Sitting of 21 February 2000

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

    Royal Army Medical Corps
    Mr. Nick Hawkins: What plans he has for the Royal Army Medical Corps to occupy the buildings of Staff College, Camberley; and if he will make a statement. [109394]
    The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Defence (Dr. Lewis Moonie): We are examining a number of options for the future location of headquarters elements of the Army medical services, including the possible use of the Staff College building in Camberley. I hope to be in a position to make an announcement shortly.
    Mr. Hawkins: I am grateful for that confirmation. The Under-Secretary's officials may have briefed him that the local press in my constituency has announced the decision as if it had been made. I hope that he will ensure that when his officials talk to officers, elected councillors and the press in my constituency, they provide accurate information at every stage.
    The Under-Secretary knows that I asked his predecessor, the hon. Member for Liverpool, Walton (Mr. Kilfoyle), almost the last question of the last Defence Question Time. I do not know whether that question was the straw that broke the camel's back and led to his resignation in a blaze of publicity over the vacuum at the heart of Labour's policies. Perhaps the previous Under-Secretary felt some embarrassment about his officials' actions over the matter that we are considering.
    Dr. Moonie: I assure the hon. Gentleman that his questions, which are always polite and well phrased, if over long, would have had no influence on my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Walton (Mr. Kilfoyle).
    I have seen the report to which the hon. Gentleman referred. It did not emanate from the Department. No decision has yet been made; the hon. Gentleman will be informed when that happens.

    Aircraft Carriers
    Mr. Barry Jones: What progress has been made in the Government's plans to procure replacements for the current Invincible class of aircraft carriers. [109395]
    The Secretary of State for Defence (Mr. Geoffrey Hoon): Competitive contracts, each worth about £30 million, for the future aircraft carrier assessment phase were awarded on 23 November to BAe Land and Sea Systems, now BAe Systems, and Thomson-CSF Naval Combat Systems. The assessment phase will investigate options for carrier design and, by 2003, will deliver proposals for the demonstration and manufacture of the vessels. The carriers, which will be built in the United Kingdom at a likely cost of £2 billion, are scheduled to enter service in 2012 and 2015.
    Mr. Jones: Will my right hon. Friend explain the strategic thinking behind the decision to build 40,000 and 50,000-tonners, and set out the consequences for naval planning? What are the employment and industrial consequences for our regional shipyards? Will my right hon. Friend explain the timing and say when the decision will be implemented? On a less serious note, will one of those great aircraft carriers take the A400M? We do not want the C-17; we want the A400M heavy lifter.
    Mr. Hoon: I recall congratulating my right hon. Friend on his ingenuity on the last occasion we met for Defence questions. He managed then to introduce a relevant constituency element into his question and he has done so again. I am not likely to delay the specification of any aircraft carrier to take the A400M. My right hon. Friend will probably understand that.
    Aircraft carriers will be a key component of a future United Kingdom force structure. It was concluded in the strategic defence review that aircraft carriers could contribute greatly to our commitment to creating modern, highly capable joint forces that are able to fulfil our current commitment and adapt to the evolving requirements of the strategic environment. Carriers have a key role in force projection; they contribute to peace support and, when necessary, to military action.
    On employment implications, the construction and fitting out of the carriers will offer good opportunities for United Kingdom shipyards. The identification of build yards will form part of industry's bids for the demonstration and manufacture phase. It is clearly too early to speculate about the exact number of jobs that might be created or sustained.
    Mr. Michael Colvin: I, too, should like to know what sort of aircraft will be flown from the carriers. If they are to succeed the successful Harrier, with vertical or short take-off and landing—VSTOL—or short take-off and vertical landing—STOVL—capabilities, and perhaps be a variation on the joint strike fighter, surely a long vessel is not required. It might be more economic to refit our existing three aircraft carriers than to build two Goliaths.
    Mr. Hoon: I was following the hon. Gentleman's thoughtful contribution until he made his last observation. We have committed ourselves to two new carriers,

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    which will have more capability than the existing vessels. It would be unfortunate if any Government went back on such an undertaking.
    On the nature of the aircraft, some matters have to be carefully investigated when selecting the type of aircraft to fly from such vessels. They have implications for the size and specification of the carriers. Those matters remain under active consideration. No decision has yet been made on those precise matters.
    Mr. Syd Rapson: As you and I know, Madam Speaker, the people of Portsmouth are interested in the berthing of those two magnificent ships and their future victualling. They must be prepared for in advance and a lot of studies on quays and support facilities are usually carried out. As no research at all has been done in Portsmouth, may I take it that it has been written off as a home port for the two ships?
    Mr. Hoon: Absolutely not. Portsmouth is a vital port for the Royal Navy and will continue to be so, but as my hon. Friend will have heard in my answer to the substantive question, those vessels do not come into service until 2012 and 2015. I assure him and the House that the investigation of berthing facilities at Portsmouth will continue as a matter of urgency in order to meet those two dates.
    Mr. Quentin Davies: Will the right hon. Gentleman take this opportunity to deny clearly and unambiguously the serious report in Warship World—which he knows is generally a well-informed magazine—to the effect that the Government are considering withdrawing HMS Invincible from service rather than giving it the refit that it will need? Contrary to all their public assurances, they have a covert plan to reduce our carrier fleet to two—long before the new large carriers are even contracted for. I shall give him a copy of the report, and hope that today the House can be told authoritatively exactly what the Government's plans are.
    Mr. Hoon: I begin by welcoming the hon. Gentleman to his new post on the Opposition Front Bench. I am sure that he will bring to the defence team a welcome enthusiasm for European matters. I only wish that it were possible to participate in the team meetings when he and his colleagues discuss them.
    On the substantive matter, I assure the hon. Gentleman that the House will be the first to hear about any change in the Government's plans and, as no decision has been taken along the lines of the speculation that he described, he probably ought to remain cool, calm and collected, as he usually does.

    British Forces Post Office, Mill Hill
    Mr. Andrew Dismore: If he will make a statement on the future of British Forces Post Office at Mill Hill. [109396].
    The Minister for the Armed Forces (Mr. John Spellar): The future structure and location of the British Forces Post Office United Kingdom base is under review as part of my Department's strategic development plan for Greater London.
    Mr. Dismore: The review has been under way for a considerable time and is causing uncertainty and disquiet among the staff—both civilian and uniformed personnel—at Mill Hill. When is it likely to be completed, and can my hon. Friend give me the assurance that it will take into account the excellent work done by BFPO at Mill Hill? It delivered millions of letters and parcels over Christmas well within the performance criteria and makes a major contribution to the morale of our service personnel overseas.
    Mr. Spellar: I join my hon. Friend in paying tribute to the loyalty and dedication of the military and civilian staff at BFPO—they are vital to the agency's success—and he and I went to see it for ourselves. Following the study, we hope to be able to make a decision about BFPO's future in late summer.
    Mr. John Bercow: Will the Minister accept from me that support for the safe and secure service provided by BFPO is widespread on both sides of the House? Is he aware in particular that it is a matter of the utmost importance to me for the simple reason that my mother lives in the Mill Hill area? Will he also accept from me that tolerating representation by the hon. Member for Hendon (Mr. Dismore) is sufficient burden for her to bear—she does so with dignity and stoicism? Does the Minister agree that it would be monstrous to deprive her of that admirable facility, of which she is a longstanding supporter?
    Mr. Spellar: I see that Conservative Members are very sensitive in declaring interests these days. I welcome the hon. Gentleman's support for the excellent service and the staff at Mill Hill. As I said to my hon. Friend the Member for Hendon (Mr. Dismore), they are critical to the success of a much-appreciated agency. As part of the restructuring of our service estate in the London area, we are considering how best to provide that service. Key considerations in making that decision will be the maintenance of continuity of service and the enormous loyalty and dedication shown by those staff.

    Nuclear Deterrent
    Dr. Julian Lewis: If it is the Government's policy that Britain should continue to possess a nuclear deterrent as long as other countries have nuclear weapons. [109397]
    The Secretary of State for Defence (Mr. Geoffrey Hoon): Britain's minimum nuclear deterrent is a necessary element of the security of this country, particularly while large nuclear arsenals and risks of proliferation remain. That was a key conclusion of the Government's strategic defence review. When we are satisfied that sufficient progress has been made to allow us to include British nuclear weapons in negotiations without endangering our security interests, we shall do so.
    Dr. Lewis: That goes three quarters of the way towards answering the question, but not the whole way.
    Does the Secretary of State not recall that, in July 1991, after two years of intense Conservative pressure, his right hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Gorton (Mr. Kaufman) committed his party to keeping some

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    nuclear weapons, as long as other countries had them? Will he now reaffirm that commitment, and confirm that, no matter what sort of multilateral negotiations take place in the future, he will never agree to arrangements whereby we would get rid of all our nuclear weapons while other countries still possessed some with which we could be threatened?
    Mr. Hoon: I have set out the Government's position. It is the position on which Labour Members were elected at the last general election, and it remains the position that the Government will adopt.
    In his supplementary question, the hon. Gentleman overlooked the purpose of deterrence. The purpose of deterrence is to deter those who might be tempted to attack this country's security interests, and the retention of nuclear weapons is designed to deter any such aggression. That is the purpose of deterrence; that is why the United Kingdom has an independent nuclear deterrent; and that is why the Government, subject to what I set out earlier, will retain that deterrent.
    Mr. Martin Salter: Speaking of this country's nuclear deterrent capability, my right hon. Friend will know of the letter sent by his colleague Baroness Symons to those of us who represent constituencies surrounding the atomic weapons establishment at Aldermaston. In the light of the decision to award a future 10-year management contract at AWE Aldermaston to a consortium including British Nuclear Fuels plc, and following revelations of the deliberate falsification of nuclear data, does my right hon. Friend agree that the decision to award the contract to that consortium is in urgent need of review? Many of my constituents would prefer Homer Simpson to run AWE Aldermaston rather than have BNFL.
    Mr. Hoon: I am aware of the letter. As my hon. Friend will know, we have instructed the Chief of Defence Procurement to examine the terms and conditions of the contract to ensure the pre-eminence of public health and environmental safety as they affect the workers at the facility, and also the general public. We have also insisted that BNFL nominations to the new AWE top management team are free of any connection with the incidents noted in the report by the Department of Trade and Industry.
    The Ministry of Defence is confident that the nuclear installations inspectorate is in a position to impose the highest possible safety standards before it will be prepared to grant the licence, which is a precondition of the new contract's taking effect. The reports on BNFL demonstrate the NII's independence and integrity.
    Mr. David Rendel: Does the Secretary of State realise that serious queries are arising about the safety consciousness of two of the three firms that make up the consortium to which he has just granted the new contract to run Aldermaston: Lockheed Martin and BNFL? Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that my constituents and those living close to the site will be appalled by the thought that, in future, their safety could be in the hands of those two companies?
    Mr. Hoon: I have described the steps that we have taken, and I hope that the hon. Gentleman and his constituents will be satisfied with the concern that has already been expressed.
    The NII has approved the draft management prospectus, but before it can grant a new nuclear licence to enable AWE sites to operate from 1 April, it must be satisfied that all parts of the approved safety regime are underwritten by the directors appointed to run them. It will be able to examine carefully the antecedents and, as I said earlier, any possible connections with the incidents that have caused so much concern. All the points raised by the hon. Gentleman will be considered, and I hope he will be able to reassure his constituents that every step will be taken to investigate the antecedents of those who might be involved in running the AWE.
    Mr. Malcolm Savidge: Surely the sophistical arguments of the hon. Member for New Forest, East (Dr. Lewis) about our possible ultimate negotiating stance in putative negotiations that have not even reached the planning stage yet are about as relevant as debating angels dancing on pinheads. Would it not be better to concentrate on encouraging the ratification of the START 2 treaty and to begin meaningful multilateral negotiations, lest we end up joining the angels?
    Mr. Hoon: My hon. Friend raises the alarming prospect of the hon. Member for New Forest, East (Dr. Lewis) dancing on a pinhead. On his more serious point, he is right. What is important is that we encourage, disarmament, particularly nuclear disarmament, where we can. The Government are committed to that and will use their influence in the world to achieve it.
    Mr. Menzies Campbell: In considering the future of nuclear deterrence, is it not right to give some regard to the proposal from the United States that it should deploy some form of national missile defence? Is it not clear that the United States intends to deploy some form of national missile defence, even against the reservations of its European allies and even if it means breaching the anti-ballistic missile treaty of 1972?
    What undertakings, if any, has the Secretary of State given on the possible use of such a system at Filingdales? What assessment has he made of the effectiveness of the British nuclear deterrent if an NMD were to come about in the United States and were the subject of a response—an increase in ballistic missiles by other countries?
    Mr. Hoon: The right hon. and learned Gentleman should know that there is no specific proposal as yet from the United States. The Government have been in close touch with the United States Administration on the question. President Clinton will not decide on deployment before next summer.
    As for the reservations—as the right hon. and learned Gentleman alleges—of the allies, the United States Administration have made it clear that one of the specific considerations that they will take into account is the reaction and attitude of the allies, as well as other international security considerations, so the matters that he raises have been fully taken into account.

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    Certainly, the matter will have to be looked at in the event of any specific request from the United States, although no specific request has been made. The right hon. and learned Gentleman will be aware that there is a long history of close co-operation between the UK and the United States in relation to United States basing. I anticipate that that co-operation will continue.
    Dr. Norman A. Godman: If we are to continue with possession of the nuclear deterrent, it will be right and proper that the House ensures that the highest safety standards are followed on the maintenance and transportation of such weaponry, especially where submarines that carry nuclear weapons travel through traditional fishing grounds. Will my right hon. Friend confirm here and now that there was no nuclear submarine in the vicinity of the sinking of the Kirkcudbright scallop dredger, the Solway Harvester, because many people in Scotland believe that the vessel went down with the loss of its seven-man crew because it was in collision with another vessel, perhaps a nuclear submarine?
    Mr. Hoon: I can assure my hon. Friend that no nuclear vessel was in the vicinity at the relevant time.
    Mr. Iain Duncan Smith: Further to the question from the right hon. and learned Member for North-East Fife (Mr. Campbell), are not the Government in a wobble over the whole position on ballistic missile defence? The Secretary of State's predecessor, Lord Robertson, said:
    "We are not in favour of developing ballistic missile defence systems"—[Official Report, 10 May 1999; Vol. 331, c. 10.],
    yet we find that the Government have already reached agreement with the United States through their receipt of information and the upgrade of Menwith Hill. We also know that the Secretary of State has had serious discussions with his counterparts in the United States on the upgrade of Filingdales. Is not the reality that they dare not say what their intention is because of their fear of their own Back Benchers, who do not like it?
    Mr. Hoon: The specific answer to the hon. Gentleman's final question is no. Let me repeat what I have already told the House: as yet, we have had no specific request from the United States Government and they have not yet decided whether to go ahead with national missile defence. Our position is clear.
    Mr. Duncan Smith: What about Menwith Hill?
    Mr. Hoon: If the hon. Gentleman investigated the role and responsibilities of that establishment a little more closely, he would discover that it would go ahead regardless of whether national missile defence goes ahead. Menwith Hill will play an important role in detecting the launch of ballistic missiles anywhere in the world. It is an entirely sensible step in its own right.
    Mr. Duncan Smith: The Secretary of State is all over the place on the issue. His predecessor, Lord Robertson,
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    said that the ABM treaty was one of the pioneering forerunners of arms control legislation, yet as recently as the end of last year, Baroness Symons said:
    "Interpretation of the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty is a matter for the parties to that treaty."—[Official Report, House of Lords, 25 October 1999; Vol. 606, c. WA6.]
    She and the Secretary of State know that the US and the old Soviet Union are signatories. The Government are sliding on the issue. Previously, they said that they were utterly opposed, but now they are not quite as opposed as they were.
    Mr. Hoon: The Soviet Union and its successor, Russia, are signatories to the ABM treaty. The hon. Gentleman will also be aware that there have been two significant amendments to the treaty, one of which was made in 1997, long after the collapse of the Soviet Union. The fact that the parties to the treaty might wish to enter into negotiations with a view to a further amendment can hardly be a surprise to him or to anyone else.
    Mr. Duncan Smith: It is clear that the Government are scared not only of their Back Benchers but of their new co-habitees in the European security and defence identity, the French Government. President Chirac has said:
    "We must avoid any questioning of the ABM Treaty that could lead to a disruption of the strategic equilibrium and a new nuclear arms race."
    The Secretary of State has been to the United States and had a series of discussions on the issue. He has agreed to the use of information, not only from Menwith Hill, for that defence programme, and has undertaken the same for Filingdales. Is not the reality that, as on so many other issues, the Government are behaving ever more like a double agent, telling one thing to one group and another to another?
    Mr. Hoon: The hon. Gentleman is getting ever more desperate as he tries to find some substance for his questions. Let us deal with Menwith Hill. It is the European relay ground system of the United States space-based infra-red system, designed to detect the launch of ballistic missiles. It is regarded by the United States as necessary, irrespective of any decision on a national missile defence programme. The hon. Gentleman would do well not to keep referring to Menwith Hill, because it does not make his case, whatever it is—although the more I listen to him, the harder it is to detect what his argument is about.
    Madam Speaker: I call Mr. Eric Forth for question No. 5. [HON. MEMBERS: "He is not here."] In that case I call Mr. Tam Dalyell.

    Depleted Uranium Munitions (Friendly Fire)
    Mr. Tam Dalyell: What scientific evaluation was made (a) in 1991 and (b) subsequently of the effects on UK troops of friendly fire involving depleted uranium munitions; and if he will make a statement. [109400]
    The Minister for the Armed Forces (Mr. John Spellar): Obviously, the right hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Mr. Forth) is keener to turn up late at night to talk about irrelevancies than to come and deal with the real business of the House.
    The Ministry of Defence is not aware of any friendly fire incidents during which British troops were injured or killed by depleted uranium-based ammunition during the Gulf conflict. The historical and technical evaluation of the records from the friendly fire incidents that occurred during the Gulf conflict has concluded that there is no evidence to show that DU munitions were involved. Therefore, there has been no scientific evaluation of the effects of exposure to depleted uranium on British troops involved in friendly fire incidents.
    Mr. Dalyell: As a member of an incoming Administration, is my hon. Friend entitled to know all the facts of what was, or was not, asked on depleted uranium in 1991?
    Mr. Spellar: I am not entirely sure of the context in which my hon. Friend asks that question. In answer to a previous question that he posed in this regard, I said:
    "The US Department of Defense informs us that there is no 'US Army Depleted Uranium Assessment Unit'. The Ministry of Defence is not aware of any 'friendly fire' incidents during which British troops were injured or killed by depleted uranium-based ammunition during the Gulf conflict."—[Official Report, 10 January 2000; Vol. 342, c. 90W.]
    It is of course open to an incoming Administration to be advised of information that would be pertinent to such a question. We have answered the question, and I am not exactly sure what my hon. Friend's difficulty is. If he cares to write to me pointing out further information that he thinks will be required and the basis on which he thinks it will, we will obviously be prepared to investigate further.

    Armed Services (Family Friendly Working Practices)
    Mr. Paul Goggins: If he will make a statement on the development of family-friendly working practices within the armed services. [109402]
    The Minister for the Armed Forces (Mr. John Spellar): The key family-friendly policies for the services are to provide adequate time for family life and, during deployment, the ability for family members to communicate with each other. We have reduced the number deployed on operations, introduced post-operational tour leave and a bonus payment for those experiencing the greatest separation, and increased the welfare telephone allowance from three to 20 minutes per week. That is an impressive record of achievement.
    Mr. Goggins: I want to acknowledge the tremendous sacrifices that our armed services staff and their families make on our behalf. What steps is my hon. Friend taking to encourage staff to take up their new entitlements to parental leave and to time off in family emergencies, both of which were recently introduced by the Government?
    Mr. Spellar: Armed forces personnel are entitled to parental leave, as allowed for in the parental leave
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    directive. It is service practice, operations permitting, to allow personnel to take paid annual leave to attend childbirth. On family emergencies, the armed forces have an excellent compassionate system in place that is specifically designed to deal with serious family emergencies; it can include both paid leave and free travel back home.
    Mr. Julian Brazier: In that seemingly impressive list of measures to help families, where would the Minister put the £11 million cut in the budget for repairing married quarters, coming as it did just after a study had shown that the backlog of repairs is much worse than was previously thought?
    Mr. Spellar: I am glad that the hon. Gentleman drew attention to the backlog of repairs, which was overlooked by the Conservative Government, who, in the rushed sale of property to Annington Homes, underestimated the amount required to bring the properties up to category 1 by £112 million. That has led to the stretching of the programme to 2005. We have been able to put some additional money back into the programme in the past few weeks. The hon. Gentleman should really look to the people who previously occupied the Government Benches. I regret to say that he backed out on that argument in the end.

    Armed Services (Recruitment)
    Mr. Hilary Benn: What account is taken of the previous convictions of applicants to the armed services in deciding whether to recruit them. [109403]
    The Minister for the Armed Forces (Mr. John Spellar): Each service has slightly different regulations concerning such applicants. In general, the armed forces accept inquiries from young minor offenders who have completed the rehabilitation period in accordance with the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974 after they have served their sentence. Each case is considered on its merits.
    Mr. Benn: Does my hon. Friend agree that the armed services have a role to play in giving ex-offenders who want to go straight the opportunity of proving that they are capable of doing so?
    Mr. Spellar: Yes, subject to the qualification that they have to be acceptable to the armed forces and that there must be evidence that they have genuinely changed their ways and will not be a bad influence. As I have said previously from the Dispatch Box, we believe that people have a right to repair the mistakes that they have made, subject to that being consistent with the interests of the armed forces. We believe that many such youngsters will make good soldiers, sailors and airmen, which will be good for the country and very good for them and their families.

    Cadet Services
    Mr. Bob Russell: If he will provide extra funding for Army, Air and Sea Cadets and bring forward proposals to increase recruitment to the cadet services. [109404]
    The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Defence (Dr. Lewis Moonie): My Department has provided more than £58 million in funding for the Army, Air and Sea Cadets in the current financial year, as well as over £6 million for the Combined Cadet Force. In 1998, we made an extra £3 million available over four years to pay for enhancements to training, equipment and infrastructure following the strategic defence review. The cadet forces undertake their own recruitment, with practical support from the services wherever possible. The total number of cadets has increased steadily each year, and we expect to see a continuation of that trend.
    Mr. Russell: Will the Minister confirm that the numbers of service men and women are still under strength across all the armed forces? Bearing in mind the fact that the cadet movement is a good recruiting ground, does he not agree that it would be good sense and good value for money to invest more in our cadets for recruitment purposes, and—in the spirit of joined-up government—for purposes of social inclusion, dealing with the causes of crime and giving our young people things to do other than be in the classroom the whole time?
    Dr. Moonie: I am tempted just to answer yes, Madam Speaker, because I know that you favour short questions and answers. Alas, I am sorry to disappoint you, although my answer will be short. Between March and September 1999, the number of Army Cadets rose to 42,114, the highest for 10 years, in the wake of the "Attitude" campaign. Numbers in other cadet forces are also at satisfactory levels and, generally speaking, the extra money that we have put in is bearing fruit.
    Mr. Andrew Miller: My hon. Friend may not have been in his post long enough to understand what a superb job the Navy cadets do in my constituency with Training Ship Forward. They contribute tremendously to the development of the service ethic among young people, as well as contributing to every civic occasion in the town. My hon. Friend will be aware that the funding arrangements for the Sea Cadets are not the same as for the other services, and that is presenting us with problems in finding a long-term base for them. Will he have discussions with his colleagues in other Departments to see if improvements can be made in the funding regime?
    Dr. Moonie: We would be prepared to look at that. It has not been our practice in the past to provide direct support, for example, for accommodation. However, we give the Sea Cadets much non-cash support, for example through the loan of sailing craft and small powered craft.
    Mr. John M. Taylor: I wonder whether the Minister can tell me—or perhaps he could write to me—about the rehousing of the Army, Air and Sea Cadets in Shirley in my constituency, who have traditionally paraded at the Territorial Army Volunteer Reserve centre that his Department is closing.
    Dr. Moonie: I will clearly have to write to the hon. Gentleman about the detail of the question, although I can
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    say that when closures occur, we do our best to re-accommodate the cadet forces involved, as should be the case in Shirley.

    Married Quarters
    Mr. Edward Leigh: When he last met the Army Families Federation to discuss married quarters. [109406]
    The Minister for the Armed Forces (Mr. John Spellar): I last met the Army Families Federation on 16 November 1999 when I chaired the second families forum of the service families task force.
    Mr. Leigh: I wish to ask the Minister about married quarters and I hope that he will not give the sort of party political reply that he gave to my hon. Friend the Member for Canterbury (Mr. Brazier), because there is much concern about the subject. Has the Minister read the Defence Committee's report on married quarters? Has he noticed that the last thing that service men want when they go abroad is to return to dilapidated married quarters? Has he noted the conclusions of the Committee's report—remembering that his party has a majority on the Committee—that
    "We have been provided with insufficient evidence for us to be sure that this area is not subject to budgetary squeeze simply because it is an easy target."
    Is it an easy target, or is he going to do something for service men and women and ensure that their homes are brought up to standard?
    Mr. Spellar: As I said to the hon. Member for Canterbury (Mr. Brazier), we will spend some £112 million more than was budgeted for by the previous Government after their rapid sale to Annington in an attempt to balance the budget for the pre-election exercise. We are aware of the needs of married quarters and of single living accommodation, which is another area of considerable neglect that we inherited.
    Mr. Robert Key: May I invite the Minister to stop blustering about what happened five years ago and get on with finding proper housing for our service men and women and their families? Regardless of the reasons for the slippage that has occurred, it is unacceptable to try to save £2 million a year by cutting back on new carpets and curtains. The lack of appropriate quarters is a major factor in our inability to retain armed forces personnel. I accept that recruitment is not doing badly, but if he continues with the present policy, the Minister will do nothing but harm in the matter of retaining personnel in our armed forces.
    Mr. Spellar: I draw the hon. Gentleman's attention once again to the considerable shortfall that we inherited. In addition to refurbishing existing property, we are letting a number of private finance initiative contracts to build new housing. Those initiatives involve building 279 properties at Lossiemouth, 88 at Yeovilton, 145 at Cosford and Shawbury, and 164 in central Scotland. That high-quality housing is highly appreciated, and considerable work is also being done in other areas. I fully agree that some properties are unacceptable as married quarters for our service families. However, much of the

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    available housing is good, and the improvements that have been made are greatly appreciated. Considerable sums of money are being devoted to the problem—some £112 more than had been budgeted for after the previous Administration's fire sale to Annington Homes.

    Ammunition Expenditure
    Mr. Graham Brady: How much his Department spent in each of the last three years on ammunition for each of the armed services. [109407]
    The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Defence (Dr. Lewis Moonie): In financial years 1996–97, 1997–98 and 1998–99, we spent some £173 million, £168 million and £152 million respectively procuring ammunition for the Army. Equivalent figures for the Royal Navy were £122 million, £115 million and £148 million, and for the Royal Air Force, £96 million, £157 million and £241 million. These figures cover the costs, at historic prices, associated with the procurement of lethal munitions, including small, medium, and large-calibre gun ammunition, grenades, mortar bombs, rockets, guided missiles, and torpedoes.
    Mr. Brady: Is the amount of ammunition provided for training purposes larger or smaller than it was three years ago?
    Dr. Moonie: As far as I know, the amount has remained roughly constant, but I shall certainly look into the matter and write to the hon. Gentleman.
    Mr. Lindsay Hoyle: Given the amount of money involved, will the Minister ensure that the Government continue to meet procurement needs in the UK, and that Britain does not become reliant on other countries in that regard?
    Dr. Moonie: Clearly, I cannot give my hon. Friend any guarantees on that. Each case will be considered on its merits. Our main emphasis is on securing value for money and high quality. Within those constraints, we shall certainly endeavour, wherever possible, to source materials in this country.

    Defence Attachés
    Mr. Gareth R. Thomas: What plans his Department has to improve its network of defence attachés. [109410]
    The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Defence (Dr. Lewis Moonie): As part of the work following on from the strategic defence review, a comprehensive review of the distribution of defence attachés has been carried out. The outcome was agreed between the Ministry of Defence and the Foreign and Commonwealth Office at the end of last year, and the resultant new distribution of attachés is being implemented from 1 April 2000 over a two-year period.
    I am pleased to inform the House that the number of countries with permanent British attachés in post will increase from 75 to 80. That is consistent with the
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    strategic defence review, which gave a general assessment that increased priority should be given to support for defence diplomacy in central and eastern Europe and to the provision for operational military advice and assistance in sub-Saharan Africa. The increase in our attaché presence in central and eastern Europe will enhance the provision of support to the outreach programme in particular.
    Mr. Thomas: Does my hon. Friend agree that defence diplomacy, especially with the aim of conflict prevention in central Europe and in Africa, is among the strategic defence review's crucial priorities, and that it has need of further attention? Does he share my view that greater civilian and democratic control of the armed forces in those countries should be a priority for the Department? Will he assure me that, unlike the Conservative Government, this Government will fund such work properly?
    Dr. Moonie: I agree entirely with my hon. Friend. I confirm that extra funding to the tune of £2.5 million a year has been made available for that initiative.
    Mr. Michael Fabricant: But where are the defence attachés going to live? There are still many parts of the world—especially in the former Soviet Union—where our representatives operate out of other embassies. Were it not for the help offered by the Germans and the Scandinavians, we would not have representatives in the former Soviet Union. Has the Minister spoken to the Foreign Secretary, who has announced that he is to reduce British representation overseas?
    Dr. Moonie: That seems a cost-effective way of providing accommodation! Seriously, I assure the hon. Gentleman that we take the greatest care in ensuring that our employees are properly looked after when they are abroad.

    Roll On/Roll Off Container Ships
    Mr. Desmond Browne: If he will make a statement about his Department's plans to procure four roll on/roll off container ships. [109412]
    The Secretary of State for Defence (Mr. Geoffrey Hoon): The strategic defence review confirmed the requirement for an expanded sealift capability of six roll on/roll off ships—four in addition to the two currently on charter—to transport equipment for our joint rapid reaction forces. We are seeking to provide the capability under private finance initiative arrangements, and intend to announce a single preferred bidder later this year.
    Mr. Browne: My right hon. Friend confirmed that the building of the roll on/roll off ships is an essential part of the full implementation of the strategic defence review. He will be aware that the River Clyde has a great history of shipbuilding, but that recently, shipbuilding on the Clyde has become vulnerable to uncompetitive pricing practices, particularly from elsewhere. Can my right hon. Friend assure the House that, in the selection of a

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    preferred bidder for the ships, a full and open competition will take place, and that full account will be taken of the bid by the Sealion consortium, led by the Govan yard?
    Mr. Hoon: I can confirm the requirement for roll on/roll off ferries. As far as the Clyde is concerned, the Government are very pleased that the ownership of the Govan shipyard has been settled. Scottish shipyards such as Govan have historically made a vital contribution to shipbuilding in this country, and I hope that they will continue to play an important role. Certainly, there will be a full and open competition. Obviously, it is vital to the interests of the British taxpayer that we secure the best value-for-money order available.
    Mr. Crispin Blunt: I welcome the commitment that six roll on/roll off ferries will be available as part of our strategic lift capability. However, it would be rather odd if such measures were set alongside measures to reduce Fearless to the reserve; to place a further three frigates and destroyers into the reserve; to put four Hunt class MCMVs to reserve; to put three Sandown class MCMVs to reserve; to lay up three further Royal Fleet Auxiliaries; and to bring home Dumbarton Castle from the Falkland islands. I understand, on authoritative briefing from within the Ministry of Defence, that all those measures are being considered to deal with a bloodstained long-term costings process as a result of the fact that the Ministry does not have enough money to support the defence budget in a sensible fashion.
    Mr. Hoon: I am sorry that the hon. Gentleman, who has considerable knowledge of the way in which the Ministry of Defence operates, should choose to highlight the most speculative source of information with which I have so far had to deal. The hon. Gentleman knows better than that: he knows that, necessarily, a whole series of options is canvassed and that against those options, real decisions are taken. I assure him that no real decision along the lines of his speculation has been taken. I also assure him, as I assure other hon. Members, that when decisions are taken the House will be the first to hear—and rather before spurious pieces are published in whatever publication.
    Mr. Mohammad Sarwar: Is my right hon. Friend aware that when the Minister of State, Scotland Office replied to me in a recent Adjournment debate, he reaffirmed that Scotland offers support for Govan's Sealion bid? Is my right hon. Friend further aware that Govan shipyard is ready to work immediately on this order?
    Mr. Hoon: I am grateful for that personal commitment. I anticipate that my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow, Govan (Mr. Sarwar) will be down there in the event of the contract being awarded to that particular shipyard. However, it is a competitive process, and it is necessary for the Government, in the interests of the taxpayers, to choose the best value-for-money offer.

    Young Service People
    Fiona Mactaggart: How many serving members of the armed forces are aged under 18 years; and if he will make a statement on their deployment. [109413]
    The Minister for the Armed Forces (Mr. John Spellar): As at January 2000, 6,238 personnel under 18 were serving in the armed forces. The vast majority of personnel under 18 are situated in the UK. Of those overseas, there are 114 in Germany; 23 in the Former Republic of Yugoslavia; 15 in Cyprus; 12 in the Falkland islands; and seven on ships in the Gulf. I stress that they are all volunteers and have parental consent to join the armed forces.
    Fiona Mactaggart: Have any of the 17-year-olds who are allowed to be deployed on active service in the armed forces in Britain been victims in armed conflict? Have any of them been killed or injured in conflict during the past 20 years?
    Mr. Spellar: I fear that I should have required notice of my hon. Friend's question to reply to it today. I shall write to her.
    Mr. Desmond Swayne: Will the Minister confirm that many of those recruited at 16 are among the Army's most successful recruits? What discussions has he held with the German Foreign Minister on the matter?
    Mr. Spellar: I must confess that I have had no discussions with the German Foreign Minister on that matter or any other—and who is he at the moment? [Interruption.] I know.
    More to the point, the hon. Gentleman's question was relevant. Many of those recruited at 16 go on to have successful careers in the armed forces. We continue to recruit at 16 because we want to recruit among the best of our young people so that we can sustain our justified reputation for having the best armed forces in the world.

    Manpower Requirements
    Sir Sydney Chapman: What plans he has to update the strategic defence review with regard to numbers of personnel [109414]
    The Secretary of State for Defence (Mr. Geoffrey Hoon): There are no plans to change the manpower requirements for each of the three services identified during the strategic defence review.
    Sir Sydney Chapman: Following the Ministry's recent recruiting initiatives, does the right hon. Gentleman agree that retention remains an increasingly serious problem? Will he confirm that a net figure of about 100 people a month leave the Army? How can he say that the Government are addressing and eliminating overstretch? Even at this late stage, will he not review the decision to cut the Territorial Army by 18,000, the reversal of which would be one of the most cost-effective measures he could take?
    Mr. Hoon: It is no longer true that there is a net outflow from the Army. It was the case, but the situation

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    has been turned around, and there is now a net inflow of about 30 people a month. The Government's policy has been successful. Recruiting has reached record levels lately. For example, Royal Marines officer posts are over-subscribed and we cannot satisfy all those who wish to join. In addition, the general services in the Royal Marines are expected to meet their target for the first time since 1994. We are doing well on recruitment.
    The hon. Gentleman is right to say that retention remains of concern. It is important that people should remain in the armed forces for as long as they had planned to when they joined, but the problem is being addressed, both in terms of significant changes in our commitments, which were leading to overstretch towards the end of last year, and in terms of enhanced allowances and improved pay, which are now available. The hon. Gentleman would, I think, be satisfied by the considerable turn-around in recent months.

    Learning Forces Initiative
    Mr. Jeff Ennis: If he will make a statement on the progress of the Government's learning forces initiative. [109415]
    The Secretary of State for Defence (Mr. Geoffrey Hoon): We are making good progress with our learning forces initiative. It will encourage people to join the services, develop them once they have joined and equip them for the civilian employment market when they leave.
    Mr. Ennis: Does my right hon. Friend agree that the scheme should be properly funded so that it may help service men make a more successful transition to civilian life? As more than £1 billion a year is spent by the armed forces on education and training, does my right hon. Friend agree that more of that pot of money should be allocated to enhancing the scheme?
    Mr. Hoon: I am confident that appropriate sums are made available to the scheme, which is not just about assisting people to make the transfer to civilian life, but about improving basic key skills for the least able recruits, offering all personnel the opportunity to gain level 2 national vocational qualifications within three years of joining the services and introducing standard learning credits with awards of up to £175 a year to members of the armed forces to help them to advance personal development through academic or practical study. The initiative is not just about the transition to civilian life, although that is important. It seeks to improve the ability and qualifications of members of our armed services while they are in the services.

    Shoeburyness
    Sir Teddy Taylor: If he will make a further statement on the future of the old and new ranges at Shoeburyness. [109416]
    The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Defence (Dr. Lewis Moonie): As my predecessor informed the House on 28 January, the whole of the old ranges and Horseshoe barracks, Shoeburyness, were sold, subject to contract, on 20 January 2000. As for the new ranges, the Defence Evaluation and Research Agency is
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    now working with SERCO Ltd. to rationalise the estate and to introduce new business to co-exist with the continuing range activities, which may require the release of a small amount of land. DERA plans to brief the local community on that subject in early March and then jointly to agree a way forward.
    Sir Teddy Taylor: Is the Minister aware that members of the local community in Shoeburyness are a little disturbed because, although the site of the old ranges was sold in January, they have still not been told who bought it? Although we were given the strongest assurances from both DERA and SERCO that they would keep the local community advised about the new ranges, there have been no meetings so far. Will the hon. Gentleman take a personal interest in the issue; will he try to ensure that the local community is told what is happening; and, if need be, will he speak at a public meeting in Shoeburyness to tell the local community exactly what is happening with two delightful and very valuable sites?
    Dr. Moonie: I am sure that the hon. Gentleman is aware that we cannot make an announcement until the contracts are signed and everything is properly closed. I have the greatest sympathy for his constituents in the present situation. I shall do everything in my power to expedite the appropriate development of the site.
    Mrs. Gwyneth Dunwoody: Will my hon. Friend tell me how many contracts SERCO has in the Ministry of Defence?
    Dr. Moonie: A very large, positive integer.

    Food Purchasing
    Mr. Nigel Evans: How much of the food purchased for the armed forces is sourced from abroad. [109418]
    The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Defence (Dr. Lewis Moonie): The supply of food for our armed forces was contracted out by the previous Administration. The agreement does not specify the source from which our contractors should obtain products, but expects them to seek the best market price, consistent with meeting our quality standard, while giving full consideration to British products. Our main food supply contract is with 3663: it is sourcing a range of more than 1,300 different products for the armed forces, including fresh, chilled and frozen commodities. The company advises that about 26 per cent. of those are currently imported. Included in that figure are products which are not made or grown in this country.
    Mr. Evans: Will the Minister explain why so much of our food is sourced from abroad? I accept that, in certain cases when the armed forces are abroad for a period, it is more appropriate to source the food locally. However, we have moved on: the Minister's party is in government.

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    Will he explain why, when the French will not eat our beef, we are forcing our armed forces to take £1 million-worth of French chickens? Does he agree that, when the French will not eat our beef, it is hard for us to swallow the fact that we are forcing our armed forces to eat their chickens?
    Dr. Moonie: As the hon. Gentleman can tell from looking at me, it is plain that I have little difficulty in swallowing anything.
    As for French chickens, I regret to say that, thanks to the provisions of the contract—which I am sure the hon. Gentleman enthusiastically supported when he was in government—we have no choice but to accept supply from the cheapest source. However, I can offer him one ray of light: on the matter of lamb, I have today agreed to meet Welsh hill farmers to discuss whether there is any possibility that they can satisfy some of our requirements for that product.

    Training and Education
    Mr. David Kidney: What plans he has for increasing work-based training and education for young people in the armed forces. [109422]
    The Minister for the Armed Forces (Mr. John Spellar): All three services are actively involved in a range of projects designed to improve access to training and education at the workplace, as follow-on work to our learning forces initiative. That involves considerable and widespread investment in interactive learning facilities and in computers with internet access. However, those measures are not targeted specifically at young people; they are aimed at all members of the armed forces.
    Mr. Kidney: I thank my hon. Friend for that answer. Has he held any discussions with his ministerial colleagues at the Department for Education and Employment about the proposed new connection service? Will he ensure that the education and training benefits of a career in the armed forces will be fairly presented to those young people who avail themselves of that service?
    Mr. Spellar: I am pleased to say that we are co-operating very well with the Department for Education and Employment, not only in this area but also very much in the area of craft apprenticeships within our establishment. We certainly believe that, as a result of this and other initiatives, the armed forces provide an excellent career for young people, and we hope that the Department for Education and Employment and education authorities throughout the country will help to get that message across.

BBC (Funding Review)
3.30 pm
The Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport (Mr. Chris Smith): With permission, Madam Speaker, I should like to make a statement setting out the Government's decisions on the future funding of the BBC.
I should say at the outset that, together with my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House, I gave the most careful consideration to the Opposition's formal request for a delay in the making of this statement until tomorrow. However, because of the intense speculation that there has been over the past few days and because of the commercially sensitive nature of some of the information that I have to give, I thought that it was important to come to the House at the very earliest opportunity.
The future funding of the BBC is a matter that has generated considerable interest, because the BBC is an institution which is central to the United Kingdom's view of itself and of the world.
I want to leave the House in no doubt about the Government's commitment to public service broadcasting and to retaining the BBC at its heart. The BBC is the UK's most important cultural institution, and we have a duty to ensure that it can continue to play a central role in the nation's life. Specifically, the BBC should provide a strong and distinctive schedule of benchmark quality programmes on all its services and should drive the take-up of new digital and online services. A strong BBC is crucial in ensuring that everyone can have access to information, news, education and current affairs, using efficient modern methods, so that we can build a society for the 21st century on the solid foundations set down for us in the 20th.
We welcome the fact that the BBC's main priorities for the next seven years are: improving established services; expanding education work; developing interactive services; and devolution in national and regional broadcasting. We particularly welcome the BBC's intention to re-establish BBC 1 as the corporation's flagship, its commitment to education—in particular learning support for schools and for lifelong learning—and the exploitation of new learning possibilities opened up by interactivity. We also welcome the BBC's plans for enhancing services in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, together with a greater regional emphasis within England.
It is to enable the BBC to deliver these priorities that I am prepared to offer it more support. We shall be keeping the BBC's implementation of these plans closely under review, and ensuring that it meets the commitments that it makes in return for that additional support. The BBC must understand the basis of our decision and continue to satisfy Parliament that it can and will deliver.
I want to leave the House in no doubt that to achieve this vision and to improve its services, the BBC needs to raise its game; it must become even more cost-effective and quality-conscious. That is why we are not going to allow the BBC the massive injection of funds that it has sought from the licence fee—an increase reaching more than £700 million a year by 2006. We are setting it a number of challenges, in terms of sources of finance and in operations.
In our consideration of these issues, we have been enormously assisted by the work of the independent review panel into the future funding of the BBC chaired
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by Gavyn Davies, which reported last summer. We asked the panel to examine options for providing the BBC with additional funding, assuming that the licence fee remains the principal source of revenue during the current charter period. The panel was also requested to consider the arrangements under which the BBC achieves a proper balance between its public and commercial services, and the concessionary scheme for pensioners. Broadly speaking, I am today accepting the panel's analysis although not, in every respect, the detailed solutions that it proposed.
The report was published in July 1999 for public consultation, and more than 2,000 responses were received. In reaching our decisions, we have taken account of them. I shall shortly place a summary of responses in the Library of the House, and—provided respondents have given permission—the representations by organisations will shortly be made available by my Department's information centre. I have also paid close attention to the report of the Select Committee on Culture, Media and Sport and, now that I have taken the decisions on the way forward, I will publish the Government's response to it as quickly as possible.
I should also mention that the Chairman of the Select Committee, my right hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Gorton (Mr. Kaufman), has apologised to me for the fact that a hospital appointment prevents him from being with us this afternoon.
Today, I am also placing in the Library of the House the report of the independent consultants, Pannell Kerr Forster, entitled "Review of the BBC's Financial Projections", which provided a key input into my decisions on finance, together with my Department's chief economist's analysis and a copy of my letter to the chairman of the BBC, which will set out the detail of this settlement.
I shall now deal with the Government's decisions under four headings—finance, programming, transparency and licence fee concessions. They provide a balanced package of measures, which I hope can be widely welcomed.
We accept the judgment of the Davies panel that our vision for the BBC cannot be realised within the existing funding framework. We agree with the panel that, without the BBC's provision of high-quality free-to-air digital services, the penetration of digital television could end up being capped at around 50 to 60 per cent. of the population. The first place to look for new funding should be self-help by the BBC; new licence fee funding should be secondary. We are therefore providing for an increase in licence fee funding that will raise on average around £200 million per year between now and 2006. In addition, however, we are challenging the BBC to help itself by increased efficiency savings, and raising more revenue from its subsidiaries, to the tune of £490 million by 2006–07, over and above the £600 million which it itself estimated.
That figure presents the BBC with a higher target than that envisaged by the Davies panel and is in line with the conclusions of the independent analysis of BBC finances that I commissioned. It means that we are demanding, over the period of this settlement, that the BBC generates more than £1 billion from self-help. As envisaged by the Davies panel, a proportion of the proceeds should be reinvested in commercial businesses.

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We will leave it to the BBC how it meets the challenge, but we are leaving the BBC in no doubt that we expect it to achieve the figures set out here by efficiency savings, partnerships, joint ventures, reductions in bureaucracy and other means. We believe that the licence fee settlement, together with self-help, should yield enough to ensure that the BBC enhances established services and develops a significant foothold in the digital world.
There has been considerable debate on the method of raising additional funding for the BBC. The review panel put forward the alternatives of a digital licence fee set at £24, which would "fade away" as the normal licence fee rose to meet it, or an increase in the general licence fee payable by all. I have decided not to adopt the new mechanism of a digital supplement payable only by those households with digital television. Although I accept that there are good arguments for such a solution, on balance I believe that the benefits of the increased funding will be available to all through improvements in the BBC core services, and, in the case of educational programming, also through schools. Furthermore, it is my view that switch-over to digital will take place this decade, so the time has now come to recognise that digital television will soon be the norm.
Following my announcement in September, it is now clear that digital switch-over can happen sooner than was envisaged by the Davies panel. Against my belief that digital television brings benefits to all, it would be wrong to signal that it is something special and only for the few. I am therefore going for the general licence fee option, and an increase of 1.5 per cent. over the retail prices index in each year starting in April this year. That means an increase of 3p per week above inflation each year. On 1 April this year, the licence fee will therefore rise by £3. It also means that for each pound that the BBC receives from the licence fee, it is expected to generate almost the equivalent through self-help. I shall shortly be laying regulations before the House in relation to the licence fee from 1 April.
The Davies panel proposed a package of reforms in the areas of transparency, fair trading and accountability. We support the thrust of the panel's recommendations. In particular, we intend to open up the process by which I approve new BBC proposals, and we shall also make the BBC's commitment to fair trading more transparent.
We are making it clear that we do not expect the licence fee to fund strands of the market, such as dedicated film and sport channels, to which the distinctive role of public service broadcasting has little extra to offer. More generally, we shall institute new procedures for the introduction of new services. That will include an opportunity for public consultation before I reach decisions on proposed new services.
We also propose to carry out a programme of reviews of all the current BBC digital services—News 24, Choice, Knowledge and Parliament—to ensure that services are achieving what the BBC assured me they would achieve when I approved them. We propose that a priority for such scrutiny should be News 24.
We shall open the BBC to more external scrutiny. It has, hitherto, been too much the judge and jury in its own cause. I am requiring independent scrutinies of the BBC's fair trading policies and its financial reporting, and I shall
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publish both scrutiny reports. In addition, I shall expect the BBC to have its regular fair trading and financial audits carried out by different auditors in future. The fair trading auditor's full report on compliance and risk will in future be published by the BBC.
I shall also appoint independent consultants to carry out periodic examinations of the systems and controls in place to ensure fair trading, and of the nature and extent of financial systems in place. Those reports will also be published. All those scrutiny and audit reports will, of course, be available for consideration and questioning by the Select Committee. Finally, we shall also be reviewing the public service role and governance of the BBC in the forthcoming broadcasting and communications White Paper.
That means in essence: a review of the governance of the BBC in the forthcoming White Paper; clear separation of BBC fair trading and financial audits; regular measurement of the BBC's performance against its promises on all new services; independent scrutiny of the BBC's financial and fair trading systems and controls; and regular reviews of progress in achieving efficiency savings and commercial targets.
On concessions, we have already gone beyond the Davies panel's recommendation on assistance for pensioners with the announcement of free licences for the over-75s. I can now announce that we expect the scheme to start on 1 November, subject to parliamentary approval of the necessary legislation. From 1 April, those who will be over 75 on 1 November, or who will turn 75 after that date but before their licence would expire, will be able to buy a short-term licence, lasting till 1 November. From 1 November, refunds will be available in respect of licences already paid for. I have also asked that the BBC will take steps to ensure that all those reaching their 75th birthday know that they are entitled to a free licence, and how to apply.
We accept the Davies panel's other recommendations for achieving fairness, and we shall therefore ensure that there is a half-price television licence for blind people from April this year; that subtitling of programmes is further developed; and that the cash easy-entry easy-payment scheme is simplified and made more equitable.
There remains the issue of what to do about the accommodation for residential care concessionary scheme, which is the main focus of current concessions. Although the majority of the current beneficiaries are over 75 and will receive free licences, about 130,000 pensioners and mentally and physically disabled people will be left in the scheme. Notwithstanding the drop in the number of people benefiting from the scheme, we propose to keep the existing arrangements for concessionary licences. Therefore, on concessions, we are: introducing free television licences for the over-75s from 1 November; introducing half-price television licences for blind people from 1 April; setting new targets for subtitling for new BBC digital services; simplifying and making more equitable one of the key easy-payment schemes; and retaining the current accommodation for residential care concessionary scheme.
Our key aims throughout have been to ensure accountability, choice, quality, and value for money. I hope the House agrees that this package is one from which our constituents will benefit. In return for 3p a week extra on top of the RPI, they will be assured of good

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programming and good value for money from a BBC that will be able to continue to deliver the quality we expect as the new digital world increasingly becomes a reality.
I believe that the settlement will help to ensure the BBC's position and its role as our primary public service broadcaster into the new century. If we are serious about valuing the BBC at its best, about wanting to keep it at its best and about ensuring that we all have programmes of real quality to watch in the future, we must give it the support it needs. This statement will, I hope, give it precisely that.
Mr. Peter Ainsworth: I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his lengthy statement, and for his courtesy in providing me with advance notice of its content. One thing is certain: whatever people think of the content, they will be delighted that, at last, the dithering is over. The Secretary of State established the Davies committee in November 1998, and it reported in August last year. It is astonishing, although sadly characteristic, that it has taken all this time for the right hon. Gentleman to make up his mind.
The Opposition recognise the BBC's achievements and its important role in setting a benchmark of quality in national and international broadcasting. The BBC has made and, I hope, will continue to make a major contribution to the cultural life of the nation. However, the broadcasting world is changing rapidly: already, more than 3 million households have access to multi-channel digital television. That explosion of choice raises fundamental questions about the current and future role of the BBC. The Secretary of State's approach to the issue of BBC funding is flawed, because he has failed to define what the BBC exists to do in a multi-channel age. It is simply not good enough that he should oblige the licence fee payer to stump up more money for the BBC in the absence of a clear and modern definition of the BBC's role, and with only the vaguest wish list to define how the money is spent.
The House will be aware that the settlement announced today breaches the five-year settlement agreed in 1996 with the previous Government. That settlement was designed to fund the BBC's expansion into digital services and was hailed at the time by the BBC as "an historic breakthrough". In addition to real increases in the licence fee since 1996—it has already risen by £14.50—the BBC has benefited from a £244 million cash sum from the sale of its transmitters, which sum was earmarked expressly for preparing for the digital age; a 1 million increase in the number of licence fee payers; and welcome efficiency gains totalling £462 million. It is not obvious that the BBC is short of money.
The Secretary of State announced his commitment to the five-year settlement in December 1997 and did so again on setting up the panel—indeed, he expressly excluded discussions of the present settlement from the panel's considerations. Why has he changed his mind? Should not the BBC, like everyone else, cut its cloth to match its purse? What other public enterprise has reached agreement with the Government to break a formal funding formula in mid-term? What is special about the BBC? What guarantee can the Secretary of State offer that, if the BBC could not keep to a five-year funding agreement, it will adhere to a six to seven-year settlement?
Will the Secretary of State confirm that the settlement that he announced will in no way prejudice the negotiations or outcome of the charter renewal process,
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which is due to start in 2003? Is he aware that six years is a very long time indeed in broadcasting? What provision exists to revisit the funding question in the light of changing circumstances? What account has he taken of the impact of household growth on the BBC's fee income over the next six years?
What are the Treasury implications of today's statement, bearing in mind the fact that from September the taxpayer will be funding the licence fee for over-75-year-olds?
We welcome measures aimed at improving external scrutiny, but why has the Secretary of State chosen to ignore the recommendations of Davies on a role for the National Audit Office?
We also welcome the programme of reviews of the BBC's current digital services, and we hope particularly that the review process will examine channels such as News 24 to establish whether they meet their public service remit and represent value for money. Will the Secretary of State provide the House with more information on who will undertake the reviews? Will they be undertaken by departmental officials, or will the review groups include an element of independence?
As for tightening the approvals procedure for new services, will the Secretary of State make it clear that any new education services will require his explicit approval?
We warmly welcome the decision to introduce a half-price licence for registered blind people and to impose tougher requirements for improved subtitling, both of which we have been advocating. Does not the Secretary of State regret ducking the issue of reforming the existing concessionary arrangements, which will continue the inequities affecting people aged between 65 and 75?
While in welcoming mode, may I welcome the decision to do away with the digital licence tax—the tax on innovation—and congratulate the Secretary of State on finally burying that misconceived idea?
Finally, will the Secretary of State confirm that under the Conservatives, the viewer would have paid less? His announcement today will mean that instead of looking forward to a reduction in the licence fee, as they would have done under our settlement, viewers can look forward only to paying more—on average, £200 million more in each year for the next six years.
Does the right hon. Gentleman accept that the public do not have an unlimited appetite for handing money over to the BBC? Is it not the case that the best way further to undermine confidence in the licence fee is to keep putting it up?
Mr. Smith: The hon. Gentleman began by saying that the Opposition recognise the achievements and importance of the BBC. He cannot have it both ways: if we recognise the importance of the BBC and if we want it to continue to achieve into the new century and into the digital age, it must be properly funded. The settlement that I announced today does that.
The hon. Gentleman said that what we are doing breaches the original five-year settlement. It is, indeed, the case that the fourth and fifth years of that settlement will be breached by the new settlement. However, the previous settlement was put in place long before any of us was aware of the rapid take-up of digital television

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and the rapid development of new digital services. That settlement dictated the timing of the Davies report. The changes that have occurred led the Davies committee to conclude that it would be "incoherent" to maintain the previous formula.
The hon. Gentleman asked about the Treasury implications of today's announcement regarding the over-75s and whether it had been taken into account. The answer is yes, it has been taken into account. My right hon. Friend the Chancellor intends to put in place funding of £300 million for the over-75s concession.
The hon. Gentleman also asked who will undertake the review of new services and whether there would be an element of independence in those reviews. The answer is yes, there will be an element of independence and the reviews will, of course, report to me, as I have the statutory authority to give approval or not.
The hon. Gentleman asked whether any of the new education services would require my approval. The answer is yes. Any new services that the BBC undertakes will require my approval, and, under the settlement that I am establishing, consultation before that approval is given.
The hon. Gentleman asked a fundamental question about the purpose of the BBC in a digital age. We believe that the settlement is necessary because the BBC is a flagship for quality broadcasting and because it needs to increase its activities in its core services, in education, in developing interactive services, and in devolving services to the regions and nations of the United Kingdom.
Mr. John Maxton: I assure my right hon. Friend that the vast majority of Labour Members welcome his statement and the Government's commitment to the long-term future of the BBC in a digital world.
Does my right hon. Friend agree that if Britain is to continue to play a major role in what is now genuinely a world of broadcasting, it can be led only by a strong, well-financed BBC? It cannot be led by any other broadcasting organisation in this country. Will my right hon. Friend ensure that some of the money is used to digitalise the wonderful BBC archive so that it becomes available to a much wider audience through digital broadcasting and the Internet? Will he ensure that some of the money will be used to improve, develop and constantly update the superb BBC website, which is the envy of much of the world?
Mr. Smith: First, my hon. Friend rightly draws attention to the global importance of the BBC. It is important that the BBC leads our efforts to make available our quality programming, which is often the finest in the world, to the rest of the world. Secondly, he asked about the digitalisation of the BBC archives. That is primarily a matter for the BBC, but I am sure that those who make the decisions will have heard his comments.
Thirdly, my hon. Friend asked about BBC Online, which is one of the BBC's best achievements. As part of the package we announced, we envisage the BBC basing further development of its interactive services on the success of BBC Online.
Mr. Norman Baker: I welcome what Liberal Democrats believe to be a well-considered and balanced
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statement, which sets out a long-term, secure future for the BBC. If it is the Secretary of State's decision and not the Prime Minister's, I congratulate him on abandoning the idea of a digital licence fee supplement, which would have been an unwarranted poll tax.
I also welcome the ambitious targets that the Secretary of State has set for efficiency savings in the BBC. Will there be constant monitoring by the Department to ascertain whether the BBC is making those savings? The Secretary of State stated his intention to introduce further increases in the licence fee beyond those agreed for this year. Will they depend on the BBC's efficiency savings being met?
I welcome the Secretary of State's intention to take external views on the BBC's finances. Why was not the NAO mentioned in his statement? Will it be given a specific role to monitor the BBC's finances in the years ahead?
I welcome the Secretary of State's commitment to open processes. Will the House and the other place have the opportunity for an annual debate on the matters to which he referred today so that Members are able to assess whether the BBC is fulfilling the commitments that the Secretary of State outlined this afternoon?
I deplore the fact that the digital licence fee has been trailed in the newspapers in the past few days, with clear suggestions of the final decision. Will the Secretary of State confirm that it is not his intention to use Parliament simply as an official stamp for press stories that appear on the previous day? Did he authorise the briefing of newspapers on the matter? If not, will he investigate why the stories appeared in the newspapers yesterday and explain the reasons to Parliament?
Mr. Smith: On the hon. Gentleman's last and very serious point, the newspaper stories were so off the mark in their speculation that they did not provide a pre-emptive view of the statement. On the rest of his remarks, I hope that the proposals are well-balanced. They acknowledge that the BBC deserves additional funding, but we want much greater efficiency and much better scrutiny of what it does in return. He asked whether there would be an impact on the licence fee settlement if the BBC failed to make the savings that we want it to make. The answer is yes. We intend to hold it very firmly to the efficiency targets that we have put in place.
The hon. Gentleman also asked about the role of the NAO. We considered the Davies committee proposal about its role carefully, but made our decision for two reasons. First, the NAO does not have the expertise in fair trading issues and the division between commercial and public sector activity that we require in this exercise, and so is perhaps not the most appropriate body. Secondly, and perhaps more important, a political role is not appropriate in taking on such a degree of scrutiny of the BBC's finances. The detailed scrutiny is best done by an independent body, but its report should be made openly to the House of Commons and made available for scrutiny by it.
Mr. David Winnick: Are not a number of Tory MPs increasingly coming round to the view that the BBC, or a large chunk of it, should be privatised and given over to those who dominate the commercial sector? Needless to say, that would be the

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most undesirable outcome. The concessionary scheme for pensioners has been criticised by the Tories from their Front Bench, but in government did not they oppose changing the system at every opportunity and deny pensioners the concession that the Government are introducing later this year?
Mr. Smith: My hon. Friend is absolutely right, and the Tories continued their opposition even when my right hon. Friend the Chancellor made his welcome announcement a few months ago. A Conservative was reported as saying that the concession was an "empty gesture". It is not; it is of real importance to many thousands of people.
Mr. Roger Gale: Further to that answer, the Government appear to have taken a bad and inequitable system and made it worse. Now there is division not only between people in different homes, but between ages. However, we have got a start date out of them at last. The Chancellor made the announcement and passed the buck to the Department for Culture, Media and Sport. The DCMS has passed the buck to the BBC. Has the Department considered whether it will make available the relevant age and age-related information to enable the BBC to implement the proposal by 1 November? Given that the Government, for the first time, are paying £300 million in direct grant to the BBC, how long will it be before the Government begin to exercise political control over it?
Mr. Smith: We have chosen such a mechanism for implementing the concession for those aged 75 and over precisely because we do not want the Government to exercise political control over the BBC. Provided that primary legislation can be passed to enable it to do so, and as soon as that happens, the Department of Social Security will make details of everyone aged 75 and over available to the BBC so that they can be contacted.
Mr. John Grogan: Does my right hon. Friend welcome the widespread support given in evidence to the Select Committee for the principle of the licence fee, notably from BSkyB and the independent television sector, but also from virtually every witness other than Mr. Kelvin MacKenzie of Talksport? Does he also welcome the fall in licence fee evasion rates in recent years, which has been achieved largely by easy-payment schemes? Will he encourage the BBC to develop such schemes, particularly to allow monthly rather than quarterly payment of the licence fee?
Mr. Smith: I certainly join my hon. Friend in welcoming the wide support for the principle of the licence fee, and agree with him about the need to ensure that we have a properly funded BBC. I also agree with him about the need to ensure that easy-payment schemes are more readily available: that, indeed, is an element of the package that I have announced.
Miss Julie Kirkbride: I am sure the Secretary of State is aware of the majority view expressed by the Select Committee on Culture, Media and Sport, which contains a majority of Labour Members, that the BBC should not be given any further funds until the completion of a proper review of its services, and of what it should be doing in a multi-media age. Is the right hon.
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Gentleman also aware that many people will be very cross about having to pay more extra tax to watch their television sets—especially pensioners aged between 60 and 74, who are already angry about being left out of the Government's arrangements for free licences for those over 75?
Mr. Smith: Not giving the BBC further funds to enable it to ensure that its core services remain good, worth watching and of real quality, and that it can take a lead in developing new digital services, would render the country lacking in a high-quality BBC into the future. That is not a future that I—or, indeed, those to whom the hon. Lady refers—want.
Mr. Ben Bradshaw: I congratulate my right hon. Friend on standing up to the poodles of Rupert Murdoch and Conrad Black on the Opposition Benches. Does he agree not just that the BBC represents excellent value for money, but that public service broadcasting is still one of the things that this country does better than any other?
My right hon. Friend spoke of efficiency savings. Will he ensure that the BBC makes those savings within the army of bureaucrats, managers and accountants that it has appointed in the last 10 or 15 years, and not among programme makers?
Mr. Smith: I say a robust yes to my hon. Friend. Indeed, I note with great pleasure that in his very first statements as director general of the BBC, Greg Dyke has said that he intends to do precisely that.
Mr. Peter Brooke: The House enjoyed the irony in the Secretary of State's announcement that he had come to the House "at the very earliest opportunity". He went on to say that his financial proposals should be enough, without specifying for what BBC role they were to be enough. Does he agree that if you do not know where you are trying to go, any road will get you there?
Mr. Smith: I much enjoyed the right hon. Gentleman's succinct analysis of the Tory party in its current condition.
We have made it very clear where we want the BBC to go. We want to ensure that it can be a quality programme maker into the future, providing good programmes for the entire population, and that it continues to develop, in particular, education and interactivity services, and devolved services for the regions and nations of the United Kingdom.
Mr. Peter L. Pike: The Secretary of State rightly underlined the Government's support for and commitment to the future of the BBC. He specifically mentioned sport. Can he assure us that those who cannot afford satellite or cable television will still be able to see a fair measure of sport on the BBC?
Mr. Smith: I very much hope the BBC will continue to ensure that sport forms a key part of the menu of services that it offers on its channels. The listed events regulations require great national sporting events to be shown free-to-air in any case; but, in addition to that, the BBC must continue to view sport as part of its public service offering.
Mr. David Davis: I thank the Secretary of State for his letter to me about the

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National Audit Office, although I did not receive it until 11 minutes before his statement. He will understand, however, if I press him a little on the question of the Comptroller and Auditor General.
Despite the suggestion of the Davies panel, despite the recommendation of the Culture, Media and Sport Committee and despite the right hon. Gentleman's own comment that the BBC will have to satisfy the House in regard to the proper use of its money, he has decided not to allow the Comptroller and Auditor General—the House's Officer—to have access to the BBC.
The answers that the right hon. Gentleman gave a number of hon. Members were ill briefed. He said that the NAO had no experience of fair trading issues. In the past few years that I have been Chairman of the Public Accounts Committee, the NAO has conducted eight oversights of regulatory bodies. Six related to fair trading issues. The right hon. Gentleman also said that he needed to maintain the independence of the BBC. Over the past century, the NAO has overseen universities and maintained academic freedom. He has undermined that himself with the £300 million grant. He finished by saying that the reviews would report to him. Does he consider himself to be more independent than the CAG?
Mr. Smith: We considered very carefully the proposal from the Davies panel and from the Select Committee. The central question is how best to ensure that the BBC is opened up to the most effective scrutiny by the necessary experts, so that it maintains its fair trading commitments and has proper and robust financial systems in place. Our judgment was that that is best done by independent analysts reporting publicly, so that their analysis can be tested in debate and by questioning by the Select Committee. That is the best way to go forward.
Ms Claire Ward: I welcome the concessions that my right hon. Friend has set out and the scrutiny that will take place of the BBC. However, when the BBC appeared before the Select Committee, it was unable to give a convincing explanation of why it wanted the extra funding and of what it would do with it. Will my right hon. Friend ensure that account is given of that money and that scrutiny takes place, so that the situation that we have with News 24 does not arise again? A vast sum of money is being spent but there is no accountability to licence fee payers.
Mr. Smith: I can indeed assure my hon. Friend of that. It is precisely because the £700 million demand from the BBC was not well put together that we have concluded that it was not the appropriate figure to go for. Any new services, any development of efficiency in what the BBC is doing at the moment, and any spending of the additional funds that are being made available to it will be subject to the clearest scrutiny and the most open processes.
Mr. Simon Thomas: I welcome the Secretary of State's statement, which will be reasonably well received in Wales, particularly the news that there will not be a tax on digital knowledge. May I ask him for more reassurances that the cost-efficiency savings that he is seeking from the BBC should not be to the diminution
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of English-language BBC programmes in Wales? In fact, we should be working towards the setting up of an English-language digital service for Wales.
Mr. Smith: I can certainly assure the hon. Gentleman that any cost-efficiency savings that we demand of the BBC will not be at the cost of important public service programmes such as English-language programmes in Wales.
Ms Sally Keeble: I welcome my right hon. Friend's statement, but will he assure me of two things: first, that local radio stations will also be able to have access to digital broadcasting—for example, BBC Radio Northampton would want to provide services in that spectrum; and secondly, that, if the licence fee is to increase, it is important for the BBC to ensure that everyone can receive it?
The whole of the east of my constituency is unable to get any BBC or other terrestrial channel because they are all wired up for cable television. Even if people pay the licence fee, they will have to pay cable charges on top to get TV. It is important that people should be able to get the BBC, particularly if they are paying increased licence access to fee charges.
Mr. Smith: In response to my hon. Friend's question about digital radio, it is the case that digital radio is expected to roll out probably rather more slowly than digital television and will encompass local as well as national stations. On her key point about everyone having access to BBC services, I have made it clear that, before any overall switch-over from analogue to digital can take place, digital services, including BBC services, must be receivable by everyone who has a television set at the moment.
Mr. Stephen Dorrell: At a time when virtually every day seems to bring news of another agreement that will break down the distinction between traditional types of media and the new internet technologies, is it not increasingly clear that a nationalised institution that is prevented—and rightly so for as long as it remains a nationalised institution—from fully taking part in the multi-media world is in severe danger of becoming an anachronism?
Mr. Smith: It is precisely because the BBC has done so exceptionally well in the development of BBC Online, which brings together traditional and new interactive media, that we wish to ensure that funding is available for such services to be developed in the future.
Mr. Tam Dalyell: How, in the Secretary of State's beguiling words, is BBC Scotland to be enhanced? What can he offer the BBC World Service to prevent the closure of some of its valuable services, which are certainly worth more than missiles?
Mr. Smith: The BBC has in mind the need to develop further services for Scotland. How it sets about doing that will be a matter of considerable public discussion in the next few months. The subvention to the World Service is a matter for my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary, not me. My hon. Friend's question would more appropriately be addressed to him.
Sir Teddy Taylor: Does the Secretary of State accept that it is unjust that

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an old person living in a property specially designed for pensioners can obtain a low-priced television licence only if the property is owned by a council, a charity or a housing association? Is not that terribly unfair to those living in identical accommodation that happens to be privately owned? I know that the Secretary of State did not create the problem, but, as he is trying to change matters for the better, should he not at least look at that problem before he introduces new legislation?
Mr. Smith: I greatly sympathise with the hon. Gentleman's point, although, as he rightly points out, we inherited the situation and did not create it. We have tried to come up with the fairest and most achievable package of reforms for concessions. We believe that our package, which includes free television licences for the over-75s, half-price licences for blind people and the maintenance of the existing accommodation for residential care concessionary scheme, is achievable and affordable and the fairest that we could come up with.
Dr. Tony Wright: Did my right hon. Friend hear the hon. Member for East Surrey (Mr. Ainsworth) ask what was so special about the BBC? Does anyone who has seen the fate of "News at Ten" not know the answer to that? As not a single voice has been raised in support of the digital supplement, may I raise mine? I know that the decision was politically difficult, but would it not have been the fairest solution, certainly in the absence of extra help for low-income households?
Mr. Smith: We considered the digital licence supplement option carefully. As I said in my statement, we decided that it would not be the best option, particularly because the take-up of digital is rising so rapidly. We intend to ensure that an overall switch to digital will take place between 2006 and 2010. Putting a
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temporary measure in place that would fade out under the Davies formula as the date of switch-over arrived would not provide the BBC with the buoyancy that it requires. It was a difficult decision but on balance of argument we felt that it was better to go for a modest and gradual increase in the general licence fee.
My hon. Friend rightly says that to ask what is so special about the BBC is silly. It is self-evident that the BBC is a broadcaster of great quality, providing the people of this country with news, information and entertainment of the very highest quality. Indeed, it is one of the best things about Britain in this new global world. I want to ensure that we can maintain that.
Mr. Michael Fabricant: I welcome at least the fact that the Secretary of State said that the BBC is the hub of British cultural life, rather than claiming that for the millennium dome.
In its early years, the BBC avoided the ban on advertising in its broadcast media by having advertising in other media, such as the Radio Times and other publications, and by selling programmes overseas. Why did not the Secretary of State consider a third way for funding the BBC: having advertising on BBC Online using the new medium of the internet, and on some of the new digital channels, which are not the mainstream BBC, as BBC 1 and BBC 2 are? Many—not all—think that those traditional channels should continue to be funded as a public service.
Mr. Smith: Apart from the difficulties under the European Union state aid rules, we have no problem at all with the BBC taking advertising on any of its commercial services and publications. That is done at present, and there is much scope for expanding it further. We do not believe that it is right to have advertising on core BBC services.

Opposition Day
[5TH ALLOTTED DAY]
Opposition Day

  Education
  Madam Speaker: I have selected the amendment in the name of the Prime Minister. I have had to limit Back-Bench speeches to 10 minutes on the education motion only.
  4.22 pm
  Mrs. Theresa May: I beg to move,
  That this House notes the Government's failure to meet its manifesto commitment to spend a higher proportion of national income on education than the previous government, despite the Prime Minister's pledge that education would continue to have 'the first call on public resources'; deplores the Government's complacency in the face of the damage being done to excellence in education by increased bureaucracy, interference in schools, abolition of grant maintained status, introduction of grammar school ballots, obsession with targets and diversion of funds to meet political goals rather than the needs of schools; views with concern the Government's disregard for parental choice or student need; and calls on the Government to introduce common sense policies to improve standards by setting schools free, letting parents choose and trusting the professionals.
  In the general election campaign, the mantra of the then Leader of the Opposition was that his Government's priority would be education, education, education. Since then, the Labour Government have broken their manifesto commitment to increase the share of national income spent on education; introduced tuition fees, despite pledging that they had no plans to do so; abolished grant-maintained status; introduced rigged ballots to get rid of grammar schools; presided over a rise in average class sizes and in the proportion of pupils in classes of 31 or more; underfunded the teachers' pay award; produced mountains of red tape, with 400 regulations and about 1,000 circulars; caused the closure of about 2,000 pre-schools and playgroups; presided over a fall in the rate of improvement of standards in literacy and numeracy; introduced discrimination against English students in Scotland; cut spending per pupil; cut spending per student in higher education; put school sixth forms under threat; and pensioned off heads who would not do what they told them.
  Andy Warhol said that, in the future, everyone would be famous for 15 minutes. This Government will be famous for their 15 failures in education. As they have failed to deliver on their promises and presided over the beginning of a fall in standards, what has their reaction been? Typically of a Labour party that lives by press release and photo-opportunity, they have tried to spin themselves out of the problem. Far from education, education, education, we have had spin, trickery, betrayal.
  Let us consider education funding. The Labour party manifesto pledged to spend a higher proportion of the national income on education. What happened in the Government's first three years? The proportion of national income spent on education went down. Ministers may say that it is not fair to consider only one or two years, so I will be generous to the Government and consider the average of education spending over the previous and the present Government. The answer is still clear.
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  Under the Conservative Government, an average of 5 per cent. of national income was spent on education; in the five years of this Government, it will be 4.7 per cent.
  Let us consider what that means in actual money. [Interruption.] The Secretary of State says from a sedentary position that my figures are untrue, but they are independent figures produced by the Library.
  The Secretary of State for Education and Employment (Mr. David Blunkett): The figures that the hon. Lady put out in her press release today attempt to show what she has just described, but they do so by taking only the first three years of this Parliament and not including the full comprehensive spending review. In the previous Parliament, there was a fall of 0.3 per cent. in gross domestic product spent on education, and there will have been an increase of 0.2 per cent. of GDP as a proportion of national income in this Parliament.
  Mrs. May: As this is Maths Year 2000, I suggest that the Secretary of State has a few maths lessons. The source of my figures is the Treasury and the Office for National Statistics—
  The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education and Employment (Jacqui Smith): My right hon. Friend is right.
  Mrs. May: No, he is not right. Average spending by the last Conservative Government was 5 per cent. of national income and over the term of this Government, including the comprehensive spending review, it will be 4.7 per cent.
  What does that mean in actual money? Just to keep spending at the same level as the previous Government, Labour would need to put in not an extra £19 billion, as the Government have claimed, but an extra £32 billion. They are already £13 billion short even of keeping level with the previous Government's spending on education. That is the reality of another broken promise.
  What do the Government claim to be doing? They are announcing more money, more money, more money and more money. Indeed, the money for one programme has been announced 21 times. It is little surprise that, when they said education, education, education, they even had to announce that key policy three times. Every time that they announce more money, people think that it is new money, but it is not. We have looked at the Government's announcements of extra money for education in the past nearly three years and we have added them up. Do they come to the £19 billion that the Government told us that they would spend, or the £32 billion that they would need to spend to keep up with the last Conservative Government? No, they add up to £185 billion of extra spending on education—the equivalent of the Swedish GDP. It is a deliberate attempt by the Government to prove that they are doing something that they are not. They are saying one thing and doing another.
  Tell that figure to the secondary school I visited on Friday, which says that it cannot even afford paper for its pupils. Tell that to the Queen Elizabeth high school in Hexham, which has written an open letter to the Secretary of State saying:
  "Our goodwill is being severely tested by poor staff facilities in deteriorating buildings, by relentlessly increasing class sizes and by a lack of money to invest in the kinds of support which teachers need if they are to succeed.

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  We would welcome an explanation from you as to how, when faced with new challenges to meet, including Curriculum 2000, a real terms cut in the budget is being proposed for our school. This can only lead to a deterioration in our already unsatisfactory working environment and, ultimately, a deterioration in student achievement."
  Mr. Ronnie Campbell: I thank the hon. Lady for giving way, as she mentioned Hexham in Northumberland. Only this morning, the letter she is reading out appeared in the Newcastle edition of The Journal, and it was signed by 15 heads of high schools in Northumberland, all complaining of cuts and even suggesting that there has been a 1 per cent. cut in the Northumberland education authority budget.
  Mrs. May: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his intervention. I have visited schools in Northumberland and heard directly from them the genuine concerns that they have about the funding problems that they face. They hear what the Secretary of State tells them about money going into education, but they do not see it in their budgets. What they see are deteriorating conditions for their pupils.
  Mrs. Anne Campbell: In my constituency, the standard spending assessment per pupil—in real terms, at 2000–2001 prices—fell from £2,578 in 1992 to £2,464 at the end of the previous Government's term of office. Since then, it has increased to £2,591 under this Government—an all-time high, and higher than it ever was under a Tory Government.
  Mrs. May: I am pleased to say that Conservative-controlled Cambridgeshire county council has increased the amount spent on education above the SSA level. It is spending more than the increase that the Government have proposed.
  However, the problem of funding is not confined to Northumberland. A letter sent out to parents of a school in Dorset stated:
  "The general view being given is that Education is receiving substantial increases in funding from Central Government leading to higher level of funding in individual schools. The fact is that most of this increased funding is targeted at specific initiatives and Dorset County Council is required to make an equal contribution. School budgets in Dorset are at best standing still and in many cases reducing."
  From the Isles of Scilly authority, the Tresco Times stated:
  "Education, education, education—"
  Mr. Blunkett: The silly times.
  Mrs. May: The Secretary of State chooses to laugh, but I remind him that the Isles of Scilly authority is this country's best-performing local education authority. It has said:
  "Education, education, education. That was Mr. Blair's sound bite at the last election. Remember? Now the best Primary Schools in the country are coming under threat."
  Teachers and parents are becoming increasingly frustrated that the Government are all mouth and no delivery, and that the failure to deliver is damaging excellence in education. The right hon. Gentleman thinks it funny, but the Government are letting children down.
  Mr. Blunkett: I do not think it funny, but it is amusing that the hon. Lady should cite figures relating to the Isles
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  of Scilly authority, which has a cohort of 1,500 and no secondary school. Moreover, that LEA has invited me to open the extra facilities paid for by the new deal for schools.
  Mrs. May: I suggest that the Secretary of State prepare himself for the comments that he may hear from those schools. However, I am interested in what is happening in all this country's schools, not just in the chosen few. Unlike the right hon. Gentleman, I do not want to reject the Isles of Scilly simply because that LEA does not have any secondary schools. The right hon. Gentleman says that what is happening in those primary schools does not matter and that they should not be quoted as an example, yet the parents and teachers involved are worried about what is happening as a result of this Government's failure to deliver on their education pledges.
  Mr. Michael Fabricant: Does my hon. Friend agree that the problem goes further than the amount of money that is not getting to the chalk face? The Government made another promise before the election. Labour party spokesmen—they are Ministers now—said that a Labour Government would equalise the amounts of funding available to counties, and that they would resolve that problem in their first year in office. However, the Government are now saying that they will not even consider the matter until after the next election. When the Minister for School Standards was asked about that, she said that Staffordshire and other counties should not worry and that Wigan and Poole were worse off than Lichfield.
  Mrs. May: My hon. Friend is absolutely right. I intend to comment on some of the funding inequities that exist between the education authorities. The Government promised to sort out the problem inside one year but, three years on, they have not even started looking at the matter. That is yet another broken promise—another of the Government's failures to deliver on one of the pledges that they made when they took office.
  Mr. Tom King: If the Secretary of State is going to make fun of the Scilly Isles, perhaps, on the way there, he might be encouraged to call in to the secondary school in Somerset that I visited on Friday. They were discussing whether full-time teachers or part-time assistants, in one form or another, would have to have their hours cut, how great the reductions would be and how strange they found it that, three years into education, education, education, they should be facing such a situation.
  Mrs. May: My right hon. Friend rightly points out the very real decisions that schools have to take against the background of the Government's failure. The Secretary of State always quotes broad figures, but the reality is what is happening in schools in Somerset, such as that to which my right hon. Friend referred. Difficult, harsh decisions are being taken about teaching staff and classroom assistant redundancies, reductions in the number of courses and the inability to buy the equipment and books needed for the school. That is the reality of this Government's education policies. Yet they continue to try to spin themselves out of the problem.
  Mr. Geoffrey Clifton-Brown: Would my hon. Friend care to comment on the situation in Gloucestershire? I had a letter from the Secretary of State, informing me that Gloucestershire local education authority, already one of the lowest funded of any county, was this year to receive a lower-than-average increase in standard spending assessment while having an above-average increase in the number of pupils. Gloucestershire LEA is so poor that it cannot afford to apply for the full amount of the new deal in schools, which the Secretary of State makes so much of, because it cannot produce the match funding. How should I respond to the teachers and head teachers in Gloucestershire who, for the second year running, have had a standstill budget for their schools?
  Mrs. May: The answer to the head teachers and governors in those schools is that that is a direct result of the Government's education policies.
  The spin does not even stop there. On several occasions, Ministers have said in the House that the Government are increasing the spending per pupil by £200. Yet the figures show that the average spending per pupil under this Government is more than £50 less than that under the previous Conservative Government. That is nothing new. We already knew that the average spending per student in higher education was £135 less under this Government than under the previous one—and that from a Government whose Prime Minister promised only last December that education will continue to have the first call on public resources. Or perhaps the Secretary of State will tell us this afternoon that that was just an aspiration.
  Mr. Nick Hawkins: While my hon. Friend is talking about the use of resources, would she care to comment on a matter that is raised repeatedly with me at schools in my constituency by teachers, head teachers and governors, about the amount of money that the Government spend on glossy brochures? They are besieging teachers and governors with vast amounts of publicity material containing Government spin—there is nothing in them to help with teaching, nothing to help pupils.
  Jacqui Smith: Like what? Name just one.
  Mr. Hawkins: Every day, another glossy brochure arrives. If the Government spent less money on them, would that not be better for education?
  Mrs. May: My hon. Friend is absolutely right. I was in a primary school recently, where the head teacher pointed to a bookshelf full of glossy Government publications. She said that she wished that she had only a very small percentage of the money that was being spent on those to spend in her school. Perhaps the Secretary of State could offer to stop publishing his speeches in glossy publications—that would save a little money.
  The Government, faced with the reality of their actions, will never take responsibility for them. They always try to blame the local education authorities. The Secretary of State is keen to tell us how much more money LEAs are getting for education—he can even get the figure up to an increase of more than 8 per cent.—but those are fantasy figures. The actual amount of money received by the authorities is much less, as my hon. Friend the Member for Cotswold (Mr. Clifton-Brown) pointed out. However,
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  I do not need to rely on my hon. Friends to point that out to me. The Secretary of State told us so—at least, he told that to the School Teachers Review Body in a letter written last December.
  Mr. Blunkett: That is old news.
  Mrs. May: The Secretary of State says that they heard that last week. I am sorry, but I am going to quote a different part of the letter today. Is the Secretary of State saying that he is embarrassed about his letter to the School Teachers Review Body, and that he does not want his words to be repeated so that more people understand the reality of his actions?
  In the letter, the Secretary of State said—far from the 8 per cent. increase that he had claimed local authorities would receive—that
  "some authorities have receive grant increases which would make a pay award much greater than inflation difficult to handle. For example, Newcastle has an education uplift of only 3.47 per cent., Sunderland has 3.44 per cent. and Middlesbrough has 3.67 per cent."
  That does not sound like more than 8 per cent. to me—even if the Department has its figures right.
  Imagine the consternation in Leicestershire when the local education authority—the lowest-funded shire county authority—was told that its share of the £50 million Government grant to LEAs would be £8,000. Leicestershire had been given the figure for the Isles of Scilly, and every LEA was told the wrong grant figure. How much did that piece of departmental incompetence cost schools?
  Leicestershire is a member of the new deal-fair deal group—formerly G40—and my right hon. Friend the Member for Charnwood (Mr. Dorrell), my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Harborough (Mr. Garnier), and my hon. Friends the Members for Rutland and Melton (Mr. Duncan), for Blaby (Mr. Robathan) and for Bosworth (Mr. Tredinnick) wrote to the press to point out the absurdity of the Government's position. If Leicestershire county council spent what the Government advise, it would have to cut education spending by £85 a pupil. Instead, the council—under a Conservative leader—is increasing education spending.
  The Secretary of State does not even listen when authorities want to discuss funding with him. Last November, the chairman of the regional assembly for Yorkshire and Humberside wrote to the Secretary of State about education funding. He wrote to the permanent secretary in late January on the same subject. In his letter, he said:
  "One common problem we face … is the relatively poor level of funding for education in the region that is available through the Standard Spending Assessment when compared with other regions, not to mention Scotland."
  The chairman was writing on his own behalf, and for the chairmen of all the local authorities in Yorkshire. He has yet to receive a reply.
  The Government try to blame LEAs, but are simultaneously increasing control over what the authorities do. More and more, money is made available only if the LEA does what the Government tell it to. In a letter to me on 25 January, the Minister for School Standards said that
  "£50 million extra grant … will go to all local education authorities."

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  However, some authorities, such as Shropshire, have been told that they will receive the money only if they do as the Government say they should on their SSAs.
  The best example of central control is the standards fund. The money will be spent on the Government's priorities, not on the priorities of the schools. With this Government, children come last.
  Liz Blackman: As the debate is on education, and fundamentally, therefore, about children, will the hon. Lady mention improved standards at some point?
  Mrs. May: If the hon. Lady had been listening to the beginning of my speech, she would have heard me quote comments from teachers to the effect that the problems caused by her Government's failure to deliver in education are causing a real threat to school standards. That is the reality of the situation. The hon. Lady may shrug her shoulders, but I suggest that she visits schools in Northumberland, because that was the view expressed by a school in Hexham and in others in that county.
  Under the standards fund, Labour-controlled Luton is receiving the equivalent of £114 pupil while Conservative-controlled Wokingham receives less than £55. Is that fair funding? The Government said that there would be a cap on the amount of money in the standards fund, but the proportion of education total spending provided through the fund will rise from 1.8 to 7.6 per cent. The point is that that money is being spent on what the Government think right, not on what schools think right. Schools should be given budgets and the freedom to decide what is right for them. It is common sense to say that heads and teachers know best what is right in the classroom. We want freedom for schools—not departmental dictatorship. The greatest madness in the Government's funding figures is that Sheffield has to cut school budgets in order to obtain access to Government funding—robbing Peter to pay Paul.
  My hon. Friend the Member for Surrey Heath (Mr. Hawkins) referred to bureaucracy. Much is spent on that. We asked teachers about bureaucracy and they told us:
  "Bureaucracy has increased massively since the Labour Government came to power."
  They confirmed that bureaucracy had certainly increased, saying:
  "The bureaucratic burden on heads is such that being with children in a classroom occasionally has to be firmly held as a priority or is lost under tides of policies and administration."
  The damage to schools and to children's education does not stop with funding and with increased bureaucracy. One of the Government's first acts was to abolish grant-maintained status, despite their manifesto commitment that
  "Schools that are now grant maintained will prosper with Labour's proposals."
  Prosper—as their budgets fall, as they are forced to make teachers redundant, as they are forced to cut back on courses or as they ask parents to pay? Perhaps the Secretary of State would like to ask the Prime Minister about that last point.
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  Another of Labour's promises that bit the dust when they came into office was that grammar schools were safe in their hands. In a letter of 10 February 1997 about Wirral, the Prime Minister, then the Leader of the Opposition, wrote:
  "Let me put the record straight. A Labour Government will not close your grammar schools. That is my personal guarantee."
  However, the guarantee went further. In 1997, the Secretary of State said:
  "There's no threat to the continuance of the grammar schools or to their ethos or their quality."
  He said that he had felt "enormous energy" when he had visited Wirral grammar school for girls. I suggest that the right hon. Gentleman will need only the energy to run away from parents who see their children's educational chances being taken away by the Government.
  Mr. Blunkett: The energy that I felt came from the right hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Mr. Forth), who broke into the school because I was there. He even tried to persuade the press to join him, although the head and the governors had banned him from the school.
  Mrs. May: I am not certain that that intervention added anything to the debate. It merely suggests that the Secretary of State always runs away when he sees my right hon. Friend the Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Mr. Forth).
  I am not surprised that the Secretary of State wants to change the subject, because he gets a little nervous when we talk about selection. Under the Labour Government, specialist schools can select pupils according to aptitude. Under the right hon. Gentleman's excellence in cities programme, schools can select between 5 and 10 per cent. of their pupils according to ability. That is the man who said, at a Labour party conference in 1995:
  "watch my lips: no selection by examination or interview".
  The right hon. Gentleman was pressed on that matter in an interview with Jonathan Dimbleby, who pointed out that the excellence in cities programme states that selection
  "will be based in significant measure on the results of National Curriculum tests, public examinations and other available tests data".
  The right hon. Gentleman replied:
  "Well they self-select so it's not a selection process based on a one-off examination … This is not about saying a small elite must be selected, must be educated well and, and, and …"
  He trailed off, because he had failed to understand that, under the excellence in cities programme, he accepts selection in schools, but that he denies some schools the opportunity to continue to be selective.
  At present, a ballot for grammar schools is taking place in Ripon. Parents are working not only to save a grammar school but to protect the school system in that town. Ripon grammar school and Ripon college have both served that town well for a long time. One of the greatest problems faced by parents is uncertainty, because of the disruption that will be caused if the school structure is changed, should the vote go against the grammar school.
  The Government have failed on so many of their pledges. They have failed on their class size pledge: average class sizes are going up and the proportion of

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  pupils in classes of more than 31 is going up. Tell Bob Bushell up at Northfold county primary school in Cleveleys that class sizes are falling; he has to teach a class of 41. Yet again, we see the Government failing to deliver on their pledges in education.
  The Government promised that their priority would be education, education, education. They have failed to deliver on their pledge to support grammar schools. They have failed to deliver on their pledge to let grant-maintained schools prosper. Class sizes are rising, bureaucracy is burgeoning and spending per pupil and spending per—
  Mr. Vernon Coaker: Will the hon. Lady give way?
  Mrs. May: Too late. I am sorry; I am just coming to the conclusion.
  Jacqui Smith: This is the climax.
  Mrs. May: I am just coming to the—
  Mr. Deputy Speaker (Sir Alan Haselhurst): Order. I am sorry to interrupt the hon. Lady. I really have heard enough from the Under-Secretary. That is not the way to behave on the Front Bench.
  Mrs. May: Thank you, Mr. Deputy Speaker.
  The Government have failed to deliver on their pledge to support grammar schools. They have failed to let grant-maintained schools prosper. Class sizes are rising. Bureaucracy is burgeoning. The Government have failed to deliver on their funding pledges. It is little wonder that one teacher has told us:
  "Look, I have never voted Conservative before, but there is one thing that might make me do so next time—this current Government."
  Instead of education, education, education, we have had spin, trickery, betrayal. Labour is letting our children down. This country needs the commonsense policies that will give freedom to schools, allow parents to choose, trust the professionals, raise standards, provide the education that is right for every child and lead to excellence in education—commonsense policies that will be delivered only by a Conservative Government.
  4.51 pm
  The Secretary of State for Education and Employment (Mr. David Blunkett): I beg to move, To leave out from "House" to the end of the Question, and to add instead thereof:
  "welcomes the Government's commitment to raising standards and achieving excellence for all from the early years to life-long learning after 18 years of neglect; recognises that education spending will rise as a share of national income over the course of this Parliament, in contrast to a decline of 0.3 per cent. between 1991–92 and 1996–97; recognises the early success in lowering class sizes in the early years and the achievement of introducing the literacy and numeracy strategies which, with the hard work and commitment of teachers, have raised standards; supports the promotion of diversity which will deliver excellence for the many and not the few; recognises the role of specialist schools and the importance of excellence in cities; supports the drive to raise standards in
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  secondary schools through the extension of the literacy and numeracy strategies and an expanded programme of summer schools; recognises the value of teachers and supports the new proposals for performance-related promotion; recognises the role of school leaders; notes the increase of £1.8 billion in funding for schools and Local Education Authorities in England for the coming year and the role of the fair funding framework in tackling excessive bureaucracy and ensuring that increased funding benefits classroom services; notes the increased resources made available to expand access and improve quality in further and higher education; and supports the Government's determination to build a socially inclusive knowledge economy in which learning and skills are the foundation of success and prosperity.".
  I wish to address the motion in a way that the hon. Member for Maidenhead (Mrs. May) failed to do. She spent two thirds of her speech advocating that more money be spent on education. No Conservative spokesman could display greater cheek than the hon. Lady does in lecturing us on education spending. Over the period of the last Conservative regime, spending was slashed in real terms. In 1995, as the Conservatives started to slash education spending, governors, parents and teachers took to the streets even of market towns—even in places such as Maidenhead, which the hon. Lady represents—to march. They did so because they could feel the impact, in terms of what was happening in the classroom, what was happening to teachers and what was happening to the buildings around them.
  If we examine just a little of what the hon. Lady is saying in the light of what happened to education under Conservative Governments and what is happening under ours, we shall obtain a better picture of the real legacy that she and her colleagues bequeathed to us.
  Back in 1995, people were on the streets demanding an end to the retrenchment that had led to schools without books, to crumbling classrooms, to a total failure to introduce any policy on information and communication technology, to a failure to implement any form of literacy and numeracy strategy, to a lack of any form of programme to reward teachers, and to the absence of any method of relaxing the curriculum to allow teachers—in the language of the Conservative motion—the freedom to determine for themselves how to set about the task.
  Although the hon. Lady did not mention the fact, the motion speaks of the
  "obsession with targets and diversion of funds to meet political goals".
  Well, I plead entirely guilty to that. Those political goals are absolutely clear. We made a class size pledge. In infant schools, there were 485,000 youngsters in classes of over 30; now there are 171,000, and the number is falling. In primary education, for 10 years, class sizes increased year on year; for the first time, we have stabilised and reduced them. Average class sizes and pupil-teacher ratios are falling for the first time in 10 years.
  Yes, we have made a commitment to introduce sure start programmes to invest in the foundations of children's education and development. Yes, we have used ring-fenced money, which did not go into the revenue support grant, specifically to introduce new provision for the early years, to ensure that all four-year-olds have the choice of a nursery place, if their parents wish it, and to double the places available for three-year-olds. Under the Tories, there was no programme; there was simply a voucher system for four-year-olds. That is what we inherited. We have insisted that there should be an

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  improvement in the adult-pupil ratio in our schools; so, over the next two and a half years, 20,000 teaching assistants—directly paid for with ring-fenced money—will be available.
  The hon. Lady mentioned Sheffield. Through excellence in cities, we have now ensured that match funding does not have to be found in the six major conurbations to which the earmarked, specialist funding is provided. We will therefore be able to transform the life chances of children in our major cities and we will do what the previous Conservative Government never did—target resources where they are really needed.
  Mrs. May: The Secretary of State has referred to the fact that the 100 per cent. grant will now be given to schools in the excellence in cities areas. Will he confirm that schools will be able to receive 100 per cent. of the grant only if the local authority puts in its full bid for standards fund money?
  Mr. Blunkett: An authority will have the money available to put in the initial amount only if it actually applies for the money in the first place. That is certainly true. The standards fund, to which the hon. Lady referred, is additional ring-fenced money over and above the revenue support grant and has been applied directly to the policies that she has dismissed: namely, those targeted political policies known as the literacy and the numeracy strategies. Far from undermining the life chances of children, those strategies are beginning to transform them.
  Why did we set about the ring-fenced, earmarked and targeted funding that the hon. Lady mentioned? Why have we taken the actions that we have? It was because, when we took office, four out of 10 children could not read, write or add up properly at the age of 11. The hon. Lady can judge whether that is a legacy to be proud of.
  Helen Jones: Is my right hon. Friend surprised, as I am, that the speech of the hon. Member for Maidenhead (Mrs. May) made no mention of the latest Ofsted report? In it, the chief inspector of schools refers to rising standards, particularly at key stage 2, and says:
  "This is a very significant and promising development, which is directly linked to the National Literacy and Numeracy Strategies".
  Why does my right hon. Friend think that there was no mention of that in the hon. Lady's speech?
  Mr. Blunkett: Because the hon. Lady never attempted once to talk about what is happening in the classroom to improve the life chances or achievement of children. In fact, I am not sure how many times she mentioned children other than to suggest that, somehow, what was needed was the extra money that the Conservative Government had not allocated to them. It was the height of jiggery-pokery, to use a slightly different term.
  Several hon. Members rose—
  Mr. Blunkett: That has got people going. Which of the pokery and jiggery shall I give way to first? How about the hon. Member for Brentwood and Ongar (Mr. Pickles)?
  Mr. Eric Pickles: When the right hon. Gentleman examined the Ofsted reports, did he
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  see the report on the St. Martin's school and the Anglo-European school in my constituency, which were designated exceptional secondary schools? The reward to those schools and other secondary schools in my constituency is to lose £1.2 million funding this year and to face the prospect of having to make teachers redundant and reducing education provision for my constituents. Is that any way to reward excellence?
  Mr. Blunkett: I am very happy to consider the school in question—the Anglo-European school. We shall ensure that we make access available to it and that we examine its resources. However, we have given absolute guarantees to the schools that the hon. Member for Maidenhead mentioned and which receive additional funding because they are grant maintained, rather than because of their pupil numbers or particular circumstances. We have given absolute guarantees of continued funding in real terms and we shall continue to ensure that those schools are supported.
  I believe the right hon. Member for Wokingham (Mr. Redwood) was among those who wished to intervene earlier.
  Mr. John Redwood: Does the Secretary of State understand how offensive it can seem to someone teaching in a primary school on the Isles of Scilly or in a primary school in Wokingham that has had its funding cut when he laughs at the name of the Isles of Scilly, which has real educational problems, and when he authorises large sums of expenditure on glossy brochures to publish his own speeches and other words from the Department for Education and Employment? Is not that the wrong priority? Will he now say sorry, and will he say that more money will be made available to primary schools in need?
  Mr. Blunkett: I did not, as the right hon. Gentleman knows, laugh at the education system in the Isles of Scilly. Certainly I laughed at the attempt by the hon. Member for Maidenhead to draw conclusions for England as a whole from the situation in the Isles of Scilly, where the Government are protecting, and will continue to protect through our small schools fund, schools that would otherwise have been threatened by the actions and policies of the previous Government.
  Under that Government, there was no small schools fund and no attempt to ensure that schools could stay open by linking technology, by co-operative working and by pulling schools together instead of making them compete with each other. There is now a fund specifically to provide small primary schools with administrative support so that head teachers are free to do their job. All that is entirely new and did not exist under the previous Government.
  I shall not apologise for putting out the speech on the future of secondary education from the north of England conference, because secondary education had been grossly neglected by the previous Government, standards had not been maintained and almost a third of children in the first year of secondary schools found themselves going backwards. We face a major issue in tackling the under-achievement in our secondary sector: to provide diversity, to increase specialism and to ensure that we have a truly comprehensive system.
  Nor do I apologise for putting out a major statement on the future of higher education—an issue that the previous Government ducked time and time again. The hon. Lady

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  had the audacity to say that we were cutting funding per pupil. Between 1989 and 1997, there was a cut of £2,500 per university student, and we have reversed 36 per cent. of that. We have cut the efficiency gains to 1 per cent., as recommended by Dearing. We have put in £1.1 billion—an increase of 11 per cent. in real terms—over the three years of the spending review, and we have lifted the cap on numbers.
  Mrs. May: As the Secretary of State has specifically referred to Dearing and the 1 per cent. efficiency gains, will he comment on the remarks of the Association of University Teachers—that current expenditure plans not only do not provide for tuition fee income to be additional income but go well beyond Dearing's call for 1 per cent. efficiency gains for two years, amounting to a"plan for cuts of this level for the remainder of the current spending plans"?
  Mr. Blunkett: I do not accept that for a moment. We announced that we would retain the 1 per cent. cuts that we introduced rather than the enormous 4 per cent. real terms cuts that were taking place under the previous Government, and we have said that we will do so throughout the remainder of this spending review. We have put in an extra £295 million for 2001, bringing the total increase, as I said, to 11 per cent. in real terms. We have every intention in the spending review of ensuring that we maintain a world-class university system that is open, equal and equitable for all students, not just those who can afford it.
  Over and above the revenue support grant increase of 5.4 per cent. for the coming year, we have funded the teachers' pay award. The better teachers do, the better we shall pay them, and we shall encourage their professional development and provide performance-related promotion. That is all ring-fenced money on top of the amount available in the revenue support grant, and responds entirely to schools that ask us to ensure that when there are substantial changes of that sort, they get the money directly, rather than through the standard spending assessment.
  Mr. John Bercow: In order that Conservative Members, at least, may prick up our ears in readiness, will the right hon. Gentleman be good enough to tell the House at what point in his speech he intends to refer to, and to apologise for, the massive damage that he inflicted on children's education during his tenure as leader of Sheffield city council?
  Mr. Blunkett: That beggars belief. Let me put the facts on the record. I accept responsibility in respect of the city of Sheffield for the years 1980 to 1987. In 1985, a report by Her Majesty's inspectorate said that Sheffield's was one of the three best education authorities in the country. That was matched by an Audit Commission report that said that Sheffield's public services were "a shining example".
  I stand on my record on education and the comparability of Sheffield with other cities. If I had my time again, I would have introduced 15 years ago some of the measures that the Government are introducing now. The children of Sheffield would have had a greater chance
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  of receiving a better education. However, at that time, we faced a Conservative Government who slashed public expenditure at every opportunity, denigrated public service, undermined the education system and encouraged people to go private. Anyone who looks back to those years should feel ashamed of the former Government's actions.
  The Conservative Government allowed our schools—public buildings—to deteriorate to the extent that we have had to double expenditure just to return some of them to the state in which they provide an acceptable environment where teachers can teach and pupils can be taught. In two years' time, 11,000 schools will have benefited from the new deal for schools—a programme introduced, not with match funding, but with direct grant; not with credit approvals and borrowing, but with direct funding—to ensure that schools obtain the sort of investment that they never got under the previous Government. That is what we have been doing at every stage, through the standards fund work with head teachers and the new leadership college to bring about a transformation of management; through helping small schools; and through the improvement grants made under the standards fund.
  The Opposition motion speaks of "setting schools free"; I am not sure what the Conservative notion of a free school is. It talks of parental choice, but so-called free schools are the ones that choose the child—that is what happened under the Conservative Government. The motion talks about "trusting the professionals", but the Conservatives have opposed the improvement of professional standards through professional development matched by increased pay—extra resources that will be in the pay packets of hundreds of thousands of teachers in the years to come. Instead of attacking the changes that the Labour Government have made, Conservative Members should take a leaf out of the shadow Chancellor's book and re-examine their policies to find ways of mirroring, matching and challenging us on the basis of improving standards.
  We know that our schools need more resources and that greater investment is desirable; with our economic policies and our growth record, it will be possible for the Labour Government to achieve those goals. We also know that in the last three years of the Conservative Government, not only did the proportion of gross domestic product invested in education start to fall, but there were real-terms cuts in spending on primary education of £80 per pupil, pupil-teacher ratios worsened, and class sizes rocketed. In 1997, we inherited a budget profile that, had we implemented it, would have resulted in 15,000 teachers losing their jobs; instead, we immediately put in £835 million. We had promised to stabilise and freeze spending, but we did not; instead, we put in more money and saved schools from disaster. Then we started the process of investment.
  Under the spending review, in the final three years of this Parliament, spending on education as a proportion of GDP will rise, based on the new European resource accounting model. It is no good quoting figures that do not compare like with like. The House of Commons Library is welcome to see the figures that we at the DFEE and the Treasury are using—figures that include not just revenue support, but all the ring-fenced resources that I

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  have described this afternoon, which are going into schools to raise standards and lift opportunities for our children.
  Mr. Edward Garnier: I am grateful to the Secretary of State. If we are to compare like with like, may I compare South Wigston high school in my constituency before and after the election? Before the election, the head teacher was able to increase the number of teachers and to improve and expand the buildings belonging to the school. Since the election, as a direct consequence of what the Government have done, the head teacher's income budget has fallen and he may have to get rid of three teachers. Will the right hon. Gentleman add that to the general problem that those of us who represent Leicestershire seats have found with his Government's policy on education spending?
  Mr. Blunkett: We will take no lectures about the distribution of spending. We inherited what we have; we did not invent it. It was the hon. and learned Gentleman's Government who invented it, and we are doing our best to ensure that we get things right. I would welcome Conservative-controlled authorities presenting proposals for changes in standard spending assessment which they believe would be right and fair across the country. When they do so, through the Local Government Association, it will be possible to take them seriously.
  If authorities are not—I hesitate to use the jargon term "passporting", in case sketch writers get their own back on us all, as they did last week, and a suitable reminder it was too—passing on the hard won resources that we are allocating to them, so that schools can spend that money on the improvement in standards that we are seeking, we will take action this summer to make sure that they do. For the first time, we have the figures. For the first time, we will know what is being spent on administration and bureaucracy, and we will be able to do something about it.
  Mr. Phil Willis: Will the Secretary of State give way?
  Mr. Blunkett: I will in a moment, as I have not given way to the Liberals yet. [HON. MEMBERS: "There is only one here."] In that case, I had better give way straight away.
  Mr. Willis: May I assure the Secretary of State that what we lack in numbers, we make up in quality?
  The right hon. Gentleman makes a serious point about the standard spending assessment and the fact that it has not changed since the Government came in, as was promised. Will he admit, however, that with more and more funding being centrally directed, the time has come to stop the nonsense about maintaining a standard spending assessment, and to accept that the minimum entitlement that he expects schools to deliver through the curriculum should be funded by a minimum entitlement through his Department or through local authorities?
  Mr. Blunkett: The hon. Gentleman makes a valuable point. There is a case to be made for a basic entitlement for pupils at various key stages. That debate should be set in the context of the review and the proposed Green Paper. I look forward to his party contributing constructively to that debate, as he has this afternoon.
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  The proof of the pudding is what is happening to children in schools and whether standards are rising. My hon. Friend the Member for Warrington, North (Helen Jones) referred to the chief inspector's report. At key stage 2, there have been a 10 percentage point improvement in numeracy and a five percentage point improvement in literacy in just one year, both of which were attributed by the chief inspector to the very literacy and numeracy programmes that have been denigrated by Opposition Members. GCSE and A-level results are improving year on year.
  In the words of the chief inspector, over four out of every five schools have undergone an improvement in their teaching compared with the previous year. Lessons are judged to be good and improving. Those judged to be good have risen from 54 per cent. to 58 per cent. in just one year. Unsatisfactory lessons are down by a quarter on the previous year. Leadership and management are seen to be improving.
  All that is happening around us—it is there for people to see. For the first time since the regime was introduced, more schools are coming out of special measures than are going in. A higher proportion of gross domestic product is being spent on education. Real improvements are taking place in the classroom, with an average of £4,000 being spent on additional books in every school. Those funds are provided directly by the Government, and do not come through the revenue support grant.
  Whether we consider early-years and primary education, or the action that we are trying to take on diversity and specialism—such as beacon schools and excellence in secondary education in cities—or our programme for further and higher education, the Government put the people's money where the people's mouth is. We are improving the chances of every child in the country by intervening when necessary, supporting when appropriate, increasing professional development, paying teachers more, rewarding them well and celebrating success wherever it occurs.
  5.15 pm
  Mr. Phil Willis: At the end of his remarks, the Secretary of State tried to address one of the saddest features of education debates—the impression that we often give the public and the press that our education system is failing and in total crisis. I reject that.
  My party and I have often criticised Her Majesty's chief inspector of schools. However, in this year's report, he made several positive statements. For example:
  "The quality of teaching has improved in all types of schools, in all subjects and in all year groups".
  That is a positive message to send to our teachers. The report also states:
  "More headteachers are raising expectations and challenging and supporting their staff".
  That is also positive. The report continues:
  "Nearly nine out of ten Secondary Schools inspected had a higher proportion of good teaching compared with the previous inspection".
  Those comments need to be emphasised from our Benches. We must constantly tell our teachers, governors and heads that they are doing a good job.
  Let us consider the improvements in GCSE results in the past 10 years. In 1989, 203,105 A to C results or their equivalents were gained compared with 278,300 last year.

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  A-level results give an indication of the number of students who stay on at school, or go to sixth form or further education colleges post 16. They have not even been mentioned in the debate. In 1989, 87,800 students had three or more A-levels compared with 151,300 students last year. That is a remarkable 80 per cent. increase in the number of students who obtain three or more A-levels. We should put it on record that we accept that our teachers, heads, governors and students are doing well in our schools. We should not accept the view that is commonly held in the Tory party and increasingly, I am sad to say, by the Government, that because the state provides the majority of a service, it must, by definition, be failing. It is not.
  The hon. Member for Maidenhead (Mrs. May) made interesting comments. I expected the vast majority of comments during a Tory Opposition day debate to be about the Tories' review of education and the lessons they had learned from 18 years in government and three years in opposition. After all, they have consulted widely about their policies, and introduced "The Common Sense Revolution". I wondered why the right hon. Member for Richmond, Yorks (Mr. Hague) jumped on the back of a lorry to begin his latest disastrous campaign when he would have been better served by putting all the "Common Sense Revolution" documentation on the back of it and driving it to the nearest recycling plant. I go further; the latest common-sense utterances on education should carry the following health warning: "These policies, if implemented, could serious damage your child's education".
  I cannot believe that after such a disastrous defeat in 1997, with education policies that had failed and been universally derided, Conservative Members should take the same tack, with the same philosophy that competition, division and fewer resources form the basis for a better education system.
  Mr. Redwood: Will the hon. Gentleman explain how trusting parents and teachers could possibly damage children's education? Will he stop misrepresenting a policy that acknowledges the need for allocating proper sums of money?
  Mr. Willis: May I thank the right hon. Gentleman for that intervention and say how marvellous it is that he attends debates regularly now that he is a Back Bencher. He was a serious Minister, but he has not once apologised for the gross underfunding of our schools, our colleges and our universities.
  Mr. Stephen Dorrell: Answer the question.
  Mr. Willis: I shall answer the hon. Gentleman. I am sorry; I shall answer the right hon. Gentleman. I apologise profusely for that omission.
  Nothing in the Conservatives' remarks today or their so-called revolution addresses the further education sector, which was set loose in a sea of confusion in 1993 with the sole aim of reducing the cost base in our FE colleges. We have heard nothing from Conservative Members to address the mounting problems in our
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  universities, where under-investment in teaching and research were the hallmarks of their Administrations. Instead, we hear puerile attacks on schools and local education authorities and solutions that are simple, but not credible. Successive Tory Governments undermined state education to almost total breaking point, but the common-sense answer is more of the same with knobs on.
  The Conservatives' rallying cry is, "We will set our schools free." Free from what and from whom? According to the previous Government's Education Reform Act 1988, schools are free to carry out a vast array of tasks. What greater freedoms do they seek than those under the School Standards and Framework Act 1998?
  Mrs. May: The hon. Gentleman has made a couple of references to what he perceives as the failure of the Conservative party's education policies. Can he tell us which policies the Liberal party rejects: the introduction of the national curriculum, the introduction of the Office for Standards in Education or the introduction of testing?
  Mr. Willis: I shall answer the hon. Lady directly. As a head, I supported the introduction of the national curriculum until it arrived at the school—lorry load after lorry load of it. Indeed, it arrived on the same lorry that the right hon. Member for Richmond, Yorks is now using. My staff and I were constantly fed up with two-stage pay awards every year and the local authority—of which I was an elected member—having to spend all its time reducing its education budgets every year.
  If the hon. Lady is talking about the abolition of school organisation committees and the so-called independent adjudicators and returning admission and appeals to democratically elected local authorities, I shall stand by and support her. However, I suspect that she does not seek that. If she wants to remove from schools the necessity to produce an absurd number of individual plans on subjects ranging from literacy to asset management, my party and I shall support her. [Interruption.] From a sedentary position, Ministers ask whether we want to get rid of asset management plans. The last thing that most small rural primary schools in North Yorkshire want is to look after asset management—they want somebody to do it for them. A two-class primary school has a lot on in looking after the curriculum and standards, so the amount of planning that goes on is an issue.
  If the hon. Lady wants to put an end to the torrent of centrally driven initiatives, proposals and targets, we shall stand with her. We want them to be reduced. If she wants to reduce the amount of paper that comes out of the Department for Education and Employment by the equivalent of a rain forest a year, again we shall stand with her. Papers regularly come through the doors of school governors and one of their great cries during the recent Education and Employment Committee inquiry was for an end to that. If the hon. Lady wants to campaign with the Liberal Democrats for the removal of tuition fees from our students in England, Wales and Northern Ireland, again we shall stand with her. But no: the revolution that the Tories have in mind is a free-for-all that could produce 23,525 separate admission authorities, 23,525 separate appeals bodies and 23,525 schools that could spend more time dealing with legal disputes than with the curriculum.
  The Tory party wants to support heads. It wants to support teachers, so that they can raise standards. However, it wants to give parents the power to call ballots

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  to sack head teachers, and then, presumably, to fund the expensive legal battles that will follow from school budgets. It says that parents should call for more inspections by the Office of Standards in Education when standard assessment test results dip. In last year's Ofsted report, 8 per cent. of schools were said to have serious weaknesses, and the average cost of an inspection is £13,000. If every one of those schools asked for an extra inspection, another £25 million would be needed. Is that how parents want their resources to be spent? Is that the "common-sense approach" to the reduction of bureaucracy?
  The Tories also want to establish "free schools". The idea has been copied from the charter school movement in the United States, but has been taken one step further, because a Conservative Government would fund the buildings as well as revenue costs. It is a doubtful message: if schools are freed from all state or local control, they will deliver a better education system for our children. There is no evidence whatever to back up that proposition, certainly not in the United States, where we have seen a ragbag of institutions, the so-called best controlled by private-sector companies.
  Mrs. May: Free schools do not owe their origin to the charter school movement in the United States, and we do indeed have examples of the way in which schools can improve education when they are given their freedom. We see that in the grant-maintained schools, which use money previously spent by local authorities on bureaucracy to increase the number of teachers, and to do various other things that greatly improve the quality of education.
  Mr. Willis: I am pleased that the hon. Lady has dissociated herself from some of her Back Benchers, who claimed that they had brought back this solution for Tory thinking from America, and were proud of having done so. I talked to one who extolled the virtues of the marvellous so-called free schools, controlled by private companies such as Edison and Advantage. With those providers, schools must take the curriculum they are given, the methodology they are given and the materials they are given. Is that really what we want for parents and teachers in the future?
  Let me ask the hon. Lady this. What happens to the special-needs child in the free school movement? What happens to the advantages that we have secured over the past 10 years in terms of inclusive education? How will such children fit into a free school that has its own admissions policy? Can it refuse a child with severe learning difficulties, or educational and behavioural difficulties? A child with cerebral palsy or sensory impairment will have no right of access to free schools.
  What about the disruptive child? Will another free school be obliged to take him? Will the only provision be made in the "headway centres"—or pupil referral units, which is what they actually are? Given that those are grossly underfunded at present, what will happen when students are excluded from schools, perhaps permanently? I can tell the hon. Lady that in parts of London, Manchester, Leeds and Birmingham there could be more students in her headway centres than in mainstream schools, if heads were allowed simply to turf them out. However, parents, governors and teachers should not worry: the likelihood of a Conservative Government being elected with such nonsensical policies is pretty remote.
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  That is not to say that many of the hon. Lady's criticisms of the Government are not justified. The Liberal Democrats share her concerns about the smoke and mirrors over finance. I, too, visit schools where I am asked, "Where is the £19 billion that is being spent on education? Where do I see it in my budget?" I worked in a local authority that passported every penny of the £12.9 million for education last year and increased council tax by 9.6 per cent., but still cut school budgets by nearly 1.5 per cent.
  We are concerned about the increasing centralisation of the curriculum and teaching methodology. Of course the literacy hour initiative was needed in many of our schools, but it certainly was not needed in every school. Teachers wanted the flexibility that would enable them to do things as they wanted to do them, in accordance with the needs of children.
  We are concerned, too, about the creeping privatisation of the education system—the Government's belief that the private sector can always do things better. The events at Rams episcopal school in Hackney demonstrated that there are no sure-fire solutions. It was interesting to note that, after Islington council had been forced to hand over the running of its local education authority to Cambridge Education Associates Ltd, the first thing that it did was to recruit a chief education officer from Richmond upon Thames to lead its team—an example of the fact that, in the public sector, we still have some fine officers and leaders.
  In the time that is left—I understand that we are on a tight schedule—I want to highlight our concerns about the most important issue facing the school system: the promotion of a highly qualified, well-motivated and well-paid teaching profession. It will not be the Secretary of State, the hon. Member for Maidenhead or I who will improve standards in schools, but our teachers and heads. The Liberal Democrats continue to have concerns about the Government's proposals on performance-related pay. We continue to believe that they are divisive, fail to address the key issues that face the profession and will ultimately fail both to motivate and to retain staff. Above all, they will do precious little to persuade the best potential teachers to join the profession.
  My main criticism is not about the principle of PRP. Clearly, it works in other sectors, but it will not achieve the desired outcomes for the profession, schools or the Government. Where is the evidence that it is possible to accredit an individual child's performance to an individual teacher, other than in the most simplistic way? No evidence was presented in the Green Paper. None has been presented since.
  Teaching is a team activity. Who is to say that the influence of a sports teacher or music department on a child's motivation is more or less important than what the child sees in classrooms elsewhere? How do we assess the effects of early-years experience; access to private tuition; the number of children in a class with special needs; children with English as a second language; the size of the teaching group; and the work of other members of staff? The list is endless.
  The Government have obviously been listening to some of the arguments—the dropping of reference to
  "progress towards national levels of achievement"
  is welcome—but they have failed to understand the complexity of assessing who is responsible for a child's performance.

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  The rest of the proposals are fraught with inconsistencies. If PRP is there to motivate staff and to raise standards, why is it voluntary? Why is not applied to all colleagues already at point 9 on the scale?
  Those teachers already working well are being told that they must work harder to receive and to retain a threshold payment, but what of the others? Are those who do not put themselves forward to be judged as "ineffective" teachers and perhaps lazy? Will parents be informed of their status? Will women, who form the bulk of teachers, particularly at primary level, be discriminated against because they do not want to take on the increased burdens of additional activity?
  Of course there is merit in rewarding our best teachers, but surely the challenge is to encourage teachers to work better, not simply harder, for more pay. Access to quality professional development as a statutory right would make a huge statement about valuing our teachers, yet the Government have ignored that option. Statutory access to non-contact time to prepare materials and to mark work would do much to raise the quality of teaching and morale, particularly in primary schools.
  A fundamental principle of any PRP scheme is additionality. I was pleased when, on Thursday last, the Secretary of State appeared to commit the Government to continuing ring-fencing of resources to meet the costs of PRP after the initial two years. May I press the Government on that commitment? Will the Minister make it clear that, after the initial two years, the Government will continue to guarantee threshold payments and to ring-fence resources directly from the DFEE? Can she say how that mechanism will work?
  Will future performance-related payments in the upper range or on the management scale be ring-fenced with additional money? Without such a guarantee, the scheme is bound to fail. If the Government intend to ask schools to incorporate any PRP payments from initial budgets after two years, we shall be back to the situation that I faced as a head teacher, when I had the option to give promotion points and excellence points, but no money to do so.
  Will the Minister also clarify the position of those who become advanced skills or fast track teachers? As I understand the guidance, they will have to give up many of their present conditions of service, including the limit of 1,268 hours of directed time. If so directed, they will have to be available to undertake breakfast clubs or after-school clubs. If that is the case, there will be a large price to pay for going through the threshold.
  There is an absurd timetable for the implementation of the scheme, with insufficient time to train heads and allow them to carry out assessments appropriately for September 2000. The reduction in the number of criteria from 16 to eight may superficially appear to simplify matters, but it has resulted in a massive expansion of guidance notes for heads, opening the floodgates for a tidal wave of bureaucracy. Few teachers will have the documentation available. That may well create huge tensions between them and the head.
  I make an earnest plea to the Secretary of State to think again about the timetable. If a performance-related pay scheme is to be introduced, all the questions that are being asked must be properly answered and there must be a proper time scale—otherwise, it will fail.
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  Last year, the Government proudly announced that their teacher recruitment targets were being met. One of the fundamental issues for the PRP scheme and the Green Paper was to address the fact that so few quality people were choosing to come into teaching. The Secretary of State announced in December that maths teacher training was up by 16 per cent., but the Government made little noise about the fact that they had missed their recruitment target by 23 per cent. They made even less noise about the fact that most children at key stage 3 are not taught by a maths specialist. There are few press releases about the fact that in 1999 only history and PE reached their recruitment targets. This month, applications for maths teaching were 19 per cent. below last year's figure. Science and English are also down by 19 per cent. When I visited Imperial college recently, none of the third year undergraduates whom I talked to wanted to come into teaching, because they could get a starting salary at least £10,000 better elsewhere. We have to address the fact that we are in a competitive marketplace for teachers. If we want to ensure that we recruit the best, it is not good enough just to give teachers £2,000 extra at point 9 on the salary scale—we have to raise the starting salary.
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: Even within the restriction of 10 minutes for speeches—of which I remind the House—it will be difficult to fit in every right hon. and hon. Member who is seeking to catch my eye. I appeal for short speeches.
  5.38 pm
  Mr. Barry Sheerman: I realise that I have been in the House for a long time. When I was a university teacher—when I worked for a living—I used to lecture about the great value of Opposition days, which are at the centre of our parliamentary democracy. As I listened to the opening speech from the hon. Member for Maidenhead (Mrs. May), I wondered whether anyone outside who believed in parliamentary democracy, let alone education, would value this debate very highly.
  The opening speech could have set us off on the right footing. It could have been creative and full of insight. Fortunately, we are bringing about changes to the procedures of the House, with pre-legislative inquiries and the on-going work of Select Committees. That allows us to talk more constructively about education across the House.
  I want to go through a quick checklist of how well the Government are meeting their obligations under the manifesto and the mandate to prioritise education. I want to give marks out of 10, some good and some bad. The hon. Member for Maidenhead was a very constructive member of the Education and Employment Committee and knows something about the subject, so it is surprising that she could not bring herself in this debate to talk about what we have in common.
  The Government have adopted an approach that one would have thought would be dear to the heart of the Conservative party. They used good business methods, recognising that we must organise education in a more businesslike way, with achievable targets towards which all the stakeholders in the business can work together. That is fundamental tomorrow's company stuff about which anyone who has worked in the private sector knows.

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  Some of the successes came because the Government threw away some things that our party used—more in rhetoric than reality—to believe in, and took a realistic stance, looking at the problems pragmatically and solving them with any best technique that was available. I would have expected a little more frankness and honesty from the Opposition on that.
  There is a problem. The Government came to power desperate to make changes. There was a huge backlog of neglect, stretching back well beyond the previous 18 years. We all used to accept that education was essentially for the elite. The Conservative party was more comfortable with that than us, but we all accepted that only a few people would be educated to a high level and that many would be looked after until they were 14—or subsequently 15 and 16—and would then get a job.
  I remember cycling to school past factories displaying notices stating, "Hands Wanted". They wanted hands, not brains. That is a thing of the past. We cannot have an educational elite, be it 3, 5 or 30 per cent. of the population. All our work force and all our people must be encouraged to attain the highest levels of education and skill. I think that the Opposition accept that fact, too, although very reluctantly.
  It is not surprising that an incoming Labour Government rushed at the target. Of course they did not get everything right—what Government do?—but some of the measures have been highly successful. Let us consider the Ofsted report. The figures were mentioned by the hon. Member for Harrogate and Knaresborough (Mr. Willis). We have had great success in helping pupils in the early years and through to 11. That positive result means that we can consider more seriously what is happening for those from 11 to 14. There are serious deficiencies in that area. The transition to secondary school has proved difficult for some.
  The difficulties are not only in problematic schools. I get sick of the terminology. We can call them failing schools, more difficult schools or challenged schools—we know which ones we are talking about. One problem is that the Government devise a strategy to do something about the most challenged schools and are not too clear that it might not be the right management strategy for what we call coasting schools—the 40 per cent. that are not getting worse or better in a hurry but need to be encouraged to achieve higher standards. That is the problem in the 11 to 14 sector.
  In the difficult 14-plus sector, the Government's joined-up thinking has come later. It has taken time. Hon. Members know my old hobby horse about having too much of an academic education and constantly making those without the obvious academic abilities feel like second-class citizens. They do not get the high grades and the illustrious results and are made to feel failures throughout their education. Tackling that, especially at 14-plus, is something to which the Government have begun to set their hand. It will take time, but it is important that the Government do better. The match of skills and education is important, because they go together and should be considered together.
  All of us who care about education are worried that too much emphasis is placed on driving basic standards up—increasing literacy and numeracy—while flair, creativity and imagination can fly out of the window. We must get the balance right.
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  I disagree strongly with the hon. Member for Harrogate and Knaresborough because I believe that performance-related pay, if introduced in the right way, must be right. Performance-related pay works in every other aspect of human endeavour that I know of, so why should teachers be different? I would also like to see performance-related pay—and better pay—in higher education, because if we are to maintain world-class standards in world-class institutions that compete globally, we have to do something radical quickly, before our higher education system is endangered.
  Of all the aspects of education I have mentioned, I am most worried about higher education. We have not yet reflected and asked what will be the effects of too much standardisation and too much reliance on the state. We do not allow for diversity and creativity in higher education. They are most important if we are to provide the high-quality intellectuals on whom the nation depends.
  I have a wish list. We must be cautious about the sort of pragmatism that always seems to lead to the private sector being invited in. Yes, the private sector can do a good job, but the expertise in the private sector is thinly spread and there are few firms around. Why cannot we build on the idea of the public sector producing superb administrators who are also managers who know education at a fundamental level? We could have a corps—a concept familiar in France and some other countries—from the public sector, with a good managerial ethos, to do the job.
  We must ensure that we develop a methodology for breaking into the culture of low expectations in education. What strikes me from all the literature that I have read since becoming Chairman of the Education and Employment Committee is the lack of success with parents and how few parents we get through to and engage. I hate it when people say, "Well, parents do not turn up to the annual meeting." We have to have a strategy that engages parents and the home situation if we are to build on some of the fine work that we have done in early-years education. I have tried to bring some balance to the debate. There are some ticks and some crosses and some must-do-betters on the Government's record, but that is true of any Government.
  5.48 pm
  Mr. Stephen Dorrell: The central charge against the Secretary of State is simple. For three years, we have had relentless activism. He has abolished grant-maintained schools, he has introduced measures that threaten the future of grammar schools, he has reasserted the comprehensive theory and he has abolished the assisted places scheme. He has done a whole host of things, but the one thing that he has not done is reform the one aspect of the administration and structure of our school system that cries out for reform. That is the system of funding individual schools in such a way as to give sufficient freedom to the heads and the teachers to meet the needs of the local communities the schools are there to serve.
  Our funding system for individual schools is hopelessly opaque and is, in many cases, entirely perverse in its consequences. It allows Ministers to make decisions for whose effect they do not have to accept responsibility because the machinery is so complex that they understand it no more than do teachers or parents.

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  I am pleased to say that the chief inspector of schools made it clear in this year's annual report that he largely agreed with that analysis. He wrote:
  "We do not, as yet, have a transparent and educationally defensible mechanism for the equitable devolution of resources from central government to LEAs and from LEAs to schools. We should."
  I wholeheartedly agree. First, it is essential to the delivery of high-quality education that we understand where responsibility lies in the system. Secondly, and more broadly, in a democracy it is fundamental that people should know what is done in their name with their money, and why. The problem with the present system is that Ministers never come to the Dispatch Box and defend, at the level of individual institutions, the decisions that they make.
  Earlier, the Secretary of State noted that the present SSA funding system was the creation of the previous Government. That is true, historically, although it is also true that the SSA system is a close cousin of the system of rate support grants that preceded it. The present system grew up under Governments of both major parties over many years. We shall not make progress on this fundamental matter by seeking to score party political points. I want Ministers to come to the Dispatch Box and accept responsibility for introducing a fundamental reform of a system whose time has long since passed.
  I shall illustrate my argument from the local perspective of a Leicestershire Member of Parliament. People in Leicestershire do not need to understand the elaborate algebra of the formula to understand the stark consequences of that formula in their county. My hon. Friend the Member for Maidenhead (Mrs. May) mentioned the Government's SSA recommendations for Leicestershire county council. I invite my constituents—and the House—to compare what would happen in Leicestershire if those recommendations were adopted, with the circumstances of the not dissimilar authority of East Sussex.
  I do not doubt that East Sussex faces its own problems with funding for schools, but it enjoys relatively more generous SSAs than Leicestershire. The last time that I visited East Sussex, it did not feel like a county in immediate need of regional assistance, but the computers tell us that the Government believe that education there should cost £270 per pupil per annum more than in Leicestershire. I do not understand that disparity, and I do not expect my constituents to.
  However, the comparison with Lambeth is even more stark. I accept that deprived inner-city areas face extra costs in delivering essential social services, but I do not accept that there is anything inherent in the state of Lambeth that means that education provision should cost 75 per cent.—or nearly £2,000—more per pupil there each year than in Leicestershire. I accept the principle that education may cost more in Lambeth, but I certainly do not accept the result that the formula currently determines.
  I made it clear earlier that this problem cannot be resolved merely by tweaking the system. We need something that the hon. Member for Harrogate and Knaresborough (Mr. Willis) touched on when he intervened on the Secretary of State. I listened to the hon. Gentleman's speech, and I agreed with almost none of it. Indeed, I fundamentally disagreed with the vast majority
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  of what he said—but then, he and I have argued about these matters in Standing Committee for more hours than either of us would have chosen.
  However, the hon. Gentleman said that the formula should relate the funding of individual schools to the number of their pupils and to their specific needs. He added that such a formula should be clear, accountable and comprehensible, and I warmly agree with him on both points. However, that proposition was fundamentally at variance with the larger case that he made in his speech, in which he argued for detailed LEA control of how individual schools go about their purposes. From the proposition that resources should flow to schools in a clear and accountable fashion it follows naturally that head teachers, staff and governors should be encouraged to be responsible for the use of resources once they reach a school.
  I warmly agree with the ideas advanced by my hon. Friend the Member for Maidenhead for free schools financed by a formula that is clear and accountable. That would give head teachers and governors the confidence that their institutions would be fairly funded. It would also assure parents that their voices mattered in the running of schools. Most important, it would give pupils confidence that the professionals in the education world had the freedom to use resources to meet the needs of pupils in the best way possible.
  5.57 pm
  Mrs. Anne Campbell: I am pleased to be called to speak in this debate, as education is the most important issue in my constituency. I shall begin by saying how delighted everyone in my area was when my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State overturned the plan of the Tory county council to close Coleridge community college. That very important secondary school has high standards of educational achievement. It is the only city secondary school to win a mark of approval as most improved school. Its closure would have left one of the most deprived parts of my constituency without a school and without a thriving community centre.
  Last Friday, I visited St. Philip's community primary school in Cambridge. I was delighted at the progress that had been made since my visit last year. The 1997 Ofsted report said that St. Philip's was a successful and improving school working in a challenging area of high social need. It is important to understand that, as many people assume that any school in Cambridge is very middle class and in a leafy suburb. There are many schools in my constituency of which that is not true, and it is certainly not true of St. Philip's. Of its pupils, 43 per cent. are entitled to free school meals, 10 per cent. do not have English as their first language, and 21 per cent. are from ethnic minority backgrounds and speak two languages.
  On both my visits to the school I was greeted by polite, well-behaved children determined to be helpful. They displayed enthusiasm for, and pride in, their school. The head teacher, Jill Pauling, showed me the building programme made possible by the additional money to reduce infant class sizes. The percentage of infant class children in Cambridge being taught in classes of 30 or more has fallen from 37 per cent. when this Government came into office to 7 per cent. now. That is thanks to the money made available by the Government.

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  I saw small groups of under-achievers being given tuition, with money from the standards fund, to bring them up to a higher standard. Children told me that they enjoyed the literacy strategy and the numeracy strategy. I was amazed that they understood those words, but they used them with confidence. One boy told me about his achievement levels in the different subject areas.
  I also saw an adult literacy class going on in daytime school hours. One young mum, who had two children at the school, told me how she was taking GCSE English and enjoying it as she had never enjoyed learning when she was at school. These are remarkable achievements in a school in a deprived part of the city that does not have the advantage of many well-off, better-educated parents. I take this opportunity publicly to congratulate the head teacher on the excellence that she has created.
  Most of the unhappiness in Cambridge centres on the funding formula. Neighbouring local education authorities in Essex, Hertfordshire and Bedfordshire have much more generous allocations than Cambridgeshire. For primary schools, the standard spending assessment per pupil for the year 2000–01 is £77 more in Bedfordshire, £128 more in Essex and £161 more in Hertfordshire. For secondary school pupils, the corresponding differences are £117, £182 and £206. It is important to place those figures on the record, because the Liberal Democrats in my constituency are very fond of sending out newsletters and leaflets which exaggerate those figures grossly. They are quite large, but the figures issued by the Liberal Democrats bear no relation to reality.
  If these differences are reflected in school budgets, a secondary school with 1,000 pupils in Hertfordshire will have £200,000 a year more to spend than a similar school in Cambridgeshire. That will mean six or seven more teachers and more money for books and equipment. Those differences are very hard to explain to parents.
  I am interested in the barrage of complaints from Tory Members. They have the cheek to complain about a funding formula which they put in place and which they totally failed to reform in the following seven years of their term of office. Every year since I was elected in 1992, I have been to see the Minister responsible for local government about the reform of the area cost adjustment. I started with the right hon. Member for Wokingham (Mr. Redwood) in 1992, through to the right hon. Member for Skipton and Ripon (Mr. Curry) in 1996. Every year I was told that it was being reviewed, but those reviews never led to reform.
  Mr. Graham Brady: Will the hon. Lady give way?
  Mrs. Campbell: I am sorry, but I have limited time and, tempted as I am, I am not prepared to give way.
  Now that my right hon. Friend the Minister for Local Government and the Regions is in charge of the process, I am confident, from my many conversations with her on the subject, that the review will lead to proposals that can be agreed. May I stress to my right hon. and hon. Friends on the Front Bench that it is essential that when the review is completed, they should make it clear that it must be acted on? We simply cannot afford to dash expectations which were dashed so many times by the previous Government.
  In the past few months, I have asked many parliamentary questions to determine Cambridgeshire's position in the funding league. I have discovered that
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  Cambridgeshire schools have seen increases in the SSA per pupil in real terms since the Government came to power. According to a parliamentary question answered on 20 December 1999 by my right hon. Friend the Minister for School Standards, the SSA per pupil in Cambridgeshire was £2,578 in 1992–93. Throughout the remaining Tory years, it plunged year on year to a low of £2,464—£114 lower than at the beginning of the Tory Government. That was the figure that this Government inherited in 1997–98. Since then, there has been a steady increase, and the figure will be £2,591 per pupil. That is higher than it ever was in the Tory years.
  Yet Tory Members of Parliament and county councillors continue to criticise, and to blame the Government for their own ineptitude. What has changed is the amount of cash by which Cambridgeshire county council tops up the SSA for education. The hon. Member for Maidenhead (Mrs. May) said that Cambridgeshire spends more than its SSA. Yes, it does—it is spending around £4.8 million more than its SSA this year. However, in 1995–96, when Cambridgeshire was controlled by a Labour-Liberal Democrat administration, and we had a Tory Government, the top-up was £15 million—a great deal more. We have lost £10 million in that period.
  This is the first year that the Tory county council has passed on the full increase in education SSA to the education budget, so schools in Cambridgeshire should see their financial situation eased somewhat in the coming year.
  We have heard a great deal in the past few months about how the Tories intend to reduce the share of national income taken in tax. We have heard nothing from them about how they intend to continue increasing education spending in line with our increases. Given that the previous shadow Chancellor, the right hon. Member for Horsham (Mr. Maude), described our spending plans as reckless, mad and a mistake, do we take it that the current shadow Chancellor, the right hon. Member for Kensington and Chelsea (Mr. Portillo), shares that view? If the Tories were ever returned to power, would we see a steep drop in the real-terms funding of schools such as we saw in 1992 to 1997, which resulted in a 4.5 per cent. drop in Cambridgeshire? Parents need to know the answers to those questions, which are vital to our children's future.
  Finally, no one so far has mentioned the vital issue of further education. Last Friday, I visited the Cambridge regional college, a medium-to-large further education collection in my constituency, which achieves very high standards. Like the two sixth-form colleges in Cambridge, the college has a number of Oxbridge entries each year, but it also provides a wide range of vocational as well as academic courses. The college principal, Ann Limb, told me how much they were looking forward to the vocational A-levels. She warmly welcomes the reforms to further education and training that have been introduced by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State.
  There is a great deal to celebrate; I know that there is also a great deal to be done. I think that we have made a huge amount of progress, and I look forward to seeing more improvements in future.
  6.6 pm
  Mr. David Curry: The epic journey of hon. Member for Cambridge (Mrs. Campbell) through the area cost adjustment suffered a somewhat

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  truncated conclusion. I seem to recall the Labour party in opposition saying that it would solve it in its first year of office, then in its second year, and now it has been frozen to the whole of the Government's term. I hope that the hon. Lady will continue to address her concerns, this time to a place where there is the ability to answer them, although of course Ministers no longer receive delegations on any local government matter. They are hiding behind the iceberg. As I have said, the area cost adjustment is like the north-west passage—at the end of the day, it does not exist. I shall look forward to seeing how the Government try to get out of it.
  I may be unique in this debate, as I do not intend to speak about finance. I hope that the House does not believe that all education problems boil down to finance. It is true that some problems can be made easier if we throw money at them. However, money is irrelevant to the problem in my constituency. I refer to the ballot that is taking place on the future of the two secondary schools. I insist that it is about the two secondary schools in my constituency, not just about the grammar school.
  I do not want to talk about the substance of the issue, which must be decided by the people who are entitled to vote in Ripon—far too few of them, as a matter of fact—but I do want to talk about the mechanics. If the Government had wanted to invite parents to decide on the future of grammar schools, they should have required every local education authority in which selective schools exist to draw up a plan of reorganisation. They should then have submitted that plan of reorganisation to a ballot of parents so that they could choose between clear alternatives. The Government have succeeded, remarkably, in making everyone feel cheated. Those who wish to save the grammar school believe that the ballot is rigged against them. Those who wish to get rid of the grammar school also believe that the ballot is rigged against them. It is not hard to see why.
  To cap it all, the issue is very divisive in a small town. I realise that there may be ballots to follow in whole education authority areas, in places such as Kent, Surrey or Buckinghamshire. But in Ripon, which is a small town of 15,000 people, and its immediate hinterland, a ballot that is open for five weeks is divisive to the point where it is almost impossible to speak of it in conversation without being marched to the frontier and expelled. Unfortunately, one would be expelled into the constituency of the hon. Member for Harrogate and Knaresborough (Mr. Willis), a fate that most people wish to avoid at almost any cost.
  The mechanics of the matter make it obscure. The choice is not clear. When the ballot was introduced, people assumed that the question would be whether the grammar school, which is on one side of Clotherholme road, and Ripon college, which is on the other, would become a single comprehensive. That, however, is not what the debate is about. North Yorkshire county council, to whose impartiality and fairness I pay tribute, issued a question and answer paper to parents. It asked whether, if the vote was yes—that is, to end selection at the grammar school—that would result in a single comprehensive, and it answered its own question by saying, "Not necessarily."
  The council also said that the purpose of the ballot was to alter admission arrangements at the grammar school. Would that mean that parents who wanted their children
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  to go to the reorganised grammar school would be able to do so? The council again said, "Not necessarily." It is small wonder that people feel that they are being asked to choose between the known and the unknown. There is no clear choice.
  I suppose that I should be pleased about that because, as I have made clear in the constituency, I believe that people should vote against reorganisation. I should be happier, however, if I felt that the choice was clear and the electorate more representative. There are anomalies in the ballot. The choice is limited to 15 feeder schools—those that sent five people to the grammar school over the previous three years. Which schools fall into or out of that category is almost accidental. Had the ballot been held earlier, parents at Borobridge primary school, from which a tiny number of pupils go to the grammar school, would have been included, although most parents send their children to Borobridge high school, an extremely good comprehensive whose strong sixth form I helped to obtain when the school was in my constituency. Most of those parents have no interest, other than neighbourly feeling, in what happens in Ripon, but they would have been enfranchised.
  A further anomaly is that two of the schools in Ripon have infant schools that are constitutionally separate from the junior schools to which they belong. In practice, the distinction is tiny, but parents with children at Holy Trinity and Moorside infant schools do not have a vote. If their children were at the infant schools attached to the Cathedral school, they would have a vote. Once again, the electorate is nominated under entirely perverse arrangements. Three independent schools are able to vote. Under the system chosen by the Government, it is logical that they should be able to vote, because they meet the criteria. However, at least some of the parents will have not the faintest interest in education in Ripon.
  The worst thing of all is that anyone with a child in the final year of a feeder primary school can vote on the future of the two secondary schools. However, anyone with a child in the first year of either of the secondary schools—a child with up to seven years of education ahead—is not entitled to vote. I want parents of children at both secondary schools to have a vote. I do not want to confine it to those at the grammar school; that would be unfair. All parents should have the opportunity.
  If the vote is for change, it is definitive. However, if the vote goes against change, there could be another in five years' time. I am not sure that head teachers should have to survive the same uncertainty as politicians, looking constantly towards the possibility of challenge. If the vote is for change, we will all work to make the best we can of it. We shall certainly try to ensure that the technology college status achieved by Ripon college, with which everyone is delighted—I am grateful to the Minister for School Standards, who was highly supportive and who understands the importance of that status to Ripon—will carry over to the new school. However, if the no vote wins, we will focus on the college's progress so that it can become a school proud of offering a distinctive and first-rate education. The colossal progress that it has maintained under its head teacher, Paul Lowery, should be continued.
  Matters remain to be checked. In the selection system, the appeals procedure in North Yorkshire is not impeccable, and it should be revised. We should revise constantly to ensure that the constellation of schools in the

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  area offers the best possible education. We are focusing increasingly on what goes on inside schools and on the quality of education internally generated rather than externally imposed by a Government apparently determined to Bonapartise education with Napoleonic prescriptions. The Government must decide whether they truly believe in internal dynamism arising from the quality of the head teacher and staff, which will generate an ability to improve performance and competitiveness in a school.
  There is a choice to be made, but the Government are trying to take both options, leaving schools confused. I hope that the issue will be resolved in Ripon, and that lessons will be drawn elsewhere. I hope that we may have an opportunity to develop a partnership of schools of equal but different excellence. The Government must reflect on the sheer perversity of the arrangements in place. They must see why so many parents think that the system is perverse in its mechanics but definitive in its outcome. If the wrong choice is made this time, there is no going back. If a different choice is made, uncertainty may continue ad infinitum, and that would be wrong.
  6.16 pm
  Mr. Gordon Marsden: A clear pattern is developing in Opposition motions. We might call it the Rip van Winkle theory of politics, which allows the Opposition to pretend to have been asleep for 20 years and, having awoken, to see only education today, and not the system that the previous Government left behind. I am disinclined to let them get away with that. We should remember where we came from on education policy. In primary and secondary education, we inherited: underfunding; sterile competition between schools; inequities between grant-maintained schools and others; falling standards in basic subjects; and assisted and overfunded pet minority projects, such as the assisted places scheme and the city technology colleges.
  In further education, we inherited: continued cuts; large and impossible efficiency targets; lack of supervision in many cases; and falling standards. In higher education, there was a sense of drift compounded only by what one commentator called the fit of absent-mindedness with which the Conservative Government expanded HE while doing nothing to fund it. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State referred to the fact that, between 1989 and 1997, investment in HE was cut by 36 per cent.
  Teachers were battered and demoralised by a continuous stream of denigration and competing instructions throughout that period. The hon. Member for Maidenhead (Mrs. May) stood before us earlier arrayed in scarlet—appropriate dress for one whose speech about teachers was the biggest masquerade since the wolf put on a cloak and pretended to be Red Riding Hood's granny.
  I think that it was Winston Churchill who said that there was no point in Britannia's ruling the waves if we could not flush the drains. Today, after nearly three years of Labour Government, 95 per cent. of our secondary schools and 60 per cent. of primary schools are on the internet. The Tories left many schools with a top priority of removing asbestos and outside loos, about which their Government did absolutely nothing.
  When we talk of excellence in education, we talk of raising standards, but we also mean widening access and social inclusion. I venture to suggest that we have got the basics right on standards. The literacy figures for 1999,
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  which are up by 5 per cent. for 11-year-olds, the figures for mathematics, which are up by 10 per cent., and the GCSE improvements are testimony to that.
  It is not just a question of quantity; we also need to achieve quality. The Government have introduced the new General Teaching Council. Recently, my colleagues on the Select Committee and I interviewed Lord Puttnam and were enormously impressed by such an inspiring and thoughtful choice. We have set up the national college for school leadership. Our targets for primary and nursery teachers have been raised significantly.
  We said that we would make improvements in quality and we have done so through the education action zones. We have taken firm steps through the excellence in cities programme. Our A-level reforms will enable us to meet the vocational needs and the demands of globalisation that were neglected by the previous Conservative Government. We have allocated £5.5 billion to school repairs—the bread and butter matters. None of those points was addressed by the previous Government.
  Let us talk about access. There is a new educational maintenance allowance. There are new proposals for the post-16 sector. We have made the most generous settlement for years in further education. My right hon. Friend has just announced that there will be £68 million of extra help for mature students. That is a valuable part of our programme.
  We are taking each segment that was systematically neglected by the Conservatives and dealing with it—special educational needs; education for people with disabilities; the new deal for single mothers. The new learning and skills councils and our focus on universities will give a strength of direction that was sorely lacking under the previous Government.
  The Labour Government pursue a joined-up education policy. That is why we introduced sure start, the early-years partnerships and the connections initiative—a holistic strategy for a proper youth service. We are looking at individuals and not only at output numbers—as the previous Government would have done. The results of our mentoring programmes and the initiatives to cut truancy and social exclusion are increasingly becoming apparent.
  We are setting exacting targets, which are being met. Only 10 days ago, it was noted in an OECD report that:
  "The UK was the only country to come out well on all ten recommendations from a joint report by employers' organisations across seven European countries."
  I am not making these points merely because I have seen them at macro-level. In my constituency, I have seen the success of the summer schools and the family learning centres that the education authority has set up with money from the standards fund. I observed the significant reductions in class sizes, and the good response to our sure start project on the Mereside estate. I have seen how the Government and Ofsted—in response to feelers put out by the Select Committee—are tackling mobility. I have seen Blackpool and Fylde further education college and Woodlands special school receive commendation and beacon status from the Government.
  It is hardly surprising that there should be a difference in the performances of Labour and Conservative Governments. It results from the philosophical divide on education that has always existed between the left and the right. For us, the issue is education for the many—

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  about collaboration and raising expectations. For the Conservatives, it has all too often been about education for the few. It is about cut-throat competition and a narrow hierarchical approach that puts people down—setting up a sheep and goats system, often ending in education paralysis. The Tories have too often been happiest with the mushroom theory in education—as they have in democracy. Parliamentary language forbids me to explore that theme further.
  Labour Governments introduced the Open university and the university for industry. All too often, the Tories have abandoned the bipartisanship of the Education Act 1944. Our view of education threatens the deference, the prejudice and intolerance that have often characterised Conservative views and policies. I am not entirely surprised that some of their backwoodsmen are so comfortable in embracing the bigots' charter of section 28.
  Even when the Tories take education on board, they treat it as narrow, repetitive training. They have not acknowledged it to be an empowering aspect of life, as we have done. In government, the Tories produced a stream of unlinked initiatives, which were underfunded on the basis that the market would solve all. In opposition, they demonstrate a sense of atavistic frustration and genuine bewilderment about where to go. A few weeks ago The Times Higher Educational Supplement reported:
  "Conservatives have cancelled a long-awaited announcement on higher education policy because it would have been 'premature'.
  How, one wonders, can an announcement scheduled weeks ago for next Tuesday, suddenly be deemed premature? After all, the party has had close to three years, since the last election, to come up with a higher education policy."
  Neither in theory nor in practice have we fallen for the false antitheses proposed by the Conservatives. The question is not between whether there should be excellence and access in education or education that provides economic utility. Education should do all three. In a globalised world, we need all three. Over the past three years, our Government have shown that our motto for the national health service—"From the cradle to the grave"—should also be applied to education and education strategy.
  We have a far broader social purpose for education than could ever be dreamed of by the Conservatives. That is why we are allocating funding and working with teachers and parents. That is why we shall deliver a system of education that is second to none.
  6.26 pm
  Mr. John Redwood: I have declared an interest in the register, which includes two modest, unpaid contributions to the world of higher education.
  The Government say one thing and do another. We have seen that in so many fields. My hon. Friend the Member for Maidenhead (Mrs. May) has shown admirably how the Government have misled the British people over money for our schools—for our children's future and for our education. My hon. Friend and I know that well because the Wokingham local education authority, which covers parts of both our constituencies, is one of the worst affected. Over the past two and a half years, we have received the meanest of settlements from the Government. There is no relief in sight. Our schools
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  have been put under far too much pressure. There is not enough money for books, nor for all the teachers that they need. It is a disgrace and it is no wonder that we all feel let down.
  However, I shall not concentrate on money—others have been extremely eloquent on that subject. Education matters enormously. It is the means through which children from less privileged backgrounds or from families with lower incomes can get on in the world. They can make progress and see that there is a much better world that can stretch their imaginations and, yes, it can even provide them with better jobs and fill their wallets and bank accounts.
  I was one such child, who was grateful for the opportunity given to me by a free place to a direct grant school. It meant that I could attend a school that was well beyond the dreams of my parents—they could not have afforded that school place. I and many like me benefited from that and went on to university. Look what followed—I even got into the shadow Cabinet. Then I rode on the great roller-coaster of life in this place—as we saw two or three weeks ago. I would not want to take such an opportunity away from others who come from the same background as me. It can be good fun and good for the soul. I hope that the Government will think again about assisted places—the modern equivalent of the direct-grant free place from which I benefited.
  Of course, a previous Labour Government destroyed those direct grant places. That meant that my school had to become fee paying only; it can now only take children whose parents can afford to pay. That is a shame. It is an even greater pity that many children who, only three or four years ago, could have taken advantage of our assisted places scheme find that it has been taken away from them.
  If the Government needed more money for more teachers for other schools—there was a case for that—why not find the extra money? Why not save on the glossy brochures and the published lectures of the Secretary of State and allocate the money for extra teachers? Why not find the money from elsewhere—from the quangos and the regional governments that they are setting up? We should have preferred to see teachers in our schools.
  It is also a sign of the times that there have been so many rows in the Labour party about a good school such as the London Oratory. I do not wish to go into the details of all the pupils who attend the school, but Labour Members know that there are children who benefit from such a school. Is it not a sad fact of life that now parents at the Oratory are being asked to make a monthly contribution to top up the school's cash because their Labour Government have cheated that school of the money? I believe that it, too, is a good school. It deserves the extra money. Why cannot the mean-minded Labour Government find that money, if for no other reason than to cover the embarrassment of some of the parents caught up in that educational problem?
  I also have a word for my hon. Friend the Member for Maidenhead. As she knows, I am a strong supporter of her idea of a free school. I believe that, through the free school, we can recapture some of the excellence of the direct grant school, and we can capture some of the excellence to which children had access as a result of the assisted place and some of the excellence that we were getting through the grant-maintained schools, which

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  have been so needlessly and recklessly thrown away, now that their money has been cut, too. However, I hope that, as my hon. Friend develops the policies, she will ensure that several things are part of the scheme.
  First, we would not wish to end up nationalising the schools and giving the Department for Education and Employment too much power to fiddle with the schools, to intervene and to meddle too much or too often with the money formula. The schools must be given that independence and they must be able to use it in the certain knowledge that the money will come every year and that they will not have to perform good works or tricks, in the way that they have to for this Government, to qualify for the cash that they obviously need for their progress.
  Secondly, we must guarantee that free schools are given every encouragement to expand when they are doing well. When I was responsible for education in Wales, I launched an initiative called popular schools, the idea of which was to offer the money, especially for new buildings, but also for the extra teachers and personnel that would be needed, so that, when a school was doing well and parents wanted to send their children to it, the money was available to add on the extra classroom or classrooms to provide the extra facilities so that more places could be provided. I hope that my hon. Friend will consider that scheme, or a variant of it, and add it to her free schools, because I believe that it will be the magic ingredient that causes many more parents' dreams to come true.
  One of the saddest times of year in my constituency, and probably in many others, is the time of year when parents are trying to get their children into the school of their choice but discover that there are not enough places at that school. No wonder parents want to choose, given the enormous scatter of performance even among schools serving a very similar catchment area. In my part of the world, a child who attends the worst-performing school has only a two in five chance of getting five A to C grades at GCSE, which is the bare minimum to allow them to go on to some other advantage in education; whereas a child who attends the best-performing comprehensive school—we have grammars that take some of the brightest pupils—has a four in five chance of getting those five A to C grades. The second child's chances are doubled. The school gets no more money than the school that performs badly. No wonder parents want to exercise their choice.
  How sad it is that we cannot get enough money to expand the really good, popular school, so that more parents can have that advantage for their children. One should not have to enter a lottery based on postcode and address in order to get a good education for one's child. If the Government do not know how to sort out the badly performing schools, let us launch an expanded free school scheme that gives parents the hope that, under a Conservative Government, they would be able to choose and their choice would be translated into action.
  It is most important that this Conservative Opposition show how much they care about education, how much many of us have benefited from it and why we want those benefits for others. We must expose the humbug of 13 members of the Labour Cabinet to date who attended grammar schools and now, by stealth, are trying to destroy those schools and take that choice away so that others cannot follow after them.
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  We must stand for excellence. We must stand for choice. We must stand for proper money for those schools. We must stand for parents having more control over their children's lives as pupils. That is what free schools can do. That is what the Government's failed education policies cannot possibly do. I plead with Ministers to change their minds before more children from modest backgrounds find that they cannot get the lucky break in life.
  6.35 pm
  Liz Blackman: I confess that I have not read the education chapter of "The Common Sense Revolution" by the Conservative party, because I do not see the two as synonymous. I also confess that the Opposition's diatribe this afternoon about Government spending caught me by surprise, but it will cut no ice in my constituency, where we have smaller classes, new classrooms, mended roofs and a much better provision of education.
  I was not at all surprised by—in fact, I entirely expected—the sterile arguments on selection, structure and status as means of raising educational standards. They are bygone arguments, they are bogus assertions and in 1997 the electorate voted against them.
  All parents want the best for their children, and that includes the best education. They want results; they want standards to be raised. The Opposition motion is not about results, standards or achievement, but it jolly well should have been. I do not recall the Opposition using the words "standard" or "comprehensive" more than once or twice in the Chamber this afternoon. That is a disgrace, because it is what the education system should provide—the raising of standards for all our children.
  I spent part of the weekend studying the reports by the chief inspector of schools and making some useful comparisons. I compared the report for 1996–97, which effectively was the last year when Tory education policies prevailed, and the most recent annual report available. The information is not surprising, but it is very pleasing. The quality of teaching has risen in a record number of schools since that time, across all key stages. There are fewer unsatisfactory schools and far more good schools and very good schools in that category.
  Teachers have been judged on knowledge and understanding, pupil management, planning, use of time and resources, methods and organisation, expectations, homework and quality of assessment—the bread and butter of teachers—and standards have been driven up considerably since the last year of Tory government.
  Information has been broken down into subject and progress across key stages. Very good or good progress is now being made across virtually every subject in a far higher percentage of schools.
  I make no apology for returning to key stage results—notably key stage 2 results, where there has been a sharp rise in pupil achievement, especially in maths and English. The chief inspector of schools said:
  "In that the drive to raise standards depends above all else on raising standards in the basic skills, this is a very significant and promising development, which is directly linked to the National Literacy and Numeracy strategies."
  Many schools started early on those strategies, and I give full praise to the teachers in my constituency and across the country who have achieved these spectacular

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  results. Chris Woodhead attributes the rise in quality of teaching in part to the literacy and numeracy strategies. He says that they are starting to influence other areas of the curriculum, such as science, where the percentage of those hitting level 4 at key stage 2 is up from 62 per cent. to a staggering 78 per cent.
  Interestingly, there is little evidence of these strategies undermining standards in other subjects, but that stands to reason: a child who can read and write and is numerate can access other subjects. Most primary schools have a broad, balanced curriculum. I draw attention to both those facts because the Opposition continually allege that education will become unbalanced as a result of the strategies.
  The number of schools serving disadvantaged areas and achieving good results has increased. Unsurprisingly, Chris Woodhead makes the point that illiterate and poorly literate children come predominantly from areas of disadvantage, but he adds that the literacy strategy is a real ray of hope in achieving an improvement in results:
  "The key lies in the Primary School. If the Literacy Strategy continues to deliver, we shall at least have a solution to a deeply intractable problem which has resisted every attempt in recent years to find more immediate remedies."
  No wonder he calls the literacy and numeracy strategy value for money. When it is combined with targeted strategies in areas of disadvantage, excellence in cities, educational action zones—he says that they may have a profound effect—sure start and the new deal for communities, the cycle of under-achievement, especially in areas of social and economic disadvantage, should at last be broken.
  I refer briefly to key stage 3 results, which a colleague mentioned earlier. Those results are slightly more erratic, but Chris Woodhead confirms the need to build better foundations in literacy and numeracy at primary level. Of course, the key stage 3 cohort has no exposure to the strategies that are now in place. In part, that probably explains the erratic nature of the results.
  It cannot be said often enough that two fifths of 11-year-olds were not achieving level 4 when the Tories left office in 1997. Given Chris Woodhead's positive comments about the current strategy and the striking key stage 2 results, why was that strategy not adopted in the 18 years of the Tory Government? Why were so many children failed? Why were so many children unable to access the curriculum? Why were those children more likely to play truant—or allowed to? Why were so few of them unable to obtain GCSE passes, and why were so many of them unemployed or unemployable?
  Although I spoke in the previous debate on education, I also tried to intervene then on the hon. Member for Maidenhead (Mrs. May). I wanted to ask her whether she intended to mention the literacy and numeracy strategy. I was not able to intervene, but she did not mention it and she has not mentioned it today. That is significant. After 18 years of Tory rule, Conservative Members should apologise for the two fifths of children who went through school without learning the basic skills to enable them to make their way.
  There was no excuse for not putting in place a national literacy and numeracy strategy. There is no hiding place and there is no answer other than that Conservative
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  Members failed to recognise the need for all to obtain and develop core skills. It is no good their hiding behind local education authorities; it is no good talking about trendy lefty reading methods. They were the Government for 18 years and they had a strategic responsibility to serve all our children. They failed miserably.
  I refer now to the quality of teaching. Good education can be delivered only by good teaching methods. The vehicle is quality teaching, and that ensures quality learning. The trend unfortunately thus far has been for good teachers, who have the skills and the expertise to improve their children's learning, to move swiftly out of the classroom and into the management structure. That is how they raise their pay. It is therefore absolutely right to introduce performance-related pay. We have to attract, retain and reward good quality teachers, because only through their commitment and skill will standards continue to rise and our children continue to succeed.
  The pay rise of 3.3 per cent. this year was much welcomed by the teaching profession. It is 1.5 per cent. above the rate of inflation. I have no problem with asking teachers to be assessed so as to go through the threshold to achieve, in the first instance, £2,000. We are not asking teachers to do more than what most of them who are good teachers are doing already. We are simply asking them to have their skills verified. Is it outrageous to ask them to submit to assessment—
  Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Michael J. Martin): Order. I call the hon. Member for Croydon, South (Mr. Ottaway).
  6.45 pm
  Mr. Richard Ottaway: One of the interesting features of the debate is that anyone who has listened to it would get the impression from Labour Members that, until 1997, everything was a disaster and that, since 1997, everything has been wonderful.
  The most telling point came when my hon. Friend the Member for Maidenhead (Mrs. May) intervened on the Liberal Democrat spokesman, the hon. Member for Harrogate and Knaresborough (Mr. Willis), and asked which of the Conservative Government's policies he regretted had been introduced. My hon. Friend mentioned the national curriculum, standard assessment tests and Ofsted. It was revealing that, for all the hon. Gentleman's bluster, he did not oppose any of them. The same is probably true of every Labour Member. Although they opposed those fundamental reforms when they were introduced by the Conservative Government, not one of them has said that they oppose them now.
  I wish to refer to a constituency case. I do not know who said that all politics is local, but a small illustration gives the feel of what is going on in the Government's attempts to implement their pledge to keep class sizes in infant and primary schools down to 30.
  Woodcote infant school in my constituency is a feeder school for the local junior and high school. It is in a delightful location on the north downs, and it is important for its environment. It has a playground on the one side and a little grassy strip on which children can play on the other. Until September 1999, like most infant schools, it had three years—a reception year, a year 1 and a year 2. There were two classes for each year, making a total of six classes. Those six classes were housed in seven classrooms, one of which was used as a library and for group work.

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  The crime that Woodcote infant school committed was that each class had, on average, 33 or 34 pupils. I am glad that the Under-Secretary, the hon. Member for Croydon, North (Mr. Wicks), is present, because he knows the school well. The important point is that each class had not just a teacher, but a classroom support assistant, so that there were two adults in every classroom. Its standards were impeccable. It had a 100 per cent. record in English, mathematics and science tests. That, in itself, demonstrates that class sizes are not a key determinant.
  Since September 1999, as a result of the Government's endeavours to implement their election pledge to keep class sizes down to 30, everything has changed in the school. The reception year was obliged to take on an extra class, and it follows that in successive years there will be an extra class in years 1 and 2 as well. Three new classrooms are needed. Nothing has been received from the Government or the local council for year 1, and the staff have been obliged to put the extra class in the library. The school, therefore, has lost its library and storage facility.
  That is okay for year 1, but back in September, the school still needed two more classrooms. Yet here we are at the end of February and outline plans have only just been submitted and those plans are inadequate. First, Croydon council has reneged on its pledge to replace the outside huts and to have proper classrooms; and of the three options available, it has, unsurprisingly, chosen the cheapest. However, that option is utterly inadequate, environmentally damaging and disruptive. It has been chosen because of a shortage of funds from the Department for Education and Employment and Croydon council's refusal to put a penny into implementing the Labour party's policies.
  A classroom block will be built on the playground, and the grass strip that was used for sporting facilities will be turned into tarmac. That is the bare minimum of what must be done—it will create three rooms for three classrooms. There is no cover, so if it rains the children will get wet. There is no decent play area and no extra storage. The assembly hall, which can house the entire school at present, will not be able to accommodate all the extra children, and there will be no library.
  Worst of all, the school's expansion means that there is no guarantee that there will be class support assistants in every classroom, so the Government's endeavours to implement their pledge mean that the school will go from having two adults in every class and a 100 per cent. record in exams, to a worse ratio of pupils to adults. Standards will be at risk, and my guess is that the 100 per cent. record will go.
  As a result of a political pledge, the Government will be £400,000 worse off; the pleasant environment of the school will be ruined; and standards will be put at risk. At the same time, Croydon council, which has refused to indulge in proper forward planning or to put any money into the school, is spending £150,000 refurbishing the bureaucrats' offices in the town hall. This is not only a disaster for local schools: it is a scandal beyond belief.
  6.51 pm
  Valerie Davey: After the theory and rhetoric of Conservative Members, I, like the hon. Member for Croydon, South (Mr. Ottaway), would like to focus on local schools to demonstrate that life in the education world has certainly changed since 1997.
  During the last year of Tory Government, £4.4 million went to subsidising private schools in Bristol every year. At the same time, the local authority was seeking to make cuts of £6 million. The right hon. Member for Wokingham (Mr. Redwood) seemed to want justice and fair funding for pupils at different schools. I can assure him that the assisted places scheme paid out two or three times as much per pupil as the local educational authority funding in the same city. That was certainly not fair or just.
  The money went to the few, not the many, and our use of that money as the core of funding to ensure that every young person starts school in a smaller class is demonstrably fairer. Every child deserves a fair start, and in Bristol, numbers in early years classes are falling and the quality of education is therefore improving.
  I assure the House that the two remaining grammar schools in Bristol will open as comprehensives this September. Why? It is because none of the parents, staff or governors at the schools objected to the change. The previous Secretary of State had turned down the proposal, but it is what the communities wanted, and I was therefore delighted that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State was able to sign those orders, and the two schools will go forward with a completely different character.
  Cotham grammar school is to become Cotham school, with a special status for performing arts. To get that status, the school has collaborated with the feeder schools, the Old Vic theatre school, the BBC, and other secondary schools in the city, and all of them will benefit. The school will no longer be exclusive; it will be wide-ranging and collaborative. The other school, which is largely multicultural and very lively, is looking with other schools to form an education action zone in the centre of Bristol. That is a progressive development for those former grammar schools, and it is to the advantage of many more young people than simply those within the walls of the schools in question.
  The literacy hour was pioneered by primary schools in Bristol, and as a result they have seen standards rise well above the national average. Other schools are now pioneering the numeracy hour, and we are beginning to see the same effect.
  Sure start, with the early-years excellence centre, is also coming to Bristol. The city has a long tradition of early-years education, going back to the period after the war when the first nursery nurses college was set up in Bristol, and to have the new centre bringing together social services and education provision is particularly significant. That is happening in a deprived area, and the centre is a flagship for such work. We are seeking to bid for a second centre, with a great deal of encouragement from the Department for Education and Employment. Provision for the early-years work in Bristol was made by previous Labour-controlled authorities, despite the cut in funding, because they recognised its importance and value.
  On the subject of LEA funding, Bristol is anticipating freezing the rise for the third year running, but all the funding given by the Government for education has been

  1293
  spent on education. In the coming year, it looks as though we shall delegate to schools £174 per pupil more than the national average. That can be done, and it is being done by a Labour-controlled authority.
  In Tory-controlled North Somerset, where there is to be a 4.5 per cent. council tax rise, there will be a significant cut in education funding, so that money will not be funded through to the schools. That causes concern, because the local authority has taken part in one of the education action zones and received extra funding for that. One must question whether it has taken funding from one hand of the Government and is refusing to spend money from the other.
  Bristol's LEA is doing a good job, although there is much more to do. In further education, where the need of so many young people to have a second chance has been demonstrated, the City of Bristol college has set up a drop-in centre in the centre of the city. People can drop in from 7 o'clock in the morning until 10 o'clock at night to use various types of information technology. The centre caters for a range of people, from those who are picking up a mouse for the first time to those who want to use digital technology to do degree work or to use video conferencing linked with the university of the West of England. That resource is a fine example of what can be done through collaboration.
  Before the end of the year, we hope that there will be new buildings for the college in the city centre, near the harbourside, the reference library, the new millennium science projects and the new millennium natural history centre. I assure the House that the college will be a centre of excellence not only for Bristol but for the surrounding area.
  I must mention also the three universities that serve the community. All are beginning, perhaps a little more slowly than I would like, to consider the ways in which universities can, as they do in America, demonstrably support secondary education, not only so that more sixth formers will go to university, but so that youngsters of 13 and 14 get a flavour, through the summer schools that we have been pioneering, of what it would be like to go to university. University staff experience the excitement of eager 13 and 14-year-olds, whose imaginations they can capture. All that excellent work is under way.
  There has been a transformation since 1997, but—I must add a "but"—we have still not yet achieved all that we would like to achieve at secondary level and in inner-city schools. We have taken positive steps, but all city schools have to be challenged and supported.
  The IT provision that many schools now have is exciting, and we have done excellent work through special schools, such as the one in my constituency which I mentioned. However, I want there to be a special school for languages in Bristol, and I want to encourage primary schools to specialise. I have heard of primary schools in which bilingual children are encouraged to develop their special language skills. At that age, youngsters have a flair for language; rather than waiting to enter secondary school and reach the age of 14, 15 or 16 before taking on a second or a third language, they can benefit from the superb practice of some of our city primary schools. When some mentors came to one of my local schools to offer help with reading in English, I told them—fairly tactfully,
  1294
  but fairly bluntly—that the children at the school could already read in English, Punjabi, Arabic and Swahili. We have an opportunity to encourage the work that such schools are doing and to make people see that children being bilingual at primary school should be celebrated, not regarded as a problem—
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. I am sorry to interrupt the hon. Lady, but there is a 10-minute limit on speeches.
  7.1 pm
  Mr. Graham Brady: I am pleased to have an opportunity to speak in such an excellent debate, kicked off so splendidly by my hon. Friend the Member for Maidenhead (Mrs. May). I do not have time to go through the 15 failures of the Government's education policy that she listed so eloquently, but I should like to comment on certain issues.
  University students have been let down. The Government always promised that they would increase funding per capita, but they have instead cut it. To add insult to injury, not only are they reducing funding per capita for students, but they are taking £1,000 a year off students in the form of tuition fees. Students are paying more but getting less. That the Government are pocketing the tuition fee money and not guaranteeing that it will go directly to the university concerned is a great shame and it will damage the progress that universities should be making. The Government are considering the possibility of uncapping tuition fees, so people might have to pay £10,000 or £15,000 a year to attend a British university. If the Government do that, will they guarantee that that money will go to the universities at which the students study?
  The House will be disappointed if I do not refer to the selective education system in the borough of Trafford, as it is affected by the current grammar school ballot. I see that the hon. Member for Harrogate and Knaresborough (Mr. Willis) looks forward to my remarks. Had he addressed this issue, I would have intervened to ask him to explain why his robust opposition to the grammar school system is not shared by Liberal Democrats in my constituency, who put a leaflet through my door saying that grammar schools are excellent schools that should be left alone to prosper, without interference from the Government's rigged ballot system that is threatening them all. Liberal Democrat policy can be one thing in one place, and another somewhere else, just as the Government say one thing and do another.
  The record of the education system in Trafford is one of almost unparalleled success in a mixed local authority area, ranging from affluent communities to fairly poor ones. Through grammar schools, secondary schools and high schools, our education system delivers excellent opportunities and excellent results for children whatever their social background. That all that is threatened by the Government's actions is a great tragedy. I am pleased to echo my right hon. Friend the Member for Wokingham (Mr. Redwood), who spoke so cogently about the terrible assault that the Labour Government have launched on the opportunities of ordinary children who do not have money to pay for their education.
  As my right hon. Friend the Member for Skipton and Ripon (Mr. Curry) said, the quality of all of the schools in our areas, not only the grammar schools, is threatened.

  1295
  I represent a constituency that has seven excellent grammar schools and excellent high schools. The Government have recognised one of those high schools as a beacon school and I hope that at least one of the others will follow suit before too long. The Blessed Thomas Holford Catholic school in my constituency has just had an outstanding Ofsted report. Our schools, both grammar and high schools, are delivering excellence in education. The record adjusted to take account of the number of children who receive free school meals and ranked by educational performance reveals that, last year, the borough of Trafford would have come seventh in national league tables for GCSE results. That is a creditable performance of which we should be proud. We regularly get the best A-level results in the country, but to do that well at GCSE and to deliver such results in respect of children from the less affluent parts of the borough does special credit to our system.
  The petition is proceeding in Trafford and the anti-grammar school campaigners say that it is on course to deliver a ballot, but the whole process is rigged. In the constituency of my right hon. Friend the Member for Skipton and Ripon, the ballot was rigged by affecting the electorate. In my area, where the ballot is to be a whole-LEA ballot, the system is as rigged as was the Labour London mayoral ballot—
  Mr. Curry: And no more successful.
  Mr. Brady: Quite right. The Government do not appear to know how to offer people a genuinely free choice: rather than risk a decision that is openly taken, they stack the odds and rig the system.
  To suggest in the ballot question on grammar schools that the effect would merely be to ensure that grammar schools are opened to admit all regardless of ability is nonsense, but there is a real danger that such a ruse will mislead parents. As if that were not enough, the ballot rules have been broken by Trinity Church of England high school in Hulme, which five months ago wrote to Trafford parents enclosing literature from the stop the 11-plus campaign. I complained four months ago about that clear breach of the ballot code, but it has taken until now for the Department to rule on the subject. In the Department's letter, the Secretary of State upholds the complaint, but takes no meaningful action; instead, he merely says that the school must write to the parents explaining why he has found that it did the wrong thing—not that the school must write setting out the opposing argument and thereby ensuring that the damage to the possibility of a fair and properly conducted ballot is undone.
  Nothing in the Secretary of State's disciplinary action means that the false information given out will be balanced. Even though several parents have received campaigning literature that has been sent out at public expense and can be construed only as an attempt to influence the outcome of the ballot, the Secretary of State is "satisfied" that the school involved did not intend deliberately to breach the legislation, but is
  "persuaded that the intention behind the letter of 28 September was to pass on information, rather than to support a particular side of the argument."
  I do not have time to read out the leaflet that was sent out, but it is definitely a piece of campaigning literature that no reasonable person could construe as an attempt
  1296
  to inform; on the contrary, it is an attempt to influence the outcome of the ballot. Ministers accept that it was sent out at public expense, bearing the imprint of a state-supported school. It prevents a truly fair ballot proceeding in the borough of Trafford.
  If that goes ahead, and if Ministers have their way and the excellent selective education system in Trafford is destroyed, they will have destroyed opportunities not just for the brightest in our community and those who come from the wealthiest parts of the borough, but for everyone, even from the poorest parts of the borough.
  7.10 pm
  Mr. John Bercow: This has been a fine debate, characterised by some outstanding contributions, principally those from my right hon. and hon. Friends.
  My hon. Friend the Member for Maidenhead (Mrs. May), the shadow Secretary of State, eloquently set the scene with a fearsome denunciation of the Government's failures in the past 33 months. She was followed by my right hon. Friend the Member for Charnwood (Mr. Dorrell), who highlighted the inequity of the existing funding system and the need for change.
  Subsequently, my right hon. Friend the Member for Skipton and Ripon (Mr. Curry), in a thoughtful and measured contribution, which will have commanded respect in all parts of the House, pointed to the success of existing provision in his part of the country and to the dangers of needlessly tinkering with that provision.
  Not long afterwards, my right hon. Friend the Member for Wokingham (Mr. Redwood) gave a characteristically sparkling speech and an analysis of the education scene that was a veritable tour de force. In the course of that oration, my right hon. Friend pointed to the wisdom of the free schools policy and offered helpful advice for its development. He also explained to the House the benefit that he had derived from his education.
  My right hon. Friend is renowned throughout the length and breadth of the land for his natural charm, courtesy and self-effacement, which prevented him from telling the House of the benefit that the country had derived from the magnificent education that he enjoyed. I need no such self-denying ordinance.
  Sadly, the dismal failure in the debate was the truly risible speech from the Secretary of State, who sat arrogantly sniggering, sniffing and laughing at anyone who dared to disagree with a smidgen of what he had said or what he was doing. He showed himself guilty of the most gut-wrenching complacency, which will have appalled teachers, head teachers, parents, governors and pupils across the country, who are conscious of the besetting woes of our education system.
  The Government's record is appalling. It is a litany of promises broken, trust betrayed and hopes destroyed. We saw once again this afternoon that the Government are insensitive to public concern and that their approach is characterised by shiftiness, a lack of principle and a simple incapacity to engage in straight dealing with regard to education.
  Let us consider public expenditure on education. When the Government were in opposition, the then Leader of the Opposition said that over the course of the Parliament, Labour would raise the proportion of gross domestic product spent on education. The simple, irrefutable fact is

  1297
  that by the end of this Parliament, that share will have declined from 5 per cent. bequeathed by the Conservative Government to 4.7 per cent. under the present Government.
  Not content with misrepresentation on that score, Ministers seem to delight in exaggerating the increased education expenditure that is planned. They have calculated it on exactly the same basis as the health service funding increases, which resulted in John Ford, an adviser to the British Medical Association, saying that the Government had calculated the figures in—I quote, for the delectation of my right hon. and hon. Friends—"an unconventional way". In short, they fiddled the figures. The promises are bogus; the delivery is meagre, if not non-existent.
  My right hon. Friend the Member for Charnwood pointed out the legitimate concerns that the chief inspector of schools has already expressed in his annual report about
  "the absence of a transparent and educationally defensible mechanism for the equitable devolution of resources from central Government to local education authorities and from LEAs to schools. Such a mechanism is required."
  On class sizes, the Government's performance is pitiful. There has been a tiny reduction at key stage 1 at a cost of £620 million to the British taxpayer, but for other primary school pupils, for secondary school pupils and for nursery school pupils as well, the classes are bigger, bigger, bigger in every case—up, up, up, in lingo that is interpretable by Labour Members.
  After 33 months of Labour government, there are 48,581 classes containing more than 31 pupils. There are 3,500 pupils more in classes of more than 36. The head of economics at the leading firm of City accountants, Chantrey Vellacott—
  Mr. Coaker: Where?
  Mr. Bercow:—has pointed to the fact that the proportion of pupils in classes above 30 has risen by 15 per cent. I am sorry about the ignorance of the hon. Member for Gedling (Mr. Coaker), but we can try to ensure that he is better informed about leading accountants in future.
  The consequence of even the Government's modest reduction in class sizes at key stage 1 is a grotesque denial of parental choice throughout the country, as a result of which we are all getting letters of protest from parents, teachers and head teachers, telling us that they cannot run education locally to meet the needs of pupils. [Interruption.] The Chief Whip, from a sedentary position, expresses disapproval—[Interruption.] The hon. Member for Sheffield, Attercliffe (Mr. Betts) is not yet the Chief Whip, but he may be one day.
  The hon. Gentleman will not escape from the other failure—the Government's disgraceful treatment of our grammar schools. Intervention, said the Secretary of State, will be in inverse proportion to success. Standards, not structures, the Government said. I have news for them. They cannot possibly object to the standards attained by grammar schools. It follows logically, therefore, that it is to their structure that Ministers mean-mindedly object.
  1298
  Grammar schools are beacons of excellence in our education system, renowned for their academic results, their sporting prowess and their cultural achievements. There is no reason to interfere with them, other than political spite and malice on the part of the Government, more than a dozen of whose Cabinet Ministers since 1997 climbed the ladder of opportunity afforded by a grammar school education. Now they want to kick the ladder of opportunity away from today's bright children from ordinary backgrounds.
  Why do not the Government concentrate on doing something about education in Manchester, Hackney, Calderdale, Haringey, Islington and Leicester—in the benighted areas represented by Labour Members and undermined by inadequate, ineffective, politically correct Labour local education authorities? [Interruption.] I know that Labour Members do not like it, but there is a lot more to come, so they had better get used to it.
  The Government's policy on school exclusions is equally stupid. They have a ridiculous, arbitrary, artificial target of reducing school exclusions by one third by 2002. What do the National Association of Schoolmasters/Union of Women Teachers and the Secondary Heads Association say of that ridiculous position? They say that it is unacceptable for the Government and local education authorities to undermine the legitimate management role of the head teacher by imposing targets for exclusions because it will not serve the interests of the school or meet the needs of individual pupils. It is just a totem of political correctness that causes the Government to opt for an artificial school exclusions target.
  Conservatives believe in free schools. We believe in the pursuit of excellence. We believe in giving heads and governors the freedom to employ the staff whom they want, to set the timetable that they want, to operate the arrangements that they want, and to determine the opening hours and the term times that they want.
  Our education system, as well as being characterised by choice, diversity and the pursuit of excellence, would be characterised by the six Rs: reading, writing, arithmetic, right, wrong and the acceptance of legitimate authority in the classroom, which is what the vast majority of parents throughout the country desire in our education system.
  The Government have betrayed education. They have gigantically let down head teachers, teachers, parents, governors and pupils. It is a miserable record of failure, for which the Government should apologise to the House and to the country.
  7.20 pm
  The Minister for School Standards (Ms Estelle Morris): I am grateful to the hon. Member for Buckingham (Mr. Bercow) for providing the best advertisement yet for the literacy hour. I am not sure about the numeracy hour—I did not count six Rs, but I counted a W somewhere.
  I join in the tribute that the hon. Member for Harrogate and Knaresborough (Mr. Willis) paid to the thousands of teachers who do a good job for children in our schools every day. They have responded magnificently to the many demands that the Government have made on them. Most teachers are good teachers. The Government will acknowledge that, and they will be rewarded.
  I have some sympathy with the comments of the right hon. Member for Charnwood (Mr. Dorrell), who made a sensible speech about the need for transparent funding.

  1299
  He acknowledged that the funding system that his Government bequeathed us left much to be desired and should have been changed many years ago. The characteristics that the right hon. Gentleman outlined—accountability, transparency and ensuring that everybody knows where the money has gone—guide our work on devising a better system of funding. However, that does not detract from his responsibility for being part of a Government who did nothing to improve the system in the years when they were in power.
  Mr. Dorrell: Will the Minister clarify whether her remarks mean that the Government accept the principle of per capita funding for each pupil in a school?
  Ms Morris: My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State responded to a similar question from the hon. Member for Harrogate and Knaresborough by saying that he was interested in an entitlement for children, and in providing a different amount of money for each age group. That remains our position.
  I thank the right hon. Member for Skipton and Ripon (Mr. Curry) for his contribution. As ever, it was interesting to listen to his comments. It was probably even more interesting for his Front-Bench colleagues, given that he has banned them from speaking about grammar schools in his constituency. Perhaps that is why the House filled up when he spoke. I hope that the hon. Member for Maidenhead (Mrs. May) listened carefully. Tonight was probably her last chance to hear the right hon. Member for Skipton and Ripon speaking about grammar schools.
  I am saddened by those on the Tory Front Bench, who seem to spend their time travelling around local authorities to look for the cloud in the silver lining. They seem to advertise for problems and say, "Wherever there's a problem, we'll come and look at it." However, for every local authority that Conservative Members visited or mentioned in the debate, they could have talked about the good things that were happening there, too.
  In every local authority that Conservative Members visited, they could have seen extra classrooms and extra teachers, funded through the class size initiative. In every local authority, they could have found children who have nursery places, but would not have had them were the Conservative Government still in power. In 62 of the 150 local authorities, they could have marvelled at the opportunities created by the sure start scheme. In every local authority, they could have seen some of the 20,000 extra classroom assistants that the Government have funded. In every school, they could have celebrated with teachers the increase in literacy and numeracy. As my hon. Friend the Member for Cambridge (Mrs. Campbell) said, they could have marvelled at and shared in the sheer joy that many children experience in the structured learning that is based on best practice.
  In every local authority, Conservative Members could have found teachers who have already taken advantage of the money for training in information and communication technology. They could have welcomed the increase from 5 per cent. to 62 per cent. of primary schools that are connected to the internet. They could have talked to the new head teachers in every local authority about the way in which they would use the new laptop computers that the Government recently provided. They could have chosen to visit schools that were financed through the new deal for schools and seen the capital work that is going on.
  1300
  Everything that I have described could have been seen on any tour of the country. I know that everything is not perfect and that much remains to be done. Some schools still need repairing. However, after all the years of neglect, and of education being part of a Cinderella Department under the previous Government, we have made genuine progress in two and a half years on capital, curriculum, working with teachers, training leaders and out-of-school activities.
  Conservative Members have been guilty of sleight of hand tonight in the way in which they have discussed funding. Not one of the initiatives that I have mentioned—from class size to classroom assistants, from national grid for learning to the new leadership college for head teachers—is funded through the straight revenue grant to schools. If Conservative Members want to present a fair picture of the Government's achievements in resourcing, they should not simply examine school budgets. They should add to that the money for the new deal for schools and the £1.6 billion of standards fund money.
  The standards fund money is not awarded to pet political projects; it is used for reducing truancy—we care about that—so that we can develop new key stage 4 mechanisms to motivate children who might otherwise be turned off. That money will be used to ensure that, for the first time, children who are excluded receive full-time education rather than the pitiful two, three, four and five hours a week that they received under the previous Government. Standards fund money will be used to ensure that, for the first time, all head teachers have a qualification that means that they have the skills to do the job. That money, as well as the increase in funding, is being given to schools.
  Mrs. May: I am grateful to the Minister for giving way because I know that she has only a short time to speak. She claims that we considered only the revenue grant that was given to schools. That is not true. The figures that I cited to show the Government's failure to deliver on funding were figures for net public expenditure on education. They included everything that the Minister mentioned. Does she now accept her failure?
  Ms Morris: The figures show that during this Parliament, education spending as a share of gross domestic product will increase, whereas it decreased under the previous Government. Before the general election, we made a pledge to the electorate to increase education spending, and we shall keep it.
  I share the anxieties of the hon. Member for Harrogate and Knaresborough about attracting the brightest and the best into the teaching profession. For decade after decade, falling numbers of people have been attracted to teaching. The hon. Gentleman spoke as a head teacher when he mentioned the lack of money that was available for promoting staff. I ask him to look back and remember that when he wanted to promote members of staff, he could do that only by giving them management or administrative responsibilities. Through the reform of the teaching profession, the Government have, for the first time, ensured that head teachers will be able to give points for classroom practice and reward existing excellence in schools. We have made it clear that that money will be available, that it will not mean a change in contract and that teachers will not be asked to take on extra responsibilities.

  1301
  In two years' time, we shall review our method of feeding that money into schools. That makes sense. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State gave an absolute pledge last week that the extra money would be provided. I hope that that is a cause for celebration: at long last, we have put teaching back at the centre of school activities. We should reward teaching, not management and administration, for which the likes of the hon. Gentleman and I managed to get our responsibility points.
  The Tories are keen to promote the notion of free schools. I have no problem with allowing good schools to get on with doing what they do best. However, I have a problem with the concept of free schools when it means no literacy or numeracy hour, no sharing of good practice, no focus on reducing truancy and exclusions, and no class size policy. There is no point in Conservative Members moaning about class sizes; in free schools, classes would be allowed simply to increase, exactly as they did under the previous Government. There would be no measures to act quickly if those schools required special measures or were failing. In 1997, that attitude of let it all hang out and laissez faire led to the circumstances in which four out of 10 youngsters could not read, write or do sums, in which the backlog in school repairs cost £4 billion, in which exclusions increased year after year, and in which there was no focus on standards.
  Rather than travelling around the country, the hon. Member for Maidenhead should consider her constituency, where the number of infants in classes of more than 30 has halved in the past two years. In Maidenhead, £128,000 has been spent on 15 teachers, and more than £250,000 has been spent on six classrooms. That is bettered by the constituency of the hon. Member for Buckingham: the number of children in classes of more than 30 has fallen from 6,500 to fewer than 1,500 under this Government and he has netted money for 21 new classrooms and 99 new teachers. Hon. Members should believe what happens rather than the words of a party whose representatives are travelling the country to find failure. Let us rejoice in the success of our teachers and our schools, note that we have made progress and be determined to achieve even more.
  Question put, That the original words stand part of the Question:—
  The House divided: Ayes 123, Noes 300.

  Division No. 84]

  [7.30 pm

  AYES

  Ainsworth, Peter (E Surrey)

  Chapman, Sir Sydney (Chipping Barnet)

  Amess, David

  Ancram, Rt Hon Michael

  Chope, Christopher

  Arbuthnot, Rt Hon James

  Clappison, James

  Atkinson, David (Bour'mth E)

  Clark, Dr Michael (Rayleigh)

  Atkinson, Peter (Hexham)

  Collins, Tim

  Bercow, John

  Colvin, Michael

  Beresford, Sir Paul

  Cormack, Sir Patrick

  Blunt, Crispin

  Curry, Rt Hon David

  Body, Sir Richard

  Davies, Quentin (Grantham)

  Boswell, Tim

  Davis, Rt Hon David (Haltemprice)

  Brady, Graham

  Day, Stephen

  Brazier, Julian

  Dorrell, Rt Hon Stephen

  Brooke, Rt Hon Peter

  Duncan, Alan

  Browning, Mrs Angela

  Duncan Smith, Iain

  Burns, Simon

  Evans, Nigel

  Butterfill, John

  Faber, David

  Cash, William

  Fabricant, Michael

  1302

  Fallon, Michael

  May, Mrs Theresa

  Flight, Howard

  Nicholls, Patrick

  Fraser, Christopher

  Norman, Archie

  Gale, Roger

  O'Brien, Stephen (Eddisbury)

  Garnier, Edward

  Ottaway, Richard

  Gibb, Nick

  Page, Richard

  Gill, Christopher

  Paice, James

  Gillan, Mrs Cheryl

  Pickles, Eric

  Gray, James

  Prior, David

  Green, Damian

  Randall, John

  Grieve, Dominic

  Redwood, Rt Hon John

  Hamilton, Rt Hon Sir Archie

  Robertson, Laurence

  Hammond, Philip

  Roe, Mrs Marion (Broxboume)

  Hawkins, Nick

  Ruffley, David

  Hayes, John

  St Aubyn, Nick

  Heald Oliver

  Sayeed, Jonathan

  Heathcoat-Amory, Rt Hon David

  Shephard, Rt Hon Mrs Gillian

  Heseltine, Rt Hon Michael

  Shepherd, Richard

  Howard, Rt Hon Michael

  Simpson, Keith (Mid-Norfolk)

  Howarth, Gerald (Aldershot)

  Soames, Nicholas

  Hunter, Andrew

  Spelman, Mrs Caroline

  Jack, Rt Hon Michael

  Spicer, Sir Michael

  Jackson, Robert (Wantage)

  Spring, Richard

  Jenkin, Bernard

  Steen, Anthony

  Key, Robert

  Streeter, Gary

  King, Rt Hon Tom (Bridgwater)

  Swayne, Desmond

  Kirkbride, Miss Julie

  Tapsell, Sir Peter

  Taylor, Ian (Esher & Walton)

  Laing, Mrs Eleanor

  Taylor, John M (Solihull)

  Lait, Mrs Jacqui

  Taylor, Sir Teddy

  Lansley, Andrew

  Townend, John

  Leigh, Edward

  Tredinnick, David

  Letwin, Oliver

  Trend, Michael

  Lewis, Dr Julian (New Forest E)

  Tyrie Andrew

  Lidington, David

  Walter, Robert

  Lilley, Rt Hon Peter

  Waterson, Nigel

  Lloyd, Rt Hon Sir Peter (Fareham)

  Whitney, Sir Raymond

  Loughton, Tim

  Whittingdale, John

  Lyell, Rt Hon Sir Nicholas

  Wilkinson, John

  MacGregor, Rt Hon John

  Willetts, David

  MacKay, Rt Hon Andrew

  Yeo, Tim

  Maclean, Rt Hon David

  Young, Rt Hon Sir George

  McLoughlin, Patrick

  Madel, Sir David

  Tellers for the Ayes:

  Malins, Humfrey

  Mr. Geoffrey Clifton-Brown

  Mates, Michael

  and

  Maude, Rt Hon Francis

  Mr. Peter Luff.

  NOES

  Ainsworth, Robert (Cov'try NE)

  Brinton, Mrs Helen

  Allen, Graham

  Brown, Rt Hon Nick (Newcastle E)

  Anderson, Janet (Rossendale)

  Brown, Russell (Dumfries)

  Armstrong, Rt Hon Ms Hilary

  Browne, Desmond

  Ashton, Joe

  Buck, Ms Karen

  Baker, Norman

  Burden, Richard

  Barnes, Harry

  Burnett, John

  Barron, Kevin

  Butler, Mrs Christine

  Bayley, Hugh

  Byers, Rt Hon Stephen

  Beard, Nigel

  Campbell, Alan (Tynemouth)

  Beckett, Rt Hon Mrs Margaret

  Campbell, Mrs Anne (C'bridge)

  Bell, Martin (Tatton)

  Campbell, Rt Hon Menzies (NE Fife)

  Benn, Hilary (Leeds C)

  Benn, Rt Hon Tony (Chesterfield)

  Campbell, Ronnie (Blyth V)

  Benton, Joe

  Cann, Jamie

  Bermingham, Gerald

  Caplin, Ivor

  Berry, Roger

  Casale, Roger

  Best, Harold

  Cawsey, Ian

  Betts, Clive

  Chapman, Ben (Wirral S)

  Blackman, Liz

  Chaytor, David

  Blears, Ms Hazel

  Chisholm, Malcolm

  Boateng, Rt Hon Paul

  Clapham, Michael

  Borrow, David

  Clark, Dr Lynda (Edinburgh Pentlands)

  Bradley, Keith (Withington)

  Bradley, Peter (The Wrekin)

  Clark, Paul (Gillingham)

  Bradshaw, Ben

  Clarke, Charles (Norwich S)

  Breed, Colin

  Clarke, Rt Hon Tom (Coatbridge)

  1303

  Clarke, Tony (Northampton S)

  Hope, Phil

  Coaker, Vernon

  Hopkins, Kelvin

  Coffey, Ms Ann

  Howells, Dr Kim

  Coleman, Iain

  Hoyle, Lindsay

  Cooper, Yvette

  Hughes, Ms Beverley (Stretford)

  Corbett, Robin

  Hughes, Kevin (Doncaster N)

  Corbyn, Jeremy

  Humble, Mrs Joan

  Cotter, Brian

  Hurst, Alan

  Cousins, Jim

  Iddon, Dr Brian

  Cranston, Ross

  Jackson, Ms Glenda (Hampstead)

  Crausby, David

  Jackson, Helen (Hillsborough)

  Cryer, Mrs Ann (Keighley)

  Jamieson, David

  Cryer, John (Hornchurch)

  Jenkins, Brian

  Cunningham, Jim (Cov'try S)

  Johnson, Alan (Hull W & Hessle)

  Dalyell, Tam

  Jones, Rt Hon Barry (Alyn)

  Darling, Rt Hon Alistair

  Jones, Mrs Fiona (Newark)

  Davey, Valerie (Bristol W)

  Jones, Helen (Warrington N)

  Davies, Rt Hon Denzil (Llanelli)

  Kaufman, Rt Hon Gerald

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

  Keen, Alan (Feltham & Heston)

  Keen, Ann (Brentford & Isleworth)

  Dawson, Hilton

  Kelly, Ms Ruth

  Dean, Mrs Janet

  Kemp, Fraser

  Denham, John

  Kennedy, Jane (Wavertree)

  Dismore, Andrew

  Kidney, David

  Dobbin, Jim

  Kilfoyle, Peter

  Dobson, Rt Hon Frank

  King, Andy (Rugby & Kenilworth)

  Donohoe, Brian H

  Kirkwood, Archy

  Dowd, Jim

  Ladyman, Dr Stephen

  Drew, David

  Laxton, Bob

  Dunwoody, Mrs Gwyneth

  Lepper, David

  Eagle, Angela (Wallasey)

  Leslie, Christopher

  Eagle, Maria (L'pool Garston)

  Levitt, Tom

  Efford, Clive

  Lewis, Ivan (Bury S)

  Ellman, Mrs Louise

  Lewis, Terry (Worsley)

  Ennis, Jeff

  Linton, Martin

  Etherington, Bill

  Lloyd, Tony (Manchester C)

  Field, Rt Hon Frank

  Love, Andrew

  Fisher, Mark

  McAvoy, Thomas

  Fitzpatrick, Jim

  McCabe, Steve

  Fitzsimons, Lorna

  McCafferty, Ms Chris

  Flynn, Paul

  McCartney, Rt Hon Ian (Makerfield)

  Foster, Rt Hon Derek

  Foster, Don (Bath)

  McDonagh, Siobhain

  Foster, Michael Jabez (Hastings)

  Macdonald, Calum

  Foulkes, George

  McDonnell, John

  Fyfe, Maria

  McGuire, Mrs Anne

  Gapes, Mike

  McIsaac, Shona

  Gerrard, Neil

  McKenna, Mrs Rosemary

  Gibson, Dr Ian

  Maclennan, Rt Hon Robert

  Gilroy, Mrs Linda

  McNamara, Kevin

  Godman, Dr Norman A

  McNulty, Tony

  Godsiff, Roger

  MacShane, Denis

  Goggins, Paul

  Mactaggart, Fiona

  Golding, Mrs Llin

  McWilliam, John

  Gordon, Mrs Eileen

  Mallaber, Judy

  Griffiths, Jane (Reading E)

  Marsden, Gordon (Blackpool S)

  Griffiths, Nigel (Edinburgh S)

  Marsden, Paul (Shrewsbury)

  Griffiths, Win (Bridgend)

  Marshall, David (Shettleston)

  Grocott, Bruce

  Marshall, Jim (Leicester S)

  Grogan, John

  Marshall-Andrews, Robert

  Hall, Mike (Weaver Vale)

  Martlew, Eric

  Hall, Patrick (Bedford)

  Maxton, John

  Hancock, Mike

  Meacher, Rt Hon Michael

  Hanson, David

  Meale, Alan

  Harris, Dr Evan

  Merron, Gillian

  Harvey, Nick

  Michie, Bill (Shef'ld Heeley)

  Heal, Mrs Sylvia

  Miller, Andrew

  Healey, John

  Mitchell, Austin

  Heath, David (Somerton & Frame)

  Moffatt, Laura

  Henderson, Doug (Newcastle N)

  Moore, Michael

  Henderson, Ivan (Harwich)

  Moran, Ms Margaret

  Hepburn, Stephen

  Morgan, Alasdair (Galloway)

  Hesford, Stephen

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

  Hill, Keith

  Hood, Jimmy

  Morris, Rt Hon Sir John (Aberavon)

  Hoon, Rt Hon Geoffrey

  1304

  Mountford, Kali

  Smith, Angela (Basildon)

  Mowlam, Rt Hon Marjorie

  Smith, Rt Hon Chris (Islington S)

  Mudie, George

  Smith, Jacqui (Redditch)

  Mullin, Chris

  Snape, Peter

  Murphy, Jim (Eastwood)

  Southworth, Ms Helen

  Naysmith, Dr Doug

  Spellar, John

  Norris, Dan

  Steinberg, Gerry

  O'Brien, Bill (Normanton)

  Stevenson, George

  O'Hara, Eddie

  Stewart, David (Inverness E)

  O'Neill, Martin

  Stewart, Ian (Eccles)

  Öpik, Lembit

  Stinchcombe, Paul

  Palmer, Dr Nick

  Stoate, Dr Howard

  Pearson, Ian

  Straw, Rt Hon Jack

  Pendry, Tom

  Stringer, Graham

  Perham, Ms Linda

  Stuart Ms Gisela

  Pickthall Colin

  Taylor, Rt Hon Mrs Ann (Dewsbury)

  Pike, Peter L

  Plaskitt James

  Taylor, Ms Dari (Stockton S)

  Pollard Kerry

  Taylor, David (NW Leics)

  Pond Chris

  Temple-Morris, Peter

  Pound Stephen

  Thomas, Gareth (Clwyd W)

  Powell, Sir Raymond

  Thomas, Gareth R (Harrow W)

  Prentice, Ms Bridget (Lewisham E)

  Thomas, Simon (Ceredigion)

  Prentice, Gordon (Pendle)

  Timms, Stephen

  Prescott, Rt Hon John

  Tipping, Paddy

  Prosser, Gwyn

  Touhig, Don

  Quin, Rt Hon Ms Joyce

  Trickett, Jon

  Quinn, Lawrie

  Turner, Dennis (Wolverh'ton SE)

  Radice, Rt Hon Giles

  Turner, Dr Desmond (Kemptown)

  Turner, Dr George (NW Norfolk)

  Rapson, Syd

  Turner, Neil (Wigan)

  Raynsford, Nick

  Turner, Derek (Halton)

  Reid, Rt Hon Dr John (Hamilton N)

  Twigg, Stephen (Enfield)

  Robinson, Geoffrey (Cov'try NW)

  Tyler Paul

  Rogers, Allan

  Tynan, Bill

  Rooker, Rt Hon Jeff

  Vis, Dr Rudi

  Rowlands, Ted

  Ward, Ms Claire

  Roy, Frank

  Wareing, Robert N

  Russell, Bob (Colchester)

  Watts, David

  Russell, Ms Christine (Chester)

  White, Brian

  Ryan, Ms Joan

  Whitehead, Dr Alan

  Salter, Martin

  Wicks, Malcolm

  Sanders, Adrian

  Williams, Alan W (E Carmarthen)

  Sarwar, Mohammad

  Willis, Phil

  Savidge, Malcolm

  Wills, Michael

  Sawford, Phil

  Winnick, David

  Sedgemore, Brian

  Wise, Audrey

  Shaw, Jonathan

  Woodward, Shaun

  Sheerman, Barry

  Wright, Dr Tony (Cannock)

  Simpson, Alan (Nottingham S)

  Singh, Marsha

  Tellers for the Noes:

  Skinner, Dennis

  Mr. Greg Pope and

  Smith, Rt Hon Andrew (Oxford E)

  Mr. David Clelland.

  Question accordingly negatived.
  Question, That the proposed words be there added, put forthwith, pursuant to Standing Order No. 31 (Questions on amendments), and agreed to.
  MR. DEPUTY SPEAKER forthwith declared the main Question, as amended, to be agreed to.
  Resolved,
  That this House welcomes the Government's commitment to raising standards and achieving excellence for all from the early years to life-long learning after 18 years of neglect; recognises that education spending will rise as a share of national income over the course of this Parliament, in contrast to a decline of 0.3 per cent. between 1991–92 and 1996–97; recognises the early success in lowering class sizes in the early years and the achievement of introducing the literacy and numeracy strategies which, with the hard work and commitment of teachers, have raised standards; supports the promotion of diversity which will deliver excellence for the many and not the few; recognises the role of specialist schools and the importance of excellence in cities; supports the drive to raise standards in secondary schools through the extension of the

  1305
  literacy and numeracy strategies and an expanded programme of summer schools; recognises the value of teachers and supports the new proposals for performance-related promotion; recognises the role of school leaders; notes the increase of £1.8 billion in funding for schools and Local Education Authorities in England for the coming year and the role of the fair funding framework in tackling excessive bureaucracy and ensuring that increased funding benefits classroom services; notes the increased resources made available to expand access and improve quality in further and higher education; and supports the Government's determination to build a socially inclusive knowledge economy in which learning and skills are the foundation of success and prosperity.

Points of Order
Mr. Hawkins: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I know that you and Madam Speaker—indeed, all occupants of the Chair—have always been careful to ensure that the needs of Members and their constituents are dealt with properly in ministerial correspondence. I therefore thought it right to draw to your attention an example of a letter that I received today about a constituency case. So that you are aware that this is not a minor matter, Mr. Deputy Speaker, let me tell you that the letter came from something called the parliamentary correspondence ministerial section—it is not a question of a junior clerk's having got something wrong.
The letter starts off well enough in referring to me correctly, but then begins "Dear Mr. Pickthall". As I am sure you will understand, Mr. Deputy Speaker, my constituents would be slightly puzzled by my being confused with the hon. Member for West Lancashire. The letter then refers to my constituents. In my initial letter, I made it clear that I was writing on behalf of both of them. The wife, sadly, suffers from multiple sclerosis. The reply from the ministerial section of the Benefits Agency says, "We cannot tell you anything about the wife's case, because you need a Data Protection Act order authority to refer to the husband." The two are, of course, living together as husband and wife.
The reply finally states, "We cannot disclose any information the agency hold on Mr. Smith." Mr. Smith is not connected in any way with the case, so where he came from is as much a mystery as the reference to the hon. Member for West Lancashire.
From that catalogue of errors in a letter about a constituency case, Mr. Deputy Speaker, you will understand the crucial importance of Ministers' supervising correspondence themselves. Would you be prepared to draw the matter to the attention of Ministers at the Department of Social Security, to ensure that, in future, letters containing three serious errors are not sent to Members when they concern constituents' urgent cases?
Mr. Deputy Speaker: That is not a point of order, but I am sure that someone in the Department will read Hansard.

Millennium Dome
Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Michael J. Martin): Madam Speaker has selected the amendment in the name of the Prime Minister.
7.44 pm
Mr. Peter Ainsworth: I beg to move,
That this House deplores the fact that Government interference in the Millennium Dome has rendered it a source of national embarrassment, a wasted opportunity to celebrate Britain and the Millennium and poor value for Lottery players' money.
It is nice to see the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport for the second time today, but I regret that, because of the time taken during our first encounter, there is so little time left to debate the dome. It is also a pity that the Minister responsible for it, Lord Falconer, is safely ensconced elsewhere. He, not the Secretary of State, answers for the Government on dome matters.
Let me begin by making what may be a slightly embarrassing confession. From the outset, I was a supporter of the dome and an enthusiast for the Greenwich site. I know that there are domophobes on both sides of the House—people who think that the whole project was destined to be a failure and a waste of money. I am not one of those people. I pay tribute to my right hon. Friend the Member for Henley (Mr. Heseltine), whom I am delighted to see in the Chamber and who is often credited with having inspired the project and enabled it to happen at all. Back in 1997, in evidence to the Select Committee, he said:
"I feel that it is right in the conduct of the nation's affairs every so often for nations to make a great statement of confidence, of great commitment to their own pride in the past and optimism in the future. There could be no more obvious moment to do that than on the anniversary of the millennium."
I entirely endorse those sentiments. I wish that that aspiration had been fulfilled, but no one visiting the dome today could say with honesty that it has been.
The problems at the dome have resulted directly from the meddling and interference of Ministers. In fact, the problems began before the last general election, with the refusal of the Labour Opposition to make up their mind about whether, if elected, they would continue with the project. As a result of that prevarication, a valuable nine months—at least—were lost. Partly as a consequence of that, time, instead of being a theme for the dome, became an enemy.
Following the decision to proceed with the project, the Government made their next big mistake. They appointed the right hon. Member for Hartlepool (Mr. Mandelson), Labour's archspin doctor, to be the sole shareholder in the project. The warnings were there: the only other project that the right hon. Gentleman had masterminded was shallow, confused, all things to all people, long on height and bereft of vision. It was the monstrous blancmange of Labour's general election victory—a monstrous blancmange that is now going squishy at the edges, past its sell-by date and liable to give voters the runs.
Not surprisingly, the right hon. Gentleman's appointment was seen as harnessing the dome—and, indeed, all millennium projects, whether they originated from religious faith or from a sense of community spirit—to Labour's campaign to win the next general election. I am happy to say that most of the other projects,

1307
especially the smaller ones, have been reclaimed by the people up and down the country, but for the dome there was no escape. The arrival of the right hon. Gentleman began a process of obsessive secrecy, which has been one of the abiding characteristics of the way in which the project has been handled and of its public relations—obsessive secrecy illumined occasionally by flashes of the absurd or surreal.
I wonder, Mr. Deputy Speaker, whether you recall the trip to Disneyworld, and the photo-call with the world's most famous mouse. In view of recent events, it was a somewhat ironic trip. Do you recall the birth of "Baby Dome"? Whatever became of "Baby Dome"? [Interruption.] No doubt it was the victim of a ruthless infanticide, as my hon. Friend the Member for West Suffolk (Mr. Spring)—to whose contributions to our debates on the dome I pay tribute—so admirably points out.
Do you remember "surfball", the exciting new game, Mr. Deputy Speaker? "Surfball" turned out to be a figment: it turned out to be "surfballs". Then there was the tantalising glimpse of the body zone, which involved first a giant man, and then a man, a woman and a baby—another baby that disappeared. Finally, there was an androgenous figure; at that stage, no one knew that, sadly, it was infected with pubic lice.
Not surprisingly, the dome became the butt of jokes. According to The Times:
"Attacking the Dome has become the nation's favourite sport."
[Interruption.] Hon. Members should go and have a look.
Mr. James Plaskitt: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. Ainsworth: I will, but I shall not do so very often, because we are short of time.
Mr. Plaskitt: If the dome is a joke, as the hon. Gentleman says, can he explain why it is now the most popular tourist attraction in the United Kingdom?
Mr. Ainsworth: The hon. Gentleman will have to do better than that. I was quoting The Times, which pointed out that the dome had become the butt of the nation's humour.
There is a lack of candour in financial matters. That was regretted by the Select Committee on more than one occasion, but not addressed by the Ministers concerned. At one point last year, several different figures for the amount of sponsorship that had been received were spun simultaneously. That is par for the course perhaps from a press office that has been heavily infiltrated by Millbank implants and described by one former insider as "really rather nasty". The handling of the press office and its bullying approach to journalists over time might have done more to undermine the dome's reputation than even the shenanigans on new year's eve, of which I should record that my family and I were beneficiaries. [HON. MEMBERS: "Ah."] I use the term "beneficiaries" advisedly.
With the demise, albeit temporary, of the right hon. Member for Hartlepool, there was a golden opportunity for a fresh start on the project. We argued then for the appointment of a person with relevant business and tourism skills and knowledge to head the project.
Mr. Lindsay Hoyle: I am pleased that the hon. Gentleman has announced that he went on a free trip
1308
because, previously, he had announced to everyone in the Chamber that he had paid to go in the dome. Perhaps now we have had the clarification that we expected.
Mr. Ainsworth: The hon. Gentleman is silly and is wasting time. I went to the dome on new year's eve. I went back to the dome after the opening and paid for my own ticket. I understand that that is one more time than the Secretary of State, who has been there only on new years's eve, according a recent parliamentary answer.
The impression of control by the political image doctors was only reinforced by the appointment of Lord Falconer—not just any old crony but the apogee of cronydom, the Prime Minister's trusted former flatmate. Although less prone to surfballing and more convivial than his saturnine predecessor, Lord Falconer did nothing to stem the tide of bad publicity. The project was characterised by exactly the same lack of candour and blithe reassurances to genuine questions from hon. Members on both sides of the House. As things got worse, the Government decided on a new tack: anyone criticising the dome, or the way in which it was managed was suddenly unpatriotic or a whinger.
Ms Hazel Blears: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. Ainsworth: No, I will not.
Ms Blears rose—
Mr. Ainsworth: All right; I give way to the hon. Lady.
Ms Blears: Does the hon. Gentleman not accept that his constant denigration of the dome has a terrible effect on those children—hundreds of thousands of them—who are going to the dome to do the "our town story", as Salford children did last week? They are proud of their cities and their heritage. He should be ashamed of his constant denigration of those children's activities.
Mr. Ainsworth: If the hon. Lady had paid attention to any of the discussions that we have had on the dome in the past 18 months, she would have heard me being supportive of the project. It is not Conservative Members who have made the dome what it is today. It is not they who have enabled children to visit only two of the zones. It is not they who have given rise to children from Yorkshire being offered an 8 am slot for their visit to the dome, which would mean their getting up at 2 am. She should look at what is going on before criticising Conservative Members.
Last autumn's draw-down of the £50 million facility from the Millennium Commission is another prime example of appalling media relations. That £50 million had always been in the budget, but it had never been referred to, so, not surprisingly, commentators saw it as a new cash injection and that is how it was portrayed.
Similarly inept was the attempt to spin the emergency cash-flow boost in January as perfectly in line with expectations. Shortly after the opening night, I warned that the project might run into cash-flow difficulties in the near future and need an injection of funds, but not even I had expected that need to arise so soon. No one in their

1309
right mind plans to receive an emergency cash injection to avoid insolvent trading. To have pretended otherwise was absurd.
Incidentally, I have yet to meet anyone who favours giving more money to the project. Perhaps the Secretary of State has. If so, I will be delighted to hear who. I will also be delighted to hear what guarantee he can offer that the dome will not be back for more. He is silent on that, but I hope that when he answers he will offer some relevant remarks.
The media had just about had their fill of patronising and misleading claptrap when it was suddenly claimed that, instead of needing 12 million visitors to break even—the figure that had been in the public domain for about two years—the dome would need only 10 million visitors. I am certain that that miraculous change in the economics of the dome had nothing whatever to do with the fact that, at that time, the public were staying away in droves.
Dome watchers had worked out by mid-January that, as crisis followed crisis, there would be a need for a scapegoat. They had also worked out that under no circumstances would that scapegoat be a Minister.
Jennie Page, redoubtable and feisty as she is, is a public servant by instinct and training. She had possibly the worst job in Britain and she did it very well. It was made even worse by the constant interference from Ministers, which she found exasperating. To deliver the project on time and to budget by 31 December was no mean achievement. She deserved better than a public and acrimonious dismissal.
We are told that it was Lord Falconer himself who, on the day of Jennie Page's departure, personally telephoned a number of the sponsors to tell them about her replacement. The Secretary of State has written to me on the subject. He played no part in the shameful affair. He is exonerated, but I should be grateful if he confirmed that it is his understanding that Lord Falconer telephoned the sponsors on the day that Jennie Page left. If so, will he share with the House his understanding of what Lord Falconer said to the sponsors because there seems to have been some misunderstanding? They were left with the impression that the dome's new chief executive was to be the man who saved Disneyland Paris. That was Philippe Bourguignon, not P-Y Gerbeau. It was another masterly display of cack-handed spin, in which the Minister was personally involved.
I wish P-Y, as we must grow to know and to love him, very well. It is not his fault that his appointment prompted Le Monde to gloat:
"A Frenchman, a garlic eater, a vulgar frog is to rescue the failure of what Tony Blair only 2 months ago called 'This extraordinary Testament to British creativity'".
The dome is indeed a national embarrassment.
Mr. Nick Hawkins: Does my hon. Friend agree that what the dome has become in the public mind and certainly in the media's mind is a testament to new Labour, the epitome, a paradigm—all spin and no substance?
Mr. Ainsworth: My hon. Friend is right. If he waits, I may dwell briefly on that theme, too.
Mr. Clive Efford: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. Ainsworth: I will not at the moment.
P-Y appears to have got off to a good start, helped by half-term and by the weather, although people do not have to pay £20 to go to the dome to watch a rugby international, however gratifying the result. He faces an unenviable task, hampered again by time—the project's enemy—and by money. He is also hampered by the content of the dome itself.
The original vision for the dome was noble and thoughtful: a symbol of Britain on the cusp of the new millennium, a celebration of our past. History has been air-brushed from the dome. The theme of time has become a mere memory. It was a chance to take stock of ourselves as a nation and to glimpse the future with the help of the best of our creative talent and cutting-edge technology, but the dome is not a symbol of Britain. It is a symbol of a trite, self-regarding and bossy Government who believe in nothing and have to their credit only a mounting pile of broken promises and malfunctioning zones, such as health, crime and rural areas. The Government have fashioned a dome in their own image, partly on purpose, partly by mistake.
When the creative director, Stephen Bayley, walked out on the project because he could not hack the daily intrusions by Ministers in a project that was meant to be above politics, the dome was consigned to whatever fate bureaucrats, long-suffering and competing sponsors and Ministers could incompetently contrive between them. The result is the noisy, brash, part dull, part sensational exhibition that we are discussing tonight.
Sure, people will go, and good luck to them. I hope that they have a great day. Sure, children will enjoy the day out. When did children ever not enjoy a day out?
Mr. Jim Dowd (Lord Commissioner to the Treasury): Often.
Mr. Ainsworth: The hon. Gentleman obviously leads a sad life. We took the children to Brighton at the weekend. They had a very good day out and I do not think that Brighton has had £400 million of lottery money. It does not take £400 million of lottery money to give children a good day out.
The staff at the dome are universally helpful. I am told that the show is good as well, but on the day I went—and paid for my ticket—I was told that the show that I wanted to see had been cancelled owing to a lack of visitors.
What do people say about value for money at the dome?
Mr. Roger Gale: The cost of the dome is continually presented as not being a charge on the taxpayer. It is not clear whom the Government think that £400 million of lottery money came from if not from the taxpayer by another means. Unlike the Government, my hon. Friend has paid some attention to tourism. Could he make a guesstimate of what £400 million might have done for the seaside heritage of Britain?
Mr. Ainsworth: My hon. Friend tempts me down a road that I do not wish to travel. The Government have

1311
many times admitted that lottery money is public money. Obviously, £400 million could have done a great deal for our tourist areas. However, the British Tourist Authority anticipates that the dome will attract a significant number of visitors, although I doubt that the claim that it will attract £1 billion of extra spending is anywhere near the mark.
People who go to the dome have a reasonable day. There is no doubt about that. However, do they think that the money spent on it was well spent? A handy website—www.DomeVote.co.uk—has been set up to enable those who have visited the dome to voice their opinions. The first question is, "Is the dome worth £758 million?" So far, 16 per cent. say yes and 78 per cent. say no. Some 48 per cent. rate the dome as a waste of money and 39 per cent. say that the queues are too long. The dome is not cutting it in terms of value for money.
As my hon. Friend the Member for Surrey Heath (Mr. Hawkins) said a few moments ago, the dome is an emblem of new Labour. It betrays a failure of vision. Worse, it betrays an inability to understand where politics should give way to art, design, science, architecture and history. It is not a triumph of spin over substance because it is not a triumph at all.
In the long run, what happens after the exhibition closes will be of far greater importance than the exhibition itself. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Henley (Mr. Heseltine) will confirm, Greenwich was chosen partly because of its location on the meridian line, but also because of the immense possibilities for regeneration in that part of London. It is worrying that Ministers have got off to such a delayed start in seeking bids for the site. It is worrying that nobody seems to have calculated the cost of decommissioning the exhibition. It is worrying that there appears to be a dispute with British Gas over the site. I am sure that the last thing that any of us wants is for the dome to stand idle for months after the exhibition closes at the end of the year. We want to get on with creating jobs and creating a development that will bring something of great value to the capital city and to the nation as a whole.
All that is for the future. For now, our message to Ministers is that they have done enough damage: leave P-Y to get on with the job, and leave the dome alone.
8.5 pm
The Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport (Mr. Chris Smith): I beg to move, To leave out from "House" to the end of the Question, and to add instead thereof:
"believes that the Millennium Experience—and the many other Millennium activities—represent both an excellent celebration for the people of this country and a tangible and enduring legacy for future generations; further welcomes the announcement that the New Millennium Experience Company team will be introducing improvements which deliver even greater value for money both to the paying visitor and to the Millennium Commission; and, in particular, notes the record attendances at the Dome in the week commencing 7th February and the recent high satisfaction ratings amongst visitors."
I am grateful to the hon. Member for East Surrey (Mr. Ainsworth) for giving me the opportunity to speak on this important subject, if not for a speech that amply justified the title "monstrous blancmange".
I am sure that our discussions this evening will focus on the dome, but it is important that we see it in its proper context. Unlike the hon. Gentleman, I think that
1312
context matters. We have always said that the dome was the centrepiece of the country's overall millennium celebrations. Those celebrations comprise a rich and colourful tapestry of projects and schemes that embrace the whole country and will enrich our cultural life for many years. There are projects as diverse as the immensely successful dynamic earth centre in Edinburgh, the new Tate gallery of modern art on Bankside and the spectrum of new village halls and greens that are being supported throughout the country.
There are also projects such as the millennium awards scheme, which enables thousands of ordinary people to achieve extraordinary things. It has helped 10,000 people to date, aged between 16 and 92. Grants from the millennium festival fund will enable communities in villages and towns across the country to mark the millennium in their own special way. Two projects were opened to the public just last week—the new art gallery and conservation centre at the Peter Scott wildfowl and wetlands trust headquarters at Slimbridge in Gloucestershire and the access no barrier project, which is a centre providing facilities for the physically handicapped and able bodied club in Jarrow.
Of course the dome matters, but it matters because it is part of a wider entity, not because it is the entirety of what we are doing. Let us remember that four fifths of Millennium Commission funds are going to projects, events and people other than the dome.
Mr. Richard Spring: The right hon. Gentleman has made our point. Because everything has been so dome-centric, attention has not been drawn to all the other worthwhile and magnificent projects. With all their appalling handling of the situation, the Government have ensured that attention is focused on the dome. That has discredited the whole millennium exercise.
Mr. Smith: I hesitate to point out to the hon. Gentleman that it might have been better if the Opposition had tabled a motion about the entirety of the millennium celebrations, events and projects if that was how they felt.
It saddens me to hear the hon. Member for East Surrey criticising the project and trying to make the dome a partisan issue. One of the project's greatest strengths is that it has enjoyed good cross-party support. Neither the dome nor the other millennium projects should be seen as the property of one political party. The Conservatives are trying to do that. I am sorry that they are unable to feel some pride in their initiative to use part of the national lottery for millennium schemes. It was their idea to have a strand of lottery spending devoted to the millennium, their idea to establish the Millennium Commission and their idea to develop the dome. It is not, and should not be seen as, a political entity. The same is true of the other millennium projects and events. The aim of all the projects is to represent the aspirations of a nation and to provide an opportunity for enjoyment for communities and individuals across the UK.
Mr. Mike Hancock: I am sure that everyone applauds the successful millennium projects to which the Secretary of State has referred. What does he feel about the second millennium failure—the plastic cone-topped tower in Portsmouth? It has been four years in the planning with three false starts, but still there has been no contract, no planning permission and no works

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act, yet £14 million of lottery money is still tied up in the project. Will he give us an update on that project and tell us when it will be built?
Mr. Smith: I understand that the rest of the Portsmouth scheme, involving the rehabilitation of the waterfront, is forging ahead very well. The city council is in discussion with the Millennium Commission about the tower. It has some proposals that appear to be viable. They need to be tested but, if they are indeed found to be viable, they will be proceeded with.
The hon. Member for East Surrey talks about political interference in the project. I cannot accept that accusation. The Government are not running the millennium experience, nor should we be. The previous Government recognised the national significance of the project by appointing a Minister as sole shareholder of the operating company. We have retained that arrangement because we believe that it is right for a national project of this scale to be subject to proper parliamentary accountability.
It was important that the Minister holding the share should not be the same Minister as the one chairing the Millennium Commission—that is, myself—and ultimately providing the finance. As the New Millennium Experience Company shareholder, Lord Falconer is accountable to Parliament for the millennium experience. That means that he needs to take an active interest in the project's development and progress along its critical path, but that is very different from interfering in the day-to-day management, which is the responsibility of the NMEC board.
Mr. Peter Ainsworth: How then does the Secretary of State explain the frustration and exasperation repeatedly expressed by Jennie Page about the constant, almost daily, interference by Ministers in affairs that she considered to be her own?
Mr. Smith: That is not something that she has ever said to me. If it had happened, it would have been regrettable; but it did not. The shareholder of the millennium experience set the overall parameters, along with the Millennium Commission, which is funding the project, but the day-to-day development and running of the experience are up to the board of the company and those running it. The Government believe in proper accountability, not unnecessary interference. We are not in the business of directly running visitor attractions.
I am proud to account for what has been achieved so far. Let us consider the first weekend: the turn of the millennium year. Well over 4.5 million people joined in the festivities in the 22 cities that received special grants from the commission to celebrate the run-up to, and the arrival of, 2000. As the report that I placed in the Library the other week shows, the celebrations were a great success and were well received by both those who attended and those who watched on television.
The dome opening celebrations involved more than 10,000 people, the majority members of the general public, and was viewed by 1 billion people on television around the world. The four millennium Church services on 2 January in London, Edinburgh, Cardiff and Belfast involved more than 5,000 people: members of
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communities and Christian congregations the length and breadth of the United Kingdom, as well as members of the royal family and both Government and Opposition Members of Parliament.
Mr. Ainsworth: Will the Secretary of State remind the House how much compensation was paid to those who had their evening spoilt on new year's eve?
Mr. Smith: If the hon. Gentleman will wait a moment, I am just about to come to that.
In addition to the millennium Church services on 2 January, the shared act of reflection and commitment by the faith communities of the UK, held in the Royal Gallery here at the Palace of Westminster the following day, was a very special and historic occasion, bringing together faith leaders and others from communities throughout the country to focus on the values that we need to shape society for the future.
Not surprisingly, there were a few glitches. Perhaps the most widely reported—or milked, depending on the agenda of those commenting—were the delays at Stratford tube station for those travelling to the dome for the opening celebrations. The arrangements for guests using Stratford did indeed go wrong. People should not have experienced the lengthy delays that they had to endure. Both NMEC and the Metropolitan police have apologised to those affected, and NMEC has offered—this is the answer to the question that the hon. Member for East Surrey asked—all those who used Stratford complimentary tickets for use during the year.
Despite the problems, virtually everyone enjoyed the evening, including many who travelled through Stratford. The millennium celebrations have continued since that first weekend. The dome opened its doors to its first paying visitors on 1 January. So far, 700,000 people have been, and the overwhelming verdict has been one of satisfaction and enjoyment. People like the dome.
Mr. Ivor Caplin: To reinforce that point, a letter in the Brighton Evening Argus of 17 February says:
"I would like to put the record straight over the bad publicity concerning the Millennium Dome.
It is a great achievement to build such a modern building. It is impressive and functional.
It is a splendid exhibition centre with many interesting displays with something for everybody.
The afternoon spectacular show is really something worth seeing.
I shall go again and I am a senior citizen."
Is that not the true reason for the dome?
Mr. Smith: That is indeed the overwhelming verdict of those who go to the dome. Indeed, some primary school children from Hull visited the dome this very morning. Louis Dorton, who is 11, said:
"I loved it all, the show was absolutely terrific, it's the best thing I've ever seen."
Kimberley Barlow, who is 10, said:
"The millennium show was amazing—the gymnasts are incredible and I don't know how they manage half the things they do. I'm amazed at it all."
Time after time, those are the sort of comments that people who visit the dome make about their visit.

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Despite what the media and some politicians may say, people who visit the dome thoroughly enjoy it and most would recommend it to their friends. Of course, the dome is not the first example of the professional critics misjudging the public's reaction; nor is the visiting public's positive feedback some kind of hyped-up spin from NMEC or the Government: it is more than borne out by independent polls commissioned by the very newspapers that in the same breath criticise the dome.
The Sunday Times found that 85 per cent. of visitors said that they had enjoyed their visit to the dome and 74 per cent. would recommend it to their friends; a poll in The Mirror found that 71 per cent. rated the dome as "good" or "very good"; Independent Television News found that 91 per cent. of those interviewed thought the dome worth the trip; and 61 per cent. of those interviewed by The Independent thought the dome and its contents spectacular. That same poll found that 0 per cent. thought it dull, yet in the self-same edition of the self-same paper, the leading article asked why so many people found the dome dull.
When I visited the dome myself as a paying visitor on Saturday—and had an extremely enjoyable time—it was obvious that the very large number of people there were enjoying themselves; quite a few of them came up to me to make that very point.
With immaculate timing, as always, the Opposition have called for this debate at the very time when we have had the four best-ever days of attendance at the dome. On Friday, there were 27,000 visitors; on Saturday, 24,700; on Sunday, 26,200; and this morning the dome was totally sold out by 11.30.
The hon. Member for East Surrey mentioned the recent change of chief executive at NMEC and the resignation of the operations director. The House will be aware that Jennie Page stood down as chief executive earlier this month. The NMEC board has appointed P-Y Gerbeau to succeed her, reflecting the view that a different set of skills was needed to manage the project during its year of operation. I will comment in a moment about Mr. Gerbeau's appointment, but I wish to pause briefly to reflect on Jennie's achievements on the project.
When Jennie accepted the post of chief executive of the then Millennium Central Ltd., three years ago, many people thought that completing the dome on time and on budget was an impossible task. Indeed, many thought the same when she previously took on the post of chief executive of the Millennium Commission. Both tasks required a unique vision and both required commitment, dedication and determination—skills that Jennie has in spades. Jennie met both of those challenges with her customary enthusiasm, intelligence and style. To build the dome on time and on budget was an enormous task in anybody's book. To do all of that under the intense scrutiny of both the media and Parliament was even more of a challenge, but it was a challenge to which Jennie was more than equal and I wish to put firmly on record my gratitude for her tremendous achievement in bringing the project to fruition.
The NMEC board's decision to appoint Mr. Gerbeau in no way detracts from Jennie's achievements. I can tell the hon. Member for East Surrey that it was a decision of the board. In answer to his specific question, Lord Falconer did telephone sponsors on Friday 4 February. He informed
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them that P-Y Gerbeau would replace Jennie Page and he indicated that P-Y was part of the team who turned round Disney in Paris.
Mr. Norman Baker: Will the Secretary of State give way?
Mr. Smith: No, I must make progress. The board believed that running a major visitor attraction required very different skills from those required to take that unique project from concept through development of content, including the national programme linked to the dome, to construction and fit-out of the dome itself. P-Y Gerbeau's experience as part of the Disney team will help to deliver the visitor experience that the visiting public anticipate. He has been in the job for two weeks and already decisions have been taken to improve signing, to provide more entertainment for visitors between the zones, to develop more activity in the central arena, to provide a better management of visitor flows, and to bring in greater flexibility in ticketing and marketing.
The hon. Gentleman also referred to the additional grant that the Millennium Commission has agreed to make available to NMEC to help with its cash-flow requirements in the early months of this year. As the House is aware, I am the chairman of the commission. The commission has recognised from the outset that cash-flow difficulties are often associated with large-scale start-up businesses. Provisions to deal with such potential difficulties in the case of the dome always formed part of the arrangements between the commission and NMEC. The commission has therefore agreed to provide up to £60 million in additional cash-flow support, subject to demonstration of need and to vigorous appraisal.
The commission has so far released £32 million of additional repayable grant in that way. The release of the remainder will similarly be in accordance only with demonstrable need. Both NMEC and the commission keep the company's budgets, commercial plans and operational strategies under review and the latest such appraisal by the commission will be completed shortly. The final decision on how much additional cashflow support might in fact be needed, and when it should be paid, will be taken in the light of that appraisal.
In all this, let us not forget that, even before it opened, the dome had already made a major impact on the economy of the local area. Thanks to the dome, one of the poorest areas of the country has undergone a transformation. The dome has been a catalyst for a whole range of environmental and infrastructural improvements that will leave a very tangible and lasting legacy for the people of Greenwich and the wider United Kingdom. A derelict gasworks site has been cleaned up, in what is widely recognised as a model for brownfield site development across Europe. One can now travel between central London and the north Greenwich peninsula on the new Jubilee line extension in only 12 minutes and the new river boat services have once again brought the Thames into play as one of the great communication links of the capital. We have the new millennium village, with its mix of social and commercial housing and its modern, energy-efficient designs, and £300 million to £500 million extra tourist spend is expected across the UK this year as a direct result of the dome, with a halo effect of double that.
Regeneration is not just about money and places: it is about people. Perhaps the greatest testimony to the dome is that it has been the catalyst for the creation of around

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13,000 jobs, both in itself and in the developments around it on the peninsula. The impact that those have made and will continue to make on the life of the community is, in my mind, far more important than the empty whingeing from the Opposition. The millennium celebrations are about making a real difference to the lives of the people of this country, through jobs, through boosts to the economy and through regeneration. That is what is at stake and that is what we should focus on tonight. Anything that can have such an enormous positive impact on the life of both its local community and the national economy should be encouraged, not knocked. We need to stop talking it down, get behind the project, give our full support to the NMEC team at the dome and together make it work.
8.26 pm
Mr. Michael Heseltine: I am grateful to be called. The House will know that it is now some years since my right hon. Friend the Member for Huntingdon (Mr. Major), the former Prime Minister, invited me to become a member of the Millennium Commission. As the House will also know, the commission was one of the distributor bodies set up under the previous Government to distribute funds gathered by the national lottery. It cannot be disputed that there has never been such an infusion of funds into good causes—the charities, arts, heritage, culture and sport—under any Government policy ever initiated in this country at any time in our history. That is a proud claim to make on behalf of a policy initiative by my right hon. Friend.
Part of my right hon. Friend's vision was that it should be an all-party concept, and when the Millennium Commission was set up under the chairmanship of the responsible Minister at the time, a representative of the Labour party, the late Michael Montague, was invited to join the commission to ensure that it was conducted on an all-party basis. There has never been a party political discussion in the commission. Having attended meetings for some years, I do not even know the party choices of the members of the commission. They have not been relevant to our deliberations.
The decision to attempt a great celebration was predictably controversial. The Great Exhibition of 1851 was stopped in its tracks by Tory Members of Parliament who complained about the design, which led to the redesign by Paxton that enabled the project to proceed. The 1951 celebration, the Festival of Britain, was equally controversial and, on a tiny and humble scale, the Liverpool garden festival, for which I was responsible in the early 1980s, was treated precisely the same way as we anticipated the dome would be. And so it has been. As the Secretary of State said, the dome was designed to be an all-party statement about Britain's prowess. That was the context of the birth pains that such projects characteristically undergo in this country.
Looking back, I remember that people said we would never do it, but we did. They said that we would never do it to cost or to time, but we did. The headlines screamed that we would never get the Jubilee line open and that no one would be able to get to the dome, but the line did open and people are getting to the dome. At every turn, the whole process has been attacked—ruthlessly and irresponsibly—by the national press. Unlike many hon.
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Members, I have spent my life in the commercial world launching projects. I know that they are always a risk, that there is always, by definition, an element of unpredictability, and that things go wrong. In my experience, it is impossible to conceive that a project could be successful if every question were asked at every stage, and if those managing the project were held to every decision that they ever took.
The most obvious example involves the project's sponsorship. It fell to my noble Friend Lord Levene to help in raising the money. He and I advised the commission that we thought that we could raise £150 million. From that moment, the media rendered that task well nigh impossible. Every time we opened our mouths, we were asked whether we had secured the money—if we said, "Not yet," the headlines claimed that we had failed to get the money. When asked how much we had secured, we would say that we had a list of prospects, that some were firm, some less so, and that we still had to talk to some of them. The press response then was to ask, "So you haven't got anything you can prove?" We had to admit that we had not, and from that moment on the attacks began to build.
As confidence began to be undermined, a number of company chairman who had been broadly sympathetic to our aims asked how they could continue with the project. They said that their under-managers believed that their companies would be made laughing stocks, and the same questions were asked—about value for money, about whether the dome would be ready on time, and about how people would get there. On and on it went: I believe that our national press cost the project at least tens of millions of pounds in lost sponsorship because of the uncertainties that were built up into crises.
In the event, Lord Levene and I secured more than £150 million, as we had always believed we would. However, problems remain. Some sponsors have not paid yet: although the sponsoring companies' chairmen came on board with good will, their underlings tried almost immediately to turn the zone that was being sponsored into something closer to a trade show than the editorial concept behind the project allowed. So the process unfolded.
The present Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, the right hon. Member for Hartlepool (Mr. Mandelson), was accused of being obsessively secretive. I find that hard to recognise: every Tuesday, Simon Jenkins, my fellow commissioner and a former editor of The Times and the Evening Standard and I met the right hon. Gentleman and subsequently his successor, Lord Falconer, to go through every relevant detail about the dome. My right hon. Friend the Member for Horsham (Mr. Maude) and my hon. Friend the Member for East Surrey (Mr. Ainsworth) were invited, on various occasions, to see the same presentations that we had seen. I can only assume that they took advantage of those offers and were relatively content with what they witnessed. Therefore, I do not believe that there was excessive secrecy.
Mr. Baker: Does the right hon. Gentleman accept that the right hon. Member for Hartlepool (Mr. Mandelson) did not utter a word in the Chamber about the project for many months into the life of this Parliament? In fact, no debate was held on the subject until 1998, and the then Minister with responsibility for the dome was required

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only to answer questions before the House for five minutes once a month. That hardly amounted to parliamentary accountability.
Mr. Heseltine: It is within the gift of opposition parties, if they feel that they are not getting the answers that they need, to hold debates on matters of their choosing. In fairness, I must admit that I would not have wanted to debate the matter either. How can a project of such complexity and sophistication be debated as it unfolds? How seriously can people be expected to pin down answers?
Before the House becomes convinced of how it will determine the outcome of tonight's debate, I suggest that hon. Members consider two other great projects undertaken in this country on the same time scale. First, Covent Garden opera house has been rebuilt, and is now one of the great opera houses in the world—and the clamour for it to be closed because of teething troubles has now gone. Secondly, the millennium wheel is one of the most inventive tourist attractions ever created in this country, but its builders had to delay its opening for a month until they could be sure that it would work safely. The fact is that things go wrong with great projects. I would be the first to say that there have been plenty of examples of things going wrong, and the Secretary of State has mentioned some of them. There was the catastrophic opening evening, with the Stratford delay. The fact is, we must look at these matters in context.
The dome is now operating, and the numbers of people visiting it are building significantly. My hon. Friend the Member for East Surrey spoke of a test on an internet website regarding people's view of the dome. As I listened, it occurred to me that that was a fairly narrow test of opinion. How many people in this country are able to access the internet? Who will bother to access it? It would be more realistic if all the national newspapers, which have headlined the weaknesses all the way through in the polls to which the Secretary of State has referred, revealed that the majority of people going to the dome like it, and think it well worth while. How is it that that view is never flavoured in the headlines of the same newspapers, which go on repeating the same arguments that they have run ever since the concept was initiated some years ago?
Mr. Peter Ainsworth: There may be a misunderstanding. The poll to which I referred dealt with the public's attitude towards value for money, not with their reaction to a day at the dome.
Mr. Heseltine: I understood the point that my hon. Friend was making, but I remain where I began. What sort of people would go to the trouble of accessing that site and from what sort of background would they come? Do they meet the test that we faced, as millennium commissioners, of providing an experience that was not just entertaining but educational, and would appeal to the majority of people? How does one appeal to elderly people who are retired, to young people, to children and to middle-aged people and avoid the charge of producing something that is relatively wide in its appeal as opposed to narrow and intellectually excellent?
Ms Claire Ward: Might I help the right hon. Gentleman and suggest that the kind of people who would
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access that dome site are sitting on the Conservative Benches? They clearly do not have the ability to look much further than what is being projected on to that dome site by some very sad people.
Mr. Heseltine: Before the hon. Lady gets carried away, if she has criticisms of my hon. Friends, she should have listened to what her party was like in opposition. The lengths to which they went to exploit difficulties made what we have heard today seem as nothing.
There is one point on which I would like to follow the Secretary of State. Jennie Page has been replaced, following her resignation as chief executive. I have known Jennie Page since her days at English Heritage, and then as chief executive of the Millennium Commission. She is, in my view, one of the outstanding public servants of her day. The fact that her arrangements were terminated, with or without agreement, by the New Millennium Experience Company, is a matter of the most profound regret. However, that does not make it the wrong decision in the circumstances.
Jennie Page confounded the critics and delivered the project to time and to budget. As the great civil servant that she is, she had to assess a whole range of conflicting professional advice and to take from that the means by which the project was delivered. That is a different skill from feeling in one's bones, from long personal experience, how to deal with day-to-day problems. The board could well have felt that someone who was not reliant upon outside expertise but who had hands-on personal experience was needed to cope with the teething problems. It would be very difficult to run those two people in harness. Jennie Page is nothing if not a determined and extremely talented deliverer of results. Those results are in the classic public sector mould, and I have not the slightest doubt that her future career in the public sector will build on the excellence of what she has achieved to date.
I have one last point to make, and it is the last point to which the Secretary of State referred. In 1979, I looked with horror at the east end of London. The Labour-dominated Greater London council and the Labour-dominated London boroughs had ensured that there were thousands and thousands of acres of derelict land, apparently with no future. The Government of whom I was a member took over some 6,000 acres on the north bank of the Thames. We left untouched, at the express request of the London borough of Greenwich, the 300 acres of dereliction now known as the dome site.
When I returned to the then Department of the Environment in 1990, that land was as derelict as it had been in 1979. On my best judgment, derelict it would have remained if we had not taken a decision to enable English Partnerships to acquire the site, clear the toxic waste and give the land a hope of life. It is today a site of huge potential. Once again, the critics have been confounded. Far from having no use for the dome, we are besieged by people who seek to acquire it for after-use. I do not know what decision will be made, but those of us who backed the concept from the beginning always believed that if we had the faith to see it through, it would deliver a massive surge of regeneration in that important and historic part of London.
The dome is a national project. It is important in the eyes of both the British people and the world. Everyone knows what we have invested in the project. We must be

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seen to support it and to give it every chance to be the success that I have always believed, and still believe, it will prove to be.
8.41 pm
Mr. Clive Efford: I must respond to the final point made by the right hon. Member for Henley (Mr. Heseltine) by saying that the Greenwich peninsula was never in the ownership of the London borough of Greenwich. The site was heavily contaminated and the cost of clearing and decontaminating it had always prevented development. That is the historical reason why the site remained derelict for 20 years.
When the hon. Member for East Surrey (Mr. Ainsworth) opened for the Opposition, he said nothing positive about the dome. However, the project was bipartisan from the outset. It was conceived under the previous Conservative Government, and I pay tribute to the right hon. Member for Henley and others for their bravery in supporting it from an early stage. I recall attending a reception on the Cutty Sark at Greenwich almost a decade ago, when I was a councillor, and I spoke with the world's media about the potential of Greenwich for millennium celebrations. We discussed the possibility of regenerating the site, but we knew it would take a scheme of the magnitude of the millennium experience to generate enough investment to clear the site for development and regeneration.
Those 300 acres were London's largest derelict waterfront site, and they had been empty for 20 years. Greenwich is within the Thames gateway area, which includes seven of the 20 poorest boroughs in the country. One third of London's unemployed live in the gateway area. The dome was initially intended to create 7,000 jobs, but by the end of the year it is expected to have created about 25,000. Between 1991 and 1993, Greenwich lost 500 businesses and more than 10,000 manufacturing jobs. Regeneration of the millennium project site was much needed.
The wider benefits of the millennium project were never forgotten during its development. The masts that have become such a feature of the dome were built by a steel company based in Bolton and Bristol. That company provided 1,600 tonnes of steel and 70 km of steel cabling. Construction contracts for £38 million were issued throughout London. A further £9.6 million was spent on labour. Construction contracts issued throughout the rest of the country totalled £130 million.
During the construction of the dome, the long-term benefits were also considered. The British Tourist Authority estimated that the millennium experience could generate up to £500 million from additional overseas visitors, and that the halo market effect would be £1 billion. Tourism is among the five largest UK industries; it is worth £40 billion a year.
South-east London lacked the infrastructure enjoyed by many other parts of the capital. We did not have direct access to the London underground. Anyone travelling to central London from north Kent, east Sussex or south-east London had to rely heavily on the rail network. Buses were not seen as an option because of heavy traffic congestion—which grew during the 18 years of the Conservative Government.
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The right hon. Member for Wokingham (Mr. Redwood), who was until recently the shadow Transport spokesman wrote an article in The Guardian in which he criticised the dome because it was not possible to reach it by car. People in my constituency think that is one of the benefits of the scheme. Obviously, the right hon. Gentleman has never tried to drive through Greenwich during peak periods. Visitors to the dome will have to do that if they are to spend a full day there. Commuters who queue to go through the Blackwall tunnel every morning will be mindful of the fact that they would be enjoying the company of several thousand car users trying to get to the Greenwich waterfront if the Conservatives had won the last election.
The dome will be a major attraction for many years to come. The transport scheme will benefit south-east London and the dome for a long time. A huge car park on the Greenwich peninsula would have encouraged people to bring their cars and ignore the public transport alternatives. Even the Conservative Government acknowledged the need to limit out-of-town developments when they changed planning guidance in order to restrict car use in new shopping developments and encourage greater use of public transport.
People who visit the dome do not want a long traffic queue to be the beginning of their millennium experience—or of future events that may take place in the dome.
Mr. Gerald Bermingham: Looking to the future and to the success of the dome in its passage to other hands, does my hon. Friend agree that the funds generated could be redeployed—perhaps to the midlands or the north-west—where the dome should have been built in the first place?
Mr. Efford: I have already explained why it was necessary to build the dome in Greenwich—the place that gave its name to the way in which we record time. In my opinion and that of my former colleagues on Greenwich council, that was the only site for the millennium experience.
The Jubilee line extension brings enormous benefits to south-east London. It will be available for future generations of people who want access to jobs in the east London corridor. For far too long, people in south-east London have been forced to rely solely on rail services or to undertake long car journeys. Moving around the perimeter of London has meant either a long bus ride or a train journey into and out of central London. The opening of North Greenwich station and the extension of the docklands light railway to south-east London offers many public transport options for people in the area, and will assist in minimising the traffic that has blighted it for far too long.
People in my area are very concerned about the dome's future. The dome has created many jobs in south-east London, and the prospects for its future use concern them greatly. I have recently raised with London Regional Transport issues to do with its transport planning and the way that it has linked other parts of south-east London and the south-east with the new options that have been created by the extension of the new transport links. The prospects for employment in the area are extensive as a result of the development that is taking place along the entire river frontage.

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The dome has been a victim of its own success. Initially, the headlines were about the length of time that it was taking to queue for the attractions—there was no suggestion that too few people were making it to the dome to enjoy a day out. Then the headlines focused on the fact that there were not enough people at the dome to form a queue of any sort. I understand that today the reports are that people are complaining that they turned up at the dome to buy a ticket and were unable to do so. I have to conclude that, whatever happens at the dome, it will never be reported as a success.
The attendance figures for January need to be viewed in perspective. All the large theme parks with which the dome has been compared do not open at this time of year. Nevertheless, attendance figures for the first week in February show that 105,000 people attended the dome, and that figure has shown a steady increase despite the amount of negative publicity that there has been recently.
As the Secretary of State said, in the last four days 25,000 to 26,000 people have attended the dome, which means that it has reached almost capacity every single day. We need to put those statistics in perspective and consider the prospects for the dome in an entire year. The hon. Member for East Surrey has taken the opportunity to criticise the Government while few people are attending the dome, but he has not taken into account the forecast attendance figures for an entire year. He should focus on the forecasts to assess whether the dome will be a success in the long term.
The Secretary of State drew attention to surveys of those visiting the dome. The London tourist board surveyed visitors from abroad to London during the last summer period. It found that eight out of 10 of those who were planning to return to London next summer intended to visit the dome. The dome also compares favourably with all other major attractions in London. In a recent MORI poll undertaken on behalf of the New Millennium Experience Company, 82 per cent. of those interviewed said that they were very satisfied or fairly satisfied with the new millennium dome.
The Opposition are attempting to fill the void that is left by their total lack of any coherent set of policies. The dome is a success. It now features on many corporations' logos. It features in the work of the advertising industry, which would not associate itself with something that is likely to be a failure.
Visitors continue to vote with their feet and express their approval on leaving the dome. We should celebrate this achievement and seek to maximise its benefits instead of continuing to undermine it. We should also seek to enhance the regeneration benefits that it has brought to an important area in south-east London.
8.54 pm
Mr. Norman Baker: The Secretary of State—who, sadly, is not in the Chamber at the moment—said that the dome should not be a partisan issue. He implied that anyone who had criticisms of it was in some way disloyal to the country, which has the dome as its national icon as part of the millennium celebrations. I hope that he will accept that Liberal Democrats try to judge the issues on their merits. Earlier, I gave warm support to his statement on the funding of the BBC, which contrasts with the comments that were made by Tory Members.
It is no use saying that those who have qualms about the dome must be quiet or that they are somehow being disloyal. Questions need to be answered and they relate
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to the Government's performance on the issue. I hope that they will answer the questions rather than seek to portray those who have queries as being disloyal.
The Conservative party was right to call this debate. It was right because we have not had proper parliamentary scrutiny of the issue since day one. The right hon. Member for Henley (Mr. Heseltine) said that there has been no secrecy and that everything was properly accountable However, from the time when the Prime Minister gave the green light to the dome project on 19 June 1997, we had to wait months for the right hon. Member for Hartlepool (Mr. Mandelson), who was then responsible for the dome, even to turn up in the Chamber. He went more than a year without saying a word here. After intense pressure from the media, me and others, we finally received a five-minute question session to deal with the millennium dome. The time was eventually extended to 10 minutes and the first debate took place only in 1998. We cannot say that the issue has received proper parliamentary scrutiny.
This is the first debate that we have had since the dome opened, and it is been called on an Opposition day. The Government have not made statements on what happened on 31 December or on any other event related to the dome, despite the fact that we are told that it is so important. The Government cannot have it both ways. They have been happy to take the credit for the dome where appropriate, but they are happy to run away when problems occur with its running.
Secrecy has been a feature from the beginning. In January 1998, a Labour Member, the hon. Member for Hackney, North and Stoke Newington (Ms Abbott), called for details of spending on the dome to be published each month. That was refused. My constituency neighbour, the hon. Member for Mid-Sussex (Mr. Soames), also called for the dome's cash-flow forecasts to be published on a monthly basis. That was refused.
I and others have asked countless parliamentary questions, but they have simply not been answered, on the so-called ground of commercial confidentiality. Any student of Westminster will say that that is the easiest way for a Government to avoid answering parliamentary questions.
Mr. Stephen Pound: Just the hon. Gentleman's questions.
Mr. Baker: No, not just my questions, but questions from many Members. Perhaps the hon. Gentleman should read Hansard more closely.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport (Janet Anderson): I remind the hon. Gentleman that, when he was going through one of his bouts of asking many questions about the dome, I took the trouble to invite him to meet my officials and members of the New Millennium Experience Company, so that they could answer his questions. Will he now kindly acknowledge that offer?
Mr. Baker: I am happy to acknowledge it. However, I point out that there is a difference between off-the-record briefings behind closed doors and proper parliamentary scrutiny on the record and in the House.

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The questions that have been answered on the record have not been answered fully. I asked one question in November and another in December. Both received holding answers and, when they were finally answered at some length in late December, they received exactly the same answer even though my questions were totally different. Someone pressed the button for the acceptable form of words for that month, and the same answer came out.
I have also asked the Minister about the tendency for so many questions to receive holding answers. When I asked her how many holding answers had been issued, she told me that she would reply to me shortly. In other words, that was a holding answer to a holding answer.
The Select Committee on Culture, Media and Sport has also examined the matter. It has said that getting information about the dome is "akin to drawing teeth" and that it is
"not so much a journey through time as a journey into the unknown."
Mr. Bermingham: If, like many of us, the hon. Gentleman had been in the House before 1997, he would have known that formal and informal discussions went on about the dome. There were arguments about its location, cost and everything else. Does not the hon. Gentleman appreciate that once a commercial operation is up and running, there is a need for confidentiality? That is simple common sense, and to carp and gripe from ignorance is not very edifying.
Mr. Baker: There are occasions when certain matters have to be kept confidential, but that excuse has been used to refuse an answer to many legitimate questions asked by hon. Members—including Labour Members who do not share the hon. Gentleman's rather rosy view.
When the Government committed themselves to the dome project in June 1997, they set five conditions: it would result in no extra burden on the public purse; its content would entertain and inspire; it would be a truly national event; it would provide a lasting legacy; and the management structure of the operating company would be strengthened. There was, incidentally, no mention of jobs or the benefit to Greenwich. I accept that Greenwich has benefited and that jobs have been created, but that was not one of the five conditions that the Government imposed when they decided to go ahead.
The key to this multi-million pound project has been private sector sponsorship. There has been confusion about exactly what has been promised to the sponsors and exactly how much they have paid. Those are more unanswered questions that ought to be cleared up by the Minister in her response. For example, in answer to a parliamentary question on 24 February 1998—two years ago this Thursday—the then Minister responsible, the right hon. Member for Hartlepool (Mr. Mandelson), told the House that the NMEC had that day announced the first four sponsors, and the list included Sky. In a parliamentary answer of 3 December 1998, he confirmed a number of sponsors, including Boots the Chemist and Sky.
On 31 January this year, the Under-Secretary, who has inherited this portfolio, revealed that three sponsors have not yet signed on the dotted line, including Boots the
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Chemist and Sky. The same three companies were named in a parliamentary question that I asked on 11 February, and again it was confirmed that they had not signed. That was confirmed again on 14 February.
Why have those companies, which were confirmed as sponsors two years ago, not yet signed on the dotted line? What reservations do they have? What are they trying to extract before they sign? Is there any doubt about whether they will hand over the money? If there is no doubt, why have they not signed and why have they not paid the money? The Minister must answer those questions. It is simply not good enough for Ministers to try to duck them and to set a loyalty test in respect of the dome.
On 31 January this year, the Under-Secretary said on sponsorship:
"we are confident that contractual arrangements will be finalised in the very near future."—[Official Report, 31 January 2000; Vol. 343, c. 476W.]
Perhaps we can find out what the Government mean by "very near future". Is that an early pledge that those sponsors will be providing money for the dome?
Mars, which is another sponsor that has not signed, and Boots use the dome and millennium experience logo on their products. Perhaps Sky does too. Why should they be able to use that marque when they have not handed over the money? In the meantime, who is stumping up the cash to make up the shortfall or cash-flow problems that the sponsors are causing by not handing over the money?
We are told that the dome is a massive success, that people think it wonderful and that everybody is flocking to it. The average number of visitors in January was 11,820 a day. If that rate continues, the dome will attract only 4,000,300 people over the year. That would fall short not only of the long established visitor target of 12 million this year, but of the new target—I wonder where it has emerged from—of 10 million. The 10 million target will still require an average of more than 27,000 visitors a day, which answers the point made by the hon. Member for Eltham (Mr. Efford), who was saying what a great success the dome is. It will not reach the new target, even with this weekend's performance.
Mr. Efford: Does not the hon. Gentleman accept that this is a quiet time of year for tourism? Most of the country's major attractions are not open, but the millennium dome is achieving high attendances. Would the hon. Gentleman care to comment on that and explain to the House what he would consider success for the dome?
Mr. Baker: I am happy to deal with that point. Given the hype, the attraction and all the newspaper coverage, positive and negative, nobody could be unaware of the millennium dome. I should have thought that those who wanted to visit it would be queueing up in January, when it was allegedly quiet; January should have been a good month for the dome, not a poor one.
Will the Minister clear up the question of the target number of visitors? The target was 12 million. In a letter dated 6 December to the hon. Member for Cardiff, Central (Mr. Jones), the Under-Secretary wrote:
"I am confident that NMEC will achieve its 12 million visitor target and that the resulting income targets will be met enabling the project, over its lifetime, to be delivered within the £758 million cash budget set for it in February 1997."

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As recently as 6 December, the Minister was committed to a 12 million target. Why has that target now been dropped to 10 million? Who dropped it? Is that based on revised expectations of the number of visitors who will attend, or is there some other explanation?
Is it not true that the Minister and those involved in the dome are trying to drop the target so that they can, at the end of the year, claim that it has been met? Is there to be a further drop to 8 million later this year? According to the Financial Times, 75,000 visitors made it to the dome between Friday and Sunday, which makes it the best weekend yet. However, even if that success were repeated every day this year, the number of visitors would not reach 10 million over the year.
I shall not dwell on the troubles of the opening night, which have been well rehearsed both in the debate and in the newspapers, but I am concerned about the questions surrounding the management of the dome. Why, despite the fact that visitors are not turning up in the expected numbers, are there long queues, at least for certain zones? Those are apparently now being sorted out by the repair man from France, Mr. Gerbeau. On the issue of repairs, he might like to deal with the broken exhibits listed a week ago by The Times, whose impromptu survey found 10 exhibits broken in the living island zone; three in the work zone; 2,000 robots—the majority—not working in the mind zone; 18 exhibits broken in the learning zone; nine broken in the money zone; and the heart beat irregular in the body zone. All that suggests that the repair man from Disneyland is needed.
Mr. John Randall: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that one of the exhibits that has broken down is a laughing toilet bowl? I am pleased to report that it is being repaired and, in the meantime, a life-sized sculpture of a rhinoceros has been erected. Does he agree that the rhinoceros is an admirable symbol for the dome, given that it is known for its lack of vision and its tendency to charge a lot?
Mr. Baker: With my animal welfare hat on, I am tempted to agree with the hon. Gentleman, but I should perhaps leave that matter to one side.
It was said that the dome would be a truly national event, yet only 34 per cent. of visitors have come from outside London, with only 5 per cent. coming from northern England, 2 per cent. from Scotland and fewer than 1.5 per cent. from Wales and Northern Ireland combined.
There was a fiasco about the dismissal—let us be frank, it was a dismissal—of Jennie Page. We have been told tonight that she was wonderful, fantastic, the best thing since sliced bread; but if she was so good and we owe her so much, why was she dumped out on her ear and left to cry in her office? Was it treachery, or was she not as good as has been suggested? If she was that good, she should not have been treated in that manner. Is it not the truth that the sponsors are in control and they demanded her head on a plate?
Mr. Bermingham: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I have two questions. First, is it not a convention of the House that hon. Members do not attack people who cannot reply for themselves? Secondly, is it not the case that we do not read speeches unless they have been circulated in advance?
Mr. Deputy Speaker (Sir Alan Haselhurst): First, there is no question of a person outside the House being attacked. Secondly, no Standing Order states that speeches may not be read, but "Erskine May" has something helpful to say on the subject and I should be pleased if more hon. Members read it.
Mr. Baker: For the record, I am not reading a speech; I am reading notes and improvising as I go along. Other Front Benchers have the benefit of the Dispatch Box on which to rest their notes, but that facility is not currently available to the Liberal Democrats. Let us hope that it will be when the House is reconstituted after the next election—but that is another debate.
The dome is architecturally a great achievement. The Jubilee line extension and the tube station there are great achievements, as is Westminster station. The staff at the dome are extremely friendly and helpful. However, the dome lacks cohesion, because the entire process has been driven by a small clique which started under the Conservative Government and continues under the present Government. Decisions are taken behind closed doors. It is not a people's dome; it is the dome of a small clique.
Mr. Efford: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. Baker: No, I shall finish my remarks.
If a committee designs an animal, it comes up with a camel. The dome is all right, but it could have been so much better. It is not worth £758 million. It is not the icon that it has been talked up to be. The Government are not wholly responsible for that, but they had a role in it. Some serious questions have been asked in the House tonight, which the Minister has a duty to answer when she comes to the Dispatch Box.?
9.10 pm
Ms Claire Ward: I am amazed by the Opposition's choice of subject for this debate. It represents political opportunism of the worst kind on the part of the Conservatives. They are exploiting what was a cross-party venture, yet apart from the hon. Member for Westbury (Mr. Faber) who has just wandered in, there were at one point in the debate only three hon. Members sitting on the Opposition Benches, including the Front Bench. That is rather strange. The Opposition initiated the debate, yet as a party they have no interest in attending or speaking in it.
The one speech that we heard from the Conservative Benches, from the right hon. Member for Henley (Mr. Heseltine), was positive in tone. It took a great deal of courage for the right hon. Gentleman to make that speech.
Mr. Michael Jabez Foster: Was not the great distance between the right hon. Member for Henley and the rest of the Conservative party also significant?
Ms Ward: The right hon. Gentleman, who unfortunately is not present, is distant from his party not only on the subject of the dome, but on Europe, I am pleased to say.
The hon. Member for Lewes (Mr. Baker) spoke about parliamentary scrutiny. Perhaps he has forgotten that the Select Committee on Culture, Media and Sport held a

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number of inquiries into the millennium dome. There is no doubt that parliamentary scrutiny took place; there was even a debate in the Chamber on one of the Select Committee's reports.
Those of us who started off with a degree of scepticism—I include myself among them—have been convinced by the project. As a member of the Select Committee, I was involved in quizzing the right hon. Member for Henley intensely on his ideas for the dome. At that time, I was not impressed, but as the project progressed over the past two to three years, it has developed into a good project that is right for the country.
It is right that we should have a focal point for the millennium, and there is no doubt that the millennium dome provides that focal point. We should be proud that the project has been delivered to target, on time and within the budget that was set. It was built with public money, not taxpayers' money, and that represents only one fifth of the total amount of money available to the Millennium Commission.
Whether or not hon. Members supported the millennium dome project at the beginning is no longer the issue. The dome exists, and it is viewed around the world as an emblem of Britain. We must make it work. No matter what the views were before, it is important to ensure that it does not fail now. That would not be in the interests of the lottery players who contributed the money. It is not in the country's interests for the dome to be perceived as failing when we are the focus of world attention. I hope that Opposition Members will reconsider their views.
Mr. Pound: France marked the millennium with the partial sponsorship of a yacht race, and in Germany there was a trade fair. Can my hon. Friend imagine the reaction of her constituents, mine and the people of this nation, if we had not had such an achievement as the dome?
Ms Ward: There were mixed reactions to the millennium dome in my constituency, as there were in my hon. Friend's. However, there are mixed reactions to a range of lottery projects. It is important that as well as providing a national focal point, the Millennium Commission funded a range of initiatives around the country that allowed people to celebrate the millennium in their communities.
The millennium dome has meant investment in what was a waste site in Greenwich, provided thousands of jobs and played an important part in regenerating that area. No one can deny that the dome has had a difficult start. We should not make excuses for the mishaps on the opening night. It is unacceptable for people to be kept waiting at Stratford station and not to receive their tickets on time. However, one incident is not a reason to criticise the dome for the rest of the year. Perhaps the lesson that we should learn is that it is not good public relations to keep six newspaper editors and their families waiting in the cold.
Some people have always wanted the millennium dome to fail. No matter what happened on millennium eve, the dome would have had its critics. It was interesting to read the newspapers in the first few days and weeks when the millennium dome was open. First, they criticised the queues and the fact that people had to wait a long time.
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Then they criticised the dome for being empty. Newspapers cannot have it both ways. The dome is either a popular attraction that people want to visit—in which case, queues are to be expected—
Mr. Baker: Will the hon. Lady give way?
Ms Ward: I shall not give way, because of lack of time.
I challenge those who have criticised the queues to compare the dome with other attractions in the United Kingdom at this time of year. I have recommended that my friends not visit the dome in January, February or March, but wait until later, when the weather will be much better and the dome will have an improved programme in the form of other facilities that will be open on the site.
It was interesting to note the names of the six Opposition Members who tabled the motion. Only one of them is present at the moment. I wonder how many of them have visited the dome apart from on millennium eve, when, as I found, there was no opportunity to view all the zones. If those Opposition Members had visited the dome apart from on millennium eve, they would have realised that the proof of the pudding is in the eating, or in a day at the dome.
The independent MORI survey showed that 83 per cent. of those polled were very or fairly satisfied, and that 68 per cent. believed that the dome represented very or fairly good value for money. Furthermore, 26 per cent. of those questioned believed that the dome was much better than expected, 23 per cent. believed that it was somewhat better and 25 per cent. believed that it was about the same as they had expected. Many attractions in the United Kingdom would love to achieve such a response. More than half those questioned would definitely recommend a visit to the dome to a friend, a further quarter would probably do so and 92 per cent. rated the show in the centre good or very good.
Mr. David Faber: If the hon. Lady thinks that the dome is such a success and everything is going so well at the moment, why did she and her fellow Labour MPs on the Select Committee reject my suggestion last week that we should reconsider it immediately?
Ms Ward: The hon. Gentleman knows very well why we decided not to hold another inquiry into the millennium dome. That is not to say that the Select Committee will not hold an inquiry—it has been said that we will and I am confident that one will take place—but this is not the right time. We should not hold an inquiry until we have considered both P-Y Gerbeau's new administration in office and the figures over a more reasonable period. The hon. Gentleman accepted that argument at the Select Committee meeting and I am most surprised that he has raised it in an attempt to cause difficulty. I am afraid that that will not work.
People of a good mix of ages have visited the millennium dome, and its links to the community—for example, the McDonald's our town and the Tesco school net—all show that it is a success and will continue to be so, no matter what the Opposition and one or two newspaper editors think. There are 10 months to go, and P-Y Gerbeau should have the nation's backing to make the project work.

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I trust that hon. Members on both sides of the House will leave politics outside the dome and consider it a national event deserving of cross-party support, as at the beginning. The Conservatives had the original idea and I invite Opposition Members to listen to the right hon. Member for Henley and provide cross-party support where it is needed.
9.22 pm
Mr. Oliver Letwin: I confess to feeling a certain air of surrealism because the debate has been conducted largely in terms that might apply to a bingo parlour: it is marvellous that the dome got up on time, or a little dangerous that it took rather long; it is splendid that so many people visited, or a pity that so few attended. The same might be said of a popular television series or some such thing, but remarkably this particular object is not like such a series or a bingo hall. [Interruption.] I say to hon. Members who are amusing themselves that I do not have an interest in either of those items so I have probably used the wrong terms for them. However, the point is valid.
Ms Ward: Has the hon. Gentleman been to the dome?
Mr. Letwin: No, no. Not only have I not visited the dome, but I have absolutely no intention of doing so under any circumstances. I shall explain why.
The remarkable thing about these populist events, whose success or failure can be measured in terms of the number of people who do or do not visit them, is that people pay to see them and do so because they like them. I do not happen to like them. The public and the sponsors between them have not contributed £750 million. I know that we live in an age of inflation and that the Chancellor is spending an ever-greater proportion of our gross domestic product on numerous matters, but £750 million still strikes me as a lot of money. Were it invested, it would yield about £60 million a year on a modest appreciation. What would that sum support? Many things could be mentioned, but I want to attend to one in particular.
The Secretary of State, many Members on both sides of the House and I attended Cambridge university. What does it receive from the Higher Education Funding Council? About £60 million. What are we saying? A combination of public money via the lottery and the sponsors' money was used to fund this object, which I shall come to in a moment, in place of funding Cambridge university in perpetuity with as much again as it receives from the HEFC at present.
Whether many people went or did not go, whether schoolchildren did or did not get in and whether the Secretary of State or his Ministers were hopelessly at odds with reality when they thought they could make the thing work financially does not matter. What matters is that a colossal sum has been spent on something that is indeed—in the words of the motion—a "national embarrassment". It is a national embarrassment not because it does not work particularly well—which, goodness knows, it does not—or because the food is awful, or for some such trivial reason, but because it constitutes an extraordinary denial of the fundamental aspects of our culture that we should spend time applauding this dreadful object instead of applauding Cambridge university. I say "Cambridge university", but I could just as well name any other great university.
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First, there is the question of how this object relates to our national past. In a great university, what is celebrated, what is taught and what it handed on to other generations is a heritage in the proper sense. It is a cultural heritage—something that is inherited, and in that sense a heritage—but also something that is worth having; something that is the foundation of our understanding of the world. In our great universities, however, there is also a conception of the future. [Interruption.] I am sorry; I did not hear what the hon. Member for Eltham (Mr. Efford) said from a sedentary position.
Mr. Efford: How many people have visited Cambridge university in the past four days?
Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. I encourage the hon. Member for West Dorset (Mr. Letwin) not to provoke a sedentary debate.
Mr. Letwin: I am grateful for your admonition, Mr. Deputy Speaker, but I fear that, if the hon. Member for Eltham believes that the measure of a great university is the number of people who visit it, he is subject to exactly the problem that has afflicted the debate, and afflicts the Government's understanding of this object.
In a great university, we also think of the future in a certain way. We think of it as something that is not disconnected from the past, but is continuous with it. In a great university, what is passed on is not merely the heritage of the past but the foundation of the future. A culture is seen as something that comes from the past and goes to the future, understands the past and the present, and provides the basis for an understanding of the future.
All those aspects are entirely missing from the confection that is the dome. No Labour Member has remotely attempted to defend it this evening in cultural terms. The Secretary of State had an ample opportunity. I remind the House that he is the Secretary of State for, among other things, culture. He made a remarkable speech, which contained not a word about our culture and not a single attempt to defend the expenditure of £750 million on an object with no cultural value whatever.
Ms Ward: First, the £758 million that was spent was not public money. Secondly, the hon. Gentleman should have made his remarks during the education debate that took place earlier. If he wants to consider the contents of the Dome, I suggest that he goes and looks for himself, rather than criticising from a position of no knowledge at all.
Mr. Letwin: I shall resist the temptation to explain to the hon. Lady the degree to which, were I to visit the dome, my future actions might be impeded by the depression that I would encounter. Let me respond to her other point. Does she really believe that a world exists in which we ought to forget about culture because we should not concern ourselves with anything that has only £400 million of strictly public money, and should pay no attention to the fact that a great part of the Government's efforts was devoted to raising another £300-odd million, which could have been devoted to raising that £300 million in addition to the £400 million of public money for one of our great universities? If she thinks that

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a world exists in which we should not attend to any of that because only £400 million of public money was spent, her conception of culture, and of the state's relationship to it, is different from mine.
The odd thing is that, until prompted by my remarks, the hon. Lady did not even mention that. There she was, another Labour Member, making an eloquent speech—excellent, as always—but uttering not a word about the purpose of this thing. Apparently, it was visitor attraction.
It is sad—I mean it genuinely, not in a partisan spirit—when a nation has been so corrupted, perhaps alas in part by the rhetoric of the present Government, although not wholly, that it begins to think that it is reasonable to spend as much money as would keep a great university going in perpetuity on an item that is so entirely vacuous that its defenders do not have a word to say on its behalf in cultural terms.
Mrs. Joan Humble: May I advise the hon. Gentleman that, on 14 January, I joined 640 young people who had travelled from Blackpool to visit the dome? They thoroughly enjoyed its educational value, the spectacular show there and the zones. Every one to whom I spoke wanted to come back, thoroughly enjoyed it and benefited in both educational and cultural terms. They also enjoyed coming to the capital, which many of my constituents have never done.
Mr. Letwin: I close my remarks on a note that the hon. Lady prompts. I am sure that she is right. I am sure that what she describes could be replicated manyfold. I am sure that many children and even perhaps some adults much enjoyed the experience. I have no doubt that they would much enjoy many other things. Had they come to a football match, visited the tower of London, walked around and seen the pigeons in Trafalgar square, they would have had a pleasant day. If she really believes, when she reflects on it, that the nation should spend £750 million to celebrate the millennium by giving some schoolchildren a pleasant day out, her conception of what a Government preoccupying themselves with the cultural necessities of our nation means, is, I regret to say, shallow.
We have a responsibility in the House to ensure that our Government do not celebrate a millennium in so superficial a fashion. That is what has happened. It will be a matter of regret for some decades and perhaps centuries. People will look back at the dome and see in it a symbol of the shallowness of a culture that has been corrupted.
9.32 pm
Mr. Roger Godsiff: I know that time is short, so I will contain my comments to a few points.
I speak as someone who lives, in my London home, close to the dome. More relevantly, I also speak as Member of Parliament representing the centre of Birmingham. Those Members who were here before the last election will be aware that Birmingham was one of the cities that bid for the central millennium festivities. It was the right hon. Member for Henley (Mr. Heseltine), along with his colleagues, who, for understandable reasons, decided that those festivities should take place at Greenwich.
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It is interesting. If Members read Hansard, they will find that, when the right hon. Gentleman, then Deputy Prime Minister, made the decision about which bid should be successful and defended it in the House, not one Member who is now sitting on the Opposition Benches criticised his decision then, or subsequently.
Mr. Patrick McLoughlin: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. Godsiff: Forgive me. Time is short.
When my hon. Friend the Member for Watford (Ms Ward) refers to political opportunism, she makes a valid point.
The reason why I mention Birmingham is because, as a consolation prize, Birmingham got one of the big projects from the Millennium Commission: Millennium Point, a futuristic science park that will enormously benefit the people of Birmingham and stand for many years as a testament to that great city. Many people in Birmingham would say that that £50 million was a better prize than the original prize of getting the central festivities.
I have been to the millennium dome and it is an interesting day out.
Mr. Pound: As bad as that, eh?
Mr. Godsiff: I shall ignore that remark.
I do not get carried along by the hype. I have never believed that the dome ranks with the Taj Mahal as one of the great wonders of the world. However, it is an interesting building.
I am sure that the Government are aware of the public concern. Those who have been to the dome often come away with the feeling that there is an unresolved clash of themes: the understandable commercial theme of the sponsors, who want to push their brands, and the theme of the artists, who are trying to project something relating to Britain's past and its future. I have had the pleasure to go to Disneyland and, more importantly, to the Epcot centre next door—the futuristic science theme museum and park. The dome is not a Disneyland or an Epcot centre. I regret to say that many people say after visiting the dome that it is really just a pumped-up trade show.
That is sad, because it undermines many of the successes that the dome has brought to the area, to which my hon. Friend the Member for Eltham (Mr. Efford) referred. That part of London, which I know well, has greatly needed the vast amounts of public expenditure. The money that has gone into the infrastructure will bring lasting benefits to the community. I have no doubt that whatever succeeds the dome will stand the test of time. The money that has been spent will be recouped and we can be proud of what we have put there. It is just sad that the clash of cultures and themes could not have been resolved before the dome was opened.
9.37 pm
Mr. Christopher Fraser: This has been a short debate, long waited for by the Conservatives. My hon. Friend the Member for East Surrey (Mr. Ainsworth) set out the mishaps surrounding the project and the Government interference that has

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dogged it. Unlike the Secretary of State, I shall restrict my comments to the dome and not drift off to other issues. The hon. Member for Lewes (Mr. Baker), as ever, asked the Government many questions that remain unanswered. My hon. Friend the Member for West Dorset (Mr. Letwin) made some telling and intellectual observations on culture and the history of this country.
Some hon. Members have pointed out that the project was conceived by the Conservative Government. My right hon. Friend the Member for Henley (Mr. Heseltine) confirmed the purpose of the project. He articulated why the dome was to be built and portrayed the philosophy that the previous Government believed would be at the heart of the dome and what it would stand for—an image of a country at the forefront of cultural, artistic, engineering and scientific activity and attainment. It was to be about a sense of unity, bringing the nation together, and the regeneration of a derelict and contaminated area of London. That was my right hon. Friend's vision, embraced by the Select Committee on Culture, Media and Sport and by hon. Members on both sides of the House. It was not a concept that should divide Members.
The noble vision of all that is best of British was destroyed when the Millbank machine took control and the Labour party decided to make the millennium dome a symbol of new Labour. Ever since the Labour Government finally proclaimed that they would, after all, allow the dome to continue, political interference has dogged the project. If proof were needed of the Government's determination to interfere with the project, as my hon. Friend the shadow Secretary of State has said, it was found in the appointment of the right hon. Member for Hartlepool (Mr. Mandelson), Labour's Mr. Fixit, known colloquially as the Dome Secretary. There is a wealth of evidence of the Government's interference in the millennium dome project. That has been nothing but detrimental to the success of what should have been a national celebration and an object of pride.
If new Labour could not come up with five meaningful election pledges, how could it possibly have been expected to come up with 14 meaningful dome zones? If only the Government had left NMEC and its chosen advisers to get on with the finer details, how much more inspired the zones and the whole experience could have been.
Perhaps the most troubled zone has been the faith zone, which was in true politically correct fashion renamed "faith zone" because the word "the" was thought to imply that only one faith—Christianity—was to be celebrated. It has been the target of much criticism from the Church of England, as a symbol of all that is wrong with the dome itself. On many occasions, we have said that the Government's mantra is one of style before substance; in this case, it is style before content.
The hon. Member for Watford (Ms Ward), who serves with me on the Select Committee, summed it up:
"It is a little like Cadbury's developing a wrapper without actually deciding what the chocolate bar is going to be."
It is a shame that she did not say the same today.
Ms Ward: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. Fraser: No, there is no time. [HON. MEMBERS: "Shame."] I must carry on.
1336
It comes down to the fact that a Government who so pride themselves on the ability to get the message across and concentrate all their efforts on communication have failed to get the positive message out on the millennium dome. They have thus failed not only the dome but the nation itself. That failure has understandably created apathy in Britain and made nonsense of the Prime Minister's prediction in 1998 that the British people would seize the moment.
The dome is a project that the people of Britain rightly wanted to support. They wanted to be inspired by a new wonder of Britain to visit in the new century. Even the Deputy Prime Minister must have recognised that the Government were pushing against an open door when he was reported to have told the Prime Minister:
"If we can't make this work, we're not much of a Government."
He also said—the words will come back to haunt him—that the dome would be the Labour Government's
"first big test of competence".
Muddle, dither and delay were features of the Government's approach to the dome even before they took office. Even then, their failure to get behind the project was inexcusable; but, as soon as they assumed power, their inability to make up their mind meant that, quite understandably, the private sector was reluctant to commit money. I warned the House two years ago that there would be serious repercussions. Now we know just how serious they are. Even now, nearly two months after the dome opened, three high-profile sponsors are yet to sign their contracts.
Can the Minister confirm that the Government are seeking cut-price deals to get themselves out of this hole? Ministers must learn that, in the real world of business, companies do not like throwing good money after bad. Mr. Michael Grade, a director of NMEC, asked the Select Committee to consider the dome in comparison to two key sporting events. He told us that the organisers had known for more than 100 years that the Olympic games would come in 2000, and that the world cup, as a very predictable event, is planned six or eight years ahead. On behalf of NMEC, he explained that "we are playing catch-up." Playing catch-up two years before opening night? Surely NMEC realised when the millennium would come, or was it playing catch-up because of Labour's dither and delay?
Even now, at the end of February 2000, the Government's dome is surrounded by controversy. We all hope that it will regain its momentum, but it cannot do so while the bad press continues about high-level resignations and allegations of Ministers' involvement. I endorse the words of the hon. Member for Glasgow, Cathcart (Mr. Maxton), who said in the Select Committee of the resignation of Jennie Page:
"I think we will have to look and ask the questions, both of the ministers and of the company, as to how it happened and why it happened."
One of the Government's special talents is the ability to take the credit when it suits and to deflect the blame when they know that they are responsible. The failures are none the less well documented. Setting aside new year's eve, we all know the history of the Jubilee line extension, which has been an utter disgrace. We know that the opening was delayed and delayed again; that, when the first section finally opened, it had to be closed again; and that, in the final reckoning, the budget went out of control.

1337
The Government failed to speed up the construction to tackle the problems caused by the unions representing the electricians. They failed to understand that the implications of the working time directive made it more difficult for contractors to finish on time.
To add insult to injury for the 3,000 people who were delayed on new year's eve and who could have been ambassadors for the dome, their problems were greeted by inappropriate comments from the right hon. Member for Holborn and St. Pancras (Mr. Dobson), who told Radio 4:
"I have nothing to do with the dome. It was a bit of a laugh, really, some of those toffee-nosed people having to queue."
Why does he have nothing to do with the dome? Why is he not here to defend it, not least in the recognition that it is in a derelict part of London, which he hopes one day—God forbid—to have something to do with? What kind of ambassador for London would he be, if ever he were to be elected?
On 1 January, the media wreaked their revenge. Is it any surprise that, as a result of Government mismanagement, the dome has seen poor attendance levels, long queues and failed equipment? Why should people bother to make the trip, despite last weekend's hype, which was mentioned earlier?
I questioned the Government in January 1998 about what would happen if the number of visitors was less than the 12 million needed to break even. At that time, a senior Disney executive—yes, it was involved even then—a man with vast experience of visitor attractions, had been blunt when he told the Select Committee:
"I do not believe those numbers."
The then Minister could not answer me, because—he said—he had not thought about it. Had the Government listened, they would not have had to go cap in hand to that same organisation to sort out the problems that should have been recognised two years ago. They were arrogant then, and they are arrogant now, about the problems.
Will the Minister answer some questions today? What criteria will be used to judge the performance of Mr. Gerbeau, the self-styled saviour of Disneyland Paris? What contingency plan does the Government have in case he, too, should resign? What was the new opportunities fund set up to achieve? Was its original purpose to bail out the dome if it got into difficulties? Does she agree that we must now address the issue of pricing of tickets and transport to the dome to encourage visitors to the attraction? The past three days may have been encouraging, but if people do not come during school holidays and when the tourist season starts, then the dome is doomed from the word go. Will the Minister encourage NMEC to address the problem of queuing now, while the visitor numbers are low, so that the increase in visitors, which we all want to see, does not lead to unmanageable and unpopular queues?
The Prime Minister is reported to have said that the dome and its content will be the first paragraph of his next election manifesto. That will make interesting reading. He and his Government need to do some serious thinking about their priorities. They have failed abysmally on the delivery of key pledges. They have failed to reduce NHS waiting lists, to increase police numbers, and to maintain spending on education at the levels that they inherited, but they find time to meddle and interfere in the organisation of the dome—to the great detriment of the project.
1338
The success of the dome remains to be seen, but what is certain is that the one thing that the dome does not need is more Government interference. I wish the dome well despite the Government's interference. It must succeed and it must be allowed to succeed—for the nation's sake.
9.48 pm
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport (Janet Anderson): The hon. Member for Mid-Dorset and North Poole (Mr. Fraser) who has been newly appointed to the Front Bench and who stood in for the hon. Member for Ryedale (Mr. Greenway), who sadly could not be with us this evening, has put a lot of questions to us and I am only sorry that he has not left us much time to answer them. I will do my best.
Given that this is an issue that the Opposition clearly take seriously, I was surprised to see so few Opposition Members present for the majority of the debate. In fact, the number we have now is a record. However, it is good to have this opportunity to set the record straight. I was amused by the Opposition's motion, which talks of Government interference. The hon. Member for East Surrey (Mr. Ainsworth) claimed that he had never done anything to denigrate the dome, but the motion calls it
"a source of national embarrassment, a wasted opportunity to celebrate Britain and the Millennium and poor value for Lottery players' money."
If that is not denigrating the dome, I do not know what is.
Politicians do not have to interfere with the dome and, in fact, we have no locus to interfere, because—as the hon. Gentleman knows only too well—the dome is run by an independent company. The dome can speak for itself. On Friday, Saturday and Sunday of this weekend, the dome was sold out. This morning, as has already been reported, the dome was sold out by 11.30 am. There was an announcement on the Jubilee line telling people not to proceed to the dome because they would not get in. I happen to know that the Deputy Prime Minister was down there today with 600 schoolchildren from his constituency. He found a father and two children distraught outside the dome because they could not get in because the dome was full. So my right hon. Friend brought them here for a tour of Parliament, and to listen to the debate, in which they will have heard some of the pathetic contributions from Conservative Members.
In the past four days alone, the dome has attracted 100,000 visitors. The total had reached 366,000 by the end of January, and the figure is continuing to rise. The hon. Member for East Surrey referred to an obscure website and said that the dome did not represent value for money. However, he is the Opposition spokesman on tourism, and he should know that the Good Guide to Britain said that the dome was the best value for money of any visitor attraction. It is the most popular visitor attraction in the country.
Mr. Peter Ainsworth: I am grateful to the Minister for giving way, as I appreciate that time is short. However, there is a difference between value for money in terms of the quality of experience for the people who spend £20 to visit the dome, and value for money in terms of an investment of £400 million of lottery players' money.

1339
We have been talking about the latter problem this evening: if the Minister did not understand that, she has missed the entire point of the debate.
Janet Anderson: I remind the hon. Gentleman that it was the Conservative party that decided to go ahead with the dome project in the first place. The dome was a Tory idea. Of course there have been teething troubles: no such attraction ever avoids them, as the right hon. Member for Henley (Mr. Heseltine) explained. The company is seeing what can be done about better visitor management flow and signage. There is a dome-ometer to warn people of waiting times at the zones, and so on.
Some Opposition Members complained about queues, but they cannot have it both ways. Perhaps the existence of queues means that people want to visit the dome.
Reference has been made to Jennie Page. Opposition Members will know that her employment was a matter for the company, but I want to place on record my support for her, and my pleasure at the way in which she delivered the project on time and on budget.
Mr. Baker: Will the Minister give way?
Janet Anderson: No, I have very little time and the hon. Gentleman took a great deal of that in the debate.
The right hon. Member for Henley talked about the initial vision that the dome would be an all-party project. He said that there was no political discussion in the commission, and it is a great shame that Conservative Members should have tried to bring party politics into the matter.
There has been some reference to sponsorship, and I can announce tonight that Mars has now signed the sponsorship contract. In addition, the two remaining sponsors, Boots and BSkyB, are committed at board level and have already made substantial financial contributions. They are using the millennium logo, and it merely remains for them to sign the fine print. I am sure that they will do so.
Conservative Members have also tried to criticise my right hon. Friend the Member for Hartlepool (Mr. Mandelson) for excessive secrecy when he was in charge of the project. However, the right hon. Member for Henley told the House that that was far from the case. Conservative Members should have listened to the right hon. Gentleman, who has a great deal of business experience. He described the dome as a project of complexity and sophistication. As he said, it was unfair that the project should have been subject to constant questioning, which no other similar project would have attracted.
My hon. Friend the Member for Eltham (Mr. Efford) has always been a firm supporter of the project. He mentioned the benefits that it had brought to industries around the country, and he is right. The steel used in the dome came from Bristol, and from Watson's Steel of Bolton, which is just next door to my constituency. I am therefore well aware of the benefits that have accrued to firms around the country.
I am astonished at how Conservative Members appear unaware of the value of tourism. The British Tourist Authority estimates that extra tourist spending of £1 billion will come into this country as a result of the
1340
dome. Conservative Members should know that tourism is the fastest growing industry in the world. We look forward to the Conservative party's tourism policy, which I understand was launched in Belfast recently. However, we have not seen it yet.
Earlier, I said that my right hon. Friend the Deputy Prime Minister took 600 children from his constituency to the dome today. A special train was hired to bring them down, and I should like to read the comments of a couple of the children who went. Emma Hewick, aged 11, said:
"I loved the trip down, our dinner here and everything we saw. It's been a brill day."
Jordan Mastin, aged 10, said:
"It was all very educational, but also hugely enjoyable. All of it was excellent, and I now want to persuade my Mum and Dad to bring me all over again. The show was spectacular, and I wanted to be up there as well, flying through the air. It's been a brilliant day and I loved every second of it."
The hon. Member for Lewes (Mr. Baker) talked about an alleged failure to answer his parliamentary questions. I repeat that some of those questions could not be answered in detail; we were as open as possible, but there was a question of commercial confidentiality. No other project of this kind would have been required to make some of that information public at that stage. As the hon. Gentleman knows only too well, I invited him to the Department to meet my officials and members from the company so that we could brief him, off the record. What did he do? After about five minutes, he said, "Actually, I would prefer to talk to you about broadcasting, because I have to draft our party's policy on broadcasting."
Mr. Baker: I am grateful to the Minister for giving way. I should like to make it absolutely clear that the purpose of the meeting, as far as I was concerned, was broadcasting. It was the Minister who wanted to talk about the millennium dome at that point. There is a difference between off-the-record briefings and public accountability in the House.
Janet Anderson: If the hon. Gentleman had told me that he was going to talk about broadcasting, I would not have taken the trouble to invite representatives of the New Millennium Experience Company to the meeting.
During the debate, right hon. and hon. Members have talked about the target of 12 million visitors over the year. I confirm that that is still the company's aim. It is now saying that it thinks that it can break even if it achieves a figure of 10 million. That is the difference, and I hope that Conservative Members will remember that.
Mr. Fraser: I am extremely pleased that the hon. Lady has given way. I have three pages of questions that I put to her earlier. I am happy to pass them across for her to start answering some of them.
Janet Anderson: I thank the hon. Gentleman. If only Conservative Members had allowed us a little more time in which to respond, we could have answered his questions.
My hon. Friend the Member for Watford (Ms Ward) referred, quite rightly, to the lack of interest shown by Conservative Members about the subject of what is, after all, their debate. They have talked a lot about the money spent on the dome. Yet it was their project originally, and the money spent on the dome accounts for only one

1341
fifth of Millennium Commission funding. Some 622 constituencies around the country will be celebrating the millennium in their own communities as a result of millennium funding. My hon. Friend also quoted visitor satisfaction surveys. I will not repeat them, except to say that people obviously like the dome.
The hon. Member for West Dorset (Mr. Letwin) says that not only has he not been to the dome to see it for himself, but he has no intention of going. I looked up the hon. Gentleman's career thus far before coming to the House, and I see that it followed the path of Eton, Trinity and the London business school. My strong advice to him is to go down to the dome, get into the real world and enjoy the very real cultural experience that if offers. The dome is all about attracting people—entertaining them, educating them, involving them and inspiring them. It is also about appealing to the many, not the few.
My hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Sparkbrook and Small Heath (Mr. Godsiff) said that he had had an interesting day out, but he referred to a possible clash of themes. That is not the experience of the majority of people who have gone there and confirmed that the dome offers something for everyone. It is not intended to be Disneyland; it is not a trumped-up trade show. The evidence is that so many people want to return.
Many questions have been posed tonight, and I am sorry—[Interruption.] It is no use Conservative Members bleating, because they allowed very little time for a response. We should all put ourselves behind the millennium dome, and put aside party politics. I wish that Conservative Members would stop carping; if they have not been to the dome, they should go now. If they do—
Mr. James Arbuthnot rose in his place and claimed to move, That the Question be now put.
Question, That the Question be now put, put and agreed to.
Question put accordingly, That the original words stand part of the Question:—
The House divided: Ayes 141, Noes 275.

Division No. 85]

[10 pm

AYES

Ainsworth, Peter (E Surrey)

Burns, Simon

Allan, Richard

Butterfill, John

Amess, David

Campbell, Rt Hon Menzies (NE Fife)

Ancram, Rt Hon Michael

Arbuthnot, Rt Hon James

Cash, William

Atkinson, David (Bour'mth E)

Chapman, Sir Sydney (Chipping Barnet)

Atkinson, Peter (Hexham)

Baker, Norman

Chope, Christopher

Bell, Martin (Tatton)

Clappison, James

Bercow, John

Clark, Dr Michael (Rayleigh)

Beresford, Sir Paul

Collins, Tim

Blunt, Crispin

Colvin, Michael

Body, Sir Richard

Cormack, Sir Patrick

Boswell, Tim

Cotter, Brian

Bottomley, Peter (Worthing W)

Curry, Rt Hon David

Bottomley, Rt Hon Mrs Virginia

Davis, Rt Hon David (Haltemprice)

Brady, Graham

Day, Stephen

Brazier, Julian

Duncan, Alan

Brooke, Rt Hon Peter

Duncan Smith, Iain

Browning, Mrs Angela

Evans, Nigel

Burnett, John

Faber, David

1342

Fabricant, Michael

Morgan, Alasdair (Galloway)

Fallon, Michael

Nicholls, Patrick

Flight, Howard

Norman, Archie

Fraser, Christopher

O'Brien, Stephen (Eddisbury)

Gale, Roger

Öpik, Lembit

Garnier, Edward

Ottaway, Richard

Gibb, Nick

Page, Richard

Gill, Christopher

Paice, James

Gillan, Mrs Cheryl

Pickles, Eric

Gray, James

Portillo, Rt Hon Michael

Green, Damian

Prior, David

Grieve, Dominic

Randall, John

Hague, Rt Hon William

Redwood, Rt Hon John

Hamilton, Rt Hon Sir Archie

Robertson, Laurence

Hammond, Philip

Roe, Mrs Marion (Broxboume)

Hancock, Mike

Ruffley, David

Hawkins, Nick

Russell, Bob (Colchester)

Hayes, John

St Aubyn, Nick

Heald, Oliver

Sanders, Adrian

Heath, David (Somerton & Frome)

Sayeed, Jonathan

Heathcoat-Amory, Rt Hon David

Shephard, Rt Hon Mrs Gillian

Howard, Rt Hon Michael

Shepherd, Richard

Howarth, Gerald (Aldershot)

Simpson, Keith (Mid-Norfolk)

Hunter, Andrew

Soames, Nicholas

Jack, Rt Hon Michael

Spelman, Mrs Caroline

Jenkin, Bernard

Spicer, Sir Michael

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

Spring, Richard

Steen, Anthony

Key, Robert

Streeter, Gary

Swayne, Desmond

King, Rt Hon Tom (Bridgwater)

Tapsell, Sir Peter

Kirkbride, Miss Julie

Taylor, John M (Solihull)

Kirkwood, Archy

Taylor, Matthew (Truro)

Laing, Mrs Eleanor

Taylor, Sir Teddy

Lait, Mrs Jacqui

Townend, John

Lansley, Andrew

Tredinnick, David

Leigh, Edward

Trend Michael

Letwin, Oliver

Tyler, Paul

Lewis, Dr Julian (New Forest E)

Walter, Robert

Lidington, David

Waterson, Nigel

Lilley, Rt Hon Peter

Whitney, Sir Raymond

Lloyd, Rt Hon Sir Peter (Fareham)

Whittingdale, John

Loughton, Tim

Wilkinson, John

Lyell, Rt Hon Sir Nicholas

Willetts, David

MacGregor, Rt Hon John

Willis, Phil

MacKay, Rt Hon Andrew

Winterton, Mrs Ann (Congleton)

Maclean, Rt Hon David

Winterton, Nicholas (Macclesfield)

McLoughlin, Patrick

Yeo, Tim

Madel, Sir David

Young, Rt Hon Sir George

Malins, Humfrey

Mates, Michael

Tellers for the Ayes:

Maude, Rt Hon Francis

Mr. Geoffrey Clifton-Brown

May, Mrs Theresa

and

Moore, Michael

Mr. Peter Luff.

NOES

Allen, Graham

Bradley, Keith (Withington)

Anderson, Janet (Rossendale)

Bradley, Peter (The Wrekin)

Armstrong, Rt Hon Ms Hilary

Bradshaw, Ben

Ashton, Joe

Brown Rt Hon Nick (Newcastle E)

Barnes, Harry

Brown Russell (Dumfries)

Barron, Kevin

Bayley, Hugh

Browne, Desmond

Beard, Nigel

Buck, Ms Karen

Beckett, Rt Hon Mrs Margaret

Burden, Richard

Benn, Hilary (Leeds C)

Butler, Mrs Christine

Benn, Rt Hon Tony (Chesterfield)

Campbell, Alan (Tynemouth)

Benton, Joe

Campbell, Ronnie (Blyth V)

Bermingham, Gerald

Cann Jamie

Berry, Roger

Caplin, Ivor

Best, Harold

Casale, Roger

Betts, Clive

Casale, Roger

Blackman, Liz

Cawsey, Ian

Blears, Ms Hazel

Chapman, Ben (Wirral S)

Boateng, Rt Hon Paul

Chaytor, David

Borrow, David

Chisholm, Malcolm

1343

Clapham, Michael

Hope, Phil

Clark, Dr Lynda

Hopkins, Kelvin (Edinburgh Pentlands)

Howarth, Alan (Newport E)

Clark, Paul (Gillingham)

Howells, Dr Kim

Clarke, Charles (Norwich S)

Hoyle, Lindsay

Clarke, Rt Hon Tom (Coatbridge)

Hughes, Ms Bevertey (Stretford)

Clarke, Tony (Northampton S)

Hughes, Kevin (Doncaster N)

Clelland, David

Humble, Mrs Joan

Coaker, Vernon

Hurst, Alan

Coffey, Ms Ann

Hutton, John

Coleman, Iain

Iddon, Dr Brian

Cooper, Yvette

Jackson, Helen (Hillsborough)

Corbett, Robin

Jenkins, Brian

Corbyn, Jeremy

Johnson, Alan (Hull W & Hessle)

Cousins, Jim

Jones, Rt Hon Barry (Alyn)

Cox, Tom

Jones, Mrs Fiona (Newark)

Cranston, Ross

Jones, Helen (Warrington N)

Crausby, David

Keen, Alan (Feltham & Heston)

Cryer, Mrs Ann (Keighley)

Kemp, Fraser

Cryer, John (Hornchurch)

Kennedy, Jane (Wavertree)

Cunningham, Jim (Cov'try S)

Kidney, David

Dalyell, Tam

Kilfoyle, Peter

Darling, Rt Hon Alistair

King, Andy (Rugby & Kenilworth)

Davey, Valerie (Bristol W)

Ladyman, Dr Stephen

Davies, Rt Hon Denzil (Llanelli)

Laxton, Bob

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

Lepper, David

Leslie, Christopher

Dawson, Hilton

Levitt, Tom

Dean, Mrs Janet

Lewis, Ivan (Bury S)

Denham, John

Lewis, Terry (Worsley)

Dismore, Andrew

Linton, Martin

Dobbin, Jim

Lloyd, Tony (Manchester C)

Donohoe, Brian H

Love, Andrew

Dowd, Jim

McAvoy, Thomas

Drew, David

McCabe, Steve

Dunwoody, Mrs Gwyneth

McCafferty, Ms Chris

Eagle, Angela (Wallasey)

McCartney, Rt Hon Ian (Makerfield)

Eagle, Maria (L'pool Garston)

Efford, Clive

McDonagh, Siobhain

Ellman, Mrs Louise

Macdonald, Calum

Ennis, Jeff

McDonnell, John

Etherington, Bill

McGuire, Mrs Anne

Field, Rt Hon Frank

McIsaac, Shona

Fisher, Mark

McKenna, Mrs Rosemary

Fitzsimons, Lorna

McNamara, Kevin

Flynn, Paul

McNulty, Tony

Foster, Rt Hon Derek

MacShane, Denis

Foster, Michael Jabez (Hastings)

Mactaggart, Fiona

Foulkes, George

McWilliam, John

Fyfe, Maria

Mallaber, Judy

Gapes, Mike

Marsden, Gordon (Blackpool S)

Gerrard, Neil

Marsden, Paul (Shrewsbury)

Gibson, Dr Ian

Marshall, David (Shettleston)

Gilroy, Mrs Linda

Marshall, Jim (Leicester S)

Godman, Dr Norman A

Marshall-Andrews, Robert

Godsiff, Roger

Martlew, Eric

Goggins, Paul

Maxton, John

Golding, Mrs Llin

Meale, Alan

Gordon, Mrs Eileen

Merron, Gillian

Griffiths, Jane (Reading E)

Michie, Bill (Shef'ld Heeley)

Griffiths, Nigel (Edinburgh S)

Milburn, Rt Hon Alan

Griffiths, Win (Bridgend)

Miller, Andrew

Grocott, Bruce

Mitchell, Austin

Grogan, John

Moffatt, Laura

Hall, Mike (Weaver Vale)

Moran, Ms Margaret

Hall, Patrick (Bedford)

Morris, Rt Hon Ms Estelle

Hanson, David

(B'ham Yardley)

Heal, Mrs Sylvia

Morris, Rt Hon Sir John

Healey, John

(Aberavon)

Henderson, Doug (Newcastle N)

Mountford, Kali

Henderson, Ivan (Harwich)

Mowlam, Rt Hon Marjorie

Hepburn, Stephen

Mudie, George

Hesford, Stephen

Mullin, Chris

Hill, Keith

Murphy, Jim (Eastwood)

Hood, Jimmy

Naysmith, Dr Doug

Hoon, Rt Hon Geoffrey

Norris, Dan

1344

O'Brien, Bill (Normanton)

Spellar, John

O'Hara, Eddie

Steinberg, Gerry

Olner, Bill

Stevenson, George

O'Neill, Martin

Stewart, David (Inverness E)

Palmer, Dr Nick

Stewart, Ian (Eccles)

Pearson, Ian

Stinchcombe, Paul

Pickthall, Colin

Stoate, Dr Howard

Pike, Peter L

Straw, Rt Hon Jack

Plaskitt, James

Stringer, Graham

Pollard, Kerry

Stuart, Ms Gisela

Pond, Chris

Taylor, Rt Hon Mrs Ann (Dewsbury)

Pope, Greg

Pound, Stephen

Taylor. Ms Dari (Stockton S)

Powell, Sir Raymond

Taylor, David (NW Leics)

Prentice, Ms Bridget (Lewisham E)

Temple-Morris, Peter

Prentice, Gordon (Pendle)

Thomas, Gareth (Clwyd W)

Prescott, Rt Hon John

Thomas, Gareth R (Harrow W)

Prosser, Gwyn

Thomas, Simon (Ceredigion)

Quin, Rt Hon Ms Joyce

Timms, Stephen

Quinn, Lawrie

Tipping, Paddy

Radice, Rt Hon Giles

Touhig, Don

Rapson, Syd

Trickett, Jon

Raynsford, Nick

Turner, Dennis (Wolverh'ton SE)

Reid, Rt Hon Dr John (Hamilton N)

Turner, Dr Desmond (Kemptown)

Robinson, Geoffrey (Cov'try NW)

Turner, Dr George (NW Norfolk)

Rogers, Allan

Turner, Neil (Wigan)

Rooker, Rt Hon Jeff

Twigg, Derek (Halton)

Twigg, Stephen (Enfield)

Rowlands Ted

Tynan, Bill

Roy, Frank

Vis, Dr Rudi

Russell, Ms Christine (Chester)

Ward, Ms Claire

Ryan, Ms Joan

Wareing, Robert N

Salter, Martin

Watts, David

Sarwar, Mohammad

White, Brian

Savidge, Malcolm

Whitehead, Dr Alan

Sawford, Phil

Wicks, Malcolm

Sedgemore, Brian

Williams, Alan W (E Carmarthen)

Shaw, Jonathan

Wills, Michael

Short, Rt Hon Clare

Winnick, David

Simpson, Alan (Nottingham S)

Winterton, Ms Rosie (Doncaster C)

Singh, Marsha

Wise, Audrey

Skinner, Dennis

Woodward, Shaun

Smith, Rt Hon Andrew (Oxford E)

Wright, Anthony D (Gt Yarmouth)

Smith, Angela (Basildon)

Wright, Dr Tony (Cannock)

Smith, Rt Hon Chris (Islington S)

Smith, Jacqui (Redditch)

Tellers for the Noes:

Snape, Peter

Mr. Robert Ainsworth and

Southworth, Ms Helen

Mr. David Jamieson.

Question accordingly negatived.
Question, That the proposed words be there added, put forthwith, pursuant to Standing Order No. 31 (Questions on amendments):—
The House divided: Ayes 261, Noes 138.

Division No. 86]

[10.12 pm

AYES

Allen, Graham

Blears, Ms Hazel

Anderson, Janet (Rossendale)

Boateng, Rt Hon Paul

Armstrong, Rt Hon Ms Hilary

Borrow, David

Barnes, Harry

Bradley, Keith (Withington)

Barron, Kevin

Bradley, Peter (The Wrekin)

Bayley, Hugh

Bradshaw, Ben

Beard, Nigel

Brown, Rt Hon Nick (Newcastle E)

Beckett, Rt Hon Mrs Margaret

Brown, Russell (Dumfries)

Benn, Hilary (Leeds C)

Browne, Desmond

Benn, Rt Hon Tony (Chesterfield)

Buck, Ms Karen

Benton, Joe

Burden, Richard

Bermingham, Gerald

Butler, Mrs Christine

Berry, Roger

Campbell, Alan (Tynemouth)

Best, Harold

Campbell, Ronnie (Blyth V)

Betts, Clive

Cann, Jamie

Blackman, Liz

Caplin, Ivor

1345

Casale, Roger

Hood, Jimmy

Cawsey, Ian

Hoon, Rt Hon Geoffrey

Chapman, Ben (Wirral S)

Hope, Phil

Chaytor, David

Hopkins, Kelvin

Chisholm, Malcolm

Howarth, Alan (Newport E)

Clapham, Michael

Howells, Dr Kim

Clark, Dr Lynda (Edinburgh Pentlands)

Hughes, Ms Beverley (Stretford)

Hughes, Kevin (Doncaster N)

Clark, Paul (Gillingham)

Humble, Mrs Joan

Clarke, Charles (Norwich S)

Hurst, Alan

Clarke, Rt Hon Tom (Coatbridge)

Hutton, John

Clarke, Tony (Northampton S)

Iddon, Dr Brian

Clelland, David

Jackson, Helen (Hillsborough)

Coaker, Vernon

Jenkins, Brian

Coffey, Ms Ann

Johnson, Alan (Hull W & Hessle)

Coleman, Iain

Jones, Rt Hon Barry (Alyn)

Cooper, Yvette

Jones, Mrs Fiona (Newark)

Corbett, Robin

Jones, Helen (Warrington N)

Cousins, Jim

Keen, Alan (Feltham & Heston)

Cox, Tom

Kemp, Fraser

Cranston, Ross

Kennedy, Jane (Wavertree)

Crausby, David

Kidney, David

Cryer, Mrs Ann (Keighley)

Kilfoyle, Peter

Cryer, John (Hornchurch)

King, Andy (Rugby & Kenilworth)

Cunningham, Jim (Cov'try S)

Ladyman, Dr Stephen

Dalyell, Tam

Lepper, David

Davey, Valerie (Bristol W)

Leslie, Christopher

Davies, Rt Hon Denzil (Llanelli)

Levitt, Tom

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

Lewis, Ivan (Bury S)

Lewis, Terry (Worsley)

Dawson, Hilton

Linton, Martin

Dean, Mrs Janet

Lloyd, Tony (Manchester C)

Denham, John

Love, Andrew

Dismore, Andrew

McAvoy, Thomas

Dobbin, Jim

McCabe, Steve

Donohoe, Brian H

McCafferty, Ms Chris

Dowd, Jim

McCartney, Rt Hon Ian (Makerfield)

Drew, David

Eagle, Angela (Wallasey)

McDonagh, Siobhain

Eagle, Maria (L'pool Garston)

Macdonald, Calum

Efford, Clive

McDonnell, John

Ellman, Mrs Louise

McGuire, Mrs Anne

Ennis, Jeff

McIsaac, Shona

Etherington, Bill

McKenna, Mrs Rosemary

Field, Rt Hon Frank

McNamara, Kevin

Fisher, Mark

McNulty, Tony

Fitzsimons, Lorna

MacShane, Denis

Flynn, Paul

Mactaggart, Fiona

Foster, Rt Hon Derek

McWilliam, John

Foster, Michael Jabez (Hastings)

Mallaber, Judy

Foulkes, George

Marsden, Gordon (Blackpool S)

Fyfe, Maria

Marsden, Paul (Shrewsbury)

Gapes, Mike

Marshall, David (Shettleston)

Gerrard, Neil

Marshall, Jim (Leicester S)

Gibson, Dr Ian

Martlew, Eric

Gilroy, Mrs Linda

Maxton, John

Godman, Dr Norman A

Meale, Alan

Godsiff, Roger

Merron, Gillian

Goggins, Paul

Michie, Bill (Shef'ld Heeley)

Golding, Mrs Llin

Milburn, Rt Hon Alan

Gordon, Mrs Eileen

Miller, Andrew

Griffiths, Jane (Reading E)

Moffatt, Laura

Griffiths, Nigel (Edinburgh S)

Moran, Ms Margaret

Griffiths, Win (Bridgend)

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

Grocott, Bruce

Grogan, John

Morris, Rt Hon Sir John (Aberavon)

Hall, Mike (Weaver Vale)

Hall, Patrick (Bedford)

Mountford, Kali

Hanson, David

Mowlam, Rt Hon Marjorie

Heal, Mrs Sylvia

Mudie, George

Healey, John

Mullin, Chris

Henderson, Doug (Newcastle N)

Murphy, Jim (Eastwood)

Henderson, Ivan (Harwich)

Naysmith, Dr Doug

Hepburn, Stephen

Norris, Dan

Hesford, Stephen

O'Brien, Bill (Normanton)

Hill, Keith

O'Hara, Eddie

1346

Olner, Bill

Stevenson, George

O'Neill, Martin

Stewart, David (Inverness E)

Palmer, Dr Nick

Stewart, Ian (Eccles)

Pearson, Ian

Stinchcombe, Paul

Pickthall, Colin

Stoate, Dr Howard

Pike, Peter L

Straw, Rt Hon Jack

Plaskitt, James

Stringer, Graham

Pollard, Kerry

Stuart, Ms Gisela

Pond, Chris

Taylor, Rt Hon Mrs Ann (Dewsbury)

Pope, Greg

Pound, Stephen

Taylor, Ms Dan (Stockton S)

Prentice, Ms Bridget (Lewisham E)

Taylor, David (NW Leics)

Prentice, Gordon (Pendle)

Temple-Morris, Peter

Prescott, Rt Hon John

Thomas, Gareth (Clwyd W)

Prosser, Gwyn

Thomas, Gareth R (Harrow W)

Quin, Rt Hon Ms Joyce

Timms, Stephen

Quinn, Lawrie

Tipping, Paddy

Radice, Rt Hon Giles

Touhig, Don

Rapson, Syd

Trickett, Jon

Raynsford, Nick

Turner, Dr Desmond (Kemptown)

Reid, Rt Hon Dr John (Hamilton N)

Turner, Dr George (NW Norfolk)

Rooker, Rt Hon Jeff

Turner, Neil (Wigan)

Rowlands, Ted

Twigg, Derek (Halton)

Roy, Frank

Twigg, Stephen (Enfield)

Russell, Ms Christine (Chester)

Tynan, Bill

Vis, Dr Rudi

Ryan, Ms Joan

Ward, Ms Claire

Salter, Martin

Wareing, Robert N

Savidge, Malcolm

Watts, David

Sawford, Phil

White, Brian

Sedgemore, Brian

Whitehead, Dr Alan

Shaw, Jonathan

Wicks, Malcolm

Short, Rt Hon Clare

Williams, Alan W (E Carmarthen)

Simpson, Alan (Nottingham S)

Wills, Michael

Singh, Marsha

Winnick, David

Skinner, Dennis

Winterton, Ms Rosie (Doncaster C)

Smith, Rt Hon Andrew (Oxford E)

Wise, Audrey

Smith, Angela (Basildon)

Woodward, Shaun

Smith, Rt Hon Chris (Islington S)

Wright, Anthony D (Gt Yarmouth)

Smith, Jacqui (Redditch)

Wright, Dr Tony (Cannock)

Snape, Peter

Southworth, Ms Helen

Tellers for the Ayes:

Spellar, John

Mr. David Jamieson and

Steinberg, Gerry

Mr. Robert Ainsworth.

NOES

Ainsworth, Peter (E Surrey)

Colvin, Michael

Allan, Richard

Cormack, Sir Patrick

Amess, David

Cotter, Brian

Ancram, Rt Hon Michael

Curry, Rt Hon David

Arbuthnot, Rt Hon James

Davies, Quentin (Grantham)

Atkinson, David (Bour'mth E)

Davis, Rt Hon David (Haltemprice)

Atkinson, Peter (Hexham)

Day, Stephen

Baker, Norman

Dorrell, Rt Hon Stephen

Bell, Martin (Tatton)

Duncan, Alan

Bercow, John

Duncan Smith, Iain

Beresford, Sir Paul

Evans, Nigel

Blunt, Crispin

Faber, David

Boswell, Tim

Fabricant, Michael

Bottomley, Peter (Worthing W)

Fallon, Michael

Bottomley, Rt Hon Mrs Virginia

Flight, Howard

Brady, Graham

Fraser, Christopher

Brazier, Julian

Garnier, Edward

Brooke, Rt Hon Peter

Gibb, Nick

Browning, Mrs Angela

Gill, Christopher

Burnett, John

Gillan, Mrs Cheryl

Burns, Simon

Gray, James

Butterflll, John

Green, Damian

Campbell, Rt Hon Menzies (NE Fife)

Grieve, Dominic

Hague, Rt Hon William

Cash, William

Hamilton, Rt Hon Sir Archie

Chapman, Sir Sydney (Chipping Barnet)

Hammond, Philip

Hancock, Mike

Chope, Christopher

Hawkins, Nick

Clappison, James

Hayes, John

Collins, Tim

Heald, Oliver

1347

Heath, David (Somerton & Frome)

Prior, David

Heathcoat-Amory, Rt Hon David

Randall, John

Howard, Rt Hon Michael

Robertson, Laurence

Howarth, Gerald (Aldershot)

Roe, Mrs Marion (Broxboume)

Hunter, Andrew

Ruffley, David

Jack, Rt Hon Michael

Russell, Bob (Colchester)

Jenkin, Bernard

St Aubyn, Nick

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

Sanders, Adrian

Sayeed, Jonathan

Key, Robert

Shephard, Rt Hon Mrs Gillian

King, Rt Hon Tom (Bridgwater)

Shepherd, Richard

Kirkbride, Miss Julie

Simpson, Keith (Mid-Norfolk)

Kirkwood, Archy

Soames, Nicholas

Laing, Mrs Eleanor

Spelman, Mrs Caroline

Lait, Mrs Jacqui

Spicer, Sir Michael

Lansley, Andrew

Spring, Richard

Leigh, Edward

Steen, Anthony

Letwin, Oliver

Streeter, Gary

Lewis, Dr Julian (New Forest E)

Swayne Desmond

Lidington, David

Tapsell, Sir Peter

Lilley, Rt Hon Peter

Taylor, Ian (Esher & Walton)

Lloyd, Rt Hon Sir Peter (Fareham)

Taylor, John M (Solihull)

Loughton, Tim

Taylor, Matthew (Truro)

Lyell, Rt Hon Sir Nicholas

Taylor, Sir Teddy

MacGregor, Rt Hon John

Thomas, Simon (Ceredigion)

MacKay, Rt Hon Andrew

Townend, John

Maclean, Rt Hon David

Tredinnick, David

Trend, Michael

McLoughlin, Patrick

Tyler, Paul

Madel, Sir David

Walter, Robert

Malins, Humfrey

Waterson, Nigel

Mates, Michael

Whittingdale, John

Maude, Rt Hon Francis

Wilkinson, John

May, Mrs Theresa

Willetts, David

Moore, Michael

Willis, Phil

Morgan, Alasdair (Galloway)

Winterton, Mrs Ann (Congleton)

Nicholls, Patrick

Winterton, Nicholas (Macclesfield)

Norman, Archie

Yeo, Tim

O'Brien, Stephen (Eddisbury)

Young, Rt Hon Sir George

Ottaway, Richard

Page, Richard

Tellers for the Noes:

Paice, James

Mr. Geoffrey Clifton-Brown

Pickles, Eric

and

Portillo, Rt Hon Michael

Mr. Peter Luff.

Question accordingly agreed to.
MADAM SPEAKER forthwith declared the main Question, as amended, to be agreed to.
Resolved,
That this House believes that the Millennium Experience—and the many other Millennium activities—represent both an excellent celebration for the people of this country and a tangible and enduring legacy for future generations; further welcomes the announcement that the New Millennium Experience Company team will be introducing improvements which deliver even greater value for money both to the paying visitor and to the Millennium Commission; and, in particular, notes the record attendances at the Dome in the week commencing 7th February and the recent high satisfaction ratings amongst visitors.

HOUSE OF COMMONS COMMISSION
Ordered,
That Sir Peter Lloyd and Dr. Lewis Moonie be discharged from the House of Commons Commission and Mr. Eric Forth and Mr. Stuart Bell be appointed members of the Commission under the House of Commons (Administration) Act 1978.—[Mr. Kevin Hughes.]

DELEGATED LEGISLATION
Madam Speaker: With the permission of the House, I shall put motions 3 and 4 together.
Mr. Patrick McLoughlin: Object.
Madam Speaker: To what is the hon. Gentleman objecting?
Mr. McLoughlin: To motion 3, Madam Speaker.
Madam Speaker: In that case, let the Question be put on motion 3 alone.

Social Security
Motion made, and Question put forthwith, pursuant to Standing Order No. 118(6) (Standing Committees on Delegated Legislation),
That the draft Social Security (Contributions) (Re-rating and National Insurance Funds Payments) Order 2000, which was laid before this House on 31st January, be approved.—[Mr. Kevin Hughes.]
The House divided: Ayes 248, Noes 124.

Division No. 87]

[10.25 pm

AYES

Ainsworth, Robert (Cov'try NE)

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

Allen, Graham

Anderson, Janet (Rossendale)

Dawson, Hilton

Armstrong, Rt Hon Ms Hilary

Dean, Mrs Janet

Barnes, Harry

Denham, John

Barron, Kevin

Dismore, Andrew

Bayley, Hugh

Dobbin, Jim

Beard, Nigel

Donohoe, Brian H

Beckett, Rt Hon Mrs Margaret

Dowd, Jim

Benn, Hilary (Leeds C)

Drew, David

Benn, Rt Hon Tony (Chesterfield)

Eagle, Angela (Wallasey)

Benton, Joe

Eagle, Maria (L'pool Garston)

Bermingham, Gerald

Efford, Clive

Berry, Roger

Ellman, Mrs Louise

Best, Harold

Ennis, Jeff

Betts, Clive

Etherington, Bill

Blackman, Liz

Field, Rt Hon Frank

Blears, Ms Hazel

Fisher, Mark

Boateng, Rt Hon Paul

Fitzsimons, Lorna

Borrow, David

Flynn, Paul

Bradley, Keith (Withington)

Foster, Rt Hon Derek

Bradley, Peter (The Wrekin)

Foster, Michael Jabez (Hastings)

Bradshaw, Ben

Foulkes, George

Brown, Rt Hon Nick (Newcastle E)

Fyfe, Maria

Brown, Russell (Dumfries)

Gapes, Mike

Browne, Desmond

Gerrard, Neil

Buck, Ms Karen

Gibson, Dr Ian

Burden, Richard

Gilroy, Mrs Linda

Butler, Mrs Christine

Godman, Dr Norman A

Campbell, Alan (Tynemouth)

Godsiff, Roger

Cann, Jamie

Goggins, Paul

Caplin, Ivor

Golding, Mrs Llin

Casale, Roger

Gordon, Mrs Eileen

Cawsey, Ian

Griffiths, Jane (Reading E)

Chapman, Ben (Wirral S)

Griffiths, Nigel (Edinburgh S)

Chaytor, David

Griffiths, Win (Bridgend)

Chisholm, Malcolm

Grogan, John

Clapham, Michael

Hall, Patrick (Bedford)

Clark, Dr Lynda (Edinburgh Pentlands)

Hanson, David

Heal, Mrs Sylvia

Clark, Paul (Gillingham)

Healey, John

Clarke, Charles (Norwich S)

Henderson, Doug (Newcastle N)

Clarke, Rt Hon Tom (Coatbridge)

Henderson, Ivan (Harwich)

Clarke, Tony (Northampton S)

Hepburn, Stephen

Clelland, David

Hesford, Stephen

Coaker, Vernon

Hill, Keith

Coffey, Ms Ann

Hood, Jimmy

Cooper, Yvette

Hoon, Rt Hon Geoffrey

Corbett, Robin

Hope, Phil

Corbyn, Jeremy

Hopkins, Kelvin

Cousins, Jim

Howarth, Alan (Newport E)

Cox, Tom

Hughes, Ms Beverley (Stretford)

Cranston, Ross

Hughes, Kevin (Doncaster N)

Crausby, David

Humble, Mrs Joan

Cryer, Mrs Ann (Keighley)

Hurst, Alan

Cryer, John (Hornchurch)

Hutton, John

Cunningham, Jim (Cov'try S)

Iddon, Dr Brian

Dalyell, Tam

Jackson, Helen (Hillsborough)

Davey, Valerie (Bristol W)

Jenkins, Brian

Davies, Rt Hon Denzil (Llanelli)

Johnson, Alan (Hull W & Hessle)

1350

Jones, Rt Hon Barry (Alyn)

Quin, Rt Hon Ms Joyce

Jones, Mrs Fiona (Newark)

Quinn, Lawrie

Jones, Helen (Warrington N)

Radice, Rt Hon Giles

Keen, Alan (Feltham & Heston)

Rapson, Syd

Kennedy, Jane (Wavertree)

Raynsford, Nick

Kidney, David

Reid, Rt Hon Dr John (Hamilton N)

Kilfoyle, Peter

Rooker, Rt Hon Jeff

King, Andy (Rugby & Kenilworth)

Roy, Frank

Ladyman, Dr Stephen

Russell, Ms Christine (Chester)

Lepper, David

Ryan, Ms Joan

Leslie, Christopher

Salter, Martin

Levitt, Tom

Savidge, Malcolm

Lewis, Ivan (Bury S)

Sawford, Phil

Lewis, Terry (Worsley)

Sedgemore, Brian

Linton, Martin

Simpson, Alan (Nottingham S)

Lloyd, Tony (Manchester C)

Skinner, Dennis

Love, Andrew

Smith, Rt Hon Andrew (Oxford E)

McAvoy, Thomas

Smith, Angela (Basildon)

McCabe, Steve

Smith, Rt Hon Chris (Islington S)

McCartney, Rt Hon Ian (Makerfield)

Smith, Jacqui (Redditch)

Snape, Peter

McDonagh, Siobhain

Southworth, Ms Helen

Macdonald, Calum

Spellar, John

McDonnell, John

Steinberg, Gerry

McGuire, Mrs Anne

Stevenson, George

McIsaac, Shona

Stewart, David (Inverness E)

McKenna, Mrs Rosemary

Stewart, Ian (Eccles)

McNamara, Kevin

Stinchcombe, Paul

McNulty, Tony

Stoate, Dr Howard

MacShane, Denis

Straw, Rt Hon Jack

McWilliam, John

Stringer, Graham

Mallaber, Judy

Stuart, Ms Gisela

Marsden, Paul (Shrewsbury)

Taylor, Rt Hon Mrs Ann (Dewsbury)

Marshall, David (Shettleston)

Marshall-Andrews, Robert

Taylor, Ms Dari (Stockton S)

Martlew, Eric

Taylor, David (NW Leics)

Maxton, John

Temple-Morris, Peter

Meale, Alan

Thomas, Gareth (Clwyd W)

Merron, Gillian

Thomas, Gareth R (Harrow W)

Michie, Bill (Shef'ld Heeley)

Timms, Stephen

Milburn, Rt Hon Alan

Tipping, Paddy

Miller, Andrew

Touhig, Don

Moffatt, Laura

Trickett, Jon

Moran, Ms Margaret

Turner, Dr Desmond (Kemptown)

Morgan, Alasdair (Galloway)

Turner, Dr George (NW Norfolk)

Morris, Rt Hon Ms Estelle

Turner, Neil (Wigan)

(B'ham Yardley)

Twigg, Derek (Halton)

Mountford, Kali

Twigg, Stephen (Enfield)

Mudie, George

Tynan, Bill

Mullin, Chris

Vis, Dr Rudi

Murphy, Jim (Eastwood)

Ward, Ms Claire

Naysmith, Dr Doug

Wareing, Robert N

Norris, Dan

Watts, David

O'Brien, Bill (Normanton)

White, Brian

O'Hara, Eddie

Whitehead, Dr Alan

Olner, Bill

Wicks, Malcolm

O'Neill, Martin

Williams, Alan W (E Carmarthen)

Palmer, Dr Nick

Wills, Michael

Pearson, Ian

Winnick, David

Pickthall, Colin

Winterton, Ms Rosie (Doncaster C)

Pike, Peter L

Wise, Audrey

Plaskitt, James

Woodward, Shaun

Pond, Chris

Wright, Anthony D (Gt Yarmouth)

Pope, Greg

Wright, Dr Tony (Cannock)

Pound, Stephen

Prentice, Ms Bridget (Lewisham E)

Tellers for the Ayes:

Prentice, Gordon (Pendle)

Mr. David Jamieson and

Prosser, Gwyn

Mr. Mike Hall.

NOES

Allan, Richard

Bell, Martin (Tatton)

Amess, David

Bercow, John

Ancram, Rt Hon Michael

Beresford, Sir Paul

Arbuthnot, Rt Hon James

Blunt, Crispin

Atkinson, David (Bour'mth E)

Boswell, Tim

Atkinson, Peter (Hexham)

Bottomley, Peter (Worthing W)

1351

Brady, Graham

Lewis, Dr Julian (New Forest E)

Brazier, Julian

Lidington, David

Brooke, Rt Hon Peter

Lilley, Rt Hon Peter

Browning, Mrs Angela

Lloyd, Rt Hon Sir Peter (Fareham)

Burnett, John

Loughton, Tim

Burns, Simon

Lyell, Rt Hon Sir Nicholas

Butterfill, John

MacGregor, Rt Hon John

Campbell, Rt Hon Menzies (NE Fife)

MacKay, Rt Hon Andrew

Maclean, Rt Hon David

Cash, William

McLoughlin, Patrick

Chapman, Sir Sydney (Chipping Barnet)

Malins, Humfrey

Mates, Michael

Chope, Christopher

Maude, Rt Hon Francis

Clappison, James

May, Mrs Theresa

Collins, Tim

Nicholls, Patrick

Colvin, Michael

Norman, Archie

Cormack, Sir Patrick

O'Brien, Stephen (Eddisbury)

Cotter, Brian

Ottaway, Richard

Curry, Rt Hon David

Page, Richard

Davies, Quentin (Grantham)

Paice, James

Day, Stephen

Pickles, Eric

Dorrell, Rt Hon Stephen

Portillo, Rt Hon Michael

Duncan, Alan

Prior, David

Duncan Smith, Iain

Randall, John

Evans Nigel

Robertson, Laurence

Faber, David

Roe, Mrs Marion (Broxbourne)

Fabricant, Michael

Ruffley, David

Flight Howard

Russell, Bob (Colchester)

Fraser, Christopher

St Aubyn, Nick

Garnier, Edward

Sanders, Adrian

Gibb, Nick

Sayeed, Jonathan

Gill, Christopher

Shephard, Rt Hon Mrs Gillian

Gillan, Mrs Cheryl

Shephard, Richard

Gray, James

Simpson, Keith (Mid-Norfolk)

Green, Damian

Soames, Nicholas

Grieve, Dominic

Spelman, Mrs Caroline

Hamilton, Rt Hon Sir Archie

Spicer, Sir Michael

Spring, Richard

Hammond, Philip

Steen, Anthony

Hawkins, Nick

Streeter, Gary

Hayes, John

Swayne, Desmond

Heald, Oliver

Taylor, Ian (Esher & Walton)

Heath, David (Somerton & Frome)

Taylor, John M (Solihull)

Heathcoat-Amory, Rt Hon David

Taylor, Sir Teddy

Howard, Rt Hon Michael

Townend, John

Howarth, Gerald (Aldershot)

Tredinnick, David

Hunter, Andrew

Trend, Michael

Jack, Rt Hon Michael

Tyler, Paul

Jenkin, Bernard

Walter, Robert

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

Whittingdale, John

Wilkinson, John

Key, Robert

Willetts, David

King, Rt Hon Tom (Bridgwater)

Winterton, Mrs Ann (Congleton)

Kirkbride, Miss Julie

Winterton, Nicholas (Macclesfield)

Kirkwood, Archy

Young, Rt Hon Sir George

Laing, Mrs Eleanor

Lait, Mrs Jacqui

Tellers for the Noes:

Lansley, Andrew

Mr. Geoffrey Clifton-Brown

Leigh, Edward

and

Letwin, Oliver

Mr. Peter Luff.

Question accordingly agreed to.

OVERSEAS DEVELOPMENT AND CO-OPERATION
Motion made, and Question proposed, pursuant to Standing Order No. 118(6) (Standing Committees on Delegated Legislation),
That the draft African Development Fund (Eighth Replenishment) Order 1999, which was laid before this House on 31st January, be approved.—[Mr. Kevin Hughes.]
Question agreed to.

COMMITTEES
Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Michael J. Martin): With permission, I shall put together the motions relating to Committees.
Ordered,

COMMITTEES
  That Mr. Oliver Heald be discharged from the Administration Committee and Mr. Stephen Day be added to the Committee.
  That Mr. Peter Luff be discharged from the Agriculture Committee and Mr. Owen Paterson be added to the Committee.
  That Mr. Crispin Blunt be discharged from the Defence Committee and Mr. Peter Viggers be added to the Committee.
  ENVIRONMENT, TRANSPORT AND REGIONAL AFFAIRS
  That Mr. John Randall be discharged from the Environment, Transport and Regional Affairs Committee and Mr. Crispin Blunt be added to the Committee.
  TREASURY
  That Dr. Lewis Moonie be discharged from the Treasury Committee and Mr. Nigel Beard be added to the Committee.—[Mr. John McWilliam, on behalf of the Committee of Selection.]

Adjournment
Resolved,
That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Kevin Hughes.]
Adjourned accordingly at twenty-two minutes to Eleven o'clock.

PRIME MINISTER

  World Food Programme
  Mr. Dalyell
  To ask the Prime Minister what inquiries he has made as to the reasons for the resignation of the head of the World Food Programme. [111230]

  The Prime Minister
  None.

  Ilisu Dam
  Mr. Dalyell
  To ask the Prime Minister, pursuant to the oral statement by the Minister for Small Business and E-Commerce of 15 February 2000,Official Report, column 172WH, what assessment he has made of the impact of the Ilisu Dam on water suppliers and shortage in Iraq. [111229]

  The Prime Minister
  The arrangements to be proposed by the relevant Turkish authorities for ensuring that adequate downstream water flows will be maintained at all times will be assessed by the Export Credits Guarantee Department (ECGD) as part of its underwriting consideration of this project. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry has indicated that this is one of the key concerns he wishes to see addressed before any decision about ECGD support for the project.

  Section 28
  Mr. Garnier
  To ask the Prime Minister, pursuant to his oral statement of 9 February 2000,Official Report, column 241, on section 28, what were the grounds for his statement that section 28 has not applied to schools since 1994. [111047]

  The Prime Minister
  Following the changes introduced by the Education Act 1993, which made sex education mandatory in secondary schools, the previous Government issued (in May 1994) Circular 5/94 "Sex Education in Schools". The Circular stated that section 28 of the Local Government Act 1988 applied to"the activities of local authorities themselves, as distinct from the activities of the governing bodies and staff of schools on their own behalf'.

  Iraq
  Mr. Dalyell
  To ask the Prime Minister what consultation the Secretary-General of the United Nations had with the United Kingdom Government about the health and food situation in Iraq, before accepting the resignation of the senior UN representative in Baghdad responsible for co-ordinating humanitarian aid; and if he will make a statement. [111235]

  The Prime Minister
  None. UN staffing issues are a matter for the UN Secretary-General.
  686W
  Mr. Dalyell
  To ask the Prime Minister, pursuant to his answer of 16 February 2000,Official Report, columns 562–63W, concerning the Iraqi Government's prioritising of the humanitarian assistance, what the Government defines as prioritising properly the humanitarian assistance available under the oil-for-food programme. [111234]

  The Prime Minister
  In his regular reports on the implementation of the oil-for-food programme, the UN Secretary-General has repeatedly recommended that priority must be given to the food/nutrition and health sectors. In his most recent report of November 1999, he again stated that the Government of Iraq needed to give greater attention to the provision of basic pharmaceuticals, primary and preventive health-care services and material support for more effective distribution.

  Mr. Dalyell
  To ask the Prime Minister, pursuant to his answer of 16 February 2000,Official Report, columns 562–63W, concerning child nutrition and mortality in Iraq, what is the raft of measures referred to in his answer. [111232]

  The Prime Minister
  I refer my hon. Friend to operative paragraphs 15–32 of Security Council Resolution 1284, a copy of which is available from the Library.

  Mr. Dalyell
  To ask the Prime Minister, pursuant to his answer of 16 February 2000,Official Report, columns 562–63W, concerning the Iraqi Government's prioritising of humanitarian assistance, what priorities the Iraqi Government have set out under the oil-for-food programme. [111233]

  The Prime Minister
  I refer my hon. Friend to the distribution plan submitted by Iraq to the UN Secretary General for the current phase of the oil-for-food programme. This information is available on the United Nations website from the following url: www.un.org/Departments/oip/dp7pdf/dp7exesum.htm .

  Departmental Functions (Food)
  Mr. Yeo
  To ask the Prime Minister if all food served at his Office's official functions meets the standards of production required of domestic producers. [109790]

  The Prime Minister
  [holding answer 11 February 2000]: All food served at official functions in my Office is obtained from suppliers who are required to meet the necessary legal requirements.

  Ministerial Meetings
  Mr. Yeo
  To ask the Prime Minister if he will list the names of the European Commissioners he has met since 1 August 1999 and the dates on which the meetings took place. [1088681

  The Prime Minister
  The information requested is as follows:

  Date

  European Commissioner

  12 August 1999

  Romano Prodi

  15 October 1999

  Romano Prodi

  21 October 1999

  Neil Kinnock

  3 December 1999

  Neil Kinnock

  687W
  I have also spoken to President Prodi and Commissioner Byrne on a number of occasions by telephone.

  Council of Europe/WEU Delegation
  Mr. Savidge
  To ask the Prime Minister what changes there are in the composition of the United Kingdom Delegation to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe and the Assembly of the Western European Union. [111160]

  The Prime Minister
  My hon. Friends the Members for Manchester, Central (Mr. Lloyd) and for Mansfield (Mr. Meale) have been appointed as substitute members in place of my hon. Friends the Members for Cannock Chase (Dr. Wright) and for North-West Leicestershire (Mr. Taylor).

  Post Office Network
  Mr. Simon Thomas
  To ask the Prime Minister when the Performance and Innovation Unit's study into the future of the Post Office network will be published. [110837]

  The Prime Minister
  I refer the hon. Member to the answer I gave to the hon. Member for Torbay (Mr. Sanders) on 17 January 2000, Official Report, column 267W.

INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENT

  East Timor
  Mr. Corbyn
  To ask the Secretary of State for International Development what assistance her Department has provided to East Timor for small-scale agriculture, public health and education since November 1999; and what plans she has for immediate further assistance. [110490]

  Clare Short
  Since November 1999 we have provided £100,000 to CARE for an Emergency Agricultural Rehabilitation Programme;£625,000 to United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) for programmes in water and sanitation, education and social services and protection of women and children; and £100,000 to the World Health Organisation to strengthen and expand their role in public health co-ordination.

  We have recently agreed to provide a further £1.4 million in immediate assistance through the United Nations Transitional Administration for East Timor (UNTAET) to fund labour intensive road rehabilitation programmes which will keep vital supply routes open.

  Uganda
  Mr. Heppell
  To ask the Secretary of State for International Development what representation she has made to the Uganda Government about dealing with the fighting in Northern Uganda. [111157]

  Clare Short
  Over the past three years I have discussed with the Government of Uganda the best way to achieve a peaceful solution to the fighting with the Lord's Resistance Army in Northern Uganda. I discussed this issue with President Museveni in 1997 and during my visit in Uganda last year.
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  Mr. Heppell
  To ask the Secretary of State for International Development what proportion of UK aid to Uganda is for agriculture and forestry. [111159]

  Clare Short
  We expect to spend £50 million in Uganda this financial year. Around 4 per cent. of this will be spent on agriculture and forestry. This includes assistance related to land ownership, agricultural research, veterinary services, government strategies on forestry and the modernisation of agriculture, and management of aquatic resources. Agricultural development in the less fertile areas of northern and eastern Uganda are key focuses for several of these projects.

  Mr. Heppell
  To ask the Secretary of State for International Development what proportion of UK aid to Uganda is targeted to Northern Uganda. [111158]

  Clare Short
  We expect to spend £50 million in Uganda this financial year. Around 1 per cent. of this will be spent on projects directly targeted at the four northern districts of Kitgum, Gulu, Arua and Moyo. Most of the Uganda programme is comprised of nation-wide projects and initiatives designed to benefit the whole country, rather than specific districts. Examples include our commitment of £67 million over five years to Uganda's Education Sector Investment Plan, which aims to achieve universal primary education by 2003, and the budgetary assistance we provide direct to government.

  Ongoing conflict and instability in Northern Uganda, particularly in Kitgum and Gulu, have made traditional development activities difficult and most of our current projects there focus on humanitarian assistance and peace-building. I have however made it clear when I visited the north and in response to requests from the Ugandan Government that should a sustainable peace be achieved, we will increase the proportion of our resources directly targeted at the region.

EDUCATION AND EMPLOYMENT

  Satellite and Cable Television
  Mr. Boswell
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Employment what is the current availability to schools via satellite or cable of overseas television programmes of news, information or language teaching, and in what languages; and if he will make a statement on recent changes in that availability. [110396]

  Mr. Wills
  The information requested is not available centrally. Decisions about whether to subscribe to specific satellite or cable services are taken by individual schools in the light of their specific curriculum requirements.

  Women's Incomes
  Lorna Fitzsimons
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Employment if he will publish the findings of Government research into women's incomes over their lifetimes. [111335]

  Ms Jowell
  We have published today and will be placing in the Library our document "Women's Incomes over the Lifetime".
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  The research set out to examine the key features of women's incomes over their lifetimes, and to identify, and quantify, the factors behind men and women's lifetime incomes, drawing on existing research and undertaking new analysis. While we know quite a lot about income comparisons between individuals at particular moments in time, these do not tell us about the impact over women's lifetimes of the pattern and level of their earnings, the effect of the tax and benefit systems and the importance to women's incomes of transfers within families.

  Women's lives have undergone a revolution in the last 25 years. Nearly eight out of 10 of all mothers are in paid work. Overwhelmingly mothers work because they want to—seven out of 10 saying they would rather work even if they could afford not to. But when children are young and dependent there must be a choice; therefore the Government has delivered the Working Families Tax Credit which guarantees low-paid families with one full-time worker a minimum income of £190 a week with no tax to pay on incomes below £220.

  Lone parents often find it the most difficult to go back to work, but thanks to the New Deal for Lone Parents many are now finding jobs that are giving them on average, an extra £39 a week in their pockets.

  Women already working are benefiting from a whole host of policies put in place by the Government. The National Minimum Wage, which the Government have announced will be uprated by 10p in October, has given around 1.5 million people, the majority of whom are women, an immediate pay rise. The new 10p tax rate halved the tax paid by over one million women.

  Maternity pay has been improved for part-time women, women who have only been working for a year and those who are self-employed. Therefore getting pregnant while in work should no longer mean giving up jobs.

  Many women work part-time because it gives them the best chance of balancing work and home life. New improved part-time employment rights mean that women working part-time now have the same rights, and therefore security, as other employees.
  And the biggest ever increase in child benefit last April, straight into mum's purse, will help ensure women are not worse off in work. Next April will come another boost so that mums get £15 for the first child and £10 for the second.

  Through this action we are committed to equipping women for the challenges of the new economy—one that values a broader range of skills, diversity and knowledge and one that provides new opportunities for women.

  Departmental Publications
  Mr. Viggers
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Employment what was the cost of preparing, printing and distributing the publication, "Raising Aspirations in the 21st Century: A Speech by the right hon. David Blunkett MP Secretary of State for Education and Employment, 6 January 2000". [110739]

  Mr. Wicks
  I refer the hon. Member to the reply given to his hon. Friend the Member for Maidenhead (Mrs. May) on 18 January 2000, Official Report, column 388W.

  Internet Access
  Dan Norris
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Employment what guidance the Government are giving about ensuring that children at school are unable to access inappropriate material on the internet. [111156]

  Mr. Wills
  We are determined that pupils should be protected from unsuitable material while accessing the wealth of educationally valuable material on the internet. DfEE and the British Educational Communications and Technology agency (BECTa) have produced a detailed information pack for teachers and parents about pupils' safe use of the internet. The Superhighway Safety pack, which is available free and is also on the National Grid for Learning, provides guidance on the wide range of measures which schools can adopt. These range from using walled gardens and filtering software, to monitoring and tracking pupil access and providing user contracts for pupils, spelling out how they should behave.

  Administration Costs (LEAs)
  Mr. Paul Marsden
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Employment if he will list(a) the total administration costs and (b) administration costs as a percentage of income for each local education authority in England in the last year for which figures are available; and if he will make a statement. [110708]

  Ms Estelle Morris
  I refer my hon. Friend to the reply I gave on 11 January 2000,Official Report, columns 148–52W. As part of the 2000–01 settlement, the Secretary of State set targets for LEAs relating to delegation of resources and retention of central costs.

  Pupil Spending (Somerset)
  Mr. Ashdown
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Employment what is his estimate of spending per pupil in secondary schools in Somerset for each year from 1988–89 to 1999–2000, expressed in 1997–98 prices; and if he will make a statement. [110762]

  Ms Estelle Morris
  Spending in secondary schools in Somerset on a per pupil basis from 1989–90 to 1997–98, the years for which this information is currently available, is set out in the table. The figures are based on Net Institutional Expenditure and expressed at 1997–98 prices.

  £

  1997–98 prices

  1989–90

  2,347

  1990–91

  2,312

  1991–92

  2,292

  1992–93

  2,497

  1993–94

  2,369

  1994–95

  2,307

  1995–96

  2,347

  1996–97

  2,277

  1997–98

  2,222

  The balance of funding between secondary and other sectors of education is a matter for local education authorities. More generally, the Government announced in November 1998 a three year review in partnership with

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  local government to look for a way of distributing revenue support which is simpler, more stable, more robust and fairer than the present arrangements for SSAs.

  Training and Enterprise Councils
  Mr. Boswell
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Employment what action he is taking to ensure that TECs do not divest themselves of assets derived from public funds before the ending of such funding in 2001. [110397]

  Mr. Wicks
  My Department has a number of mechanisms in place to ensure that TECs do not dispose of assets without our agreement. We hold a debenture which prevents TECs from selling, transferring or otherwise disposing of any assets other than in the ordinary and proper course of business without the permission of the Secretary of State. The TEC licence also requires them to gain the Department's approval to dispose of any land and buildings and to get the full market value for them and, following the notice of termination of the licence on 13 July 1999, to comply with reasonable requests to limit expenditure.

  Mr. Boswell
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Employment if he will establish a mechanism for valuation and apportionment of assets currently held by TECs according to whether or not they were derived from public funds; how publicly owned assets will be treated for accounting purposes; and what advice he will offer TECs on the use or disposal of their remaining assets. [110398]

  Mr. Wicks
  My officials are currently working up proposals for the valuation and treatment of assets currently held by TECs. We expect to publish these by the end of March 2000. As private companies TEC assets, including publicly funded assets, are recorded in their accounts and depreciated in line with the recognised accounting standards. Should any assets remain on wind up, TEC memorandum and articles of association require them to be passed to a body with similar objects and which has been agreed by the Secretary of State. It is our intention to agree with each TEC a transition plan that will set out, among other things, plans for the future use or disposal of assets.

  Mr. Boswell
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Employment what steps he is taking to monitor performance and contract compliance by TECs during their last financial year, 2000–01. [110401]

  Mr. Wicks
  There is a well established system in place for monitoring TEC performance and this will continue to operate until all TEC business with DfEE ceases. Managing TEC performance is the role of Government Offices (GOs). They collect and analyse information to assess how well each TEC is performing. GOs manage and report upon the delivery of performance against the TEC Business Plan and hold TECs to account for meeting programme objectives. Officials will continue to monitor the effectiveness of these arrangements throughout 2000–01.

  DfEE will continue to monitor TECs' compliance with their contracts throughout 2000-01 and has in place claims testing processes that will be applied to all TECs during this period. In parallel with this work, the Department is monitoring TECs' compliance with specific
  692W
  requirements resulting from the issue of notices of contract termination to the TECs. Audit work based on professional risk judgments will also continue.

  Ofsted Inspectors
  Mr. Willis
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Employment (1) how many Ofsted inspectors have been appointed to date; and how many are of ethnic minority origin; [111025]

  (2) what requirement exists for Ofsted teams inspecting schools where the majority of students are of ethnic minority background, to include (a) a registered inspector from an ethnic minority and (b) a proportion of members who reflect the ethnic background of the majority of the students; and if he will make a statement. [111026]

  Ms Estelle Morris
  This is a matter for Her Majesty's Chief Inspector of Schools. I have asked him to write to the hon. Member and to place a copy of his letter in the Library.

  Mr. Willis
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Employment what regulations are issued to Ofsted on the composition of inspection teams. [110995]

  Ms Estelle Morris
  The regulations governing the composition of Ofsted inspection teams are set out in schedule 3 to the School Inspections Act 1996.

  Education Funding
  Mr. Willis
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Employment if he will make a statement on the arrangements for the distribution of the additional funds for education announced in the recent local government settlement, indicating how much each local authority will receive and what conditions will be attached to the receipt of such funds. [111046]

  Ms Estelle Morris
  My right hon. Friend confirmed in a letter of 31 January 2000 to all council leaders that the extra £50 million grant for education will be paid as a special grant to authorities on condition that it is used for education and added to schools' delegated budgets. It will be distributed among authorities according to their numbers of schools and pupils, following the same pattern as the school improvement grant for 2000–01. My right hon. Friend will want to see prior confirmation that an authority has increased its education budget by the increase for 2000–01 in its education standard spending assessment before making a decision on the release of its share of the £50 million special grant. The table sets out the amount each authority can expect to receive.

  £000

  Local education authority

  Share of £50 million grant

  City of London

  4

  Camden

  155

  Greenwich

  273

  Hackney

  191

  Hammersmith

  131

  Islington

  193

  Kensington and Chelsea

  70

  Lambeth

  204

  Lewisham

  234

  Southwark

  262

  Tower Hamlets

  280

  Wandsworth

  193

  693W

  £

  Local education authority

  Share of £50 million grant

  Westminster

  128

  Barking

  174

  Barnet

  276

  Bexley

  212

  Brent

  253

  Bromley

  246

  Croydon

  323

  Ealing

  265

  Enfield

  275

  Haringey

  250

  Harrow

  155

  Havering

  212

  Hillingdon

  249

  Hounslow

  229

  Kingston upon Thames

  117

  Merton

  134

  Newham

  316

  Redbridge

  205

  Richmond upon Thames

  117

  Sutton

  174

  Waltham Forest

  231

  Birmingham

  1,034

  Coventry

  282

  Dudley

  309

  Sandwell

  386

  Solihull

  205

  Walsall

  320

  Wolverhampton

  294

  Knowsley

  196

  Liverpool

  543

  St. Helens

  172

  Sefton

  275

  Wirral

  303

  Bolton

  276

  Bury

  176

  Manchester

  552

  Oldham

  253

  Rochdale

  215

  Salford

  237

  Stockport

  303

  Tameside

  251

  Trafford

  208

  Wigan

  294

  Barnsley

  212

  Doncaster

  296

  Rotherham

  311

  Sheffield

  530

  Bradford

  525

  Calderdale

  244

  Kirklees

  437

  Leeds

  642

  Wakefield

  326

  Gateshead

  209

  Newcastle upon Tyne

  243

  North Tyneside

  182

  South Tyneside

  181

  Sunderland

  323

  Isles of Scilly

  8

  Bath and North East Somerset

  162

  City of Bristol

  380

  North Somerset

  186

  South Gloucestershire

  237

  Hartlepool

  91

  Middlesbrough

  160

  Redcar and Cleveland

  147

  Stockton-on-Tees

  184

  Kingston-upon-Hull

  269

  East Riding of Yorkshire

  308

  North East Lincolnshire

  191

  North Lincolnshire

  162

  North Yorkshire

  634

  York

  150

  Bedfordshire

  412

  694W

  £000

  Local education authority

  Share of £50 million grant

  Luton

  187

  Buckinghamshire

  481

  Milton Keynes

  234

  Derbyshire

  864

  Derby

  220

  Dorset

  343

  Poole

  105

  Bournemouth

  120

  Durham

  541

  Darlington

  99

  East Sussex

  398

  Brighton and Hove

  202

  Hampshire

  1,246

  Portsmouth

  161

  Southampton

  219

  Leicestershire

  565

  Leicester

  349

  Rutland

  47

  Staffordshire

  816

  Stoke-on-Trent

  282

  Wiltshire

  449

  Swindon

  177

  Bracknell Forest

  89

  Windsor and Maidenhead

  124

  West Berkshire

  161

  Reading

  129

  Slough

  129

  Wokingham

  143

  Cambridgeshire

  488

  Peterborough

  169

  Cheshire

  676

  Halton

  137

  Warrington

  192

  Devon

  654

  Plymouth

  264

  Torbay

  104

  Essex

  1,382

  Southend-on-Sea

  157

  Thurrock

  162

  Herefordshire

  200

  Worcestershire

  518

  Kent

  1,463

  Medway Towns

  291

  Lancashire

  1,208

  Blackburn with Darwen

  188

  Blackpool

  119

  Nottinghamshire

  746

  Nottingham City

  325

  Shropshire

  283

  Wrekin, The

  163

  Cornwall

  483

  Cumbria

  571

  Gloucestershire

  572

  Hertfordshire

  1,083

  Isle of Wight

  129

  Lincolnshire

  675

  Norfolk

  787

  Northamptonshire

  655

  Northumberland

  358

  Oxfordshire

  647

  Somerset

  478

  Suffolk

  645

  Surrey

  876

  Warwickshire

  487

  West Sussex

  625

  Mr. Willis
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Employment what criteria he attaches to the award of grants available following the announcement of additional funding for education in the recent local government settlement. [111145]
  695W
  Ms Estelle Morris
  My right hon. Friend will want to see prior confirmation that the whole of an authority's increase in its education standard spending assessment has been passed on to its education budget before he takes decisions on the release of that authority's share of the £50 million special grant. Local education authorities will be required to include their share of the £50 million special grant in their schools' delegated budgets.

  LEA Funding (Bradford)
  Mr. Rooney
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Employment how much funding was awarded to Bradford Local Education Authority in each year from 1995–96 to 1999–2000 in respect of(a) reduction in infant class sizes, broken down by (i) revenue and (ii) capital

  Allocations to Bradford Education Auithority 1995–96 to 1999–2000

  £

  Initiative

  1995–96

  1996–97

  1997–98

  1998–99

  1999–2000

  (a) Reduction of infant class sizes:

  (i) Revenue

  n/a

  n/a

  n/a

  625,000

  1,387,000

  (ii) Capital

  n/a

  n/a

  n/a

  202,100

  —

  (b) National Grid for Learning (Standards Fund)

  n/a

  n/a

  n/a

  1,002,000

  1,600,OO0

  (c)Literacy Programmes (Standards Fund)

  n/a

  n/a

  35,000

  681,203

  730,018

  (d)Numeracy Programmes (Standards Fund)

  n/a

  n/a

  n/a

  13,700

  626,375

  Literacy and Numeracy Programmes (Standards Fund)1

  n/a

  185,000

  209,500

  216,023

  529,604

  (e) Books for Schools

  n/a

  n/a

  251,337

  267,976

  535,952

  (f)Truancy and Behaviour (Standards Fund)

  200,000

  384,600

  196,000

  253,530

  741,820

  (g)Schools Security (Standards Fund)

  n/a

  n/a

  230,600

  229,894

  251,207

  (h) Improving School Effectiveness (Standards Fund)

  1,418,600

  1,529,400

  1,482,800

  1,649,487

  2,695,144

  (i) Excellence in Cities (Standards Fund)

  n/a

  n/a

  n/a

  n/a

  1,733,923

  (j) New Deal for Schools

  n/a

  n/a

  1,045,000

  1,766,000

  20,000,000

  (k) Voluntary Aided Schools Capital

  142,000

  85,000

  321,000

  472,000

  581,000

  (i) Energy Efficiency

  n/a

  n/a

  n/a

  150,000

  n/a

  (m) Education Standard Spending Assessment2

  201,900,000

  209,900,000

  208,500,000

  225,100,000

  233,800,000

  (n) Protecting Local Authority Music Services (Standards Fund)

  n/a

  n/a

  n/a

  n/a

  212,000

  1 Initiatives where expenditure on literacy and numeracy cannot be disaggregated. Includes allocations for Playing for Success and Year 6 Booster Classes.

  2 In 1997–98 £527 million was removed from Education Standard Spending at national level for the Nursery Voucher Scheme.

  Note:

  n/a—not applicable

  Teachers' Pay
  Mr. Willis
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Employment what plans he has in respect of the level of resources to be made available to individual schools for threshold payments under the proposed performance-related pay scheme for teachers. [111024]

  Ms Estelle Morris
  For an initial period starting in September 2000, the Government will establish a Special Grant to target resources for the performance threshold additional to and separate from schools' delegated budgets. Schools will be able to draw additional funds from this grant via their local education authority for the salary uplift of each teacher promoted to the upper pay spine. There will be no quota on threshold successes.

  Mr. Willis
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Employment what arrangements he has put in place in respect of the proposals for teachers' performance related pay in the event that the teachers' association reject the proposals. [111040]

  Ms Estelle Morris
  Since our proposals for reforming teachers' pay and conditions were published in the Green Paper "Teachers: meeting the challenge of change" (Cm4164), in December 1998, we have consulted
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  funds, (b) the National Grid for Learning, (c) literacy programmes, (d) numeracy programmes, (e) books for schools, (f) truancy and behaviour initiatives, (g) school security, (h) improving school effectiveness, (i) the Excellence in Cities initiative, (j) New Deal for Schools, (k) voluntary aided schools capital grant, (l) energy efficiency, (m) education S.S.A. and (n) music programmes. [111029]

  Ms Estelle Morris
  The figures requested are shown in the following table. For Standards Fund grants, the figures include both the Government's and Bradford Local Education Authority's contributions where appropriate. The figures shown for Education Standard Spending Assessment also include provision for the Authority's contribution to the Standards Fund.

  extensively with the teacher unions and other key stakeholders on the best way to take our proposals forward.

  One of the main elements of the proposals is the introduction of a performance threshold for classroom teachers. It will be for each individual teacher to decide whether to apply for the threshold as he/she becomes eligible—application will be entirely voluntary. Teachers who are successful will receive a pay rise of £2,000.

  Following publication of the School Teachers' Review Body (STRB) report on 1 February 2000, two of the teaching unions—NAHT and ATL—have indicated their support for the latest proposals. The NUT has indicated that it will not try to prevent members from applying to cross the threshold.

  Mr. Willis
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Employment what plans he has to allow the contribution of private tuition to be taken into account when judging pupil performance as part of his proposals for teacher's performance-related pay. [111023]

  Ms Estelle Morris
  In considering applications to cross the performance threshold, headteachers will need to make a professional judgment on whether the progress made by a teacher's pupils is as good as would be
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  expected from local and national context of the school. In reaching a judgment, we would expect headteachers to think about the evidence presented by the teacher against the pupil progress standard, particularly whether the evidence is representative of the range of the teacher's work and whether it demonstrates care and attention to all pupils.

  Mr. Willis
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Employment what guidance he will issue with the introduction of performance-related pay for teachers to ensure a commitment to equal opportunities regardless of age, disabilities, ethnic origin, gender, marital status, religion and sexual orientation. [110997]

  Ms Estelle Morris
  We will be enforcing our commitment to equal opportunities through the package of performance threshold materials we will be publishing for schools and others towards the end of March and through the working code of conduct for the external assessors. We will be asking all applicants to cross the performance threshold to complete an equal opportunities questionnaire to enable us to monitor the profile of those applying for threshold assessment and the outcomes.

  A copy of the draft materials has been placed in the Library.

  Mr. Willis
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Employment what plans he has to ensure that proposals for performance-related pay do not discriminate against(a) female and (b) ethnic minority teachers. [110998]

  Ms Estelle Morris
  The Department for Education and Employment is committed to pursuing equal opportunities. It has taken a series of steps to ensure that the proposals to establish a new upper pay range do not discriminate on any grounds. The Department has consulted and is continuing to consult widely in drawing up the proposals. The performance assessment is designed to be accessible by part-time as well as full-time teachers. The external assessors deployed to verify the assessments made by Headteachers will receive training in equal opportunities issues and will work to a code of conduct which includes a commitment to pursuing equal opportunities. The Department has ensured that the contractor responsible for deploying the external assessors is committed to pursuing equal opportunities. Their activities will be quality assured internally and by the Department. Applications made by teachers for threshold assessment will be monitored for equal opportunities implications.

  Average size of classes taught by one teacher in maintained primary schools by area and by key stage in England—January 1999

  Urban/Rural classification

  Key stage 1

  Key stage 2

  Key stage 3

  Mixed key stage

  Overall

  Metropolitan

  26.7

  28.1

  25.4

  26.0

  27.4

  Urban

  26.8

  28.5

  26.0

  26.2

  27.7

  Coalfield1

  26.3

  29.0

  2—

  26.8

  27.7

  Accessible rural

  26.2

  28.7

  26.4

  25.9

  27.5

  Remote rural

  25.3

  28.3

  24.8

  24.7

  26.7

  All areas

  26.5

  28.4

  25.9

  25.7

  27.5

  1 Coalfield is wholly classified as a Rural category

  2 No classes of this type

  698W
  Mr. Willis
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Employment what safeguards he will put in place to ensure that a previous dispute between a headteacher and a teacher does not affect a decision on whether to recommend the teacher for progress through the performance pay threshold. [111043]

  Ms Estelle Morris
  Headteachers will be responsible for the assessments of teachers in their schools. Assessments will be made against national standards. Trained accredited external assessors will visit every school to verify headteachers' assessments on a sampling basis in order to ensure national consistency and the rigorous application of the standards.

  Education Zones
  Mr. Breed
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Employment how many of the education zones include rural areas. [110783]

  Ms Estelle Morris
  There are 11 education actions zones with schools in rural areas, as defined by Local Authority Districts. They are Withernsea and Southern Holdemess EAZ, the South East Virtual EAZ, the Kent Somerset Virtual EAZ, Shropshire "Meeting the Rural Challenge" EAZ, the North East Derbyshire Coalfields Action EAZ, Weston (North Somerset) EAZ, Hereford EAZ, Bedford EAZ, Redruth Cornwall EAZ, Somerset "The Bridgwater Achievement Zone", Easington and Seaham EAZ.

  In addition, a 12.th zone, East Cleveland's "Learning Together" EAZ, includes schools in the rural part of Redcar and Cleveland, which is officially designated as an urban area.

  School Standards (Manchester)
  Mr. Brady
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Employment when he will make a ruling on the possible breach of section 107 of the School Standards and Framework Act 1998 in relation to Trinity School in Manchester. [110671]

  Ms Estelle Morris
  A reply was sent to the hon. Gentleman on 17 February.

  Class Sizes
  Mr. Breed
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Employment what is the average class size at each key stage in schools in(a) rural and (b) urban areas. [109751]

  Ms Estelle Morris
  The available information on class sizes is shown in the tables.
  699W

  Average size of classes taught by one teacher in maintained secondary schools by area and by age group in England—January 1999

  Urban/Rural classification

  Ages1

  Overall

  under 14

  14 and 15

  16 or more

  Metropolitan

  25.0

  21.6

  10.5

  21.9

  Urban

  25.1

  21.6

  10.4

  21.9

  Coalfield2

  25.5

  22.6

  10.4

  22.5

  Accessible rural

  25.4

  21.9

  10.7

  21.8

  Remote rural

  24.9

  21.6

  10.1

  21.5

  All areas

  25.1

  21.7

  10.5

  21.9

  1 Ages as at the start of the academic year

  2 Coalfield is wholly classified as a rural category

  School Playing Fields
  Mr. MacShane
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Employment what steps he is taking to encourage inner-city schools in the independent and maintained sectors to share their sports playing fields with schools which do not have such fields. [108283]

  Ms Estelle Morris
  Through the specialist schools programme, Sports Colleges work closely with local partner primary and secondary schools and the wider community, sharing their facilities and resources, to help raise participation and standards in PE and sport for all pupils. We are particularly keen to support schools in inner cities and areas of social deprivation, and give some preference to applications through the associated Excellence in Cities programme. It is for individual schools to make appropriate arrangements to share facilities.

  A survey in 1997 indicated that, in 45 per cent. of the independent schools surveyed, games pitches and school grounds were used by maintained schools; and in 28 per cent, athletics tracks were used by maintained schools. The Government's Independent/State School Partnerships Scheme, established in 1997, promotes the sharing of a wide range of resources between independent and maintained schools for their mutual benefit, supported by a project grant programme. A number of these partnerships are sharing sporting facilities as one aspect of their project.

  New Deal
  Mr. Maclean
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Employment how many people have stopped claiming(a) jobseeker' s allowance and (b) national insurance credits as a result of moving onto a New Deal option since April 1998. [109271]

  Ms Jowell
  Since April 1998, all 138,320 young people who started one of the four options under the New Deal for young people ceased claiming Jobseeker's allowance. 107,460 of these continue to claim national insurance credits but we expect that the 30,680 young people who started a waged option will have ceased to claim national insurance credits.

  Mr. Geraint Davies
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Employment if it is his policy to encourage schools and local education authorities to employ people under the New Deal. [109983]

  Ms Jowell
  I continue to encourage all employers, especially those in the public sector, to offer more employment opportunities to people in the New Deal. Organisations in the public sector, including schools and local education authorities, have close links with their 700W
  local communities and are in a strong position to offer leadership in order to tackle unemployment and social exclusion.

  Higher Education
  Mr. Stephen Twigg
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Employment what proposals he has to raise awareness in the higher education sector of best practice in equal opportunities. [108277]

  Mr. Wicks
  My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State wrote to the Higher Education Funding Council for England on 23 November 1999 to express his concern about the present position on equal opportunities for HE staff and he asked them to ensure that institutions have and implement equal opportunity statements. The Commission on University Career Opportunity has sent a three-point action plan to implement racial equality to all heads of institutions.

  Mr. Boswell
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Employment how many higher education subjects in the United Kingdom are offered only in one of its component countries. [110373]

  Mr. Wicks
  The information is not available in the form requested.

  Dr. Lynne Jones
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Employment what data he has collated on the number of people participating in higher education courses in each constituency in each of the last three years. [109979]

  Mr. Wicks
  These data are not collated centrally on a constituency basis.

  School Budgets
  Mr. Ashdown
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Employment if he will make it his policy to enable schools to plan ahead by fixing their budgets, on a per capita basis, for three years ahead in line with the public expenditure planning periods set out in each Comprehensive Spending Review; and if he will make a statement. [110796]

  Ms Estelle Morris
  Under the current system of local government finance, it is for local authorities to decide on the distribution of funding between their schools, taking account of local circumstances and priorities. However, the Government has set local authorities a target for 2000–01 of increasing average delegated funding per pupil by at least 6 per cent., or 5 per cent., in authorities which already delegate more than 85 per cent. of their local schools budget.

  Learning and Skills Councils
  Mr. Chaytor
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Employment if external institutions will have the same rights of access to learning and skills council development funds after April 2001 as further education colleges and private training organisations. [109084]

  Mr. Wicks
  External Institutions will have the same access to core funding for learners as further education colleges and private training providers. The Further Education Funding Council will consult on proposals for the use of the FE Standard Fund in 2000–01. It is intended to extend the use of FE Standards Fund in 2000–01 to External Institutions, Specialist Colleges and other non-sector college providers of further education. The Department will consult separately this summer on the use from April 2001 of FE Capital Funds.

  GNVQs (Revised Syllabus)
  Mr. Boswell
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Employment if he will make a statement on the development of the revised syllabus for GNVQ at Advanced Level for implementation by schools and colleges in the autumn, with particular reference to the assessment regime. [110280]

  Mr. Wicks
  [holding answer 17 February 2000]: The Qualifications and Curriculum Authority (QCA) is currently in the process of finalising the accreditation of the revised Advanced GNVQ specifications to be introduced for teaching in September 2000. Draft specifications are already available via the QCA's and the awarding bodies' websites.

  The rigour of the Advanced GNVQ assessment regime will be significantly upgraded to ensure that standards are equivalent with GCE A level. In particular, the new specifications have been written to a more demanding standard; there will be a higher proportion of external testing; there will be revised A-E grading scale; and candidates will be limited to one opportunity to re-sit each unit, as for A level. We announced on 16 February that Advanced GNVQs would be known as "vocational A levels" with effect from September to reflect these important reforms.

  Electronic Data Interchange
  Mr. Boswell
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Employment what progress is being made in developing electronic data interchange between further education colleges and awarding bodies. [110279]

  Mr. Wicks
  [holding answer 17 February 2000]: The major awarding bodies use a variety of electronic data interchange (EDI) systems, operated through service providers, to link with colleges and they encourage the use of these systems. It is for each college to decide whether to use EDI systems or not. Links are well developed for GCSE, GCE and GNVQ titles but less so for NVQs and "brand name" qualifications.

  Ethnicity and Employment
  Mr. Stephen Twigg
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Employment what assessment he has made 702W
  of the report, Ethnicity and Employment in Higher Education, published by the Policy Studies Institute. [110366]

  Mr. Wicks
  The findings of the report are for the higher education institutions to consider and address. In his letter of 23 November 1999 to the Higher Education Funding Council for England, the Secretary of State asked the Council to encourage institutions to give proper emphasis to racial equality in their equal opportunities policy statements.

  Green Issues
  Mr. Reed
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Employment (1) if he will ensure that paper and timber products purchased by his Department are independently certified by the Forest Stewardship Council as coming from a sustainable source; [110189]

  (2) what steps he has taken to ensure that paper and timber products purchased by his Department come from a sustainable source. [110188]

  Mr. Wills
  I refer to the reply given by my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions dated 14 February 2000, Official Report, column 357W. I can confirm that my Department's policy on green issues is modelled on that of DETR.

  Advertising Budgets
  Mr. Baker
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Employment what is his Department's advertising budget for (a) 1999–2000 and (b) 2000–01. [110253]

  Mr. Wills
  [holding answer 16 February 2000]: The Department's advertising and publicity budget is:

  (a) £10.937 million for 1999–2000

  (b) £11.108 million for 2000–2001

  Mr. Baker
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Employment what was the average cost of issuing a media release from his Department in 1999. [110267]

  Mr. Wills
  [holding answer 20 February 2000]: The average cost of printing and distributing a press release from the DfEE in 1999 was £65. This allows us to get information to over 1,000 national, local and specialist media as well as local education authorities and other educational bodies. Increasing use of electronic communication is being made to reduce costs.

  Kinloss School
  Mr. Sayeed
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Employment if he will take steps to require Kinloss School in Worcestershire to allow Worcestershire Local Education Authority access to the recent Social Services Inspectorate report on the school. [110441]

  Jacqui Smith
  On 3 February 2000 my Department authorised the Worcestershire County Inspectorate to release copies of the report. Copies will be sent to all local authorities that have placed children in the school. This will include Worcestershire Local Education Authority.
  703W
  DfEE officials have also written to all Local Education Authorities responsible for children in Kinloss, advising them that my Department has also given the school notice of withdrawal of its approval under section 347 of the Education Act 1996. This means that the school has until June 2000 to remedy the failings identified in the report, or it will lose its approval.

  GCE A-level Syllabus
  Mr. Boswell
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Employment if he will make a statement on progress in implementing the introduction of key skills to the GCE A-Level syllabus from autumn 2000, with particular reference to difficulties encountered in individual subject areas. [110281]

  Mr. Wicks
  [holding answer 17 February 2000]: The new key skills qualification is designed to be taken alongside A-levels and other post-16 qualifications. It is not mandatory. To assist teachers, opportunities to develop key skills have been signposted in each of the new A-level specifications. In addition, specifications for the new qualification have been available from the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority since January 1999. Examples of test questions will be available shortly. A Government funded programme is providing teachers with a wide range of training and materials, including packs on how to teach key skills alongside particular A-levels.

ENVIRONMENT, TRANSPORT AND THE REGIONS

  Rural Bus Services
  Mr. Breed
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions what percentage of rural parishes have(a) no bus service and (b) no daily bus service. [109811]

  Mr. Hill
  My Department does not collect information in this form.

  However, I understand that results from a 1997 survey of rural parishes in England carried out for the Rural Development Commission (RDC) show significant variation according to parish size, and were as follows:

  Parish population size (persons)

  No bus service1 (%)

  No daily bus service2 (%)

  0–99

  60

  93

  100–199

  34

  92

  200–299

  21

  89

  300–499

  17

  84

  500–999

  13

  77

  1,000–2,999

  9

  57

  3,000–9,999

  8

  31

  All under 10,000

  22

  75

  1 No bus stop in the parish

  2 A service that runs 7 days per week

  Results from the Department's own National Travel Survey for the period 1996–98 show that 85 per cent. of rural households are within 13 minutes walk of a bus service which runs at least every weekday.
  704W
  In its first year following introduction, the Rural Bus Subsidy Grant provided for over 1,800 new or improved services in 1998–99 in rural England. These services are not reflected in the data.

  A49 Dorrington Bypass
  Mr. Paul Marsden
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions if he will reinstate the A49 Dorrington Bypass scheme; and if he will make a statement. [110126]

  Mr. Hill
  As explained in "A New Deal for Trunk Roads in England" our policy is to integrate trunk road planning within the wider transport network through regional planning guidance. The priorities for improvement of the trunk road network in Shropshire now fall to be considered in the first instance by the Regional Planning Conference in revising the regional planning guidance for the West Midlands. Revision of the guidance is expected to begin in the spring.

  Traffic Noise
  Mr. Blunt
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions how much public money (a) has been spent and (b) is budgeted to be spent as compensation for traffic noise levels for residents living adjacent to the M25 between Junctions 8 and 10 following the road's widening. [110233]

  Mr. Hill
  We have received 2,832 claims so far and paid £10,114,641 in respect of 822 claims. This figure includes interest and agents' costs.

  A further 925 have now been agreed and compensation on those will be £3,456,445 exclusive of interest as this is calculated at date of payment. These claims should be paid within the next few months. The remaining claims are currently with the Agency's Valuer under negotiation. The estimate for the outstanding cases (and any others we might receive) is of the order of £6.5 million. The total compensation bill is therefore estimated at around £20 million.

  We have an obligation to pay compensation under Part 1 of the Lands Compensation Act 1973 in respect of depreciation in value of properties caused by physical factors—including noise—arising from the use of the M25 widening between junctions 8–10.

  Harris Bus Company
  Mr. Austin
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions what discussions he has had with London Transport regarding the Harris Bus company; and if he will make a statement. [110324]

  Mr. Hill
  [holding answer 15 February 2000]: The provision of bus services is a matter for London Transport Buses (LTB), although my officials have been kept informed. I understand that LTB is in discussion with the Administrator of Harris Bus with a view to taking over direct management of Harris's route contracts.

  A number of approvals remain to be granted, notably that of an Operators' Licence, and there are still some commercial negotiations to be completed before LTB can confirm its final intentions. In the meantime, I understand that LTB managers and supervisors are assisting the

  705W
  Administrator to deliver the best possible service in the circumstances. LTB has also developed contingency plans in the event that discussions are unsuccessful.

  Correspondence
  Mr. Austin
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions when he plans to reply to the letter of 10 February from the hon. Member for Erith and Thamesmead regarding the Harris Bus company and bus services in South East London; and if he will place a copy of his reply in the Library. [110325]

  Mr. Hill
  [holding answer 15 February 2000]: I replied to my hon. Friend on 18 February and have placed a copy of the letter in the Library.

  Abandoned Vehicles
  Mr. Edward Davey
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions what recent research his Department has commissioned into the (a) number of abandoned vehicles on public highways and private property and (b) cost of the removal of such abandoned vehicles by local authorities. [110416]

  Mr. Mullin
  My Department has commissioned no recent research into either (a) the number of abandoned vehicles on public highways and private property or (b) the cost of the removal of such abandoned vehicles by local authorities.

  Mr. Edward Davey
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions what plans he has to meet representatives of the Local Government Association to discuss the abandoning of vehicles on public highways and private property. [110410]

  Mr. Mullin
  My Department has regular meetings with representatives of the Local Government Association to discuss a range of waste management issues.

  Mr. Green
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions what plans he has to reduce the number of cars abandoned with no known owner; and if he will make a statement. [111125]

  Mr. Hill
  A number of measures to improve the accuracy of the DVLA vehicle record have either recently been put into operation or are planned. They include changes to the way in which notification is made when vehicles are sold, increased involvement by the police in enforcing registration procedures and a pilot scheme to enforce registration offences direct from the DVLA record. The Vehicle Crime Reduction Action Team's five year strategy document "Tackling Vehicle Crime" recommends a number of further measures intended to improve the accuracy of the DVLA record.

  Mr. Green
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions how many cars were abandoned with no known owner in 1999. [111126]

  Mr. Hill
  No information is available on the total number of vehicles that are abandoned. The Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency (DVLA) records only vehicles notified by the police and local authorities. In 1999, there were 34,860 notifications. It is not possible to discover the 706W
  number of cars abandoned with no known keeper without running a prohibitively expensive search of the DVLA database.

  Used Cars
  Mr. Green
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions what plans he has to change the DVLA's V5 registrations system for used cars; and if he will make a statement. [111130]

  Mr. Hill
  Changes to the vehicle registration system are being considered in relation to the Government's commitment to reduce vehicle crime. Tighter vehicle registration procedures have been suggested by the Vehicle Crime Reduction Action Team and are set out in "Tackling Vehicle Crime—A Five Year Strategy". Comments have been invited on these recommendations and will be taken into account in framing new procedures.

  Thameslink
  Mr. Pollard
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions if he will make a statement on the quality of Thameslink services from St. Albans to central London. [110363]

  Mr. Hill
  Overcrowding on Thameslink services has been eased by the loan of four class 317 units from WAGN and two class 319 units from Connex, resulting in an extra 3,900 seats per week, and an extra train path from 26 September 1999. The shadow Strategic Rail Authority are currently looking at proposals for additional capacity on the Bedford to London section of the route. The long term capacity solution lies within the Thameslink 2000 project, which will improve services for passengers between London and St. Albans.

  Underground Trains
  Mr. Cohen
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions what standards he sets in respect of volume level of flange squeal on London Underground trains; and if he will make a statement. [110418]

  Mr. Hill
  The Secretary of State does not set standards that relate specifically to the volume of flange squeal on London Underground trains. However, the noise exposure limits set under the Noise at Work Regulations 1989, apply in respect of the noise experienced by London Underground's employees and contractors. Also, London Underground has a duty of care to ensure the safety and well-being of its customers and neighbours.

  Local Deprivation Index
  Mr. Coleman
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions (1) when decisions on the content of the Index of Local Deprivation will be announced; and if he will make a statement; [110539]

  (2) when the underlying data used to calculate the proposed Index of Local Deprivation 1999 will be released; and if he will make a statement. [110540]

  Ms Beverley Hughes
  The final 1999 Index is due to be published in spring 2000 along with a summary report and a supporting document. This final index will include
  707W
  local authority district level scores and ranks. The scores and ranks at the ward level will be published at the same time and will be available for each domain separately (income, work, health and disability, education, skills and training, housing and geographical access to services). A further more detailed report will be published in summer 2000.

  The summary report will contain details about where to obtain, sometimes at a charge, the underlying data, used to construct the 33 indicators.

  Mr. Coleman
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions what (a) was the membership of and (b) were the organisations represented on the (i) advising group and (ii) virtual advising group which advised the Index 99 team on the Index of Deprivation. [110541]

  Ms Beverley Hughes
  The review of the 1999 Index of Local Deprivation was overseen by an inter-departmental steering committee. This included representatives from DETR, Department for Education and Employment, Department of Health, the Office for National Statistics, the Department of Social Security, the Home Office, The Department of Trade and Industry, the Treasury, the Social Exclusion Unit, The Northumbria Police, the Countryside Agency, The Local Government Association, the Improvement and Development Agency, The Welsh Executive, the Scottish Executive, the Northern Ireland Office, the Department of Culture, Media and Sport, the University of Cambridge and all Regional Development Agencies (East of England Development Agency, East Midlands Development Agency, North East Development Agency, North West Development Agency, South East of England Development Agency, South West Regional Development Agency, Advantage West Midlands and Yorkshire and Humberside Development Agency).

  In addition, the review team benefited from the advice of a large advisory panel with a range of different skills and areas of expertise. This included academics from a number of Universities including Bath, Bristol, Birmingham, Cambridge, Lincolnshire, the London School of Economics, Warwick and York and members of other organisations including the Policy Studies Institute, the Local Government Association, the Improvement and Development Agency and the Central and Local Government Information Partnership sub group on deprivation statistics.

  Roughland Paths
  Mr. Llew Smith
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions what assessment he has made of the objection of (a) the RSPB and (b) other environmental groups to police advice to local authorities to cut back undergrowth alongside paths crossing roughland for public safety reasons. [110647]

  Mr. Mullin
  I am not aware that my Department has received any such objections but we would always seek to balance environmental considerations with those of public safety.

  Local Government Reform
  Mr. Waterson
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions if he will estimate the cost of training for (a) councillors and (b) officers if new cabinet structures in local government are implemented. [110645]

  Ms Armstrong
  The extent to which councils will need to direct their training programmes for councillors and officers to cover the new cabinet structures will depend upon local circumstances, including the details of any cabinet structure that they are proposing to adopt.

  Greater London Enterprise
  Mr. Waterson
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions what guidelines govern donations by Greater London Enterprise to political parties. [110439]

  Mr. Hill
  The GLE is a limited company, and is therefore covered by Schedule 7 of the Companies Act 1985 which requires disclosure of monetary donations to a political party.

  Train Services (Waterloo-Crewkerne)
  Mr. Ashdown
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions what plans he has to ensure that punctuality on South-West Trains services from Waterloo to Crewkerne is improved; and if he will make a statement. [110803]

  Mr. Hill
  The performance of South West Trains services has been adversely affected over the past few months by a combination of unofficial strike action by staff and the annual leaf fall. Most services have now returned to normal. The Franchising Director is pursuing with South West Trains changes to their staffing policy and levels which should lead to improvements over time in both punctuality and the reliability of all of the company's services.

  Chard Junction
  Mr. Ashdown
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions what plans he has to re-open Chard Junction railway station; and if he will make a statement. [110802]

  Mr. Hill
  There are currently no plans to re-open Chard Junction railway station. Interested local stakeholders may, however, wish to consider making a bid for funds to re-open this station from the Rail Passenger Partnership scheme (details in the House Library) administered by the Franchising Director.

  London Underground
  Mr. Brake
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions if the public-private partnership for London Underground will include the funding for the installation of a moving block signalling system on each London Underground line. [110895]

  Mr. Hill
  In the London Underground public-private partnership, the private sector is being invited to bid to implement a programme of maintenance and enhancement projects specified largely in output terms. It will therefore
  709W
  largely be for the bidders to identify the right technological solutions that would enable London Underground to run the improved service London needs. The level of funding needed can be considered sensibly only once the bids are in.

  Air Pollution (Rural Areas)
  Mr. Breed
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions what recent assessment he has made of the levels of air pollution in rural areas; and what plans he has for programmes to reduce such pollution levels. [110775]

  Mr. Hill
  The Air Quality Strategy for England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, published on 19 January, provides a comprehensive assessment of current and future air quality throughout the UK. It sets objectives for reducing levels of the eight main air pollutants, to be achieved between 2003 and 2008. These objectives will be met through a combination of international, national and local measures.

  Under local air quality management (LAQM), local authorities are obliged to review and assess air quality in their areas against these objectives and, where the objectives are unlikely to be met by the relevant date, establish action plans to improve air quality. Ozone is the pollutant of particular concern in rural areas. Because of its transboundary nature, it is most effectively tackled at international level and so is excluded from LAQM. In December 1999, we and other countries signed the UNECE Protocol to abate acidification, eutrophication and ground level ozone. This will lead to significant reductions in emissions of pollutants which cause the formation of ozone. We are currently negotiating within the EU proposals from the European Commission for a National Emissions Ceilings Directive and an Ozone Directive which are expected to lead to further reductions in levels of ozone.

  Farmers' Markets
  Mr. Breed
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions if he will amend planning regulations to provide for the establishment of a national network of farmers' markets. [110835]

  Ms Beverley Hughes
  Existing planning controls apply equally to all open air markets. Farmers' markets have been established successfully throughout the country in recent years. However, the "Rural Economies" report by the Performance and Innovation Unit (published last December) stated that there would be merit in reviewing the ancient local market charter arrangements and accompanying regulations. The common law right of charter markets to prevent other markets being established within a distance of six and two-third miles is one possible inhibiting factor.

  The "Rural Economies" report is an important contribution to the preparation of the forthcoming Rural White Paper and we shall consider carefully its conclusions and proposals.

  Eden Project
  Mr. Breed
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions what assessment 710W
  he has made of the adequacy of the road access to the Eden Project tourist attraction in South East Cornwall. [110788]

  Mr. Hill
  The planning application for the Eden Project was not called in for the Secretary of State's decision. Assessment of the adequacy of road access therefore lay with the local planning authority which in this case is Cornwall county council as Highways Authority and Restormel borough council as Planning Authority.

  Peat Compost
  Mr. Paul Marsden
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions what steps he is taking to phase out the use of peat compost in gardens (a) owned and (b) tended by his Department; and if he will make a statement. [110714]

  Ms Beverley Hughes
  The Department of Environment, Transport and the Regions issued a Greening Operations Policy Statement in October 1999 which sets out its aims and objectives for greening its operations. The Department's policy on using materials in horticulture is to substitute all slow renewables such as peat with organic waste such as compost, manure, leaf mould, bark chipping and coir. This policy applies to all parts of the Department including its Executive Agencies and Government Offices for which DETR has property management responsibility.

  DETR has specific Terms and Conditions on this issue which are included in its contracts.

  Local Government Staff (Training)
  Charlotte Atkins
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions if he will make a statement on (a) the amount allocated and (b) the amount spent on training of local government staff broken down by (i) occupational grade, (ii) type of employment and (iii) gender, in each of the last five years. [109604]

  Ms Beverley Hughes
  The Department does not hold information of this type.

  Some information is available from the People Skills and Development Survey undertaken by the Local Government National Training Organisation (LGNTO). The Survey, to which 22 per cent. of local authorities responded, estimated that training expenditure by authorities in the United Kingdom totalled some £500 million in 1997–98. This included £239 million on the wages and salaries of employees trained. The Survey does not, however, break this information down in the manner requested.

  A summary report was sent to all local authorities last year. A copy has been placed in the Library of the House. I understand that the LGNTO intend to conduct another survey this year, for the financial year 1999–2000.

  Holmethorpe Relief Road
  Mr. Blunt
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions when he plans to respond to the Borough of Reigate and Banstead Council's request in a letter of 29 July 1999 to the Government Office for the South East to confirm the
  711W
  Council of the Borough of Reigate and Banstead (Holmethorpe Relief Road, Redhill) Compulsory Purchase Order 1996. [110583]

  Mr. Mullin
  We expect to issue a decision on the Compulsory Purchase Order shortly.

  Steel Shot
  Mr. Boswell
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions what plans he has to take action to discourage the use of steel shot in woodlands. [R] [110402]

  Mr. Mullin
  The Government have no plans to take action to discourage the use of steel shot in woodlands. The owners of shooting rights may restrict the use of particular types of shot on relevant land, if they so wish.

  Biodiversity
  Mr. Dalyell
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions when he will respond to the report on Biodiversity in the EU of Sub-Committee D of the European Union Committee of the House of Lords; and if he will make a statement on recommendations 1, 6 and 7 of the report. [109322]

  Mr. Meacher
  The Government's response to the Report is in preparation and will be submitted in March. I also hope that an announcement about a Countryside Bill, as mentioned in the Queen's speech, will soon indicate where some of the Report's recommendations may be tackled through intended legislation.

  Railtrack
  Mr. Jenkin
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions if he will place in the Library a copy of the report he has received on the future of the Safety and Standards Department of Railtrack; and if he will make a statement. [110994]

  Mr. Hill
  I expect to make an announcement shortly on the future of Railtack's safety and standards directorate, and will then place relevant material in the Library.

  Rail Freight
  Mr. Jenkin
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions what recent assessment he has made of the effect of rail freight facilities grants on the volume of rail freight; and if he will make a statement. [110993]

  Mr. Hill
  The table gives details of all rail freight grants awarded by my Department since May 1997. Grants are awarded against tonnage committed for the life of each scheme.

  Awarded

  Total value (£)

  Total tonnage committed (million tonnes)

  Lorry journeys saved as a result

  Freight facilities grants

  31

  30,517,625

  20,549,600

  1,739,500

  Track access grants

  39

  18,813,445

  5,535,700

  640,600

  Total

  70

  49,431,070

  126,085,300

  2,380,100

  1 Plus 2,380,000 containers and 770,000 vehicles linked to these grants

  712W
  In addition to these awards, during the period between May 1997 and May 1999, Freightliner received Track Access Grant payments of more than £36 million, having made over 500,000 medium to long distance container movements by rail. These rail movements saved a like number of similar distance road movements.

  We believe that but for payment of these grants, this traffic would not be moving by rail.

  Section 28
  Mr. Pearson
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions if he will list those organisations which have made representations to him calling for (a) the repeal and (b) the retention of section 28 of the Local Government Act 1988. [111031]

  Ms Beverley Hughes
  The Government have received many representations, from both organisations and members of the public, concerning the repeal of section 28 of the Local Government Act 1988.

  Organisations who have expressed their support for the repeal include:

  Save the Children

  The British Medical Association

  The Royal College of Nursing

  National Union of Teachers

  Local Government Association

  Terrence Higgins Trust

  Trade Unions Congress

  Stonewall

  Outrage

  The Family Planning Association.

  Organisations who have expressed their opposition to the repeal include:

  The Christian Institute

  Intercessors for Britain

  Riverside Christian Centre, Exeter

  Christian Life Centre, Wolverhampton

  Concern for Family and Womanhood, Cheltenham

  Lighthouse Enterprises, Middlesex

  Wigan Family Care Centre

  The Crops Trust, Peterborough.

  Business Rate
  Mr. Ruane
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions what the business rate increase has been (a) as a percentage and (b) in real terms in each of the past 10 years. [110824]

  Ms Beverley Hughes
  By law, the national non-domestic multiplier can increase each year only by the rate of inflation unless the year in question is one when non-domestic properties are revalued. In a revaluation year the multiplier is recalculated to ensure that the rate yield after revaluation is equal to that before revaluation plus inflation. However, because the national total rateable value may rise or fall at revaluation then the multiplier may rise and fall as a consequence.
  713W
  Changes in the national non-domestic multiplier for the years 1990–91 to 2000–01 are as follows:

  Year

  Multiplier for England (Pence)

  Percentage change on previous year

  Multiplier for Wales (Pence)

  Percentage change on previous year

  1990–91

  34.8

  —1

  36.8

  —1

  1991–92

  38.6

  10.9

  40.8

  10.9

  1992–93

  40.2

  4.1

  42.5

  4.1

  1993–94

  41.6

  3.5

  44.0

  3.5

  1994–95

  42.3

  1.7

  44.8

  1.7

  1995–962

  43.2

  1.9 (2.2)

  39.0

  -12.9 (2.2)

  1996–97

  44.9

  3.9

  40.5

  3.9

  1997–98

  45.8

  2.1

  41.4

  2.1

  1998–99

  47.4

  3.6

  42.9

  3.6

  1999–2000

  48.9

  3.2

  44.3

  3.2

  2000–012

  41.6

  -14.9 (1.1)

  41.2

  -7.0 (1.1)

  1 First year of national non-domestic rates therefore no comparable data.

  2 Revaluation year.

  Note:

  Figures in brackets are the annual inflation rates.

  Concessionary Travel
  Mr. Stunell
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions what guidance he plans to give to local authorities and passenger transport executives on concessionary travel arrangements for males aged between 60 and 65 years, following the European Court ruling on winter fuel payments. [111122]

  Mr. Hill
  We have no plans to give any guidance on this topic. Our view is that the European Court of Justice ruling on winter fuel payments does not have any implications for concessionary travel arrangements.

TRADE AND INDUSTRY

  Remploy
  Mr. Caton
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry what Remploy products his Department has purchased in the last three years. [109928]

  Dr. Howells
  The Department's latest information on its use of Remploy products covers the three-year period to May 1999. Records show that during that time, the Department purchased one Remploy office furniture product.

  The information above does not include contracts let by the Department's Executive Agencies. I have asked the respective Agency Chief Executives to reply separately to this question.

  Letter from Claire Clancy to Mr. Martin Caton, dated February 2000:
  I am replying to your parliamentary question tabled on 10 February 2000, regarding what Remploy products the Department of Trade and Industry has purchased in the last three years.
  2. The Patent Office has not purchased any products from Remploy during the last three years.

  Letter from J. S. Holden to Mr. Martin Caton:
  I have been asked to reply to your recently tabled Parliamentary Question to the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry in respect of Companies House Executive Agency.
  714W
  A contract was awarded to Remploy in January 1988 following a competitive tender, to supply for a three year period a range of office furniture, namely workstations, pedestals, storage units and chairs.

  Letter from Seton Bennett to Mr. Martin Caton, dated February 2000:
  The Secretary of State for Trade and Industry has asked me to reply on behalf of the National Weights and Measures Laboratory to your question about the purchase of Remploy products. This Agency has not purchased any Remploy products during the last three years.

  Letter from Peter Joyce to Mr. Martin Caton, dated February 2000:
  The Secretary of State for Trade & Industry has asked me to reply to your question in relation to The Insolvency Service's purchase of Remploy products. The Service has not placed any order with Remploy in the last three years.

  Letter from G. Womble to Mr. Martin Caton, dated February 2000:
  The Secretary of State for Trade and Industry has asked me to reply on behalf of the Radiocommunications Agency to your Parliamentary Question about Remploy products.
  2. I can confirm that no Remploy products have been purchased by the Agency within the last three years.

  Letter from Ian Jones to Mr. Martin Caton:
  You tabled a Parliamentary Question on 10 February to the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry about what Remploy products his Department has purchased in the last three years. I have been asked to reply in respect of the Employment Tribunals Service (ETS) which is an executive agency of the DTI.
  In the last three years, the Employment Tribunals Service made three purchases from Remploy. These items were a set of six shelves, a bookcase and a chair. The total value of these orders was £891.36p.

  Green Issues
  Mr. Reed
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry if he will ensure that paper and timber products purchased by his Department are independently certified by the Forest Stewardship Council as coming from a sustainable source. [110150]

  Dr. Howells
  In respect of timber products it is the Department's policy to use timber products from a sustainable source. In respect of the Forest Stewardship Council, I would refer my hon. Friend to the answer given by my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions on 14 February 2000,Official Report, column 357W. For paper products the policy is to encourage use of recycled paper.

  Steel (Ireland)
  Ms Walley
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry if he will place in the Library the monitoring procedures carried out on compliance with steel production limits imposed on European Union-assisted manufacturing of steel in the Republic of Ireland; and if he will make a statement. [110432]

  Mr. Alan Johnson
  Copies of all the European Commission's six-monthly reports on the monitoring of aid given to companies under Article 95 of the European Coal and Steel Community Treaty, including Irish Steel, have been deposited in the Library of the House.
  715W
  I consider that the Commission continues to monitor these companies effectively to ensure that they comply with the limits on steel production and meet the other conditions imposed upon them.

  End of Life Vehicles
  Mr. Ian Bruce
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry what discussions he has had on the potential impact of the proposed EU End of Life Vehicles Directive with motor industry representatives. [110352]

  Ms Hewitt
  [holding answer 17 February 2000]: My officials have met regularly with the motor industry to discuss this Directive since it was first proposed by the European Commission in 1997.

  Mr. Ian Bruce
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry what measures are currently in place to deal with end of life vehicles. [110348]

  Ms Hewitt
  [holding answer 17 February 2000]: The ACORD (Automotive Consortium on Recycling and Disposal) voluntary agreement on the treatment of end of life vehicles has been in place since 1997.

  Mr. Ian Bruce
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry (1) if he will make a statement on the UK Government's policy on the proposed EU End of Life Vehicles Directive; [110346]

  (2) what information and advice his Department has given to UK MEPs on the likely economic and environmental impact of the proposed EU End of Life Vehicles Directive; [110350]

  (3) what the Government's policy is in respect of EU legislation that imposes a retrospective financial liability on UK industry. [110351]

  Ms Hewitt
  [holding answers 17 February 2000]: The Government wishes to secure the important environmental benefits that will be delivered by this Directive at the lowest costs. We have agreed to the Common Position text which states that vehicle producers must meet "all or a significant part" of the costs of treatment for new vehicles from 2001 onwards and for existing vehicles from 2006 onwards. As with all proposals for European Legislation, the Government maintains regular contact with MEP's and provides information and advice in line with the Government's position.

  Mr. Ian Bruce
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry what estimate he has made of the cost to the UK motor industry of implementing the proposed EU End of Life Vehicles Directive. [110347]

  Ms Hewitt
  [holding answer 17 February 2000]: My Department's Regulatory Impact Assessment (RIA) in September 1999 estimated the costs of the Common Position text of the proposed Directive at £312 million per annum in 2005. The Common Position text gives each member state an important degree of flexibility in deciding how best to recover the costs of treating scrapped vehicles, including the size of the vehicle producer's contribution.

  Copies of above RIA and earlier RIAs are available in the Library of the House.

  World Trade Organisation
  Dr. Cable
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry if he will make a statement on the outcome of the General Council of the WTO held on 7 and 9 February. [110964]

  Mr. Caborn
  The World Trade Organisation General Council meeting on 7–8 February took a number of decisions on next steps for the organisation. It was agreed that the mandated negotiations on agriculture and services would take place in the Agriculture Committee and the Services Council, respectively, and that they would get under way during this quarter (services in the week of 21 February, agriculture in the week of 20 March). Efforts are now being made to find Chairpersons for these negotiative groups.

  It was also agreed that parallel consultations should be conducted on several issues by the Director General and the incoming Chair of the General Council. These include measures to improve market access for least developed countries, further efforts on capacity-building and technical co-operation for developing countries and, linked to this, action on implementation deadlines where some WTO member governments have problems meeting their commitments under existing WTO agreements. In addition, a consultation process was launched on improvements to WTO consultative and decision-making procedures. It is hoped that the outcome of these consultations will be made known quickly, if possible by the end of March.

  Genetic Testing (Employment Policy)
  Dr. Gibson
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry if he will adopt comparable policies to those of President Clinton on prohibiting the use of genetic testing in employment policy. [110740]

  Ms Hewitt
  The Government are giving careful consideration to a report on "The Implications of Genetic Testing for Employment", from the Human Genetics Advisory Commission (HGAC) and will publish its response.

  Telecommunications Masts
  Mr. Norman
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry what is his policy on the level of national coverage by mobile phone telecommunications operators which will be sufficient for competition purposes; and what plans he has for further licences being granted beyond those currently planned. [110817]

  Ms Hewitt
  There is no such policy. A geographic coverage obligation will be included in the Wireless Telegraphy Act licences, due to be auctioned next month, for the use of spectrum for third-generation mobile. The obligation will require the licence holder to roll out a network covering an area in which 80 per cent. of the UK population lives by the end of 2007. It is included to ensure that spectrum is used efficiently.

  With the award of the five licences to be auctioned next month, there is no further spectrum currently available for the licensing of additional third-generation mobile operators.
  717W
  Mr. Norman
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry what assessment his Department has made of the changes required to existing telecommunications networks in order to meet the standards of the next generation of licences; and what estimate his Department has made of the number of extra masts required. [110765]

  Ms Hewitt
  Existing mobile telecommunications networks will be unable to deliver the broad range of third-generation mobile services. As a result of the introduction of the five new third-generation mobile networks, for which spectrum will be auctioned next month, the existing second-generation networks of Vodafone and BT Cellnet may need to be changed in respect of a requirement to permit roaming from a new entrant third-generation mobile operator's network onto their existing second generation mobile networks. While the third-generation networks will require new infrastructure, including masts, it is not clear that any new masts will be required for the existing first and second-generation networks as a consequence of third-generation mobile standards.

  Mr. Norman
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry what estimate his Department has made of the number of telecommunication masts that will be required by new operators who win one of the new generation of telecommunication licences; and whether a commitment to sharing masts with other operators will be(a) a condition of the licence and (b) one of the criteria in the granting of licences. [110816]

  Ms Hewitt
  No estimate has been made of the number of masts that a new operator might require. As a condition of being granted telecommunication Code Powers, the Telecommunications Act licences of existing operators and of any new operator include a requirement that, before erecting a new mast, the possibility is investigated of: using an existing structure or mast; replacing an existing mast with a mast for joint use; and erecting, in co-operation with another operator, a mast for joint use. This requirement obviates the need to include a specific criterion in the auction rules requiring a commitment to share masts. I am pleased to note also that the existing mobile operators are party to a database designed to support the sharing of masts. All who operate telecommunications masts or towers, including any new operator, are encouraged to include details of their sites on the database.

  Mobile Phones (Licences)
  Mr. Norman
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry what plans he has to amend licence conditions to limit(a) damage to the environment and (b) threats to health and safety. [110815]

  Ms Hewitt
  The Government believe that the conditions in Telecommunication Act licences, together with the relevant planning legislation and health and safety guidelines, appropriately balance concerns about these issues with the need to provide modern, efficient and cost effective telecommunications services. There are therefore no plans to amend licences in relation to these points. However we will consider very carefully the findings of the Independent Expert Group on Mobile Phones, under the Chairmanship of Sir William Stewart, which is due to report in April on alleged adverse health effects of mobile handsets and base stations.
  718W
  Mr. Sayeed
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry what reasons underlay the Government decision to sell additional mobile phone licences before the Independent Expert Group on Mobile Phones has published its report; and if he will delay this sale. [110769]

  Ms Hewitt
  The Government continue to work to the timetable for the auction of Wireless Telegraphy Act licences for third generation mobile communications set out by the then Under-Secretary of State for Small Firms Trade and Industry, my hon. Friend the Member for North Swindon (Mr. Wills), on 9 February 1999,Official Report, column 208, and accordingly notified bidders on 18 February that the auction would start on 6 March 2000. Delay to the auction would reduce and delay the benefits of third generation mobile to UK consumers and the economy, and the Government see no case for such delay. Bidders' attention has been drawn to the work of the Independent Expert Group on Mobile Phones, and to the fact that summaries of the evidence given to the group are being made publicly available as its work proceeds.

  Arms Exports
  Ms Oona King
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry in what position the United Kingdom was ranked in terms of arms exports, in the last year for which figures are available. [110224]

  Dr. Moonie
  I have been asked to reply.

  While other countries do not publish figures that enable a direct comparison to be made, based on the value of new defence export orders signed in 1998 we estimate that the United Kingdom ranked second behind the United States.

  Zimbabwe
  Ms Oona King
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry what end-use monitoring arrangements are attached to the licence agreement for the recently announced sale of spare parts for Hawk jets to Zimbabwe. [108060]

  Mr. Hain
  I have been asked to reply.

  In light of my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister's reply to the hon. Member for Richmond Park (Dr. Tonge) on 9 February 2000, Official Report, columns 184–85W, the Government have decided to approve a number of licences for exports in fulfilment of existing contracts for the support of Hawk aircraft in service with the Zimbabwe Air Force.

  We shall monitor carefully developments both in the DRC and in Zimbabwe.

NORTHERN IRELAND

  Royal Ulster Constabulary
  Mr. McNamara
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland how many disciplinary actions against RUC officers in the past 10 years resulted in files being presented to the Director of Public Prosecutions; on how many occasions and on what charges were prosecutions
  719W
  brought; how many charges resulted in a conviction; and how many charges resulted in a custodial sentence. [108487]

  Mr. Ingram
  Figures on the total number of disciplinary cases in which files have been passed to the Director of Public Prosecutions are not available. However, the table shows the total number of cases in which prosecutions were directed by the DPP from 1993 (the earliest year for which records are readily available) up to 1999.

  Offence

  Total number of prosecutions directed

  Total number of resulting prosecutions

  Total number of prosecutions resulting in imprisonment (custodial or suspended sentence)

  Murder

  3

  2

  2

  Malicious Wounding

  1

  0

  0

  Rape

  2

  2

  2

  Poss. ammunition

  3

  3

  0

  Perjury

  1

  0

  0

  Pervert justice

  1

  0

  0

  Att. abduction

  1

  1

  1

  AOABH

  7

  2

  0

  Indecent assault

  7

  2

  2

  Indecent behaviour

  3

  2

  0

  Criminal damage

  2

  2

  1

  Obstruction

  2

  2

  0

  Conspiracy to defraud

  1

  1

  1

  Resisting arrest

  1

  1

  0

  Common assault

  13

  8

  0

  Theft

  14

  5

  2

  Deception

  9

  7

  3

  Breach occupation order

  1

  1

  1

  Disorderly behaviour

  4

  4

  0

  DIC firearm

  1

  1

  0

  Drunk in charge

  25

  17

  0

  Excess alcohol

  59

  55

  0

  Fail provide specimen

  1

  1

  0

  No insurance

  11

  10

  0

  Reckless driving

  8

  8

  2

  Careless driving

  98

  91

  1

  Excess speed

  15

  14

  0

  Permit no insurance

  5

  4

  0

  No road tax

  4

  4

  0

  No MOT

  3

  3

  0

  Defective tyre

  1

  1

  0

  Lic. premises after hours

  1

  1

  0

  Intercept phone calls

  1

  0

  0

  Malicious phone call

  4

  3

  0

  Total

  313

  258

  18

  Departmental Staff
  Caroline Flint
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland in each of the last five years, what proportion of women employees in his Department (a) returned to work after childbirth, (b) returned to work after childbirth before the end of maternity leave, indicating the (i) time-range and (ii) mean time, (c) returned to work after childbirth on reduced working hours, indicating the average hours worked and (d) returned to work after childbirth on full-time hours and subsequently reduced their hours. [108861]
  720W
  Mr. Ingram
  During the five years 1994–95 to 1998–99 the proportion of female staff who returned to work after childbirth was as follows:

  Year

  Percentage

  1994–95

  90

  1995–96

  88

  1996–97

  86

  1997–98

  97

  1998–99

  92

  The majority of the remaining staff took a career break immediately after maternity leave.

  The vast majority of these staff required only the 14 week period of paid maternity leave; a very small number took advantage of a further period of unpaid maternity leave.

  The information requested on average hours worked after returning from maternity could be obtained only at disproportionate cost.

  Caroline Flint
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland what child care provision was made available in the financial year 1998–99 for use by his departmental staff; what was the cost to parents of this child care; and how many parents used the facilities. [108855]

  Mr. Ingram
  I refer my hon. Friend to the answer given to her by my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office, on 15 February 2000, Official Report, columns 517–20W.

  Within the NIO, parents are assisted with the cost of pre-school child care by means of a voucher scheme. During the year 1998–99, expenditure on child care vouchers amounted to £31,400 and a total of 48 parents (approximately 3.2 per cent. of all staff) received assistance.

  Caroline Flint
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland what provisions are made available to Departmental staff for (a) maternity leave, (b) maternity pay, (c) paternity leave, (d) parental leave, (e) flexible working hours, (f) part-time work, (g) job-sharing, (h) leave to care for sick children, (i) home-working, (j) term-time contracts, (k) annual hours contracts, (l) child care allowances, (m) careers leave and (n) career break schemes; and what criteria are used to judge eligibility in each case. [108841]

  Mr. Ingram
  The information requested is given in the following table.

  Provision in NIO (HCS and NICS)

  Eligibility criteria

  (a) Maternity leave

  A total of 52 weeks' maternity leave is available; this includes 14 weeks' paid leave and a further 4 weeks on Statutory Maternity Pay (SMP)

  Available to all female staff who have completed one year's paid service

  721W

  Provision in NIO (HCS and NICS)

  Eligibility criteria

  (b) Maternity pay

  As above

  As above

  (c) Paternity leave

  Three days' paid leave of absence per child

  Available to all male staff, including those on temporary and fixed term contracts

  (d) Parental leave

  New legislation effective from 15 December 1999 entitles employees to 13 weeks' unpaid parental leave for each child born after that date

  Available to all permanent staff employed for more than one year; leave must be taken before child's fifth birthday

  (e) Flexible working hours

  Flexible working hours are available to staff working in Belfast. The introduction of a similar scheme for staff in the London Office is under consideration

  Available to all staff subject to the overall efficiency of the Department

  (f) Part-time work

  Part-time working and job-share arrangements are in operation at various grade levels throughout the Department

  All staff at all grades are eligible to apply. Requests approved on the basis of personal and business needs

  (g) Job-sharing

  (h) Leave to care for sick children

  Special leave, both paid and unpaid, is available at departmental discretion. New legislation effective from 15 December 1999 gives employees a right to "reasonable" time off work to care for dependents

  Available to all staff at all grades. Each case considered on its merits

  (i) Homeworking

  No formal arrangements exist

  Individual arrangements were made for a member of staff to work from home part-time

  (j) Term time contracts

  As above

  Staff have been granted unpaid leave during school holidays

  (k) Annual hours contracts

  Does not apply in NIO

  —

  (l) Child care allowances

  Assistance with the cost of pre-school child care is provided via a voucher scheme

  All permanent staff with pre-school age children who employ a legally authorised child care provider are eligible to apply

  722W

  Provision in NIO (HCS and NICS)

  Eligibility criteria

  (m) Careers leave

  Unpaid special leave to undertake a full-time course of study and sabbatical leave for promising officers to develop and broaden their experience

  All permanent staff are eligible to apply. Each case considered on its merits

  (n) Career break scheme

  Career breaks available for periods of not less than one year and no more than 5 years

  All permanent staff are eligible to apply

  Belfast Port
  Mr. Maginnis
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland what discussions he has had with the Chancellor of the Exchequer regarding the application within Northern Ireland of the proceeds from the sale of the port of Belfast; and if he will make a statement. [109847]

  Mr. Mandelson
  [holding answer 11 February 2000]: I have had no discussions with my right hon. Friend on this matter. The sale of the port of Belfast was a matter for the devolved administration and a paper outlining various options was submitted to the Regional Development Committee prior to the recent suspension of the institutions. The money from the sale of the port is intended to part finance a range of projects within the package of special measures for Northern Ireland announced by my right hon. Friend the Chancellor in May 1998.

  Rehoused Families
  Mr. Paterson
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland how many families have been rehoused in Northern Ireland to escape terrorist activities since the Good Friday Agreement. [110054]

  Mr. Ingram
  [holding answer 14 February 2000]: The Chief Executive of the Northern Ireland Housing Executive has advised that from April 1998-February 2000 a total of 547 AI (intimidation) cases were housed. This includes those rehoused as a result of terrorist attack among others who were awarded AI(I).

  An applicant will be entitled to AI(I)(intimidation status) where either

  (a) The applicant's home has been destroyed or seriously damaged (by fire, explosion or other means) as a result of terrorist or sectarian attack; or

  (b) The applicant cannot reasonably be expected to continue to live, or to resume living in, his/her home, because, if he or she were to do so, there would, in the opinion of the Executive, be a serious and imminent risk that the applicant or one or more of the applicants household, would be killed or seriously injured as a result of terrorist or sectarian attack.

  Compensation
  Mr. McNamara
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland what factors govern his consideration of compensation claims for loss of business under the
  723W
  emergency provisions; and what was the total compensation for loss of business awarded following (a) the Drumcree protests of (i) 1997, (ii) 1998 and (iii) 1999 and (b) the Omagh bombing. [110654]

  Mr. Ingram
  Responsibility for the subject in question has been delegated to the Compensation Agency under its Chief Executive, Mr. Denis Stanley. I have asked him to arrange for a reply to be given.

  Letter from D. A. Stanley to Mr. Kevin McNamara, dated 18 February 2000:
  The Secretary of State for Northern Ireland has asked me, as Chief Executive of the Compensation Agency, to reply to your recent Question about claims for compensation under emergency provision legislation for loss of business.
  The emergency provisions scheme provides compensation to those who suffer loss or damage resulting from action taken under the Northern Ireland (Emergency Provisions) Act 1996. Claims under this scheme are principally in respect of damage to property alleged to have been caused during operations by the security forces. In addition, the Agency administers the criminal damage compensation scheme which provides compensation for malicious damage to property in Northern Ireland caused by terrorism or unlawful assemblies of three or more persons; and for malicious damage to agricultural property. The governing legislation is The Criminal Damage (Compensation) (Northern Ireland) Order 1977. Under both compensation schemes claims are considered and resolved on their individual merits and in accordance with the relevant legislation and caselaw.
  The Agency is not required to establish a causal linkage between a claim for compensation and the motives of perpetrators and/or events in the wider community although, in some cases, these may become evident as a result of subsequent prosecutions. The Agency is therefore unable to compile reliable information concerning compensation paid for loss of business as a direct result of the Drumcree protests of 1997, 1998 and 1999 as there would have to be a high degree of subjective speculation by the Agency on many cases in which the perpetrators are unknown or where no prosecution has taken place. Claims for compensation under the criminal damage scheme in respect of the Omagh bombing of August 1998 are, however, readily identifiable. As at today's date, of the estimated £7.8 million worth of damage inflicted by the bomb, £3.5 million has, so far, been paid.
  I hope this is the information which you were seeking.

  Employees in the Northern Ireland prison service

  Category

  Number

  Male

  Female

  Protestant

  Roman Catholic

  Not determined

  Governor Grades

  57

  55

  2

  43

  5

  9

  Prison Officer Grades

  2,256

  2,076

  180

  1,779

  148

  329

  Prison Auxiliary Grade

  161

  108

  53

  111

  20

  30

  Civilian Grades

  456

  189

  267

  347

  85

  24

  Total

  2,930

  2,428

  502

  2,280

  258

  392

  There are strict requirements governing the confidentially and proper use of community background monitoring data and an disaggregation beyond that given could breach those requirements.

DEFENCE

  Anti-ballistic Missile Treaty
  Mr. Forth
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what recent representations he has received on the agreement of a new Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty. [109398]
  724W
  Mr. McNamara
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland if he will provide a breakdown of the compensation claims made under the Northern Ireland (Emergency Provisions) Act 1996 for each of the last three years. [110956]

  Mr. Ingram
  Responsibility for the subject in question has been delegated to the Compensation Agency under its Chief Executive, Mr. Denis Stanley. I have asked him to arrange for a reply to be given.

  Letter from D. A. Stanley to Mr. Kevin McNamara, dated 18 February 2000:
  The Secretary of State for Northern Ireland has asked me, as Chief Executive of the Compensation Agency, to reply to your recent Question about claims for compensation under the Emergency Provisions (Northern Ireland) Act in the last three years.
  The numbers of claims received by the Agency under the Northern Ireland (Emergency Provisions) Act 1996 in each of the last three financial years were as follows:

  Numbers of claims

  1996–97

  2,208

  1997–98

  2,849

  1998–99

  3,395

  Prison Service
  Mr. McNamara
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland if he will list each category of employee within the Northern Ireland Prison Service and the numbers employed in each category, broken down by (a) gender and (b) perceived community origin. [110656]

  Mr. Ingram
  The gender and perceived community background of those employed within the Northern Ireland Prison Service obtained for the purpose of monitoring under the Fair Employment and Treatment (Northern Ireland) Order 1998 at 1 January 2000 was as follows:

  Mr. Hoon
  The question of any possible amendment to the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty is a matter for the United States and Russia. The United Kingdom is not a party to that Treaty.

  Heavy-lift Transport Aircraft
  Mr. Wilkinson
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what progress he has made in fulfilling the requirement of the Royal Air Force for heavy-lift transport aircraft. [109419]
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  Mr. Hoon
  We are continuing our technical and commercial assessment of potential solutions to the RAF's short and longer-term airlift requirements. I expect to receive advice soon. We aim to reach a decision in the early part of this year.

  Iraq
  Ann Clwyd
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence how many service personnel are involved in patrolling the no-fly zones in Northern and Southern Iraq. [109420]

  Mr. Hoon
  As at 18 February we had some 987 Service personnel involved in or supporting operations in the Northern and Southern no fly zones. This is further supplemented by the HMS Illustrious Carrier Task Group that is currently operating in the region, which consists of 1,971 Service personnel.

  Service Families Taskforce
  Dr. Iddon
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what progress the Service Families Taskforce has made in improving Service families' access to health care. [109423]

  Mr. Spellar
  We have made good progress. The Service Families Task Force has addressed three healthcare issues raised by the Service Families Associations. Access to NHS dentists has been improved by 24 new incentive schemes for NHS dentists in areas of large numbers of Service families, certain drug therapies are being made available abroad and work continues with the NHS to strengthen their current guidance on taking into account time spent on a waiting list elsewhere following a move.

  Major Milos Stankovic
  Mr. Martin Bell
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what estimates he has made of the cost of the investigation by his Department and his Department's police into the case of Major Milos Stankovic of the Parachute Regiment; and if he will make a statement. [109424]

  Mr. Spellar
  The estimated additional cost of the Ministry of Defence Police investigation into allegations of offences against the Official Secrets Act by Major Stankovic is £266,000. Costs incurred by other areas of the Department in support of the investigation, were not routinely recorded but would not have been large. The Army investigation is still in progress.

  Trident
  Mr. Corbyn
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what the latest cost is of the current Trident nuclear fleet. [109425]

  Mr. Hoon
  As my predecessor announced on 21 April 1999, the total acquisition cost for Trident is currently estimated to be £12,870 million. About 90 per cent. of this figure was already committed before this Government took office.

  Veterans Advice Unit
  Mr. Miller
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence how many calls have been received by the Veterans Advice Unit. [109426]

  Mr. Spellar
  Since becoming operational in October 1998, the Veterans Advice Unit has received 9,198 inquiries up to the end of January this year on a wide range of topics. Many of the inquiries have required follow-up work by the Unit's staff. Arrangements are now in hand for the Veterans Advice Unit to have a discrete Internet e-mail address and it is expected that this service will become available during March.

  Armed Forces Capacity
  Mr. Boswell
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what recent assessment he has made of the adequacy of the armed forces to meet current commitments. [109427]

  Mr. Hoon
  Following the Strategic Defence Review, the MOD has introduced a new strategic planning process which ensures that there is a policy-led re-evaluation of defence plans every year, or more frequently if required. In addition, we keep the level of commitments under constant review. As a result we have been able to reduce commitments in Bosnia, Kosovo, the Gulf and East Timor.

  Royal Navy
  Miss Kirkbride
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what recent meetings he has had with the Chancellor of the Exchequer to discuss spending on the Royal Navy. [109428]

  Mr. Hoon
  None.

  Regimental Museums
  Mr. Chaytor
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what plans he has to secure the future of regimental museums. [109429]

  Dr. Moonie
  Following the review of Regimental Museums conducted in 1997, a policy statement defining the Army's policy towards Regimental and Corps Museums was developed. This policy statement formalised the relationship and responsibilities of the Army towards its Regimental and Corps Museums. The support that is provided to Regimental Museums in line with this policy is reviewed periodically.

  European Collaborative Defence Projects
  Mr. Jack
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence in how many European collaborative defence projects the UK is presently involved. [109430]

  Dr. Moonie
  The UK is involved in 44 collaborative defence equipment projects involving European partners. They are as follows:

  Nations involved

  European collaborative defence projects

  Olympus/Tyne Gas Turbine Change Unit

  UK/France/Belgium/Netherlands

  SPEY Gas Turbine Change Unit

  UK/Netherlands

  COBRA (Counter Battery Radar)

  UK/France/Germany

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  Nations involved

  Combat Vehicle Reconnaissance (Tracked)

  UK/Belgium

  Multiple Launch Rocket System Phase II

  UK/Germany

  M3 Amphibious Bridging System

  UK/Germany

  Sidewinder Air-to-Air

  UK/Germany/Italy/Norway

  Milan Anti-Tank (including improvements)

  UK/France/Germany

  Sea Skua Support

  UK/Germany

  Eurofighter

  UK/Germany/Italy/Spain

  Jaguar

  UK/France

  Lynx

  UK/France

  Puma

  UK/France

  Gazelle

  UK/France

  Tornado

  UK/Germany/Italy

  EH 101 Merlin Helicopter

  UK/Italy

  RTM 322 Helicopter Engine

  UK/France

  1.5 MW Gas Turbine Alternator

  UK/Netherlands

  MRAV (Multi Role Armoured Vehicle)1

  UK/Germany

  Long Range TRIGAT2 (Third Generation Anti-Tank Guided Weapon)

  Uk/France/Germany

  Medium Range TRIGAT (Third Generation Anti-Tank Guided Weapon)

  UK/Belgium/France/Germany/Netherlands

  METOP (Next Generation Meterological Satellites)

  UK/France/Germany/Italy/Austria/Belgium/Denmark/Finland/Greece/Ireland/Netherlands/Norway/Portugal/Spain/Sweden/Switzerland/Turkey

  Technology Demonstrator Programme: Towed Decoys

  UK/France

  NATO Submarine Rescue System (NSRS)

  UK/France/Norway/Turkey

  Self Destruct Fuze for Guided Multiple Launch Missile System

  UK/France/Germany/Italy

  Future Fire Control System for Multiple Launch Rocket System

  UK/France/Germany/Italy

  Principal Anti-Air Missile System

  UK/France/Italy

  Allied Standards Avionics Architecture Initiative

  UK/France/Germany

  Active Electronically Scanned Radar for Airborne Multimode Solid-State Active Array Radar

  UK/France/Germany

  Advance Aeroengine Technology

  UK/France

  Future Offensive Air System (FOAS)3

  UK/France

  Technology Demonstrator Programme: Joint Airborne Navigation and Attack

  UK/France

  Future projects under negotiation (subject to national approvals)

  Beyond Visual Range Air to Air Missile (BVRAAM)

  UK/France/Germany/Italy/Spain/Sweden

  Other collaborative defence projects involving European partners

  Sea Gnat Decoy

  UK/Denmark/United States

  M483A1 Artillery Shell

  UK/Netherlands/Turkey/United States

  Multiple Launch Rocket System Phase I

  UK/France/Germany/Italy/United States

  NAVSTAR Global Positioning System (GPS)

  UK/Belgium/Canada/Denmark/France/Germany/Greece/Iceland/Italy/Netherlands/Norway/Portugal/Spain/Turkey/United States

  NATO Improved Link Eleven

  UK/Canada/France/Germany/Italy/Netherlands/United States

  Intercooled Recuperated Gas Turbine Engine (WR421)

  UK/France/United States

  Guided Multiple Launch Rocket System

  UK/France/Germany/Italy/United States

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  Nations involved

  Future Tank Main Armament

  UK/France/Germany/United States

  Future Ground Based Air Defence

  UK/France/Germany/Italy/Netherlands/Norway/Turkey/United States

  Lightweight Mobile Artillery System (LIMAWS)—Howitzer

  UK/Italy/United States

  Future projects under negotiation (subject to national approvals)

  Technology, Equipment and systems development for Environmentally Sound Ships and Naval Installations of the 21st Century

  UK/France/Netherlands/United States

  1 Both UK and Germany are currently in negotiation with the Netherlands for their inclusion in the GTK/MRAV programme.

  2 The UK has declared that they are to withdraw from Long Range TRIGAT at the end of the Development Phase.

  3 FOAS (Future Offensive Air System) is not a collaborative project per se but the UK and France are collaborating on common technologies related to FOAS.

  Submarines
  Mr. Crausby
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence when all Trafalgar and Astute class submarines will be capable of firing Tomahawk land attack missiles. [109431]

  Dr. Moonie
  HMS Triumph is already capable of firing Tomahawk land attack missiles (TLAM). Work to adapt HMS Trafalgar to fire TLAM should be completed before the end of the year. It is currently planned that the adaptation of the remaining Trafalgar Class submarines will be completed by about 2006.

  The Astute class submarines are planned to be built TLAM-capable and the initial three are due to enter service between 2005 and 2008.

  Departmental Efficiency Programme
  Mr. Blunt
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence if he will publish details of his Department's efficiency programme, including a list of the 250 measures most significant in terms of savings during each of the four financial years following publication of the strategic defence review. [109432]

  Mr. Spellar
  As offered in evidence to the House of Commons Defence Select Committee on 12 January, my Department will be providing the Committee with a more comprehensive list of efficiency measures shortly. We will then be happy to discuss how we can take forward the Committee's wish to examine the Department's efficiency programme in more detail.

  Learning Forces Initiative
  Mr. Borrow
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence if he will make a statement on the progress of the Government's learning forces initiative. [109433]

  Mr. McWalter
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence if he will make a statement on the progress of the Government's Learning Forces Initiative. [109405]

  Mr. Hoon
  I refer my hon. Friends to the answer I gave my hon. Friend for Barnsley, East and Mexborough (Mr. Ennis) earlier today.

  General Pinochet
  Mr. Corbyn
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what information he has received from Her Majesty's Defence Attaché in Chile concerning the effects on Chilean defence purchasing of the arrest of General Pinochet; and if he will make a statement. [110113]

  Mr. Hoon
  [holding answer 14 February 2000]: I refer my hon. Friend to the answer given in another place by my noble Friend the Minister of State for Defence Procurement to the noble Lord Lamont of Lerwick on 10 January 2000, Official Report, House of Lords, column 72WA. This reflects advice given by our Embassy in Santiago.

  Bagshot Park
  Mr. Baker
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence how much his Department spent on the refurbishment of Bagshot Park prior to its disposal to the Earl of Wessex; what the market value of the property was immediately prior to the works being carried out; and how much the property was sold for. [110990]

  Dr. Moonie
  Bagshot Park was vacated by the Ministry of Defence at the end of September 1996, having been occupied by the Army Chaplain's Department under a lease with the Crown Estate since 1947. No funds were spent by the Ministry on refurbishment prior to its disposal. However, under the terms of our contractual arrangements with the Crown Estate, a payment was made on surrender of the property, in respect of our outstanding repair obligations.

  The subsequent lease of Bagshot Park to the Earl of Wessex in October 1997 is not connected with the MOD's former occupation.

  Mr. Cohen
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what funding has been committed by his Department to the maintenance and renovation of Bagshot Park in Surrey in the last 12 months; and if he will make a statement. [110422]

  Dr. Moonie
  None.

  Shoeburyness
  Mr. Wyatt
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence if he will make a statement on the level of monitoring for gun explosions at Shoeburyness. [110232]

  Dr. Moonie
  This is a matter for the Chief Executive of the Defence Evaluation and Research Agency. I have asked the Chief Executive to write to my hon. Friend.

  Letter from Sir John Chisholm to Mr. Derek Wyatt, dated 21 February 2000:
  I have been asked to reply to your parliamentary question about monitoring for gun explosions at Shoeburyness since the range is part of the Defence Evaluation and Research Agency (DERA).
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  A system of acoustic monitoring of the activities at the range has been in place for over 10 years. There are 7 sensors in fixed sites around the Thames Estuary that allow remote recordings to be relayed to a central computer system. Live data containing noise levels and date/time information is fed into the operations room at Shoeburyness where it is displayed graphically for ease of interpretation. In the unlikely event that the noise levels exceed the guideline limits, work will be suspended.
  The prevailing weather conditions are also taken into account. An acoustic prediction programme is run to determine the likely propagation of noise levels. If the forecast appears unfavourable and likely to lead to noise levels exceeding the guideline limit, the work will be rescheduled.
  I hope this explains the situation.

  Chinook Crash
  Mr. Swayne
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence if the Air Accident Investigation Branch ruled out the possibility of any technical malfunction which may have contributed to the loss of Chinook ZD576 in June 1994. [108696]

  Mr. Spellar
  [holding answer 15 February 2000]: The Air Accident Investigation Branch acted as technical adviser to the RAF Board of Inquiry and produced a comprehensive report on the technical investigation that formed part of the evidence used by the Inquiry. The AAIB concluded that although the pre-impact serviceability of the aircraft could not be positively verified, no evidence was found of a malfunction that could have contributed to the accident, with the possible exception of a radar altimeter system fault.

  The AAIB noted several radar altimeter system defects and considered them in detail, but observed that they had probably not severely degraded performance, and there were probably generally correct indications at impact.

  After careful consideration of all the available evidence the RAF Board of Inquiry concluded that the most probable cause of the accident was that the crew selected an inappropriate rate of climb to safety overfly the Mull of Kintyre, and the actions of the crew were thus held to be the direct cause of the crash.

  Ottawa Treaty
  Mr. Alexander
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what assessment he has made of the response of the UK armed forces to the Ottawa Treaty. [110498]

  Mr. Hoon
  The response of the UK armed forces to the Ottawa Convention has been exemplary. On 19 October last year, the Government announced the complete destruction of all the UK's operational stocks of Anti-Personnel Landmines (APLs), some three years ahead of the requirements set out in the Ottawa Convention. On 27 August last year, the UK submitted its first report to the UN Secretary General on compliance measures under the Ottawa Convention. A copy of the Report was placed in the Library of the House.

  Following the Landmines Act 1998, there are now no circumstances under which British service personnel can participate in the laying of anti-personnel mines.

  Also, to support world-wide clearance of mines and the overall aims of the Ottawa Convention the Ministry of Defence provides whatever assistance it can to those

  731W
  non-governmental organisations and mine action centres engaged in the removal of APLs that remain in the ground around the world. This can take the form of training in demining techniques, assistance in the development of new equipment, attachment of individuals, or the gifting of surplus military vehicles to assist in their demining activities.

  HMS Dumbarton Castle
  Mr. Austin
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence (1) if he will replace HMS Dumbarton Castle when she completes her current assignment; and if he will make a statement; [110845]

  (2) if HMS Dumbarton Castle is to be withdrawn from the Falkland Islands; and if he will make a statement. [110844]

  Mr. Nicholas Winterton
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence when HMS Dumbarton Castle will complete her current assignment; and which vessel will replace her. [110674]

  Mr. Spellar
  I refer my hon. Friend and the hon. Member to the answer I gave on 14 February 2000,Official Report, columns 373–74W, to the hon. Member for Ludlow (Mr. Gill).

  RAF Pilots
  Mr. Menzies Campbell
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what was the average number of flying hours undertaken by fully trained operational RAF pilots, not including pilots on staff/ground tours, in (1) 1998 and (2) 1999 in aircraft type (a) BAe 125, (b) BAe 146, (c) Canberra, (d) Chinook, (e) Harrier, (f) Hercules, (g) Jaguar, (h) Nimrod, (i) Puma, (j) Sea King, (k) Sentry, (l) Tornado F3, (m) Tornado GR1/4, (n) Tristar, (o) VC10 and (p) Wessex; and if he will make a statement. [109493]

  Mr. Spellar
  [holding answer 17 February 2000]: We do not centrally record the flying hours undertaken by individual pilots. Such information could be obtained only at disproportionate cost.

  We do calculate the average hours which crews fly in a given year. This calculation ignores the individual crew rotations and provides only a broad estimate of the flying undertaken. Against these averages, the amount of flying undertaken by individuals might vary considerably.

  The average number of flying hours undertaken by a typical crew in 1998 and 1999 is as follows:

  Total hours

  Aircraft type

  1998

  1999

  BAe 125

  339

  374

  BAe 146

  232

  258

  Canberra

  224

  171

  Chinook

  344

  261

  Harrier

  198

  194

  Hercules

  539

  458

  Jaguar

  222

  214

  Nimrod

  388

  390

  Puma

  338

  376

  Sea King

  467

  359

  Sentry

  467

  546

  Tornado F3

  206

  205

  Tornado GR1/4

  291

  209

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  Total hours

  Aircraft type

  1998

  1999

  Tristar

  649

  624

  VC10

  419

  423

  Wessex

  299

  279

  Notes:

  1. Hours do not include Reserve squadron (OCU) data.

  2. Operational flying is all flying undertaken in active theatres, principally the former Yugoslavia and the Middle East.

  Maintenance
  Mr. Menzies Campbell
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence if he will list the time and mileage schedule of planned maintenance servicing for (a) Warrior variants (b) Challenger One, (c) Challenger Two, (d) Saxon variants, (f) AVF 430 variants, (g) Sabre, (h) Striker, (i) Scimitar, (j) Spartan, (k) Sultan, (l) Samaritan and (m) Samson in each of the last five years; and if he will make a statement. [109497]

  Mr. Spellar
  The planned automotive maintenance schedules, which have been valid for the past five years or since the vehicle entered service, are as follows:

  Servicing

  Vehicle type

  Maintenance schedule

  (a)

  Warrior

  1,250 miles or 12 months

  12,500 miles or 24 months

  (b)

  Challenger 1

  2,000 miles or 12 months

  (c)

  Challenger 2

  2,000 miles or 12 months

  (d)

  Saxon

  5,000 miles or 12 months

  110,000 miles or 24 months

  (e)

  FV432 Variants

  1,500 miles or 12 months

  (f)-(l)

  CVR(T) Variants2

  3,000 miles or 12 months

  1 Different maintenance routines apply at the different distance/time points.

  2 Includes Sabre, Striker, Scimitar, Spartan, Sultan, Samaritan and Samson.

  In addition to the planned maintenance shown, tanks and vehicles are subject to running tests and monthly functional servicing. Additional maintenance routines apply to vehicles based on distances travelled (where less than those shown above) either in training or on operational missions. Reactive repair maintenance is conducted as necessary.

  Defence Medical Services
  Mr. Menzies Campbell
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what were (a) the number of qualified doctors, (b) the number of qualified dentists, and (c) the number of support staff in each service available to the Defence Medical Services in 1998 and 1999; and if he will make a statement. [109494]

  Dr. Moonie
  The numbers of qualified doctors and dentists and trained support staff in the Defence Medical Services as at 1 December 1998 and 1 December 1999 are as follows:

  1 December 1998

  1 December 1999

  Doctors

  Royal Navy

  224

  218

  Army

  406

  446

  RAF

  210

  201

  Total

  840

  865

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  1 December 1998

  1 December 1999

  Medical Support Staff

  Royal Navy

  879

  871

  Army

  2,801

  2,637

  RAF

  982

  1,039

  Total

  4,662

  4,547

  Note:

  Medical Support Staff (includes Nurses, Medical Technical Officers, Medical Support Officers, Medical Assistants and Medical Technicians)

  1 December 1998

  1 December 1999

  Dentists

  Royal Navy

  53

  58

  Army

  106

  128

  RAF

  85

  75

  Total

  244

  261

  Dental Support Staff

  Royal Navy

  91

  95

  Army

  218

  224

  RAF

  201

  193

  Total

  510

  512

  Overall totals

  6,256

  6,185

  Note:

  Dental Support Staff (includes Dental Support Officers, Dental Hygienists, Dental Surgery Assistants and Dental Technicians)

  There are continuing manpower shortages in the Defence Medical Services, particularly among nurses, General Practitioners and the key specialties of Orthopaedic and General Surgery, Anaesthetics and General Medicine. However, the figures shown above suggest that manning levels are stabilising. Recruitment into training is generally satisfactory and measures to improve recruitment of direct entry qualified staff and retention of experienced personnel are being explored.

  Track Mileage
  Mr. Menzies Campbell
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what was the annual track mileage allocation and the average track mileage completed for (a) Warrior variants, (b) Challenger One, (c) Challenger Two, (d) Saxon variants, (f) AVF 430 variants, (g) Sabre, (h) Striker, (i) Scimitar, (j) Spartan, (k) Sultan (l) Samaritan and (m) Samson in each of the last five years; and if he will make a statement. [109496]

  Mr. Spellar
  I have provided details of the annual allocations and annual usage for each vehicle type. However, given the disposition of the vehicle fleet, the mix of operational and training deployments, average figures would be unrepresentative for the fleets as a whole.

  Annual track mileage allocations and usage

  Serial

  Vehicle

  Year (April-March)

  Annual allocation (miles)

  Annual usage (miles)

  (a)

  Warrior

  1995–96

  845,797

  681,546

  1996–97

  845,797

  941,771

  1997–98

  727,038

  747,527

  1998–99

  410,124

  706,387

  1999–2000

  410,124

  Not yet available

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  Annual track mileage allocations and usage

  Serial

  Vehicle

  Year (April-March)

  Annual allocation (Miles)

  Annual usage (miles)

  (b)

  Challenger 1

  1995–96

  241,221

  241,103

  1996–97

  241,221

  243,064

  1997–98

  262,517

  200,333

  1998–99

  190,148

  191,195

  1999–2000

  136,087

  Not yet available

  (c)

  Challenger 2

  1995–96

  n/a

  —

  1996–97

  n/a

  —

  1997–98

  n/a

  —

  1998–99

  57,790

  12,832

  1999–2000

  139,194

  Not yet available

  (d)

  Saxon

  1995–96

  616,896

  487,023

  1996–97

  616,896

  660,481

  1997–98

  555,206

  535,395

  1998–99

  746,000

  381,830

  1999–2000

  616,000

  Not yet available

  (e)

  FV430 variants

  1995–96

  627,177

  685,411

  1996–97

  627,177

  824,423

  1997–98

  908,238

  573,954

  1998–99

  658,684

  471,922

  1999–2000

  658,684

  Not yet available

  (f)-(l)

  CVR(T) variants1

  1995–96

  1,326,721

  1,595,158

  1996–97

  1,326,721

  1,526,835

  1997–98

  2,042,500

  1,330,956

  1998–99

  1,516,000

  1,118,446

  1999–2000

  1,516,000

  Not yet available

  1 CVRT(T) variants include Sabre, Striker, Scimitar, Spartan, Sultan, Samaritan and Samson

  Track mileage allocations are a tool to aid both operational and financial planning. The overall allocations cover training and operational requirements and are made on the basis of anticipated operational scenarios and previous activity levels. Centrally held information on usage is drawn from records submitted by each Unit and can serve only as an indicator of trends rather than a detailed comparator. Vehicle usage may vary considerably from the planned allocations where unforeseen commitments or changes occur in-year. Similarly, the use of armoured vehicles in recent operating environments has reduced to reflect the nature of the operations.

  Tomahawk Missiles
  Mr. Menzies Campbell
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence when the US/UK initiative on the joint development of tactical Tomahawk missiles will be completed; at what costs; what plans his Department has to procure tactical Tomahawk missiles; and if he will make a statement. [109499]

  Mr. Hoon
  [holding answer 17 February 2000]: This is a matter for the Chief Executive of the Defence Procurement Agency. I have asked the Chief Executive to write to the right hon. Member.

  Letter from Sir Robert Warmsley to Mr. Menzies Campbell, dated 21 February 2000:
  I am replying to your question to the Secretary of State for Defence on the US/UK initiative on the joint development of tactical Tomahawk missiles. This matter falls within my area of responsibility as Chief of Defence Procurement and Chief Executive of the Defence Procurement Agency.
  George Robertson said in his letter of 23 August 99, that we had no plans to procure the Tactical Tomahawk (TACTOM) missiles, a more modern version of the Tomahawk missile. Since then, the United States authorities have given authority for the release of TACTOM information to the United Kingdom, but no decision has yet been taken about procuring the missiles. However, a contract

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  has been placed through the United States Department of Defense to undertake a joint US/UK feasibility study to evaluate the design options for torpedo tube launch of the TACTOM missile. This enabling work will allow UK options for TACTOM procurement, if required in the future, to remain open. The cost of this study to the UK will be £350,000 and I expect it to be complete by the end of March 2001.

  HMS Somerset
  Mr. Cawsey
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what plans he has to withdraw the South Atlantic guardship HMS Somerset from detachment in the South West Atlantic; and if he will make a statement. [R][110925]

  Mr. Spellar
  I refer my hon. Friend to the answer I gave on 14 February 2000, Official Report, columns 373-74W, to the hon. Member for Ludlow (Mr. Gill).

  Depleted Uranium
  Mr. Dalyell
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what progress has been made with the removal and disposal of depleted uranium contamination in the Gulf resulting from coalition forces' ammunition. [109326]

  Mr. Spellar
  The clearance of hazardous materials following the conflict is primarily a matter for the governments on whose territory they lie. In the aftermath of the Gulf Conflict, the Government of Kuwait issued a number of contracts for the clearance of minefields and ordnance. UK forces were involved both in immediate battlefield clearance operations and the clearance of live firing ranges in Saudi Arabia. They also provided military advice and assistance to civilian contractors undertaking clearance work.

  The US Army Center for Health Promotion and Preventative Medicine (CHPPM) produced a report in August 1999. A copy of that report was placed in the Library of the House following their analysis of 298 soil samples taken from Saudi Arabia and Kuwait in 1991, 1993, 1994 and 1996. Only five samples contained depleted uranium. All of these came from Kuwait—four from the Iraqi Tank Yard and one from Camp Doha where, in July 1991, US DU-based ammunition caught fire. In all five cases the level of DU found was well below the level set by the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission for assessing whether land can be made available for unrestricted use by the public. The Government do not have any comparable scientific data concerning the levels of DU currently present in southern Iraq.

  Mr. Dalyell
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what steps have been taken by his Department to implement a depleted uranium training programme. [109324]

  Mr. Spellar
  Training for the hazards associated with depleted uranium (DU) already forms part of existing Service courses. In addition, Service personnel are given appropriate guidance on dealing with any potential hazards from DU during pre-deployment training.

  Naval Exercises
  Mr. Maclennan
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence if he will list by(a) date, (b) number of vessels, (c) number of personnel, (d) nationality of military force
  736W
  and (e) class of ordnance to be deployed including warhead, each of the naval exercises he has approved to be undertaken in the waters off Cape Wrath, Sutherland over the next three months; and if he will make a statement. [110823]

  Mr. Spellar
  A total of six ships (one UK frigate, one Dutch frigate, one Spanish frigate, two US Cruisers and one US Destroyer) are scheduled to use the range at Cape Wrath for Naval Gunfire Support over the next three months. The use of the range is, however, confined to the period between 28 February and 10 March. The range is booked for a period of 10 days to allow flexibility for weather and other factors. Each ship will occupy the range on an individual basis for a period of less than one day. The firing of ordnance at Cape Wrath is limited to guns of up to six inches in calibre. The exact number of personnel involved is not known but the vessels involved will have crews of between 175 and 350 personnel. This level of usage is broadly consistent with previous training sessions for RN and NATO ships conducted over recent years at Cape Wrath.

  Nuclear Safety Seminar
  Mr. Cohen
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence which representatives of his Department attended the NATO nuclear safety seminar held in Helsinki on 24 to 26 January; and if he will make a statement. [109001]

  Mr. Spellar
  The Government was represented by the Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions.

  Grants
  Mr. Don Foster
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence if he will list the initiatives launched by his Department since May 1997 under which specific grants are allocated, indicating in each case and for each financial year the funding provided by central Government. [109319]

  Mr. Spellar
  [holding answer 10 February 2000]: No new grants have been made since May 1997.

  Remploy
  Mr. Caton
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what Remploy products his Department has purchased in the last three years. [109931]

  Mr. Spellar
  The Defence Clothing and Textiles Agency has placed over £7.1 million worth of business with Remploy, covered by some 21 contracts, during the period February 1997 to January 2000.

  Other items have been procured by the RAF Support Management Contracts Branches (12 contracts in an approximate value of £4.6 million) and by General Stores Contracts Branches (three contracts value £165,000) during the same period.

  I have placed an alphabetical list of the items ordered by each MOD Branch in the Library of the House.

  Arms Exports
  Ms Oona King
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what was the value of Britain's arms exports in each of the last 20 years. [110202]
  737W
  Dr. Moonie
  The information requested has been published, since 1992, in UK Defence Statistics, and previously, since 1979, in Volume II of the Statement on the Defence Estimates. The last year for which figures are available is 1998. Copies are available from the Library of the House.

  Extremist Organisations
  Mr. McNamara
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence how many soldiers have been disciplined for offences alleged to be connected with the activities of (a) Combat 18 and (b) other extremist organisations over the past three years; and what actions he is taking to prevent infiltration by such organisations. [110664]

  Mr. Spellar
  It has long been the policy of the Armed Forces that Service life precludes membership of, support for, or association with groups or organisations whose purpose includes incitement to racial hatred and violence. All three Services have in place regulations and instructions which give clear guidance to the Chain of Command on the process governing administrative discharge which is available to deal with behaviour which is incompatible with military service.

  Over the past three years two soldiers alleged to have been involved with Combat 18 have been discharged from the Army.

  Recruiting and vetting processes aim to provide a high degree of protection against infiltration by extremist organisations.

  Entrance Policy
  Mrs. Dean
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what plans he has to change the policy of permanently barring those who have suffered from childhood eczema from entering the armed forces. [110761]

  Mr. Spellar
  Medical entry standards are constantly under review. The current policy barring applicants with eczema from entering the Armed Forces was last reviewed at the end of 1998, with policy being based on advice from the Defence Consultant Adviser in Dermatology. Eczema, and related serious skin diseases, are not considered compatible with Service life. However, those who have suffered from childhood eczema are not necessarily barred from entry into the Armed Forces. Each candidate is considered on an individual basis that takes account of medical history, and the possible effect on the condition of the proposed type of employment.

  Civilians (Faslane and Coulport)
  Mr. Galbraith
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence how many civilian jobs there are at the Faslane and Coulport base. [111001]

  Mr. Spellar
  As at 31 January 2000, the Clyde Naval Base had a directly employed work force of 3,299.5, comprising 2,547 at Faslane and 752.5 at Coulport.

  Territorial Army
  Mr. William Ross
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence (1) on how many occasions in the last six months units of the Territorial Army have travelled from Northern 738W
  Ireland to Great Britain for training purposes; and on how many of these visits the unit did not have (a) its own weapons and (b) an armed escort; [110900]

  (2) how many personal protection weapons held by the members of the Territorial Army in Northern Ireland have been withdrawn from (a) serving members and (b) former members of the Territorial Army in the last six months. [110901]

  Mr. Spellar
  I will write to the hon. Member and a copy of my letter will be placed in the Library of the House.

  Mr. Waterson
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what plans he has to encourage recruitment to the Territorial Army. [109421]

  Mr. Spellar
  A national and regional recruiting campaign for the Territorial Army is to be launched on 18 February. This campaign will include television, radio and cinema advertising, use of the Press both nationally and locally, and a targeted "Member for Member" personal invitation scheme. There will also be a National TA Day on 25 March on which all TA Units throughout the country will open their doors to the general public to enable them to get a first-hand idea of what membership of the TA can offer them.

  Electricity Generation
  Mr. Gareth R. Thomas
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what proportion of the electricity used by his Department is generated from renewable sources; and if he will make a statement. [111039]

  Dr. Moonie
  My Department does not collate data on the proportion of its electricity which is generated from renewable sources.

  Masonic Organisations
  Mr. Beith
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what guidance his Department has issued to the armed services on membership of, and recruitment to, masonic organisations; and if he will make a statement. [111341]

  Mr. Spellar
  We decided to clarify the position for Armed Forces personnel in July 1999 by issuing guidance in the form of a Joint Service Defence Council Instruction on Membership of Societies such as the Freemasons. This states that:"There is no intention or policy to preclude Service personnel from membership of any lawful and benevolent organisation. However, involvement in organisations of a secretive nature, such as the Freemasons, carries with it the risk of establishing disparate loyalties which may have a destabilising influence on the chain of command, not least by the perception of preferential treatment and undue influence. While membership of such organisations is clearly a matter for the individuals concerned, serving personnel should not encourage or promote membership among their colleagues, meetings should not be held on MOD premises, and use should not be made of any MOD property."

  HMS Endurance
  Mr. Cawsey
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what plans he has to withdraw HMS Endurance from service; and if he will make a statement. [R] [110926]

  Mr. Spellar
  There are no plans to withdraw HMS Endurance from service.

  European Security
  Miss McIntosh
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what recent meetings he has had with European Commission officials to discuss European security.
  [109399]

  Mr. Hoon
  I have not held any bilateral meetings with European Commission officials.

  European Commission representatives were present, however, at the EU General Affairs Council and the Western European Union Ministerial meeting in November 1999, both of which I attended.

  Accredited Training
  Ms Rosie Winterton
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what plans his Department has to increase the proportion of accredited training and education in the armed forces. [109411]

  Mr. Spellar
  Civilian accreditation of military education and training is an important recruiting and retention issue for the armed forces. As such all three Services are working closely with a number of key accreditation and awarding bodies to increase the amount of civilian recognition given to military courses, leading eventually to the award of academic, vocational and professional qualifications.

CABINET OFFICE

  IT Projects
  Angela Smith
  To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office what progress has been made in her Department's review of the handling of major IT projects. [111307]

  Mr. Ian McCartney
  The Cabinet Office study of major IT projects has made its first recommendations. These have been approved by the study steering committee and adopted by the Government. They demonstrate that the Government is committed to taking prompt and targeted action to improve performance and to ensuring that the pillars that support successful IT projects are put in place.

  The recommendations cover:

  Ministers
  Ministers have to take a strong role in overseeing and scrutinising major IT projects. The Government have already introduced the first ever events to build ministers' awareness about their roles. IT projects will be a top priority.

  Supplier Planning
  It is vital that suppliers fully understand the requirements for a new system, and only promise what is realistic. They will now be required to produce detailed plans, to demonstrate to the Government how they will deliver, that will be monitored as projects go ahead. These will be set alongside the business plans that the Government have to make.

  Peer Review
  All high risk projects will be reviewed as they are developed. Departments will have to work with a team of independent experienced project managers to make sure that their projects are safe to go ahead.
  740W
  Sharing Experience
  We will establish a new system for sharing knowledge about IT projects across the Government, so everyone has the benefit of the best practice available. It is essential that we learn the lessons from projects as they proceed, share good ways of working and ensure that different parts of Government co-operate as closely as possible.

  Managing suppliers
  The Government are setting up the new Office of Government Commerce to make sure we manage suppliers in a strategic way across the public sector. IT suppliers will be the first priority for this work.

  These recommendations will make a real difference, but they are, of course, only a start. The study team will in due course propose further measures to address other aspects of the handling of IT projects.

  Buying Agency
  Mr. Coaker
  To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office what targets she has set for the Buying Agency for 2000.
  [111439]

  Mr. Ian McCartney
  The information is as follows:

  Financial
  to generate a return on capital employed of 8 per cent.

  Value for money
  to ensure that the TBA price index for a basket of top products is 5 per cent. lower than the external equivalent.

  Service quality
  to raise customer satisfaction to 75 per cent.

  Staff
  to secure category 3 of the Health at Work Award.

  Private Health Insurance
  Mr. Dalyell
  To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office when the private health insurance offer to civil servants which was advertised in Government offices was discontinued. [1093251

  Mr. Stringer
  Any discounts offered by private health care companies to civil servants are done so in the context of a private transaction between the individual and the provider. There is no central arrangement between the Government and any private health care company.

LORD CHANCELLOR'S DEPARTMENT

  Judicial Appointments (Northern Ireland)
  Mr. McNamara
  To ask the Parliamentary Secretary, Lord Chancellor's Department if he will list each category of judicial appointment in Northern Ireland; and the numbers serving in each category, broken down by(a) gender and (b) perceived community origin. [110658]

  Mr. Lock
  The various categories of judicial appointments in Northern Ireland include full-time and part-time judicial office-holders. The perceived community origin of appointees is not a factor in judicial
  741W
  appointments and so is not recorded as part of the judicial appointments process. Details of the current complement and the gender balance in each of these categories are outlined in the table.

  Judiciary—full-time and part-time

  Percentage

  Office

  Complement

  Male

  Female

  Supreme Court Judges

  11

  100

  —

  County Court Judges

  14

  93

  7

  District Judges

  4

  75

  25

  Resident Magistrates

  17

  88

  12

  Masters

  7

  71

  29

  Deputy County Court Judges

  40

  87

  13

  Deputy District Judges

  7

  71

  29

  Deputy Resident Magistrates

  19

  74

  26

  Northern Ireland Court Service
  Mr. McNamara
  To ask the Parliamentary Secretary, Lord Chancellor's Department if he will list each category of employee within the Northern Ireland Court Service and the numbers employed in each category, broken down by(a) gender and (b) perceived community origin. [110655]

  Mr. Lock
  There are 668 staff employed within the Northern Ireland Court Service. In terms of community background monitoring 445 (66.6 per cent.) are Protestant, 199 (29.8 per cent.) are Roman Catholic. The community background of the remaining 24 (3.6 per cent.) is non-determined. The table sets out the numbers of staff in each of the main categories showing the numbers of males and females in each as at 15 January.

  Administrative staff

  Support staff and others

  Total

  584

  84

  Male

  181

  65

  Female

  403

  19

  Magistracy
  Mr. McNamara
  To ask the Parliamentary Secretary, Lord Chancellor's Department if he will list each category of appointment to the magistracy and the numbers presently serving in each category, broken down by(a) gender and (b) perceived community origin. [110660]

  Mr. Lock
  The current full-time complement of Resident Magistrates is 17. The current complement of Deputy Resident Magistrates is 19. The perceived community origin of appointees is not a factor in judicial appointments and so is not recorded as part of the judicial appointments process. Details of the gender of these judicial office-holders are outlined below.

  Office

  Percentage Complement

  Male

  Female

  Resident Magistrates

  17

  88

  12

  Deputy Resident Magistrates

  19

  74

  26

SCOTLAND

  Departmental Staff
  Caroline Flint
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland what child care provision was made available in the financial year 1998–99 for use by his departmental staff; what was the cost to parents of this child care; and how many parents used the facilities. [1088561

  Dr. Reid
  The Scottish Office provided two work place nurseries in Edinburgh. A total of 51 full-time places were available. The cost of a full-time place in 1998–99 was £79 per week. Subsidised places at holiday playschemes are also offered to staff in Edinburgh and Glasgow. These operate during the Easter and summer school holiday periods. Subsidies are paid to the playscheme operators and not directly to staff. The cost to parents varied between £5 and £7 per child per day, depending on the number of children placed there from each family. Details of the numbers of staff using the playschemes in 1998-99 are not held centrally.

  Caroline Flint
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland what provisions are made available to Departmental staff for(a) maternity leave, (b) maternity pay, (c) paternity leave, (d) parental leave, (e) flexible working hours, (f) part-time work, (g) job-sharing, (h) leave to care for sick children, (i) home-working, (j) term-time contracts, (k) annual hours contracts, (1) child care allowances, (m) careers leave and (n) career break schemes; and what criteria are used to judge eligibility in each case. [108839]

  Dr. Reid
  The Civil Service as a whole is striving for an improved balance between work and family life and a number of family friendly policies are being developed as part of the Civil Service Reform programme. Details were given in the reply from my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office on 15 February 2000,Official Report, column 519W. Staff in my Department are currently on loan from the Scottish Executive and we have adopted a number of provisions with them. These are:
  In addition to statutory Maternity Leave/Pay an enhanced maternity scheme is available to staff who have satisfactorily completed one year's service.
  Fathers are allowed five days paid paternity leave at the time of the birth or during the weeks immediately following.
  Permanent staff may be granted up to five days paid special leave for domestic purposes, such as caring for sick children. Unpaid special leave is available in addition to this. We also comply with our obligations under the Parental Leave Directive.
  Most full and part-time staff can participate in the Flexible Working Hours scheme.
  Part-time work and Job Share opportunities are available to all staff, subject to availability.
  Staff with child care responsibilities have the benefit of flexible working arrangements. In addition there are two work place nurseries in Edinburgh and holiday play schemes operate during the Easter and summer holidays in Glasgow and Edinburgh.
  Our Career Break policy is currently being reviewed. We propose that discretionary periods of up to three years unpaid leave (five in exceptional circumstances) will be available to help staff cope with their domestic responsibilities. Permanent employees who have completed their probation and have a satisfactory record of attendance, performance and conduct will be eligible to apply.
  We do not operate a system of Term-time working or Annual Hours contracts. However, we would consider any requests from our staff to do so.

  Cold Weather Payments
  Mr. Malcolm Bruce
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland if he will discuss with the Secretary of State for Social Security a review of the location of monitoring stations used to calculate the additional cold weather payments; what assessment he has made of the performance of the monitoring stations; and if he will make a statement. [109926]

  Dr. Reid
  The Secretary of State for Social Security is responsible for the Cold Weather Payments Scheme. He consults ministerial colleagues in the UK Government as necessary. As well as the Cold Weather Payments Scheme, the Government have also provided substantial help to eligible elderly households through Winter Fuel Payments. Under these payments, we estimate that this winter around £70 million has been paid to over 900,000 Scottish pensioners.

  Departmental Functions (Food)
  Mr. Yeo
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland if all food served at his Department's official functions meets the standards of production required of domestic producers. [109772]

  Dr. Reid
  [holding answer 11 February 2000]: All food served at my Department's official functions is provided by contractors who meet the standards of production required of domestic producers.

  Murder Statistics
  Mr. Quentin Davies
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland if he will set out on a comparable basis the number of murders recorded in Scotland in each of the past 30 years. [110563]

  Dr. Reid
  The total number of crimes initially recorded as murder or culpable homicide by the police in Scotland, and the number currently recorded as murder, are given in the table.

  Crimes initially recorded as homicide, and those currently recorded as murder, Scotland, 1969–98

  Year

  Initially recorded as homicide

  Currently recorded as murder

  1969

  84

  28

  1970

  83

  28

  1971

  74

  44

  1972

  87

  43

  1973

  77

  39

  1974

  78

  34

  1975

  78

  43

  1976

  107

  57

  1977

  108

  60

  1978

  84

  42

  1979

  84

  40

  1980

  96

  47

  1981

  93

  42

  1982

  91

  48

  1983

  100

  54

  1984

  101

  53

  1985

  90

  41

  1986

  89

  48

  1987

  108

  48

  19881

  359

  305

  1989

  108

  41

  1990

  86

  35

  1991

  92

  51

  744W

  Crimes initially recorded as homicide and those currently recorded as murder, Scotland, 1969–98

  Year

  Initially recorded as homicide

  Currently recorded as murder

  1992

  142

  69

  1993

  118

  73

  1994

  115

  66

  1995

  138

  79

  1996

  139

  82

  1997

  96

  44

  1998

  103

  68

  1 The figure for 1988 includes the 270 victims at Lockerbie

  Peat Compost
  Mr. Paul Marsden
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland what steps he is taking to phase out the use of peat compost in gardens(a) owned and (b) tended by his Department; and if he will make a statement. [110719]

  Dr. Reid
  My Department does not use peat compost in our gardens.

  Interception Warrants
  Mr. Heald
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland how many interception warrants were in force in Scotland on 31 December 1999. [111133]

  Dr. Reid
  Full information about the number of interception warrants in force in Scotland on 31 December 1999 is not yet available. They will be published, later in the year, in the Annual Report of the Commissioner appointed under the Interception of Communications Act 1985 (currently Lord Nolan). A copy will be placed in the Library.

  Mr. Heald
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland how many interception warrants were authorised in respect of Scotland in 1999. [111143]

  Dr. Reid
  During the period 1 January 1999 to 30 June 1999, 162 telephone interception warrants were authorised in respect of Scotland. After 1 July 1999, the authorisation in respect of Scotland of interception warrants relating to serious crime was devolved to the Scottish Executive. The authorisation of national security interception warrants in respect of Scotland is reserved, but final figures on the number of national security interception warrants authorised in the second half of 1999 are not yet available. The Commissioner appointed under the Interception of Communications Act 1985 will publish this information in his Annual Report for 1999, later in the year. A copy will be placed in the Library.

  Astute Submarines
  Mr. Sarwar
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland if he will make a statement on the decision to place the imaging equipment order for the Royal Navy's Astute submarines with Pilkington Optronics in Govan. [111096]

  Dr. Reid
  I warmly welcome the decision by BAE SYSTEMS as Prime Contractor to award the contract for the provision of visual systems for the three Astute class submarines to Pilkington Optronics. This success is a reflection of the expertise of the company in the face of strong international competition and will be good news for the company's 600 staff in Govan.

AGRICULTURE, FISHERIES AND FOOD

  Organophosphates
  Dr. Gibson
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what plans he has to carry out research on organophosphates; how he will co-ordinate funding of research into organophosphates; how much he will invest in organophosphate research; and over what period he will finance research into organophosphates. [103233]

  Ms Quin
  [holding answer 20 December 1999]: Government research on organophosphates (OPs) in relation to human health is currently co-ordinated through

  Cost

  Code/Title

  Type

  Contr.

  Start

  End

  1998–99

  1999–2000

  2000–01

  2001–02

  VM0261

  Epidemiological study to detect well defined chronic effects in humans of dipping sheep with organophosphorous products

  CT-E

  IOML

  1 November 1995

  30 April 1999

  67,000

  6,537

  —

  —

  VM0265

  A study of the long term electrophysiological effects of sheep dip organophosphates in the mouse nervous system

  NI

  UNC

  1 September 1996

  31 October 1998

  41,067

  —

  —

  —

  VM0279

  Dose effect profiles for OP sheep dips on brain electrical activity and cognitive performance in non-human primates

  NI

  DERA

  1 April 1998

  24 April 2001

  103,674

  100,799

  97,139

  25,020

  VM0299

  Review of OPIN register of suspected OP related complaints

  NI

  LSHTM

  21 June 1999

  21 May 2000

  —

  51,896

  —

  —

  Total

  211,741

  159,232

  97,139

  25,020

  Departmental Consultation
  Dr. Tony Wright
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food if he will list the public consultation exercises on policy matters carried out by his Department and its agencies in each of the last five years; who was consulted and by what means; how responses were analysed; how and in what form the results were transmitted to those responsible for the consultation; how the results of the consultation were published; and what analysis has been carried out of the extent and nature of policy changes resulting from the consultation. [106305]

  Mr. Morley
  The information requested is not held centrally and could be provided only at disproportionate cost.

  MAFF and its agencies are committed to listening to what people have to say. In addition to consulting in accordance with statutory obligations on new legislation, we regularly consult on new proposals and polices to ensure that industry, other interested parties and the general public are given the opportunity to make their views known. All responses to consultations, which are received through a variety of means, are given very careful consideration and taken into account by Ministers when making policy decisions. Responses are treated as confidential where the respondent has asked the Department to do so.
  746W
  an inter-departmental liaison group on OP research. An extract of work relating to human health in the MAFF programme is shown in the table. Listings of recent and current MAFF funded projects on OP research can also be found on the MAFF intemet website at http://www.maff.gov.uk/r&d/projects/pp105.htm.

  The report by the Committee on the Toxicity of Chemicals in Food, Consumer Products and the Environment on organophosphates, published on 26 November, made a number of recommendations for further research. I refer my hon. Friend to the reply given to him on 20 December 1999, Official Report, column 446W, for details of how we propose to carry forward these recommendations.

  Consultation exercises are, in the main, carried out by the issue of documents, on which comments are invited, to interested parties known at the Department or agency. As a matter of course, consultation documents, along with lists of recipients and respondents, are placed in the Libraries of the House, with the exception of the individual responses which are available for viewing, by appointment, in MAFF's Whitehall Place library. The MAFF library can also supply copies of consultation responses on request to personal callers or telephone inquirers for a small administrative charge.

  Details of current and recent MAFF consultations can also be found on the MAFF website at http://maff.gov.uk/corps/consexer/default.htm.

  Beef Exports.
  Mr. Davidson
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, pursuant to his answer of 25 January 2000,Official Report, column 180W, if he will list those countries to which British beef has been exported within the last three months and those countries which do not have an import ban on British beef. [108484]

  Ms Quin
  Information about the destination of British beef export is commercially confidential as long as there are only two establishments approved to export it. From
  747W
  information currently available, countries which do not have a ban on British beef include all EU member states other than France and Germany, and the following:

  Ascension Island

  Australia

  Bermuda

  Bolivia

  Botswana

  Brunei

  Burundi

  Cambodia

  Cuba

  Cyprus

  Ecuador

  Ethiopia

  Falkland Islands

  Faroe Islands

  Fiji Islands

  Guatemala

  Guyana

  Hong Kong

  Iceland

  Iran

  Kenya

  Lesotho

  Malawi

  Mauritius

  Mongolia

  Montserrat

  Mozambique

  Namibia

  Norway

  Paraguay

  Philippines

  Seychelles

  Solomon Islands

  St. Helean

  St. Kitts and Nevis

  St. Lucia

  Tonga, Kingdom of Vanuatu

  Zimbabwe.

  Discussions are currently under-way with various other countries aimed at securing a lifting of their bans as soon as possible. Where it is unclear whether a ban exists, the position is being further investigated.

  Departmental Staff
  Caroline Flint
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what provisions are made available to (i) departmental staff and (ii) employees of executive agencies under the control of his Department, for(a) maternity leave, (b) maternity pay, (c) paternity leave, (d) parental leave, (e) flexible working hours, (f) part-time work, (g) job sharing, (h) leave to care for sick children, (i) home-working, (j) term-time contracts, (k) annual
  748W
  hours contract, (l) child care allowances, (m) careers' leave and (n) career break schemes; and what criteria are used to judge eligibility in each case. [108848]

  Mr. Morley
  My hon. Friend the Parliamentary, Secretary, Cabinet Office, set out in his reply of 15 February 2000,Official Report, columns 518–20W, the importance of family friendly policies to the Civil Service Reform programme. MAFF shares this commitment to develop policies to enable staff to achieve a better balance between their work and private lives. Provisions already exist in core MAFF for flexible working practices and patterns and we will be building on these in taking forward work on diversity. These provisions are set out in a Staff Handbook to which all employees in the Department have easy access. They apply to both full-time and part-time staff. Requests are generally considered in accordance with these provisions. Where there is discretion, requests are dealt with on their merits on an individual basis. The maternity and paternity arrangements are provided in conjunction with the entitlements available to employees, as are the arrangements for time off to care for dependents. I will write to my hon. Friend with fuller details of the provisions available.

  In respect of MAFF Agencies, responsibility for such matters is delegated to Agency Chief Executives. Similar policies to core MAFF operate in the Farm and Rural Conservation Agency, the Pesticides Safety Directorate and Veterinary Medicines Directorate. I have asked the Executives of the Central Science Laboratory, Veterinary Laboratory, Meat Hygiene Service and the Centre for Environment, Fisheries and Aquaculture Science Agencies to reply to my hon. Friend Direct.

  Letter from Peter Stanley to Caroline Flint, dated 21 February 2000:
  The Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Fisheries and Food has asked me to reply, in respect of the Central Science Laboratory(CSL), to your question concerning maternity and paternity provisions and other family friendly policies.
  With the exception of the maternity leave provisions CSL presently follow the existing MAFF provisions for flexible working practices and patterns which are set out in the MAFF Staff Handbook. On 1 August 1999, paid maternity leave within CSL was increased to 16 weeks at full pay.

  Letter from T. W. A. Little to Caroline Flint, dated 21 February 2000:
  The Minister has asked me to responde to your questions on provisions available to employees of the Veterinary Laboratories Agency and the proportion of women returning to work after maternity leave.
  In responding to these questions the Cabinet Office have indicated that the Civil Service as a whole is striving for an improved balance between work and family life. This is reflected in several aspects of the Report on Civil Service Reform by Sir Richard Wilson to the Prime Minister.
  The availability of the provisions you mention are set out in the MAFF Staff Handbook to which all employees in this Agency have access. They apply to both full-time and part-time staff. A VLA Staff Handbook is to be completed and issued to staff shortly. Maternity arrangements are provided in conjunction with the statutory entitlements available. Where provisions in this Agency differ from those in MAFF, information is readily available, for example, on the holiday playscheme.
  749W
  The proportion of women returning to work after childbirth over the last five years is given in the table below:

  Percentage

  1995

  1996

  1997

  1998

  11999

  Total returned to work

  67

  74

  61

  70

  86

  Returned to part-time work

  42

  49

  22

  40

  72

  1 The figures for 1999 do not represent a full response as not all women have returned from maternity leave

  A significant proportion of women elect to take a Career Break of up to five years rather than return to work directly after maternity leave.

  Further information requested could not be readily provided and would incur disproportionate costs to obtain.

  Letter from Johnston McNeill to Caroline Flint, dated 21 February 2000:
  As Chief Executive of the Meat Hygiene Service (MHS) your question to the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food requesting information regarding the provision of various benefits to staff has been passed to me to reply as regards this Executive Agency.

  MHS provisions and eligibility criteria with regard to these benefits are outlined below:

  (i) Maternity Leave
  Main provisions—Paid time off for ante-natal care regardless of service. 18 weeks maternity leave if service less than 1 year and a further 29 weeks after confinement if service more than 1 year.
  Eligibility criteria—As indicated above.

  (ii) Maternity Pay
  Main provisions—As per statutory scheme i.e. Maternity Allowances (MA) or Statutory Maternity Pay (SMP) applies. For employees who qualify for SMP the first 6 weeks of maternity leave is at 9/10ths of pay. Subsequent 12 weeks at pay (subject to return to work for more than 3 months following maternity leave) plus SMP.
  Eligibility criteria-As per statutory scheme.

  (iii) Paternity Leave
  Main provisions—Paternity/Maternity Support Leave of 5 days with pay granted to father, partner or nominated carer.
  Eligibility criteria—Available to all employees.

  (iv) Parental Leave
  Main provisions—As per statutory provisions. MHS policy is this area currently under review. Requests of paid/unpaid leave currently considered under the MHS Special Leave policy provisions.
  Eligibility criteria—As per statutory provisions and individual needs.

  (v) Flexible Working Hours
  Main provisions—A formal flexitime scheme does not exist but some MHS Departments do operate flexitime and where not in place flexibility is exercised where operational service requirements allow.
  Eligibility criteria—Not appropriate as no formal scheme in place.

  (vi) Part-time Work
  Main provisions—All applications considered with regard to operational service requirements. Terms and conditions applied pro-rata to those of full-time employees.
  Eligibility criteria—Suitability of proposed part-time work pattern in relation to operational service requirements.
  750W
  (vii) Job Sharing
  Main provisions—All applications considered with regard to operational service requirements. Terms and conditions applied equally between job-sharers.
  Eligibility criteria—Suitability of proposed job share assessed with regard to whole job and operational service requirements.

  (viii) Leave to Care for Sick Children
  Main provisions—All applications considered with regard to individual needs and operational service requirements. Paid/unpaid time off work available under the MHS Special Leave policy provisions.
  Eligibility criteria—Each case carefully considered on merit, and with regard to statutory entitlements and individual needs.

  (ix) Home Working
  Main provisions—Applies to certain groups of management employees who have been authorised to work from home for operational reasons.
  Eligibility criteria—Employees only eligible to work from home when specifically authorised to do so by the MHS and only designated as home workers with the approval of the Inland Revenue.

  (x) Term Time Contracts
  Main provisions—Term time contracts not in operation within the MHS. Requests for paid/unpaid leave considered under the MHS Special Leave policy provisions.
  Eligibility criteria—Each case carefully considered on merit, and with regard to statutory entitlements and individual needs.

  (xi) Annual Hours Contracts
  Main Provisions—MHS Annualised Hours policy applies where the workload fluctuates and/or job requirements are seasonal.
  Eligibility criteria—Employees are contracted to work annualised hours only where significant variations in the work pattern are anticipated.

  (xii) Child Care Allowances
  Main Provisions—Some MHS employees utilise MAFF child-care facilities. No child-care allowances are paid.
  Eligibility criteria—Available to all MHS employees but child-care places very limited.

  (xiii) Careers' Leave
  Main provisions—The MHS does not have a formal policy in this area, although special extended leave has been granted in some cases to facilitate career development.
  Eligibility criteria—Each case carefully considered on merit, and with regard to operational service requirements and individual/organisational benefits arising.

  (xiv) Career Break Schemes
  Main provisions—The MHS does not have a formal policy in this area.
  Eligibility criteria—Not applicable.

  Letter from P. W. Greig-Smith to Caroline Flint, dated 21 February 2000:
  The Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food has asked me to reply to your question regarding provision of various benefits to staff. I am replying on behalf of the Centre for Environment, Fisheries and Aquaculture Science (CEFAS).
  With regard to maternity leave and maternity pay, CEFAS provides 16 weeks leave with pay, one week more than core MAFF. Eligibility for these benefits is the same as core MAFF.
  For paternity leave, parental leave, flexible working hours, part-time work, job sharing, leave to care for sick children, home working, term-time contracts, annual hours contracts, child care allowances, careers' leave and career break schemes, CEFAS' allowances are exactly the same as those of core MAFF. Eligibility is the same as core MAFF.
  751W
  Caroline Flint
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food in each of the last five years, what proportion of women employees in (i) his Department and (ii) executive agencies under the control of his Department(a) returned to work after childbirth, (b) returned to work after childbirth before the end of maternity leave, indicating the (1) time-range and (2) mean time, (c) returned to work after childbirth on reduced working hours, indicating the average hours worked and (d) returned to work after childbirth full-time and subsequently reduced their hours. [108970]

  Mr. Morley
  Absence details for individual staff (including those on maternity leave) are maintained for the core-Department, the Pesticides Safety Directorate and the Veterinary Medicines Directorate Agencies centrally through a combination of paper records and the computerised payroll system. But, unfortunately, aggregated information in the form precisely requested is not readily available and could be provided only at disproportionate cost.

  In respect of the remaining MAFF Agencies, responsibility for such matters rests with Agency Chief Executives. I have asked the Chief Executives of the Central Science Laboratory, Meat Hygiene Service, the Centre for Environment, Fisheries and Aquaculture Service and Veterinary Laboratory to reply to my hon. Friend direct.

  Letter from Peter Stanley to Caroline Flint, dated 21 February 2000:
  The Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food has asked me to reply, in respect of the Central Science Laboratory (CSL), to your question concerning the proportion of women employees that have returned to work after childbirth.
  Information on the number of women returning to work after childbirth and those who returned to work part-time is given in the following table:

  1995

  1996

  1997

  1998

  1999

  Total number of women taking maternity leave

  12

  7

  9

  6

  12

  Number returned to work

  11

  6

  9

  5

  12

  Of which part-time

  3

  4

  3

  1

  8

  More detailed information in the form requested could only be provided at disproportionate cost.

  Letter from Johnston McNeill to Caroline Flint, dated 21 February 2000:
  As Chief Executive of the Meat Hygiene Service (MHS), your question to the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food requesting statistics on various aspects of maternity leave provision, has been passed to me to reply as regards this Executive Agency.
  The information that you requested is summarised in the attached table. Please note that it has only been possible to provide data for the years 1997-1999 inclusive. Prior to this, the MHS's payroll provision was outsourced and obtaining the relevant information for 1995 and 1996 could only be achieved at disproportionate cost.

  Meat Hygiene Service Summary of maternity cases—1995 to date

  1997

  1998

  1999

  Number of maternity cases

  7

  4

  7

  Number returned to work

  6

  4

  6

  Number returned to work before end of maternity entitlement

  6

  4

  6

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  Meat Hygiene Service
  Summary of maternity cases—1995 to date

  1997

  1998

  1999

  Number returned on reduced hours

  0

  1

  0

  Number returned to full time but later reduced hours

  0

  0

  0

  Time range and mean time details—all maternity cases 1995–99 (ie excluding current cases)

  Number

  Duration of maternity leave (weeks):

  Minimum

  18

  Maximum

  38

  Average length of maternity leave taken (weeks)

  25

  Average hours worked by those who returned on reduced hours

  20

  Letter from P. W Greig-Smith to Caroline Flint, dated 21 February 2000:
  The Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food has asked me to reply to your question requesting statistics on staff returning to work after childbirth for each of the last five years. I am replying on behalf of the Centre for Environment, Fisheries and Aquaculture Science (CEFAS), which, prior to April 1997, was the MAFF Directorate of Fisheries Research (DFR).
  DFR/CEFAS' staff records are held in a way that would entail extracting this information from individual staff files, and provision of this information could only be made at disproportionate cost.

  Sheep Scab
  Mr. Tyler
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food when he expects to publish the results of the research projects into(a) alternatives to organophosphate sheep dips for the control of scab, with the aim of producing a vaccine and (b) the factors that influence the spread of sheep scab. [109531]

  Ms Quin
  [holding answer 11 February 2000]: Following earlier published work funded at the Royal Veterinary College, my Department has since 1996 been funding projects to explore non-chemical methods as alternative approaches to sheep scab control. The issues involved are complex but not intractable. The programme is focusing on the possible immunological basis for control methods as well as the means of measuring the effectiveness of potential vaccines. The projects which also include sheep welfare are ongoing and funding is being continued at £450,000 a year for a further three years. Some work of a basic nature has been published but the key results of this work will be available at the end of that period or earlier depending on progress.

  Flood Defence
  Mr. Key
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food if he will list for each of the past five years the budgets of the Wessex Regional Flood Defence Committee, indicating(a) the levy on each component local authority with the percentage rise or fall year on year, (b) the standard spending assessment for flood defence paid to each local authority with the percentage rise or fall year on year, (c) the difference between local

  753W
  authority SSA and actual levies paid and (d) MAFF flood defence grants (i) available (ii) paid; and if he will make a statement. [110144]

  £000

  1995–96

  1996–97

  1997–98

  1998–99

  1999–2000

  2000–01

  Devon

  SSA

  4,919

  4,973

  4,955

  3,388

  3,447

  3,555

  Percentage increase

  —

  1.1

  0.4

  31.6

  1.7

  3.1

  EA levy

  1—

  1—

  1—

  1—

  1—

  1—

  Difference

  4,919

  4,973

  4,955

  3,388

  3,447

  3,555

  Gloucestershire

  SSA

  1,638

  1,796

  1,871

  1,958

  2,097

  2,190

  Percentage increase

  —

  9.6

  4.2

  4.6

  7.1

  4.4

  EA levy

  47

  47

  48

  53

  63

  69

  Percentage increase

  —

  —

  2.0

  9.1

  18.9

  9.7

  Difference

  1,591

  1,749

  1,823

  1,905

  2,034

  2,121

  Hampshire

  SSA

  2,072

  2,824

  3,024

  3,716

  3,947

  4,044

  Percentage increase

  —

  36.3

  7.1

  22.9

  6.2

  2.5

  EA levy

  119

  123

  125

  128

  136

  149

  Percentage increase

  —

  —

  2.2

  2.0

  6.1

  10.0

  Difference

  1,953

  2,701

  2,899

  3,588

  3,811

  3,895

  Somerset

  SSA

  3,116

  3,200

  3,563

  3,617

  3,646

  3,944

  Percentage increase

  —

  2.7

  11.3

  1.5

  0.8

  8.2

  EA levy

  2,990

  3,256

  3,326

  3,358

  3,746

  4,057

  Percentage increase

  —

  —

  2.2

  1.0

  11.6

  8.3

  Difference

  126

  -56

  237

  259

  -100

  -113

  Wiltshire

  SSA

  1,217

  1,572

  1,225

  1,290

  1,397

  1,514

  Percentage increase

  —

  29.2

  22.1

  5.3

  8.3

  8.4

  EA levy

  957

  1,004

  1,039

  1,104

  1,244

  1,367

  Percentage increase

  —

  —

  3.5

  6.3

  12.7

  9.9

  Difference

  260

  568

  186

  186

  153

  147

  Dorset

  SSA

  2,532

  2,711

  1,672

  1,706

  1,773

  1,856

  Percentage increase

  —

  7.1

  38.3

  2.0

  3.9

  4.7

  EA levy

  2,549

  1,536

  1,583

  1,625

  1,753

  1,925

  Percentage increase

  —

  —

  3.1

  2.7

  7.9

  9.8

  Difference

  -17

  1,175

  89

  81

  20

  -69

  Avon

  SSA

  2,678

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  Percentage increase

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  EA levy

  2,550

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  Percentage increase

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  Difference

  128

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  Bath and NE Somerset

  SSA

  —

  412

  388

  602

  415

  485

  Percentage increase

  —

  —

  5.8

  55.2

  31.1

  16.9

  EA levy

  —

  346

  352

  385

  457

  501

  Percentage increase

  —

  —

  1.8

  9.4

  18.5

  9.7

  Difference

  —

  66

  36

  217

  -42

  -16

  North Somerset

  SSA

  —

  1,414

  1,547

  1,595

  1,627

  1,753

  Percentage increase

  —

  —

  9.4

  3.1

  2.0

  7.7

  EA levy

  —

  1,321

  1,360

  1,369

  1,535

  1,662

  Percentage increase

  —

  —

  2.9

  0.7

  12.1

  8.3

  Difference

  93

  187

  226

  92

  91

  South Gloucestershire

  SSA

  —

  644

  628

  634

  692

  791

  Percentage increase

  —

  —

  2.5

  1.0

  9.1

  14.3

  EA levy

  —

  381

  388

  433

  524

  575

  Percentage increase

  —

  —

  2.0

  11.4

  21.1

  9.7

  Difference

  —

  263

  240

  201

  168

  216

  754W
  Mr. Morley
  [holding answer 15 February 2000]: The information requested in relation to (a) to (c) is as follws:

  755W

  £000

  1995–96

  1996–97

  1997–98

  1998–99

  1999–2000

  2000–01

  Bristol

  SSA

  —

  1,105

  1,150

  1,165

  1,218

  1,368

  Percentage increase

  —

  —

  4.1

  1.3

  4.5

  12.3

  EA levy

  —

  662

  670

  732

  875

  960

  Percentage increase

  —

  —

  1.3

  9.2

  19.5

  9.7

  Difference

  —

  443

  480

  433

  343

  408

  Bournemouth

  SSA

  —

  0

  604

  616

  635

  672

  Percentage increase

  —

  —

  —

  2.0

  3.1

  5.8

  EA levy

  —

  570

  586

  597

  652

  717

  Percentage increase

  —

  —

  2.8

  1.9

  9.0

  10.0

  Difference

  —

  -570

  18

  19

  -17

  -45

  Poole

  SSA

  —

  0

  591

  601

  618

  654

  Percentage increase

  —

  —

  —

  1.7

  2.8

  5.8

  EA levy

  —

  527

  540

  551

  589

  647

  Percentage increase

  —

  —

  2.5

  2.0

  6.9

  10.0

  Difference

  —

  -527

  51

  50

  29

  7

  1 Less than £500

  It is important to note the following points:
  some local authorities pay levies to Regional Flood Defence Committees (RFDCs) other than Wessex;
  flood defence Standard Spending Assessments (SSAs) reflect a range of flood defence costs falling on different classes of local authority i.e. levies paid to RFDCs, special levies to internal drainage boards and local authorities' "own spend" as a flood defence operating authority;
  local government reorganisation caused adjustments to be made to the SSA and levy figures as between the affected county councils and new unitary authorities.

  In relation to (d), MAFF grant is allocated to the Environment Agency by means of Grant Earning Ceilings (GECs), which represent the total of approved capital expenditure in respect of which grant can be claimed, and not in terms of the grant available. The amount of grant paid is dependent on the mix of (a) fluvial and (b) tidal/sea defence expenditure, for which different grant rates apply. Information is therefore unavailable in the form requested but a comparison of (i) the original GECs (which can be revised in-year) and (ii) the actual outturn of approved capital expenditure is as follows:

  £ million

  Somerset

  Bristol/Avon

  Avon/Dorset

  Year

  (i)

  (ii)

  (i)

  (ii)

  (i)

  (ii)

  1994–95

  1.4

  1.3

  0.4

  0.4

  2.6

  2.0

  1995–96

  1.7

  1.2

  0.3

  0.2

  4.9

  3.3

  1996–97

  4.0

  4.0

  0.3

  0.1

  1.8

  1.7

  1997–98

  3.2

  4.8

  0.1

  0.1

  1.1

  1.5

  1998–99

  2.7

  4.5

  0.4

  0.3

  0.4

  1.0

  Internet
  Mr. Luff
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what estimate he has made of the number of farmers in England and Wales who have access to the internet. [110179]

  Ms Quin
  [holding answer 15 February 2000]: Precise figures are not available. However, based on information provided by farmers completing June 1999 agricultural
  756W
  census forms and a survey conducted by ADAS in 1998, it is estimated that between 5 per cent. and 25 per cent. of farmers have access to the internet.

  Farming (Promotion)
  Mr. Llwyd
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what initiatives are being pursued to promote entry into farming for young people; and if he will make a statement. [110530]

  Ms Quin
  The Government believe that the best way to help young people enter farming and to secure the economic viability of UK agriculture is to develop an agricultural industry that is successful, competitive and sustainable. To achieve this, the Government are seeking to create a transparent and stable economic framework within which the industry can operate.

  In addition, the £1.6 billion support for rural development, which the Agriculture Minister announced on 7 December 1999, will be of enormous benefit to the farming industry and represents a significant increase in expenditure on rural development measures. In implementing the England Rural Development Plan measures full consideration will be given to the needs of young farmers.

  Advertising Budget
  Mr. Baker
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what was the average cost of issuing a media release from his Department in 1999. [110274]

  Mr. Morley
  [holding answer 16 February 2000]: I refer the hon. Member to the reply given to him on 9 February 2000, Official Report, column 204W.

  Live Animal Exports
  Mr. Prosser
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what plans he has to persuade other EU Governments, when undertaking the review of Council Directive 91/628 EEC required by Article 13 of that Directive, to abandon the long distance transport
  757W
  of live farm animals through the European Union and replace it with a trade in meat and carcases; and if he will make a statement. [110812]

  Mr. Morley
  The Government believe that a carcase trade is preferable to long distance transport for slaughter.

  The European Commission has begun its review of Council Directive 91/628/EEC. We will continue to press for a carcase trade as part of that review and, most importantly, when the Commission presents its formal report to the Council of Ministers.

TREASURY

  Scud Missile Parts
  Mr. Maples
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer (1) on what day, at what time, and how Libyan scud missile parts(a) were shipped from the UK to Malta and (b) were returned to the UK from Malta; [105015]

  (2) when Libyan scud missile parts were first uncovered on UK territory. [105014]

  Department/agency

  Type of scheme

  Number of places

  Cost

  Customs and Excise

  5 workplace nurseries and bought-in places elsewhere

  About 1,000 children, estimated at 900 parents

  Will vary as parents choose own nurseries. Budget allocation of £618,000, representing Departmental subsidy of between 37 per cent. and 47 per cent. for workplace nurseries and 25 per cent. For voucher and other schemes

  Inland Revenue (including Valuation Office)

  7 IR nurseries

  182 places

  Nil subsidy but with basic accommodation, equipment and utilities provided free. (No central record of fees paid, nor number of parents who use the facilities)

  17 IR playschemes

  190 places

  15 external schemes

  238 places

  National Savings

  Glasgow:

  Crèche

  24 places

  £300 per month1

  Holiday playscheme

  44 places

  £6 per day1

  Durham:

  Crèche

  52 places

  £130 per month1

  70 places

  £6 per day1

  Blackpool:

  Holiday playscheme

  60 places

  £6 per day1

  Office for National Statistics

  London:

  External play scheme

  16 staff—2 of whom used a different scheme, for which costs are not available

  £8.05 per day, rising to £8.40 at Christmas 1998

  Southport:

  Playscheme

  26 places, currently with 33 registered and 20 non-registered parents

  £6.50 per day plus annual registration charge of £10 or £8 per day for non-registered parents

  Titchfield:

  Playscheme

  30 places, used by 57 parents

  £8 per day

  Newport:

  Nursery

  28 places

  £85 per week for under 2s, £80 per week for over 2s, rising to £90 and £85 respectively in January 1999

  Runcorn:

  Playscheme2

  18 parents (24 children)

  £8.50 per day

  Royal Mint

  No provision

  —

  —

  UK Debt Management Office

  No provision

  Treasury

  External playscheme during school holidays

  16 parents used it at least once

  Currently £6.70 per day. No provision of nursery places or child care vouchers

  1 NS subsidise the cost; figures given are average cost to parents, since not all places are taken up at a given time

  2 Co-located with DfEE and use their child care facilities

  Caroline Flint
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what provisions are made available to (i) departmental staff and (ii) employees of executive agencies under the control of his Department, for
  758W
  Dawn Primarolo
  Customs inquiries into the shipment were commenced in May 1999. The parts were shipped in error by the airline to Malta at approximately 0615 on 21 May 1999 and were returned by air to the UK, following further intervention by UK Customs, at approximately 1345 on 2 July 1999. The shipment was inspected by MOD officials on 13 July who confirmed that the contents were consistent with Scud parts.

  Departmental Staff
  Caroline Flint
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what child care provision was made available in the financial year 1998–99 for use by (i) his departmental staff and (ii) employees of executive agencies under the control of his Department; what was the cost to parents of this child care; and how many parents used the facilities. [108831]

  Miss Melanie Johnson
  I refer my hon. Friend to the answer given to her by the Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office, on 15 February 2000,Official Report, columns 518–19W.

  The information requested is in the table.

  (a) maternity leave, (b) maternity pay, (c) paternity leave, (d) parental leave, (e) flexible working hours, (f) part-time work, (g) job sharing, (h) leave to care for sick children, (i) home-working, (j) term-time contracts, (k) annual

  759W
  hours contract, (l) child care allowances, (m) careers' leave and (n) career break schemes; and what criteria are used to judge eligibility in each case. [108842]

  Miss Melanie Johnson
  I refer my hon. Friend to the answer given to her by the Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office, on 15 February 2000,Official Report, columns 519–22W.

  The Chancellor's departments and agencies provide a wide range of family friendly options and alternative working patterns. All permanent staff are eligible subject to one year's service in the case of maternity leave, maternity pay and career break schemes.

  Office for National Statistics

  HM Treasury

  Customs and Excise

  Inland Revenue (excludes VOA) 1

  Debt Management Office

  Royal Mint

  (a) Percentage of total women employed who returned to work after childbirth

  210%

  Nil return

  1999

  2.4%

  4%

  896 women

  2.7%

  1998

  1.3%

  4.5%

  614 women

  4.7%

  1997

  1.8%

  4%

  472 women

  5.4%

  1996

  2.2%

  4%

  3—

  3—

  1995

  1.1%

  3.3%

  3—

  3—

  (b) Percentage of women returning to work after childbirth who returned early. Assumes 'early' means before 52 weeks

  490%

  3—

  3—

  3—

  Nil return

  1999

  73% mean

  100% mean 18 weeks,

  159 days5

  range 14–17 weeks

  1998

  97% mean

  86% mean 35 weeks,

  188 days

  range 14–51

  1997

  97% mean

  88% mean 15 weeks,

  204 days

  range 14–35

  1996

  94% mean

  3—

  1995

  96% mean

  3—

  203 days

  3—

  (c) Number returning after childbirth on reduced hours

  643%

  3—

  3—

  3—

  Nil return

  753%

  (d) Percentage of women who returned to work full time who subsequently reduced hours

  0.5%

  3—

  3—

  3—

  Nil return

  0%

  Percentage of women returners currently working full-time:

  1999

  44%

  26%

  58%

  1998

  40%

  49%

  60%

  1997

  14%

  45%

  54%

  1996

  60%

  46%

  3—

  1995

  57%

  46%

  3—

  Percentage of women returners currently working part-time:

  1999

  56%

  74%

  42%

  1998

  60%

  51%

  40%

  1997

  86%

  55%

  46%

  1996

  40%

  54%

  3—

  1995

  43%

  54%

  3—

  1 Information has been provided on actual numbers drawn from a small sample of 2,315 records

  2 Based on aggregate of last three years

  3 Unable to supply figures without incurring a disproportionate cost

  4 Average six months early. Range between one and nine months

  5 Includes 2000–104 women still on leave

  6 Average 23 hours

  7 Average 22.2 hours

  760W
  Caroline Flint
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer in the last five years, what proportion of women employees in (i) his Department and (ii) executive agencies under the control of his Department(a) returned to work after childbirth, (b) returned to work after childbirth before the end of maternity leave, indicating the (1) time-range and (2) mean time, (c) returned to work after childbirth on reduced working hours, indicating the average hours worked and (d) returned to work after childbirth full-time and subsequently reduced their hours. [109232]

  Miss Melanie Johnson
  I refer my hon. Friend to the answer given to her by the Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office on 15 February 2000,Official Report, column 519W.

  The available information is given in the table.

  Unemployment Statistics
  Mr. Maclean
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer (1) if he will provide a breakdown of the number of people who have left the unemployment count since May 1997 as a result of transferring to benefits which do not qualify the claimant for inclusion on the unemployment count in the categories of(a) all leavers from the count, (b) those aged over 25 and unemployed for over two years and (c) those aged 18 to 24 and unemployed for over six months; [109272]

  (2) how many 18 to 24 year olds who had been unemployed for over six months left the unemployment count for work destinations during (a) March 1998, (b) the period between April 1993 and May 1997 and (c) the period between April 1998 and the latest date for which figures are available. [109281]

  Mr. Timms
  The information requested falls within the responsibility of the Director of the Office for National Statistics. I have asked him to reply.

  Letter from Tim Holt to Mr. David Maclean, dated 21 February 2000:
  As Director of the Office for National Statistics (ONS), I have been asked to reply to your parliamentary questions about the numbers of 18 to 24 year olds unemployed for over six months leaving the claimant count to find work, and the numbers leaving the count since May 1997 to transfer to benefits other than Jobseeker's Allowance.
  The number of 18 to 24 year old claimants who were unemployed for over 6 months who left the count and were known to have found work as the reason for ceasing their claim was 6,895 between 12 March and 9 April 1998 and 147,305 between 9 April 1998 and 13 January 2000.
  Information for the period April 1993 to May 1997 is not available as the data on leavers by destination have only been compiled since the beginning of 1995.
  I regret that the data you have requested on the destinations of leavers from the claimant for the period since May 1997 are temporarily unavailable owing to a technical problem. I will write to you again as soon as possible. In the meantime it may be helpful to know that information on destinations of leavers from the claimant count, back to the beginning of 1998, can be obtained from the House of Commons Library, via the Nomis system.

  Departmental Contracts
  Mr. Don Foster
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he will list for the financial year 1998–99(a) the number and (b) the total value of contracts let by his Department with external consultants and advisers that (i) were put out to competitive tender, (ii) were not put out to competitive tender and (iii) were let on a non-commercial basis, stating in each case the names of the individuals or organisations that have carried out the work. [109265]

  Mr. Timms
  [holding answer 9 February 2000]: During the financial year 1998–99 the Treasury let 39 contracts with external consultants and advisers, with a total value of £1.361 million. All Treasury contracts are made in line with government procurement policy. The list shows the contractors and whether the contract was subject to competition.
  762W

  Date

  Supplier

  Competitive tender

  24 April 1998

  University of Bath

  Yes

  15 May 1998

  C Bean

  No

  15 May 1998

  P-E International

  Yes

  10 June 1998

  Easyaccess Software

  Yes

  10 June 1998

  CPMG

  Yes

  10 June 1998

  Towerprime Ltd.

  Yes

  10 June 1998

  CPMG

  Yes

  10 June 1998

  Generic Software

  Yes

  10 June 1998

  CPMG

  Yes

  10 June 1998

  Leonie MacLaughlin

  No

  14 August 1998

  Price Waterhouse Coopers

  Yes

  18 June 1998

  Harwood Associates

  No

  25 August 1998

  CSS Trident

  No

  16 September 1998

  CPMG

  Yes

  1 October 1998

  Optimal Systems Research

  Yes

  20 October 1998

  CPMG

  Yes

  29 October 1998

  IBM

  Yes

  4 November 1998

  Botsford Consultants Ltd.

  Yes

  13 November 1998

  Powerage Ltd.

  No

  19 November 1998

  Diagonal Solutions

  No

  26 November 1998

  Generic Software

  Yes

  30 November 1998

  Connectology Ltd.

  No

  26 January 1999

  Purcon Consultancy Services

  No

  26 January 1999

  FTI

  Yes

  11 February 1999

  Entegrity Solutions

  No

  12 February 1999

  Pace Corporate Services

  No

  16 February 1999

  E-Business Plus

  No

  22 February 1999

  Ernst & Young

  No

  23 February 1999

  Diagonal Solutions

  No

  2 March 1999

  Origin UK Ltd.

  No

  8 March 1999

  Willis Corron

  No

  8 March 1999

  Entegrity Solutions

  No

  8 March 1999

  KPMG

  Yes

  9 March 1999

  CB Hillier Park

  No

  10 March 1999

  CPCR Ltd.

  Yes

  25 March 1999

  London Business School

  No

  30 March 1999

  Claritas Information Security

  No

  31 March 1999

  Pannell Kerr Forster Association

  Yes

  No contracts were let on a non-commercial basis.

  Incomes
  Mr. St.Aubyn
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer how many people earned income(a) between their basic rate limit and £26,000, (b) between £26,000 and £37,000, (c) between £37,000 and £55,000, (d) between £55,000 and £73,000 and (e) over £73,000 in 1990. [110089]

  Mr. Timms
  [holding answer 14 February 2000]: Information for calendar years is not available. Estimates for 1990–91 are as follows:

  Range of total earned income

  Number of taxpayers (000s)

  £20,700-£26,0001

  1,350

  £26,000-£37,000

  919

  £37,001-£55,000

  359

  £55,001-£73,000

  101

  Over £73,000

  111

  1 BR limit

  Mr. St. Aubyn
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer how many people earned income(a) between their basic rate limit and £35,000, (b) between £35,000 and £50,000, (c) between £50,000 and £75,000 and (d) between £75,000 and £100,000 in the last financial year. [110090]
  763W
  Mr. Timms
  [holding answer 14 February 2000]: The table shows estimates relating to 1997–98, the latest year for which this information is available:

  (Thousands)

  Range of Total Earned Income

  Number of taxpayers

  £26,100 (BR Limit)-£35,000

  1,780

  £35,001-£50,000

  810

  £50,001-£75,000

  382

  £75,000-£100,000

  117

  Compliance Visits
  Mr. Flight
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer (1) how many financial services companies have had compliance visits; and what has been the average frequency of compliance visits in the last 12 months; [110386]

  (2) how many financial services companies have been eligible for compliance visits by an SRO regulator in the last 12 months. [110385]

  Miss Melanie Johnson
  IMRO, the PIA and the SFA all adopt a risk-based approach to deciding which firms to visit, in order to target their resources efficiently.

  The total number of firms regulated by these SROs at 31 December 1999 was 6,760. (Some firms are regulated by more than on SRO). Any of them would have been eligible to receive a visit if it were thought to be required.

  During the calendar year 1999 the number of routine periodic visits paid to SRO-regulated firms was 2,396.

  The frequency of periodic inspection visits to individual regulated firms is decided by each SRO, taking into account the risk profile of the firm.

  Earnings Statistics (Scotland)
  Mr. Alasdair Morgan
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer (1) if he will list for Scotland and each local authority area of Scotland(a) the weekly median earnings and (b) the amount of median earnings for those in the first and ninth deciles, for (i) all manual, (ii) all non-manual and (iii) all workers; [110471]

  (2) what are the proportions of full-time workers in (a) Britain, (b) Scotland and (c) each local authority area in Scotland with hourly gross earnings (i) including and (ii) excluding overtime, below (1) £7.15, (2) £6.58, (3) £4.94 and (4) £3.60 for the categories (A) male manual, (B) male non-manual, (C) all male, (D) female manual, (E) female non-manual, (F) all female, (G) all manual, (H) all non-manual and (J) all workers. [110470]

  Mr. Timms
  The information requested falls within the responsibility of the Director of the Office for National Statistics. I have asked him to reply.

  Letter from Tim Holt to Mr. Alasdair Morgan, dated 21 February 2000:
  As Director of the Office for National Statistics (ONS), I have been asked to reply to your recent questions about the average earnings for workers in Scotland, the Scottish local authorities and Great Britain.
  The New Earnings Survey (NES) can provide earnings data for small geographical areas. However, the release of NES data is restricted to figures, which are derived from a sufficiently large sample of employees, and have an acceptable level of accuracy.
  764W
  I have provided the available data for Scotland, the Scottish local authorities and Great Britain in the attached tables. These are based on the 1999 NES, the latest survey for which data are available. These are large tables and copies of them are being placed in the Library of the House rather than reproduced in Hansard.
  The NES is based on a one per cent. sample of employees in the PAYE system and is therefore likely to under-represent relatively low paid staff earning below the tax threshold and in particular those who work part-time.

  Golden Shares
  Dr. Cable
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer in which companies the Government retains a golden share; and on how many occasions in the last year the Secretary of State has exercised his right to intervene in respect of each of these companies. [110543]

  Mr. Timms
  The Government currently retain a special share in the following companies:

  Cable and Wireless plc

  Stena Line Ltd.

  British Aerospace plc

  Rolls-Royce plc

  VSEL Ltd.

  BAA plc

  Belfast International Airport Ltd.

  Viridian Group plc

  Phoenix Natural Gas Ltd.

  National Grid Group plc

  BG plc

  National Power plc

  PowerGen plc

  Scottish Power plc

  Scottish and Southern Energy plc

  British Energy plc

  British Energy Generation Ltd.

  British Energy Generation (UK) Ltd.

  Rosyth Royal Dockyard

  Devonport Royal Dockyard

  UK Nirex Ltd.

  London and Continental Railways Ltd.

  Eurostar (UK) Ltd.

  Inter-Capital and Regional Rail Ltd.

  CDC Group plc.

  The powers of the various special shares are not identical, but none of them enable Ministers to "intervene" in the day-to-day running of the companies. I believe that there have been only three cases (Ministerial consents to company restructuring, requested by BG plc, Cable and Wireless plc and ScottishPower plc) in the last year when Ministers have exercised their powers as owners of special shares. However, in the time available, it has not been possible to establish conclusively that these are the only cases.

  Petroleum Products
  Mr. Fabricant
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what discussions Treasury Ministers and officials have(a) held since 7 October 1999 and (b) plan to hold with their counterparts in the Irish Republic to discuss the taxation and smuggling of petroleum products; and if he will make a statement. [110417]
  765W
  Mr. Timms
  The matter of differential fuel taxes was raised at the British-Irish Inter-Governmental Conference held in London on 17 December and attended by the Prime Minister and other Ministerial colleagues. The resulting bilateral work programme will be taken forward by officials with the aim of achieving closer co-operation between the Governments on issues of shared interest.

  At an operational level, officials of HM Customs and Excise have regular contact with their counterparts in the Irish Revenue Commissioners to discuss issues of common interest including smuggling of fuel.

  Advertising Budget
  Mr. Baker
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what is his Department's advertising budget for(a) 1999–2000 and (b) 2000–01. [110260]

  Mr. Timms
  [holding answer 16 February 2000]: The Treasury's advertising 1999–2000 budgets total £7.765 million.

  Any expected spending on advertising in 2000–01 will be included in the department's Supply Estimates, which will be presented to Parliament in April.

  Economic and Monetary Union
  Mr. Matthew Taylor
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, pursuant to his answer of 19 January 2000,Official Report, column 515W, on economic and monetary union, what the level of preparedness was of small and medium sized enterprises as a whole in April 1999. [110760]

  Miss Melanie Johnson
  The most recent survey commissioned by the Treasury in April 1999 showed that 14 per cent. of the UK's small and medium sized enterprises had made preparations for the euro.

  Mr. Matthew Taylor
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what studies have been made of the effectiveness of the national communications campaign, outlined in page 8 of the Outline National Changeover Plan, aimed at raising business awareness of the implications of the launch of the Euro; how many factsheets were asked for; and if he will make a statement. [111250]

  Mr. Timms
  In October 1998, following the national euro business information campaign, the Treasury commissioned a survey which showed that the number of firms preparing for the euro had trebled since the initial survey in May 1998. The survey also revealed that there was a high level of campaign recognition among the target audience of small and medium sized enterprises.

  To date, around 400,000 factsheets have been sent out in response to requests by businesses and other key intermediary bodies.

  Testimonials (Taxation)
  Mr. Burstow
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what plans he has to review the taxation status of income received by professional sports people in testimonial games. [110923]

  Dawn Primarolo
  I have no such plans.
  766W
  Mr. Burstow
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what estimate he has made of the taxation revenue that would accrue from taxing the incomes received by professional sports players in testimonial games. [110922]

  Dawn Primarolo
  The information requested is not available.

  Pesticides
  Mr. Horam
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer (1) if he will place in the Library the British Agrochemicals Association's draft proposals to minimise the environmental impact of pesticide use; [111082]

  (2) when he will have proposals in place for voluntary measures to meet the Government's objective of minimising the environmental impact of pesticide use; and if he will consult interested parties prior to their publication. [111081]

  Mr. Timms
  The Government announced on 1 February that the proposals brought forward by the British Agrochemical Association to minimise the environmental impacts of pesticides form a useful basis for discussing with the industry and other interested parties what form a partnership approach might take. Subject to further detailed discussions on these proposals, the Chancellor will not proceed with the introduction of a pesticides tax in the Budget. Discussions with the industry will continue in the run up to the Budget. Should these discussions continue after the Budget, the Government will consult with interested parties before any final decisions are taken on the detailed measures aimed at reducing the environmental impacts of pesticide use.

  Average Incomes
  Mr. Ruane
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what was the average gross weekly income of households in each region of the UK in descending order of region in the most recent period for which figures are available; and what proportion of income was derived from social security benefits in each case. [110828]

  Mr. Timms
  I refer my hon. Friend to the answers that my hon. Friend the Economic Secretary gave him on 16 February 2000,Official Report, columns 610–12W.

  NHS Expenditure
  Mr. St.Aubyn
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what estimate the Treasury has made of the consequences for interest rates and the value of sterling of a rise in NHS expenditure over five years to the EU average, funded by additional taxation. [110829]

  Mr. Andrew Smith
  It is the task of the Bank of England's Monetary Policy Committee to set interest rates to ensure the Government's inflation target is met. Price stability will also help to promote exchange rate stability, consistent with the Government's objective of a stable and competitive pound over the medium term. Decisions on future NHS expenditure will be taken in the Spending Review.

  Dividends Tax Credit
  Mr. Burstow
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what recent estimate he has made of the costs of allowing
  767W
  non-taxpayers to reclaim the tax credit paid on dividends; and what estimate he has made of the number of people who would benefit. [110919]

  Dawn Primarolo
  Dividends are paid without any deduction of tax, so there is no tax to reclaim.

  Energy Efficiency
  Mr. Loughton
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer (1) what industries will be eligible to claim grants for energy efficiency measures under the scheme announced in his pre-Budget report; how such awards will be calculated; and what will be the maximum amount available; [111018]

  (2) how the scheme for supporting energy efficiency measures announced in his pre-Budget report is to be funded; [111016]

  (3) what new money will be available from the Treasury to fund the grants available for energy efficiency measures announced in his pre-Budget report. [111017]

  Mr. Timms
  In the November 1999 Pre-Budget Report, the Chancellor announced that, following the responses to the consultation exercise on the climate change levy carried out after the March 1999 Budget he would be trebling the support for energy efficiency measures under the climate change levy package. This is to say that £150 million of levy revenues, not £50 million as originally proposed, will be made available to fund energy efficiency measures in business in 2001–02. This additional support will represent a step change in the level of funding for energy efficiency measures in the business sector.

  The £150 million of additional support that will now be available in 2001–02 will have two elements. The first is £50 million energy efficiency fund, first announced in the March 1999 Budget. This fund will be used to:
  provide energy efficiency advice/audits to small and medium sized enterprises;
  promote the development of 'new' sources of renewable energy; and
  encourage the research, development and take-up of low carbon technologies and energy saving measures through a 'carbon trust'.

  Final decisions on the use of the £50 million fund will be made in the Spending Review 2000.

  The second element is enhanced capital allowances for firms making energy saving investments. Firms making qualifying investments will be able to deduct the full costs of those investments in arriving at their income tax or corporation tax bills. All firms making qualifying investments will be eligible to claim the allowances. A consultation exercise has just been carried out on which energy efficient technologies and products might qualify for the enhanced allowances. The Government's suggested initial selection includes combined heat and power, boiler systems, motors, variable speed drives and lighting systems. Depending on take-up, the scheme might have an Exchequer cost of up to £100 million in 2001–02.

  Taken together, these measures will give a considerable boost to energy efficiency measures in the business sector and help meet the Government's targets for reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

  Conveyancing
  Mr. Heathcoat-Amory
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer (1) what evidence his Department has collected concerning the extent to which agreed property prices in London are banded at values just below the stamp duty thresholds; [110639]

  (2) what steps he is taking to prevent purchasers of property from avoiding stamp duty by schemes to apportion the purchase price between taxable and non-taxable items; [110640]

  (3) what evidence his Department has collected concerning property purchasers avoiding higher rates of stamp duty by apportioning the purchase price between taxable and non-taxable items. [110644]

  Mr. Timms
  [holding answer 17 February 2000]: Only a very small proportion of property deals in London are agreed at amounts just below one of the stamp duty thresholds.

  Stamp duty is charged on a conveyance for sale of land and buildings. Where the total consideration for a sale includes non-dutiable items, such as chattels, the value of those items can properly be deducted from the total in order to calculate the amount to which ad valorem stamp duty applies. The Stamp Office examines documents presented for stamping as well as the associated Certificates of Value and other legal documentation and makes further inquiries where it is appropriate to do so. Adjustments to the tax charge are made in a handful of cases each year but there is no evidence of widespread overstatement of the value of non-dutiable items. It follows that there is no need for additional steps to counter avoidance or other abuse in relation to the apportionment of purchase prices.

  Tobacco Smuggling
  Mrs. Lait
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer (1) if he will publish the full report on tobacco smuggling prepared by Martin Taylor, adviser to HM Customs and Excise; [110751]

  (2) if he will publish the papers and correspondence accompanying the report on tobacco smuggling prepared by Martin Taylor; [110750]

  (3) what advice he has received from Martin Taylor on the UK levels of tobacco duty in addition to his report on tobacco smuggling. [110752]

  Dawn Primarolo
  I refer the hon. Member to the answer provided by my hon. Friend the Economic Secretary to the Treasury to the hon. Member for Hackney, South and Shoreditch (Mr. Sedgemore) on 17 January 2000,Official Report, column 351W.

  Working Families Tax Credit
  Mr. Coleman
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer at what level per week of housing benefit individuals entitled to receive working families tax credit lose benefit. [110500]
  769W
  Dawn Primarolo
  The amount of Housing Benefit that a family is entitled to is dependent on the eligible rent, net income, and an applicable amount based on family circumstances. For those in receipt of the Working Families' Tax Credit, which is part of net income for Housing Benefit purposes, Housing Benefit is not affected if net income is less than or equal to the applicable amount. For those with net incomes greater than applicable amounts, Housing Benefit is reduced by 65 per cent. of the difference between net income and the applicable amount.

  Inflation
  Mr. Matthew Taylor
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer (1) what plans he has to produce inflation statistics at a regional level; [110822]

  (2) what recent research his Department has undertaken on the cost of living and the rate of inflation in (a) different regions of Britain and (b) households of different compositions and characteristics. [110003]

  Mr. Timms
  [holding answer 14 February 2000]: The information requested falls within the responsibility of the Director of the Office for National Statistics. I have asked him to reply.

  Pensioner Indices: The Retail Prices Index excludes pensioners deriving at least three-quarters of their income from state pensions and benefits. Separate quarterly indices excluding housing costs are compiled to cover these households (Housing costs are excluded following a recommendation of the RPI Advisory Committee because of the technical difficulties involved in their measurement). Table 20 gives the most recent weights

  18—Pensioner indices and RPI (excluding housing)

  January 13, 1987 = 100

  One-person pensioner households

  Two-person pensioner households

  Retail Prices Index1 (excluding housing)

  Q1

  Q2

  Q3

  Q4

  Q1

  Q2

  Q3

  Q4

  Q1

  Q2

  Q3

  Q4

  Quarterly Indices

  1989

  108.0

  110.0

  111.0

  113.2

  108.2

  110.4

  111.3

  113.4

  109.0

  111.2

  112.0

  113.7

  1990

  115.3

  118.1

  119.9

  122.4

  115.4

  118.3

  120.2

  122.6

  115.3

  118.5

  120.3

  122.6

  1991

  123.8

  127.4

  128.5

  129.9

  123.7

  128.0

  128.9

  130.4

  123.4

  128.5

  129.8

  131.5

  1992

  130.8

  132.2

  131.6

  132.6

  131.5

  133.2

  132.6

  133.7

  132.3

  134.8

  134.5

  135.6

  1993

  133.6

  135.0

  134.8

  135.0

  134.7

  136.8

  136.8

  136.8

  136.0

  138.8

  139.1

  139.5

  1994

  135.1

  137.7

  137.4

  137.8

  137.3

  139.6

  139.4

  139.9

  140.0

  141.9

  141.8

  142.4

  1995

  139.1

  140.7

  141.0

  141.7

  141.4

  143.1

  143.5

  144.2

  143.7

  145.5

  145.9

  146.5

  1996

  142.8

  144.3

  144.1

  144.3

  145.5

  147.2

  147.1

  147.6

  147.6

  149.4

  149.7

  150.7

  1997

  144.4

  145.4

  145.6

  146.1

  147.9

  149.0

  149.5

  150.1

  151.2

  152.6

  153.4

  154.3

  1998

  146.0

  147.5

  147.5

  148.6

  150.1

  151.8

  151.9

  152.8

  154.5

  156.4

  156.4

  157.3

  1999

  148.9

  —

  —

  —

  153.3

  —

  —

  —

  157.5

  —

  —

  —

  Percentage changes over a year earlier

  1989

  5.1

  5.2

  5.4

  6.2

  4.9

  5.3

  5.5

  6.2

  5.2

  5.4

  5.3

  5.6

  1990

  6.8

  7.4

  8.0

  8.1

  6.7

  7.2

  8.0

  8.1

  5.8

  6.6

  7.4

  7.8

  1991

  7.4

  7.9

  7.2

  6.1

  7.2

  8.2

  7.2

  6.4

  7.0

  8.4

  7.9

  7.3

  1992

  5.7

  3.8

  2.4

  2.1

  6.3

  4.1

  2.9

  2.5

  7.2

  4.9

  3.6

  3.1

  1993

  2.1

  2.1

  2.4

  1.8

  2.4

  2.7

  3.2

  2.3

  2.8

  3.0

  3.4

  2.9

  1994

  1.1

  2.0

  1.9

  2.1

  1.9

  2.0

  1.9

  2.3

  2.9

  2.2

  1.9

  2.1

  1995

  3.0

  2.2

  2.6

  2.8

  3.0

  2.5

  2.9

  3.1

  2.6

  2.5

  2.9

  2.9

  1996

  2.7

  2.6

  2.2

  1.8

  2.9

  2.9

  2.5

  2.4

  2.7

  2.7

  2.6

  2.9

  1997

  1.1

  0.8

  1.0

  1.2

  1.6

  1.2

  1.6

  1.7

  2.4

  2.1

  2.5

  2.4

  1998

  1.1

  1.4

  1.3

  1.7

  1.5

  1.9

  1.6

  1.8

  2.2

  2.5

  2.0

  1.9

  1999

  2.0

  —

  —

  —

  2.1

  —

  —

  —

  1.9

  —

  —

  —

  1 The Retail Prices Index covers the goods and services purchased by all households apart from those pensioner households defined above and the top 4 per cent of the income distribution

  Source:

  Office for National Statistics
  770W
  Letter from Tim Holt to Mr. Matthew Taylor, dated 21 February 2000:
  As Director of the Office for National Statistics (ONS), I have been asked to reply to your parliamentary questions on recent research on the cost of living and rate of inflation.
  The latest research completed on regional RPIs was discussed by the 1971 RPI Advisory Committee. The ONS has not conducted research into regional differences in the cost-of-living.
  The ONS is aware of the growing demand for regional data in general and possible regional differences in inflation rates were an issue raised in the July 1999 report of the House of Lords Select Committee on the Monetary Policy Committee. The development of regional inflation measures would need to resolve a number of technical matters and would involve large additional expenditure to cover expansions of price collection and of the Family Expenditure Survey. The ONS regularly consults with users about their needs and evaluates these relative to other priorities in the context of its annual planning round.
  No research has recently been undertaken on differential inflation rates and cost-of-living for different population sub-groups. However, the ONS produces a retail prices pensioner index, which is published quarterly in Business Monitor MM23: The Retail Price Index. An example is attached.
  The RPI (all items index) covers private households but excludes (a) the households whose total income lies within the top four per cent of all households incomes, and (b) pensioner households which derive at least three quarters of their total income from state pensions and benefits. The latter decision was taken as a result of an RPI Advisory Committee recommendation (Report on Revision of the Index of Retail Prices, March 1962).
  771W

  19—Pensioner indices: annual averages

  January 13, 1987 = 100

  All items (excluding housing)

  Food

  Catering

  Alcoholic drink

  Tobacco

  Fuel and light

  House-hold goods

  House-hold services

  Clothing and footwear

  Personal goods and services

  Motoring expenditure

  Fares and other travel

  Leisure goods

  Leisure services

  Index for one-person pensioner households

  CZIF

  CZIG

  CZIH

  CZII

  CZIJ

  CZIK

  CZIL

  CZIM

  CZIN

  CZIO

  CZIP

  CZIQ

  CZIR

  CZIS

  1988

  104.8

  104.6

  109.7

  106.4

  103.5

  101.3

  106.2

  104.5

  104.5

  109.1

  107.9

  108.7

  109.3

  103.3

  1989

  110.6

  110.8

  116.7

  111.9

  106.5

  106.8

  110.9

  109.1

  109.3

  119.3

  115.1

  114.9

  116.2

  106.1

  1990

  118.9

  120.0

  126.4

  122.3

  113.8

  116.2

  116.5

  116.4

  115.3

  129.4

  124.1

  121.7

  124.8

  111.2

  1991

  127.4

  126.1

  139.2

  137.4

  130.2

  124.5

  123.9

  126.7

  119.7

  143.6

  135.0

  134.3

  134.2

  119.2

  1992

  131.8

  128.0

  148.0

  146.0

  144.5

  126.9

  128.2

  133.5

  121.2

  153.3

  146.3

  143.2

  140.8

  122.9

  1993

  134.6

  130.2

  155.4

  152.2

  156.8

  125.8

  130.0

  137.8

  122.8

  159.6

  157.5

  150.8

  144.0

  123.8

  1994

  137.0

  131.8

  161.6

  155.2

  168.6

  131.1

  130.1

  136.4

  123.8

  165.8

  163.7

  154.3

  143.0

  124.8

  1995

  140.6

  136.9

  168.5

  160.4

  180.1

  133.7

  135.2

  134.7

  124.7

  172.1

  166.5

  158.2

  144.9

  127.2

  1996

  143.9

  141.2

  174.9

  164.6

  192.4

  134.5

  138.9

  133.8

  124.4

  179.8

  170.7

  162.0

  150.9

  130.0

  1997

  145.4

  140.9

  181.1

  168.1

  206.7

  130.8

  139.5

  135.2

  125.2

  187.8

  180.9

  167.6

  154.1

  134.9

  1998

  147.4

  142.4

  187.7

  173.1

  224.5

  125.6

  141.1

  137.4

  124.8

  198.3

  190.1

  171.5

  154.9

  139.9

  Index for two-person pensioner households

  CZIU

  CZIV

  CZIW

  CZIX

  CZIY

  CZIZ

  CZJA

  CZJB

  CZJC

  CZJD

  CZJE

  CZJF

  CZJG

  CZJH

  1988

  105.0

  104.7

  109.6

  106.7

  103.4

  101.4

  106.1

  103.8

  104.5

  108.8

  107.4

  108.7

  109.4

  103.7

  1989

  110.9

  111.0

  116.5

  112.4

  106.4

  106.8

  110.5

  107.9

  109.4

  118.3

  114.2

  115.2

  116.3

  106.7

  1990

  119.1

  120.4

  126.3

  123.1

  113.7

  115.7

  115.8

  114.9

  115.5

  127.6

  122.8

  122.1

  124.6

  112.1

  1991

  127.8

  126.2

  138.9

  138.5

  129.9

  124.7

  123.2

  125.0

  120.5

  140.4

  133.2

  135.7

  133.6

  120.6

  1992

  132.7

  128.2

  147.6

  147.3

  144.2

  127.5

  127.3

  132.1

  122.0

  150.2

  144.5

  144.7

  140.0

  124.9

  1993

  136.3

  130.6

  154.9

  153.5

  156.4

  126.1

  129.1

  136.2

  123.4

  156.6

  156.3

  152.7

  143.2

  126.5

  1994

  139.1

  132.2

  161.0

  156.4

  168.3

  131.8

  129.3

  134.6

  124.3

  162.9

  162.4

  156.0

  143.1

  128.3

  1995

  143.1

  137.4

  167.8

  161.7

  179.7

  134.5

  134.0

  132.6

  125.2

  169.1

  165.6

  159.8

  145.4

  131.1

  1996

  146.9

  141.9

  174.2

  166.1

  191.8

  135.0

  137.8

  131.4

  124.7

  176.9

  170.0

  163.3

  151.3

  134.7

  1997

  149.1

  141.6

  180.4

  170.2

  205.7

  131.3

  138.8

  131.9

  125.6

  184.5

  180.4

  168.7

  154.0

  140.4

  1998

  151.7

  142.9

  187.2

  175.5

  223.2

  126.0

  140.3

  133.5

  125.0

  194.6

  187.9

  172.9

  154.9

  146.2

  Weights 20—Pensioner indices: section weights for use in 1999

  Parts per 1,000

  Weights used

  One person pensioner households

  Two person pensioner households

  Food

  284

  284

  Bread

  15

  14

  Cereals

  7

  8

  Biscuits and cakes

  26

  24

  Beef

  8

  11

  Home-killed lamb

  13

  13

  Imported lamb

  3

  3

  Pork

  4

  6

  Bacon

  8

  9

  Poultry

  10

  12

  Other meat

  23

  22

  Fresh fish

  18

  19

  Processed fish

  6

  5

  Butter

  5

  4

  Oils and fats

  5

  6

  Cheese

  7

  7

  Eggs

  14

  14

  Milk, fresh

  22

  19

  Milk products

  6

  6

  Tea

  8

  6

  Coffee and other hot drinks

  5

  4

  Soft drinks

  8

  9

  Sugar and preserves

  6

  6

  Sweets and chocolates

  12

  12

  Unprocessed potatoes

  17

  18

  Processed potatoes

  5

  6

  Fresh vegetables

  113

  113

  Processed vegetables

  5

  5

  Fresh fruit

  117

  115

  Processed fruit

  3

  4

  Other foods

  25

  24

  772W

  Weights 20—Pensioner indices: section weights for use in 1999

  Parts per 1,000

  Weights used

  One person pensioner households

  Two person pensioner households

  Catering

  40

  36

  Restaurant meals

  25

  24

  Canteen meals

  —

  —

  Take-aways and snacks

  15

  12

  Alcoholic drink

  31

  42

  Beer "on" sales

  11

  16

  Beer "off" sales

  4

  7

  Wines & spirits "on" sales

  3

  3

  Wines & spirits "off" sales

  13

  16

  Tobacco

  39

  35

  Cigarettes

  35

  31

  Other tobacco

  4

  4

  Fuel and light

  119

  88

  Coal and solid fuels

  8

  12

  Electricity

  62

  42

  Gas

  46

  31

  Oil and other fuels

  3

  3

  Household goods

  102

  116

  Furniture

  22

  28

  Furnishings

  20

  24

  Electrical appliances

  9

  19

  Other household equipment

  8

  9

  Household consumables

  30

  26

  Pet care

  13

  10

  Household services

  90

  59

  Postage

  6

  5

  773W

  Weights 20—Pensioner indices: section weights for use in 1999

  Parts per 1,000

  Weights used

  One person pensioner households

  Two person pensioner households

  Telephones, telemessages, etc.

  41

  25

  Domestic services

  26

  14

  Fees and subscriptions

  17

  15

  Clothing and footwear

  50

  43

  Men's outerwear

  5

  8

  Women's outerwear

  21

  14

  Children's outerwear

  2

  2

  Other clothing

  13

  10

  Footwear

  9

  9

  Personal goods and services

  60

  57

  Personal articles

  14

  13

  Chemists goods

  22

  25

  Personal services

  24

  19

  Motoring expenditure

  48

  112

  Purchase of motor vehicles

  10

  33

  Maintenance of motor vehicles

  11

  23

  Petrol and oil

  15

  34

  Vehicle tax and insurance

  12

  22

  Fares and other travel costs

  22

  16

  Rail fares

  2

  1

  Bus and coach fares

  9

  7

  Other travel costs

  11

  8

  Leisure goods

  52

  48

  Audio-visual equipment

  6

  2

  Records, tapes and CDs

  1

  3

  Toys, photographic and sports goods

  5

  4

  Books and newspapers

  31

  28

  Gardening products

  9

  11

  Leisure services

  63

  64

  Television licences and rentals

  32

  21

  Entertainment and other recreation

  7

  10

  Foreign holidays

  9

  14

  UK holidays

  15

  19

  1 Seasonal foods have a total weight of 53 for one person pensioner households and a total weight of 47 for two person pensioner households

  Source:

  Office for National Statistics

HEALTH

  Croydon Health Authority
  Mr. Ottaway
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health if he will make a statement on the financial impact on Croydon Health Authority of(a) the Working Time Directive, (b) the introduction of the minimum wage, and (c) the abolition of dividend tax credit on pension funds announced in the 1997 Budget. [106773]

  Mr. Denham
  The National Health Service Executive recognises the important of the Working Time Directive. NHS employers, like all other employers in the United Kingdom are required to meet the obligations put on them by the Working Time Regulations. The impact of the Working Time Directive has varied over the NHS trusts which provide services to Croydon Health Authority 774W
  residents. Croydon Health Authority has included a provision for the reasonable costs of the European Union Directive in its financial agreement with trusts.

  It is not possible to identify accurately the costs associated with the National Minimum Wage separately for Croydon.

  The withdrawal of Advance Corporation Tax credits has no effect on National Health Services expenditure.

  Departmental Staff
  Caroline Flint
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health in each of the last five years, what proportion of women employees in (i) his Department and (ii) executive agencies under the control of his Department(a) returned to work after childbirth, (b) returned to work after childbirth before the end of maternity leave, indicating the (1) time-range and (2) mean time, (c) returned to work after childbirth on reduced working hours, indicating the average hours worked and (d) returned to work after childbirth full-time and subsequently reduced their hours. [108969]

  Yvette Cooper
  The Department and its executive agencies (the Medicines Control Agency, the Medical Devices Agency, National Health Service Pensions Agency and NHS Estates) all provide the same terms and conditions of employment. The table covers the Department as a whole and shows the proportion of women employees returning to work after childbirth in each of the last five years against the number of women employees going on maternity leave.

  Year

  Numbers on maternity leave

  Percentage of returnees

  1995

  67

  93

  1996

  110

  89

  1997

  130

  78

  1998

  109

  77

  1999

  90

  97

  Data relating to the other information required could be established only at disproportionate cost.

  Departmental Contracts
  Mr. Don Foster
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health if he will list for the financial year 1998–99 the number and total value of contracts let by his Department with external consultants and advisers that have(a) been put out to competitive tender, (b) not been put out to competitive tender and (c) been let on a non-commercial basis, stating in each case the names of the individuals or organisations that have carried out the work. [109066]

  Yvette Cooper
  [holding answer 8 February 2000]: The information requested is not held centrally. However, the Department's procurement policy is that services and goods should be acquired by competition unless there are compelling reasons to the contrary.

  Mr. Willis
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what is the(a) number and (b) value of contracts let by his Department since May 1997 to external consultants and advisers for the management of competitive tendering processes. [109303]
  775W
  Yvette Cooper
  No contracts to manage competitive tendering processes have been let by the Department since 1997.

  Grants
  Mr. Don Foster
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health if he will list the initiatives launched by his Department since May 1997 under which specific grants are allocated, indicating in each case and for each financial year the funding provided by central Government. [109314]

  Mr. Hutton
  [holding answer 10 February 2000]: The Department launched the Social Services Modernisation Fund in November 1998. It makes new funding available to local authorities through special and specific grants. Details of the Fund are shown in the table.

  £ million

  Social Services Modernising Fund

  1999–2000

  2000–01

  2001–02

  2002–03

  Promoting independence: Partnership grant

  253.0

  216.0

  178.0

  647.0

  Promoting independence: Prevention grant

  20.0

  30.0

  50.0

  100.0

  Children's services grant1

  75.0

  120.0

  180.0

  375.0

  Mental health grant2

  46.4

  59.4

  79.4

  185.2

  Training support grant2,3

  3.5

  7.0

  9.0

  21.0

  Total Modernisation Fund

  397.9

  432.4

  496.4

  1,328.2

  1 £5 million was also made available to authorities in 1998–99 to help them prepare for the requirements of the Quality Protects programme.

  2 This represents the extra money in these areas and is in addition to the existing grant levels.

  3 The residential child care award element of this new initiative was launched in 1998–99 with £2 million being made available.

  In addition, the carers' special grant was announced in February 1999 and it makes available to local authorities £20 million in 1999–2000, £50 million in 2000–01 and £70 million in 2001–02. Extra funding of £3 million in 1999–2000, £5 million in 2000–01 and £12.5 million in 2001–02 has also been made available through the drugs and alcohol grant to help local authorities develop new approaches in commissioning drug services.

  As part of the Government-wide initiative to promote the welfare of families with children under five, the Department is funding 30 Home Start schemes in areas of social deprivation, providing £0.333 million in 1998–99 and £0.366 million in 1999–2000.

  Two award schemes were launched in 1999 to recognise excellence in social care generally and in the provision of support for carers specifically. In 1999–2000 the Social Care Awards' scheme has been allocated £150,000 and £80,000 has been allocated for the Caring for Carers Awards scheme.

  The Child Migrants Fund with an allocation of £250,000 in 1999–2000, £450,000 in 2000–01 and £300,000 in 2001–02 was created to assist former child migrants with the costs of visiting relatives in the United Kingdom. In addition a central index of historical data and sources of existing information is being created with funding of £128,000 in 1999–2000 and £90,000 in 2000–01 and 2001–02.

  Correspondence
  Ms Jenny Jones
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health when he will reply to the letter from the hon. Member for Wolverhampton, South-West of 26 October 1999 regarding the development of the former Royal Hospital, Wolverhampton. [109559]

  Yvette Cooper
  I replied to my hon. Friend on 11 February.

  Waiting Times
  Mr. Lilley
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health if he will publish figures showing the percentage of patients admitted within three months of the decision to admit in(a) 1997–98 and (b) 1998–99 for (i) England, (ii) East and North Hertfordshire, (iii) West Hertfordshire and (iv) the health authority in the prospering growth area with the (1) lowest figure and (2) highest figure. [109682]

  Mr. Denham
  The figures requested are shown in the table:

  Percentage of patients admitted within three months of the decision to admit

  1997–98

  1998–99

  England

  71

  68

  East and North Hertfordshire Health Authority

  71

  65

  West Hertfordshire Health Authority

  71

  64

  Health Authority with lowest percentage in prospering growth area

  157

  257

  Health Authority with highest percentage in prospering growth area

  377

  473

  1 Southampton and South West Hampshire

  2 North Essex

  3 Stockport

  4 Hillingdon

  Note:

  This table is derived from ungrossed HES data.

  Waiting Lists
  Mr. Jenkin
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what the waiting lists were for(a) in-patient and (b) out-patient treatment in North Essex on the most recent date for which information is available. [110992]

  Mr. Denham
  The information requested is given in the tables:

  Number of patients waiting for elective admission in North Essex Health Authority in December 1999

  Month

  Total waiting

  December 1999

  24,161

  Source:

  QF01 return

  Number of patients not yet seen waiting over 13 weeks for an outpatient appointment following GP written referral in North Essex Health Authority (quarter ending 30 September 1999)

  Quarter

  Patients waiting over 13 weeks

  Quarter 2 1999–2000

  10,542

  Source:

  QMO8R return

  Abortion
  Fiona Mactaggart
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health (1) what steps he is taking to ensure that medical abortion(a) is delivered in the most cost effective way and (b) meets women's needs; [109744]

  (2) what steps he is taking to ensure that women receive a choice of methods for early abortion. [109743]

  Yvette Cooper
  Although health authorities and primary care groups are responsible for service delivery, national initiatives also have a role in influencing practice and increasing choice to develop high quality services.In October 1999 the Department introduced a new core set of principles governing approval of independent sector places carrying out abortion. A key reason for this change was to reduce barriers to introducing effective clinical practices.
  In addition, the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists was commissioned to produce clinical guidelines on "Induced abortion". This report is due to be published in March.
  These issues will also be examined in the Government's Sexual Health Strategy.

  Fiona Mactaggart
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what assessment he has made of the recent report from the Family Planning Association, "Medical Abortion: Meeting Women's Needs". [109742]

  Yvette Cooper
  This is a useful summary of the current situation and the points raised will be considered in the sexual health strategy currently being developed in the Department.

  Breast Implants
  Mr. Brake
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health if he will list the published scientific reports relating to breast implants and health issues that have been examined by the Independent Review Group. [110098]

  Mr. Denham
  A list of the published scientific papers examined or being examined by the Independent Review Group is available from a searchable database on their website (www.silicone-review.gov.uk). This database is regularly updated.

  Mr. Brake
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health if he will place a copy in the Library of the published results of the research projects conducted using the Breast Implant Registry at Salisbury District Hospital. [110096]

  Mr. Denham
  There have been no published studies using the National Breast Implant Registry.

  Mr. Brake
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health if he will place in the Library the information sheet for women contemplating breast implantation provided by the Independent Review Group in 1998. [110094]

  Mr. Denham
  The Independent Review Group provided a suggested checklist of issues to be discussed with women considering breast implantation as figure 2 in their report, a copy of which is in the Library.

  Mr. Brake
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health if he will place the conclusions of the Independent Expert Advisory Group set up to investigate the public health effects of silicone gel breast implants in the Library. [110093]
  778W
  Mr. Denham
  A copy of the letter from the Chief Medical Officer to all doctors in 1993 setting out the conclusions reached by the Independent Expert Advisory Group in 1992 has been placed in the Library. The 1994 Medical Devices Agency report containing the Independent Expert Advisory Group's updated conclusions was placed in the Library on its publication.

  Mr. Brake
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health how many research projects have been conducted using the Breast Implant Registry set up in 1993 at Salisbury District Hospital. [110095]

  Mr. Denham
  One study is currently being undertaken by the Registry in collaboration with local clinicians.

  Remploy
  Mr. Caton
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what Remploy products his Department has purchased in the last three years. [109933]

  Yvette Cooper
  The Department has a contract with Remploy for the supply of office furniture to its social service inspectorate regional offices.

  Departmental Functions (Food)
  Mr. Yeo
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health if all food served at his Department's official functions meets the standards of production required of domestic producers. [109773]

  Yvette Cooper
  [holding answer 11 February 2000]: All catering services provided in the Department's main buildings are supplied under contract and meet all appropriate standards and legislation. In particular, all meat is either from domestic producers or to the same standards of production.

  Influenza Immunisation
  Mr. Pollard
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health, pursuant to his answer of 3 February 2000,Official Report, column 710W, on influenza immunisation for healthcare workers, if he will publish the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation's recommendations on influenza immunisation of healthcare workers for next winter. [110182]

  Yvette Cooper
  Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation's recommendations on influenza immunisation of healthcare workers will be made public in advance of next winter.

  Paper and Timber Products
  Mr. Reed
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what steps he has taken to ensure that paper and timber products purchased by his Department come from a sustainable source. [110151]

  Yvette Cooper
  The Department's Environmental Policy Statement and Environmental Strategy have been produced to ensure that sustainable development is a key factor in this Department's business. The Environmental Strategy supports the Department's aim to achieve best environmental practice with a commitment to conserve paper, wood and other resources and to purchase only timber products that come from sustainable sources. Environmental criteria are now contained as part of the
  779W
  specification in tendering contracts and include a requirement that paper and timber products are from sustainable sources.

  Mr. Reed
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health if he will ensure that paper and timber products purchased by his Department are independently certified by the Forest Stewardship Council as coming from a sustainable source. [110152]

  Yvette Cooper
  The Forest Stewardship Council label is accepted by our buyers as demonstrating that timber and timber products have come from sustainably managed sources but it is not practicable to require that all paper and timber products purchased by the Department are independently certified by the Forest Stewardship Council because this might discriminate against any equally valid schemes and therefore be against public procurement rules.

  Advertising Budget
  Mr. Baker
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what was the average cost of issuing a media release from his Department in 1999. [110269]

  Ms Stuart
  [holding answer 16 February 2000]: The Department's press releases production function incorporates various mechanisms including in house production. The average cost of a press release is £151.

  Ambulance Personnel (Clotbuster Injections)
  Mr. Cohen
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what consideration he has given to allowing ambulance personnel to administer clotbuster injections to heart attack patients; and if he will make a statement. [110423]

  Ms Stuart
  We will exploit all the potential of thrombolytics (clot busters) to save more lives and improve clinical outcomes for patients. We are reviewing the list of medicines that ambulance paramedics are allowed to administer on their own initiative. We are working closely with the Joint Royal Colleges Ambulance Liaison Committee and Medicines Control Agency on proposals which would allow paramedics to administer thrombolytics. Any changes to the list would require amendments to secondary legislation and be subject to public consultation.

  GP Fundholders
  Mr. Sanders
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health if he will make it his policy to end the payment of notional rents to fundholding general practitioners; and if he will make a statement. [110431]

  Mr. Denham
  We abolished the general practitioners fundholding scheme on 30 September 1999. The future arrangements for the payment of notional rent are still subject to discussions with the GP profession.

  NHS Cardiothoracic Services (London)
  Mr. Wilkinson
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health if he will publish the outcome of the review of NHS cardiothoracic hospital services in West London. [110389]
  780W
  Mr. Denham
  [holding answer 16 February 2000]: Any future public consultation over proposals to move specialist cardiothoracic services currently located at Harefield Hospital will be supported by a summary of all relevant information.

  Harefield Hospital
  Mr. Wilkinson
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health (1) what facilities and services at Harefield Hospital, Middlesex, are to be transferred to other sites; when such transfers will take place; and to which other hospitals they will be transferred; [110387]

  (2) what plans he has to transfer the facilities and services of Harefield Hospital, Middlesex, to (a) the Royal Brompton Hospital, Chelsea and (b) a new hospital on the Paddington Basin site in West London. [110390]

  Mr. Denham
  [holding answer 16 February 2000]: Kensington, Chelsea and Westminster Health Authority has recently completed a period of formal public consultation over proposals to move inpatient paediatric services from Harefield Hospital to the Royal Brompton Hospital. A decision over the proposal, which the Royal Brompton and Harefield Hospitals NHS Trust identified as a preferred option to maintain the quality and safety of children's services, has yet to be reached. Any decision on the future location of Harefield Hospital's paediatric transplantation services would require the consideration of the National Specialist Commissioning Advisory Group.

  This must be set in the context of longer term plans. Following detailed planning and assessment by NHS organisations in West London and the Imperial College of Science, Technology and Medicine a preferred option has been identified for the future of specialist inpatient services including cardiothoracic services. Subject to the approval of the Outline Business Case for the Paddington Basin, there will be a period of public consultation in the summer of 2000 before any decisions are made. That public consultation will be based upon the provision of a summary of the information that had led to the identification of a preferred option.

  Mr. Wilkinson
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health how many(a) medical and (b) other staff are employed at Harefield Hospital, Middlesex; and how many will be employed there in February (a)(b) 2002 and (c) 2003. [110388]

  Mr. Denham
  [holding answer 16 February 2000]: Forecast figures are not held centrally. The latest figures for the whole of the Royal Brompton and Harefield National Health Service Trust are for the situation as at 30 September 1998 and are shown.
  Non-medical staff total: 1,900
  Medical: 350

  Source:

  Department of Health Non-Medical Workforce Census

  Department of Health Medical and Dental Workforce Census

  NHS Funding
  Sir Sydney Chapman
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what is the expected funding of the NHS in England per head of population in 1999–2000; and what are the comparable figures in(a) Wales, (b) Scotland and (c) Northern Ireland. [110476]
  781W
  Mr. Denham
  [holding answer 17 February 2000]: The information is contained in the table:

  Total gross 1 NHS expenditure per head of population—1999–2000

  Country

  £

  England

  868

  Scotland

  1,056

  Wales

  927

  Northern Ireland

  875

  1 Exchequer or net expenditure plus income from receipts and charges

  NHS Staff
  Charlotte Atkins
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health if he will make a statement on(a) the amount allocated and (b) the amount spent on training of NHS staff, broken down by (i) occupational grade, (ii) type of employment and (iii) gender, in each of the last five years. [109605]

  Mr. Denham
  Information is not held centrally on the total amount spent on the training of National Health Service staff by gender or occupational grade. The tables show the allocations and expenditure for each of the three service specific education and training levies since their creation in 1996–97. Information on the amount spent on the training of other staff groups outside the scope of the levies and on continuing professional development training by local employers (trusts and health authorities) is also not held centrally.

  Service increment for teaching levy

  £ million

  Allocation

  Expenditure

  1996–97

  458

  458

  1997–98

  458

  458

  1998–99

  478

  478

  1999–2000

  494

  Not yet available

  Medical and dental education levy

  £ million

  Allocation

  Expenditure

  1996–97

  533

  521

  1997–98

  592

  587

  1998–99

  621

  619

  1999–2000

  660

  Not yet available

  Non-medical education and training levy

  £ million

  Allocation

  Expenditure

  1996–97

  793

  751

  1997–98

  766

  751

  1998–99

  802

  792

  1999–2000

  900

  Not yet available

  Note:

  Any underspends on the three levies are not lost but are used elsewhere in-year for NHS activity and some virement between budgets is a necessary part of vote management on a Hospital and Community Health services budget of over £40 billion
  782W
  Charlotte Atkins
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health how many(a) men and (b) women were employed by the NHS in each occupational grade for each of the last five years. [109606]

  Mr. Denham
  Information about the number of men and women directly employed by the National Health Service in each of the main occupational groups is published in the Statistical Bulletins from the Department of Health's annual medical and dental, and non-medical workforce censuses. The information available centrally for individual non-medical pay grades by gender will be place in the Library shortly.

  Carers
  Mr. Jim Cunningham
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what plans he has to give local authorities powers to provide direct payments for carers over the age of 16 years. [110667]

  Mr. Hutton
  On 4 February, the Government were pleased to support at Second Reading the Bill promoted by my hon. Friend the Member for Stalybridge and Hyde (Mr. Pendry), the Carers and Disabled Children Bill. The Bill empowers local authorities in England and Wales to make direct payments to carers over the age of 16 years for the services that meet their own assessed needs.

  Hospital Beds
  Mr. Jim Cunningham
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what plans he has to increase the number of acute care beds in the NHS. [110669]

  Ms Stuart
  We published the National Beds inquiry for three month's consultation on 10 February. This set out that under any future scenario the overall number of acute, residential and intermediate care beds are likely to rise. The consultation will focus on the balance of acute and other beds in the whole system. Our plans for acute care beds will be announced once the consultation is complete.

  Mr. Simon Hughes
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health when he will publish the report of his Department's inquiry into bed numbers. [111325]

  Ms Stuart
  The National Beds Inquiry report was published on 10 February. Copies have been placed in the Library.

  Dental Services
  Mr. Jim Cunningham
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what plans he has to increase access to NHS Dentistry. [110668]

  Mr. Hutton
  We recognise the problems of access to National Health Service dentistry which exist in parts of the country and which it inherited it 1997. My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister has made it clear that, by the end of 2001, NHS dentistry will be a truly national service again. The Government have already addressed the problem with the Investing in Dentistry initiative, under which dentists were offered grants of £10 million in return for some 900,000 patient registrations, and the Personal Dental Service projects which include "phone and go" dental access centres. By the end of the year there will be about 40 access centres in the areas which need them
  783W
  most, providing the full range of high quality NHS dentistry to patients who are not registered with a dentist. Further measures will be set out in the forthcoming strategy for NHS dentistry in England.

  Mr. Llwyd
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what criteria those firms certificated to remove used mercury-based amalgams from dentists' surgeries have to meet. [110483]

  Mr. Hutton
  Any person transporting waste, including amalgam, from dentists' surgeries in the course of their business is required, under the Control of Pollution (Amendment) Act 1989, to be registered with the Environment Agency as a "waste carrier".

  Waste carriers are also subject to the "Duty of Care" under section 34 of the Environmental Protection Act 1990. This requires that all reasonable steps should be taken to keep waste safe.

  Mr. Llwyd
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health how many firms have current contracts to collect and dispose of used mercury-based dentists' amalgams; and if he will make a statement. [110480]

  Mr. Hutton
  Contracts to collect wastes are a matter between the parties concerned and information on them is not held centrally. Businesses transporting wastes are required to be registered with the Environment Agency, but the register does not identify the types of waste transported.

  Departmental Targets
  Mr. Harvey
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health how many targets have been set for his Department since May 1997; and how many have not been reached and for what reason. [111028]

  Ms Stuart
  The Department's Public Service Agreement includes 36 targets, all of which are on course to be reached. Progress on each of the targets will be published in the 2000 Departmental Report due to be published in April.

  Tobacco Advertising
  Mr. Hesford
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health when the Government plan to implement a ban on tobacco advertising. [111315]

  Yvette Cooper
  As part of our comprehensive programme against tobacco, the Government will implement a ban on tobacco advertising in line with Directive 98/43/EC as soon as practicable and will monitor its implementation closely.

  Hip Replacements (North-west)
  Mr. Tony Lloyd
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what is the average waiting time for hip replacement operations in hospitals in(a) Greater Manchester and (b) the North-west Region. [110850]

  Mr. Denham
  The information concerning hip replacement operations is not collected centrally. However, information is available for the total specialty of orthopaedics. During the period, October 1999 to 784W
  December 1999, the proportion of patients awaiting orthopaedic operations at National Health Service Trusts across Greater Manchester was as follows:

  Percentage waiting under six months: 57 per cent. (3,519 cases)

  Percentage waiting under 12 months: 88 per cent. (5,403 cases)

  Percentage waiting over 12 months: 12 per cent. (775 cases).

  For the same period across the North-west as a whole, the information is as follows:

  Percentage waiting under six months: 58 per cent. (11,508 cases)

  Percentage waiting under 12 months: 89 per cent. (17,732 cases)

  Percentage waiting over 12 months: 11 per cent. (2,188 cases).

  There are no patients waiting longer than 18 months for treatment in Orthopaedics or indeed any specialty in the North-west Region.

  Note:
  The information relates to those recorded as waiting during the quarter rather than those admitted from the waiting list for treatment.

  Wheelchairs
  Mr. Loughton
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health if he will make a statement on procurement policy for NHS wheelchairs. [111055]

  Mr. Hutton
  National Health Service Supplies negotiate framework agreements for the purchase of manual and electrically powered indoor/outdoor wheelchairs (EPIOCs) with manufacturers. The current agreement covers eight manufacturers. Wheelchair centres may purchase wheelchairs outside these agreements, subject to compliance with all local standing orders and European legislation. It is the responsibility of wheelchair centres to purchase the correct specification of wheelchair for individual patients.

  Mr. Loughton
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health how many wheelchairs have been supplied to the NHS in each of the last five years. [111056]

  Mr. Hutton
  Figures on the number of wheelchairs supplied to the National Health Service are not available. However numbers issued by the National Health Service are as follows:

  Year

  Manual

  Powered

  Total

  1994–95

  193,719

  9,441

  203,160

  1995–96

  190,073

  10,000

  200,073

  1996–97

  185,471

  10,135

  195,606

  1997–98

  not available

  not available

  —

  1998–99

  195,082

  12,939

  208,021

  Because of changes to information collection, no information is available for 1997–98.

  The figures for 1998–99 were obtained from an NHS Supplies exercise requesting data from trusts regarding wheelchair purchases and issues.

  Cot Deaths
  Mr. Oaten
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what assessment his Department's sponsored research into sudden unexpected deaths in infancy made of the incidence of deaths among(a) children sleeping on a

  785W
  mattress that was new for that child and (b) children sleeping on a mattress that had been previously used by other children. [111163]

  Yvette Cooper
  The Expert Group to Investigate Cot Death Theories, Chaired by Lady Limerick, looked at the data from the "Confidential Enquiry into Stillbirths and Deaths in Infancy/Sudden Unexpected Deaths in Infancy" study, relating to age of mattress. They found that this could not be used either to support or reject the hypothesis that older mattresses were more dangerous. They thus made no recommendations in this area. Copies of the Expert Group's report have been placed in the Library.

  NHS Funding (North-east)
  Mr. St. Aubyn
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what recent representations he has received regarding the level of NHS funding to the North-east from(a) hon. Members, (b) the North-east Development Agency and (c) others. [111087]

  Mr. Denham
  We have received a number of representations about the level of National Health Service funding for the North-east.

  For 2000–01 the health authorities in England have received revenue allocations totalling £33.6 billion. This represents a cash increase of 6.78 per cent. Of this, health authorities in the North-east have received £1.9 billion, a cash increase of 7.11 per cent.

  In-patient Statistics
  Mr. Matthew Taylor
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health, pursuant to his answer of 14 February 2000,Official Report, column 585W, on in-patient statistics, whether his answers are cumulative figures for all people admitted who are above the age stated, or whether they were only for those of that particular age range, between the age stated and the next age. [111243]

  Mr. Denham
  The answer given on 14 February 2000,Official Report, column 385W shows cumulative totals for all people admitted who are above the age stated.

SOCIAL SECURITY

  Departmental Functions (Food)
  Mr. Yeo
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security if all food served at his Department's official functions meets the standards of production required of domestic producers. [109776]

  Angela Eagle
  [holding answer 11 February 2000]: With the beginning of the PRIME contract in April 1998, most food that is served at Departmental official functions is now provided through catering outlets run by the sub-contractor, Sutcliffe Catering (UK) Limited. As a reputable company, Sutcliffe Catering ensures that all food is procured from suppliers who meet the standards of production required of domestic producers.

  ONE Pilot
  Jackie Ballard
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security what extra funding his Department has given to the Benefits Agency in Somerset for the implementation of the ONE pilot. [110462]
  786W
  Angela Eagle
  ONE is a new initiative designed to bring together the services offered by the Benefits Agency, the Employment Service and local authority benefit departments in one place and provide help to all working-age clients in returning to employment. ONE is currently being piloted in 12 areas of the country.

  The additional funding given to the Benefits Agency to implement the ONE pilot in Somerset during the 1999–2000 operational year was £283,285.

  This covered local implementation costs, staffing and management of the ONE service and the cost of covering the duties of staff undertaking training for ONE delivery. The total of additional resource available for these activities in the Somerset pilot, that is including the amounts made available to the Employment Service and Local Authorities, was £588,669, so the Benefits Agency received 48 per cent. of the total.

  Local implementation and delivery money was only part of the additional resource provided. Somerset also benefited from centrally managed funds, such as estates adaptations and information technology improvements. The contract for call centre telephony, which the Somerset pilot is testing, was also funded centrally. There is no breakdown by pilot area available for these centrally managed resources.

  Council Tax
  Mr. Coleman
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security if he will make a statement about(a) progress on research into the effects of council tax benefit restriction and (b) when the report will be published. [110542]

  Angela Eagle
  In March 1999 we commissioned independent researchers to monitor the effects of the Council Tax Benefit restriction introduced in April 1998. Although local authorities have sought to co-operate with the research, many encountered difficulties and delays in extracting usable data. We extended the fieldwork period in order to allow the maximum number of authorities to take part but the amount and quality of data we will collect from the study may be limited. All social research conducted as part of the DSS Research Programme is published. The only exceptions would be if the results breached confidentiality, were potentially libellous or unreliable. As long as the data are of sufficient quality and we are confident that the findings are reliable, we hope to publish a report of the study in Spring.

  Electricity (Renewable Sources)
  Mr. Gareth R. Thomas
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security what proportion of the electricity used by his Department is generated from renewable sources; and if he will make a statement. [111037]

  Mr. Bayley
  0.3 per cent. of the Department's electricity is generated from renewable resources under a specific contract with the Renewable Energy Company. The Department's estates partners, Trillium, are currently seeking further renewable sources for the next round of electricity tenders, and will be reporting to DSS Estates on progress. In addition, consideration is also being given to the potential for Combined Heat and Power (CHP) generation on larger sites. The Department and its
  787W
  estate partners are committed to a target of obtaining 10 per cent. of the Department's electricity from renewable resources by 2010.

  Peat Compost
  Mr. Paul Marsden
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security what steps he is taking to phase out the use of peat compost in gardens(a) owned and (b) tended by his Department; and if he will make a statement. [110720]

  Mr. Bayley
  This Department issued a Greening Operations Policy Statement in May 1999, which sets out its aims and objectives for greening its operations. With the Department's estate having been outsourced to Trillium, its Chief Executive was a joint signatory to the Statement and its accompanying Improvement Programme.

  Our policy on using materials in horticulture is to substitute slow renewables such as peat with organic waste products. Under the arrangements for delivery of the Improvement Programme Trillium has instructed its Service Partners to use peat substitutes whenever possible and DSS Estates monitors Trillium's performance on this and other targets in the Improvement Programme.

  Funeral Costs
  Mr. Todd
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security when the assumed cost of a funeral within the Social Fund was last revised. [110898]

  Angela Eagle
  There is no assumed cost of a funeral within the Social Fund Funeral Payment scheme.

  Under current legislation, where an eligible person is deemed to have good reason for taking responsibility for funeral expenses, the scheme allows for the fees levied by the burial authorities and crematoria (in so far as it is necessary to incur them), specified travel expenses and up to £600 for any other funeral expenses.

  We do not plan any further reforms in the immediate future but will continue to keep the scheme under review.

  Staff Training (Maidstone)
  Miss Widdecombe
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security what estimate he has made of the expense of retraining staff following the re-rolling from a full benefits office to a gateway of Medvale House, Madstone. [110437]

  Angela Eagle
  This is a matter for Peter Mathison, the Chief Executive of the Benefits Agency. He will write to the right hon. Member.

  Letter from Peter Mathison to Miss Ann Widdecombe, dated 17 February 2000:
  The Secretary of State has asked me to respond to your Parliamentary Question about Maidstone Benefits Agency Office.
  Following the move of work from Maidstone in May 2000 there will be 24 staff who will need to be redeployed.
  Out of the 24 staff, 2 are already contracted to work in other offices. A further 3 are on long term career breaks and will not be affected by the moves of work in May. The assignments for the remaining 19 staff are not due to be decided until the end of February, in anticipation of moves in May. A number of those staff will be transferred to another location where their skills and knowledge will be fully utilised, doing the same type of work. Staff
  788W
  moving to other offices on different duties will require training. However they will be filling posts that otherwise would be filled by new recruits who would have required extensive training. Therefore it is anticipated that the net cost of retraining will in effect be marginal.
  I hope this is helpful.

  Savings
  Mr. Burstow
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security if he will set out the basis for his Department's calculation that savings attract annual interest of 20 per cent.; when this figure was last reviewed; and if he will make a statement. [110918]

  Mr. Bayley
  The basis for the Department's calculation of tariff income in the income-related benefits, with a system of graduated deductions, is not intended to represent any return that could be obtained from investing capital and hence is not based on any assumed rate of return. A tariff income of £1 per week is assumed for each £250, or part thereof, held between the appropriate lower and upper limits'. The system provides a straightforward method of calculating the weekly contribution which people with capital in excess of the lower limit are expected to make from those resources to help meet their normal living expenses.

  There have been no changes to the tariff income formula since 1988. The capital rules are kept under regular review.

  Deduction rates rise with savings. At £3,250 the notional interest rate would be only 1.6 per cent. This rises until at £8,000 the tariff income is equivalent to an interest rate of 13 per cent. So the rule is most generous to people with relatively low savings, in line with the policy of targeting resources on those most in need.
  £13,000 and £8,000 in Income Support and income-based Jobseeker's Allowance, except in residential care home and nursing home cases where the limits are £10,000 and £16,000, and Housing Benefit and Council Tax Benefit where the limits are £3,000 and £16,000.

  Residential and Nursing Homes
  Mr. Burstow
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security when his Department last(a) reviewed and (b) uprated the amount payable to people in residential and nursing homes in the form of pocket money; and what would its current value be if it had been uprated in line with (i) prices and (ii) earnings, in each year since it was last set. [110921]

  Mr. Bayley
  The level of the personal expenses allowance (PEA) paid to people in residential care and nursing homes is reviewed annually as part of the general uprating of benefits.

  The current rate of PEA is £14.75. The rate from 10 April 2000 will be £15.45, which represents an increase in line with average earnings. If the allowance had been increased in line with prices the rate would have been £15.00.

  Notes:

  1. The figures are rounded to the nearest 5 pence at each uprating date.
  789W
  2. For income related benefits the ROSSI index (Retail Prices Index less rent, local taxes and mortgage interest payment) as published by the Office of National Statistics.

  3. Average Earnings Index Whole Economy (Non-Seasonally Adjusted) as published by the Office of National Statistics

  SERPS
  Mr. Willetts
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security when he will make an announcement on the future of SERPS payments to those whose partner has died. [111309]

  Mr. Rooker
  We will make a statement on inherited SERPS once we reach a conclusion on the way forward.

  Disabled Children
  Mr. Jim Cunningham
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security what plans he has to introduce direct benefit payments for disabled children aged 16 and 17. [110586]

  Mr. Bayley
  Social Security benefits can already be paid directly to disabled young people aged 16 and 17. In addition, provisions in the Carers and Disabled Children Bill, now before the House, would enable local authorities to make direct payments to 16 and 17 year old disabled young people for services that meet their assessed needs.

  Mortgage Interest Rates
  Mr. Burstow
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security if he will set out the basis on which his Department assumes a 6.6 per cent. interest rate in respect of mortgage repayments that are met by jobseeker's allowance and income support; when this figure was last set; and if he will amend the system to reflect changes in market interest rates. [110924]

  Angela Eagle
  Mortgage repayments for Jobseeker's Allowance and Income Support claimants are calculated by using a standard interest rate (SIR). The SIR is based on the weighted average of basic rates charged by the main building societies. The Building Societies Commission is responsible for the calculation of the average rate which is then passed to the Office for National Statistic's who publish it monthly in their financial statistics table 7.1L. Changes to the SIR are triggered by a 0.25 per cent. move in the published figure. The current figure of 6.66 per cent. was set in June 1999 and will be amended whenever a change is triggered.

  'Pensioners
  Mr. Jim Cunningham
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security what estimate he has made of the number of pensioners who are(a) entitled to claim income support and (b) who are claiming income support. [110584]

  Mr. Bayley
  As at August 1999, there were 1,628,000 Income Support pensioner claimants aged 60 and over. Latest estimates of take-up of income related benefits covering the year 1997£98 were placed in the Library on 24 September 1999.

  Source:

  Income Support Quarterly Statistical Enquiry, August 1999.
  790W
  Mr. Jim Cunningham
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security what measures he has in place to encourage pensioners entitled to claim income support to do so. [110585]

  Mr. Rooker
  I expect to make an announcement shortly on measures to encourage pensioners to claim the minimum income guarantee.

  Poverty
  Mr. Ruane
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security how many and what percentage of(a) children and (b) adults were living in poverty in each of the past 10 years; and what estimate he has made of the figures over the next three years. [110821]

  Ms Dari Taylor
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security if he will estimate the number of(a) children and (b) adults living in poverty (i) in actual terms and (ii) as a percentage of the general population in each category (A) for each of the past 10 years and (B) expected for these categories in each of the next three years. [110767]

  Mr. Bayley
  Poverty and social exclusion are complex multi-dimensional issues, affecting many aspects of people's lives, their income, health, housing, the quality of the environment, opportunities to work and to learn. There is no single measure which can capture the complex problems which need to be overcome.

  We are determined to tackle the problems that condemn many individuals and communities to poverty. That is why we set out our strategy for tackling poverty and social exclusion in our first annual report "Opportunity for All" (Cm 4445). The report includes a range of indicators that capture the many aspects of poverty and social exclusion. Information on the indicators, including definitions and baseline data, was placed in the House of Commons Library on 21 September to accompany "Opportunity for All".

  The indicators outlined in "Opportunity for All" include the number of people living in low income households. Information for one of the indicators outlined in "Opportunity for All" is shown in the table.

  Children below 60 per cent. of median income, including the self-employed

  Before housing costs

  After housing costs

  Number (millions)

  Proportion (percentage)

  Number (millions)

  Proportion (percentage)

  FES years

  1988–89

  2.9

  23

  3.3

  26

  1990–91

  3.2

  26

  3.9

  31

  1991–92

  3.4

  27

  4.1

  32

  1992–93

  3.5

  27

  4.3

  33

  1993–94

  3.3

  25

  4.2

  32

  1994–95

  3.2

  24

  4.2

  32

  1995–96

  3.5

  26

  4.6

  35

  FRS years

  1994–95

  2.9

  23

  4

  31

  1995–96

  2.7

  21

  4

  31

  1996–97

  3.3

  26

  4.4

  34

  1997–98

  3.2

  25

  4.3

  33

  791W

  Adults below 60 per cent. of median income, including the self-employed

  Before housing costs

  After housing costs

  Number (millions)

  Proportion (percentage)

  >Number (millions)

  Proportion (percentage)

  FES years

  1988–89

  8

  18

  9.3

  21

  1990–91

  8.2

  19

  9.6

  22

  1991–92

  8.3

  19

  9.9

  22

  1992–93

  7.9

  18

  9.7

  22

  1993–94

  7.2

  16

  9.3

  21

  1994–95

  6.9

  16

  9.2

  21

  1995–96

  7.3

  16

  9.6

  22

  FRS years

  1994–95

  6.9

  16

  9.2

  21

  1995–96

  6.6

  15

  8.9

  21

  1996–97

  7

  16

  9.5

  22

  1997–98

  7.1

  16

  9.3

  21

  Notes:

  1. Households Below Average Income (HBAI) estimates are based on Family Expenditure Survey (FES) data for the UK up to 1995–96 (combined financial years 1995–96 and 1996–97). From 1994–95, HBAI estimates are available for single financial years based on the larger Family Resources Survey (FRS), covering Great Britain. Despite the change in the survey and some changes in the precise definition of income, the estimates in this table are judged to be broadly comparable over the years.

  2. The estimates are presented on household income both Before Housing Costs and After Housing Costs in line with HBAI conventions.

  3. All estimates are subject to sampling error.

  Future year on year movements in the numbers of people falling below low income thresholds, and other poverty indicators, depend on a number of economic, social and demographic factors whose overall net effect cannot be predicted accurately, as well as on policy interventions.

  Benefits
  Mr. Burstow
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security (1) what estimate he has made of the annual administrative costs of recovering unpaid(a) benefit and (b) income support per claimant; and how much was spent by the Benefits Agency recovering overpaid (i) benefit and (ii) income support in each of the last 12 months; [108644]

  (2) how many Benefits Agency claimants were overpaid
  (a) benefit and (b) income support in each of the last 12 months; and how many of these claimants have repaid that (i) benefit and (ii) income support in full; [108643]

  (3) what is his policy in respect of recovering overpaid benefit from claimants overpaid by (a) over £5.00 and
  (b) under £5.00; [108645]

  (4) how much (a) benefit and (b) income support was overpaid in each of the last 12 months; and how much of this (i) benefit and (ii) income support was recovered from claimants; [108642]

  (5) what methods are used by the Benefits Agency to recover overpaid benefit from claimants who do not repay such benefit voluntarily; and in what percentage of overpayment cases these methods are used. [108646]

  Angela Eagle
  [pursuant to her reply, 7 February 2000, c. 60–62W]: Administration of benefits and recovery of overpayments is a matter for the Chief Executive of the Benefits Agency, Peter Mathison. He will write to the hon. Member.
  792W
  Letter from Peter Mathison to Mr. Paul Burstow, dated 17 February 2000:
  I am writing pursuant to Mark Fisher's letter of 4 February 2000 in response to your Parliamentary Questions about overpaid benefits.
  I am afraid that some of the statistics in the table attached to Mr. Fisher's letter were incorrect.
  I would be grateful if you would accept my apologies for the error, and find an amended reply attached.

  Amended reply from Peter Mathison to Mr. Paul Burstow, dated 17 February 2000:
  The Secretary of State has asked me to respond to your recent questions about overpaid benefits.
  The Benefits Agency (BA) aims to obtain the recovery of overpayments as quickly and efficiently as possible by the most cost-effective method, without causing hardship, and in accordance with Government Accounting and Departmental Policy.
  The BA spent £44m on recovering overpayments in the period April to December 1999. A monthly breakdown of this figure is set out in the attached appendix. Some of the information is not available in the format requested. For example, the BA does not break this down by benefit or by the number of overpayments recovered. Prior to April 1999, the BA did not separately identify costs relating purely to overpayment recovery across the whole BA.
  The BA captures information on the value of recoveries made. The number of overpayments arising during 1998–99 totalled just over one million, and 707,000 have been raised so far this year. A monthly breakdown of the recovery figures for the last 12 months is attached, they also provide a breakdown showing Income Support (IS) and all benefits (including IS) as you have requested.
  The BA does not normally seek repayment of overpayments less than £25. This is based on cost-effectiveness and in line with Government Accounting. However, there may be occasions when this is not adhered to, for example, when the overpayment has been quickly identified and the sum to be recovered is still likely to be held by the claimant and easily recoverable.
  The BA recovers overpayments by deductions from ongoing benefits, instalments, by a lump sum, or by civil proceedings. Typically, the BA will firstly invite repayment and in the vast majority of cases, recovery is implemented by mutual agreement between the debtor and the BA.
  Where the debtor remains in receipt of benefit and is not in a position to repay the overpayment immediately, recovery is normally pursued by deduction from ongoing benefit entitlement. This deduction can also be imposed compulsorily if no offer of repayment is forthcoming. Deductions from benefit, whether voluntary or compulsory, account for 74% of the overpayments currently being recovered.
  Where customers are not in receipt of any benefit, repayments will be expected. A person's failure to respond to an invitation to repay (or making an unreasonable offer) could lead the BA to consider seeking recovery through a civil action. The threshold for acceptance for civil action is currently £150. There is a six year time limit on proceedings.
  6.5% of overpayments currently being recovered have been subject to civil proceedings. The remaining are being recovered by other voluntary arrangements.
  Policy on civil proceedings to recover overpayments is that litigation is not pursued where the debtor remains in receipt of benefit. For those not in receipt of benefit, litigation is pursued as a last resort where voluntary arrangements are unsuccessful or break down.
  Recovery procedures follow guidance as provided in Government Accounting, where the recovery is likely to be detrimental to the health and/or welfare of the debtor or a member of their family, the Secretary of State has the power to exercise discretion and abandon recovery.

  793W
  Recovery of an overpayment arising as a result of an official error is pursued if the overpayment is identified quickly and it is reasonable to expect the customer to have been aware of the overpayment. Duplicate payments are classed as over provisions of

  £

  January

  February

  March

  April

  May

  June

  1999

  Tot no. new rec OP's in mth (IS)

  27,123

  26,639

  30,777

  18,567

  18,281

  21,877

  Tot no. new rec OP's in mth (All Benefits)

  52,561

  53,199

  60,183

  45,342

  44,082

  51,786

  Value of new rec OP's in mth (IS)

  18,796,579

  18,737,449

  22,131,924

  13,447,701

  12,600,292

  14,728,335

  Value of new rec OP's in mth (All Benefits)

  32,178,016

  32,018,594

  35,228,960

  24,723,691

  24,373,316

  27,035,826

  Tot no. new non-rec OP's in mth (IS)

  20,339

  22,045

  24,800

  17,554

  19,761

  23,758

  Tot no. new non-rec OP's in mth (All Benefits)

  43,143

  45,749

  46,818

  37,040

  39,214

  45,257

  Value of new non-rec OP's in mth (IS)

  5,591,053

  6,182,900

  6,961,243

  4,987,801

  5,457,898

  6,664,630

  Value of new non-rec OP's in mth (All Benefits)

  10,089,015

  10,436,679

  10,393,257

  8,644,667

  9,109,519

  10,770,468

  Value of Recoveries (IS)

  8,418,487

  8,969,871

  9,893,388

  9,285,188

  9,003,896

  10,405,948

  Total Value of Recoveries (All Benefits)

  11,430,165

  12,299,792

  13,783,085

  14,153,385

  13,401,132

  15,324,431

  Overpayment Recovery Costs (All Benefits)

  n/a

  n/a

  n/a

  4,721,919

  4,684,713

  4,847,579

  £

  July

  August

  September

  October

  November

  December

  Total

  1999

  Tot no. new rec OP's in mth (IS)

  22,256

  19,434

  21,918

  21,816

  23,987

  16,483

  269,158

  Tot no. new rec OP's in mth (All Benefits)

  50,313

  44,899

  51,163

  50,637

  55,658

  35,992

  595,815

  Value of new rec OP's in mth (IS)

  14,754,107

  13,507,005

  15,013,895

  14,696,705

  15,726,724

  10,676,725

  184,817,441

  Value of new rec OP's in mth (All Benefits)

  27,483,465

  23,961,212

  27,240,498

  27,540,002

  29,485,661

  19,174,711

  330,443,952

  Tot no. new non-rec OP's in mth (IS)

  19,561

  18,013

  18,523

  15,086

  20,114

  14,800

  234,354

  Tot no. new non-rec OP's in mth (All Benefits)

  37,545

  37,923

  38,717

  36,393

  39,742

  29,602

  477,143

  Value of new non-rec OP's in mth (IS)

  5,488,999

  5,119,030

  5,310,799

  4,415,309

  5,675,676

  4,292,801

  66,148,139

  Value of new non-rec OP's in mth (All Benefits)

  9,612,364

  8,724,765

  9,139,506

  8,579,775

  9,211,553

  6,685,788

  111,397,356

  Value of Recoveries (IS)

  9,304,915

  9,567,507

  8,181,140

  8,760,770

  10,220,253

  9,212,062

  111,223,423

  Total Value of Recoveries (All Benefits)

  13,946,991

  14,123,303

  14,227,108

  13,900,466

  15,273,343

  13,292,234

  165,155,434

  Overpayment Recovery Costs (All Benefits)

  4,787,460

  5,494,698

  4,502,158

  4,886,722

  5,538,471

  5,222,073

  44,685,793

CULTURE, MEDIA AND SPORT

  Advertising Budgets
  Mr. Baker
  To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport what is his Department's advertising budget for(a) 1999–2000 and (b) 2000–01. [110255]

  Mr. Chris Smith
  [holding answer 16 February 2000]: The only advertising undertaken by my Department this year has been to attract candidates for the many public appointments for which I am responsible. The budget for this is £130,000. The budget for 2000-01 has not yet been allocated.

  Departmental Staff
  Caroline Flint
  To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport what child care provision was made available in the financial year 1998–99 for use by (i) his departmental staff and (ii) employees of executive agencies under the control of his Department; what was the cost to parents of this child care; and how many parents used the facilities. [108837]

  Mr. Chris Smith
  I refer my hon. Friend to the reply given by my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office on 15 February 2000,Official Report, column 518W.
  794W
  benefit and are recoverable under common law. The Secretary of State has a duty to seek recovery of such overpayments where it is cost effective to do so.

  I hope this is helpful.

  The following table shows the type of child care provision in my Department and the Royal Parks Agency; the number of parents who used it; and the cost to parents:

  Type of provision

  Number of Parents using child care

  Cost to parents £

  Department for Culture, Media & Sport:

  Nursery

  1

  1,360

  Holiday playscheme

  5

  607

  Royal Parks Agency:

  Nil

  0

  0

  Caroline Flint
  To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport in each of the last five years, what proportion of women employees in (i) his Department and (ii) executive agencies under the control of his Department(a) returned to work after childbirth, (b) returned to work after childbirth before the end of maternity leave, indicating the (1) time-range and (2) mean time, (c) returned to work after childbirth on reduced working hours, indicating the average hours worked and (d) returned to work after childbirth full-time and subsequently reduced their hours. [108972]

  Mr. Chris Smith
  Details of maternity returners for my Department and the Royal Parks Agency are as set out.
  795W

  (i)Department for Culture, Media & Sport

  Proportion of women employees:

  1999

  1998

  1997

  1996

  1995

  (a) Returned to work after childbirth

  8

  5

  2

  1

  1

  (b) Returned to work after childbirth before end of maternity leave

  7

  3

  0

  1

  2

  1. Time range (in weeks)

  18–14

  27–43

  —

  18

  36–47

  2. Mean time (in weeks)

  27

  32

  —

  18

  41

  (c) Returned to work after childbirth on reduced working hours

  5

  3

  2

  0

  1

  (Average hours worked per week)

  (21.2)

  (22.2)

  (26.8)

  —

  (21.6)

  (d) Returned to work after childbirth full-time and subsequently reduced their hours

  0

  1

  0

  0

  0

  (ii) Royal Parks Agency

  Proportion of women employees:

  1999

  1998

  1997

  1996

  1995

  (a) Returned to work after childbirth

  3

  0

  1

  1

  0

  (b) Returned to work after childbirth before end of maternity leave

  0

  0

  0

  0

  0

  (c) Returned to work after childbirth on reduced working hours

  3

  0

  0

  1

  0

  (Average hours worked per week)

  (18)

  —

  —

  (18)

  —

  (d) Returned to work after childbirth full-time and subsequently reduced their hours

  0

  0

  0

  0

  0

  Caroline Flint
  To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport what provisions are made available to (i) departmental staff and (ii) employees of executive agencies under the control of his Department, for(a) maternity leave, (b) maternity pay, (c) paternity leave, (d) parental leave, (e) flexible working hours, (f) part-time work, (g) job sharing, (h) leave to care for sick children, (i) home-working, (j) term-time contracts, (k) annual hours

  Scheme/Provision

  Eligibility criteria

  (a) Maternity leave

  DCMS scheme

  Must be permanent or Fixed Term Contract (FTC) with Civil Service for two or more years. Also completed one year's service and be in paid service when maternity leave starts. Must agree for minimum of one calendar month

  Paid Maternity Leave–18 weeks

  Unpaid Maternity Leave—34 weeks

  If not eligible for DCMS scheme, Statutory leave for 18 weeks

  Statutory requirements

  (b) Maternity pay

  DCMS scheme

  As DCMS maternity leave above

  Full pay for 18 weeks If not eligible for DCMS scheme, Statutory Maternity Pay 6 weeks at higher rate (90%) of salary plus 12 weeks at lower rate

  Statutory requirements

  (c) Paternity leave

  Seven days

  All male Civil Servants, but temporary appointments of less than one year are excluded

  (d) Parental leave

  Three months unpaid leave (but will take account of special paid leave taken in connection with parental responsibilities)

  After one year's service

  (e) Flexible working hours

  Formal flexible working hours are available to staff

  Formal flexible working hours are available to all staff at grades D, C and B. Higher grades can agree to work flexi hours with their line manager

  Core time:

  Start 07.30–10.00 hours

  Work 10.00–12.00 hours

  Lunch 12.00–14.00 hours

  Work 14.00–16.00 hours

  Finish 16.00–19.00 hours

  Formal scheme requires a minimum of half hours lunch break. Carry forward up to two days credit and one and half days deficit. Can take maximum of two flexi days leave in four weekly period. Parks—some staff have reserved rights, but it is not generally possible in park offices, where cover is required until 5pm to comply with the Visitor's Charter. However, staggered working hours are worked as an acceptable system for managing start and finish times.

  796W
  contract, (1) child care allowances, (m) careers' leave and (n) career break schemes; and what criteria are used to judge eligibility in each case. [108844]

  Mr. Chris Smith
  Within my Department and the Royal Parks Agency the following provisions are currently available (unless indicated [in italics], the Park's provisions and criteria are the same as those for my Department).
  797W

  Scheme/Provision

  Eligibility criteria

  (f) Part-time work

  Available to all staff, but subject to operational needs

  All permanent DCMS staff

  (g) Job sharing

  Available to all staff, but subject to operational needs

  All pemenent DCMS staff

  (h) Leave to care for sick children

  Paid leave up to 10 days in one year at line manager's discretion.

  Depends on the applicant having the right personal qualities and skills together with the availability of suitable work

  Unpaid leave on ad hoc basis.

  Parks—special leave with pay may be granted to deal with short-term domestic problems, including care of a sick child

  (i) Home working

  Available on an ad hoc basis

  Depends on the applicant having the right personal qualities and skills together with the availability of suitable work

  Parks—nothing in place at present.

  (j) Term-time contracts Would consider if required

  Parks—possibility exists, subject to operational needs

  (k) Annual hours contracts

  Would consider if required

  (l) Child care allowance

  None available, but 50 per cent. of child care costs met through the DCMS schemes (one nursery place and holiday playscheme)

  Parks—the Agency does not currently pay child care allowances, but would link into DCMS schemes if their staff requested

  (m) Careers' leave

  Unpaid special leave—line managers authorise up to 20 working days (but up to 40 working days for visiting relatives overseas).

  All permanent/loan staff and FTC of two or more years. Must have completed probation, have a satisfactory attendance, conduct and performance record

  Personnel authorise all other requests for unpaid leave over 21 days.

  (n) Career break schemes

  Up to five years unpaid leave to

  All permanent DCMS staff.

  i)cope with domestic responsibilities,

  ii) undertake external studies which could benefit long term development, or

  iii) to gain wider/external career experience

  Mr. Cox
  To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport how many senior civil servants from an ethnic minority background are employed in his Department; and how many of them are(a) men and (b) women. [110682]

  Mr. Chris Smith
  As at 1 April 1999, 55 members of the senior civil service were from an ethnic minority background (1.7 per cent.)

  Information on ethnic origin in the civil service is collected on the understanding that it will be treated on a confidential basis. To protect the privacy of individual members of staff we do not disclose data relating to fewer than five people.

  My Department has fewer than five people of ethnic minority background in the senior civil service.

  Departmental Contracts.
  Mr. Don Foster
  To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport if he will list for the financial year 1998–99(a) the number and (b) the total value of contracts let by his Department with external consultants and advisers that (i) were put out to competitive tender, (ii) were not put out to competitive tender and (iii) were let on a non-commercial basis, stating in each case the names of the individuals or organisations that have carried out the work. [109264]
  798W
  Mr. Chris Smith
  [holding answer 9 February 2000]: In the financial year 1998–99 my Department let the following contracts valued at over £5,000 for external consultants and advisers:

  (a)Number

  (b) Value (£)

  (i)Competitive tender

  19

  685,000

  (ii)Single tender

  3

  21,500

  (iii)Non-commercial

  2

  21,650

  to the following contactors:

  Alan Jude Consultancy

  Alun Jones

  Aspen, Burrow, Crocker Ltd.

  CAG

  Deloitte & Touche

  Derek Etherington

  Durham University

  Energy Associates

  IPF Ltd.

  John Hobhouse

  John Stephens

  KPMG

  Leisure Futures Ltd.

  799W

  Loughborough University

  nme & kay

  Olsberg/SPI

  Phyllida Shaw

  RCC

  Rebecca Hawkins

  Sheffield Hallam University

  Sir Tom Legg

  Specialist Canine Services

  W S Atkins

  Watts & Partners.

  It is not possible to provide information for contracts valued at less than £5,000 as the information is not held centrally.

  Grants
  Mr. Don Foster
  To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport if he will list the initiatives launched by his Department since May 1997 under which specific grants are allocated, indicating in each case and for each financial year the funding provided by central Government. [109313]

  Mr. Chris Smith
  [holding answer 10 February 2000]: The bulk of my Department's expenditure goes to its sponsored bodies, details of whose grants schemes can be found in their annual reports and accounts. My Department has launched the following initiatives:

  DCMS/Wolfson Public Libraries Challenge Fund. £2 million DCMS funding (and £1 million Wolfson Foundation funding) each financial year since 1997-98 for projects which enhance the facilities or services of public libraries in England.

  DCMS/Museums and Galleries Commission ICT Challenge Fund. £0.5 million over the financial years 1999–2000 and 2000–01 for ICT projects developed by partnerships of museums (main beneficiaries are non national, non designated museums). The bulk of the funding will fall in 2000–01.

  DCMS/MGC Education Challenge Fund. £0.5 million over the financial years 1999–2000 and 2000–01 for Area Museum Councils to develop museums' educational work/resources. The bulk of the funding will fall in 2000–01.

  MGC/Museums, Libraries and Archives Council Designated Museums Challenge Fund. £3 million for 1999–2000, £4 million for 2000£01 and £8 million for 2001–02. Although the scheme is administered by MGC/MLAC, I retain the final approval of awards.

  Millennium Dome
  Mr. Peter Ainsworth
  To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport how many people are currently employed in the Millennium dome. [109726]

  Mr. Chris Smith
  [holding answer 11 February 2000]: A total of 2,077.
  800W
  Mr. Peter Ainsworth
  To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport if he will list those sponsors of the dome with whom discussions have taken place concerning a reduction in the value of sponsorship originally agreed. [109725]

  Janet Anderson
  [holding answer 11 February 2000]: All sponsors remain committed to the sponsorship values for which they have contracted with the New Millennium Experience Company. Where contracts have yet to be signed, the original values discussed and negotiated remain unchanged.

  Mr. Field
  To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport if he will list the Ministers who have been responsible for the Millennium Dome. [104655]

  Janet Anderson
  [holding answer 17 January 2000]: The following Ministers have held, on behalf of Her Majesty's Government, the shares in the New Millennium Experience Company and have therefore been accountable to Parliament for the Millennium Dome:
  the right hon. Roger Freeman MP (now Lord Freeman), under the previous Government, as Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster; the right hon. Chris Smith MP, from May 1997 to July 1997; the right hon. Peter Mandelson MP, from July 1997 to December 1998; the right hon. Chris Smith MP, from December 1998 to January 1999; and Lord Falconer of Thoroton, since January 1999.

  Mr. Salmond
  To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport if he will place in the Library a monthly estimate of the number of people visiting the Millennium Dome(a) in total and (b) broken down by nation and region of the United Kingdom. [104824]

  Janet Anderson
  [holding answer 18 February 2000]: A total of 366,420 visitors came to the Dome during January, its first month of operation. Detailed information on their place of residence is not available. However, a MORI poll of Dome visitors estimated that 27 per cent. were from London, 28 per cent. were from the South East of England, 34 per cent. were from the rest of the United Kingdom and 11 per cent. were from overseas.

  Libraries
  Mr. Breed
  To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport how many libraries have closed each year for the last 10 years in(a) rural areas and (b) urban areas. [110784]

  Mr. Alan Howarth
  Information about the annual number of library closures is not collected centrally. However, data about the number of libraries are set out in the Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accountancy's annual publication 'Public Library Statistics', which can be consulted in the Library of the House, and from which year-to-year changes can be established.

  Sports Action Zones
  Mr. Rooney
  To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport what criteria were used in determining eligibility for Sports Action Zones; what was the timetable for bids for such zones; and what process was used to arrive at the final awards. [111030]
  801W
  Kate Hoey
  Sport Action Zones, the first 12 of which were announced on 17 January, are part of Sport England's Lottery Sports Fund strategy, which was published in May last year. There will be a total of up to 30 Zones designated over the next 10 years. The Zones are areas where current basic sports provision falls furthest below an acceptable benchmark standard and there is significant economic deprivation. In selecting the areas to be designated, Sport England took into account a number of indicators of deprivation. These included the Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions 'Index of local conditions', areas which are subject to regeneration initiatives such Objective 1 status, the Single Regeneration Budget, Housing and Education Action Zones and areas such as former coalfields and rural communities which clearly have a deficiency of sports facilities. The designation process also involved discussions with local interests including local authorities, sporting and community groups. The process for designating further Action Zones is under consideration by Sport England.

  Sport England will now be discussing with all the local interests, including local authorities, governing bodies, community and volunteer groups and educational bodies a detailed needs analysis for each Zone which will be followed by the production of an Action Plan setting out the agreed priorities for the area. The Plans will form the basis of bids to Sport England for Lottery funding for projects aimed at meeting those objectives. The delivery of the Sport Action Zones objectives will require very close co-operation between all the local interests, with the emphasis very much on listening to the views of local communities and responding to their needs.

  Healthy Living Centres
  Mr. Ruane
  To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport if he will list the healthy living centres in each region and the year in which each was established. [110820]

  Kate Hoey
  To date the New Opportunities Fund has awarded funding for two healthy living centres, both of which were established in 1999. The St. Augustine's Project is located in the Eastern Region (Norfolk), and the Arden Rehabilitation Project is situated in the South-east Region (Kent).

  Over the lifetime of this initiative, the New Opportunities Fund expects to support over 300 healthy living centres UK wide. Over 70 bids are currently at an advanced stage of consideration and the New Opportunities Fund expects to make further announcements at the end of this month.

  In addition, there are a number of existing healthy living centres funded from other sources. We do not hold a central record of these.

  Funding
  Mr. Simon Hughes
  To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport what opportunities there are for(a) dance, (b) drama, (c) music, (d) art and (e) sport for people (i) under 16 years and (ii) over 60 years which receive funding from his Department. [111099]

  Mr. Alan Howarth
  The Arts Council of England which my Department funds directly (£227 million grant-in-aid in 1999–2000), is dedicated to giving opportunities 802W
  to young people, and supporting lifelong learning. Through initiatives ranging from the Lottery-funded Foundation for Youth Music to Green Candle Dance Company's ArtAge programme, the Arts Council is improving opportunities for all generations to experience a range of art forms. My Department also funds directly Sport England (£34 million grant-in-aid in 1999–2000), which seeks to ensure that opportunities for sport and physical education are available to all, regardless of age, through initiatives such as the Active Schools and Active Community programmes.

WALES

  Child Abusers
  Mr. Ruane
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales (1) if he will list the(a) number and (b) professions of the alleged abusers who were referred to but not named in the report, "Lost in Care"; [111032]

  (2) if he will place a list of the names of the child abusers listed but not named in the "Lost in Care" report in the Library; [111265]

  (3) if he will list the nature of the offences that those abusers, referred to but not named in the report, "Lost in Care", are alleged to have committed. [110986]

  Mr. Paul Murphy
  The report has been published and has been made available to my hon. Friend. The Tribunal's approach to the evidence, including its policy on naming is set out in Chapter 6. It would not be appropriate to list this information outside the context of the report.

  Mr. Ruane
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales if he will ensure that relevant information held by public bodies in relation to abusers in connection with the "Lost in Care" report is passed to police forces. [110984]

  Mr. Paul Murphy
  The Government expect public bodies to pass all relevant information about the alleged abuse of children to the police. This includes any information in connection with the "Lost in Care" Report.

  Mr. Ruane
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales if he will list the names of those alleged abusers referred to in the report, "Lost in Care", who(a) are awaiting prosecution for sexual abuse and (b) have not been prosecuted for sexual abuse. [110991]

  Mr. Paul Murphy
  The Tribunal has explained in chapter 6 of the report "Lost in Care" that it was unable to report at all on some allegations because they are the subject of ongoing police investigations and proceedings. A summary of developments on these investigations and proceedings between 1997 and 1999 is given at paragraphs 50.29 to 50.32 of the report.

  It was for the Tribunal to decide who should be named in the report. The Tribunal considered this issue carefully, and has set out its policy on naming names in chapter 6 of the report. It would not be appropriate for me to list any individuals, including alleged abusers awaiting prosecution for sexual abuse or who have not been prosecuted for sexual abuse, whom the Tribunal decided not to name in the report.
  803W
  Mr. Ruane
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales how many of those named as child abusers in the "Lost in Care" report have been found guilty of child abuse offences during the course of the Lost in Care inquiry. [111264]

  Mr. Paul Murphy
  I refer my hon. Friend to paragraphs 50.29 to 50.32 of the report.

  Mr. Ruane
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales if he will list the names and positions of the alleged abusers highlighted in the report, "Lost in Care". [111053]

  Mr. Paul Murphy
  The Tribunal considered carefully the issue of naming names, and has set out its policy on this issue in chapter 6 of the report.

  The Tribunal's findings against individuals of having harmed children or of being unsuitable to work with children relate to incidents of varying gravity which are described in the report. It is important to read the report to understand the context for these allegations and the Tribunal's findings.

  I will not therefore issue a list of their names and positions in isolation from the report.

  Mr. Ruane
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales if he will list the names of the alleged abusers, who have not been traced, referred to in the report, "Lost in Care" . [110985]

  Mr. Hanson
  The names of 28 individuals named in the report whose whereabouts were not known prior to publication were sent to local authorities, health authorities, and NHS trusts in England and Wales last week in confidence and for child protection purposes. The list of names was not drawn up for general publication, and I will not therefore list the names here.

  Mr. Ruane
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales how many of the victims of abuse in children's homes in North Wales, referred to in the report, "Lost in Care", committed suicide. [110983]

  Mr. Paul Murphy
  Information about these tragic events is not held centrally.

  Mr. Ruane
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales what(a) authorities and (b) children's organisations were contacted to try and trace the known sex abusers named in the "Lost in Care" report prior to its publication; and if he will make a statement. [111263]

  Nursery provision in the Home Office during 1998–99

  Management/location

  Name of nursery

  Number of places

  Weekly parental payment (£)

  Number of parents benefiting

  Home Office, UK Passport Agency and Prison Service Agency

  Central London

  Nurseryworks Waterloo

  8

  88.00

  10

  Stepping Stones

  4

  88.00

  8

  First Steps

  8

  88.00

  14

  Outer London (various locations)

  Buffer Bear

  10

  88.00

  5

  Prison Service Agency

  Outer London (various locations)

  Buffer Bear

  6

  81.50

  4

  Holloway and Pentonville

  Toddler's Inn

  44

  64.00

  60

  Immigration and Nationality Department

  Croydon

  Sunbeam

  50

  75.50

  67

  Outer London (various locations)

  Buffer Bear

  10

  88.00

  8

  804W
  Mr. Paul Murphy
  The successor local authorities and the police in North Wales had access to the evidence given to the tribunal. The authorities were therefore able to assess the position of those people who were named in the evidence and who were in their employment or involved in services regulated by them.

  However we were not in a position to share the names of those named in the report with other organisations until we had the protection of parliamentary privilege, following laying of the report as an unopposed return in the House of Commons.

HOME DEPARTMENT

  Departmental Staff
  Caroline Flint
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what child care provision was made available in the financial year 1998–99 for use by (i) his departmental staff and (ii) employees of executive agencies under the control of his Department; what was the cost to parents of this child care; and how many parents used the facilities. [108829]

  Mr. Straw
  The Civil Service as a whole is striving for an improved balance between work and family life. I refer my hon. Friend to the reply given to her by my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office on 15 February 2000,Official Report, columns 518–19W.

  The Home Office provides subsidised child care as part of a raft of policies to enable staff to better balance their work and home responsibilities.

  During the financial year 1998–99, the Home Office provided 157 subsidised nursery places to employees with children under five at a variety of locations. Emergency care was usually available at these locations for employees who had short-term difficulties with their usual child care provision. Holiday Playschemes are run in central London, Croydon, and on Merseyside during half terms and all the major school holidays for children aged five—12. A breakdown of the overall departmental provision including details of the parental contribution to fees and the number of parents who benefited from the provision is shown in the table.

  The parental contribution varies according to the location of the nursery or playscheme, but on average the department meets 38 per cent. of the child care costs.

  805W

  Nursery provision in the Home Office during 1998–99

  Management/location

  Name of nursery

  Number of places

  Weekly parental payment(£)

  Number of parents benefiting

  Core Home Office-Merseyside

  Bootle, Liverpool

  Bees Knees

  5

  53.50

  10

  Fire Service College

  Moreton-in-Marsh, Gloucestershire

  Welephants

  12

  57.50

  15

  Total

  157

  201

  Home Office provision of playschemes during 1998–99

  Management/location

  Playscheme

  Daily parental contribution

  Number of parents who benefited from provision

  Immigration and Nationality Department

  Croydon

  Sunbeam Club

  £8.50

  118

  Core Home Office-Merseyside

  Bootle, Liverpool

  St. John's Playscheme

  £3.50 for 1st child and £4 for other siblings

  21

  Core Home Office

  Central London

  Westminster Holiday Playscheme

  £9

  27

  Total

  166

  Caroline Flint
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what provisions are made available to (i) departmental staff and (ii) employees of executive agencies under the control of his Department, for(a) maternity leave, (b) maternity pay, (c) paternity leave, (d) parental leave, (e) flexible working hours, (f) part-time work, (g) job sharing, (h) leave to care for sick children, (i) home-working, (j) term-time contracts, (k) annual hours contract, (1) child care allowances, (m) careers' leave and (n) career break schemes; and what criteria are used to judge eligibility in each case. [108851]

  Mr. Straw
  The Civil Service as a whole is striving for an improved balance between work and family life. I refer my hon. Friend to the reply given to her by my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office on 15 February 2000,Official Report, columns 519W-22W.

  Changes to the maternity leave rights under the Employment Relations Act 1999, will apply to core Home Office employees who are pregnant and whose expected week of childbirth is the week commencing 30 April 2000 or later.

  Agencies

  Proportion of women employees 1 January 1995 to 9 February 2000

  Home Office1

  Fire Service College

  Forensic Science Service

  United Kingdom Passport Agency

  HM Prison Service

  All cases of childbirth where return status is known

  1,664

  21

  229

  325

  599

  (a) returned to work after childbirth2

  99 per cent.

  95.2 per cent.

  100 per cent.

  99 per cent.

  98.5 per cent.

  (1,646)

  (20)

  (229)

  (322)

  (590)

  (b) returned to work after childbirth before end of maternity leave3

  12.8 per cent.

  4.76 per cent.

  9.6 per cent.

  22.4 per cent.

  n/a

  (212)

  (1)

  (22)

  (72)

  (n/a)

  (1) time-range in days

  40–97

  96–97

  95–97

  67–97

  442–371

  (2) mean time in days

  95.4

  96.95

  96.5

  96.04

  144

  806W
  The Department currently meets the majority of these rights with its existing policy. I have placed a copy of the detailed statement in the Library.

  Caroline Flint
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department in the last five years, what proportion of women employees in (i) his Department and (ii) executive agencies under the control of his Department(a) returned to work after childbirth, (b) returned to work after childbirth before the end of maternity leave, indicating the (1) time-range and (2) mean time, (c) returned to work after childbirth on reduced working hours, indicating the average hours worked and (d) returned to work after childbirth full-time and subsequently reduced their hours. [109231]

  Mr. Straw
  The Civil Service as a whole is striving for an improved balance between work and family life. I refer my hon. Friend to the reply given to her by my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office on 15 February 2000,Official Report, columns 519W-20W.

  807W

  Agencies

  Proportion of women employees 1 January 1995 to 9 February 2000

  Home Office1

  Fire Service College

  Forensic Science Service

  United Kingdom Passport Agency

  HM Prison Service

  (c) returned to work after childbirth on reduced hours.5

  9.4 per cent.

  0 per cent.

  11.35 per cent.

  6.46 per cent.

  23.6 per cent.

  (157)

  (00)

  (26)

  (21)

  (139)

  average hours worked

  21:04

  n/a

  22:40

  21:10

  22:00

  (d) returned to work after childbirth full-time and subsequently reduced their hours7

  25.1 per cent.

  19 per cent.

  21.8 per cent.

  31 per cent.

  n/a

  (418)

  (4)

  (50)

  (101)

  (n/a)

  1 Staff movement between the Home Office and its Agencies can not be determined historically from the central personnel system. Figures given are for the careers of staff currently serving in the areas shown.

  2 This figure may include certain staff who returned to work after an additional career break following maternity leave.

  3 The proportion shown is that for staff returning before the end of paid maternity leave. Maternity leave changed from 14 to 18 weeks in 1999. A period of 14 weeks paid maternity leave has been used.

  4 For Prison Service staff it is assumed that all staff have taken the period of maternity leave due to them. The time-range given is that for all staff returning.

  5 The Home Office personnel system only holds current information on staff hours. This figure shows those staff who returned on reduced hours (and who have not since reverted to full-time working). Staff whose hours reduced within three days of their return are included in (c).

  6 The Prison Service personnel system only holds current information on staff hours. This figure shows those staff who either returned on part-time hours or later reduced their hours.

  7 The Home Office and non-Prison Service Agency figures in (d) shows those whose hours have reduced since return and who have not after that change returned to full-time working.

  Departmental Functions (Food)
  Mr. Yeo
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if all food served at his Department's official functions meets the standards of production required of domestic producers. [109782]

  Mr. Straw
  [holding answer 11 February 2000]: Food safety and hygiene guidance issued within my Department requires that food provided for official functions is obtained from staff restaurants or other reputable suppliers. These are subject to the Food Safety Act 1990. Any contracts let for food or catering services require providers to comply with all food safety legislation. I have no reason to think that these requirements are not being met.

  Emergency Services
  Mr. Sheerman
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department (1) how many calls to (a) fire brigades, (b) police forces and (c) ambulance services were (i) false alarms and (ii) malicious calls in each of the past five years; [110315]

  (2) what was the total number of 999 call-outs, for (a) the Fire Service, (b) the Police and (c) ambulances in each of the past five years; [110313]

  (3) what was the total cost of (a) false alarms and (b) malicious calls to the emergency services in each of the past five years. [110305]

  Mr. Mike O'Brien
  Figures for 999 calls received by fire brigades in England and Wales are not collected. This is because brigades often receive multiple 999 calls for a single incident. Brigades, therefore, record the number of incidents actually attended. The figures include fires, false alarms and special service incidents for the last five years for which the information is available, were as follows:

  Number

  1994

  988,914

  1995

  1,148,812

  1996

  1,060,845

  1997

  991,435

  1998

  900,287

  808W
  The following information on numbers of false alarms and malicious calls, therefore, relates to incidents actually attended.

  False alarms

  Malicious calls

  1994

  295,600

  132,200

  1995

  345,200

  102,700

  1996

  331,600

  98,400

  1997

  341,400

  88,800

  1998

  323,400

  74,100

  The number of 999 calls received by police forces in England and Wales was as follows:

  Number

  1993–94

  5,297,040

  1994–95

  6,088,654

  1995–96

  6,881,163

  1996–97

  7,297,219

  1997–98

  7,670,039

  No information on false or malicious 999 calls is collected centrally for police forces. Therefore, the information could be made available only at disproportionate cost.

  The number of emergency calls received by the ambulance services in England and Wales was as follows:

  Calls

  Response

  1994–95

  2,611,300

  2,609,600

  1995–96

  3,163,200

  2,855,700

  1996–97

  3,337,000

  2,993,800

  1997–98

  3,576,200

  3,160,500

  1998–99

  3,847,500

  3,291,000

  The difference between the number of calls and the number of actual responses is due to: duplicate calls, false alarms and hoaxes. It is not possible to separate these into the different categories.

  Political Donations
  Mrs. Ewing
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what assessment he has made of the impact of EU legislation on the free movement of capital on the provisions of the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Bill relating to donations to political parties for individuals and unincorporated bodies. [110286]

  Mr. Mike O'Brien
  [holding answer 15 February 2000]: The Government believe that the controls on donations set out in the Bill are compatible with our European Union treaty obligations.

  Secure Training Centres
  Jackie Ballard
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what is the ratio of staff, excluding administrative staff, to trainees at(a) Medway, (b) Rainsbrook and (c) Hassockfield secure training centres; how many staff have (i) resigned and (ii) had their employment terminated at each facility since opening; and if he will make a statement on current staff shortages at each facility. [110456]

  Mr. Boateng
  The contracts for the three secure training centres each require the Contractor to maintain minimum staffing levels in relation to the availability of 40 trainee places, regardless of the number of trainees held in the centre. The staff (excluding administrative staff) to trainee ratio underpinning these minimum requirements is as follows:

  Secure Training Centre

  Daytime

  Evening

  Night

  Medway

  26:40

  17:40

  9:40

  Rainsbrook

  26:40

  17:40

  9:40

  Hassockbrook

  37:40

  17:40

  9:40

  810W
  All three contracts require that, notwithstanding the minimum staffing levels set out in the table, the Contractor will provide a sufficient number of staff with the appropriate skills, qualifications and/or experience at the secure training centre to meet its obligations under, and comply with the provisions of, the contract at any time irrespective of the number of staff required for it to do so. This means that the staff to trainee ratios regularly exceed the minimum contractual requirements. A snapshot of the staff to trainee ratios at each of the three centres, based on the main morning shift on Friday 11 February, is as follows:

  Medway: 48:32

  Rainsbrook: 46:40

  Hassockfield: 37:20.

  Medway opened on 17 April 1998, Rainsbrook opened on 1 July 1999 and Hassockfield opened on 17 September 1999. Numbers of staff resignations and terminations for each establishment since opening are as follows:

  Resignations

  Terminations

  Medway

  61

  3

  Rainsbrook

  33

  5

  Hassockfield

  29

  5

  All three centres continue to maintain the contractual minimum staffing levels, with the exception that the full complement of Social Workers is not always being met at Medway and Rainsbrook. The Operating Contractors have provisional arrangements in place to cover these shortfalls and are continuing in their efforts to recruit additional Social Workers in the face of a shortage of Social Workers generally in these geographical areas.

  Jackie Ballard
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what formal(a) inspections and (b) audits have taken place in respect of (i) Medway, (ii) Rainsbrook and (iii) Hassockfield secure training centres since each facility opened; and what their findings were. [110457]

  Mr. Boateng
  Each secure training centre is subject to inspection by the Social Services Inspectorate. Formal inspections have so far taken place only at Medway. The centres at Rainsbrook and Hassockfield have been open for seven and a half and five months respectively and full inspections are not scheduled to take place until later this year. Three formal inspections have been undertaken at Medway and I am arranging for copies of the two published reports to be sent to the hon. Member. The report on the latest inspection is not yet available.

  No audits have taken place or are planned. Home Office Monitors are based at each site and they are responsible for seeing that the terms of the contracts are met on a day to day basis and also that the centres are complying with the Secure Training Centre Rules.

  HMP Altcourse
  Jackie Ballard
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department when a security audit of HMP Altcourse was carried out; what were the findings of the audit; if he will publish the findings; if the operator is to be penalised for contract failures identified by the audit; what contract failures occurred and what was the amount of the penalties incurred; what remedial action has been(a) recommended and (b) implemented in respect of deficiencies found; and if he will make a statement. [110445]

  Mr. Boateng
  A security audit of Altcourse prison was carried out between 27 January and 4 February 2000. The report has not yet been issued but I understand the overall rating awarded will be acceptable. The report and findings cannot be made public as the information they contain could compromise the security of the establishment. The report is due to be issued on 3 March and the Director of Altcourse will then produce an action plan addressing any shortcomings identified. When he receives the audit report, the Home Office Controller will consider whether any of its findings should lead to financial penalties against the contractor.

  Ashfield Young Offenders Institution
  Jackie Ballard
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what is the expected age range of the prisoner population at HMP and Young Offenders Institution Ashfield; what are the expected average numbers for each age group within the prisoner population; what specific training has been given to staff to care for each specific age group; when he expects the establishment to become overcrowded; and if he will make a statement. [110460]
  811W
  Mr. Boateng
  Ashfield is certified to hold 400 male offenders between the ages of 15 and 21. It is expected that 300 of these will be aged under 18. Under the terms of its contract, the prison can be asked to hold up to 40 prisoners above its uncrowded capacity. However, the level of overcrowding and when this might occur will be dependent on prison population pressures.

  All prison custody officers at Ashfield have received 40 hours of training on working with adolescents in addition to their normal six weeks of general training.

  Jackie Ballard
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what is the current prisoner population at HMP Young Offenders Institution Ashfield; when it will reach capacity; what incidents have been reported at the establishment since it opened; what is the current staff/prisoner ratio; what is the staff/prisoner ratio at full capacity; of serving prisoner custody officers, how many have experience of working in a young offenders institute run by the Prison Service; what is the ratio of managers to prisoner custody officers; and how many managers have had experience of working in Prison Service establishments. [110454]

  Mr. Boateng
  As at 16 February 2000, the prisoner population of Ashfield was 264. Under the terms of the contract, Ashfield was required to have 400 places available by 3 January 2000, and this was achieved. The rate of at which Ashfield fills will depend on the numbers of prisoners committed to custody by the courts.

  Incidents reported since Ashfield opened are detailed in the table.

  Four prison custody officers have previously worked in Prison Service establishments, three of them in Young Offender Institutions. Eleven managers have previously worked in Prison Service establishments. Staff ratios at Ashfield are a matter for the contractor.

  Incidents at Her Majesty's Prison/Young Offenders Institution Ashfield since 1 November 1999

  Number

  Fights

  23

  Self harm

  16

  Fire (minor)

  4

  Key incident

  1

  Possession of drugs

  4

  Proven adjudications for assaults

  45

  Tool loss

  1

  Firearms
  Mr. Alexander
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what plans he has to discuss with the Scottish Executive changes in the legislation governing the use and possession of firearms. [110495]

  Mr. Charles Clarke
  The Government have no immediate plans to change the laws governing the possession and use of firearms, but existing controls will be kept under close scrutiny to see if there is anything further which needs to be done to protect public safety. As part of this process, the Home Office remains in close contact with the Scottish Executive on a wide range of policing issues, including firearms controls as well as other issues of mutual concern. I have recently corresponded with the Scottish Minister of Justice about 812W
  the matters currently being considered by the Home Affairs Committee inquiry into controls on firearms and shall certainly wish to consult further and take into account the view of the Scottish Executive before responding to any recommendations.

  Mr. Alexander
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what recent estimate he has made of the number of people in the UK in possession of firearms. [110496]

  Mr. Charles Clarke
  Records are kept of the number of people holding firearm and shotgun certificates at the end of each year, and the figures for these as of the end of 1998 are as follows:

  Firearm Certificates

  Shotgun Certificates

  England and Wales

  131,900

  627,600

  Scotland

  31,072

  63,100

  Some individuals within these totals may hold both firearm and shotgun certificates. These figures do not take into account the ownership of low-powered air weapons which do not require a certificate.

  Firearms in Northern Ireland are recorded against the fiscal year and a single type of Firearm Certificate applies to firearms, shotguns and air weapons. At the end of March 1999, there were 83,229 certificates on issue in Northern Ireland.

  These figures do not include firearms possessed by Government agencies, commercial bodies or by institutions such as museums. Nor do they include any estimate of firearms in criminal hands.

  Prisons
  Jackie Ballard
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what criteria have been drawn up on which to base a decision to market-test failing public sector prisons; which prisons are now being considered for market testing; and if he will make a statement. [110458]

  Mr. Boateng
  I have asked the Director General of the Prison Service to put forward proposals on how prisons which continually fail to meet the standards required of them should be subjected to market-testing. No decision has been made on the criteria to be used, and there is no list of prisons being considered for market-testing.

  Jackie Ballard
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, pursuant to his answer of 27 January 2000,Official Report, columns 233–34W, on prisons, for what reason he did not include information on plans to open new prisons in the next five years. [110446]

  Mr. Boateng
  I regret that the information about new prisons was omitted in error from my reply of 27 January 2000,Official Report, columns 233–34W. The table shows new prisons scheduled to open in the next five years.

  813W

  New prisons planned

  Prison

  Rye Hill

  Marchington

  Location

  Near Rugby

  Staffordshire

  CNA (Certified Normal Accommodation)

  600

  800 (including 200 place therapeutic community)

  Costs at net present value1 (£ million)

  154

  240

  Operator

  Group 4

  Premier Prison Services

  Opening date

  January 2001

  July 2001

  1 The "cost at NPV" is the total cost of designing, constructing, financing and managing the prison over the 25 year life of the contract, expressed in Net Present Value (NPV) terms

  HMP Parc
  Jackie Ballard
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what financial penalties have been incurred by the operator of HMP Parc since 1 March 1999; what contract failures have been identified since 1 March 1999; what payments have been withheld in respect of such failures; on what date the Prison Service withdrew special managerial attention from HMP Parc; which recommendations made by HM Chief Inspector of Prisons in his report of October 1999 have(a) been implemented and (b) not been implemented, stating the method of implementation and reasons for non-implementation respectively; and if he will make a statement. [1104431

  Mr. Boateng
  Financial penalties totalling £199,950.48 have been withheld for the period 1 March 1999 to 31 December 1999, of which £198,594.65 have been calculated by converting the penalty points accrued during the period to a financial value in accordance with the performance mechanism contained in the contract. The amount also includes the sum of £1,355.83 which has been deducted from the contractor for "doubling" in excess of permitted levels.

  The incidents leading to the deductions are listed in the table and are failures to comply with performance standards.

  The list of establishments requiring close managerial attention has been discontinued. For the current approach to raising the standard of under-performing prisons, I refer the hon. Member to the reply given by my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary to my hon. Friend the Member for Bolton, West (Ms Kelly) on 31 January 2000, Official Report, column 426W.

  Responses to inspection reports follow a protocol agreed between the Secretary of State, the Prison Service and Her Majesty's Chief Inspector of Prisons. Following the publication of an inspection report, the Prison Service produces an action plan within 30 working days setting out in detail the programme for implementing each recommendation or, in some cases, the reasons for rejecting the recommendation. The report on Parc contained 216 recommendations and all but 23 are being implemented. Action plans are routinely updated nine and 15 months after publication to monitor the progress made, and copies are submitted to Ministers and to the Chief Inspector. I will write to the hon. Member with details of progress when the Parc action plan has been updated in July.
  814W

  Performance measures

  Number of incidents

  Keep prisoners in custody

  Escape from prison

  1

  Escape from escort

  0

  Absconds

  0

  Temporary release failure

  0

  Release in error

  0

  Items smuggled in

  1

  Category A procedure failure

  0

  Category A search failure

  0

  Failure of other (non-category A) procedure

  65

  Key lock compromises

  0

  Home detention curfew—risk assessment reports

  0

  Maintain order, control discipline and safe environment

  Assaults on staff and others

  19

  Assaults on prisoners

  13

  Incident of concerted indiscipline

  29

  Incidents of hostage taking

  0

  Incidents of roof climbing

  0

  Incidents of self harm

  211

  Failure to complete 90 per cent. of mandatory drug tests

  39

  Incidents of class A drugs including opiates

  17

  Incidents of other drugs

  165

  Contingency planning exercise

  0

  Fire evacuation exercise

  3

  Failure to comply with agreed reporting procedures

  0

  Tool/implement loss (found)

  0

  Tool/implement loss (not found)

  0

  Providing decent conditions for prisoners and meet their needs, including healthcare

  Failure to provide medical response

  0

  Failure to see Medical Officer on arrival

  178

  Failure to provide meals

  0

  Health and safety matter

  0

  Response to prisoner complaints

  122

  Substantiated complaints

  11

  Failure to comply with cleaning schedule

  26

  Repair failure

  0

  Substantiated complaint concerning mail

  0

  Providing purposeful activities

  Failure to deliver purposeful activity hours:

  (i) less than 95 per cent.

  19

  (ii) less than 75 per cent.

  15

  (iii) less than 50 per cent.

  0

  Failure to deliver required hours of activities:

  44

  Failure to deliver out of cell hours:

  (i) less than 95 per cent.

  10

  (ii) less than 75 per cent.

  18

  (iii) less than 50 per cent.

  16

  Failure to provide sentence plans:

  158

  Helping prisoners prepare for their return to the community

  Visits starting within 30 minutes of appointment

  80

  Release without discharge report

  18

  See legal aid adviser

  0

  Pre-release job searching

  20

  Compact issued and reviewed

  0

  Implementation of audit proposals

  Failure to implement audit report recommendations

  9

  815W

  Performance measures

  Number of incidents

  Failure to report performance measure

  Failure to report on performance measures under clauses (i), (ii)(a)-(f), (j)-(n), (iii)(a), (c)-(i), v(b)-(d), 9(vi)

  8

  Failure to provide any of the reports listed at annex A

  1

  Asylum Seekers
  Mr. Clappison
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, pursuant to his oral statement of

  Initial decisions made on applications received, October to December 19991,2,3

  October

  November

  December

  Total decisions

  2,630

  2,650

  2,320

  Cases considered under normal procedures

  Recognised as a refugee and granted asylum

  175

  230

  170

  Not recognised as a refugee but granted exceptional leave

  175

  215

  120

  Refusals:

  Total refused

  1,250

  1,410

  1,045

  Refused asylum and exceptional leave after full consideration

  975

  1,005

  665

  Refused on safe third country grounds

  145

  200

  100

  Refused on non-compliance grounds4

  130

  210

  280

  Backlog clearance exercise

  Granted exceptional leave under backlog criteria5, 6

  790

  715

  920

  Refused on non-compliance grounds under backlog criteria5,7

  240

  80

  65

  1 Figures are rounded to the nearest five.

  2 Information is of initial determination decisions, excluding the outcome of appeals or other subsequent decisions.

  3 Provisional figures.

  4 Paragraph 340 (paragraph 180F prior to 1 October 1994) of the Immigration Rules, for failure to provide evidence to support the asylum claim within a reasonable period, including failure to respond to invitation to interview to establish identity.

  5 Cases decided under pragmatic measures aimed at reducing the pre 1996 asylum application backlog.

  6 Includes a small number of cases where asylum has been granted.

  7 Includes a small number of cases where the application has been refused on substantive grounds.

  Mr. Lidington
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many asylum decisions were made by his Department in each week of January. [111344]

  Mrs. Roche
  Statistics on asylum decisions are not available on a weekly basis. Statistics showing how many decisions were made in January will be published via the internet at http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/rds/index.htm on 25 February 2000.

  Mr. Lidington
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what plans he has to alter the target of clearing all current asylum cases by October. [111345]

  Mrs. Roche
  We remain committed to the White Paper target of reducing the backlog of initial asylum decisions to frictional levels by April 2001. Over 250 new asylum decision-makers have already been recruited and more are planned. We are close to achieving 4,000 asylum decisions a month and we are aiming to make 8,000 a month by the late spring. At current intake levels, we expect to make major inroads into the backlog by the end of the year.

  Mr. Lidington
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what is the statistical source for his oral statement of 2 February 2000,Official Report, column 1064, that his Department is "close to achieving 4,000 asylum decisions a month". [111355]
  816W
  2 February 2000, Official Report, columns 1057–67, concerning the number of asylum decisions made each month, how many asylum decisions were made in each of the last three months for which figures are available; and if he will give full particulars of dates and types of decision. [110670]

  Mrs. Roche
  The available information is given in the table. The January figures will be published via the internet at http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/rds/index.htm. It would not be possible to give full details of the dates of each decision without the examination of individual case records.

  Mrs. Roche
  Provisional information from management sources indicated that the number of asylum decisions in January would be close to 4,000. The actual figure will be published on 25 February.

  Mr. Loughton
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many applications for asylum were received from applicants travelling from Pakistan in each of the last five years. [111057]

  Mrs. Roche
  The information requested is given in the table.

  Asylum applications 1 received in the United Kingdom, excluding dependents, 1995 to 1999, nationals of Pakistan

  Year

  Number

  1995

  2,915

  1996

  1,915

  1997

  1,615

  1998

  1,975

  1999

  2,615

  1 Figures rounded to nearest five

  Mr. Tynan
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department by what method the number of asylum seekers for dispersal to Scotland has been calculated. [111041]

  Mrs. Roche
  We have made no such calculations.
  817W
  We have given indications to local authority consortiums of the total amount of accommodation we are likely to need in 2000–01. We are now in the process of acquiring accommodation both from the public sector and the private sector in order to be able to accommodate the anticipated demand.

  Mr. Tynan
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what plans he has to use the powers under the Immigration and Asylum Act 1999 to direct local authorities in Scotland to take asylum seekers. [111042]

  Mrs. Roche
  I have no plans at this stage to exercise the powers in the Immigration and Asylum Act 1999 to direct any local authorities to take asylum seekers.

  Mr. Tynan
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many asylum seekers have been subject to dispersal from the South East of England; and how many have been dispersed to each local authority area in(a) England, (b) Wales and (c) Scotland. [111054]

  Mrs. Roche
  Under the interim arrangements, which came into force on 6 December, a total of 1,124 asylum seekers were dispersed from London and Kent up to 2 February 2000. They were all dispersed to local authorities across England. The table reflects how many have been subject to dispersal in each region/local authority:

  Dispersal by region/local authority

  Number

  North West

  Liverpool

  210

  Bolton

  34

  Blackburn

  24

  Manchester

  28

  Oldham

  22

  Blackpool

  7

  Salford

  33

  Wigan

  34

  Bury

  34

  Rochdale

  35

  Trafford

  13

  Tameside

  13

  Stockport

  13

  Wales

  0

  North East

  Calderdale

  7

  Newcastle

  34

  Sunderland

  14

  Redcar

  11

  North Tyneside

  8

  Gateshead

  8

  Middlesbrough

  4

  South Tyneside

  4

  West Midlands

  Wolverhampton

  23

  Birmingham

  10

  Dudley

  5

  Warwick

  2

  Coventry

  1

  South Central

  Basingstoke

  16

  Portsmouth

  41

  Bournemouth

  9

  818W

  Dispersal by region/local authority

  Number

  Yorkshire/Humberside

  Wakefield

  83

  Kirklees

  52

  Sheffield

  38

  Barnsley

  35

  Leeds

  22

  Grimsby

  58

  Rotherham

  11

  Bradford

  9

  East

  0

  East Midlands

  Derby

  48

  Nottingham

  6

  South West

  0

  The interim arrangements do not apply in Scotland where existing arrangements for the support continue to have effect until the new scheme under Part VI of the Immigration and Asylum Act 1999 comes into force.

  Combat 18
  Mr. McNamara
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department (1) what estimate he has made of the membership and geographical distribution of Combat 18 in the United Kingdom; and what assessment he has made of how it has changed over the past five years; [110661]

  (2) how many individuals have been charged in the past three years with offences related to their activities on behalf of Combat 18 or in association with suspected members of that organisation; and if he will set out a chronological list of the charges made and the outcome at trial; [110662]

  (3) what assessment he has made of the aims and objectives of the organisation known as Combat 18. [110663]

  Mr. Charles Clarke
  I understand that the name "Combat 18" is used by a very small number of individuals with neo-nazi views who associate in a series of loose groupings, mainly in South-East England. The name has also been used by others in racist graffiti or in connection with acts of vandalism and hooliganism. This has been the position for the last five years. It is not possible to provide authoritative information on criminal proceedings because links to these loose groupings are seldom clear cut.

  The Government deplore the activities of any group or individual which promotes bigotry, hate and violence.

  HMP Manchester
  Jackie Ballard
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what criteria were used as the basis for the decision to market-test the current service level agreement for HMP Manchester; and if he will make a statement. [110459]

  Mr. Boateng
  The current service level agreement for Manchester expires in 2001 and the competitive process of a market test is the best means of driving up standards and of obtaining a high quality service at maximum value for money.

  Freedom of Information
  Mr. Llew Smith
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what is his policy on the extent to which(a) the Information Commissioner and (b) the utility regulators will have the overriding power to adjudicate on matters of dispute in regard to applications for release of information from utilities. [110648]

  Mr. Mike O'Brien
  Under the Freedom of Information Bill, which was introduced into Parliament last November, the Information Commissioner will have wide powers to adjudicate on complaints arising from a public body's refusal to disclose information requested by an applicant.

  The utility regulators are public bodies and are included in the scope of the Bill. Applicants may obtain such information about the public functions of the utilities as their regulators hold, if it does not fall within any of the exemptions in the Freedom of Information Bill. And even when a public authority receives a request for information which is exempt, it will be required to consider the exercise of any discretion it may have to disclose it.

  The Information Commissioner has the power to order disclosure except where an exemption has been properly relied on, and the issue is whether information should be disclosed as a matter of discretion. Where information is exempt, the Commissioner may consider whether the authority had proper regard to its discretion to release the information when it is in the public interest. She can also recommend discretionary disclosure of the information. In such cases, however, it would be for the public body, in this case the utility regulator, to determine whether or not to accept the Commissioner's recommendation.

  We have made it clear that we are considering representations made during the course of the debate in the Commons on Second Reading and in the Committee Stage. My hon. Friend did not contribute in these debates but if he wishes to write to me I will certainly consider any points he wishes to make.

  Mr. Llew Smith
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will make a statement on the mechanism by which the freedom of information legislation is to be implemented in Northern Ireland. [110649]

  Mr. Mike O'Brien
  Freedom of Information proposals within the Bill will apply to Northern Ireland in the same way as to England and Wales. However, when the suspension of the Northern Ireland Assembly is lifted, the Assembly will be able to use its power to amend the legislation in relation to bodies in the transferred field. It will be up to them to decide whether they wish to do so.

  Clause 85, subsection (3) of the Bill makes provision for the legislation to come into force within five years of achieving royal assent. This is a statutory limit and not a target for implementation. This subsection also makes provision for the Secretary of State, by order, to appoint different days for the legislation to come into force for different purposes.

  Stansted Hijack
  Mr. Tyrie
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what are the criteria he used to distinguish 820W
  applications from those seeking asylum following the Stansted hijacking from other applications outstanding which led him to consider the former personally. [110562]

  Mrs. Roche
  While it is for the Secretary of State to make decisions on asylum claims, there are too many for the Home Secretary to do so in every case. However, as my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary, said in his statement to the House on 10 February 2000,Official Report, columns 417–18, the special circumstances of the hijacking caused him to decide to consider these particular asylum applications personally.

  West Yorkshire Police
  Mr. Wood
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many police officers are currently suspended in the West Yorkshire Force; and in each case for how long the officer has been suspended. [110468]

  Mr. Charles Clarke
  West Yorkshire Police currently has 13 officers suspended. Five officers have been suspended for 330 days; and others have each been suspending for 401 days, 251 days, 246 days, 241 days, 235 days, 185 days, 150 days and 108 days.

  Data Protection Registrar
  Mr. Waterson
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what is the average time taken by the Data Protection Registrar to deal with complaints from the public. [110666]

  Mr. Mike O'Brien
  The Data Protection Registrar publishes information about complaints handling in her Annual Report to Parliament. Her 15th report, published in July 1999, records that in 1998–99 a total of 1,686 complaint files were closed. Of these, 38 per cent. were open for 0–3 months; 26 per cent. for 3–6 months; 19 per cent. for 6–12 months; and 17 per cent. for more than 12 months.

  Farm Watch Schemes
  Mr. Breed
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department (1) what assessment he has made of the success of farm watch schemes in combating crime; [110786]

  (2) what assessment he has made of the success of the Kent Country Eye partnership in combating crime. [110785]

  Mr. Charles Clarke
  The Government recognise that, although people in rural areas face much the same sort of crime as urban and inner-city areas, they have different policing needs. Owing to the physical nature of the countryside, police response times may not always be as quick as they or the public would like.

  The most effective response to rural crime, therefore, is the partnership approach between the police and local communities and schemes such as Farm Watch and Country Eye are important in enabling members of the public to work with the police and other agencies to tackle specific issues of crime and disorder.

  As schemes such as Farm Watch and Country Eye are run at local level in conjunction with local police forces, the Home Office does not keep records and has not

  821W
  evaluated their success. Along with Neighbourhood Watch, though, they appear to be popular and worthy of replication.

  Feltham Young Offenders Institute
  Dr. Cable
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what was the average time out of cell for(a) juvenile and (b) young adult remand prisoners in Feltham Young Offenders Institute during 1999. [110961]

  Mr. Boateng
  The amount of time individual prisoners at Feltham spend out of cell may vary according to their location within the establishment. In 1999, the average time out of cell was 3.45 hours per day for unsentenced prisoners aged under 18 years, and 3.29 hours per day for those aged 18 to 21.

  As a result of a specific recruitment initiative for London and the South-East, the governor of Feltham expects to achieve full staffing levels by July, which will allow the time spent on purposeful activity and out of cell to rise.

  Dr. Cable
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what assessment he has made of the factors which have led to officers seeking transfer out of Feltham Young Offenders Institute. [110960]

  Mr. Boateng
  The main reason why staff leave Feltham is the high cost of living in London. To help attract new staff, the governor may offer a relocation package to help with the cost of living. Changes to the age limits for prison officer recruitment have been introduced together with an alternative entry test for those without the formal educational qualifications. The governor may, in exceptional circumstances, start new recruits above the normal starting salary.

  A specific recruitment drive for London and the south-east, including Feltham, was initiated in October 1999. Applications resulting from this are still being assessed, but a large number of successful candidates are starting duty at Feltham during the first quarter of this year.

  Prison Staff (Recruitment and Retention)
  Dr. Cable
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what plans he has to improve the recruitment and retention of prison staff in areas of high property prices. [110959]

  Mr. Boateng
  The Prison Service recognise that there are concerns about the recruitment and retention of staff predominantly, but not exclusively, in the South-East. This area has been particularly affected by recent trends in house prices.

  The Service is currently working with unions on a number of initiatives which aim to address pay and recruitment and retention issues. These initiatives
  822W
  included a review of local pay issues. This builds further on changes to pay and recruitment introduced in 1999 which included:
  the introduction of additional flexibility to offer higher starting pay for new entrants including prison officer and related grades;
  raising significantly the minimum rates of many administrative and industrial grades in the 1999 pay round;
  launching a national recruitment campaign specifically targeted to filling posts in London and the South-East, which included a central clearing house to speed up processing of applications;
  offering relocation expenses of up to £5,000 to new entrant prison officers who have to move home in order to take up an appointment in high priced housing areas, principally in London and the South-East;
  the introduction nationwide of an alternative entry test for candidates who do not meet the minimum educational requirements for entry as a prison officer; and
  the introduction of revised upper and lower age limits for prison officer recruitment.

  Foston Hall
  Mr. Todd
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what steps are being taken to ensure that prisoners at HMP and Young Offenders Institution Foston Hall have access to suitable health care. [110899]

  Mr. Boateng
  There is a full range of clinics and counselling services at Foston Hall prison. However, improvements are being made to health care services at the prison. The governor has had discussions with the chief executive of Derbyshire National Health Service to agree new arrangements under the new joint Prison Service/National Health Service partnership. All standards will be met under the new partnership. A health questionnaire prepared by the health authority has been completed by prisoners and will form the basis of a needs analysis.

  Gambling
  Mr. Cohen
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what plans he has to set up an inquiry into the future of gambling; and if he will make a statement. [111274]

  Mr. Mike O'Brien
  I refer my hon. Friend to the reply given by my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary to my hon. Friend the Member for Enfield, Southgate (Mr. Twigg) on 16 February 2000,Official Report, columns 537-38W, which set out the terms of reference for the review of gambling which should start shortly after Easter and which will be undertaken by a review body chaired by Sir Alan Budd.

  Immigration and Nationality Directorate
  Mr. Jim Cunningham
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what progress he has made in the reform of the Immigration and Nationality Directorate. [110590]

  Mrs. Roche
  The Immigration and Nationality Directorate has continued to operate an efficient port control, facilitating the arrival in the United Kingdom of nearly 90 million passengers (returning residents, tourists,
  823W
  business travellers, students and others), while preventing the admission of those not entitled to enter and removing many not entitled to stay. Workload pressures and operational difficulties have slowed dispatch of asylum and other casework, but the ground has been laid for recovery. A new legislative framework has been established for the future conduct of immigration and asylum business in the interests of the economic growth and social stability of the United Kingdom.

  Performance Inspection Probation Report
  Mr. Jim Cunningham
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what assessment he has made of the Performance Inspection Probation report for the West Midlands Region. [110589]

  Mr. Boateng
  I have considered the reports by Her Majesty's Chief Inspector of Probation on the five services in the West Midlands region resulting from inspections carried out early in 1999 under his Performance Inspection Programme of probation services in England and Wales.

  The Chief Inspector considers that two services, Hereford and Worcester and Warwickshire, are generally performing satisfactorily; that Staffordshire, while not performing satisfactorily in all respects, has features which contain good practice; and that Shropshire and West Midlands services are underachieving.

  Pilot area/order

  Reparation order

  Parenting order

  Action plan order

  Westminster

  20

  2

  27

  Kensington and Chelsea

  21

  0

  30

  Hammersmith and Fulham

  23

  3

  53

  Hampshire, Portsmouth, Southampton and the Isle of Wight

  637

  28

  401

  Wolverhampton

  147

  19

  127

  Sheffield

  236

  9

  84

  Lewisham

  1—

  13

  1—

  Devon

  1—

  12

  1—

  Bedfordshire

  1—

  31

  1—

  Luton

  1—

  12

  1—

  St. Helens

  1—

  23

  1—

  Sunderland

  1—

  90

  1—

  Blackburn

  26

  1—

  1—

  Total

  1,110

  242

  722

  1 The provision is not being piloted in this area

  In addition, two child safety orders have been made, both in the Sunderland pilot area.

  Hendon Police Training College
  Mr. Heald
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many officers have applied to join training at the Metropolitan Police Training College at Hendon commencing in March 2000. [110976]

  Mr. Charles Clarke
  The Metropolitan Police Commissioner informs me that as at 18 February, there are 80 applicants to join the March 2000 intake.
  824W
  This last point is a matter of serious concern. Shropshire and West Midlands services receive a full follow up inspection later this year, as part of a planned programme of such inspections.

  I will consider the position further on receipt of reports of these re-inspections.

  Anti-social Behaviour Orders
  Mr. Hawkins
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many anti-social behaviour orders have been implemented in each police authority area. [111020]

  Mr. Charles Clarke
  Records of the numbers of anti-social behaviour orders granted by the courts are not currently held centrally, but we understand that about 25–30 orders have been made.

  Court Order Pilots
  Mr. Hawkins
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will list the areas in which(a) reparation orders, (b) parenting orders, (c) child safety orders and (d) action plan orders are being piloted; and how many such orders which have been issued to date in each pilot area since the legislation came into force. [111021]

  Mr. Boateng
  The information requested is set out in the table. It indicates the number of orders made in the pilot areas from 30 September 1998 to 31 January 2000, the latest date for which this information is available.

  Mr. Heald
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what is the maximum number of officers which can be taken for training by the Metropolitan Police Training College at Hendon on a monthly basis. [110969]

  Mr. Charles Clarke
  The Metropolitan Police Commissioner informs me that the training college at Hendon provides a wide range of residential and non-residential training courses, including recruit training. The maximum number of officers who can be accommodated for residential courses is 945.

  Mr. Heald
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many officers were taken for training by the Metropolitan Police Training College at Hendon in each month since April 1999 to date. [110968]
  825W
  Mr. Charles Clarke
  The information requested is given in the table, provided by the Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police.

  Month

  Intake

  April

  145

  May

  0

  June

  86

  July

  90

  August

  110

  September

  103

  October

  87

  November

  94

  December

  0

  January

  101

  February

  57

  Note:

  Intakes are five weekly, so some months have no intake

  Police Officer projected wastage 2000–03

  Projected wastage in terms of losses to each force and the service

  Projected transfers

  Force

  2000–01

  2000–02

  2000–03

  Total

  2000–01

  2000–02

  2000–03

  Total

  Avon and Somerset

  115

  111

  111

  337

  5

  10

  10

  25

  Bedfordshire

  45

  49

  57

  151

  9

  4

  5

  18

  Cambridgeshire

  63

  62

  57

  182

  5

  5

  5

  15

  Cheshire

  78

  90

  102

  270

  6

  6

  6

  18

  City of London

  40

  39

  39

  118

  14

  13

  13

  40

  Cleveland

  53

  58

  53

  164

  6

  6

  6

  18

  Cumbria

  57

  57

  57

  171

  6

  6

  6

  18

  Derbyshire

  73

  74

  73

  220

  4

  3

  3

  10

  Devon and Cornwall

  132

  84

  96

  312

  6

  4

  4

  14

  Dorset

  81

  72

  61

  214

  1

  1

  1

  3

  Durham

  49

  56

  54

  159

  5

  5

  5

  15

  Dyfed-Powys

  40

  42

  40

  122

  4

  4

  4

  12

  Essex

  114

  115

  117

  346

  8

  8

  8

  24

  Gloucestershire

  36

  50

  50

  136

  2

  2

  2

  6

  Greater Manchester

  278

  279

  257

  814

  15

  15

  15

  45

  Gwent

  59

  51

  54

  164

  3

  3

  3

  9

  Hampshire

  150

  152

  170

  472

  15

  15

  15

  45

  Hertfordshire

  93

  105

  95

  293

  21

  23

  21

  65

  Humberside

  89

  94

  80

  263

  6

  6

  6

  18

  Kent

  150

  141

  145

  436

  20

  19

  19

  58

  Lancashire

  102

  100

  116

  318

  2

  2

  2

  6

  Leicestershire

  75

  83

  94

  252

  9

  9

  9

  27

  Lincolnshire

  63

  63

  52

  178

  3

  3

  3

  9

  Merseyside

  145

  155

  165

  465

  15

  15

  15

  45

  Metropolitan

  1,200

  1,100

  1,050

  3,350

  200

  200

  150

  550

  Norfolk

  53

  63

  62

  178

  3

  3

  3

  9

  North Wales

  59

  59

  59

  177

  3

  3

  3

  9

  North Yorkshire

  56

  58

  59

  173

  6

  5

  5

  16

  Northamptonshire

  43

  54

  58

  155

  3

  3

  3

  9

  Northumbria

  124

  124

  118

  366

  13

  10

  13

  36

  Nottinghamshire

  78

  78

  78

  234

  6

  6

  6

  18

  South Wales

  152

  152

  152

  456

  4

  4

  4

  12

  South Yorkshire

  102

  102

  99

  303

  11

  11

  11

  33

  Staffordshire

  81

  81

  81

  243

  8

  8

  8

  24

  Suffolk

  54

  52

  55

  161

  3

  2

  5

  10

  Surrey

  142

  242

  105

  489

  25

  20

  25

  70

  Sussex

  185

  185

  185

  555

  15

  15

  15

  45

  Thames Valley

  164

  181

  195

  540

  25

  25

  25

  75

  Warwickshire

  46

  49

  47

  142

  5

  5

  5

  15

  West Mercia

  104

  94

  94

  292

  6

  6

  6

  18

  West Midlands

  312

  312

  312

  936

  43

  43

  43

  129

  West Yorkshire

  190

  209

  197

  596

  10

  11

  11

  32

  Wiltshire

  41

  48

  48

  137

  4

  4

  4

  12

  Total

  5,366

  5,425

  5,249

  16,040

  583

  571

  531

  1,685

  Police Officers
  Mr. Heald
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department (1) what estimates he has received from each police force of total wastage in police numbers for the three years commencing in April 2000; [110977]

  (2) what estimates he has received from each police force of the actual wastage in police numbers for the three years commencing in April 2000. [110755]

  Mr. Charles Clarke
  In their bids for a share of the recruitment scheme of the Crime Fighting Fund, forces provided information on their projected wastage over the next three years. The table shows the estimates they have given for (i) wastage in terms of losses to each force and the Police Service as a whole; and (ii) projected transfers (i.e. transfers from each force into another), for the next three years. The latter are not losses to the Service.
  827W
  Mr. Heald
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what(a) total wastage and (b) actual wastage in police numbers has taken place since March 1999 on a monthly basis in respect of each police force. [110972]

  Mr. Charles Clarke
  Wastage figures for the police are not collected on a monthly basis. The numbers of officers who left police forces between April and September 1999 are given in the table. These figures do not reflect recruitment to forces during this period.

  Police strength in England and Wales: Wastage (April 1999 to September 1999)1

  Police force

  Number of officers

  Avon and Somerset

  60

  Bedfordshire

  31

  Cambridgeshire

  28

  Cheshire

  39

  City of London

  31

  Cleveland

  34

  Cumbria

  35

  Derbyshire

  21

  Devon and Cornwall

  65

  Dorset

  36

  Durham

  25

  Dyfed-Powys

  19

  Essex

  99

  Gloucestershire

  30

  Greater Manchester

  155

  Gwent

  40

  Hampshire

  111

  Hertfordshire

  50

  Humberside

  48

  Kent

  64

  Lancashire

  54

  Leicestershire

  36

  Lincolnshire

  29

  Merseyside

  85

  Metropolitan Police

  715

  Norfolk

  28

  Northamptonshire

  16

  Northumbria

  62

  North Wales

  26

  North Yorkshire

  33

  Nottinghamshire

  45

  South Wales

  95

  South Yorkshire

  63

  Staffordshire

  39

  Suffolk

  29

  Surrey

  35

  Sussex

  88

  Thames Valley

  90

  Warwickshire

  21

  West Mercia

  57

  West Midlands

  157

  West Yorkshire

  105

  Wiltshire

  25

  NCS

  137

  NCIS

  14

  Total all forces

  3,105

  1 Wastage includes retirements, dismissals, deaths and departures for other reasons

  Mr. Heald
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, pursuant to his answer of 9 February 2000, to the hon. Member for Elmet (Mr. Burgon),Official Report, column 172W, of the 12,478 police officers, how many are planned to be recruited by each force in each of the three years commencing in April. [110754]
  828W
  Mr. Simon Hughes
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, pursuant to his answer to the hon. Member for Elmet (Mr. Burgon) of 9 February 2000,Official Report, column 172W, on police officer recruitment, if he will give a breakdown for each police force, in each year, of the officers they are planning to recruit over the next three years; for what reason the estimated figure of general police recruitment over the next three years is lower than the estimate he gave in October 1999 to the Home Affairs Committee; and if he will make a statement. [110743]

  Mr. Charles Clarke
  In their bids for a share of the recruitment scheme of the Crime Fighting Fund, forces provided information on their planned recruitment over the next three years. The table shows the projected appointments on probation and transfers in from other forces.

  Actual recruitment levels will depend on the chief officer's decisions in the light of the available resources—including the outcome of the 2000 Spending Review now under way.

  When my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary spoke to the Home Affairs Committee on 26 October last year, the best estimate at that time for the recruitment of new officers to the police service over the next three years was based on projecting forward past trends and suggested between a little over 13,000 and 16,500, but crucially, depending on the assumptions made about the impact of future budget pressures. Professor Buck independently verified these figures and thought that taking 15,000 as an indicative figure for planning purposes was not unreasonable. My right hon. Friend the Home Secretary said that we would be seeking more specific information from forces about their recruitment plans.

  In bidding for a share of the Fund, forces were asked for details of the numbers of officers (new to the service) that they were planning to recruit over the next three years. Their projections come to 12,478.

  Forces' projections reflect the decisions and assumptions they and their police authorities have made about the way in which they will use the resources available to them, not just next year but in the two following years, where budgets have yet to be settled.

  Projected police officer recruitment—2000–03

  Force

  2000–01

  2001–02

  2002–03

  Total

  Projected appointments on probation

  Avon and Somerset

  65

  80

  80

  225

  Bedfordshire

  52

  52

  52

  156

  Cambridgeshire

  101

  52

  47

  200

  Cheshire

  70

  76

  73

  219

  City of London

  50

  52

  52

  154

  Cleveland

  59

  51

  47

  157

  Cumbria

  5

  60

  60

  125

  Derbyshire

  36

  60

  48

  144

  Devon and Cornwall

  88

  48

  70

  206

  Dorset

  42

  36

  31

  109

  Durham

  46

  53

  51

  150

  Dyfed-Powys

  34

  36

  34

  104

  Essex

  200

  113

  115

  428

  Gloucestershire

  90

  70

  70

  230

  Greater Manchester

  244

  279

  257

  780

  Gwent

  0

  74

  51

  125

  Hampshire

  170

  152

  170

  492

  Hertfordshire

  114

  128

  116

  358

  Humberside

  0

  0

  0

  0

  829W

  Projected police officer recruitment—2000–03

  Force

  2000–01

  2001–02

  2002–03

  Total

  Kent

  145

  60

  139

  344

  Lancashire

  80

  80

  80

  240

  Leicestershire

  71

  83

  94

  248

  Lincolnshire

  55

  55

  45

  155

  Merseyside

  40

  40

  40

  120

  Metropolitan

  692

  346

  600

  1,638

  Norfolk

  20

  31

  29

  80

  North Wales

  57

  57

  57

  171

  North Yorkshire

  60

  63

  60

  183

  Northamptonshire

  27

  37

  40

  104

  Northumbria

  154

  137

  134

  425

  Nottinghamshire

  87

  73

  73

  233

  South Wales

  192

  162

  162

  516

  South Yorkshire

  80

  80

  80

  240

  Staffordshire

  11

  34

  68

  113

  Suffolk

  16

  36

  55

  107

  Surrey

  145

  212

  100

  457

  Sussex

  160

  160

  160

  480

  Thames Valley

  180

  175

  166

  521

  Warwickshire

  48

  48

  48

  144

  West Mercia1

  66

  50

  90

  206

  West Midlands

  330

  330

  330

  990

  West Yorkshire

  105

  105

  105

  315

  Wiltshire

  28

  27

  31

  86

  Total

  4,315

  3,953

  4,210

  12,478

  Projected Transfers in

  Avon and Somerset

  25

  25

  25

  75

  Bedfordshire

  2

  2

  2

  6

  Cambridgeshire

  15

  15

  15

  45

  Cheshire

  10

  10

  10

  30

  City of London

  0

  0

  0

  0

  Cleveland

  12

  13

  12

  37

  Cumbria

  0

  0

  0

  0

  Derbyshire

  4

  16

  11

  31

  Devon and Cornwall

  20

  20

  20

  60

  Dorset

  32

  36

  30

  98

  Durham

  8

  8

  8

  24

  Dyfed-Powys

  10

  10

  10

  30

  Essex

  10

  10

  10

  30

  Gloucestershire

  5

  5

  5

  15

  Greater Manchester

  10

  10

  10

  30

  Gwent

  0

  8

  6

  14

  Hampshire

  20

  15

  15

  50

  Hertfordshire

  14

  14

  14

  42

  Humberside

  0

  0

  0

  0

  Kent

  15

  15

  15

  45

  Lancashire

  6

  6

  6

  18

  Leicestershire

  9

  9

  9

  27

  Lincolnshire

  15

  11

  10

  36

  Merseyside

  10

  10

  10

  30

  Metropolitan

  15

  15

  15

  45

  Norfolk

  12

  12

  12

  36

  North Wales

  5

  5

  5

  15

  North Yorkshire

  15

  10

  15

  40

  Northamptonshire

  5

  6

  7

  18

  Northumbria

  0

  0

  0

  0

  Nottinghamshire

  11

  11

  11

  33

  South Wales

  12

  12

  12

  36

  South Yorkshire

  12

  12

  12

  36

  Staffordshire

  0

  5

  10

  15

  Suffolk

  4

  4

  4

  12

  Surrey

  37

  50

  30

  117

  Sussex

  15

  15

  15

  45

  Thames Valley

  5

  5

  5

  15

  Warwickshire

  0

  0

  0

  0

  West Mercia1

  10

  10

  10

  30

  West Midlands

  20

  20

  20

  60

  West Yorkshire

  10

  10

  10

  30

  Wiltshire

  8

  8

  8

  24

  Total

  448

  478

  454

  1,380

  830W

  Projected police officer recruitment—2000–03

  Force

  2000–01

  2001–02

  2002–03

  Total

  Total projected appointments on probation plus Transfers in

  Avon and Somerset

  90

  105

  105

  300

  Bedfordshire

  54

  54

  54

  162

  Cambridgeshire

  116

  67

  62

  245

  Cheshire

  80

  86

  83

  249

  City of London

  50

  52

  52

  154

  Cleveland

  71

  64

  59

  194

  Cumbria

  5

  60

  60

  125

  Derbyshire

  40

  76

  59

  175

  Devon and Cornwall

  108

  68

  90

  266

  Dorset

  74

  72

  61

  207

  Durham

  54

  61

  59

  174

  Dyfed-Powys

  44

  46

  44

  134

  Essex

  210

  123

  125

  458

  Gloucestershire

  95

  75

  75

  145

  Greater Manchester

  254

  289

  267

  810

  Gwent

  0

  82

  57

  139

  Hampshire

  190

  167

  185

  542

  Hertfordshire

  128

  142

  130

  400

  Humberside

  0

  0

  0

  0

  Kent

  160

  75

  154

  389

  Lancashire

  86

  86

  86

  258

  Leicestershire

  80

  92

  103

  275

  Lincolnshire

  70

  66

  55

  191

  Merseyside

  50

  50

  50

  150

  Metropolitan

  707

  361

  615

  1,683

  Norfolk

  32

  43

  41

  116

  North Wales

  62

  62

  62

  186

  North Yorkshire

  75

  73

  75

  223

  Northamptonshire

  32

  43

  47

  122

  Northumbria

  154

  137

  134

  425

  Nottinghamshire

  98

  84

  84

  266

  South Wales

  204

  174

  174

  552

  South Yorkshire

  92

  92

  92

  276

  Staffordshire

  11

  39

  78

  128

  Suffolk

  20

  40

  59

  119

  Surrey

  182

  262

  130

  574

  Sussex

  175

  175

  175

  525

  Thames Valley

  185

  180

  171

  536

  Warwickshire

  48

  48

  48

  144

  West Mercia1

  76

  60

  100

  236

  West Midlands

  350

  350

  350

  1,050

  West Yorkshire

  115

  115

  115

  345

  Wiltshire

  36

  35

  39

  110

  Total

  4,763

  4,431

  4,664

  13,858

  1 West Mercia uncertain about level of budget: 31 or 66 will be recruited in 2000–01.

  Metropolitan Police
  Mr. Heald
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what estimate he has received from the Metropolitan Police Commission of the end of year 1999–2000 strength of the Metropolitan Police as against the budgeted target. [110975]

  Mr. Charles Clarke
  The Metropolitan Police Commissioner informs me that the estimate of police strength at the end of the current financial year will be 26,048 officers against a budgeted target of 26,425 officers.

  Both figures include officers seconded to the National Criminal Intelligence Service and the National Crime Squad.

  Mr. Heald
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what has been the total number of civilian staff in the Metropolitan Police Service in each month since March 1999. [111045]
  831W
  Mr. Charles Clarke
  The information requested is given in the table, provided by the Metropolitan Police Commissioner:

  Month

  Numbers of civilian staff

  March

  11,390

  April

  11,249

  May

  11,190

  June

  11,242

  July

  11,259

  August

  11,219

  September

  11,119

  October

  10,861

  November

  10,844

  December

  10,796

  January

  10,791

  Notes:

  1. Figures represent the totals as at the end of each month

  2. 313 civilian staff were transferred to outsourced contractors between March 1999 and January 2000

  Mr. Heald
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what has been the total number of constables with less than two years police service in the Metropolitan Police Service in each month since March 1999. [110973]

  Mr. Charles Clarke
  The information requested is given in the table, provided by the Metropolitan Police Commissioner:

  Month

  Number of constables with less than two years service

  March

  2,574

  April

  2,604

  May

  2,449

  June

  2,382

  July

  2,285

  August

  2,257

  September

  2,246

  October

  2,320

  November

  2,301

  December

  2,213

  January

  2,221

  Note:

  Figures provided represent the position at the end of each month

  Interception Warrants
  Mr. Heald
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many complaints have been(a) made to and (b) upheld by the Tribunal set up under the Interception of Communications Act 1985 since its establishment. [111136]

  Mr. Charles Clarke
  The number of complaints investigated by the Tribunal are given in the table:

  Year

  Number of complaints

  1986–871

  41

  1987

  32

  1988

  30

  1989

  49

  1990

  59

  1991

  58

  1992

  45

  1993

  41

  1994

  36

  1995

  62

  832W

  Year

  Number of complaints

  1996

  33

  1997

  79

  1998

  75

  1999

  2—

  1 April 1986 to April 1987

  2 Not yet available

  On no occasion has the Tribunal concluded that there had been a contravention of sections 2–5 of the Interception of Communications Act 1985.

  Mr. Heald
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many interception warrants he authorised in 1999. [111142]

  Mr. Charles Clarke
  Figures for the number of warrants authorised in 1999 are not yet available. They will be published in the annual report of the Commissioner appointed under the Interception of Communications Act 1985 (currently Lord Nolan). A copy will be placed in the Library.

  Mr. Heald
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many interception warrants were in force in England, Wales and Northern Ireland on 31 December 1999. [111132]

  Mr. Charles Clarke
  Figures for the number of warrants in force on 31 December 1999 are not yet available. They will be published in the annual report of the Commissioner appointed under the Interception of Communications Act 1985 (currently Lord Nolan). A copy will be placed in the Library.

  Mr. Heald
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many modifications of interception warrants he authorised in(a) 1997, (b) 1998 and (c) 1999. [111135]

  Mr. Charles Clarke
  Figures are available only for the modification of warrants issued for the purpose of the prevention and detection of serious crime. Until 1 August 1998, this power was used only for warrants issued on the grounds of national security or of safeguarding the economic well-being of the United Kingdom. From 1 August 1998 until 31 December 1998, there were 172 modifications of serious crime warrants. Figures for 1999 are not yet available.

  Traffic Wardens
  Mr. Heald
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what has been the total number of traffic wardens in the Metropolitan Police Service jurisdiction in each month since March 1999. [110974]

  Mr. Charles Clarke
  The information requested is given in the table provided by the Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police:

  Traffic wardens in the Metropolitan police jurisdiction

  Month

  Number

  March

  964

  April

  948

  May

  927

  June

  918

  July

  905

  August

  892

  September

  895

  833W

  Traffic wardens in the Metropolitan police jurisdiction

  Month

  Number

  October

  872

  November

  859

  December

  857

  January

  845

  Note:

  Figures represent the position as at the end of each month.

  Legislation
  Mr. Simon Hughes
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department when he will publish the Bill to extend the use of mandatory drug testing, reform the probation services in England and Wales, create a new children and family court advisory service and prevent unsuitable people from working with children; what are the reasons for the timescale adopted for publishing the Bill; and if he will make a statement. [110749]

  Mr. Charles Clarke
  We will introduce legislation to reform the probation service in England and Wales, to create a new children and family court advisory service, to provide for mandatory drug testing, to extend the use of electronic monitoring, and to create an integrated system to help prevent unsuitable people from working with children, as soon as parliamentary time allows.

  Fines
  Mr. Simon Hughes
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, pursuant to his answer of 11 February 2000,Official Report, column 318W, for what reasons the number of people fined for offences has fallen over the last 10 years; whether it is his policy to increase the number of offenders fined; what the latest figures are for reoffending rates following a fine compared to other types of sentence; and if he will make a statement. [110953]

  Mr. Charles Clarke
  The Government want to encourage the use of fines, which can be an effective penalty. A project funded under the Crime Reduction Programme is under way to identify and extend successful fine enforcement techniques. This should encourage courts to make greater use of fines.

  The use of fines as a disposal has been decreasing since the mid 1970s. This is due to a combination of factors including the greater variety and use of community sentences, and the increased use of immediate custody. Other specific factors, such as the sharp fall in 1996–97 in proceedings under the Wireless Telegraphy Acts (mainly Television licence evasion), and changes arising from the reclassification of the offence of driving while disqualified also had an effect.

  Information on reoffending rates is not available centrally. The latest information on reconviction rates following fines and other types of non-custodial disposal is shown in the table. These relate to a sample of offenders who were sentenced during the first quarter of 1996 and reconvicted within two years of sentence. 56 per cent. of those released from custody during 1995 were reconvicted within two years of release.
  834W

  Two year reconviction rates by type of non-custodial disposal, first quarter of 1996

  Percentage

  Disposal

  Reconviction rate

  Conditional Discharge

  45

  Fine

  36

  Probation

  60

  Community Service

  51

  Jury Trials
  Mr. Marshall-Andrews
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will list for 1995 to 1999 the number and percentage of those who elected trial by jury in either way offences and who subsequently pleaded guilty who were committed jointly charged with others who contested the case in the Crown Court. [110819]

  Mr. Charles Clarke
  As I stated in my reply to a question from my hon. and learned Friend on 9 December 1999,Official Report, column 618W, the information requested is not collected centrally.

  Mr. Marshall-Andrews
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many people ordinarily resident in Scotland elected trial by jury in either way offences in the United Kingdom in each year from 1995 to 1999. [110818]

  Mr. Charles Clarke
  The information requested is not collected centrally. It is only in England and Wales that defendants have the option of electing trial by jury.

FOREIGN AND COMMONWEALTH AFFAIRS

  Iran
  Mr. Stephen Twigg
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what assessment he has made of the evidence of the Director of the CIA to the US Congress on Iranian foreign policy. [105003]

  Mr. Hain
  We are not aware of the CIA Director recently addressing Congress on Iranian foreign policy. We are, however, aware that he addressed the Senate on 3 February and touched on Iran.

  Arms Sales
  Mr. Streeter
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what plans he has to end export credits for arms sales. [109199]

  Mr. Hain
  The scope of the Government's productive expenditure initiative (which excludes export credit cover for projects that do not contribute to the social and economic development of the country concerned) is being discussed as part of the thorough review of ECGD ordered by the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry. The FCO is playing a full part in this review.

  Mr. Streeter
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what recent discussions he has had with the Secretary of State for International Development regarding the decision to ban 62 of the world's poorest countries from receiving Export Credits Guarantee Department cover for arms sales. [109198]
  835W
  Mr. Hain
  The Secretary of State welcomes the announcement by the Chancellor to extend the so called "productive expenditure" criteria for export credits to a further 22 developing countries (taking the total to 63). These criteria exclude projects that do not contribute to the social and economic development of the country concerned. This does not exclude export credit support for arms sales but military equipment can be provided only when improved security can be shown to have a positive development impact, for example, fishery protection vessels. The scope of the productive expenditure initiative is being discussed as part of the thorough review of the Export Credits Guarantee Department ordered by the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry. The FCO is playing a full part in this review.

  Paper and Timber Products
  Mr. Reed
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what steps he has taken to ensure that paper and timber products purchased by his Department come from a sustainable source. [110161]

  Mr. Hain
  The Department has issued environmental guidance to purchasing staff which encourages buyers to use products from sustainable sources.

  This guidance is being reviewed as part of the Environmental Audit of FCO operations.

  Mr. Reed
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs if he will ensure that paper and timber products purchased by his Department are independently certified by the Forest Stewardship Council as coming from a sustainable source. [110162]

  Mr. Hain
  The Forestry Stewardship Council (FSC) label is accepted by buyers as demonstrating that timber and timber products have come from sustainably managed resources. It is not practicable to require that all paper and timber products purchased by the Department are independently certified by FSC because this might discriminate against any equally valid schemes and therefore be against public procurement rules. Moreover, insistence on FSC certification alone might result in FCO failing to meet all its requirements as only a tiny percentage of timber products are currently FSC certified. The Department is undertaking an environmental audit of its operations.

  The issue of certification of sustainably managed paper and timber sources will be addressed. Evidence of sustainability might take the form of a certificate issued under a credible, preferably independent, verification scheme; or other documents which demonstrate the operation of an environmental management system incorporating forest management criteria which conform with internationally recognised principles such as the Helsinki Guidelines.

  China
  Mr. Ben Chapman
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what plans he has to encourage further strengthening of professional exchanges between the UK and China. [110404]

  Mr. Battle
  We attach importance to strengthening professional exchanges with China. The British Council has given particular support to this work, notably in the 836W
  educational, legal and construction sectors, through collaboration projects, seminars and other training schemes, with the assistance of professional institutions.

  We also support the UK/China Forum, a high-level non-governmental body, the first meeting of which was held in October 1999, and whose work in the fields of industry, finance, environment, science and technology, law, education, culture and the media, should also strengthen professional exchanges in these areas.

  Mr. Ben Chapman
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what plans he has to increase co-operation with China within the framework of the UN for the promotion of international peace and security. [110405]

  Mr. Battle
  As Permanent Members of the UN Security Council, we and China maintain an ongoing dialogue on a range of international peace and security issues. Chinese peacekeepers also serve with British peacekeepers in a number of countries.

  Mr. Ben Chapman
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what assessment he has made of the effectiveness of Voluntary Service Overseas in strengthening links between young people from Britain and China. [110406]

  Mr. Battle
  Voluntary Service Overseas' mission is to post skilled volunteers to work in organisations with the aims of skills exchange, institutional development and poverty reduction, as well as to provide educational opportunities for the volunteers. The commitment each VSO volunteer makes to working in China for a minimum period of two years undoubtedly helps to strengthen links between young (and not so young) people in Britain and China. DFID provides grant-in-aid to VSO, and is responsible for carrying out evaluations of its effectiveness.

  Mr. Ben Chapman
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what plans he has to promote the development of exchanges between police forces in China and the UK in the field of protecting the victims of crime. [110910]

  Mr. Battle
  We encourage increased links with the Chinese police. UK police forces and their Chinese equivalents have co-operated successfully on a number of cases. The UK has provided training for senior Chinese police officers; the Chinese have indicated that such training is highly valued. Further exchanges are planned both with the police and the National Narcotics Control Commission. We believe that these exchanges will expose the Chinese to best practice and further develop respect for civil rights and the rule of law in China.

  Mr. Ben Chapman
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs if he will make a statement about the steps being taken by the Government to encourage China to continue its process of economic reform. [110908]

  Mr. Battle
  We support China's process of economic reform and we believe that China's membership of the WTO will prove a powerful stimulus to China's continuing economic reform. We also believe that the presence of British companies in China—there are now over 2,500 British-invested Joint Ventures—encourages China to continue the process of economic reform.
  837W
  The Department for International Development is supporting the process of reform of State-Owned Enterprises through a £19 million programme to develop models for enterprise restructuring and development. They are also in discussions with the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank about co-operation in assistance with fiscal reforms.

  We also support the training of Chinese lawyers and judges, and believe that progress towards a proper rule of law will help China's economic reforms. We also assist in the training of Chinese financial regulators through a course funded by British Trade International, and the Treasury hold a regular financial dialogue with their Chinese counterparts. We believe all these programmes have a positive effect on China's economic and financial reforms.

  Sudan
  Mr. Rowe
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what methods his Department uses to assess transparency in accounting for the expenditure by the Sudanese Government of its oil revenues. [110382]

  Mr. Hain
  Oil was first exported from Sudan in August 1999 and the Government of Sudan have a 5 per cent. stake. We have pressed for revenues to be used for development projects and for transparency in the oil account. The Government of Sudan have made public assurances that this will happen. We shall look to them to honour those assurances and shall remain focused on this issue as evidence becomes available.

  Exports
  Mr. Rowe
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what criteria his Department uses in advising the Department of Trade and Industry on designating a country as a suitable recipient of UK exports. [110383]

  Mr. Battle
  The FCO and DTI trade support services are now operated by British Trade International, which has lead responsibility within government for trade development and promotion on behalf of British business. Established in May last year following a Cabinet Office review of all export promotion activities across government, British Trade International has now published its national strategy for international trade and development.

  Advertising Budget
  Mr. Baker
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what was the average cost of issuing a media release from his Department in 1999. [110276]

  Mr. Robin Cook
  [holding answer 16 February 2000]: £76.52 for press releases distributed through the Central Office of Information. This figure includes a proportion of standing charges as well as per release delivery. In addition, a number of press releases are issued each month direct from FCO out of hours for which cost and other figures are not available.

  Yugoslavia
  Mrs. Gillan
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what factors underlay his proposal for a temporary suspension of the ban on flights by European carriers into the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. [110491]

  Mr. Vaz
  The General Affairs Council of 14 February agreed to suspend the EU ban on flights between EU and Serbian destinations for a period of six months (Montenegro and Kosovo are already exempt from the ban). The UK supported this decision as a positive response to the requests of the democratic Serb opposition, and as part of the package which included the significant tightening of sanctions targeted on the Milosevic regime such as the visa ban list and financial sanctions.

  Mrs. Gillan
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what is his assessment of the impact that the Energy for Democracy scheme has had upon the Belgrade regime; and what plans he has to broaden the initiative to other Serbian towns. [110492]

  Mr. Vaz
  The initial response of the Serbian government to the Energy for Democracy scheme was to block the first consignment of heating oil at the FRY/ Macedonian border. They were forced to let the consignment through after public protests in the towns of Nis and Pirot. The scheme has helped to refute one of Milosevic's main propaganda lies, that the West is anti-Serb. The EU has now agreed to consider the expansion of the scheme to a further five towns: Novi Sad, Subotica, Sombor, Kraljevo and Kragujevac.

  Kosovo
  Mrs. Gillan
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what the Government's policy is on the Kosovo Serbs' proposal regarding establishment of(a) Serb enclaves within Kosovo, (b) Serb defence forces and (c) a Serb police force. [110493]

  Mr. Vaz
  (a) We do not support ethnically pure enclaves. We want to preserve a multi-ethnic Kosovo. The protection of minorities in Kosovo is a major priority for the Kosovo force (KFOR). 50 per cent. of KFOR manpower is involved in the protection of minorities.

  (b) We are opposed to the creation of any defence forces in Kosovo. KFOR has sole responsibility for security in Kosovo.

  (c) The Kosovo Police Service is a multi-ethnic force. Kosovo Serbs were among the first graduates of the force.

  Mr. Lilley
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what estimate he has made of the number of people killed in Yugoslavia as a result of the conflict over Kosovo(a) by NATO forces and the KLA and (b) by Yugoslav forces, since the NATO action began on 22 March 1999. [109409]

  Mr. Vaz
  NATO has no reliable figures for the number of casualties arising from the campaign in the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. We would be wary of relying on figures whose source was the authorities in Belgrade.

  We estimate that around 10,000 Kosovo Albanians, many of them civilians, were killed by Yugoslav forces between June 1998 and June 1999. Most of these deaths

  839W
  occurred in the period between March and June 1999. The International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) continues to work, with our support, to calculate the full scale of the death toll arising from Serb repression and violence in Kosovo.

  Zimbabwe
  Mrs. Gillan
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs if the Government have an arms embargo on Zimbabwe. [110577]

  Mr. Hain
  [holding answer 17 February 2000]: No. Our export licensing policy towards Zimbabwe and other countries intervening in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) is set out in the reply my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister gave to the hon. Member for Richmond Park (Dr. Tonge) on 9 February 2000, Official Report, column 184W.

  Colonel Gaddafi
  Sir Teddy Taylor
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (1) if he will make a statement on the Internet report on the assassination attempt on Colonel Gaddafi in Libya in 1996; [110429]

  (2) what support was supplied by Her Majesty's Government to the persons who made the assassination attempt on Colonel Gaddafi in Libya in 1996. The Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs. [110430]

  Mr. Robin Cook
  [holding answer 17 February 2000]: Nothing in the Internet report sustains the allegation that either the previous Administration or the Intelligence Agencies proposed the assassination of Colonel Gaddafi.

  Mr. Maude
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (1) if he will set up an inquiry into allegations that the British security services knew of plans to assassinate Colonel Gaddafi; [110517]

  (2) when Britain's security services knew about proposals to assassinate Colonel Gaddafi; and if he will make a statement; [110519]

  (3) when he was first informed of plans to assassinate Colonel Gaddafi; what he knew about such plans; and if he will make a statement. [110518]

  Mr. Robin Cook
  I was informed of the background to Mr. Shayler's allegations in August 1998. Nothing in the Internet report sustains the allegation that either the previous Administration or the Intelligence Agencies proposed the assassination of Colonel Gaddafi. If the right hon. Member has evidence that the previous Administration authorised an assassination, I would be glad to receive it.

  War Criminals
  Mr. Beard
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what steps are being taken to arrest indicted war criminals in(a) Bosnia-Herzegovina and (b) Kosovo. [109408]

  Mr. Vaz
  The mandates of the NATO-led Stabilisation Force in Bosnia and Herzegovina (SFOR) and the Kosovo Force (KFOR) authorise troops to detain indicted persons with whom they come into contact in the course of their 840W
  duties, provided the tactical situation permits. Within Bosnia, SFOR has detained 17 suspects. Two further indictees were shot dead by SFOR personnel acting in self defence during a detention operation. UNMIK (UN police force) in Kosovo have detained war crimes suspects there, but the five persons indicted for war crimes by ICTY for atrocities committed in Kosovo are still are large in Serbia.

  Mr. Bradshaw
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs how many suspected war criminals have been arrested by UK forces in Bosnia. [109401]

  Mr. Edwards
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs how many suspected war criminals have been apprehended by British forces in Bosnia [109417]

  Mr. Vaz
  British SFOR troops have successfully detained eight war crimes suspects indicted by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia. They have also been involved in the arrest of a further two suspects with other SFOR forces. A further indictee was shot dead by British SFOR personnel acting in self defence during a detention operation.

  Intergovernmental Conference
  Mr. Brady
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, pursuant to his oral statement of 15 February 2000,Official Report, column 782, if he will make it his policy to veto the forthcoming EU treaty if it does not include provision for a blocking minority in the Council for the United Kingdom, France and Germany. [110848]

  Mr. Vaz
  The Government's policy on vote reweighting is set in the IGC White Paper.

  Mr. Howard
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what his policy is on the exercise by Her Majesty's Government of its veto during the negotiations on the forthcoming EU Intergovernmental Conference. [111080]

  Mr. Vaz
  The Government's approach to the various issues is clearly set out in the White Paper which was laid before the House on 15 February.

  East Timor
  Mr. Corbyn
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what representatives the UK has in East Timor; what is their status; and if he will make a statement on their role and functions. [110488]

  Mr. Battle
  We have already opened a temporary British Office in Dili staffed, at First Secretary level, by a member of HM Diplomatic Service. The officer's role is to cultivate Britain's relationship with the East Timorese and the United Nations Transitional Administration in East Timor (UNTAET) during the first months of the territory's transition to independence.

  Our diplomatic presence is in addition to the 14 British police officers and four military observers assigned to UNTAET.

  Peru
  Mr. Corbyn
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what monitoring is being undertaken by United Kingdom representatives of the electoral process in Peru. [110489]

  Mr. Battle
  Presidential and Congressional elections will be held in Peru on 9 April. We sponsored the visit to Peru in January of an electoral expert from Electoral Reform International Services to help the Defensoria (an umbrella organisation representing numerous human rights and civic groups in Peru) to supervise the electoral process, and are considering sponsoring a follow-up visit in March. The British Group of the Inter-Parliamentary Union has accepted an invitation from the Peruvian Ministry of Foreign Affairs to send election observers in April. In addition, we have contributed £20,000 to support plans by the Peruvian Ombudsman's office to supervise the electoral system.

  Austria
  Mr. Jim Cunningham
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what plans he has to monitor human rights in Austria. [110588]

  Mr. Vaz
  We have welcomed the commitments made by the new Austrian Government to abide by the common obligations and values of EU membership, to combat all forms of discrimination, and to deal with Austria's Nazi past; and we have made clear our hope that their actions will fully match their words.

  Sanctions Policy
  Mr. Jim Cunningham
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what assessment he has made of the effectiveness of the sanctions policy towards(a) Yugoslavia and (b) Iraq. [110587]

  Mr. Hain
  UN sanctions against the former Yugoslavia played an important role in bringing Milosevic to the negotiating table at Dayton. EU sanctions against the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia have been targeted to 842W
  place additional pressure on the repressive regime, restricting the ability of Milosevic and his associates to travel and to finance their activities and underlining the political isolation of Serbia from the European mainstream.

  Sanctions against Iraq have successfully contained Saddam Hussein for over nine years and have significantly reduced the threat from his weapons of mass destruction. The effort the Iraqi regime and its friends put into their campaign to have sanctions lifted is evidence of the impact of sanctions on the Iraqi leadership.

  Tibet
  Mr. Loughton
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what representations he has made to the Chinese Government about reports that Tibetan woman are to be compulsorily sterilised after their second child. [111019]

  Mr. Battle
  We raised our concerns about these reports with the Chinese, at official level, during the UK/China Human Rights Dialogue which took place in Beijing from 16–18 February.

  Sombrero
  Mr. Dalyell
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what his policy is towards the proposal by Andrew Beal to lease for the Government of Anguilla the Island of Sombrero for a rocket launch pad to carry telecommunications satellites. [111231]

  Mr. Vaz
  It is for the Government of Anguilla to respond to the request by Andrew Beal for permission to build a rocket launching pad on Sombrero Island. The Government of Anguilla have requested technical advice from Her Majesty's Government to help them decide on this planning proposal. This is to allow the Government of Anguilla to investigate thoroughly the proposal's many implications and reach an informed decision. When the Outer Space Act 1986 is extended to Anguilla the Governor will have the discretion to set the terms and grant licences for individual launch missions.

Preamble
The House met at half-past two of the clock: The LORD CHANCELLOR on the Woolsack.
Prayers—Read by the Lord Bishop of Blackburn.

Millennium Dome: School Visits
Lord Campbell of Croy Lord Campbell of Croy asked Her Majesty's Government:
What are the arrangements for free visits by schoolchildren to the Millennium Dome; and from what sources these visits are subsidised.
The Minister of State, Cabinet Office (Lord Falconer of Thoroton): My Lords, every school in the UK is eligible to apply for up to 100 free tickets to the Dome under the New Millennium Experience Company's education tour scheme. Up to 1 million free tickets will be allocated over a series of ballots. The costs attributable to this scheme, including its administration, the tickets themselves and the management costs of implementing it throughout the year are being met by the New Millennium Experience Company from the millennium experience project budget.
Lord Campbell of Croy: My Lords, I thank the noble and learned Lord for his reply. I recognise that the Government must now concentrate primarily on paying visitors to the Dome. What was the Government's reaction to the reports in the press earlier this month of the disappointment of children and their teachers at not being allowed into more than three specified zones—the duller ones, apparently? As regards the education contribution of the Dome, when will it be reclassified from being an exhibition to being a museum?
Lord Falconer of Thoroton: My Lords, the arrangements for the free entry of schoolchildren are
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a matter for the management of the New Millennium Experience Company. However, I think it would be wrong to suggest that the experience has been boring. I have a number of quotes describing what incredibly good fun and what a good educational experience it was for people who have visited the Dome. As to the point about being kept out of the more interesting zones, as the noble Lord put it, the majority of the people who enter the Dome free on school trips have free time there after they have completed the four-hour guided tour when they can go to any zone they wish.
Lord Lamont of Lerwick: My Lords, has the target number of visitors been reduced from 12 million to 10 million, as newspapers have suggested, and are those all paying visitors?
Lord Falconer of Thoroton: My Lords, the break-even figure has been put at 10 million; the target figure is 12 million, all of whom comprise paying customers.
Baroness Trumpington: My Lords, is the Minister aware that my grandchildren went to the Dome, had a perfectly lovely time and could not have enjoyed it more but were extremely disappointed that so many of the things they wanted to examine or play with were out of order?
Lord Falconer of Thoroton: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Baroness for saying what a good time her grandchildren had. I suggest, with respect, that most adults and children who attend the Dome say they have had such an experience. The visitor attraction has been operating since 1st January. It now receives probably more visitors than any other visitor attraction in the whole country. It is not perhaps surprising that glitches occur that need to be sorted out. We are in the process of doing that and as every day goes by it gets better and better.
Baroness Gardner of Parkes: My Lords, does not the Minister think that even children's toys are expected to last more than two months? The Minister tells us that

3
it is not at all surprising that things are not working too well. However, only a short period of operation has elapsed and I understand that the whole project is to last only a year.
Lord Falconer of Thoroton: My Lords, with the greatest respect that is an unfair comment. It is not in the least surprising that things need maintenance in a visitor attraction which attracts literally in excess of tens of thousands of visitors every day. They are being maintained.
Lord Lucas: My Lords, does the noble and learned Lord accept that my children's toys rarely last more than two days? Does he also accept their comment that they enormously enjoyed their visit to the Dome but felt that there was a lot of room for additional educational content? At many exhibits, for instance, the body zone, there was little explanation of what was going on. Their visit would have been more enjoyable if there had been something else to learn from.
Lord Falconer of Thoroton: My Lords, some people say that there is not enough educational content; some people say that there is not enough fun content; and some people say that there is not enough inspirational content. I think that the best course is to leave it to the management to determine the right balance.
Lord Weatherill: My Lords, does the Minister feel that the "Black Adder" film is appropriate for children to see? It is certainly not something that I would have expected my grandchildren to see. Will be use his influence to ensure that something more appropriate is shown? It is a great wasted opportunity.
Lord Falconer of Thoroton: My Lords, I do not know how old the noble Lord's grandchildren are. If my children were told that they could not watch "Black Adder" because it is too mature for them, they would be extremely surprised.

Letters Placed in House of Lords Library
2.40 p.m.
Lord Swinfen Lord Swinfen asked Her Majesty's Government:
Whether they will make available to the public all letters to Lords which give answers to questions put to Ministers on the Floor of the House and all papers placed in the Library of the House in answer to such questions.
Lord Falconer of Thoroton: My Lords, as a general rule, the information in letters from Ministers to Members and other papers deposited in the Libraries of the House should be released by departments on request. Public authorities should make documents in the public domain available to those who request them.
Lord Swinfen: My Lords, does not the Minister agree with me that the Written Answer given to me by the Leader of the House that,
"…points … raised in debate are of particular interest only to the Peer who raises them".—[Official Report, 10/1/2000; col. WA 92.]
was insulting to this House in general and derogatory of the general public?
Lord Falconer of Thoroton: My Lords, as the noble Lord did not draw my attention to the matter beforehand I have no idea of either the context or the detail of what was stated. As regards letters placed in the Library of this House as a result of questions put to Ministers, in the ordinary course of events the information in those letters should be made available by the relevant departments who have placed the letters there to members of the public who request it.
Lord Shore of Stepney: My Lords, does my noble and learned friend agree that it does to some extent devalue Hansard not to have a full reply printed in it, because Questions that are put down are often nowadays increasingly siphoned off with the words, "I am referring it to someone else to reply in a letter"? The information does become available, of course, in the Library, but subscribers to Hansard are denied the information which is often of general interest.
Lord Falconer of Thoroton: My Lords, the question of what is published in Hansard is a matter for the parliamentary and Hansard authorities, not for the Government. Noble Lords are shaking their heads, but the question of what should be in Hansard and, in particular, the question of whether accompanying correspondence should be included—which is the issue raised by my noble friend—are matters for Hansard to decide, because from time to time the department would not wish Hansard to be filled with too much correspondence.
Lord Shore of Stepney: My Lords, I was referring simply to Written Questions due to be answered.
Lord Falconer of Thoroton: My Lords, the issue in relation to Written Questions is whether accompanying correspondence is to be included, which is a matter for Hansard. The question for the Government is whether they should aim to include the bulk of a response in the body of the Written Answer itself rather than in the accompanying correspondence, to which the answer must be yes, one should try as much as possible to give a clear reply in the body of the Written Answer.
Lord Goodhart: My Lords, as Written Questions appear in Hansard, is it not appropriate that wider publicity should be given to the Answers and that, even if they are not published in Hansard, they should at

5
least be published on the Internet to ensure that it is not necessary to go to the relevant department in order to make a specific request for that information?
Lord Falconer of Thoroton: My Lords, the position is that sometimes the relevant department does so and sometimes it does not. Where a relevant department has a website, it will in many cases be appropriate for information referred to, but not included, in a Written Answer to be available on the Internet site.
Lord Marlesford: My Lords, does the Minister agree that nowadays Written Questions often receive a reply along the lines of, "I am asking so-and-so to reply to this Question"? In that context, surely that reply should routinely and automatically be printed in Hansard? I was rather concerned when the Minister suggested that the length of the response was a factor, because we debated that matter a few months ago following a report to the House which contained the recommendation that no Written Answer longer than two columns should be included in Hansard. I understood that that recommendation was not to be followed up and implemented.
Lord Falconer of Thoroton: My Lords, I am told that when a Minister states that he is referring a matter to someone else and the relevant person answers, the answer is then published in Hansard. The question of accompanying material not being published in Hansard is a matter for Hansard and not for the Government. The issue for a Minister responding to a Written Question relates to how much is to be included in the body of the Answer. As I said to my noble friend Lord Shore of Stepney, one should include the guts of the Answer.
Lord Elton: My Lords, surely what goes into Hansard is ultimately a matter for the House and not for Hansard? Therefore, it will be for the relevant committee of the House to consider that issue. I should have expected that to be the Minister's answer. Since I have answered that question for him, will he give me another answer? Will he tell me whether I am right in believing that it is still the case that whenever during Question Time a Minister undertakes to write to a noble Lord to give an answer, that answer is always placed in the Library?
Lord Falconer of Thoroton: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord for putting well what I was rather feebly trying to say: that the question of how Hansard publishes material is a matter for Hansard and, therefore, it is in practice a matter for this House. The noble Lord asked whether answers are always placed in the Library. I am not sure whether that is always the case and I cannot give him an absolute assurance on that point. Perhaps I may make inquiries and write to the noble Lord and place a copy of the answer in the Library.
Lord Avebury: My Lords, if a noble Lord believes that material given to him in the form of a letter from
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the Minister, whether by means of a parliamentary Question or in the course of ordinary correspondence, is of sufficient interest to the general public, surely there is nothing to stop him from giving it to the media?
Lord Falconer of Thoroton: My Lords, that is absolutely correct unless the material is given to the noble Lord in some form of confidence. I am told that some materials placed in the Library of either House are regarded as confidential; for example, in the mid-1980s, the then Home Secretary placed in the Library of the House of Commons correspondence with the IRA which was confidential. It was not published because it was placed in the Library on a confidential basis.
Lord Campbell of Alloway: My Lords, will the Minister agree that the Hansard department does an extremely fine job, including a certain amount of judicious editing, for which I am particularly grateful because I was rebuked the other day by the noble Lord, Lord McIntosh of Haringey, but the rebuke was not printed?
Lord Falconer of Thoroton: My Lords, I entirely agree with the tribute paid to the composers of Hansard. They do an excellent job. I know in my own case that often that which is complete garbage when I say it appears to make sense when I read it in Hansard.
Lord Lucas: My Lords, will the Minister undertake to ask the usual channels to ask the House authorities to ask those concerned in Hansard whether they will review the way in which they publish the proceedings of the House and other matters in the light of the new technologies available? Surely a great deal could be done by the way of hyperlinks to other documents to make it easy for people using Hansard electronically to obtain documents referred to in Hansard, without increasing by a single tree the devastation caused as a result of printing it?
Lord Falconer of Thoroton: My Lords, I am sure that the relevant committees of both Houses which deal with Hansard are well apprised of the need to keep up with modern technologies.
Lord Dubs: My Lords, is not the problem that quite often a supplementary question is so far removed from the original Question that no Minister could possibly be expected to have the answer in his folder? If the questions asked were closely related to the point of the original Question, letters would not be necessary.
Lord Falconer of Thoroton: My Lords, I quite agree.
Lord Cocks of Hartcliffe: My Lords, as Hansard staff are so valuable and we have paid such tribute to

7
them, is it not a pity that the lift serving them on the third floor was not repaired and modernised during the Recess?
Lord Falconer of Thoroton: My Lords, I wonder whether my noble friend has just demonstrated the truth of the point made by my noble friend Lord Dubs.
Lord Bruce of Donington: My Lords, has my noble and learned friend observed over the past three or four months a growing tendency to incorporate in the Answers given by the Government an expression of regret that the records are not held centrally?
Lord Falconer of Thoroton: My Lords, from time to time Questions are answered in that way because in effect one would have to carry out a huge trawl around the whole of government to find answers where perhaps the effort was not justified.

National Museums and Galleries: Free Admission
2.49 p.m.
Viscount Falkland Viscount Falkland asked Her Majesty's Government:
Whether it remains their policy to introduce free admission for all to national museums and galleries.
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: My Lords, funds have been made available to permit free access for children since April 1999 and free access for pensioners from April 2000 to the currently charging national museums funded by the Department of Culture, Media and Sport. We are continuing to assess the most effective ways of enhancing access in 2001. However, as at present, decisions will ultimately be taken by the trustees.
Viscount Falkland: My Lords, I thank the noble Lord for that Answer. It did not exactly answer the Question on the Order Paper, but I understand the Government's difficulties in giving free access to all. When the Government have to be selective about where they will give free access, will they always bear in mind that access to picture galleries for young people, whether they are students or young people in work, stimulates an interest and enthusiasm often for life, which is transmitted to future generations?
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: My Lords, I entirely agree with the noble Viscount's final point. I am glad that in putting that question he moved to the word "access" rather than the word "admission", which was used in his original Question. Access is a great deal more than just admission. Access includes the ways in which museums and galleries can improve the presentation of their collections and improve the hours in which they are made available; it includes the publicity for them; and it includes the way in which
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they are extended to the wider world outside museums and galleries. It is that wider sense of access about which the Government are most concerned.
Lord Jenkins of Putney: My Lords, does my noble friend agree that free admission to their own property is the right policy to adopt in this connection? Does he also agree that, while trustees must make their own decisions, they can be encouraged one way or another to adopt free admission? That policy has been an immense success and has increased access to museums and galleries. It would be a great pity to limit it in any way at all.
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: My Lords, my noble friend is too modest to remind the House that, when he became Minister for the Arts, he called in the directors of the museums and galleries and said, "You are not going to charge for admission"; and they did not. Those were happy and simpler days. We have always said, as my noble friend rightly says, that access will be the cornerstone of our cultural policy. We are always looking for new ways to achieve that. We are conscious that when we can achieve better access, including free admission, it actually works. The number of children going to galleries and museums which used to charge for access and which ceased to do so in April last year has increased over the year by around 22 per cent.
Baroness Blatch: My Lords, I declare an interest as an unpaid trustee of the Royal Air Force Museum. Perhaps I may ask why, as a national museum sponsored by a government department, it is not included in the policy to which the noble Lord has just referred. It has to wait until there is spare money in the defence budget in order to follow the policy, which is apparently a national policy for government-sponsored national museums.
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: My Lords, I am conscious of the problems there have been in discussions with the Imperial War Museum, which is the parent museum. Is the noble Baroness talking about Duxford?
Baroness Blatch: No, my Lords. The Imperial War Museum and Duxford are all right. They are included in the national concession. The Royal Air Force Museum at Hendon is not included in the national policy and yet it is a government-sponsored national museum.
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: My Lords, my original Answer referred to national museums funded by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport. I understood that that was the basis of the Question. However, I take the noble Baroness's point. If I may, I shall write to her and place a copy of my letter in the Library.
Lord Puttnam: My Lords, I declare an interest as a trustee of the Science Museum. The situation is not quite as clear as the noble Lord. Lord McIntosh,

9
explained, because we have an insane situation with VAT. At present, if it is a free museum, VAT is not refunded, whereas if it is a museum with paid entry, VAT is fully refunded. At the moment an enormous amount of building work is being carried out at museums all over the country and large amounts of private finance are being used to enable that building work to take place. When will the Government unhook this crazy situation in which in order to become a free museum one is penalised by having to pay VAT on new building?
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: My Lords, my noble friend is of course right on his facts. It is true that, if museums were to become entirely free in terms of admission, they would lose the right to reclaim VAT, as they would cease to be businesses in a VAT sense, except on proceeds from their catering facilities and book stalls. As a result they would lose around two-thirds of their VAT reclaim. We have succeeded in persuading Customs and Excise that that should not apply if, as is now the policy, they admit children and pensioners free, but it is a matter for the museums to negotiate with Customs and Excise and to seek to persuade them that they are still businesses even if they have free admission. My noble friend's point about VAT and capital works is true as well.
Baroness Thomas of Walliswood: My Lords, is the Minister aware that the excellent opening of the Monet waterlily show on Sunday night is a perfect example of what my noble friend Lord Falkland is trying to achieve? People of all ages, kinds and descriptions crowded into the museum at very strange hours—I arrived there at about five o'clock in the morning—and it was a wonderful occasion. Is there anything the Government can do to encourage such an imaginative use of museums which really does increase both access and admission?
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: My Lords, the noble Baroness makes a most valuable point. I agree with her about opening hours. If she looks at the National Gallery, she will see that outside it boasts of the fact that there is still free access and that it is open for longer. We are anxious to encourage that for the permanent exhibitions as well as for the special exhibition to which the noble Baroness referred.
Baroness Anelay of St Johns: My Lords, if the Government have always meant that free access does not mean what the public believes to be free access—free admission—why in their press release of 24th July 1998 did they refer to the fact that the money they were giving to museums and galleries would,
"enable Trustees of the major national collections—including those which currently charge—to introduce free access for children from next year; for pensioners in the following year; and universal tree entry in 2001"?
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: My Lords, I did not say that free access was not the same thing. I said that access is a wider concept than free admission. Indeed, in the comprehensive spending review we have
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provided the money for trustees, if they wish, to provide free admission, other than for pensioners and children, in 2001. Some of them do not wish to do so. What happens to the money and the way in which we can achieve wider access is still a matter for discussion between the Government and the trustees.
Lord Tomlinson: My Lords, would my noble friend agree with me if I suggested to him that it is not just a question of central government funding? Will he join me in congratulating Walsall Metropolitan Borough Council on the opening of the new museum in Walsall, which it has guaranteed to be open free of charge to all citizens?
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: My Lords, I cannot wait to go to Walsall. It sounds very exciting. Lottery funds have been used as well as council funds.
Lord Tomlinson: And European funds!

Asylum Seekers
2.59 p.m.
Lord Rotherwick Lord Rotherwick asked Her Majesty's Government:
How many asylum seekers were sent home by the Government in 1999 and whether the statistics quoted by Lord Rotherwick on 8th February (Official Report, cols. 512–13) were "fictional".
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Home Office (Lord Bassam of Brighton): My Lords, provisional figures show that in 1999, 7,650 people who had at some time sought asylum in the United Kingdom were removed either to their country of origin or to a safe third country.
I understand that the figures quoted by the noble Lord on 8th February were published in the Daily Mail. The figures are drawn from data published by the Home Office, but they are not capable of bearing the statistical inference that he sought to place upon them.
Lord Rotherwick: My Lords, I had hoped to be able to say that I was thankful to the noble Lord for his Answer. However, I am rather disappointed. If that was in effect his type of apology, then perhaps he could tell me so.
Lord Bassam of Brighton: My Lords, I was simply explaining that I could not possibly agree with the noble Lord's statistical inference in his original Question. The reasons are straightforward. The figures that he quoted related to the number of cases in which enforcement action had been initiated. One cannot simply abstract one from the other and conclude, as he did, that the rest have gone underground. Some will have claimed asylum; some

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will appeal; some will have won their appeal; some may have left without notifying the Immigration Service; and yes, some may have gone into hiding.
Lord Archer of Sandwell: My Lords, does my noble friend appreciate the dangers of becoming involved in an auction regarding the number of removals achieved? Does he accept that immigration officials are human and that, like all of us, they are susceptible to alarmist and populist pressures and that they need support in the form of effective training programmes, as recommended by the Council of Europe and by Amnesty International? Are such training programmes now in place, and what proportion of immigration officials have received training?
Lord Bassam of Brighton: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord for that thoughtful question. Unfortunately, I cannot provide that detail now. I am happy to provide it in writing and to place a copy of the letter in the Library.
The noble Lord is right in his comment about getting into an auction as regards the number of removals. We believe that there should be effective and efficient removals procedures. It is the case that last year there was a record number of removals: some 37,450 for asylum and non-asylum cases. That was the highest ever figure. We must have effective measures in place, and we must seek to treat people fairly and reasonably in all circumstances.
Lord Lamont of Lerwick: My Lords, will the Minister explain why, on 2nd February when we discussed Mr Tharcisse Muvunyi, the Rwandan, he refused to discuss the case on the grounds that one never discusses individual cases in the House of Lords; and when I asked the Minister in a Written Question to list all the cases that had been discussed in the House of Lords, he said that there were too many to list?
Lord Bassam of Brighton: My Lords, that is not quite the case. It is my understanding—and it has always been the understanding of governments of both the major political parties—that we should not discuss the individual circumstances of each case. We are right to take that view. Discussion could possibly prejudice the outcome of appeals and judicial review. Those are the circumstances in which it is right and proper not to seek to discuss individual cases in this House.
Lord Dholakia: My Lords, do the figures given by the Minister relate simply to asylum seekers or do they include immigration overstayers? Now that doors are closed to asylum seekers entering this country, will the Minister indicate whether there is any way in which a genuine asylum seeker can enter the country and claim asylum?
Lord Bassam of Brighton: My Lords, we always treat cases on merit. Genuine asylum seekers and others seeking asylum will have their cases properly assessed
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by the authorities as they should be. Yes, the figures do cover the other categories referred to by the noble Lord.
Baroness Whitaker: My Lords, is my noble friend the Minister aware that some London local authorities are having considerable difficulty in dealing with asylum applications?
Lord Bassam of Brighton: My Lords, I am aware that there are many pressures on London local authorities seeking to cope with the difficult issues arising from asylum applications. We are grateful to the Association of London Government and the LGA for the careful way in which they have worked with the Government to ensure that adequate, fair and reasonable procedures are in place for the dispersal of asylum applicants around the country generally.
Lord Mackay of Ardbrecknish: My Lords, perhaps I may refer the Minister back to the original Question and to his Answer to my noble friend Lord Rotherwick on 8th February. My noble friend pointed out that 7,000 people had been sent home and 20,000 people had been served with notices to go home. Those figures are roughly correct to the nearest thousand. Why did the noble Lord say that they were "fictional statistics" if what he really meant to say was that my noble friend could not assume that the other 13,000 had all gone underground? Surely his reference to "fictional statistics" was simply a wrong answer.
Lord Bassam of Brighton: My Lords, I am happy to concede that perhaps I could have used—
Noble Lords: Oh!
Lord Bassam of Brighton: And I have apologised to the noble Lord for that.
A noble Lord: In writing.
Lord Bassam of Brighton: My Lords, I have apologised to the noble Lord. He has received two items of correspondence from me. He has also had a meeting and discussion on the matter. I am happy to accept that the use of the term "fictional statistics" was perhaps unfair in the circumstances. However, I remind the House that statistics are the science of numerical inference. That point was made by the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, in his correspondence with my noble friend the Leader of the House on 10th February. Statistical inference is what this is all about.

Business of the House: Debates, 22nd February
3.6 p.m.
The Lord Privy Seal (Baroness Jay of Paddington): My Lords, I beg to move the Motion standing in my name on the Order Paper.

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It may be helpful to explain that it has been agreed among the usual channels that tomorrow's debate on the rules to implement the Greater London Authority elections should be before the Second Reading of the Electronic Communications Bill.
Moved, That Standing Order 40 (Arrangement of the Order Paper) be dispensed with tomorrow to allow the Motion for an humble Address to be taken before the Second Reading of the Electronic Communications Bill.—(Baroness Jay of Paddington.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.

House of Lords' Offices: Select Committee Report
The Chairman of Committees (Lord Boston of Faversham): My Lords, I beg to move the Motion standing in my name on the Order Paper.
Moved, That the Third Report from the Select Committee (HL Paper 32) be agreed to.—(The Chairman of Committees.)
Following is the report referred to:
Re-opening of the Line of Route to the public
The committee recommends that the public Line of Route should be re-opened for seven weeks during the coming Summer Recess. This proposal has already been approved by the House of Commons.
The re-opening of the public Line of Route is experimental. The committee will undertake an early review of its operation in conjunction, as necessary, with the relevant committee of the House of Commons, which, it is expected, will undertake a similar review.
The existing rights of Members of both Houses to sponsor visits to the Palace will he maintained.
On Question, Motion agreed to.

Financial Services and Markets Bill
3.7 p.m.
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: My Lords, I beg to move that this Bill be now read a second time.
The Financial Services and Markets Bill will enable the arrangements for regulating financial services to be brought and kept up to date with developments in one of our most important industries.
The Bill will replace a plethora of bodies with a single regulator, the Financial Services Authority. It will similarly provide for a single scheme to award compensation to consumers and a single ombudsman scheme for resolving consumer complaints. The Bill will equip the FSA with a full range of statutory powers. It will also impose requirements and duties on the FSA to ensure that those powers are used in the pursuit of effective and fair regulation in the interests of the industry and of the public at large.
The Bill reaches this House in a state that reflects a quite unprecedented degree of scrutiny. A draft Bill was published for consultation in the summer of 1998, and a large number of helpful comments were put
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forward by industry and consumer bodies and others. Early last year the Government indicated in broad terms their response to those comments. That document then formed part of the raw material, along with the draft Bill, for the deliberations of the Joint Committee on Financial Services and Markets. I strongly commend, as have many others outside this House, the great skill and dedication of the noble Lord, Lord Burns, in chairing this innovative committee of Members of both Houses. I pay tribute also to the work of other Members and former Members of this House who served on it, and not least to the important contribution of the late Lord Montague of Oxford, whose presence is much missed.
The Government believe that the process of pre-legislative scrutiny was most valuable in improving what was inevitably a wide-ranging and in many respects highly technical Bill. The committee of the noble Lord, Lord Burns, made several important and extremely constructive recommendations. The great majority of those have been accepted by the Government, if not in every case to the letter, then in spirit. The Government published a detailed response to the committee and a number of significant improvements were made to the Bill either prior to its introduction or during its progress through the other place. Following completion of its passage on 9th February, the Treasury sent to the noble Lord, Lord Burns, a detailed and up-to-date analysis of how the Bill had been changed in relation to his committee's recommendations. That memorandum has also been made available to Members of this House.
The Bill's line-by-line scrutiny in the other place was extensive and thorough, with well over 100 hours devoted to it. In all, some 750 government and 650 opposition amendments were debated. The Government believe that, as a result, the Bill introduced into the House represents a clear consensus of public opinion and that, technically, it is generally sound. Those with very long memories will recall that the Financial Services Act 1986—I do not see in his place my noble friend Lord Williams of Elvel who played such a valuable part in that legislation—was amended in the second House to an extent that we shall not emulate, if we can help it.
However, inevitably we need to table a significant number of further, largely technical amendments in this House. Those amendments are needed to clear up various technical problems and to meet or complete policy commitments made at an earlier stage. In particular, we shall table amendments to transfer responsibility for listing from the Stock Exchange to the FSA; to rationalise the decision-making processes in the Bill; to improve and achieve greater consistency in the use of certain definitions; to clarify the FSA's rule-making powers and improve the procedures for competition scrutiny of them; and to amend the provisions on collective investment schemes in relation to Gibraltar and the arrangements for mutuals. We shall also introduce additional provisions for transitionals, consequentials and repeals.

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The financial services industry in the United Kingdom is one of our great success stories. Financial services account for about 7 per cent of gross domestic product and contribute £32 billion net to the balance of payments. The City of London, which is one of the three leading global financial centres, is rightly renowned for its innovation and integrity and is home to hundreds of foreign banks. It is a major insurance centre and leads the world in foreign exchange dealing and eurobond issues and trading. Moreover, the days when British financial services were thought to be equated solely with the City of London, and perhaps Edinburgh, are now past. Financial services are increasingly important components of many local economies, including Leeds, Manchester and Bristol among others.
The health, integrity and reputation of this industry are of paramount importance to everyone in the United Kingdom. Apart from the great number of those employed by it, of whom there are more than one million, many millions more rely on the industry to look after their savings and advise them on financial matters. Firms in all sectors of the economy look crucially to the financial services industry as a source of finance.
In addition to continuing to grow in importance in recent years, the industry has undergone profound structural changes. In particular, the old dividing lines between insurance, banking and investment business have broken down, The existing legislation follows those historic boundaries, with separate Financial Services, Banking and Insurance Companies Acts. The provisions of these Acts are sometimes inconsistent and their overlapping arrangements for the authorisation of firms are costly and impossible to justify. Existing legislation creates an institutional structure of multiple regulatory bodies which is, to say the least, confusing for consumers and firms alike, with no apparent benefits in the context of modern markets. The Bill seeks to sweep this confusion away and to put in place a single statutory regulator which operates on the basis of a single set of powers and duties. This radical approach sets an international precedent which has engaged the interest, even admiration, of many other jurisdictions. Some are already beginning to follow our example.
It is not the intention of the Government unnecessarily to expand the scope of regulation. On the contrary, the new regime is confined to those activities that are covered in existing legislation. We are, however, prepared to act where necessary. Recently, we announced that the FSA would have responsibility for mortgage lending to ensure that borrowers get better information at the time that they make a very important decision.
Noble Lords will be relieved to know that much of the Bill is not substantially new. Although in all areas we have sought to make improvements to existing legislation, in many cases we are in essence reproducing or consolidating existing provisions: for example, Part XVII of the Bill, whose 50 clauses are closely based on the existing collective investment
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scheme provisions in the Financial Services Act, or Part XVIII, which closely tracks the present arrangements for recognised investment exchanges.
There are, however, many important innovations. For example, the Government have taken the opportunity presented by new legislation to clarify the purposes of financial regulation and to articulate key principles regarding the way it should be carried out. Clause 2 of the Bill sets out the statutory duties of the FSA, which is to have four objectives. The FSA will be required to maintain market confidence, promote public understanding of financial services, secure the appropriate degree of protection of consumers and reduce financial crime. In meeting these objectives the FSA must have regard to a number of important factors. The first is efficient and economic operation. The second relates to the need neither to disregard nor to usurp the responsibilities of the management of firms. The third is proportionality as between the costs and benefits of regulation. The fourth is the need for innovation. The fifth is the international dimension in regulation, including the maintenance of the UK industry's international competitiveness. The sixth principle relates to the impact on competition.
The drafting of this last principle has been significantly improved in the light of last year's interim report to the Chancellor on competition and banking by Don Cruickshank, to whom the Government are most grateful. I look forward to the early opportunity for this House to debate these important duties in detail. The Government believe there is a strong consensus that they are the right ones, which was the view taken by the committee chaired by the noble Lord, Lord Burns.
From the outset the Government were aware that in creating the FSA they would be creating a very powerful regulator. We therefore fully expected, and welcome, the lively debate which has taken place about the need to ensure that it operates in a way that is fair and fully accountable. The Government's determination to get it right is wholly consistent with their incorporation into UK law of the European Convention on Human Rights and the high standards of accountability that they expect from bodies which exercise public functions.
The debate about fairness and accountability takes place despite, and not because of, the high reputation that has been acquired by the FSA to date under the excellent leadership of its Chairman and Chief Executive, Howard Davies. Mr Davies enjoys the full support and confidence of the Government and, we believe, of the financial services industry. It is, however, entirely right and proper that we ensure that the legislation contains the necessary statutory safeguards for the future. We believe that it does.
The FSA will be subject to a range of measures to ensure adequate accountability to the Government and the public. There will be an annual report to the Treasury which will be laid before Parliament and debated at an open public meeting. The chairman and members of the governing body will be appointed and liable to removal by the Treasury. They will also be

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able, where the need arises, to commission value-for-money studies and inquiries into any events which may suggest possible regulatory failure. The FSA will be subject to extensive statutory consultation requirements in relation to the exercise of its rule-making powers and consult with panels which represent the interests of consumers and practitioners. The FSA will be required to appoint, with Treasury approval, an independent person to investigate and publish complaints against it.
The Bill contains a large number of delegated powers. This reflects the complexity of financial regulation and the need for regulation to be able effectively to adapt against the background of continuously and rapidly developing markets. Delegated powers are rightly of great interest to this House. I am most grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Alexander of Weedon, and the Delegated Powers and Deregulation Committee for their very prompt report on the Bill. Their earlier most helpful memorandum to the noble Lord, Lord Burns, accepted that in principle the delegation of powers under the Bill was appropriate. The report now reiterates that position and welcomes the fact that the Government have put in place certain additional safeguards which were recommended by the committee. We very much hope that we shall be able to respond positively to each of the recommendations of the committee and table considered amendments at Committee stage.
The Bill also contains important measures to ensure that the FSA's powers to take regulatory action against firms and individuals operating in the industry are used in a fair and open way. The FSA's internal disciplinary arrangements must include separation of those responsible for disciplinary decisions and those preparing cases. Details of these arrangements will be published and subject to consultation. The Bill requires adequate notice of proposed disciplinary action to be given to those affected, with rights to make representation. In addition to these internal safeguards, all cases can be referred to, and examined afresh by, a new tribunal which is wholly independent of the FSA. The financial services and markets tribunal will be run as part of the Court Service by the Lord Chancellor's Department. As an authority exercising public functions, the FSA will, of course, also be potentially susceptible to judicial review.
One of the most important parts of the Bill is Part VIII, which provides for a new regime of penalties for market abuse. This regime, to be supported by a code of conduct drawn up by the FSA in consultation with the industry, will complement the existing criminal offences of insider dealing and market manipulation. Again quite rightly, the details of the market abuse regime have given rise to extensive comment and debate. The Government announced to the Joint Committee last May that the penalties regime would be subject to the protections that would be appropriate if it were found to be criminal for the purposes of the European Convention on Human Rights. The Bill, therefore, prohibits the use of compelled evidence, and provides for a scheme of legal assistance in these cases. The committee also
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recommended that consideration be given to the same protections being extended to the disciplinary regime under the Bill. We do not, however, believe that it would be necessary or appropriate to do that for reasons that have been set out fully by the Government and our legal advisers.
The debate about ECHR protections is one of many which highlight the need to achieve a balance in the Bill, to ensure that in our pursuit of fairness, accountability and due process we do not undermine the regulator's ability to regulate. The Government are strongly committed to fairness and to respecting the rights of those who operate in the financial services industry. At the same time, we must not lose sight of our objectives in regulating financial services.
Financial products and markets are often complex and sometimes opaque. It would be naive or disingenuous to disregard the fact that opportunities for abuse and exploitation are plentiful, as history has shown. It would also be quite wrong to forget the damage that can be done as a result of unacceptable practices. Individuals who entrust their life savings to others are undoubtedly vulnerable. And we are mindful also of the economic damage that can arise from events that undermine public confidence in the integrity of our markets.
I am sure that as a result of the debates we shall have in the coming weeks this most technical of Bills will be further improved. We intend, however, that the need to maintain balance should be kept well to the forefront.
The Government's view is that the Bill does indeed strike the right balance. It will provide for a light touch wherever possible with appropriate and effective protection where that is necessary. It will lead to regulation of a vitally important industry in a way that is efficient, proportionate, fair and accountable. I commend the Bill to the House.
Moved, That the Bill be now read a second time.—(Lord McIntosh of Haringey.)
3.23 p.m.
Lord Saatchi: My Lords, I look forward very much to hearing noble Lords' reflections on the Bill today, and I am delighted and honoured to open the debate on behalf of our Benches.
I have seen grown men weep at the sight of the Bill. It is the single biggest piece of legislation that the Government have introduced. It is 215 pages and 408 clauses long. In its epic 18-month passage through another place it attracted 1,450 amendments. A Standing Committee sat for 70 hours in 35 sessions. A fine Joint Committee of both Houses, chaired by the noble Lord, Lord Burns, prepared a set of 37 recommendations. The Bill outlasted three complete sets of ministerial teams.
But I have no doubt that your Lordships' House will rise to the challenge of the Bill. One has only to look at today's list of speakers from all sides of the House—distinguished economists, former Cabinet and Treasury Ministers and leading practitioners in the field among them—to know that.

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From our Benches, I say right away that we support the primary effect of the Bill: the creation of an overarching financial services authority. That is why my honourable friends in another place have been constructive throughout in their criticism of the Bill. The Government have responded positively on many occasions to the issues they raised, as they have to the many changes recommended by the committee chaired by the noble Lord, Lord Burns. I do not see a great deal of party political capital in this Bill for any side of your Lordships' House and I hope that the Government will consider in that spirit the points noble Lords will raise in the debate.
I hope also that the Minister will not mind being reminded of the so-called Jay doctrine in which the Leader of the House declared that this House is now,
"more legitimate … more effective … has more authority … carries more weight..[and that] therefore the executive will be better held to account".
In particular I hope that the Government will not take advantage of your Lordships' House by using this House to implement another raft of government amendments—the Minister said that they would clear up technical problems—the only effect of which is to undermine confidence in the Bill while at the same time trying to deny the legitimacy of any amendment noble Lords may wish to make. I hope that that is true because this Bill is most important. It changes the face of regulation of one of Britain's most vital industries.
As the Minister said, Britain's financial services industry is the UK's largest business sector. If it did not exist the UK would be in balance of payments deficit permanently. The Treasury's regulatory impact assessment for the Bill highlighted the scale of the effect the Bill will have on both households and regulated businesses. Around 90 per cent of UK households use financial services products. Thirty-four thousand businesses will be affected. That figure includes 6,000 banks, 70 building societies, 850 insurance companies, 4,200 providers of retail financial services, 1,300 securities and derivatives firms, 1,100 investment management and fund management firms, not to mention dozens of professional bodies and 15,000 solicitors and accountants.
As the Minister said, the basic purpose of the Bill is to bring together into one regulator the nine regulators of a diverse industry. That is logical because it reflects an inexorable trend in the industry to consolidation. Displaying impeccable commercial logic, banks, for example, have said to themselves, "We have 20 per cent of the retail banking market in Britain but only 2 per cent of the insurance market and only 3 per cent of the mortgage market. If only we could have our 20 per cent of those markets too what a splendid business we should have." The insurance and mortgage world have done the same in reverse. The result is consolidation into bigger groups with more product diversification. That is well and good and explains why we need one regulator.
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However, if I had to sum up in one word why our Benches have residual concerns about the Bill, it is because there is another trend which is even more powerful than consolidation. That is globalisation and its handmaiden the Internet. In a globalised Internet regime, the old business dictum of "location, location, location" counts for nothing. Business can be transacted from anywhere, for anywhere, especially in a non-physical virtual industry like financial services. For example, the Financial Times recently reported that the American share of many categories of business in Europe is increasing as the Internet share of those businesses increases, simply because America is ahead in the Internet.
Let us take another example. I gather that Deutsche Bank is planning to invest something like 10 or 11 billion dollars in building an online relationship with its customers in Europe over the next 10 years. Other banks are doing the same. That is the reason we are concerned about the Bill's impact on this sector. We wonder what will be Britain's share of that global electronic business. Why should Britain's share be any more than its share of world GDP—that is, around 5 per cent, instead of the 25 per cent share of maritime insurance that we now enjoy, or our current 55 per cent share of all global trading in non-UK companies?
We should remember that Britain has no God-given right to a disproportionate share of this totally international business. Already the majority of the top investment banks in the City are foreign owned. We should not forget how quickly a British industry can drift away. In 1900 we had 42 per cent of world shipping. In 1979 it was 7 per cent. Today it is 1 per cent.
As noble Lords have stated repeatedly, our financial services industry is uniquely mobile. The City is under almost ceaseless attack; competition in world markets is pitiless and continuing. Any new regulatory system in this country must respect those factors, and while it should be effective, it should avoid imposition of excessive costs. Whenever possible, it should assist Britain's competitiveness in world markets. If it fails to do that, our economy will suffer great damage.
As the Minister stated, we have to achieve a balance—an excellent word—between regulatory purity, which is itself a competitive asset, and stifling highly creative and innovative markets.
Britain needs an FSA that is effective and streamlined and has clarity and transparency. It needs a body to protect investors and savers. However, Britain does not need a leviathan or a Frankenstein's monster that threatens the competitiveness, pre-eminence and international appeal of our financial services community and for which ultimately the consumer will pay. That would be a major lost opportunity in the Bill.
Despite the length of the Bill, we are concerned that it is almost a skeleton Bill. To inspect the body we have to await secondary legislation and guidance manuals. My noble friend Lord Alexander of Weedon will describe the view of the Delegated Powers and Deregulation Committee on that point.

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We should like to see a number of changes made to the Bill. We will be able to consider those at Committee stage, but it would be helpful at the outset to summarise our five main concerns. The first is the issue of governance and the definition of the roles of the chairman/chief executive and the non-executive directors of the FSA. These Benches would like to understand better why the combined code of corporate governance developed over many years by the Cadbury, Hampel and Greenbury committees should not apply to the FSA. It is true to say that the FSA is not a normal commercial company. It is a company but it does not have normal shareholders. Nevertheless, we think that the onus is on the Government to explain why these standard good governance principles should not apply to the FSA. After all, the FSA supervises the very bodies that are obliged to ensure that these guidelines are followed by their clients and customers.
I have heard some plausible arguments from the FSA itself for excusing it from these conventions. I am not personally convinced by them. I stress that it is not the present incumbent of the chairmanship and chief executiveship of the FSA that we fear; it is his heirs and successors and the tendency of all regulatory bodies to suffer from "regulatory creep". In this concern, we are echoing the thoughts of the Joint Committee chaired by the noble Lord, Lord Burns. We wish to review whether a clearly accepted division of responsibilities at the top of the FSA will help to ensure a balance of power so that no one individual has unfettered powers of decision. We will want to examine whether a separation of powers, as well as a fully empowered non-executive director group, is needed for there to be an independent overall perspective on the running of this huge organisation.
The FSA is a private company like no other: after all, it makes rules, enforces rules and levies unlimited fines. There is a huge concentration of power in the authority. It combines rule-making, investigation, disciplinary action and fining. Fines can be unlimited and people can be deprived of their livelihood. No private company can do that. That is precisely why we need to be even more certain, in the FSA's case, that there is a strong, independent voice at the top to avoid too great a concentration of power in the hands of the FSA executive.
My second and third points are linked. In the Bill the FSA enjoys legal immunity, even if it acts negligently or recklessly. The Burns committee recommended:
"This high degree of statutory immunity is only acceptable if a complaints investigator is fully independent and empowered to recommend appropriate financial awards where wrong conduct by the FSA has damaged a business."
The Government rejected the Burns committee recommendations on this point and we are left with the unsatisfactory position where the immunity exists but the independent investigator does not. The Government can only state, "We expect to consult shortly on how the independent investigator might operate." We cannot accept that statement. We believe that if the FSA is to be granted such a high degree of legal immunity, then it is necessary to have a clear
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system of complaints that is wholly independent. There must be a way for an incorrect or wrong action by the FSA to be dealt with by an independent body.
My fourth point concerns the legal definition of the proposed offence of "market abuse" in the Bill and whether the new offence should or should not be subject to the test of intent in relation to misuse of information, misleading the market or distorting the market. Distinguished and learned noble Lords will, I am sure, want to consider that matter because it is a key point in ensuring access to justice for those accused by the FSA. It is important that the authority's procedures are fair and that, if necessary, they can be challenged in court. Failure of the procedures would lead to injustices in a domestic context and the authority could be torpedoed by the European Convention on Human Rights.
Notwithstanding the assurances given by the Government, we should not underestimate the importance of the European dimension. If the FSA does fall foul of Articles 6 and 7 of the European convention, then at least in the short term the whole regulatory structure could be in jeopardy and the FSA's powers to ensure fair trading and investor protection would be rendered ineffective.
Above all, my final point is that we need to ensure that there is parliamentary control to provide appropriate checks and balances on the awesome power of this single unified regulator. At the very least, there should be an obligation on the part of the FSA to submit an annual report to Parliament, which could be scrutinised either by the Treasury Select Committee in the House of Commons, or perhaps by our new economics committee, or by a Joint Committee of both Houses established for this purpose.
It is for Parliament to decide how, and how often, it wishes to carry out reviews of the FSA and who should carry out this task. The Treasury says that it will do it. But is that really appropriate? Why do we have bodies like the National Audit Office and the Comptroller and Auditor General if not for tasks such as these? The National Audit Office offered to become the auditor of the FSA, but this was not accepted by the Government. We should like to understand why.
The Government argue that a number of reviews of the FSA would be subject to and depend on what it calls "circumstances", which are to be perceived by the Treasury. The FSA opposes regular parliamentary reviews because it says that they would cause "planning blight". However, we believe that we must secure the accountability of the FSA to Parliament. The immense scope of the FSA means that it will control a huge section of our economy and is a public body. Its actions will touch the lives of millions of people, and although constituted as a private company, it will have a statutory objective and will carry out policy in the public domain. To argue, as the Government do, that because it is a private company that does not receive public funds it should not be examined by the NAO or CAG is bizarre. The BBC does not receive public funds either. But who would deny that it, like the FSA, is of such importance that it should be subject to full parliamentary scrutiny?

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The Bill is much improved from the bad and dangerous draft that first appeared almost two years ago. However, these Benches believe that there remain substantial areas for further improvement. I was pleased to hear the Minister confirm that he could contemplate that position. I have outlined some of our concerns, and we should like to return to these and other matters in more detail at Committee stage.
It is vital to get the Bill right. If we do not, we will be endangering the livelihood of thousands of people who work in this industry and undermining the largest and most successful area of Britain's economy. I hope that we have been constructive in our approach to the Bill to date, and I assure noble Lords that we will continue to be so. We have a very simple philosophy towards the Bill, which resolves itself into a simple question: who guards the guardians?
Two hundred years ago Edmund Burke wrote:
"The greater the power, the more dangerous the abuse".
Is it asking too much that this supremely powerful body should account to independent directors and submit itself to an independent complaints procedure; and that it should be subject to an independent audit and give a full account of itself to Parliament? That is not asking too much of the FSA; in fact, it is the least that Parliament is entitled to ask from a body on which it is bestowing so much power and public trust.
3.40 p.m.
Lord Taverne: My Lords, like the noble Lord, Lord Saatchi, I am daunted by the size of the Bill. As the Minister pointed out, much of it is concerned with consolidation, but what is new presents the House with a formidable task and I suspect that many nooks and corners of the Bill will never be examined. It reminds me of a story of a town clerk in Birmingham who was unhappily married at a time when divorce was possible only by Act of Parliament. He was the author of a long water Bill relating to Birmingham. It was passed, to his great delight, because hidden away in one of the unread schedules were the words, "And the marriage of the town clerk of Birmingham is hereby dissolved". I do not believe that there are any such provisions in this Bill, but parts of it will remain unexamined.
I want to make some general remarks and concentrate on four particular issues of importance about which we on this side of the House have concerns, reservations and, in some cases, objections. I begin by declaring an interest; and I hope to do so once and never have to do so again. I am concerned with three different organisations which will be regulated by the Bill. I am chairman of a life assurance company, deputy chairman of an investment trust and deputy chairman of a small industrial development bank.
I begin with some general comments. Like others, we thoroughly approve of the main purpose of the Bill. Having only one regulator presents opportunities for greater clarity, simplicity and reduced costs and should lead to greater accountability. Secondly, the task on which the Government have embarked is inevitably one of enormous ambition and
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complication. There is no other single regulator in any major financial centre as head of an integrated organisation of the kind being set up. It needs to strike a balance between a number of conflicting principles, aims and considerations. It needs effective regulation which inspires confidence, prevents malpractice and protects investors and consumers. But it also needs regulation, which is flexible and does not prevent innovation and competition.
I remember many years ago looking at a comparison of the life insurance industries in Britain and Germany. The German system, prior to the relatively recent life directives from the European Union, was extremely well regulated in the sense that there was no collapse of any company and there was no fraud. However, there was precious little innovation. There was product regulation, which stifled innovation.
Furthermore, the new authority must not impose excessive costs or burdens in case companies flee elsewhere. To some extent, those considerations conflict because what the consumers want is not what the companies want. Some people want to stop malpractice, while others want to ensure that there is a careful, proper procedure to protect those who are accused. So you cannot please everyone.
I have some misgivings about the Bill because, despite a number of months which have passed since its introduction, the process has been rushed. The Burns committee, presided over so ably by the noble Lord, Lord Burns, was rushed. As a member, I found it impossible to read all the papers and submissions that were made or to attend several of the sittings. I am concerned that there are now hundreds of amendments to the Bill. After all. we have the awesome precedent of the Financial Services Act, which must be a strong contender for being the most amended Bill in history. I hope that we shall not emulate that experience.
A flood of consultation papers—41 at the last count—has been received, latterly at the rate of one a week. Not surprisingly, one hears from the City stories about a certain amount of battle fatigue. There is a feeling of, "It is going to happen now. We cannot influence it any more and we shall have to see how it works out in practice. If in time to come it does not work out, we will up sticks and go somewhere else".
There are misgivings, but there are certain grounds for reassurance. The first is that there is almost universal confidence in Mr Howard Davies. He is approaching his task most sensibly, has a very good record and is rightly highly regarded. Secondly, the aim of providing a two-tier system of control, with a light form of regulation for wholesale markets and a more detailed form for the retail markets, is a sensible approach. The idea of civil as well as criminal penalties is also most sensible.

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The new regulator and the FSA have begun well, with the publication of a document entitled A New Regulator for a New Millennium, which is full of common sense and shows a sophisticated and intelligent approach to the whole issue of control. I am reassured by the Government's reaction to the Burns report, most of whose recommendations were accepted.
I was worried about the fact that so much has been left to delegated legislation, to statutory instruments, but I have been reassured by the report from the Select Committee, which seems to find the proposed process acceptable. Statements were made in the other place that there was fear in the City—and of course people are apprehensive about this vast new organisation—but I am reasonably optimistic that it will work.
I turn to the more particular issues. The first concerns consumers. In the other place Mr Vincent Cable raised a point about vulnerable consumers. I shall not repeat his remarks because no doubt the noble Lord, Lord McIntosh, who reads everything, will have read them. In summary, he suggested that we should look at the special provisions which exist in the Utilities Act. It contains a section dealing specifically with disadvantaged consumers. That is important because the maxim of caveat emptor has been kept. On the whole, the new provisions, which modify that slightly by asking the authority to have regard to the different degrees of experience and expertise which different consumers may have in relation to different kinds of regulated activity, are reassuring. But still, 1.5 million people are shut out from the system of banking and financial mediation and perhaps they need special treatment. I hope that the Government will reconsider that issue.
My second point is most important and in it I make common cause with the noble Lord, Lord Saatchi. It relates to the question of uniting the functions of the chairman and chief executive and the role of the board of governors. It is one of the most important issues, and. if the Burns committee recommendations were properly accepted, it could do a lot to reassure the City. Of course one can have a perfectly effective company in which the two roles are combined because of the nature of the individual. But we are not concerned to legislate for individuals; we are concerned to legislate for the long term. It may be fair enough that the new body starts with one eminent head who combines both roles, but in the long term that is not a satisfactory solution.
I have read the reasons advanced by the non-executive directors for saying that the combined role is all right in the case of the FSA, but I find them singularly unconvincing and disappointing. Essentially, they are based on the absence of shareholders. The role of non-executive directors and an independent chairman is not only to be responsible to shareholders. The chief executive is normally responsible to shareholders. This is an irrelevant issue. Ultimately, the most important role of non-executive directors is as monitors and advisers on the strategic direction of a company. They are in a better position to monitor than anyone else. They have inside
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information on how an organisation works and personal experience of how the chief executive and other executives operate. They are far better placed to judge these matters than are outsiders.
Monitoring is not only a question of the functions set out in Schedule 1 to the Bill,
"(a) keeping under review the question of whether the Authority is. in discharging its functions in accordance with decisions of its governing body, using its resources in the most efficient and economic way;
(b) keeping under review the question whether the Authority's internal financial controls secure the proper conduct of its financial affairs; and
determining the remuneration".
They go wider than that. Essentially, the non-executives should monitor the way in which an organisation works. If a combined chairman and chief executive is in charge of the board—or in this case the governing body— as well as the management, he or she is in an immensely powerful position. If that person controls the agenda and information coming to the board, it is much more difficult for the non-executives to find out whether the operation is functioning correctly and the main executives are properly discharging their functions.
As I have said, the Financial Services Authority is different in that it is a much more powerful body than most corporate boards. It needs effective monitoring, overall direction and management. Another argument advanced against splitting the function is that accountability becomes more difficult. Perhaps there is something to that argument, but it is a problem that can be resolved. It has been resolved by the BBC, and what is good enough for that organisation should be good enough for the Financial Services Authority. I wholeheartedly agree with the approach of the Conservative Opposition in challenging this part of the Bill.
My third point relates to mortgages. We wholly accept that mortgages should be included in the Bill, as should the question of long-term care, to which I understand the noble Lord, Lord Lipsey, will refer. However, the Government have made something of a dog's breakfast of their approach. First, they have included only first mortgages. When asked why second mortgages were not included, I believe that the Economic Secretary responded by saying that they concern only the financing of double glazing and so forth. In fact, second mortgages are needed for a variety of purposes.
Secondly, the provisions do not cover advice. The Economic Secretary explained that by saying that the main worry to emerge was the amount of information people would get from lenders. However, a number of good points were made on this issue in the other place. Mortgages are fairly complicated nowadays and advice is needed to help people sort through the different mortgages to secure the one they want. Why should not advisers be covered when they are offering advice on mortgages?

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Thirdly, the Treasury has stated that in any case there is to be a push for simplification. Redemption penalties will be eliminated and CAT standards will be introduced. I am all in favour of more simple types of mortgages, but there is a danger that it may well not be wise to say what should or should not be outlawed in this way. It may be that the disadvantage of having a penalty for early redemption is balanced by another advantage. Mortgages are infinitely variable and it is right that there should be a wide variety. What we see here is a move towards product regulation, which was rejected by the Burns committee. We do not want to see product regulation because it will stifle innovation. I cited the example of Germany in the past.
My final point relates to competition. Here I part company with the Conservative Opposition and, indeed, with the recommendation made by Mr Don Cruickshank, who said that competition should be one of the objectives of the FSA. I believe that the Burns committee got this right and I am not entirely happy with the way in which the Bill has been amended.
In Clause 2(3), the Bill now says:
"In discharging its general functions the Authority must have regard to—
(d) the desirability of facilitating innovation".
Fair enough. It goes on to say:
"(e) the international character of financial services and markets and the desirability of maintaining the competitive position of the United Kingdom".
That, too, is fair enough. But it then states,
"(f) the need to minimise the adverse effects on competition that may arise from any exercise of its general functions;
(g) the desirability of facilitating competition between those who are subject to any form of regulation".
I believe that with paragraph (g) there is a danger of creating confusion. It comes close to making it an objective. As I understand it, the United Kingdom's competition law is designed to stop anti-competitive behaviour, not to promote competition, which is a different matter. Facilitating competition is now to be regarded as one of the duties of the FSA. However, there is an important difference between preventing anti-competitive behaviour and facilitating competition. If this is to be an objective, confusion will arise about the clash of responsibilities and the overlapping of roles between the Office of Fair Trading, the Competition Commission and the FSA. Three bodies will be concerned. I find the interaction between the roles of the FSA and the Competition Commission under Chapter III of Part X confusing enough as it is. We should examine whether the original wording of the Bill, as we saw it in the Joint Select Committee, is not preferable to the new form of words in subsection (3) of Clause 2.
Many parts of the Bill will require critical scrutiny. Several noble Lords, including my colleagues, will no doubt raise those issues in the course of this debate on Second Reading. Overall, we intend to concentrate on the big issues. Everyone wants the Bill to succeed and I hope that, in enabling that, it will not take up an inordinate amount of the time of this House.
3.56 p.m.
Lord Burns: My Lords, I shall also begin by declaring my interests as set out in the register. I am a non-executive director of Legal & General Group and I am also an adviser to Prebon Financial Consulting.
At one point, Howard Davies suggested that this Bill was,
"following an unusual and scenic route from the Treasury to Buckingham Palace".
Indeed, perhaps I may say that at various stages I seem to pop up somewhere on the scene of action. At the Treasury my main interests were kept at a rather high level of generality and principle. Therefore it was with some surprise that I found myself elected as Chairman of the Joint Committee charged with the task of undertaking the pre-legislative scrutiny of the Bill. The challenge of moving from high principle to devilish detail is one that I would recommend to others as a valuable experience. Indeed, some would see it as a just reward for those of us who have lived our lives in this way.
However, despite any initial worries, the Joint Committee was a fascinating and rewarding process and I feel privileged to have been a part of it. I am also grateful for the generous remarks that have been made about the work of the committee. It is right to pay special tribute to the joint secretaries of the committee. They produced miracles in the limited time we had available. We also had very good special advisers. I was personally helped by Barry Sheerman, the Deputy Chairman of the committee. His long experience of the other place was an enormous help to someone for whom this was very much a new experience. I believe that we all found that the experience represented on the committee was wide and deep and I think that we all very much enjoyed working with each other.
Instead of having traditional sessions of oral evidence, we organised a number of seminar sessions where we heard evidence from a panel of witnesses. We had the pleasure of listening to David Roe, the head of the Treasury Bill team and Andrew Whittaker, the deputy counsel of the FSA. They attended each session and were able to offer rapid feedback. Indeed, afterwards many witnesses commented that they found this to be a big improvement over the traditional method of responding to consultation documents where apparently great frustration can set in over how quickly the Government respond and in what kind of detail. I believe that that played some part in the process of consultation and that possibly it played a part in the extent to which the Government were prepared to accept many of the recommendations of the Joint Committee. I note that in some cases that was expressed as "clarifying their thinking". However, I believe that noble Lords who are familiar with the language of Whitehall will know that that is consistent also with some shifting of minds. Of course, sometimes they disagreed, which they are entitled to do.
It is always an ambiguous process to judge what proportion of the committee's recommendations have been accepted because some issues are much more

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important than others. However, I believe that, in general, members of the committee were content with the extent to which recommendations were accepted and the extent to which they felt that they had played a useful part in the process. I hope that that has added to the case for pre-legislative scrutiny and, in the process, has showed the benefit of Members of both Houses working together closely.
This is a complex piece of legislation. Like others, I want to limit myself today to making general points. The first comes under the general heading of accountability of the FSA. I believe that everyone agrees that there is a clear case for bringing together under one roof the supervision of banks, building societies and security houses. We have global financial institutions and we need an integrated approach to supervision. I do not believe that there is now any real dispute about that. The Bill puts forward proposals to bring about that integration.
At the same time, it will mean that we are creating a big and powerful organisation. As has already been pointed out, that has its own dangers. Not surprisingly, much attention has been focused on the right amount of accountability and the governance of the new organisation. The Joint Committee spent quite a lot of time on that issue, trying to achieve the right balance between the accountability of the organisation and ensuring that it can do its job effectively. The Government accepted many of our proposals for strengthening accountability, including greater requirements for feedback from consultation. In general terms, my view is that they are now satisfactory, although the House will want to consider some aspects of detail.
Today, I wish to mention two particular issues under that heading. Both have been referred to already. The first is the issue of statutory immunity. Subject to being compatible with the ECHR, the committee was persuaded that it is necessary to give immunity. Financial supervision requires many difficult judgments to be made. If everything that the organisation did was subject to legal action, I am persuaded that that could lead only to over-regulation and excessive caution on behalf of the regulators.
Of course, we recognise also that there is a danger with statutory immunity: a strong regulator can seriously damage regulated businesses or individuals. If it is done incorrectly, some process for seeking redress is required. The Joint Committee saw the way forward as having a strengthened complaints procedure and it asked the Government to consider whether the investigator should be able to award compensation to businesses or employees damaged by maladministration. The Government agreed to strengthen the role of the complaints commissioner. They said also that ex gratia payments may be appropriate subject to further consideration. I believe that it is important to strike the right balance here. However, the issue needs to be clarified and I am sure that it will come under close scrutiny in your Lordships' House. I hope that this is one issue on which we can obtain more clarity.
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My second point on the issue of accountability concerns the debate about the leadership of the FSA. This boils down to a debate between those who want the organisation to be led by an executive chairman and those who argue that there should be a combination of non-executive chairman and chief executive. The committee did not recommend any change in the present position with regard to Howard Davies, who is executive chairman. However, it suggested that in the longer term the post should be split. The committee could see the case that has been made for an executive chairman in terms of clear lines of accountability, but we saw also the advantages in limiting the power of, and focus on, a single individual. We believed, too, that the presence of a non-executive chairman would enhance the power of non-executives. However, it must be said that present non-executives have written to say that they do not need this support. Therefore, the Government have rejected the suggestion. I can see the Government's dilemma in relation to the particular position of Howard Davies.
In the longer term, that issue will need to be reconsidered. I believe that your Lordships' House must decide whether it needs to be dealt with at this stage. My reading of the Bill is that it provides for flexibility in the governance of the FSA and allows for the structure to be changed as issues develop. I should be content to see how matters pan out and to look at it in the light of developments. At the same time, in no way would I withdraw from the longer-term preference of having the job divided.
The second general issue that I wish to raise concerns the fear of excessive regulation, the burdens on industry and the whole question of the scope of what is covered by regulation. Many of us believe that savers and investors have a significant responsibility to be intelligent customers. The Bill recognises that by asserting the principle that consumers should take responsibility for their decisions. At the same time, it is necessary to recognise that financial products have special characteristics which need regulation. People make substantial financial commitments, very often for many years. It is difficult to see the full implications of their decisions.
That, of course, brings us to the case for regulation. Personally, I am now reasonably happy with the balance that the Bill gives between the protection of consumers and concerns for the regulatory burdens and compliance costs. Some of the worries that the Joint Committee put forward have been dealt with; for example, the unnecessary authorisation for solicitors. However, there are two issues of scope on which I should also like to comment. Others have already mentioned them.
The Joint Committee came down quite firmly on the side of including mortgage advice within the scope of the FSA because of the complex choices that are now available. We wanted a decision to be taken in principle. The Government have decided to regulate mortgage providers but they have not included the regulation of mortgage advice. I understand the logic of wanting to avoid unnecessary burdens, but I have to say that I do not see that as a sustainable long-term

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position. I believe that consumers will want clarity about the regulatory arrangements and we all want to encourage the provision of high quality advice. My fear is that this half-way house will lead to confusion about what is and is not regulated. I believe that it runs the danger of creating too much inconsistency and I suspect that it will be an ongoing source of trouble. Personally, I should have preferred to see authorisation of mortgage advisers included in the Bill.
Similarly, I should like to see regulation of long-term care, as suggested by the Joint Committee. I am rather puzzled as to why the Government are so slow in dealing with this issue, unless there is a problem in bringing together the various interested departments and engaging in joined-up talking. We are told simply that it is under consideration. However, it seems to have been under consideration for quite a long time. I hope that the Minister will be able to give us an indication of when we shall hear the Government's position on this matter.
My third general point concerns the question of the handling of discipline and enforcement by the new authority. We have heard a good deal of concern expressed about how individuals and small firms will be able to cope when faced with the might of the FSA. Many people have said that the FSA will be investigator, prosecutor, judge, jury and even executioner, all rolled into one. Again, a balance must be struck. That is important in order to protect the rights of individuals who work in the industry. At the same time, the arrangements for dealing with wrong-doers need to be effective. There is a particular issue about market abuse. Therefore, not surprisingly, the Joint Committee spent much time on the enforcement process and on the issue of market abuse in particular.
So far as concerns the issue of enforcement and discipline, my view is that we now have a workable system that generally maintains the right balance. The process is divided between an administrative procedure built around the enforcement committee and a judicial procedure built around the tribunal. That seems to give us the best chance of settling most cases at the administrative stage while protecting the rights of individuals. In general, the safeguards that the Joint Committee asked for are now included, including the question of costs.
There are two issues which I hope the House will wish to explore further. One is the degree of certainty in this regime. Many practitioners remain concerned that there is not enough certainty, although there has been a move to clarify that matter. The second is the difficult issue of whether the regime is compatible with ECHR. That applies to such issues as admissible evidence.
The Government continue to argue that there is no problem because that is a club and the rules apply only to authorised persons. But my view is that there is still an issue here which we shall need to explore further.
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The issue of market abuse and whether it was right to have a civil regime for market abuse took up a lot of our time. In principle, I am happy about that idea. The committee took the view that it complements the existing criminal offences.
Another issue which took up a lot of our time was whether the market abuse regime is criminal in substance in ECHR terms and whether the necessary safeguards appear in the Bill. That has now been largely sorted out.
There was an issue also of whether there is an appropriate degree of certainty in relation to the drafting of the market abuse offence and the question of safe harbours. Again, the Government have responded positively on those issues.
However, in one respect there is an issue as to whether or not the Government have gone too far; that is, the whole question of the definition of market abuse. There is now a test of how the behaviour will be regarded by a regular user of that market. That raises the interesting question of whether there are absolute or only relative standards of abuse in terms of what people regard as normal. We shall need to examine that.
At this stage, I am slightly uncomfortable with the relative standard of the regular user of the market which seems to me to lack an objective anchor. But there are difficulties in relation to the drafting. In the Joint Committee we spent some time trying to think of how one would draft a description of a defence which would give greater certainty but which would also capture a whole series of events which may happen in the future but which are difficult to anticipate at this stage. Therefore, I am under no illusions. The drafting is difficult, but that issue will need to be debated.
No doubt many matters will arise during our discussions of this enormous Bill. My main conclusion is to agree with those who say that it is an extremely complex piece of legislation and that it is very important. The industry has an enormous impact upon our economy. In general terms, the Bill deserves support. It tries to do the right thing. While giving that general support, there are many details at which it is right that your Lordships' House should be looking in considerable detail during the further stages of the Bill.
4.12 p.m.
Lord Faulkner of Worcester: My Lords, I start by first declaring an interest, originally as an adviser to the Securities and Investments Board in 1997 and, subsequently, to the Financial Services Authority. I have obviously been able to follow the progress of this Bill and, indeed, the draft legislation from the very beginning, much of that time while I was not a Member of your Lordships' House. It has been clear to me that throughout that process it has benefited from a number of improvements compared with how it was when it first saw the light of day in July 1998. It has gone through an extraordinary combination of consultation, consideration by the Joint Committee and extremely lengthy deliberations in another place.

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Students of the parliamentary process will have noted some of the new procedures which have applied to this Bill. Reference has been made already—and I am sure there will be many more references—to the extraordinary thoroughness of the scrutiny given to the Bill by the Joint Committee, chaired with such distinction by the noble Lord, Lord Burns. That led to several significant changes being made to the Bill before it was even read a first time, particularly in the area of accountability.
The decision that was taken in another place, with all-party support, to carry over the Bill—I believe that is the first time it has ever happened with a government Bill—from the last Session to this has meant that the timetable for enactment has not slipped significantly.
While Parliament has been working on the Bill, the FSA has been preparing for the day when it is given its full responsibilities and can consolidate the powers of the three SROs and other regulatory bodies which come within the financial services sector.
There has been no change to the FSA's four statutory objectives. Those remain the need to maintain market confidence; to promote public awareness; to protect consumers; and to reduce financial crime. Those were supported by the Burns committee, as were the general principles of good regulation. The principle relating to competition has been strengthened, as noble Lords have already mentioned, but sensibly, not to the point at which the FSA was effectively turned into a new competition authority.
The fact that the Bill has arrived in this House in reasonable shape does not mean that we shall have nothing to discuss in Committee. I know that my noble friend Lord Lipsey is keen to include a provision on the regulation of long-term care. He speaks with immense authority on that subject, having served as a member of the Royal Commission on the Long-Term Care of the Elderly. I hope that the Government will consider carefully the points that he and other noble Lords make on that subject.
There are other matters which I hope we shall have time to consider in Committee, particularly in the context of the market abuse regime. For example, I wonder whether sufficient attention is being paid to the growing problem of what are known as Internet bulletin boards as there are growing allegations that chat rooms are being used by unscrupulous investors to talk up the value of companies in which they have shares in the hope that they can push up the price and then sell at a profit. I believe that that is known in the trade as "scalping" or, rather more graphically, "pumping and dumping".
Then there are the activities of the newspaper and magazine share tipsters which have occupied certainly the tabloid newspapers in a very big way over recent months. Howard Davies, the chairman of the FSA, was reported in the Financial Times on 9th February as saying that journalists will not be exempt from the new offence of market abuse which is proposed in the Bill. He made it clear also that the FSA could pursue City
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public relations companies which use journalists in an attempt to move share prices if they stood to make a profit from a rise or a fall.
Market abuse is intended to be a civil offence and will complement the existing criminal law, which deals with such matters as insider dealing. The aim is to produce a stock market which is true and fair; where informed participants do not have their confidence damaged as a result of the activities of people who have access to price-sensitive information. That must be right.
The Burns committee devoted a great deal of time and effort to the market abuse regime. Its conclusions have led to some very significant changes in the Bill, particularly in the context of the European convention, both before it started its passage in another place and later in Committee there. The Bill is a great deal better because of the work of the Joint Committee, and its members, in all parties and none, deserve the thanks not only of this House but of the financial community and customers of financial services outside.
However, there is one area where I believe the Joint Committee got it wrong. That was on the question of the roles of the chairman and chief executive of the FSA and whether they should, in the longer term, be split. I am interested that noble Lords who preceded me, with the exception of the Minister, took the side of the Joint Committee on that subject.
I shall conclude my remarks today by saying why, on this issue, I believe that the Government are right and why noble Lords who believe that that role should be split are mistaken.
The main argument put forward in another place—and we have heard it again from the noble Lord, Lord Saatchi, this afternoon—for splitting the roles is that the current arrangements do not meet the recommendations of the Cadbury, Hampel and Greenbury codes and that they give too much power to one individual. I believe that I summarise reasonably accurately the point that the noble Lord made.
However, those codes exist to protect commercial companies with shareholders. The FSA is not one of those as it has no shareholders. The governance model currently in the Bill, with an executive board and non-executive committee chaired by the senior non-executive director—in practice, the deputy chairman—is based exactly on the model put in place for the Bank of England and approved by your Lordships in the Bank of England Act 1998.
The Shadow Chief Secretary, Mr Heathcoat-Amory, recognised on Report in another place that,
"it has been argued fairly that most foreign financial regulators have combined the two tasks of chairman and chief executive".—[Official Report, Commons, 27/1/00; col. 601.]
There is no reason for the UK to be different. We need to ensure that one person has the status to lead the FSA, both in its day-to-day business and in the international arena. For example, let us take the global and European organisations of securities regulation, known variously as IOSCO (the International Organisation of Securities Commissions) and FESCO

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(the Forum of European Securities Commissions). All the members of the governing bodies are full-time executive chairmen, and Howard Davies is one of them.
It may be suggested that the present arrangement gives one individual too much power. We have heard that this afternoon. It is not intended that the chairman shall have a role in enforcement cases. There will be a separate enforcement committee, which will not include executive board members. It is that committee which will decide whether to bring charges and, if necessary, determine appropriate sanctions.
The Bill sets out that there should be a majority of non-executives appointed by the Treasury and that they will keep under review whether the FSA is discharging its functions in the most efficient and economic way. The non-executives on the FSA hoard themselves made clear their views in their response to the Joint Committee. They argued that the two roles should not be split. They said,
"Fears of an over-mighty executive are best addressed by a board that is fully integrated into the decision taking of their organisation. with the chairman in a full time executive role".
I am sorry that the noble Lord, Lord Taverne, is not convinced by that, but when other noble Lords read that response, they may take a different view.
I am sure that they are taking the most sensible approach, not just in present circumstances but for the future as well. There is obviously no wish on anyone's part to take away either the chairman's or chief executive's job from Howard Davies, whose reputation, as other noble Lords have already said, for distinguished public service seems to grow with every month that passes. It is important that he can hand on to his successor, whoever and whenever that may be, a vibrant, successful and respected financial services regulatory body whose creation, I believe, will come to be seen as one of this Government's great successes.
4.21 p.m.
Lord Hunt of Wirral: My Lords, although your Lordships will be aware of the interest I have previously declared as senior partner of Beachcroft Wansbroughs, may I also mention that over the past 12 months I have been involved in the formation of a new trade body called the Association of Independent Financial Advisers. I have the honour to be its founding chairman.
Perhaps I may start by saying that I join in the general sense of welcome for the Financial Services Authority. There was a very interesting survey of industry executives undertaken by the practitioners' panel. It revealed considerable support within the industry for the proposition that the old regulatory system had to be changed. I believe that that sums up the general view expressed already in today's debate that the creation of the FSA gives a great opportunity to get regulation right.
The old two-tier system of regulation was seen as far too complex and obscure and its monitoring increasingly intrusive. In effect, the regulators were
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starting to second-guess businesses and judge them as to the extent to which they had ticked the necessary boxes on the relevant forms. The big picture was being lost. Now, the creation of the FSA gives a real chance to address those criticisms.
In following the noble Lord, Lord Faulkner of Worcester, perhaps I may add that while many of us concur with his assessment of Howard Davies, I do not believe that that should blind us to the fact that we are creating an authority for many years and decades to come. I tend to agree with much of what the noble Lord, Lord Burns, said about that. My noble friend Lord Saatchi had some particularly relevant points to make. We should reflect on the structure of the organisation rather than the personalities involved in seeking to get the legislation right.
There are two pointers which give me great hope for the future. First, the FSA has made a commitment to be open. To my mind that means that it should be a listening regulator. I believe it was the noble Lord, Lord Taverne, who referred to the fact that there had been 41 consultation documents. I believe that that was the figure at the beginning of January. I greatly welcome that. There has been an impressive array of well-arranged consultation documents. The FSA now needs to show that that is not just a process which it feels obliged to follow but that it reflects a listening and responsive attitude on its part.
The second pointer is the fact that the FSA has unveiled a new philosophy, so ably described in its document A New Regulator for the New Millennium. Its proposals, with greater emphasis on themed regulation and risk assessment—a move away from nit-picking monitoring visits—are to be applauded. But its effect must permeate throughout the ranks of the FSA. In the past, the chief criticism of regulators has been that although those at the top have used fine words—in the phrase of the Minister, Lord McIntosh, earlier, a "light touch"—those words have not gone all the way through the authority. If inspection visits by FSA monitoring teams turn into a catalogue of niggling criticism and queries over form-filling, then the question will be rightly asked: has anything really changed?
However, I have every confidence in the ability of that outstanding public servant, Howard Davies, and his team. I believe that we should also express our sympathy with them at the immensity of their task in knitting together so many regulators into one coherent whole.
There are other positive signs. I welcome the FSA's attitude, in its approach to training and competence, of treating businesses as adult and responsible. That encourages businesses to take responsibility for their own destiny and to draw up training plans which are relevant to their needs rather than again undergo some bureaucratic form-filling exercise of calculating points for continuing professional development. Certainly, bodies such as AIFA will be working to help its members respond to the new environment. But no one underestimates the challenge which lies before the authority.

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I make a general point. The FSA has to show that it can handle all types of investment business. Most financial institutions are large, with complex internal processes to ensure adequate control of their businesses. They have complaints departments, compliance officers and directors of regulatory relations. But one key area of the market, IFAs, with whom I have been working over the past few months, are typically small firms and even one-man bands. The compliance director there will have a dozen other job titles and responsibilities. He or she will not talk the regulatory talk of some other much larger firms. The FSA has to show that it can adapt to handle these rather different people who form such a vital part of the financial services ecology.
On that issue the FSA has been sending out some mixed messages. I applaud its determination to move away from the continued monitoring of small, low-risk business and to identify more accurately where risk lies both in business and product range. I agree with that emphasis because it may well lift the regulatory burden from well-run, thoroughly professional IFAs. But other messages have been less positive. The consultative paper on senior management responsibilities makes some sense if one is running a major financial institution. The requirements for clear job descriptions, lines of responsibility, and so on, make a great deal of good sense. But what if the business is rather small? To what extent will a set of formalised paper requirements enhance control in such a business? There is already an exemption for sole traders. Can the FSA not make it clear that the regulatory imposition of management responsibilities on, say, a local IFA with fewer than nine registered individuals will be handled flexibly and that the bureaucratic requirements for formalised management controls and their documentation will be kept to an absolute minimum?
There is always a risk in regulation that what starts off as a commonsense system will accumulate added layers of procedure. It may be preferable to drop the requirement entirely for smaller businesses. That is perhaps something we can discuss at a later stage of the Bill. The incentive for proper management controls in such a business is far more immediate than a regulatory requirement. It goes to the very survival of the business itself. For IFAs there is no pot of other people's money—policyholder or stakeholder funds—into which an independent financial adviser can dip. Business survival is the best and most focused way of ensuring management accountability.
There are other factors which will need to be remembered by the regulator. Every response to every consultation document by an IFA will come from someone who has taken time out from running his business to answer the form. Every completed form will have been filled in by someone whose job is not to fill in forms but who is occupied in running a business. Those businessmen will not understand the nuances and byways of the regulatory system, and the regulator must appreciate that.
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The IFA market is remarkably resilient. IFA numbers are substantial with 7,000 firms and 23,000 advisers facing up to the challenges of the many complex issues which affect their business. The days of high initial commissions are receding. IFAs, in the main, now rely on building good customer relationships which lead to repeat business. Incidentally, given the existence of such continuing relationships, the question of whether they are remunerated by fees or commission becomes a second order issue.
IFAs rely on increasing levels of professionalism and client satisfaction. The public are becoming increasingly attracted to the idea of independent financial advice. More and more business is being channelled down that route. It would be a mistake to turn back the clock on customer understanding by reopening the question of polarisation. The present rules on polarisation make it clear to every investor whether the advice is independent or tied to a specific range of products. There is no half-way house; there is no blurring of the role of adviser and that of salesman.
I hope that the FSA investigation into polarisation occasioned by the recent OFT report will conclude that no change is advisable and that the Government will accept that conclusion. The FSA should bear in mind the regulatory upheaval of tinkering with polarisation at a time when it is establishing itself and the new regulatory approach. It should bear in mind also that IFAs are a popular choice for investors because they offer what investors want.
We look forward to scrutinising this legislation in much greater detail. How right was my noble friend Lord Saatchi to stress the importance of the e-dimension. The noble Lord, Lord Faulkner, mentioned how Internet platform pages can be manipulated and we must bear that in mind as we go through the Bill. We must be careful also to ensure that the legislation in no way damages our pre-eminent position in world markets. That will require careful handling with, above all, the light touch which I hope will be the hallmark of the legislation.
4.34 p.m.
Lord Haskel: My Lords, I too come to this Bill with a sense of familiarity because I served on the pre-legislation Joint Committee. As my noble friend the Minister told us, it was a Joint Committee of both Houses of Parliament chaired by the noble Lord, Lord Burns. We had only eight weeks to scrutinise this Bill, and the noble Lord, Lord Saatchi, graphically told us how enormous it is. We did that thanks to the hard work and dedication of our chairman and I congratulate him on that.
I should like to place on record my thanks to our three expert advisers and especially to our two parliamentary clerks. Without them we would never have got through the enormous amount of work required. But it was not only thanks to the clerks and the special advisers, but also thanks to two important innovations to which the noble Lord, Lord Burns, referred. First, representatives from the Bill team and

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the FSA were present at all our meetings. That meant that technical points could be settled on the spot. Secondly, witnesses were invited to give their evidence in groups. So some of our meetings were really seminars where the witnesses debated not only with us, but also with each other and the special advisers. That not only made our meetings more lively, but also speeded up our work. I hope that future Joint Committees will take notice of that because it was quite a success.
The work of the committee was extended because the draft Bill raised a number of issues regarding the European Convention on Human Rights. That led us to propose that the two Houses should establish a human rights committee to examine draft legislation to ensure that it is compatible with the convention. I understand that that matter is now under discussion. Indeed, the Government seemed to accept most of the committee's recommendations, which is reassuring and indicates the value of pre-scrutiny.
Our main concern was about compatibility with the European Convention on Human Rights in the area dealing with penalties for market abuse. We were concerned that individuals should not have their human rights abused by compelled evidence being used against them and that, if proceedings were taken against them, there should be equality of arms. Those concerns have been dealt with. The Bill has been amended to provide a scheme for legal assistance. It prohibits the use of compelled evidence and clarifies the whole area by applying that to regular market users; in effect, those who sign up to the rule book. That has made the Bill pretty fair, and it was with fairness in mind that we also considered the powers of the FSA.
Other noble Lords reminded us how powerful the FSA is. We felt that the FSA itself should be regulated in some way. As the noble Lord, Lord Burns, explained, we asked that the investigation and discipline functions in the FSA should be separated and that the outcome of cases should be made public. We also felt that the FSA should not become a profit centre. So we suggested that the income from fines should go back to the firms being regulated and that the FSA should not have the power to award costs.
The level of fines should also be proportionate, not only to the seriousness of the matter, but also to the ability to pay. That is important. A fine of £500,000 could bankrupt an individual but be hardly noticed by a medium-sized firm. The Government accepted those recommendations and the Bill is all the better for that. However, it does not go far enough. Like other noble Lords, I too should like to see the jobs of chief executive and chairman separated. I agree with my noble friend Lord Faulkner that the FSA is not an ordinary company. But a lifetime's experience in business taught me the value of that separation. There is more to an organisation than just shareholder matters.
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Like other noble Lords, I feel that the FSA is a large and powerful organisation in good hands now but, as the noble Lords, Lord Burns and Lord Saatchi, asked, what of the future? We all agreed that the FSA should be more accountable.
The Bill contains welcome proposals for a consumer panel and a practitioner panel. We asked that these panels should become more independent by having a separate budget, and particularly that the practitioner panel should have an independent chairman. This has been agreed, and I believe that the balance is now about right.
We also welcomed the single ombudsman scheme, but asked that this should be strengthened by excluding claims by financial services businesses to the ombudsman. I am sure that this will give a greater sense of ownership to the consumer and give the consumer more confidence in the ombudsman scheme.
We also wished to give more confidence to the consumer by extending the scope of the Bill to include mortgages. One reason why this is important is that many mortgages today are combined with other financial services which are already regulated. The Government have gone part way to accepting this proposal, but I am sure that eventually all mortgage work will have to be regulated because it will be impossible to separate it out from other regulated financial services. However, the consumer meanwhile has no redress when sold a wrong mortgage and is open to exploitation, as the noble Lord, Lord Taverne, explained.
In addition, the elderly who buy long-term care insurance are also open to exploitation. I know that my noble friend Lord Lipsey is concerned about this matter and that he intends to speak to this point. Many of us on the Joint Committee were also concerned about this. It requires some attention, and it would be interesting to know why the Government do not share our concern.
Quite rightly, the Bill recognises that there are two separate markets—wholesale and retail. Each requires a different regulatory touch. The needs of the professional and the consumer are different. The consumer is on unfamiliar territory. That is why I share the concern of the noble Lord, Lord Taverne, that there should be a responsibility on the seller to ensure that the product is suitable for the buyer and that the seller should not be able to hide behind caveat emptor.
There is another consumer interest to be considered relating to the policyholder. This was drawn to my attention by an article in the Financial Times last week. The Bill does not deal with the question of orphan assets— unclaimed money belonging to policyholders which has accumulated over many years. The Financial Times reported last week that some £20 billion of unclaimed money belonging to policyholders was floating about in space; £7 billion of this is with the Pru. The point is that this money belongs to past policyholders, but they or their representatives have no say at board level as to how

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this money is to be dealt with. As a result, the insurance companies seem to be using it to pay for mis-selling or are transferring it to shareholders.
The Consumers' Association raised this with the Treasury Select Committee in 1998, saying that there was no representation to protect this surplus. It seems to me that this matter could have been dealt with in the Bill. It would be helpful to have the Minister's view of it.
I too believe that the Bill serves a very useful purpose by defining the objectives of regulation. I welcome the fact that the Bill requires the FSA not only to prevent crime and market abuse and to regulate financial probity, but also to maintain confidence in the market and to encourage public understanding.
One aspect of the Bill of which I am unsure is the way in which it deals with—or rather does not deal with—the international aspect of the financial services industry. The principle seems to be that the country of origin is in control. Therefore, the country of origin is responsible for the products and for the advertising. However, with all the changes that we are seeing in communications, about which my noble friend Lord Faulkner and the noble Lord, Lord Saatchi spoke, it is inevitable that the country of origin could not only be a tax haven in the Bahamas but conceivably a small boat moored in international waters.
Of course, companies will ultimately succeed or fail on the quality of the product and services that they provide, but this implies an informed customer. For instance, customers who have not adapted to an era of low inflation can be wrongly influenced by projections based on inflation figures of five or 10 years ago. Indeed, they can also be influenced by the extraordinary and unusual recent rise in stock market indices. That can lead to serious mis-selling. That is why this international aspect will have to be watched very carefully.
The Bill performs another very useful purpose. As other noble Lords have agreed, it brings together all the disparate regulators created during the 1970s and the 1980s. This is ambitious. However, it reduces the complexity and overlapping of financial regulation. The FSA is to be congratulated on bringing together all these organisations under one roof, while working under the old rules before this legislation receives Royal Assent. The fact that it appears to be working well is a tribute to the FSA and the team. That should give us every encouragement to give this Bill a Second Reading, and I wish it well.
4.46 p.m.
Lord Alexander of Weedon: My Lords, I, too, warmly welcome the central thrust of this Bill to create a single, powerful regulator for financial services. For three years I served part-time as deputy chairman of its predecessor, the Securities and Investment Board, with the acronym SIB. The work of the SIB, which was well led by Sir Andrew Large, was undoubtedly valuable in strengthening consumer protection. A notable illustration was the way in which it grasped the issue of pensions mis-selling. The old SIB was
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continually hampered by the split of regulatory functions between itself as the leading regulator and the so-called SROs as second tier regulators.
The compromise between statutory and practitioner regulation which was thought politically necessary at the time of the Financial Services Act 1986 proved to be badly flawed. In our experience, it led to delay, extra expense and a lack of clarity over the boundaries of jurisdiction between different regulators. It meant that no single authority had available to it a full range of powers to police the financial services industry. This in turn led to a jostling for position among regulators, all eager to improve their own standing and image. The potential for regulatory arbitrage was simply inherent in the system.
It was therefore bold, but right, for the Government to grasp this as a key issue very soon after they took office. The prompt decision to create a single FSA and, in spite of its lack of any visible statutory underpinning, to ask it to take up work immediately was both courageous and necessary. It was also wise to ask Howard Davies, with his remarkable abilities, to become the first chairman. Most of those working in the financial services industry at the time believed that change along these lines was necessary. They knew that it was in the wind but, until then, they had no idea if or when it would come. The risk of demoralisation and the loss of good staff was very real. Therefore, the Chancellor's prompt action to clarify the situation was important.
I also believe that the processes which led to some little time passing before the Bill came to Parliament were very sensible. They have been an object lesson in pre-legislative scrutiny which should give us enhanced confidence in what is a very important process for improving future legislation. There was initial, wide-ranging consultation. There was then the most valuable scrutiny by the committee chaired by the noble Lord, Lord Burns, completed in an astonishingly short space of time. The staff of the FSA have also, in my experience, both listened and been tireless and patient in seeking to explain its proposals.
At the pre-legislative stage, the Delegated Powers and Deregulation Committee—I thank the noble Lord, Lord McIntosh of Haringey, on behalf of the committee for his kind words about us—found some points of real concern. I much welcome the support that we received both from the Burns committee and the changes that the Government have made in the Bill to meet those anxieties. We thought it essential that there should be appropriate separation of functions within the FSA between those responsible for bringing any disciplinary proceedings and the body that would adjudicate on such proceedings. We asked for this to be made plain on the face of the legislation, and it is good to see that this has been done. In the light of the importance of the powers granted to the FSA and its ability to make regulations, we thought that it should be obliged to submit an annual report to Parliament outlining its exercise of the rule-making powers. That recommendation has also been adopted.

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However, there was one further recommendation that we made to which I personally attached very great importance. This was the suggestion that people potentially affected by FSA rulings should be able to seek advance guidance enabling them to know that the action they proposed to take did not contravene the FSA rules. I came across such an advance guidance procedure when I was chairman of the Takeover Panel, and I found it impressive. Indeed, I saw it as fundamental to ensuring the smooth conduct of takeovers and as an issue of fairness to responsible practitioners. It was valuable for everyone to have an advance resolution of particular issues to keep the train on the rails rather than the more traditional action of picking up the pieces after an accident.
I recognise that it would be logistically difficult for the FSA to be obliged to respond to every request for guidance on individual issues, but I very much welcome the fact that the FSA is given power in the Bill to give guidance of this nature. If it is given and followed, it will, as I understand it, provide a party with a "safe harbour" defence if its conduct is challenged at a later stage. I would expect and hope that the FSA will be alert to ensure that this power is exercised wherever reasonably possible, particularly in situations where providers of financial services are seeking to innovate. Honest practitioners are entitled to this help.
I should like to add a few words to what has been said on the suggestion that the FSA should have an additional objective of promoting competition. I am personally rather doubtful. For the reasons given by my noble friend Lord Saatchi, it is obviously valuable that it should be required to have in mind both the desirability of innovation and the promotion of competition when seeking to fulfil its statutory objectives, but ultimately the protection of consumers and the public should dominate over such considerations.
The pressures on the providers of financial services are intense. They are owned by shareholders whose fundamental interest is simply in the bottom line and the share price, and who, for the most part, are seriously indifferent to other issues which, in other areas of life, would be regarded as part of the serious responsibility of what is termed "ownership". The fund-managing institutions do not generally show any interest in stakeholders in the company other than in shareholders; they show no interest in the employees of the company, its policies in the community or the value for money that it gives to its customers. This narrow focus is perhaps sadly inevitable where some of the institutions have themselves only a mixed track record and are under pressure from pension funds to improve short-term performance. It means that the so-called "owners" of the company are not watchful to ensure consumer protection. As I mentioned, through the past decade we have seen the problems caused by pension mis-selling. Already, as the respected Institute of Fiscal Studies has recently pointed out, there is
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anecdotal evidence of mis-selling of ISAs, which are a crucial part of the long-term savings market for more and more people.
Against this background of the need for consumer protection, I do not think that anything should be done to divert the FSA from the clarity of its current objectives. It is right that it should take competitiveness into account in reaching its decisions; but, ultimately, it must have the confidence that the protection of the public is firmly and unequivocally at the forefront of its work.
I am conscious, too, that the Bill has wide rule-making powers, some of which are new since the legislative scrutiny process took place. It is welcome to me that a careful procedure has now been set out by which the authority must consult on proposed rules and take account of all representations made to it. I see that as being valuable. But I also see it as a necessary and valuable discipline that it is provided that the rules cannot be made without a cost-benefit analysis.
Other speakers have mentioned their concern that there will not be a separation of roles along the more usual lines within corporate governance and a separate chairman and chief executive. This reflects an understandable concern to ensure that there are appropriate checks and balances in a very powerful organisation. I know Howard Davies to be both able and robust, as well as—and this is very important—fair and balanced. But we are legislating for the future. No one can predict how future chairmen may react to market pressures. In the event of a scandal, we can be sure that there will be immense pressure from government and from the media to seek prompt and urgent action. As we have all occasionally seen, this can sometimes carry the risk of the danger of a witch-hunt. The market needs reassurance that there is someone who can stand back as a brake on an over-aggressive regulatory action in that kind of situation. At the very least, perhaps it would be sensible to make specific provision in the Bill so that the roles of chairman and chief executive could be split in the future. Perhaps it would also be sensible to provide for a post of non-executive vice chairman who could give wise advice, standing back somewhat from the heat of the internal pressures on the FSA management. I believe that change along those lines would meet anxieties, give valuable reassurance to the City and give appropriate flexibility for the future.
Like my noble friend Lord Saatchi, I accept that immunity should be granted to the FSA. I now understand that I had this when I served on the SIB, although I must say that I was not even conscious of it at the time; nor do I think that it ever affected any decisions that we took. However, be that as it may, I share my noble friend's view that we should strengthen and clarify the role of the investigator. I also share his view that we should strengthen the accountability of the FSA to Parliament, not only for its rule-making, which is already in the Bill, but generally across the board.

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In conclusion, like others, I find myself bemused that we are already promised a very large number of amendments to the Bill. As it was only very recently in the other place, I should have thought that some people there would regard it as discourteous that they spent so long debating clauses to a Bill when the Government were already planning to introduce so many amendments in this House. But, overall, I do not wish to carp because I welcome the Bill. It is vital to have a strong, single regulator whose role is to protect members of the public in crucial areas of their affairs. I applaud the process of pre-legislative scrutiny and the amendments that have been made to the Bill to improve the way in which regulations are made and to ensure greater fairness in proceedings taken against people where such proceedings can affect or destroy their livelihood. It is an incomparably better way of legislating than was the Financial Services Act 1986. I hope that in that spirit it will be capable of still further thoughtful improvement as it passes through this House.
4.59 p.m.
Lord Borrie: My Lords, first, I should declare an interest as a non-executive director of the Woolwich plc, a provider of financial services.
As others have said, this is one of the most thoroughly debated and scrutinised Bills in recent times. It is massive and detailed. I welcome it particularly because it has a one-stop shop approach to regulation. I heartily agree with the noble Lord, Lord Alexander of Weedon, who has just finished speaking, that it is a big improvement on the Financial Services Act 1986 where different bits of the whole picture were put into separate boxes and logic was considerably tempered by the perceived need at the time for a large degree of self-regulation and practitioner-based regulation.
I hope that the simple and essential clarity of the role of the single regulator, the Financial Services Authority, is not undermined as the Bill goes through the House of Lords by any weakening of the robust powers in the Bill, especially enforcement powers—both civil and criminal—which I believe that the authority must have if it is to do its job properly. I also hope that the Government will seriously consider whether the Bill's scope might be widened just a little further than it is at the moment by adding all kinds of mortgages—as the noble Lord, Lord Taverne, has pointed out—including second mortgages, and advice on mortgages. They should be listed among the regulated activities in Schedule 2 to the Bill. As other noble Lords have said, I trust that my noble friend Lord Lipsey, who has yet to speak in the debate, will be listened to with great interest on the subject of including long-term care insurances.
When the late Professor Gower conducted his one-man inquiry on behalf of the then government prior to the Financial Services Act 1986, he said that legislation should not try to protect consumers from their own folly but should try to protect them from being made fools of. Consumer protection is one of the Bill's four
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regulatory objectives. However, in Clause 5 the authority must have regard to the general principle—these words are important—that,
"consumers should take responsibility for their"
own actions. For ordinary non-business consumers who buy goods, the crude caveat emptor that once prevailed more than a century ago disappeared a long time ago. If I tabled an amendment to the Bill for the word "reasonable" to be inserted before the word "responsibility" in Clause 5, I might get support from the noble Lord, Lord Taverne, and, indeed, from my noble friend Lord Haskel, who also mentioned that point.
Since the original draft of the Bill, the Government have added provision for two useful advisory bodies which the authority must consult—a practitioner panel and a consumer panel. On the consumer panel, as it currently exists on a non-statutory basis, it is natural that well-known consumer organisations, such as the National Consumer Council and the Consumers' Association are represented, along with trading standards officers of local authorities. It is also appropriate, when the authority is working hard at the present time on consumer advisory services and its consumer helpline, that the consumer panel includes people from the field of money and debt advice.
The Money Advice Trust, of which I am the honorary President, has a key role in co-ordinating money and debt advice throughout the country. Recent research it commissioned, financed by Barclays Bank, has now concluded that the quality of such independent advice is high, but—noble Lords will not be surprised to hear—finance and funding are fragile. I would argue—I hope that noble Lords would agree with this—that lenders benefit from good independent advice to debtors (debtors also benefit from this) and ought to give more support to such advice.
When the consumer panel is set up on a statutory basis, the authority might consider throwing its net a little wider. It sometimes strikes me that bodies of various kinds are a little lazy when it comes to appointing people. I was a little surprised that there does not appear to be anyone from the citizens advice bureaux, whom we all know are of great importance. I should have thought it would be useful to have someone from the field of education. The Financial Services Authority is running a conference next month to promote personal finance in the context of numeracy in primary school classrooms in the United Kingdom. Adult and child education in money matters are equally vital if the regulatory objective of public awareness is to be adequately pursued.
A particular topic embedded in the Bill that I want to say a few more words about is the single ombudsman scheme. The regulators are being brought together in a single authority and the ombudsman schemes are being brought together in a single authority. It is a great improvement on the mix of eight separate ombudsman and arbitration schemes that have been available in recent times for financial services. The first private sector ombudsman scheme in

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the country for insurance disputes was set up as long ago as 1981. As with the later banking ombudsman scheme, it was voluntary but widely supported and funded by the industry itself in growing recognition of the need to maintain and improve consumer confidence in the industry.
A number of safeguards were introduced in order to ensure that the old maxim of,
"he who pays the piper calls the tune"
did not apply. Therefore an independent board or council was set up to support the independent ombudsman who would determine disputes and have power to award compensation up to a certain sum. The Bill in Clauses 219 to 228 and Schedule 16 builds on these principles by creating, again with industry funding, an independent body corporate to operate the scheme and to appoint a panel of independent people to be the actual ombudsmen settling disputes.
I greatly welcome the appointment of Mr Walter Merricks, the former insurance ombudsman, as the first financial services chief ombudsman. I am glad that the scheme is not at present—although there is provision for this in the Bill—allowing for the possibility of charging costs to the consumer. My only query is whether, given the breadth of the scheme's remit across the whole field of financial services of all kinds, there will be adequate co-ordination of ombudsmen decisions to ensure consistency and fairness as between one person and another in decision-making.
My final topic—this has been raised by others—is whether the promotion of competition should be among the regulatory objectives. The Utilities Bill, now going through the other place, states that its primary objective is the protection of the consumer, but adds,
"wherever appropriate, by promoting effective competition".
That Bill also gives jurisdiction to promote competition not only to the Office of Fair Trading but also to the various separate industry regulators, such as Oftel and others. In this Bill the promotion of competition is somewhat downgraded because it is mentioned only as one of quite a number of various factors that the authority ought to have regard to in discharging its functions. Therefore, there are two Bills going through Parliament at roughly the same time, with different wording as to the relationship between consumer protection and the promotion of competition. Other noble Lords have expressed stronger views. I have only one question to the Minister at this stage: is there a difference in policy behind the difference in wording?
The special competition scrutiny provisions in Clauses 150 to 155 have their origin in the scrutiny powers given to the Office of Fair Trading in the Financial Services Act 1986. That was a good idea then and it is a good idea now, because over-enthusiastic regulation—for example, raising the qualifications required to provide certain financial services so high that competition is unduly restricted, allowing few people to engage in those services—may be to the
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disbenefit of consumers. I welcome the improvement in this Bill over the 1986 Act whereby the Office of Fair Trading's scrutiny report on any anti-competitive effects of rules or guidance from the authority is now to go not to Ministers, but to the competition commission; and the role of the Government—or the Treasury—is simply to direct the authority to follow the final ruling of the competition commission.
That is in effect a depoliticisation of the matter. It is in line with the action taken by the present Government within hours of coming to power on 2nd May 1997, whereby the Monetary Policy Committee of the Bank of England took over tasks previously held to be those of the Chancellor. It is in line also with what the Government have said they intend in relation to merger cases on the matter of the relationship between the competition authorities and Ministers.
However, returning to the Bill, while Ministers are intended to keep out of the matter by and large, Clause 154(3) contains an exception described as "exceptional circumstances". I did not know what that meant, but I was helped by the Explanatory Notes which state at page 62 that "exceptional circumstances" refers to cases involving,
"a grave risk to the financial system".
If that is all it means, I am not really worried. If such circumstances arise, then it is fair enough to say that the Treasury must get hold of the problem. But is that all that it means? I support the Second Reading of the Bill.
5.12 p.m.
Lord Fraser of Carmyllie: My Lords, like other noble Lords I have registered interests to declare. I am a director of the recognised investment exchanges, the London Metal Exchange and the International Petroleum Exchange. For the purposes of the Bill it is of greatest interest to me that I had the privilege to serve under the noble Lord, Lord Burns, on the Joint Committee. It was an extremely worthwhile and constructive exercise. I hope the Government Front Bench will recognise the contribution from this side of the House in that committee, not particularly from myself but from my two erstwhile colleagues, Viscount Trenchard and Lord Poole, who I regret my hereditary colleagues did not see fit to elect to assist us with the Bill. I hope it was understood from the contributions made then that we have absolutely no purpose in either wrecking or seeking to delay the Bill, but only to see that its detail is as correct as possible. I am most grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Burns, for the way in which he conducted the committee.
The Bill seems a particularly apposite one for your Lordships to consider, because there is an enormous degree of detail to be followed through and, frankly, some of it is of little popular or political appeal. Nevertheless, it is of great import to what is probably the largest industry in the United Kingdom. While I acknowledge the primacy of the City of London in financial matters, I was grateful to the Minister for the emphasis he gave to the point that the Bill does not

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apply exclusively to the City of London, but stretches beyond the border to other parts of England. While London may have been supreme, an interesting counterflow has been developing as recently as today, indicating that some financial services may find their centres beyond the City.
It seems that we have something of a paradox to resolve, to which we need to give detailed scrutiny. As my noble friend Lord Saatchi indicated, that is both desirable and necessary. At the same time, we need to understand that we are operating in such fast-moving circumstances that some of the detail which we scrutinise as best we can may almost be outmoded before the Financial Services Authority begins to exercise its full regulatory functions once the Bill reaches the statute book. Notwithstanding that risk, it still seems appropriate that we should give the Bill as careful scrutiny as we can. As the noble Lord, Lord Taverne, indicated, it seems to point to the fact that at this stage we should be looking to the big issues which will continue irrespective of changes in financial services.
The major issue I see is that of competitiveness. I am sorry that my noble friend Lord Alexander of Weedon is not in his place at the moment, because he argued that the position was about right, which was surprisingly more in line with what the noble Lord, Lord Borrie, has just said on the issue. I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Burns, does not believe that I am unacceptably breaking ranks with the conclusions of the Joint Committee when I say that I wholly accept that the Government have improved what they have to say about competitiveness in Clause 2, but I still have some difficulty with the structure, the divisions and the emphasis of Clause 2.
I understand readily enough the desirability of avoiding any misunderstanding that the FSA should in future effectively be the competition authority. There is no point in imposing such a duty upon it. I strongly believe that good regulation is of itself good for business. I can think of one particular example in which I have been involved where, with the application of a stern degree of regulation, far from the markets in London being damaged, they were positively enhanced.
I believe that the FSA should be under a greater obligation than simply, as under Clause 2, to "have regard to" the various issues of competitiveness and innovation set out in paragraphs (d), (e), (f) and (g). I hope that the Government may yet be persuaded to reconsider the balance before the Bill completes its passage.
As I said, my concern is not about the present arrangement regarding anti-competitiveness. There is absolutely no desire and there can be no purpose in trying to give the FSA the power to look to what are now within our domestic law Articles 85 and 86 to examine what is anti-competitive. From those in the FSA with whom I have had some contact, it would seem that if people in the City of London believe that those operating from Canary Wharf will be prepared to protect their traditional dominance simply because
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they are dominant and that is the tradition, they had better think again. I anticipate that, given his powers under Chapter III of the Bill, the director-general will in fact have a rather light task.
I am more concerned that at some point in the future the Financial Services Authority will—as my noble friend Lord Hunt put it—tick some boxes; it will say, "In pursuit of our objectives, the market is confident, the public are aware, the consumer is protected and financial crime is down. We have achieved our objectives accordingly". What concerns me is that the next morning, the City or Canary Wharf may wake up to discover that large parts of our financial services business have simply disappeared to Germany, Geneva or elsewhere.
I recognise that the reason why LIFFE lost its "Bund" contract owed more to the nature of the way in which it was traded than any regulatory burdens. Nevertheless, the lesson that we ought to derive from that incident is that things can happen extraordinarily fast in financial services. If the FSA is not aware and light on its feet with regard to the competitiveness that can arise in Europe or even globally, as my noble friend Lord Saatchi emphasised, we may meet all these objectives but at the same time find that the size of our financial services industry has dramatically declined. In those circumstances, I very much hope that we can consider the matter more carefully.
The second big issue is undoubtedly that of market abuse. It was the Minister who said in opening the debate that what the Government are proposing to include on market abuse is to be laid on top of the firm foundations of the criminal law. I wish that I could be absolutely confident that the criminal law does indeed rest on firm foundations. Points have been made about both insider trading and market manipulation being crimes. However, it occurs to me that much of what is considered to be market abuse might also be considered to be, certainly as a Scots lawyer would see it, fraud—that is to say, bringing about some definite practical result by means of false pretences.
If one looks to the provisions of the clause dealing with market abuse, ones sees in subsection (2)(b) something which, to a Scots lawyer, looks remarkably like fraud. Clause 109(2)(b) states:
"the behaviour is likely to give a regular user of the market a false or misleading impression as to the supply of, or demand for, or as to the price or value of, investments of the kind in question".
The noble Lord, Lord Burns, had another point to make about that provision. But it would seem to me that if there were any intent behind that behaviour to give a false or misleading impression, it might amount to fraud.
I have been reading with considerable interest consultation paper 155 issued by the Law Commission in March 1999 in which it looked at the issue of crimes of dishonesty and fraud. In that document the Law Commission appears to come down against a general crime of dishonesty or deception. However, in that document, on the side of a general crime of dishonesty, both the noble and learned Lords, Lord Goff and Lord Donaldson, are quoted making particular reference to

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the law of Scotland. I understand that that cannot be resolved before the Bill completes its passage through this House. However, we would be better able to characterise market abuse and understand its extent if we had at least some indication of whether the Government broadly approve of the idea of a single crime of dishonesty or a single crime of fraud. That would enable us to see better whether indeed that activity of market abuse was really criminal, civil or something of a muddle.
The evidence we received, which was alarming, was that the conduct behind market abuse fell along a continuum. At one end it was undoubtedly criminal and at the far end it was undoubtedly civil. Somewhere along the line it shifted. The difficulty was that one would not know until after the event when it was civil and when it was criminal. The Government have taken some sensible steps to avoid much of the risk that might emerge in such circumstances by, first, allowing for legal aid—I meant to say "legal assistance": I wish it were legal aid—and, secondly, allowing for a prohibition against self-incrimination. That is desirable, but as I look to the front of the Bill I see that it states:
"The Lord McIntosh of Haringey has made the following statement under section 19(11(a) of the Human Rights Act 1998:
In my view the provisions of the Financial Services and Markets Bill are compatible with the Convention rights".
Perhaps I may say to the noble Lord that he is indeed a brave Minister.
What concerns me most about the relationship between the Bill and the convention is not so much what is on the face of the Bill—namely, what the Financial Services Authority may do, what powers are given to it and the way in which a tribunal and appeal arrangements are set up. That seems to have moved a long way along the road to a proper conclusion. But if I understand the real scheme of things, at least the six recognised investment exchanges in London are assumed to take on board the primary role of seeking out market abuse and dealing with it. In such circumstances, the London Metal Exchange or the International Petroleum Exchange are to be expected by the FSA to include within their rules provisions that will mirror those relating to market abuse within the Bill. In such circumstances, if there are problems of compliance with the convention of human rights, those problems will not emerge directly in relation to the Financial Services Authority but will emerge in relation to the exercise of powers by any one of the six RIEs. I should be grateful if the Minister would confirm my understanding of the structure. If it is correct, it may be important to ensure that each one of those RIEs understands from primary legislation just exactly what will be required of them in the future.
I recollect accurately that, when we considered the Bill in the Joint Committee, some two to three weeks before we finished another 150 clauses were given to us for our scrutiny. We simply ran out of steam at that point and concluded that we would not attempt to give them the same degree of scrutiny that we had given to others. I conclude by saying to the Minister that when
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we reach such clauses, a number of which have appeared in legislation in the past, I hope he will not take it amiss if we scrutinise them in a probing fashion just so that we better understand them. With that reservation, I warmly welcome the Second Reading of the Bill and very much hope that we can conclude proceedings on it constructively before the summer is up.
5.27 p.m.
Lord Sharman: My Lords, like other noble Lords, I have an interest to declare. For many years I practised as a partner in a firm of accountants which provided a great many services to the financial services industry. I remain a paid adviser to that firm.
The Bill, which as we have heard has already been much scrutinised, much debated and much discussed outside the House, provides us with a great opportunity. The creation of a single regulator for the financial services industry provides us with a sorely needed opportunity to obtain clarity and simplicity and to reduce costs. In approaching the creation of the regulator, the process must be open and transparent, it must meet the needs of our market places and it must meet the needs of our consumers. We should proceed not on the basis that this is wholly desirable but that there will be critics of the Bill outside the House. Those noble Lords who surf the web will have become aware last week of a website which had a very short duration. It was entitled "Not the FSA". It had some interesting commentary on the Bill. I shall say nothing further except that that serves to illustrate that there will be critics. We cannot afford to fail with this Bill. It will provide the regulatory regime which will be the financial driver for UK financial markets for the next generation. Those markets are mobile. If we get it wrong, they will move. There is no question about that. When we consider the issue of regulation it is wise to bear in mind that we are not regulating some recently privatised utility or group of utilities with near-monopolistic powers. That is a different situation. With great respect to the noble Lord, Lord Borrie, it is not the policy that is different, but the circumstances.
I am concerned that what we are doing is leading to the "battle fatigue" referred to by the noble Lord, Lord Taverne. This piece of legislation does substantially more than merely consolidate a number of regulators into a single regulator. Much in the Bill is new. Industry and consumers will need time to absorb it. It will need to be flexible and technology neutral. We have heard references to what might be described as the "e factor" and the speed at which the market-places are changing. If we add to that other initiatives, such as Cruickshank and the e-commerce Bill that will shortly he debated in this House, an environment of real battle fatigue could be created in the market-place. We must try not to add to that.
I, too, have significant difficulties with three issues in the Bill. The first relates to the structure and arrangements at the top end, in particular the division, or lack of division, of responsibilities between chairman and chief executive. We have heard

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explanations as to why that is desirable. I have read carefully the position of the FSA. I, too, should like to pay tribute to the oft-quoted and commented on qualities of Mr Howard Davies. I should not like my remarks to be taken in any way as a criticism of him, but the issue of the separation of duties at the top of an organisation is all about checks and balances. It is not purely about accounting to shareholders. It is about making sure that there are two sets of responsibilities, and one can provide a check on the other. We are creating within this authority a huge concentration of power. Confidence in it is absolutely essential. The market-place must look at it and be satisfied that the checks and balances are there.
By way of explanation, I might add that "full-time" does not mean that one has to be chairman and chief executive. I can think of a number of examples of organisations where there are full-time chairmen and full-time chief executives. If the organisation is big enough, that can be justified.
I would also draw attention to stakeholders, who are as important as shareholders. That is one of the reasons why we worry about checks and balances. It seems that there are a significant number of stakeholders with an interest in the Financial Services Authority, and separation of the duties of chairman and chief executive would go a long way towards making stakeholders more comfortable with the position.
The second issue is that of mortgages. I agree that it is desirable that mortgages should be brought within the scope of this regulation. However, I have a question as to whether the approach taken is the right one. To regulate products and providers but not intermediaries seems to be a weakness. I, too, feel that a mortgage is a mortgage is a mortgage, whether it is a first charge or a second charge mortgage. We should not worry terribly about what use the money is put to. It is a charge on a property and it is secured. If it is right to regulate it, it is right to regulate the whole of it, not part of it. There are some 11 million mortgages outstanding in this country. It is a huge area needing regulation. We shall need to revisit this significant issue.
Finally, in common with other noble Lords I am concerned about the requirement to encourage competition, to paraphrase remarks made. I differ from the noble Lord, Lord Borrie, on this issue. As I said, what we have here is a difference in circumstance, not of policy. We are not dealing with a recently privatised utility. We are dealing with free markets which have operated for hundreds of years. How, then, are we to encourage competition? I fear that there have been cases in the past where that has not happened. It is not a simple issue. I simply do not understand how it can be done in certain circumstances. What happens in a market where there is worry about the amount of competition and where the entry harriers are too high, perhaps for good regulatory purposes? Do we lower those barriers to enable more people to come in and create better competition? I think not. Protection of the consumer is paramount.
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To summarise, the regulation was sorely in need of overhaul, and the regulatory opportunity has been addressed. It is, as I said, a wonderful opportunity for clarity, simplicity and a reduced cost base. But let us bear in mind that this is a first—I hesitate to call it an experiment. This will be the only major financial market in which there will be an integrated regulator. For the absence of doubt, I do not regard Norway or Sweden as major financial markets. Market confidence will be achieved if we can avoid too much battle fatigue. Accountability is absolutely essential. This entity must be accountable to Parliament for all its activities.
The FSA faces some real challenges. Implementation will not be easy. Managing the change from nine to one, maintaining staff morale and ensuring the high levels of performance that are vital for the future, and getting the best from the recruiting market, will be a real challenge. The quest for consistency, bringing some areas up to the very high standards of others, will require significant improvement in certain areas. I believe that there will be a long period of change. However, I am confident that under Mr Davies's leadership that can be achieved.
This is a great opportunity. However, like many great opportunities, it is not without risk. During the passage of the Bill through this House, we must seek to ensure that the consequences of those risks are kept to a minimum in what is a key asset of this country: our well-established and very successful financial markets.
5.38 p.m.
Lord Ahmed: My Lords, I do not speak as a former Minister, banker, adviser or member of a finance committee, but as a consumer, customer and service user. I welcome the Government's proposals in the Bill. However, they do not go far enough. Whereas the Bill could unify and codify the entire legislation affecting all financial services, it excludes two vital elements: the Banking Ombudsman, and mortgages and advice to the major lending arena; namely, the high street banks.
One has to ask oneself: what is the reason behind that exclusion? I take great pleasure in taking an historical perspective in this House. I am reminded of Magna Carta, which was an attempt to protect all the King's subjects from a king who might be too forceful or barons who might be too powerful. Unfortunately, the high street banks today are what the barons were in medieval times, for they force us into financial serfdom. I consider it my duty to ensure that Clause 39 of the Bill enables Magna Carta to remain valid. Magna Carta states that,
"No free man shall be taken or imprisoned or dispossessed, or outlawed or exiled, or in any way destroyed, nor will we go upon him, nor will we send against him except by the lawful judgement of his peers or by the law of the land".
Magna Carta establishes that no person, not even the King, is above the law. Today, however, it seems that banks are above the law and everybody who is made

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redundant, bankrupt or dispossessed is financially and socially destroyed. Most victims suffer serious health and family problems, and suicides are not uncommon.
The current omissions from the Bill make sure that the FSA provides first aid but it does not stop the terminal disease called global capitalism. If we had a statutory code of practice to regulate lending and protect the borrower as much as the lender, we would have a new Magna Carta to protect the freedom of the individual. Instead, our democratic freedom is threatened by debt, including the debt owned by lending institutions. These debts create a new underclass as evidenced by liquidators' sales and the auctioning of repossessed properties which we see every day. The victims of predatory actions by banks are the new underclass in our society.
Noble Lords may recall that at the beginning of the year I invited them to attend meetings of the Forum for Stable Currencies that I host every three weeks in this House. At its previous meeting, Gill Hankey of the Bankruptcy Advisory Service said that 90 to 95 per cent of all bankrupts were innocent but all of them were victims of lending institutions. Her organisation is one of about half a dozen all of which have harrowing tales to tell. This Bill, therefore, must be put right, not by more than 500 amendments but by the inclusion of all banks and lending institutions and the Banking Ombudsman. If we do not get the Bill right, the underclass of the unemployed, the homeless, the bankrupts and the victims of banks will grow enormously, year after year, for the accumulation of personal, corporate and national debt strangles the essence of people's lives and freedom.
We must strive for a new form of economic democracy. This can be achieved by a Bill that regulates lending and borrowing in a way that is economically sustainable and mathematically balanced. Everybody strives for exponential profits from trading and lending, but nobody looks at personal, corporate and national indebtedness world-wide, which is equally exponential. Economic democracy will not be socialistic, nor should it cohabit with the worst excesses of capitalism. New Labour is a modernising force, and it owes that to its electorate. But the Bill as it stands does not go far enough in its obligation to ensure that ordinary hard-working people all over the country can exercise their individual freedom in a liberal democracy free from the harshness of the debt problem which the lending institutions continue to make worse.
I am aware of a class action against the Bank of England for its failure to regulate banks. I trust we shall ensure that the FSA becomes a regulatory body in which we can all have trust. I commend the Bill to noble Lords as an opportunity to prove that this House delivers what it is meant to do; namely, that it debates matters with the long-term perspective in mind for the benefit of all citizens.
5.44 p.m.
Lord Bagri: My Lords, first I declare a direct interest in the Financial Services and Markets Bill. I am
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chairman of an authorised investment services firm and am also privileged to be chairman of the London Metal Exchange, which is by far the largest metals futures market in the world. The LME is highly successful and pre-eminent in the world of non-ferrous metals. Every day its markets provide prices that are relied upon globally and its contracts help to reduce the risks of future price uncertainty. It is unique in terms of its influence and relevance to underlying trade and industry. The LME is one of the core organisations which contributes to the enormous success of the City of London. The contribution of the financial services industry to the economy of this country and its importance to Britain's role in the global economic and financial order is well recognised. As a recognised investment exchange, the LME has substantial regulatory responsibilities.
I am absolutely convinced that good regulation is vital for good business. Apart from encouraging the confidence of investors and users of the markets, thereby stimulating demand and turnover, good regulation fosters greater assurance about the creditworthiness of counterparties, reduces systemic risks and creates fair markets in which skilful and efficient business can be rewarded. It is on that basis that I extend a broad welcome to the Bill. Reform of the existing Financial Services Act is long overdue. I need not dwell on the problems and deficiencies of that regime caused by the plethora of regulatory bodies and layers of regulation which lack coherence and consistency.
The simplified regulatory structure and the single regulator introduced by this Bill should, if implemented sensibly and with proper accountability, bring significant benefits both to the regulated community and to its customers. It is vitally important that the Financial Services Authority is put on a firm legal footing as soon as possible and that the new regulatory framework is introduced speedily. Staff morale and turnover at the FSA have not been helped by the continuing delay and uncertainty. I do not in any way suggest that that reduces the scrutiny to which we should subject the Bill both during debate and in Committee. The Bill introduces very complex and far-reaching legislation which needs careful scrutiny. There is a great abundance of knowledge and experience on this subject in this House. I hope that we can draw upon that expertise to improve the Bill and facilitate its passage, bearing in mind that it is not in the interests of the financial services industry that the current uncertainty continues any longer than necessary.
A great deal of scrutiny has already taken place. I too join in the tribute paid to the noble Lord. Lord Burns, and other Members of the Joint Committee from this House and the other place who scrutinised the Bill in draft. As part of its work, the Joint Committee received representations and took evidence from a wide cross-section of the financial services industry and other parties. As a result of that scrutiny, the Government have introduced a large number of amendments which have significantly

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improved the Bill. However, a number of issues raised by the committee chaired by the noble Lord, Lord Burns, have yet to be adequately dealt with.
While I am convinced that good regulation is good for business, it must be proportionate and tailored to the type of business that is being regulated. The concept of a single regulator has a lot to commend itself but it also presents an enormous challenge. We must be alert to the dangers of allowing an over-cautious approach to retail markets and stifling the wholesale markets with over-burdensome oversight. The onus must always be on the regulator to justify the specific need for and cost of regulation in terms of the benefits delivered. Technological developments and the Internet have enormously increased the scope for more and more business to migrate to over-the-counter markets both within and outside the United Kingdom. When regulating, we must not lose sight of this reality.
The proposed remit of the Financial Services Authority covers probably far more areas than any other single financial markets regulator in the world. It is, therefore, particularly important for a body as large and powerful as this that the checks and balances to ensure proportionate and cost-effective regulation are enshrined in the legislation at the outset.
I hope to have the opportunity to participate during the Committee stage of the Bill, so I shall confine myself today to some broad points of principle. In view of the size, scope and powers of the FSA, and taking account of experience to date, I believe that there is a need for greater accountability of the FSA. Various possibilities have been suggested. Whatever method or combination of methods is adopted ultimately, the objective should be to encourage the FSA to be more accountable and amenable to scrutiny.
It has been suggested in some quarters that the FSA would be encouraged to act in a balanced way if the exemptions from immunity from suit, both for the FSA and its staff, were extended to cover unreasonable or reckless action. These exemptions would be in addition to the exemption for action taken in had faith which is already contained in the Bill. I can understand why immunity causes some concerns, but I have no doubt that the balance is correctly drawn in the Bill. It is vitally important for the good of the industry as a whole and the reputation of the United Kingdom as a well-regulated market that the regulators are not deterred from taking appropriate regulatory action when necessary. Extending the exemptions from immunity to include unreasonableness and recklessness would be likely to result in a large increase in legal actions with little purpose other than to deter the regulators. Justice is assured through recourse to judicial review.
I referred earlier to the commercial success of the LME and the City of London in general and to the importance of ensuring that the required level of regulation is implemented in the most cost-effective manner, and bearing in mind issues of international competitiveness. Having now seen the FSA operating de facto for some two years it is my view that more
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needs to be done to encourage the FSA to take into account the effects of its actions on competitiveness. We must do all we can to overcome the regulatory moral hazard problem that the perceived risk to regulators is under-regulation. Over-regulation has little downside for the regulators although it has substantial and negative effects both on the regulated industry and its customers.
There has also been a worrying tendency for the FSA to involve itself in the non-regulatory commercial issues of the recognised investment exchanges. The Bill clearly restricts the FSA's role to regulation of financial services business. However, the FSA appears to take the view that it does have jurisdiction over commercial issues because the financial well-being of an exchange might influence whether it is able to carry out its regulatory functions. It is vitally important that the functions of the FSA are confined to regulatory matters. It is the role of the boards of companies and exchanges to take commercial decisions and to guide their commercial direction so long as regulatory obligations are met. Commercial expertise lies in the boards not in the FSA. The limitation of the FSA's powers in the Bill to regulatory functions is implicit. Perhaps they need to be made explicit on the face of the Bill. In addition, a clear understanding of the respective regulatory roles of the FSA and the RIEs would be aided by mutually agreed memoranda of understanding.
Finally, perhaps I may say a few words on the breadth and scope of the Bill in relation to the market abuse provisions. It is essential that the market abuse regime extends to non-authorised persons and to activities outside the United Kingdom. Let me briefly explain why by reference to the Sumitomo-Hamanaka manipulation of the LME's copper market in 1996. Sumitomo was not and never has been a member of the LME. The LME could not, therefore, take regulatory action against Sumitomo even though it traded in millions of tonnes of copper. Nor could the Securities and Investments Board (SIB, as it was then known) under the existing legislation. This is clearly a loophole in the legislation designed to protect the integrity of the UK's investment exchange markets. I therefore wholeheartedly commend the extension of the scope of the market abuse regime to cover non-authorised persons, no matter where situated.
By and large, the FSA has started well under the able chairmanship of Mr Howard Davies. The Financial Services and Markets Bill is an extremely important and welcome piece of legislation. There is still work to be done in Committee. It is essential for the continued success of the financial services industry that the new regulatory regime is tailored to the needs of the industry and its customers, with proper checks and balances, and is introduced without undue delay after constructive further scrutiny.
5.55 p.m.
Lord Lipsey: My Lords, I greet the Bill with a pang in my heart. The interest I have to declare is as a member of the board of one of the existing SROs, the Personal Investment Authority. It has provided me

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with much interest and much onerous work over the years. In that sense I am sorry that your Lordships' House will abolish it through this Bill. However, I go along with the existing consensus. I should be tempted to say that I have never seen such consensus in favour of a major piece of government legislation since the Child Support Agency Bill a number of years ago—but that might be liable to misunderstanding. It demonstrates one factor: that the devil in all these matters lies in the detail, and there will be enormous value in the detailed examination of this admirable Bill given by your Lordships' House over the weeks ahead.
Before turning to my much canvassed special subject, having listened to the debate and having observed the progress of the Bill over a number of months, I wish to make one general point. The financial services industry was much concerned that the originally somewhat draconian disciplinary process laid down by the Financial Services Authority would be too onerous, unfair to individuals and infringe their human rights. I understand that concern. However, when considering the Bill we must never forget that investors, too, have human rights.
Perhaps I may give noble Lords a true life example where the two conflict. I sat recently on the PIA's membership and disciplinary committee. Before us was an application from a man we shall call Mr Jones. Mr Jones was, and perhaps is, a forger. His game was signing off mortgage applications so that the money went not to the person to whom it should have gone but into his bank account. Mr Jones was caught, as tends to happen. But in most such cases the firm fires the guy and that is the end of the matter. When Mr Jones' application had come before the committee, we would simply have said, "Sorry, no forgers here", and he would have been out of the industry, as is quite right. One cannot have people who have committed serious forgery running about in the financial services industry.
However, Mr Jones was a lucky fellow. His offence was so heinous that he was charged, and convicted. Under the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act his conviction was spent; and we were advised correctly by our lawyers that Mr Jones had to be allowed back into the industry. From reading his papers, I was not sure that he was a reformed character, but I hope that he is and that no one suffers as a result. In that case, the conflict between Mr Jones' human rights and the human rights of investors was resolved in favour of his human rights.
That problem as regards the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act is under consideration. I hope that the matter will be resolved. However, the vital point that we should keep in mind is that this is all about balancing the rights of the industry and the competitiveness of the industry, and the rights of investors and the need to protect investors. We would be well advised to bear that balance in mind during our consideration of the Bill.
I have never had the good fortune to receive so much support from noble Lords before I have even stood up and spoken! My argument seemed to go across the
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airwaves because no less than five noble Lords have mentioned the subject of long-term care insurance: the noble Lords, Lord Taverne, Lord Haskel, Lord Borrie, Lord Burns and Lord Faulkner.
Here again we are in consensus land. There is consensus that these products should be regulated. They are insurance policies that can be taken out against decrepitude in old age. The salient point is that such policies are mostly taken out by older people who fear that they are going to go into a home and lose all their assets as a result of paying the fees. Sometimes they are taken out on the day that people go into the homes, in case they live for a very long time, and that in itself takes their money away. I was fortunate enough to serve on the Royal Commission on long-term care of the elderly, at which time there were 23,000 such policies, but many financial organisations are looking to enter this market because they see it as a boom territory for the future.
The consensus is that these products should be regulated. That is what the industry wants. It does not want the market to be thrown open to cowboy operators who could bring these sensitive and delicate products into disrepute. The Personal Investment Authority wants to see regulation, and that was also the recommendation of the majority and minority reports of the Royal Commission on long-term care. We did not agree on anything much else, but we did agree that these products should be regulated. The excellent committee chaired by the noble Lord, Lord Burns, also recommended that they should be regulated. I have discussed this matter with the Financial Services Authority in recent weeks, and while it havered for a while, it came to the view that it wishes to be regulated for a variety of reasons, one of those being that it might be blamed if something goes wrong, and so it might as well have the power to do something about it.
There is therefore a block of consensus, to which there is but one exception, and that is Her Majesty's Treasury, which officially proclaimed a few days ago that it was not persuaded of the case. I can truthfully say that I yield to nobody in my admiration for the Treasury—and it is not very difficult because there are not many admirers of the Treasury. I am an admirer and I have a book coming out on the Treasury next month—Viking, £20, since noble Lords ask! That book is generally a defence of the Treasury. It was described in one review as "the higher sycophancy". I was most grateful for that adjective. I am a fan of the Treasury, and often there are very good reasons why the Treasury says "no" when everybody else thinks it should self-evidently say "yes". However, although I have been knocking at this door for months, I cannot discover why it will not act on this matter.
Old people are uniquely vulnerable. They may be considering buying such a product at the very moment when they are going into a home and feeling sick, when they have major worries. They will then have to consider financial issues. The products are very complicated and it is very difficult to understand quite when one can claim. You have to fail two or three activities of daily living like being able to feed yourself.

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Once you have bought one, you are locked in. You do not know whether or not you have bought the right policy until the day you claim, when, by definition, you will not be at your best, and you then find out whether the policy will be paid out. For all those reasons, such people are in grave need of protection.
The case for wider mortgage protection has been argued this afternoon. Of all the products requiring a protection element, long-term care insurance is a much better candidate than mortgages, as the Government have partly conceded. That is not only my view, but that of Mr Howard Davies.
I am bemused by the Treasury position. I am sure that the noble Lord, Lord McIntosh, will enlighten us when he replies to the debate. I hope that he will bring good news. However, he will know that some noble Lords consider it their duty to campaign as strongly as they can to persuade the Government of what they are as yet unpersuaded, so that this excellent Bill protects the people who will be most vulnerable if this change is not made.
6.05 p.m.
Lord Rees: My Lords, I declare a small interest, since I have been a Member of Lloyd's, as a non-working Name, for many years, although I ceased to underwrite in 1997.
I join other noble Lords in paying tribute to the noble Lord, Lord Burns, his committee for the remarkable work that they did in a very short space of time. Their conclusions may not attract absolute unanimity, but I am sure that we all have admired, and will admire when we come to the detailed analysis of the Bill, their sifting of the issues and the evidence they heard. I hope that it will simplify our task when we approach the Committee stage, because it will be a taxing and arduous period for us all. I hope that the Government realise the burdens that we shall be facing and will not press us unduly.
May I also suggest, with some diffidence, that the Burns Committee could be used as a precedent in other cases where detailed technical legislation of considerable scope is introduced. There have been Green Papers, but nothing has been produced on quite the scale of that produced by the committee, of the noble Lord, Lord Burns, and it is a very useful precedent.
The purpose of the Bill and its consequences are common ground. It will result in a huge concentration of power. There is a great deal of consensus in this matter, which I hope will be maintained, but it will require self-restraint and sensitivity on the part of the Government to ensure that it is maintained. However, I hope that the consequences will be beneficial.
It is a glimpse of the obvious, but it is true to say that the authority will have the power to damage, if not destroy, the livelihood of the persons against whom it takes action. Even the threat of action, if accompanied by publicity, can do considerable damage, and it is unrealistic to think that publicity will not attend the activities of the authority. We have to scrutinise the powers and the structure of the authority with a very
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sharp eye. If I may be forgiven a little bad Latin, quis custodiet ipsos custodes: who is to regulate the regulators?
At the end of the day the FSA will be regulated by the Government and Parliament and the courts. I hope that much use will be made of the Committee procedures in both Houses because the activities of a body like this authority cannot be disposed of in a two-hour debate held once in six months. There should be steady and consistent supervision by committees of this House. It would be improper to suggest what procedure the other place should adopt.
I am sure that much time will be taken at the Committee stage in deciding the procedures and penalties, but it seems very likely—and one may draw on the lapidary words of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hobhouse—that much will fall within the field of criminal law.
In one sense, that will add to the burdens placed on people and the time taken up by the authority's activities, but in another sense I applaud it. There will be better safeguards for those involved in the procedures and penalties. It may be inconvenient for Government and the authority, but, none the less, we must consider the impact on those who are likely to be under the harrow. We must consider their position and how far they may be safeguarded. No doubt we shall have considerable debates on how to reconcile this legislation with the Convention on Human Rights. I shall not anticipate that because I am sure that in Committee we shall spend many hours on the detail.
I also suggest that the costs of litigation should not fall entirely on the financial services industries. I believe that the Government must face up to underwriting the costs. I know that there is provision for official legal assistance, but it would be macabre if the industry, in order to be protected from its weaker brethren, should be made to underwrite all such litigation. The Government must be prepared to face up to the fact that they will have to meet part of the costs.
I turn to the structure of the authority. I concede that there will be much debate about the status of the chairman and deputy chairman at its apex. That may turn out to be largely academic. There is no precise definition of an executive or non-executive role in company law. There is a certain amount of revenue law which turns on the length of time anyone has spent in a job. My sympathy and admiration goes out to Mr Howard Davies because, however he is described, he has more than a full-time job, whatever role he chooses to delegate to his deputy chairman. That is likely to be the case if the present position continues.
I hope that if no common ground can be found the most practical approach will be to adopt the admirable suggestion of my noble friend Lord Alexander that we should return to the issue in five or so years' time, after the initial period when it would be a disaster if the talents and experience of Mr Davies were denied to the new organisation. However, it may be that when the time comes for him to lay down his office we shall have a clearer view of what is involved and how far one

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needs clearly to distinguish the roles of chairman and deputy chairman. Beyond that, I am delighted that there will be so many points at which non-executive advice can be fed into the machine and its operations. That is most important.
I turn to the other end, because no one has touched on the staff of the organisation. Many of them will be absorbed from the bodies which are being merged together, but I hope that many more will need to be recruited. I hope that people will be generous and far-sighted in the terms that they offer. This is not something to be left to bright young men in the year or two after leaving university before they try to make a career in another financial field. Although I had a brief period in the Treasury, I hope that we can override its inevitable instincts and make certain that the authority offers reasonable terms and secures the best possible talent for an important role.
One point was touched on by my noble friend Lord Bagri, who returns to the Chamber at an important moment. It may be that I have not read all the evidence given before the Select Committee, but I have not heard or read much about the scope of the jurisdiction of the authority. I appreciate all the difficulties, and the noble Lord, Lord Haskel, touched on some of them. It will be difficult to identify with utter precision where a vulnerable transaction or piece of advice took place.
I suppose that it is possible to define where the operators are based, but that will touch on only part of the problem. In this modern world, and in a particularly sophisticated field such as financial services, the operation will be capable of being spread over a wide territory. How that is to be met, and the relationship between the authority and the regulatory authorities in other countries, are difficult to see. One sees already that there is some tie-up as regards members of regulatory authorities of other European countries and related countries such as Iceland and Norway. However, a little more thought must be given to the issue.
Perhaps in winding up the Minister will feel able to touch briefly on the point. However, I hope that he will recognise that in Committee we must debate it in considerably greater detail or we shall not understand, first, why many vulnerable transactions are not caught and, secondly, whether people from a wider area will be brought into the net of the regulatory authority here.
No doubt during the Committee stage we shall be able to deal with those and many other technicalities. I do not blame the Government for having brought in a further 500 amendments since the conclusion of the Bill in the other place. I have no doubt that many more will be produced in the course of our debates. However, I hope that the Government will understand—and I know the sensitivity of the noble Lord, Lord McIntosh, in handling the House and such questions—that against a further wave of amendments we shall not be pressed too hard to get through the Committee stage at a canter. If the House is to play a proper role as a revising Chamber—and that was
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emphasised during recent debates on other subjects—I am sure that the Government will realise that it must have proper time to scrutinise and debate the various changes that are needed to make the Bill commendable to the country as a whole.
We all share the common objective that the authority should be effective and fair and that it should be recognised as such. On that basis, with some slight foreboding about the weeks to come, I shall have no difficulty in supporting the Bill tonight.
6.18 p.m.
Lord Donaldson of Lymington: My Lords, some of your Lordships may be a little surprised to hear that I actually have an interest to declare. The fault lies largely with the noble Lord, Lord Alexander of Weedon, who, in the wake of the local authorities' swap scandal, was chairman of a committee which recommended that the wholesale financial markets should have as part of their infrastructure a body which would look at the law as applied to that part of the industry in order to see whether there were uncertainties and other obstacles to the smooth and profitable running of the industry. The body which was formed was the Financial Law Panel. I was its first chairman and, I am pleased to say, still am. Having said that, I claim no particular expertise other than in the capacity of being a spectator over the years.
It seems to me that the Bill is largely a paving measure, although having listened to many other contributions, I understand that not all noble Lords will agree with me. If there is any devil in the detail, although I do not think that is the case, it will be that produced by the Financial Services Authority rather than the Bill itself. As I understand it, what is proposed here is that the industry shall be, in large measure, self regulating. For my part, I believe that to be essential. Not only will the industry be self regulating, but the regulatory body itself will be highly flexible. Again, I regard that as essential because of continuing rapid development in the markets. It is also to be user friendly. That is clearly demonstrated in the regulatory objectives set out in Clauses 3 to 6; and in the provisions on consultation set out in Clauses 7 to 9. It is also confirmed by the requirement that, before statements of principle are issued or codes of conduct promulgated by the authority, drafts shall be produced so that all parties concerned will have an opportunity to offer their own input. It is a requirement that those contributions shall be considered by the authority.
I was also glad to see provisions which practically require the authority—even if only in a permissive form—to give guidance as may be necessary. That was pointed out by the noble Lord, Lord Alexander. The vast majority of people involved in this industry are honest and wish to comply with regulatory requirements. However, inevitably there will be times when borderline situations arise in which guidance will be necessary. That is certainly true of my profession—the legal profession—where not only is guidance provided, but that guidance is important to all its members.

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I daresay the FSA will hesitate to go quite as far as the SEC in the United States with its provision for "no action" letters. No doubt that would be highly expensive. However, I hope that the FSA will not hesitate to give guidance to individuals with problems. The big conglomerates probably have available to them better advisory facilities than does the small man—in so far as one can have a small man in the wholesale markets.
After that general welcome to the Bill, perhaps I may now turn to two specific points. First, I give a warm welcome to the provisions relating to disciplinary matters. There has been a continuing problem with overlapping jurisdictions between the central authority and individual market regulators. Under Clause 119, the FSA will have powers to, so to speak, call in investigations or disciplinary proceedings which are either contemplated or in progress by individual market regulators so as to ensure that only one all-embracing prosecution takes place.
Great arguments have broken out over whether, when two people bring individual prosecutions, there is the risk of double jeopardy. In my view, I believe that that is rare, in the technical sense. However, in substance there most certainly is such a risk and enormous problems have been encountered when trying to decide whether the first prosecuting authority took account of the misdemeanours alleged by the second prosecuting authority when it fixed a penalty. That is thoroughly undesirable and it is not made any less undesirable when a tribunal is faced with claims from a prosecuting authority that very large penalties shall be inflicted, but the tribunal knows perfectly well that if it does inflict such penalties, the primary beneficiary will be the prosecuting authority itself. Happily, paragraph 16 of Schedule 1 provides that the FSA shall have no regard to its own working costs when fixing a penalty.
Secondly, I wish to mention the matter of immunity. For some 26 years, I have had the pleasure of working with total immunity. Added to that, I have enjoyed total security of tenure. I am bound to say that I do not believe those two features have caused me to go mad—even if that might have been said by the Court of Appeal on a few occasions. I believe that to be more a reflection of its desire to have the last word than a reflection of its wisdom. Only once, in the years between 1971 and 1974, when I was president of the National Industrial Relations Court, did I experience those pressures. At the time, political pressures and temperatures were running very high indeed. At the time I was aware that my job was made immeasurably easier by the fact that no one could sue me, get rid of me or pressurise me in any form. I thought of an analogy; it is that of a man standing on the edge of a cliff in a high wind. He will have to adjust to it. He must bend either one way or the other. Almost certainly he will get it wrong and fall over the cliff. So, it is vitally important that those who need to reach judicial or quasi-judicial decisions are totally insulated from such gales.
I regret the suggestion made by some noble Lords that there should be a complaints organisation employing someone with total immunity. Complaint is
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not the right concept here. Although I agree that a form of appeals process must be in place—a tribunal is to be established that could easily supply such a function—it is not right to talk in terms of complaint. There may be differences of opinion which need to be looked at by another tribunal, but that does not mean to say that there has been cause for complaint. Perhaps that is only a judicial view, but, if I am wrong, I must observe that there were a large number of complaints against me in the course of my judicial career, but I prefer to regard them as appeals.
6.27 p.m.
Lord Northbrook: My Lords, first, I must declare an interest as a director of an investment management company and as someone who, for almost 20 years, has been working in the financial services industry with both large and small investment companies. During that time, I have seen the regulatory regime change from a very informal but successful system to a much more complicated and bureaucratic system following the Financial Services Act 1986, and yet more so as proposed under this Bill.
I recognise that business development means that the City will always be a changing place to regulate. Over the past 15 years or so, the arrival of European, American and Japanese banks in the investment industry has made an enormous difference, because in many cases they have taken over UK institutions and brought with them new methods of doing business. In addition, the new products that have emerged—for instance, new types of shares, innovations in the collective investment industry, hedge funds and enhancements to existing instruments such as futures and options—require extra forms of regulation to protect the investor. But this regulation must not be so bureaucratic that it drives business elsewhere or prevents new start-ups.
At Third Reading of the Bill in another place, the Shadow Chief Secretary to the Treasury said:
"The City is under almost ceaseless attack. The competition in world markets is without pity and continuing. A regulatory system must respect that. Whilst it must be effective, it must avoid imposing excessive costs. Whenever possible it should promote competition at home and competitiveness in world markets".
He went on to say that if the regulatory system fails to do the above, investment operations may move to more flexible locations, such as Dublin or Frankfurt. Consequentially, jobs in the UK could be lost. He also stated that over-regulation works to the disadvantage of smaller financial businesses, who have fewer resources to cope with the additional paperwork.
My personal experience of working in a small investment management company backs up his comments. I shall detail a few examples of how our company is regulated. I do so not by way of complaint, as I am a firm believer in the principles behind the rules, but to show how much time has to be spent on administration to the detriment of actual investment management.
First, our investment management regulatory authority's (IMRO's) rule book in three thick volumes must be known thoroughly. For each investment deal,

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three separate times have to be recorded in our dealing book: time of decision, time of order and time of execution of deal. When the broker's contract note is received, the time on that must be reconciled to the dealing book. That is one of the items that will be checked carefully when the book is examined during our regular inspections by IMRO.
We are required to record a multiplicity of further information: every unsatisfied order, any dealing error, all gifts, every lunch (although not yet the contents of the lunch or the wines!) or meeting that we attend involving companies or people relevant to our business so that it may be seen that we are keeping our professional experience up to date. We have to record change of auditors and directors. In addition, we complete self-assessment forms annually, giving details of personal objectives, level of achievement and future targets. We must also complete quarterly financial returns to IMRO, demonstrating that our capital adequacy is sufficient. All the above are all very necessary but demanding in time and must be done by the three of us who manage the investments. In contrast, the larger firms will have separate compliance departments at no little expense.
I return to the Bill itself. I wish to focus on several areas that give me cause for concern: first, the fact that the FSA is statutorily immune from prosecution. While I accept that it is reasonable that individual employees or directors of the FSA should be personally immune, it appears somewhat unreasonable that a circumstance could arise where the FSA removes the livelihood of a firm or an individual, yet that person or organisation has no redress. In cases such as negligence, I believe that the statutory immunity of the FSA should be removed. It has been suggested that the FSA's proposed immunity may prove incompatible with the European Convention on Human Rights, which is due to take effect in British law during 2000, but that should not be taken for granted.
Another separate area of my concern is that the practitioner panel is appointed by industry bodies selected by the FSA rather than by the Treasury. The FSA attached to its aide-memoire on the Commons stages of the Bill its letter of 16th February, which I am sure other noble Lords have received. It states in its defence:
"It is in the FSA's interest that the practitioner panel should carry credibility within the industry and not be seen as an FSA poodle".
I am not sure of that, as it would be all too easy to appoint a compliant panel.
Another area that I believe to be a major business issue is our party's belief that a new fifth statutory objective should be added to the Bill; that is, the maintenance of a vigorous and effective market in financial services. However, in its aide-memoire mentioned previously, the FSA states that:
"A separate competition/competitiveness objective would conflict with our existing objectives in an unhelpful way".
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I believe that that is a rather disappointing reply. It implies that regulation will be carried out without any regard for the effect on UK competitiveness unless and until the OFT complains, whereas if the issue could be considered in the first place by the FSA, potential damage could be avoided.
Another concern which I have in the Bill is, as mentioned by other speakers, the phrasing of Clause 19, which needs to be amended to restrict the prohibition of financial services on the Internet. Perhaps I may ask the noble Lord, Lord McIntosh, whether the existence of a website can constitute unlawful financial promotion by a company. Are all financial websites to be approved by the FSA? In its aide-memoire, mentioned above, the FSA does not mention the Internet in refuting criticisms of Clause 19. Also, as stated by my noble friend Lord Hunt of Wirral and other speakers in connection with the Internet, I note the increase in investment message boards where investors exchange information on individual shares, often under incomplete or anonymous names. Again, perhaps I may ask the noble Lord, Lord McIntosh, what is the FSA's attitude to this grey area.
I end by referring to some other more detailed areas of concern which may not be covered by other speakers. The first is a matter of definition. The Institute of Chartered Accountants of England and Wales is concerned about what is meant in the Bill by the word "person". While companies and individual financial traders are covered by the definition, it is not clear whether that encompasses partnerships and trusts. It should be remembered that in the BCCI scandal, BCCI was controlled ultimately by a trust. Therefore, as I understand it, in its current form the Bill would not authorise the FSA to act in the case of a similar situation arising. Perhaps I may ask the noble Lord, Lord McIntosh, for his views on that matter.
Secondly, as mentioned by my noble friend Lord Rees, the FSA staff in appropriate positions should have appropriate knowledge of the financial services industry. That may sound obvious but at present there is a problem in this area, which I have encountered from practical experience. In order to save money, the FSA employ many young people, often accountants, who have little experience of the financial services industry. If more experienced people from the industry were employed, the regular inspections might well take less time because from their experience those people can more easily understand the important matters to be checked. Therefore, even though they might be paid more, they would be cost-effective.
Thirdly, I come to the point of pro-rata-ing. It may sound esoteric but it involves a very important point. As present, an investment manager must ensure that, if he buys shares for a number of clients, no one client is treated unfavourably as against another. In practice, that is fine with a large share such as ICI, where supply normally will match demand. However, with a smaller company, invariably the exercise will prove much more difficult as, due to lack of supply, the result will often be that each client will receive a ridiculously small amount of shares.

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In consequence, many investment managers will not make the effort to buy those smaller company shares. The result of that can be seen easily in the ratings of most smaller company shares, apart from Internet shares, against their larger rivals. That is bad for their growth, can lead to takeovers at poor prices and generally discourages them from coming to the market. That whole area needs to be examined, as we must encourage our quoted smaller companies to grow into tomorrow's ICIs, with resultant benefit to employment and the economy.
Finally, the Bill continues the recent legislative trend of leaving a lot of the detail to secondary legislation, much of which has not been seen even in draft form. On this side of the House, we shall scrutinise that secondary legislation carefully.
In summary, I support the principles behind the Bill but am worried about many of the details, only some of which I have been able to cover in this speech, on the grounds that, overall, the Bill concentrates too much power in the hands of the FSA and potentially undermines the competitiveness of the UK financial services industry.
6.40 p.m.
Lord Eatwell: My Lords, the enormous task, indeed the revolutionary task, which the Government have set themselves—namely, the creation of a single statutory regulator of all financial services—is extremely difficult to get right. That is why the Government are to be commended on the extensive procedures which they have put in place for detailed consideration of the Bill, most notably the examination of a draft Bill by the Joint Committee chaired by the noble Lord, Lord Burns.
The Government are also to be commended on listening to some of the issues raised by that committee and in other representations and on taking action in the form of extensive amendment of the original and successive drafts. However, I shall argue later that some siren voices should not have been listened to quite so attentively and that some amendments have unfortunate consequences. But that does not diminish my admiration for the Government's overall approach as set out in the Bill.
That approach is necessary to keep pace with the revolutionary changes sweeping through financial services. As was argued earlier, the boundaries between banks and other financial services have completely broken down and the industry has become seamless. But the UK regulatory structure has remained fragmented. There were far too many cracks through which damaging and even dangerous activities could fall. That is why it is so important to create a single regulator responsible for the whole financial services industry. That is why the FSA will become and, indeed, is becoming the model for future integrated regulation of integrated markets throughout the world.
I should declare a slightly sad interest as an independent director of the Securities and Futures Authority, which will disappear once this Bill becomes law. While I recognise the need to replace existing institutions and practices, we should take care not to
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throw out valuable babies with the bath water. We should build on some of the successful aspects of financial regulation conducted by the SROs under the terms of the Financial Services Act 1986 and ensure that the new legislation does not lower existing regulatory standards.
I turn now from those general remarks to specific points. I begin with Clauses 2 and 3 which define the statutory objectives of the FSA. I wish to focus on the objective of market confidence. It has been acknowledged by the Government that one of the most important roles of the FSA, acting alone and in conjunction with the Bank of England and the Treasury under the memorandum of understanding of October 1997, is the management of systemic risk. As noble Lords know, systemic risk is the risk to the operation of the financial system as a whole that spreads from the risks taken by individual firms and from defective market structures and behaviours.
Ensuring that the financial system does not collapse is the most fundamental task of any regulator —the most important thing that it does. It is no good protecting the rights of consumers, for example, if, at the end of the day, their savings have been consumed in a general market collapse.
The regulator manages systemic risk through its management of the risks taken by firms. That is why the then Economic Secretary to the Treasury, my honourable friend Patricia Hewitt, acknowledged in Standing Committee in another place on 13th July last year at cols. 168 and 169 that the Bank of England could never ensure the stability of the financial system on its own, and it is the FSA that has a close understanding of the way in which firms are exposed to each other and how excessive exposure in one might cause a chain reaction in other elements of the system.
Yet for reasons which are extremely difficult to understand, management of systemic risk is not included among the objectives of the FSA listed in Clause 2, even though it is the most important thing it does.
Ms Hewitt argued in another place that the term "market confidence", which appears in Clause 2, includes, but is wider than, managing systemic risk. That seems to be clear. But then in evidence to the committee chaired by the noble Lord, Lord Burns, Mr Howard Davies, Chairman and Chief Executive of the FSA, stated that the objective of maintaining confidence in the financial system referred to maintaining people's confidence that market prices are fair. He made no mention of systemic risk.
It was to clear up that confusion that the Joint Committee recommended that explicit reference to managing systemic risk be added to the definition of "market confidence" in Clause 3. The Government rejected that recommendation of the Joint Committee. They did not, as my noble friend Lord McIntosh argued in his earlier speech, accept all the recommendations with respect to Clauses 2 and 3. The Government rejected that recommendation but they did not say why. Perhaps the Minister will enlighten us later this evening.

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While I am on the issue of objectives, I wish to join with those noble Lords, including the noble Lords, Lord Alexander of Weedon and Lord Sharman, who warned against including the promotion of competition as an objective of the FSA. I believe that Clause 2(3)(g), which refers to "facilitating competition" already goes too far.
It is not the role of the FSA to become another competition commission. Indeed, making competition an objective would introduce a damaging ambiguity into the FSA's objectives. I suggest that Clause 2(3)(g) should be deleted.
I turn now to Clause 8 which refers to the "practitioner panel" which is,
"to represent the interests of practitioners".
I believe that the approach of this Bill and of the FSA to the role of practitioners is likely to throw out with the bath water a lot of very experienced babies. As was recognised by the Joint Committee and acknowledged by the Government, the success of this legislation will depend to an unusual degree on the talents of the people who implement it. That was a point made by the noble Lord, Lord Rees.
In that respect, the FSA has a real problem. While it has managed to attract many skilled and talented staff, it must compete for them against the salaries and career prospects offered to those same talented people in the financial sector. As noble Lords will be aware, it will have great difficulty in competing with some of the terms on offer.
There are two potential solutions to that dilemma. One is to ensure that working for the FSA is an outstanding educational experience so that any young people who wish to make a career in financial services will want to have on their CVs some time spent at the FSA, even if at a relatively lower salary than they might earn elsewhere. That is the case in relation to employment with the Securities and Exchange Commission in the United States.
While we may have hopes for the future that the educational role of working at the FSA may become a dominant factor in City careers, it is not the case today and it would be folly to pretend that it is.
The other solution to attracting appropriately talented staff is to enlist practitioners in the regulatory process, not merely as interests which must be represented, as in the case of the practitioner panel, but as active participants in the decision making of the authority. Practitioners embody a wealth of talent and experience and they come for free, or at least they come very cheap.
In differentiating itself from the old SRO regime, the FSA at first repudiated that source of talent, other than as high-level board members with very broad-brush overviews or in a general consultative capacity. I am glad to say that subsequently the FSA realised the mistake it was making and declared that practitioners will serve as full members of the new enforcement committee. That was a major step forward but it does not go far enough. There must be full practitioner
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involvement also in authorisation by an understanding of private sector careers and business organisation. That is fundamental to an effective authorisation process. There should be practitioners' involvement in policy making too, where the practitioners' input is necessary if the FSA is to keep up with the very latest developments in financial services. I hope that the Minister will be able to give the House some insight into the Government's thinking on practitioner involvement later this evening.
I now turn to the general issue of market abuse as set out in Clause 109 of the Bill. The regulation of market abuse is fundamental to the maintenance of confidence in financial markets. Therefore, it is fundamental to the reputation and indeed the future prosperity of the City of London and of financial services throughout the United Kingdom. The manipulation of markets and the use of insider information is a threat to our financial services industry and that is why the Government should be heartily congratulated for their evident desire to widen the net in which to capture those who abuse our markets.
But they have not been congratulated, but generally castigated. In sections of the financial press and among many of the better-known City law firms, the new FSA has been portrayed as a huge ogre that, in the name of stamping out market abuse, will trample under foot the civil liberties of pure, white lambs who graze in the financial markets. A regrettable echo of that view appeared in the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Saatchi, and of other speakers on the Opposition Benches.
Sadly, the Government seem to have taken some of this dangerous nonsense far too seriously. Let us be frank. In several important respects this Bill weakens the protection that presently exists against market abuse by authorised persons. It therefore weakens the protection afforded to Britain's financial markets and exposes them to greater risk.
There are a number of points in Part VIII of the Bill which weaken protection against market abuse. This evening I shall deal with only one of them. I shall return to others in Committee if the Government have not taken remedial action. One fundamental weakening of the regulatory regime introduced at Committee stage in another place, is to be found in the definition of market abuse in Clause 109(1)(c). That was referred to earlier by the noble Lord, Lord Burns. There, market abuse is defined as behaviour,
"which is likely to be regarded by a regular user of that market who is aware of the behaviour as a failure on the part of the person or persons concerned to observe the standard of behaviour reasonably expected of a person in his or their position in relation to the market".
What all that comes down to is that the standard for judging market abuse is to be the standard of a reasonable, regular user of the market.
Let us consider the significance of that standard in the light of the following analogy. The centre forward of a Premier League soccer team breaks towards the

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opponents' goal. In desperation the defender grabs his shirt. When the referee blows his whistle the defender protests that his behaviour was only that,
"likely to be regarded by a regular [professional soccer player] … as the standard of behaviour reasonably expected of [his fellow professionals]".
It would be. We all know that soccer players pull each others shirts all the time. If Clause 109 applied to soccer all confidence in the game would be destroyed; shirt-pulling would become endemic and soccer would perhaps develop into rugby—something which some of us would regard as highly desirable.
I now turn to a couple of practical examples of how Clause 109 weakens regulatory protection in the United Kingdom today. These examples, although hypothetical, are not dissimilar to actual cases which have been dealt with by the Securities and Futures Authority. Let us suppose that in the commodity market there is a sharp rise in prices indicating a shortage of supply even though the regulators know that warehouse stocks are high. The regulators search for a party who is manipulating the market by cornering supply. But when they turn to market participants, regular market users, they are told that that is par for the course. Under the current SFA regime the party who had cornered the market would be prosecuted. Under the weakened regime of this Bill, the SFA would face the problem that regular market users might argue that hoarding is a routine and common market practice.
Perhaps I may take a second example. Let us suppose that the corporate finance department of an integrated investment bank receives unpublished and price sensitive information about a takeover bid. The market makers in the same bank accumulate a large number of shares in the takeover target and profit from the subsequent takeover announcement. Under the current SFA regime the bank could be held to have infringed the principle of high standards of market behaviour and it would certainly be prosecuted. Under the new code proposed in this Bill the investment hank could argue that it was only doing what a reasonable, regular market user would expect it to do.
Of course, that defence might fail, but the point is that it is made available by Clause 109. Under the current regime no such defence is available. The Bill threatens to weaken the protection that the regulator can provide against that kind of market abuse.
I hope that these examples have convinced the Minister that the Bill, as currently drafted, weakens—perhaps even seriously weakens—the power of the regulator to attack market abuse and must be amended if the current high level of confidence in Britain's financial markets is to be sustained. The regulator must be given the power to require high ethical standards and not just regular standards. Standards must certainly not be placed at the mercy of the, "regular user of [the] market". If they are, how can standards ever be raised? I hope that the Minister will give an unequivocal assurance when he sums up this evening that the Government will look again at Clause 109.
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There are a number of other parts of the Bill that I wish to take up in Committee. Suffice to say in conclusion that I broadly and enthusiastically welcome this Bill. It is clear from what I have said that it has some flaws, but there is nothing that cannot be put right because the underlying foundations are very sound. The principle of a single regulator is certainly right for today and for the future. The world of the financial markets is one of continuous innovation and rapid change. There are no boundaries. To sustain the pre-eminent position of the financial services industry in this country we need a regulator who can keep pace and, most important of all, who can encompass the whole, fluid terrain. That is what the FSA can—and with the successful passage of this Bill—will do.
6.57 p.m.
Lord Stewartby: My Lords, I begin by declaring certain interests in this Bill. In the 1980s I was the Treasury Minister responsible for two regulatory Bills, the Building Societies Bill and the Banking Bill which became Acts of Parliament in 1986 and 1987. Subsequent to leaving another place, I became a member of the then Securities and Investments Board alongside my noble friend Lord Alexander which lasted long enough to have its name changed to the Financial Services Authority. Currently, I am a director and, for my sins, chairman of the audit committee of an international bank, a building society and a Lloyds insurance company. So I come to this legislation from several different viewpoints.
At this stage in the debate— and it has been extremely interesting—I do not wish to rehearse what has been said, probably much better, by other noble Lords. But I wish to offer certain observations from a personal point of view on what I regard as the really central questions relating to the legislation.
I begin by apologising for not having been in the Chamber at the outset of the debate. I apologise to the Front Benches and to the noble Lord, Lord Burns. My reason for absence is that I was attending a meeting in my capacity as chairman of an audit committee, which is not a responsibility these days that can be taken lightly.
The first point to which I want to respond is the question of the concept of a single regulator. I am interested to hear that that question is not in dispute. Two or three years ago, when the Financial Services Authority was brought into being and the self-regulatory organisations were incorporated into it—even though the legislative framework was not in being at the time—there was considerable debate as to whether a single regulator would be too large and inflexible to deal with the task at issue. Events since that time have made clear that there is no sensible alternative.
Markets have been changing rapidly. The speed of communication has increased dramatically within markets and worldwide. There has been an increasing overlap of activities by different types of financial businesses. New instruments have been invented which do not readily fit the classification of the old

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divisions of financial markets. And investment, insurance and lending often merge into each other. That makes it foolish to continue with a division of regulation according to precise functions.
There has not been much of a move internationally. However, when I travel abroad to financial centres far afield, I am frequently asked how we are getting on with constructing the single regulator and whether or not it will work. My answer is that we are getting on quite well; that this Bill is welcome and will work: and that sooner or later most other serious financial centres in the world will have to follow suit. It is greatly to the credit of this country and its governments that for many years we have been in the forefront of regulatory developments and the raising of standards. This Bill is a further contribution in that direction.
As to whether the framework of the Bill is right, I do not want to comment on more than one or two points. Is it right to sweep all these activities together? The danger is of harmonising the approach so much that it confuses the issue. The same sorts of procedure are not necessarily appropriate for all types of activity, for various sizes of business, or for a domestic as opposed to an international business. I was, however, encouraged to see at page 19 of A New Regulator for the New Millennium what is referred to as the nature and intensity of the FSA's supervisory relationship with firms. It is spelt out clearly that that nature and intensity will depend upon a number of factors, including the riskiness of the business, the quality of management, the size of the firm and the areas of business in which it is involved. If that approach is followed, it will effectively meet most of the anxieties expressed about a monolithic process.
I am particularly pleased that the objectives of the FSA and of this legislation include improving public awareness. During many years in another place representing some 80,000 of our fellow citizens I was constantly astonished by their lack of a proper understanding of what I felt were the basics of financial affairs, even in respect of their own lives and needs. I hope that education can be widely spread. It must start at a young age. For example, in the 1970s there does not seem to have been any general public consciousness of the relationship between risk and the price of credit. Many people put money on deposit with institutions paying high rates of interest which must have implied that their businesses were not conducted entirely according to the most risk-averse principles.
I remember going to the United States in the 1980s and suggesting to the administration that it ought to do something to restrict its deposit guarantee scheme where it offered 100 per cent indemnity on up to 100,000 dollars with any institution. That was a recipe for disaster because all the depositors put 100,000 dollars into each of the so-called "thrift" institutions which were paying the highest rates of interest. They outbid each other and in due course collapsed. The administration was not receptive to my suggestion that it should try to do something about it. I was told it would not get through Congress. I felt that that was a
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good reason for bringing in a proposal. It was certain that there was going to be a crisis and by adopting what I had suggested the administration might have gained greater authority and credibility for having seen it in advance.
This legislation will give the FSA tremendous powers, possibly making it the most powerful institution in the land. Many noble Lords have pointed to the power which the Bill will give the authority over the livelihood of practitioners and the need for a proper balance of protection. It is an area of the Bill we shall need to examine critically in Committee.
When I was a member of the SIB our experience in respect of cases brought to the board for consideration was that they were well founded. Nothing that I experienced at that time made me feel that there was an arbitrary or unfair approach to the disciplining of those who may have transgressed. I have great confidence, like other noble Lords, in Howard Davies and his team.
I picked up certain stories by hearsay in relation to some institutions which felt that they had suffered injustice at the hands of certain SROs. They felt that they had not been fairly dealt with and that a fine, reprimand or criticism was not justified. However, they felt that the problem of making a fuss about it was not worthwhile in terms of publicity and antagonising the regulator.
I do not know how much credence should be attached to those stories. I do not find them entirely incredible. It is important that the FSO should not be afraid to act, but there should be appropriate protections and safeguards for those who fall within its power. One of the aspects which the FSA has been emphasising over the past two or three years particularly is the importance of accountability within regulated firms. I agree. Indeed, for a while I was chairman of a working group on behalf of the FSA considering how accountability attaching to individuals within institutions could be formalised. But if individuals and businesses are to be accountable to the FSA, the FSA must be accountable within the democratic system. I do not know whether that is best done by a Joint Committee of the two Houses of Parliament or a committee of your Lordships' House; but something of that kind needs to be established.
I want to comment on the question of whether or not one person should combine the roles of chairman and chief executive. I have listened carefully to the debate but my view is still that it is largely a problem of terminology. I do not know any chairman, even though he may be described as "non-executive", of any major organisation in the private sector who does not have some involvement in policy decisions or other executive matters. It is almost impossible for an active chairman of a large company to separate himself from those issues, and indeed it would be wrong of him to do so. In my view, therefore, it is wrong to call a person who runs a business the chief executive, with the implication that there is no executive authority beyond him. It is a pity that we have lost the old terminology of "managing director" for somebody who runs a

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business. It seems to me that the chairman of the FSA and the chairmen of any other substantial and powerful public bodies simply have to become involved with policymaking and decision making. If they are to answer to the institution, they will need to have been involved in all those matters. We can return to that at Committee stage.
The final and most important question is whether the new system will work. The answer is that it depends on how it is put into effect. If it is done bureaucratically, it could become very burdensome and oppressive. It could inhibit innovation and could indeed ultimately perhaps drive business away from our financial markets. If it is implemented with balance and a sense of proportion and with proper regard to the diversity of businesses within its scope, it can make a valuable contribution to the efficiency and reputation of the City of London and enhance the effectiveness of financial markets in the United Kingdom.
7.11 p.m.
Lord Blackwell: My Lords, like my noble friend Lord Stewartby and others who have spoken, I, too, welcome the concept of a single regulator and the benefits that it should bring through simpler and more consistent rules. However, as others have said, the devil of this legislation is in the detail, and much of the detail is not in the Bill itself but in the secondary legislation and rules which will follow from this framework, much of which we cannot see or debate this evening. I shall therefore outline a few points to which I wish to pay particular attention as the legislation passes. In doing so, I, too, declare an interest as an executive of a major clearing bank.
The first issue that I wish to raise is the impact of this Bill on the burden of regulation and cost. My noble friend Lord Northbrook mentioned some of the practical consequences. I am glad that it has been recognised that different segments of the market clearly require different treatment. That is a good starting point. However, we must accept that in many areas of the market, particularly in consumer products, it is simply not cost effective to sell under the current legislative and regulatory framework. It is not cost effective to provide the kind of advice that is required, given the cost of the fact-finding and advice process required by the compliance. Nor can I accept that the interests of consumers are served if the efforts to protect them mean that in reality they are excluded from markets. For example, as we look at bringing mortgages within the scope of the regulation, we need to take care that that process does not apply to the cost of mortgage selling. We also need to bear in mind some of the lower cost products that are currently hit by compliance costs, such as sales of unit trusts and low cost investment schemes.
My point is that what follows from this legislation should not stand in the way of schemes and products which provide the information and point out the risks, but it should be left to the consumer to make a judgment and take responsibility. In particular, as other noble Lords have said, we must recognise the consequences of Internet technology in providing new
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decision tools, providing new sources of advice and providing more information to consumers. As we go forward with Internet technology, the meaning of the word "advice" may well change significantly. With regard to the way in which advice is delivered and the ability of people to get information and advice without the kind of advice service that has typically meant face-to-face discussions, we need to make sure that Clause 5 is not drafted or interpreted in a way which means that compliance becomes a barrier to the development of such services.
My second area of concern relates to the risk of regulatory price intervention. I ask the Minister for a reassurance that the intention is that price intervention by the regulator will not go beyond the price stabilisation measures referred to in Clause 136. I raise this point because, in my opinion, there is sometimes a tendency for both the Government and some regulators to believe that a proactive role in price intervention is part of their market role. For example, the experience in stakeholder pensions has not been an encouraging precedent in financial markets. Financial service is not a monopoly. On the whole, pricing is best left to competition. There is a danger that intervention, however well intentioned, will artificially block market developments. This may or may not be part of what is allowed for and intended under this legislation. However, I would welcome a reassurance that the scope of what is intended by secondary legislation and rule-making will circumscribe old style price intervention and regulation.
My third area of concern is the level of prescription in which the FSA may engage in relation to what products and services may be offered. I am wary of the general tendency that I perceive in this legislation to prescribe what is allowable rather than to restrict what is unacceptable. There is a danger of the Government, and the FSA acting on behalf of the Government, appearing to endorse particular schemes and products through the use of kitemarks or endorsements which appear to recommend products and services in a way which could be taken as advice by people who see any endorsement by a government body or a regulator as implying appropriateness of products, when that is not what is intended and when clearly the FSA cannot have the detailed information or knowledge to endorse the appropriateness of products for particular investors.
That is particularly true if we bring long-term care into this arrangement. I share with the noble Lord, Lord Lipsey, and others the enthusiasm for the development of the long-term care market. However, that is a sector of the community in relation to which we need to be particularly careful to ensure that the endorsement of schemes by regulators does not seem to carry approval. The regulator must be seen to set the standards that those schemes must meet, rather than be seen to imply appropriateness. There is a danger that product rules could step into that area. Not only do consumer dangers derive from that, but, if we over-prescribe what should be provided in the market, that prescription will build rigidities into the market and stop product innovation.

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My fourth area of concern is one that has been raised a number of times, that is the matter of governance. Given the huge power and scope that is being devolved to the FSA under this Bill, accountability is crucial in order to explain and justify its actions—accountability not simply for the appropriateness of its expenditure and efficiency but for the appropriateness of its actions taken in the public interest.
Like other noble Lords, I have no doubt that the intentions of this legislation, as well as those of the FSA, Howard Davies and the other executives who are in place at present, are good. But, as other speakers have said, the legislation has to survive beyond individuals. We need assurances on those areas that I have mentioned, and on others, to ensure that we know what will happen once the legislation is passed.
7.20 p.m.
Lord Newby: My Lords, there is clearly a wide degree of support from all sides of the House for the principal purposes of the Bill; namely, to introduce an integrated approach to supervision of the financial sector and to have a strong single regulator during a period of revolutionary change. There is also agreement that this is a very ambitious Bill. That was brought home to me when, within the space of a few minutes, we had the noble Lord, Lord Bagri, talking about the problems of the copper exchange and then, immediately afterwards, we heard from the noble Lord, Lord Lipsey, talking about the problems of the frail elderly. Indeed, it would be difficult to think of a Second Reading on another Bill in which two speeches could be made about such disparate subjects, without them seeming to be strange or jarring.
Part of the wide degree of consensus that has emerged during the course of this debate can be laid at the door of the extensive consultation on the part of the Government and the FSA that has taken place, as well as through the operations of the Joint Committee chaired by the noble Lord, Lord Burns. Clearly, in all those respects, the procedures that have been followed have made it much easier to deal with many of the difficult issues that the Bill seeks to address. It was also clear from the Minister's opening speech that there is still some concern as regards certain old issues that have not been dealt with satisfactorily, and as regards some newer issues that have emerged as the Bill has gone through its various stages.
Although we accept that the Government, for perfectly good reasons, will be introducing a large raft of amendments to the Bill. I have two comments to make. First, I hope that we shall be given the maximum amount of time within the constraints of the timing of the Bill to enable us to attempt to make some sense of them. Secondly, just as the Government, for perfectly good reasons, feel that they need to introduce many amendments at this stage, I hope that they will, in return, be sympathetic to the fact that we and others in this House may wish to introduce amendments even though the Bill was subject to very detailed
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consideration in another place. As the noble Lord, Lord Saatchi, said, this is not essentially a party-political Bill. We are all attempting to achieve the most effective regulation in a very difficult and complicated area. Therefore, I hope that the Government will consider carefully the amendments that we bring forward and that they will treat them in the same spirit as they hope we will treat their amendments.
There are three areas to which I wish to return at the end of the debate. They are issues which I believe concern us most and upon which we will want to concentrate in Committee. The first relates to governance; the second relates to the question of the promotion of competition, as well as a number of consumer issues: and the third is the scope of the powers of the authority and related issues.
I shall begin with governance. Again, I believe that this encompasses three issues. First, there is the question of the role of the chairman and chief executive. This has been much trawled over in another place. Suffice it to say, we believe that too much power remains concentrated in one individual. Therefore, we need checks and balances. We also believe that the role of chairman and chief executive should be split.
Secondly, there is the question of the role of the non-executive members of the authority, to which far less attention has been directed. When thinking about how the non-executive directors will fulfil their duties, I believe that the Government and the FSA had in mind the role of the Court of the Bank of England. Having spent some time as a member of the Select Committee on the Monetary Policy Committee looking at the way in which the Court of the Bank of England exercises its authority, I am not absolutely convinced that that is a very happy parallel. I am not actually sure that that is really the way that the Government and the FSA see the non-executive directors behaving. The Court is pretty far removed from much of the work of the Bank. I believe that the non-executive members of the FSA will be required to be closer to the workings of the authority. Therefore, to say, "Oh well, we've got a system in the Bank of England that works pretty well; that's the model we take", is not wholly acceptable to us. We believe that the non-executive members of the authority should have a wider role of monitoring and advising on the overall strategy of the authority, which they do not have at present.
The third matter under the heading of "governance" that I wish to mention is the whole question of parliamentary scrutiny. In terms of the credibility of this body, it is important that it should be accountable—not just to the House of Commons but also to this House, possibly through a new Joint Select Committee or an economic Select Committee in this place. Either way, it is important that members of the authority should come before Parliament regularly to explain their work. That is a crucial underpinning of its public credibility.
I move on to my second main area: namely, the extent to which the authority, among its other requirements, should promote competition. There is

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some confusion here between various aspects of this question. There are certain parts of the competitiveness of the British financial sector that I am sure we all agree the FSA should be promoting. I have in mind in particular the sector's international competitive position. Clearly, when looking through its detailed rules and regulations, it would be crazy if the FSA did not take into account how they would affect the international competitiveness of the sector.
There is also the question of where the emphasis should lie. Although the FSA must look at anti-competitive activities, we believe that there is a real danger of a muddle occurring if it starts too aggressively to promote competition. My noble friend Lord Taverne outlined some of the detailed argument in this respect and we shall return to the matter in Committee. I believe that we are in danger of the FSA getting into a real mix-up with the OFT and the Competition Commission if it adopts an aggressive stance in terms of promoting competition.
It seems to me that the problem facing consumers is not so much a lack of competition as a lack of awareness and knowledge, as well as an inability to judge what is often an absolute cacophony of broadly similar products. We need to devote a little time here to looking at strengthening consumer interests. On the narrow point about the awareness of the consumer of the products that he or she is buying, the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Stewartby, in terms of how the FSA could use its powers to promote public awareness starting with school pupils, is well worth considering.
As regards consumer interests, which need to be given slightly more thought, there are two issues that we will want to consider as the Bill progresses. The first relates to the extent to which caveat emptor applies. We have considerable sympathy with the argument that the basic principles of the Sale of Goods Act—namely, that goods should be fit for the purpose for which they are sold—should apply to financial services. It seems to us that there is a prima facie case in favour of tangible and financial goods being subject to that same requirement.
We also think that the point that has been made by a number of speakers about the possible requirement to facilitate access for disadvantaged consumers is something that is worth pursuing. I believe that the noble Lord, Lord Borrie, made that point in referring to the Utilities Bill. We shall wish to pursue that point.
My third general area relates to the scope of the powers of the authority. Here two issues have raised their heads consistently during the course of the debate. The first relates to mortgages. I think it is common consent that the current situation in the Bill is not acceptable. It does not cover all aspects of mortgage advice. It does not deal adequately with the question of advice on mortgages which goes alongside advice on other financial matters, as was mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Haskel. As the noble Lord, Lord Burns, said, we simply do not know what is regulated and what is not regulated in this area. We and the Bill need to be clearer in that respect.
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The second issue relates to long-term care, a subject that was eloquently advanced by the noble Lord, Lord Lipsey. Again there appears not to be a satisfactory answer as to why this should not come within the purview of the Bill. My only slight caveat is that we do not want to see in this area what I think we have seen on the mortgage front; namely, that a late amendment to the Bill results in partial and inadequate provision. If amendments dealing with long-term care are to be introduced, we need to be satisfied that they do deal with long-term care.
In the past 10 minutes I have concentrated on those areas where there is not consensus, and where there probably will not be consensus during the Committee stage. I believe that we all agree on the importance of this Bill both to the financial services industry and to consumers. We are all keen to ensure that the Bill which emerges from this House enables the FSA to conduct its affairs in the most effective way possible. It is in this spirit that we support the Second Reading and look forward to the Committee stage.
7.32 p.m.
Lord Kingsland: My Lords, the opening remarks of the noble Lord, Lord Newby, have allowed me to dispense with mine, because I agree with them totally. In my observations I shall try to get the Minister to address some of the issues that he addressed in his opening speech in a little more detail and in the context of what your Lordships have said so far.
In his opening remarks the Minister referred to a further 600 amendments which the Government are to table to this Bill. He divided them into three categories. The first category was an entirely understandable one because it concerned Stock Exchange listing conditions—a matter which was raised in the course of the proceedings in another place. There we would of course expect some new initiatives.
The second category was stated to be to rationalise the decisions of the FSA. I must say that I heard that statement with a certain amount of alarm—because the Government have already tabled 750 amendments in the course of the Bill's progress through another place. I felt that if they had not managed to rationalise the decision-making procedures of the FSA after tabling 750 amendments, what hope would a further 600 have of achieving that objective?
The third category of amendments to which the noble Lord referred was in the sphere of competition. I want to pause there to ask the noble Lord one or two questions. The matter has already been worked over with great skill by a number of your Lordships, and it features in Clause 2 of the Bill. Your Lordships who have taken the trouble to glance at Clause 2(3) will be aware that paragraphs (e), (f) and (g) define three quite distinct notions of competition.
The first concerns the international competitiveness of the British financial markets as compared with other financial markets around the world. The second falls into what I would call the classic Director General of Fair Trading category; that is, the prohibition of anti-competitive practices that have crept into a

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particular market. The third concerns the notion of actually initiating competition in domestic markets which is not yet there, or which is not sufficiently there.
I do not think that any of your Lordships would quarrel with category (e)—the first category. This afternoon all noble Lords have agreed that it is crucial in applying regulatory powers to beware of killing the goose that laid the golden egg. I believe that (e) is uncontroversial.
So far as (1) is concerned, that is developed in another part of the Bill—Chapter III, Clauses 150 to 155—by what I might describe as a rather cumbersome procedure. This requires the Director General of Fair Trading, if he identifies a particular anti-competitive practice, to refer it to the Competition Commission, which then, after further study, refers it to the Treasury—which may or may not at the end of the day instruct the FSA to do something about it. I trust that one of the areas the Minister will look at again and, I hope, amend is that section of the Bill; because if anti-competitive practices emerge in financial markets they will emerge quickly and do damage quickly. Therefore it is in my submission essential that the Bill has a mechanism which is equally swift in responding.
I turn to the final definition of competition, facilitating competition, and in doing so invite the Minister to say something about how he sees this principle being applied by the FSA. In my submission, the position of the utilities is quite different—because in most cases where utilities are concerned they derive from nationalised industries. It has been a perfectly understandable requirement of the regulator to do something about that state of affairs because otherwise there would simply be a private monopoly. However, in this case many of the markets are already quite open with a large number of players and with relatively free entry and exit—not for all but for many.
Of course, at the end of the day this is a matter for the FSA, but how ought Mr Davies to apply this particular measure? After all, ultimately Mr Davies is responsible to the Treasury, as we are constantly reminded. Therefore it is a matter to which the Treasury certainly ought to apply its mind. As a Treasury Minister, no doubt the Minister is at this moment applying his mind.
These matters are of great importance because Clause 2 is really the hinge of the Bill. Clause 2 requires the general functions exercised by the FSA to be exercised in the context of four regulatory objectives and seven considerations. In Committee in another place, the Minister, Mrs Hewitt, said quite clearly that, if these considerations were not all taken into account in formulating and applying the general functions, decisions by the FSA would be judicially reviewable. Therefore each one of the four objectives and each one of the seven considerations has to be taken into account. In those circumstances the way the FSA applies the three competitive considerations is, I submit to the Minister, crucial.
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There are a number of technical issues that your Lordships will consider throughout the passage of this Bill which, although not politically controversial, must not be neglected. I draw the Minister's attention briefly to just four or five of them.
The first is the question of EEA rights, which are dealt with in Schedules 3 and 4 to the Bill. Schedule 3 deals with passporting and Schedule 4 with treaty rights. As the Minister is well aware, there has been a dispute about the way in which Schedule 3 relates to Schedule 4. That may or may not have been ironed out by now, but, if it has not, I give the Minister notice that the Opposition will be tabling amendments to ensure that Schedules 3 and 4 elide into one another, as it were.
Secondly, the noble Lord, Lord Eatwell, raised the question of systemic risk. I share his amazement that that matter has not been dealt with in one of the four objectives. Instead, if one takes what is said in the committee of another place as what will continue to be the Government's policy, it appears that the matter of systemic risk will be the subject of discussions between the Governor of the Bank of England, the Chancellor of the Exchequer and the chief executive of the FSA in their monthly meetings. It is such a critical issue to the market that I should hope to see something more in the Bill about it; if not in the regulatory objectives, then in some other part.
The third matter which I state to be politically non-controversial is the question of the relationship of market abuse to the criminal law, touched on both by my noble and learned friend Lord Fraser of Carmyllie and the noble and learned Lord, Lord Donaldson. It is extremely important for those regulated to know in what circumstances the FSA will draw in the DTI, the Serious Fraud Office and the Director of Public Prosecutions to alert them to the fact that a particular form of behaviour is, in its opinion, criminal.
The final of this set of likely amendments from the Opposition concerns branches of foreign companies situated in the United Kingdom which deal exclusively with customers living outside the United Kingdom. Our view, which we trust the Minister will share, is that such branches should not fall within the regulations.
As so many of your Lordships have said, the FSA is an institution of enormous power. The issue of accountability is crucial. The Bill is a skeleton Bill. We know little of how it will operate until we have seen the rules and guidance issued by the FSA. Will we see some of those rules and guidance in draft form in the course of Committee stage and on Report? I hope so, because it will make it so much easier for us to do our work.
The FSA is in itself a statutory legislature. It has enormous powers to make rules which can, at the end of the day, lead to people being fined and losing their jobs and consequently their reputations. If the rules were made by your Lordships' House and another place, they would of course be fully discussed; but your Lordships will not have an opportunity to consider them. On what system of accountability, therefore, can those operating in the market rely?

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The Government have made two suggestions. First, that the FSA is enshrined in a corporate structure. But as many of your Lordships have said, the system and rules of corporate behaviours laid down in the Cadbury code are inappropriate and do not, in any case, apply in the Bill. That is particularly true of the role of non-executive directors, dealt with in Schedule 1 to the Bill. Your Lordships will have noted that the powers given to non-executive directors are largely housekeeping powers. If the rule of good corporate governance is to have any real application, does the Minister agree that it is crucial that non-executive directors have the power to assess the work of executive directors of the FSA in every aspect of their work, including the way in which they apply Clause 2 of the Bill? As the noble Lord, Lord Newby, said, it is simply not satisfactory that the non-executive directors of the FSA have the same status as non-executive directors of the Bank of England.
If the corporate governance principles do not satisfactorily guarantee accountability, what role can your Lordships' House and another place play in doing so? Perhaps I may suggest three initiatives which the Minister could take as the Bill passes through your Lordships' House to ensure clear accountability.
First, the FSA should be required, in making its rules, to consult the practitioner panel and the consumer panel. There is a general obligation, but no specific obligation, to consult those two independent organisations. Furthermore, in circumstances where there is a disagreement between the FSA and the practitioner panel and the consumer panel, that disagreement should be made public. That would not be an innovation. In the course of the passage of the Access to Justice Bill, the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor gave precisely that undertaking with respect to consultation by the new boards responsible for legal services. Given the Government's commitment to the principle of transparency, such an initiative in the Bill would be wholly in conformity, as I understand it, with the principles that the Government themselves espouse.
Secondly, there is a power in the Bill to have a review, but there is nothing which requires it to take place at any particular time or in any particular set of circumstances. Does the Minister agree that regular reviews are desirable? Is he prepared to set out circumstances in the Bill which would trigger the institution of such reviews?
Thirdly, when the FSA delivers its annual report, will the Minister agree to contemplate a particular system of control within your Lordships' House and another place to review the previous year's performance of the FSA; and, in particular, with respect to its compliance with its general principles and also with respect to the cost effectiveness of the work that it is carrying out?
There are two other matters to which I wish to draw the Minister's attention. The first concerns the question of statutory immunity. There have been differing views in your Lordships' House about the desirability of statutory immunity for the FSA. I am one of those who cannot see why the FSA should have
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statutory immunity. After all, a soldier in Northern Ireland, when he has to pull the trigger of his rifle, does not have statutory immunity if he makes the wrong decision. If he fails to pull the trigger in circumstances in which he should have done, he is court-martialled. If he pulls the trigger in circumstances in which he should not have done, he lays himself open to a prosecution for murder. The same is true of a policeman doing his duty. Why should the FSA have statutory immunity if soldiers and policemen in far more testing circumstances than those faced by the representatives of the FSA do not receive immunity?
I am rather puzzled by the part of the Bill dealing with the question of damages in relation to statutory immunity. There are two exceptions. One refers to "bad faith" and the other to Section 6(1) of the Human Rights Act 1998. I should be most interested to know how the Minister defines bad faith. Does he define it in the way in which most Crown Office judges define it nowadays, as running into other concepts such as unreasonableness or taking matters into account which should not have been taken into account? Does he think that it includes recklessness?
So far as concerns Section 6(1) of the Human Rights Act, in the light of the recent well publicised decision in Osman in the European Court of Human Rights, does he now not think that under the Human Rights Act it will be difficult for any public institution in this country to plead complete immunity from damages on the ground that such a plea would be a denial of justice under Article 6 of the convention?
These questions are crucial to everyone who operates in the market. The Government owe it to those operators to tell them exactly where they stand. To the extent that the Government believe that damages will still not be available, will they agree to a much tougher system of compensation than they were prepared to agree to in another place? There, as I understand it, the Government were unwilling to allow the independent investigator to be selected by the Lord Chancellor, were unwilling to let complaints go directly to the independent investigator and, above all, were unwilling to consider compensation in circumstances where the FSA had behaved negligently. Will the Minister think again about the position that the Government took in another place?
Finally, whereas I agreed with the noble Lord, Lord Eatwell, on the question of systemic risk, I disagreed with him on his concerns about the new definition of market abuse. Quite to the contrary, I think that the new definition of market abuse is far too FSA-friendly and ought, by contrast, to contain the requirement of intent before the FSA can move against an operator for market abuse.
I would add to that two other concerns about the market abuse rules. The first concerns the scope of the definition of market abuse. It not only refers to investments which take place on one of the six qualifying exchanges but also refers to the subject matter of those investments. For example, if the FSA was targeting someone dealing in gold futures, it would also be entitled to target the person who was engaged in the underlying transaction in gold itself.

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Equally, if a qualifying investment is itself the subject matter of another instrument, such as derivatives, those derivatives too would fall within the definition of market abuse. Those instruments would not be required to be traded on the six exchanges but could be traded anywhere in the world. So what is the limit of the concept of market abuse, both geographically and in terms of the kind of instruments about which we are talking? When the Government produce their guidance, will they consider encouraging the FSA to introduce some limits?
Lastly, as the noble Lord, Lord Alexander of Weedon, rightly said, it is crucial that as much help is given by the FSA as possible to market operators in order to ensure that they clearly understand on what side of the line they are when they are engaged in trading either on the six recognised exchanges or in any linked transactions. Again, I remind the noble Lord of Article 7 of the European Convention on Human Rights, which requires certainty in the application of the criminal law.
Many compliments have been paid to the noble Lord, Lord Burns, for all the work that he did on the Joint Committee. I should like to add to those. He took a huge burden off our shoulders by convincing the Government that much of what they had written into their original rules about market abuse contravened the European Convention on Human Rights. He has done most of our task for us. There is a little more to do. By the broad smile on the Minister's face, I am encouraged to think that he will be prepared to take that step.
7.54 p.m.
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: My Lords, in opening the debate for the Opposition, the noble Lord, Lord Saatchi, promised us constructive opposition. When I used to do that from the Opposition Front Bench, that usually meant that it was going to be a wholesale attack on the principles and conduct of the Bill and no doubt on the principles and conduct of the Ministers promoting the Bill. Fortunately, either the noble Lord is more generous in his language than I am, or he has not been proved right, because, generally speaking, it can be said that the principles behind the Bill have received a welcome from almost all noble Lords who have taken part in the debate.
It has been recognised that the Government's approach to financial services demonstrates our strong commitment to bringing up to date the disparate and fragmented regulatory regime which existed in the past by replacing it with a single regulator for financial markets with a set of coherent powers. I hope it will be recognised that even though I acknowledged that the Bill is extremely long and complicated, it introduces effective, efficient, fair and transparent policies, it establishes an accountable regulator who has clear objectives which are set out on the face of the Bill, something which has never been done before. The intention of the Bill is to support market confidence, to provide consumer protection and education, and to
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attack financial crime and abuse. The Bill fully recognises the importance of proportionate regulation and competition, competitiveness—the reason I do not use that word very often is that I can never say it—and innovation.
Before I go any further I should acknowledge the fact that noble Lords on all sides of the House have praised the work done by the Burns Joint Committee. I hope I made it clear in my opening speech that the committee had a major impact on this important Bill and is continuing to do so.
The noble Lord, Lord Kingsland, asked me about government amendments. I acknowledged that there would be a substantial number of government amendments. I said in my opening speech that they would be concerned with the transfer of responsibility for listing from the Stock Exchange to the FSA, rationalising the decision-making processes in the Bill—I do not think we talked about reforming the decision-making processes of the FSA—improving and achieving greater consistency in the use of definitions, clarifying the FSA's rule-making powers—rather more limited than the noble Lord, Lord Kingsland, thought—improving the procedures for competition and scrutiny of them, and one or two other points. My instructions to officials have been that as soon as a coherent group of amendments is available, it will be made available to the Opposition and indeed to all noble Lords who have taken part in the debate with an explanation of what they mean and how they fit into the Bill. If that means me writing 10 letters between now and the Committee stage, I am prepared to do that in order to ensure that as much notice as possible is available.
In my opening speech I emphasised the importance of financial services to this country. Indeed, that has been made clear throughout the debate. It is clearly of importance to almost everyone in this country as savers, employees, and users of capital as well as active participants in financial markets. Here I have to disagree with the noble Lord, Northbrook, who quoted the shadow Chief Secretary to the Treasury as suggesting that there might be a move, because of regulation, to markets such as Dublin with lighter regulation. We take the opposite view. We take the view that well regulated markets are attractive markets. The FSA will of course be subject to a statutory requirement to have regard to the desirability of maintaining the competitive position of the United Kingdom, but we take the view that with a sound accountable and effective regulatory regime we will actually attract financial business to this country.
A number of noble Lords talked about globalisation and the role of the Internet. Of course we recognise that financial markets are no longer glued to a particular city or country. We recognise that globalisation means that we have to attract those markets to this country. We recognise that the availability of electronic communications increases that likelihood. What the Bill does is make our regulatory system media neutral to take full account of the opportunities and risks presented by all forms of communication, including the Internet and the new

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global information technology generally. Internet communications are treated on all fours with other forms of communication. There is no reason to believe that this provision will undermine competition or the United Kingdom's international competitiveness. On the contrary, the regulator will be required expressly to take these matters into account in meeting its regulatory objectives. We have no intention of treating websites or bulletin boards differently from any other form of communication, any more than we treat advertisements in newspapers differently. The question as to whether they are subject to control depends on their purpose and contents and the context in which they are issued. The Treasury has issued draft guidance on these matters.
I have emphasised again the importance of the move to a single regulator. Clearly, that raises substantial governance issues, which I fully recognise. Your Lordships will forgive me if I do not go into the chairman/chief executive argument. It is clear that amendments will be tabled on this point and that we shall debate them at considerable length in Committee. We take the view that, although we understand the thinking behind it and the analogy with corporate governance and the Greenbury and Hampel reports, we do need a strong line of accountability to Treasury Ministers from the chief executive. That is the view of the FSA board and it is our position at the present time. I hasten to say that the Bill does not preclude a future split, which could be achieved without statutory authority. However, our support for Howard Davies and the way in which he runs this business as chairman and chief executive is unbounded.
Staying on the issue of governance, a number of noble Lords, including the noble Lord, Lord Newby, talked about the role of non-executives. Their role is spelt out in Schedule 1. I assure the House that they will play a full role in the decisions of the FSA and I assure the noble Lord, Lord Kingsland, that they will take part in assessing the work of the executive directors. I entirely agree with the noble Lord, Lord Rees, that the quality of FSA staff is absolutely crucial. Although there has been some turnover because of the move from a number of different organisations, that is well under control.
I do not think that I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Blackwell, that there is reason to believe that the regulation will cost more. We are, after all, bringing together a large number of regulatory bodies. I do not see that rationalising the structure will prove expensive. In any case, value for money will be one of the criteria by which the FSA will be judged. Even if that were not the case, the noble Lord suggested that regulation might add to the cost of mortgage selling. How infinitesimal any extra cost would be compared to the social and economic cost of mis-selling, which has been too much a feature of financial markets in the past.
A number of noble Lords referred to the scope of the regulatory authority and suggested changes to it. Perhaps I may illustrate a general principle by starting with long-term care insurance, which was advocated as
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an additional responsibility—most passionately by my noble friend Lord Lipsey but also by a number of other noble Lords. We are ready to look at the case for regulating long-term care insurance. The Treasury has established a committee, as Alan Milburn promised, consisting of both government and industry representatives, which is taking a fundamental look at the financial products in the market, seeking to find the products that would offer reliable, efficient and effective means of saving to pay long-term care costs. I do not doubt the potential importance of that market, even though it is perhaps only some 30,000 at present.
I emphasise—and this applies to all suggestions of an increase in scope—that regulation is not the only protection for consumers. As with ISAs and stakeholder pensions, conditions of access terms (CAT) are a good protection for all who are inexperienced in financial markets. They may be more appropriate in some circumstances than regulation, which is concentrated inevitably on potential for abuse rather than for simple error.
Similarly with mortgages, I understand the points that have been made about the limitations on the addition to the scope of the responsibilities of the FSA. However, we take the view that mortgage loans are intrinsically easier to understand than, for example, pensions. It is possible to disengage from them, usually at low cost or no cost—although in the past there have been bad exceptions. We take the view that, for most of the aspects of mortgage lending referred to, the FSA's disclosure regime is a powerful weapon.
My noble friend Lord Haskel asked about the orphan assets of insurance companies. Here again, we believe that the matter is best dealt with by the regulator, rather than on the face of the Bill. However, I am happy to discuss the matter with my noble friend if he wishes to do so.
I turn now to the issue of the statutory objectives and principles, and say again how important it is that we have sought to set these on the face of the Bill. That has made it possible to have serious and intelligent discussion about these issues. I was interested to find that the noble Lord, Lord Alexander, agreed with the noble Lord, Lord Burns, that there should be no more objectives. That applies particularly to the pleading that there has been for further objectives on competition.
It is important that we should not think that the Government are not taking competition seriously simply because there is not a separate objective. The competition regulators in this country are the Office of Fair Trading and the Competition Commission. Their-responsibilities extend across the economy as a whole, including financial services. It is their responsibility to investigate and deal with a suspected cartel of insurance companies in the same way as a suspected cartel of supermarkets.
I say to the noble Lords, Lord Newby and Lord Kingsland, that the FSA is not a competition regulator but is concerned with prudential supervision of the financial services industry and the protection of

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consumers. If it had a competition objective, that would duplicate, and potentially interfere with, the job that is being done by the OFT and the Competition Commission. That does not mean that it has no interest in competition. We must always be aware of the danger that, in regulating, the authority might unnecessarily restrict competition. That is why we have made provision for that in Clause 2(3).
Lord Kingsland: My Lords, I do not think that I did say in my speech that competition ought to be an objective. My remarks were limited solely to the question of the three categories of competition being matters that the FSA should take into account.
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: My Lords, I am glad to acknowledge that.
I turn to the speech of my noble friend Lord Eatwell. He made a powerful point about the management of systemic risk and recorded the fact that the Burns committee thought that the object of market confidence should refer to maintaining confidence in the soundness of the financial system. We are concerned with maintaining effective prudential supervision of individual institutions. If we singled out one aspect it could throw doubt on the role of the FSA in this area. The noble Lord, Lord Kingsland, recognised that there were what he termed "discussions" between the FSA, the Bank of England and the Treasury. It is more formal than that: there is a memorandum of understanding between them. We recognise that the various facets of the work of the FSA will require co-operation with a number of other bodies, the composition of which may change over time, but we believe that nothing would be gained, and flexibility would be lost, if we had statutory provision in the Bill. We believe that the Joint Committee's concerns in this area have been met without the need to amend the Bill.
My noble friend Lord Borrie asked why there was a difference in policy between the Utilities Bill and this Bill. That is again a competition issue. The Utilities Bill is essentially concerned with ensuring that those with dominant positions do not exploit them to the disadvantage of consumers. Therefore, it is natural to talk about protecting consumers by promoting competition. But this Bill is about regulating financial services in a way that is compatible with a number of important considerations. As I believe the noble Lord, Lord Kingsland, recognised, there is no inconsistency in government policies; it is just that the context of the two Bills is different. We have no proposals to make significant adjustments to the structure established by Part X, but it is important that the improvements to be made are consistent with the Cruickshank report on competition and banking.
The noble Lord, Lord Taverne, and my noble friend Lord Ahmed referred to financial exclusion, which is a matter of very serious concern. However, this is not something with which we can deal by a separate objective in the Bill. The problem with imposing an objective on the FSA to reduce financial exclusion is
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that it would cut across all the other objectives and detach it from its core role of regulation. We agree with the Burns committee that additional duties would make life unnecessarily difficult for a regulator with responsibility for prudential supervision and would change lines of accountability.
That leads me to the more general issue of accountability. That matter was emphasised most helpfully by the noble Lord, Lord Sharman. The FSA is accountable to Ministers and to those affected by its actions. Accountability has been improved as a result of consultation, but the regulator must be free to regulate. We have no intention to add further to the mechanisms set out in the Bill. Perhaps I may describe for the noble Lord, Lord Blackwell, what accountability consists of. There are transparent objectives set out on the face of the Bill. Next, there are consumer and practitioner panels. There is also the power of the Treasury to order value-for-money reviews. I say to the noble Lord, Lord Kingsland, that we do not believe it is a good idea that those should be triggered on a regular basis. We think that they should be as required. There is also provision for a financial services and markets tribunal and an ombudsman system. Finally, there is the long stop of judicial review. Of course, the panels will be consulted, but whether that is in public is a matter for the panels. That could well be the case.
All of this means that there will be very substantial parliamentary scrutiny of the work of the FSA. Members of the FSA can and, I am sure, will be summoned before Parliament to account for themselves, in addition to the parliamentary scrutiny of the annual report. In those circumstances, we believe that the charge of lack of accountability does not stick. On that basis, I believe that I can assert with a good deal of confidence the need for statutory immunity, which as far as I can see is opposed only by the Conservative Front Bench. I am prepared to elaborate on that in Committee.
I turn briefly to the issue of delegated powers. We have almost no outstanding differences with the committee, as the noble Lord, Lord Alexander, was good enough to recognise. I was also glad to hear his welcome for the cost benefit analysis which will be part of the regime. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Donaldson, made some valuable points in this regard. It is true that, just as the consultation documents have been published, regulations and guidance should be published as soon as possible. The noble and learned Lord is also right to say that it is not our intention to emulate the SEC in having "no action" letters, for very much the reason that he identified.
I was also glad to have the noble and learned Lord's recognition of the fair discipline arrangements in the Bill. We believe that they are compatible with the European Convention on Human Rights and our desire for high standards of fairness. The FSA will be required to operate on the basis of fair and transparent procedures, with those subject to discipline having recourse to a wholly independent tribunal. Some of this is set out in Part I. Like the noble and learned Lord, Lord Donaldson, I emphasise that the FSA will not be

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allowed to have regard to costs when fixing penalties. I add that it will not be allowed to have regard to penalties when fixing fees to authorised bodies.
I turn finally to the large and vexed issue of market abuse and the ECHR. I believe that there is still a degree of misunderstanding about this matter on both sides of the argument. The defects in the existing regime are that the criminal law covers only a limited range of serious crimes but that the regulatory regime covers only a sub-set of the market; that is, regulated persons. The market abuse provisions do not cover just authorised persons but any other participant in very wide definitions of "financial systems" and "investment". We are aware that under the European Convention on Human Rights some cases of market abuse may be considered by European courts, and, after 1st March, UK courts, to be criminal and, therefore, that a different standard of proof may be required. It may well be that the boundaries between criminal and civil offences will be developed. I cannot now give the noble Lord an answer as to what they will be, even if I were legally qualified to do so. There are clear advantages in having market abuse procedures applicable to everybody which do not allow people to fall between the cracks and, as far as possible, are civil rather than criminal.
The noble Lord, Lord Bagri, gave the very graphic example of the difficulty of dealing with the problems of Sumitomo which was not regulated by the London Metal Exchange or anyone else. The noble Lord, Lord Rees, referred to vulnerable activities which were left out—perhaps I use the wrong word—under the existing regime. The whole point is to ensure that no one falls between the cracks and that any offences which are damaging in the way set out on the face of the Bill are not omitted from the market abuse regime. In those circumstances, I am unable to reconcile the views of the noble Lords, Lord Northbrook and Lord Saatchi, with those of my noble friend Lord Eatwell who is anxious to ensure—I very much sympathise with him—that there are no gaps in the provision. Again, it will be not for me but for the courts to define what is meant by had faith. I am encouraged by the general support of the noble Lord, Lord Burns, for that. I can only say on process that a code has been published after consultation. Your Lordships will be kept up to date as far as possible with future publications.
I turn to a most important issue. The noble Lords, Lord Burns and Lord Eatwell, questioned whether we had gone too far with the regular user test in Clause 109(1)(c). It is critical to my relationship with my noble friend Lord Eatwell; I know that he is very suspicious of the provision. They are concerned with whether the regular user test means that we have lost an objective anchor in the regime and that as a result poor but common behaviour would be acceptable. In order to be market abuse, behaviour has to be of a particular type and has to be something that a reasonable person who is a regular user of the market would be likely to regard as a failure to observe reasonably expected standards—not "accepted" standards but "expected" standards. That is an objective test. The objective
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anchor is the regular user of the market. He is not any person who uses the market regularly but is defined to be a reasonable man.
It is inherent in the concept of the reasonable man that he knows what is right. Just because a large number of the users of a market engage in, say, insider dealing does not mean that a reasonable man who regularly uses the market would conclude that it is the appropriate standard if the written or unwritten rules say that it is wrong. It is important that the objective anchor is the reasonable regular user of the market. If behaviour exists which affects his confidence in the market, then the efficiency and liquidity of the markets will be damaged.
I wanted to respond to the noble and learned Lord, Lord Fraser of Carmyllie, about fraud in Scotland. In view of the time, I shall write to him on that subject.
In conclusion, I hope that throughout consideration of the Bill it will be recognised that we have sought to strike the right balance. Despite his other criticisms, my noble friend Lord Lipsey thought that we had. The noble Lord, Lord Rees—he referred to financial markets going under the harrow—takes a different view. We agree with the noble Lord, Lord Taverne, that the regime must be flexible. It must not prevent innovation and competition and it must not involve excessive costs. We agree with the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, that small firms such as independent financial advisers should be properly treated, although we do not agree that they should be excluded from the provisions of the Bill. After all, we are looking at their customers, and it does not matter to those customers whether they go to a small or large firm.
We stick also to the principle that no public money should be involved; that the financial markets should be responsible for all aspects of regulation.
This has been a worthwhile and complicated debate. I am clear that even if we were not introducing amendments our Committee stage will be complicated and challenging. I look forward to it. I commend the Bill to the House.
On Question, Bill read a second time, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House.

Northern Ireland Arms Decommissioning Act 1997 (Amnesty Period) Order 2000
8.23 p.m.
Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton rose to move, That the draft order laid before the House on 1st February be approved [9th Report from the Joint Committee].
The noble Baroness said: My Lords, the order appoints 23rd May 2000 as the date before which the amnesty period identified in a non-statutory decommissioning scheme must end.
The amnesty period is the time during which firearms, ammunition and explosives can be decommissioned in accordance with the scheme, thereby attracting both the amnesty and prohibitions

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on evidential use and forensic testing of decommissioned items provided by the Northern Ireland Arms Decommissioning Act 1997.
Section 2 of the 1997 Act requires that a scheme must set out the amnesty period and that it must end before 27th February 1998 (the first anniversary of the Act's passing) unless the Secretary of State, by order, appoints a later day.
My right honourable friend the Member for Redcar, when she was Secretary of State, made two such orders. Under that made last year, the amnesty period will expire at midnight on 23rd February this year. The purpose of this order is to extend that period until midnight on 22nd May this year. This date derives from the time-frame set out in the Good Friday agreement for the decommissioning of all paramilitary arms.
We must press on to resolve the real difficulties that exist and restore full cross-community confidence in the institutions in Northern Ireland. The way forward is, of course, the implementation of every aspect of the Good Friday agreement, in full. The subject of the draft order before your Lordships tonight, namely decommissioning, is a central element in the process. It was an absence of progress on decommissioning which, as your Lordships know, contributed substantially towards the decline in trust and cross-community confidence among the community in Northern Ireland.
Clearly, if that confidence is to be restored progress needs to be made on this aspect of the agreement, just as it has been on every other aspect. People need answers to the legitimate questions posed by the honourable Member for Newry and Armagh. Will decommissioning occur and, if so, when?
Now, more than ever, it is essential that we move ahead to establish consensus on the way forward and rebuild confidence in the process. There can be no doubt in anyone's minds that decommissioning is central to this.
In order for the commitments on decommissioning to be fulfilled in accordance with the terms of the agreement, the Government must play their part. In the agreement, the two Governments undertook to take all necessary stops to facilitate the decommissioning process, including bringing the relevant schemes into force by the end of June 1998, which we duly did. If we are to fulfil our commitment under the agreement it is essential that we extend, through this order, the period during which the scheme may declare an amnesty.
As part of the Government's commitment to the full implementation of the agreement, it is essential that we continue to provide the means by which terrorist weapons can be taken out of circulation. This amnesty period order is central to those arrangements. I commend it to your Lordships. I beg to move.
Moved, That the draft order laid before the House on 1st February be approved [9th Report from the Joint Committee].—(Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton.)
Lord Molyneaux of Killead: My Lords, it is perhaps appropriate that the following debate deals with Wales, an important part of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. If I may, I shall sit here, keep quiet and hope that I shall learn something from the words of wisdom of so many respected friends on this side of the House and on the other.
Introducing this order on 14th February in another place, the Minister of State, Mr Ingram, understandably set its renewal against recent happenings. He rightly defended the decision of the Secretary of State to suspend the operation of devolved government in Northern Ireland. I, too, would support that decision realising, as I do, that it resulted from much wider considerations than possible impacts on, for example, the Ulster Unionist Party. On that flimsy basis, the Irish Government and other nationalists bitterly attacked the Secretary of State. They accused him of making what appeared to them a premature decision without attaching sufficient weight to yet another vague, last minute, IRA statement. The reality is that the Prime Minister and the Secretary of State had already been in possession of information on the short-term and long-term strategic intentions of the IRA based on decisions taken in the first week of January this year.
It was against that background that during the passage of the suspension Bill I moved an amendment requiring that the statement on suspension be made within 24 hours of Royal Assent: in fact the announcement was made within 21 hours.
One has to ask, how could the Prime Minister or the Secretary of State have failed to take decisive action, knowing beyond doubt the real intentions of fully armed terrorist organisations?
It has to be placed on record that those senior Ministers did not fail in their duty to protect and safeguard the future, and their determination was reflected in the closing words in that speech by Mr Adam Ingram in another place only a week ago.
The Government can now expect a co-ordinated assault on their position by various terrorist organisations, backed by other people who ought to know better. Noble Lords will know that the main target will continue to be the Royal Ulster Constabulary, with the intention of destabilising the entire community in Northern Ireland. The Government will need to consider the dangers of seriously damaging the morale and efficiency of the one guardian of the peace now that it is known that armed terrorism is, unfortunately, going to be an enduring feature of the landscape. Equally irresponsible would be that which is termed "normalisation of security", when normality is no longer on the agenda.

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In a very real sense, the order is rendered irrelevant by terrorist decisions, which they probably intended as new millennium gifts to the people of the United Kingdom.
The Secretary of State has been prudent in damping down demands for a headlong rush into more summitry, for example in the form of yet another review. On Saturday last he recommended a period for reflection, rest and sleep for possible participants in any future discussions. The same restorative might be beneficial to the general public after three years' battering by spin doctors who skilfully manipulated the news industry, one has to say a very willing and eager news industry. Their victims now deserve to be treated as adults. They know that there are alternatives. For example, one such alternative exists in Wales, about which we will hear shortly.
Next on the agenda, in a very practical sense, should be further early development of local democracy, where Northern Ireland councillors have made great strides in participation and co-operation across the divides, to an extent which compares very favourably with their counterpart councillors in Britain. After 25 years, surely even the Northern Ireland Office must be convinced of the wisdom of building from the ground up, particularly when there is tangible proof of the soundness of conventional methods of construction.
Lord Glentoran: My Lords, having heard the noble Lord, Lord Molyneaux, I should like to say that his contribution is very welcome. I strongly believe that this order is very necessary. It is really a tidying mechanism. Most of my views, which are not totally different from those of the noble Lord, are to be found in Hansard for Thursday, 17th February. Decommissioning is something that we all crave, but some of us are more optimistic about that than others.
I take this opportunity to include a statement that I have been repeating since the days of my maiden speech. There are two ways of approaching power-sharing and devolution of power in Northern Ireland: the alternative to approaching it from the top downwards is to build from the bottom upwards.
I do not believe that we have come to the end of the current peace process. This order tidies up the amnesty arrangements. It is the right order, which will enable Her Majesty's Government to do all that is possible to facilitate decommissioning.
Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton: My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Molyneaux, has raised the very important issue of normalisation and security. I repeat the assurance that I gave noble Lords last Thursday that my right honourable friend the Secretary of State will take decisions on security measures following full consultation with the Chief Constable and the GOC. The paramount concern is safety. The Chief Constable has stated publicly that he does not believe that there is any immediate danger of the cease-fires breaking down. There has been no indication from paramilitary groups that they intend to end their cease-fires.
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The security forces in Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland will continue to use all the powers at their disposal to locate and recover illegally-held armaments and pay tribute to the RUC and the Garda Siochana for their continuing efforts to frustrate those wedded to the violence of the past.
This is a temporary pause in the operation of the institutions and will afford a breathing space, an opportunity to take stock. It is crucial that we make the most of this opportunity to regenerate confidence in the institutions and the overall political settlement. There can be no doubt that decommissioning is central to building that confidence. Equally, there can be no doubt that the amnesty provisions contained in the order will play a fundamental part in making the decommissioning possible.
I thank the noble Lord, Lord Glentoran for his support. Like the noble Lord, I am certain that we all pray for the peace that is so desperately needed by the people in Northern Ireland. I commend the Order to the House.
On Question, Motion agreed to.

Wales: Devolution
8.38 p.m.
Lord Carlile of Berriew Lord Carlile of Berriew rose to ask Her Majesty's Government whether their policy objectives in relation to devolution of power to Wales are being achieved.
The noble Lord said: My Lords, I welcome this opportunity to debate in this House the progress of the National Assembly for Wales. I am very grateful for the significant number of noble Lords, many of whom have served Wales with great distinction, who have indicated a wish to speak in the debate. I should like to say to the noble Lord, Lord Molyneaux, that he is a very welcome guest at our Welsh debate this evening.
I must confess that it had been my hope to engineer this debate so that it fell on St David's Day. It shows that I am as yet inexperienced in the arcana of the procedure of this House that I have fallen short of the fence by a number of days. I shall try again next year.
From Cardiff, I received challenges today about the legitimacy of this House, and indeed this Parliament, debating the activity of the Assembly. In answer to that, I would say, first, that it is sometimes helpful for those who are on the inside looking out to hear the views of those who are informed and are on the outside looking in. Secondly, I would remind those who object to our having this debate at all that theirs are devolved powers from this Parliament and that there is a self-evident legitimacy to a debate of this kind.
I hope that I shall be forgiven for reminding the House of my party's commitment over many years to the devolution process. In the 1992–97 Parliament, when I was in another place, I was Leader of the Liberal Democrats in Wales. With Ron Davies from the Labour side, I was instrumental in agreeing with Labour the devolution settlement that was adopted. I

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want to pay tribute to Ron Davies for his remarkable achievements in putting that agreement into effect in his very short period as Secretary of State for Wales.
I also want to pay tribute to the party leaders in the Assembly—unbelievably, there have been seven so far—and to all the Members of the Assembly for their energy and dedication and for their unstinting efforts to make the Assembly the focus of everyday Welsh political life. Unfortunately, recent polling and the observations of many of us who live in Wales and have strong political interests, show that the Assembly has yet to win the respect of the Welsh electorate, let alone their hearts and minds. I want it to. No public institution paid for from public money can look to its future with self assurance unless it earns public support, though perhaps it is too much to expect any elected body to earn public esteem.
The events of recent days involving the replacement of the First Secretary have, on reflection, in my view not enhanced the reputation of the Assembly within or outside Wales. The adoption by the new First Secretary of an unchanged Cabinet, with no new policies whatever, seems decidedly odd after such conspicuous events. I know from perusing past debates that the noble Baroness, Lady Farrington, who will reply tonight, has sound historic Welsh credentials and a real knowledge of the issues. Therefore, it is with hope and even expectation that I urge upon the House tonight that several changes are needed to sustain the impetus of devolution and to give firmness to its purpose.
The first relates to the Assembly and its powers and role. It is old ground and I shall not dwell there. I simply say that the Assembly, with the changes I propose, would be well able to deal with primary legislation and, like the Scottish Parliament, should do so. If any public money was involved and it was thought right, that could be subject to scrutiny in this Parliament. But all grown up regional parliaments in the western world—at least, almost all—have some primary legislative powers and the Welsh Assembly should be no exception.
The second change I advocate—and it is a very important one—is that the separation of powers should be recognised in Cardiff in every sense. There are many top-quality public servants working at and for the Assembly. Their personal independence cannot be seriously doubted. Notwithstanding that, as was recognised by John Osmond in his December 1999 report for the Institute of Welsh Affairs, those public servants are serving two masters; the Assembly Members and the Welsh Cabinet. That is unsatisfactory and involves a conflict of interest far beyond the acceptable.
I suggest to your Lordships that, like the two Houses here in Westminster—and, indeed, like the Scottish Parliament—the Welsh Assembly should have a Clerk's department employed by, advising and answerable to the Assembly only. The staff should be no part of the executive arm of government. They
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should be there to give advice to all members founded on political neutrality. They should be free from undue executive pressure or any serious suggestion of it.
Connected, and on the issue of neutrality, is my third proposal. This, unfortunately, involves some criticism of someone I admire and I am pleased to see in his place: the noble Lord, Lord Elis-Thomas, who is the Presiding Officer of the National Assembly for Wales. In recent weeks, his self-vaunted refusal to take or heed the advice available from those senior officials I have mentioned has been regrettable. His comment prior to the confidence debate to the effect that Mr Alun Michael should get on his knees and pray for his job was deliberate, intemperate, ill-judged and, frankly, inflammatory. The noble Lord is an admirable politician, but he should consider whether he feels he is suited to what is necessarily a position of neutrality. And above all, perhaps it is right that there should be further enshrined in the rules of the Assembly a role for the Presiding Officer which is akin to that of the Speaker of the House of Commons.
The next issue to which I turn is the mode of debate in the Assembly. I suggest that the debating rules should be amended to give more Back Bench time in the most important debates. No Welsh politician worth electing ever fears or resents criticism and scrutiny in robust debates. The rules of the Assembly are stifling real debate. The no-confidence plenary motion was a stark example. It was the Assembly's most crucial debate, yet it took one hour or so only, with no Back Bench contributions. Indeed, if one looks at the lay-out, it is sometimes more reminiscent of the phoney parliaments of the old, planned, centralised economies than of the parliament which it seeks to be. The way in which Members are not identified with the areas they represent, in my view is not helpful to the public. Indeed, it is incongruously "unWelsh". It would befit the noble Lord, Lord Elis-Thomas, who has laughed throughout most of my speech, to hear these remarks as representing the views of many people in Wales.
My fifth proposal is that there should be a conventional printed Hansard-type document issued on a daily basis. Not everyone has access to the Internet and it is inconvenient for many.
My sixth point is that we must devise clearer and more routine links which are crucial between this Parliament in Westminster and the National Assembly for Wales. Too many people in Wales do not understand those links at the moment. They are too indistinct and that lack of understanding extends to some of us.
I turn briefly to the way in which the discussion in the debate on no confidence in the First Secretary was bedevilled by Objective 1 discussions. The discussion was bedevilled by a great deal of misinformation about the nature of Objective 1. I know that others will speak to that in more detail.
I say that there is a crying need for rural regeneration, the relief of poverty in rural areas, better education provision and many other changes of policy

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in Wales. But, frankly, where it comes from does not matter as long as the result of the public spending round is that there is enough to meet the policy need.
I hope that this debate will contribute something to the evolution of the Assembly. Above all, I hope that it will be recognised that party advantage should be set aside to two ends. The first is to give Wales a consistent and stable government with a clear programme until the next Assembly election in 2003. The second is to awaken Welsh people to the potential and importance of the Assembly, which I support. I want to see that reflected in large turn-out figures at the 2003 election as opposed to the disappointing turn-out at the last.
8.49 p.m.
Lord Cledwyn of Penrhos: My Lords, I welcome this short debate initiated by the noble Lord, Lord Carlile of Berriew. It gives us an opportunity to discuss how things are developing at the National Assembly for Wales. I hope that some constructive points will emerge in the course of the debate which will also be of help to the Assembly.
Throughout my life I have argued the case for a Welsh elected assembly. The main object of Welsh devolution was to evolve a more democratic control over the actions of central government in Wales, to achieve more direct accountability of Welsh government to the people of Wales, to improve the material and social well-being of the people and to safeguard the heritage of Welsh nationhood.
The setting up last year of the National Assembly for Wales was for me a national and historic achievement. It was a milestone of huge significance in the history of Wales. Of that, I have no doubt. Having fought for a national assembly for decades, the expectations of many people were very high when the Assembly first opened its doors.
However, I am conscious that there has been much criticism of the way the Assembly has conducted its affairs. Those criticisms have been widely reported in the press. I shall not recite them this evening, but of course they have worried me, as they have all noble Lords. I have been particularly concerned that they could be exploited by the opponents of devolution in order to seek to damage the concept of devolution itself. Therefore, I wish to say as clearly as I can that my belief in the values of devolution and my confidence in the ability of the Welsh people to take charge of Welsh affairs has not been altered or weakened by anything that has gone on at the National Assembly. Rather, they have underlined that the National Assembly, and the national responsibility which it implies, was long overdue.
I tend to believe that most of the problems which lie at the source of the criticism are teething problems, because less than 12 months ago, most of the Assembly members were without previous experience of government. Others may take a different view of the nature of those problems. However, I am pleased to understand that some of the critics who fiercely opposed the proposal for a Welsh Assembly, right up
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to the referendum, are now suggesting that additional legislative and tax varying powers be devolved to the Assembly. That strikes me as a reassuring move.
It has always been my belief that the future of a country must ensure respect for its different traditions. There is no easy way of safeguarding this. I would therefore not rule out of consideration the possibility of bringing members of other parties into the Executive, provided that there is sufficient consensus among them about the issues which need to be addressed.
As has already been said, the National Assembly has a new First Secretary. Last week, Rhodri Morgan took over from Alun Michael. I have known Alun Michael and his family for many years. Despite his major contribution to the setting up of the Assembly, a week or so ago he felt obliged to resign his office. That was his judgment. I welcome his successor, Rhodri Morgan, who has a large reserve of goodwill throughout Wales. He is an able and popular politician in Wales. It is my earnest hope that, under his leadership, the criticisms will be examined. If they are valid, they will be eliminated or alleviated.
As I said earlier, expectations were high last May. Those expectations are now more realistic. But I believe that the Assembly, with its teething troubles sorted out and uniting behind a broad programme of government, will grow in stature and responsibility as it wins the confidence of the people of Wales.
8.54 p.m.
Lord Crickhowell: My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Carlile of Berriew, has done us a service in raising this Question this evening. The decision to devolve political power in Wales was taken by the narrowest of margins. If that vote was taken again today, against the background of our experience so far, I doubt whether the result would be repeated. The majority in Wales are cynical about the whole exercise and believe that they are getting poor value for their money. Or, as the noble Lord, Lord Carlile, put it, the Assembly has yet to win the respect of the Welsh people.
Their cynicism stems from the fact that they feel that they have been treated with contempt by the Government and in particular those in the Labour Party feel that they have been manipulated and duped. There is an extraordinary lack of connection between the words used by the Government and their actions.
A recent article in The Times in the name of the Prime Minister refers to the inheritance of,
"over-centralised, remote and insensitive government [with] everything directed from London".
It speaks of actions being taken to push power out from the centre so that the,
"nations and regions can find innovative local solutions to local problems".
You have to be remarkably insensitive to use language of that kind when you have just suffered a humiliating setback after attempting to impose from the centre your own man and your own policies, entirely regardless of local people.

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In another article in The Times, Simon Jenkins has argued that, because the Government have received a bloody nose, this represents a triumph for devolution. He wrote:
"Then have twisted and manipulated to distort local democracy and put 'one of us' in place".
As a consequence,
"devolution reacted with admirable speed. It clobbered Labour…".
The trouble with that argument is that it tells only half the story. I have never doubted the good sense of the electorate or its ability to clobber bad and arrogant government. However, the really important question remains to be answered: is the system capable of delivering good government?
Over the past nine months, government in Wales has been paralysed. Partly that has happened because, even over the simplest matters, there has been endless debate and discussion in the Assembly itself. Partly it has happened because Mr Alun Michael combined, in a peculiarly disastrous manner, an inability to take decisions with an unwillingness to delegate. All over Wales, public bodies stand helpless, public appointments stand vacant and people await some sign that the administration has the capacity for action.
The question now is whether Mr Rhodri Morgan will be an improvement. His political career so far—and, I would add, his popularity—has been built on his talents as a hostile critic. He has been negative, destructive, rude and has seldom advanced a positive idea. The million dollar question is whether he can harness his undoubted talents and energy for a positive purpose. I hope that he can and that he will. The opposition parties should give him a chance, but if he fails they are entitled, acting together, to be as critical of him as he has so often been of others in the past.
I say, "acting together" advisedly. We have been told repeatedly by Ministers that devolution would bring together the political system in a new arrangement that was to be inclusive. That makes all the more remarkable the Prime Minister's extraordinary tirade at Question Time in another place about the fact that the Conservative Party had been prepared to act with Plaid Cymru in the Assembly vote of confidence. Does he not remember that moment on 19th September 1998 when his Secretary of State stood, hands aloft, with the leaders of Plaid Cymru at the School of Music and Drama in Cardiff? Does he not remember those happy days of 1974 when Labour was struggling to retain power and the noble Lord, Lord Elis-Thomas—I am glad to see him in his place and I know that he will remember this—got phone calls every Sunday from the Government's Deputy Chief Whip? Patrick Hannon, the Welsh political correspondent for the BBC at the time, quoted the noble Lord as saying:
"We were spoilt really from day one. Wigley and I were embraced by the Welsh Labour Party".
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The Prime Minister's position is absurd. If you have an electoral system that fails to produce an overall majority, the governing party may need to act with others—the noble Lord, Lord Cledwyn, inferred that that was so. It follows that if there is to be effective opposition to bad or inadequate government, the same rules of combination and inclusivity must apply.
Mr Rhodri Morgan has a problem: he is called "Mr Brown". If there was no matching funding for Objective 1 expenditure for Mr Alun Michael, one can be sure that there will be none for him either. Therefore, where do we go from here? Almost certainly, the Assembly will fail to meet the expectations that have been created. It will blame that fact on a lack of powers and a lack of funds. It will demand more of both. Indeed, the process was started here this evening by the noble Lord, Lord Carlile of Berriew. As Mr Neil Kinnock observed when Michael Foot offered a measure of self-government, "A measure of self-government? You might as well talk about a measure of pregnancy!"
9 p.m.
Lord Elis-Thomas: My Lords, it is always a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Crickhowell. This is almost a re-run of our pre-devolution debates. I am, of course, grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Carlile, for enabling us to have this debate. Unfortunately, I shall disappoint him. I shall not respond to any of the issues relating to the recent events in the National Assembly. I believe firmly that, as the Presiding Officer, I should not take advantage of my position in this place to defend myself, if I ever felt the need to, from his criticisms in a court of law, in this House or, indeed, in any other place.
However, I wish to speak briefly about the implications of devolution for this House and, indeed, for the United Kingdom as a whole. I believe that we have achieved the beginnings of a new system of democracy in Cardiff which in style and content is very different from that at Westminster. That is not a criticism of Westminster; it is not a statement of praise for what we do in Cardiff. It is a reflection of the nature of devolved government. Devolved government will ever be thus. Whether it be Northern Ireland with its tremendous difficulties, the devolved Parliament in Scotland or the Assembly in Wales—we all operate differently.
I believe that the lesson we must learn is the importance of understanding that new political institutions will of themselves create different political cultures in the way that they respond and operate. This House must understand its role as a quasi-federal structure in relation to the new devolved United Kingdom. That requires an understanding of how devolved political culture operates and a way of analysing that—not in comparison with what happens in Westminster but what happens in devolved bodies in other legislatures within the Commonwealth or Europe, wherever those comparisons are valid.
Of course, there is an important issue here which the noble Lord touched on, and I am grateful to him for that. It concerns the importance of the way in which

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officials serve devolved bodies. Clearly, on occasion there can be tensions and conflicts. However, I am confident that the United Kingdom Civil Service has the tradition of impartiality in serving administrations that can enable it to cope with those situations. Of course, it requires that the officials who operate within devolved bodies understand the nature of devolution, understand the new politicians whom they serve, and are able to serve them in an impartial and effective way. That requires an understanding of the nature of devolution itself and also of the nature of the new political imperative which is part of the whole structure.
I turn to my final point. Devolved bodies are accountable to the electorates of the devolved areas, nations or regions where they function. Ultimately, they are accountable in terms of the electorate to those structures. Therefore, when they operate on a day-to-day basis they must bear in mind that they do so in a political context with a new legitimacy, albeit a marginal one in the context of Wales because of the result in the devolution referendum. They are accountable to the areas they represent. Within those structures, their accountability to their elected representatives is as real as is the traditional accountability of the home Civil Service within the United Kingdom to this Parliament and Government. I believe that that most important principle increasingly is being understood in Wales and Scotland and has been understood over a long period in Northern Ireland, as I know from my noble friend Lord Molyneaux.
Therefore, I have every confidence that the new Assembly in Wales will be able to develop its own style of government and its own unique politics in a way which will be different from Westminster but which will not require Members at Westminster to feel the need to debate its activity. In the nature of devolved bodies, what they do and how they function will be different from what happens here. The responsibility of this House is to care for the new United Kingdom in a manner which allows those devolved bodies to represent the electorates they are elected to represent.
9.6 p.m.
Baroness Gale: My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Carlile of Berriew, for tabling the Question on the Government's policies and objectives in relation to devolution in Wales.
One of the greatest joys in my political life was to attend the first sitting of the National Assembly for Wales last May and to see our dreams become a reality. Having spent 15 years of my working life preparing and developing the policies for devolution of the Assembly through the Labour Party, it was truly a wonderful day. Thanks to the Labour Government, we now have devolved power in Wales and it makes me feel proud to be Welsh, just as we all felt very proud last Saturday. I am sure that your Lordships will join with me in congratulating the Welsh rugby team on its great success at last. It is hoped that it will go forward
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in a few weeks' time to even greater success. It was a great effort for Wales which made us all feel proud to be Welsh.
The new Assembly has been in existence for just eight months. During that period, the former First Secretary, Alun Michael, played an important role in ensuring the smooth transition of power which has been no easy task in that new Assembly. I pay tribute to his determination and courage in making the Assembly work.
In his resignation speech, he demonstrated great dignity, ensuring that the Assembly could go forward and build on the work which he had started. History will be a better judge of his efforts, for his achievements will surely be recognised.
I view with great sadness the events leading up to the no confidence Motion. In that regard, I must agree with the remarks made by the noble Lord, Lord Carlile of Berriew. It must be said that there is a general feeling among many people in Wales that the impartial role of the Presiding Officer, which should be very similar to that of the Speaker in other parliaments, was not maintained. That may be just a perception but, even so, it is a perception which must be acknowledged. Again, I recognise that those matters must be dealt with in Wales rather than in your Lordships' House. It is up to the members of the Assembly to decide whether or not they need to re-examine the role of the Presiding Officer.
The new First Secretary in the National Assembly for Wales, Rhodri Morgan, recently quite rightly said that our own Parliament had taken over 800 years to mature and develop. In the eight months or so since the new National Assembly has acquired its powers, we should not expect it to have achieved perfection. That said, our young democracy in Wales has achieved much in a very short time in terms of process and policy.
In terms of process, the new institution is up and running in a very short time with a combination of a Cabinet/government structure and a series of subject committees chaired by nominees from all the four parties in the Assembly. The subject committees are transparently and genuinely inclusive. There is considerable evidence of cross-party collaboration in their scrutiny and policy development roles. The agreed budget is evidence of the way in which collaboration is being developed between the Cabinet and the subject committees, with 30 of the 33 recommendations being accepted by the Finance Secretary, Edwina Hart.
And then there is the highly innovative corporate plan, Better Wales, which highlights the importance of transparency, accountability and, above all, improvements in the service for the people of Wales; for example, better jobs, health, education and social services.
In terms of policy development, the Labour Government of course believe that democratic devolution means developing policies in Wales appropriate to the needs of the people of Wales. I wish to highlight two of our Labour manifesto

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commitments which have been taken forward by the Assembly Cabinet and the appropriate subject committees.
First, the education and training action plan was a major manifesto commitment for Wales which has now been progressed very considerably and has certainly influenced much of the thinking behind the Learning and Skills Bill. Discussion of the plan by the post-16 education committee has been a model of cross-party collaboration in the field of policy development.
Secondly, probably the most important development in the Assembly in the past eight months has been the work of the health and social services committee in relation to its discussion on the need for a children's manifesto for Wales. That is another of the party's manifesto commitments. Of course, that assumes much greater significance following the publication of the North Wales child abuse report.
In conclusion, the Secretary of State for Wales, Paul Murphy, has stated frequently in the past eight months that devolution for Wales is a settled question. By that he means that it is a democratic advance for the Welsh people which we, as a Government, have now achieved following a democratic mandate in the referendum. We have a challenging time ahead of us. What the Welsh people now need and deserve is a period of stability. It is only through such stability and improvement in the services provided to them by the Assembly that we shall win wider respect for the new institution which the Welsh people have created.
9.14 p.m.
Lord Hooson: My Lords, writing in The Times last week the very distinguished Welsh writer, Jan Morris, said,
"It must be patent to all that the crisis in the Welsh Assembly had at its root the inadequate degree of devolution it enjoys".
I agree that there is an inadequate degree of devolution. But the greatest mistake that we could make would be to follow her advice and, as it were, be merely a party of protest in Parliament demanding confederation. That is a pipe dream. Whatever the faults of the devolution Bill, of which there were many critics in this House, including myself, let us face reality: we shall be unable to change it for some years to come.
Surely the first task of the Assembly is to demonstrate to the people of Wales that it is making effective, imaginative, sensible and thorough use of the powers that it has. It has very considerable powers. Let us remember what they are. Basically, they are no more than control of the managerial and administrative powers of the Welsh Office. The powers of the Secretary of State were transferred to the Assembly and it has some other powers. But because it is an elected Assembly it can have far more influence than a mere administrative office.
Essentially, the Assembly has taken over those powers. It has to satisfy the people that it is discharging those functions more effectively and acceptably than
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did the Secretary of State and his office. It is answerable to the people of Wales in a democratic way.
I do not agree with Jan Morris that there is a crisis in the Assembly. There may be one in the Labour Party over it, which is partly in Cardiff and partly in London. There is no crisis in the Assembly as such. I believe that Simon Jenkins is quite right in saying that this is devolution in action. If the people of Wales do not wish to be dictated to from London they will say so, and they have. The question is an internal problem for the Labour Party and not for the rest of the Assembly.
I wish to deal with two particular matters—one economic and the other social—over which the Assembly has a great deal of control. I deal first with the Objective 1 status in Wales. A great deal has been written and said about that. I refer to an article in the Financial Times by its political editor, Mr Brian Groom, on 10th February, which I believe was the very day of Mr Michael's resignation. The heading states,
"Labour 'at fault' over funding crisis in Wales".
It continues,
"Labour's leadership in Wales is, at least in part, the author of its own misfortune over the funding issue".
It continues by saying,
"Achievement of Objective 1 status for west Wales and the Valleys, unlocking … £1.1 bn of European regional aid between the year 2000 and 2006, was hailed by the government last year as a negotiating triumph. But the statistical sleight of hand that made it possible, also made a row over matching the cash from UK coffers inevitable".
The article goes on to deal in detail with that matter. It points out that,
"It maximised the EU funds available, but created a serious problem of [funding] from the Welsh assembly's £8bn annual budget".
I need not go on with that.
There is a crisis which has been created by the Government on that. About a fortnight ago in this House I said that we must remember that in Wales we see what is going on across the Irish Sea. We also see the funding which occurs there. We have seen the transformation of the economy of the Irish Republic. Without any doubt whatsoever the truth is that Wales has fallen behind the Republic of Ireland over the past 10 years.
I say to the Labour Party and the Government that if they do not provide matching funding from the Exchequer, which the people of Wales were given to understand would be achieved, and if it is not provided this year, the Government will run the risk of losing every seat that they have in Wales. I believe that they will find the matching funding. If they do not, then there is something wrong with them. Equally, I believe that they should find matching funding for those areas of England which have Objective 1 status in Merseyside and Cornwall, for example. It is a crucial problem for the Welsh Assembly and for the Labour Party in particular, which is the major party in the Assembly.
The second question is a social one and concerns the Waterhouse Report. It puts its finger on huge problems of administration and management in

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Wales. The Welsh Office was not spared and neither were the local authorities. Waterhouse has pointed out that this matter now goes to the Welsh Assembly. The Waterhouse report dealt with administration as it was before. The Assembly must deal with the recommendations of the report to show that it can do better.
9.20 p.m.
Lord Prys-Davies: My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Carlile, raises an important Question and I thank him for his thoughtful speech. But I answer the Question in the affirmative. The Government's policy objectives in relation to devolution of power to Wales are being achieved. Of that I have little doubt.
In the nature of the settlement the Welsh Assembly is not only a new body; it is also a new kind of democratic institution. It is not a parliament as we know it. The late Richard Crossman may have called it a "mini-parliament"; others have called it a "quasi-parliament". It meant that new working methods, new ground rules, new procedures and new conventions had to be designed and settled. In those circumstances, no one can reasonably imagine that there would not be teething problems when the Assembly got down to business.
It is, in my view, unfortunate that the pro-devolution parties in Wales had not worked together in a Welsh constitutional convention to educate themselves, and public opinion, about the practical issues and expectations raised by devolution and to agree guiding principles which would govern their relationship within the Assembly when it was formed. I say that notwithstanding the strenuous efforts in 1991 and 1992 of the then Archbishop of Wales, Alwyn Rice-Jones. The idea of a Welsh constitutional convention went against the orthodoxy of the day—that was particularly true of my party—and the opportunity was lost.
I turn to the running of the affairs of the Assembly. It is evident that it has been through difficult times. But my noble friend Lord Cledwyn was right when he suggested that most of its troubles are teething troubles. I agree that it is also difficult to evaluate some of the indictments; for example, the alleged lack of coherence between the subject committees or the proper degree of understanding between officials and Assembly members. We are in difficulty in evaluating the criticisms because, to some extent, the Assembly has only been operating for nine months. It is difficult to determine factors such as efficiency of government when it has only been operating for that time.
But I take forward the point raised by my noble friend Lord Cledwyn that perhaps the Assembly or one of its committees could analyse, with benefit, the evidence for the criticisms which have been voiced and address any mischief which may exist. I would expect it also to take on board some of the proposals advanced this evening, in particular by the noble Lord, Lord Carlile.
It has been said, and there was a suggestion this evening, that the Assembly lacks adequate powers. That may arise in the future, but the final row within
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the Assembly which ended in the resignation of Alun Michael as First Secretary also showed, in its own way, that the men and women of the National Assembly for Wales have power strong enough to make a considerable impact on Welsh politics. As was pointed out in the letter to The Times last week, which I too read, Alun Michael is a gifted and hard-working politician. Nevertheless, the manner of his election was looked at with suspicion in Wales. In the result, he could never satisfy his critics, and today he seems to carry the blame for the apparent shortcomings of the Assembly. I believe that that is an unfair verdict which will probably be revised in due course.
We come to his successor, Rhodri Morgan. He brings many qualities to the post of First Secretary. I believe that there has been a widespread favourable reaction in Wales to his election as First Secretary. The people in the street believe that he is a radical who is on their side against the establishment. For five years, when he was in Opposition, he worked on the Welsh Assembly plans. Now, as First Secretary, he will certainly have the authority to give impetus, focus and direction to the Assembly. I hope and believe that he will do precisely that. If I am right, his election will have been of considerable significance for the Welsh political landscape.
The late James Griffiths, the Charter Secretary of State for Wales, was fond of an old Welsh saying: Deuparth gwaith ei ddechrau—that getting a job started is two-thirds of the task. The Welsh Assembly is up and running. Mistakes have been made, but mistakes have, of course, been made by all human institutions. There is clearly much hard work to be done by the Assembly members. However, I believe that the foundation for a creative period in Welsh history is now in place. I believe that the tide at Cardiff Bay is at last turning for the National Assembly. However, I add a word of caution. There are always unforeseen dangers; there are always new opportunities; the tide will always ebb and flow.
9.26 p.m.
Lord Griffiths of Fforestfach: My Lords, like everyone who has taken part in this debate, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Carlile, for raising this timely Question. In answering it, we need to stand back and recognise three features of the Welsh Assembly. The first is that it is not yet a year old; it is only seven months old. The second is that it is a totally new kind of body in British politics. The National Assembly is itself a body corporate. As the noble Lord, Lord Carlile, remarked, that certainly poses difficult problems for civil servants in their allegiance to, on the one hand, the Members of the Assembly and, on the other hand, the members of the Executive. Because it is a new body, it has had to devise new rules and create new procedures. It cannot rely on Westminster. The third feature is that the Labour Party is in a minority position in government.
We therefore have a body which is less than a year old, an entirely new kind of body, and a minority government which is complicated by the introduction of proportional representation. All this amounts to a

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new learning experience. Along with a lack of experience, there naturally is a lack of self-confidence. Because of this, I believe that the censure motions, the walk-out, the resignations and the no confidence motions that we have had are all symptomatic of something which has only just got under way. I do not see a crisis at all. I see the healthy development of an institution. The media may make much of these incidents; I believe that we should look at the real achievements of the Assembly.
To my mind, the first great achievement is that after 600 years, as was said explicitly by the noble Lord, Lord Cledwyn, we have a National Assembly in Wales overseeing a budget of £7 billion, with Welsh issues being debated at greater length and drawing upon greater expertise than was possible at Westminster. When I go to Wales, as I often do, I sense that there is at present in Wales a buzz and a self-confidence which comes from the Assembly.
Secondly—and nobody has mentioned the point this evening—the Welsh language has not proved to be divisive. The National Assembly is a truly bilingual institution. That is very important.
Thirdly—here I disagree with certain speakers—I must pay tribute to the Presiding Officer and say how pleased we are to see him in his place this evening. I think that he has been remarkably successful in steering this new institution through uncharted procedural matters. We know that he is Welsh but, even so, he has done a tremendous job, which is also to the benefit of the Assembly.
Finally, I do not see the Objective I issue as being a vote of no confidence by people in Wales. With a proper committee structure, one expects its members to probe issues. I think that the members of that committee should be congratulated on exposing the dissembling nature of the Treasury's behaviour in relation to the accounting of money from the European Regional Development Fund which remains in the coffers of the Treasury.
In the past, I have argued strongly from these Benches that Welsh devolution was a good thing and something which would bring serious benefits to Wales. It would be mean-spirited of us this evening, as well as ill-informed, if we said that it was anything other than a success. The Government have every right to feel pleased that their objective in having a devolved Assembly in Wales—and I say this as a Conservative—has been achieved.
However, I have three brief concerns. The first is the relationship between Cardiff and Westminster. The unearthing of the Objective I issue, primarily by Plaid Cymru, does not inspire trust by Cardiff in us here at Westminster. I believe that a constructive relationship between Cardiff and Westminster is important for both Wales and the United Kingdom. But with the contrast that is inevitably made between the Scottish Parliament and the Welsh Assembly, this will not be easy. Therefore, we in Westminster should do everything in our power to minimise the lack of trust
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that may arise. The only way to do that is to have clear rules, especially when it comes to money, and to have a minimum of negotiation.
Secondly, there is the question of the improved economic performance in Wales. I do not think that it is impertinent for me to raise the issue tonight because I have a vested interest in seeing democracy work in Wales. Also, as a taxpayer, I have a vested interest in seeing Wales be successful. I am concerned at the past reputation of the First Secretary in his attacks on the Welsh Development Agency. I sincerely hope that there is not the feeling in Cardiff that the civil servants can really manage the Welsh economy. The market economy has to be embraced but, most importantly, that must obviously happen within the context of social cohesion.
My time is really up, but I should like to mention my third point. Largely because of the role that I played with Mrs Thatcher in developing grant-maintained schools and NHS trust hospitals, I have always felt that devolution does not finish in Cardiff. Indeed, devolution should go beyond that. I hope that we shall see that in the Assembly. The challenge now is for the Assembly to articulate its vision for Wales—one which trusts the people as much as government. If it does so, I believe that in the next election we will see a real success and an endorsement of devolution.
9.33 p.m.
Lord Brookman: My Lords, I, too, welcome this debate, initiated by the noble Lord, Lord Carlile of Berriew. Therefore, I believe that his critics in Cardiff, whom he mentioned earlier, are surely wrong. Indeed, it is valuable for us to have this debate. However, I must confess that the noble Lord threw me a little: I thought that the Question was whether the Government's,
"policy objectives in relation to devolution of power to Wales are being achieved".
We heard some excellent points—seven or perhaps eight—as to how the noble Lord thought that it could all be improved.
In my view, the answer to the direct Question posed is yes. Indeed, the setting up of the Assembly, its very establishment, is the cornerstone of the devolution of power to Wales. Therefore, from my perspective, devolution is a settled question; a fact of life. Therefore I was somewhat concerned—I sensed some sour grapes here—at the brutal remarks of the noble Lord, Lord Crickhowell.
Paul Murphy said that this was a settled question and that the establishment of the Assembly was a fact of life. I agree with that. One critically important aspect of the Government's devolution programme is their commitment to ensure that the policies are both appropriate to the needs of the people of Wales and are developed by the Welsh people themselves. In this respect I was impressed by the recent comments of the Chancellor of the Exchequer when he said that we

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must all learn from one another across the length and breadth of a devolved Britain and that the,
"new democratic constitutional architecture not only rights past wrongs but better equips Britain for the future".
He went on to say that,
"The new devolved institution allows for innovation in policy making".
I am sure that there is no quarrel with that in this House this evening.
I am optimistic rather than pessimistic about the future. That is why I strongly welcome—as I hope do many other noble Lords this evening—the joint ministerial committees on the knowledge economy, on child poverty and on pension poverty. Such major issues cannot be overcome by Wales alone. As Paul Murphy said recently, poverty and unemployment do not respect national boundaries. I agree with that, as I am sure do many others here this evening.
Cardiff and Westminster working in democratic partnership is an important major new development since the creation of the National Assembly. We, the Welsh, have the people and the personalities to ensure success.
Many have already mentioned my next point. I wish to place on record my appreciation to the current Secretary of State for Wales, Paul Murphy. I am sure that the noble Lord, Lord Molyneaux, will agree that Paul Murphy was a key player in the Good Friday agreement. Alun Michael has already been mentioned. As the initial First Secretary of the National Assembly his hard work and commitment in difficult and challenging circumstances ensured that the Assembly was a success at the beginning and that our young democratic Assembly was established. We should pay tribute to him for that.
It is my belief that the new First Secretary, Rhodri Morgan, will bring his rich talents and leadership to his new post. Rhodri needs our support to ensure that the Government's devolution objectives continue to be driven forward in Wales for our people. I am absolutely convinced that such matters as match funding or Objective 1 status will be achieved if we are united in Wales for the people of Wales.
9.38 p.m.
Lord Davies of Coity: My Lords, I, too, wish to express my gratitude to the noble Lord, Lord Carlile, for introducing this topic this evening.
Despite the difficulties he has experienced I wish at the outset to pay tribute to the work of Alun Michael, who became First Secretary of the new Assembly last May. It was he who coined the phrase "dynamic devolution". In my view the people of Wales are in his debt because of the commitment and the dedication he has demonstrated over decades to make "dynamic devolution" a reality over the past year.
Increasingly politicians and members of the public in Wales are recognising that the Assembly will succeed or fail on the basis of whether it actually makes a difference to the lives of the people of Wales. The new First Secretary in Wales, Rhodri Morgan, put it in a
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nutshell last week when he said that the new young democratic institution is here and we fought to achieve it, to improve the lot of ordinary people, not for any privileged elite. That is also why the Labour Government, through the Prime Minister and the Chancellor, fought and achieved European Objective 1 status for the Valleys and West Wales. That is why, together, Labour in Westminster and Labour in Wales will deliver on their promises to transform for the better the old rural and valley economies of Wales.
The key is outward looking democratic partnerships; what Paul Murphy, the Secretary of State for Wales, has called,
"a Wales that is world wide"—
not introspective and obsessed with constitutional change, but looking outwards, commercially and culturally. It is through democratic partnership and new forms of collaborative working that progress has been made in Wales. What the people of Wales now need above all is a period of political stability in order to ensure that they achieve the improvements in the quality of their lives that they so richly deserve.
The Question posed tonight is to ask Her Majesty's Government whether their policy objectives in relation to devolution of power to Wales are being achieved. I suggest that they are being achieved. But we must recognise that the Assembly is new. It is early days. It must be given time to progress those objectives. Given that time, I have every confidence that they will be achieved. But the measure of achievement is clear. Not until standards of living and opportunities for the Welsh people have been substantially enhanced will the policy objectives be fully achieved. I have no doubt that the Assembly, given time, will succeed.
9.41 p.m.
Lord Thomas of Gresford: My Lords, a number of your Lordships have pointed out that the Assembly has suffered from a great deal of negative publicity in its first eight months. I rather sympathise with the views of Mr Alun Michael when he said that the media in Wales was in "a fragile state" and called for a tougher and more challenging type of journalism which concentrates less on personalities and more upon the facts and realities of the decisions the Assembly has to make.
To conquer the cynicism to which the noble Lord, Lord Crickhowell, referred, the Assembly's information services should be far more proactive in promoting the Assembly and explaining the way in which it works and the decisions which it takes. There is good news, as the noble Lord, Lord Davies of Coity, said a moment ago. I agree with my noble friend Lord Hooson that the Assembly is not in crisis. There is a buzz, as the noble Lord, Lord Griffiths, said.
The positive side is that the machinery for policy making constructed for the Welsh Assembly is beginning to work. It is a new and different way of policy formation, as the noble Lord, Lord Elis-Thomas, pointed out. I have been impressed, during the course of the Learning and Skills Bill passing through your Lordships' House, at the way in which

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the policy has been formed in Wales. The Education and Training Action Group, under the chairmanship of Mr Peter Hain, produced a report in March 1999. It was one of the first issues to be discussed in June 1999 by the Post-16 Education Subject Committee—a cross-party committee with a Plaid Cymru chairman. It produced a report, which was discussed in plenary session of the entire Assembly. Amendments were debated. As a result, when draft primary legislation for Wales was produced, it was discussed by the Assembly before it came here. That is the way that policy formation should be handled.
However, there is also disappointment. The policy objectives trumpeted were a stronger economy in Wales, more jobs and better access to European funds. Mr Alun Michael unhappily failed to convince us that he was an advocate for Wales in Westminster rather than for Westminster in Wales. If he feared the impact of any criticism of the Blair Government or of the Treasury on Welsh Westminster Labour-held parliamentary seats, I am afraid that Ceredigion was the answer, where the Labour Party came last.
I feel that an opportunity has so far been lost to achieve those shared objectives by reason of a lack of co-operative mechanisms within the Assembly. Mr Michael wrote to the leader of the Welsh Liberal Democrats, Michael German, on 29th November, in response to suggestions that he put forward, saying:
"We are all learning as we go along with our new Assembly. I share your view that we do not yet have all the mechanisms in place which we need to draw the Assembly together effectively … In particular. I agree that we need to find a way of bridging the gaps between the work of the individual committees and the plenary, which has tended to be more confrontational. We need a cross-party mechanism which allows us collectively to engage in serious discussion of key policy issues".
Mr Michael was absolutely right in that. He welcomed the ideas in Michael German's letter.
No core programme for government has ever been worked out upon which consensus between the parties can be built. I am sure that every Assembly Member is working for the benefit of Wales. In the short-term, there are no real major ideological differences. But if there is to be the kind of partnership approach which Mr Rhodri Morgan has now commended, if there is to be inclusivity and the stability to which the noble Lord, Lord Davies of Coity, referred, it has to be recognised that, as partnership, it cannot be portrayed as a Labour programme, credited to the Labour administration just with the support of other parties. I fully understand why the noble Baroness, Lady Gale, refers to the fulfilment of Labour Party manifesto commitments, but I hope she appreciates that we on these Benches have been talking for 20 and 30 years about the ideas that eventually surfaced in the Labour Party manifesto. The ideas come from everyone with Wales at heart.
Similarly, the noble Lord, Lord Prys-Davies, referred to the need for a Welsh constitutional convention. My noble friend Lord Carlile of Berriew, to whom we are grateful for this debate, himself
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proposed that very thing some years ago to the Labour Party and it was simply not accepted at that time. We have always wanted that kind of inclusive approach.
So why is there no core programme? It is because the agenda is driven by Westminster. It is bound to happen where the primary legislative function is withheld from Cardiff. The priorities are bound to be Westminster priorities. I agree with my noble friend Lord Hooson that the Assembly has to perform its existing functions, but I also believe that there must be slow evolution towards primary legislative powers for the Welsh Assembly itself if devolution is ever to function properly. We need to develop the subject committees; we need to open cross-party discussion of Green Papers and White Papers, with consultation with interested bodies in Wales and the taking of evidence where appropriate, as happened with regard to the Learning and Skills Bill. Welsh primary legislation should be drafted in Wales in parallel and considered by the Assembly in plenary session prior to its introduction at Westminster.
Those are developments for the future. We must continue in Westminster to discuss these issues. I reject any suggestion that it is not appropriate for us to discuss them. If there is to be development along those lines, this is where it is going to start. My noble friend Lord Carlile said that we must sustain the impetus of devolution. Mr Charles Kennedy said a week ago in Cardiff that:
"it is imperative that the Assembly works and is seen to work, with credibility and authenticity".
I agree with both my noble friend and my right honourable friend.
9.49 p.m.
Lord Roberts of Conwy: My Lords, I add my compliments to those already given to the noble Lord, Lord Carlile, on securing this timely and valuable debate. I would remind the noble Lord that I have an oral Question down for 1st March, so he can turn up here to assist me with his daffodil.
There are two very different views of the current position of the National Assembly. One is cheerfully optimistic and was well represented by the Prime Minister in an article in The Times on 12th February, in which he argued that devolution is giving new expression to existing regional and national identities.
"From time to time",
he wrote,
"politicians will find it a bumpy ride".
I am sure that the fallen First Secretary would agree with him on that.
Others are, if not cynical, frankly disappointed. That is the description most commonly applied to the Assembly's performance to date, even by many of those who voted for it in the referendum. It would be very unwise to ignore that feeling in the country.
Personally, I believe that we have to distinguish between the National Assembly as such, which shows all the immaturity and inexperience of a novel institution, and the Labour administration's handling

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of it. Alun Michael's resignation has been talked about as being occasioned by his failure to secure match funding from the Treasury for the European moneys promised for the Objective 1 area. But of course there was more to it than that. Nevertheless, his successor, Rhodri Morgan, is unlikely to gain a firmer undertaking from the Treasury and will have to rely on his wit and bonhomie to save the one-legged duck, as he described himself, from yet another cull by opposition Members. The party political numbers of the Assembly remain the same, with all the opposition parties, I suspect, wishing to remain as independent of the Labour administration as possible and therefore blameless for anything that may go wrong, as the general election looms ever larger. I am sure that they regard the plea for inclusive politics as a device to keep the Labour Party in power, and they may well be right.
I want to raise a key practical point which has to do with our role here at Westminster as primary legislators—a role that we still have, and I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Hooson, that it will probably continue for the foreseeable future.
It has become clear in recent weeks that the Assembly is badly out of sync with the UK Parliament in that the Assembly has not completed its consideration of policy before we have begun our consideration of Bills that give effect to those policies. One example is the Learning and Skills Bill, which sets up a new major council for education and learning in Wales. We took the Second Reading of the Bill weeks before a plenary session of the Assembly approved the overall policy. That is putting the cart before the horse in a big way. The message must be loud and clear: if Assembly members want this Parliament to take account of their views, they must complete their deliberations before the primary legislative process begins. There are serious consequences if that does not happen.
The noble Lord, Lord Thomas of Gresford, who also attended the Committee stage of the Bill last week, knows as well as I do, as does the noble Baroness, Lady Farrington, who will reply to the debate, that the Bill is incomplete so far as concerns Wales and significant amendments will have to be tabled at a later stage. That may mean curtailment of our consideration of them. This is a serious matter. I suspect that it is causing some concern within the Government and that they will wish to put it right.
The same criticism can be levelled at the Local Government Bill, which was also first introduced in this House. It was established on the first day in Committee that the Welsh amendments would not be available until Report stage because of some dilatory consideration within the Assembly. If those amendments are significant, we may be in recommittal territory.
To sum up on this point, the Assembly must adjust itself better to the primary legislative process. What is subject to primary legislation in England must surely be similarly treated where Wales is concerned. It is no use leaving everything to secondary legislation. That is not the catch-all that some believe it to be. It has its limitations.
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I say with some regret that a number of Assembly Member give the impression that they wish to distance themselves from this Parliament and relish their isolation. If so, I believe that they are mistaken. There are many of us at Westminster who genuinely wish to be helpful to the Assembly and to see it succeed, but to achieve our aim we must be kept fully informed of the Assembly's proceedings in its committees as well as its plenary sessions. We must not be kept in the dark.
In conclusion, I am very glad that the Presiding Officer is in his place. I have read in the press that the noble Lord, Lord Elis-Thomas, came under a great deal of what I regard as undue pressure from the Government during the recent turmoil and that there is public concern about the independence of his office and staff. If that were true, many of us would share that concern. Indeed, my noble friend Lord Crickhowell and I tried to press an amendment to secure the independence of that office during the passage of the Government of Wales Bill. I hope that the noble Baroness who is to reply is able to reassure us on that particular score.
9.56 p.m.
Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton: My Lords, I begin by thanking the noble Lord, Lord Carlile, for giving the House the opportunity to debate this matter tonight. I am delighted to have the opportunity to respond to the noble Lord's Unstarred Question and to most of the points raised in the debate. It is clear from the contributions of all noble Lords who have spoken that there is wide-ranging support and goodwill to make devolution work. I cannot resist the temptation to join all those noble Lords who have claimed historical support for the principle of devolution. I join my noble friends Lord Cledwyn, Lord Prys-Davies and Lord Brookman, among others. For us, the establishment of the Welsh Assembly is an enormous achievement.
For the benefit of the noble Lord, Lord Thomas of Gresford, 100 years ago Keir Hardie, Labour's first MP who represented Merthyr, argued for devolution along with workers' rights, reform of the House of Lords and a minimum wage. I am happy to join the noble Lord in welcoming his party to the principle of devolution established by Keir Hardie.
The Government's policy objectives in relation to devolution of power in Wales were very simple: to give democratic expression to the sense of identity which has always existed among the people of Wales. We believe that that policy objective has been clearly achieved. As my noble friends Lord Cledwyn and Lord Brookman indicated, we do not believe that central control promotes good government. Government should be close to the people, and the Assembly is a clear implementation of that policy. It is vitally important that the Assembly works well with central government, and that is happening.
Noble Lords will recognise that what goes on by way of informal contacts is at least as important as the formal mechanisms. There is a formal memorandum of understanding with the UK Government which sets

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up the machinery of the Joint Ministerial Committee. As my noble friend Lord Brookman said, there are many issues which know no boundary within the UK, poverty being one of them. That is why there are formal concordats between the Assembly and various government departments, some published and others about to be. If anything, it is even more important that the informal machinery works well from the start. I join the noble Lord, Lord Thomas of Gresford, in supporting the example of the Learning and Skills Bill as an area where Welsh needs and wishes inform decisions of this House.
The noble Lords, Lord Elis-Thomas, Lord Griffiths, Lord Thomas of Gresford, and Lord Roberts, have suggested that the legislative process in Westminster does not always mesh well with the policy processes of the Assembly. The same issue has been raised in the Assembly in the debate on the Government's legislative programme which was attended by the Secretary of State for Wales. As a result of that debate, the Assembly has discussed a draft protocol under which it can put proposals for primary legislation to the Secretary of State. He expects to receive it in the near future and will discuss it with colleagues and an agreed procedure will be adopted.
However, the process this year is not being held up until the adoption of the protocol. The informal links are already in place and in accordance with the memorandum of understanding and various concordats, discussions are already taking place.
I can understand the pride of my noble friend Lady Gale at being present when the Assembly first met in May immediately after the elections. But noble Lords are also aware that the Assembly did not receive its functions until 1st July; and detailed policy discussion did not get under way until the autumn. As my noble friend Lord Prys-Davies said, it was inevitable, therefore, that this year would not always run totally smoothly. As my noble friends Lord Cledwyn and Lord Prys-Davies, and the noble Lord, Lord Griffiths, said, the Assembly is a new body. It is a learning process and an exciting challenge both for the Assembly and for Whitehall. I welcome the transparency of policy making in Wales.
The Government have no wish to put difficulties in the way. As the noble Lord, Lord Griffiths, said, the systems are new and the UK Government have had to learn how to accommodate them. The noble Lord, Lord Elis-Thomas, referred to the new political culture that will be inevitable in new political institutions. I join with the noble Lord, Lord Roberts, and my noble friend Lord Prys-Davies, in being confident that we shall learn from experience and will have far fewer problems next year. It is in the nature of human beings and human organisations that no one can predict that there will never be another problem. But we are working hard to ensure that we work together.
Noble Lords raised the argument for giving the Assembly responsibility for its own primary legislation. That was not the form of devolution for which people in Wales voted in the referendum. I have
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no doubt that any future developments in the field of devolution will be dependent on people making a choice at the appropriate time based on their experience so far.
I respond to the point of the noble Lords, Lord Hooson and Lord Griffiths, that the Assembly already has many powers to control and influence matters of great importance to the people of Wales. It has always been our view that this gives the Assembly genuine scope to make a real difference in Wales, and I know that the new First Secretary feels the same.
The noble Lord, Lord Roberts, referred to this young institution as having some dilatory consideration procedure, for example, with regard to the Local Government Bill. In developing this new process there will obviously be a mismatch of timing from time to time. But we believe that the process is valuable and we must work hard to make it work. My noble friend Lord Prys-Davies referred to the lack in Wales of the benefit that the people of Scotland had in the form of the constitutional convention.
The noble Lord, Lord Elis-Thomas, stressed the importance of our working in partnership with the Assembly to develop procedures which allow the decisions that it takes to be implemented. But it is not the job of any of us in this House to second guess the decisions taken in Wales by those closest to the lives of the people who will be affected by those decisions.
I was a little concerned when the noble Lord, Lord Roberts, used the expression "we must be kept informed". It is important that in a democracy we are kept informed, and that everyone is aware of what institutions are doing. I am sure that he did not mean that we ought to be informed, as it were, as the parents in a family in a political democracy where the different partners are developing. I am quite sure that we want a partnership approach rather than a heavy-hand approach, which would be totally at odds.
It is not for noble Lords and certainly not for the Government to discuss, debate, evaluate and judge the policy, procedures and political judgments of the Assembly. Those are matters for the people of Wales, and the success of devolution will ultimately depend upon the suitability of the decisions that are taken, in terms of them gaining the confidence of the people of Wales.
The noble Lords, Lord Thomas of Gresford and Lord Griffiths, referred to a buzz and self-confidence. I have also felt that, and not only in the context of the Welsh rugby success that was referred to by the noble Baroness, Lady Gale.
The noble Lord, Lord Griffiths, raised the issue of the current First Secretary and the WDA. Rhodri Morgan has been the Assembly's Economic Development Secretary since May. During that time he has worked closely with the WDA in promoting the economic prosperity of Wales.
The noble Lords, Lord Roberts, Lord Griffiths. Lord Carlile and Lord Elis-Thomas, raised issues in regard to the Civil Service. Assembly civil servants are members of the unified Civil Service and carry out

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their functions in accordance with the Civil Service Code. The Assembly is a body corporate, as established by the Government of Wales Act 1998.
My noble friend Lady Gale referred to the draft strategy document, Better Wales. I compliment the Assembly on the process of consultation that it is undertaking in that regard. I agree with the points raised by my noble friend about the importance of the development of quality areas, in particular in regard to the tragic story of the North Wales Child Abuse Inquiry report and the Assembly view that there is a need for a Children's Commissioner.
I return to the issue of Objective funding. As my noble friend Lord Davies of Coity stated, no-one should doubt the commitment of the Government to ensuring that the money necessary to match funding in those areas where it is appropriate will be the subject of detailed discussion during the comprehensive spending review. It would not be sensible to take one
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issue outside the normal process. I think the noble Lord, Lord Griffiths, is wrong. There is no money staying in the Treasury coffers. We are totally committed to the policy of devolution and to ensuring that the funding that is available to Wales will be available in Wales.
I join other noble Lords in paying tribute to Alun Michael's hard work and his contribution to the setting up and operation of the Assembly. I extend my very best wishes to Rhodri Morgan in his new role. We have an example of devolution in action and I join all noble Lords, once more thanking the noble Lord, Lord Carlile, in developing the debate, but stressing yet again that we must not appear to usurp the role of the Assembly in making its own political policy judgments and developing democracy in Wales. We all wish it well, even though it is not yet 1st March.
House adjourned at ten minutes past ten o'clock.

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