Commons Sitting of 1 April 2003

Preamble
The House met at half past Eleven o'clock
PRAYERS
[MR. SPEAKER in the Chair]
PRIVATE BUSINESS

  MERSEY TUNNELS BILL
  Order for consideration read.
  To be considered on Tuesday 8 April.

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

    Roadworks
    Keith Vaz: If he will make a statement on procedures which are followed before roadworks on trunk roads are permitted. [105783]
    The Secretary of State for Transport (Mr. Alistair Darling): We intend to introduce legislation to control streetworks, and the Highways Agency is also introducing measures to manage trunk road maintenance better. The House will wish to know that, as part of the trunk road noise reduction programme, I have today set for the first time a timetable for the removal of all concrete surfaces on the motorway and trunk road network. I am also giving the go-ahead to three major road improvements: the A14 Ellington to Fen Ditton improvement; the A57/A628 Mottram. Hollingworth and Tintwistle bypass; and the A45/A46 Tollbar End improvement. I have also asked the Highways Agency to take forward work on three schemes with a view to entry into the targeted programme of improvements: the A38 Derby junctions improvement; the M40/A46 Longbridge roundabout improvement; and the A55/A483 junction improvement at Chester. There is a statement in the Library on this matter.
    Keith Vaz: I welcome the statement made by the Secretary of Stale, but is he aware that a report by his own Department, published in the Leicester Mercury this week, shows that Leicester is the most congested city in England after London? People in Leicester are spending up to 26 per cent. of their journey times waiting in queues because of roadworks. Does my right hon. Friend share my concern about this shambolic state of affairs, and will he look carefully at the Bill that I am introducing this week concerning compensation for
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    those who are held up in such queues? Will he meet representatives of Leicester city council and other campaigners to try to resolve this appalling state of affairs?
    Mr. Darling: My right hon. Friend the Minister of State is meeting representatives of the Local Government Association to discuss this issue, and I am sure that he would also be happy to talk to my hon. Friend the Member for Leicester, East (Keith Vaz) about it. My hon. Friend is right to identify the fact that one of the main sources of congestion in towns and cities across the whole country is roadworks. The legislation that the Government are introducing will mean that traffic managers can be appointed who have a duty to issue permits to control what has been, up until now, fairly unrestricted access to digging up roads. The object will be to keep traffic moving.
    The approach has been tried out in London over the last few weeks, and it is having some effect. There is no doubt that the endless digging up of roads, and roadworks that start and seem to go on and on, cause major disruption not only in Leicester but elsewhere, and the Government are determined to introduce legislation far better to regulate the access to roads and, above all, to enable us to achieve our No. 1 priority of keeping traffic moving as much as we possibly can.
    Mr. Patrick McLoughlin: I very much welcome what the Secretary of State has just said about the replacement of concrete road surfaces. Can he give the House any more information on that announcement, such as when the A50 Derby to Stoke road will be resurfaced? I have mentioned that road to him on many occasions.
    Mr. Darling: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for that question. I am sure that all hon. Members who have experience of constituents being bothered by the noise that comes from concrete motorways will welcome this announcement. The work will, of course, take time. It will probably be helpful to the hon. Gentleman and the House if I do not read out the entire list of roads and the dates when they are going to get done. However, the press notice has a list attached to it of all the stretches of road involved, and an indication of when they are going to be done. Twenty-six will be done in the near future; the others will be clone over the next few years. All the information is in the Library, but if the hon. Gentleman has any further questions, he will no doubt get in touch with us directly.
    Mr. Tom Levitt: The Secretary of State's announcement about the A57/A628 Tintwistle and Mottram bypass will be greeted with delight in Tintwistle and Glossop in the High Peak-and, indeed, in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Stalybridge and Hyde (James Purnell) not least because this road was taken out of the Government programme by the Conservatives as long ago as 1994. Will the Secretary of State please give us an indication of the timetable that he is considering, so that we may know when this road will become a reality?
    Mr. Darling: My hon. Friend is right; it is a great pity that this project was taken out of the planned road

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    improvements programme some years ago. It is likely that work will start in 2006. Planning work now has to start, and the necessary plans have to be drawn up with a view to entering into contracts. I visited the area last week, and it was perfectly obvious to me that the level of congestion in those small towns was completely unacceptable. I am very glad that many of the environmental agencies recognise that, notwithstanding the fact that this is an area of some sensitivity, a bypass round those three towns is absolutely essential. I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his welcome.
    Mr. Christopher Chope: As always, the Government's announcement is not as good as it is made out to be. Work on many of the roads with concrete surfaces will not be completed until 2011, and the money to be spent on the programme is almost identical to the sum that will be raised over the next 10 years through the new stealth tax on motorists using the M25. It is from this month that the Dartford crossing has been paid for, and it will be paid for again—
    Mr. Speaker: Order. The hon. Gentleman should try to ask a question.
    Mr. Chope: I am grateful to you, Mr. Speaker. Will the Secretary of State confirm that the money that will be raised from the stealth tax on the Dartford crossing is more or less all that will be spent on the new road improvements?
    Mr. Darling: What I can say to the hon. Gentleman is that my announcement today is infinitely better than anything that he could ever have announced. As my hon. Friend the Member for High Peak (Mr. Levitt) pointed out, some of the proposals to which we are giving the go-ahead were stopped by the last Conservative Government. Resurfacing concrete roads will take time because it would be impossible, and highly undesirable, to shut entire lengths of the motorway network for resurfacing, so the work must be phased in and done in an orderly way.
    The big difference between our parties is that this Government have the money and commitment to improve our road network while the Conservative party is committed to a 20 per cent. spending reduction. The transport budget would undoubtedly suffer greatly from those cuts—we have only to look at what the Conservatives did to the transport system when they were in office. We are now putting right some of their mistakes.
    Mr. Bob Laxton: I thank my right hon. Friend for the announcement of the welcome changes to interchange junctions on the A38. Will he reassure me that land-take will be kept to an absolute minimum, especially around Markeaton junction and Markeaton park?
    Mr. Darling: I hope that it will. We should aim to take as little land as possible during all road improvements. If my hon. Friend would like more details of the current proposals, I am sure that we could arrange for him to see them so that he could make representations directly to those responsible for the planning process.

    Railways
    Mr. Andrew Mackay: How many meetings he has had in the last six months with train operating companies about train performance. [105784]
    The Secretary of State for Transport(Mr. Alistair Darling): I meet train operating companies on a regular basis to discuss their work, including the need to improve reliability of train services.
    Mr. Mackay: What comfort can the Secretary of State offer to my constituents who regularly travel from Bracknell to Waterloo but have found that South West Trains has cut the service by half? Its managing director, Andrew Haines, has just written to me saying:
    "the doubling of off-peak services to Reading from two to four per hour…was only credible if Network Rail/Railtrack continued to improve the performance of the network and its assets. In an environment where Network Rail-caused delays are twice the size that they were prior to Hatfield in October 2000, the 10 per cent. increase in train services operated since privatisation is unsustainable."
    Mr. Darling: I would make three points to the right hon. Gentleman. First, as we discussed in the last Transport Question Time, there have been reductions of some 180 out of 18,000 services that run every day, which was done to improve reliability. Some off-peak services have been taken off South West Trains to ensure that there is greater reliability, because passengers say that that is their No. 1 priority. Secondly, the right hon. Gentleman is right that there have been planned improvements to services passing through Bracknell.
    My third point relates to Network Rail. It is right that not only train operating companies must improve their performance—about 38 per cent. of delays are attributable to South West Trains—because Network Rail must also improve the quality of track. In the old days, British Rail reckoned that 500 miles of track needed to be replaced each year. In the six years before privatisation, under the last Conservative Government, that dropped to 300 miles. The figure dropped to 200 miles under Railtrack, and in one year it was just over 140. That illustrates the scale of the problems that Railtrack left us. Before the right hon. Gentleman gets too excited—I know that more friends of Railtrack are on the Conservative Benches than anywhere else—he should remember what happens when investment is cut and there is no year-on-year investment. The price for that is being paid by rail passengers, and we are determined to put that right.
    Lawrie Quinn: May I endorse my right hon. Friend's comments on the Rail track legacy? As a former Railtrack employee, I saw only too clearly the failure to invest in renewal of our tracks. When he met train operating companies, did he explore the possibilities for a social railway on lines such as the Esk valley, which runs from Whitby in my constituency to Middlesbrough? Do we not need a new settlement for those lines and to ensure that we service the needs of such remote communities, which are often in the most inaccessible parts of the country?
    Mr. Darling: I am well aware, as is the Strategic Rail Authority, of the value of rural lines serving remote

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    communities, but I say to my hon. Friend that the No. 1 priority for the rail industry has to be driving up reliability. Look at the figures overall: just under half the problems that are causing delays are the fault of the train operating companies, while the other half are Network Rail's. The train operating companies and Network Rail need to make a determined effort to get to the root of those problems, sort them out and drive up reliability. The latest figures show that there is a slow improvement, but frankly, the industry needs to do an awful lot better.
    Mr. Tim Collins: Given that train operating companies, like passengers, will have been alarmed by recent reports that there may be scaling back and closures of some branches and smaller stations, will the Secretary of State tell the train operating companies and the House whether he is committed to preserving the entire existing branch network?
    Mr. Darling: I am committed to ensuring that we have a reliable railway service. Under any Government and under any organisation, the exact pattern of services will be subject to review from time to time. As the hon. Gentleman is committed to a 20 per cent. cut in the money spent on railways, he should not stand at the Dispatch Box and maintain that, somehow, he will get a better railway by spending a lot less on it.
    Paddy Tipping: What steps he is taking to protect former mineral railway lines for future transport use. [105785]
    The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport (Mr. David Jamieson): The Strategic Rail Authority's property advisory group investigates the transport potential of former railway land that the SRA inherited from British Rail. It has retained more than 300 sites with potential for transport use, of which at least 12 are former mineral lines or facilities.
    Paddy Tipping: Does the Minister accept that former colliery railway lines in Nottinghamshire and across the country can provide park-and-ride facilities, light rail solutions and more sustainable transport corridors for cycling and walking? Given that fact, will he have discussions with, for example, Network Rail to ensure that it responds quickly and more positively to the many proposals being put to it?
    Mr. Jamieson: I thank my hon. Friend for those questions. He has campaigned hard on the issue over a number of years, and I can assure him that the Government share his concern that disused railway lines, whether they be former mineral lines or not, should be used, where possible, for transport. That is why we have released nearly 200 such sites for transport use and, as I said, 300 have been identified for possible future use. I note that, owing largely to my hon. Friend's actions, the Silverhill colliery scheme is likely to be settled and the contracts signed by the end of the year so as to make use of it as a country park cycleway. His points are well made and very much in line with our policy.
    Mr. Don Foster: Is the Minister aware that, a year ago, the Department for Environment, Food and
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    Rural Affairs launched the aggregates levy sustainability fund, which promised £12 million towards ensuring environmentally-friendly transport of minerals and aggregates? Can he therefore explain to the House why his Department has announced that it is not prepared to allocate that money for that purpose? Does that not show a lack of joined-up thinking, just like the cut that it has made in the freight facilities grant?
    Mr. Jamieson: The hon. Gentleman mentions the freight facilities grant, which has poured a great deal of money into getting traffic and aggregates off the road and on to rail. We still have £40 million in the scheme, which is doing some of the things that he says he has the ambition to do.
    Mr. Mark Todd: I have raised previously the future of the national forest line, which serves mineral extraction operations in south Derbyshire and north-west Leicestershire. The closure of the Drakelow power station in my constituency presents substantial opportunities for review of the line's future. Will the Department take those opportunities?
    Mr. Jamieson: Yes, indeed. Sometimes when a closure is intended it is possible for the line to be used for other purposes, and this is a good example. My hon. Friend may wish to write to me, and to the Strategic Rail Authority. The line is certainly one of those that we could consider for future transport use.
    Mr. Simon Thomas: If he will make a statement on the rail franchise process for Wales and the Borders. [105786]
    Ian Lucas: When the announcement of the rail franchise for Wales will be made. [105799]
    The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport (Mr. David Jamieson): The Strategic Rail Authority expects to announce the preferred bidder in June. The new franchise is expected to commence in the autumn.
    Mr. Thomas: I very much hope, as does most of Wales, that the June date is a firm one.
    Can the Minister give an undertaking that any cost savings identified during the franchise process involving the train operating companies that are bidding and the SRA will be dedicated to new services, and that there will be no overall diminution of the amounts available for the franchise in Wales? Will he ensure that in future there is better co-ordination between the SRA and the Welsh Assembly, and that the Assembly's rail priorities are those espoused in Wales by the SRA?
    Mr. Jamieson: I am sure that the hon. Gentleman welcomes the new franchise as an all-Wales franchise. I think that it fulfils the Welsh Assembly's ambition, providing for better dialogue between the operator and the Assembly, and will allow a new focus on services in Wales.

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    The SRA has told bidders to consider what services they could provide, with varying levels of subsidy. The aim is to ensure that we obtain the maximum value from the subsidiary. Any reduced subsidiary options would certainly not include route closures.
    Ian Lucas: When the SRA considers additional services, will it look closely at the integration of services from my constituency to England, including those running down to London? Although Wrexham is the major town in north Wales, it does not yet have an hourly service linked with the service to London from Chester. Will the Minister take that up with the SRA, and give Wrexham the service that it deserves?
    Mr. Jamieson: I recognise that service integration needs improvement. One of the advantages of an all-Wales and the borders franchise is that, rather than a number of operators discussing the integration of services to and from Wales, there wall be only one such operator.
    The operator of the new franchise will need to work with the SRA and the operator of the London services to maximise integration, and to benefit my hon. Friend's constituents as well as others travelling to and from Wales.
    Dr. Andrew Murrison: Wales and the Borders offers a valued service to the small towns in my constituency, which is currently under threat. Does the Minister agree that the SRA is not helping the Government's 10-year transport plan by applying pressure to TOCs to reduce services to London termini?
    Mr. Jamieson: No, I do not. I think that the new proposal from Wales and the borders will benefit not just those in Wales but those on the periphery. As I told my hon. Friend the Member for Wrexham (Ian Lucas), the franchise operator will need to work closely with the other operators to make the best use of the lines. The utilisation capacity study that is currently under way will ensure that all users gain the greatest possible benefit.
    Mr. Andrew Miller: May I reinforce what was said by my hon. Friend the Member for Wrexham (Ian Lucas), and ask the Minister to consider not just the inter-city connections mentioned by my hon. Friend but local connections such as Wrexham to Bidston, which runs an important service across a popular travel-to-work area?
    Mr. Jamieson: It is not just a matter of looking at the services with in Wales and to the borders; we must also look at the inter-city routes and how they integrate. As my hon. Friend suggests, the benefit of the new franchise is that that sort of integration and cross-working between operators can take place for the benefit of his constituents and many others in Wales and surrounding areas.

    Ten-year Transport Plan
    Mr. Bill Wiggin: How many meetings he has had with passengers' interest groups in the last year about the 10-year transport plan. [105787]
    The Minister of State, Department of Transport (Mr. John Spellar): My right hon. Friend has had a number of meetings with passenger interest groups over the past year, at which a range of current transport issues were discussed.
    Mr. Wiggin: After listening to the answers to the previous question, particularly as it affects my constituents who still do not have disabled access to Leominster station, will the Minister tell the House why, after the Select Committee's comments on the 10-year plan—that it was "incoherent" and "incomprehensible", and that it
    "failed to provide a vision for a more equitable, safer, and more efficient transport system"—
    any passenger should believe that that has changed?
    Mr. Spellar: If we looked at the hon. Gentleman's own constituency, we would find that his constituents have benefited from the rural bus challenge —[HON. MEMBERS: "Ten-year plan?"]. The 10-year plan applies to all modes of transport, as hon. Members should be aware. For its rail service, Leominster is on the Shrewsbury to Cardiff railway line. The A49 trunk road is a bypass and preparation is being made for a route management strategy for that road, which, as the hon. Gentleman knows, carries much freight and is a vital north-south link. There is also a Leominster industrial access road. Those issues relate to the hon. Gentleman's constituency. Being based near to Wales, he will know that the new franchising for Wales and the Borders has been widely welcomed. That shows that we are delivering. As the hon. Gentleman will have heard from previous answers, as well as delivering, we are insisting on value for money and ensuring that money put into the transport network, notably for rail, actually delivers a service.
    Alan Simpson: On the assumption that the Minister has had discussions about rail safety with interest groups, will he tell the House what advice he gave those groups about the current disputes on rail safety assessments, in which the Strategic Rail Authority appears to be subsidising the nine employers disputing the case for improved safety standards, against the interests of the eight companies that have agreed to the improved standards? Does the SRA have any legal authority to intervene to provide public subsidy for employers in a private dispute?
    Mr. Spellar: My hon. Friend was slightly incorrect when he said that eight companies have agreed to the new standards. The issue at stake is whether Railway Safety should reconsider the safety standard. Great North Eastern Railway and the National Union of Rail, Maritime and Transport Workers put the case to Railway Safety, which is already examining it. In other words, it is already in procedure. Given that it is in procedure, I find it incomprehensible, quite frankly, that we need disputes in other rail companies in order to get it

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    into procedure. The key issue is that it will be evaluated technically by Railway Safety, which will examine the views of several organisations, including those representing drivers as well as guards, and a standard will be agreed. I do not understand—and I doubt whether the travelling public understand—the need for a dispute when the matter is already under consideration.
    Miss Anne McIntosh: The Secretary of State said that he wants to drive up reliability for rail passengers. Does the Minister of State accept that spending on Network Rail is going through the roof? From £21 billion, it is projected to go up by another £10 billion for this coming financial year alone, but standards of reliability and punctuality are falling through the floor. How long do train passengers have to wait, after six years of this Government, before standards of service improve?
    Mr. Spellar: What the hon. Lady should remember is that in the days of privatisation, 200 miles of track were replaced a year; BR replaced 300 miles of track, but Network Rail has to replace some 400 miles of track because of the historic underinvestment that was the Tory record, along with the fragmentation of the rail system. The hon. Lady has identified the early stages of assessment by Network Rail of what work needed to be done; at the same time, it has said that it needs better control of cost over-runs inherited from Railtrack. That is a very serious issue. Railtrack's inability to understand or control costs led to its demise. Network Rail has started to take some of the contracts back in-house so that it can get a better evaluation, and control over costs.
    Miss Anne Begg: I hope that my right hon. Friend the Minister will listen to the views of disabled passengers when next he meets them. The level of service provided for disabled passengers by many train operators is still very far short of ideal. It is, in fact, quite appalling in some cases. My right hon. Friend may be shocked to find out that it is still possible for disabled passengers using wheelchairs to be loaded on to a train, only to discover that they cannot get off at the station for which they have bought a ticket. I know that that is true, because it happened to me only a few weeks ago. Will my right hon. Friend speak to the train operators to try and improve the service?
    Mr. Spellar: To be fair to them, the train operators are normally receptive on this matter, especially when cases arise that demonstrate that the system is failing. I should be delighted if my hon. Friend gave me details of the case that she mentioned: not because she was involved, but because it shows that there has been a breakdown in the system. We need to work out why that happened, and I shall be delighted to take the matter up with the train operators.
    Mr. Boris Johnson: Does the Minister agree that an essential part of the 10-year transport plan is cutting pollution and boosting renewable fuels? Has he been lobbying the Chancellor of the Exchequer over the past few days to bring in a further 20p cut in biofuels?
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    That would enable those fuels to compete directly at the forecourt with LPG, and provide us with a clean, green fuel that would be of great benefit to our farmers.
    Mr. Spellar: My hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State takes a specialist—nay, obsessional—interest in these matters. He tells me that our fiscal record is the best in the world. Beyond that, it would be imprudent of Ministers to comment on such matters just prior to the Budget.

    Community Transport (Barnsley)
    Mr. Eric Illsley: What steps he is taking to improve community transport in Barnsley.[105788]
    The Minister of State, Department of Transport (Mr. John Spellar): Funding for community transport is provided through the local transport plan and urban and rural bus challenge schemes. It is encouraging to see that the partners in Barnsley are making good use of this funding and have recently been successful in securing schemes to serve the communities of Penistone and Athersley.
    Mr. Illsley: I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for that reply. As he probably knows, Barnsley has the highest need for community and social transport in south Yorkshire. However, proposals to be discussed this week would move 60 per cent. of community transport funding into the private and commercial sectors. The money would go to companies governed by commercial considerations such as profitability. Does my right hon. Friend think that that would be best use of those resources? Does the proposal fit the Government's policies in relation to community transport?
    Mr. Spellar: My hon. Friend will know that I visited the borough of Barnsley last year and saw the community transport scheme there. I am aware that discussions are taking place with the South Yorkshire passenger transport authority, which is looking at the interface between community transport and the accessible mainstream bus services. We must see how that work evolves, and there will need to be discussions afterwards to ensure that an excellent service being provided to the community in Barnsley is sustained.

    Railways
    Sir Nicholas Winterton: If he will make a statement on the future level of train services to Macclesfield and Stoke following the upgrade of the west coast main line.
    Michael Fabricant: When he expects upgrades to the west coast main line to be completed; and if he will make a statement. [105790]
    Ann Winterton: If he will make a statement on the upgrade of the west coast main line. [105791]
    The Secretary of State for Transport (Mr. Alistair Darling): The Strategic Rail Authority will shortly be

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    publishing its final west coast plans. This will give full details of progress with the project to date, the time scales for completion, and the future service levels. The line through Macclesfield and Stoke will be the principal London-Manchester route.
    Sir Nicholas Winterton: I am grateful for that reply. Is the Secretary of State aware that Macclesfield is one of the major profit centres on the west coast main line? The line is due to close on 17 May for the best part of five months. If the people whom I represent in Macclesfield and the surrounding area are to benefit, will the right hon. Gentleman give me an assurance that Macclesfield will benefit from increased rail services, once the upgrading has taken place, and that Macclesfield station will be improved? Also, will he guarantee that rail travellers will get value for money? Most are concerned about service reliability and not about train speed.
    Mr. Darling: I agree with the hon. Gentleman's last point—reliability is absolutely essential. The line will indeed close for a period of just over four months from May. The alternative would have been for two years' interruption, so the big saving in terms of frustration and delays will be the reduction of a two-year period to one of four months.
    The hon. Gentleman is right, too, that passengers will see the benefits of the improvement. For example, the London to Manchester journey time will be down by 30 minutes by 2004 and the Glasgow to London journey will be down by an hour two years later. The SRA is planning to increase the frequency of services on several routes. The key to all this is that spending the money that is necessary—and frankly long overdue, since the line was last the subject of a major overhaul in the late 1960s and early 1970s—will lead to improved reliability, with better track, better signalling and, on many routes, new rolling stock coming on to the main line. All in all, that should provide a more reliable, better service than we have at the moment.
    Michael Fabricant: The Secretary of State will be aware that two lines of track that run through my constituency are to be increased to four lines of track. The construction period will affect 320 homes in Armitage and Handsacre and 150 homes in Lichfield. During that period, what sort of recourse do my constituents have if they wish to complain? How can they improve conditions if the noise becomes too great or if a 14-week construction period is extended to 28 weeks or 30 weeks? What hope can the Secretary of State give them that there will be a light at the end of the tunnel?
    Mr. Darling: I can tell that the hon. Gentleman has been rehearsing his question all morning. He raises a perfectly reasonably point.
    Mr. John Bercow: He always does.
    Mr. Darling: Not always.
    The SRA and those responsible will make every effort to ensure that the work is carried out as expeditiously as possible. No doubt if the hon. Gentleman's constituents are aggrieved they will come first to him and he can then approach the Department with any difficulties that he
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    may have. In relation to specific measures, it might be better if I write to him, as he knows exactly what the position is.
    Ann Winterton: Will the Secretary of State accept that although rail travellers from my constituency are indeed looking forward to more reliable services after the upgrade of the west coast main line, they are also looking for better information and better integration of cross-country services to link into what I still call Intercity trains stopping at Stoke and Macclesfield?
    Furthermore, is he aware that Congleton station is a positive disgrace? It is very inhospitable, and it needs CCTV and a good paint. We need some money spent on it, rather as money is being spent on the up line at Stoke-on-Trent and the down line in the constituency of my hon. and ancient Friend the Member for Macclesfield (Sir Nicholas Winterton).
    Mr. Darling: It must have been a difficult breakfast this morning.
    The hon. Lady makes a fair point. I was on that line recently. I agree that there is a need to improve a number of stations on the west coast main line. That will take time. The Government are committed through Network Rail to spending some £10 billion on doing up that line, which is on any view a very considerable investment.
    I agree with the hon. Lady's comments about information. Train companies can—and to some extent are already beginning to—do an awful lot more to provide better information, not only in respect of passengers travelling on their own trains, but about the services that they connect with. As I have said to the industry on many occasions, the technology is there—it is not rocket science nowadays. Passengers rightly expect to be treated as customers rather than as hapless victims of the system. The hon. Lady is absolutely right in that regard.
    Claire Ward: I thank my right hon. Friend for the information about the upgrade of the west coast main line. Although I welcome it, I hope that it will not be at the expense of commuter services. Draft timetables are now being produced. May I seek an assurance that we will see improvements in the frequency of train services from my constituency into London, and that money will be available for the upgrading of train stations and the extension of platforms to ensure that we are able to benefit from these new services?
    Mr. Darling: I understand the point that my hon. Friend makes. The whole point of the SRA strategy—not only on the west coast main line but on other lines as well—is to improve capacity on existing track. Upgrading of signalling and some changes that have already been made at Euston station will allow more services to run. As I have said, the SRA plans to publish its final proposals for the west coast line fairly shortly. At that stage, my hon. Friend and other hon. Members will be able to see precisely what is proposed. I agree that intercity services are very important. In particular,

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    London commuter services are of the utmost importance if we are to bear down on congestion levels in the city.
    Mr. Eric Martlew: Is my right hon. Friend aware of the concern over the reductions in cross-country services on the west coast main line—including reductions in the Glasgow-Bournemouth service that will affect my constituency? The main problem on the cross-country services is overcrowding. However, my main concern—and, I hope, that of the Secretary of State—is over the introduction of the pendolino, or tilting train. It appears that there is only one service between Euston and Manchester. Is the Secretary of State confident that such trains will be introduced on time and on budget?
    Mr. Darling: On the issue of the Virgin cross-country service, as my hon. Friend knows, the SRA has made a small reduction in the number of trains running. There are two reasons for that. When the service was launched last September, no account was taken of the effect that an increased number of trains would have at certain pinch points on the track. As a result, there were holdups and trains did not reach their destinations on time. That, in turn, meant that the return journeys were held up as well. For example, a train leaving Aberdeen and going down to the south-west of England could sometimes arrive several hours late and so could not be on time going back. That is why some of those services have been taken out—to make them more reliable. Because trains have been withdrawn, Virgin will be able to use larger trains on those cross-country routes. It is obvious that four-carriage trains are insufficient to cater for the demand that has been generated. The SRA is ensuring that something that was long overdue on the railway network is put in place—proper management. Money is going in, but proper management is essential if we are to have a reliable train service.
    My hon. Friend is right to say that one pendolino is running at the moment. The operators have been running more trains, without passengers, to test the line. [Interruption.] In the past, train operators have been anxious to bring new rolling stock into service very quickly, without first checking whether that rolling stock runs effectively and properly. It is better to spend the time necessary on testing new trains before introducing them into full passenger service. If we did not do that, people would quite rightly start to complain.
    Mrs. Louise Ellman: When will the upgrading of the west coast main line to Liverpool take place? What will be the frequencies of services to London, compared with the frequencies on the Manchester-London line? Why was the north western England rail passengers committee bypassed when the SRA decided to cut all cross-country Virgin services from Liverpool?
    Mr. Darling: On the last point, the SRA now acknowledges that it should have consulted more with rail passengers groups. A number of such groups have made that point and I accept that it is valid. If we are to have rail passengers committees, they ought to be used. They can be used pretty effectively.
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    As the hon. Lady will know, there are plans to ensure that Liverpool will benefit from the west coast upgrade. I repeat what I said to our hon. Friend the hon. Member for Watford (Claire Ward) a few moments ago. The SRA will soon publish its final strategy for the west coast and the hon. Lady will be able to see precisely what is proposed for Liverpool services. She will no doubt make her views known then.
    Mr. Tim Collins:The Secretary of State is no doubt right to say that many businesses, passengers and families from the west midlands, the north-west and north of the border who will be inconvenienced—and I include tourism businesses in the Lake district—take the view that, on the whole, the pain is worth the gain. However, can I press the Secretary of State to give the House two commitments? First, will he take a personal interest in the quality of the alternative bus services that will be laid on when the west coast main line services are suspended? If they prove inadequate, will he ensure that they are upgraded?
    Secondly, to pick up on the comment made by the hon. Member for Carlisle (Mr. Martlew), will the Secretary of State do whatever he can to accelerate the introduction of the pendolinos north of Manchester, where they are looked forward to and anticipated as much as elsewhere?
    Mr. Darling: On the first point, yes, of course. I am aware that if one is going on a journey and there is disruption on the line, one tends to focus on what is happening to oneself at the time rather than on what might happen in a couple of years' time. However, I am glad that the hon. Gentleman recognises that the investment going into the west coast main line is well worth it. Once it is complete, the line will be transformed from an ageing, inconvenient and unreliable service to something much better.
    As I said to my hon. Friend the Member for Carlisle (Mr. Martlew), I want the pendolino trains to be introduced as quickly as possible, not only to Manchester but beyond. However, it is critically important that there are test runs before the trains are put into full passenger service. Past experience has shown that trying to introduce new rolling stock—and these trains are entirely new for our railway network—sometimes throws up problems that cause disruption, breakdowns or delays, often with extremely unfortunate results. I should like to see the trains in use as quickly as possible, but time spent on getting the service right is time well spent and I hope that, in two years' time, with new trains and upgraded services, people will see a real difference as a result of the massive commitment that the Government have made to investing in the west coast main line.
    Dr. Phyllis Starkey: Further to the question put by my hon. Friend the Member for Watford (Claire Ward), is the Secretary of State aware by the threat of Virgin Trains that peak-time trains will not stop at Milton Keynes Central? The consequence would be that commuters from that station would entirely fill the county services at peak times,

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    thereby displacing all commuters south of Milton Keynes Central. Will my right hon. Friend speak to the SRA to ensure that that does not happen?
    Mr. Darling: My hon. Friend has raised that matter with me previously, and I take her point. The SRA will want to ensure that there is enough passenger capacity between Milton Keynes and London, whether with Virgin or Silverlink, so that the overcrowding to which she referred will not take place. I have already taken the matter up with the SRA and will write to my hon. Friend about it. I suspect, however, that the main proposals will be set out in the final west coast strategy, to which I have already referred hon. Members. There is no doubt that the train service, especially from Milton Keynes, is extremely important and I want to ensure that the quality and level of service is enhanced as a result of the improvements that we make.

    British Transport Police
    Mr. David Heath: If he will make a statement on the role of the British Transport police in responding to major terrorist incidents. [105794]
    The Minister of State, Department of Transport (Mr. John Spellar): The British Transport police play a full part in the British police service within their railways jurisdiction, including the prevention and detection of terrorism. Due to the critical nature of anti-terrorist work the handling of any confirmed incident on the railways would be a joint response involving the BTP, the local police force, the anti-terrorist branch and other emergency services, if necessary.
    Mr. Heath: The Minister will realise that the British Transport police could be faced with a serious emergency, especially on the London underground, in the case of terrorist attack. Is he convinced that the current funding mechanisms allow for the enhanced responsibilities that the BTP may have in that respect? Is the Home Office able to direct additional funds to the BTP without the agreement of the train operating companies? Have the transport police been issued with radiation monitoring equipment, which has, we understand, been issued to the Metropolitan police and some other forces?
    Mr. Spellar: I indicated to the hon. Gentleman that there is close liaison between the British Transport police and the Metropolitan police, in protocols, man-management and commitment. Handling anti-terrorism has, unfortunately, been a staple for the BTP for a considerable number of years, especially due to the threat in one of the main areas covered by the force—the London underground—and also on the mainline London stations. That is part and parcel of the BTP's ordinary work. If any of that work was constrained by financial issues, we should address them.
    Mr. Kelvin Hopkins: Does my right hon. Friend recall yesterday's debate about rail safety and the British Transport police and agree that the many favourable comments that were made then suggest that there should be an increase in the staffing of
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    the transport police for many other reasons as well as those cited by the hon. Member for Somerton and Frome (Mr. Heath)?
    Mr. Spellar: Yes. I forbear, for the benefit of the rest of the House, from replaying the whole of the rather lengthy debate that we had on the British Transport police during an extremely prolonged debate. When I say that my hon. Friends the Members for Luton, North (Mr. Hopkins) and for Thurrock (Andrew Mackinlay) participated in that debate, hon. Members who were not present will get a flavour of the detailed scrutiny that we applied to that subject. What was very clear during the debate was the very high regard in all parts of the House for the work of the British Transport police, and also the increasing effectiveness of those police.
    Equally, my hon. Friend the Member for Luton, North is absolutely right that questions were raised with regard to work on other transport facilities, but we did indicate at that time that that was riot what we had consulted on more widely, that this was very much the work of the relevant Home Office or Scottish police forces, but we did recognise the need for extensive joint working in order to contain any potential terrorist threat.

  CABINET OFFICE
  The Minister of State was asked—
  CABINET OFFICE

    Regulatory Impact Assessments
    Dr. Vincent Cable: If he will make a statement on the Government's progress with developing regulatory impact assessments. [105841]
    The Minister of State, Cabinet Office (Mr. Douglas Alexander): The Cabinet Office has a continuous programme of work with Departments to improve the quality of regulatory impact assessments. We published revised guidance in January this year and officials are promoting it with a series of seminars and workshops in Departments. RIAs provide a more open system of assessing the risks, costs and benefits of new legislative proposals.
    Dr. Cable: I acknowledge the usefulness of those assessments in quantifying the costs of regulation, but does the Minister accept the criticism of the Better Regulation Task Force that too many of them are of very poor quality, as with the regulation of care homes; some of them have simply disappeared, as with the regulation of animal movements; and most of them are inconsistent and lacking in independence? How does he propose to improve the situation?
    Mr. Alexander: The Better Regulation Task Force firmly supports the regulatory impact assessments as a tool to endeavour to help Government improve the quality of the legislation that is passed. That is why the BRTF has drawn to the attention of the National Audit Office in its annual report, "Champions of Better Regulation", a number of RIAs that it believes need to

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    be of higher quality. That work continues and I believe will be a useful contribution to our better regulation endeavours.
    Mr. Peter Pike: Is not my hon. Friend disappointed that the regulatory reform procedure is still not used by as many Departments as it could be, to remove unnecessary burdens?
    Mr. Alexander: My hon. Friend raises an important point in terms of the scale of work that we are endeavouring to take forward to improve better regulation across Government. There is little better that I can do than to quote the recent Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development report, which said:
    "The United Kingdom is at the forefront of regulatory reform in the OECD. It has already made major improvements and has planned more".
    Mr. Philip Hammond: I welcome any steps to try to improve the quality and depth of regulatory impact assessments, some of which, I think we all recognise, have been lamentably superficial, but would the hon. Gentleman consider the case for a system of routine post-implementation audit of regulatory impact assessments and the costs actually imposed on business by legislation, so that we can generate a feedback to the process of pre-legislative regulatory impact assessments that might over time improve their quality?
    Andrew Mackinlay: I do not understand that.
    Mr. Alexander: I have sympathy with the comments of my hon. Friend from a sedentary position.
    We need to be careful not to create a structure that is too bureaucratic in order to reduce bureaucracy and regulation. However, the work that the National Audit Office is taking forward is important. I believe that it will strengthen the quality of the RIA procedures, and that is why I believe that the OECD is correct in recognising the strength of commitment of the British Government to this important area of policy.

    Communication Systems
    Miss Anne McIntosh: What discussions he has had with owners of communication systems of strategic and economic importance about the protection of the systems' integrity; and if he will make a statement. [105842]
    The Minister of State, Cabinet Office (Mr. Douglas Alexander): My right hon. Friend the Home Secretary is responsible for the national infrastructure security coordination centre. That centre is charged with protecting the critical national infrastructure against electronic attack. Of course, our major communications networks are a key part of that infrastructure.
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    My officials have a continual dialogue with a wide range of communication system owners across both the public and private sectors. In addition I met with Andrew Pinder the e-Envoy only last week.
    Miss McIntosh: The hon. Gentleman will be aware of the work carried out by the emergency planning college, Hawkhills, run by Dr. Rooke, near Easingwold in the Vale of York, and I hope that he will join me in paying tribute to the excellent work that it does. What regard has the college had to the damage that could be done to strategic communications systems in the event of a terrorist strike? Has it liased with the owners of such systems about how to pre-empt such a terrorist strike?
    Mr. Alexander: I can assure the hon. Lady that a range of work has been done with various telecommunications and electronic network providers. That work is obviously ongoing. The college to which she refers is in her constituency, and I certainly join her in paying tribute to the work that it undertakes. The college has a key role in developing and promulgating the new United Kingdom resilience doctrine, including those aspects that will flow from the new legislation and developing cross-organisational communities throughout the UK to deliver it.
    David Taylor: Is the Minister confident that the national air traffic control system—which was so disastrously part-privatised by our own Government and which has continually come back with the begging bowl to No. 11 Downing street ever since—is robust enough to resist any attempt by terrorists to infiltrate its systems?
    Mr. Alexander: As I said at the outset, the Home Secretary has responsibility for co-ordinating the Government's approach to all those issues and, in that capacity, he chairs a number of Cabinet Sub-Committees, one of which includes the Department for Transport, which obviously addresses the issue that my hon. Friend raises, but I shall be happy to pass on his comments directly to the Secretary of State for Transport.
    Mr. Richard Allan: Does the Minister recognise the fact that there are weaknesses in the law governing malicious attacks on communication networks at present? Would he therefore welcome an updating of the Computer Misuse Act 1990 better to reflect the growth of the internet, so that he could fulfil his role in protecting Government information technology systems all the better?
    Mr. Alexander: I know of the hon. Gentleman's interest and expertise in such issues, and I am certainly not complacent about the risks of cyber terrorism. That is why I am confident that our major communications providers are taking appropriate precautions now, but that is an ongoing process of work and we clearly keep those matters under review.

    Civil Service
    Tony Wright: If he will make a statement on progress with the diversity strategy in the civil service. [105843]
    The Minister of State, Cabinet Office (Mr. Douglas Alexander): We are making steady progress in increasing the diversity of the civil service: 52 per cent. of staff in post in the civil service are women and 7.9 per cent. of staff are from a minority ethnic background, compared with 6.5 per cent. in the economically active population of the United Kingdom. At 3.6 per cent., the proportion of disabled staff in the service suggests that we are making slower progress in that regard, but we are taking steps to address that.
    Tony Wright: I am grateful to the Minister for that answer. I agree that steady progress is being made, but will he tell us about the one Department where no progress at all is being made? It has only half the number of women and only a quarter the number of ethnical minority people in senior posts. I refer, of course, to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. Why is it exempt from the diversity agenda?
    Mr. Alexander: My hon. Friend raises an important point. Clearly, the responsibility in Departments for such issues is led by a permanent secretary and Ministers, but principally by individual Departments, working under guidance from the Cabinet Office. Given the issue that he raises, I will ensure that there is communication between the Cabinet Office and the Foreign Office on the specific point that he makes.
    Mr. Elfyn Llwyd: Things are not so good in the Minister's own Department. Its own 2001–02 report shows that more than 100 staff were engaged in that year, but fewer than
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    9 per cent. of them were from ethnic minority backgrounds and there was only one disabled person. That is not very good, is it?
    Mr. Alexander: I am certainly not complacent about the work that we need to continue to do on the diversity agenda in the civil service. To take just one example involving ethnic minorities, the pathways initiative—a specific initiative for the senior civil service—will make a constructive contribution to that work.

    Public Appointments
    Mr. John Lyons: What steps are being taken to publicise decisions on public appointments. [105844]
    The Minister of State, Cabinet Office (Mr. Douglas Alexander): The Government are committed to ensuring greater access to information about public appointments. The new public appointments vacancies website, which was launched by the Cabinet Office last week, demonstrates that commitment and supports the Government's wider objectives on diversity, putting citizens first and extending the range of services online.
    Mr. Lyons: I thank my hon. Friend for that response. Does he agree that, if we can more widely publicise public appointments, people will have greater confidence in the system, which will also enhance the sterling role of people throughout the country who volunteer for public service?
    Mr. Alexander: I certainly endorse my hon. Friend's sentiments. We are keen to ensure that we publicise as widely as possible the range of opportunities that there are to make a contribution to public service through serving on a public body. It might be of particular interest to my hon. Friend to learn that the Scottish Parliament passed the Public Appointments and Public Bodies etc. (Scotland) Act 2003 in the past few days. It received its Royal Assent on 11 March. That will mean that, in addition to the work that is being carried out by the Office of the Commissioner for Public Appointments at a United Kingdom level, separate initiatives will be taken forward through the devolved legislature in Scotland that are relevant to his constituency.

Points of Order
12.30 pm
Michael Fabricant: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. You will know that, from time to time in the past, Secretaries of State and Ministers talked about boom and bust. That appears to have ended now. However, the current craze is for Ministers to say time and time again—the Secretary of State for Transport said it today—that the Conservative party is committed to 20 per cent. cuts in public expenditure. Ministers know that to be untrue and to be a lie. What can we do to protect the truth in the Chamber and to ensure that this lie does not continue to be propagated?
Mr. Speaker: That is a matter for debate, so I shall not be drawn into it.
Jeremy Corbyn: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. Since we last had a statement about the situation in Iraq, the Prime Minister has met the President of the United States, the US Defence Secretary has sought to bring Iran and Syria into the conflict and there has been a rising tide of civilian as well as military casualties in this dreadful conflict. Yesterday, a number of Members raised points of order about the lack of a statement from the Prime Minister yesterday. Another day has passed and there is still no sign of a statement. Is there any way that the House can encourage the Secretary of State for Defence, the Foreign Secretary or the Prime Minister to come to the House to give us an update on the appalling situation in Iraq?
Mr. Speaker: Defence questions were held yesterday and many of the matters that the hon. Gentleman raised were covered then. As to the Prime Minister making a statement, Prime Minister's Question Time will be held tomorrow and hon. Members can seek to catch my eye. However, I make no promises as to whom I call.
Glenda Jackson: Further to that point of order, Mr. Speaker. You will be aware of newspaper reports today detailing the United States plans for a post-conflict Iraqi Government that will number 24 ministries each headed by a US official, with four Iraqi advisers again appointed by the United States. This plan flies directly in the face of a reply that the Prime Minister gave in the Chamber to the right hon. Member for Ross, Skye and Inverness, West (Mr. Kennedy). The right hon. Gentleman urged the Prime Minister to
"persuade the President that we want a United Nations-led rather than a United States-led Administration in any post-military conflict Iraq."
The Prime Minister replied:
"I do not believe that there is a need to persuade the President … We made it clear … that any post-conflict Iraqi Administration must be specifically accepted and endorsed by the UN."—[Official Report, 26 March 2003; Vol. 402, c. 284.]
If it is not possible for the Prime Minister to come to the House to make a statement about what seems to be a clear lack of communication between the White House and No. 10, is there any way that the Foreign Secretary
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can be persuaded to come to the House and answer questions on an issue that is serious not only for the people of Iraq but for the peace of the whole world?
Mr. Speaker: The hon. Lady said that she was referring to press reports, so I shall make no further comment on that matter. She can make representations to the officers of the parliamentary Labour party and to the Chief Whip for a debate on these matters.
Mr. John Bercow: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. Given that it is your role to act as the guardian of the rights of Back Benchers and that Ministers' tendency to indulge themselves in evasive, long-winded and circumlocutory replies has been greatly exacerbated in recent times, what consideration have you given to time limiting oral questions and answers in the House to facilitate rather greater progress than we suffered today?
Mr. Speaker: All that we have at our disposal is one hour. I will let the hon. Gentleman into a secret. I said to the Secretary of State for Transport that I hoped that the replies would be a lot shorter the next time that we have Transport questions.
Mr. Tam Dalyell: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. You will be relieved to hear that I learned my lesson from your wrath of a fortnight ago, and that I am asking not about an issue that I raised with your Office this morning but about a later issue. That is the reports that are coming through that a number of Shi'a from Iran, because of what they see as the attacks on their holy places of Karbala and Najaf—which are perhaps even more important than Mecca and Medina—are volunteering their services to the Iraqi forces. Is there any possibility of a statement by the Ministry of Defence on those who are coming in from other countries, not least Chechnya and Pakistan, to offer their services to the Iraqi forces?
Mr. Speaker: That is not a matter for me.
Hugh Robertson: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. In replying to a point of order yesterday from the hon. Member for Crewe and Nantwich (Mrs. Dunwoody), who drew your attention to the fact that, in the absence of the Leader of the House, we were to receive 14 written statements yesterday from Ministers, you kindly and wisely said that you would look into the matter. Are you aware that rather than listening to your words, Ministers have listed a further 15 written statements on the Order Paper today? Is there anything that you can do to prevent that abuse of parliamentary privilege?
Mr. Speaker: I noted the number of written statements listed today. They are submitted in accordance with the rules of the House, which hon. Members have made, so I have nothing more to say on the matter.
Harry Cohen: On a point of order Mr. Speaker. Last Thursday, the acting Leader of the House said:
"I am sure that the Prime Minister will want to report back to the House at the earliest opportunity on his important discussions with President Bush and the Secretary-General of the United Nations."—[Official Report, 27 March 2003; Vol. 402, c. 454.]
I should have thought it even more important that the Prime Minister reports to the House as he referred during that visit to the execution of British troops, and the House should hear what he has to say about that.
The matter was raised with you yesterday, Mr. Speaker, and you said:
"I did note what was said last Thursday."—[Official Report, 31 March 2003; Vol. 402, c. 668.]
Will you elaborate on that and say whether you have done anything further than noting it? Have you discussed the matter with No. 10? Have you put it to the Government that they should make an early statement?
Mr. Speaker: Yes, I did note what the acting Leader of the House said, and if the hon. Gentleman wishes me to elaborate on that, I say that I have no responsibility for what the acting Leader of the House has to say on a Thursday. I shall say no more on the matter.

Emergency Broadcasting System
12.37 pm
Tom Brake: I beg to move,
That leave be given to bring in a Bill to require the Secretary of State to co-ordinate the provision of a multi-media broadcasting system to provide information to the public about emergencies and potential emergencies.
Since 11 September, the UK has been put on a heightened state of alert, and the war against Iraq has ensured that that state of alert remains in force. The very visible presence of armed police officers at St. Stephen's Entrance is proof of that. To respond effectively to emergencies and potential emergencies a number of measures must be in place. They include having the right people and equipment available, with the people properly trained of course, a robust legislative framework, detailed and tested action plans, and accurate information that can be delivered rapidly and reliably.
There is not sufficient time today to consider whether all those prerequisites for an organised reaction to a threat have been satisfied. I should like to highlight one point that gives me genuine cause for concern—the abandonment of the emergency planning exercise that was due to take place on Sunday 23 March. The reason given for postponing the exercise was the international situation. Surely that is exactly why a test is needed.
My Bill focuses on the provision of information to the public through an emergency broadcasting system, or EBS. In times of crisis the public need the right quantity and quality of information, and they need to know where to access that information. It must be clear and consistent and it must come from a reliable official source. We can no longer rely on the air raid sirens of world war two, which are long gone. We need an emergency warning system or broadcasting system suited to the 21st century. We have entirely new ways of communicating with people via the internet, e-mail, mobile phones, television, radio and so on. The system must therefore be a multi-channel one using existing technology, and would link land-line and mobile phone operators, TV, radio and internet service providers.
I confess that I have not made a detailed assessment of the cost of such a system, but the emergency broadcasting system would rely on existing technology. If Members have a mobile phone, an e-mail address or a fax machine, they already receive many unsolicited messages, probably tens daily, offering anything from an unsecured loan to Viagra-one to pay for the other, perhaps. The facility to broadcast system-wide messages already exists. Indeed, the BBC has the technology, and I shall give a couple of examples. "Connecting in a crisis", a very good BBC initiative, helps to ensure that the public have the information that they need and demand in a civil emergency. The initiative sets out to encourage emergency planners to work more closely with broadcasters in the preparation of strategies for communicating essential information. A similar initiative, "U R @ Risk", is a joint Environment Agency and Met Office scheme to provide the UK's first integrated multi-media system for severe weather and flood alerts, and ensure that people in flood areas receive warnings by text message, e-mail and even their

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television. There is also the national steering committee on warning and informing the public, which is working on pulling all of that together.
The technology is there, and the research has been done. It is simply a case of pulling together the technologies and integrating them, not creating anything new. Integration could be achieved manually—key individuals would be identified with responsibility to broadcast officially sanctioned messages—or electronically using tried and tested technology and interfaces. The use of an EBS would not necessarily be limited to emergency planning. There is no reason why, for instance, it could not be used in child abduction cases, as happens in the US. The first hour in which a child is missing is the critical period.
Having the ability to broadcast messages widely across different media could indeed save lives. The risk of doing without an emergency broadcasting system is that information will either not be provided at all or, perhaps even more dangerously, will be inconsistent and delivered at different times and in different ways to various places in the country. That is clearly a recipe for uncertainty and confusion—what is needed is clarity and confidence.
I am grateful for the support that the Bill has received from Members on both sides of the House, and if I obtain leave to introduce it today, I will seek even wider support for its aims. I contend that we cannot do without an emergency broadcasting system, which is a key component of any emergency planning response and would safeguard our homeland at a time of crisis. My Bill is designed to provide that safeguard, and I commend it to the House.
Question put and agreed to.
Bill ordered to be brought in by
Tom Brake, Simon Hughes, Mr. Don Foster, Mr. Paul Keetch, Vera Baird, Michael Fabricant, Mr. Richard Allan, Mr. Hugo Swire, Mr. David Heath and Mr. Edward Davey.

Emergency Broadcasting System
  EMERGENCY BROADCASTING SYSTEM
  Tom Brake accordingly presented a Bill to require the Secretary of State to co-ordinate the provision of a multi-media broadcasting system to provide information to the public about emergencies and potential emergencies: And the same was read the First time; and ordered to be read a Second time on Friday 4 July, and to be printed [Bill 85].
Orders of the Day

  Crime (International Co-operation) Bill [Lords]
  [Relevant documents: The First, Third and Seventh Reports from the Joint Committee on Human Rights of Session 2002–03, on its scrutiny of Bills, HC 191, HC 375 and HC 547.]
  Order for Second Reading read.
  12.44 pm
  The Minister for Citizenship and Immigration (Beverley Hughes): I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.
  The Bill implements measures in seven separate European Union agreements. The first is the Schengen implementing convention of 1990. As the House knows, the UK applied to participate in 1999 and was accepted by the Justice and Home Affairs Council in 2000. The other agreements are the mutual legal assistance convention, which updates the provisions of the 1959 convention; the protocol to that convention, finally adopted in 2001; the framework decision on the execution in the EU of freezing assets and evidence; the framework decision on combating terrorism; the convention on driving disqualification; and the framework decision on non-cash means of payment agreed in May 2001.
  UK Ministers were involved in negotiating all those measures apart from Schengen, and our application to join the police and judicial provisions of Schengen, together with all the other measures drawn into the Bill from the six other agreements, have been considered through our own domestic scrutiny process. Parliament has previously decided that justice and home affairs agreements should be implemented through primary legislation—hence, the Bill before us today, which has already been examined by the Joint Committee on Human Rights and in another place.
  Simon Hughes: As the Minister knows, she has support from the Liberal Democrat Benches for the process in relation to the Bill. Are the Government taking up in the EU the processes in relation to other legislation—a matter raised sometimes with her colleague, the Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department, the hon. Member for Coventry, North-East (Mr. Ainsworth) and elsewhere—whereby we are often asked for views on legislation in draft that has already been decided by the Council because of the time delay, and where the final decision does not require consent from this or any other national Parliament, or from the European Parliament?
  Beverley Hughes: I know that views have been expressed about that. The hon. Gentleman will agree that we must get the timetabling of those matters right and more appropriate, so that Members' views can be expressed before those agreements are finalised, rather than afterwards, as he said, because of delays. I take his point and I understand that the issue is being addressed.
  The Bill marks a significant advance in co-operation against serious crime and terrorism in the European Union. It will enable us to work more closely and

  801
  effectively with our EU partners, and more widely outside the EU. It will make it easier to investigate and prosecute cross-border criminal activity. By implementing key EU measures directed at terrorism and serious crime, it demonstrates firmly our commitment to greater co-operation on these matters with our EU partners. The measures on driving disqualification will promote greater road safety across the EU.
  The Bill comes to this place after careful and helpful scrutiny in another place, where the Government responded to some of the concerns expressed and acted on them to provide greater clarity and reassurance. Thus some key order-making powers are now subject to affirmative rather than negative procedure, and conditions attached to cross-border surveillance by foreign officers are now written into the Bill.
  We are already working effectively with our EU partners through Europol and bilateral joint operations, but we need to do more. There are often too many obstacles to international investigations that serve only to protect the criminal. As Members know, bringing multinational gangs to justice may involve several trials in different countries, each with its own criminal procedures. Ensuring success for such complex procedures means cutting down on the obstacles that block effective cross-border co-operation. That is what the Bill sets out to achieve.
  The Bill will make the changes needed to enable the UK to participate in the non-border aspects of the Schengen convention. The Schengen arrangements provide a very clear framework for effective co-operation, especially for cross-border police operations.
  I should like to explain in more detail what the Bill contains and will achieve. Part 1 will modernise our arrangements for providing mutual legal assistance and bring them into line with new proceedings introduced by Schengen and by the mutual legal assistance convention agreed in May 2000. MLAC, as it was called, was part of the European Union's so-called anti-terrorism road map, which was agreed after 11 September. Mutual legal assistance is the formal process by which countries request and provide assistance in obtaining evidence located in one country to assist in criminal proceedings in another. Effective and swift mutual legal assistance arrangements are essential if we and our EU partners are to run successful cross-border investigations and prosecutions.
  MLA is not new—we have done it for many years—but the new provisions will speed up the process and reduce the scope for delay in respect of international cooperation. They will do so, for instance, by allowing UK prosecutors to send requests for evidence directly to courts in other EU countries, rather than going through a central authority system because of an obligation always to do so. Some of the key modernising provisions will also apply to countries outside the EU. For instance, we expect that the ability to provide other countries with evidence by TV link in mutual legal assistance cases will be of most use in cases involving countries outside the EU, because greater distances obviously make travel less feasible.
  802
  The Bill also introduces mutual recognition of orders to freeze evidence, as provided for by the EU draft framework decision on the execution of orders freezing evidence. We see that as a considerable step forward. It will significantly speed up the process of securing valuable evidence. Mutual recognition takes mutual legal assistance one step further by recognising directly, as between EU member states, a request made by a court, thus enabling a direct response to be made with the minimum of formality. The UK has been and is a keen supporter of the principle of mutual recognition, which both speeds up co-operation and respects the standards as well as the diversity of legal systems.
  Jon Trickett: I am listening carefully to my hon. Friend. The Bill is obviously complex and detailed, but will it afford protection to people such as my constituent, June Harrison, whose husband was killed by a French lorry driver in my constituency? The lorry driver was found guilty in Pontefract magistrates court and his sentence consisted of two elements: suspension of his driving licence and a small and inadequate fine. The driver, Monsieur Boulanger, lawfully returned to France, where he is free to continue driving, as the suspension of his licence does not apply there. He has refused to pay his fine on the ground that we drive on the wrong side of the road. Will the Bill help to correct such injustice, which brings the law into disrepute and questions the notion that we are partners with France?
  Beverley Hughes: The answer to my hon. Friend's general question is yes—the Bill will certainly try to correct injustice. On the specifics of the case that he cites, if he is using the term "suspension" to mean that the lorry driver was disqualified, I can say that in this country the Bill provides for mutual recognition of disqualification between different EU member states, and that will also be implemented in other member states. Such provision would have applied in the case that he mentioned and brought some redress to the family.
  Concern was expressed in another place that the Bill did not provide sufficient safeguards to protect the position of the individual in respect of the new arrangements. We listened to those concerns and have introduced extra protection in respect of double jeopardy to ensure that orders freezing evidence are dealt with promptly and to strengthen the role of UK courts in protecting the position of people giving evidence by television link.
  Criminals operating across international borders are often involved in financial crime and money laundering. It is recognised that the ability to obtain comprehensive banking information from other EU countries would significantly assist domestic law enforcement. By agreeing on the protocol to the mutual legal assistance convention, the EU has created a reciprocal obligation between member states to respond to requests for financial information. The Bill will implement the protocol, allowing us to respond to requests from other EU countries for information relating to criminal suspects' bank accounts. The requests will reflect the new investigative tools introduced by the Proceeds of Crime Act 2001.

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  Part 2 deals with terrorism. As criminals, terrorists do not respect national boundaries. We need effective measures with persuasive penalties that are imposed consistently across the EU. Following the events of 11 September, the EU agreed a framework decision requiring all member states to introduce extensive antiterrorism legislation. As the UK already has wide-ranging domestic anti-terrorism legislation—it was largely the starting point for the Commission's proposal—we are broadly compliant with the body of the framework decision, so implementing the measure does not require us to create any new offences or penalties. It simply requires us to take extra-territorial jurisdiction over a wider range of terrorist offences than we do presently. The Bill therefore takes extra-territorial jurisdiction over terrorist offences committed overseas against UK nationals, diplomatic staff and diplomatic premises. It will also take such jurisdiction over terrorist offences committed overseas by UK nationals. We supported that measure during its negotiation in Brussels and welcome this opportunity promptly to implement the changes needed to bring it into force.
  Schedule 4 will also help us tackle terrorism by introducing arrangements to allow us to transmit abroad orders freezing terrorist assets and instrumentalities— funds and assets used to commit terrorist offences. Likewise, we will be able to act on orders from other EU member states. Allowing mutual recognition of those orders is a significant step forward, as it will make it easier for us to freeze terrorist assets even when they have been moved out of the UK, and thereby reduce terrorists' ability to operate effectively.
  Part 3 deals with driving disqualifications—an issue raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Hemsworth (Jon Trickett) in relation to a specific case. It does not seem right that a person who commits a driving offence for which they are disqualified while abroad should be able to escape disqualification when they return home to their usual state of residence. The EU driving disqualification convention is therefore intended to promote the principle that drivers should abide by the rules of the road no matter where they are driving. That will help to promote greater road safety across the UK. There are safeguards to ensure that the arrangements are not misused and do not lead to unfair decisions. The process for notifying a disqualification will apply only once any appeal has been completed, and there will be a right of appeal in the UK against recognition of foreign disqualifications.
  Part 3 also allows for recognition in Great Britain of driving disqualifications imposed in Northern Ireland, the Isle of Man, the Channel Islands and Gibraltar. The fact that none of those jurisdictions recognises driving disqualifications imposed by any of the others is, as I hope hon. Members will agree, an anomaly whose remedy is long overdue. A more uniform system across the UK is obviously also essential for effective implementation of the wider EU measure.
  Mr. Elfyn Llwyd: I am listening carefully to the hon. Lady and I think that what she is saying is very important. I was involved in a case in which it took more than 18 months to get a French national to appear in a UK court to answer a charge of
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  causing death by dangerous driving. What measures does the Bill contain that will assist in ensuring that that sort of farce is not repeated?
  Beverley Hughes: That particular example is the province of the Extradition Bill, as I am sure the hon. Gentleman knows. The Bill before us deals with situations in which evidence rather than the actual procurement of the alleged perpetrator is needed to support a case in one country where the evidence is in another. That may be relevant in cases such as the one to which he refers.
  Mr. Bill Wiggin: I think that the Bill specifies that a prisoner has to give their permission. Does the Minister not feel that that might be a bit too lenient, and that the prisoner should not have to do so, or is such consent essential for the rights of the prisoner?
  Beverley Hughes: The hon. Gentleman is right. Chapter 5 of the Bill provides for an extension to measures that already exist to enable prisoners to be produced to give evidence. It is already possible for a country to ask for a prisoner to be transferred to it from another country, to assist in an investigation in the country making the request. The new provisions will extend that power somewhat, and will mean that a country can ask for a prisoner to be transferred from its own territory to another country, to assist in its own investigations.
  I need to get back to the hon. Gentleman on the issue of consent. I think that he is right in saying that a prisoner will have to give consent. He made the point that, in that eventuality, that might be taking the principle of consent too far, but that was the agreement under the mutual legal assistance provisions, and we have no scope to go further than that. It is important that, whatever arrangements we agree to, there should be consistency across the EU states in terms of that provision.
  Mr. John Bercow: I hope that the hon. Lady will agree that the minimisation of formality to which she referred some minutes ago would never be a euphemism for the avoidance of proper notification or consultation. In the light of the concern expressed by Liberty and other organisations about the surveillance provisions in the Bill paving the way for arbitrary police action from other jurisdictions against British citizens on our own soil, will she clarify the circumstances in which hot surveillance operations might need to be conducted without advance notification to the British authorities?
  Beverley Hughes: Certainly. I am just coming to that point, if the hon. Gentleman can wait a moment. On what he has just said, however, there is a great deal of misunderstanding about the proposals for cross-border surveillance. Let me say at the outset—I shall stress this point later—that these provisions do not cover hot pursuit exercises, which are covered by a different part of the article. This measure covers pursuit in an emergency, prior to the setting up of a joint investigation team.
  Part 4 of the Bill introduces two key Schengen measures. It ensures that our participation in the Schengen information system will be rigorously

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  safeguarded, by giving the Information Commissioner new powers independently to inspect the UK national sections of the Schengen information system. Creating a statutory basis for the role of the Information Commissioner in this way is a new departure. It is required by the Schengen agreement, but we are also clear that it is right to create this extra level of protection for the rights of the individual when the UK is participating in new international systems.
  Part 4 also deals with Schengen cross-border surveillance. Although this has proved the most contentious part of the Bill, we believe that these measures are proportionate and that proper safeguards have been attached. Criminals do not stop at national borders, and if our law enforcement agencies are to investigate them and gather the evidence that they need, they, too, must be able to carry on past our national boundaries. That means that we must have fast and effective arrangements for agreeing cross-border surveillance operations. The measures in the Bill will allow surveillance operations to continue only so that UK officers can take over an operation within the five-hour period specified, if not immediately on the arrival of the foreign officers in the UK.
  The UK police have welcomed the Schengen arrangements because they are reciprocal, and joining them will make it much easier for us to mount cross-border surveillance operations and to pursue UK criminals who are active internationally.
  Gregory Barker: Will the Minister give way?
  Beverley Hughes: It might help the hon. Gentleman if I finished this paragraph first.
  I want to make it clear what the measures do not include. Clause 82 does not licence foreign officers to roam at will around the country. The foreign officers will have no power of arrest, because nothing exists in UK law to give them such a power. The clause simply provides that, in circumstances in which a person suspected of serious criminal activity is heading for the UK from continental Europe, and in which, for whatever reason, our own officers are unable to take over the surveillance themselves the moment the targeted person lands in the UK, the foreign officers will be able to maintain their surveillance for up to five hours. The alternative would be to risk losing valuable intelligence on key criminal suspects. This measure covers neither hot pursuit, which has to take place over land borders, nor undercover surveillance. It simply provides for the temporary extension of an ongoing operation for up to five hours until the UK police either join the operation or, having risk-assessed it, stop it.
  Gregory Barker: On that point, will the Minister explain why five hours was deemed an appropriate period of time, as opposed to three, or six, or a full working day? Obviously, the amount of time needed will depend, for example, on the time of day at which the surveillance officer enters the country. I am interested to know why the Government have chosen five hours—not a minute more, not a minute less.
  Beverley Hughes: That was a matter of some discussion and judgment, and of trying to strike a
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  balance between precisely the kind of criteria and issues that the hon. Gentleman started to touch on. The five-hour period was the outcome of those negotiations. A shorter time might jeopardise the extent to which the UK police could conduct a satisfactory risk assessment, which is part of the process. Once they have been informed, they will assess the risk involved in the operation. Equally, they will need long enough to get a team together to join up with the foreign officers, if it is decided that the surveillance should continue. A balance had to be struck between those pragmatic issues; nothing more sinister is involved.
  Mr. James Clappison: Will the Minister clarify whether the five-hour period will also apply to United Kingdom police who want to continue surveillance of a suspect in another country? Will she also tell the House what representations she has received from the police on that issue?
  Beverley Hughes: As I said, the UK police are supportive of these proposals, and of their details. The five-hour period is part of the article as it is written, and it will apply to all the countries to which this measure will apply.
  The foreign officers must inform the UK authorities—the National Criminal Intelligence Service—as soon as they reach the UK, and they will not be allowed to enter private premises. We had always intended to set those two conditions out by means of order, but, having listened to the concerns expressed in Committee in another place, we have now written them into the Bill. We believe that that strikes the right balance between reassurance, legal clarity and flexibility.
  The final measure in the Bill addresses the growing problem of the counterfeiting of plastic cards. That type of offence occurs increasingly on an international scale, which is why the EU agreed a framework decision to ensure that all member states had effective legislation to deal with that sort of crime. Implementing this measure in the UK requires an amendment to the Forgery and Counterfeiting Act 1981, allowing it to cover bankers drafts, promissory notes and debit cards.
  As I said at the outset, all the EU agreements that underlie the provisions in the Bill have already been scrutinised by the European Scrutiny Committee of this House and the Committee of the Lords. The Bill will consolidate and implement important measures to improve our ability to tackle international crime and terrorism, and to improve the security and safety of our citizens. I commend the Bill to the House.
  1.9 pm
  Mr. James Paice: I thank the Minister for the way in which she introduced the Bill, and for the clarity with which she described its major features. I also thank my noble Friends in the other place for sending us a Bill that is a considerable improvement on the one that the Government originally introduced there. It still has elements that we cannot wholly support and, although we do not object to any major principle, we shall explore many issues in Committee. We are grateful for our noble Friends' great efforts to reel in some of the Government's poorly conceived efforts to bring Schengen into this country through the back door.

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  We welcome more co-operation among police forces, customs authorities and intelligence services throughout the European Union to combat the increasing threat of terrorism. The Government's efforts to harmonise our criminal law with that of the signatory countries to the Schengen convention and related agreements is less welcome. It is interesting that the Bill stands in stark contrast to the Prime Minister's rhetoric in October 1999 when he said:
  "The British proposal that the cornerstone of policy in this area should be mutual recognition of court decisions, rather than the harmonisation of laws, was adopted unanimously."—[Official Report, 19 October 1999; Vol. 336, c. 253.]
  As I said, we shall pursue aspects of the Bill in Committee. The key issue that runs through the Bill is reciprocity and the confidence that necessarily goes with that. The Bill is designed to act as a foundation for reciprocal agreements with other designated countries on many aspects that the Minister described. Although I have immense faith in our country's criminal and judicial processes and institutions, I am sceptical about those of several countries with which we might work.
  Mr. William Cash: My hon. Friend will be aware of the Convention on the Future of Europe, which is considering the proposed European constitution. Is he aware that there is a proposal to have a European public prosecutor? Does he agree that that would be a disastrous step in the wrong direction, and would he like such an assurance from the Government?
  Mr. Paice: I am aware of the proposition, and I shall ask for the assurance from the Government that my hon. Friend wants later in my speech.
  I return to the reciprocal agreements and the countries with which we shall have them. I hope that the Government will assure us that they have confidence in not only the present partners, but any future partners that may be created through the powers that the Bill will give the Secretary of State. Will the Minister confirm that if our confidence in the effectiveness of the agreements is eroded, reciprocal arrangements may be withdrawn at any time by order of the House?
  I am worried about which countries may be added to the initial list of participating countries. Although I am first to put on record the fact that the Government consented to change the Bill to ensure that the addition of future participants must be done by statutory instrument using the affirmative procedure, I am worried that part 1 permits the involvement in reciprocal proceedings of
  "any other country designated by an order made by the Secretary of State".
  I am sure that most hon. Members acknowledge that not all potential participants in reciprocal agreements, including potential accession states to the European Union, have their judicial houses entirely in order, but that is nothing compared with the serious possibility that the agreements could apply to any country in the world. I do not suggest for a moment that the Government will lackadaisically come to the House and suggest that we sign an agreement with the Congo, far example. However, the Bill says that the Secretary of State could agree by order to add any other country to the list. That is our fundamental point because although the Bill has arisen primarily from the Schengen
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  convention, part 1 could be extended to any other country in the world by order of the Secretary of State. Such an extension should be a matter for the House alone. I am worried that we could allow police forces from other countries to enter this country to conduct surveillance work simply on the strength of a statutory instrument.
  Excellent amendments have changed elements of the Bill for the better, and the most important were those relating to clause 82 and hot surveillance. The Minister touched on the amendments and as we would expect, given her diligence, her description of what hot surveillance is and is not was absolutely right. In passing, I congratulate the Government on having the wisdom not to accede to elements of the acquis that would have allowed hot pursuit in this country after rightly contending that that can apply only over land borders. We have such a border only with the Republic of Ireland, which has also declined to accede to that part of the acquis.
  Clause 82 has been contentious from the outset. As the Minister said, it permits foreign officers to travel to this country to put a suspect under hot surveillance without first notifying our authorities of their intentions. They could do that for five hours before their surveillance must cease and our officers would take over. The Minister told my hon. Friend the Member for Bexhill and Battle (Gregory Barker) that the Government took a decision to use that time period, although we can all speculate on why that was chosen.
  The clause was amended to require that all foreign officers must notify the National Criminal Intelligence Service on their immediate arrival in England and Wales or make an application for authorisation under the Regulation of Investigatory Powers (Scotland) Act 2000 on their immediate arrival in Scotland. The drawback of the notification is that it removes foreign officers' civil liability responsibilities for any incidental act on their part. That matter was pursued in the other place and I shall pursue it here. Although I welcome the fact that this country's authorities must be made aware of a foreign officer's presence on official duty in this country, I am worried about proposed new section 76A(6) because it will deny UK citizens any recourse to subject officers to civil liability proceedings if officers damage their person or property in any way while conducting surveillance in this country.
  Proposed new section 76A(8) is also a worry. It will allow a foreign officer five hours to engage in hot surveillance but it does not detail the point from which five hours is counted. The time period might be simple to calculate in countries with land borders because it would be self-evident when it started and the measure could be easily adhered to. However, we will have a different situation because the United Kingdom is an island. During the fifth day of the Grand Committee in another place, Lord Filkin said that the five-hour period begins when a foreign officer enters the United Kingdom via a port or airport or when a Eurostar train on which he is travelling leaves the tunnel and enters Kent. That definition is worrying because it ignores our internationally recognised territorial waters and airspace, which are part of the United Kingdom.
  I am not embarking on a far-fetched flight of fancy for the sake of controversy or to find a point for argument because we know that many drugs are smuggled into the

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  country by boats, which often masquerade as fishing boats. It is conceivable that officers could conduct surveillance on suspected drug smugglers in our territorial waters yet the five-hour period would not have started while they were sitting off the shore of Dover or Sussex or wherever they may be. I hope that the Minister will understand that we have a genuine concern to which the Government should respond accordingly in Committee.
  The other issue relating to surveillance involves firearms. The matter of officers on hot surveillance carrying firearms is missing from the Bill. Again, Lord Filkin assured his colleagues in the other place that, under article 40 of the Schengen convention, there are provisions to prevent foreign police from carrying weapons in this country. In no way do I dispute that those exist, but I would welcome it being in the Bill that just as British officers cannot normally carry firearms when carrying out such duties, nor should any foreign officer who comes here on surveillance.
  The Minister used the terms "urgent" or "in emergency situations". In such circumstances, there could be issues involving a foreign police officer finding it difficult to know what to do with the gun that he carries while going about his normal duties. We need to address that more clearly to ensure that foreign officers are required to dispose of their guns before entering the UK.
  Mr. Bercow: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for giving way, for my beady eye has also focused on clause 82. Given that the principle that ought properly to apply is surely that, be the officer ever so high, the law is above him, can my hon. Friend possibly fathom the rationale for including in clause 82 in the first instance proposed new section 76A(6)?
  Mr. Paice: My hon. Friend has a perceptive and, indeed, inquisitive approach to such matters, and I am sure that he can work out in his own mind what might have given rise to the proposal on civil liability. I do not know the answer and, as he will be aware from what I know will have been his careful studies of what went on in the other place, my noble Friend Baroness Anelay spent a lot of time trying to uncover whatever it may be, but the Government were very reticent. I shall not attribute any nefarious reasons to them for having been so, but we will certainly explore the matter in Committee. If my hon. Friend wishes to join us, I am sure that he will be expert in probing the Government as to why—[Interruption.] I hasten to assure the Minister that that is a perfectly genuine invitation.
  Chapters 3 and 4 of this part of the Bill are, in the main, very sensible, but there is one issue of concern, which relates to speciality and, in particular, areas of banking. The legal processes of searching for evidence can differ between the UK and another participating country, resulting in what might be construed as fishing expeditions for evidence. While it is perhaps reasonable to expect a large banking organisation to be able to swallow the cost and time that could be involved with such expeditions, many smaller institutions cannot.
  Perhaps more important is the issue of what should be admissible in court and in subsequent proceedings. It is preferable that the Bill should permit only evidence
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  sought in direct relation to the offence for which a person has been arrested or is being investigated to be requested from a banking institution. We will want to pursue in Committee the importance of restricting fishing expeditions and, topically, the links to the welcome changes made only last week when the Extradition Bill, in which the two issues come together, was considered on Report.
  Part 2 relates to terrorism and will extend jurisdiction under article 9 of the framework directive. We welcome those measures, particularly the ones that will extend the freezing of terrorist assets. They are necessary, but that should not obscure the fact that they also represent swingeing new powers, which we need to examine in detail. Further explanation of them is required. Will the Minister confirm that, as those measures are derived from the framework directive, the extension of extraterritorial jurisdiction applies only to countries that are also signatories to that directive? We will, of course, support all measures to increase the protection of our citizens from terrorism and to detain and detect those who would commit it, but we need to be reassured that those measures are also being pursued by other signatories to the framework directive and that the reciprocal arrangements will be as thorough, genuine and robust as our own.
  That brings me to a wider issue involving the Bill. In the other place, my noble Friends repeatedly asked for a statement on the arrangements being put in place by other member states to implement the Schengen acquis and the convention on mutual assistance. Time and again, we have pursued legislation in the House that was alleged to be our duty as part of our EU membership only to find that some other countries made no such effort to comply with their obligations. Will the Minister agree to publish, before the Bill is considered in Committee, an assessment of the actions taken by all the other signatories so that, before we allow them to send police officers here on hot surveillance, we can be assured that ours can go there? My noble Friends pressed Ministers for such an assessment, but we have not yet had it. I hope that the Minister realises the importance of ensuring that one is published before the Committee sits.
  Information is dealt with in part 4, which introduces access to the Schengen information system. The Information Commissioner will be granted unprecedented powers to monitor and challenge data held in that system. In principle, sharing such information is bound to be right and it must help the fight against crime, but, as we are already finding with our own police national computer, any database is only as good as the quality and timeliness of the information put into it. We shall seek reassurances that the protocols for the use of that system applying to all countries are robust.
  I return to the issues raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Stone (Mr. Cash). What is not clear is how they relate to the other existing and fledgling EU law enforcement systems. We have Europol, which staggers on but is torn between those who want ever more centralised power and those who see the way forward as the successful joint investigation teams. As my hon. Friend said, some participants in the European judicial co-operation unit want it to become a European public prosecutor, so I repeat his question: will the

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  Government confirm their total and outright opposition to such a proposition? Of course, it would introduce the concept of a Napoleonic judicial system to Britain, which we have never had before.
  The Minister also referred to the provisions relating to traffic and driving offences, which, on the whole, are sensible and welcome. Two Members at least referred to them during interventions on the Minister. One might cynically say that, surprisingly in terms of legislation being considered by the House, the proposals address issues that really matter to ordinary people in the streets who have seen such problems arise. Understandably, when they see someone apparently escaping with little or no punishment for a serious offence, possibly including a fatality, they get very frustrated. We welcome those provisions, although I slightly share the implied doubts of the hon. Member for Meirionnydd Nant Conwy (Mr. Llwyd) on whether the theory will work in practice. Again, we shall want to address that in Committee.
  I refer to a concern brought to me by the Police Federation, which I think the Minister will understand. I go so far as to say that the right hon. Member for Southampton, Itchen (Mr. Denham) would have understood it more, given his much longer experience in dealing with ministerial matters. In passing, I should say that I regret that he is no longer on the Front Bench to deal with police issues. He served the House and the Government well in that capacity.
  Part 4 is far-reaching in the protections that it offers to foreign officers in terms of their liabilities when they are in this country carrying out hot pursuit, but we do not know for certain that those protections will be extended to our officers when they carry out similar operations in another participating country. We cannot with a clear conscience commit our police to a reciprocity agreement without knowing fully what the reciprocity will involve. We must consider the protection of our own police officers fulfilling their duties abroad. The Bill says a great deal about safeguards for foreign officers but very little about safeguards for our people, which is why I expressed the hope that the Government would publish their assessment of how the legislation is applied in other countries.
  We will not oppose the Bill, not least because the Government have already signed us up to many of its provisions through various European Union agreements. We will support it because we recognise that criminals and terrorists no longer operate solely in one country, as the Minister rightly reminded us. Crime has become global, and we need provisions to deal with it effectively. We will, however, challenge the Government on many elements of the Bill. Some were challenged in the other place and the Government did not respond to our satisfaction; in the case of others, we believe that further clarification or indeed tightening is required, not just to protect foreign police in the context of hot surveillance but, more important, to protect our own citizens.
  The Bill will not prompt headlines in any newspapers, notwithstanding current events, but it will go a long way towards dealing with the problems of crime across international barriers, and we therefore welcome the principles behind it. A number of issues remain to be debated, but we will debate them in Committee.
  1.31 pm
  Mr. David Heath: We broadly support the Bill, and will not oppose its Second Reading. Anyone who brings sense to the debate must realise that the maximum co-operation between police across national boundaries, and between judicial systems, will benefit us when we are dealing with terrorist offences and international crime—along with, of course, the resources and policing that must accompany such co-operation. Many of us are still very worried about the integrity of some of our policing systems as they apply to ports of entry and airports.
  I think it fair to say that the Government seem to be adopting a piecemeal approach. Bits of legislation dribble through the system, dealing with various aspects. We would benefit from more co-ordination. I do not have a problem with one aspect, however. I am glad that the hon. Member for South-East Cambridgeshire (Mr. Paice) did not suggest that it was a problem, although it was a recurrent theme in another place. I refer to the Government's power to enter into treaty arrangements with other countries. That, of course, is what being a Government is about—but it does not absolve this House, this Parliament, from the duty, and indeed the right, to scrutinise what has been agreed and if necessary to reject it.
  However beneficial co-operation between states on policing matters and judicial systems may be, three essential tests must qualify it. The first relates to our national security and the integrity of our policing system. Our accession to the Schengen arrangements is partial, as is confirmed by the treaty of Amsterdam: we still have an opt-out, if that is the correct term, from free movement across our national frontiers. We need to be persuaded that the integrity of our security information will not be compromised in a way that might put us at additional risk.
  The second test is the recognition that different judicial systems and jurisprudences operate across the European Union and beyond. The hon. Member for South-East Cambridgeshire referred to the Code Napoléon, on which much European law is based. We have differences of jurisprudence within our own country as well, of course, in that there is a difference between the law of England and Wales and that of Scotland.
  I feel that if we start from a basis of respect for different legal systems, while recognising that they cannot easily be absorbed into a single amorphous system, we start from a healthier basis than the assumption that there is any such thing as true harmonisation of widely differing legal systems. That is, I think, recognised in the Bill, but it needs to be recognised in the House as well. Many of us do not want English and Welsh common law to be eroded in the process, while at the same time recognising the quality of other systems of jurisdiction.
  The same applies to policing. There are different methods of policing. Most European countries have a form of gendarmerie which we do not have. We should respect such differences, and treat them as differences in approach but not necessarily in quality.
  Mr. Mark Francois: The hon. Gentleman is, like me, a veteran of the Criminal Justice Bill, which

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  is still making its way through Parliament. He has mentioned the importance of maintaining English common law. Will the Liberal Democrats hold true to that in their reaction to whatever finally emerges from the European Convention's examination of the proposed new constitution?
  Mr. Heath: I do not think that there are any proposals to abolish English common law. We shall deal with hypotheticals when we reach them, rather than preempting discussion.
  The third test is defence of the liberties of the individual. Parts of the Bill concern intrusion, lack of remedy and inappropriate use of information. We must be on our guard against those. In the other place, my noble Friend Lord Dholakia said that
  "any threats to the fundamental right to privacy must be legitimate, proportionate and necessary".—[Official Report, House of Lords, 2 December 2002; Vol. 641, c. 984.]
  Most of us would agree.
  What we must not do is adopt an approach coloured by any xenophobic insistence on the inadequacies of all systems except ours. We should recognise the enormous mutual interest in arrangements of this kind to secure as effective a policing and judicial system as possible. Such a system needs to be based on reciprocity and respect for other legal systems.
  Like the hon. Member for South-East Cambridgeshire, I am worried about what may happen if the Bill's provisions extend well beyond EU countries with which we have familiar relationships to countries whose jurisdictions are wildly different. We should be careful about that. The most likely candidate is the United States, with which we have many dealings and which is, I understand, the source of most extraditions—or, at least, the source of more than any other country with which we have dealings.
  Whatever respect we have for the Americans and their system of government, we must accept that their jurisdiction is different from ours in many respects. The situation is complicated by the fact that we are not dealing with a single jurisdiction: because the United States is a federal nation, we are dealing with 50 jurisdictions, which differ among themselves. One reason for my concern is that only yesterday a new extradition treaty and asset-sharing agreement was signed by the Home Secretary and the US, bringing procedures between the UK and the US more in line with extradition arrangements with European countries. I do not necessarily decry that, but the House should be aware of its happening and of the possibility of problems of interpretation arising between jurisdictions and the non-transportability of judicial concepts between the United States—particularly, some states in the US—and this country. We will not debate a Bill on the treaty agreement in the same form as the provisions before us today and that worries me, because it will have as many consequences for our citizens as anything produced by the EU.
  Mr. Cash: Would the hon. Gentleman extrapolate on his comments about jurisdictions in respect of countries within the European Union or the accession countries?
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  Does he agree that significant differences exist between our judicial system and that of almost all other countries in Europe, which presents a serious difficulty for these proposals?
  Mr. Heath: With due respect to the hon. Gentleman, I have just said that. However, we share a common European standpoint in being signatories to the European convention on human rights and we are also co-signatories to the Council of Europe convention. We therefore start on a basis of similar safeguards, which is not the case with countries outside the European family. We should understand the importance of that difference.
  Turning to the specifics of the Bill, part 1 deals with mutual assistance in criminal matters in the service of process, covering requests for assistance both from abroad to us and from the United Kingdom to other countries. I hope to be assisted in further consideration of the Bill by my hon. Friend the Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr. Carmichael), who has the distinction of being the only Member who has, in his previous role in the Scottish legal system, drafted letters of request to overseas authorities. It would be valuable to reflect on the changes that apply in that respect.
  Part 1 also deals with the freezing of orders, and questions need to be asked about issues of dual criminality—already dealt with in other legislation—particularly whether requests will have adequate judicial scrutiny, rather than simply administrative scrutiny, which would be a retrograde step. For example, should this country accept a request for evidence that would not be admissible in the British system, but might be admissible under a different legal system? Would such a process be acceptable? What safeguards would apply to the defence in respect of access to information provided in that way? Also, what safeguards would apply in respect of requiring direct relevance to a judicial procedure of any evidence requested? Those are all questions that we should reflect on carefully when we address these matters in Committee.
  The same applies to information about banking transactions and there is a real fear that fishing expeditions might be undertaken in the guise of these proposals. We must be careful to ensure the rights of our citizens in that respect, particularly that they have a right to privacy for their transactions unless they are directly related to the investigation of a criminal offence.
  Ms Debra Shipley: On the question of banking, does the hon. Gentleman agree that Operation Ore, which worked through credit cards, has had a shocking effect on the country? The response of the banking sector so far has been somewhat limited, but the Government now have an opportunity to require banks to do more to stop payments for pornography and other things pertaining to criminal offences.
  Mr. Heath: The hon. Lady makes an important point, though there is a fine line between requiring banks to assist in the investigation of criminal transactions and requiring them to do so in respect of matters that are not illegal but disapproved of. I would be careful to draw that line and make it clear that only specifically criminal behaviour should be covered. The National Criminal Intelligence Service has good systems for dealing with

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  financial transactions. The problem is that the system is overwhelmed by the information that it collects. The Government need to address the issue of resourcing. If we are to deal with requests not just from British investigating authorities, but from other European authorities, the ability to meet the demands placed on the system could be a serious problem that has to be overcome.
  The last section of part 1 deals with the transfer of UK prisoners to give evidence abroad. I do not share the view expressed earlier that that should not be subject to consent. We are talking about giving evidence rather than facing charges in another jurisdiction. I would go the other way and seek to ensure that the prisoner agreeing to such an arrangement does so on the basis of proper information and advice from legal representatives. That safeguard should apply.
  Mr. Llwyd: I am following the hon. Gentleman's argument carefully. Some jurisdictions in the European Union do not have a rule against self-incrimination. I wonder whether that should be taken into account and responded to at some stage.
  Mr. Heath: The hon. Gentleman, who has great experience in this area, makes a valid point and we should deal with that problem as we examine the Bill in greater detail.
  Part 2 deals with extra-territorial jurisdiction in respect of terrorism. That is welcome: we must have the capacity to deal with terrorist attacks on British Crown territories abroad, such as our diplomatic missions, and to deal with British subjects who commit acts of terrorism. I have no difficulty with that. In a spirit of inquiry, however, I ask whether the provisions would apply to British subjects currently incarcerated in Guantanamo bay. If they are not prisoners of war, they must surely be suspects of terrorist activity. When the Bill is passed, will a request be passed to the United States authorities to return those prisoners to face trial in the United Kingdom, instead of being incarcerated sine die as they are now?
  Simon Hughes: Through my hon. Friend, may I ask the Minister to respond to that specific point at the end of the debate? Hon. Members have made various attempts on behalf of their constituents who are incarcerated in Guantanamo bay. It would be helpful to know what representations the Government have made, are making and will make in the near future when the Bill is passed.
  Mr. Heath: I agree with my hon. Friend and I look forward to hearing the Minister's response.
  Part 3 deals with the convention on driving disqualification. Mutual recognition of driving qualifications is long overdue, but some questions of detail still need to be asked. First, the Government have gradually introduced the concept of using disqualification from driving as a sanction for non-driving offences. I am not sure how that would fit within the legislative framework, or whether similar legislation in other European countries could be difficult to translate into British law.
  I am concerned that a British driver convicted and disqualified abroad might not have the same opportunity as a British driver charged in a UK court to
  816
  put arguments about the threat that disqualification would pose to his or her livelihood. British lorry drivers convicted of minor offences might be punished by disqualification, which could have a disastrous effect on their ability to earn their living and maintain their livelihood in the UK and abroad. That is simply a concern—I am not sure how it could be addressed.
  It is astonishing that mutual recognition of driving disqualifications does not exist within the UK. It is extraordinary that disqualifying a person in Northern Ireland has no resonance on the mainland of Great Britain, and vice versa. The same is true for the Channel Islands, the Isle of Man and Gibraltar. Will the Minister say whether our recognition of disqualification in Gibraltar will be matched by the Spanish Government's recognition of qualification in Gibraltar? The longstanding disagreement between the British and Spanish Governments about the recognition of Gibraltarian driving licences needs to be addressed. If that is not achieved by the mutual recognition provisions in the Bill, it is hard to see the point of trying to recognise mutual qualifications across the EU.
  Two major elements of the Bill are dealt with in part 4. I have no problem with Britain entering the Schengen information system. I can see all sorts of advantages in that, and I welcome the enhanced role of the Information Commissioner. However, I worry that that massive information system is only as good as the data that are put into it, as the hon. Member for South-East Cambridgeshire said. At the last count two years ago, 49,000 terminals were already attached. Tens of thousands of people across Europe access the system. Thousands of people input information, and the capacity for information to be inputted that is incorrect or inappropriate is extraordinarily large. That concern needs to be addressed.
  My final point in connection with part 4 has to do with hot surveillance, which I consider to be rather a misnomer. I have heard much nonsense spoken about it. People have a vision of Inspector Clouseau bumbling around the Kent countryside doing all sorts of extraordinary things, but I am not filled with immediate alarm at the prospect of overseas police officers being able to engage in surveillance, as the period of time will be very limited and they will have no power of arrest or questioning and will not be able to carry firearms.
  However, I am concerned about the lack of remedy for UK citizens in the event of malpractice by such officers. I worry, too, about the operational difficulties that might arise. I can foresee all sorts of occasions when the intervention of an overseas police officer in a carefully planned operation on this side of the English channel might have disastrous consequences. It must be spelled out very clearly that notification at the earliest opportunity—ideally, in advance—should be the norm rather than the exception.
  There are serious difficulties about what happens at borders. For example, the carabiniere with the pistol in his holster is not excused immigration procedures or border controls in this country so, very unobtrusively, he will have to show his passport and hand in his gun while the person he is tailing skedaddles out of the other side of the airport or port. That is a serious problem to which I am not sure there is an easy answer.

  817
  I share the curiosity of the hon. Member for South-East Cambridgeshire about territorial waters, whether in connection with British-flagged ships or with a train in the channel tunnel. Will the Minister say precisely what is the situation in connection within our territorial waters, and what is our assumed territorial responsibility in respect of the Channel tunnel?
  Will the Minister further say whether she intends to reverse the amendment passed in another place to clause 82? Clause 82(4) now prohibits foreign police officers from stopping, questioning and searching a UK citizen within the UK. The Minister may consider that that was implicit in the Bill as originally drafted, but I believe that making it explicit is even more helpful. It certainly does not run counter to our treaty obligations.
  The interventions that I have taken mean that I have spoken for longer than I intended, but I consider this to be an important Bill that deserves the closest possible scrutiny by the House as it is capable of further improvement. Liberal Democrat Members want a Bill of this kind to pass through the House in the very near future, so that we can be assured of the best cooperation between our police and judicial systems and those of our neighbours and partners. We want to work with them to fight terrorism and international crime effectively.
  1.55 pm
  Mr. Mark Francois: I am pleased to be called to contribute to this afternoon's important debate. I begin by echoing the tribute paid by my hon. Friend the Member for South-East Cambridgeshire (Mr. Paice) to the right hon. Member for Southampton, Itchen (Mr. Denham). I did not agree with the reasons underlying the right hon. Gentleman's resignation, but he conducted himself honourably in the way that he left the Government. I should like to take this opportunity to acknowledge that, and to place on record my admiration for the right hon. Gentleman.
  I want to concentrate my remarks on part 4 of the Bill, which deals with miscellaneous provisions. Clauses 80 and 81 deal with data protection—a subject that may appear arcane to many observers. In all honesty, I cannot say that it is the talk of all the pubs in Rayleigh on a Friday night, but some potentially important questions still need to be asked on the matter, and I shall focus on them this afternoon.
  Ministers will be aware already that the law relating to data protection is fiendishly complicated. The framework domestic legislation is the Data Protection Act 1998, which is based on the EU data protection directive of 1995.
  It may assist Ministers if I explain that my own interest in this admittedly rarefied subject had its genesis when I introduced a ten-minute Bill last year on the effect on Members of Parliament of the Data Protection Act 1998. I looked at the effect of that legislation on MPs' pursuance of their duties, not least in respect of constituency casework that involved public bodies or private companies.
  I am pleased to say that the then Leader of the House, the right hon. Member for Livingston (Mr. Cook), subsequently brought forward a statutory instrument
  818
  rather snappily entitled the Data Protection (Processing of Sensitive Personal Data) (Elected Representatives) Order 2003. The order clarified the position of elected representatives, including Members of Parliament, who seek personal data at the request of constituents so as to carry out casework inquiries on those constituents' behalf. I shall refer to that order again later in my remarks.
  The experience of researching and preparing for my ten-minute Bill taught me just how complicated is the domestic and wider European law in this area, not least because of the potential interaction between any data protection legislation and the Human Rights Act 1998. That is why I am interested in how that potential interaction will affect this Bill.
  That is the background, so I shall now move to the details as to why I think that the interaction that I have described is important, and why I consider this Bill to have important implications for data protection law.
  Clause 81 offers potential access to the UK sections of the Schengen information system, the so-called SIS; the Europol information system, the so-called EIS; and the Customs information system, the so-called CIS. Those were all subsequently defined under clause 81(7) of the Bill. In that regard, the Bill specifically inserts a new provision after clause 54 of the Data Protection Act 1998 giving the Information Commissioner the power to inspect any personal data that is recorded in the UK element of those three systems. In order to do that, the Information Commissioner must provide written notice of the intention to inspect such personal data, unless, under clause 81(5),
  "the case is one of urgency."
  The Government have made much of that provision as a safeguard in their approach to the Bill. In fact, the Home Office's press release of 20 November 2002, entitled "New Bill to Boost EU Police Powers", stated that the Information Commissioner would be given
  "unprecedented powers to monitor and challenge"
  data held in the system, including the power to enter the premises where the database is kept.
  I wish to raise a number of specific points with the Minister about the practical applicability of that measure. First, can he confirm that all the information covered under clauses 80 and 81 will be classified as sensitive personal data for the purposes of the Data Protection Act? Under clause 2 of that Act, "sensitive personal data" specifically includes information concerning
  "the commission or alleged commission"—
  by a person "of any offence" or
  "any proceedings for any offence committed or alleged to have been committed"—
  by a person—
  "the disposal of such proceedings or the sentence of any court in such proceedings."
  If clauses 80 and 81 refer to sensitive personal data, which has additional safeguards under the 1998 Act, are Ministers fully reassured that the covering statement on the front of the Bill that its provisions are compatible with the European convention on human rights is completely accurate?
  Mr. Cash: My hon. Friend is pursuing an extremely important series of points. Is he aware that two years

  819
  ago the Schengen information system had 49,000 terminals? Given that, how does he think that it might be possible to guarantee total security, and does he agree that the Minister should address that when responding?
  Mr. Francois: My hon. Friend raises an interesting point. Under the Bill, the Information Commissioner—previously referred to as the data protection commissioner—has the right not only to inspect data that is stored on the UK elements of the three systems, but, at least theoretically, to inspect the physical systems on which the data is stored. In response to my hon. Friend's apposite point, the Information Commissioner will theoretically have the right, if he or she has the necessary resources, to physically inspect every one of those 49,000 terminals, because they form part of the system on which that data is held.
  The matter is fiendishly complicated, but I hope that Ministers will appreciate the tack that I am trying to take. For the safeguard to be effective, it is important that Ministers are fully reassured that there is no contradiction between clauses 80 and 81, the Data Protection Act 1998, the European convention on human rights and the Human Rights Act 1998, which flowed from the convention. If there were to be such a contradiction, we could end up in the absurd situation whereby when the Information Commissioner seeks access to sensitive personal data, as a safeguard, the European convention on human rights could be turned against the commissioner to prevent them from carrying out the safeguard power of which the Government made so much in their advocacy of the Bill. It might seem a complicated point, but anyone who has had any experience of data protection legislation and its practical implications will recognise that it is a matter that the Government need to double-check. We as a House would not want to end up in a situation whereby we passed the Bill into law, then found that subsequent jurisprudence meant that the safeguard that of which the Government have made so much was ineffective because the European convention on human rights was being used against it.
  Related to that point, will the Minister spell out what constitutes a case of urgency as outlined in clause 81(5)? How will a case of urgency be defined in practice? Can the Minister give some practical examples of the circumstances where such a provision might apply and where the Information Commissioner would therefore be able to gain access to personal data without first having to provide written notice in advance to the data controllers concerned?
  I promised the Minister that I would return to the statutory instrument of late last year that I mentioned in my initial remarks. To keep my word, may I ask him to outline how the Bill would be affected by it? For example, if a Member of Parliament were to be approached by a constituent who believed that they had been wrongly included on the UK element of one, or perhaps all three, of the databases, would the statutory instrument give the Member sufficient authority to pursue the matter on their constituent's behalf? My reading of the situation is that it would, but I should be grateful if the Minister, who may need to seek a little advice, could confirm that.
  Some of the most controversial elements of the Bill, at least to date, have centred on issues such as the hot pursuit of criminal and terrorist suspects across
  820
  international borders, and I do not resile from that proposition. However, on the well-established parliamentary principle that the devil is in the detail, I have sought to highlight what is admittedly a very particular aspect of the Bill where specific questions remain unanswered. Because the law is so fiendishly complicated in this area, I hope in all good faith that the Minister will take on board the points that I have striven to make and that he will address them in his response. If that is not possible today, I should be grateful if he could take the trouble to write to me. Then, perhaps, some of these matters will bear further examination by my colleagues when the Bill progresses into Committee.
  2.9 pm
  Mr. Robert Syms: It is a pleasure to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Rayleigh (Mr. Francois), who made some good points on data protection. My points will be more general. On the Conservative Benches, we broadly welcome this Bill, as, I think, do most other hon. Members. We all know that criminals have become extremely nimble, that a lot of their crime is offshore, and that they are good at playing jurisdiction against jurisdiction. Law enforcement agencies and Governments have to collaborate and co-operate a lot more to crack down on such people.
  A number of problems that affect our constituents have their genesis in international crime. On occasion, my constituency suffers from robberies from people's homes. Two thirds of persistent criminals have a drug habit. Drugs are trafficked internationally and we have never been good at cracking down on gangs and the proceeds of their crimes. The issue therefore affects our ordinary constituents, who have to put up with having their homes trashed by criminals. We have to take the battle to the gangs at an international as well as a national level.
  The migration of asylum seekers is a major problem. Many criminal gangs take advantage of people who are, unfortunately, in that situation. In 1975, the world had 75 million people who were migrating; in 1990, the figure was 120 million; and in 2000, the figure was 150 million. Many gangs that traffic in people go through a number of jurisdictions. We have had a number of horrible cases where people have been shut in the back of vehicles and have suffered an awful death. If we are to crack down on the migration of people, our measures have to have effect across jurisdictions.
  The world has become very difficult after the events of 9/11. The impact of terrorism reinforces the broad thrust and principles of the Bill. However, as my hon. Friend the Member for Rayleigh said, the devil is in the detail. I suspect that this is one of those Bills that the experts will have to go through line by line in Committee to work out the snags. Treasury Ministers are probably happy that a Bill such as this one should start in the House of Lords, because many of the experts at that end of the Palace can improve it—and no doubt they have improved it—to make Ministers' jobs somewhat easier.
  For this Bill to work, we have to be confident in the judicial and police systems of other countries. I hope that we can be confident in most of them, but events such as the planespotters incident in Greece undermine public confidence in reciprocal agreements. My hon. Friend the Member for South-East Cambridgeshire

  821
  (Mr. Paice) raised a number of important issues, touching on the list of countries that will be included and that will join in future. As the European Union expands to bring in countries from the former Soviet Union and perhaps Turkey, major difficulties will arise in reciprocal arrangements. The path will be difficult. As well as convincing ourselves of the benefits, we will have to convince many of our constituents.
  My hon. Friend the Member for Rayleigh mentioned the Schengen information system. If we are to opt into that system, we will have to be confident in it. We will also have to be confident in the quality of the inputs. In the other place, it was said that the Netherlands SIS can be accessed by 7,000 people, 500 of whom can alter data. If that were replicated throughout the EU—and in his intervention my hon. Friend the Member for Stone (Mr. Cash) mentioned 49,000 terminals—there would be a vast amount of information that would have to be controlled sensibly.
  Inaccurate information in systems can cause awful and difficult problems. Very recently, a British citizen in South Africa was, because of information given by the FBI, arrested by the South African authorities and put in jail. Systems have to have integrity because problems can be caused not only for an innocent citizen in one jurisdiction, but for people across a range of jurisdictions.
  Of course, there are restrictions in the information that can go on the SIS. One cannot include information about someone's racial origin, political opinions, beliefs, health or sexual life. To some extent, those restrictions have been put in as protections, but we know that there is a coincidence of terrorism and crime in the world today as many terrorist organisations use the proceeds of crime to support their activities. I therefore wonder about the benefits of the SIS in the crackdown on terrorism. If one cannot put down that someone is an Arab or a member of the Ba'ath party or whatever, even if they are engaged in smuggling or drug trafficking or whatever, the effectiveness of the system in attacking terrorism will be reduced.
  I welcome the general thrust of the argument on cracking down on fraud involving plastic cards. More could be done to look into the banking system and the amounts of cash balances there. However, I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for South-East Cambridgeshire that we have to be wary of fishing operations. It would be fairly easy for the Inland Revenue to fish through Spanish or French bank accounts looking for money belonging to people who may have worked in the middle east and repatriated the money to Spain or France rather than Britain. Issues arise here that we have to explore. I hope that the Committee will explore them.
  Hon. Members have rightly discussed the controversial issue of foreign police or customs officials being able to follow a potential suspect into UK jurisdiction for up to five hours. Legitimate questions have been asked about when the five hours start. As we heard earlier, the noble Lords heard from Lord Filkin that the time of entry at the port or airport, or when Eurostar comes out of the tunnel, is the time at which the
  822
  five hours start. There have been occasions when it has taken five hours to get off the train, so I am not sure that that is the best way to measure it.
  I am concerned about the civil liability of foreign police officers. If, when getting off a train from Europe, one was followed by a potentially shady person, one might wish to confront that person. If somebody from a law enforcement agency follows a British or foreign citizen into British territory, there is a risk of confrontation. I know that police officers try to keep surveillance at a distance, but I suspect that, if somebody was, in an emergency, trying to keep close to somebody who they believed was going to perpetrate a crime, there would be a risk of confrontation. If that confrontation takes place on British soil, and the unfortunate individual being followed is innocent and has been wrongly identified, there is a case for some kind of civil redress or liability. When there is a confrontation between a member of a foreign police force or agency that affects a citizen in the United Kingdom, there ought to be some means of compensation. That is only right and proper.
  We have heard about the problem of armed police officers in Europe. In an emergency, if such an officer—for whom it was normal to carry arms—was following somebody into this country, how do we check them? At airports and ports, will we have a designated officer who can, when somebody turns up with their warrant card or equivalent, secure the weapon so that the officer does not come armed into the British jurisdiction if the normal security systems have not picked up on the issue?
  The general issue of security at our ports and airports has arisen. The port of Poole in my constituency used to have a lot of full-time customs officers who knew the movements of people in and out of the port. Customs and Excise has now put many of those officers into mobile units because the focus of operations is to crack down on the smuggling of cigarettes and alcohol from the continent of Europe. Many officers therefore find themselves in Dover. We now hear that the few remaining officers in Poole are being pulled out. If we are serious about cracking down on international crime, we have to be serious about protecting the borders and boundaries of the United Kingdom.
  Many ports are unmanned and we need to reconsider that. Before his principled resignation, the right hon. Member for Southampton, Itchen (Mr. Denham) was the Minister with responsibility for homeland security. That important issue relates to the work of the transport police and Customs and immigration officials in many of our smaller ports. They cannot all be manned but there is no point in setting up all these international arrangements if we do not keep track of the people entering our ports, including Poole which is, after Bristol, the second biggest port in the south-west.
  Mr. Francois: The extent of cover at our ports is becoming ever more important, a point raised yesterday during our debate on the Railways and Transport Safety Bill by the hon. Member for Thurrock (Andrew Mackinlay), who has campaigned on the issue for some time. He criticised the Government for the lack of cover at smaller port facilities. This is a pregnant issue, which crops up again and again in the House.
  Mr. Syms: I agree with my hon. Friend. As has been pointed out, the Crime (International Co-operation)

  823
  Bill is part of a series of measures that need to be taken to provide proper security for our citizens. That involves the use of transport police and Customs officials in smaller ports and airports, as we discussed the other day. However, the Government have introduced measures piecemeal on a range of matters and it is difficult for Members suddenly to zoom in on a particular aspect when they cannot see the whole picture. I wish that I had greater confidence in the Government's ability to take an overview of the whole picture so that we could reassure our constituents that homeland security was higher on the political agenda.
  We are engaged in conflict in Iraq and the war on terrorism has been stepped up. We need more international agreements so that we can fight terrorism. After the events of 9/11, one of the first court cases was held in Germany and it was noticeable that many of those involved in those horrific events had travelled across several jurisdictions before reaching the United States. More co-operation is important but we must get the balance right. We must not forget the basic civil liberties of our citizens although many people might accept some modest diminution of those liberties if they felt that they would be better protected. The Bill is fine, but I hope that when the Committee considers it in detail, it will be further improved.
  2.23 pm
  Mr. Elfyn Llwyd: Like the hon. Member for Poole (Mr. Syms), we accept the thrust of the Bill, although some matters need to be ironed out in Committee. The speeches of the hon. Members for South-East Cambridgeshire (Mr. Paice), for Somerton and Frome (Mr. Heath) and for Rayleigh (Mr. Francois) have made my job easy. Although the speech of the hon. Member for Rayleigh was well argued, parts of it were above my head-that is nothing new.
  Many good general points have already been made. There is no doubt that we need better international cooperation to deal with large-scale crime. The greatest scourge is probably drug smuggling, which is one of the main cross-border crimes and possibly the main activity of large, serious gangs of organised criminals. It was estimated recently that two thirds of such gangs were involved in drug trafficking. Those international dealers feed the local markets, which, in their turn, lead to local misery. Drug smuggling often finances forms of terrorism, too, so it is equally important to consider it from that aspect.
  I echo other speeches: we must strike a balance between the needs of the state and the rights of individuals. I am indebted to Justice and Liberty for the briefings that they have provided. Justice has expressed concern that the Bill does not include sufficient procedural safeguards and that it fails
  "to address the rights of the defence."
  I am sure that those matters will be dealt with in Committee. They are important because the new law must have full confidence across the board if it is to be effective.
  I shall not speak at length about each part of the Bill, but I want to refer to chapter 2 of part 1.
  Mr. Cash: In addition to the statements from Justice cited by the hon. Gentleman, does he agree that we are
  824
  getting into deeper and deeper difficulties over such things as the European arrest warrant and the European public prosecutor, to which I referred earlier? There is a monumental shift in the centre of gravity of our criminal justice system.
  Mr. Llwyd: Although the hon. Gentleman and I take a different stand on European co-operation, he makes a valid and important point. In an earlier intervention, I pointed out that a witness might be requested to appear in the jurisdiction of countries that did not have rules against self-incrimination. That is an extremely important point. As the hon. Member for Somerton and Frome said, there must be some form of mutual understanding that countries are signatories to the European convention on human rights. That would offer some safeguard, but the hon. Member for Stone (Mr. Cash) makes a forceful point.
  I was referring to chapter 2 and the mutual provision of evidence. The procedures for considering and giving effect to freezing orders are dealt with in clauses 10 and 20. However, defence rights must be protected in cases of international mutual assistance, especially in the light of the complex nature of such proceedings. For example, clause 19 makes no reference to the use that may be made of seized evidence once it has been sent to the court or the authority requesting assistance. Other Members have referred to the need to avoid international fishing expeditions—although if we were dealing with the European Community there would not be much fishing. The measure should specify that evidence seized under the terms of the legislation may be used only for the purposes set out in the original request for assistance, unless the territorial authority expressly consents to it being used in specified further investigations.
  Those points of detail will be dealt with in Committee, but I want to raise another matter of considerable concern. Overseas freezing orders should be restricted to a judicial authority in the country that has the power to make such orders. Many of us feel that the Bill should state that implicitly. Concern has been expressed about requests for information about banking transactions for use in the UK. The Bill would allow prosecuting authorities to make requests for such assistance directly, without requesting UK judicial authority. Given our traditions, that is worrying.
  It appears that it will be left to member states to determine judicial authority, with the possibility that a police authority could be designated competent to issue freezing orders, which would then have to be recognised and enforced in all other member states. On the scope of the freezing order and its relationship with the European arrest warrant, the Minister in the other place, Lord Filkin, said on 11 February that it showed how wide-ranging and invasive such orders might be, as they would be made without notice being given to the persons affected. It is considered essential that the recognition and enforcement of such orders should be conditional on their having been made or approved by a judge or other judicial officer in the issuing state, as is the case with the European arrest warrant, which must be "a court decision".
  Mr. Cash: I am sorry to invade the hon. Gentleman's speech yet again, but the European Scrutiny Committee

  825
  looked into what a judicial officer or a judicial authority would imply, and we remain deeply concerned about the disparities between the nature of the judicial process in this country and in the other countries within the EU. Therefore the valid point that the hon. Gentleman makes is extremely relevant to the Bill and it obviously needs to be looked into in Committee.
  Mr. Llwyd: The hon. Gentleman makes his point forcefully and clearly, and reinforces what I am attempting to say, but it is all the more important that there should be a minimum level of judicial oversight of the original order. I believe that there should also be a limited right of appeal. Without a minimum safeguard of judicial involvement, and oversight of the making of orders in the issuing state, this whole system may be brought swiftly into disrepute. I hope that I am wrong, but no doubt these matters will be dealt with in Committee.
  I refer the House briefly to the issue of transfer of prisoners. The hon. Member for Leominster (Mr. Wiggin) said in an intervention that seeking consent from a prisoner was pushing it a bit. I must say, with great respect to the hon. Gentleman, that that is a little nonsensical. What is the point of dragging a hostile witness to the continent by the hair, for him to refuse to give evidence or to make it up on the spot? That intervention bears little scrutiny.
  Chapter 5 deals with that matter, and clause 47 relates to the transfer of a UK prisoner to assist an investigation abroad. In order for a warrant to be issued, written consent must be obtained from the prisoner, or
  "a person appearing to the Secretary of State to be an appropriate person to act on the prisoner's behalf"
  where the prisoner cannot act for himself by reason of physical or mental condition or youth. Such consent cannot be withdrawn after the issue of the warrant.
  Justice points out that it is important that prisoners be advised fully of what they may be getting themselves into, and have access to legal advice on the exercise of those rights according to the law of the country in question; that is important because many people are unaware of laws in this country, let alone in other countries that the prisoner might be taken to. That is not to say that the idea is wrong; the idea is perfectly valid and right. I am just sounding one or two warnings that could be addressed in Committee to ensure that things proceed as they should. However, the transfer of a prisoner could have a significant impact on the exercise of that person's fundamental rights, so it is important that this advice is available, particularly given the irrevocable nature of the consent.
  With regard to foreign police officers acting in the UK, Lord Filkin said in another place that there was no way of knowing how long the foreign police officer had been in the country and it would be necessary to rely on other forces observing the rules. He also said that, in the vast majority of cases where a foreign police force wanted to follow a criminal to Britain, they would have time to contact local police to set up a joint operation.
  Mr. Cash: I am sorry to intervene yet again, but it gives me an opportunity to bounce off the hon.
  826
  Gentleman to the Minister. Does he agree that there is a practical problem with regard to foreign officers? If they do not speak English, are we sure that a translation service—which will, of course, cost a vast amount of money—will be available? Does the hon. Gentleman agree that, otherwise, we shall get into quite a complicated position?
  Mr. Llwyd: The hon. Gentleman makes a valid point, which I am sure will be dealt with in due course. However, I understand that there is fairly easy access of information between European mainland police forces and UK police forces at present. The hon. Gentleman is right in terms of hot—or is it warm?—pursuit.
  Mr. Heath: Not hot.
  Mr. Llwyd: I am told that it is not hot; perhaps warmish—
  Mr. Nick Hawkins: Surveillance.
  Mr. Llwyd: Surveillance is the word.
  The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. Bob Ainsworth): Tepid.
  Mr. Llwyd: In the heat of a tepid surveillance, it will be impossible to translate on the spot, but—
  Mr. Cash: Even with the Welsh?
  Mr. Llwyd: Even with the Welsh, as the hon. Gentleman says. We are a bilingual country and proud of it.
  There is quite an important point to be made. I am not denigrating police forces in other European states; this is not meant to be a second-hand insult. The UK has very disciplined police forces, who adhere closely to the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984; indeed, if they do not, anything that they discover falls flat and is not used in a court of law, or is used to little effect. We need to ensure that officers have a basic understanding of what is expected of them when on surveillance in the UK. However, there may be cases involving investigations into serious international criminals, where such surveillance will be necessary. Clause 82 refers to the conditions under which surveillance may be lawfully carried out, but does not set out those conditions, leaving them to be specified in an order by the Secretary of State. I hope that in Committee it will be possible to give some indication of those conditions, because they appear to be important. I am sure that when the Minister responds he will at least refer to the matter.
  The explanatory notes state that it is intended that the first of the orders will apply to the conditions set out in article 40(2) and (3) of the Schengen convention, which the clause is designed to implement. Given that the imposition of conditions on the conduct of foreign officers who operate in the UK is a crucial safeguard to the rights of individuals in the UK and that these matters will be dealt with fairly swiftly, I do not intend to delay the House much longer.

  827
  The hon. Members for South-East Cambridgeshire and for Somerton and Frome mentioned civil immunity. That is a very worrying matter. I do not understand the raison d'être for this civil immunity and I hope that the Minister will clarify the matter. Clause 82(6) makes no reference to the reason for it. I am not anti-French in any shape or form—never have been and never will be. I do not sign up to the anti-French rhetoric in the light of the current Iraqi situation either. The hon. Member for Somerton and Frome mentioned Inspector Clouseau. God forbid that a latter-day Clouseau should wreak havoc throughout England, Wales and Scotland, and should wreak havoc with impunity.
  2.39 pm
  Mr. William Cash: The Bill is clearly important, but it is also controversial—perhaps more so than has been illustrated so far from some quarters of the House—and I should like to draw attention to a number of the matters that need to be considered.
  In concluding his speech on Second Reading in the House of Lords, Lord Filkin commented on the fact that the European agreements that lie behind the Bill have been through the scrutiny process in both Houses. In respect of the House of Commons European Scrutiny Committee—this is important—he went on to say:
  "No doubt, it will have much to say about our proposals for implementing these measures."—[Official Report, House of Lords, 2 December 2002; Vol. 641, c. 975.]
  Important considerations lie at the heart of these proposals, and I am aware of the fact that the Government have a substantial majority. I am also aware of the fact that we introduced some constructive proposals in the other place, and I pay tribute to Baroness Anelay for securing the adjustments that the Government have, I think, now accepted with regard to the surveillance procedures. She also suggested that perhaps some of the measures in the Bill should be subjected to a sunset provision, especially the Henry VIII clause—I think that it is now clause 92, to which I shall come later. That subject is causing increasing concern in both Houses of Parliament because of the broad nature of the method of procedure being used.
  The matter that concerns me relates, in part, to what is going on in the European Convention with regard to the Schengen arrangement. I suggested to the Secretary of State for Wales, who is the lead Minister in the Convention, that perhaps the Government were engaging in what I euphemistically described as some light footwork. When I get into the application of the Schengen arrangement to the Bill, the House may understand what I am driving at: we and the Irish have an opt-out from Schengen.
  In her speech on Second Reading in the other place, Baroness Anelay asked the Minister to what extent we were treading towards the full Schengen arrangement through the back door. There is some concern that the Government are, in fact, taking us into the full Schengen arrangement by a series of grandmother's footsteps. When I cross-examined the Secretary of State for Wales, he assured me that we would not seek new opt-outs, but he did not say that we would necessarily retain our existing opt-outs.
  I should like the Minister to deal with those concerns when he replies, as there is some anxiety among those who are attending the Convention that the Government
  828
  are not being as candid about that matter as one would expect. After all, the Bill will be subjected ultimately to the future application of what emerges from the treaty that implements the Convention. It is important for us to know exactly where the Government stand in relation to the whole Schengen agreement in so far as they are already engaged in policy making at the highest level in the Convention.
  Having made that general point, I wish to refer to the Bill, as explained by Lord Filkin, whom I had the pleasure of cross-examining on criminal justice matters in the European Scrutiny Committee. He rightly says:
  "International crime affects us all. Greater freedom to travel and live in other countries and the growth of international trade mean that crime is no longer confined by national boundaries."
  That is true, but the words "no longer" seem to be slightly extraordinary, as they suggest that, somehow or other, proposals of the kind now being adumbrated are a novelty. No, the reality is that international crime has been with us for a very long time.
  Anyone who has read Sherlock Holmes or any of the great detective writers of the 19th century, let alone those of the 17th or 18th centuries or before, will know that the problem of international crime has applied since in the middle ages. However, I am prepared to concede that modern technology has changed the nature of international crime. I understand the need for greater co-operation, particularly in respect of terrorism, but that is not to say that I necessarily agree with the idea of international co-ordination. The distinction is important.
  It is perfectly true to say, as Lord Filkin put it, that
  "The Schengen arrangements provide a clear framework for effective co-operation, especially for cross-border police operations. The UK first applied to participate in the police and judicial co-operation elements of Schengen in May 1999. Our application was accepted a year later"—[Official Report, House of Lords, 2 December 2002; Vol. 641, c. 971–72.]
  The point that I am making is that he uses the expression "co-operation", but I would be rather inclined to suggest that we should refer to co-ordination, instead of co-operation, in the context of the Bill.
  Mr. Greg Knight: Co-operation on terrorism is one thing, but what justification is there to implement driving disqualifications in this country on UK citizens who have been disqualified overseas, particularly if the length of disqualification overseas would be widely regarded here as disproportionate to the offence committed? My hon. Friend spoke about grandmother's footsteps; is it not more like athlete's footsteps?
  Mr. Cash: I hope that it is not a case of athlete's foot. All I can say is that there are disparities in driving disqualifications in the different jurisdictions, and one of the biggest problems that we face in relation to this perpetual stream, this tidal wave of determination to harmonise our legislation, including criminal law, in the European context, is that we constantly come up against the problems of differences in principle, procedures and judicial method. There are even differences in the kind of people who are engaged in the process of judicial authority, as was mentioned in my exchanges with the hon. Member for Meirionnydd Nant Conwy (Mr. Llwyd).

  829
  Indeed, in the European Scrutiny Committee only last week, we heard from two witnesses, one of whom came from Statewatch and the other from Fair Trials Abroad—not people whose evidence one would normally associate with Conservative Members. The Chairman of the Committee asked one of those gentlemen whether he would repeat a specific point in case he wanted to correct it. He said—I slightly paraphrase because, unfortunately, I do not have an encyclopaedic memory, but it will do for the purpose—that, to his certain knowledge, there are junior judges in a number of European Union countries who are xenophobic in their attitude to foreign offenders.
  Even I was slightly taken aback by the tenacity with which he held that view. He was quite emphatic. If that is the judgment of an extremely dedicated person who comes from what can only be described as the liberal left, we should take account of his view in our consideration of any provisions that deal with the interweaving of the criminal system. Questions will ultimately be decided by judges—at least, we trust that they will be proper judges—and the very thought that they might be xenophobic is a matter of grave concern. No doubt, the proceedings of that public hearing will be published shortly and these statements can be verified.
  I am deeply concerned by the ethos that lies at the heart of some of these proposals, however much we may want to achieve the general objectives. For example, Lord Filkin referred to drug smuggling, and we want to be sure that we can avoid that and the drug trafficking that goes with it. As he said:
  "Other cross-border crimes have an impact on society more widely—such as counterfeiting, money laundering and cigarette smuggling. People trafficking is on the increase: 21,800 illegal entrants were detected in the first nine months of 2000 compared with 16,000 in 1999.
  The best way to tackle international crime is to work closely with our neighbours."
  That is an exceptionally good point. The question is how we do that and whether the Bill is the best vehicle. He added:
  "The Netherlands and Spain are both significant bases for the secondary distribution of drugs within the EU, including to the UK. We are already working with our EU partners."
  He then provided several examples.
  Lord Filkin then moved on to the question of the Schengen arrangements. He said:
  "The Bill will make the changes needed to enable the UK to participate in the non-border aspects of the Schengen Convention."
  I understand what he means. That is the aspiration, but he used the word "needed". Is the Bill absolutely necessary to achieve the objectives that we all want achieved, which is to ensure that effective action can be taken to deal with cross-border problems? Is the prescriptive system provided for by the Schengen agreement, which we opted out of and into which we are now being filtered, the appropriate way forward? The debate in the other place and the speech of my hon. Friend the Member for South-East Cambridgeshire (Mr. Paice) made it clear that the general thrust of the objectives is to prevent international crime as far as possible, and I do not disagree with that. I ask the
  830
  question in the context of the direction in which the convention is going. Given the articles in the convention, we may find that we are being screwed down to the table to the point at which we may find that the whole Schengen operation applies to us as it does to others.
  Lord Filkin made a further point in his interesting Second Reading speech. He said:
  "The question of UK participation in Schengen"—
  this is an understatement—
  "has been of considerable interest to your Lordships' House."
  Indeed, it has. It has also been of considerable interest to this House. I have the honour of assuring Lord Filkin of that.
  Lord Filkin then referred to the four separate reports in the Schengen acquis that were conducted under the aegis of Lord Wallace of Saltaire and a committee of the European Union. Lord Filkin made it clear that the four reports dealt with
  "incorporation into the EU treaty structure and the UK's intentions towards Schengen".
  He notes that
  "a report published in March 1999—just before the Government made our formal application to participate in Schengen —concluded that:
  'if the United Kingdom does not opt-in, its influence over a broad range of Justice and Home Affairs matters may be seriously diminished … Weaker United Kingdom influence over the development of European policies will mean that such policies will reflect the preferences of others, and fail to take into account particular United Kingdom concerns'."—[Official Report, House of Lords, 2 December 2002; Vol. 641, c. 971–72.]
  We have heard that argument over and over again. We will be better off if we are in the club because that is the framework within which its members are working and we will be able to influence what is going on. I do not know whether Members present had the benefit of seeing Mr. Evan Davies—not a notable Eurosceptic—talking on BBC2 about the euro and what is going on elsewhere within the EU. He mentioned the principle that participation equals influence equals benefit, but the short answer is that there is no evidence with regard to that matter or to this—apart from maintaining the merits of a proper degree of co-operation, with which I entirely concur—that that principle is necessarily the right approach.
  I remember talking to the then Home Secretary, now Lord Waddington, at the time that we took our opt-out from Schengen. We did not become as enmeshed in Schengen as we now appear to be precisely because we thought it impolitic to become so for a range of reasons. They have been discussed as a side wind to this debate, and they include the worries on data protection to which my hon. Friend the Member for Rayleigh (Mr. Francois) referred and the points on the judicial process made by the hon. Member for Meirionnydd Nant Conwy. I apologise if I have not pronounced the name of his constituency fluently. We heard similar remarks from other hon. Members.
  There is deep concern about whether the principle that we somehow benefit from participation is a good one. I fear that it is not. In passing, I suggest that the common foreign and security policy is an extremely good example of a common foreign and security policy that is neither common, foreign nor secure. In all these

  831
  matters, we need to look to our own interests, and that is in no way to criticise the objective of trying to achieve co-operation. I am simply asking several useful questions about the efficacy of the procedure that is being followed.
  Lord Filkin added:
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. The hon. Gentleman should realise that the usual procedure in the House is that quotations should be brief. I cannot allow him to quote huge amounts from speeches made in the other place. It is a clear rule that quotations must be brief.
  Mr. Cash: I am grateful to you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, for reminding me of that pearl of wisdom. I shall certainly follow your ruling. However, that is not to say that it is not within my remit to paraphrase whatever has been said. It is important to be accurate about what Lord Filkin said—
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. The hon. Gentleman must not test the patience of the Chair. If Lord Filkin has made a speech in the other place, it is on the record for the benefit of all Members of this House, and the hon. Gentleman would be out of order if he proceeded to quote it at great length.
  Mr. Cash: As this hon. Gentleman has not the slightest intention of being out of order, he will take the advice of the Chair in good part.
  It is, however, important that we acknowledge that important questions of principle lie at the heart of these proposals. Part 2 deals with terrorism, and we must recognise that terrorists do not respect national boundaries. However, we are not talking about national boundaries only in the EU; the principle applies to terrorists wherever they come from. We know perfectly well that there is a greater likelihood that terrorists will come from countries in the middle east, for example, than from the EU.
  I raise these matters in connection with our national security. This Bill is described as the Crime (International Co-operation) Bill, and it is a matter of concern that too much emphasis is placed on the question of whether we can contain terrorism that emanates from the EU, which has the underlying problem of Schengen attached to it, or whether we should look more broadly at international co-operation. We must be satisfied that proper safeguards in the judicial and criminal system are made available for the benefit of our own people and, indeed, to other persons suspected of terrorist offences who are subjected to our judicial process, where they know that they will be properly and fairly treated.
  For heaven's sake, we have enough examples of cases that have gone as far as the House of Lords, costing millions of pounds in the process. I suspect that the people concerned would have got short shrift in many other countries, but they have, properly, benefited from the manner in which our judicial process protects their rights even though some people, including the Home Secretary and other Members of this House, believe that article 3 will need to be revised by the House.
  Mr. Greg Knight: Is not one of the problems with the Bill the fact that it does not allow the English judiciary
  832
  sufficient flexibility to examine, and perhaps to substitute, what we would deem a fairer sentence? I think in particular of the example that I gave my hon. Friend earlier—that of disqualification from driving. It appears from clauses 57 and 58 that English courts will not have the discretion to substitute a shorter period of disqualification. Is not that a weakness of the Bill?
  Mr. Cash: I entirely agree. Part 3, which deals with driving disqualifications, is based on the proposition that people who commit a driving offence for which they are disqualified while abroad should not be able to escape disqualification when they return home to their usual state of residence. However, any such proposition is dependent on what the penalties are, on the manner in which they are enforced and on who enforces them.
  The EU convention on driving disqualifications is intended to promote the principle that drivers should abide by the rules of the road no matter where they are driving, thereby promoting greater safety throughout the EU. However, I make the same point about countries that are not in the EU. I am not entirely convinced, for example, that if a tourist from America, India or Tibet comes here, hires a car and drives badly, he should be treated differently from that breed of drivers who come within the remit of the EU convention. We have to recognise that people are people, whatever part of the world they come from; there is not a special breed of people who come from the European Union.
  Mr. Knight: As I understand it, in some jurisdictions one can lose one's driving licence for committing a criminal offence that has nothing whatsoever to do with motoring.
  Mr. Cash: I sincerely hope that that fate does not befall me because nothing would be worse than being barred from driving for committing an offence in France, for example. That would be intolerable.
  The question of the Henry VIII clauses, which arises in relation to clause 92 in particular, concerns me a great deal. The hon. Member for Somerton and Frome (Mr. Heath), as I can see from the expression on his face, anticipates what I am about to say. Such clauses crop up in far too many Bills. I described the European Representation Bill, which was introduced in the name of the Lord Chancellor, as having more of a Cardinal Wolsey clause than a Henry VIII clause. No doubt such measures are intended to try to reduce the range and extent of primary legislation, but we are already subjected to a considerable number of what are being described as knives, guillotines and programme motions. On top of that, we find that the draconian arrangements in clause 92 make this important Bill much more complicated, and much less democratic, because it can be amended by resolutions of the House, by regulation and by order.
  I believe that I am right in saying that some adjustments were made to the Bill in the other place, and that the affirmative resolution was applied to some of the provisions, although the annulment procedure was retained for others. That is not to say that taking measures by order is not an increasingly unsatisfactory way of legislating, particularly where one is dealing with

  833
  questions of this kind. Because of judicial co-operation, the extent and range of criminal law in the EU is gaining ground exponentially.
  Last week, or the week before, in cross-examining a Minister, I asked about the introduction of qualified majority voting in that context, because our criminal law system is being seriously invaded, and the Bill is an example of that. The mechanisms that it provides for dealing with criminal matters, including drug trafficking and all the other things that we abhor, are being driven forward in the Convention on the Future of Europe to the point at which there will be a significant, if not complete, reduction in the ability of national Parliaments—
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. In his well-known enthusiasm for this subject matter, the hon. Gentleman is departing too far into the general rather than dealing with the particular. We are on Second Reading of the Bill.
  Mr. Cash: I accept that, Mr. Deputy Speaker. It was a temptation that I could not avoid, but I shall ensure that it does not recur.
  Mr. Knight: I assume that my hon. Friend is about to address clause 29, which allows witnesses to give evidence abroad through television links. Does he share my unease about that provision, and is he satisfied that it will not be open to abuse? I am concerned that if, for example, a witness is allowed to give evidence on a video link from a country ruled by a regime like the one in Iraq, that person may be subject to coercion and duress while giving evidence.
  Mr. Cash: That is a serious danger—my right hon. Friend's point does not differ significantly from the one that I was making. As with the data protection point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Rayleigh, if we legislate on television links in the House as representatives of the people, we can be sure that we will do the best that we can to make sure that the provisions are right, fair and proper. However, problems arise in connection with exterior jurisdictions, which sometimes compare unfavourably with ours.
  There is a general welcome for part 2, especially the provisions on terrorist offences. We are deeply concerned about events both before and since 11 September, and must show that the fight against terrorism is indeed taken seriously by authorising closer co-operation between police forces, surveillance agencies and so on. I am also concerned about the protocol on mutual assistance on criminal matters, which affects powers in the Bill. We have come up against these protocols on a number of occasions, and it is important to remember that, as with the charter of fundamental rights, we cannot debate them in the House—at any rate, we cannot amend them—which puts us at a considerable disadvantage. I urge the Minister to consider why that method is being used, as it is effectively a prerogative.
  Have the Government effectively taken to themselves certain powers if Parliament is determined to reject the Bill? By using the protocol, the Government are
  834
  introducing provisions that we cannot amend, so we are at a considerable disadvantage. In Committee, will the Minister put on record what our EU partners will do to introduce legislation to impose exactly the same obligations and penalties on their citizens? What timetable has been adopted to comply with the various protocols?
  We have already discussed judicial and police systems in other countries, which is another matter that we need to consider carefully. Lord Goodhart of the Liberal Democrats made it clear that Italian arrangements on delay fell far short of what we would expect in this country. In his opinion, the system of criminal administration in Belgium is so bad that it is a national scandal. Those matters are not just trotted out by people giving vent to unfounded fears and anxieties. I referred earlier to the fact that there is evidence of xenophobia among judges in other countries, and similarly there are serious problems with criminal administration and delay.
  When people co-operate, they have to be on an equal footing. There is no point in co-operation if it is simply a jumble that we put into a crucible and boil up in the hope that it will all turn out all right. Co-operation must be based on commonly understood principles, and if they are not sufficiently adhered to by other nation states we will have difficulties. I therefore urge the Minister to pay careful attention to the problem of lack of symmetry. We hear much about asymmetric warfare in the context of the Iraq war. I cannot think of anything worse than asymmetric legal systems, which would strike at the heart of what we are trying to achieve on Second Reading. If the Bill is to achieve international co-operation against crime, but does not solve the problems of asymmetry between various judicial systems, we will encounter serious difficulties.
  Mr. Desmond Swayne: I hope that my hon. Friend is not going down the road of hannonisation of legal systems.
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. So do I.
  Mr. Cash: I am delighted to tell you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, that I do not have the slightest intention of being tempted down the primrose path by my hon. Friend.
  The listing of crimes causes some concern. I was intrigued to learn that Lord Lloyd of Berwick, an international expert on these matters, suggested that he could draw up a list, and it was proposed that the Government could adopt it. I do not know whether Ministers have picked up that point—the Minister for Citizenship and Immigration did not refer to it in her opening speech—or whether they intend to follow it up. In carrying out what some people call hot watch and others hot pursuit—I am much happier with the "surveillance arrangements"—it should be made clear that foreign customs officers and police officers should not be allowed to enter private homes. Is it clear that they should not be able to challenge or arrest the person under surveillance? Should they not be required to contact the authorities immediately on crossing the border and submit a formal request for assistance as soon as possible? They should not simply arrive and get

  835
  on with their task. The process must be tempered and qualified by a vigilant system of monitoring in this country by people who are competent to do so.
  I made the point earlier about language and translation. It is out of the question that we should allow officers to come over as part of the surveillance process without adequate translation services. We can imagine what would otherwise happen. One of the Ministers' own constituents could find himself confronted by an officer who turned up at his home to conduct surveillance—an officer who does not speak English and with whom he cannot communicate— and the process of surveillance would be conducted within a five-hour period. I do not know whether Ministers have thought the provisions through. It is a difficult problem.
  Mr. Heath: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
  Mr. Cash: Somerton and Frome is quite a long way away, so it might take the officers five hours to get down there, but not that long to get to Kent.
  Mr. Heath: It sometimes takes five hours to get across my constituency. Is it not enormously more likely that a Dutch officer, for instance, coming to Britain to carry out surveillance will speak perfect English than that a British police constable performing surveillance in the other direction will speak perfect Dutch? Does not reciprocity apply?
  Mr. Cash: Indeed. I am delighted to agree with the hon. Gentleman. If co-operation is to work properly, it should work both ways. Mutuality is central to the Bill, but there is a much greater likelihood that somebody who comes to the UK from Denmark, Holland or one of the other European countries will be able to speak English than vice versa. I do not know how many police officers in this country can speak Greek, for example. I leave the rest to the imagination of the House. It is a matter that will need careful consideration in Committee. Yet again, the surveillance process will involve considerable expense, as translation services are expensive.
  My hon. Friend the Member for Rayleigh touched on data protection. There are a number of points that require further analysis. It is acknowledged, and it has come out in the debate so far, that the Schengen information system is not allowed to include personal data revealing racial origin, political opinions or religious or other beliefs, or personal data concerning health or sexual life. However, we must be satisfied that data protection rules cover those aspects. Will the Minister confirm that that is so? Will he also say who is responsible for the accuracy of data and the liability for damage resulting from, for example, the transmission and use of inaccurate data?
  In an intervention, I mentioned the 49,000 terminals that exist and the potential dangers with so many terminals: a lack of proper security and control over their use, the scope for invasions of privacy, and the difficulties of ensuring that the rules are properly complied with. It is quite a thought. There is a powerful "1984" quality to all this. Vast amounts of information can be held in 49,000 terminals, and that figure was calculated two years ago. How many megabytes and
  836
  how much information do those terminals contain? What prospect is there that people could be sure that the information about themselves was properly put into those computers, or that they could get access to it?
  Are we moving into a "1984" world? We probably are, in certain respects. I accept that the measures might be beneficial in tracking down criminals, but safeguards are necessary to protect the civil liberties of people who do not fall within the ambit of terrorism, drug trafficking, international money laundering, counterfeiting and all the other activities included, understandably, in the Bill.
  Chris Grayling: I am listening with great interest to my hon. Friend. He knows that one of the challenges faced by credit control agencies in this country are situations in which data have been mixed up and somebody is deemed not creditworthy because of another person who previously resided at their address or had a similar name. My hon. Friend's argument may be relevant to such cases, in which a confusion of names or addresses could lead to someone being wrongly suspected or recorded.
  Mr. Cash: I can only register my concern. The matter will have to be considered in Committee. Some people may think that examining such issues on Second Reading is taking more time than they would like, but that is not to say that these are not matters of extreme relevance. As the process is implemented, I predict that the very matters that I raise—for example, in respect of the terminals—will come home to roost. I want to know what assurance Ministers can give us that the system will be secure and that it will not be misused.
  I have some alarming concerns that arise from the Court of Auditors 1996 report on the Netherlands SIS. There are 7,000 people who are authorised to access the system in the Netherlands—that is quite a lot. Of those, 500 are also authorised to change the data, so the potential risk of unauthorised access, unlawful disclosure and/or inaccurate information, as the Court of Auditors report put it, being entered into the database is great. That was seven years ago. It is not just a matter of volume and intensity. The system has been audited and was found to be a cause of grave concern. The question will be how the Information Commissioner will operate functions under part VI of the Data Protection Act 1998. I trust that the Minister will give a full explanation. The provisions enable the Information Commissioner to inspect personal data recorded in the UK section of the three European information systems without a warrant. There is concern that the system has not kept pace with modern methods of data storage and exchange.
  Frankly, in the light of the figures that I have been given, it is a matter of deep concern that we should be absolutely certain that, in the application of the provisions, there is proper monitoring, systems are completely up to date, people's privacy is not unfairly invaded and there is no misuse of the system. A question has to be asked about whether the Information Commissioner would have the right to allow individuals to have access to the information that is held. Will the commissioner be responsible for monitoring the entry of information into the computer systems?

  837
  I have traversed a considerable amount of the Bill and I make no apology for having taken a little time to do so. These are important matters that need to be properly looked into. I am grateful for the acknowledgement from one of the usual channels—he has indicated it by nodding his head—that, despite the fact that my contribution has taken a little of my time and that of the House, these matters need proper scrutiny. I wish those serving on the Committee well in considering these important issues. Indeed, I also wish the Government well. If they have the majority needed to get the Bill through, it is in the interests of all the people whom the provisions will affect that they get it right for the sake of the country as a whole. We know that they will get all their amendments through, or at least we believe that that it is likely, certainly in respect of the Bill as it emerged from the other House. That is why the Ministers have a greater burden of responsibility to ensure that the provisions work effectively. I hope that some of my remarks will be of some assistance in Committee and in other debates in ensuring that the Bill proceeds in a satisfactory manner.
  3.31 pm
  Mr. Greg Knight: At first sight, this seems a reasonable measure that should command—
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. I hope that I have not anticipated the right hon. Gentleman, but I think that it would be in accordance with the courtesies of the House for him to apologise for his inability to be present for the larger part of the opening of the debate.
  Mr. Knight: You did indeed anticipate what I was about to say, Mr. Deputy Speaker, so I shall return to what were to be my original opening remarks. Although this appears at first to be a fairly innocuous Bill, I was hoping to hear the opening remarks of the Minister and, just as important, of my hon. Friend the Member for South-East Cambridgeshire (Mr. Paice). Unfortunately, owing to a constituency matter, I was delayed in arriving in the Chamber. I apologise to both the Minister and the shadow Minister.
  Nevertheless, where one has a view, it is important that one share it with the House, even if one cannot be present for all the proceedings. There are many occasions on which hon. Members speak on Second Reading and hear the opening speeches, but cannot hear the winding-up speeches. Today, I find myself in the reverse position, as I did not hear the earlier remarks but certainly intend to stay and listen to the concluding speeches.
  The more I peruse the Bill the more concerned I am. I have already alluded to some of my concerns in interventions on my hon. Friend the Member for Stone (Mr. Cash). My first concern relates to video evidence. Anyone who has practised in the courts in England and Wales or, indeed, has merely listened to court proceedings in this country knows one thing for certain: witnesses before a court of law in this country come freely, speak freely and leave freely, without threat or hindrance. That is one of the cornerstones of our system of justice. That is why, when a witness gives compelling
  838
  evidence in a case, the jury usually gives great weight to what they say. Members of the jury can see the witness in person, see that they are not compelled to be present and judge for themselves the reliability of the evidence that they give.
  My concern about the provisions relates initially to clause 29, which deals with "Hearing witnesses abroad through television links". The provisions permit the hearing of witnesses via video link when, according to the explanatory notes to the Bill, it is "neither possible nor desirable"—whatever that means—for a witness to travel from his or her member state to where the evidence is required. I hope that the Minister can reassure me that there will be safeguards in place whenever video evidence of that nature is used. Although one can see from a video screen the demeanour of a witness, one cannot see what is happening behind the camera. One cannot make the assumption that one could make in open court that the witness was there freely and had not been threatened with sanctions against either him or his family unless he gave his evidence in a certain way.
  Mr. Llwyd: I do not know whether the right hon. Gentleman has any experience of criminal law in England and Wales, but video evidence is given in this way in every Crown court virtually every day, especially by youngsters and children, without presenting any problems for the defence or the prosecution.
  Mr. Knight: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman, but I do not think that he has a valid point. Of course this happens every day in the United Kingdom, but in cases in which the witness is also in the United Kingdom. We know that we have a fair and just system, but what about cases in which the witness is overseas? How are we to know that the circumstances surrounding the giving of evidence by a witness will be fair under an overseas regime? That is my concern. Indeed, the hon. Gentleman's intervention rather makes my point. I am relaxed and satisfied by video evidence given in this country because I know that we have the highest possible standards. But what about the so-called justice overseas, which might fall well below the standards that we expect and maintain in this country? That is the point for the Minister. Will he reassure me that the same procedures will be in place for video evidence given overseas as is in place for such evidence given in the United Kingdom?
  Mr. Cash: One of the problems that arises is that, these days, it can be difficult to tell whether video evidence has been tampered with. Don't ask me why that is the case, but one or two recent cases have suggested that people simply cannot tell whether it has been tampered with. Would it not be a serious worry that such evidence were being made available to the courts, if the video system did not accurately reflect what was actually being said?
  Mr. Knight: My hon. Friend makes a point with regard to recorded work on video. It is certainly possible to edit a recording in such a way that the person speaking might appear to say something completely different on the edited version from what was said on the original recorded tape. I am not sure whether that

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  process could be carried out on a live video link, but there is certainly a risk involved when one is dealing with recordings, both of an aural and video nature.
  Chris Grayling: My hon. Friend makes an interesting point. It would also be interesting to know the status of video evidence of the kind that he describes in a case in which the European arrest warrant was being used, and to know whether that would be a vehicle that might permit an investigation or arrest to take place based on such questionable circumstances.
  Mr. Knight: That is an important point that I hope the Minister will address in his closing speech. It certainly adds to my concerns about these provisions.
  I have other concerns, particularly relating to clauses 54, 55, 56, 57 and 58, which cover the recognition in the United Kingdom of foreign driving disqualifications. I can understand where this idea came from. My hon. Friend the Member for Stone said that we should all encourage good driving, whether here, in Spain or in any other part of the European Union. We also expect certain levels of fair play in this country, however. We would expect a United Kingdom citizen to be disqualified only for an offence that would carry a disqualification over here.
  I understand that several states of the United States of America have introduced a yob-busting system. It is known that most young people want to own and drive a motor car, and so offences such as theft, dishonesty or violence carry the sentence of losing one's driving licence. I am worried that if United Kingdom citizens on holiday abroad had too much to drink and became involved in a fracas, they would expect to be punished with a modest fine, not lose their driving licence. If the provisions were implemented, such people would discover that because they had lost their ability to drive overseas, they had also lost their ability to drive in this country, which could lead to the loss of their livelihoods. There could be serious consequences for many people in the United Kingdom.
  Mr. Swayne: There would, of course, be contributory negligence on behalf of a citizen so affected. My right hon. Friend will know that it is not long since the Government proposed that people who did not pay their dues to the Child Support Agency should lose their licence.
  Mr. Knight: That is as offensive as the scenario that I described.
  I hope that the Minister will give an undertaking to consider modifying several of the Bill's provisions. They provide that the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency in the UK will be obliged to implement overseas disqualifications unless a disqualification has less than a month remaining. I ask the Minister why there is no provision to allow discretion to be applied and for a shorter disqualification to be imposed. Why does the Bill not include a system whereby if examination in the United Kingdom showed that the disqualification was too severe or unfair, or that it was a punishment for an offence that does not carry an equivalent penalty here, the English courts could substitute the period of
  840
  disqualification with a shorter and fairer period? I hope that the Minister will address that point in his winding-up speech.
  Mr. Swayne: Will my right hon. Friend give us guidance on what he thinks would be a proper shorter period?
  Mr. Knight: That depends on the circumstances of the case. A person may be convicted overseas of an offence for which an overseas court would impose a disqualification, whether that is fair or not. However, the disqualification might be out of all proportion to the offence, or UK subjects might not have been able to anticipate such a punishment. It is asking a bit much to expect UK citizens to know the ins and outs of foreign law. It is said that ignorance of the law is no defence before the English courts. However, if people broke the law in a foreign country and they were not aware that they would risk being fined and losing their driving licence, that should be a mitigating factor because the punishment might lead them to lose their livelihoods and—if they were unable to keep up their mortgage payments—even their property. The Bill should give UK courts the ability to decide whether the disqualification is fair. If the courts considered it to be fair, they could leave the period unaltered but if they considered it unfair, they could substitute a shorter disqualification. I would argue that the courts should be able to substitute a nil disqualification if they considered that the disqualification was causing a person undue hardship.
  Chris Grayling: My right hon. Friend may be interested to note that clause 56(4) refers to a minimum period of six months, except when the conviction relates to a prescribed state. What constitutes a prescribed state is not immediately apparent. However, my right hon. Friend knows that sentences of much less than six months are passed for offences such as speeding. They might be for 14 days, one month or three months. The Bill does not make clear the way in which a court or driving authority in another country would handle such circumstances.
  Mr. Knight: My hon. Friend is right. I have every confidence in the judicial system in this country. Many magistrates who are faced with a case in which they believe that an offender should be disqualified but hear that he needs his licence for work, will ask the defendant, "Have you taken your holiday from work yet?" If the answer is no, they will ask, "How long are you entitled to a year?" If he replies, "Three weeks," they will often disqualify the defendant for that time. That is done deliberately to ensure that the effect of the disqualification is not disproportionate—in other words, that the defendant does not lose a livelihood through a mid-ranking motoring offence. I hope that the Under-Secretary will tackle those genuine anxieties when he winds up the debate.
  I share some concerns with my hon. Friend the Member for Stone about foreign police officers roaming around the English countryside. We all know that a police officer who is not a member of the CID and investigates a crime has to wear a police uniform. What will be the position of foreign police officers? Will they

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  have to wear the uniform of their country? The Bill affords them the same protection as a British officer who acts in the performance of his duty.
  Interfering with a police officer who is carrying out proper inquiries or assaulting a police officer are specific offences that relate to a person who is a serving member of a constabulary. Will foreign police officers have to wear their uniforms? If so, what happens if the uniforms do not make it immediately clear to a UK citizen that those wearing them are police officers?
  Mr. Llwyd: With great respect, I suggest that having a fully dressed gendarme following someone through the streets of London would not be clever surveillance.
  Mr. Knight: That is a fair point. If it is decided not to wear a uniform for efficiency reasons, will foreign police officers have to carry an identification card, which is printed in English and would make it clear to a UK citizen that he is dealing with a member of a police force? The Bill is strangely silent on that. The Bill should include a provision to safeguard UK citizens from heavy-handed police tactics by officers from overseas.
  Our system has a well defined method for making complaints. I have the highest regard for our police but, now and again, they fall below the standard that we expect. A police complaints procedure is in force to deal with that. What happens if a foreign national, who is carrying out a surveillance operation here, behaves thuggishly towards someone who is not directly related to the inquiry? What complaints procedure will be applicable in such cases?
  Of course, we appreciate that crime has no frontiers and that, consequently, crime detection should have none. However, when we try to dismantle barriers by allowing foreign police officers to undertake surveillance work in the United Kingdom, we should examine the safeguards. There is a good argument for saying that as one removes the barriers one has to increase the safeguards. No Member of the House would want to have rules such as those that applied in the United States 100 years ago. We have all seen those old cowboy films in which the baddies make their getaway by crossing the state line. Once over it, they know they are free from arrest for an offence committed in another state. Of course, no one wants such an arrangement to be introduced across Europe, but if we are facilitating greater co-operation we need to ensure that greater safeguards are in place.
  Before drawing my remarks to a close, I should refer to my only other reservation, which relates to what my hon. Friend the Member for Stone called the Henry VIII clause. I prefer to call it the Minister's carte blanche clause. It is bad law-making to include such provisions in every Bill. If the Bill becomes law in this or an amended form and the Minister wants to make changes a few months down the line, he should have the courage to return to the Dispatch Box to tell the House what he wants to do. He should not hide behind a catch-all clause. I hope that he reflects on the points that I have raised and that, in due course in Committee, he is prepared to amend the Bill.
  3.51 pm
  Mr. Nick Hawkins: The debate has attracted a lot of interest on the Conservative Benches, but staggeringly little on the Government Back Benches. Indeed, for the vast majority of a debate that began at about 12.45 pm, the Government Benches have been empty, apart from the places occupied by the Ministers, a Parliamentary Private Secretary and the Government Whip, so there is clearly no enthusiasm on the Government side for the legislation, or indeed recognition that it is in any way important. However, that deficiency has been well made up for by a number of speeches from Conservative Members, which showed serious interest in this important Bill.
  As all speakers have said, there is support on both sides of the House, as in another place, for measures against terrorism, but, despite that support, concerns remain that we shall want to scrutinise in Committee. One of the most important issues raised in another place, which we shall also want to discuss in Committee, was co-ordination of anti-terrorism activity and, in particular, what is referred to in the United States as homeland security.
  My noble Friends sought to include a provision to ensure that we would know precisely who is dealing with all matters involving protecting our citizens in the light of a possible terrorist attack. The position is this: the Prime Minister is in overall charge of intelligence and security matters; the Home Secretary is responsible for the Security Service; the Foreign Secretary is responsible for the Secret Intelligence Service and for GCHQ; and the Defence Secretary is responsible for the defence intelligence service.
  In addition, there is a ministerial committee on the security services, which is chaired by the Prime Minister and includes the Deputy Prime Minister, the Home Secretary, the Foreign Secretary, the Defence Secretary and the Chancellor of the Exchequer. An Under-Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs is the junior Minister responsible for counter-terrorism issues at the Foreign Office, while the Home Secretary takes responsibility for terrorism policy at the Home Office. The Minister of State for the armed forces is responsible for intelligence and security matters at the Ministry of Defence. Furthermore, last year, Sir David Omand was appointed to the civil service post of security and intelligence co-ordinator at the Cabinet Office.
  That confusion and that litany could have come straight from a script for "Yes, Minister" or "Yes, Prime Minister". We simply must have much clearer lines of responsibility and there ought to be, in this important legislation, as part of the protection of UK citizens against a terrorist threat, a clear statement that a Cabinet Minister is alone responsible for civil security and civil defence.
  Chris Grayling: My hon. Friend is making an extremely important point. Does he agree that, in the final analysis, we should also be certain that, despite the undoubted desirability of collaboration and cooperation across Europe on those matters, we should never be placed in such a position that the final decision

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  on the protection of our citizens cannot be taken in this country? I hope that he ensures in Committee that that is the case.
  Mr. Hawkins: Certainly. I, along with my hon. Friend the Member for South-East Cambridgeshire (Mr. Paice) and other Conservative Members, will seek to ensure that that happens.
  There are a number of general worries about the Bill. On 2 December, my noble Friend Lady Anelay pointed out that in many parts of the Bill the Government seek to lead us into Schengen by the nose and through the back door. That can be found in column 976 of the House of Lords Hansard. A number of my hon. Friends, notably my hon. Friend the Member for Stone (Mr. Cash), have stressed our anxieties about that.
  Our scrutiny role in the United Kingdom Parliament has already been undermined by this Labour Government's signature to various protocols and agreements. The regulatory impact assessment makes clear that the Government have already agreed
  "to urgently ratify the Protocol".
  That is the authors' split infinitive, not mine.
  Of course our involvement in European co-operation against international crime and international terrorism is important and welcome. Not long ago, my hon. Friend the Member for South-East Cambridgeshire and I visited the authorities in the Netherlands, and went to see the European police co-operation centre—known there as Politie. We had some good meetings, and we recognise that there is a huge role for international police co-operation. Nevertheless, the need for co-operation against international terrorism and international crime should not be allowed to give the Government licence to ignore the vital need to keep this British Parliament's sovereign rights intact, and to ensure that decisions are made by this sovereign Parliament.
  Many of my hon. Friends have mentioned concerns about shared information systems. Ministers may or may not know about what those in the information technology world describe as the GIGO factor—garbage in, garbage out. A number of Conservatives, and other Opposition speakers, have referred to the problem posed by the number of terminals that already have access to the Schengen information system, and to the dangers of misinformation—for instance, the possibility of improper arrest. There is a further danger: if so many people have access to a system, there is a risk of deliberate misuse of that system for criminal purposes. Sadly, it is not unknown in any country for those with access to a secret information system to misuse it in an attempt to become involved in crime.
  Concern has also been expressed about the way in which recognition of motoring offences will be dealt with. My right hon. Friend the Member for East Yorkshire (Mr. Knight) was particularly worried about that. I shall say something later about my experience of international aspects of driving matters when I practised in the courts.
  Conservative Members are pleased that in another place the Government were prepared to accede to a number of points raised by my noble Friends Lady Anelay, Lord Bridgeman, Lord Dixon-Smith and Lord Renton. As can be seen in column 70 of Hansard, on 23
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  January the Attorney-General accepted Lords amendment No. 127, tabled by Lady Anelay. I hope that the fact that the Government have started to accept Conservative amendments exactly as drafted will be a helpful precursor to what happens in our Committee. All too often in Commons Committees, even if the Government and their advisers realise that we are right, rather than accepting our amendments as drafted they oppose them at the time but, grudgingly, return with Government amendments, having changed the odd word, so that it cannot be said that they have accepted a Conservative amendment.
  I also want to talk about important banking issues, which parts of the Bill raise. I may be one of a small number of lawyers in the House—perhaps the only one—to specialise in banking and financial services law. To the best of my knowledge, I am the only one to have specialised in credit card law for several years before entering Parliament. I look forward to posing detailed questions about that matter to Ministers in Committee, based on some of the international banking issues raised in the other place and on my own experience.
  Several hon. Members have already referred this afternoon to fishing expeditions. We want to ensure that prosecuting authorities do not improperly use what the courts call fishing expeditions: constraints should be placed on them. Once again, my noble Friend Baroness Anelay explored that subject in the other place and the Government gave some undertakings on how fishing expeditions would be constrained. It is fair to say that in Committee we shall want to build more protections into the Bill. At this stage, however, I want to say that we recognise and are grateful to the Government for the undertakings that were given from the Dispatch Box in the other place.
  As I look across the Chamber I see the Under-Secretary, who, like myself, is a veteran of the Proceeds of Crime Bill— the longest Bill with the most Committee sittings of the previous parliamentary Session. Some issues from that Bill, and from the Extradition Bill, which we both had to deal with more recently, will crop up again. As so often, the Home Office Bills produced by the Government are interlinking, and the hon. Member for Somerton and Frome (Mr. Heath) rightly said that the Government are producing criminal justice legislation drip by drip without fitting all the pieces together. We have already heard in some of this afternoon's speeches how some of the provisions interlink with arguments about the EU arrest warrant in the Extradition Bill and how other issues overlap with the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002.
  As I have discovered in my own constituency, if the Government, for proper motives, seek to impose new legislation on banking, banks can use the cover of what they must do to stop money laundering to demand more and more—in my view, unnecessary—information from customers for commercial reasons. I stress to the Minister that I recently had occasion in a Delegated Legislation Committee to place on record my concern on behalf of one of my constituents, Doris Christie—a trustee and clerk to a local charity—about the way in which a particular bank was asking for improper information of a personal nature, going far beyond what the legislation required. When pressed, the bank was forced to admit that it had acted for commercial reasons, after initially using the cover of the Proceeds of

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  Crime Act 2002. Conservative Members certainly warned the Government about that during the passage of that legislation.
  Mr. Cash: Does my hon. Friend have in mind the framework decision on the freezing of assets and evidence, which was debated in European Standing Committee? Difficulties arose in implementing the arrangements covered in clause 13 of the Bill, particularly the problem that the request for assistance and information did not have to come from a court or a judicial authority. Another question is the extent to which Eurojust would qualify as an international authority under clause 13. As the convention is coming up in the lift, that question would also apply to Europol, if it were established under the treaty. Those matters will doubtless be debated in Committee, but I invite the Minister to reflect on them, too.
  Mr. Hawkins: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for raising that point. We are worried about the proposed European convention being introduced, and about how other legislation links into that. I share my hon. Friend's concerns, and echo his request to the Minister to deal with the matter, both this afternoon and in Standing Committee.
  In his opening remarks, my hon. Friend the Member for South-East Cambridgeshire raised several matters to which we hope that the Minister will respond. For example, foreign police officers will come into the UK for surveillance purposes, subject only to a vote in proceedings on a statutory instrument. The Opposition believe that the House as a whole should consider such matters.
  We also stress our opposition to clause 82(6), mentioned by several other speakers, which denies UK citizens any recourse in terms of civil liability if their personal property is damaged in any way by a foreign officer conducting surveillance in this country. There are also huge concerns about clause 82(8), which deals with the time frame of five hours. When Lord Filkin was asked in another place why five hours had been chosen, he said that the figure was plucked from the air because it is the figure used in Schengen. That is not a sufficient answer to a very good question, and we shall certainly want to explore the matter further in Committee.
  In his opening speech, my hon. Friend the Member for South-East Cambridgeshire rightly noted the great concern about officers who may be involved in surveillance in our territorial waters. If they were looking for drug smugglers on board a ship, for instance, the concern is that the clock would not start to run on the five-hour period set out in the Bill until any foreign officer who may be involved had landed in this country. We shall refer to that matter again in Committee.
  Chris Grayling: Technically speaking, in law, one enters British territory—at Calais, or at the channel tunnel terminus— when one passes through passport control. There will therefore be a significant amount of time between when a person passes through the terminal and when that person arrives in the UK proper.
  Mr. Hawkins: My hon. Friend is right, but my hon. Friend the Member for South-East Cambridgeshire
  846
  noted in his opening speech that the position of the foreign officer entering British territory on the French side of the channel is not as described by Lord Filkin in another place. Lord Filkin said that the five-hour period stipulated in this Bill would start only when the channel tunnel train had passed out of the tunnel and moved into Kent, or when a foreign officer had touched down at an airport or come ashore from a boat. We need to explore that matter in Committee.
  In his opening remarks, my hon. Friend the Member for South-East Cambridgeshire also stressed that we want a clear undertaking from the Minister—either today or in Committee —that the measures that will be imposed on our citizens by the Bill will also be pursued in exactly the same way by other signatories to the framework and to the protocol. In fact, we should prefer something to that effect to be included in the Bill. In the past, other countries have signed up to directives, protocols and frameworks, but then have not implemented them in any way, shape or form. Many countries have a good record for signing things, but a quite appalling record when it comes to implementation. Many British citizens are concerned about that, and their worry goes far beyond this Bill.
  My hon. Friend the Member for South-East Cambridgeshire expressed concern about the information systems, and I have referred to the 49,000 terminals that were already in existence two years ago. There may well be many thousands more now. That concern is reinforced by the fact that some of the EU law enforcement systems are very much in their infancy. There is a battle going on between those who want ever more centralised power and those who regard the very successful joint investigation teams as a more sensible way forward. We shall certainly want assurances from the Minister that we will not move towards the introduction of a Napoleonic judicial system. We do not want a corpus juris system brought in by the back door—an issue that was recently raised in the context of the Extradition Bill. The Police Federation is concerned about reciprocal protocols, especially the protection that is needed for British officers when they are operating on foreign soil. We want to ensure that the Bill, instead of concentrating on the rights of foreign officers when they are here, allows for rights to protect our British police officers when they operate internationally.
  My hon. Friend the Member for South-East Cambridgeshire and the Minister might be right to say that the Bill will not receive a great deal of media coverage in the current international situation, but a great deal more coverage would be justified given that it deals with a very important matter and has implications for action against terrorism.
  I want to turn briefly to the speeches of other hon. Members. The hon. Member for Somerton and Frome (Mr. Heath) stressed his concern about security at our ports, especially our smaller ports, and we very much agree with that. He said that the Government were dealing with matters in a piecemeal fashion; again, we agree. He also stressed, as we continually do, the need for the House to scrutinise what the Government are signed up to. I want to make an additional point. The Government have introduced the concept of so-called pre-legislative scrutiny, which is becoming more popular. It would be much better if all these protocols

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  and framework directives received pre-legislative scrutiny by this House before a Minister is sent over to Brussels, Strasbourg, Amsterdam or wherever to sign up to them. If the Government really believe in pre-legislative scrutiny, there should be pre-legislative scrutiny of a whole range of European provisions, and we shall continue to seek that from them in future.
  Mr. Heath: The hon. Gentleman is making an extremely important point. There is clearly a democratic deficit in the way in which the Council of Ministers deals with such matters. Has he had an opportunity to look at the system that pertains in Austria, where, as a matter of course, before a Minister appears at a council in Europe, the matter in hand is taken to what I believe is called the first committee of Parliament, where it receives a clear mandate, or at least consideration?
  Mr. Hawkins: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman. We can learn lessons from other places where such matters are scrutinised properly before Ministers sign up to them.
  Mr. Cash: As a counterpoint to that, does my hon. Friend know that the Convention proposes that conventions, by which I mean instruments to implement treaties of this kind, will not even have to be ratified by national Parliaments, as part of the process of completely dismantling the national parliamentary system?
  Madam Deputy Speaker (Sylvia Heal): Order. The hon. Gentleman is raising matters that relate to the Convention rather than to the Bill before the House.
  Mr. Hawkins: Yes, Madam Deputy Speaker, but if I may say so without trespassing on your ruling, many hon. Members on both sides of the House—indeed, the Minister herself —referred to overlaps between the Bill and the Convention. I entirely agree with my hon. Friend. I have been discussing these matters with a colleague, Mr. Nirj Deva, who is a Member of the European Parliament and a former Member of this House.
  The hon. Member for Somerton and Frome said that it was absolutely vital that there should be no danger of compromising the security of our information systems and that most people in this country would not want an erosion of our system of law in England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland, although there should be respect for other systems. I agree with him. He also stressed the need to defend the liberties of the individual. He rightly said that, in this legislation, issues arose to do with dual criminality. I agree with the hon. Member for Somerton and Frome again, but the Minister is well aware that we have sought to put comparative and complementary matters into this Bill and the Extradition Bill to force Ministers to certify that they are compatible. There is a clear overlap in those two pieces of legislation, which are going through the House at the same time. We shall come back to that in Committee.
  The hon. Member for Somerton and Frome rightly referred to concerns over administrative rather than judicial proceedings. He raised the issue of the admissibility of evidence and mentioned the need for
  848
  safeguards. He talked about banking transactions. As I have explained, I have a big personal interest in that issue. There is a fine line between what is criminal and what is disapproved of. The hon. Gentleman was responding to the hon. Member for Stourbridge (Ms Shipley) when he talked about that issue. He referred to the people detained at Guantanamo bay and mentioned his concerns about the sanction of driving bans being imposed for non-driving offences. My right hon. Friend the Member for East Yorkshire also referred to that.
  I wholly agree with the important point that the hon. Member for Somerton and Frome made on the need to safeguard the rights of the people of Gibraltar. He may not know that I am engaged in an all-party committee to support Gibraltarians. Many hon. Members of all parties are involved in that, but it is fair to say that many of my hon. Friends on the Conservative Benches want to ensure that the rights of the people of Gibraltar are safeguarded. That issue is referred to specifically in this legislation. We want to ensure that the Government make no attempt—as the hon. Member for Somerton and Frome feared they might—to put pressure on Gibraltar. We want pressure to be put on Spain in response to the way in which it has quite wrongly mistreated Gibraltarians.
  The hon. Member for Somerton and Frome spoke about his worry over the Bill's lack of a remedy for UK citizens if civil offences—or civil torts, as lawyers would call them—were committed against them by foreign police officers. He also wanted to support what my hon. Friend the Member for South-East Cambridgeshire said about the dangers of surveillance taking place in our territorial waters.
  My hon. Friend the Member for Rayleigh (Mr. Francois), in a very powerful speech, talked about his concerns over data protection. He explained his concern about the implications for this legislation of a statutory instrument—the Data Protection (Processing of Sensitive Personal Data) (Elected Representatives) Order 2003—which was introduced by the then Leader of the House, the right hon. Member for Livingston (Mr. Cook). My hon. Friend, who has detailed knowledge of data protection issues, discussed his concerns about subsection (7) of the new section proposed in clause 81 of the Bill and about the position of the UK Information Commissioner—previously known as the data protection commissioner. My hon. Friend foresaw the absurd situation of the European convention on human rights being turned against the UK Government and the Information Commissioner. He foresaw the danger of what were intended to be safeguards in the legislation being used against the Government.
  Mr. Cash: Does my hon. Friend agree that, in the famous Simms and O'Brien case, it was made clear that—to satisfy concerns such as those raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Rayleigh (Mr. Francois)— it would be possible for the Government to introduce legislation that was inconsistent with the European convention on human rights? Provided that it was clear and unambiguous, that would be constitutionally correct, as Lord Hoffmann has made clear in the House of Lords.
  Mr. Hawkins: I am sure that my hon. Friend is right about that. In the early days of the data protection

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  legislation, when I was still practising as a barrister, I had experience of cases that dealt with such issues. I look forward to pursuing in Committee the matters raised by my hon. Friend and by my hon. Friend the Member for Rayleigh.
  My hon. Friend the Member for Poole (Mr. Syms) expressed concerns, which are widely shared on the Opposition Benches, about the judicial systems of possible EU applicant countries. We raised similar issues during the proceedings on the Extradition Bill, when my hon. Friend the Member for Stratford-on-Avon (Mr. Maples) was especially concerned about the position of Turkey.
  My hon. Friend the Member for Poole also referred to the recent Derek Bond case, in which the FBI misidentified a blameless British pensioner who was on holiday in South Africa. He was thrown into a South African police cell where he languished for a long time due to incorrect data in the FBI information system. In fact, someone had stolen the identity of that blameless British pensioner. That recent case reinforces our fears about the GIGO—garbage in, garbage out—factor to which I referred earlier. Any information system will have limitations; something can be entered by mistake, either accidentally or, as I said earlier, deliberately. My hon. Friend also had a constituency interest in our shared concern about small ports that are not properly policed.
  As a fellow lawyer, I have great respect for the hon. Member for Meirionnydd Nant Conwy (Mr. Llwyd), who speaks for Plaid Cymru. He echoed points made by my hon. Friends and noted that about two thirds of organised crime involved the drugs trade. As shadow spokesman on drug crime, I take his comments extremely seriously.
  Only recently, I was made very much aware of the extent to which any constituency—even a normally law-abiding one such as mine—can suffer from such things. About a week ago, Surrey police conducted a massively successful raid during which they caught several international drugs criminals in my constituency. I am sure that the whole House will join me in congratulating not only Surrey police on that operation but all police forces that successfully tackle international drugs offenders.
  The hon. Member for Meirionnydd Nant Conwy referred to briefings that he had received from Justice and Liberty about the absence of sufficient procedural safeguards. He expressed concern about the fact that, although the law of England and Wales has a rule against self-incrimination, that is not necessarily the case in other legal systems. He referred to the possibility that police authorities might issue freezing of evidence orders. As he is aware, that matter was discussed at length in another place and we shall return to it in Committee. Following an intervention from my hon. Friend the Member for Stone, the hon. Gentleman agreed that there are major concerns about scrutiny of the EU arrest warrant and its possible links to the Bill. He also referred to prisoner transfers, which were dealt with on 25 February in another place, at column 222.
  My hon. Friend the Member for Stone expressed concern about the European convention. He wanted to know whether we shall retain our existing opt-out. That
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  is one of the most important questions on which we want to hear from the Minister today and we shall certainly be pressing Ministers on it in Committee. My hon. Friend observed that international co-operation dated back to Victorian times and referred to the success of Interpol in the 20th century. However, he described, rightly, the tidal wave of attempts to harmonise our law with laws elsewhere in the EU, despite the huge differences in legal principles—between Napoleonic, continental systems and the common law system in this country—and in legal practice.
  My hon. Friend rightly shares the Government's determination to act against terrorism, drug smuggling and people trafficking, but he was concerned about driving disqualifications and the mutual recognition of penalties. He referred to the EU driving disqualification convention and, in answer to an intervention from my right hon. Friend the Member for East Yorkshire, expressed the view that Henry VIII clauses were cropping up far too often in far too many Bills. From the Front Bench, may I tell my hon. Friend that we entirely agree with him? He rightly said that the Bill contains more of a Cardinal Wolsey clause than a Henry VIII clause.
  My hon. Friend expressed concern about the increase in qualified majority voting. I should tell him that our right hon. Friend the Member for West Dorset (Mr. Letwin), the shadow Home Secretary, has expressed grave concern about the way in which the Government seek to interfere even in third pillar matters, which are supposed to be sacrosanct.
  Mr. Cash: Is my hon. Friend aware that the unmentionable Convention also proposes to collapse those pillars?
  Mr. Hawkins: I am indeed; and, most important, so is our right hon. Friend the shadow Home Secretary. Those matters will continue to be the focus of enormous debate, because just about everyone, I think, on the Conservative Benches shares our concern.
  My hon. Friend referred to clause 29 and his concerns about witnesses who were abroad and TV links. He spoke of the need to co-operate against terrorism, but said that he was worried that many of these protocols cannot be debated in the House, as we have said. He talked about the timetable and scrutiny of protocols, and he referred to Lord Goodhart, speaking for the Liberal Democrats in another place, expressing concerns, which Conservative Members of Parliament certainly share, about the judicial systems in places such as Italy and Belgium—and, I would add, Spain.
  As my hon. Friend the Member for Stone said, there is concern about asymmetric legal systems. He rightly referred to Lord Lloyd of Berwick in another place providing a possible list of offences to which the Bill may apply. My hon. Friend said that police co-operation must work both ways and expressed his concerns about the language issues, the need for translation services and data protection. He asked whether we were moving into a "1984" world. Cases of stolen identity such as that of Derek Bond obviously give rise to concern.
  My hon. Friend also referred to the Court of Auditors' report on the Netherlands SIS and the interrelationship with the Data Protection Act 1998.

  851
  Finally, my right hon. Friend the Member for East Yorkshire, drawing on his experience as a solicitor, expressed misgivings about the use of video links with places abroad. I, too, am very much aware of the subject from my latter days in practice, when video links were first coming into our jurisdictions. I share his fear that if there is no way of checking that a video witness is able to speak freely in another country, that will cause our courts massive concern. It is entirely different from the situation that the hon. Member for Meirionnydd Nant Conwy mentioned, in which video links are used all the time in different parts of the UK. There will be unease if a witness is giving evidence abroad and no one in our judicial system can check that the witness has not been interfered with and is not being intimidated while giving evidence over video link.
  My right hon. Friend also spoke of his concerns about clauses 54 to 58, and the recognition in the UK of foreign driving disqualifications. He has knowledge of the yob-busting systems in various US states, in which a driving ban might be added to a sentence for offences of violence or dishonesty. In response to an intervention from my hon. Friend the Member for New Forest, West (Mr. Swayne), my right hon. Friend referred to the offensive scenario of the Government thinking that they would introduce driving bans for Child Support Agency defaulters.
  My right hon. Friend also rightly said that the UK courts should be able to decide what is fair—whether there should be a shorter disqualification period, as my hon. Friend the Member for Epsom and Ewell (Chris Grayling) said in an intervention. My right hon. Friend said that he shared the concerns of my hon. Friend the Member for Stone about the way in which foreign police would have to operate in this country, and raised the question whether they would have to be in uniform. He was also worried about the number of Henry VIII clauses in the Bill.
  Mr. Greg Knight: Does my hon. Friend agree that the Bill would be not wrecked but improved if the Government were prepared to accept an amendment that would give British courts jurisdiction to be flexible in imposing driving bans for certain periods?
  Mr. Hawkins: Yes, I entirely agree with my right hon. Friend. I hope that we will be able to address that issue in Committee, because it has been canvassed by him and a number of hon. Friends.
  In conclusion, although we are happy with much of the Bill, there are a lot detailed ways in which it can be improved—for example, the issue that my right hon. Friend has just raised. That is why the Bill took many days—I think, it was five—to be considered in Grand Committee in the other place. We want it to be effective, to attack terrorists and international criminals, but we do not want British citizens' rights to be comprehensively undermined. Those are the issues to which we shall return in detail in Committee.
  4.30 pm
  The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. Bob Ainsworth): I am awfully glad that the hon. Member for Surrey Heath (Mr.
  852
  Hawkins) brought us back at the end of his speech to the position of those on the Conservative Front Bench. I thank him for doing so, because they welcome most of the Bill, which they believe necessary and to have been substantially improved in another place, as the hon. Member for South-East Cambridgeshire (Mr. Paice) said in opening the debate for the Opposition.
  I want to cut through some of the rhetoric that we have heard and thank the Opposition for the general welcome that they have given the Bill. I also thank the hon. Member for Somerton and Frome (Mr. Heath), who spoke on behalf of the Liberal Democrats, for generally welcoming the Bill. I think that we will be able to satisfy both sets of hon. Members in Committee on most of the points that have been made this afternoon.
  Mr. Heath: I thank the hon. Gentleman for what he has just said. Was he as puzzled as I was at the disparity between those members of the Conservative Front-Bench team who spoke from the Front Bench and those members of the Conservative Front-Bench team who spoke from the Back Benches?
  Mr. Ainsworth: There was a marked contrast, in fairness, until the winding-up speech, when most of the rhetoric reflected what had been said from the Back Benches, but the substance reflected what was said from the Front Bench by the hon. Member for South-East Cambridgeshire. That is why I said what I said.
  We have had a detailed and prolonged debate. It would be fair to say that it has been a lot more prolonged than some of us envisaged an hour or so ago. I shall try to address a couple of the over-arching issues that have been raised repeatedly and then turn to some of the issues raised by hon. Members during the debate. I am sure that we can pick up any other points in Committee, and I feel confident that we will be able to satisfy hon. Members that the safeguards that they want will be in place.
  The issue that keeps being thrown at us is that we are, somehow, trying to achieve recognition of the Schengen acquis by the back door. The hon. Member for Surrey Heath went further and suggested that we wanted to do so by the nose, by the back door. I thought for a moment that he would complete the picture by saying that we wanted to do so feet first, by the nose, by the back door. In relation to his point about doing so by the nose, I know that it is difficult for him to recognise the fact that the Labour party won the last two general elections, but we live in a democracy and the democratically elected Government are entitled to make such propositions.
  With regard to the hon. Gentleman's allegation that this is being done by the back door, which was said first by the hon. Member for South-East Cambridgeshire in opening the debate, I remind him that the then Home Secretary, my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary, said, on 17 March 1999, that we intended to opt into those parts of the Schengen acquis that we thought added value —the police and judicial co-operation arrangements—so nothing has been done by the back door in any way.
  No measure in the Bill adds to the involvement with the Schengen acquis outside what was clearly said in the House a long time ago. The allegation that we are somehow trying to do something behind the scenes

  853
  simply does not wash. It is clear that the measures in the Bill are part of the Schengen arrangements with which we told the House that we intended to involve ourselves.
  Mr. Bercow rose—
  Mr. Ainsworth: The hon. Gentleman has not been with us for most of our deliberations. As I recall it, he left rather briskly when the hon. Member for South-East Cambridgeshire suggested that he might want to join us in Committee. If he will forgive me, I will not be too hasty and allow him to jump into the debate at this point.
  As with our debates on the Extradition Bill, we have had a great deal of debate about what the Government are trying to do. Allegations have been thrown around about the harmonisation of jurisprudence across the European Union, co-operation and co-ordination. The hon. Member for Stone (Mr. Cash) is even opposed to co-ordination. The position is clear. The Government have said—it needs to be repeated because of the allegations that have been thrown round—that there is nothing in the Bill that involves the harmonisation of our legal system with the legal systems in the other parts of the EU. We see mutual recognition as the alternative to that.
  In the modern world, we enjoy all the benefits of the free movement of people, capital and everything else. However, the criminal fraternity might also enjoy those benefits, so we need effective co-operation. By the time that the hon. Gentleman had finished his speech, I think that he had come to accept that effective co-operation involves a degree of co-ordination. Mutual recognition is the way to achieve that, and it is an alternative to harmonisation. That is our policy. It is very clear, and there is nothing in the Bill that involves harmonisation.
  Mr. Paice rose—
  Mr. Bercow rose
  Mr. Ainsworth: I shall give way first to the hon. Member for Buckingham. Otherwise he will be after me for a very long time.
  Mr. Bercow: I am grateful to the Under-Secretary. It is true that my ambition to serve on the Standing Committee is less than 100 per cent. but I had the considerable privilege of listening to the opening speech of the Minister for Citizenship and Immigration. Given the way in which the Under-Secretary has just chided my hon. Friend the Member for Surrey Heath (Mr. Hawkins) on the subject of Schengen, is the hon. Gentleman seriously suggesting that the result of the last two general elections represented mass public enthusiasm for the acquis communautaire?
  Mr. Ainsworth: I hope that the hon. Gentleman will recognise that I was responding to the point about people being led by the nose or about our going into the agreement through the back door. The back door does
  854
  not apply and nor does the nose if one accepts that this is a democratic country and that the Government are allowed to make such propositions.
  Mr. Paice: The Under-Secretary said that there was nothing in the Bill about harmonising our legislation with that in Europe. However, surely the gist of the whole section on driving offences to which my right hon. Friend the Member for East Yorkshire (Mr. Knight) referred is that someone could pay a penalty or be disqualified in Britain after being prosecuted for an offence under the legislation of another country. Surely if someone is penalised in Britain after being prosecuted under a totally different legislative system, that is effectively harmonisation of the law.
  Mr. Ainsworth: I look forward to our debates in Committee. As I recall it, at the start of our debate the hon. Gentleman welcomed our proposals. He spoke quite glowingly about them and said that they were absolutely necessary. The right hon. Member for East Yorkshire (Mr. Knight) walked in halfway through the debate—I do not know on whose prompting—and appears to have changed the hon. Gentleman's mind. We look forward to hearing the Conservative party's position in Committee. We shall have many opportunities to find out whether its policies have changed. Perhaps I have misrepresented or misheard the hon. Gentleman. He might have had deep concerns about the issue at the start of the debate, but I do not remember him saying so.
  Mr. Cash: A simple question has been raised three times, and I would be grateful if the Under-Secretary would answer it. Is it the Government's intention to retain the existing opt-outs in relation to Schengen in the context of the European convention?
  Mr. Ainsworth: We have said clearly that our opt-outs do not involve police and co-operation matters. They involve border controls and other measures, and we intend to maintain them. There is no dubiety about that. The hon. Gentleman should be able to sleep safely in this bed in the knowledge that they are there and will continue.
  There has been a great deal of discussion about the five-hour limit on surveillance. That was already part of the Schengen arrangements, which have been operated by our European partners for some time. I do not share hon. Members' worry about that time limit. There must be adequate time to hand over a surveillance operation so that the British team or joint team who are taking control have time to get established. We did not participate in discussions on the Schengen arrangements, so we had no say on the time limit. Conservative Members ought to think about that, because it is a consequence of their general opt-out—their empty chair policy towards the European Union. If we choose to join protocols after they have been introduced, we have no ability to mould them and we have to take them as written. We are trying to avoid that through our leadership in Europe on this issue and on mutual recognition as an alternative to the harmonisation of judicial systems.
  Chris Grayling: The Minister must recognise that the Committee needs to discuss the five-hour rule on

  855
  surveillance, if only because the nature of crossing the border, in a car, between France and Belgium, or between the Netherlands and Germany, is fundamentally different from coming to Britain. To get here, people must travel by plane, by boat or through the channel tunnel, and they must pass through customs.
  Mr. Ainsworth: We can and will discuss the matter in Committee. That is the point of those proceedings.
  I do not think that the time limit needs to be extended. We will start to count the five hours from the time that the officers arrive in the United Kingdom, and notification of their arrival may be given because it is not as easy to cross these borders. As I said, the limit was in place when we opted into these arrangements, and hon. Members must accept that we had no say in that because we did not participate. I have no problem with that, but it seems that Conservative Members do.
  On the problem of safeguards and liability identified by Opposition Members, their attention should settle not only on clause 82(6); they should also read clause 84, which states that there is a liability for any unlawful conduct by a person in the course of carrying out surveillance. That now rests with the director general of the National Criminal Intelligence Service, and it will be far easier for people to pursue their liability through that course than in a foreign jurisdiction. Of course these are reciprocal arrangements, so the Police Federation need not worry: their members operating abroad will have exactly the same safeguards and liability arrangements as foreign police officers operating in our jurisdiction.
  Mr. Llwyd: The drafting of clause 84 could have been better. It seems to be restating the fact that there is criminal liability for foreign police officers; it does not deal with civil liability. Perhaps the words "civil liability" should have appeared in the clause.
  Mr. Ainsworth: We will not get the cross-border co-operation that we require to carry out these operations if we do not provide the same protections for foreign officers as we provide for our officers operating in this country. Clause 82(6) gives foreign officers conducting surveillance within the five-hour limit exactly the protection that we give our own law enforcement agencies. We will want to explore the matter in Committee, and if concern continues to be expressed, we will want to look into that.
  Mr. Hawkins: With respect to the Minister, he has slightly missed the point of what the hon. Member for Meirionnydd Nant Conwy (Mr. Llwyd) was asking. If I have interpreted the hon. Gentleman correctly, he was suggesting that the words "civil liability" should be included in clause 84 instead of "unlawful conduct".
  Mr. Llwyd indicated assent.
  Mr. Hawkins: The hon. Gentleman confirms that that was the point that he was making. The Minister simply did not understand the question that he was asked.
  Mr. Ainsworth: I remind the hon. Gentleman that the cover in clause 82(6) also applies to our own police officers conducting surveillance operations in this country. He will have an opportunity to address the issue in Committee, where we will have to satisfy him and the rest of the Committee on that point.
  Hon. Members made a lot of points that I cannot cover now, but I am sure that we will return to them in Committee. However, I want to touch on a substantial issue raised by the hon. Member for South-East Cambridgeshire—fishing expeditions and how far the proposals go. I refer him to clause 33(1), which lays out the reasons why such arrangements can be carried out, and makes it clear that they can be carried out only if
  "the person specified in the application is subject to an investigation in the country in question".
  The investigation must concern serious criminal conduct, which, the clause states, must constitute
  "an offence in England and Wales or … Northern Ireland, or would do were it to occur there".
  That spells out when operations are allowed and when they are not allowed. To my mind, it clearly rules out fishing expeditions and people going far wider than is allowed in the clause.
  Mr. Paice: We can obviously pursue this matter in greater depth in Committee, but the Minister needs to think about it a little more deeply. Clearly, any foreign authority wishing to exercise powers under the Bill must comply, as he said, with clause 33(1) and seek the necessary orders. To do so, they will submit all the required evidence that they need certain information about Mr. and Mrs. X. However, what happens if, in the process of doing so, they discover a lot of other information about Mr. and Mrs. X relating to other crimes? The fishing expedition includes the issue of what people do with information gained under one pretext but perhaps used for something else.
  Mr. Ainsworth: I now understand the hon. Gentleman's concerns a little better. Let us return to them in Committee and see whether we can satisfy him on that point.
  The Bill includes a raft of measures, most of which have been welcomed, despite some of the rhetoric that we have heard. I welcome that welcome—the measures are necessary if we are to face up to the serious threat of cross-border criminality, terrorism and other problems in the European Union and further afield. I look forward to our debates in Committee, commend the Bill to the House, and thank all hon. Members who have contributed to today's debate.
  Question put and agreed to.
  Bill accordingly read a Second time.

CRIME (INTERNATIONAL CO-OPERATION) BILL [LORDS] (PROGRAMME)
Motion made, and Question put forthwith, pursuant to Orders [28 June 2001 and 29 October 2002],
That the following provisions shall apply to the Crime (International Co-operation) Bill [Lords]:

CRIME (INTERNATIONAL CO-OPERATION) BILL [LORDS] (PROGRAMME)
  Committal
  1. The Bill shall be committed to a Standing Committee.

  Proceedings in Standing Committee
  2. Proceedings in the Standing Committee shall (so far as not previously concluded) be brought to a conclusion on Thursday 22nd May 2003.
  3. The Standing Committee shall have leave to sit twice on the first day on which it meets.

  Consideration and Third Reading
  4. Proceedings on consideration shall (so far as not previously concluded) be brought to a conclusion one hour before the moment of interruption on the day on which those proceedings are commenced.
  5. Proceedings on Third Reading shall (so far as not previously concluded) be brought to a conclusion at the moment of interruption on that day.
  6. Sessional Order B (programming committees) made on 28th June 2001 shall not apply to proceedings on consideration and Third Reading.

  Other proceedings
  7. Any other proceedings on the Bill (including any proceedings on any message from the Lords) may be programmed.—[Mr. Heppell.]
  The House divided: Ayes 320, Noes 170.

  Division No. 153]

  [4:49 pm

  AYES

  Abbott, Ms Diane

  Burden, Richard

  Adams, Irene (Paisley N)

  Burnham, Andy

  Ainger, Nick

  Byers, rh Stephen

  Ainsworth, Bob (Cov'try NE)

  Caborn, rh Richard

  Alexander, Douglas

  Cairns, David

  Allen, Graham

  Campbell, Alan (Tynemouth)

  Anderson, rh Donald (Swansea E)

  Campbell, Mrs Anne (C'bridge)

  Anderson, Janet (Rossendale & Darwen)

  Campbell, Ronnie (Blyth V)

  Caplin, Ivor

  Armstrong, rh Ms Hilary

  Caton, Martin

  Atherton, Ms Candy

  Challen, Colin

  Atkins, Charlotte

  Chapman, Ben (Wirral S)

  Bailey, Adrian

  Clapham, Michael

  Barnes, Harry

  Clark, Mrs Helen (Peterborough)

  Battle, John

  Clark, Dr. Lynda (Edinburgh Pentlands)

  Bayley, Hugh

  Beard, Nigel

  Clark, Paul (Gillingham)

  Beckett, rh Margaret

  Clarke, rh Tom (Coatbridge & Chryston)

  Begg, Miss Anne

  Bell, Stuart

  Clarke, Tony (Northampton S)

  Benn, Hilary

  Clelland, David

  Bennett, Andrew

  Clwyd, Ann (Cynon V)

  Benton, Joe (Bootle)

  Coffey, Ms Ann

  Berry, Roger

  Cohen, Harry

  Best, Harold

  Coleman, Iain

  Betts, Clive

  Colman, Tony

  Blackman, Liz

  Connarty, Michael

  Blears, Ms Hazel

  Cook, Frank (Stockton N)

  Blizzard, Bob

  Cook rh Robin (Livingston)

  Boateng, rh Paul

  Cooper, Yvette

  Borrow, David

  Corbyn, Jeremy

  Bradley, rh Keith (Withington)

  Corston, Jean

  Bradley, Peter (The Wrekin)

  Cousins, Jim

  Bradshaw, Ben

  Cranston, Ross

  Brown, rh Nicholas (Newcastle E Wallsend)

  Crausby, David

  Cruddas, Jon

  Browne, Desmond

  Cummings, John

  Bryant, Chris

  Cunningham, rh Dr. Jack (Copeland)

  Buck, Ms Karen

  858

  Cunningham, Jim (Coventry S)

  Jamieson, David

  Cunningham, Tony (Workington)

  Johnson, Alan (Hull W)

  Dalyell, Tam

  Johnson, Miss Melanie (Welwyn Hatfield)

  Darling, rh Alistair

  David, Wayne

  Jones, Helen (Warrington N)

  Davidson, Ian

  Jones, Jon Owen (Cardiff C)

  Davies, rh Denzil (Llanelli)

  Jones, Kevan (N Durham)

  Davies, Geraint (Croydon C)

  Jones, Lynne (Selly Oak)

  Dawson, Hilton

  Jones, Martyn (Clwyd S)

  Dean, Mrs Janet

  Jowell, rh Tessa

  Denham, rh John

  Joyce, Eric (Falkirk W)

  Dhanda, Parmjit

  Kaufman, rh Gerald

  Dismore, Andrew

  Keen, Alan (Feltham)

  Dobbin, Jim (Heywood)

  Keen, Ann (Brentford)

  Dobson, rh Frank

  Kelly, Ruth (Bolton W)

  Donohoe, Brian H.

  Kemp, Fraser

  Doran, Frank

  Khabra, Piara S.

  Drew, David (Stroud)

  Kidney, David

  Drown, Ms Julia

  Kilfoyle, Peter

  Eagle, Angela (Wallasey)

  King, Andy (Rugby)

  Eagle, Maria (L'pool Garston)

  King, Ms Oona (Bethnal Green & Bow)

  Edwards, Huw

  Efford, Clive

  Knight, Jim (S Dorset)

  Ellman, Mrs Louise

  Kumar, Dr. Ashok

  Farrelly, Paul

  Ladyman, Dr. Stephen

  Field, rh Frank (Birkenhead)

  Lammy, David

  Fisher, Mark

  Lawrence, Mrs Jackie

  Fitzsimons, Mrs Lorna

  Laxton, Bob (Derby N)

  Flint, Caroline

  Lazarowicz, Mark

  Foster, rh Derek

  Lepper, David

  Foster, Michael (Worcester)

  Leslie, Christopher

  Gapes, Mike (Ilford S)

  Levitt, Tom (High Peak)

  Gardiner, Barry

  Lewis, Terry (Worsley)

  Gerrard, Neil

  Liddell, rh Mrs Helen

  Gilroy, Linda

  Linton, Martin

  Godsiff, Roger

  Love, Andrew

  Goggins, Paul

  Lucas, Ian (Wrexham)

  Griffiths, Win (Bridgend)

  Luke, Iain (Dundee E)

  Grogan, John

  Lyons, John (Strathkelvin)

  Hall, Mike (Weaver Vale)

  McAvoy, Thomas

  Hamilton, Fabian (Leeds NE)

  McCabe, Stephen

  Hanson, David

  McCartney, rh Ian

  Harris, Tom (Glasgow Cathcart)

  McDonagh, Siobhain

  Havard, Dai (Merthyr Tydfil & Rhymney)

  MacDonald, Calum

  McDonnell, John

  Healey, John

  MacDougall, John

  Henderson, Ivan (Harwich)

  McFall, John

  Hendrick, Mark

  McGuire, Mrs Anne

  Hepburn, Stephen

  McIsaac, Shona

  Heppell, John

  McKechin, Ann

  Hesford, Stephen

  McKenna, Rosemary

  Hewitt, rh Ms Patricia

  Mackinlay, Andrew

  Heyes, David

  McNulty, Tony

  Hill, Keith (Streatham)

  MacShane, Denis

  Hinchliffe, David

  Mactaggart, Fiona

  Hodge, Margaret

  McWilliam, John

  Hoey, Kate (Vauxhall)

  Mahon, Mrs Alice

  Hood, Jimmy (Clydesdale)

  Mallaber, Judy

  Hope, Phil (Corby)

  Mandelson, rh Peter

  Hopkins, Kelvin

  Mann, John (Bassetlaw)

  Howarth, rh Alan (Newport E)

  Marris, Rob (Wolverh'ton SW)

  Howarth, George (Knowsley N & Sefton E)

  Marsden, Gordon (Blackpool S)

  Martlew, Eric

  Howells, Dr. Kim

  Meacher, rh Michael

  Hughes, Beverley (Stretford & Urmston)

  Merron, Gillian

  Michael, rh Alun

  Hughes, Kevin (Doncaster N)

  Milburn, rh Alan

  Humble, Mrs Joan

  Miliband, David

  Hurst, Alan (Braintree)

  Miller, Andrew

  Hutton, rh John

  Mitchell, Austin (Gt Grimsby)

  Iddon, Dr. Brian

  Mole, Chris

  Illsley, Eric

  Morgan, Julie

  Irranca-Davies, Huw

  Morley, Elliot

  Jackson, Glenda (Hampstead & Highgate)

  Morris, rh Estelle

  Mountford, Kali

  Jackson, Helen (Hillsborough)

  Mullin, Chris

  859

  Murphy, Denis (Wansbeck)

  Smith, Jacqui (Redditch)

  Naysmith, Dr. Doug

  Soley, Clive

  Norris, Dan (Wansdyke)

  Southworth, Helen

  O'Brien, Bill (Normanton)

  Spellar, rh John

  Olner, Bill

  Squire, Rachel

  O'Neill, Martin

  Starkey, Dr. Phyllis

  Organ, Diana

  Steinberg, Gerry

  Osborne, Sandra (Ayr)

  Stevenson, George

  Owen, Albert

  Stewart, David (Inverness E & Lochaber)

  Palmer, Dr. Nick

  Pearson, Ian

  Stewart, Ian (Eccles)

  Perham, Linda

  Strang, rh Dr. Gavin

  Pickthall, Colin

  Stringer, Graham

  Pike, Peter (Burnley)

  Stuart, Ms Gisela

  Plaskitt, James

  Sutcliffe, Gerry

  Pond, Chris (Gravesham)

  Tami, Mark (Alyn)

  Pope, Greg (Hyndburn)

  Taylor, rh Ann (Dewsbury)

  Pound, Stephen

  Taylor, Dari (Stockton S)

  Prentice, Ms Bridget (Lewisham E)

  Taylor, David (NW Leics)

  Prescott, rh John

  Taylor, Dr. Richard (Wyre F)

  Primarolo, rh Dawn

  Thomas, Gareth (Clwyd W)

  Prosser, Gwyn

  Thomas, Gareth (Harrow W)

  Purchase, Ken

  Timms, Stephen

  Purnell, James

  Tipping, Paddy

  Quin, rh Joyce

  Todd, Mark (S Derbyshire)

  Quinn, Lawrie

  Touhig, Don (Islwyn)

  Rapson, Syd (Portsmouth N)

  Trickett, Jon

  Raynsford, rh Nick

  Turner, Dennis (Wolverh'ton SE)

  Reid, rh Dr. John (Hamilton N & Bellshill)

  Turner, Dr. Desmond (Brighton Kemptown)

  Turner Neil (Wigan)

  Rendel, David

  Tynan, Bill (Hamilton S)

  Robertson, John (Glasgow Anniesland)

  Vaz, Keith (Leicester E)

  Wareing, Robert N.

  Robinson, Geoffrey (Coventry NW)

  Watson, Tom (W Bromwich E)

  Watts, David

  Roche, Mrs Barbara

  White, Brian

  Rooney, Terry

  Whitehead, Dr. Alan

  Ross, Ernie (Dundee W)

  Wicks, Malcolm

  Roy, Frank (Motherwell)

  Williams, rh Alan (Swansea W)

  Ruane, Chris

  Williams, Betty (Conwy)

  Ruddock, Joan

  Wills, Michael

  Russell, Ms Christine (City of Chester)

  Wilson, Brian

  Winnick, David

  Ryan, Joan (Enfield N)

  Wood, Mike (Batley)

  Salter, Martin

  Woodward, Shaun

  Sarwar, Mohammad

  Woolas, Phil

  Savidge, Malcolm

  Worthington, Tony

  Sawford, Phil

  Wright, Anthony D. (Gt Yarmouth)

  Sedgemore, Brian

  Sheridan, Jim

  Wright, David (Telford)

  Shipley, Ms Debra

  Wright, Tony (Cannock)

  Simpson, Alan (Nottingham S)

  Wyatt, Derek

  Singh, Marsha

  Smith, rh Andrew (Oxford E)

  Tellers for the Ayes:

  Smith, rh Chris (Islington S & Finsbury)

  Jim Fitzpatrick and

  Mr. Jim Murphy

  NOES

  Ainsworth, Peter (E Surrey)

  Brooke, Mrs Annette L.

  Allan, Richard

  Browning, Mrs Angela

  Ancram, rh Michael

  Burns, Simon

  Arbuthnot, rh James

  Burnside, David

  Atkinson, Peter (Hexham)

  Burstow, Paul

  Bacon, Richard

  Burt, Alistair

  Baker, Norman

  Cable, Dr. Vincent

  Baldry, Tony

  Calton, Mrs Patsy

  Barker, Gregory

  Cameron, David

  Baron, John (Billericay)

  Carmichael, Alistair

  Beith, rh A. J.

  Cash, William

  Bercow, John

  Chidgey, David

  Beresford, Sir Paul

  Chope, Christopher

  Blunt Crispin

  Clappison, James

  Bottomley, Peter (Worthing W)

  Clarke, rh Kenneth (Rushcliffe)

  Brady, Graham

  Collins, Tim

  Brake, Tom (Carshalton)

  Cormack, Sir Patrick

  Breed, Colin

  Cotter, Brian

  860

  Curry, rh David

  Moore, Michael

  Davey, Edward (Kingston)

  Moss, Malcolm

  Davis, rh David (Haltemprice & Howden)

  Murrison, Dr. Andrew

  Oaten, Mark (Winchester)

  Djanogly, Jonathan

  O'Brien, Stephen (Eddisbury)

  Donaldson, Jeffrey M.

  Öpik, Lembit

  Duncan, Alan (Rutland)

  Osborne, George (Tatton)

  Duncan Smith, rh Iain

  Page, Richard

  Evans, Nigel

  Paice, James

  Fabricant, Michael

  Pickles, Eric

  Field, Mark (Cities of London & Westminster)

  Price, Adam (E Carmarthen & Dinefwr)

  Flight, Howard

  Prisk, Mark (Hertford)

  Flook, Adrian

  Pugh, Dr. John

  Forth, rh Eric

  Randall, John

  Foster, Don (Bath)

  Redwood, rh John

  Fox, Dr. Liam

  Robathan, Andrew

  Gale, Roger (N Thanet)

  Robertson, Angus (Moray)

  Garnier. Edward

  Robertson, Hugh (Faversham & M-Kent)

  George, Andrew (St. Ives)

  Gibb, Nick (Bognor Regis)

  Robertson, Laurence (Tewk'b'ry)

  Gidley, Sandra

  Rosindell, Andrew

  Gillan, Mrs Cheryl

  Russell, Bob (Colchester)

  Goodman Paul

  Salmond, Alex

  Gray, James (N Wilts)

  Sanders, Adrian

  Grayling, Chris

  Sayeed, Jonathan

  Green, Matthew (Ludlow)

  Selous, Andrew

  Greenway, John

  Shephard, rh Mrs Gillian

  Grieve, Dominic

  Shepherd, Richard

  Hague, rh William

  Simpson, Keith (M-Norfolk)

  Hammond, Philip

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

  Harvey, Nick

  Hawkins, Nick

  Smyth, Rev. Martin (Belfast S)

  Heald, Oliver

  Soames, Nicholas

  Heath, David

  Spelman, Mrs Caroline

  Heathcoat-Amory, rh David

  Spicer, Sir Michael

  Hendry, Charles

  Spink, Bob (Castle Point)

  Hermon, Lady

  Spring, Richard

  Hogg, rh Douglas

  Stanley, rh Sir John

  Horam, John (Orpington)

  Steen, Anthony

  Howard, rh Michael

  Streeter, Gary

  Howarth, Gerald (Aldershot)

  Stunell, Andrew

  Hughes, Simon (Southwark N)

  Swayne, Desmond

  Jack, rh Michael

  Swire, Hugo (E Devon)

  Jenkin, Bernard

  Syms, Robert

  Johnson, Boris (Henley)

  Taylor, Ian (Esher)

  Keetch, Paul

  Taylor, John (Solihull)

  Kirkbride, Miss Julie

  Taylor, Matthew (Truro)

  Kirkwood, Sir Archy

  Thomas, Simon (Ceredigion)

  Knight, rh Greg (E Yorkshire)

  Thurso, John

  Laing, Mrs Eleanor

  Turner, Andrew (Isle of Wight)

  Lamb, Norman

  Tyler, Paul (N Cornwall)

  Lansley, Andrew

  Tyrie, Andrew

  Laws, David (Yeovil)

  Viggers, Peter

  Liddell-Grainger, Ian

  Waterson, Nigel

  Lidington, David

  Watkinson, Angela

  Lilley rh Peter

  Webb, Steve (Northavon)

  Llwyd, Elfyn

  Weir, Michael

  Luff, Peter (M-Worcs)

  Whittingdale, John

  McIntosh, Miss Anne

  Wiggin, Bill

  Mackay, rh Andrew

  Willetts, David

  Maclean, rh David

  Williams, Roger (Brecon)

  McLoughlin, Patrick

  Winterton, Ann (Congleton)

  Marsden, Paul (Shrewsbury & Atcham)

  Winterton, Sir Nicholas (Macclesfield)

  Mates, Michael

  Wishart, Pete

  Maude, rh Francis

  Yeo, Tim (S Suffolk)

  Mawhinney, rh Sir Brian

  Young, rh Sir George

  May, Mrs Theresa

  Younger-Ross, Richard

  Mercer, Patrick

  Tellers for the Noes:

  Mitchell, Andrew (Sutton Coldfield)

  Mr. Mark Hoban and

  Mr. Mark Francois

  Question accordingly agreed to.

Community Care (Delayed Discharges etc.) Bill
Lords amendments considered.
Community Care (Delayed Discharges etc.) Bill
  Clause 1

    MEANING OF "NHS BODY" AND "QUALIFYING HOSPITAL PATIENT"
    The Lords do not insist on their amendment No. 2, to which the Commons have disagreed, but propose the following amendment in lieu thereof—
    No. 2B, in page 6, line 23, leave out from "regulations" to end of line 24 and insert
    "or an order under this Part is exercisable by the appropriate Minister by statutory instrument".
    5.3 pm
    The Minister of State, Department of Health (Jacqui Smith): I beg to move, That this House agrees with the Lords in the said amendment.
    Madam Deputy Speaker (Sylvia Heal): With this, it will be convenient to discuss Lords amendments Nos. 2C to 2E.
    Jacqui Smith: In our previous discussions on this matter, Opposition Members argued that mental health patients should be permanently excluded from the provisions of the Bill because it would not be possible to carry out an assessment and arrange a care plan for such patients within a minimum time scale, because their needs differed from those of others. That argument took no account of the fact that the Bill already allows us to make different provision for different cases. Of course, as I pointed out earlier, permanently excluding such patients would mean that we ran the risk of being seen to discriminate permanently against patients with mental health problems.
    However, I listened—as I always do—to the hon. Member for West Chelmsford (Mr. Burns), who said:
    "The group could be included in the future, but it should not be included at the moment."—[Official Report, 19 March 2003; Vol. 401, c. 963.]
    We would have agreed with him if he had said "should be included." In another place, the Government proposed the group of amendments that we are considering. They would enable Parliament to scrutinise inclusion when the group of patients is included in the future, and the arrangements for doing that. The amendments therefore require any regulations that bring patients who receive mental health care within the definition of "qualifying hospital patient" to be subject to affirmative procedure.
    We have added a requirement to clause 8 to provide that regulations that prescribe mental health care must be subject to affirmative procedure. That means that we also need to define mental health care. My hon. Friend the Member for Wakefield (Mr. Hinchliffe) made that point powerfully in our previous debate on the subject. It is therefore necessary to add an order-making power to deal with the problem of definition in the most straightforward way. We intend the order to prescribe mental health care as care that is received by a patient
    862
    who is under a consultant psychiatrist. Two further consequential amendments would affect clauses 9 and 11.
    When it is appropriate, we will lay before the House regulations that bring patients who receive mental health care within the scope of the definition of "qualifying hospital patient". Parliament will then be able to debate—and, if it wishes, disagree to—any such regulations.
    Mr. Simon Burns: Has the Minister any time scale in mind for reaching that point?
    Jacqui Smith: No, we do not have a time scale. As we said throughout our discussions, we should take a pragmatic approach to ensuring that we develop the policy in the most appropriate way. I would want to consider what I anticipate to be the success of the approach for those in acute care as we examine its further extension.
    I believe that we have taken the right approach. The Bill does not exclude the patients whom we are considering, but Parliament will be able to scrutinise the timing and the basis of their inclusion. I therefore hope that hon. Members will agree with Lords in their amendments.
    Mr. Burns: I sincerely thank the Minister for her kind and generous comments about me. It was refreshingly unusual and especially gratifying because she is admitting, as we approach the Bill's last parliamentary stage, that she agrees with the arguments that my hon. Friends and I have presented on the subject of our discussion.
    I was fascinated to hear the Minister say that the Government had sought throughout our proceedings to take a "pragmatic approach" on the way in which to progress. It is unfortunate that the Minister did not extend her bonhomie towards my views further because my hon. Friends, the hon. Member for Sutton and Cheam (Mr. Burstow) and I have urged the Minister and the Department from the start to take a pragmatic approach. We suggested that they got rid of the Bill because it will not achieve the Minister's hopes. It will simply set the health service against social services through fines, if I may use, for the final time, the f-word about which the Minister has been in denial most of the time. However, we always welcome a sinner who repents, and the Minister repenteth with a vengeance. We do not hold that against her, as it shows what we have suspected for a long time: if common sense stares her in the face and she is told often enough, the desired effect will result. However, rather sadly for me, she said during our previous proceedings that she had heard my speech many times before, although that shows that it was worth repeating.
    I certainly do not want to rub the Minister's nose in it, but she has, very graciously, conceded the points that the Opposition have been putting to her. I am only saddened that, due to other commitments, the hon. Member for Wakefield (Mr. Hinchliffe), the Chairman of the Health Committee, cannot be present. I imagine that he may be deliberately absent, because although he argued vigorously last time that the proposal was wrong and his Government have now conceded the point, once

    863
    again we see the Labour Chairman of that Committee out of synch with his Secretary of State and his Government on a health matter.
    To all intents and purposes, the amendment goes along with what we have been urging with regard to patients suffering from mental health problems. We have always said that there are a number of reasons for such patients being treated differently from those with acute illnesses and needs for surgery due to the nature of their illness and the problems associated with mental illness. That is why we tabled amendments originally and why we have pressed them so vigorously on the Government.
    We believed that exempting sufferers of mental illness or postponing until the appropriate time, as the Minister said, their being brought into the ambit of the fining regime would help to enhance a fairly poor Bill. I am glad that the Government have agreed to what are, in effect, amendments to amendments, which will ensure that sufferers from mental illness do not come within the Bill's ambit until, at some later stage, the Government consider issuing a statutory instrument that will, I believe, go through both Houses of Parliament. That is good news, because the Government have recognised a real problem with the care of the mentally ill. I warmly welcome that.
    Also, there is a knock-on effect. For a variety of reasons, not least the damage that could be done to the rest of the health service and social services, the legislation will probably no longer be relevant when the time comes—if it ever does—for it to take effect in this respect, as the Government may be seeking to use another approach or the problem may have gone away, which would make the legislation redundant. I cannot predict which of those scenarios might happen, but I am pleased that the Government have, in principle, conceded the point and I welcome the way that they are seeking to address it.
    The Minister talks about regulations being made under section 1 of the legislation and the Government perhaps wanting to include people who suffer mental health problems, but what rather amuses me is the fact that that will be done through a statutory instrument. This is novel: we had regular debates upstairs in Committee, the Bill was considered on Report on the Floor of the House and the Government listened to our arguments, but, sadly, they did so in isolation.
    5.15 pm
    The amendment says that the regulations under section 1
    "may not prescribe a description of care which is, or includes, mental health care unless a draft of the regulations has been laid before … Parliament."
    That is perfectly straightforward, and the terminology is correct. It is the rest of the sentence that is significant, as the Minister will know from our earlier debates—debates that she has cruelly claimed to have heard many times before. The words that I left out just now are
    "and approved by a resolution of, each House of".
    That constitutes a clear statement that the order will be subject to the affirmative procedure. There will be no back-door publication of an order slipped through on the basis of a negative resolution, allowing, if we are
    864
    lucky, a 90-minute debate in Committee—by which time the order would probably be in force. Now it cannot come into force until it has been subject to an affirmative resolution.
    I congratulate the Minister from the bottom of my heart on seeing sense and finally conceding that secondary legislation emanating from important primary legislation should be subject to the affirmative procedure in both Houses. What disappoints me is the fact that she has conceded that point so late in the day. As my right hon. Friend the Member for North-West Hampshire (Sir George Young) will recall, in Committee we engaged in debate after debate on all the other secondary powers in the Bill that would be dealt with through the negative procedure—although they related to issues of great concern and significance—because they flowed from what could be described as a skeleton of a piece of primary legislation, and the power to determine and implement the fleshing out of that skeleton must come from statutory instruments. The Minister was adamant that it was unnecessary to deal with the matter other than through the negative procedure. I am sorry about that, because I believe that the House should have the right to debate important secondary legislation and question Ministers on it. As I have said, I am glad that the Minister has accepted our arguments, but wish that she had done so earlier.
    I thank the Minister for being prepared to think again. Notwithstanding what she may have said in the past and what some of her Back Benchers have said, she was—"tough enough" is probably the wrong term, and "man enough" certainly is—magnanimous enough to realise that the Opposition were saving her from herself and improving the Bill, while also improving the care of the mentally ill. She recognised reality when it stared her in the face, and gave us the amendments to the amendment.
    My colleagues and I will not oppose this change to the Bill. We look forward to seeing it on the statute book, because we believe that our initial gut reaction was right and that this is in the best interests of those who suffer from mental illness.
    Mr. Paul Burstow: This is the last gasp for consideration of this Bill and today's consideration of Lords amendments is all about banking the concessions, reassurances and undertakings that have been given by Ministers at the Dispatch Box here and in the other place. We should thank the Minister for making those concessions and I place on record my appreciation of the hard and diligent work undertaken by my noble Friends Baroness Barker and Lord Tim Clement-Jones, who pursued several of the concerns that I and my hon. Friend the Member for Cheadle (Mrs. Calton) raised in Committee—not least the question of how the Bill will operate. We certainly welcome the concessions, not least the fact that the amendments will allow both Houses to consider the matter through the affirmative procedure. Conservative Front-Bench Members and I raised that issue in Committee, and we are pleased that, in this last stage of consideration, it will be built into the Bill.

    865
    I should like to ask the Minister about the operation of amendment No. 2C, which states that regulations
    "may not prescribe a description of care which is, or includes, mental health care unless a draft of the regulations has been laid before, and approved by a resolution of, each House of Parliament."
    By dint of the drafting, could a person living in a care home as part of a period of intermediate care be excluded if he also had dementia? If Ministers were minded to include care home settings in future regulations on discharge arrangements—I believe that that was intended in other clauses—and if a person receiving intermediate care in a care home setting also had dementia, thus receiving mental health care services as part of the overall package, would any such regulations have to be subject to the affirmative procedure if the Bill's powers were extended beyond the acute sector into the care home sector? Will the Minister clarify whether that is the Government's intention? On a quick reading, it would be possible to interpret the amendment that way, so it would help if the Minister clarified the position.
    As I said, we shall not oppose the amendment and we shall bank the other concessions gained from the Minister, and in the other place, over the past few weeks.
    Jacqui Smith: I do not intend to respond to much of the contribution of the hon. Member for West Chelmsford (Mr. Burns). I simply reiterate the constructive approach that I have adopted throughout the legislation by saying that the principle is right. Although we will probably—though not necessarily—start with predominantly older people whose discharge from acute hospital care is delayed, it has always been our intention to consider the extension of the provisions if they prove, as I believe that they will, successful in providing incentives to ensure that people get the right care at the right time in the right place. We have always recognised that different people in different circumstances may need a slightly different approach—for example, in respect of the period of time necessary for an assessment, or the level of charge appropriate to particular circumstances.
    The amendments that we are debating today are our attempt to assure hon. Members that we recognise such differences. In the context of the specific issues or concerns pertaining to mental health, it is appropriate that, when and if we get to that particular stage, we examine proposals in detail and allow Parliament to do so as well.
    The hon. Member for Sutton and Cheam (Mr. Burstow) raised a specific matter. The Bill will already allow the provisions in part 1 to be extended to people in care homes. He is right to say that we discussed in Committee the circumstances in which that might happen. People delayed in intermediate care could well be in a position where it would be appropriate to extend the part 1 provisions to them.
    As I made clear in my introduction, the extent to which that would be subject to the affirmative procedure would depend on the primary reason for the care. The regulations would be extended to mental health patients in circumstances where the qualifying patient was under
    866
    the care of a consultant psychiatrist. That is our definition, and it would be the determining factor as to whether subsequent regulations would be subject to affirmative resolution.
    The hon. Gentleman also wondered whether we would need to consider the specific circumstances involved in extending the provisions in part 1 to intermediate care, and whether I accepted that such care often had an impact on people with dementia. I assure him that the answer to both questions is yes. Whether the affirmative resolution procedure and these particular amendments will be involved depends specifically on whether a person is under the care of a psychiatric consultant.
    Mr. Burstow: The Minister has spoken about the involvement of consultant psychiatrists, but the mental health of older people is often dealt with by psychogeriatricians. They deal with dementia particularly, but with other conditions as well. Is the Minister specifically excluding reference to psychogeriatricians, or are we talking only about psychiatrists in this respect?
    Jacqui Smith: The amendments deal only with the circumstances in which the affirmative resolution procedure would be necessary. All the way along, our argument has been that there might be a variety of people—including those older people under the care of psychogeriatricians—for whom it would be appropriate to use the provisions in the Bill. When we come to extend the provisions of part 1 to those suffering from mental health problems, we will need to define what we mean by the phrase "qualifying patient". It is in that context that I said that it seemed appropriate to define them as being those people who are under the care of a psychiatrist. That does not mean that other patients would not be able to benefit from the provisions of the Bill—either now, if they fit the definition of "qualifying patient", or in the future.
    I hope that the House will feel able to agree with the Lords in the amendment.
    Lords amendment agreed to.
    Lords amendments Nos. 2C to 2E agreed to.
    Jacqui Smith: I beg to move, That this House agrees with the Lords in amendment No. 26B, an amendment to Lords amendment No. 26, as amended: in line 26, at end insert—
    "(7A) Until 31st March 2005 the period of two days referred to in subsection (7) is exclusive of Sundays and public holidays in England and Wales."
    In Committee, we discussed the inclusion or exclusion of week ends and public holidays from the minimum interval—the time following notification in which social services must assess and arrange services for a patient. I said that I did not believe that we should state on the face of the Bill that it was acceptable for local authorities to take five days as a minimum period to assess patients and make services available for them. It is worth reminding ourselves that we are talking about a minimum period, and the Bill makes it clear that a discharge would begin only from the end of the minimum period or from the point at which somebody was ready to be discharged.

    867
    5.30 pm
    As I pointed out in Committee, the Bill already ensures, owing to better communication between the NHS—particularly hospitals—and social services, that it is likely that somebody going into hospital for an elective operation would already have had their potential need for social services notified to the local authority beforehand, providing a longer period than in many cases exists at the moment. If they went in as an emergency patient, current figures suggest that only 30 per cent. of such patients come out within three days. We are talking about setting a minimum period that would probably not affect most patients, who will have a longer period.
    Opposition Members have asked us to enshrine in the Bill the possibility that it could take much longer to assess a patient and to make services available so that they can safely leave hospital. A delay does not become any more acceptable to a patient and their family just because it takes place at the weekend or on a bank holiday. A person in an acute hospital bed who no longer needs to be there is not at less risk of the consequences or less vulnerable because social services do not work at weekends. It has been argued that although many social services departments are improving, and are sometimes able to operate for seven days a week, they cannot immediately be expected to perform those functions outside the normal working week. Although I firmly believe that social services should be moving towards a more flexible approach to working hours that means that the needs of individuals for community care services can be more effectively met, I accept that that will take time.
    The amendment requires the regulations on the minimum assessment period to exclude Sundays and public holidays from that period until 31 March 2005.
    Mr. Burns: Let me seek clarification so that there is no misunderstanding. The Minister says that the amendment excludes Sundays and bank holidays, but if she looks at subsection (7), she will see that it refers to
    "at least two days excluding Saturdays, Sundays and public holidays."
    Did she erroneously forget to mention Saturdays?
    Jacqui Smith: I think, dare I say it, that the hon. Gentleman is looking at the wrong amendment. Our amendment, instead of excluding Saturdays, Sundays and public holidays, inserts new subsection (7A), which says:
    "Until 31st March 2005 the period of two days referred to in subsection (7) is exclusive of Sundays and public holidays in England and Wales."
    We have replaced the provision on Saturdays, Sundays and public holidays that was previously in the clause with the provision that until 31 March 2005 the regulations will exclude Sundays and public holidays.
    Mr. Burns: I am grateful to the Minister, and I am happy to confirm that she is absolutely right. However, given that she has conceded two thirds of the loaf, why did she not include Saturdays?
    Jacqui Smith: I was explaining how I had been somewhat reluctant even to concede two thirds of the
    868
    loaf. We are talking about the minimum period of time within which we expect social services departments and health providers, working together, to determine an appropriate package of care that ensures that somebody can leave hospital safely. My argument throughout has been that modern social services departments should work over weekends. I do not think it appropriate to say to an older person, "I'm afraid you're going to have to stay in hospital because we're not in a position to sort out your package of care this weekend."
    The amendment seeks to acknowledge the fact that we are in a period of transition and that, given the considerable extra investment that the Government are putting into social services departments, it is likely that the departments will build up their ability to assess people, build up the flexibility of their assessments, and build up their ability to offer services over weekends. It is therefore reasonable of us to say that we will extend the minimum period up to 31 March 2005 so that it does not include Sundays and public holidays. That will mean that local authorities have from now until January 2004—given the other changes that were made in the other place on the point at which charging will start—to plan and prepare for Saturday working before charging kicks in. They will have at least another 15 months after that to move to a seven-day service. We will mirror that in the regulations to do with notices. Although Sundays and public holidays are not part of the planning period, they will not count in the time scale of any notices that are given by the NHS to local authorities. That is a compromise. I do not believe that anyone would want the Bill to contain the message that it is acceptable for older people routinely to wait five or more days in hospital for an assessment of the services required. However, by excluding Sundays and public holidays until 2005, we are giving local authorities time to change their working practices and minimise delays for individual patients.
    I think—dare I say it—that what I have said reflects the constructive approach that we have taken throughout the process while at the same time maintaining our commitment to put in place a system that ensures that people are not trapped in hospital when they are ready to leave as a result of a failure to put in place community care alternatives. As the Bill has gone through both Houses, we have responded in a variety of areas where improvements to the legislation were possible. The principle has been maintained all the way through, but I hope that hon. Members will feel able to support this compromise and agree with the Lords amendments.
    Mr. Burstow: The issue of bank holidays and weekends was first pursued first in Committee in this House and then quite vigorously by my noble Friend Lord Clement-Jones in the other place. The proposal had all-party and Cross-Bench support in the other place. That was important, as it allowed us to reach the point that we are at today—with two thirds of the loaf ready to be considered. On the basis of the consideration in the other place and the points that have been raised by the Minister today, I feel that a further delay in implementing this change in respect of Sundays and bank holidays is very welcome. However, it gives rise to some questions that I would like to put to the Minister.

    869
    The Minister is right to say that none of us wants a situation in which a person is unnecessarily left languishing in a hospital bed. We want all efforts to be made to ensure that a person who is ready to be discharged does not stay in hospital unnecessarily. For the benefit of those hon. Members who are able to listen to me, I want to ask the Minister about the cost of moving from a five-day-a-week service to a seven-day-a-week service. From reading the Lords deliberations on the clause it is not entirely clear whether the Government have any idea of the cost of moving to a seven-day-a-week service. It cannot be cost free. Can the Minister tell us whether the cost will be contained in the additional
    "resources that are being allocated through the comprehensive spending review"?
    In that case, the resources would be tied up in doing the same thing for more days of the week rather than in doing new things, so I hope that the Minister will not claim that the Government will be doing lots of additional, new things with money that has been earmarked to enable us to move to a seven-day-a-week service.
    We do not entirely reject the argument for moving to a seven-day-a-week service, not least because of some of the points about children's services made recently by Lord Laming in his report. In some cases, people need services that are available 24 hours a day and, in respect of discharge, seven days a week. The amendment would allow us to move towards that situation in an orderly fashion, which is certainly welcome.
    The delay is welcome, not least because it affords us the opportunity further to understand how the assessment process will work out. During consideration of these and other amendments in the other place, there was some discussion about the planning of the discharge process and the production of care packages. For example, after a person was discharged to their own home, there would be further assessment after two weeks to see whether everything was working as intended. However, it was not made clear during those deliberations whether that would apply to someone who was discharged to a care home. It would be helpful if the Minister could confirm that it will not apply only to someone who is discharged to their own home. People discharged to care homes would also benefit from such an assessment. Sometimes placing someone in a care home is the wrong decision and the person could recover more effectively and lead a more independent life in their own home with an appropriate care package.
    Finally, I draw the attention of the House to the fact that the amendment will have the useful effect of delaying for several years the introduction and implementation of the Bill's provisions in respect of Sundays and public holidays. It is rather amusing that the whole Bill was meant to come into effect today—April fool's day. The legislation should have been implemented this year and it behoves the Minister to acknowledge that that timetable was never realistic if there was to be adequate parliamentary scrutiny of the measure. Parliamentary scrutiny has resulted in the improvement of the Bill, which means that most of its provisions will not be implemented until next January. That is welcome progress from the point at which we began our proceedings on the Bill many months ago.
    870
    We are willing to accept the amendment. Two thirds of the loaf is certainly better than nothing.
    Mr. Burns: I echo the words of the hon. Gentleman, who rightly reminded the House that April fool's day 2003 was the day on which the Government intended the Bill to come into force—the day on which the fines were to start. In her heart, if not through her mouth, the Minister will agree that we have saved the Government from being the ultimate April fools. If it were not for my noble Friends who tabled the amendment that postponed the legislation, we should not have seen the Government climb-down that has led to its coming into force on 1 January 2004. I am sure that the hon. Lady will accept that we have done her and her Government a great favour by imposing common sense on them.
    The Minister rightly said today that she had tried to take a constructive approach throughout all the proceedings on the Bill, as well as on this amendment. It is wonderful how constructive one's approach can be if the Opposition parties have been even more constructive in showing the Government the error of their ways, and when common sense prevails in another place. As any student or follower of the saga of this legislation knows, in Committee, on Report and in another place we have explained time and again to the Minister that not to exclude Saturdays, Sundays and Mondays would be a mistake, because there is essentially a five-day service at present, and to extend that service to seven days would, certainly in the short term, cause considerable problems—not least in funding, as the hon. Member for Sutton and Cheam (Mr. Burstow) said.
    5.45 pm
    Although I urge the Minister to resist her usual rant on the subject, it would be interesting if she would address the points made concerning the funding of the service when it in effect changes from a five to a seven day service, because in the real world, as the Minister is aware, services tend to slow down over the weekend and over bank holidays. That is rightly or wrongly a fact of life, and that is why we have pushed so hard and so long with this amendment, to try to save the Government from not facing the reality of the current situation.
    As I told the Minister in an intervention, we have two thirds of a loaf rather than the whole loaf, but then, as the Minister could with some justification say because she will have heard it numerous times before, when one is in opposition and the Government have an overall majority of about 165 seats, any crumb that falls from the Minister's table is more than welcome. In fact, it could be seen as a considerable victory.
    I do not want to dwell on the narrow party political point, because this is not so much a party political victory as a victory for common sense. It is a victory for patients. a victory for social service departments and probably a victory for the NHS, so I too welcome what the Minister has said and agreed to with this two thirds of a loaf.
    In conclusion, I have one final question for the Minister, which I dearly hope she will be prepared to answer so that we may end on a satisfactory note. The amendment seeks to give leeway for Sundays and public holidays over the assessment process to help social

    871
    service departments to avoid incurring fines through no fault of their own. The Minister—except once or twice when she had serious lapses—has refused to use the f-word. She has used her thesaurus and the Labour spin machine and she has come up with every word under the sun to describe what the Bill does and what the amendment seeks to minimise. She has used the euphemism "incentives". She has used the word "charging". She has used other words, but except when she has had a lapse she has never used the word fines. But to the Minister's embarrassment, her own Secretary of State, in his statement to the House the day after the Budget, used the f-word. He was quite blatant. He said that the fines imposed under the legislation would, "x, y, zee." Why does the Secretary of State use the word fines when the Minister has steadfastly refused to do so? Will the Minister now face the reality of the situation and accept that the Bill is just a cackhanded way in which to penalise one public service—social services departments—at the expense of the NHS by imposing fines?
    As my hon. Friends and I have two thirds of a loaf and are not greedy, we will not press any amendment in this group to a Division because, once again, we are grateful to the Minister for taking our advice in a very constructive a way—we gave the advice—and tabling the amendment.
    Jacqui Smith: As we come to the "zee" of this legislation, I hope that we can bring it to a successful conclusion. I shall respond first to some of the points made by the hon. Member for Sutton and Cheam (Mr. Burstow). He asked me about the cost of seven-day working. I reiterate what I said in my introductory remarks: some social services departments are already successfully ensuring that, within three days, they assess and put in place the package of care necessary to get people safely out of hospital, so calculating the cost of bringing everyone up to that level is not straightforward.
    We could argue that everyone should be at that level already, but we recognised that social services departments needed more funding for that aspect of work, among others. That is why the access and systems capacity grant, in particular, highlights the need to improve the number of people involved in assessment and the speed with which assessment takes place, as my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State made clear in his statement in July last year. We have made it clear that that considerable extra investment will contribute to that function.
    Although I can take such comments from the hon. Member for Sutton and Cheam, the hon. Member for West Chelmsford (Mr. Burns) has a bit of a cheek in returning to money again. However, he begged me not to be too confrontational, so I will not be. I shall simply remind hon. Members that the extra investment in social services departments, which enables us to have our high aspirations about ensuring that people get out of hospital and receive the right care when they need it, is possible because of the Government's investment plans, which were not supported by Opposition Members.
    In response to the concerns that were raised about people returning to their own homes and then perhaps struggling or being concerned about whether the package of care was adequate, we said that two-week
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    reviews would be undertaken when people return to their own homes. That concern is not so likely to relate to people in care homes, although I recognise the point that we often need to ensure that people do not automatically go into care homes when, with a bit of support, they could return to their own homes. I am glad that the hon. Member for West Chelmsford is nodding.
    The Government have therefore not only defined the idea of intermediate care in the national service framework, but invested significantly in it. That is why last week we were able to report a considerable increase in the number of people who benefit from intermediate care, when we celebrated the fact that the national service framework was published two years ago. That type of opportunity will ensure that older people get the care that they need, as well as the chance to regain their independence.
    Opposition Members have tried to claim victories today, and I am certainly willing to say, as I did earlier, that we have taken a constructive approach throughout the debates on the Bill. For example, we recognised the need to strengthen the provisions on carers in the amendments that we proposed. We also realised that we needed to ensure that the Bill—which is so much about putting patients, particularly older people, at the centre of care—explicitly recognised that fact in the way in which it makes requirements to ensure that people are consulted, for example, before social services are notified and involved in the process. We have made changes and we have clarified the position as we have gone through this process.
    Mr. Burns: The Minister has been constructive in accepting Opposition points of view and in tabling amendments. Would she have been so constructive and made so many changes to the Bill if our Parliament was a single chamber Parliament?
    Jacqui Smith: If hon. Members will forgive me, I will not even start down that route.
    Mr. Deputy Speaker (Sir Michael Lord): Order. The hon. Lady would be well advised to take her own advice and stick to the amendment.
    Jacqui Smith: Thank you, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I have outlined some of the issues on which we have made progress. The Bill comes out of the process the better for that.
    I also remind hon. Members that we have maintained at the centre of the Bill—in part 1—the principle that we set down at the beginning. It is right to put in place a system of incentives that ensures that predominantly older people get the right care at the right time and in the right place. We should focus on making sure that health and social services work together better than they have previously so as to make sure that the community alternatives are in place. The Bill that the hon. Member for West Chelmsford has described as horrible on various occasions will, in the very near future, become an Act. That principle will be enshrined and, as I have argued throughout, it represents—along with part 2, which will make community equipment services free and ensure that intermediate care, wherever it is placed, is free—an important step forward. It will enable the

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    Government to continue the progress that they have made in reducing delayed discharge and will make sure that the additional investment that we are putting in place has the effect that it should have. Older people and others can be more confident that they will get the right care in the right place and at the right time. On that basis, I commend the Bill and ask the House to support the amendment.
    Amendment agreed to.

  DELEGATED LEGISLATION
  Mr. Deputy Speaker (Sir Michael Lord): With permission, I shall put together motions 5, 6, 7 and 8.
  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. 116) (HC 494) Maintenance of Roads Grant 2003–04, a copy of which was laid before this House on 5th March, be approved.
    REPRESENTATION OF THE PEOPLE
    That the draft Representation of the People (Northern Ireland) (Variation of Specified Documents) Regulations 2003, which were laid before this House on 19th March, be approved.
    IMMIGRATION
    That the draft Special Immigration Appeals Commission (Procedure) Rules 2003, which were laid before this House on 24th March, be approved.

    DANGEROUS DRUGS
    That the draft Misuse of Drugs Act 1971 (Modification) Order 2003, which was laid before this House on 12th March, be approved.—[Jim Fitzpatrick.]
    Question agreed to.

    HEALTH PROTECTION AGENCY
    Ordered,
    That the Health Protection Agency (Yr Asiantaeth Diogelu Iechyd) (Establishment) Order 2003 (S.I., 2003, No. 505) and Health Protection Agency (Yr Asiantaeth Diogelu Iechyd) Regulations 2003 (S.I., 2003, No. 506), be referred to a Standing Committee on Delegated Legislation.—[Jim Fitzpatrick.]

  ADJOURNMENT (EASTER)
  Motion made, and Question put forthwith, pursuant to Standing Order No. 25 (Periodic Adjournments),
  That this House, at its rising on Monday 14th April, do adjourn till Monday 28th April 2003.—[Jim Fitzpatrick.]
  Question agreed to.

PETITIONS

  Community Pharmacies
  5.58 pm
  Mr. Jonathan Djanogly: I wish to present a petition on behalf of 2,253 residents of Huntingdon, St. Neot's, Brampton, Kimbolton, Alconbury, Ellington, Spaldwick and Stoneley.
  The petition declares
  That the deregulation of pharmacies, as set out in the recent Office of Fair Trading report, would threaten access for patients to adequate pharmacy services in their community and be detrimental to community pharmacy businesses everywhere.
  The Petitioners therefore request that the House of Commons rejects proposals that would allow the unrestricted opening of pharmacies able to dispense NHS prescriptions, to preserve local pharmacies and safeguard their continued services to local communities.
  And the Petitioners remain, etc.
  To lie upon the Table.
  5.59 pm
  Mr. Michael Weir: This, too, is a petition about pharmacies; it is from the villages of Friockheim and Letham in my constituency.
  The petition states:
  To the House of Commons
  The Petition of the Constituents of Central Angus
  Declares that they oppose the recommendation made in the Office of Fair Trading Report—The Control of Entry Regulations and Retail Pharmacy Services in the UK—to end pharmacy control of entry regulations and allow all supermarkets to open a pharmacy within their stores.
  The Petitioners therefore request that the House of Commons does not accept the recommendations in the OFT report —The Control of Entry Regulations and Retail Pharmacy Services in the UK.
  And the Petitioners remain etc.
  To lie upon the Table.
  6 pm
  Mr. Jim Cunningham: This petition, which has 3,399 signatures, was given to me and to my hon. Friend the Member for Coventry, North-East (Mr. Ainsworth) by several local pharmacies in Coventry. They are concerned that they will go out of business because supermarkets will under-price them, and if so, people who are having treatment for drug abuse will no longer be able to get that treatment locally, although they cannot say why.
  The petition states:
  To the House of Commons,
  The Petition of the residents of Coventry,
  Declares that local Communities are best served by local community-based pharmacies, and that the OFT's recommendations to abolish the "control of entry" regulation would seriously damage local pharmacies.
  The Petitioners therefore request that the House of Commons urge the Government to reject proposals that allow unrestricted opening of pharmacies able to dispense NHS prescriptions, and to preserve local pharmacies and safeguard their continuing provision of services to local communities.
  And the Petitioners remain, etc.
  To lie upon the Table.
  6.1 pm
  Mr. Richard Spring: The petition states:
  To the House of Commons
  The petition of 701 residents of Brandon, Suffolk, and others
  Declares that the government should reject proposals from the Office of Fair Trading that would remove restrictions on entry to the community pharmacy market in order to preserve the local pharmacies and safeguard their continued service to local communities.
  The petitioners therefore request that the House of Commons urge the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry to reject the Office of Fair Trading proposals.
  And the Petitioners remain, etc.
  To lie upon the Table.

Pershore and Malvern Hospitals
Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.— [Mr. Caplin.]
6.2 pm
Sir Michael Spicer: I am delighted that the Under-Secretary of State for Health, the hon. Member for Tottenham (Mr. Lammy), will respond to the debate. I confess that I would have been even more delighted if the Minister of State, Department of Health, the hon. Member for Redditch (Jacqui Smith), who has just left the Chamber, were responding because she knows Malvern very well. I first met the hon. Lady when she was a student at the Chase school in Malvern and I was addressing the sixth form. So great was my eloquence that she immediately rushed off and joined the Labour party.
Coming straight to the point, I have some questions for the Under-Secretary. First, do the Government still support the policy of developing community hospitals'? Secondly, following on from that, do the Government support the community hospitals of Malvern and Pershore? It is hard to exaggerate the importance that my constituents attach to both hospitals. Each hospital has served the surrounding area for around 100 years; each is an essential feature of the community; and each has provided a highly cost-effective service for the elderly and the dying, and above all, in recent years, those recuperating from treatment in the high-cost acute hospitals, particularly, this year, the new Worcestershire Royal hospital.
The great benefit that both community hospitals provide is that patients can recover close to their home and family at a cost that is far lower than that of the large acute hospitals. For that reason, residents of Malvern and Pershore and the surrounding villages have for many years cherished the hospitals and subscribed generously to their respective associations of friends. Each hospital, in different ways, is suddenly under threat. Malvern hospital has reached the point where it needs massive renovation and refurbishment. That has been anticipated for many years, which is why, for most of the period during which I have represented Malvern in Parliament, the hospital authorities have had a firm intention to rebuild the hospital. The previous hospital authority secured a site for precisely that purpose several years ago at Seaford court. In recent years, the plan for a new hospital has been analysed from every viewpoint, including the prospect that it might be subject to a private finance initiative.
Year after year has passed without a final decision being made. The current position is that South Worcestershire primary care trust has further postponed a decision until, it says, the summer. It is now essential that a decision to go ahead is made within the next month or so, otherwise the present hospital will fall into disrepair beyond redemption. My third question to the Minister is, therefore, what is to happen to Malvern hospital? What is its future? I hope that the Minister can provide some positive news.
Pressing as is the case for a new hospital in Malvern, a crisis point has been reached in Pershore, caused by the sudden announcement in the past few weeks by South Worcestershire primary care trust that it intends to close Pershore hospital in its present form and transfer

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patients to 25 beds in a new, yet-to-be-completed residential home for the elderly at Heathlands. That plan has a number of unacceptable features. There are serious doubts about the suitability of a purpose-built home for the elderly for partial conversion into a hospital. At a basic level, it is not clear that special hospital beds will fit into the separate bedrooms as currently designed, nor that the present configuration of the ground floor, which has been designated as the hospital section, would allow for the proper movement of trolleys and patients.
Even if the necessary money could be found for the conversion, questions arise about the propriety of running a residential home above a hospital. For elderly people, the prospect of having to share an entrance with the hospital is likely to be distressing. The proposal flies in the face of the accepted need for more residential places for the elderly in the county to avoid bed blocking, particularly in the expensive acute hospital in Worcestershire. It is ironic that we should be discussing that immediately after the passage through Parliament of the Community Care (Delayed Discharges etc.) Bill. The proposal would mean losing 25 badly needed beds for elderly residents. Indeed, I understand that those rooms have already been assigned to specific people, who have even chosen the colour of their wallpaper. Their future is now in limbo, as is that of people suffering from dementia, who will have no place in Heathlands if the proposals go ahead.
It is all quite unsatisfactory. The idea of exchanging a purpose-built hospital with facilities for minor injury operations, day rooms and proper wards for a makeshift facility with inadequate parking, limited access for ambulances and no minor injury theatre makes no apparent sense at all. At best, the proposal is likely to be unstable. It is made in the context of the failure of South Worcestershire primary care trust, despite repeated assurances to me to the contrary, to honour its commitment to reopen the minor injuries unit at Pershore hospital, as it promised to do when it was temporarily closed because of staff shortages.
In Worcestershire, the word of the primary care trust is not considered to be its bond: put bluntly, my constituents do not trust the SWPCT. That is particularly so because of the reasons that the trust has given for making the move. It claims that that will help to address a deficit, which it says it inherited from the Worcester area health authority. There is a good deal of muddle about the size and nature of that deficit. For instance, was it inherited debt or is it recurring debt? That has not been fully established. What is the size of it? Is it 1 or 2 per cent. of the PCT's annual budget? That has not been properly established, either. My fourth question to the Minister is, what are the facts about the deficit and, if it exists at all, how can the Pershore hospital proposal solve it?
If the primary care trust carries out its proclaimed intent to sign a long-term contract with the Heart of England housing association, the owners of the residential home, it is difficult to foresee how any recurring savings would be made from exchanging a purpose-built hospital for one that is not purpose built. The servicing of 25 individual rooms. for example, must
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be a much more expensive proposition than running purpose-designed wards. What will be the effect on the inherited deficit or on any recurring deficit?
Mr. Peter Luff: Can my hon. Friend confirm that if a capital revenue were to accrue to the South Worcestershire primary care trust arising from the sale of the current site of the Pershore hospital, it could not be used to pay off the deficit because it would be capital money, not revenue money? It would be in a separate pot, so it would not contribute to solving a deficit problem.
Sir Michael Spicer: That is an interesting question, and it is one of the reasons why it is important to sort out the deficit issue and establish whether it is a recurring current account deficit or whether it can properly be attributed on the balance sheet to the past and be treated as a capital amount. Those are important questions, and my hon. Friend pinpoints a significant aspect.
Part of the growing anger in Pershore stems from the nature of the consultation exercise now under way on behalf of the South Worcestershire primary care trust. The consultation exercise has been truncated to eight weeks. There have been no costings or time scales. It has failed to anticipate the obvious objections and problems. Surrounding villages whose residents look to Pershore hospital have not been consulted. I imagine that my hon. Friend has such villages in his constituency. Above all, the consultation has made no effort to consider the alternatives.
Untested assertions have been made at public meetings. and invariably no supportive evidence has been provided. For example, it has been argued that to rebuild the existing hospital using private finance would be unviable because planning permission would not be forthcoming to provide the land and scope for adequate parking and ancillary services. There is no evidence to suggest that the planning authority, Wychavon district council, would take such an outright negative position with respect to the height of the building or to the change of use of the land behind the present hospital.
It is clear that car parking could be provided adjacent to the present site, which would allow the hospital to be rebuilt to an adequate size on the existing site. It is unacceptable that this alternative has not been considered as part of the proposals put forward by the PCT in the consultation process. For all those reasons, the suspicion remains that the current proposal is a smokescreen for closing the Pershore community hospital outright.
So my fifth question to the Minister is this: will he require the South Worcestershire primary care trust at least to consider alternative proposals to rebuild or refurbish Pershore hospital on its present site, or on any other appropriate local site, and in so doing, supply the public with proper costings, which it has not done to date? He at least owes it to the taxpayer, who is about to inject an additional £18 million next year into the bank account of the South Worcestershire primary care trust, to ask why that extra money is to coincide with a threat to the future of two hospitals for which it has direct responsibility.
My sixth and final question to the Minister is this: will he publish his understanding of how it is intended that the millions of pounds of taxpayers' money that will be

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injected next year into the South Worcestershire primary care trust will be spent? It makes no sense whatever to my constituents that, on one hand, taxes are going up to pay for health, while on the other, hospitals are threatened with closure. If that pattern is repeating itself nationwide, he must be a very worried man. That would be further evidence of an emerging feature of the Government's policy on public services, in which more cash seems to go hand in hand with lower quality of service.
The Government have a responsibility to the nation to ensure that the money raised from income tax is not siphoned out into a morass of administration and wasted expenditure. That is precisely what seems to be happening in West Worcestershire, where the Minister must intervene at least to the extent of being able fully to answer the questions that I have put to him. Let me very briefly summarise those questions. First, does he support community hospitals in general, and in Malvern and Pershore in particular? Secondly, does he reject the notion that South Worcestershire PCT inherited a debt that justifies the proposed closure of the existing Pershore hospital? Thirdly, does he agree that the PCT should at least come up with options involving the continued existence of the hospital in Pershore, either on its present site or on another appropriate local site? Finally, is he satisfied with a situation in which closure of a community hospital is proposed when, at the same time, taxpayers are pouring millions of extra pounds into the area?
If the Minister cannot answer all those questions on the spot, I hope that he will at least write to me before the weekend.
6.17 pm
Mr. Michael Foster: An opportunity to discuss the health economy in Worcestershire is always welcome and I congratulate the hon. Member for West Worcestershire (Sir Michael Spicer) on securing a debate on Pershore and Malvern hospitals. Although those hospitals do not serve Worcester directly, they have an impact on the south Worcestershire health economy, and I view Worcester as the capital of south Worcestershire, if I may put it that way.
The hon. Gentleman made a very important point about the role of community hospitals in providing care to support our acute hospital system in Worcestershire. Patients may go to the community hospital for observation before being admitted to the acute hospital, or not admitted, as the case may be. The community hospital also allows people to be discharged from the acute hospital into an area where an appropriate level of care can be given. As he said, that care is in a less intensive and therefore less costly form. The role of community hospitals, be they in Pershore, Malvern or Evesham in south Worcestershire, is very important to the Worcestershire health economy.
Delayed discharges from the acute trust are a problem. We have debated that issue in the Chamber previously and it is to be hoped that we made some progress on it earlier today. The issue flags up the question of Worcestershire's capacity to deal with the health needs of the county and south Worcestershire in particular.
That is why I welcome the opportunity to debate the future of Pershore and Malvern hospitals. These hospitals have a lower bed occupancy rate than the
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acute trust, which gives the health economy a little bit more flexibility to operate creatively in seeing people move from acute hospitals to more appropriate forms of care. Bearing that in mind, however, I discovered earlier this year what I believe to be a form of discrimination against my constituents in Worcester and against people living in the northern part of the south Worcestershire area, in terms of how the relationship between community hospitals and the acute trust works. I shall give an example. If two patients—one from Pershore, the other from Worcester—were in an acute hospital but no longer needed acute care and were awaiting discharge, and two beds became available at the Pershore community hospital, the Pershore resident would pretty much automatically go to that hospital. The patient from Worcester, however, would not, even though it would be more appropriate to transfer that person to the Pershore environment. That is because the community hospitals serve the smaller towns and villages in south Worcestershire.
When I raised this issue with GPs from the local medical committee, they confirmed that that was indeed the case. My constituents are being discriminated against in terms of how the hospitals at Pershore. Malvern and Evesham currently work. Will the Minister look into this form of discrimination?
Mr. Luff: The hon. Gentleman is making an important point. I know, however, that, in the case of Evesham—on which I can speak with authority—the South Worcestershire primary care trust regards the hospital as the property, as it were, of the whole south Worcestershire health economy. It is certainly the trust's intention that people from all over south Worcestershire should be able to use it when they are discharged from an acute hospital. To be fair to the trust, it is taking this issue on board and dealing with it.
Mr. Foster: I can confirm that the South Worcestershire primary care trust is indeed taking this matter up. It has confirmed that the form of discrimination that I have just outlined can occur, and it is endeavouring to ensure that it is cut out, so that we can view south Worcestershire as a single health economy, rather than as distinct geographical locations. That is why I would like to ask the Minister to look into this matter.
This debate flags up the issue of whether Worcester as a city, and perhaps the northern part of the south Worcestershire area, should have some form of community hospital capacity. I put it on record that we in Worcester may have to campaign for a community hospital, so that we can get the type of care from which residents in the more rural parts of the county benefit, and from which those in the heart of Worcester currently do not.
Sir Michael Spicer: Surely that is the answer to the conundrum that the hon. Gentleman described at the beginning of his speech. He seemed to be implying that people were being prevented from going into hospitals in areas close to their families. Patients having their families close by as one of the advantages of such

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hospitals; that is why they are called community hospitals. The answer to the hon. Gentleman's conundrum is surely to have one for Worcester as well.
Mr. Foster: I am most grateful to the hon. Gentleman for that intervention, because I was about to ask the Minister to support such a campaign for a community hospital in Worcester and to ask my colleagues from Worcestershire to do so as well, as there would be benefits not just for the residents of Worcester. There would also be knock-on effects for the more rural areas of the county.
I would also like to ask the Minister what I think are some pertinent questions, given the contribution made by the hon. Member for West Worcestershire. If the Minister does not have the answers to hand, perhaps he could write to me to put them on the record. There has been an increase in the rate of national insurance contributions, and the money raised by the Exchequer is to pay for improvements in the national health service. How much of that increase will go into the Worcestershire health economy? In particular, how much will the South Worcestershire primary care trust get as a result of the increase?
Will the Minister also make an estimate of the impact that there would have been on south Worcestershire—particularly on Pershore and Malvern hospitals—if national insurance contributions had not been increased? That is a relevant question to ask. Will the Minister also confirm which Members of Parliament from Worcestershire voted in favour of the increase in national insurance contributions—
Mr. Deputy Speaker (Sir Michael Lord): Order. I must remind the hon. Gentleman that this is not his debate. It was initiated by another Member and its context is quite specific. He has not yet strayed too far from the future of Pershore and Malvern hospitals, which is the subject of the debate, and I should be grateful if he would stick to that.
Mr. Foster: Thank you, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I am inclined to get a little carried away when I try to protect the national health service in Worcestershire, whether that is Pershore or Malvern hospital.
Will the Minister make an assessment of what would happen to Pershore and Malvern hospitals if there were a 20 per cent. cut in the budget of the South Worcestershire primary care trust? That would have great relevance to my constituents arid those of the hon. Member for West Worcestershire. I support the call for clarification on the future of Pershore and Malvern hospitals, and I put on record again my intention to campaign for a community hospital facility for the heart of Worcester.
6.25 pm
Mr. Peter Luff: It is a rare privilege to have such time in which to debate the health economy of Worcestershire. These debates are usually dominated by concerns about the north of the county, which are often expressed by the hon. Member for Wyre Forest (Dr. Taylor). It is good that the three hon.
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Members who represent the south. Worcestershire health economy—that is rather an ugly phrase—are able to participate in a debate on the important question of the future of Pershore and Malvern hospitals and the implications and lessons of the consultation that is currently being conducted. I am specifically concerned with the consultation on Pershore hospital.
I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for West Worcestershire (Sir Michael Spicer) on having the good luck to secure a debate on a subject that is important to his constituents. I shall not tread on his toes too much because Pershore hospital is firmly in his constituency, but he was kind enough to say that many of the villages to the north of Pershore look on that hospital as a health service that is valued and appreciated. Wyre Piddle parish council, especially, shares my hon. Friend's concerns about the inadequacy of the consultation. I have advised the parish council on how to contribute to the consultation but it remains deeply concerned.
I am glad, in most respects, that the hon. Member for Worcester (Mr. Foster) made his contribution and that he agrees that Worcester has a capacity problem. That is common ground between us. Ensuring that the Worcestershire health economy—I do not like the phrase but I shall use it—has an adequate capacity is an important challenge for us all. I agree that the solution to the problem is not closing community hospitals. Indeed, the solution might be to create community hospitals in addition to Pershore and Malvern.
I heard what the hon. Gentleman said about Worcester and I shall make a brief case for Droitwich in the north, although it is not strictly a matter for the debate, because that is short-changed by its community health care facilities. I know that the primary care trust, the town council and other bodies are considering how to improve the situation.
I was sorry that the hon. Gentleman adopted more of a party political approach towards the end of his remarks. He made a point that I shall briefly rebut. No one has ever talked about cutting public expenditure on the health services for Worcestershire, Pershore, Malvern or anywhere by 20 per cent. That is an invention of the hon. Gentleman—and other Labour Members—and a product of his febrile imagination. No one is considering that, and no one in their right mind would. I hope that he will stop making such a ridiculous allegation.
I want to address the consultation process on Pershore hospital and the precedent that it might set for the wider consultation on changes to health care provision that is being held throughout south Worcestershire. Consultation will be held on Evesham community hospital later in the year, and it is tremendously important to get those consultation processes right.
The point of my speech is to ask the Minister a central question. Is he satisfied that the consultation on Pershore community hospital is legal under section 11 of the Health and Social Care Act 2001? People in Worcestershire are seriously worried that the consultation could be open to legal challenge and that the primary care trust has not conducted it properly. That is not necessarily a criticism of the PCT, although its chairman is a leading supporter of the Labour party. I thought that he might have been aware of his own

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Government's policy, but my views on his position are well known. However, there is a problem because of the deficit, which my hon. Friend the Member for West Worcestershire rightly mentioned often during his speech.
The South Worcestershire primary care trust had a small, inherited deficit, which has increased this year. The Government say that it must eradicate the deficit. I have asked parliamentary questions about the length of time that the Government will give the primary care trust to eradicate the deficit, and I found the answers a little frustrating. We know that the consultation on Pershore and the wider health care changes in South Worcestershire is driven by anxiety about the deficit.
The consultation on Evesham hospital is unlikely to be driven by the deficit. I believe that, for the reasons that the hon. Member for Worcester gave, the primary care trust genuinely supports Evesham hospital's continuation and wants it to flourish. However, that will doubtless involve a change in the pattern of service provision. Again, the consultation on Pershore will create the climate for that on Evesham hospital. We must therefore be satisfied that the Pershore consultation is being conducted properly.
Two documents apply to the debate. Malvern is not yet the subject of a document. They are entitled "Modernising Health Services in Pershore" and "Proposed changes to healthcare provision in South Worcestershire". Both are rather coy about the genuine reasons for the policies that they propose.
Let us consider the legality of the process. We held an interesting debate on 11 March in Westminster Hall during which the Under-Secretary of State for Health, the hon. Member for Salford (Ms Blears), outlined the guidance in "Keeping the NHS local—a new direction of travel". I do not want to quote her out of context, and I shall therefore read the relevant paragraph. She said:
"The guidance has three core principles that will in future underpin everything that we do in this field. The first principle is that options for change should be developed with patients not for them, and that before we even start to formulate preferred options, we have a sense of sitting down right at the outset to design what services should look like—their essential features—and where they should be. In the NHS in the past, a preferred option would emerge and people were presented with it almost as a fait accompli."
To me, the consultation on Pershore is an example of old-style NHS consultation. A "preferred option" has emerged and people are being are being presented with it
"almost as a fait accompli."
The Under-Secretary went on:
"Consultation was sometimes simply the expiry of a period of time, people would do the first thing that they had thought of, and the process was not altered by the involvement of the public. The first underlying principle is that we develop proposals for change in consultation with local communities and that we start at the outset to think about what service redesign should look like."
Later, she mentioned the legal basis for the framework guidance in section 11 of the Health and Social Care Act 2001. She said that it
"places a duty on the NHS to make arrangements to involve and consult the public in everything that it does. Under that new statutory framework, the NHS has a duty to involve the public in planning and developing services and in making decisions about how services will operate."—[Official Report, 11 March 2003; Vol. 401, c. 56–7WH.]
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She said more but I shall not detain hon. Members with an overlong quote.
Section 11 of the 2001 Act, which should guide consultation on the future of services such as those at Pershore and Malvern, came into force from the beginning of the calendar year, but the guidance was published in February. The document is entitled "Strengthening Accountability". It includes a moving foreword by the Under-Secretary who will reply to the debate. It stated:
"To achieve our aim we will involve and consult patients and the public in how health services are planned and developed … Patient and public involvement is not an end in itself but a way of achieving three fundamental objectives: strengthened accountability to local communities; a health service that genuinely responds to patients and carers; and a sense of ownership and trust."
The conduct of the Pershore consultation sets a worrying precedent for the wider consultation in south Worcestershire and the later consultation on Evesham. That sense of ownership and trust simply does not exist. There is genuine doubt about the underlying purpose.
The document does not mention the financial implications but we all know that they drive the consultation. Subsection 6 on page vii, entitled "Executive summary" states:
"The overall aim of Section 11 is to make sure patients and the public are involved and consulted from the very beginning of any process to develop health services or change how they operate. This will lead to patient-centred care and improvements in the patients' experience."
On page 1, we read probably the most important single passage in the document, which leads me to raise the question of the legality of the process at Pershore. It states:
"Section 11 places a wider duty to involve and consult patients and the public … no: just when considering a proposal but in developing that proposal".
I submit that the public have not been involved in developing that proposal. They are being presented with a fait accompli, or rather five separate ones that constitute the preferred policy of South Worcestershire PCT for Pershore hospital. That is very worrying. I genuinely believe that the Minister's fine words are being undermined by the nature of the consultation process at Pershore. The sense of ownership and trust that the Government rightly want to engender—the objectives are splendid and I do not disagree with them—is at risk as a result of how the process is being conducted.
On page 4 of the document, we read:
"Within the NHS, planning will be from the bottom up.
PCTs (and relevant care trusts), as lead planners will be responsible for creating local plans which describe health and service improvements in their area. These will be developed using local clinicians' knowledge as well as patients and the public."
Of course, the trouble is that what is being proposed at Pershore as well as in the wider consultation on the South Worcestershire PCT proposals for overall service provision in my constituency and those of my hon. Friend the Member for West Worcestershire and the hon. Member for Worcester constitutes not an improvement, but service reductions. We are consulting on service reductions at Pershore and across south Worcestershire's health economy.

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I try to be a fair man, but I find that difficult to understand. The hon. Gentleman rightly raised the question of the 1 per cent. job-destroying tax introduced by the Chancellor, which comes into effect this week. The hon. Gentleman asked, "The money is coming into south Worcestershire, but where is it going?" I too ask where it is going, because we are consulting on service reductions. I fear that that proves to me that spending more money does not always produce better services. The question involves the quality of that spend, which is what worries me about south Worcestershire, and Pershore in particular. Is the money being spent well?
On page 7 of the document, there is a list. It states:
"Pressure to change services may come from any number of starting points—both negative and positive. Some examples"
of why a consultation such as that at Pershore may need to be conducted are
"outdated buildings and facilities; new standards … evidence of what works, workforce pressures",
and so it goes on. There is no mention of deficits or of budgetary problems, but they are driving the process here, which is perhaps why the consultation is being conducted so urgently and so cack-handedly and why, worryingly, it appears to be contrary to the law of the land passed by this House of Commons only two years ago. We also read:
"The principles behind this should be:
designing services with local populations, not for them;
solutions developed for health communities rather than individual hospitals or organisations".
That leads to my other point about the Pershore consultation in particular. We have two documents, entitled "Modernising Health Services in Pershore" and "Proposed Changes to Healthcare Provision in South Worcestershire". Members should study the fifth proposal of the second document, on community hospitals. They might expect to read about modernising health services in Pershore, but no. There is no cross-reference at all. The proposal talks entirely about the joint health and social services day rehabilitation unit at Evesham community hospital. The proposal is not to make changes, but to send the bill to the county council. The unit cannot be afforded any more, so the proposal is to send the bill to a hard-pressed county council that has already had to increase its council tax enormously just to stand still on service provision. Fat chance of that.
So, where is the joined-up government—I think that is the phrase—in relation to Pershore? I repeat: the document refers to
"solutions developed for health communities rather than individual hospitals or organisations".
Surely there should be one document, "Proposed Changes to Healthcare Provision in South Worcestershire", which would put Pershore in that broader context, but that has not been done. The consultation on Pershore's future is panicky and individual. I will not quote the legislation, as I am sure that the Minister knows what section 11 does, although I have it here if he wants it. It is clear that a duty is imposed on the PCT, which it is not meeting.
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I am grateful for the opportunity to speak in this important debate, but I must begin to draw my remarks to a conclusion. The document on Pershore shows every sign of being cobbled together in a great hurry. As a cheap debating point, I note that "Monday 31th" March is an interesting date for a meeting, but the real, important point is that the consultation process ends so soon—in four weeks.
The other document hints at—indeed, if read carefully, makes more explicit—the reason for the Pershore consultation. It identifies three aims:
"To improve performance … To provide an equitable, safe service … To 'live' within our NHS budget, and remove the £5.7 million recurring deficit".
That, of course, is the issue.
This document makes five proposals, three of which involve sending bills to the county council and two of which involve cutting services. I will not talk at length about this because it does not relate specifically to Pershore, but I consider the cut in the GP counselling services outrageous. It is a simple cost-driven measure with no obvious clinical logic. Although a reason is presented in the document, I do not accept it.
People in Droitwich Spa and Evesham have raised with me the proposal to abandon all pulmonary rehabilitation services in Malvern. I believe that those services are based in a Malvern hospital. The question was asked:
"What is happening to the pulmonary rehabilitation service in Malvern?"
The answer was:
"This is being reviewed separately within the PCT involving our Professional Executive Committee of GPs and Primary Care Professionals."
We hear fine words about joined-up services, rather than solutions for individual services. Here is a service provided in Malvern and serving the whole of south Worcestershire—Worcester, Droitwich and Evesham—and here is a fudge. We are talking about not a separate review, but a proposal to remove the only pulmonary rehabilitation nurse serving south Worcestershire. Meanwhile, trusts north of that area are considering employing such nurses, because they recognise their value in reducing the number of emergency admissions.
The crucial aspect of the Malvern service is that it serves the whole county, and allows a reduction in the number of emergency admissions in winter. Many emergency admissions are caused by respiratory diseases, but the trust is thinking of sacking the nurse in order to deal with its budgetary problem and ending a service whose users are understandably worried. This is not just a Malvern problem; it is a south Worcestershire problem.
Other proposals will reach the Minister's desk—proposals relating to Worcestershire, but extending beyond Pershore and Malvern—in the coming weeks and months. There will be further consultation. If the pressure on Pershore and Malvern and the whole south Worcestershire economy is to be relieved, the trust must be given a longer time in which to pay off its deficit. If it is forced to pay it off in a single year, there will be cuts and a loss of confidence in the process whereby the future of health services in my constituency and that of my hon. Friend the Member for West Worcestershire is

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dealt with and consulted on. I urge the Minister to reflect on whether the consultation should be halted and begun again, in accordance with the law.
6.42 pm
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health (Mr. David Lammy): I congratulate the hon. Member for West Worcestershire (Sir Michael Spicer) on securing the debate. I know of his interest in health matters in his constituency, and of his long association with Malvern hospital. I also congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Worcester (Mr. Foster) and the hon. Member for Mid-Worcestershire (Mr. Lull) on their speeches, and on their commitment to the hospitals in their area. I shall try to answer the questions asked by, in particular, the hon. Member for West Worcestershire and my hon. Friend the Member for Worcester, but if I cannot manage that this evening I shall write to them both in due course.
The proposals for community health services in West Worcestershire are complex. Three public consultations are being undertaken by South Worcestershire primary care trust. As all the proposals are out to public consultation, I hope that the hon. Gentleman will understand that I cannot comment on the details. However, I am willing to outline the context. Let me answer two of the hon. Gentleman's questions immediately. The Government are committed to community hospitals, and that includes those in Pershore and Malvern.
South Worcestershire primary care trust came into being on 1 April 2002. It has a population of approximately 280,000 across the south of Worcestershire. The geographical area stretches from Broadway in the east to Tenbury Wells in the west and from Worcester city and Droitwich in the north to Upton-on-Severn in the south. It manages community hospitals with a total of 132 beds—Evesham, Malvern, Tenbury Wells and Pershore hospitals.
The NHS plan outlines a series of challenges designed to deliver a 21st-century health service that puts the needs of each patient as the focal point of the system. South Worcestershire PCT, like all other NHS organisations, will benefit from the massive investment being made by the Government over the next three years. The resources available to the PCT will have increased by £59 million from the level in 2002–03, an overall increase of nearly 30 per cent. The hon. Member for Mid-Worcestershire raised the issue of the deficit, but that increase of £59 million, or nearly 30 per cent., will be a tremendous contribution from the Government to dealing with that problem. That is an indication of the Government's commitment to the area's health economy.
Mr. Luff: I am glad that more money will come in, but where will it go?
Mr. Lammy: It will go into the health economy and an overall package of services, and that will be clear to the hon. Gentleman's constituents. I will come to some of the proposals for the area later in my speech. He should tread lightly in that area, as it is Conservative Front Benchers who propose a 20 per cent. cut.
Mr. Luff: The Minister must understand that that is simply untrue. There is no parliamentary turn of phrase
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that I can find to describe what he has just said, but there is an unattractive word with three letters that I cannot use in the Chamber. What he has just said is not true and I challenge him to produce a single quotation that justifies that preposterous and outrageous claim, because it has no basis in truth. I hope that I have made myself clear.
Mr. Lammy: That is a matter for the hon. Gentleman and his Front Benchers. The Opposition's policy is well known, in the Ho use and in the country. I am not attempting to be partisan on what is an important issue to his constituents and to the Government. The investment is going in, but there is a historic deficit and cuts would make the situation worse. It is right that I, as the Minister responsible, make the Government's position clear and that the hon. Gentleman's constituents understand the dividing line on the issue.
The set of challenges in the NHS plan, combined with unprecedented growth in investment over three years, gives South Worcestershire PCT the opportunity to plan for change and to deliver the principles of public sector reform—devolved, responsive, flexible services with choice for the people who use the NHS. In South Worcestershire, that planning has just been completed via the PCT's local delivery plan. The LDP matches investment over the three years to the challenges set out in the NHS plan to meet service demand needs overall, in particular for emergency and planned care. Overall, South Worcestershire has had a significant share of the resources and has planned sufficient capacity to deliver all targets.
Sir Michael Spicer: That is all rhetoric and political stuff that is not answering the questions that we asked. We accept that taxpayers' money will be spent in the area, but we want to know how it will be spent and how it can be that we now have worse services and two hospitals in my constituency under threat of closure. The Minister must address those precise questions, instead of giving us all that rhetoric that has been written for him by someone else.
Mr. Lammy: I hope that the hon. Gentleman will forgive me, but this is not rhetoric. I am setting out the position in his trust area. I am only three minutes into my contribution, and I hope that I will be able to move on and deal with some of the issues raised in the debate. However, people waiting for surgery and in-patient and out-patient appointments have seen the targets met, as have those waiting for emergency services. Now, 90 per cent. of people wait no longer than four hours, and tremendous progress has been made, in his constituency and elsewhere. It is unacceptable to suggest that services have somehow not improved. They are improving. They are getting better, and the money is going in. I need to repeat that.
If the hon. Gentleman is not happy with what I have said, he can take matter up in the usual way. Indeed, the hon. Member for Mid-Worcestershire mentioned section 11 and the duty of overview and scrutiny, and the normal way in which hon. Members and local people can take such matters up. Those are the normal mechanisms, and the hon. Member for West Worcestershire is free to use them if he is not satisfied with what is happening in his local health economy.

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As I said, in South Worcestershire this planning has just been completed via the PCT's local delivery plan. That matches investment over these years to the challenges set out in the NHS plan to meet service demand needs overall and, in particular, for emergency and planned care. Overall, South Worcestershire has had a significant share of the resources and has planned sufficient capacity to deliver all targets. The strategic issue is to achieve the right balance between primary, community, secondary and social care.
That is particularly important in relation to maximising the benefits of having a new, private finance initiative, state-of-the-art acute hospital, and developing appropriate community-based services to enable people to be treated and cared for in the community, as far as possible.
Gradual change is being taker forward locally through a series of modernisation compacts between primary and secondary care, the implementation of first-class clinical governance systems, and the identification and delivery of improvements to clinical and service quality.
The PCT instigated a series of service reviews in November. The reviews lasted several months, and involved consultation meetings. Every general practitioner in Worcestershire was invited to those meetings, so that they could gain a degree of ownership of the reviews and the evolving proposals arising from them.
The PCT board met in February 2003 to receive a report on the service reviews and a consultation was proposed entitled, "Improving GP and Community Services in Malvern". In March, the board met and agreed to further consultations. One is entitled "Modernising Health Services in Pershore", and the other is called "Proposed Changes to Health Care Provision in South Worcestershire".
Agreement was also given to a series of public meetings to support the consultation process, with the community health council agreeing to host the meetings and feed back their conclusions. The meetings have started and are ongoing.
The consultation for South Worcestershire as a whole outlines proposals covering occupational therapy, GP-attached social workers, GP practice-based counselling services, sexual health, and the day rehabilitation services of community hospitals. The consultation on Pershore covers the options for the redevelopment of Pershore health centre and the expansion of Abbotswood medical centre. It also considers the provision of minor injury services, the community dental service, and a new community hospital of up to 25 NHS beds at the Heathlands development as a re-provision of Pershore hospital. The consultation covers substantive matters and it is hoped the investment that has gone into the local area will be spent wisely on those substantive matters to meet the point raised by the hon. Member for Mid-Worcestershire. The final consultation on better GP services and community healthcare for Malvern plans to bring the existing services of Malvern health centre and Court road surgery together, on one site and under one roof.
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Without prejudice to the final outcome of those consultations, it is worth stating some of the public commitments made by the PCT in the context of the reconfigurations. That is particularly pertinent given some of what has been said, which, at least on my advice, is not the basis on which the consultations are being conducted. For Pershore hospital, the PCT gave in its public consultation a clear indication that it is seeking to retain a local hospital. The PCT also confirms that any new hospital would continue to provide the majority of services, with the possible exception that some of those services would be provided in a primary care setting. In addition, the latest proposals signify that overall bed numbers would in fact increase.
Sir Michael Spicer: Does the Minister really accept that a few beds in a purpose-built residential home that is pretty well completed is an acceptable definition of a hospital? If he does—I hope that he does not—what are the implications for the future of the residential home and, indeed, for the beds that will be lost?
Mr. Lammy: I have said that I do not want to prejudice the final outcome of the consultations, but I am advised that the staff are working in inadequate conditions and that patients deserve a more modern inpatient facility. The PCT wants the service to continue in the town, but the existing site is too small. The people of Pershore should have modern health care facilities, and these proposals mean that each patient would have a single en-suite room instead of the existing Nightingale multi-bedded ward.
Sir Michael Spicer: The Minister is being very good about giving way.
Mr. Luff: We have plenty of time.
Sir Michael Spicer: Yes, we have another half an hour.
When the Minister says that the existing site would not be big enough to rebuild a hospital on it, that is surely a prejudicial statement in itself. The fact is that there is plenty of room, subject to planning permission. The supposition is that planning permission would not be given, but that supposition is not accurate. He is trying not to prejudice the consultation process, but that does not tally with some of his comments—for example, defining a hospital as something inside a residential home, saying that we are going to keep a hospital, and saying that there is no room on the existing site. Of course, it has all been given to him by the PCT or by whoever wrote his speech—I do not blame him personally—but he must understand that he is prejudicing his own position by making those very assertive remarks. That is precisely what the PCT is doing, and precisely why I introduced this debate on the Floor of the House.
Mr. Lammy: I am reminded of Sherlock Holmes at this point. On the contrary: I said that I am advised that this is the situation and that the site, as currently framed, is too small. However, it is of course the subject of consultation.
Sir Michael Spicer: That is exactly the point that I am trying to raise. As my hon. Friend the Member for Mid-

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Worcestershire (Mr. Lull) and I have said, the problem is that the way in which the proposition has been couched allows for no alternatives. It has been asserted during the consultation process that the size of the existing site is insufficient. They have gone from one particular—
It being Seven o'clock, the motion for the Adjournment of the House lapsed, without Question put.
Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.— [Mr. Caplin.]
Sir Michael Spicer: We have raised this issue precisely because of what has been said and because the consultation is flawed—possibly legally flawed. The problem with this debate is that one suspects that the Minister's speech has been written by the people who have already put the matter out to consultation. Those are the people against whom we are making various comments, hoping to hear some objective advice from the Minister.
I do not expect the Minister to answer without having thought the matter through with his advisers, but the least I expect of him is that he take on board the central point that the consultation process is flawed, perhaps legally. I hope that he will look into that and come back to us on why no options have been offered and why the money is going up but the quality of service at the hospital is going down.
Mr. Lammy: I am advised that there is genuine commitment to a community hospital in Pershore. That is the subject of consultation. It cannot be right that we should conduct that consultation among ourselves in the Chamber. That consultation should take place in the local community. The Government are committed to that consultation, and in January we introduced the section 11 powers, under the Health and Social Care Act 2001, to bring into being the overview and scrutiny committee. That was opposed by the Opposition, but the consultation is taking place.
Mr. Michael Foster: Earlier this year, I attended a meeting at which the chairman and chief executive of the South Worcestershire primary care trust gave a briefing on the proposals. I left the room believing that there was a genuine intention to keep the services at Pershore, and a genuine commitment to Pershore community hospital. I entered the room immediately after the hon. Member for West Worcestershire (Sir Michael Spicer) left. He had had a similar briefing from the same people.
Mr. Lammy: That sets out the position as I suspected that it was.
Sir Michael Spicer rose—
Mr. Luff rose—
Mr. Lammy: I ought to make some progress. As I was saying, we cannot conduct the consultation in this Chamber; it should be conducted locally. The Government gave overview and scrutiny powers to the community that the hon. Member for West Worcestershire represents so that people could take ownership of decisions. I ask the hon. Gentleman
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whether he has met his strategic health authority to convey his views. I have heard Opposition Members talk about the challenges of centralisation and localisation. The Government are localising the health service through the establishment of primary care trusts and overview and scrutiny committees, and are delegating downwards and shifting the balance of power, yet not even two months into a consultation, I am being asked to intervene on what is clearly a local issue.
Mr. Luff: The Minister has been generous in giving way and as there are 26 minutes remaining, there will be a few more opportunities. I think he does not understand that the consultations are being held because of directions from the Government about the rate at which deficit should be repaid. It is not a localising issue but a centralising one: the Government are telling the primary care trust what to do through the strategic health authority. I realise that this is a legal matter and that the Minister may want to think about it, but will he at least promise to write to me about the legality of the consultation? The Pershore document asks:
"The existing Pershore cottage hospital is loved by local people why must it relocate?"
The question about relocation has been prejudged, completely contrary to section 11 of the Act to which the Minister rightly referred. There is a real issue in relation to the legality of a consultation that is being conducted only so that the PCT can meet the Government's targets. I urge the Minister to look into that and not to dismiss the real concern that I have expressed, which is not partisan but genuine.
Mr. Lammy: This is not the right Chamber in which to raise issues of legality. There are chambers of a different nature where they can be taken up. My understanding is that consultation is taking place and that we should at least allow it to finish before prejudging the outcome or the manner in which it was conducted.
Without prejudicing the final outcome of the consultations, it is worth stating some of the public commitments made by the PCT and their context. The PCT wants to retain a local hospital, and has made it clear publicly that it hopes that a consultation process relating to a new Malvern community hospital will be developed during the summer. The PCT recognises that the local community is becoming frustrated by the length of time that the process has taken. I accept the point that the hon. Member for West Worcestershire made about that.
The PCT is committed to the future of the two hospitals and will develop plans in accordance with the outcome of the public consultation. Several other local public consultations are currently under way on the provision of community services in south Worcestershire.
As I said, I am unable to comment in detail on the proposals while the consultation is going on.
Sir Michael Spicer: The hon. Member for Worcester (Mr. Foster) said that he had attended a meeting after which he and I had been assured that hospital services would be maintained in Pershore, although I must confess that that was not exactly what was said to me.

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In that context, does the Minister think that, in general terms, it is suitable for residential homes to be partially converted to so-called hospitals? That is being proposed elsewhere, so it must have turned up on his desk as a general issue. Is it a good way forward?
Mr. Lammy: That depends on several things, including community-based provision in primary care and the needs of older people. As the hon. Gentleman knows, many older people do not want to be in residential homes; they want to stay in the community. In different health economies, depending on the demography of the area, there may be a move in that direction. It will also depend on consultation and on the other services that are needed to support older people or people who require residential care.
There is no one-size-fits-all answer to the hon. Gentleman's question. Our national health service employs 1.2 million people. Every year, 13 million people receive emergency care alone. There can be no one-size-fits-all solution in such a complex health economy in one of the western world's major democracies. The question is complicated and the answer is determined by local variations. Clinicians and managers in local communities throughout the country are trying to do their best for local people to deliver the kind of health service that we want.
As I have stated, I cannot comment on the proposals in detail, but, clearly, the first stage is to get involved with the public consultation itself. As the hon. Member for Mid-Worcestershire said, section 11 of the Health and Social Care Act 2001 puts a new duty on the NHS to make arrangements to involve and consult the public in planning the services for which it is responsible. The Department has just published "Strengthening Accountability"—policy and practice guidance to support the NHS in meeting the requirements of that duty.
South Worcestershire PCT will be aware of its duties in that regard, and it will have been further advised on its consultation processes by the West Midlands South strategic health authority. The PCT is holding a number of consultation meetings. My hon. Friend the Member for Worcester has suggested that some of those meetings have taken place, and hon. Members have had a chance to go to them. If hon. Members feel strongly, I would encourage them, the public or stakeholders to attend those meetings and get their views across. I encourage them to raise such issues with the local authority, which now has a nexus in the overview and scrutiny committees, and with the strategic health authority, which clearly has an interest.
There is also the opportunity to submit written views to the PCT during the consultation period. I repeat that this Adjournment debate is being held during the consultation period, which has only been running for a few weeks.
The Health and Social Care Act 2001 has also given new powers to local authority overview and scrutiny committees to review and scrutinise the planning, operation and development of health services, thus ensuring that the democratically elected representatives of local people with responsibility for their well-being have proper influence over the NHS. Those powers came into force on 1 January.
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The hon. Member for Mid-Worcestershire mentioned my words in the preface to "Strengthening Accountability". Even though I have a self-interest, I am very proud of that preface—proud of its substance and proud of the fact that the Labour Government have given local people the powers and accountability that they did not have before. I encourage hon. Members, even though they voted against that legislation, to use those powers to raise such issues as they see fit, and to do so locally, with their local stakeholders at local meetings with local people. That arena, not Whitehall, must be the right one in which to do that.
Sir Michael Spicer: We certainly try to use those meetings to do so. I have certainly attended a public meeting on the consultation process. The point that we are making is that people have no option. The outcome is a fait accompli, and people are told, "This is what we are going to do." I should have thought that the first point of consultation is to be given some figures, but we are given no figures, time scales or facts; nor are we given any options. I assure the Minister that I have personally attended one of those public meetings, and the process is pretty well pointless because the whole thing is tied up before people get there.
Mr. Lammy: I hear the sentiment with which the hon. Gentleman makes that suggestion, but there are clearly differences of opinion about the nature of the consultation. I hope that he will forgive me—I do not want to be facetious—but he says that the outcome is a fait accompli, which does not fit with a process that is still continuing. Something cannot have come to an end if it is still going on. This is about consultation and getting involved, and it is about doing so to the best effect, as hon. Members seek to do on behalf of their constituents across the country.
To facilitate health scrutiny, the Act places three key obligations on the NHS: to provide information to overview and scrutiny committees; to consult on the substantial variation and development of services; and to provide for senior NHS officials to attend meetings to explain their decisions. On top of that, the committees have a specific right to refer the proposals to the Secretary of State if they consider that public involvement has been inadequate or that the proposal is flawed. The arrangements exist. Although they exist at some distance from the consultation period, the arrangements are available if there are local remedies. That must be right in what is, after all, a national health service.
Public interest is highest when proposals are made to reconfigure services. That is why we have also set up the independent reconfiguration panel. The panel will tackle complex and sensitive contested reconfigurations, referring in particular to "Strengthening Accountability" and "Keeping the NHS local—a new direction of travel". It will consider how the process of involving and consulting patients and the public was carried out to ensure that involvement has been an inclusive process.
The panel—made up of key stakeholders, a third of whom will be patient representatives—will provide authoritative advice to the Secretary of State on any proposed NHS service reconfigurations or significant service change that he asks it to consider. I should like

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to clarify at this point that it is for the Secretary of State to ask the panel to consider a case. Overview and scrutiny committees have a power to refer decisions to the Secretary of State, and he will then decide whether to seek further advice. Only those contested proposals in which it is clear that all other options have been exhausted are likely to be referred to the panel for detailed consideration. The panel is very much the final option.
Sir Michael Spicer: This is an interesting and helpful passage in the Minister's speech. As I understand it, he is saying that the Secretary of State can call a matter in if he does not think that all options have been assessed properly and consulted upon. The Secretary of State can take his own position, and this is a useful precursor to that process.
Mr. Lammy: The hon. Gentleman will have heard me set out the course that is available to hon. Members and their constituents in such circumstances. On personal involvement, I have also made it clear that I am advised that consultations are taking place, and the hon. Gentleman takes no issue with that. Let that consultation take its due course. Clearly, other hon. Members and their constituents who have taken an interest in the matter see a difference in what is occurring. It is accepted that there is a deficit in the community, and the Government are doing all that they can to assist with allocations not just in the hon. Gentleman's area but right across the country. Record allocations of above the rate of inflation have been made to PCTs to assist in that endeavour. We are also supporting local people.
I have set out—yes, partly in legalese—what is available should things go wrong. However, despite all that has been said about the services, the PCTs are seeking to retain and enhance them. Given the money going in and the consultation that is at its midway point, the hon. Gentleman's conclusions may be a little premature.
Sir Michael Spicer: The advice that the Minister is giving the House is extremely interesting. If all options have not been considered in the consultation, that would provide a case for the Secretary of State to call a matter in. The law that the Minister has set down is that all options have to be considered, and certainly at the final phase. Is he saying that, if all options were not considered, that would be a serious matter and cause for the Secretary of State to call a matter in?
Mr. Lammy: I have set those arrangements out very clearly. Things are moving on at a pace in the hon. Gentleman's area, and I encourage him to support the health community's endeavours. I know, from Hansard and other sources, that the hon. Gentleman is committed to Malvern hospital and his local community. He will know that it is possible to jump to conclusions and to raise fears before the results of a consultation are complete. I ask him to engage in the process, to support the Government and to work closely with my hon. Friend the Member for Worcester.
Mr. Foster: I am conscious that we are running out of time, so I thank my hon. Friend for giving way. Does he
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think that constituents, interest groups and communities have options for the future of Pershore and Malvern hospitals which they think are suitable? Will he urge them to make those options public and to include them in the consultation process while it is still ongoing, so that they can be duly considered and any recourse to the Secretary of State becomes a long stop that is not appropriate to this particular consultation?
Mr. Lammy: Absolutely. I say unequivocally that people should be involved in the process and support what is, at the end of the day, devolution in the NHS. It cannot be right that the buck stops with Whitehall. As a Minister, I am a moderniser in that respect. I want decisions to be made locally, not here. I certainly support my hon. Friend in that endeavour.
Mr. Luff: I am trespassing on the hon. Gentleman's generosity, and I am grateful to him for giving way. I agree with much c f what he is saying now, so we are ending on a note of consensus, which is marvellous. How can my constituents engage with one service at Malvern, the pulmonary rehabilitation service, about which the document says:
"This is being reviewed separately within the PCT"?
I appreciate that the Minister may not want to answer now, and I did not do very well with my last request for a letter, but perhaps he could advise me on how that aspect of the public consultation on services at Malvern is being conducted when that service is being reviewed separately within the PCT. That seems to fall short of the very high standards that the Minister is rightly setting.
Mr. Lammy: As I have indicated, where there is a substantial change under section 11, there is a duty to consult through overview and scrutiny. I advise the hon. Gentleman to return to his community with "Strengthening Accountability", which includes my preface, and to take the matter up with them. The thrust of my remarks has been that these decisions must be made locally.
Sir Michael Spicer: The Minister has been extremely generous and rather charming in the last parts of his speech, so I feel bad about pressing him on another point.
The Minister was pressed by the hon. Member for Worcester to say that we should all become deeply engaged in this process of consultation, and we are. Our problem, which I suspect the Minister and the Secretary of State may share, is that we have not been given alternatives with which we can engage. We have been offered just one option, so we can only say yes or no. If the Minister is suggesting that we should be offered alternatives through the consultation process, will he please let that be known to the PCT? That would be an important step forward, and it would certainly solve many of our problems.
Secondly, will the Minister make it clear that if those options do not exist or are not presented during the consultation, that will be cause for the Secretary of State to call the matter in?
Mr. Lammy: The hon. Member has been here for some time, and is seeking to draw me into the detail of

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the process, but as a new and diligent Minister, it is important that I am not drawn into that detail. The consultation is under way and the hon. Gentleman, as I have encouraged him to do, should be in close contact with his PCT—I know that he is. What I have said about the process is on the record in Hansard and is available in the Department's documents on patient and public involvement in health.
Finally, as the Minister responsible for patient and public involvement in health, I want to say that we are spending more funds on this issue than ever before in the history of the NHS. Whether it is patient advice and liaison services in our local hospitals, the patients forums that will be at the heart of our local communities, or section 11 of the 2001 Act, which makes provision for overview and scrutiny committees, we are spending more funds because we believe in democratic accountability and want it to be at the heart of our NHS. I repeat that I am proud that the Government have moved in that direction. It would be wrong for me to undermine that democratic and local decision making from the Dispatch Box.
Finally, I mentioned the Government's document "Keeping the NHS local," which states that hospital services need to change if we are to continue to meet patients' needs and improve access to local services. Biggest is not always best—we recognise that patients
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want more, not fewer, local services. Our approach is based on three core principles that all health organisations embarking on service change must now follow. The first principle is about developing options with people, not for them, building on the new legal framework for patient and public involvement in health, which I have set out. The second is about exploiting the opportunities for service redesign and developing new ways of working to keep services local, sometimes keeping people in their homes rather than in a residential care setting. The third is about taking a whole systems view, with different health and social care organisations in a locality working together in a mutually supportive way.
I expect the PCT to take account of the various forms of guidance available, and I hope that the hon. Member for West Worcestershire is ultimately reassured that a decision will be made in the right manner in the coming months. I recommend that the hon. Gentleman continue to press his views and concerns with the PCT, as well as with the strategic health authority, to ensure that proper scrutiny is undertaken, and that massive investment in health care in south Worcestershire under the Government brings about real changes in people's experience of the NHS.
Question put and agreed to.
Adjourned accordingly at twenty-eight minutes past Seven o'clock.