Sitting of 9 December 1999

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

    Competition (Regulations)
    Mr. Michael Fallon: What account he has taken in his research into international comparative prices of the effect of regulations affecting business. [100524]
    The Secretary of State for Trade and Industry (Mr. Stephen Byers): The aim of the research into international price comparisons is to show whether prices differ, not why they differ. If the results do show that British consumers are paying more for goods than consumers elsewhere, we will need to identify the reasons why, including the possible effects of regulation.
    Mr. Fallon: Does the Secretary of State agree with the recent survey by the Forum of Private Business, which puts the cost of complying with all the new Labour red tape—working time directive, holiday pay and all the rest of it—at some £4,500 a year? That is a huge burden on village shops and very small businesses. Instead of the right hon. Gentleman getting himself into a lather about rip-off capitalists, why do we not have a rip-up Government who can get rid of the 2,700 regulations that he has been piling on business in the past two and a half years?
    Mr. Byers: It ill becomes someone who was a Minister before the 1992 general election—before the good folk of Darlington had the sense to vote him out of office—to ask that question, when the Conservative Government introduced 10,000 regulations between 1994 and 1996. Indeed, in the Queen's Speech debate, the hon. Member for Tiverton and Honiton (Mrs. Browning), an ex-Minister, admitted that the Conservatives could have done a lot more to reduce red tape.
    What is interesting about the hon. Gentleman's question is that he is confusing red tape with minimum standards. He talks about the national minimum wage and the working time regulations—those are all entitlements and benefits that individuals receive; they are not bureaucracy or red tape.
    Gillian Merron: I welcome the Government's determination to make work pay. Does my
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    right hon. Friend believe that as the Conservative party is so concerned about regulation, it would scrap the working families tax credit, the national minimum wage and all the other positive moves that the Government have made, which would obviously be to the detriment of millions of people throughout the country?
    Mr. Byers: I agree with my hon. Friend. She has highlighted the confusion in the mind of the Conservative party, which cannot distinguish between, on one hand, lifting bureaucracy from business and cutting red tape and, on the other, basic entitlements and minimum standards for people in the workplace. There is a legitimate need to cut red tape, but there is also a need to ensure that we provide minimum standards for people in work, through the working families tax credit, the working time regulations and the national minimum wage—all of which would be placed at risk under the policies of the Conservative party.
    Mrs. Angela Browning: On 16 December, the Secretary of State is due to receive the report from the Competition Commission on an examination of the pricing of cars. In the press last week, when the right hon. Gentleman was asked by the industry to give an early response to that paper, he said that if a formal request was made, he would speed that up. Will he take my request this morning as a formal request? Whatever the outcome of the report, it is imperative that the retail car industry can get on and sell cars. The industry accepts that there may be some criticism, but what is damaging it now is the fact that people are waiting for the Secretary of State's report to be concluded and announced.
    If the right hon. Gentleman delays his response much after Christmas, it will do untold damage to retailers selling cars in this country, because we then approach March, with the new registration. I hope that he can reassure us this morning.
    Mr. Byers: For the record, it is not my report; it is the report of the Competition Commission, which is independent, and I have no control over when that report might be received. I understand that the commission has recently received representations from some major motor manufacturers about the remedies that have been proposed, so I believe that difficult issues are involved.
    I want to get this matter right, which means that I shall consider the commission's report when I receive it. I understand the urgency of taking decisions, but this is a fundamental review of the pricing of cars—the first for decades—and we must take our time to ensure that we get it right, instead of taking a rushed decision that would not meet needs. It ill becomes the hon. Lady to criticise, when the Government of whom she was a Member did absolutely nothing about the needs of consumers.
    We are taking action. We are looking, through the Competition Commission, into cars and into supermarkets, because we believe that the consumer should have a fair deal. That is our objective, and we shall achieve it.
    Mr. David Borrow: Last Friday, I had a meeting with the local chamber of commerce in my area—one of a series of regular meetings. At that meeting,

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    the concern on regulation that was expressed, especially by smaller businesses, was not necessarily that regulations exist, but that they are so complex and difficult for small businesses to understand. Will my right hon. Friend consider streamlining the complexity of regulations and perhaps work with small businesses to put them into a format that would be user friendly to small businesses and reduce the amount of time that proprietors spend trying to understand the regulations? I am sure that something could be done.
    Mr. Byers: My hon. Friend makes an important point about the need to simplify the regulations. The Government would certainly support such an approach. We do not support the Conservative party's approach, which is not about cutting red tape, but about cutting paid holiday entitlement for workers; not about lifting the burden of bureaucracy, but about denying the national minimum wage to more than 1.5 million people. The Conservative party has not learned any lessons—it is a modern Conservative party for the few, not for the many. This Christmas, when people receive their paid holiday entitlement, they need to recognise that that would be taken away from them by the Scrooges on the Opposition Benches.

    Small Firms (Payroll)
    Mr. Christopher Chope: What plans the Government have to assist small firms with the cost and administration of their payroll. [100525]
    The Minister for Small Business and E-Commerce (Ms Patricia Hewitt): Last month, my hon Friend the Financial Secretary and I announced that we would be providing extra help for new small businesses running their own payrolls by expanding the new enterprise support initiative.
    Mr. Chope: That is a very disingenuous response from the Minister. In the 1998 Budget, the Chancellor of the Exchequer promised that, by April 1999, there would be a national automated payroll service in place for small businesses. In the 1999 Budget, he promised that £40 million would be invested to help small businesses in that way. Now the Government's policy is an absolute shambles. Does the Minister agree that the best way forward, bearing in mind the additional burdens of administering the working families tax credit, would be to allow all small businesses to deduct 1 per cent. of their pay-as-you-earn and national insurance contributions at source to meet some of the administrative costs that they have to bear to finance the Government's ludicrously high taxation programme?
    Ms Hewitt: We did exactly what every sensible business does—we asked our customers how best we could help them. Our customers, the small businesses, told us that they prefer on-going, one-to-one help rather than one-off support. That is precisely why we are expanding the excellent service that the Inland Revenue offers through the new enterprise support initiative. That is what small businesses want.
    As for the working families tax credit, we have made it clear that the average cost for a small business with a working families tax credit employee will amount to
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    £37 a year. The Conservative party would deny nearly 1.5 million people the considerable help that they will get through the tax credit.
    Mr. Peter L. Pike (Burnley): My hon. Friend referred to the working families tax credit, which I strongly support and welcome. However, does she believe that some businesses are suffering cashflow problems as a result of the introduction of the credit through the payroll system? Does she think that steps need to be taken to resolve such difficulties? The scheme is in its early stages and we need to ensure that it is right and does not cause major problems for small firms.
    Ms Hewitt: My hon. Friend the Paymaster General and the Inland Revenue have been working very closely with small businesses to ensure that the administration of the tax credit through the payroll system is as simple and efficient as possible. As part of the those discussions, the Inland Revenue will put in place arrangements to assist businesses which need it with cashflow support.
    Mrs. Angela Browning: It is not just the working families tax credit that has to be paid through the payroll of small businesses; there are other items that the Government expect small business to administer on their behalf. For example, they include the recoupment of student loans and stakeholder pensions. What other plans does the Minister have for businesses to use their payroll systems as a benefits agency on behalf of government? Why is it necessary for stakeholder pensioners to be administered through the payroll? Surely that is not necessary; it is just an additional burden on small businesses.
    Ms Hewitt: It was, of course, the previous Government who imposed on many employers the responsibility to deduct child support payments through the payroll. Every Member will be aware from their constituency surgeries of the complete shambles that we have inherited in the Child Support Agency, and are now having to put right.
    We are working closely with business to ensure both minimum standards for employees and efficient administration of regulations and of payroll. We are determined to get intelligent and effective regulation and good support for business in this country.

    Energy Supplies
    Mr. Michael Jabez Foster: What action he is taking to ensure that consumers are able to change their energy supplier more easily. [100526]
    The Minister for Energy and Competitiveness in Europe (Mrs. Helen Liddell): The Government are concerned that some customers find it difficult to switch supplier. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State has therefore announced a research study to look at consumer motivations for and against switching supplier, so that everyone can benefit from the considerable savings that are to be made.
    Mr. Foster: I thank my right hon. Friend for that response, particularly her comment about setting up an inquiry. Will that inquiry take account of those with pre-payment meters, which are used by many people in

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    my constituency who are on low incomes and who, unlike people who pay by direct debit, have not been invited to take part in the new competition possibilities?
    Mrs. Liddell: My hon. Friend makes an important point. If customers are able to switch suppliers, they can save about £65 on their annual gas bill and £20 on their annual electricity bill. Many people with pre-payment meters lose out on those opportunities and, indeed, end up having to pay more for the privilege of using such a meter.
    The Director-General of the Office of Gas and Electricity Markets has already announced in his social action plan that he wants to investigate pre-payment meters. One of the problems associated with such meters is that many of the people who use them are in debt, and the companies prevent the transfer of anyone who is in debt. In the past year, some half a million transfers were stopped by gas suppliers and 80,000 by electricity suppliers because of debt. That is an important issue because people should be able to reap the benefits of competition. It is also important to try to end the scourge of fuel poverty.

    Metrication
    Mr. Desmond Swayne: If he will make a statement on his policy on metrication. [100528]
    The Minister for Energy and Competitiveness in Europe (Mrs. Helen Liddell): The Government are taking forward the policy adopted by successive Governments since 1965 of overseeing the change to metric units as the primary system of measurement in the United Kingdom. A report by my Department on the progress since 1965, particularly regarding goods sold by weight or measure, was placed in the Library of the House on 23 July.
    Mr. Swayne: That is most regrettable. After the end of this month, Madam Speaker, if you were to go to a market trader and ask him for a pound of apples, and he indulged you by weighing out a pound of appels and selling them to you, he would be committing a criminal offence. What measures has the Minister taken, what effort has she expended and to what lengths did she go to extend the life of the current derogation that we enjoy in respect of the sale of loose goods?
    Mrs. Liddell: We are at the dawn of a new century, but sometimes I think that the hon. Gentleman, instead of looking forward to a knowledge-based society in the 21st century, would rather cling to the 19th century. The House recommended metrication in 1862, and the changes that are to take place at the end of December were introduced in 1994 by the previous Government—a Government whom, I understand, the hon. Gentleman supported. However, given that the campaign that he now supports is being promoted by the UK Independence party, I wonder whether we are seeing more divisions among Conservative Members than have hitherto been apparent.
    There have been discussions with the European Union about the 10-year extension. I say to the hon. Gentleman, however, that 99 per cent. of retailers are ready to switch
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    on 31 December 1999. It is regrettable that the hon. Gentleman has not got his act together sufficiently to enable him to switch on that date.
    Mr. John Cryer: Is my right hon. Friend aware that there is genuine unhappiness, particularly among traders in my area, about enforced metrication? Is she further aware that the crucial directive that enforced metrication, which is still playing out today, was issued in December 1979, and that translating that directive into statute was one of the early actions of the Thatcher Government? The directive was further amended 10 years later and again in 1994. The brunt of the responsibility for metrication should therefore be borne by the Conservatives, not Labour.
    Mrs. Liddell: My hon. Friend does well in pointing out the rather hypocritical position adopted by some of the opponents of metrication. I recognise the anxieties of some—particularly small—retailers about the change. That is why the Department of Trade and Industry has conducted an extensive publicity campaign. Trading standards officers stand ready to give any assistance required. We are encouraged by the fact that almost 99 per cent. of all retailers are prepared for the switch on 31 December.
    Mr. A. J. Beith: Does the right hon. Lady recognise how inappropriate it is to use penalties which were designed to deal with fraud against small businesses which offer their customers some freedom of choice in how loose and bulk goods are measured? In recognising the difficulties presented by what happened under the previous Government, will she take any remaining opportunities to achieve some continuing security from prosecution for fraud for small business men who are trying to help their customers to deal with a difficult situation?
    Mrs. Liddell: The right hon. Gentleman raises a point that has been raised on many occasions in this Parliament. Indeed, since the Magna Carta there has been legislation to ensure that legally defined units of measurement are available. If we do not have a means of ensuring that, customers could be given short measure. It is important to protect consumers, and we recognise that we must.
    At the same time, we are giving considerable assistance to retailers to ensure that they are able to offer the service from 31 December. Indeed, anyone who asks for a pound of apples, as the hon. Member for New Forest, West (Mr. Swayne) suggested, will be in no difficulty whatever. The consumer will be able to ask for goods in imperial measure, and retailers will be able to measure in metric amounts. Everything possible has been done to allow the switch to be as easy as possible. This has been a long time coming and there have been plenty of opportunities for preparation. I remind Opposition Members that it was the previous Government who introduced the measures in 1994.
    Mr. Nick Gibb: Is the Minister aware—it seems from her answers that she is not—of the confusion and difficulty faced by many elderly shoppers and, indeed, by people who are not so elderly, in buying cheese, fish or fruit in kilograms? She says that responsibility lies with the previous

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    Government, but they introduced a 10-year derogation in 1989, which expires at the end of this year. Her Government have been in office since 1997, just when negotiations should have started again. Why did not her Department even bother to request from the EU another 10-year derogation on loose and bulk sales? Is this yet another example of this Government's weak approach to fighting for British interests in Europe?
    Mrs. Liddell: The hon. Gentleman should not write his notes the night before; he should listen to what is said. In 1994, his Government introduced the order that comes into effect on 31 December 1999. I have also pointed out to the hon. Member for New Forest, West that the consumer—elderly or otherwise—will be able to go into any shop and ask for goods in imperial measures.
    I was intrigued this morning to read in The Times an article attacking the measure by someone who knows Immanuel Kant rather better than the closing days of the 20th century. He suggests that the imperial measure is the lingua franca of both recipe and school books. It must be a long time since he has cooked a dinner, because recipe books give weights in both imperial and metric measures, as do school books nowadays.

    EU/UK Balance of Trade
    Sir Teddy Taylor: What has been the cumulative balance of trade with the EU since Britain joined that organisation; and if he will make a statement. [100529]
    The Secretary of State for Trade and Industry (Mr. Stephen Byers): There has been a deficit of £130 billion.
    Sir Teddy Taylor: As the trade deficit with Europe has been absolutely horrendous over the years, will the right hon. Gentleman take steps to remind the Government of France that if, as a consequence of their illegal action on beef, British consumers turn against French products, the people and industry of France will suffer? Will he do all in his power to promote free and fair trade, and not restricted trade?
    Mr. Byers: On the action of the French Cabinet yesterday evening, the French need to be reminded that the EU is not like some Woolworth's pick-and-mix counter, where they can choose some regulations with which they agree, but not others with which they do not. Law, science and—I think—good taste is on our side on this issue. We shall now try to negotiate a settlement with the French Government. They have not been prepared to accept that, so we must ensure that the Commission exercises its legal powers. I understand that it intends to do so and to take the French Government to court.
    Mr. Richard Burden: Does my right hon. Friend agree that it is not good for trade in the European Union or anywhere else when the European Commission takes an inordinately long time to complete inquiries? Does he share my concern that, despite the fact that the details of the recommended aid package between BMW-Rover and the Government have been with the EU for some time, a decision still has not been made? Does he recognise that in the west midlands there is a great deal
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    of concern about the possibility that the goal posts are being moved? Can he assure me that we are doing all we can to expedite the matter and ensure that a decision is made as soon as possible?
    Mr. Byers: I can give my hon. Friend that assurance. I spoke yesterday to Commissioner Monti, the Competition Commissioner, who deals with these matters, specifically about the application to provide aid to BMW in relation to Rover at Longbridge, and I stressed to him the urgency of arriving at a decision.
    There is some time available, though. I have discussed the matter with BMW, which will be content provided that a decision is taken within the next six months. We need to make sure that the Commission treats the application fairly. I believe that it will do so. It must go through the usual procedures, and that is what is happening. Provided that we get a decision, probably before May or June next year, there is no reason why the aid should be threatened, as that is the sort of time scale to which BMW is working as well.
    Dr. Vincent Cable: Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that it is hardly necessary to blame Brussels or Paris for the large cumulative trade deficit, which is due to prolonged lack of competitiveness of British industry? Looking to the future, does he agree with the assessment of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, confirmed by the House of Commons Library, that British manufacturing has suffered a decline in competitiveness of 12 per cent. since the Government came into office because of exchange rate changes, and 25 per cent. since the end of 1996? Or does he agree with the comment made during the week and attributed to the Prime Minister, which may well have been inaccurately reported, that Britain now has a competitive exchange rate? To which of those two views does he subscribe?
    Mr. Byers: From my conversations with many manufacturers, it is clear that they know that the rate of sterling is linked to the fact that we have a strong and growing economy, which is reflected in sterling. They have improved their productivity and, as a result, many manufacturers can compete globally. The latest figures for manufacturing for the last two quarters show that there has been a real improvement.
    It is important to bear in mind that more than half of the deficit was accumulated between 1986 and 1990. In that five-year period, well over £60 billion of the deficit was accumulated. That was in the middle of the Lawson boom, when we sucked in exports and did not use the opportunity to improve our economic base. This Government do not intend to make those mistakes. We are steering a course of stability to ensure that we continue to have economic growth and prosperity for all our people.
    Dr. Norman A. Godman: On the issue of fair competition, down the years many people in the United Kingdom shipbuilding industry have complained about the lack of fairness, largely because of the hidden subsidies given to shipyards elsewhere in the

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    European Union. Is my right hon. Friend satisfied that no hidden subsidies are now being given to shipbuilding yards in other member states of the EU?
    Mr. Byers: My hon. Friend raises an important issue. Like him, I represent a shipbuilding constituency, so we share a concern about those matters. One of the actions that I have been pleased to take as Secretary of State was to alter the way in which the shipbuilding intervention fund can be used. The changes that we have introduced will benefit not just shipbuilding, but conversion work. That has allowed a number of significant orders to be achieved by yards in the UK. I believe that shipbuilding, ship repair and ship conversion have a real future, especially if there are increases in global trade. I will do all I can to make sure that there is fair competition, that we can support the industry in the UK and that there are no unfair subsidies in other countries.
    Mr. Alan Duncan: The Secretary of State's answer to my hon. Friend the Member for Rochford and Southend, East (Sir T. Taylor) showed clearly that many people exaggerate the share of Britain's trade with the European Union. We, probably more than our European partners, also look to the dollar zone—especially to the United States—for our trade. What analysis has the Department carried out on how the balance of our trade between the euro and dollar zones ties in with pressures on our currency? If the United Kingdom were part of the euro zone, we would face different trade pressures from the rest of the European Union. Will the Secretary of State explain how the different trade patterns fit the economic tests that the Chancellor set for the United Kingdom joining the euro?
    Mr. Byers: We know that the hon. Gentleman would like to rule out joining the single currency. That is not the view of the Leader of the Opposition, but it is the hon. Gentleman's position and that of the hon. Member for Tiverton and Honiton (Mrs. Browning). It would be interesting to know how they reconcile their personal views with those of the Leader of the Opposition. The hon. Gentleman does not like to be reminded of his principled position on the single currency.
    To answer the hon. Gentleman's specific question, the latest figures show that 58 per cent. of all United Kingdom exports are to the European Union, whereas only 55 per cent. of imports into the United Kingdom come from the European Union. There are benefits from that. The deficit that I mentioned earlier is largely due to decisions that the Conservative Government made between 1986 and 1990. The danger of the approach that the hon. Gentleman advocates is that, if it were adopted, the United Kingdom would no longer be the leading place for inward investment from Japan and the United States. He wants to renegotiate our position in relation to the European Union, but that would put thousands of jobs at risk. The Government will put the national interest first, and not rely on political dogma.

    Part-time Work
    Mr. Barry Gardiner: What measures he has taken to improve working conditions for part-time workers. [100531]
    The Minister for Competitiveness (Mr. Alan Johnson): The Government have improved the working conditions of part—timers—and full-timers—significantly. We have introduced the working time regulations and the national minimum wage. New rights to parental leave and maternity leave will come into force in the next few days. We intend to take that work forward through implementing the part-time work directive, which will end the less favourable treatment of part-time employees in the few places where that persists. It will also raise the status and availability of part-time work. We are committed to implementing the part-time work directive by the 7 April deadline, and we shall issue a consultation document shortly.
    Mr. Gardiner: I thank my hon. Friend for that reply and congratulate him on the work to extend maternity leave and part-time workers' right to time off for domestic emergencies. That will make a huge difference to women. How does my hon. Friend propose further to increase the status and availability of part-time work, which would benefit many women?
    Mr. Johnson: My hon. Friend makes an important point, which the social partners in Europe have discussed. One of the reasons for considering not only protection for part-time workers but the possibility of extending part-time work is the view that, in many companies, part-timers were employed on some of the basic grades, but found that there were no promotion opportunities unless they became full time. That is one of the anomalies that we shall tackle in the review.
    Mr. David Tredinnick: Given that hundreds of jobs have been lost in the hosiery and knitwear industry in recent weeks, does the Minister accept that conditions of work are not the only matter on the minds of part-time and full-time workers in my constituency this Christmas? Since the Government came to power, 70,000 jobs have been lost in the clothing and textile industries. Does the Minister know that a petition presented to Parliament in July on behalf of my constituents and forwarded to the Secretary of State was not even acknowledged? That has enraged my constituents in the hosiery industry. Does the Minister accept that there is a perception among hosiery and knitwear workers in my constituency in Leicestershire and in the east midlands that, while the Government are prepared to go the extra mile for the motor industry, and perhaps even for farming, hosiery and knitwear are seen as a twilight industry and the Secretary of State and his colleagues are not prepared to help? Will the Minister give a personal assurance that he will ask the Secretary of State to consider seriously the desperate plight of the hosiery and knitwear industry in my constituency and the east midlands?
    Mr. Johnson: I shall look into the point that the hon. Gentleman raises about the petition. There has certainly been no deliberate decision by my Department not to do him the courtesy of responding. In terms of what we are doing for textile and hosiery workers, the industry faces important problems, which is exactly why we have set up a task force—which will report next week—and why industry representatives sit with me on the textiles and clothing strategy group to look precisely at how we can

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    ensure that there is greater competition. I say to Conservative Members that British industry will be able to compete not by failing to protect workers in the workplace, but by making sure that business is more competitive.
    Angela Smith: Like my constituents, I welcome my hon. Friend's comments about increasing the rights of full-time and part-time workers, but is he aware that many people do not know about the increase in rights under this Government? Numerous people have contacted me as their Member of Parliament to ask what rights they have at work and how they have increased. Some employers are not passing that information on to their employees, so may I urge my hon. Friend and other Ministers to take every possible action to ensure that people at work are aware of their rights?
    Mr. Johnson: My hon. Friend raises a serious point. We are looking at how we can best ensure that people at work are aware of new rights in this country. We have set up helplines for the working time regulations and the minimum wage, and intend to do the same for the part-time work directive. We have also taken an initiative to ensure that members of ethnic minorities understand their rights to the minimum wage, because there was evidence to suggest that, when we launched it, we did not reach the media and radio stations used by Afro-Caribbean, Hindu and other ethnic minority people. We shall work hard to ensure that workers are aware of their rights.

    Banking (Cash Withdrawals)
    Mr. Norman Baker (Lewes): What plans he has to increase consumer protection within the banking system relating to cash withdrawals. [100532]
    The Minister for Trade (Mr. Richard Caborn): We consider that consumers should be told in advance of any charges that they may face when they use cash machines, and my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry has written to the British Bankers Association to make that clear. We hope that the trade will reach a voluntary agreement. If it does not, my right hon. Friend will consider using his powers under the Prices Act 1974 to require price transparency.
    Mr. Baker: I agree with the point about price transparency, but does the Minister share my concern about the proposals for the introduction of further charges by banks, particularly Barclays, for making withdrawals from cash dispensers? Is it not ironic that those same banks are closing branches, including one in Ringmer in my constituency, and therefore making the use of competitors' cash machines even more necessary? Will he prevent the banks, if possible, from introducing further charges? If he cannot lean on them to persuade them to abandon their greed, will he take action to prevent them from introducing such charges?
    Mr. Caborn: We do not believe that that is the right way to go. We are looking to the British Bankers Association and the trade itself to produce a voluntary code, and competition will make sure that the customer gets a reasonable deal. If we find that there has been any
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    deviation from that, we shall use the powers at my right hon. Friend's disposal to ensure that the consumer gets the best deal.
    Mr. Ian Bruce: I am sure that the Minister appreciates that the Post Office network will close down if the Government continue with their policy of doing away with the payment of benefits through post offices. Will he look carefully at the charges being made on people who simply want to use a bank to cash their giro in one go? The banks are clearly putting up their charges and the Post Office is the cheapest way of delivering that service. I believe that the Minister will not want to inflict on the Post Office network damage similar to that which his colleagues in the Department of Social Security are about to cause. He needs to take action before it is too late.
    Mr. Caborn: First, the systems that are in place are being automated and, secondly, because of the concerns that the hon. Gentleman has expressed, the performance and innovation unit is looking at many of those issues. We shall come back to the House in the not-too-distant future to answer the serious questions that he raises.

    Banking Services
    Ms Helen Southworth: If he will make a statement about the use of post offices to enable access to banking services for people with low incomes. [100533]
    The Minister for Competitiveness (Mr. Alan Johnson): The Post Office already has arrangements with the Alliance and Leicester Giro bank, the Co-operative bank and Lloyds TSB, enabling customers of those banks to undertake a range of transactions at post offices. It is intended that the Post Office will extend its commercial arrangements with banks; and the automated Horizon system, which is to be installed at all post offices, will have suitable banking technology to enable all Post Office customers to have access to banking services at post office counters.
    Ms Southworth: I thank my hon. Friend for that welcome reply. Does my hon. Friend agree that, while high street banks are closing all over the place, denying people access to local banking services, the Post Office network is ideally situated to fill that gap? Will he ensure that the investment is available, automation takes place quickly, and Government Departments work positively together; and that business opportunities are made available so that every post office is economically viable and can provide locally those new services that people want locally?
    Mr. Johnson: My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Over the past 20 years, there has been a decline of about 20 per cent. in the Post Office network. Sixty per cent. of villages have a post office, while only 5 per cent. have a bank. By automating the network, by bringing it on line, we can bring network banking back to deprived urban areas as well as rural areas. Further to a previous question, if the major high street banks start charging to withdraw cash

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    from cash machines, that will provide an even greater opportunity for the Post Office, which is ubiquitous with a capital U, to take advantage of those circumstances.
    Mr. Elfyn Llwyd: Will the Minister's Department reconsider the damaging policy of compulsory automatic credit transfer being introduced in 2003? Unfortunately, it will mean closing at least 50 per cent. of post offices and small shops in rural Wales, in addition to the one in every 18 that has closed since the Government took power. It is a serious position. Yesterday, the Prime Minister acknowledged that there are problems in rural areas. I wonder how the Government's policy will assist those problems. In particular, what will be the view of the social exclusion unit?
    Mr. Johnson: Social exclusion is crucial to all these matters. Financial exclusion is both a cause and an effect of social exclusion. Ensuring that people have access to bank accounts is an important principle that has been highlighted by the social exclusion report. If we sit back and do nothing, the gradual migration of customers to automatic credit transfer will mean a decline in the Post Office network. Introducing the automation of the network, setting up the performance and innovation unit study that will report to my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister early in the new year and guaranteeing that, whatever happens after 2003, customers will still be able to draw their benefits in cash across a post office counter, are important developments and assurances. We either do something about the gradual erosion of our Post Office network or we sit back and do nothing. We are taking the option of protecting the network. This is an opportunity for the Post Office, not a threat.
    Dr. Alan Whitehead: I welcome the Government's stated commitment to the maintenance of a nationwide network of post offices. Does my hon. Friend agree that a sub-post office is often vital in keeping active a village community and urban district centres? Will he examine the way in which the Post Office maintains its franchises with sub-post offices to ensure that those post offices and district centres can remain open so that the Government's stated commitment to a nationwide service becomes a reality?
    Mr. Johnson: My hon. Friend is right about the importance of the Post Office network to the social fabric of this country. As for the relationship between the Post Office and sub-postmasters, the Post Office makes every attempt to keep a post office service going, even in areas where it cannot attract staff to run a local post office. There are mobile post offices, post offices that are run from people's homes and others that are run from garden sheds just to keep the service going.
    We are committed to maintaining a national network of post offices. We are committed to ending the decline. We are committed also to ensuring that, when people go to their local post office, they will have a greater range of services available to them as a result of putting the Post Office on line and through the Horizon platform, which will be completed by the spring of 2001.

    Dairy Industry
    Mr. Owen Paterson: If he will make a statement on monopolies in the dairy industry. [100534]
    The Secretary of State for Trade and Industry (Mr. Stephen Byers): The recent Monopolies and Mergers Commission report found that Milk Marque was using uncompetitive practices to exploit its monopoly position. I am pleased that the members of Milk Marque have agreed to establish three successor bodies.
    Mr. Paterson: Processing milk on the continent is twice as efficient as in this country because companies such as MD Foods in Denmark, Parmalat and Danone are based on large farmer co-operatives with a substantial hold of their national milk market. The Government are determined to smash up Milk Marque—although it falls under the European definition of a monopoly—at vast legal expense. How will successor companies ever get up to European standards of efficiency when they will be so much smaller?
    Mr. Byers: I know that the hon. Gentleman does not like facts that get in the way of his prejudice, but may I inform him that the Monopolies and Mergers Commission report said that there should be a compulsory break-up of Milk Marque? I did not agree with that. I said that the auction practices should be changed. It is the members of Milk Marque who have voluntarily agreed to break it up into three successor bodies. I have said clearly that, provided that they act in a competitive way—I have asked the Director General of Fair Trading to look at the matter during the next few months—from April, I am prepared to agree that they can get into processing.
    That is my commitment; that is my decision. It reflects the fact that it was the Conservatives who, when they moved away from the Milk Marketing Board, required that Dairy Crest, the processing arm, be separated from Milk Marque. That was the Conservative Government's decision. The present Government have acted in the interests of the dairy industry.
    Mrs. Gwyneth Dunwoody: The Secretary of State's position will be welcomed by both customers and farmers, but the Milk Marketing Board was set up precisely because, during the 1920s, the whole industry was devastated by industrial practices that wiped out any protection for producers or customers. I hope that he will at least keep a sharp eye on developments in the successor companies to ensure that we do not damage the dairy industry even further.
    Mr. Byers: My hon. Friend makes an important point. A balance can be struck between protecting the industry, allowing it to become more competitive by letting it get into processing—I welcome the opportunity of giving it that agreement—and reflecting the needs of the consumer. I happen to think that a competitive dairy industry will be able to provide consumers with a quality product at a good

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    and affordable price. Those are my objectives. The procedures that have been agreed voluntarily by the farmers themselves will be the best way forward.
    Mrs. Angela Browning: The Secretary of State will know that there is some concern among dairy farmers that the break-up of Milk Marque into three parts rather than two may make them unviable or make one particular area less viable. Will he assure the House that he will monitor, or ask the Office of Fair Trading to monitor, the position carefully? If it looks as though the decision to split into three, rather than two, will jeopardise certain regions, will he be flexible enough to allow some form of amalgamation to take place before more dairy farmers have to sell up and get out of farming?
    Mr. Byers: We need to be absolutely clear. The decision to break Milk Marque up into three successor bodies was taken by the members of Milk Marque themselves, not by the Government. The Government looked at the MMC recommendation, which was for a compulsorily break-up, and said no. That was my decision, but the members of Milk Marque have now made that decision. It is arrogant in the extreme for Conservative Members to try to overrule the decisions of members of Milk Marque. It is their decision and I welcome the fact they have now agreed to go into three successor bodies.

    Manufacturing Sector
    Mr. Andrew Reed: What research he has undertaken into the prospects for a successful manufacturing sector in the knowledge-driven economy. [100535]
    The Minister for Small Business and E-Commerce (Ms Patricia Hewitt): Last month, my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry published "Manufacturing in the Knowledge Driven Economy", which celebrates the success of some of our leading manufacturing companies and sets out our strategy for further increasing the competitiveness and productivity of our manufacturing industry.
    Mr. Reed: I thank the Minister for that reply and for the Government's commitment to manufacturing industry, perhaps particularly to the textile sector. Does she acknowledge that a knowledge-based economy and manufacturing are not opposites, but that development of such an economy is the only way in which British manufacturing will be able to survive?
    Does the Minister also recognise the severe problems facing the textile sector? When the report is produced next week, will she consider ways of ensuring that—particularly in Leicestershire, where the textile sector is suffering because of the changes that Marks and Spencer is making in its sourcing policies—those textile jobs are protected for the future? Does she also acknowledge that successful companies such as Datalink—which will open tomorrow in my constituency—are examples of manufacturing companies that invest in the knowledge-based economy?
    Ms Hewitt: My hon. Friend is absolutely right, and I look forward to visiting his constituency tomorrow and
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    opening Datalink Electronics. However, as an east midlands Member of Parliament, I also share his concern about conditions in the textile industry. Recently, I visited Richard Roberts, whose headquarters is in my constituency and who is directly affected by the decision at Marks and Spencer.
    As my hon. Friend said, next week we shall receive the draft report of the textiles industry strategy group. I look forward to discussing with employers and unions how we can further support the textile industry in making the necessary investments to ensure that it remains competitive in an increasingly competitive market.
    Mr. John Bercow: Further to the truly risible response earlier to my hon. Friends the Members for Sevenoaks (Mr. Fallon) and for Tiverton and Honiton (Mrs. Browning), does the Minister agree that crucial to the future success of the manufacturing sector in a knowledge-driven economy is a light-touch regulatory environment? To that end, will the hon. Lady tell us what assessment she has made of the American model, in the form of the Regulatory Flexibility Act 1980 and of the Small Business Regulatory Enforcement Fairness Act 1996, and will she immediately announce the conclusions of her assessment—or is she just another part-time Minister?
    Ms Hewitt: I understand that the hon. Gentleman's favourite word, at least for this week, is "risible", and I have no doubt that he will be able to explain why. I also know that he is a great fan of sunset clauses, and therefore hope that he will welcome the fact that I have included a sunset clause in the Electronic Communications Bill, which recently received its Second Reading. The new small business service which I am in the process of establishing will have a particular responsibility for helping to streamline United Kingdom regulations and for ensuring that burdens on small businesses are kept to the necessary minimum.

    South Africa (Trade)
    Mr. Ian Davidson: If he will make a statement on the implications for the UK of the EU agreement on trade with South Africa. [100536]
    The Minister for Trade (Mr. Richard Caborn): The European Union is South Africa's major trading partner, and the agreement will strengthen that relationship and create new opportunities for United Kingdom and South African companies to do business with each other. For those reasons, the Government strongly support the conclusion of the agreement.
    Mr. Davidson: Does the Minister accept that the United Kingdom has a particular responsibility to try to create a prosperous post-apartheid South Africa because of the previous Conservative Government's long-term support for the apartheid state? What specifically are the United Kingdom Government doing to go that extra mile, to ensure that we play our part in trying to create more jobs, employment and prosperity in South Africa?
    Mr. Caborn: Our Prime Minister went that extra mile at Berlin, where, because of his initiative, the agreement was made. Although we should have liked the agricultural

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    sector to go a little further than it did, the lead given by our Prime Minister in Berlin is clearly paying dividends in our now very strong relationship with South Africa. That lead was evident also at Seattle and in the Commonwealth, and I am sure that it will pay dividends in the future.
    Mr. James Gray: Despite the Minister's risible claims about the Government's close relations with our European brothers and sisters on the continent, will he confirm whether British beef may be exported to South Africa under the agreement?
    Mr. Caborn: The answer is no at the moment. A scientific team from South Africa was in this country a few weeks ago and it is now reporting to the South African Cabinet. I hope that we shall get an agreement to export beef to South Africa, which was the largest market outside the European Union. We are pursuing the issue vigorously.

    Fireworks
    Mr. Frank Roy: What recent discussion he has had with fireworks manufacturers in relation to the sale of fireworks in the period up to 31 December. [100538]
    The Minister for Trade (Mr. Richard Caborn): Following discussions with my Department, the British Pyrotechnists Association agreed that it will advise retailers that fireworks should be displayed for sale only from 27 December. My hon. Friend has taken that on board and done a sterling job in his constituency. Many of his retailers did not know about the agreement. He brought 37 of them together and they have agreed to come on board and abide by the voluntary code. The House should applaud the work that he has done in his constituency.
    Mr. Roy: I thank my right hon. Friend for his welcome words. Those retailers took on board what I had said in my letter and showed their social responsibility to the people of Motherwell and Wishaw, who have suffered from the misuse of fireworks. None of them knew about an agreement between the British Pyrotechnists Association and the Department of Trade and Industry. Will my right hon. Friend ensure that retailers who have already bought their stock of fireworks know about any future agreements?
    Mr. Caborn: In the light of my hon. Friend's question and a debate that my hon. Friend the Minister for Small Business and E-Commerce responded to yesterday, I have been discussing the issue with departmental officials this morning. I intend to write this afternoon to the local authorities' co-ordinating bodies for trading standards, asking them to inform the Department of any breaches that they have had to deal with recently. I shall pass that on to the British Pyrotechnists Association to ensure that it is able to enforce its voluntary code with the retailers. I hope that there will be action today.

    Post Office Network
    Mr. Geoffrey Clifton-Brown: What plans he has to safeguard the future of rural sub-post offices. [100540]
    The Minister for Competitiveness (Mr. Alan Johnson): The Government are fully committed to the maintenance of a nationwide network of post offices and will, for the first time, publish access criteria, which the new regulator will have a duty to monitor. The criteria will aim to ensure that everyone in the UK has reasonable access to post office counter services. The Government are making a substantial contribution to the costs of automating the counters network to strengthen its longer-term viability and the performance and innovation unit in the Cabinet Office is carrying out an urgent study on the Post Office network. Various rate relief schemes apply to many rural post offices.
    Mr. Clifton-Brown: The Minister says that he is carrying out an urgent study. The Government have decided that all benefit claimants will have to have their benefits paid into a bank account by 2003. Given that 33 per cent. of the work of sub-post offices is related to the Benefits Agency and the National Federation of Sub-Postmasters estimates that 100 of my 201 sub-post offices are likely to close as a result of the measure, how will the Government reassure my sub-postmasters and sub-postmistresses that their businesses are secure?
    Mr. Johnson: Perhaps by avoiding the risible hyperbole that we hear from the Conservatives. In government, the Conservatives suggested that the way forward for the Post Office was to split the counters network from the rest of the network, even though it accounts for 40 per cent. of the work. The Conservatives now come forward as the defenders of rural post offices. We are not making the payment of benefits through automated credit transfer compulsory. We have said that the migration to ACT between 2003 and 2005 will happen along with the establishment of an automated counters network that will ensure that we can bring network banking back to rural areas.
    The Conservatives have expressed concern about how benefits are paid. The hon. Member for Rutland and Melton (Mr. Duncan), who is one of their Front-Bench spokesmen, had a novel solution to the problem. He was not so concerned about how benefits are paid. In a pamphlet for the no turning up group or the no turning back group or whatever it is, he said:
    "One Parent Benefit, Guardian's Allowance and Child's Special Allowance should be abolished".
    One of the many damaging effects of that would be to reduce work over post office counters.
    Mr. Bill Rammell: I thank the Minister for his support for a nationwide network of post offices, which stands in stark contrast to what happened under the previous Government. In my constituency, the post office in the village of Sheering has closed and has yet to be replaced. Does my hon. Friend agree that, in those circumstances, it is essential that the Post Office should

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    proactively seek an alternative provider, and make it clear that that provision can take place in many different venues and many different ways? Does not the Post Office need actively to promote that availability?
    Mr. Johnson: My hon. Friend raises an important point. If he writes to me, I shall make sure that the Post
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    Office looks into it. It has a good record of keeping postal services going in areas where it finds difficulty in recruiting sub-postmasters. I remind my hon. Friend that, for the first time, we will be putting into legislation access criteria that will ensure that people have reasonable access to the Post Office network, enforced by an independent regulator.

Beef Ban
12.31 pm
The Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (Mr. Nick Brown)rose—
Hon. Members: Resign.
Mr. Brown: The catcalls should come after the statement.
With permission, Madam Speaker, although there has been no change in this Government's policy on beef exports, in view of the statement made by the French Government last night I think it right to inform the House where matters now stand. Late last night, just after 11 pm in Paris, the French Prime Minister announced his Government's decision on how they intend to proceed in the light of the new advice from the French food safety agency, AFSSA, which they received on Monday 6 December.
The French statement said, in effect, that even though the risk is no more than hypothetical, the French Government are not ready to lift their ban now, but wish instead to press for further work on testing for BSE and on the labelling of British beef and beef products on the basis of European Union regulations, so that consumers can make an informed choice.
Her Majesty's Government are surprised and deeply disappointed that the French have chosen to take this position. It comes after many weeks of intensive talks, from which we received the impression that we had answered all the questions and met all the concerns from the French side. My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister immediately spoke to the French Prime Minister, Mr. Jospin, last night, and said that he believed that the position that the French were taking up was totally wrong, flew in the face of science and was against the law. I wholly endorse that view.
I have spoken to the Commissioner, David Byrne, and called on him now to proceed immediately with the court action against the French. Mr. Byrne has confirmed that he will do so. He will ask next Tuesday's meeting of the full Commission to issue the legal opinion, which is the last step before the court case commences. Mr. Byrne has already stated publicly that he finds the French Government's refusal to lift the ban deeply disappointing. The Commission has worked as hard as we have to resolve this matter through rational discussion. Mr. Byrne sees no alternative now but court action.
Some are suggesting that we were wrong to think that we would make progress with the approach that we adopted when the problem first arose in October. I profoundly disagree. I have no doubt that we were right to engage in discussion, as we did. I believe, too, that through the clarification and assurances that we gave about how we are operating the date-based export scheme, we responded in full to the points that the French Government raised with us and gave them the basis they needed for lifting the ban.
I well understand the anger that British farmers feel at this impasse. It is a poor reward for the massive efforts that British beef farmers and traders have been making to rebuild the industry and to rebuild public confidence in their product. British beef is as safe as beef from
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anywhere else in Europe. That is not just my view: it is the unanimous view of the Commission's senior scientific advisers. I can understand the frustration felt more widely around the country.
The French action is astonishing. They have delivered a blow to the credibility of European Union law, but the French are on their own in taking this defiant approach. I assure the House that the Government are working by all means possible to ensure that the French Government honour their Community obligations and lift the ban.
Mr. Tim Yeo: I thank the Minister for his statement, which he made available to me about 20 minutes ago. Does he accept that last night's news is bad for Britain's beef farmers, bad for the European single market and bad for this Labour Government, whose handling of the issue from start to finish has been weak and incompetent? Will he admit that he should have asked the European Commission to start legal action much sooner after France imposed its illegal ban? Does he now accept that our advice that the legal process should run alongside continued political pressure was right from the start?
Does the Minister realise that by not even raising the beef issue at the Anglo-French summit two weeks ago, the Prime Minister kicked Britain's farmers in the teeth and let the French Government completely off the hook? Was not beef far and away the most important issue at that time between Britain and France? Does the Minister understand that each time the Government allow France to reopen issues that have been settled by the scientists, they are letting down British farmers and encouraging French intransigence? Will the Prime Minister now ensure that beef is at the top of the agenda at tomorrow's summit meeting in Helsinki? Does he realise that the very working of the single market could be damaged if the Heads of Government fail to address this urgent issue?
What help will the Government give British farmers who wish to seek compensation from France through the courts? Given that on 8 November the Prime Minister said that an official end to the ban could be delivered within days, will the Minister now tell us how many more days, weeks or months Britain will have to wait? Is it not the truth that after four months of conceding every French demand, however unreasonable, and of raising false hopes among British farmers time and again, the Government have made no progress towards solving this problem? How much longer must Britain tolerate the humiliating spectacle of our Prime Minister dancing like a puppet to Mr. Jospin's tune?
Does the Minister agree with the Prime Minister's statement in this House on 14 July, when he said that
"it is another example of new Labour working"?—[Official Report, 14 July 1999; Vol. 335, c. 402.]
The time has come for the Minister to stop making excuses, to stop blaming other people for his Government's failures and to start standing up for Britain and Britain's farmers.
Mr. Brown: As the hon. Member for South Suffolk (Mr. Yeo) knows, I profoundly disagree with the approach that the Conservative party are adopting to this issue. The hon. Gentleman asked me whether I would accept his advice, and my answer to that is, "Not likely." I am very careful about where I take advice from, and I shall not

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take it from the party which formed the Government who presided over the BSE crisis in the first place, who recommend that we start a trade war with the French, and who suggest that we should adapt the science—on the basis of no scientific evidence—so that we can ban French produce from entering this country. That is not the right way forward for our country.
The right way forward is to try to resolve the issue by dialogue if we can, and to protect our rights through the courts if we cannot. That is why we now look to the courts and to the Commission to stand our corner. Under a Labour Government, it is France which is isolated in Europe on this argument. It was not that long ago, under a Conservative Government, when it was the United Kingdom which was isolated in Europe.
Mr. Tam Dalyell: Was not the intervention of the Opposition spokesman cheap, glib and disgraceful?
May I ask a factual question? I think that my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister said that the French attitude flew in the face of science. Will my right hon. Friend the Minister say whether we have seen in detail what the French scientists have said? Is it understood that many other industries are deeply worried about their trade with France? Sliding into a trade war with that country would hit the Scottish whisky industry terribly badly, to give just one example. That industry sells as much whisky in France as it does in Britain.
Mr. Brown: My hon. Friend is absolutely right: France is the largest single market in the European Union for Scotch whisky. In fact, this country's exports of food and drink world wide are worth £10 billion every year. To embark on a trade war that would put some of that at risk would be absolute madness. This Government will not do that.
My hon. Friend is also absolutely right about the attitude of the official Opposition. They jeer from the sidelines but, if one listens carefully, one notices that they do not have a constructive alternative to offer.
Mr. David Heath: Does not this outrageous decision by the French Government defy law, science and practical politics? Is it not a massive slap in the face for the Minister and the Government? Will the right hon. Gentleman pursue swift legal action in this matter, and does he agree that it would be extraordinary if France were to assume the EU presidency after it had been arraigned for blatantly ignoring European law?
The Prime Minister goes to Helsinki later today. Although it is not in Britain's interest to disrupt the business of the 13 countries that support Britain's position, and despite the synthetic smiles on display at the Anglo-French summit two weeks ago, will the Prime Minister make it clear that France can expect no diplomatic or political co-operation from Britain until this decision is reversed?
Finally, a full-scale trade war is in the interests of no one, least of all other British agricultural sectors. However, does the Minister agree that many British
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consumers will make their own decisions between now and Christmas, and that they will choose cheese from Somerset, not from France?
Mr. Brown: There is an excellent Somerset brie that I freely recommend to the House. All consumers can choose how to spend their money. That is perfectly reasonable in a free society. As to whether the French decision is a rebuff to me, I do not think that the entire French Cabinet have focused on me personally in this matter.
More generally, it is a mistake to personalise issues in that way. This is a difficult problem, which I have sought to resolve through mature dialogue with the Commission and with the French. We are going to keep on talking. [HON. MEMBERS: "Oh!"] Of course we are going to keep talking. There are many issues on which we and the French share common cause and interests. It would be incredibly immature if we were to cut off all dialogue across a range of topics because we could not resolve this issue. As I have said over and over again, we should resolve the matter through dialogue if we can, and through the courts if we cannot. We have the law, science and the Commission on our side. We will win in court.
Mr. Dale Campbell-Savours: We did not hear one word from the hon. Member for South Suffolk (Mr. Yeo) about testing, which is a new issue for the French. The reason is that, time and time again between 1991 and 1995, the Tory Government blocked requests for money to be given to British scientific institutions to test for BSE. We all know why those requests were blocked: no doubt the reason will emerge in the BSE inquiry next year.
In an article published on 13 October, Le Figaro exposed a trade in animals in the south-west of England that was supported by falsified documents. The trade was conducted not by farmers, but by agricultural traders, and was only uncovered thanks to the intervention of our police authorities. The report was read and circulated throughout France, and was also considered in the French Parliament. If people in the United Kingdom are breaking the law, is it not clear that major problems will be encountered in resolving this crisis?
Mr. Brown: On the second point, my Department has been unable to substantiate reports that any of those animals have been smuggled into France. However, people have been caught trying, and those breaking the law are prosecuted with the full rigour of the law.
My hon. Friend's point about testing is absolutely right. It behoves everybody with an interest in the matter to realise that this country has an enormous vested interest in testing.
Mr. Michael Fabricant: How does the Minister reconcile the French actions—and, incidentally, those of the German Lander, which are not importing British beef—with the Prime Minister's own words? The right hon. Gentleman has said:
"Unlike the previous Government, we are working with our European partners who now listen to what we have to say."
Mr. Brown: The distinction is very clear, and I drew it to the attention of the House a few moments ago. Under

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the previous Government, the United Kingdom was isolated within Europe. In this dispute, the French are isolated. We have the European Commission on our side. Thirteen member states have lifted the ban and the German Health Minister confirmed this morning that the German Government are proceeding to lift the ban.
Mr. John Home Robertson: Is it not the height of hypocrisy for politicians who created the circumstances for BSE to crow about the awful consequences of that disease? Most of us believe that free and fair trade in the European Union is in the interests of all citizens of Europe. Will my right hon. Friend assure us that the European Commission and, indeed, the whole European Council, will do everything possible to restore that principle for all commodities?
Mr. Brown: I strongly agree with my hon. Friend's comments. Perhaps I could treat hon. Members to this quote:
"Faced with the temptation of unilateral action it is more than ever necessary to base our actions on multilateral rules that everyone abides by."
That was said by Lionel Jospin at the United Nations on 22 September 1999. I agree with him.
Mr. Patrick Nicholls: We have a great deal of sympathy with the right hon. Gentleman, but the kindest thing that one could say about his performance today is that it was pathetic. How can he possibly justify being prepared to concede that British beef should be labelled as having been raised in Britain, while not thinking it appropriate that French meat, which has been raised on excrement, should be similarly labelled? How many scientists does the right hon. Gentleman need to tell him that such food might be unsafe?
Mr. Brown: The hon. Gentleman is wrong—the European Union is currently considering beef labelling rules. The French have a labelling regime for domestic products. I notice that when the Leader of the Opposition called on a number of agricultural spokesmen to resign, the hon. Gentleman was the only one to do so.
Mr. Chris Pond: My right hon. Friend has reminded the House of the circumstances of the BSE crisis and its consequences. Could he also tell us whether the gunboat diplomacy that the Conservative party now seems to favour helped to resolve that issue? Is my right hon. Friend aware that the last thing the farmers in my constituency want is the sort of trade war proposed by the Conservative party?
Mr. Brown: My hon. Friend is right. Farmers and farm leaders have made it absolutely clear to the Government that they do not want a trade war, least of all a trade war in agricultural products.
Mr. James Gray: No one is talking about a trade war, and it is absurd of the Government to pretend that we are. Will the Minister listen to Phillipe Roy, a restaurateur in my constituency, who has banned British beef and British products from his restaurant— [HON. MEMBERS: "British beef?"] I am sorry; I mean French beef and products. He has said publicly that he knows the French Government well—he used to work for
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them—and the only language that they understand is direct action. The Minister's cuddling up to the French plainly has not worked. Will he advocate some direct action?
Mr. Brown: No. Let me treat the House to a quote instead:
"Is that not common sense? Is it not time to introduce under article 36 a precautionary ban on French imports?"—[Official Report, 27 October 1999; Vol. 336, c. 1010.]
Of course, that would be illegal, but it is what the Leader of the Opposition said.
Mr. Bill Rammell: Will my right hon. Friend confirm that the French Government's decision will be regarded with astonishment throughout Europe because it is wholly unjustified? Will he seek to ensure that legal procedures are expedited as quickly as possible, because the integrity of European Union decisions would otherwise be called into question? Will he confirm that had we followed the advice of the Conservative party and launched a trade war by banning French imports, we would have been acting illegally, would have lost the support of 13 of the other 14 European union nations and would have undermined the legal recourse that we may now pursue?
Mr. Brown: My hon. Friend is absolutely right. This is not a bilateral dispute between the UK and France, but a dispute between the French and the rest of the EU. Legal action is being spearheaded by the Commission. I spoke this morning to Commissioner Byrne and urged him to move the action on as speedily as possible.
Mr. Owen Paterson: Since 8 November, when the Prime Minister said that the ban would be lifted within days, how many meetings has the Minister had with his French counterpart, and how many telephone conversations have they held?
Mr. Brown: I cannot treat the hon. Gentleman to the statistics that he asks for, but a substantial number of meetings has been held with the French and the Commission as we have tried to resolve the issue. The British Government have worked very hard to make dialogue work. Dialogue involving the French and the Commission resulted in a protocol that the French thought good enough to take back to their food standards agency. That agency then produced a further report for the French Government that could have provided a method by which the ban could be lifted. It is regrettable that that did not happen, but it was a political decision for the French Cabinet.
Charlotte Atkins: Does my right hon. Friend agree that a trade war with France would not help my farmers? Confidence in British beef is the key factor if our overseas market is to be restored, and playing politics with British beef will not help.
Mr. Brown: My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Farmers have said over and over that they do not want a damaging trade war of the kind advocated by the Leader of the Opposition. The domestic beef market is enormously important to beef farmers in the UK, and it

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speaks volumes for public confidence in our thorough public protection measures that beef sales are now higher than they were when the BSE crisis first broke.
Mr. David Curry: Does the Minister recognise that we seek not a trade war, but the rule of law? Does he realise that although we now have no option but to have recourse to law, and although the French action is both a crime and a mistake, what farmers want is a livelihood, not a court drama? Will the Minister ensure that he keeps talking to arrive at a settlement?
Mr. Brown: I shall keep talking to the French, although the right hon. Gentleman's parliamentary colleagues jeered at me when I said so earlier. I accept that he is sincere in what he says, but he must acknowledge that the Leader of the Opposition and the shadow agriculture spokesman advocate a trade war. They want the United Kingdom Government to break the law by illegally invoking article 36.
Mr. Jim Murphy: May I invite my right hon. Friend to recall the situation that he inherited when he took office, which was exemplified by the case of an eight-year-old boy in my constituency who lost his mother to new variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease? May I encourage him to continue to press the scientific case— through legal means if necessary—with his European colleagues? Will he also continue to ignore the bombastic Barbour jacket diplomacy of the Conservatives?
Mr. Brown: Bombast and pompous rhetoric will not get us through this problem. BSE has been a national tragedy for our country. The cost to the Exchequer is enormous—£4.6 billion is the latest calculation. It has also been a tragedy for the victims of new variant CJD. My hon. Friend is right to point out the importance of our powerful public protection measures, which are the foundation of the case for the date-based export scheme.
Sir Peter Emery: Will the right hon. Gentleman not realise that his softly, softly negotiating approach on the matter has been a disaster? Will he realise that when the French want a position they adopt the stance of de Gaulle and stand out and fight, irrespective of what the rest of Europe thinks about it? Hon. Members on both sides of the House are, hopefully, concerned for the farming community. What help will he and his Department give to farmers who are losing considerable sums of money because of the illegal continuation of the ban? How can they, rather like the Spanish fishermen, attempt to get some of the money back so that they can sustain a livelihood on the farm? What help will he and the Government give to assist farmers in that way?
Mr. Brown: Of course, we give a substantial amount of support and assistance to the beef sector, as the right hon. Gentleman knows—some domestically and some under the common agricultural policy. The right hon. Gentleman suggests that if, instead of negotiating reasonably, we behaved differently in the European Union, we would get a different outcome. I think that he is right. The previous Conservative Government behaved differently in Europe—they offended all our partners and
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launched a foolish beef war against the European Union and comprehensively lost it. Our partners view what we are doing in the European Union as different from the way in which the previous Government proceeded. That is why, in this dispute, they are all on our side.
Mr. Donald Anderson: Would my right hon. Friend agree that if we are to succeed in law, we must come with clean hands, we must remain on the high ground where we are now and we must avoid irresponsible and counterproductive populist gestures of the type suggested by the Opposition?
Mr. Brown: My hon. Friend is absolutely right. That is why I am rejecting the approach recommended by the official Opposition—of taking illegal measures against other countries, in particular the French. That is not the right way forward. It would turn this into a bilateral dispute between us and the French, instead of a dispute between them and the Commission, which is where we are at the moment.
Mr. Michael Howard: How right the Minister was to say that the catcalls should come after his statement. Does not this woeful saga in fact mark the collapse of the Government's entire European policy? Does it not demonstrate that, despite all the concessions that the Prime Minister has made on qualified majority voting and on joining new defence initiatives with the French, the fact remains that other European Union member states will pursue what they see as their national interests even if that is in breach of European law? When will the Government start to stand up for Britain's interests in Europe?
Mr. Brown: We are standing up for Britain's interests in Europe. The distinction between us and the previous Government is that we are doing it intelligently. The right hon. and learned Gentleman was a prominent member of the previous Government, who presided over the BSE crisis. I notice that in his contribution to the debate there was not a word of apology or regret from him.
Mr. Peter L. Pike (Burnley): Is not some of the Opposition's sham anger today intended to obscure the fact that my right hon. Friend has tried to bring the problem to a speedy conclusion and has tried to use the procedures with vigour and firmness to get the earliest conclusion and to avoid resorting to law? Is that sham anger perhaps intended to hide the cost to this nation and to the farming and meat industries of the Opposition's failure? Should we not remind people of what that cost was?
Mr. Brown: The cost is a substantial £4.6 billion and 47 lives tragically lost so far, with potentially more to come. We have had not a word of sorrow or regret, or even an admission of blameworthiness, from the Opposition, who presided over all of this; yet they jeer from the sidelines as the Government try to clean up the mess that they left us.
Mr. David Maclean: The Minister goes on about having proper dialogue with the French. Does he not realise that to have a proper face-to-face dialogue, he must change the position of the

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British Government, because it is difficult to have dialogue if they are lying supine on the mat at the feet of the French Government? He must adopt a tougher negotiating position, having already given away all the aces and cards with which he had to play. Will the Minister answer this simple question? When did he last personally meet his French opposite number?
Mr. Brown: I spoke to my French counterpart on the telephone about an hour ago. The right hon. Gentleman says that we have made some tremendous concessions; there are no concessions—[HON. MEMBERS: "Meet?"] I shall meet my French counterpart next Tuesday at the Agriculture Council. The right hon. Gentleman suggests that we have made concessions on the date-based export scheme; no concessions have been made, nor, in all those discussions, were any new imposts imposed in the discussions.
Mr. Paul Marsden: I am appalled by the decision of the French Cabinet, but I salute my right hon. Friend on the statesmanship he has shown during the past months and on the way he has conducted himself, on behalf of the Government. Time and again, he has fought for British farmers. Does he agree that it is shameful of the Tory Opposition to criticise the Government? They would be unable to act differently. On 16 November, the shadow Minister of Agriculture appeared on GMTV. He said:
"We've always said that the right way to do this was to use the European Commission machinery."
He was right then; he is wrong now.
Mr. Brown: The Opposition spokesman, the hon. Member for South Suffolk, has adopted such a wide range of positions on the matter that he might, once or twice, get it right—probably by accident. Of course, the best way forward is to discuss these matters with our partners in the European Union—while always protecting our rights in law. That is exactly what we have done.
Mr. Michael Jack (Fylde): My hon. Friend the Member for South Suffolk (Mr. Yeo) and the Liberal spokesman, the hon. Member for Somerton and Frome (Mr. Heath), asked the Minister whether the issue was to be raised by the Prime Minister at Helsinki. In what terms will it be raised? Will the Minister give us a clear statement that the matter will be raised at the highest level, and that the Prime Minister will report back to the House on any progress that he has made?
Mr. Brown: I have already dealt with that question several times. We intend to pursue the matter through the courts.
Mr. Tony Colman: I congratulate my right hon. Friend on doing what the National Farmers Union, to whom the Opposition clearly do not listen, and the agricultural workers unions want—attempt to fast-track a settlement of the dispute. Like all reasonable and common sense thinking Members, I congratulate him on the work that he has done. Does he agree that if we were not full members of the EU—wholeheartedly so—we should now be unable to make the next move: to ensure that the French admit our beef under EU law?
Mr. Brown: The route through the courts is open to us because we are members of the EU. My hon. Friend is
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absolutely right to point out that farmers' organisations and farm employees' organisations support the approach adopted by the Government; not one of them has endorsed the approach of the parliamentary Opposition.
Mr. William Thompson: What further concrete measures does the Minister propose, or will he continue to wait and wait until the court decides the issue? Will he merely continue to talk and talk? If he does not take concrete action, will not the whole of Europe regard Britain as a soft touch?
Mr. Brown: I shall continue to discuss the matter with the French, if they want to do so. However, the formal discussions have reached their conclusion—the document accepted by the French as good enough to go before their food standards agency. That did not result in the French Cabinet's agreeing to lift the ban. They made a significant statement—that is why we must now look to the courts.
Mr. Michael Jabez Foster: I too congratulate my right hon. Friend on the way he has conducted the negotiations; it was not only constructive, but effective. He has defined and clarified the position— that would never have been achieved by the ranting of the Opposition. Having done that, will he find out from the Commission whether there is a fast-track way of obtaining a decision from the court—some form of summary judgment? His negotiations have now made it so clear that the French are wrong and we are right.
Mr. Brown: After my discussions this morning with Commissioner Byrne, it is clear that the Commission is looking at those aspects of handling the case now. Tuesday's meeting of the Commission is the last step before the court case commences, so we are getting on with this as quickly as we can. My hon. Friend is right to say that the way to deal with these matters is by explanation and rational dialogue—not, as the Opposition seem to suggest, by adopting a belligerent position and embarking on an unlawful trade war.
Mr. Elfyn Llwyd: The French action is utterly indefensible, but seemingly it will take 12—perhaps 18—months to get the French before the bar of the European Court. Is there not a glaring message here: that the whole procedure must be quickened up rapidly, because otherwise there is an incentive for states to act in a similar way? If the procedure were quickened up, that incentive would be removed and they would not be able to skew the market for so many months.
Mr. Brown: The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. Those who do wrong should not benefit from it, and if justice is to come, it should come quickly. I made exactly that point to the Commissioner this morning.
Dr. Norman A. Godman: May I point out to my right hon. Friend that a trade war would inflict serious damage on the Scottish fishing industry? I remind him that when the Spanish trawler owners complained to the European Commission about the Tory Government's Merchant Shipping Act 1984, the Commission quickly hauled the Tory Government before the Court in Luxembourg. Those fishing interests in Spain

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are to receive substantial financial compensation. I hope that the same will hold for farmers throughout the United Kingdom.
Mr. Brown: Compensation is a matter for the Court. If one wants examples as to how not to handle such issues, there are plenty from the previous Government's stewardship of these issues, including the case that my hon. Friend mentioned.
Mr. Geoffrey Clifton-Brown: Does not the present position prove that my hon. Friend the Member for South Suffolk (Mr. Yeo) was right all along that we should have been engaging in dialogue but that at the same time, in July, we should have initiated legal procedures? Will the Minister give the House an assurance that the matter will be raised at Helsinki? If he will not, will he ask the Commission to take accelerated legal procedures in the European Court; and will he do two things in those procedures? First, will he press for compensation for British farmers; and secondly, will he ask for substantial fines if the French are proved to be acting illegally?
Mr. Brown: The hon. Gentleman may not be aware of this, but the legal action is already embarked upon. We have tried to resolve the matter by dialogue with the French. I have discussed accelerated action with Commissioner Byrne this morning. He is consulting his professional advisers on that point. It is obviously the United Kingdom Government's position that we want the matter to be before the courts as quickly as possible. The route that we have taken to resolve the matter now, given the disappointing—indeed, astonishing—decision of the French Cabinet, is to deal with it through the courts.
Mr. Malcolm Savidge: The French decision is inexcusable, but does my right hon. Friend find nauseatingly distasteful the gloating glee with which some Tories greet every new sad consequence of the BSE disaster, for which they bear terrible responsibility, and which has cost billions of pounds and a tragic loss of life?
Mr. Brown: My hon. Friend is right. It is not very pleasant to watch elected Members of the House taking a delight in a difficulty that has befallen an important national interest—the more so as it is a difficulty over which they presided in the first place.
Sir Robert Smith: Obviously, I share the horror at what the French Government have done. Will the Secretary of State, while pursuing legal action, ensure that the Prime Minister recognises that when, on Monday, he reports to the House on what has happened at the weekend, our farmers' morale will be greatly boosted if they can believe in his statement that he has made them a priority and not put them to one side for the sake of other negotiations?
Secondly, is there anything that the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food or other offices of the Government can do to assist farmers in the legal action that would compensate them personally for any loss of exports?
Mr. Brown: I am not sure that it is open to my Department to underpin private legal actions, although I
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understand the hon. Gentleman's point. No one could have done more than my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister to try to get this matter resolved by conducting dialogue with the French. Everyone in the Government has been working very hard on this. However—as I have repeatedly told the House—following the decision of the French Cabinet, although of course the dialogue between me, Jean Glavany and our respective Departments remains open, we now look to the courts for a resolution of the matter.
Mr. Gordon Prentice (Pendle): Did we not inherit a poisonous legacy from the Conservative party— salmonella, listeria, E.coli and, worst of all, the horrors of BSE—which led this Government to introduce a new Food Standards Agency? Because of the latest setback, is there not a powerful case for having Europe-wide legislation to establish a food standards agency that can police such matters across all 15 countries?
Mr. Brown: The Government are putting the interests of the consumer at the heart of food policy. We are setting up the independent Food Standards Agency, which will come into being on 1 April. The preliminary work between my Department and the Department of Health is already under way; the two Departments are working co-operatively. There are proposals in the European Union to try to draw the different threads together within the Union, including proposals for a European-wide agency. We shall of course examine such proposals with considerable interest.
Mr. Peter Brooke: As Smithfield's Member of Parliament, I would like to know whether, in the light of where we have now got to, the Minister regrets any of the decisions that he has taken or methods that he has used in recent months?
Mr. Brown: We were absolutely right to embark upon the dialogue and the exchange of views with the Commission and with the French while ensuring that we did not allow any amendment to the date-based export scheme. We did not put any new imposts on United Kingdom farmers and we always preserved our rights in law.
Mr. Yeo: Will the Minister confirm that neither I nor any Opposition spokesman has advocated a general trade war? Does he not understand the difference between that, which would be the wrong response, and a perfectly legal ban—to protect the health of British consumers—on the import of contaminated French meat fed on human sewage and illegal material? Will the Prime Minister raise this issue at Helsinki tomorrow?
Mr. Brown: I have answered the question about Helsinki on a number of occasions. May I treat the hon. Gentleman to the following quote?
"This scandal demands a proportionate and targeted response—a precautionary ban on the import of potentially contaminated French meat until the French Government explain what they are doing to end those illegal practices".—[Official Report, 28 October 1999; Vol. 336, c. 1136.]
Such action would be illegal, and I have put the evidence on that in the Library in case anyone wants to dispute it. However, those remarks were made by the hon. Member for South Suffolk. He cannot even remember what he has said.

Business of the House
1.12 pm
Sir George Young: Will the Leader of the House give us the business for next week?
The President of the Council and Leader of the House of Commons (Mrs. Margaret Beckett): The business for next week will be as follows:
MONDAY 13 DECEMBER—Until 7 pm, debate on the Common Fisheries policy on a Government motion.
Motion on the Christmas recess Adjournment debate.
TUESDAY 14 DECEMBER—Second Reading of the Terrorism Bill.
WEDNESDAY 15 DECEMBER—Consideration in Committee of the Representation of the People Bill [1st Day].
THURSDAY 16 DECEMBER—Estimates Day [1st Allotted Day].
There will be a debate on aviation safety. Followed by a debate on inward and outward investment in Scotland.
At 7 pm the House will be asked to agree all outstanding estimates.
Proceedings on the Consolidated Fund Bill.
FRIDAY 17 DECEMBER—The House will not be sitting.

I will give the House the provisional business for the following week, but it comes with more than the usual health warning. In the immediate run-up to Christmas and in the immediate aftermath, hon. Members will always try to fit in debates on certain issues. At present, we anticipate the business to be as follows:
MONDAY 20 DECEMBER—Second Reading of the Transport Bill.
TUESDAY 21 DECEMBER—Debate on public expenditure.
The House may also be asked to consider any Lords messages which may be received.
Details of the relevant documents will be given in the Official Report.
[Thursday 9 December 1999: Relevant documents: Class III, Vote 6: Environment, Transport and the Regions: Transport Industries, in so far as they relate to aviation safety. (14th Report of the Environment, Transport and the Regional Affairs Committee, HC-275 (1998–99).
Class XIII, Vote 1: Scotland and transfers to the Scottish Consolidated Fund, in so far as they relate to inward and outward investment in Scotland.
Monday 13 December: Floor of the House—European Union document: unnumbered EM submitted by MAFF dated 5 December 1999. Fisheries: Total Allowable Catches and Quotas for 2000. Relevant European Scrutiny Committee Report: HC 23–iii, (1999–2000).]
Sir George Young: I am grateful to the Leader of the House for giving us next week's business and an indication of the likely business for the following week. I welcome the proposed debate in Government time on public expenditure, which comes after the great pressure exerted by Conservative Members at business questions. Will the right hon. Lady consider whether the House might, for the convenience of Members and staff, sit earlier than normal on the last day before it rises for the
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recess? Will the right hon. Lady confirm that there will be a statement on Monday from the Prime Minister, following the Helsinki summit, when the House will want to hold the Government to account on protecting British interests in Europe?
I understand that the much delayed defence White Paper will be published next week. Can the right hon. Lady confirm that, and tell us that the Secretary of State for Defence will present it in an oral statement? I understand that the Defence Committee will then conduct a swift inquiry, which is likely to be completed by the middle of January. Can we have the postponed two-day defence debate immediately thereafter, in view of increasing concern about procurement issues, overstretch and the European army?
The Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport has announced a self-imposed deadline of next Wednesday on the plans for Wembley—either the plans are revised or the lottery money is forfeited. Will the right hon. Gentleman make a statement to the House when the deadline expires?
The former small business Minister promised an annual debate on small businesses. What has happened to that promise?
Finally, for those Members who like to plan ahead, can the right hon. Lady shed any light on the timing of the February constituency week?
Mrs. Beckett: I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his slightly grudging welcome for the debate on public expenditure, which we hope to schedule for the week after next. His suggestion that we should change the hours of sitting on the final day before the recess is interesting, and I shall certainly have it discussed and return to the House with information about that.
The right hon. Gentleman asked me if I anticipate that the Prime Minister will make a statement after the Helsinki summit, and indeed I do anticipate such a statement, as is the norm after a European Council.
I cannot immediately confirm that I expect the defence White Paper to be published next week, although obviously we hope that it will be published in the not too distant future. I can certainly confirm that it will go to the Defence Committee. It is, of course, a matter for the Committee how speedily it deals with the White Paper, although I am sure that its members will want to deal with it as quickly as possible. I shall certainly keep under consideration the right hon. Gentleman's request for an oral statement, because of the delay. I can assure him that there will be a defence debate and that we will want to schedule it as early as we reasonably can, although of course I cannot, at the moment, give a clear indication of how early that will be.
On the expiry of the Wembley deadline, I shall draw the right hon. Gentleman's remarks to the attention of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, and give consideration to the right hon. Gentleman's proposal, but whether there is merit in making a statement when the deadline has expired depends a little on what has happened by then.
I am aware of the undertaking to have regular debates on small and medium-sized enterprises, but I am not sure that I recall the wording that the right hon. Gentleman quoted. The Government will try to find time for such a debate, but he will know that before a recess timing is under great pressure.

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I cannot, I fear, give the right hon. Gentleman any steer about a February half-term, although I shall certainly bear in mind his wish to have one.
Mr. Andrew Mackinlay: May we have a statement next week about the dangerous and deteriorating situation in Montenegro? The Leader of the House will have heard that last night the Serbs occupied the international airport, which is the link to the world for the democratic Government and people of Montenegro that enables them to keep their distance from Milosevic's regime. I hope that my right hon. Friend and the Foreign Secretary will consider it important not only to keep the House informed about events but to signal to the regime in Belgrade that we will not stand idly by and watch the democratic Government of Montenegro perish.
Mrs. Beckett: A number of people are concerned about the reports that appeared yesterday. My hon. Friend said that the situation in Montenegro is dangerous and deteriorating, but I understand—I know that my hon. Friend will welcome this—that that is not the case. The airport has reopened to normal civilian traffic, and it appears that there was more of a misunderstanding than a deliberately engineered difficulty, and that that misunderstanding has been resolved. I can certainly assure my hon. Friend that the Government will continue to keep the situation under review because we are anxious that Montenegro should continue to prosper.
Mr. Paul Tyler: Will the Leader of the House look more carefully at the opportunities that the House may have to follow up the issues raised at the Helsinki summit? She was present for much of the discussion just now when her right hon. Friend the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food made a statement and she will be well aware that the issues raised by the continued French ban on British beef go much wider even than agriculture; they raise questions about the whole decision-making process in the European Union and the integrity that member states believe it to have.
The right hon. Lady will recognise that the French Government are attempting to emulate the pick-and-mix attitude to EU agreements shown by some elements of the Conservative party. Such an approach could spread to other countries. Does she accept that the issues relate to qualified majority voting and the veto? Indeed, had the latter been applicable in the summer, the French could have vetoed the lifting of the ban on our beef exports.
Will the right hon. Lady take account of the extremely important issue of reform of European institutions and the way in which the European Court operates—important implications of which Members on both sides of the House have just recognised? A mere statement by the Prime Minister on Monday, and then a very short discussion, is not sufficient to deal with such extremely important structural issues.
The debate allocated for the Tuesday before we rise for the Christmas recess is not time-sensitive. May I suggest that that would be an appropriate day on which to discuss the extensive implications of the French decision for agriculture, our exports and the decision-making processes of the EU?
Mrs. Beckett: I do not dismiss the importance of the hon. Gentleman's points, but, unfortunately, it is by no
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means the first time that one country or another, including this country under the previous Government's maladministration, has found itself falling foul of the way in which European law works.
Although these are of course grave and serious matters, and the Government will so deal with them, I am afraid that they are not unprecedented. I certainly do not see a case for sweeping away all other items that the House may wish to discuss in order to concentrate on that item at this particular time. Obviously, the matter will come up—perhaps in the aftermath of the statement on the Helsinki Council and, no doubt, on other occasions. However, with respect to the hon. Gentleman, I am afraid that the issue does not require our urgent consideration in quite the way that he suggests.
Mr. Tony Benn: Has my right hon. Friend's attention been drawn to early-day motion 100, which has been signed by me and 115 other Members?
[That this House wishes to register its deep appreciation and gratitude to the doorkeepers and police who serve in the House of Commons and whose help and guidance have been of incalculable assistance to generations of members of the public; welcomes the introduction of modern communications technology, including telephones, computers, pagers and faxes which now make it possible for information to pass more quickly and efficiently but does not share the view that these techniques have, in any way, diminished the need for those staff who have always had responsibilities that go much wider; regrets the recent decisions that have been taken to reduce the staffing of doorkeepers and police in the Palace, thus preventing them from providing the best possible service, for which they have been recently, and expensively, trained; and invites the Serjeant at Arms to reconsider his decision, so as to take account of the importance these members of the staff play in the life and work of this place.]
It has given Members an opportunity to express their gratitude to the doorkeepers and police, who are essential to Members' work and to the public who come here. The motion expresses anxiety that the use of pagers and modern communications may render many of those doorkeepers and police unnecessary. Will my right hon. Friend discuss that with the Serjeant at Arms to see whether some arrangement can be reached that will safeguard the jobs of those people, who really make this place work?
Mrs. Beckett: I do not think that there is an hon. Member who does not share my right hon. Friend's appreciation of and gratitude to the doorkeepers, police and related staff who provide the services on which we all depend and who do so much to smooth the path of Members, particularly when they are new and relatively inexperienced. I am sure that everyone shares my right hon. Friend's concern, too.
It is a matter of continued agreement between the Serjeant at Arms, the Speaker and all who are engaged in the management of the House that we truly value, and show that we value, our staff. In that sense, my right hon. Friend is seeking a continuation of our normal concerns. Without recalling precisely the rest of the text of the

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motion, I think that he would be the first to say that the House must use modern and efficient methods, as well as recognise the value and service of individuals.
Mr. Christopher Chope: The right hon. Lady's answer to my right hon. Friend the Member for North-West Hampshire (Sir G. Young) shows that the Government have betrayed the interests of small business. In the run-up to the election, the Labour party made a specific manifesto commitment to hold an annual debate on small business. So far, in two and a half years, there has been one such debate, and that was in 1998. The Government have obviously broken their promise for 1999. Is not it about time that they admitted just that?
May we have a debate on early-day motion 141?
[That this House notes that no representatives of the Liberal Democrat Party have played any role in the proceedings on the Financial Services and Markets Bill since 26th October and that their attendance before then had been at best 'patchy'; further notes that the role of the honourable Member for Twickenham as the representative of the Liberal Democrat Party from this House on the Pre-Scrutiny Burns Committee on the Bill was virtually non-existent; and is concerned that the Liberal Democrat Party is not taking seriously, or contributing to, the scrutiny of this important and complex piece of legislation which will have an enormous influence on the whole financial services industry in the United Kingdom.]
It reveals the pressure on the Liberal Democrats as a result of their involvement in government, which leaves them unable to attend Standing Committees that are considering important legislation.
Mrs. Beckett: The hon. Gentleman's suggestion is utterly ridiculous. We made a commitment to small businesses. The Minister of State, Home Office, my hon. Friend the Member for Hornsey and Wood Green (Mrs. Roche), who first became the small business Minister, was gratified to hear people in the small business associations saying that she was the most successful and helpful small business Minister whom they could recall.
Mr. John Bercow: Is that why she was sacked?
Mrs. Beckett: She has now been replaced by someone who is equally assiduous in her interest.
Mr. Bercow: So she was sacked.
Mrs. Beckett: She was promoted, not sacked. The notion that we have in some way betrayed the interests of small business—on account of a commitment that the Conservative party never even thought of giving—is ludicrous.
As for the role played by the Liberal Democrats, may I remind the hon. Member for Christchurch (Mr. Chope) that it was his party that first sought to debate their role in the House, then changed its mind in the hope of scoring a triumph in the transport debate, which expectation was singularly disappointed? Secondly, may I say—without, I hope, causing too much disarray on the Liberal Democrat Benches—that for many years it has been my
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experience that they are not always the most assiduous attenders at Committee, irrespective of what else is happening?
Mr. John McDonnell: My right hon. Friend may be aware that I asked the Prime Minister yesterday for an inquiry into the insertion of a listening device in the car of the president of Sinn Fein during the peace process. Will she prevail upon her colleague, the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, to make a statement about whether an inquiry will be pursued, in the light of the call for that inquiry by both the Irish Taoiseach and the Deputy First Minister of the Northern Ireland Assembly? That statement should contain a response to questions about which Minister authorised the bugging device to be inserted; if a Minister did not authorise a device, who did; and what factors were taken into account in the decision, either by a Minister or by an official, particularly in view of the danger to the peace process at that delicate stage.
Mrs. Beckett: I am afraid that I shall have to disappoint my hon. Friend. I did hear his question to the Prime Minister yesterday and I am aware that the Prime Minister said that he did not comment on such security matters. That is the consistent approach of the Government, so I fear that I cannot satisfy my hon. Friend's request.
Mr. Christopher Gill: Right hon. and hon. Members who were present for the statement by the Agriculture Minister on beef exports to France heard the right hon. Gentleman imply that there had been 47 deaths as a result of BSE. That is a serious and significant comment by the Agriculture Minister. To my knowledge, there has been no proof of any connection between death caused by CJD, and BSE in beef. If the Minister made that comment in the light of some knowledge that he has, does the Leader of the House consider it appropriate that he should come back to the House to clear up this important matter? For a Minister of the Crown to imply that 47 humans have lost their lives as a result of BSE, when there is no evidence of that, is extremely serious. If, however, the Minister has evidence to prove that, the House should be told about it, because of the enormous significance of that in the context of all that has gone on in the beef industry over the past several years.
Mrs. Beckett: I heard almost all of my right hon. Friend's statement and his replies to questions. I do not recall the precise wording to which the hon. Gentleman referred, and, therefore, I cannot confirm his interpretation. All those issues are being actively considered in the BSE inquiry. Although it may not have been the hon. Gentleman's intention, any attempt by Conservative Members to pretend that the Government are at fault on BSE is not only terrible but doomed to failure.
Mrs. Alice Mahon: I wonder whether the Leader of the House has had time to read early-day motion 164?
[That this House notes the success of the national minimum wage in helping lift people out of poverty; further notes under this Government jobs have been created; however notes that the rate of the national minimum wage was set in July 1998; and believes it is now time to substantially raise this rate.]

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It points out that the minimum wage rate was set in July 1998. Will there be a statement before the recess to announce an increase? May I make a modest suggestion of a £1.40 an hour increase, which would bring the minimum wage to only £5?
Mrs. Beckett: I am not aware of the likelihood of any statement on the level of the national minimum wage in the near future. My hon. Friend knows that when the original rate was set, the timing of its introduction was taken into account. The Government receive advice on the matter from the Low Pay Commission, which will doubtless consider those issues in due course.
Mr. Nicholas Winterton: Will the Leader of the House make a statement at an early date on the Government's policy on pre-legislative scrutiny? The Government advise us that they are committed to such scrutiny, and they gave an assurance that the Government Resources and Accounts Bill, which was debated on Monday, would be published in draft form. However, they failed the Treasury Committee, the Procedure Committee and the Public Accounts Committee by not publishing the Bill in draft form, and refused my request, as Chairman of the Procedure Committee, to make it subject to a Special Standing Committee. Will the Leader of the House explain the Government's position? They appear to support pre-legislative scrutiny, but fail to take an ideal opportunity to effect that process?
Secondly, will the right hon. Lady explain the reasons for the business of the next 10 days? Next Thursday, there is a one-line Whip on a subject that is of interest to some hon. Members, and the House is not sitting on Friday. Yet, in Christmas week, the House is returning for what could be two three-line Whip days. Would not it have been better to have scheduled the whipped business for the week prior to Christmas so that only a limited number of hon. Members needed to return to the House in Christmas week? That would have been more family friendly.
Mrs. Beckett: I am almost silenced by hearing the hon. Gentleman allow the words family friendly to cross his lips, although I am aware of his devotion to his charming family. I do not claim that he is one of the culprits, but he knows that Conservatives Members often complain that the House does not have sufficient significant business prior to a recess. Indeed, some idiot always complains about the length of the recess, even when it is of normal length, or shorter than on previous occasions. However, I acquit the hon. Gentleman of that complaint.
The hon. Gentleman made an important point about pre-legislative scrutiny. The Government are committed to it and fully recognise its worth. We would like as much legislation as is practicable to be published in draft. However, the hon. Gentleman will understand that we can achieve that only over time, because of the sheer scale of the resources required to complete advance drafting and drafting of legislation.
The hon. Gentleman implied that a commitment had been made to produce the Government Resources and Accounts Bill in draft for pre-legislative scrutiny. That was not possible because, as the hon. Gentleman knows,
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so much work was going on to take account of a substantial amount of pre-legislative discussion and debate. I acknowledge that that is not entirely the same as holding discussions on a draft Bill, but the hon. Gentleman knows that, for at least a year, extensive discussions have taken place between Select Committees, the Comptroller and Auditor General, and various expert commentators.
The hon. Gentleman raised the possibility of convening a Special Standing Committee, but I am not entirely convinced that that would be the right procedure for the legislation. I can assure him, however, that we are looking carefully at how to handle it in order to ensure that we provide adequate time for the depth of scrutiny that we know many Members on both sides of the House want and which the Government do not want to resist.
Mr. Alan Simpson: The Leader of the House will know that today is the last day on which Raleigh Cycles in my constituency will be a mass producer of bicycle frames in the United Kingdom. I am sure that she shares my sadness that a variety of modern high-tech laser equipment that has been used to produce bikes at Raleigh will go under the auctioneer's hammer tomorrow. It will almost certainly be sold to its competitors from China and Taiwan, none of which have to meet the environmental, health and safety or labour standards that Raleigh has rightly set for production in the UK. Can we have a statement or a debate in the House about UK policy on manufacturing industry, particularly the bicycle manufacturing industry, with a view to defining a framework for provision in the 21st century that will not consign UK manufacturing to being little more than an offshore screwdriver assembly plant?
Mrs. Beckett: My hon. Friend will know how thoroughly and for how long I have shared his concern for manufacturing industry and, in common with Members on both sides of the House, I recognise its importance. Equally, however, although I have great sympathy for the company and his constituents employed at Raleigh, he will know that, unfortunately, it is not always possible for all individual enterprises or manufacturing sectors to continue in business. It is vital that the Government work in partnership with the private sector to identify those areas of manufacturing in which Britain can continue to be competitive and not only maintain a competitive edge, but perhaps develop industry for the future. He will also know that that is part of the purpose of the Government's industrial policy.
Dr. Julian Lewis: May I wish the right hon. Lady a speedy recovery from the sore throat with which she is evidently suffering? May I also remind her that this time last week she said that she would speak to the Government Chief Whip about the incident in which a junior Government Whip threatened my hon. Friend the Member for Aldershot (Mr. Howarth) with violence in the Chamber? Has she spoken to the Government Chief Whip about that? If so, what action will the Government Chief Whip take and when will my hon. Friend receive her reply to his formal letter of complaint about that disgraceful episode?
Mrs. Beckett: Last week, I expressed dismay that there are times when relationships between individual Members

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of the House break down. I was not aware of the incident to which the hon. Gentleman referred. I made some inquiries and my understanding is that it was unfortunate that there was some disagreement, but my right hon. Friend the Chief Whip has dealt with it through the usual channels. It is also my understanding that both sides now consider the matter closed.
Mr. Christopher Leslie (Shipley): Will my right hon. Friend find time for a debate on leasehold reform? Several of my constituents who live in blocks of flats—Wycliffe gardens in Shipley and Myrtle court in Bingley—have been under threat of a charge being levied for new windows in those blocks. The problem is all the more difficult because they have already paid for their individual windows. If we have such a debate, might I be able to urge Bradford city council to obtain new legal advice so that it can waive those charges?
Mrs. Beckett: I know that my hon. Friend has been campaigning extensively on behalf of his constituents who could face that difficulty, and I sympathise with the concerns that he expresses, but I fear that I cannot undertake to find time for a debate in the Chamber. He will know, however, that the Government have recently doubled the opportunities for Members to raise matters on the Adjournment and I have little doubt that he will seek to use that opportunity to raise the matter further.
Mr. Nigel Evans: Can the Leader of the House arrange for an early statement on the influx of asylum seekers into this country? I understand that the number may be as high as 60,000 this year, which represents a cost of hundreds of millions of pounds. I also understand that there is a problem with a large number of them coming in through Calais and that our officers are not being allowed to look at those immigrants' papers because the French authorities will not allow it. It seems that, although they will not take our exports, we are expected to take theirs.
Mrs. Beckett: If the hon. Gentleman was present for the previous statement on beef, he will be perfectly well aware that there is extensive trade traffic between France and the UK and that my right hon. Friend the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food said that the value of British goods exported to France in agricultural trade alone is significant.
The hon. Gentleman has raised a different and serious point about asylum seekers, however, and I can tell him that I am aware that my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary and his officials have been discussing that matter. They are attempting to act with efficacy to ensure that we give refuge to real asylum seekers who are at risk, but dissuade entry by those who are not at any risk and simply wish to settle in this country.
I hope that it is within the hon. Gentleman's recollection that it is not so long since, if I recall correctly, his party, and no doubt he with it, voted against Government proposals that were designed to achieve precisely the effect that I have described. No doubt that was done for short-term opportunism which, sadly, is true of the Conservative party on so many occasions.
Mr. David Chaytor: Has my right hon. Friend had the opportunity to study this week's primary
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school league tables? If so, has she observed the outstanding performance of schools in my constituency and throughout the local education authority of Bury, including schools in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Bury, South (Mr. Lewis)?
Although we celebrate yet again the astonishing performance of primary schools in Bury—this year we mark a 10 per cent. improvement on last year's score—we are very conscious that the league tables as they are now constructed do not tell the whole story. They take no account of the social background of the children whose scores are being measured. We are confident that if we moved to a value-added system of league tables, schools in Bury would perform even better than at present.
Will my right hon. Friend discuss with colleagues in the Department for Education and Employment the urgent need to introduce a value-added system into league tables? Will she find time in the Government's programme to have a full and frank debate about the different methodologies of value added that are currently under debate?
Mrs. Beckett: I am aware of the extremely encouraging results from the primary sector throughout the United Kingdom. I am happy to congratulate all involved in Bury, particularly the teachers who will have contributed so much to the outstanding results in my hon. Friend's constituency and in that of my hon. Friend the Member for Bury, South (Mr. Lewis).
I am aware also of the great technical interest in precisely how the league tables are drawn up. While I acquit my hon. Friend of special pleading, since he is saying that he thinks that his constituency would show up even higher in the league tables if there were a different way of measuring performance, the debate that he seeks is not one that I am likely to be able to find time for in the Chamber in the near future. However, perhaps it is exactly the sort of subject—one of genuine interest but not one involving immediate party political controversy—that might be suitable for a bid for a debate in Westminster Hall.
Mr. John Wilkinson: Could we not have two days to debate the Transport Bill on Second Reading? Is it not the case that it is a pantechnicon measure, a great big Bill into which two and a half years' worth of unfulfilled Labour manifesto promises have been chucked? Would it not be more appropriate that those disparate but crucial measures be debated over a reasonable time, because issues such as road user charges, workplace parking taxes and, above all, the proposed privatisation of National Air Traffic Services are of crucial significance? Is it not true that the Government are trying to prevent Labour Members from having adequate time to debate those issues, which are so controversial and so bitterly resisted, even by Labour Members.?
Mrs. Beckett: There is no validity in that accusation. The hon. Gentleman calls for a two-day debate, and I undertook to recognise that that call had been made and to consider the matter, but without commitment. He will be aware that a major part of the Bill, that which relates to the Strategic Rail Authority, has in effect already had a day's debate because that matter was discussed separately

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towards the end of the previous Session. I can assure the hon. Gentleman that the Government will provide time to debate the Transport Bill.
Mr. John Cryer: Will the Leader of the House consider making time for an urgent debate on the deep-mine coal industry? Five pits have been lost in the past year and two more are under threat, the main one being Ellington in the north-east, which is the last pit in that region. There have been such debates in the past—I think that two one-and-a-half-hour Adjournment debates have taken place since the election, the last initiated by my hon. Friend the Member for Barnsley, West and Penistone (Mr. Clapham). In that debate, many hon. Members were not called. Many hon. Members think that it is a national issue. I do not have any coal mines in my constituency—it has never contained one—but it is an issue of national importance. If we continue to leave the coal industry to free market forces, without any shadow of a doubt, within about 10 years, the last pit in England will probably have closed.
Mrs. Beckett: I understand and sympathise with my hon. Friend's concern. The Government have explicitly recognised the need for diverse sources of energy supply. I understand his point that leaving everything to the free working of the market may not always be to the coal industry's advantage, but, as he will know, that is a major improvement on the position that we inherited from the previous Government: the market was rigged to work against coal. I fear that I cannot undertake to find time for such a debate in the near future, but he, like others, might like to consider whether there is scope to exploit the opportunity that is presented by Westminster Hall.
Mr. Stephen O'Brien: I was glad to note that the Leader of the House had been able to witness most of the statement by the Minister of Agriculture. She can be in no doubt, as I have been in no doubt from telephone calls and faxes from my farming constituents this morning, of the deep anger—not sham anger—that is felt by them as a result of French inaction on the ban.
One of the main points at issue seems to be whether the legal options that are open to the House might incite a trade dispute. Many of us believe that, if we want to deal with France, we should deal with the legal aspect and the negotiations in parallel. Will the Leader of the House make time available for the legal officers of the Government to make a statement in the House to give an opportunity for questions, so that all the legal options are discussed, including injunctive relief?
Mrs. Beckett: I will certainly draw the hon. Gentleman's remarks to the attention of my relevant right hon. and hon. Friends, but my understanding of the matter is that it is a European Commission case that is being taken against France. That is to Britain's advantage as it makes the point that France is isolated in its action. It is important that that remain firmly on the record. I will draw his remarks to the attention of my right hon. and hon. Friends, but I am not promising a statement of the type that he seeks.
Mr. John Randall: May I echo the sentiments of the hon. Member for Thurrock (Mr. Mackinlay) about the
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situation in Montenegro? Last week, with the hon. Member for Hereford (Mr. Keetch), I visited Montenegro under the auspices of the Westminster Foundation for Democracy. Not only I, but the people whom we visited and met, including members of the opposition parties from Serbia, were disappointed that no Labour Member was apparently available to accompany us. The position is potentially explosive and dangerous. Would it not be better to have a debate now than to have to rely on one when things have got worse?
Mrs. Beckett: I will draw the hon. Gentleman's remarks to the attention of my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary. The hon. Gentleman will know that Foreign Office questions may be tabled in a few days, but I cannot undertake to find time for a debate on that matter before Christmas. However, I take seriously his observations because he was in Montenegro so recently, and I will draw them to the attention of my right hon. Friend.
Mr. Patrick Nicholls: May I urge the right hon. Lady—for once, quite genuinely—to hold a debate next week to consider the decision of the intervention board to remove the only remaining slaughterhouse in Devon from the over-30-months scheme? Does she appreciate that Devon has some of the most densely populated cow country in the land? The decision will mean that cows making their final journey, many having never left their home farm, will have to travel up to 116 miles for more than three and a half hours.
I do not say that that is yet the Government's fault—clearly, it is not—but the final decision remains with Government. Whatever may disunite us, whatever exchanges we have had on these occasions before, animal welfare—it is an animal welfare issue—cuts across the party divide. If she can see any time at all next week for a short debate, it really is something that she might want to accede to.
Mrs. Beckett: I know that the hon. Gentleman will understand that, given the closeness of the Christmas recess, I fear that I am unable to say now that I shall be able to find time for such a debate. I was, however, touched by his frankness in saying that his request was, for once, quite genuine—and I shall remind him of that on another occasion. I shall certainly draw his remarks to the attention of my right hon. Friend the Minister of Agriculture. He is entirely right to say that animal welfare concerns are shared on both sides of the House.
Mr. Desmond Swayne: Has the right hon. Lady seen this morning's edition of The Independent, in which the hon. Member for Newport, West (Mr. Flynn) is reported as saying that the Prime Minister is behaving like a madman? However, under the procedures established in section 141 of the Mental Health Act 1983, only you—as you will know, Madam Speaker—are able to determine whether an hon. Member is sane or insane. Nevertheless, the right hon. Lady might think that she could assist you, Madam Speaker, by enabling the Prime Minister to make a statement about that early next week to the House. With the greatest

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respect, it is very difficult to judge the matter only at Prime Minister's Question Time, as there are so many interventions by other excitable Labour Members.
Mrs. Beckett: I am not familiar with the report to which the hon. Gentleman alludes, although I am familiar with the varied and colourful phraseology frequently adopted by my hon. Friend the Member for Newport, West (Mr. Flynn). I shall only say, first, that the Prime Minister will be in the House on Monday, in the aftermath of the Helsinki summit; and, secondly, that my right hon. Friend's sanity and effectiveness are not doubted anywhere, except perhaps on the Opposition Benches.
Mr. John Bercow: I join my hon. Friend the Member for New Forest, East (Dr. Lewis) in wishing the Leader of the House a speedy recovery from her malady.
May we, please, have an early debate in Government time on the proposal unveiled by Lord Falconer, in the other place—in a written answer, and reported in today's edition of The Daily Telegraph—that new Ministers should be sent on induction courses to learn how to run the Whitehall machine?
Does the right hon. Lady accept that, although the Government's performance—or underperformance—since 1 May 1997 demonstrates that the need for such courses is extremely pressing, it would be helpful if we could have such a debate, as it would allow Ministers to tell the House exactly how many Ministers have been invited to attend such courses, from which Departments they hail, the Ministers' identity, and which recalcitrant Ministers refused the invitation. Does she also agree that, in the interests of cross-party co-operation on this important matter, there should be an opportunity for Opposition Members to recommend suitable candidates who are most likely to benefit from the induction courses available?
Mrs. Beckett: I am grateful both to the hon. Gentleman and to the hon. Member for New Forest, East (Dr. Lewis) for their kind remarks. It is most touching—in fact, it is almost suspicious.
I do not think that anyone in the United Kingdom, except perhaps some Opposition Members, will think that the Government's performance, compared with that of the previous Government, demonstrates any pressing need for special training for Ministers. However—I thought that this was common ground in the House—there must always be merit in better training being available for people in all walks of life. The hon. Gentleman will know that induction courses for new Members of Parliament have been introduced, and that many Members have benefited from them.
The hon. Gentleman walked straight into my final remark on the matter. He suggested—after yesterday's debate, I do not know how he has the nerve to do it—that Opposition Front Benchers should be invited to identify Ministers who could benefit from such courses, but we could all identify plenty of Conservative Members who could benefit from an induction course on how to be a decent Opposition.
Mr. Owen Paterson: In the interests of the throat of the Leader of the House, my question may be answered with a simple yes.
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Yesterday, Madam Speaker, you kindly granted an Adjournment debate to my hon. Friend the Member for Hexham (Mr. Atkinson), entitled "European Legislation (Parliamentary Scrutiny)". Although we had a most interesting debate, there were three problems.
First, very few hon. Members turned up for the debate, because it was held in the alien and lifeless atmosphere of the luvvie-zone of Westminster Hall. Secondly, and more importantly, the Chairman of the European Scrutiny Committee and all its members except for the Conservatives were visiting Brussels on Scrutiny Committee business. Thirdly, the Minister did not have enough time to answer the important questions that were raised. Those questions relate to the nature of the government of this country, as we face a deluge of regulation and legislation that is not properly scrutinised by our current arrangements. Could we have a full debate on the Floor of the House in the new year?
Mrs. Beckett: Having listened to the hon. Gentleman, I am not sure what that debate is supposed to be about. He seems to dislike the architecture of the Grand Committee Room in Westminster Hall. If yesterday's debate took place in the absence of many members of the European Scrutiny Committee it is not surprising that it was not as well attended as one would wish, although that is by no means unusual for Adjournment debates. However, I agree that the situation was unfortunate. As arrangements for debates in Westminster Hall settle down, we hope to avoid that problem. We go with the recommendations of the Liaison Committee on what Select Committee reports to debate, to ensure that Members who have a particular interest are not disadvantaged. I am sorry to hear that those arrangements might have broken down yesterday. We shall certainly bear that in mind. Whether the Minister had enough time to take part depended on the length of the contributions of the others who spoke.
Mr. Tyler: The hon. Gentleman spoke for 24 minutes.
Mrs. Beckett: A terrible allegation is being made that the hon. Member for North Shropshire (Mr. Paterson) spoke for 24 minutes. That suggests that he was enjoying what he describes as the alien and lifeless atmosphere of Westminster Hall, about which I fear that I cannot undertake to do anything.
Sir Patrick Cormack: May I also wish the right hon. Lady a speedy recovery? I do not want to contradict her commendations of the new Grand Committee Room in Westminster Hall. Will she acknowledge that Monday night will afford right hon. and hon. Members a proper opportunity to raise many subjects in the debate on the Christmas Adjournment?
Will she clarify her answer on the important subject of small businesses? On 19 June last year, the Minister of State, Home Office, the hon. Member for Hornsey and Wood Green (Mrs. Roche), who was then the Minister for Small Firms, Trade and Industry, gave the House a clear undertaking, saying that the debate on that day
"fulfils a commitment that the Government gave while in opposition, when we said that we would institute an annual parliamentary debate about the small business sector".—[Official Report, 19 June 1998; Vol. 314, c. 606.]

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I was inclined to infer that the Leader of the House was abandoning that commitment. Could we have an assurance that she will not abandon it and that there will be an annual debate on small businesses?
Mrs. Beckett: My answer is a mixture of yes and no. Of course we recognise the importance of having a debate on small and medium-sized businesses. I was not abrogating any undertaking. The fact that someone referred to what they described as an annual debate is not the same as saying that the Government have a commitment to one, but I assure the hon. Gentleman that I have taken the request for such a debate on board seriously. We shall endeavour to find time for it, but I cannot at the moment say when that might be.

Point of Order
1.58 pm
Mr. Andrew Mackinlay: On a point of order, Madam Speaker. We have heard yesterday and today in reply to my hon. Friend the Member for Hayes and Harlington (Mr. McDonnell) the long-standing view that the Government do not discuss security issues. I accept that. However, I am dismayed and I wonder whether you, together with the Clerk and the Serjeant at Arms, could consider the wider parliamentary issues raised by the reported bugging of the car of the hon. Member for Belfast, West (Mr. Adams), which go to the heart of our ancient rights and liberties in the House. With the growth of electronic surveillance, all 659 of us are vulnerable to such trespassing on our rights. The House should consider the issue and discuss whether matters have moved on. The use of such devices on hon. Members would be an infringement of our rights and the immunities and privileges of the House.
Madam Speaker: That is not a point of order for me. I remind the hon. Gentleman, first, that I am not prepared to discuss security matters across the Floor of the House, and secondly, that cars in Belfast are not a matter of parliamentary business.

Peter Nevile Wake Jennings Esq, CVO
2 pm
The President of the Council and Leader of the House of Commons (Mrs. Margaret Beckett): I beg to move,
That this House expresses its appreciation of Peter Nevile Wake Jennings Esq, CVO for his 47 years distinguished public service, including four years as Serjeant at Arms, and extends to him its best wishes for his retirement.
Hon. Members will see that this is a motion in the name of Members from both sides of the House, and it is right and proper that that should be so. Members of all parties are joining together to thank Peter Jennings for his long and distinguished service to this House.
Peter Jennings' career in public service is quite neatly divided. He spent 24 years in the Royal Marines, and 23 in the service of the House. I am not entirely sure how much life has changed in the Royal Marines since 1952—probably rather less than life in the House of Commons has changed since he joined us in 1976, a few years before most Members present for the debate today will have been elected.
When Peter Jennings came to work here, Members operated—usually not from choice—from areas such as the Cloisters. Hon. Members who had offices of their own were a select breed, as were those who were lucky enough to share an office. I myself was fortunate, as a new Member, to share one with a distinguished colleague who is now the Government's Chief Whip.
There have been vast improvements in the House's accommodation over the years and perhaps the culmination of those improvements, Portcullis house, is now near completion. Many in the House's service will have had a hand in that project, but the Serjeant does and should feel a proper pride that the development was built on his watch, so to speak, and particularly that it is now expected to come in on time and under budget. It is very much a memento of his service that as we come to the end of the 20th century, the House at last has been provided with a building fit for the modern age.
The House will know also that Peter Jennings has been the force behind the achievement of a smaller building project—again at the direction of the House. In May this year, there was a vote to hold sittings in Westminster Hall. It is easy for hon. Members to forget that we make decisions of this kind, and sometimes we overlook the vast amount of work necessary to enable them to be carried to fruition. Certainly, it is easier to overlook the scale of that work because of the sang froid that the Serjeant and his Department showed in reacting to a major change in their carefully worked out programme and to bringing forward works which had been planned to take place only in future years.
The outcome of our decision compelled the officers of the House to tear up expenditure plans after the onset of the financial year and to completely refit one of the major rooms in the Palace. It is a real and concrete tribute to the leadership of the Serjeant at Arms that the work was successfully completed in the time available, and again under budget. I know that many hon. Members on both sides feel that he presided over a smaller, but no less significant, reform, in the replacement of the House of Commons barber by a House of Commons hairdresser.
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Members are aware of how seriously the House has always taken its links with other Parliaments. We have always been particularly concerned to promote co-operation between Commonwealth Parliaments, and to ensure that we have the opportunity to learn from one another. Peter Jennings was instrumental in ensuring that co-operation extended to Serjeants at Arms across the Commonwealth.
The first Commonwealth Serjeants at Arms conference was held in 1994 and the second in August 1999, with over 30 such Serjeants gathered together. That is, at first sight, a rather unnerving thought, given the Serjeants' tradition of carrying a sword. However, I am told that the only remarkable aspect was that the Serjeant from Tonga wore his country's customary dress of a skirt, unlike our own dear Serjeants, who wear tights.
I am sure that all hon. Members will join me in wishing to place firmly on record our great appreciation of the service that Peter Jennings has done this House, and of the courtesy and consideration with which that service has been performed. The House will join me in wishing him and his wife Shirley Anne a long and very happy retirement—as well as a happy Christmas—and in expressing our appreciation of all that they have done for us.
2.5 pm
Sir George Young: On behalf of the Opposition, I join the Leader of the House in her tribute to Peter Jennings, the 36th Serjeant at Arms since the post was established in 1415. During the 23 years that he has been here, there has been a quiet revolution in the way that the House operates, including a major improvement in the quality of accommodation; a huge extension of the security precautions; a big increase in the number of people working here and visiting Parliament; the introduction of broadcasting and new information technology; and, as the Leader of the House remarked, a major building and renovation programme. The House decided on all those changes, but they had to be implemented, which required a range of skills, from project management to people management. The Serjeant had those skills. He has overseen the successful introduction of those reforms for which the whole House is indebted to him. Behind the scenes, the Serjeant has also had to defuse many other issues, which mercifully never reach the public eye.
Peter Jennings has had a career of distinguished and selfless public service, lasting nearly 50 years. We wish him and his wife Shirley Anne a long and happy retirement in Fulham. We also hope that they continue to visit their many friends in Parliament and we are sure that when they do so, they will be waved through the security system each time.
2.6 pm
Mr. Paul Tyler: I am delighted to endorse this motion on behalf of my right hon. and hon. Friends and on behalf of several other parties represented in the House. As the Leader of the House said, the motion is endorsed by the leading members of eight parties, and that demonstrates the wide respect and appreciation that we all feel for Mr. Jennings.
As the Leader of the House and the right hon. Member for North-West Hampshire (Sir G. Young) mentioned, the changes that have taken place during Mr. Jennings'

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service to the House have been dramatic, not least in the security arrangements and the accommodation available to Members and their staff. The Leader of the House mentioned the accommodation she had when she first came to the House. When I was first elected, I had the end of a table in a room with seven Glaswegian Labour Members of Parliament. They did not understand a Cornishman and I did not understand them. The one telephone was nearest to my part of the room and I had to take messages on behalf of them all.
Dramatic changes have taken place in this House and we often do not understand, appreciate or pay respect to the work that is done by all servants of the House to make this building work efficiently in the interests of Parliament and parliamentary democracy. Mr. Jennings has led a professional, dedicated team over several years and this is a good opportunity for us all to express our appreciation to them.
2.8 pm
Mr. Tony Benn: I wish briefly to add my appreciation. When the House recognises the retirement of the Clerk, Librarian or Serjeant, we are for a moment referring to the people who make the parliamentary family work. I have been here longer than anyone who is present in the Chamber and I remember when I had only a locker, let alone a table. I was told that I could not bring a tape recorder into the House to dictate for my secretary, because that was illegal. I am the only Member of the House to have been kept out by force by the Serjeant when my blood had turned blue. More recently, I accidentally set fire to my room in the House of Commons by tapping out my pipe in my wastepaper basket. I had such a friendly message about it from the Serjeant that I felt really at home.
People outside do not realise the role the Serjeant plays. When a senior Member of Parliament is asked to arrange a meeting and says that he will have to clear it with the Serjeant, people from outside wonder who this mysterious person is who appears to run the place. All the room bookings, and the doorkeepers and attendants who keep the place going, are under the supervision of the Serjeant and I wish to express my personal thanks to him.
I have put up a bronze plaque to commemorate the work of the staff of the House, including the Serjeant. It was put up illegally, so it was taken down. It went up again, it was taken down again and—with the help of the hon. Member for South Staffordshire (Sir P. Cormack)— now has a permanent place near the Admission Order office. In that spirit, I join in the general thanks to Mr. Jennings.
2.9 pm
Mr. Peter Brooke: It is a great privilege to follow the right hon. Member for Chesterfield (Mr. Benn). My credentials for speaking are that Mr. Jennings is my constituent. I am extremely proud of all my constituents, but I am especially proud of Mr. Jennings for all the reasons that have been adduced by other right hon. and hon. Members in this debate.
I have a secondary and personal reason for wanting to contribute to this debate, of which the House may be aware. Mr. Jennings and I attended the same school for
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14 terms. It is possible, therefore, that I have known him longer than any other hon. Member. I am a trustee of the school's old pupils club.
I think that I am right in saying that Mr. Jennings is the only person of his particular serving officer rank to hold the office of Serjeant at Arms. It is a great tribute to his personality and ability that he should have been so selected. Those of us who were at the school that Mr. Jennings and I attended also take vicarious credit from the effect that the school must have had on him.
2.10 pm
Mr. Nicholas Winterton: My reason for rising is that I am an evergreen Back Bencher. Perhaps more than most, therefore, I appreciate the work done by the Serjeant at Arms. My contribution to this short debate is a simple expression of thanks to Peter Jennings for the outstanding service that he has rendered to the House and to Back Benchers over the years that he has been with us.
I wish to thank him especially for the invariable courtesy and friendship with which he has undertaken his work. That was outlined in a simple way by the right hon. Member for Chesterfield (Mr. Benn). We shall miss him, and we wish him and his wife a very happy retirement.
2.11 pm
Mr. Jeremy Corbyn: I confess that I did not attend the same school as the retiring Serjeant at Arms, but in my time in the House I have probably booked as many Rooms as any other hon. Member, and for a greater variety of organisations than most would care to remember. I wish to put on record my thanks to the Serjeant at Arms and his staff, who have always treated hon. Members and visiting members of the public with unfailing help and courtesy.
On one occasion, Amnesty International asked me to book a Room. When that filled up with 30 people, a different Room was booked, which filled up with 60 people, and so a third was booked, which filled up with 90 people. The transitions were seamless. Very rapidly, the whole building was taken over by human rights campaigners, but there was no problem at all because the Serjeant at Arms Department was so helpful. It is fitting, therefore, for hon. Members to express thanks for the work done on our behalf.
I mean no criticism of the retiring Serjeant at Arms at all, but I hope that the next incumbent will receive two instructions from the House. The first would be that space should be found in the House for a nursery, which could replace the rifle range or some other facility. The second would be that no staff of the Serjeant at Arms Department will be privatised or sent out to contract. I hope that the House will insist that all employees will be retained on proper terms and conditions, as they all should be.
I end by thanking the Serjeant at Arms very much for all his help and courtesy over the years.
2.13 pm
Ms Joan Walley: I, too, wish to put on record my personal thanks to Mr. Jennings. During his time in the House, he will have seen many women Members of Parliament arrive. The way in which he has dealt with our applications for improved facilities such as the Family Room is greatly appreciated. On behalf

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of many Back Benchers, I should like to express my thanks to him for all the work that he has done for this place.
Madam Speaker: The House is very grateful for those tributes.
Question put and agreed to.
Resolved,
That this House expresses its appreciation of Peter Nevile Wake Jennings Esq, CVO for his 47 years distinguished public service, including four years as Serjeant at Arms, and extends to him its best wishes for his retirement.

World Trade Organisation
[Relevant documents: Second Report from the Environmental Audit Committee, on World Trade and Sustainable Development: an Agenda for the Seattle Summit (HC 45); Sixteenth Report from the Environment, Transport and Regional Affairs Committee, Session 1998–99, on Multilateral Environmental Agreements (HC 307-I).]
Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Clelland.]
Madam Speaker: Before I call the Secretary of State, I have to inform Back Benchers that speeches must be limited to 15 minutes.
2.14 pm
The Secretary of State for Trade and Industry (Mr. Stephen Byers): I welcome this timely opportunity to report to the House on the conclusions of the Seattle World Trade Organisation negotiations, and also to debate the way to carry forward the need for trade liberalisation in the 21st century.
However, before I do that, I wish to thank the three right hon. Friends who, with me, made up the United Kingdom delegation to the ministerial conference. They are my right hon. Friends the Secretary of State for International Development, the Minister for Trade and the Minister for the Environment.
Mr. Desmond Swayne: Does not the Secretary of State agree that the four Ministers in the United Kingdom delegation, however well intentioned they may have been, were effectively observers, as the true negotiating power was in the hands of the European Commissioner? How long can that dismal state of affairs be allowed to endure?
Mr. Byers: The hon. Gentleman has revealed his ignorance in record-breaking time. I am conscious of the fact that Back Benchers want to take part in the debate. I want them to do so, which is why there is a time limit on speeches and why I shall cut my initial remarks fairly short. Interventions such as that from the hon. Gentleman do not help very much, as they do not follow the plot at all.
Mr. Swayne: Answer the question.
Mr. Byers: I will. As members of the General Affairs Council, we played a part in determining the European Union position. More significantly, as members of the Commonwealth, we had many bilateral meetings with Commonwealth countries. We were instrumental in putting in place a broad agreement on trade and labour relations. We also discussed with other countries—especially the least developed—what we could do in terms of opening access to the European market. The non-governmental organisations in attendance at Seattle welcomed the role that our delegation played, as did those of the hon. Gentleman's colleagues who also attended the negotiations.
I want also to thank the non-ministerial members of the delegation—Donald Anderson, representing the Confederation of British Industry; Rodney Bickerstaffe,

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representing the Trades Union Congress; and Hilary Colby, representing the voluntary and charitable organisations. Our inclusive approach to the people who formed the delegation broke new ground.
I also want to thank the officials of the various Government Departments who attended the talks. In often difficult and demanding circumstances, they provided necessary support to Ministers and others.
I shall say something about the importance of trade to the United Kingdom, and then go through the events in Seattle and describe how matters can be moved forward.
We should never underestimate the importance of trade to our country. More than a quarter of our gross domestic product stems from exports, and more than half from trade. We are the world's fifth largest exporter of goods, and the second largest exporter of services. Our share of world exports of goods is about 5 per cent. The UK has the highest ratio of inward and outward investment to GDP of any leading economy.
The UK is the second largest recipient of inward investment after the United States, and we are the second largest outward investor after the United States. In short, therefore, trade is vital to the UK's continuing prosperity. We need to secure that for the future, but we also need to create the same opportunities for the rest of the world.
That is why we are disappointed that the terms for a new round of trade negotiations were not agreed in Seattle. Along with most other WTO members, we had hoped to launch a comprehensive and broad-based round of negotiations. That approach reflects our belief that such a round is the best means of delivering substantial trade liberalisation consistent with sustainable development. Such a package would also promote continuing growth in the global economy, helping to offset protectionist tendencies where they exist—as, regrettably, they do.
Dr. Lynne Jones: The United Kingdom, rightly, has developed a good reputation for taking a progressive stance in these matters. However, with hindsight, was it right to go for a comprehensive round of new negotiations? Would it not have been better to concentrate on making the existing rules more effective, specifically by assisting developing countries by withdrawing tariffs against their exports?
Mr. Byers: I agree absolutely that it would have been a great prize if the UK initiative to remove all tariff barriers placed on goods had been agreed. However, that initiative is part not of a narrow agenda but of a broad-based approach. The narrow agenda would have been limited to agriculture and services, and there would have been nothing at all for developing countries or the least developed countries. We wanted a comprehensive round—a development round—for the purposes to which my hon. Friend referred. A narrow round would not have delivered the benefits that we wanted to bring to those developing countries. We needed a broad-based and comprehensive round of trade negotiations, and we bitterly regretted being unable to conclude that at the end of the Seattle negotiations.
Dr. Jenny Tonge: The Secretary of State says that he wanted a broad round in which to
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discuss development. Was he not disturbed that so many developing countries were not present at the talks? I understand that 30 were unable to send delegations, and that many more had very scanty representation. If this was a development round, should we not have paid more attention to that issue?
Mr. Byers: There are two points to make. First, the Government have indicated to the director general of the WTO that we will support a fivefold increase in the budget for technical assistance and capacity building for developing countries. Secondly, we helped countries that were present at Seattle but had not had any briefing or support before they got there. A civil servant from my Department briefed delegates from some of the African countries about the mechanism and process of Seattle. Although that should never have had to happen, we were able to play a valuable role in providing time for information to be given to those African countries. They came away from the briefing meeting saying that it was the most valuable hour they had spent in Seattle.
Mr. Jeremy Corbyn: We are obviously pleased that an official was able to assist countries that did not have full delegations; but surely the issue—according to reports that I have read—is that a large number of delegations from southern and third-world countries were denied access to all meetings and discussions. They had to read about the proceedings in the newspapers because the American delegation refused to allow them in.
The Americans also appear to have used incredibly heavy-handed policing tactics against people who were legitimately protesting on behalf of the poorest peoples in the world while their future was being decided behind closed doors by a few very wealthy countries.
Mr. Byers: My hon. Friend makes a good case for modernisation and reform. I am pleased that he recognises that one responsibility of Government is to modernise and reform many of our institutions. There is a modernising and reforming agenda for the WTO, which I shall outline shortly. A key objective must be to ensure that all 135 member nations have a part to play in the process. I accept that that is not the case at the moment. The challenge for the United Kingdom is to lead the campaign for reform of the WTO so that all members can play a full part.
The ministerial conference was extremely significant in terms of global politics. Probably for the first time in any such international gathering, the developing countries asserted themselves and said that it was unacceptable for a deal to be carved out between America, the European Union and Japan but not the developing countries themselves. If anything positive has come out of Seattle it is the fact that for the first time on the international stage those developing countries have said no. That is extremely significant for the future. We need to build on that and recognise that all 135 members must be incorporated into the process of the WTO.
I believe that free trade and open commerce are the best way forward. Freeing up trade means lower prices and wider choice for consumers; and it stimulates competition and innovation, promotes economic growth, particularly in developing economies, and generates the resources to promote higher standards of employment and

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environmental protection. Ultimately, it helps to underpin political stability throughout the world. That is why we wanted a broad-based approach to the negotiations. It is important to recognise that the trade discussions in Seattle took place against a backdrop of growing concerns about globalisation. Indeed, many of the people who took to the streets of Seattle were concerned about globalisation. We must ask ourselves whether globalisation is, by its very nature, a bad thing. Will it destroy our environment and our traditional livelihood, and increase the gap between rich and poor?
I believe that globalisation is useful and necessary—indeed, it is essential. It is the basis for our prosperity and that of our fellow human beings. We have no alternative to globalisation for achieving those objectives. Globalisation allows economies of scale and the development of economic activities at a much faster and more sustained rate than would otherwise be possible. Economies of scale and growth are necessary to support our growing population. We need the benefits of emerging new industries to allow us to improve the living conditions of all our people.
Opening up markets gives the opportunity to those economies which need to strengthen their development. We saw the tremendous evolution that took place in Asia during the 1980s. Now we can see the successful building of economies emerging from decades of state control in eastern Europe. We have also seen how some, but not all, developing countries have benefited from the Uruguay round.
I also recognise that if we get it wrong, globalisation can be a negative force. It could lead to environmental damage, the destruction of traditional cultures, and the widening, instead of the narrowing, of the gap between rich and poor that exists both between countries and within societies. It is up to us to ensure that we reap the benefits of globalisation and avoid its drawbacks.
We have a choice: we can let globalisation carry us along, and do nothing about it, or we can try and steer it in a way that produces the results that we want. I believe that the WTO is the vehicle for steering globalisation in a direction that will benefit all the countries of the world.
Mr. Andrew F. Bennett: Does my right hon. Friend accept that if world trade is one part of the globalisation process, it is equally important to have multilateral environmental agreements which are, as it were, the controlling part of it? Will he explain the Government's position in ensuring that the World Trade Organisation will not obstruct those important multilateral environmental agreements?
Mr. Byers: I have sympathy with my hon. Friend's point, and if he can wait a couple of minutes, I hope to be able to address it specifically.
We would be foolish not to recognise the important role that the WTO can play. As is clear from what has happened in recent years, free trade leads to greater prosperity. That is why we should be concerned that there was no successful outcome in Seattle. It is legitimate to ask what went wrong. First, the work was not done in the lead-up to the ministerial conference. There was not sufficient common ground identified in advance. We went to Seattle with a 36-page draft declaration, most of which was simply not agreed. Secondly, there was a lack of
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organisation in Seattle to deliver a declaration at the end of the ministerial conference; and thirdly, there was a growing concern by many developing countries about their lack of involvement in the decision-making process. They rightly considered decisions on the launch of a new round to be of such importance that they demanded inclusion. They needed to take part in the building of a consensus, rather than being presented with a done deal by the big players. One reason why agreement was not reached was that they called a halt to the process.
I believe that Seattle was a missed opportunity. We must learn from the mistakes of Seattle and build a stronger WTO. We know from the history of the general agreement on tariffs and trade, and now the WTO, that there is no alternative to a rules-based system for international trade. Like the Labour Government who launched GATT in 1948, this Government want to ensure that they can reform and strengthen the WTO so that it can meet the demands and challenges of the 21st century. We should not overanalyse what happened at Seattle, or get into a blame game. We must instead ensure changes for the future.
It is crucial that the WTO should be modernised and reformed. The United Kingdom will lead those efforts. We have already contacted the EU Trade Commissioner, Pascal Lamy, and have been in touch with all EU Trade Ministers. We have also contacted like-minded countries that support reform, including Egypt, South Africa and Australia.
As we look towards change of the WTO, we must consider several points. We should make WTO documents publicly available and develop effective mechanisms to consult more widely. There should be far greater transparency over dispute settlement. We should consider establishing a better mechanism to allow non-governmental organisations to express their views. We need to change the WTO decision-making structure, and that will require consideration of better ways to build consensus. With 135 members, each of which can exercise a veto, the WTO is often deadlocked and unable to reach a decision.
We must consider having some form of parliamentary assembly to allow a greater degree of accountability. The WTO also needs a clear programme of technical assistance and capacity building for developing countries. I have written to the director general to say that the UK Government would support a fivefold increase in the WTO budget for that purpose.
Mr. David Curry: However desirable many of those things are, does the Secretary of State agree that the launch of a new round must not be dependent on the achievement of reforms? The important thing is to get the new round under way, and the reforms can be addressed in parallel with it.
Mr. Byers: I do not disagree, but I do not think that the two processes are mutually exclusive. I would not want negotiations on a new round to be held back by lack of completion of WTO reform. If the two things can be done simultaneously, so much the better. There is a question of how much progress can be made next year on negotiations because of politics elsewhere in the world. For reasons of which the right hon. Gentleman will be fully aware, it may be some time after January 2001 before we can engage in the detailed negotiations required.

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We can make progress in detailed areas of the negotiations, however. Even though there was no formal agreement on the launch of a new round, a lot can be done in the meantime, without waiting for the reform programme to be put in place. The first area in which we should try to achieve progress as soon as possible is liberalisation in agriculture and services. That would have been the narrow agenda, had we stuck to it. Negotiations should begin as planned in 2000. The UK has strong interests in those areas, and we shall continue to pursue them. At the same time, while we cannot expect to do all that would be achieved in a broad-based round because of the flexibility and building of broader political support that that would imply, we can still make important progress.
Secondly, we can continue to make the case for further comprehensive liberalisation of industrial tariffs as part of the new round. Thirdly, we must push for consensus in the WTO on the need to address growing consumer interests in trade, particularly through more expansive work on labelling, through reform of anti-dumping rules and through an increase in transparency. All that would have to be included in the new round if we were to make substantive progress.
Fourthly, we must do more to build consensus on including trade and environment as issues for the new round, as my hon. Friend the Member for Denton and Reddish (Mr. Bennett) said. Much concern exists in that connection. Some developing countries take the view that bringing the environment into trade negotiations could be used for protectionism. We should be aware of those concerns, but they should not allow us to hold back on the need to recognise that greater trade liberalisation must acknowledge the consequences to the environment of development.
We can have multilateral environmental agreements, but there is some dispute about how they would interact with the rules adopted by the WTO. The UK would argue that as part of a new and comprehensive round we should clarify the WTO rules to make them compatible with important multilateral environmental agreements. Those issues must be included in the new round when it is launched.
We must do all that we can to include investment and competition. From Seattle, we know that concerns exist about those two areas. We have to show that there are benefits from them for all 135 members, and that our ambitions in that respect are modest. Part of the problem is that the talks on the multilateral agreement on investment discredited any real discussion of investment. The MAI was launched under the aegis of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, and many member nations were not within the loop of involvement. Understandably, therefore, they resisted discussion of investment.
In the WTO—an inclusive body in which all 135 members must agree—there is real potential for putting in place effective rules on investment, and that should be an important part of the agenda for the future. Electronic commerce must also be reflected in trade rules. That is not so at present, and much needs to be done. We must roll forward the duty-free commitment if we are to ensure that we can create the right environment for electronic commerce to continue to develop in future.
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We must do more for developing countries. The United Kingdom has called for the EU to advance the initiative on developing and providing duty-free access to products from the least developed countries. When the General Affairs Council of the EU met in private at the end of the Seattle conference, we agreed that we should carry forward the proposal to provide duty-free access on our own initiative. Even if America and Japan do not agree, the EU will act because it is the right thing to do. How can poor countries develop, or even pay their debts, if we refuse to buy their products? The EU will take a unilateral initiative to open up our markets to those goods.
Labour standards and trade were among the most difficult issues on the Seattle agenda. We aim to build on recent progress in the International Labour Organisation to gain wider respect for internationally agreed core labour standards, including the recently agreed ILO convention on child labour. Trade and labour standards policies are not in conflict. Both policy objectives can and should be pursued in parallel. We are firmly opposed to the use of trade sanctions to enforce labour standards. Driving countries into even deeper poverty will not improve their labour standards.
Mr. John Gummer: Does the Secretary of State agree that if that position is to be accepted—the Conservatives entirely agree with it—the international community must pay the same respect to labour and environmental standards as it does to the work of the WTO? A disproportion of respect lies at the heart of the concern expressed by many non-governmental organisations and others.
Mr. Byers: The right hon. Gentleman makes an important point. It is a question of how the WTO rules are enforced. One reason why many people want to bring matters within the WTO is that it has an extremely effective enforcement mechanism, whereas many other international organisations do not. I believe that that is a case for reforming some of those other organisations to make them more effective, not trying to bring everything within the WTO's remit. However, that is a matter on which there is, we hope, agreement on both sides of the House.
There is one labour standards issue from which we cannot walk away. We have an opportunity to bring together international organisations such as the ILO, the WTO, the United Nations and the World Bank to identify ways in which we can lift countries out of poverty in a positive way, in the belief that by doing so we are more likely to secure improvements in labour standards. That is a far more effective way forward.
Mr. Tony Benn: Will my right hon. Friend explain why the Government have not embodied in statute in Britain the commitments on trade union rights into which they entered in the International Labour Organisation? Is he aware that the Employment Rights (International Obligations) Bill has been presented, supported by nearly 50 hon. Members and, I think, eight general secretaries? It argues simply that international commitments into which we have entered ought to be embodied in British law so that they are applied in this country.
Mr. Byers: That will always be a matter for the House to determine. The Government's view is that we have,

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in our own way—through the Employment Relations Act 1999—provided a fair framework for employment legislation. That is the way in which we intend to deal with those matters.
As a result, effectively, of an initiative taken by the UK delegation in Seattle, we believe that there is now a broad-based consensus for an approach that allows the international organisations to reflect on the relationship between poverty, globalisation, labour standards and trade liberalisation. We hope that a consensus can be achieved within the framework that we were able to promote while we were in Seattle, which can ensure that that issue will not be ignored.
Briefly, on China's membership of the WTO, as hon. Members will be aware, just before the Seattle conference began the United States reached an agreement with China about the terms under which the US Administration would agree to Chinese accession.
The European Union has not yet agreed such an arrangement with the Government of China. We expect the EU to begin negotiations some time in the new year with representatives of the Chinese Government. Once we have secured agreement, we can ensure that China can become a member of the WTO. We want that objective to be achieved, but on appropriate terms. Detailed negotiations will have to take place with China to ensure that, as far as the United Kingdom and the European Union are concerned, its membership is on satisfactory terms.
Mr. Curry: Did the American delegation explain how it reconciled its discussions to allow China into the WTO with its preference for labour standards reinforced by trade sanctions?
Mr. Byers: I think that it would have had difficulty reconciling the two, but that is probably best left to representatives of the American Government. I am not going to try to defend that one.
We believe that if the terms are right, it is appropriate for China to be a member of the WTO. If it becomes a full member, the whole dynamics of the organisation will change dramatically. Some of those countries that stand out against labour standards having anything to do with the WTO at the moment may suddenly find that there are some benefits in such standards being included. However, we must be careful. Many of us listening to the debate in Seattle felt that the motive behind the speeches of those who most strongly promoted the inclusion of core labour standards was not to help the conditions of the workers concerned but to protect the domestic market. Sometimes we need to study carefully the reasoning that is being put forward to support that proposal.
I shall draw my remarks to a conclusion as many Back-Bench Members wish to speak. There are those who say that globalisation and trade liberalisation carry much of the blame for any economic crisis that may occur. They see the trends of globalisation and trade liberalisation as innately harmful, bringing benefits only to a handful of multinational companies, widening the gap between the richest and poorest, threatening the environment and undermining social structures. Such people can be found at all stages of human history, casting doubt on progress and pointing to the ills it allegedly brings, while ignoring the benefits. Today, their modern counterparts reject the
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markets and the concept of economic growth. They dismiss profit as greed and see science and technology as a threat rather than as a means of improving people's lives.
There is no doubt that progress pursued blindly and without thought for the consequences carries with it risks and costs. However, by working together we can confound the critics and show that globalisation and trade liberalisation together can be a decisive force for good. In our democratic society, we need to work at convincing our electorate that these changes are to be welcomed rather than to be feared.
Mr. Owen Paterson: I welcome the Secretary of State's clear belief that the extension of global free trade benefits all. It was hard for those of us who read what was in the press—because of all the smoke, fuss and tear gas—to get a feel for what happened in the meeting. Will the right hon. Gentleman report to the House the consensus in those serious discussions on achieving a worthwhile extension of free trade after the presidential elections in America?
Mr. Byers: I referred to January 2001 as, perhaps, a witching moment when real progress could be made. There may be opportunities, post the American presidential elections, that are not there at the moment. We all appreciate that domestic politics are playing a role within the United States. We have to ensure that, come 2001, the structure is in place to drive forward the trade liberalisation agenda. The message has to be clear throughout the world that if we want prosperity, it comes through free trade and open commerce. Our history shows us that.
I was reading in a newspaper the other day an interesting analysis of what happened in China in the 1400s when a caucus of mandarins managed to convince the emperor that free trade was not a good idea. They began by blocking craftsmen from working in the shipyards because they did not want ships to be built to trade. They then made it a criminal offence to build a three-masted schooner because they were worried about the trade implications.
Mr. Paterson: The article was written by my brother-in-law.
Mr. Byers: There we are. It was by Matt Ridley—a good man. In 1551, it became a capital offence to set sail in a multi-masted ship. As a result, there were four centuries of economic decline in China. [Interruption.] My constituency would love to build the ships.
The lesson and the reality is that throughout our history, in whatever country, free trade has been a bringer of prosperity. In the modern day, the issue is how we can harness the benefits of free trade. The WTO is the body that can do it. Globalisation, through the free flow of foreign direct investments, leads to a more equal distribution of capital, greater competition and productivity, and to wealth creation and growth in employment. Potentially, everyone can be a winner.
Nor does globalisation represent the pursuit of irresponsible gain by large business. The decision to invest capital, technology and human skills is not one that is taken lightly. No one should doubt the immense benefit

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to the global economy brought by the progressive opening up of markets and international trade in the past 50 years. We also know that, if markets are closed, prosperity and growth will be denied. Protectionism anywhere is a threat to prosperity everywhere. We need more trade liberalisation, not less.
Mr. Gordon Prentice (Pendle): The European Union market is currently closed to US beef that has been treated with hormones. How would the new WTO adjudicate in disputes such as those over genetically modified foods, hormone-treated beef or biotechnology? Those matters are incredibly contentious even within countries.
Mr. Byers: I agree that they are contentious. That is why we need a rules-based mechanism that will allow us to achieve our objective. One of the disappointments at the failure to reach a conclusion at Seattle related to issues that could have been part of a broad-based round. They include the whole question of scientific evidence and how the WTO deals with it; consumer choice and labelling, so that people can make genuine choices—this is especially important for the environment; and food safety. That is why we believed that it was important to adopt a comprehensive approach. It is also why a narrow round—as supported by Opposition Members—would not have been successful.
The challenge that we now face is how to move forward within the WTO. The events of Seattle are a defining moment for the WTO. A reformed and modernised WTO can deliver for all the world's people. A broad and comprehensive trade round, early in the 21st century, will play an important part in achieving that objective.
2.51 pm
Mrs. Angela Browning: It has been a joy to observe the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry on his journey along the road to Damascus. Many of us will remember his comments and those of many of his hon. Friends during the previous Parliament, when the Conservatives spoke about competition, free markets and global trade. I genuinely welcome much of what he said this afternoon. I recognise much of the closing part of his speech; it came from the well written speech that he gave recently to Japanese business men—the right hon. Gentleman is nodding. I did not agree with everything in that earlier speech, but I share his view on globalisation, which he has repeated this afternoon.
The Secretary of State told us of his disappointment that the talks had broken down. We share that disappointment, but we regret that it took him four days to come to the Dispatch Box. A fortnight ago, he will remember sending a letter—also signed by three of his hon. Friends—to all hon. Members, to brief them on the forthcoming WTO talks. The letter concluded:
"Stephen will be making a full statement to the House immediately on our return from Seattle."
As there will be many more talks on this subject, in this country and abroad, I hope that the Secretary of State will include the House of Commons in the way forward. We share much common ground, because we all want the talks to proceed as quickly as possible, but with a realistic
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agenda that enables us to achieve solid progress for global free trade. Conservative policy is that all tariff barriers should be removed by 2020.
Before me at the Dispatch Box, I am using, as an impromptu lectern, a bundle of papers, detailing about 15,600 tariffs that apply to this country alone—the integrated tariff of the United Kingdom.
Mr. Corbyn: Read them all out.
Mrs. Browning: I promise the House that I shall not read them out this afternoon, but if, during this Parliament, the Secretary of State agrees that his objective of removing tariff barriers is realistic, I will be only too pleased to read out the reduced bundle that will result.
Mr. Corbyn: I am pleased to see that the hon. Lady has all 15,600 tariffs in front of her. I realise that there is not time for her to read them all out this afternoon. Could she give us a summary of those to which she objects? There are three hours left for the debate.
Mrs. Browning: The hon. Gentleman is most kind. The papers are available to all Members from the Stationery Office—other people have to pay £197 per bundle.
However much we talk about the need for liberalisation, tariff reductions and free trade, we confront a huge task—not just in the UK, but in the EU and in America—in achieving those targets. We need to get rid of all the tariffs, because they hamper free trade. The Secretary of State is committed to removing them and the Conservatives will support him. That is our objective in today's debate.
Mr. Bennett: Will the hon. Lady assure us that none of the restrictions in her bundle of papers are supported by individuals or firms in her constituency? Has there been any lobbying to keep restrictions?
Mrs. Browning: I have not read every line of each sheet of paper. Both sides of the paper are covered with small-point print. My constituents—like those of all hon. Members—realise that the prosperity of our country and of all those who live and work here will be enhanced by the removal of such tariffs. There seems to be some common ground in the House on that objective.
I encourage the Minister and his colleagues on the Treasury Bench to consider how we might achieve that objective, because the collapse of the Seattle talks was a blow. The Secretary of State spelled out the importance of international and global trade to the UK and to the EU. I am aware that, in the context of the WTO talks, the EU Commissioner spoke for all member states.
There are however some examples of stupid taxes—I am sure that others could be found in bundles similar to the one I have before me. Because of the EU tariff wall, there is a tax of 8.9 per cent. on chocolate from outside the EU, and a 9.7 per cent. tariff on biscuits. As I pointed out, the EU alone has 15,600 tariff duties, but they are also imposed in other states. The United States, which is often regarded as a free trade economy, applies a 25 per cent. tax on ceramics sold from the midlands in this country to the US hotel industry. That is a classic example of the way in which a single tariff affects an important

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UK industry. Such tariffs affect our exports to the US. There is a huge opportunity for the EU and the US to take a lead in showing how to remove those unnecessary taxes.
Mr. Jim Murphy: I listened with interest to the points made by the hon. Lady about the 15,600 double-sided, small-point tariffs that she is using as a prop. Will she inform the House of how many of those 15,600 tariffs were agreed during the 18 years of Conservative Government? How many of them did she and the Conservative Government object to?
Mrs. Browning: I do not know. This collection has been built up over generations. I just want to see them disappear. It makes sense to get rid of all of them. I am not talking about which tariff was applied where and by whom. We all know that trade will enhance the prosperity of our nation and of nations throughout the world, if we get rid of restrictions.
We need to concentrate on the WTO talks, because the Secretary of State has a prime responsibility, on behalf of the UK Government, to ensure that our nation plays its part in restoring the WTO talks so that we can make progress.
We started out some months ago with high hopes. The Department of Trade and Industry and the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food issued consultation documents. The European Parliament produced a document. We had papers from the United States Government. That suggested that things were on course—that there was sufficient commonality of purpose to adopt the agenda that the Secretary of State has described and to progress with talks. Obviously, we must now have another think about that.
Today the right hon. Gentleman has frankly described some of his proposals for taking the matter forward, but taking the matter forward must be our primary intention.
The right hon. Gentleman mentioned that the WTO talks and the talks from which they originate have been subject to criticism. I agree with him. There is now an opportunity to change the way in which the structure of the WTO functions, to make progress possible.
In the list of suggestions that the Secretary of State read out, his suggestion that there be some form of Parliament rang the loudest warning bells in my mind. We would want to see full details of that. I doubt that the creation of another body without democratic accountability will liberalise trade. We want there to be democratic accountability. Indeed, we are uneasy about the way in which the United Kingdom is represented, through the European Union, in the talks. Later I shall discuss what happened in Seattle—the role of the European Union and the way in which events unfolded. I hope that then the Secretary of State will reassure us that he will speak to Commissioner Lamy and others to ensure that our progress is not held up because of differences of opinion in the European Union, or because the views of the British Government as to what is in the British interest are not reflected.
The principles of multilateral trading are designed to help trade to flow as freely as possible. They should incorporate non-discrimination—one country should not offer another country more favoured terms of access to its markets than it does others. Tariff barriers should be removed and trading conditions should be predictable.
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Most WTO members' tariffs are bound at ceiling rates, above which they cannot usually be increased, and almost all developed country tariffs are bound at their actual rates. The introduction of quotas or other measures intended to restrict imports is not usually permitted. We need to consider how we can abolish tariffs rather than gerrymander the way in which tariffs and ceilings are imposed.
The Secretary of State used the word transparency. The WTO should undertake to ensure that its trade rules are clear, transparent and public, so that all new rules, as they emerge, are subject to proper scrutiny by all interested parties. Judging by what the Secretary of State has said, I hope that he would actively promote such steps.
Dr. Vincent Cable: While the hon. Lady discusses tariff removal, is she aware that by far the largest bulk of that paper on her desk consists of two items—the tariff structure of the standard international trade classification, items 65 and 80 to 84, which are textiles and clothing? Is she saying—with commendable bravery—that the Conservative party is committed to the prompt and total removal of all tariffs and quotas on textile and garment items?
Mrs. Browning: We would like to see them phased out, but that will be part of future negotiations. At the moment, there are not even any negotiations to participate in. There is unfinished business from the Uruguay round, and the textiles issue is part of the unfinished business from a previous trade round which the Secretary of State must tackle.
Later, I shall discuss some serious matters that are unfinished business from the Uruguay round, on which I believe that the Secretary of State should seek to make progress now, instead of waiting for a new round of talks to begin. I hope that we shall hear from him and his colleagues how they intend to go about that.
The Secretary of State asked what went wrong at Seattle. He obviously had the advantage of being present. I have taken briefings from others who were also present at those talks—
Mr. Bennett: Name them.
Mr. Corbyn: Name them.
Mrs. Browning: My right hon. Friend the Member for Suffolk, Coastal (Mr. Gummer) was present. I am sure that he will address the House and give his own views.
Mr. Corbyn: I was trying to help the hon. Lady.
Mrs. Browning: I am not giving the hon. Gentleman the credit.
Mr. Corbyn rose—
Mrs. Browning: I shall not give way.
The Secretary of State has quoted a speech that he made to Japanese business men but, given the speech that he delivered at Seattle, one does not get the impression that he was aware, while he was there, of the need for him to

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take such a leading role in bringing forward changes. I have with me a copy of his speech, in which he addresses fellow trade Ministers and the director-general.
In that rather short speech there was no attempt to retrieve the situation or make an input into the talks. Instead, the speech contained a lot of platitudes and some rather waffly language—certainly nothing as firm as the speech from which the right hon. Gentleman quoted this afternoon. For example, he asked:
"Can the WTO modernise and reform itself so that it can gain increased credibility and win the support of people and their governments? Can it stop being seen as a servant of multinationals and instead assert itself as a body which will protect and defend the interests of all its members?"
In that speech, delivered by the Secretary of State on behalf of the United Kingdom Government, he seemed to have more questions than answers.
There are a lot of platitudes:
"We must not lose sight of the opportunities that have flowed from the new age of globalisation. We have benefited from the integration of the international economy. A shared commitment to open trade and commerce has been a driving force for growth."
That is not what we would have expected from a Secretary of State in a world negotiation when things were falling apart around him and when he was in a key position to make a much more substantive contribution—perhaps the type of contribution that he has made in the House this afternoon, with real suggestions about what could be done, instead of platitudes.
Ms Joan Walley: In view of the platitudes that are supposed to have come from the Government—on which the hon. Lady is totally wrong—I am curious to know what the previous Conservative Government did to remove the tariffs on ceramics supplied from the United Kingdom to hotels everywhere.
Mrs. Browning: I do not recall any of the rounds in which the previous Conservative Government were engaged resulting in the Secretary of State coming to the House to wring his hands and tell us that everything had fallen apart in disarray, that something had to be done, but perhaps not for another year, and that there was no immediate solution to the problems. That is not leadership; nor is it Government.
Mr. Gordon Prentice: Will the hon. Lady give way?
Mrs. Browning: I am just answering the question. I raised the matter because at Seattle there were two main players with whom we would have expected our Secretary of State, representing the Government whom he represents, to have had much more influence.
The Government claim to be influential in the European Union, which was a key negotiator. The rhetoric of the Labour party, especially in opposition, was to the effect that when there were difficult negotiations, and when there were difficulties with the European Union, it had a third way. Labour Members claimed that they would use their skills far more effectively than the previous Conservative Government had. And yet in one week we see our eurobond market about to disappear, our art market about to disappear and our beef industry in
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disarray—because the Government were unable to negotiate with their European partners, with whom they have always claimed to have a technique superior to that of the previous, Conservative Government.
Each day, week and year that passes, it becomes more obvious that the only things that the Labour Government succeed at as far as the European Union is concerned are matters where their third way—new Labour socialism—is in total accord with the new way socialism of many of the member states in Europe. They just roll over and agree with them when they have issues of new socialism—democratic socialism—to deal with. [Laughter.] I did not want to say just socialism, because I know that when anyone says that word, a frisson descends on the Labour Benches. I was struggling to get the new terminology right. However, Labour Members know what I mean—it is the third way. However, that is the way of failure. The third way of negotiating any matter involving the European Union has been, by definition and as a matter of record, a great failure.
Mr. James Gray: May I remind my hon. Friend of an example of what she describes? The Prime Minister said proudly:
"we are delighted with the decision to lift the beef ban … That has come about because of the hard work of Ministers here"—
that may be true—
"and also because the Government have a constructive … attitude to Europe. That is why we got the beef ban lifted, and it is another example of new Labour working."—[Official Report, 14 July 1999; Vol. 335, c. 402.]
Does my hon. Friend recall that?
Mrs. Browning: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for giving us the complete text of the Prime Minister's words.
The success of Commissioner Lamy is important to the United Kingdom. He represents us. What he said and did at Seattle was far more significant than the platitudes in the Secretary of State's contribution. It is therefore incumbent on the Government to ensure—especially as things have now fallen apart—that the European Union uses its influence to help restore the World Trade Organisation talks and to enable us to make progress.
Mr. Gordon Prentice: The hon. Lady scoffed at my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State when he talked about the need to create a new parliament in the WTO. She must recognise, however, that it is difficult for the WTO to make progress. It can easily become deadlocked simply because each of its 135 countries has a veto.
Mrs. Browning: Indeed, but we have heard that—for various reasons including the number of countries involved—what was expected to be the start of something is now in such disarray that we are unable to see a realistic timetable for finding solutions to the problems that impede progress. We shall expect the Government to provide such a timetable when they have had a little more time to reflect and have negotiated not just with the European Union, but with the Americans, whose role I shall consider shortly.
The Secretary of State was quite honest in saying that some initial preparations might not have been carried out in the lead-up to the talks and that that fact had contributed to their failure. However, it is extraordinary

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that even during the talks there was a row among the members of the EU. That is just not acceptable. The Government claim to have influence and the superb negotiating skills that avoid rows and conflict with our European partners. They claim that they have the solutions to negotiations, agreements and conciliations within the EU.
In Seattle, we hear that there was a row in the EU over biotechnology. The Commissioner proposed a working group, despite opposition from 12 of the 15 member states. The proposal was sent to other countries, such as the Japanese and the Swiss, without UK Ministers and others seeing it. Earlier, the EU had opposed including biotechnology in the WTO remit. It said that it should be dealt with by the United Nations.
Why were such problems not sorted out before the representatives of the EU went to the talks? We understand that France felt so annoyed that it felt stitched up and threatened to walk out of the talks altogether. That may have influenced its attitude later in the week to other matters. It appears that lack of preparation and lack of communication in a matter in which we could have expected better of the Government have resulted in many unnecessary problems, thereby compounding the failure and the shambles of the talks that the Secretary of State attended.
I wish to refer to one policy area that will be on the agenda when the talks can be resumed. I hope that the Secretary of State will reflect on it when he and his colleagues make representations to the European Union. I am referring to agriculture. We noticed that the Government were reluctant to be strong in their negotiations with Europe about the reform of the common agricultural policy. The Agenda 2000 proposals that came out of earlier talks were watered down, particularly by the Prime Minister when he intervened on the matter. However, the objective of putting agriculture on the global agenda must be compatible with the EU's internal policies for reform of the common agricultural policy. That is essential. It is not acceptable to have one set of objectives internally, with restrictions and support through subsidies, but then to express the wish to get rid of more tariffs on a global basis.
What the Government say and what they do are incompatible. They say one thing, but they do another. Nowhere is that more evident than in the stance that they have taken in the EU on reform of the common agricultural policy and in the literature that sets out their objectives for agricultural reform on the global stage.
The Secretary of State and Labour Members have referred to other matters that have become entwined at the heart of the WTO agenda. They include environmental issues, as well as others dealing with child labour and costs. They are legitimate subjects for debate not only in the Chamber, but elsewhere. Such issues must be considered.
The Minister used a phrase that reflected a commonsense approach. He said that such matters should be dealt with in parallel, and I agree. When we criticise the fact that the talks have become enmeshed, one of the problems is that legitimate subjects have become bound up with the conditions for WTO progress. I would support the Secretary of State if issues such as child labour and the environment were to be developed outside the WTO,
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but in parallel with it. That would provide a read-across, but discussion of such issues would not inhibit progress on the reduction and removal of tariffs.
If the EU had the opportunity to make preparations to sort out problems before the talks began, so too might we have expected the Government to use their influence with the President of the United States and the representatives of the Democrats. The role of the Americans in the Seattle talks was significant for many reasons. I do not want to discuss the detail of the policing operation; I have no first-hand knowledge of that, but it sounded horrendous.
Does the Secretary of State think it appropriate that the person who chaired the meeting was the key negotiator for the United States of America? That is not common sense, and such problems could have been resolved before the talks began. As with the EU, we have heard from the Prime Minister about the special relationship and influence that he has with the President of the United States. If the Government have influence, surely they could have used it to sort that problem out. I hope that the Secretary of State will tell us exactly what action he will take in the EU and with the Americans to make sure that problems are sorted out before the talks resume.
I recognise that it is not always easy to second-guess what might happen. I see that the Minister for Trade is grateful for that, but some problems are glaringly obvious. Progress on this matter can be made now; we should not wait for another year. It is incumbent on our Government, who represent us at the talks, not just to leave matters to the EU negotiator and to circumstances outside their control, but to play a leading role.
I must tell the Secretary of State that we will support the Government if they have common-sense policies that will enable us to reduce the bundle of tariffs and help countries around the world, including developing countries, to remove the impediments on them so that they can play a full role in the global marketplace, which the Secretary of State has described very well. That progress will take place only if he makes it his personal responsibility to drive the matter forward.
Conservative Members will not find it acceptable if, after the debate, things are allowed to slip. The Secretary of State should give us a commitment in writing, perhaps in a White Paper, very soon, stating his proposals for action and his timetable, so that we have some hope.
Aside from the big issues of the talks, which have global importance, the Secretary of State will be aware that British companies are caught in the crossfire of unresolved business, particularly between the EU and the USA. I refer to certain categories of companies, of which I shall give examples rather than reading out a comprehensive list. The businesses affected are involved in the production of toiletries, handbags, folding decorative cartons, lithographs, bed linen and lead acid batteries. That is a diverse group, and a few more types of business are affected, but the list gives a flavour of the cross-section of British companies who, today, are having to make difficult decisions.
We have heard from many of those businesses. I raised their problems with the Minister for Trade in the European Scrutiny Committee a couple of weeks ago. They are caught in the banana war and in the hormone-treated beef war between the EU and the USA. Companies are relocating and laying off staff, and until those trade disputes are sorted out and read across into

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the progress of the WTO talks, they will continue to inflict real damage on British industry and British jobs. I hope that those companies will be given hope that they will not have to wait at least a year until the WTO talks can be resumed, and that the Secretary of State will make it his personal business to make progress.
Open markets are in the interests of all countries, whether developed or developing. The WTO talks have the potential to open up those marketplaces, remove the barriers and make a bonfire of all the tariffs, including not only our tariffs but those throughout the world. That can only be for the greater good of all citizens.
We shall not be picky or critical if the Secretary of States puts forward a detailed plan and some of it does not work. We shall be critical if he sits on his hands and allows events to unfold. We look to him for leadership. We look to the United Kingdom to show leadership in the European Union as well as in negotiations with the United States of America. I hope that the right hon. Gentleman will come back to the House with better news the next time he speaks on the subject.
Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Michael Lord): Order. Before I call the next speaker, I remind the House that Madam Speaker has placed a 15-minute limit on Back-Bench speeches, and that applies from now on.
3.23 pm
Mr. Tony Benn: This debate was arranged to celebrate another triumph for free trade, and it has turned out to be a long overdue—and, in my case, very welcome—debate about the real nature of global capitalism. It is from that point of view that I want to address the House.
Free trade and global capitalism are accepted almost unanimously among important people in Britain. Multinational companies demand free trade because it gives them freedom. The City needs it to prosper as a financial centre. Speculators depend on it. Most newspaper proprietors and editors are committed to it. The BBC is so devout about free trade that it broadcasts share values and currency values every hour, entirely replacing the daily prayer service. Teachers explain free trade in business study courses, and some trade union leaders believe that free trade is bound to come about.
All Front-Bench Members are utterly committed to global capitalism and free trade. Conservative Members, whether pro or anti the single currency, are utterly committed to capitalism. The Liberals, with their Gladstonian tradition and the Manchester school, are committed to capitalism. I say with the greatest respect that I have never heard a more powerful speech for world capitalism than that just made by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry, who occupies an office that I once held.
Third way philosophers line up to support capitalism and free trade. Modernisers and focus groups yearn for more of it, and business-friendly Ministers think of nothing else. Labour Members had an important letter from four Department of Trade and Industry Ministers on 24 November, and the contents of that letter were reproduced in the Minister's speech.
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The truth is that the benefits of capitalism and free trade are not really being seen in the world at all. We are told, for example, that the best way to narrow the gap between rich and poor is to have free trade and world capitalism. Ten years ago, the world had 147 dollar billionaires; five years ago, it had 274 dollar billionaires, and that number increased recently to 447, which is a rise of 25 per cent. Those billionaires have a combined wealth equivalent to the annual income of half of the world's population.
We must consider also what the World Health Organisation says about the health of the world. One fifth of the world's children live in poverty; one third of the world's children are under-nourished, and half of the world's population lack access to essential drugs. Each year, 12 million children under five die, and 95 per cent. of them die from poverty-related illness; more than half a million mothers die in childbirth, and more than 1 million babies die of tetanus. What contribution have globalisation and free trade made to solving those problems? The theory that wealth trickles down and that the richer Bill Gates gets, the richer people in Asia will get, is one of the most ludicrous illusions that could possibly be imagined.
What the Secretary of State did not say is that the one thing that globalisation has done is to make multinational companies more powerful than countries. That is why so many third world countries are worried. Fifty-one of the largest 100 economies in the world are now corporations: Mitsubishi's is bigger than that of Indonesia; General Motors's is bigger than that of Denmark; Ford's is bigger than that of South Africa, and Toyota's is bigger than that of Norway. The sales of the top 200 corporations are greater than one quarter of the world's economic activity.
Multinational corporations want free trade because they are trying to get Governments off their back so that they can exploit the profits that they can make with the minimum of interference. They think that global capitalism and free trade will end redistributive taxation and, although this has not been mentioned so far, gradually turn health and education into market-related activities.
A restricted paper circulated to World Trade Organisation delegates was brought to my attention by one of the Members of the European Parliament who received it. It asked:
"How can WTO members ensure that ongoing reforms in national health systems are mutually supportive and whenever relevant market-based?"
It will not be long before some countries can say to others, "You are discriminating against us because you have a health service and our workers have not, so you must cut back your health service so that you are not taking unfair advantage."
The Secretary of State for International Development (Clare Short): There are many myths about the WTO, partly because the negotiations are so complicated that people can make up anything that they like. There is an agreement on trade in services. Some developing countries need banking and other financial services to get their economies going, but the agreement

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says that each country will open whatever sectors it wants to the market, and there is no compulsion for it to open any sector that it does not want to open.
Mr. Benn: There may be no compulsion, but the WTO would like health to be market-related.
Clare Short: No, that is not true.
Mr. Benn: Well, it said so in the document, and my right hon. Friend must have seen it.
This is a debate marking the end of the millennium, and I do not want to get into a party argument at all; I want to try to understand what is happening. Not long ago, Richard Whelan from the Institute of Economic Affairs said:
"Africa should be privatised and leases to run individual countries auctioned off".
That is serious. In the Financial Times, James Morgan, the BBC economics correspondent, said:
"If some countries, especially in Africa, were to be run along the lines of commercial enterprises rather than states, investors might find them much more attractive".
That is what the multinational companies are thinking about.
When the Secretary of State drew a comparison with the Luddites, he reminded me of the leading article in The Economist on 26 February 1848—a year or two before I entered the House—in which the slave trade was discussed. The article said:
"If in place of entering into Treaties for the suppression of the Slave Trade, we made conventions to ameliorate the conditions of the existing race of slaves—to establish and regulate on unquestionable principles the free emigration of Africans … we might, with a tenth of the cost, do a great substantial good to the African Race".
I can imagine Ofslave being set up, with Chris Woodhead in charge, naming and shaming the captains of slave ships on which the sanitary arrangements for slaves are inadequate. For God's sake, surely we must take some account in this debate of the worry of the enormous number of people in the world who have not got rich through free trade.
Global capitalism empowers companies to move money freely, but it does not allow workers to move freely. If someone owns a factory in London but the wages are so high that he cannot make a profit, he can close it and open it in Malaysia, where wages are lower. If, however, someone from Malaysia tries to come to London where wages are higher, immigration laws would keep him out.
Globalisation has nothing to do with internationalism. At least in the European Union there is a free movement of capital and labour. We are not talking about letting workers move in search of higher wages, but only of companies moving in search of higher profits. Global capitalism allows big business to run the banana republics. It involves risks to the protection of the environment, and we are told that it is inevitable.
We have had free trade in Britain for a long time, but it has not solved the problems of poverty automatically. There was terrible poverty in Dickensian Britain and, even today, the gap between rich and poor is wider, even though Yorkshire cannot impose bans or tariffs on goods from Derbyshire. It is time that we looked at how free trade is a complete illusion.
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Let us look at the matter from another point of view that is all the more important. Global capital is eroding political democracy. Power has already been transferred to Eddie George. I do not know which constituency he won at the election; I could not find his name anywhere on the list. None the less, he has more power than the Chancellor of the Exchequer. The European central bank will have more power than either of them.
None of the representatives of the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank and the WTO is elected. Who elects the Secretary-General of NATO and the director-general of the WTO? Nobody. Our political democracy has been decapitated in the interests of worship of money. As Keir Hardie said at the beginning of the century, we must choose between worshipping God or mammon, and there is no doubt on which we decided.
That brings me to another matter. People outside the House know that there is a massive coalition in this Parliament in favour of capitalism, and they are therefore becoming cynical and disillusioned with the political process. One of the reasons why people do not vote is that they think that there is one view inside the House—that all the leaders are huddling together in coalitions and patriotic alliances—and that they are excluded from it. That is of course what happened in Seattle.
The Minister who made that point clear is now the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland. He said in Bonn on 3 March last year:
"It may be that the era of pure representative democracy is coming slowly to an end".
That was a more candid account of what is happening than the praise of trade in this debate.
The Prime Minister, if I may quote him with approval, said when Leader of the Opposition during a debate on the Halifax summit in June 1995:
"is not the central issue the revolution in the globalisation of the financial and currency markets, which now wield massive speculative power over the Governments of all countries and have the capacity seriously to disrupt economic progress?"—[Official Report, 19 June 1995; Vol. 262, c. 23-4.]
That idea inspired many of the people who went to Seattle. The churches were there, many concerned about world poverty, there were environmentalists, animal welfare groups, trade unionists and those who campaign for the cancellation of third world debt. All were immediately denounced as anarchists, extremists, members of the mob, and so on. The police in Seattle put up a pretty good show of organising a Tiananmen square operation without the killings. When I saw the police in their Star Wars outfits and the arrest of 500 people who wanted only justice for their own people, it gave me an indication of what it is all about.
The internet plays a very important part in these matters because, through it, all the groups sent out their messages. They could not get their messages across through Rupert Murdoch, CNN or the BBC, but they could communicate directly. They have no leaders to be demonised by the press; groups turned up with their own faith.
In the next century, people want co-operation and not competition in self-sustaining economies, working with other nations. They want security in their lives—and that does not mean more nuclear weapons. They want to plan for peace as we have always planned for war, with a single-minded determination to meet our needs. They want democratic control over their own destiny. That is the real lesson that this century must teach the next one.

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I shall finish with a quote that, in a way, sums up what I feel on this issue.
"We have lived so long at the mercy of uncontrolled economic forces that we have become sceptical about any plan for human emancipation. Such a rational and deliberate reorganisation of our economic life would enable us, out of the increased wealth production, to establish an irreducible minimum standard which might progressively be raised to one of comfort and security".
Those are the words of Harold Macmillan in his book "The Middle Way". I sat in Parliament with that man—the great grandfather of the wets, who was well to the left of the present Government.
If as a democrat, an internationalist and a committed socialist I may endorse that view, I suspect that I would be doing so with the support of most people in the world, who do not benefit from the worship of money that we have been celebrating in this strange religious festival that we call a debate.
3.37 pm
Mr. John Gummer: It is a great pleasure for the House to hear a voice from the past. From the fascinating speech of the right hon. Member for Chesterfield (Mr. Benn), we understand how far we have moved in trying to face up to the fundamental question to which Harold Macmillan was addressing himself: how, in a global economy, do we implement mechanisms to ensure that the world works for the benefit of all rather than merely for those who are strong enough to impose themselves on it?
The World Trade Organisation ought to be such a mechanism. Indeed, it has been a failure of it that we have not ensured on a global scale the introduction of standards and attitudes that we at home have already sought to introduce. That is very hard to achieve; we cannot expect to achieve it quickly, but it is essential. Globalisation is not something to be proved or disproved; it is to be accepted as a fact. Then, we must decide how we try to turn it to the advantage of all.
I ought to declare an interest. As chairman of the Marine Stewardship Council, I felt it right to ensure that those of us who are concerned with sustainable development and the proper labelling of goods, so that people may make a choice, were heard in the WTO discussions. There was the opportunity to create the mechanism through which such global control could be partly achieved.
I thank the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry not only for what he had to say, but for the courtesy that he and his team of Ministers extended to the non-governmental organisations and others who were in Seattle. We were very well briefed and able at all times to make the points that we wanted to put. That does not mean that I always agree with the right hon. Gentleman. Indeed, on a number of issues, I do not. However, such openness might be contrasted with the WTO itself.
The first thing that we must establish in the WTO is a degree of openness and transparency. For example, it is not acceptable that a world organisation should make decisions affecting people's livelihoods and deal with appeals, without any knowledge of the relevant facts and papers. That is a closed, secret system. It ought to be an open system, so that we all know where we are.
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Secondly, it is not acceptable that democratically elected Parliaments should not have a voice in such an organisation. I am sorry that my hon. Friend the Member for Tiverton and Honiton (Mrs. Browning) did not welcome, as I hope she will in the future, the proposition that comes not from the Government, but from the Opposition originally, that there should be some means for the Parliaments of the member nations to express their views, as is the case in the Western European Union and other organisations. My hon. Friend said that she would examine the details with care, and I am sure that she will. When she does, she will see how valuable that could be. It is part of the openness that we need.
A world organisation should listen to the views of all the countries that are involved. When I represented the European Union as the chairman of the Agriculture Council at the WTO meeting in the Uruguay round, it became clear to me that decisions were made between two organisations—the United States and the European Union. Thank goodness we are a member of the EU, or we would not have that important role to play. Outside the EU, we would have the same role as all the other countries, which would be much less important than our role as a key constituent of one of the two principal negotiating organisations.
The reason is not that that has been ordained, or that it is considered the best way. It is because the two strongest trading organisations in the world are the European Union and the United States. I do not think much of the fact that the US internal elections are so important to the WTO, but that is a fact of life. Unless we make the EU strong enough to counterbalance the US, or to support the US when that is the right course, no meaningful negotiation will be possible in the WTO.
One of our problems is that we have not been prepared to recognise the only means of achieving the balance necessary to ensure that the most powerful nation in the world should not insist that the chairman of the WTO should also be its chief negotiator. Who could stop that happening? It is a disgrace, but because of that power, such decisions go unquestioned.
It is important for us to recognise that if the WTO is to be legitimate, it must be transparent, and if it is to be transparent, the poorest nations of the world must have their say. We have our say. Sometimes we do not do so as effectively as we should, but we have the opportunity. The poorest nations do not have the money to back up their views with research and the day to day opportunity to lobby that is available in Geneva.
A representative working in a back office with a half-working telephone and an old duplicating machine is in no position to put the same pressure on the WTO as the representatives of the rich countries can. We therefore support the Government's view that we should extend the opportunities given to poorer countries by the WTO. It must enable countries to play a proper part in an organisation that affects their future to such an extent.
It is essential for the WTO to recognise legitimate concerns about the way in which trade is conducted, which do not relate solely to trade. Those concerns are so closely linked to trade that they cannot be separated, but they cannot be summed up simply by demanding free trade. I have always been a supporter of free trade and I continue to fight for it; no hon. Member could suggest otherwise. That does not mean that democratically elected

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Governments, and groups of Governments, as in the EU, do not have the right to concern themselves with matters such as hormones in beef and genetically modified foods. Those are real issues, and we must find proper forums in which they can be ventilated.
It was quite inappropriate for the US to demand that the issue of GM foods should be discussed in the WTO. It was the US which, with four, and only four, allies, destroyed the biosafety meeting at Cartagena. Such a use of international muscle was wholly inappropriate. We must insist that those issues are discussed and decided in the forums designed for them, and not hijacked into the WTO.
The WTO must therefore accept that there is a parity of respect—a point that I tried to make to the right hon. Member for Chesterfield—for international decisions made at the biodiversity convention, the biosafety convention, the conference on sustainable development, the issues that we decide following Kyoto or Montreal, and all the development decisions that have been internationally accepted.
We should also respect the decisions of the International Labour Organisation on some of those issues, about which people rightly feel strongly. The attempt to make the WTO the sole arbiter was what brought people out on to the streets. I should tell the right hon. Member for Chesterfield that I witnessed those protests, initially from among those who were protesting and later, when the teargas and so on were used, from a vantage point that enabled me to see everything.
The policing was not wicked; it was totally incomepetent. The police tried to stop the protesters getting into the conference hall, but that is not what the protesters were trying to do. They wanted to stop the delegates getting into the conference hall, so the protesters joined the police on their barricades to make sure that the exclusion was democratically universal, rather than partial. It was bad policing, badly carried out, and did not set a good example to the rest of the world, but it was not malicious.
Those who were on the streets were in large measure trying to make a reasonable point—in the wrong way, but a reasonable point none the less: that they did not believe that free trade is the only good. For most of us, it is a good, but it is not the only good. We all need a market economy, but none of us can be content with a market society. There is more to life than mere free trade, but free trade is the means whereby those who have limited lives can be given richer lives. The WTO must provide the terms for that to be achieved.
We should recognise what an enormous restriction on our sovereignty the WTO is. The right hon. Member for Chesterfield is right about that. I sometimes find it difficult to understand some of my colleagues, who are worried about the restrictions placed on them in the EU, where they can ensure that things are done properly, whereas we have given to the WTO powers that no democratic Government have ever given up in the past—the powers of controlling excise duties and the like, the way in which trade operates and so on—which we do happily because we see the benefit, just as we should see the benefit in the EU.
Clare Short: I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman. Is it not the case that because of the speed with which
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capital moves round the world and the technology that goes with it, we cannot manage matters only at the national level? We must pool our sovereignty in international systems in order to exercise any sovereignty. The world is not giving it over to the WTO; without an international system, we could not manage the rules of international trade.
Mr. Gummer: The Secretary of State is absolutely right. We gain sovereignty by doing that. If we do not do that, we have no control over world capital flows, the way in which speculators affect currency or multinationals, which are larger and more powerful than many countries. The right hon. Member for Chesterfield proposes that we should give up all control over such matters and let those forces ride roughshod over us. We propose—and there is some synergy across the Chamber—a global society that is capable of drawing up the rules whereby those powerful forces can operate. The European Union does that in a regional way. For example, we acknowledge that we cannot deal with fishing on a national basis because fish do not have flags on their backsides. They swim around and need to be dealt with on a European level. Similarly, we cannot tackle the environment nationally when half our pollution comes from Europe and we export half the pollution that we produce to the rest of Europe.
We support a mechanism whereby we in the EU are sufficiently powerful to provide a counter-balance—and, good Lord, we have seen that that is necessary over the past few months—to our friends and allies in the United States, and to create the conditions for globalisation to become a benefit and not an incubus. The trouble with the argument of the right hon. Member for Chesterfield is that he opts out; everything is so terrible, unacceptable and impossible that he wants it to go on while he simply bemoans it. Luddites through the ages have done that. Their philosophy is, "Let's stop the world, we want to get off."
We need to control the forces that I have described. We will not do that unless we play an active part in the EU and unless it plays a proper part in the WTO.
3.52 pm
Ms Joan Walley: It is a sign of how far this place has progressed that I agree with so many of the remarks of the right hon. Member for Suffolk, Coastal (Mr. Gummer). He mentioned the mechanisms that are needed to make progress. They constitute perhaps one of our greatest challenges as we move towards the millennium.
There is currently a debate in Westminster Hall about modernising government. I was torn between attending that and attending the debate in the Chamber because, unless we can modernise government and create effective participation at every level of civil society and at every parliamentary level—not only ministerial level—on an issue that affects our planet, we shall not make the necessary progress towards making free trade fair trade, which is underpinned by environmental sustainability. If I convey only one lesson in the short time that I have to speak, that one is the most important.
We cannot simply consider what we need to do about free trade; we must link it to environmental sustainability. Our parliamentary institutions and our mechanisms for achieving that are outdated. I am a member of the Select Committee on Environmental Audit, which, like other

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Select Committees, has examined some of the issues that were raised in the millennium round in Seattle. From the evidence that we took in the short time available, it was clear that there is not enough transparency and openness. Nobody has worked out a means of linking free trade with multilateral environment agreements. The question is no longer whether, but how we make progress.
I regret that I was not in Seattle and that many people who would have liked to contribute initially to the debate through parliamentary discussion could not do that. We need to re-examine the opportunities for debate on such issues in the Chamber. We were promised a debate before the meeting in Seattle, and I regret that it did not take place. If Select Committees could have had an input into that debate, our constituents, who feel disfranchised and disengaged from events, could at least believe that our parliamentary scrutiny was making a difference to important, highly technical and complex issues. Those issues include considering the means of underpinning matters with the precautionary principle and re-examining labour standards. They are crucial matters to which we do not pay proper attention.
Let us consider transparency. Ministers negotiate on our behalf, but because of the Ponsonby rules, we do not have an opportunity for real participation in drawing up the bottom line of the negotiations. Whatever the outcome of the agenda for modernising the House, we must consider the way in which the Government, through their role in the EU and the global governance of our planet, can examine the crucial new international architecture more closely.
I know that many other hon. Members wish to speak, but I want to conclude by commenting on environmental sustainability and the way in which all the evidence before the Select Committee highlighted the fraught and flawed nature of the relationship between the WTO and the multilateral environment agreements. There is no common basis for ensuring that the precautionary principle is at the root of everything. Like me, my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State believes that it is important for developing countries to participate increasingly in trade. However, there is no point in trade if it means that, in the short term, we destroy biodiversity and the earth's resources and prevent sustained trade. We must work to underpin all trade with environmental sustainability. We do not currently have the means to achieve that, and we need to be radical, innovative and imaginative in the new institutional and architectural framework for the next millennium.
If our short debate can be a means of getting all the necessary partners—national and international—round the table, beginning to work through the complex procedure of simply deciding how we can put what needs to be discussed on the table, and understanding and slowly working through the contradictions, it will have achieved something, and held out some hope for the sort of policies that we support for the next millennium.
3.58 pm
Dr. Vincent Cable: The right hon. Member for Chesterfield (Mr. Benn) announced that I would speak in the Gladstonian free trade tradition. I shall try to live up to that. First, I must apologise for having to slip out later to move amendments in Committee. I hope that that is not viewed as a discourtesy.
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My points of departure from the right hon. Gentleman in many ways echo the Secretary of State's excellent statement. First, I support an open, liberal trading system, not as an abstract, ideological belief but because history shows that it is crucial to raising ordinary people's living standards, and especially those of people who live in poor countries. At the risk of embarrassing the Secretary of State, I want to praise her work. She has taken a lot of flak from some of the development lobbies, which have adopted a fashionable new protectionism. She has argued courageously that open markets benefit developing countries. She may have lost a few friends on the fringes of non-governmental organisations, but she has probably gained others in the developing world and elsewhere.
I want to emphasise the importance of the WTO, not only as free trading organisation—it is only partly that—but as an organisation that creates rules and upholds the rule of law. That is absolutely central and, within the rule of law, it often offers the weak their only protection from the strong.
Some of the key WTO decisions of the 1990s enraged some people in the United States because, for the first time, it found its unilateral actions being overturned by a judicial framework. Examples are Venezuelan gasoline, Mexican shrimps and the slightly comical case of Costa Rican underpants and in each, whatever the rights and wrongs of the deliberations—I have no way of judging them—the United States was talked down by a legal panel of representatives of many countries in the international community. Surely that is progress.
The key point, which leaves us all hanging in respect of the radical statements made by the right hon. Member for Chesterfield, concerns the alternative. The trouble is that nationalism and unilateral action of the worst possible kind are unleashed when such a system breaks down, and there are many historical precedents for that.
Today, we have been talking about the beef ban and the reactions to it. The two countries involved trade a lot and have a framework for settling disputes politically and legally, but the nationalism aroused in both countries by the ban points to the crucial need for an international framework for resolving such disagreements.
I return to what went wrong in Seattle. There has already been some analysis of that, but a finger has to be pointed at the United States. I am not talking simply about the procedural points and the lack of preparation; the demagogic statements of President Clinton and the idea of telling the developing countries that they will face sanctions for being poor were so damaging. I am sure that he made those statements for totally opportunistic reasons, but they were thoughtless and damaging. There are people in this country—they sit on the Benches alongside me—who argue that we should detach ourselves from the European Union to be closer to the United States, even to the extent of joining the North American Free Trade Agreement, but people often fail to understand that the United States, far from being the paragon of free-trading virtue, contains extreme isolationist and protectionist tendencies, on the left and the right. That is the kind of structure within which we would be moving.
The case for a new round of liberalisation was not properly made and, although we may find scapegoats for what went wrong, we are all to blame in a sense, as are all Governments. There was hardly any discussion of the round in the House, although its opponents were

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mobilising through the internet and their organisations, and hardly anybody made any attempt to explain its importance.
Last week, I asked in a parliamentary question whether the Government had made any estimate of the benefit to the average British family of the new round of trade liberalisation. I received the helpful answer that studies had been done and it was estimated that the benefit for the ordinary family could be roughly £4 to £5 a week, mainly from the liberalisation of agriculture. That is far more than such a family is likely to get back from the Chancellor in tax cuts; it would receive a tangible benefit if trade liberalisation could be made to work, but, although I am not pointing fingers, none of us has argued that case effectively.
Another comment has to be made about the Seattle round. Many of the NGOs that I have dealt with over the past few months—some of which have been forceful and articulate in putting their case—played a constructive role, raising valid questions about transparency, the environment and the exclusion of developing countries. Some, however, are deeply hostile to the globalisation concept and they went to Seattle to wreck the round. The people who were dancing in the streets at its end will, I am afraid, harvest a bitter fruit and we can already see some of the consequences of the breakdown of the negotiations. One is that the isolationist tendencies in the United States—which are led by people from evil forces on the far right such as Pat Buchanan, who was in Seattle egging on the demonstrators—will get a lease of life and a new form of legitimacy.
Another result of the protest and the breakdown of the talks is the new respectability that has been given to people who argue about the dangers of cheap labour and the link between trade and labour standards. The Secretary of State dealt with that well and I do not need to go over the arguments again, but we underestimate at our peril the extent of the prejudices associated with that issue—they run deep.
The right hon. Member for Chesterfield is not here, but he knows his political history. At the end of the 17th century, there were riots on the streets of London and workers smashed windows in Whitehall because they feared what was then regarded as coolie labour and early Indian textile products such as calico. Such prejudice has long been present. At the end of the 19th century, the Conservatives had one of their bouts of nationalism and Joseph Chamberlain almost came to power on a platform of protectionism and keeping out cheap labour products. Oswald Mosley adopted such policies in the 1930s. Protectionism is a powerful current in the United States and in France, where it has been taken up by the National Front.
A danger of the breakdown is that a new lease of life has been given to people who believe that importing products from poor countries with lower wages is fundamentally damaging and morally and ethically wrong. A final danger has not been touched on, although we need to watch it carefully. People from the establishment in Europe and the United States will resurrect the concept of the transatlantic partnership and say, "Let's have more trade liberalisation, but we don't want all these troublesome developing countries to be involved. They are getting in the way and creating problems. Let's get
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together with the Americans and hammer out a deal on electronic commerce, agriculture and a few tariffs and that will be it." We must be aware of that danger.
How can we turn things round and what positive issues can be taken forward? I welcome what the Secretary of State said about process and I emphasise a point that was touched on by the right hon. Member for Suffolk, Coastal (Mr. Gummer): transparency is partly to do with introducing democratic control. A Parliament for the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation already exists and he mentioned a Parliament for the WTO, which is an important idea. We should not simply introduce non-elected NGOs to the structure; elected people should be scrutinising it. The other process change has to be the recognition of developing countries as a legitimate force in the WTO—they have been shockingly marginalised and excluded—although in some of the proposals we are in danger of re-inventing the wheel.
I have been involved in the preparatory process of the past two rounds of negotiations and it was said on each occasion, "Let's pay much more attention to developing countries." The United Nations conference on trade and development and the Commonwealth Secretariat in particular did a great deal in that regard, but the issue is not simply being polite to lots of ambassadors and encouraging them to sit in meetings. Real political courage is involved in doing what those countries want—cutting tariffs and quotas, often on sensitive items.
I referred to textiles and clothing in an intervention and if people are serious about helping the lowest-income countries such as Bangladesh, we must phase out quotas on garments more rapidly and cut tariffs on footwear and textile products. Although that is politically difficult—it would be foolish to say to our constituents that it should be done overnight—we have to tackle those issues if we are serious about helping developing countries.
The hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent, North (Ms Walley) touched on the other issue for the future—how we integrate environment issues into trade—and I also want to discuss it. It is easy to use jargon and we can all say that trade rounds should be about sustainability; I am fully paid up to that idea, but what does it mean? The reconciliation of multilateral environment agreements with WTO rules is a practical problem, but it is vital and must be done. What would happen in practice if 40 mainly developed countries signed up for an international treaty—the Montreal protocol, for example, or a future treaty on climate change—and large numbers of developing countries, and China and India in particular, refused to sign? What would happen if sanctions were legitimised under the WTO? What quorum would have to be achieved before a multilateral environment agreement would be enforceable? That is the practical issue that has to be raised in respect of the environment. Another environmental issue is that if environmental pollution is not trans-boundary and it involves a company knocking down its tropical forests in an unsustainable way, who will say that it is right for other countries to impose sanctions against the offending country? It may be that it is the product of profiteering.
Clare Short: I agree with much of what the hon. Gentleman says, but surely we need mutual recognition of multilateral agreements and WTO rules. We should not use the WTO to enforce environmental agreements.

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We must have stronger enforcement systems within environmental agreements; otherwise we will get into terrible trouble.
Dr. Cable: The right hon. Lady is absolutely right. That is the way forward. There must be stronger recognition of multilateral environment agreements. However, there are hard questions to be faced. For example, if there is incompatibility, at what point can trade measures, which exist in the Montreal protocol, legitimately be raised? I raise the matter as a question and I do not have an answer. However, like the right hon. Lady, I recognise that it is a crucial issue. We must return to our constituencies and justify and support the WTO on the basis that it can uphold global and environmental agreements.
I began to touch on the other environmental question, which is what happens if a country is pursuing an environmental process that is unsustainable. That touches on the wider issue of ethics, which several hon. Members have mentioned. We all have ethical standards. Many of our constituents want to buy goods that are made in an environmentally friendly way and feel passionately about that. They want to ensure that ethical standards are applied and that the product does not incorporate genetically modified foods, for example.
We are trying to resolve two principles, and it is difficult to do so. One element is freedom of choice, in which we all believe. The customer must be free to choose what he or she wants to buy. That often involves an ethical dimension. Another element is that we do not want to see protectionism. How will the two principles be reconciled? One approach is labelling and another is that it may be necessary in some cases to introduce trade restrictions. That is a legitimate expression of a society's ethics. The way to deal with the matter is by means of compensation, either in cash or by allowing trade access in other areas, so that in no circumstances can there be an excuse for trade measures.
We are at a dangerous time. There is a real danger that the system will unravel and that all sorts of unhealthy, primeval nationalistic forces could emerge. The one source of encouragement that I derive is that we have been here before. The early 1990s saw a virtual breakdown of the Uruguay round. However, it was patched up. I think that the forces of common sense and internationalism will prevail, but we are at a dangerous time.
4.12
Ms Diane Abbott: The recent events in Seattle, although the violence was regrettable, had the virtue of focusing international attention on the activities of the World Trade Organisation.
It is important to understand that the supposed glories and benefits of free trade and the virtues of the WTO are seen in a different light by those who live in one of the third world developing countries which have been on the receiving end of globalisation and free trade.
It is worth reminding the House of the trade developments that we have seen in the past 10 or 20 years. Although we have seen a forward movement towards greater liberalisation and more free trade, the
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developments have not been to the benefit of many of the poorest people in the world. Although trade flows have tripled in recent years, the 48 poorest countries have seen their share of exports decline by half. Generally, the tariffs on their products, which they try to export into industrialised countries, remain high. Although we are all in favour of free trade, the process looks rather different in the third world. It looks rather different in the developing countries. The benign influence of the WTO looks very different from our view of it in the eyes of a country that does not have political muscle and cannot afford a flotilla of expensive lawyers and advisers. That is the position of a country that has come out on the bad end of some WTO decisions.
I shall detain the House by speaking for a few minutes about bananas. The interesting feature is that the issue illustrates all that is wrong with the WTO in the eyes of the developing world. We have heard much about globalisation and how the forward march of free trade cannot be opposed. We have heard also about the benign influence of the WTO and how it will make everyone richer. Even my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for International Development was saying that free trade is to the benefit of third world countries. Tell that to the eastern Caribbean. Tell that to poor rural producers of bananas.
Over the past 12 months, America has taken a case to the WTO to try to dismantle the special protection which ACP bananas, largely Caribbean bananas, get in European markets. The House may ask, what is wrong with that? What is wrong with America demanding a level playing field? I remind the House that America does not grow any bananas. We all know why America took the case to the WTO. It did so because big American multinationals such as Chiquita have made lavish donations to both Democrat and Republican politicians. Fuelled by that campaign money, and paying off political debts, American negotiators took a case to the WTO that was designed to smash the preferential access that Caribbean banana producers are now given by the European Union market.
Caribbean countries and the ACP are being asked to compete in open markets with multinational producers in south America such as Chiquita, which run plantation-type operations. They pay their workers little or nothing. They contribute nothing to the environment of the community. Small, rural and often family-owned banana producers are being asked to compete with such companies. They cannot do so. Their banana production does not have the economies of scale of the south American plantations. Those involved in the family-run smaller units try to pay themselves a living wage. They do not benefit from a system which enables the big south American producers to pay very low wages. They cannot compete in completely open markets. Up to 90 per cent. of the foreign exchange of some Caribbean countries—for example, Dominica and St. Lucia—is dependent on banana production, when their trade collapses as it will do if the Americans and the WTO get their way, what will the producers do?
I have heard some of my Government Front-Bench colleagues say that they should diversify. Much of the discussion until now about the WTO and free trade has been at the level of theory. I am talking about people's lives and what free trade means to those people. What will banana producers in Dominica, St. Lucia and even Jamaica, although it will not be the country worst affected

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by a collapse in trade, do? How will they diversify? Will they move into computer programming? Will banana producers in Portland, Jamaica or rural parts of St. Lucia diversify in that direction? No. They will diversify into the only other major agriculture cash crop in the Caribbean and south America, and that is drugs.
When politicians and commentators talk about the merits of free trade, they need to work things through to understand what it means in some peoples lives. Many banana producers in the eastern Caribbean are already being forced out of business. In December 1997 the Select Committee on International Development put these issues to Mr. Eglin, the WTO's director of development, he said:
"The WTO is there to run a set of rules that essentially open markets."
He added:
"And then the markets do what the markets do."
The markets in the eastern Caribbean and in other banana regions are forcing thousands of people into destitution and poverty. These are people who do not want to be dependent on handouts, charity or goodwill. They simply want to grow their bananas, sell them, make a living, send their children to school and lead a genuinely independent life.
Mr. Gummer: Will the hon. Lady give way?
Ms Abbott: I would not normally stop someone from intervening, but, with respect, I have only a limited amount of time.
The WTO sees itself as operating a neutral system that allows markets to do what markets do. In the specific instance of banana producers in the Caribbean and in many other instances, which I am sure other hon. Members could cite, markets are forcing poor people to ruination.
It does not seem to matter to the WTO that Caribbean countries that are having such a dreadful time because of the threat to their banana industries are, in other respects, examples of the good governance and stable democracy of which we are supposed be in favour. It does not seem to matter that 90 per cent. of their foreign exchange earnings depend on that crop. America has come calling, backed by big multinational money and everything is subservient to that. That is why so many people are angry with the WTO. That is why so many people in the third world are worried about the forward march of globalisation and free trade.
Like a mantra, Ministers, the Opposition and the Liberal Democrat spokesman talk about the glories of free trade. What I want to know is: if free trade is so good, why do not Germany, Japan and America go in for more of it? It is a bit like hard work. One of the mantras of new Labour is that everyone should go out to work. I am an old-fashioned socialist, as the House knows. I always say: if work is so wonderful, why do not rich people do more of it? We cannot for a minute have free trade in exporting rice to Japan. Through all manner of means, the Japanese have protected their rice industry and the communities that depend on it.
As for freely exporting agricultural produce to America and Europe, one of the worst things about the free trade regime that we are asked to applaud this afternoon is that the domestic agricultural industries of small third world
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countries are forced into ruin because of competition from some of the most heavily subsidised agricultural industries in the world: those in the European Union and America. How dare American and European politicians lecture the world on free trade when their agriculture is so heavily subsidised?
Of course free trade is important. Of course, the WTO's role of setting the rules and attempting to have a level playing field is important, but let us not forget that the world operates at the level not just of abstraction and theory, but of real people and their lives. If the House could talk to some of the poor rural people in the Caribbean to whom I have talked about how they see the WTO's activities, we would not hear the unthinking praise of free trade that we have.
Something can be gained from the collapse of the Seattle round. All sides should come to the table genuinely to ensure that the WTO empowers poorer and developing countries, to bring transparency to its activities and, above all, to find a way and framework in which the issues of poverty reduction, development and genuine equality in the world order can be brought to bear in the sterile workings of the WTO.
4.24 pm
Mr. David Curry: Those who argue against the virtues of free trade should consider the opposite, which has been tried for a long period and has demonstrably not worked. I happen to be the director of an organisation that seeks to help countries that were within the Soviet orbit and are now democracies to build capacity, democratic institutions, a neutral police force and a neutral civil service. One of the things that they all seek to do is join the World Trade Organisation to establish free trade because they see it as a buttress of the democratic process. The creation of open markets is seen as part and parcel of that process.
Therefore, in talking about free trade, let us not think that we are talking merely about something that represents the self-interest of multinational corporations and that it is remote from the way people lead their lives. There is a close link between being able to choose what we buy and being able to choose whom we vote for. We should keep those two things closely in correlation.
It has been an interesting debate. The right hon. Member for Chesterfield (Mr. Benn) talked about the problems of the global economy and multinationals and then praised the protesters. Of course, the protesters were brought together by the exploitation of the industry that perhaps represents global technology at its most efficient: the internet and e-mail. We should call it the Microsoft soft round if we were to acknowledge the role that Mr. Bill Gates is likely to play in the final outcome. Here is a global industry that has empowered the individual. The individual with a computer and a terminal has never been so powerful, able as he is to participate so effectively in world affairs. Global business is being matched by the global lobby, so the balance is maintained but in a different dimension.
I still think that the argument for free trade is overwhelming because it has been the motor of economic growth since the war. The growth in trade has run ahead of the growth of the economies of all participating members. It is a moral as well as a material argument. Cutting trade barriers is cutting taxes cut for every citizen.

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The WTO is obviously the victim of its own success. It is being asked to deal with problems that are not its to deal with; they are the business of other bodies. That is not to say that we should not recognise those other concerns. The argument is not about whether they are legitimate, but about the correct way in which to progress those concerns. What is the mechanism that works without destroying what we have already?
A trade body cannot deal and should not be asked to deal with labour conditions. It should not be asked to deal with the environment. If we are going to tackle those issues—frankly, the WTO neither creates nor solves environmental problems—we need effective international bodies. The WTO should be the model for those bodies, not the model to be demolished.
We have to recognise—as the Secretary of State for International Development and my right hon. Friend the Member for Suffolk, Coastal (Mr. Gummer) have said—that issues are interrelated. For example, the great Kyoto negotiations took place some years ago. I have a strong suspicion that my right hon. Friend was at those as well. He appears to have a particular entrée to such negotiations. It is a particular predilection, but it is one that he has so I can understand his wishing to pursue it.
The Kyoto agreement has not yet been ratified. It would be absurd to seek an agreement on a new world trade round that made it impossible to implement the Kyoto agreement. That is what we mean by the establishment of relationships between separate processes, but it is important that Government should attribute the same importance to those different processes, so that they are not seen to regard one as mandatory and another as discretionary.
Again, the concerns about labour market conditions and the environment are important, but, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Suffolk, Coastal has said, labelling, which gives the consumer a choice, is one of the ways in which to deal with those concerns. If developing countries are not satisfied with what we have at the moment, they will need a new round as well. If they like what we have at the moment, that is fine. If the exploitation that the hon. Member for Hackney, North and Stoke Newington (Ms Abbott) talked about really is a problem, surely that will indicate the urgency of a new world trade round, not that we should withdraw from the structure that seeks to create a framework of regulation.
Let us remember that Europe has proposed duty-free entry for industrial goods from the least developed countries in the face of hostility from the United States. It has to be repeated: the choice is not between global capitalism and a village economy that is based on three acres and a cow; the choice is between the existence of an international trade framework and the non-existence of such a framework, whereby the richest and most powerful world corporations will be even more powerful than they are now.
It is the job of politicians to try to promote globalisation upwards so that if business is globalising, we develop political frameworks that are capable of operating at the multinational level. We should seek also to push down to people political democratic responsibility so that they are able to deal with their own affairs. Globalisation is one phenomenon of the modern world, but atomization—
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pushing down responsibility to, for example, a school board or to a community group, perhaps to administer a regeneration programme—is another, complementary one.
At Seattle, the real crisis was provoked by the inexcusable behaviour of the United States in insisting not only on provisions on labour conditions, but on conditions backed by trade sanctions. It is worth remembering that it was the United States that called for the new round, that designated Seattle and that decided on the high-profile presidential launch. If the United States decided that the interests of protectionist trade unions mattered more than other considerations, it might have been better if it had made that choice earlier. We have been there before, and we know the destructiveness of such demands.
Three years ago, at the previous WTO ministerial meeting, in Singapore, we heard exactly the same row, over exactly the same issue, and it took five days to resolve. It was resolved only because a group of developed and developing countries—including India and Pakistan, with South Africa acting as go-between—managed to construct a compromise that dropped the demand for trade sanctions to back rules on labour market behaviour.
President Clinton has dropped the demand, which itself was another example of destructive high-level bombing with inadequate identification of the target. It is difficult to appreciate the logic in, for example, negotiating with China on WTO entry but saying that sanctions to back labour market regulation are an indispensable United States demand. The statements are incompatible and are simply an invitation to Congress to refuse to ratify Chinese WTO membership. It is a regrettable incoherence in the American position.
My hon. Friend the Member for Tiverton and Honiton (Mrs. Browning) mentioned agriculture. Agriculture is not merely the dog that did not bark in the negotiations; it is the dog that does not need to bark in such negotiations. The future of agricultural reform was prescribed in the Uruguay round of negotiations—not only the direction of agricultural reform but the reform timetable has been prescribed in those negotiations.
The matters that the Government agreed at the most recent round on common agricultural policy reforms were more academic than important. However badly the Prime Minister behaves, the European Union is locked into those negotiations and has no option but to reform. The European Union knows that if it wants to participate in world food markets, the time is limited in which it may do so with the aid of subsidy. Reform is an inescapable part of those negotiations, which have already been signed and sealed, and does not depend on the Seattle process to continue.
In earlier negotiations President Reagan made the same extreme demands, which were dealt with. President Clinton is now repeating the demands, although it is perhaps worth noticing that, for the past few years, he has been hurling money at American farmers in response to some of the crises in American agriculture.
We therefore have the familiar ritual between the Europeans and Americans. To avoid too much focus on agriculture, the European Union tables lots of other demands, which are meritorious in their own right, as a form of electronic interdiction; to avoid those demands, the United States and the Cairns group table offers that the European Union finds attractive and important.

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The European Union is tempted by, for example, proposals addressing important issues such as intellectual property. Anti-dumping is another important issue which is used abusively, particularly by the United States.
The demonstrators were often arguing against each other. However much the trade unions ascribed to themselves the right to prescribe what the developing world wanted, they were arguing against the stated interests of the developing world.
There is a real moral choice in the matter. What is the moral response to a situation in which a child in India is making footballs to pay for food for the family or for education? How many people in India, perhaps working in airline ticket processing offices, come from families who owe their start to practices that we should not wish to have in our own country and should like to see ended in India? Addressing those issues will involve a moral choice, and not a simplistic one. As the Secretary of State for International Development said, the danger is that we will push developing countries further into poverty by blocking the one avenue that they have to exploit a resource they have—currently, cheap labour is a resource that they have.
Targeting globalisation seems to be politically easy, but is intellectually and economically misplaced. Globalisation is a much smaller cause of job loss than is technical change, deregulation, competition and changing consumer tastes. The response to globalisation should entail a much greater emphasis on training and education. Labour standards, like birth rates, are largely a function of economic development. Trade sanctions cannot effectively improve labour standards.
I do not think that there are irreconcilable differences. The WTO is now on its ninth round, and there have been crises before. However, the round must be launched as soon as possible. Although, realistically, we shall probably have to wait for the new American President to be in office before the new round commences, reform should not depend on that.
There are various interesting reform proposals, such as opening up the disputes procedure, which was an improvement on previous mechanisms. We now have a system whereby disputes are brought into a forum that provides a sanctioned retaliation process. Previously, the retaliation process was wild.
The disadvantage is that the current system is a prism that tends to focus debates on, for example, bananas—which the hon. Member for Hackney, North and Stoke Newington was talking about—or on beef hormones, which my right hon. Friend the Member for Suffolk, Coastal dealt with. We have at least to ensure that, in those arguments, perhaps non-governmental organisations are able to make representations so that the balance of argument may be weighed more transparently, and perhaps also so that a greater range of arguments is considered in the debate.
I sympathise with the view expressed by my right hon. Friend the Member for Suffolk, Coastal that perhaps a parliamentary scrutiny body could at least enable the WTO to explain and make its case more effectively.
I hope that the Government will do two things, the first of which is to argue the moral case for free trade. The Government often show a marked reluctance to argue their case. Although they say that they are intellectually convinced on an issue, they do not seem to want to
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convince anyone else of it. The Secretary of State for International Development is an exception to that. I noticed that the recent problem with the euro was dealt with by having the Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office, the hon. Member for Leicester, East (Mr. Vaz), trundle around on a train or on a bus, whereas the Chancellor of the Exchequer remained in absolute Trappist silence throughout. There has not always been such silence.
Although the current argument on Anglo-French defence has much merit in it, the running has been made entirely by opponents of joint defence. The Government do not seem to want to get out and argue their case. World trade is more important than either of those issues; the Government must therefore get out and argue their case.
Secondly, the Government must recognise the validity of the concerns that have been expressed, at least when those concerns are not simply protectionism masquerading as altruism. However, they have to pursue the matters in appropriate bodies, with sensibly established relationships and structure. That is where process really is important.
We shall probably have to wait until after the United States elections to have someone with the confidence to be able to take the negotiations forward, free from a political timetable. The issues are enormous, material in their effect, moral in their force and—I persist in believing, despite the representations of some Labour Members—essentially intertwined both with individual empowerment and improving the democratic process on our planet.
4.38 pm
Joan Ruddock: I thank my right hon. Friends for all the initiatives that they have taken in this matter and that they have conveyed to the House today.
Although I was very much of a sceptic before the Seattle talks began, I accepted and supported the Government's aims of trying to balance free trade with environmental and developmental concerns—in short, trying to make the World Trade Organisation work for the world's poor rather than, in Oxfam's words, being "loaded against the poor". However, when it became clear that Commissioner Lamy had entered into a stitch-up with United States negotiators on genetically modified organisms, I for one was relieved that the talks had failed, since such a deal would have been profoundly unethical, undemocratic and hugely damaging to developing countries.
The World Trade Organisation's attitude to genetically modified organisms goes to the heart of a rules-based system. What should take priority—the rules on free trade or those designed to protect people and the environment? Compromises are often desirable, but they are not always possible. Sometimes an absolute choice has to be made.
By common consent, the jury is out in Europe on GMOs. We cannot be sure that there are no long-term effects on animals or humans from eating them and we have a host of reasons for believing that they may have adverse effects on our environment. To their great credit, Labour Ministers have adopted the precautionary principle, after the previous Government's reckless leap into the dark. United Kingdom citizens have the right to say no to GMOs and to insist on accurate labelling and separation. In the United States, no such consumer rights

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were developed alongside the new technologies. In Seattle it became clear that the United States was determined to use the WTO to threaten the rights of citizens and Governments worldwide to restrict trade in genetically modified organisms.
Earlier this year, as the right hon. Member for Suffolk, Coastal (Mr. Gummer) recalled, the same US intransigence over the hierarchy of rules and their insistence on free trade above all else caused the breakdown of the talks on the biosafety protocol, which is the appropriate forum for a discussion of genetic engineering. GMOs raise health, environmental, social and economic issues that cannot and should not be dealt with in the WTO. The potential risks and impact of GMOs in the UK have been well rehearsed in the House and I do not propose to dwell on them, but the economic consequences for the developing world are less well known.
World trade in biotechnology is not about improving crops for home consumption, but about controlling the production of food for export markets, including from developing countries to rich consuming industrialised countries. Closely allied to the development of genetically modified crops is the business of patenting life forms, covered by the World Trade Organisation trade-related intellectual property agreement—TRIPS for short. Both are profoundly threatening to the three quarters of the developing world's population who live and trade or die on the land.
The development charity ActionAid has documented the threats in a recent report called "Crops and Robbers". Proper concern for safety and the environment has led the Government to limit the introduction of GM crops to farm-scale trials and monitoring for a minimum of three years. Within those three years, the biotech companies expect 550 million hectares—more than half of the GM crops planted worldwide—to be planted in developing countries. The lobbying of those companies, in concert with the United States, led to the collapse of the talks on the biosafety protocol, which was aimed at developing an agreement on the safe transfer, handling and use of GMOs.
The consequences for poor farmers in developing countries are profound. Seed saving is a way of life for 1.4 billion farmers around the developing world. Using GM patented seed means having to buy new every year. It means having to buy the relevant pesticides or herbicides and becoming enslaved to corporate agri-business. I shall share with the House the bizarre but true story of a farmer caught up in such agri-business. He grew his oilseed rape every year for 40 years. He sprayed the edges of his fields with herbicide that killed the weeds and any oilseed rape in the vicinity. Imagine his surprise when last year all the weeds died but the oilseed rape continued to grow. The farmer grew his crops from his own saved seed, but his neighbours were growing GM herbicide-resistant oilseed rape. He quickly realised that his crop had become contaminated with the GM crop.
Hon. Members might believe that the farmer had cause to complain to Monsanto. On the contrary, Monsanto sued him, demanding the return of the seeds or the crop containing the patented genes, plus punitive damages for illegally obtaining the seeds, plus the company's court costs. That is the nature of the biotech company that confronts the world's poorest farmers, yet the story that I
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have related is not that of a poor South American or Indian farmer. He is a third generation Canadian farmer with a prairie farm. Percy Schmeiser is now counter-suing Monsanto for defamation and what he calls disregarding the environment. As he said, he did not watch his grandparents clear the land and build a farm to have the profits taken over by a big multinational. The world's poor farmers would share his sentiments, but they have no way of mounting such a legal challenge and defence.
In parallel with the loss of control for nation states and individual farmers over trade in GM crops comes a new threat: the extraction and patenting of individual genes, proteins and gene sequences. The south is the source of 90 per cent. of the world's biological wealth, yet industrialised nations hold 97 per cent. of all patents. Already corporate control extends over the world's staple crops through patents on forms of maize, potato, soya bean and wheat. The higher prices on patented seeds and accompanying royalties are likely to outweigh any possible benefit that genetically modified crops might bring to poorer farmers.
Even more alarming is the potential for substitution of whole crops in the laboratory. The 600,000 cocoa farmers in Ghana provide about 40 per cent. of their country's foreign exchange income. What would happen to the Ghanaian economy if the west no longer wanted cocoa? It could happen. Mars UK has just obtained two patents on the genes for cocoa flavour from west African cocoa and Dupont has a patent for a gene that can produce a substitute for cocoa butter.
I have limited my remarks today to aspects of TRIPS because of its central importance to food security and trade for developing countries. I believe—as do many non-governmental organisations such as ActionAid, Oxfam and the World Development Movement—that TRIPS should be amended to enable countries to exclude from patentability all genetic sources for food and agriculture. While the crucial distinction between invention and discovery should protect such sources at present, the bio-piracy cases, such as basmati rice, prove otherwise.
I urge my right hon. Friends closely to consider the evidence for such amendment because, as other speakers have noted today, these talks are part of the continuing round, not a new round. The collapse of the Seattle talks has given us much-needed breathing space. I very much welcome my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State's commitment to the reform of the WTO. The leading role of the UK Government is especially welcome, given our close links with the many developing countries in the Commonwealth.
Many of the reports from Seattle suggested opposing agendas between NGOs, and between NGOs and developing countries. I was not there, and although I am sure that there is some truth in that, I have met many NGOs in this country—particularly from the development field—and their conclusions on the way forward show a remarkable degree of consensus. I urge my right hon. Friends to continue the dialogue with them.
Ways must be found to make the WTO more transparent and more democratic. The growing voice of the poorest countries must be given due weight, and the review of the processes must include an assessment of the impact of the WTO agreements to date, including the Marrakesh decision, which has never been implemented.

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New guiding principles—including sustainable development and poverty reduction—are required. Critically, the relationship between the WTO rules and international conventions and treaties on human rights and the environment—particularly biodiversity—must be clarified.
I warmly welcome the Government's proposals for reform. I say to Ministers that they will have the support of all right hon. and hon. Members if they pursue with the utmost vigour the establishment of a democratic rules-based trading system that has poverty reduction at its heart.
4.50 pm
Mr. John Horam: I am glad that the hon. Member for Lewisham, Deptford (Joan Ruddock) referred to trade-related intellectual property rights, which are extremely important and can be discussed now, as they are a subject for review. There is also the advice from the sustainable development panel to take into account. Something can be done here and now, irrespective of what happened at Seattle, which is of immense importance to agriculture in the third world.
The approach that my hon. Friends and I who serve on the Select Committee on Environmental Audit have taken to these issues has been through the spectrum of sustainable development. That concept has become very chi-chi and acceptable in recent years, and has strengths and weaknesses, but in this context, it is highly relevant. We are looking not only at economic and trading questions, but particularly at social questions arising from the horrendous poverty in the low-income countries of the world and at the environmental damage that trade can do. It is particularly important to see these issues in that context.
The Government's willingness to take account of environmental as well as developmental considerations has been impressive. I was glad that the Minister for the Environment was present in Seattle as well as the Secretary of State for International Development.
Having praised the Government, I shall now take a little of that praise away. The Select Committee report criticised the Government for one fundamental flaw in their approach to the negotiations, relating to the choice that they had to make between going for a comprehensive round and the built-in agenda from the previous Uruguay round. The Government made a mistake in going for the comprehensive round rather than the built-in agenda, which is limited to agriculture and services.
Clare Short: I know that the hon. Gentleman is concerned about the environment, and anyone who wants change must accept the need for mutual recognition of multilateral environmental agreements. We need enough issues on the table for all sides to gain enough, so that they will move to get an agreement. We cannot get an agreement on new and complex issues without a broader round.
Mr. Horam: I do not agree with the Secretary of State. She used the word "complex" and these are very complex issues. The problem is that the capacity of many of these countries to deal with complex issues—which are made more complicated if they are expanded—is limited. As we know, the United States has 250 permanent
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representatives in Geneva, while 35 countries have none. We need to build capacity if we are to deal with the complex issues.
In addition, it is not just a question of the capacity of the countries of the third world—it is also a question of their suspicions. The hon. Member for Hackney, North and Stoke Newington (Ms Abbott) said, rightly, that we have to look at the matter from their perspective as well as our own. The deal that those countries have got over the past 20 years as a result of successive trade rounds is not very good.
The World Development Movement has stated that 59 of the poorest countries of the world have seen their gross domestic product decline over the past 15 years. We are used to an ever-expanding GDP. We think it is a terrible problem if our GDP does not expand for two quarters in a row, whereas those 59 countries have seen a 15-year decline. When it comes to trade liberalisation, therefore, we have to address questions of trust and suspicion
One reason for the decline is the collapse in commodity prices, which has been a huge factor in depressing the standard of living in many third-world countries, and there are also political reasons. However, some trade liberalisation has contributed to the collapse in the standard of living in some of the poorest countries. It is not only the concept of trade liberalisation being put into practice that has presented them with difficulties, but the fact that it has not been well implemented. Some of the provisions for agriculture and textiles, which would have benefited the poorer countries, have not been implemented, but others, which damage them, have. Those poorer countries regard trade liberalisation with great suspicion and we have to take that into account.
No proper appraisal has been made of the consequences for the world of the previous trade rounds. As we know, the European Union, which is representing the UK in the rounds, has begun a process of appraisal. As it happens, it has been mainly done in this country and Manchester university has taken the lead in the research. However, what has been done so far is purely a scoping exercise and the real appraisal has yet to come. Despite that, we are talking about starting a further round in the next calendar year. We need a properly sequenced appraisal of the consequences of the last round to enable us to learn the lessons from it before starting the next round. It has been pointed out by hon. Members on both sides of the House that the existing discussions have not been open enough. That is not just a question of the relationship with civil society—although that is important, as several hon. Members have said—it relates to what actually happened in Seattle. I was not there, unlike my right hon. Friend the Member for Suffolk, Coastal (Mr. Gummer), who always seems to be at the big environmental dos. I wish I had his luck. The fact remains that many who were invited to the conference by the director general of the WTO found that they were locked out of the so-called green room, where 30 or so of the leading countries were holding the real negotiations. It is no wonder that the excluded representatives were reduced to thumping the table and behaving in a somewhat unmannerly fashion when they discovered the real situation.
I would plead for a more inclusive approach—and the Environmental Audit Committee would, I believe, take a similar line—which is essential, as well as a more measured approach. People say that we cannot turn back

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the clock—that we must carry on. Why? Trade happens every day. Do we need to rush into something that could have serious adverse consequences for participants without thinking more clearly about the effects?
I agree with the hon. Member for Lewisham, Deptford (Joan Ruddock) and others about the advice that is being given to the Government as they move forward. I would like to see the conference on reform of the WTO actually taking place and being taken seriously. Who takes part and how participation takes place are both important. I should like to see the funding of increased capacity to take part in the negotiations being taken seriously and I welcomed the words of the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry about the Government's commitment to that.
The interface of the negotiations with environmental treaties should also be considered, and that can be done separately from the other discussions. For example, the multilateral environmental agreements, of which there are some 230 throughout the world, must be examined closely. The European Union, which is our negotiating arm, must take environmental questions more seriously than it has so far.
I recommend to the House the further report by the Environmental Audit Committee. In addition to the one we produced on the agenda for Seattle, we also produced one on the agenda for Helsinki, which starts this evening. We point out that environmental integration should be a top priority. Whatever other issues the heads of state address, we want to see the importance of the environment being brought into the mainstream of European thinking.
5 pm
Mr. Stuart Bell: I am pleased to follow the hon. Member for Orpington (Mr. Horam), with whose analysis of the early situation I entirely agree. In opposition, I was shadow Minister for Trade: I thought then that it was more appropriate to complete the Uruguay round before a new, comprehensive round was embarked on. That was also the view of the United States Government at the time.
However, a conversion on the road to Damascus—or Seattle—changed the US opinion, with the consequences that we all saw. The conference was ill prepared, and different nations had different agendas. For example, Japan and India were concerned about the US stance on anti-dumping, while the UK had an agenda towards the third world; the US had an agenda with regard to the common agricultural policy, and the European nations had an agenda of their own. No country had an agenda for itself, but all countries had agendas for other countries. It was not surprising, therefore, that the talks collapsed early.
The hon. Member for Orpington mentioned the green room discussions that took place towards the end of the conference. I agree with him that many countries did not attend the talks because they could not afford to go. However, until the green room talks, the fact that meetings were split between four groups of countries meant that all countries attending had an opportunity to take part in the discussions. The problem was that all countries had a set agenda from which they were not prepared to move. The conference collapsed because most of the member states attending thought that that was preferable to reaching agreement. That does not augur well for any future round of talks.
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The hon. Member for Orpington also made the interesting point that, after all the trade round discussions held over many years, the gross domestic product of 59 countries had fallen. However, as he noted, the collapse of commodity prices demonstrated that other economic forces were at work. Those forces impinge on the development of free trade but are related neither to the conference at Seattle, nor to the World Trade Organisation.
I was highly impressed by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry, not only for his speech today but for his conduct at the discussions and negotiations in Seattle. I continue to follow trade matters, especially in the European context, and many observers from outside our country who were at Seattle have commented on my right hon. Friend's performance.
My right hon. Friend spoke of trade liberalisation into the 21st century. We should be grateful for small mercies—in this case, the fact that he did not talk about trying to lay down a trade policy that would last through the next millennium. Instead, he was content with a policy for the next 100 years.
I am grateful to my right hon. Friend the Member for Chesterfield (Mr. Benn) and to my hon. Friend the Member for Hackney, North and Stoke Newington (Ms Abbott) for ensuring that the case of poor countries has been heard today. However, after what happened in Seattle, all nation states, rich and poor alike, will feel the need to move forward on a number of fronts in the face of increasing globalisation.
When we consider Seattle, we need to get the context right. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State was right to point out the significance and importance of trade for the United Kingdom. We are the fifth largest exporter of goods and services in the world: 25 per cent. of our GDP takes the form of exports, and 5 per cent. of all world trade emanates from the UK. We must not overlook those facts.
The Labour party has always said, in opposition and in government, that it believes in the goal of fair and balanced trade under the auspices of rules-based organisations such as the European Union and the WTO. The rules of the WTO appear to have worked effectively, and its disputes panel has done its job. Although we in the European Union may be unhappy that rulings on banana importations—referred to by my hon. Friend the Member for Hackney, North and Stoke Newington—and on hormone-treated beef have gone against us, it should be noted that the WTO has also found against the United States on behalf of Venezuela, Brazil and Costa Rica.
The hon. Member for Tiverton and Honiton (Mrs. Browning) listed earlier a number of sectors in our country which have been penalised as a consequence of the WTO's decision on banana importations. As a result of a debate in this House and the representations of the Department of Trade and Industry, the cashmere industry was removed from the list. The combined consequence of events in Seattle, the disputes panel and the fact that no overall agreement was reached is likely to be more skirmishing rather than a trade war.
The hon. Member for Twickenham (Dr. Cable) made an impressive and cognisant speech. He clearly knows his subject well—he even knew that the WTO had bowed to Costa Rica. The United States has lost cases before the disputes panel. The right hon. Member for Suffolk,

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Coastal (Mr. Gummer) touched on that in his speech, saying that it was surprising how much power we had given away to the World Trade Organisation. The hon. Member for Twickenham also mentioned that.
What do we want? Do we want to deal with a rules-based trade organisation? Do we want to withdraw our ambassador when we have a trade dispute? Do we want to send in a gunboat, as we did in the last century? Or are we willing to submit our disputes to the World Trade Organisation and the disputes panel? We have to live with the fact that the WTO is rules based and has a disputes panel, and we should accept its rulings.
My right hon. Friend the Member for Chesterfield referred to workers' rights. They were, and should be, at the heart of the programmes for the WTO. The essence of the former general agreement on tariffs and trade was that nation states would recognise that the economic endeavours in their trade relationships would be a quest to raise living standards. Trade deals and trade organisations count for nothing if they do not raise the living standards of people throughout the world. The essence of GATT, which has been passed on to the World Trade Organisation, is that an effort should be made not only to raise living standards but to ensure full employment, built upon the development of the world's resources by expanding the production and exchange of goods.
Workers' rights are extremely important. The hon. Member for Tiverton and Honiton spoke about child labour, as did the right hon. Member for Skipton and Ripon (Mr. Curry). We should not be afraid to look at the issue. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State referred to a conference at INSEAD, just outside Paris, where they discussed bringing in the International Labour Organisation, the World Trade Organisation, the United Nations and the World Bank to examine workers' rights. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for International Development said, quite rightly, that they should run in parallel—the ILO should look at workers' rights and the WTO should look at trade matters. If we work along those lines, we should reach a consensus.
My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry also mentioned tariff-free reimportations from less developed countries. That proposal has been put to the European Union. I hope that it will be put to the conference on 15 December between the United States and the European Union.
I could have wished for more time in which to speak in this debate, but I want to allow as many of my hon. Friends as possible to speak. After Seattle, there may be a mountain to climb on the terms of a new negotiating round, on the so-called inbuilt agenda, on accessions such as that of China and on the business of applying the rules transparently and consistently to all. It is said that faith can move mountains—that, of course, is not the case. I am grateful to my right hon. Friend the Member for Chesterfield, who twice referred to the deity in his speech.
In fact, it is not faith but the illusion of faith that moves mountains, which will inspire men and women of good will to seek to advance in the areas left in abeyance at Seattle. They will do so not to satisfy narrow commercial interests, or to satisfy profit as greed, or to serve mammon, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Chesterfield said. We want the member states of the WTO to seek development in their countries so that
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individuals—men and women—may have opportunities. Those opportunities should apply not only to those living today, but to their children in their lifetimes.
When the dust has settled in Seattle, and when the pepper gas that afflicted even the right hon. Member for Suffolk, Coastal has dispersed, we shall see what the trade agenda is. If we move slowly, we should move positively. We should fully support the proposals advanced today by the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry for both the EU and the WTO.
Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Michael J. Martin): Order. Several hon. Members have asked me when they might be called to speak. I have not been able to assist them until now, but as six more hon. Members wish to speak, if each of them takes 12 minutes, we should be just in time for the wind-up speeches. I am in the hands of the hon. Members concerned; if they speak for longer than 12 minutes, as they are entitled to do, someone will be disappointed.
5.11 pm
Mr. Jeremy Corbyn: In a spirit of negotiation, Mr. Deputy Speaker, may I offer you 10 minutes? That will allow others to go on a bit longer as I am sure that they will have much to say.
The World Trade Organisation is portrayed as trying to sort out the problems that face the poorest peoples of the world. However, some figures may depress those who claim that increasing free trade around the world helps the poorest. Since the Uruguay round, world trade has increased by roughly £200 billion. Some 70 per cent. of the benefits have gone to industrialised countries. Transnational corporations control 70 per cent. of world trade and 80 per cent. of all foreign investment. One third of developing country members of the general agreement on tariffs and trade earn most of their foreign exchange from agriculture, and a fifth or more of it from textiles and clothing—the two sectors most prayed against by the richest countries of the world.
Since Uruguay, the reality has been a rapid shift of power and wealth from the poorest countries to the richest. To say that benefit has been fairly spread is to fly in the face of reality. All that my hon. Friend the Member for Hackney, North and Stoke Newington (Ms Abbott) said about the plight of small farmers in the eastern Caribbean could be repeated 100 times for countries throughout sub-Saharan Africa in which agricultural production has been damaged by the import of western food, and where manufacturing industry is at a standstill in countries not allowed to sell their goods elsewhere. Yet those countries are told that the most important thing in the world is to pay off their debts and adopt the programmes of good governance ordained by the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank.
As we reach the end of the 20th century, I see a bitterly divided world. The gap between the richest and the poorest has never been bigger, and it is growing fast. The poorest people in the poorest countries face an ever-tightening spiral of worse living standards, worse education and worse public services. They also face greater investment of multinational capital as it exploits the low wages on offer.
The global environment is being seriously damaged. Sustainable agriculture is best performed by small farmers who understand the environments in which they work.

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The Jamaican and Caribbean banana producers described by my hon. Friend the Member for Hackney, North and Stoke Newington have practised sustainable agriculture for several hundred years. The prairie-type farming techniques of the big banana producers in central America and Colombia devastate the environment with their high-intensity use of pesticides and herbicides. In the long term, they are also extremely damaging to the ecosystem. They have destroyed rain forests to ensure that sort of production, whereas the small farmers that my hon. Friend described work in sympathy with their environment and have a sustainable form of living. Those issues are very important.
Likewise, the ever-present demand that we should rapidly increase world trade means more travel—more ships and more aircraft. There seems to be something fundamentally wrong when vegetables are air-freighted from the poorest countries, such as Zambia, to European supermarkets to make money for certain companies, but children in Zambia are going without; and when children and others are doing badly in such countries. There is something badly wrong with an economic system that encourages that sort of nonsense.
We need to consider what could be possible and what needs to be done post-Seattle. I have some questions, with which I hope the Minister will be able to deal, if not now then at some other stage.
Why did the Seattle conference become such complete chaos? Why was the American negotiator also the chairman of the conference? Why did that negotiator systematically exclude large numbers of southern and poor countries from any reckoning? A large number of non-governmental organisations were present in Seattle to protest legitimately on behalf of the poorest people of the world—after all, a quarter of the world's population lives below starvation level and has a right to be heard.
However, in the home of Microsoft and Boeing, the Seattle police, with riot gear and all the rest, destroyed any rights of democratic protest. The protesters were then described as undemocratic people who were trying to disrupt the conference; the undemocratic people were in the conference, excluding the poorest in the world. The representatives of the poorest in the world and, interestingly, of many American trade unions, were on the streets of Seattle seeking justice. We should ask serious questions about why all that came about.
Many people have written a great deal about the north-south divide and how it is to be dealt with. A recent edition of "Third World Resurgence" contained a splendid article by Martin Khor from Malaysia, who described exactly what it means to the poorest countries when the WTO lectures them on competition. It is not interested in competition in those countries; it is interested only in the rights of the biggest global corporations to behave as they wish in the poorest countries. That is what the multi-national agreement on investment—that ill fated agreement, which sadly, is no more—was trying to achieve. I detect that the Seattle round was an attempt to bring back that same agenda for the poorest people.
After the failure of Seattle, Friends of the Earth sent round a memo, which I am sure many hon. Members have. It sets out a series of questions and issues with which it wants the Government to deal. First, it wants a
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review of United Nations conference on trade and development and WTO procedures, to find out whether they genuinely represent the needs of the people of the world.
On corporate control, it seems that, post-cold war, the United Nations has largely abdicated any responsibility for controlling what global corporations do, and most national Governments have abdicated their responsibility for trying to control such corporations. In fact, countries are in competition to offer the biggest tax incentive, the longest tax holiday and the largest amount of free land, with the least labour regulation, the least environmental control and the least child protection, to entice these greedy global corporations in, one after the other.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for International Development (Mr. George Foulkes): Does my hon. Friend agree that that is why we need some multinational agreement?
Mr. Corbyn: I am not against multinational agreements; I am against an agreement that is designed by, and to benefit, the biggest businesses. That is why I am repeating for the record the issues that Friends of the Earth raised after the Seattle summit.
Friends of the Earth wants to keep investment out of the WTO. It mentions the serious problem of the reform of agricultural procedures, makes a crucial point about intellectual property rights and genetic modification technology and refers to a multilateral environment agreement. The latter is particularly important.
The Rio summit on the environment was seen as a turning point—it was seminal, in that all countries were represented there. They agreed that there were finite limits to the amount that could be taken out of the earth and to the amount of pollution that the atmosphere could take, given its long-term effects. Unfortunately, following the Rio summit, the UN office on multinational corporations was closed. Almost automatically, all economic thinking, ideas and controls were transferred from the limited democracy of the UN system to the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund—both organisations are accountable only to the richest groups in the world.
I am glad that the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry suggested that there would be some support for the increase of capacity-building in the world's poorest countries, so that they can negotiate effectively with companies and other countries, and that there would be some more WTO money for that. We must ensure that the poorest people in the world have a voice in those negotiations. We need to control the world's economy; we should not merely make the world fit for big businesses to operate in. There should be a moratorium on WTO disputes. The US attitude towards the banana conflict—and many similar matters—suggests the uses to which WTO power is put.
My final remarks relate to labour standards and employment throughout the world. The International Labour Organisation was set up after the first world war. It was a triumph for international trade unionism—the principle of basic labour standards all around the world had been achieved. However, many of the ILO conventions—limited though they are—are ignored. Many of the people who work—often at arm's length—for the world's big businesses enjoy no trade union rights

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or job security. They have none of the rights that we would expect as a norm in western Europe. If we do not do something about that, employment practices in the industrial countries will also be under threat, as big business moves its interest back to those areas.
I point out to those who say that we should do nothing that it is wrong to sell at high prices in Oxford street all the accoutrements of modern life—rugby balls, footballs, sports shoes at £60 or £70 a pair—when they are made by children in third-world countries who earn £1 or $1 a week. It is right to take sanctions against those countries which exploit children throughout the world. We cannot shrug off that responsibility; we must get involved. We should also pay attention to the practice in many countries of establishing tax-free economic zones for big business, while operating a no-go area for trade unions.
Finally, I draw the House's attention to an excellent article in yesterday's Guardian by Vandana Shiva—a brilliant writer. She stated:
"We want a new millennium based on economic democracy, not economic totalitarianism. The future is possible for humans and other species only if the principles of competition, organised greed, commodification of all life, monocultures, monopolies and centralised global corporate control of our daily lives enshrined in the WTO are replaced by the principles of protection of people and nature, the obligation of giving and sharing diversity, and the decentralisation and self-organisation enshrined in our diverse cultures and national constitutions."
We have an opportunity to do something to make the world a better place. Seattle did not achieve that. We have an obligation to try again in a much more democratic and open framework than was presented at Seattle.
5.23 pm
Mr. Neil Gerrard: Everyone who has spoken in the debate accepts that we need rules. We cannot have a trade system with no rules. The argument is about what the rules should be and how they should be developed—that second point has frequently been raised. It is obvious that, as we could not even agree the agenda for Seattle—never mind debate what the rules should be—there is a long way to go. We should not expect, or try to achieve, a quick fix.
One of the lessons of Seattle is that, if the WTO is to continue, which it obviously will, an enormous amount has to be done to build trust in the organisation. The WTO will need radical reform to achieve that. One of the key demands in Seattle from the representatives of developing countries was a willingness for the WTO to look back—to review what happened in previous rounds and to reform before moving on to wider and new matters.
We need to consider the fundamental reasons for the WTO's existence. This afternoon we have heard a great deal about the merits of free trade. I am not sure why, but something in me always gets suspicious when those on the Government and Opposition Front Benches are in absolute agreement on something. Everyone tells us that free trade is all that is needed—but there are some fundamental contradictions. It is contradictory to say that free trade is all that is needed and then to say that we need a rules-based system. What will those rules be? If those rules impose no restrictions and the only rule that anyone is interested in is that there should be no tariffs, we can forget about who decides what happens to the environment or to labour conditions.
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My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State held up eastern Europe as an example, which caused me some surprise because I should not have thought that what is currently happening in some of the economies there is a good advertisement for liberalisation.
The least developed countries' share of world trade has been decreasing. We should not just be arguing about how we achieve a level playing field; the question should be, how do we achieve a playing field that slopes in favour of those poorest people in the world? Their standard of living needs to be lifted. I doubt that a level playing field will ever achieve that.
Trade growth matters less than the nature of the trade—whether that trade is sustainable and whether it is trade that the developing countries want. One of the key questions that we should be addressing is what type of trade do developing countries want?
The hon. Member for Orpington (Mr. Horam) mentioned the fall in commodity prices in the past 20 years. That has had a dramatic effect on some of the least developed countries, and the WTO and international trade rules have no mechanism for addressing that. When a country largely depends on a single commodity, such a fall in prices can be enormously damaging. The example of the banana trade shows that dependence on a single commodity or product leaves a country tremendously vulnerable to sudden movements in price or sudden changes in trade rules. We must somehow shift the agenda to one about the nature of trade and how we can develop trade systems that address poverty and inequality, because unquestionably the present system has signally failed to do so.
I was glad to hear what the Secretary of State said about some of the issues for institutional reform within the WTO. He spoke about the need for capacity-building in the developing countries, which needs to be internal as well as external, so that it is possible to monitor what is happening, whether rules are being applied and what their effects are. He spoke about the need to be willing to listen. He said that we need a more transparent organisation, and that non-governmental organisations should participate. I welcome those comments.
My right hon. Friend said that there should be more participation by parliamentarians in the WTO. Notably, we are holding the debate after the collapse of the talks in Seattle instead of before them, when it might have been possible for Members' views to have had some influence on the Government's agenda at those talks. We are doing things in the wrong order. Future debates should be timed to take place before, not after, such talks.
My hon. Friend the Member for Lewisham, Deptford (Joan Ruddock) made some important arguments on TRIPS. There is a big question about what the TRIPS agreement is designed to do. Is it designed to promote the public interest in the widest sense of ensuring that people, especially those in poorer countries, have access to advances in technology, agriculture, medicine and health care, or is it intended to protect commercial interests?
It is clear in which direction TRIPS is aimed. Let us consider what has happened in the past few years. Since 1985, why have nearly 11,000 patents for plants been registered in the United States? Patent applications at the World Intellectual Property Organisation have increased from 3,000 in 1979 to 67,000 in 1997. India now has a backlog of 30,000 patents waiting to be processed; the number is increasing at 13,000 a year.

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Why does a company want to patent basmati rice, to take the example mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Deptford? However, a company in Texas now has a patent in the United States for basmati rice. What is the point of that?
I was somewhat disturbed that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for International Development said yesterday at Question Time:
"New inventions are the only intellectual property that can be registered. Under the WTO, there is no threat at all to any traditional knowledge or biodiversity … that is a myth."—[Official Report, 8 December 1999; Vol. 340, c. 811.]
I suggest that many people are familiar with the patenting of plants that have been naturally developed by farmers through many years of effort and cross-breeding. Patenting such plants is bio-piracy; it is stealing the work that has been carried out over generations.
Everyone is opposed to any attempts to patent human genes, and the Prime Minister and the President of the United States have made clear their opposition to that. However, why should we be opposed to the patenting of human genes, but not be opposed to patenting plant genes or animal genes? What is the essential difference? We must question why large companies are interested in such patents.
It is surprising what one finds when one considers the areas on which the WTO has an effect. It has impacts on health. One of the articles in GATT gives Governments the right to enforce or adopt measures to protect human, animal and plant life. They are public health measures, but the problem is that the nature of them is not defined. Therefore, we face the difficult problems of beef that has been treated with hormones, genetically modified food and how we resolve disputes over such matters. We must consider how far we should apply precautionary principles.
In May this year, the World Health Assembly, which is made up of representatives from many Governments, adopted a resolution that calls upon member states
"to explore and review their options under relevant international agreements",
including trade agreements on health—for example, on access to essential drugs. The World Health Organisation has a list of essential drugs and, interestingly, that list is not purely based on the drugs' effects. It takes into account economic considerations and, specifically, the price of the products.
Earlier this year, we saw the potential for dispute. For some time under TRIPS, patent protections on drugs must be available for 20 years. Sometimes developing countries have refused to grant such patents. Instead, they prefer to imitate a patented product and to develop a generic copy. TRIPS would forbid that, although there are get-out clauses that allow, for example, compulsory licensing of drugs.
Compulsory licensing involves a licence within a country to work a patent without permission from the original patentee, while the original patent holds in other countries. Compulsory licensing has been used by many countries for, among other things, defence-related products. It has been used in only a limited number of developing countries because not many of them have a big enough market to develop generic drugs. That is another area that we ought to review.
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Seattle has given us an opportunity to step back a little, and to take a fundamental look at the WTO and some of the major areas for review before we move on to new areas.
5.35 pm
Mr. Jim Murphy: Like my hon. Friends, I am delighted to participate in this important debate. We can speak only for about 12 minutes each if we are to leave enough time for every hon. Member who wants to speak. Unless one of my hon. Friends wants to volunteer any of his or her time, in which case I would happily speak for longer, I shall try to stick to my 12-minute limit. Perhaps my Front-Bench colleagues would like to give up some of their time.
I shall deal with the criticisms and concerns about the World Trade Organisation that have been expressed in the House and throughout the world. Before I do so, I point out that I do not share Conservative Front-Bench Members' unbridled enthusiasm for freeing the world of all tariffs. That, to me, would be an absolute and unfettered free market, and it would not achieve the level playing field that my hon. Friends want or even an imbalance in favour of the developing nations and those with less strong economies.
I would not sign up to that idea of free trade, and I was surprised by the comments of the hon. Member for Tiverton and Honiton (Mrs. Browning). She is not here, so it may be unfair of me to mention her, but her colleague, the hon. Member for South-West Devon (Mr. Streeter), may respond to that issue in his wind-up. I do not understand how the Conservative party, which was in power for the 18 years during which many of the tariffs were implemented, can now demand the abolition of the majority of those tariffs. I would welcome a response to that from the hon. Gentleman.
I shall comment on three areas: the lack of openness and accountability in the WTO; the need to address the concerns of poorer nations; and the need for the WTO to co-operate with other international organisations and agencies if it is to achieve its objective.
Everyone has mentioned the lack of openness and democracy in the WTO. It is well recognised that reform is needed. We need to change the system of secrecy and the practice of basing newspaper reports on unattributable briefings from people who are alleged to be close to negotiations rather than the participants themselves. We need to involve civic society, including representatives from trade unions and other organisations, and give them full observer status in negotiations.
We need a more effective and quicker negotiation process. Many of the countries that were hoping for some benefit from Seattle will have to wait a considerable time for that benefit while their economy suffers and their people survive for years in levels of poverty that we would not tolerate for one day.
I hope that we can find a way to make sure that those who oversee the disputes use open and democratic procedures to ensure that there is no conflict of interest among them and that they have no vested interest.
On the need for support for developing countries, much mention has been made of the globalisation of the marketplace. I hope that we can concentrate not only on that but on the globalisation of prosperity. We could then

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spread prosperity not only in the developed nations but in those with less developed economies. We can no longer be a silent witness to the abject poverty in which perhaps up to 50 per cent. of the world's population lives.
Although there have been interesting and thought-provoking contributions from Conservative Members, I regret that those Members may be in the minority on the Opposition Benches. I stand to be corrected, but I find no echo in Conservative thinking of the many recent achievements and suggestions made by the British Government, who are at the cutting edge of effort in European Union discussions that are aimed at progressive outcomes.
I am not aware that the Conservative Government were in any way aiming at the creation of a civic society or trade union involvement in the International Labour Organisation and the general agreement on tariffs and trade. Notwithstanding the excellent speeches of some Conservative Members, their criticism of the Labour Front Bench has been shallow and not based on anything that they sought to achieve in government.
The idea of globalisation of prosperity must be considered in the context of the point made on the scale of equality throughout the world in a very interesting speech by my right hon. Friend the Member for Chesterfield (Mr. Benn). Although I did not agree with much of what he said, we cannot live in a society—socialist or otherwise—in which the combined incomes of 225 of the richest people in the world is equal to that of 47 per cent. of the world's population. That cannot be allowed to survive, grow and become endemic over generations.
The World Trade Organisation appears to have made some headway in such matters—certainly from the material released by the Department for International Development. It is suggested that economic growth in developing nations has been quicker in the past few years than in developed nations' economies. However, developing nations are starting from a very low base, so we must ensure that such development is not marginally better and faster, but markedly so.
Since 1973, developing economies have increased their share of the world market in exports from 19 to 23 per cent. That is a welcome 4 per cent. improvement, but at that rate, two centuries will pass before they achieve parity with developed nations. That is an intolerable and also impossible situation. The rate of improvement cannot be maintained without reform. I have no idea of—and would not want to guess at—the ceiling of improvement in the economies of developing nations without reform of global markets and the WTO, but parity will certainly not be achieved today, tomorrow or in two centuries' time unless there is such reform.
The secretary-general of the WTO, Michael Moore, publicly said:
"I will judge my term in office by how we can improve the conditions and opportunities for the most vulnerable economies."
That is a very important statement. I do not know how it compares with his predecessors, but our Government and other Governments who believe in a social agenda should try to ensure that his words become as close to reality in as short a time as possible.
Around the time of the Seattle conference, President Clinton seemed to share such concerns. He made some very welcome announcements on sharing prosperity
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throughout the world, although it is of course hard to differentiate between those intended for domestic politics and those intended generally. He suggested some important reforms on the sale of drugs and the removing of tariffs, especially on AZT and, perhaps, other drugs, which I welcome. I have no idea how successful such moves would be in challenging AIDS in the developing world, but I welcome it none the less.
There is also the matter of lifting all tariffs on 48 of the less developed economies, which, after all, contribute only 0.4 per cent. of world trade. There is therefore no danger in that, as some believe. That goal has been identified not only by President Clinton but by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry, who said earlier that the European Union will be taking such action unilaterally and hopes to persuade partners in the WTO to follow suit.
Much has been said about sanctions. My hon. Friend the Member for Islington, North (Mr. Corbyn) spoke about trade sanctions against countries that do not adhere to our perceptions and our understandable demands for environmental protection and an end to child labour. My hon. Friend and I agree on the need for the protection of human rights, freedom from child labour and the long-term protection of the indigenous environment in all senses, but I am not convinced that trade sanctions will deliver the necessary support and free those children and their families from poverty.
The argument will no doubt continue, but I believe that instead of sanctions, we should provide alternative means of support so that the kids can go to school and the parents have jobs.
Mr. Corbyn: I am interested in the point that my hon. Friend is making. He may not have heard clearly what I said. I said that there should be sanctions against the companies that exploit children and live off the benefits of child labour in third world countries.
Mr. Murphy: I thank my hon. Friend. I accept that we should impose economic sanctions against the companies involved, but there is also an argument about economic sanctions against the countries, which I do not support.
Time is limited, and I want to cover other topics. The WTO does not exist in isolation. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State said earlier that ways of reforming the organisation were being discussed, and that a WTO parliament, council or assembly may be one possibility. I hope that other aspects will be discussed.
The WTO works with other organisations, including the United Nations, and takes account of the difficulties that some poor and perhaps less poor countries face. I think particularly of post-apartheid South Africa, war-torn Angola, and Mozambique, which is trying to recover from a civil war. Regardless of their relative economic position, consideration must be given to the efforts of those countries to free themselves from the legacy of apartheid, which dominated not only South Africa, but much of southern Africa.
The WTO should also take account of international debt. I welcome the Government's support for aspects of the Jubilee 2000 campaign, and their proposals for freedom of opportunity and literacy for 2015. If we are to achieve that globally, the WTO must recognise that many of the countries are highly indebted. Mozambique and

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Uganda pay back £100 million a year in international debt, and are both members of the WTO. Regional conflicts, debt levels and the unique challenges that some countries face should all be taken into account.
5.48 pm
Mr. Alan Simpson: I congratulate all those who were in Seattle as Ministers, observers and protesters, on helping to turn it into the debacle that it was. Nothing has cheered me up like that in ages. Unlike the Conservatives, I have no qualms about our having four Ministers there. The notion that the United Kingdom had four horsemen at the metropolis of free trade is an interesting one. It allows us to be clear about what we need to do in the chaotic space that Seattle created for us.
The agenda was clear. It was a wonderful opportunity to see greed and arrogance overreaching themselves. No doubt America and the corporations that were part of its delegation would say that it was not about that at all. They would argue that it was even-handed—they simply wanted the right to dump GM crops and growth-hormone beef into western markets, at the same time as dumping US grain surpluses into struggling southern markets. They wanted the right to acquire corporate ownership of services in the north and primary production in the south. That provided a corporate sense of balance.
Although the corporations talked about free trade, my hon. Friend the Member for Eastwood (Mr. Murphy) was right to question their belief in the removal of all subsidies. The corporate world is phenomenally good at claiming that it cannot produce anywhere unless it is paid to do so. It wants subsidies, inducements and tax sheltering to produce in our economies and it wants Governments to pick up the cost of infrastructure development. It does not want to accept the attendant obligations. The corporate world does not believe in the absence of subsidies; it simply believes in corporate welfare. Our own debates must take place with that knowledge.
We should be brave enough to define something different to put in the space that now exists. I want to make one or two moderate suggestions that are not out of line with the Labour manifesto—they are simply in line early, with the next manifesto. If we examine the lessons of Seattle, perhaps we should first consider scrapping the WTO. It would be disastrous if we all believed that we had a remit to save it. The United Nations is an international body that already has a remit to consider environmental and human rights agendas. We should consider refounding the United Nations, rather than undermining it in the interests of corporate rather than civic society.
Let us consider where such a refounding would lead. The notion that trade has meant emancipation for all and been synonymous with progress is a monstrous distortion of our recent past. Hon. Members have cited examples of market liberalisation in Europe. I invite them to read the United Nations Environment Programme's report on eastern Europe. It describes eastern Europe as an environmental catastrophe, in which civic society has almost been stripped to its basics; where democratic processes have been torn apart and economics have been reduced to gangsterism. That is the result of market liberalisation in eastern Europe.
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Hon. Members also cited examples of the phenomenal early successes in parts of south-east Asia. It has been illustrative to contact colleagues and campaigners in the southern hemisphere through the internet in the past year. They say that this came from their ability to get huge subsidies from the United States, and its agencies in the World Bank, because of their terror of the spread of communism. The United States threw money at such countries in the southern hemisphere, which were able to invest in their domestic productive capacity behind protective markets. They were allowed to do that, and they did jolly well. However, in Seattle, only countries such as India said that the idea of free trade in agriculture would run through the planet like a plague of locusts and that the developing world needed a different approach to subsidies.
The world needs to subsidise the environmental goods while restricting and taxing the environmental bads. India presented a proposal for allowing developing nations to subsidise or protect their domestic industries to the point of food security and sufficiency. They should be able to define the terms for their own development. It should not be conditional on transferring the ownership of their primary producing resources, but by retaining them and not allowing resources to migrate around the planet in pursuit of the most exploitative rates of return and interest.
Those who advise us to go down other paths should bear some of the huge consequences in mind. People claim that it will be great when Poland joins the European Union, but they fail to mention that the radical reforms Poland must accept mean pushing 2 million people off the land. Those who welcome China to the WTO manage to avoid mentioning the fact that its entry presupposes that 100 million people will be pushed off the land or banished from existing employment. This will force human migration on a scale that we have never even begun to countenance, and the consequences in terms of social destabilisation will be massive.
Martin Khor, who was mentioned earlier, was one of those who at Seattle said to the west, "You have got to start to question whether trade has brought us prosperity. It hasn't. It has transferred corporate ownership without democratic accountability into the hands of the most powerful on the planet. We see that as a pillaging process, both in the context of the industrial world and the developing world." I had occasion earlier in the day to mention another aspect of globalisation, which has appeared in my constituency.
This is the last day of mass production for Raleigh as a cycle frame manufacturer in the UK. Tomorrow, it is selling off its equipment, which is the most up-to-date in the world, under the auctioneer's hammer. The equipment was installed only three years ago and will most probably be sold to competitor companies from China and Taiwan; companies which do not have to adhere to any labour standards, recognise any objection that they employ and exploit children, or conform to environmental obligations. Raleigh will say, "How can we meet the environmental obligations that you rightly expect us to meet as producers in the industrial world when you also ask us to compete in a price-only market, which is a beggar-your-neighbour race to the bottom of the barrel?"
In Seattle, trade union marchers—industrial workers and steelworkers from throughout the United States—found themselves walking hand in hand with the non-governmental organisations and lobby organizations

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from the south. A new dialogue opened up between workers without jobs in the north and workers without rights in the south. They are saying, "Here is a game that strips rights, entitlements and secure prospects from us all.
The WTO is not an accountable body and it cannot address human rights issues. Nor does it want to. In July, Richard McCormick, the vice-chair of the International Chamber of Commerce—one of the main organisations lobbying the WTO—addressed a meeting of world leaders and said that the globalisation project may be terribly fragile. He added that
"its link with labour, its link with environment, could cause disaster in the trading system".
Yet that trading system is the disaster that protesters at Seattle were trying to draw to our attention. It strips us of anything sustainable in terms of human or environmental dignity and security. Asking a body that is so committed to excluding environmental and human rights considerations to take them on board would be like asking Jeffrey Archer to be responsible for truth—it simply is not in the nature of the beast to deliver such a commitment.
We have to return responsibilities to the United Nations. The third world is demanding that we look at how we target subsidies—in our own context, perhaps in favour of organic rather than chemically intensive production. We must also look at subsidies in terms of the developing world itself and its access to limited markets in which it can address food security—in the same way as we must—and build in binding obligations as well as producer responsibilities and liabilities. These must not be in parallel with other discussions, but must be part of the legally binding obligations that will define security for the next century.
A debate is already taking place outside the corridors of government and it involves not only the representation of the rights of the poor in the next century, but place new constraints on corporate activities. No representation without taxation will be the first demand—no influence without obligation. After Seattle, that agenda, whether we like it or not, is already under way.
5.59 pm
Mr. Tony Colman: I declare an interest as the UK member of the drafting committee at the Inter-Parliamentary Union conference of October 1999 on the global financial and economic model, which was unanimously adopted by the 137 Parliaments. I am also an alternate member of the IPU sustainable development committee. I was a non-governmental organisation delegate to Seattle last week.
I want to correct the impression given by the only other IPU parliamentarian present—the right hon. Member for Suffolk, Coastal (Mr. Gummer). Mayor Paul Schell of Seattle wanted peaceful demonstrations and did all he could to ensure that people could sit down and prevent the conference from going ahead. What the right hon. Gentleman described as incompetent policing was, in a sense, deliberate help and encouragement for demonstrations.
Late in the afternoon a number of anarchists dressed in black with black neckerchiefs around their faces decided to smash up Seattle. I saw it happen. We then had the other side of the picture, with the police having to come in to arrest the anarchists. They had spread themselves
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among peaceful demonstrations and subsequently threw firecrackers into the demonstrators to get them to disperse. I managed to get into my hotel and I viewed what took place for the following two hours. I assure the House that the aggression of the anarchists was considerable. I admire the restraint of the Seattle police. There are always two sides to these matters. What was dangerous in Seattle was the hobo spider, which is endemic to the state of Washington, and by which I was bitten twice.
I pay tribute to the people of Seattle for the welcome that they gave us. I pay tribute particularly to the people of the First United Methodist Church of Seattle, the senior pastor, Rev. Kathlyn James and the chaplain, Rev. Fred Hutchinson, who hosted most of the non-governmental organisation work that went on in the city. A radio station and a television station beamed out, and it was extremely important to see the Methodist Church taking such a strong role in that. A member of the congregation told me that he did not necessarily agree with everything that was said, but thought that it was extremely important that there was a pulpit in which to say it.
The attitude of many of the NGOs in Seattle was one that I found sad. As I have mentioned the IPU conference, I shall mention the Commonwealth conference in Durban and Johannesburg. The NGO forum there and the work that came out of the Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting were very significant. I pay tribute to the work that was done by my right hon. Friend the Minister for Trade and my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State for International Development. There was very much an agreement within the CHOGM that we should go forward with a development round. I remind the House that 48 of the 54 countries in the Commonwealth are developing nations. There was an extraordinary situation in which it was being said among the NGO community at Seattle that developing countries did not want to go forward with a development round. That was not true. It was important that the United Kingdom convinced the European Union to take a stance similar to ours.
It was clear from what came out of the negotiations that core labour standards and environmental standards should be dealt with in parallel with WTO but not within it. If they were taken within the WTO, there would be a veto from the developing countries.
Extraordinary things went on. I attended the Jubilee 2000 rally along with about 3,000 or 4,000 others. It was very much a rally to write off third-world debt. Then it became a rally in favour of protectionism and protecting jobs in the United States. It was taken over by the American Federation of Labor/Congress of Industrial Organisations. It may be said that that is a natural way to go forward in an environment in which there is about to be a very large march by labour the following day. However, in a sense it was sad that the Jubilee 2000 movement became mixed with a push for protectionism, which was the major element of last week.
The position in the United States was clear. It was known that a veto would come from the developing countries, but things went forward and there was a statement from Clinton in which he said that core labour rights had to be taken within the WTO.
I mention as a slight aside that having run a clothing and textile company in my past, I recognise that it is important as Marks and Spencer prepares to move many jobs out of the UK into developing countries that it listens

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to the GMB and William Baird. It is possible to retain a significant element of those jobs in design and in short-term lead times within the UK. Everyone must talk to one another rather than saying that the situation is black and white, because it certainly is not.
Before I leave the subject of developing countries, I endorse, as other Members have, the view that we need a form of investment agreement. The proposals tabled by the European Commission were extremely modest but need to be taken forward, even on the basis of the Singapore agenda. Other hon. Members have spoken about the need not to race to the bottom. It is important to recognise that, by having good investment rules, we can ensure that there is no race to the bottom. I ask the House to endorse that way forward.
The major thing that came out of Seattle, leaving aside many NGOs almost ignoring developing countries' views, was the need for a new process. Several hon. Members have talked about that. Having attended United Nations summits as part of UK delegations, I find it extraordinary how little negotiation and preparation were done for the meeting.
Some hon. Members have mentioned what happened on the Tuesday evening with the tabling of the EU position by the Trade Commissioner, Pascal Lamy, and the fact that he did not consult a single European country in doing so. It was an extraordinary document. I believe that it is available in the public arena. There were good things, however. MEAs—multilateral environmental agents—had precedence. The precautionary principle was taken account of, but the view that was put forward on behalf of the EU—not by the United States—was that the biotech regulatory regime should come within the WTO. All 15 EU countries objected to that.
It is important that, in future WTO negotiations, we revert to what happens in UN summits, where the lead country—the country with the presidency—brings together proposals, and Commissioners simply give advice rather than table positions on behalf of the EU. It was an extraordinary situation. It put negotiations back for a full two days.
My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry mentioned his support for a parliamentary assembly. There is an extraordinary alliance between the hon. Member for Tiverton and Honiton (Mrs. Browning) and my right hon. Friend the Member for Chesterfield (Mr. Benn), both of whom think that that is not the way forward. I wholeheartedly support democratising the WTO by having a parliamentary assembly. I hope that the matter can be tabled in time for the next meeting.
As for our own way of working, I ask the Procedure Committee to examine how we can have joined-up Parliament alongside joined-up government. Two papers have been circulated for the debate, one from the Select Committee on the Environment, Transport and Regional Affairs and one from the Select Committee on Environmental Audit. Interestingly, there is not one from the Select Committee on Trade and Industry. We may need a new system of Select Committees that brings together all the interested parties ahead of major summits, so that Parliament is able, through those Committees and debates in the House, to come to a view. I am not trying to reinvent the wheel. There is already the NATO
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parliamentary assembly, the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe and the Council of Europe. We should press ahead with that at great speed.
I have no criticism of the UK delegation. I strongly endorse what others have said about the way it involved all the NGOs present. I pay particular tribute to my right hon. Friend the Minister for the Environment, who put himself about all over Seattle. There was hardly an NGO meeting at which he was not present. I exaggerate slightly, but he really made efforts to ensure that views on the environment and the views of the UK Government were made known.
I felt strongly that, because there had been a lack of preparation, those on our delegation were left somewhat twiddling their thumbs until the Thursday evening. It was all waiting until the last minute. That cannot be the way forward. As I said at the beginning of my small offering, the Commonwealth, the European Union and our relationship with the United States through the Security Council mean that the UK is in a unique position.
What are the lessons to be learned? First, next time we should prioritise the developing countries and perhaps explain to the NGOs what those countries have said to us through the Commonwealth, particularly with regard to what they would like us to do. Secondly—it is a heartfelt plea—can we please avoid United States presidential election years?
Thirdly, we must have transparency of process, including, as I said, in Governments and Parliaments. I suggest that we should build on the Charter 99 proposals for a United Nations millennium assembly so that we might develop the concept of parliamentary assemblies, not only in the WTO but in the various United Nations protocols and institutions.
Finally, we should proceed as fast as we are able. In today's Financial Times, Mike Moore, director general of the World Trade Organisation, was quoted as saying that
"gaps were narrowed considerably"—
at Seattle—
"in a number of important areas … A package of results is within reach",
but:
"The longer we delay launching the negotiations, the more the poorest among us lose."
Amen to that.
6.10 pm
Mr. Desmond Browne: I am grateful to my right. hon. and hon. Friends for paring their speeches to enable me to speak in this important debate.
In the time available before the replies, I should like to talk about one discrete but very important issue that is part of the in-built World Trade Organisation agenda—the agreement on trade-related aspects of intellectual property rights, and particularly the WTO agreement and trade rules on patents and poor people's access to drugs. Although my hon. Friends the Members for Lewisham, Deptford (Joan Ruddock), for Walthamstow (Mr. Gerrard) and for Eastwood (Mr. Murphy) mentioned and made important points about TRIPS, I am interested in that one aspect of it.
The production and trading of Pharmaceuticals is conducted according to TRIPS, which provides that the holder of product patents—usually the major international

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drug companies—are allowed to set the product price in each country in which a patent is held, or to licence others to produce or market the product on an agreed basis.
The House will know—but it bears repeating—that as we approach the end of the 20th century, almost 34 million people world wide face human immune deficiency virus and an uncertain future in the shadow of acquired immune deficiency syndrome. The fact is that 95 per cent, of those people live in the developing world and that percentage is likely to increase.
In some countries, one in four adults are HIV positive. In the five years between 2005 and 2010, life expectancy in the most severely affected countries, in southern Africa, is projected to drop by 14 years, from 59 to 45. Many countries in Asia are experiencing an explosive escalation in the numbers of people becoming infected with HIV. With half of all people who acquire HIV being children and young people under 25, AIDS strikes down some of the most productive members of those societies.
At a recent international conference in Malaysia, a senior World Bank economist warned that AIDS threatens to wipe out the last 20 years of economic gains. Yet the Nobel peace prize-winning organisation Medecins Sans Frontieres says that doctors in Kenya advise AIDS patients to save up for their funeral rather than for drugs which they will not be able to afford.
The current lack of access to HIV-AIDS care and treatment in developing countries is substantially a consequence of those countries' poverty, but it is also a consequence of the cost of medicines—which in turn is a consequence of the intellectual property rights attaching to those medicines.
International trade agreements and policies can and do affect access to goods and services that are crucial to HIV prevention, care and impact mitigation. In May 1999, the World Health Assembly unanimously passed a resolution calling on member states to
"explore and review their options under international agreements, including trade agreements, to safeguard access to essential drugs".
By manufacturing drugs within the developing world, it is possible to provide them to local people at much more affordable rates than if those people are forced to pay the global price set by western producers who hold the patent. If the drugs are not provided cheaply from local production, they are certain to be out of the price range of local people. Generic drugs made locally are about 70 to 90 per cent. cheaper, according to Medecins Sans Frontieres; in some cases, they can be 200 to 300 per cent. cheaper than branded equivalents available in the west.
The examples are stark. Flucanozole—a drug that manages cryptococcal meningitis, which is an infection that affects one AIDS sufferer in five in Thailand—was supplied exclusively by the US company Pfizer until 1998. Since local alternatives became available, the cost of the daily dosage has fallen by 95 per cent. That represents a saving of £3 million to the Thai Government each year. The 75 cents daily cost in Thailand compares with $30 a day for patients in Kenya, where the number of children orphaned by AIDS has increased by nearly 200 per cent. over the past three years.
The TRIPS agreement allows for local production of patented medicines through compulsory licensing in cases of public health emergencies or unfair pricing. However, pharmaceutical companies in industrialised nations have
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recently put considerable pressure on Governments not to allow compulsory licensing. In 1997, South Africa passed a medicines Act designed to enable poor people, particularly HIV sufferers, to gain access to affordable generic drugs. The law permits compulsory licensing and parallel imports, as well as encouraging generic substitution, but the US pharmaceutical industry and the US Government responded immediately, twisting the arm of the South African Government to change the law despite its compliance with the TRIPS agreement. They threatened South Africa with a case before the adjudication panel. Only in response to public protest in the US and the strong resistance of the South African Government did the US Government fortunately back down.
The European Union working paper circulated at the WTO contained the following statement of the law:
"The TRIPS Agreement, and in particular Article 31, shall be understood to permit developing countries to issue, in accordance with the provisions laid down in this article and other relevant articles, compulsory licenses for drugs appearing on the list of essential drugs of the World Health Organisation."
Despite that, there was pressure within the EU delegation from sources that represented the pharmaceutical industry to have that paragraph removed from the document.
This may sound lame but, to conclude my micro-point, I should like my right hon. Friends to do everything they can to support the EU in enforcing the inflexible interpretation of TRIPS to enable access to cheap drugs.
On a more macro level, I want to make a plea for an intellectual property rights regime that reinforces and does not act against the development goals that we set in other international commitments. The United Nations international conference on population and development in Cairo, Egypt in September 1994 agreed the following objective:
"To increase the accessibility, availability, acceptability and affordability of health care services and facilities to all people in accordance with national commitments to provide access to basic health care for all."
It also agreed the following action:
"Through technology transfer, developing countries should be assisted in building their capacity to produce generic drugs for the domestic market and to ensure the wide availability and accessibility of such drugs."
Paragraph 35 of section C of the declaration of the UN world summit for social development in Copenhagen in 1995 says:
"Governments in partnership with all other development actors in particular organisations of and for people living in poverty should co-operate to meet the basic human needs of all, including people living in poverty and vulnerable groups by:
Ensuring universal access to basic social services".
Paragraph 37 goes on to say:
"Access to social services for people living in poverty and vulnerable groups should be improved through:
Ensuring that low income communities have access to health service outlets staffed by health workers who can provide primary care, essential drugs and information."
The UN convention on the rights of the child sets out requirements and articles for preventable or treatable diseases and goes on to say that children faced with diseases and the spectre of HIV and AIDS ought to have access to the essential drugs. The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development's international

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development targets were set out in the wonderful White Paper that the Department for International Development published within a month of Labour coming to office.
My argument is that the EU and its member states have signed up to all of these goals, and the current OECD development targets are all derived from them. We are in a position where these targets are aspirational. However, the WTO agreements are legally binding and subject to sanctions for non-co-operation. It is essential that we redraw trade rules so that they do not take precedence over the more fundamental commitments that we as a sovereign nation enter into.
6.20 pm
Mr. Gary Streeter: Human beings have never been good at looking ahead and understanding our future. Almost every prediction of future trends or of how we will live tomorrow has been proved wrong by unforeseen events and unthought-of inventions and discoveries. This remains as true today— despite our science and technology—as it was in yesteryear.
As we peer around the corner to the 21st century, can anyone doubt that we are all in for a period of massive change? There will be change on a global scale, which will rival, and probably outstrip, the turmoil and upheaval of the industrial revolution of the 19th century and the technological advances of the twentieth.
Globalisation is changing everything. New technologies are changing everything. The knowledge and information revolution is changing everything. It is producing change at a pace and on a scale that has never happened in human experience before. The challenge for the politicians of the 21st century will be to understand and manage the implications for all of us—our constituents, national sovereignty and global political structures—of all the changes.
That is the global backdrop against which we come to this important and interesting debate on the world trade talks in Seattle. Most people who have spoken in the debate support free trade. The debate on the benefits of free trade—as on liberal capitalism—is largely behind us. The Secretary of State made a strong speech in Seattle in support of free trade—a speech which, perhaps, she could not have made a year or two ago. I may be wrong on that.
It was interesting to hear some Labour Members giving speeches which appeared not to support free trade, and which harked back to a bygone era. They were wishing the ends without willing the means in their passionate advocacy of protectionism. It was interesting to hear old Labour's revenge in the debate. The speeches were interesting, but did not address the real world in which we live.
No one is saying that free trade of itself will bring about all the changes that we wish to see, both here and in the developing world. We should not forget that the Secretary of State spends most of her time focusing on things such as good governance, civil society, support for entrepreneurs in the developing world, promotion of democracy and many other ways of producing economic growth, stimulating businesses and helping the developing world. The process is not just about free trade, but free trade is a vital backdrop to our discussions about how best to help people who live in abject poverty.
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We were looking to the Seattle round to make significant advances in the cause of free trade, so the failure of the Seattle talks represents a major setback. It has emerged in the debate that there is much cross-party support in our approach to the World Trade Organisation and where it should go from here. The failure of the talks demonstrated above all else that while the global economy is becoming truly internationalised, the political structures for introducing rules to govern that global economy still lag some way behind.
The right hon. Member for Chesterfield (Mr. Benn) made a powerful and important point about that issue, which has huge implications for us all, now and in the future. In this new era of globalisation, it is clear that we need to find new decision-making mechanisms for the several multinational global installations that we need to oversee these important global events.
Mr. Tony Benn: Free trade is a creature of the 19th century, before democracy. I see the whole debate— on which Front Benchers on both sides are united—as a throwback to the 19th century. The problem is that the system will not meet the needs of people in the next century, when they realise that until they can control their economic as well as their political destiny, they are simply slaves of the new corporations that have replaced the kings and tyrants of the past.
Mr. Streeter: I respect the right hon. Gentleman's view, but free trade is not a throwback to the past. It is a clear look into the future. No one claims that free trade will bring all the benefits and advantages that we wish to see—nor does it negate the importance of sound local governance in every nation state. The issue with which we have to grapple concerns the right way to make those global institutions democratically accountable. How can we plug them into the people, who may be thinking globally but still living locally? Is it not right to say that an organisation of 135 members, with more about to join—we heard about China this afternoon—cannot hope to make decisions by consensus and unanimity? Several right hon. and hon. Members referred to the need to reform the decision-making processes of the WTO, and that must be a priority.
I admired the speech by the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry—especially the fact that he acted as though he were announcing a great negotiating triumph from Seattle when in fact it was not a negotiating triumph but a failure. The right hon. Gentleman told us that he intends to give leadership in the matter, and that is to be welcomed. We support this Government taking forward an agenda that has emerged from our debate today. With British membership of the Security Council of the United Nations, the EU, the Commonwealth, G7 and NATO, we are well placed to give a lead in the debate.
We want to hear the Government's proposals to reform the WTO. Will it be done according to the IMF model, itself subject to criticisms of unaccountability? Will it be set up as an equivalent to the Security Council? If so, who will decide who will sit on the inner council? Will the Government propose majority voting for the WTO? I hope that they will set out their plans fully. My hon. Friend the Member for Tiverton and Honiton (Mrs. Browning) requested the Government to set a timetable for those important reforms, to be encapsulated in a consultation document or White Paper on the issue, so that the House may debate it.

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What should happen next? We need better diplomacy and the exercise of more influence than was displayed in Seattle. It would be wrong of me to seek to pin the blame for the failure of the talks in Seattle on our Government, and I do not for a second seek to do so. It was clearly the United States Government who brought the talks to an abrupt and unwelcome end. However, the Government called for a comprehensive round in Seattle and told the world that they wanted the talks to provide clear and decisive momentum towards global free trade. The Government have also boasted so often in the past about the influence the British Prime Minister has with President Clinton and they sent no fewer than four Ministers to the talks. So what conclusions are we supposed to draw when the talks collapse and the cause of global free trade is set back so seriously? Can we draw any other conclusion than that our Government's policy and strategy failed in Seattle? [HON. MEMBERS: "Oh!"] Do Labour Members claim that the Government's strategy was a success? The talks collapsed and the Government's strategy did not work. We need not dwell on the issue, but the point needs to be made. The Government should learn the lessons and move on.
If the Government are to take a lead on the issue, as we think they should and as they are well placed to do, it clear that they have to raise their game and start hitting their policy objectives. The fact that the Government have our support in that should be enough to encourage them to do even better.
Several excellent contributions have been made to this debate. I do not have time to mention them all, but I am keen to respond to some of the points made.
My right hon. Friend the Member for Suffolk, Coastal (Mr. Gummer) talked about the possibility of establishing a parliament for the WTO. I hope that the Government will set out their thinking on a matter that we should like to examine in more detail. How would members of such a parliament be elected? Would it take representatives from our own Parliament? I look forward to hearing more from the Government on that.
My right hon. Friend also said that the chairman of the WTO should not be the American chief negotiator, and I profoundly agree with that. He called for some of the issues confronting the organisation—such as labour and biodiversity—to be taken forward in parallel, and for the WTO to resist the temptation to try and do everything. I strongly concur with those suggestions as well.
The hon. Member for Hackney, North and Stoke Newington (Ms Abbott) displayed some expertise when she talked about environmental issues, but she also made the very important point that the House would have benefited from a debate on this topic before the Seattle talks. Today's debate has shown that the House has things to say on these matters, and the Government delegation at Seattle would have been better equipped if it had had the wisdom with which a debate in the House of Commons would have furnished it. I hope that the Government will report back more fully to the House on such matters in the future.
The hon. Member for Twickenham (Dr. Cable) made a very good speech, in which he described the dangers of isolationism and the strength of feeling around the world when cheap goods flood domestic markets. He spoke of the risk that the whole trade structure could unravel, and that what he called the primeval forces of nationalism and
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isolationism could be released. The hon. Gentleman was right to raise that spectre in the debate. I can tell him that Conservative Members strongly support the movement to global free trade, as we have for many years. I reiterate that our target date for achieving that is 2020.
The hon. Member for Hackney, North and Stoke Newington talked knowledgeably and at some length about bananas. That is an important subject, but she did not take into account the existence of the Lomé convention, which the United Kingdom continues to support. She also omitted to mention that our policy of achieving global free trade by 2020 does not involve the eradication of all subsidies and supports overnight.
The hon. Lady asked what industry Caribbean islands could diversify into. All hon. Members know the very real dangers of the drug trade, which no one could support for one second, but tourism in that part of the world is an attractive alternative for many business people.
Mr. Gummer: Has my hon. Friend noticed that the hon. Member for Hackney, North and Stoke Newington (Ms Abbott), who would not give way when she was making her speech, is not present for the winding-up speeches? I was among those who wrote the banana regime and am therefore interested in the subject. The battle is not only between America and the Caribbean, but also between the developing country of Ecuador and the Caribbean. One of the difficulties is to find an answer that will satisfy all sides. Does not my hon. Friend share my hope that we will succeed in finding an answer that will allow people in Caribbean to continue with the only product that they are able to grow?
Mr. Streeter: My right hon. Friend speaks with great knowledge, and of course I accept the point that he makes.
My right hon. Friend the Member for Skipton and Ripon (Mr. Curry) made a powerful speech, in which he said that free trade was part of the buttress of the democratic process, and that cutting trade barriers amounted to a tax cut for every citizen. He added that, because business is globalising, the political process must do the same, and he spoke of movement in both the upwards and downwards directions. He used the interesting word "atomisation" and stated that decisions should be made as near as possible to the people involved.
To those hon. Members who oppose what is going on in the world today I say that what is going on cannot be stopped and that we therefore must try and shape it. The hon. Member for Eastwood (Mr. Murphy) challenged us to explain how, after 18 years in government, we could oppose the 15,600 tariffs that my hon. Friend the Member for Tiverton and Honiton described. I have three things to say in response. First, the general agreement on tariffs and trade rounds, under our stewardship, were very successful in reducing tariffs, for this country and for many others. Secondly, many of the tariffs have been in place for generations. Thirdly, the WTO—which has been in existence for only five years—was set up with the support of Conservative Members.
A number of lessons need to be learned from the Seattle fiasco. It is not clear that enough preparation was done in the run-up to the talks to lay the ground rules and do the spade work to resolve the big political stumbling blocks. Does the Secretary of State for International Development think that it would be helpful or unhelpful for the United

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States and European Union negotiators to meet outside the WTO process to deal with the vexed issue of agricultural subsidies? Is it possible, and desirable, for the big players to try and resolve the major political issues before the WTO attempts to meet in plenary session again? Does the right hon. Lady agree that for the developing countries to be invited to the talks only to find that on many occasions they were locked out of the room where the big players were talking, and did not have a clue what was going on, added insult to injury. My hon. Friend the Member for Orpington (Mr. Horam) spoke about that with some feeling. Many emerging countries have been humiliated by such treatment, and it will be some time before those scars heal.
I want to record my support for the Department for International Development initiative in seeking to build the capacity of some of the developing countries. Their capacity to negotiate, implement and take advantage of the rules, particularly under the disputes procedure, is fundamental. I welcome the announcement of the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry about greater WTO spend on capacity building, and I strongly support the work that the Department for International Development has done on it in the past.
A situation in which the United States has 250 negotiators and Bangladesh has one is clearly unsustainable. For 30 members of the WTO to be unable to afford to send representatives to Seattle is unhelpful, if the aim is to take everyone to the same place at the same time. I know that this is the first time that many developing nations have been involved, but being involved and being locked out are two different matters. I support the Secretary of State's action in seeking to build the legal capacity of developing nations to enable them to take a full part in the proceedings.
Mr. Alan Simpson: I welcome the hon. Gentleman's reference to equity and accountability in the negotiation process, wherever it is. Would he apply that also to the position of the European Union delegation? The elected members who went there as part of Europe's delegation were out-manoeuvred by the Commissioner, who was not elected by anyone. It is like a bizarre game of football in which the team that has won 15–0 is told by the referee that it has lost because he has put a bet on the other side. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that strengthening the lines of accountability should apply to the elected representatives of the United Kingdom Parliament as well?
Mr. Streeter: I have a lot of sympathy with the hon. Gentleman's point—I think that he is right. I understand that Mr. Lamy behaved in a way that was not entirely helpful, and we need to look at that.
Does the Secretary of State agree that building the capacity of developing nations and reforming the procedures of the WTO are the two most urgent tasks? If she has any specific proposals, I should be glad to hear them. Does the right hon. Lady share my concerns about the article in the Financial Times to which the hon. Member for Putney (Mr. Colman) referred? Mike Moore, the director general, is calling for a new round of talks "as soon as possible". Does she agree that although it is vital that nothing should stand in the way of further talks,
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we should, at the same time, focus on capacity building and reforming the WTO. Does she also agree that the United States presidential election should not hold up the process of capacity building and reform of the WTO?
The benefit of hindsight is admittedly helpful, but will the right hon. Lady reflect on the wisdom of calling for such a comprehensive round? Was not a large part of the failure the fact that there were too many objectives at Seattle? Was it not too ambitious a project? Did we reach too far and fall over? Is there not a case for having more limited, realistic objectives and making steady progress, rather than trying to do everything and achieving nothing? I am talking not about a narrow round, but about a realistic round.
The hon. Member for Middlesbrough (Mr. Bell) and others have discussed whether the ILO might be the right forum in which to deal with labour issues. We all support free trade—at least, on second thoughts, as I look across the Chamber, most of us do. The benefits to everyone of free trade are clear, but the events of the past few days have been a bitter blow to the cause. The Government should pursue a clear agenda, pushing for rapid and radical reform of the WTO. They must do all they can to build capacity in the developing world, to exercise their alleged influence over the Clinton White House and to champion the unilateral dropping of European tariffs for the poorest. They must set a clear timetable for progress, and report back to the House. After the debacle in Seattle, the need is urgent. Britain is well placed to take a lead, and it is time that the Government seized their opportunity.
6.40 pm
The Secretary of State for International Development (Clare Short): If anything good came of the mess at Seattle, it was the wake-up call to people in politics to discuss more openly what globalisation is, what it means and how we should manage it. There has been a lag in the political debate. I agree with the hon. Member for South-West Devon (Mr. Streeter) that we face massive historical change that requires change in our political institutions. Much of our sovereignty can no longer be exercised at home alone. We must be willing to pool sovereignty in international agreements so that we may regulate and manage the wealth that comes from globalisation. Globalisation could be used to benefit people, or could prove destructive to the world.
Globalisation is real. It is part of history, just as industrialisation was. Blake wrote poems saying that industrialisation was a bad idea, and we all still sing his hymn. In reality, however, it happened, and it generated wealth. We simply had to manage it. The very origins of the political tradition from which I come and which I represent lay in the wealth generated by industrialisation. The squalor and inequality of our cities meant that we had to organise and to use democracy and the state locally and nationally to ensure that the wealth generated by industrialisation could be shared to uplift all the people. The same challenge faces us today over the wealth being generated by globalisation. The difference is that the challenge is world wide.
Massive new wealth is being generated, but one in five humans live in abject poverty. The challenge before our generation is to ensure that wealth is used to lift up that fifth of humanity by establishing basic, decent standards for all. The wealth gives us an opportunity.

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To those of my hon. Friends who doubt that, I must say that I understand their worry about the rapid change that is taking place, but I plead with them to look at reality. The fastest reduction of poverty for the largest number of people in the whole of human history has resulted from rapid economic growth in east Asia over the past 30 years. That happened because inward investment was attracted from multinational capital, which brings with it knowledge and technology. That is how we must harness those things: by attracting investment to create opportunities to export and trade that will grow economies rapidly. That lifts up poor people as well as providing for investment in the education of the people.
There were some deficiencies in how that happened— corruption among them—which led to the east Asian collapse. There are defects in the model, but properly organised trade and investment are major instruments for massively reducing poverty in the world. Our role is to shape them to achieve our objective. For my hon. Friends on the left, I must add that history also shows what happened when the world last went in for protectionism. In trying to protect economies from change, the world threw itself into a terrible recession and depression that created fascism and world war.
The general agreement on tariffs and trade was born out of that experience as we tried to link the world together, opening trade to build a better future. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry tells me that the first of the nine rounds of talks— organised, of course, by a Labour Government—was the Torquay round.
Mr. Harry Barnes: Should not a distinction be made on where free trade should take place? Countries such as those in Africa obviously need free trade into the western world, and the developments in the European Union of which we have heard are very welcome. But such countries sometimes need to protect themselves against trade coming from western countries that would destroy their economies without allowing them to build up. They need buffer agreements so that they can work together on the sale of cocoa and coffee—the equivalent of the operations of the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries. That way, they could sell their products better within the western world. It is not a matter of being against free trade; the argument is about where it is appropriate, and about protection for the third world.
Clare Short: History says that my hon. Friend's thesis, which is reasonable in itself, is not right. Many African countries tried to develop behind protectionist barriers. They had very inefficient, expensive and highly subsidised local industries and they paid lousy prices for local crops to the very poor people in their rural areas. Their economies did not grow, but their population grew and poverty grew invincibly. Those who point to that sort of failure and say that it is a result of free trade are misreading economics and history.
Member countries need to discuss these issues more and to take our publics with us, because many people have become genuinely confused. We need to go back over our history to see what it teaches us.
The failure in Seattle was partly due to the success of the World Trade Organisation, which is only five years old. Ironically, that was the first time that trade talks have
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been attacked. The WTO is the most democratic body that ever met to try to reach agreement on trade in the world. The general agreement on tariffs and trade was always dominated by the big, rich countries; the WTO is a rules-based membership organisation.
To those of my hon. Friends who say that the WTO is against the interests of the third world, I say, "Please do not be so arrogant as to tell the third world what is in its interests when country by country has chosen to join." Those countries obviously have decided that it is in their interests. Surely we should respect and honour their opinion and their judgment about their own interests.
We went from a sophisticated, rich-country dominated GATT to the WTO with 135 members and 31 more waiting to join. The procedures did not cope. There was a terrible delay in the appointment of the new director-general, which meant that he did not have time to prepare for the round particularly well. There are major lessons to be learned about the procedures. We must open the organisation up and think about how it can work. It must work by consensus. All the international environmental agreements and so forth must be reached by consensus. We have to get all the countries in the world to agree to move forward, or we cannot do so. We do not have a parliament of the world, which says that we can do all this by majority vote. Therefore it is difficult.
We can have better procedures that help to include people. We can make the process more transparent and debate more thoroughly the preparatory processes in each country, so that Governments arrive at the talks with a more advanced and developed agenda. We need massively more capacity-building for developing countries. However, we have to proceed by consensus— that is the only way.
To those of my hon. Friends who talk as though we are going backwards, I point out that 30 years ago one in four children in the world died before the age of five, but now it is one in 10—even that is disgraceful and we need to make more progress, but it is not true to say that we are going backwards. Thirty years ago, average life expectancy in developing countries was less than 40 and it is now in the 60s.
We need more. We are getting more wealth and we could share it more rapidly. We could have a period of great uplift for the poor of the world. It is not true to say that we have been going backwards; it is a false account of what has been happening.
Because we agree on some of the fundamentals on trade, the hon. Members for Tiverton and Honiton (Mrs. Browning) and for South-West Devon ended up saying that Britain should have fixed it all. We are a pretty good Government and we got a lot of respect in Seattle. We were all there talking to developing countries, talking about the environment and talking to our own nongovernmental organisations—I can assure the House that no one was having fun in Seattle and we did not go there for a freebie—but even we cannot make all 135 countries in the WTO, including the United States of America just before an election, do our bidding just like that. We are honoured by the deep respect that those on the Opposition Front Bench obviously have for us, but even we are not capable of quite as much as they appear to think.
Everyone agrees with my right hon. Friend the Member for Chesterfield (Mr. Benn) that the people of the world want co-operation and security. We have to use

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democracy world wide—we have more democracy than humanity has ever had—to manage globalisation and not to turn out backs on it. My right hon. Friend, however, is turning his back on globalisation. If we do that, we shall not be able to manage it—it will manage us. It will rip through the world, creating more inequality and injustice—troubles that will lead to even more war, conflict and environmental degradation.
Mr. Tony Benn: Will my right hon. Friend give way?
Clare Short: I apologise to my right hon. Friend, but if I give way I shall run out of time and I want to respond to as many contributions as possible.
My hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent, North (Ms Walley) spoke about the environment. Too many people want the WTO to make environmental agreements. That is wrong. The organisation does not have the expertise; it is not the place to make such agreements. We need complete mutual recognition. All the countries in the world have reached environmental agreements; they believe in them and want them to be honoured. The adjudication and disputes settlement procedures of the WTO must never be able to call those agreements into question. That was one of our objectives at Seattle—I think that it is achievable.
My hon. Friend referred to the precautionary principle. Many people argue that, because there is agreement on the use of science-based controls and the use of precautionary science, the principle is already incorporated in the WTO rules. However, we want to clarify that matter. Another aspect is voluntary labelling. It is funny that all the anarchists suddenly want the state to control what everyone can consume. If we are worried about genetic modification or hormones in beef, labelling allows consumers to be in charge. Although it is clear that WTO rules allow voluntary labelling, the matter needs further clarification. We wanted to include that on the agenda for the meeting.
The hon. Member for Twickenham (Dr. Cable) made an extremely important point. If the WTO fails, the big economies will settle things on their own, and the developing countries will be squeezed out. Do all those who celebrate a weakening of the WTO really want less democratically accountable rules on the organisation of world trade in all the countries of the world—including the poorest ones? That is a real danger.
My hon. Friend the Member for Hackney, North and Stoke Newington (Ms Abbott) talked about the problem of banana production in the eastern Caribbean. We all share her concern for that region, but its Governments joined the WTO because they decided that it was in their interest to do so. The settlement of the dispute on bananas did not state that special arrangements could not be made. Particular arrangements were called into question, but we hope to reach an agreement that provides protection for the Caribbean growers while giving them time to diversity.
The Caribbean is a very beautiful region whose people could concentrate on eco-tourism—I agree with the hon. Member for South-West Devon—because Caribbean bananas are massively more expensive than those on the world market. That industry is an extremely fragile one
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on which to build the area's economy for ever. We need to protect those people and help them to diversify so that their economies can progress.
I agree with the right hon. Member for Skipton and Ripon (Mr. Curry). Labour standards are of crucial importance, but why are the demonstrations not held outside the World Bank? That is the world's development organisation. Why cannot the World Bank work alongside the International Labour Organisation, with a systematic policy in every country to ensure that every child goes to school and that their parents' incomes are high enough to obviate the need for child labour? Why should the matter involve only the WTO? Is it because people want to use trade sanctions only? That would punish countries for their poverty and would trap their children in endless poverty.
I point out to my hon. Friend the Member for Islington, North (Mr. Corbyn) that only 5 per cent. of child labour goes on in trade; the rest is in the agriculture, mining and domestic sectors, which trade sanctions could not touch. If we really care about child labour and respect for core labour standards, we should use all the instruments of the international system. To focus only on the WTO is to concentrate on sanctions—that is the wrong way to deal with the problem.
My hon. Friend the Member for Lewisham, Deptford (Joan Ruddock) is worried about genetically modified organisms and bio-safety. Commissioner Lamy suggested that the WTO should discuss GMOs. The General Affairs Council of the EU and the EU politicians at Seattle met continuously to tell him what he was allowed to do. We discussed how we could achieve flexibility in the negotiations. It is not true that there was no accountability to politicians; we told him firmly that he was not allowed to discuss GMOs, and he withdrew that suggestion.
On GMOs, voluntary labelling is the immediate way forward. We have it in this country. It has not been challenged under the WTO procedures. Unfortunately, I do not have time to answer all the important arguments that have been made, but I wish to expose the myth about the patenting of genes. On patenting, the WTO rules are simply that each country should put in place a patenting system according to some basic rules of its own. There is no mutual recognition of patents, and it is only possible to patent new knowledge. It is a myth that all the indigenous culture and crops of the people of the world have been ripped away from them by the World Trade Organisation. I am sorry that I cannot do justice to the complexity of the issue in the time available.
My hon. Friend the Member for Kilmarnock and Loudoun (Mr. Browne) spoke about drugs and AIDS. The very expensive anti-retroviral drugs that cost about £80 a month, and that slow down death once one has the HIV infection, are relevant only to the elite of Africa. In Africa, there are people dying of AIDS who do not have soap, water or enough to eat. We must do much more, in Africa and elsewhere, to prevent the spread of the infection. Uganda has shown that that is achievable. We need more help with the opportunistic infections that infect people with AIDS, and drugs are needed for that. As my hon. Friend said, under the WTO rules there is room to ensure that those drugs are made available. We must ensure that that is done.

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I strongly agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Eastwood (Mr. Murphy) that the opportunity of globalisation is an opportunity to globalise prosperity. That is the task, and this is a real opportunity. We could waste it, but if we focus on that objective and ensure that all the new wealth that is being generated is used in a way that lifts up the one in five of humanity who live in abject poverty, that would be an enormous advance for humanity. It is a possibility, and that is the challenge.
Where do we go from here? In the new year, work will continue in Geneva on the World Trade Organisation's built-in agenda, set during the Uruguay round, and a work programme decided at the Singapore and Geneva ministerial meetings in 1996 and 1998. That includes the start of negotiations on agriculture, and as the right hon. Member for Skipton and Ripon said, that is permitted and bound; but even more significantly, the peace clause on not challenging agricultural subsidies under WTO rules falls in 2003, so there must be major progress, and it will come. It will bring benefits to some developing countries, but only to a small number. Services are also bound. It is also agreed that there will be reviews of agreements on trade in intellectual property, trade-related investment measures and disputes settlement.
My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State will lead a strong effort to reform the procedures of, and to open up and make transparent, the World Trade Organisation. He is very strongly committed to that. We hope and intend that we shall move on from that. Let us hope that, when we get past the election in one of our friendly countries, we can get on with another round.
I repeat to many of my hon. Friends that South Africa very much favours a broad round because it sees the benefits that can come to Africa from advances of the type that we have been advocating. I do not agree with the hon. Member for South-West Devon that we are being too ambitious to be broad. It is necessary to be broad enough to get the trade-offs so that everyone gets something and agreement is reached. Of course, ambitions usually exceed results, but those who are too narrow will get no trade-offs, so there will be no agreement.
South Africa suggested that negotiations might be conducted in two stages. We could go forward on the built-in agenda and implementation of the Uruguay round, which has been very difficult for many developing countries in need of more help. Then we could have a period of capacity-building and return to investment, competition and some of the other issues in a second stage of the next round. That is a very useful suggestion.
I am grateful for the opportunity to discuss these issues. It worries me greatly that some very good young people throughout the world, who think that they care about poverty and injustice, are advocating policies that would damage the interests of the poorest people of the world. We must all stand firm by managing trade in a way that improves people's lives. It is achievable, as I have said, and we can respect labour standards, environmental standards and all the other things that we hold key—but not by destroying the World Trade Organisation. We can do so by making it work in a more sophisticated way and strengthening the implementation of our other international agreements.
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I shall return to the some of the points that I failed to answer. I was asked whether we should use the International Monetary Fund model. The answer is no. That is a dollar a vote; we need a country a vote. The same applies to the role of the Security Council. We must have consensus in all countries with a need for growth—
It being Seven o'clock, the motion for the Adjournment of the House lapsed without Question put.

World Trade Organisation

  SELECT COMMITTEES (JOINT MEETINGS)
  Ordered,
  That, for the current Session of Parliament, Standing Order No. 152 (Select committees related to government departments) be amended as follows:
  Line 37, before the word "European" insert the words "Environmental Audit Committee or with the".
  Line 46, before the word "European" insert the words "Environmental Audit Committee or with the".
  Line 48, at the end, insert the words:—
  "(4A) Notwithstanding paragraphs (2) and (4) above, where more than two committees or sub-committees appointed under this order meet concurrently in accordance with paragraph (4)(e) above, the quorum of each such committee or sub-committee shall be two."— [Mr. Touhig.]

  FISHERIES
  Motion made, and Question put,
  That the unnumbered Explanatory Memorandum, submitted by the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food on 5th December 1999, relating to the fixing of fishing opportunities for 2000 and certain conditions under which they may be fished, shall not stand referred to European Standing Committee A.—[Mr. Touhig.]
  Hon. Members: Object.

  BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE
  Motion made, and Question put,
  That, at the sitting on Monday 13th December, the provisions of Standing Order No. 16 (Proceedings under an Act or on European Union documents) shall not apply to any proceedings on the Motion in the name of the Prime Minister relating to fisheries, and the Speaker shall put the Questions necessary to dispose of those proceedings not later than Seven o'clock, and such Questions shall include the Questions on any Amendments selected by the Speaker which may then be moved.—[Mr. Touhig.]
  Hon. Members: Object.
  Mr. Deputy Speaker (Sir Alan Haselhurst): Considered what day?
  Mr. Don Touhig: Monday next.

  CONSOLIDATED FUND BILL
  Motion made, and Question put,
  That, at the sitting on Thursday 16th December, any Consolidated Fund Bill ordered to be brought in and read the first time shall be proceeded with as if the Second Reading thereof stood as an Order of the day, and Standing Order No. 56 (Consolidated Fund Bills) shall apply.—[Mr. Touhig.]
  Hon. Members: Object.

  BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE
  Motion made, and Question put,
  That, at the sitting on Thursday 16th December, the Speaker shall not adjourn the House until any messages from the Lords shall have been received.—[Mr. Touhig.]
  Hon. Members: Object.

Forestry Commission Land
Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Touhig.]
7 pm
Mr. Huw Edwards: I am grateful to have the opportunity to raise an important matter on the Adjournment.
Much of Monmouthshire is forest land which forms part of the Forestry Commission estate. The Hendre, Tintern, Wentwood and Chepstow Park forests are some of the superb forests in my constituency. Arguably, at this time of year—the late autumn—Monmouthshire is at its most beautiful. Many travel to New England to see that part of America in the fall. They need not go that far; they could come to Monmouthshire and see it in the fall.
Part of my constituency lies in the Wye valley area of outstanding natural beauty and it has special designation. It was therefore with utter astonishment that, a few weeks ago, I studied a fax of the particulars of sale of 812 acres of Chepstow Park wood by Forest Enterprise. It was marketed by a Sussex-based agent, Fleury Manico. The particulars of sale stated:
"Freehold for Sale—Major Leisure Opportunity—May be suitable for Holiday Village Operation—Our clients"—
that is Forest Enterprise—
"are seeking to dispose of their freehold interest in this site with full vacant possession to be given upon completion. Our client is not obliged to accept the highest, or indeed any offer received."
Bids were to be received by noon on 22 October, just 10 days after I and many of my constituents had seen the particulars of sale. The site, it was stated, was within two hours' travel time of 10 million people.
That was the first time that I had heard of Forest Enterprise's intention to sell off the wood, a major area of my constituency. Apparently, it had been approached by a major holiday operator, but I do not know which operator that was. I checked with the director of planning and economic development at Monmouthshire county council and it was apparent that the local authority had received no notification. The Wye valley AONB officer said that he had heard rumours, but that he had not been notified by Forest Enterprise. Local community councils had received no notification, and the National Assembly for Wales had apparently received no notification.
It was incredible that a public body proposed to sell publicly owned forestry without any public consultation or even notification to public bodies. The sale was advertised in two professional journals, Estates Gazette and "Leisure Monthly". Further, Forest Enterprise seemed to be employing a sealed-bid method of sale that raised suspicions that the sale was being rushed through with a preferred developer in mind. I therefore tabled an early-day motion that drew attention to the "secretive and underhand" method of sale. However, I have spoken to the director of Forest Enterprise and I am happy to accept that that was not its intention.
The failure to notify me as the local Member of Parliament was impolite; the failure to notify the local authority was inept; but the failure to make any effort to notify the residents who live in the vicinity of Chepstow Park wood—in the beautiful villages of Itton, Devauden and St. Arvans as well as in the town of Chepstow—was

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inexcusable. Not surprisingly the residents came in their hundreds to a public meeting in Itton village hall to express their concern and anger at the proposed sale and method of sale. They had bought properties in an AONB which they believed had been given special protection.
My constituents are incensed at repeated attempts to sell their countryside, because it is within two hours' travel of 10 million people. I have joined them in objecting to other grandiose schemes that have been promoted by developers; for example, the Severnside international airport scheme and the Legend Court theme park. I shall now support their opposition to the proposed sale of Chepstow Park wood for a holiday development which would require a perimeter fence, deny access and destroy the fauna and flora of the wood.
We want to attract people to that part of Monmouthshire to stay at local hotels and guest houses, but it is felt that a holiday village operation would deny people that opportunity.
The campaign has united the political parties in opposition to the sale. I shared a platform at the public meeting with the local Assembly Member and local county councillors, including the leader of the council, Councillor White, who assured the meeting that he would fight tooth and nail on behalf of local residents.
There was unanimous opposition to the sale, and the "Save Our Wood" campaign was formed. It has organised a petition that has already attracted 5,000 signatures and messages of support from conservation groups and individuals throughout the country. I pay tribute to Mr. Ken Futcher and other members of "Save Our Wood" for their effective, rational and decent campaign.
I fully share constituents' concerns about the sale of the wood in principle, but I am concerned also about the manner in which the process has been conducted: the failure to consult or even notify local public bodies; the failure to advertise the sale locally; the brief period for the receipt of offers; the sealed bid method of sale, and the lack of any consideration given to local people purchasing the freehold to establish a trust to keep the wood as a local amenity.
Chepstow town council has complained to the National Audit Office that Forest Enterprise has
"acted totally against the public interest in this matter and negated its public duty."
Welsh Assembly Member, David Davies, has referred the matter to Counsel General in the National Assembly for Wales.
In letters to me, the chief executive of Forest Enterprise has stated that
"what is for sale at present is the exclusive option to take forward a planning application and … the advertisement in the Estates Gazette may have misled the point."
The chief executive of Forest Enterprise and the director for Wales have replied in detail to letters that I have written to them. I would like to express my appreciation to them for attending a meeting in my constituency to discuss the issues and clarify certain points.
From those contacts, it has transpired that Forest Enterprise acknowledges that it did not notify key bodies about the decision to sell and that there was no discussion about the proposed sale with the Welsh Assembly Secretary, Christine Gwyther, or the Assembly's Agriculture and Rural Development Committee. Forest
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Enterprise acknowledges also that two bids have been received, including one from the developers who had made the initial contact.
Forest Enterprise acknowledges that it would have to assess the suitability of any private developers before agreeing to the sale of an option to purchase, and that it considers that the planning process may be a suitable forum for public consultation. It assured us that the wood would not be sold unless planning permission were granted, and Forest Enterprise would remain neutral during the planning process. Fortunately, we were assured that no irrevocable decisions have been taken and that it would agree to a period of several months to allow public representation to be made and to seek the local authority's views.
I shall respond to Forest Enterprise's points. I do not accept that the planning system is an appropriate forum for public consultation or that Forest Enterprise could remain neutral during the process, because it facilitated the sale and stands to make a considerable capital receipt from the scheme's success.
The planning authority could well refuse planning permission and the applicant could appeal to the National Assembly's planning appeals system. The developers have a right of appeal if the application is refused, but the citizens and local community do not have a right of appeal if it is granted. Although I am satisfied that Monmouthshire county council would not support such a planning application, I cannot prejudge such a decision.
I am grateful that the assistant director of planning, Mr. Ashworth, has stated that a large-scale tourist development within the AONB would not be in accord with the unitary development plan policies, so a planning application for such a development would probably be refused.
To their credit, the Government have changed the policy from that of the previous Conservative Government and put a stop to the sale of large-scale forest land. In reply to a parliamentary question this week, my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary states:
"We have stopped large scale sales of forest land by the Forestry Commission. Our policy is that the Commission may only sell agricultural land, land associated with houses and other buildings, unplantable land and relatively small and isolated blocks of forest land which do not make a significant contribution to its objectives and which are surplus to its requirements."—[Official Report, 7 December 1999; Vol. 340, C.527W.]
None of those conditions applied to Chepstow Park wood. However, there is a get-out clause: the commission may also sell areas for development where that is in the public interest.
Forest Enterprise states that it must consider a developer's inquiry where it deems it to be in "the public interest", but how can the public interest be assessed if there is no consultation with local authorities, those in the AONB or the Welsh Assembly? Public interest cannot be synonymous with the Exchequer's or developer's interest.
I accept that forestry locations can be developed as potential holiday operations, and such operations may be welcomed in many areas, especially in Wales, but surely the starting point should be a strategy for the environment, economic development and tourism, which would involve collaboration on all fronts with the National Assembly. Only then should consideration be given to interest from potential developers.

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I have written to the First Secretary of the National Assembly about the matter. I understand that there were no discussions with Forest Enterprise prior to the advertisement for the sale of the freehold of Chepstow Park wood. I have asked for clarification of whether the policy adopted for Chepstow Park wood would be applied equally to other Forestry Commission land in Wales.
Chepstow Park wood lies in the Wye valley area of outstanding natural beauty, to which Parliament has given a special designation. It is stated:
"The primary purpose of ANOB designation is to conserve natural beauty and account should be taken of the need to safeguard agriculture, forestry and of the economic and social needs of local communities."
The Government's intention is to strengthen the position of designated AONBs, and that will be greatly welcomed in my constituency.
According to the woodland trust, Chepstow Park wood is an ancient woodland site and appears as such in the ancient woodland inventory. Only 31,000 hectares of ancient woodland remain in Wales, and at 331 hectares, Chepstow Park wood is one of only three planted ancient woodland sites in Wales that exceeds 300 hectares.
According to Gwent wildlife trust,
"this forest is one of the significantly wooded areas in Gwent and is of value as a relatively undisturbed habitat for wildlife and as an undeveloped area of open space, which is of significant landscape value.
Chepstow Park wood is an ancient woodland site which lies within the Wye valley area of outstanding natural beauty and is therefore of significant historic and amenity value."
One constituent, Mrs. Attley from Devauden, wrote to me:
"The woods themselves are a constant reminder of how long it takes for something truly beautiful and natural to be created and how easy and quick it is to destroy it for ever. We have brought up our children in this area and have ridden our horses and walked with our dogs in these … woods for many years and we have great respect for this spectacular place in which we are lucky enough to live."
I implore my hon. Friend the Minister, in collaboration with the Welsh Assembly Secretaries, to intervene to instruct Forest Enterprise that its decision to sell Chepstow Park wood is contrary to Government policy, contrary to the moratorium on the sale of large-scale forest, and contrary to the Government's commitments to promote biodiversity and sustainability and to provide greater public access to the countryside. I assure the House that I shall give my constituents the fullest support in opposing any attempt to take Chepstow Park wood out of the public domain.
7.13 pm
The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (Mr. Elliot Morley): I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Monmouth (Mr. Edwards), particularly on the case that he has made so powerfully for the wood in his constituency. As someone who has been to his constituency, I can confirm what a beautiful area it is. I quite understand why he is so anxious to ensure that it is not spoilt and why he is so keen to work with his constituents to raise the issue. I assure him that the issue of Chepstow Park wood is now
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well known at the very highest levels of the Forestry Commission. He has certainly had great success in raising the issue and making his concerns clear.
I am very happy to communicate those concerns to both the Forestry Commission and Christine Gwyther—as my hon. Friend rightly said, forestry management has been devolved. Decisions on Chepstow Park wood are therefore ones for the forestry management strategies of the Welsh Assembly.
I recognise the case that my hon. Friend makes, and I shall be pleased to go through the Government's policy on the disposal of Forestry Commission woods. I shall try to address my hon. Friend's concerns and take them into account.
As my hon. Friend rightly says, the Government stopped the large-scale disposal of Forestry Commission land. That was a manifesto commitment, and I am pleased that the Treasury made financial assistance available to the Forestry Commission, because the previous Government had worked on the assumption that the commission would raise a great deal of its income from forthcoming sales. That hole in the commission's budget therefore had to be plugged.
The Forestry Commission was, in effect, undergoing a process of back-door privatisation, which I do not believe the private or the public sector wanted. Accordingly, we have given the Forestry Commission a new policy on the sale of land, and I shall take my hon. Friend through it.
The Forestry Commission's objectives are to protect and expand Britain's forests and woodlands, and to increase their value to society and the environment—not just their financial value, but their value for people, wildlife and the future, as my hon. Friend noted.
The previous Government's policy was to reduce the size of the commission's estate. During the time of the Conservative Government, the commission sold 36,000 hectares of forest in England, about 15 per cent. of its total forest estate. We do not have such a policy and we have stopped those large-scale sales.
The Forestry Commission manages a large and valuable estate, some parts of which are ancient and special, such as the New Forest. Other parts of the estate may be of less direct value to the Government, the community and the commission. For example, some parts are farmland let to tenant farmers, and some are isolated blocks of commercial forestry that are expensive and difficult to manage.
Like any large landowner, the Forestry Commission needs to be able to buy and sell land in order to manage its estate efficiently and meet its objectives. It may make sense to sell an isolated block of woodland, if the money raised can be used to acquire another area that can be opened up to the public or that has high conservation value.
We have not imposed a complete moratorium on the commission buying and selling land for the purposes of estate management. Some woodland is leasehold and does not have public access. As part of our commitment to increase public access, we have no problem with the commission selling off one block of woodland to which there is no access, and using the money to buy another block of woodland that can be opened to the public.
Parts of the estate, such as the New Forest and the Forest of Dean, will never be sold, so the commission does not have carte blanche to sell what it wants.

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The commission may sell agricultural land. In the past, the commission has bought large areas of land for afforestation, but parts have been retained in agriculture. Where those are managed on agricultural tenancies, we have no objection to the commission selling them to the sitting tenants.
The Forestry Commission may sell unplantable land. The commission does not need to retain ownership of areas that are unsuitable for planting, perhaps because they are too high up the hill. Those areas are often let to farmers for grazing, and they can be sold. Other areas, such as wet areas, may be of great conservation value, and may be sold to conservation bodies to be managed as nature reserves.
Assets such as houses and buildings that may be surplus to requirements may be sold. There may also be small blocks of isolated land that do not make a contribution to the overall objectives and are surplus to requirements. They, too, can be sold. Thus there is a range of woods that can be put on the market, and the money used as part of the aims outlined in the English forestry strategy.
When small woods are considered for sale, we are keen that local people should have the opportunity, if they wish, to buy those woods. We have encouraged local trusts to take over small areas of woodland that are important to local people. Other organisations have also bought parts of woodland for public enjoyment and recreation. I am keen for people to have that opportunity.
Mr. Edwards: Does my hon. Friend accept that such a purchase to create a trust is almost impossible if there is no local advertisement and if the advertisement is directed only at major developers?
Mr. Morley: I understand my hon. Friend's point. As he said, the Chepstow Park wood proposal must go through planning procedures. It is unlikely to be sold for development unless planning permission is granted.
As a general principle, I am in favour of giving local people and organisations the opportunity to bid for woodland that is to be sold. Although I cannot comment on Welsh policy and the actions of the Welsh Assembly, we may need to consider an overall strategy to ensure that local people are not denied an opportunity to make a bid if they want to do that. I shall be happy to discuss that with the Forestry Commission.
The Forestry Commission has a good record in involvement with community forests—for example, Thames Chase and Red Rose forest in the north-west. Overall, we have set the Forestry Commission a sensible long-term policy on sales and acquisitions. It allows the Forestry Commission the flexibility to manage woods efficiently and to dispose of and acquire woodland and land as part of its policy of maintaining core public woodland, which people throughout the country value so highly.
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As my hon. Friend said, he knows the policy—he has tabled questions to me about it—and he knows that it does not apply to Chepstow Park wood. He rightly said that we should consider the question of selling forests in the public interest. Chepstow Park wood falls into that category. There is a demand for high quality country holidays in Britain. Several self-contained holiday villages have been built in attractive rural areas—often sensitively—and have proved to be popular. They encourage many people who do not normally go to the woods to get out there. They enhance the local economy and create many new jobs, which are especially welcome in rural areas.
When considering such schemes, the views of local people must be taken into account. Some developments mean that people who used to enjoy a particular wood can no longer do that, or that their enjoyment is restricted. In some cases, planning conditions specify the creation of an equivalent amount of woodland by the developers. Planners can consider that.
When considering a planning application, local authorities will consult widely and in detail. That means that my hon. Friend and his constituents will be able to make representations as part of the planning procedures, which are designed to allow them to do that. It has been made clear to my hon. Friend that the Forestry Commission has a neutral role. The planning authorities will decide whether Chepstow Park wood is suitable for development.
My hon. Friend made some important points. First and foremost, he represented the views of his constituents effectively. He referred to areas of outstanding natural beauty and how they should fit in with the sort of development that we are considering. He mentioned disposal policies and questioned whether the provision for giving local people a chance to make bids is sufficient. He also raised the planning of such schemes, the most appropriate way for people to make representations and the role of the Forestry Commission and the Welsh Assembly in the democratic process. They are important issues and I believe that he will have the opportunity to make those representations as part of that process.
My hon. Friend raised important issues about disposal policy that are worthy of further consideration and I can certainly give him the assurance that I shall hold discussions with the Forestry Commission and Christine Gwyther, who has ministerial responsibility for them in the Welsh Assembly. His views have been well put—he has made his case succinctly—and I shall ensure that they are passed on to the appropriate bodies and in the appropriate places.
Question put and agreed to.
Adjourned accordingly at twenty-five minutes past Seven o'clock.

Preamble
[SIR ALAN HASELHURST in the Chair]

Modernising Government White Paper
[Relevant document: The evidence taken by the Select Committee on Public Administration from the Minister for the Cabinet Office on 23 November (HC 40-i).]
Motion made, and Question proposed, That the sitting be now adjourned.—[Mr. Dowd.]
2.30 pm
The Minister of State, Cabinet Office (Mr. Ian McCartney): This is the first occasion on which the Government have opened a debate in this Chamber. Ministers have come here to answer questions on other aspects of business, but it is the first time that the Cabinet Office has initiated a debate here.
I hope that we shall have an interesting debate on the modernisation of government, especially here in this new, modern setting. We shall have to wait and see whether this setting will work, after receiving feedback from our colleagues. It seems rather strange, and somewhat European. I said that to see what Conservative Members would do when I mentioned the word "European". It might wake them up.
I hope that we shall have a lively debate on the Government's proposals for modernisation. I shall go through the programme, putting flesh on the bones of the concepts and principles, and explaining specifically how we intend to roll out that programme and achieve our objectives. We are pledged to simplify government, and to bring it closer to the people whom we serve. This debate will give Members on all sides of the Chamber the opportunity to express their views on the modernisation of government. I hope that they will also give us ideas from their perspective as Members of Parliament in their own communities, about how modernisation is working on the ground to bring together local government, national Government, and the public, private and voluntary sectors in the delivery of services in our communities.
When we published the White Paper in the spring, it was a serious attempt at radical reform. The vision that it set out contained four key elements. The first is better policy making: the importance of working across Government with each other and with stakeholders to provide opportunities to develop medium and long-term policies and to deal with policy issues in the short term.
The second element is improved quality and responsiveness of public services—an important factor in a society in which people increasingly want services provided 24 hours a day, seven days a week. The third element is the harnessing of information technology for the public good, to provide access to a range of new services through the development of IT. The fourth is the valuing of public services, by investing in the skills and aspirations of public servants and in how those services are designed to be delivered.
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This Government have a different perspective from the previous Government, who did not value public servants or the principle of lively, modern public services. There has been a sea change in the approach to the modernisation of government. We are excited at the prospect of introducing these changes with colleagues across central and local government. The programme will make a real difference to people's lives. It is a long-term programme, but we have made a good start. I shall give some examples of what we are already doing.
We have set out a number of key commitments in the White Paper and in the action plan that we subsequently produced. We are delivering on all of those. I shall risk repeating myself: this is an ambitious, long-term programme. We need, therefore, a strategic approach to ensure that the programme is rolled out across the board and have identified six catalysts for action over the next 12 months or so. They are the roll-out of a complete framework for good policy making and an independent review of its implementation; the establishment of effective business planning throughout the public sector, building on the 2000 public spending round and the ensuing public service agreements; a review of the way in which all public services are delivered to bring about continuous improvement in quality and service standards and ensure that services are responsive to the needs of the citizen; the development of a corporate IT strategy, which aims to achieve robust targets for the availability of, use of and satisfaction with electronic services; and a programme to modernise the civil service. There is also a major programme for modernising management across other parts of the public sector.
Some may say that policy making is sometimes a bit dull, but I rather enjoy it—especially when I get my own way. The Conservatives are certainly not having a dull time working out their ever more extreme policies. No doubt we shall hear more about those later. We are turning our pledges into reality. We are helping people into work and tackling poverty. We are attacking the poverty that the Conservatives created. We are improving the education of our children and the health of our nation. We are reducing crime. We are creating a stable economic environment for people to invest in and so create employment opportunities. We are making a difference to people's lives through the provision of new services in the national health service and other parts of the public sector. We have harnessed the Government machine to deliver those pledges and have promised to improve effectiveness in delivering the results that make a practical and quantifiable difference to people's lives.
In June this year, we established a centre of excellence in policy making—the Centre for Management and Policy Studies—which is leading a drive to identify and spread good policy-making practice. That involves developing the civil service into an organisation that learns new ways of doing things and introducing reviews of how individual Departments make policy so that we can see how we are doing. Such major changes take time. However, the centre has already run innovative programmes—for example, a unique interchange programme for senior European public and private sector figures to share ways of doing things, an induction programme for new Ministers, the first ever departmental peer reviews in respect of the Cabinet Office and the Inland Revenue, and a Treasury review of

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public service agreements. Such programmes will provide an innovative means for the civil service to learn about better ways of doing things. We are also open to learning new ways of doing things as we drive forward policies to improve people's lives.
Our key policy priorties have concerned education. We are taking steps to improve educational policy through the literacy and numeracy strategies, tackling failing schools, promoting success in delivering lifelong learning—for example, the introduction of the university for industry and individual learning accounts.
Our economic policies have brought about lower interest rates, lower business taxes and an end to boom and bust economics.
We are supporting families by making work pay through the introduction of the national minimum wage and the working families tax credit. Hon. Members opposite are opposed to those two measures. They have made a commitment to abolish the national minimum wage, which would lead to a wage cut for more than 2 million workers, and to abolish the working families tax credit, which would mean a tax rise for more than 2 million families. The party opposite is in the business of trying to undermine our strategic approaches—
Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. I am sorry to interrupt the right hon. Gentleman, but in the spirit of the new arrangements in Westminster Hall, hon. Members whom he might assume to be opposite him may not in fact be opposite—they may even be behind him.
Mr. McCartney: In new Labour we are sometimes surrounded by all kinds of party. I apologise, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I shall get used to this new environment eventually, and perhaps even get friendly with the hon. Member opposite.
Mr. Stephen Day: You owe me a drink, McCartney.
Mr. McCartney: The hon. Gentleman is trying to put me off my stride.
Mr. Andrew Lansley: In the spirit of Westminster Hall debate, the Minister will recall that he and I were members of the Standing Committee that considered the National Minimum Wage Bill. I do not recall the point during the passage of that Bill at which I stated that the Conservative party was pledged to abolish the minimum wage, yet the Minister stated that as a matter of fact. Would he care to give me the relevant reference?
Mr. McCartney: I was referring to the right hon. Member for Wokingham (Mr. Redwood), who has repeatedly made it clear that the Conservative party is opposed and would abolish the minimum wage. That is on the record in Hansard. Can you confirm that you have reversed that policy, and thereby lay to rest the fear among workers who claim the minimum wage, that if the Conservative party were ever to return to power it would give them a wage cut by abolishing the minimum wage?
Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. Although we are in a new, informal setting, the rule about referring to hon.
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Members in the third person still applies. If the Minister says "you", he is referring to me and I have had nothing to do with the White Paper.
Mr. McCartney: If you do not mind my saying so, Mr. Deputy Speaker, that is a typical politician's answer—nothing to do with me, guv.
Mr. Lansley: I am grateful to the Minister and I would not dream of trying to delay him when he is talking about important matters in the White Paper. My right hon. Friend and I were opposed to the introduction of the minimum wage, but we have not taken forward the question of what we propose to do after the next election, which is a different matter. Although the Minister referred to the creation of policy, he will note that the common-sense revolution has not yet addressed the issue.
Mr. McCartney: To assist the hon. Gentleman, I shall quote from Hansard when the right hon. Member for Wokingham said:
"I have endlessly stated a very clear position. We oppose the national minimum wage."—[Official Report, 29 April 1999; Vol. 330, c. 541.]
Angela Smith: The Minister may recall that he, I and the hon. Gentleman spent many hours together, including a couple of nights, discussing the matter in the House. We can be forgiven for thinking that the Conservatives oppose the national minimum wage because they fought tooth and nail against it, opposed it every step of the way and even argued that disabled people and pensioners should not receive a minimum wage.
Mr. McCartney: I remember well those nocturnal events in the Chamber. We were proud to set a record for keeping the House up for a continuous period in Committee to ensure that the minimum wage was delivered on time. My hon. Friend is right to say that the Conservatives fought tooth and nail to prevent it from being introduced. They said that it would cost a million jobs, but 700,000 new jobs have been created since the National Minimum Wage Bill was introduced in the House. More than 90 per cent. of employers believe in the principle of a national minimum wage. Conservative policy has again been shown to be at the extreme end of British politics with no one supporting it.
Mr. Lansley: The spirit of modernisation in this context surely means not fighting the battles of a previous Standing Committee, but understanding the implications of what has occurred since the introduction of the national minimum wage. I wonder whether the Minister is aware of the statement by the chairman of the National Care Homes Association, who spoke recently on the impact of the national minimum wage and the working time regulations. He said:
"Government must be aware of the precarious state of the sector"—
the care home sector—
and the threat that is posed to the elderly people we care for by home closures".

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Does the Minister at least recognise that we should debate the impact of the national minimum wage rather than ideology, which he is still debating?
Mr. McCartney: I am glad that the hon. Gentleman referred to the care home sector. Since the Government came to power, huge and significant new resources have been pumped into community care, including care for the elderly in both public and private sector care homes. The Government have acted to improve the quality of care for those in care homes and the standard of care from employers to their employees. It is unacceptable to pay people £1.20 an hour in a care home and expect them to pay for their own training, and then to expect a first-class service for the most vulnerable in the community. I am pleased that the majority of care home owners have responded positively to the introduction of the minimum wage and paid holidays for staff. Those are basic minimum standards.
I remember that when I was a member of the Opposition Front-Bench team on health I was invited to conference after conference to discuss the parlous state of the care home sector because of the way in which the previous Conservative Government had hiked up interest rates. When people borrowed money to open new homes, they were left financially ruined because the Conservative Government, for ideological reasons, withdrew resources from local authorities for care home support. The previous Government's record on the private care sector was nothing short of shambolic. The present Government have improved standards, invested in education and training, and invested in skills to ensure that those who need care because they are vulnerable are protected by good standards. The Government are working with local authorities and the private sector to drive up standards by providing decent pay and conditions.
Mr. Lansley: It is a pity to stop the Minister when he is in the middle of speech No. 17B, which I have heard before. With regard to care homes, will he acknowledge that, in the context of this debate, the much-vaunted phrase "joined-up government" ought to apply? If the Government want a given wage level or a restriction on working time, that will have an impact on costs. Why has the Department of Social Security increased rates for residential care for 2000–01 by 1.4 per cent., and rates for elderly residential care by just 1.5 per cent? That increase does not recognise the costs incurred in meeting the Government's policy. If the Government will the end, they must also, through the DSS, will the means.
Mr. McCartney: I thank the hon. Gentleman for speech No. 22C, which I have heard before, but which does not get any better. I would have expected him to tweak it by showing some concern for the needs of those in the care sector. The Conservative party is prepared to put at risk the standards that we have set with regard to employers' duty towards employees and the independent assessment of care provision. Clearly, Conservatives oppose all modern methods of management in this sector.
We promised that services would be organised around the needs of the people who use them. We promised high-quality services that would be available 24 hours a
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day, seven days a week, where there was the demand. We promised that, by the end of 2000, everyone in the country would be able to telephone NHS Direct, 24 hours a day, for health care advice from experienced, qualified nurses. By 2001, jobseekers should be able to look for and apply for jobs through the Employment Service anywhere in England, Scotland and Wales, by telephone or internet, even during evenings and at weekends. In at least half of local authorities, older people should benefit from joined-up services and integrated planning by the end of 2000.
We are also transforming old methods to give Government a modern, helpful and friendly face. We have launched pilot schemes to provide a single point of contact with the benefits system, which combine in a single place the services of the Benefits Agency, the Employment Service and local authorities' benefit departments. We have created NHS Direct, which provides health advice and information over the telephone and, from 7 December, direct into people's living rooms. During its first 24 hours, the new internet service received 1.5 million hits from people looking for help and advice from NHS Direct.
We are listening to the needs of people in respect of public services. For example, we launched a nationwide programme of "listening to older people" events, and a series of "listening to women" events, on which a report was published in October. We have introduced new service standards for waiting times and the time taken to answer telephone calls, and for the introduction of e-mail inquiry points.
Unnecessary bureaucracy deters innovation and stops staff delivering a better service to the public. We are piloting learning labs in the Benefits Agency, Customs and Excise and the Prison Service, where certain non-statutory rules will be waived so that staff can try new working methods. In September, we joined forces with TNT to launch an award for high standards of service through use of the excellence model in a partnership environment.
We have created service action teams. In October, I launched the service teams action plan, which set out how we provide co-ordinated public services quickly on matters such as changes of address, long-term care in the home, retirement, bereavement and access to information on services. The action plan is not the end of the matter, but the beginning. We are developing responses to the problems that our "mystery shoppers" identified as the most pressing. For example, in October, access pages were launched on the internet, containing contact details on a range of central Government helplines, including telephone numbers, service hours and direct links to websites.
The public wants services to be available for longer—on occasion, up to 24 hours a day and for seven days a week. In March, we shall announce the results of the research of the people's panel, which will cover five services for which there is the greatest demand from the public for extended opening hours. We shall try to meet that demand by the end of 2001.
Today, my right hon. Friend the Minister for the Cabinet Office launched a Cabinet Office website, which contains a new directory of information about the main Government help lines. It contains details about

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opening hours, phone numbers and e-mail addresses. It is easy to understand—for example, it refers to tax rather than to Inland Revenue.
Now that I appear in public life, I put much effort into using plain language. There are many ways to use language, but most of them make it more complicated. We are working with the Plain English Campaign and with ethnic minority communities to improve the worst examples, such as the application form for a driving licence for a minicab driver that includes a photograph. We are also training people to draft documents in plain language. In February, we shall publish best practice guides about using plain language, and we shall work with ethnic minority language services to help those seeking advice about Government services to have access to minority language services.
Our proposals about changing address will make a significant difference to the lives of many people—for example, a gentleman who is disabled by multiple sclerosis and who changes his address in a move that is arranged by his local authority so that he can be nearer his family. Which bodies does he need to notify of the new address in order to keep his benefits? First, he has to notify his previous Benefits Agency office of his new address either in writing by using the appropriate form or by writing a letter. In most cases, that information will be made available to all Department of Social Security agencies. If the Benefits Agency knows that he is claiming housing benefit, it will pass on that information to the relevant body. His disability benefits are likely to remain in payment and his income support may remain in payment, but his housing benefit will cease. That is the first notification.
That person must also notify his old local authority of the fact that he has moved and he must tell the new authority of his new address. He may also have to send a separate notification to the housing and council tax benefit section, which deals with liability for council tax, and the local social services department. Those steps involve a further five notifications.
The person will have to make a fresh application to claim income support at his new local office, although his circumstances may not have changed materially. He will be able to reclaim housing benefit from his new local authority at the same time, but if he does not do so he will have to put in a separate claim that contains details about his income to the Benefits Agency, although it already holds those details.
If the person is able to drive, he must notify the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency of his new address, which involves returning his driving licence. He must also notify the UK Passport Agency, the Inland Revenue and TV Licensing, which he might be lucky enough to be able to access through the internet.
The person might have to make a further four notifications. He might have to apply to the local authority's social services department for adaptations to be made to his new home, and he must provide evidence from his doctor that those changes are medically necessary. Social services officials will assess those needs and take down details of his income—the same details that the Benefits Agency already holds—and that help will be means-tested.
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Merely in order to move house, that person might have to make 10 separate notifications of his change of address to public sector organisations. In addition, he will have many forms to fill in throughout the process.
That situation is unacceptable; there is no defence for it. The introduction of a one-stop facility to notify a change of address would be a significant step forward. We should also work with various bodies to increase the number of places at which one could make such a notification.
Our plans involve giving people a better service and better access to public services. We promised that information and communications technology will be used to provide better services to the public and that we shall not trail behind technological developments. We have set ourselves firm and measurable targets. We want 25 per cent. of Government services to be available electronically by 2002, 50 per cent. to be available by 2005 and 100 per cent. to be available by 2008.
We are already improving services to the public by using modern technology. From April this year, the Employment Service placed job vacancies on the internet. Government websites will be more informative and user-friendly under new guidelines issued by my Department's central IT unit. Our invest to save budget, which is providing £230 million over the next three years, is pump-priming modernising government projects.
The first round of the invest to save budget funded several innovative projects, including an electronic one-stop shop for land and property information, which will help to reduce house-buying delays, a pilot scheme to enable people to make applications for vehicle tax discs over the internet, and an electronic catalogue to enable public bodies to order goods more cheaply and efficiently.
In round two, 500 expressions of interest were sifted down to 175 full bids, which are now being considered. The winners are likely to include: projects that increase electronic access to services for individuals and businesses; new websites that give the public increased access to information; and projects that facilitate electronic data exchange between public bodies. Those are all important new advances.
There is no simple formula for ensuring that IT projects are a success, but we are examining experiences in the public and private sector, both here and abroad, to find out what are the key factors behind the successful delivery of projects. Early work shows that those factors include full assessment of the risks involved in a project and clear plans for managing those risks; strong contingency plans; keeping a project to a manageable scale; ensuring that both the supplier and purchaser clearly understand the aims of the project and their respective responsibilities; and building in the capacity for learning lessons from previous projects, both good and bad.
Our aim is that, within the next three years, people will be able electronically to look for work and be matched to jobs, to obtain information and advice about benefits, to apply for training loans and student support, to submit tax and VAT returns, to book driving and theory tests, to apply for regional business support grants, to be paid by Government for goods and services and to notify different parts of Government of

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details, such as change of address, through a single transaction. The challenge for this Government—we believe in the value of public service and in investing in that service—is to ensure that the benefits of new technology are shared by the many, not just by the few.
I shall conclude by dealing with the issues relating to public servants. We said that we would value public services, and that includes public servants. The public service needs to be an agent of change. To do that, it needs to be innovative. Public servants must be advocates for the citizen, as well as ambassadors for the enterprise in which they work. We want more open public services—services that value people and develop their full potential. We want a civil service that values the differences that people bring to it and it must be strengthened by diversity in recruitment policies. We shall set targets for Departments to increase their numbers of disabled staff, initially in the senior civil service and, subsequently, at all levels.
We want managers to work in partnership with staff, to recogise and value the central role of their staff, and to develop a common understanding of the goals of their organisation. They should develop an agreed work culture and a shared commitment to training every individual. They should encourage and support staff to identify and enhance their skills, and promote an inclusive relationship between staff and their elected representatives. We have promised a better deal for staff and we will deliver it. We are working in partnership with the civil service unions to achieve those shared goals.
Much has been done, but much more remains to be done. I hope that today's debate will give hon. Members an opportunity to express their views about the Government's strategic approach to these matters, and I hope that I have given the Chamber sufficient detail to show that the Government do not just have a set of values that they will let lie on the shelf, but that we are actually trying effectively to implement those values.
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Mr. Andrew Lansley: I share with the Minister a novel sensation in speaking in this Chamber, but it is a pleasure to be here and we shall see how it goes. We shall see if the modernisation—if modernisation it is—is an improvement, because not all progress is improvement.
I enjoyed listening to the Minister. It is always a pleasure to hear him. I hope that he will not think it too churlish of me when I say that I hoped that the Minister for the Cabinet Office would introduce the debate on the White Paper herself. It is a little more than eight months since its publication and the right hon. Lady's predecessor did not have, or perhaps did not seek, an opportunity to debate the matter. I am glad that we are debating it, but I am sorry that the Minister herself did not see the value of attending the debate.
Angela Smith: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. Lansley: It is a bit soon to give way; I shall do so in a moment. It is significant that the right hon. Lady chooses not to attend this debate. She was happy to give evidence on the subject to the Public Administration
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Committee. The Chairman of that Committee, the hon. Member for Cannock Chase (Dr. Wright), is present. He said to the right hon. Lady
"as you have had to think and read your way into all this"—
the "Modernising government" White Paper—
over the last few weeks, what … is the really key idea that you want to have a go at in all this?"
The right hon. Lady replied:
"I do not think that I can answer that fairly because I am still ploughing my way through a lot of the detail."—
That is fair enough. She continued:
"If what you are saying to me is, what is the key bit, what am I prioritising, I do not think I can give you a straight answer. But I think I can say … that the overall thing that drives me is simplification and commonsense."
I seem to have heard that somewhere before. Like other members of the Government, the right hon. Lady finds it advantageous to pick up on Conservative rhetoric, but not necessarily on Conservative reality. I give way to the hon. Lady.
Angela Smith: I am glad to see that the hon. Gentleman has read the minutes of the meeting of the Public Administration Committee on 23 November. Can he explain why there were no Conservative Members present to hear the Minister's evidence?
Mr. Lansley: You can hardly expect me to know the comings and goings of my hon. Friends Mr. Deputy Speaker. Unfortunately, the hon. Lady knows that such is the preponderance of the Government's majority—it is a deeply unhealthy thing—that Conservative membership of any Select Committee is rather sparse: we are spread much thinner than that of the governing party. I know that my hon. Friends on the Public Administration Committee have given full measure of service to that Committee. I often hear from them about the issues that are raised there.
I am interested in the concept of joined-up government. I wonder whether the Minister of State connected the matter with yesterday's debate in the Chamber and whether he can justify the joined-up character of Government thinking. The right hon. Gentleman set out the Government's policy to reduce the Post Office monopoly, but in the space of a few months, after he had moved on to better and brighter things, his successor had to announce that the Post Office monopoly was not going to be reduced. The talk about joined-up government is all very well and the talk about delivery is all very well, but the reality of joined-up government is a different matter.
The right hon. Gentleman spoke predominantly about technology. Modernisation in government, the process in which the Government are purportedly engaged, is cloaked in technology. None of us wants to be slow to adopt technologies that deliver better results. There are two important themes relating to the introduction of technology that the Parliamentary Secretary may wish to consider when he replies to the debate. First, there are issues relating to access to technology and to the delivery of services through technology. When services are delivered, those accessing them may have to commit themselves to related expenditure or to buy in services. That is not always the case in respect of public services, but it can be. The cost

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of access, the availability of technology, of hardware and software, telephone access charges, call charges and, in respect of the internet, access to credit, must all be considered.
As was evident in the recent Joseph Rowntree Foundation report, those on relatively low incomes do not necessarily have access to bank accounts or to credit. If they work largely on a cash basis, it can be incredibly difficult for them to gain access to services if credit is required.
The second issue relates to the effectiveness of technology. It does not automatically follow that the application of new technology delivers a more effective service. From personal experience in constitutency postbags and surgeries, all hon. Members know of the difficulties that surround the Child Support Agency and are aware of its unhappy history. [Interruption.]
Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. John McWilliam): Order. The Minister must not seek to attract my attention from a sedentary position.
Mr. Ian McCartney: I was actually standing.
Mr. Deputy Speaker: I was Chairman of the first Standing Committee on which the right hon. Gentleman served, so he knows that I sometimes have such trouble.
Mr. Lansley: As the Minister knows, I was not a Member of Parliament at the time in question. The Child Support Agency has an unhappy history which stretches back under previous Governments. We await evidence of what will be achieved after the introduction of new legislation, but the Government have not yet solved the continuing problems. They have not been solved on previous occasions by what were perceived to be important measures involving new technology, call centres, computerisation and so on. All hon. Members have met constituents at surgeries who have received computer-produced letters that bear no relation to their circumstances. A constituent of mine received in the space of two days eight letters dispatched by a computer system, each of which stated exactly the same thing. Such communications are the product of technology, but they are not necessarily benefits, and we must be careful about the success or otherwise of the introduction of technological systems.
Mr. Brian White: On the point about the CSA, where a letter is produced every time there is change, it is not the technology that causes the problem, but the regulations on which it was based. Such problems are caused by the interaction between regulation and technology, rather than just by technology.
Mr. Lansley: The hon. Gentleman makes a fair point. Indeed, it is not necessarily the regulations that cause such problems, but the system that operates the technology. There is a danger of technology, rather than people, driving the service. The people providing the service should have been aware that, if changes in circumstances were not dealt with quickly enough, the technology would cause eight letters to arrive on the same day, each one saying pretty much the same thing. Technology must be understood and introduced in the right way to deliver an effective service.
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I am afraid that the record on the introduction of information technology is not a happy one. The Minister will be aware of the breakdown of the national insurance computer system, and that 285,000 pensioners are not receiving correct pension payments. Indeed, one third of those pensioners still have cases outstanding. He will be aware of the problems resulting from computerisation at the Passport Agency, although I shall not dwell on the matter, as the debate does not concern it. He will know that the Home Office is presently speaking about 17 major projects that it has undertaken, 11 of which have not been completed on the date that was originally estimated.
During the previous Session, I served on the Standing Committee considering the Bill that became the Protection of Children Act 1999. The Act set out to achieve a one-stop criminal records check, which was intended to be in place by December 2000. Reportedly, however, the Home Office now has so little confidence in its ability to deliver information technology systems such as those involved that the police criminal records check will perhaps not be available for another two years. The student loan fiasco that occurred during the summer is another example of such problems. It was perfectly clear in the initial stages of the new project that the software being sent out was inadequate. I remember speaking to local education authorities that were receiving weekly updates on the software.
The Minister has introduced a task force with precisely the objective of trying to tackle such issues across Government. I shall happily give way to him if he can provide some comfort about the mechanisms by which the Government will introduce further information technology systems such as those which I have mentioned.
Mr. Ian McCartney: In my speech, I set out the pillars of what the Government are now doing, not of what we are waiting to do. As well as assessing projects established under the previous Government, some of which are unworkable or have failed to work appropriately, and taking steps to get such projects on line, we have now adopted a rigorous approach involving the Cabinet Office and the Treasury. The aim is to determine the design of programmes and what they are set to achieve, and to deal with risk assessment. From now on, putting it under the carpet and hoping that it goes away—the previous Government's strategy—is not an approach that we would take. Within days of coming to power, we at the Department of Trade and Industry found and resolved the mess that they had made of the Post Office. I am pleased that the hon. Gentleman has exercised his mind on this matter. I am hopeful that we will soon see significant changes in the delivery of public services through communications systems that work.
Mr. Lansley: It is a pleasure to get another speech from the Minister. I look forward to the rigour of which he speaks being applied to those projects.
Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. The Minister made an intervention. Had it gone on too long and become a speech, I would have stopped it.
Mr. Lansley: You have greater patience than I do Mr. Deputy Speaker. Clearly, I am impatient; I want to be back on my feet as quickly as possible.

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If the rigour of which the Minister speaks is not applied, I am sure that parties and mechanisms in this House, through the Public Administration Committee and the Public Accounts Committee, will ensure that the fiasco in the Home Office of the past few days, which seems to persist with all the costs that it implies, is not allowed to continue.
The White Paper is called "Modernising government". Well, modernising is an adjective with various meanings. I am struck by the fact—it is, no doubt, a manifestation of the third way—that the Government prefer not to think in what they regard as old-fashioned terms of big government and small government. Indeed, the Prime Minister's foreword to the White Paper puts that concept in the past. They do not want to talk about big versus small or interventionism versus laissez-faire, but I am afraid that we need to talk about it because that is where the manifestation of worse government is occurring under the Labour Administration.
Although we might all favour better government, that often means leaner government—a Government who do only what they need to and no more. The Labour Administration talk about better regulation rather than deregulation—the idea of abolishing regulation is a bridge too far—but, for them, better regulation means more regulation. Some 2,700 additional regulations have cost business an additional £5.25 billion. They do not need us to tell them that they have failed; they can talk to the business community. It is extraordinarily unhappy about the volume and cost of new regulation.
Ministers talk about regulation, but in the space of the past few weeks they have had to introduce a whole new package. When we look inside the package, we see not proposals to reduce regulation, but proposals to have Ministers who have a title that says that they are supposed to reduce regulation. It also proposes to establish committees and examine the costs and benefits of regulation. We do not see the reduction in the burden of regulation and the setting of regulatory budgets for Departments that is required. I hope that the Parliamentary Secretary will promise that, because Ministers must put themselves under that discipline if they are serious about deregulatory proposals.
The Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office (Mr. Graham Stringer): Does the hon. Gentleman accept that there has been no serious change in the number of regulations that have been produced by this Government compared with the previous Government? The average is 3,000 a year for both Governments. I assume that we can expect the support of the Conservative party for the next year's regulatory reform Bill.
Mr. Lansley: There are points there. The hon. Gentleman wants to talk about the past, but I want to talk about the future. He mentions past regulations. The fact is that businesses, irrespective of what level of regulation applies to them, are concerned not with politicians debating how many additional regulations we place on them, but with politicians reducing the number of regulations.
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If the Parliamentary Secretary studies the common-sense revolution, he will discover a pledge to reduce the burden of regulation over the lifetime of a Parliament. That will be achieved only by setting regulatory budgets with independent compliance cost assessment, and by understanding from independent assessment the impact of regulation, and by being prepared when necessary to consider the experience of regulation. We discussed the experience of the National Minimum Wage Act 1998. Such experience should be considered; it should be asked whether compliance cost assessments produced by Departments were proved correct. It will often be found that the cost was significantly underestimated and the benefits overestimated. In those circumstances, one must be prepared to get rid of regulations and to set an overall limit.

You would not expect me to dwell at length, Mr. Deputy Speaker, on the deregulation and contracting out legislation that the Minister proposes to introduce next year. We shall consider it, but given that Ministers are proposing to give themselves the power to introduce regulations that increase burdens on some areas to try to reduce burdens on other areas, we shall be critical. The overall effect of deregulation should be to cut regulations rather than impose them. We shall also consider seriously the question of moving from enforcement orders to codes of practice. Enforcement bodies should be subject to orders rather than codes—codes are easily altered and orders are, in theory, the right direction in which to go. I shall not give the Parliamentary Secretary the comfort that he seeks.
I have been encouraged by my desire to hear deregulatory proposals from the Government to pursue the issue at length. However, the situation is symptomatic of a general issue about Government. Complex issues associated with Governments often are not susceptible to centrally determined solutions. I do not regard our desire to pursue limited government—the least government and the best-working government—as an ideological pursuit. I regard it as being eminently practical. If any Adminstrations have demonstrated such an approach, Conservative Administrations have. We have tried to tackle the deep-seated social issues that have bedevilled us. For example, we have achieved considerable economic advancement and increased the overall wealth of the country, without necessarily seeing those achievements translated into the resolution of social problems.
The recent Joseph Rowntree Foundation report made interesting reading on that point. It illustrated the fact that the economic growth and increasing employment that resulted from the Conservative legacy, from which the Government have benefited, have not necessarily translated into a reduction in poverty or inequality. The report referred to the first year of the Government, in which poverty and inequality rose, even though the economy and employment were growing fast. We are dealing with complex social issues that, as the foundation notes, are not susceptible to Government solutions resting on Government expenditure, legislation and control. The common-sense revolution is based on a principle—I commend it to the Minister as being applicable to the modernisation of government—of giving leadership to local organisations, giving freedom to individuals, families and their communities, giving leadership to

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communities and neighbourhoods and letting local government and communities give leadership instead of central Government being prescriptive.

I shall give the Minister a practical example. Local government should not have to respond to a central Government's prescriptions through an extension of the public service agreement. Rather, local government should be given the ability to set its own agenda and to determine it own priorities—to set for itself the measures against which it must be tested by the local community. The proposals currently being worked on by the Treasury and, perhaps, by the Minister of State, would turn local government into agencies of central Government. It would have to pursue the central—Labour—Government's ideas of what it ought to be doing across the country rather than setting local government priorities from what is set at not only local government but, preferably, community and neighbourhood levels.
Mr. White: Under the previous Conservative Government, the Local Government Association and its predecessor organisations used to meet Ministers. It was always rare for more than one or two Ministers from the Department of the Environment to be present and for other Departments to be represented. The Government have met the LGA on several occasions, and the LGA has been involved in a number of working groups. How does that square with the hon. Gentleman saying that the LGA is actively involved under this Administration, but was not under the previous one?
Mr. Lansley: It is symptomatic that every time I talk about what we ought to do now and in future, Government Members think that they should talk about what happened in the past.—[Interruption.] This time the Minister is seated. Now he is on his feet—I knew that there was a difference.
Angela Smith: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. Lansley: No, I shall move on. I do not wish to take up too much time because other Members want to speak, and I have much to say.
Better government is not just about the delivery of services; independence and accountability are also at the heart of the process. The right hon. Gentleman said a lot about technology, but not much about accountability, and still less about independence. We have heard a great deal over the past few months about the politicisation of the civil service: Ministers unwilling to contemplate an independent statistical service; Ministers pursuing a 20 per cent. increase in Government advertising in the first year in order to pursue their political agenda; and all but two directors of communication in Government Departments leaving within the first two years.
Andy Wood, who was director of communications for the Northern Ireland Office, said that the Labour Government press machine would become
"Some pale imitation of the nepotism and patronage-ridden machine"
that characterised America. The number of special advisers has trebled. The Prime Minister said that his chief press officer had done an effective job of attacking
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the Conservative party, as if that were the proper role of even a temporary civil servant, let alone of someone who occupies so significant a position in the Government information machine. I also note that the post of head of attack at Millbank tower was advertised, and that the Labour party made it clear in the advertisement that there would be high-level connections between the head of the attack unit at Millbank—a party appointment—and civil servants involved in the No. 10 policy operation.
The right hon. Gentleman knows that I have been around Whitehall and the party machines in the past, and I was always clear about where those distinctions lay. I fear that Ministers and civil servants are now neither clear nor comfortable about them. Will the Minister explain why the Labour party machine is advertising for someone who will clearly be working on a political basis with civil servants?
Mr. Ian McCartney: I give the hon. Gentleman a commitment that I have not read his personal file from his days in the civil service. I am sure that it would make interesting reading.
It is nonsense to suggest that the previous Conservative Government were not politicising. They put the full-time chairman of the Conservative party into the Cabinet. Their Deputy Prime Minister did nothing but Conservative party business. They introduced special advisers who tried to boss their way round the civil service, politicising and introducing the Conservative party line.
This Government have introduced an opening up of the process, a clarity of responsibility between politicians and the civil service, and a re-engagement with the need to value civil servants, their advice and their help. We value the support of the civil service. The hon. Gentleman's colleagues did none of that when they were in government, nor would they in future. I do not know why the hon. Gentleman wants to have a debate about Labour party special advisers. He obviously does not like the fact that a good Government are operating very well, and that the public think that we are doing well, too. However, we are not complacent.
Mr. Lansley: I could dwell on that matter for some time. The right hon. Gentleman knows that I was principal private secretary to a chairman of the Conservative party as well as to a Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster. I was a civil servant responsible for making sure a Minister was keeping separate his party and his Government responsibilities. He was paid not by the taxpayer, but by the party.
The Minister and his colleagues engage in many political activities—I sometimes wonder whether they spend more of their time on party political activities than on Government activities. The Labour party does not appear to be willing to pay ministerial salaries according to the extent to which Ministers engage in party activity. But, Mr. Deputy Speaker, I should move on.
The Minister challenged me to say what was happening as a consequence. Time does not permit a full answer, but rather than delivering, the Government have talked about delivery. That involves not joined-up government but an excess of reviews. There have been

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500 reviews so far, and, we now discover, 318 task forces have been established. The social exclusion unit is backed up by 18 policy action teams. A plethora of activity functions as a substitute for achievement.
The Minister knows that this is one of my bugbears. It is not good enough for the Government merely to talk about target setting. The Minister did so this afternoon—he said that 25 per cent. of Government services should have electronic delivery by 2002, 50 per cent. by 2005 and 100 per cent. by 2008. Targets do not necessarily involve delivery. Many such targets are offered as a substitute for delivery.
I know precisely what game the Minister and his colleagues are playing—it is called, "In a year or so's time". Instead of explaining what they have achieved during the past three or four years, they point to the targets that they have set for four or five years hence. That is why Ministers' rhetoric involves talk of 10, 15 or 20-year targets—they are a substitute for explaining what the Government have achieved during the past two and a half years. This year has been a year not of delivery, but of non-delivery.
I have examined the Government's annual report in detail. I shall not plagiarise what my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition said yesterday during Prime Minister's Question Time, but the Minister may recall that I, too, have discussed the integrated transport policy. Littered through the Government's annual report are references to supposed delivery. Of 177 so-called pledges, only 45 have been met, 33 have failed, 45 have been fudged and 54 have not yet been delivered. That is a sad catalogue of failure to deliver.
The Government have not increased their delivery as time has gone by—the number of reviews has multiplied. Some of the worst cases are like chickens coming home to roost. Only one week ago, the Prime Minister made a big thing about dealing with long-term care. The traditional approach involves establishing a commission—in this case, a royal commission—to show how important the issue is. However, when the royal commission reports, the Government take nine months to say, "Well, we do not know what we are doing to do. We shall look at the matter further." When targets are substituted for action, the public lose out.
In the time that remains, I want to emphasise what needs to be done. We need to reform not only particular policy but the structure of government and how it should be delivered. That does not simply involve de-layering government or—to give the Minister a graphic example—squashing the pyramid. The civil service is quite a narrow pyramid with many layers. When I was a grade 7 civil servant, I worked on the public spending round in the Department of Trade and Industry. Every time I saw the Minister, I was accompanied by the assistant secretary, the under-secretary, the deputy secretary and the permanent secretary. During conversations between a grade 7 civil servant and the Minister, four other civil servants kept an eye on proceedings. I suspect that things may have changed since then.
There is a good argument for de-layering the civil service and for ensuring that those who do the work have direct contact with Ministers. The relevant responsibilities should be pushed down the system. We must ensure that we do not fight the management battles
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of the last decade; we must prepare for the management challenges of the next decade. The Minister knows that that involves not squashing or flattening the pyramid but having distributed systems of management. In view of the way in which centres of activity are connected to each other, perhaps we should consider not a pyramid, but a pizza. We will not solve the problems of government by setting up reviews and task forces outside the structure of Government Departments—the co-ordination of decisions has to take place inside the Government. It will not happen as a result of deconstructing Cabinet government, which is the basis through which interdepartmental co-ordination should be happening, and also the basis on which Government accountability should be delivered. It will not be achieved by having bilateral discussions in the Prime Minister's study, which is apparently everybody's fond hope.
I noted a reference in Kavanagh and Seldon's volume which is relevant in that respect. A member of the Prime Minister's staff described him as "a big picture man", and was further quoted as saying:
"'If it is not on his agenda or in his big picture, then he cuts it out.'"
The authors add that a Cabinet Office official, on reading an early version of the book, added:
"'Yes, and potentially fatally so'".
The solution lies not in deconstructing Cabinet Committees and Cabinet government, but in working through Cabinet government while having better systems of management inside the Government.
The Minister spoke about the structure of the civil service. Conservative Members share some of his objectives in that regard. He was typically uncharitable about previous Conservative Administrations, but I assure him that my colleagues in the Conservative party value the role of the civil service. We are in the business not of wanting more or fewer civil servants, but of wanting only the minimum amount of government that is necessary, together with less regulation, less control and less tax. However, given that we have civil servants, they must deliver quality policy making, quality administration and quality management—indeed, they are often capable of doing so. Many values inside the civil service could easily be undermined by the way in which the Government are going about their activities. They are undermining the independence and impartiality of the concept of a disinterested public service that is not tied to the political priorities of a particular Administration.
Even the civil service should accept that an appreciation of risk is necessary. Civil servants should understand that there must be downsides as well as upsides—it is not just a matter of performance bonuses for delivering particular objectives. They should know, as those in the private sector know only too well, that if they do not deliver there will be a downside to balance the upside when they do deliver.
We should not blur the boundaries of what civil servants are responsible for. Ministers are responsible for policy. Policy failures that were not the civil service's responsibility are littered across the pages of the Government's annual report and their record in general. In the summer, the Prime Minister sought to divert attention away from his—and his ministerial

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colleagues'—failure to deliver and towards setting performance targets for permanent secretaries, as if they were responsible for the delivery of Government policy. That was not right.
Two things about the civil service should be clear cut—where accountability lies and the difference between Ministers' responsibilities and civil servants' responsibilities. It seems that civil servants who appear before Select Committees are increasingly responsible, in a personal sense, for the explanation of their administration. That should not happen if Ministers' statements about setting the policies to which their civil servants work have previously been clarified.
The Government's proposals on freedom of information cut directly against precisely that kind of open accountability. The class exemptions that the Government are proposing mean that we will not be able to see where the difference lies between what Ministers are responsible for—because they took the decisions—and the basis on which civil servants gave factual advice or advised about the practicability of a particular body. Those lines of accountability must be clear.
The civil service must be able to support its values of impartiality and independence as well as seeking to foster additional new values that set standards for employment as a whole. The Minister discussed diversity in terms of ethnic minorities and disabled people in the civil service. In my experience, the civil service strives in that respect to be as good an employer as one could fine anywhere. However, it still does not succeed in that respect, which illustrates the need for it to continue down that path, with our support. I read with great care the Schneider-Ross report, which was useful in illustrating the nature of the problem, and I have also seen the illustration from the Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions about the subjectivity of assessments and performance assessments of staff.
However, neither that problem, nor the problem of promotion within the civil service, will be solved simply by improving the civil service's recruitment procedures among ethnic minorities and other groups. We must focus on the extent to which people in the civil service from diverse groups are progressing on merit. I should be grateful if the Minister would respond to that point. We want not recruitment fairs and objective measures of recruitment, but objective assessment throughout the civil service, so that quality recruits can make progress at an early stage. We should demonstrate as soon as possible that ethnic minority candidates are capable of reaching senior positions such as permanent secretary.
Delivery is the test of government, but time does not permit me to list in detail the ways in which the Government have failed to deliver. I am afraid that matters are deteriorating. Class sizes have risen, waiting lists have risen, and crime is starting to rise. Britain is being brought to a standstill by a transport policy that simply is not working. Taxes have risen and regulation has increased; the burdens have increased and the benefits have decreased.
It is no good the Prime Minister talking about scars on his back from the failings of the civil service—he cannot deflect attention elsewhere. The failures are
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policy failures. The Government are talking about change in the civil service, but that change must be independent and impartial. Technology should be service-orientated and cater for the public's needs. We must work for people's benefit, rather than technology's benefit. We must ensure that the civil service is not only accountable, but able to deliver the service that the public want.
3.36 pm
Mr. Andrew Stunell: I welcome the Minister to Westminster Hall. As a new Labour arch-moderniser, I am sure that he will soon get used to it. The opportunity to debate matters in a different style will prove valuable to us all.
Liberal Democrats welcome the White Paper's title: no one could possibly object to modernising government. I could find no reference in it to the national minimum wage, care homes or several other issues to which reference has been made, so I shall not discuss them. Modernising government and making it more accessible are good ideas, as are making it more efficient, accountable and focused on the public's needs. No one could object to such aims. In short, the White Paper is full of apple pie and motherhood. Since it was written, progress on the motherhood policy has perhaps been unexpectedly rapid.
Page 7 of the White Paper refers to "five key commitments", and I shall pick out some of the important issues arising from those five bullet points, or helpings of apple pie. Under the heading "Information age government", the document states:
"we will use new technology to meet the needs of citizens and business, and not trail behind technological developments."
That is an excellent aim, but one doubts whether this or any Government can turn those words into reality.
The hon. Member for South Cambridgeshire (Mr. Lansley) mentioned in passing the Child Support Agency. A constituent of mine received 17 letters from the CSA in one week. On taking up the matter, I was told that the cause of the problem was not the regulations, but the computer programme. Every time that a line of data was entered and the return button was pressed, a letter was automatically printed out. There were also the Benefits Agency and pensions payments fiascos. There were problems with the Passport Agency's computer, and the immigration and nationality directorate's computer. There was the fiasco surrounding the smart card technology introduction programme, which has been abandoned, and the medical department at the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency. There is a long list of failed projects which have had a serious impact on precisely the citizens and businesses that should have benefited from the new technology and should benefit in future.
If information-age government is considered in another context—a broader, non-IT framework—the Government are not delivering and it is not clear from the White Paper that they intend to deliver. Freedom of information is surely a vital component of the information age, but the Government are obstructing full revelation of information. We are a million miles short of the freedom of information Act that we should have. As the hon. Member for South Cambridgeshire said, policy advice will not be disclosed. There will not

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even be disclosure of historical records. One of my hobby horses is to have much more rapid publication of historical records and Cabinet papers. Some of the limitations currently in place are unnecessary and outrageous. The Government are a long way short of achieving their key commitment on information-age government.
Another key commitment refers to public service and states:
"we will value public service, not denigrate it."
I suppose that, at face value, that means a commitment to pay nurses a sensible rate so that London will not suffer the current problems of recruitment. It presumably means not slagging off teachers as being the forces of conservatism. It presumably means providing appropriate rewards for civil servants and, perhaps, for Cabinet Ministers, who are currently subject to a pay freeze. On the other hand, bearing in mind the comments of the right hon. Member for Chesterfield (Mr. Benn) during a recent debate in the Chamber when he referred to Cabinet meetings taking up six hours a week of Cabinet Ministers' time in his day and now taking 30 minutes, perhaps that pay freeze is correct.
We must consider not only the practical issue of what we mean by valuing public service, but the subliminal messages about it. What have the Government tried to do in valuing public service? We have fewer police, national health service waiting lists are stuck and secondary school class sizes are at an historic high. There are serious gaps in the Government's plan to make the valuing of public service a key commitment.
There is a reference in the five key commitments to setting
"new targets for all public bodies, focusing on real improvements".
I shall refer to the police service as an example. I asked a question in the House about police efficiency and the Greater Manchester police service and the answer stated:
"This Government's Comprehensive Spending Review has set the police a 2 per cent. year on year efficiency target from April 1999.—[Official Report, 7 December 1999; Vol. 340, c. 501W.]
I also asked the Home Secretary what assessment he had made of the efficiency levels of individual police forces and the answer stated:
"There is no agreed formula for measuring police efficiency".—[Official Report, 7 December 1999; Vol. 340, c. 501W.]
The Government are referring, as the Conservatives used to, to efficiency savings that have no benchmark, no measuring stick, no monitoring process, and which the Minister in a previous incarnation would have said were cuts.
When it comes to setting
"new targets for all public bodies, focusing on real improvements",
there is a long way to go.
The Government will have to do better than that. The House—and citizens and business—want quality public services, not the activation of cuts that were set in train by the previous Conservative Administration.
Then there is a reference to policy making being "forward looking". Both the Minister of State and the hon. Member for South Cambridgeshire referred to
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joined-up government; there is certainly plenty of scope for improving it. As my party's spokesman on energy, I am only too well aware of the gaps and contradictions in Government policy between the Department of Trade and Industry, the Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions and the Treasury.
I could talk at even greater length about the problems that are raised by the five key commitments, but concerned as I am about the contents of the White Paper and how those five commitments are to be fulfilled, I am even more concerned about the missing commitment: the commitment not simply to modernise government, but to make it more accountable. It was said of Mussolini that he made the trains run on time, so it is certainly possible to have modern, efficient and effective government that does not connect with the real world, the real needs of the public, or with the democratic system that is supposed to sustain it.
I heard the Minister say that one of the benefits of implementing the White Paper would be electronic data transfer between public bodies. That sounds fine in a speech in Westminster Hall, but what does it mean? Are we moving towards one great computer in the sky, which will interconnect every piece of information about every citizen and every business some time in the next century? We have talked about public bodies being connected, but what about semi-public bodies or bodies that may be privatised in the future? Will the Post Office be connected? What about private providers of the second pension or the banks into which pension payments will be made? Simply making government quicker, slicker and sharper does not necessarily make it more democratic or automatically more accountable.
Parliament is slow footed and hamstrung enough by its procedures and the power of the party machines. Much accountability is bypassed and many of the checks and balances that are supposed to be in place are disconnected and sidelined. A Minister is more likely to be held to account by Jimmy Young than by the Leader of the Opposition. I do not hear anyone contradicting me. The historic role of this place is at risk unless we see, in parallel with anything that may be done as a result of this document to modernise and speed up government, measures to ensure that Parliament can keep up with the Government and maintain—and strengthen—accountability checks.
I do not deny that some improvements have been made—this very meeting place is an example of an extra opportunity to hold the Government to account and the introduction of pre-legislative scrutiny is clearly an advantage. But the system is still poor. What steps will be taken as a result of the White Paper and the ensuing legislation to modernise accountability and make it easier for hon. Members to keep track of what the Government are doing—and easier for us to stop them when they are wrong?
The power of Back Benchers in this Parliament is extremely slender. At least I have the advantage of being an Opposition Member—
Mr. White: Long may it continue.
Mr. Stunell: To be a Labour Back Bencher is surely to be without power and influence. I intend to carry on in opposition until the next general election. After that, I hope to be able to put into practice some of the accountability that this place so desperately lacks.

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The White Paper sets out the Government's intentions on the roles of Government Departments and of agencies. It also describes how local government fits in, how the Government will connect to local communities, to the national business community and to the media, and how they will respond to every kind of intervention and pressure. It says nothing at all, however, about how the Government will relate to Parliament or about how they will be held to account by it.
Bearing in mind that glaring omission of the sixth key commitment, the Government cannot expect to receive a blank sheet of approval from this place or its hearty endorsement. It is the job of Parliament, and especially of Opposition Members, to ensure that the Government are held to account and that scrutiny occurs. I am keen to see the whole democratic system modernised, not just the Government. That system is designed to provide, and should provide, protection for the weak and vulnerable, and it should ensure that the powerful are held to account, and it should protect the liberty of the individual.
The White Paper could be said to be a step forward in ensuring one part of that. However, reading it and thinking about it, it seems, on the contrary, that it will be a step backwards. I look forward to hearing the Minister reply to the debate, and especially to hearing assurances from the Government that, in making themselves faster, leaner, more efficient and so on, they will also make themselves more accountable and more ready to give Parliament the role that it should have in monitoring and scrutinising their performance.
3.52 pm
Mr. Brian White: I came here today to talk about the White Paper, and to deal with some of its good and bad parts, commenting on where progress has been good and where much still has to be made. I am, however, rather depressed about the tone of the debate. In particular, I was amazed by the tirade of the hon. Member for South Cambridgeshire (Mr. Lansley), who compared his party's record in government with that of the present Government, and said that everything was wonderful when a Conservative Administration were in power. When he was challenged on the subject, however, he said that we should not talk about it and that we needed to look forward. I find that rather strange. My hon. Friend the Member for Basildon (Angela Smith) referred to the Select Committee on Public Administration, which is conducting an inquiry into innovations in government, and pointed out that no Tories had bothered to turn up at its sittings. Perhaps I should not be surprised at that.
I should like to comment on the White Paper's three aspects: pilots, culture and information technology, which has already been mentioned. I shall then speak briefly about the service action team objectives, which have recently been published on the internet.
Some good pilots are in operation. The Minister referred to jobcentre web pages, which have transformed the way in which people access jobcentres. People seeking a job are less likely to look at a web page once a week; they will look at it several times a day to
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see whether there are any changes, and so will find work much more quickly. People who do not want work will not look at the pages at all. The scheme has some good parts and some bad parts, as it addresses only some issues.
NHS Direct has been an especially good pilot. One of the reasons for that is that it has an end date, and that it has a clear path for translation into a permanent feature throughout the NHS. In considering pilots, that is one of the issues that the Government need to address. Sure Start is an example of a bad pilot because people in large areas of the country cannot gain access to it, despite the fact that they desperately want to, because the programme does not have as clear a target as the Department of Health identified for NHS Direct. Therefore, the Government should have a clear target in mind when they implement pilots. That links in to budgets. In the case of several successful pilots, their budgets have been built into the Department's standard budget. However—this applies particularly in local government where there is a stand-alone budget—it often proves difficult to translate an excellent pilot into full-scale services if, when the pilot is incorporated into mainstream services, the budget is not there to support it. That is the key issue for the Government.
There is also an issue with regard to how people access pilots. A classic example is a project that involved the Department of Social Security, jobcentres and local authorities. People chose to go to the jobcentre because they did not trust the Department of Social Security as a result of their previous experience of its culture, which was one of rejection and exclusion, whereas their experience of the culture at the jobcentre was one of inclusion, especially since the new deal. So people make choices about how they access services, and that has implications for the knock-on effects that pilots have on Departments.
One common criticism of pilots is the element of devolved responsibility and how that is measured. Some people take up devolved responsibility enthusiastically, ahead of their colleagues, who then have a problem relating to the pilot when it is implemented. The Government need to address those key issues, which are referred to in the White Paper, but we should also consider the experience of previous pilots. The Government should also accept that people want to introduce other pilots and should encourage rather than restrict them. I recognise the budgetary implications of that, but we need to consider from where pilots come.
That leads me on to consider the culture of the civil service and Government. During the previous Government, the Department for Education and Employment had a centralising and restrictive policy, so that every broken window and missing tile, every lack of toilet and every poor building in any school in the country was the fault of the Secretary of State. The previous Government suffered badly because of the way in which that was perceived by the general public.
Mr. Ian McCartney: It was their fault.
Mr. White: The Minister is right, but my point about how people perceive Administrations is critical. Consider the Department of Health, which used to have a similar problem with perception in relation to trolleys

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in hospital wards. The reorganisation of the health service, which involved getting rid of the internal market, giving trusts and health authorities much more power and devolving power and decision making, encouraged people to take responsibility for themselves. People now accept that those reforms are working. That is the contrast between a Government who cloak themselves in regulation, and who proceed to take all the blame and none of the credit, and a Government who devolve power, take the credit and improve services.
Mr. Lansley: I am sorry to interrupt the hon. Gentleman, but I am not sure what world he is living in. The Government have abolished grant-maintained status, so schools in my constituency that used to be able to manage things like broken windows and damaged tiles on the roof now have to go through the local education authority. They do not have the same powers or devolved responsibilities. The Government have gone in the opposite direction.
Mr. White: I do not know what planet the hon. Gentleman is on. I can only refer to the grant-maintained school that my children attend. The head of that school, Stantonbury, one of the largest in the country, now thinks that the Government's reforms are best for the education of kids. They relate what the school is doing to what is happening in the community and address the overall objective of raising standards. The experience in my constituency—I cannot speak for that of the hon. Gentleman—is that the reforms are working. They are for the best and help to raise standards. The literacy hour and similar projects work and are welcomed by teachers, parents and anyone with a sensible view of education.
A major problem with innovation is how to get people to accept it. Administrations have had that problem with many projects for a long time. The White Paper does not place sufficient emphasis on how to achieve that. Implementing new projects requires clear political leadership. No doubt I am teaching my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary how to suck eggs when I refer him to the experience of local government. Those authorities with clear political leadership brought people in to make changes while those that went through the motions were not able to implement them. That critical distinction, which the Government are learning to make, must be understood if government modernisation is to work.
When we talk about modernising government, we forget the crucial role of the regulators. It was refreshing to hear the Rail Regulator at a west coast main line meeting yesterday; he understood his powers and was prepared to use them. I contrast that with Oftel which does not understand how it can influence the agenda on e-commerce.
We have talked about the need for accountability, but the fragmentation of the ombudsman system and the different complaint mechanisms needs to be addressed as part of modernising government. It would not be right to have an all-embracing ombudsman, but the interaction, for example, of the local government ombudsman and the health ombudsman, which must happen if we are to get rid of the Berlin wall between the social services and the health service, needs to be addressed. At the moment, people with complaints that involve both services have to go to both ombudsmen.
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I am also concerned about language, in particular how it is used by Parliament. I doubt whether many citizens who are not lawyers can understand our laws because of the way in which they are written. If we are to modernise government, we need to modernise the language that is used in our Bills. Many Departments recognise that that is necessary for forms, but they do not apply the same strictures to their language of process.
It is important that comprehensive spending review 2 takes on board and accelerates the process of change. That is a key consideration if CSR2 is to deliver on change.
I have a couple of points to make on information and communication technology. I am worried that only public sector ICT projects appear to fail. From my work in the private sector, I know that many private sector companies have had IT failures, but they do not get the same publicity. This country is particularly bad at project management. Investing in the skills of project management would benefit the Government and the private sector. I will not dwell on the blockages that various ICT reforms are experiencing, except to say that the role of the voluntary sector in delivering access to new technology has been overlooked. The Government should give that greater priority.
A great deal of progress has been made on the service action team's action plan, which was published in October. A lot of progress has been made, but there should be an on-going process, not a one-off exercise. The current standard of web page design throughout Government lacks coherence and that should be improved.
Mr. Ian McCartney: We issued a document on the upgrading of all Government websites, which will be reviewed in March next year. If hon. Members want a copy of that, I shall circulate it to those who are in the Chamber.
Mr. White: Many of the service action teams had a wide range of people, but one area that was not well represented was that of rural issues. That is important because access in urban, suburban and rural areas is different and that needs to be addressed.
A good start has been made on modernising government. Some key issues will challenge the government in coming months, particularly how CSR2 can take the process forward and the crucial nature of political leadership in Departments. We have made a good start and the White Paper is a good blueprint, but everyone must buy into it if it is to be successful.
4.6 pm
Dr. Tony Wright: I was encouraged when I heard the Minister say that we would be more European and consensual, but we had a long exchange about the minimum wage, which went on for ever. We then had a dispiriting and churlish performance from the hon. Member for South Cambridgeshire (Mr. Lansley) who was particularly ungenerous in trying to score points against the Minister for the Cabinet Office, who was not in the Chamber, about her appearance before the Public Administration Committee.

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We were delighted that, after only a few weeks in office, the Minister was prepared to come and exchange thoughts with us. It was an interesting occasion and I shall give an example of how responsive she was. When we discussed civil servants and how their experience would be enriched by secondment to the private and voluntary sectors, it was suggested that Select Committees would benefit if civil servants were seconded to them. She readily responded to that idea and wrote to me today to say that, having given further thought to the matter, it was a splendid idea and she would consider how it could be carried forward. That was an unusual response from a Minister, showing a desire to strengthen Parliament and a willingness to consider how to modernise government in general. We shall cast a veil over the attendance record of Conservative members of the Committee.
If our discussion was more European and consensual, it would have to be said that we are discussing one further instalment in a very long process of modernising government. The hon. Member for South Cambridgeshire would have made a better speech if he had told us about some of the building blocks in the process during the past 20 years or so. There has been a lot of reform in the civil service, and the public sector has changed out of all recognition. People find it impossible to understand who runs anything any more. I do not intend to be as negative as that sounds, but that is the effect of what we have done. Regulators have been mentioned and it is virtually impossible for people to understand who runs any public or quasi-public service. It could be argued that that does not matter so long as those services work well and something can be done when they work badly. They must have a seamless operation, but against a background of complete fragmentation. The agency process and the contracting-out process—all of the processes that we know about—have transformed the character of the public sector over the past 20 years. Our task now is to co-ordinate it again—to make it seamless—and to incorporate proper accountability. That was the unfinished business that was left over from the reform exercises.
The hon. Member for South Cambridgeshire—this time, I refer to him more generously—quoted my question to the Minister for the Cabinet Office about the big idea. It is difficult to summarise what the big idea is in the process. The process has been going on for many years, and it will continue to do so, the result of which will be—if we get it right—that the public services will work better. That big idea is surrounded by all of the management-speak and buzz-words that make us, if we are not careful, rather cynical.
The process has acquired a momentum that it did not previously have. It would be wrong to say that there are no benchmarks or targets, or actions to set against those targets. It is unusual to have a White Paper and an action plan that includes great lists of what it calls milestones. We know what the targets are, and we are aware of the concrete measures against which the targets will be delivered. The system cannot be accused of being ethereal—it is concrete, and it is linked to a series of action programmes that require the people who work in the areas that are covered by the White Paper to deliver.
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We have discussed modernising government, which suggests that we have unmodernised government. In some ways we do have that—the White Paper is good at identifying the key points of unmodernisation that need to be corrected. All government services used to be delivered by either the Government or local government, but we have come a long way since then. At that time, all that one needed to know was whether a particular function was the responsibility of the Government or of local government. I am afraid that we did not ask many questions about how good those services—whether central or local—were. When we asked, "What are you doing about education?" or, "What are you doing about health?" the answer, at best, would be, "Oh, we are spending £X million of your money in that area." That was as far as the argument about the effectiveness of public services used to go. The argument was entirely about what went in, not about what came out.
That argument also largely ignored the role of users of the services, which were provided in a top-down way. That system lacked user input and responsiveness, for which a political price had to be paid by those of us who were great believers in public services. We assumed that, if we simply told people that we believed in public services and that we were putting resources into them, we did not need to discuss how the system worked. An enormous change has taken place in that regard. We now focus on outcomes and we have to use dreadful words such as "joined-up" and "holistic" because they help us to think about government in the round. We know that problems do not come in neat departmental segments; that is not how people live their lives or experience problems. There is a mismatch between the way in which Governments organise themselves and the way in which problems arise, and part of the programme involves making a better connection between the two.
I conclude by making two or three brief points. First, I want to prove how unmodern I am. It sounds uncontroversial to say that we want all Government services to be delivered electronically by 2000. An innovation of the "Modernising government" White Paper is the people's panel, which asked:
"If you were able to use these services to deal with government, which, if any, do you think you would use?"
The overwhelming majority, 72 per cent., said that they would use telephone services. Only 25 per cent. of people over 65 think that new technology will improve Government services. We should pause for a moment and consider the gap between the ideology of modernising government and life as people live it. In many respects, this country is like a gigantic call centre in which one cannot have a conversation on the telephone with a public sector or private sector organisation, even though telephone systems are heavily staffed. Ordinary people are saying that being able to talk to someone on the telephone is rather important.
Similarly, the people's panel listed places, such as banks, where households might access government, and asked people how attractive they found each option. Sixty-four per cent. regarded the post office as the most attractive option. That should remind us that, for many people, the local post office fulfils a crucial social function. A certain mind set says, "Wouldn't it be a gee whiz idea to conduct electronic transfers through banks?" However, for many people and for a wide

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variety of reasons, access to the local post office is crucial, and is an important way of interacting with the state. I offer that point as a prehistoric, unreconstructed caution, in the context of my great enthusiasm for the entire programme.
Secondly, various references have been made to freedom of information. I shall not say much about it—I could easily bore hon. Members on that subject—but, so far, the point in relation to the "Modernising government" White Paper has been largely missed. There is a complete contrast between the way in which the policy process is dealt with in that document and in the Freedom of Information Bill. The White Paper states:
"Government should regard policy making as a continuous learning process, not as a series of one-off initiatives. We will improve our use of evidence and research so that we understand better the problems we are trying to address."
That is how one should view the policy process, but one cannot make it a continuous learning process if barriers to learning are imposed and people's ability to participate is closed off. Unfortunately, the Freedom of Information Bill—which was transferred from the Cabinet Office to the Home Office, and has become a different animal—has created three different protective layers. If one gets past one layer, a second and then a third is encountered, and access to the policy process is denied.
It is not possible to engage in a continuous learning process—which, as expressed in the White Paper, is exactly the right way in which to view policy—if policy is dealt with in the manner outlined in the Freedom of Information Bill.
Mr. Stunell: Does the hon. Gentleman agree that joined-up government works only if the various parts of Government can talk to one another and take advantage of the advice and experience of the outside world? That is a problem with the current dichotomy between the Government's two proposals: they are not examples of joined-up thinking.
Dr. Wright: I may not have expressed myself as well as I intended to. The policy process will be strengthened if more people can contribute to it and evaluate the raw material on which policy decisions are based. That will improve and strengthen government, rather than weaken it.
If there is a gap in the White Paper, it centres on the word "accountability". It is surprising not to see accountability identified as a key objective of this process. The White Paper almost deals with accountability as a kind of problem, a kind of brake on what one can do. It refers to the fact that
"the cultures of Parliament, Ministers and the civil service create a situation in which the rewards for success are limited and penalties for failure can be severe."
It goes on to discuss the virtues of risk taking. I know what is being said here: it is a matter of how we can introduce more risk. In our exchanges with the Minister for the Cabinet Office the other day, she was frank enough to admit that more risk might mean more policy failure. We have to be intelligent and grown-up about that.
However, there are areas of life—whether the protection of children or making sure that ambulances run as they should—in which risk has no part to play.
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The reason why many of those responsibilities are in the public sector is that they are areas in which we are not prepared to play around with risk. In grasping that the role of risk has to be enlarged in the public sector, we must also be clear where the boundary lines are.
We must be clear that modernising government is not to be achieved at the expense of accountable government. That would be a profound mistake. People often have separate conversations about this: some talk in a technocratic way about modernising government and about delivery—it is important that they should, because we want efficient and effective public services—while others talk about the big accountability issues, which are also important.
It is rare to find people who talk about effectiveness and accountability in the same conversation, yet that is what we want. We need people who are committed to ensuring that we get effective and efficient services, but who know that those services must be accountable. There has been a loss of the traditional kinds of accountability as the public sector has become fragmented in the way that I have described.
If we were engaged in a less European and more partisan exercise here, I would have to remind the hon. Member for South Cambridgeshire that one of the most devastating reports issued by the Public Accounts Committee during the previous Parliament was an indictment of the way in which the newly freed public bodies—quangos and the rest—had been guilty of the most extraordinary incompetence, malpractice and worse. It was a devastating account of what happens if one does not make government accountable and modernise it at the same time. Those are not separate agendas, but very much parts of the same agenda. A gap has become evident as we have moved on to talking about users of services. Although that is an advance, there is a difference between users and citizens. Citizens are people who also engage in the shaping of services. The whole agenda should properly have been dealt with by the White Paper, and I hope that it will be dealt with in due course.
I should like to return to an issue, that was briefly touched on by the hon. Member for South Cambridgeshire. Many of the matters that we discuss may seem to be managerial or limited by managerial considerations, but they are not. In fact, they have the most profound implications for how we organise the control of our public services. We cannot do the things that we are talking about doing in respect of the senior civil service—closely fixing and identifying performances, linking them to payments, measuring what people do—and still pretend that the civil service can continue to live under the veil of anonymity while ministerial responsibility continues to exist in its traditional form. It is inconsistent to claim that Ministers alone are responsible when, in practice, we are visibly putting mechanisms in place to ensure that civil servants are responsible. A real conflict arises in respect of the way in which the reforms are, rightly, progressing and will continue to progress after the publication of the Sunningdale conference report. It is not possible to reconcile that process, which is about making a can-do civil service in which people are responsible for their actions, with the traditional doctrine of ministerial responsibility, which provides anonymity. Those different approaches are irreconcilable. We must

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confront that fact, because it is one of the major constitutional implications of the modernisation process.
The White Paper will come to be seen as an extremely important document and an extremely important moment in a longer process. I shall conclude on a wretchedly ungenerous note, for which I apologise. The hon. Member for South Cambridgeshire extolled the virtues of a leaner state. However, we have heard years of sterile argument between people on the left who say that we need a bigger state and people on the right who say that we need a smaller state, while all the time the real argument should have been about how we get a better state that does the things that it should be doing and does them well. That is the breakthrough that is expressed in the White Paper. It represents a kind of revolution, which is, typically, a quiet revolution.
4.28 pm
Angela Smith: This is the first time that I have had the opportunity to speak in this Chamber, other than a brief intervention earlier in the week. I admit that I had reservations when it was first established, but those have now been put to rest. I have realised to my surprise that it has two great benefits. The first is to discover, when speaking, that Ministers have faces. Labour Members are used to looking at the backs of Ministers' necks. There is great benefit to be gained from seeing how the Minister's face changes as I talk. I hope that the smile on his face does not change to a frown too often.
The second benefit applies particularly to Conservative Members. When we speak in the main Chamber, with Labour Members on one side and Conservative Members on the other, shadow Ministers can look very lonely. Under these new arrangements, the hon. Member for South Cambridgeshire (Mr. Lansley) does not look nearly so lonely, having been deserted by his colleagues, because he is surrounded by Labour Members. Given the lack of Conservative Members attending the Public Administration Committee, however, he may be getting used to that.
I am surprised that some hon. Members do not fully embrace the White Paper and wish to move forward from it. As my hon. Friend the Member for Cannock Chase (Dr. Wright) said, modernisation is about the quality of government and making better government. It is about the quality of service that we as Members of Parliament can provide for our constituents and the quality of delivery at every level of government. It is also about the public's ability to hold the Government and those in power to account.
Unless we believe that government does not matter, we must support the modernisation programme. Hon. Members may disagree with specific proposals, but we must look behind them to make sure that what really matters is what happens on the ground, how the public perceive them and how their lives are affected by them. What counts is not our debates here, and whether we wear top hats when we make points of order during a Division, or whether, with due deference to my hon. Friend the Member for Milton Keynes, North-East (Mr. White), laws should be printed on vellum or paper,
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but actions. What really matters is the quality of service that our constituents receive and whether they feel that the Government are listening to them. In recent debates on the Representation of the People Bill, we discussed how to increase voter turnout, but democracy is a far wider issue than that. That is why the White Paper is so welcome.
Hon. Members of my generation will recall Snoopy cartoons. I am a fond fan of Snoopy and I used to have a car sticker that said, "If you don't vote, don't crab"—that is, if you do not take part in the process, do not complain. We want people to take part in the process, but not just by voting or complaining about something; they should feel that they are relevant to the process and that someone is listening to them. They should engage in the political system.
I have been criticised by some of my colleagues because I am always saying to constituents, "Write to your MP. Let your MP know how you feel", and I have said it publicly. By performing even that basic action, people are engaging in the political process. I want my constituents to feel that the Government listen, that they are responsive to what they hear and act on it.
I was disappointed to see that, when my right hon. Friend the Minister was speaking, the hon. Member for South Cambridgeshire, who was sitting with a colleague, laughed and derided the notion of the Government listening to women.
Mr. Lansley: It may help to explain that we were discussing the fact that the Government had once again stolen Conservative party policy, as found in our listening to Britain programme. We were not deriding the process, merely the Government's derivative character.
Angela Smith: The hon. Gentleman's history is at fault. I remember taking part in Labour's listening to women programme when I was selected as a candidate for my constituency of Basildon. Perhaps the hon. Gentleman's actions explain why his political hero is Norman Tebbit.
The hon. Member for South Cambridgeshire complained earlier about regulations and the burdens on small businesses. He said that he wanted to look forward, not backwards, and that a future Conservative Government—I find hard to imagine such a thing—would get rid of regulations on business. I can understand why he did not want to look back and defend the previous Government's record. His colleague, the right hon. Member for Kensington and Chelsea (Mr. Portillo), said that his Government had passed volumes of new rules and laws interfering in almost every aspect of business and social life, so that might explain why the hon. Member for South Cambridgeshire did not want to look back.
We must consider the response of public services and make it clear how much we value them. We rely on those in the front line to deliver the services that we debate and for which we legislate. We are dependent on public servants and we must ensure that they are responsive to the public. As Senator Robert Kennedy said, "Some people look at things and say, 'Why is that?' I look for things that could be and say, 'Why not?'" I may be paraphrasing, but that is the gist of it. We have to ask why not in the context of the White Paper.

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When my right hon. Friend the Minister was speaking about the different hurdles that we put in the way of people before they can get the services they need, he brought to mind a constituent of mine. She has a child with health problems that necessitated special educational support. The family also needed the help of a carer, respite care for their child and adaptations to their home. Every time the parents wanted support or help from a different agency they had to explain everything all over again. They dealt with health, social services and education departments separately, even though they are part of the same authority, with the district council and with the Benefits Agency. They had different forms to fill in and had to give the same information to many different people. It is unfair on families under such pressure to make them go through the hoops again and again. Why cannot one person visit them at home to make things easier for them? There was no lack of willingness to help in any of the agencies and there is no criticism of individuals, but the system made it dispiriting and difficult for them. There was no one place from which to obtain the information that they needed and they had to hunt it down.
I pay tribute to some of the voluntary organisations in my constituency. The community resource centre run by Maggie Viney and Linda Figg is a one-stop voluntary agency to which people can go for information, which is very helpful. I am impressed by the home start group, which was set up in the back room of the Barge pub in Basildon by Geraldine Evans, and taken over by Paula Burns. It is a one-stop shop to give people the information that they need. It, too, was undertaken voluntarily. We can learn a lot from what those people are doing and incorporate their ideas into a partnership.
Even in my constituency, people are not treated the same. The previous Government made a complete botch of local government reorganisation. That means that on opposite sides of the street people have to deal with different councils. In one case, there is a unitary authority, in another part of the constituency there is two-tier local government. Constituents find it hard to understand why someone just down the road has different delivery of services and different people to whom to talk. That must change. I welcome the Government's commitment to consultation, but the public will become increasingly wary of being consulted if there is no action at the end of the day. We must ensure that consultation is genuine and that action results from it.
I welcome the commitment in the White Paper to the people's panel. I hope that some of my constituents are involved in that project; if not, I can give the Minister a list of names and addresses of people he might like to include. The chief executive of my local authority told me about a man who complained constantly about the council. Some people thought that he was a bit of a nuisance, but the chief executive did not. He looked on the man as a resource, who told him what is happening, what people were moaning about and what they wanted to be done. We should use such resources: that man would be welcome on the people's panel.
I have been slow to grasp the benefits of new technology. I admit that it has taken me a long time to get to grips with e-mail and the internet. However, I was convinced that it was the right thing to do when I found the Widdy web on the internet, which contains a mile of
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information about the right hon. Member for Maidstone and The Weald (Miss Widdecombe). It led me to set up my own website, although I shall not call it anything like the Widdy web.
We are not making the best use of the new technology. We should use it far more than we do, although not everyone has access to internet websites. I should point out that the Conservative party website keeps blocking my access to all sorts of things, such as press releases. It is a shame that the Conservative party does not practise what it preaches about freedom of information.
I welcome the report and the work that the Government are doing, but I want my constituents to know that we are a responsive Government; we do not just listen, we are committed to action. The White Paper takes us one step along that road.
4.38 pm
Mr. Hilary Benn: I welcome the opportunity to contribute to this debate because the process of government is one that we would all do well to reflect upon. It is wholly appropriate that we are having a debate about modernisation in a modernised Chamber.
I make one suggestion about the arrangements: it was a rather surreal experience listening to the speech of the hon. Member for South Cambridgeshire (Mr. Lansley) and seeing on the annunciator the name of my right hon. Friend and father, the Member for Chesterfield (Mr. Benn), speaking simultaneously in another place, if I may refer to it as that. If it were possible to have an annunciator that related to the proceedings of Westminster Hall, that would be an act of modernisation in itself.
The hon. Member for South Cambridgeshire referred to failure in delivery. That does not appear to be the electorate's perception of the Government's success in the past two and a half years, to judge by the Labour party's lead in the polls. If that represents failure, please can we have a lot more of it from Ministers.
Let me be clear and frank: not all regulation is perfect, but some is necessary. It was unwise of the hon. Gentlemen to pick on the minimum wage, because one could not ask for a better example of regulation that is necessary in the interests of protecting the weak and vulnerable, of whom the hon. Member for Hazel Grove (Mr. Stunell) rightly spoke. If my right hon. Friend the Minister achieves nothing else in the rest of his parliamentary career—I know that that will not be the case—he will go down in history as the person who did more than anyone else to give the people of this country the minimum wage. We are all grateful for that.
On targets and delivery, I think that the literacy and numeracy strategies are a perfect example of the case for a clear target. All hon. Members would agree on the need to improve literacy and numeracy, especially among those who are most disadvantaged by a lack of those skills when they leave school, and to provide a mechanism to deliver that improvement. I take this opportunity to place on record my congratulations to the teachers and head teachers in my constituency on their work in trying to achieve improvement.
I should like to refer to the role of special advisers, which was mentioned by the hon. Member for South

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Cambridgeshire. I should perhaps declare an interest as a former special adviser. Special advisers are a much maligned group. Every time there is a change of Government, the papers are full of tales of warning about this new group of politically motivated people who will subvert democracy, undermine the civil service and so on. One would not think for a minute that special advisers as a species have been around Whitehall for more than a quarter of a century, which makes them sound very ancient. We know that the special adviser is a peculiar form of civil servant—a point that was made forcefully to me when I opened my letter of appointment as a special adviser. It said that I was obliged to abide by the civil service code of conduct, but with two exceptions. First, I was exempt from the requirement that civil servants should not engage in party political activity, which is a recognition of the peculiar and particular role of special advisers. Secondly, the letter said rather pointedly that I was also exempt from the requirement that normally all civil servants should be appointed on merit. I did not take that personally.
The letter was a good way for the civil service machine to tell special advisers that they are rather different, as indeed they are. It is a typically British compromise. When there is a change of Government in other countries, the whole top tier of the civil service disappears and is replaced by a new set of people. In our British way, we have found a mechanism that gives Ministers in all Governments the support that they need to achieve their objectives, while recognising that Ministers, special advisers and civil servants have different roles. Arguments about politicisation of the civil service do not, therefore, stand up to scrutiny, and provided that each of the players understands his or her different roles, advisers help Governments of all parties to achieve their objectives.
I want to make two brief points. First, I should like to reflect on the fact that government is about the relationship between Government and the governed. We stand on the edge of the new millennium, never mind of the period in office of the previous Conservative Government. Some big changes have occurred during the past millennium, such as the end of the absolute right of kings. Poor old Canute discovered that his writ did not run to the sea. The whole of the thousand years has been about people who thought that they had power—and in some cases did—coming to terms with the desire of people who live in the same country to have some say over that country.
My hon. Friend the Member for Cannock Chase (Dr. Wright) mentioned the people's panel, which is a great innovation. One could probably have described the barons at Runnymede as the first manifestation of the people's panel to which King John found himself having to justify his power. My serious point is that government today faces the challenge of a much better educated and informed society. That is a healthy challenge to face, and it manifests itself in all sorts of forms.
I was speaking recently to a general practitioner. Patients may now see their doctor, having obtained on the internet printed information about their condition and about new forms of treatment, and, although not medical equals, engage in an informed discussion. All hon. Members will be familiar with the use of such
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information in the worlds in which we operate. It is healthy, and it creates a challenge for the way in which government works. People will argue with us as equals, and information is at the heart of the new relationship.
The first challenge that the White Paper addresses, taking account of that fundamental fact, is the form that government will take in the next century. Information is the key—the Government must have information to be able to target resources. My hon. Friend the Member for Milton Keynes, North-East (Mr. White) commented on the comprehensive spending review process. I saw part of that process from the inside because of my former role. As my hon. Friend the Member for Cannock Chase noted, the arguments are largely about what money is to be spent on and what will be received in return. That is wholly positive. In addition, the electorate want information to challenge us and our decisions. That is an essential part of the accountability of which other hon. Members spoke and a part of the openness in government to which we all aspire.
Occasionally—the food safety scare is a good example—the trick for the Government might be to say, "Here is the information and the advice from the chief scientific officer. We are no more scientifically qualified than you are; there might be a small risk. As adult members of our society, you can make a judgment using the information." The debate is interesting. People might come to the Government and ask whether 100 per cent. safety can be absolutely guaranteed, but we could not truthfully offer such a guarantee. Sharing information with people and allowing them to make decisions would be a step forward.
The second challenge—I say this with some feeling, having been elected for the constituency of Leeds, Central on an extremely low by-election turnout—is that there is another group in society. Some members of that group, whether through circumstances or by choice, are disengaged from the process of government. We knock on their doors, but they are not interested—they do not see the relevance to their lives of what we do and they are not convinced that the Government can make a difference. That is also an accountability issue.
We must recognise that modern government is an increasingly complex business. One reason why Governments have established organisations such as agencies, arm's-length bodies and task forces is that that is a way of managing the complex process. The weakness of our party political system is that it tends to encourage a five-yearly auction with the electorate. If we were being perfectly honest, we would accept that we tended to say, "Whatever your problems are, we will solve them if you vote for us." We know that that is not the reality and we probably do the process of efficient government a disservice.
The good example of risk has been mentioned. If one wishes civil servants to take more risks, one must be prepared to live with the consequences of failure. We know what the political process does under those circumstances—the Opposition see it as their job to say that the Government have failed and are not competent, and that a Minister should resign. That is not necessarily the best way to act. The question of policy advice is also relevant to the issue of freedom of information and we must reflect on that.

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The process is not necessarily comfortable for us as politicians. Sharing power, information and accountability can be hard. I am not sufficiently naive to think that party politics will ever be written out of the script. At its best, it sharpens the nature of debate and the choices that we must make as elected politicians. However, it is worth recognising the limitations that it can create.
The most important feature of the White Paper is that it is open to the challenges that modernising government will create for us all in the next century; we may not yet have all the answers.
4.49 pm
Mr Neil Turner: I was anxious to speak, even if only for some catharsis, because I seem to have spent the past two or three years doing nothing but talking about modernising government. That was about local government, however. While a councillor, I was the chairman of the best value panel introducing best value to Wigan. As a result of holding that post, I was a leading member of the team modernising the way in which the council acted, in advance of the Local Government Bill currently being considered in the other place. I was also a member of the Local Government Association's quality panel and so was involved in establishing the project to improve local government. I shall mention that later.
I was interested to get the White Paper off the internet. I should confess, in light of the Freedom of Information Bill, that that was done for me. I read it avidly, which may raise one or two eyebrows, but I do have a large number of anoraks at home. In contrast to previous Governments, I was struck by the commitment to public service and public servants. That is not an aside, but central to the whole process. Chapter 4, entitled "Quality public services", begins:
"This Government believes in the public service and public servants."
Chapter 6 states:
"Public service has for too long been neglected, undervalued and denigrated. It has suffered from a perception that the private sector was always best and the public sector was always inefficient. The Government rejects these prejudices."
That is right. I was a little surprised to hear the hon. Member for South Cambridgeshire (Mr. Lansley) reject that. He is infected with the same collective amnesia as the rest of his party. I am not alone in thinking that their local government legislation was a wholesale attack on public service and public servants.
I was really sold on best value in Wigan. The chief executive told me that there were 75 cross-departmental organisations in Wigan council. Some were administrative groups led by public servants, but many should have had member involvement. That sold me on the need for best value and the involvement of members in scrutinising issues. I was keen on releasing the talent of public servants in local and central Government by turning from a blame culture to a "learn from our mistakes" culture. That meant admitting mistakes but not saying, "It's your fault." That would allow us to learn from mistakes and to ensure a better future.
I laid down and agreed the approach for Wigan. However, the last thing that I said was, "We've got it wrong. We have to recognise that there is no way that we
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can sit down here and get all this right at the first attempt." We did not know where we had gone wrong; that would only come out when the new process was put into practice. I quickly found out that a major reason why it was not working was that we overloaded people. We put the scrutiny role of best value above normal council activities.
One issue that is relevant to best value is that of inspectorates. There are a lot of inspectorates. They suck talent out of local government by employing people at high salaries. We need to remember the adage, "You do not fatten the pig by constantly measuring its size." It is important that the people who do the work are recognised as being important. That is where the best value lies.
I mentioned the improvement project. The Local Government Association established that project and the improvement and development agency to improve local authorities. The approach is to assist, criticise, examine weaknesses and strengths and to suggest ways forward. That approach is rightly replicated in the White Paper. However, we should be careful because some parts of government use the name and shame approach as the first option. Naming and shaming is demotivating and should be used as the last resort.
I was involved in two week-long projects, one in Mansfield in November and the other in Hull in March, which shows dedication bordering on, if not insanity, at least martyrdom. Those projects were very interesting and valuable. Once the improvement project has suggested improvements, it will review the situation six or nine months later to see how local authorities have followed up the points that it made. That is an important part of the process.
Last Friday, I was in my constituency helping colleagues at the council to consider how to deal with the modernising programme and the structures that need to be put in place following enactment of the Local Government Bill. One of the issues raised by hon. Members during consideration of that Bill was the question of secrecy, referred to in questions 35 and 36 of the Public Administration Committee's report. The issue centres on policy development. Some see that as a major issue and an innate part of the whole process, but I do not see it in that way. It is important that we recognise that it is a problem, but a problem that can be resolved. The important thing is to ensure that the whole council is involved in policy development, and that it is not left to the executive to decide policy in secret and hand it down as if it were written on tablets of stone. Policy must be decided by the whole council, and the cabinet or executive must execute that agreed policy. Then we can follow the scrutiny role, learning lessons on the way, in order to develop policy that accurately reflects the needs of the people in any particular local authority.
Another important aspect of our actions—this is relevant to the modernising government agenda at not only local but national level—was to recognise that it is important not only to think about internal structures but to develop links. That is recognised in chapter 3, which refers to responsive public services as
"genuine partnerships between those providing services and those using them."
It is essential that we develop those wider partnerships, as we are doing in Wigan. We are ensuring that voluntary organisations, such as Age Concern, for

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example, are involved in services for the infirm. In developing sporting facilities and our sports field strategy, we are involving local football and rugby clubs. We involve representatives from business, such as the chambers of commerce and training and enterprise councils when considering how to retain businesses in the authority and how to bring in new businesses. Local agencies, such as the police, the health trust and health authority, and neighbouring authorities and central agencies, such as the Benefits Agency, need to be brought together to provide services. Those partnerships must not operate in isolation, so that there is one partnership with social services and another with young people, because they are interconnected. We need to create a matrix of relationships that can feed into the community plan, which is an integral part of the best value process, and into policy development for the community.
I welcome the moves to exchange public servants because it is important to build up personal relationships so that people can learn from others' experiences of working in health authorities and local and central Government in order to give them a better understanding of how all those government organisations that serve the people can relate to each other and feed back their experiences so that there is a wider understanding throughout. It can be difficult to break down barriers, but it is essential that we do so.
I hope that the modernisation process described in the White Paper is not party political. It will happen as e-commerce, e-mail and electronic communication come about. This modernising White Paper tackles those subjects by ensuring that the services that we provide are more relevant to the people who use them than they were in the past. It is important that we welcome the White Paper and make it work.
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Mr. Lansley: With the leave of the Chamber, I should like to capture a few of the issues before the Parliamentary Secretary responds to the debate. The White Paper and the debate raised some important issues. I shall reflect on two or three of them and provide some focus for our views on the subject before the Minister replies.
I am not sure who the hon. Member for Leeds, Central (Mr. Benn) will see on the annunciator now, but at least he explained the paucity of support behind me. I am honest enough to admit that my right hon. and hon. Friends would rather listen to his right hon. Friend and father, the Member for Chesterfield (Mr. Benn), than to me. That clearly explains why they were not in Westminster Hall.
The hon. Gentleman rightly mentioned the relationship between Government and government. He is right to say that things have changed dramatically in the last millennium. We are only 90 ft from the place where the country has been governed, in some form at least, for 900 years. Much has changed but, in some respects, much is the same.
Not long ago, the right hon. Member for Upper Bann (Mr. Trimble) talked about the devolved character of the constitution. Anyone who has taken part in local
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government, like the hon. Member for Wigan (Mr. Turner), will know that devolved administration has a longer and, in some respects, more honourable, history in this country than central Government.
I take issue with the hon. Member for Cannock Chase (Dr. Wright): it is not a matter of better government as distinct from big or small government. I do not regard small government as an ideological pursuit. I confess that there were occasions in the past when we fell prey to it—I think especially of the Conservative Administration's relationship with local government. We wanted the kind of control in which central Government said, "We know what should be happening, we know what ought to be done, we don't want people to interfere with our prescription. We want them to do what we tell them to do or we won't let them do it at all." Down that path lies big government. My view, and that of my party, is that whatever the history, we still see small government as not an abandonment of the public by Government but as a place where the Government base their solutions not on central prescription but on local leadership, ownership and control. That means, not that local communities, especially if they are outside the public sector in the charity, voluntary or private sector, have less accountability, but that the performance measures, which determine what is being done, what should be done and what should be the priorities of local government or local community activity, are not set from the centre.
That brings me to the White Paper. It should not be about having such a powerful mechanism of central management control that it takes over the setting of priorities.
Dr. Tony Wright: The hon. Gentleman is genuinely confused. The issue of the size of government is different from the issue of the manner in which government should operate. In his speech the hon. Gentleman argued about the size of government. He is now describing issues that relate to how government operates.
Mr. Lansley: I may be confused; it happens often. The Minister of State will no doubt quote that back to me in future. I do not think that there is a direct relationship between the manner of government and the amount of government, but if central Government are not disarmed, if excessive control of regulation, tax, activities and legislation is not wrested from them, there will never be local ownership and control.
There are specific issues—as well as the broad, conceptual ones—which I am sure the Minister will also want to discuss. We have not referred to it today, but in the context of the White Paper there was a Government pledge to put the civil service code of conduct on a statutory footing. Does the Minister propose to take any action on that?
There is also the issue of technology. I was worried that the White Paper's big idea is not the character of government, which we have been discussing, but technology. That should not be its big idea. The hon. Member for Hazel Grove (Mr. Stunell) mentioned, for example, electronic data interchange. One can get hooked on particular technological solutions, but many

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businesses in my constituency, which are at the cutting edge of some of these technologies, went into electronic data interchange, found it extraordinarily difficult to arrive at common standards with their customers and suppliers, so moved on to an internet-based system. Will the Minister confirm that the technological solutions that we are talking about will be flexible rather than rigid? We must not use a technology simply because it is available.
The hon. Member for Cannock Chase asked a question about the Post Office. Without debating the origins and conclusions of the Horizon project, it is important to recognise that, in its absence, there is a question about access to services, particularly in rural areas such as the one that I represent. The Post Office has been an important source of that access, as the hon. Gentleman rightly said. I hope that Ministers will consider not only technological access but physical access. By providing the latter, post offices also give social support.
The hon. Member for Cannock Chase also talked about freedom of information. He will probably accuse me of further confusion, but I was a civil servant for eight years under a Conservative Administration and I never felt myself to be especially undervalued.
Mr. White: Does the hon. Gentleman accept that many people, myself included, left the civil service in the 1980s—around the time that he was a member of it—because we felt that it was being politicised?
Mr. Lansley: I did not leave the civil service because I felt undervalued; I left because I wished to pursue a political career—not inside the civil service, which is a danger if it becomes too politicised. I recognised that I had to leave it to pursue a political career.
Much is said about civil service secondment. Rather than promoting too high a level of interchange between the civil service and the private sector, the civil service is extraordinarily good at recruiting, training and giving people responsibility at an early stage. People in the civil service should be encouraged to have a genuine interchange into the private sector—not secondment, with all the protections that go with it, but a genuine interchange with the possibility of coming back, perhaps five or 10 years later, with private sector experience. The combination of civil service and private sector experience can create just those people who might be most appropriate for the highest levels of administration.
Finally, I turn to the issue of accountability and modernisation. We must recognise that, if we choose to have activities in the public sector—leaving aside the debate about what should be in the public sector—they are there for a reason. In our view, they are in the public sector because of the accountability that needs to flow with that decision. I can give an example from my constituency. The Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food chose to transfer an asset out to the private sector, saying that the same legal rights attached to that asset in the private sector as in the public sector. But, of course, the choice of legal rights is not the end of the story; there is the question of accountability for what is done with that asset in future. That accountability has now been lost. That issue is at the heart, not just of the
322WH
structure of the civil service, but of the accountability of government as a whole. I hope that the Minister will respond to that point, too.
5.9 pm
The Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office (Mr. Graham Stringer): I am pleased to be speaking for the first time in this Room and to reply in a Government-sponsored debate. I hope that you will know when I am standing and sitting, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I shall do my best to ensure that you do.
I spent much of my adult life in a horseshoe-shaped chamber and it does not necessarily lead to consensus. In Manchester city council I participated in debates that were at least as vicious as the most vicious debates in the House—
Mr. Ian McCartney: And that was just in the Labour group.
Mr. Stringer: Yes. I hope that we have a different experience in this Room, but horseshoes and consensus do not necessarily go together.
I shall start by responding to my hon. Friend the Member for Cannock Chase (Dr. Wright), who made a thoughtful speech and showed himself to be a thoroughly modern hon. Member. He encapsulated the White Paper when he referred to putting the public service back together and making it accountable, which was an accurate interpretation.
My experience as a member of the public and a councillor 30 years ago was that local government and central Government services were not accountable. An elected councillor could not easily change housing policy. The examples that were given time and again during the late 1970s concerned simple things. It was not possible to introduce a policy allowing people to paint their own front door in a colour that they wanted.
The same was true of the national health service. In theory, the Secretary of State for Health was responsible for everything from the butcher to, in Aneurin Bevan's words, emptying the chamber pots. If people had difficulties with their local hospital or major hospitals, it was very difficult for them to get a response.
I examined the White Paper through the eyes of my constituents. Approximately £150 million of local government money is spent in my constituency and a similar amount is spent there by central Government. I listen to my constituents' problems concerning information, vandalism and a range of other matters, but approximately £300 million of public expenditure is locked up. A new phrase, which has not been mentioned during our debate but is common among officials and officers of the Local Government Association, is that it is locked up in silence. It may not be with local government or central Government, but it is locked up in voluntary sector bodies, local government bodies, central Government bodies and so on.
If there is a problem with vandalism, the cause and effect may involve environmental health officials, housing officials, police, truancy officers, educational welfare officers and a whole range of people. Dealing with a simple, regular problem may be difficult because of the way in which services are organised now. The

323WH
same is true of people in the benefits system, who often require information about benefits and how they relate to other factors in their lives. They may go from one building to another trying to find that information. That is one of the five key messages in the White Paper. The others are that we need long-term policy rather than short-term responses to policy; that we want responsive, high-quality services; that we want information technology to be used to get such information; and, most importantly, that we must publicise the fact that we want a debate about the best way in which to deliver services and the fact that we value the services that the people who work in the public sector provide.
My hon. Friend the Member for Wigan (Mr. Turner) said that, for most of the previous 18 years, people who worked in public services felt that they were second-rate citizens. They were regularly denigrated and told that they were inefficient. Compulsory competitive tendering did much to destabilise the situation, and although it often lowered costs, it did not necessarily produce greater efficiency. The Government should not mirror the policies of the Conservative Government, who said, "Private good, public bad." We should reverse that approach, specify what is appropriate and value those who are in the public sector.
The least serious point that was made by the hon. Member for Hazel Grove (Mr. Stunell)—it detracted from his otherwise serious speech—was about the policy of my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister towards teachers. To say that one values the public sector and those who work in it does not mean that one believes that there should be no change or that one will not, from time to time, enter into dialogue with those in the public sector. If the hon. Gentleman reads my right hon. Friend's speech, he will realise that the Prime Minister said that 90-odd per cent. of teachers—my right hon. Friend did not give an exact figure—were doing an extraordinarily good job.
The hon. Gentleman's next point involved arguing that everyone should be paid much more. That is standard Liberal Democrat policy and I do not blame him for that approach. I presume that all the extra money that will go to nurses and teachers—and to many others—will come from his party's proposed 1p on income tax. He also said that he wanted the basic structure of pay in those services to remain the same. However, it is obvious to everyone who thinks seriously about the matter that if people are doing a good job they should have incentives—financial or otherwise—and receive rewards.
Mr. Stunell: Does not the Minister recognise that there is a serious problem with morale and recruitment in the medical and the teaching professions? A significant part of the problem involves their feeling that the Government do not value their contribution to the public sector.
Mr. Stringer: The hon. Gentleman is discussing what is left over from 18 years of Conservative Government. He makes precisely my point—that there has been poor morale in the public sector. However, the initiatives that have been taken by my right hon. Friend the Member for Holborn and St. Pancras (Mr. Dobson) have
324WH
resulted in record numbers of nurses returning to the health service. We could discuss other parts of the public sector, where there have been similar experiences. People recognise that this Government are different from the previous Government.
I shall probably disappoint my hon. Friend the Member for Cannock Chase by referring him to my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary for a detailed discussion of the Freedom of Information Bill. The discussion that he wants to have is beyond the scope of this debate.
My hon. Friend the Member for Milton Keynes, North-East (Mr. White) made several interesting, relevant and thoughtful points. His comments on how long pilot schemes should run and how they should be integrated into local government have been made regularly by the Local Government Association, which has discussed pilot schemes and action zones. The Government's position is that some solutions are better determined locally, and others nationally. Action zones and pilot schemes are partly intended to function as experiments and to establish what will work. There have been so many interesting and relevant points raised that it will be impossible to respond to them all. However, I will ensure that my hon. Friend receives a letter about any that I do not pick up.
My hon. Friend the Member for Leeds, Central (Mr. Benn) spoke eloquently about matters in his constituency and how they related to democracy and the delivery of service. He pinpointed the alienation and social exclusion experienced by those known to many of us who represent inner-city areas. The social exclusion unit has been set up precisely to help us understand those problems.
We cannot afford, as a society, to allow people to be socially excluded. It is not simply a matter of the cost to society. It is a disgrace in a modern society when so many people decide that they have no interest in voting or in participating at any level—be it at the jobs level or any other. That often leads to drug taking, through cause and effect. We are studying all those issues, so that we can obtain a joined-up policy response to them.
My hon. Friend the Member for Basildon (Angela Smith) was basically supportive of the Government's policy and of the White Paper, but raised an issue that had not been mentioned by other hon. Members. It is another core issue in the White Paper—that of consultation. There cannot be a more over-used word than "consultation". Everyone is in favour of it, but they find it difficult to define. Some people, when asked about consultation, mean the transfer of power to the consultees. Others see it as a process of handing over information to people.
It is important that consultation should take place, and that the consulters and the consultees should understand what the exchange is about before they go any further. That is the case whether the exchange is about the transfer of power—which is rare—or about setting the limits of a policy within which to work, eliciting another's views on the matter, and stating how those views will be taken into account. That is the core of good consultation, and I agree with my hon. Friend on that point.

325WH
The hon. Member for South Cambridgeshire (Mr. Lansley) raised many points, and one would need about an hour and half in which to respond to them. I shall try to go through them as quickly as I can.
Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. The hon. Gentleman has eight minutes.
Mr. Stringer: I understand that, Mr. Deputy Speaker. That is why I shall reply in writing to the hon. Gentleman on any points that I miss.
It was a bit rich of the hon. Gentleman to talk about not having joined-up government, when the Conservative party must be the most non-joined-up party of this century. It is so non-joined-up that it has decided to exclude the hon. Member for Billericay (Mrs. Gorman) from the London mayoral contest although she supports her party's policy on section 28, yet support an ex-Member of Parliament in the contest who does not agree with its policy. It is extraordinary that the hon. Gentleman can talk about joined-up government, given that that is his party's record.
The hon. Gentleman asked in his winding-up speech about the civil service code. The legislation to put that code into law is not necessary to implement the White Paper. It is still Government policy to put the code into law, but that will have to wait for its space in the legislative timetable.
The hon. Gentleman, like the hon. Member for Hazel Grove, made a serious point about people being excluded by new technology, and the fact that some of the big projects simply have not worked. I probably know more about national air traffic control systems than I do about the projects that were mentioned. There are so many projects that we probably missed one or two. Because we do not want people to be excluded from technology, £500 million has been invested in learning centres. Libraries will stock 100,000 computers that can be taken out on loan, just as one borrows a book. That is part of modernising government and of not excluding people from services and a modern society.
On the issue of big projects and people's exclusion from new technology, it is true that some people will always be excluded. For example, about 98 per cent.—not 100 per cent.—of people in this country own a telephone. The important point is to include as many people as one can. The alternative is to do nothing and
326WH
stay as we are, but a society that uses the internet cannot afford to do that. We must ensure that people have access to computers and new technology.
Major IT projects such as the National Air Traffic Services system—if it works—will greatly increase air capacity. A passport system that works would provide quicker access to passports. One could list many such benefits. The Cabinet Office is looking at why those projects have failed in the past, so that they do not fail in future. We cannot turn our faces to history and say, "Well, the old system worked, but the most recent one did not, so we shall go back to the old one." That would not deliver the service that we want.
The hon. Member for South Cambridgeshire talked about regulation, but he did not say why the number of regulatory orders that were passed after the right hon. Member for Henley (Mr. Heseltine) had cut and burned as much red tape as he could was virtually the same as before he started, and virtually the same as was passed by this Government. Regulation is important. Most people want to be protected by it, but they do not want unnecessary regulation. The important concept is proportionate regulation. The Government are determined not to introduce regulation that is disproportionate. Where existing regulation is not proportionate, we shall get rid of it. It is not good policy to say "Forget what we did". During the previous Conservative Administration, no one could accuse the right hon. Member for Henley of being less than ideologically determined to get rid of as much red tape as he could.
I shall draw my remarks to a conclusion. It was extraordinary to hear a Conservative spokesman say that conservatives now want as much decentralisation as possible. We are now to believe that they are the champions of local democracy. Many people in this Chamber served on local councils at a time when it was the previous Government's policy increasingly to privatise and to centralise control. By 1997, this country had become the most centralised in western Europe. It is part of this Government's policy to modernise the country that the previous Government left in such a mess.
The "Modernising government" White Paper is central to improving the quality of people's lives. I thank hon. Members for participating in this debate.
Question put and agreed to.
Adjourned accordingly at twenty-nine minutes past Five o'clock.

DEFENCE

  Concordat (Scotland and Wales)
  Mr. Ian Stewart
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence when he will agree his concordat with the Scottish Executive and National Assembly for Wales. [102474]

  Mr. Hoon
  I have today agreed concordats with the Scottish Executive and the Welsh Assembly, which set out the principles governing our bilateral relationships. A copy of these has been placed in the Libraries of both Houses.

  Missiles
  Ms Dan Taylor
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence if he plans to procure additional high velocity missiles from Shorts Missile Systems of Belfast. [102475]

  Type of aircraft

  Main locations

  Date first entered service

  Life expectancy(approximate figures in years)

  Bulldog

  University Air Squadrons

  1972

  30

  Dominie

  Cranwell

  1965

  50

  Jetstream

  Cranwell/Culdrose/Yeovilton

  1972

  50

  Hercules

  Lyneham

  1966

  45

  Hawk

  Valley/Leeming/Boscombe Down

  1976

  35

  Nimrod

  Kinloss

  1969

  40

  VC10

  Brize Norton

  1966

  45

  Canberra

  Marham

  1951

  55

  Sea King

  Yeovilton/Prestwick/Culdrose/and on RN ships, RAF Search and Rescue Units

  1969

  45

  Chinook

  Odiham

  1980

  35

  Puma

  Benson and Aldergrove

  1971

  40

  Gazelle

  Wattisham/Disforth/Middle Wallop/Odiham/and other Army units

  1974

  45

  Note:

  Chinook are wired with a mixture of PVC/Nylon and PTFE (Poly Tetra Fluoro Ethylene).

  (b) Poly-X wiring. No RAF aircraft contain Poly-X wiring. However, a small number of early Army and Royal Navy Lynx helicopters were delivered with Poly-X wiring. Few of these aircraft are now in service and much of the wiring on these will have been replaced during upgrades.

  Type of aircraft

  Main locations

  Date first entered service

  Life expectancy (approximate figures in years)

  Tornado

  Marham/Bruggen/Lossiemouth/Leeming/Coningsby/Leuchars/Mount Pleasant

  1980

  40

  Tucano

  Linton-on-Ouse

  1989

  20

  Harrier

  Wittering/Cottesmere

  1987

  30

  Sentry

  Waddington

  1991

  35

  Tristar

  Brize Norton

  1984

  30

  Lynx

  Yeovilton

  1976

  45

  BAe125

  Northolt

  1983

  35

  BAe146

  Northolt

  1986

  30

  592W
  Mr. Kilfoyle
  I am pleased to announce that the Defence Procurement Agency has now signed a contract with Shorts Missile Systems for additional High Velocity Missiles for the Army. The contract is valued at around £200 million and will sustain around 550 jobs at Shorts Missile Systems, with a further 170 jobs also sustained across their sub-contractors in the United Kingdom.

  Aircraft Wiring
  Mrs. Dunwoody
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence (1) what aircraft have been delivered for the use of British forces containing(a) PVC/Nylon wiring, (b) Poly-X wiring and (c) Kapton wiring; when the aircraft were delivered; and what is their life expectancy; [100926]

  (2) how many British military aircraft contain (a) PVC/ Nylon wiring, (b) Poly-X wiring and (c) Kapton wiring; and if he will list the types and locations of the aircraft concerned. [101041]

  Mr. Spellar
  Listed are details of how many British military aircraft contain PVC/Nylon, Poly-X or Kapton wiring, together with the type and location of the aircraft concerned. Details are also provided about when the aircraft first entered service and their approximate life expectancy:

  (a) PVC/Nylon wiring. Some 580 military aircraft contain PVC/Nylon wiring.

  (c) Kapton wiring. Kapton is a trademarked material. It is one of a range of polyimide coverings used to insulate aircraft wires. Some 740 British military aircraft contain wiring of this type.

  Ferry Subsidies
  Mr. Davidson
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what account he will take of allegations about unfair subsidies to South Korean shipyards using IMF loans when determining the outcome of the MOD competition for roll-on, roll-off ferries; and if he will make a statement. [100573]

  Mr. Kilfoyle
  Bids from four consortia to provide a strategic Sealift service are currently being assessed. The ships will be commercial standard roll-on, roll-off ferries, owned by the service provider. We have specifically asked bidders proposing overseas build to demonstrate that UK build would not be competitive on similar terms. If there is evidence of subsidies, this will be fully taken into account in our evaluation.

  Inspector of Kilts
  Mr. Bob Russell
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what plans he has to appoint a new Inspector of Kilts. [100903]

  Mr. Kilfoyle
  The Ministry of Defence has no such appointment and there are no plans to create one.

  Anti-submarine Capability
  Mr. Hancock
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence if he has made a re-assessment of the United Kingdom's anti-submarine requirements since the publication of the Strategic Defence Review. [101669]

  Mr. Hoon
  The United Kingdom's anti-submarine warfare capabilities are kept under constant review in order to ensure that we maintain appropriate and balanced maritime forces. Since its publication, there has been no reason to revise the conclusion of the Strategic Defence Review, which confirmed a continuing decline in the likelihood of an open-ocean anti-submarine threat on the scale previously envisaged.

  Peacekeeping
  Mr. Hancock
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what are the conditions under which the United Kingdom stands ready to provide destroyers and frigates for peacekeeping operations, as agreed in the Memorandum of Understanding signed with the United Nations; and if he will make a statement. [101672]

  Mr. Hoon
  The decision to commit any of the forces declared to the UN in the Memorandum of Understanding remains a national one taken on a case-by-case basis. Factors that will be taken into consideration when deciding whether to contribute to a specific UN peacekeeping operation include the aim of the operation, a clear exit strategy, the safety of UK personnel, and the level of other commitments.

  Low Flying
  Mr. Livsey
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what assessment his Department has made of the effectiveness of low level flying training in the United Kingdom in the light of experience in Kosovo. [101502]
  594W
  Mr. Kilfoyle
  Low flying remains an important military tactic. While the circumstances in Kosovo were such that there was no requirement for fast jets to fly at low level, that might not be the case in future operations elsewhere. Regularly carrying out practice sorties within the UK Low Flying System remains the most effective way to ensure aircrew have the high levels of readiness necessary to take part in operations at low level, should the need arise.

  Arms Brokers
  Dr. Tonge
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what plans he has to maintain an arms broker company list; and if he will make a statement. [101926]

  Mr. Kilfoyle
  We have no plans at present to maintain a list of arms broker companies.

  Ballistic Missile Programme
  Mr. Cousins
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what studies he is undertaking of theatre ballistic missile defence against land mobile missiles; and what is his target date for putting a theatre ballistic missile defence system into service. [102139]

  Mr. Hoon
  The Strategic Defence Review concluded that the technologies related to ballistic missile defence are changing rapidly and it would be premature to decide on acquiring such a capability. This remains our policy. We continue, however, to monitor developments in the risks posed by ballistic missiles and in the technology to counter them, and we are contributing to NATO preparations for studies into the feasibility of theatre ballistic missile defence. The terms of reference for our national programme of studies were announced by my predecessor, now Lord Robertson, on 27 July 1999,Official Report, column 203W. These studies include issues concerned with defending against land-based, mobile, theatre ballistic missiles, as will the studies to be undertaken by NATO.

PRESIDENT OF THE COUNCIL

  Millennium Compliance
  Mr. Alan Keen
  To ask the President of the Council when she will publish the latest results of the market research tracking public perception of the millennium bug. [102535]

  Mrs. Beckett
  I have placed copies of the Executive Summary of the October tracking research in the Libraries of the House.

  The latest results are broadly consistent with those for previous months, showing that anxiety among the public on this issue remains low.

  The results of the November tracking research will be published in the next few weeks and I will place copies of the Executive Summary in the Libraries of the House as soon as they are available.

HOUSE OF COMMONS

  Line of Route
  Mr. Stunell
  To ask the Chairman of the Administration Committee when she expects the Committee to publish its revised proposals for re-opening the Line of Route during the Summer Adjournment. [102143]

  Mrs. Roe
  I am pleased to advise the hon. Member that the Committee has now agreed new proposals, which will be published in the Committee's First Report of Session 1999–2000, entitled "Revised Framework for Re-opening the Line of Route during the Summer Adjournment". The Report, HC(1999–2000)98, will be published at 11.00 am on 13 December, and will be available to hon. Members in the Vote Office at that time.

  In view of his interest in this matter, I have arranged for a copy of the Report to be sent to the hon. Member.

SOCIAL SECURITY

  Pension Funds
  Ms Atherton
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security if he will introduce legislation to prohibit companies from using existing pension funds to fund future pension responsibilities. [100599]

  Mr. Rooker
  Decisions relating to the present and future management of occupational pension schemes are matters for the sponsoring employers and the trustees of the schemes, taking into account the requirements of the law and the trust deed and rules of the schemes. We will continue to monitor developments, but we have no plans to change legislation in this area.

  Bilateral Concordat (Scotland)
  Mr. Russell Brown
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security when he will publish the bilateral concordat between his Department and the Scottish Executive. [102473]

  Mr. Darling
  I am pleased to announce that the First Minister and I have agreed the text of the concordat between the Department of Social Security and the Scottish Executive. Copies of the concordat have been placed in the Libraries of both Houses and the text will be available on the departmental website.

  Income Thresholds
  Mr. Borrow
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security if he will list the rates from April 2000 of income thresholds used for non-dependant deductions in housing benefit, income support and jobseeker's allowance, the earnings limit for dependants living with claimants of retirement pension, long-term incapacity benefits, severe disablement allowance and unemployability supplement, and the personal expenses allowance for claimants of jobseeker's allowance resident in local authority part III accommodation. [102742]
  596W
  Mr. Darling
  The income thresholds proposed for non-dependant deductions is as follows:

  Income threshold

  Up to £81.00

  £81.00 to £119.99

  £120.00 to £156.99

  £157.00 to £206.99

  £207.00 to £258.99

  £259 and above.

  The earnings limit proposed for dependants living with claimants of Retirement Pension, long-term incapacity benefits, severe disablement allowance and unemployability supplement is £52.20.

  The proposed personal expenses allowance for claimants of Jobseeker's Allowance resident in local authority part III accommodation is £15.45.

  Note:
  This answer corrects errors in the original schedule of benefit rates, 10 November 1999, Official Report, columns 564–78W.

  Means-tested Benefits
  Mr. Field
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security, pursuant to his oral answer to the hon. Member for Havant (Mr. Willetts) on 29 November 1999,Official Report, column 13, by how much below 3.5 million he expects the number of pensioners on means-tested benefits will be reduced by 2050 as a result of the proposals in the Green Paper on the stakeholder pension and the second state pension. [102064]

  Mr. Rooker
  By 2050, it is estimated that there will be around 15.8 million pensioners. Without a change to current policies it is estimated that approximately one in three pensioner units (which could be either a single person or a couple) would retire onto the means-tested minimum income guarantee. This would include some people who had worked or cared for someone throughout their working life.

  The proposals in the Government's Green Paper "Partnership in Pensions" are designed to ensure that someone with a full working life, or years covered by credits, will receive a pension on retirement above the minimum income guarantee.

  The impact of the proposals will depend on a variety of factors, including employment records and additional voluntary savings. Our proposals seek to promote behavioural changes through the spread of low cost funded second pensions, improved pensions education, and the greater reward in retirement from helping people under pension age move from benefits to work.

  For instance, with additional voluntary savings of 5 per cent., the figure of one in three pensioner units retiring onto the minimum income guarantee would fall to approximately one in five in 2050.

  Mr. Field
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security, pursuant to his answer to the hon. Member for Canterbury (Mr. Brazier) of 29 November 1999,Official Report, column 7W, on means-tested benefits, if he will break down respectively the 8 million on means-tested benefits in 1997 and the 7.9 million expected to be on

  597W
  means-tested benefits (a) by those above or below pensionable age and (b) of those below pensionable age, the proportion in receipt of in-work benefits. [102062]

  Mr. Bayley
  The information is in the tables.

  The proportion of people above and below age 60, in receipt of one or more means-tested benefits as at May 1997

  Number

  Proportion under age 60

  60% (4.8 million)

  Proportion age 60 and over

  40% (3.2 million)

  Proportion under age 60 in receipt of in-work benefits

  16%

  The estimated proportion of people in receipt of one or more means tested benefits or tax credits as for 2001–02

  Number

  Proportion under age 60

  64% (5.0 million)

  Proportion age 60 and over

  36% (2.9 million)

  Proportion under age 60 in receipt of in-work benefits

  26%

  Notes:

  1. Means-tested benefits are Income Support, Income Based Jobseeker's Allowance, Family Credit, Disability Working Allowance, Housing Benefit and Council Tax Benefit. Working Families Tax Credit is included for the 2001–02 estimates.

  2. Figures are rounded to the nearest 100,000.

  3. Figures refer to benefit units which may be a single person or couple.

  4. Overlap between benefits have been taken into account.

  5. Council Tax Benefit cases do not include second adult rebate cases.

  6. Sample sizes:

  Income Support: 5 per cent.

  Family Credit: 5 per cent.

  Disability Working Allowance: 100 per cent.

  Housing Benefit and Council Tax Benefit: 1 per cent.

  7. Proportion under age 60 in receipt of in-work benefits is based on numbers receiving Family Credit and Disability Working Allowance for 1997 and Working Families Tax Credit and Disabled Persons Tax Credit for 2001–02. In order to compare the years on the same basis, it excludes those in work receiving Housing Benefit and/or Council Tax Benefit only, as forecasts isolating this particular group are not available for 2001–02 figures (such recipients are included in the overall totals).

  Sources:

  1. Income Support Statistics Quarterly Enquiry, May 1997.

  2. Jobseeker's Allowance Statistics Quarterly Enquiry, May 1997.

  3. Family Credit 5 per cent. sample of awards.

  5. Disability Working Allowance 100 per cent. count of claims.

  5. Housing Benefit Management Information System, annual 1 per cent. sample of claimants without Income Support/JSA(IB), taken at the end of May 1997.

  Benefits (Automated Credit Transfer)
  Mr. Field
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security, pursuant to his answer of 29 November 1999,Official Report, column 54W, in each of the last 12 months, how many (a) existing beneficiaries have chosen to switch to automated credit transfer (ACT) as a proportion of those claiming each of the benefits payable by ACT and (b) new claimants as a proportion of those claiming each of the benefits payable by ACT have chosen to use ACT. [101938]

  Mr. Rooker
  The information is not available in the format requested. Such information as is available is in the table.
  598W
  Information on the number of existing claimants who have chosen to switch to Automated Credit Transfer (ACT) is not currently available. Overall growth in the number of claimants choosing ACT increases by approximately 3 per cent. annually.

  The proportion of new claimants choosing ACT for the year ending 30 August 1999

  Benefit

  ACT take-up percentage

  Attendance Allowance

  26

  Child Benefit

  54

  Disability Living Allowance

  33

  Income Support

  10

  Incapacity Benefit

  39

  Retirement Pension and Widows Pension

  48

  War Pensions

  50

  Note:

  Figures are not currently available for Jobseeker's Allowance and Invalid Care Allowance

ENVIRONMENT, TRANSPORT AND THE REGIONS

  Housing
  Mr. Reed
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions what assessment he has made of the impact of high concentrations of houses in multiple occupation on local communities. [101050]

  Mr. Mullin
  I am aware of concerns that have arisen in a few town and city neighbourhoods and am considering how these might be tackled. The Government are committed to introducing mandatory licensing of houses in multiple occupation when parliamentary time allows.

  London Airports (Passengers)
  Mr. Blunt
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions if he will estimate the effect on the number of passengers passing through London airports in 2015, based on the recent studies of the European Commission and assuming all EU countries applied a similar rate of tax, if a fuel tax on all airlines were imposed(a) at a rate of ecu 245 per 1,000 litres and (b) at the same rate as motor fuel excise (excise duty and VAT) in the UK. [101807]

  Mr. Mullin
  We are currently reviewing the Commission's recent Communication and related study. We are also working, through the International Civil Aviation Organisation, to examine a range of market based options to limit or reduce emissions from aviation. It would be premature to focus on the effects of specific rates of tax on numbers of passengers at the London airports: no such proposals have been made.

  Education Standard Spending Assessment
  Mrs. Dean
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions what the expected SSA per pupil is for(a) primary and (b) secondary pupils for each shire county education authority for the year 2000–01. [101829]
  599W
  Ms Beverley Hughes
  The information requested is in the table.

  2000–01 Consultation SSA for primary and secondary education

  £/pupil

  Consultation SSA 2000–01

  County Council

  Primary

  Secondary

  Bedfordshire

  2,390

  3,081

  Buckinghamshire

  2,390

  3,093

  Cambridgeshire

  2,313

  2,964

  Cheshire

  2,257

  2,897

  Cornwall

  2,369

  3,058

  Cumbria

  2,357

  3,031

  Derbyshire

  2,266

  2,923

  Devon

  2,345

  3,038

  Dorset

  2,282

  2,926

  Durham

  2,390

  3,095

  East Sussex

  2,445

  3,166

  Essex

  2,441

  3,147

  Gloucestershire

  2,282

  2,935

  Hampshire

  2,327

  3,014

  Hertfordshire

  2,474

  3,170

  Kent

  2,443

  3,149

  Lancaster

  2,361

  3,043

  Leicestershire

  2,202

  2,848

  Lincolnshire

  2,359

  3,041

  Norfolk

  2,378

  3,052

  North Yorkshire

  2,332

  2,983

  Northamptonshire

  2,308

  2,974

  Northumberland

  2,332

  3,014

  Nottinghamshire

  2,291

  2,962

  Oxfordshire

  2,397

  3,070

  Shropshire

  2,304

  2,960

  Somerset

  2,310

  2,984

  Staffordshire

  2,237

  2,884

  Suffolk

  2,313

  2,960

  Surrey

  2,436

  3,127

  Warwickshire

  2,267

  2,918

  West Sussex

  2,366

  3,044

  Wiltshire

  2,292

  2,971

  Worcestershire

  2,256

  2,902

  Farm-based Waste Recycling
  Mr. Edwards
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions what planning guidance he gives to local authorities on the development of sites for deep clamp processing in farm-based waste recycling. [101673]

  Ms Beverley Hughes
  There is no planning guidance relating specifically to the development of sites for deep clamp processing of farm-based waste recycling. General guidance on planning control over waste management facilities, including composting sites, is contained in PPG10. Guidance on development related to agriculture and to farm diversification is contained in PPG7.

  Community Sports Clubs
  Dr. Palmer
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions what encouragement he gives to local authorities to give rate relief to community sports clubs; what statistics he collects in this regard; and if he will make a statement. [101721]

  Ms Beverley Hughes
  Local authorities have full discretion to award up to 100 per cent. rate relief to non-profit making organisations, including sports clubs that meet the qualifying criteria. The Central Council of 600W
  Physical Recreation estimates that there are 150,000 voluntary sports clubs affiliated to the national governing bodies of sport in the United Kingdom. However, we do not hold centrally information on the number of clubs subject to non-domestic rates, their rateable values or their rates bills reflecting discretionary relief awarded by local authorities.

  We have been reviewing the arrangements under which local authorities may grant this relief to non-profit making sports clubs and expect to issue a consultation paper early next year.

  Homelessness
  Mr. White
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions for each district and unitary authority in (i) the South East Region and (ii) the Eastern Region, how many people were(a) registered homeless and (b) on the local authority waiting list for the last and current financial years. [101826]

  Mr. Mullin
  Homeless households accepted by local authorities are those which, after investigation, were found to be eligible for assistance, unintentionally homeless and in priority need under part VII of the Housing Act 1996. The latest available information is given in the table, covering 1998–99 and the first quarter of 1999–2000 for homeless households.

  Homeless households accepted and in priority need

  1998–99

  1999–20001

  Number of households on the housing register at 1 April 1999

  South East Region

  Adur

  294

  79

  1,162

  Arun

  192

  58

  689

  Ashford

  89

  20

  2,201

  Aylesbury Vale

  219

  65

  841

  Basingstoke and Deane

  146

  2n/a

  4,245

  Bracknell Forest

  73

  21

  1,308

  Brighton and Hove

  868

  234

  3,610

  Canterbury

  214

  57

  1,920

  Cherwell

  138

  50

  2,422

  Chichester

  88

  24

  2,148

  Chiltern

  124

  34

  667

  Crawley

  191

  51

  465

  Dartford

  86

  26

  1,575

  Dover

  107

  31

  2,231

  East Hampshire

  116

  26

  1,828

  Eastbourne

  466

  99

  1,753

  Eastleigh

  128

  26

  1,200

  Elmbridge

  188

  35

  1,976

  Epsom and Ewell

  72

  14

  537

  Fareham

  120

  21

  929

  Gosport

  254

  61

  1,167

  Gravesham

  84

  21

  1,847

  Guildford

  118

  38

  1,603

  Hart

  58

  36

  588

  Hastings

  140

  30

  1,490

  Havant

  324

  71

  2,714

  Horsham

  221

  60

  710

  Isle of Wight

  270

  69

  1,122

  Lewes

  189

  42

  818

  Maidstone

  114

  39

  959

  Mid Sussex

  205

  31

  1,418

  Milton Keynes

  537

  185

  2,835

  Mole Valley

  83

  21

  1,177

  New Forest

  293

  66

  1,383

  Oxford

  382

  2n/a

  3,099

  Portsmouth

  670

  134

  4,759

  Reading

  464

  123

  3,343

  Reigate and Banstead

  156

  28

  1,155

  Rother

  52

  10

  1,176

  Runnymede

  58

  23

  694

  Rushmoor

  188

  2n/a

  2,221

  Sevenoaks

  201

  42

  1,444

  601W

  Homeless households accepted and in priority need

  1998–99

  1999–20001

  Number of households on the housing register at 1 April 1999

  Shepway

  128

  24

  2,595

  Slough

  213

  0

  1,739

  South Bucks

  34

  6

  1,064

  South Oxfordshire

  140

  43

  1,488

  Southampton

  663

  159

  3,699

  Spelthorne

  59

  19

  2,284

  Surrey Heath

  111

  31

  436

  Swale

  55

  22

  1,815

  Tandridge

  97

  26

  1,077

  Test Valley

  125

  30

  1,723

  Thanet

  42

  13

  1,528

  The Medway Towns

  113

  38

  3,708

  Tonbridge and Mailing

  150

  45

  658

  Tunbridge Wells

  242

  55

  674

  Vale of White Horse

  126

  27

  1,919

  Waverley

  91

  14

  1,288

  Wealden

  185

  2n/a

  1,066

  West Berkshire

  209

  41

  887

  West Oxfordshire

  38

  9

  1,453

  Winchester

  55

  22

  1,129

  Windsor and Maidenhead

  42

  7

  2,419

  Woking

  120

  35

  1,547

  Wokingham

  122

  24

  1,359

  Worthing

  218

  2n/a

  1,361

  Wycombe

  268

  37

  996

  East of England Region

  Babergh

  106

  2n/a

  1,074

  Basildon

  429

  72

  2,878

  Bedford

  283

  84

  2,449

  Braintree

  167

  45

  2,503

  Breckland

  156

  41

  1,477

  Brentwood

  89

  22

  513

  Broadland

  209

  43

  1,066

  Broxbourne

  376

  50

  1,668

  Cambridge

  200

  48

  4,319

  Castle Point

  153

  40

  662

  Chelmsford

  316

  83

  3,733

  Colchester

  588

  169

  3,237

  Dacorum

  223

  2n/a

  3,479

  East Cambridgeshire

  167

  32

  1,042

  East Hertfordshire

  132

  31

  1,502

  Epping Forest

  119

  23

  1,914

  Fenland

  130

  31

  1,839

  Forest Heath

  66

  7

  1,063

  Great Yarmouth

  118

  30

  1,915

  Harlow

  252

  61

  1,933

  Hertsmere

  64

  10

  657

  Huntingdonshire

  113

  19

  1,791

  Ipswich

  182

  46

  2,764

  Kings Lynn and West Norfolk

  95

  33

  1,390

  Luton

  209

  41

  5,622

  Maldon

  84

  27

  511

  Mid Bedfordshire

  73

  8

  1,648

  Mid Suffolk

  89

  22

  1,545

  North Hertfordshire

  179

  65

  1,955

  North Norfolk

  187

  51

  860

  Norwich

  459

  119

  2,909

  Peterborough

  95

  25

  3,129

  Rochford

  60

  11

  873

  South Bedfordshire

  282

  66

  2,649

  South Cambridgeshire

  67

  17

  2,293

  South Norfolk

  130

  35

  1,524

  Southend-on-Sea

  83

  2n/a

  1,070

  St. Albans

  154

  2n/a

  1,603

  St. Edmundsbury

  93

  27

  1,801

  Stevenage

  102

  22

  3,249

  Suffolk Coastal

  121

  38

  955

  Tendring

  425

  106

  1,960

  Three Rivers

  134

  2n/a

  818

  Thurrock

  163

  38

  1,795

  Uttlesford

  73

  2n/a

  963

  Watford

  176

  60

  1,472

  Waveney

  182

  45

  1,675

  Welwyn Hatfield

  262

  49

  2,201

  1 April-June 1999

  2 n/a denotes that the authority has not yet reported

  Source:

  Housing Investment Programme returns 1999 and Quarterly P1E (Homelessness Activity) returns 1999 Q1
  602W
  Local authorities have different practices for compiling and managing housing register/waiting lists which mean that simple comparisons between authorities can be misleading.

  Vehicle Removal
  Mr. Fallon
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions if he will consult police and local authorities about amending paragraph 10 of the Removal and Disposal of Vehicles Regulations 1986 (SI 1986/183) so as to reduce the period before which notice must be affixed to vehicles about to be removed for destruction from seven to three days. [101719]

  Mr. Mullin
  We have no plans to consult the police or local authorities on changing the period of notice they must give before removing abandoned vehicles. The existing regulations are intended to provide owners with safeguards against a local authority prematurely assuming a vehicle is abandoned and having it towed away for scrap. They also ensure that local authorities do not have to go to the unnecessary expense of removing and storing vehicles that may not, in the event, have been abandoned.

  We believe that the current legislation provides a good balance between the powers of the police and local authorities to deal with abandoned vehicles and the rights of vehicle owners.

  Shropshire RSG
  Mr. Peter Bradley
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions in which years between 1979 and 1999 the Government's revenue support grant for Shropshire County Council increased by double the rate of inflation or more. [102137]

  Ms Beverley Hughes
  Revenue Support Grant (RSG) was introduced in 1990. Between 1990–91 and 1992–93, Shropshire County Council received no RSG directly; the grant was paid into the collection funds operated by billing authorities, and thus supported expenditure by all tiers of authorities.

  Only in 1994–95 was the increase in RSG of 11.06 per cent. more than twice the rate of inflation of 1.43 per cent., as measured by the GDP deflator. The increase in 1999–2000 in RSG and the county's share of national non-domestic rates of 6.01 per cent. was also more than twice the rate of inflation of 2.25 per cent. The change in RSG was affected in 1995–96 by the transfer of the RSG for police service to West Mercia Police Authority and in 1998–99 by the creation of Telford and the Wrekin as a separate unitary authority, thus precluding meaningful comparisons for those years.

  Thameslink 2000 Project
  Mr. Fitzpatrick
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions if he will make a statement on Railtrack's applications for Orders under the Transport and Works Act 1992 in respect of the Thameslink 2000 Project. [102136]

  Mr. Hill
  Railtrack applied in September 1999 for an Order under the Transport and Works Act 1992 to revise the proposals contained in the November 1997 application
  603W
  for powers to improve and extend the Thameslink network. The Secretary of State has received a total of about 1,000 objections to both applications. In view of the range and nature of the objections he has decided that it would be appropriate to hold a public inquiry into this scheme. This will probably start in the spring of 2000.

  Foreign Aircraft (Millennium)
  Mr. Woolas
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions what action he is taking relating to foreign aircraft operating to the UK over the Millennium period. [102448]

  Mr. Hill
  My Department has issued foreign airlines with their normal operating permits for providing services to and from the UK. These permits are granted to airlines only if they comply with international safety standards. In view of the Y2K problem, my Department has taken the exceptional step of asking airlines to provide information confirming that flights would be free from any Y2K safety related risk. The airlines have been advised that, in the event of such information not being provided, the Department reserves the right to suspend their permits over the critical period.

  National non-domestic rates—calculations of distributable amount for 2000–01

  £ million

  1997–98

  1998–99

  1999–2000

  2000–01

  Final outturn

  Provisional outturn

  Provisional outturn

  Estimated in-year contribution

  1. Income from Local lists

  Multiplier (p)

  45.8

  47.4

  48.9

  41.6

  Gross Rate Yield

  13,493

  13,839

  14,158

  15,067

  (i) Reliefs

  (a) Net Transitional Relief

  -430

  -482

  -460

  -737

  (b) Empty properties

  -934

  -961

  -944

  -987

  (c) Charitable

  -495

  -504

  -520

  -544

  (d) Rural Shops and Post Offices

  —

  -2

  -2

  -2

  (e) Discretionary

  -17

  -18

  -32

  -33

  Net Yield after reliefs

  11,617

  11,872

  12,200

  12,764

  (ii) Collection costs/reductions to contributions

  (a) Costs of collection

  -78

  -79

  -83

  -83

  (b) Losses on collection

  -112

  -109

  -115

  -120

  (c) City of London offset

  -7

  -7

  -7

  -7

  Total contribution in respect of year

  11,420

  11,677

  11,995

  12,554

  (iii) Repayments/interest payments

  Total adjustments

  -291

  -486

  -270

  -367

  Net Local Yield

  11,129

  11,191

  11,725

  12,187

  2. Income from Central list

  Net Central List Yield

  1,207

  1,273

  1,320

  1,330

  3. Income from Crown

  Contributions in Aid

  Net Crown Yield

  469

  440

  396

  410

  Total NDR Yield

  12,805

  12,904

  13,441

  13,927

  4. Exchequer Contributions

  Total Exchequer contributions

  400

  360

  310

  415

  Total NNDR pool payments (1+2+3+4)

  13,205

  13,264

  13,751

  14,342

  604W
  Two airlines have yet to provide confirmation that their flights will be free from any Y2K safety related risk. These are Gulf Air; and Southern Aviation (Zambia). These airlines have therefore been advised that, unless such confirmation is received, their permits to operate to the UK over the Millennium period will be suspended.

  Non-domestic Rates
  Mr. Gordon Marsden
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions if he will set out the basis of his calculations of the distributable amount of non-domestic rates for 2000–01. [102548]

  Ms Armstrong
  The amount of non-domestic rates in England for 2000–01 to be redistributed to Local Authorities will be £15,400 million, although estimated payments into the pool in 2000–01 will be £14,342 million. The non-domestic rate poundage (multiplier) will be 41.6 pence. The Distributable Amount includes an allowance of £415 million for an Exchequer payment to the non-domestic rates pool, to compensate for the shortfall which would otherwise occur as a result of the regulations under section 58 of the Local Government Finance Act 1988 and the transitional relief scheme, announced on 25 November 1999,Official Report, column 770.

  The calculation for 2000–01, and the prior-year figures on which this is based, are set out in the following table.
  605W

  National non-domestic rates-calculations of distributable amount for 2000–01

  1997–98

  1998–99

  1999–2000

  2000–01

  Final outturn

  Provisional outturn

  Provisional outturn

  Estimated in-year contribution

  5. Adjustments

  Surplus brought forward

  -1,000

  178

  919

  1,058

  Combined total

  12,205

  13,442

  14,670

  15,400

  Distributable amount

  12,027

  12,524

  13,612

  15,400

  Surplus carried forward

  178

  919

  1,058

  0

  Notes:

  The amounts shown are those recorded in the post end-year (NNDR3) returns. For 1999–2000 the amounts shown are the estimated outturn for the year based mainly upon authorities' provisional contributions to the non-domestic rating pool.

  1. Item 1: The gross calculated rate yield represents the total value of non-domestic hereditaments on local rating lists times the multiplier.

  2. Item 1(i)(a): The Transitional decrease adjustment includes the estimated amount of rates that will not be recouped from local list ratepayers under the transitional arrangements made by regulations under section 58 of the Local Government Finance Act 1988 and the transitional relief scheme, announced by written PQ on 25 November 1999, Official Report, column 770W.

  3. Item 1(i)(b): The empty property relief adjustments include voids and partially occupied hereditaments. The 2000–01 figure includes an allowance for the increase in the gross rates yield.

  4. Item 1(i)(c): Charitable rate relief. The 2000–01 figure includes an allowance for the increase in the gross rates yield.

  5. Item 1(i)(d): Rural Shops and Post Office relief. Figures for 1998–99 onwards include mandatory relief for village shops and post offices under the Local Government and Rating Act 1997. The 2000–01 figure includes an allowance for the increase in the gross rates yield.

  6. Item 1(i)(e): Discretionary relief granted to charities, non-profit making organisations and for other reasons including, for 1998–99 onwards, discretionary relief for village shops and post offices under the Local Government and Rating Act 1997. The 2000–01 figure includes an allowance for the increase in the gross rates yield.

  7. Item 1(ii)(a) and (b): The allowances for the costs and losses incurred by authorities in collecting non-domestic rates from ratepayers.

  8. Item 1(ii)(c): City Offset—the amount which the City of London will not be required to pay into the non-domestic rating pool. It is the amount which will be retained by the City to meet its own expenditure.

  9. Item 1(iii): net adjustment in respect of appeals and other amendments to the rating list affecting liability for previous years rates settled in that year.

  10. Item 2: the rateable value of non-domestic hereditaments on the central rating list times the multiplier, less the net effect of transitional arrangements, and adjusted for appeals and other changes in respect of previous years.

  11. Item 3: the 2000–01 figure for Crown properties includes an allowance for the effect of transitional arrangements.

  12. Item 4: the contribution from central government to offset the amount of the Secretary of State's estimate of income forgone as a result of transitional arrangements established by regulations under section 58 of the Local Government Finance Act 1988 and the transitional relief scheme, announced by written PQ on 25 November 1999, Official Report, column 770W.

EDUCATION AND EMPLOYMENT

  GCSE Passes
  Mr. Willis
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Employment if he will list by local education authority the number and percentage of 18-year-olds with five GCSE passes or equivalent in(a) 1997, (b) 1998 and (c) 1999. [101519]

  Ms Estelle Morris
  [holding answer 8 December 1999]: The numbers of 18-year-olds with five GCSE passes or equivalent in 1997 and 1998 for local education authorities in England are shown in the following table. Figures for 1999, other than those released last month in performance tables, are not yet available. It is not possible to provide percentages as these may be misleading—population estimates for local education authorities are based on the resident population, and the GCSE data are institution based. Percentages for individual local education authorities would therefore be distorted by students who are resident in one authority but who took their GCSEs in another.

  Number of 18-year-olds with 5+A*-G GCSE/GNVQ

  LEA

  1997

  1998

  City of London

  213

  203

  Camden

  1,823

  1,989

  Greenwich

  1,862

  1,810

  Hackney

  860

  924

  Hammersmith and Fulham

  1,060

  1,224

  606W

  Number of 18-year-olds with 5+A*-G GCSE/GNVQ

  LEA

  1997

  1998

  Islington

  1,139

  1,141

  Kensington and Chelsea

  1,107

  1,153

  Lambeth

  608

  626

  Lewisham

  1,806

  1,949

  Southwark

  1,284

  1,395

  Tower Hamlets

  1,281

  1,425

  Wandsworth

  1,828

  1,807

  City of Westminster

  1,282

  1,410

  Barking and Dagenham

  1,422

  1,436

  Barnet

  3,371

  3,544

  Bexley

  2,081

  2,136

  Brent

  1,334

  1,566

  Bromley

  3,312

  3,391

  Croydon

  3,533

  3,524

  Ealing

  1,901

  2,174

  Enfield

  2,504

  2,645

  Haringey

  1,056

  1,105

  Harrow

  2,635

  2,540

  Havering

  2,820

  2,811

  Hillingdon

  2,387

  2,529

  Hounslow

  1,965

  2,036

  Kingston upon Thames

  1,776

  1,803

  Merton

  1,260

  1,295

  Newham

  1,630

  1,949

  Redbridge

  2,373

  2,515

  Richmond upon Thames

  2,051

  2,150

  Sutton

  1,639

  1,777

  Waltham Forest

  2,098

  2,283

  Birmingham

  9,438

  10,007

  Coventry

  3,053

  3,147

  Dudley

  3,529

  3,738

  Sandwell

  2,469

  2,577

  607W

  Number of 18-year-olds with 5+A*-G GCSE/GNVQ

  LEA

  1997

  1998

  Solihull

  3,038

  3,068

  Walsall

  2,639

  2,688

  Wolverhampton

  2,474

  2,587

  Knowsley

  1,205

  1,233

  Liverpool

  4,082

  4,188

  St. Helens

  2,045

  2,034

  Sefton

  3,498

  3,565

  Wirral

  3,642

  3,697

  Bolton

  2,781

  2,878

  Bury

  2,331

  2,353

  Manchester

  3,523

  3,634

  Oldham

  2,749

  2,932

  Rochdale

  1,798

  1,980

  Salford

  1,928

  2,046

  Stockport

  3,487

  3,682

  Tameside

  2,203

  2,363

  Trafford

  2,128

  2,215

  Wigan

  4,065

  4,215

  Barnsley

  2,009

  2,019

  Doncaster

  2,704

  2,908

  Rotherham

  2,857

  3,056

  Sheffield

  4,372

  4,543

  Bradford

  4,884

  5,179

  Calderdale

  1,888

  1,978

  Kirklees

  4,277

  4,396

  Leeds

  6,699

  7,069

  Wakefield

  3,464

  3,544

  Gateshead

  1,927

  1,936

  Newcastle upon Tyne

  2,673

  2,827

  North Tyneside

  2,202

  2,204

  South Tyneside

  1,599

  1,678

  Sunderland

  3,242

  3,280

  Isles of Scilly

  8

  13

  Bath and North East Somerset

  2,192

  2,174

  City of Bristol

  3,458

  3,633

  North Somerset

  1,841

  1,914

  South Gloucestershire

  2,591

  2,676

  Hartlepool

  978

  976

  Middlesbrough

  1,663

  1,812

  Redcar and Cleveland

  1,695

  1,688

  Stockton on Tees

  1,979

  1,993

  City of Kingston upon Hull

  2,773

  2,720

  East Riding of Yorkshire

  2,951

  2,959

  North East Lincolnshire

  1,835

  1,969

  North Lincolnshire

  1,837

  1,913

  North Yorkshire

  5,963

  6,207

  City of York

  2,221

  2,109

  Bedfordshire

  4,401

  4,528

  Luton

  2,024

  2,063

  Buckinghamshire

  5,220

  5,303

  Milton Keynes

  2,237

  2,229

  Derbyshire

  7,322

  7,498

  City of Derby

  2,264

  2,399

  Dorset

  3,729

  3,848

  Poole

  1,944

  2,034

  Bournemouth

  1,273

  1,280

  Durham

  5,110

  5,118

  Darlington

  1,268

  1,314

  East Sussex

  4,491

  4,687

  Brighton and Hove

  2,289

  2,276

  Hampshire

  13,570

  14,290

  Portsmouth

  1,383

  1,465

  Southampton

  2,197

  2,227

  Leicestershire

  6,140

  6,432

  City of Leicester

  2,921

  3,162

  Rutland

  666

  685

  Staffordshire

  8,671

  9,137

  Stoke-on-Trent

  2,347

  2,306

  Wiltshire

  4,297

  4,271

  Swindon

  1,881

  1,946

  Berkshire

  8,991

  —

  Bracknell Forest

  —

  1,271

  Royal Borough of Windsor and Maidenhead

  —

  1,645

  608W

  Number of 18-year-olds with5+A*-G GCSE/GNVQ

  LEA

  1997

  1998

  West Berkshire

  —

  2,033

  Reading

  —

  1,216

  Slough

  —

  1,359

  Wokingham

  —

  1,636

  Cambridgeshire

  7,544

  —

  Cambridgeshire

  —

  5,856

  City of Peterborough

  —

  2,114

  Cheshire

  11,059

  —

  Cheshire

  —

  7,802

  Halton

  —

  1,432

  Warrington

  —

  2,028

  Devon

  10,855

  —

  Devon

  —

  6,740

  City of Plymouth

  —

  2,885

  Torbay

  —

  1,419

  Essex

  16,759

  —

  Essex

  —

  13,943

  Southend

  —

  1,852

  Thurrock

  —

  1,423

  Hereford and Worcester

  7,829

  —

  Herefordshire

  —

  1,666

  Worcestershire

  —

  6,342

  Kent

  17,251

  —

  Kent

  —

  14,568

  Medway

  —

  3,211

  Lancashire

  14,352

  —

  Lancashire

  —

  10,869

  Blackburn with Darwen

  —

  2,173

  Blackpool

  —

  1,861

  Nottinghamshire

  10,038

  —

  Nottinghamshire

  —

  7,725

  City of Nottingham

  —

  2,924

  Shropshire

  5,145

  —

  Shropshire

  —

  3,161

  Telford and Wrekin

  —

  1,876

  Cornwall

  5,149

  5,376

  Cumbria

  5,058

  5,352

  Gloucestershire

  6,136

  6,271

  Hertfordshire

  12,273

  12,646

  Isle of Wight

  1,308

  1,403

  Lincolnshire

  6,356

  6,482

  Norfolk

  7,737

  8,002

  Northamptonshire

  6,782

  7,162

  Northumberland

  3,529

  3,412

  Oxfordshire

  6,722

  6,904

  Somerset

  5,624

  5,846

  Suffolk

  7,191

  7,298

  Surrey

  11,369

  11,521

  Warwickshire

  5,761

  5,936

  West Sussex

  7,719

  7,794

  All LEAs

  502,370

  519,398

TRADE AND INDUSTRY

  Darlington
  Mr. Shaw
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry, what assessment he has made of employment agencies compliance with the Working Time Directive. [100527]

  Mr. Alan Johnson
  It is too soon to assess the level of compliance. Our revised employment agency regulations will help prevent bureaux acting in a way which denies workers their working time rights.

  Mr. Evans
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry which EU member states have exempted small Royal Borough of Windsor and Maidenhead businesses from the Working Time Regulations. [100546]
  609W
  Mr. Alan Johnson
  The Working Time Directive which has been implemented in Great Britain by the Working Time Regulations, requires member states to extend its provisions to all businesses regardless of size. Only workers in the excluded sectors (transport, doctors in training and offshore) are exempt.

  Miners Compensation
  Mr. Rowlands
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry what his estimate is of the number of miners compensation claims which have been agreed. [100541]

  Mr. Crausby
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry if he will make a statement on the number of compensation claims from retired miners that have been settled. [100561]

  Mrs. Liddell
  As at the end of November, the Department had made 4,186 full and final payments and 5,523 part payments to ex-miners suffering from Vibration White Finger. A further 584 full and final payments and 15,460 part payments have been made to ex-miners and their families suffering from respiratory diseases. To date the Department has made payments totalling some £89 million.

  Inward Investment (Merseyside)
  Maria Eagle
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry if he will make a statement on inward investment to Merseyside. [100542]

  Mr. Caborn
  Since May 1997 my Department has made 255 offers of Regional Selective Assistance in the Merseyside area, including 31 offers to overseas companies, creating or safeguarding nearly 18,000 jobs. Major inward investment successes have included Capital Bank and the new Jaguar X400 saloon.

  Small Businesses
  Mr. Steen
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry how many rules and regulations have been repealed since May 1997 by his Department to assist small businesses. [100543]

  Ms Hewitt
  Between May 1997 and October 1999 my Department made 25 regulations that reduced costs on business, including small business.
  We have taken many other actions to assist small businesses. For example, we have introduced legislation on late payment, we are setting up the Small Business Service, and we are consulting on proposals to raise the thresholds below which small companies are exempt from requirements to file full accounts and to have those accounts audited.

  Mr. Dobbin
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry what plans he has to encourage technical innovation in small businesses. [100560]

  Ms Hewitt
  As indicated in the consultation document, "The Small Business Service—A Public Consultation" (URN 99/815), I intend to improve the coherence and customer-focus of my Department's support for small businesses by making most such support accessible through the Small Business Service. In addition, I have already announced that the Smart scheme has been 610W
  expanded to a commitment of over £100 million over the period 1999–2000 to 2001–02 and its scope enlarged so that now even more small businesses will benefit from cash support for technology development and acquisition. The new Enterprise Fund will provide regional and high-tech venture capital funds for start-ups and small companies with growth potential. Also, my Department's funding for the TCS scheme is being doubled and we are creating a national network of Faraday Partnerships designed to support knowledge transfer to small businesses in particular.

  Energy Policy
  Mr. Clapham
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry if he will make a statement on the Government's energy policy. [100544]

  Mrs. Liddell
  The Government's overall energy policy objective, as set out in last year's White Paper, "Conclusions of the Review of Energy Sources for Power Generation and Government Response to fourth and fifth Reports of the Trade and Industry Committee" (Cm 4071), is"to ensure secure diverse, and sustainable supplies of energy at competitive prices".

  British Coal (Equal Pay)
  Mr. Illsley
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry what action his Department is taking to achieve a settlement of the equal value pay case for British Coal canteen workers. [100545]

  Mr. Alan Johnson
  This litigation is a matter for British Coal.

  Bankruptcy
  Mr. Beard
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry what plans he has for reviewing the charges to small businesses and individuals arising from bankruptcy proceedings. [100547]

  Ms Hewitt
  The Working Party on the remuneration of insolvency office holders, chaired by Mr. Justice Ferris, submitted an initial report in July 1998 and, subsequently, the Society of Practitioners of Insolvency issued interim guidance on the information to be provided to creditors on applications for remuneration. A final report from Mr. Justice Ferris's Working Party is expected to be published in the new year.

  Balance of Trade
  Mr. St. Aubyn
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry if he will make a statement on the latest announcement on the balance of trade. [100549]

  Mr. Caborn
  In the three months to September, the deficit on trade in goods and services was at its narrowest for almost a year. The volume of goods and services exported grew by over 6 per cent., the fastest rate of growth for 20 years.

  EH101 Helicopter
  Mr. Wilkinson
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry what estimate he has made of the royalties to be received by his Department as a result of Launch Aid upon sales of the EH101 helicopter. [100550]
  611W
  Mr. Alan Johnson
  Launch investment returns depend on the level of sales of each product in which the Government have invested. Information about possible levies arising from individual projects is commercially confidential.

  Levies have not yet been received on the civil version of the EH101 helicopter.

  Recruitment Industry
  Mr. Baldry
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry what progress he has made in his discussions with the Treasury over proposals to regulate the private recruitment industry. [100551]

  Mr. Alan Johnson
  Discussions with HM Treasury and other Departments on the proposed revision of the regulations governing agency conduct are continuing. We will make an announcement in due course.

  Manufacturing
  Mrs. Organ
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry if he will make a statement about the prospects for profitability and volume of exports of the manufacturing sector. [100552]

  Mr. Caborn
  In 1998 the profitability of manufacturing companies was at the highest level for 30 years and surveys by British Chambers of Commerce show confidence in manufacturing profitability at its highest level for over two years. Export growth has picked up sharply, with the latest figures showing that export volumes in the third quarter rose by 9.6 per cent., the fastest rate of growth for 20 years. Most economic forecasters expect this improvement to continue into next year.

  Mr. Kidney
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry when he last met the Staffordshire chamber of commerce and industry to discuss the manufacturing industry. [100557]

  Ms Hewitt
  My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry had a very useful meeting on 15 November 1999 with the North Staffordshire Chamber of Commerce, of which the Staffordshire Chamber is a division.

  During his visit he had wide-ranging discussions covering manufacturing industry and also visited two manufacturing businesses in the county.

  Home Safety (Children)
  Mrs. Betty Williams
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry what action he is taking to improve child safety in the home. [100554]

  Dr. Howells
  The safety of toys and other articles used by children feature prominently in product safety standards, and the regulations which my Department administers.

  In addition, the DTI produces and distributes safety awareness materials free of charge to local authorities and other safety professionals on a wide range of home safety topics, many of which are designed to help to reduce accidents to children.
  612W
  I launched the first in a series of child safety magazines on 24 November, jointly produced by Government, business and the voluntary sector, for expectant parents and parents of babies and young children and strongly featuring child safety in the home.

  I also launched Child Safety Week in June 1999, an initiative aimed at reducing accidents to children which DTI helped fund, run by the Child Accident Prevention Trust.

  Cluster Development
  Dr. Gibson
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry what plans he has to ensure that cluster development is evenly distributed across the UK. [100556]

  Ms Hewitt
  None. The Government attach considerable importance to clusters and recently announced new mechanisms for taking forward the development of their clusters policy. These include a new Clusters Policy Steering Group to be chaired by my noble Friend Lord Sainsbury, the Minister for Science; a full mapping study of cluster activity in the UK and the identification and promotion of emerging clusters in the RDA's regional economic strategies. The Government believe that clusters are market driven. As such, the Governments's key role is to create the conditions, in all parts of the UK, which encourage the formation and sustainable growth of clusters and enable and nurture progress.

  EU Directives
  Miss McIntosh
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry what steps his Department is taking to monitor implementation of EU directives relating to trade and industry matters in other member states. [100558]

  Mrs. Liddell
  The Department monitors the implementation of EU Single Directives in other member states through the European Commission's publication "The Single Market Scoreboard" and through contacts with UK industry and the Commission. The Scoreboard is published twice a year and is a very useful monitoring mechanism on the health of the Single Market. The Scoreboard, which is available in the House of Commons Library, includes a section covering rates of transposition of Directives in all EU states. The Scoreboard is regularly discussed at the Internal Market Council. We also, through our action Single Market unit, pursue individual complaints from UK industry with the member state in question and with the Commission.

  Recruitment Costs
  Mr. Bercow
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry what evidence he has assessed that temporary to permanent fees discourage employers from offering a permanent job to a temporary worker. [100562]

  Mr. Alan Johnson
  The Department has received representations from work-seekers, unions, employment agencies and employers that these fees can discourage employers from taking on temporary workers permanently.

  National Minimum Wage
  Mr. Corbyn
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry if he will review the level of the national minimum wage. [100563]
  613W
  Mr. Alan Johnson
  I am keeping the operation of the national minimum wage legislation under review with the help of the independent Low Pay Commission. As with its introduction, any future change to the level of the minimum wage will be made sensibly, taking account of the economic circumstances prevailing at the time.

  Mr. Gordon Prentice
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry how many anonymous calls have been made to the minimum wage hotline giving information relating to breaches of the minimum wage legislation. [101479]

  Mr. Alan Johnson
  The National Minimum Wage Helpline does not disaggregate calls between anonymous and non-anonymous calls. All calls are followed up. In addition, a number of employers are phoning the helpline to tell us about their competitors who are paying below the national minimum wage. These calls are also followed up.

  International Postal Services
  Mr. Gapes
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry if he will make a statement on the future of international postal services. [100553]

  Mr. Alan Johnson
  With increased globalisation, the international market in postal services is forecast to grow much faster than domestic markets. Success in these areas will depend on ability to develop and sustain high quality, competitively priced products and services in response to changing and fast-moving customer demand, developments in new technology and ever-increasing competition. That is why this Government have made it a priority to give the Post Office the greater commercial freedom it needs to be a world-class service provider in the twenty first century.

  EU Company Law Directive (Takeover Bids)
  Mr. Heathcoat-Amory
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry if he will make a statement on the progress of the 13th company law directive concerning takeover bids. [101605]

  Mr. Byers
  Political agreement was reached on the proposed 13th Company Law Directive at the Internal Market Council in June this year, with the exception of one point, a Spanish objection concerning the application of the directive to Gibraltar. Since then Her Majesty's Government and the Government of Spain have been negotiating a solution to this question.

  Energy Council
  Mr. Dobbin
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry what was the outcome of the Energy Council held in Brussels on 2 December; and if he will make a statement. [101691]

  Mrs. Liddell
  The Council considered several matters of interest to the United Kingdom.

  The Commission made two presentations on the Internal electricity market. The first concerned progress on implementation of the electricity directive and the second harmonisation measures in electricity which look at cross border trading issues in respect of transmission pricing and congestion. As regards the implementation
  614W
  report, I expressed disappointment that the Directive had not been implemented in all member states and stressed the importance of a level playing field which ensured fairness for everyone. I also congratulated the Commission on taking prompt action against those which had not implemented the directive. I said that fully open energy markets in Europe was a high priority for the UK because this would increase the competitiveness of European companies and reduce prices for consumers. I also called for progress far beyond the market opening levels set out in the Directive. On the harmonisation of cross border trading mechanisms the Council agreed conclusions which note the work of the transmission system operators to develop transmission pricing mechanisms and procedures for managing congestion; encourage them to come forward with early proposals for a resolution of outstanding issues and invite the Commission to monitor progress and to come forward with its own proposals if the system operators are unable to reach a final agreement. I announced that the UK and the Netherlands are working on competition indicators to show how well competition is developing and where barriers persist. The results of this work will be shared with the Commission and other member states.

  In the absence of a proposal from the Commission on the access for renewables to the internal electricity market, the Council was unable to have a full exchange of views. I expressed disappointment at the continued delay and urged the Commission to come forward with a proposal as soon as possible. I said such a proposal should minimise distortions, ensure transparency, provide flexibility to distinguish between different kinds of renewables and promote cost-effectiveness and price competitiveness and that we supported the Commission in its objectives of promoting renewables as part of the response to Kyoto and the progressive inclusion of renewables in the internal electricity market. I was among a number of ministers who counselled against the inclusion of binding targets for renewables in the directive, this being a matter best left to member states, thereby respecting the principle of subsidiary.

  The Council agreed a report to the Helsinki European Council on integration of environmental and sustainable development into energy policy which focused on priority areas for action, which include the development of the internal energy market and the promotion of renewables and energy efficiency measures.

  In addition, the Energy Council held an orientation debate on a proposal for a directive on energy efficiency requirements of ballasts for fluorescent lighting aimed at raising product standards in Europe. Council conclusions were approved on strengthening the northern dimension of European energy policy with a view to improving co-ordination of actions between countries bordering the Baltic Sea and on the North West Region of Russia and to help provide greater focus for EU support mechanisms.

  The Council also note reports on gas harmonisation, gas security of supply, a progress report on the energy Charter Treaty including a negotiating directive for a transit protocol and information from the Commission on the millennium bug and a Community energy efficiency action plan.

  Energy Suppliers
  Mr. Wyatt
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry what measures are being taken to prevent energy suppliers taking over the electricity and gas contracts of customers without their authority; and what penalties are proposed for those companies that do so. [101908]

  Mrs. Liddell
  These matters are the responsibility of the Director General of Gas and Electricity Supply. I am aware that Ofgem is continuing to work hard with the industry to tighten up the transfer process.

  My right hon. Friend, the Secretary of State has recently announced a research study to look at consumer motivations for and against switching supplier.

  Pirate Radio Stations
  Mr. Gerrard
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry how many people and organisations have been prosecuted in each of the last three years for(a) advertising on and (b) sponsoring pirate radio stations. [102033]

  Ms Hewitt
  So far this year three people have been prosecuted for managing the operation of pirate radio stations. In 1998 one person was similarly convicted and a further three in 1997. One of those convicted this year and one of those in 1997 were also convicted for advertising.

  Regulatory Impact Assessments
  Mr. Stephen O'Brien
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry what assessment he has undertaken of the effect of regulations affecting businesses operating costs. [100537]

  Mr. Byers
  The Government require an assessment to be carried out on all proposed regulations that might affect business before they are introduced.

  British Sugar (Gas-fired Power Station)
  Dr. George Turner
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry when he will announce his decision on British Sugar plc's application to build a new gas-fired power station at the British Sugar factory at Cantley, Norfolk. [102573]

  Mrs. Liddell
  I have today granted consent under Section 36 of the Electricity Act 1989 to British Sugar plc for the construction of a 70 MW gas-fired combined heat and power station at the British Sugar factory at Cantley, near Norwich in Norfolk. The station has also today been given clearance as a gas-fired station under Section 14 of the Energy Act 1976 and planning permission for the Development has been deemed to be granted, subject to 37 planning conditions agreed with the Broads Authority, Broadland District Council and Norfolk County Council. The decisions have been taken in accordance with the policy set out in the White Paper entitled "Conclusions of 616W
  the Review of Energy Sources for Power Generation and Government response to fourth and fifth Reports of the Trade and Industry Committee" (Cm 4071).

  Copies of the Press Notice and decision letters are being placed in the Library of the House.

  EU Structural Funds
  Mr. Bill Michie
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry when he expects to publish the bilateral Concordat between UK Government Departments and the Scottish Executive on EU Structural Funds. [102574]

  Mr. Byers
  The First Minister and I have today agreed the text of a Concordat on the EU Structural Funds between the UK Government Departments DTI, DETR, DfEE, MAFF and DCMS and the Scottish Executive. Copies of the Concordat have been placed in the Libraries of both Houses.

  Research and Development
  Mr. Alan W. Williams
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry what percentage of Britain's gross domestic product was devoted to research and development on the latest available figures; and what the equivalent figure was for other G7 countries. [100530]

  Ms Hewitt
  In 1997, the latest year for which figures are available, the UK's gross expenditure on research and development (GERD) was £14.6 billion. This represented 1.87 per cent. of GDP.

  The table shows comparative G7 figures.

  1997 GERD as a percentage of GDP

  Country

  Percentage

  Canada

  1.60

  France

  2.23

  Germany

  2.31

  Italy

  1.08

  Japan

  2.89

  UK

  1.87

  USA

  2.71

  Source:

  OECD Online-Main Science and Technology Indicators, 3 August 1999

  Young Business People
  Mr. Hope
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry what action he is taking to encourage young business people to become world-class entrepreneurs. [100548]

  Ms Hewitt
  The creation of the Small Business Service will ensure world-class support for developing small business. The Enterprise Fund improves access to finance and the recently announced Phoenix Fund will stimulate the development of enterprise in deprived areas.

  The DTI supports Young Enterprise and is committed to work with YE and private sector companies to develop the Company Programme model into Higher Education with a view to encouraging young people to consider setting up their own business.

HOME DEPARTMENT

  Firearms
  Mr. Corbett
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department when he will lay before Parliament the tenth annual report of the Firearms Consultative Committee. [102606]

  Mr. Charles Clarke
  I have placed a copy of the annual report of the Firearms Consultative Committee in the Library.

  Terrorism Legislation
  Mr. Darvill
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department when he will publish a summary of the responses to the consultation paper, "Legislation against Terrorism". [102607]

  Mr. Straw
  I have today published a summary analysis of the responses to the consultation paper "Legislation against Terrorism". Copies of this have been placed in the Library and the Vote Office.

  Scottish Devolution
  Mr. Ben Chapman
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department when he will publish the bilateral concordat between his Department and the Scottish Executive. [102609]

  Mr. Straw
  I am pleased to announce that my officials have agreed the text of a bilateral concordat with their counterparts in the Scottish Executive. A copy has been placed in the Library.

  Hunting with Dogs
  Mr. Ben Chapman
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will announce the full membership and terms of reference of the inquiry into hunting with dogs in England and Wales. [102608]

  Mr. Straw
  The full membership of the Committee of Inquiry into Hunting with Dogs in England and Wales will be as follows:The Chairman will be the noble Lord Burns, as already announced. Dr. Victoria Edwards, Professor Sir John Marsh, the noble Lord, Lord Soulsby of Swaftham Prior and Professor Michael Winter have agreed to serve as members.

  The Terms of Reference are:

  To inquire into:
  the practical aspects of different types of hunting with dogs and its impact on the rural economy, agriculture and pest control, the social and cultural life of the countryside, the management and conservation of wildlife, and animal welfare in particular areas of England and Wales;
  the consequences for these issues of any ban on hunting with dogs;
  how any ban might be implemented; and
  to report the findings to the Secretary of State for the Home Department.

  Biographical Details of Members are:
  Lord Burns—formerly Permanent Secretary to Her Majesty's Treasury (1991–98), and Chief Economic Adviser to the Treasury and Head of the Government Economic Service (1980–91).
  Dr. Victoria Edwards FRICS FAAV—Principal lecturer in Land Management and Departmental Research Director, University of Portsmouth (since 1989); Non-executive Board Member:
  618W
  Countryside Agency (since 1998) and Forestry Commission (1999) and Member, Advisory Councils of, School of Rural Economy and Land Management, Royal Agricultural College, Cirencester (since 1996).
  Professor Sir John Marsh CBE—Emeritus Professor of Agricultural Economics, University of Reading, Department of Agricultural and Food Economics (since 1997); Member of Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food Minister's Independent Advisory Group (since 1997); Chairman, Agricultural Wages Board (1991–99) and Director of the Centre for Agricultural Strategy (1990–97).
  Lord Soulsby of Swaftham Prior MA (Cantab) PhD DSc DVM DVSM FAMS FRCVS—Emeritus Professor of Animal Pathology, University of Cambridge; President, Royal Society of Medicine; Chairman: Veterinary Advisory Committee, Horserace Betting Levy Board (1985–97); Chairman, Animal Research Grants Board (1986–89); and President, Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons (1984–85).
  Professor Michael Winter—Professor of Rural Economy and Society, Cheltenham and Gloucester College of Higher Education (since 1993), Member, Policy Committee, Council for Protection of Rural England (since 1998); Member, two Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food Regional Agri-Environmental Forums (since 1996) and Director, Centre for Rural Studies, Royal Agricultural College, Cirencester (1987–93).

  Jury Trial
  Mr. Marshall-Andrews
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department (1) how many and what percentage of defendants who opted for trial by jury in either-way offences and pleaded guilty at the Crown court were committed together with co-defendants who contested indictments at the Crown court, in the most recent year for which figures are available; [99562]

  (2) how many and what percentage of defendants who opted for trial by jury in either-way offences and pleaded guilty in the Crown Court pleaded guilty to (a) charges or (b) counts different from those upon which they were committed, in the most recent year for which figures are available; [99563]

  (3) how many and what percentage of defendants who opted for trial by jury in either-way offences and pleaded guilty at the Crown court received sentences at the Crown court which could not have been passed by the committing magistrates court, in the most recent year for which figures are available. [99561]

  Mr. Charles Clarke
  In 1998, 42 per cent. of the 40,000 defendants who pleaded guilty to either-way offences in the Crown court received sentences which could not have been passed by the committing magistrates courts. These figures relate both to cases directed by the magistrates and to those where the defendant has elected; it is not possible to separate them.

  The other information requested is not collected centrally.

  Departmental Estate
  Mrs. Ewing
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what his estimate is of the value of land and buildings, both leasehold and freehold, held by his core Department (i) in Scotland, (ii) in the United Kingdom, (iii) overseas and (iv) in total; and what is the value of(a) plant, machinery and vehicles, (b) IT and communications equipment and systems and (c) other taxable fixed assets. [99821]
  619W
  Mr. Straw
  [holding answer 26 November 1999]: Currently, the core Home Office holds land and buildings, both leasehold and freehold, valued at £92,462,000, all of which are in England and Wales.

  Plant, machinery and vehicles are valued at £12,077,000; Information Technology and communications systems and equipment are valued at £12,633,000; and other tangible fixed assets are valued at £7,368,000.

  Mrs. Ewing
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what his estimate is of the value of land and buildings (i) in Scotland, (ii) in the United Kingdom, (iii) overseas and (iv) in total held by(a) the UK Passport Agency, (b) the Forensic Science Service, (c) the Fire Service College, (d) the Prison Service and (e) each of the non-departmental public bodies within his Department's responsibility; and what is the value of other assets held by these bodies. [99822]

  Mr. Straw
  [holding answer 26 November 1999]As of 31 March 1999, the estimates of the value of land and buildings and other assets held by the United Kingdom Passport Agency, the Forensic Science Service, the Fire Service College and the Prison Service are set out in the table. All land and buildings are held in England and Wales.

  £000

  Land and buildings

  Other assets

  United Kingdom Passport Agency

  —

  1,646

  Forensic Service College

  16,227

  12,207

  Fire Service College

  10,591

  8,065

  Prison Service

  4,225,200

  90,500

  Unfortunately, information on assets held by the Home Office's non-departmental public bodies is not centrally available and will need to be collected. I will write to the hon. Member when the information is available to me.

  Detention Centre, Oakington
  Mr. Gerrard
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department when planning permission was obtained for the proposed detention centre at Oakington; what conditions were attached to the permission by the planning authority; and which of those conditions his Department does not intend to accept. [101340]

  Mrs. Roche
  Planning permission was obtained from South Cambridgeshire District Council on 10 November 1999. The Council proposed the following "conditions":After three years, the use will be discontinued unless in the third year the Secretary of State notifies to the Local Planning Authority the need for a further year (and so on on a yearly basis) and shall take account of representations made by the Local Planning Authority when any such extensions are proposed;
  There shall not be accommodated at the Centre any persons known to have committed within the last five years any criminal offence which if committed in England and Wales would be an imprisonable offence;
  There shall not be accommodated at the Centre any persons known to have an infectious, notifiable disease;
  No detainee shall be allowed to leave the Centre other than under escort;
  The site of the Centre shall not be extended nor anything built thereon without further consultation under Circular 18/84; Crown land and Crown development;
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  Detainees not deported will not be placed in South Cambridgeshire District;
  The number of detainees shall not materially exceed 400; and
  For so long as the Centre is in use, the Secretary of State shall cause to be set up a Local Liaison Committee consisting of Home Office representation, a representative of the operators, the Local Planning Authority and the local communities. The Local Liaison Committee shall meet as often as is requisite but at least annually to discuss, avoid and resolve any local community problems arising out of the use of the site as an immigration reception centre.
  My officials will shortly be writing to South Cambridgeshire District Council to confirm Home Office acceptance of the planning issues and to indicate that we broadly agree with the other points.

  Police Recruitment (Graduate Scheme)
  Mr. Peter Bottomley
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will review the ethnic balance of successful candidates in the police accelerated scheme for graduates. [101600]

  Mr. Charles Clarke
  The Graduate Liaison Office of Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Constabulary makes strenuous efforts to attract applications to the Accelerated Promotion Scheme for Graduates (APS(G)) from high calibre graduates, irrespective of background. However, there is still some way to go to improve the numbers and quality of ethnic minority candidates and their subsequent success at the various stages of the selection process.

  The ethnic balance of the APS(G) was examined in the context of an ongoing review of the Scheme. A number of recommendations are under consideration including the way in which the Scheme is marketed, the possible appointment of a Graduate Liaison Officer with a specific responsibility for ethnic minority candidates, and the setting of targets for ethnic minority recruitment.

  The Assessment and Consultancy Unit (ACU), which designs and monitors the final assessment centre selection for the scheme, has already let a contract for an Equal Opportunities audit of this part of the process. ACU is also committed to conducting follow-up research on candidates who do join the scheme, with a view to validating the selection process and informing the qualities which should be sought in good applicants from any background.

  Mr. Peter Bottomley
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will ensure that cultural questions facing Police Accelerated Scheme for Graduates candidates are not discriminatory. [101601]

  Mr. Charles Clarke
  Selection for the APS(G) involves several stages, with preliminary selection taking place in police forces. The Home Office issues guidance to all forces on the conduct of their Force Boards, with specific reference to ensuring fairness to all applicants.

  The final assessment centre (known as the Extended Interview) involves a wide range of tests and exercises, designed to give every candidate maximum opportunity to demonstrate his or her competencies and also to promote maximum objectivity in assessment. All assessors receive training from the Assessment and Consultancy Unit for

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  this task, and the Director and Co-Directors of Police Extended Interviews monitor the process to ensure consistent standards and fairness. Every effort is made to ensure that the questions and tests used are not unfair to any group of candidates. Before being used at assessment centres, new exercises are trialled with typical samples of the candidate population, including ethnic minority candidates.

  A contract for an equal opportunities audit of the extended interview process has recently been let in order to obtain an independent assessment of the fairness of the process and to identify areas for further improvement.

  Correspondence
  Mr. Kaufman
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department when he intends to reply to the letters to him dated 9 August, 16 September and 14 October from the right hon. Member for Manchester, Gorton with regard to Briken Qinami. [101806]

  Mrs. Roche
  I am very sorry my right hon. Friend has not received a reply to his letters. I will be writing to him shortly.

  National Black Police Association
  Mr. Peter Bottomley
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what message he sent to the inaugural meeting of the National Black Police Association. [101598]

  Mr. Charles Clarke
  I sent two messages of support to the inaugural meeting of the National Black Police Association. One was a written message that was printed in the conference programme. The other was a short video message, which was shown at the conference.

  In both messages, I set out the Government's continued commitment to tackling racism and promoting equality of opportunity, as well as my support for the work and aims of the National Black Police Association.

  I thanked the police service as a whole for the way in which they have responded quickly, not only to the message of the Lawrence report, but to the recommendations. I also sent my congratulations to the National Black Police Association for all they have achieved during the past 12 months. I made it clear that, if we are to achieve our shared vision; not only of a police service that is representative of the community it serves, but also one that positively celebrates within its ranks and attitudes the diversity of society, then we must all work together.

  Road Accidents
  Mr. Kidney
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what assessment he has made of the contribution that modern technology can make to speedier on-the-scene accident analysis to reduce congestion after road collisions. [101683]

  Mr. Charles Clarke
  Work in this field, particularly on the use of precision photographic techniques from which precise accident measurements can be derived, is being taken forward by the police service.

  Criminal Justice (Mentally Disordered People)
  Mr. Brake
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what assessment he has made of the National Schizophrenia Fellowship's reports "Picking up the Pieces: Mental Illness and the Criminal Justice System" and "The National Diversion/Liaison Scheme Register"; and if he will implement the recommendation that mental health awareness skills should be part of a minimum training package for all police officers. [100808]

  Mr. Charles Clarke
  The Government welcome the publication of these reports, which discuss important aspects of managing the response to mentally disordered people who come into contact with the criminal justice system. Effective local inter-agency arrangements around the country are essential if their needs are to be addressed properly. The Home Office and Department of Health are working together to encourage local agencies and services to develop the most suitable arrangements in the light of local circumstances. I understand that police officers in both the Metropolitan Police and other forces in England and Wales receive formal training on mental illness as part of their probationer training. It is open to chief officers to provide additional training on this subject if there is a particular need for it.

  City Status
  Mr. Burns
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department when he expects an announcement on which towns have been granted city status. [101967]

  Mr. Mike O'Brien
  Her Majesty the Queen has said that she intends to mark the Millennium by a grant of city status and a competition was announced in May of this year with a closing date of 1 September. No date has yet been set for the announcement of the result.

  Asylum Seekers
  Dr. Godman
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will list the Scottish local authorities which have responded to his Department's request, for the purposes of the Asylum and Immigration Act 1999, to identify accommodation that they regard as suitable for asylum seekers; and if he will make a statement. [101707]

  Mrs: Roche
  Discussions are ongoing with the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities, with regard to identifying accommodation for asylum seekers in connection with the new arrangements for support under the Immigration and Asylum Act 1999. Responses from individual local authorities are being treated as confidential at this stage.

  Police Disciplinary Notices
  Dr. Kumar
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many senior police officers in Cleveland have been served with Regulation 6 disciplinary notices in connection with Operation Dollar; and if he will make a statement. [102090]

  Mr. Charles Clarke
  I refer my hon. Friend to the reply I gave him on 6 December 1999,Official Report, column 392W.

CULTURE, MEDIA AND SPORT

  Football
  Mr. Grogan
  To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport if he will list the football matches which are in category A under Part IV of the Broadcasting Act 1996 as amended. [102096]

  Janet Anderson
  All matches in the finals tournament of the FIFA World Cup and the European Football Championships, the FA Cup Final and the Scottish FA Cup Final (in Scotland) were included as Group A events in the list of events maintained under Part IV of the Broadcasting Act 1996 which was announced by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State on 25 June 1998,Official Report, column 601W. The revised list had effect from that day.

  Lottery Terminals
  Mr. Peter Ainsworth
  To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport (1) what discussions he had with the National Lottery Commission prior to the announcement that existing lottery terminals will be required to be replaced in the event of a new operator being appointed to run the national lottery; [102142]

  (2) what estimate he has made of the cost of replacing all existing lottery terminals; [102141]

  (3) what estimate he has made of the cost to the Good Causes Fund of writing off the value of existing lottery terminals. [102140]

  Mr. Chris Smith
  The decision to require the successful applicant for the new National Lottery licence to install new terminals was taken by the National Lottery Commission. I had a meeting with the National Lottery Commissioners on 29 November 1999 at which they briefed me on the contents of the announcement made the following day. The Commission is independent of Government and neither I, nor any other Minister, had any say in this decision.

  The National Lottery Commission has a statutory responsibility to ensure that the National Lottery is run with all due propriety, to protect the interests of players, and subject to satisfying those two criteria, to maximise the amount the Lottery raises for good causes. The Commission took the view that a competition is the best way to ensure that the amount raised for good causes is maximised, and therefore insisted on new technology for National Lottery terminals to remove an obstacle to competition.

  I have made no estimate of the cost of replacing the existing National Lottery terminals.

HEALTH

  General Medical Council
  Mr. Caton
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what plans he has to improve Governmental supervision of the work of the General Medical Council. [100738]
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  Ms Stuart
  We have stated our commitment to professional self-regulation of the healthcare professions, provided such arrangements can be modernised to offer patients appropriate protection.

  We will work with the professions, the regulatory bodies, the National Health Service and patient representative groups to strengthen the existing systems of professional self-regulation by ensuring that they are open, responsive and publicly accountable.

  The General Medical Council is making good progress in its proposals to introduce arrangements for the revalidation of doctors' registration. These will be underpinned in the NHS by arrangements for continued professional development announced in "A First Class Service" and the Chief Medical Officer's proposals for the annual appraisal of all NHS doctors announced in "Supporting doctors, protecting patients". The same document set out the modern principles of professional self-regulation against which the General Medical Council and other bodies will be judged.

  Children in Care
  Mr. Clappison
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what measures the Government are taking to strengthen the role of the corporate parent to ensure that looked-after children reach their full potential. [100735]

  Mr. Hutton
  On 21 September 1998, we launched the £375 million three-year Quality Protects Programme which is designed to improve the management and delivery of children's social services. There is a particular emphasis on improving the life chances of children looked after by local authorities.

  Chief executives have an important responsibility for ensuring that their council acts as corporate parents to the children in their care and that all council departments play their part in the implementation of Quality Protects. Chief executives are required to approve the Quality Protects Management action plan and to ensure that it is not seen solely as a Social Services document.

  As part of the Quality Protects programme the Department for Education and Employment and the Department of Health have jointly drafted guidance on the education of children looked after by local authorities. This is specifically aimed at assisting local authorities in their role of corporate parent to promote and support the education of their looked-after children.

  Elected councillors have a vital role to play in ensuring that Quality Protects has the corporate commitment needed to deliver good life chances for vulnerable children. The Government in partnership with the Local Government Association have recently sent a Guide on Quality Protects to all councillors reminding them of their corporate parent responsibilities and giving guidance on their role in implementing Quality Protects.

  We believe that local authorities' responsibilities towards young people in and leaving care should correspond more closely to those of responsible parents. That means providing more support and assistance for children beyond the age of 16. The Children (Leaving Care) Bill, which had its Second Reading in the House of Lords on 7 December, will change the system to give young people the support they need and deserve in

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  preparing for and leaving care. Young people in and leaving care should be able to expect this from their corporate parent.

  Mr. Clappison
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what resources the Government are planning to set aside to provide training for foster carers and residential care staff about the education system and on ensuring that children in their care are in appropriate education. [100721]

  Mr. Hutton
  We are providing £2 million funding through a sub-programme in the training support programme (TSP) in 1999–2000 for training foster carers, with emphasis being put on the attainment of level 3 of the National Vocational Qualification (NVQ) Award "Caring for Children and Young People". This award contains a unit of competence entitled "Promote and Maximise Educational Opportunities and Achievements for Individual Children and Young People", which describes best practice in supporting children and young people to sustain and/or access educational or learning opportunities, or return to education. It is intended to continue this sub-programme for the next two years at the same rate.

  The TSP also includes a £2.5 million sub-programme for residential child care staff to attain their level 3 NVQ in the "Caring for Children and Young People" award. This programme will also continue for the following two years but will rise to £3 million next year.

  Mr. Clappison
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what percentage of this year's school leavers who are looked after by local authorities are in(a) further or continuing education, (b) employment and (c) training. [100737]

  Mr. Hutton
  Information on the education of looked-after children is not currently collected centrally. The Department has established a new statistical collection to obtain information of this kind from local authorities in England. The first figures will be published during 2001.

  Mr. Clappison
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health how many looked-after children(a) have statements, (b) are placed in day special schools, (c) are placed in residential schools and (d) are in schools for children with educational and behavioural difficulties. [100733]

  Mr. Hutton
  At 31 March 1999, about 1,000 looked-after children were placed in residential schools. Information on the numbers of looked after children attending day special schools or schools for educationally and behaviourally difficult children is not collected centrally. The Department has established a new statistical collection to obtain information on outcome indicators for looked-after children, including the numbers with statements of special educational needs. The first figures will be published during 2001.

  Mr. Clappison
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health how many local authorities have a designated post with responsibility for the education of looked-after children. [100736]

  Mr. Hutton
  The information requested is not available centrally.
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  Mr. Clappison
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what targets, including GCSE targets, the Government are setting for looked-after children. [100619]

  Mr. Hutton
  We have set National Priority Performance Target no. xiii:"Improve the educational attainment of children looked after by local authorities, by increasing to at least 50 per cent. by 2001 the proportion of children leaving care at 16 or later with at least a General Certificate of Secondary Education or General National Vocational Qualification; and to 75 per cent. by 2003".
  The Quality Protects programme sets out national objectives for improving children's services. Objective 4 focuses on improving the educational outcomes for children looked after
  "to ensure that children looked after gain maximum life chance benefits from educational opportunities, health care and social care".
  There are a number of sub-objectives towards bringing the overall performance of looked-after children in National Curriculum tests closer into line with local children generally.

  The Department has established three new statistical collections to obtain information about the education, training and employment of looked-after children, both while they are in care and after they have left care. The first figures on educational attainment will be published in the autumn of 2000.

  Mr. Clappison
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what steps the Government plan to take to reduce the number of moves in care for looked-after children. [100732]

  Mr. Hutton
  We are committed to ensuring that children should have as stable an experience as possible while looked after by local authorities. Stability of carer is essential for a child to have a successful outcome from care. The three-year Quality Protects programme, launched in September 1998, has as one of its key objectives to increase the choice of adoption, foster and residential placements for looked-after children because, without a good choice, inappropriate placements are made, which result in placement breakdown. Placement choice is a priority area for expenditure of the children's social services special grant in 1999–2000 and remains a priority for 2000–01. A significant target which we set out in the National Priorities Guidance is for local authorities to ensure that the number of children looked after who have three or more placements does not exceed 16 per cent. by 2001.

  Mr. Clappison
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what steps the Government are taking to ensure that local authorities have adequate data on the educational achievements attained and choices post-16 of looked-after children. [100734]

  Mr. Hutton
  One of the projects within the Quality Protects programme is working with local authorities to determine their basic information requirements for managing and planning children's services. This is exploring both the specification of the data requirements and the systems used to collect and analyse them. Information on the educational attainment of children looked after, and indeed children in need more generally, will certainly be included along with other outcome
  627W
  measures of children's welfare. The improvement of management information is one of the priorities for expenditure of the children's social services special grant.

  Children in Care (Kent)
  Mr. Fallon
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health how many children were placed for foster care in Kent by each London borough in the last year for which figures are available; and what the equivalent figures were for the last three years. [101720]

  Mr. Hutton
  The information requested is not available centrally. The Department is aware, however, that Kent county council is reporting difficulties with the availability of sufficient foster placements, and one possible factor is the number of looked-after children being placed in Kent by London boroughs. The social services inspectorate is currently discussing this issue with directors of social services in London.

  The Department has introduced a range of initiatives to improve the recruitment and retention of foster carers nationally. Through the Quality Protects programme a key objective is to increase the choice of adoption, foster and residential placements for children in care. Significant additional moneys have been made available to local authorities to increase the level of training for foster carers, and we have also recently announced the development of a national advertising campaign to recruit more foster carers.

  Mental Health Act Detainees (Deaths)
  Mrs. Brinton
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health when the Mental Health Act Commission will publish data on the deaths of detained patients; and if he will make a statement. [101065]

  Mr. Hutton
  Validation of the data for the first two years of systematic collection—February 1997 to January 1999—has taken longer than expected and is still ongoing. The numbers involved in this study are very small for statistical purposes. A preliminary review of the data has indicated that adding a third year's data—February 1999 to January 2000—will increase the strength of the data considerably and increase the possibility that general conclusions may be drawn from the overall study. The Mental Health Act Commission aims to publish a report on the deaths of detained patients by May 2000.

  Strokes
  Mrs. Curtis-Thomas
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health (1) how many individuals were treated by each specialist stroke unit in each of the last five years; and what is the average cost for treating an individual in a specialist unit; [100868]

  (2) what percentage of those who are registered disabled are disabled as a result of a stroke. [100871]

  Mr. Denham
  The information is not available in the format requested.

  The Effective Health Care Bulletin of March 1992 on stroke rehabilitation shows that 100,000 first strokes occur in Britain each year. We do not collect figures for the numbers of strokes which cause disability but not death; however, in broad terms there are around 120,000 people
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  in the United Kingdom each year who have a stroke, there are about 56,000 deaths, and of those who survive beyond four weeks about half are left with a significant disability.

  NHS Dentistry (Bolton)
  Mr. Crausby
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health if he will pilot the phone and go National Health Service dental access centres in Bolton. [101318]

  Mr. Hutton
  Expressions of interest for the third wave of phone and go dental access centres are currently being considered. There are no plans at present to pilot a centre in Bolton.

  Care Homes
  Mr. Wyatt
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health (1) what plans he has to ensure that registration authorities for care homes will be required to(a) list staff registered with the General Social Care Council and (b) list staff not registered with the General Social Care Council, in annual inspection reports published by registration authorities; [101899]

  (2) when he proposes to place proposed legislation for his General Social Care Council before the House; and when he plans for it to become operational; [101901]

  (3) if he will create a new quality standard mark that care homes can display in their promotional material to indicate that all staff are registered with a national organisation; [101898]

  (4) what duty will be imposed on managers of care homes to register their staff with his planned General Social Care Council. [101900]

  Mr. Hutton
  The Care Standards Bill, which includes legislative proposals for the General Social Care Council, was introduced into another place on 2 December 1999. We intend to establish the General Social Care Council on 1 April 2001.

  We intend that the General Social Care Council will have the power to open a register for social care staff. In order to register with the Council an individual worker will need to have completed satisfactorily a period of training approved by the Council and to have satisfied the Council as to his or her being otherwise competent and safe to practice in social care.

  When the Government believe that it will be a further safeguard to the public to restrict certain jobs to workers who are registered with the Council my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State will seek to make regulations for that purpose. Meanwhile there are no plans to offer a logo that can be displayed by care homes to indicate that staff are registered with the Council. The Care Standards Bill also contains proposals to create the National Care Standards Commission to register and regulate care homes. Registration with the Commission will be an appropriate indication that standards of quality are being monitored in a care home by a Government-sponsored body.

  There are no plans to include information about staff registered with the General Social Care Council in inspection reports by the National Care Standards Commission.

  Agency Nurses
  Mr. Harvey
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health how much the NHS paid for agency nurses in 1998–99, broken down by NHS region. [101968]

  Mr. Denham
  The information requested is not available centrally.

SCOTLAND

  GM Food
  Mr. David Heath
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland if he will list the research funded by his Department into genetically modified food and crops giving(a) the research project title, (b) the project reference number, (c) the research contractors, (d) the date on which the research was completed or is due to be completed and (e) the date on which the results will be published. [101754]

  Dr. Reid
  The specific matters raised are devolved and are now for the Scottish Parliament.

INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENT

  Primary Education
  Mr. Alexander
  To ask the Secretary of State for International Development when she plans to meet Government leaders of developing countries to discuss their commitment to improving primary education. [100872]

  Clare Short
  We are committed to the International Development Targets of achieving universal primary education by 2015 and gender equality in primary and secondary schooling by 2005. In my meetings with representatives of developing country governments, I take every opportunity to discuss their commitment to, and progress in, achieving these targets.

  I will participate in the World Forum on Education in Dakar next April and will try to ensure that we make the most of this opportunity to reaffirm the commitment to the world community to the educational vision and principles of Jomtien. At Dakar we will assess the progress that has been made since Jomtien and will pay particular attention to analysing why some countries, including some of the poorest, have managed to achieve considerably more than others. We hope to achieve a strong commitment from the North and the South to the implementation of strategies for achieving effective education for all by 2015.

  EC Reconstruction Programmes
  Mr. Bercow
  To ask the Secretary of State for International Development what is her policy on the establishment of an agency charged with the implementation of European Community reconstruction programmes, as set out in the Cologne Presidency Conclusions. [101106]

  Clare Short
  My Department's policy is to encourage the EC to devolve more authority from Brussels to its overseas delegations. This should improve the EC's630W
  responsiveness to beneficiary countries and its co-ordination with other donors. I therefore fully support the establishment of an EC agency responsible for the delivery of long-term reconstruction assistance to Kosovo. This agency will have its operational centre in Pristina and administrative headquarters in Thessaloniki. We will monitor the agency to ensure that it is effective and based on sound economic principles.

  Southern Africa
  Dr. Tonge
  To ask the Secretary of State for International Development what funding her Department has provided to the regional action programme on small arms in southern Africa. [101928]

  Clare Short
  Last year we funded a seminar which drafted the regional action programme on small arms, subsequently endorsed by US/SADC Ministers in Vienna.

  We have also made a grant of up to £80,000 available to Saferworld and the South African Institute for Security Studies to enable them to help all interested parties in taking this programme forward.

  We will continue to support the effort to reduce the number of small arms in Southern Africa.

  Commonwealth Development Corporation
  Mr. Hoyle
  To ask the Secretary of State for International Development if she will make a statement on progress towards creation of the Commonwealth Development Corporation public private partnership. [102476]

  Clare Short
  CDC was transformed into a public limited company (with the name "CDC Group plc") on 8 December. I will place copies of the company's memorandum and articles of association, and of its investment policy and statement of business principles, in the Library of the House.

FOREIGN AND COMMONWEALTH AFFAIRS

  Entry Clearance Officers
  Dr. Tonge
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what audit is done on the performance and operation of entry clearance officers in British embassies and consulates. [101910]

  Mr. Vaz
  The performance and operation of individual entry clearance officers (ECOs) in overseas Posts is assessed in the first instance by their Entry Clearance Managers (ECMs). ECMs are required to review all refusal decisions taken by ECOs within 24 hours, and to review a percentage of visas issued within a defined timescale.

  In common with all FCO staff, ECOs, both UK based and locally engaged, receive annual appraisals of performance which are carried out by Line Managers.

  As part of the overall management of the entry clearance operation overseas, the FC0's Migration and Visa Division (MVD) monitors key performance indicators from data sent by overseas posts in monthly and annual statistical returns.
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  The data allow the Division to monitor and analyse Posts' and ECO's performance to ensure that best use is being made of available resources.

  In addition, MVD carries out operational reviews of Entry Clearance Sections. These, together with Reviews carried out by Internal Audit teams and the Management Consultancy Service of the FCO, provide a further means of monitoring the performance of Entry Clearance staff and Posts.

  The Independent Monitor (Asylum and Appeals Act 1993), Dame Elizabeth Anson DBE, JP, DL, also carries out independent checks of applications refused which do not carry a right of appeal. Her Annual Report is laid before Parliament.

  Dr. Tonge
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what training is made available to foreign nationals working in the entry clearance offices of British embassies and consulates. [101911]

  Mr. Vaz
  All entry clearance officers, regardless of nationality, attend an initial three week training course in London.

  Locally engaged clerical staff and other support staff receive desk training in their overseas Posts supplemented by distance learning packages supplied by the FCO. Many also benefit from attendance on our three day regional training courses conducted in all regions of the world on a three year cycle by visiting training staff from London. Where numbers merit it, separate training is provided for interpreters.

  Nuclear Weapons
  Mr. Tony Benn
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what assessment his Department has made of whether investing in the National Ignition Facility is consistent with Britain's obligations under(a) the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and (b) the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty; and if he will make a statement. [102130]

  Mr. Hain
  HMG are fully committed to fulfilling our obligations under the NPT and the CTBT. This investment is fully consistent with those obligations and will ensure that the United Kingdom has the capability to underwrite the integrity of our nuclear warheads without recourse to nuclear testing.

  Mr. Tony Benn
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what discussions he had with colleagues prior to the Government's decision to invest in the National Ignition Facility; and if he will make a statement. [102129]

  Mr. Hain
  None. The decision to invest in the National Ignition Facility was taken by the Secretary of State for Defence.

  Ghana
  Mr. Corbyn
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what representations he has made on human rights issues to the Government of Ghana in the last two years; and if he will make a statement. [101974]
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  Mr. Hain
  Over the last two years, we have regularly raised our concerns over the Trokosi system with the Ghanaian Government and with the Ghanaian High Commissioner in the UK. We maintain contact with the Commissioner for Human Rights and Administrative Justice in Ghana and have supported projects promoting human rights. We continue to monitor the human rights situation and welcome information from NGOs on human rights in Ghana.

  Departmental Salaries
  Mr. Grieve
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs in what currency the total of each salary paid to employees of his Department is expressed on his Department's computer systems. [102066]

  Mr. Hain
  Details of salaries paid to UK based staff are not held on the FCO's computer systems. Salary calculations are carried out by use of a private sector bureau. Employee pay slips show net salaries in sterling and the equivalent Euro amount.

  Arms Brokers
  Dr. Tonge
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what representations he has made to the Ministry of Defence on the establishment of an arms broker company list; and if he will make a statement. [101925]

  Mr. Hain
  The Government are considering the question of controls on the involvement of UK persons in the trafficking or brokering of arms and other goods controlled for strategic reasons as part of the review of the proposals in the White Paper on Strategic Export Controls of July 1998, in the light of comments made by respondents to the White Paper. The Government will announce proposals for new export control legislation following conclusion of the review.

  Dr. Tonge
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs if he will make a statement concerning last month's meeting of the Working Group on Arms Exports on the issue of the control of arms brokers. [101927]

  Mr. Hain
  The CFSP Working Group on Conventional Arms Exports met on 25 November and discussed a range of issues relating to arms transfers, including possible controls on trafficking and brokering. There was widespread recognition of the need for EU member states to give serious attention to the problem of trafficking and brokering. Member states also acknowledged, however, the potential difficulties of uniform EU-wide action, given their different national approaches to regulation of the arms trade and to the question of extraterritorial legislation, as well as the need to consider the inter-pillar implications of any new controls. The Working Group agreed to exchange further views on how to take forward discussion of this issue under the Portuguese Presidency. The UK will continue to play a constructive role.

  Indonesia
  Dr. Tonge
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what recent discussions he has had with the Indonesian Government regarding West Papua and Aceh. [101924]
  633W
  Mr. Battle
  We maintain a regular dialogue with the Indonesian Government through which we discuss a range of issues, including the situations in Irian Jaya and Aceh. Our Embassy in Jakarta monitors closely events in Irian Jaya and Aceh, including by periodic visits to the provinces. Teams from the Embassy last visited Irian Jaya and Aceh on 25 November-2 December and 22–24 November respectively, where they met senior officials, opposition leaders, non-governmental organisations and human rights groups. I last met the Ambassador on 25 November and discussed these matters with him.

LORD CHANCELLOR'S DEPARTMENT

  General Commissioners of Income Tax
  Mr. Gibb
  To ask the Parliamentary Secretary, Lord Chancellor's Department for what reasons the Acton and Kensington Advisory Committee on Appointment of General Commissioners of Income Tax has been without a chairman since 1997. [101724]

  Jane Kennedy
  The Acton and Kensington Advisory Committee on General Commissioners of Income Tax has been without a chairman since 1997 following the failure of the Committee to recommend a successor. The work of the Committee is being undertaken by the Lord Chancellor's Department while arrangements for the future are being considered.

  Mr. Gibb
  To ask the Parliamentary Secretary, Lord Chancellor's Department how many general commissioners of income tax there were in the Acton and Kensington area on(a) 1 April 1996, (b) 1 April 1997, (c) 1 April 1998 and (d) 1 April 1999. [101725]

  Jane Kennedy
  The number of general commissioners of income tax in the Acton and Kensington area on the dates specified were:

  1 April 1996–40

  1 April 1997–40

  1 April 1998–40

  1 April 1999–39.

  Mr. Gibb
  To ask the Parliamentary Secretary, Lord Chancellor's Department how many of the advisory committees on appointment of general commissioners of income tax in England and Wales are without chairmen. [101726]

  Jane Kennedy
  There are three without chairmen: Dyfed Ceredigion Advisory Committee, Acton and Kensington Advisory Committee and Westminster and Southwark Advisory Committee.

  Bilateral Concordat (Scotland)
  Mr. Sarwar
  To ask the Parliamentary Secretary, Lord Chancellor's Department when he expects to publish the bilateral concordat between the Lord Chancellor's Department and the Scottish Executive. [102478]

  Jane Kennedy
  I am pleased to announce that my noble and learned Friend the Lord Chancellor and the Deputy First Minister and Minister for Justice have agreed the text of the Concordat between the Lord Chancellor's Department and the Scottish Executive. Copies of the 634W
  Concordat have been placed in the Libraries of both Houses, and the text is available on the Lord Chancellor's Department website (www.open.gov.uk/lcd—see 'What's New?').

  I hope that the Concordat will mark the beginning of a fruitful and co-operative working relationship between the Department and the Executive.

PRIME MINISTER

  Rural Economies
  Mr. Woolas
  To ask the Prime Minister when he will publish the Performance and Innovation Unit's report on rural economies. [102550]

  The Prime Minister
  The Performance and Innovation Unit report "Rural Economies" will be published tomorrow and copies will be placed in the Libraries of the House.

CABINET OFFICE

  Task Forces
  Mr. Heathcoat-Amory
  To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office what rules apply to the selection and conduct of appointees to Government Task Forces. [100893]

  Mr. Stringer
  Task Forces are set up to report on a specific issue within a specified timescale. There are no formal rules relating to the selection and conduct of appointees. Members are drawn from the public and private sectors, and are appointed for their particular knowledge, hands-on experience and/or expertise.

  Mr. Heathcoat-Amory
  To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office what has been the cost of setting up and servicing the Task Forces established by the Government since 2 May 1997. [100895]

  Mr. Stringer
  The information requested is not held centrally, and could be obtained only at disproportionate cost. Individual Ministers are responsible for decisions to establish Task Forces within their area of responsibility. In most cases, members of Task Forces are unpaid with Departments meeting out-of-pocket expenses only.

  Mr. Heathcoat-Amory
  To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office (1) how many Task Forces have been set up since 2 May 1997; [100896]

  (2) if she will list by department the names of people appointed to sit on Task Forces established since 2 May 1997. [100894]

  Mr. Stringer
  Details of Task Forces established since May 1997 have been deposited in the Library. Those Task Forces which are classified as Non-Departmental Public Bodies are excluded from the table as information on them is published in the annual "Public Bodies" publication. The table provides the name of the Chairman of individual Task Forces as well as a breakdown of membership between the private, public and voluntary sectors. More detailed information on the individuals appointed to each Task Force is not held centrally, and could be obtained only at disproportionate cost.

TREASURY

  Financial Services (Self-regulation)
  Mr. Love
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer how many financial services company staff have been disciplined by the regulator in each of the last 10 years; how many of those staff lost their employment as a result; and if he will make a statement. [99640]

  Miss Melanie Johnson
  The number of individuals disciplined by the self-regulatory organisations since 1990 are as follows:

  Calendar year

  Number

  1990

  3

  1991

  5

  1992

  13

  1993

  10

  1994

  34

  1995

  22

  1996

  38

  1997

  35

  1998

  24

  1999 (to date)

  17

  Total

  201

  Formal disciplinary action against individuals by the self-regulatory organisations can take several forms. These include public reprimand, fine, imposition of conditions on employment or termination or suspension of an individual's personal registration.

  These numbers do not include instances of shortcomings among other staff which have been dealt with by other internal corrective procedures within their employer firms. Such action can, for instance, include retraining or even dismissal. The regulators do not monitor the number of staff dismissed as a result of their disciplinary action.

  Minimum Wage
  Mr. Jim Murphy
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what estimate he has made of the impact on tax revenues of the national minimum wage. [101304]

  Dawn Primarolo
  [holding answer 6 December 1999]: The Government have provided evidence to the Low Pay Commission, which is due to report by the end of the year on the initial impact of the National Minimum Wage. A copy of this evidence is available in the House of Commons Library.

  Mr. Jim Murphy
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer (1) how many people he estimates have benefited from the national minimum wage in(a) Scotland, (b) Wales, (c) Bristol, (d) Greater London, (e) Cornwall, (f) the West Country and (g) Cumbria; [101302]:

  (2) how many public sector workers have benefited from the national minimum wage. [101303]

  (3) how many unskilled workers he estimates have benefited from the national minimum wage. [101306]

  (4) how many families he estimates have benefited from the national minimum wage. [101305]
  636W
  Miss Melanie Johnson
  [holding answers 6 December 1999]The information requested falls within the responsibility of the Director of the Office for National Statistics. I have asked him to reply.

  Letter from John Pullinger to Mr. Jim Murphy, dated 9 December 1999:
  The Director of the Office for National Statistics (ONS) has been asked to reply to your four recent parliamentary questions about people who have benefited from the national minimum wage. I am replying in Dr. Holt's absence.
  Definitive estimates on the number of people that have benefited from the national minimum wage are not yet available. Currently available estimates for assessing the effect take data from both the New Earnings Survey and the Labour Force Survey and adjust them for known limitations in each. However, the latest adjusted estimates are based on data for the spring (March—May) 1999 Labour Force Survey and this period spans the introduction date for the national minimum wage legislation. As a result, the adjusted estimates may be giving a misleading picture of the effect of the minimum wage legislation since employees might legitimately have been earning below the minimum wage rates in March 1999.

  The currently available estimates were published in an ONS First Release on 14 October and show that the number of people earning below the minimum wage rates fell significantly between 1998 and 1999. A copy of this first release will be available in the House of Commons Library.

  Funerals
  Mr. O'Hara
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what plans he has to regulate the pre-payment of funerals. [102122]

  Miss Melanie Johnson
  The Treasury is still considering the responses to the consultation it held earlier this year and will announce its decision in due course.

  Public Interest Immunity Certificates
  Mr. Cousins
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer how many public interest immunity certificates each Treasury Minister has signed since May 1997(a) in respect of and (b) at the request of, which Department, board and agency; and on what dates. [101812]

  Miss Melanie Johnson
  Treasury Ministers have signed no public interest immunity certificates since May 1997.

  Working Families Tax Credit
  Mr. Maude
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer (1) how many top rate taxpayers will be eligible to receive the Working Families Tax Credit in the next financial year; [101810]

  (2) how many households with an income of over £25,000 will be eligible to receive the Working Families Tax Credit in the next financial year. [101813]

  Dawn Primarolo
  I refer the right hon. Member to the answer I gave him on 5 July 1999,Official Report, column 419W.

  Taxation (Administrative Costs)
  Mr. Sayeed
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he will estimate the administration costs associated with collecting VAT in each of the last five years. [101906]
  637W
  Dawn Primarolo
  The administrative costs of collecting VAT are shown in the published Annual Report of the Commissioners of Customs and Excise, at Table B, and are described as the "Cost of Collection of VAT". The costs given include running and non running costs and are net of Appropriations in Aid.

  The figures for 1994–95 are shown in the Annual Report for the year ending March 1996. 1995–96 and 1996–97 figures are shown in the Annual Report for the year ending March 1997. 1997–98 and 1998–99 figures are shown in the Annual Report for the year ending March 1999.

  Mr. Sayeed
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he will estimate the administration costs to the Inland Revenue, incurred in assessing eligibility for each(a) income tax and (b) corporation tax (i) relief, (ii) threshold and (iii) allowance in each of the last five years. [101907]

  Dawn Primarolo
  Breakdowns of the administrative costs are not readily available in the detail requested.

  Details of the total costs of administering the Inland Revenue Department can be found on p.53 of the Board of Inland Revenue's Annual Report and the costs of administering each of Income Tax and Corporation Tax, expressed as a ratio of the tax collected can be found in Table 1 (p.33) of the Report.

  A copy of the Annual Report can be found in the Library.

  Tax Allowances
  Mr. Sayeed
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he will estimate the cost to the Treasury in the(a) 1996–97 and (b) 1997–98 tax years of the individual basic tax allowance. [101904]

  Dawn Primarolo
  The costs of the income tax personal allowance in 1996–97 and 1997–98 were published in table 1.6 of the 1997 and 1998 editions of "Inland Revenue Statistics", copies of which are available in the Library. These figures exclude the costs of the extra element for those aged 65 and over and do not cover individuals who are not on Inland Revenue records because their income is below the personal allowance.

  Bilateral Concordats
  Mrs. Lawrence
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer when he expects to publish the bilateral concordats between his Department, the Scottish Executive and the Cabinet of the National Assembly for Wales. [102477]

  Mr. Andrew Smith
  I am pleased to announce that the texts of the Concordats between the Treasury and the Scottish Executive, and the Treasury and the Cabinet of the National Assembly for Wales, have been agreed 638W
  between the parties. Copies have today been placed in the Libraries of both Houses, and the texts will be available on the Treasury's website.

  Economic and Monetary Union
  Mrs. Lawrence
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what was the outcome of the most recent meeting of the Standing Committee on Preparations for EMU. [102549]

  Miss Melanie Johnson
  The most recent meeting of the Standing Committee took place on 18 November 1999. I have arranged for copies of the minutes to be placed in the Libraries of the House.

  Ghana
  Mr. Corbyn
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what was the level of(a) bilateral, (b) private sector and (c) multi-lateral debts with Ghana for each of the past five years; and of this what proportion has been (i) written off and (ii) repaid. [101975]

  Miss Melanie Johnson
  The World Bank publication "Global Development Finance: Country Tables 1999" gives the following figures on Ghanaian debt for 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996 and 1997. The latest available year data are not provided on debt write off.

  Figures US$ million

  1993

  1994

  1995

  1996

  1997

  Level of debt

  Bilateral

  916

  1,060

  1,140

  1,121

  1,075

  Private Sector

  308

  387

  450

  430

  437

  Multi-lateral

  2,404

  2,700

  2,971

  3,118

  3,179

  Amount US$ million

  1993

  1994

  1995

  1996

  1997

  Principal repayments

  Bilateral

  27

  50

  43

  46

  34

  Private Sector

  47

  61

  80

  98

  108

  Multi-lateral

  41

  51

  73

  54

  51

  Interest repayments

  Bilateral

  28

  27

  12

  35

  27

  Private Sector

  14

  19

  6

  27

  26

  Multi-lateral

  41

  35

  40

  42

  40

  Small Businesses
  Helen Jackson
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what estimate he has made of the impact of recent tax announcements on small businesses. [100539]

  Dawn Primarolo
  The effects of the tax announcements are shown in the relevant tables of the Red Book. A number of these measures are of particular benefit to small businesses.

Preamble
The House met at three of the clock: The LORD CHANCELLOR on the Woolsack.
Prayers—Read by the Lord Bishop of Derby.

South East: Regional Planning Guidance
Lord Bownessasked Her Majesty's Government:
When a response to the report by Stephen Crow and Rosamund Whittaker on ho use building in the South East is to be published.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions (Lord Whitty): My Lords, the Government will issue for consultation the proposed changes to SERPLAN's draft regional planning guidance for the South East early in the new year.
Lord Bowness: My Lords, I thank the Minister for that Answer. However, do the Government accept that the Crow proposals cannot be implemented, even in part, without a serious effect on the existing green belt which, indeed, two years ago the Government pledged to maintain, and without serious consequences for the transport infrastructure in the region? Secondly, does the Minister believe that the two key questions which in their report the authors stated were central to their thinking on virtually every issue were in fact the right questions to be asked?
Whitty: My Lords, the panel asked a number of questions. I believe that there is a range of other questions to he asked, both about SERPLAN's original proposals and about those which come from the Crow report. It is a very complex area. It is certainly true that the higher figures which appear in the report would put some pressure on housing, to say the least. However, I believe that aspects of this issue, such as the density of housing and the balance between brownfield and greenfield sites, would mitigate the effect on the green belt to which the noble Lord refers. Because of the complexity, we need to consider the recommendations carefully and subject them to the widest consultation.
Lord Crickhowell: My Lords, does the Minister agree that it is not simply a question of complexity but that it would be socially, economically and environmentally extremely damaging to add to the enormous pressures that already exist on the South East when we should be encouraging urban regeneration and renewal in the cities in the rest of the country?
Lord Whitty: My Lords, I do not believe that this is entirely an either/or situation. Clearly, the Government's policy is to encourage regeneration in
1382
many of our industrial urban and rural areas away from the South East. Indeed, the whole structure of the regional development agencies is designed to enable that to happen. Nevertheless, there will also be development in the South East; there will be housing consequences for that development, and the ensuing pressures must be considered very carefully. That is what the Government are doing.
The Earl of Onslow: My Lords, I suppose that I must declare an interest in that if I were to have one or, peradventure, two acres of development land in the South East, I should be immensely rich. Perhaps I may ask the noble Lord why it appears that we need 4 million new houses, which are designed for single mothers, old age pensioners and divorced people, when the builders want to build four-bedroomed, two-garaged houses in the South East and to increase the housing stock by something like 20 per cent. I am not a genius, but even I find that very hard to comprehend.
Lord Whitty: My Lords, I am not sure that I accept that the noble Earl is not a genius! However, I agree that those are difficult problems. The change in household formation—in the structure of households—leads to the type of demand to which the noble Earl refers. It is highly probable that some of those pressures will be met by a higher density of housing within the South East. However, as the noble Earl says, the normal development pressures are to build larger houses within the South East. That balance must be reassessed in terms of the total development of the South East. As noble Lords have said, in addition to the pressures in the South East, we need to look at those which exist elsewhere. To a lesser extent, the same changes in demography and the same development pressures are also occurring elsewhere.
Lord Renton: My Lords, bearing in mind that population pressure is the principal problem with which the Government have to deal in this matter, will they take into account that if they can halt some of the drift from the North and the Midlands to the South East, that would help? Further, is the Minister aware that a few weeks ago we were told that over the next 12 months we must accept 80 people claiming immigration and asylum. It would be a great help if that number could be limited considerably because a high proportion of those people wish to settle in the South East.
Lord Whitty: My Lords, clearly, international immigration brings some pressures, more so to London than to the rest of the South East to which the figures refer. Contrary to general belief, the demographic or population pressures on the South East do not come primarily from people from the northern regions. Indeed, there is only 3 per cent migration from the North East, for example. into the rest of the South East. The primary pressure on the rest of the South East comes from people who move out of London into the rest of the South East. In addition, there are demographic pressures in terms of

1383
households to which I have already referred. Therefore, the first point made by the noble Lord is not the principal problem.
The Earl of Caithness: My Lords, if the report were to be implemented, can the noble Lord tell us how many acres of existing green belt would be lost?
Lord Whitty: My Lords, as the noble Earl knows, it is government policy that we should maintain the net value of the green belt. That would be our intention in these circumstances. We would wish to see as many houses as possible built within existing brownfield sites and those which already have development permission within the South East. Obviously, the Government are currently addressing the issue of the pressures which arise from that.

Ministerial Blind Trusts
3.13 p.m.
The Earl of Liverpoolasked Her Majesty's Government:
What purpose ministerial blind trusts serve.
The Minister of State, Cabinet Office (Lord Falconer of Thoroton): My Lords, the Ministerial Code makes it clear that Ministers must avoid any danger of an actual or apparent conflict of interest between their ministerial position and their private financial interests. Placing investments in a blind trust is one option available to Ministers to avoid any conflict of interest.
The Earl of Liverpool: My Lords, I am grateful, as I am sure is the whole House, to the noble and learned Lord for answering this Question. But I confess to being slightly disappointed that the noble Baroness the Lord Privy Seal, who I am pleased to see is in her place today, does not feel able to answer it because, after all, she was one of the three trustees of the Prime Minister's Office blind trust.
Does the noble and learned Lord consider it appropriate or, indeed, desirable that a past trustee member of the Prime Minister's Office trust fund should be on the Political Honours Scrutiny Committee which, among other things, will play a large part in deciding who shall become a Member of this House and sit and vote here?
Lord Falconer of Thoroton: My Lords, first, I apologise for not being my noble friend the Lord Privy Seal. As the Question was first drafted, it related to the Ministerial Code, which is a matter for which the Cabinet Office has particular responsibility. Therefore, it seemed appropriate for the Cabinet Office rather than my noble friend the Lord Privy Seal to deal with it. There is nothing odd about the fact that I am answering the Question rather than my noble friend the Lord Privy Seal.
1384
The noble Earl asked whether it is appropriate that a trustee of a blind trust should be on the Political Honours Scrutiny Committee. The person to whom the noble Earl refers is somebody of the highest integrity. There is nothing that that person knows that is not also known to every other member of the Political Honours Scrutiny Committee because, as the noble Earl will know, when a name is put forward to that committee, it is incumbent on the Chief Whip of the relevant party to describe in detail any contributions which have been made by the individual to any political party, including any contribution to such a trust.
Baroness Gardner of Parkes: My Lords, does the Minister agree that the general public has very little knowledge of trusts at all and even less knowledge of blind trusts which are part of quite a technical procedure. I cannot claim to be any authority on them myself. Will he tell the House how blind is a blind trust? I have read reports in the press that people can have their neighbours, close friends or family making decisions for them. How satisfied is the Minister that people putting their affairs into blind trusts are completely detached from those trusts?
Lord Falconer of Thoroton: My Lords, the Question relates to ministerial blind trusts. They mean that a Minister's interests are placed in the hands of trustees. The trustees then deal with the portfolio as they see fit without the Minister being informed about what happens in relation to the assets in the blind trust. The intention is that the Minister then does not know what is happening to his assets. A blind trust set up in that way shields the Minister from what is happening in relation to his assets. If set up appropriately, the trust is completely blind.
Earl Ferrers: My Lords, if one is a Minister and one is going to set up a blind trust, can one have one's wife, mother or son as trustees?
Lord Falconer of Thornton: My Lords, as the noble Earl will know, the arrangements must be such that they genuinely blind you from what is going on in relation to the trust.
Lord Mackay of Ardbrecknish: My Lords, does the Minister consider that his success with the Dome means that he may yet end up as Leader of the House? As he will know, the noble Baroness the Leader of the House, as a trustee of the Labour Leader's Office fund, which was a blind trust, I gather, broke the confidentiality of the fund to make it clear that Mr Geoffrey Robinson was not a contributor. Will the Minister go further and say whether any Member of either House was a contributor to that or any of the other blind trusts which existed before the election? Indeed, would it not be in the interests of openness and freedom of information for the names of all those who have contributed to blind trusts now to be made public?
Lord Falconer of Thoroton: My Lords, the reference which the noble Lord made is not to a ministerial blind

1385
trust but to the blind trust in relation to the then Leader of the Opposition's Office. The reason for the blind trust in that case is completely different from the reason which I identified previously; namely, that the contributors should not be known to the Leader of the Opposition. That has now been wound up. In exceptional circumstances, my noble friend the Lord Privy Seal identified one contributor. That seems to me entirely appropriate and it seems to me equally appropriate that any contributions which have been made to Conservative Party funds should be made fully and frankly available.

London Underground: Financing Methods
3.18 p.m.
Lord Ezraasked Her Majesty's Government:
Whether a scheme similar to the public bond issue for the New York subway should be introduced for the London Underground.
Lord Whitty: My Lords, I refer noble Lords to the excellent speech made by my right honourable friend the Deputy Prime Minister in another place yesterday. Our private public partnership proposals will bring over £8 billion investment into the Tube system. That is much better value for money than public bonds. The PricewaterhouseCoopers paper, a copy of which was placed in the Library yesterday, shows how the PPP could save £4.5 billion compared with the issue of public bonds.
Lord Ezra: My Lords, I thank the noble Lord for reminding us of the important speech made recently. None the less, is the Minister aware of the considerable success achieved by the New York subway. Since 1982, when the renovation plan was introduced, exactly £8 billion—the sum involved in our case—has been raised on the public bond market. The bulk of the lines and signalling has been improved, air-conditioned coaches have replaced former rolling stock, passenger mileage has increased by 40 per cent, and the reliability of the network h as doubled. In those circumstances, as it is important to consider all the alternatives for such an important venture, at this late stage will the Government look at the situation again, bearing in mind that raising bonds in such a way would certainly be cheaper than if the money were raised by the private sector.At the same time, the engineering work could be contracted out to the private sector.
Lord Whitty: My Lords, none or us would dispute that the New York system has improved significantly since the new system of financing has been in place. Nevertheless, that finance is guaranteed against future revenue in terms of both fares and tax subventions from public authorities. The benefit of the PPP is not only that we shall raise substantial funds of money, but also that we shall bring the application of the most up-to-date management techniques to the provision of the infrastructure for the London Underground. That analysis is underlined by the Pricewaterhouse report to
1386
which I referred, which shows a £4.5 billion advantage. I recognise that all forms of raising private sector money will be debated during the mayoral elections. However, I believe that the Pricewaterhouse report indicates that our scheme is probably the best way forward.
Lord Faulkner of Worcester: My Lords. does my noble friend agree that the PricewaterhouseCoopers report should be required reading for all candidates who aspire to be mayor of London, particularly in view of the misleading comments that some of them have made on the issue? This morning I had a brief opportunity to read the report. It is evident that the Jubilee Line extension would have cost £1.5 billion more had we gone down the bond route rather than down the public private partnership route. Will my noble friend comment on that?
Lord Whitty: Yes, my Lords. I trust that throughout the coming mayoral election, which is of such importance to the future of London, the facts will be addressed by all who aspire to be mayor and that this report will be part of their required reading. On the Jubilee Line extension, the benefit for any similar future undertaking would not only be the cost of borrowing, but also the fact that from the word go private sector management expertise could be brought to bear in a case that clearly was not well managed, such as the Jubilee Line extension.
Earl Russell: My Lords, I thank the Minister for placing the Pricewaterhouse report in the Library. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Faulkner, on the importance of it being widely read. Is that report now not merely in the Library but also published? Has the Minister yet been quoted out of context enough times to realise how important that request is?
Lord Whitty: My Lords, I have spent most of my life being quoted out of context, like many other noble Lords. However, the report is published in the sense that it has been released to the press. Therefore, it probably meets the normal criteria and is available to Members of this House and another place.
Lord Brabazon of Tara: My Lords, now that the proposals for Railtrack to take over the subsurface lines have been shelved in rather humiliating fashion by the Government, apparently because neither of the two mayoral candidates of the Labour Party could put their names to them, and on a day when the Evening Standard reports,
"Tube 'at death's door' as delays rise to record rate",
can the Minister tell the House whether there is any chance that Londoners will see any improvement in the Tube before the next election or shall we go through the whole Parliament without seeing anything on the subject?
Lord Whitty: My Lords, I believe there are already benefits from the higher level of investment in which this Government have engaged for the London

1387
Underground than the last few years of the past regime. We have provided £800 billion. That will be built upon by the beginning of the private public partnership towards the end of this Parliament.
I want to reject the idea that the Railtrack proposition was rejected for the reasons suggested by the noble Lord. The fact is that the proposals from Railtrack at that point did not match up to what was required in terms of integration of the surface railway with the subsurface lines of the Underground. It was felt by all concerned—London Underground, Railtrack and the Government—that it was best to move to a PPP on the same basis as the rest of the London Underground.
Lord Wallace of Saltaire: My Lords, in the light of the conclusion reached by Pricewaterhouse that under all circumstances projects of this complexity would be 20 per cent cheaper if conducted by the private sector rather than by the public sector, does the Minister feel that the experience of the Channel Tunnel allows him to have that degree of confidence in such complex projects?
Lord Whitty: My Lords, every project needs to be assessed on its own terms. Clearly, there is benefit in applying private sector management in this context. That may not be the case in other contexts. The Channel Tunnel was different as the Government bear only a small proportion of the risk. However, I agree with Pricewaterhouse that the general approach we are taking will deliver efficiency as well as better finance.
Lord Elton: My Lords, as one who emerges, blinking, fairly often from the shabbier reaches of the Underground system into the magnificence which is now being revealed as the new Westminster station, will the Minister say whether priority can be given to providing greater comfort and capacity in the rolling stock and smoother track rather than glorifying the approaches to Westminster Palace?
Lord Whitty: My Lords, in relation to London Underground and other parts of the rail system, it is important that access to the railway is attractive, safe and efficient. So stations do matter. The rolling stock also matters. Part of the PPP will be the supply of the rolling stock that will be put on a more effective basis under this arrangement than has pertained in regard to rolling stock in the past. However, it is true that under the past regime, the orders for rolling stock in terms of surface railways and in terms of London Underground were seriously curtailed and we have to live with the consequences.
Lord Haskel: My Lords, is the Minister aware that recently I have visited most of the stations on the extension of the Jubilee Line? Will the Minister share with me the feeling that the architects and the builders ought to be congratulated, because truly the stations are quite magnificent?
Lord Whitty: My Lords, I was not totally aware of my noble friend's travelling propensities. I am glad
1388
that he has visited all the stations. I have visited two or three of them and I am deeply impressed. They give a whole new impression of the Underground to the travelling public. I believe that the Jubilee Line will be a great success.
Baroness Thomas of Walliswood: My Lords, in view—
Noble Lords: Reading!
Baroness Thomas of Walliswood: My Lords, I am not reading. In view of the Government's ill-judged effort to give Railtrack a single contract for the subsurface lines, will the Minister assure the House that in the next round of contracts he will obey the EU contract rules on such major contracts?
Lord Whitty: My Lords, as I have indicated on previous occasions, the tenders for such contracts will comply with the EU rules. The EU rules provided for a single contractor in the case of Railtrack. However, the situation now is that all three contracts will be let on the same basis and in compliance with the rules.
Lord Ampthill: My Lords, does the Minister recollect that the Channel Tunnel was in no way a PPP project? It was entirely privately financed, contrary to the belief that is apparently rampant on the Liberal Democrat Benches.
Lord Whitty: My Lords, with regard to the initial stages the noble Lord is correct. However, it was necessary for my right honourable friend the Deputy Prime Minister to step in during the early months of this Government to ensure that government backing was maintained for the project and therefore the Government were taking an element of the risk.
Lord Ampthill: My Lords, I was not talking of the line to St Pancras, but the Channel Tunnel itself.

European Union Regional Aid
3.30 p.m.
Lord Newbyasked Her Majesty's Government:
What steps they are taking to ensure that the United Kingdom does not lose European Union regional aid which is available until 31st December 1999.
The Minister for Science, Department of Trade and Industry (Lord Sainsbury of Turville): My Lords, current structural fund programmes have until the end of 2001 to spend the money allocated to them at the beginning of 1997. Structural funding will therefore not be lost, provided that programmes have contracted with final beneficiaries by 31st December 1999 and payments are made over the following two years.

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The Government share the concerns of some regional partners about the problems of identifying final beneficiaries by the end of this year. We discussed this with the European Commission. However, the Commission argued that the deadline was legally binding and well known. We have therefore issued instructions to partnerships through the government regional offices guiding them through the final phase of the current programme. We also agreed with the Commission that local partnerships can draw up reserve lists of beneficiaries to replace any which fall out.
Lord Newby: My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister for that reply. However, is he aware that regional development agencies are anxious not simply about identifying projects, but also, and more importantly, about receiving an assurance from the Government that the funds available to them over this year and next are not reduced? High quality projects, which are of great significance to these regions, will not then be put into jeopardy with regard to their funding because of government parsimony.
Lord Sainsbury of Turville: My Lords, I presume that the noble Lord is referring to "match funds", which have to be provided from other areas. The government regional offices are in a position to help with advice on sources of match funding, and that can include the Single Regeneration Budget, English Partnerships indeed, New Deal money. Match funding for 2001 and beyond is currently being considered as part of the overall spending review.
Lord Pearson of Rannoch: My Lords, bearing in mind that the United Kingdom pays the European Union many billions of pounds a year for this sort of purpose, of which the European Union is graciously pleased to give back only a part, does not the Minister agree that there is no such thing as "EU funding"? If he does not agree, does he not believe that the Government, in all their wisdom, could spend all those billions much more wisely than when they are passed through the corrupt and inefficient bureaucracy in Brussels?
Lord Sainsbury of Turville: My Lords, the term "EU funding" simply means funds which come from the EU. At the same time, we pay into those EU funds. There is nothing mysterious or difficult about that. Clearly, we could also fund this money ourselves through a different route. I have no evidence that there is any such corruption. It is an endlessly repeated point, but I do not see that there is any cause for alarm.
Baroness Williams of Crosby: My Lords, given the great effort that was made to include Cornwall in Objective 1,will the Minister consider indicating to the regional development agencies that they should do their best to try to help find matching funding? Otherwise, some of the poorest regions in the United
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Kingdom will not benefit as much as they might from obtaining the full amount of EU funding, as my noble friend pointed out.
Lord Sainsbury of Turville: My Lords, regional offices do everything they can to support RD As and other bodies in finding funds. As far as I am aware, the money goes to where the needs are greatest through local partnerships rather than simply from where the matching funds can be most easily found.
The Earl of Onslow: My Lords, if there is no information of corruption, why did the whole of the European Commission resign?
Lord Sainsbury of Turville: My Lords, I was simply making a point in relation to this programme. If noble Lords want to pursue the general question of the amount of corruption in the European Union, there are opportunities to do so. I was referring to this specific programme.
Lord Mackay of Ardbrecknish: My Lords, can the Minister tell the House how much regional aid funding has been lost to the UK by the levying of fines on the United Kingdom by the Commission for what it believes is irregular use of the money in various parts of the country?
Lord Sainsbury of Turville: My Lords, I am not aware of any fines, but I shall make inquiries and write to the noble Lord.
Baroness Miller of Chilthorne Domer: My Lords, is the Minister aware of the effect on rural areas where some of the crucial partners are local authorities which are still suffering from the Government's lack of recognition of what is known as the "sparcity" factor? The Government also brought in more targeted funding which particularly hit other services, including all of the projects which fall under some of the Objective 2 funding. Targeting specific areas which the Government wish to pursue is likely to prevent local authorities taking a full part in some of the partnerships.
Lord Sainsbury of Turville: My Lords, the funds are developed for regions or areas on the basis of local partnerships which involve, in most cases, all of the participants, whether they are local authorities, regional development agencies or other bodies. As I said, as far as I am aware, the funds are targeted by the groups on the areas of greatest and most urgent social need.
Lord Bowness: My Lords, can the Minister give the House an assurance that there is no danger at all of any European funds being lost because the Government do not provide matching funds by the appropriate date?
Lord Sainsbury of Turville: My Lords, it is up to the specific bodies concerned—that is, the local partnerships which are under the control of the

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programme monitoring committees—to raise the matching funds. The Government will give all possible help, but the responsibility for matching funds lies squarely with the local partnerships and the programme monitoring committees.
Lord Swinfen: My Lords, can the Minister tell the House what proportion of funds collected in the United Kingdom in the way of taxes and transferred to the EU actually comes back to the United Kingdom in the way of grants or other benevolent manner?
Lord Sainsbury of Turville: My Lords, that is slightly wide of the Question on the Order Paper, but I am happy to write to the noble Lord with the figures.

Business
Lord Carter: My Lords, after the debate on the Offices Committee Report, my noble friend Lady Hayman will repeat a Statement being made in another place on the French ban on British Beef.

House of Lords' Offices: Select Committee Report
3.37 p.m.
The Chairman of Committees (Lord Boston of Faversham)rose to move, That the First Report from the Select Committee be agreed to (HL Paper 9).
The noble Lord said: My Lords, it may be helpful if I explain that the usual practice of the House on these occasions is to debate together the Motion standing in my name and any amendment—in this case, the amendment standing in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Williams of Elvel. That means that the noble Lord, Lord Williams, will speak immediately after me and, at the end of the debate, I shall respond and the noble Lord will reply on his amendment. When he has replied, the Question will be put, first, on the amendment and then on the Motion without any further debate. That will avoid the need for two debates and a third speech from me—two will be quite enough, if not more than enough.
The Offices Committee considered carefully and thoroughly the question of privileges for former Members of the House, most recently at its meeting on 30th November. The committee's report records the decisions reached at that meeting, but it is based on work done by the usual channels with the Convenor of the Cross-Bench Peers. I express my thanks and those of the committee for the considerable amount of work and thought put into that. It is based also on the work of the committee's sub-committees. I refer to the noble Lord, Lord Colwyn, and his Refreshment Sub-Committee and to the noble Lord, Lord Renfrew of Kaimsthorn, and his Library and Computers Sub-Committee. I express the same thanks to them.
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As noble Lords will remember, the subject also received an extensive airing during the passage of the House of Lords Bill. It is fair to say that the usual channels and the committee were united in thinking that the House would wish to approach this matter in a forthcoming way, perhaps if anything, erring—if "erring" is the right word—in a relatively generous way. So the question is: what privileges should be granted, bearing in mind that the working of the House must not be impeded and that any privileges must not make a charge on public funds? I think the committee's recommendations represent a good balance.
The proposals are set out in the report, so I do not intend to outline them. However, I should point out that this is a complete list, as suggested. The House and, indeed, former Members should be clear that anything that is not expressly stated is not included. Former Members will not, for example—this is my only example—be entitled to use the car-parking facilities of the House. In view of that, the House may expect that many hereditary Peers will not wish to make extensive use of the proposed privileges. Finally, I should like to say a few words on the proposal to allow excluded hereditary Peers to sit on the Steps of the Throne. This was debated at length in the Offices Committee. In reaching its decision, the committee was mindful of the fact that other former Members have already been granted this privilege. Bishops who are no longer, or are yet to be Members—Bishops in waiting, as it were—are allowed to sit on the Steps of the Throne as are Peers of Ireland. This represents a total of around 150 people, yet I am not aware that it has ever caused any problems for the House.
As the report makes clear, the committee agreed that the use of the privilege should be watched closely, so that it could be withdrawn if it proved inconvenient to the House. We bear in mind, too, that this privilege would not apply to the heirs of former Members.
This is a practical set of proposals. It is a workable set of proposals. It is a civilised set of proposals. I commend it wholeheartedly to the House. I beg to move.
Moved, That the First Report from the Select Committee be agreed to (HL Paper 9).—(The Chairman of Committees.)
Following is the report referred to:
The Committee have met and been attended by the Clerk of the Parliaments and the Gentleman Usher of the Black Rod.
1. Appointment of Sub-Committees and the Advisory Panel on Works of Art
The Committee appointed the following Sub-Committees and Panel—
Finance and Staff Sub-Committee

L. Astor of Hever

L. Boston of Faversham (Chairman)

L. Colwyn

L. Gladwin of Clee

L. Harris of Greenwich

L. Harris of Haringey

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B. Jay of Paddington

L. Renfrew of Kaimsthorn

L. Rodgers of Quarry Bank

L. Strathclyde

L. Weatherill

L. Williams of Elvel

with the Clerk of the Parliaments.
Administration and Works Sub-Committee

L. Boston of Faversham (Chairman)

L. Carter

L. Colwyn

B. David

L. Evans of Parkside

L. Harris of Greenwich

L. Henley

B. Hilton of Eggardon

L. Methuen

L. Monson

B. Rawlings

L. Renfrew of Kaimsthorn

B. Richardson of Calow

L. Weatherill

with the Clerk of the Parliaments and the Gentleman Usher of the Black Rod.
Library and Computers Sub-Committee

L. Ahmed

L. Avebury

L. Butterworth

E. Erroll

L. Evans of Watford

L. Hoffmann

E. Listowel

L. McIntosh of Haringey

E. Northesk

B. Platt of Writtle

B. Rendell of Babergh

L. Renfrew of Kaimsthorn (Chairman)

with the Clerk of the Parliaments.
Refreshment Sub-Committee

L. Burnham

L. Carter

L. Colwyn (Chairman)

B. Darcy de Knayth

B. David

V. Falkland

L. Geddes

L. Graham of Edmonton

L. Harris of Greenwich

L. Stone of Blackheath

V. Tenby

with the Clerk of the Parliaments.
Advisory Panel on Works of Art

L. Freyberg

L. Gavron

B. Hilton of Eggardon (Chairman)

L. Jacobs

L. Lloyd-Webber

L. Mancroft

L. Palmer

B. Rawlings

Ly. Saltoun of Abernethy

with the Clerk of the Parliaments.
2. Privileges for Hereditary Peers Excluded from the House under the House of Lords Act
The Committee have considered the question of facilities for hereditary peers excluded from the House under the House of Lords Act, and recommend that the following privileges should be granted:
(a) Access to one of the galleries in the chamber.
(b) On an experimental basis, the right to sit on the Steps of the Throne. This right should be reviewed if it causes inconvenience to the House, and in any event should be reviewed before the end of the current Session.
(c) Access to the Library, except when the House is sitting, in order to consult Parliamentary papers. deposited papers, reference material, journals and periodicals held by the Library. This right would not extend to borrowing books, consulting material which would have to be brought from an outside library, using the PDVN or commissioning research by library staff.
(d) The right to host any pre-booked function up to the end of the current booking period (31st December 2000).
(e) A right to book a table for four people not more than once a month in the Peers' Guest Dining Room, to be reviewed shortly after the Summer recess 2000.
(f) Access to the Peers' Guest Room, in conjunction with a Guest Dining Room reservation only.
(g) The issue of a distinctive photographic pass.
(h) The right to use Peers' entrance.
(i) The Committee also recommend that excluded hereditary peers who were appointed by this House to be members of international assemblies should be permitted to make full use of the Library until the appointment of a successor (a maximum period of six months).
Lord Williams of Elvelrose to move, as an amendment to the above Motion, at end to insert "except for paragraph 2(b)".
The noble Lord said: My Lords, I beg to move the amendment standing in my name on the Order Paper. I shall keep my remarks as brief as I possibly can, but I should like to focus, if I may, on the question of the right of former Members of this House to sit on the Steps of the Throne—as set out in paragraph 2(b) of the Offices Committee report. My noble friend—if I can describe him as such—the Chairman of Committees has said that this is a "practical" matter. I will argue, as briefly as I can, that it is, first, inappropriate; secondly, impractical; and, thirdly, rather patronising. I begin with inappropriate. After the difficulties of the last Session of Parliament, which we all recognise created a rather bad atmosphere, I believe that it is time to draw the line below that and say that we should move on. After all, there are many legislatures where members come and go. If Parliament has decided—as it has in both Houses—that former Members of this House should no longer be Members of this House, that is something which should be respected. Further, I do not believe that one should try to amend that, as it were, through the backdoor. I rather regard this particular proposal as an amendment through the backdoor.
I believe that this measure will be impracticable. Perhaps I may guide your Lordships to the Steps of the Throne. The seating room there is not exactly extensive. As I understand it, there are some 600 former Members, perhaps more, who, if this proposal

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is carried by your Lordships, would be entitled to sit on the Steps of the Throne. No one believes that 600 or more people will come in, but perhaps I may give your Lordships a scenario.
Let us suppose that a Bill comes before your Lordships which is designed to ban hunting with hounds. Would any noble Lord expect former Members of this House who have an interest in the subject not to come and sit on the Steps of the Throne? Indeed, even if 30—that is, 5 per cent—of those who would have this entitlement came, the seating room would really prove to be very difficult. Further, those who are already entitled to sit there, such as Irish Peers, a sprinkling of Bishops, Privy Counsellors from another place and Members of this House, would probably be crowded out. I find this whole business to be impractical. I give way.
Lord Strathclyde: My Lords, I am much obliged. It is very interesting to watch the rather amusing style of the noble Lord, Lord Williams, but, in his excitement to amend paragraph 2(b), did he not take note of paragraph 2(a)? I believe that that deals with his problem rather effectively.
Lord Williams of Elvel: My Lords, I certainly read that in great detail, but I do not believe that it deals with the problem at all. All that paragraph 2(b) says in that respect is,
"if it causes inconvenience to the House"—
and I will come to that in a moment, if the noble Lord the Leader of the Opposition will allow me to do so.
I turn now to my third point, and I intend to be very brief. I regard this proposal as being rather patronising. After all, in my not very long experience in this House—almost 15 years—I have made many friends. Indeed, I am very sad to see that many of my colleagues and friends on the Opposition Benches and, indeed, many colleagues on my own Benches are not here now as participating Members of the House. Nevertheless, to say to them, "You are second-class citizens. You have a special pass that says you are second-class. You're allowed to come in and sit on the Steps of the Throne, as long as you don't make a nuisance of yourselves and cause"—in the words of the committee's report—"inconvenience to the House. If you do make a nuisance of yourselves, like jumping on to the Woolsack, or whatever, we will remove that right".
I find this very patronising and, to a certain extent, somewhat offensive. So my argument against this particular proposal is that it is inappropriate that we should draw a line under what happened in the last Session. We must start to get on and move into the transitional House and make it effective. It is impractical because, at some point in time—I do not know when it will be—the already overcrowded Steps of the Throne will be even more crowded by the return of former Members of the House. I believe that it is rather patronising to former colleagues and, if I may say so on a personal note, friends. Therefore, I shall be inviting your Lordships to support me in my amendment when the Question is put on the Motion.
Moved, as an amendment to the above Motion, at end to insert "except for paragraph 2(b)".—(Lord Williams of Elvel.)
Lord Shepherd: My Lords, I rise to support my noble friend but my approach will, I think, be slightly different, although the end product will be very much the same. A good deal of what I have to say centres around the drafting of the report. If noble Lords would care to look at paragraph 2(a), they will see that it refers to,
"one of the galleries in the chamber,"
but I am never terribly sure what constitutes the Chamber; for example, when the Lord Chancellor sits on the Woolsack, is he within the Chamber? He is certainly not within the House. So I do not know what that description means. The paragraph does not say that there should be a designated Gallery. In fact, one could be placed in the Public Gallery by one of the Attendants. Alternatively, if you are friendly with Black Rod, you may be placed in his rather important enclave.
We should be precise in this matter. If we are to give courtesies to the hereditary Peers who have been excluded, they should have the right to sit in a particular place as opposed to having to obtain permission with regard to the Gallery in which they are to sit. Therefore, I strongly recommend that the House asks the noble Lord the Chairman of Committees to undertake consultations with the House Offices to decide the most appropriate Gallery to be set aside as of right for the excluded hereditary Peers. That would give them a clearly recognised place in the Chamber.
I do not like the wording of the paragraph that we are discussing. If one gives a right, one should not say that it is provisional. Any right or privilege in this House is already subject to review. We can change anything we wish if circumstances so require. If we are to grant a privilege with regard to where Members may sit, I believe that it should be granted as a right, subject, of course, to a review, should circumstances so require. In this instance, I suggest that if a privilege were to be granted, we should leave any review to the end of the Session. Perhaps then the various subcommittees which have had oversight of those areas in which privileges have been granted could then be asked to report. The report would then be made available to Members of the House and any proposals for change could be made in the new Session.
As regards my objection to sitting on the Steps of the Throne, there are Irish Peers and Privy Counsellors from another place—and my son when he used to come here—who have never participated in the hurly-burly of political life in this House. However, many noble Lords who may claim the privileges that we are discussing have done so. They may look back on that experience with a degree of nostalgia. However, in my opinion, to allow them to sit on the Steps of the Throne within the Chamber—because I suspect that that would be within the Chamber—would bring them into too close a proximity to debates. We should allocate a suitable Gallery for the excluded hereditary Peers. I

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suggest that is a just acknowledgement of their status but would not cause difficulties with regard to debates of a particular nature that may take place.
I wonder about some of the drafting of the report which I consider to be imprecise. I recommend the noble Lord the Chairman of Committees to reconsider it, not necessarily to change the substance of what is in the report—unless my noble friend were to divide the House on his amendment—but to ensure that the drafting is precise. At the moment it is imprecise and that could lead to difficulties later. For example, paragraph 2(e) of the report states that a noble Lord could,
"book a table for four people not more than once a month in the Peers' Guest Dining Room".
However, the provision does not state that he has to attend the meal. He could book the table for a chairman and a managing director. I may be giving an exaggerated example but that is what the provision states, although I am sure that was not what was intended. If a privilege is to be granted in this respect, the wording should be precise. I do not know whether the noble Lord the Chairman of Committees is willing to reconsider some of the drafting of the measure, but if my noble friend were to divide on the major issue I would certainly support him.
Earl Ferrers: My Lords, during the passage of the Bill concern was expressed as regards what should happen to those hereditary Peers who would no longer attend the House I thank the Offices Committee and all those who contributed to the suggestions which I consider are kind, generous and respectable.
However, I was amused when the noble Lord, Lord Shepherd, said that the measure should be rewritten to state that if a noble Lord books a table he should partake of the meal. But if he does not like the food or feels sick, is Black Rod to turn him out? One can try to put too fine a point on these matters. Everyone knows what the measure intends.
I was sorry to note that the noble Lord, Lord Williams of Elvel, was a little ungenerous today. He has made many plausible arguments for bad cases, but today thought that he made rather a bad argument for a bad case.
Lord Williams of Elvel: My Lords, I thought that I was being rather generous. I accept that former Members of the House have made substantial contributions to this House. I was not trying to offend against that principle; I was trying to be generous.
Earl Ferrers: My Lords, the noble Lord and I have different ideas of generosity if he says that they should not sit on the Steps of the Throne.
In previous debates we were told that it was bad to be a hereditary Peer and that one should not sit in this House by virtue of heredity. One understands that argument. However, it is curious that the children of life Peers have the right to sit on the Steps of the Throne. I do not know whether the noble Lord, Lord Williams of Elvel, has a child. He probably has lots of
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them. I do not know whether the noble Baroness, Lady Jay, or the noble and learned Lord, Lord Williams of Mostyn, have children. All those who are violently against heredity nevertheless have the right for their hereditary sons, who are not Members of this place, to sit on the Steps of the Throne. Therefore, what is wrong with the suggestion of the Offices Committee that ex-Members of this House may sit on the Steps of the Throne? I believe that that is perfectly reasonable. If the noble Lord, Lord Williams of Elvel, says that if a Bill on fox-hunting is introduced in this House, the Chamber will be too crowded, I suggest that that is a good argument not to introduce a Bill on fox-hunting.
As I said, I believe that the present proposals are reasonable. However, the noble Lord the Chairman of Committees stated categorically that nothing which is not in the report should be included as a privilege. However, what would happen if noble Lords who wish to listen to a debate want to have a cup of tea? I suppose that they are probably not allowed to have a cup of tea. What would happen if they wish, in the vernacular, to go to the toilet, or, as your Lordships would say, go to the lavatory? Are they not allowed to do that because that is not mentioned in the provision? I presume that one takes that as read.
The Earl of Erroll: My Lords, with regard to sitting on the Steps of the Throne, we should not lose sight of how that tradition came into being. It was introduced to enable eldest sons to come to the House and learn about the tradition and the procedure of the House before they took up their seats. The noble Lord has said that they will no longer take up their seats. However, he has forgotten the by-election process and those 90 Peers who can be replaced. Therefore, it is right that those who show an interest in the place should come to the House to learn about its procedures. That was the reason eldest sons had the right to sit on the Steps of the Throne.
I realise that this courtesy has been extended to life Peers whose eldest sons will not necessarily sit in this House, although we understand that certain peerages have followed, as it were, a life peerage hereditary line. But leaving those aside, I see more logic as regards disbarring the eldest children of life Peers than as regards disbarring those possible future Members of this Chamber who happen to be excluded for the moment and for the interim.
Baroness Hooper: My Lords, I support the suggestions of the noble Lord the Chairman of Committees and the tone in which he made them. I disagree profoundly with the noble Lord, Lord Williams of Elvel. I do not believe that the suggestions are patronising, condescending or any such thing.
I remind your Lordships that there was a time when Members of the European Parliament were refused admission to the House of Commons on the grounds that they would swamp it. The House of Lords kindly allowed Members of the European Parliament admission rights and the use of certain facilities of the House. There was certainly no swamping in that case.

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I believe that there would be no swamping in the future. The suggestions of the committee should be fully supported by the whole House.
Lord McNally: My Lords, I am well aware that the two Front Bench members of the committee have gone along with these arrangements but, with characteristic generosity, the Leader of the Liberal Democrats said that if anyone felt impassioned about these decisions they should speak. I feel rather impassioned. I have listened to the speeches so far and it would seem that the best thing the committee can do is to remove the right of the eldest sons of life Peers to sit on the Steps of the Throne, because that is a clear anomaly.
The clearest statement I heard during the debates on the reform of the House was contained in the final speech of the Leader of the House, the noble Baroness, Lady Jay, who said, "Thank you and goodbye." I think that we are now slipping back from a commitment, not to reform a club, but to reform the second Chamber of Parliament. In these recommendations the committee is sending all the wrong signals to the outside watching world about how serious we are as regards truly reforming the second Chamber.
When the Conservative government abolished the GLC, there must have been members of that council who had given their lives to the governance of London and who felt deprived of the facilities of County Hall. But they went because that was the decision of the elected government. It would be far better for the hereditaries who have departed and, more importantly, far better for our commitment to a modernised, 21st-century second Chamber if we did not go down this slippery slope. I shall have few opportunities to vote today, but I can tell the noble Lord, Lord Williams, that I will be voting with him.
Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe: My Lords, I am one of those who feel that we should not simply express our gratitude to the departed Peers for the services they have given to the country but that we should do whatever we can in tangible terms to help them deal with the difficult transitional period through which they are going. I share the view that we should deal with them as best we can in a civilised fashion. Therefore, generally, I welcome the package before us.
However, I do not believe that the Offices Committee has got the balance quite right, particularly with the inclusion of paragraph 2(b). The qualifications that the committee has written into paragraph 2(b) are a fair indication that it is worried about the possible effect and consequences if paragraph 2(b) is put into practice. I think the committee has cause for some concern. A fair number of Peers are unhappy about the rest of the package. Being reasonable people, I suspect that they will live with it. However, I venture to suggest that they will not live with paragraph 2(b). If that is adopted, it will be a cause of continuing concern. I shall explain why.
There would be something of a case for former Peers to come in and sit on the Steps if we were not making any provisions whatever for them. I am speaking here
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to the Cross Benches. However, within the recommendations there is a provision that they will be permitted to go to a special place within the Gallery. I think that that is appropriate. That is also the place, I believe, for the eldest sons of life Peers. It is time that we moved to address that matter.
We should take note of the point made by the noble Lord, Lord McNally. We now have a new House. It is changing; it is moving broadly in accord with the wishes expressed by the people of this country who, in May 1997, opted for a quite significant change of direction. I do not wish to repeat many of the arguments we have had previously about the manifesto but, in so far as they affect this House, they were part of that change. If we are seeking to bring through the doors into the Chamber people who are neither life Peers nor exempted under the Act we have just passed, we are, in a sense, seeking to fly in the face of the will of that statute. We are trying to go backwards, as the noble Lord, Lord McNally, said. For those of us who want to make a success of this House, that is not the right thing to do.
Lord Campbell of Alloway: My Lords, I thank the noble Lord for giving way. Does he not realise that the House has been through a pretty rough time which has created a rather sad atmosphere? Does he really think, when we are trying to construct the new House—and have faith that we may be able to do so—that this kind of contribution is of any constructive value?
Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe: My Lords, I believe I am being constructive in my contribution. I have been here since we embarked upon the legislation and I have felt for those people who have been affected by it. I am seeking to ensure that we do our best by them, but, more particularly, that we do our best for the country also. I share the view that we are not necessarily representing the best interests of the people who have been asked to go. I have spent a lifetime dealing with people who have been made redundant. There is a balance to be struck in how we handle this matter. I hope that people will reflect on that. I look particularly to the Liberal Democrats to reflect on their position here. It is about moving to change the House. It is also about looking after, as far as we can, the best interests of those who have left. The balance at the moment is incorrect. I support the amendment to remove paragraph 2(b).
Baroness Darcy de Knayth: My Lords, I welcome what the Chairman of Committees said. I acknowledge also the thought and the work put into the report. The noble Lord, Lord Shepherd, spoke about clarity and the importance of having a designated Gallery so that one knows where one is going. Irrespective of whether the right of access to the Steps of the Throne is to be excluded now or at a later date, can some thought be given to guidance not only for excluded hereditaries who are wheelchair users—in a sense they are easier to see—but for those who are just too frail to get to the Gallery?
Lord Elton: My Lords, anyone would think that we were dealing with some sacred matter such as access to the steps to the sanctuary of a cathedral. We are talking about whether a number of people who used to work here should be allowed to sit in the Gallery and perhaps on the Steps of the Throne as well. That is the extent of the matter. It is not a great act of symbolism. In so far as it is, it does not show the grandeur of the history of the House; it shows our good manners towards those who used to work here.
Another matter on which your Lordships should perhaps reflect is that not all of those who have been dismissed from this House are particularly well off. Many of them live more than £100-worth of railway miles away from the House. They will not be paid to cover that ground because they will not be performing any public service by coming here. That will diminish the numbers coming to the House. I recognise too the acute sense of nostalgia and frustration they would feel were they to be sitting mute on those Steps on the edge of a debate they passionately wished to join. I do not think they would leap over the railings, as the noble Lord suggested. They might mutter. If so, they would be courteously removed by the attendant. We are straining after a gnat. This is a good report and it should be adopted.
Lord Randall of St Budeaux: My Lords, I support the noble Lord. Lord Elton. The first point is that I believe the committee has been very generous in putting the case. The second point is that I believe the comments of the Lord Privy Seal during Third Reading, recognising the contribution that the Peers had made, were right. Thirdly, as regards being patronising, that is a matter for the Peers who wish to attend to decide for themselves. Let us leave that matter to them. Fourthly, we do not want any elitist stances here. Everyone should be treated equally. That is what the word "peer" means. Finally, I shall be voting for the committee today.
Lord Monson: My Lords, I believe I am in order in changing the subject slightly and putting a practical question to the Chairman of Committees about paragraph 2(c) since there will be no other opportunity to do so. I know that I am not alone in being delighted that our excluded friends will be able to continue using the Library for research purposes. After all, many of them have served this House for several decades. I have one practical concern. If the phrase,
"except when the House is sitting"
is taken literally, it will mean that our friends will be spilling out of the Library at 2.29 p.m. on Mondays to Wednesdays and at 2.59 p.m. on Thursdays, getting tangled up in the Lord Chancellor's procession, and possibly accidentally impeding noble Lords in the Library who are putting the finishing touches to their speeches and so forth. From a practical point of view, would it not be wiser to request them to vacate the Library half an hour before the House sits?
Lord Swinfen: My Lords, I was very disturbed to hear on at least two occasions in this short debate that there should be differences between the treatment of the elder sons of life Peers and hereditary Peers. All Peers in this House are equal and should remain so. I would be extremely sorry if the right of elder sons of life Peers to sit on the Steps of the Throne was curtailed or done away with and it existed only for the elder sons of hereditary Peers. In my view, that would be quite wrong and utterly disgraceful.
I cannot agree with the noble Lord, Lord Williams of Elvel. It is very odd that the few Peers who are no longer in this House and who have served it well should not be allowed to sit on the Steps of the Throne whereas Irish Peers, who have not even had the right, in recent generations, to sit in this House, would still have the right to sit on the Steps of the Throne.
The Lord Bishop of Derby: My Lords, concern has been expressed about continued use of the Crypt Chapel by the excluded hereditary Peers. If I am not out of order, will the Chairman of Committees be able to clarify the position?
Lord Strathclyde: My Lords, I shall be very brief. I say at the outset that I wholly support the committee's report. I was a member of the committee and I endorse entirely the words of the Chairman of Committees.
As the House knows, we had an enormous amount of discussion on this matter during the passage of the Bill. The noble Baroness the Leader of the House quite rightly said at that time that it would be better for the issue to be dealt with by a committee of the new House, and that has been done. In that context, I thank and congratulate members of the Government Front Bench who were members of the committee for their very constructive and positive approach to this matter. That is one of the reasons why we have this report before us.
Many suggestions were made to the committee. Many wanted a far more generous package than is proposed and others wanted some restrictions. We have a very useful compromise. I put it to the noble Lord, Lord Shepherd, that the measure should be taken in a spirit of compromise.
As regards the amendment, the noble Lord, Lord Williams of Elvel, put three points. First, he said that the provision was inappropriate because too many people might wish to arrive at the same time. One of the effects of the House of Lords Act 1999 is that it has removed entirely the right of over 600 heirs to sit on the Steps of the Throne. When they had that right very few of them used it. I believe that the noble Lord would find, as my noble friend Lord Elton said, that very few Peers would take up the new right. If too many of them did so they would go to the Gallery that would be pointed out to them by the attendants.
The noble Lord said that this provision was impractical, and I have dealt with that point. He said that it was also patronising. I am not quite sure whether the noble Lord felt patronised or that the

1403
Peers would feel patronised. If Peers feel patronised by the decision of this House to allow them to sit on the Steps of the Throne then they do not need to take up that particular privilege.
I believe that paragraph 2(b) was extremely well drafted. It says that the measure is on an experimental basis only and that if any inconvenience is caused to the House the provision would be reviewed immediately. It also states that in any event the matter will be reviewed before the end of the current Session. The provision is not so much an act of generosity but one of courtesy.
Given the safeguards that are in place, I give my wholehearted support to the committee's report. I hope that the House will reject the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Williams of Elvel.
Lord Rodgers of Quarry Bank: My Lords, my noble and rebellious friend Lord McNally very fairly pointed out that he was expressing his own opinion. I believe he made it clear to the House that it was not the view adopted by representatives from these Benches who served on the committee. Perhaps I should simply restate that view and say that those of us who supported the proposal then support it now.
Those of us who look back on the long debates on the Bill in Committee remember that there were those who believed that the departing Peers should have unlimited club rights and others who thought that they should have no access whatsoever. I believe that we have reached a fair and reasonable compromise, as the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, has said.
There is another matter. There are seven recommendations of substance. Recommendations (g) and (h) simply facilitate the others. Four of the recommendations are very clearly time-limited. As regards the remaining three, including the matter which has raised controversy today and the right to sit on the Throne, the position will be reviewed at the end of the current Session.
Noble Lords: Oh!
Lord Rodgers of Quarry Bank: My Lords, I ask noble Lords to forgive me. I do not believe that anyone aspires to that and I certainly do not myself. In those circumstances we can look at these matters again.
I say to the noble Lord, Lord Williams of Evil—
Noble Lords: Oh!
Lord Rodgers of Quarry Bank: My Lords, I call that a dyslectic mistake! There is an argument for saying that the sons of Peers should not sit on the Steps of the Throne. That is a reasonable argument. Were that the proposition before the House today I would find myself very tempted to support it. But that is not so. The proposition is a simple one that on an experimental basis there should be the right to sit on the Steps of the Throne. It is a reasonably fair
1404
proposition and I hope that Members on all sides of the House will be able to support the Motion moved by the Chairman of Committees.
The Chairman of Committees: My Lords, for the sake of brevity I hope that your Lordships agree that it is not necessary for me to reply to every contribution in this debate. Indeed, some of them do not call for a reply and speak for themselves.
Perhaps I may first thank noble Lords who have supported the committee's proposals, including the noble Lords, Lord Strathclyde, Lord Rodgers of Quarry Bank, and others in the House. Perhaps I may reply as briefly as possible to some of the specific points. I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Shepherd, for informing me beforehand that he was going to raise the question of a designated Gallery. That was considered by the committee. It was clarified when this proposal was decided on. It was indicated through the usual channels and the Convenor that the nature of the proposal was not for a designated Gallery. It was felt that it was better to put the matter in the way in which it appears in the report. However, I believe that I can offer a suggestion to noble Lords in response to the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Shepherd. If we find that there is any difficulty in administering the proposals—Black Rod has assured me that he should not have any difficulty in applying them—we can always look at the matter again and consider whether a designated Gallery would be a more appropriate course. If we were to leave the matter open in that way, we could, of course, feel free to return to it.
Lord Williams of Elvel: My Lords, I am sorry to intervene. Is the noble Lord the Chairman of Committees saying that, if there is to be a designated Gallery, my noble friend's suggestion that we could remove the right to sit on the Steps of the Throne is acceptable?
The Chairman of Committees: My Lords, I am afraid that I am not going so far as that. I am going only so far as the indication I have just given; namely, that if there was any difficulty about an unspecified Gallery, we could always give further consideration to the suggestion of the noble Lord, Lord Shepherd.
Lord Shepherd: My Lords, what I was trying to establish was a Gallery to which Members who have been removed from this House could go as a matter of right. They would not have to apply to Black Rod or to one of the attendants and say, "Where do I sit?" My suggestion to the House was that those Members should have a designated Gallery similar to the one we have, as Members of this House, in the Commons. I believe that that is what those Members are entitled to, and to come here on pain of behaviour is unacceptable.
The Chairman of Committees: My Lords, I think that the noble Lord, Lord Shepherd, expressed himself perfectly plainly on the previous occasion. I think that

1405
noble Lords fully understood his proposal. I do not believe that I can take the matter any further this afternoon.
The noble Lord, Lord Shepherd, also questioned the use of the term `experimental basis." As was indicated by the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, those words were included as a means of reassuring the House. It also goes to the point that I made at the start of our debate— other noble Lords have referred to this—that if there is any difficulty, immediate steps will be taken by the Offices Committee to look at the matter. I shall invite the committee to address it immediately. Indeed, to move a little further than that, I would not hesitate to suggest to the Offices Committee that, if there were any real inconvenience to noble Lords, the privilege should be suspended pending immediate review. That course would always be open to us to recommend. I hope that that provides some reassurance.
I turn now to the point made about dinners in the absence of the sponsoring departed Peer. That simply would not be allowed. As your Lordships know, our staff always act with great discretion and appropriate steps would be taken to ensure that anyone without an accompanied, authorised host or hostess, would not, in those circumstances, be admitted. Our staff act with discretion and I believe that we can rely on their common sense.
I am grateful to the noble Earl, Lord Ferrers, for his remarks in support of the recommendations of the committee. Common sense and discretion also apply to any difficulty that might arise with visiting departed Peers and as far as concerns the use of our lavatories, I am sure that that matter would not inconvenience your Lordships too much.
The noble Lord, Lord McNally, referred to the question of looking backwards. I fully understand the noble Lord's point and I believe that there were one or two murmurings of support around the Chamber when he spoke. However, I do not think that he should be disconcerted on that matter. In the discussions and debates that took place in your Lordships' House, it was perfectly well forecast and clearly understood that this House would return to these matters in the new Session of Parliament. I would suggest therefore that it is not a matter of looking backwards, but rather of dealing with something which was foreseen. Indeed, we were looking forward in the previous Session of Parliament to the possibility of considering these matters.
The noble Baroness, Lady Darcy de Knayth, raised a practical point about possible difficulties for some of the more frail visitors gaining access to the Gallery. I shall look into that, but I am sure that a way will be found to deal satisfactorily with that point, again in accordance with the exercise of discretion. I can assure the noble Baroness that we will not overlook the point.
Again, the same considerations, although on a different matter, apply in relation to the point raised by the noble Lord, Lord Monson, about the timings. It will be made clear to departed Peers that what we are thinking of on days when the House is sitting is making
1406
use of facilities in the Library in the mornings. I am sure that discretion will be exercised to ensure that there are no collisions of the unfortunate kind envisaged by the noble Lord as possibilities.
The right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Derby raised the question of the Crypt Chapel. I am grateful to him for forewarning me that he proposed to raise that point. I am sure noble Lords will appreciate that this is not a matter that arises from the report before us. Furthermore, it is not a matter within the responsibilities of your Lordships' House, but rather concerns in part another place. There are also other considerations. It is one of those places in which a Royal peculiar applies—if that is the right term. I shall let the right reverend Prelate know in greater detail, as necessary. about any further considerations on the matter, I hope that that will provide him with some reassurance.
I believe that I have probably dealt with the specific points but I wish to say a few words on the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Williams of Elvel. A good deal of consideration has been given this afternoon to this matter. First, I would remind noble Lords of the two categories of Peer who are granted this privilege, and have been for very many years: retired Bishops and Bishops who in due course will become Members of this House; and also Irish Peers, as has been mentioned by more than one noble Lord. I do not think that it is right— was in the mind of the Offices Committee and the usual channels—to create more anomalies than are necessary. If the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Williams of Elvel, were to be agreed to, it would create a further anomaly.
The other side of the question which the Offices Committee considered was whether, if the committee did not recommend that departed Peers should have the right to sit on the Steps of the Throne, we should also abandon the anomaly of the right of the Irish Peers and retired Bishops to do so. It considered whether, in the circumstances, that would be a very harsh course to take. It was not a matter that was overlooked. It was carefully considered and the Offices Committee, with the assistance of others whom I have mentioned to noble Lords, came forward with this proposal.
As has been indicated, we can always return to any of these matters at any time if difficulties are found. My recommendation on behalf of the Offices Committee to your Lordships is simply this: we have before us a complete set of proposals. Why not see how it works out? My feeling is that it will not cause us bother. If it does, we shall deal with it.
Lord Williams of Elvel: My Lords—
A noble Lord: Withdraw!
Lord Williams of Elvel: My Lords, I am not going to withdraw. The noble Lord the Chairman of Committees says that he is against anomalies. I should have thought that paragraph 2(b) introduces another anomaly. I am not arguing about the rights of sons or grandsons of Peers, or of Irish Peers or retiring

1407
Bishops. I am arguing about the single anomaly that Members of this House who have been excluded by virtue of the House of Lords Act, which was passed by Parliament, should be given this privilege.
The noble Lord the Chairman of Committees said that the proposal is experimental. That, of course, is what William Pitt said about income tax. Imagine how, having granted this privilege and there is then inconvenience to the House, the Offices Committee meets and says, "We are now taking it away. You must surrender your passes—your second-class citizen passes—and you cannot come and sit on the already crowded Steps of the Throne". That is it; summary dismissal.
We are dealing with one of the great Houses of Parliament. This is not just a frivolous discussion about club rights. I believe that my noble friend Lord Shepherd made a serious point—that those who can sit on the Steps of the Throne, whoever they are, will mingle with Members of this House. I have heard all the arguments. I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord McNally, for his support. It was unexpected but nevertheless welcome. I wish to test the opinion of the House.
4.31 p.m.
On Question, Whether the said amendment shall be agreed to?
Their Lordships divided: Contents, 76; Not-Contents, 122.

Division No. 1

CONTENTS

Annan, L.

Howells of St Davids, B.

Archer of Sandwell, L.

Hoyle, L.

Ashley of Stoke, L.

Hughes of Woodside, L.

Bach, L.

Hunt of Kings Heath, L.

Bassam of Brighton, L.

Hylton, L.

Brooke of Alverthorpe, L.

Irvine of Lairg, L. (Lord Chancellor)

Burlison. L.

Carter, L.

Jay of Paddington, B. (Lord Privy Seal

Cledwyn of Penrhos, L.

Clement-Jones, L.

Jenkins of Putney, L.

Cocks of Hartcliffe, L.

Laming, L.

Dahrendorf, L.

Levy, L.

Davies of Oldham, L.

Lipsey, L.

Dholakia. L.

Lockwood, B.

Donoughue, L.

McIntosh of Haringey. L.

Dormand of Easington, L.

McIntosh of Hudnall,B.

Dubs. L.

McNally, L.

Evans of Watford, L.

Massey of Darwen, B.

Farrington of Ribbleton, B.

Methuen, L.

Faulkner of Worcester, L.

Morris of Manchester, L.

Filkin, L.

Nicol, B.

Gavron, L.

Prys-Davies, L.

Gladwin of Clee, L.

Puttnam, L.

Goldsmith, L.

Ramsay of Cartvale, B.

Goudie, B.

Rendell of Babergh,B.

Gould of Potternewton, B.

Richard, L.

Graham of Edmonton, L.

Roll of Ipsden, L.

Hardy of Wath, L.

Sawyer, L.

Harris of Haringey, L.

Scotland of Asthal, B.

Harrison, L.

Serota, B.

Haskel, L.

Shepherd, L.[Teller]

Hayman, B.

Shore of Stepney, L.

1408

Simon, V.

Varley, L.

Stallard, L.

Wallace of Saltaire, L.

Stone of Blackheath, L.

Warner. L.

Strabolgi, L.

Wedderburn of Charlton, L

Thornton, B.

Whaddon, L.

Turner of Camden, B.

Williams of Elvel, L.[Teller]

Uddin,B.

Williams of Mostyn, L.

NOT-CONTENTS

Aberdare, L.

Lucas, L.

Ackner, L.

Luke, L.

Allenby of Megiddo, V.

McColl of Dulwich, L.

Anelay of St Johns, B.

Mackay of Ardbrecknish, L.

Astor of Hever, L.

Mackay of Drumadoon, L.

Avebury, L.

Mayhew of Twysden, L.

Baldwin of Bewdley, E.

Miller of Chilthorne Domer, B

Beaumont of Whitley, L.

Molloy, L.

Biffen, L.

Molyneaux of Killead, L.

Blaker, L.

Monson, L.

Blatch, B.

Montagu of Beaulieu, L.

Blood, B.

Montrose, D.

Bowness, L.

Moynihan, L.

Brabazon of Tara, L.

Murton of Lindisfarne, L.

Bradshaw, L.

Naseby, L.

Brightman, L.

Northbrook, L.

Buscombe, B.

Northesk, E.

Butterfield, L.

Norton of Louth, L.

Butterworth, L.

O'Neill of Bengarve.B.

Campbell of Alloway, L.

Onslow, E.

Chalfont, L.

Oxfuird, V.

Chichester, Bp.

Pearson of Rannoch, L.

Clark of Kempston, L.

Randall of St Budeaux, L.

Colville of Culross, V

Rawlings, B.

Colwyn, L.

Reay, L.

Cope of Berkeley, L.

Renton, L.

Courtown, E.

Rodgers of Quarry Bank, L.

Craig of Radley, L.

Rogan, L.

Crathorne, L.

Rosslyn, E.

Crickhowell, L.

Russell, E.

Cuckney, L.

Ryder of Wensum, L.

Darcy de Knayth,B.

St John of Fawsley, L.

Derby, Bp.

Sandberg, L.

Elliott of Morpeth.L.

Seccombe, B.

Elton, L.

Selborne, E.

Erroll, E.[Teller]

Sharman, L.

Falkland, V.

Shaw of Northstead, L.

Feldman, L.

Simon of Glaisdale, L.

Ferrers, E.

Skelmersdale, L.

Flather, B.

Soulsby of Swaffham Prior, L.

Gardner of Parkes, B.

Strange, B.

Geddes, L.

Strathclyde, L.

Geraint, L.

Swinfen, L.

Glentoran, L.

Taverne, L.

Goodhart, L.

Tenby, V.

Hanham, B

Thomas of Gwydir, L.

Harris of Greenwich, L.

Thomas of Swynnerton, L.

Henley, L.[Teller]

Thomas of Walliswood, B.

Higgins, L.

Thomson of Monifieth, L.

Hooper, B.

Tope, L.

Howe. E.

Tordoff, L.

Hunt of WirraL,L.

Trefgarne, L.

Hylton-Foster, B.

Walton of Detchant, L.

Jenkin of Roding, L.

Watson of Richmond, L.

Jenkins of Hillhead, L.

Weatherill, L.

Kimball, L.

Wigoder, L.

Kingsland, L.

Wilberforce, L.

Kirkham, L.

Wilcox, B.

Laird, L.

Williams of Crosby, B.

Listowel, E.

Windlesham, L.

Liverpool, E.

Young, B.

Resolved in the negative, and amendment disagreed to accordingly.
On Question, Motion agreed to.

French Ban on British Beef
4.41 p.m.
The Minister of State, Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (Baroness Hayman): My Lords, with the leave of the House, I should like to repeat a Statement which has been made in another place by my right honourable friend the Minister of Agriculture. The Statement is as follows:
"Although there has been no change in this Government's policy on beef exports, in view of the statement made by the French Government last night, I think it right to inform the House where matters now stand.
"Late last night, just after 11 o'clock in Paris, the French Prime Minister announced his Government's decision on how they intend to proceed in the light of the new advice from the French food safety agency, AFSSA, which they received on Monday, 6th December.
"The French statement said in effect that, even though the risk is no more than hypothetical, the French Government are not ready to lift their ban now, but wish instead to press for further work on testing for BSE, and on labelling of British beef and beef products, on the basis of EU regulations, so that consumers can make an informed choice.
"Her Majesty's Government are surprised and deeply disappointed that the French have chosen to take this position. It comes after many weeks of intensive talks from which we received the impression that we had answered all questions and met all the concerns from the French side.
"My right honourable friend the Prime Minister immediately spoke to M. Jospin last night and said that he believed the position the French were taking up was totally wrong, that it flew in the face of science, and was against the law. I wholly endorse that view.
"I have spoken to the Commissioner, David Byrne, and called on him now to proceed immediately with the court action against the French. Mr Byrne has confirmed that he will do so. He will ask next Tuesday's meeting of the full Commission to issue the legal opinion which is the last step before the court case commences. Mr Byrne has already stated publicly that he, too, finds the French Government's refusal to lift the ban deeply disappointing. The Commission have worked as hard as we have to resolve this matter through rational discussion. Mr Byrne sees no alternative now but court action.
"Some people are suggesting we were wrong to think we would make progress with the approach we adopted when this problem first arose in October. I profoundly disagree. I have no doubt we were right to engage in discussion as we did. I believe too that, through the clarification and assurances we gave about how we are operating the date-based export scheme, we responded in full to the points which the French Government raised with us, and gave them the basis they needed for lifting the ban.
1410
"I well understand the anger which British farmers feel at this impasse. It is a poor reward for the massive efforts which British beef farmers and traders have been making to rebuild their industry and rebuild public confidence in their product. British beef is as safe as beef from anywhere else in Europe. That is not just my view. It is the unanimous view of the Commission's senior scientific advisers.
"I can understand the frustration felt more widely around the country. The French action is astonishing. They have delivered a blow to the credibility of European law. But the French are on their own in taking this defiant approach. I assure the House that this Government are working by all means possible to ensure that the French Government honour their Community obligations and lift the ban".
My Lords, that concludes the Statement.
4.45 p.m.
Lord Luke: My Lords, I thank the Minister for repeating the Statement. If I were a farmer, I should be absolutely amazed at the total failure of the Government to persuade the French to obey European law. I should also be extremely unhappy at the way in which this whole matter has been handled by the Government. What comfort is it to a British farmer to hear the Minister say that France is isolated in Europe when he cannot sell his produce there?
The Statement says that the Minister telephoned Commissioner Byrne and asked him to proceed immediately with legal action against France. Why was that not done in parallel with the discussions and concessions made in the past few months? Legal action will take months, or even years. Then there is the strong likelihood of an appeal. It looks as though the French farmers will have a free run for quite a long time to come.
In another place, speaker after speaker said that the Opposition had no policy except to advocate a trade war with France. What absolute nonsense! A call to ban imports of French beef to this country on the grounds of the contamination caused by feeding animals human sewage is both legal in European law and is by no stretch of the imagination the commencement of a trade war.
Perhaps I may ask the noble Baroness some further questions concerning this matter. In parallel with agreeing to the commencement of legal proceedings by the EU, will the Prime Minister raise this whole matter at the summit at Helsinki? When did the Minister, Mr Nick Brown, last meet his opposite number in France, Mr Glavany? We know that he spoke with him on the telephone this morning. How could the Government be surprised, as described in the Statement, by this morning's French action when it was clearly flagged up by the French food safety agency's refusal on Monday to ratify the protocol of understanding between the French and British governments? Will the Minister consider how well the French Government look after, by fair means or foul,

1411
the interests of French farmers compared with the uncomprehending attitude of our own Government towards our beleaguered farmers?
Will the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food advise farmers on how to seek financial compensation from the European Court for the damage that French lawbreaking has caused them? Is France fit to take over the presidency of the European Union in July 2000 when it is likely to be under arraignment at that time for breaking EU law? I echo what my right honourable friend Michael Howard said in another place this morning. When will the Government start standing up for Britain in Europe?
4.48 p.m.
Baroness Miller of Chilthorne Domer: My Lords, we on these Benches are appalled by the French decision, which is clearly political and not based at all on science or on any legal position. It must be based on making sure that French farmers receive a present from their government for Christmas in a quite inappropriate way.
I agree with the noble Lord on the Conservative Front Bench that we must demand quick legal redress from the European Union. In this case, it is extremely fortunate that we have the EU on our side—as indeed it should be—to take such action on our behalf.
As to compensation, can the Minister inform the House what advice the Government will give farmers and whether they will address this matter on their behalf in a collective way? We believe that a trade war would be a disaster for the sheep and lamb industry and other sectors. As many farmers are involved in sheep, lamb and beef, we do not believe that it would be in their best interests to widen this dispute into a trade war. Although that might appear to be a nice knee-jerk reaction, it would not be in the best interest of our farmers in the long term.
It is clear that the French have no support for their action among other European countries. I echo the noble Lord's question: how can the French assume the presidency of the European Union in the second half of next year given their illegal stand in this case? Given today's dreadful news for farmers, can the Minister inform the House of the outcome of the beef summit hosted by the Prime Minister last week? What news is there about other countries which still do not take our beef but should be persuaded to do so?
Baroness Hayman: My Lords, the decision taken by the French Government is surprising because the science has been gone into, and studied in enormous detail again, at Community level. The concerns raised by the French food agency have been looked at by the scientific committee of the EU in great depth. The AFSSA judgment on the memorandum of understanding was in no way a clear-cut basis for this decision. The length of time taken by the French Government in debating it reflects that they had not received clear advice from their food standards agency. I also say to the noble Lord—it is important
1412
that he understands it—that no concessions have been made in this area. With the support of the Commission, we have tried to deal with the doubts raised about the date-based export scheme by explaining its provisions in great detail to the French.
A question was raised as to whether the Government had delayed in this area. The Commission has been extremely supportive. It is not a matter of initiating legal action now; it was initiated by the Commission on 17th November and has been proceeding in parallel with the discussions that have taken place. As I said in repeating the Statement, Commissioner Byrne asked on Tuesday that the last step be taken by the full Commission in terms of issuing the legal opinion. Some news has come in since my right honourable friend spoke in another place this morning. I understand that Commissioner Byrne has asked that the French be given only five days to respond before the case goes to court. As I am sure noble Lords are aware, that is a very short timeframe in this context.
I was asked whether this matter will be on the agenda at Helsinki. Certainly, it is not on the agenda in any formal sense. We are not now in a negotiating situation. Sadly, we are in a position where the law must take its course. This is not a bilateral dispute between us and the French but a matter where the French are isolated in Europe, and it is for Europe to take the appropriate action to ensure that the French obey the law.
The noble Lord asked me exactly when my right honourable friend had last seen, rather than spoken to, Mr Glavany, which was only a matter of hours ago. I believe that it was at the meeting of EU agricultural Ministers in the third week of November. A good deal of peripheral comment has been made to suggest that there has not been communication between Her Majesty's Government and the French Government over the past weeks in trying to resolve the situation. Throughout there has been a great deal of communication at all levels by my right honourable friends the Prime Minister and the Minister of Agriculture and officials.
We understand the deep disappointment that will be felt by farmers in this country. The question of compensation has been raised. It is possible for court action to be pursued, and those concerned must do that on an individual legal basis. But we are working from a position where we must rebuild the market for British beef abroad on a base that has not existed while the export ban has been in place. That task will take some time. There are 13 countries within Europe which accept our beef, and the Germans have today reiterated that they are putting in place the legislative process to do so.
The noble Baroness asked specifically about the Prime Minister's beef breakfast. At that meeting it was agreed that we would take several measures. One of them is to ease the cost of regulation on the meat industry by pegging charges by the Meat Hygiene Service this year and ensuring that they do not rise next year by more than the rate of inflation. We shall have

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a new drive through embassies abroad in all target countries. A senior member of the British embassy will co-ordinate the effort to get the ban lifted or to open up the market to British beef. My ministerial colleague Joyce Quin will lead a new team of MAFF veterinary experts and industry representatives to every country we regard as a priority for lifting the ban. We shall work with the Meat and Livestock Commission in this area. It is through that painstaking work, not by initiating a trade war within Europe, that we shall rebuild the market.
I was fascinated to hear the noble Lord's exposition of policy. He appeared to suggest that we should put ourselves in exactly the same position as the French: isolated in Europe and introducing a ban on French beef under Article 36 in a way that is completely illegal. As the president of the National Farmers' Union said when referring to the idea put forward by the Leader of the Opposition in another place, that idea is illegal. We export a good deal of food into Europe and to adopt tit-for-tat measures is not the answer.
This is a very unhappy situation and one against which we must work. Luckily, we have the full support of the Commission and our partners in Europe in so doing.
4.58 p.m.
Lord Marlesford: My Lords, first I declare an interest as a dairy farmer. I express some sympathy for the noble Baroness for having to repeat such a Statement. Surely, no one can have been surprised that the French should decide to do this. Equally, is it not astonishing that even now the Minister says that he profoundly disagrees with the suggestion made by some that the Government were wrong to believe that they could make progress with the approach that they adopted? It was quite obvious that they would not do so. Is it not time to face the basic fact of political life that the French Government have no more intention of allowing British beef into France than Sinn Fein/IRA has of handing over its stock of Semtex?
Baroness Hayman: My Lords, I believe that the noble Lord's last comment is singularly inappropriate in the circumstances. All of us hope and believe that the progress which has been made in Northern Ireland will continue and come to fruition. On the bona fides of the French Government, I believe that we have taken the appropriate and correct course in trying to rebuild confidence in the safety of British beef. Considering how much support we have had within Europe, both scientifically and in terms of the legal basis of the French action, it is surprising that they have not behaved as they should behave as members of the Community and obeyed Community law. Just because we have not been successful at this point in persuading them to act legally does not mean that it was not correct to try to do so.
Lord Hylton: My Lords, I was glad to hear the Minister refer to the urgency of rebuilding British beef exports. I declare my interest in farming matters. Does the noble Baroness agree that three things are now
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necessary? The first is to increase the number of slaughterhouses in this country which are licensed to export beef and other meat products. I believe that there are only two at present.
Secondly, will she facilitate the export of whole carcasses and of calves for rearing in other countries? Will the noble Baroness also do everything possible to encourage the export of British stock for breeding both in the European Union and the rest of the world?
Baroness Hayman: My Lords, the underlying tenor of the noble Lord's remarks is correct: that we have a narrow range of products available for export under the date-based export scheme. We want to make a start with those products, and then expand the scheme. There is a set process for going into a wider range of products which could be exported. I believe that we would all like to see progress along those lines.
The noble Lord is correct in saying that there are only two slaughterhouses licensed at present under the date-based export scheme. We would wish to see the number increased, but in response to an increasing market demand because of the success of marketing British beef abroad. That is why the initiative, since the meeting of my right honourable friend the Prime Minister with industry leaders, to seek to persuade other countries to lift their ban or, when they do not have a ban, to facilitate the export of goods is tremendously important.
Lord Haskel: My Lords, the noble Lords, Lord Luke, and Lord Marlesford, seem to be criticising the Government for entering into negotiations rather than banning immediately the sale of French goods in this country. That is ridiculous. If the Government had not entered into negotiations, noble Lords would be criticising the Government—in my view rightly—for not entering into negotiations. The Government are right to enter into those negotiations.
Baroness Hayman: My Lords, I am grateful for those comments. My noble friend is right. I do not believe that it would have reassured potential export markets throughout the world if we had not been willing to put forward for scrutiny and examination the safety of our beef and the strength of the date-based export scheme. To have that scheme open and transparent, and examined again and endorsed at a European level by scientific experts, can only be of advantage as regards the long term export market.
Lord Biffen: My Lords, does the Minister accept that a situation as fraught as this inevitably leads to recrimination? However, there comes a point when one seeks some solace from this miserable affair. Is the noble Baroness encouraged by the growing significance now given to the idea of origin marking in beef, and on a wider extension into other agricultural products generally? Are the French requests on origin marking significantly different from those which the British Government have in mind? Does she look forward to the day when there will be sufficiently

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widespread origin marking to enable people in this country to choose British goods on the basis of their judgment?
Baroness Hayman: My Lords, the noble Lord asks an interesting question. We have never wanted to export British beef by stealth. There is nothing that the British beef industry has to hide. We have no concerns about consumers anywhere in the world knowing what they are buying. We believe that such transparency is to everyone's benefit.
Interesting trade issues come into the labelling of country of origin. That has been discussed at an international and European level. Progress is being made within Europe in terms of a beef labelling regime which I believe would be in everyone's interest. Great concern has been expressed widely, and in your Lordships' House, about misleading labelling. It can sometimes mean British consumers buying pig meat products marked as produced in the United Kingdom which come from imported Danish or Dutch pigmeat. We are tightening up on that aspect of labelling. I agree with the noble Lord that, for a range of reasons, including the very enhanced animal welfare standards and the very high safety standards for meat we have in this country, many consumers want to know exactly what they are buying and where it is from.
Lord Walton of Detchant: My Lords, in sharing the concern expressed by many noble Lords, I first declare an interest. My son is a farmer and president of the Berwickshire branch of the National Farmers' Union; and I served on the Southwood working party on bovine spongiform encephalopathy which reported to government in 1989.
I make three scientific points. First, beef cattle from which beef for export is being derived are no more than three years old. There has not been a single case of bovine spongiform encephalopathy in cattle under three years of age reported in the past few years.
Secondly, since the regulations were introduced many years ago to ban human consumption of what are called the Southwood offals and, more recently, since regulations were introduced, to remove brain, spinal cord and other nervous tissue from beef, the chances of any transmission of an agent are negligible. In fact, transmission experiments carried out have demonstrated that there is no way in which muscle can transmit the agent of scrapie or of bovine spongiform encephalopathy.
Is this not a case where the French Government have been very badly advised by their scientists and food standards agency? One can only confirm that on all scientific grounds British beef is the safest in the world.
Perhaps I may follow that up by referring to the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Hylton. Will the Government take steps to increase the number of abattoirs capable of removing the spinal cord, brain and other nervous tissues from beef? Finally, is beef
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now being exported to many other countries across the world which originally banned British beef, other than those in Europe?
Baroness Hayman: My Lords, the Government are keen for more abattoirs to participate in the date-based export scheme. It is not for us to set up the abattoirs but to license them if they meet the conditions. We shall be happy to deal speedily with applications from a growing number of abattoirs.
Again, that leads to the issue of taking the argument forward—it is often best made by scientists and
veterinarians—to third country potential importers. We have nothing to hide in terms of the safety of our beef and its origins.
On the noble Lord's exposition on the scientific situation, he is right. The noble Lord is always listened to with great respect in your Lordships' House. I would hope that perhaps the French Government might listen to him as well.
Lord BorrieMy Lords, can the Minister say more about the legal proceedings now beginning? For example, will it be possible for the Commission—it is taking the proceedings on our behalf—through interim measures to force the French Government to lift their ban and ensure some amelioration of the present position, or to negotiate further towards a settlement of the legal proceedings? Awaiting a final decision and possible appeal will involve a much longer period of uncertainty for our farmers.
Baroness Hayman: My Lords, the fact that the proceedings could be drawn out for a long time has made us anxious to try and reassure the French, not by giving concessions and not by negotiations, but by explaining in detail exactly the provisions of the date-based export scheme. We want to resolve the problem without recourse to the courts.
We have been assured by the Commission that it is speedily proceeding through the different stages necessary in referring the case to the court. We are discussing the possibility of interim relief with the Commission, which is actively considering it. We are all looking at how the proceedings can be expedited, and the Commission is in no doubt of the need to obtain a speedy resolution.
Lord Soulsby of Swaffham Prior: My Lords, everyone must he disappointed about the news from the French Government, especially when all our efforts to control BSE and deal with the difficult problem have been open to detailed scrutiny for many months. I understand that the French Government made their decision on scientific grounds. Can the Minister identify the specific grounds and make them public? Where do the problems lie between the French scientists and ours who, together with others in the European Union, have judged our meat and its production to be entirely safe?
There must be an issue about why the French Government disagree with scientific opinion. I should like to know what is the hitch. What will they not

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accept that everyone else accepts? It may be that by examining that issue closely we can move towards agreement.
Baroness Hayman: My Lords, the communiqué which the French Government issued last night stated that they were not in a position to lift the embargo due to the lack of sufficient guarantees on the definition and implementation of the test programmes, which must be improved and enlarged. They state that to that end it appears necessary for the Commission to organise working meetings between scientific experts, notably British and French. Secondly, they mention the adoption of a Community legislative base ensuring traceability and compulsory labelling in Europe for British beef and British meat products. I do not know whether the noble Lord, Lord Soulsby, will consider those to be the scientific bases for which he asked, but those points were raised in the communiqué issued by the French Government.
Lord Monson: My Lords, I want to put two questions to the Minister. First, are the French continuing to prevent British lorries carrying British beef travelling across France to export markets in, say, Italy, Switzerland or Spain, as was the case earlier this year?
My second question has nothing to do with the noble Baroness's department. Would she, as a Member of this House, agree that the Refreshment Department—and I am pleased to see the noble Lord, Lord Colwyn, in his place—ought forthwith to cease buying French wine, French cheese and anything else French until this illegal ban is lifted? After all, plenty of excellent alternatives are available.
Baroness Hayman: My Lords, I am equally delighted that the noble Lord, Lord Colwyn, is in his place because he will have heard what was said by the noble Lord, Lord Monson, and will have taken cognizance of it. However, individual consumers will do as they will. We should not believe that this is a matter of supporting the exports of one country or another. It is much more important and wide-ranging; it is an issue of whether one member of the European Community obeys Community law. I do not believe that we should take the matter down to another level.
Secondly, I can reassure the noble Lord, Lord Monson, that the ban on transit through France was lifted some time ago.
Lord Pearson of Rannoch: My Lords, I join my noble friend Lord Marlesford in expressing regret that it is the noble Baroness the Minister who has had the unpleasant duty of reading out the Statement. I have one difficult question to ask her. 'We have heard so much about the Government's much vaunted charm offensive in the European Union, but does she agree that this episode proves that that charm offensive—at least with the French—has failed?
Furthermore, there are wider aspects to this unfortunate question in the background, in respect of which the Government's charm offensive is also failing. We have the saga of the withholding tax, which
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the Government have clearly failed to defuse. We also have the take-over directive, the droit de suite and the Corpus Juris all working their subtle way through the European system. Therefore, my second question to the Minister is: does not all that make the Government even more determined to stand up for legitimate British interests in the European Union when the time comes, continuing to use the veto on tax harmonisation, for instance, and invoking the Luxembourg compromise, which is at least legal, on the droit de suite, on the take-over directive and, if necessary, on Corpus Juris and on any other measures which are so damaging to the British national interest?
Baroness Hayman: My Lords, the Government will stand up for the British national interest and for legitimate British interests within Europe. As regards a charm offensive, I must say that the anti-charm offensive of the previous government left Britain isolated in Europe. Today, France is isolated and on this issue we have the support of all our fellow members and of the Commission.
Lord Graham of Edmonton: My Lords, will the Minister always bear in mind that the genesis of the problem lies in the failure of the previous government to take adequate action when BSE was discovered? The failure of the previous government has all along the line led to these difficulties. Will she take it from me that, speaking on behalf of no one in particular, I believe that the British people fully understand not only the frustration of the farmers and of the Government but also why we are in this mess? It is not the fault of this Government; it is the fault of the French Government. Ultimately, the genesis of the problem lies with the previous administration of the party opposite.
Baroness Hayman: My Lords, a previous speaker suggested that this was not the time for recrimination and, in general, that is my view. BSE has been a national tragedy. It has been a tragedy for our farming community and for 47 families and we still do not know how many others may have been affected. In those circumstances, and seeing the many ways in which the tragedy has manifested itself—and this is only one aspect of it—it behoves all of us to have a little humility in asserting that people are to blame for one particular episode.

Nuclear Safeguards Bill [H.L.]
15.18 p.m.
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: My Lords, I beg to move the Motion standing in my name on the Order Paper.
Moved, That the Order of Commitment of 30th November be discharged and that the Bill be committed to a Grand Committee.—(Lord McIntosh of Haringey.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.

Limited Liability Partnerships Bill [H.L.]
5.19 p.m.
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: My Lords, I beg to move that this Bill be now read a second time. The concept of a Limited Liability Partnership Bill has received a great deal of close attention before being put to the House today. The measure was proposed by the previous administration, who set out the principles of a limited liability partnership in a consultation document at the end of their term in office. There was an overwhelming response to that document in favour of the introduction of limited liability partnerships in Britain.
This Government agreed with the inherent merit of the proposal, and in September 1998 a Limited Liability Partnerships Bill was published in draft for the first time. It received careful scrutiny from consultees, particularly professionals such as lawyers, accountants, architects, actuaries and surveyors, and also academics, trade associations and those representing the interests of potential investors, customers and suppliers.
The process was further refined in the new pre-legislative scrutiny process, which was undertaken by a committee of the other House. This proved to be a valuable contribution to the evolution of the Bill. A revised draft was published for information in July, and this is the version before the House today. There is little doubt from the consultations that this measure is something which would be warmly welcomed by the business community, but I also want to emphasise that we believe we have struck an appropriate balance between their interests and those of customers and suppliers who are potential creditors.
Perhaps it would be helpful to understand the evolution of the Bill if I briefly touch on the context in which it originally arose. In 1996 the Department of Trade and Industry published for consultation an authoritative investigation by the common law team of the Law Commission into the law of joint and several liability, a particularly complex area of common law. The report looked at the problems joint and several liability causes for professional defendants and in particular the fact that a particular defendant may be held liable for the whole amount of any damage suffered by the plaintiff, notwithstanding that other wrongdoers were also involved.
Overall the report concluded strongly against reform, the main reason being—I recognise that this is a very simplified summary of the report's detailed conclusions—that change towards a system of proportional liability would favour the wrongdoer at the expense of the plaintiff. Although the remit of that investigation did not extend to the joint and several responsibility within partnerships, the DTI took the opportunity to consult on the distinct but related question of whether to amend the law in Britain to allow limited liability partnerships.
The concept of limited liability partnerships was already well known in the United States of America and, closer to home, Jersey was working on the
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implementation of its own legislation. As a result of the consultation we concluded in 1998 against reform of the law of joint and several liability, but restated our commitment to introducing limited liability partnerships.
More generally, it is perhaps surprising to note that there has been no fundamental change to business entities in Great Britain since 1907, when the Limited Partnerships Act was introduced. And, of all the different forms of entity available, it is only the company which offers limited liability for all its members. Many people have remarked on the oddity that the only way to obtain limited liability is by organisation as a company. There is no doubt that limited liability is a privilege, but if appropriate safeguards are in place why should a business have to organise itself as a company?
I turn now to some of the detail of the Bill, and that will allow me to set out more of the detailed thinking behind it. The limited liability partnership would be a new corporate vehicle to which large portions of the Companies Act will apply, but it would retain certain aspects of a partnership. The LLP would be a separate legal entity from its members and ownership would rest with the members. Members would be free to agree between themselves their relationship with each other and they would be treated as agents of the firm.
However, unlike a partnership, the liability of individual members would be limited. Clearly that limitation of liability brings with it certain responsibilities: a need to ensure that the client is fully aware of the nature of the organisation with which they are dealing, and a need to ensure against abuse. As a result, although the LLP offers limited liability to its members, each member will owe a duty of care to his or her clients and, in the event that they are negligent, they will be fully liable to the extent of their personal assets, although fellow "innocent" members would have limited liability. Since members would be agents of the limited liability partnership, that partnership itself would also be liable for the actions of its members. Claims could be made against a limited liability partnership to the full extent of its assets.
The Bill also requires that the name of an LLP be followed by the words "limited liability partnership" or the acronym "LLP", so as to advertise its status. Also the Bill requires that the LLP be registered at Companies House, along with a list of its members, and that these records be kept up to date. The intention is to apply a further tier of creditor protection by means of secondary legislation. We plan to require financial disclosure equivalent to that required of companies and also to provide that members of a limited liability partnership could be sued for wrongful and fraudulent trading. We also plan to ensure that members could be disqualified from being members of an LLP and directors of a company.
Regulations would also provide for dealing with insolvency and the winding up of the entity, and would include provision to deter the siphoning off of funds by members, to the detriment of creditors. These proposed regulations have been published in draft for consultation twice, most recently in July this year.

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I recognise that a considerable weight of material will be left to regulations, but I am pleased that the Delegated Powers Committee has concluded that the provision for parliamentary control in the Bill is appropriate. It has, however, suggested that if the intention is to provide only for summary trial and a fine, such a limitation should appear in the Bill. But it is our intention to apply to LLPs the same offences as apply to companies under the Companies and Insolvency Acts, so as to ensure parity of treatment. It is important that members of an LLP are not treated more favourably than directors of a company. In some cases these offences are triable on indictment and punishable with imprisonment. For example, Section 458 of the Companies Act 1985 makes it an indictable offence to carry on the firm's business with the intent to defraud creditors.
The application of these offences in the first set of regulations will be subject to affirmative resolution. Were we at any stage to create new offences, these would also be subject to affirmative resolution.
An LLP will be treated for tax purposes as a partnership. This is because although it will be a body corporate, unlike a company where broadly, shareholders receive a dividend and directors receive a salary, the members of an LLP will receive a profit share. Partnerships have been exploited in the past for purposes of tax avoidance. We intend to amend the Bill to ensure that limited liability partnerships cannot be used for tax avoidance.
When we published the revised Bill in July, there were a number of comments from consultees, as a result of which we are considering some further minor amendments to the Bill. These would be intended to ensure that the legislation more effectively achieves the policy intentions. In particular, again in the context of taxation, we will be bringing forward amendments on the tax treatment to ensure that the transfer of a business between a partnership and an LLP is genuinely tax neutral.
I should like to turn to a couple of areas where no statutory provision is proposed, and to explain the reasons for this First, as regards the regulation of professionals, as I have said, the possibility of a limited liability partnership arose in the context of reviewing the law of joint and several liability and its particular effect on professionals. It is fair to say that the main interest in LLPs has come from the professional business community. We considered carefully, therefore, during the consultation process whether the LLP should be restricted to professionals and whether professionals in a limited liability partnership should be subject to particular regulation. We concluded against both these points.
Most professionals, for example, accountants, architects, surveyors and even solicitors, now have the option to incorporate, and the principle that they may operate with limited liability has been accepted for some years. However, few have chosen to become companies. That may be because it is considered that the structure of a company does not lend itself to successful professional/client relationships, because
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there may be a conflict between the need to act in the interests of shareholders and the need to act in the interests of a client. It may also be because the particular advantages of the partnerships structure have made firms reluctant to reorganise as a company. These are generally cited as being the benefits to be gained from common ownership and management together with the sense of fraternity that can exist between partners and the flexibility to determine the content of the agreement between partners.
In considering whether the Bill should provide for professional regulation of a limited liability partnership, we concluded that any regulation of the entity would be likely to add a new and additional layer of regulation over and above what was already being required. Why should, say, an auditor in an LLP be subject to a greater degree of regulation than an auditor in a partnership? Both would be fully liable for their own negligence and clients of an LLP would have the benefit of financial disclosure—a requirement not made of partnerships. Professional organisations such as the Law Society and the Institute of Chartered Accountants clearly will continue to regulate their members, regardless of whether business is being carried on through a partnership, a company or a limited liability partnership. We should be surprised and concerned if the introduction of LLPs were to cause any reduction in the regulation of the activity. The consultation process has not led us to believe that that will happen.
Secondly, it has been argued that the Bill should include added protection for creditors, perhaps through a statutory requirement for capital main-tenance or a guarantee from members. We have considered that point carefully and have decided not to include such a provision. An immediate reaction might be to think that that is rash. In particular, that might be felt by those who are familiar with the provisions of the Companies Act 1985 which regulate capital maintenance in companies. I do not want to go over the arguments now, but I note that an LLP will have no shareholders and we doubt very much whether a realistic level of capital maintenance exists to provide reasonable protection for creditors without there being a detrimental impact on the firm's ability to set up in and carry on business.
I hope it is clear from what I have said that the Bill has received much thought and attention from all-corners, including free advice from many highly paid professionals. Some of the issues are complex but I believe that the extensive consultation and, not least, the attention from Members of the other House have produced a balance which is practical and appropriate, taking account not only of the needs of business but also of its customers.
As I said at the start, the Bill represents one step, albeit an important one, in our commitment. to a modern legal framework. The LLP Bill is being taken forward at the same time as the review of company law. While the Bill is important enough to merit action now, we intend that amendments to company law ultimately arising from the review will be applied as appropriate to LLPs. We shall ensure that limited

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liability partnerships are not left behind as the legal framework for business is further refined. I commend the Bill to your Lordships.
Moved, That the Bill be now read a second time. (Lord McIntosh of Haringey.)
5.32 p.m.
Baroness Buscombe: My Lords, it gives me pleasure to respond to the Minister by saying that we are, in large part, very supportive of the Bill. It is clear from our consultations with numerous outside professional bodies that the Government have been very willing to work with them in developing this proposal to introduce LLPs, following on from the previous administration.
In essence, the Bill seeks to provide particularly the large professional partnerships with the ability to take greater control over the potential liabilities arising from the provision of services in the litigious environment of the present day, while at the same time protecting the interests of clients and creditors. However, there are a number of remaining issues which concern us and which have been raised during the consultation period. I shall endeavour to refer to them in some semblance of order. I express it in that way as something of a protest, given that I feel the proposed legislation has been drafted in an unnecessarily complex manner. My heart already goes out to anyone who might wish to form an LLP without the benefit of extensive advice.
I turn, first, to Clause 1. Although we are pleased that LLP status will be available to all businesses and not just to professional firms, we are concerned to the extent that Clause 1(4) disapplies the existing the law relating to partnerships, principally the Partnership Act 1890, from limited liability partnerships, except as otherwise provided by the Bill or any other enactment. That creates difficulties in so far as the Bill is silent on the issues which are central to partnership law, most notably the rights and duties of the members of a limited liability partnership and, equally important, the relations between the partners.
Flowing from that, a number of issues will need to be addressed: for example, the right to share in capital and profits; the right of a member to be indemnified by the LLP in respect of payments made by him or liabilities incurred by him on behalf of the LLP; the right to take part in the business of the LLP; the right of members to have access to the books and records of the LLP; the right or absence of right to receive payment for services rendered by a member to the LLP; the procedure for calling and holding meetings, including any rights to appoint proxies and corporate representatives to attend meetings of members; the right to vote at meetings on the basis of one-member one-vote; the expulsion of a member; and the right of a member to retire as a member of the LLP by giving notice. All those issues contribute collectively to the partnership ethos and should therefore, we believe, be clarified. We suggest that that is done in the regulations under Clause 14 of the Bill.
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I move on to Clause 4, which deals with membership. The Bill does not provide for a member who wishes to retire from the partnership. As currently drafted, a member can cease to be so only upon death, dissolution of the LLP or by agreement with the other members. We wonder whether that is an oversight and suggest that, in the event of a member wishing to retire, notice should be given to the LLP rather than to the other members of the LLP.
Clause 5 deals with the relationship of members. With the Bill as currently worded, the members of an LLP would be subject to company law or employment law if there were no specific provision to the contrary. We believe that that would alter radically the nature of the partnership in an unacceptable way.
Under Clause 6, in relation to members as agents, we believe that the Bill should make clear that a member of an LLP will not be an employee of the LLP unless there is express agreement to that effect between the member and the LLP. Further, we believe that it is regrettable that Clause 6(1)(c) as drafted in the September 1998 version of the Bill was removed, since no agreement between members can be entirely comprehensive. The absence of statutory guidance will create considerable uncertainty as to the relationship between members and between members of the LLP itself, especially where the members of an LLP have no members' agreement or the members' agreement fails to deal with the key issues, some of which I have already outlined with reference to Clause 1 of the Bill.
With regard to Clause 8, we question the provisions for service as a designated member of the partnership, given, we believe, that the provisions, as drafted, could be open to abuse; for example, as we understand it, an LLP could assume as partners one or more offshore companies and register them as designated members, thus making it difficult for the regulatory authorities in the UK to ensure compliance or impose penalties. We suggest that the concept of designated members be removed from the Bill, making all the partners equally responsible for the LLP's conduct, including compliance with the registers.
With reference to Clause 10 regarding taxation, I am pleased that this evening the Minister has referred to tax neutrality as that is a matter about which we are concerned. We understand that the proposed objective is that tax neutrality should be achieved. We should certainly seek reassurance that if, for example, a partnership wishes to convert to an LLP, that will be treated for tax purposes as a continuation of the old partnership and not the discontinuance of the old partnership and the commencement of a new LLP, provided that the necessary conditions are met.
With regard to Clause 12, we believe that there should be changes to the stamp duty and stamp duty reserve tax exemptions on the transfer of property from an existing partnership to an LLP. The present exemption assumes that the transferors will be all the existing partners and that the partners will have the same proportionate interest in the property transferred to the LLP. We believe that that is too restrictive as it may dissuade the conversion of a

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partnership to an LLP in a situation where, for example, only a majority of partners are the same before and after the transfer.
Further, I shall refer briefly to issues concerning insolvency and return to them in Committee. In particular, Clause 13, which deals with the insolvency and winding-up of limited liability partnerships, provides for regulations which will apply or incorporate parts of the Insolvency Act 1986, including a proposed new Section 214A. Section 214A of the Insolvency Act would take effect when a partner knew or had reasonable grounds to believe that the LLP was insolvent. That is a more onerous test than the comparable existing Section 214. We believe that Section 214A is likely to lead to unnecessary business closures and job losses. Therefore, in our view it should be dropped from the Bill.
With reference to merger and acquisition accounting, the regulations would apply the requirements of the Companies Act 1985. The merger accounting provisions set out in paragraphs 10 and 12 of Schedule 4A of the Companies Act 1985 deal with equity shares being purchased for equity consideration. A share-for-share exchange cannot exist in a partnership—as the Minister has already said this evening, there will be, we assume, no shareholders—and, therefore, we believe that the provisions are meaningless.
However, having said that, mergers of partnerships do take place and therefore merger accounting provisions for LLPs will be necessary. We suggest that the regulations should be framed to allow special provisions in respect of merger accounting of LLPs.
Finally, I turn to the matter of disclosure. Under the proposed regulations, the disclosure requirements relating to the emoluments of directors translate into equivalent disclosure requirements for members of LLPs. In addition to the aggregate of members' emoluments and the numbers of members falling within bands, the chairman or equivalent and the highest paid member of the LLP must be disclosed with their emoluments. Small LLPs are exempted from that requirement.
For the remaining LLPs, we feel that that disclosure requirement serves no useful purpose, is likely to deter overseas partnerships from taking LLP status in the UK, and should be dropped. We believe that the regulations should be amended accordingly.
In conclusion, we support the Bill in principle and look forward to the opportunity to return in Committee to the issues that I have outlined this evening.
5.40 p.m.
Lord Sharman: My Lords, it is with some trepidation that I address your Lordships for the first time. I begin by placing on record both my thanks and appreciation for the very many kindnesses and help extended to me by the staff, officials and Members of your Lordships' House.
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I must first declare an interest. For 33 years, until relatively recently, I was a partner without limitation of liability. I served in what is loosely called one of the big five. For the last six years of that time, I was its chairman. I was an active participant in lobbying both the previous administration and this Government for legislation of this nature. So it is clear that I have a considerable interest to declare.
Having declared that interest, it is little wonder that I welcome the Bill. In my view, it is sorely needed. As the Minister said, it updates some very aged legislation. Importantly, it provides an extremely appropriate form of corporation for certain types of business for which incorporation as a company may neither be desirable nor feasible in fiscal terms. It goes some way to providing a partial answer to the huge incidence of litigation within professional firms today. It only goes a partial way and I think that that is right. It reflects also the increasing specialisation that one sees in that type of organisation and the assembly of different professions within a single partnership.
Finally, it puts the UK on an equal footing with many of our competitor nations, most notably the United States and many areas of continental Europe. As such, it will help us to avoid the drift towards overseas registration in limited liability partnerships. We already see limited liability partnerships operating in the UK today.
I am very much aware that maiden speeches are supposed to be non-controversial, but I want to compliment this Government and the previous administration on the process of consultation which this Bill has undergone. The DTI in particular has been extremely assiduous in canvassing views from a wide range of interested parties and it has dealt with them openly and logically. While some of the features of the draft Bill and the consultative documents have changed, by no means all of the wishes of those consulted have been accommodated; and nor should they have been.
It is useful to reflect for a moment on how we reached the point at which we are today. The original form of partnership was based on the concept of up to 20 people sitting around a table, making decisions jointly, and jointly and severally benefiting from the results of that by way of profits or the risks that were carried. For many, many years, until 1967, many professions were held to a 20 partner limit. As a result there were chains of partnerships which were inter linked. The Companies Act 1967 took away that level for certain professions, but for certain professions only.
Since that time, there has been a growth of business, with increasing internationalisation and now globalisation. Therefore, there is a need for scale to respond to service business which itself is on an increased scale. Those enterprises have become extremely large. While a typical "Big 5", which I know about, in 1967 might have had three or four linked partnerships of 20 partners, today it would have over 600 and would employ something like 10,000 people in the UK. Its gross annual revenues might be something in the order of £1 billion.

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So it is clear that the old business form of partnership, with the partners sitting around a table jointly agreeing, jointly benefiting and carrying the risk, is no longer appropriate. While the Companies Act 1989 allowed for incorporation of certain functions, that came really when the enterprises were already too large and it was a little late. The fiscal cost was just not affordable. We can argue also that the cultural cost of changing a partnership into a corporation might not be desirable for many of those professions.
There is a lesson to be learned here which we should bear in mind, and that is, that business moves so rapidly these days that legislation must keep up. We must be very nimble on our feet in relation to such legislation. When the e-commerce Bill comes before this House, we shall do well to bear that in mind.
So in welcoming the Bill, I do not see it as a let-off or a let-out in any way. As the Minister said, nothing that is contained within the Bill will relieve the individual from his personal responsibility for his actions to the full extent of his wealth. Nor should it.
In conclusion, I wish to make a comment on an issue which I regard as central to the limitation of liability; that is, disclosure of full financial information. I can speak with some experience in that regard because some five years ago, the firm of which I was a chairman went through that process voluntarily. I believe that it is absolutely fundamental that the price for limitation of liability is disclosure of financial affairs. It is not fair for customers to have to deal with a company or entity with limited liability about which they are unable to ascertain its financial wherewithal. Our disclosure included full details of my income. All that really happened was that we attracted a few extra column inches and I had to buy a few more drinks in the pub. And so I commend the Bill to your Lordships.
5.38 p.m.
Lord Haskel: My Lords, it is my pleasure and privilege to congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Sharman, on a wonderful maiden speech and to thank him very much on behalf of the whole House. I have come across the noble Lord on one or two occasions and I know of his important work on and commitment to the introduction of best practice in the management of British companies. He has played an extremely important role in that and it has been an important factor in increasing the competitiveness of British industry. I congratulate him on that too. He has great experience of British industry. I hope that we shall hear from him often in the future so that we can have the benefit of that experience in your Lordships' House.
Turning to the Bill, I confess that my initial reaction was fairly hostile: mobile capital seeking more user-friendly jurisdictions and large partnerships threatening to move their legal base out of British jurisdiction to reduce the risk to the partners. I had always assumed that limited liability was invented so that people could take business risks. Without limited liability people would be less willing to take those risks and so the economy would suffer.
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What risks do professional people take? As long as they meet the demands of their professional standards, the advice and service that they provide is surely without the same kind of risk that people take in the course of normal business. Professional people are obliged to take out professional indemnity insurance.
In recent years most professions have allowed their members to incorporate. I have often thought that that would take care of some of those anxieties. Professionals from different professions can in-corporate together. Frankly, I have never understood why large accountancy firms, and other professional firms do not incorporate instead of threatening to move their legal base offshore to a more welcoming jurisdiction. Perhaps they like the partnership ethos, but do not want the worry of unlimited liability.
However, on further thought, and with the benefit of the explanation of the noble Lord, Lord Sharman, I accept that my view is somewhat old-fashioned. In modern business, professional services are delivered on a kind of production line basis. Different specialists from different professions work together and are involved with each other. Accountants and engineers work in teams. Doctors and lawyers work together. They depend on each other. In large firms partners may not even know each other as they can work in different offices, in different professions or even in different countries. So there is a concern in regard to this matter and there is a point. Quite rightly the Government are listening to the concern—a listening government.
Recently we have heard another voice. Last week in Seattle we heard it quite loudly. Some citizens complain that the real beneficiaries of globalised big business are the big firms and their senior managers, while the consumer is left to carry the cost and to take the risk. As the noble Lord, Lord Sharman, has explained to us, the big accountancy and professional services firms are among the biggest globalised businesses. I ask the Minister to listen to their voice too.
Nobody wants the Bill to become a symbol of that growing dissatisfaction with big business. As the Minister said, and as the noble Lord, Lord Sharman, implied, our task is to see that there are adequate safeguards for the consumer and that the Bill does not become a means whereby wealthy professionals can avoid financial penalties for negligence. To that end the Bill must encourage an ethos of probity as well as an ethos of partnership as mentioned by the noble Baroness, Lady Buscombe.
Ethos is important. It will ensure that the public will perceive the professional services companies as having an ethical and vocational drive that will lead to confidence and respect. Otherwise, the limited liability partnerships will be seen as a dodge. The regulations and the professional partners need to bear that in mind. For reasons of probity, openness and transparency are important elements in the Bill.
For that reason I agree with the Trade and Industry Committee in another place, when it said that limited liability partnerships and their members should be

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required to disclose all the relevant financial information. I welcome the statement from the Minister that limited liability partnerships will be regulated similarly to companies. I also welcome the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Sharman, in this regard.
Of course, I understand that partnerships use their own money and riot shareholders' money. However, in many companies the shareholders and the directors are one and the same, so disclosure should be equivalent to that demanded by law from limited liability companies. I do not agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Buscombe, on her point about disclosure of partners' drawings. For the sake of openness, I believe that the disclosure of partners' drawings should also be made in the same way as those of company directors.
Perhaps I may say a word about management. The days when a director's duty of care was solely to the shareholders have passed. Directors now have a duty to inform themselves about all their company's activities. They have a duty of care to all the stakeholders. I hope that the regulations will oblige partners in limited liability partnerships to have the same broad duty to keep themselves informed, not only about their own professional activities, but also about the activities of the partnership as a whole and all the other stakeholders.
There is a strong "best practice" business case for that. Integrity and reputation are important. To that end, the duty of care in law that partners owe to third parties for acts of their colleagues or employees must be clear and not open to judicial review as claims arise. In the same way as directors can be banned for ignoring their duties of care, will partners be banned from entering into limited liability partnerships if they do likewise? How will the DTI monitor that? Perhaps it will be left to the professions to discipline their members.
The noble Baroness, Lady Buscombe, spoke of the complications. I do not believe that that is a big worry. The Bill will probably apply only to large partnerships. The disadvantage for small businesses being limited liability partnerships, compared with being limited liability companies, is that a limited liability partnership is a narrower form of limited liability. I presume that there will be a degree of personal liability to third parties for negligence which, in the main, does not apply to company directors. There is certainly more liability on insolvency resulting from the claw-back provisions mentioned by the Minister under which limited liability partnership members will be ordered to contribute to the assets on insolvency.
The Minister spoke of the major review of company law in the DTI. I suppose it is a pity that, owing to pressure from major partnerships, this legislation has come before the House before the review of company law has been carried out. I expect that that review will simplify greatly the regulations affecting businesses, especially small businesses.
I believe that the Minister indicated that the Bill is in keeping with the changes which are expected to emerge from the review, so that there will be little need for
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further changes in partnership law. I understand, for example, that the Law Commission is talking about the introduction of proportionate liability, instead of joint and several liability, where partnerships are concerned. I presume that that is the direction that the review will take.
I have stated my concerns about the Bill, but in spite of that I welcome the Bill because, as my noble friend said, it achieves an appropriate balance. I also believe it is important because it sets out to modernise business practice, which is the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Sharman. With the proviso that I have mentioned, it should contribute to the encouragement of best practice and high standards in the delivery of professional services. It will put us on an even footing with our competitors. Our economy can only benefit from that.
5.58 p.m.
Lord Lucas: My Lords, I, too, welcome the Bill, as I welcome the noble Lord, Lord Sharman, to our company. It is always good to have another accountant in the House. As a rather less distinguished accountant myself, I agree that the Bill is thoroughly deserved by the accountancy profession. It will greatly benefit the profession and, therefore, the country.
In Committee, I shall pursue some of the more detailed aspects of the Bill. Much is to be left to regulation. The noble Lord, Lord McIntosh, has already given us some comfort about the way in which regulation will be applied to disqualification of directors, the necessity of keeping accounts on file and other such matters.
We shall also need to look at the way in which these regulations are to be promulgated. They will be an equivalent of company law, but all that is provided for in the Bill is that they should be subject to affirmative resolution. At least for the first set of regulations, there should be a requirement that they are consulted upon before they are subjected to the affirmative resolution procedure. It is difficult, if not impossible, to amend regulations. These will be extensive and detailed and we should not allow them simply to appear for a one-and-a-half-hour debate in this House, and then "whoosh". I am sure the Government intend to consult anyway, but it ought to be on the face of the Bill.
Changes to the regulations will have equivalent status to changes in company law and therefore a reasonable amount of notice and publicity should be given to them. Perhaps a prior period of consultation, if it appears appropriate tothe Minister, could be given. And there should be a requirement on the face of the Bill that the Minister considers the need for consultation. We will not then get into the pattern that the regulations can be amended in the same way as food safety regulations—at the last minute whenever something new appears. We are dealing with a rather more serious entity affecting (quite quickly I imagine), a large number of people who will come to live and work under the regulations that will be promulgated under the Bill.

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We also need to look at the consequences for the Companies Act of having this structure in place. Clearly, some companies will have subsidiaries. If we are restricted in naming a limited liability partnership if there is a company of the same name, then there needs to be a mirror restriction running the other way. I may have missed it in the Bill, but I did not see it. We need also to consider the way in which the insolvency legislation will impact on the funding of limited liability partnerships. I imagine they will often be funded by way of loans and guarantees from partners. They ought not to be allowed to rank alongside ordinary creditors. I do not believe there is any provision in companies legislation to say that directors' loans rank behind creditors, but directors' loans are rarely the principal source of funding of Companies Act companies.
We will take part in some interesting discussions on the detail of the Bill and how it works as it goes through Committee. But my principal interest will be the other uses to which this structure will be put. It will not just affect the major accountancy firms. There are already considerable uses of limited liability partnerships in this country, often overseas—Denver, Luxembourg and other jurisdictions—by the venture capital industry and the property industry. This Bill meets, in principle, the very real needs in structuring the relationships between the people participating in venture capital funding and in the funding of major buildings or major property portfolios where there can be real difficulties. At the moment they lack either limited liability or tax transparency.
The Bill will provide a great deal of potential, but in its present form there are some insuperable obstacles to it being used efficiently. In particular, Clause 6 does not allow for flexibility in the status of individual partners in any obvious way. Clearly, if one is running a venture capital fund the people taking the decisions are the fund managers, and the individuals participating are doing so more or less as sleeping partners. There has to be a mechanism acknowledged under Clause 6 whereby someone dealing with a sleeping partner in such a venture cannot think that they are dealing with somebody who is authorised to deal on behalf of the partnership.
Also, if we are looking at that sort of use of the structure, we shall need to consider the way in which the Financial Services Act and restrictions on marketing and dealing in securities will impact on the way in which people are encouraged to take up or dispose of participations in limited partnerships. That is not an aspect I found to be covered in the Bill, though it could easily be added by giving the Government power to make regulations under the Financial Services Act in the same way as they will have power in this Bill to make regulations under the Companies Act.
I look forward to the Committee stage. I hope the noble Lord, Lord McIntosh, will grant me audience before then so that I might see him, perhaps in the company of one or two people from the industries concerned, to see if we might question him and his
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officials on various aspects of the Bill. It may shorten the time we have to spend on these matters at Committee stage and, with luck, we will arrive at a Bill which is not only good for a profession to which I have the pride and privilege to pay £150 a year to keep the letters after my name, but also for the venture capital and property industries. They will benefit greatly in terms of their ability to do business and fund their activities if the Bill can be made just a little more flexible.
6.5 p.m.
Lord Phillips of Sudbury: My Lords, it is a particular pleasure to be the first from these Benches to speak after the maiden speech of my noble friend Lord Sharman. Those of us who were aware of his coming here were knowledgeable of the fact that he has immense experience and authority within the accountancy profession. What he said today is but a harbinger, I am sure, of the contributions he will make to the deliberations of this House in years to come.
As my noble friend made clear, he spoke from his vantage point and I shall speak from mine. I am a practising solicitor of 36 years' continuance, every hour of that time having been spent in private practice. I am happy to remain a practitioner in a 40-solicitor firm, which is a tiny outfit compared to the one from which my noble friend comes. I also have a certain diffidence in speaking against the line of the Law Society, which has been one of the major proponents of this measure, and indeed against the line of my noble friend. But so be it. I am unconvinced of the need and sense of this measure.
Since no one has mentioned it and it has some philosophical reference to what is an important Bill, perhaps I may be allowed the liberty of taking a few seconds to look at the history of this matter. The bubble Act of 1719 was the start of this long march to limited liability. It was not until 1855 that limited liability was granted to companies other than those incorporated by Royal Charter. The reason for that was simple: the bestowal of limited liability upon those seeking to trade for profit is an immense public privilege, not a minor one.
In 1890 we had the Partnership Act—according to many solicitors, one of the most lucid, brief and effective measures ever passed in this House. If we go back to the record of the time, we may be more amazed to see how brief was the discussion upon it in this House. The great Law Lords of the day carved it up between them and it got the nod in the other place. There were 46 short sections, no schedules, and certainly no subsidiary legislation dependent upon it. If I may say so, with due deference to the noble Lord, Lord McIntosh, the balance that has been struck between matters contained in the main Bill and matters left for subsidiary legislation is a particularly unhappy one. But that is now water under the bridge.
I referred to the great privilege of limited liability. Today it is looked upon almost as a right. Yet if one can step back from the overwhelming commercialism of today's culture, why in principle should anyone

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pursuing a trade for gain expect to be protected from loss and damage they inflict on third parties? Why should they not bear the consequences of their incompetence, geed or negligence—I say nothing of fraud? We all know the conventional answer, but in my view it badly needs to be re-examined in the light of the steady undermining of public trust and probity, quite apart from the encouragement that the present law gives to ill-prepared and ill-executed speculation.
If I am playing devil's advocate in a somewhat provocative way, it is not merely to provide a counterpoint to the majority of the speakers in this debate, who will give, and have given, the Bill a loud "Hurrah!". There is need for cool reassessment as to what limited liability generally has done and is doing. Certain it is—and here I speak with only too much hands-on experience—that the protections for the public against unscrupulous corporate behaviour are, in reality, largely ineffectual.
The theoretical remedies against wrongful trading, or even fraud—I note that "wrongful trading" is likely to be incorporated into this measure—are very rarely accessible to those who are left holding the losses when a company founders. It is too easy for those of us in this House, enjoying, as we mostly do, a fairly elevated lifestyle, to underestimate the degree of public anger and almost disbelief at the incompetence of the law in protecting against serious fraud.
The Bill allows solicitors to use its limitation provisions alongside the traditional benefits of partnership. As the Explanatory Notes say, the limited liability partnership enjoys,
"the organisational flexibility and tax status of a partnership with [nonetheless] limited liability for its members".
I shall refer in later stages of the Bill to what I believe are serious particular shortcomings.
As a practising solicitor for all this time, I must confess that I have sometimes wished for limited liability; but never for long. On really careful reflection, I have to say that I think it is right that solicitors have to practise without personal limited liability. In the first place, being jointly and severally liable is the very best incentive to exercise careful selection of one's partners; careful oversight of staff; extreme care with clients' funds, large quantities of which are regularly entrusted to us; a prudential approach to management of the practice and its resources, whether one is a junior or a senior partner, and whether or not many of those functions—as they are these days—have been delegated to committees; and an interest which extends across the whole of the partnership's a [fairs in an age where solicitors, and other professionals, are retreating into ever narrower and deeper ruts of specialism.
In terms of deserving and maintaining public trust, which I would maintain is a principle of overriding importance, the unlimited responsibility of all partners for the debts of their partnership is the most striking and effective manifestation and guarantor of that virtue. Of course, even with unlimited liability, terrible things happen. But nothing will achieve perfection.
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Certainly not—experience now tells us—an ever-burgeoning external regulation, which can even end up compounding the very problems it seeks to address. No, the one unavoidable, ever-present organic pressure for solicitors, and other professionals, to be virtuous is that if they fail the consequences will end up at their door, literally.
The big firms are driving this Bill. Although there has been consultation, and although the Law Commission did a good job, I have to say that very few of them have given considered response from the point of view of the consumer. The overwhelming advice tendered has come from those who have an interest in this Bill being passed. I should like to suggest that the big firms, earning as they do—no doubt fairly—big fees for their work, which can lead to large claims for negligence, have thriven in that environment. Where is the evidence to show that any of them needs the protection of this Bill in order for them to do their work effectively, competitively and profitably? There is no evidence. When did we ever hear of one of the big City solicitors losing his trousers? I have never heard of it, and I should like to hear from any noble Lord who has.
The classic justification of limited liability is that it strikes a fair balance as regards those who put at risk their capital for a venture which, through no fault of their own, then fails. To encourage that risk it is reasonable to afford a limit against further losses. But solicitors are not capitalists; we venture very little in the way of capital. We are supposed to be professionals. Even in the present age where commercialism has bit deep into the ethos of many firms, gravely to their and the public's disadvantage, we are still professionals.
I believe that the Bill is wholly unnecessary. All firms take out insurance. Those who find that inadequate are at liberty—and many of them exercise that liberty—to agree an upper limit on liability with the clients for whom they do the work.
Finally, I have to say that to extend the unique public privilege of limited personal liability primarily for the benefit of the largest, most lucrative and successful partnerships, which, in turn, act for the largest and most lucrative companies, strikes me as perverse, verging on the bizarre. Of course it will also protect smaller firms, but my impression and experience is that that is not a major issue for them. On no account, in any event, should we substitute limited liability for adequate insurance. Although the Government may say that measures will be incorporated in the Bill to prevent this. I have to tell them that I do not believe it. I think that one could, and will, end up with an extremely complex, clever piece of legislation that will in the event prove to be too clever by half. Therefore, while I would much prefer to agree with other noble Lords, I have to disagree with them wholeheartedly.
6.16 p.m.
Lord Goldsmith: My Lords, while I admire, as always, the passion of the noble Lord in expressing his

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reservations and the reasons for them, I, for my part, will join those who have expressed a loud "Hurrah!" for this Bill. However, I have only two cheers at this stage. The first because, in my view, the Government are demonstrating a concern about the opportunities for enterprise. There is no doubt at all that the professionals in this country are extremely important earners of foreign currency and, most important, in the engine of the growth of wealth. The second cheer is because the Government are also dealing with a real problem. Here I speak as a barrister who has spent a substantial part—sometimes too much—of my professional life acting for or against professional firms that are accused of professional negligence.
My noble friend Lord Haskel said that he had come across the noble Lord, Lord Sharman, in the past. So have I: sometimes, though he may not have known it, he has been my client. However, more frequently, he has been the defendant I have been suing on someone else's behalf. I should say here that I pay tribute to the noble Lord's maiden speech. I suppose, therefore, that I am a paid-up member of the litigious environment to which the noble Baroness, Lady Buscombe, referred.
I can tell your Lordships what has happened over the past few years. Because of the growth of big money claims, because of the principle of joint and several liability—about which I shall say a few words in a moment—and because of the need to find a deep pocket, professionals, especially architects and accountants, have faced ever-larger claims. Why does joint and several liability achieve that? It does so because the law says that if you are in part responsible for damage you can be sued for all the damage. Never mind the fact that as between you and an evil director he bears 90 per cent of the moral blame; you, as the deep pocket, can be held liable for 100 per cent of the damages. That is what has been happening. That is the way that litigation has been conducted.
Although I wholeheartedly agree with the noble Lord, Lord Phillips of Sudbury, about the importance of the professionalism of someone who recognises that his own assets are at stake, the fact is that some of these claims really put at risk not merely the personal wealth of partners but also that of their families.
There have been attempts to review the law of joint and several liability. The United States found a way of dealing with the problem by effecting a law. The Common Law Team of the Law Commission in this country found that that was not a way of dealing with the matter.
This Bill seems to me to be an appropriate way of providing an opportunity to limit liability for those who want it. However, as my noble friend the Minister has said, it is important to ensure that the safeguards are in place. I refer to the safeguards for the public. There are measures which might have been taken from the Jersey equivalent of this law. There is, for example, a provision, relating to a certain amount of money, that requires a bond to be deposited as a condition of liability being limited. I can well understand why that is not necessarily the right way to deal with issues.
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However, it is important that the public are safeguarded. That is the reason that I reserve one cheer for the time being.
It is necessary also to sound a warning. The reason that under the present law partners are liable down to their shirt buttons is because each is agent for the other. Each is agent for the other because that is what partnership is. The Partnership Act, to which reference has already been made, defines partnership as people who are carrying on a business in common. This Bill does not state that everyone who is a member of a limited liability partnership shall not have liability. What it states, and what it will enact in Clause 1(4), is that the law relating to partnerships does not apply to a limited liability partnership.
If people choose to incorporate as a limited liability partnership, but carry on business as if they were still a partnership of the kind that people are used to—a partnership where the assets and integrity of the individuals are at stake—I predict that they will find that the courts may say, "Though you have incorporated a body, you are carrying on business in common together". I suggest that the courts need to be vigilant to make sure that the great privilege of limited liability—which is what this Bill will give—continues to carry with it the great responsibility, which includes the provision that members of the public know with whom they are dealing. They should have—I was glad to hear the noble Lord, Lord Sharman, make this point—full financial disclosure. They should have the full safeguards which the regulations are intended to provide.
I believe that some points in the Bill would benefit from further consideration in Committee—I shall not mention them at this stage—and there could be some fine tuning of the balance. But for my part I reserve my final cheer for that moment when I see that not only will the courts be vigilant, as I suggest, but that the Government are vigilant in making sure that the Bill goes no further than is necessary to maintain the proper balance between the interests of the public and the interests of professionals to which I have referred. In those terms I support this Bill.
Lord Phillips of Sudbury: My Lords, before the noble Lord sits down, with his great experience of litigation in this field, has he come across many cases of solicitors actually, as he put it, losing their shirt buttons, because I do not know of any?
Lord Goldsmith: My Lords, not solicitors, but I know of accountants who have come close to that. Outside the Chamber I could tell the noble Lord of one such case where the people concerned came close to having to hand in their shirts.
6.23 p.m.
Lord Goodhart: My Lords, I start by asking the Minister whether there is any truth in the rumour that the reason the Government have brought this Bill forward is that they are so concerned about the future of their public private partnership that they wish to incorporate it as a partnership of limited liability. But,

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more seriously, I congratulate my noble friend Lord Sharman on a maiden speech which was not only remarkably well delivered but based on an enormous depth of experience. It makes it easy to see why he rose to the very top of his profession.
As we have been told, work on this Bill started at the end of 1996 under the previous government and has been taken forward by the present Government. On behalf of my party I am happy to give this Bill tripartisan support—with the exception, of course, of my noble friend Lord Phillips of Sudbury.
I should perhaps begin with a declaration of a lack of interest. I am a member of the Bar. Barristers, of course, do not form partnerships. We cannot be liable for the negligence of other barristers, even if they are members of the same chambers. Therefore, I, like the noble Lord, Lord Goldsmith, am not affected by the Bill.
Looking at the matter from this semi-independent position we certainly accept the need for a Bill of this kind. There has been an enormous increase in litigation over allegations of professional negligence. That is not in itself a bad thing. People who suffer loss as a result of professional negligence are in principle as entitled to compensation as anyone who has been physically injured by a negligent driver. But the consequences can, and are now threatening to, get out of hand. We are now in a situation where the partners in a large international accountants firm can be made personally bankrupt because of the negligence of a colleague many of them may never have met. The people who are at risk are—I say this with all respect to my noble friend—not necessarily either incompetent, greedy or negligent.
This is not a hypothetical issue. In the ADT case—this is a matter of public knowledge—damages of £65 million were awarded against a leading firm of accountants for the negligence of one partner. That was well above the indemnity insurance cover of that firm, and the individual partners were threatened very actively with personal bankruptcy. An appeal was in the end settled for a smaller, but still large, sum.
The risk of bankruptcy has seriously damaging effects. People will not join partnerships, or partnerships will go offshore to places where they can limit their liability. Many other jurisdictions do now allow partnerships to convert into corporate bodies. Limited liability has for 150 years been an essential cornerstone of commerce and industry throughout the world. The reasons why we now have limited liability for business organisations apply equally to professional ones. Limited liability is not just a privilege; it is now an essential tool in the whole organisation of commerce.
I wish to discuss the genesis and content of this Bill in a little more detail. I recognise that the Government have consulted widely on the terms of the Bill. We have had an excellent report from the Select Committee on Trade and Industry in another place. The Government originally proposed that the Bill should apply only to members of regulated professions such as solicitors and chartered accountants. That limitation was
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criticised in the course of the consultation. The Government accepted that criticism and I believe that they were right to do so. There is now no limitation on the type of business that can be carried on by an LLP.
However, it seems to me that some issues of importance remain. I agree very much with the points made by the noble Lord, Lord Goldsmith, in that regard. It seems to me that the first issue here is whether too much of the Bill has been left to regulations. Much of the meat of the Bill, particularly in the accounting requirements and the insolvency provisions, is to be contained in regulations. The Trade and Industry Committee said that it would prefer these provisions to be in schedules to the Bill rather than in regulations. The Delegated Powers and Deregulation Committee in your Lordships' House, of which I am a member, accepted the Government's proposals to put these provisions in regulations. But it seems to me that this comes close to the borderline and the more I look at some aspects of this Bill the more doubtful I am whether the Delegated Powers Committee was not rather too lenient.
Most of the regulations will simply apply to LLPs the existing statutory rules which apply to companies incorporated under the Companies Act, but there will be power to modify that application. One particular modification contained in the draft regulations has been the subject of considerable debate in the course of discussions. The noble Baroness, Lady Buscombe, has already touched on this. Regulations will apply to LLPs Section 214 of the Insolvency Act 1986. That section makes company directors liable for wrongful trading; that is, the carrying on of business by people who know that the company is hopelessly insolvent. So far so good.
But Section 214 will be extended by the new Section 214A which will be created by the regulations and will apply only to LLPs. The result of that will be that members of LLPs will be liable for the debts of the LLP in circumstances where directors of an ordinary limited company would not be liable for the debts of that company. That may or may not be right. The Trade and Industry Committee agreed with that proposal; the Institute of Chartered Accountants strongly objects to it. Speaking for myself, I have not yet reached a final view on the issue.
But it is clearly an important issue which requires a proper debate in your Lordships' House. Regulations cannot be amended and therefore are not suitable for debate on detailed provisions such as Section 214A. I therefore ask the Government whether they are prepared to put the proposed Section 214A on to the face of the Bill. We could introduce an amendment to do that—we will do so if necessary—but it would be much better if the Government were prepared to do so.
The next issue—again this has been touched on by the noble Baroness—concerns the application of existing partnership law. The title of the Bill is misleading. The Bill does not allow partnerships to limit liability while continuing as partnerships. The Bill creates a new kind of corporate body into which some existing partnerships will convert.

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Partnership law—on this point I very much agree with my noble friend Lord Phillips of Sudbury—has proved a flexible and effective way of carrying on certain kinds of business, particularly in the professions. It has two defects which will be cured by the Bill: one is unlimited liability and the other, which applies in England but not in Scotland, is the lack of separate legal personality.
The earlier draft of the Bill contained a provision that the neutral rights and duties of the members of an LLP should be governed, subject to the provisions of any agreement between the members, by the rules and principles which would apply if the law relating to partnerships applied to them. No such provision appears in the present Bill. I ask the Minister, why not?
Partnership law provides a useful and necessary default code on many matters not covered by an agreement. The noble Baroness gave a list of the issues which are covered by partnership law and would need to be covered in the case of LLPs. I would add the principle of the duty of partners to act with good faith towards each other, which is perhaps the central principle of the whole of partnership law. I very much hope that will continue to apply to LLPs. It seems to me that the relevant provisions in partnership law are much more appropriate for LLPs than the equivalent provisions in company law.
The Law Society and the Institute of Chartered Accountants are both concerned about the removal from the draft Bill of the provision to which I earlier referred. Unless the Government can produce a convincing reason to the contrary, I believe that the provision of the previous draft should be brought back.
I have two final points, both relating to the consequences of insolvency. The first concerns the importance of professional indemnity insurance, which provides an indemnity against liability for professional negligence. This means that the firm and its partners—other than the one or ones guilty of negligence—are not at risk of insolvency for liability within the cover provided by the insurance. A number of professions, including solicitors and chartered accountants, require indemnity insurance under their professional rules. But not all LLPs providing services will be covered by the rules. Of course, professional indemnity insurance can be very expensive and there may be a temptation to say, "Now that we have limited liability, let us save money by cutting back on insurance". That would be extremely unfortunate.
Self-regulation is best, but the Government should give themselves a reserve power to impose a professional indemnity insurance requirement on classes of LLPs which are not required to do so by a professional body or where the professional body's requirements are insufficient.
There is another problem. Professional indemnity insurance does not help the ordinary creditors of the
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LLP or the partnership. At paragraph 45, the Trade and Industry Committee said:
"We are none the less uneasy at the prospect of introduction of this new vehicle destitute of either minimum capital requirements or guarantees from members, and dependent on the perceived likelihood—or hope—that there will be some LLP assets available to creditors".
I share the unease of the committee, particularly because insolvent LLPs will have, in most cases, very few realisable assets. As usual, the banks will be okay because they will insist on secured personal guarantees from the members of the LLP. But, again as usual, unsecured creditors will get little or nothing.
I am particularly concerned about the position of employees of LLPs. It is more difficult to state the problem than to provide the answer. I wonder whether, for example, the Government have considered the possibility that if the assets of an LLP are insufficient to meet in full debts due to or in respect of employees—which are preferential debts in insolvency law, and that includes four months' salary or wages—the members of the LLP should continue to be personally liable for that balance, even though their liability for other debts is limited. That is put forward merely as a suggestion, not as a firm proposal. The Government should look at such issues during the course of the Bill.
Having said that, I am happy to conclude by repeating our general welcome for this Bill in principle.
6.36 p.m.
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: My Lords, I am grateful to all noble Lords who have taken part in the debate. I am particularly happy to join in the congratulations given to the noble Lord, Lord Sharman, for an excellent maiden speech. It was not only well informed but delivered with almost no notes. That is the true test of a maiden speech. His speech was very largely in support of the Government. All maiden speeches should follow that rule.
I was slightly taken aback by the noble Lord, Lord Goodhart, saying that the title of the Bill was misleading. It depends on how one reads it. He read it as being a "Limited Liability for Partnerships Bill", whereas we read it as being a "Limited Liability Partnerships Bill"—in other words, a description of an entity which will be created as a result of the Bill. If we take our interpretation, on the whole it would be agreed that the short title of the Bill properly describes that new entity and, therefore, is not misleading.
The noble Baroness, Lady Buscombe, started by describing the Bill as unnecessarily complex. She then went on to list a whole range of things which she thought ought to be in the Bill because they were included in partnership law and appeared to be being dropped from partnership law. The noble Lord, Lord Goodhart, made the same point with a rather different emphasis.
There is no diminution of the responsibilities of partners in partnerships. We are attempting to create a new business entity which, in effect, combines the best of both worlds. It gives what everyone has acknowledged is the enormous privilege of limited

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liability, but it demands in return many of the obligations—indeed almost all of the obligations—required of companies. It does so in such a way that everyone who has been consulted—and they have been not only professional firms and still less only large ones—believes it appropriate. If we were to include all the obligations of partnership as the noble Baroness, Lady Buscombe, would wish us to d o, the Bill would be very much longer and more complex than it is now. I am not sure that we would achieve her objective—
Lord Goodhart: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord for giving way. Could not that result be achieved by reinserting the one short subsection that appears in Clause 6 of the previous draft?
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: My Lords, we could certainly consider that matter. As regards the drafting of the Bill and the fact that in my opening speech I referred to a number of government amendments, as it is known, and as I said, we have carried out intensive consultation and taken the views of the Trade and Industry Committee in another place. We published in July a draft Bill and regulations. We thought that the right thing to do, even though our thinking had moved on to a certain extent, was to bring before your Lordships the draft Bill on which consultation had taken place so that people were not looking for differences between the July 1999 version and anything which might subsequently come to mind. That means that we have had further thoughts to which I have referred. It also means that we are open to discussion about other matters which noble Lords may wish to raise.
Baroness Buscombe: My Lords, I thank the Minister for giving way. Perhaps I did not make myself clear. I was referring to understanding what the Bill meant. So much of the material is not on the face of the Bill but in the regulations. To understand them one has to refer to the Companies Act and the Insolvency Act. So understanding the Bill has become rather complex.
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: My Lords, I cannot accept that criticism for two reasons. The first, simple reason is that the Delegated Powers and Deregulation Committee has accepted that the balance between secondary and primary legislation is appropriate. That has always been a matter of prime importance in this House. Basically, if it does not like it, the Government will not get away with it. The second reason is that the regulations are intended to do something rather different from most regulations. They apply, where appropriate and with appropriate modification, the Companies Act and the Insolvency Act to this new business entitity. It is right that they should refer to that legislation. It is right that the provisions should be subject to regulation because the Companies Act and the Insolvency Act are themselves subject to change. If we were to bring all these matters onto the face of the Bill, in the context of the review of company law which is taking place and of the insolvency Bill, which is to
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come before Parliament this Session, we would risk enacting legislation which would have to be amended very rapidly. That is not a good idea.
Lord Phillips of Sudbury: My Lords, does not the Minister agree that the Title of this Bill is Limited Liability Partnerships. It does not contain a definition of limited liability, which misses the heart of the matter.
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: My Lords, I do not agree. Limited liability is defined by analogy with the limited liability available to directors and shareholders of a company.
Lord Phillips of Sudbury: My Lords, but where is that in the Bill?
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: My Lords, the noble Lord is a brave and solitary voice on these matters. I respect and admire him for it. Clause 1(3) of the Bill states,
"with such liability on the part of its members to contribute to its assets in the event of its being wound up as is provided for by virtue of this Act".
It has always been our intention that if a member of a limited liability partnership is negligent—rather like a professional person who gives negligent advice to his client—then both the limited liability partnership and the member who gives negligent advice would be liable. That is the restriction on limited liability that is at the heart of this Bill.
Lord Phillips of Sudbury: My Lords, once again I am grateful to the Minister for giving way. The noble Lord said,
"by virtue of this Act".
That is in subsidiary legislation and not on the face of the Bill.
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: My Lords, that is because the subsidiary legislation is the adaptation of company and insolvency legislation to this new business entity. That is why it is in the form of regulation.
I was asked by other noble Lords whether the changes in regulations would be subject to consultation. As it is known, we had very full consultation on the regulations which were finally published in July. We shall be consulting on any changes to that legislation and, as always, they will be subject to parliamentary approval. There is no attempt to sneak anything past Parliament or the business community. That is the last accusation that can be made to this Government.
The noble Baroness, Lady Buscombe, suggested, as did some of the consultees, that we should require an agreement between members before registration or provide a default agreement. We are sympathetic to the idea of a safety net by way of short provisions such as Section 24 of the Partnership Act 1890. With the representatives of those who have been consulted, we have been looking at how that can be achieved through

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secondary legislation. The power in Clause 14 would be wide enough. That would deal with all the areas that the noble Baroness mentioned such as share capital, profits, access to the books and so on.
She said that Clause 4 does not deal with the retirement of members. Indeed not. It is important that members should not be able to walk out on a partnership which they suspect may be in difficulties. They may be part of those difficulties. It would not be an attractive proposition if they were able to walk out without the agreement of other members.
The noble Baroness was concerned that Clause 6 should not mean that members are treated as employees. She is quite right. It is our intention to make sure that members should not be regarded as employees because they are members. We shall look to see whether it is necessary to amend the Bill in that way. Broadly, the noble Baroness approved of the provisions in Clause 10 as regards tax neutrality. I am grateful for that.
As regards Clause 8, the noble Baroness was afraid of the role of the designated member. That is very specific and similar to the role of the company secretary. It includes a number of the powers placed on a company secretary under the 1985 Act such as the signing and filing of the annual return, the approval and signing of the annual accounts and filing them with Companies House besides other accountancy and audit functions. It is desirable to keep the concept of a designated member for those purposes so that the authorities know who to approach. There are also provisions in the Companies Act 1985 concerning what happens if there is a breach of obligations.
Both the noble Baroness and the noble Lord, Lord Goodhart, referred to Section 214A of the Insolvency Act. The noble Baroness thought that it was onerous and should be removed, but the noble Lord, Lord Goodhart, believed that it should be on the face of the Bill. I do not know that I can reconcile those two positions. There has been a great deal of controversy about the claw back provision if members leave within two years of the winding up or if they siphon off funds within that time. Again, we shall consider the results of the consultation. We are certainly not going to be able to satisfy both the noble Lord and the noble Baroness—probably neither of them.
Disagreement was expressed by the noble Baroness, Lady Buscombe, about disclosure of the remuneration of the members. However, the noble Lord, Lord Sharman, and other noble Lords expressed their welcome for that. I shall take the consensus of the House that our provisions are appropriate. The noble Baroness also asked for provision for merger accounting to be made in the regulations. However, the Government and the consultees felt that the Bill adequately achieves that purpose.
I was interested to hear the views of the noble Lord, Lord Sharman, on joint and several liability. However, as he knows, the view of the Law Commission was against a fundamental review of joint and several liability, mainly on the basis that if any change were
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made it would be bound to benefit the potential wrongdoer rather than the punters—as I always call them. For that reason, we turned against such a solution.
My noble friend Lord Haskel queried the issue of the liability of members. A member of an LLP who is a professional will owe a duty of care to his clients. If he gives bad advice to his clients he will be potentially liable for the whole extent of his assets. I believe that there is some confusion about the degree of protection that exists even for directors of limited companies. Any limited company that requires working capital of any size has to go to the bank for finance. The bank will not provide loans, overdraft facilities or any service of that kind without personal guarantees from the directors who are seeking it. I know this from personal experience because on many occasions I have had my house in hock to the bank—potentially in hock: I have never actually lost it—simply as a director of a limited company. I do not believe that members of limited liability partnerships will be any better off.
Perhaps I may summarise my response to the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, by saying that we would of course be delighted to meet him to address his concerns. I tried to address a number of them—as I understood them—earlier today in a letter. However, we shall certainly wish to talk to the noble Lord about the important issues he has raised on the applicability of this entity to venture capital and to property. Those are the other uses of the LLP structure which is being created by the Bill. I believe that I have dealt as best I can with the issues of primary and secondary legislation, with consultation on the revised regulations, and with the reasons why so much of the Bill must be implemented by regulation.
As I said earlier, the noble Lord, Lord Phillips, was a brave and lone voice and I respect him for that. However, I shall be interested to see in what way he intends to express his point of view by amendment to the Bill. I suspect that if he really wanted to pursue the matter, he should have put down an amendment that the Bill be given its Second Reading in six months' time. I think that the noble Lord has such a fundamental objection that there is little I can do to reassure him. However, I can say—from a personal point of view—that when I first saw the Bill and read the arguments for it, my immediate reaction was to say that this is an enormous privilege. It is the punters—the potential creditors; that is, the suppliers and customers—who must be protected. All my questions to officials on the meaning of the Bill were directed to that end rather than in thinking that the professions and their members were likely to suffer in any way from the provisions of the Bill.
My noble friend Lord Goldsmith also raised the wider issue of joint and several liability. I believe that I have already explained why the Government will not pursue that more general point. However, I very much agree with him that we shall need the vigilance of the courts in order to ensure that the public know with whom they are dealing. I very much welcome the support given by my noble friend to financial disclosure, not only of remuneration, but much more

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importantly, the publication of the accounts of the LLP. That is a fundamental issue. I agree with my noble friend and all noble Lords who spoke on this matter that nothing in the Bill must be interpreted as being tolerant of reduced professional obligations by any of the professions who choose to take up this new entity.
Many noble Lords have pointed out—as have I ad nauseam—that the Bill provides an enormous privilege and it must be used responsibly. The Bill has been drafted to ensure that it can only be used responsibly and not for tax avoidance purposes or to avoid transparency in business relationships. However, if there is any way that noble Lords can show us that the measure has been framed wrongly for that purpose, then we shall be sympathetic to appropriate amendments at later stages.
The Government's intentions in putting the Bill forward are entirely transparent. I believe that we have achieved the right balance, but we shall be happy to listen to the kind of informed comment and criticism that we have heard today as the Bill proceeds through the House. I commend the Bill to your Lordships.
On Question, Bill read a second time, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House.

Dental Auxiliaries (Amendment) Regulations 1999
6.56 p.m.
Lord Burlisonrose to move, That the draft regulations laid before the House on 2nd November be approved [30th Report from the Joint Committee, Session 1998–99].
The noble Lord said: My Lords, on behalf of my noble friend Lord Hunt of Kings Heath, I beg to move the Motion standing in his name on the Order Paper. These measures, which have the support of both dental auxiliaries and dentists, should be seen in the context of two key elements of government policy: improving the quality of public service, including the National Health Service; and deregulation where it can be carried out without compromising the protection of the public.
The dental auxiliaries concerned are dental hygienists and dental therapists. While working under the direction of a registered dentist, dental hygienists may scale and polish teeth and dental therapists may, in addition, extract deciduous teeth from children and undertake simple fillings.
The amendments have been requested by the General Dental Council, which is required to maintain rolls of registered dental hygienists and dental therapists under Section 45 of the Dentists Act 1984. The amendment to regulation 2 of the primary regulations would enable dentists and any members of the public who choose to consult the rolls for dental hygienists or therapists to identify those who have additional qualifications. It could help dentists recruit auxiliary staff to their practices or enable patients to select practices with any special expertise they require.
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The amendment to regulation 4 simplifies the procedure by which the hygienists and therapists apply to remain on the rolls. The primary regulations require them to complete an application form to submit with the retention fee. With the increased use of standing orders and direct debit mandates for paying regularly recurring charges, the form has become redundant. Receipt of the payment gives the General Dental Council sufficient notice that the hygienist or therapist wishes to remain on the roll.
The amendment to regulation 6 provides for increases in the fee for retention on the roll from £20 to £25 and for restoration to the roll from £5 to £10. The fees were last increased in 1996. Even with the increases, the fees are less than a quarter of those paid by dentists. The amendments to regulations 23 and 27 provide for both dental hygienists and therapists to insert temporary dressings. The reason for this minor extension in their permitted duties is that, while treating patients, both hygienists and therapists sometimes find broken or missing fillings. If all the registered dentists in the practice are engaged in treating other patients, they can only advise the patient to return as soon as the dentist is next free. With a temporary dressing inserted, the patient can make a new appointment to see the dentist at a mutually convenient time.
I hope that my explanation has been helpful and that the House will support the regulations.
Moved, That the draft regulations laid before the House on 2nd November be approved [30th Report from the Joint Committee, Session 1998–99].—(Lord Burlison.)
7 p.m.
Lord Colwyn: My Lords, when dental matters are discussed in your Lordships' House one can always rely on the noble Baroness, Lady Gardner of Parkes, to say a few words. However, she was on the Woolsack and she has no doubt just left the Chamber for a well-earned rest.
I welcome the regulations. I am delighted that the word "denturism" was not in the Minister's speech. It was discussed in the First Standing Committee on Delegated Legislation in the other place, but I do not think it is relevant to the regulations. However, I am slightly concerned about the 25 per cent increase in the General Dental Council retention fee. I am about to pay my own retention fee for next year, which I know has increased. I am not sure by exactly how much, but I do not think it is 25per cent. However, in view of the Government's demand for efficiency and savings, I hope that they will keep an eye on any similar increases which might affect the dental profession.
I am delighted to see regulations 6 and 7. They legalise something which most caring hygienists and therapists have been doing for many years. If a filling was knocked out while the teeth were being cleaned it would be ridiculous if a temporary dressing could not be put in place. That has been done for many years and it is now to be legal.

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Perhaps I may conclude by asking the Minister two questions. First, can he confirm that with the new regulations all patients who are treated by therapists and hygienists still have to be seen by a general practitioner and have that course of treatment prescribed? Secondly—I should know the answer to this question as chairman of Dental Protection—in view of the fact that the Health Act now makes indemnity compulsory for doctors and dentists, can he say what is the status of therapists and hygienists? Do they have to have indemnity in order to carry out their treatments? I welcome the regulations.
Lord Burlison: My Lords, I thank the noble Lord for his helpful remarks. I know that he is a practising dentist and therefore has much greater knowledge than I in this area. It is helpful both to myself and to the industry generally that he should comment on the regulations.
The noble Lord asked about the annual retention fee for dentists. There has been a 50 per cent rise. The noble Lord is probably not too happy about that. If he does not already know, it rises from £90 to £135. The noble Lord also asked about dental auxiliaries and whether the dentist will still oversee their work. That will be the position because they work under the supervision of the dentist or a dental practice. It is for the dentist and the dental auxiliary to agree the detailed working arrangements.
The noble Lord asked about indemnity. I can confirm that it is the Government's intention to put general dental practitioners under a statutory obligation to have personal indemnity insurance. The insurance would cover the actions of the dental auxiliaries as they would be working under the supervision of the dentist.
On Question, Motion agreed to.

Maternity & Parental Leave etc. Regulations 1999
7.4 p.m.
Lord Sainsbury of Turvillerose to move, That the draft regulations laid before the House on 22nd November be approved [1st Report from the Joint Committee].
The noble Lord said: My Lords, we are here to debate the maternity and parental leave regulations which will fulfil our manifesto commitment to help working parents balance their work and family responsibilities.
Last year, the Fairness at Work White Paper set out our industrial relations agenda of minimum standards underpinned in law, based on partnership. This agenda encourages employers and employees to work together towards a better climate of employment relations. The White Paper set out our agenda for a family friendly future—a package of decent standards and rights at work to help people balance their work
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and family commitments; to lay down a simple bottom line in law, but to promote a partnership approach for better standards.
The White Paper set out our proposals to introduce parental leave and to simplify and improve maternity rights. We set our sights on a coherent package of rights embodied in a single set of regulations. In the White Paper, we gave a commitment to consult further where necessary. In August this year, we published a consultation document on our draft maternity and parental leave plans, followed up by draft regulations in September. We received more than 300 responses. Not surprisingly, the consultation on our draft regulations revealed different priorities between employers and employees. Employers want the flexibility to plan parental leave around the operation of the business; employees want the flexibility necessary to fit in with the demands of their caring responsibilities.
What was clear was that we faced a challenge in implementing parental leave in a way that would satisfy the concerns of business and the needs of parents. We believe our parental leave scheme meets this challenge and achieves a fair and sensible balance between the needs of the business and of the workforce. We are also implementing the regulations with a light touch, as we said we would. We are guaranteeing minimum standards, but we are enabling employers and employees to make their own arrangements as far as possible through collective, workforce or individual agreements on how to introduce parental leave best suited to the requirements of all concerned.
The regulations guarantee minimum standards which every parental leave scheme will need to meet. Both parents, mothers and fathers, will be able to take 13 weeks' parental leave to spend with their child until the child's fifth birthday. Adoptive parents will be able to take leave to spend time with their adopted child over a five-year period from the date of placement for adoption. In addition, we are providing increased flexibility for parents of disabled children to help them cope with the extra demands they face. Parents of children who receive disability living allowance will be able to take parental leave up until their child's 18th birthday.
Individual workplaces can come to their own arrangements about practical matters such as how much notice the employer should give, the circumstances when postponement may be acceptable and whether leave can be taken in single days or longer periods, or a mixture of these. This approach has been welcomed by both sides of industry.
Where agreements are not reached, then the fallback scheme will automatically apply, setting out a simple formula so employees will know how to exercise their rights. Under the fallback scheme, most parents will be able to take leave in blocks or multiples of one week, up to four weeks a year. Parents will need to give their employer three weeks' notice when they want to take the leave, and employers can postpone leave for no more than six months if the employee's absence would

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unduly disrupt the business. We have recognised, however, that there are times when postponement may be unacceptable. Fathers can take leave immediately after the birth of their child, and adoptive parents on the placement of a child in their family home, with the assurance that their employer will not be able to postpone this leave.
In addition, under the fallback scheme, parents of disabled children can take leave in blocks of less than one week, which will mean that they can take the occasional day off work to accompany their child to medical appointments. The link to disability living allowance provides clear evidence of a child's disability and covers children who have learning disabilities or physical impairments.
In implementing parental leave, we are putting in place minimum standards, but we want employers to go beyond those standards where they can. Let me be clear. Minimum standards are essential, but they are only the start. We are laying down a baseline on which I hope employers will build.
These regulations are ground-breaking. They mean that parents will not have to face the dilemma of being a good parent or holding down a job. Parents can take leave, safe in the knowledge that they are protected from dismissal or less favourable treatment for taking the leave, and that they will be able to return to their same job. In some cases, where the leave lasts for more than four weeks and it is not practicable for an employer to hold open the employee's job, the employee will be able to return to a similar job, with terms and conditions at least equivalent to the previous one.
In our Fairness at Work White Paper, we gave a commitment to improve and simplify maternity rights. The Maternity and Parental Leave etc. Regulations will increase the length of ordinary maternity leave from 14 to 18 weeks, in line with statutory maternity pay. They will reduce the qualifying period for additional maternity leave from two years to one year, which will mean that more women will be able to spend up to 40 weeks at home with their new baby.
At the same time, we have tackled the complexity of existing maternity rights, bringing clarification to such issues as the employment contract, and simplifying the notice requirements. That has been almost universally welcomed and I am pleased to report that our efforts have been greeted with enthusiasm. Perhaps I may briefly quote from the Incomes Data Services journal, the IDS brief, which said that the first thing to be noted about the new rules is that,
"they will put in place a maternity rights scheme that is substantially clearer and easier to operate in practice than the one that currently exists".
The regulations set down a landmark for working parents across the country. They will help parents balance the conflict between their work and family commitments, and give them the security they need at work. I hope that noble Lords will support the Government today in turning these regulations into a meaningful reality for millions of working parents in this country. I beg to move.
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Moved, That the draft regulations laid before the House on 22nd November be approved [1st Report from the Joint Committee]. —(Lord Sainsbury of Turville.)
Baroness Buscombe: My Lords, I thank the Minister for explaining the regulations. There is one matter upon which I should like to question him. When he says that the regulations mean that parents will not have to choose between being a good parent and holding down a job, does he mean that someone who does not choose to take parental leave is not a good parent?
Lord Sainsbury of Turville: No, my Lords, we are not making judgments. The nature of all this legislation is to give people the choice. If they do not want to take the leave, it is not for us to comment. We want to make certain that people have the opportunity if they so desire. I think we can all unite in that approach.
We live in a changing society. The traditional image of the breadwinner husband and the home-making wife will become an outdated concept as we move into the 21st century. More women are entering the labour market, and more men want to play a role in caring for their children. Family friendly employment practices can help people care for their family without risk to their jobs.
Taken with the new rights in regard to time off for family emergencies, these rights will foster a culture change in the workplace. We shall be working with the business community over the coming months to promote good practice in balancing work and home commitments among employers; and we shall encourage business to go beyond the legal minimum in its own interests. The maternity and parental leave regulations represent a significant step forward towards a family friendly culture. I commend the regulations to the House.
On Question, Motion agreed to.

Pesticides (Maximum Residue Levels in Crops, Food and Feeding Stuffs) (England and Wales) Regulations 2000
7.13 p.m.
Baroness Haymanrose to move, That the draft regulations laid before the House on 17th November be approved [1st Report from the Joint Committee].
The noble Baroness said: My Lords, these regulations are essentially a consolidation of regulations specifying maximum residue levels (MRLs) introduced in 1994 and five subsequent sets of amending regulations. They also introduce MRLs for one new pesticide.
The regulations are something of a hybrid. They include 9,000 MRLs adopted by the European Community implemented through powers in the European Communities Act 1972. There are also

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approximately 2,000 national MRLs which have been adopted under the Food and Environment Protection Act 1985.
As I have indicated, virtually all the MRLs have been carried forward from earlier statutory instruments, but there are also 160 new MRLs for a recently approved pesticide—a fungicide called azoxystrobrin.
In the case of the more numerous EC MRLs, the regulations essentially make it an offence to market produce with residues above the appropriate MRL. The fine for such an offence is £5,000 on summary conviction or an unlimited fine on indictment. Similar penalties for breaches of the national MRLs are prescribed by the Food and Environment Protection Act 1985. The regulations also provide powers to seize produce which exceeds any EC or national MRL.
The regulations extend to England and Wales only. The Welsh Assembly approved them in draft on 10th November. Separate regulations which will be identical in substance are planned in Scotland and Northern Ireland.
I should briefly mention that MRLs for pesticide residues are sometimes represented in the media as safety levels. It is important to stress that that is not strictly the case. They are based on the maximum residue occurring in a crop when a pesticide is used as approved. To understand their significance it is helpful to consider briefly how MRLs are derived.
The starting-point is crop trials for a particular pesticide to establish the maximum residue level which will occur in a crop. The next stage involves a scientific risk assessment. The final stage in the process is for a decision to be taken on the safety of a particular pesticide use and the corresponding MRL.
I shall next describe the practical purposes served by MRLs and their link with the pesticide residues surveillance programme undertaken by government. First, MRLs provide a check that pesticide approvals have been soundly based and that the scientific assessment reflects what is actually happening in the field. Secondly, as I have indicated, MRLs are designed to reflect the approved use of a compound. They thus provide a check that farmers and growers are using pesticides in accordance with their instructions for use. Finally, they provide a standard for trade, particularly with other member states of the European Community, but also more generally. That is also a standard against which we can judge the acceptability of imported produce. MRLs apply equally to UK produce and to imports.
Those points are monitored through the pesticide residues surveillance undertaken by government. The programme, organised through the Working Party on Pesticide Residues, involves the collection of 2,000 to 3,000 samples of food each year, mainly from retail outlets around the United Kingdom. The current cost of the programme is £1.7 million per year. A substantial amount of monitoring is also conducted by the food and farming industries.
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MRL exceedances are around 1 per cent each year. Most of those are sporadic, occurring at a very low frequency in any particular crop. However, occasionally there have been repeated breaches of a particular MRL. In that particular case we can take, and have taken, enforcement action and collect samples direct from growers, importers or retailers with a view to bringing prosecutions.
In conclusion, regulations on maximum residue levels represent a key part of our pesticide controls. The consolidation of the existing instruments into a single set of regulations maintains those controls and will clearly be helpful to all those who work with the regulations. I commend them to the House. I beg to move.
Moved, That the draft regulations laid before the House on 17th November be approved [1st Report from the Joint Committee]. —(Baroness Hayman.)
Lord Luke: My Lords, I thank the Minister for introducing the regulations. Clearly there is a need to lay down maximum residue levels in relation to the food that we eat. The Minister is right to say that the regulations are a key part of the regulatory process for approval of the use of pesticides in this country.
We on this side of the House support any measures that will contribute to food safety. The agri-chemical industry should be congratulated on the fact that more than 98 per cent of tested samples had low MRLs and 73 per cent had MRLs at zero. That indicates that, practically speaking, all food produced in this country is safe. It follows that the vast majority of British farmers and producers are using pesticides in a wise and sensible way. That is a good reason why the proposed pesticides tax makes no sense at all.
I am sure that the Minister is aware of the widespread public concern about the level and quality of inspection of imported foods. Most of it is perfectly wholesome and meets all our requirements. However, the current disquiet over inadequate labelling of imported food, together with doubts about the stringency of tests for residuals in both EU countries and the wider world, has contributed considerably to that concern. Can the Minister tell us what proportion of imported food is physically tested? Can she assure us that no foods imported from abroad have been grown with substances whose use is banned in this country? Having said that, we welcome the regulations.
Baroness Miller of Chilthorne Domer: My Lords, we welcome regulations that make clearer the level of pesticides in foods. I echo the concern just raised by the noble Lord. A number of well publicised cases have arisen over the past year involving lettuces imported from abroad. Often the amounts of pesticides in imported food do not match up to the very low levels found in British food. As to these regulations, in a couple of cases the levels of permitted pesticides have

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been raised compared with the previous position. Can the Minister tell the House why that is so? The Minister referred to the scientific risk assessment related to pesticides. The long-term effect of these pesticides is unknown. Most of these pesticides have been in use for a maximum of 40 or 50 years, whereas the scientific risk assessments look at a very short timespan. I should be interested to know what kind of research is going on into the cumulative and long-term effect of pesticides. In the meantime, we welcome the clarity of the regulations.
Baroness Hayman: My Lords, I am grateful for the fact that both speakers have welcomed the clarity of the regulations which essentially consolidate the position rather than change anything, except in respect of one particular pesticide whose name I did not pronounce very well. A question was asked about produce from other member states that contains levels of residues which exceed those in UK produce. It is difficult to make exact comparisons because different crops may be grown in different climates and be treated with different pesticides. The percentage of imported produce that exceeds MRLs tends to be a little higher than for UK produce but it is difficult to draw absolute conclusions. It is important that when those excess levels are identified action is taken. That action may be against domestic producers, if appropriate. Certainly, in the case of chlormequat in pears, which was a matter of concern, we took immediate action with the governments concerned. Following that, the Belgian Government withdrew the use of chlormequat. I believe that that proves that the monitoring process works effectively.
As to the issue of raised residues, the MRLs reflect use. Therefore, some will be raised with new usage. Essentially, these regulations do not make a major change but consolidate the position. The noble Lord, Lord Luke, referred to slightly broader issues; for example, the labelling of country of origin. We have dealt with that under various headings at different stages, for example earlier today. There is concern about that. The noble Baroness, Lady Miller, asked about research into long-term effects. The risk assessment process for pesticides takes account of possible long-term or cumulative effects, but the noble Baroness is right to point out that we need to look at interactions and effects over long timescales. Some leading edge research takes place in this country. Last week I visited the Central Science Laboratory in York and saw for myself some of its work on pesticide residue testing. That work has altered the scientific assessment process internationally. Therefore, we are leading the field here.
The noble Lord, Lord Luke, tempted me to enter into the arguments about the pesticide tax. In view of the time and the fact that we have been reminded of family responsibilities, I must tell the noble Lord that that is a matter For the Chancellor of the Exchequer.
On Question, Motion agreed to.

Scotland Act 1998 (Transfer of Functions to the Scottish Ministers etc.) (No. 2) Order 1999
7.25 p.m.
Baroness Ramsay of Cartvalerose to move, That the draft order laid before the House on 24th November be approved [2nd Report from the Joint Committee].
The noble Baroness said: My Lords, the draft Scotland Act 1998 (Transfer of Functions to the Scottish Ministers etc.) (No.2) Order 1999 provides for the transfer of two regulation-making powers from a Minister of the Crown to Scottish Executive Ministers. Earlier this year both Houses approved a Private Member's Bill tabled first in another place by the honourable Member James Clappison and then, in this House, by the noble Lord, Lord Soulsby of Swaffham Prior, with able support from the noble Baroness, Lady Wharton, and other noble Lords from all Benches. Understandably, none of them is in his place tonight. However, I believe that it is appropriate to congratulate all of them on a very worthwhile and worthy piece of legislation.
The Breeding and Sale of Dogs (Welfare) Act 1999, which primarily aims to improve the welfare of dogs at licensed breeding establishments, received Royal Assent on 30th June and will come into effect on 30th December 1999. This is a valuable animal welfare measure which received all-party support in its passage through both Houses. It may be helpful if I briefly remind noble Lords of its main provisions. The Act introduces additional requirements for the licensing and inspection of dog-breeding and rearing businesses. It makes it a condition of the licence that bitches are not mated if they are less than one year old, that they do not give birth to more than six litters of pups each and that pups are not born before the end of a period of 12 months from when the bitch last gave birth.
The Act also requires the licence holder to keep accurate breeding records in a form prescribed by regulations which must be made available on inspection. It provides for more severe penalties for breaches of the legislation. It restricts the places where puppies can be sold to licensed premises or pet shops, and it requires dogs sold by licensed breeding establishments to licensed rearing establishments or pet shops to wear identification tags or badges containing information, in addition to where they were born, as is specified in regulations.
Two of the provisions that I have mentioned involve conferring regulation-making powers on the Secretary of State to be exercised by statutory instrument. These relate to the breeding records which must be kept and made available for inspection by the licensed breeder and the information, in addition to the place where the dog was born, that must be shown on the identification tag or badge of certain dogs sold by such establishments.
These regulations are currently subject to negative resolution procedure in the UK Parliament. However, in terms of the Scotland Act 1998 matters relating to

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dogs and their welfare fall within the devolved competence of the Scottish Parliament. It should, therefore, be for the Scottish Executive Ministers to make the regulations relating to Scotland, subject to the scrutiny of the Scottish Parliament. Such powers contained in enactments made before the Scotland Act have already been passed to the Scottish Executive Ministers by the transfer arrangements contained in that Act. However, the Breeding and Sale of Dogs (Welfare) Act was enacted after the Scotland Act but did not provide Scottish Executive Ministers with the necessary powers.
Subject to approval, the draft Order in Council will address that anomaly by transferring the regulation-making powers to the Scottish Executive Ministers. The draft order does not transfer any additional legislative powers to the Scottish Parliament; it merely transfers regulatory powers to Scottish Executive Ministers for a subject that Parliament has already agreed should fall within the competence of Scottish Executive Ministers and the Scottish Parliament. On that basis, I hope that noble Lords will feel able to support the order.
Moved, That the draft order laid before the House on 24th November be approved [2nd Report from the Joint Committee].—(Baroness Ramsay of Cartvale.)
The Earl of Courtown: My Lords, I thank the Minister for her clear explanation of the order. I congratulate also my noble friend Lord Soulsby of Swaffham Prior—unfortunately he is not in his place—and my honourable friend in another place on steering the measure through both Houses of Parliament. We support the order.
On Question, Motion agreed to.

Producer Responsibility Obligations (Packaging Waste) (Amendment) (No. 2) Regulations 1999
7.30 p.m.
Baroness Farrington of Ribbletonrose to move, That the draft regulations laid before the House on 25th November be approved [2nd Report from the Joint Committee].
The noble Baroness said: My Lords, I beg to move the first Motion standing in the name of my noble friend Lord Whitty.
Your Lordships have before you today changes that the Government propose to make to packing regulations. These changes complete the review of the regulations, although we are keeping under review the recovery and recycling targets for 2001 so that we can assess what these should be in the light of returns for 1999.
The regulations set target levels of recovery and recycling of packaging waste designed to help the UK to meet the mandatory targets in the EC directive on
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packaging and packaging waste—that is 50 per cent recovery, 25 per cent recycling—to be met by 2001. The Government want to see as simple a regulatory system as is compatible with delivering the directive targets, but this system must also be fair and equitable and place a minimum burden on business. We therefore want to avoid introducing unnecessary regulation provisions and take whatever decisions are necessary to create a system which will be capable of delivering the UK targets.
The changes under discussion today stem from a review of the regulations and their operation carried out by the Advisory Committee on Packaging. They have been consulted on extensively and reflect the wishes of business. They are intended to simplify and improve the original regulations and ensure that they are as equitable as possible.
Most of the changes reflect specific requests from business as well as seeking to ensure that the packaging regime is as equitable as possible. A strong deregulatory theme runs through these proposals: that is, the removal of wholesaler obligation, of the data forming the regulations to allow greater flexibility and more detailed guidance and of the special competition scrutiny regime for compliance schemes; and the exclusion from the regulations of approximately 9,000 businesses as a result of the proposed change in the turnover threshold from £1 million to £2 million in the year 2000.
The increased agency registration fee in 2000 is designed to ensure that the problem of free riding is addressed. In addition, businesses with a turnover of over £5 million will be required to provide a compliance plan to the Environment Agency or SEPA in Scotland showing that they have a convincing plan for discharging their legal obligations. It is also proposed that the agencies should publish their monitoring programmes and have greater power to monitor possible free riders.
We are proposing to reduce the percentage activity obligation used by converters to calculate their recovery and recycling obligations and increase by one point each the obligation of packfillers and sellers. We believe that the proposals before the House will ensure maximum recycling, provide a fair and equitable system which minimises the burden on businesses and simplify the regulations. We believe that this framework should provide the greatest chance that the UK can meet its mandatory directive targets in 2001.
Moved, That the draft regulations laid before the House on 25th November be approved [2nd Report from the Joint Committee].—(Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton.)
Baroness Miller of Chilthorne Domer: My Lords, we welcome the regulations and the placing of more responsibility on producers to move further towards recycling and waste minimisation. There seems to be a move from landfill to incinerators rather than improved waste minimisation. Therefore in general we welcome the regulations and the exemption of smaller businesses from too onerous a burden.

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We have one concern as regards the infrastructure in place to help businesses fulfil that requirement. I have some experience of the infrastructure required to implement higher household waste recycling targets. We are concerned that the infrastructure might not be in place in industry to implement such increased targets. With that reservation, we welcome the regulations.
Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton: My Lords, I can assure the noble Baroness. I apologise. Did the noble Earl wish to speak?
The Earl of Courtown: My Lords, I thank the Minister for giving way. I was simply going to congratulate the noble Baroness on explaining the order. It is a complex area. The noble Baroness, Lady Miller of Chilthorne Dourer, is right to ask a number of important questions. I shall be interested to hear the answers.
Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton: My Lords, the only specific question following from the knowledgeable comments of the noble Baroness related to the concern to ensure that the infrastructure is in place. I can assure her that we shall continue to work closely with industry and with local government to ensure that our targets which are mandatory can be met.
On Question, Motion agreed to.

Non-Domestic Rating (Chargeable Amounts) (England) Regulations 1999
7.36 p.m.
Baroness Farrington of Ribbletonrose to move, That the draft regulations laid before the House on 25th November be approved [2nd Report from the Joint Committee].
The noble Baroness said: My Lords, I beg to move the second Motion standing in the name of my noble friend Lord Whitty.
On 1st April 2000 there will be a general revaluation of all non-domestic property. These regulations will phase in the impact of the revaluation on individual ratepayers through a transitional relief scheme.
Under the Local Government Finance Act 1988 revaluations must be carried out every five years. The purpose is not to increase the amount of rates paid nationally but to adjust the individual bills in line with relative movements in the property market. This means that at revaluation many ratepayers benefit with their rate bills being reduced but others will see their bills increased.
The transitional relief scheme will give businesses, in particular small businesses, time to adjust to the effects of the revaluation by limiting the size of annual increases in rate bills for the five-year life of the new rating list. Next year a small property—that is, one with a rateable value of less than £12,000, or in Greater London less than, £18,000—will at most be faced with
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an increase of 5 per cent in real terms. For large properties the maximum possible increase next year will be 12.5 per cent in real terms.
In later years larger maximum annual increases will be allowed in bills which are still less than the full bill based on new rateable values. For small properties the annual limits will be 7.5 per cent in real terms, but for larger properties they will rise to 15 per cent in the second year and thereafter will be 17.5 per cent a year in real terms. However, most properties will have either decreases in their bills or increases below these maximum levels.
The loss of rate revenue caused by phasing in increases will be made good by phasing in decreases of the bills for those who are benefiting from the revaluation. As their bills are falling they are best able to help meet the cost of the scheme. In the early years the reductions allowed will be less than in the later years, given that transitional relief costs most in the early years when the greater number of properties needing relief is present.
Next year the maximum reduction in the bill of a small property will be 5 per cent in real terms. For a large property it will be 2.5 per cent. But by 2004–05 any small property still having reductions in bills phased in will pay 25 per cent less in real terms than they were paying the year before. The equivalent figure for large properties will be 15 per cent.
I am pleased to say that this scheme has, in the words of the Financial Times, been praised by the business community as fair. As the Financial Times suggests, such praise is unusual in this area. We have consulted widely with the CBI and the chambers of commerce, which are satisfied that good consultation has taken place. I commend the regulations to the House.
Moved, That the draft regulations laid before the House on 25th November be approved [2nd Report from the Joint Committee].—(Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.

Financial Statement and Budget Report
7.40 p.m.
Lord McIntosh of Haringeyrose to move, That this House approves the Government's assessment as set out in the Financial Statement and Budget Report 1999–2000, the Economic and Fiscal Strategy Report 1999–2000, and the Pre-Budget Report 1999 for the purposes of Section 5 of the European Communities (Amendment) Act 1993.
The noble Lord said: My Lords, as part of the process for multilateral surveillance in the European Union, the Government are required to send a report to the European Commission setting out our main economic policy measures. The purpose of the procedure is to help ensure member states' economic policies are consistent with the goals of the treaty. These include non-inflationary economic growth respecting the environment, a high level of employment and social protection, and raising the

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standard of living and quality of life. Section 5 of the European Communities (Amendment) Act 1993, usually known as the Maastricht Act, requires Parliament to approve the government report sent to the Commission for the purposes of multilateral surveillance.
The Government's strategy for economic policy is set out in the Economic and Fiscal Strategy Report and the Financial Statement and Budget Report, brought together in the government report, Budget 99. This House had the opportunity to debate these documents for the purposes of Section 5 of the European Communities (Amendment) Act 1993 on 26th May 1999. However, as noble Lords will be aware, it chose not to do so other than formally. The intention today is to debate the Pre-Budget Report published on 9th November 1999 which completes the material that forms the basis of the information we send to the Commission.
The Pre-Budget Report, which I shall call PBR, describes the Government's strategy to raise Britain's national economic potential and deliver the Government's central objective of high and stable levels of growth and employment and ensuring that the benefits of economic success can be shared by everyone.
The key elements of the Government's strategy, in categories matching the requirements of the Act, are delivering macro-economic stability, meeting the productivity challenge; increasing employment opportunity for all; ensuring fairness for families and communities; and protecting the environment. I shall deal with each of those in turn.
As regards delivering macro-economic stability, the Government's first priority is to secure economic stability and avoid a return to the boom and bust cycles that have been a feature of the British economy for the past 30 years. The Government dealt successfully with the problems of an economy in 1997 characterised by rising inflationary pressures, unsustainable consumer spending, a large structural deficit in the public finances and the global financial turbulence of last year, and are delivering economic stability.
The new monetary and fiscal policy frameworks are based on clear objectives, procedural rules and a greater degree of openness and transparency than has been seen in the past. By rigorously adhering to these new frameworks, early and decisive action has been taken which has enabled the Government to steer a course of economic stability. The challenge now is to lock in that stability and—by pressing ahead with our economic reforms to promote enterprise and fairness—secure rising living standards for all.
During the past year, inflation has remained around or at our target, and expectations of inflation 10 years on are now at 2.5 per cent compared with 4.3 per cent when the Government came to power. Having come this far, we will not relax our discipline. The PBR is based on meeting the inflation target of 2.5 per cent per year, not just this year, but next year, and the year after that.
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At the time of the last Budget, there were predictions of recession from experts and others, including the Opposition, with the Government forecasting much stronger growth than most independent forecasts of 1 to 1.5 per cent for 1999. But as economic prospects have brightened since March, independent forecasts for GDP growth in the UK have risen, coming closely into line with the Government's Budget forecast, making the Budget forecast among the most accurate.
The PBR forecasts GDP growth to be 1.75 per cent this year, 2.5 to 3 per cent next year and 2.25 to 2.75 per cent in 2001 and 2002—at all times consistent with meeting the inflation target. The forecasts for 2001 and 2002 are centred around the Government's neutral view of our economic prospects, based on a trend growth assumption of 2.5 per cent per year. But, taking a deliberately cautious approach which is supported by the National Audit Office, the projections for the public finances will continue to be based at the low end of the growth range at 2.25 per cent.
The Government will continue to lock in the structural improvement in the public finances they have achieved and avoid the mistakes of the past. In line with the Code for Fiscal Stability, the fiscal projections published in November 1999 in the Pre-Budget Report take into account the decision to take a more prudent and flexible Budget-by-Budget approach to the real increases on fuel and tobacco duty.
These interim projections of the public finances show that the current budget is expected to be in surplus by £9.5 billion this year. In subsequent years, the surplus is forecast to be £11 billion, £13 billion, £13 billion, £12 billion and £11 billion. Cyclically-adjusted public sector net borrowing projections show, however, that the fiscal stance is broadly unchanged from the last Budget.
Public sector net investment is set to almost double to 1 per cent of GDP by 2001 to 2002 and to reach 1.5 per cent of GDP by 2003 to 2004, beginning to address the years of neglect in public sector infrastructure. This remains consistent with a failing debt/GDP ratio. The PBR shows that public sector net debt is set to fall below 40 per cent GDP by March next year and remain below 40 per cent GDP over the economic cycle.
Based on prudent and cautious assumptions, audited by the National Audit Office, the Government are on course to balance the current budget over the cycle and meet our tough fiscal rules.
I turn to raising productivity. For too long, British investment has been too low and productivity increases too slow. This has meant that Britain's productivity performance lags behind that of other major economies. The Government have a strategy for closing this gap based on strengthening competition, promoting innovation and enterprise, improving skills, promoting investment and improving public sector productivity.

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The British economy needs high levels of investment and entrepreneurship. The Government have introduced a series of measures to promote investment and enterprise. For example, we have already cut mainstream corporation tax from 33p to its lowest ever level of 30p, introduced a starting rate of small business tax at 10 pence in the pound and cut small business tax from 23p, and introduced first year investment incentives which are of particular help to manufacturing.
On employment, the Government want a higher percentage of men and women employed than ever before. There are 700,000 more jobs in the economy than in 1997 and unemployment is now lower than at any time in the last 20 years. The Government's priorities are to move people from welfare to work, to make work pay and to ease the transition into work. The Government announced in the Pre-Budget Report that they were extending the New Deal for the under 25s to those over 25 in every part of the country. This would include offers of work, self-employment or training, backed up by advice counselling and mentoring. The Government are also introducing a national jobs phone-line so that the employment service can continually update unemployed men and women about new vacancies suitable for their skills and will be enhancing the New Deal for lone parents by inviting parents with children from the age of three to participate.
The Government are continuing to reform the tax and benefit system to make work pay. The new 10p rate, combined with the working families' tax credit increases, means a minimum income guarantee of £200 a week for a family with a full-time earner. No working family with earnings of less than £235 a week—that is about £12,000 a year—will pay net income tax from October 1999.
In order to build a stronger economic future, society needs to invest in today's children and give a better deal to families. The Government are pursuing an extensive programme to tackle the causes of poverty, especially child poverty, which they wish to halve by the end of the next decade and eliminate within 20 years.
The Government have already supported children through the largest ever increases in child benefit to £15 a week for the first child arid £10 a week for subsequent children. Targeted increases have also been made to allowances in income support and the new working families' tax credit and, from April 2001, the new children's tax credit, which replaced the married couple's allowance.
As a result of measures introduced in the last two Budgets, seven million families will be on average £740 a year better off and 800,000 children will be lifted out of poverty. The Government are also meeting their manifesto pledge that pensioners should share fairly in the nation's prosperity with a £100 winter fuel allowance this year. Over three million households will benefit from free TV licences for pensioners over 75 years old.
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The Government are committed to meeting their environmental objectives and will continue to explore the scope for using the tax system to meet their environmental objectives, building on the significant progress already made. The Pre-Budget Report announced further details of the new climate change levy, which will encourage energy efficiency m business and help to meet the United Kingdom's legally binding Kyoto targets for reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
The Government have reviewed the way that any increases in fuel duty are determined, and the Chancellor has decided that the appropriate level of fuel duties will be set on a Budget-by-Budget basis, taking into account the Government's economic, social and environmental objectives. Revenues from any increases in fuel duties, over and above inflation, will in future go straight to a ring-fenced fund for improving public transport and modernising the road network.
This Government are building a stronger economic future for Britain. This will give a better deal for the people of Britain; it will help us to meet our objectives of high and stable levels of growth and employment and to achieve a fairer society for all. These are the right economic policies for Britain. They are also in line with the objectives of the European Union. Approving this Motion tonight will enable the United Kingdom to meet its treaty obligations, to provide information and to participate fully in the important process of multilateral surveillance and economic co-operation, as provided for in Articles 99 and 104 of the treaty. I beg to move.
Moved, That this House approves the Government's assessment as set out in the Financial Statement and Budget Report 1999–2000, the Economic and Fiscal Strategy Report 1999–2000, and the Pre-Budget Report 1999 for the purposes of Section 5 of the European Communities (Amendment) Act 1993.—(Lord McIntosh of. Haringey.)
7.53 p.m.
Lord Newby: My Lords, this is an essentially pointless debate. We are being called upon to approve documents which were dealt with in some cases many months ago and which, in some cases at least, have already led to legislation in the shape of this year's Finance Bill. We are now asked to approve them. I had a mischievous thought earlier in the day of sidling up to the noble Lord, Lord Saatchi, and suggesting that we should spring an ambush on the Government and "disapprove" the Motion, just to see what happened. Looking at the numbers in your Lordships' House, perhaps it is not too late to contemplate that even now.
Frankly, there would be no purpose in doing that but it illustrates the futility of this exercise. The Motion does not even present a sensible basis for a broad economic debate, as we see from the number of noble Lords who are now in the Chamber. This typifies, I think, the problems that we have in this House in discussing economic and fiscal matters. Last year, for example, when we were going through the same process, one of these documents was considered

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in April; the other was considered in July and, exactly on the following day, we had virtually a replica debate on the Finance Bill. I would like to begin with a plea, therefore, that the House should give further consideration to the way in which we discuss in future economic, financial and fiscal affairs.
I have three suggestions to make. First, given that there is a legal requirement for this House to approve these documents, would it not be more sensible to combine approval of them with a more general economic debate at a time of the week and the year when we are more likely to get a sensible number of noble Lords wishing to participate?
Secondly, as my noble colleague Lord Jacobs suggested at Question Time earlier this week, would it not be sensible to discuss the Finance Bill at an earlier stage than at a time when it has gone through all its stages in the other place and we are about to break up for the summer? Again, at present it is not subject to serious consideration in a House which has among its Members many noble Lords who have wide experience of the issues raised by the Bill.
Thirdly, I wish to refer to another proposal, which has come in the past from noble Lords on all sides of the Chamber: would it not be worth considering having each year a separate taxes management Act, which could look at the technical nature of the Budget and separate out from it those matters requiring detailed technical scrutiny as compared simply to tax rates, which are properly and understandably a priority and responsibility of another place? Those are preliminary thoughts on the Motion before us this evening, but I believe that we need to give more urgency to the issues that lie behind it.
As to the substance of these documents, the truth is that the economy is doing pretty well—better, if I may say so, than I and my colleagues on this side of the House would have thought a year ago. There are a number of reasons for this. Some of them are of the Government's doing; some of them are not. Some of them, arguably, are the result of the previous government's actions. Suddenly, the adoption of the golden rule and the creation of an independent Bank of England has laid a framework for stability in the way that we conduct these affairs which has been sadly lacking in the past.
Equally, if the Government are to claim credit, as they will and should, for those matters, then matters across the Atlantic have arguably had at least as beneficial an effect upon our economy as any specific proactive activity by the Government. The strength of the American economy continues to surprise the world and, for our sake as well as the Americans', long may that continue.
The big remaining macro-economic question on which there is considerable dispute and on which the Government sound a less than clarion note, relates to the exchange rate and the related issue of British membership of EMU. Our view remains that Britain loses out by not being a member of the euro zone and
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that we now need leadership from the Government on this issue. As to the exchange rate, clearly there is no current proactive Government policy. The rate fluctuates as the markets dictate.
We understand only too well the difficulties of attempting to control the exchange rate, but we believe that if we were committed to a timetable for a referendum on joining the euro it would be possible for the Government, some months before any referendum was due to take place, to indicate the level at which they thought it appropriate for sterling to join. We believe there is a very good chance that the markets would give effect in large measure to the wish of the Government in that respect.
The effect of the strength of the economy on public finances is of course extremely strong. We have talked for a significant amount of time about the "war chest" which the Government have been gathering, and what should be done with it. It will come as no surprise to your Lordships that we on this side of the House believe that priority should not be given to further tax cuts. Instead, further consideration should be given to making good deficits in expenditure on the principal areas of health, education and transport. On all these matters the Government are now spending significantly more than in the past and they plan to continue to do so. In our view, this is often too little too late.
Their track record in the first half of this Parliament would have done credit to Philip Snowden, and their loosening of the purse strings now is being done as a result of an even greater problem of under-investment than the one which they inherited.
Your Lordships will be relieved to know that I do not propose to detain the House further. I simply hope that by the time we come to discuss these matters further we will be doing so within a more sensible framework for considering economic matters more generally in this House.
7.58 p.m.
Lord Saatchi: My Lords, let me first thank the Minister for his very clear opening remarks. Then may I particularly support the three proposals of the noble Lord, Lord Newby, which reflect on the fact that the House has changed and that it may be time to look again at some of the conventions that have previously applied to the way in which the House looks at financial and economic matters.
I should like nothing more than to be able to accommodate the noble Lord by saying right away that we approve the Government's assessment of the economy as set out in these three documents. He can reasonably have had every expectation that this would indeed be our position, as I gather that this debate has in the past been regarded as a formality.
I am sorry to say that on this occasion we take a different view. It is not a formality: it is at the root of one of the fundamental problems of our society, which is cynicism about politics and politicians. That is not because politicians famously make promises which

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they do not keep. To fail is human. It is because politicians who self-evidently have not kept promises sometimes claim that they have, and always seem able to present statistics to support their claim. People find that practice quite irritating. That undisciplined use of statistics presumably is how politicians the world over gained a reputation for manipulating figures to avoid too close a comparison between the promise and the outcome.
There is an uncomfortable comparison to be drawn here with what happens in the private sector. Over the years, the accounting profession has made strenuous efforts to make company accounts more consistent and reliable so that management can be objectively called to account for raising expectations beyond what it can deliver. Thus, various aspects of so-called "creative accounting" steadily have been eliminated. Differential treatments of good will, reorganisation provisions, different merger accounting procedures, exceptional items and extraordinary items have all been addressed and standardised in a search for a more transparent presentation of company accounts which cart be relied on by investors, staff and shareholders.
With the best will in the world, it is hard to say that we should be proud to send those three documents to our European partners as ambassadors for Britain. On the contrary, I have to tell the Minister—and the noble Lord, Lord Newby, may be particularly interested in this in light of his remarks earlier—that we have given serious consideration to voting against the dispatch of these documents to Brussels. It would be fair for me to give notice that we may still do so in the future. However, I hope that the Government feel able to give a sympathetic hearing to some of the issues that I shall raise.
I had planned to set out three reasons for dissatisfaction with the government accounts, and then suggest how we may yet find a way to avoid a party political disagreement on this in the future. First, the accounts format is too complicated. The Government have not attached enough importance to the need for simplification. There is no intellectual merit in complexity. On the contrary, simplicity is the outcome of technical subtlety; it is the goal, not the starting point.
I believe that Winston Churchill liked to quote Mark Twain's letter to a friend, which started:
"I wanted to write you a short letter, but I didn't have time".
Churchill understood that simplicity is all, but he also knew that to achieve it is very hard. He knew that to achieve simplicity required what Bertrand Russell called "the painful necessity of thought". That is why it took longer. This is not in any way to downplay the work of those who have toiled long and hard to compile the documents. On the contrary, they are to be congratulated on their diligence and professionalism. My complaint is addressed to Ministers for failing to see the enormous demand for much greater clarity of presentation.
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I draw your Lordships' attention to some important statements made in a recent article. First:
"Financial reporting in the public sector is a key element in the accountability of public sector bodies".
The Minister and I would certainly agree on that, as I am sure would the noble Lord, Lord Newby. Secondly:
"While it is recognised that financial reports should be readable and intelligible, improved reader understanding is sometimes felt by those who compile them to be a disadvantage".
I hope that that is not true. Thirdly:
"A number of steps can be taken to help the process. For example, the report should … minimise jargon … have a logical structure … [and] not be unduly distorted by"—
I draw your Lordships' attention to this—
"public relations considerations".
The importance of those comments lies in the fact that they were made by none other than the current Chief Adviser to the Chief Secretary to the Treasury, Professor Likierman, on the financial reporting systems. He also said in a report:
"Those who wish to find out what is going on are faced with major hurdles".
That will not do. Therefore, complexity is the first of the three problems which we hope the Government may want to consider in future presentation of those accounts. The second concerns the too wide scope given to the Treasury in deciding on the definitions used in compiling the accounts.
I accept that the Government's intention is to apply generally accepted accounting principles to public accounts. That is a splendid aim, shared by all, to give the public sector a proper balance sheet and proper accounts. But how seriously can we take that when the Government's new Bill on public accounting methods, just introduced, tells us in Clause 5(2) that accounts under subsection (1):
"shall be prepared in accordance with directions issued by"—
yes, you have guessed it—
"the Treasury"?
Then, when it comes to the so-called "whole of Government" accounts described in Clause 10(2), we are told:
"The accounts shall—

(a) contain such information in such form as the Treasury thinks fit, and

(b) be designed to conform to generally accepted accounting practice subject to"—

our old friend—
"such adaptations as are necessary",
as determined by, yes, the Treasury.
Perhaps I may draw your Lordships' attention to one particular example of what I am driving at. I refer to the working families tax credit. That is at the root of the arguments about the UK tax burden with which the Minister and I have tried the patience of your Lordships' House on many occasions. These accounts clearly show that the Government attempted to reduce public spending levels by up to £5 billion per annum by treating the working families' tax credit as part of the income tax system and not as social security

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expenditure. The system which the working families' tax credit replaced—family credit—was classified as DSS expenditure.
The change in treatment of this one item alone accounts for a miraculous reduction in the burden of tax in Britain of 0.5 per cent in both 2000–01 and 2001–02. That inconsistent treatment is not a generally accepted accounting principle. It is a generally atrocious accounting practice.
Some of your Lordships who are here this evening may believe that this is all just special pleading and that the Conservative Party was just as manipulative in office, as all politicians are thought likely to be. However, I am rescued from that charge by an interview on "The World at One" on 16th November given by Sir Peter Kemp, previously the most senior civil servant in the Treasury. He was asked straight out if one could trust the figures given by this Government less than one could those of previous governments. He replied:
"Yes. I won't say there weren't the odd heresies in the past. but I think there were fewer of them".
On the working families' tax credit itself, one of the chief statisticians at the OECD, Filip de Kan, has said:
"We have had clear guidelines on how we treat tax credits since the 1970s. If the tax credit is given to a family that does not pay any tax because it is a low income family, we treat this tax credit as a social expenditure".
The heart of the problem is that the presentation of these documents allows too many hiding places in the presentation of tax. For example, in the Treasury document on this year's Budget, changes to income tax rates—the 10p starting rate and the new 22p band—are dealt with in two lines, whereas another 62 lines are taken to describe changes to a mass of complicated allowances, reliefs and exemptions.
Thus, the documents which we are considering tonight have given the Chancellor of the Exchequer the ability to increase tax without ever announcing a tax increase, and they have given the Government the means to implement what it no doubt thought was the brilliant strategy of cutting visible taxes on voters while raising invisible taxes elsewhere. It was precisely that practice which led the Treasury Select Committee to ask the Government to display greater transparency in the presentation of tax statistics so that the Government could not hide from the political consequences of their tax actions.
This week the Government published a White Paper encouragingly entitled, Building Trust in Statistics. This has already been criticised by the Royal Statistical Society for failing to deliver Labour's manifesto promise of a fully independent statistics service. The Royal Statistical Society finds it:
"strange that a continuation of the loose legislative position is considered acceptable".
It strikes at the heart of a representative democracy if the public get the idea that they cannot trust the figures produced by their own government, especially perhaps if that concerns what is happening to their own money in taxation. The public is entitled to expect
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a cross-party consensus on this matter, and I believe that none of the parties should stand in the way of achieving that.
Therefore, my first two points—lack of simplicity and lack of consistency—would lose their power were it not for the fact (this is my final point) that the new Government Resources and Accounts Bill will not, in its present form, solve the two problems I have described. That is why in another place we have tabled a reasoned amendment to the Bill. It is true that the Bill seeks to apply to the public finances generally accepted accounting principles that currently apply to the private sector. That is welcome. The Bill speeds up the process already under way to replace the historic and outdated cash accounting system with a resource accounting system that more accurately reflects the true nature of income, expenditure, assets and liabilities. That is welcome, too. But while we support the principle of resource accounting and other measures which improve the authenticity, transparency and accountability of the public accounts—and I must briefly remind your Lordships that it was the previous Conservative government who began the process of changing to resource accounting—Nye believe that the Bill is deficient.
Our main area of anxiety is not the parts which are included within resource accounting but those parts which are not. There are vast areas of government income and expenditure to which resource accounting apparently will not apply. It is arguable that those include such significant sums that it negates the whole point of resource accounting in facilitating a clearer set of government accounts.
For example, much of the country's expenditure on schools, hospitals and roads seems to be excluded, as are the public sector's liabilities for future state pension payments, as well as such trivial items as all of taxation and national insurance.
The Bill gives the Treasury carte blanche to include or exclude items in the accounts as it sees fit and there is nothing in the Bill to prevent actions such as the reclassification of the working families' tax credit from benefit expenditure to tax reduction.
Company accounts in the private sector have the great advantage of consistency and relative simplicity. The combination of those two advantages means that people who are skilled with such accounts and the notes accompanying them, because they are composed by independent auditors under standards of accounting practice, are able to find out what is really happening. Because the new Bill contains no such provisions in the public sector, there will still be no such ability in the public accounts.
I have raised three complaints this evening but perhaps I may end on a constructive note. We wish to bind ourselves with the Government once and for all, arm in arm, for all to see, to produce a clear, complete and comprehensible set of public accounts. That is democratically proper and a matter of what my right honourable friend William Hague would call common sense.

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As proof of our serious purpose, we have asked Sir Bryan Carsberg—the chairman of the International Accounting Standards Committee and one of Britain's most distinguished accountants—to head a new shadow accounts commission. It will set out standards of national accounting practice, clear definitions and clear systems of presentation which mirror the statements of standard accounting practice in the private sector so that no future Chancellor—Labour or Conservative—will ever have the temptation or the opportunity to misrepresent the accounts and mislead the public. If we could achieve that together, I believe that that would be one of the great advances in the evolution of fair, open and accountable government in this country.
I opened with a mild threat, so let me end with a firm promise. We shall support the Government entirely if they will accept that offer: take our shadow accounts commission; set it up as an independent body; imbue it with the authority of cross-party consensus; and thus let the world see that at least in that basic area we can co-operate to end the lamentable lack of trust in politicians and start to restore faith in data on which our Parliament and our country rely.
8.12 p.m.
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: My Lords, we have heard two splendid speeches, both of which deserved a much wider audience than they have achieved, unless the noble Lord, Lord Saatchi, is going to publish his as a pamphlet. I rather think he is, based on past experience, and it will be very interesting to see it. I enjoyed enormously the one about levels of taxation and I shall enjoy reading his remarks at leisure, other than in Hansard.
I have a great deal of sympathy with both noble Lords who criticised the way in which we debate economic matters in this House. It certainly is true that we tend to have debates on serious subjects late at night, with very few people around, which are triggered by such mechanisms as the Section 5 requirement which do not seem to attract the notice of a very large number of noble Lords who have serious and important contributions to make on those subjects.
When we were in opposition we overcame that by giving a day of opposition time—Wednesday debate day—several years running immediately after the Budget to a debate on the Budget and economic policy generally. We had a five-hour debate with a very good range of speakers. I commend that to the usual channels opposite as a way of achieving a better debate than we have achieved at present. That would certainly meet the requirement of the noble Lord, Lord Newby, that we should be able to deal with important documents in prime time.
I am much less sympathetic to the idea of debating the Finance Bill concurrently with the House of Commons. Not only would that be very much in conflict with the Parliament Act 1911—and I hope we are not going back on that—but also, what would we be debating? We should be debating the Finance Bill as
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presented to Committee before the hundreds, or even thousands, of amendments are inserted into it. We should be debating something that was constantly in flux and we should not be able to take any sensible decisions nor make any sensible recommendations.
There are no easy solutions to concurrent debate of the Finance Bill. Certainly there are huge calendar objections to consecutive debate. The Finance Bill does not come out of the Commons until late in July. It must be enacted, for taxation purposes, very soon after that. I am sure that we do not want to repeat the debates which took place on Lloyd George's people's Budget of 1909. I am sure that I need not remind the noble Lord, Lord Skidelsky, of this, but that was the year in which the House of Commons sat all night, every night, right the way through August and September. Cabinet Ministers took turns to sit up all night for those debates. I do not think that that would be very acceptable to government or opposition in either House. If we are to have better debate on economic, fiscal and financial matters, as the noble Lord, Lord Newby, wants, it will have to be in a form other than a debate on the Finance Bill. We could, of course, as he asks, have a debate on the technical aspects of taxation, but that again is something which the usual channels should support. But I suspect that, on past experience, it would be more likely to be in opposition time—certainly in the summer—than in government time.
I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Newby, for his comments on the substantive issues. He is right to say that there are influences other than the remarkable success of this Government's policies. Of course, we live in a global economy and in an economy which has developed from previous years. That is always the case. But was it Napoleon who said that the one requirement he had of his marshals was to be lucky? Even if it were only that we were lucky—and I do not accept that—that is a good qualification for a Chancellor as well.
I hear what the noble Lord, Lord Newby, says about exchange rates. I do not think it is possible for us to set the Bank of England exchange rate targets in addition to price stability targets. That means that there is a certain degree to which the timing of decisions about entering EMU are still imponderable because, clearly, the right exchange rate is one of the elements that we shall have to consider.
The noble Lord, Lord Saatchi, made the same points about debating time. I return the challenge to him, as I did to the noble Lord, Lord Newby. But he made some very interesting points, to which I am quite sympathetic, about statistics. I do not know whether he heard the "Today" programme this morning when exactly that issue was debated. A professor of social statistics was commenting on what is undoubtedly the case that when we talk about economic statistics or any kind of statistics—and I earned my living from figures for 40 years—we tend to talk at cross purposes because we have different definitions.
He accused our accounts format of being too complicated and inconsistent. He has spent time with figures, as I have. There is no absolute God-given best

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way in which statistics can be produced for all purposes. The Government produce statistics for one purpose. We have given the Office for National Statistics sufficient independence that it produces the national accounts on the basis that the Office for National Statistics itself determines and which is itself consistent with European statistics.
In the Red Book and in the pre-Budget report we make sure that the assumptions we use and the national accounts basis from the ONS can be compared and that calculations can be made to see what the differences are; and we make sure that we understand those differences. That is transparency. It may not be consistency, but it is transparency and it is better than what has gone before.
I accept the criticism that these documents are too long. I accept that they are too complicated. Every time we try to cut something out of them someone protests and says, "Oh, well, you gave these figures last year so there must be some sinister motive in depriving us of them this year". It is not as easy as the noble Lord believes. He and I would like to believe, as we would in business, that if there is a problem of definition or a problem of objectives one simply has to put the decision-makers around the table, lock the door and
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not let them out until they have reached a conclusion. Politics is not like that. It will be a continual battle. We shall never reach agreement because of the wide variety of purposes for which statistics have to be used and not because we choose to conceal the facts.
On many of these matters I look forward to debating the issues with the noble Lord at great length—at moderate length anyway—when we consider the Government Resources and Accounts Bill which he has "pre-launched" from the Opposition Dispatch Box this evening. The Bill is complicated. I do not know in what form it will come to us after Commons consideration. But we shall have plenty of opportunity to consider it then.
The offer from an opposition to bind itself, with government, to a set of principles is an offer that always comes from oppositions and never from governments. I recall similar temptations myself. I have actually seen it happen with legislation in the United States. However high and admirable the motives and however good much of the argument may be, it does not work. I am grateful to noble Lords for what they have said.
On Question, Motion agreed to.
House adjourned at twenty-three minutes past eight o'clock.

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