by the idiotic Government.
When will Ministers wake up to the fact that, at a time when they are attempting to promote the internet revolution, their own policy is destroying this country's position and chucking out of business, or out of the country altogether, those at the leading edge of the revolution that we wish to encourage?
When will the Government appreciate that, whenever they take a decision to collect more money or impose a directive, they are, as my hon. Friend the Member for South Dorset said, increasing the payroll burden on small businesses, which they cannot afford? They are being asked to fulfil tasks for Government as unpaid tax collectors, and often to do so with little notice, which throws their business into chaos and causes them to set aside the main purpose of their commercial activity in order to do the Government's work for them.
The Government must not only now make it their policy to put less of a burden on small businesses, but must ensure that, when they do increase that burden, because they have not listened, they at least give businesses sufficient notice so that they can organise their affairs and tackle their main priority before doing the Government's work for them.
I have a very few minutes to say the many things that I would like to say in this rich area of policy and, at the moment, of complaint. Perhaps at the root of what the Minister should appreciate—and the Secretary of State clearly failed to appreciate—is that what matters to a small business is the marginal cost of employing someone. It is that marginal decision which leads a company, at the beginning of its life, to take on that one extra person—and then, one hopes, another—that allows it to grow from a little acorn into the big oak that it needs to be if it is to appear in the FTSE 100.
The Government are increasing that marginal cost of employment, so that the burden of taking on a person is becoming increasingly difficult for small businesses which have to count their pennies, and which see one extra person on their payroll as an important element of all their costs and budget.
We are also seeing the continuing gold plating of directives. When will the Secretary of State appreciate that a new EU directive is not an instruction to shape a law according to an exact form of words, but merely a requirement for this Parliament to shape its law according to the parameters laid down, in words that we in this House choose and understand? Increasingly, those directives impose more burdens on our businesses—and comparatively greater burdens than those placed on many of our EU counterparts. That not only puts small businesses at a competitive disadvantage but leaves them facing obligations that they need not face.
Small shops and community post offices are under threat, and fuel taxes are imposed on companies such as garden centres, putting those businesses in jeopardy. It is time for the Government to leave small businesses alone. Let them be. Let them grow. The Government should stop paying lip service to that when in fact they are all mouth and no delivery. Let us leave small businesses alone, and relieve them of the burdens being imposed on them by the Government.
9.49 pm
The Minister for Small Business and E-Commerce (Ms Patricia Hewitt): This has been an interesting and wide-ranging debate—the fourth on small businesses since we were elected. We have heard some excellent speeches this evening. My hon. Friend the Member for Ochil (Mr. O'Neill) rightly referred to the importance to small businesses of a favourable economic environment—the environment that we have created.
My hon. Friend the Member for Crosby (Mrs. Curtis-Thomas), in a most thoughtful analysis, spelled out how inadequate were the compliance cost assessments from the previous Government and how important it is to enact new regulatory reform legislation to strip out some of the old and unnecessary red tape.
My hon. Friend the Member for North-West Norfolk (Dr. Turner) made the important point that we need to promote economic reform in the European Union to create a climate that is favourable for the entrepreneur and for small businesses. I am happy to reassure him that we have indeed placed that issue on the agenda for the forthcoming Lisbon summit.
My hon. Friend the Member for St. Albans (Mr. Pollard), in a most effective job application, stressed again the need for small businesses, in particular, to have a stable macro-economic climate.
The hon. Member for Rutland and Melton (Mr. Duncan) and several other Conservative Members raised specific issues concerning regulation. The hon. Gentleman spoke about IR35, which we have debated extensively in the Chamber and elsewhere. He may not think that there is a tax loophole, but I suggest that he reads at least one of the computing journals which notoriously advised information technology contractors last year to pay themselves a salary of no more than just over £4,000 a year and to draw all the rest of their very substantial fees by way of dividends, thus ensuring that they paid neither income tax nor national insurance contributions.
The IR35 reforms are about a fair tax system that treats employees and the self-employed fairly. The Inland Revenue is working very closely with industry to ensure that there is proper understanding of the self-employment rules. IR35 will have no effect whatever on those who are indeed self-employed, and it will not prohibit in any way the use of personal service companies, but it will remove a tax loophole that clearly distorts the choice between employment and self-employment and leaves employees on modest salaries paying more national insurance contributions than those who are using personal service companies to avoid fair tax responsibilities.
Several Conservative Members spoke about the working families tax credit. Perhaps I can remind them that even in the worst-case scenario—that of a small employer with an employee entitled to the credit, who is doing his own payroll with a manual system—the additional compliance work amounts to about six minutes a week at a cost of about 70p: not, I think, an excessive burden on any small business, especially when the credit is a central part of our strategy to ensure that work pays and to help people to move from dependence on benefits to independence as they earn a living for themselves and their families.
The hon. Member for Mid-Dorset and North Poole (Mr. Fraser) repeated the accusation that we have failed to explain to people claiming the working families tax
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credit that they have a choice about how it is paid. That is simply not true. The application form makes it quite clear that before an application is made people need to consider who is to receive the payment: the person at work or a partner at home.
We start from a simple principle: wealth is created not by Government but by business. Our responsibility is to create the conditions in which business can succeed. One might not have thought so to listen to Conservative Members' whingeing, but British businesses are indeed succeeding.
As my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State said, more than 1 million new businesses have started since the general election. More businesses registered for VAT than in the previous five years. We have seen fewer businesses closing than at any time in the past 10 years. Since the Government were elected, we have had 700,000 more people in work than ever before. More people are now in work than ever were under the Conservative Government, most of them in small and medium-sized businesses.
Mr. Geoffrey Clifton-Brown: While the Minister is crowing about how many new businesses have started up, could she tell us what are the costs of the new burdens that the Government have imposed on those businesses?
Ms Hewitt: As my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State explained with great care, most of the figures that are bandied around by Opposition Members, and, I am afraid to say, most recently by the British Chambers of Commerce, simply ignore the changes that we have made to the administrative costs—real red tape and compliance costs. They complain about the costs of paying employees fair wages and ensuring that they have paid holidays for the first time.
Most businesses welcome the fact that at last they have a Government who have set fair standards for all employees. Every good business knows that if it wants to get the best people—and it is having good people that every business depends on for its success—it has to treat them properly. Good businesses do not want to go on being undercut by cowboy businesses that exploit their employees and very often break other regulations as well.
Mr. Ian Bruce: The Minister will know that the British Chambers of Commerce has estimated that every small business has had £5,000 added to its costs by regulations imposed by the Government. Does she agree with that figure and, if not, will she give us the real figure?
Ms Hewitt: As I have pointed out on other occasions in the Chamber, the British Chambers of Commerce made the unfortunate mistake of taking early estimates of compliance costs before they were changed as we simplified the administrative procedures. I can give the hon. Gentleman an example. We amended the draft national minimum wage regulations to reduce the record-keeping requirements. We did that after listening to businesses and learning from them. By doing that, we reduced the costs to employers by more than £100 million a year. We amended the working time regulations, again to reduce record-keeping requirements, which cut compliance costs by approximately £13 million.
It was also this Government who acted on an important recommendation from the previous Government's deregulation taskforce back in 1995 to merge the Inland

1107
Revenue and the Contributions Agency, so that employers no longer had to deal with two different agencies and report to two different Departments. That was a recommendation that the previous Government had, but never acted upon. [Interruption.] The fact is that businesses in this country—[Interruption.] As some Opposition Members know, I have been speaking in several debates elsewhere this evening, and I apologise for the fact that I seem almost completely to have lost my voice. Happily, I have not lost my conviction. Businesses in this country are doing exceptionally well, in striking contrast to the bankruptcies that took place under the Conservative Government.
Question put, That the original words stand part of the Question:—
The House divided: Ayes 159, Noes 309.

Division No. 98]

[9.59 pm

AYES

Ainsworth, Peter (E Surrey)

Fallon, Michael

Allan, Richard

Fearn, Ronnie

Amess, David

Forth, Rt Hon Eric

Ancram, Rt Hon Michael

Foster, Don (Bath)

Arbuthnot, Rt Hon James

Fox, Dr Liam

Atkinson, David (Bour'mth E)

Fraser, Christopher

Atkinson, Peter (Hexham)

Gale, Roger

Baker, Norman

Garnier, Edward

Baldry, Tony

George, Andrew (St Ives)

Ballard, Jackie

Gibb, Nick

Beggs, Roy

Gill, Christopher

Beith, Rt Hon A J

Gray, James

Bell, Martin (Tatton)

Green, Damian

Bercow, John

Greenway, John

Beresford, Sir Paul

Grieve, Dominic

Blunt, Crispin

Gummer, Rt Hon John

Boswell, Tim

Hague, Rt Hon William

Bottomley, Peter (Worthing W)

Hamilton, Rt Hon Sir Archie

Bottomley, Rt Hon Mrs Virginia

Hammond, Philip

Brady, Graham

Hancock, Mike

Brake, Tom

Hawkins, Nick

Brazier, Julian

Hayes, John

Breed, Colin

Heald, Oliver

Brooke, Rt Hon Peter

Heath, David (Somerton & Frome)

Browning, Mrs Angela

Heathcoat-Amory, Rt Hon David

Bruce, Ian (S Dorset)

Hogg, Rt Hon Douglas

Burnett, John

Horam, John

Burns, Simon

Howarth, Gerald (Aldershot)

Butterfill, John

Hunter, Andrew

Campbell, Rt Hon Menzies (NE Fife)

Jackson, Robert (Wantage)

Jenkin, Bernard

Cash, William

Key, Robert

Chapman, Sir Sydney (Chipping Barnet)

King, Rt Hon Tom (Bridgwater)

Kirkbride, Miss Julie

Chope, Christopher

Laing, Mrs Eleanor

Clappison, James

Lait, Mrs Jacqui

Clarke, Rt Hon Kenneth (Rushcliffe)

Lansley, Andrew

Leigh, Edward

Collins, Tim

Letwin, Oliver

Cormack, Sir Patrick

Lewis, Dr Julian (New Forest E)

Cotter, Brian

Lidington, David

Cran, James

Lilley, Rt Hon Peter

Davey, Edward (Kingston)

Lloyd, Rt Hon Sir Peter (Fareham)

Davies, Quentin (Grantham)

Loughton, Tim

Davis, Rt Hon David (Haltemprice)

Luff, Peter

Day, Stephen

Lyell, Rt Hon Sir Nicholas

Dorrell, Rt Hon Stephen

MacGregor, Rt Hon John

Duncan, Alan

McIntosh, Miss Anne

Duncan Smith, Iain

MacKay, Rt Hon Andrew

Evans, Nigel

McLoughlin, Patrick

Faber, David

Malins, Humfrey

Fabricant, Michael

Maples, John

1108

Mates, Michael

Spring, Richard

Maude, Rt Hon Francis

Stanley, Rt Hon Sir John

Mawhinney, Rt Hon Sir Brian

Streeter, Gary

May, Mrs Theresa

Stunell, Andrew

Michie, Mrs Ray (Argyll & Bute)

Swayne, Desmond

Moore, Michael

Syms, Robert

Nicholls, Patrick

Tapsell, Sir Peter

Norman, Archie

Taylor, Ian (Esher & Walton)

O'Brien, Stephen (Eddisbury)

Taylor, John M (Solihull)

Öpik, Lembit

Taylor, Sir Teddy

Ottaway, Richard

Townend, John

Paice, James

Trend, Michael

Paterson, Owen

Tyler, Paul

Pickles, Eric

Tyrie, Andrew

Prior, David

Viggers, Peter

Randall, John

Walter, Robert

Redwood, Rt Hon John

Waterson, Nigel

Rendel, David

Webb, Steve

Robathan, Andrew

Wells, Bowen

Robertson, Laurence

Whitney, Sir Raymond

Roe, Mrs Marion (Broxbourne)

Whittingdale, John

Ruffley, David

Widdecombe, Rt Hon Miss Ann

Russell, Bob (Colchester)

Wilkinson, John

St Aubyn, Nick

Willis, Phil

Sanders, Adrian

Winterton, Mrs Ann (Congleton)

Sayeed, Jonathan

Winterton, Nicholas (Macclesfield)

Shepherd, Richard

Young, Rt Hon Sir George

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

Soames, Nicholas

Tellers for the Ayes:

Spelman, Mrs Caroline

Mr. Keith Simpson and

Spicer, Sir Michael

Mr. Geoffrey Clifton-Brown.

NOES

Ainger, Nick

Cann, Jamie

Alexander, Douglas

Caplin, Ivor

Allen, Graham

Casale, Roger

Armstrong, Rt Hon Ms Hilary

Cawsey, Ian

Ashton, Joe

Chapman, Ben (Wirral S)

Atherton, Ms Candy

Chaytor, David

Atkins, Charlotte

Clapham, Michael

Austin, John

Clark, Rt Hon Dr David (S Shields)

Barnes, Harry

Clark, Dr Lynda (Edinburgh Pentlands)

Battle, John

Bayley, Hugh

Clark, Paul (Gillingham)

Beard, Nigel

Clarke, Charles (Norwich S)

Beckett, Rt Hon Mrs Margaret

Clarke, Tony (Northampton S)

Begg, Miss Anne

Clelland, David

Benn, Hilary (Leeds C)

Clwyd, Ann

Benn, Rt Hon Tony (Chesterfield)

Coffey, Ms Ann

Bennett, Andrew F

Cohen, Harry

Benton, Joe

Colman, Tony

Bermingham, Gerald

Connarty, Michael

Berry, Roger

Cooper, Yvette

Best, Harold

Corbett, Robin

Betts, Clive

Corbyn, Jeremy

Blackman, Liz

Corston, Jean

Blears, Ms Hazel

Cousins, Jim

Blizzard, Bob

Cranston, Ross

Blunkett, Rt Hon David

Crausby, David

Boateng, Rt Hon Paul

Cryer, John (Hornchurch)

Bradley, Keith (Withington)

Cummings, John

Bradley, Peter (The Wrekin)

Cunningham, Jim (Cov'try S)

Bradshaw, Ben

Curtis-Thomas, Mrs Claire

Brinton, Mrs Helen

Darvill, Keith

Brown, Rt Hon Nick (Newcastle E)

Davey, Valerie (Bristol W)

Brown, Russell (Dumfries)

Davidson, Ian

Browne, Desmond

Davies, Rt Hon Denzil (Llanelli)

Buck, Ms Karen

Davies, Geraint (Croydon C)

Burden, Richard

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

Burgon, Colin

Butler, Mrs Christine

Dawson, Hilton

Byers, Rt Hon Stephen

Dean, Mrs Janet

Campbell, Alan (Tynemouth)

Dobbin, Jim

Campbell, Mrs Anne (C'bridge)

Doran, Frank

Campbell, Ronnie (Blyth V)

Dowd, Jim

Campbell-Savours, Dale

Drew, David

1109

Dunwoody, Mrs Gwyneth

King, Andy (Rugby & Kenilworth)

Eagle, Angela (Wallasey)

Kumar, Dr Ashok

Efford, Clive

Ladyman, Dr Stephen

Ellman, Mrs Louise

Laxton, Bob

Ennis, Jeff

Lepper, David

Etherington, Bill

Leslie, Christopher

Field, Rt Hon Frank

Levitt, Tom

Fisher, Mark

Lewis, Ivan (Bury S)

Fitzsimons, Lorna

Liddell, Rt Hon Mrs Helen

Flint, Caroline

Linton, Martin

Flynn, Paul

Lloyd, Tony (Manchester C)

Foster, Michael Jabez (Hastings)

Love, Andrew

Foster, Michael J (Worcester)

McAvoy, Thomas

Foulkes, George

McCabe, Steve

Fyfe, Maria

McCafferty, Ms Chris

Galloway, George

McCartney, Rt Hon Ian (Makerfield)

Gardiner, Barry

George, Bruce (Walsall S)

McDonagh, Siobhain

Gerrard, Neil

Macdonald, Calum

Gibson, Dr Ian

McDonnell, John

Gilroy, Mrs Linda

McFall, John

Godsiff, Roger

McGuire, Mrs Anne

Goggins, Paul

McIsaac, Shona

Golding, Mrs Llin

McNamara, Kevin

Gordon, Mrs Eileen

McNulty, Tony

Griffiths, Jane (Reading E)

MacShane, Denis

Griffiths, Nigel (Edinburgh S)

Mactaggart, Fiona

Griffiths, Win (Bridgend)

McWalter, Tony

Grocott, Bruce

McWilliam, John

Grogan, John

Mahon, Mrs Alice

Gunnell, John

Mallaber, Judy

Hain, Peter

Marsden, Gordon (Blackpool S)

Hall, Mike (Weaver Vale)

Marsden, Paul (Shrewsbury)

Hall, Patrick (Bedford)

Marshall, David (Shettleston)

Hamilton, Fabian (Leeds NE)

Marshall, Jim (Leicester S)

Hanson, David

Marshall-Andrews, Robert

Harman, Rt Hon Ms Harriet

Martlew, Eric

Heal, Mrs Sylvia

Maxton, John

Healey, John

Meacher, Rt Hon Michael

Henderson, Doug (Newcastle N)

Meale, Alan

Henderson, Ivan (Harwich)

Merron, Gillian

Hepburn, Stephen

Michie, Bill (Shef'ld Heeley)

Heppell, John

Mitchell, Austin

Hesford, Stephen

Moffatt, Laura

Hewitt, Ms Patricia

Moonie, Dr Lewis

Hill, Keith

Morley, Elliot

Hinchliffe, David

Morris, Rt Hon Sir John (Aberavon)

Hoey, Kate

Hood, Jimmy

Mountford, Kali

Hope, Phil

Mullin, Chris

Hopkins, Kelvin

Murphy, Denis (Wansbeck)

Howells, Dr Kim

Murphy, Rt Hon Paul (Torfaen)

Hoyle, Lindsay

Naysmith, Dr Doug

Hughes, Kevin (Doncaster N)

O'Brien, Mike (N Warks)

Humble, Mrs Joan

O'Hara, Eddie

Hurst, Alan

Olner, Bill

Iddon, Dr Brian

O'Neill, Martin

Jackson, Ms Glenda (Hampstead)

Palmer, Dr Nick

Jackson, Helen (Hillsborough)

Pearson, Ian

Jenkins, Brian

Pendry, Tom

Johnson, Alan (Hull W & Hessle)

Perham, Ms Linda

Johnson, Miss Melanie (Welwyn Hatfield)

Pickthall, Colin

Pike, Peter L

Jones, Rt Hon Barry (Alyn)

Plaskitt, James

Jones, Helen (Warrington N)

Pollard, Kerry

Jones, leuan Wyn (Ynys Môn)

Pond, Chris

Jones, Ms Jenny (Wolverh'ton SW)

Pope, Greg

Pound, Stephen

Jones, Dr Lynne (Selly Oak)

Prentice, Ms Bridget (Lewisham E)

Kaufman, Rt Hon Gerald

Prentice, Gordon (Pendle)

Keeble, Ms Sally

Prescott, Rt Hon John

Keen, Alan (Feltham & Heston)

Primarolo, Dawn

Kemp, Fraser

Prosser, Gwyn

Khabra, Piara S

Purchase, Ken

Kidney, David

Quinn, Lawrie

Kilfoyle, Peter

Radice, Rt Hon Giles

1110

Rapson, Syd

Temple-Morris, Peter

Raynsford, Nick

Thomas, Gareth (Clwyd W)

Reed, Andrew (Loughborough)

Thomas, Gareth R (Harrow W)

Reid, Rt Hon Dr John (Hamilton N)

Thomas, Simon (Ceredigion)

Robinson, Geoffrey (Cov'try NW)

Timms, Stephen

Roche, Mrs Barbara

Todd, Mark

Rooker, Rt Hon Jeff

Touhig, Don

Rooney, Terry

Trickett, Jon

Ross, Ernie (Dundee W)

Truswell, Paul

Ruddock, Joan

Turner, Dennis (Wolverh'ton SE)

Russell, Ms Christine (Chester)

Turner, Dr Desmond (Kemptown)

Ryan, Ms Joan

Turner, Dr George (NW Norfolk)

Salter, Martin

Turner. Neil (Wigan)

Sarwar, Mohammad

Twigg, Derek (Halton)

Savidge, Malcolm

Twigg, Stephen (Enfield)

Sawford, Phil

Tynan, Bill

Sedgemore, Brian

Vis, Dr Rudi

Sheerman, Barry

Ward, Ms Claire

Simpson, Alan (Nottingham S)

Wareing, Robert N

Singh, Marsha

Watts, David

Skinner, Dennis

White, Brian

Smith, Rt Hon Andrew (Oxford E)

Whitehead, Dr Alan

Smith, Angela (Basildon)

Wicks, Malclom

Smith, Jacqui (Redditch)

Willams, Rt Hon Alan (Swansea W)

Smith, Llew (Blaenau Gwent)

Snape, Peter

Willams, Alan W (E Carmarthen)

Soley, Clive

Wills, Michael

Southworth Ms Helen

Wilson, Brian

Spellar, John

Winnick, David

Squire, Ms Rachel

Winterton, Ms Rosie (Doncaster C)

Steinberg, Gerry

Wise, Audrey

Stevenson, George

Woodward, Shaun

Stewart, Ian (Eccles)

Woolas, Phil

Stinchcombe, Paul

Worthington, Tony

Stoate, Dr Howard

Wray, James

Wright, Anthony D (Gt Yarmouth)

Strang, Rt Hon Dr Gavin

Wright, Dr Tony (Cannock)

Stringer, Graham

Wyatt, Derek

Stuart, Ms Gisela

Taylor, Rt Hon Mrs Ann (Dewsbury)

Tellers for the Noes:

Mr. Gerry Sutcliffe and

Taylor, David (NW Leics)

Mr. Robert Ainsworth.

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 305, Noes 160.

Division No. 99]

[10.12 pm

AYES

Ainger, Nick

Blackman, Liz

Alexander, Douglas

Blears, Ms Hazel

Allen, Graham

Blizzard, Bob

Armstrong, Rt Hon Ms Hilary

Boateng, Rt Hon Paul

Ashton, Joe

Bradley, Keith (Withington)

Atherton, Ms Candy

Bradley, Peter (The Wrekin)

Atkins, Charlotte

Bradshaw, Ben

Austin, John

Brinton, Mrs Helen

Barnes, Harry

Brown, Rt Hon Nick (Newcastle E)

Battle, John

Brown, Russell (Dumfries)

Bayley, Hugh

Browne, Desmond

Beard, Nigel

Buck, Ms Karen

Beckett, Rt Hon Mrs Margaret

Burden, Richard

Begg, Miss Anne

Burgon, Colin

Benn, Hilary (Leeds C)

Butler, Mrs Christine

Benn, Rt Hon Tony (Chesterfield)

Byers, Rt Hon Stephen

Bennett, Andrew F

Campbell, Alan (Tynemouth)

Benton, Joe

Campbell, Mrs Anne (C'bridge)

Bermingnam, Gerald

Campbell, Ronnie (Blyth V)

Berry, Roger

Campbell-Savours, Dale

Best, Harold

Cann, Jamie

Betts, Clive

Caplin, Ivor

1111

Casale, Roger

Harman, Rt Hon Ms Harriet

Cawsey, Ian

Heal, Mrs Sylvia

Chapman, Ben (Wirral S)

Healey, John

Chaytor, David

Henderson, Doug (Newcastle N)

Clapham, Michael

Henderson, Ivan (Harwich)

Clark, Rt Hon Dr David (S Shields)

Hepburn, Stephen

Clark, Dr Lynda (Edinburgh Pentlands)

Heppell, John

Hesford, Stephen

Clark, Paul (Gillingham)

Hewitt, Ms Patricia

Clarke, Charles (Norwich S)

Hill, Keith

Clarke, Tony (Northampton S)

Hinchliffe, David

Clelland, David

Hoey, Kate

Clwyd, Ann

Hood, Jimmy

Coffey, Ms Ann

Hope, Phil

Cohen, Harry

Hopkins, Kelvin

Colman, Tony

Howells, Dr Kim

Connarty, Michael

Hoyle, Lindsay

Cooper, Yvette

Hughes, Kevin (Doncaster N)

Corbett, Robin

Humble, Mrs Joan

Corbyn, Jeremy

Hurst, Alan

Corston, Jean

Iddon, Dr Brian

Cousins, Jim

Jackson, Ms Glenda (Hampstead)

Cranston, Ross

Jackson, Helen (Hillsborough)

Crausby, David

Jenkins, Brian

Cryer, John (Hornchurch)

Johnson, Alan (Hull W & Hessle)

Cummings, John

Johnson, Miss Melanie (Welwyn Hatfield)

Cunningham, Jim (Cov'try S)

Curtis—Thomas, Mrs Claire

Jones, Rt Hon Barry (Alyn)

Darvill, Keith

Jones, Helen (Warrington N)

Davey, Valerie (Bristol W)

Jones, Ms Jenny (Wolverh'ton SW)

Davidson, Ian

Davies, Rt Hon Denzil (Llanelli)

Jones, Dr Lynne (Selly Oak)

Davies, Geraint (Croydon C)

Kaufman, Rt Hon Gerald

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

Keeble, Ms Sally

Keen, Alan (Feltham & Heston)

Dawson, Hilton

Kemp, Fraser

Dean, Mrs Janet

Khabra, Piara S

Dobbin, Jim

Kidney, David

Doran, Frank

Kilfoyle, Peter

Dowd, Jim

King, Andy (Rugby & Kenilworth)

Drew, David

Kumar, Dr Ashok

Eagle, Angela (Wallasey)

Ladyman, Dr Stephen

Efford, Clive

Laxton, Bob

Ellman, Mrs Louise

Lepper, David

Ennis, Jeff

Leslie, Christopher

Etherington, Bill

Levitt, Tom

Field, Rt Hon Frank

Lewis, Ivan (Bury S)

Fisher, Mark

Liddell, Rt Hon Mrs Helen

Fitzsimons, Lorna

Linton, Martin

Flint, Caroline

Lloyd, Tony (Manchester C)

Flynn, Paul

Love, Andrew

Foster, Michael Jabez (Hastings)

McAvoy, Thomas

Foster, Michael J (Worcester)

McCabe, Steve

Foulkes, George

McCafferty, Ms Chris

Fyfe, Maria

McCartney, Rt Hon Ian (Makerfield)

Galloway, George

Gardiner, Barry

McDonagh, Siobhain

George, Bruce (Walsall S)

Macdonald, Calum

Gerrard, Neil

McDonnell, John

Gibson, Dr Ian

McFall, John

Gilroy, Mrs Linda

McGuire, Mrs Anne

Godsiff, Roger

McIsaac, Shona

Goggins, Paul

McNamara, Kevin

Golding, Mrs Llin

McNulty, Tony

Gordon, Mrs Eileen

MacShane, Denis

Griffiths, Jane (Reading E)

Mactaggart, Fiona

Griffiths, Nigel (Edinburgh S)

McWalter, Tony

Griffiths, Win (Bridgend)

McWilliam, John

Grocott, Bruce

Mahon, Mrs Alice

Grogan, John

Mallaber, Judy

Gunnell, John

Marsden, Gordon (Blackpool S)

Hain, Peter

Marsden, Paul (Shrewsbury)

Hall, Mike (Weaver Vale)

Marshall, David (Shettleston)

Hall, Patrick (Bedford)

Marshall, Jim (Leicester S)

Hamilton, Fabian (Leeds NE)

Marshall—Andrews, Robert

Hanson, David

Martlew, Eric

1112

Maxton, John

Smith, Rt Hon Andrew (Oxford E)

Meacher, Rt Hon Michael

Smith, Angela (Basildon)

Meale, Alan

Smith, Jacqui (Redditch)

Merron, Gillian

Smith, Llew (Blaenau Gwent)

Michie, Bill (Shef'ld Heeley)

Snape, Peter

Mitchell, Austin

Soley, Clive

Moffatt, Laura

Southworth, Ms Helen

Moonie, Dr Lewis

Spellar, John

Morley, Elliot

Squire, Ms Rachel

Morris, Rt Hon Sir John (Aberavon)

Steinberg, Gerry

Stevenson, George

Mountford, Kali

Stewart, Ian (Eccles)

Mullin, Chris

Stinchcombe, Paul

Murphy, Denis (Wansbeck)

Stoate, Dr Howard

Murphy, Rt Hon Paul (Torfaen)

Strang, Rt Hon Dr Gavin

Naysmith, Dr Doug

Stringer, Graham

O'Brien, Mike (N Warks)

Stuart, Ms Gisela

O'Hara, Eddie

Taylor, Rt Hon Mrs Ann (Dewsbury)

Olner, Bill

O'Neill, Martin

Taylor, David (NW Leics)

Palmer, Dr Nick

Temple—Morris, Peter

Pearson, Ian

Thomas, Gareth (Clwyd W)

Pendry Tom

Thomas, Gareth R (Harrow W)

Perham, Ms Linda

Timms, Stephen

Pickthall, Colin

Todd, Mark

Pike, Peter L

Touhig, Don

Plaskitt, James

Trickett, Jon

Pollard, Kerry

Truswell, Paul

Pond, Chris

Turner, Dennis (Wolverh'ton SE)

Pope, Greg

Turner, Dr Desmond (Kemptown)

Pound, Stephen

Turner, Dr George (NW Norfolk)

Prentice, Ms Bridget (Lewisham E)

Turner, Neil (Wigan)

Prentice, Gordon (Pendle)

Twigg, Derek (Halton)

Prescott, Rt Hon John

Twigg, Stephen (Enfield)

Primarolo Dawn

Tynan, Bill

Prosser, Gwyn

Vis, Dr Rudi

Purchase, Ken

Ward, Ms Claire

Quinn, Lawrie

Wareing, Robert N

Radice, Rt Hon Giles

Watts, David

Rapson, Syd

White, Brian

Raynsford, Nick

Whitehead, Dr Alan

Reed, Andrew (Loughborough)

Wicks, Malcolm

Reid, Rt Hon Dr John (Hamilton N)

Williams, Rt Hon Alan (Swansea W)

Robinson, Geoffrey (Cov'try NW)

Williams, Alan W (E Carmarthen)

Roche, Mrs Barbara

Wills, Michael

Rooker, Rt Hon Jeff

Wilson, Brian

Rooney, Terry

Winnick, David

Ross, Ernie (Dundee W)

Winterton, Ms Rosie (Doncaster C)

Ruddock, Joan

Wise, Audrey

Russell, Ms Christine (Chester)

Woodward, Shaun

Ryan, Ms Joan

Woolas, Phil

Salter, Martin

Worthington, Tony

Sarwar, Mohammad

Wray, James

Savidge, Malcolm

Wright, Anthony D (Gt Yarmouth)

Sawford, Phil

Wright, Dr Tony (Cannock)

Sedgemore, Brian

Wyatt, Derek

Sheerman, Barry

Simpson, Alan (Nottingham S)

Tellers for the Ayes:

Singh, Marsha

Mr. Robert Ainsworth and

Skinner, Dennis

Mr. Gerry Sutcliffe.

NOES

Ainsworth, Peter (E Surrey)

Beresford, Sir Paul

Allan, Richard

Blunt, Crispin

Amess, David

Boswell, Tim

Ancram, Rt Hon Michael

Bottomley, Peter (Worthing W)

Arbuthnot, Rt Hon James

Bottomley, Rt Hon Mrs Virginia

Atkinson, David (Bour'mth E)

Brady, Graham

Atkinson, Peter (Hexham)

Brake, Tom

Baker, Norman

Brazier, Julian

Baldry, Tony

Breed, Colin

Ballard, Jackie

Brooke, Rt Hon Peter

Beith, Rt Hon A J

Browning, Mrs Angela

Bell, Martin (Tatton)

Bruce, Ian (S Dorset)

Bercow, John

Burnett, John

1113

Burns, Simon

Loughton, Tim

Butterfill, John

Luff, Peter

Campbell, Rt Hon Menzies (NE Fife)

Lyell, Rt Hon Sir Nicholas

MacGregor, Rt Hon John

Cash, William

McIntosh, Miss Anne

Chapman, Sir Sydney (Chipping Barnet)

MacKay, Rt Hon Andrew

McLoughlin, Patrick

Chope, Christopher

Malins, Humfrey

Clappison, James

Maples, John

Clarke, Rt Hon Kenneth (Rushcliffe)

Mates, Michael

Maude, Rt Hon Francis

Collins, Tim

Mawhinney, Rt Hon Sir Brian

Cormack, Sir Patrick

May, Mrs Theresa

Cotter, Brian

Michie, Mrs Ray (Argyll & Bute)

Cran, James

Moore, Michael

Davey, Edward (Kingston)

Nicholls, Patrick

Davies, Quentin (Grantham)

Norman, Archie

Davis, Rt Hon David (Haltemprice)

O'Brien, Stephen (Eddisbury)

Day, Stephen

Öpik, Lembit

Dorrell, Rt Hon Stephen

Ottaway, Richard

Duncan, Alan

Paice, James

Duncan Smith, Iain

Paterson, Owen

Emery, Rt Hon Sir Peter

Pickles, Eric

Evans, Nigel

Prior, David

Faber, David

Randall, John

Fabricant, Michael

Redwood, Rt Hon John

Fallon, Michael

Rendel, David

Fearn, Ronnie

Robathan, Andrew

Forth, Rt Hon Eric

Robertson, Laurence

Foster, Don (Bath)

Roe, Mrs Marion (Broxbourne)

Fox, Dr Liam

Ruffley, David

Fraser, Christopher

Russell, Bob (Colchester)

Gale, Roger

St Aubyn, Nick

Garnier, Edward

Sanders, Adrian

George, Andrew (St Ives)

Sayeed, Jonathan

Gibb Nick

Shepherd, Richard

Gill Christopher

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

Gray, James

Soames, Nicholas

Green, Damian

Spelman, Mrs Caroline

Greenway, John

Spicer, Sir Michael

Grieve, Dominic

Spring, Richard

Gummer, Rt Hon John

Stanley, Rt Hon Sir John

Hague, Rt Hon William

Streeter, Gary

Hamilton, Rt Hon Sir Archie

Stunell, Andrew

Hammond, Philip

Swayne, Desmond

Hancock, Mike

Syms, Robert

Hawkins, Nick

Tayloer, Ian (Esher & Walton)

Hayes, John

Taylor, John M (Solihull)

Heald, Oliver

Taylor, Sir Teddy

Thomas, Simon (Ceredigion)

Heath, David (Somerton & Frome)

Townend John

Heathcoat—Amory, Rt Hon David

Trend, Michael

Hogg, Rt Hon Douglas

Tyler, Paul

Horam, John

Tyrie, Andrew

Howarth, Gerald (Aldershot)

Viggers, Peter

Hunter, Andrew

Walter, Robert

Jackson, Robert (Wantage)

Waterson, Nigel

Jenkin, Bernard

Webb, Steve

Jones, leuan Wyn (Ynys Môn)

Wells, Bowen

Key, Robert

Whitney, Sir Raymond

King, Rt Hon Tom (Bridgwater)

Whittingdale, John

Kirkbride, Miss Julie

Widdecombe, Rt Hon Miss Ann

Laing, Mrs Eleanor

Wilkinson, John

Lait, Mrs Jacqui

Willis, Phil

Lansley, Andrew

Winterton, Mrs Ann (Congleton)

Leigh, Edward

Winterton, Nicholas (Macclesfield)

Letwin, Oliver

Young, Rt Hon Sir George

Lewis, Dr Julian (New Forest E)

Lidington, David

Tellers for the Noes:

Lilley, Rt Hon Peter

Mr. Keith Simpson and

Lloyd, Rt Hon Sir Peter (Fareham)

Mr. Geoffrey Clifton-Brown.

Question accordingly agreed to.
MR. DEPUTY SPEAKER forthwith declared the main Question, as amended, to be agreed to.
Resolved,
That this House welcomes the action taken by Her Majesty's Government to foster an environment in which small business can flourish, with macro-economic stability, a 10 per cent. starting rate of corporation tax, a research and development tax credit, regulation introduced in ways that minimise burdens on business, and the creation of the Small Business Service through which for the first time there will be at the heart of Government an institution dedicated to representing the interest of, and improving the services to, small firms; congratulates the ongoing work being undertaken by the Better Regulation Task Force, chaired by Lord Haskins, in spearheading the Government's campaigning for better regulation; and contrasts this with the boom and bust policies of the previous administration, which led to 15 per cent. interest rates, double digit inflation and the collapse of thousands of small firms.

REPRESENTATION OF THE PEOPLE BILL [MONEY]
Queen's recommendation having been signified—
Motion made, and Question proposed,
That, for the purposes of any Act resulting from the Representation of the People Bill, it is expedient to authorise the payment out of money provided by Parliament of any expenses incurred by the Secretary of State in consequence of the provisions of the Act relating to the free delivery of election addresses at the first Greater London Authority mayoral election.—[Mr. McNulty.]
10.24 pm
Mr. Bernard Jenkin: We are dealing with a money resolution that results from an altercation between the opposition parties and the Government about the issue of free mailshots for candidates in the London elections. I am pleased to inform the House that the Government have been forced into the most miserable and humiliating climbdown on the issue.
The last time I stood at the Dispatch Box to discuss the matter, I explained that it was important because the London elections are extremely important. We are dealing with an electorate of 5.1 million people. The precedent set by the Government in their legislation for the Scottish Parliament, the Welsh Assembly, the Northern Ireland Assembly, the European elections and for parliamentary elections established the principle that free mailing should be available to candidates. I pointed out the need to promote a high turnout and fairness in the elections. It is a matter of democracy. Election rules should be agreed by consensus among the parties, as they always have been, rather than the governing party abusing its position to impose on all the other parties its view of how the elections should be conducted.
The Under-Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions, the hon. the Member for Streatham (Mr. Hill), put up all the old canards about why the Government could not allow that to happen. First, he said that the London election was a local election. That reason was repeated in the Upper House when these matters were debated there, despite the fact that the Government were already arranging experimental free mailings for the Watford local elections under the Bill.
The Minister put up ludicrous scare stories about the cost of free mailings in the elections, which were exposed in this House and the other place as utterly fraudulent. Finally, there was the curry house argument—the idea that every two-bit restaurant in London would put up candidates for the London Assembly and the London mayoralty in order to advertise its take-away services.

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In the other place, the arguments for truth, fairness and democracy prevailed. As the hon. Member for Hackney, North and Stoke Newington (Ms Abbott) said, it was a question not of the elected House versus the peers, but of the Government versus the people, with the peers representing the people—and the peers won. They caught the Government ballot rigging.
Not only did the Government attempt to rig the ballot for the selection of their candidate for mayor, they attempted to rig the election itself and, indeed, before they made the concession, they threatened to rig the voting in the House of Lords by appointing extra peers in order to get their way there as well. The Government would rig the entire constitution in their fit of pique and determination to get their way.
Mr. John Gummer: Will my hon. Friend remind the House that during the campaign before the last election, the Labour party called for a voice for London? Will he ask why the Government now want to make that such a muted voice, unable even to communicate with London?
Mr. Jenkin: I agree with my right hon. Friend. The Government's political and constitutional project is designed to create a voice for the Prime Minister in every corner of the United Kingdom, and to stifle dissent.
In the London election, the Government are about to send an expensive booklet containing information about how wonderful their constitutional reforms are, but they want to deny the same right to the candidates standing in the elections. They have been forced by the Upper House into a dramatic U-turn.
I want to question the Minister about the money resolution, because although the Government have been forced to concede the principle, they have been crabbed, bitter and grudging in their concessions on the detail. They have insisted not on the right of individual candidates to send their election manifestos in separate envelopes or even in a joint envelope to the electors, but on creating an A5 booklet. Candidates will have to send their camera-ready copy to be edited and included in a booklet that will be stapled together and contain the candidates' addresses. What sort of constitutional abomination are we considering?
Mrs. Jacqui Lait: Did my hon. Friend use the word "edited"? If so, who will edit the booklet?
Mr. Denis MacShane: Alastair.
Mr. Jenkin: It should be put on the record that the hon. Member for Rotherham (Mr. MacShane) said "Alastair" in response to the question that my hon. Friend the Member for Beckenham (Mrs. Lait) asked. I presume that he means Alastair Campbell, who is the press secretary at No. 10 Downing street. I fear that the hon. Gentleman may be right; I shall give way to him so that he can dig his hole even deeper.
Mr. MacShane: The hon. Gentleman interrupted me too quickly. I was referring to that great editor, paymaster, diarist and literator of the Conservative party, Alistair McAlpine.
Mr. Jenkin: I rest my case on the size of the hole that the hon. Gentleman is in.
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There is a mess. I accept that the other place has let the unsatisfactory measure pass because it rightly wanted the London elections to be conducted in an orderly fashion, and without chaos descending on them. However, the Government have consequently taken advantage of the leniency and reasonableness of the other place. There is a constitutional mess, which involves the stapled A5 booklet. My hon. Friend the Member for Beckenham asked a good question, which the Minister should answer: who decides on the order in which the A5 leaflets are printed and stapled together?
Mr. Tom Levitt: The alphabet.
Mr. Jenkin: The hon. Gentleman claims that it is the alphabet. We are back to the hereditary principle that God will decide. The leaflets have nothing to do with fairly conducted elections, for which our original proposal would have provided.
Mr. John Greenway: If the booklet is to be in alphabetical order, will my hon. Friend speculate on the order in which the candidates who bear the name "Frank Dobson" will appear?
Mr. Jenkin: I am confused about which one my hon. Friend means.
Mr. Greenway: There are two.
Mr. Jenkin: My hon. Friend is right. I do not know whether that means that there are two or three Labour candidates in the election. That remains to be seen.
Mr. Edward Davey: The second Mr. Dobson lives in my constituency. His name is Frank S. Dobson. I believe therefore that his name would appear below that of the official Labour party candidate on the ballot paper.
Mr. Jenkin: We are presenting the argument that the leaflets will be stapled in a specific order.
Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Michael J. Martin): Order. The money resolution is a narrow matter. There will be an opportunity to discuss booklets, leaflets and ballot papers later.
Mr. Jenkin: Of course I shall concentrate on the money resolution, but the current debate is not part of the time-limited debate that follows. I fear that some hon. Members may not want us to reach the relevant amendments.
Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. The hon. Gentleman's fears are nothing to do with me. He must keep to the money resolution.
Mr. Jenkin: I shall keep to the money resolution because it compounds the mess that the Government are creating as they try to wriggle off the hook of the concessions that they have given. The money is provided not only for the booklet but, according to the money resolution, for
the first Greater London Authority mayoral election.

1117
My noble Friends thought that they were extracting a concession on the conduct of London elections in the future and in perpetuity, for as long as elections shall exist in London, and providing through their amendment a general power for the Government to supply free mailings not only for mayoral candidates but for Assembly candidates at some future date. However, it turns out that the money resolution, which we are attaching to the Lords amendment and which gives Ministers the power to authorise such free mailings, applies solely to this election.
We are compounding the constitutional mess that the Government have created by setting a precedent for free mailings in London elections, but the Government clearly have no intention to honour it at a future mayoral election. That may be an academic matter for Labour Members, but they may not be sitting on the Government Benches after the general election. The measure will make the mess that they have created so much worse and I ask the Minister to explain why a freepost is right for this election, but not others. He would not have tabled the money resolution if he did not agree with that proposition. Goodness me, I cannot believe that he is about to stand at the Dispatch Box and say something in which he does not believe.
If the measure is right for this election, why is it not right for all elections? Why has the Minister's Department—perhaps it was the hapless Deputy Prime Minister again—been so ineffective in its negotiations with the Treasury that it has been unable to secure the money and a general power to authorise expenditure on future free mailings?
This is the closing chapter of a miserable saga of hypocrisy and ballot rigging by the Government, and they are crowning it with the most miserable and backward-looking climbdown from the position from which they started. They said that the elections should not have free mailings, but now those will take place. The Minister should make the long-term policy clear foi that reason—although we shall not vote against the money resolution—or is he merely going to carry on doing what is convenient for his party in government, regardless of the interests of democracy in this country?
10.38 pm
Mr. Douglas Hogg: I hope that my hon. Friend the Member for North Essex (Mr. Jenkin) will reflect on the answer that we hope to receive from the Minister before we decide whether to divide the House. It is far from clear that we should not divide.
A number of questions need to be asked and answered, but before I come to them, may I say that I am extremely glad that the measure is not going through on the nod, which was the Government's intention? I intend to pose some of those questions, and I suspect that my right hon. Friend the Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Mr. Forth), for one, will ask others. First, why are individual candidates being asked to contribute £10,000 rather than some other sum? There must be some logic in fixing £10,000 as the contribution. I ask the Minister, why £10,000 and not some other sum?
Secondly, if the candidates are to contribute £10,000, what balance will fall to the Exchequer? So far as I can see, the bill is not quantified. Surely we are entitled to
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know exactly how much the measure will cost us. If it is neither enough nor too much, the House might decide to divide on this matter.
There is another question of considerable importance. Why was it decided to fix on a collective delivery? Applying ordinary principles, I should have thought that individual candidates were entitled to have their election addresses delivered separately. A point of principle is involved. If they are delivered collectively, who is to ensure that the Labour party does not, in one way or another, tamper with the material of the hon. Member for Brent, East (Mr. Livingstone)?
As a matter of fact, the Government are tampering with it in the legislation, because they have stipulated the order in which the election addresses will be printed. Surprise, surprise! The name of the hon. Member for Brent, East will not appear first in the bundle. It will be preceded by the Labour party's official candidate. That may be a coincidence, but I should be extraordinarily surprised if it was.
The Government have so ordered the election of the Labour party candidate as to cheat one of their own hon. Members. They have so ordered the legislation as to compound the sin. We are being asked, on the nod, to acquiesce in a fraud. I hope that my hon. Friends on the Front Bench will decide not to allow this fraud to go on the nod, and to vote against it. I suspect that some of my right hon. Friends will now speak in similar vein.
10.42 pm
Mr. Simon Hughes: The right hon. and learned Gentleman's right hon. Friends may have to wait a little longer.
Mr. Eric Forth: That is all right. The hon. Gentleman can take as long as he likes.
Mr. Hughes: Be that as it may, the story of the money resolution began a long time ago, on 28 January last year, in the Standing Committee considering the Greater London Authority Bill. My hon. Friend the Member for Kingston and Surbiton (Mr. Davey) asked the then Minister with responsibility for London, the hon. Member for Greenwich and Woolwich (Mr. Raynsford), about expenses for the Greater London Authority election. The hon. Gentleman went on to run a candidate's campaign—he may now regret that, and think that he would have been better staying as Minister for London, but that is a matter for him.
On 28 January, the then Minister for London said:
We do not want to hang about, but I remind him that there are still some 15 months to go before the election of a mayor. We have plenty of time to consider the issue carefully, take on board all relevant matters and introduce sensible, practical expenses limits which will have the desired effect.—[Official Report, Standing Committee A, 28 January 1999; c. 84.]
Time did not slow down, but Government activity seemed to get into some difficulty. It was not until 15 December that the consultation on expenses limits began. The Government asked for replies before the end of the Christmas holidays. They said, "You may not be able to get round to it, but that will be fine by us."
When it came to the consultation, my hon. Friends and I, and others, suggested that the Government should consider the little issue of a freepost. When the Bill was

1119
last before the House, I asked the Minister whether anyone had argued against a freepost in response to the consultation, and the answer was that no one had suggested that there should not be a freepost. To use the words of the then Minister, having had plenty of time to consider the issue carefully, take on board all the relevant matters and introduce sensible, practical expenses limits, the Government asked for views and then ignored them completely. They decided to resist the idea that for an electorate of 5 million people there should be a freepost.
It was not, therefore, altogether surprising that, when we debated the Representation of the People Bill on Second Reading, the issue did not come up on the money resolution. The clear implication all along had been that the money for the expenses would be dealt with under the Greater London Authority Bill (Election Expenses) Order. That was always the intention; that was what the consultation was about; and everyone expected that all the election expenses would be dealt with as a bit of business ancillary to the Bill. But, lo and behold, when it was suggested that we ought to have a freepost, the Government thought up another wheeze. The wheeze was, "We're terribly sorry, but you cannot have a freepost under the Greater London Authority Bill (Election Expenses) Order, because we would have to change major legislation, namely, the Representation of the People Bill."
Only last month, we began the second round of the debate. We became involved in a discussion with the new Minister responsible for London about the freepost for the London elections. The short history of the next month showed that the Government are not very good at maths.
Sir Patrick Cormack: Had the hon. Gentleman supposed that they were?
Mr. Hughes: I had not, but I think we have no better example of how bad they are at maths than what followed.
When asked about a freepost on 15 February, the Under-Secretary, the hon. Member for Streatham (Mr. Hill), said:
The total cost to the public purse of a free mailshot would be very significant. The total could well be over £10 million and possibly as much as £20 million, depending on the number of candidates … Such costs would be disproportionate to the GLA's proposed budget of some £35 million, and would be equivalent to more than £3 for every council tax payer in London.—[Official Report, 15 February 2000; Vol. 344, c. 902.]
The truth is that the Government were exaggerating just a teeny weeny bit. By the time the Bill reached the other place and Lord Bassam spoke, the cost was well and truly up to £30 million and there was speculation that it might be significantly more.
In Committee in the House of Lords, the Under-Secretary, Lord Bassam, had suggested that a freepost would mean a blank cheque.
Sir Patrick Cormack: In the post.
Mr. Hughes: Or not, as the case may be.
On leap year's day, 29 February, Lord Bassam said on the Floor of the House of Lords that, following negotiation:
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we came up with a formula which reduces the cost considerably.—[Official Report, House of Lords, 29 February 2000; Vol. 610, c. 497.]
Over two weeks of negotiation, it appeared that the freepost would not cost £20 million or £30 million, but might only cost about £2 million. That was the argument that some of us had put in the first place, and, indeed, the argument that the Electoral Reform Society—which knows a bit about these matters—had put in the first place.
As the hon. Member for North Essex (Mr. Jenkin) said, we now have cause for a second money motion, just to sneak in the authority for this itsy-bitsy extra bit of money that the Government thought was £20 million, but which has now fallen to £2 million.
Mr. Gerald Bermingham: It is a lot of money.
Mr. Hughes: It is.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. Mike O'Brien): The hon. Gentleman is having good fun, but he would not want to mislead the House, would he? He knows that we are talking about different things, and he knows that different things were discussed in another place. Are we discussing whether there would be a single mailshot to every voter, which would cost £750,000 per candidate—if there were 20 candidates, the cost could be £15 million—or are we discussing a much more disputable concept? While the hon. Gentleman has fun, let him be careful not to mislead the House over what was discussed in another place.
Mr. Hughes: The threats are a bit late in the day. The deal has been done. The Minister was party to many of the negotiations. He knows perfectly well that the argument from the Government Benches all along was that it could not be done, was not achievable, could not be delivered and was not manageable.
It was the Opposition who put forward the idea that the literature could all be stuffed into one envelope, could be delivered at the same time and could be delivered with the polling card, which had to be delivered to every elector in any event, so we always thought that it could be done at low cost. The independent advice that the Minister has received has clearly borne out the fact that we were right and the Government were always wrong.
Mr. Gummer: Before the hon. Gentleman leaves the point, has he noticed that the Minister has given away something very important? The cost could be £15 million only if there were 20 candidates. If he is suggesting that, at one stage, it was £30 million, he must have imagined that there would be 40 candidates for the mayor of London. Has anyone ever conceived of there being 40 candidates? Now we have so few, is it possible that the Government were covering their tracks, lest all those who chose the Labour party candidate decided that, instead, they would stand themselves?
Mr. Hughes: As the right hon. Gentleman's party leader said, what was originally a day mayor looked as if it was turning into a nightmare.
Mr. MacShane: That is William's joke.
Mr. Hughes: I did attribute it.

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The Government might well have dreamt that there would be 40 candidates, all from the same party. Anything was possible, but we have a proposition. We should never have reached the stage of having to battle for it. Every elector should have the opportunity to read what every duly nominated candidate wants to put to them. It was the only way in which it could be done. It means that every elector will receive some literature. To its shame, the Labour party has resisted that until the last minute. I hope that we never hear such nonsensical and badly justified arguments again.
10.52 pm
Mr. Tom King: I had not intended to intrude on the debate, and I apologise to the House if I do not appear to share the view of some that the proceedings are a joke. I may be rather old-fashioned, but I happen to believe that this country's electoral law is very precious and that the rules under which we fight elections are a particular responsibility of the House. The Government have an overwhelming majority in the House and can carry anything against the opposition parties here. They have a peculiar responsibility to respect that. There was a tradition that, if such changes were introduced, there would be a Speaker's Conference and all-party agreement would be sought on what the rules should be for an election.
I am making a serious point. I happen to represent a constituency that, 130 years ago, was disfranchised because of the corruption there. It was not exclusive to the constituency: there was a great deal of corruption in this country. One of the traditions of our democracy, of which I hope we are all proud, is that, over the centuries, we have sought to establish higher standards for the holding of elections than exist in some countries. [Interruption.]
Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. I cannot allow the hon. Member for Tyne Bridge (Mr. Clelland) to shout across the Chamber.
Mr. King: I hope that all hon. Members are proud of the standards in this country according to which elections are held; we all fight elections and come to serve our constituents—proud that we have fought the elections under the fairest rules in the world.
I accept the Government's right to introduce new arrangements. Although I do not believe in the idea of a new mayor for London, the Government are entitled to create the position. The proposal was made in their manifesto, and they are entitled to it. They have introduced the legislation, and there will be a mayor.
Today, we are talking about the arrangements under which an election will be fought. Something that did worry me, particularly in the speech of my hon. Friend the Member for North Essex (Mr. Jenkin), was the statement that the proposals will affect only the first mayoral election. That does not stack up. We all know the power of precedent. As we also know, the Government's policy is to try to introduce elected mayors to other parts of the United Kingdom, in the cities that desire to have them. Today, undoubtedly, we are debating arrangements that will set precedents that could have wide application.
I am sorry, as I said, to interfere with the jollity that some hon. Members may think the debate warrants, but there are some serious principles at stake. I think that the
1122
Minister will support me in saying that, if the arrangements for the London election applied to general election practice, the Government would not have dreamt of introducing them without seeking all-party agreement, possibly in a Speaker's Conference. We are treating the mayoral election as if it were a one-off, and not as the precedent for a much wider electoral system.
I tell the Minister—who I think is listening seriously to what I am saying, unlike the hon. Member for Manchester, Withington (Mr. Bradley), who seems to regard the matter as a joke, which I do not—that we really must consider very seriously the arrangements that are made. It would be devastatingly damaging if the image were created that there has been an attempt at ballot rigging to enable the Government to avoid embarrassment.
In this case, the Government are proceeding not by a Speaker's Conference on electoral arrangements, but by virtue of their majority in the House. They must therefore be exceptionally scrupulous in the way in which they introduce the arrangements.
Mr. Hogg: Will my right hon. Friend give way?
Mr. King: No. I apologise to my right hon. and learned Friend, but I want to make only a brief speech. I am speaking because I have not enjoyed the first exchanges in the debate. For those of us who care about the House of Commons and the standards of democracy in the United Kingdom, this is a very important issue.
Mr. Deputy Speaker: I call Mr. Forth—
10.58 pm
Mr. Eric Forth: Mr. Speaker, I shall have to speak more often in the Chamber, as my name is not sufficiently in your mind. I shall rectify that before you even know it.
One of the problems with the motion is that it is all the wrong way round. We are being asked to give our approval to a money resolution before we know which amendments to the Bill the House will agree to. It is possible that we may not agree to any of the amendments. We may not agree, particularly, either to the amendment to which the money resolution partly refers, or to an amendment to that amendment. We are therefore being asked—it really is unacceptable—to give the Government a blank cheque, presumably on the basis of the Minister saying, in the usual way, "Trust me."
Mr. Hogg: My right hon. Friend will also want to remind the House that that is contrary to precedent. The usual rule is to have Second Reading, which deals with policy, followed by a debate on the money resolution. On this occasion, it is the other way round.
Mr. Forth: I sometimes think that Ministers are not interested in precedent, but will ride roughshod, as they see fit, over any convention or precedent. This debate is yet another example of the same practice.
The problem, as hon. Members have said, is that we cannot possibly know the eventual scope of the money resolution. The fact that it will apply only to the first Greater London Authority mayoral election is stated in the money resolution itself, which leaves some very

1123
interesting questions about how subsequent elections may be funded. Conversely, it may suggest that only for this election will those arrangements be made, and that, subsequently, no such arrangements will be made. The Minister will have to clarify the position.
Mr. Jenkin: My right hon. Friend has touched on a procedural difficulty, which we have encountered because of the late stage at which the amendments have been tabled. Not only do the amendments have no line numbers because of the rush to get them here, but some of the amendments that we tabled have not been called because they are proscribed by this narrow money resolution. Some amendments that the Opposition parties wanted to debate have not been called because they do not fit in with the money resolution and are, therefore, outwith the scope of the Bill.
Mr. Hogg: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. Have you the discretion to reorder the business so that the money resolution can be taken after the debate on the Lords amendments? If you were to do that, some of the amendments that we wish to have discussed would not be proscribed by the form of the money resolution.
Mr. Deputy Speaker: The right hon. and learned Gentleman is as aware of the procedures of the House as I am. The money resolution is necessary for the House to go on to debate the Lords amendments, which will come at a later stage. Without the money resolution, we would not be able to debate, accept or reject the Lords amendments.
Mr. Forth: That presents us with a great temptation to try to vote down the money resolution. That would have an admirable effect.
We can see the real difficulty in which the House finds itself. However, that is the fault not of the House but of the Government, who have typically muddled the Bill from start to finish.
Mr. Bowen Wells: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. Who made the rules that you have just announced to the House?
Mr. Deputy Speaker: It certainly was not the Chair. The Standing Orders of the House are made by the House itself, and the hon. Gentleman is part of that procedure.
Mr. Forth: I am conscious of the passage of time, and I want to leave the Minister time to answer the questions.
Does the provision apply to the election of the mayor alone, or to all the Assembly candidates? If not, will the Assembly candidates be denied the facility? Lords amendment No. 34 would insert a new clause, which refers to the possibility that the mailing may not be in booklet form. Subsection (4)(d) admits of the possibility of
separate mailings in respect of the free delivery of election addresses.
That would have serious cost implications, and the Minister must tell us more about that. The Lords amendments also refer to whether the mailings will be delivered by the Post Office or by some other means.
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The Minister must explain what will happen before we can judge whether the money resolution will involve expenditure of £1 million, £2 million or £20 million.
We must know the Minister's answers to the questions about Assembly candidates, separate addresses, the booklet and whether the mailing will be delivered by the Post Office or otherwise—all those points are referred to in the Lords amendments—before we can make up our minds on the money resolution. I shall conclude my remarks, because I see that the Minister is anxious to answer the questions—although I shall believe it when I see it.
11.3 pm
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. Mike O'Brien): It is a pleasure to reply to such a congenial debate. The hon. Member for Southwark, North and Bermondsey (Mr. Hughes), who spoke for the Liberal Democrats, and the hon. Member for North Essex (Mr. Jenkin), who spoke for the Conservative party, have had their little dose of yah-boo-sucks politics for tonight, so perhaps we can get on with discussing the serious business before the House.
A money resolution is needed to authorise the use of public funds to provide for the free mailing and the delivery of a booklet of election addresses by mayoral candidates contesting the first GLA election. The resolution also authorises the use of public funds to pay for the cost of printing 5 million copies of the booklet. The precise cost to public funds of printing will depend on how many candidates want to include their election address in the booklet and pay the required £10,000 per candidate contribution towards printing costs. If the sum of the financial contributions from the candidates does not exceed the total cost of printing, the difference will be met from public funds
The cost may be met by the candidates or it may not be. However, we decided to set a limit of £10,000 on the sum that they would contribute. Obviously, during a mayoral election, they would contribute some money if there were not that sort of public funding.
What amazed me was that the hon. Member for North Essex said that he wanted a general power to authorise public spending on free mailshots in elections, and he wanted the Home Office to seek that authorisation from the Treasury. In this place and in the other place, the Conservative party has sought to use taxpayers' subsidies for their council candidates by law. The Tories say that they oppose public subsidies for political parties, but now they demand public spending. They tell the electorate that they want fewer tax burdens, but when it suits them they want to burden the taxpayer with funding Tory candidates in council elections.
Mr. Jenkin: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. O'Brien: No, I will not give way.
At least the Liberal Democrats have the consistency of supporting public funding for their political party throughout. Conservatives say publicly that they do not support that, but when it comes to some financial difficulty that they may have, despite donations from

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foreigners to subsidise their candidates, they call for a general power from the Treasury to authorise public spending for free mailshots, which will benefit them.
Mr. Jenkin rose—
Mr. O'Brien: The Government did not provide for each candidate to be invited to send free mailshots because of the potential cost to the public purse.
Mr. Jenkin rose—
Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. The Minister is not giving way.
Mr. O'Brien: Opposition Members were prepared to dish it out, now let them listen to a bit of it.
The Government did not provide for each candidate to be entitled to send mail post-free because of the potential cost to the public purse and the likelihood of abuse by unscrupulous candidates. We have resolved those concerns in what is essentially a compromise resolution brought before the House by us—a solution that met with agreement in the other place, including among its Conservative and Liberal Democrat Members.
The Post Office calculated that a single mailshot to every London elector would cost £750,000. As I have already said, it is not difficult to work out that if there were 20 candidates, the cost to the taxpayer would be £15 million, and if there were 40 candidates, it might well be £30 million. We do not yet know how many candidates will come before the electorate at the mayoral election. If each candidate is entitled to a free mailshot worth £750,000, the potential for abuse is enormous—[Interruption.] Yes, abuse. If I were an unscrupulous
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advertiser who wanted to advertise a particular business, I would only have to put down the £10,000 deposit to obtain £750,000 worth of free advertising for my business. Presumably, that is what the Tories want. I suspect that quite a few unscrupulous people might well decide to put their name to that, which is why we have included in the amendments provisions to deal with those who might be unscrupulous. That is why we want to ensure that those who stand for mayor will not be able to cause the taxpayer to spend enormous sums to benefit their commercial preferences.
We have brought forward a workable solution, which met with cross-party support in another place, and the amendments that we have tabled—
It being three quarters of an hour after the commencement of proceedings on the motion, MR DEPUTY SPEAKER put the Question, pursuant to Standing Order No. 52 (Money resolutions and Ways and Means resolutions in connection with Bills).
Question agreed to.
Resolved,
That, for the purposes of any Act resulting from the Representation of the People Bill, it is expedient to authorise the payment out of money provided by Parliament of any expenses incurred by the Secretary of State in consequence of the provisions of the Act relating to the free delivery of election addresses at the first Greater London Authority mayoral election.
Mr. Edward Davey: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. Is it in order for the Minister to suggest to the House that the Post Office would not be able to enforce the guidelines that it is usually allowed to enforce to prevent commercial exploitation of the freepost in elections?
Mr. Deputy Speaker: That is not a point of order; it is a matter for debate.

Representation of the People Bill (Supplemental Allocation of Time)
Motion made, and Question proposed,
That the Order of the House of 20th January be supplemented as follows:

Lords Amendments
1. Proceedings on Consideration of Lords Amendments shall be completed at today's sitting and, if not previously concluded, shall be brought to a conclusion two hours after the commencement of proceedings on this Order.
2.—(1) This paragraph applies for the purpose of bringing proceedings to a conclusion in accordance with paragraph 1.
(2) The Speaker shall first put forthwith any Question which has been proposed from the Chair and not yet decided.
(3) If that Question is for the amendment of a Lords Amendment, the Speaker shall then put forthwith—

(a) a single Question on any further Amendments of the Lords Amendment moved by a Minister of the Crown, and

(b) the Question on any Motion made by a Minister of the Crown, That this House agrees or disagrees with the Lords in their Amendment or (as the case may be) in their Amendment as amended.

(4) The Speaker shall then put forthwith

(a) a single Question on any Amendments moved by a Minister of the Crown to a Lords Amendment and

(b) the Question on any Motion made by a Minister of the Crown, That this House agrees or disagrees with the Lords in the Amendment or (as the case may be) in their Amendment as amended.

(5) The Speaker shall then put forthwith the Question on any Motion made by a Minister of the Crown, That this House disagrees with the Lords in a Lords Amendment.
(6) The Speaker shall then put forthwith the Question, That this House agrees with the Lords in all the remaining Lords Amendments.
(7) As soon as the House has agreed or disagreed with the Lords in any of their Amendments, or disposed of an Amendment relevant to a Lords Amendment which has been disagreed to, the Speaker shall put forthwith a single Question on any Amendments moved by a Minister of the Crown relevant to the Lords Amendment.

Subsequent stages
3.—(1) The Speaker shall put forthwith the Question on any Motion made by a Minister of the Crown for the consideration forthwith of any further Message from the Lords on the Bill.
(2) The proceedings on any further Message from the Lords shall, if not previously concluded, be brought to a conclusion one hour after their commencement.
(3) Sub-paragraphs (4) to (7) apply for the purpose of bringing those proceedings to a conclusion.
(4) The Speaker shall first put forthwith any Question which has been proposed from the Chair and not yet decided.
(5) The Speaker shall then put forthwith the Question on any Motion made by a Minister of the Crown which is related to the Question already proposed from the Chair.
(6) The Speaker shall then put forthwith the Question on any Motion made by a Minister of the Crown on or relevant to any of the remaining items in the Lords Message.
(7) The Speaker shall then put forthwith the Question, That this House agrees with the Lords in all the remaining Lords Proposals.

Reasons Committee
4. The Speaker shall put forthwith the Question on any Motion made by a Minister of the Crown for the appointment, nomination and quorum of a Committee to draw up Reasons and the appointment of its Chairman.
5.—(1) A Committee appointed to draw up Reasons shall report before the conclusion of the sitting at which it is appointed.
(2) Proceedings in the Committee shall, if not previously brought to a conclusion, be brought to a conclusion 30 minutes after their commencement.
(3) For the purpose of bringing any proceedings to a conclusion in accordance with sub-paragraph (2) the Chairman shall.

(a) first put forthwith any Question which has been proposed from the Chair and not yet decided; and

(b) then put forthwith successively Questions on motions which may be made by a Minister of the Crown for assigning a Reason for disagreeing with the Lords in any of their Amendments.

(4) The proceedings of the Committee shall be reported without any further Question being put.

Miscellaneous
6. If the House is adjourned, or the sitting is suspended, before the expiry of the period at the end of which proceedings are to be brought to a conclusion under this Order, no notice shall be required of a Motion made at the next sitting by a Minister of the Crown for varying or supplementing the provisions of this Order.
7.—(1) In this paragraph "the proceedings" means proceedings on the Consideration of Lords Amendments, on any further Message from the Lords on the Bill, on the appointment and quorum of a Committee to draw up Reasons and the Report of such a Committee.
(2) Standing Order No. 15(1) (Exempted business) shall apply to the proceedings.
(3) The proceedings shall not be interrupted under any Standing Order relating to the sittings of the House.
(4) No dilatory Motion with respect to, or in the course of, the proceedings shall be made except by a Minister of the Crown; and the Question on any such Motion shall be put forthwith.
8. If proceedings on a Motion for the Adjournment of the House would, by virtue of Standing Order No. 24 (Adjournment on specific and urgent matter that should have urgent consideration), commence at a time when proceedings to which paragraph 7 applies are in progress, proceedings on the Motion shall be postponed to the conclusion of those proceedings.—[Mr. Mike O'Brien.]
11.10 pm
Mr. Nigel Evans: It is with regret that I once again speak to a guillotine motion on discussion of amendments to this Bill, an important constitutional measure that purports to encourage more people to get involved in our representative democracy. It could lead to wholesale changes to the way in which we elect our politicians.
Considering the Government's record in introducing constitutional changes since they took power in 1997, it is right that we should scrutinise the legislation very carefully. After all, this is the Government who brought us the constitutional change in European elections which, with the list system, transferred power from the people to political parties and led to a mere 23 per cent. turnout for the European elections. This is the Government who introduced the devolution changes without properly thinking through the settlement. They have not fully thought through the West Lothian question. Indeed, their response to it was that it should not be asked.
This is the Government who introduced the changes to the second Chamber without fully thinking through what shape the House of Lords would finally take. The threat is that, if the House of Lords does not behave, it will be flooded with more of Tony's cronies—the Prime Minister's placemen—and made into a compliant Chamber to do the Prime Minister's bidding.

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The irony of this guillotine is lost on the Government. We have only up to two hours to discuss amendments dealing with important issues such as asylum seekers. We already know that the number of asylum seekers has grown dramatically over the past three years. Last year, it was 36,000; this year, it is 71,000. There is a backlog of 100,000 asylum seekers, and we need to know whether they are to be allowed to vote in our elections.
Other amendments deal with absent voters. We all want more people to vote—voting should be made easier—but we do not want to make it easier for people to vote fraudulently. There are amendments to deal with proxy votes.
One amendment concerns the declaration of local connection—the Swampy factor, as we have called it.
Mr. John Greenway: Before my hon. Friend continues his catalogue of Lords amendments, will he agree that we might not have needed to consider Lords amendments at all if the Minister had listened to our arguments when we considered the Bill in Committee? Most of the amendments made in the other place were amendments that were first tabled here. If the Government believe that this House should have supremacy over the other place, when will the House make its own amendments to legislation rather than having to rely on the other place to do it?
Mr. Evans: My hon. Friend is absolutely right. He will remember, as I do, that we had to sit through a guillotine motion when the Bill first came through the House. We ought to look for consensus on such important constitutional matters, yet the Government keep introducing guillotines.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. Mike O'Brien): While the hon. Gentleman huffs and puffs about important constitutional matters and the outrage of a guillotine on such a Bill, will he explain why the Opposition took the view that they did not need to vote against the guillotine on 20 January? If it was so important, why could they not even be bothered to vote?
Mr. Evans: The Minister should just wait until the end of this timed motion to see how we will proceed. We all know the game that the Minister is playing. He wishes us to spend 20 seconds on the guillotine motion and then go on to the detail of the amendments, but he knows full well that the time that is allowed to discuss those important amendments means that we will be lucky to get past the first or second batch. We know his ploy, but we are not going to fall into his trap. Tonight, we are seeing a denial of democracy and we are not prepared to stand for it.
The Minister has rolled out several pilot schemes. He will know that, because he had to answer a written question on 29 February from the shadow Home Secretary, asking him to list all the pilot studies for which he had given permission. However, if it had not been for that question, we would still be waiting for such a list. The Minister gave that list to other organisations first and the press also had a copy, but the House had to wait. In fact, the House still has not officially been given the full list of pilot schemes so that we can question Ministers about them.
Mr. O'Brien: I am concerned if the hon. Gentleman thinks that there has been any discourtesy to the House,
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because there has not. As he knows, certain councils applied for pilot schemes and we gave them a provisional indication that, when the Bill was passed, we would be disposed to give our approval to particular councils. The hon. Gentleman will also know that there were broad discussions on the issue. However, because the Bill has not yet been passed, we have not been able to give that formal consent. When we do, we will of course immediately tell the House.
Mr. Evans: That is a rather thin response, and the Minister knows that it is doubtful whether any of the local authorities whose applications for pilot schemes he has already approved will later be told that they will not get those schemes. It would have been far better if he had told the House at the same time as he told the local authorities. He could have done so through a written answer, or he could even have come to the Dispatch Box and answered hon. Members' questions on the issue.
The pilot schemes are important, as 1 am sure that the Minister agrees, but many other issues contained in the amendments need to be discussed.
Mr. Dominic Grieve: Is my hon. Friend aware that, in the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Bill, which we will discuss next week, the Government are purporting to amend this Bill to allow the Electoral Commission to intervene with local authorities in respect of pilot schemes?
Mr. Evans: I am fully aware of that and, if we are able to reach the amendments that deal with the pilot schemes, I hope to go into more detail. However, that is not the Government's intention. They do not want us to investigate the amendments, and that is what the guillotine motion is designed to achieve.
At 10.15 pm, we started to discuss the money resolution. We have now started to discuss the guillotine motion, for which we have an hour, but that will eat into the two hours that the Government have allowed for the discussion of these important amendments. It is an absolute disgrace. We face a double guillotine. Even Wilkinson Sword never produced a blade that shaved as close as the guillotine motion that the Government have produced tonight. True democrats will look on tonight, not in amazement, but in disgust.
There is no surprise at the Government's antics. After all, this is the Government who rigged the referendum on devolution in Wales. This is the Government who rigged the internal elections for its leader for the Welsh Assembly. This is the Government who rigged the selection of the mayoral candidate for the Labour party, so they have ended up with two Dobsons. We are all wondering when they are going to drop the dead Dobson. The Government even rigged the procedures for grammar school votes. Now, they want us to trust them on the amendments tabled tonight. The Government want us to trust them with a referendum on a single currency, but they have another thing coming.
The Government have a very large majority and can push any measure through the House, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Bridgwater (Mr. King) noted, so they have a special obligation which they should treat with respect. Everyone knows which the Government have no principles, and tonight we have discovered that they have no shame.
11.21 pm
Mr. Simon Hughes: I shall be brief. However, like the hon. Member for Ribble Valley (Mr. Evans), we Liberal Democrat Members want to register our belief that it is an unacceptable use of Government power to apply a guillotine motion to a Bill which, up to now, and as the right hon. Member for Bridgwater (Mr. King) noted—has benefited from the consensus agreement of a working party. That working party was chaired very ably by the Under-Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, the hon. Member for Knowsley, North and Sefton, East (Mr. Howarth).
However, the Government now want to steamroller this relatively small number of groups of amendments
Mr. Douglas Hogg: There are 100.
Mr. Hughes: There are 100 amendments, as the right hon. and learned Gentleman says, in 12 groups, and some of them contain controversial and important matters. One highly controversial subject—the use of electoral registers—was discussed in a long debate in the House. Should they be sold commercially? Should people be allowed to remove their names, or make money out of the registration process? That is not an uncontroversial topic, and it would be perfectly proper for the House to debate it in the context of citizens' liberties.
Another controversial matter is the possibility of holding pilot schemes for voting on Saturday or Sunday, or early in the morning, or on voting for a week, or by electronic means. My hon. Friend the Member for Argyll and Bute (Mrs. Michie) has made it clear that there would be great unease in her part of the world if it were suggested that voting should be held on Sundays. The Bill contains a provision to decide such matters locally but if, as a result of pilot, the Government were minded to implement a proposal more widely, there is much concern that safeguards should be adopted to protect communities with different religious views, traditions or cultural backgrounds.
Thirdly, and self-evidently, the list of amendments goes further than the Government's concession on freepost facilities, which stemmed from an agreement between the parties. For instance, another amendment deals with whether one candidate can refer to the name of another, or to other parties. The Government's majority means that they will always be able to get proposals through the House. However, they do not enjoy a majority in the country, and they did not even gain a majority among those who voted at the general election. The electoral process has merely given the Government a distorted majority in the House.
It does the Government and the country's view of democracy no good when the House is consistently confronted with proposals for guillotines. The matter could have been negotiated by agreement, and a proper day's debate secured to allow adequate time for those hon. Members who wanted to speak. If we cannot have debates about the electoral process without guillotines, we really are in some trouble.
11.24 pm
Mr. Richard Shepherd: The two preceding speeches have been important, but I want to concentrate on the way in which the motion has been
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tabled in the names of the Leader of the House and of the Home Secretary. No member of the Government Front Bench rose to explain to the House why the motion was necessary. It is a shaming, inappropriate motion. Something is going wrong, as is evident in the arrogant, undirected, self-justifying nature of the Government.
I speak firmly because, again, this is an impossible motion. Not many hon. Members have been in the House a long time, but I have been here 20 years. I have seen the gradual squeezing by a jealous, self-aggrandising Executive of the freedom to debate and properly discuss the issues.
The Government are clearly in a great mess over their programme, given the hysterical state we are in. I remember how the Government, when in opposition, used to rage against the use of the guillotine by the then Prime Minister, Mrs. Thatcher. They counted, as I counted, with alarm. For the first time since the introduction of the guillotine procedure, there was an average of five a year under Mrs. Thatcher. The figure rose, finally, to six a year.
What does this Government do? Let us be candid. They have been in power for less than three years, and between 1997 and 2000 they have guillotined 35 Bills. This is the fourth Bill to be guillotined this Session, and it is only March.
Mr. Hogg: Will my hon. Friend remind the House of yet another factor? When the Conservative Government were in office and they moved guillotine motions, it was normally done by the Leader of the House, which showed respect to the House. We now have a junior Home Office Minister moving the guillotine motion. Is that not a disgrace?
Mr. Shepherd: I hope that I indicated that. There is a casualness here. At least the Secretary of State responsible for taking a Bill through the House used to move the motion, if not the Leader of the House, who is the custodian of the interests of hon. Members on both sides of the House, and safeguards the House as an institution.
Mr. Mike O'Brien: The hon. Gentleman wants me to justify the guillotine motion. I thought it best to do so at the end of the debate, once I had heard the points made by hon. Members such as him. I shall be happy to justify the motion then. Given that the hon. Gentleman feels so strongly and speaks so forcefully about this matter, and given that he is so outraged, why, earlier in our proceedings, did he take the view that he would not even vote against the guillotine motion?
Mr. Shepherd: I have spoken on almost every guillotine motion in the House for the past 20 years. There comes a point when it feels as if repetition does not serve the cause. Let us weigh what is happening. The Minister says, rather audaciously, that he intends to address the ruminations of the House after the motion has been discussed. He does not speak to the motion, but merely responds to hon. Members' observations: it is a motion on the Order Paper, moved formally. It would cheer the ghost of Lord Garel-Jones as he ranges round the House. The Government are implementing the device that he stumbled on and used but once—the incorporation in the time allowed of the guillotine motion. If we take the

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guillotine seriously, there will only be 45 minutes in which to discuss all the amendments to the Bill. That is less than five minutes for each group. It is palpably nonsense.
Some 35 Bills have already been guillotined. The Government clearly want practice, requiring something like 52 guillotine motions, including today's supplemental motion. What has gone wrong with them? Why are they so arrogant when it comes to due process?
Hon. Members have heard me say often enough that the liberty of this people is formed through this Chamber. It is our only representative institution—we have nothing else but this Chamber. Wilfully and cheerlessly, the Government march through guillotines, because they insist on having 10 Home Office Bills in this Session alone. I feel for the Minister who is, as often as not, charting two Bills simultaneously through Committee. How can this be a serious process?
The Labour party should listen to what is happening in the Government. We have a Prime Minister who barely comes here, whose factual attention to detail such as guillotine motions is nil, who gives us inaccurate answer after inaccurate answer, even contradicting the information given by his Ministers, as if this were a show place.
The Home Secretary told us yesterday about ritual opposition, as if opposition in our system is ritualistic. It is not. Opposition is in the clash of idea and counter-idea. The Home Secretary's Hegelian vision of how, through synthesis, we come to an understanding of what is appropriate is all nonsense. Every one of us is elected on an equal franchise. We come here to represent our people and say our bit for them, and they can then judge whether we have acted appropriately.
What of due process? A long time ago it was said that our freedom and liberty lie in the interstices of procedure. That is true. We must remember Burke, as I have said many times. The Minister knows as well as I do that a parliamentary majority is not just x divided by 2 + 1: it is informed by the process and our right to argue and say what we think is appropriate.
I think that the whole London mayor idea is nonsensical. It has no relevance to Aldridge-Brownhills, and only 23 per cent. of the electorate in London voted for it. It is typical of the Government in that they play around with the constitution not knowing what they are doing, and then do not wish to discuss it. They break up our Union and undermine the Welsh nature and culture. They do all that with no solid signal from the electorate to the effect that that is what they want: whatever the agenda, it must be steamrollered through, and that is what the House is doing yet again tonight.
Mr. Mike O'Brien: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman, who is a neighbour, for generously giving way to me again. The Bill was debated on the Floor of the House, and had three days in a Committee of the whole House. On the second day in Committee, only two Conservative Back Benchers bothered to speak. On the third day, only four Conservative Back Benchers bothered to speak. We then had lengthy speeches from one or two hon. Members, who were clearly abusing the procedures of the House. The Deputy Speaker had to intervene on
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19 occasions during those debates. Does the hon. Gentleman not think that the abuse is coming from the Opposition rather than from the Government?
Mr. Shepherd: I know one thing, and I say it as gently as I can to the Minister: he is not a solicitor or barrister whom I would employ in these matters. After all, who is he to determine where an argument lies or at what stage simpletons such as me begin to appreciate what is happening? I have begun to appreciate from the figures that I have quoted that the Government are using the guillotine more frequently than it was ever used under Mrs. Thatcher, and in a more savage and aggressive way than she ever used it. I can only conclude that it is because she had a parliamentary history, and the new Labour Government have almost none. They do not remember the traditions of allowing other people to speak.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for International Development (Mr. George Foulkes): Rubbish.
Mr. Shepherd: Although the hon. Gentleman says "rubbish", he remembers full well his own anger at the use of the guillotine in the past.
I return to the idea that opposition to the guillotine is not ritualistic. It is the right of every Member to try to express himself. The Liberal Democrats have fought hard on some of the issues in the Bill and have a right to argue their case; I have a right to argue my case; and the Government's official Opposition have a right to argue theirs. In forgetting due process, the Government forget the trust of the British people that in this place our liberty and freedom are secured. They are not secured by measures such as this.
11.34 pm
Mr. John Greenway: I said at the outset of the proceedings on the Bill, when I had other duties and spoke from the Dispatch Box, that I believed that the Bill was deeply flawed. I made very unkind remarks about it. I am glad that some of those deficiencies have been corrected in the other place, but I am bound to say to the Minister that all the warnings that we gave on Second Reading and in Committee, which as the Minister said, was on the Floor of the House, have turned out to be true in even greater measure than we expected.
One other negative aspect is that, by the introduction of the Greater London Authority election measure, the Government have included in the Bill a matter that clearly does not command consensus. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Bridgwater (Mr. King) said, in a Bill of such importance, affecting electoral matters, that is a great mistake. It says something of the Government's lack of preparedness for the assembly and mayoral elections that the only way in which they have been able to rescue the situation at this very late stage has been to introduce a measure that has no place in the Bill. As a result, a Bill on which we hoped there would be complete consensus has ended up the subject of bitter and acrimonious argument.
Such acrimony is made all the greater because, regardless of whether the Government are justified in deciding to impose a guillotine on proceedings on Lord

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amendments, it is abundantly clear that they have not allocated enough time. There should have been at least a whole day's debate.
The Minister says that hon. Members were given three whole days in Committee—indeed we were. He says that, in some debates, Conservative Members did not speak. I shall give him two reasons why. For the first two days, we were debating not what is in the Bill but what some of his hon. Friends and Liberal Democrats Members would have liked to be in it. That is not scrutiny of the Bill but an attempt to add other measures to it. In reality, we had only one day in Committee in which to scrutinise the Bill. That is why some of my hon. Friends were persuaded not to speak in some debates. Otherwise, we could not have debated some of the issues that should have been discussed. I know, I was there and I understand entirely the reason for the number of contributions: lack of time. We are using the time allocated—it is the only way available to us—to register our protest yet again at the Government's mishandling of a measure that should have commanded consensus.
I turn to the most telling argument that one can deploy on the mess that the Government have got themselves into.—
Mr. Mike O'Brien rose—
Mr. Greenway: Let me finish. The Minister can answer points in his winding-up speech.
As I said in an intervention on my hon. Friend the Member for Ribble Valley (Mr. Evans), the tragedy for democracy and our democratic process is that we were not able to put this Bill right before we sent it to the other place. We have had to rely on the other place to make changes, some of which the Minister told us only three or four weeks ago were totally unnecessary but is now asking us to accept.
Mr. John Gummer: Will my hon. Friend reflect on the irony that this elected Chamber has not been allowed to make changes to arrangements for elections which the non-elected Chamber has been allowed to make? Is that not a symbol of the disrespect with which this Government treat this Chamber?
Mr. Greenway: My right hon. Friend, with all his experience, articulates my point better than I have done. I simply add the caveat that, although we clearly have unfinished business in reforming the other place, the Government, and the Prime Minister in particular, believe that this Chamber should be pre-eminent. I think that most of us would accept that that is right because this is the elected Chamber. However, owing to the way in which the Government handle their business, we are not able to show that pre-eminence by sending to the other place legislation that is in proper order. It must have been abundantly clear to Ministers and their officials that the Bill was deficient, yet when the Bill was still being considered by the Commons, they made no effort to change it. That reveals their pomposity and arrogance, and we Members of Parliament are right to voice our concern with the passion shown by my hon. Friend the Member for Aldridge-Brownhills (Mr. Shepherd)
Mr. Nick Hawkins: Does my hon. Friend agree that the position is worse than that which he
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describes? The other place had the opportunity to debate a very large number of amendments as recently as Monday this week, and in that debate, the Minister in the other place accepted amendments that he had ruled out only days previously. The Government are in a complete muddle, and have been throughout.
Mr. Greenway: My hon. Friend makes a telling point, but I believe that the situation is even worse than that. The Lords amendments need to be scrutinised in considerable detail because the speed with which they have been drafted and approved means that some are defective. I predict that, before long, we shall have to debate these matters all over again, in connection with amended legislation.
For that reason, the House should be especially grateful to the other place for persuading the Government that, as we in this House had suggested, it was right to remove from the Bill the Home Secretary's powers to extend to parliamentary elections the pilot schemes for which the Bill provides. When we raised that issue, we were told that we were scaremongering and that there was no likelihood of that happening. Thank goodness there is no likelihood of its happening now, because the relevant provisions have been removed.
11.41 pm
Mr. Douglas Hogg: I would find it difficult to emulate the passionate speech made by my hon. Friend the Member for AldridgeBrownhills (Mr. Shepherd), but I want to echo his stated view that these proceedings are a scandal. We should not pass over it quietly.
Let us remind ourselves what the House is being asked to do. I start not with the guillotine motion, but with the Lords amendments. There are 12 groups, consisting of more than 100 Lords amendments. Many of them are the result of considerable work in the other place, yet the House of Commons is treating those deliberations with total contempt—not because we want to, but because we are being made to. The order of business gives us but two hours from the commencement of this debate for the completion of the entirety of the business. Even if we wanted to, there is no way we could debate every important amendment. Not only could we not do so, but it is intended that we should not do so. That is a scandal.
My hon. Friend the Member for Aldridge-Brownhills made an important point when he talked about process. He spoke more eloquently than I can, but I understood him to mean that, in a democracy, individual Members, parties and representatives have a right to express their views on matters that come before the House. Some of the matters dealt with in the Lords amendments are extremely important. My right hon. Friend the Member for Suffolk, Coastal (Mr. Gummer) referred to the extraordinary irony that this House—the elected Chamber—will not be discussing the provisions dealing with election addresses that were inserted in the other place. Those provisions touch on democracy, but we are forbidden to discuss them. Not only are we not going to discuss such matters, but the procedures that the House is adopting will prevent us from discussing them.
Mr. Gummer: Does my right hon. and learned Friend agree that when the Minister tells us, as he probably will,

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that if we had not debated the guillotine motion there would have been more time to discuss the amendments, he really means that we should not discuss the guillotine motion and that we should instead discuss some bits of the amendments? Does he also agree that it is only by debating the motion that can we draw attention to the scandal of these proceedings?
Mr. Hogg: That was to be my next point; I am grateful to my right hon. Friend. The argument—the weasel words—from the Government is that we should make rapid progress to the next business, but what is the point of discussing the next business? We know full well that if we are lucky, we can discuss only the first, second or third of the 12 groups.
I would rather protest at the scandal of the Bill proceeding in this way. I would rather not discuss the Lords amendments than let the matter pass. If we begin to touch the Lords amendments, people will say that they received some discussion and therefore they have had some authority from this House.
Late as it is and with a limited audience, we must make it plain that this is a scandal. It is the sign of an autocratic Government. Our business as representatives of the people is to do our best to stop it. I do not know whether my hon. Friend the Member for North Essex (Mr. Jenkin) intends to divide the House, but I can tell him now that I shall. I very much hope that I will have the support of my right hon. and hon. Friends.
11.46 pm
Mr. Harry Barnes: I want to contrast this guillotine motion with the earlier guillotine motion on the same Bill—on Report, I think. Although guillotine motions always put pressure on the House, on that occasion we got through the list of amendments before us. We were conscious of the pressure of time, and some hon. Members spoke very briefly to allow us to do that. It worked well on that occasion.
The problem with the present guillotine motion is the amount of time available. The speeches that I would like to hear in connection with the 12 groups of amendments before us are 12 speeches from my hon. Friend the Minister, to explain to the House the meaning of each group of amendments. It may be possible to do that briefly, as some of the amendments may be technical. The guillotine should provide sufficient time for such explanations and for appropriate responses. If we had more time, we might be able to deal with the Lords amendments in the way that we dealt with amendments on Report.
11.48 pm
Mr. Nicholas Winterton: I shall be brief, and I hope to be non-party political in what I say. I speak as a Back Bencher, but, as many hon. Members know, I also chair the Procedure Committee, which clearly is concerned that Parliament as a whole, and particularly the House of Commons, should have an adequate opportunity to scrutinise any legislation that goes through the House. I am sure that hon. Members on the Government Benches will not disagree with that. I am happy to follow the brief contribution from the hon. Member for North-East Derbyshire (Mr. Barnes)
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I picked up from the remarks of the hon. Member for Southwark, North and Bermondsey (Mr. Hughes) at the beginning of the debate that there had been no discussions through the usual channels about the way in which the Bill was to be handled. I assume from that that there has been no consultation through the usual channels with either the Liberal Democrats or with the Conservative and Unionist party, which is the main opposition party.
I register my concern that that is the case. On an important matter such as representation of the people, which is of deep concern to the democratic traditions of this country, it is worrying that there has not been proper co-operation between the Government of the day, with the huge majority that they have in the House, and the opposition parties, which clearly feel strongly on the subject.
I followed the remarks of my hon. Friend the Member for Aldridge-Brownhills (Mr. Shepherd) carefully. I do not believe that any hon. Member believes as fervently as my hon. Friend in the democratic process and the traditions of parliamentary democracy. I always listen to his remarks with deep attention because I regard him highly. If more hon. Members spoke in this place with the integrity of my hon. Friend, we would have a better Parliament. The Government ignore his words at their peril.
The Government have a substantial majority now, and they may be able to push the Bill through the House, but they do themselves and the House no service. The House deserves better on a Bill that deals with what the House is about: representing the people of this country in this country's Parliament. I view with deep anxiety the way in which the Government have handled the Bill. To include a timetable motion in the time that we are allowed to debate 12 sets of amendments is disgraceful—more than that, it is undemocratic.
11.51 pm
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. Mike O'Brien): The hon. Member for Macclesfield (Mr. Winterton) said that he would make a non-partisan speech and then made a partisan speech. That is slightly regrettable, but the way in which he decides to use his position is a matter for him.
The hon. Member for Aldridge-Brownhills (Mr. Shepherd) asked why I had left my comments to the end of the debate. Some valid points were made, not least by the hon. Gentleman. I shall bear in mind his comments on when I should speak in such a debate. It is useful to hear from someone of his experience.
Mr. Shepherd: Other hon. Members could have spoken during the hour. That means that the Minister may not have had an opportunity to speak. He declined such an opportunity to the Conservative Front Bench. The House might not have allowed him time to speak. He should lead on the amendment.
Mr. O'Brien: I hear the hon. Gentleman's point, but I hope that hon. Members would want to ensure, as they did during the previous debate, that the Minister had an opportunity to reply.
The hon. Member for Southwark, North and Bermondsey (Mr. Hughes) was worried about the guillotine. I refer him to the comments on 20 January of

1139
the hon. Member for North Cornwall (Mr. Tyler), who is the Liberal Democrat shadow Leader of the House. He made it clear that he understood why the Government believed that they needed a guillotine in specific circumstances, even though he was careful not to endorse it. He said:
we believe that agreed programme motions are the way to proceed … I do not understand why the Conservative Front Bench, having agreed to the necessity and importance of the Bill, did not then agree to a programme motion.—[Official Report, 20 January 2000; Vol. 342, c. 1007.]
I have a great deal of sympathy with that view, and I understand the frustration of the hon. Member for Southwark, North and Bermondsey at the need for a guillotine. I am sure that the hon. Member for North Cornwall would also understand that. However, I am sure that the hon. Member for Southwark, North and Bermondsey will recall that there were reasons for imposing a guillotine.
Mr. Simon Hughes: I share the view of my hon. Friend the Member for North Cornwall (Mr. Tyler). However, whatever happened when the Bill was previously considered by the House, it is no excuse for not trying to agree a procedure on such an important Bill when the Lords amendments returned. We might have been able to achieve that, but the Government did not try.
Mr. O'Brien: That is not quite fair. As the hon. Gentleman knows, the guillotine was imposed earlier in our proceedings on remaining stages in the House. It is usual to impose a guillotine on all stages when matters are referred back to the House from another place. Therefore, we are complying entirely with the usual and customary approach to these matters during consideration of a Bill of this sort. I do not accept that there is some great breach of precedent.
Although we have a lot of amendments to consider tonight, none ought to be particularly contentious, with the possible exception of those relating to the free mailshots in the London elections. As I shall explain at the relevant points, quite a few are simply minor drafting amendments and others respond to points raised by the Opposition here and in the other place. Not one of our amendments was opposed by the Opposition in the other place and quite a lot were taken on the nod. The hon. Member for Ribble Valley (Mr. Evans) said that they should not have been, but the Conservatives in the other place were happy with them. It seems to me that we are having a ritual debate about the guillotine, even though the Conservative Opposition in the other place took many of these measures on the nod. They did not oppose them.
Mr. Crispin Blunt: Will the Minister give way?
Mr. O'Brien: In a moment, if the hon. Gentleman will bear with me.
The mailshots were the one issue on which there was a lot of controversy and I accept that we probably need some time for debate, but we would have had it were it not for all this ritualistic nonsense.
Mr. Blunt: My right hon. Friend the Member for Suffolk, Coastal (Mr. Gummer) presaged that suggestion
1140
by saying that we would be told that we are at fault for complaining about the guillotine. The Minister says that most of the amendments are uncontroversial, so why table a guillotine motion in the first place?
Mr. O'Brien: A guillotine motion has been tabled—the Opposition did not vote against it on 20 January—because on 19 January a handful of Conservative MPs behaved in a manner that was described in the following day's debate as an abuse of the House. Long-winded, discursive speeches caused the Deputy Speaker to intervene on various Members to bring them to order.
Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. Perhaps we should leave the Deputy Speaker out of it. No one should involve the occupant of the Chair in the argument.
Mr. O'Brien: I take your strictures, Mr. Deputy Speaker. That brings the number of interventions to 20—one on me.
The Bill has enjoyed broad parliamentary support through most of the proceedings. Although hon. Members have raised proper points, it was the product of a working party with all-party representation and everyone has had time to express their views.
Mr. Owen Paterson: Will the Minister give way?
Mr. O'Brien: May I finish my point? Then I shall give way.
Many of our amendments are technical; they have arisen from our debate. It is not right that we should tolerate the behaviour of a few hon. Members—as on 19 January—who were not prepared to contribute to the debate previously. I again make the point that, having demanded that the Bill be taken on the Floor of the House, only two Conservative Back Benchers bothered to make full speeches on its second day in Committee. On the third day, only four Back Benchers bothered to make full speeches.
Mr. Hawkins: Will the Minister give way?
Mr. O'Brien: If the hon. Gentleman will forgive me, I agreed to give way to the hon. Member for North Shropshire (Mr. Paterson).
Mr. Paterson rose—
Mr. O'Brien: I shall do so in a moment, if the hon. Gentleman will bear with me.
Most of the Members who now express great concern about the Bill did not bother to turn up to the Committee debates. At various times, only a Front Bencher—the hon. Member for Ribble Valley or one of his colleagues—and possibly a Whip were on the Opposition Benches. On occasion, the hon. Member for Lichfield

1141
(Mr. Fabricant) turned up. That went on for long periods, which shows how concerned some Members were about these matters.
Mr. Paterson: Will the Minister answer the straight question posed by my hon. Friend the Member for Reigate (Mr. Blunt): why has a guillotine motion been tabled if the amendments are not contentious?
Mr. O'Brien: The guillotine has been imposed because for a long period, and on completely uncontentious matters, a handful of Opposition Members decided to run the debate unnecessarily into the highways and byways.
Mr. Blunt: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. Is it in order for the Minister to say that my hon. Friends were going down highways and byways that were irrelevant to that debate, given that they were not so directed by the Chair?
Mr. Deputy Speaker: It is a matter for debate. If someone catches my eye, they can rebut that—but not at the moment.
Mr. O'Brien: If the hon. Member for Reigate (Mr. Blunt) had heard me properly, he would know that I actually referred to the highways and byways of the debate.
Mr. Hawkins: On the occasion to which the Minister refers, the point raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Reigate (Mr. Blunt) was also made after the business motion was moved by the Leader of the House. It was made quite clear from the Chair that the debate in which many of my hon. Friends and I participated was entirely in order. Serious points were being made, many of which the Government have been forced to accept in the other place or in some of the amendments that they are presenting tonight. The Minister is failing to deal with that important point. It was a valuable debate, which highlighted the weaknesses in the Bill.
Mr. O'Brien: All I can say is that the hon. Gentleman must have been present at a different debate from the one in which I participated. Not many of the matters that were discussed during those days on the Floor of the House are now turning up in these amendments.
Mr. David Heath: Will the Minister give way?
Mr. O'Brien: I am conscious that we are pressed for time, and I am trying to conclude. However, I shall give way to the hon. Gentleman.
Mr. Heath: I am a little concerned about the Minister's argument. Surely he would agree that some hon. Members were involved in serious debate on the issues in the Bill. The hon. Member for North-East Derbyshire (Mr. Barnes), my hon. Friend the Member for Southwark, North and Bermondsey (Mr. Hughes) and I, together with many other hon. Members, were involved in debates on this issue. Are we not entitled to continue those debates on the serious issues that have been referred to us by the
1142
House of Lords without the application of this guillotine motion—which seems to refer to other hon. Members, who may have other purposes?
Mr. O'Brien: The hon. Gentleman is right. As his hon. Friend the Member for North Cornwall said, in the early stages of the proceedings we had a sensible debate in which the Liberal Democrats, my hon. Friend the Member for North-East Derbyshire (Mr. Barnes) and some Conservative Front Benchers and Back Benchers participated. The sensible debates of the first couple of days turned into something entirely different on the final day of the Committee. The Tories decided to drag it out unnecessarily.
Some hon. Members have argued that guillotines are unacceptable. Conservative Members may recall with a certain discomfort the European Communities (Amendment) Bill in 1986, when the then President of the Council, John Biffen, moved the guillotine motion and pointed out that six constitutional Bills had been timetabled since 1966. This Bill is not as controversial as most constitutional Bills. We have had very few real Divisions on it.
During our debates, certainly today, we have had much ritual posturing. I have explained that, given the largely uncontroversial nature of most of the amendments, which the Opposition did not oppose in the other place, I am confident that we can deal with the Bill properly. The Opposition did not vote against the guillotine motion on 20 January following delays the previous day. We do not want to repeat such unnecessary delays. We should get on with the debate.
Mr. Evans rose—
Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Michael Lord): Order. The hon. Gentleman has already made a contribution to the debate.
Mr. Evans: With the leave of the House, Mr. Deputy Speaker
Mr. Deputy Speaker: No, the hon. Gentleman cannot contribute again, not even with the leave of the House.
Question put:—
The House divided: Ayes 260, Noes 134.

Division No. 100]

[12.40 am

AYES

Ainger, Nick

Bradley, Keith (Withington)

Ainsworth, Robert (Cov'try NE)

Bradley, Peter (The Wrekin)

Ashton, Joe

Bradshaw, Ben

Atherton, Ms Candy

Brown, Russell (Dumfries)

Atkins, Charlotte

Browne, Desmond

Austin, John

Buck, Ms Karen

Barnes, Harry

Burden, Richard

Battle, John

Burgon, Colin

Bayley, Hugh

Butler, Mrs Christine

Benn, Hilary (Leeds C)

Campbell, Alan (Tynemouth)

Bennett, Andrew F

Campbell, Ronnie (Blyth V)

Benton, Joe

Campbell-Savours, Dale

Berry, Roger

Cann, Jamie

Best, Harold

Caplin, Ivor

Blackman, Liz

Chapman, Ben (Wirral S)

Blears, Ms Hazel

Chaytor, David

Blizzard, Bob

Clapham, Michael

Boateng, Rt Hon Paul

Clark, Rt Hon Dr David (S Shields)

1143

Clark, Paul (Gillingham)

Iddon, Dr Brian

Clarke, Charles (Norwich S)

Jackson, Ms Glenda (Hampstead)

Clarke, Tony (Northampton S)

Jackson, Helen (Hillsborough)

Clelland, David

Jenkins, Brian

Clwyd, Ann

Johnson, Miss Melanie (Welwyn Hatfield)

Coffey, Ms Ann

Cohen, Harry

Jones, Rt Hon Barry (Alyn)

Colman, Tony

Jones Mrs Fiona (Newark)

Connarty, Michael

Jones, Helen (Warrington N)

Corbyn, Jeremy

Jones, Ms Jenny (Wolverh'ton SW)

Corston, Jean

Cousins, Jim

Jones, Dr Lynne (Selly Oak)

Cranston, Ross

Crausby, David

Kaufman, Rt Hon Gerald

Cryer, John (Hornchurch)

Keeble, Ms Sally

Cummings, John

Keen, Alan (Feltham & Heston)

Cunningham, Jim (Cov'try S)

Kemp, Fraser

Curtis-Thomas, Mrs Claire

Khabra, Piara S

Darvill, Keith

Kidney, David

Davey, Valerie (Bristol W)

Kilfoyle, Peter

Davidson, Ian

King, Andy (Rugby & Kenilworth)

Davies, Rt Hon Denzil (Llanelli)

Kumar, Dr Ashok

Davies, Geraint (Croydon C)

Ladyman, Dr Stephen

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

Laxton, Bob

Lepper, David

Dawson, Hilton

Leslie, Christopher

Dean, Mrs Janet

Levitt, Tom

Dobbin, Jim

Lewis, Ivan (Bury S)

Doran, Frank

Linton, Martin

Dowd, Jim

Lloyd, Tony (Manchester C)

Drew, David

Love, Andrew

Eagle, Angela (Wallasey)

McAvoy, Thomas

Efford, Clive

McCabe, Steve

Ennis, Jeff

McCafferty, Ms Chris

Etherington, Bill

McCartney, Rt Hon Ian (Makerfield)

Field, Rt Hon Frank

Fisher, Mark

McDonagh, Siobhain

Fitzsimons, Lorna

Macdonald, Calum

Flint, Caroline

McDonnell, John

Foster, Michael Jabez (Hastings)

Foster, Michael J (Worcester)

McFall, John

Foulkes, George

McGuire, Mrs Anne

Fyfe, Maria

McIsaac, Shona

Galloway, George

McNamara, Kevin

Gardiner, Barry

McNulty, Tony

George, Bruce (Walsall S)

MacShane, Denis

Gerrard, Neil

Mactaggart, Fiona

Gibson, Dr Ian

McWalter, Tony

Gilroy, Mrs Linda

McWilliam, John

Godsiff, Roger

Mallaber, Judy

Goggins, Paul

Marsden, Gordon (Blackpool S)

Gordon, Mrs Eileen

Marsden, Paul (Shrewsbury)

Griffiths, Jane (Reading E)

Marshall, David (Shettleston)

Griffiths, Win (Bridgend)

Marshall, Jim (Leicester S)

Grocott, Bruce

Marshall-Andrews, Robert

Grogan, John

Maxton, John

Hall, Mike (Weaver Vale)

Meacher, Rt Hon Michael

Hamilton, Fabian (Leeds NE)

Meale, Alan

Hanson, David

Merron, Gillian

Heal, Mrs Sylvia

Michie Bill (Shef'ld Heeley)

Healey, John

Mitchell, Austin

Hendersor, Ivan (Harwich)

Moffatt, Laura

Hepburn Stephen

Mountford, Kali

Heppell, John

Hesford, Stephen

Murphy, Denis (Wansbeck)

Hewitt, Ms Patricia

Naysmith, Dr Doug

Hill, Keith

O'Brien, Mike (N Warks)

Hinchliffe, David

Olner, Bill

Hoey, Kate

O'Neill, Martin

Hope, Phil

Palmer, Dr Nick

Hopkins, Kelvin

Pearson, Ian

Howells, Dr Kim

Pendry, Tom

Hoyle, Lindsay

Perham, Ms Linda

Hughes, Kevin (Doncaster N)

Pickthall, Colin

Humble, Mrs Joan

Pike, Peter L

Hurst, Alan

Plaskitt, James

1144

Pond, Chris

Sutcliffe, Gerry

Pope, Greg

Taylor, Rt Hon Mrs Ann (Dewsbury)

Pound, Stephen

Prentice, Ms Bridget (Lewisham E)

Taylor, David (NW Leics)

Prentice, Gordon (Pendle)

Temple-Morris, Peter

Primarolo, Dawn

Thomas, Gareth (Clwyd W)

Prosser, Gwyn

Thomas, Gareth R (Harrow W)

Purchase, Ken

Timms, Stephen

Quinn, Lawrie

Todd, Mark

Radice, Rt Hon Giles

Touhig, Don

Rapson, Syd

Trickett, Jon

Raynsford, Nick

Truswell, Paul

Reed, Andrew (Loughborough)

Turner, Dennis (Wolverh'ton SE)

Rooker, Rt Hon Jeff

Turner, Dr Desmond (Kemptown)

Rooney, Terry

Turner, Dr George (NW Norfolk)

Ross, Ernie (Dundee W)

Turner, Neil (Wigan)

Ruddock, Joan

Twigg, Derek (Halton)

Russell, Ms Christine (Chester)

Twigg, Stephen (Enfield)

Ryan, Ms Joan

Tynan, Bill

Salter, Martin

Vis, Dr Rudi

Savidge, Malcolm

Ward, Ms Claire

Sawford, Phil

Wareing, Robert N

Sedgemore, Brian

Watts, David

Simpson, Alan (Nottingham S)

White, Brian

Singh, Marsha

Whitehead, Dr Alan

Skinner, Dennis

Wicks, Malcolm

Smith, Rt Hon Andrew (Oxford E)

Williams, Rt Hon Alan (Swansea W)

Smith, Angela (Basildon)

Smith, Jacqui (Redditch)

Williams, Alan W (E Carmarthen)

Smith, Llew (Blaenau Gwent)

Wilson, Brian

Snape, Peter

Winnick, David

Soley, Clive

Winterton, Ms Rosie (Doncaster C)

Southworth, Ms Helen

Wise, Audrey

Spellar, John

Woodward, Shaun

Steinberg, Gerry

Woolas, Phil

Stevenson, George

Worthington, Tony

Stewart, Ian (Eccles)

Wray, James

Stinchcombe, Paul

Wright, Anthony D (Gt Yarmouth)

Stoate, Dr Howard

Wyatt, Derek

Strang, Rt Hon Dr Gavin

Tellers for the Ayes:

Stringer, Graham

Mr. Clive Betts and

Stuart, Ms Gisela

Mr. Graham Allen.

NOES

Ainsworth, Peter (E Surrey)

Cotter, Brian

Amess, David

Cran, James

Arbuthnot, Rt Hon James

Davey, Edward (Kingston)

Atkinson, David (Bour'mth E)

Davies, Quentin (Grantham)

Atkinson, Peter (Hexham)

Dorrell, Rt Hon Stephen

Baker, Norman

Duncan, Alan

Baldry, Tony

Duncan Smith, Iain

Ballard, Jackie

Evans, Nigel

Beresford, Sir Paul

Faber, David

Blunt, Crispin

Fabricant, Michael

Boswell, Tim

Fallon, Michael

Bottomley, Peter (Worthing W)

Fearn, Ronnie

Bottomley, Rt Hon Mrs Virginia

Forth, Rt Hon Eric

Brady, Graham

Foster, Don (Bath)

Brazier, Julian

Fraser, Christopher

Breed, Colin

Gale, Roger

Brooke, Rt Hon Peter

Garnier, Edward

Browning, Mrs Angela

George, Andrew (St Ives)

Bruce, Ian (S Dorset)

Gibb, Nick

Burnett, John

Gill, Christopher

Burns, Simon

Gray, James

Butterfill, John

Green, Damian

Campbell, Rt Hon Menzies (NE Fife)

Greenway, John

Gummer, Rt Hon John

Cash, William

Hamilton, Rt Hon Sir Archie

Chapman, Sir Sydney (Chipping Barnet)

Hammond, Philip

Hawkins, Nick

Chope, Christopher

Hayes, John

Clappison, James

Heald, Oliver

Clifton-Brown, Geoffrey

Heath, David (Somerton & Frome)

Collins, Tim

Hogg, Rt Hon Douglas

1145

Horam, John

Rendel, David

Howarth, Gerald (Aldershot)

Robathan, Andrew

Hughes, Simon (Southward N)

Robertson, Laurence

Hunter, Andrew

Roe, Mrs Marion (Broxbourne)

Jackson, Robert (Wantage)

Ruffley, David

Jenkin, Bernard

Russell, Bob (Colchester)

Key, Robert

St Aubyn, Nick

King, Rt Hon Tom (Bridgwater)

Sanders, Adrian

Lait, Mrs Jacqui

Sayeed, Jonathan

Lansley, Andrew

Shepherd, Richard

Leigh, Edward

Simpson, Keith (Mid-Norfolk)

Letwin, Oliver

Spicer, Sir Michael

Lewis, Dr Julian (New Forest E)

Spring, Richard

Lidington, David

Stanley, Rt Hon Sir John

Lilley, Rt Hon Peter

Stunell, Andrew

Lloyd, Rt Hon Sir Peter (Fareham)

Swayne, Desmond

Loughton, Tim

Syms, Robert

Luff, Peter

Tapsell, Sir Peter

Lyell, Rt Hon Sir Nicholas

Taylor, Ian (Esher & Walton)

MacGregor, Rt Hon John

Taylor, John M (Solihull)

McIntosh, Miss Anne

Thomas, Simon (Ceredigion)

McLoughlin, Patrick

Townend, John

Malins, Humfrey

Trend, Michael

Mates, Michael

Tyrie, Andrew

Maude, Rt Hon Francis

Viggers, Peter

Mawhinney, Rt Hon Sir Brian

Waterson, Nigel

May, Mrs Theresa

Webb, Steve

Michie, Mrs Ray (Argyll & Bute)

Whitney, Sir Raymond

Moore, Michael

Whittingdale, John

Nicholls, Patrick

Widdecombe, Rt Hon Miss Ann

Norman, Archie

Wilkinson, John

Oaten, Mark

Willis, Phil

O'Brien, Stephen (Eddisbury)

Winterton, Mrs Ann (Congleton)

Ottaway, Richard

Winterton, Nicholas (Macclesfield

Paterson, Owen

Young, Rt Hon Sir George

Pickles, Eric

Prior, David

Tellers for the Noes:

Randall, John

Mr. Peter Ainsworth and

Redwood, Rt Hon John

Mr. James Arbuthnot

Question accordingly agreed to.
Resolved,
That the Order of the House of 20th January be supplemented as follows:

LORDS AMENDMENTS
1. Proceedings on Consideration of Lords Amendments shall be completed at today's sitting and, if not previously concluded, shall be brought to a conclusion two hours after the commencement of proceedings on this Order.
2.—(1) This paragraph applies for the purpose of bringing proceedings to a conclusion in accordance with paragraph 1.
(2) The Speaker shall first put forthwith any Question which has been proposed from the Chair and not yet decided.
(3) If that Question is for the amendment of a Lords Amendment, the Speaker shall then put forthwith—

(a) a single Question on any further Amendments of the Lords Amendment moved by a Minister of the Crown, and

(b) the Question on any Motion made by a Minister of the Crown, That this House agrees or disagrees with the Lords in their Amendment or (as the case may be) in their Amendment as amended.

(4) The Speaker shall then put forthwith

(a) a single Question on any Amendments moved by a Minister of the Crown to a Lords Amendment and

(b) the Question on any Motion made by a Minister of the Crown, That this House agrees or disagrees with the Lords in the Amendment or (as the case may be) in their Amendment as amended.

(5) The Speaker shall then put forthwith the Question on any Motion made by a Minister of the Crown, That this House disagrees with the Lords in a Lords Amendment.
(6) The Speaker shall then put forthwith the Question, That this House agrees with the Lords in all the remaining Lords Amendments.
(7) As soon as the House has agreed or disagreed with the Lords in any of their Amendments, or disposed of an Amendment relevant to a Lords Amendment which has been disagreed to, the Speaker shall put forthwith a single Question on any Amendments moved by a Minister of the Crown relevant to the Lords Amendment.

SUBSEQUENT STAGES
3.—(1) The Speaker shall put forthwith the Question on any Motion made by a Minister of the Crown for the consideration forthwith of any further Message from the Lords on the Bill.
(2) The proceedings on any further Message from the Lords shall, if not previously concluded, be brought to a conclusion one hour after their commencement.
(3) Sub-paragraphs (4) to (7) apply for the purpose of bringing those proceedings to a conclusion.
(4) The Speaker shall first put forthwith any Question which has been proposed from the Chair and not yet decided.
(5) The Speaker shall then put forthwith the Question on any Motion made by a Minister of the Crown which is related to the Question already proposed from the Chair.
(6) The Speaker shall then put forthwith the Question on any Motion made by a Minister of the Crown on or relevant to any of the remaining items in the Lords Message.
(7) The Speaker shall then put forthwith the Question, That this House agrees with the Lords in all the remaining Lords Proposals.

Reasons Committee
4. The Speaker shall put forthwith the Question on any Motion made by a Minister of the Crown for the appointment, nomination and quorum of a Committee to draw up Reasons and the appointment of its Chairman.
5.—(1) A Committee appointed to draw up Reasons shall report before the conclusion of the sitting at which it is appointed.
(2) Proceedings in the Committee shall, if not previously brought to a conclusion, be brought to a conclusion 30 minutes after their commencement.
(3) For the purpose of bringing any proceedings to a conclusion in accordance with sub-paragraph (2) the Chairman shall—

(a) first put forthwith any Question which has been proposed from the Chair and not yet decided; and

(b) then put forthwith successively Questions on motions which may be made by a Minister of the Crown for assigning a Reason for disagreeing with the Lords in any of their Amendments.

(4) The proceedings of the Committee shall be reported without any further Question being put.

Miscellaneous
6. If the House is adjourned, or the sitting is suspended, before the expiry of the period at the end of which proceedings are to be brought to a conclusion under this Order, no notice shall be required of a Motion made at the next sitting by a Minister of the Crown for varying or supplementing the provisions of this Order.
7.—(1) In this paragraph "the proceedings" means proceedings on the Consideration of Lords Amendments, on any further Message from the Lords on the Bill, on the appointment and quorum of a Committee to draw up Reasons and the Report of such a Committee.
(2) Standing Order No. 15(1) (Exempted business) shall apply to the proceedings.
(3) The proceedings shall not be interrupted under any Standing Order relating to the sittings of the House.
(4) No dilatory Motion with respect to, or in the course of, the proceedings shall be made except by a Minister of the Crown; and the Question on any such Motion shall be put forthwith.
8. If proceedings on a Motion for the Adjournment of the House would, by virtue of Standing Order No. 24 (Adjournment on specific and urgent matter that should have urgent consideration), commence at a time when proceedings to which paragraph 7 applies are in progress, proceedings on the Motion shall be postponed to the conclusion of those proceedings.

Representation of the People Bill
Lords amendments considered.
Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Michael Lord): I must draw the House's attention to the fact that privilege is involved in Lords amendments Nos. 22, 24, 34 and 78, which are to be considered today. If the House agrees to any of these Lords amendments, I shall ensure that the appropriate entry is made in the Journal.

Clause 1

  NEW SYSTEM OF ELECTORAL REGISTRATION
  Lords amendment: No. 1, in page 2, line 23, after first ("a") insert ("qualifying")
  12.16 am
  The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. Mike O'Brien): I beg to move, That this House agrees with the Lords in the said amendment.
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: With this, it will be convenient to discuss Lords amendments Nos. 2 and 4.
  Mr. O'Brien: The amendment gives effect to a commitment that the Government made in another place to introduce amendments to ensure that those who have not been given leave to enter or remain in the United Kingdom should not be able to register and vote here. Rolling registration will make it easier for people to get on the electoral register. I am sure that the whole House will agree—Opposition Members made the point in earlier debates on the legislation—that it would be wrong if those who have not been given leave to enter this country were to try to take advantage of that by registering. This group of amendments will ensure that that does not happen, and ensure that those who have entered the country illegally may not register. I am sure that the House will agree that illegal entrants should not have the right to vote.
  Mr. Nigel Evans: This is a very important group of amendments. It is one of 12 groups of amendments, which we now have only 50 minutes to debate. That is a great shame—(Interruption.] It is fine for the Minister of State, the right hon. Member for Brent, South (Mr. Boateng), to try to make a joke about it, but the Bill is about the real crisis of democracy that is not outside this Parliament, but inside it.
  We are grateful that the Government have listened to the suggestion made, in Lords amendment No. 4, by Lord MacKay of Ardbrecknish. The suggestion deals with those who are commonly called asylum seekers. It is important that we should consider the legislation's full repercussions. Just now, the Minister rightly said that the overall thrust of the Bill is to make voting easier. We fully support the Government in that intention. However, in making voting easier, we want to ensure that only those who are eligible to vote are able to vote.
  Although we support the Government in encouraging those who are legally eligible to vote to register and take part in the democratic process, we shall have to consider how the legislation will work in bad times as well as in good. Some Labour Back Benchers will remember that

  1149
  Opposition Members made the same statement when the Government of Wales Act 1998 was being passed, but that we were shouted down. The Government said that everything would be okay and that there would be no problems once that legislation had been enacted. Now that it has been enacted, we see the problems. I wish that we had had the requisite foresight then, but that would have resulted from greater scrutiny and the Government listening more carefully to the arguments. I hope that they will do that on these amendments.
  My great fear about amendment No. 4 results from the fact that it has been grouped with the other amendments. The Electoral Commission was mentioned earlier and it will be discussed in the debates on the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Bill, which is to come before the House next week. The Government will consult the commission and it will become far easier for people to vote. I welcome that. Pilot schemes will examine mobile voting, weekend voting and earlier voting, and the Minister has issued a list in a written answer that appeared on 29 February. However, the details of the schemes have yet to be published.
  I hope that the Minister will be able to put meat on the bone of the list that he has already issued. Of the schemes, 16 deal with early voting, two deal with the extension of the hours of the poll and four deal with mobile polling facilities. People normally vote by going to a fixed polling and saying that they are who they claim they are. They may show a polling card and their name is crossed off. However, they do not have to show a card, and we have already agreed that we do not want to make that an obligation. However, we are not certain how much personation takes places in local, parliamentary, European, Welsh Assembly or Scottish Parliament elections. I hope that the Minister will reassure the House that proper research will take place into the problem of personation, particularly in regard to the areas where the pilot studies are being rolled out.
  The ease with which people are able to vote causes a problem with asylum seekers. [Interruption.] The Minister of State should not heckle, but should listen carefully to what I have to say. Perhaps we will then ensure that the Bill is properly scrutinised and improved. The right hon. Gentleman was not present at the Bill's earlier stages, so he will not know that many of our amendments were taken on and made in another place. The Bill has returned to the House and further improvements can be made to it.
  We know that, two years ago, 36,000 asylum seekers came into the country and that 71,000 came in last year. About 100,000 people are trying to claim asylum in this country. We seek assurances from the Government. The Minister says that people who are waiting to find out whether they have made a proper legal entry to this country will be able to vote, but until that point has been made clear they will not be able to register to vote. The Bill means that, with the local declaration of identity, people will be able to go to a registration officer and say that they live in a particular area. They may be homeless or of no fixed abode, but the Bill will make it easier for people to say that they have lived in an area without properly having to prove that they have done so. The Minister looks confused.
  Mr. Mike O'Brien: This debate began some time ago and I have listened to the hon. Gentleman with great care
  1150
  and with my pen poised to try to note one serious point that he has made about the amendment. So far, I have barely used my pen. What point is he trying to make?
  Mr. Evans: I suspect that that may be more a problem with the Minister than it is with me. Had I been out of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker, you would have told me. The Government have introduced one of the severest guillotines that I have seen in my eight years as a Member of the House. They want us to rattle through each of the 12 groups of amendments. The Minister knows that, in the 50 minutes remaining to us after the debate on the guillotine motion, we will not be able to debate the ninth group of amendments, dealing with the free delivery of election addresses at the mayoral elections; that was his intention, so it is pointless making bogus arguments. We shall not be denied the opportunity of debate. It is all right for the Government. They have the numbers on their side. They are abusing their large majority. They can always win the vote, but they will not deny the Opposition their voice when Opposition Members have something to say. Back Benchers are also being denied a say, and they should be alarmed by that.
  How many asylum seekers come from Commonwealth countries? Of the 100,000 who are awaiting adjudication, how many would be eligible to register should they be allowed to stay here? Registration officers will have to deal with many changes to the registration system. The rolling registers, which we back, will be expensive for local authorities. What resources will be made available in that respect? What guidance will registration officers be given on dealing with inquiries from people in this country who have not been given leave to stay? There may be a large number of such people. As I say, 100,000 are awaiting adjudication on their claim for asylum. What guidance will registration officers be given on how to determine whether people are eligible for inclusion on the register? There may be others who are not claiming asylum but who are here as Commonwealth citizens; they will not be eligible but will nevertheless ask to be registered.
  The local declaration is also important. Will each registration officer ask the person who comes to the town or city hall whether he or she is a bona fide British citizen, and what sort of proof of identity will the registration officer ask for? Those are important questions that need to be answered.
  We are extremely grateful that the Government have listened and for the amendments suggested in the other place by Lord MacKay. But we want to ensure that the legislation will be effective and that the registration officers have the tools to do the job.
  Mr. Simon Hughes: The amendments are sensible and we support them.
  Mr. Mike O'Brien: The hon. Member for Ribble Valley (Mr. Evans) said that he is pleased that the Government have listened. He said that the thrust of the Bill is to make voting easier, and that the Opposition fully support that. In view of the debate that we had earlier, I am pleased that he has decided that the Government listen and that he supports the general thrust of the Bill.
  The provisions will bite on all port applicants, overstayers, illegal immigrants and those with no leave to remain in the United Kingdom. Asylum seekers with

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  leave to remain and who are Commonwealth citizens may well be in a different category. We will have to do the calculation to let the hon. Gentleman know how many asylum seekers there are from Commonwealth countries.
  12.30 am
  Mr. Evans: Is the Minister saying that the Commonwealth citizens on the list of 100,000 who are waiting for adjudication will be able to vote in general elections?
  Mr. O'Brien: There are obviously people who have come here lawfully, who may have good reasons for being here and who have, quite properly, been granted the right to enter, and who may then, for their own reasons, have decided to apply for refugee status. That puts them in a somewhat different category. They have the right to be here in the first place. If they are Commonwealth citizens, they may well be in a different category from those who have entered illegally, for example.
  The hon. Gentleman asked about guidance for electoral registration officers. We will certainly discuss with them what guidance they will need in order to determine some of the issues, but we do not anticipate that issues such as local connection will create much controversy.
  Lords amendment agreed to.
  Lords amendment No. 2 agreed to.
  Lords amendment: No. 3, in page 2, line 44, at end insert—
  ("(ii) compliance with any prescribed requirements; and")
  Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House agrees with the Lords in the said amendment.—[Mr. Mike O'Brien.]
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: With this it will be convenient to discuss Lords amendments Nos. 5, 6, 8 to 11, 13, 40, 44 to 51, 53 to 55, 59, 61 to 65, 69 to 73, 75, 76 and 86.
  Mr. Nick Hawkins: Although these are described on the amendment paper as minor and drafting amendments, I ask the Minister to consider some points carefully, because some of the amendments add substantially to the text of the legislation. Some of them have been discussed in another place. I refer hon. Members who have not looked at the Lords Hansard to the number of occasions on which the Minister, Lord Bassam of Brighton, had to concede ground both to Liberal Democrat Lords and to my noble Friend Lord MacKay of Ardbrecknish.
  It is clear that the Government have been in a terrible mess over this legislation and have been trying to rush, in the past few days, to get it into order in the other place. That is why we have such a huge group of amendments to correct mistakes that were made earlier. We shall come later to even more substantive amendments that the Government finally accepted in another place.
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  Lords amendment No. 69 refers to matters that need to be proved. What advice has the Minister been given by his officials on the standard of proof? The amendment is to insert a new section 180A, which says:
  The certificate of a registration officer that any person is or is not, or was or was not at any particular time, duly registered in one of the officer's registers in respect of any address shall be sufficient evidence of the facts stated in it; and a document purporting to be such a certificate shall be received in evidence and presumed to be such a certificate unless the contrary is proved.
  In certain circumstances, that could be an important matter. Will the standard of proof for the contrary being proved be the civil standard, on the balance of probabilities, or the criminal standard, beyond a reasonable doubt? I am sure that officials will advise the Minister about that. I rather presume that it is likely to be the civil standard, but these are important matters relating to the certificates of registration officers and I hope for an answer.
  Mr. John Hayes: What background information do we have about the nature of proof that will be required and the definition of sufficient evidence?
  Mr. Hawkins: My hon. Friend is right to query that point, because the amendment is so recent and has been brought forward at such a late stage—I referred earlier during the debate on the guillotine motion to the fact that the other place was considering amendments to the Bill as recently as Monday—that we have no background information. That is why I am asking the Minister to respond. My hon. Friend is on to a good point because the provision is potentially draconian, in that it says that the certificate of the registration officer will be conclusive.
  Lords amendments Nos. 71 and 73 delete the words "the principal Act". Will the Minister confirm whether that corrects a mistake in the original drafting? I do not believe that those words appear anywhere else in the Bill, but I would like the Minister to shed light on what the "principal Act" was.
  Lords amendment No. 76 deletes the word "time" and I hope that the Minister will shed light on why that deletion has been made. The original words of the 1983 Act, mentioned in schedule 3(4) of the Bill, referred to
  the time, place and manner of its publication.
  Why will only "place and manner" be left in the Bill?
  Lords amendments Nos. 8 to 11 deal with the position of patients in mental hospitals and prisoners on remand. It has been accepted by the Home Affairs Committee, on which I served, and by the Government's review, chaired by the hon. Member for Knowsley, South (Mr. O'Hara) and which led to the introduction of the Bill, that the provisions for both those categories should be revised. Those issues received much debate in the House and in the other place. My hon. Friend the Member for Ribble Valley pointed out that the amendments have been rushed through at the very last minute, and we fear that the Government will have to come back to the House and amend the legislation yet again.
  There have been so many amendments relating to previous mental health legislation and legislation on remand prisoners that I wonder whether the Minister is certain that the Government have finally got it right.

  1153
  Are they confident that the legislation is in the correct form in respect of the amendments needed to previous legislation on those issues? When I practised at the Bar, I dealt with several cases connected with mental health issues. Of course, all practising lawyers in the criminal law have been concerned about the rights of remand prisoners, so I simply want the Minister to reassure us that we will not find that the last-minute rush will lead to more confusion that will need to be corrected.
  It struck me as an extraordinary irony that amendment No. 6 contains the words
  page 4, line 13, after 1984, insert.
  The guillotine proceedings tonight have been yet another example of how this has become a truly Orwellian Labour Government, in which a word means what they want it to mean. The Government specialise in newspeak, so it struck me as ironic and appropriate that Government amendment No. 6 refers to things happening after 1984. It is precisely because Conservative Members worry so much about the Government's Big Brother style that we wish to query so many matters.
  Mr. Mike O'Brien: I am saddened by that attitude. The hon. Member for Ribble Valley (Mr. Evans) clearly said that the Government were listening, but the hon. Member for Surrey Heath (Mr. Hawkins) went on about matters Orwellian, saying that the Government are in mess because they have made concessions and have not got their act together. Throughout the debate on the Bill, the Government have shown that we are prepared to listen to sensible points. The hon. Member for Surrey Heath has just presented himself as the king of yah-boo-sucks politics, which does not give the debate the credit and the importance that it deserves.
  Some of the matters that have been raised are quite technical, so I shall deal first with amendments Nos. 8 and 9, which bring clauses 4 and 5 within the scope of the provisions for the registration of mental patients and remand prisoners. Those provisions are thereby brought into line with new section 7C, which is inserted by clause 6.
  The amendments will make entitlement to be registered for a 12-month period explicit on the face of the Bill, whereas that entitlement was to have been included in regulations. In the course of our deliberations, Conservative Members have asked for matters to be included on the face of the Bill, the Government have listened to the points that have been made and have sought to respond. The hon. Member for Ribble Valley acknowledged that, and I welcome his approach. However, I think that the yah-boo-sucks politics exhibited by the hon. Member for Surrey Heath does the House no credit.
  Amendments Nos. 11 and 45 also clarify that the word "residence", in this context, needs to be construed in accordance with new section 4. As to whether the Government consider that we have got the matter right, I can tell the House that we would not have brought it forward if we did not think that we had.
  Amendment No. 69 provides for the evidential effect of a registration officer's certificate that a person was, or was not, registered at a particular time. The hon. Member for Surrey Heath asked about the standard of proof, but we are dealing with a simple, factual statement by a registration officer. How that statement is used will
  1154
  determine the standard of proof that is required. Therefore, if the statement were to be used in a civil case, the standard of proof will be the civil standard. If it were used in a criminal case, the situation could be different if a prosecution were under way. Matters would then have to be proved to the normal standard of proof. That is fairly straightforward.
  Amendment No. 71 is necessary because provisions relating to the registration of overseas voters are now contained solely in the Representation of the People Act 1985. Amendments Nos. 72 and 73 are consequential on amendment No. 62, as they remove provisions relating to the effect of section 49 from new sections 2 and 3 of the 1985 Act.
  The hon. Member for Surrey Heath asked about the principal Act. The proposals relate to matters arising from the 1985 Act.
  Mr. Hawkins: What about amendments Nos. 76 and 65?
  Mr. O'Brien: I apologise for omitting those amendments. Amendments Nos. 76 and 65 remove the requirement that regulations should cover the time at which a register is published. That is already dealt with elsewhere in the Bill, so the amendments are merely technical to remove the requirement to deal with that matter in regulations.
  I hope that the hon. Member for Surrey Heath will consider that my remarks have clarified those technical but no doubt relevant issues.
  Lords amendment agreed to.
  Lords amendments Nos. 4 to 6 agreed to.

Clause 3

  RESIDENCE FOR PURPOSES OF REGISTRATION
  Lords amendment: No. 7, in page 5, line 32, at end insert—
  ("() Subsection (3) above shall apply in relation to a person's absence by reason of his attendance on a course provided by an educational institution as it applies in relation to a person's absence in the performance of any duty such as is mentioned in that subsection.")
  12.45 am
  Mr. Evans: I beg to move, That this House agrees with the Lords in the said amendment.
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: With this, it will be convenient to discuss Lords amendments Nos. 43, 77, 82 to 85 and 87.
  Mr. Evans: Yet again, the thrust of the amendment is to encourage more people to vote. I hope that the Minister will correct me if my interpretation of what the amendments seek to do is wrong. In my estimation, they would encourage more young people at universities and colleges to register to vote, perhaps even registering in two places. They would give them the opportunity to use a proxy or a postal vote, whereas in the past they may have found that difficult or impossible to do.
  I totally support the idea of students having postal votes. There is a burgeoning student population. We have a problem getting young voters to register, and once they have, getting them to vote is another problem. Anything that we can do to encourage that must be good.

  1155
  I have more of a problem with the proxy aspect of the amendments. I think that the Government were concerned about making it easier for people to have proxy votes as opposed to postal votes. Will the Minister explain why they have adopted this approach? In the other place, Lord MacKay made a suggestion that will go a long way towards dealing with the problem of personation where proxy votes are concerned. Personation can happen when it is known that someone who intended to vote has moved away, or that he never intended to vote. The suggestion is that, if electors ask for a proxy vote, they are notified three days later that a proxy has been awarded in their name.
  The Government said that they would consider this idea, but nothing seems to have happened. I should be grateful if the Minister would say something about it. If he thinks that it is still worth considering, perhaps he could look at it again.
  Mr. Simon Hughes: The amendments correct an omission that was spotted when we were considering the Bill. They would allow those who are away on educational courses to be registered at their normal place of residence. They are sensible amendments.
  I should like to flag up the question of dual registration. It is not before us for consideration, I understand, because there was no agreement in the working party. However, concern was expressed, and I should like to use this opportunity to express the hope that, as soon as this measure reaches the statute book, we will reconvene a working party with cross-party representation. In that way, we will not be rushing to catch up with necessary electoral concerns, but can immediately pick up concerns that are more difficult or need more time or that people have raised since the working party began.
  The working party was a very useful institution. Rather than having it constituted on an ad hoc basis, it would be better to have it as a more permanent institution, and one slightly less formal than the Speaker's Conference suggested by the right hon. Member for Bridgwater (Mr. King). Not only would we then have a rolling register; we would have a rolling review of electoral law, and that would be useful.
  Mr. Mike O'Brien: I shall deal first with the point raised by the hon. Member for Southwark, North and Bermondsey (Mr. Hughes). He proposes having an on-going working party or similar group because there are always relevant issues to be raised. I can see merits in that for dealing with dual registration, and I will certainly consider his point. However, he knows of the difficulty of getting parliamentary time to legislate and, given the difficulties with this Bill, I would not at the moment encourage my colleagues to support the idea of an annual electoral procedures Bill.
  Amendments Nos. 7 and 77 and part of amendment No. 85 owe their origin to my hon. Friend the Member for North-East Derbyshire (Mr. Barnes). He asked that the provisions be introduced, and we have considered the issues and introduced them. They are designed to rectify an anomaly to which my hon. Friend drew our attention when the Bill was first brought before the House. Students now routinely obtain absent votes, even though, strictly
  1156
  speaking, the law does not include attendance at an educational establishment as one of the grounds on which absent votes may be granted.
  We should, of course, be doing everything that we can to enable that group of electors to vote and one way to do so is to allow students who are studying at an establishment some distance from their parental home to vote by proxy. Normally, we know where the student's home is, so some of the dangers of proxy votes that the hon. Member for Ribble Valley (Mr. Evans) identified, which we continue to be concerned about, are not present in this case.
  The amendments clarify the point that students are entitled to apply for absent votes and do not in any way relax the proxy vote regime. We agreed to the amendment tabled by Lord MacKay of Ardbrecknish, and we can consider the issues raised by him when we make regulations.
  Amendments Nos. 43, 82 to 85 and 87 are in many ways technical, and, as points were not made about them, I will not describe their effect.
  Lords amendment agreed to.
  Lords amendments Nos. 8 to 11 agreed to.

Clause 6

  NOTIONAL RESIDENCE DECLARATIONS OF LOCAL CONNECTION
  Lords amendment: No. 12, in page 8, line 43, at end insert—
  ("( ) Where a declaration of local connection made by a homeless person is delivered to the registration officer concerned during the period—

  (a) beginning with the date when a vacancy occurs—

  (i) in the seat for the parliamentary constituency within which the required address falls, or

  (ii) in the seat for any Scottish Parliament constituency or National Assembly for Wales constituency within which it falls, and

  (b) ending on the final nomination day (within the meaning of section 13B below) for the parliamentary by—election, or (as the case may be) the election under section 9 of the Scotland Act 1998 or section 8 of the Government of Wales Act 1998, held in respect of that vacancy,

  the declaration must state that, during the period of three months ending on the date of the declaration, the declarant has commonly been spending a substantial part of his time (whether during the day or at night) at, or near, the required address.")

  Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House agrees with the Lords in the said amendment.—[Mr. Mike O'Brien.]
  Mr. Evans: We are pleased that the Government have at least listened to us a little, because we raised the issue several times during the proceedings on the Bill, and it was raised several times in the other place.
  We would have preferred the Government to go further with the amendment, so we have gone into great detail about why we feel that the system needed more checks to deal with what we referred to colloquially as the Swampy factor. I am sure that it has been called many other things. We did not want the Swampy factor to take hold. I echo my earlier remark that we must consider how this legislation will work at bad times as well as good. Giving it the benefit of the doubt will not prove to be effective when things start to go wrong.

  1157
  Once a vacancy occurs through a by-election, whether because someone dies or stands down, a local declaration of connection provision might be abused. The Government's amendment will probably put a quarter of a check on that possibility. It will allow a homeless person to state that he or she has lived in an area for three months or more. It was suggested several times in the other place that there should be proof of that.
  There are no identification cards, but someone making a declaration of local connection should be able to come forward with some documentation. We were flexible in our suggestions about particular documents. We appreciate that many homeless people simply will not have a driver's licence or passport, but the Minister might have looked more generously on a more flexible arrangement such as a letter from the police, a social worker or someone involved in a charity to say that the person concerned was known to them. As it is, homeless people simply have to make the declaration that they have been in the area for three months or more, and that may have to be accepted.
  Mr. Hayes: I do not want to interrupt my hon. Friend's flow but, in suggesting that the matter is considered again, will he pay particular attention to the difference between travelling and homeless people? Homeless people might be "resident" in an area, have a legitimate and proper interest in its affairs and wish to participate in elections, whereas people travelling through for whatever reason—legitimately or otherwise—may have a much less profound reason and legitimacy in taking part in an election. That is an important distinction, which needs to be drawn out.
  Mr. Evans: I am grateful to my hon. Friend. We all want—this is why we have supported the local declaration of connection—to ensure that homeless people, who normally do not, like others, have a voice in Westminster through an elected Member, are not denied the opportunity to vote in elections. We are considering people legitimately making local declarations. We want to ensure the integrity of the system; we do not want it debased in any shape or form.
  I hear what my hon. Friend says about people travelling through an area, although, if a vacancy occurs, someone who is doing so could not go to the town or city hall to claim a connection for three months or more. That is covered; I believe that that is the Minister's quarter check. The problem arises when someone who is travelling through an area makes a declaration, but no proof of its truth is needed. They may merely state that they have been resident for three months or more, and that is that.
  I turn to something a little more sinister: the Swampy factor. We have an example of where the provisions might go cruelly wrong if we do not ensure that proper checks are made: a by-election in a marginal seat, where protesters want to make their feelings known. We are talking about people who feel equipped to go out to sea in rough conditions when they want to board a ship to make a protest, who climb trees to make a protest and live there for weeks, if not months, and who dig holes in the ground to stop developments—direct action. My goodness, it is a doddle for such people to turn up at a town or city hall to claim a local connection once a vacancy has occurred. As my hon. Friend the Member for Surrey Heath (Mr. Hawkins) said, what proof will electoral registration officers look for?
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  We need look no further than the Scottish Parliament by-election in Ayr, where the previous majority was 25. If everybody voted in the same way again, only a small group of people would have to make the declaration. All sorts of people might be interested in doing so to sway the election.
  Therefore, I ask the Minister to consider the matter again. He has obviously felt that there has been a problem, otherwise the amendment would not be before us. If he does not address the problem now, how would he do so after the Bill's enactment? A small group of people moving into the area could make a difference in a general election as well.
  Will the Minister comment on whether the amendment addresses local as well as parliamentary elections? I ask that because, at times, including in 1997, a general election and local elections have been held on the same day. If the amendments deal with only one type of election, could people be enfranchised for one type of election, but not another, once the vacancies have been announced?
  1 am
  Mr. David Heath: I shall speak briefly. As the Minister knows, we support the declaration of local connection as a suitable vehicle.
  I do not entirely buy some of the arguments advanced by the hon. Member for Ribble Valley (Mr. Evans). For example, I do not accept the notion of a peripatetic platoon of homeless people who are prepared to make a nuisance of themselves in any by-election; nor do I accept the generalisation that those who are involved in environmental protests are prospective perjurers.
  Mr. Evans: Does the hon. Gentleman not believe that we should introduce legislation that contains as few loopholes as possible? He is talking about protesters who feel free to break the law in pursuit of direct action, so why does he believe that they would not break the law in another respect?
  Mr. Heath: If the hon. Gentleman had waited for me to finish my remarks, he would have heard me say that I agree that there is a basic problem that needs to be addressed. However, I do not accept the generalisation that people who care passionately about environmental issues are necessarily likely to perjure themselves.
  There is a weakness in the Bill relating to the period when a vacancy has arisen. People might make declarations and affect the result of an election. As a Member of Parliament with a majority of 130, I am conscious of the effect that a relatively small number of people moving from place to place might have. The amendment contains almost the weakest possible safeguard against that eventuality, so I wonder whether serious consideration was given to a prohibition on addition during the period of a vacancy. That might have been a safer course to adopt.
  I accept that the amendment represents a move in the direction of those who have expressed concern. We must monitor the operation of the provision carefully—indeed, we must constantly review our electoral arrangements to identify what does and does not work.
  Mr. Mike O'Brien: The hon. Member for Ribble Valley (Mr. Evans) has expressed his fears about the

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  Swampy factor. I do not object to people voting because they want to protest about an environmental issue, such as a road or other development that causes them concern. If they can establish lawfully and properly a local connection, they should be able to vote and express their view. That is democracy and we accept that people have a right to disagree with us. The fact that we may passionately disagree with their views does not mean that they should not have the right to vote.
  The hon. Gentleman suggests, however, that the provisions allowing registration by means of a declaration of local connection could be abused by those who might travel to an area during a by-election solely for the purpose of voting in that by-election and in the absence of any local connection. I think that he overstates the fears, but we acknowledge that they have a basis, so we have considered the notion of a group of politically motivated protesters who, on hearing of a by-election in an area in which they are not resident, travel to that area and become residents by way of a declaration of local connection. We believe that that is an unlikely scenario, but the potential for abuse exists, so we have sought a way in which to close off the possibility.
  The amendment would overcome the potential problem by requiring those who register by means of a declaration of local connection during a period when a by-election is pending to confirm that they have had that connection with the address that they have supplied for registration purposes for the three months prior to the date on which the declaration is signed.
  A homeless person who has been living in the area concerned for the requisite time, but who has not got round to registering, will be able to register, as he should indeed be able to do. Carpetbaggers, if I may so describe them—the term has already been used—will not be able to make the required declaration. To take the point made by the hon. Member for South Holland and The Deepings (Mr. Hayes), they are just passing through, so they would not comply with the conditions.
  It is usually obvious that a convoy of new age travellers has moved into the area. The electoral registration officer would become aware that they had arrived. If that occurred in the course of a by-election, it may well raise suspicions in his mind and he may take extra steps to ensure that those people had complied properly with the law. Paragraph 17 of schedule 1 makes it clear that making a false statement in a declaration of local connection is a criminal offence that can be punished with a fine of up to £5,000.
  We have safeguards in place. I do not believe that the concerns are as great as the hon. Gentleman suggests, but we have covered the serious issues that he presented to the House.
  Mr. Evans: I thank the Minister. Our suggestion still holds good. We do not want to stop anyone who has a legitimate right to vote. However, the Minister conceded that there was some basis for our fear, particularly in seats such as Ayr, where the majority is 25.
  Once the vacancy is announced, no one should be allowed to register to vote. With rolling registers, people can register at any time. That is the beauty of the system. Although there may be a possibility of one or two people
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  being prevented from voting legitimately, many other people who would try to vote illegitimately would be prevented from doing so.
  Mr. O'Brien: I hear what the hon. Gentleman says. The point that he raised—the Swampy factor, as he called it—is a possibility, but it is unlikely. Because it is a possibility, we have closed it off and dealt with the hon. Gentleman's concern.
  Lords amendment agreed to.
  Lords amendment No. 13 agreed to.

Clause 9

  RESTRICTION ON SUPPLY OF INFORMATION CONTAINED IN REGISTER
  Lords amendment: No. 14, in page 10, line 32, leave out ("both the full register and the edited register may") and insert
  ("the full register and the edited register may each")
  Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House agrees with the Lords in the said amendment.—[Mr. Mike O'Brien.]
  Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Michael J. Martin): With this, it will be convenient to discuss Lords amendments Nos. 15 to 19.
  Mr. Hawkins: The importance of the amendments reinforces the argument that my right hon. and hon. Friends and I advanced in the debate on the guillotine motion. We are just starting the fifth group of amendments, and our protests about the inadequate time allowed have been amply borne out.
  This group deals with one of the most important issues, which was raised extensively on Second Reading and in Committee, and again in another place. It led to a lengthy debate, with a number of amendments being moved as recently as Monday of this week in another place.
  The concerns that I raised in Committee—at that time, from the Back Benches—have still not been properly addressed. We are waiting to hear from the Government about the progress of their consultation with industry about the commercial use of the electoral register, and what representations have been made. As my hon. Friend the Member for Ryedale (Mr. Greenway) said in Committee, mixed messages have been given throughout the Committee stage and in all the statements made by Ministers in this House and in another place. We await a code of practice. For a long time, we have been asking the Government to introduce regulations under clause 9. They have been promised since Second Reading. Our anxieties about the difference between the full register and the edited version cover such important issues as battered wives—
  It being two hours after the commencement of proceedings on the supplemental allocation of time motion, MR. DEPUTY SPEAKER put the Question already proposed from the Chair, pursuant to Order [this day].
  Lords amendment agreed to.
  MR. DEPUTY SPEAKER then put the remaining Questions required to be put at that hour.
  Lords amendments Nos. 15 to 87 agreed to [some with Special Entry].
  Mr. Hawkins: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. The Government have conunitted a scandalous abuse of power in trying to deny the House the opportunity to debate the—
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. The House has decided on those matters, and I must move on.

  Minimum Wage (Scotland)
  Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Mike Hall.]
  1.11 am
  Mr. Ian Davidson: I want to speak about the implementation of the national minimum wage in Scotland. The minimum wage will rank as one of the great achievements of the Labour Government. However, I come to speak not about its merits but about its implementation. While it is true that, in the past, the majority of employers paid wages that were above the present national minimum rate, and that now a majority of employers who previously paid low wages now abide by their legal responsibilities and pay that rate, there remain a minority of rogue employers. Many vulnerable employees and potential employees need our help and protection.
  It is too soon for a full analysis of the scale of the problems, but we can get a glimpse of them. Citizens Advice Scotland has collected information on cases from some of its bureaux. That information raises several worrying issues. The trawl by Citizens Advice Scotland is not scientific or complete, but it gives a valuable insight, which I want to share with the Minister and the Department. I hope that it will lead to action in the not-too-distant future.
  The information that I cite is from a special briefing that is based on cases from individual citizens advice bureaux in the past year. I believe that it will lead us to agree that the Government need to undertake an information campaign on the national minimum wage to tell citizens about their rights, specify who is entitled, explain the levels, and ensure that bad employers are deterred from malpractice.
  The trawl gives an idea of the sort of people who have faced difficulties, and the Government might consider aiming any information campaign at them. Approximately two thirds of those who have approached the citizens advice bureaux are women. That shows not only that women have traditionally been paid less than men, but that they have been in jobs that are more vulnerable to exploitation.
  The profile of clients by age also highlights the fact that a disproportionately large number of people aged between 18 and 21 have come forward. They comprise approximately 17 per cent. of those who go to citizens advice bureaux to discuss the national minimum wage. That is a much higher proportion than the 4.7 per cent. of the population that that age group makes up. It is therefore important to target any information campaign at young people.
  When we consider the sort of jobs that people do, it is noticeable that the largest category of employment about which complaints have been made is hairdressing. I have some sympathy with the hairdressing industry, as it is not likely to get rich off me. I bear the industry no grudge because of that. I am sure that many good employers provide excellent wages and first-class training for their employees, but clearly there are problems and I believe that young people and women workers in that industry ought to be targeted.
  I draw the Minister's attention to other industries that were highlighted by those who presented themselves to bureaux: 13 per cent. referred to the retail industry,

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  9 per cent. to catering and bar work, 8 per cent. to farming and fishing, 6 per cent. each to hotel, cleaning and security guard work, 5 per cent. to care assistant work and 4 per cent. each to taxi work, nannying and nursery nursing. Those figures show that 82 per cent. of those who presented themselves came from a relatively small number of industries—most of us could have identified them beforehand as being from ones in which difficulties were most likely to arise—and emphasise where we need to campaign.
  I want to raise with the Minister a number of issues arising specifically from the citizens advice bureaux trawl. The bureaux identified a number of employers who were failing to pay employees the national minimum wage, to which they were entitled. A 32-year-old client of a north of Scotland CAB was being paid £2.20 an hour—£1.40 below the minimum wage—for working as a nanny. An 18-year-old client of an east of Scotland bureau being paid £2.50 an hour approached his employer about increasing his wage in line with the national minimum wage. The employer simply refused. An 18-year-old client of a west of Scotland bureau working in a nursery approached her employer about the national minimum wage and the employer assured her that the law did not apply to privately run nurseries.
  Individuals in those circumstances lack information and many are vulnerable. A significant number of CAB clients were aware that they were entitled to a higher rate of pay under the new legislation, but they were either dismissed or threatened with dismissal when they tried to negotiate with their employers. A south of Scotland bureau reported that a 22-year-old client was paid £3 an hour. He approached his employer about increasing his pay in line with the minimum wage, but the employer said that he could leave "if he didn't like it." A client of a south of Scotland bureau aged over 22 was dismissed when she asked her employer about increasing her wage in line with the national minimum wage and, to return to hairdressing, an east of Scotland bureau reported that a fully qualified hairdresser aged over 22 was being paid only £2 an hour, which is £1.60 below the minimum wage.
  We need to ensure that information is provided as a great deal of confusion remains—among young workers in particular—about the age at which they qualify for the minimum wage, the conditions that have to be met before they qualify and when they qualify for the £3.20 and £3.60 rates. The fact that that confusion exists is borne out by the cases that are coming forward.
  A north of Scotland CAB reported that an 18-year-old hairdressing apprentice was being paid £1.84 an hour—she wanted to know when she would be entitled to a higher rate under the new legislation—and an 18-year-old client of a north of Scotland CAB being paid £3.30 as an informal trainee wanted to know when he should receive the minimum rate. To be fair to hairdressers, a client who owned a salon went into a north of Scotland bureau to obtain information about the rates that should be paid to staff.
  I am sure that the Minister understands those points about information, but 1 want to touch on abuses. In a number of situations an employee has been redefined as an apprentice or a trainee so that the employer does not have to pay the full rate of the national minimum wage.
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  A 37-year-old client with 18 years experience of bar work was told that she was being paid only £3.26 an hour because she is on a trainee wage for six months. Six months' training was not mentioned when she was recruited and appointed to her present post. A west of Scotland CAB reported that an 18-year-old hairdresser, along with all the other employees of that age, had been asked by her employer to sign a contract classing them as apprentices. If they did so, they would sign away their rights to a higher rate on the national minimum wage. An east of Scotland CAB reported that a man over 50 had been taken on as a labourer on a trial basis. After he had worked 18 hours, he was told that he was unsuitable, paid the equivalent of £1.85 an hour, and when it was queried, the employer said that he did not have to pay the national minimum wage to someone under training.
  There is a whole host of such examples that show the difficulties that are presently being experienced by some of our most vulnerable people in work. We need a publicity campaign on the national minimum wage to inform the public of the new legislation and of their rights. We need enforcement, and if necessary we should name and shame bad employers. I am sure that that policy would be agreed by the vast majority of my parliamentary colleagues. I am particularly glad that this issue has been taken up by my hon. Friend the Member for Hamilton, South (Mr. Tynan), who is present this evening.
  The national minimum wage has been the Labour Government's great achievement. We must do as much as we can to ensure that everyone gets the benefit of it. I look forward to hearing the Minister's agreement.
  1.21 am
  The Minister of State, Scotland Office (Mr. Brian Wilson): I am delighted to speak about the national minimum wage as it applies in Scotland. As my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow, Pollok (Mr. Davidson) has recognised, it is overwhelmingly a good news story. It is historic legislation, and has benefited about 100,000 workers in Scotland. More than 1.5 million people in the United Kingdom are entitled to receive the national minimum wage.
  I join my hon. Friend in paying tribute to the citizens advice bureaux for collecting the information and for gathering the cases on which action should be taken. I fully endorse the sentiment, which was central to his speech, that the more information we have and the more publicity the national minimum wage receives, the more people will benefit from it.
  I shall give some statistics to put the issue in context. I acknowledge that there is a great deal of activity to ensure that the minimum wage is enforced, and to make people aware of their rights. Since February 1999, 155,000 calls have been taken by the national minimum wage telephone helpline across the United Kingdom. There have been more than 4,000 complaints of underpayment since April 1999, 312 of which have been in Scotland.
  Out of the 3,300 visits by national minimum wage inspectors in the United Kingdom to employers who are suspected of underpaying, 294 have been made to employers in Scotland. As a result of those 294 visits, eight enforcement notices have been issued, out of 100 that have been issued UK-wide. Those eight enforcement notices issued in Scotland are only the tip of

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  a significant iceberg. In the vast majority of cases, it is possible to secure compliance by negotiation and by bringing the terms of the national minimum wage legislation to the attention of employers.
  There is a significant pattern of activity in response to the cases that my hon. Friend has mentioned. They are being researched and properly drawn to our attention by the citizens advice bureaux and other organisations. Let me say publicly that the more information we have, the more we can do to ensure that every worker who is entitled to benefit from the national minimum wage can do so. I urge CABs, Members of Parliament, local authorities and anyone who has contact with working people in low-paid occupations to ensure that they are aware of the terms of the legislation, and that they can add to the number of companies—which I have given—that are due to be investigated, and in regard to which, where appropriate, legislation must be enforced.
  The national minimum wage is about social justice and fairness. It is about ending the exploitation of workers. I personally believe, and I think every Labour Member believes, that it is one of the historic achievements of this Labour Government. In his speech celebrating the Labour party's 100th birthday, the Prime Minister identified it as one of the party's four most significant achievements, along with the vote, the national health service and universal education.
  The establishment of a national minimum wage has been talked about for most of those 100 years, but it took this Labour Government to deliver it. I think most people who understand the issue recognise that, while the level of the wage is open to discussion and dispute—and can be increased, as is now happening—it is the principle that is of historic significance, and that has been delivered by this Labour Government with no help from any other quarter of the House.
  I welcome the opportunity to debate the benefits that the national minimum wage legislation has brought to low-paid workers, and to business throughout Scotland. It is now generally acknowledged that the minimum wage has been successfully introduced, and has brought substantial benefits to some 100,000 workers and their families. We are talking not just about employees, but about households. The minimum wage has been particularly important to women and part-time workers; and, contrary to the scare stories that we heard from Conservative Members before the general election, its introduction was achieved without the imposition of undue burdens on business, or an adverse impact on employment or the economy as a whole. Rogues have been brought to heel, to the benefit of employers who were already paying decent wages.
  Both employers and workers have adjusted well to the introduction of the minimum wage. Small businesses have been most affected, but have managed the transition most successfully. Peter Agar, deputy director-general of the CBI, recently described the minimum wage as a model of how to introduce new regulations.
  With the national minimum wage and our in-work benefit reforms, we now have the means to eradicate the worst excesses of low pay, and thereby to provide greater decency in the workplace. We are doing that in a way that ensures that there are the jobs necessary to provide the wages in the first place. Indeed, jobs are being created—especially in the service sector, to which my hon. Friend
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  referred and in which the national minimum wage has the greatest impact. Unemployment is falling, and pay settlements are remaining moderate.
  Estimates show that since the introduction of the minimum wage, employment in Scotland has increased by some 23,000, or 1 per cent. Since the March-May quarter, Scotland's employment performance in percentage terms has been better than that of the United Kingdom as a whole: in the UK, employment has increased by 0.8 per cent. over the same period.
  Together with the Government's reforms of tax and benefit arrangements, the national minimum wage forms the cornerstone of our police to make work pay. It is also part of our commitment to a modern knowledge-based economy that promotes competitiveness through the introduction of minimum standards in the workplace. By setting a floor below which pay must not fall, the minimum wage prevents unscrupulous employers from paying poverty wages as a means to undercut their competitors in terms of price.
  Paying very low wages is obviously a shortsighted policy, which is seldom, if ever, successful in the long term. Poverty pay inevitably leads to high staff turnover, high absenteeism, poorly trained staff, low productivity, dissatisfied customers and cancelled orders. That is a recipe for despair, which poverty pay represents, Those are very good reasons, among others, for introducing a national minimum wage.
  Evidence of the widespread support for the national minimum wage can be found in the most surprising quarters. When in government, the Opposition, who, disappointingly, are unrepresented in the Chamber tonight, frequently claimed that the introduction of a minimum wage would lead to the destruction of 2 million jobs. It was fantasy, but it is not long ago that they were making such claims.
  It is now 11 months since the minimum wage was introduced. With increasing employment, as opposed to the increasing unemployment that the Opposition predicted, where are those siren voices now? As we heard recently, they have belatedly joined the bandwagon, agreeing that the minimum wage has had no adverse impact.
  I always said that the real significance of the national minimum wage would be to introduce the minimum standard—the floor under what people could be paid: the decency wage—and that, once it was there, no Government, even the hardest-faced Tory Government, would ever dare reverse the minimum wage legislation. That is why it will be regarded as one of the landmark pieces of legislation introduced by the Labour Government. It cannot be reversed because it is patently socially just.
  As my hon. Friend will appreciate, we have decided to increase the main national minimum wage to £3.70 per hour in October and the young workers' rate to £3.20 in June. Those increases were recommended in the first report of the Low Pay Commission, alongside its recommendations for the initial rates. Remember the importance of the commission. The minimum wage is not something that the Government set and decide on internally. We rely heavily on the commission's advice. It confirmed its belief that the necessary conditions exist for the increase to be introduced. The Government agree with that assessment.

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  The economy continues to work extremely well and we have managed to hold down inflation. The new adult rate provides fairness in terms of retaining the value of the minimum wage. However, we are exercising some caution in making the change to the adult workers' rate in October, rather than June, crucially allowing business plenty of time to adjust. The increase for young workers aged 18 to 21 has been known about for some two years and will go ahead in June.
  Beyond those increases, we have made no decisions about future changes to the minimum wage rates. What we have done is to ask the commission to continue monitoring the minimum wage and to produce a further report by July 2001. The new report will include the commission's view on whether there is a case for further increasing the minimum wage and, if so, by how much. Any further decisions will be taken in the light of its report, taking account of the prevailing economic circumstances. Both the Government and the commission have said from the outset that that is a better approach than any form of automatic annual uprating mechanism.
  The commission said that the Inland Revenue's national minimum wage inspectors are operating successfully. The Government wholeheartedly endorse that view, not least in Scotland. Just how effectively the inspectors are working is perhaps best illustrated by a recent well-publicised case involving a group of Thai workers at an electronics company in Greenock. The case came to light following a letter to the Department of Trade and Industry from my hon. Friend the Member for Greenock and Inverclyde (Dr. Godman), who drew attention to what was going on at that workplace.
  Minimum wage inspectors ensured that the employer, who is based in Thailand, paid the £12,000 arrears of wages owed to those workers. That has been done following a tribunal case, which received a fair and welcome amount of publicity. That is all to the good. We want employers to know that our inspectors mean business.
  The inspectors' influence clearly extends far beyond our shores. That was an important case, involving different subsidiaries of a large international company. Its resolution sends out a powerful message to employers and to the low paid—that there is no hiding place for an employer who acts unlawfully and fails to pay the national minimum wage to its workers. All workers in Scotland and in the rest of the United Kingdom are entitled to the minimum wage, even if they are overseas workers working here for an overseas company. I hope that that is one of the messages that will come out of this debate.
  It is very important—I know that my hon. Friend the Member for Pollok and others will help to draw attention to it—that employees in low-paid industries, whether they are manufacturing or service industries, should be aware of the national minimum wage telephone helpline. The helpline provides practical advice in the application of the minimum wage, and it is a focal point for complaints of underpayment.
  The Inland Revenue's inspectors have already followed up 320 complaints in Scotland and, as I said, issued eight enforcement notices there. The figures for the United Kingdom are 4,000 and 100 respectively. Scotland is certainly not at the top of the league in non-compliance.
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  We should take some satisfaction from the negative fact that non-compliance with the minimum wage in other parts of the United Kingdom is more extensive.
  The figures are important: 320 complaints, almost 300 visits by national minimum wage inspectors and eight enforcement notices. It is vital that we should realise that, although inspectors have recovered in formal action against employers more than £750,000 in underpayments to United Kingdom workers, that is only the tip of the iceberg. Many low-paid workers receive the correct money after a simple inquiry to the helpline without any formal action. We cannot, of course, calculate how much is involved.
  A debate such as this one, initiated by my hon. Friend the Member for Pollok, serves the purpose of sending out to low-paid workers the very strong message that, if they are not receiving the national minimum wage, they should telephone the helpline, and that that will lead to implementation of the legislation. As I said, there is no hiding place from the national minimum wage, and—case by case, and telephone call by telephone call—we are tracking down those employers who continue, quite irrationally and improperly, to offend against the national minimum wage legislation. We are forcing them to pay up.
  Our publicity campaigns, in spring and autumn 1999, have significantly raised the level of awareness of the minimum wage and resulted in many workers being paid their statutory entitlement. Prevention is better than cure. As I said, I hope that the message going out today is that we are very serious about ensuring that every employee who is entitled to the national minimum wage receives it.
  Independent surveys, including those undertaken by Reed Personnel Services and Incomes Data Services, indicate that implementation has been remarkably successful and that most employers agree with the policy and are compliant. That is an important point. When we talk about the rogue employers—those whom my hon. Friend referred to as delinquent in this matter—we are talking about a very small minority. The vast majority of employers, and all sensible employers, recognise that the national minimum wage is a good provision which works in their interests as well as those of those whom they employ.
  There is little or no evidence of higher costs feeding into higher prices, and there have been few signs of any demands for the restoration of pay differentials. The surveys also found little evidence of any negative employment effect. In the past year, staff levels in smaller firms have increased by 11 per cent., and staff turnover has decreased in traditionally low-paying industries, with little evidence of significant job losses.
  Even the British Chambers of Commerce survey, which was reported to have found extensive adverse effects, showed that almost 80 per cent. of all respondents thought that the current rates of the national minimum wage were about right. Adair Turner, when he was director general of the Confederation of British Industry, said that the national minimum wage had been set at a prudent level that avoided pricing workers out of jobs. The CBI is also on record as finding little evidence of any negative impact on inflation.

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  The national minimum wage legislation is a piece of legislation in which all Labour Members can take pride and satisfaction. It is working well and it is being implemented and enforced. Rogue employers are being brought to heel and every case that is reported to us is thoroughly investigated. The minimum wage is enforced as a result. All that is a cause for satisfaction.
  My hon. Friend rightly drew attention to some occupations in which the national minimum wage is particularly necessary and in which additional enforcement measures are still needed. I assure him that, as a result of this debate, I will make sure that any case
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  from those sectors that is drawn to our attention is investigated and that enforcement is carried out as necessary.
  In Scotland, we recognise that, on the ground of social justice, the legislation was necessary in those areas of the economy that were subject to low pay. It is welcome as an excellent piece of Labour legislation of which we can all be proud.
  Question put and agreed to.
  Adjourned accordingly at nineteen minutes to Two o'clock.