Commons Sitting of 7 May 2002

Preamble
The House met at half-past Two o'clock

PRAYERS
[MR. SPEAKER in the Chair]
3.30 pm

Oral Answers to Questions
  HEALTH
  The Secretary of State was asked—
  HEALTH

    NHS Trusts
    Mr. James Plaskitt: What changes he plans to make to the system for auditing spending by NHS trusts. [52772]
    The Secretary of State for Health (Mr. Alan Milburn): All NHS trusts are currently subject to an annual external audit of their financial statements by independent auditors appointed by the Audit Commission. That will not change, although a new commission for health care audit and inspection will be created from the current functions performed by the Commission for Health Improvement, the value-for-money studies of the Audit Commission and the private sector health care work of the National Care Standards Commission. I expect the new commission to be in place, so that it can audit NHS performance, by 2003–04.
    Mr. Plaskitt: How will my right hon. Friend strike the right balance between ensuring that everyone who uses
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    NHS services can see the benefits of increased investment, and not impeding professional choice or adding unnecessary bureaucratic burdens?
    Mr. Milburn: As my hon. Friend suggests, if people are putting more money into the national health service, it is important that they see what they are getting out of it. The truth is that, at the moment, we have a fairly bureaucratic and fragmented system of inspection. That system has evolved in the past few years, but because it is fragmented it weakens inspection. We have an opportunity to combine in a new, strengthened system the integrity and independence of all the various organisations that contribute to regulation not just of the NHS but of the private sector. That system will make the issue of where the money goes and how performance is improving much more transparent to the public.
    Mrs. Marion Roe: Does the Secretary of State accept that Mrs. Drew, a constituent of mine, would welcome a thorough audit as soon as possible of the spending of Barnet and Chase Farm Hospitals NHS trust? On 19 April, she was interviewed by the oncology department consultant in the hospital's new unit, which was opened in February. Unfortunately, she was informed that she has cancer; she was also told that she must be treated at North Middlesex hospital, in Edmonton. Although the new unit at Chase Farm is fully equipped to provide her treatment, there is no funding, and North Middlesex hospital is the only alternative to provide her six-month treatment. When such mismanagement is revealed, how can she have faith in the Government's claim that they are providing services for patients?
    Mr. Milburn: I have every sympathy with the plight of the hon. Lady's constituent, and if she cares to write to me, I shall look into the matter. However, she might be aware of the horns of the dilemma that she and her hon. Friends now face. She says that she wants more investment, but she voted against it a fortnight ago.

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    She cannot have her cake and eat it. Does the national health service need more investment, or not? Our answer is yes; what is hers?
    Dr. Howard Stoate: My right hon. Friend will know that the vast majority of hospitals have excellent accounting arrangements and offer exceptional value for money for the NHS system. Some, however, have been unable to meet the Government's strict requirements, and have had to be franchised. How is the franchising process progressing, and when will the Dartford and Gravesham acute trust, in particular, receive some news on when the process is likely to be completed?
    Mr. Milburn: My hon. Friend is aware of the good work being carried out in his local hospital, as well as some past problems with its management and organisation. As he says, a franchising process is under way, and I hope to finalise it before too long. In all parts of the national health service, it is very important that, where there are persistent problems with performance, poor management and lack of organisation, they be dealt with. Every part of the NHS deserves the best management because, as he knows, good management makes a huge difference.
    Sir Teddy Taylor: Does the Secretary of State agree that it is unfortunate that, although the audits tell us that money is being properly and legally spent, they offer no guidance on issues of policy? For example, how much extra does the provision of agency nurses, rather than ordinary ones, cost the health service? How much does the existence of hospices save the health service, given that 72 per cent. of the money comes from voluntary donations? Given that the NHS is not a profit-making organisation but a public body, should not the audit provide wider interpretations of what is happening, where money is being spent, how it could be saved, and the ways in which it has not been saved?
    Mr. Milburn: That is precisely the idea behind our proposed new audit arrangements. Obviously, the new commission for health care audit and inspection will require legislation, and that will be a matter for debate in the House. The idea is that, for the first time, one organisation will be responsible for examining clinical standards throughout the health service; for considering performance issues, which my hon. Friend the Member for Dartford (Dr. Stoate) rightly described as important; and for considering where NHS money is actually spent—the issue that the hon. Gentleman raises. The public, who put money into the national health service, will therefore know where it is going and the results that accrue from it.
    Paddy Tipping: Does the Secretary of State accept that any strengthened and reformed audit system should look at strengths as well as weaknesses? Will the new system be used to promote success, using the staff and the trusts that develop good and modern practices?
    Mr. Milburn: My hon. Friend makes an important point. He knows as well as I do of the many examples of good practice in the NHS. Part of the function of the existing Audit Commission and Commission for Health
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    Improvement, to which I pay tribute today, has been to highlight good practice as well as poor practice, so that others can learn from that. That will also be part of the new commission's function. We need to ensure that all parts of the NHS, and every patient, have high standards of treatment and care, and that taxpayers are assured that they are getting a good deal from the extra money going to the NHS.

    Cottage Hospitals
    Michael Fabricant: If he will make a statement on the future of cottage hospitals. [52773]
    The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health (Ms Hazel Blears): Cottage hospitals continue to make an important contribution to the delivery of the NHS plan by providing care closer to home. We expect them to be key players in meeting our target of introducing an additional 5,000 intermediate care beds by 2004.
    Michael Fabricant: I am grateful for the Minister's answer, which is typically feisty in support of cottage hospitals. The 5,000 beds may make a small dent in the 50,000 care home beds that have been lost since the Government came to power. The Minister will know that the future of the cottage hospital in Burntwood is in considerable doubt. Indeed, I wrote to the Minister of State on 24 January on that point, but he still has not replied to me. As for Lichfield, the Minister will know that on 15 May the Burntwood, Lichfield and Tamworth primary care trust will recommend the building of a new hospital in Lichfield. Will that new hospital be funded by a private finance initiative, which the local people and the primary care trust do not want?
    Ms Blears: As the hon. Gentleman knows, extensive local discussion has taken place about re-providing excellent facilities for his constituents. The proposals are for a new community hospital with 52 in-patient beds, rehabilitation facilities, out-patient, diagnostics and X-ray equipment, a pharmacy, a minor injuries unit, a renal satellite dialysis unit and, I hope, a maternity unit—all under Labour. The hon. Gentleman asks whether the hospital will be funded by a PFI or by traditional procurement. He wants the money and the investment, so I am pleased that on his website he said that the Budget was good for the NHS. If that is the case, why did he not vote for it?
    Jim Knight: My hon. Friend will be pleased to know that the future of the cottage hospital in Swanage is secured, following the opening of a day surgery unit there in the past 12 months. However, the lack of decent, affordable public transport for patients and visitors—especially from rural areas—to that hospital remains a problem. What steps are her Department and others taking to improve that situation?
    Ms Blears: My hon. Friend is right. Providing care closer to home means that patients and their families need to be able to reach facilities as quickly as possible. We have a project that is examining transport across the board to see how we can get people to out-patient and diagnostic appointments. Perhaps we need a revolution, with

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    consultants going to the patients rather than it always being the other way round. My hon. Friend makes an important point and we are on the case.
    Mrs. Ann Winterton: I support the case put forward by my hon. Friend the Member for Lichfield (Michael Fabricant) for cottage hospitals and their funding. Is the Minister aware that the Congleton and District War Memorial hospital was funded by subscriptions from people who paid a penny a week from their wages, that we have fought closure on more than one occasion, that the services at that much valued local facility have changed over the years and that local people want it to continue? Will she give her support to the health authority for the hospital to continue to provide services for all local people?
    Ms Blears: I am delighted that the hon. Lady's constituents treasure and value that hospital, which is part of their NHS. It is important that we have a wide variety of services, including acute trusts and local cottage hospitals. As the NHS develops, so the role of cottage hospitals will become more important in providing recuperative care, day surgery facilities and a range of new ways of delivering services. That is why the new investment is important, together with the reforms, so that the hospitals continue to have a vibrant role to play. I am not aware of the specific details about Congleton, but I shall respond to the hon. Lady in writing. However, she must recognise that for her hospital to be maintained, she has to approve the extra investment going into the service.

    Mental Health Services (Birmingham)
    Lynne Jones: If he will make a statement about funding for child and adolescent mental health services in Birmingham. [52774]
    The Minister of State, Department of Health (Jacqui Smith): In the past three years, we have invested some £85 million across the national health service and local authorities for child and adolescent mental health services.
    Birmingham has received significant investment for those services during that time and has been allocated £549,000 from the West Midlands modernisation fund to develop an acute assessment unit due to open later this year.
    Lynne Jones: May I thank my hon. Friend for the substantial increase in the resources that are now coming through for this vital service for children? Does she agree that it is not just funding that is a constraint but the desperate shortage of psychiatrists and other therapists? Furthermore, as my inquiries into the service provided by the Children's Trust in Birmingham seem to indicate, management is poor and protocols inconsistent. When the Commission for Health Improvement visits the trust in the near future, will my hon. Friend ask it to pay particular attention to those matters, especially in relation to the suspension of one consultant psychiatrist? She was able to manage her work load and keep waiting lists down so that the children did not languish on waiting lists for up to two years, as is the case for children in my
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    constituency. Might I add that that is not the first suspension by the Children's Trust that has caused me concern?
    Jacqui Smith: I agree that we need to address the issue in several ways. My hon. Friend is right to say that there is a challenge in recruiting and retaining the skilled staff that we need to provide child and adolescent mental health services. There is also a challenge, as she suggested, particularly in Birmingham, in managing resources effectively. Work is under way to build on the four new primary care trusts as localities for delivering child and adolescent mental health services.
    Finally, we must also consider other examples. Solihull, near my hon. Friend's constituency, is reorganising the way in which it offers child and adolescent mental health services and considering in particular tier one, early intervention and ways in which other professionals can be used to help support children and families who have mental health problems. In that way, we can deliver a better service for my hon. Friend's constituents and throughout the country.
    Sir Michael Spicer: What are the plans for the provision of secure units in Birmingham and elsewhere for severely mentally disabled and ill people, many of whom end up, quite wrongly, in prison?
    Jacqui Smith: As I suggested in my first answer, the regional specialist commissioning group has allocated £549,000 from the West Midlands specialist modernisation fund to develop an acute assessment unit at the Park View clinic in Moseley, Birmingham, which is due to open later this year. I agree with the hon. Gentleman that, with young offenders, it is also important to ensure better joint working between youth offending teams and the child and adolescent mental health services. In addition, we are investing in mental health services in prisons and for young offenders so that they receive the treatment that they need when in prison in a way that has not happened previously.
    Fiona Mactaggart: Does the Minister also recognise that many young people with mental health problems never reach the health service? Often, in constituencies like mine, their problems arise from traumatic experiences overseas from which they have fled, and they report their concerns in schools. What work is my hon. Friend doing with the education service to ensure proper care for children and adolescents with mental health problems such as those?
    Jacqui Smith: My hon. Friend makes an important point. It is crucial that we work across the agencies in a better way than we have done previously. First, we shall include in the national health service framework for children work on standards to improve child and adolescent mental health services. We have recently worked with colleagues in the Department for Education and Skills on promoting mental health in early years and school settings. We are working with it on its programme on improving behaviour. In addition, we are funding, and will continue to fund, innovation projects that look particularly at how to get professionals such as health visitors, teachers and primary care workers working

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    together earlier so that we prevent the escalation of some of the mental health problems that my hon. Friend has outlined.
    Mr. Oliver Heald: In Birmingham, child psychiatrists do not have the nurses that they need—they are able to treat only emergencies. The waiting time for seeing a patient on the list is 18 months. At a time when the Department for Education and Skills and the Home Office are making announcements about the problem of disaffected youngsters, will the Minister explain what the Department of Health is doing about adolescents and children with mental health problems? Given that children and adolescents form 20 per cent. of the population, why does only 5 per cent. of the mental health budget go to services for them? Why do places such as Birmingham spend so much less than elsewhere? Is it not time that the Government dealt with the problem of child and adolescent mental health instead of cutting the money as they did last year? Last year, £10 million allocated for mental health was chopped out of the budget and sent off to other priorities. Is it not time that those services were given the priority that they deserve?
    Jacqui Smith: In fact, the out-turn figures for 2001 suggest that, for child and adolescent mental health services, Birmingham was the second highest spending authority in the west midlands. Of course, the authority was able to spend that money because of the extra £85 million invested in child and adolescent mental health services by the Government. This year, there are plans to increase services in Birmingham: better services for 16 to 18-year-olds and better services for early intervention, so that the whole of Birmingham is covered. Once again, Opposition Members are willing to whinge about money, but they are not willing to vote for it.

    Adoption
    Ms Meg Munn: What his policy is on extending the right to adopt to unmarried couples; and if he will make a statement on the technical and practical problems in incorporating such a right into the Adoption and Children Bill. [52775]
    The Secretary of State for Health (Mr. Alan Milburn): The Government's objective is to increase the number of children who have the opportunity, through adoption, to grow up as part of a loving, stable and permanent family. On Second Reading of the Adoption and Children Bill, I told the House that I believed that there should be a debate on adoption by unmarried couples. Since then, there has been a wide-ranging debate and during the passage of the Bill we have received many representations on the issue.
    I understand that, last week, my hon. Friend the Member for Wakefield (Mr. Hinchliffe) tabled amendments to the Bill to allow, for the first time, unmarried couples to apply—as couples—to adopt children. Given the different views on the issue on both sides of the House, and after carefully considering the representations that we received, the Government have decided to make consideration of my hon. Friend's amendments subject to a free vote in this place. Should
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    they be passed, it is my intention to table further amendments in the other place to deal with any legal and technical implications.
    Ms Munn: I thank my right hon. Friend for his answer. I am delighted to hear that the issue will be subject to a free vote. The proposal has support on both sides of the House and is likely to increase the number of adopters for the many children in care who need permanent families. Should the amendments be accepted—as I hope they will be—will my right hon. Friend ensure that there is a rigorous process so that the needs of the child are always paramount, rather than the needs or wishes of the adopters?
    Mr. Milburn: I very much agree with my hon. Friend's assessment. Indeed, it is important that we understand, when considering the issue and the amendments—which I personally support—that they are simply about widening the pool of potential adoptive parents so that more vulnerable children, rather than being stuck in the care system, have the chance of the stable family life that adoption can bring. If the amendments are passed, it will be for adoption agencies and, ultimately, the courts to decide who is suitable to adopt. No one has a right to adopt. There is a rigorous assessment process and it would not change if the amendments were passed. Indeed, under one of the amendments tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Wakefield, a couple wanting to become adoptive parents will have to prove not only that they can provide a loving family environment but also that they have formed a long-term, stable relationship. In the end, that assessment process will not be a matter for politicians—still less for Parliament—to determine; it will be for the courts to decide what is in the best interests of the child.
    Dr. Evan Harris: The Secretary of State will know that the new clause tabled in my name and in the names of many colleagues on both sides of the House is similar to the newly tabled amendments of the hon. Member for Wakefield (Mr. Hinchliffe). I welcome a free vote as progress on the Government not giving their view on the matter. British Agencies for Adoption and Fostering, which represents a coalition of relevant bodies in the interests of children, also recognises that concession. Having said that, does the Secretary of State agree that it is unfortunate that he has not been able to give full Government support for something that he accepts is in the best interests of children and provides for equality in this area? Liberal Democrats look forward to a time when there will be an opportunity to expand the number of people who can adopt children into suitable homes.
    Mr. Milburn: I am grateful—at least I think I am—for the hon. Gentleman's support. Let us remember that, during the passage of the Bill, we established a Special Standing Committee to look in depth at those issues and to take evidence from a variety of quarters. What the hon. Gentleman recognises, and what I recognise, is that there are many different views on this issue. Given the

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    sensitivities of the issue and the fact that there are many different views, it seems appropriate to have a free vote as the right way forward.
    Mr. David Hinchliffe: May I welcome my right hon. Friend's statement today and thank him and the Minister of State for listening to the representations made from both sides of the House on this issue? Does he accept that the welfare principle—the duty to secure the best interests of the child—has been at the heart of the success of the Children Act 1989? Does he agree that our difficulty with the Adoption and Children Bill as drafted is that children's best interests would not be secured if those interests would be furthered by their being adopted by an unmarried couple?
    Mr. Milburn: I agree with my hon. Friend's remarks. I am grateful to him for his consistent support on the issue and for the help that he has given to many organisations in taking forward their views on it. There is a simple principle here: it is not about extending the right to adopt to anybody, but about extending the right of more children to be adopted. Surely, if we can do that, and if we can make it easier for more children to be adopted, to form part of a stable, loving family environment, that is precisely the right thing to do. I hope that right hon. and hon. Members on both sides of the House will feel able to lend their support to the amendments tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Wakefield.
    Mr. Gary Streeter: The whole House will acknowledge that we should congratulate all adults who step forward wishing to adopt children, which must be a better option than the alternatives. In saying—rightly so—that the interests of the child are paramount, will the Secretary of State confirm that the stable, loving environment about which he talks must, in every situation, include a mother and a father? Will he confirm that that is the kind of stable couple that he has in mind?
    Mr. Milburn: The amendments tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Wakefield refer to two-sex couples and same-sex couples. He is aware that, under current adoption law, it is perfectly possible not just for married couples to adopt but for single people, regardless of their sexual orientation, to adopt. In the end, my view is that the question of who is suitable to adopt is a matter for the courts to determine.
    The fundamental principle that should always be uppermost in all our minds is whatever is in the best interests of the child. I do not believe that it is in the best interests of children to remain stuck in the care system. Despite the best efforts of foster carers or people working in local authorities or in the private or voluntary sector, far too many children do not get the best chance in life because they are stuck in the care system. It seems right and proper to me, at least, that we should make sure that not just some children but every child in our country has the best start in life. To do that, every child should have the opportunity of growing up in a stable family environment.
    Jonathan Shaw: We have only one opportunity in a generation to implement adoption law, and the last time was 1976. Children have waited too long, so it is vital that we get the legislation
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    right. We must also remember that 19 out of the 20 professional and voluntary agencies that gave evidence to the Special Standing Committee supported the amendments that I tabled in Committee and that have subsequently been tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Wakefield (Mr. Hinchliffe). May I also praise the Minister of State, Department of Health, my hon. Friend the Member for Redditch (Jacqui Smith), for her excellent work in taking the Bill through Committee?
    Can the Secretary of State give any indication when the Bill is likely to come back to the House? Agencies are keen to move on, and not least of them is Medway council, which was recently offered beacon status for its work on adoption. I am sure that my right hon. Friend will be keen to praise it, but can he give us a date for when the Bill will return to the House?
    Mr. Milburn: It will be for the business managers to agree when the Bill should come back to the House on Report. Obviously, the amendments will be dealt with then.
    My hon. Friend is right. Many representations on the issue have been made from inside and outside the House. Many Members on both sides of the House have signed an early-day motion, and Ministers have received many representations. The Special Standing Committee heard evidence from a variety of organisations and all right hon. and hon. Members have received letters supporting the general approach that will extend the pool of potential adoptive parents. Among them were organisations such as the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, Barnardos, NCH Action for Children, the National Children's Bureau, British Agencies for Adoption and Fostering, the Law Society and the Family Law Bar Association.
    Inevitably, there will be debates on this issue, and rightly so. It is a sensitive matter that we have a once-in-a-generation opportunity to get right. I hope that Members on both sides of the House will consider the amendments tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Wakefield and give them a fair wind.
    Rev. Martin Smyth: Given the House's concern for the well-being of children, we want to ensure that we get the legislation right. However, has the Secretary of State been made aware of recent figures that show that, when a child comes along, there is a higher degree of breakdown in relationships among people who cohabit? We must therefore be careful that children who have already suffered one trauma do not suffer another.
    Mr. Milburn: I understand that and the hon. Gentleman's views on the issue. I am also very familiar with the statistics. When the hon. Gentleman has an opportunity to consider the amendments tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Wakefield, he will see that they amend the Bill so that couples wishing to go forward as potential adoptive parents will have to demonstrate that they have formed an enduring, long-term relationship. However, that is not a matter for me or the hon. Gentleman to determine; it must be a matter for the courts to decide. If we can make it easier for more children to be adopted, that surely must be the right thing to do.

    Waiting Lists
    Mr. Henry Bellingham: How many people were waiting 13 weeks or more to see a consultant on (a) 31 March 2002 and (b) 31 March 1997. [52776]
    The Minister of State, Department of Health (Mr. John Hutton): On 31 March 1997, there were 247,488 patients waiting 13 weeks or more for a first out-patient appointment. The figures for 31 March 2002 will be published shortly.
    Mr. Bellingham: I am grateful to the Minister for that somewhat inadequate reply. Can he give me the figures for my local hospital, the Queen Elizabeth hospital in King's Lynn? Will he join me in congratulating all the staff at that hospital on the superb work that they do in serving the local community? They do an excellent job. However, is he aware that there are serious shortages of radiographers and radiologists, which means that people wait far too long for CAT and MRI scans? Serious nursing shortages are also building up, so what guarantees can he give my constituents that the extra money promised for the health service will solve local problems?
    Mr. Hutton: I certainly agree with the hon. Gentleman that it is important to keep the investment coming through to the national health service, but he and his hon. Friends have some explaining to do. They come here and talk about the need for extra investment but, when they are given the opportunity to vote for those resources to go the NHS, they vote against the increase. He should go away and rehearse his lines.
    I accept that, overall, patients wait too long for out-patient appointments. That is as true in the hon. Gentleman's hospital as it is in hospitals in my constituency. I am glad to say that after many years of both in-patient and out-patient figures rising, they are now coming down sharply. He will have to wait until later this month for the latest figures, however, and I hope that he will be encouraged by them. It is important that the investment keeps coming through. That is the way to tackle the capacity problems that are a result of 30 years of underinvestment in the NHS. We have a plan for doing that; he is opposed to it.
    Mr. Barry Sheerman: Will my right hon. Friend comment on the fact that there has been a marked improvement in waiting times to see consultants in my region of Yorkshire and Humber? However, as one talks to hospital administrators, it is emerging that one of the side effects of the Coleman recommendations on training and on the continuous training of surgeons is the significant and growing number of surgeons who are suspended. Will my right hon. Friend look into that to see whether it is a national problem, because there is real concern in the Yorkshire region about it?
    Mr. Hutton: I am not familiar with the problem that my hon. Friend raises. I will certainly look into it, however, and I am sure that he, like me, welcomes the progress on reducing waiting times in Yorkshire.
    Mr. John Redwood: The reason I voted against the tax on jobs was that I did not believe that the
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    money would get through to pay for the nurses, doctors and extra beds that we clearly need at the Royal Berkshire hospital in my area or, for that matter, anywhere else in the country with a similar problem. If the Minister wishes to change my mind, will he promise us that the number of nurses, doctors and extra beds that the Royal Berkshire says it needs will be met immediately from the new money, so that we can clear the waiting list? Does he agree that the waiting list is far too long and that people are waiting too long in pain? Is he not really saying that he has no intention of appointing those nurses and doctors in the foreseeable future?
    Mr. Hutton: I can only assume that the right hon. Gentleman is being ironic. He asks me to commit investment next year, but he and his right hon. and hon. Friends have just voted against such increases. He has no credibility in making that point in that way. I strongly believe that, in addition to the investment, we need to reform the way in which we organise and deliver health care, and that will be part of our approach. I honestly believe that the right hon. Gentleman needs to go away and think about his position more carefully than he has done since the Budget was published.
    Helen Jones: Does my right hon. Friend agree that more progress would be made in cutting waiting times if we ensured that consultants who are trained by the NHS and paid full-time by the NHS actually worked full-time for the service? What progress is being made on reforming consultants' contracts to ensure that that happens?
    Mr. Hutton: I agree that it is right to follow the principle that those who make the greatest commitment to the NHS should get the greatest reward. We published our proposals, as my hon. Friend will be aware, to reform key elements of consultants' contracts in February of last year. Those negotiations are under way. We are making good progress in general and I hope that they will he concluded in the near future.
    Tim Loughton: Do the figures that the Minister gave include the hidden waiting lists? Will he confirm the figure in the "Not the waiting list" report in The Sunday Times last weekend—that at least 250,000 people who are waiting for tests to determine the type of surgery or other treatment that they need are excluded from the Government's published figures? Does he think it legitimate for senior NHS executives to warn hospitals against "overstatement of waiting lists" and to order chief executives to keep certain people who are waiting for diagnostic tests off those lists? Given the National Audit Office exposé of hospitals fiddling waiting times last year and now this, why should anyone believe any figures produced by the right hon. Gentleman's Department?
    Mr. Hutton: The figures are reliable. The hon. Gentleman is doing a disservice to the NHS by claiming anything else. The figures that he relies on to make his point about access to diagnostic testing and so on are collected in the same way as his party collected figures when it left office in 1997. There has been no change whatsoever in the collection of that data.

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    The hon. Gentleman and I may agree on one thing, however: it is important that we increase access to important diagnostic treatments and, in particular, to therapeutic treatments. That is why the NHS cancer plan includes, for the first time, an important commitment to reduce the waiting time for treatment, and I hope that the hon. Gentleman will be able to support that.

    Cancelled Operations
    Mr. John Baron: How many cancelled operations there were in the last year. [52777]
    The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health (Yvette Cooper): In 2000–01, the last full year for which data are available, there were 77,818 operations cancelled by the hospital for non-clinical reasons when the patient was due to be admitted for treatment.
    Mr. Baron: I thank the Minister for that response. Given that there has been a 50 per cent. increase in the number of cancelled operations since 1997, what estimate have the Government made of both the cost to local government and the effect on council tax of their latest policy of fining councils for bed blocking in hospitals?
    Yvette Cooper: Clearly, too many people are having their operations cancelled, but the most recent quarterly figures show that the number of cancellations is dropping and progress is being made. It is right that social services departments support the reductions in NHS delayed discharges, and that is exactly why they are getting a substantial increase in their resources—way above the increases that they got under Conservative Governments.
    Mrs. Anne Campbell: Does my hon. Friend make the connection between delayed discharges, cancelled operations and the fact that, in my constituency, Conservative-controlled Cambridgeshire county council is still spending only 85 per cent. of its standard spending assessment on services for elderly people?
    Yvette Cooper: Obviously local councils that are not making the right decisions on delayed discharges will have to take responsibility for those decisions. That is why we are effecting reforms, as part of the Budget package. This is about investment and reform: investment that the Conservatives have decided to vote against, and reform that is essential to provide everyone with the incentive to improve NHS care.
    Mr. Peter Lilley: Does the Minister expect that when the Government have increased the proportion of national income spent on health in England to the levels already prevailing in France and Scotland, the number of cancelled operations, waiting lists and other indicators of health performance will have reached French levels or Scottish levels?
    Yvette Cooper: Waiting times and cancellations are already falling. Substantial improvements are already being made throughout the NHS as a result of the extra investment. The right hon. Gentleman really must join his party in making a decision on this. Do the Conservatives want the extra investment to go into the NHS to bring down waiting times and improve services for NHS
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    patients throughout the country, or not? They have said that they want to see the improvements, but they will not back the investment that we need.
    Dr. Phyllis Starkey: May I support the Minister's efforts to reduce delayed discharges as a way of reducing cancellations? I draw her attention to the single most effective measure that is being taken in Milton Keynes to deal with delayed discharges, which is a single social care assessment protocol agreed by social services and the NHS. May I urge her to try to make sure that a national social care assessment protocol is agreed, so that all social services and NHS personnel throughout the country can work more effectively to reduce delayed discharges?
    Yvette Cooper: Yes, and I can also say that considerable work is being done throughout the country to improve the co-ordination between social services and the NHS. That is part of a broader modernisation programme, including an £8.5 million programme by the modernisation agency to cut cancelled operations.
    Sandra Gidley: The Minister will be aware that if an operation is cancelled at the last minute, it should take place within a month, but for 21 per cent. of patients that does not happen. Is the Minister happy with that state of affairs? If not, what is she going to do about it?
    Yvette Cooper: That target was introduced on 1 April, and it will be addressed as part of the performance management framework throughout the NHS, including the work of strategic health authorities.
    Mr. David Kidney: Given South Staffordshire's success in reducing the number of cancelled operations and cutting waiting times for cataract operations by using modernisation fund money to establish a cataract surgical unit, will my hon. Friend support places such as South Staffordshire in establishing orthopaedic surgical units to enable similar success in cutting the number of cancelled operations and reducing waiting times for hip and other joint replacements?
    Yvette Cooper: My hon. Friend is right; changing the way in which services are provided can make a substantial difference, particularly in the separation of emergency care from elective care, which is exactly why we are supporting a substantial number of new diagnostic and treatment centres that are being developed and invested in across the country.
    Dr. Liam Fox: But those appalling figures for cancelled operations are not the whole story, are they? What does the Minister say to the trust which advises that
    "if there is doubt as to whether admissions can be accommodated the following day, the cancellation should occur the day before",
    as
    "this will enable the Trust to deliver our target of NIL same day cancellations"?

    15
    Ministers have already been caught fiddling waiting list figures; how many cancelled operations are being hidden by that disgraceful tactic?
    Yvette Cooper: The hon. Gentleman knows that that is nonsense. The figures have not been changed; the latest quarterly figures show that the number of cancellations is falling. It is important, however, that we carry on making progress. The hon. Gentleman has to decide whether he wants to support additional investment for the extra beds needed to bring the number of cancellations down; the extra capacity that is needed; and the extra doctors that are needed. Or does he want simply to carry on cutting, as the previous Administration did?
    Dr. Fox: Even by this Government's standards on evasive answers, that was fairly appalling. Let me give the Minister another problem and offer her a second chance. Given that bed blocking is one of the major causes of cancelled operations and that the Government's policy is to fine local authorities that have bed blocking in their areas, will she confirm not only that that will cost about £400 million, which will be passed on to the council tax payer, but that it will offer the ultimate perverse incentive? GPs in areas where there is bed blocking will realise that the best way to get patients into a local nursing home is to admit them to hospital, which will increase pressure on hospitals, worsen bed blocking and increase the number of cancelled operations. Will the Minister admit that that is the craziest of all the Government's insane policies on health, and will she stop doing damage now before it gets even worse?
    Yvette Cooper: No; clearly there is an issue about delayed discharges, but the proportion of older people waiting to be discharged has fallen in the past few years. Additional investment is going in, and it is right that it should continue to do so, which is why the Budget included proposals for an extra 6 per cent. in real terms for social services, compared with less than 0.5 per cent. under the Conservative Government. The hon. Gentleman has to explain how he expects councils to tackle the issue of delayed discharges with the level of funding provided by the Tories, who year after year managed less than 0.5 per cent., which is pathetic. The hon. Gentleman's party is unable to fund the NHS or social services.

    National Insurance
    Mr. David Amess: What estimate he has made of the cost to the NHS of the increase in national insurance contributions announced in the Budget. [52778]
    The Secretary of State for Health (Mr. Alan Milburn): I estimate that the changes to employers' national insurance contributions announced in the Budget will cost the NHS about £200 million in 2003–04.
    Mr. Amess: I still think that we will have to scrutinise that figure carefully. Will the Secretary of State provide an estimate of the increase in national insurance contributions for senior house officers, ward sisters and consultants as a proportion of their average take-home
    16
    pay? Will he explain carefully to the House of Commons how the increase will help recruitment and retention in the NHS?
    Mr. Milburn: I have never yet met a member of staff in the health service who does not believe that the NHS needs more investment; the only people I have met who believe that are Opposition Members. I do not know whether or not the hon. Gentleman is mathematically challenged, but even if the NHS has to make £200 million worth of extra national insurance contributions, it is worth remembering that in the same financial year it will get an extra £5,500 million. Our party supported and voted for that, but the hon. Gentleman's party opposed it.
    Derek Twigg: The message from my constituents is clear: they want a massive injection of extra funding in the health service, particularly in my area, where there are a lot of health inequalities. However, I am sure that my right hon. Friend will agree to look at their concern that the extra money be spent well and efficiently and that the whole service should be better managed, particularly by getting management structures in place. Are the Tories not putting up a smokescreen to try to hide their policy of privatisation, not public funding?
    Mr. Milburn: I know that my hon. Friend and his constituents, like most people in this country, want to see an expanded national health service. They want more of the national health service, not less. They want more doctors, more nurses, more beds, shorter waiting times, improved diagnostic services and a cut in health inequalities. My hon. Friend is quite right about that. The only way to bring it about is to get some reforms into the NHS and to accompany them with investment.
    What my hon. Friend says about the Conservatives is right. Their strategy is based on the four principles of the hon. Member for Woodspring (Dr. Fox). First, they say that the NHS is not working; then they say that it has never worked; thirdly, they say that it can never work—as a prelude to their real agenda, the fourth item, which is to get more and more people to pay for their own care. That is not the right way forward for health care in this country. What people want is a national health service treating people according to need, not ability to pay—a national health service with the right principles and the right level of funding.
    Bob Spink: Is the Secretary of State aware that for Littlehaven's—a children's hospice in my constituency—the increase in the wage bill as a result of the national insurance contribution increase in the Budget will be well over £20,000, and that Littlehaven's is funded almost entirely by voluntary contributions, topped up by a tiny amount of grant money through the NHS? Will he increase the money that the hospice receives to compensate it for the increase in national insurance contributions, so that it does not have to sack medical staff?
    Mr. Milburn: I join the hon. Gentleman in at least one respect—paying tribute to the work of the hospice movement, not just in his constituency, but throughout the country. Hospices do a first-rate job of work. We want to strengthen the partnership between the national health

    17
    service and the voluntary hospice movement, and we want more NHS money to go into palliative care—not just into hospices, but into palliative care services more generally. That is what we want to see, and what we voted for. It is no use the hon. Gentleman coming to the House and complaining of lack of investment in the NHS or in his local hospices, if he is not prepared to vote for it. On two occasions in the past fortnight he has voted against more money for the NHS. That is what he should go and explain to his constituents.
    Mr. Nicholas Winterton: May I ask the Secretary of State a direct question? I fully appreciate the additional cost to the national health service of the increase in national insurance, but will he give me an assurance this afternoon that that will not prevent the Government, acting on behalf of the national health service, from encouraging the recruitment of additional midwives? I attended the Royal College of Midwives conference in Bournemouth last week, as did the Minister. There is a grave shortage in many parts of the country. If we are to provide maternity services of the quality that I believe we should, midwives are essential. Will the right hon. Gentleman assure me and the House that the increase in national insurance will not prevent the recruitment of additional midwives?
    Mr. Milburn: No, I do not believe that it will. Already, the number of midwives is increasing, as the hon. Gentleman knows. He is also aware of the substantial commitment that we have given to expanding midwifery services. We expect an extra 2,000 midwives to be working in the NHS by 2004. Of course, that is partly a question of pay and making sure that people who are working very hard in the NHS are properly paid, but it is also a question of making sure that their working conditions and their working environment are right. So yes, I am confident that we will continue to recruit midwives in ever larger numbers in order to give women and families the sort of services that they deserve.

    Social Services (Lancashire)
    Mr. David Borrow: What recent discussions he has had with Lancashire county council concerning the provision of services for the elderly in Lancashire. [52779]
    The Minister of State, Department of Health (Jacqui Smith): I met leading members of Lancashire county council on 29 April, together with some hon. Members representing constituencies in the county. In addition, the social services inspectorate has been closely monitoring Lancashire county council since it was placed under special measures in February 2000. Following the publication of the council's proposals to close a number of its care homes, the SSI is closely following the work undertaken by the council to assess its current care provision and to consult on future strategies with the NHS, local people and other interested parties.
    Mr. Borrow: I thank my hon. Friend for the work that she is doing in that area. She is aware of my concern that the consultation document prepared by Lancashire county council, which recommends the closure of 35 care homes, does not include any analysis of the capacity of the
    18
    voluntary or the private sector in Lancashire. I am sure that my hon. Friend will share my concern that on Friday last week the Galloway society for the blind in Penwortham, in my constituency, announced the closure in July of Howick house, a home for the elderly blind, which will mean that in a few months 20 elderly blind people will lose their home.
    The home is currently losing £1,000 a week. Will the Minister undertake to consult to see whether anything can be done to preserve the very specialist care that is given to the elderly blind by the Galloway society for the blind in my constituency? Will she also ensure that her Department and the inspectorate take a very robust attitude to the document that the county council will eventually produce on long-term care for the elderly in Lancashire?
    Jacqui Smith: I can assure my hon. Friend that the social services inspectorate is taking a very close interest in developments in Lancashire. I share his concern about ensuring that both the independent and voluntary sectors are fully engaged in any changes. Of course, that was the reason why the Government published the agreement—alongside investing £300 million in building up capacity and in reducing delayed discharges last October—which makes it very clear that we expect local authorities to work in their commissioning behaviour with the private, independent and voluntary sectors, as well as with their partners in the national health service, to ensure that we commission and develop the services that are necessary for older people.
    Mr. Simon Burns: As the Minister is aware—when she is not adopting an ostrich-like approach to the problem—in the past five years, 50,000 beds have been lost across the whole long-term care sector. Is she also aware that, in the next five years in Lancashire, county council placements in the private sector will decrease by about 1,200—the number will fall from 1,860 to 600—and that 35 of the 48 council homes will close, with the loss of 700 beds? Given the pressures that that will cause in relation to placement of elderly people in long-term care, how will the Government's policy of using the stick rather than the carrot and penalising local authorities involved in delayed discharges be implemented? How will it help in tackling the serious problems that Lancashire faces with finding placements for the most vulnerable and frail in our society?
    Jacqui Smith: Lancashire has already used the extra investment put in by the Government—not least the £5 million from the building capacity grant to improve services, including, for example, an 18 per cent. increase in the number of people receiving intensive home care. It is right that we build into the system incentives to ensure that our health and social services work together better, so that older people are not stuck in hospital when they would be better off in care homes, in their own homes or being supported in some other way in the community. That is why the 6 per cent. annual average real-terms increase in the next three years from which Lancashire will benefit will enable it to build the services to ensure that our older people have the right care, in the right place, at the right time. We are taking responsibility as a

    19
    Government not only for the policy that brings health and social services together, but for the investment that enables that to happen.

    NHS Direct
    Mr. Tom Levitt: What plans he has to extend NHS Direct. [52780]
    The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health (Ms Hazel Blears): Building on the very successful roll-out of NHS Direct, I expect the service to expand its capacity significantly over the next six years. By 2008, NHS Direct will be able to deal with more than 30 million callers a year. It will, for example, handle all out-of-hours calls to general practitioners and be in a position to deal with up to 1 million lower priority ambulance calls.
    Mr. Levitt: I thank my hon. Friend for that reply. I congratulate NHS Direct and its partner BT on having recently answered their 10 millionth call since NHS
    20
    Direct was set up. I am sure that she agrees that there is still a need to educate some parts of the population about the use of NHS Direct, especially in respect of out-of-hours service replacement. Will the extension of NHS Direct be not only quantitative, as she has described, but qualitative, in terms of bringing new services into the NHS Direct family?
    Ms Blears: Absolutely. My hon. Friend is right; NHS Direct can really help to contribute towards the reform agenda. For example, in west Yorkshire, NHS Direct is involved in an innovative scheme for people with long-term lung complaints. They can be monitored at a distance via the telephone and computer software, and when their life signs start to deteriorate an emergency response can be triggered. Similarly, Hope hospital, in my constituency, has an innovative programme for people with diabetes. NHS Direct can offer a contact centre to all patients around the country with diabetes, who can get advice through e-mail, the telephone and interactive online services. NHS Direct is truly the kind of service that we want for the 21st century; it is a very exciting development indeed.

Wembley Stadium
Mr. Gerald Kaufman(by private notice): To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport if she will make a statement on Wembley stadium following the passing of the 30 April deadline that she set.
The Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport (Tessa Jowell): I explained to the House on 19 December that the Government were willing to support the Football Association's national stadium project, provided that the Football Association and Wembley National Stadium Ltd. came forward with fully detailed and funded proposals within a reasonable time scale. In the light of the David James-Berwin Leighton Paisner report, I asked that they should deal with four points: first, to commission an independent value for money assessment of the proposed contracts with Multiplex; secondly, to make papers relating to the project available to the Comptroller and Auditor General; thirdly, to make corporate governance changes to produce a management structure capable of delivering a complex project with procedures acceptable to the public sector; and, finally, to confirm that financial support is adequate and fully committed. I also explained to the House that I had asked Sport England to commission a detailed technical evaluation of the new proposals for athletics in the stadium.
Since 19 December, the Football Association and Wembley National Stadium Ltd. have worked closely with stakeholders and banks to develop the stadium project at their preferred location—Wembley—and to address the issues that I have outlined. Significant progress has been made.
Wembley National Stadium Ltd. carried out my request to make available to the Comptroller and Auditor General papers relating to the project. WNSL also commissioned Cyril Sweett Ltd.—a company with no previous or known likely future involvement in the national stadium project—to undertake a value for money study. Cyril Sweett Ltd. concludes that the Multiplex contracts represent value for money. I have considered the company's report carefully and accept its conclusions. The full report necessarily contains much commercially sensitive information and therefore cannot be published. However, I have asked WNSL to commission a publishable study, which I shall place in the Library.
WNSL has committed itself to meeting the required standards of corporate governance, and I am pleased to be able to say that significant improvements have been made. The WNSL board has been strengthened with experience in construction, financing and marketing. The new chairman, Michael Jeffries, has construction and project management experience. The Government remain in discussion with the FA, WNSL and other stakeholders about these issues.
WNSL also invited the Office of Government Commerce to undertake a gateway review of the project, which recommended that the project should proceed to contractual completion and that it was well managed and viable.
Sport England has completed its athletics study, which was prepared in close co-operation with UK Athletics, the British Olympic Association, UK Sport and the
22
International Association of Athletics Federations. My predecessor rightly drew attention to the extremely long time scale and exorbitant cost involved in the installation and removal of the original platform, and to the fact that there was no legacy for the sport from the project.
I am pleased to report that the new design conforms to the standards required by the IAAF, is considerably quicker to install and remove, and the costs associated with it have been substantially reduced. I have asked Sport England to publish its study. The matter of a legacy for athletics is the subject of separate discussions between my Department, Sport England and UK Athletics. I hope that they will be concluded in the next two weeks.
Although much of the necessary work to secure the financing of the stadium project has been completed, the Football Association has requested more time to enable it to conclude its discussions with the banks. In the light of the progress that the FA and WNSL made in fulfilling the conditions that I set out on 19 December, I have agreed to refrain from reaching my final decision on Government support for the national stadium project at Wembley at this point.
I understand that that decision will disappoint many people in the west midlands, and hon. Members who represent that region. However, it would be wrong for the Government to withdraw their support at such a crucial stage. The FA is closer than it has ever been to making Wembley the home of English football again. I do not believe that it would be right or reasonable to pull the plug on its project when the prospects of success look better than ever.
Subject to the successful conclusion of the continuing discussions with the FA and WNSL, final confirmation that the financing is adequate and fully committed, and the terms of Patrick Carter's final report, the Government will be pleased to support the national stadium project at Wembley. My decision will be taken after full consultation with Sport England and in the light of Patrick Carter's final report. I fully recognise the public and parliamentary pressure for an end to the process and the start of the construction of a world-class stadium. I will therefore make a further statement to the House before the Whitsun recess.
Mr. Kaufman: My right hon. Friend talked about parliamentary and other pressure to conclude the matter, but she gave the House a firm and unequivocal commitment to bring the matter to a conclusion before now. On 19 December she set out her "four fundamental points" and said that they "must be addressed first". They included
"confirmation that financial support is adequate and fully committed".—[Official Report, 19 December 2001; Vol. 377, c. 292.]
In reply to parliamentary questions on the matter on 10 April, my right hon. Friend said:
"I expect the FA's work to be completed in April. The Government will determine whether or not that work satisfies the conditions I set out on 19 December".—[Official Report, 10 April 2002; vol. 383,c. 309W.
Is it not a fact that the work has not been completed by the FA and that it therefore does not satisfy the conditions that my right hon. Friend described as "fundamental points"? Is it not a fact that the money is not "adequate and fully committed"? Is it not therefore a fact that the undertakings that she gave the House on 19 December and 10 April have not been fulfilled?

23
How can the Government continue to embrace the tar baby? It is not simply a matter for the FA, because it involves £20 million of public subsidy, which my right hon. Friend promised the FA and £120 million of lottery money, which Sport England irresponsibly and disreputably gave the FA before planning permission had even been sought. It is time to put an end, one way or another, to this travesty of a process and settle the matter.
Tessa Jowell: I know that my right hon. Friend, for whom I have the highest regard, has never been the greatest fan of the national football stadium at Wembley. Let me deal however, with the serious points that he raised. First, he raised the question of the deadline set for the end of April. He is absolutely right to say that the Football Association set the end of April as the point by which it expected to have met the four tests that formed the condition for Government support for the project. As I have outlined to the House this afternoon, in my judgment, and on the basis of the evidence that has been made available to me, it is clear that the FA has made good progress on at least three of the tests. The outstanding matter relates to the financing of the project, on which—[Interruption.]
Mr. Speaker: Order. Hon. Members must allow the Secretary of State to be heard.
Tessa Jowell: Progress has been made on the financing of the project. Hon. Members will understand that the detail of that progress is shrouded in commercial confidentiality. This is a difficult matter of judgment, but, in my view, it would be unreasonable and unfair to fail to give the Football Association, which is now in negotiation with the bank, the opportunity to conclude those negotiations. To do so would be gratuitously to wreck a project on which good progress has been made. I do not think that that would be right or proper, and that is why I have agreed to allow more time to complete the negotiations on the financing.
Mr. Tim Yeo: Does the Secretary of State regret her original plan to try to sneak out this announcement on Wembley by means of a written parliamentary answer on a day when she was known to be making a major statement in Parliament on the Communications Bill? Is there ever going to be an end to her dithering on this subject? On top of the Government's inability to honour their commitment to staging the world athletics championships in London, does the Secretary of State recognise that Britain has now become a complete laughing stock in international sporting circles?
Will the Secretary of State confirm that her statement breaks the promise that she gave to the backers of the Birmingham bid? Is she willing to set any date after which Birmingham can have its proposals seriously considered? Will she confirm that describing the latest stadium design in oral questions before Easter as "athletics-capable" was just a device to allow Sport England to avoid asking for £120 million of lottery money back? Does she seriously believe that Wembley, given the geographical constraints surrounding it, could ever form the centrepiece of a British bid for the Olympic games?
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When does the Secretary of State honestly think that work on building the national stadium might actually start? When will Wembley Park tube station be rebuilt? Is it not true that, five years after lottery money was provided for a national stadium, and 18 months after Wembley shut its doors, the Football Association has, in fact, delivered its side of the bargain, and that the real reason for this project now being stalled is ministerial dithering? While footballers, athletes, rugby league players and fans wait in frustration, Britain's international sporting humiliation continues.
Tessa Jowell: I hardly think that I sought to sneak out an answer on the national football stadium when this is the first day after local election purdah on which it has been possible to inform the House of this matter. Secondly, I took the trouble to telephone the hon. Member for South Suffolk (Mr. Yeo) this morning to draw his attention to this question. I also telephoned my right hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Gorton (Mr. Kaufman).
Michael Fabricant: Your right hon. Friend forced you here.
Tessa Jowell: My right hon. Friend had made absolutely clear his disagreement with the position that I had taken. He has a robust view, and he is perfectly entitled to do what he did.
In relation to the status of athletics, I made it clear earlier that a working group involving Sport England and the key athletics governing bodies has been considering the position of athletics at Wembley. As I have told the House, the Sport England report will be published shortly, but it shows that the stadium is capable of taking a track that is cheaper and can be dismantled much more quickly than that in the original proposal. As the hon. Member for South Suffolk is also aware, my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Transport, Local Government and the Regions made an announcement about financing the upgrading of Wembley Park tube station.
Mr. Barry Gardiner: My right hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Gorton (Mr. Kaufman), as ever, does the House a great service. He has chronicled and pursued the trials and tribulations of the national stadium project for the past five years. Indeed, I have often fought in the trenches with him shoulder to shoulder in cataloguing the past failures of the Government and the FA. However, we part company on one fundamental issue, and west midlands Members would do well to take note of it. Although he may be their hero of the moment, it is clear that he wishes the project to fail completely. I wish it to succeed.
Will the Secretary of State confirm that the four conditions that she set on 19 December have been substantially met and that, in the light of that progress, it would be foolish, wasteful and perverse to abandon the Wembley bid in the 89th minute? Will she also convey to the FA the House's frustration at the fact that it has not yet concluded its financial contract? Will she urge it with all speed so to do?
Tessa Jowell: I thank my hon. Friend. It is important to remind the House that the four conditions in relation to Wembley that I set before Christmas are attached to the investment of a further £20 million of Government money

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and £21 million from the London Development Agency to contribute to infrastructure costs. Those conditions attach to the release of that money.
This is not a Government project but an FA project. It is led and financed by the FA, but it is dependent on further Government money, for the reasons that I have outlined. As those who have taken the trouble to read Patrick Carter's report will understand, the FA is also dependent on support from the Government to facilitate aspects of this complex project, such as the infrastructure issues. That is why the Government have a role, and it is my judgment in the context of the progress that has been made that the FA should be allowed further time to conclude negotiations on funding the project.
Nick Harvey: If the FA is expected to raise all the money for the project, what exactly is the Government support that the right hon. Lady has yet to decide whether to give to it? If the FA takes another month to raise the money, surely it would be perverse for her then to refuse to support the transport infrastructure to which she refers. As for the Sport England analysis of athletics, will she tell us categorically whether the revised design would be adequate for an Olympic tournament to be held in the new stadium'? Is it still the FA's intention that the new stadium should open in the spring or early summer of 2005, precisely when we were supposed to have held the world athletics championships in London?
Tessa Jowell: The further support from the Government is the £41 million to which I have just referred. In relation to the opening date and the hon. Gentleman's question about the status of the track for Olympic events, those judgments will have to wait until I have had time to study the Sport England report, which has not yet been submitted to me.
Mr. Ken Purchase: This is, of course, a considerable problem for the whole of football, and I am afraid that my right hon. Friend will find it difficult to rebut accusations of muddle and. certainly, delay. The delay is no longer acceptable; we must soon have decisions. It would help if she could say today, clearly and without equivocation, whether a national football stadium that is worthy of the name will be built at all if it is not to be built at Wembley? In short, if Wembley cannot produce the goods, must we assume, as I fear we must, that there will be no national football stadium, simply because all the eggs have been put into one basket and— as I fear—too many have already been broken?
Tessa Jowell: I thank my hon. Friend for his question, and I recognise that he has advocated for a long time that the stadium be built in the west midlands. As Patrick Carter's report assessed, if Wembley fails—we hope that it will succeed, given the provision of additional time—Birmingham is an option, but it is a more expensive one. However, the decision on location—Birmingham as an alternative to Wembley—is a judgment not for the Government but for the Football Association, because it is the FA that will pay for the project.
Mr. Andrew Mitchell: Does the right hon. Lady understand that her decision today will be regarded as enormously unfair to the west midlands and
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to the Birmingham bid? Does she also understand that she has not lived up to the solemn commitments that she gave to the House concerning the 30 April deadline, and which the right hon. Member for Manchester, Gorton (Mr. Kaufman) rightly described as firm and fundamental? Is it not true that the work has not been completed according to the terms that she described, that the money is not in place, and that the undertakings to this House have not been delivered? Does she accept that her decision today will be seen throughout Birmingham and the west midlands as an enormous breach of faith, and as yet another example of southern-based decision makers acting in the interest not of the country as a whole, but of the south?
Tessa Jowell: No, I do not accept the thrust of the hon. Gentleman's questions. I fully recognise the passion in Birmingham and the west midlands for trying to secure the national stadium for Birmingham. The negotiations will be conducted by the west midlands and the FA with full understanding and recognition of the costs involved—that is the beginning and end of the matter. This is a question not of letting anybody down but of taking a difficult decision and making a reasonable judgment, so that a project that has made progress can have every reasonable chance of succeeding at Wembley.
Kate Hoey: Does the Secretary of State know whether the value for money report, which she describes as satisfactory, took into account the £120 million of lottery money and the £20 million of public money? Surely the root of the problem is that, so far as Birmingham is concerned, there is not an even playing field. The £120 million was intended to provide a multi-sport national stadium. The FA has to decide whether it prefers Wembley or Birmingham, and in my view, if the stadium is to be used only for football, it should be in Birmingham. The reality is that football will get £120 million and there will be no multi-sport use. A football ground such as Millwall's s could be made athletics-capable, but who would pay for the necessary work, if ever it were needed? Are we not witnessing yet another example of the richest sport in the country getting money that it does not need and should not have? The whole £120 million should be ploughed back into community sport.
Tessa Jowell: I know that my hon. Friend has strong feelings about the lottery grant, and I shall certainly let her know how the matter was dealt with in the context of the value for money report when I have further studied its detail. However, all the indications are that, if the stadium is funded to proceed, it will be multi-purpose, providing facilities for rugby league, football and athletics. In doing so, it will largely meet the terms of the lottery agreement on which the £120 million was originally awarded.
Mr. Patrick McLoughlin: When the Secretary of State sets a deadline, what does she mean?
Tessa Jowell: I am sorry, but I did not catch the hon. Gentleman's question.
Mr. McLoughlin: I was trying to oblige by asking a short question. When the Secretary of State sets a deadline, what does she mean by it?
Tessa Jowell: That is a very good question. As I have indicated to the House, the 30 April deadline was set by

27
the FA in the expectation that it would have made progress in each of the four key areas, in order to release the outstanding Government money by that time. The hon. Gentleman is right; the deadline has passed, but I have had to judge whether it would be reasonable — given that the FA has met three of the four conditions and is making progress on the fourth — to deny it the opportunity to complete the negotiations on the funding package. As I hope I have made clear to the House, I have concluded that the FA should be allowed the additional time to conclude the financing with the bank with which it is in negotiations.
Mr. Adrian Bailey: Every time that I have heard a statement on this issue, it has been reported that the FA and WNSL have been making progress. Given the fact that we have already had two deadlines that were not so dead, it would have been reasonable for some sort of conclusion to have been reached. Will the Secretary of State talk to the FA and WNSL, assess the position and give them a non-negotiable deadline, with transparent criteria, for them to complete, with the exercise of due diligence, all financial and contractual matters?
Tessa Jowell: It is important to make it clear that the FA has secured an outline offer of finance from the financial institution with which it has been negotiating. However, the timetable for completing the negotiation is not wholly within the FA's control. The timetable is set by the financial institutions and, to a great extent, the FA simply has to comply with it. Therefore, it would not be reasonable to set an irrevocable date at this point, but I have already told the House that I will make a further statement on progress—and the status of Government support—before the House rises for the Whitsun recess.
Bob Russell: Does the Secretary of State agree that whatever transport improvements are made in and around Wembley they would still be inadequate for the purpose? Bearing in mind the success of playing international matches at stadiums around England, does not she agree that that might be a better way forward? Given the possibility that 30 football clubs might go out of existence because of their financial problems, would not the £600 million be better spent on retaining a nationwide network of professional football clubs?
Tessa Jowell: I suggest that the hon. Gentleman refers all those questions to the FA, whose proper responsibility it is to answer them.
Mr. Tony Banks: I entirely support my right hon. Friend's decision. The English national stadium has to be at Wembley. It would be absolutely crazy of my right hon. Friend to pull the plug on a deal that looks as though it is almost complete. Let me say to my hon. Friends who represent constituencies in Birmingham and the west midlands that I am not opposed to Birmingham. My family comes from Birmingham; I used to go on holiday in Birmingham— [Laughter.] Well, it was because we were so poor. If we are ever to attract international events to this country, the stadium has to be in London
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because the International Olympic Committee and the International Association of Athletics Federations will only go to London.
Finally, despite the talk about the lottery money that was used to purchase the old Wembley site, the majority of the money for building the new national stadium must be subject to the FA's decision, because the FA is raising £460 million on the money markets to do it. Therefore, it is a matter for the FA, and perhaps we should have less Government interference rather than more.
Tessa Jowell: I agree.
Sir Sydney Chapman: The right hon. Lady represents a south London seat, but I wonder whether she realises the adverse effect that this sorry saga has on the economy of north London. We lost Picketts Lock as the national athletics stadium; there will be no football at Wembley for at least five years, probably seven, which will affect the local economy; and the need to take infrastructure decisions is now urgent. It seems obvious that we must have a world-class multi-sports stadium at Wembley, and we should get on with it as soon as possible.
Tessa Jowell: I welcome the hon. Gentleman's support.
Alan Keen: As a member of the Culture, Media and Sport Committee, I have been as frustrated as anyone else over the past two or three years. However, is it not true that the decision is very simple? It is a question not of where the stadium should be but of whether my right hon. Friend will allow a few more weeks so that the right decision is reached rather than blowing the project out of the water straight away. Anyone who has ever worked in the private sector knows about flexibility. I am sure that my right hon. Friend agrees that she is being flexible today for the very best reason.
Tessa Jowell: I entirely agree with my hon. Friend's assessment. In these circumstances, flexibility and reasonableness are the only way forward.
Mrs. Caroline Spelman: The site of the proposed alternative bid is in my constituency. Does the Secretary of State accept that her description of "disappointment" as characterising the feelings in the west midlands is a serious understatement? We await this decision because of the related key strategic decisions on expanding the airport and widening the M42. It is not so much disappointment as hair-tearing frustration that is felt at this endless prevarication.
Tessa Jowell: I am very surprised by the hon. Lady's newly discovered support for the alternative site, as the correspondence that I have seen suggests that she opposed at every turn the prospect of a national stadium in Birmingham.
Mr. Peter Pike: My right hon. Friend will know that I have always supported the case for Wembley, so I support the extra time that she is asking for today. As well as the transport and infrastructure improvements, which are crucial, does she accept that the fans who pay to go through the turnstiles week after week are concerned

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that sufficient seats will be available for the ordinary spectator at the new stadium, as opposed to the snobs with their hospitality suites?
Tessa Jowell: The answer to my hon. Friend's first question is that the investment in infrastructure will obviously improve access to the stadium and will offer regeneration to a part of north-west London that badly needs it. Secondly, the FA's proposal is for a 90,000-seater stadium; 18,000 will be so-called corporate seats, but 15 per cent. of the seats will generate 75 per cent. of the money for the stadium's ongoing funding. So there will be more space in Wembley for ordinary fans paying ordinary prices than in any other stadium in the country.
Miss Julie Kirkbride: The right hon. Lady will be very aware of the anger and disappointment in the west midlands about her statement today of her failure to make the FA stick to its 30 April deadline. A few moments ago, she said that she was not prepared to give an irreversible deadline, but surely she owes that to the people of the west midlands—at some point she must be prepared to pull the plug on Wembley. What is the point of her office if she is not prepared to take executive decisions?
Tessa Jowell: The fact is that the FA is currently in negotiations and I believe that those negotiations need to be allowed reasonable time to run their course. That is why I indicated to the House that I shall provide further information—a further report on progress—before the Whitsun recess.
Ms Diane Abbott: Is the Secretary of State aware that Wembley holds a special place in the hearts and minds of football fans internationally? Does she agree that it is only too appropriate that the Government should bring the national football station—[HoN. MEMBERS: "Stadium!"]—the national football stadium home to Wembley and that that decision will be welcomed not just by many millions of people internationally and in London, but by people all over the country who love football and love the traditions that Wembley represents?
Tessa Jowell: Yes, I do, and I thank my hon. Friend for that point. The national football station, as well as stadium, would also be better upgraded with the money that the Government will provide if the deal goes ahead.
Mr. Nick Hawkins: Does the Secretary of State not recognise that the whole history of this project
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has been one fiasco after another? Every time there is another problem, another Minister from this sorry Government pops up, with further reports being commissioned, further excuses and further delays. The real problem for those of us in this place and outside who care about sport is that, at every stage, the Government have completely failed to get a grip of this project and bring it to a conclusion. From the City pages of the papers, one sees that banks are walking away from the project as soon as they get close enough to realise the mess that the Government and all around them have made of it. Is not the real problem that what we need is not further delays and reports but a new Government who will get a grip of the project?
Tessa Jowell: I do not think anybody thinks that. The bile that the hon. Gentleman has just tipped over this issue is the easy bit. The hard bit is to do what we have done: work with the FA to get the project to a point where it has achieved more progress than ever before in its history, and make the judgment that it would not be right to pull the plug when there is a possibility—not a certainty, but a real possibility—of success.
Mr. Derek Wyatt: If the stadium is to be for football first, with athletics afterwards, how many seats will be lost when the athletics part is put in? The opening of the Olympics requires at least 80,000, so if the stadium is to be used for Olympics we need to be certain that we can provide that many.
Tessa Jowell: Those are precisely the kind of questions that I hope to be able to answer, and on which hon. Members can form their own view, when Sport England publishes its report on athletics at Wembley. The report will be prepared in conjunction with the athletics governing bodies.
Several hon.Members rose—
Mr. Speaker: Order: The House will have heard the Secretary of State say that she will make another statement on this matter. I will take note of hon. Members who have been disappointed today when the right hon. Lady comes back to the House.
We now come to the statement on the draft Communications Bill. I call the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport.

Draft Communications Bill
4.8 pm
The Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport (Tessa Jowell): Here comes the second episode, Mr. Speaker. With permission, I should like to make a statement, on behalf of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry and myself, on the draft Communications Bill, produced jointly by our Departments and published today.
Copies of the Bill have been placed in the Library and are available from the Vote Office, along with a policy document and explanatory notes. It is also available on the world wide web.
In December 2000, the White Paper "A New Future for Communications" set out the Government's objectives: creating a dynamic market; universal access to a choice of diverse services of the highest quality; safeguarding consumers and citizens; and minimising regulation. Everything that we announce today flows from those principles.
The communications industry is of immense importance to this country, so we are determined to proceed, wherever possible, with the fullest consultation and consensus. That is why we held further consultations on media ownership. That is why the Bill published today is in draft and is subject to scrutiny by a Joint Committee of both Houses. This degree of consultation on major legislation is perhaps unprecedented, but it is important that the legislation has the confidence of the industry and of the public.
There is general agreement that the existing regulatory framework has become outdated because of rapid changes in technology, markets and consumer behaviour over the past six years. The communications industries are regulated in different ways by separate regulators, yet they are coming increasingly closer together in their ownership and in their operation. The evidence is all around us: television and radio companies are linked to newspapers; traditional media are developing websites; cable companies deliver television, radio, telephony, interactive services and broadband internet. This converging industry needs a converged regulator, providing industry-specific regulation with a light touch: a framework that protects the citizen while setting business free; and a regulatory framework that offers certainty where it is needed for business plans and investment, and flexibility where it is needed in a fast-moving environment.
Previous legislation in 1984, 1990 and 1996 has left us with clumsy regulation that inhibits investment and reduces efficiency. The ownership rules send the signal that the UK is not open for investment in our communications industries. The rules on newspaper ownership are opaque, discriminatory and still retain criminal sanctions. The rules on news on ITV have seen investment in ITN fall. Furthermore, technology is changing, throwing up new challenges and new opportunities. The case for change is therefore compelling. The twin ideals of regulation are to be light-touch yet effective. But the current rules are neither.
The communications industries are vital to the health of the British economy and to our democracy. Every week we watch more than 1 billion hours of television, listen to more than 1 billion hours of radio and buy 100 million
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national, regional and local newspapers. The BBC licence fee costs each viewing household £112 a year and raises £2.5 billion. We send billions-plus of text messages a year; three-quarters of adults use mobile phones; and 24 million people have internet access in their homes.
Crucially, our democratic debate could not take place without newspapers, television channels, radio stations and internet sites that tell us what is happening. Those sources can be biased, sometimes wrong, and occasionally strident. There are many of them, however, and people can hear many voices. This plurality must be protected at all costs.
The White Paper proposed one regulator—Ofcom—to replace the Independent Television Commission, the Radio Authority, the Radiocommunications Agency, the Broadcasting Standards Commission and Oftel. It also suggested that Ofcom should have sector-specific powers to promote competition; that quality public service broadcasting should be protected; the introduction of measures to enable universal access to public service broadcasting channels over all main platforms; the consolidation of 1TV subject to competition rules; the simplification of regulation for commercial radio; that BBC regulation be brought within Ofcom for basic standards and for specific public service broadcasting requirements, while retaining the regulatory role of the BBC governors; and the promotion of broadband. Since then, the policy has been developed, the detail of which is contained in this draft Bill, supplemented by the policy document.
With regard to the structure of Ofcom, its top board will operate at the highest strategic level. It must be able to move quickly and with agility to address issues in a fast-moving sector. At the heart of its operations will be its sector-specific responsibility to promote competition, to curb abuses of dominant market positions and to ensure fair access to dominant network systems and platforms. In addition, all broadcasters, including the BBC for its commercial services, will continue to be subject to the Competition Act 1980.
Ofcom will have a number of other duties to promote certain interests, especially those of nations and regions. That is why we are providing for Ofcom to establish a content board as an integral part of its structure. It will be a significant body, bringing together diverse interests, including those of the different nations of the United Kingdom. There will also be a consumers panel that is able to articulate the needs and views of consumers, again with strong representation from Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.
The draft Bill proposes a regulatory regime that will be lighter in touch, with greater reliance on self-regulation by all broadcasters. Ofcom will be taken out of day-to-day regulation and will use its backstop powers only if licensed broadcasters fail to deliver.
Ofcom's responsibilities will extend to the BBC for the basic broadcast standards and for agreed quotas for such things as regional and independent production while setting the general standards across the industry. It will be responsible for general reviews of public service broadcasting. However, the quality of BBC output under its public service remit will remain fully regulated by the governors. This regime, with its detailed scrutiny by governors, is a measure of the special role that the BBC fulfils. This system has developed because the BBC's obligations are the greatest, not the least.

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But we recognise that the media of the future must provide the high-quality public service broadcasting that people have enjoyed in the past. Competition alone cannot guarantee this. Public service broadcasting nurtures creativity. It is vital to independent producers. It provides training grounds that sustain the whole sector. It meets the particular needs of local and regional communities, both in programming and in production. And in the case of the BBC, the £2.5 billion raised annually by the licence fee is venture capital for the whole of British broadcasting.
Most important, public service broadcasting works for the public. The draft Bill therefore proposes for the first time to define public service broadcasting and to consolidate in statute the hierarchy of public service broadcasting obligations that viewers and listeners will readily recognise.
The draft Bill is much more than a system for regulating the content of television and radio broadcasting. Telecommunications have become ever more important to our economy and to our society. By bringing together the functions of Oftel and the Radiocommunications Agency with those of the Independent Television Commission. the Radio Authority and the Broadcasting Standards Commission, we will ensure that content, economics and technology are viewed as a piece, not as fragments.
The competition responsibilities for Ofcom are intended to deliver dynamic competitive markets in networks and infrastructure as well as in content. Our economy needs access to networks to be opened up. That means a regulator that is light-touch where possible, but powerful where necessary.
The new regime for telecoms will enable Ofcom to operate within a harmonised European framework, providing greater certainty so that UK companies are better able to sell their services abroad. The new regime will be lighter in touch, removing the requirement for licensing of telecoms systems—thereby removing about 400 licences—and replacing it with a much simpler regime for electronic communications. The new regulator will have the right responsibilities and powers to promote competition, tackle abuses and make sure that consumers' interests are protected.
We will also extend the principles of deregulation and market competition to the allocation of the radio spectrum by introducing spectrum trading. Spectrum is to the modern age what iron and steel were to the first industrial revolution, and it must be used efficiently. Companies need to know that they can gain access to spectrum so that they can bring their ideas to the market. In future, as well as being able to apply for a licence, firms will also be able to buy spectrum from an existing user within the terms of that licence. That should prevent the hoarding of spectrum, increase the number and range of users, deliver significant benefit to businesses and consumers and promote the innovation on which the future of United Kingdom competitiveness depends. The proposals are broadly in line with the recommendations of Professor Cave's independent review of spectrum management that was published in March. We intend to respond to that review by the summer and I therefore emphasise that all the spectrum management provisions are subject to revision.
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The draft Bill will continue our policy of not imposing regulation on the operation of the internet, although we will continue to work with the industry to improve the standards of protection available through self-regulation.
Lastly, on media ownership, competition and competition rules to regulate undue economic power are increasingly recognised here and abroad as the best means of delivering innovation, investment and employment. It is our intention to apply the same principles to the communications industry. But the media are different from other industries in one crucial respect: they are uniquely important to the debate that underpins our democracy. Citizens need access to a range of different media voices if they are to take informed decisions. So we need a system that delivers a plurality of owners and a diversity of output.
Our approach is simple and proprietor-neutral. We will deregulate where it is possible to rely on competition law to maintain a range of voices; where it is not, we will establish clear, predictable rules. The changes that we are proposing today will remove barriers to investment, will encourage innovation and will allow companies to consolidate and expand.
Ofcom will combine the important twin roles of promoting competition while protecting plurality and diversity. Within television, radio and newspaper markets, competition law will tend to encourage dispersed ownership and new entry. We will therefore remove most ownership rules within those markets, retaining only those that we need as minimum guarantees of plurality.
Overall, we intend to get rid of or relax most rules concerning media ownership while keeping those necessary to protect the public interest. We will strengthen safeguards for news and other broadcast content. The rules that we will scrap include those which prevent the ownership of a single ITV, those which prevent large newspaper groups from acquiring Channel 5 and those which prevent ownership of more than one national commercial radio licence. In addition, we will ease the complex rules preventing consolidation of ownership of local commercial radio and scrap the criminal sanctions that apply in the newspaper merger regime.
We also intend to scrap the inconsistent rules that prevent the non-European ownership of some broadcasters. It makes no sense that French, Italian or German companies can own television and radio licences, but Canadian, Australian or United States companies cannot. The resultant inward investment should allow the UK to benefit rapidly from new ideas and technological developments. New blood and new competition will help to give our industry the edge.
The recent report on communications by the Select Committee on Culture, Media and Sport, for which I thank my right hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Gorton (Mr. Kaufman) and his colleagues, made a case for relying on competition law alone, but we do not believe that that will guarantee the plurality of ownership that democracy demands. We will therefore retain three key limits on cross-media ownership to safeguard debate at every level—national, regional and local. First, recognising that most people get their news and information from national newspapers and terrestrial television, we will keep a simple rule that any newspaper group with more than 20 per cent. of the national market will not be able to own a significant stake in ITV,

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the only commercial public service broadcaster with universal access to a mass audience, currently 25 per cent. of all television viewing. Secondly, a parallel 20 per cent. rule will prevent anyone with a dominant position in local newspapers from owning the regional ITV licence in the same area. Thirdly, there will be a scheme to ensure that at least three commercial local or regional media voices exist—in newspapers, TV and radio—in addition to the BBC in almost every local community.
Where necessary we will retain and strengthen content regulation to ensure the quality, impartiality and diversity of broadcasting services. Ofcom will have the power to investigate the news and current affairs programming of any local radio service if it has concerns about accuracy or impartiality. It will have a new duty to protect and promote the local content of local radio services. It can vary any licence on change of control, to ensure that the character of the service is maintained. For ITV, that will protect regional production and programming requirements. Ofcom will oversee the nominated news provider system for ITV, to ensure high-quality and independent news on free-to-air public service television.
In conclusion, these changes are deregulatory. We will depend more on competition and on competition law exercised by a sector-specific regulator. Ownership regulations will disappear or be reduced. Self-regulation will be extended wherever possible. Complex schemes for licensing networks and access to them will be scrapped and replaced with a streamlined system. All regulations will be reviewed regularly.
The rules that remain will be simple and purposeful, and will include a streamlined system for newspaper mergers, simple limits on cross-media ownership of ITV and the largest newspaper groups, and minimum levels of ownership for local radio and for cross-ownership by local newspapers. There will be content rules in broadcasting to ensure UK production, regional production, local and regional programmes and accurate, impartial news and information. Public service broadcasting will be protected in the digital future as it has been in the analogue past.
The reform of the regulation of this vital sector is a major task. The draft Bill will exceed 250 clauses. The accompanying documents also indicate areas of policy not yet fully reflected in the draft clauses, notably those giving effect to the policies on media ownership which I have announced today. Like the changes to the BBC agreement, these will be published shortly so that they can be considered alongside the draft Bill. Our proposals are subject to a three-month consultation period, and I am delighted that both Houses have agreed also to subject the draft Bill to pre-legislative scrutiny. We shall introduce the Communications Bill itself as soon as parliamentary time allows.
My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry and I want Britain to have the most dynamic communications industry in the world. We want Britain to continue to have the best-quality TV and radio in the world. This Bill is the route map to making those ambitions a reality. We look forward to hearing the views of hon. Members and we commend the draft Communications Bill to the House.
Mr. Tim Yeo: I thank the Secretary of State for her statement and for making it available to me
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in advance. I warmly welcome the announcement of moves towards less regulation which reflect the huge changes that have taken place since the law was last updated. A less onerous regime is necessary if Britain's leading role in these industries is to be preserved.
I regret that, more than five years after the Government's original manifesto commitment on this issue was made, we still do not have all the details of their policy, and I hope that the gaps will be filled in soon, so that pre-legislative scrutiny, which I also welcome, can be effective.
Starting with the rules on media and cross-media ownership, I strongly support the relaxation of the present regime, whose restrictive provisions are no longer justified in light of the wider choice available to consumers as a result of new technology and the enterprise shown by many in the industry. I am very disappointed, however, that the Government are not willing to go all the way and leave questions of media and cross-media ownership entirely to the competition authorities.
The Secretary of State proposes to retain three extra limits on cross-media ownership. Why are they necessary, and why can the competition authorities and the marketplace not safeguard adequately the public interest? Extra controls on media and cross-media ownership are no longer needed, especially as leaving decisions about ownership to the marketplace, subject to the constraints of competition law, would not mean that the content of television and radio programmes would be completely unregulated. The authorities would continue to monitor content through their codes and their duty to preserve diversity and choice for consumers.
On the issue of monitoring content, will Ofcom distinguish between harmful material, for which regulation is needed, and offensive material, for which a much lighter touch is appropriate. I welcome references by the Secretary of State to promoting competition. Given that Ofcom will be an enormous organisation, is the Secretary of State aware of the danger that it could become a lumbering bureaucratic giant that obstructs rather than promotes competition? Given that the paving Bill for Ofcom was approved by Parliament more than two months ago, what progress has been made in setting the organisation up?
In promoting competition, how does the Secretary of State envisage that Ofcom will ensure fair access to electronic programme guides? Similarly, how will fair access to competing platforms be secured? As the Secretary of State undertook 11 days ago to keep Parliament in touch with her policy on digital terrestrial television, will she explain whether the Government still intend to switch off the analogue television signal by 2010, what steps she is taking to secure the survival of the digital terrestrial platform, and when the Government will set out the way in which they will increase the strength and reach of the digital television signal?
I welcome references to spectrum trading. Spectrum is a finite resource, the value of which has recently been more clearly recognised. One of the criteria by which Ofcom will be judged is whether it will achieve the aim of more efficient use of spectrum.
As for the BBC, I look forward to debating the definition of public service broadcasting that is in the Bill. Does the Secretary of State agree that the proposed

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relationship between Ofcom and the. BBC will perpetuate an unlevel playing field to everyone's disadvantage? Does she agree that the issue must be settled during the passage of the Bill and cannot be left until the debate about the renewal of the BBC charter? Does she accept that if the BBC was brought fully within the remit of Ofcom, there would still be a role for the governors? Does she accept concerns about the extent to which the BBC is using its uniquely privileged funding basis to supply services which could be left to the market to provide? If, when the Joint Committee finishes scrutinising the Bill, the Government reject any of its recommendations, will the Secretary of State publish in advance of Second Reading their reasons for doing so?
The Bill is huge—nearly 260 clauses—and deals with issues crucial to consumers and business. Britain has an opportunity to lead one of the 21st century's most important industries, building on our record of innovation, high-quality public service broadcasting and our large pool of creative and entrepreneurial talent. Ofcom can help that process only if it adopts the lightest possible touch, but, equally, it can hinder it if Ministers or regulators get drawn too closely into matters that should be left to the market and the industry to resolve. I trust that the Secretary of State recognises that the acid test of her proposals is whether the regime that she is setting up operates with a light touch rather than a heavy hand.
Tessa Jowell: The hon. Gentleman made many points. Because I spent some time on my statement, I shall not repeat arguments that I made then.
On content, as I have suggested, Ofcom will establish a content board whose membership, importantly, will be drawn from every part of the United Kingdom. The content board will develop codes. It will have a close relationship with the broadcasters and the industry, but content will also be determined for the public service broadcasters by the three-tier regulatory structure. Tier one and tier two will apply to all public service broadcasters including the BBC, and tier three will allow self-regulation of content by the public service broadcasters regulated by Ofcom. Tier three for the BBC will be regulated by the governors.
On the hon. Gentleman's point about the distinction between acceptable and unacceptable standards in television, the content board will be charged with responsibility for developing media literacy and will begin to codify such standards as its work develops.
On the size of the Ofcom board, when the Minister for Tourism, Film and Broadcasting, my hon. Friend the Member for Pontypridd (Dr. Howells), took the Bill through the House, he constantly repeated the benefit of the Ofcom board being small. It is our intention to maintain that, with wider representation on both the content board and the consumer panel. We are making progress on the establishment of Ofcom, with the advertisement for chairman appearing in the national newspapers yesterday.
On the obligations relating to electronic programme guides, as we move to switch-over and as the number of digital channels increases, this area of technology will become more important. The operation of electronic programme guides will be subject to codes of performance that will be developed by Ofcom.
It is still the Government's intention to work with the industry and the broadcasters to achieve analogue switch-off between 2006 and 2010, subject to two tests—
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first, the affordability test and secondly, the accessibility test. The accessibility test means that everyone who currently receives an analogue signal should be able to receive a digital signal.
The final point is the relationship between the BBC and Ofcom. It is important to recognise that the White Paper argued the case for a twin system of regulation—the governors for the BBC and Ofcom for the other public service broadcasters and the rest of the broadcasting industry. That is the position that we have maintained. However, it is important to be clear about the extent to which there will be a level playing field between the standards applying to the commercial public service broadcasters and the BBC.
Standards set at tier one—the general standards that apply to all broadcasters — will apply equally to the BBC. At tier two, the quantitative aspects of broadcasting— the proportion of regional production, independent production and so on—will be set by Ofcom and will also apply to the BBC. I have outlined the new shape of regulation at tier three where, arguably, the BBC will be subject to much tougher regulation because of the regular monthly vigilance of the governors, whereas the other broadcasters will be subject to post hoc regulation by Ofcom against their statement of programme policy.
The BBC will be accountable to Ofcom for all its commercial standards—(Interruption.] I am trying to do justice to the questions asked by the hon. Member for South Suffolk (Mr. Yeo), but there is fizzing and grunting from those on the Opposition Front Bench.
My final point is that in developing the Bill, we have proceeded from very clear principles, whether in relation to the structure and purpose of Ofcom or the new proposals that I have announced in respect of media and cross-media ownership. That is in direct contrast to the Opposition's approach. When they last introduced a broadcasting Bill—it became the Broadcasting Act 1996—that approach looked to fixing particular proprietors and institutions. The media industry in this country has paid the price ever since.
Mr. Chris Smith: My right hon. Friend has reiterated that, in the draft Bill, the BBC will fall within the purview of Ofcom for basic regulation in tiers one and two, but not for the backstop powers that will apply to all other public service broadcasters. Can she confirm that that decision is not set in stone and that it is open to further debate and discussion? Will she seize the opportunity made available by the offer of the chairman of the BBC board of governors to discuss whether the role of Ofcom can indeed be enhanced at the level of tier three—an issue that will form a major part of public discussion about the Bill?
Tessa Jowell: Those are precisely the sort of issues that stress the importance of the pre-legislative scrutiny to which I have referred. There will be scrutiny by both Houses, together with further consultation with the industry, to ensure that a very large and complex Bill will work and deliver our stated aims in practice.
Nick Harvey: May I welcome the final publication of the Bill and also the general direction in which it travels? On the issue of ITV companies merging into one, there is clearly a strong commercial case,

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but should not there be two prerequisites? First, there should be more rigorous news programming requirements in the light of ITN's cuts. Secondly, regional programme making should mean just that: making programmes in the regions and not centrally with changing regional backdrops.
I welcome the general thrust of the cross-media ownership rules that the Secretary of State is introducing. If each sector is competitive, we do not need to be so pre-occupied with cross-media ownership issues. However, if she is to allow The News Corporation potentially to own the Channel 5 licence, will she consider as a quid pro quo allowing Ofcom to regulate the platforms as Ofgem does in the energy sector? The sort of battle that has occurred between Sky Television and ITV about access to satellite services could then be resolved by the regulator and not by a two-year process going through the competition authorities.
Will the Secretary of State now promote free-to-air digital terrestrial television as a way of salvaging that platform? Is there any country with three viable subscription platforms?
Finally, will the Secretary of State ensure that the new technologies, especially in broadband, are available throughout the country? When telephone, television and radio became available, it was a matter of public policy that everybody everywhere, however remote the place where they lived, obtained those technologies. A market would never have delivered any of them. Will she ensure that everybody in the country gets access to the new technologies on equal terms?
Tessa Jowell: First, in relation to the potential for consolidation of ITV, it is important to be clear that we are proposing to remove the media ownership obstacle. Clearly, the competition rules will still apply. In the event of the ITV companies seeking to merge, the proposed merger would no doubt be considered by the Competition Commission. Secondly, yes, the Bill contains provision for the proper continued networking of ITV. Thirdly, when the hon. Gentleman has an opportunity to study the detail of the Bill, he will also see that we have included provision for ITV news to be properly funded. There is, rightly, considerable concern about the drop in value of the contract and the consequence for the quality of news coverage.
On platform regulation, Oftel and the Office of Fair Trading will have concurrent powers. Access for broadcasters to the satellite platform will be fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory, and that will be overseen by Ofcom. Who knows who might want to buy Channel 5 if it ever came up for sale? Many American, Australian, Canadian and European media companies could be interested. The important point is that we will ensure, through tough content regulation, that we preserve the distinctiveness of British broadcasting while opening up the possibility of investment from all over the world.
David Winnick: Does not the health of our democracy, to use my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State's words, depend on there being no weakening of media ownership rules? It would be entirely undesirable for a situation to develop whereby one or two
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individuals or companies could own more of the press and television than they do now. There is great concern about that, certainly among Labour Members.
Tessa Jowell: I thank my hon. Friend for his question, which in a sense makes the case for the proposals that I have set out. We hope that we are striking a proper balance between competition and the benefits that it will bring to UK media: competition that is, where necessary, tempered by regulation in the interests of preserving many voices— diversity —through a plurality of owners.
Michael Fabricant: Three times the right hon. Lady talked about a regulatory light touch. Does not she accept that by tinkering with the ownership rules, she will create a situation whereby the Silvio Berlusconis of this world, who run porno channels in Italy, could take over ITV, but Rupert Murdoch, who owns The Times and The Sun, could not?
Tessa Jowell: Currently, ownership is open to people who are resident in the European economic area. That is precisely why we decided to make changes in relation to Channel 5 and to loosening cross-media ownership rules. ITV is a major national broadcaster, commanding an audience share of at least 25 per cent., and a major source of news for many people. It is right that we maintain a limit on the degree of cross-ownership as regards major newspaper proprietors and the ownership of ITV.
Mr. Derek Wyatt: I welcome most of what my right hon. Friend said, but I want to raise a couple of points.
If I asked hon. Members who produced "Friends", "The Forsyte Saga", "Big Brother" or "Bertie and Elizabeth", they probably would not be able to say. What is important is not how one watches, but what one watches. What needs careful regulation is not who owns the overarching companies, but who owns the production companies.
Will my right hon. Friend allow a free vote in the House on whether the BBC should be regulated by Ofcom? It seems to me that only the Executive are against the BBC being regulated by Ofcom; certainly, it is not the wish of the House.
On digital satellite, will she ensure that the underlying software is not owned by the company that runs the platform, so that many software designers can put their games and other information on to the platform in an open, not a closed, format?
Tessa Jowell: I thank my hon. Friend for his comments. His last point, which raised competition issues, will be a matter for Ofcom and the Office of Fair Trading. Secondly, on the governance of the BBC and its relationship with Ofcom, I hope that I have made the extent of overlap and counter-accountability clear. The chairman of the BBC governors has made changes largely in response to the debate that took place in Parliament on the Office of Communications Act 2002 to tackle transparency and accountability, and separate the governors' role as a regulatory body from that as an executive body. I welcome that.
My hon. Friend is right that much of the detail of our debate on the Communications Bill will pass most people by. However, I hope that the benefits will be apparent:

41
rich, vibrant television; good, distinctively British content; and a flourishing broadcasting and media industry that will maintain our position as a world leader.
Miss Julie Kirkbride: Will the Secretary of State answer the question that her hon. Friend—and mine—the Member for Sittingbourne and Sheppey (Mr. Wyatt) asked about whether hon. Members will be given a free vote on the BBC? Will she also clarify the rules that she intends to set out for ITN? As she pointed out, it has experienced a diminution in investment in recent years. Does she intend to change ITN's ownership structure?
Tessa Jowell: First, whether hon. Members vote on the relationship between the BBC and Ofcom is a matter for the House. Pre-legislative scrutiny will take place; the Bill will be introduced when time allows, and I am sure that the relationship between Ofcom and the BBC will form one of the key debates that shape our proceedings on the Bill.
Secondly, the hon. Lady asked about the ownership structure of the nominated news providers. When she has a chance to study our proposals, it will be clear to her that they intend to alter the current ownership structure, which deters the necessary investment that I mentioned. We propose to alter the balance of the ownership structure and thus allow for three owners rather than the current five, with a maximum share of 40 per cent. We proposed that because we believe that it will provide much needed investment for the nominated news provider.
Mr. Eric Martlew: I want to take my right hon. Friend back to the consolidation of ITV. If we get a single company, will we have only one broadcaster or will we keep the regional broadcasters, such as Border television in my area? Does the Bill include plans to change the boundaries? To echo a point that has already been made, will the Bill contain an assurance that news programmes will not only be made in but broadcast from the regions?
Tessa Jowell: When my hon. Friend has a chance to study the Bill and the policy narrative, I think that he will be pleased to read assurances about both points. Clear quotas for regional and independent productions will be set for the ITV companies at tier two, which will make judgments about qualitative performance. As I said in answer to an earlier question, ITV's network system with its regional character will be able to continue.
Mr. Richard Allan: The Secretary of State is introducing a Bill on behalf of two Departments that tries to promote broadband in Britain. Does she agree that that requires action across Government? Will she examine proposals on which her colleagues in the Department for Transport, Local Government and the Regions are working to charge lane rental access fees to telecommunications companies that want to put in new broadband infrastructure, and ensure that they do not work directly against the Bill's objectives?
Tessa Jowell: Yes, we are working across Government on smart procurement. Prices are falling and, as the hon. Gentleman suggested, that is precisely the way in which to encourage further penetration and take-up.
Mr. Gerald Kaufman: My right hon. Friend has twice referred to the inadequacy of the
42
previous legislation, including the Broadcasting Act 1996. One of the problems with that Act was that it was out of date before it even reached the statute book. Does my right hon. Friend accept that she is legislating not for an Act for May 2002 but for an Act that will have to last until the end of this decade or the beginning of the next one? That is the perspective that she should adopt, with regard not only to cross-media ownership—in which I think that she is mistaken in imposing these pretty arbitrary percentages, which are comparable to those in the 1996 Act—but to the way in which Ofcom conducts itself.
Will my right hon. Friend take seriously into account the proposals, published in the Select Committee's report last week, that both Ofcom and the BBC board of governors should meet in public in the way that the Federal Communications Commission does? Will she also assure the House that, when she speaks about the need for different voices, that will include giving a proper position to community radio, which she has not referred to today?
Tessa Jowell: I studied the Select Committee report at the weekend and was particularly taken by the proposals concerning the governance of Ofcom and the BBC. Ofcom will clearly operate on the Nolan principles. It will be a matter for the bodies themselves whether they meet in public; clearly, there will be occasions on which matters of commercial sensitivity will need to be considered. I entirely share my right hon. Friend's view, however, that, as an operating principle, public bodies such as these should meet in public, and provide specific reasons as to why it might be necessary to meet in camera from time to time.
I know that the Select Committee has been very interested in the position of community and access radio, and in the present uncertainty over restricted service licences. I hope that both spectrum planning and the results of the current access radio pilots will be able to inform future policy in this area. In principle, we see great opportunities for the development of community radio and considerable opportunity for the extension of the restricted service licences.
The answer to my right hon. Friend's final question is yes, it is our ambition to view this as legislation that will last, certainly through the analogue switch-off. We are talking about legislation that should stand the test of time for eight to 10 years. It is important that it should be subject to the degree of scrutiny that we are proposing, to ensure that it is fit for that very demanding future.
Mr. Andrew Lansley: Does the Secretary of State realise that, in the course of answering questions this afternoon, she has twice suggested that competition rules will be relied on to deliver plurality and diversity where media ownership rules have disappeared? If she wishes to say that the British broadcasting and communications industries are open for investment and will be flexible in the future, with the least possible regulation consistent with efficiency, does she not realise that competition is the mechanism by which that can be achieved? Will she at least acknowledge that, in the course of the coming scrutiny, she will be open to the argument that competition might be a more efficient and lighter-touch way of delivering this objective?
Tessa Jowell: It is important that the House takes account of the extent to which this is a deregulatory Bill

43
in relation to cross-media ownership and media ownership. We have scrapped at least 12 of the existing media ownership and cross-media ownership rules, keeping only a minimum of three rules that we believe are necessary for the preservation of plurality and diversity. There will certainly be plenty of opportunity during the passage of the Bill, and in the Government's response to the Select Committee report, to reflect on why a degree of regulation is important to secure the essential place of the media in our democracy.
I should add that it is clear from the regimes operating in other European countries, and indeed throughout the world, that those countries are trying increasingly to use a system underpinned by competition, while recognizing—just as we do—that a plurality of voices and a diversity of content cannot be guaranteed by competition alone.
Jim Sheridan: Can my right hon. Friend give us any idea of the protection, if any, that will be offered to those who are subjected to extremely spurious allegations through the internet, which are offensive to both friends and family? What options will the Bill provide to enable those responsible to be dealt with?
Tessa Jowell: As my hon. Friend will know, we do not propose any specific regulation of the internet, but I understand that the libel laws apply to internet use, as does other legislation such as the Obscene Publications Act 1959. We are working with the Internet Watch Foundation to encourage and promote more self-regulation through the introduction of codes, and although Ofcom will have no regulatory role in that context, it will have an interest.
Mr. Simon Thomas: Both Plaid Cymru and the Scottish National party look forward to getting their teeth into the meat of the Bill.
May I suggest that the Secretary of State add a third principle to her twin principles of regulation—or at least that the House add a third? I refer to democratic accountability. Many people in Scotland and Wales feel that Ofcom, in its present form, represents a step backwards from that principle.
Will the Secretary of State tell us a little more about how Ofcom will work with the devolved Administrations in Scotland and Wales, and indeed in Northern Ireland, where there are unique communications issues? For example, will her tests for the digital switch-on apply to the United Kingdom as a whole, or can they be applied to its constituent nations?
Tessa Jowell: We take those points very seriously. Ofcom must be seen, and trusted, as a body with the capacity to represent the interests of the United Kingdom as a whole. That is why—as I hope I have made clear—each devolved nation will be represented on both the content board and the consumers panel. There will also
44
be an Ofcom office in each devolved nation. Moreover, Ofcom's terms of reference—the principles that will guide its operations—will include the need to take account of the needs and interests of the regions.
Mr. Calum MacDonald: Does my right hon. Friend agree that broadcasting policy must reflect the full cultural diversity of the United Kingdom, particularly the indigenous minority languages of Gaelic and, of course, Welsh? I am glad that Gaelic broadcasting will continue to be part of the Government's overall responsibility. Will my right hon. Friend agree to meet me, and representatives of the Gaelic broadcasting community, to discuss these matters further in the spirit of consultation of which she has spoken?
Tessa Jowell: I should be delighted to meet my hon. Friend. I have already discussed the matter with the Secretary of State for Scotland, in the light of recommendations in the Milne report. It is clear that much can be done to improve the range and quality of Gaelic broadcasting, and that Ofcom should and will have a role in that.
Lady Hermon: I am sure that the Secretary of State is aware of the broadcasting obligations set out in the Belfast agreement of 1998. Do the Government intend to implement those obligations in the Bill? If so, what discussions has the right hon. Lady had with the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland?
Tessa Jowell: It is important to be clear that broadcasting is a reserved not a devolved matter. As the hon. Lady noted, provisions in the Belfast agreement give certain powers to Ministers in the Assembly. In recognition of the fact that broadcasting is a reserved matter, it is not our intention that those powers should be represented in the main Bill. I have discussed the matter with my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland.
Mr. John Grogan: Does my right hon. Friend agree that the proposals will mean much tougher external regulation for the BBC under tier one and tier two than was the case under any of her predecessors? Ofcom is essentially an economic regulator, which imposes a light-touch regulation over the commercial companies' public service broadcasting role. The ultimate backstop powers need to be heavy touch to ensure that the BBC maintains its public service roles. Does my right hon. Friend agree that giving Ofcom such powers would exclude the roles of the governors, Parliament and even the Secretary of State?
Tessa Jowell: Yes, the BBC will face tougher regulation than the other public service broadcasters. However, as I said in my opening remarks, I think that that should be the case. I also believe that the backstop powers should remain with the Secretary of State, as the BBC spends licence payers' money, and that requires a particular accountability.

Point of Order
5.6 pm
Mr. Eric Forth: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. On page 63 of "Erskine May", under the heading "Ministerial Accountability to Parliament", it is stated that
"it is of paramount importance that Ministers give accurate and truthful information to Parliament, correcting any inadvertent error at the earliest opportunity. Ministers who knowingly mislead Parliament will be expected to offer their resignation to the Prime Minister".
On 26 February, my hon. Friend the Member for West Derbyshire (Mr. McLoughlin), who is in his place on the Front Bench, asked the Secretary of State for Transport, Local Government and the Regions to say
"whether Mr. Martin Sixsmith was a civil servant in his Department on 22 February".
The Secretary of State answered:
"As I said earlier, Martin Sixsmith offered his resignation, which was accepted, on 15 February."—[Official Report, 26 February 2002; Vol. 380, c. 574.]
However, today's edition of the Evening Standard states that, in an astonishing turnaround, a statement from the Department apologised for the fact that it announced on 15 February that Mr. Sixsmith had resigned, when he had done nothing of the sort.
That is a very serious matter indeed. On the face of it, the House appears to have been grievously misled in exactly the terms set out in "Erskine May" and the ministerial code. Can we therefore expect—indeed, demand—the earliest possible statement and apology to the House from the Secretary of State, to set the matter straight? We deserve no less. Admittedly, there have been recent rare examples of Cabinet Ministers coming to the House and apologising for errors, even though they were less serious than this. However, this is a matter of such public interest and gravity that I hope that you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, will agree that it is no less than the Secretary of State's duty to come to the House immediately and set matters straight. If necessary he should apologise, and preferably he should resign.
Mr. Deputy Speaker (Sir Michael Lord): I have listened very carefully to what the right hon. Gentleman has said. I have no knowledge of any statements of that kind being proposed at the moment. It is not the job of the Chair to rule on ministerial statements that have been made earlier in the House, but I have no doubt that the whole House will have heard the points that the right hon. Gentleman has made this afternoon.

Point of Order
  BILL PRESENTED
    AGE DISCRIMINATION (No. 2)
    Mr. Paul Burstow presented a Bill to make it unlawful to discriminate against persons on grounds of age in connection with employment or the provision of goods and services; to establish an Age Equality Commission with the function of working towards the elimination of such discrimination and promoting age equality generally; and for connected purposes: And the same was read the First time; and ordered to be read a Second time on Friday 10 May, and to be printed [Bill 133].

Fixed-term Parliaments
5.9 pm
Tony Wright: I beg to move,
That leave be given to bring in a Bill to provide for fixed-term parliaments.
Ten years ago, I was elected to the House on a policy of introducing a Bill to provide for Parliaments of a fixed term of four years. Labour's 1992 election manifesto declared:
"The general election was called only after months of on-again, off-again dithering which damaged our economy and weakened our democracy. No government with a majority should be allowed to put the interests of party above country as the Conservatives have done. Although an early election will sometimes be necessary, we will introduce as a general rule a fixed parliamentary term."
That proposal was a good one then, and I believe the argument to be a good one now. Indeed, the case has become stronger still because of recent developments, which I shall mention in a moment, but the fundamental issue is this: should one party and one person be able to fix the date of a general election to suit their own interests?
If it were suggested that one runner in a race should be able to fire the starting pistol at a moment of his choosing and, moreover, that that runner should be the one who had won the race last time, it would be considered absurd and monstrously unfair, although, no doubt, there would still be those who would defend the practice as traditional and having the merits of flexibility. Yet that is precisely what we allow in relation to general elections.
Of course all parties, all Governments and all Prime Ministers see this issue through the distorting lens of their own interests. Indeed, when I asked one of my colleagues what he thought about fixed-term Parliaments, he said, "What a good idea. What shall we say, 20 years?" It is not difficult to understand why a proposal that seems eminently sensible in opposition should begin to look less attractive in government—except that the Government have presided over a bold and ambitious programme of parliamentary and constitutional reform, which will be their great historical legacy. They have done so because they believe in reform, often against their immediate political or party self-interest, and it is in that spirit that I wish to add this further item to the programme.
Why is it possible for a Government, in the person of a Prime Minister, to fix the date of a general election? It is possible because it is a prerogative power, formerly exercised by the monarch, but, in practice, it is passed to the Prime Minister. That is why a letter arrived to tell me that I shall need to get the permission of the palace, through the good offices of the Home Secretary, before the Bill can proceed any further.
It is surely no longer acceptable to the House for the prerogative to be used in that way, as a legitimising cloak for Executive and prime ministerial power. It could also put the monarch in an invidious position, which has been glimpsed at certain politically sensitive times in the past. Not the least of the benefits of constitutionalising the prerogative power of Dissolution would be to protect the Crown against possible political difficulty and embarrassment. That would surely be an admirable golden jubilee gift from a grateful Parliament.
The present arrangements, which limit the life of Parliament without fixing the date of elections, are simply the product of historical circumstances. The Septennial

47
Act 1715—which, of course, replaced the previous Triennial Acts—was designed by the Whigs as a bit of emergency propping up of the new Hanoverian monarchy. The shift from a seven-year limit to five years under the Parliament Act 1911 was an incidental by-product of House of Lords reform. At that time, Prime Minister Asquith said that the change would
"probably amount in practice to an actual working term of four years."—[Official Report, 21 February 1911; Vol. XXI, c. 1749.]
That is what the Bill seeks to enact.
The Bill would fix general elections at four-yearly intervals, which reflects a post-war average of 3.7 years. It would allow departures from that in the event of Governments' losing the confidence of the House, while preventing Governments from engineering bogus no-confidence votes to trigger Dissolutions. It would also give the Electoral Commission a role in setting precise dates for the election timetable.
The question of when elections are held is, or should be, a basic part of a democracy's infrastructure. In local government, it is accepted practice that they be held at regular and fixed intervals. The same practice was accepted when this House legislated to set up the Scottish Parliament and the National Assembly for Wales; there was no suggestion then that the Executives of those bodies should be able to decide when they wanted to hold elections. The same practice is also accepted by the European Parliament and, indeed, by most of Europe, in which fixed four-year electoral cycles are common.
The time has surely come for Westminster to catch up. Indeed, a Prime Minister who will be the first since the war to agree to appear before a Select Committee of this House is well equipped to be the first to relinquish this prerogative power. If he remains unpersuaded, a word with Lord Callaghan might be enough to convince him that the power can be a curse, as well as a blessing. A change such as I am proposing might help him with other difficulties, too. For example, the Government would like elections to a reformed House of Lords to be tied to general elections, but as the Public Administration Committee's recent report on House of Lords reform pointed out, it is very difficult to fix the terms
of those elected without first fixing general election dates.
48
Similar difficulties exist in relation to the new legislation on party funding. Spending controls are imposed on parties and groups for one year before a general election, but given that election dates are not fixed, the timing of that period is unclear. That creates problems for parties, pressure groups and the Electoral Commission, so it is not surprising that the commission itself is taking an interest in fixed-term Parliaments. As I said, such new factors add weight to the traditional case.
There is a further factor. We are all preoccupied with how to counter the electorate's cynicism about, and detachment from, the political process. The spectacle of parties and politicians manipulating election dates to their own advantage—a process that has intensified in the past 30 years—does nothing to counter, and much to reinforce, such cynicism. We live in a different world from the one in which Sir Stafford Cripps, the then Chancellor of the Exchequer, persuaded Clement Attlee to call an election in advance of the 1950 Budget, lest the charge might be made that the electorate were being improperly bribed. On that ground alone, the case for change is surely made.
I offer one final consideration. It will not be long before speculation about the date of the next general election begins in earnest, and pencil marks around certain dates have doubtless already been made on someone's calendar. A change of the kind that I propose would close down that industry at a stroke, and would be received by the electorate with a huge collective sigh of relief. Of course, there would be losers. I am thinking of all those journalists who spend a happy year or two writing endless columns of, and filling many hours with, speculative nonsense about election dates, and who would be obliged to give their attention to something else. To be deprived of the product of their labours is, I suggest, a cross that we should all just have to bear. I commend the Bill to the House.
Question put and agreed to.
Bill ordered to be brought in by Tony Wright, Mr. Graham Allen, Kevin Brennan, Mrs. Annette L. Brooke, Sir Patrick Cormack. Mr. Frank Field, Mr. Mark Fisher, Helen Jackson, Mr. Mark Oaten, Mr. Paul Tyler and Brian White.

Fixed-term Parliaments
  FIXED-TERM PARLIAMENTS
  Tony Wright accordingly presented a Bill to provide for fixed-term parliaments: And the same was read the First time; and ordered to be read a Second time on Friday 19 July, and to be printed [Bill 134].
Orders of the Day

  Police Reform Bill [Lords]
  [Relevant documents: Second Report from the Home Affairs Session Committee, 2001–02, on the Police Reform Bill, HC 612; Thirteenth Report from the Joint Committee on Human Rights, HC 646, and Fifteenth Report from the Committee, HC 706, Session 2001–02, on the Police Reform Bill.]
  Order for Second Reading read.
  5.19 pm
  The Minister for Policing, Crime Reduction and Community Safety (Mr. John Denham): I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.
  The Bill has been considered in some detail in the other place, and today we have had the welcome and valuable report from the Home Affairs Committee. Nothing is more important to local communities than the ability to live free from crime and antisocial behaviour, and to live without the fear of being a victim of crime. The effectiveness of the police service is critical to achieving that aim. Up and down the country, dedicated and professional police officers do a difficult, and sometimes dangerous, job well, as we have seen in the past week with disturbances at a football match, the local elections and the May day demonstrations.
  Sir Patrick Cormack: I am sorry to interrupt the Minister so early, but it is usual for the Home Secretary to introduce a Bill of this magnitude. The Minister has not said where the Home Secretary is or whether he is ill. If so, we all send him our best wishes for a speedy recovery, but if not, his place is here.
  Mr. Denham: My right hon. Friend the Home Secretary has asked me to introduce the Bill this afternoon, having worked on it in great detail. Of course, it is not unusual for Home Office legislation to be introduced by Ministers other than the Home Secretary.
  The Bill reflects the Government's commitment to ensuring that the police service—
  Sir Patrick Cormack: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. It really is extraordinary for the Home Secretary not to be present in the Chamber. As I said earlier, if he is ill we all wish him a speedy recovery, but if he is not ill he should be here as the Cabinet Minister in charge of this major legislation. I do not disparage the Minister, for whom I have a high regard. but the Home Secretary's place is in the Chamber when a major Bill is being introduced.
  Mr. Deputy Speaker (Sir Michael Lord): That is not a matter directly for the Chair. The hon. Gentleman will be aware that it is for the Government to decide who should introduce a Bill.
  Mr. David Cameron: Further to that point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker.
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. I think that I have dealt adequately with that point of order.
  Mr. Denham: The House will have noted that the Opposition prefer not to concentrate on the issues of effectiveness in fighting crime.
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  The Bill reflects the Government's commitment to ensuring that the police service is able to do its job as well as it can be done. It underpins the police reform that we have already developed with the police service. Our aim is to continue the reduction in crime; to reduce the fear of crime itself; to improve conviction rates and to target persistent offenders; to tackle antisocial behaviour; and to ensure public confidence in the police service.
  Ahead of the legislation, we have already begun to put in place changes that do not require primary legislation. As part of our commitment to reform, we are providing the extra investment the police service needs—an extra £1.6 billion in the three years to 2003–04. In addition, as part of the Budget, my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary announced last week that a further £87 million would be made available to the police this year for counter-terrorism and an additional £67 million to fight street crime.
  Police numbers are at their highest level ever, with an increase of more than 3,000 in the nine months since March 2001. We are well on track for the Government's target of 130,000 police officers by spring 2003. The police standards unit was established in July 2001 and has already played a key role in co-ordinating between the police service, the Home Office and other agencies in developing the current campaign against street crime. We are making the best of the new technology available to the police service. The DNA database now contains more than 1.6 million profiles and the number of matches to scenes of crime was nearly 60,000 in the year to March 2002. We are rolling out Airwave and have overhauled the police information technology organization—PITO—to ensure effective delivery of police information technology.
  We are cutting the bureaucracy that ties up police time, making it possible for the first time to carry out identity parades by video, and introducing the pilot video recording of interviews, which will begin tomorrow in four police forces.
  Mr. James Paice: The Minister referred to rolling out Airwave. When does he intend to reply to the written questions that I tabled on 26 March about the delays to the roll-out of Airwave? Is it not the case that many forces, including my own in Cambridgeshire, will suffer many months' delay because the contracts are not being fulfilled by MmO2 and the roll-out is way behind schedule?
  Mr. Denham: I was not aware that there were outstanding parliamentary questions from the hon. Gentleman, but as soon as this part of the debate is concluded I will make inquiries as to where the replies are. I know that I have signed off some, and I will pursue that point.
  As with all major contracts, there have been teething problems at the outset of Airwave. However, forces such as North Yorkshire, which have been at the cutting edge, have reported its tremendous effectiveness. I believe that the development of Airwave across the police service will be a significant contribution to modern communications.
  We have made clear our determination to tackle the decline in the number of specials, giving them a clearer role in the police service, improving the way in which they are recruited and deployed and giving them greater

  51
  recognition for the work that they do. In April, we launched Centrex, the new training authority that will also be the focus for the development of best policing practice and the home of the new national centre for policing excellence.
  Mr. Elfyn Llwyd: Bearing in mind the very useful work undertaken by special constables, who will, I believe, be known as auxiliary officers from now on, would it not be better to extend their use and perhaps even remunerate them to meet the Government's goals?
  Mr. Denham: I do not believe that there are any proposals to rename specials as auxiliaries. Auxiliaries is a term that the Metropolitan police force has used in the context of community support officers, which I am sure we will come to in due course. I do not believe that the House or, more importantly, the police service is faced with a choice between the development of the special constabulary and of community support officers. They are different roles—specials are, at the core, a volunteer service, whereas community support officers would be paid officials. Specials have the responsibilities of sworn constables but CSOs would not. I believe that we can look to a future in which both can play an effective role in carrying out policing and public order duties.
  Simon Hughes: Following on from the question of the hon. Member for Meirionnydd Nant Conwy (Mr. Llwyd), how far have the Government got in considering having part-time posts for fully qualified and trained police officers who may be past 50 or whose family commitments do not allow them to work full-time? I understand that many people would be interested. Is that likely to be possible within the next year?
  Mr. Denham: I was just about to say that I hope that we are close to concluding a new agreement on police pay and conditions through the police negotiating body which will reward officers better and more fairly and give police managers the flexibility required to deliver an efficient and effective policing service that is responsive to changing operational needs. The agreement should also provide greater flexibility in the hours that police officers work, which I think would go some way towards what the hon. Gentleman wants.
  We have made it a statutory duty of local authorities to work with the police service to reduce crime and antisocial behaviour. We are also putting in place a comprehensive package to tackle street crime in the 10 forces with the worst problems.
  These and other measures have had an impact. Crime has fallen overall—according to the British crime survey, it has fallen by 21 per cent. since 1997. However, we are not complacent—there are still more than 5 million recorded crimes. Figures for some types of crime, particularly street robbery, rose over the past year, although in the first eight weeks of the Metropolitan police's safer streets campaign, there has been a reduction in the number of street crime allegations compared with 2001 levels. Only one crime in 10 results in a conviction, and the fear of crime remains high.
  52
  The challenge is to work with the police service to ensure that the rising number of police officers, the record resources available and the best of science and technology are used to the best effect. We must ensure that forces co-operate effectively together, make certain that the police receive the support that they need from the wider criminal justice system, make sure that best practice is identified quickly and spread and implemented appropriately across the police service, and raise the standards of forces' performance to the level of the best. That is the purpose of the Bill.
  I want to outline the main elements of the Bill and, in doing so, highlight the areas where the Government intend to bring forward amendments to introduce new elements into the Bill or deal with amendments made in another place.
  Part 1 is about driving up standards across the police service to the level of the best. There is, of course, already much good practice throughout the country, but the police service has not been as effective as it might be in capturing excellence and ensuring that forces learn from the successes of others. The Audit Commission has identified variations in performance that cannot be explained simply by differences in work load or by the varying circumstances faced by forces.
  Part 1 is about raising standards to the performance of the best. It does three things. Through the national policing plan, it will create a coherent national framework designed to ensure that all forces are working effectively together in pursuit of excellence. It will create a framework for the promotion of best practice and ensure that some basic essential elements of policing are approached consistently. It will enable action to be taken in the rare cases where performance is shown to be persistently poor. It will do that by building on the existing tripartite structure of the police service. Throughout, it makes clear the importance of consultation with key organisations, including the Association of Police Authorities and the Association of Chief Police Officers.
  Nothing in the Bill creates a national police force; nothing destroys the tripartite structure; and nothing can lead to the micro-management of forces from Whitehall. Those who want to make such claims would do better to concentrate on the issue about which the public are concerned: how we can ensure high-quality policing in every community.
  Mr. George Osborne: One of the organisations that has made precisely those points is my police authority, which states that the provisions of the Bill
  "would radically shift the current balance of responsibility for policing away from local people and local accountability towards greater central direction".
  Has the authority got that wrong?
  Mr. Denham: Yes, I believe that the hon. Gentleman's police authority has got that wrong, although I recognise the concerns about the Bill that were expressed by a number of police authorities. In part, that was a wrong reading of the intents and effect of the Bill. In part, some of those concerns were addressed in another place by making it explicit in the Bill that there would be consultation with police authorities. We had always intended to do that and had made it clear in all previous speeches on the matter.

  53
  At present, the Home Secretary sets policing priorities; he determines the performance indicators under best value, but there is no single place where all the Government's strategic priorities for the service come together. The national policing plan will set out national priorities for policing: the Home Secretary's policing objectives, best value performance indicators, proposals for issuing guidance, codes of practice and regulations. It will look forward to other priorities, such as the development and roll-out of new IT systems or new targets for police numbers.
  The plan will be developed after wide consultation with the national policing forum. The forum will include the APA, ACPO, other police staff associations and representatives of the voluntary sector and victim support groups. We hope that the national policing plan will be debated annually in Parliament.
  Ms Diane Abbott: Is it the intention of Ministers to make the Mayor of London one of the people who has to be statutorily consulted, and to include such a provision in the Bill?
  Mr. Denham: It had not been the intention to include provision for consultation with the Mayor of London in the Bill. Part of the measure provides for consultation with appropriate local authorities— where that is the Mayor of London, he would be included in the process. No doubt the matter can be discussed further in Committee if Members choose to raise it.
  The national policing plan will identify priorities for the issuing of guidance, codes of practice and regulations and will help to deliver consistently high standards across all 43 forces in England and Wales. I shall deal with the three types of measure in turn.
  Regulations, which will be binding in law, will be made when, and only when, it is in the national interest that all forces adopt common practices or procedures to facilitate effective cross-border co-operation. Part 1 also extends the existing power to make regulations in respect of equipment. Regulations could determine a particular type of equipment, where it is the best available, and could also prohibit the use of certain equipment—for example, where there are concerns about its suitability on health and safety grounds.
  Codes of practice will bring together established best practice and will be produced after full consultation with the police service, often using the new national centre for policing excellence. Chief officers will have to have regard to those codes, but will retain the professional discretion to decide on their application to local circumstances. Finally, guidance will continue to be issued, as at present, on a purely advisory basis. Much of it will be issued on a non-statutory basis, not only by the Home Office, but by the inspectorate, ACPO and others.
  In another place, the original clause 5 was removed from the Bill. We believe that that was a wrong move. It cannot be right that a Government, or Home Secretary, who are rightly held accountable, in the public eye, on issues of law and order, have no means of taking action in support of a community suffering unacceptable levels of crime and unacceptably poor policing performance. No one would suggest that such a power is routinely needed, nor that, in the vast majority of cases, the existing means
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  of tackling poor performance, together with the other measures taken in the Bill, will not work. However, we believe that, properly constrained, the Home Secretary needs the power to act. We will, therefore, in Committee bring back the power to direct chief officers. With that power, we will again bring forward the safeguards, welcomed by the Home Affairs Committee but implicitly rejected by the other place, to address the legitimate concerns that have been expressed about clause 5.
  Sir Patrick Cormack: The right hon. Gentleman is most courteous to give way again. Is the Home Secretary proposing to delegate his powers under the Bill to the right hon. Gentleman?
  Mr. Denham: I think that I shall move on.
  Part 2 of the Bill establishes the independent police complaints system and a new system for the investigation of complaints—
  Simon Hughes: Do the Government not yet understand the principle that was behind the Lords removing clause 5 of the Bill? Law and order is not the responsibility only of the Home Secretary; that responsibility is shared with police authorities. When things go wrong, therefore, people do not—and should not—look only to the Home Secretary to put it right. We do not have a national law and order policy; we have a national framework within which law and order is delivered locally. That is the basis of policing, and it has been for many decades.
  Mr. Denham: Indeed. I am not sure, however, that the hon. Gentleman understands the nature of the debates that took place in another place. It was never suggested, and has not been suggested today, that the Home Secretary should be in the front line of addressing every problem that arises in a local police force. The issue is this: what happens in a situation in which the chief constable has clearly failed to respond and in which a police authority has failed to respond effectively? Under those circumstances, should nothing be done, or should the Home Secretary, within the constraints of the Bill in terms of giving people the ability to respond to representations and the chance to put their house in order, be able to act? The Government's view is that, at the end of the day, we should be able to act. The view of the Opposition parties, as I understand it, is that it would be better to leave people with a high crime level and a poor policing service than to do something about it. That is not acceptable.
  Mr. Stephen O'Brien: Silly.
  Mr. Denham: The hon. Gentleman says that that is silly, but that is precisely the logic of the Opposition parties on this matter. They have been so desperate to whip this up into a mythological story about centralisation, national police forces and central direction that they have failed to grasp the central issue: if chief constables and police authorities are not able to deliver, who can act on behalf of local communities? None of us expects the power to be used regularly. Clearly, it is a reserve power, as we made clear to the Select Committee, but that power should exist.
  Mr. Paice: If the Minister's hysterics mean anything, will he explain why clause 4 remains in the Bill and there

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  has been no effort to remove it? Under that clause, the Home Secretary will still be able to give directions to police authorities. In addition, clauses 28 and 29 deal with resignation when chief constables are not efficient. The Opposition have no problem with the Government taking a role when there is a serious breakdown in local areas. The clause that was removed, however, would clearly abolish the tripartite arrangement. That is why the clause was removed in the other place. The right hon. Gentleman's suggestion that we are opposed to the Home Secretary having any involvement whatever is massively excessive.
  Mr. Denham: We will no doubt discuss this issue at greater length in Committee, but the hon. Gentleman's analysis is wrong. I do not believe that the powers available to police authorities under the current legislation—the Opposition parties have made no proposals to change it—give police authorities the ability to tackle some of the issues relating to how chief constables respond not, of course, to individual crimes and individual criminals, but to particular types of crime. Nor do I believe that it is appropriate to see the proposals in the Bill for retirement and suspension as necessarily the best way of dealing with problems of poor performance and policing practice. I believe that the powers in the original clause 5 are necessary to complete the picture.
  Mr. Chris Mullin: One of the points repeatedly made to us was that many chief constables feel that the bureaucratic burden is still increasing rather than diminishing. The creation of a standards unit separate from the inspectorate is part of that problem. Does my right hon. Friend envisage a day when the standards unit and the inspectorate will merge?
  Mr. Denham: My hon. Friend's question raises two issues. On the burden of information, I accept that a challenge for the police service is to rationalise the number of types of information—often similar but not identical information—that it is required to provide. That would create one set of information that would be useful for the police service in managing its affairs and in responding to various inspectorates, including the Audit Commission and others. We have some way to go, but that is the way in which we want to go.
  Bob Russell rose—
  Mr. Denham: I do not anticipate the merger of the inspectorate and the police standards unit, as they have different roles. The inspectorate essentially inspects all the police service all the time while the police standards unit will concentrate on particular areas of police activity and police performance. Trying to combine the two in one organisation is more difficult than maintaining them as two separate organisations. I note the prediction in the Select Committee's report, but it does not reflect the Government's view at the moment.
  I should now like to make progress. Part 2 establishes the independent police complaints system and a new system for the investigation of complaints against the
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  police and police support staff. These provisions also provide for the investigation of serious conduct matters in cases where no complaint has been made.
  I wish to acknowledge the important contribution that the Select Committee on Home Affairs has made to the development of the new complaints system. Its report in the 1997–98 Session was, in many ways, the genesis of these reforms, and today's report broadly endorses the approach that we have taken in the Bill. As there has been extensive consultation with all stakeholders, there is strong support in the service for the new arrangements.
  The new system will deliver better accessibility for complainants, greater openness and greater independence—particularly in relation to the investigation of more serious complaints. Improved access will be facilitated by allowing a representative of an aggrieved person or an independent body to submit a complaint on his or her behalf. Greater openness will be secured by a presumption in favour of maximum disclosure of information to a complaint, subject to a sensitivity test. Greater independence will be achieved by conferring on the Independent Police Complaints Commission powers to call in any case.
  In the case of the more serious complaints—for example, those involving allegations of serious corruption or racist conduct—the commission will either manage or supervise the police investigation. In the most serious cases, the commission will itself undertake the investigation using its independent body of investigators.
  I should like to mention a couple of issues on which we are considering tabling amendments to part 2 to respond to points made in Committee in another place. First, as it stands, part 2 excludes complaints that are about not the conduct of an individual, but operational decisions relating to the direction and control of a force. The Government accept that, in principle, there should be some mechanism whereby public concerns about the policing of major events can be addressed. In the most high-profile cases where serious concerns have been aired about the policing of a major event, we consider that there should be provision for the matter to be independently investigated. We are considering how that might best be done.
  Secondly, we will table an amendment to part 2 to strengthen the protection afforded to police officers who report misconduct or criminal wrongdoing by other officers. It is right that in such cases the whistleblower should have the full protection afforded by the Public Interest Disclosure Act 1998, and we will therefore seek to bring police officers within the ambit of that Act. I welcome the support of the Home Affairs Committee for that step.
  We intend to make a further change to part 2. In a small number of cases, a person has not been able satisfactorily to pursue his complaint against the police because of the inability of the force to identity the officer responsible for the alleged misconduct. A gentleman—I will not mention his name without his permission—who was allegedly injured by police officers in the disturbances following the England v. Germany game in 1996 is a case in point. To allow for such cases, we will table amendments to make it explicit that complaints against the police can be fully investigated when no officer can be identified. If the investigation does not reveal the identity of the officers responsible, no criminal or disciplinary proceedings

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  against individual officers can follow, but if there is evidence of misconduct we would expect the chief officer to take responsibility and make an apology or ex gratia payment as appropriate.
  Norman Baker: We welcome the creation of the independent commission and the Government's proposed amendments. However, we are concerned that the new commission will be swamped by cases because of the availability of manpower and finance. Liberty and others estimate that the commission will deal with only 3 per cent. of complaints. What system will be in place to ensure that it is not swamped? Will it be possible to refer a genuine complaint to a higher level if the complainant so wishes once a case has been through the internal procedures, which is what happens with the local government ombudsman and councils?
  Mr. Denham: We will discuss that in detail in Committee. The broad answer is that all complaints will, in the widest sense, come within the ambit of the IPCC. For example, an individual who is dissatisfied with the action taken in a substantial number of cases that would usually be resolved at force level, as at present, will be able to complain to the commission about the handling of his case. That facility is not available at the moment. Clearly, the commission's staff will carry out the investigation in only a minority of cases and the IPCC will directly manage, as opposed to supervising, a further minority of those investigations.
  The critical consideration is that the rights of the complainant are built into the system so that someone who is dissatisfied with the handling of the case at a lower level is able to raise that within the commission. It was never the intention that the commission would investigate every complaint, including the malicious cases that inevitably come into the system,. The protection is afforded, however. The IPCC acts as an umbrella over the whole system and is able to issue guidance to ensure that its responsibilities are carried out effectively.
  Part 3 relates to the removal, suspension and disciplining of police officers. By their very nature, the powers, especially in respect of chief officers, will be used only as a last resort. This point was reinforced by the Home Affairs Committee in its report and I am happy to reiterate and agree with its view that we are concerned with removal in what will be exceptional circumstances.
  Of course, a key part of the wider reform process is to strengthen the leadership of the service through better selection, better training and improved arrangements for professional performance appraisal. The question of the early departure of a chief officer should arise only in the most exceptional circumstances. The Police Act 1996 already provides for the retirement of a chief officer in the interests of efficiency and effectiveness. So powers exist for the Home Secretary to call on a police authority to exercise its powers to require the chief officer to retire.
  It is against that background that the Bill makes three main changes. First, it provides for the option of resignation rather than retirement. With more chief officers being appointed in their early to mid-40s, when retirement would not be appropriate, that is a sensible change. Secondly, the Bill makes existing procedures less cumbersome. Thirdly, it enables the police authority, either on its own initiative or at the instigation of the
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  Home Secretary, to suspend the chief officer when that is necessary for the maintenance of public confidence in the force. In another place, the Government included in the Bill procedural safeguards in response to understandable concerns raised by chief officers.
  Part 4 is divided into two chapters. Chapter 1 will enable the police service to employ and make more effective use of civilian support staff in a variety of new roles. By doing so, the service will be able to free up for front-line operational duties the time of the record number of police officers that we now have and to harness the work of the extended police family in supporting the police in tackling low-level crime and antisocial behaviour. It will also enable the police service to make effective use of specialist skills in tackling crime. Chapter 1 will also allow close working between the police service and other organisations providing part of the extended police family.
  Chief officers will be able to designate support staff as investigating officers, detention officers and escort officers. The police reform White Paper stressed the need to improve the skills and strength of police investigating officers. In part, we will do that by enabling officers to develop careers as investigating officers, but we also need to bring in specialist skills-in IT and finance, for example-to strengthen investigating teams. Chapter 1 will enable such people to exercise appropriate police powers.
  Our recent study, "The Diary of a Police Officer", found that 43 per cent. of an officer's time was spent in the police station. We can cut that by giving appropriate police powers to support staff to carry out custody and escort duties. Chapter 1 makes that possible.
  Martin Linton: Would my right hon. Friend consider extending the power of detention and the power to demand a name and address not only to community support officers but to neighbourhood wardens and street patrols, such as the one that, I am glad to say, started in Clapham Junction this morning? The power to demand a name and address is essential for work against disorder offences.
  Mr. Denham: I agree with my hon. Friend, but the Opposition parties in another place disagreed, so we will have to consider that issue in Committee.
  Since the Bill was introduced, we have received representations from police forces planning to arrange the provision of detention and escort services by private sector organisations. They want employees of companies involved in that work to have access to relevant powers. Although there is no question of compulsion in that respect, we will be tabling amendments to allow that to take place. As will be the case for designated police authority support staff, powers will be granted to contracted-out staff only where the chief officer is satisfied that the individual concerned is suitable, capable and adequately trained.
  Bob Russell: Does the Minister agree with me, and the Home Affairs Committee, that the Government should refrain from including in the Bill measures to allow the employment of civilians to conduct intimate body searches of people who have not even been charged?
  Mr. Denham: The Select Committee's arguments on this point were thin, albeit sincere. The power to conduct

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  an intimate search is only rarely used by police officers on detention duty, and the norm, as the PACE code indicates, is for qualified medical practitioners or custody nurses to carry out such searches. Indeed, I understand that last year the power was exercised on only four occasions by police officers in that role, so it would be wrong to have the idea that it is extensively used.
  The Government's view is that if we are to allow civilian detention staff to carry out the duties of a police officer in the custody suite, it would be sensible to give them the full range of powers, particularly given that it is not a matter, as the hon. Gentleman said, of employing them for the purpose of conducting intimate searches, and such searches occur very rarely. I am sure that we will return to the matter in Committee, but at the moment we are not persuaded by the Select Committee's conclusions.
  Mr. Mullin: If such searches are so rare, it would not cost the Government very much to concede the point, would it?
  Mr. Denham: The operational issue, which will need to be considered in Committee, is whether the provision of extra police officers that might be needed to cover the remote possibility would remove the advantage of having civilian detention staff. We must consider that difficulty. The issue is not as straightforward as my hon. Friend suggests, and it would not be worth undermining the potential benefits of having civilian detention officers to cover such a rare circumstance.
  Chapter 1 also introduces community support officers, which are another important way of making sure that we use the record and rising number of
  police officers to best effect. The Commissioner and Deputy Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis see the introduction of CSOs as vital to the policing of London. Following the events of 11 September, the Met diverted considerable resources from the boroughs to guard against terrorist attacks in central London, with an inevitable impact on crime away from Westminster and Docklands. The introduction of CSOs will enable the Met to return officers to fighting street crime and other crime across London.
  The Met also intends to use CSOs in what we see as their primary role of providing an increased visible policing presence on the high street, in town centres and on housing estates. Fifteen other forces outside London have also expressed varying degrees of interest in CSOs. It will be a matter for chief officers, in consultation with their police authority, to decide whether community support officers are appropriate for their force area.
  Mr. David Chaytor: May I tell the Minister how successful and popular the existing community warden scheme has been in my constituency? May I tell him also what reservations police officers in Greater Manchester have expressed to me about the CSO proposals? Does he agree that it is crucial that there is a clear explanation of the distinct legal responsibilities of conventional police officers and CSOs, particularly in respect of powers of detention? Will he be tabling amendments to clarify those powers?
  Mr. Denham: I am grateful for my hon. Friend's support for CSOs. [Laughter.] My hon. Friend talked
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  about the welcome for such measures in his constituency. At least I am listening to the interventions, unlike Opposition Front Benchers. My hon. Friend raised important issues. People will need to understand the powers that CSOs are exercising, and chief constables in particular will need to take account of that in deciding to employ and deploy CSOs.
  It is worth remembering that many of the objections to CSOs are almost identical to those made against the introduction of traffic wardens in the early 1960s. It was argued that traffic wardens would be confused with police officers and would divert attention from proper policing. No one would seriously argue that today. In the 1960s, it was radical to have people working for the police service as traffic wardens. In many parts of the country, traffic warden responsibilities are now carried out by people working for the local authority. While I would not suggest for one moment that it is the most popular service in the world, everybody recognises it as necessary for the proper implementation of the law.
  It is a good thing that we are not using the time of professional police officers for duties that demonstrably can be carried out, properly according to the powers laid down by Parliament, by people who are not police officers. Those who oppose this change, and therefore oppose the leadership of the largest single police force in this country who want to use these powers, should think a little more carefully about the matter because, in a few years, people will look back on this debate and wonder what the argument was about.
  Mr. Cameron: The Minister will have noted what the Select Committee said about welcoming CSOs in those areas that want them, such as London, but can he guarantee that he will not use ring-fenced funding to browbeat all police forces into accepting CSOs?
  Mr. Denham: It is perfectly clear in the Bill that the chief constable will have a legal duty to be satisfied about the introduction of CSOs, and there is no power in the Bill to force chief constables to make a decision that they do not believe is in the best interests of their force. However, I see nothing wrong with funds being made available for the development of CSOs. This is a new area of policy and we want to kick-start it. We want to free up police officers' time for fighting street crime and other serious crime, and I see nothing wrong with making funds available to develop CSOs.
  Mrs. Jackie Lawrence: Does my right hon. Friend agree that, certainly in my area, the issue is not so much the creation of CSOs but their long-term deployment? Will he confirm that it will be the responsibility of each individual chief constable to decide how and in what circumstances those officers are deployed?
  Mr. Denham: The Bill is clear; the chief constable is rightly responsible for making decisions about those officers, as well as their training and deployment.
  Mr. Oliver Letwin rose—
  Mr. Denham: I shall give way to the hon. Gentleman, but then I must make progress.
  Mr. Letwin: I am grateful to the Minister and do not want to detain him for long. Will he guarantee never to compel a police force to adopt an action plan that includes the forced deployment of CSOs?
  Mr. Denham: To say that there could never be a point in future—[H0N. MEMBERS: "Ah."] Let us be clear;

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  at some point in future it may be clear to everybody, including the community which is suffering, that policing is not being approached in the most effective way, so it would be ridiculous to go through the whole range of measures today and say, "We will never do this or that." The intention behind the Bill is not to use clause 5, when reintroduced, or any other clause to impose CSOs. However, if we are looking at established best practice, I do not want today to say that any particular measure must always be ruled out because that would be wrong and dishonest of me. I hope that the hon. Gentleman accepts my assurance that the intention is not, and never has been, to use the Bill or clause 5 as a back-door route to impose CSOs.
  In another place, amendments were made with the intention of wrecking the development of CSOs. We believe, as do the Metropolitan police, that the power to require a person's name and address in certain clearly defined circumstances and the power to detain someone for a limited period of time using reasonable force are important to the work of CSOs. We shall introduce amendments to restore those powers to the Bill, which also provides for chief officers, in partnership with local authorities and others, to establish community safety accreditation schemes. Such schemes will enable the work of neighbourhood and street wardens and the like to be more effectively co-ordinated with the police. Accreditation will be subject to a dual-key procedure. Both the chief officer and the local authority or other employer need to agree before any powers are conferred on wardens or security staff. The Bill specifies a more limited range of powers which may be conferred on them, compared with community support officers.
  Mrs. Claire Curtis-Thomas: Will my right hon. Friend give way?
  Mr. Denham: I am sorry, but I must make progress.
  During debate on those provisions in the other place, there was broad support for the proposal that the chief constable of the British Transport police should be able to establish community safety accreditation schemes. Accreditation of such security personnel would bring immediate benefits in tackling antisocial behaviour on the railways, so I propose to introduce amendments to bring the British Transport police within the ambit of the accreditation arrangements.
  The other place saw fit to overturn the conclusions of its own Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee by rejecting the power to amend chapter 1 of part 4 by order. The Home Affairs Committee acknowledged that the powers of CSOs may need to be amended in the light of experience, so we shall need to look at how best to ensure that the Bill confers the necessary flexibility.
  Chapter 2 of part 4 includes provisions to modify and supplement police powers. There is not time to mention all of them, so I will confine my remarks to two areas. As the law stands, an unconscious driver can avoid prosecution for a drink-driving offence because he is unable to consent to the taking of a blood sample. The Bill therefore enables a blood sample to be taken from an unconscious driver for subsequent analysis once he has regained consciousness and consents to the analysis. As now, a refusal to agree to the analysis will be a criminal
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  offence. The Bill provides for nurses to take blood samples in routine road traffic cases, but since its introduction we have received representations from chief officers that that does not go far enough. It is important that the person taking the blood or other intimate sample is appropriately qualified and trained; their job title is irrelevant. We will therefore introduce amendments to enable qualified paramedics to take samples both under the Road Traffic Act 1988 and under the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984.
  The Bill includes measures further to enhance the effectiveness of antisocial behaviour orders. I shall not go into them in detail, but I know that they will be welcomed on both sides of the House, given our previous debates on ASBOs.
  Part 6 removes the anachronistic bar on foreign nationals other than Commonwealth nationals and citizens of the Irish Republic joining the police service. As in other walks of life, recruitment to the police service should be assessed on merit and determined according to relevant objective criteria. A person's place of birth does not provide evidence of whether he or she would make a good police officer.
  Finally, I shall deal with sex offender orders and give notice to the House of two more amendments that we will introduce in Committee. Sex offender orders are an important tool in the management of the most dangerous offenders living in the community. If someone previously convicted of a sex offence starts to act in such a way that the police believe that he may soon reoffend, they can apply for a sex offender order, which includes a list of prohibitions designed to prevent him reoffending. If he breaches any of those prohibitions he can be sentenced to up to five years' imprisonment. For the majority of offenders subject to an order the existing system works well, but it has become apparent that there are real problems when the police have to deal with offenders who move from one area to another part of the country or between the separate jurisdictions of the United Kingdom.
  We would therefore like to amend the law in two interrelated ways. First, we propose giving police throughout the UK greater flexibility in the way in which they apply for orders and, secondly, because the original provisions applied separately to England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland, we propose to make them apply across the UK as a whole. In addition, we would like to provide for interim sex offender orders in England and Wales, which would allow us to deal more effectively with the most urgent cases, and follows the success of interim orders in Scotland.
  The Police Reform Bill will help the police service to deliver a better and more consistent service to the public. It will build on successes over the past five years in reducing crime and tackling antisocial behaviour, while recognising that much more still needs to be done. Reform is essential if the police are to meet public expectations of improved public services; I believe that the police service recognises the need for reform, and is up to the challenge. The Bill will give it the means to get on with the job, and I commend it to the House.
  6.6 pm
  Mr. Oliver Letwin: The Minister will be congratulated by the Home Office; he was clearly given a brief to speak fast and say little, and he has succeeded admirably.

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  This is a major Bill; it is one of the most significant Bills introduced by the Government this Session and we agree with or acquiesce in roughly 98 per cent. of it. However, we disagree almost wholly with 2 per cent. of it., as the Home Secretary knows. He knows that the House of Lords took the same position after mature reflection, because the Bill includes major issues of principle that will change entirely the relationship between the Government in Whitehall and the country's police forces. He knows those things, because he has spoken about them. However, he has chosen to make a speech in Cardiff about a Bill that he removed from this Session's legislative timetable. It is possible that he lacks influence over the business managers of the House, but that is doubtful.
  It is also unlikely that the Home Secretary was entirely unaware that our debate was rescheduled for a later hour as a result of the concoction of several other parliamentary events this afternoon. We are led to believe by the evidence before us that the Home Secretary wishes the Bill, as far as possible, to disappear. I have news for him: we will not allow it to do so. We are debating a major issue which deserves consideration because the Government are taking, for understandable and perfectly upright reasons, a wrong turn in British history. We must make sure that that wrong turn is not taken.
  The primary issue concerns what used to be clause 5. The Minister and the Home Secretary have consistently maintained—the Minister did so today—that it does not fundamentally alter the relationship between Whitehall and police forces. The Minister maintained that it does not give the Home Secretary a new power of direction over police forces. A reading of the clause, after the Government's propositions were half-added to it, but before its removal by the Lords, does not bear out that interpretation.
  The clause is headed "Power to give directions to chief officers". It tells us that the Home Secretary, who is mentioned 21 times in the first four pages of a Bill that he does not choose to defend in the House, will have the power to ensure that whenever he, and not somebody else, judges that any police force, or any part of any police force, is not efficient—efficiency to be determined and defined by him—he may
  "direct the chief officer of police of the force to prepare and submit…'an action plan'".
  Now, if there were merely those two subsections, we could have thought that the Home Secretary intended the initiative to lie with the chief constable, but that is not the case. In subsection (4) we are told that if the Home Secretary does not like the action plan, he has the power
  "to revise that plan in accordance with the directions of the Secretary of State".
  If the chief constable does not choose to revise the plan, he may then be forced
  "to resubmit the plan … with the required revisions".
  The fact is—this cannot be denied by anyone who reads the plain text of the Bill that was before us and which the Minister tells us he intends to reinstate—that the Bill, for the first time in our history, consciously gives to the Home Secretary the power to determine the way in which each of the police forces of this country goes about policing the district or districts for which that force is responsible.
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  It is open to argument whether that is a good thing or a bad thing, and I would have had considerable respect for the Minister's position, and in particular for the Home Secretary's position, if the Home Secretary had come to the House today and argued openly for that proposition. He believes, and I can understand that belief, that he is sitting there in Whitehall—he has said as much repeatedly in the media—holding levers which, when he pulls them, have no visible effect on policing in this country. I sympathise with that feeling of frustration.
  The Home Secretary and I share many desires to see, for example, the police back on the streets of our country. I understand that he would like the power to direct chief constables how to deploy their forces, but if he wishes to have that power he ought to come and defend the proposition. There are two arguments that the Home Secretary would have needed to meet and which the Minister would have needed to address in order to carry any conviction on that point.
  The first argument is one of principle. However the process starts in practice, it could all too easily end by a politician in Whitehall exercising such influence over the day-to-day activities of chief constables and of those in command of the basic command units in their territories that, in effect, he begins to be the chief of police. There is a great danger to our democracy lurking in that proposition.
  I do not say that the current Government would wish to abuse that power; they would not. I do not say that an immediately future Government would be likely to abuse it; they would not. But some day, people would look back at that clause and identify it as the moment when we had begun to slip into tyranny. That is too great a danger. [Interruption.] No, it is not hyperbole. The price of freedom is eternal vigilance. We are sent to the House to be vigilant. We are sent here to look forward to possibilities with which legislation is pregnant, and the Bill is pregnant with that possibility.
  Mr. Kevan Jones: It is a strange and novel concept that the Conservative party is the defender of freedom. We do not need to look forward. For a good example of national policing, should we not look back to 1984 and 1985, when many constituents in North Durham and other mining communities saw the effects of a police force under the direct control of Margaret Thatcher and a Conservative Government?
  Mr. Letwin: I am genuinely astonished that the hon. Gentleman does not understand that the only reason why the law-abiding citizens of this country were willing to tolerate the police action at that time was precisely because of the operational independence of the chief constables, and because it was understood that the Home Secretary of the day did not have the power to direct their actions. If the hon. Gentleman believes that that is a principle of the rule of law which is worth defending, he cannot possibly subscribe to the reinsertion of the clause.
  Mr. Jones: Does the hon. Gentleman agree that at that time police forces throughout the country were being directed centrally by Government—yes or no?
  Mr. Letwin: No, they were not, in practice or in theory. The duty of the police forces of this country is and has

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  been for decades and, indeed, centuries to maintain the rule of law, not the rule of a politician. If the hon. Gentleman and his colleagues do not understand that distinction, they do not understand the foundations of our democracy.
  There is a second argument that the Minister would have had to address. I accept that one might be willing to tolerate even such an attack on the foundations of the rule of law if there were an overwhelming practical advantage in the prevention of crime to be gained by so doing. Crime is so dreadful and so prevalent, and street crime is such a problem, that if we could be persuaded that by that means the Government would bring about a vast reduction in it, there would be a serious argument to counterpoise against the argument from the rule of law.
  We must ask ourselves the question—I urge the Minister to ask himself the question, and if the Home Secretary can be contacted, I urge him to ask himself the question—whether there is the slightest shred of evidence that, of all the bodies in Britain, the Home Office is the one most able to bring about the efficient deployment of anything. This is the Home Office that has created an asylum system which, by the Home Secretary's own admission, is in chaos. [Interruption.] Labour Members may not like the recitation, but the truth remains visible to the population, the media and hon. Members.
  This is a Home Office that has not been able to run an effective asylum system. It is a Home Office that cannot run an effective Passport Agency. It is a Home Office that has prisons with recidivism rates among the highest in the world. This is a Home Office that cannot pretend that it has vastly more efficient means at its disposal than our police forces have at theirs.
  In the whole of rather a long speech delivered at a great rate, the Minister did not give us the slightest argument for supposing that there will be greater efficiency. He hardly mentioned the clause. The Select Committee on Home Affairs examined it seriously. It entertained reservations and supported the clause with great reluctance and modification, but the Home Secretary and his Minister have not chosen to take on the argument. That is extraordinary. There are two arguments against a signal clause—the clause that causes all the fuss: an argument from the rule of law and an argument from practice, and what do we hear? Nothing. A blank. A vacuum.
  Sir Patrick Cormack: My hon. Friend is making an extremely good case, as he always does, and making it powerfully. Has he had any indication that the Home Secretary will play some part in the passage of the Bill? Will he be a member of the Committee? Will he at some stage stand at the Dispatch Box and defend and explain the Bill? If not, not only is the House being subjected to an insult of monumental proportions, but Henry VIII powers are being taken in absentia.
  Mr. Letwin: I have not had such an indication. My hon. Friend knows, I know and the entire House knows that the reason why the Home Secretary is seeking by every means at his disposal to play down the Bill is that he does not want to enter into those two arguments. I do not know why he thinks he will lose them, but I suspect that the reason is that they are very difficult to win.
  I hope that before we have ended, the Home Secretary will, in response to my hon. Friend, have played a role in the Bill. By the time the Bill is sent back to the Lords,
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  and the Lords, as I profoundly hope, with the assistance of our allies on the Liberal Democrat Benches and the Cross Benches there, have sent it back to this House, I hope that the Home Secretary and others and I will have the chance to negotiate the clause out of existence.
  Mrs. Curtis-Thomas: I thank the hon. Gentleman for giving way. Will he concede that some communities in the UK are exasperated by the performance of their local police authorities? After the authorities' failure to engage with them in improving performance, they must look elsewhere and seek the Home Secretary's intervention. If people cannot count on such intervention, must they be satisfied with the appallingly dismal service that they receive in relation to the elements of crime that are not effectively tackled in their community?
  Mr. Letwin: We often hear that structure of argument, and it leads to perdition. What the hon. Lady is actually saying is that we should give up on local democracy and local accountability, and that whenever and wherever they do not happen to work at a given moment, we should seek to centralise to solve the problem. That is the structure of her argument and that of the Home Secretary. It suffers from twin deficiencies, as by centralising we threaten the foundations or our democracy and do not achieve the efficiency that she rightly seeks. There is no evidence to show that the Home Office is efficient. The real way of solving the problem in some areas to which she alludes is to increase and not reduce local accountability and the effectiveness of local communities in ensuring that they are policed in the way they want. The Government have not made any proposals in that regard. Had they done so, we would have considered them constructively and worked with the Government to try to implement them.
  Mr. David Borrow: To return to the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Crosby (Mrs. Curtis-Thomas), does the hon. Gentleman recognise the problem that communities face when they cannot get the services that they desire? The existing system of
  accountability for police forces, which operates through the police authority, is not the same as local accountability to locally and democratically elected politicians. That failure of the democratic process in the police accountability system is one of the factors that causes many of us great frustration in seeking to exercise some degree of control or influence over our local police authorities.
  Mr. Letwin: I have a great deal of sympathy with the hon. Gentleman's point. In the United States, there are 18,000 police forces and local communities feel that they have the ability to influence the way in which they are policed. In Britain, there are 43 police forces and most people do not currently feel that they have the ability at local level—or at what passes for it in Britain—to affect the way in which they are policed. I repeat that if the Government had brought forward what they should have brought forward—proposals to try to restore and increase the degree of effective local accountability—we would have been working with them and not against them. However, they have moved in the opposite direction, which will further distance people from the feeling that they can affect how they are policed.
  Mr. Denham: It would probably be helpful for our further discussion if the hon. Gentleman were to expand

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  a little on the ideas that he is advancing and has aired previously on the "Today" programme. Is he suggesting the direct election of police chiefs at local level? Is he saying that the police force should come under the control of the local county council—or what? It would be very helpful to the House to hear exactly what he is proposing.
  Mr. Letwin: We will, in due course—[Laughter.] In due course and in our own time, we will make our own proposals to achieve an aim that the Government should share. They have 600,000 civil servants at their disposal and they are the current Government of the United Kingdom. It was up to the Government to make proposals. As they have not done so, we will do so before the next election, and our proposals will be in tune with the general propositions that we set out at our Harrogate conference: there should be more, not less, localism and less, not more, centralisation. When we make those proposals, the Minister will have to explain why they are wrong. I suspect that he will find it a good deal more difficult to do so than we find it to show what is wrong with his proposals for centralisation.
  Simon Hughes: The hon. Gentleman knows that his party and mine are at one on this issue. Does he agree that there is an inconsistency between the arguments that are being advanced? On the one hand it is argued that to make people feel that local government is more important and to encourage them to vote more, they should be given more power, not less. Yet on the other hand, to make people have more confidence in the police and more desire to become engaged in the local police authorities' activities and to be involved in local decisions, the Bill seeks to ensure that they have less power, not more. Surely that position is entirely inconsistent, and works against engaging the public with the police and in working alongside them and in their democratic management.
  Mr. Letwin: I can only agree with the hon. Gentleman. We did not hear an argument from the Minister, so I do not know whether he is saying that centralisation will by some miracle achieve localisation, but I doubt it. I imagine that he would admit—although he did not do so—that the measures will diminish and not increase local participation and a sense in local communities that they can influence the criminal justice system. As he did not mention that position, however, he did not defend it, so we do not know what his argument is. All I know is that that argument would be difficult to mount effectively, and I suspect that that is the reason why we have not heard it.
  I should like to turn now to the only other parts of the Bill with which we have major problems. Apart from a brief tour d'horizon, the Minister was again remarkably silent about them. Communication between the Home Office and the Prime Minister has also obviously been lacking. To judge from what the Prime Minister repeatedly says at Prime Minister's Question Time, it appears that he is under a misapprehension, which I shall correct. He repeatedly asserts that the Liberal Democrats and Conservatives oppose community support officers. I think—I have never quite been able to disentangle the matter, either at the time or by reading the text—that he may be under the misapprehension that community support officers and accredited schemes are the same. I
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  do not know, but it is clear that he thinks—or says that he thinks—that we oppose those items. We do not, we never have done and we did not do so in the House of Lords. It would be as well if someone in the Home Office were to inform him of those facts.
  What we have opposed and the House of Lords has rejected are two specific powers, which are in fact the same power in relation to two separate items: community support officers and accredited schemes. They are the powers of detention or semi-arrest. That is the issue that is before the House. The Minister did not address it in any detail, but it is important, and again, I understand the argument that he might have advanced for supposing that the limited power of detention is important.
  The argument has been advanced by the Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis and the Deputy Commissioner, who have a perfectly rational case. Their argument is that as they will not quickly obtain through the training schools and from the Chancellor sufficient numbers and funds to put proper numbers of policemen and women back on our streets, it would be better if they could quickly put on the streets as community support officers a group of people who do not require so much training and are rather cheaper. A rational case has also been made by local authorities, including Conservative groups, which have argued that in the absence of sufficient numbers of police officers, it would be good to put quasi-police officers on their streets through the accredited schemes.
  We understand those arguments and have some genuine sympathy with them. Indeed, as we proceed with negotiations about the Bill, and as the two Houses undoubtedly find themselves in opposition to each other, we would be willing to concede that some form of experiment or restricted group of experiments should take place. There is much to be said for experimenting on this matter, but that is not what the Bill would have done or will do in the state in which the Government presented it to the House of Lords and wish to present it again.
  When the Government have reinserted the missing clauses, including old clause 5, the Bill will do precisely what the Minster had to admit in response to a question that I asked him during his speech. He and his Home Secretary will be given power to use the action plans in clause 5 to force forces the length and breadth of this country to adopt community support officers in place of proper police officers. They will be able to use Treasury influence and ring fencing, and in the last resort they will be able to use clause 5. I doubt that they will ever have to do so; its existence will ensure that they do not have to use it. That is the way in which Whitehall works.
  Under the Bill as it was presented to the House of Lords—and as it will go back to the Lords if the Government have their way, as they will in this House—the Government will have the ability to try to make up for policing deficiencies by introducing a wide range of community support officers who are much less trained and paid somewhat less than police officers, and who have powers that parallel, but do not quite match, those of police officers. We believe that that would be a wrong turning.
  Mr. Denham: It will be important to look back at the Official Report to see the reply that I gave earlier. What I said about clause 5 powers was that I did not want to constrain in general the ways in which they might be used

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  in future; I was not dealing specifically with CSOs. I want to make that clear. Nothing in clause 5 overrules the provision elsewhere in the Bill that it must be the chief constable's decision whether he or she wishes to appoint CSOs. The hon. Gentleman is wrong in his interpretation of what clause 5 would do. It is very important that that is understood between us and that I leave him in no doubt about the fact that the chief constable decides whether CSOs are to be appointed, as the Bill makes clear. No doubt the matter can be further explored in Committee.
  Mr. Letwin: Let us explore it more now. I invited the Minister to preclude the possibility of the clause being used under any circumstances to place in the action plans a requirement for CSOs. He refused to preclude that possibility. The structure of my argument is clear. I am not saying that the Home Secretary will seek overnight to use clause 5 to enforce action plans everywhere to bring about CSOs. That is not how Whitehall works. The process will start with ring fencing and Treasury pressure, beneath which lurks the threat of the use of clause 5. Which chief constable or chief superintendent in charge of a basic command unit will want to have to undertake the experiment of discovering what happens when he is forced into an action plan?
  The only safeguard against that line of argument is for the Minister to say that use of the clause is absolutely precluded—in which case, let that be included in the Bill. The provision was never there, and it is not there now. We are not debating a measure that will be debated in a court of law, in which case Pepper v. Hart would be relevant and the Minister's assurances would be useful. We are dealing with administration, and that works through combining the massive power of the Treasury and the Home Office to enforce patterns of action on chief constables. That is what we fear. We are willing to countenance a restricted group of local experiments, but not portmanteau powers.
  Mr. Gordon Marsden: The hon. Gentleman denies that he opposes the introduction of community service officers, so will he tell us what powers he would like them to have?
  Mr. Letwin: They are called community support officers, but let us not worry about that.
  I can tell the hon. Gentleman what powers I should like CSOs to have, because they are listed in schedule 4, which he may or may not have seen. There are vast numbers of them, and we support them all except those on detention. The powers are as follows: the power to issue fixed penalty notices; the power to require a name and address; the power to use reasonable force, which, oddly, survived, although it will not be necessary if the detention order is removed; powers relating to alcohol consumption and the confiscation of alcohol; powers relating to the confiscation of tobacco; powers relating to entry to save life or limb; powers relating to seizure of vehicles; powers relating to abandoned vehicles; powers relating to carrying out road checks; powers relating to cordoned areas; and powers to stop and search vehicles in authorised areas.
  As we have said—I hope that the hon. Gentleman will mention this to the Prime Minister, as he may have been the source of the Prime Minister's confusion in the past—
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  our subscribing to all those powers is not the same as opposing CSOs. It is important that political debate is conducted honestly, not on the basis of smears.
  Lady Hermon: Would the hon. Gentleman feel more comfortable with CSOs having the power to detain if the form of declaration in clause 68 was extended to them, so that they would have to declare that they would uphold fundamental human rights and accord equal respect to all people? That would refer them to the power of detention in the Human Rights Act 1998. Would that clarify the matter and ease the hon. Gentleman's concerns?
  Mr. Letwin: It might slightly, but we are dealing more with a practical problem than a question of the legal framework.
  The signal moment when the state expresses its power over the citizen is the moment of arrest. That is the single most important thing that the state can do to a citizen. Ultimately, it underlies the rest of the panoply of the state's powers—for example, as regards taxation. One has to pay one's taxes because one might be arrested and put in prison if one does not. The moment of arrest is not a minor issue: it is the crux of the relationship between state and citizen. In this country, it has for many years been carried out exclusively by people who hold the office of constable or are otherwise very highly trained—for example, Customs and Excise officials. The whole purpose of these measures, if applied nationally, is to avoid the need for the individuals concerned to be so highly trained and to have such authorities, duties, obligations and constraints as police officers have. Were it not so, there would be no point in introducing CSOs. They would not be needed if they had the same level of training, expertise, authorities and obligations, because they would be police officers.
  Methods are being devised to enable groups such as Transport for London to police, say, the buses—it could be a local area—at their own expense through a contract with the Metropolitan police. A similar method already obtains in another of our great cities. Those are perfectly acceptable means of carrying forward a programme for bringing more money into policing. If CSOs and accredited officers are given the power of detention, that is the signal moment at which the trained constable, with all that that term implies, ceases to be the principal person in England and Wales who can arrest people. We should not take that lightly.
  The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. Bob Ainsworth): What about a citizen's arrest?
  Mr. Letwin: As the Under-Secretary says from a sedentary position, apart from the rare occurrence of a citizen's arrest.
  Ian Lucas: As the Under-Secretary said, in some circumstances individuals can exercise the power of arrest. The hon. Gentleman should accept that that is the current position in law, not—in error, I am sure—misrepresent the situation to the House.
  Mr. Letwin: I do accept it, because it is true. That is why I said so. At least I try to be truthful.

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  There is a point that may have eluded the hon. Gentleman. When one citizen arrests another, the power of the state is not being used to make the arrest, but the people we are discussing will be regarded by the general public—with good reason—as expressions of the power of the state. It is extraordinarily important that those individuals should be endowed with sufficient resources in their training, obligations and many other respects so that they do it in the best possible way. That is why we heartily subscribe to the independent complaints procedure in the Bill.
  We are all trying to make the police better at arresting people, then along comes the Minister with what is in effect a framework for a national plan for less well trained community support officers and accredited officers who will effectively, if with some limitations, carry out the power of arrest without the necessary apparatus to protect the citizen. That is a dangerous way to go. It is a substitute for the way that we should be going, about which I thought that I was in agreement with the Home Secretary. We want to see our police forces back on our streets taking control, not other people.
  Ian Lucas: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving way again. First, the law bestows on an individual the power to arrest another. We are discussing the rule of law and specific circumstances under which we will allow one person to arrest another. The Bill provides for accreditation and training schemes to deal with such circumstances. Community support officers will be trained within the limits that the Bill sets out. It is simply incorrect to say that the Bill does not deal with the fundamental right of one individual to arrest another.
  Mr. Letwin: The difficulty with the hon. Gentleman's argument is that it ignores the facts. Some—I believe that it may be only one—of our police forces want to employ CSOs because they believe that the training period will last approximately three weeks, in huge contrast to training a constable. The police believe that they can get CSOs on to the streets quickly, without undergoing prolonged training.
  The hon. Gentleman misses another point. The advantage to the Treasury is that CSOs will be cheaper; they will not be paid as much as constables. That is another reason for the Government's wish to proceed with them. The hon. Gentleman shakes his head, but the Home Secretary has admitted it. He said that they were cheaper. [Interruption.] The Chairman of the Select Committee on Home Affairs says that that is not a bad reason.
  As long as CSOs are not arresting citizens, I say, "Hear, hear." All the other powers are fine; of course I back support for the police. We would agree to conducting an experiment, which I hope will ultimately happen, but introducing a measure on a national scale whereby people with three weeks' training and on lower pay wander around arresting people is a bad direction for our police forces to follow.
  Mr. Mike O'Brien: The hon. Gentleman wills the end but not the means. He wants CSOs, but he will not give them the power to do the job. Indeed, his proposal would almost make fools of them.
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  He says that he supports giving them the power to impose fixed penalty notices and, therefore, to demand the name and address of the person involved. However, under his proposals a person who refused to provide the information could simply walk away and the CSO would have no power to detain until a police officer arrived. The hon. Gentleman would make fools of the CSOs.
  Mr. Letwin: I find that argument extraordinary because earlier the Minister rightly defended traffic wardens. He defended them against nobody because no one opposes them. According to the hon. Gentleman's argument, traffic wardens would be useless, yet they are not. We perceive CSOs and accredited officers as useful. However, the system whereby traffic wardens impose fixed penalty notices works well. [Interruption.] The Minister knows that well, despite his sedentary chuntering. The number of people who pretend that they are not the person with whom the traffic warden is dealing is nugatory.
  Mr. Bob Ainsworth: Number plates.
  Mr. Letwin: It is true that the notice is attached to the number plate, but there are few instances of people trying to deny their identity or ownership of the car. That is not the pattern of action. When a fixed penalty notice is issued by somebody in a uniform, people in this country are willing to accept that on the whole.
  If the Minister or the hon. Member for North Warwickshire (Mr. O'Brien) had in mind great crooks or a gang of violent youths, let us consider the power of detention that they believe will salvage the situation. The circumstances are utterly different from those with which traffic wardens deal. How will a 30-minute power of detention, until a policemen arrives, tackle the problem effectively? Why will everything be put right in that period?
  Mr. O'Brien: A traffic warden is in an entirely different position from a CSO. The number plate is the issue for a traffic warden, whereas in the sort of circumstances that the hon. Gentleman describes, a CSO would require a name and address. One of the main problems that police officers constantly experience when they nick someone is getting the correct information about identity. If CSOs do not believe that the person has provided the correct identity, they must have the power to detain the individual till a police officer arrives and decides whether to exercise his full powers of arrest. Without that power, the CSO has no real relevance. I repeat that the hon. Gentleman would make a fool of the office.
  Mr. Letwin: I simply do not understand the hon. Gentleman's structural argument. I read out the list of powers, including, for example, the seizure of cars. I do not understand how lack of the ability to detain will affect that power. In Committee, we will go through case after case in which there is no such link. The hon. Gentleman said that the CSO could detain until the police officer arrived. That is not true; he can detain for 30 minutes. If no police officer arrives, he has to let the person go. The potential for practical problems in the scheme is enormous. The only rational means of deciding between

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  us is conducting a few experiments, not a national scheme that is imposed by the mechanics of Treasury ring fencing, allied to the hidden effects of a reinstated clause 5.
  I must not speak for much longer; I have been speaking for about 50 minutes.
  Mr. Mullin: Forty minutes.
  Mr. Letwin: I apologise.
  The critical issues are whether the former clause 5 will be reinstated—I hope that I have at least pointed out the argument to which the Minister did not want attention drawn—and whether we give powers of detention to the CSOs and the accredited schemes. I hope that hereafter we can at least debate those crucial matters, not evade them.
  Mr. Deputy Speaker (Sir Alan Haselhurst): I remind hon. Members that the Speaker has set a 10-minute limit on Back-Bench speeches.
  6.47 pm
  Mr. Chris Mullin: In keeping with the spirit of the times, the Select Committee on Home Affairs has attempted a little pre-legislative scrutiny. The report of our inquiry, which was inevitably hastier than we would like, was published this morning. We took oral evidence from all the main interested parties and took into account the deliberations in another place.
  Although the welcome for the Bill has not been universal, it is fair to say that there is widespread support for the Government's general aim of improving the quality of service that the police can offer the public, especially by freeing more officers for front-line duties and giving chief officers the tools that they need to manage effectively. Above all, there is a need for the public to perceive that they are getting value for the considerable sums of public money that we invest in our police. At the moment, there is a suspicion that they are not.
  I shall deal mainly with the issues that have provoked controversy: first, the provisions in part 1 that would give the Home Secretary power to intervene in local forces, down to a basic command unit. Almost all our witnesses, except, of course, the Minister believed that that was a bridge too far. As the hon. Member for West Dorset (Mr. Letwin) said, the power could easily be abused by a Home Secretary who was less scrupulous than the current incumbent.
  The Association of Police Authorities was especially offended that the Bill, as originally drafted, placed the Home Secretary under no obligation to consult a local police authority before intervening. Since then, the Bill has been amended in another place, and a clause allowing the Home Secretary to direct chief officers has been removed. As the Minister said, the Government want to reintroduce a similar provision in Committee. They tabled an amendment in the other place that takes account of the widespread objections to the original proposal.
  The Select Committee believes that it would be acceptable for the original clause 5 on directions to chief officers to be reinstated, together with the inclusion of the additional safeguards in Lords amendment No. 42. However, we shall watch carefully the way in which the powers are exercised.
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  The hon. Member for West Dorset said that we needed a few experiments to ascertain what worked. I agree, but I emphasise that we shall get a few experiments because not every force will sign up to the scheme to which he referred. Those first in the queue are therefore likely to constitute the experiments and we shall gain a clear sign of the way in which they will work.
  Mr. Letwin: Will the hon. Gentleman confirm that he would be happy with only a very limited number of experiments being allowed on the face of the Bill?
  Mr. Mullin: I see no need to put them on the face of the Bill because I am confident that, initially, only a handful of forces will sign up to this. Let us see what happens. I do not have a problem with that.
  It is fair to say that there is widespread scepticism about—not to say downright opposition to—the proposal for community support officers from most parts of the police, particularly in relation to the powers of detention. Strong support comes from the Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis, who is keen to make use of them. The Minister has been at pains to assure us that community support officers would be optional, and that if a force did not wish to use them, it need not do so. If that is the case, and given that forces such as the Met are keen to make use of them, my Committee sees no reason to object. If the experiment works, others will try. If it does not, they will not. There is nothing to be lost by trying, and, personally, I am optimistic.
  On the powers of CSOs, it has been pointed out that it is unlikely that they would operate alone in potentially dangerous areas late at night. The odds are that they would be used in conjunction with fully trained police officers. A majority of the Committee took the view that the proposals should be left as they are for the time being. I also take on board the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for North Warwickshire (Mr. O'Brien) that CSOs would be ineffective in most situations if they did not have the power of arrest.
  On complaints, there was widespread welcome for the proposed Independent Police Complaints Commission. Although some witnesses were concerned that the proposal did not go far enough, we believe that it is a big step forward and that its independence would be enhanced if its chairman were to be appointed—like the Comptroller and Auditor General—with the advice and consent of the House of Commons and not simply by the Home Secretary. Perhaps the Government could give some thought to that.
  I now turn to several matters which are not in the Bill, but which, in our opinion, should be. It has been put to us, and we agree, that police officers should be brought within the scope of the Public Interest Disclosure Act 1998—the so-called whistleblowers Act. I welcome the Minister's commitment on that point. Secondly, we believe that there is a good case—as recent events at Yarl's Wood have demonstrated—for repealing the Riot (Damages) Act 1886 which makes police authorities liable for damage caused during a riot. This Bill may or may not be the right place to do that, but it presents a window of opportunity and the Minister might wish to reflect on this point.
  Thirdly, we remain concerned about the huge and inexplicable variation—ranging from 9 to 63 per cent.—in retirements on medical grounds. The Metropolitan

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  police have suggested a number of improvements to the regulations surrounding medical retirements and injury awards. We appreciate that, as the Minister said, these do not require primary legislation, but we would like to hear, during the course of this Bill's passage, what plans he has for dealing with this issue.
  Finally, in view of the tight time scale, it would be helpful if the Home Office could reply to the Select Committee's report in time for the House to take the Government's response into account on Report. I would appreciate the Minister's assurance on that point.
  In conclusion, people are crying out for more effective, visible policing. This is especially true of people in the poorer areas of the country such as the one that I represent. The problem is not organised crime, but disorganised crime. The lives of many of the people I represent have been made miserable by out-of-control youths against whom the criminal justice system is all too often ineffective. This is not simply an issue of resources. It is a matter of priorities and proper management of existing resources. I have long taken the view that a hundred policemen on bicycles would be more effective than two in a helicopter, although those propositions are not mutually exclusive.
  Police officers used to live in the communities that they served, but one effect of the big pay increases awarded in the early 1980s was that they all got mortgages and moved up to the posher end of town. I remember a police inspector's wife in my constituency telling me some years ago that there were 13 policemen living in the rather short street in which she lived. By contrast, there were none at all in the vast housing estates where most of the crime and disorder is to be found.
  During the 1980s and early 1990s, the poorer parts of my constituency—it was the same elsewhere—were virtually abandoned by the police. If they came at all, they came in large raiding parties and glared at the residents through reinforced windshields. Today, I am glad to say, all that has changed. Thanks to a succession of enlightened chief constables and other officers of all ranks, the quality of policing in Sunderland has improved immeasurably. I believe that that is true of many cities. We have dedicated police taskforces based in the communities they serve, working with local people and other agencies to overcome the mayhem that blights the lives of too many of my constituents. They have achieved some impressive results, but, with the best will in the world, we have a long way to go before the genie is back in the bottle. I hope that the measures in the Bill will make a small contribution.
  6.55 pm
  Norman Baker: This country has high standards of policing and we all wish to maintain and improve them. We support the Government's aim to drive up policing standards and to achieve a better-quality police service. Echoing the hon. Member for West Dorset (Mr. Letwin), my colleagues and I support the vast majority of measures in the Bill; it is well-intentioned and sensible, and will go a long way towards achieving those ends. For that reason, my colleagues and I will support the Government in the Lobby tonight on Second Reading, while ensuring, as far as we can, that the Government
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  understand the strong arguments that we shall put forward on the small minority of proposals on whose impact we disagree substantially.
  One issue that is not in the Bill, but which ought to be, is police pensions. This is the great unspoken issue, the time bomb coming down the track—probably a terrible mixed metaphor, I confess. The estimate is that 13.63 per cent. of police funding nationally is now being spent on pensions, and that percentage is rising year on year. Of course, all retired police officers deserve a decent pension, but not at the expense of front-line policing. The Government have to address that issue.
  In Sussex, the percentage is even higher, and my local paper, the Evening Argus, made the point today that, under the present system, the local authority in which a police officer is working when he or she retires picks up the entire pension requirement rather than its being spread across all the authorities in which that officer has served. I hope that the Government will consider that issue, because it discriminates disproportionately against police authorities such as Sussex.
  I was pleased that the Minister acknowledged in a written parliamentary answer on 19 March that there was a need to bring "greater clarity" to pension obligations on police forces, and that the Treasury and the Home Office were reviewing their options. I hope that that process will be accelerated, and, if possible, brought forward as part of the Bill, even at this stage. My colleagues in the Lords tabled an amendment relating to pensions, and I also hope to do so as the Bill progresses in Committee.
  Having identified an issue that is not in the Bill, I shall turn to those that are, and identify some which are the cause of disagreement among hon. Members and between the Opposition parties and the Government. I entirely agree with the comments made by the hon. Member for West Dorset to the effect that the original clause 5 represented dangerous centralisation. Labour Members did not like that suggestion, but I ask them to consider the clause headings in part 1 of the original Bill presented to the House of Lords: "National Policing Plan"; "Codes of practice for chief officers"; "Powers to require inspection and report"; "Directions to police authorities", a clause which contained the provision entitled, "Power to give directions to a police authority"; "Directions to chief officers", which contained the provision entitled "Power to give directions to chief officers"; "Regulation of equipment"; and "Regulation of operational procedures and practices". I accept that that last one was amended by the Government in the Lords.
  All those clauses may have some validity, and there may be some reason for their introduction. The Minister explained some of that is his presentation. Taken as a whole, however, they represent a change to the traditional tripartite system that has served this country well. It may not have been created deliberately as a tripartite system, but it has evolved into one that works and gives the people of this country confidence. It provides a fair balance between the local police authority, the chief constable and central Government. The Government meddle with that arrangement at their peril and at ours. I beg them to think again about their intention to try to reinsert the original clause 5 into the Bill. It is opposed by the Liberal Democrats, the Conservatives and other parties in the House. I believe it is also opposed by most of the police,

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  and by the public. It would be a shame to spoil a good Bill by including such a controversial, destructive and debilitating measure.
  The Government could command unanimity, or at least overall support. They could present to the public a united House—a House united in its determination to drive up police standards and maintain the improvement in years to come. They could ensure that those on all three Front Benches said the same, and backed them. If they want all that, they must not reinsert clause 5.
  The arrogance of the Home Office lies in its belief that it can do best—that if someone fails, a superman will arrive from somewhere and suddenly make it all better; that a magic formula, to be used sparingly, can be sprinkled over police authorities, and suddenly whatever was wrong with them will be cured. I do not think that that will work, because it is undemocratic and takes power away from local people and local police authorities. I accept that local police authorities could be more democratic than they are now. That is a legitimate point, which has been made from the Labour Back Benches. Nevertheless, the Government's proposal is undemocratic.
  Moreover, there is no indication that what the Home Secretary of the day will do will solve whatever problem appears to exist. Indeed, there is no guarantee that a problem will exist. How can a Home Secretary with officials in Whitehall be better able than the people of Essex, Northampton or Derbyshire to say that a problem exists in one of those areas?
  Mr. Kevan Jones: What does the hon. Gentleman suggest a Government do if a police force is letting its local community down by not fighting crime, or by engaging in maladministration, corruption or other practices that lead to there being something severely wrong with that force? Is he suggesting that the Home Secretary will stand by and let that happen? What should the Government do when the local community has clearly lost confidence in its police force, and there are issues of concern for that community and possibly for the nation?
  Norman Baker: If the community feels there is a problem, it should have power to take control and rectify it. It is the community that will suffer. If there is a problem in Derbyshire, the people of Derbyshire will suffer. They should be able to remedy the problem, rather than relying on the Home Secretary in London.
  Mr. Denham: The hon. Member for West Dorset (Mr. Letwin) failed to answer this question; I wonder whether the hon. Member for Lewes (Norman Baker) will be able to do so.
  What powers has the hon. Gentleman in mind to deal with the problem raised by my hon. Friend the Member for North Durham (Mr. Jones), if not those of the existing police authorities? Police authorities may not always be relied on to take effective action, although we hope that will be possible in the vast majority of cases.
  Norman Baker: The question is based on the false premise that if there is a problem, it can be solved by the Home Secretary of the day. That makes no sense. Powers are already in place; indeed, the Home Secretary has powers. There are arrangements for independent
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  inspections, for example. I would like to see a modified police authority that was more democratically accountable to its local community. That is the answer.
  When there is a problem, the power should not inevitably go to the next level in Government, which would mean that eventually—regardless of the nature of the problem and the sphere in which it occurred—the Prime Minister would deal with it. That is not the way in which we organise things in this country. We have to trust local communities and local democracy. I refer the Minister to a paper on regional government produced by his own Government. Clearly, those in other parts of Government believe in local democracy; it is a shame that the Home Office apparently does not.
  Mr. Kevan Jones: I still have not received an answer to my question. May I draw an analogy that relates to what was said by the hon. Member for West Dorset (Mr. Letwin)? Is the hon. Member for Lewes suggesting that local police chiefs and police authorities should be directly elected?
  Norman Baker: I do not think it would be very sensible to elect local police chiefs, and as far as I know no one in the House or elsewhere has suggested that, but there is an argument about who should choose—or elect, if you like—police authorities, which is perfectly proper. The hon. Gentleman may recall that when his party was in opposition, it—along with the Liberal Democrats, if memory serves me—strongly opposed the Conservative Government's proposed measures to stitch up police authorities. There is a legitimate way in which police authorities can be more accountable, and can be seen to be more responsive to their communities. We should aim for that, rather than giving blanket powers to the Home Secretary.
  Labour Members have failed to answer another question. Do they not recognise, in their hearts, the dangers of handing powers such as these—albeit reserve powers—to a Home Secretary? I do not necessarily refer to the present Home Secretary. I ask Labour Members to imagine the worst possible Conservative Home Secretary, the Conservative Home Secretary whom they see in their worst nightmares. What would he or she do with such powers?
  We are legislating not just for tomorrow, but for a long time ahead. We must therefore ensure that there is a separation of powers relating to local accountability: that is what democracy relies on. The Home Secretary's proposals undermine a system of that kind, and create a potentially dangerous situation. I ask Labour Members to accept what I have said, and I think that in their hearts many will.
  Simon Hughes: Does it not follow from some of what has been said so far that the country has relied on people who are not politicians to enforce and uphold the law—the courts, with independent judges or magistrates, and the police, who come with no party political manifesto or position? That is a fundamental principle, and that is why Home Secretaries, who are politicians, should be kept away from these levers of power while police chiefs, who are not politicians, should be given access to them.
  Norman Baker: My hon. Friend makes a persuasive point, as always.

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  My colleagues and I are determined to resist the reinsertion of clause 5. I believe that that applies to the Conservatives as well. The Minister will have to believe that we are united in this regard, and that we are not going to give way. Certainly I am not going to give way. There can be as much ping-pong as the Minister wants, but that is our position. We do not intend to give way on such an important principle.
  The Bill proposes the establishment of an Independent Police Complaints Commission. As I said in an intervention on the Minister's speech, my colleagues and I welcome such a sensible step, which is long overdue and will do much to restore confidence in the police. I also welcome the suggested extensions of the commission's power. The Minister said he would table amendments relating to three issues in that context, and I think that sensible. I ask him, however, to reflect on my comment that the commission might be swamped by a huge number of complaints. People who have not thought it worthwhile to complain so far because, rightly or wrongly, they have assumed that they will not be given a fair hearing might want to complain to an independent body.
  There may be a small secretariat, for want of a better word, dealing with relatively few cases—high-profile cases—and, in effect, relying on the police to investigate 98 per cent. of cases. That is welcome as far as it goes, but I think the public want to feel confident that if they are not satisfied with the police response, the case can be referred to the commission and examined independently. Many complaints to local authorities about their services are settled through an in-house council complaints procedure, but if complainants are still dissatisfied they have the right to go to the local government ombudsman. I think the same right should be given in this instance.
  That right, however, will be worth nothing if there is no capacity for dealing with complaints that are referred—if the commission ends up picking and choosing, because it simply cannot cope with the river of complaints. The commission must be properly financed and properly staffed if it is to gain public confidence.
  Let me say something about clause 19 of the original Bill, and the comments of the Joint Committee on Human Rights, which was concerned about what the Government had proposed in relation to the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000. The report from the Joint Committee on Human Rights said:
  "Clause 19(2) would allow for the inclusion of the application of the relevant provision of the 2000 Act to Commission investigations, but does not require this. As a result, there is a risk that an Order made by the Secretary of State might fail to contain the provisions of the Regulation of Investigatory Powers 2000 Act designed to protect human rights. Such an Order might be invalid as breaching the 2000 Act, and would be in considerable danger of being invalid as violating the Convention right under article 8 of the ECHR."
  The Minister needs to deal with that matter in Standing Committee.
  I turn now to part 3 of the Bill. Liberal Democrat Members retain concerns about clause 31, which used to be clause 30. It deals with the power of the Secretary of State to remove senior officers. That is a further example of the centralising tendency. The Home Secretary wants to take to himself powers that might best be left elsewhere.
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  Clause 31 is headed "Removal etc. of senior officers at the instance of the Secretary of State". To mix metaphors again, I believe that that should send shivers down spines and set alarm bells ringing at the same time. It is an extensive and draconian power.
  What is wrong with allowing police authorities to deal with that matter, as has been the position so far? How many problems have arisen? As it happens, the Home Secretary was already able to get rid of a chief constable by the slightly back-door method of issuing a press release, as happened with Paul Whitehouse, the former chief constable of Sussex. The proposed power would mean that chief constables would always be looking over their shoulders, wondering what the Home Secretary of the day was expecting of them. They would worry about whether they were complying with a police plan, or whether they should have community support officers in their areas, given that the police authorities next door and down the road had them. If they did not have such officers, they would worry about being asked to explain why, and wonder whether they would get a black mark.
  In addition, let us suppose that a chief constable undertook an experiment such as the one launched in Lambeth regarding the enforcement of the law relating to cannabis. What would happen if the Home Secretary of the day disliked such a plan? Many hon. Members would be violently opposed to such experiments, so where would that leave the chief constable? The power proposed in the Bill would make chief constables less willing to make such judgments and take such chances. It is the wrong power to take, and I hope that the Government will reconsider.
  I turn now to part 4, the other controversial part of the Bill. The ideal structure for police in this country would involve more police officers. Every hon. Member would support that. To their credit, the Government have finally adopted a strategy of recruiting more police officers—albeit after a long lead-in period. We are just about back to above 1997 levels, although some police authority areas are still below them. We are approaching the Government's target of 130,000 officers, and that is welcome.
  Another problem is retention, as I and other hon. Members have pointed out in previous debates on this matter. There is no point in pouring police in at one end of the colander, if they are only to come out of the other. One or two police authority areas have poor retention levels.
  In an intervention, my hon. Friend the Member for Southwark, North and Bermondsey (Simon Hughes) referred to the proposal in the Liberal Democrat general election manifesto that part-time officers should be employed on a retained basis. I was pleased to hear the Minister suggest that they may have a role. Some people may be too old to want to be full-time officers, but they may not want to retire. Their great experience means that they may have a great deal to give the community. It would be folly to lose such people, who may be prepared to continue to work limited hours. We must find a way to retain them.
  Mr. Kevan Jones: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
  Norman Baker: No. If the hon. Gentleman will forgive me, I have given way to him twice.

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  People may not want to work as full-time officers for various reasons. For instance, a mother who has recently given birth may wish to ease her way back into the police force. I hope that the Government will consider seriously the proposal that properly trained officers could work part-time.
  Another question concerns specials. They have not been mentioned much today, but their role in policing is very valuable, as I am sure hon. Members of all parties will accept. In December 1971, there were 29,992 specials, whereas on 30 December 2001, there were only 12,068. That is a fall of more than 50 per cent. in the numbers of specials over that period. In fact, there has been a fall of 7,000 since the Government came to power in 1997. I am not making a party point, as the figure was dropping under the previous Conservative Government. Nothing has been done to arrest the decline. [Interruption.] As far as I know, there was no fall in the number of specials under the last Liberal Government of 1906, so my party can claim to be immune from the problem.
  Over the lifetime of this Government, there has been a fall in the number of specials in my area of Sussex. There were 465 specials in 1997, and there are 301 now. Specials are valuable. They are properly trained police officers, who do not have the side effects—if I may put it that way—that community support officers might have. However, it seems that little enough is being done to retain them.
  I hope that the Government will consider establishing an annual bounty—some sort of fixed allowance—for specials, as that would give them some recognition. I accept that there would have to be some rostering if such a proposal were to go forward. I believe that the Government told the House of Lords that they would consider such a proposal, and I very much hope that they do. We have to arrest the decline in specials-no pun intended.
  Community support officers present a more difficult problem. They represent yet another tier of policing, an idea that the Liberal Democrat party put forward first, in our manifesto. Like the hon. Member for West Dorset, therefore, I object to the Prime Minister saying that we have been totally opposed to CSOs. We have not: we have opposed the powers that the Government have been willing to give them, but that is not the same thing.
  If the CSOs are to command support in post, they must first be recognisable, which means that they must have a common uniform. Secondly, they must have one set of powers that does not vary between areas. Thirdly, they must be properly trained, by the police. Fourthly, they must be either police or local authority employees. We are against accreditation by external bodies. We do not want accredited officers to be employed by anyone other than the police or local authorities, and the same goes for CSOs.
  We want simplicity and accountability. The Government scheme is something of a hotch-potch. It will lead to misunderstanding among the public about exactly who is doing what in which area. People will not know who controls the CSOs; to whom complaints should be made; or what powers the officers may have. That is a dangerous road down which to go. For example, a citizen may genuinely believe that a CSO who wishes to detain him, or issue him with a fixed penalty ticket, does not have the
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  power to do so as CSOs elsewhere in the country do not have that power. That is a recipe for disaster. We need clarity and accountability. I fear that the Bill does not provide them.
  Another way to reduce the number of tiers would be to wrap up traffic wardens in one of the groups. There is no reason why traffic wardens should be a discrete group, nor why they should not have enhanced powers and act in a more effective manner. For example, traffic wardens can antagonise motorists by giving out parking tickets, but they are unable to deal with problems with which people locally—in the area or the street—want someone to deal. We need to look at the powers of traffic wardens.
  Mr. Letwin: Has the hon. Gentleman had a moment to consider the point made by the hon. Member for North Warwickshire (Mr. O'Brien), who wondered whether the power of detention was necessary to make the other powers operative? Does the hon. Gentleman consider that the power of detention is necessary in connection with powers such as giving notices for fixed penalties under road traffic legislation, or dealing with dog fouling, or in connection with environmental protection legislation, or in connection with the confiscation of alcohol or tobacco?
  Norman Baker: The power of detention is very significant. which is one reason why my colleagues have opposed its being given to people who are not properly trained police officers. That significant power should rest only with the police. People associate the power of arrest with those who wear the police uniform, and they should know that they cannot be arrested by those who wear a different uniform. Allowing other people to have that power is a very dangerous road down which to go, and we intend to continue to oppose that right to detain. There is an argument about how many powers those officers should have. I make no secret of the fact that we are dubious of some of the powers in the schedule.
  Mr. Mike O'Brien: I suggested that fixed penalty notices in particular would require the identity of the person—the name and address—to be given. Indeed, if a person refused to give his or her name and address, a fixed penalty notice could not be issued and the community support officer would be faced with a very limited choice: he could either use his citizen's power of arrest or let the person go. In practice, would not the hon. Gentleman's suggestion put the CSO in the intolerable position of having to let the person go and not being able to detain him until a police officer arrived?
  Norman Baker: First, depending on the offence, citizen's arrest would still apply. That point was made earlier by the hon. Member for Wrexham (Ian Lucas). Secondly, people do abscond from police officers. They do so very effectively on occasion—the police officers are unable to catch them. However, I understand the serious point made by the hon. Member for North Warwickshire.
  Mr. Denham: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
  Norman Baker: In a second; I am answering the question that the Minister's colleague asked.
  The serious point that the hon. Gentleman makes is one reason why we have to consider the powers given to CSOs. I would personally wish them to have powers that were not

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  likely to put them in the situation to which he refers. I would wish them to have powers, for example, in relation to untaxed vehicles—a major problem—and powers similar to those exercised by traffic wardens. They could have a range of non-confrontational powers, such as acting as eyes and ears for the police and assisting constables in the exercise of their duties. Those powers would be straightforward and would not put CSOs in the position to which the hon. Gentleman refers. He raises a genuine issue, which is why we need carefully to consider the range of powers that CSOs are given.
  Mr. Denham: I should be grateful to the hon. Gentleman if he would enlighten me as to whether he would have preferred the Bill if we had made no reference to the detention powers but had said that we wished those paid employees of the police service to rely on their citizen's powers of arrest? Surely it is better to make it clear in the Bill what Parliament intends.
  Norman Baker: That intervention is not very fair; in response to the point made by the hon. Member for North Warwickshire, I have referred at some length to the sort of powers that my colleagues would wish CSOs to have. To pick up the point made by the hon. Member for Wrexham, I have also recognised that a general power applies to all citizens of this country.
  Several hon.Members rose—
  Norman Baker: I ought to make some progress.
  It would be rather odd to include in the Bill a power that already exists for all citizens of this country.
  I want to deal with the pressure that will be applied to police authorities or chief constables to deploy CSOs. The Select Committee on Home Affairs picked up the issue of ring-fencing expenditure. I was extremely worried by the Minister's response, in which he failed to rule out—in fact, he encouraged the idea—that the Treasury and the Home Office would, in effect, get their own way by the back door. In other words, chief constables would be given the right to deploy CSOs. If they chose not to do so, they would be put under financial pressure to encourage them to do so, until there were CSOs throughout the land and the Government could say, "They have all done it voluntarily. We have not used clause 5; they have taken the decision themselves."
  Mr. Denham: I rather suspected that my straightforward and honest answer would be the subject of the most massive distortion by this time in the evening. What I actually said was that I see no objection to providing funding to kick-start the CSO initiative. Indeed, I do not see anything wrong with that. I undoubtedly did not say the other things that it has been claimed that I said, and the hon. Gentleman knows that full well.
  Norman Baker: I hear what the Minister says, and I shall be interested to read Hansard tomorrow to find out whether that is exactly what he said earlier. I am sure that it will be because he is a very honest fellow. Nevertheless, the fact is that he now envisages a situation where, even if it is a kick start, certain authorities will be given a bribe, a sweetener, a golden hello to introduce CSOs. Those
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  authorities that do not do so will be left out and, no doubt, their budgets will be top-sliced to help those authorities that have chosen to deploy CSOs. I am grateful to the Minister for confirming tonight that there will be a financial incentive.
  In conclusion, I want to raise an issue mentioned by the hon. Member for Sunderland, South—the Riot (Damages) Act 1886, the Yarl's Wood fire and the fact that Bedfordshire police are being sued for £40 million. That is nonsense, and we should take the opportunity provided by the Bill to deal with it. That could be done quite easily; otherwise we shall put the police in a difficult position. Neither is suing Millwall football club any way to recover money for the police.
  By and large, this is a good Bill. It could be a very good Bill. There were one or two poisonous flies in the ointment but, by and large, they have been removed by the House of Lords, and I very much hope that the Minister will not seek to reinsert them. If he does, I assure him that we on the Liberal Democrat Benches will not waver.
  7.25 pm
  Mr. Mike O'Brien: May I begin by declaring an interest? I am the parliamentary adviser to the Chief Police Officers Staff Association. I am also a member of the appeals committee of the Police Dependants Trust. Both those roles are unpaid. However, the views that I express today are my own, on behalf of my constituents, but I will let the House know the Chief Police Officers Staff Association's views on a certain issue.
  Broadly, I welcome the Bill. It is a good Bill, which is designed to improve the performance of the police. On the whole, it will help police efficiency and effectiveness, and therefore reduce crime and the fear of crime and help to tackle antisocial behaviour. After all, police reform must be about giving the police the numbers, the tools and the management that they need to be more effective at catching criminals and reducing the fear of crime.
  The taxpayer is putting unprecedented millions of pounds into Britain's police and expects results. To some extent, the taxpayer is getting results. The British crime survey shows a 21 per cent. fall in crime since 1997, but crime levels are still too high, especially for street crime.
  The Bill aims to improve police morale and effectiveness. Police morale was undoubtedly damaged by the cut in police numbers in the mid-1990s and the failed Sheehy attempts at police reform.
  I represent Warwickshire, which from 1993 to 1998, experienced one of the biggest cuts in police numbers. By 1998, Warwickshire had lost 11 per cent. of its officers—probably the largest number in the country. Police numbers are rising once again. The chairman of the police authority hopes shortly to restore record numbers of police officers in Warwickshire. As part of that process, the police authority has increased its council tax precept by 19 per cent.
  Few voters in the recent elections complained about the cost of the police; they wanted to see more officers on the beat and were prepared to pay for it. Warwickshire police force has tremendous public support. It is an excellent, although small, constabulary. People are prepared to pay more for policing, but they demand value for the money that they pay. Taxpayers are not pleased when a police

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  officer turns up at the scene of an offence or an incident and says, "Sorry I am late, but we did not have enough staff on duty", or "There is no point in arresting them; the courts will let them off." That rarely happens now in Warwickshire, but it did happen until all too recently.
  Across Britain, questions need to be asked about why some forces perform better than others. What efforts are being made to improve delivery? The Bill will put each chief constable and each bobby on the beat to the challenge of delivering for the taxpayer. Most of them will rise to that challenge and raise their game, but it is also important that the Government, the police authorities and chief constables have the powers to deal with those who are not raising their game and not delivering for the taxpayer.
  Most police officers everywhere are committed, but performance varies, even where local policing is similar. We need to ensure that policing everywhere is brought up to the standard of the best. We also need to deal with the problems of red tape and bureaucracy that all too often clog up police procedures. Police officers spend 43 per cent. of their time in the station, much of it on paperwork. I am pleased that the Government are addressing that with their taskforce, which is working alongside the reforms in the Bill. The Independent Police Complaints Commission is good news and will, no doubt, be welcomed by the Police Federation, which has long sought such change.
  The Bill is therefore a move in the right direction, as part of a broad strategy to reduce crime and raise standards in public service. However, in our zeal to create organisational tools to improve standards, we need also to recognise that good policing requires a fair degree of local discretion and local decision making. That means that chief constables must have considerable discretion in operational matters in their locality.
  Chief police officers welcome the Bill's broad thrust and want it to be enacted, but they do have concerns about individual aspects of the Government's proposals. Given that the Government have had one or two problems with the federated ranks, Ministers will need the support of chief police officers in implementing reform, and they will doubtless want to listen with care to their views. Individually, most reforms in the Bill cause few problems for chief police officers, but in combination they raise some concerns. The creation of plans, the setting up of national bodies that give guidelines, and the measuring of performance are all sensible provisions, but what worries some chief police officers is their conjunction with the Home Secretary's extended power to remove and to suspend chief police officers. However, they can be reassured through minor adjustments to those powers. The agreement to a protocol on their use is helpful, but a further concession would be even more helpful. Chief police officers would like a tribunal to review any decision by a Home Secretary to require a police authority to suspend or bring about the resignation of a chief police officer, and the tribunal would also need the power to reinstate such an officer.
  I accept that the Home Secretary's current powers under the Police Act 1996 are inadequate—a point illustrated by the recent experience of Warwickshire police, which found it difficult to remove a chief constable who was ill. Delay and difficulty occurred in that case, and although it was resolved, it is clear that better powers to take action are needed. It would help if the Home Secretary's powers were subject to review by a tribunal
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  composed of, say, representatives of the Association of Police Authorities and the Association of Chief Police Officers, and, perhaps, a judge. After all, the circumstances in which those powers will be used are expected to be quite exceptional. That would certainly reassure chief constables and police authorities that they will not be subject to operational interference from Whitehall, and perhaps to sacking in default of doing as they are told.
  To some extent, operational decisions should be the prerogative of chief constables. No Home Secretary should try to micromanage from Whitehall, and my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary doubtless has no intention of doing so. However, on police numbers—a political issue whereby politicians carry the can if chief constables do not use their budgets to increase numbers—the Home Secretary should have a real say. I have said so before and I believe it to be true, but in deciding how many police officers operate in a particular area or how policing takes place, chief constables need flexibility, not straitjackets from Whitehall. I do not believe that Whitehall has any intention to micromanage, but such concerns do exist, so Ministers need constantly to reassure the police, and in doing so to put in place safeguards, where possible and appropriate.
  The shadow Home Secretary's claim that he supports the concept of CSOs but opposes the power to detain is nonsense. He wills the end but not the means. He would give CSOs the power to issue fixed penalty notices for antisocial behaviour, which require giving a name and address, but if a person refuses to do so, he would leave CSOs with the power to do nothing except make a citizen's arrest. If we are to have CSOs, a power to detain for 30 minutes is necessary.
  Mr. Letwin: Will the hon. Gentleman explain why detention is necessary to deal with alcohol consumption, confiscation of alcohol, confiscation of tobacco, seizure of vehicles, entry to save life and limb, abandoned vehicles, carrying out of road checks, cordons and so forth?
  Mr. O'Brien: I could discuss each of those, but a gap in the hon. Gentleman's argument strikes me immediately. With an uncharacteristic lack of candour, he has omitted from his list fixed penalty notices, which he mentioned earlier. If he cannot fill that gap and must seek simply to divert attention, he ought to rethink his policy.
  On abandoned vehicles—one of the hon. Gentleman's examples—let us say that some young kids are found in the vicinity of a burning vehicle. If a CSO discovers them and is unsure of the circumstances, he may want to detain them until a police officer arrives on the scene. Under the hon. Gentleman's proposal, however, he would have no power to do so. He would have only two choices. First, he could use his citizen's power of arrest, which might be going too far; after all, under such a power he cannot arrest on suspicion. Secondly, he could let them go. The hon. Gentleman looks confused, as indeed I suspect that he is.
  Mr. Letwin: I cannot understand what that argument has to do with the removal of abandoned vehicles—the actual power in question. In what way do fixed penalty

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  notices relating to dog fouling, or to litter and the Environmental Protection Act 1990, require the power of detention? I simply do not understand the argument.
  Mr. O'Brien: The simple and straightforward point is that, if the hon. Gentleman is willing an end, he must also will a means to it. If he wants to be able to issue a fixed penalty notice to an individual, he needs that individual's name and address.
  Martin Linton: Will my hon. Friend give way?
  Mr. O'Brien: If my hon. Friend will forgive me, I shall deal with the point made by the hon. Member for West Dorset (Mr. Letwin).
  If a person refused to give their name and address, the CSO would be in a difficult position. If the hon. Gentleman cannot work out how to resolve it, that is his problem. He is creating the difficulty, and through the Bill the Government have set out a way to resolve it. The CSO will have the power to detain for 30 minutes, if necessary. If a person refuses to give—
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. I am afraid that the hon. Gentleman has had his time. I call Mr. Francis Maude.
  7.36 pm
  Mr. Francis Maude: The last time that the hon. Member for North Warwickshire (Mr. O'Brien) and I followed one another was 10 years ago, when he succeeded me as Member of Parliament for North Warwickshire. I join him in paying tribute to the Warwickshire police force, which is an excellent force, not despite being very small, but because of that fact—a point to which I shall return if I have time.
  I am concerned about police accountability, and I agree that the current arrangements are inadequate. Although there is a deficiency in accountability, I differ from the Government in terms of how it should be dealt with. The deficit should be filled not by increasing centralisation, but by increasing local accountability, and the arguments of my hon. Friend the Member for West Dorset (Mr. Letwin) made that case to devastating effect.
  I want to use the case of a constituent of mine to illustrate the deficiencies of the current system and the way in which they need to be filled. Although the Bill fills them to an extent, it does not do so completely, as the Minister has acknowledged. The Minister referred obliquely in his opening remarks to the case of John Wilson. On 26 June 1996, then aged 16, having attended an international football match, John Wilson congregated with others in and around Trafalgar square. By common consent, he was a completely innocent bystander in a fracas that developed, during which the Metropolitan police—perfectly properly—deployed police in full riot gear.
  As I said, John Wilson behaved peacefully. He is a responsible boy from a decent background. During the fracas, he was physically charged by a police officer in riot gear, fell backwards, smashed his skull on the pavement and sustained a double fracture. As a result, he suffers from epilepsy, and in the six years since he has
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  been unable to study or to work. The High Court finally judged against the Metropolitan police in a civil action in July last year. The judge said:
  "I am utterly convinced that the claimant was the victim of a deliberate unlawful assault."
  That judgment was subsequently upheld in the Court of Appeal, without John Wilson's lawyers being called upon to rebut the Metropolitan police's case.
  During that case, the Metropolitan police behaved—I choose my words carefully—disgracefully. I say that in no spirit of hostility. As a part-time London resident, I depend on them, and in a previous career as a barrister many years ago, my mortgage depended on them as my best client. However, during that case they maintained that it was impossible to identify the police constable responsible for the incident. It is inconceivable that such a serious incident, in which a young boy was laid out cold on the pavement and taken to hospital as an emergency, was not reported or recorded. It certainly should have been, and obviously procedures require that it should.
  It was even maintained subsequently by the Met that the serial of officers—some 25 officers—could not be identified, so that other officers could not be interviewed about the identity of the offending officer. That is literally incredible. I simply do not believe that the serial could not be identified, but that is what was maintained at the time and has subsequently been stuck to.
  Civil litigation was brought by John Wilson's mother, on John's behalf. I pay tribute to Susan Wilson, a redoubtable lady who has stuck to the case with great tenacity for which she deserves great credit. However, the Metropolitan police pursued a campaign of what can be described only as low-level harassment against the case. For example, at one stage, they wrote directly to the legal aid authorities to seek to have John Wilson's legal aid discontinued. It was discontinued, on that unilateral application. However, it was subsequently reinstated, with some strong words of reproof, by the High Court judge.
  The police also pursued an appeal against the High Court judge's ruling on the substantive issue of liability, despite having said immediately afterwards that they would not do so. That appeal was rejected out of hand by the Court of Appeal, as was always likely to happen. Even after that, the police have tried to postpone the hearing on the question of damages, again to the obvious irritation of the judge handling the case. I have numerous other examples of petty behaviour by the Metropolitan police solicitor—all, happily, in vain—trying to hinder the conduct of the case.
  My point in relation to the Bill is that no effective way exists for the Metropolitan police to be held to account, either for what happened in relation to the initial incident and the failure to investigate it by the police themselves, or for the way in which they conducted their defence to the proper and justified civil action brought by John Wilson. The Police Complaints Authority could not investigate the case because there was no identified officer against whom to lodge a complaint. Some of the later wrongdoing by the police prevented investigation of the original wrongdoing by the police.
  I welcome the setting up of the new Independent Police Complaints Commission. However, as drafted, it would not remedy the gap that I have exposed, as the Minister has admitted. I welcome the Minister's commitment to table amendments to fill the gap, because that is very

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  important. Incidentally, I pay tribute to the time spent and courtesy shown by the Minister of State on this case. I know that he has taken it seriously.
  It has also transpired that neither the Home Secretary, as the police authority at the time, nor the Metropolitan police authority as the successor authority have any power to investigate the case. That is a deficiency in accountability, and should be remedied. Much of the argument today has concerned where that accountability should lie. I simply raise the case of John Wilson to illustrate the deficiencies that exist.
  In my opinion, accountability, and the probability that police forces will do what local residents want, will not be increased by giving a power to the Home Secretary to tell forces to do what local people want. He is much less likely than the local police authority to know what local residents want. Given the chance, the police will take decisions that respond to local needs. For example, in my constituency of Horsham and next door in Crawley, the local divisional commander—not even the chief constable—has introduced a terrific scheme that puts the police on mountain bikes so that they can pursue yobs who are being disruptive down the alleyways into the housing estates where police cars cannot go. That initiative is popular with the police and the local residents. It makes the police accessible and available. The only people who hate it are the hooligans who find that the police are silently and unexpectedly upon them. That is a local initiative that has not been imposed by the Home Secretary, although he probably thinks that it is a good idea—everyone else does.
  We should consider ways of increasing local accountability and also ask whether police forces are now too big. Many are. The whole notion of economies of scale is a dubious proposition in any circumstances, but in the public sector the reverse is the case. There are inefficiencies because of the scale. We should consider having small authorities, perhaps with directly elected police authorities. That would provide a direct and focused responsiveness to what local people want. It was suggested earlier in the debate that chief constables should be elected. I foresee many difficulties with that, but we should not completely rule it out as a possibility. I cannot imagine anything that would provide greater emphasis on the requirements of local residents, so we should not close our minds to such suggestions.
  There are hundreds of different ways in which the local accountability of the police could be improved. However, we definitely should not go in the opposite direction and push more and more power to the centre. I acknowledge that the Government whom I served in the 1980s achieved a certain amount of centralisation. I admit that that was wrong and, indeed, my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition has said that it was wrong. We should not continue to make that mistake—
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order.
  7.46 pm
  Ms Candy Atherton: I am pleased to contribute to today's debate. I wish to focus on the clauses relating to blood specimens taken from persons incapable of consenting, because those provisions have a particular significance for at least one of my constituents.
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  In November 1999, a young woman died in a road traffic accident in my constituency. Sarah Kettle was young, the owner of a dress shop in Truro and the much loved daughter of my constituent, Mary Kettle. There was another car involved in the accident and the injured driver was taken to hospital unconscious. At the point of impact, his car was travelling on the wrong side of the road at 60 mph in a 30 mph zone.
  As the driver was unconscious on arrival at hospital, he was unable to give consent to a blood sample being taken. When the driver came round he promptly discharged himself from hospital. He later appeared before magistrates who banned him from driving for two years for reckless driving and fined him £250. There were eye-witness accounts of his drinking in a pub beforehand, but without medical proof there was insufficient evidence and the magistrates could do little.
  In other words, because consent could not be given, the definitive piece of evidence could not be obtained. Mrs. Kettle, having endured the tragedy of her daughter's death, sat in court to witness a mockery being made of our legal system. I should make it clear that this is not a witch hunt. I was not there on the evening of the accident and it is not for me to judge. However, since hearing this story and speaking to Mrs. Kettle, I decided that the law was wrong and was not acting in anyone's best interests.
  I believe in allowing the police appropriate powers to bring the guilty to justice. I also believe in giving people the power to prove their innocence. This driver and others like him are left with clouds of suspicion hanging over them for ever. The legal loophole serves only those who have committed an offence, and that is simply perverse. There are even reports of drivers attempting to feign unconsciousness to avoid an immediate roadside test.
  That case is not the first of its kind, but the family involved were vociferous in their campaign for a change in the law. They did not want any other family to go through what they had, so they told their story to national newspapers, to local media and to me. I was pleased to arrange a meeting with my right hon. Friend the Member for Norwich, South (Mr. Clarke), then the Minister of State at the Home Office. I am grateful to him for meeting us so quickly—within a matter of days—and for taking the argument forward through consultation with the British Medical Association and others. He passed the issue to his successor, my right hon. Friend the Minister for Policing, Crime Reduction and Community Safety. Ministers recognised that the law as it stood was an obstacle to justice; justice had to be done and had to be seen to be done.
  After the Bill had begun its passage through the other place, Mrs. Kettle came to London a second time and met my right hon. Friend. She related her story once again and heard what the Government were aiming to do. Clause 51 enables a police constable to obtain a sample, irrespective of consent, in the instances laid out in subsection (1). If requested, medical practitioners may take a sample, as they frequently do for medical purposes, from an unconscious patient, and that can be passed to the police. Crucially, when the person regains consciousness, they will be asked to give their consent to the sample being taken into account as evidence. They will still have the power to refuse, as they would at a roadside check, although that could also become a matter for the courts.

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  The provisions establish parity, allowing evidence to be taken whether drivers are conscious or not. At present, the law has meant inconsistency.
  I do not dismiss the arguments against the change lightly. Equally, necessary safeguards are attached. The person taking the sample would not be responsible for the immediate clinical care of the patient, which avoids a conflict of responsibilities. That very important point was made in discussions with representatives of the British Medical Association.
  In most instances, as I understand it, the person taking the sample will be a police medical practitioner. I am sure that all right hon. and hon. Members will agree with the BMA that the care and well-being of the patient must be the first priority of all medical staff. For that reason, blood samples will not be taken from unconscious patients if that would put them at any risk; medical staff would have the power to prevent a sample from being taken on those grounds.
  Other concerns relate to the vexed question of consent. If a sample was obtained when a person had gained consciousness, was that person in a fit state to make the decision? That is a difficult question, but the validity of consent is a much broader issue.
  Mrs. Kettle is expecting this House to deliver. She and her family have suffered a tragedy. The Bill offers a remedy, and I hope that all right hon. and hon. Members will support it tonight.
  7.52 pm
  Mr. Mark Simmonds: The background to this debate is a police service that is demoralised, discontented and frustrated. The police are annoyed that they are not being given sufficient resources to provide the service to the community that they wish to provide and are fed up with being abused and assaulted not only by the criminal fraternity but by many of the comments emanating from the Home Secretary. I wish to place on the record my faith in the work that the police do in my constituency and across the country. We should all be giving them our full support and encouragement.
  The police are aggrieved about increased paperwork and the lack of support from magistrates, many of whom are too lenient with persistent offenders. The police are co-opted into worthwhile specialist areas such as drug abuse, child abuse and domestic violence but without the necessary additional resources being allocated for such work, they are taken off the beat, which exacerbates the already poor perception of the police presence.
  More administration staff are required, as is greater administrative streamlining. That would allow others, such as wardens, to take over basic information-gathering tasks such as taking and co-ordinating statements, allowing fully trained officers to go back on to the streets. More cases need to be prepared using computerised techniques to cut down on the massive amount of paperwork that our policemen and women have to endure. Several provisions in the Bill make some attempt to make adjustments to the existing situation, and I warmly welcome them.
  The Home Secretary's plans to take powers to dismiss chief constables and to exert control over police forces by circumventing the chief constable and imposing demands
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  on heads of basic command units is unacceptable. The proposition shows a fundamental lack of historical understanding that British policing is policing by local consent; it developed not from the state's desire to control its citizens, as in many continental European countries, but from the desire of local communities to professionalise and improve their volunteer constables. That, ironically and paradoxically, is also proposed in other sections of the Bill.
  The Bill unbalances the tripartite relationship between chief constables, police authorities and the Home Secretary. It introduces excessive centralised control. The solution is to decentralise and increase democratic accountability, not to withdraw to a more centrally controlled structure.
  The Bill intervenes directly in police forces, bypassing police authorities and thereby local democratic accountability. As has been said, the Government were defeated on the original clause 5 in another place and I hope that they will not seek to reintroduce its provisions. Clause 7 allows direct adoption of particular policing practices if the Secretary of State perceives that to be in the national interest. That is a very dangerous route to take.
  Clause 30 allows the Secretary of State to direct a police authority to suspend its chief constable even when it does not judge that to be necessary to maintain local confidence in the force. I hope that the Secretary of State and his Ministers accept that following the logic of that argument to its conclusion would be very dangerous.
  Clause 77 requires police authorities to submit their three-year plans to the Home Secretary. With this Government, I am surprised that the Bill does not specify a 10-year plan. The plans have to be checked, and if they do not fit in with the Home Secretary's desire, they will presumably have to be changed, irrespective of the local operational facets current at the time. I doubt whether anyone in the House would object to best practice and to forces learning from one another, but exerting political control and centralising power and decision making is not the way forward.
  Both Lord Scarman and the Castle report highlighted the importance of local policing being responsive and sensitive to local circumstances. The formation of district-based crime and disorder reduction partnerships across Lincolnshire, including in my constituency, has started to improve the ability of local communities to share responsibility for community safety with police. To my mind, the Bill removes much of that local flexibility. It starts to create a national police force by the back door.
  I wish to address the provisions that radically change the nature and style of local policing—namely, community support officers—and provide for a whole range of auxiliary non-police officers with arrest powers patrolling the streets in our urban and rural areas. In my constituency, Boston borough council has formulated an excellent and effective warden scheme. I have met those wardens and have a tremendous amount of time and respect for them, but both the police and the wardens believe it correct that wardens should have not full or partial police powers. Their role should be complementary, not a lesser, cheaper substitute and replacement for police officers.
  Boston borough council and others are filling a vacuum that has been created, and the situation needs to be reversed. I wrote to all the parish councils in my

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  constituency and they responded, in unison, and without prompting, that they would like to see policemen in their rural areas. They want effective policing. Surely the answer is not to create a confused and multi-layered structure of different auxiliaries, with different powers both within the same police authority and between police authorities. Nothing should be done that would deter the police from taking back the streets as either neighbourhood custodians or responsible citizens in a particular geographical area.
  We must find a way of restoring confidence both in the rural villages and on the urban estates in my constituency and beyond. We must get more police on the streets and we must use our existing officers to greater and more visible effect. We must reduce centralisation and improve the local democratic accountability that this Bill will severely damage.
  8 pm
  Ms Bridget Prentice: I welcome the Bill and the Government's commitment to tackling crime in all its forms. I especially welcome the Home Secretary's response to the many points that the Select Committee on Home Affairs made when we scrutinised the measure. That pre-legislative scrutiny might not have been ideal, as part of it took place while the House of Lords was debating the Bill; none the less, we managed to see almost everyone who was interested in the progress of the Bill.
  I shall concentrate especially on community support officers and on police costs, despite the fact that in the case of the latter the Committee declined to make specific recommendations.
  Much has been said about community support officers since they were proposed in the Bill. Many vested interests have raised their voice in protest: such officers would water down policing; we should end up using more police resources than we would have done otherwise; we would be policing on the cheap, and so on. The Select Committee rightly noted that the only way to know for sure is to try out the proposal. After all, if the largest police force in the country—the Met—is enthusiastically in favour of such a scheme, surely we should have the courage and confidence to see whether it works.
  As has already been said, no one will be forced to join in. However, I believe that other forces will want to use such officers when they see the results in London. Indeed, I understand that, after the initial flurry of negative responses, more and more chief officers and police authorities are beginning to see the merits of the proposal.
  Perhaps London, as the capital city, is different. I do not know, but I find it difficult to believe that Manchester, Birmingham or Leeds do not have much the same policing needs as we do in London. However, if they do not—so be it.
  I speak as a Member who represents an inner-London constituency where crime is at the top of everyone's agenda and where the added problems of higher security risks and terrorist attacks are at the forefront of everyone's mind, so when Sir John Stevens, the Metropolitan commissioner, told us that, post-11 September, 300 plus officers had to act as eyes and ears for suspect packages in central London, we had to ask where they were to come from. They came from boroughs such as mine—from Lewisham, Lambeth, Wandsworth, Hounslow and so on.
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  When my borough commander said that street crime had soared in Lewisham post-11 September, no one was very surprised; but because Lewisham is the safest inner-London borough in which to live, it was also deeply disappointing. Of course, the reason was obvious: as long as highly skilled police officers were being taken off the streets of Lewisham and elsewhere to look after the security needs of Members of Parliament here in Westminster, the rise in street crime was inevitable.
  Surely it would be better to use between 300 and 500 community support officers—or auxiliaries as the Met calls them—to do the job of being eyes and ears, like the superb security staff in this place, thus allowing police officers to go back to the boroughs and do the highly skilled job for which they were trained. I really wonder at the stance taken by some people on that issue when that solution is so obvious.
  I turn to community safety accreditation schemes. The Select Committee heard evidence about neighbourhood warden schemes and I want to consider one in my own borough—sadly, we do not have one in my constituency, but I hope that we shall soon remedy that. The scheme is based on the Honor Oak estate, in the north of the borough, where residents consider that crime has a major impact on their quality of life.
  Lewisham council is extremely proud of its partnership with the local police force and the community—rightly so. Furthermore, it is important to remember that with crime and disorder people do not react only to the most serious offences—the tip of the iceberg. As Martin Ryan, the council officer in charge of the scheme, said:
  "They see the whole iceberg."
  So-called low level crime and disorder such as graffiti, abusive and loutish behaviour and vehicle crime all have a major impact on the fear of crime in our communities.
  The wardens are helping to resolve those problems. Since the patrols commenced on that estate, there has been a 25 per cent. reduction in calls to the police; a 69 per cent. reduction in auto crime; an 80 per cent. reduction in racist crime; and a 75 per cent. reduction in burglary. That is against the background of a general increase in reported crime. Neither I nor anyone involved would suggest that the scheme is a panacea, but it is clearly having a positive impact, especially in reducing the fear of crime.
  Accredited community safety organisations, of which local authority warden schemes would be an example, must surely be welcomed in the overall fight against crime, in the partnership between the police, the council and the local community.
  I want to turn to an aspect that is not covered by the Bill but which was raised with the Committee by the Met and to which we refer in our recommendations: the cost of policing commercial events. The Met argues that it receives only 10 to 20 per cent. of its costs in policing some sporting and other events. It gave the example of a low-level Chelsea game where the force received £397 from the club for an exercise that cost £13,705.
  When the Committee considered that point, we accepted the comment of my right hon. Friend the Minister for Policing, Crime Reduction and Community Safety that the matter was problematic in that smaller, less well-off football clubs and other organisations might not have pockets deep enough to cope with those costs. However, we ask the Government that guidance be reviewed in that area.

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  That point is especially important in the light of the remarks I am about to make. When the Second Reading debate was scheduled for today, I did not know that we should have to refer to the dreadful and appalling events in Lewisham on Thursday night after the Millwall-Birmingham game. I emphasise the fact that Millwall football club, under the excellent chairmanship of Theo Paphitis, has done wonders in changing the behaviour at the ground of fans who, in the past, had a well-earned reputation for disruptive and violent behaviour. The work carried out by the club in the local community is excellent and deserves wider praise and support.
  However, Thursday night's violence was not down to one or two hooligans. It was an orchestrated assault on the police. I asked Commander Humphrey, the borough commander, about it when he returned to the election count shortly after the events. He described how between 400 and 500 thugs directed each other on mobile phones about ways to attack and injure police officers and horses, innocent bystanders and fans. Thunder flashes were exploded; cars were set alight; 47 officers were injured; all 34 horses were injured; and so, too, were many fans. No doubt some of the cars that were set alight belonged to law-abiding Millwall fans. A children's playground was wrecked and equipment used as weaponry.
  I know that Millwall football club will do everything possible to help to identify those thugs, but I have to point out to the Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department, my hon. Friend the Member for Coventry, North-East (Mr. Ainsworth), that that is a dark example of what the police have to put up with and we have to pay for in the general policing budget. That event may serve as a powerful and timely reason for giving more thought to how such occasions are paid for. I would make every hooligan found guilty of any crime in that attack pay directly to the police, the community and the fans for the shame that they have brought on the club and the devastation that they have wreaked on the local community.
  The Bill goes a long way towards making the police more able to do well the job that we entrust to them. There are aspects that need further clarification, but I hope that the Home Secretary will not be diverted from the main thrust of the Bill by the concerns of vested interests when my constituents want policing at its best—catching criminals and reducing crime.
  8.9 pm
  Mr. David Cameron: I am delighted to take part in this debate and to follow the hon. Member for Lewisham, East (Ms Prentice), who, like me, sits on the Home Affairs Committee. I commend our report to the House: we did as good a job as we could in the limited time that we had, and, in many ways, we were chasing a moving target—the Bill kept being amended in the other place, the Government kept being defeated, and we kept having to comment on something that was changing. The current Bill is an improvement on the one that was published, and some parts of it are widely supported, particularly the independent complaints commission for the police, which is supported on both sides of the House.
  I believe, however—this is where I differ from the hon. Member for Lewisham, East, although we were able to sign up to the report together—that the Bill was wrong in
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  its conception and remains wrong in much of its execution. What was wrong with the conception is the point about centralisation. My right hon. Friend the Member for Horsham (Mr. Maude) and my hon. Friend the Member for Boston and Skegness (Mr. Simmonds) spoke clearly about that. This seems to be a default setting for the Government: they know, and they are right, that many things are wrong in the public services, and they rightly want to address them. Their answer, however, always seems to be to draw more power to the centre, which is profoundly the wrong way to go about it.
  My hon. Friend the Member for West Dorset (Mr. Letwin) pointed out that the Secretary of State is mentioned 21 times in the first four pages of the Bill. It is very much the Secretary of State who is being given the power. Remarkably, police authorities are barely mentioned in the Bill. If the Government think that police authorities are not good enough, they are not doing a good job, or they are not correctly constituted, they should come forward with proposals to change them. We could talk about that. What is not right, however, is taking all the power and handing it to the Home Secretary. It has been mentioned that clause 5 was removed in the other place, but the beginning of clause 6 states:
  "The Secretary of State may by regulations make provision requiring all police forces in England and Wales … to adopt particular procedures or practices".
  That is drawing powers towards the centre, which is wrong. Clause 5 itself was called "Directions to chief officers". The Minister for Policing, Crime Reduction and Community Safety is therefore wrong to say that the measure is not about centralisation.
  Lady Hermon: May I draw the hon. Gentleman's attention to the fact that in Northern Ireland each local council has a district policing partnership made up of council representatives and independent members who are representative on the basis of sex, origin and various other characteristics? Would the hon. Gentleman like that—or a form of local accountability—to be extended to England and Wales?
  Mr. Cameron: I certainly would. We often have things to learn from Northern Ireland. I served in the Home Office when the Police Act 1996 was drafted. That introduced independent members for police authorities, which the Association of Police Authorities now says were a thoroughly good thing.
  Members on both sides of the House have spoken about the tripartite structure of the police service in this country—the Home Secretary, the chief constables and the police authorities. The tripartite structure is not just a good thing because it has a long name and it is there. It delivers something terribly important—police forces in this country have operational independence from the Home Secretary. 'That helps to give us policing by consent. The Home Affairs Committee referred to that at the beginning of our report:
  "We believe that the tripartite structure and operational independence of police forces are essential safeguards against politicisation and centralisation of the police."
  I am worried that we are going in the wrong direction tonight. I do not want to live in a country that has an interior ministry to which the police forces report. I am not saying that the Bill will deliver that in one go, but I profoundly believe that we are going in the wrong direction.

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  I asked a lot of questions on the Home Affairs Committee, particularly of the Association of Police Authorities. That is why I think that there is more to this than the removal of clause 5 by the House of Lords. Mr. Peel—great name—of the Association of Police Authorities said to me:
  "Effectively what we are saying is 'Please take out Part 1".
  He referred not to clause 5 but to part 1, and added:
  "Most of the rest of it is a matter of detail."
  We therefore have some problems.
  The conception of this Bill should have started with what is wrong with the police service in this country. Let me give four headings for that: we cannot keep enough good officers; it is almost impossible to sack bad officers; the ones that we have are strangled with red tape and paperwork; and there are not enough of them in any event. My problem with the Bill is that it provides no real answer to the first three of those problems. The problems of police disciplinary procedures are largely ignored by the Bill. It is a great irony that, once the Bill has been passed, the Home Secretary will be able to sack every chief constable in the land, just by order from his office. What about the chief inspector in the Witney nick, or the chief inspector running a basic command unit—will they be able to get rid of a police officer who is not corrupt but who is not particularly good at the job? That is incredibly difficult. We should be devolving power to police forces down to the basic command unit so that that can happen. I asked Mr. Ian Blair—not Mr. Peel, but Mr. Blair—how many of these problems with disciplinary procedures are addressed by the Police Reform Bill. He replied:
  "I do not think any of them are addressed by the Police Reform Bill."
  That is a missed opportunity.
  The question that the Government do try to answer through the Bill is that of having more officers. Their answer is community support officers. There has been a lot of confusion about them, not least from the Prime Minister, who was asked about them at Question Time by my hon. Friend the Member for Upminster (Angela Watkinson). The Prime Minister gave them four different titles, so even the Government are not clear what those officers are meant to do. I agree with the comment that we should be in favour of more officers and more elements in the police family, whether wardens, specials or CSOs. What we must not have is confusion about their powers. That is a recipe for problems.
  Mr. Elliott of the Police Federation appeared before the Select Committee and was asked what issues his organisation had with the 30-minute power of detention that was in the Bill. He replied:
  "The practical difficulty with that is that anybody who knows anything about street policing knows that the first thing that you do when you arrest somebody is to try to get them out of the public eye. It is the most ridiculous thing to have somebody stood trying to explain why he or she has been arrested to them and you gather a crowd, it is embarrassing for the person who has been arrested, it is difficult for the officer, it is a recipe for disaster."
  It was not just the Police Federation that said that. The superintendents had their concerns, and some of the chief officers had concerns. I am not saying that the CSOs should be scrapped. Let us have different elements in the police family as an experiment, as the Home Affairs Committee said, but please do not compel police forces and police authorities to go down this route.
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  I was a little disappointed by what the Minister for Policing, Crime Reduction and Community Safety said in answer to the question that I asked him about using ring-fenced funding. The Bill has the ingredients to make sure that the Home Secretary has his or her way with every police force in the country with regard to CSOs. The Home Secretary can say, "Here is the ring-fenced funding; you only get it if you have CSOs." Compulsion to have CSOs can be included in policing plans. There is even concern that some of the powers on adopting procedures and practices could be used to insist on having CSOs.
  Everyone who appeared before the Home Affairs Committee said, "Go for the local solution. Give us the money and let us get on with the job." The response from the Association of Police Authorities was,
  "Why not more police officers?"
  Sir David Phillips, the head of the Association of Chief Police Officers, said:
  "Do you think there will be more operational gain from four police officers or six community support officers? … the answer would be four police officers".
  That is the message that we want the Government to take home tonight: they should give the police authorities and the police forces the money, and leave them with more operational independence to respond with local solutions to local problems. The man in Whitehall—who is mentioned 21 times in the Bill but does not have the courtesy to turn up here this afternoon—does not always know best.
  8.19 pm
  Ross Cranston: First, I apologise to the shadow Home Secretary, the hon. Member for West Dorset (Mr. Letwin). I was flatfooted by the fact that proceedings on the Bill did not start until nearly 5.30 pm, so I was not able to hear all his remarks.
  I want to deal with the proposition that the Bill is somehow a major attack on the tripartite structure of the Home Secretary, chief constables and local police authorities. I do not accept that point or that we have the foundations of an interior ministry as described by the hon. Member for Witney (Mr. Cameron) and other Conservative Members. The much more measured response of the Select Committee on Home Affairs is to be preferred.
  Three fundamental principles are involved when we talk about the police. The first is that the police have to uphold the rule of law. They have to protect citizens' lives, liberties and property and they have to prevent public disorder and assuage citizens' fear of crime. Secondly, the police have to act in partnership. Traditionally in this country, that involves the notion of community policing. However, in more recent times, legislation has meant that the police have been called upon to act in partnership with local police authorities and, under the Crime and Disorder Act 1998, with other bodies, such as local authorities. That is a good thing.
  The third principle is the important one of accountability. One aspect of that is the police's accountability for their performance, and one aspect of performance is efficiency. The powers in part 1 are perfectly proper in terms of ensuring better accountability for efficiency. In a way, the foundations of that were laid by the previous Government. The Police Act 1996

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  brought together and consolidated a number of provisions whereby the Home Secretary could set performance targets, require a policy authority to have a chief constable retire and so on. There is nothing new in the principle of accountability being designed to improve the performance and efficiency of the police. I therefore do not accept the notion that the sky will fall in as a result of part 1.
  The performance of police forces around the country is variable, and it would be much better for our citizens if the performance of the best was emulated by all forces. One aspect of performance that varies enormously is the quality of files submitted to the Crown Prosecution Service. If we can improve performance through the activities of the standards unit and other measures, so much the better.
  My remarks will concentrate, however, on the Bill's provisions that deal with antisocial behaviour, which is a major concern. I shall consider two aspects of the issue: the use of community support officers and accredited community safety schemes, and the special provisions in the Bill for antisocial behaviour orders.
  I want to make four points about community support officers and accredited community safety schemes. The first is that we already have an extended police family. We already have traffic wardens, security staff, street wardens, local trading standards officers and environmental health officers, and we even have citizens involved as part of the extended police family in as much as they are members of neighbourhood watch schemes. We are not dealing with a new principle.
  The second point is that community support officers and accredited community safety schemes will be under police control. If a chief constable does not want community support officers, he or she does not have to have them. Of course, there is also control over the accreditation for community safety schemes. That is a second guarantee, which is contained in the Bill, that ensures that ancillary aspects of the police family will operate in accordance with the law.
  The third aspect is that the powers of the community support officers, as set out in schedules 4 and 5, will be very limited. The extended police family already has certain powers. For example, trading standards officers and environmental health officers have the power of access to premises and they can seize property, but we shall entrust only limited powers to community support officers and members of accredited community safety schemes. My hon. Friends have mentioned the power of citizen's arrest. Although that power is not especially favoured by the courts, it is possible for store detectives to affect a citizen's arrest. Again, the Bill does not do anything new in terms of principle.
  My fourth point is that there is always a bureaucratic imperative when agencies are established with a special responsibility. The police take antisocial behaviour seriously, but they have a whole range of other responsibilities. By entrusting to special units in the extended police family responsibility for dealing with antisocial behaviour, we will better address the problem.
  The evidence already exists. The preliminary results that were published in 1999 in the Home Office paper "Neighbourhood Warden Schemes: an Overview" identified some of the emerging evidence. More recently,
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  a casual perusal of the publication "Warden" shows the whole range of benefits that such schemes can bring. For example, the No. 4 bulletin, which is the most recent one, contains accounts of how east Manchester has recorded a 30 per cent. drop in crime following a community-driven package that includes the use of wardens. Wardens in Sheffield have fast-tracked the processing of abandoned vehicles, reducing the time from 30 to 10 days. There are also accounts about what has happened to deal with graffiti in Middlesbrough and to get rid of the needles used by drugs addicts in Hull. My hon. Friend the Member for Lewisham, East (Ms Prentice) also mentioned the Honor Oak scheme in her constituency. There have been definite achievements.
  When antisocial behaviour orders were introduced in 1998, they were a major advance. The recent Home Office report No. 236, which was published in April, suggests, however, that there have been problems and that we have not had as many antisocial behaviour orders as we want. In the borough of Dudley, 16 ASBOs have been issued. Seven of them have been breached and that has led to custody in every case. However, we need more ASBOs to deal with the issue.
  The Home Office report identified several problems. One was witness intimidation, and that must be addressed. Others were delay and the patchy performance of local authorities. Clause 55 attempts to deal with those problems by extending jurisdiction and by giving registered social landlords the power to seek ASBOs and the county courts the power to issue them. I welcome that.
  I also welcome the steps taken on the Independent Police Complaints Commission and the assurance by my right hon. Friend the Minister for Policing, Crime Reduction and Community Safety that provisions on whistleblowing will be introduced in the Bill in Committee. The Government promised such provisions when the Public Interest Disclosure Act 1998 was introduced, and I look forward to the way in which such provisions can deal with the problem of malpractice in the police, in as much as it occurs.
  8.29 pm
  Mr. Gerald Howarth: It is a contempt of Parliament that the Home Secretary is not here to take through what on the Government's own admission—not that of the Opposition—is an extremely important Bill. It is no disrespect to the Minister for Policing, Crime Reduction and Community Safety to say that he has been put up as the monkey when the organ grinder should have been present. It is, of course, in stark contrast to what the Prime Minister has said about his belief in the importance of Parliament and, therefore, to the proposals that he has suggested to demonstrate that, such as coming before the Liaison Committee. I am afraid that the Home Secretary has betrayed the Prime Minister's intentions in that respect. The Minister could have done himself and the House a favour by explaining why the Home Secretary is not in the Chamber.
  The debate is being held not just against the background of the contentious issues that my hon. Friend the Member for West Dorset (Mr. Letwin) set out so graphically, but against a great deal of dissatisfaction in the police service. As my hon. Friend the Member for Boston and Skegness (Mr. Simmonds) said, morale is extremely low. There was an overwhelming vote against

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  the Government's proposals on pay and conditions, and the police service has been left thinking that it is not appreciated by the Government. Everything that the Government have said about their intentions to improve the lot of our police service, to make it more modern and to improve the detection of crime has to be set against the experience of police officers up and down the country in recent months.
  I make no apologies, as a Hampshire Member, for bringing to the attention of the House and the Minister the concerns of the police in that county. The chief constable, Mr. Paul Kernaghan, wrote to me on 25 February this year. Against the background of the dissatisfaction of the federated ranks, he said:
  "My personal view and I stress it is a personal view, is that the federated ranks did not primarily look at the agreement in terms of whether or not they would personally gain from its implementation. I feel that given its conditional nature, many officers utilised the ballot as a means of expressing their anger at what they perceive as a sustained denigration of the police service in recent months. It is not appropriate for me to speculate as to how that climate in the media arose. However, you should be aware that many officers feel angry and resentful as a result."
  That speaks volumes. Mr. Kernaghan is chief constable of a force that serves a county for which the Minister is a Member of Parliament and he is reporting the dissatisfaction of police officers in our county.
  On 18 January this year, a number of right hon. and hon. Members met members of the Police Federation at Netley where we listened to their concerns about what was happening. Something like 78 police officers were present, all of whom had come in their own time. My right hon. Friend the Member for North-West Hampshire (Sir George Young), my hon. Friends the Members for Havant (Mr. Willetts), for New Forest, East (Dr. Lewis) and for New Forest, West (Mr. Swayne) and the hon. Member for Eastleigh (Mr. Chidgey) were present. It was one and three quarter hours into our discussion before the issue of pay arose, so it was not a bleating operation by police officers in Hampshire, but the expression of real concerns, three of which I shall highlight.
  The first relates to the new scheme to create community support officers. First and foremost, officers were worried about the experience of CSOs and what knowledge they would bring to the policing of our locality. They wanted to know who would train them and how long that would last. The particular point was made that cases might not proceed to court because those acting in a quasi-police role who do not have the full training and do not understand the ins and outs of the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 and other Acts that regulate the conduct by which police officers bring evidence to court would be unlikely to follow the rules of evidence.
  Mr. Kevan Jones: The hon. Gentleman sets out why we should not have CSOs. Is he therefore at odds with his Front-Bench spokesmen who favour them, except for their powers of arrest?
  Mr. Howarth: I am sorry that the hon. Gentleman, who is very intelligent, failed to grasp that I am highlighting the concerns of police officers in Hampshire and some of the practical questions that they posed. That is not the same as opposing the idea of introducing CSOs; I am merely posing questions that have not been answered by the Government on how the CSOs will operate.
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  The police officers made it clear that they do not want to fill in forms or write out verbatim reports. Instead, they want to be on the streets doing precisely the job that the CSOs are supposed to do. As one of them said, that role used to be played by park keepers, bus conductors and others in a uniform. It is because those people are not so much in evidence and, indeed, because of the fear that some people might take the law into their own hands that the Government have come up with the proposals. The overwhelming message was that existing officers want to get on to the streets. My hon. Friend the Member for Witney (Mr. Cameron) made that point. He also referred to the special constabulary. We need to increase the number of specials rather than creating CSOs in the first instance.
  The second point made by the police officers relates to bureaucracy. Police officers spend a great deal of time sitting around in court. Sometimes that is because the courts are not well organised and police officers spend time waiting for cases to be heard that are not running on schedule. That is a complete waste of their time. The Government should do something to address that problem because that will help to ensure that police officers do the job that they are supposed to be doing.
  Vera Baird: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
  Mr. Howarth: If the hon. and learned Lady will forgive me, I will not because many other hon. Members wish to speak.
  One of the members of the constabulary, who is based at Aldershot police station, wrote to me explaining how difficult it is to do the job that he is charged with doing. He said:
  "Mr. Blunkett obviously does not appreciate the complexities of criminal investigation … I compile files for some of the most serious and complex of cases that occur in Hampshire. I can assure you that the Police receive little co-operation from other Government Agencies, telephone companies and Banking institutes with the investigation of crime. Many Agencies are so confused and frightened by"
  the European convention on human rights,
  "such as Article 8, and they are no longer willing to make inquiries on behalf of the Police even with a written report explaining the full justifications for doing so … The amount of reports covering Data Protection and ECHR issues that I have to write on a weekly basis are one of the major reasons that our investigations take so long to complete."
  The Bill does little, if anything, to address the concerns of police officers about the amount of time that it takes to bring cases to court. What police officers want is a reduction in bureaucracy, but there is very little sign of that in the Bill. That is a practical example for the Minister of how the Bill fails to address the concerns of the policemen out there on our streets.
  Finally, the independence of police authorities has been mentioned several times. I simply want to reinforce the arguments that the Minister has now heard from hon. Members on both sides of the House. His own police chief, Mr. Kernaghan, asks:
  "Why have additional powers been sought and what are the implications of the proposed changes in legislation?"
  He continues:
  "I respectfully suggest that the lack of safeguards and the effective bypassing of police authorities will result in a cadre of Chief Constables obsessed with pleasing the Home Office, regardless of

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  their own professional judgement. Chief Constables cannot be above account but the current proposals will result in increased central control at the expense of local representatives."
  There in a nutshell is the case against what the Government are doing, and I hope that they will have the sense and the wit to recognise the validity of the changes made in another place, and to accept them here.
  8.39 pm
  Dr. Ashok Kumar: I welcome the Bill for its radical police reform. Time is of the essence, and I shall concentrate on parts 2 and 3, and particularly clauses 8 to 34 on complaints and misconduct.
  It is no secret that in Teesside our local community has been sorely riven by one of the most high-profile police disciplinary cases that has arisen in this country. I refer, of course, to Operation Lancet, of which I am sure some hon. Members are aware. There have been debates about it in the Chamber and publicity in the national papers. Serious allegations were made against eight serving Cleveland police officers, most notably Detective Superintendent Ray Mallon, all of whom were suspended. Subsequently, a further 400 allegations that could be construed as criminal were made against 60 officers.
  The case became a huge operation that took on a life of its own: 571 disciplinary notices were served; 6,701 inquiries were launched; 3,162 statements were taken and 8,311 other documents were taken into consideration. After a period of intense scrutiny and the referral of the allegations to the Crown Prosecution Service, none of those allegations was found to have any criminal content. Lancet has lasted for over four and a half years, and I estimate that it has cost over £7 million.
  I do not intend to enter into a debate on the rights and wrongs of Operation Lancet—that is not the purpose of this debate. However, its subject is a fresh look at how police misconduct matters could be handled in future, and what lessons we can learn from the problems highlighted by the present system. My concerns are that it is bureaucratic and cumbersome, and gives a licence for investigations to grow like Topsy.
  The present system dates from 1984 and is itself the child of previous legislation. The Home Office has always made it clear that the aim of legislation governing police complaints is
  "to investigate complaints about individual policemen or women and not about the direction and control of a police force".
  However, in cases such as Lancet and similar investigations elsewhere in the UK, it is difficult to discuss the substance of allegations against a police officer and the defence of that officer without looking at the central direction of a police force and whether that direction serves the public interest.
  Allegations have been made against individual serving and suspended police officers which have been publicly rebutted by those very officers. Allegations and counter-allegations have been made not in a committee room at force headquarters but in the columns of the national press and on television. They have been part of a controversy that has rocked and destabilised the Cleveland police—a controversy that arose solely from serious jealousies and rivalries within the ranks of the senior management of the Cleveland force.
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  There are big issues here too about the seeming independence and openness of the complaints procedure. I want to make it clear that I am not criticising the officers from external forces who were drafted in to consider Lancet issues; they have conducted themselves in the great spirit of impartiality and independence which should characterise this country's police. However, the procedure has led the public of Teesside to conclude that Lancet is a case of the police investigating the police.
  When questions arise about the suitability of the actions of the employing force and about the central direction and management of that force, it would be better to have an independent structure in place. That has been called for several times in relation to matters other than Lancet, most notably in the Macpherson report on the murder of Stephen Lawrence. From my own local perspective, it is welcome that the Bill addresses the need for an independent complaints commission.
  Norman Baker: I share the hon. Gentleman's view that the police should not investigate the police. However, does he agree that if that is to be achieved it is important that the independent commission is properly staffed and financed, otherwise the inquiries it looks at will go on for any length of time, as has Operation Lancet?
  Dr. Kumar: I am sure that my right hon. Friend the Minister heard that. Doubtless the commission will receive strong support; the Minister addressed that earlier.
  The independent complaints commission will have its own powers of investigation: it can call in a case for investigation or supervision and decide what level of investigation is fitting or justifiable in the light of the seriousness of a case; it can call for papers relevant to the investigation to be made available to it; it will have the power to enter any police premises without let or hindrance; and it can allow third parties access to the investigation. If an Independent Police Complaints Commission had existed, Lancet would not have become a debacle and public moneys would not have been needlessly spent on an investigation that went nowhere.
  I wholeheartedly support the spirit of clause 8, which allows for the appointment to the commission of members who are not past or present members of a police force, thus allowing for greater public confidence and greater freedom to look laterally at the case under investigation, the way in which it has been handled by the force concerned, and the burden of the complaint laid against a serving officer or officers.
  The Government were elected on a promise of openness and transparency in public life.
  Mr. Colin Challen: And they fulfilled it.
  Dr. Kumar: I agree wholeheartedly.
  The Bill is a testament to that great promise—[Laughter.] Opposition Members may laugh, but their Government never delivered that. Nowhere is the Bill more open and radical than in its clauses on police discipline and complaints; the only pity is that it was not introduced sooner. Had that been the case, the public of Teesside would have been saved many years of doubt, concern and anger and honest police officers would have

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  been allowed to get on with the job that they know best—policing effectively the streets of the towns, estates and villages of Middlesbrough.
  8.47 pm
  Mrs. Annette L. Brooke: The genuine desire for reform, across the political spectrum and among relevant organisations, is welcome; clearly everyone shares the vital objective of curbing antisocial behaviour. Division in opinion largely concerns the details.
  I should like to look at three areas: the extension of the Home Secretary's powers; the responsibility and scope of powers given to community support officers and accredited community safety officers; and the use of antisocial behaviour orders. Excellent cross-party work was undertaken in the other place and I commend colleagues on their work to change the more illiberal aspects of the original Bill. The Government introduced some welcome amendments, but there were also strong messages for them about various aspects of the Bill. I welcome the removal of clause 5 from part 1 of the original Bill, as it would have granted the Secretary of State powers to give directions to chief officers. I feel, as do many people—many hon. Members have expressed such views tonight—that it is inappropriate for a Home Secretary both to give orders to chief officers on the efficiency and effectiveness of police forces and to scrutinise action plans. The clause would diminish local influence, accountability and control, leading to a diminished role for chief officers and police authorities, whether actual or perceived, in the system.
  As a local councillor, I know only too well the problems of lack of powers and authority locally. The level of centralisation and lack of true devolution in England are significant contributors to many problems in our local communities. They also lead to a blame culture. All the time in the local authority we have a sort of ping-pong game: "It's the local authority's fault", then, "It's the Government's fault". With the centralisation of power, we bring in the blame culture with no true accountability.
  By concentrating powers over the police in the hands of the Home Secretary and, in consequence, taking powers away from chief officers and police authorities in clauses throughout the Bill, we are reinforcing the view on the ground that under the present Government power rests only with central Government in London. Although London may be important, there are those of us from the shire counties who see life differently. Life is very different in different parts of the country.
  I agree with one of my colleagues in the other place who argued that during all stages of the passage of the Bill through the Lords, the Government provided little or no hard evidence to show why such powers in the hands of the Home Secretary are necessary, or in what circumstances they would be used. That colleague also pointed out that many new initiatives to tackle crime have been launched by the Government and draw on the experience and knowledge of numerous organisations, including the Association of Police Authorities, the Crown Prosecution Service, the Association of Chief Police Officers and the courts. With such initiatives, why are additional powers for the Home Secretary necessary?
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  I am not convinced that the Government's own amendments—clause 42—are enough to address fully the concerns of members of both Opposition parties, although I welcome the Government's efforts to improve the Bill.
  As hon. Members have said, the tripartite system should remain just that. The Home Secretary should not be in a position to override local control. Such political power—that is the crunch—should not hang over the police force. It contradicts the rationale underlying the tripartite system, which we all value.
  On the use of civilian support, I shall begin by examining the proposed powers. I am concerned that the issues that caused so much debate in the other place and clauses that were so opposed by my colleagues there will simply be reintroduced. Many of those clauses infringe the liberty of our citizens. I do not deny that something must be done to prevent antisocial and criminal behaviour, but I am not sure that a non-police officer with limited training and powers should be able to detain someone for up to 30 minutes. We had a debate on that tonight, but I should like to add another point. What if a constable or a police officer does not appear within the allocated 30 minutes? In my part of the country, one cannot guarantee that the police will turn up in 30 minutes. That could lead to a very odd situation.
  I welcomed the removal of clause 40, which would have enabled the Home Secretary to amend and supplement the list of police powers that civilians might possess. I am worried about the provision being reinstated.
  With regard to the various forms of civilian support proposed in the Bill, I acknowledge that the Government do not intend to impose community support officers on police authorities where they are not required or wanted. Perhaps I am being generous; various hon. Members have mentioned the issue of ring-fencing. However, I am still rather naive, so I shall accept that assumption for the moment. I am concerned that in the absence of enough funding for police officers, police authorities can easily be seduced by the prospect of three for the price of two. I am frequently seduced in that manner when shopping in the supermarket; one does not always make the best decision. It is the seductive nature of the proposal that is inherently taking us down the wrong line.
  Mr. Denham: Will the hon. Lady give way?
  Mrs. Brooke: I should like to carry on, as I am worried about the time.
  I am very concerned about the authorities' proposed powers, and I think that variations in powers between neighbouring authorities could create great confusion. In all these matters, clarity and ease of understanding are vital. Will the public really be clear about all the different categories proposed in the Bill? Neighbourhood wardens are being introduced in one part of my constituency. I am very pleased about that; I would like them to be introduced throughout the whole constituency. They will have a distinctive uniform. The important thing is that they are employed by the police and have arisen from a partnership between the police and local authorities. I feel that we should have not accredited community safety officers but one type of community safety warden whose role is clearly defined and must be recognised only by local authorities and the police.

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  I want briefly to mention antisocial behaviour orders. When we discuss those orders in Committee, we must consider not only the evaluation of their effectiveness, but what guidance is being given to local and other authorities on rehabilitative measures. I do not think that ASBOs work effectively by themselves. They need to be used with other measures as well; indeed, there are lots of measures that we can use besides ASBOs, which should be a last resort. I cannot agree with the simplistic suggestion that a large number of ASBOs is a good thing and that a small number is a bad thing. That argument is far too simplistic.
  In conclusion, I should like to highlight the fact that the police need and deserve support. Police morale is low, but we have to get the support right. I welcome in principle the use of available civilians to undertake some of the tasks that are currently carried out by police officers and to allow the police to concentrate on police work rather than incessant form filling. However, the dividing line between civilian and police work should be very clear. We need more police officers in the most demanding areas and support for preventive measures at local community level. Surely, we should focus on crime prevention and nipping crime in the bud. The costs to society are too great for us to begrudge spending in this area, and the possible benefits are too great to ignore.
  8.57 pm
  Mrs. Claire Curtis-Thomas: Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker, for allowing me to speak in this important debate.
  Hon. Members may be aware that I am chairman of the all-party group on abuse investigations. During the past four years, I have received a considerable amount of correspondence from the family and friends of individuals who believe that they have been convicted of crimes that they did not commit about the validity and integrity of police and criminal justice procedures. The members of the all-party group have not considered individual cases, but have examined the processes used by the police, the Crown Prosecution Service and other criminal justice structures. Along with numerous professionals working in the criminal justice system, the group's members have grave concerns about the processes currently employed in the system.
  It is in that context that I welcome the Bill. I wish to contain my remarks to the following areas: the failure of existing policing arrangements and my concerns about the proposals before the House. To date, I believe that there has been a demonstrable failure by police authorities to share good practice with other authorities. I am sure that hon. Members will be aware that the Attorney-General has referred the Damilola Taylor case for review. I am concerned about the absence of any structure that requires, rather than requests, that police authorities implement the recommendations that will be made following the Attorney-General's review.
  I believe that there is a manifest failure among police authorities to review their performance and procedures to ensure that they are effective. Indeed, I note that unless authorities are directed by some catastrophic disaster such as the Stephen Lawrence or Damilola Taylor cases to make recommendations to improve internal practices and procedures, very few of them will do so.
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  Police authorities have been unable to develop local information databases that reflect significant local circumstances or to produce statistics that could be used to justify local policing plans instead of reflecting national priorities. That is a serious problem.
  I am deeply concerned about the failure of Her Majesty's inspectorate of constabulary—HMIC—to improve the effectiveness of police authorities. I have read all the HMIC's reports from 1995, and it seems to spend a great deal of time reviewing how police authorities achieve targets, rather than examining the procedures and practices that the police use to achieve those targets. The reports suggest that the HMIC is more interested in the number of cases coming off the end of the production line than in the quality of those cases.
  The failure of the police authority and the HMIC structures to employ and utilise the services of experts who could be instrumental in improving the effectiveness of police authorities leads to a great deal of inefficiency and wasted time. The police must be masters of a particular trade, not try to be jack of all the trades in which a modern, effective organisation must be engaged.
  I have great concern about the technical competence of officers. That arises from the number of cases that are repeatedly rejected by the Crown Prosecution Service, which then need to be reworked. I am equally concerned about the number of cases that are subsequently discontinued in court. The current processes are manifestly inefficient, and some authorities seem to be unable to tackle the inefficiencies. I suspect that that is because they do not adequately train staff or retain appropriately qualified staff.
  On the failure of the complaints system, I recently asked a series of parliamentary questions on the number of complaints received by the police, the CPS, the Attorney-General, the HMIC and Her Majesty's Crown Prosecution Service inspectorate. In some cases, no statistics on complaints are collected; in others, the statistics that are collected are not subject-focused. How can people involved in the criminal justice system know what concerns the public if they do not collect the statistics that flow from complaints?
  I turn to the Bill. I have grave reservations about the proposal to establish a separate standards unit. Her Majesty's inspectorate of constabulary, with all its faults, should be expanded and required to undertake the activity ascribed to the standards unit—although I recognise that it was the HMIC's inability to seize the initiative on improving standards that led to the proposal. I seek reassurances that the two units will eventually merge. I am normally fundamentally opposed to command from the centre. Can the Minister confirm that the new police standards unit will, in the longer term, be an enabling authority that encourages police authorities to develop more efficient practices and procedures, to share good practices and to work together to resolve cross-border crimes? The unit must encourage authorities to review their own practices and procedures instead of being remotely managed, which breeds managerial ambivalence.
  The proposed complaints system addresses some of the concerns that have been expressed and will at least minimise the confusion that arises among the public. Many people are not even aware that they can complain about the police or, if they do so, worry that the police may subsequently take punitive action against them for

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  raising a complaint. Currently, following a complaint, the Police Complaints Authority refers its recommendations to each police authority, and chief constables can decide whether to accept them. It is regrettable that the Home Secretary needs to avail himself of powers to address that unacceptable situation. Legitimate complaints must lead to changes in practices and procedures. The system discourages many people from complaining, because they believe that nothing will change. We live in a democracy, and the police, as part and parcel of the democratic process, must engage and work with the people whom they are employed to protect. The lack of Home Office intervention so far has allowed police authorities to believe that they are essentially a law unto themselves.
  My primary worry about community support officers is their employment terms and conditions. Will the Minister reassure me that they will be not only directed by the chief constable but paid directly by him, not through the local authority?
  The White Paper refers to extending the role of the port police. I am sure that the proposal is sensible, but we must ensure that all those engaged in police work are protected under the same terms and conditions as those who are employed by police authorities. That does not currently apply to officers who work in the Mersey Docks and Harbour Company.
  I wish that the Bill was unnecessary. However, the great variation in police performance cannot go unchecked. The police authorities have not tried to manage themselves; regrettably, they must therefore be managed.
  9.5 pm
  Mr. George Osborne: I am grateful for the opportunity to speak in a high-quality debate. I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for West Dorset (Mr. Letwin), who gave a bravura performance without notes. As a former speech writer, I am always suspicious of that because it puts us out of a job. Nevertheless, his speech was impressive. I also draw attention to the powerful speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Witney (Mr. Cameron).
  We are all trying to tackle the same problem, which I encountered at my surgery on Friday. A gang of local youths are making life a misery for a family who live on a housing estate in Knutsford. The case was serious; the daughter, who was pregnant, had been attacked. The police have arrested six people, but they are out on bail on the same small housing estate. People in estates throughout the country cry out for politicians to respond to their anxieties, put police on their streets, deal with the criminal justice system and tackle the growing problem of disorder in their communities.
  I have every sympathy with a Home Secretary who says that he will listen to people, who wants to make policing more visible and says that he will take on some of the ingrained practices of the police. When he announced his great crusade to reform the police within weeks of becoming Home Secretary, many people believed that he would do it because he had the political capital and clout to do what previous Home Secretaries, including Conservative Home Secretaries, had failed to achieve: take on the police, reform their practices and radically change the way in which law and order works in this country.
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  The political capital has been dissipated and the good will has gone. The Home Secretary, who knows when to take the limelight and when it is important to turn up, is absent. That speaks volumes about the Bill. It is a great shame and a missed opportunity.
  I want to concentrate on community support officers. Various Members have got the name wrong; even the Prime Minister occasionally gets it wrong. Hon. Members have spoken about the value of community support wardens in their constituencies. The hon. Member for Lewisham, East (Ms Prentice) spoke about their value on an estate in Lewisham. The hon. and learned Member for Dudley, North (Ross Cranston) spoke about the value of street wardens.
  There are street wardens in my community, and they do a fantastic job in Cheshire. They have transformed the life on some estates. Why not simply extend the activities of wardens? We should not create a new category, called community support officers. Wardens should not be removed from the job that they currently do. It is low level and involves picking up litter, reporting vandalism and keeping an eye on the estate. We should not take away that role and replace it with a pseudo-police role.
  The Stockport community warden scheme is one of the best in the country and Home Office Ministers often cite it as an example. It is close to my constituency, and the people who run it are suspicious of the proposals for CSOs. They say that there is a risk of turning wardens into pseudo-policemen that might break down the bond of trust that has developed between the local community and the wardens. That may say something about the esteem in which police are held, but there is a danger. The Home Office seems to be trying to get policing on the cheap.
  When Cheshire Members of Parliament went to see our chief constable a couple of months ago, and spoke to him about the proposals in the White Paper, he was very concerned that he would not have the flexibility to deploy these community support officers in the way that he wanted to. He would not, for example, be able to send them to riots in Burnley, as he had had to do with his regular police officers last year, or send them to a football match to deal with some of the really tricky problems such as those we saw at Millwall recently. He felt that he would not have that kind of flexibility, and that that would be a great weakness of community support officers. After all, once we start paying them a decent salary and giving them all the perks and pensions, they are going to be almost as expensive as new police officer recruits, but without the flexibility.
  I urge the Government to reconsider this proposal. By all means, let us extend the warden schemes and develop the neighbourhood watch schemes. Let us use these examples and build on them. Let us have a broader police family, but let us not try to get policing on the cheap.
  Mr. Challen: You just said they were going to be expensive.
  Mr. Osborne: Well, they are. There is only one reason that the Government want to introduce these officers: they think that it will save money and put more people in uniform on the streets.
  Mr. Challen: Is it not the case that we have promised to have 130,000 uniformed police on the streets by next March? Is that expensive or is it cheap?
  Mr. Osborne: Policing is expensive, but the answer is not to have a load of people in uniform on the streets who

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  have sort-of police powers, and who are unable to deal with antisocial behaviour, for example, in the way that the police can. Going into a town centre on a Friday or Saturday night and confronting a group of drunk youths who are causing all sorts of problems might constitute low-level policing in the Home Office's book, but any police officer will say that dealing with unpredictable, violent people is one of the most difficult parts of their job.
  The Home Office wants to put community support officers into that role, and to give them one power—the power to detain people for half an hour. In most town centres on a Friday night, giving someone in a uniform that is not a police uniform the power to detain people for 30 minutes until the police arrive is not going to work. The Government think that they are getting policing on the cheap, but I do not think that it will not turn out that way. That is why I reject these proposals, and I hope that the House of Lords continues its resistance to them.
  9.12 pm
  Mr. Gordon Marsden: I am very pleased to be able to speak in favour of this bold Bill, not least because it is not an isolated initiative, but part of a pattern of legislative and executive action by the Government to combat crime. It links with other initiatives such as the street crime initiative—which is going to deliver £67 million to 10 police forces across the country, including my own in Blackpool—and the safer cities initiative, which will have important implications for tackling antisocial behaviour through interventions such as pub watch schemes, approved tenancy schemes and antisocial behaviour orders.
  The Bill also links with action on victims' rights and the determination to link the Crown Prosecution Service with the police to improve follow-through in the justice system. This represents a sustained, intensive and pragmatic attack on crime, but also a responsive one. My right hon. Friend the Home Secretary and his team at the Home Office deserve the highest praise for this, and for pursuing this Bill.
  I want to speak first about the police standards unit. It is absolutely right that we should pursue this. In his previous incarnation in the last Parliament, my right hon. Friend showed courage, vigour and balance when this principle of inspection was applied in education. I find it bizarre that Conservative Members, whose Government introduced an inspection unit in education in the early 1990s, should now apparently be so opposed to the extension of the concept to the police service today.
  Clause 3, which establishes
  "Powers to require inspection and report"
  is absolutely right. Hon. Members have said today that there is too much variation in the figures. This is not just a question of value for money; it is also a question of performance and accountability. We need to be able to share best practice and joint partnership, as is the case in education. Occasionally, police officers need that little extra push, in the same way that local education authorities do. It is needed if there is to be public confidence, and a feeling that external inspections are being carried out.
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  We heard a lot of puffed-up rhetoric and false antithesis from the hon. Member for West Dorset (Mr. Letwin). Why did he not note the eminent good sense displayed by his former colleague as Attorney-General and Solicitor-General, Lord Mayhew, who said when speaking about the Bill in the House of Lords:
  "The Home Secretary cannot be expected to carry the can unless he is in a position ultimately to influence how policing is carried out by chief officers. So a balance has to be established"?—[Official Report, House of Lords, 5 February 2002; Vol. 631, c. 558.]
  I entirely agree with that.
  We all know that the police work hard locally and nationally, and that applies not least to the initiative on antisocial behaviour orders; but a further push is needed. The process needs to be streamlined. The new forms of ASBO that the Bill will permit will give police, courts and councils more flexible tools with which to do their bit. ASBOs can constitute a key element in dealing with the destructive swathe of juvenile offenders in local communities.
  I have seen how people in Blackpool are made vulnerable by problems such as transience, a relatively skewed demography causing more young and elderly persons to feel at risk, the effect of vandalism on small businesses, and aggressive street behaviour—which, sadly, can be both locally and visitor-generated. I think that that applies to all coastal towns. In that context, ASBOs are not just a response to public concern; they enable time to be "freed up".
  I welcome the proposals to increase civilian input, which will, I hope, enable the police to be more sensitive and responsive to home calls. A lady in my constituency was asked, when a crowd of youths were jumping up and down on her elderly husband's car outside, whether it was "a life-threatening situation". The police felt that if it was not, they could not go and deal with it. I do not want to see more examples of that.
  In the intervals between not being able to decide whether policing, or the provision of community support officers, was cheap or dear, the hon. Member for Tatton (Mr. Osborne) spoke of the impact on town centres. He missed the point. The point is that the presence of community support officers as part of a network will, in many cases, enable police to be there in the town centres. What people in my community in Blackpool who are not in the tourist area want is a dedicated presence of police, or police support, to provide the necessary reassurance. At present, inevitably, many of those who are present must be taken away to deal with town-centre problems at weekends.
  I welcome the extra police numbers we have been given in Blackpool—45 last year and another 10 this year, five of whom have gone on dedicated patrols on a major estate in the constituency. I also welcome the impetus given to ward beat managers and response teams, and the initiative launched by Blackpool police and my local newspaper for the printing of ward beat managers' details. Nevertheless, however well we do in surpassing the targets of 1997, the police will always be stretched. We need community support officers to provide that intensive day-by-day reassurance—to provide that local input.
  My hon. Friend the Member for Bury, North (Mr. Chaytor) mentioned the important things that had been done in a Lancashire pilot. I welcome the Home Affairs Select Committee's support for the proposals, with

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  safeguards, but we must give practical support to the community support officers. We cannot be left with the toothless CSOs with whom the hon. Member for West Dorset and his hon. Friends would be satisfied. For instance, how would they cope with the problem described by a constituent who wrote to me earlier in the year? The letter states that between 6.45 pm and 8.15 pm on most Fridays
  "about thirty youths plus girls met drinking, fighting … urinating on the fences, this now seems to be every Friday … two youths kicked the door of the electric department at the back".
  Conservative Members may say that that is a job for the police. However, without regular policing in communities to get rid of that low-level violence and antisocial behaviour, difficulties will build up into the sort of problems that I have described.
  Community support officers will help to build up communities and people's quality of life. They are part of a process that involves area forums, neighbourhood watch schemes, neighbourhood renewal, home zone schemes such as those that operate in the wards of Talbot and Brunswick in my constituency, and even the gating initiatives that are being introduced.
  We cannot expect everything to be done by policing. We must accept that parents also have a responsibility in the matter, and that we need to use all the relevant associations and voluntary groups. That is why I welcome the accreditation schemes proposed in the Bill.
  However, we must also make sure that we fulfil the debt to people of the older generation on our estates and in our constituencies. They feel most pressured by this low-level activity. Some of the chatterati outside the House who have complained about the provisions in the Bill, or the reborn liberals among Conservative Members, ought to look at the practical implications of what they are suggesting—or, rather, what they are not suggesting—should happen on the estates in our constituencies.
  Community support officers will be able to show juveniles the errors of their ways at an early stage, just as the effective enforcement of ASBOs does. The "broken window" effect, which so often leads to the creation of no-go areas and the misery that all hon. Members have seen in their constituencies, can be stopped by that sort of application.
  Problems such as I have described are of concern to all of us, but especially to those who are core voters, and those who feel that they are most affected by such problems. As my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary said at an early stage in the Bill's introduction, tackling crime is part of our social renewal agenda. That is why the proposals regarding ASBOs and CSOs are so important, and why I am very pleased to support the Bill tonight.
  9.22 pm
  Lady Hermon: I should begin by declaring an interest: 15 years ago, I wrote a critical article about the then Chief Constable of Northern Ireland, the head of the Royal Ulster Constabulary. I married him 13 months later, and five months later he retired, although the two things are riot connected.
  I am delighted to speak in this debate, as we in Northern Ireland are streets ahead of the rest of the UK. Police reform went ahead in Northern Ireland two years
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  ago, with the introduction of the Police (Northern Ireland) Act 2000. I hope that it will be useful and constructive for Ministers and the House to draw on our experience of police reform.
  My first point concerns the retention of officers. The hon. Member for Lewes (Norman Baker) said that we must ensure that we retain police officers. It is essential that the Home Secretary somehow builds up the support of the rank and file members of the police service in England and Wales. The Police Federation of England and Wales and the Police Superintendents Association of England and Wales must support the reforms.
  I say that passionately. The House will hear the passion in my voice, but I feel passionate because of what happened in Northern Ireland. The Patten report recommended that the number of regular police officers should be reduced over 10 years to 7,500. The report came out on 9 September 1999. Two and a half years on—nowhere near the 10 years recommended by Patten—we in Northern Ireland are down to 6,900 police officers.
  I am sorry to have to say this, but nothing has done more damage to the credibility of the Belfast agreement, and to the support for it, than police reform. I hope that the damage can be repaired, but that will require more resources. It is essential that rank and file members support police reform.
  When we gave the Minister a break earlier on and stopped intervening on him, he actually managed to tell us that the target for spring 2003 was 130,000 police officers. That may be the target, but the difficulty is that, without the support of rank and file officers, experienced police officers will drain away and morale will go down, as it has in Northern Ireland. The Government must retain police officers by persuading them that the reforms are worth introducing.
  Secondly, I was absolutely delighted when fundamental human rights were put at the core of policing in Northern Ireland. That is where they should be because that enhances people's respect for the police. I am delighted that the United Kingdom has rightly made the European convention on human rights part and parcel of its domestic law. We in Northern Ireland have a new oath for police officers, who now swear to uphold fundamental human rights. I am very pleased that that is mirrored in clause 64. It is essential that the other people to whom the Government intend to give policing or detention powers have human rights training; otherwise the Government will face many legal actions. The respectability of police officers is increased when they have a basic operational understanding of human rights legislation.
  Thirdly, it is the responsibility of all hon. Members, not just Ministers, to increase public awareness of police reform. That is key. I am very sorry to say that we politicians in Northern Ireland must bear a lot of the responsibility for not preparing the general public for the reforms, especially the speed of reform, introduced under the Patten report. I do not want that mistake to be repeated in England and Wales. The Government must, please, increase public awareness of the reforms, which depend on public support.
  I shall rest my case on my fourth and final point, as other hon. Members wish to contribute. I made this point in an intervention in the hope that it would be taken on board. The Secretary of State for Northern Ireland has limited powers over policing; we have a Chief Constable

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  and a policing board, which includes 10 elected Assembly Members. That arrangement is working very well, but it is not just tripartite—we will have district policing partnerships for every local council in Northern Ireland. I know that our system is easier to manage; we have 26 district councils, and the number may decrease as local government reform is due.
  Every district policing partnership will meet the local chief superintendent every month to discuss, advise and consult on local policing issues. Whether considering parades—we are approaching the season for them—or other issues, district policing partnerships represent a real vehicle to enable local councillors, who form the majority of each partnership, to be accountable to the electorate. Those partnerships also represent the means through which ordinary people can have a voice.
  I urge the Government to consider those four points and to try to learn from the good lessons of police reform in Northern Ireland.
  9.28 pm
  Vera Baird: I welcome the Bill. It is very timely that the House is considering part 1 in the immediate aftermath of the thematic report, published on 10 April by the inspectorate of constabulary, about the way in which the crime of rape is policed.
  The inspectorate examined the way in which rape is dealt with in nine police areas, which represent a cross-section. The disparities that it found among those forces in the operational and investigative standards at almost every stage of dealing with that offence make much of the case for the police standards unit and for the Home Secretary's extended powers under part 1 to direct chief officers to remedy shortcomings and to regulate procedures and practices.
  If this were a different debate, I would be arguing that the overall picture concerning rape is very poor indeed. However, what is germane to this debate is that inspectors have found specific examples of good practice in some police forces—not necessarily in the same force—that, if combined, could produce a radical improvement in the current 7.3 per cent. conviction rate. That rate is the lowest ever, and far lower than for any other kind of assault. To be fair to women, such good practices must be disseminated to all 43 forces, and especially to those that are performing poorly. The inspectorate of constabulary is influential, but its role is only advisory, and although the Association of Chief Police Officers has frequently mediated to spread good practice, it cannot ensure its adoption. In that regard, the Home Secretary's powers are also insufficient.
  In response to the report on rape, a cross-departmental working group has been set up to try to implement its 80 recommendations. The police standards unit that the White Paper announced is now working, and its core task is the identification and dissemination of best practice. Had it been operating earlier, it would have continuously identified and spread good practice to drive up standards to the best levels of operational performance, and rape convictions would not have fallen so far behind. It would have identified a host of best practices scattered around the country, which I do not have time to itemise.
  The PSU will be particularly important for those such as rape victims, whose criminal victimisation is not naturally at the top of the police's hit list. For rape, read
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  domestic violence as well, for which the standards are equally variable. However, centres of excellence do exist that involve officers with special interests. The PSU is operating and does not need legislation, but to implement its recommendations it plainly needs all the powers that part 1 of the Bill gives to the Home Secretary. In particular, it needs enhanced powers to direct police authorities, and to direct chief officers in cases where the Home Secretary is satisfied that a particular force, or part of it, was ineffective or inefficient. That would assist rape complainants. Clause 7 will allow the Home Secretary to issue directions requiring all forces to follow particular operational procedures—in other words, to follow best practices.
  Huge variations in performance between forces, and therefore between postcodes, are unacceptable. If women in a given area knew that their rape complaints would be investigated poorly, but a few miles away they would be offered support, assistance and best practice, they would be inflamed with anger to discover that no mechanism exists to enable the Home Secretary to compel such practice in their area. They would not regard the power to drive up standards as interference in the independence of operational command, and nor do I.
  I also welcome the advent of community support officers. The beauty of the proposal is that the question whether an area will have such officers, and the powers granted to them, will be determined according to local need by the chief police officer and the local police authority. That is a clear devolution of policing power: what it is not is policing on the cheap. CSOs will do exactly as has been described: support the police—and surely the community, as well—by handling a specific range of antisocial behaviour, including noisiness, litter, dog-fouling and rowdiness. Only recently have we come to realise that such conduct affects people's day-to-day peaceful enjoyment rather more than does armed robbery, for example. It has always been extremely difficult for police to provide a local, targeted response to such conduct, which calls for a much more street-based, mediation-oriented regime. It is an inappropriate task for highly skilled, but differently skilled, officers, who as police are better suited to different duties. CSOs offer a real opportunity for a modern way forward.
  Redcar and Cleveland borough council—my constituency is located in that borough—has the largest community support warden scheme in England. Some 45 wardens provide coverage until 10 o'clock each night, and soon there will be 49 of them. Each ward has a pair of wardens, so they are never far away. They have a radio link and mobile phones. They also have vans, but the rules require them to be on the beat 85 per cent. of the time in the evening. They were established as the council devolved its services down to neighbourhood level, so they are the first port of call for anybody who sees a hole in the road or some item of disrepair. The wardens call out the repair team from the local office, and the matter is dealt with swiftly. That helps to alleviate what is called the broken window syndrome—if a minor problem such as a broken window is not fixed, it is followed by others in a spiral of decline.
  I am told by Councillor David McCluckie, the lead councillor for community safety, that the wardens also play a very important role in gathering information, some of it very sensitive, about crime. People feel much freer to give the wardens the information than the police, probably

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  because members of the public could have all sorts of reasons for talking to the wardens. A member of the public might say, "There's a hole in the road over there, and No. 26 is dealing drugs". but as long as the hole in the road is mended no one can take revenge if the other information is acted on as well.
  The wardens have byelaw powers to give tickets for dog-fouling and other minor offences. If they observe the stuff of antisocial behaviour, they can make statements and they have given evidence. They do not live in the ward where they work, so they do not face retribution.
  A notable aspect of antisocial behaviour is that it involves the young more than any other group in the community. Sometimes the behaviour is deliberate and highly offensive, but sometimes the young people are not aware of or concerned by the effect that their behaviour has on the rest of society. Often they do not have anything else to do, or that is what they think. In a ward called Grangetown, the council has decided to build a youth shelter because two wardens made an informal approach to a group of young lads and found that the nuisance of kicking a ball against the walls of pensioners' bungalows was for want of another surface to kick the ball against that was anywhere near the shops.
  Young people know who the wardens are and they do not approach the young people aggressively or judgmentally. The wardens' uniform makes them look like paramedics, and everybody trusts them. The wardens are trained by the police in PACE—the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984—so they know what they are doing. They are also trained in anger management and mediation and how to develop an exit strategy. If they want a name and address and are refused, they are so local that they can ask people nearby for a name, or they follow the person home and deliver the ticket. If they have to withdraw from a confrontation, they can identify the offender through other locals and can go to the home later with a police constable.
  Antisocial behaviour has been cut by between 20 and 30 per cent. in the year that the wardens have been working, and the fire brigade locally reckons that the number of hoaxes and fire-raising incidents has fallen by 70 per cent. The wardens are seen as the community's champions. They are proud of that role and they want to retain it. They take pride in their communities.
  The picture that I have painted does not show something that is inferior to policing. It is not policing on the cheap. It is a new approach, based in and regenerating the community and with its own virtues. A poll has been taken about whether the wardens would benefit from having powers of detention, and they do not want them. They fear that they would not be safe while exercising such powers and that they would be distanced from the community. However, there is no doubt—
  Madam Deputy Speaker (Sylvia Heal): Order.
  9.39 pm
  Mr. James Paice: Unsurprisingly, the debate has concentrated on two issues—standards and the level of policing. A clear division of views on what to do has evolved. We have heard some very good speeches from both sides of the House, although I detected in some of the Government Back Benchers' speeches a little whiff of the old
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  traditional Labour left-wing antagonism towards the police. That is a pity. Nevertheless, a number of speeches welcomed the present situation, and I will come back to that in a moment.
  My right hon. Friend the Member for Horsham (Mr. Maude) spoke about a constituency case that supports the Government's proposed amendment on the Independent Police Complaints Commission, and we welcome that. My hon. Friends the Members for Boston and Skegness (Mr. Simmonds), for Witney (Mr. Cameron), for Aldershot (Mr. Howarth) and for Tatton (Mr. Osborne) all spoke about centralising powers and the use of civilians as community support officers and community safety accreditation organisations, yet those two issues represent considerably less than half the Bill. It is remarkable that most of the debate has concentrated on a small part of the Bill, with one or two exceptions. The hon. Member for Falmouth and Camborne (Ms Atherton) spoke about another issue, which I shall mention shortly. However, almost all the speeches focused on two issues that represent a relatively small part of the Bill.
  As a member of the Home Affairs Committee, my hon. Friend the Member for Witney said that the Bill failed to address three of the most crucial issues. He said that the police cannot attract and hold good officers and cannot get rid of bad ones, while those in the service are strangled by paperwork.
  The hon. Member for North Down (Lady Hermon) brought the wisdom of experience to the debate, for which I am grateful. She stressed the need for the support of police officers when we embark upon change. Unfortunately, the Home Secretary does not seem to have learned that lesson yet.
  Much of the debate has been about centralisation. The Select Committee said that the former clause 5 was unacceptable. Even with the proposed safeguards that the Government had planned to introduce, the Select Committee was, at best, lukewarm about it.
  In response to an intervention from me, the Minister of State said that there are no existing powers with which police authorities can deal with problems. He is quite right. However, the answer is not to take powers to the Home Secretary but to give them to the police authorities. The whole of part 1 is about taking powers to the centre. Some provisions, such as the regulation of equipment, are perfectly acceptable. However, no one who studies the whole of part 1 can argue that the removal of the original clause 5 has taken away every opportunity for the Home Secretary to intervene when he thinks that things are going wrong.
  Clause 2 deals with codes of practice, clause 4 with directions to police authorities, and clause 6 with the regulation of procedures and practices. Clause 77 gives the Home Secretary immense powers over three-year strategy plans. The Bill provides plenty of opportunities for the Home Secretary to take action. My right hon. and hon. Friends all spoke of the need to decentralise.
  The issue of community support officers also occupied much of the debate. The hon. and learned Member for Redcar (Vera Baird) brought home to us the fact that a large number of very successful schemes operate under present legislation, using neighbourhood wardens, local guardians and even ambassadors. I have seen a number of such schemes in operation and several other hon. Members described their success in their constituencies.

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  The point is that such schemes are operating, but those civilians do not have a range of police powers. What is more important, they do not have the power of detention.
  I have spoken to many support organisations and, without exception, not one has said that it wants detention powers. Indeed, a number say that having such powers would do them a disservice and get in the way of their fulfilling such a role. There would be an obligation to comply more with PACE provisions on training.
  What happens after 30 minutes remains unanswered. One or two hon. Members made the point that in their constituencies, the likelihood of an officer being able to reach someone within 30 minutes of detention was remote, and that certainly applies to part of my constituency.
  In relation to other powers introduced under schedules 4 and 5, there is the likelihood of a huge variety of provision and immense confusion throughout the country. At present, the schedules do not provide for a fixed system; they offer a pick-and-mix menu. Every chief constable will be able to decide which powers to give to his community support officers or accredited safety organisation. It is possible that where CSOs exist, they will have different levels of power in different forces: in London, the powers may differ between boroughs and, in the case of people employed by an accredited safety organisation, from employer to employer. That is a recipe for considerable confusion. It will give rise to public concern, and there will be a failure to appreciate the role of civilians.
  There are some issues that have not been covered by the Bill, including the standards unit. Listening to some of the Labour Back Benchers who were talking about the standards unit, one would have thought that the inspectorate did not exist. However, there is a perfectly competent inspectorate, which, we understand, the Home Secretary has no plans to alter or disband. Like the Select Committee, we cannot understand the necessity for a distinct and separate organisation called the standards unit. That is not to say that we are against raising the standards of all to those of the best or against spreading best practice, but we are asking whether we need two separate organisations. The distinction between their roles is unclear.
  The hon. Member for Falmouth and Camborne referred to the provisions that would allow blood samples to be taken from people who could not give their consent. I do not detract from her support for that change, but I also know that, for more than a year, my hon. Friend the Member for Tiverton and Honiton (Mrs. Browning) has worked hard for a change in the law. I welcome it, although we must obviously consider the finer detail in Committee.
  Several Members referred to ASBOs. The orders are not the raging success predicted by the former Home Secretary: the most recent statistics showed that just under 500 had been granted. Police officers and other people involved are extremely concerned about the amount of bureaucracy and time required to generate an ASBO. We welcome changes to the system and we welcome the extension of the orders, but there is little in the Bill to address the fundamental reason for their lack of success—the problem of bureaucracy in the criminal justice system.
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  The Bill includes a provision to remove the obligation for police officers to be British citizens, or citizens of the Commonwealth or Ireland. We can be persuaded of the need to end that rule, but before the Bill completes its passage the Government should publish the exact criteria to be required of would-be recruits, as regards language ability, residence qualifications and so on.
  Several hon. Members referred to another absence in the Bill—provision for special constables. In the White Paper, the Government stated that they wanted a revival of the special constabulary. We all agree with that. However, the Bill contains nothing that would achieve that. The Government have a policy vacuum in that regard: they seem to have no idea how to revitalise the specials.
  The official Opposition welcome a large part of the Bill, but we object to two points of principle. The first is the extension to civilian officers or officials of police powers of detention. As several hon. Members pointed out, that will put civilians in the front line in the community. We believe that community or neighbourhood policing should be recognised as having the most important role in the police force. That is where problems can be resolved before they get out of hand. We want neighbourhood police to be seen as an elite force, not as a second division.
  The other point of principle is the issue of powers being taken by the Home Secretary. I have some sympathy with the Under-Secretary. Anybody who has been privileged to stand at that Dispatch Box knows the temptation to command and control, but that temptation must be resisted, not just because it is wrong but because it cannot work. It is a downward spiral of ever-closer scrutiny and involvement in day-to-day decisions. That is why we will resist moves to restore the original clause 5 to the Bill.
  9.50 pm
  The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. Bob Ainsworth): There is one thing about which I agree with the hon. Member for South-East Cambridgeshire (Mr. Paice)—there has been a clear division in tonight's debate, which has concentrated on the main areas of disagreement. I would describe it differently, however. There has been a real contrast. On the one hand, there have been thoughtful contributions, mostly, but not exclusively, by Labour Members. Some of the comments of the hon. Member for North Down (Lady Hermon), for instance, were aimed at Members of Parliament generally and not just at Ministers. Such contributions showed, in the main, a depth of support for the proposals. Coupled with that were the Home Affairs Committee report and contributions by members of that Committee that gave an in-depth analysis of the Bill. There was a clear contrast between that and contributions by Members on both Opposition Front Benches who have been brought in to back up their new alliance in opposition to the Bill. That synthetic opposition was aimed at measures that are absolutely necessary if we are to tackle effectively some of the problems that my hon. Friends have exposed tonight.
  The hon. Member for Boston and Skegness (Mr. Simmonds), who was supported in large part by the hon. Member for Aldershot (Mr. Howarth), told the House that the police force in this country was demoralised, under-resourced and abused. Those comments were aimed at the Home Secretary. I was in the House when the Home

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  Secretary challenged hon. Members to give a single item of evidence that he has made comments purporting to attack the police force. I heard not a shred of evidence coming back. Why do Opposition Members such as the hon. Members for Boston and Skegness and for Aldershot continue to peddle such nonsense without providing a shred of evidence for any of their allegations?
  Mr. Gerald Howarth: I quoted from a letter from the chief constable of Hampshire, who is the chief constable for the constituency of the Minister for Policing, Crime Reduction and Community Safety. The chief constable pointed out that his officers felt that they had been subject to a campaign of denigration. [Interruption.]
  Mr. Ainsworth: My hon. Friend is right. There was not a single such quote in that letter, as the hon. Member for Aldershot knows jolly well.
  With regard to under-resourcing, let me make the point—it needs to be made again and again—that we are not talking about policing on the cheap. Currently, we have an all-time record number of police officers—128,748, which is planned to rise to 130,000 by next year. Before Conservative Members start talking about policing on the cheap, they should be prepared to say why that resource was never provided when they were in power, as they had clear opportunities to do so.
  In the time left to me, I shall be able to deal with the central issues but not with all the other points that have been made. However, I shall briefly refer to one or two of them. The hon. Member for Lewes (Norman Baker) referred to the Independent Police Complaints Commission and expressed the view that the proposals would not be adequate for the size of the task. About 1,000 cases will be taken on under the new system, and that is not 3 per cent. of all complaints. It is about 10 per cent. of all the cases that go forward currently and that are not dropped or dealt with at a local level.
  The commission will be able to take on cases at its own instigation, so it will be able to investigate cases at its discretion when, as the right hon. Member for Horsham (Mr. Maude) clearly pointed out, it is not possible to name the individual police officer against whom the complaint has been made. We believe that the proposal will be adequate in providing the framework for the independence that will be necessary to deal with police complaints. However, we can discuss this issue with the hon. Member for Lewes in more detail in Committee.
  My hon. Friend the Member for Falmouth and Camborne (Ms Atherton) talked about the proposals for blood sampling. I congratulate her on the work that she has done to raise this issue.
  One of the main issues of difference that has been exposed tonight is that both Opposition parties are effectively saying that, even with the safeguards that we are proposing in the Bill, the Home Secretary should not be allowed to act even in circumstances in which a chief police officer and a police authority have failed to address serious problems of under-performance. In return for that, they propose that there should be an increase in accountability. However, when those on both Opposition Front Benches were asked to provide details of what they suggest, they refused to answer the question. We can assume only that they are content with variations in performance and are happy to allow the existing situation to continue. It is no wonder that crime doubled when the Conservatives were in government.
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  The Opposition also claim that community support officers should not be given the powers to detain. The hon. Member for West Dorset (Mr. Letwin) reached the height of political hyperbole when he opposed the measure and said that such officers should not have the power of arrest. However, they will not have the power to arrest or to bring charges; all they will have is the power to detain for 30 minutes while waiting for a constable to turn up on the scene.
  The hon. Member for Lewes opposed our proposals and said that we should listen to and trust local people. However, why will he not trust the Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis who said that the police needed community support officers and that such officers needed—it has been specifically asked for—the power of detention? Why does the hon. Gentleman not listen to the Association of London Government, which said:
  "If the power to detain is to be used effectively, then a longer period of detention is essential"?
  Norman Baker rose—
  Mr. Ainsworth: I ask the House to give the Bill its Second Reading. I commend it to the House, because it is needed to deal with the issues that badly need addressing in our communities and to provide the clear standards and consistency of performance that are necessary.
  Question put and agreed to.
  Bill accordingly read a Second time.

  POLICE REFORM BILL [LORDS] (PROGRAMME)
  Motion made and Question put forthwith, pursuant to Order [28 June].
  That the following provisions shall apply to the Police Reform Bill [Lords]:

  POLICE REFORM BILL [LORDS] (PROGRAMME)
    Committal
    1. The Bill shall be committed to a Standing Committee.
    Programming of proceedings
    2. Proceedings on the Bill (including proceedings on consideration of Lords Amendments or on any other message from the Lords) may be programmed.

    Standing Committee
    3.—(1) Proceedings in the Standing Committee shall (so far as not previously concluded) be brought to a conclusion on Thursday 27th June 2002.
    (2) The Standing Committee shall have leave to sit twice on the first day on which it meets.

    Consideration and Third Reading
    4.—(1) Proceedings on consideration (so far as not previously concluded) shall be brought to a conclusion at Nine o'clock on the day on which those proceedings are commenced or, if that day is a Thursday, at Six o'clock on that day.
    (2) Proceedings on Third Reading (so far as not previously concluded) shall be brought to a conclusion at Ten o'clock on the day on which proceedings on consideration are commenced or, if that day is a Thursday, at Seven &clock on that day.

    Programming Committee
    5. Sessional Order B (programming committees) made on 28th June 2001 shall not apply to proceedings on consideration and Third Reading.—[Dan Norris.]
    The House divided: Ayes 366, Noes 162.

    Division No. 225]

    [9.59 pm

    AYES

    Abbott, Ms Diane

    Clarke, Rt Hon Tom (Coatbridge)

    Ainger, Nick

    Clarke, Tony (Northampton S)

    Ainsworth, Bob (Cov'try NE)

    Clwyd, Ann

    Allan, Richard

    Coaker, Vernon

    Allen, Graham

    Coffey, Ms Ann

    Anderson, Rt Hon Donald

    Cohen, Harry

    (Swansea E)

    Colman, Tony

    Armstrong, Rt Hon Ms Hilary

    Connarty, Michael

    Atherton, Ms Candy

    Cook, Frank (Stockton N)

    Atkins, Charlotte

    Cook, Rt Hon Robin (Livingston)

    Austin, John

    Corbyn, Jeremy

    Bailey, Adrian

    Cotter, Brian

    Baird, Vera

    Cousins, Jim

    Baker, Norman

    Cranston, Ross

    Banks, Tony

    Crausby, David

    Barnes, Harry

    Cryer, John (Hornchurch)

    Barrett, John

    Cunningham, Rt Hon Dr Jack

    Battle, John

    (Copeland)

    Bayley, Hugh

    Cunningham, Jim (Cov'try S)

    Beard, Nigel

    Cunningham, Tony (Workington)

    Beckett, Rt Hon Margaret

    Curtis-Thomas, Mrs Claire

    Begg, Miss Anne

    Dalyell, Tam

    Beith, Rt Hon A J

    Darling, Rt Hon Alistair

    Bennett, Andrew

    Davey, Edward (Kingston)

    Benton, Joe

    Davey, Valerie (Bristol W)

    Berry, Roger

    David, Wayne

    Best, Harold

    Davidson, Ian

    Betts, Clive

    Davies, Rt Hon Denzil (Llanelli)

    Blackman, Liz

    Davies, Geraint (Croydon C)

    Blizzard, Bob

    Dawson, Hilton

    Blunkett, Rt Hon David

    Dean, Mrs Janet

    Boateng, Rt Hon Paul

    Denham, Rt Hon John

    Borrow, David

    Dhanda, Parmjit

    Bradley, Rt Hon Keith (Withington)

    Dismore, Andrew

    Bradley, Peter (The Wrekin)

    Dobbin, Jim

    Bradshaw, Ben

    Dobson, Rt Hon Frank

    Brake, Tom

    Donohoe, Brian H

    Breed, Colin

    Doran, Frank

    Brennan, Kevin

    Doughty, Sue

    Brooke, Mrs Annette L

    Dowd, Jim

    Brown, Russell (Dumfries)

    Drew, David

    Bruce, Malcolm

    Dunwoody, Mrs Gwyneth

    Bryant, Chris

    Eagle, Angela (Wallasey)

    Burden, Richard

    Eagle, Maria (L'Pool Garston)

    Burgon, Colin

    Edwards, Huw

    Burnham, Andy

    Efford, Clive

    Burstow, Paul

    Ellman, Mrs Louise

    Caborn, Rt Hon Richard

    Ennis, Jeff

    Cairns, David

    Etherington, Bill

    Calton, Mrs Patsy

    Farrelly, Paul

    Campbell, Alan (Tynemouth)

    Field, Rt Hon Frank (Birkenhead)

    Campbell, Mrs Anne (C'bridge)

    Fisher, Mark

    Campbell, Rt Hon Menzies

    Fitzpatrick, Jim

    (NE Fife)

    Fitzsimons, Mrs Lorna

    Caplin, Ivor

    Flint, Caroline

    Carmichael, Alistair

    Flynn, Paul

    Casale, Roger

    Follett, Barbara

    Challen, Colin

    Foster, Michael (Worcester)

    Chaytor, David

    Foster, Michael Jabez (Hastings)

    Chidgey, David

    Foulkes, George

    Clapham, Michael

    Gapes, Mike

    Clark, Mrs Helen (Peterborough)

    Gardiner, Barry

    Clark, Dr Lynda

    George, Rt Hon Bruce (Walsall S)

    (Edinburgh Pentlands)

    Gerrard, Neil

    Clark, Paul (Gillingham)

    Gibson, Dr Ian

    Clarke, Rt Hon Charles

    Gidley, Sandra

    (Norwich S)

    Gilroy, Linda

    124

    Godsiff, Roger

    Liddell, Rt Hon Mrs Helen

    Goggins, Paul

    Linton, Martin

    Green, Matthew (Ludlow)

    Lloyd, Tony

    Griffiths, Jane (Reading E)

    Love, Andrew

    Griffiths, Nigel (Edinburgh S)

    Lucas, Ian

    Griffiths, Win (Bridgend)

    Luke, Iain

    Grogan, John

    Lyons, John

    Hain, Rt Hon Peter

    McAvoy, Thomas

    Hall, Mike (Weaver Vale)

    McCabe, Stephen

    Hamilton, David (Midlothian)

    MacDonald, Calum

    Hamilton, Fabian (Leeds NE)

    McDonnell, John

    Hancock, Mike

    MacDougall, John

    Hanson, David

    McFall, John

    Harman, Rt Hon Ms Harriet

    McGuire, Mrs Anne

    Harris, Tom (Glasgow Cathcart)

    McIsaac, Shona

    Harvey, Nick

    McKechin, Ann

    Havard, Dai

    McKenna, Rosemary

    Healey, John

    McNamara, Kevin

    Heath, David

    Mactaggart, Fiona

    Henderson, Doug (Newcastle N)

    McWalter, Tony

    Henderson, Ivan (Harwich)

    McWilliam, John

    Hendrick, Mark

    Mahmood, Khalid

    Hepburn, Stephen

    Mahon, Mrs Alice

    Heyes, David

    Mallaber, Judy

    Hill, Keith

    Mandelson, Rt Hon Peter

    Hinchliffe, David

    Mann, John

    Hoey, Kate

    Marris, Rob

    Holmes, Paul

    Marsden, Gordon (Blackpool S)

    Hood, Jimmy

    Marshall, David (Shettleston)

    Hoon, Rt Hon Geoffrey

    Martlew, Eric

    Hope, Phil

    Meacher, Rt Hon Michael

    Hopkins, Kelvin

    Meale, Alan

    Howarth, Rt Hon Alan (Newport E)

    Merron, Gillian

    Howarth, George (Knowsley N)

    Michael, Rt Hon Alun

    Howells, Dr Kim

    Milburn, Rt Hon Alan

    Hoyle, Lindsay

    Miliband, David

    Hughes, Beverley (Stretford)

    Miller, Andrew

    Hughes, Kevin (Doncaster N)

    Mitchell, Austin (Gt Grimsby)

    Hughes, Simon (Southwark N)

    Mole, Chris

    Humble, Mrs Joan

    Moonie, Dr Lewis

    Hurst, Alan

    Moore, Michael

    Hutton, Rt Hon John

    Moran, Margaret

    Iddon, Dr Brian

    Morley, Elliot

    Illsley, Eric

    Morris, Rt Hon Estelle

    Irranca-Davies, Huw

    Mountford, Kali

    Jackson, Helen (Hillsborough)

    Mudie, George

    Jamieson, David

    Mullin, Chris

    Jenkins, Brian

    Murphy, Denis (Wansbeck)

    Johnson, Alan (Hull W & Hessle)

    Murphy, Rt Hon Paul (Torfaen)

    Jones, Helen (Warrington N)

    Naysmith, Dr Doug

    Jones, Kevan (N Durham)

    Norris, Dan

    Jones, Lynne (Selly Oak)

    O'Brien, Bill (Normanton)

    Jones, Nigel (Cheltenham)

    O'Brien, Mike (N Warks)

    Joyce, Eric

    Olner, Bill

    Kaufman, Rt Hon Gerald

    O'Neill, Martin

    Keeble, Ms Sally

    Öpik, Lembit

    Keen, Alan (Feltham & Heston)

    Organ, Diana

    Keen, Ann (Brentford & Isleworth)

    Osborne, Sandra (Ayr)

    Kemp, Fraser

    Palmer, Dr Nick

    Khabra, Piara S

    Pearson, Ian

    Kidney, David

    Perham, Linda

    Kilfoyle, Peter

    Pickthall, Colin

    King, Andy (Rugby & Kenilworth)

    Pike, Peter

    King, Ms Oona (Bethnal Green)

    Plaskitt, James

    Kirkwood, Archy

    Pope, Greg

    Knight, Jim (S Dorset)

    Pound, Stephen

    Kumar, Dr Ashok

    Prentice, Mr Bridget (Lewisham E)

    Ladyman, Dr Stephen

    Prentice, Gordon (Pendle)

    Lamb, Norman

    Prescott, Rt Hon John

    Lawrence, Mrs Jackie

    Prosser, Gwyn

    Laxton, Bob

    Pugh, Dr John

    Lazarowicz, Mark

    Purchase, Ken

    Lepper, David

    Purnell, James

    Leslie, Christopher

    Quin, Rt Hon Joyce

    Levitt, Tom

    Quinn, Lawrie

    Lewis, Terry (Worsley)

    Rapson, Syd

    125

    Raynsford, Rt Hon Nick

    Taylor, Mr Dari (Stockton S)

    Reed, Andy (Loughborough)

    Taylor, David (NW Leics)

    Reid, Alan (Argyll & Bute)

    Taylor, Matthew (Truro)

    Rendel, David

    Thomas, Gareth (Clwyd W)

    Robertson, John (Glasgow Anniesland)

    Thomas, Gareth R (Harrow W)

    Thurso, John

    Robinson, Geoffrey (Cov'try NW)

    Timms, Stephen

    Rooney, Terry

    Tipping, Paddy

    Ross, Ernie

    Todd, Mark

    Ruddock, Joan

    Touhig, Don

    Russell, Bob (Colchester)

    Trickett, Jon

    Russell, Ms Christine (Chester)

    Truswell, Paul

    Ryan, Joan

    Turner, Dr Desmond (Kemptown)

    Salter, Martin

    Turner, Neil (Wigan)

    Sanders, Adrian

    Twigg, Derek (Halton)

    Sarwar, Mohammad

    Twigg, Stephen (Enfield)

    Savidge, Malcolm

    Tyler, Paul

    Sawford, Phil

    Tynan, Bill

    Sedgemore, Brian

    Vaz, Keith

    Shaw, Jonathan

    Vis, Dr Rudi

    Sheerman, Barry

    Walley, Mr Joan

    Sheridan, Jim

    Ward, Mr Claire

    Simpson, Alan (Nottingham S)

    Watson, Tom

    Skinner, Dennis

    Watts, David

    Smith, Rt Hon Andrew (Oxford E)

    Webb, Steve

    Smith, Angela (Basildon)

    White, Brian

    Smith, Rt Hon Chris (Islington S)

    Whitehead, Dr Alan

    Smith, Geraldine (Morecambe)

    Wicks, Malcolm

    Smith, Jacqui (Redditch)

    Williams, Rt Hon Alan

    Smith, John (Glamorgan)

    (Swansea W)

    Smith, Llew (Blaenau Gwent)

    Willis, Phil

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

    Winnick, David

    Soley, Clive

    Woodward, Shaun

    Southworth, Helen

    Woolas, Phil

    Spellar, Rt Hon John

    Worthington, Tony

    Squire, Rachel

    Wray, James

    Starkey, Dr Phyllis

    Wright, Anthony D (Gt Yarmouth)

    Stewart, David (Inverness E)

    Wright, David (Telford)

    Stewart, Ian (Eccles)

    Wright, Tony (Cannock)

    Stinchcombe, Paul

    Wyatt, Derek

    Stoate, Dr Howard

    Younger-Ross, Richard

    Stringer, Graham

    Stunell, Andrew

    Tellers for the Ayes:

    Tami, Mark

    Mr. Gerry Sutcliffe and

    Taylor, Rt Hon Ann (Dewsbury)

    Mr. John Heppell.

    NOES

    Ainsworth, Peter (E Surrey)

    Clappison, James

    Amess, David

    Clarke, Rt Hon Kenneth

    Ancram, Rt Hon Michael

    (Rushcliffe)

    Arbuthnot, Rt Hon James

    Clifton-Brown, Geoffrey

    Atkinson, Peter (Hexham)

    Collins, Tim

    Bacon, Richard

    Conway, Derek

    Baldry, Tony

    Cormack, Sir Patrick

    Barker, Gregory

    Cran, James

    Baron, John

    Davies, Quentin (Grantham)

    Beggs, Roy

    Davis, Rt Hon David (Haltemprice)

    Bellingham, Henry

    Djanogly, Jonathan

    Beresford, Sir Paul

    Dorrell, Rt Hon Stephen

    Blunt, Crispin

    Duncan, Peter (Galloway)

    Boswell, Tim

    Evans, Nigel

    Bottomley, Peter (Worthing W)

    Ewing, Annabelle

    Bottomley, Rt Hon Virginia

    Fabricant, Michael

    Brady, Graham

    Fallon, Michael

    Brazier, Julian

    Field, Mark (Cities of London)

    Browning, Mrs Angela

    Flight, Howard

    Burns, Simon

    Flook, Adrian

    Burnside, David

    Forth, Rt Hon Eric

    Burt, Alistair

    Francois, Mark

    Butterfill, John

    Gale, Roger

    Cameron, David

    Garnier, Edward

    Cash, William

    Gibb, Nick

    Chapman, Sir Sydney

    Goodman, Paul

    (Chipping Barnet)

    Gray, James

    Chope, Christopher

    Grayling, Chris

    126

    Green, Damian (Ashford)

    Pickles, Eric

    Grieve, Dominic

    Portillo, Rt Hon Michael

    Gummer, Rt Hon John

    Price, Adam

    Hague, Rt Hon William

    Prisk, Mark

    Hammond, Philip

    Randall, John

    Hawkins, Nick

    Redwood, Rt Hon John

    Hayes, John

    Robathan, Andrew

    Heald, Oliver

    Robertson, Angus (Moray)

    Heathcoat-Amory, Rt Hon David

    Robertson, Hugh (Faversham)

    Hermon, Lady

    Robertson, Laurence (Tewk'b'ry)

    Hoban, Mark

    Robinson, Mrs Iris (Strangford)

    Hogg, Rt Hon Douglas

    Robinson, Peter (Belfast E)

    Horam, John

    Roe, Mrs Marion

    Howard, Rt Hon Michael

    Rosindell, Andrew

    Howarth, Gerald (Aldershot)

    Ruffley, David

    Hunter, Andrew

    Salmond, Alex

    Jack, Rt Hon Michael

    Selous, Andrew

    Jackson, Robert (Wantage)

    Shephard, Rt Hon Mrs Gillian

    Jenkin, Bernard

    Simmonds, Mark

    Johnson, Boris (Henley)

    Simpson, Keith (Mid-Norfolk)

    Key, Robert

    Smyth, Rev Martin (Belfast S)

    Kirkbride, Miss Julie

    Spicer, Sir Michael

    Knight, Rt Hon Greg (E Yorkshire)

    Spink, Bob

    Laing, Mrs Eleanor

    Spring, Richard

    Lait, Mrs Jacqui

    Stanley, Rt Hon Sir John

    Lansley, Andrew

    Steen, Anthony

    Leigh, Edward

    Streeter, Gary

    Letwin, Oliver

    Swayne, Desmond

    Lewis, Dr Julian (New Forest E)

    Swire, Hugo

    Liddell-Grainger, Ian

    Syms, Robert

    Lidington, David

    Tapsell, Sir Peter

    Lilley, Rt Hon Peter

    Taylor, John (Solihull)

    Llwyd, Elfyn

    Taylor, Dr Richard (Wyre F)

    Loughton, Tim

    Taylor, Sir Teddy

    Luff, Peter

    Thomas, Simon (Ceredigion)

    McIntosh, Miss Anne

    Trend, Michael

    MacKay, Rt Hon Andrew

    Turner, Andrew (Isle of Wight)

    Maclean, Rt Hon David

    Tyrie, Andrew

    McLoughlin, Patrick

    Viggers, Peter

    Malins, Humfrey

    Walter, Robert

    Maples, John

    Waterson, Nigel

    Mates, Michael

    Watkinson, Angela

    Maude, Rt Hon Francis

    Weir, Michael

    Mawhinney, Rt Hon Sir Brian

    Whittingdale, John

    May, Mrs Theresa

    Wiggin, Bill

    Mercer, Patrick

    Williams, Hywel (Caernarfon)

    Mitchell, Andrew (Sutton Coldfield)

    Wilshire, David

    Moss, Malcolm

    Winterton, Mrs Ann (Congleton)

    Murrison, Dr Andrew

    Winterton, Nicholas (Macclesfield)

    Norman, Archie

    Wishart, Pete

    O'Brien, Stephen (Eddisbury)

    Yeo, Tim

    Osborne, George (Tatton)

    Young, Rt Hon Sir George

    Ottaway, Richard

    Page, Richard

    Tellers for the Noes:

    Paice, James

    Mrs. Cheryl Gillan and

    Paterson, Owen

    Mr. Charles Hendry.

    Question accordingly agreed to.

  POLICE REFORM BILL [LORDS] [MONEY]
  Queen's recommendation having been signified—
  Motion made, and Question put forthwith, pursuant to Standing Order No. 52(1)(a) (Money resolutions and ways and means resolutions in connection with bills),
  That, for the purposes of any Act resulting from the Police Reform Bill [Lords], it is expedient to authorize—

  (a) the payment out of money provided by Parliament of any expenses of the Secretary of State under the Act;

  127

  (b) the payment out of money so provided of any increase attributable to the Act in the sums payable under any other enactment; and

  (c) the payment of money into the Consolidated Fund.—[Mr. Woolas.]

  Question agreed to.

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

    LOCAL GOVERNMENT FINANCE
    That the Local Government Finance (England) Special Grant Report (No. 96) (HC 710), on Special Grants for School Standards and Support of post-sixteen budgets, which was laid before this House on 26th March, be approved.—[Mr. Woolas.]
    Question agreed to.

  EUROPEAN COMMUNITY DOCUMENTS
  Motion made, and Question put forthwith, pursuant to Standing Order No. 119(9) (European Standing Committees),
  EUROPEAN COMMUNITY DOCUMENTS

    THE PROMOTION OF THE USE OF BIOFUELS IN ROAD TRANSPORT
    That this House takes note of European Union Document No. 15500/01, Commission Communication and two draft Directives on the promotion of the use of biofuels for transport, and provision for Member States to apply differentiated rates of excise duty in favour of biofuels; considers that the objectives of security of supply and climate change abatement can best be achieved by an approach which promotes renewable transport fuels as a whole, and reflects the individual circumstances of Member States and EU renewable energy policy through the setting of indicative, flexible targets; welcomes the principle of making it easier for Member States to set a lower rate of duty on cleaner fuels such as biofuels; but considers that the detail of the Commission's approach (in particular, the links with current duty rates for conventional fuels and with oil prices) should be questioned—[Mr. Woolas.]
    Question agreed to.

  Hollands Wood Campsite
  Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Woolas.]
  10.16 pm
  Dr. Julian Lewis: It is customary to begin an Adjournment debate by saying how fortunate one is to have secured—[Interruption.]
  Madam Deputy Speaker (Sylvia Heal): Order. Will hon. Members who are leaving the Chamber please do so quickly and quietly?
  Dr. Lewis: Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. As I said, it is customary to begin an Adjournment debate by congratulating oneself on one's good fortune in securing the debate.
  Mr. Desmond Swayne: Quite right.
  Dr. Lewis: Indeed, as my hon. Friend observes from a sedentary position, I am lucky to have done so. However, the Minister is also rather fortunate tonight. It is a lucky night for him, because for once this is not a NIMBY debate. This is a debate about people who have something in their back yard already and who want to keep it there, rather than have it removed further from their area, with possibly catastrophic consequences for the local economy.
  Let me spell out the background. The Hollands Wood campsite is on the east side of the A337, near the village of Brockenhurst in my constituency. The New Park site is on the west side of the A337, further north towards the village of Lyndhurst, also in my constituency.
  One might think that the villagers of Brockenhurst would want a large number of visitors to be congregated somewhat further away, rather than nearer to their village environment, but not a bit of it. In fact, the parish council is totally united against the proposed move to close the Hollands Wood campsite and transfer it to the New Park site, and other parish and town councils in my constituency are also strongly against the proposal. Most important of all, the residents of Brockenhurst are overwhelmingly opposed to the proposed change.
  On 7 March I presented a petition on the matter to the House. It contained no fewer than 1,719 signatures out of a possible total of 2,652 people on the electoral register. That was no less than 65 per cent. of the electorate, but in reality only 3 per cent. of the electorate declined to sign, and that understandably included a number of employees of the Forestry Commission. Thirty-two per cent. could not be contacted. In other words, 95 per cent. of those who could be contacted signed the petition, and all that between 9 and 25 February. I pay tribute to Nina Ball, Jean Wingate, John Cockram, John Purkess, Andrew Mitchell and more than 50 other villagers who gained so many signatures in so short a time.
  Why is that feeling so strong? There are four principal reasons. First, a major traffic hazard will be created on a busy trunk road. Secondly, the New Forest show will be endangered. Thirdly, more harm than good will be done to the environment. Fourthly, the local economy of Brockenhurst will be gravely undermined.

  129
  From about 1930 until the end of the second world war, the Hollands Wood site was the village rubbish tip. From 1946, the then rural district council turned its attention to the site. The tip closed in 1950 and the campsite was created soon afterwards, and so it has remained for half a century.
  According to the admirable Lymington Times of 1 December last year:
  "The Forestry Commission has a total of 3,320 camping pitches in England of which no fewer than 1,860 surround Brockenhurst."
  It has been suggested that a European Union directive on the restoration of ancient woodland is forcing the Forestry Commission to close Hollands Wood. It is for the lawyers to decide whether that is the case, or whether a degree of creative "gold plating" has been going on. For once—I hope that the House will note this point carefully—I think that the EU is being maligned.
  In reply to our petition, a ministerial response was drawn up, undoubtedly on the basis of a Forestry Commission briefing. The response points the finger at English Nature for having designated the Hollands Wood campsite as part of a candidate special area for conservation under the EU habitats directive of 1992. If that is so, it is a piece of meddlesome stupidity on the part of English Nature that lies at the root of the problem. I am advised that current regulations require only a 95 per cent. implementation of SSSI—sites of special scientific interest—(SAC) target statements. If that is true, it means that there is no necessity to vacate Hollands Wood, as it occupies only a fraction of 1 per cent. of the New Forest SSSI(SAC).
  I acknowledge the courtesy of the deputy surveyor, Mr. Donald Thompson, in alerting me and Hampshire county council leader Councillor Ken Thornber early on about the intended move. Two problems immediately occurred to us. First, there was the traffic danger: the A337 is a very fast stretch of single carriageway that is arrow straight, but has periodic dips that can temporarily mask traffic hold-ups ahead and conceal oncoming vehicles from view. By transferring the campsite from the east to the west of the trunk road, the Forestry Commission would create an all-year-round problem of southbound traffic from arriving campers having to cross the northbound flow in order to enter the New Park site. That currently happens on a large scale for three days a year, when the New Forest show is held at the New Park site in July, and would cause major dislocation but for the sterling efforts of traffic controllers drafted in for the occasion. That can be done three days a year, but could not be done continuously.
  This leads us to the second problem: the future of the New Forest show. It is becoming abundantly clear that a permanent campsite in New Park will have a crippling effect on the show. The event involves the creation on the site of temporary car parks so vast that people attach helium-filled balloons to their vehicles in the hope—usually it is a vain one—of successfully finding them again at the end of an enjoyable day at the show. The notion that a park-and-ride shuttle scheme for the show might provide an effective substitute for the car parks is, to use a favourite term of my hon. Friend the Member for Buckingham (Mr. Bercow), frankly risible.
  It has also become abundantly clear as the controversy has developed that even if Hollands Wood could no longer continue, a move to New Park would be
  130
  unacceptable on environmental grounds in any case. It may take 100 years to restore Hollands Wood from its present existence as a much-loved campsite in the forest, but it will take a fraction of that time to commercialise and degrade the rural environment of New Park. Not only the farmland New Park site itself will suffer, but—far worse than that—the contiguous unspoilt, ancient and ornamental woodland will be put at risk from such a large development. Some of those adjacent areas are designated sites of special scientific interest and special protection areas. Above all, the riverine woodland between New Park and Brockenhurst village is a rare and highly protected habitat. Indeed, I understand that it is an EU-designated candidate special area for conservation, and thus requires maintenance and improvement, not degradation.
  The principle of Occam's razor states that when one has eliminated all other possibilities, that which remains, however improbable, must be the true explanation. We have considered the traffic implications, the New Forest show implications and the environmental implications of building a huge campsite at New Park, all of which suggest that the proposal is fatally flawed, so what explanation remains? As is so often the case, only a monetary one. A big difference between the two locations is that Hollands wood is subject to the authority of the ancient court of verderers, whereas New Park, as Crown freehold land, is not.
  The verderers court has been staunch in defending the interests of the people of the forest and its villages from time immemorial. One of the first occasions on which I attended the verderers court was unforgettable. A villager from Ashurst tearfully related how her village shop had had to close because the Forestry Commission had for a period of time allowed illegal sales of products on one of the campsites—the one near Ashurst. By the time the verderers were able to step in to stop it, her trade had already been undermined to the point that the shop could not continue. As a result, the village of Ashurst lost its village shop and the lady lost her living. We all recognise that the Forestry Commission has an important job to do, part of which is to try to generate income. However, there is a history of attempts to allow more and more goods to be sold on campsites—attempts that can be blocked by the verderers anywhere in the open forest except on Crown freehold land. My general line of argument will come as no surprise to the Minister because, as is my normal practice, I took the precaution of advising his office in advance.
  Brockenhurst village depends on its shops if its local economy is to continue, and that viability depends in turn on the summer trade and the influx of non-village custom. Even if the Forestry Commission refrained from selling anything extra on a site at New Park, the greater distance from Brockenhurst, the lack of easy access to Brockenhurst by foot and, especially, the location of the New Park site—where a camp would now be—to the west of the A337 would have major adverse effects. Traffic leaving the new campsite would naturally head north to Lyndhurst, adding to its already diabolical congestion at that time of year, not south to Brockenhurst, where trade from the campers is so welcome and important.
  The truth is that the Forestry Commission will not resist the temptation to commercialise if it is allowed to build the new site. The experience of the Ashurst village shop will be repeated on a much larger scale, driving a stake

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  through the heart of the Brockenhurst economy. In fact, I understand that English Nature could easily be asked to redesignate the Hollands wood campsite to exclude it from the special area for conservation. That would be entirely in line with the derogation allowed in the habitats directive—introduced so considerately, it must be said, by the European Union—which allows for
  "Imperative reasons of overriding public interest, including those of a social or economic nature".
  That certainly applies to the effect on Brockenhurst of failing to apply for such a derogation. There is no good reason for closing the Hollands Wood campsite. Even if English Nature and the Forestry Commission succeed between them in doing that, it will provide little justification for a move to New Park, with all that that entails. As so often happens with crafty little stratagems, one can end up with the worst of both worlds.
  By failing to resist the closure of Hollands Wood, the Forestry Commission may end up with no large campsite in the area; the villagers of Brockenhurst, however, will be the biggest losers of all.
  10.30 pm
  The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Mr. Elliot Morley): I congratulate the hon. Member for New Forest, East (Dr. Lewis) on securing the debate and presenting the anxieties of local people about the proposed change. It is a pleasure to contribute to the debate because, as the hon. Gentleman knows, I know the New Forest well and have a long-standing personal interest in it. I talk to representatives of the Forestry Commission regularly, and I recently met the court of verderers.
  I remind the hon. Gentleman that I introduced the Ministers' mandate. It was revised in 1999 and it clearly sets out the principles for managing the Crown lands, which cover half the New Forest heritage area, of which Hollands Wood is part. The first objective of the Ministers' mandate is the conservation of nature and heritage. The second includes promoting rural opportunities, providing access and recreation opportunities and increasing public awareness and understanding. The objectives in the mandate are compatible with the Forestry Commission's proposals.
  Of course local people's views have to be taken into account, and I have therefore listened carefully to the hon. Gentleman. I want to take them into account because it is important that the reasons for the move are properly understood and debated. I must confess that I was a little puzzled about some of the reasoning behind the hon. Gentleman's anxieties. I shall try to deal with them.
  First, as the hon. Gentleman rightly said, English Nature requires the closure of Hollands Wood campsite because it is in a site of special scientific interest and a special area of conservation. I have visited Hollands Wood campsite; I walked around it while it was closed so that I could have a clear view. We cannot escape the fact that it is situated in an area of ancient woodland that is important scientifically and from the point of biodiversity.
  Of course, Hollands Wood is a popular campsite and it needs to be replaced with an alternative, modern campsite for visitors to the New Forest. We recognise the importance of the New Forest not only to visitors and recreation, but to the area's economy.
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  New Park is literally across the road. It is a desirable site that is not in the site of special scientific interest or the special area of conservation. It is close to Hollands Wood and ensures that the considerable economic benefits to Brockenhurst are not lost. New Park is a farm that does not have same biodiversity importance as Hollands Wood. There is no comparison. It is next to important riverine woodland; I took the opportunity of walking the length of it the last time I was there when I was discussing the issues with the Forestry Commission.
  Part of the proposal for New Park is to establish, at some cost, a buffer zone to protect the riverine woodland. The proposals recognise the potential for increasing conservation and protecting fragile areas. The commission is therefore complying fully with all the requirements of the planning system. A full planning application and environmental impact assessment will be submitted to the local authority. That is also right because we must examine the impact of the proposals, which must be open to public scrutiny.
  The proposed campsite will be designed and built to a high standard to take into account the fact that people live close to it; that has also been recognised.
  On the New Forest show, I have attended it and I recognise that it plays an important part in the culture and activities of the area and the local communities. I very much enjoyed my visit and was impressed with the range of activities and displays. I do not want the New Forest show to be threatened, and I want to make that point very clearly as the person who oversees the Ministers' mandate for the forest.
  The needs of the New Forest show are being carefully considered, and full consultations are being undertaken with the show committee. Following my discussions with the Forestry Commission, I have been convinced that it would be possible to meet the requirements of the show, even if there were a campsite on the ground. I want to make it clear that the New Forest show is not going to be abandoned, and that its importance is recognised by me, as a Minister, and by the Forestry Commission.
  I also want to stress that the campsites are very important to the local economy, bringing into the forest a large number of people with considerable spending power. Those people spend their money in the shops and pubs, and on local services such as cycle hire. The hon. Members for New Forest, East and for New Forest, West (Mr. Swayne) know how important that is for their constituents and for their constituents' businesses.
  I am not very clear on the issue of traffic. From what the hon. Gentleman has said, I understand that there is an assumption that the traffic will all turn one way when it leaves the new campsite. I do not believe that that will be the case. There will be the same amount of traffic going into the campsite. As I understand it, there are currently about 600 pitches in Hollands Wood, and about 100 overspill pitches in New Park. So, when the site moves—if it does move—to New Park, there will be about 100 fewer pitches. That would result in there being less traffic turning in and out of the site. I would be happy to examine these hypotheses in greater detail, but, at the moment, I cannot see how moving from one side of the road to the other will increase the traffic.
  Dr. Lewis: Perhaps this is an argument for adopting a continental system of traffic flow—I really am being

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  reborn, here—because if we drove on the same side of the road as they do on the continent, the campsite's move from one side of the road to the other would be a positive enhancement. As we drive on the left, however, it is clear that when people come out of the campsite to shop in the villages, they will turn left, rather than turning right across the busy main road. I am sorry if I did not make that clear enough. More importantly, will they want to come out of the campsite at all when, without the protection afforded by the verderers, the site is developed so that it becomes a rival to Brockenhurst with its self-contained shopping centre? That is the question at the heart of the problem.
  Mr. Morley: On that last point, the hon. Gentleman is assuming that some kind of shopping centre is going to be built on the campsite. I am not aware that such proposals feature in the Forestry Commission's plans. Those plans will be submitted for approval, and the hon. Members for New Forest, East and for New Forest, West and their constituents will, of course, be able to scrutinise them. But they should not make that assumption. The Forestry Commission has been very sensitive to the potential impact on the local economy, and I think that that has been reflected in its activities.
  On the issue of traffic, I do not disagree that, if people are going into Brockenhurst, they will have to turn right, whereas, before, they would have turned left. That assumes, however, that all the traffic in the campsites always comes from one direction. The traffic comes from both directions, and there is no guarantee that there will be any increased congestion. That issue needs to be carefully examined, and there will be an opportunity to do so as part of the planning process.
  Dr. Lewis: I will not reiterate the point about the traffic. I feel, however, that the Forestry Commission has a long history of trying to commercialise its campsites by increasing its sales—given half an inch, it generally takes more than half a mile. The Minister is, therefore, being unrealistic if he feels that, without the guardianship of the verderers to limit this kind of activity, this development will not happen. It will happen, and everyone believes that it will happen.
  Mr. Morley: People may believe that. Again, it will be a matter for proper scrutiny during the planning process. I merely say that the hon. Gentleman should not assume
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  that that is the case, or that that is the motivation. I do not believe that it is the motivation. I genuinely believe that there is a problem with a site of special scientific interest and a campsite in ancient woodland, and that someone starting from scratch would not have put the campsite there in the first place. However, when it was opened, there was not the pressure that is imposed on it now by all the people wanting to use it.
  As I have said, there will be extensive consultation. Indeed, that has already begun as part of the environmental impact assessment: local individuals, groups and organisations are being consulted. All local people, groups and neighbours will have a full opportunity to comment on the details of the application when it is submitted, and to make objections as appropriate in the normal way.
  I ask local people, and the hon. Member for New Forest, East, to consider this. The choice is between a campsite which I do consider to be inappropriately placed in terms of its impact on the special conservation importance of the New Forest, and farmland which, despite its extremely limited biodiversity potential, could be developed in a way that would enhance facilities for visitors to the forest, and indeed designed—I know that this is what the Forestry Commission proposes—to take some of the pressure off the more fragile parts of that ancient forest.
  That proposal is, at the very least, worth considering carefully. It is worth looking at the details, and worth recognising that the motivation is right. Of course issues affecting local people, such as traffic and economic impact, need to be taken into account. I want them to be taken into account, but I also want the right balance to be struck between providing for the many visitors who enjoy and love the New Forest and ensuring that the pressures on one of our most ancient and precious natural woodlands are properly managed. I am sure that no one disagrees with that objective.
  I believe that the Forestry Commission is motivated by that consideration. I also believe that the proper scrutiny processes that will take place will give local people an opportunity to ask questions, examine the proposals and consider them properly—and, I hope, fairly.
  Question put and agreed to.
  Adjourned accordingly at eighteen minutes to Eleven o'clock.