Sitting of 10 January 2000

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

    Severe Disablement Allowance
    Mr. Andrew George (St. Ives): What steps the Government are taking to ensure that all those severely disabled people who are potentially eligible for severe disablement allowance are encouraged to claim it. [102927]
    The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Social Security (Mr. Hugh Bayley): Severe disablement allowance does not provide sufficient help for those in the greatest need—those who were born disabled, or who were disabled so severely early in life that they may never be able to work and to build up a national insurance contribution record. When our welfare reforms come into effect, those young people will be able to claim incapacity benefit without having to meet the usual contribution conditions. After a year in benefit, that will be worth up to £26.40 a week more than severe disablement allowance. Existing recipients of SDA will retain the benefit in future, as long as they continue to meet the entitlement
    2
    conditions. We are already taking a number of steps to raise awareness of SDA among severely disabled people, and we will ensure that the forthcoming changes are well publicised.
    Mr. George: Those who warned the Government against abolition of severe disablement allowance—which will undeniably have a particular impact on some disabled women, on young carers and on low earners—look to them to soften the blow that their policy will inflict on a group of people who are, after all, disabled through no fault of their own. Bearing that in mind, along with the fact that this is the first question of a new century, will the Minister openly recognise that the policy will have a severe impact on some people, and ensure that awareness and take-up campaigns are given high priority this year?
    Mr. Bayley: The hon. Gentleman fails to recognise that severe disablement allowance does least for those who are poorest. Seventy per cent.—the poorest—of those who receive it receive not a penny of benefit, because every penny of the SDA that they receive will be lost from their income support. The changes that we are making will help those who need help most: the poorest and the most severely disabled. That is why we are making the changes, and are proud to be doing so. In future, we shall benefit young people of both sexes who in the past would have faced a lifetime on means-tested benefits, but who will now be raised to incapacity benefit level.
    Mrs. Maria Fyfe: Does my hon. Friend agree that, when people are wrongly turned down for this benefit—or for any other disability benefit—they are caused severe upset and disappointment? When does he expect to be certain that arrangements are in place to ensure that that does not happen any more?
    Mr. Bayley: When anyone is wrongly turned down for benefit, it is a serious matter. We need an appeals system to ensure that people receive the benefits to which they are entitled. The appeals system that we inherited was inadequate, partly because of delays and partly because of

    3
    the faults inherent in it. We have reformed it: we have speeded it up, and our approach to benefits seeks to ensure that the right decision is made in the first place and that decisions remain right thereafter.

    Child Poverty
    Mr. Derek Twigg: What steps he is taking to ensure that all tiers of government are involved in tackling child poverty. [102928]
    Mr. Laurence Robertson: If he will report on the progress of the Government's proposals to tackle child poverty. [102930]
    The Secretary of State for Social Security (Mr. Alistair Darling): We are making real progress in tackling child poverty. We are the first Government to be committed to eradicating child poverty in a generation, and to halving it within 10 years.
    Mr. Twigg: Is my right hon. Friend aware that, in the north-west, more than half a million children live in households with less than half the average income? My constituency has some of the highest poverty rates in the country, and has the highest infant mortality rate in England. Child poverty is an important issue in the north-west.
    The difference between this Government and the last lies in the fact that we recognise the existence of poverty, and are publishing indicators enabling us to measure it and to do something about it. Is it not important, however, for all the agencies to work together to tackle poverty through initiatives such as sure start? If we are judged on anything at the end of our tenure, it will be on how much effect we have had in reducing child poverty.
    Mr. Darling: My hon. Friend is right. The previous Government spent considerable time denying that poverty even existed, which damned a generation of children from the start because they happened to have been born in the wrong place at the wrong time, under a Tory Government.
    We recognise that poverty and the causes of poverty must be dealt with. That is why we are increasing child benefit and ensuring that more people obtain jobs through the new deal, as a result of which nearly 170,000 have found work. We have introduced the sure start schemes, one of which is operating in my hon. Friend's constituency, and we are increasing investment in health and education. Every one of those measures is opposed by the Conservative party. It is clear to people in this country that only a Labour Government are committed to eradicating poverty and doing something concrete to deal with the problems that we inherited.
    Mr. Robertson: Is not the worst thing that a child can inherit from its parents a belief in the welfare dependency culture, and are not the Government's policies increasing welfare dependency? Is not the best lesson that children can be taught the lesson that welfare can provide only a very basic standard of living, and that the phrase "work ethic" constitutes, of itself, an important concept?
    Mr. Darling: The hon. Gentleman misses the point. The Conservative Government increased welfare
    4
    dependency during their 18 years in power. They increased social security spending by 90 per cent., but there was more poverty, there were more divisions, the gap between rich and poor widened, and nearly a third of children were born into poverty. No decent Government could tolerate that, which is why we have introduced the new deal to get people into work, increased child benefit by a record amount, and increased spending on education and health to ensure that all children are given the best possible chance in life. That would never have happened but for the change of Government.
    Mr. Hilton Dawson: I commend the Government's actions to combat poverty, especially on behalf of the 3,800 families in Lancaster and Wyre who are benefiting directly from the Government's national minimum wage and the working families tax credit. They are being assisted to work their way out of poverty. Will my right hon. Friend assure me that he is also looking at the impact of housing benefit and council tax benefit on those families to ensure that the Government's commendable actions are not undermined by further reductions in those benefits?
    Mr. Darling: My hon. Friend is right. The objective of the Government's policy is to ensure that everyone who can work does work and that they do not depend on benefits. That is why we have made changes to the tax and benefit system to ensure that work pays through the working families tax credit—again, a measure that is opposed by the Conservative party—and why we are looking at housing benefit reform to ensure that it pays to go into work and that people do not face unnecessary barriers to getting into work.
    We have reduced the starting rate of tax and introduced benefit run-ons to ensure that everyone who works sees the benefit of their work, which helps not only them, but, in particular, all the children who, until now, have been condemned to a life of poverty. The important point is that the Conservative party opposes every one of those measures. Were it ever returned to power, every measure to make work pay and to get the country back into work would be completely set aside. It does not believe in tackling the problem in the first place.
    Mr. Archy Kirkwood: The hon. Member for Halton (Mr. Twigg) is right to say that all tiers of government have to be brought to bear to tackle matters such as child poverty. However, will the Secretary of State confirm that, in the next financial year, his budget for pilot projects and other new programmes, including interdepartmental programmes to tackle such matters, will be top-sliced by some £50 million? Does he share my concern that the top-slicing of the Department's budget is in danger of getting out of control? Who is co-ordinating the work to deal with child poverty and other matters? Will he assure the House that someone is properly evaluating that work?
    Mr. Darling: I assure the hon. Gentleman that I spend many hours looking at my budget. I also confirm that the Government have embarked on a number of projects to ensure that we use the best possible means to eradicate child poverty. I commend to him "Opportunity for All" which was published last year and which, for the first time ever, shows what we are doing across government to

    5
    tackle poverty and, most important, to deal with the causes of poverty, such as lack of educational opportunity, lack of jobs, poor health and poor housing. All the measures are being brought together.
    The next poverty report setting out the Government's strategy and the progress that we are making—we are the first Government ever prepared to be judged on what we do—will be published in the autumn. I would have thought that most impartial observers, including the hon. Gentleman, would accept that the present Government, unlike any in the recent past, are doing much to eradicate one of the scourges of society: poverty and child poverty in particular.

    Carers
    Mrs. Sylvia Heal: What support his Department is providing for carers. [102929]
    The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Social Security (Mr. Hugh Bayley): Invalid care allowance and the carer premium in income support are specifically designed for carers, who may be entitled to other more general benefits, depending on their circumstances.
    Mrs. Heal: Is my hon. Friend aware that the position of carers can be improved not just by those benefits, important though they are to carers, but by improving the help that is available to the disabled people for whom they care?
    Mr. Bayley: I agree with my hon. Friend. Measures that help both deserving groups are especially valuable. I am therefore particularly pleased to announce extra help for disabled people who have to spend time in hospital. The change will also benefit carers. I intend to lay regulations to provide that people receiving disability living allowance or attendance allowance will be able to receive benefit for the days both of admission to, and discharge from, hospital. The regulations will also ensure that all disabled people receiving DLA or attendance allowance who pay the full cost of their care and residential accommodation, however it is owned or managed, will be eligible for benefit.
    Mr. David Ruffley (Bury St. Edmunds): Can the Minister explain why someone who is on income support, reaches the age of 65 and wishes to become a carer should not be allowed the carers premium? Is that not an outrageous example of ageist Government policy?
    Mr. Bayley: Benefits for carers were introduced by the previous Labour Government under Jim Callaghan. In the 18 years in which the Conservatives were in power, they followed a policy that was adopted before they came to power: that an income replacement benefit, such as invalid care allowance, should not be paid in addition to another income replacement benefit, such as retirement pension. That policy was operated under the previous
    6
    Conservative Government, the previous Labour Government and the current one, and there is no intention to change it.
    Mr. Jeremy Corbyn: The Minister will be well aware that caring is a difficult job and hard work; that many carers are themselves elderly; that provision of respite care is desperately important for all of them; and that there seems to be no national basis for the respite care provided by local authorities. Is he prepared to examine the current situation—in which different standards of respite care are offered—and ensure that every local authority is required to provide sufficient places, so that every carer is able each year to have at least a few weeks away from having to care for the elderly, the disabled or people with learning difficulties?
    Mr. Bayley: My hon. Friend raises an important point. I am glad to say that my colleagues in the Department of Health have improved availability of respite care by making available an additional £140 million as part of the national carers strategy, and that they are creating a charter for long-term care to address the type of issues raised by my hon. Friend. Additionally, the measure that I announced today—which will reduce the amount of benefit lost by those who go into hospital for respite care—will make respite care more generally available.
    Mr. Eric Pickles: Although the extra two days are welcome, Opposition Members were disappointed with the Minister's response to my hon. Friend the Member for Bury St. Edmunds (Mr. Ruffley). Substantial change is occurring within the population, and, in the next 10 years, the greatest challenge facing people in care will be the number of carers who are themselves relatively elderly, but who take care of frail parents or look after disabled children. If the state were to provide that care, the bill would be considerable. Surely it would make sense to help those people to continue to care by getting rid of the age restriction of 65 on invalid care allowance and carers premium. Will the Government reconsider their position?
    Mr. Bayley: Invalid care allowance was introduced as a benefit to replace the income of people of working age who were forced to give up full-time work because they were caring for someone who needed care for more than 35 hours a week. It is a benefit for people of working age: it was introduced for that purpose, and it has always been a benefit for that purpose. In the 18 years in which the previous Conservative Government were in power, they did not seek to change the benefit. I am surprised that, having done nothing about it in their 18 years in office, they have suddenly changed their mind.
    Mr. Gordon Marsden: I welcome the new initiatives that my hon. Friend has announced today. They will make a considerable difference to people in my constituency, many of whom are elderly or disabled carers. However, I underline the important point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Islington, North (Mr. Corbyn). There is somewhat—to put it mildly—of a lottery in local authority social service provision for carers. Will the Minister, in addition to making available

    7
    the funds that he announced today, ask his officials to consider encouraging—if encouraging does not work, requiring—local authorities to take the matter on board?
    Mr. Bayley: My hon. Friend is right to raise that point. The Department of Health is responsible for making services available to carers and for social services policy throughout the country. I have no doubt that Health Ministers will take note of what has been said in the House today. They are already acting on the basis that my hon. Friend suggests.

    Advance Corporation Tax
    Mr. Tim Loughton: What discussions he has had with the Treasury on the effect on pensioners of the abolition of the ACT dividend tax credits. [102931]
    The Secretary of State for Social Security (Mr. Alistair Darling): The Government withdrew the tax credits as part of a wider package of reforms that will help companies and benefit the economy overall.
    Mr. Loughton: Will the Secretary of State come clean and acknowledge that one of the most iniquitous effects of the Government's stealth tax on pensions was to deprive the less-well-off pensioners who are not liable for tax of a few hundred pounds in tax credits, on which many of them greatly depended? Will he stand by his soundbites about giving a fairer deal to poorer pensioners and lobby the Chancellor hard to give back those ill-gotten gains to the 300,000 poorer pensioners who really need them, including many in my constituency?
    Mr. Darling: The changes that we made after the general election have been widely welcomed because they will benefit companies and the economy overall. [Interruption.] The shouts from the Conservatives would have more credibility if they were committed to restoring the previous ACT system—I do not think that they are. Since the abolition of ACT in 1997, there has been a positive cash flow of £1 billion to business. In addition, because of the action that we have taken, two thirds of pensioners do not pay income tax. We have taken 200,000 pensioners out of tax and 1.5 million pensioners will benefit from the extension of the 10p starting rate of income tax by an average of £55 a year. Every one of those measures was opposed by the Conservatives.
    Mr. Paul Goggins: Is not one of the most effective ways of helping pensioners with modest incomes to take them out of the tax system? Will my right hon. Friend continue to press his Treasury colleagues for above-inflation increases in the pensioner's personal allowance?
    Mr. Darling: As my hon. Friend said, the Government have done a great deal to help those pensioners who previously paid tax. Two thirds of pensioners now do not pay tax. We have taken 200,000 pensioners out of tax. Across the board, regardless of whether pensioners pay tax, the Government are honouring their manifesto pledge to ensure that pensioners share in this country's rising prosperity, not just through the tax system but through the
    8
    winter fuel payment, the minimum income guarantee and other measures that help them a great deal. That help was never there under the previous Tory Government.
    Mr. David Willetts: Does the Secretary of State agree with his former ministerial colleague, the right hon. Member for Birkenhead (Mr. Field), who was a Minister at the time that the changes were introduced? He says that they imposed a £2.5 billion tax hit on pension funds in 1997–98. If the Secretary of State does not agree, will he give his estimate of the impact on pension funds of that horrific change in their tax treatment? Of all the Government's stealth taxes, is not that the biggest and the worst?
    Mr. Darling: The hon. Gentleman's protestations would have more credibility if he were committing his party to the restoration of the ACT system. I do not believe that business in this country wants another change to corporation tax. As a result of the changes that we have made, there has been a £1 billion cash advantage to businesses and we have the lowest-ever rate of corporation tax. That has increased the profitability of companies. On top of that, we have a healthy and stable economy and an end to the boom and bust that characterised the Tory years. Most businesses welcome the way in which we are running the economy. By helping businesses and the economy, we help pensioners as well.
    Mr. Willetts: I asked a simple, factual question to which we are still waiting for an answer. If the Secretary of State will not take responsibility for pension funds as a whole, will he at least accept some responsibility for the ACT burden that he has imposed on public sector funded pension schemes? Will he confirm the figures in Pensions Week today that show that local authority pension schemes around the country face enormous extra charges because of the change in the tax regime: £30 million for Greater Manchester; £33 million for Cornwall and £75 million for Staffordshire? We will find that, along with the pensioners referred to by my hon. Friend the Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Mr. Loughton) and future pensioners, council tax payers will pick up the tab for the hefty increase in tax on pension funds. However, we do not have a simple answer to a simple question about how big the tax hit is.
    Mr. Darling: The answer is that our tax changes will benefit the economy and companies in this country and, because of that, will benefit pensioners and pension funds. We have reduced the rate of corporation tax, and we have some of the lowest interest rates that this country has seen for years. We have a benign economy that is helping companies to increase their profitability, and that will help pension funds. The changes that we have made are in the best long-term interests of the economy. I assume that the hon. Gentleman is saying, on behalf of the Conservative party, that he intends to scrap the system and go back to the old one. That would be another reason for British business to regard the Tories as hopelessly out of touch with the needs of this country.

    Disability Benefits
    Mr. John Healey: What measures he is taking to monitor the operation of the new rules covering appeals over claims for disability benefits. [102932]
    The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Social Security (Angela Eagle): Arrangements are in place to monitor the effects of the changes that we have made to decision making and handling appeals. We will look, for example, at the time taken to prepare submissions and the length of time that it takes for an appeal to be heard.
    Mr. Healey: I welcome the changes to the appeals system, which mean that the Appeals Service is at last starting to clear the backlog of cases. In monitoring the changes, will my hon. Friend look at the new one-month deadline for clients between the adjudication officer's decision and the appeal? That is causing some concern to local benefits advisers in Rotherham. Will she keep an open mind on extending that time limit if there is evidence that some clients genuinely cannot cope with that tight deadline?
    Angela Eagle: We introduced the changes in decision making and appeals in respect of disability living allowance and disability working allowance on 18 October, so it is far too soon to say whether the problems that my hon. Friend suspects may be occurring are occurring. I have no problem about pledging that we will keep the matter under review. However, to ensure that the appeals process is fast and effective, there has to be balance. The Independent Tribunal Service—the new appeals agency—has reduced the case load backlog from 70,000 in February to 11,800 last October. Waiting times have gone down from the average of seven months that we inherited to about 16 weeks, which is an enormous improvement.

    All-Work Test
    Mr. Edward Leigh (Gainsborough): If he will make a statement on the future of the all-work test.[102933]
    The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Social Security (Mr. Hugh Bayley): We are in the process of replacing the all-work test with the personal capability assessment, which will play a key role in supporting disabled people and encouraging them to take steps back to work. Regulations are now in place to enable medical assessments to provide positive information on what people can do, as well as what they cannot. Last month, we started using the personal capability assessment in the ONE areas.
    Mr. Leigh: The concept of changing the all-work test to a test to gauge people's personal capabilities may be a good one, but is the Minister aware of the concern among many disabled people, particularly given that Ministers originally talked about some people abusing the system? How can we keep the existing medical criteria—as the Minister intends to do—and stop people abusing the system without putting undue pressure on people, especially those with learning difficulties, who often find form filling demanding?
    Mr. Bayley: The hon. Gentleman is right to say that the medical criteria for entitlement to incapacity benefit
    10
    will not change as a result of the changes that we have made to the all-work test. For example, people who cannot walk and use wheelchairs will score 15 points, and therefore qualify for incapacity benefit, as they have done in the past. Many people who use wheelchairs can and do work. That includes Members of this House and of another place who use wheelchairs and do extremely demanding full-time jobs.
    The personal capability assessment supplements the test of entitlement to benefit—which does not change in any way—with medical advice on the steps that people may take to make it more possible for them to work should they want to do so. That is the Government's intention, and that is what we are doing.
    Mr. Jonathan Shaw: Is not it essential to raise the standard of examinations? Several of my constituents have been traumatised by medical practitioners who have performed poorly. Will my hon. Friend confirm that he is working hard to raise standards in the all-work test? Some of my constituents have been advised that they cannot take along a representative to the test; will he confirm that they can in fact do so?
    Mr. Bayley: The simple answer to that final point is yes, they can.
    The overwhelming majority of examinations by medical services are conducted to a high standard. One of our recent innovations is to grade the reports—grade A, B and C—to keep much closer control of the quality of advice that is given, but it is true that the advice sometimes does not come up to a decent standard; when that happens, both Government and Opposition Members complain. The Government are taking a wide range of steps to improve the quality and consistency of the advice that medical services give to decision makers on the benefits: toughening the selection and recruitment procedures, improving in-service training and improving the clinical advice on disability assessment medicine that is given to the doctors who provide the advice to decision makers.

    Child Support Agency
    Mrs. Caroline Spelman: If he will make a statement on the work load of the independent case examiner of the CSA. [102934]
    The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Social Security (Angela Eagle): The case load of the independent case examiner rose from 1,087 cases in 1997–98 to 1,536 in 1998–99. The average clearance time for cases being dealt with by early resolution was 17.2 weeks, and 33.6 weeks for those that were accepted for full investigation.
    Mrs. Spelman: In view of the volume of complaints, the independent case examiner warned the Social Security Committee in November that she may be turning complaints about the unfairness of the legislation back to parliamentarians. Is it right for her to do that?
    Angela Eagle: The legislation governing child support is being changed. Indeed, the Child Support, Pensions and Social Security Bill has its Second Reading tomorrow.

    11
    It would seem odd for the independent case examiner to do other than examine how a case has gone through rather than taking complaints about the structure of a system that Parliament is right in the middle of changing.
    Mr. Bill O'Brien: Will my hon. Friend have regard to the pressure on the independent case examiner's department? Perhaps a little more co-operation from the Child Support Agency might help, but a substantial improvement would result if some of the Government's proposals to improve the agency's work were brought forward. With such an approach, it would be substantially easier for people to understand the system and there would be less reference to the independent case examiner.
    Angela Eagle: The case examiner's case load has gone up, but it is still the same proportion of cases, because the case load of the Child Support Agency as a whole has gone up. The proportion was 0.015 per cent. of cases last year, and 0.016 per cent. this year.
    My hon. Friend made a point about the difficulty of the legislation. The whole of Parliament recognises that, and we will take steps to put it right—not least through tomorrow's Second Reading—and change the entire system. We have already made available an additional £28 million to deliver improvements to the current system. Many right hon. and hon. Members know that the basic problem with the system that we inherited is that it is too complicated to be administered easily, and we all know the implications of that, which is why we are making the changes.
    Mr. Steve Webb: The case examiner will be rushed off her feet in October 2001 if the new computers that the Child Support Agency is paying for are not ready in time for the new formula. Given that the Department is incapable of paying pensions on time because of a computer bungle—despite a year of promising to sort out the problem—will the Minister guarantee on the record that the new system will not be put into place until the computers are ready?
    Angela Eagle: I was astonished by the coverage that the hon. Gentleman provoked in the newspapers today about a reply I gave to him. He claimed that the computer system—which, by the way, does not yet exist, because Parliament has given us no money to buy it—is in chaos and delayed already. It is not delayed. It is on time to the extent—[Interruption.] We are in discussions with the providers of the computer system and we are drawing up the spec for it. The hon. Gentleman should—[Interruption.] We have been open about the fact that we will not introduce the new arrangements before we have a viable computer system in place. The previous Government did that when they bought an off-the-shelf system from Florida that was first made in 1975 and is now hopelessly out of date and useless at the job. We still have to use it and that is why the system is in such disarray.
    We will get a new computer system, but the hon. Gentleman should stop scaremongering about things that do not exist yet. The reply that I gave him said that the child support project would be over in 2003, but he clearly does not realise that projects wind down only after
    12
    computer systems have been turned on and the entire case load has been moved over. The hon. Gentleman should stop scaremongering and try to help us make the change.

    Winter Fuel Payments
    Helen Jones: How successful his Department was in getting winter fuel payments to all eligible pensioners before Christmas. [102935]
    The Minister of State, Department of Social Security (Mr. Jeff Rooker): The payment process for the winter fuel payments went extremely well indeed. Some 10 million people in more than 7.5 million households were issued with their winter fuel payments before Christmas.
    Helen Jones: I thank my right hon. Friend for that reply. In view of the judgment of the European Court in the Taylor case, what action will he take to get payments to those who are now deemed eligible for them?
    Mr. Rooker: We shall take every action, because the judgment means that everyone who is ordinarily resident in Great Britain and aged over 60 is eligible. Significantly, that includes people who are not in receipt of any of the qualifying benefits and, because the payments are non-contributory and not means-tested, it includes those who are working. We are committed to finding the extra 1.5 million people to pay them what they are owed for the past two years and we will make an announcement on the issue in due course.
    Miss Anne McIntosh: I am encouraged to hear that all pensioners over 60 are eligible for winter fuel payments. Can the Minister explain why Mrs. Stockdale of Leeming village has not received a winter fuel payment for 1999 or 1998?
    Mr. Rooker: I did not talk about pensioners. In the context of the European Court's decision, it is no longer appropriate to talk about pensioners. Everyone aged over 60 who is ordinarily resident in this country is eligible, whether they work or not. I cannot explain why someone has been missed out more than once, but if the hon. Lady will give me the details, we will do our best to rectify the mistake forthwith.

    Information Technology
    Dr. George Turner: What assessment he has made of the scope for improved IT in the administration of his Department and of benefits payments. [102937]
    The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Social Security (Angela Eagle): The potential for new technology to transform the welfare state is enormous. However, our current IT infrastructure is old and out of date. It also essentially computerises clerical processes. We have ambitions for a major transformation, including more interactivity, telephone access and more remote access, all of which cannot be achieved overnight.
    Dr. Turner: My hon. Friend the Minister has reminded the House that the chaos that the CSA brought to the lives

    13
    of many of my constituents was amplified by the horrific computer-generated literature that it used to send en masse, with people sometimes receiving two or three five-page missives a week. It is obvious that we need to learn the lessons of the past when considering computerisation in the future and I was pleased to hear my hon. Friend's reassurance that the arrangements in the new Child Support, Pensions and Social Security Bill will be properly supported. It was clear when my hon. Friend visited my constituency that wholesale reform of the Department's IT is needed. Is there a timetable and is the budget sufficient?
    Angela Eagle: There is a timetable. Clearly, the Child Support Agency computer system must take priority because of the new legislation to go on the statute book, which we cannot put into effect without a new system. It says something for the legacy of the previous Government that the CSA, the newest agency in the social security system, still has a computer system that is unusable in the modern age.
    Mr. David Willetts: Part of that legacy was a benefit card project that would have ensured a future for post offices around the country delivering benefits. The Government have abandoned that project. Is the Minister aware of the widespread concern among post office staff about their future under the Government's proposals? Under the previous Government, the hon. Member for City of York (Mr. Bayley), now Under-Secretary of State for Social Security, wrote to all the sub-postmasters and postmistresses in his constituency recognising the widespread concern about any change in the method of payment for pensions and other benefits to automated credit transfer. The hon. Gentleman said that such a change would
    "cause severe difficulties for many constituents who rely on the post office to cash their benefits and, in some cases, may not even have a bank account."
    He promised a petition then, on behalf of the people who wanted to keep using their post offices. Will there be another petition now?
    Angela Eagle: I hate to carp, but part of the problem with all these computer systems is the huge mess that we inherited from the previous Government, from the national insurance recording system 2 to the Horizon project, to which the hon. Gentleman refers. This project was three years behind time when it was cancelled, and was providing infrastructure that has already been overtaken by other developments. The new system will automate the Post Office and will still enable people to get their benefits from post offices if they so desire.
    The cost of ACT is 1p per transaction. The hon. Gentleman expects us to stick with order books, when it costs 49p per transaction to present an order book foil, and 79p per transaction to encash a giro. That is very old and expensive technology. ACT will save us £400 million per annum when it is introduced, and we anticipate saving another £240 million on fraud. The hon. Gentleman cannot tell us off about fraud and also tell us off when we introduce a system to prevent it.

    Local Exchange Trading Schemes
    Mrs. Linda Gilroy: If he will make a statement on the treatment of local exchange trading scheme units for the purpose of calculating benefits. [102938]
    The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Social Security (Angela Eagle): If unemployed people undertake local exchange trading scheme activities for less than 16 hours a week on average, they can earn up to £260 worth of credits in a year without affecting their benefit. Our understanding is that the average level of earnings from local exchange trading systems is around £80 a year.
    Mrs. Gilroy: My hon. Friend has taken a great interest in LET schemes, and is aware of the report of the policy action team on jobs, which was published before Christmas. That made a number of recommendations, including piloting changes to the rules on local exchange trading schemes and units. Is my hon. Friend considering such changes to the rules so that LET schemes can play their full role in helping people to re-enter the labour market?
    Angela Eagle: I know that my hon. Friend takes a close interest in LETS and is involved in their development. We recognise their value in promoting social inclusion and their potential in easing a move to full-time work. We have received representations and, as my hon. Friend pointed out, the report of the policy action team on jobs, issued on 7 December by the Secretary of State for Education and Employment, also makes similar points. We are looking closely at the report's recommendations, and will make announcements in due course.

    Women Pensioners
    Ms Sally Keeble: What proposals he has to address the financial needs of women pensioners. [102940]
    The Minister of State, Department of Social Security (Mr. Jeff Rooker): We are committed to ensuring that our pension reforms improve women's pension rights. Our plans to reform the state earnings-related pension scheme through the introduction of the state second pension will dramatically enhance state pension provision and will be of particular benefit to women, many of whom work part time or as carers. The state second pension will give a dramatic boost to the additional pension entitlement of low earners and, for the first time, will help carers and some long-term disabled people with broken work records, to build up a second pension.
    For today's pensioners, the minimum income guarantee is available to provide a basic income in retirement for the poorest women pensioners, as it is to all who qualify.
    Ms Keeble: In my constituency, some 8,000 women—about a quarter of all the people in employment—work part time. Almost all of them are in the income bracket that qualifies for the second state pension. Is my right hon. Friend aware of the pressures that many women face when they have to give up work to look after disabled relatives, so that raises the possibility of a break in their

    15
    pension entitlement? Does he agree that, for future generations of pensioners, a carers pension linked to the state second pension would ensure that people have a decent and independent pension entitlement? Would it not also ease the pressures that women face by rewarding them, through the pension provision, for staying at home and looking after families and disabled relatives?
    Mr. Rooker: Yes. Figures show that some 2 million carers—at least 1.5 million of whom are women—would benefit under the second state pension, for which, for the first time, people are beginning to build up entitlement. There are 4.5 million low earners in this country, of whom 70 per cent. are women, and 6 million moderate earners. All those people—more than 10 million of them, the majority of whom will be women—will gain under the state second pension.
    Mr. Michael Trend: The Minister told us some weeks ago that he was looking with urgency at the position of war widows, in whose circumstances I know that he is deeply interested. Does he now agree with us that war widows should be allowed to retain their husbands' occupational pensions, or will that possibility be lost from sight again?
    Mr. Rooker: It will not be lost from sight, as there is at least one clause on war pensions in the Child Support, Pensions and Social Security Bill that we are to debate tomorrow. However, the matter is under active consideration in the Ministry of Defence, where the decision will be taken. In due course, the appropriate Ministers will come to the House and account for their decisions.
    Mr. Michael Jabez Foster (Hastings and Rye): Does my right hon. Friend agree that there remain significant numbers of pensioners, mainly older women, who refuse to apply for the minimum income guarantee because of the income support label that it carries? Will he urgently consider how the benefit is labelled? Might it not be better to call it a supplementary pension, or something similar, so that what is sometimes wrongly considered to be a stigma could help those pensioners who need it?
    Mr. Rooker: Yes. Our research shows that the largest group of people missing out on the minimum income guarantee are older women. We are to initiate a Government-sponsored take-up campaign for the minimum income guarantee, which will include a partial rebranding of the benefit to meet the point that my hon. Friend makes about the stigma attached to it.
    As I have told the House before, applications for the minimum income guarantee can be made in writing or over the telephone. It is not necessary to go to the local benefit office to make an application.

    Voluntary Sector
    Mr. Nick St. Aubyn: If he will make a statement on the provision of financial support by his Department to the voluntary sector. [102941]
    The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Social Security (Mr. Hugh Bayley): Voluntary organisations make an important contribution to helping
    16
    families and pensioners, and to helping people into work. We are already involving voluntary organisations in the ONE pilots and the new deal, and we are establishing a children's fund to help voluntary organisations to do more to eliminate child poverty.
    Mr. St. Aubyn: The rough sleepers initiative set up by the previous Conservative Government was an excellent example of how the private and voluntary sectors can be involved in helping those in our society who are most in need. For example, the Number Five project in Guildford benefited under that initiative. Will the Minister assure the House that this Government will give as much money to the initiative in this Parliament as was provided by the previous Government in the previous Parliament?
    Mr. Bayley: I share the hon. Gentleman's concern about this matter. The Department of Social Security's resettlement programme assists the voluntary sector to provide more than 4,000 bed spaces in more than 100 organisations. The statutory framework that binds the Department contains no general legal power to provide support to voluntary bodies. However, given that constraint, we will do all that we can to assist voluntary bodies.
    Mr. Bob Blizzard: Does my hon. Friend agree that the right people are more likely to receive the right benefit to which they are entitled if they are well advised? In particular, I refer to disabled people, so would my hon. Friend join me in paying tribute to the work carried out by local DIAL—disablement information and advice line—organisations? Does he also recognise that such organisations often struggle on from year to year unsure about local authority grants and lottery applications? Will he consider how he can further help such organisations to carry out their valuable work?
    Mr. Bayley: I agree very much with my hon. Friend that the advice that voluntary bodies give to disabled people about their benefit entitlement is an extremely important part of the benefits process. As I said earlier, the Department of Social Security has no general legal power to help voluntary bodies. Other Departments have such general powers and they include the Department of Health, which puts more than £50 million into grants for voluntary bodies through its two main programmes which support such organisations.
    Dr. Julian Lewis: Following what my hon. Friend the Member for Guildford (Mr. St. Aubyn) said about rough sleepers, is the Minister satisfied that enough is being done to tackle the problem given that, to the untrained eye, there seems to be no obvious diminution in the number of people sleeping rough? During the period of the previous Government, the media made a great deal of rightful protest about that problem, but they are strangely rather silent about it now.
    Mr. Bayley: The Government took, particularly over the Christmas period, a series of new initiatives to expand the support that we give for people, both inside and outside London, who are homeless and roofless. Such initiatives are part of the Government's overall strategy to tackle the problems faced by the poor.

    Child Support Agency
    Dr. Nick Palmer: If the Government will accelerate the transition of CSA cases to the new system as soon as possible. [102946]
    The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Social Security (Angela Eagle): We want to introduce the new scheme as quickly as we can, but we have to be careful not to repeat the mistakes of the previous scheme, which failed because it was introduced too quickly. By 2001, there will be 1 million cases on the CSA's books. Transferring them to the new scheme will be a major task that will need very careful preparation.
    Dr. Palmer: I warmly support the Government's view on this matter. It is vital that we do not have a new catastrophe to match the one that was introduced by the previous Government with the CSA. However, many of my constituents, who are particularly enthusiastic about the reform, regret the fact that, even when a case has been transferred to the new system in perhaps three or four years' time, the adjustment to the new figure—whatever that may be—will be at the fairly leisurely rate of £5 a year. That means that many people who are now in the system will not benefit to any significant extent before their children grow up. Will my hon. Friend have another look at the matter?
    Angela Eagle: We have had a very close look at all these difficult issues in the White Paper that preceded the Bill and in the Green Paper consultation that preceded that. They are difficult issues, and there is always a balance to be struck. The Government believe that they have struck the right balance by knowing that they can prudently get the system into place effectively and by warning people sufficiently about it. Many people at either end of the system are bound to feel that it is not fair, but we are being as fair and as open as we can be, and we consulted as many people as we could. I believe that we have reached a general agreement that our way forward is correct, but, as always, we shall listen.
    Mr. John Bercow: Under the new system, how many parents will see their entitlement to maintenance reduced and by how much?
    Angela Eagle: The Opposition keep carping on about that, but the fact is that entitlement to maintenance under the new system and getting paid are two very different things. We have always taken the view, in the Green Paper and the White Paper, that it is good for everyone if people receive and are actually paid smaller sums of money instead of receiving theoretical payments.

    Benefit Reform
    Sir Sydney Chapman: If he will report progress on achieving reforms in welfare benefits. [102948]
    The Minister of State, Department of Social Security (Mr. Jeff Rooker): We are reforming the welfare system to eradicate child poverty by creating opportunity for all.
    18
    The working families tax credit, together with the minimum wage and other measures, will lift 1.25 million people, including 800,000 children, out of poverty.
    Seven million families will benefit from the highest-ever rise in child benefit. One and a half million pensioner households are benefiting from the minimum income guarantee, which means £10 a week more for single pensioners and £15 a week more for couples.
    The new deal has already helped more than 200,000 people move off benefits and into work.
    Sir Sydney Chapman: I am grateful for that report of progress. Will the Minister confirm that, according to the definitive measurements that his party supported in opposition, the gap between the rich and the poor has widened in the past 30 months? If he claims that it has not, will he publish the figures that would prove his assertion?
    Mr. Rooker: I am grateful for the first part of the hon. Gentleman's remarks. I gave only a partial report—I could spend the rest of the day detailing the successes of our welfare reforms. The hon. Gentleman's point is correct and has been raised before. It is based on research and evidence that predate the Government coming to power. As everyone knows, we freely entered into a contract with the electorate to accept the spending limits imposed by the previous Government for the first two years. That has consequences, which we all understand. In September we published "Opportunity for All", the first-ever national audit of poverty in Britain by any Government. We will produce a report each and every year, so that we can be judged against the standards in that report and, in due course, we will alter the figures that the hon. Gentleman quotes.
    Mrs. Gwyneth Dunwoody: My right hon. Friend will be aware that some of us would have been happier if he had junked the figures agreed with the Opposition much earlier. Although the Government have produced some positive and useful results, will my right hon. Friend give me one undertaking? There have been a number of cases recently in which the detail of various benefit arrangements has been incorrect. It would be helpful if we could guarantee in future that all the calculations coming from the Department were as accurate as possible. Although human beings always make errors, in these matters errors can have devastating effects for the people in receipt of the benefit concerned.
    Mr. Rooker: I can only answer yes. If my hon. Friend has particular examples, I will be pleased to look into them. We are endeavouring to take error out of the system by getting the calculations right at the beginning. It is better for people to get the lawful rights to which the House has agreed that they are entitled, and it helps us to stamp out error and fraud. We have a programme to get the figures right at the outset, and if there are specific problems, I will be happy to look into them for my hon. Friend.
    Mr. Julian Brazier: Will the Minister confirm that, with the introduction of the working families tax credit, the number of households with children that are dependent on means-tested benefits and tax credits will rise; that, where the working families tax credit is combined with housing benefit, the net taper of tax and benefit withdrawal will be 89 per cent.; and that that must

    19
    lead in the long ran to large numbers of households having no incentive to better themselves—the very reason why the WFTC was abolished in Canada recently?
    Mr. Rooker: As we say from the Front Bench, that was a very good point. It does not alter the fact that 1.25 million people—800,000 of them children—have been lifted out of poverty as a result of the working families tax credit and the national minimum wage. We have arranged matters so that it is no longer possible for people to say that it does not pay to work and that it pays to stay on benefit. We have reversed that position, which must be wholly good for both the country and the individuals concerned.

    Incapacity Benefit
    Mr. Tam Dalyell: What representations he has received from organisations representing the disabled on the operation of incapacity benefit. [102949]
    The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Social Security (Mr. Hugh Bayley): We regularly receive representations about benefits from organisations representing disabled people, including on matters relating to incapacity benefit.
    Mr. Dalyell: Albeit that the Government have—rightly or wrongly—got their way on incapacity benefit, do they
    20
    recognise that the controversy has not gone away? Problems remain. Would it not be a good idea if, in a year or 15 months, there were a formal review of what was taking place, with formal evidence requested from the disability groups that are still so uncertain as to what is happening?
    Mr. Bayley: My hon. Friend knows that the process by which legislation is made by the House is one of debate and amendment, and the Government did indeed listen to voluntary bodies, hon. Members and Members in another place, and changed our proposals on incapacity benefit in several ways. The final amendments raised the disregard for occupational pensions from £50 to £85, and extended from two to three years the period during which people could pay the qualifying national insurance contributions.
    When the Government published our strategy to combat poverty last autumn, that was widely welcomed, but we will not achieve our aim of dramatically reducing poverty and, in particular, of eliminating child poverty, unless we make it a priority to give more help to the poorest. That, of course, is what our disability benefit reforms are doing by increasing by up to £26 a week the benefits for people who are born severely disabled or who are so severely disabled early in life that they never have the opportunity to earn and pay national insurance contributions or to contribute to an occupational pension. They are the poorest, and they must be the priority.

Influenza
3.31 pm
The Secretary of State for Health (Mr. Alan Milburn): With permission, Madam Speaker, I would like to make a statement on the outbreak of influenza that is gripping the country and the impact that it is having on NHS services.
As the House will be aware, the past few weeks have seen a particular strain of influenza—Sydney A—affecting thousands of people in all parts of the country. According to the Public Health Laboratory Service, which monitors the incidence of flu, it has been rising in all regions over recent weeks. The worst-affected regions to date have been the north and central. Nationally in early December, the numbers of people consulting their GP for the first time with flu-like symptoms stood at 40 per 100,000 of population. Today, I can tell the House that the latest provisional figure has more than quadrupled to 197 per 100,000.
The chief medical officer, Professor Liam Donaldson, has advised me that the official figures reflect only the people who have consulted their doctor and undoubtedly understate the true size of the outbreak. That is because heavy usage of the new service, NHS Direct, and the number of patients going to the pharmacist mean that many patients will not show up on the conventional GP-based tracking system.
The previous highest levels of influenza since monitoring began were in 1968–69 and 1989–90. The CMO believes that the present epidemic will not reach those levels, but he considers that there are people missing from official statistics, because instead of consulting their GP, they have used alternative routes of advice. That means that unless present levels of influenza activity peak very soon, we could be heading for the worst epidemic in the past decade.
That certainly chimes with most people's experiences. There can hardly be a family in the land that has not been affected by the flu. Everybody knows somebody who has had it. People also know that it is particularly severe in its effects. Professor Brian Duerden, deputy director of the PHLS, says that
"it is a more prolonged illness, at 10 to 12 days before people start to feel better rather than four or five."
The epidemic is also having a particular impact on elderly people, some of whom have developed serious complications such as bronchitis and pneumonia. In addition to influenza, other viruses such as respiratory syncytial virus—RSV—are contributing to acute respiratory illness. I am advised that RSV illness is at its peak at present. Emergency admissions to hospital have increased as a result: there have been more than 200,000 such admissions to hospitals in the past three weeks alone, and there has been an increase of almost 30 per cent. in the past two months. The evidence that we are receiving from hospitals is that the patients who are being admitted are more ill than normal and are staying longer than normal.
The serious flu outbreak has placed additional strain on local health services in many parts of the country. In the past three weeks, the number of people attending hospital accident and emergency departments has risen to more than 600,000. There have been 250,000 calls to ambulance services—an increase of almost one third on
22
last year—and a similar number of calls to NHS Direct over the past three weeks, many flu-related. According to Professor Mike Pringle, chairman of the Royal College of General Practitioners, over the millennium, GP co-operatives had 50 per cent. more calls than last year, mainly owing to the flu.
Those figures clearly demonstrate that the flu outbreak has put real pressure on NHS services—there is no doubt about that. Equally, the evidence suggests that the NHS is dealing with those pressures. All acute hospitals throughout the country have remained open throughout the winter period. Of course, both GP surgeries and hospitals have been extremely busy.
The highest priority is being given to patients who are the most seriously ill. As is usual, and as had been planned, most hospitals have undertaken little routine elective surgery over the past few weeks so as to be able to concentrate their efforts on emergency cases. The number of emergency admissions remained unusually high last week because of the flu outbreak, and many hospitals that had planned to start surgery today have decided to delay until the immediate emergency pressures subside. Hospital managers and clinicians will judge how best to balance their work load in the light of local experience over the next few weeks.
That approach represents a sensible deployment of NHS staff and resources, allowing the health service to cope with the surge in emergency demand that the flu outbreak has brought. Thanks to the staff who run critical care services, they, too, are coping with the demands being placed on them, despite the fact that intensive care is under real pressure. About half the patients being admitted to intensive care have flu or flu-like illnesses, sometimes resulting in pneumonia and—less commonly—in septicaemia, leading to multiple organ failure.
This year, the Government have provided a record number of intensive care and high-dependency beds. We have worked closely with the Intensive Care Society to plan critical care facilities in hospitals. Patients who need acute and critical care are being looked after. There has been an increase of 100 critical care beds this year and, in the face of exceptional demand, staff and facilities are being used flexibly to ensure that patients receive the care that they need. Staff are doing an excellent job in difficult circumstances.
The number of beds available fluctuates by the hour, but I can tell the House that, as of mid-morning today, there were 22 beds available. However, local surges in demand arising as the flu moves around the country will continue to place particular pressures on critical care facilities. Where appropriate, local NHS hospitals have made arrangements with local independent hospitals for critical care. If transfers between intensive care units are required as a last resort, the chief executives of NHS trusts have been asked to ensure that the arrangements run smoothly and that clinical staff are given as much support as possible.
The influenza outbreak has put great pressure on the NHS, but the NHS is coping. As the chairman of the British Medical Association, Dr. Ian Bogle, said earlier today:
"all parts of the NHS have been put under pressure but doctors and nurses are coping well from GP services to intensive care. The incidence of new cases of flu is uneven but wherever it is occurring it is a particularly nasty strain. Thanks to the high level of planning across the country we are coping".

23
Of course the NHS is under severe pressure. Winter is always the busiest time of year for the national health service; in addition, this winter, the NHS and social services have had to deal with the special pressures brought by the extended millennium period.
That is why planning for this winter began earlier than ever. Local winter planning groups were established in April last year in every part of England to co-ordinate the planning and provision of health and social services over the winter and millennium period. Each group includes health authorities, social services, NHS trusts, primary care groups, out-of-hours and deputising services, NHS Direct, police and fire services, community health councils, other local authority departments, and, of course, the voluntary and private sector.
Each local group submitted its plans for dealing with winter pressures by the end of September 1999. They were followed by visits from the Department of Health's millennium executive team to ensure the robustness of the plans. We have extended the capacity of local health services to deal with winter pressures. Extra beds have been provided, and over the millennium period, for example, 45 per cent. more ambulance staff than the year before were on duty.
Winter planning has also included a major public information campaign. Its aim has been to encourage the public to use the most appropriate service for their needs—the local pharmacy and NHS Direct or, indeed, self-care—as a complement to GP or hospital services. The campaign was backed by the BMA, the Royal College of Nursing and the Patients Association, among others. All the evidence that we have received to date suggests that the public have responded positively to the campaign by recognising that health services should be used appropriately and responsibly.
The campaign was also supported by a large increase in flu vaccinations made available to the public through family doctors. Flu vaccine can never eradicate flu, but it can help to provide further protection for vulnerable groups. This winter, 8.6 million doses of influenza vaccine were made available: 1 million up on last year. We do not as yet have uptake levels for flu vaccine this year, but we will review them when they become available. In the meantime, I have asked the chief medical officer to consider ways of enhancing uptake in future. Increased use of computerised call-up systems is one possibility.
Over the past few weeks, the NHS has risen to the challenges that it has faced. That is not to say that services are not stretched: they are. We owe an enormous debt of gratitude to NHS and social services staff for making sure that services have been there for people when they need them. I hope that the House will want to join me in thanking them for their efforts over Christmas, the millennium and now into the new year.
Health service staff have done a magnificent job and I know that the whole country is grateful to them. They are up against a serious flu outbreak, but I have every confidence that they will go on delivering care for patients where and when they need it.
Dr. Liam Fox: I am grateful to the Secretary of State for his statement and for giving us a
24
copy in advance. It is long on complacency and short on detail and substance. Many people will have voted new Labour because of the Prime Minister's promises about the health services. How hollow those promises sound now. Those voters must feel betrayed.
I am happy to join the Secretary of State in praising health service staff. I have been one of the health service staff who had to deal with flu outbreaks in the past. However, first-class staff work in an increasingly second-class service, thanks to second-class Ministers.
We may have a flu epidemic—it is hard to get decent information from the Government about what constitutes an epidemic. When considering statistics, there is no truth or untruth with this Government: simply convenience and inconvenience. People in this country are asking how, in the world's fifth biggest economy at the beginning of the 21st century, an illness as predictable, cyclical and common as flu can cause the system to break apart at the seams.
The Secretary of State admits that no elective work has been done in the past week. If the health service had been doing its normal work, it would have fallen apart completely. What faith can we have, in view of the Secretary of State's attitude? When we see sick patients left to die in waiting rooms, waiting in car parks to be seen or stored in converted operating theatres, and when the Secretary of State can say something as complacent as, "The NHS is coping tremendously well," we wonder whether the only isolation unit in this country that is operating is the one that he keeps himself in so that he cannot see the complete picture. NHS staff are coping tremendously well, but they are being badly let down by those who run the service.
The Secretary of State has to answer several points today. Too many beds, especially non-acute and respite care beds, have been lost. How many beds have been lost in the health service since Labour came to power? How many extra beds does he estimate will be needed in the coming months if there is a proper flu epidemic? There are too few intensive care beds. I was warned by a consultant six weeks ago that that represented an impending crisis. Ministers presumably got the same information. What did they do? What plans have been made in the past two months for extra intensive care beds; and what measures were they putting in place, knowing that this was coming? It is also true that the Government's obsession with their waiting list initiative has left the service overstretched and with too little spare capacity to deal with any crisis, including this one.
The Government's dogmatic hatred of the private sector instinctively leads them away from co-operation. Only last week, the Secretary of State was saying that NHS patients would not be treated in the private sector. Now he tells us that they will. Their dogma is put ahead of patients' interests. Will he tell us clearly now whether he will guarantee that no trust will be penalised this month for failing to meet its waiting list targets because of action that it may take to deal with the flu epidemic?
More importantly, in the longer term, will the Government look at a better immunisation programme—[Interruption.] The Secretary of State seems to think that funny. Will they look at a better immunisation programme for the over-75s to make sure that the sort of deadly morbidity of this year is not repeated? What specific measures will the Government take? If they suggest a good immunisation programme, we shall support them.

25
Will the Secretary of State also please review the decision not to make Relenza available on prescription? That false economy, with the huge cost to British industry—an estimated £6 billion to £8 billion, compared with the £100 million for Relenza—shows what a shabby mechanism the National Institute for Clinical Excellence could be: people can improve their chance of survival by buying Relenza if they can afford it, but cannot get it if they are old or needy. That is the reality of Labour's health policy.
There are three truths that we have to accept: we no longer have the best health care system in the world, the health service cannot do everything—we must not pretend that it can—and the NHS on its own, as currently funded, cannot provide the health care that we need and deserve in this country at the beginning of the 21st century. We need a Government who take a full assessment of the failings of the NHS, who are willing to recognise the reality of the situation that we are in, who will avoid the complacency that we have heard today, and who will increase the total resources across the board for health care in this country.
The Government are failing patients, but worse, they are betraying the trust that the people of this country put in them.
Mr. Milburn: I welcome the hon. Member for Woodspring (Dr. Fox) back from his holidays. Indeed, I welcome him back to the country, which, in his absence, has seen the staff of the national health service coping with a very serious flu outbreak.
Let me deal with the issues that the hon. Gentleman raised one by one. As far as cuts in the number of beds are concerned, if I were he, I would be extremely wary of getting into that territory. Let us not forget that the Conservative Government, during their last 10 years in office alone, managed to cut 40,000 hospital beds—but the Conservatives now have the temerity to complain that there are not enough hospital beds in the NHS.
The hon. Gentleman asked about intensive care. If he had listened to the statement—indeed, if he had read it, as I made it available to him in advance—he would know that we listened carefully to what intensive care doctors and nurses were saying to us. They said that, on the evidence of last year, we needed additional intensive care and high dependency beds. We have provided them: an extra 100 critical care beds were made available to the NHS last year and I am pleased that we did that, given this serious outbreak of flu.
As for the use of private sector beds, I have never said that the national health service would not co-operate with the private sector when it is appropriate to do so. There is nothing to prevent local NHS hospitals from using capacity in the independent sector locally. Some have done so, especially in hard-pressed areas such as London.
Making ideological points cannot mask the facts. It is overwhelmingly the case that the national health service has better intensive care facilities than the private sector, for the simple reason that NHS hospitals are able to provide 24-hour medical cover. Private sector hospitals are not usually able to do that. That is why, this winter, the national health service has taken requests from private sector hospitals to admit private sector patients to NHS critical care facilities. We shall of course continue to do that when it is appropriate. Some estimates show that up
26
to 1,000 patients a year are shifted by private hospitals into NHS intensive care units precisely because the private sector has not been able to cope with the complications that have arisen.
On the issue of Relenza, I do not know where the hon. Member for Woodspring takes his advice from—presumably from the marketing departments of pharmaceutical companies. We take our advice from expert clinicians. The National Institute for Clinical Excellence, which is staffed by a dozen professors of medicine, gave us clear advice that Relenza was not right on clinical effectiveness grounds. However, NICE is working with the drugs company to see whether Relenza could be made available in the future. [Hon. Members: "Ah!"] There is nothing new in that. I know that the sheep are baaing early this year, but that was made clear when we made the announcement on Relenza.
What is depressing about the hon. Gentleman's response to my statement is that it is so predictable. I know that it suits Conservative Members to talk down the incidence of flu in order to talk up the problems in the national health service, but the truth is that the Conservative party is out of kilter with the British people on this issue. The public—each and every family in the land—know that the national health service is dealing and coping with a serious outbreak of flu. While the staff of the national health service are busy coping, the best that the Conservatives can do is to carry on carping.
Mr. Kevin Barron: Does my right hon. Friend agree that the attack on the National Institute for Clinical Excellence is an attack on some of the most eminent clinicians in the health service? The ideology coming from the Opposition Front-Bench spokesman shows that he should take some sound advice.
How many people were immunised against flu last year to try to prevent their being affected? If expenditure had remained as it was under the previous Government, how many, if any, of the extra 100 critical beds would have been available in the national health service to cope with this problem?
Mr. Milburn: I am grateful to my hon. Friend. As he rightly says, Conservative Members are always urging the Government to take difficult decisions to prioritise health services but, when we take those difficult decisions, they criticise them.
As I explained, we have increased the doses of vaccination available through GPs' surgeries. We do not yet have the figures on uptake rates, but we shall review them when we get them. We know that we probably need to do more to encourage uptake, and I have asked the chief medical officer to report to me on the best way of doing that in the future.
My hon. Friend is on to a very good point about the funding of the national health service. The Conservatives claim that there are not enough hospital beds and there is insufficient funding for the NHS. The Conservative party is the very party that, when we announced our record cash injection into the national health service, described the extra funding as reckless, mad and irresponsible.
Mr. Matthew Taylor (Truro and St. Austell): The Secretary of State was right to thank NHS staff for trying to cope with the current problems, but he came to the

27
Dispatch Box to suggest that all was well, and those staff know that all is not well. Patients, especially those who have been carted around the country in search of beds, know that all is not well; and those who are in the areas where there are no beds for sufferers are very much aware that all is not well.
The Secretary of State likes to speak of critical care beds. Will he clarify the position relating to funded intensive care beds? In September, he conducted a survey to establish the numbers of both intensive care and high dependency beds, and he has put those figures together. What is the number of intensive care beds? The Intensive Care Society, to which we spoke today, did not know the answer, and feared that the number of funded beds might have fallen.
The fact is that the overall difficulty experienced by the NHS results from a lack of flexibility. It lacks the resources to cope with a peak demand of this sort, even at its current level, which has not yet exceeded that of last year: the graph is still the same. Is it not a fact that, so far, the NHS has not turned the corner, following 18 years of misrule by the Conservative party—years that the hon. Member for Woodspring (Dr. Fox) tried so conveniently to forget?
Having moved from the Treasury to the Department of Health, does the Secretary of State now regret his former team's decision to introduce a lp cut in income tax while the NHS was still clearly underfunded, and was still experiencing the difficulties of the Conservative years?
Mr. Milburn: Let me issue a small health warning to the hon. Gentleman. Before quoting figures relating to money, he should consult his own party's manifesto for the last general election, which makes interesting reading. The Liberal Democrats promised an injection of an extra £500 million a year for the NHS—a pittance by comparison with the extra money that the present Government have invested in it.
The hon. Gentleman made a more serious and substantive point about the number of intensive care beds. He was right to say that the last Government did not even know how many such beds were available in our hospitals. That is why we instituted a census to establish the number; the results will be published shortly. The extra 100 critical care beds are a mixture of intensive care and high dependency beds. As I speak, we have approximately 1,570 intensive care beds and 800 high dependency beds.
Ms Ann Coffey: Last Friday, I visited Stepping Hill, my local hospital. I am pleased to say that, despite a record number of emergency referrals to casualty over the past two weeks, there were no unacceptably long trolley waits and no ambulances stacked outside, and beds and treatment were available to all who needed them. That visit was in marked contrast to my visit to the same hospital at Christmas in 1997, when there were a record number of trolley waits, stacked ambulances and a lack of beds throughout the region. Of course, the Conservative party was in power at the time. [Hon. Members: "No!"] It all seems such a long time ago.
One reason why the problem has been managed so much better this Christmas is the fact that there has been much better planning, along with co-operation with
28
general practices and community services and a great deal of commitment on the part of staff at the hospital. Will my right hon. Friend join me in congratulating those staff on managing this Christmas crisis?
Several hon. Members rose—
Madam Speaker: Order. I should like to remind the House that it is question time, not statement time, so will Members please put questions to the Secretary of State, not compliments?
Mr. Milburn: With regard to the recollections of my hon. Friend the Member for Stockport (Ms Coffey), time certainly flies when you are enjoying yourself, Madam Speaker. What she says about the position this year is right. It is borne out by what many senior clinicians and managers have been telling us—that the NHS is better prepared and planned than ever before. I have been particularly pleased to see a high level of co-operation in many areas, including her own, between the NHS and social services. Not too long ago, the NHS and social services viewed each other as enemies on opposite sides of the fence. It is heartening that, on the ground, they now co-operate. That can only be to the benefit of patients.
Mr. Paul Keetch: The Secretary of State will know about the tragic death last week of my constituent Mr. Harold Smith of Ross-on-Wye, who died in a bed in Bridgend after being moved from Herefordshire because no intensive care beds were available. I am sure that the whole House will join me in sending condolences. The internal investigation is under way, but can the Secretary of State tell the House whether the flu crisis caused the lack of beds in Herefordshire which caused Mr. Smith to be moved?
Herefordshire has gained one more intensive care bed since the Government came to power, but what will the effect be on the new hospital that is being built in Hereford—the number of beds will be cut from around 400 to just 250 by 2005? Will the Secretary of State assure the House that that number will be sufficient to deal with any influenza crisis? Will he assure me that he will review the position to ensure that such a tragedy does not happen again?
Mr. Milburn: May I give the hon. Gentleman that assurance and pass on my condolences to the family of Mr. Smith? As the hon. Gentleman rightly said, an internal inquiry is taking place. That is due to report shortly. I do not want to pre-empt it, but I understand that human error is the most likely cause of the tragedy.
The hon. Gentleman is right to say that we have provided extra hospital intensive care facilities since we came to office. I know that he lobbied extremely assiduously and successfully for a new hospital, which is being built through the private finance initiative. It might help him to know that we are making available additional capacity for up to two extra intensive treatment or high dependency beds. In preparation for the new hospital, further ITU nurse training will be undertaken during the next financial year.
Mr. Dale Campbell-Savours: The people should know that influenza injections work. I have had one each year for the past three years and I have not

29
had flu for three years. It is the same for people throughout the country who have had the injections. However, a problem arises with some groups of people: they fear the needle. The injection is painless; it is a couple of pin pricks. That may seem of little importance to Members, but to people outside who face the prospect of injection, it is important. They should feel absolutely reassured.
Mr. Milburn: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that sensible advice. It is good advice. We and the chief medical officer continue to encourage people, particularly the vulnerable and those in at-risk groups such as the elderly, even now to go to their family doctor and to be vaccinated against the flu. It is not too late; and it is a sensible action. I hope that many elderly people and others at risk, such as those with chest and respiratory problems, will consider doing so.
Mr. Roger Gale: I visited the Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother hospital, Margate this morning. I found it heaving with patients, with admissions being accommodated in day care beds because every other bed was full. I join the Secretary of State in paying tribute to staff there and at the Queen Victoria Memorial hospital, Herne Bay, who are doing their best to cope. They tell me that one of the problems that they face is a lack of staff not only through long-term staff shortages, but through sickness too. We have heard much about the flu vaccine. How many people in the NHS—not just medical staff but ancillary staff—have been offered and have taken up the vaccine?
Mr. Milburn: I join the hon. Gentleman in paying tribute to the staff at his local hospital. As I said in my statement, we acknowledge that the NHS, particularly in the acute sector, is extremely busy and that staff are doing a quite remarkable job. I cannot give the hon. Gentleman the actual numbers on staff flu vaccination, but I can tell him that, this year, for the first time, we made flu vaccination available to NHS staff. Although that was a sensible precaution, it has not proved to be successful in every case, and there have been quite high levels of staff sickness. Nevertheless—although not every NHS staff member decided to heed the advice of my hon. Friend the Member for Workington (Mr. Campbell-Savours)—I have no doubt that staff vaccination has had an impact.
Hon. Members will know that the current flu bug is particularly nasty; that it affects NHS staff just as it affects everyone else; and that not only hospitals, but schools and businesses across the country are being affected by it. Nevertheless, the views expressed by the hon. Member for North Thanet (Mr. Gale) were sensible, and we shall seek to learn lessons from this year, and to determine whether, next year, we can vaccinate even more NHS staff members against the flu.
Dr. Tony Wright: Is it not depressing that there are people around who find it impossible to talk about any issue at all without turning it into a political game? When even an influenza epidemic has to become a political football, is it surprising that the people who engage in such games are not household names even in their own households?
Will the Secretary of State clarify one matter? I speak from self-interest—like my hon. Friend the Member for Workington (Mr. Campbell-Savours), as a recipient of the
30
flu jab—and am not clear whether the strain of flu that I was immunised against is the strain that is sweeping the land. Is it, or is it not?
Mr. Milburn: Yes.
Mr. John Townend: In view of what the Secretary of State said about the need for immunisation, what would he say to Mrs. Wheddon, of Watton, in my constituency, who rang me this afternoon and said that, today, on the media, she had heard a health service spokesman say that people should go to be vaccinated? She rang up her local surgery and was told that—although she suffers from emphysema—no vaccine was available, and that they thought that there was a shortage of it across the country.
Subsequently, I rang my general practitioner, in Yorkshire, and asked whether—as the Secretary of State recommends—I could have a flu vaccination, but was told that he had no flu vaccine. I pointed out that the other surgery had said that there was a national shortage of flu vaccine, and asked whether that was the case. I was told, "We are going to get some more, but only a very limited quantity, and we will put you on a waiting list."
Does the Secretary of State agree that the current situation demonstrates that the Government were completely unprepared for a flu epidemic, and that spin will not solve Mrs. Wheddon's problem?
Mr. Milburn: Tediously predictable, as usual.
Mr. John Bercow: Could anyone be tediously predictable as not usual?
Mr. Milburn: That is a very good point. It is good to see that the hon. Gentlemen has—perhaps; we shall see—recovered from his Christmas break.
I should be very glad to investigate local problems with the availability of flu vaccination. As far as I am aware, however, there is no local shortage of vaccine. Indeed, although the accusation made by Opposition spokesmen has been that we have not made flu vaccine available, we have in fact been providing it to family doctors. I see the hon. Member for East Yorkshire (Mr. Townend) nodding.
I remind the hon. Gentleman that, last year, the current Government became the first one to make available flu vaccination to all members of vulnerable groups, such as over-75s. We reversed the previous position, as that was the sensible course of action to take. We shall, of course, learn from this year, and we shall improve on it. However, it is simply not the case that people generally have not been receiving a flu vaccination if they need one.
Fiona Mactaggart: My local hospital, Wexham Park, like that of other hon. Members, is admitting twice as many people as it usually does. It is coping because doctors and nurses are working very hard indeed, for which I pay tribute to them.
Two issues arise. First, many hospital registrars are facing examinations, on which they are working very hard, and hospital management will have to provide them with study time to cope with that pressure. Is any action being taken centrally to help local hospital trusts address that issue?

31
Secondly, some of the cancelled elective surgery was cancer surgery. Some local people are scared because we are not meeting the swift times that we have introduced for cancer surgery. As the crisis diminishes, will my right hon. Friend encourage hospital trusts to make those operations a high priority? Some people who have had to have their time changed for inevitable managerial reasons will need to be dealt with urgently when it becomes possible.
Mr. Milburn: I shall give my hon. Friend and her constituents that assurance. We have continually reiterated that treatment on the national health service should be according to clinical urgency as well as clinical need. That has always been the position. Of course hospitals are hard pressed at the moment. Some are having to cancel routine elective surgery. As the pressures diminish, I expect the national health service and local hospitals to get back on track and start to treat patients according to the urgency of their conditions. That is the appropriate thing to do, and it is what the national health service has been doing.
Dr. Evan Harris: Does the Secretary of State accept that, to justify his assertion that the figures of the Royal College of General Practitioners for a flu epidemic—which show a typical year, not an atypical year—are wrong, the Government need to publish data from NHS Direct or elsewhere? If not, he runs the danger of the chief medical officer appearing to be a political football—a subject just referred to by the hon. Member for Cannock Chase (Dr. Wright).
I worked in my local casualty department over the millennium. Does the Secretary of State accept that NHS staff want more money for the health service? They recognise that the disease afflicting the NHS is a contagious one caught by the Government from the Tories. It involves their spending pre-election war chests on tax bribes rather than on NHS services. Does he accept that to blame a microbe for the problems of the NHS, when the real problem is years of underfunding which the Government have continued, does a disservice to the people working in the health service?
Mr. Milburn: No, I do not accept that. The Government are giving the NHS a record cash injection. I should have thought that the hon. Gentleman would welcome that. As the economy grows, the national health service can grow. I am determined to ensure sustained and sustainable increases in funding for the NHS, not just this year, next year and the following year, but in the years after.
The hon. Gentleman's first point was a decent and substantive one. We are into a new ball game. The chief medical officer is looking again at the advice that we have received from the PHLS, because we have listened carefully to clinicians and managers, who have told us over the past three or four weeks that the official figures dramatically understated the range of demand in hospital accident and emergency departments and in GP surgeries. The evidence on the number of people who have been to the pharmacist and bought cold and flu remedies from major outlets such as Boots the Chemist, as well as those phoning NHS Direct, shows that many people have
32
heeded the chief medical officer's sensible advice that the best way to deal with the flu is to take care and stay at home.
Dr. Howard Stoate: I spent part of my millennium break helping to treat the flu epidemic and vaccinate those at risk. My local health trust in Dartford and Gravesham has coped very well. It has increased the number of intensive care beds by 50 per cent. to cope with the difficulty. One of the trust's main problems has been a shortage of highly trained specialist nurses to manage those beds. When does my right hon. Friend predict that the Government's new nurse recruitment and training programme will start to roll out such highly qualified and dedicated nurses into our wards and intensive care units, so that we no longer encounter critical problems every year caused by a lack of nurses?
Mr. Milburn: As my hon. Friend knows, we aim to recruit up to an extra 15,000 nurses to the national health service over the next few years. We are making good progress on that. So far, around 4,000 nurses have returned to the national health service or returned to training as a result of the recruitment campaign initiated by my predecessor, my right hon. Friend the Member for Holborn and St. Pancras (Mr. Dobson). That is beginning to take effect.
More optimistically for the longer term, I can tell my hon. Friend that the number of applications this year for nurse training courses in colleges is double the previous year's. That is a good sign. We know that there are problems with particular specialties which have come about as a direct consequence of the fact that the previous Government cut not only the number of nurses, but—even more short-sightedly—the number of nurses in training. We are beginning to make up that lost ground. It will take time, but we are seeing nurses come back to the NHS.
Mr. David Prior: Does the Secretary of State have the honesty and the courage to admit that, compared with other developed countries, the resources in this country made available to the health service, private and public, are massively underfunded?
Mr. Milburn: As I told the hon. Member for Oxford, West and Abingdon (Dr. Harris), I want to see sustained increases in investment in the NHS—this year, next year and in the years that follow. By the end of this Parliament, for the first time ever, spending on the NHS will have risen to more than 6 per cent. of gross domestic product.
Mrs. Eileen Gordon: I am a great supporter of NHS Direct—I could be accused of using it as a political football—which was introduced by the Labour Government. Is my right hon. Friend as pleased as I am by the valuable contribution that it has made during the influenza outbreak? Will he issue statistics on how many calls to NHS Direct concern flu-related symptoms? Is there any way of estimating how many of those people chose NHS Direct rather than presenting themselves to GPs or accident and emergency departments, which would have added to the stresses and strains?
Mr. Milburn: My hon. Friend is right. NHS Direct, described by the Tory party as a gimmick, has proved its worth and its mettle over the millennium period. It has

33
taken almost 250,000 calls, many of which have been related directly to flu. Early evidence suggests that NHS Direct is referring about one third of those who ring up to more appropriate and less intensive forms of care than they envisaged when they made the phone call. In other words, people who might have expected to turn up at their GP's surgery, to call the family doctor out of hours, or to turn up at the local casualty department are instead looking after themselves and their families at home where that is the safe thing to do. NHS Direct is a real success story, not least because it is helping patients to get the most appropriate level of care and treatment that they need.
Mrs. Virginia Bottomley: The Government have been in power for 130 weeks, and the Secretary of State has five Ministers. In that time, no Minister has visited any of the eight constituencies within the West Surrey health authority area. Is that because the authority has lost 111 beds, nurse vacancies are over 300 and accident and emergency trolley waits are the longest in the country? I join the right hon. Gentleman's praise for NHS staff, but does he intend to come and tell those staff that things can only get better, as they have seen a sharp deterioration in the years since his party came to power?
Mr. Milburn: The right hon. Lady takes an active interest in her local health service—particularly the local hospitals—and she has been to see me to express some of her concerns. The question of why no Minister has visited the area is one that I will try to put right for her and for the hon. Member for Guildford (Mr. St. Aubyn), if she would find that helpful. She should recall that the reasons we have some of the problems in West Surrey are precisely the appalling deficits that the health authority built up when she, I think, was Secretary of State for Health.

BILLS PRESENTED
  Hare Coursing
  Mr. Harry Cohen, supported by Mr. Gerald Bermingham, Mrs. Claire Curtis-Thomas and Mr. Colin Pickthall, presented a Bill to make hare coursing illegal: And the same was read the First time; and ordered to be read a Second time on Friday 24 March, and to be printed [Bill 42].
  Recycled Content of Newsprint
  Mr. Gordon Prentice, supported by Dr. Doug Naysmith, Mr. Roger Berry, Mr. Peter Bottomley, Mr. Tom Brake, Sir Sydney Chapman, Mr. David Chaytor, Valerie Davey, Ms Julia Drown, Mr. Don Foster and Mrs. Diana Organ, presented a Bill to increase the amount of recycled paper collected and used in newsprint in England and Wales; and for connected purposes: And the same was read the First time; and ordered to be read a Second time on Friday 24 March, and to be printed [Bill 43].

GOVERNMENT RESOURCES AND ACCOUNTS BILL
Ordered,
That, during the proceedings on the Government Resources and Accounts Bill, Standing Committee A shall have leave to sit twice on the first day on which it shall meet.—[Mr. Pope.]

Orders of the Day

  Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Bill
  Order for Second Reading read.
  4.20 pm
  The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. Jack Straw): I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.
  The Bill draws comprehensively on the work of the Committee on Standards in Public Life, chaired first by Lord Nolan and now by Lord Neill. I place on record my thanks and, I believe, those of the whole House, for the excellence of the Committee's work, and express our gratitude to its distinguished chairmen and members.
  The Bill is an important milestone in the development of our democratic institutions. For the first time, how political parties conduct themselves will be the subject of statutory regulation. Political groupings have been a feature of our parliamentary system of government for more than 300 years, and it has been well over 100 years since Disraeli led the way with the development of mass party organisations to parallel his 1867 extension of the franchise. It is something of a paradox, then, that so little statutory recognition has so far been given to the central role played by political parties in the political life of this country.
  Parties are vital to the effective functioning of any representative democracy, but the political parties of today do not simply sustain a particular set of political leaders in office. In any mature democracy, political parties also provide both a crucial link between the citizen and the elected Government of the day and some of the key processes by which that elected Government are held to account.
  Parties must be capable of discharging effectively those onerous responsibilities, and that necessarily requires money. Parties can secure funding from one of two basic sources: they can receive a subvention from the state or they can attract funding from their own supporters. The Neill committee recommended against the first of those approaches: a view with which the Government wholeheartedly concur. Indeed, rather than underpinning representative democracy, over-reliance on state funding could in the end undermine it.
  Political parties should be the champions of the people, ensuring that the state is their servant and not their master. An over-reliance on state funding could absorb parties into the fabric of the state, thereby putting their own institutional needs and those of the state above the needs of those whom they are elected to represent. The health of our democracy is far better served if parties are principally reliant on their own efforts to secure adequate funding. Such an approach compels parties to engage with their members and supporters.
  That engagement between parties and the people must be a reciprocal one. We should celebrate the fact that so many supporters of political parties recognise their civic responsibilities and duties by contributing to their chosen party's financial well-being. Democracy does not come cheap, and those who are able should be ready to dip into their pockets to help to sustain it.
  Mr. Robert Maclennan: Why is the Labour party in government

  35
  wholeheartedly in support of the arguments against state funding when, as recently as in the consideration of the Houghton committee, it took the opposite view? Is it simply that its power in the land has grown since then, or has some objective reason displaced all its earlier arguments?
  Mr. Straw: I am trying to cast my mind back to when the Houghton committee reported: it was not in the past decade or so, and I think that it was in the mid-1980s. Our view on state funding today is fully consistent with the view that we took in 1995, when the Labour party in opposition gave evidence to the then Nolan committee. I remember that, because I had the honour on behalf of my party of drafting the evidence and getting my colleagues' approval for it, as well as giving oral evidence. Parties do sometimes change their minds. On some issues, even I have been known to change my mind, but it happens that, on this and other issues of a constitutional nature, I have not.
  The right hon. Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross (Mr. Maclennan) and I may reach some agreement on my next point. The Neill committee argued that, if we want such civic engagement as I have mentioned, the state should at least be prepared to give a helping hand by providing tax relief for small donations. On that discrete point, the Government remain unpersuaded of the case for such a scheme but, overall, the controls on campaign expenditure in the Bill will significantly reduce the demands on parties to raise even greater sums of money.
  We have also reduced the pressure on political parties by more than doubling the taxpayers' funds available to Opposition parties. Such is the generous spirit that we have brought to government that the subvention of state aid to the Liberal Democrats has increased by a factor of three and the Conservatives now receive more than £3 million of state funding to help them to make their opposition effective.
  Mr. David Winnick: It has not done them much good.
  Mr. Straw: We are also interested in best value—as is the Conservative party—and it remains to be seen whether the Audit Commission will feel the need to scrutinise whether the Conservatives have used that £3 million to good advantage. Certainly, I make no complaints about the state of the Opposition. Long may they continue in the same way. Of course I say that in jest.
  At the heart of the Bill's provisions is the need to ensure that the funding of political parties is open and transparent. Greater transparency will not only strengthen the accountability of political parties but help to buttress their financial standing. The secrecy that has hitherto been permitted to political parties in their funding, and the scandals to which such secrecy has given rise in recent years, have undoubtedly left a sour taste. In contrast, all political parties—and the reputation of our political system as a whole—will benefit from the Bill.
  The Neill committee also recognised that, in order to restore public confidence in the political process, it was important to put an end to what the committee termed the
  36
  "arms race" in election spending. Campaign spending at a national level by the two main parties has increased from an average of £5 million in 1983 to £27 million in 1997. If we took no action, those sums could easily exceed £30 million for each party at the next general election. The perceived need to match, if not exceed, spending by the other side has put a tremendous burden on the parties. Such pressure could lead a party to an unhealthy reliance on a handful of wealthy donors, and that would plainly not be good for democracy.
  The new arrangements also introduce controls on spending at a national level as well as a local one, for the first time. Our Victorian forebears, when faced with growing electoral abuse, introduced the Secret Ballot Act 1872 and the Corrupt Practices Act 1883 to stamp out the buying and selling of votes, something that was done brazenly at that time.
  Compared with today, elections were fought on a very different basis in the latter part of the 19th century. In the days before a national press and the broadcast media, the electoral battleground was in individual constituencies. Indeed, elections took place on different days over some time, and it was common for leading figures, including Gladstone, to stand for election in two, three or more constituencies and then make their choice according to the sessional orders—with great celebration if they were lucky enough to have been returned for two or more constituencies. Although the campaign took place at a local level and hardly at all at a national level—it was only events such as Gladstone's famous Midlothian campaign that saw the beginnings of national campaigning—and even after controls were introduced, vast sums by today's standards were deployed in an attempt to buy elections. It helps to put current levels of campaign spending into some historical perspective to learn that, at the 1880 general election, after controls were introduced, candidates spent the equivalent of £106 million at 1997 prices, but they spent it at a local, not a national, level.
  Mr. John Bercow: I am sure that the House has listened to the right hon. Gentleman's historical exegesis with great interest. If he is against the purchase of votes, how does he justify promoting a Bill that will allow the issue by Ministers of official press releases in support, for example, of the abolition of our national currency, while regulating the activities of campaigning organisations in any such referendum for up to six months, thereby preventing the supporters of national self-government from effectively arguing their case?
  Mr. Straw: I do not accept what the hon. Gentleman says. I have sought to ensure that the spirit, as well as the letter, of the Neill committee's recommendations on referendums is introduced into the Bill. If, as I think, the hon. Gentleman is referring to the fact that controls on campaign spending in a referendum can go back six months, but that the purdah period for Government is 28 days, that is no different from the situation on general elections that obtained under the previous Government as well as this one. I think that there is general agreement that, once the provisions are fully in force, the spending rules should cover the year before a general election. However, we have sought to replicate the purdah period that exists before a general election—when officials cannot get involved in the policy of the Government of

  37
  the day except in narrowly controlled circumstances—to apply to referendum campaigns, but obviously taking account of the differences. I shall shortly speak in more detail about the changes to referendums.
  Given every other change that has taken place in our national life over the past 120 years, it is astonishing that we still conduct our elections according to rules laid down at the end of the 19th century. They tightly regulate spending by candidates and third parties at a constituency level, but do not recognise even the existence of political parties and third parties at the national level. That is plainly absurd, and the Bill puts the situation right.
  Similarly, as the Neill committee recognised, the way in which we conduct referendums has also failed to keep up with the changing political landscape. Neill proposed having standing ground rules in operation, well in advance of any future referendum, so that the debate can concentrate on the issue at stake and not on the conduct of the poll.
  Each side in a referendum campaign must have the opportunity fairly to put its case to the electorate. The Bill achieves that by providing for the designation by the Electoral Commission of an umbrella organisation on each side of a campaign. Once designated, the two umbrella bodies will each be entitled to a grant of up to £600,000, a free mailshot to each household and free air time for referendum broadcasts.
  In addition, in the 28-day period before the date of the poll, the Government of the day will stand back from the debate and leave it to the umbrella groups and other participants to campaign. This purdah period is a fair and practical response to the Neill committee recommendation, and the committee has welcomed it.
  Mr. Denis MacShane: What does my right hon. Friend have to say about the huge sums of money already being spent on a pre-referendum campaign? Mr. Paul Sykes has said in the Yorkshire Post that he is prepared to spend £235 million campaigning against Members of Parliament who believe that our country should be a full player in Europe. He is putting up posters all over the country. Mine has a rather flattering picture of me when younger. Constituents are phoning up asking who is publishing this picture with my name on it.
  This is taking place now—millions and million of pounds are being spent to try to get Britain to leave Europe. That must be considered by the Government and the Neill committee.
  Mr. Straw: As I shall explain in a moment, it is not possible to achieve perfect equality in spending by both sides in a referendum campaign. I am pleased to learn that my hon. Friend has been portrayed by a picture that suggests that he is even younger than he is.
  Mr. Peter Bradley: But no more lovely.
  Mr. Straw: As far as I am aware, I do not even merit a poster from Mr. Sykes in my constituency, still less a photograph. However, that is one of the burdens that I must bear.
  I can tell my hon. Friend the Member for Rotherham (Mr. MacShane) that the arrangements for the fair conduct of referendums, in part VII, include one departure from
  38
  the Neill committee recommendations. That departure has to do with expenditure limits on campaign organisations—a subject of much debate, both in the Neill committee and outside it. The committee said that it was not opposed to expenditure limits as a matter of principle, but it questioned how such limits could be applied effectively in practice. It therefore proposed that there should be no limits on either side.
  For a reason that I shall expand on in a moment, the Government agree that it is not practicable to impose an overall limit on the amount that each side in a referendum may spend. In our judgment, such an approach would indeed be unenforceable. It would compel otherwise implacable opponents, who happened to share the same view on a given referendum question, to work together and agree a share-out of the expenditure limit. To expect that to happen is simply not to live in the real world.
  It not possible either to construct a regime that automatically produces a level playing field between the two designated umbrella bodies, but that leaves everyone else out in the cold. We know that from the experience in Quebec, where considerable use is made of referendums. There, a 1978 Act introduced an almost total ban on independent spending by individuals or groups operating outside a formal umbrella group or what was called the national committee.
  Several sections of that Quebec law were struck down by the Supreme Court of Canada in October 1997, on the grounds that they violated freedom of expression under both the Canadian and the Quebec charters of human rights and freedoms. Any equivalent provisions here would be equally vulnerable to legal challenge under article 10 of the European convention on human rights.
  However, I have taken some trouble to talk to colleagues in Canada, and I should also tell the House that the operation of the Quebec law was intolerably complicated. Squabbles took place between participant groups both before and after referendum campaigns about how a fair share-out might be implemented, and about whether it should. In the end, it was accepted in Canada—as I hope that it will be accepted in this House—that such a fair share-out was impossible.
  However, it is possible to place limits on the spending of each individual or organisation participating in a referendum. I will be the first to admit that that will not produce absolute equality in terms of what is actually spent in a campaign, any more than the prescription of maximum limits on what parties may spend will secure an equality of what is actually spent in elections by those political parties.
  For example, the Liberal Democrats are offered generous spending limits in the Bill, but it is a racing certainty that the party will not be able to raise money to the level of the spending limit. So to argue that spending by the Labour and Liberal Democrats parties will be nearly equal because both parties will be able to spend up to a maximum amount fails to take into account the capacity of parties to raise money up to the maximum.
  We have listened to the criticisms levelled against the expenditure limits set out in the draft Bill. I accept that they were too crude and failed to take account of the relative support for political parties as represented in the House. We have refashioned the limits in the Bill, and made them more sensitive to what we perceive to be the level of support for those parties.

  39
  I also say, particularly to Conservative Members, that the revised expenditure limits set out in the Bill are not necessarily our last word on the matter. We remain open to argument if better, more workable proposals can be introduced. I have to say—I do not say this with any arrogance—that, so far, I have not seen any better and more workable alternatives than those in the Bill. I have asked the Opposition to come forward with their further and better particulars for some months. If they present them to us, we shall certainly consider them on their merits.
  Mr. Simon Hughes: I have a linked referendum question. In the Home Secretary's examination of part VII on referendums, has he considered two issues that do not appear in the Bill? The first is that referendums could be triggered by people other than the Government and the second is that the formulation of a referendum question should be arbitrated by someone other than the Government and the Government majority in Parliament. For example, the question could be arbitrated by the Electoral Commission.
  The Government are committed to two referendums—one on the European currency and another on the electoral system—and the way to ensure that debate on each does not get clouded by the debate on how to take the decision would be to have a process that would decide the referendum question independently of Government and of Ministers of the day.
  Mr. Straw: The hon. Gentleman puts two points to me. The first is whether we have considered the circumstances in which a referendum might be introduced by people other than the Government. The Bill deals with referendums that are determined by Parliament. It is possible to conceive of circumstances in which an Opposition Back-Bench Member introduces a private Member's Bill that will secure a referendum. In such a case, and notwithstanding the fact that the Bill had been introduced by an Opposition Member, Parliament would have decided on a referendum and the rules in the Bill would come into play. In practice, all previous referendums have been held on the basis of Government Bills. However, it is not Government but Parliament that decides to have a referendum. That is an important and profound distinction.
  The hon. Gentleman's second point is the important one of whether there should be invigilation of the question set in a referendum. I am open to argument on that point, but my judgment is that, in the end, the question must be a matter for Parliament. The question should be clear when Parliament is coming to a decision on whether to approve a Bill proposing a referendum. However, there are good grounds for considering whether the Electoral Commission could have a role in advising Parliament and the Government on the wording of the question. It is plainly in nobody's interest to have a question that is either so confusing to the electorate or so patently biased as to lead to a decision by the electorate that remains open to question. However, it is a matter of record that the
  40
  questions asked in referendums in the past have, on the whole, been fair. If a referendum is to have legitimacy, it is crucial that fairness is apparent in the question.
  Mr. Dafydd Wigley rose—
  Mr. Frank Field rose—
  Mr. Straw: I shall give way to the right hon. Member for Caernarfon (Mr. Wigley) and then to my right hon. Friend.
  Mr. Wigley: As the Home Secretary is coming to the conclusion of his remarks, may I ask him about his comment that the Government have an open mind about the figures and that they are prepared to discuss them in our later consideration of the Bill? Does that statement relate to the provision in clause 122, which sets a limit for by-election expenditure of £100,000 for each candidate? That is a massive figure and could lead to money influencing votes. The clause is against most of the Bill's other provisions, which we support, and that figure should be moved downwards.
  Mr. Straw: The question is open to argument. Although I cannot speak for Plaid Cymru, I can speak for the three main parties in England, and it has been suggested that the total spent by each party in some parliamentary by-elections looks as though it may have exceeded the amounts submitted by candidates' agents.
  Mr. Simon Hughes: Surely not.
  Mr. Straw: The hon. Gentleman obviously has information to which I am not privy about the Liberal Democrats' practices. I have merely communicated a suspicion to the House. However, if it is true, it is important that expenditure limits are realistic and reflect a reality that is common to all parties.
  We are open to argument, but to set a limit of £7,000 or £8,000 for a parliamentary by-election is unrealistic. It would take no account of the fact that by-elections these days are very different from those of even 40 years ago. They are not only local events in a constituency, but events of considerable national significance.
  Mr. Field: I am grateful to the Home Secretary for giving way. May I say how much everyone—not just in the House, but in the country—will welcome his remarks about opening consultation on the question to be put in a referendum? It is crucial for the legitimacy of the process for people to feel that the question has been set as fairly as possible.
  Will my right hon. Friend clarify to the House the provisions in the Bill for expenditure limits on outside campaigning organisations? Do I understand correctly that two rules are proposed in the Bill? There is a rule on the limit of expenditure by outside pressure groups for the period after the Government introduce the Bill for the referendum. That is a set amount, specified in the Bill. The second expenditure limit is in the year before a general election. That is 5 per cent. of what parties can spend in an election campaign.

  41
  My problem in understanding that is that, unless Parliament runs to the very end of its life, no one can know when the year preceding a general election begins. What advice would my right hon. Friend give to outside organisations on that point?
  Mr. Straw: I am grateful—[Interruption.] No, I have loads of advice, and I ask the House to hold its breath while I offer it. I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for his remarks in respect of the referendum question, and for his representations to me about that matter.
  My right hon. Friend asked a question that I have often been asked, and that has also been posed to the Neill committee. We have a maximum limit on the life of a Parliament but no minimum limit and, as we know from our recent history, elections over the past 30 years have taken place at various stages in a Government's term of office, ranging from three and a half years in the case of the Heath Government in the early 1970s, to five years—right against the buffer—on two successive occasions, in 1992 and 1997. Given those facts, the question is how political parties can judge the date from which to run the clock.
  The answer is that, for accounting purposes, the clock will run retrospectively from the date of the general election. That will not be onerous on the political parties, because, in practice, expenditure by parties is largely end-loaded. However, it will provide a check on parties against anticipating an election and spending huge sums in advance of the election.
  Given our constitutional arrangements and the fact that we do not have fixed elections, I accept that there is no perfect way of achieving the regulation that we all seek. I believe that our proposals are the best way of achieving that end, and will not cause the problems that are sometimes anticipated, but we are open to argument if we have missed something.
  Mr. Field: Again, I am grateful to the Home Secretary for giving way. I applied my comments also to outside pressure groups. How can they judge when the clock has started, if the clock starts only when the Government call a general election? Is that not like saying that we encourage marriage, but we intend to introduce a Bill providing that, if people have not called a divorce within a certain period of time, they will be in serious trouble?
  Mr. Straw: I shall not follow my right hon. Friend down the winding path of his metaphor, if that is all right. This is a debate about political parties, not family policy.
  I do not accept my right hon. Friend's contention. In terms of the day-to-day non-campaigning part of their activity, third parties will not be caught by the provision but, if they seek to influence an election, which is the expenditure in question, our proposed arrangements are reasonable.
  Dr. Julian Lewis rose—
  Mr. Straw: I must make progress. The leader of Plaid Cymru, the right hon. Member for Caernarfon, was rather optimistic when he suggested that I was about to come to the end of my remarks. I should like to take the House quickly through the main parts of the Bill—after all, that is the purpose of the Minister's speech on Second Reading.
  42
  Part I, which establishes the Electoral Commission, is the foundation for all that follows. To undertake its key role at the heart of our electoral arrangements, the commission must be as independent of the Government of the day as our constitutional arrangements allow, and it must be answerable directly to Parliament and not to Ministers. Much of the framework that we have put in place for the appointment of electoral commissioners and the funding of the Electoral Commission has been borrowed from the arrangements that apply, and have worked successfully, in the case of the Comptroller and Auditor General and the National Audit Office.
  Part I confers a number of general functions on the commission. It will be responsible for keeping under review the law and conduct of elections and referendums. The Representation of the People Bill, which is before the House, makes a number of overdue reforms in the way in which we administer our elections. All too often in the past, our electoral law and practice have failed to keep up to date with changes in our political system, with changing life styles and with new technology. We need a better process for securing those changes, and the commission will provide that.
  Clause 11 gives the commission an important education function. In that, we go beyond what Neill recommended, but I hope that the measure has the approval of the whole House. There is no easy answer to the problem of low turnout at elections. We cannot therefore expect miracles from the Electoral Commission. We have, however, been slow in this country to recognise the importance of preparing people to participate in civic life. There is considerably more to that than simply explaining the mechanics of voting.
  People will turn out to vote only if they see the value of voting. That comes from an understanding of our institutions of government and from a realisation that politics and politicians make a difference to our daily lives. The new citizenship curriculum being introduced into schools in September is one important step. How we act and behave as politicians is another, and the civic education programmes of the Electoral Commission will be a third.
  Part II, for the most part, simply re-enacts with modifications the Registration of Political Parties Act 1998 except in one important respect.
  Dr. Tony Wright: I want to ask my right hon. Friend a question before he leaves the subject of the Electoral Commission, which is in some ways the most fundamental part of the Bill. Before every election, there is a charade about whether there will be a debate between the party leaders. Will the Bill regulate election broadcasting, as it will regulate the rest of political broadcasting, so that we can stop all those silly games? We would then know exactly what we would get, we could organise matters in a grown-up way and the commission would have the same authority over such broadcasting as it will have over the setting of referendum questions.
  Mr. Straw: The Bill does not regulate party election broadcasts, and it is appropriate that the commission should not. Traditionally, that has been sorted out by discussion between the political parties and the broadcasting authorities. For all the defects concerning

  43
  debates between party leaders, the arrangements work well, and the position in this country is certainly better than that in many countries where political parties have to purchase air time, with all the distortion that that produces. I doubt whether a commission that wants to be independent will want to take on such a task.
  Mr. Julian Brazier: The Home Secretary has just paid an implicit tribute to those in all political parties who become involved in political life. Most of those people are, of course, unpaid. How does he reconcile what he has just said with the Government's attitude to political honours; for example, for those involved in local government?
  Mr. Straw: I am certainly fully aware that people from all parties who give distinguished public service, often based on their political position, are honoured by the Government. The hon. Gentleman will know that it is a matter of order in the House that we do not question the award of honours, save on a substantive motion, so, if he will excuse me, I will not pursue that matter.
  As I said, part II re-enacts, with modifications, the Registration of Political Parties Act 1998, except in one important respect. The registration scheme set out in the 1998 Act was essentially a voluntary one. In contrast, part II brings any organisation that supports candidates at an election within the ambit of the controls on donations and campaign expenditure.
  Part III deals with accounting requirements. Over time, the commission can be expected to establish common accounting requirements, so that the accounts of all parties follow best practice and can fairly be compared, one with another.
  Part IV delivers our manifesto commitments. Parties will be required to report on a quarterly basis all donations of £5,000 or more accepted by the central organisation, and £1,000 or more accepted by a constituency association or other sub-division of the party structure. In the immediate run-up to a general election, reports will have to be submitted weekly.
  The prohibition on foreign funding and anonymous donations is achieved through the concept of a "permissible donor", which is to be found in clause 48. The categories include an individual registered to vote and a registered company or unincorporated association that conducts business in the United Kingdom. Trust funds, including blind trusts, are specifically excluded from the definition of a permissible donor.
  Before leaving part IV, I draw the House's attention to clause 64 and schedule 6. The provisions place holders of elective office, including Members of Parliament, under a statutory duty to report donations of £1,000 or more to the Electoral Commission. Those arrangements will augment, not replace, the existing registers of interest maintained by the House and other elected bodies.
  Parts V and VI control election expenditure by political parties and by third parties respectively. The limits on campaign expenditure by parties follow the recommendations of the Neill committee. In parliamentary general elections, a party will have an "allowance" of £30,000 for each constituency that it contests. The familiar limits for expenditure at local level will continue to apply.
  44
  The expenditure limits for third parties are equivalent to 5 per cent. of the maximum amount that could be spent by a political party at a relevant national election. Those controls will cover national spending by trade unions, companies and others that is intended by those organisations to influence the outcome of an election.
  Part VIII builds on the Representation of the People Bill by further changing the Representation of the People Act 1983 with a view to hauling its provisions at least into the 20th century, if not quite into the 21st century. I particularly draw your attention to clause 125, Mr. Deputy Speaker. It is designed to introduce into the 1983 Act the measure of clarity that Madam Speaker found that it lacked, following the successful appeal by my hon. Friend the Member for Newark (Mrs. Jones) against her conviction for a corrupt practice.
  The House will be aware that, in the 1997–98 Session, the Select Committee on Home Affairs unanimously concluded that the existing 20-year qualifying period for registration as an overseas voter was excessive. The Government concur with that view. However, it is arguable that the Committee's recommendation that the qualifying period be reduced to five years goes too far in the other direction. Therefore, clause 130 provides for a reduction to 10 years, and that is a balanced and equitable response to the Committee's recommendation.
  I should add that I do not propose to commence that provision until after the next general election, and then only when the new system of rolling registration is in place. That will ensure that a British citizen returning to this country after spending a period abroad will normally be able to re-register on the domestic register within six weeks at most. It takes anything up to 15 months under the existing annual registration arrangements.
  Mrs. Llin Golding: The clause does nothing to prevent plumping. My right hon. Friend will recall that, in a by-election in the Vale of Glamorgan, Conservatives Abroad put all its overseas voters into that constituency, thereby denying my hon. Friend the current Member for Vale of Glamorgan (Mr. Smith) victory on that occasion. Cannot the Bill ensure that the place where people register is linked to the area in which they lived or were registered before they went abroad?
  Mr. Straw: I am interested in my hon. Friend's comments, although I believe that there are already requirements relating to proof of previous residence. I shall follow up those points and write to my hon. Friend, and ensure that the matter is taken up in Committee.
  Mr. Simon Hughes: Will the Home Secretary give way?
  Mr. Straw: I have already given way to the hon. Gentleman, and I should like to bring my remarks to a close.
  Part IX puts into effect the Neill committee's recommendation that companies should be required to obtain the prior consent of their shareholders before making donations to parties or other political organisations. Political donations by a company are of such a unique nature that the decision should not, as it is

  45
  at present, be left to the general discretion of the directors. The requirement will ensure that donations are made only when the management of a company can clearly demonstrate to shareholders—not less than every four years, according to Neill committee recommendations—that they are in the interests of the company.
  Our objective is to effect as much as possible of the Bill by the next general election, whenever that may be. To achieve that will be no small undertaking, given that the successful establishment of the Electoral Commission will underpin all that follows. There are several imponderables in the timetable, for example, the timing of Royal Assent and that of the general election, which will be on or before May 2002.
  All being well, we aim to have the electoral commissioners appointed and the Electoral Commission functioning by November. As soon as possible thereafter, I want to bring part II into force so that the transitional arrangements set out in clause 30 can come into play. Existing registered parties will then have six weeks in which to notify the Electoral Commission of the name of their registered treasurer and to deposit a scheme setting out their financial structure. It is only then—February or March 2001—that the accounting requirements and the controls on donations and on campaign expenditure, which are set out in parts III to VI, can come into force. The timetable is demanding, but, having established long-overdue controls on donations and campaign expenditure and consulted extensively on them, it is incumbent on us to do all that we can to have them in place for the next election.
  We want to work with all parties to prepare them for the implementation of the Bill. We will offer what guidance we can in the run-up to the establishment of the Electoral Commission. However, there is a limit to what the Home Office or the commission can do. In the end, it will be down to each party to prepare for those far-reaching changes. The preparations need to start now.
  We should not underestimate the importance of the Bill. The conduct of elections will never be quite the same again. As with all changes to electoral law, we wish, as much as possible, to proceed on the basis of consensus. I have no doubt that the right hon. Member for North-West Hampshire (Sir G. Young) will have points of detail to make, but I take comfort from the broadly supportive comments of the right hon. Member for Richmond, Yorks (Mr. Hague) during the debate on the Loyal Address. The time has come to get down to the business of restoring public confidence in our political institutions. The Bill aims to achieve that, and I commend it to the House.
  5.2 pm
  Sir George Young: The Second Reading of this Bill marks a further step in the progress towards the statute book of the Neill committee's recommendations. Since the report was published in October 1998, we have had a full day's debate in the House on 9 November that year and the publication of the White Paper and the draft Bill, launched by the Home Secretary's statement, followed by questions and answers on 27 July last year. Just before Christmas, the Bill and the explanatory notes were published, and they are now before the House.
  At each stage, the Opposition have made it clear that we accept Lord Neill's recommendations, and we will not obstruct their passage on to the statute book. I join the
  46
  Home Secretary in paying tribute to Lord Neill and his committee—they have managed to build consensus out of the bricks of political contention. We accept the establishment of the Electoral Commission, the accounting requirements for political parties, the principle of containing national campaign expenditure at a general election, and the reporting of major donations and the restrictions on third parties. I agree with almost everything that the Home Secretary has just said.
  My party's criticism of the Bill is that it rejects the Neill committee's recommendations on two points. However, I was delighted to hear the more conciliatory passage about referendums in the Home Secretary's speech. I shall discuss that shortly. The key objective of putting the Neill recommendations on the statute book is to enhance the status, credibility and integrity of the profession of politics. For that reason alone, it is particularly important for Government to resist the temptation to tweak the Neill committee's recommendations to seek party advantage. If they gave in to that temptation, it would add to public cynicism about the political process instead of defusing it.
  Paragraph 2.34 of the Neill committee's report states:
  "We wish to emphasise that our recommendations have been conceived as part of an overall integrated scheme for the funding of political parties. There is a direct linkage between all recommendations, which should be viewed as a whole."
  The Government should pay attention to that assertion.
  I want to make one or two general points.
  Mr. Peter Bradley: Further to the Neill principles, can the right hon. Gentleman confirm that the Conservative party conforms both in spirit and to the letter of the recommendations of the Neill report?
  Sir George Young: I have said that we accept the Neill recommendations and we will not obstruct their passage on to the statute book. Our disagreement with the Government is about where they have departed from Neill.
  I want to make some general points, ask questions about the Bill and then say a word or two about those aspects where we think that the Government should follow Neill. First, this is a constitutional Bill and we believe that key sections should be taken on the Floor of the House. I note that there is no resolution to that effect at the moment. I hope that the Home Secretary will agree that discussions should take place between the usual channels because legislation on the holding of referendums, establishing an Electoral Commission, controlling political parties and restricting the franchise deals with clearly constitutional issues that are of interest to all hon. Members and would qualify to be considered in the Chamber.
  Secondly, although it is common ground that politics here should be cleaned up—no party is beyond reproach—we should note that this country has been spared the scale of corruption that has plagued other democratic countries. Thanks to a vigilant press, a neutral and professional civil service, Opposition parties and Back Benchers in Parliament, the Public Accounts Committee and the National Audit Office, it is more difficult to contaminate the decision-making process and for corruption to flourish in the United Kingdom than elsewhere. Those who have flirted with that have rightly

  47
  paid a heavy price, and few people in this country choose politics as a means of enriching themselves. As the Neill report states:
  "The pursuit of politics is an honourable profession to which many men and women devote their lives. Behind each career politician stands a regiment of dedicated voluntary party workers".
  Thirdly, to pick up something that the Home Secretary said, there is nothing wrong in giving money to a political party. If we reject state funding—I believe that most hon. Members do—and agree with the Neill committee that
  "political parties are essential to democracy",
  giving to a political party promotes and strengthens that democracy. Indeed, Neill went on to assert:
  "We have been given no evidence that leads us to doubt that nearly all"—
  large givers—
  "give generously either because they support the general aims of the party which they finance, or in order to minimise the risk of the opposing party attaining power."
  None the less, there is a price that has been paid because people do not know who is paying how much for what and standards have been lower than they should be. The Bill can help to rebuild public confidence in the political process.
  Mr. MacShane: Before the right hon. Gentleman leaves the subject of public funding for political democracy, may I ask whether he is repudiating the £3 million that the official Opposition receive and the very handsome extra salary and the free car that the Leader of the Opposition receives, all of which is paid for by taxpayers' money?
  Sir George Young: If the hon. Gentleman had been in the Chamber in June last year when that matter was debated, he would have heard me speak on behalf of the Opposition about the implementation of the Short recommendations on the funding of Opposition parties. He will see on the record exactly what I said on that occasion.
  I shall make another general point at this stage. It relates to what I call the school governor syndrome. Many of us have been school governors—the Home Secretary may still be one—but it has become more difficult to recruit school governors, not because people are any less interested in, or committed to, the fortunes of their school, but because the responsibilities, the bureaucracy and the time required have increased to the extent that it is a less attractive proposition for a volunteer with other commitments. The same sort of risk is involved in putting our essentially voluntary political organisations into a new regulatory framework.
  Has the Home Secretary sat down with the treasurer of the Blackburn Labour party and gone through the eight pages of schedule 6, and in particular paragraph 10, which deals with the offence of failing to deliver a donation report? Has the Home Secretary discussed with him the spine-chilling schedule 19? Many local associations on all sides are working hard to balance the books, find candidates for local elections, pay the quota and pay the agent, should they have one. We need to keep an eye on the burdens that we put on voluntary organisations, not least because the problems that have arisen have been at head office rather than in the branches.
  48
  I deal now with some of the questions that have been asked. The key one, which the Home Secretary touched on towards the end of his speech, is: when will the Bill kick in? Let us assume that there will be a general election in the spring of next year and that this Bill reaches the statute book in late summer. Does the Home Secretary believe that all the Bill's provisions will be up and running in time for the next general election? The commission will need to find headquarters, recruit up to 50 people, set up the procedures for registration, give guidance on accounts and enable third parties to register.
  In November 1998, the Home Secretary said:
  "We want fair and effective controls in place for the next general election."—[Official Report, 9 November 1998; Vol. 319. c. 58.]
  If there is an election in spring 2001, schedule 8 could bite and affect campaign expenditure incurred once the Bill becomes law. All parties preparing to contest that election will need to know whether they will be fighting it under the present regime or the new one. In its leader today, The Times suggested that there may be an election this autumn. I assume that the Bill will not be implemented by then.
  The commencement date will also be of interest to those defined as third parties. Voluntary bodies with environmental interests, interests in animal welfare and in a host of other issues that come up at a general election may need to register and set up the necessary accounting arrangements if they are to play a part in the next election and stay the right side of the law. They would appreciate a little more light being shed on commencement dates.
  Will the Home Secretary rule out the holding of any referendum until the Bill's provisions are up and running? If he does so, is that not an explicit admission that the Government will go into the next election with a manifesto commitment from the last that has not been honoured—namely, the commitment to hold a referendum on an alternative to first past the post?
  On a related point, clause 10 deals with policy development grants, which will benefit everyone in this House apart, I am sorry to say, from the Member for Tatton (Mr. Bell). The Bill says that these grants are
  "to assist the party with the development of policies for inclusion in any manifesto".
  Does the Home Secretary envisage such grants being paid in time for useful work to be done by all the political parties before the next election, or is this a recommendation of Neill that will have to wait until the next Parliament to take effect?
  Clause 11 deals with education about electoral and democratic systems. Will the Electoral Commission get drawn into the debate about the merits of competing electoral systems? I very much hope that it will not. If we are to have a referendum on first past the post versus alternative vote-plus, umpired by the commission which will see fair play, we cannot also have the umpire promoting the virtues of alternative vote-plus under this clause. Those powers will need careful definition.
  The same clause gives the Electoral Commission a duty to promote public awareness of the institutions of the European Union. My understanding is that the institutions of the European Union already have a budget to do that, and I wonder whether there is a risk of duplication.
  What would be the position if there were a referendum on PR or the euro? Could public money, as dispensed by the commission by way of grants under clause 11, be used

  49
  to fund partisan campaigning? There are no safeguards in the Bill to prevent that from happening, and we shall certainly want to consider the matter again in Committee.
  Clause 22 contains a convenient subsection—subsection (8)—which grants trade unions exemption from being part of the Labour party. Twenty eight trade unions are affiliated to the Labour party, and Neill tells us that 44 per cent, of the expenditure from all political funds goes to the Labour party in affiliation fees, and much of the remainder is spent on activities or advertising likely to support the Labour party. Despite the fact that those trade unions are affiliated to the Labour party, this subsection says that they are not. Is it logical to regard those trade unions as totally separate from the Labour party when they are joined at the hip?
  We shall need a better definition of a donation and of sponsorship under clause 45. Charities that take stands at party conferences are worried that they may be caught by the definition of a donation. Firms that send delegates to the party conference might find they have inadvertently sponsored the party. What about advertisements in conference publications or in dinner programmes? Are they deemed to be donations that require shareholder approval or declarations by individuals? What about sponsorship of the passes for the Labour party conference? Does such commercial advertising require shareholders' consent?
  We need more of an explanation than we have so far had of why clause 130 on overseas voters is in the Bill, given that the Bill implements the Neill report and that that issue was not dealt with by Neill. The Committee considering the Representation of the People Bill will deal with the issue of overseas voters on Wednesday. July's White Paper made no reference to reducing the 20-year period that qualifies overseas voters. The Government have introduced this issue into the Bill, although it was not considered either by the Neill committee or by the working party on electoral procedures. Although the Labour party gave its support to a 20-year limit in 1989, it now plans to change that. I was, however, grateful for the Home Secretary's confirmation that no change would be made until after the next election and the introduction of the rolling register. I believe that some British citizens will have been entirely disfranchised by a piece of legislation for the first time since 1832.
  The Government have rejected the Neill recommendations in relation to two issues. I think that it is on the proposals for referendums that they move furthest from the recommendations and are on the thinnest ice. In paragraph 12.21, Neill clearly makes the point that, in referendums, political parties may be pitted against one another, or most of them may find themselves on the same side, or one or more may be seriously split. The report states:
  "Whatever happens in any particular case, it is clear that general rules governing the conduct of referendums cannot be based on predictions about the parties' behaviour or assumptions about their role."
  It also states:
  "The parties should certainly not be assumed to be central to all referendum campaigns".
  The Neill committee rejected the Labour party's assertion in its evidence—quoted in paragraph 12.25—that
  "the focus of any regulation should be on the political parties."
  50
  Neill concluded:
  "We do not accept that the focus of any regulation should be on the political parties. To represent referendum campaigns as merely another manifestation of the usual party political battle seems to us both misconceived in principle and false to the history of referendums since 1975. We believe that arrangements should indeed be put in place that are specific to referendums but that they should not be based on the idea that parties are the main players in the process."
  The Bill simply reinstates the arguments that the Labour party put to Neill and that Neill rejected. Indeed, anyone reading the White Paper quickly might be misled into believing that Labour had accepted Neill. Paragraph 8.2 of the White Paper states:
  "The Committee's report contains a set of recommendations on these matters which the Government accepts."
  In fact, the Government have accepted an entirely different set of recommendations.
  The position adopted in the Bill is difficult to defend. In the event of a referendum on proportional representation, the Bill allows the Labour party to spend £5 million. That money might be spent by the Home Secretary in favour of first past the post, or by the Foreign Secretary in favour of AV-plus. That Labour contribution, which might come down on either side, would dwarf the £600,000 or so received by the umbrella bodies from the taxpayer. That shows the difficulty of predicating expenditure limits for referendums on issues such as PR on reference to political parties. Similarly, there is no logic in relating such limits to the share of the vote at the last election. The issue of the referendum may not have been on the radar screen at the time of the last election, or the parties may have been split.
  As the Home Secretary knows, the Neill committee expressed concerns about the Government's proposals in its letter of 15 October. The letter says:
  "We recognise that some of your recommendations in relation to the conduct of referendums differ from our proposals quite materially, the most significant being your decision to put a cap on referendum expenditure by political parties and other organisations … however, we are concerned that the detail of your proposals could give rise to some difficulties. You have proposed that, for a United Kingdom-wide referendum, there should be a limit of £5 million for each political party with two or more Members of the House of Commons, with a similar restriction on umbrella groups. If in a particular referendum most political parties were on the same side of the argument, there would be a risk that such an arrangement could work unfairly. We are also concerned that the proposed arrangement provides a disincentive to the formation of umbrella groups, and we question whether it is right that political parties, irrespective of the number of Members … should be subject to the same £5 million cap."
  I recognise that the Government have changed the figures, but the principle enunciated by Neill—that the arrangements could work unfairly—is still valid. If there are to be limits, they should surely apply to each side of the argument rather than to individual political parties, whose members may well be on both sides of the argument. I am glad that the Home Secretary is prepared to look at the matter again.
  Mr. Brazier: I thank my right hon. Friend for allowing me to intervene on his customarily thoughtful speech. I refer to a comment that he made earlier. Regardless of whether the Home Secretary has consulted Blackburn's Labour party treasurer, is there not something faintly ridiculous in the idea that Labour might impose a

  51
  £5 million spending limit on the basis of one side of the argument, given that a recently leaked opinion poll revealed that three quarters of Labour activists were on the other side?
  Sir George Young: There would be a lively debate in the Labour party if it decided to spend £5 million in defiance of the view of many Labour party members.
  Dr. Julian Lewis: I was intrigued by the Home Secretary's comment that there would be individual spending limits on individual pressure groups. As someone who used to run advocacy pressure groups, I know that, under that regime, I would immediately split my group into two, three or four groups to get around the restriction. Does that not mean that his provisions are completely naive and meaningless?
  Sir George Young: The limits apply to each individual third party, so we could have a proliferation of third parties all spending up to the desired cap but spending in total more than anyone could under an overall cap. We will no doubt want to return to that matter in Committee.
  The Government have made a further change that did not appear in Neill. At paragraph 12.41, the Neill committee asserted that
  "we believe that … neither taxpayers' money nor the permanent Government machine … should be used to promote the Government side of the argument."
  Mr. Straw: We can discuss the matter in more detail, but what is the right hon. Gentleman saying on the issue of spending limits? He has criticised the Government, despite the fact that we have moved. Is he saying that there should be an absolute limit on spending by either side in a referendum, as in Quebec?
  Sir George Young: Neill recommended no cap at all; if one were to accept Neill's recommendation, there would be no cap. If we are to have a cap, it should be done not by reference to political parties but according to the side of the debate. I note what the Secretary of State said about Quebec. It is worth looking at. It did not sound like a killer argument. I hope that he was genuine when he said that he would look at the matter again and will do so with a view to moving the cap away from political parties and to getting a balance between both sides of the argument in a referendum.
  Mr. Field: Is it in the spirit of Neill to say that our aim should be to balance the budgets of either side of the argument? Neill puts great emphasis on the fact that a referendum campaign is different from a general election campaign. In a referendum campaign, it is important for a range of reasons to support one side of the argument to be put forward, not limited by a cap.
  The absurdity of the current Government stance is that if Paul Sykes, who has already been mentioned, had bought the Daily Mirror when it was up for sale, there would have been no expenditure limits at all and every day the Daily Mirror could have published a particular view for or against the single currency. My hon. Friend the Member for Rotherham (Mr. MacShane), despite the photograph that has been circulated, is worried about such
  52
  a campaign spending money to circulate leaflets. Is it not bizarre to say that the press should have no restrictions at all, but old-fashioned campaigning groups should?
  Sir George Young: The right hon. Gentleman makes a valid point. Neill argued against caps because he thought that they were ineffective. Even under the Bill, it will still be possible for the press to spend as much as they want until the campaigning period begins. The Home Secretary indicated that there is some unease about what is in the Bill and that he has an open mind on the matter.
  I go back to the point that I was making. Neill asserted that
  "neither taxpayers' money nor the permanent Government machine … should be used to promote the Government side of the argument."
  On that recommendation on page 66 of the White Paper, the Government have written "Agreed", but that is not the case. Under the Bill, the Government would be able to publish material on the case for a particular result until a period of 28 days leading up to the poll. That could be influential. Those two changes run the risk of creating an uneven playing field, something that Neill was keen to avoid. We will want to return to those subjects in Committee and hope that the Government will have second thoughts.
  The second area where Neill was rejected was on tax relief at the basic rate for small donations of up to £500. I notice that the Home Secretary said that he remained unpersuaded. I do not know whether that means that there is a chink of light and we may be able to persuade him. He did not seem to be so dogmatic as to reject it totally. Neill weighed up the pros and cons and came down in favour.
  Other recommendations in Neill had resource implications, but the Government have taken them in their stride. They have increased the Short money; they are helping the parties with the changes necessary for registration; they are paying £2.6 million, which is the running cost of the Electoral Commission; and they are paying £2 million, which will be allocated yearly, as policy development grants. The Government are spending a comparable sum on their own special advisers. It is difficult to argue that the £4 million in that particular recommendation would break the bank, and rejecting it exposes the Government—unnecessarily, I think—to the argument about cherry-picking and seeking advantage.
  In particular, it is perverse to criticise parties for over-dependence on large donors, but then to reject the very recommendation that would reduce that over-dependence.
  In the committee's view, the principal advantage of such a scheme was that it would encourage a different pattern to political donations, so that parties would not rely for their funding needs on a relatively small number of donors each making large donations. The committee said:
  "We have found very widespread support for the view that it is more democratic, and therefore in the public interest, that political parties should be funded by a large number of small donations rather than by a small number of large donations. A system of tax relief which increases the value to political parties of smaller donations is likely to encourage the parties to make greater efforts to obtain them."

  53
  As the Home Secretary knows, the committee wrote a letter in which it said how disappointed it was with the Government's recommendations, and invited the Government to make an estimate of the costs. The committee stated:
  "we strongly urge you to reconsider our proposals on tax relief on political donations in the light of your conclusions as to the administrative cost of their implementation."
  On those two issues, we hope that the Government will think again. The Bill will enact many of the recommendations of the Neill committee that the Opposition support. On referendum spending and on small donations, the Government have decided, so far, not to implement Neill.
  The Opposition will not divide the House on Second Reading, but we invite the Government to think again on those key issues during proceedings in Committee.
  5.27 pm
  Mr. Frank Field: The Bill is immensely important, and the House has been treated to two very serious speeches—by the Home Secretary and by the shadow Leader of the House—that bode well for the ensuing debate. I hope that my hon. Friend the Member for Cannock Chase (Dr. Wright) will forgive me for saying that I take particular pleasure in the Home Secretary's growing stature: each time that he speaks in the House, he seems even more confident in mastering his brief. Although that gives particular pleasure to Labour Members, I should hope that it pleases both sides of the House.
  I also hope that the spirit in which the Home Secretary commented on various key issues will be translated into the words on the record. All hon. Members will know only too well that, even with the best intentions, our comments do not always appear in the record as we should wish.
  I should like merely to draw the Home Secretary's attention to two aspects of his speech. First, he drew an analogy—I used one also in my intervention—between the National Audit Office and the Electoral Commission, and such a parallel can only strengthen the United Kingdom's political process. Most members of the public may not be aware of the National Audit Office, but—thank goodness—politicians and those who practise politics know only too well what that body is about and the independence that it maintains. It bodes very well for the future that the commission is being modelled on that type of success.
  The other immensely important aspect of the Home Secretary's speech was the issue of how questions are phrased not only in referendums generally, but in the referendum that most hon. Members will have in mind when debating the Bill—the one on the single currency. The Home Secretary's approach to the matter is very healthy and wholesome. No one in his right mind thinks for a moment that the Government will allow the matter to be settled by a committee. However, I welcome the Government's openness to receive opinions and their stated wish to ensure that the question is as clear and unambiguous as possible.
  We are debating changes to our electoral system at a time when politicians' stock in the country is not very high, to put it mildly. The approach of my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary and the shadow Leader of the
  54
  House can only add to the stature of politicians and political activity. That is good for everybody who is concerned with advancing and nurturing freedom.
  For the proposals on the financing of third parties that want to campaign in a referendum to be workable, we shall have to lock some people up. Otherwise, the proposals will be unworkable, resulting in us looking foolish and our stock in the country falling.
  To return to the point that I made during the intervention that my right hon. Friend kindly took, let me say that I understand how the rules will operate for outside campaigning bodies once a referendum Bill has been introduced to the House. We shall know that a clock starts ticking. The Bill will set a spending limit for the campaigning organisations that have registered. The worry is how those organisations, with the best will in the world, will remain within the law during the year before a general election. They will not know the date of a general election until the Government call it, but their expenditure in the 12 months before the election will be determined by the date of that election, even though they will have spent most of their 12-month budget before they know the date.
  There are two choices. Either all campaigning organisations accept the formula for what they can spend in the year before the election campaign—and spend it every year from now on—or they take a risk in the hope that the courts will find in their favour when they plead that they acted in good faith and spent in the normal way, not knowing when the election would be.
  Mr. MacShane: Is there not a third option—that this country joins the other mature democracies and has a fixed term for Parliament?
  Mr. Field: There are all sorts of possibilities. Just as it is not sensible to expect the Government to surrender sovereignty over the final phrasing of a referendum question, no Government are likely to give up the considerable power of choosing the date of a general election. It may be desirable for an Opposition, but it is not practical politics.
  I look forward to hearing what my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary says when he sums up later. There is much to support in the Bill, but I do not believe that the Government have got the formula right here. It is not workable—or could be made workable only by sending people to prison because they have unknowingly broken the law. In this country, the Government usually lose such cases. As with the poll tax, when the Government start sending people to prison, the rest of the country does not like it. Retrospective legislation will certainly not be popular.
  I have one further question that my hon. Friend might be kind enough to answer later, about the funding of political parties in Northern Ireland. The Bill accepts the fiction that, while the Republic of Ireland is a separate country, we regard it differently in respect of overseas donations. Sinn Fein is a party that is spread throughout the Republic of Ireland as well as Northern Ireland, and it will be able to receive contributions from its organisation south of the border. The organisation north of the border will not have to publish details of where those funds have come from, other than the fact that the money has been given to Sinn Fein.

  55
  Will we require Sinn Fein in the Republic of Ireland to publish details of where its donations come from if it transfers money to its operation in Northern Ireland? We all know that considerable numbers of Irish-Americans have a particularly twisted view of this country, and enjoy raising large sums of money to be spent in a way that causes the British Government trouble. We are attempting, quite rightly, to clean up the acts of political parties in this country, but it is wrong to allow funding from overseas donations to come to Sinn Fein in the Republic of Ireland and then be transferred to and spent in Northern Ireland—which is, after all, still part of this country.
  I welcome so many of the Bill's proposals, and the spirit in which the Home Secretary introduced the Bill today. However, I make a plea to my right hon. and hon. Friends on the Front Bench. I do not believe that they are proposing workable measures in the Bill to control the expenditure of those outside pressure groups which will necessarily wish to influence the result of a referendum. In this instance, the Neill committee's reasoning holds, and I hope that, before we progress much further, the Government will concede that point.
  5.37 pm
  Mr. Robert Maclennan: I agree with the underlying purposes of the Bill, and I accept what the right hon. Member for Birkenhead (Mr. Field) said about its importance and seriousness. I do not doubt that we shall wish to return to some of the issues that the right hon. Gentleman raised about the conduct of referendums and ensuring fairness.
  I want to express my appreciation to the Neill committee, and to the Government for proposing the Bill. Most of the measures contained within it have my support. My only concern is that the Bill does not go far enough to deal with what people on both sides of the House recognise as the serious public perception that our system of financing political parties is wide open to abuse, has been abused and has discredited the Westminster system, almost to the point at which there has been a switch-off and a withdrawal of public support. It is difficult to link that with the decline in voting on which we have remarked in earlier debates, but there is considerable concern.
  The concern was fostered by episodes such as the Polly Peck affair, and the situation was not helped by Mr. Bernie Ecclestone. Allegations have been made from both sides of the House that the honours system has been abused for funding purposes. I doubt whether the Bill by itself can remove all of those concerns but, even if a Bill cannot wipe out all the problems, that is not to say that, in itself, it is not of some value. In so far as the Bill is fostering openness about giving, it must enjoy the support of the House. We shall certainly support it tonight.
  Some of the measures are of particular value. I have long advocated, and am delighted about, the establishment of a powerful independent Electoral Commission, which will have a role in respect of referendums and of broadcasting. I dissent somewhat from the Home Secretary's view that everything in broadcasting is perfectly satisfactory. He gave the impression that the usual channels arrangements had worked admirably,
  56
  but that is not my colleagues' view. I am glad that the commission is to be allowed at least to make recommendations to the broadcasters and to engage in dialogue with them. We welcome that important safeguard, which seems not to have flowed from Neill but to be a modification by the Government, for which we are grateful.
  The Bill provides that shareholders will have some say before their money is allocated to political causes. That is not merely equitable and in line with the rights of trade union members: it is long overdue. I am happy that the provision now appears to enjoy cross-party support.
  Another important issue, which I believe stems from Neill, is that, flowing from the definition of a permissible source, it appears that younger citizens who are not on an electoral register may be debarred from giving money to a political party and perhaps even, per consequence, from joining one. That would not, I think, be the Government's wish, and it is certainly not ours. I hope that the point can be cleared up.
  Mr. Straw: People under 18 will be eligible to make donations of up to £200. I do not think that there are all that many under-18s who would want to give more than that. The Bill also contains arrangements to cover multiple donations, of up to £5,000.
  Mr. Maclennan: My concerns are partially assuaged by that. We can consider the point in Committee.
  In our desire to ensure that money does not come from foreign companies, we have had to recognise the special position of companies operating under European law and carrying on business here. As I understand it, those companies may be permitted to donate. There is an area of uncertainty in my mind about the position of European party organisations campaigning in European elections. Increasingly, as the European Parliament becomes more authoritative and more democratic, it is to be anticipated that parties will be linked. Foreign parties should not be debarred from assisting British parties, and vice versa—although that is obviously not covered by the Bill. I hope that the provisions on foreign funding sources will not unintentionally preclude such assistance.
  The Bill appears to depart surprisingly from the Neill recommendations in respect of the sanctions to be applied in the event that a party dishonestly accepts a non-permissible donation. Neill proposed that the treasurer or individual responsible for monitoring such matters might be liable to criminal prosecution and that the party might forfeit a sum of up to 10 times the offending donation.
  The Bill retains the risk of criminal prosecution, but it would subject the party only to the risk of forfeiting the original sum. That does not appear to be a particular disincentive to accepting money from unsuitable sources. We can return to the issue, but why did not the Government follow Neill's recommendation on that point?
  The right hon. Member for North-West Hampshire (Sir G. Young) mentioned another departure from Neill in respect of the taxation of donations of £500 or less to political parties. I agree with the right hon. Gentleman, because our politics would be healthier if more people were involved in the funding of political parties. If it were more widely recognised that making political donations

  57
  was a virtuous participation in democracy and the public were given every possible encouragement to do so, parties would not be driven to seek the massive funding from rich individuals that has characterised the funding of the two major political parties in the past. That valuable proposal has been dropped without adequate explanation of the Government's thinking.
  There are wider considerations concerning the encouraging of private spending initiatives. I was interested to read in The Times this morning of the Chancellor's interest in encouraging charitable spending. He even trailed some expectation that the Budget might offer some inducement to such expenditure by individuals to foster the civic society. If we are to foster the civic society by offering charitable relief, we have now a golden opportunity to restate the case for the involvement of citizens directly in their democracy through participation in the electoral process by donation. I hope that the Government will reconsider the issue.
  I am not sure of the answer to my final point of detail. The issue was raised by the Government and has been the subject of some dialogue across the Floor in this debate. I do not argue with the one-year limit on election expenditure, to be computed retrospectively, but the problem is partly a result of the nonsense that allows the Prime Minister, who is a competitor in the race, to fire the starting gun. That is a constitutional anomaly that is rare in other countries. It should be eliminated by providing a terminal date for Parliament so that no party is disadvantaged. It is much clearer to the Government when the clock will start ticking on expenditure than it can be to even the most shrewd and experienced observers of the political scene.
  My main concern is another phenomenon that has been developing. Elections in this country are increasingly fought and won in as few as 100 constituencies. Having a cut-off point for expenditure will not deal with that problem. Those constituencies that will determine the next election are identifiable today. The Home Secretary said that expenditure was end-loaded—or some such expression—but, in those constituencies, it could be front-loaded as a means of avoiding the consequences of this provision.
  Dr. Julian Lewis: In support of what the right hon. Gentleman has just said, let me say that political parties may, as the Home Secretary said, tend to concentrate most of their expenditure nearer the election or referendum than at an earlier stage. However, pressure groups will tend to take a much longer view; they will want to spend their available money much more evenly throughout the whole period, but will not know when they are allowed to start doing so.
  Mr. Maclennan: That is a fair point. It reinforces my view about the desirability of ending the uncertainty about the date of elections, so that calculations on funding and other matters can be made freely and openly. In prefacing my remarks on this point, I said that I was not sure what the answer was within the ambit of the Bill. My fear is that the limit provided will not be effective—perhaps it cannot be. Perhaps we should introduce a set and predictable date for elections.
  I believe that the Bill, although well intentioned and quite useful, so far as it goes, will not significantly alter the public perception about the possibility of buying
  58
  political support. Transparency is important and desirable—however, we have for many years seen transparency at work in other countries. In the United States, people openly give money to candidates for election to the Presidency. Millions of dollars are spent openly, yet the cynicism of the public in that country must not be under-estimated, despite the existence of complete transparency and the fact that it is possible to chart the favours bought and given for that money. An article in The Guardian pointed that out as recently as last Friday.
  I fear that, in putting all the emphasis on transparency, the Government have missed a real opportunity to do something that would really change the public perception. I regret, in particular, that they have not limited donations by individuals. This could be seen as a self-serving view from a Liberal Democrat who is incapable of summoning the kind of assistance that Mr. Bernie Ecclestone gave the Labour party. I do not for a moment deny our inability to summon to our war chest the sums of money that can be commanded by those who are either in Government or can present themselves as tolerably likely to be in Government. That is the reality—it is why that kind of money is given, and will continue to be given unless the practice is stopped.
  The Neill committee considered the issue. It pointed out that, in the 1997 election, the Labour party received 21 donations of more than £50,000, and that, in 1996–97, the Conservative-party received 119 such donations. It is simply not tenable to argue that people who donate large sums of money are not courted by senior members of those political parties. So long as that happens, and large sums of money are donated by powerful, industrial figures, the public will be suspicious about what the donors are getting in return. It is hard to deny the probability of a major quid pro quo; people do not give such sums out of the goodness of their heart, or because of their peculiar commitment to supporting democracy instead of buying a painting by El Greco.
  The only way to eradicate such suspicions is to limit donations. We proposed to the Neill committee that the limit should be £50,000, but appear to have been unable to obtain consensus in respect of that or any other figure. But the principle still needs arguing.
  If there is disappointment that the Bill does not deliver the public confidence the Government claim that they seek to secure, I hope that they will return to the issue with an open mind. Incidentally, they will probably find it more difficult to obtain such large sums of money, although perhaps not for a few years—however, that is not the point. The point is that the commitment to democracy should be spread across many more people, and donations should be capped at a much lower level. However, that would have a significant consequence for the funding of the two old political parties, as they used to be called. When elections are in the offing, the Labour and Conservative parties spend as if there were no tomorrow. Indeed, representatives gave evidence to the Neill committee of how it works from their point of view, and how they had to raise funds of more than £10 million to meet the challenges of elections.
  I think that we are spending too much on elections. We have not yet gone as far as the United States, but the need to raise such sums of money goes far beyond what is required to ensure that the issues about which the electors are being asked to decide are properly understood.

  59
  Not only is more being spent on each general election, but there is, concurrently, a requirement—which I welcome—to spend more on other elections. I refer to elections for the mayoralty in London, the Scottish Parliament, the Welsh Assembly and the European Parliament. Demand for money with which political parties can fight those elections is growing exponentially. If we do not cap donations at a lower level than that proposed by the Government, political parties will be forced to go cap in hand to rich donors and entertain them at the Dome, and the favours that the donors ask for will be more difficult to withhold.
  Mrs. Gwyneth Dunwoody: I apologise for not having heard the opening speeches. Is the right hon. Gentleman saying that he wants to change the whole electoral system in favour of proportional representation and various other major changes, while not allowing anyone to pay for it? Is he assuming that the state will pay for it all?
  Mr. Maclennan: No, I am making no such assumptions. I have not mentioned the mode of election—nor, the hon. Lady may be surprised to discover, has it even been on my mind. I am, in this part of my speech, concerned much less with the effect of the Bill on Liberal Democrat fortunes than with the business of Government. The Labour party's dependence on substantial amounts of money donated by a handful of very rich people who can then call the tune is undesirable. The hon. Lady's party argued eloquently for state funding when in opposition. The Home Secretary appeared, uncharacteristically, to have forgotten, in his reply to my earlier intervention, that, as recently as 1994, in its evidence to the Select Committee on Home Affairs, the Labour party argued that the public were prepared, and would be more prepared, for an element of state funding. I am arguing only for a cap on expenditure that is substantially below what the Bill proposes, for a cap on individual giving of around £50,000, and for a modicum of state funding for elections.
  Mr. Simon Hughes: Is my right hon. Friend aware that, just before Christmas, the Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions announced that the cap on spending for this year's London mayoral elections should be set at £990,000 per candidate? There was widespread opposition to that announcement, as it seemed to make it even more clear that yet another potentially worthwhile electoral process could be bought by the few, rather than owned by the many.
  Mr. Maclennan: I am grateful to my hon. Friend but I do not want to labour the point that I have made.
  I do not suggest that the problem of the pressure on political parties in a modern democracy that arises from the need for funding will be solved entirely by state funding. It is simply a principle that we can espouse without changing very much the direction of our thinking about our democracy. Most aspects of elections are funded by the taxpayer, and the partial state funding of political parties does not seem to me to be a very big step beyond what has long been accepted as inevitable.
  The dangers of not tackling the problem are rendered eminently clear by what is going on in Germany at the moment. But for the grace of God, the fate of
  60
  ex-Chancellor Kohl and his colleagues could be shared by a number of senior figures in this country and in the United States. We should not be as complacent as I think we are at risk of being about our own system for funding politics and political parties.
  My party and I welcome the Bill, but I hope that it will not be thought that it represents the end of the discussion. The Bill should not draw down the shutters on further steps to reinforce the process of paying for our democracy in a way that allows people to be confident that the system cannot be bought by people outside the political process, as has sometimes happened.
  6.3 pm
  Mr. David Winnick: The right hon. Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross (Mr. Maclennan) can be satisfied that the Bill will not by any means be the end of the debate.
  Speaking for the official Opposition, the right hon. Member for North-West Hampshire (Sir G. Young) said that our record in connection with funding for political parties is better than that of other countries, and I would not disagree. However, the right hon. Gentleman would agree with me, I am sure, that we should not be complacent: enough has happened in the past few years to cause a good deal of disquiet among people who would not normally be worried about party financing.
  Over the years, I and other colleagues have pressed for reform of the rules governing party funding and general election expenditure. On 12 February 1997, just before the general election, I introduced the most recent of my ten-minute Bills on the subject. I am glad to say that a good deal of what was advocated in that and in other colleagues' proposals has been incorporated in the Bill. We are making progress.
  The then Conservative Government and Labour Opposition were very critical of each other's money raising methods, and I pointed out at the time that it was difficult to understand why the matter had not been referred to the Committee on Standards in Public Life. In the circumstances, that seemed the appropriate course of action, but the then Prime Minister, the right hon. Member for Huntingdon (Mr. Major)—to whom I sent a note to the effect that I would mention him in passing in this debate—refused to do so. When the committee was set up under Lord Nolan, Labour Members pressed again and again for it to consider party funding, but the right hon. Gentleman told the House:
  "I do not believe that that is the right way to proceed."—[Official Report, 21 May 1996; Vol. 278, c. 95.]
  The right hon. Member for North-West Hampshire did not really explain why the question of funding was not considered when his party held office, but I am genuinely pleased that he has accepted much of what is in the Bill, and that he has said that the Conservative party will not vote against it tonight.
  I am pleased at that, not because there is any danger that the Government might lose in a Division, but because we are slowly approaching unanimity on the question of party expenditure and funding generally. That is useful, and will do much for British public life.
  The Bill provides that donations above £5,000 will have to be declared. I see that my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary is about to leave the Chamber. Before he

  61
  does so, I want to tell him that I should like the sum to be £2,000. That proposal may or may not be accepted in Committee, but there is a case to be made for it.
  Mr. MacShane: The experience in America is that the sum can be set at any level, because it is always divvied up. For example, if the limit is £5,000, and a person wants to donate £50,000, he can find nine others to give £5,000 each. Ways can always be found to get around any limit that is set.
  Mr. Winnick: That is an argument against any restriction being established, but I am not persuaded.
  I am also in favour, despite what my hon. Friend has just said, of restricting the amount that any individual, or members of his or her immediate family, can donate. It is unfortunate that one person can donate a very substantial amount of money, even when it is done for the best of reasons. Any such donation to the Labour party would of course be for the best of reasons, but even so I consider it undesirable that the amount is not restricted. Again, that may be a matter for consideration in Committee.
  Mr. Peter Bradley: Normally, I follow the arguments of my hon. Friend very closely, but does he not agree, on reflection, that his proposal that donations to political parties ought to be restricted to one or two members of a family is profoundly undemocratic? It is almost like saying that only one or two family members can have the vote.
  Mr. Winnick: That is my hon. Friend's view. However, it is obvious that any restriction on how much an individual can donate can be got around very easily, as a person can get his or her spouse or adult children to contribute. The real argument is whether a person should be prevented from giving more than a certain sum. My hon. Friend obviously disagrees—one of the rare instances of disagreement between us. My views are along the lines that I have advocated.
  Mr. Andrew Robathan: Would the hon. Gentleman include in his proposed restrictions the possibility that family members might make donations to different parties? Not all family members vote the same way, after all. Would the hon. Gentleman ensure that there would be an upper limit on the amount that a husband could give to one party, and on what his wife could give to another? How would he make that work?
  Mr. Winnick: That is an interesting point, which could be considered in Committee.
  Blind trusts have been the subject of a good deal of criticism. It is right that they should now be outlawed, and I welcome that. I basically believe—this has long been my view as well as that of the Labour party—that all political funding should be known, declared and above board. The proposed Electoral Commission will have a job on its hands and I can well imagine the complaints that will be made to it by the Government, the Opposition and the Liberal Democrats. Like the Committee on Standards in Public Life, it can expect such complaints and there is nothing wrong with that. However, it must have—my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary persuaded me that it will have—the powers to police fully party income and expenditure. It will no doubt issue annual reports and I
  62
  trust that the people appointed to it—I hope that they will not be the subject of any controversy—will stand no nonsense and will not be browbeaten by the Government, the Opposition or anyone else. I want to see an end to the curse of secrecy in party funding. I hope that the Bill will go a long way towards ensuring that.
  I may run the risk of being accused of making a party political point even though I said that, in so far as I could, I would try to avoid party controversy. I have already said that I welcome the fact that the Opposition will not vote against the Bill's Second Reading and that we are achieving a degree of unanimity. The Leader of the Opposition has said that Conservatives believe that foreign donations should be outlawed, so it is strange and disturbing that the Conservative party can continue to be bankrolled by a person who may be on the electoral register here but who clearly lives in another country and, moreover, is that country's representative at the United Nations. If that is not sinister, it is undesirable and disturbing, and I can well understand those Conservatives outside the House who have expressed their concerns. They are doing the Conservative party a lot of good by saying that such a state of affairs should not continue.
  In a letter to my hon. Friend the Member for The Wrekin (Mr. Bradley) that has been publicised, Lord Neill said that he considered that the manner in which the Conservative party received money through a Belize-based trust was undesirable. He said that it should not receive money from such a source. I hope that the Conservative party will consider the position. From the point of view of Labour Members, there is much to be said for such funding to continue. It provides us with ammunition and, no doubt, the Conservatives would use such ammunition if we were funded in the same way. One cannot take politics out of politics. However, given what I said about funding being above board, it would be in the interests of the public good if the Conservative party discontinued the practice of receiving money from, and being bankrolled by, someone who not only lives abroad, but takes an active role in another country's affairs. We shall see what happens in the months leading up to the next election.
  I have long argued that it is right for limits to be placed on individual candidates' expenditure and I notice what will be done about by-election expenditure. However, it makes no sense to place such a limit on the expenditure of individual candidates while allowing parties nationally to spend as much as they like. Common sense demands that things should change.
  I understand that it is more than 100 years since a limit was placed on how much could be spent on behalf of candidates. I hope that, when the provision that clearly places a limit on political parties' spending in general elections comes into force, it will be fully honoured. I have no doubt, however, that there will be complaints to the Electoral Commission, but I cannot imagine—I may be wrong, but I hope that I am not—that any future Government will change this aspect of the Bill.
  I come to company donations. It should be remembered that Labour Members made the point at the time that no trade union could ever donate money for political purposes unless it had held a ballot. Such donations would be illegal; and that law dates back to before the first world war. When the Conservative party decided that trade unions should hold a series of ballots every 10 years, Labour Members argued that that provision should also

  63
  apply to companies. Our arguments were fair and so successful that one or two trade unions that did not have a political fund decided to create one. We made the fair point that the same rules should apply to trade unions and companies alike. The right hon. Member for North-West Hampshire did not challenge that aspect of the Bill, and I am pleased about that.
  I am not altogether persuaded, however, that company and trade unions ballots will take place on an equal footing. As I understand it, company ballots will take place through a resolution at the annual meeting of a company and that there will not be a ballot of individual shareholders, as happens in trade unions. Such balloting may be impractical for companies—I do not know—but the manner in which trade unions and companies are allowed in law to make donations should be on an equal footing. That would end a good deal of controversy.
  The Bill is a landmark in the reform of political expenditure and party funding. It is a worthy measure and, even though one or two aspects of it cannot be put into practice until the following election, I am pleased that it will be on the statute book before the next election. I am pleased to support the Government who have introduced the Bill. I hope that much of the sleaze and secrecy of past years will end for good. Although I did not want to mention it, some parties were so determined to hide the way in which they raised money that they used river companies, and so on. I want to strike a non-party note as far as is possible, so I express my welcome for the Bill.
  6.17 pm
  Mr. John MacGregor: I was a member of the committee that drew up the Neill report, and I am grateful to the Home Secretary for his kind remarks about the contributions of the members of that committee. I shall not be partisan, except to point out to the hon. Member for Walsall, North (Mr. Winnick) that the Neill committee has had to make recommendations about the practices that other political parties, including the one in government, have adopted in the past year or so and, indeed, before the previous general election.
  It was a fascinating experience to be a member, as it was the first time that I had served on such a committee. Because of the thorough way in which we dealt with the issues and considered others, such as the referendum issue, that we realised were becoming important, it was fascinating to see how, over a period, members from different backgrounds came together to reach their conclusions. In that respect, I pay particular tribute to Lord Neill, whose chairmanship was admirable. The committee considered the issues thoroughly and the hearings that we undertook throughout the country and abroad—especially in Canada and the United States—were valuable.
  I warmly welcome the Government's substantial acceptance of the committee's report, which I hope will stand the test of time for many years to come. I am aware that the Electoral Commission rightly has the remit to review developments as time goes on and especially after elections, but I hope that the broad framework of the Neill report will stand the test of time. The fact that the Government and all the political parties accept that broad framework means that that is likely to happen.
  64
  I do not want to waste the House's time by simply pointing out where the Government and the Bill agree with our report and nor do I want to go through the rationale for all our recommendations. However, I wish to discuss several issues and the first is the Electoral Commission. That is one of the most important recommendations in the report, and the Government have added to the funding responsibilities of the Electoral Commission new responsibilities such as taking on those of the boundary commissions, review of electoral law and guidance on party political broadcasts. That is absolutely right. It was not within the remit of the Neill committee to make such recommendations, because they are outside the issue of funding, but it makes sense to draw all those aspects of elections into the Electoral Commission's responsibilities.
  Part VI refers to the rules relating to third parties in national election campaigns and in referendums. The importance of the recommendations on third parties should be underlined. Our experience in the United States brought that home to all members of the committee. As the House knows, the one recommendation in the committee's report with which I disagreed related to the limit on the expenditure of political parties in election campaigns, but there is obviously a broad consensus that we should go down that route.
  What is happening in the United States and, I venture to predict, will become clear in the next presidential election, is that, with the limits on spending in presidential election campaigns, there has been a rip-roaring take-off in the amount of expenditure undertaken by third party campaigners. Many of those are campaigning on specific issues, but some get very close to campaigning for a particular presidential candidate. It is easy to see how that would happen, if there were no restrictions on third parties.
  My hon. Friend the Member for New Forest, East (Dr. Lewis) referred to some of the difficulties in relation to a referendum campaign. He is right. Inevitably, when a limit is imposed on the expenditure of a political party, those who want to support that party, perhaps only on particular issues, will find ways of putting their funding into the third party campaign, rather than into the political party. There must therefore be an element of control on third parties, similar to that on political parties.
  The leader of Plaid Cymru, the right hon. Member for Caernarfon (Mr. Wigley), raised the matter of by-elections. The Government are right to impose a limit of £100,000 on by-elections. We all know that, in one way or another, the limits have been transgressed in most by-election campaigns, for an obvious reason. It is unrealistic to expect a by-election campaign to be conducted within the same limits as those that apply to an individual constituency during a general election.
  The Home Secretary was right to identify the crucial point that by-election campaigns during a Parliament, particularly from mid-term onwards, are effectively mini general election campaigns. All of us who have been involved in by-election campaigns know that the media spend an enormous amount of resources in such campaigns, which are effectively national political campaigns. It is therefore essential for the political parties to respond by sending their Cabinet or shadow Cabinet Ministers to take part in the by-election campaign. In that

  65
  context, the present limits are unrealistic. We have all turned a blind eye to what is going on, and it is right for the Bill to take a realistic approach.
  The Government have taken a different view from the Neill committee in relation to clause 46, which sets the de minimis threshold in relation to some donations that will be outside the controls in the Bill. We recommended a de minimis limit, and I was particularly keen on that, but we proposed a figure of £50. The Government took that figure up in the White Paper and invited responses. They have now proposed a limit of £200. As a practising politician—rightly, there were only a few of them on the Neill committee—I strongly support that change, for three reasons.
  The first is a rather small reason, but it was mentioned earlier by the right hon. Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross (Mr. Maclennan). Writing to the Home Secretary in his response to the White Paper, following discussion with the committee, Lord Neill drew attention to the position of young people under the age of 18. With the definition of permissible donor being restricted to those on the electoral register, young people under 18 seemed to be precluded from making contributions to political parties.
  The Home Secretary stated in his response that raising the figure to £200 would cover the point. He stressed that again this afternoon, when he responded to the right hon. Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross. He is right to say that most young people under 18 would not want to contribute more than £200 in any one year to a political party.
  As we all know, there are endless small ways in which party activists contribute to political parties. Many fund-raising events are held in the constituency. Donations of £10, £20 or £30 are made to a supper, a large proportion of which, after the cost of the food is covered, goes to party funds. Further donations are made through raffles and so on. It would be intolerable for a local organisation to have to track all such donations. That would bring the entire system into disrepute.
  The de minimis provision is right, and £200 is a more realistic figure. Having spent not far off £50 on various activities in the constituency in the first seven days of the new year, I recognise that the £50 limit was too low.
  There is a wider point, to which my right hon. Friend the Member for North-West Hampshire (Sir G. Young) referred in his opening remarks. We must be careful that the system is not so restrictive that it makes people frightened to take on the job of treasurer in the local party association. That was much in my mind when I argued for a de minimis provision.
  That is a practical matter, and an important one. It is not easy to attract people to take on the role of constituency party treasurer. If they thought that they would be responsible for tracking all those small donations, most people would be put off. I warmly support the provision in the Bill. Even in relation to the responsibilities of the national party treasurer, we must be careful not to impose possible criminal liabilities for which the treasurer cannot be fully responsible.
  Although I warmly support the move to £200, I believe that two points require further consideration. In raising them, I am not suggesting any change to the £200 limit. First, there could be a loophole in relation to foreign donors. The problem is to track back foreign
  66
  contributions. If a £200 contribution is made on a number of occasions, how can that be checked? It is worth exploring the issue in Committee, but that is not a reason for changing the figure.
  Secondly, with regard to UK donors, the individual donor will be responsible for informing the party when his overall donations exceed £200. Many innocent contributors may transgress the limit through ignorance of the fact that they must track their donations themselves. It is important that the donor's responsibility should be publicised.
  The point about young persons was one of the issues raised by Lord Neill in his letter to the Home Secretary, following the White Paper. The Home Secretary responded positively, as he did on two other issues. In clause 64 and schedule 6, it is made clear that, where donations of more than £1,000 are made to individuals, whether they are candidates for Parliament or for mayor, it will be the responsibility of that individual to disclose the donation, not the responsibility of the national treasurer.
  That is right, and not just for the reason that I do not want impossible burdens to be imposed on the national treasurer. There will be situations in which there will be donations to individuals that the national party may not be able, or may not wish, to track. The election of the mayor of London will provide a classic example of that. The candidate who may go forward for the Labour party will not necessarily be a candidate for whose campaign the party feels complete responsibility for tracking all donations. In other words, there is not necessarily an alignment between who stands for mayor and whether he or she wholly supports party policy. It is therefore right to include that clause in the Bill.
  I turn now to fairness in referendums. The key issue here was equal public funding for both umbrella organisations. In our last debate on this matter, I referred to the fact that all members of the committee were absolutely astonished by the unfairness with which the referendum for the Welsh Assembly was carried out. When we took evidence in Cardiff, it was clear that, were it not for the courage of one woman, a Labour party supporter, who took out a large overdraft at her bank, there would not have been a campaign against the Welsh Assembly. That would have meant that, although substantial funds from Government expenditure were available for the yes campaign, there would have been nothing at all for the no campaign.
  The element of fairness is best provided, above all, by having an equal public contribution for the umbrella organisation on each side. Achieving fairness by imposing a total cap on expenditure for both sides is extraordinarily difficult, which is why it is so important to keep stressing the element of having an equal public contribution to each side.
  As we have already seen from this debate, a number of difficulties will arise with expenditure caps during referendum campaigns. My hon. Friend the Member for New Forest, East referred to the difficulty that I described a moment ago, and he is right to say that there will be all sorts of ways legitimately to get round those caps. It will be impossible to impose equal expenditure caps on each side.
  The right hon. Member for Birkenhead (Mr. Field) made a good point when he referred to the possibility of funding through a national newspaper. There is no

  67
  doubt that, when there is an expenditure cap, the role of the media becomes much more important, and they can create a major imbalance if they take differing editorial attitudes to the two sides in a referendum. That is why the Neill committee found that it would be difficult to have a fair, workable system of capping in referendums. I still hold to that view, which is why I took my original view on capping as a whole.
  No doubt that matter will have to be discussed further because it is clear that there is unhappiness about it, but we must recognise that we will never have a perfect system of capping that will achieve fairness. Hence the importance of fairness in public contributions.
  In debates in the House and exchanges in the Neill committee, we took a different view from that of the Home Secretary about the moratorium on the Government's role during the run-up to a referendum campaign. I am glad that the Bill includes the 28-day moratorium, which meets our point, about which the Home Secretary was initially a little dubious.
  Mr. John Smith: I am sure that the right hon. Gentleman would not wish to give the House the wrong impression about the fairness of the referendum campaign in Wales. Is he aware that one of the key supporters of the no campaign was one of the richest men in Wales, Sir Julian Hodge, who now lives in an offshore tax haven? He is a multi-millionaire, and we know that he provided funds and resources for that campaign.
  Mr. MacGregor: I have to tell the hon. Gentleman that we went into detail on that matter in Cardiff, and it was not Sir Julian Hodge but his son who provided funds. We took evidence from him at some length, and his contribution was a good deal less than the amount that the yes campaign had. More importantly, he said that it was only when he saw press publicity about the courage of the Labour supporter who intended to fund the no campaign through an overdraft that he realised that he ought to make a contribution, so I point out that, if the Labour supporter had not taken that action, there would have been no contribution from Sir Julian Hodge's son either.
  Having said how grateful I am that the Government have responded to so many of the Neill committee's points, I shall turn to the one outstanding difference that the committee and I still have with the Government. Before I do so, I want to make detailed points to which the Minister could respond when he replies to the debate.
  The first point is one that the right hon. Member for Birkenhead made in an intervention and in his speech, and relates to the Government's decision that the campaign period for a national election should relate to the 365 days up to the election. I recognise that there is no perfect system for deciding the campaign period, and we wrestled with the matter at length, but I have considerable worries about that recommendation, for all the reasons given by the right hon. Gentleman. My right hon. Friend the Member for North-West Hampshire also referred to that issue.
  The provision is retrospective, and it is not fair to put people who may incur substantial liabilities in the position of not knowing when they embark on a particular course
  68
  of action whether it will be within the framework of the law. Political parties and, as my hon. Friend the Member for New Forest, East pointed out, third party campaigners cannot tell when the election will be.
  That is not a fair basis on which to set up a system because, as we all know, the last two years of a Parliament can often be regarded as an election period. At such times, one is always aware that there might be an election. Even in this Parliament, people are talking about there being an election within the next year. It is difficult for an organisation to plan its expenditure when it is so uncertain about what the 365-day rule refers to.
  Another problem is that the rule gives the party in power an advantage because it does at least have an idea of when the election campaign will start. I am therefore unhappy about the proposal. The Neill committee made a recommendation and, on page 125 of its report, in paragraph 10.48, it said:
  "We conclude … the precedent established by the 1983 Act"—
  which relates to constituency expenditure—
  "should be followed and that the national spending limits, like those relating to individual candidates, should apply 'before, during or after the election' and to any expenditure 'on account of or in respect of the conduct or management of the election'. We are aware that, over the years, the courts have had to construe these words in a variety of instances. We suggest that the opportunity be taken to reconsider the formulation of the definition of 'election expenses', in the light of those cases, so as to ensure that it is drafted in a way that makes clear the intention that the concept is not to be interpreted restrictively."
  I know that there are difficulties concerning that recommendation, but there are also difficulties with the proposal in the Bill.
  The one point that the Government have rejected is tax relief for small donations. My right hon. Friend the Member for North-West Hampshire read out the passage of the Neill report in which we emphasised that we thought that this should be an integrated package. That is the single main element of the Neill recommendations that has been dropped. It is important that the House should understand our case.
  I recognise that the Government will respond that the matter is, in any case, an issue for a Finance Bill. That may well be so but, as the right hon. Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross pointed out, The Times this morning said that the forthcoming Finance Bill will contain a proposal that is not a million miles away from what I am talking about. I hope that the result of this debate will be that the Home Secretary will be prepared to lobby the Chancellor about the Finance Bill.
  Mr. Peter Brooke: Will my right hon. Friend acknowledge that, if clause 128 can write into the Companies Act 1985 provisions relating to companies and how their donations are decided, there is no logical reason why provisions in this Bill should not be written into a Finance Bill?
  Mr. MacGregor: That is a fair point, and I certainly hope that, as a result of the contributions to the debate, the Government will pursue the matter in that way.
  I feel very strongly about the issue, which is an important part of the package. To make my case, I shall quote two passages from our report, one of which my

  69
  right hon. Friend the Member for North-West Hampshire has already quoted. The first passage, from the beginning of our report, sets the scene by stating:
  "The pursuit of politics is an honourable profession to which many men and women devote their lives. Behind each career politician stands a regiment of dedicated voluntary party workers."
  I shall shortly set out the relevance of that to the Home Secretary's opening speech today. The second passage is from paragraph 2.23, which says:
  "The argument here is that strong, healthy political parties are essential to the functioning of a strong, healthy democracy. In particular, strong and healthy parties are necessary as a means of recruiting ordinary citizens into decision-making positions at all levels of government, local as well as national, and also as a means of engaging very large numbers of people … in the whole democratic process. Our view is that parties are indeed essential in this way, and our recommendations"—
  especially those relating to public funding of political parties and tax relief—
  "are intended to foster vigorous party activity, especially at local level, but in ways that are consistent with the principle of openness and help to preserve both the independence and the accountability of the political parties."
  Mr. MacShane: I have listened to the right hon. Gentleman's argument about tax relief, but the fact is that my constituency contains some of the poorest people in Europe—people who are on benefits or extremely low salaries—so there is no money available for political donations, even with tax relief. I expect that Westminster, Chelsea or South Norfolk contain far more people who would be able to make such contributions, if they were enticed to do so by a tax relief. The right hon. Gentleman is merely proposing another means by which to encourage money to flow to local Conservative associations, at the expense of Labour constituency parties in much poorer parts of the country.
  Mr. MacGregor: That is the biggest load of nonsense I have heard for a long time. It certainly is not what new Labour is all about. Labour probably attracts more large donations than the Conservatives, so it cannot plead poverty. In addition, thanks to 18 years of successful Conservative Government, many Labour party supporters have incomes that are well above the basic rate of tax.
  As my right hon. Friend the Member for North-West Hampshire said, in response to the White Paper's rejection of the concept of tax relief, Lord Neill stated:
  "we strongly urge you to reconsider our proposals on tax relief on political donations in the light of your conclusions as to the administrative cost of their implementation."
  The reason is that one of the main points made in response to our recommendation was that administrative cost would be high. I challenge that claim. We framed the recommendation so that the process would not be like tracking all donations and tax reliefs relating to this country's many charities. Instead, responsibility for assessing the number of donations and the total costs and appealing to the Electoral Commission for the relief would rest on national treasurers, with the result that such requests would flow through only three or four avenues. I do not believe that the administrative issues facing the Government or the Electoral Commission would be anything other than extremely small.
  As the Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department, Lord Bassam of Brighton, admitted in a written answer in the other place on 13 October last year,
  70
  the administrative costs of a tax relief scheme have not been estimated. The members of the committee asked the Government to make such an estimate, but we have not yet received an answer. I hope that the Minister who winds up the debate is prepared to reveal the Government's estimate to the House tonight.
  I have noticed that, more recently, the Home Secretary has retreated from the argument based on administrative cost, presumably because it was not much of an argument in the first place. His argument now rests on two points: first, that such relief would amount to a form of general state aid by another route; and, secondly, the need to balance the loss of revenue against other spending priorities. Our argument is that encouraging many more smaller donors to the political parties is healthy for the political process itself and helps parties to reduce their dependence on large donors, which is also healthy. Therefore, the arguments in favour of a tax relief are civic, whereas those against it relate to cost.
  The cost would be limited, because it would be related to basic tax relief on donations of up to £500. I note that the Government have estimated that the total benefit to political parties would be about £4 million to £5 million. That is a minuscule sum compared with the £750 million spent on the dome, or the £500 million that the right hon. Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross and The Times tell us that the Chancellor is considering making available to charities through tax relief measures in his next Budget.
  In respect of his new proposals on tax relief on charitable donations, the Chancellor argues that it is a way of encouraging "a new civic patriotism". I believe that there is no better way of demonstrating such civic patriotism than playing a full and healthy part in our democracy through our political parties. The Home Secretary echoed that thought several times during his speech today, referring to the importance of political donations as a crucial link between the Government and local communities, and to those who recognise their civic responsibilities and duties and who play a part in political parties. He laid great emphasis on the contribution of political parties to civil life.
  It would add little to the £500 million for charities to allow tax relief on modest political donations. I plead with the Government to reconsider their attitude. The Neill committee regarded its recommendations as an integrated package, and saw a tax relief scheme as a means of compensating political parties for the undoubted results of the Bill's being passed, in that it will be less easy to raise money from sources that have until now been major contributors. If we are to have a healthy political scene, it will be essential to encourage more small donations.
  My one regret is that the Government have not taken up the recommendation on tax relief, but I generally welcome the way in which they have responded to the Neill report. Subject to one or two minor reservations and the larger one relating to tax relief, I am delighted with the Bill.
  6.47 pm
  Dr. Alan Whitehead: The Bill is important because it recognises three long-standing constitutional fictions, places them under the spotlight, defines them and takes action on them. I welcome the all-party support that has been displayed during

  71
  the debate, but have to point out that, in the past, the Conservative party has prospered from the maintenance of those fictions, despite widespread evidence of public disquiet about less-than-straightforward party funding arrangements.
  The first of those constitutional fictions is that elections are contested by the individuals listed on the ballot paper who, under relatively recent legislation, may—if they want to—provide a party label to guide voters. In reality, elections are, to an overwhelming extent, conducted by parties. We Members of Parliament might choose to believe that our fabulous personalities and stirring deeds are the factors that sway voters. There is no doubt that, to a certain extent, each election hinges on the merits or otherwise of the candidates, but not to the extent that is sometimes pretended. In truth, most people vote primarily for a party and for the candidate on the ballot paper who has secured the support of that party.
  Dr. Julian Lewis: Does not the logic of the hon. Gentleman's argument suggest that the hon. Member for Witney (Mr. Woodward) should now submit himself to a by-election, given that it was the Conservative party, not him personally, for which his constituents voted at the last general election?
  Dr. Whitehead: As the hon. Gentleman knows, I was referring to the position in general elections. Unfortunately, it is not custom and practice in the House for everyone who crosses the Floor to submit to a by-election. Some hon. Members who are present in the debate were previously members of other parties.
  In general elections, the national campaign plays a substantial role in voters' behaviour at the ballot box. It is a constitutional fiction that local party members have nothing to do with the public's view of the national party's campaign. It is right to take steps to regulate parties' conduct in elections. The public have a right to know that their representative is who he or she claims to be, and that the party supports its local representative's campaign ethically and openly. Who funds the party and the means by which it is funded is therefore important. The limit on national spending restores reality to a constitutional fiction.
  Those who have stood for election, especially in the sort of marginal seats that the right hon. Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross (Mr. Maclennan) described as the key battlegrounds of modern elections, will recognise the sense of wonder and puzzlement that candidates experience as they struggle to ensure that they remain within the local spending limits, only to find that a national party has moved in and bought all the poster sites. That happened to me, and, regrettably, the party was not mine. When that happens, the local campaign appears ludicrous to many members of the public. Strict limits are demanded locally, while a parallel campaign takes place in those key battlegrounds, funded from who knows where. Candidates can also find that a supposed non-party organisation—a third party—which is well funded from opaque outside sources is campaigning hard against them. That biases election expenditure against the logical intention of the local expenditure limit.
  That leads to a second constitutional fiction. It makes no sense to keep to local expenditure limits while arguing for a free-for-all national limit, especially as that results
  72
  in the outcomes that I have described. American research shows that money thrown at a campaign seems to make a difference. In United States proposition and referendum campaigns, money seems to talk.
  In a seminal book on the subject, Thomas Cronin analysed a series of American referendums and propositions and the difference in expenditure between two sides, which varied between three to one and 200 to one. He also analysed specific referendum and proposition campaigns as they progressed. He considered public opinion that favoured an initiative when it was first presented, examined the funding for the campaigns and looked at the result. Two examples, plucked at random, are instructive.
  In Montana, the proposition was:
  "Shall a mandatory 5 cent deposit be placed on beer and soda cans and bottles if, by 1983, 85 per cent. of such containers are not being voluntarily recycled?"
  The proponents spent $12,000 and the opponents spent $500,000. Initially, 70 per cent, agreed with the proposition; only 29 per cent, voted for it.
  In California, the proposition was:
  "Shall a 10 per cent. surtax be placed on oil company profits from California sales proceeds from which tax to be used for improved public transportation?"
  The proponents spent $400,000, while the opponents—the oil companies—spent $5,770,000. Three months before the vote, 66 per cent. of the population agreed with the proposition, but the eventual vote in favour was 44 per cent. On an American analysis, throwing money at a referendum campaign can change the outcome. The public are properly concerned about that.
  The third constitutional fiction is that the United Kingdom eschews referendums. To bend the famous saying, the British constitution does not take account of referendums except when it does. That has led to ad hoc arrangements for the referendums that have taken place. It is high time that a comprehensive system of regulation for referendums was established, especially as they are set to become a far more regular feature of the United Kingdom political scene in future.
  I strongly support giving the Bill a Second Reading tonight. However, in the spirit of the dialogue that is taking place in the Chamber, I hope that several points will be examined closely in Committee. First, I hope that third-party election campaigning will be considered. The hon. Member for New Forest, East (Dr. Lewis) mentioned that earlier. He said that he was head of a political action organisation and that he would have split his organisation into four. I devised names for the four sections: Friends of the Bomb, Amis de la Bombe, Cold War Warriors and Catch a Spy Inc. All those organisations could contribute to a campaign. The hon. Gentleman was right to say that that had happened in the United States and that fractured campaigning money gets around regulations on third-party funding. I do not have any immediate suggestions on how to deal with that, but I hope that the Committee will examine the matter in some detail.
  The second point is about referendums. The Bill is sensible: the Electoral Commission will designate relevant campaigning organisations when there are two possible answers and set boundaries on campaign funding during referendums. However, the Bill does not provide for responsibility for regulating referendums that do not cover at least the area of a regional development agency.

  73
  That excludes many referendums on the organisation and structure of local government, some of which will cover an area as large as a county or a city of 1 million or more people. They may attract considerable funding. Unlike referendums that are within the scope of the Electoral Commission, they may be triggered by what is effectively a proposition campaign—a campaign to gather sufficient signatures to trigger the referendum. Therefore, they have an entirely different dimension.
  Mr. MacShane: I have listened to my hon. Friend's argument with great interest. Is he not saying that the Bill is unlikely to be the last word? We are opening a Pandora's box. As democracy, devolution and other democratic consultations take off under new Labour's programme, the House and society will have to return to the issues that the Bill covers.
  Dr. Whitehead: My hon. Friend is right. It may be a good idea at this stage to ascertain whether account can be taken in Committee of the fact that referendums in Britain are here to stay at different levels of government. They need proper regulation to secure public confidence in their outcomes.
  I mentioned setting up referendums that are triggered locally. We have made the assumption that national referendums are generally triggered by Government and agreed by Parliament. It is interesting that the Local Government Bill, which is currently before another place, provides that a referendum can be triggered locally by a write-in vote of 5 per cent. of the population requiring a local authority to set up a referendum on whether they should have an elected mayor. Under those circumstances, the campaign to trigger the referendum has life, funding and other attendant attributes. In the United States, signature harvesting for propositions, especially when they are backed by commercial interests, has a substantial financial life of its own. It may be undertaken by companies that specialise in gathering signatures. They may be paid per every 1,000 signatures and make a substantial sum of money. We may ask ourselves whether we would like that practice in the United Kingdom.
  I note that the Local Government Bill, which was published before Christmas and is currently proceeding in the other place, provides only in clause 30 for the Secretary of State to
  "make provision as to the conduct of referendums."
  The categories listed in clause 36, however, which may be the subject of the Secretary of State's regulation, significantly do not include the regulation of either the finance of a referendum or the process of gathering signatures to trigger one.
  Clause 118 prohibits the publishing of promotional material on referendums by local authorities. That provision may be regarded as applicable only to regional or national referendums. I hope that that is the case; otherwise we shall be left in the difficult position where anybody but a local authority can publicise a local or sub-regional referendum. We have no clarification of the extent to which a local authority can or cannot pursue a position that it has reached in the light of a referendum triggered in its area. We are told that all that will be the subject of separate regulation, but it might be prudent to add to the remit of the Electoral Commission by extending its overall responsibilities on the fair conduct of
  74
  referendums to provide some overall input to the conduct of sub-regional and local referendums in order that the regulations arising from the Local Government Bill are not seen to be at odds with those arising from this Bill.
  There is a further possible anomaly that I hope might be looked at in Committee. Clause 95 specifies that the Bill will apply
  "to any referendum held throughout … the United Kingdom … Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland … or any region in England specified in Schedule 1 to the Regional Development Agencies Act 1998."
  That schedule defines the areas that are, broadly speaking, coterminous with the pre-existing boundaries of the Government offices for the regions, which make up the regional development agency areas. That has been the basis on which RDAs have been set up, but the Government have committed themselves, in the fullness of time, to the development of elected regional assemblies, which I applaud, provided that they represent the will of the people in the region. That reflects the comment of my hon. Friend the Member for Rotherham (Mr. MacShane). The Green Paper on RDAs envisaged that some form of legitimisation by referendum or similar means would be required to achieve that so a further category of referendum could arise, which is, one assumes, the reason for the provision that a referendum in a region shall be covered by the provisions of the Bill.
  It is by no means certain, however, that a referendum to establish a regional assembly would be conducted in an area coterminous with the present RDA boundaries. Indeed, it has been suggested that the decision to go for a referendum might be within the competence of the regional chambers established to run alongside RDAs. As regional boundaries are presently a given and arise from Government offices for the regions' boundaries, does it follow that every region would want a referendum to take place within the boundary that it was given when it was set up? Is it likely that exactly the current boundaries in the south-east or the south-west, for example, would form the basis for a successful referendum on a regional assembly? As matters stand, and from my reading of the Bill, it appears that that is the case. If not, a resulting referendum would not be regulated by anybody.
  Those are elements of the Bill which I believe that it is important to get right, but overall they are small matters in relation to the change that will be achieved by the passage of the Bill itself, which will strike a great blow for public confidence in the integrity of the electoral system that they rely on for the validation of public decisions. The electors will know that the political parties that represent them and seek their votes are properly constituted and transparently funded and that the conduct of elections and referendums by those parties is fair and unswayed by people throwing money at them, either directly or indirectly. That change is incalculably important to the maintenance of the integrity of the political process of the United Kingdom and the probity and even-handedness of its electoral procedures.
  7.4 pm
  Mr. Peter Brooke: One of the pleasures of debates of this particular sort, in which there is broad agreement about what is being debated, is that, when one side is being rude

  75
  about the other, it does so in a civilised manner. I thank the hon. Member for Southampton, Test (Dr. Whitehead), who made some allusions to my party in the early stages of his speech, for having maintained that very civilised tradition.
  On 9 November 1998, when we debated the Neill committee proposals for the first time, the Home Secretary, for reasons I can only guess at, suggested that political excess was uniquely a feature of the previous 19 years. I animadverted on that later in the debate—there was an element of rewriting history in those remarks—but I am delighted that his speech today went back to the 1880s, although he regarded the events of 1880 as especially excessive, even after a series of anti-corruption measures had been passed. As I remarked in columns 96 and 97 of Hansard, the excesses of the 1880 election—16 separate petitions were argued, eight Members lost their seats and seven towns were disfranchised—gave rise to the 1883 anti-corruption legislation, which transformed the political landscape. The highly beneficial effect of that legislation, which I quoted that evening, was the academic verdict of the principal authority on those matters, which was that
  "the cut in permitted spending led directly to the growth of political participation."
  Political corruption, I fear, does not go back only to the 1880s; it goes back to the 1780s as well. I was once the Paymaster General. The apogee of corruption in the Paymaster General's office—in the 18th century it was a profitable office to hold—came in 1781 when Lord North, fresh from losing the American colonies, instituted an investigation of that office for embezzlement: six Paymasters General were pursued beyond the grave and Lord North himself was found to owe a bob or two. Since nothing changes in our history, the great Edmund Burke was appointed Paymaster General in the capacity of Mr. Clean and took through the House in 1782 a Bill that said that the penalty for forging the Paymaster General's signature shall be death without benefit of clergy. That was amended 25 years later by the House, which is more lenient than the Executive, and the penalty was translated to 14 years in Australia. I am bound to say that I thought 14 years in Australia a heavy price to pay for forging my signature.
  Mr. MacShane: Does the right hon. Gentleman remember that the former right hon. Member for Thanet, South, Mr. Jonathan Aitken, was once Paymaster General in his Government? Things never change in the House, do they?
  Mr. Brooke: The hon. Gentleman runs the risk of being too clever. My former right hon. Friend, who represented Thanet, South, was never Paymaster General. If I may say so, it is a mistake for people in glass houses to throw stones.
  The Bill, which I welcome, comes in a long tradition of such clean-up legislation, but I share the view of my right hon. Friends the Members for North-West Hampshire (Sir G. Young) and for South Norfolk (Mr. MacGregor) and the right hon. Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross (Mr. Maclennan) that, if we are to secure again the academic verdict that I quoted a moment ago, the tax encouragement of small
  76
  donations is desirable. The argument of the hon. Member for Rotherham (Mr. MacShane), which he deployed on my right hon. Friend the Member for South Norfolk, could be equally applied to tax encouragement for charities, but I do not imagine that he will be doing that when the Chancellor of the Exchequer introduces such proposals in the Budget.
  Like the right hon. Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross and my right hon. Friend the Member for South Norfolk, I noticed the irony of the Chancellor taking his second bite of this particular charitable cherry in the context of taxation this very day, having taken his first bite in the pre-Budget statement late last year. I particularly noticed, too, his emphasis on civic virtues. The previous Government, in 1986 and thereafter, made changes to taxation in relation to charitable giving. My right hon. Friend the Member for South Norfolk was a Treasury Minister at the time, as I was, and we had some responsibility for that.
  It is significant that one of the central features of the announcements that the Chancellor made today was the proposal to sweep away the limits on gift aid and to make gift aid possible at any level of gift. That is an irony. The Government are saying that it is too complicated and would be administratively impossible to introduce the tax encouragement of small donations for political parties at the very moment when they are earning the plaudits of the charitable lobby by changing the regulations on gift aid—or at least we assume that they will do so.
  On corporate donations, my right hon. Friend the Member for South Norfolk and the right hon. Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross will recall the Committee stage of the 1978 Companies Bill. My right hon. Friend was the Opposition Whip, and the right hon. Gentleman was one of the Ministers steering the Bill through the House. The late Ian Mikardo introduced amendments to that Bill that would have achieved the objectives of clause 128 of the Bill that we are considering tonight. I recall that either the right hon. Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross or his colleague, the present Minister for the Environment, entertained Opposition Members by the skill with which they deflected Mr. Mikardo's amendments and argued that they should not be part of the Bill.
  If we are to have clause 128, there is the hazard of a read-across to the issue that my right hon. Friend the Member for North-West Hampshire raised about determining referendum expenditure via political parties, because that carries the potential for an internal vote within political parties to decide on which side that party's expenditure is to be expended in the referendum or in what proportions. Such a split in funding is commonplace in north America. When I lived there, great corporations quite cheerfully gave equal sums to both sides of the argument. It was up to them to decide in what way that served their shareholders' interests, but it was a feasible proposition.
  Subsequent to my right hon. Friend the Member for North-West Hampshire, the right hon. Member for Birkenhead (Mr. Field) concentrated on the timing of expenditure. The Government's present proposals at best resemble the useless advice to a man with cramp that he should have taken salt three days before, and at worst recall that bizarre episode in the 1920s when summertime was introduced. In the other place, an hereditary peer,

  77
  whose descendant has perhaps survived the Government's axe in the past couple of months, argued that the wife of an hereditary peer, hitherto childless, could give birth to twins on either side of the midnight hour at which summertime either came in or went out, which would have affected the primogeniture. With that degree of relativity on the timing of expenditure, the Government's present proposals run the risk of taking them into the theatre of the absurd.
  Mr. Maclennan: Before the right hon. Gentleman leaves that interesting, historical account, it might be of interest to place on record the fact, which I freely admit, that the line that I took in debates on the 1978 Companies Bill on the late Mr. Mikardo's amendment was forced on me by the late Mr. John Smith, who was not satisfied that the unions would accept a straight no, which I would have preferred because it would have made my life a lot easier and enabled me to bring the matter to a conclusion quickly.
  Mr. Brooke: It is a feature of these debates that, when we make these occasional forays down incidental byways, we pick up all sorts of interesting information from other travellers along the same road.
  I want to refer to four final minutiae. First, I notice in clause 2(2)(b) that the Prime Minister's consistent practice of moving key Executive jobs from this House into the other place, where Ministers are not able to be cross-examined by elected Members of this House, may soon claim the scalp of the Home Secretary. It is conceivable that, under this legislation, the Home Secretary could find himself serving in the House of Lords.
  Secondly, in 1989 I was involved in negotiating the first reforms on expenditure for by-elections and the trend towards realism. I wholly support the Government's proposals, as did my right hon. Friend the Member for South Norfolk. I support the Home Secretary's assertion that it was all different 40 years ago with the observation that, in the 1945–50 Parliament, the then Opposition did not win a single by-election yet they reduced the Government's majority from 150 to six at the general election in 1950. That is an index of how different by-elections were in those days.
  Thirdly, although I was responsible for negotiating the 20-year rule with Lord Hattersley, and Walworth road, I agree—in this respect I am echoing an earlier exchange involving the hon. Member for Crewe and Nantwich (Mrs. Dunwoody)—that, although it has been introduced in the Bill rather less than gloriously, the 10-year rule will make it much easier to verify the residential credentials of someone who has been abroad for some time.
  Finally, I do not apologise to the hon. Member for Rotherham, because he has been playing an active part in the debate, and one of the consequences of that is that he may get caught in the crossfire. When he said of a particular European issue in the domain of the Bill that he hoped that the Government and the Neill committee would attend to it, I hope that it was a slip of the tongue and that what he meant was that the Neill committee and the Government would attend to it, for it is much better that these matters are dealt with by the Neill committee first.
  7.17 pm
  Mr. Denis MacShane: It is a pleasure to follow the right hon. Member for Cities of London and Westminster (Mr. Brooke). The Bill is far more complicated than it seems at first sight, as this issue has begun to unravel as a great public problem. The right hon. Member for Cities of London and Westminster referred to the corruptions of the 1780s and the 1880s. Those of us who enjoy our Trollope will know that buying seats and being dismissed from a seat were key issues in all his great novels.
  In his reply to my intervention, the right hon. Gentleman talked of people living in glass houses. I patted my wallet trying to think of what he might mean. His former right hon. Friend, to whom I referred, Mr. Jonathan Aitken, was once Chief Secretary, which is a superior, modern form of Paymaster General. I do not want to be partisan, but the plain fact is that the creation of the Neill committee and this extremely complicated Bill stem from the financing of the Conservative party as revealed in the past decade, although I could include the whole of the last century. We have not mentioned the occult financing from Greek shipping millionaires and Hong Kong millionaires. We know about Neil Hamilton and Mohamed A1 Fayed. I regret the fact that Mr. Michael Ashcroft has capitulated to The Times and has not had his day in court. I expect that the trial would have led to the same humiliation that has been visited on the former hon. Member for Tatton.
  Mr. Robathan: The hon. Gentleman's comments have been typical. Why does he not also mention Mr. Bernie Ecclestone and that well-known gentleman, Robert Maxwell, who was a donator to the Labour party? The Labour party might give back some of the money to the Maxwell pensioners.
  Mr. MacShane: As is well known, the Labour party returned Mr. Ecclestone's cheque. The huge difference is that, the more isolationist the Conservative party has become in recent years, the more it depends on foreign funding and offshore money of one sort or another. That is the political reality, and it has led to this extremely complex Bill, about which I have some questions to put to my hon. Friend the Minister. It is a long Bill: it has 175 pages. Moreover, schedule 19 specifies no fewer than 106 offences for which members of the public involved in politics might be fined or put in prison. I think that the office of party treasurer, nationally, regionally or in constituencies, will become extremely sensitive.
  I want to focus on just three elements of what is a long and complex Bill. I strongly believe that this is not the last word. I think we all salute the work of the Neill committee, although I disagree with its recommendations on tax relief for political donations. Let me repeat what I have already said. In my constituency, wages are low, and many people are on benefits because of the wicked policies implemented by the Conservative party over the past 20 years. In South Yorkshire the chances of raising money for either party are slim, but I think that a tax-relief incentive would benefit, mainly and unfairly, the Conservative party, and I consider that, rather than administrative complexities, to be a good and principled reason for rejecting it.
  I fear that we shall have to search for Solomons to sit on the Electoral Commission. Party politics is a passionate business, involving not just sums of money in connection

  79
  with the conduct of elections, but for the winners of an election the control of some 40 per cent. of the total wealth of any modern nation. That is why the question of party political funding has been so sensitive in all the advanced democracies. It has done huge damage to politicians in all parties. One example is Chancellor Kohl. I broadly support increased public funds for democracy. In Germany, there is almost limitless cash for party political operations—for political parties and their foundations—yet Chancellor Kohl faces criminal charges because he took secret funds from different donors, and spent them without any public accountability. I therefore welcome the acceptance of the principle of transparency, which I think is reflected throughout the Bill.
  My hon. Friend the Minister may not reply to this point tonight, but I hope that he will consider the issue of overseas voters. I feel uneasy about the decision to reduce the franchise for the first time in decades, if not hundreds of years. I was going to say that I felt uneasy about voting in favour of that, but it appears that there is to be no division. A huge number of British citizens live overseas, and feel passionately that they are British. They feel that they have a strong connection with this country, and that the defining moment of citizenship is the moment when they can cast their vote.
  The House of Commons Library has done some research for me. According to the latest estimates, which date back to 1993, there are 8.6 million British nationals living overseas, 650,000 of whom are in Europe. In 1997, 214,000 United Kingdom service personnel were posted overseas, and 840,000 United Kingdom state pensions are paid to pensioners living in countries throughout the world.
  It used to be said that there should be no taxation without representation. I am not sure whether we should now say that there should be no receipt of welfare benefits without representation. Many British men and women go abroad to work for international organisations. They may be employed by a British company, and have been posted overseas, or perhaps to work for a non-governmental organisation. Such people may marry and live overseas for 10 or 15 years. The House should think carefully before telling them suddenly that their key, core citizenship right of voting is to be taken away.
  Mr. Andrew Mackinlay: Has my hon. Friend observed that, regrettably, the Bill has not been used to remedy the wrong whereby people living in Gibraltar, who are European Union citizens, must still suffer the democratic deficit—both in relation to the EU itself, although the European Court of Justice has found in their favour, and in another regard? Ultimately, their Government are here, and this is their Parliament. If we go to war, the people of Gibraltar cannot say, "If you don't mind, we will sit this one out."; they are committed. Yet, unlike comparable territories connected with the Netherlands, France, Spain and the United States, they have no representation.
  It is shameful that we should call ourselves a democracy while people peppered around the globe have no vote and no representation in this place. I am sorry that
  80
  the Government did not use this opportunity to recognise the existence of a wrong and remedy it, and I hope that they will think again soon.
  Mr. MacShane: My hon. Friend has made some fascinating points. I am pleased that I have the confidence of constituents, and hope to retain it in order to continue to be the hon. Member for Rotherham. However, there may be those who would like to be hon. Members for Gibraltar, the British Virgin Islands, St. Helena, Belize or other leftovers from the British empire. My hon. Friend was right to draw our attention to the anomalies involved, although I am not sure whether the Bill will resolve them.
  The question of the removal, or reduction, of the right of overseas British citizens to vote is important. Other Bills being considered extend the right of members of the Irish Republic, a sovereign foreign state, not just to vote but to participate, as candidates, in our political procedures. We have extended the right to vote in local and European elections to the many hundreds of thousands of European Union citizens who live in the United Kingdom. I agree with that entirely. In his new year address, the Prime Minister said that Britain would never succeed as a nation isolated from Europe and the rest of the world. We would send out quite the wrong message if we told our citizens who live overseas, temporarily or in the longer term, that, after 10 years, they could not vote. If something is wrong in principle, it should be stopped immediately. The 10-year cut-off makes no sense.
  Later in the year, some of us will attend parties organised by the Democrats abroad to promote candidates in the US presidential election. Supporters of the Opposition may attend parties organised by the Republicans abroad. The United States, that great democracy, encourages American citizens living overseas to participate fully in the American electoral process. Each country has different rules, and I do not wish to generalise but, on the whole, the trend is in the opposite direction to that proposed in the Bill. As we begin to live in a more international community, other countries are trying to involve their citizens overseas by allowing them to vote.
  I do not expect my hon. Friend the Minister to give me a direct reply tonight, but perhaps the Government will agree to consider this again in Committee. Although few of those concerned register or vote, I know that there will be immense disappointment about the removal of this connection with Britain.
  In regard to the financing of referendums, the Neill committee seems to have strained at gnats, while being prepared to swallow camels. The plain fact is that the great referendum campaign in regard to whether Britain remains a full member of Europe is already under way.
  Earlier, I showed the Home Secretary a rather flattering picture of me that Mr. Paul Sykes has caused to be circulated in my constituency: he has put up huge posters of a young, better-looking Denis MacShane. Friends of mine in Rotherham have telephoned me to say "Gosh! Who is paying for all this? I did not realise that the Labour party had all this money." A young chap is beaming down at the good voters of Rotherham. I do not really look like that any more, do I?
  The big print simply says "Denis MacShane". The small print contains the anti-European diatribe from Mr. Sykes, who, according to the Yorkshire Post, has said

  81
  that he is prepared to spend £235 million on his campaign against Europe. He is not alone: the entire foreign-owned press in this country campaigns, day after day, against Europe, or specifically against the European currency. They have a right to do so, but let us have no nonsense that a public debate will start only when we come to a referendum, whenever that is after the five economic tests and so forth have been met. There are a number of anti-European bodies. One is headed by Lord David Owen and seems to have people allocated to it from The Times. These outfits are working assiduously and already occupy a huge amount of terrain. I am not quite sure how one can effectively counter that, but the idea that the Bill will in any way aid parties and organisations that are not anti-European is plain nonsense. I do not think that the Neill committee can deal with that matter; nor can the Bill completely.
  Dr. Julian Lewis: In the interests of fairness to Lord Owen, I am sure that the hon. Gentleman would, on reflection, think that he should describe Lord Owen and his campaign as very much in favour of Europe and of this country's membership of it, but against Britain joining the single European currency, a view that is shared by at least 64 per cent. of the electorate.
  Mr. MacShane: One of the things that I have got used to is people saying, "We are in favour of Europe, but we do not like the social chapter. We are in favour of Europe, but we do not like the single currency. We are in favour of Europe, but we do not like common agricultural policy. We are in favour of Europe, but we do not like the European Commission. We are in favour of Europe, but we do not like Mr. Santer, Mr. Prodi, Mr. Patten or the recently ennobled Lord Brittan." As Abba Eban said in a slightly different context, that is just semantic fiction. We should bury that silly word "Euro-sceptic." Those who are anti-European should be honest, as the hon. Gentleman is, and come out and say so.
  I welcome Clause 11, which deals with the funding of policy discussion. We already have a considerable amount of state funding—funding by the taxpayer. Whatever the words to disguise it, £3 million goes straight to the Opposition Front-Bench team. An enhanced salary has been created only in recent years for the Leader of the Opposition. The chauffeur-driven car that he enjoys is a perk that is worth a good deal of cash.
  I have no problems with that, but I should like us to go a stage further. Whether that can be done through amendment in Committee, or is something that the Neill committee has to come back to remains to be seen, but it is necessary for political parties to have the resources to carry out effective discussion and education about a policy.
  Older members of the Conservative party will remember how, after 1945, it made a comeback because it became a mass party again. It opened great centres for political education. The Conservative party adjusted to the new realities of the post-war world through extensive policy discussion and debate. Too much of our country's discussion on policy, on political ideas and on what Government policy of the day should be is in the hands of editors of newspaper opinion pages, or is based on the big speeches of party leaders. Often, those are distorted from all sides—I am not making a Labour party point—
  82
  by the way that they are reported in the press. To counter this, none of the parties has adequate resources for policy education and discussion.
  The Bill suggests that the Electoral Commission could in any financial year make available £2 million of so-called policy development grants to political parties. I welcome that but, if we assume that that money will be divided up just between the three main parties, each year they will get £650,000 which, if divided into 659 constituencies, is about £1,000 for each constituency. If we divide that by the average number of voters in each constituency, it comes to about 1p per voter each year for policy discussion.
  I hope that that is not a reductio ad absurdum argument, but, as an American senator once said, when we add £1 million, £1 million and £1 million, we begin to have real money, but when we divide £2 million between the political parties, activists and constituencies, it does not add up to much.
  If we are, as a Parliament and as political parties, to win back some control over our democracy from the men of money and the organisations of money, we will have to make education about policy part of our political party process. That will require funding. It is good that schools are starting civic education, but that will be of no use if political parties do not have the resources to carry it forward. The Electoral Commission is exactly the right body to oversee the payment of that money and to ensure that it is not given to parties to be used at the pleasure of the party leadership, but spent properly on policy discussion and debate.
  I welcome the Bill. It will help to reassure the public that the massive vote that they gave the Labour party to form the Government is being used to introduce law that will not only end the scandals that have disfigured our politics and gravely damaged what was once a great political party, the Conservative party, but to usher in continuing debate about the need for the people and their elected representatives to regain some control over the political process.
  I know that we are a property-owning democracy, but property, capital and money should not own democracy. The Bill is the beginning of reclaiming the right of people and their elected representatives to have some control over the policy and the political parties that govern in their name.
  7.36 pm
  Mr. Martin Bell: I aim to give the shortest speech in the debate and, of course, the only one that comes from a non-party perspective. I do not have a party; I do not want a party. I am not showered with the largesse of Short money. I do not seek Short money. The proper posture for the Tatton Independent is one of cheerful frugality, but I was elected on an issue of trust. I care about trust, and the people of Tatton showed spectacularly that they cared about it.
  This important Bill is, significantly, about trust. It is about the essence of our democracy. It is about the way in which we prevent abuses. For the first time, there are provisions to control our political parties, which up to now have been getting and spending money and wasting their powers as they wished because no legislation existed. Amazingly, until now, they have been operating

  83
  more or less in a free-fire zone. Our electoral law is based on the electoral law of 1883, which was most recently revised in 1983. Some change is long overdue.
  I have nothing against political parties. I regard them as necessary—I would not even say necessary evils. They are necessary for sound and stable government, although it is possible to have one or two Members of Parliament outside the party system, but the parties' power has increased, is increasing and should be diminished.
  For that reason, I welcome the Bill. To some extent, it reins in the excesses of party spending and party funding. Essentially, the parties are raising more money than they can safely spend. That is part of the problem.
  I welcome, as I know that many other Members will, the ban on foreign funding. I welcome, as I know that they will, the greater transparency on the point at which donors should be named. I do not welcome—it is the fundamental flaw of the Bill, and of the Neill report—the relatively large amount of money that the parties are allowed to spend. In the last general election, the two main parties spent more than £25 million each. At the next election, they will be able to spend nearly £20 million.
  Where does the Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department think that money is coming from? Is it coming from the little people? Is it coming from the rank and file? Is it coming from ordinary members, from whom it can safely be raised—from the rubber chicken dinners? There are not enough rubber chickens out there. There are not enough party regulars with the will to eat them to raise that kind of money. This is an important reservation, as it goes to the heart of some of the abuses of recent years.
  If I may correct the hon. Member for Rotherham (Mr. MacShane), it was an American congressman who said:
  "A million dollars here, a million dollars there, and very soon you're talking about real money".
  Today, we are talking about real and serious money, but I do not understand how any party will be able to raise it safely to the extent allowed in the Bill.
  Is it possible that new members and new contributions will be attracted to the Labour party by some of its innovations, such as the closed list system in the European elections, the extension of the property franchise in elections in the City of London—the last rotten borough in Britain—or the decision to use an electoral college to select Labour's candidate for mayor of London? It seems to me that those proposals are undemocratic, and that there is an undemocratic element at the Bill's heart: it concerns how the money will be raised.
  In evidence to the Neill committee, I suggested that each party be allowed to spend an upper limit of £2 million in a general election. Andrew Rawnsley, of The Observer, suggested that the figure should be £5 million. Whatever the figure is, it will have to be within the reach of ordinary party members. If it is not, where will the money come from, if not from the Bernie Ecclestones and Michael Ashcrofts—be they never so blameless characters, as I do not doubt that they are—when the bills come to be paid?
  When the Government adjust their policy until, quite by chance, it suits Mr. Bernie Ecclestone's business interests, and when the Conservative party argues for a
  84
  life peerage for Mr. Ashcroft, people will start to ask, "What's going on?" They will get a whiff of something that they do not like. I know that the people of Tatton are very sensitive to that.
  Will we go down the American route, in which a candidate might spend $16 million to buy a Senate seat, but—as happened in California—still fail? I was based in America for many years, and remember talking to Senator Lawton Childs—Democrat of Florida, and an honourable public servant—who was weighing up whether he should run for a second six-year term. He worked out that, if he did so, he would have to spend one half of his time fundraising, so he quit, because that is not what he went into politics for. I feel that, with the central defect in the Bill, we are going down that wrong road.
  We do not want to go down the road of turning our party conferences into trade fairs. If I wanted to have lunch with the Home Secretary at the Labour party conference—a fairly unlikely contingency—I would be happy to pay for my lunch, and I would be happy to pay for his lunch, but I would not want to have to raise for the Labour party £10,000, £20,000, £50,000 or whatever the equivalent might be for the privilege of having lunch with him.
  I can recommend a better way to go. Last July, the Tatton Independent party held its annual conference, in Knutsford, and it was much more party than conference. I paid for everyone's lunch, and the only deal that I made with them was that I was not allowed to have a standing ovation. It worked extremely well. It is a kinder, gentler politics, much cheaper and much closer to the people.
  I am sometimes asked—because of the strange way in which I got into the House—whether I think that the current Parliament is under the same taint of suspicion as the previous Parliament. I used to say no. Now I say, "No—well, not in the same way." The culture of greed has gone. The cash in brown envelopes has gone. The invoices supplied for amending a Finance Bill have gone. A recent celebrated libel case definitively drew a very welcome line under that, and I should, in passing, pay tribute to Sir Gordon Downey—a very great public servant, and a servant of this House—and to his vindication. We knew all along that he would be vindicated.
  Does that mean that the beast of corruption has been got rid of in our system? No, it does not—it is still out there somewhere. It lies out of range of the nets and harpoons of the parliamentary policing system, which is working quite well now, in two spheres: in the funding of political parties and the award of honours, and in the relationship between them.
  We know that there is a relationship between the two because of some of the evidence given to the Neill Committee. Although that evidence is not reflected in the Bill, it was very important evidence, which came from Lord Pym, who was at that time chairman of the political honours scrutiny committee. He was asked whether there was, or should be, any connection at all between donations to a political party and the subsequent award of honours.
  Lord Pym was the gatekeeper of the system, and one might have expected him to answer, "No, in no circumstances, and over my dead body." In fact, he answered that, in some circumstances, all other things being equal, he could see that a political party contribution could be a bonus rather than a minus, because the

  85
  individual was putting his money where his opinions were—hence a contribution to a political party was an achievement.
  Just consider that. When has signing a cheque been an achievement? Accumulating money—depending on how it is accumulated—may be an achievement, but I do not think that signing a cheque is one. All other factors in a candidate's qualifications being equal, the chairman might as well have provided us with a rate card. How much for a peerage? How much for a knighthood, or for a humble MBE? What will £50,000 a year for five years buy? Hon. Members will appreciate where we were going with that practice, which was opening the door to the buying and selling of influence.
  Now the political honours scrutiny committee has a new chairman—Lord Hurd—who, to his great credit, is applying the rules much more vigorously, and we have a much better system in place. However, there is still a grave risk, which comes from the Government's briefing paper on the Neill report, issued at the end of July. The paper quoted with approval one of the scrutiny committee's criteria: to consider
  "Whether the achievements of the individual overall are meritorious to an extent that makes donation of lesser significance."
  Within those words lurk hidden shades of meaning.
  We shall not have a clean system and a system that entirely enjoys the public's trust until donations to our political parties are of zero significance, or even of disqualifying significance, in the award of honours.
  Mr. Winnick: I am listening to the hon. Gentleman's speech with interest. I do not want to rehearse the entire argument now, but would not a restriction on the amount that an individual may give to a political party not only help in addressing the issue that he has been describing, but provide a means of restricting the sums that political parties are able to spend at general elections?
  Mr. Bell: I am grateful for that intervention and agree absolutely. I recommended such a limit to the Neill committee, but it was not accepted.
  We have to devise a system of politics that is more honest, cheaper, and wins the trust of the people. I am arguing not for a community of saints and angels, but for a system in which the crooks, charlatans and the sharp operators so often attracted to the honeypots of politics lose their rights of privileged access.
  7.48 pm
  Mr. Martin Linton: It is a great honour to follow the hon. Member for Tatton (Mr. Bell), whose very presence in the House symbolises the reasons why the Bill is so necessary. He also made a very good case for why the Bill does not go as far as it might.
  I welcome the Bill, and believe that, for the past 25 years, there has been a crying need for reform of party funding. My right hon. Friend the Home Secretary had trouble remembering the exact date—or even the existence—of the Houghton committee report. I remind him that the committee reported in August 1976—which was very much the date on which the United Kingdom and the House took a wrong turning on the issue of party funding. We missed the great chance that we had then of reforming the party funding system, as every other European and north American country did in the 1970s or 1980s.
  86
  We missed the opportunity then mainly because the then official Opposition party—under its then new leader, now Lady Thatcher—turned its back on any reform whatsoever of the party funding system and pursued what one can only describe as a beggar-my-neighbour policy. Although the then Opposition were themselves bankrupt, they knew that the Labour party would always be worse off than they were.
  The Conservative party continued that policy for the next 20 years, eventually leading to its own undoing at the 1997 general election, amid accusations—in many cases, realities—of sleaze. The Conservative party has now had a change of heart and I welcome its new approach to party funding.
  Compared with some of my hon. Friends, particularly my hon. Friend the Member for Walsall, North (Mr. Winnick), I am a relative novice to the subject, but in 1994, I produced a report for the Institute for Public Policy Research on the subject. While I was preparing the report, I visited Germany, Canada and Quebec—by chance, the same places that the Neill committee visited last year. My report had only 18 recommendations compared with the 100 made by the Neill committee, but I am glad that many of those 18 were repeated by the Neill committee and have found their way into the Bill. I am delighted that the Bill delivers some of the reforms that I argued for, including the disclosure of donations over £5,000, the ban on overseas donations, the introduction of national spending limits for elections and referendums, the requirement to hold shareholder ballots and, last but not least, the establishment of an Electoral Commission.
  However, I agree with the hon. Member for Tatton that there are some points on which the Bill does not go anything like far enough. Once we get through the arithmetic, clause 72 and schedule 8 set the limit on national campaign spending at £20 million for a party that puts up candidates everywhere in the UK, or £19 million for a party that has candidates throughout Britain. That is far too high and will not achieve the primary goal of reducing the amount spent by political parties at general elections.
  The Neill committee's report estimated that the main parties spend £26 million and £28 million respectively at the 1997 election. The widely drawn definition of campaign expenditure in clause 65 and schedule 7 shows that the system can never be so watertight that there is no scope for parties to pass off some election-related expenditure as administrative overheads. That was the experience in Canada, on whose system our proposals are largely based. There was endless argument between the parties and the director of elections about what counted as expenses. There are bound to be grey areas where it is impossible to decide whether something is election expenditure, such as opinion polls commissioned by parties before an election.
  The right hon. Member for South Norfolk (Mr. MacGregor), who is back in his seat, referred to the difficulty of defining election expenditure and therefore opposed the idea of capping. I think that he drew the wrong conclusion. Of course it is difficult to distinguish election expenditure from other expenditure, but that does not mean that we should give up on the Bill's central ambition of capping election expenditure. If we are to have a downward step change in election spending, it would make more sense to adopt the Labour party's proposal to the Neill committee of a £15 million limit.

  87
  Lord Sawyer, who was then the general secretary of the Labour party and gave the evidence, said of the party's £26 million spending at the 1997 election:
  "To raise that kind of finance … we have had to seek donations up to £1 million, and we would need to continue that sort of fundraising programme in the absence of any substantial state aid."
  A limit of more than £15 million is bound to result in a party's seeking large donors, beyond its members and smaller donors.
  A related point is whether there should be two limits—one for constituency spending and one for national spending—or a single limit. In my evidence to the Neill committee, I argued in favour of a single limit encompassing constituency and national spending. The Neill committee seems to have got that the wrong way round. It believed that an integrated limit would allow parties to concentrate their spending even more on marginal seats; on the contrary, it would prevent parties from doing that because, once they had spent up to their limit in marginal seats, they could spend only in non-marginal seats. Applying the limit constituency by constituency would prevent the use of all the resources in 100 marginal seats. That would have the advantage of introducing the principle of equity between voters. Parties would have to treat the voters the same in every constituency. That point was made by the right hon. Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross (Mr. Maclennan)—it sounds as though he represents three constituencies, but it is only one.
  The Bill has missed an opportunity on individual donations. The main concerns have been about the source of donations, particularly overseas or undisclosed donations. However, people are equally concerned about the size of donations. We have only to look back a few years to the concern that was felt about donations to the Conservatives of £500,000 from Asil Nadir, a couple of million pounds from John Latsis and £5 million from Lord Kirkham. To match those sums, my party could not but accept donations of a similar magnitude. I am sure that Conservative Members will point out if I fail to do so that we accepted a £1 million donation from Bernie Ecclestone and, I believe, £2 million from Lord Sainsbury.
  No matter how well intentioned, a party that relies on large individual donations will always feel beholden to the big donors, nervous of offending them and anxious not to jeopardise a repeat donation. If not in the minds of the party then in the minds of the public, that reliance will inevitably compromise the party's integrity. My right hon. Friend the Home Secretary referred in his speech to an unhealthy reliance on a handful of wealthy donors. The way to avoid that is to ensure that the limit of what parties can spend is within the reach of what their supporters can raise without recourse to million pound donations. That is why the definition of permissible donations under clause 48 onwards should be tightened through the application of an upper limit on individual donations of £250,000.
  The Neill report argues against an upper limit on two grounds. The first is that disclosure should contain the arms race between the main parties. Disclosure will deter a few would-be donors, but there is no evidence from other countries that it will stop, or even contain, the arms race. Disclosure is important, but it does not go far enough.
  88
  The second argument is that it would be easy to evade the limit by spreading resources among friends or setting up subsidiary companies. My hon. Friend the Member for Rotherham (Mr. MacShane) made that point. That ignores the simple counter-measures that can be taken to enforce limits on donations. Quebec has successfully enforced its $3,000 limit on donations by insisting that every donation must be made by personal cheque and making it an offence to hand on a donation from somebody else. There are stories about lobster parties at which one firm buys up a table and gives every executive £3,000 to donate, but it is difficult to get round such limits.
  The main argument against a limit on donations in the past has been that, whereas one might want to limit individual donations, one might not want to limit donations from companies, trade unions or other political parties. At that time, it would have been difficult to make the distinction. Now, company donations are subject to shareholder ballots, parties are subject to the Registration of Political Parties Act 1998 and trade unions are subject to political fund ballots. There is no longer a difficulty in isolating individual donations and applying a limit to them that does not apply to other categories.
  Clause 63, the Northern Ireland exemption, must be considered carefully by Ministers because it could drive a coach and horses through the Bill. If a list of permissible donors were to include registered voters in the Republic of Ireland—to which I have no objection—those voters would not be subject to clause 54, on the evasion of restrictions. The clause could be used as a channel for donations from abroad—or from within the UK—which would then become anonymous donations.
  The definition of a Northern Ireland party in the Bill would mean that donations could be made only to parties represented at Stormont or representing Northern Ireland seats at Westminster. That would exclude some parties. However, we should remember that the Conservative party and the Green party contest elections in Northern Ireland, and that the Conservative party came within 2,000 votes of winning a seat in Northern Ireland in 1992. There is every possibility that it will win enough seats to qualify as a Northern Ireland party in the future.
  I have no reason to believe that anyone is planning to use the loophole. However, if donations can be made which are not subject to the registration of donors, it is clear that it will be easy to evade the effects of the Bill—not only by Irish people overseas, but by donors of all kinds who will use it as a way into the British political system.
  On overseas voters, clause 48 says that any individual is a permissible donor provided that he or she is
  "registered in an electoral register".
  The Neill committee is rather contradictory on this point. On the one hand, it has put forward a much looser definition—that anyone can give money if he or she is a registered voter or eligible to be put on an electoral register. That would include millions of people overseas. On the other hand, the committee has enunciated exactly the right principle—that it is right to take the opportunity to lay down the principle that those who live, work and carry on business in the UK should be the persons exclusively entitled to support financially the operation of the political process here. In other words, only people who live and work in this country should be allowed to fund

  89
  our elections. That would mean that tax exiles who do not live here would not be entitled to give money to political parties in Britain.
  I welcome clause 130, which reduces the qualifying period for overseas voters from 20 years to 10. The Home Affairs Committee—of which I am a member—recommended that the figure be reduced to five years, and the Home Secretary has met us more than half way. Having listened to the representations of some of those who currently register as overseas voters and who may still have close links with this country, I think that the reduction is probably far enough.
  Under the new rolling register provisions of the Representation of the People Bill, whereas in the past it would take anything between four and 16 months to register as a voter in this country, it will take in future between two and four weeks. It will be much easier for people who live for brief periods in this country between foreign postings to re-establish their connection as voters.
  I still question whether it is right to make being registered to vote a sufficient qualification for giving money to political parties. After all, it is possible to be registered as a voter in this country and at the same time to be a foreign resident, a foreign dual national, a foreign taxpayer and even—as we have seen recently—a representative of a foreign Government.
  It seems anomalous to allow people to fund political parties in this country if they are not liable to pay tax here. Why should they be able to influence the tax that we pay if they do not pay tax themselves? I would support an amendment that separated the issue of making declarable donations from overseas from the issue of voting, and I would introduce a second qualification—that permissible donors should be ordinarily resident in this county. That is the main criterion used by the Inland Revenue for deciding whether someone is resident in this country, and the same is true of the health service.
  Clause 10 allows the commission to make policy development grants of up to £2 million a year. I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Rotherham that that limit is far too low. I would suggest that it should be at least £10 million if it is to be in any way meaningful. Clause 10 also allows grants to be made only to parties with two Members who have taken the oath or the affirmation. It is not clear why that should be so, and it seems to be a mean-spirited attempt to make sure that one particular party from Northern Ireland does not benefit in any way from what is offered.
  We must take a longer view on party funding. The Home Secretary referred to the law in Quebec, which is one of the only places in the world which really applies, and has developed, the spirit of our Corrupt Practices Act 1883 and turned it into something meaningful. Quebec applies the measure with unusual vigour. I have said that individual donations are limited, and what the press can and cannot do during an election is strictly controlled. There is, to be sure, an exemption for the press, but it is interpreted much more narrowly than in this country. Quebec has shown that that it is possible to control spending even in referendums, so that both sides of the argument feel that they cannot take advantage of having more money. Quebec has shown what it is to insist that politics should be conducted on a level playing field.
  Those who refer to third parties must decide how they view elections. To my mind, elections are, by their very nature, periods during which those who are not candidates
  90
  must accept a certain temporary restraint on their freedom of speech; otherwise, money will always be able to buy elections. The whole purpose of the Bill is to try to avoid that.
  In my report for the IPPR, I made some other suggestions for ways in which we could ensure a level playing field in politics without introducing direct state funding. Those ideas included: state aid in kind; poster space to be allocated to the parties in a fair way at the beginning of elections; that that should be paid for; that newspaper advertising should be allocated in a fair way also; and that there should be more free postal deliveries. There are many ways in which we can improve the system.
  We must remember that it was the beggar-my-neighbour policies of parties in the 1970s, who thought that it would be an advantage to do without any reform of party funding, that led them to scrape the bottom of the barrel for funding because their own sources of funding were drying up. That has so discredited all political parties and their funding that the public would find it unacceptable to have state funding in terms of cash donations from their taxes to political parties—a reluctance that one can well understand.
  This country is practically the only country in Europe or north America that does not have state funding of parties, and that has led indirectly to the discrediting of politics. I do not advocate state funding now, but we must move towards a situation where people in this country have more faith in the political system and in the integrity of their political parties. Perhaps one day in the future the House will be able to introduce what is needed—a much more secure financial basis for political parties that will make the sleaze and corruption of recent years unnecessary.
  8.10 pm
  Mr. Alasdair Morgan: My party welcomes the Bill. It represents an improvement, or a move towards one, in how political parties conduct themselves. It will boost the public's confidence, which has been so badly undermined in recent years.
  Before the Scottish Parliament elections, the parties reached an agreement largely based on the Neill recommendations and included the provisions in a statutory instrument, which seems to have worked well. Neill felt that the political arrangements in Scotland were best handled by
  "appropriate modifications to our main recommendations".
  I seek a reassurance that, when the composition of the Electoral Commission and the Speaker's Committee is being decided, the different interests and political structures in Scotland and the other devolved areas will be taken into account.
  I note that two of the statutory members of the Speaker's Committee will be the Westminster Minister with responsibility for local government—presumably that means local government in England and Wales—and the Home Secretary, neither of whom has a large locus in either Scotland or the other devolved parts of the United Kingdom.
  The policy development grants seem to relate to policy on all matters for places such as Scotland: devolved as well as reserved. The smaller parties—smaller, I hasten

  91
  to add, in Westminster—need to be considered. I noticed that, when the hon. Member for Rotherham (Mr. MacShane) spoke of how the money would be divvied up, he worked on the basis of a division by three. I assume that that was simply for arithmetic ease.
  Allocation is often made on the basis of representation in the House, but the cost of research is not proportional to a party's membership or number of seats in the Chamber. It may cost the Liberal Democrats as much as it costs the Labour party to develop a housing policy, for example. We must be careful about the criteria that are used in the allocation of moneys under the scheme. That is especially important in the devolved parts of the United Kingdom, as the representation in the devolved Chambers is certainly not similar to that in Westminster.
  I welcome, in clause 31, the help for parties towards the cost of complying with the various strictures of the legislation. The raising of the de minimis level from £50 to £200 will certainly reduce the costs of compliance, and that is welcome. I note that the Bill refers to the cost of installing software and even the provision of software by the Electoral Commission. I emphasise again that the cost of administering the consequences of the Bill is not necessarily in proportion to a party's representation in Westminster.
  Classifying a permissible voter as one who is on the electoral register means that the headquarters of every party will have to have the registers for the entire country, or at least all those parts of it in which they are interested, presumably in electronic format. It is certainly not the practice in Scotland for the assessor or registrar to give out compact discs or floppy discs free with the register. Perhaps an amendment could be made to ensure that party headquarters are able to get computerised versions of the registers each year as they are issued, without having to bear the cost.
  I have a problem with the definition of a permissible voter as one who is on the register, as opposed to the Neill recommendation that it should be someone who is entitled to be on the register. I realise that the concept of a rolling register minimises the problem to some extent, as does the fact that the requirement applies only to those who donate above the de minimis limit of £200, but I have a problem in principle with a formulation that, in theory, debars a substantial number of our citizens from donating to a political party. The latest estimate from the 1991 census shows that about 3 million people were not on the register.
  Mr. Peter Bradley: Does the hon. Gentleman concede that it is a strange principle that somebody should be entitled to fund a party for which he or she is not prepared to vote?
  Mr. Morgan: It is not up to me to try to explain the decisions of individual citizens. People may decide not to register for religious reasons, for example, and they should not be excluded from giving money to a party if they so choose. The Neill recommendation would be as easy to administer and would avoid the problem.
  Clause 44 and schedule 4 concern the returning of accounts from a party's different accounting units, which can go down as far as the individual ward and branch.
  92
  I am glad that no financial return is to be required if the year's transactions in the unit amount to less than £25,000. As a former national treasurer, and subsequently secretary, of my party, I know the difficulty of getting information from several hundred ward organisations. The problems that I faced would pale into insignificance beside those involved in collecting information required on a statutory basis.
  I note that the commission has the power to require returns from such accounting units, and I seek an assurance that such a power would be used only in exceptional circumstances, when somebody thought that the provision was being used to fiddle the books.
  Recommendation 38 of the Neill committee suggested that tax relief should be allowed on small donations. I understand what the hon. Member for Rotherham and others said about that being more of a benefit to the Conservative party than to other parties representing some of the poorer constituencies—the average income is fairly low in my rural constituency—but I tend towards the Neill committee's view that it is important to encourage small donors to be the mainstay of political parties, as tax relief would do. It is perhaps a lost opportunity not to have implemented the recommendation.
  I welcome the controls on election expenditure by political parties. It has already been pointed out that the Representation of the People Act 1983 has long been a farce. Candidates jump through hoops worrying whether they have spent too much on telegrams, whatever they may be, while the parties spend millions of pounds without any controls. We need to avoid being in the same situation as the United States faces.
  A cynic might say that the limits set out in the schedules in connection with various elections are those that will suit the larger parties. The hon. Member for Tatton (Mr. Bell), who is not a cynic, certainly made that point, and the hon. Member for Battersea (Mr. Linton) also alluded to it. In Scotland, for example, the limit for a general election will be £2,160,000. In Scottish Parliament elections, the limit will be £1,516,000. I will not give away any state secrets if I say that the SNP will be in no danger of breaching either limit. We must ask why the limits are so high and who will benefit from that.
  I also have a problem with the provisions on third parties and their expenditure and I echo the points made by the right hon. Member for South Norfolk (Mr. MacGregor) and the hon. Member for Southampton, Test (Dr. Whitehead). A limit will be placed on what each third party can spend, but there will be no limit overall on what third parties can spend. I accept that some third parties may spend money that is not identifiable with any particular party, but the reality is that third parties more and more spend money that definitely relates to the campaign of one party. A trade union, for example, may run a campaign that appears to favour two Opposition parties equally, but in reality we know that it is targeted in favour of one party. A strong case can be made to include third-party contributions in the overall total of a party's spending and the Electoral Commission should be allowed to make a judgment on whether a third-party campaign has contributed towards a party's expenditure.
  Clause 122 provides for limits on expenditure in by-elections. I accept what the Minister said, and I know from my own experience that the limits in by-elections have been stretched on some occasions. However, the new

  93
  limit of £100,000 is on the high side, especially in Scotland where the electorate in each constituency is smaller than in constituencies south of the border. Setting the limit as high as £100,000 will allow the larger and wealthier parties to influence disproportionately the outcome in by-elections, which—as hon. Members have said—can be crucial in the run-up to general elections.
  The potentially retrospective nature of other provisions in the Bill will also cause problems, because we will not know in advance the date of the general election. The arguments in favour of a fixed-term Parliament are strong, and that would fix the problem. Those arguments are strengthened by the fact that we now have that very system in the Welsh Assembly and the Scottish Parliament, and this House, could learn from those examples.
  It strikes me that, as with so much legislation, we will not get the Bill right first time. We can try to enforce restrictions on political parties and other people who wish to influence the course of political debate, but they will spend time—people are probably doing so even as we speak—working out ways to get round those restrictions. We have made an important start, but we will have to be prepared to come back to the issue as people find ways to get round the restrictions and to subvert democracy.
  8.24 pm
  Mr. Peter Bradley (The Wrekin): When the right hon. Member for Cities of London and Westminster (Mr. Brooke) commended my hon. Friend the Member for Southampton, Test (Dr. Whitehead) on the civilised way in which he voiced his hostility to some of the positions on party funding adopted by the Conservative party, the right hon. Gentleman may have been issuing an anticipatory reprimand to me because, although I am attracted by the spirit of consensus that has prevailed today, I can see little justification for it. The principles that Opposition Members have enunciated are not borne out by their practices.
  When I challenged the right hon. Member for North-West Hampshire (Sir G. Young) in an intervention earlier, he suggested that the Conservative party conforms to the recommendations that the Neill committee published some time ago. I do not believe that to be the case. He may have misunderstood my intervention and I may have misunderstood his response, but the chairman of the Conservative party was quoted in The Times on 24 November as saying:
  "The Conservative party has always made it clear that it would operate by its guidelines until such a time as Parliament might introduce new guidelines."
  In other words, the Conservative party does not conform to the recommendations of the Neill committee, nor does it conform to the proposals set out in the Bill. That should be a cause of grave concern to the House.
  The Bill is necessary for all the reasons that have been eloquently expressed this evening. We need to render our political process transparent and our political parties accountable. We need to eliminate undue influence, or the perception of it, on the way in which we conduct our political affairs. We desperately and urgently need to restore public confidence in our political system. In too many parts of the country, indifference to our political system is giving way to alienation and disaffection. We saw that in the low turnouts in the recent European and
  94
  local elections. Scepticism about politicians' ability to make a positive difference to the daily lives of our constituents too often gives way to cynicism about our preparedness to do so or to serve in the public interest.
  The Bill will contribute to rehabilitating our political system, as will other constitutional reforms, including not least the reform of the upper Chamber. However, we cannot deny that our political system has been a victim of the extraordinary degradation of politics and politicians in recent years. The problem is that, even if it can be shown that sleaze was a problem principally of the previous Government and the Conservative party, when one political party is brought low, we all suffer, because our political system is degraded. It will be restored only if all political parties act in concert to restore it, which is why I am concerned at the apparent chasm that still exists, despite the speeches of consensus tonight, between the Conservative party on the one hand and the Government's proposals in the Bill and the Neill committee recommendations on the other. I hope that the Conservative spokesman will take the opportunity when he winds up to disabuse me of that apprehension.
  The Conservative party is largely responsible for the public's perception that sleaze, both individual and collective, attends our political system. One does not have to do research in the Library to support that contention, because we have had reminders in the very recent past. There is Lord Archer—until recently, I understand, a man of "probity" and "integrity". The Conservative party fell out of love with the man long before it was prepared to part company with his cheque book. That is not to its credit. I need not go into detail about the Hamilton case, because we are all familiar with it. The same applies to Jonathan Aitken, who started by buckling on the shield of truth and has finished up by strapping on the electronic tagging device of perjury.
  Whenever the Conservative party is asked, "Will you open the box or take the money?", it opts to take the money. It has been prepared to take money from anyone, anywhere, in any currency, in any denomination, in brown envelopes—however it comes—with no questions asked and no explanations offered or given.
  Mr. Robathan: In many ways, I am loth to intervene in such a silly and partisan attack on a collection of people. There may have been individuals in the Conservative party who have misbehaved, as there have been in the Labour party and other parties. I hold no brief for corrupt politicians, of whom there are remarkably few in any party.
  The hon. Gentleman attacks us collectively, which I resent. Will he will urge the Labour party, and all organisations within it, to return money to the creditors of TransTec if it turns out that some of the money that should go to them has found its way into the Labour party's coffers?
  Mr. Bradley: The hon. Gentleman makes an interesting debating point. I think that he is anticipating events to a large extent. When he intervened earlier in the debate, he mentioned the name of Bernie Ecclestone. That is a very good example, because although, as far as I understand it, no wrongdoing was ever sustained against the Labour party, the very perception that there may have been a question mark against that donation caused the Labour party to refer the matter to Lord Neill's committee and to accept its recommendation to return the donation.

  95
  Conservative Members have said that they are at one with us on the principles of the Bill, but—I speak more in sorrow than in anger—their actions belie that commitment. I see no evidence that the Conservative party has ever returned money. It did not return Asil Nadir's donation. It has certainly not taken the trouble even to refer the Michael Ashcroft controversy to its own ethics and integrity committee. Try as he will, the hon. Gentleman cannot have it both ways.
  Mr. Robathan: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
  Mr. Bradley: If it is a brief point.
  Mr. Robathan: Could the hon. Gentleman enumerate the cases in which Lord Neill has suggested that money should be returned from the Conservative party to anyone else? Lord Neill—I think that it was Lord Neill—instructed the Labour party to return the £1 million donated by Bernie Ecclestone in order to ensure that tobacco sponsorship was allowed for Formula One racing.
  Mr. Bradley: I am happy to respond to the hon. Gentleman's point. I shall return in my speech to Lord Neill. I suspect that he has never asked, suggested, recommended or instructed the Conservative party to return funds to non-permissible sources because it has never referred to him for advice on the money that it receives—in stark contrast to the behaviour of the Labour party. That is why the public holds the Labour party in greater esteem than the Conservative party. Until the hon. Gentleman and his colleagues learn that lesson, we shall continue to seek to teach it to them.
  Let me quote from a letter to the Neill committee, dated 30 January 1998, from the then deputy chairman of the Conservative party, the hon. Member for Windsor (Mr. Trend). He said:
  "Until the Leader of the Conservative Party's speech on the 23rd July 1997, the Party had no specific rules covering the receipt of foreign donations, except that we had made it clear that we did not accept donations from foreign governments or rulers."
  That clearly did not exclude the United Nations ambassadors of foreign Governments. The letter continues:
  "As a consequence, we did not record separately donations that were received from overseas."
  That startling omission supports my view that the Conservative party is prepared to take money from anyone, in any currency and any denomination.
  It is clear that the Conservative party received massive overseas funding throughout the 1990s. It received £10 million in the run-up to the previous general election alone, and £16 million between the elections of 1992 and 1997. I derive those figures from the Conservative party's own published accounts. There were 47 overseas donations in that period at an average of £345,000. Twenty per cent. of all donations of more than £100,000 received by the Conservative party came from overseas sources.
  Other hon. Members have referred to the identity of some of those generous sources of funding. They include Sir Y.K. Pao and Mr. C.K. Ma of Hong Kong; John Latsis, the ship owner; and Asil Nadir. What did they want? What did they think that their contributions to the
  96
  then party of Government's fighting fund would confer on them? That question was posed eloquently by the hon. Member for Tatton (Mr. Bell).
  However, much more interesting than what they sought is what they got for their money. Throughout that period and beyond, the Conservative party refused to regulate its affairs. The hon. Member for Blaby (Mr. Robathan) said that, when the opportunity existed for the previous Government to ask Lord Neill or his predecessor, Lord Nolan, to examine precisely those matters on which he has now reported and which form the basis of the Bill, they declined it. We are entitled to ask why the Conservative party, in that period and subsequently, refused self-regulation. That is why it is so necessary that legislation be introduced that will require, by statute, the Conservative party to submit to regulation.
  Lord McAlpine, a previous Conservative party treasurer, stated, not under pressure from Jeremy Paxman but in his autobiography:
  "The Conservative Central Office is not a charity dedicated to helping the sick and suffering".
  That might be news to some, but we all knew it, and, by 1997, the electors had certainly woken up to it. He went on to state that
  "it is a fighting machine dedicated to winning elections. I believe it to be the height of folly to expose how such a machine manages its resources or, indeed, how large or small these resources are at any one time."
  The former Conservative party treasurer was clearly saying no to regulation, clarity, transparency, accountability and scruples.
  Mr. Robert Walter: Would the hon. Gentleman concede that Lord McAlpine clearly told the Neill committee that no one who gave money to the Conservative party had influence over its policies, and that the party chairman was seen to tear his hair out? I quote from the Neill report itself.
  Mr. Bradley: If the hon. Gentleman tells me that Lord McAlpine said that, I am sure that he said it. However, I am more interested in what has happened since 1997 than before. I believe that matters have gone from bad to worse. The lack of values set out by Lord McAlpine is in stark contrast to what he has said about the current treasurer of the Conservative party. Lord McAlpine said that the current treasurer would take up that post "over my dead body". I wonder what he meant by that.
  However, it is extraordinary that the current Conservative party treasurer is also its principal donor and the leading fund raiser for the party. With extraordinary irony, the Bill will mean that he will be the accounting officer, or regulator, for the party, too.
  What is known about the recent record of Mr. Michael Ashcroft and the Conservative party exemplifies why the Bill is so necessary, and makes it clear why the Conservatives have resisted its provisions until they have no choice. I want to spend a few minutes explaining not only why Mr. Ashcroft is an inappropriate person to be treasurer of the Conservative party, but why he is a non-permissible source.
  The former deputy chairman of the Conservative party, the hon. Member for Windsor, told the Neill inquiry that the party's approach to foreign funding had changed with

  97
  the election of the right hon. Member for Richmond, Yorks (Mr. Hague) to the leadership. In his speech accepting that post, the right hon. Gentleman said:
  "We must be open about our funding. In not being so in the past, we have often appeared secretive and defensive. And we have paid a political price for that. It is time to be much more open. We have nothing to hide and nothing to fear.
  But I want to go further than that. We have to recognise public concern across the Western world about the sources of funding for political parties. We must respond to that concern. We will publish new guidance later this year"—
  he was speaking in 1997—
  "and our intention is that in future years the Conservative Party will no longer accept foreign donations."
  Thus the right hon. Gentleman put it on the record in 1997 that those guidelines would be published.
  Lord Parkinson, who was then chairman of the Conservative party, told the Neill committee:
  "since the last election we have had no donations which we have even had to wonder whether they could be classified as foreign".
  The Conservative party's formal evidence to the committee made the same unequivocal assertion. It said:
  "Although we have no reason to believe that any money received by the Party in the past should not have been accepted, Mr Hague has made it clear that in future we will not accept foreign donations. No such donations have been offered or received since the General Election."
  What is Michael Ashcroft if he is not a foreign donor? Let us consider his attachment to the United Kingdom. He is non-resident; he is a non-taxpayer; he is the owner of a foreign bank; he is the holder of a foreign nationality; he is the diplomatic representative of a foreign Government and the funder of a foreign political party. How much more foreign can one get?
  I put that point in what I thought were civilised terms in a letter to the leader of the Conservative party as long ago as April last year. The reply that I received from the current chairman of the Conservative party was succinct and very much to the point. He said:
  "I can assure you that the matters to which you refer in relation to donations are fully consistent with our stated rules."
  In 1997, the leader of the Conservative party said that the Conservative party would publish its guidelines for foreign funding and, in 1999, the chairman of the same party told me that it had "stated rules". What are those stated rules? How do they conform, as the right hon. Member for North-West Hampshire said that they do, to the Neill proposals? How close are the proposals of those on the Conservative Front Bench to the proposals set out in the Bill?
  All the attempts that I have made to prize out of the Conservative party a copy of those guidelines have failed. I suggest that that is simply because they do not exist or because they certainly did not exist until they were cobbled together very hurriedly last November in response to continuing inquiries from The Independent and The Times. I am not altogether surprised that the Conservative party is now hastily covering its tracks. Its leader says that it will not take foreign funding but the hon. Member for Windsor says that it does. In the hon. Gentleman's letter of 30 January 1998 to the Neill committee, he says:
  "amounts from overseas bank accounts are recorded as foreign donations".
  98
  In other words, the donations that the Conservative party has received from the Belize Bank Trust company are classified as foreign donations, yet the Conservative party says that it does not accept foreign donations. The acceptance of the substantial funding that the Conservative party receives from Mr. Michael Ashcroft via the Belize Bank Trust company not only contravenes the Conservatives' own, and as yet unpublished, guidelines but clearly contravenes Lord Neill's recommendations.
  For the avoidance of doubt, I wrote to Lord Neill in December and asked
  " whether in principle a trust company based outside the United Kingdom and, indeed, the European Community would constitute a permissible source of funding."
  On 22 December, Lord Neill wrote back to say:
  "I draw your attention in particular to Recommendation 26"—
  of his committee's report—
  "which states, inter alia, that only companies incorporated in the UK should be a 'permissible source' of company donations."
  Clearly, the Belize bank is not in that category. As I have said, Mr. Ashcroft's donations, on which the Conservative party in a large part depends, are counter to both the spirit and the letter of the Neill recommendations and the provisions of the Bill. The Conservative party knows that.
  I also asked Lord Neill whether he had received in submission from the Conservative party a copy of the guidelines to which the party chairman so frequently refers and whether Lord Neill had offered any advice on them. In the same letter to me, he said:
  "To the best of my knowledge there have been no communications in which this Committee has given advice to the Conservative Party about its own internal guidelines on foreign funding."
  As I hinted earlier, that is either because the guidelines do not exist or because the Conservative party does not wish to risk the criticism that would follow if it submitted its questionable guidelines to the Neill committee.
  I have a number of questions. It is, perhaps, unusual to ask questions of those on the Opposition Front Bench, but they will shortly have an opportunity to respond. I should like a clear answer to this question: will the Conservative party adopt the Neill committee recommendations in the way that the right hon. Member for North-West Hampshire suggested that it already had? If it will not adopt those recommendations and embrace the provisions of the Bill, will the Conservative party finally publish the guidelines that steer its approach to foreign funding, which the Leader of the Opposition said he would publish in 1997 and the chairman of the party says are already enshrined in stated rules?
  Will the Conservatives explain why their practice does not conform to Neill's recommendations? To satisfy the hon. Member for Blaby, and if there is any doubt in their minds, will they refer the matter to the Neill committee? If necessary, are they prepared to repay to Mr. Michael Ashcroft the donations that he has made, and continues to make?
  While they are on the subject—I am sure that there is a great deal of interest in this issue—will the Conservatives let us know whether the police are still pursuing the investigations that they were supposed to have mounted last year into the apparent raiding of the records of the Conservative party accounts at the Royal Bank of Scotland, or has that piece of propaganda quietly subsided into the sands?

  99
  The wheel has come full circle. In my view, the Conservative party is as sleaze-ridden in this Parliament as it was in the previous one. There were no guidelines before 1997—that much is apparent from what Conservatives have said—and I believe that there have been none since. There were foreign donations before 1997. I believe that foreign donations have been accepted ever since.
  The undertakings given by the Leader of the Opposition on the issue are pure opportunism and hypocrisy. It has been business as usual. The Conservative party has dragged British politics into disrepute. That is why the Bill is needed, and it has taken a Labour Government to provide it, whether the Conservative party likes it or not.
  In closing, I shall comment briefly on the provisions of the Bill, which I welcome, although I have some reservations. In clauses 45 and 46, I see no reference to the benefits that political parties derive from the underwriting of loans and the guaranteeing of bank overdrafts by third parties. That can be a benefit far greater than even the most significant donation, depending on the size of the debt or overdraft. I see no definition in those clauses that would catch that as a donation.
  It is important to ensure that, in cases where donations are returned as impermissible sources of funds, no benefit should be derived during the 30-day qualification period. For example, a very large donation could attract a large amount of interest in the 30-day period before it is returned to a non-permissible source. I hope that we will close that loophole. Similarly, any forfeiture of impermissible donations should include any benefit derived from interest payments.
  I am concerned, and others have mentioned it too, about the difficulty of policing the onus on donors of multiple amounts of less than £200 to declare their accumulated funding. If someone donates £199 a day on a standing order, by the end of the year he will have donated £70,000—a significant sum.
  Most importantly, I am concerned about the reduction in clause 130 of the qualifying period for overseas electors from 20 to 10 years. It surely cannot be the purpose of the Bill to prevent British residents overseas from making legitimate donations. I am thinking, for example, of people who have dedicated a life to the British economy, paid taxes throughout their working life, and retired to the sunshine of Spain, and who wish to maintain contact with the political party that they support and the political scene in Britain. It cannot be the intention of the Bill to deprive them of that right.
  The clause misses the point. I do not believe that hard-working UK taxpayers will understand or accept that someone who pays no UK tax should be allowed to influence British politics. That important point was made by my hon. Friend the Member for Battersea (Mr. Linton).
  If people purposefully remove their assets from this country to avoid paying UK tax—I am not suggesting that they are breaking the law in any way—they should forgo their right to influence the British political agenda. Others have alluded to the clear principle that there should be no representation without taxation. I hope that the Government will table amendments in Committee to ensure that those who are entitled to fund UK political parties are registered to vote here and, unless retired, liable to pay tax.
  100
  With those and the other amendments that I and other hon. Members have mentioned, the Bill will do the job that the British electorate expect of it. The Bill may not prevent the Conservatives or, it must be said, any other political party from taking money from unsavoury sources, but at least the British electorate will know who pays the piper. They will at last be able to exercise their judgment and cast their vote according not only to the stated policy in a party manifesto but to the company that the party keeps.
  8.51 pm
  Mr. Andrew Robathan (Blaby): I have not come here to attack the Labour party, but it is customary to say something nice about the speech preceding one's own and I shall not do so today. Under the cover of privilege in this House, I could make many allegations about the Labour party, individual party members and Labour Members of Parliament. Generally, however, I consider them to be a misguided but well-meaning bunch of people with whom I disagree.
  I might go on, but I shall not be too rude about the speech of the hon. Member for The Wrekin (Mr. Bradley) except to say that he should dwell on what he has done. Perhaps he thinks that he will reap a few more votes in The Wrekin, but I think that the good burghers there will see the error of their ways, oust him at the next election and return a Conservative.
  I shall comment on what the hon. Gentleman said about donations always influencing the way in which parties react. He mentioned Asil Nadir. What exactly did Asil Nadir get from the Conservative Government as he fled to Cyprus to escape British judgment? Absolutely nothing. Closer to home, in my constituency, somebody who supported the Conservative party said to me, "I have given all this money to the Conservative party, and I don't get anything for my planning applications." I replied, "Well, no. What did you expect?" He may have expected something, but I can assure the hon. Member for The Wrekin that that person got nothing because donations do not, as he tried to say, always mean influence. They may get someone a hearing, but they certainly do not get influence.
  This party, like the Labour party and other parties in the House, has very little to apologise for in general, although some individuals may have erred.
  The problem of speaking late in a debate is that all the best arguments have already been made. I do not intend to bore the House by repeating the arguments made by some of my right hon. and hon. Friends, which have been extremely good. I shall concentrate instead on referendums. The House may recall that I introduced the Referendums Bill last year. It was talked out by the Government, acting, as the hon. Member for The Wrekin will know, altruistically without any consideration of their own interests.
  I welcome the Bill, particularly the provisions for referendums, but with qualifications. The Government have, I fear, included provisions that I view with a certain amount of suspicion. Even Labour Members may agree that the Government like to be in control, particularly of elections. Whereas an election or referendum is a chance for people to express their feelings democratically, Labour Members may agree that, for some in Millbank, an election is more of a chance to find out whether they can meddle a little.

  101
  Those who do not agree might ask the hon. Members for Brent, East (Mr. Livingstone) or for Cardiff, West (Mr. Morgan) about the arrangements put in place for selecting the Labour candidate for the mayor of London or choosing the candidate for the First Secretary of the Welsh Assembly. Nationally, almost everybody—even most members of the Labour party—disliked the closed party lists used for elections to the European Parliament, which were debated at length in the House. One further example is that of the Welsh devolution referendum, in which a large majority of the Welsh population did not vote for devolution. The Government created the Welsh Assembly none the less.
  I welcome the creation of an Electoral Commission to take Government interference out of referendums. In the spirit of bipartisanship, I acknowledge that all Governments, not only the Labour Government, might feel the urge to interfere. I believe that the commission will be able to enforce many of the recommendations made by Lord Neill and his committee. I should like to make a few suggestions regarding the powers of the commission set out in clause 5, which states:
  "The Commission shall … submit reports to the Secretary of State on … such matters relating to referendums … as the Commission may so determine".
  I hope that the Minister will say whether my suggestions fall within the commission's remit.
  My first suggestion is that the commission should make recommendations on the wording of any question to be asked in a referendum. Those who, like the hon. Member for The Wrekin, follow such matters closely will know that, in February 1975, NOP ran a poll asking a series of questions in respect of the Common Market. I do not always believe opinion polls, even though, sadly, the events of May 1997 show that they tend to be right. However, the 1975 poll is illustrative in that, on a factually incorrect question, it managed to garner a majority among respondents in favour of leaving the Common Market. On another question, it managed to get an 18 per cent. majority in favour of staying in the Common Market. As the House will know, the eventual result of the referendum was approximately two to one in favour of staying in. That demonstrates something that we all know: the wording of a question can dictate the result of a referendum in favour of the person who has set the question. Therefore, I recommend that the Electoral Commission should have the opportunity to comment, and make recommendations, on the wording of any referendum question.
  My next suggestion is that a voting threshold should be included in any future referendum. The House will remember that there was a threshold in the 1979 referendum on Scottish devolution. Earlier today, regional assemblies—a matter that leaves every one of my constituents cold—were mentioned. I doubt that they would turn out to vote on the establishment of an east midlands regional assembly. We should set a threshold before establishing such bodies. The Welsh Assembly was created on the approval of only one quarter of the Welsh electorate, so no one can pretend that the Welsh desperately wanted it.
  Another matter for the commission should be the timing of separate but related referendums. The House might not think that an important issue, but if we want to remove political expediency from the calculations underlying referendums, we should consider how the
  102
  Welsh referendum was held exactly one week after the Scottish one. The Government allege that they were held on separate days to avoid confusion, but most people in all parties would agree that the Scottish vote, which was rightly expected to be heavily in favour of devolution, was thought likely to influence the Welsh vote. The House will note that there appears to have been no confusion about holding separate elections to the Scottish Parliament, the Welsh Assembly and local authorities on the same day last year, nor about county council elections and a general election coinciding on occasions in the past and, no doubt, in future.
  The question of spending limits has already been discussed at length, but it is worth recalling a little of the convoluted route by which we arrived at the current position. The White Paper suggested a limit of £5 million for each umbrella organisation and each political party with more than two Members of Parliament. Those proposals were widely regarded as being unfair. For example, if we were to hold a referendum on entry to a European single currency, the yes campaign would be able to spend £25 million and the no campaign only £10 million, based on current party positions. We and others, including Lord Neill, criticised those proposals, and the Home Secretary had to abandon what many perceived to be a partisan attempt to influence funding for a future referendum on a single currency.
  Under the new sliding scale rules that the Bill introduces, the figures come out better. My calculations show that the yes campaign in a single currency referendum would be able to spend approximately £14 million, and the no campaign approximately £10.5 million. That is much more equitable.
  We should also consider a point of principle: referendum spending limits should not be based on how well a party did in a previous general election. The point of a referendum is to determine what was not decided at a general election. The referendum is an instrument for teasing out a specific large issue from the rest of the issues that were decided by a previous general election. Making spending limits in a referendum campaign dependent on the way in which people voted in a general election replaces the issue among the others that had previously been decided. That negates the purpose of a referendum.
  If a general election is not adequate for making a decision on a specific issue, why should it be adequate for determining the amount of money that can be spent on deciding the issue? Why should people's view of the Labour Government's stealth taxes at the next general election determine the number of leaflets that they receive about the euro in a referendum after the election?
  My colleagues, especially my right hon. Friends the Members for North-West Hampshire (Sir G. Young) and for South Norfolk (Mr. MacGregor), have made other comments on funding and capping. I believe that the proposals in the Bill remain flawed, but I shall not pursue that.
  I want to consider briefly Government involvement in referendums. The Neill committee recommended that the Government of the day
  "should, as a Government, remain neutral and should not distribute at public expense literature, even purportedly 'factual' literature, setting out or otherwise promoting its case."
  It is interesting to ascertain why the committee said that. Evidence quoted in the report states that the Government,

  103
  being on one side of the referendum in Scotland, was able to
  "write the rules and an information leaflet and send it to every house."
  The Neill committee agrees that it is fundamentally wrong for the Government to be a player and to write the rules. In the Scottish devolution campaign, the Government distributed information leaflets to every household. They omitted any argument in favour of a no vote. In Scotland, that Government propaganda cost £730,000.
  In Wales, the Government spent £164,000 on the campaign. The Neill committee stated that it was "disturbed" by the "one-sided" referendum campaign, and added:
  "A fairer campaign might well have resulted in a different outcome."
  The committee had good cause to demand Government neutrality.
  Unfortunately, the Bill does not provide for Government neutrality, which would prevent a Government from influencing a referendum. The Government have rejected Lord Neill's proposals and decided that neutrality should apply only for the final 28 days of a campaign. In a long-drawn-out campaign such as that on the single currency—I am sorry to use that example again, but it is pertinent—28 days of neutrality is laughable.
  The Treasury is already spending £29 million on its euro preparations—more than the total that the yes and no campaigns will spend in a future referendum. The Minister for Europe is touring the country—appropriately with Eddie Izzard—in some sort of two-man show to persuade people of the benefits of a single currency and the European Union.
  Government propaganda is aimed at making the last 28 days of any subsequent referendum campaign as unimportant as possible by creating a mood of resigned fatalism among the British public about the supposed inevitability of joining the euro. The 28 days of neutrality, after all the organs of state have weighed in for months, is an inadequate safeguard of a fair and balanced campaign. Government neutrality should start when the plan for a referendum is presented.
  I generally welcome the Bill, but its provisions for referendums are flawed. I suspect that the Government cannot resist attempting to retain their control over all elections and referendums. The Minister may be delighted to know that I do not totally distrust them on these issues, notwithstanding the speech of the hon. Member for The Wrekin, but they have already held several referendums and are committed to holding more, not only on the euro but—possibly, probably or perhaps not—on proportional representation. I fear that the Bill is in danger of representing a missed opportunity for producing a generally fair framework for the succession of plebiscites that are already planned.
  Various hon. Members have said that we may need to revisit the situation. That may be true, but I hope that some of the issues that have been raised can be ironed out in Committee. I have to say—I hope that the Minister will listen—that a Committee of the whole House should
  104
  consider the Bill because this is a constitutional matter and it should be examined on the Floor of the House. I hope that the Committee will be given the opportunity to improve the Bill and, especially, to address the concerns that have been raised on this side of the House.
  9.6 pm
  Mr. John Smith: I add my welcome and support for the Bill, it has been a delight to hear so much support being expressed from both sides of the House, even with reservations such as those of the hon. Member for Blaby (Mr. Robathan). It is extremely encouraging that there is such widespread support and to hear such comments, although it is sad in many respects that such a Bill has had to be laid before the House. The primary reason for that is that we had reached a crisis point in terms of trust in politics and politicians in this country by the end of the previous Government's term of office.
  When I came into politics some years ago as an unpaid lay councillor—I am sure that I do not need to tell you this, Mr. Deputy Speaker—it was a pastime that garnered some respect in the community, even at local councillor level. Our Member of Parliament 25 years ago, who was not of my political persuasion, enjoyed considerable respect, trust and confidence in the community, but there has been a gradual decline over the past 25 years. Unfortunately, over the past 10 years, there has been a dramatic fall in confidence in politics and politicians among the general public and we have to put that right. The Bill puts us well on course to doing just that.
  In 1992, not out of choice, I was obliged to leave the House for five years, but not as a result of the wishes of my constituents because the majority of them voted for me to remain their representative for another five years. A small proportion—people living in other lands—who had little association, if any, with my constituency decided to vote for someone else and put me out of office, but I was delighted to be re-elected with the biggest majority in my constituency in 50 years. That was partly a consequence of a lot of people feeling upset because they did not think that their voice—the local voice—counted.
  I welcome the Bill with its transparency, which will go down well, and the limitations on expenditure. More than anything else, I welcome the restrictions on foreign donations and donations from foreign nationals. I wish only to draw attention to a couple of matters. The first is tax relief on donations. A number of arguments have been made today, but there is a simple point: if we have not accepted in the Bill the principle of general state support for political parties, we simply cannot accept tax relief on political donations. No matter what spin or gloss is put on it, it is a form of general state support for political parties so we should give that one short shrift.
  The second matter, which concerns me greatly, is the danger of evasion of the restrictions on foreign donations. The Bill has had all-party support. Many parties, including the Conservative party, have already begun to embrace the Neill committee's recommendations. That is good, and we are on track and going in the right direction. Before the Bill becomes an Act, I hope that many, if not all, the parties in the House will have adopted many of these proposals.
  However, I am concerned about a particular political party. The House may be surprised to hear that it is not the main Opposition party. One of the key

  105
  recommendations in the Neill report, which is implemented in the Bill, is the publication of accounts. That must be the first step towards transparency and openness in public accountability for the funding of political parties. One party in the House still has not published its accounts, and that is Plaid Cymru. Despite giving an undertaking to do so, the Welsh nationalists have failed to publish their accounts and, by that very act, they have undermined confidence in the political system in Wales in particular, and across the country.
  It may or may not be a coincidence that Plaid Cymru has a secret dollar account in the United States of America. We do not know the value of that account containing donations made in north America, because the party does not publish its accounts. As far back as January 1996, the Welsh nationalists are on record as saying in the House that they would not accept any donations from foreign sources. Two of the most senior members of that party supported a ten-minute Bill to that effect.
  We now discover advertisements in the north American press for donations towards the fighting funds of the so-called party for Wales—which has to go to north America for its funding. It is seeking funds and sources of funds to raise $250,000 for its war chest for the election, having given an assurance in the House and elsewhere that it would not accept donations from foreign nationals. When challenged, the Welsh nationalists say that they adhere to the Neill committee's recommendations and that they do not accept donations from anyone other than people entitled or registered to vote in this country. It does not say that in the adverts that appear in the north American press.
  A point that must be raised in relation to the Bill is that we have no way of knowing whether Plaid Cymru has received donations from any source if at a later stage it says that it accepts donations only from people registered to vote in this country, as does its sister party. In fairness to the Scottish National party, its website makes it absolutely clear and states publicly that it will accept donations only from people registered to vote in this country. Plaid Cymru, the so-called party for Wales, does not do that. It has given two undertakings to provide information to prove that it is not receiving money from any foreign nationals based in north America, but it has yet to do so.
  Plaid Cymru is making a big mistake. It is damaging politics in Wales, and damaging the reputation of the House. The Minister should reconsider clause 54 to ensure that we can enforce the regulations relating to donations that are not permissible from countries where our jurisdiction is limited. It is all very well for political parties to say one thing, if they are doing another.
  Like all hon. Members who have contributed to the debate, I warmly welcome the Bill.
  9.15 pm
  Dr. Julian Lewis: It was a pleasure to hear the hon. Member for Vale of Glamorgan (Mr. Smith) pay tribute to his predecessor, the late Sir Raymond Gower. I come from south Wales, and I well remember the respect in which Sir Raymond was held. The hon. Gentleman was right to suggest that such personal regard can have a massive effect on votes at a general election, but I would take that argument further, and draw an analogy with personal regard for the
  106
  behaviour of a party. When such personal regard disappears—as it had undoubtedly disappeared for the Conservative Government by 1997—it, too, can have a massive effect in a general election.
  Along with most of my colleagues, I welcome the Bill for the most part, but we should recognise the importance of having faith in the democratic process. It may be a bit rough and ready, and it may take some time to come into effect, but, at the end of the day, if a party behaves badly, it will be punished. I think that we in the House are mistaken if we feel that everything must be tied up in clauses, subsections and schedules, because eventually the British people will have their say. They will make their judgment, and deliver their verdict.
  I assure the hon. Member for Vale of Glamorgan, and all hon. Members present, that plenty of Conservative Members are determined, by their examples, to try to restore the standing of Members of Parliament in the public perception, in the same way as the hon. Gentleman and his colleagues. That applies to new Conservative Members, and to those who were here during the last Parliament, and who viewed much of what happened then with dismay.
  In the spirit of agreement that has permeated today's debate, I want to raise three issues. Two have been mentioned today; I have mentioned the other in a different context, but I believe that it is relevant to the Bill. My first point relates to the excellent speech made by my right hon. Friend the Member for South Norfolk (Mr. MacGregor). He mentioned the Neill committee's concern about the fact that the referendum for the establishment of the Welsh Assembly was almost even more one-sided than it turned out to be: only by sheer chance was there any financial support for the "no" campaign. That is why I agree with the Bill's provision that public money should be available for umbrella groups—up to £600,000 for each group on each side of the argument.
  As I said in an earlier intervention—and as a number of hon. Members seemed to confirm by agreeing with me—we have a major problem with the provision imposing a cap on what individual pressure groups can spend from funds that they manage to raise privately. Naturally, if they are not members of umbrella groups, they will have to raise the funds privately. In my intervention, I explained that I used to run a campaigning pressure group, which, as the hon. Member for Southampton, Test (Dr. Whitehead) was kind enough to remind the House, dealt with nuclear weapons and the importance—as I saw it, and as it was seen by people who shared my beliefs—of retaining the nuclear deterrent in the climactic closing years of the cold war in the early and mid-1980s.
  Let us suppose, for example—I believe that examples help to concentrate the mind—that, in 1983 or 1984, a referendum had been held on whether Britain should retain its independent nuclear deterrent. Let us suppose that the various groups campaigning in favour of either side of the argument had been able to raise a certain amount of money. I was running a group with the short and snappy title of the Coalition for Peace Through Security. Lady Olga Maitland, who later became a much respected and doughty Member of Parliament, was running another group with an equally short and snappy title: Women and Families for Defence, later truncated to Families for Defence.

  107
  What would we have done if we had been told that we could spend only a fraction of the money that we were able to raise? Let us say, for example, that we were allowed in that campaign to spend £10,000 per group and could have raised £30,000 each. What would we have done? I can tell hon. Members what I would have done. I would straight away have disbanded the Coalition for Peace Through Security and set up the coalition for peace, the coalition for security and, with all due deference to Lady Olga, the coalition for defence.
  What would Lady Olga have done? She would have set up families for peace, families for defence and families for security. Straight away, we would each have trebled our capability to spend money, if we could raise it. It is manifestly obvious that such a restriction is no restriction at all.
  No doubt the pro-nuclear disarmament lobby would have adopted similar tactics. It had plenty of groups. There was CND, Teachers for Peace, Women Opposed to the Nuclear Threat, Scientists Against Nuclear Extermination and even, notoriously, Babies Against the Bomb. Those would all have been able to subdivide and to replicate themselves ad nauseam. I do not see the hon. Member for Test disagreeing with that. I suspect that he was a member of at least some of those groups and knows that I am telling the truth. The Government have to deal with that problem because it is a meaningless restriction as it stands.
  I turn to the point that was rightly highlighted in the excellent speech by my hon. Friend the Member for Blaby (Mr. Robathan). My calculation slightly differed from his as to what money would have been available to political parties that were campaigning for and against the single currency, but the broad principle applies.
  I calculated that, under the Government's original provisions, probably a £20 million limit would have been imposed on parties campaigning in favour of the single currency and only a £5 million limit would have been imposed on parties campaigning against it; that limit could possibly have been £10 million. However, from my calculations, it still appears that the limit for those campaigning in favour will be at least twice that for those campaigning against. That will lead to a disparity in the campaign resources that parties are able to spend.
  Let us suppose, however, that the Conservative party and those who campaigned to retain the pound could raise more money than they were allowed to spend. What would happen under those circumstances? Do people honestly believe that that money would just remain in the pockets of potential donors, who had been willing to give it to the Conservative party to campaign to save the pound? I doubt it. They would find other avenues. It would go to other groups, bodies and organisations.
  That is why the whole concept of putting caps on what may be spent by parties or groups in a referendum is fundamentally flawed. I am not alone in that opinion. I understand from my right hon. Friend the Member for South Norfolk (Mr. MacGregor) that that is precisely the reason why the Neill committee did not recommend capping the limits in that way.
  I was particularly impressed by the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Blaby—that the whole purpose of having a referendum is to cut across the normal
  108
  party divisions that form in general election campaigns, and that determining how much each party should be able to spend in a referendum by its vote at the previous general election misses the whole point of creating special referendum arrangements.
  Dr. Whitehead: Does the hon. Gentleman accept that the American experience in propositions and referendums demonstrates an association between huge expenditure imbalances and outcomes? Is he saying that we should make no attempt to curtail such consequences and simply let rip, or that the system that the Government are proposing in the Bill requires amendment?
  Dr. Lewis: It is obvious that the Government have taken a decision to reject the Neill approach, and it is not realistic to expect the Government to change their mind and remove the caps completely. However, I am still gravely dissatisfied with the effect of the sliding scale, which will give unequal potential to different parties to campaign on either side of a referendum question, and will give unfair advantages to one side of a referendum debate rather than another.
  I shall be quite specific and use the example of economic and monetary union. I suspect that what is really behind the Government's actions and their original flawed scheme—which would have created a much greater disparity between the amounts spent for and against in a referendum campaign on membership of the single currency—is their knowledge that they have a mountain to climb.
  Despite all the Government's effort to propagandise on the desirability, as they see it, of replacing the pound with the euro, the evidence of systematic polling has been that the gap in favour of keeping the pound has been widening, so that, currently, a massive majority of at least 64 per cent, of people are in favour of keeping the pound and rejecting the single currency. Therefore, the cause of adopting the single currency is almost as unpopular as the cause of unilateral nuclear disarmament—supported by the hon. Member for Test—was in the 1980s.
  The Government, therefore, even using their ability to spend more money on their side of the argument, will have great difficulty in turning that opinion around. For the sake of a hard case, they are in danger of making a bad law.
  In my last couple of minutes, I should like to refer very briefly to an issue that I raised on 30 November, in the debate on Second Reading of the Representation of the People Bill, on the need to close a loophole that affected me in the general election campaign, when I was a parliamentary candidate, and provable lies were broadcast against me personally on the internet with the intention of damaging my vote.
  On the same day, I discussed the matter with the Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department, the hon. Member for North Warwickshire (Mr. O'Brien) and I received an indication—which has been renewed since, in a letter that he sent me on 15 December—that, as he said in his letter, he is "sympathetic to the problem" of candidates being attacked, using the internet, to undermine their personal reputation by the telling of lies.
  The problem of character assassination in general election campaigns has always been dealt with by the Representation of the People Acts, but, in this case, that

  109
  remedy failed because the material had been posted on to the internet prior to the election campaign. It had not been removed from the internet during the general election campaign. That was deemed inadequate to constitute publication for the purposes of the existing Acts.
  At that time, I thought that it would be more appropriate to move an amendment to the Representation of the People Bill. Subsequently, however, I have been advised that it would be more appropriate to move an amendment to the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Bill. I should be very grateful if, in his reply to the debate, the Under-Secretary—whom I thank for the close interest that he has taken in the matter—might give an intimation of whether he would welcome such an amendment in Committee. I am delighted that the hon. Member for Ellesmere Port and Neston (Mr. Miller), who intervened on me on that previous occasion, has said that he is willing to table an amendment with me. On that note of consensus, I conclude my remarks.
  9.30 pm
  Mr. Robert Walter: The Opposition have always made it clear that we support the recommendations of the Neill committee and that we shall support the legislation that implements the report. Politics in Britain is clearly not corrupt. We already have legislation to deal with corrupt and illegal practices. However, many legal practices that have grown up in recent years have led to concerns in the minds of our electors about the transparency of our democracy.
  Concerns about money lead to suspicions about the motives of elected politicians, the army of voluntary workers who support them and the generous contributions made by donors large and small. Neill stated clearly that he
  "was not offered any direct evidence of misconduct by political parties or by their fundraisers."
  He went on:
  "The pursuit of politics is an honourable profession to which many men and women devote their lives. Behind each career politician stands a regiment of dedicated party workers."
  We owe it to our electors, to those voluntary workers and to our donors to use the Bill to create transparent and open financial arrangements for our political organisations that will enhance our democracy, putting those who give so generously beyond reproach, protecting our fundraisers and treasurers, most of whom give of their free time, and leaving us elected politicians to get on with government or legitimately opposing those who govern.
  I am grateful to my right hon. and hon. Friends for their contributions to today's debate. I particularly wish to echo the excellent opening speech of my right hon. Friend the Member for North-West Hampshire (Sir G. Young). We look to the Minister to answer the questions that he posed. The first and key question related to timing. The provisions of the Bill affect events up to one year before a general election. Can we assume that an election held in October of this year, as was suggested in The Times this morning, or the spring of next year would be excluded? The hon. Member for Vale of Glamorgan (Mr. Smith) mentioned the by-election that Plaid Cymru has called with undue haste in Ceredigion. It will not be covered by the Bill, because it will take place as soon as 3 February.
  110
  The Government are committed to holding a referendum on proportional representation in this Parliament. Will it be held under the new rules? Will policy development grants be paid before the next general election? Do the Government regard the spending of trade union political funds as separate from the funding of the Labour party? Will we get better definitions of donation and sponsorship? Why does the Labour party, which backed the 20-year limit for overseas voters in 1989, want to halve it to 10 years? Why did the Government reject Neill's recommendations on tax relief for small political donations? I shall deal in a moment with my right hon. Friend's comments on referendums.
  My right hon. Friend the Member for South Norfolk (Mr. MacGregor) gave an excellent speech. He is a distinguished member of the Neill committee and made some useful comments on third party expenditure and the de minimis limits. His comments on the obligations placed on local party treasurers and on donors tracking their own donations are most helpful and we shall use them in Committee. His comments on tax relief for small donations will also be pursued in Committee. I hope that the Minister will justify his opposition on the grounds of cost, either tonight or in Committee. My right hon. Friend's comments were echoed by my right hon. Friend the Member for Cities of London and Westminster (Mr. Brooke), who gave a fascinating historical perspective to the Bill and made a series of useful observations which we shall also use in Committee.
  My hon. Friend the Member for Blaby (Mr. Robathan)—who was most restrained in following the hon. Member for The Wrekin (Mr. Bradley)—raised some useful points on the powers of the Electoral Commission, on referendums and on the unfairness of the Government's proposals on referendums. Latterly, my hon. Friend the Member for New Forest, East (Dr. Lewis) gave an excellent speech, touching on standards in political life. He raised concerns that we all share about the funding of referendums, and I wish to speak a little about that now.
  I wish to deal with that aspect of fairness in our democracy—the equality of opportunity for both sides to be able to put their case in an argument. On this test, the Bill clearly fails when it comes to referendums. Neill's recommendation 83 was:
  "In any referendum campaign there must be a fair opportunity for each side of the argument to be properly put to the voters."
  Neill rightly proposes vigorous standards of financial transparency in the funding of the referendum campaigns, along with some excellent proposals—which are incorporated in the Bill—on core funding from the public purse.
  Neill did not propose the elaborate dog's dinner contained in the Bill for limiting the funding of various types of organisations based on some quite bogus criteria. Neill states:
  "It would be impracticable to try to control campaign spending. The number of individuals and organisations involved would often be too large. The time scale would often be too short. Adequate accounting procedures would often be impossible to put in place. The administrative apparatus required would resemble one of Heath Robinson's most outlandish contraptions—and would almost certainly not work."
  Well, Heath Robinson is alive and well and working in the Home Office. He helped draft this Bill.

  111
  It might be useful for a moment to analyse why referendums are used or proposed in this country. The 1975 referendum enabled Harold Wilson to bypass a deeply divided Labour party and gain a popular mandate for his policy as opposed to that of the national executive committee of the Labour party. The 1979 devolution referendum saw leading members of both major parties in both the yes and no camps. Indeed, the future leader of the Labour party, Mr. Neil Kinnock, campaigned vigorously and successfully against his own Government's proposition. I had the delight, two months later, of being his Conservative opponent in the subsequent general election.
  Mr. Winnick: What was the result?
  Mr. Walter: Unfortunately, he won—but only just.
  The most recent devolution referendums—particularly the one in Wales—saw prominent members of the governing party campaigning against the proposition. Both the major parties at the last election were committed to a referendum on the single currency, which has been mentioned by right hon. and hon. Members on both sides. Why? Why, in a representative democracy, did they not have a clear mandate on the issue? Why are the Government proposing a referendum on proportional representation? With 75 per cent. of the Labour party against the proposition, there is no clear mandate for it.
  What is the logic of controlling the expenditure in a referendum campaign by linking it to political parties and then defining a formula based on popular support at a general election at which the Government gained no clear mandate on the issue that is the subject of the referendum? Who will decide whether the Labour party's £5 million in the PR referendum is given to the no or to the yes campaign? Will it be the Prime Minister or the national executive committee?
  The Minister of State, Home Office (Mr. Paul Boateng): Same thing.
  Mr. Walter: Oh, it is the same thing, is it? The truth is revealed.
  Mr. Straw: It was a joke.
  Mr. Walter: He who laughs last.
  If there is no coherent link between support in a general election and party commitment to a referendum outcome, how should we control the spending—or should we control it at all? Neill rejected any cap because of the complexity of enforcement. As the right hon. Member for Birkenhead (Mr. Field) pointed out, whatever the cap, the proprietors of The Sun or The Mirror can campaign for one side or the other day after day and not be subject to any limit.
  There is a certain attraction in the simplicity of an equal cap on both sides, but Neill could find no formula that would fit the Bill. The Government's formula is unfair and unsustainable. The Home Secretary is clearly unhappy and has invited an alternative proposal. The proposal on the table is the Neill proposal, which we support.
  112
  The Bill contains important constitutional changes. I emphasise our desire that, by agreement through the usual channels, the provisions on referendums, on the control of political parties, on the establishment of the Electoral Commission and on restricting the franchise should be taken on the Floor of the House.
  We welcome the Neill report and support the measures to enact it, so we will not divide the House tonight.
  9.42 pm
  The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. Mike O'Brien): Some commentators are naturally suspicious whenever the House agrees on legislation, but I take considerable comfort in the large measure of cross-party support for many of the Bill's provisions. Despite the tone of the end of the speech by the hon. Member for North Dorset (Mr. Walter), the House has been broadly supportive of the terms of the Bill.
  We have heard some excellent speeches, including those from my right hon. Friend the Member for Birkenhead (Mr. Field) and my hon. Friends the Members for Walsall, North (Mr. Winnick) and for Southampton, Test (Dr. Whitehead). My hon. Friend the Member for Battersea (Mr. Linton) made a well-informed and thoughtful speech, and my hon. Friend the Member for Rotherham (Mr. MacShane) made a powerful contribution.
  There were also important and worthwhile contributions from the right hon. Members for North-West Hampshire (Sir G. Young), for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross (Mr. Maclennan) and for Cities of London and Westminster (Mr. Brooke). I listened with especial care to the contribution of the right hon. Member for South Norfolk (Mr. MacGregor), who is a member of the Neill committee. The endorsement of a leading Tory on the committee for most of the Bill's provisions was telling. I hope to deal with his specific questions as we proceed.
  When we are embarking on major constitutional changes and changing some of our party political machinery, it is right that the House should proceed on a consensual basis as far as is possible. Nothing would be more destabilising than if, with each new Administration, how we conduct our elections were subject to change and counter-change.
  There is still no agreement on a number of issues—thankfully, a small number. I hope that we can discuss those issues as the Bill progresses through the House. On referendum spending limits, my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary has on more than one occasion said that he is willing to consider alternative proposals; but any alternative must be workable. We see fundamental practical and legal difficulties with any scheme that applies a single overall spending limit to each side of the argument in a referendum. The right hon. Member for South Norfolk made a telling point when he said that he thought that it was probably impossible to have complete equality. Those who seek to achieve it must have the onus placed on them to show that it would be practical and legal to achieve that aim. We do not have a closed mind on the issue, but we have considered it with care and the other solutions that have been proposed would produce even greater difficulties.
  The hon. Member for North Dorset made the point that the Neill committee recommended that fair opportunity should be provided for both sides to put their arguments

  113
  to the public during a referendum, and we endorse that view. However, fairness does not necessarily mean equality. Equality may produce unfairness in certain types of campaign, especially if those on the same side have different reasons for seeking a particular outcome. Some people might not be able to advance their views under an umbrella organisation which would, I suspect, be the only way in which we could achieve perfect equality in expenditure.
  The hon. Member for North Dorset also said that the Opposition had said that they would support the Neill proposals. However, I note that, in the Conservatives' internal briefing on the Neill committee's inquiry, they said:
  "In some areas, we think that the Neill report does not go far enough. If there are election spending limits, for example, there is a strong case for capping spending on referendum campaigns too."
  The proposed 28-day purdah period provided for in clause 118 is entirely consistent with the Neill committee's recommendations and with the long-standing position in respect of general election campaigns with which the committee drew a parallel. The Neill committee has welcomed the Government's proposals in relation to the role played by the Government during a referendum campaign. Separate legislation would be needed, for example, to determine the procedure for setting the question that would be put in a referendum. The question will need to be considered in the context of such legislation, and it is right that its wording should be a matter for Parliament to decide. The Neill committee did not propose any role for the Electoral Commission in setting a referendum question, but the right hon. Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross suggested that it should. We are sympathetic to that idea, and will consider it.
  We listened carefully to the comments about the expenditure limits proposed in the Bill. In particular, the Neill committee has said that it does not oppose expenditure limits as a matter of principle, but it has questioned whether parties represented in the House of Commons should be subject to the same £5 million limit, irrespective of the number of Members of Parliament they had. In view of the Neill committee's concern, we have adjusted the expenditure limits for political parties so that they are now geared according to the parties' share of the vote at the last election. The hon. Member for Blaby (Mr. Robathan), among others, questioned whether that was fair, but achieving complete fairness would be difficult. It is a legitimate area for debate and perhaps in Committee we may consider it in more detail. I repeat that we do not have a closed mind on the issue.
  We will propose Government amendments in relation to the administration of referendums. As the Bill stands, part VIII provides the framework for the fair conduct of referendums, but the nuts and bolts of organising the poll and the count are missing. We intend to table amendments that will plug that gap and make the legislation a truly generic referendums Bill. I do not expect those amendments to be controversial, so the House need not worry, but we will welcome any representations the Opposition may have to make.
  Another point raised by the right hon. Member for North-West Hampshire and by the hon. Members for North Dorset and for Blaby was which stages of the Bill might be taken on the Floor of the House. As my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary said earlier, we recognise
  114
  that parts of the Bill give rise to constitutional issues. However, that cannot be said of the Bill as a whole. We will wish to discuss through the usual channels which provisions should properly be taken on the Floor of the House. I hope that that explanation provides some reassurance.
  The right hon. Members for North-West Hampshire, for South Norfolk and for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross all mentioned tax relief. The right hon. Member for South Norfolk also asked about administration costs. The Government are not persuaded of the case for tax relief on donations. It would amount to general state aid by another route, and the Government have to balance the loss of revenue that such relief would entail against other spending priorities.
  The Bill sets out proposals for targeted assistance to political parties, including provision for a total of up to £2 million to be made available each year for a policy development grant. A generous increase, 270 per cent., in the Short money funding for Opposition parties has been agreed.
  The right hon. Gentleman asked about the administration costs of tax relief. Such costs are only one factor—by no means the paramount one—that the Government took into account when coming to their view. We are still prepared to discuss the issue during the Bill's passage. Any precise assessment of the administrative costs of a tax relief scheme will depend on the ultimate shape of the relief and the way in which it is paid. No decision on these matters has been taken. Subject to that proviso, I suppose that a very rough estimate—I can do no better than that—of the sort of costs to the Inland Revenue of setting up and administering such a scheme would be between £700,000 and £1.1 million in the first year, and between £500,000 and £700,000 in subsequent years. Such costs are high, and must be set against the likely benefit to the main political parties—which will themselves incur costs in connection with the administration of the scheme—of perhaps £4 million or £5 million. There has to be a balance. We can discuss these issues further, but I hope that that explanation is helpful to the right hon. Gentleman.
  Mr. Simon Hughes: The arguments that the Minister deploys about the costs of that scheme are perfectly valid, but how does he address the more telling political question? Unless we encourage people who will give smaller amounts of money, we will allow the drift of political funding to go in favour of a few well-off people who will contribute—that is, funding by the few, not the many.
  Mr. O'Brien: I do not wish to teach the hon. Gentleman how to run a political party, but the Labour party has done precisely that. It has changed the whole way in which it is funded by talking to its members and supporters and bringing in, in small donations, very large sums of money. We have changed the basis of much of the Labour party's funding.
  The hon. Gentleman should look at the operation that the Labour party has undertaken and the way in which we go out and talk to our members—indeed, the Conservative party says that it has been doing something similar for a long time. In that way, he may find out how to do this. The main thing though, is for the hon. Gentleman's party to have the members first.

  115
  I should like to deal with a couple of other questions raised and will write to hon. Members on the points that I do not have the opportunity to deal with here. The right hon. Member for North-West Hampshire spoke about the exclusion of trade unions from the ambit of the Labour party. The trade unions are regarded by the public more as donors to the Labour party. If the unions are treated as an integral part of the Labour party, their affiliation fees will be an internal party transaction, not subject to disclosure. Clause 22(8) ensures that such affiliation fees are treated as donations and are subject to the disclosure requirements. The Labour party prefers such matters to be open. I hope that that deals with the point.
  I was asked about whether charitable stalls and company stalls at party conferences require shareholder consent. I am happy to discuss further—both through the usual channels and directly with hon. Members from the various parties—how the matter of conferences should be dealt with. A genuine problem exists that requires further consideration. Some of the issues are complex, especially those involving stands at conferences, and we shall be happy to discuss them further.
  Another question had to do with when policy development grants will be available. We expect them to be available after 1 April 2001, but it remains to be seen whether that will be before or after the next general election.
  I should like to tackle a number of other matters, but fear that time will defeat me. However, I can tell the hon. Member for New Forest, East (Dr. Lewis) that I am still considering the matter that he posed in connection with the internet. I have some sympathy with his point, although I cannot guarantee that we will be able to deal with it during consideration of this Bill. However, I am prepared to discuss the matter further with the hon. Gentleman.
  My hon. Friend the hon. Member for Rotherham made a powerful speech, one important element of which was that the role of a party's national treasurer will become very sensitive and be subject to very strict rules. All political parties must grasp the importance of this change, and take it on board. To paraphrase a former Prime Minister, I can tell the House that the time for penny-farthing political parties has gone: we now need some professionalism in the organisation of the finances of all parties, both small and large.
  The public will demand that, because they want openness. The Bill will deliver the necessary level of openness, but the political parties will be required to ensure that there is an element of professionalism in their financial organisation.
  The hon. Member for Tatton (Mr. Bell) raised a number of important points. As other contributors noted, the hon. Gentleman's presence in the House is a clear sign of the need for a Bill such as this. I listened with interest to what he said and I welcome his general support for the Bill. With regard to the cap of £19.7 million on election expenditure, I can tell the hon. Gentleman that the Government considered the level of that cap with great care. However, we must be realistic and accept that parties have to be able to communicate with the electorate on a national basis.
  116
  We want to ensure that the level of funding is realistic. If we went down to the level of £2 million suggested by the hon. Gentleman, the incentive for getting around the requirement might become considerable. We must be realistic about the nature of our political process, and establish rules that we can enforce.
  However, I agree with the hon. Member for Tatton that, in recent years, the question of sleaze has brought discredit on our political system. Too many people in the country think that politicians are a bunch of self-interested crooks. As my hon. Friend the Member for The Wrekin (Mr. Bradley) said, each scandal discredits more than just the individual or political party involved. In the eyes of many of our constituents, such scandals reflect badly on all political parties and all politicians. That is one of the reasons why young people are often alienated from the political process. It is why some refuse to vote, and it is also why even those who do vote have a cynicism about the political process rather than a proper scepticism about politicians.
  As the Neill report showed, many hon. Members on both sides of the House became involved in politics out of a sense of idealism and a determination to improve things. For the average voter, it is difficult to associate idealism and trust with foreign donations, secrecy in party funding and the behaviour of some politicians.
  As the hon. Member for Tatton suggested, it is time to reassert the better values of decent politics and to give honest politicians the ability to present politics as an honourable vocation. We must give political parties a chance to show that they care more about principles than donations. The Bill gives us that chance, and I commend it to the House.
  Question put and agreed to.
  Bill accordingly read a Second time, and committed to a Standing Committee, pursuant to Standing Order No. 63 (Committal of Bills).

  POLITICAL PARTIES, ELECTIONS AND REFERENDUMS BILL [MONEY]
  Queen's recommendation having been signified—
  Motion made, and Question put forthwith, pursuant to Standing Order No. 52(1)(a),
  That, for the purposes of any Act resulting from the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Bill, it is expedient to authorise—

  (1) the payment out of money provided by Parliament of—

  (a) expenditure incurred by the Electoral Commission by virtue of the Act;

  (b) expenses incurred by the Secretary of State in consequence of the Act; and

  (c) any increase attributable to the Act in the sums which under any other Act are payable out of money so provided;

  (2) the payment out of the Consolidated Fund of—

  (a) salaries, allowances and other benefits payable to or in respect of holders (or former holders) of the office of Electoral Commissioner; and

  (b) any increase attributable to the Act in the sums which under any other Act are payable out of that Fund;

  (3) the payment of sums into the Consolidated Fund.—[Mr. Mike Hall.]

  Question agreed to.

  PETITION

    Care Workers
    10 pm
    Mr. Derek Wyatt: I wish to present a petition on behalf of Mrs. Irene Stack and Mr. Simon Dolby and other members of my constituency.
    The petition declares:
    The current levels of protections for the elderly from untrained or unsuitable care workers are inadequate. The Petitioners therefore request that the House of Commons urge the Government to introduce:

    1) A national register for professional carers to protect the elderly.

    2) A minimum time ban for nurses struck off the register held by the UK Central Council for Nurses and Midwives.

    And the petitioners remain, etc.
    The petition was signed by 2,000 people in my constituency.
    To lie upon the Table.

  Renewable Energy
  Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Mike Hall]
  10.1 pm
  Mr. Gareth R. Thomas: Renewable energy is where the knowledge-based economy meets the environment. It is where market-based solutions deliver reductions in carbon dioxide emissions and it provides opportunities to modernise and enhance our industrial and manufacturing competitiveness by developing new technologies and expertise.
  The dome, which was the centrepiece of our successful millennium eve celebrations, is powered by renewable energy. Similarly, the headquarters of the Central Intelligence Agency in Washington and Gatwick airport's north terminal both use renewable energy. British Petroleum, Shell, PowerGen, National Power, Eastern Electricity, Yorkshire Water, Rolls-Royce, Pilkington and Harland and Wolff are just some of our national and international companies with interests in the renewable energy industry. It employs about 3,500 people in more than 700 companies in this country.
  Achieving our target of 10 per cent. of electricity from renewables by 2010 would create between 10,000 to 45,000 new jobs, according to the Department of Trade and Industry, and up to double that number according to estimates from Friends of the Earth. Many of those new jobs would be in manufacturing and/or rural areas. According to estimates by the Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions, achieving that 10 per cent. target would also provide 25 per cent. of the carbon savings needed to meet the 20 per cent. carbon dioxide emission reduction in our manifesto commitment.
  In short, the renewables industry offers significant environmental, economic and social benefits, at a time when energy markets worldwide are in transition. For example, in the past 20 years, the coal and oil share of generating capacity in the United Kingdom has halved. Fossil fuels are certainly not yet running out—gas fuels 28 per cent. of the electricity market in this country and considerable coal reserves are left—but the global sourcing of such energy is changing, potentially increasing costs and certainly raising issues about security and diversity of supply. Few challenge the view that rising fossil fuel demand cannot be sustained indefinitely.
  In addition, open competition in energy markets, together with new technologies, are making on-site, smaller scale generation efficient and viable. That is changing and challenging a traditional exclusive vision of electricity production as being just about large, remote power stations serving an extensive distribution grid. The other crucial dynamic is our international obligation for reductions in greenhouse gases emissions. That is particularly important as more than two thirds of the United Kingdom's carbon dioxide emissions come from non-transport energy production.
  Our renewables industry is ideally poised to offer solutions and responses for those changing energy needs. Indeed, the Department of Trade and Industry's renewable consultation document identified renewables as offering an option for maintaining a degree of diversity in the electricity system in the longer term. It said that they were the most promising option for the development of a

  119
  sustainable non-fossil fuel generation system and an increasingly cost-effective means of reducing CO2 emissions. Couple that with the new employment and export opportunities that renewables offer and it is no surprise that the industry's potential has been highlighted by the DTI's own foresight programme.
  As Lord Sainsbury of Turville made clear on 5 November last year, to achieve our immediate target of 10 per cent. of electricity from renewables by 2010,
  "a very significant increase in the rate of investment in renewables will be necessary".
  The European Communities Committee in the other place made clear in a report published in June its view that the UK needed to increase the average annual rate of installing renewable electricity generation by a factor of at least seven. I recognise the excellent work in this area already initiated by those on our Front Bench—for example, the reversal of the decline in research funding planned by the Conservatives, the allocation of £43.5 million for investment in renewables over the next three years, the record 260 projects contracted for under the fifth NFFO—non-fossil fuel obligation—order placed in September 1998, and the climate change levy, with renewables exempt, which inevitably encourages business to consider carefully the source of its energy.
  Our Government have not been idle. The outlook for the industry now, compared to the position just three years ago, is considerably more positive. Nevertheless, such was the lack of imagination bedevilling industrial policy under the Conservatives that our renewables industry, despite its considerable potential, has not had the long-term development support available to some of our competitor countries.
  By comparison, on 12 August last year, Bill Clinton signed an executive order aimed at trebling American use of biomass energy, and setting up a permanent council to manage a programme that included a package of tax credits as well as significant levels of direct Government funding. The US Government already have a programme to achieve a million solar roofs. The German Government want to achieve 100,000 solar roofs, and the Japanese Government want 70,000 solar roofs—programmes of support designed to create strong domestic markets from which to achieve the economies of scale necessary to perform well in the rapidly growing global solar market.
  Dr. Alan Whitehead: I thank my hon. Friend for giving way. What does he make of the claim by the British photovoltaic industry that an expansion of internal production and the creation of an internal market would make PV viable in the UK? That is the main obstacle standing between PV and viability, compared with other forms of energy, in the UK.
  Mr. Thomas: I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention. There is much to be said for the argument advanced by the British Photovoltaic Association. That is the assumption on which the US, German and Japanese Governments are aiming for significant expansion in the number of solar roofs.
  We have arguably the best offshore and onshore wind resource in Europe yet, at 330 MW of installed and operational wind capacity, we lag behind Germany,
  120
  where 2,900 MW of installed capacity already exist, and Denmark, where 1,450 MW of installed capacity are in place. Denmark is already meeting 10 per cent. of its electricity needs from wind power alone, has a substantial domestic manufacturing base as a result, and is aiming for 20 per cent. of electricity from renewables by 2003 and 35 per cent. by 2030.
  Estimates from World Energy Council projections indicate cumulative investment in renewables ranging from £150 billion to £400 billion over the next 10 years, while analysis by Shell suggests renewables meeting about 40 per cent. of world energy needs by 2050. By any definition, that represents a huge business opportunity.
  Other action to help our renewables industry to make up for the failures of the Tory years could include new national targets for renewables beyond 2010. Targets help to concentrate minds, define ambitions and create confidence about long-term policy support. They would help to focus minds in the industry, the financial community and the many relevant parts of Whitehall.
  Early announcement of regional targets for renewables generation would also help to lock in other crucial agencies—for example, the regional development agencies, the Welsh and Northern Ireland Assemblies and the Scottish Parliament—to achieve our renewables goals.
  Coal, gas, oil and nuclear all have their champions in Westminster and Whitehall, and a sustainable energy agency is, rightly, strongly supported by the renewables industry to perform a similar role. Such bodies exist successfully in New South Wales and the Netherlands, co-ordinating funding, research and business advice to their renewables industry.
  Such a body need not be created from scratch—the Green Alliance proposed developing an enhanced role for the Energy Savings Trust to help complement existing work in Whitehall and by individual renewables trade associations, thus avoiding the cost and disruption of organisational change.
  The failure of many renewables projects during the planning process has been a particular problem for some parts of the industry, with suitable and sensitive schemes delayed and prevented by the planning system from coming to fruition.
  I welcome the positive consideration of that issue in the Department of Trade and Industry's consultation document last year and in the response to the report by the Select Committee in the other place on the European Union report on renewables. I hope that my right hon. Friend will be able to expand on those comments and outline what other action is being taken to help to tackle that problem.
  Mr. David Drew: I apologise for missing the start of my hon. Friend's compelling speech. Does he agree that energy policy requires joined-up government action, not only in planning but in agriculture and the whole of industry?
  Mr. Thomas: My hon. Friend makes an excellent point. We are beginning to see such action, and I hope that my right hon. Friend the Minister will outline further such measures in her speech.
  The new electricity trading arrangements and the utilities Bill are set to modernise our domestic energy market. The obligation on suppliers to achieve a

  121
  percentage of renewable energy, which is expected to be in the utilities Bill, will be extremely welcome. I hope, too, that the regulator, as part of its enhanced role, will be able to promote and encourage renewables generation.
  There is concern within the industry about the possible impact of the new trading arrangements. In particular, generators with NFFO contracts want reassurance about their position under the new arrangements. The other key concern is that intermittent or fluctuating sources of generation, including many renewables, which are unable to predict four hours in advance, will be much less attractive to suppliers. I recognise that progress has been made on that issue, and I trust that my right hon. Friend can confirm that appropriate aggregation arrangements, for example, will be allowable.
  I urge my right hon. Friend also to consider the case for a dedicated member representing renewables to be on the balancing and settlement panel—the body central to the on-going governance of the new electricity trading arrangements. I hope that the way in which renewables are affected by the new arrangements will be kept under careful review. I hope also that my right hon. Friend will be able to confirm the Department's positive view of embedded generation and outline what further steps it is taking to encourage the benefits of embedded generation to be properly valued and accounted for.
  I hope that my right hon. Friend will consider introducing a positive programme to encourage net metering to help facilitate smaller-scale renewable energy generation for individual domestic and business usage. Net metering would enable small generators to export any excess electricity back to the grid at a fair price. Various forms of net metering are already in place in Germany and Holland. Net metering is also very much alive in America, where 22 states, including Wisconsin, Idaho, California and Washington, have varying net metering regimes. A further seven states are in the process of introducing such schemes.
  Net metering could be an attractive option for social housing providers, offering pathways out of fuel poverty for their tenants. Imagine the pleasure of watching our electricity costs reduce before our eyes as our meter turns backwards, reflecting our excess electricity going to the grid. If that can be done in America, Germany and in Holland, it begs the obvious question, "Why not here too?" I hope that my right hon. Friend will strongly encourage further action at a European level to encourage renewables and the maximising of funding from EU sources for British renewables developers.
  In its report on the EU report on renewables, the Select Committee in the other place said that the proportion of renewable energy used in the European Union has increased by just 1 per cent. since 1990 and that a threefold increase is required to meet the European Union's target of getting 12 per cent. of energy from renewables.
  The development of energy crops in particular is hindered by the high cost of their establishment, which inevitably makes them an unattractive proposition compared with more traditional farming activities, which receive support under the common agricultural policy. I recognise that some progress was made during the Agenda 2000 discussions, but I hope that my right hon. Friend will continue to push for further appropriate
  122
  reforms to ensure that what is potentially an exciting new business opportunity for rural communities receives much-needed EU funding.
  In 1997, the EU "White Paper for a Community Strategy and Action Plan for Renewables", published on the eve of the Kyoto conference, said:
  "In some cases it will be appropriate … for … Member States' authorities to enact necessary legislation … in areas such as flexible depreciation of renewable energy investments; favourable tax treatment for third party financing of renewable energy; start up subsidies for new production plant, small and medium enterprises and new job creation, and financial incentives for consumers to purchase renewable energy equipment and services."
  I hope that, in the light of that comment and other imperatives, my right hon. Friend will continue to keep under close consideration, particularly during her discussions with the Treasury, the levels and form of financial support for renewables. I should like to highlight the tax exemptions given in Denmark to those investing in green funds, which have provided considerable funding for the development of locally owned wind farms. In its report on the EU report on renewables, the Lords Select Committee on the European Union made a similar recommendation.
  The renewables industry will experience considerable growth in the first years of the new millennium, as energy markets change, new opportunities for manufacturing and jobs are exploited and the ever more important environmental imperative to reduce carbon dioxide emissions is focused on. The global market for wind and solar energy is set to double in the next three years—a rate of growth comparable to sales of mobile phones and internet services. In short, the British renewables industry is ideally placed to benefit from, and to lead, such growth.
  10.15 pm
  The Minister for Energy and Competitiveness in Europe (Mrs. Helen Liddell): I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Harrow, West (Mr. Thomas) on securing this Adjournment debate. It is appropriate that the first such debate of the new century is on the future of our energy supply and its development in a way that is sustainable and that meets the needs both of our economy and of the planet. I am delighted that he has returned from his recent exertions none the worse for wear and that, while on the piste, he has crafted some excellent phrases. I warn him that I shall probably pinch a few of them, not least his description of renewables as
  "where the knowledge-based economy meets the environment."
  I hope that he has not claimed copyright on that singularly apt phrase.
  I like my hon. Friend's concentration on the job-creation potential of renewable energy generation—an industrial sector with tremendous scope for expansion. In discussions with representatives of the energy industry, I am always conscious of the increasing extent to which some of the largest players are involved in generation from renewable sources. However, there is a long way to go and much to do, and today's debate gives me an opportunity to restate the Government's commitment to the promotion and development of renewable energy.
  My hon. Friend is right to say that the increased use of renewable energy will contribute to the security and diversity of energy supply, while helping us to move towards a more sustainable form of energy development.

  123
  The opportunities that that effort offers are considerable. The Government expect renewable energy, improved energy efficiency and increased use of combined heat and power to play an important role in reducing future greenhouse gas emissions. The development and increased use of renewable energy is an important part of any cost-effective climate change strategy, not only in the coming decade but far beyond. It is inevitable that we shall face further constraints on greenhouse gas emissions and our ability to burn fossil fuels.
  The Government have already implemented a raft of measures to stimulate the uptake of renewable energy and to assist the development of the UK industry. In September 1998, we announced the fifth and largest ever order for England and Wales under the non-fossil fuel obligation, comprising some 260 projects and almost 1,200 MW of capacity. In February last year, we announced the third Scottish renewables order for a further 53 projects and 150 MW capacity. In March, we announced a steep increase in spending on research and development, with the budget set to total £43.5 million over three years. At the same time, we announced plans to re-establish the wave programme closed by the previous Government—we shall shortly announce the first projects under that new programme.
  As my hon. Friend pointed out, we have already announced our intention of working towards a 10 per cent. renewable contribution to UK electricity supplies. We published a consultation paper on that and, in July, we published the responses to it. The target is challenging, but it is only the first move towards a much wider use of renewable energy
  My hon. Friend referred to the planning issues that surround renewables. Last summer, we launched a new regional planning initiative. In November, we issued two consultation papers on network management and licensing issues for embedded generation, which my hon. Friend mentioned. That is directly relevant to renewables. Only last month, we announced our intention of allocating around £30 million to the growing of energy crops over the six years to March 2007. My hon. Friend and the House know that we have also announced plans to exempt all forms of renewable energy, including electricity generated from renewable sources, from the climate change levy that will be introduced in April 2001. That provides a substantial financial incentive to the industry.
  It is important to examine renewable energy in the overall context of our broader environmental strategy and our economic policies. We will publish draft proposals for the UK climate change programme shortly.
  We also propose to publish the utilities Bill shortly. It will provide new powers to support renewable energy development. I will make a further statement on future support for renewables at that time. I am sure that the House appreciates that it is not appropriate for me to go into detail about the contents of the Bill at this stage.
  As part of our overall analysis of our future energy needs, we take into account the difficulties of ensuring that we meet our 10 per cent. target of generating electricity from renewables. We also want to be absolutely sure that electricity supply companies have completely bought into that process. We want contracts to be
  124
  commercially viable. That will continue with the provisions that we shall put in place for new electricity trading arrangements.
  In moving towards the target of 10 per cent., we will have to increase our renewable energy generating capacity by perhaps as much as 4,000 MW above what we are likely to reach by 2003. That will mean significant contributions from many technologies, such as waste, landfill gas and onshore wind. They have provided the mainstay of the non-fossil fuel obligation policy to date. However, we must consider the less developed technologies such as offshore wind and the energy crops to which my hon. Friend referred in his interesting speech. It is vital that we consider increased research and development and that we also consider planning targets.
  My hon. Friend and I face a significant challenge. Those of us who are committed to renewable energy have to be confident that we can take people with us. Many people are worried about the technology that surrounds electricity generation in particular. They are used to large electricity generating plants, but much of the renewable generation will be on a smaller scale and closer to communities. Therefore, we have to persuade people. That aim underpins our attitude to planning.
  My hon. Friend mentioned photovoltaics. We acknowledge that that there is an important debate about photovoltaics. We believe that solar PV can make a significant contribution to renewable energy supplies both in the UK and elsewhere in the longer term. It offers a cost-effective electricity supply in many applications when grid connection is too expensive or unavailable, and it makes an important contribution to energy, environmental and social goals in developing countries.
  However, PV is currently an expensive means of generation. Critics argue that the Government could create a market by subsidising installations and that that would lead to economies of scale and a self-sustaining market. I do not think that that would work because the costs are too high and the UK market is too small. I am not yet persuaded that the cost could be justified by the social and environmental benefits—this is an emerging technology. A 50,000-roof programme with a 50 per cent. subsidy, as has been suggested by Greenpeace and others, would cost the taxpayer about £250 million. That is not to say that we do not support photovoltaics—we do—but we need to ensure that we move towards a more cost-effective programme as well.
  There is another matter on which I have to take a different view from my hon. Friend. He has previously argued very eloquently in the House for the formation of a new sustainable energy agency. My hon. Friend the Member for Stroud (Mr. Drew) referred to joined-up government, but I do not believe that establishing such an agency is the way to secure it. The Government would have to remain responsible for policy; Departments and Ministers across Government would have to work together to develop policy and monitor its implementation; and the burden of liaison and co-ordination would increase rather than decrease.
  I also believe that we would be taking a retrograde step if we were to set up a separate agency to deal with sustainable development because we would be removing it from the mainstream of Government policy, which is where it should be if we are to have a truly sustainable energy policy. If we are to have sustainable development,

  125
  we have to cut across all areas that relate to energy efficiency, from housing to energy policy, health and taxation. I am unpersuaded of the case for a sustainable energy agency, but not because I want in some way to weaken the Government's commitment to sustainable energy. I argue against such an agency for precisely the opposite reason, although I understand the view of my hon. Friend the Member for Harrow, West.
  My hon. Friend also referred to the changes that will take place in the electricity market. The planned reforms, including the introduction of further competition in electricity supply, have encouraged key players in the industry to suggest options that allow people to choose green electricity. That will make sustainable, environmentally friendly electricity available in a commercial setting, which is the way to guarantee its future; and linking it with exemption from the climate change levy will provide a market-based financial incentive for the industry to participate in such schemes. The reforms will make the current NFFO mechanisms inappropriate, which is why we shall shortly introduce new powers to support renewables through the utilities Bill.
  The new trading arrangements that we shall introduce will mean the operation for the first time of—to use that dreadful phrase—a level playing field for all electricity generators, which will allow real opportunities for them. The regulator, too, has shown commitment to developing, for example, embedded generation. He has proposed a
  126
  new group, under his chairmanship, that will examine a wide range of matters, including the principles and the ground rules for the connection and use of system charges to facilitate and encourage embedded generation.
  My hon. Friend referred to net metering. Although the Government want to ensure that small renewable energy generators such as those involved in photovoltaics get the full value of their generation, it is not immediately obvious to us that net metering would achieve that. We want to use the system of distribution licences as a means of facilitating competition. That duty will in itself embrace the need for embedded generation—including operators of both renewable and combined heat and power plants—to allow them access to distribution systems on fair terms.
  My hon. Friend also referred to the European dimension. European policy is very important, and discussions in the other place have shown it to be significant. There is still much to be done on European policy, not least a draft directive on fair access to renewables, which will be introduced shortly.
  This is an important subject that will have a growing impact on how we generate energy in the 21st century. I again congratulate my hon. Friend on securing the debate, and I look forward to many more opportunities of discussing with him and colleagues the future of renewable energy generation.
  Question put and agreed to.
  Adjourned accordingly at half-past Ten o'clock.

SOLICITOR-GENERAL

  Stalking
  Mr. Hilary Benn
  To ask the Solicitor-General if he will issue guidance to the Crown Prosecution Service on improving communications with the victims of stalking; and if he will make a statement. [104040]

  The Solicitor-General
  The Victim's Charter commits the police to keep all victims informed of developments in the case regardless of the nature of the offence. Currently, the CPS provides to the police information about prosecution decisions for them to forward to victims, or their families, as appropriate.

  The CPS has a specific role in stalking cases to assist victims when the court has made a restraining order under the Protection from Harassment Act 1997, and when subsequently there is a need to seek a variation of the order. The victim is informed of any application to vary the restraining order and asked to express views and, if necessary, to attend. Again, however, the guiding principle is that the CPS communicates with the victim through the police.

  The Home Office will shortly be issuing national 'good practice' guidelines to the police and other agencies resulting from the final evaluation of the "One Stop Shop" initiative, which was established to see how the Victim's Charter commitment to keep victims informed might best be met.

  Following recommendations in Sir Iain Glidewell's report into the CPS and Sir William Macpherson's report into the death of Stephen Lawrence, the CPS is committed to adopting a more proactive role in communicating with victims. The Service is currently piloting arrangements for taking on responsibility to communicate direct with victims rather than via the police. The pilots will be evaluated before an implementation plan is devised.

PRIME MINISTER

  United Kingdom European Delegations
  Mr. Terry Davis
  To ask the Prime Minister if he will place in the Library the latest Information Bulletin on the activities of the United Kingdom delegation to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe and the Assembly of Western European Union covering the period May to October. [104032]

  The Prime Minister
  I have done so today.

FOREIGN AND COMMONWEALTH AFFAIRS

  Defence Systems Exhibition
  Ann Clwyd
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what action the Government are taking regarding reports in connection with the 1999 Defence Systems Equipment Exhibition that an official at the Pakistan High Commission in London offered to sell anti-personnel mines destined for Sudan. [104296]

  Mr. Vaz
  The allegation that an official at the Pakistan High Commission offered to sell anti-personnel mines has been referred to HM Customs and Excise as the appropriate law enforcement agency and I have protested strongly to the Pakistani High Commission.

  Konrad Kalejs
  Miss Widdecombe
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (1) on what occasions(a) he, (b) Ministers in his Department and (c) his officials have discussed the case of Konrad Kalejs with the Australian authorities; and what was the nature of the discussions and information received; [104389]

  (2) on what occasions (a) he, (b) Ministers in his Department and (c) his officials have discussed the case of Konrad Kalejs with the Latvian authorities; and what was the nature of the discussions and information received; [104391]

  (3) on what occasions (a) he, (b) Ministers in his Department and (c) his officials have discussed the case of Konrad Kalejs with the United States authorities; and what was the nature of the discussions and information received; [104390]

  (4) on what occasions (a) he, (b) Ministers in his Department and (c) his officials have discussed the case of Konrad Kalejs with the Canadian authorities; and what was the nature of the discussions and information received. [104377]

  Mr. Vaz
  Neither the Secretary of State nor FCO Ministers have had contact with their American, Australian, Canadian, or Latvian counterparts on the issue of Konrad Kalejs.

  At the request of the Home Office, British officials in Riga and Canberra discussed Kalejs with host Governments. British officials passed a request for information from the American Embassy in London to the Home Office. Officials in Ottawa and Washington have been in contact with their host Governments.

  The purpose of discussions with the Australian and Latvian authorities was to make them aware of developments in the Kalejs case, and to inform them of our readiness to pass on all relevant information, held by HMG.

  The purpose of discussions with the Americans and Canadians was to ask that all relevant information they had on Kalejs be passed to authorities in Australia and Latvia.
  3W
  The Latvian authorities informed us on 3 January that they were reopening their investigation into Kalejs, indicated that they had first investigated him in 1992, and said that they had since maintained close links with US and Canadian authorities.

  The Australians informed officials that they did not have an extradition treaty with Latvia, but would consider any extradition request made.

  British Diplomatic Posts (Costs)
  Mr. Wyatt
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs if he will make a statement on the running costs of the British embassies in(a) Paris and (b) Washington. [104087]

  Mr. Hain
  The running costs for Paris include all Locally Engaged (LE) staff costs of subordinate Posts throughout France. Similarly Washington costs include LE staff throughout the USA. The total staff levels are 248 for Paris, of which 44 are UK based, and 535 for Washington, of which 55 are UK based. It is therefore not possible to draw proper comparisons between the running costs of the two Embassies. However, the ratio of 5:4 UK based staff between Washington and Paris is not considered unreasonable.

  It is important to look at these figures in context: the FCO employs fewer staff and costs less to run than Birmingham City Council. The cost of running the FCO in London and at its 221 posts overseas amounts to less than one-third of one per cent. (0.3 per cent.) of all Government expenditure, and less than 0.15 per cent. of UK GDP. The total FCO budget costs each man, woman and child in Britain only 5p a day.

  Mr. Wyatt
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what the annual running costs were of UK embassies in(a) the European Union and (b) the USA, in the last year for which figures are available. [104130]

  Mr. Hain
  I refer my hon. Friend to the answer I gave on 14 December 1999,Official Report, column 109W, specifically the answers to parts (a) and (b).

  International Tribunal on War Crimes
  Mr. Jim Murphy
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs if he will make a statement on the role of British forces in providing information to the International Tribunal on War Crimes in Kosovo. [102342]

  Mr. Hoon
  I have been asked to reply.

  The British Government are strong supporters of the work of the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia in Kosovo (ICTY), as in other parts of the Former Yugoslavia. As part of KFOR, British forces have assisted the work of ICTY investigators, notably by providing a secure environment in which they can work. British service personnel were also involved, earlier this year, in debriefing Kosovar refugees, in Macedonia and elsewhere, and the information gained has been passed to the Tribunal.

ENVIRONMENT, TRANSPORT AND THE REGIONS

  Planning Approvals (New Homes)
  Mr. Peter Bottomley
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions if he will make it his policy to(a) limit and (b) reduce planning approvals for new homes in West Sussex. [104308]

  Ms Beverley Hughes
  The decision whether to grant planning permission for proposed new housing developments is, in the first instance, a matter for the local planning authority concerned. Applications shall be determined in accordance with the development plan for the area, unless material considerations indicate otherwise. In formulating their development plans local authorities must have regard to guidance issued by the Secretary of State. We expect to publish new national planning policy guidance on housing (PPG3), and final proposals for the new regional planning guidance for the South East (RPG9), soon.

  Environmental Assessments
  Mrs. Brinton
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions how many of the Bills published since the Queen's Speech were accompanied by a statement of their implications for the environment. [104271]

  Ms Beverley Hughes
  It is the Government's policy that environmental aspects should be considered fully alongside the economic and social considerations during the development or review of a policy. My Department stands ready to advise on appraisal and monitoring systems. But it is for individual Departments to set up their own systems to ensure that their policies take account of the environment and that, where necessary, environmental appraisals are carried out. The overall policy and its operation is monitored by the Green Ministers' Committee, which reports annually in July.

  Since the Queen's Speech, the DETR has published two Bills, the Transport Bill and the Local Government Bill. The Transport Bill and a Regulatory, Environmental and Equal Treatment Appraisal were published on 1 December 1999.

  The Local Government Bill provides a new discretionary power for local authorities to take steps which, in their view, promote the economic, social and environmental well-being of those who live, work in or visit their local area, in order to improve the quality of life locally. The remainder of the Bill addresses the way in which local authorities are organised and elected and carry out their business. In this case, no specific environmental impact statement has been published.

  Driving Licences
  Mr. Burstow
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions how much the medical section of the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency pays to private opticians to conduct sight tests and field tests. [104080]
  5W
  Mr. Hill
  The Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency (DVLA) has only just started to use private opticians. DVLA currently pays optometrists £35 to undertake each visual field test, which, on current volumes of tests, will amount to an annual total of £280,000.

  Employment Statistics
  Mrs. Ann Cryer
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions if he will encourage local authorities to publish the composition of their workforces in terms of standard age groups, ethnic origin and gender in their annual reports. [104015]

  Ms Beverley Hughes
  Under the provisions of the Local Government Act 1999, authorities will be required to report annually their performance against specified national performance indicators. Details were published on 23 December in "Best Value and Audit Commission Performance Indicators for 2000–2001". They include indicators on the representation of minority ethnic staff in the workforce and the proportion of women in senior management posts. There is no indicator in respect of the age breakdown of the workforce, but the indicators will be reviewed annually and updated in the light of consultation with the range of authority and customer interests.

  Early Retirement
  Mr. Gardiner
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions how many employees of his Department took early retirement packages, and at what total cost, in the financial year 1996–97. [104098]

  Ms Beverley Hughes
  In the financial year 1996–97, 462 employees of the Department of the Environment and the Department of Transport took early retirement. In addition, some 228 employees took early severance. It would not be possible to separate retirement and severance costs without disproportionate cost and effort, but the total costs of early retirements and severance in the year concerned was £23,322,610. This includes ongoing costs of departures from previous years.

  Objective 1 Funding
  Mr. Andrew George
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions (1) what assessment he has made of the requirements for match public funds from his Department for the EU Objective 1 regions of(a) Cornwall and Scilly, (b) Merseyside and (c) South Yorkshire for each of the seven years of the programme. [104301]

  (2) what level of match public funds from his Department are available to EU Objective 1 regions for each of the next seven calendar years. [104305]

  Ms Beverley Hughes
  My Department will provide significant financial support for all three Objective 1 programmes through a number of funding mechanisms. These include the Single Regeneration Budget and New Deal for Communities, as well as mainstream funding made available to local authorities. Local partnerships can prioritise the use of these resources to fund projects jointly with the Structural Funds, thereby boosting their impact.
  6W
  It is too early to estimate how much my Department's contribution is likely to be over the 2000–06 programme period. This will depend on the types of projects which local partnerships select for support over the programming period.

  Strategic Rail Authority
  Dr. Godman
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions what plans he has to appoint a representative to the Strategic Rail Authority from(a) the National Assembly for Wales, (b) the Northern Ireland Assembly, (c) the Scottish Parliament and (d) the United Kingdom Parliament; and if he will make a statement. [104144]

  Mr. Hill
  There are no plans to appoint such representatives to the Strategic Rail Authority. The Secretary of State has, however, consulted the Welsh Assembly and the Scottish Executive about Welsh and Scottish representation on the SRA. It is not intended that the responsibilities of the SRA will extend to Northern Ireland.

  Homelessness
  Dr. Julian Lewis
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions what recent representations he has received over the Government's plans to tackle homelessness. [102936]

  Mr. Mullin
  My Department has received a large number of representations in recent months from both interested organisations and members of the public, on a wide range of homelessness issues, and in particular on our recently published plans to tackle rough sleeping.

  From its establishment in April 1999, the Rough Sleepers Unit consulted extensively with key partners as part of the development of its strategy, "Coming in from the Cold", which was published on 15 December 1999. Organisations that made representations during this process included other Government departments, local government, other statutory bodies including the Police and the National Health Service, key national and local voluntary organisations, the business community, faith leaders and rough sleepers themselves, as well as members of the general public.

  Also, my Department has set up an official-level sounding board, which includes representatives from the Local Government Association, the Association of London Government, Shelter, the Chartered Institute of Housing, the National Housing Federation and other organisations with an interest in social housing, to discuss proposals for changes to policy on homelessness and the allocation of social housing. Our proposals are still at an early stage, but we intend to consult on them widely in due course.

  Dog Identification Working Group
  Mr. Swayne
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions if he plans to initiate public consultations when the Dog Identification Working Group publishes its report. [104307]

  Mr. Hill
  The report of the Dog Identification Group is expected by the summer of this year. We will consider what the appropriate arrangements for consultation are to be nearer that time.

  NATS
  Dr. Desmond Turner
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions how the figure of £350 million for the partial sale of NATS was calculated; and what plans he has to write off the outstanding debts owed by NATS. [104097]

  Mr. Mullin
  The estimate of £350 million in proceeds from the strategic partner in NATS is net of any debt restructuring and was calculated by our advisers in order to give Parliament a broad estimate of the possible proceeds from the proposed sale. The precise amount of the proceeds will be the subject of commercial negotiations with the strategic partner.

  NATS loans from the NLF must be extinguished when the PPP is put in place so as to avoid any hidden subsidy to the PPP. This may be achieved by repayment, or by writing them off and replacing them with new commercial debt. Final decisions will be taken in consultation with the selected strategic partner when establishing an optimum capital structure for the company.

  Ward Boundary Reviews
  Mr. Bob Russell
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions what procedures exist for objections to be made, and appeals to be heard, in respect of proposals by the Local Government Boundary Commission concerning ward boundary reviews. [104228]

  Ms Beverley Hughes
  Representations, both for and against proposals, can be made at any time to the Local Government Commission (LGC) during the review process and to the Secretary of State after the publication of the Final Report and until an Order is made. It is vital for the integrity of democratic local government that the process of making local authority electoral arrangements should be, and be seen to be, fully independent. Therefore, it is the Government's policy that, unless there is compelling evidence available to it that the recommendations of the LGC may be flawed, it will accept them. However all representations received are fully considered before arriving at a final decision.

  Waste Recycling
  Mr. Brake
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions what percentage of waste collected for recycling was exported in the last year for which figures are available, broken down into(a) glass, (b) paper, (c) plastics and (d) metals. [100941]

  Mr. Mullin
  [holding answer 6 December 1999]: The table shows the percentage of waste collected for recycling in the United Kingdom that was exported in 1998.

  Material

  Percentage exported

  Amount exported (thousand tonnes)

  Glass

  13

  69

  Paper and board

  8

  402

  Plastics

  24

  40

  Ferrous metals

  36

  3,193

  Sources:

  British Glass Federation; Paper Federation of Great Britain; British Plastics Federation; Iron and Steel Statistics Bureau; HM Customs and Excise.

  Home Energy Efficiency Scheme
  Mrs. Brinton
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions if he will expand the new Home Energy Efficiency Scheme to include energy efficiency improvements to the fabric of buildings constructed with solid walls. [101426]

  Mr. Meacher
  Households eligible for the New Homes Energy Efficiency Scheme (HEES) who live in properties with solid walls will receive loft insulation and draught proofing under the scheme, to improve the energy efficiency of the building fabric.

  With regard to the solid wall insulation, as I detailed in the answer I gave on Tuesday 19 October 1999, Official Report, column 491W, this does not appear to be appropriate for the packages of improvements to be offered under the new HEES. Therefore external or internal wall insulation measures will not be available under the scheme.

  Instead, the New HEES packages available for these solid wall properties include higher levels of heating improvements than those for cavity walled homes, so providing similar reductions in fuel costs for both types of property.

  Councillor Keith May
  Sir Nicholas Lyell
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions what representations he has received as to the ability of Councillor Keith May to speak on behalf of his electorate in relation to former Land Settlement Association property; and if he will make a statement. [102716]

  Ms Armstrong
  I have received three representations about this matter—the request for a dispensation under section 97 of the Local Government Act 1972 from Councillor Keith May, a letter from the Head of Members' Services at Bedford Borough Council and a letter from the right hon. and learned Member himself. I replied to the right hon. and learned Member on 22 December 1999.

  Departmental Productivity
  Mr. Crausby
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions what action he is taking to increase the productivity and reduce the running costs of his Department. [103842]

  Ms Beverley Hughes
  Delivering efficient and modern public services is a key part of the Government's agenda for improving productivity. Greater efficiency is being sought therefore within the public sector to ensure that the most effective results are obtained from available resources. The Department's Public Service Agreement (PSA), set out in "Public Services for the Future", Cm 4181, includes a range of measures for taking this forward, both within the Department itself and in other public sector bodies.

  Those measures which will help raise the Department's own productivity are listed at pages 29–31 of Cm 4181 and include:
  "Better quality services" reviews over a five year period
  Electronic Government measures. The Department's target is that 87 per cent. of its business transactions should be capable of being

  9W
  conducted electronically by 2002, subject to the private insurance industry and Post Office Counters Limited achieving their own individual targets
  sickness absence targets, and introducing measures to reduce the levels of sickness absence
  measures to reduce the incidence of fraud
  measures to improve procurement practice
  specific productivity measures for the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency, the Highways Agency, Planning Inspectorate, Health and Safety Commission and Executive, and DETR Central.

  In addition, the 1999–2000 business plan for the Planning Inspectorate includes a target to generate a 3 per cent. efficiency improvement in the use of running costs compared with the previous year. The Highways Agency also has a series of performance indicators related to running costs, listed under key target 17 at Annex B of its business plan for 1999–2000 (copies of which are available in the Library of the House).

  The Department's gross running costs provision for 1999–2000 to 2001–02 is set out in its PSA. The productivity measures listed above will enable the Department to increase the quantity and quality of outputs delivered by its running costs expenditure over this period.

  Flood and Coastal Defence
  Mr. Green
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions how many meetings his officials have attended with Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food officials on the joint review of flood and coastal defence funding. [103861]

  Ms Beverley Hughes
  My officials have attended one meeting with officials from the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food. The consultation document was agreed in correspondence and joint consideration is being given to the responses.

  Mr. Green
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions what representations he has received on the joint review of flood and coastal defence funding. [103862]

  Ms Beverley Hughes
  The Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food and my Department have received 54 representations from a range of bodies concerned with flood and coastal defence. Copies of the responses have been placed in MAFF's library at 3, Whitehall Place, West Block, London SW1A 2HH and are available for inspection.

  Mr. Green
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions what steps he is taking to ensure the joint review of flood and coastal defence funding meets his Department's objectives on the water environment; and if he will make a statement. [103860]

  Ms Beverley Hughes
  The funding review is taking place in the context of Government policy on flood and coastal defence. The Environment Agency is making a full contribution to the review.

  Correspondence
  Mr. Wigley
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions if he will reply 10W
  to the letter of 18 October sent by Nigel Petrie on behalf of Edison Mission Energy to Mr. L. Jaero of his Department; and if he will make a statement on how this issue has been handled by his Department. [103737]

  Ms Armstrong
  The letter concerned the rateable value to be prescribed for pumped-storage energy schemes as part of the current revaluation of non-domestic rates. There are no pumped-storage schemes in England. The values of the plants at Dinorwig and Ffestiniog, which were the subject of Edison Mission Energy's letter, will be prescribed by the National Assembly for Wales.

  The letter followed a series of meetings between electricity producers and officials from the Department, the Scottish Executive, the National Assembly for Wales and the Valuation Office Agency.

  The Department copied the Company's letter to the Valuation Office Agency, who advise both the Department and the National Assembly for Wales on rating matters. However, officials mistakenly thought that Edison Mission Energy was aware of the constitutional position and that they had written separately to the National Assembly. The letter was not, therefore, forwarded to the Assembly and no reply was sent to the Company.

  I regret this misunderstanding, which came to light when the Company wrote again to the Department on 17 December. The Department replied on 20 December and copied both the letters of 17 December and 18 October to officials in the National Assembly for Wales and the Scottish Executive.

  Countryside Bill
  Sir Geoffrey Johnson Smith
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions what representations he has received from environmental groups concerning the proposed Countryside Bill. [103932]

  Mr. Meacher
  Since the announcement of the Bill in the Queen's speech on 17 November, I have received a number of representations from groups and individuals, many of which have environmental interests. Our proposals have been broadly welcomed. Particular attention is being paid to the scope of our proposals for rights of access and the implications for occupiers of land, the detail of the rights of way proposals and the scope of our proposals for wildlife and for sites of special scientific interest.

HOME DEPARTMENT

  Drugs
  Mr. Dobbin
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what measures his Department is taking to tackle the problems caused by drugs in local communities. [103382]

  Mr. Charles Clarke
  Action by the Home Office is being taken forward as part of the Government's 10-year national anti-drugs strategy "Tackling Drugs to Build a Better Britain", published in April 1998.

  The Home Office is contributing to the strategy on several fronts. The Department's Drugs Prevention Advisory Service (DPAS), which succeeded the Drug

  11W
  Prevention Initiative on 1 April 1999, is actively promoting effective community-based drugs prevention and supporting the delivery of Aim 1 (helping young people resist drug misuse), and Aim 2 (protecting communities from drug-related anti-social and criminal behaviour) of the national strategy.

  DPAS is the first Government drugs prevention organisation to cover the whole of England. It works closely with Drug Action Teams—the bodies charged with local delivery of the national strategy—to encourage and support the development of effective local prevention initiatives. DPAS also provides advice and support to community-based partnerships on how to address drug related problems within communities. In addition, it acts as a pressure point on other relevant initiatives and programmes such as community safety, crime reduction and community regeneration, to ensure that drug issues are included on those agendas.

  The Home Office crime reduction strategy places a strong emphasis on breaking the link between drugs and crime. Many acquisitive crimes are connected to drug misuse. The crime reduction strategy has a particular focus on domestic burglary and vehicle crime. For example, funding is being made available to protect over two million homes in 500 high burglary areas over the next two years. Moreover, the Government introduced new legislation this month which provides for mandatory sentences of at least three years for third-time burglars. Targeted policing initiatives are also being adopted to tackle crimes like drug dealing in communities.

  Other measures designed to break the link between drugs and crime include the piloting of Drug Treatment and Testing Orders under the Crime and Disorder Act 1998; the provision of £20 million to pump prime the establishment of arrest referral schemes across England and Wales to lead drug misusing offenders into treatment; and proposals to extend drug testing across the criminal justice system.

  Gamma Hydroxy Butyrate
  Mr. Ben Chapman
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department (1) what plans he has to reclassify gamma hydroxy butyrate as a drug under the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971; [103379]

  (2) what steps he has taken to limit the availability of gamma hydroxy butyrate. [103375]

  Mr. Charles Clarke
  With regard to the question of the classification of gamma hydroxy butyrate (GHB) under the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971, I refer my hon. Friend to the reply given to my hon. Friend the Member for Leeds, Central (Mr. Benn) on 8 December 1999,Official Report, column 532W.

  That reply mentioned the work of the Medicines Control Agency (MCA) to counter the illicit manufacture and sale of GHB, and it might be helpful to elaborate on this. In addition to investigating offences under the Medicines Act, the MCA has taken action on a number of fronts in recent months to reduce the supply of GHB. The Agency has issued an advertising alert to the Committee of Advertising Practice (CAP) and circulated briefing to all heads of police forces and all trading standards and environmental health offices. MCA officers have also targeted a number of sex shops and similar
  12W
  premises to educate owners on the law relating to the advertising and sale of GHB, and followed this up with regular compliance checks.

  The National Criminal Intelligence Service (NCIS) also has a key role to play. The NCIS Drugs Section works with the chemical industry, the Home Office and police forces to gather intelligence on the illicit manufacture of drugs. In the last year this intelligence led to the discovery of eight illicit drug laboratories producing amphetamine, ecstasy and GHB.

  Mr. Ben Chapman
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what assessment he has made of the use of gamma hydroxy butyrate as a date rape drug. [103376]

  Mr. Charles Clarke
  There is currently little evidence of gamma hydroxy butyrate (GHB) being used to facilitate rape. Forensic Science Service analysis since March of last year of samples taken from 100 victims of sexual assault and rape where the use of drugs is suspected has identified GHB in four cases.

  While the analysis has provided no direct linkage between GHB and the sexual offence, rape is clearly an extremely serious offence and it is important for the Government to have a clear understanding of the extent of the drug rape problem. With this in mind, the Home Office sponsored a Metropolitan police research initiative into drug assisted rape, which is due to be concluded in April 2000. Ministers will consider the findings and recommendations of this study.

  Separately, a Home Office led review was set up at the beginning of 1999 to review the law on sex offences in England and Wales. As part of its considerations, the review is considering the law relating to consent, and circumstances where consent is not present. It is also considering whether the current offence of administering drugs to obtain or facilitate intercourse (section 4 of the Sexual Offences Act 1956) is still appropriate. The review expects to report its recommendations to Ministers in the spring, and we plan to publish a consultation paper shortly after this.

  Police Grant
  Mr. Stevenson
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what were the factors that determined the police grant(a) net expenditure and (b) percentage increase in real terms for Staffordshire in (i) 1997–98, (ii) 1998–99 and (iii) 1999–2000; and if he will make a statement. [103621]

  Mr. Charles Clarke
  Police grant allocations to individual authorities for the years in question were determined under a needs-based funding formula and were approved by the House of Commons. For 1997–98 and 1998–99 police authority expenditure levels were subject to capping limits on budget increases. For 1999–2000, no capping limits were set. The budget increase for that year was determined by Staffordshire Police Authority.

  Net expenditure levels are determined by deducting income from gross expenditure. The percentage changes in real terms for the Staffordshire Police Authority for each of the years in question will reflect the application of Her Majesty's Treasury's Gross Domestic Product deflators.

  Immigration and Nationality Directorate
  Ms Oona King
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department (1) what is the average length of time taken by the Immigration and Nationality Directorate to process travel document applications; [103596]

  (2) what steps he is taking to reduce the length of time taken by the Immigration and Nationality Directorate to process travel document applications. [103597]

  Mrs. Roche
  New applications have, since September, been dealt with under a fast track procedure and the majority are being resolved within four weeks of receipt. But there are around 7,000 applications made between January and August 1999 still outstanding. Work on these applications is progressing steadily but it will be some months before they are all cleared, due to a threefold increase in the number of new applications. The number of staff in the section has increased threefold in recent months, and output has increased fivefold.

  Remand Places (Juveniles)
  Dr. Lynne Jones
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department when the Youth Justice Board will assume responsibility for the procurement and provision of secure remand places for juveniles. [103868]

  Mr. Boateng
  The Youth Justice Board for England and Wales will assume responsibility for commissioning and purchasing places in secure accommodation for remanded and sentenced children and young people in April 2000.

  Dr. Lynne Jones
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will estimate the cost to local authorities in the last year for which figures are available of(a) providing secure remand places for juveniles and for the escort of juveniles for court appearances and (b) the reimbursement paid under Section 21 of the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994. [103869]

  Mr. Charles Clarke
  Children and young people remanded to local authority secure accommodation are the responsibility of the local authority designated by the court. Information on the costs to local authorities of providing secure remand places and escorts for court appearances is not collected centrally.

  The secure remand provisions in the Crime and Disorder Act 1998 were implemented on 1 June 1999. On the basis of the claims so far submitted, the Home Office has paid local authorities nearly £500,000 for the additional costs incurred by them in such cases.

  Drug Testing
  Mr. Flynn
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if his proposals for testing offenders and suspected offenders for drug use will include tests for(a) cannabis, (b) amphetamine, (c) ecstasy, (d) cocaine, (e) LSD and (f) heroin. [103744]

  Mr. Charles Clarke
  The detail of the proposal to extend drug testing across the criminal justice system is currently being formulated. One option under consideration is to concentrate testing on those who are misusing heroin and/or cocaine, at least initially, as these are the drugs which research shows are most closely linked to crime.

  Prisoners (Under-18s)
  Mr. Cox
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many(a) men and (b) women under the age of 18 years were serving a prison sentence in England and Wales on 1 November. [103728]

  Mr. Boateng
  The latest available provisional information is for 31 October 1999. On that date there were 1,689 sentenced males and 81 sentenced females aged 15–17 years in Prison Service establishments in England and Wales.

  Information on the population of persons aged 15–17 years in Prison Service establishments in England and Wales is published in "Prison statistics England and Wales", a copy of which is in the Library.

  Konrad Kalejs
  Miss Widdecombe
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department (1) on what occasions(a) he, (b) Ministers in his Department and (c) his officials have discussed the case of Konrad Kalejs with the United States authorities; and what was the nature of the discussions and information received; [104383]

  (2) on what occasions (a) he, (b) Ministers in his Department and (c) his officials have discussed the case of Konrad Kalejs with the Canadian authorities; and what was the nature of the discussions and information received; [104385]

  (3) on what occasions (a) he, (b) Ministers in his Department and (c) his officials have discussed the case of Konrad Kalejs with the Latvian authorities; and what was the nature of the discussions and information received; [104384]

  (4) on what occasions (a) he, (b) Ministers in his Department and (c) his officials have discussed the case of Konrad Kalejs with the Australian authorities; and what was the nature of the discussions and information received. [104382]

  Mr. Straw
  The Foreign and Commonwealth Office was asked by one of my officials on 30 December to inform the Australian and Latvian Governments promptly through our respective Missions of the fact that Konrad Kalejs was present here, that the Metropolitan police were making inquiries into his alleged involvement in war crimes in Latvia and that he might leave the United Kingdom at an early date. Action was taken on 4 January to update the information which had been given to the Latvian authorities.

  My officials were also in direct contact with the Australian High Commission in London on several occasions in the week commencing 3 January in order to ascertain the status of inquiries by the Australian authorities about Mr. Kalejs and to alert them to his intended departure to Australia on 6 January.

  An official also discussed developments with a member of staff at the Embassy of the United States on 6 January following a request for information on the case by the Embassy to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office.

  There was no Home Office contact with the Canadian authorities.
  15W
  Neither I nor any of my Ministerial colleagues have had any direct contact with the Australian, United States, Latvian or Canadian authorities about Konrad Kalejs.

  Miss Widdecombe
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if the police have questioned Konrad Kalejs about alleged war crimes. [104380]

  Mr. Straw
  The conduct of this and any other criminal investigation lies within the operational responsibility of the relevant Chief Officer of Police, in this case the Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis. The Commissioner has told me that in the event it was not deemed appropriate to question Mr. Kalejs, since the view was taken that, under the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984, all this could not have been carried out in the circumstances of the case without arresting him.

  Miss Widdecombe
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department for what reasons he is minded to deport Konrad Kalejs from the United Kingdom. [104388]

  Mr. Straw
  I was minded to deport Konrad Kalejs on the ground that his presence in the United Kingdom was not conducive to the public good. I reached that decision because I was satisfied that reasonable grounds existed to believe that Kalejs was complicit in war crimes committed in Latvia between 1941 and 1944. In coming to that decision I took account of all the evidence available to me, including that which had emerged from investigations carried out by the Australian, American and Canadian authorities, as well as the Metropolitan Police War Crimes Unit, in the early 1990s.

  My decision that reasonable grounds existed to believe that Kalejs was complicit in war crimes was reached where necessary on the balance of probabilities. I was aware that for the police to mount a successful prosecution in the courts they would have been required to produce evidence to a different and far higher standard of proof. The Metropolitan Police have now confirmed that they have concluded that on the evidence available there were no grounds on which to charge Kalejs.

  Miss Widdecombe
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department when the police investigation into the allegations against Konrad Kalejs was completed. [104381]

  Mr. Straw
  I understand from the Metropolitan Police Commissioner that the Organised Crime Unit concluded its assessment of the information available relating to the allegations against Konrad Kalejs on 4 January. I was told on 31 December that on the available evidence, the Metropolitan Police Service believed that there were at that time no grounds for making an arrest of Mr. Kalejs, and in the light of this information Mr. Kalejs was served with a notice that I was minded to deport him. The commencement of this deportation process would not in any way have compromised any arrest or charge of Mr. Kalejs before his departure from the United Kingdom.

  Miss Widdecombe
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what new(a) claims have been made and (b) evidence has come to light in the case of Konrad Kalejs since he served notice that he was minded to deport Mr. Kalejs. [104386]

  Mr. Straw
  I am not aware of any new claims which have been made relating to the alleged responsibility of Konrad Kalejs for war crimes since, on 2 January, I served 16W
  notice that I was minded to deport him, and I am advised by the Metropolitan Police that no new evidence has been revealed to them since then.

  Miss Widdecombe
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what information he has received about Konrad Kalejs's intended destination on leaving the United Kingdom. [104387]

  Mr. Straw
  Konrad Kalejs departed the United Kingdom from Heathrow Airport at 1100 hours on 6 January, on a flight bound for Melbourne via Singapore.

  Asylum Seekers
  Miss Widdecombe
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how (1) many appeals against asylum decisions were refused in(a) 1998 and (b) 1999; and what proportion this was of the total number of appeals in each year; [104042]

  (2) how many asylum seekers whose appeals were refused in (a) 1998 and (b) 1999 have been deported; and what proportion of the total number of those whose appeals were refused this was in each year. [104045]

  Mrs. Roche
  In 1998 a total of 25,300 asylum appeals were determined by Adjudicators of the Immigration Appellate Authority. Of this total 21,100 appeals (84 per cent.) were dismissed. Information for 1999 is not yet available.

  The requested information on the number of asylum seekers whose appeals were refused and deported is available only at disproportionate cost through the examination of individual case records.

  Passport Agency
  Miss Widdecombe
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will place in the Library a copy of the Passport Agency document, "Blueprint for the Future". [103960]

  Mrs. Roche
  Yes. The Passport Agency's document "Blueprint for the Future" has been produced to inform its staff of its plans for the future as set out in the Agency's Corporate and Business Plans 1999–2002, and its separate Action Plan. Copies of these Plans were placed in the Library on 6 December, and copies of the Passport Agency's "Blueprint for the Future" have now been placed there as well.

  Police (Discipline Hearings)
  Mr. Peter Bottomley
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will provide guidance to police forces about allowing officers facing disciplinary hearings the assistance, if requested, of a representative of the Black Police Association. [103919]

  Mr. Charles Clarke
  I refer the hon. Member to the answer I gave him on 8 December 1999,Official Report, columns 533–34W. The choice of representative at a discipline hearing is a matter for the officer concerned. It would be inappropriate for me to issue guidance suggesting who he or she should be.

  Drugs (Prisons)
  Mr. Peter Bottomley
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many occasions were recorded in each prison of the(a) illegal use and (b) supply of drugs in the past year. [R][103913]

  Mr. Boateng
  The table gives provisional figures for the number of occasions in each establishment that all attempts of(a) the illegal use of and (b) the supply of drugs were recorded for the period January to November 1999.

  Drug offences punished in prisons in England and Wales January-November 19991,2

  Establishment

  Unauthorised use of a controlled drug

  Sells/delivers controlled drug

  Altcourse

  77

  —

  Askham Grange

  14

  —

  Acklington

  36

  1

  Albany

  4

  —

  Aldington

  44

  1

  Ash well

  251

  —

  Aylesbury

  64

  —

  Belmarsh

  222

  —

  Buckley Hall

  214

  1

  Blundestone

  63

  —

  Bedford

  26

  —

  Brockhill

  25

  1

  Bristol

  107

  1

  Birmingham

  479

  1

  Bullingdon

  189

  1

  Brinsford

  38

  —

  Blakenhurst

  490

  6

  BullwoodHall

  42

  —

  Brixton

  105

  1

  Chelmsford

  71

  1

  Cardiff

  169

  —

  Camp Hill

  116

  —

  Cookham Wood

  41

  —

  Coldingley

  60

  —

  Castington

  46

  —

  Channings Wood

  79

  —

  Canterbury

  70

  —

  Dartmoor

  63

  —

  Drake Hall

  42

  —

  Durham

  38

  —

  Doncaster

  4

  1

  Dorchester

  36

  —

  Deerbolt

  89

  —

  Dover

  69

  —

  Downview

  29

  —

  Erlestoke

  186

  —

  Standford Hill

  71

  —

  East Sutton Park

  5

  —

  Everthorpe

  280

  —

  Eastwood Park

  39

  —

  Exeter

  66

  1

  Elmley

  230

  2

  Ford

  93

  —

  Foston Hall

  85

  —

  Frankland

  107

  —

  Feltham

  61

  2

  Full Sutton

  80

  —

  Featherstone

  245

  1

  Garth

  118

  —

  Gloucester

  109

  —

  Guys Marsh

  209

  —

  Grendon

  37

  —

  Glen Parva

  151

  —

  Gartree

  109

  —

  Hollesley Bay

  89

  —

  Huntercombe

  79

  1

  Hatfield

  57

  —

  Hewell Grange

  18

  —

  Holme House

  119

  1

  Hindley

  41

  —

  18W

  Drug offences punished in prisons in England and Wales January-November 19991,2

  Establishment

  Unauthorised use of a controlled drug

  Sells/delivers controlled drug

  Hull

  6

  —

  Highdown

  266

  1

  Highpoint

  114

  7

  Haverigg

  158

  —

  Holloway

  22

  —

  Kirkham

  99

  —

  Kirklevington

  38

  —

  Lancaster

  109

  —

  Leicester

  67

  —

  Leeds

  379

  3

  Lancaster Farm

  56

  —

  Lowdham Grange

  169

  —

  Lindholme

  391

  5

  Lincoln

  153

  —

  Long Lartin

  166

  —

  Latchmere House

  13

  —

  Low Newton

  39

  —

  Liverpool

  513

  1

  Littlehey

  140

  —

  Lewes

  154

  —

  Leyhill

  158

  —

  Moorland

  109

  —

  Morton Hall

  59

  —

  Manchester

  341

  —

  Maidstone

  100

  —

  The Mount

  80

  —

  New Hall

  48

  —

  Nottingham

  51

  —

  Northallerton

  32

  —

  North Sea Camp

  64

  —

  Norwich

  117

  —

  Onley

  20

  —

  Portland

  83

  —

  Parkhurst

  99

  1

  Preston

  199

  1

  Parc

  297

  —

  Kingston (Portsmouth)

  18

  —

  Pentonville

  223

  1

  Rochester

  21

  —

  Reading

  14

  —

  Ranby

  134

  6

  Risley

  267

  —

  Send

  24

  —

  Stafford

  316

  —

  Stoke Heath

  56

  2

  Stocken

  223

  2

  Swaleside

  105

  —

  Shepton Mallet

  162

  —

  Swinfen Hall

  29

  —

  Styal

  48

  1

  Sudbury

  112

  —

  Swansea

  56

  —

  Shrewsbury

  93

  2

  Thorn Cross

  101

  —

  Usk

  30

  —

  The Verne

  55

  —

  The Weare

  103

  —

  Wellingborough

  229

  1

  Winchester

  127

  —

  Wakefield

  17

  —

  Wealstun

  219

  —

  Woodhill

  87

  1

  Way land

  129

  2

  Wymott

  129

  —

  Werrington

  5

  —

  The Wolds

  104

  —

  Whitemoor

  137

  —

  Wormwood Scrubs

  73

  —

  Whatton

  3

  —

  Wands worth

  134

  1

  Wetherby

  34

  —

  All

  14,722

  62

  1 Provisional figures

  2 Includes attempts

  19W
  Mr. Peter Bottomley
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many prison staff or officials, indicating the grades, have been charged with or convicted of allowing the supply of illegal drugs in prison in the last year. [R] [103914]

  Mr. Boateng
  Three prison staff have been charged with or convicted of allowing the supply of illegal drugs in prison during 1999. The grades of these staff are one industrial, one instructional officer and one prison officer.

  Departmental Buildings
  Mr. Maclean
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department for each of the buildings under his Department's control how many rooms are set aside for(a) ethnic minority religious use, (b) pregnant and nursing mothers and (c) smokers. [102340]

  Mr. Straw
  Records for the Home Office estate are not held centrally. My six central London headquarters buildings have between them one room for ethnic minority religious use, two rooms for mother and baby facilities and 11 rooms for smokers. Each building also has first aid facilities. These serve a total population of about 3,900 staff, including the United Kingdom Passport Agency, Police Information Technology Organisation and Her Majesty's Prison Service.

  Building

  Room number

  Size (m2)

  Queen Anne's Gate

  Smoking rooms

  1 st floor

  167

  19.1

  6th floor

  665

  29.2

  8th floor

  833

  21.5

  Mother and baby facilities

  3rd floor

  301a

  7.7

  Clive House

  Muslim prayer room

  4th floor

  407

  25.3

  Smoking room

  3rd floor

  330

  40

  Grenadier House

  Smoking room

  4th floor

  408

  33.2

  Mother and baby facilities

  Ground floor

  GO2

  13.8

  Horseferry House

  Smoking rooms

  1st floor

  124

  24.4

  2nd floor

  245

  16.8

  4th floor

  410

  19.9

  7th floor

  760

  15.2

  Abell House

  Muslim advisers room

  7th floor

  706

  17

  Smoking room

  2nd floor

  225a

  17

  Cleland House

  Smoking room

  3rd floor

  317

  18

  Works in hand to create another in Cleland House

  Stalking
  Mr. Hilary Benn
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department (1) what provision there is for the psychiatric assessment of persons convicted of stalking under the Protection from Harassment Act 1997; [104038]

  (2) if he will issue guidance to police forces on improving communications with the victims of stalking; and if he will make a statement; [104039]

  (3) if he will make a statement on the notification to (a) the police and (b) the courts of changes of name or address by persons subject to a restraining order under section 5 of the Protection from Harassment Act 1997. [104041]

  Mr. Charles Clarke
  Anyone convicted of an offence under the Protection from Harassment Act 1997 is entitled to seek psychiatric help voluntarily, but the Act itself makes no provision for the court to compel anyone to seek such an assessment.

  I have commissioned research into the effectiveness of the Protection from Harassment Act 1997, and will respond to any recommendations for changing the Act once I have seen the report. I have no plans to make a statement on this subject before that time.

  Detention Centre
  Mr. Corbyn
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what is the specific planned location of the new detention centre for those held under the Immigration Act 1999; and what progress has been made towards its opening. [104083]

  Mrs. Roche
  All immigration detainees are held under the Immigration Act 1971 as amended. If my hon. Friend is referring to the powers in the Immigration and Asylum Act 1999 to make regulations enabling a person granted temporary admission to be required to reside at accommodation provided by my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary there are no immediate plans to make such regulations.

  Correspondence
  Mr. Kaufman
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department when he will reply to the letters to him dated 23 August, 7 October and 11 November from the right hon. Member for Manchester, Gorton, with regard to Mr. Mohammed Abdullah and Mrs. Nargis Begum. [104068]

  Mrs. Roche
  My right hon. Friend the Home Secretary wrote to my right hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Gorton on 5 January 2000. I am sorry for the delay in replying.

  Mr. Kaufman
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department when he will reply to the letters to him dated 4 August, 16 September and 19 November from the right hon. Member for Manchester, Gorton with regard to Mr. N. Doski. [104069]

  Mrs. Roche
  My right hon. Friend the Home Secretary wrote to my right hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Gorton on 5 January 2000. I am sorry for the delay in replying.

  Drug Treatment and Testing Orders
  Mr. Lidington
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, pursuant to the answers to the hon. Member for Aylesbury of 26 November 1999,Official Report, columns 241–42W, concerning drug treatment and testing orders, when he will write to the hon. member for Aylesbury about drug treatment and testing orders. [104135]

  Mr. Charles Clarke
  I wrote to the hon. Member on 17 December 1999.

  European Convention on Human Rights
  Mr. McNamara
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, pursuant to his answer of 13 December 1999,Official Report, column 8W, concerning training in respect of the European Convention on Human Rights, for what reason his answer did not deal with training given to the Prison Service. [104149]

  Mr. Boateng
  Information about training given by the Prison Service in respect of the European Convention on Human Rights was omitted from my answer of 13 December owing to an administrative error. I apologise to my hon. Friend for this oversight.

  The information he required is that the Prison Service intends to provide all personnel working in prison establishments and at headquarters with information about the Human Rights Act 1998, which incorporates the Convention into United Kingdom law. Training will be provided as necessary.

  Metropolitan Police Service
  Ms Ryan
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department when he expects to publish Her Majesty's Chief Inspector of Constabulary's report on the recent inspection of the Metropolitan police service, which he directed as a result of recommendation four of the Macpherson Inquiry. [104164]

  Mr. Straw
  I have today published the Inspection Report and copies have been placed in the Library.

  Posthumous Conception
  Ms Shipley
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will take steps to amend the law relating to the registration of births of children conceived after the father's death; and if he will make a statement. [100620]

  Yvette Cooper
  I have been asked to reply.

  The question as to whether a man can be named on a birth certificate as the father of a child conceived after the man's death is governed by the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act 1990. Among other things the Act provides that where
  "the sperm of a man, or any embryo the creation of which was brought about with his sperm, was used after his death, he is not to be treated as the father of the child".

  The legal status of children conceived using posthumous insemination was one of the issues considered by Professor Sheila McLean in the course of her "Review of the Common Law Provisions Relating to the Removal of Gametes and of the Consent Provisions in the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act 1990".
  22W
  Professor McLean recommended that consideration should be given to an amendment to the 1990 Act which would, in effect, permit the child to have a "legal" father where his sperm was used posthumously.

  Professor McLean reported to Ministers in 1998 and we have since conducted a public consultation on the recommendations made in her report. We expect to be able to respond shortly to Professor McLean's recommendations, including our views on any possible amendments to the 1990 Act.

CULTURE, MEDIA AND SPORT

  Table Tennis
  Mr. Wyatt
  To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport if he will make a statement on potential conflicts of interest involving the Chairman of the English Table Tennis Association. [104170]

  Kate Hoey
  I am fully aware of the concerns which have been expressed in respect of the operation of the English Table Tennis Association (ETTA) and the role of its Chairman. These issues have been investigated by Sport England and the National Audit Office. As a result, the ETTA has taken a number of steps, including changes to its rules, committee structure and constitution, in order to prevent the risk of conflicts of interest arising and of members gaining unfair commercial advantage. In particular, it has set up a trade committee, upon which the Chairman does not sit, to deal with any business in which the chairman might have a commercial interest. The ETTA is also on the "watch list" of Sport England's Management Audit Department and is therefore subject to regular review and monitoring. This has indicated that all of the required operational procedures are being fully implemented by the ETTA. Sport England is also satisfied, having investigated a number of specific complaints, that there has been no misuse of public funds in respect of the ETTA. However, in view of the concerns which have been expressed in the past about the ETTA, the Chairman of Sport England has, at my request, agreed to carry out a further review of the progress being made towards the original recommendations made to the ETTA by the National Audit Office and Sport England. I have asked my officials to discuss the review with Sport England's Management Audit Department and report back to me as soon as it has been undertaken.

  Mr. Wyatt
  To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport if the finding of the Press Council on the English Table Tennis Association has been brought to his attention; and if he will make a statement. [104036]

  Kate Hoey
  I am aware that a complaint was made to the Press Complaints Commission (PCC), the successor body to the Press Council, on behalf of Alan Ransome, Chairman of the English Table Tennis Association (ETTA) in relation to an article by John Goodbody in The Times on 14 December 1998. I have read the PCC's subsequent adjudication and they concluded that Mr. Ransome's complaints did not amount to a breach of the Code of Practice.
  23W
  The Government do not generally comment on specific cases brought before the PCC. We remain of the belief that an effective voluntary Code of Practice for the print media, overseen by the PCC, is the best way of ensuring high editorial standards.

  National Stadium
  Mr. Peter Ainsworth
  To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport if he will publish the contracts between Sport England and Wembley National Stadium Ltd. relating to the development of the national stadium. [102420]

  Mr. Chris Smith
  [holding answer 13 December 1999]: The Lottery Funding Agreement is the only contract between Sport England and Wembley National Stadium Ltd., and the Football Association is also party to that contract. Publication of the contract is primarily for the parties to the contract.

  Mr. Spring
  To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport what meetings he(a) has had and (b) plans with members of the UK Athletics Technical Team who worked with Wembley National Stadium Ltd. on the design of the new National Stadium at Wembley. [103587]

  Kate Hoey
  [holding answer 20 December 1999]: My right hon. Friend and I have met representatives of UK Athletics to discuss a wide range of issues relating to the National Stadium project. Neither of us, however, has met or plans to meet the UK Athletics Technical Team.

  Mr. Alasdair Morgan
  To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport what was the value of the Government grant for the development of Wembley Stadium. [103754]

  Kate Hoey
  No direct Government funding has been provided for the development of Wembley Stadium. Sport England has made available a Lottery award of up to £120 million for the national stadium project.

  Mr. Spring
  To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport how much his Department paid DLA Ellerbe Beckett for producing their report on the new Wembley Stadium. [103588]

  Kate Hoey
  [holding answer 20 December 1999]: The report was commissioned by UK Sport from DLA Ellerbe Beckett at our request at a cost of £35,000.

  Mr. Peter Ainsworth
  To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport if he will publish the correspondence between his Department and Sport England in relation to the redevelopment of Wembley Stadium. [102419]

  Mr. Chris Smith
  [holding answer 13 December 1999]: No. Much of the material contained in the correspondence was given on the understanding that it represented confidential communications between the Department and Sport England.

  Mrs. Lait
  To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport if he will make a statement on the revised timetable for a decision on the rebuilding of Wembley Stadium. [102144]
  24W
  Kate Hoey
  My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State announced his decision on the rebuilding of Wembley Stadium on 22 December. A copy of that announcement has been placed in the Library of the House.

  Mr. Spring
  To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport which of his Department's Ministers and officials attended the meeting of the National Stadium Monitoring Committee on 20 May. [103591]

  Kate Hoey
  [holding answer 20 December 1999]: My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State, my hon. Friend the then Minister for Sport, and three officials from my Department attended the National Stadium Monitoring Committee meeting on 20 May 1999.

  Mr. Spring
  To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport if he will list the dates and locations of the meetings of the National Stadium Monitoring Committee at which Ministers or officials of his Department were present. [103590]

  Kate Hoey
  [holding answer 20 December 1999]: There have been three meetings of the National Stadium monitoring committee: on 17 February 1999 and 15 July 1999 at the DCMS offices; and on 20 May 1999 at the House of Commons.

  Mr. Spring
  To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport how many days interested parties were given to study the DLA Ellerbe Beckett report on the future of Wembley Stadium before he made his statement to the House of 1 December. [103592]

  Kate Hoey
  [holding answer 20 December 1999]: We received the DLA: Ellerbe Beckett report on Monday 29 November and following consideration of its contents made it available on 1 December to interested parties shortly before the statement made in the House by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State.

  Departmental Productivity
  Mr. Crausby
  To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport what action he is taking to increase the productivity and reduce the running costs of his Department. [103845]

  Mr. Chris Smith
  The Comprehensive Spending Review last year resulted in a number of structural changes within the public bodies sponsored by DCMS, which will result in increased efficiency. At the same time, the Department took on a new, strategic role in its sectors, and a much higher profile in the regions, with dedicated staff in all Government regional offices. This was against the background of a running cost allocation which was flat over the three years of the financial settlement. Among specific initiatives designed to increase efficiency and effectiveness, we are rationalising our estate so that a greater proportion of staff are in one building; co-locating divisions to increase the capacity for sharing support services; and undertaking a number of reviews of our services as part of the Modernising Government agenda. We have established the Quality, Efficiency and Standards Team (Quest) in order to identify and spread good practice in administration across the Department's NDPBs.

  Resorts Task Force
  Mr. Sanders
  To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport what is the remit of the Resorts Task Force; who will serve on it; and how they will be appointed. [104277]

  Janet Anderson
  The English Tourism Council (ETC) is establishing a Resorts Task Force to tackle the problems facing resorts. It will include people with experience in tourism and, in particular, resorts, local government, planning, investment, design and economic development. Peter Moore, ETC board member and Managing Director of Center Parcs is chairing the Task Force and is currently assembling the team.

  Civil Servants (Subsequent Employment)
  Mr. Wyatt
  To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport if he has made a ruling on whether an official whose name has been given to him has contravened the Civil Service rules relating to subsequent employment. [104037]

  Mr. Chris Smith
  No; my Department is in correspondence with the former official concerned.

  Departmental Employees (Ethnic Minorities)
  Mr. Crausby
  To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport what percentage of the total workforce in his Department is of ethnic minority origin; and what steps he is taking to encourage the employment of people from the ethnic minorities in his Department. [102738]

  Mr. Chris Smith
  My right hon. Friend the Minister for the Cabinet Office set out in her reply of 16 December,Official Report, column 264W, the corporate action that the Civil Service is taking to encourage the employment of people from ethnic minorities. My Department currently does only a limited amount of direct recruitment, but makes use of welcoming statements to encourage applications from under-represented groups. As part of the Department's commitment to provide a workplace free from discrimination, all staff receive equal opportunities awareness training and are encouraged to treat others with courtesy and respect. On 1 April 1999, 8 per cent. of the department's workforce declared themselves as being from an ethnic minority background. We will now be working closely with the Cabinet Office to widen the pool of potential recruits and increase interchange opportunities in order to increase the representation of ethnic minorities in DCMS.

  International Sporting Events (Select Committee Report)
  Mr. Spring
  To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport (1) what further response he plans to make to the report of the Culture, Media and Sport Committee, "Staging Professional Sporting Events", HC (1998-99) 124; [103589]

  (2) what action he has taken to implement the recommendations of the report from the Culture, Media and Sport Committee, "Staging International Sporting Events", HC (1998–99) 124. [103593]
  26W
  Kate Hoey
  [holding answer 20 December 1999]: The Government welcomed the extensive report of the Culture, Media and Sport Select Committee into Staging International Sporting Events, and our response of 8 September stressed our full commitment to bringing major international sporting events to this country and to ensuring they are staged successfully. A key response to the recommendations directed at the Government was the appointment of the Minister of State, Cabinet Office, my right hon. Friend the Member for Makerfield (Mr. McCartney), to a coordinating role across different Departments for the Government's interests in the successful delivery of the 2002 Commonwealth Games and associated activities. Also in hand are assessments of the impact of major events on participation in sport; assessment of the economic impact of major events; and improving the quality and contribution of British postholders in international governing bodies. Through UK Sport's major events strategy, we are continuing to work with all stakeholders to make Government support for events more effective.

SCOTLAND

  Sexual Offences
  Mrs. Curtis-Thomas
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland what action he took before July in response to the report of the Scottish Office Central Research Unit in 1992 on sexual history and sexual character evidence in Scottish sexual offence trials. [103740]

  Dr. Reid
  The crimes of clandestine injury to women and incest were added in section 28 of the Criminal Justice (Scotland) Act 1995 to the categories of sexual offences in respect of which evidence of sexual character or sexual history would be inadmissible without the consent of the court. These were two crimes which the research report suggested should be within the scope of the legislation.

  European Convention on Human Rights
  Mr. McNamara
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland what discussions he has had with the First Minister about additional training for(a) the police and (b) the Prison Service in Scotland since the incorporation of the European Convention on Human Rights into United Kingdom domestic legislation.[103611]

  Dr. Reid
  Training of the police and Prison Service in Scotland is devolved and I have not discussed this issue with the First Minister.

  Hughes Report (Dunblane)
  Mr. John M. Taylor
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland if he will make a statement on the availability of Inspector Hughes's report to the Cullen Inquiry into the Dunblane tragedy. [104011]

  Dr. Reid
  Sergeant Hughes's report was made available to the Cullen Inquiry as a production. The report contains sensitive information about children (not the children of Dunblane) who attended a summer camp run by Thomas Hamilton in 1991 and alleged offences against them. For these reasons it was considered appropriate that
  27W
  the production should remain closed for 100 years with the Crown Office dealing with any requests for special access meantime.

TRADE AND INDUSTRY

  Regional Selective Assistance
  Mr. Ashton
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry for what reason the application from Axgro Foods of West Butterwick, near Gainsborough for regional selective assistance which was referred to him by the DTI, reference RSA/99/0116, for relocating their factory to Misterton Bassetlaw was rejected; for what reason the firm was informed at 4 p.m. on 20 December that they had to submit evidence by 22 December; and if he will make a statement. [104175]

  Mr. Caborn
  Axgro Foods Limited applied for a Regional Selective Assistance (RSA) grant on 25 November 1999. All RSA applications are considered against published criteria, which include conditions that grant can be made available only to projects that contribute positive benefits to both the regional and national economy. The European Community restricts assistance to some industries in which there is over-capacity. These restrictions apply to some fishery and agricultural products.

  On 20 December the Government Office for the East Midlands, responsible for the appraisal of this case, contacted the company to advise that the application may be subject to EC restrictions. It asked the company to provide additional supporting information, which was received on 22 December.

  An indicative offer of RSA was made to Axgro Foods Limited on 23 December, which is subject to a full appraisal and clarification on the issue of possible EC restrictions.

  Assisted Areas (Food Production)
  Mr. Ashton
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry what assistance his Department provides for firms involved in food production who wish to relocate to constituencies which have assisted area status. [104174]

  Mr. Caborn
  Regional Selective Assistance is my Department's main instrument for offering direct financial assistance to companies investing in the Assisted Areas. It covers most manufacturing and some service industries, but some sectors including agricultural food production are subject to EU restrictions.

  Copyright
  Dr. Cable
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry if he will make a statement on his Department's role in negotiations on the Internet caching aspects of the draft EU Directive on Copyright in the Information Society. [104081]

  Dr. Howells
  My Department's role is to consider the views of all interested parties on the mandatory exception to reproduction rights proposed in the draft Directive which is relevant to some kinds of caching, and to seek solutions in the negotiations on the Directive which are as fair as possible to all concerned. We wish to ensure both that the activities of service providers such as 28W
  caching are not impeded, and also that owners of copyright and related rights are properly protected in the on-line environment.

  Export Licences
  Ann Clwyd
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry if he will provide details of licences granted to Sidem Ltd. for the export of small arms to Turkey since 2 May 1997. [104157]

  Dr. Howells
  The export of small arms is controlled under entries ML1 and PL5018 in the Export of Goods (Control) Order 1994, as amended, commonly known as the Military List. The entry in the legislation under which the export of goods is controlled is known as their rating. The Export Control Organisation's computer databases have been interrogated, and no standard or open individual licences covering goods with the relevant ratings are recorded as having been issued to this company between 2 May 1997 and 3 January 2000 for the export to consignees or end-users in Turkey.

  This information should be considered in light of the answer I gave to my hon. Friend the Member for Kingswood (Mr. Berry) on 27 July 1999, Official Report, columns 307–08W.

  Ann Clwyd
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry if his Department is required to grant permission before a foreign company can export weapons manufactured under a licensed production agreement with a British company; and if he will list the actions taken(a) by his Department and (b) in conjunction with British Aerospace, to ensure that foreign companies manufacturing Heckler and Koch weapons using British Aerospace technology under licensed production agreements adhere to export control requirements within their licence agreements. [104295]

  Dr. Howells
  As I stated in answer to my hon. Friend on 22 March 1999,Official Report, column 117W, companies wishing to license overseas production of their products do not require DTI approval, nor are they required to notify DTI of arrangements entered into. The control of exports from another country of goods manufactured in that country under such an arrangement is a matter for the competent authorities of the Government concerned.

  Furthermore, as stated previously, the issue of controls on licensed production overseas was raised in a number of the responses to the White Paper on Strategic Export Controls, and is therefore being considered in the review of the White Paper proposals in light of the results of the consultation.

  Cash Machines (Charges)
  Mr. Crausby
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry what discussions he has had with the banking industry on advertising charges for the use of cash machines. [104285]

  Dr. Howells
  My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry has corresponded with the British Bankers Association about charges for cash machines. My officials have also met representatives of Barclays Bank, the Nationwide Building Society and the British Bankers Association to discuss this issue.
  29W
  Mr. Crausby
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry what plans he has to ensure clearing bank cash machines pre-notify customers of charges. [104284]

  Dr. Howells
  My Department is currently discussing the issue of charges for bank cash machines with the banking industry, HM Treasury and Don Cruickshank's team.

  Our approach to this issue was set out by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry on 13 December 1999, Official Report, column 16W.

  Mr. Crausby
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry how many clearing banks pre-notify charges for cash machine withdrawals. [104286]

  Dr. Howells
  I understand that banks generally inform their customers about such charges by letter or when cash cards are issued.

  While some banks' cash machines give a general on-screen warning to the effect that a particular card issuer may levy a charge, I am not aware of any bank which indicates on-screen how much any charge will be.

  World Trade Organisation
  Mr. Denzil Davies
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry who represented Her Majesty's Government at the meeting of the General Council of the WTO held in Geneva on Friday 17 December. [104105]

  Mr. Caborn
  The Deputy Permanent Representative of the United Kingdom Mission in Geneva attended the meeting of the WTO General Council. However, it is the European Commission that represents and speaks on behalf of the European Union and its member states at meetings of the WTO General Council.

  Mr. Denzil Davies
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry if the minutes of the meeting of the General Council of the WTO held in Geneva on Friday 17 December will be published. [104106]

  Mr. Caborn
  The minutes will be circulated to WTO members in January. They will be made available to the public by the WTO secretariat eight months after circulation in accordance with a WTO General Council decision dated 26 July 1996. We are pressing in the WTO, through the European Union, for an elimination of the delay between initial circulation and derestriction as part of our broader WTO transparency aims.

  Objective 1 Funding
  Mr. Andrew George
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry what level of match public funds from(a) his Department and (b) the Department for Education and Employment are available to EU Objective 1 regions for each of the next seven calendar years. [104306]

  Mr. Caborn
  It is not possible to identify match funding from DTI sources for the next seven calendar years since the Department's current expenditure plan runs until the end of the financial year 2000–01. Spending for following years will be determined as part of the next spending review. The DTI has many programmes which may provide match funding in Objective 1 regions,30W
  eg Business Links, Foresight, Smart, LINK. Regional Government Offices can advise potential applicants for European structural funding on all of these.

  Mr. Andrew George
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry what assessment he has made of the requirements for match public funds from his Department for the EU Objective 1 regions of(a) Cornwall and Scilly, (b) Merseyside and (c) South Yorkshire for each of the seven years of the programme. [104351]

  Mr. Caborn
  I refer the hon. Member to answer given on 10 November 1999,Official Report, column 637W.

  Responsibility for identifying match funding is a matter for the partnerships in the regions concerned.

  The Government decided two years ago on the levels of public spending for all departments for a three-year period. We shall review spending plans and bids in the next spending review for the period 2001–04.

  The Regional Government Offices are best placed to advise the partnerships on the sources of departmental funding which can be used to match Structural Funds. The Government is updating and improving guidance on match funding. Given that UK annual public expenditure on industry, agriculture and employment alone is around ten times as much as annual commitments from the structural funds, there should be no difficulty for projects in finding match funding.

  Post Office
  Mr. Gibb
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry if Parcelforce will continue to have preferential customs clearance facilities following the implementation of the Post Office White Paper proposals. [104250]

  Mr. Alan Johnson
  There are no plans to make changes to Post Office customs procedures in the forthcoming Post Office Bill. Customs are in discussion with Parcelforce concerning international clearance facilities at their new Coventry depot.

  Mr. Gibb
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry if Parcelforce's compulsory purchase powers will be retained following the implementation of the Post Office White Paper. [104249]

  Mr. Alan Johnson
  It is intended that these powers will be retained by the Post Office but extended to other licensed Universal Service Providers.

  Mr. Gibb
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry (1) what progress the Post Office has made in implementing the cost-based accounting system proposed in the Post Office White Paper; [104179]

  (2) what assessment he has made of progress made by the Post Office towards meeting the February 2000 deadline for the implementation of transparent accounting. [104178]

  Mr. Alan Johnson
  The Post Office is making good progress in implementing the necessary cost-based accounting systems and it is expected that the EC Directive 97/67 deadline requirements for transparent accounting will be met.

  Stamps
  Mr. Gibb
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry how many(a) first class stamps and (b) second class stamps were sold in (i) 1995, (ii) 1996, (iii) 1997 and (iv) 1998. [104251]

  Mr. Alan Johnson
  I understand from the Post Office that it is not possible to record the numbers of first and second class stamps sold because stamps are sold through independent retailers as well as through the Post Office network. The Post Office have supplied the following figures for the numbers of first and second class stamps produced:

  Billion

  Year

  First class

  Second class

  1995–96

  2.4

  1.9

  1996–97

  2.7

  2.1

  1997–98

  2.5

  2.1

  1998–99

  2.2

  2.2

  Mr. Gibb
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry what account he took of EU proposals for a reduction in the postal monopoly when approving the increase in price of the first class stamp. [104182]

  Mr. Alan Johnson
  The Post Office have referred their proposals for letter tariff increases to the Post Office Users' National Council for consultation as statutorily required. My right hon. Friend will consider in due course any views and comments received from the Council.

  Postal Services Commission
  Mr. Gibb
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry what criteria will be used to appoint members of the Postal Services Commission. [104180]

  Mr. Alan Johnson
  The criteria for members of the Postal Services Commission are set out in the advertisements for those posts and the information for candidates sent to those expressing an interest. Copies of these are being placed in the Library of the House.

  Ilisu Dam
  Dr. Starkey
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry what representations Her Majesty's Government have received in relation to the proposed Ilisu Dam from(a) Syria, (b) Iraq and (c) other Middle Eastern countries. [104071]

  Mr. Caborn
  Syria raised the issue with our Embassy in Damascus in March 1999. They have also raised it on one occasion with British Trade International and most recently (on 23 December) when the Syrian Ambassador called on the Foreign and Commonwealth Office.

  There have been no representations from Iraq.

  The League of Arab States has also informally raised the issue by telephone with the Export Credits Guarantee Department.

  Oil and Gas Production
  Mr. David Stewart
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry if he will make a statement on his 32W
  Department's policy towards oil and gas companies which hold fallow fields in the United Kingdom Continental Shelf. [103112]

  Mrs. Liddell
  [holding answer 20 December 1999]: The Department's Oil and Gas policy is to encourage exploration and development on the UKCS whilst allowing licence groups the option of which discoveries are brought to development. They are encouraged to relinquish any acreage considered unprospective or non-commercial. A review of fallow blocks and discoveries is currently under way.

  The Oil and Gas Industry Task Force has established LIFT (Licence Information for Trading), an on-line information service which allows licensees to advertise licences and assets for sale, trade or form-in. LIFT will encourage more asset trading, by enabling companies to realise their value in a cost-effective way.

NORTHERN IRELAND

  Research Contracts
  Dr. Harris
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland how many research contracts have been let by his Department since May 1997; what is the value of each contract; and in each case whether the contract included(a) a departmental veto over publication of the research results, (b) departmental control over the date of publication of the research results and (c) a requirement that the final research results incorporate departmental amendments. [100155]

  Mr. Ingram
  [holding answer 6 December 1999]: The information for the Northern Ireland Office and Northern Ireland Departments is contained in a table, a copy of which has been placed in the Library. This covers the period up to the date of devolution.

  Robert Hamill
  Mr. Corbyn
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland at what time on 27 April 1997 the location of the fatal attack on Robert Hamill in Portadown was cordoned off by Royal Ulster Constabulary officers. [101856]

  Mr. Ingram
  [holding answer 8 December 1999]: The RUC have advised that the scene was cordoned off at 07.27 hours on 27 April 1997.

  Mr. Corbyn
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland at what times on 27 April 1997 the Royal Ulster Constabulary officers who were present at the scene of the fatal attack on Robert Hamill in Portadown signed written statements regarding the incident. [101857]

  Mr. Ingram
  [holding answer 8 December 1999]: The RUC have advised that the actual times at which police officers signed written statements regarding the fatal attack on Robert Hamill are not recorded. However, they have confirmed that all statements were made during the morning of 27 April.

  Seamus Ludlow
  Mr. McNamara
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland if he will make available to the Irish
  33W
  judicial investigation into the 1976 murder of Seamus Ludlow (a) the interview notes made by the RUC relating to men arrested but not charged in 1999 and (b) case papers prepared for the DPP. [101872]

  Mr. Ingram
  [holding answer 15 December 1999]: To date there has been no request for such information. Should one be received it will be considered in accordance with procedures, regulations and legal constraints.

  Security Patrols
  Mr. McNamara
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland how many patrols were carried out in the last month for which figures are available, broken down by(a) police division and (b) corresponding district council constituency areas, indicating which of those patrols were accompanied by a military presence. [101878]

  Mr. Ingram
  [holding answer 15 December 1999]: The following table shows the number of RUC patrols accompanied by the armed forces during the month of November 1999. It is not possible to provide the total number of RUC patrols or to relate these to district council areas.

  RUC accompanied by military patrols—November 1999

  Division

  Number of accompanied patrols

  A

  0

  B

  0

  D

  0

  E

  0

  G

  20

  H

  402

  J

  102

  K

  157

  L

  383

  N

  6

  O

  5

  P

  22

  Employment Statistics
  Mrs. Ann Cryer
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland what figures he can require from local authorities about the composition of their work forces in terms of(a) standard age groups, (b) ethnic origins and (c) gender. [104012]

  Mr. Mandelson
  Responsibility for this subject has been devolved to the Northern Ireland Assembly and is therefore no longer a matter for the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland.

  Patten Commission
  Mr. Hesford
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland if he will make a statement on the Patten Commission's report on policing in Northern Ireland. [103958]

  Mr. Ingram
  On 9 September 1999 the Patten Commission issued their report and the Secretary of State announced that the Government accepted their findings in principle. A copy of this statement has been placed in the Library of the House. As required by the Belfast Agreement, the Government consulted with various parties. Although the formal period of consultation ended on 30 November 1999, decisions have not yet been made 34W
  on the proposals. It is the Secretary of State's intention that an announcement on Government decisions taken in light of the consultation process, and the next steps, will be made in due course.

  Royal Ulster Constabulary (Kosovo)
  Mr. Beggs
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland if he will make a statement on the role played by the Royal Ulster Constabulary in Kosovo and Bosnia. [103725]

  Mr. Ingram
  In accordance with the provisions of Section 8 of the Police (Northern Ireland) Act 1998, the Royal Ulster Constabulary have seven officers serving with the United Nations International Police Task Force in Bosnia where they are monitoring the performance of the Bosnian police service. Sixty RUC officers are also with the United Nations Mission in Kosovo where they are undertaking an executive policing role pending a new Kosovan police service being trained and ready to take over law enforcement there.

  Departmental Productivity
  Mr. Crausby
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland what action he is taking to increase the productivity and reduce the running costs of his Department. [103853]

  Mr. Mandelson
  My Department is fully committed to seeking efficiency savings and living within agreed budgets. It is determined to achieve efficiencies in all areas of activity and reductions in support services where possible. A comprehensive review of running costs was completed during 1999 and its recommendations for savings, mainly in support services, are being assessed and implemented. More generally, efficiency plans are an integral plan of annual plans for all parts of the Department.

  The Northern Ireland Office will play a full part in taking forward the Government's plans for modernising the delivery of services and reforming the Civil Service. In line with these initiatives it is preparing a programme for Better Quality Services Review over the next five years, to include quinquennial reviews of its agencies and non-departmental public bodies, which will seek to identify the most effective and economical ways to deliver its services. It has already begun action to improve procurement arrangements, to reduce sickness absences, to guard against fraud and to increase the use of electronic business with the Department.

LORD CHANCELLOR'S DEPARTMENT

  Asylum Appeals
  Miss Widdecombe
  To ask the Parliamentary Secretary, Lord Chancellor's Department what was the average waiting time in(a) 1998 and (b) 1999 for (i) a hearing and (ii) a decision in respect of appeals against asylum decisions. [104043]

  Jane Kennedy
  The Immigration Appellate Authority has been unable to monitor the average waiting time for a decision in respect of appeals against asylum decisions. The following table details the average waiting times for a hearing.
  35W

  Category of hearing

  1998

  1999

  Certified

  11

  5

  Substantive

  26

  6

  Detained

  4

  4

  Note:

  Average waiting time shown in weeks

  Miss Widdecombe
  To ask the Parliamentary Secretary, Lord Chancellor's Department how many asylum seekers are currently awaiting the(a) hearing and (b) outcome of a hearing of an appeal against an initial refusal of their claim for asylum. [104046]

  Jane Kennedy
  The Immigration Appellate Authority does not hold separate statistics for these two categories. There were a total of 4,327 asylum appeals outstanding before adjudicators as at 31 December 1999.

  There are in addition, 2,245 asylum appeals outstanding before the Tribunal as at 31 December.

  Miss Widdecombe
  To ask the Parliamentary Secretary, Lord Chancellor's Department how many appeals against initial asylum decisions were heard in(a) 1998 and (b) 1999. [104044]

  Jane Kennedy
  The number of asylum appeals determined by adjudicators in(a) 1998 was 25,322 and in (b) 1999 was 19,461.

  Either-way Cases
  Mr. Garnier
  To ask the Parliamentary Secretary, Lord Chancellor's Department what has been the average time taken from first hearing to verdict in contested cases triable either way which were tried in the magistrates' court, for each of the last five years where data is available. [R] [104233]

  Jane Kennedy
  Information on the time taken in magistrates courts proceedings is collected by the Lord Chancellor's Department's Time Intervals Survey. The survey collects data on indictable (including triable either way) cases completed in a sample week of each February, June and October. During 2000 the frequency of the survey will increase to four times a year. The survey records the date of the first listing but does not record the date of the first hearing.

  The average time taken from first listing to verdict for defendants in contested triable either way cases which were tried in magistrates courts was 113 days in February 1999 and 104 days in June 1999.

  These figures use information collected for the first time in 1999 following an enhancement to the survey. Equivalent figures for previous years are not available.

  Mr. Garnier
  To ask the Parliamentary Secretary, Lord Chancellor's Department (1) what has been the average time taken from first hearing to transfer in contested cases triable either way, except those prosecuted by the Serious Fraud Office, which were transferred to the Crown court in each of the last five years where data are available; [R][104234]
  36W
  (2) what has been the average time taken from first hearing to verdict in contested cases triable either way, except those prosecuted by the Serious Fraud Office, which were transferred to the Crown court, in each of the last five years where data are available. [R][104235]

  Jane Kennedy
  The information requested is not available. Cases involving notices of transfer to the Crown court under section 53 of the Criminal Justice Act 1991 cannot be separately identified in the data collected on time taken in court proceedings.

  European Convention on Human Rights
  Mr. McNamara
  To ask the Parliamentary Secretary, Lord Chancellor's Department what additional training the judiciary in(a) Northern Ireland and (b) Scotland have been given since the incorporation of the European Convention on Human Rights into United Kingdom domestic legislation. [103610]

  Mr. Lock
  (a) The Judicial Studies Board for Northern Ireland has held five lectures on several European Convention on Human Rights topics since February 1998. In mid-January 2000 there will be a further Human Rights Act lecture, followed in late January, February and March by three case study events covering civil law, family law and criminal law respectively. In addition, the Board is presently considering possible topics for inclusion in a series of Human Rights Act lectures and has secured the agreement of Judge Nicolas Bratza, the British judge at the European Court of Human Rights, to deliver the Board's 2000 Annual Address.

  (b) This is a matter for the Scottish Executive.

EDUCATION AND EMPLOYMENT

  Internet
  Mr. Paul Marsden
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Employment if he will list those primary and secondary schools and further education colleges in(a) Shrewsbury and Atcham and (b) Shropshire which have given students access to the Internet since 1 May 1997; and if he will make a statement. [102460]

  Mr. Wills
  There are no centrally held statistics of school connection to the Internet by MP's constituency area. Figures are available for schools in England and are shown in the following table:

  Percentage of schools connected to the Internet

  Year

  Primary

  Secondary

  1997

  5

  47

  1998

  17

  83

  1999

  62

  93

  All colleges of further education have internet connections.

  Information provided by Shropshire Local Education Authority indicates that all secondary schools currently have access to the Internet and that the 100 primary schools remaining are due to be connected to the Internet by the end of March 2000.

  Sure Start
  Mr. Field
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Employment what is the(a) mean and (b) median time taken for the approval of those Sure Start applications that have been approved. [103026]

  Yvette Cooper
  [holding answer 16 December 1999]: Of the 15 local Sure Start programmes approved to date, the mean time taken to approve them from receipt of final delivery plans was eight weeks. The median time was also eight weeks. This included time spent consulting relevant departments centrally and regionally and seeking further information from some local programmes.

  16 Sure Start programmes announced at 15 December 1999

  Start-point data on low birth weight babies less than 2,500g (unless stated)

  Admissions to hospital as an emergency during their first year of life with gastro-enteritis, a respiratory infection or a severe injury

  Birmingham

  11%

  1—

  Blackpool

  8 babies

  1—

  Bristol

  7.28%

  1—

  Copeland

  6.5%

  1—

  Derby

  62 babies

  Gastro-enteritis 7, Respiratory infection 19, Severe injury 8 (including one death)

  Hastings

  6%

  Aged 0–4 years: Gastro-enteritis 23, Respiratory infection 40, Injury (including poisoning) 20

  Leicester

  2.6% (less than 1,500 g)

  1—

  Manchester

  9%

  1—

  Mansfield

  12 babies

  1—

  North Tyneside

  17.8%

  131 admissions to hospital (excluding asthma), 84 for accidental injury and a further 72 seen at A&E for minor ailments

  Oldham

  8.2%

  1—

  Oxford

  10 babies

  1—

  Sheffield

  1—

  1—

  Sunderland

  4.48%

  Respiratory infection 36, (diagnosis codes J00-J99), Gastro-enteritis 3 (diagnosis codes A084 & A09), Severe injury 0 (diagnosis codes S00-T98 plus a stay of 2 plus days)

  Thurrock

  1—

  1—

  1 Will be collected by April 2000

  Mr. Field
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Employment how many of the 60 Sure Start areas correspond to(a) electoral wards and (b) local authority areas. [103005]

  Yvette Cooper
  [holding answer 16 December 1999]: Sure Start areas are very much smaller than local authority areas. The majority of Sure Start areas do not correspond to electoral wards, though some do, with others covering a number of wards. We are in the process of mapping the Sure Start areas in a Geographical Information System which will permit a precise answer to this question.
  38W
  Mr. Field
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Employment what are the start point data on(a) low birth weight and (b) hospital admissions as a result of serious injury, for each approved Sure Start application. [103006]

  Yvette Cooper
  [holding answer 16 December 1999]: The following table shows the start point data for (a) low birth weight babies and (b) hospital admissions as a result of serious injury, gastro-enteritis or a respiratory infection, for the 15 Sure Start programmes approved to date.

  Mr. Field
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Employment how each of the 14 indices is weighted when calculating the index of deprivation used in assessing need for Sure Start areas. [103002]

  Yvette Cooper
  [holding answer 16 December 1999]: The Index of Local Deprivation contains 12 indicators, to which two further indicators, low birth weight babies and births to teenage mothers, were added specifically for the purpose of identifying Sure Start districts. All 14 indicators are afforded equal weight in calculating the overall index.
  39W
  Mr. Field
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Employment what percentage of the population of England is covered by the 60 Sure Start areas announced to date. [102199]

  Yvette Cooper
  [holding answer 13 December 1999]: It is estimated that 1.8 per cent. of the population of England is covered by the 60 Sure Start areas announced to date.

  Mr. Field
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Employment what percentage of the population of England will be covered by Sure Start areas by March 2002. [102198]

  Yvette Cooper
  [holding answer 13 December 1999]: There will be 250 local Sure Start programmes in place by March 2002. Assuming these are of similar size to the 60 trailblazers, it is estimated that 7.5 per cent. of the population of England will be covered by Sure Start areas by March 2002.

  Mr. Field
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Employment if he will list the size of each grant awarded to each Sure Start area. [102200]

  Yvette Cooper
  [holding answer 13 December 1999]: The total amount of grant currently allocated for 1999–2000 to 2001–02 is£66,205,685. I have placed a breakdown by programme in the Library.

  Departmental Research Contracts
  Dr. Harris
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Employment how many research contracts have been let by his Department since May 1997; what is the value of each contract; and in each case whether the contract included(a) a departmental veto over publication of the research results, (b) departmental control over the date of publication of the research results and (c) a requirement that the final research results incorporate departmental amendments. [100145]

  £

  School name

  Project description

  Date approved

  Total1

  The Annunciation RC Infant

  New windows

  July 1997

  11,999

  New entrance

  July 1997

  12,997

  Window and door replacement

  May 1998

  13,141

  Work to entrance

  May 1998

  13,159

  The Blessed Dominic RC Primary

  Library accommodation

  October 1999

  21,963

  Work to covered link

  May 1997

  1,703

  Hasmonean Primary

  Replace dilapidated buildings

  January 1999

  480,000

  Independent Jewish Day

  Classroom extension

  June 1999

  162,282

  Replacement fire escape

  March 1998

  2,761

  Work to covered link

  July 1998

  12,923

  St. John's CE Infant

  External work

  June 1999

  12,220

  St. Joseph's RC Infant

  New windows

  May 1999

  17,068

  St. Joseph's RC Junior

  Toilets (NDS)

  October 1997

  16,441

  New windows

  May 1999

  73,379

  Office improvements

  November 1997

  4,879

  St. Mary's CE Junior

  Roof renewal

  April 1999

  121,645

  Work to cavity trays

  August 1997

  2,181

  40W
  Mr. Wills
  [holding answer 6 December 1999]: Full details of the Department's research contracts and their value are presented in the Department's Annual Report on Research. The 1997 and 1998 Annual Reports are lodged with the House of Commons' Library. The 1999 report will be published shortly. In the absence of this, a list of research contracted since May 1997 is attached.

  The results of research are routinely published in line with the requirements of the Code of Practice on Access to Government Information. The Department aims to publish or release for publication at least 80 per cent. of research reports within 16 weeks of receiving a final draft from its contractors.

  There is no veto over publication of the findings and Ministers are informed of intentions to publish. Contractors are not required to incorporate Departmental amendments. The wording of DfEE research contracts was revised in October 1998 to make this point clearer to contractors.

  Quigley Report
  Mr. Boswell
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Employment when the Quigley report on student finance will be published. [104151]

  Mr. Wicks
  The Teaching and Higher Education Act 1998 requires that report to be laid before each House of Parliament not later than 1 April 2000.

  Voluntary Aided Schools (Hendon)
  Mr. Dismore
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Employment which voluntary aided schools in Hendon have received additional capital allocations; for what purpose; and how much, in each case, since 1 May 1997. [103030]

  Jacqui Smith
  On 1 May 1997, there were 12 Voluntary Aided (VA) schools in the constituency of Hendon and the following table lists the schools that have received approval for new capital work since that date.
  41W

  £

  School name

  Project description

  Date approved

  Total1

  St. Paul's CE Primary

  External handrail

  July 1998

  8,272

  Infants WC and cloakroom

  April 1998

  13,269

  Security fencing

  August 1997

  13,511

  New windows

  June 1997

  8,258

  St. Vincent's RC Primary

  Infants toilets

  August 1998

  13,000

  Single site consolidation

  January 1999

  1,819,035

  1 Figures represent 100 per cent. of governor's costs. Actual grant paid will be at 85 per cent. of the sums shown

  Formula capital grant for all schools will be introduced on 1 April 2000. VA schools in Hendon, including the five former GM schools which joined the VA sector on 1 September 1999, will receive formula capital allocations totalling £134,839 for 2000–01.

  Personal and Social Education
  Mrs. Curtis-Thomas
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Employment what is his policy on the teaching of(a) six to 11-year-olds and (b) 11 to 16-year-olds about homosexuality as part of personal and social education. [103338]

  Jacqui Smith
  The Government have now published a new framework for PSHE designed to help pupils develop into confident, healthy and responsible individuals and help them to deal with difficult moral and social questions that arise in their lives and in society, including addressing issues such as homophobic bullying. The Government support teaching through this framework.

  Gamma Hydroxy Butyrate
  Mr. Ben Chapman
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Employment what steps he has taken to raise awareness of the dangers of gamma hydroxy butyrate in schools. [103378]

  Jacqui Smith
  Drug education is a statutory requirement at all key stages of National Curriculum science. The detailed content and organisation of drug education programmes is a matter for individual schools, geared to the specific local needs and circumstances of their pupils, and should include all drugs and substances open to misuse, including gamma hydroxy butyrate (GHB).

  To support the Anti-Drugs Strategy, our national framework for PSHE will set drug education within a broader context of personal and social development, which will help to equip young people with the knowledge, skills and confidence to resist pressure to misuse drugs.

  Age Diversity
  Ms Perham
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Employment what plans he has to publish the initial survey of employers and older people carried out prior to the publication of the Code of Practice on Age Diversity in Employment. [103905]

  Ms Hodge
  The initial survey was carried out to provide a baseline against which findings from the subsequent surveys could be measured. We intend, therefore, to publish the baseline information in the Spring alongside the findings from the second wave survey.

  Disability Discrimination Act
  Mr. Barnes
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Employment if he will make a statement concerning the operation of the Disability Discrimination Act 1995 in relation to the responsibilities of financial institutions when providing services. [102939]

  Ms Hodge
  The Disability Discrimination Act makes it unlawful to discriminate against disabled people by treating them less favourably than people who are not disabled, or by failing to make reasonable adjustments when services are impossible or unreasonably difficult to use. Financial institutions have the same responsibilities under the Act as other providers of services to the public. The Code of Practice which we published on 29 June 1999 explains these duties and gives practical guidance on how to prevent discrimination against disabled people. The British Bankers' Association (BBA) has also published its own guidance—"implementing Part III of the Disability Discrimination Act: BBA guidance on banks' responsibilities to their customers from October 1999"—with examples specific to the banking sector. It has also published a leaflet for customers entitled "The New Disability Legislation: What You Can Expect from Your Bank".

  Child Care
  Mr. Field
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Employment how many net child care places have been created in the first two quarters of the financial year 1999–2000 by the early years development and childcare partnerships in (i) the parliamentary constituency of Birkenhead, (ii) the four parliamentary constituencies of the Wirral, (iii) the parliamentary constituencies of the City of Liverpool and (iv) the parliamentary constituencies of Merseyside. [104227]

  Ms Hodge
  The number of net child care places created are as follows:

  Constituencies

  Number of net places

  Birkenhead

  119

  Wirral

  349

  City of Liverpool

  278

  Merseyside

  855

  1 The figure for Birkenhead does not include childminder places as these are not broken down to constituency level, but a proportion of the 138 childminder places created in the Wirral area will be in the constituency of Birkenhead.

  School Building
  Mr. Chope
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Employment how many school building projects in
  43W
  England are currently being funded through public private sector partnerships; and what is his forecast for the number of new projects to be started in 2000–01. [104172]

  Jacqui Smith
  Contracts have been awarded on eight schools' projects in England under the Private Finance Initiative, six of which are for building projects covering new or replacement single schools and two of which are Local Education Authority (LEA) wide service contracts. A further 34 projects, covering both single schools and groups of schools, have been approved by the Treasury's Project Review Group (PRG), 13 of which will receive support in 2000–01. In addition, 15 LEAs have been invited to submit business cases for projects, covering both single schools and groups of schools, to be considered for support at future PRG meetings.

  A total of £1.3 billion of PFI Credits has been provided for schools' projects in England up to 31 March 2002, including the £100 million announced in the pre-Budget statement.

  A further 16 Public Private Partnerships (PPP) are currently being supported by £10 million of New Deal for Schools (NDS) grant. PPPs to be supported through NDS grant in 2000–01 and 2001–02 will be announced in the Spring.

  In total, over 700 schools will have benefited from different forms of PPPs by 31 March 2002.

  National Curriculum (Disapplied Pupils)
  Mr. Casale
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Employment what plans he has to exclude disapplied pupils from the total number when calculating the percentage of pupils achieving specific levels on the National Curriculum assessments. [104262]

  Jacqui Smith
  We have no such plans. The National Targets enshrine our determination to improve educational standards among all children. Published figures on the performance of our schools and of the country as a whole reflect that by showing the progress of all pupils through the National Curriculum attainment levels.

  The National Curriculum tests are designed to be accessible to the vast majority of children. With the range of special arrangements for assessment available to schools only a very small number of children are unable to participate in the tests. There is also a real danger that excluding disapplied pupils from the calculations could by itself lead to an undesirable increase in the number of children excluded from the National Curriculum and its assessment. Our policy is supported by the National Advisory Group on Special Educational Needs.

  Access-to-work Scheme
  Mr. Berry
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Employment (1) what is the total budget allocated for informing disabled people and employers about the access-to-work scheme; and what the breakdown of that expenditure is; [103356]

  (2) if his Department has produced a marketing strategy for the access-to-work scheme; [103357]
  44W
  (3) what is the total budget allocated for advertising the access to work scheme; and what is the level of expenditure allocated to advertising on (a) radio, (b) television, (c) newspapers and (d) journals and trade magazines. [103358]

  Ms Jowell
  Responsibility for the subject of these questions has been delegated to the Employment Service agency under its Chief Executive. I have asked him to arrange for a reply to be given.

  Letter from Mr. Leigh Lewis to Mr. Roger Berry, dated 10 January 2000:
  As the Employment Service is an Executive Agency, the Secretary of State has asked me to reply direct to your questions about the Access to Work programme. This is something which falls within the responsibilities delegated to me as Chief Executive of the Agency.
  For the current financial year, we have allocated £450,000 to marketing and promoting the full range of our services for disabled people and their employers. This includes Access to Work, although we do not reserve a specific amount within that total for Access to Work. We carefully consider advertising options but do not allocate specific amounts to advertising on radio, television, newspapers or journals and trade magazines. We are spending £350,000 of the budget on national promotions and the rest is being spent to promote disability programmes and services at regional and local level.
  Our publicity strategy is to raise awareness of the whole range of support available to disabled people and their employers from our disability services. Thus we generally market these services collectively to give a coherent picture of the support available. We produce, for example, leaflets, audio tapes, videos, posters, advertisements and articles for publication in a range of general and specific disability journals. All such generic advertising includes information on the Access to Work programme. For example, in March 1999, we worked closely with the British Deaf Association to produce a British Sign Language video—Make it Work—about our programmes and services. We used three case studies in the video, two of which specifically promoted Access to Work. We have distributed the video to every Jobcentre and to 1,000 external organisations including clubs, organisations and collages for deaf and hearing impaired people.
  The leaflets we produce are freely available from Jobcentres, Disability Service Teams and at marketing events, and we produce them in alternative formats. There are specific leaflets for disabled people and employers promoting Access to Work. Disability Employment Advisers use these leaflets on visits to employers to ensure they are aware of Access to Work.
  We also promote our services, including Access to Work, at many national, regional and local marketing events. For example, we have recently held promotions at the Institute of Personnel and Development Conference and Exhibition, the Confederation of British Industry Conference, and the Access Ability, National Information Day. Access to Work was the central theme of the two employment workshops at the Access Ability event.
  In addition to our own promotions, the Government's current "See the Person" campaign is designed to raise awareness of the positive contribution disabled people are able to make. The campaign refers directly to the support Access to Work can provide to those in work.
  I hope this is helpful.

  University Fees
  Mr. Peter Bottomley
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Employment if he will make it his policy to charge university students in the nations of the United Kingdom by different means dependent on(a) their university location, (b) the place they have (i) lived in and (ii) studied at and (c) the place of their birth. [104309]
  45W
  Mr. Wicks
  The Secretary of State is responsible for the funding of Higher Education in England and Wales. Students currently pay fees of up to £1,025 depending on an assessment of their financial circumstances. These arrangements are fair, just and equitable.

  Pre-school Education
  Mr. Beith
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Employment if he will add Northumberland to the list of authorities with high social need to which funding is provided for new pre-school education places for three-year-olds. [103476]

  Ms Hodge
  We are making available £390 million over three years to double the number of three-year-olds able to access a free early education place to 66 per cent. This year we are making available £40 million to create around 48,000 new free places. This has been allocated to 57 local education authorities with the greatest social need. From April 2000, we will be providing a further £100 million to increase the number of new places to 83,000. These funds will be distributed across all local education authorities, including Northumberland.

  Departmental Productivity
  Mr. Crausby
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Employment what action he is taking to increase the productivity and reduce the running costs of his Department. [103846]

  Mr. Wills
  Delivering efficient and modern public services is a key part of the Government's agenda for improving productivity, and improved administrative efficiency is a key means of ensuring the most effective results are obtained from departmental running costs. The Department's Public Service Agreement, which is available in the Library of the House within "Public Services for the Future: Modernisation, Reform, Accountability" (CM 4181), sets out its running costs provision for 1999–2000 to 2001–02 and the productivity measures that will enable it to increase the quantity and quality of its outputs over that period. Revised targets are being drawn up for a new Public Service Agreement and supporting Service Delivery Agreement that will be published after the completion of the 2000 Spending Review.

  School Closures
  Mr. Beith
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Employment when the name of the adjudicator appointed to consider the disputed closure proposals for Milfield, Kirknewton and Acklington schools in Northumberland will be announced; by what date representations relating to these closure proposals need to be submitted; and whether arrangements will be made for the Adjudicator to visit the areas served by the schools. [103475]

  Ms Estelle Morris
  The Office of the Schools Adjudicator has today received objections to the proposed closure of Milfield, Kirknewton and Acklington schools 46W
  in Northumberland. Any representations should already have been sent to Northumberland LEA. The Adjudicator allocated to deal with the case is Dr. Alan Billings.

  Rural Youth Employment
  Mr. Jim Cunningham
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Employment what measures he is taking to tackle youth employment in the countryside. [103194]

  Ms Jowell
  The Department's policies are generally individual focused and would therefore respond to need wherever it exists. We are raising standards of education to equip young people with the skills and knowledge they need to be able to take up jobs; assisting unemployed young people to acquire employability skills and find work through the New Deals for unemployed claimants; and helping those on inactivity benefits get back into the labour market and from there into employment through other welfare to work programmes such as the New Deal for Lone Parents.

  As well as these, the Government are delivering macroeconomic stability so there can be increasing employment opportunities for all; and making work pay through various tax and benefit reforms.

  All these measures should contribute to reducing youth unemployment in the countryside.

  New Deal (Age Restrictions)
  Mr. Wigley
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Employment if he will make a statement on his plans to modify age restrictions under the New Deal, indicating the date from which all changes will take effect and the categories of restrictions which will remain after limiting the payment of £10 per person per week above benefit levels for unemployed people taking up job opportunities on such schemes. [103299]

  Ms Jowell
  From April 2001, we intend to introduce a substantially strengthened New Deal for long-term unemployed people aged 25 and over, which will provide high quality, job-focused opportunities, including job search help, training and work experience. The detail of these arrangements will be decided in light of the lessons learned from the current New Deal 25 plus pilots. We are also reviewing the support available in England under work-based learning for adults to ensure that we meet the aim set out in the White Paper, "Learning to Succeed", that there should be greater coherence with other support for unemployed people, once responsibility has transferred to the Employment Service in April 2001. A similar review is being undertaken in Wales.

  New Deal
  Mr. Jim Murphy
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Employment how many young people have participated in the New Deal in each region of the United Kingdom in the(a) current and (b) last year. [101301]

  Ms Jowell
  [holding answer 6 December 1999]: The following table shows the number of young people who have started New Deal in each of the Employment Service regions in Great Britain. New Deal started in January 1998 in the first 12 Pathfinder areas, followed by the main roll out across Great Britain in April 1998. The 1999 figures are to the end of September.
  47W

  1998

  1999

  Office for Scotland

  22,617

  17,095

  Northern

  16,073

  11,010

  North West

  30,728

  20,704

  Yorkshire and Humber

  25,783

  16,802

  Office for Wales

  13,615

  9,310

  West Midlands

  20,501

  15,600

  East Midlands and Eastern

  17,913

  12,782

  South West

  12,607

  9,191

  LASER

  52,992

  36,334

  Great Britain total

  212,829

  148,828

  Evaluation studies

  Independent contractor

  New Deal for young people

  1. Qualitative Research with individuals:

  (i) Pathfinder Gateway

  National Centre for Social Research (NSCR)

  (ii) Pathfinder Options

  (iii) Pathfinder Follow-Through

  (iv) National Gateway

  (v) National Options

  (vi) National Follow-Through

  2. Quantitative Survey of individuals:

  Stages 1 and 2

  Policy Studies Institute/British Market Research Bureau

  3. Case Studies of Delivery and Impact

  Tavistock Institute

  (i) Pathfinder Case Studies

  (ii) National Case Studies

  (iii) Audit of 30 Partnerships

  4. Qualitative Research with employers Stages 1 and 2

  NCSR

  5. Quantitative Survey of employers

  NCSR/Institute for Employment Research (IER)

  6. Survey of Leavers to Unknown Destinations

  NCSR

  7. Evaluation of Intensive Gateway Trailblazers

  Ecotec

  8. Evaluation of New Deal for Musicians

  Community Economic Development Associates

  9. New Deal Gateway: A Labour Market Assessment

  Institute for Employment Studies (IES)

  10. Literature Review: Employers

  Institute for Employment Research (IER)

  11. Literature Review: Labour Market Programmes for Young People

  Policy Studies Institute (PSI)

  12. Macro-economic evaluation of the impact of NDYP on the labour market

  PSI and the National Institute for Economic and Social Research (NIESR)

  New Deal for the Long Term Unemployed

  1. Quantitative Survey of individuals receiving pilot and national provision

  PSI

  2. Qualitative research with individuals in pilot and national areas

  NCSR

  3. Case Studies of implementation and delivery in national areas

  Tavistock Institute

  4. Case Studies of implementation and delivery in pilot areas

  IES

  5. Quantitative survey of participating employers in pilot and national areas

  NCSR/IER

  6. A macro-economic evaluation of the impact of NDLTU on the labour market

  NIESR and PSI

  New Deal 50plus

  An extensive programme of research has been commissioned to assess the effectiveness of New Deal 50plus. It includes qualitative work with individuals and with Employment Service and Benefits Agency employees, a longitudinal survey of individuals and a qualitative survey of employers. All the work is being carried out by the Institute for Employment Studies (IES).

  New Deal for Lone Parents

  NDLP National Programme (Phase 3) Evaluation

  (i) Qualitative research with Lone Parents

  Cragg, Ross, Dawson

  (ii) Client Satisfaction Survey

  Martin Hamblin Research

  (iii) Case Studies on Delivery

  GHK Economics and Management

  (iv) Employer Research

  NCSR

  (v) Quantitative research with lone parents

  (contractor to be confirmed)

  (vi) Macro-evaluation

  (contractor to be confirmed)

  NDLP Phase 3 Innovative Pilots Evaluation

  (i) Evaluation of Innovative Pilots

  Centre for Regional Economic and Social Research (CRESR) Sheffield Hallam University

  New Deal for Partners of the Unemployed

  No contractors have yet been appointed for the evaluations of New Deal for Partners of the Unemployed (voluntary programme) or for NDPU Joint Claims for JSA.

  Mr. Jim Murphy
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Employment how many long-term unemployed people who have entered the New Deal have found full-time employment in each of the past two years. [101311]

  Ms Jowell
  [holding answer 6 December 1999]: In 1998, 62,900 young people gained employment from the New Deal for young people and 6,300 under the New
  48W
  Mr. Bercow
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Employment if he will list the independent expert studies which he has commissioned into each of the New Deal programmes. [102102]

  Ms Jowell
  [holding answer 9 December 1999]We have an independent programme of evaluations of the New Deals. The independent studies which have been commissioned into each of the New Deal programmes are as follows:

  Deal for long-term unemployed people aged 25 and over. To September 1999, the equivalent figures for this year are 92,700 and 20,500 respectively.

  Professor Barber
  Mr. Matthew Taylor
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Employment on what date Professor
  49W
  Barber gave a presentation to a group of officials in the Education Department in Washington DC; and what were the names of the officials who attended. [103140]

  Ms Estelle Morris
  Professor Barber gave a presentation to a group of officials from the Education Department in Washington DC on 11 August 1999. The seminar, which was organised by Emma Harrell on behalf of Terry Peterson, Counselor to the Secretary of Education, allowed an informal, round-table exchange of ideas with officials from the US Department of Education. Roughly 12–15 officials attended. No formal record of attendance was kept but those invited were:

  Michael Smith—Acting Deputy Secretary of Education

  Michael Cohen—Senior Advisor to the Secretary of Education

  Susan Frost—Special Advisor to the Secretary, Office of the Secretary

  Terry Dozier—Special Advisor on Teaching, Office of the Secretary

  Carol Rasco—Senior Advisor to the Secretary and Director of America Reads Challenge, Office of the Secretary

  Judith Johnson—Acting Assistant Secretary, Office of Elementary and Secondary Education

  Kent McGuire—Assistant Secretary, Office of Educational Research and Improvement

  Alan Ginsburg—Planning and Evaluation Service Director, Office of the Secretary

  William Kincaid—Comprehensive School Reform Demonstration, Office of Elementary and Secondary Education

  Jim Kohlmoos—Deputy Assistant Secretary, Office of Elementary and Secondary Education

  Susan Wilhelm—Education Program Specialist, Office of Elementary and Secondary Education

  Patricia McNeil—Assistant Secretary, Office of Vocational Adult Education

  Linda Roberts—Director of Education Technology, Office of the Deputy Secretary

  Mario Moreno—Assistant Secretary, Office of Intergovernmental and Interagency Affairs

  Menahem Herman—Partnership for Family Involvement in Education Coordinator, Office of Intergovernmental and Interagency Affairs

  Judith Heumann—Assistant Secretary, Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services

  Lenore Garcia—International Affairs Director, Office of the Under Secretary.

  If we are to create a truly world-class education service, it is vital that we have a broad international perspective against which to benchmark our levels of achievement. It is important to keep in touch with, and learn from, best practice and innovations from abroad. The USA, because of its size and diversity, provides many instructive examples.

HEALTH

  Departmental Transport
  Dr. Lynne Jones
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health how much his Department has spent on ministerial transport in each of the last two years. [98694]
  50W
  Yvette Cooper
  In accordance with the terms of the "Ministerial Code" and "Travel by Ministers", Ministers are required to make efficient and cost-effective travel arrangements. For Ministers in the Department, this is done through the Government Car Service.

  For information on spend on the Government Car Service, I refer my hon. Friend to the answer given by my right hon. Friend the Minister of State, Cabinet Office, on 25 November 1999, Official Report, columns 199–200W.

  Meningitis Immunisation
  Mr. Swayne
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what plans he has to extend immunisation against meningitis to young people on industrial placements prior to university entry. [98725]

  Yvette Cooper
  While on placements, the risk for these young people from meningococcal disease is the same as for the adult population. Next year, when they either return or go on to higher education, they may be eligible for immunisation. We are seeking advice from the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation, the Government's independent expert advisory committee, on the use of meningococcal vaccine for young people who have not already been vaccinated at school and who will be first year students at the start of the 2000–01 academic year.

  Mr. Crausby
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health how many children have been immunised with the meningitis vaccine since the current immunisation programme was introduced. [100605]

  Yvette Cooper
  Data on how many children have been given the new meningococcal Group C conjugate vaccine are not yet available.

  Immunisation of young people aged 15, 16 and 17 years began from 1 November. Immunisation of babies when they are due for their routine vaccines at two, three and four months and around 13 months began from 29 November. Coverage data for meningococcal Group C conjugate vaccine will be collected through the routine quarterly COVER/Körner returns for children up to five years of age. The earliest these routinely collected data will become available will be November 2000, but we expect coverage data on some other catch-up age groups to be available earlier. The exact timescale will depend on vaccine supply and how the immunisation programme rolls out next year.

  From the start of the programme up to and including Friday 26 November, a total of 1,734,560 doses of meningococcal Group C conjugate vaccine had been issued to general practitioners or National Health Service trust pharmacies throughout the United Kingdom.

  Nutrition
  Dr. Harris
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health which officials in his Department have overall responsibility for malnutrition and nutrition in primary and secondary care and for the interface between public health, hospital and community directorates. [99283]

  Yvette Cooper
  Nutrition is dealt with by both the Department and the Joint Food Safety and Standards Group (JFSSG). The JFSSG is responsible for providing the scientific basis and information for nutrition policy
  51W
  including defining a balanced diet and nutrient needs of the population and monitoring dietary intakes. The policies relating to prevention of malnutrition in the community—primary care, social care etc. and clinical care are within the remit of the Department.

  Departmental officials are: Dr. Elizabeth Wilson who leads on clinical nutrition, that is the diagnosis and treatment of malnutrition, and Amy Edwards, who deals with the public health aspects of good nutrition and prevention of malnutrition in the community. The JFSSG official is Dr. Roger Skinner.

  Pertussis Whole Cell Vaccine
  Mr. Ian Stewart
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health when his Department changed its advice given in paragraph 24.4.5 of the 1996 advice booklet, "Immunisation Against Infectious Diseases", that local reactions and pyrexias occur less often after acellular pertussis vaccine than after whole cell vaccine. [99446]

  Yvette Cooper
  The advice that local reactions and pyrexia occur less often after acellular pertussis vaccine than after whole cell vaccine was first included in the 1996 edition of the Department of Health memorandum "Immunisation Against Infectious Diseases". This information had recently become available from a departmental funded study that directly compared different acellular vaccines with the United Kingdom whole cell vaccine. The study was subsequently published and copies of the paper have been placed in the Library (Miller E. et al. Effect of schedule on reactogenicity and antibody persistence of acellular and whole cell pertussis vaccines: value of laboratory tests as predictors of clinical performance. Vaccine 1997; 15(1): 51–60.).

  Post Offices
  Mr. Webb
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health if he will list the principal activities of his Department and its agencies which provide business for(a) Crown post offices and (b) other post offices; if he will assess whether the level of business generated in each case is likely to increase or decrease over the next five years; and which new areas of business for post offices are likely to be developed by his Department and its agencies over the same period. [99557]

  Yvette Cooper
  The Department has a number of activities providing business for Crown and local post offices.

  Crown post offices issue leaflets called "Health Advice for Travellers" to customers on request, check customers self-completion of form CM1 contained in the leaflet and issue properly completed and authorised Form El11 to entitled persons. These documents entitle the holder to free or reduced cost emergency health care in other European Economic Area states.

  Main post offices also display a poster and two leaflets informing the general public about entitlement to help with health costs. They distribute approximately one million leaflets per annum.

  Crown and other post offices pay cash refunds of prescription charges when presented with a properly completed claim form by a patient or his/her representative.
  52W
  Crown and other post offices distribute milk tokens under the Welfare Food Scheme on behalf of the Department. Milk token issues through post offices are expected to decrease over the next five years.

  Targets for electronic delivery of services (50 per cent. by 2005, 100 per cent. by 2008) represent a real opportunity for additional business for the Post Office network across all public services delivered by central government. Moreover, equivalent targets are now being set for local government, and there is an opportunity for the Post Office network to gain further business in delivery of services which are the responsibility of local government.

  External Consultants
  Mr. Don Foster
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what has been spent by his Department on external consultants and advisers since May 1997 funded from (i) his Department's programme provision and (ii) his Department's running costs. [99485]

  Yvette Cooper
  [holding answer 24 November 1999]: Total expenditure on external consultants and advisers, by the Department of Health and its Agencies1, since May 1997 to 31 September 1999, is as follows:
  1Excludes the Medicines Control Agency whose consultancy is funded through its trading fund and not from either running costs or programme spend.

  £ million

  Department of Health

  120.69

  Agencies

  23.08

  1 Only running costs

  2 of this total,£126,570 only is from programme spend

  Colo-rectal Cancer
  Mr. Love
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what clinical trials have been carried out on the use of Irinotecan in colorectal cancer treatment; if the chemical use of this drug will be approved by the National Institute for Clinical Excellence; and if he will make a statement. [99642]

  Yvette Cooper
  Irinotecan is a promising new agent for the treatment of advanced colorectal cancer which is being considered for possible referral to the National Institute for Clinical Excellence (NICE). Two large randomised trials recently reported in the Lancet have indicated that irinotecan can give a small but significant benefit when used as a second line treatment. The Medical Research Council, which receives its funding from the Department of Trade and Industry, has recently given the go ahead for a major randomised trial in advanced colorectal cancer which aims to clarify the advantages and disadvantages of irinotecan and oxaliplatin, another new agent. The trial will consider not only response and survival but also quality of life and cost-effectiveness. The first patients should be randomised into the trial before the end of the year.

  Further information on projects and trials relating to irinocetan can be found on the National Research Register. This is available in the Library and most medical libraries on CD Rom and on the Internet: http://www.doh.gov.uk/nrr.htm.
  53W
  NICE published its first year work programme on 4 November and includes the development of wider guidelines on particular areas of treatment and appraisals of particular treatments and technologies.

  Body Piercing
  Ms Atherton
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health (1) what recent representations he has received on the need for further regulation of body piercing; [99889]

  (2) what plans he has for further regulation of body piercing. [99890]

  Yvette Cooper
  The Government believe there should be primary legislation introduced to give local authorities outside London powers to regulate the hygiene and cleanliness of cosmetic body piercing businesses, when parliamentary time allows.

  We have received a small number of letters from hon. Members, local authorities and members of the public about the further regulation of cosmetic body piercing businesses.

  Prostate Cancer
  Mr. Coaker
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what plans he has to encourage a greater awareness of the early signs of prostate cancer in men. [99871]

  Yvette Cooper
  We are concerned to promote awareness of prostate cancer and its symptoms. The Department and the Health Education Authority currently produce a range of literature on cancer in men, including prostate cancer, to raise men's awareness of the risks.

  Hospital Infection Procedures
  Mr. Hammond
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what recent assessment he has made of control of infection procedures in hospitals in England and Wales; and if he will make a statement on the standards set for such procedures in hospitals in other EU member states. [99892]

  Yvette Cooper
  We are determined to make sure that the National Health Service tackles the problem of hospital acquired infection. A review of infection control arrangements in all acute NHS Trusts has recently been undertaken by Regional Epidemiologists which will be used to improve services locally as appropriate. The emphasis the Government places on infection control in the NHS is reflected in the National Priorities Guidance 1999–2000 to 2001–02. This sets out the need to ensure that appropriate arrangements for the control of infection are in place. Health Service Circular 1999–049 (Resistance to Antibiotics and other Antimicrobial Agents, issued in March 1999) also addresses the need to strengthen prevention and control of communicable disease and infection control processes. On 22 November the Minister of State, Department of Health, my hon. Friend the Member for Southampton, Itchen (Mr. Denham), launched new risk management and organisational control standards for the NHS including standards for hospital infection control. Compliance with these is the responsibility of chief executives and NHS trust board members.
  54W
  The problem of infection control is a major concern at European level. A Commission resolution was agreed in June this year which cited infection control as an important part of the battle against antibiotic resistance. Within Europe hospital infection control arrangements vary from member state to member state and details are not held centrally.

  Breast Cancer
  Mr. Hammond
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health (1) what steps he has taken and what discussions he has held, with a view to increasing the percentage of urgent breast cancer referrals that are included within the two week consultation pledge; [100004]

  (2) what steps his Department has taken to make general practitioners aware of the need for urgent referrals of patients with suspected breast cancer to be received by the hospital within 24 hours in order to be covered by the guarantee that they will be seen by a specialist within two weeks. [100003]

  Yvette Cooper
  Guidance on the need to refer urgent referrals within 24 hours was issued to primary care leads, health authorities, National Health Service trusts and local medical centres through regional leads in December 1998. This has been augmented by additional guidance and the issue of revised breast cancer referral guidelines sent to all general practitioners in September 1999. This has been supported by action at local and regional levels to establish clear referral criteria and referral pathways so that those patients being referred urgently under the two week standard can be identified quickly and referred appropriately. We will continue to monitor the proportion of urgent referrals received within and outside 24 hours and to work with the professions to enable the maximum number of women to benefit from this high standard of care.

  Cervical Smears
  Mrs. Brinton
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what recent steps his Department has taken to analyse the potential impact of new technologies in improving the accuracy of diagnosis of cervical smears. [100255]

  Yvette Cooper
  We are aware of a number of new technologies under development, which are closely monitored by the National Health Service cervical screening programme. For example, the National Institute for Clinical Excellence have been asked to consider the evidence and advise on whether liquid-based cytology would offer worthwhile benefits.

  We welcome any new technology that would improve the effectiveness and efficiency of the cervical screening programme. However, before any technology is introduced we must be sure that it is safe and effective, and that quality standards can be maintained.

  Mr. Mitchell
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what plans he has for making the Neopath Autopap for cervical screening available in(a) the NHS and (b) Grimsby NHS Trust. [100338]

  Yvette Cooper
  The Tripath Autopap system (previously Neopath Autopap system) is currently being evaluated by the National Health Service cervical screening programme.
  55W
  We welcome any new technology that would improve the effectiveness and efficiency of the cervical screening programme. However, before any technology is introduced we must be sure that it is safe and effective, and that quality standards can be maintained.

  Mobile Phones
  Mr. Norman
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health on what date he expects the Independent Expert Group on Mobile Phones to produce its report. [100269]

  Yvette Cooper
  The group is expected to report in spring 2000.

  Smoking-related Illness
  Mr. Cox
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what was the estimated cost to the NHS in treating people suffering from illness as a result of smoking in each of the last five years. [100765]

  Yvette Cooper
  This information is not available on a year by year basis, but a study "Cost Effectiveness of Smoking Cessation Interventions" by the Health Education Authority, in collaboration with the University of York published in 1997 estimated the annual cost to the National Health Service of treating smoking related disease caused by smoking was between £1.4 billion and £1.7 billion for England.

  St. John's Wort
  Dr. Iddon
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health if all products containing St. John's Wort are deemed medicinal by the Medicines Control Agency. [100777]

  Yvette Cooper
  Products containing the widely used herbal remedy, St. John's Wort are classified as medicinal products by the Medicines Control Agency if they satisfy the definition of a medicinal product in Article 1.2 of Directive 65/65/EEC. The MCA does not deem all products containing St. John's Wort to be medicinal products. However, it does deem any product containing St. John's Wort at therapeutic dosage levels to be a medicinal product, because it may be administered with a view to modifying physiological function in human beings. A herbal remedy containing St. John's Wort may be exempt from licensing if it satisfies section 12 of the Medicines Act 1968.

  COMA Inquiry
  Mrs. Brinton
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health when the results of the COMA inquiry into fortifying bread with folic acid will be announced. [100822]

  Yvette Cooper
  The report entitled "Folic acid and the Prevention of Disease" prepared by the Working Group of the Committee on Medical Aspects of Food and Nutrition Policy, is expected to be published soon. The report focuses primarily on the role of folic acid in the prevention of neural tube defects.

  Cancer Centres
  Mr. Brady
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health if he will list the designated cancer centre for surgery in each region of England. [102461]
  56W
  Yvette Cooper
  [holding answer 13 December 1999]: The National Cancer Director, Professor Mike Richards, is developing a national approach to the evaluation of cancer services with regions, to ensure that we have a consistent approach nationally to the delivery of cancer care.

  There are currently no rigid criteria for the designation or accreditation of cancer centres. Early implementation of the Calman/Hine recommendations reflected the different starting points across the country and allowed an evaluation of services to fit local circumstances.

  London Ambulance Service
  Mr. Chope
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health how many AS1 emergency calls were received by the London Ambulance Service on 26 October; how many AS2 urgent requests for ambulances were received on that date; and what is the(a) average and (b) longest time taken to respond to calls in each category. [102777]

  Ms Stuart
  The London Ambulance Service received 2,576 AS1 emergency calls and 373 AS2 urgent requests for ambulances on 26 October 1999.

  The average time taken to respond to AS1 calls on that date was 9.9 minutes and the longest time was more than 30 minutes.

  Information is not collected in this way for AS2 requests. However, the average time of arrival at hospital was four minutes later than the time specified by a general practitioner and the longest time was approximately 21 minutes after the time specified by a GP.

  Terminally Ill Patients (Support Services)
  Mr. Drew
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what support is provided by his Department for partners and near relatives of terminally ill patients. [102536]

  Yvette Cooper
  [holding answer 13 December 1999]: Support for families and carers of terminally ill patients is an integral part of the principles and practice of palliative care. The Department of Health has distributed three documents providing guidance on key issues facing the dying and their carers. These documents were already widely used by the voluntary sector. The three documents which were issued under cover of HSC 1998/115 are:

  i) Guidelines for Managing Cancer Pain in Adults.

  ii) Changing Gear—Guidelines for Managing the Last Days of life in adults

  iii) Palliative care in the hospital setting.

  Professor Mike Richards, the new National Cancer Director, has identified supportive care as one of his key priorities and will over the coming months work closely with health care professionals and voluntary organisations to assess how supportive care services can best be provided to all patients.

  In addition, the National Lottery New Opportunities Fund is making available £23 million for the prevention and palliative care element of the "Living with Cancer Programme" in England over the next three years. This initiative will be launched in January 2000.

  Drug Tariff
  Mr. Cousins
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health how many products have been transferred from Category A of the Drug Tariff to Category D; and what was the cost per head of population in each category for the last financial year for each health authority area as recorded by the Pharmaceutical Pricing Authority. [102388]

  Ms Stuart
  [holding answer 15 December 1999]: Products move in and out of Category D. There are 175 preparations/pack sizes classified as Category D in the December 1999 edition of the Drug Tariff, of which 104 were classified as Category A in the December 1998 edition of the Drug Tariff.

  The net ingredient cost per head of population in 1998–99 of Category A and Category D drugs in each health authority is shown in the table.

  The net ingredient cost per head of population for Category A and Category D drugs by health authority, 1998–99

  £

  Health authority in which item was dispensed

  Category A

  Category D

  Avon

  9.00

  0.80

  Barking and Havering

  9.00

  0.70

  Barnet

  8.30

  0.60

  Barnsley

  11.00

  0.90

  Bedfordshire

  9.00

  0.60

  Berkshire

  7.50

  0.60

  Bexley and Greenwich

  8.20

  0.70

  Birmingham

  9.70

  0.90

  Bradford

  10.60

  0.90

  Brent and Harrow

  9.00

  0.70

  Bromley

  8.90

  0.70

  Buckinghamshire

  8.20

  0.70

  Bury and Rochdale

  11.00

  0.90

  Calderdale and Kirklees

  10.50

  0.90

  Cambridge and Huntingdon

  7.00

  0.60

  Camden and Islington

  9.00

  0.70

  Cornwall and Isles of Scilly

  10.20

  0.80

  County Durham

  13.00

  1.10

  Coventry

  9.90

  0.70

  Croydon

  6.80

  0.60

  Doncaster

  10.80

  0.80

  Dorset

  10.10

  0.80

  Dudley

  8.80

  0.70

  Ealing, Hammersmith and Hounslow

  8.30

  0.70

  East and North Hertfordshire

  10.00

  0.70

  East Kent

  9.10

  0.80

  East Lancashire

  10.60

  0.90

  East London and The City

  9.10

  0.80

  East Norfolk

  9.40

  0.80

  East Riding

  9.10

  0.70

  East Surrey

  7.90

  0.60

  East Sussex, Brighton and Hove

  10.30

  0.90

  Enfield and Haringey

  7.90

  0.60

  Gateshead and South Tyneside

  14.50

  1.20

  Gloucestershire

  8.00

  0.60

  Herefordshire

  8.00

  0.70

  Hillingdon

  8.80

  0.70

  Isle of Wight

  10.40

  0.80

  Kensington, Chelsea and Westminster

  7.20

  0.60

  Kingston and Richmond

  7.40

  0.60

  Lambeth, Southwark and Lewisham

  8.50

  0.70

  Leeds

  10.10

  0.90

  Leicestershire

  8.40

  0.80

  Lincolnshire

  9.20

  0.70

  Liverpool

  12.60

  0.90

  Manchester

  11.10

  1.00

  Merton, Sutton and Wandsworth

  7.20

  0.60

  Morecambe Bay

  11.60

  1.00

  Newcastle and North Tyneside

  13.30

  1.00

  North and East Devon

  10.10

  0.80

  North and Mid Hampshire

  7.30

  0.60

  58W

  The net ingredient cost per head of population for Category A and Category D drugs by health authority, 1998–99

  £

  Health authority in which item was dispensed

  Category A

  Category D

  North Cheshire

  10.60

  1.00

  North Cumbria

  11.70

  0.90

  North Derbyshire

  10.00

  0.90

  North Essex

  8.50

  0.70

  North Nottinghamshire

  10.60

  0.80

  North Staffordshire

  10.40

  0.80

  North West Anglia

  8.60

  0.70

  North West Lancashire

  12.10

  0.90

  North Yorkshire

  9.80

  0.80

  Northamptonshire

  9.20

  0.90

  Northumberland

  12.50

  1.00

  Nottingham

  8.90

  0.70

  Oxfordshire

  8.30

  0.70

  Portsmouth and South East Hampshire

  10.10

  0.80

  Redbridge and Waltham Forest

  8.20

  0.70

  Rotherham

  10.40

  0.90

  Salford and Trafford

  11.00

  0.90

  Sandwell

  10.40

  0.90

  Sefton

  11.70

  0.90

  Sheffield

  11.60

  1.10

  Shropshire

  8.70

  0.70

  Solihull

  9.30

  0.80

  Somerset

  8.60

  0.80

  South and West Devon

  10.90

  0.90

  South Cheshire

  9.80

  0.80

  South Essex

  7.80

  0.70

  South Humber

  9.90

  0.90

  South Lancashire

  8.90

  0.80

  South Staffordshire

  8.70

  0.80

  Southampton and South West Hampshire

  9.30

  0.70

  Southern Derbyshire

  10.40

  0.80

  St. Helens and Knowsley

  12.90

  1.10

  Stockport

  9.70

  0.90

  Suffolk

  9.10

  0.70

  Sunderland

  13.90

  1.00

  Tees

  12.40

  1.00

  Wakefield

  11.80

  1.10

  Walsall

  10.30

  0.80

  Warwickshire

  8.70

  0.60

  West Hertfordshire

  10.20

  0.70

  West Kent

  7.80

  0.70

  West Pennine

  10.10

  0.90

  West Surrey

  7.70

  0.60

  West Sussex

  9.50

  0.80

  Wigan and Bolton

  10.30

  0.90

  Wiltshire

  8.20

  0.70

  Wirral

  11.00

  0.90

  Wolverhampton

  10.30

  0.90

  Worcestershire

  9.10

  0.70

  England

  9.50

  0.80

  Notes:

  1. The data cover all prescriptions dispensed in the community in each Health authority, ie by community pharmacists and appliance contractors, dispensing doctors, and prescriptions submitted by prescribing doctors for items personally administered in England.

  2. The net ingredient cost is the basic cost of a drug and does not take account of discounts, dispensing costs, fees or prescription charges income.

  3. The resident population for 1998, estimated by the Office for National Statistics, has been used.

  4. The information was obtained for each preparation/pack size classified in the Drug Tariff as Category A or D for each month in the period April 1998 to March 1999 and aggregated to provide an annual total.

  5. Data rounded to nearest 10p.

  Infertility
  Ms Church
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health (1) what assessment his Department has made of the psychological effects of infertility; [102678]
  59W
  (2) how many written representations have been received by his Department in respect of infertility treatment and service provision since May 1997; [102675]

  (3) when he will announce the results of his Department's survey of health authority provision of infertility services; and if he will make a statement; [102676]

  (4) if he will provide guidance to health authorities as to their responsibilities in respect of the funding of infertility guidance. [102677]

  Yvette Cooper
  [holding answer 16 December 1999]: The Department has received 319 written representations in respect of infertility treatment since May 1999.

  It is planned that a short report detailing the results of the Department's survey of health authority provision of infertility services will be available in February 2000. The results of that survey are currently being considered by Ministers.

  The Department has not commissioned any research specifically on the psychological effects of infertility. However, we do fully appreciate the distress suffered by infertile couples. This is clearly evident from the written representations received by the Department.

  Uraemia
  Mr. Gibb
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health how many(a) cases of and (b) deaths caused by uraemia there were among NHS patients in (i) 1995, (ii) 1996, (iii) 1997, (iv) 1998 and (v) the first six months of 1999. [103049]

  Mr. Denham
  The table shows the number of finished consultant episodes for patients with a primary diagnosis of Uraemia. The remainder of the hospital information requested is not yet available.

  Year

  Number

  1995–96

  40,294

  1996–97

  44,618

  1997–981

  49,194

  1999–20001,2

  18,590

  1 Data for 1997–98 onwards are provisional—no adjustments have as yet been made for shortfalls in the data, i. e. it is ungrossed.

  2 First six months.

  Source:

  Hospital Episode Statistics

  Statistics are collected by the Office for National Statistics for deaths in England and Wales caused by renal failure (uraemia). They are not broken down to distinguish National Health Service from non-NHS patients, however. The following figures therefore include all such deaths:

  Year

  Number

  1995

  2,959

  1996

  2,759

  1997

  2,658

  1998

  2,662

  1999

  11,337

  1 Provisional figures for January to June

  CJD Victims
  Helen Jones
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what steps he is taking to improve care for victims of Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease; and if he will make a statement. [102889]

  Yvette Cooper
  [holding answer 16 December 1999]: I refer my hon. Friend to the statements made by the Minister of State, Department of Health, my hon. Friend the Member for Southampton, Itchen (Mr. Denham), in the adjournment debate on the care of variant CJD (vCJD) patients which took place in Westminster Hall on 1 December 1999, Official Report, columns 109–116WH, in which he set out the measures in place or planned to improve the care provided for vCJD patients.

  Environmental Radiation
  Mr. Livsey
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what calculation of radiation dose from plutonium to tracheo-bronchial lymph nodes was used to inform the Fourth report of the Committee on Medical Aspects of Radiation in the Environment. [102846]

  Yvette Cooper
  [holding answer 16 December 1999]: The Committee on Medical Aspects of Radiation in the Environment (COMARE) asked the National Radiological Protection Board (NRPB) to calculate radiation doses to the tracheo-bronchial lymph nodes of young people resident in the village of Seascale in Cumbria, who were aged 0 to 25 years. The doses calculated were for the period of time at which discharges of radioactive material from the Sellafield site were either at their highest (1975) or when the inhalation dose was at its highest (1955). However, even in the most pessimistic case in 1955, the total equivalent dose to the thoracic lymph nodes from natural background radiation is greater than that estimated from plutonium.

  Radioactive Discharges
  Mr. Livsey
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health if his Department's funded project, entitled Geographical variations in childhood cancer incidence generally and in relation to nuclear installations, has ascertained the level of childen's exposure to radioactive isotopes discharged from nuclear-licensed sites in England and Wales. [102845]

  Yvette Cooper
  [holding answer 16 December 1999]This project is examining the variations in the incidence of childhood cancer in Great Britain for the period 1969 to 1993 and is based on 33,000 cases. The analyses will include geographical proximity to nuclear licensed sites. The independent advisory Committee on Medical Aspects of Radiation in the Environment will consider the results of this study when it is completed, together with current evidence of population radiation exposure.

  Ionising Radiation
  Mr. Livsey
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what areas of research the Radiological Protection Research Programme has identified as being necessary to the development of policy in the field of low-level ionising radiation. [102847]
  61W
  Yvette Cooper
  [holding answer 16 December 1999]: The Department's Radiological Protection Research Programme is currently funding research aimed at improving the assessment of the health risk from exposure to both ionising and non-ionising radiation. The programme covers a broad range of molecular, cellular, biological and epidemiological studies. When the individual studies are complete they will be submitted for publication.

  Overseas Doctors (Greater London)
  Mr. Cox
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health how many doctors from overseas are working in National Health Service hospitals in the Greater London area. [103729]

  Mr. Denham
  At 30 September 1998, there were 2,760 doctors in the London Regional Office area who qualified outside the European economic area.

  Note:

  Figures are rounded to the nearest 10

  Source:

  Department of Health medical and dental workforce census.

  Health Visitors
  Mr. Gardiner
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health (1) how many children under five years of age are living in the area covered by Parkside Community Health Trust; [103360]

  (2) how many children in (a) Brent, (b) Harrow, (c) Kensington and Chelsea and (d) Westminster have no named health visitor; [103359]

  (3) how many full-time equivalent health visitors carrying a clinical case load are employed by Parkside Community Health Trust. [103361]

  Mr. Denham
  All children under five who are known to the health service in Brent, Harrow, Kensington and Chelsea and Westminster have a named health visitor. There is a system of general practitioner attached health visitors plus a named health visitor for refugees, homeless and travellers.

  There are 29,493 children aged less than five years resident in the area covered by Parkside Health NHS Trust. Data from Brent and Harrow Health Authority indicate a total under five population of 18,561 and data from Kensington and Chelsea and Westminster Health Authority indicate an under five population of 10,962.

  A total of 88.48 whole time equivalent (WTE) health visitors are employed by Parkside Health NHS Trust of which 42.41 WTE are in Brent and 46.07 WTE are in Kensington and Chelsea and Westminster. Currently there are 8.9 WTE vacancies, 2.9 WTE in Brent and 6 WTE in Kensington and Chelsea and Westminster. Agency health visitor staff are covering these vacancies.

  Correspondence
  Mr. Green
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health when his Department will reply to the letters from the hon. Member for Ashford of 25 September and 4 November; and if he will make a statement on the performance of the correspondence sections of his Department. [103858]
  62W
  Yvette Cooper
  I replied to the hon. Member's letter on 5 January.

  The Department' s Ministerial Correspondence Unit works very hard to ensure that letters from hon. Members are turned around as quickly as possible. As recorded on 11 June 1999, Official Report, columns 403–06W, the Department's performance against its Service First target of 20 working days in replying to correspondence from hon. Members is 61 per cent. We are aware of the need for improvements in this area and work is currently underway to address this.

  Alder Hey Hospital
  Mr. Levitt
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what are the terms of reference for the independent inquiry into the removal of children's organs at Alder Hey hospital; and to what timescale it will operate. [103753]

  Mr. Denham
  The independent inquiry team's terms of reference are to inquire into the circumstances leading to the removal, retention and disposal of human tissue, including organs of the body, from children at the Royal Liverpool Children's Hospital National Health Service Trust (and its predecessor NHS organisations) who have undergone post mortem examinations; to inquire into the extent to which the Human Tissue Act 1961 has been complied with; to examine professional practice and management action and systems, including what information and in what form that information was given to the children's parents or, where relevant, other family members in respect of the removal, retention and disposal of tissue; to examine the role of the NHS and other bodies or persons involved; to consider other issues relating to the above matters as necessary; to report to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State by the end of March and make such recommendations as are appropriate.

  Patents
  Mr. Oaten
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what use he has made of Crown immunity to avoid liability for breach of commercial patents on medical products. [R] [103301]

  Ms Stuart
  [holding answer 20 December 1999]: The Crown has no general immunity from proceedings in respect of infringement of a patent. However the Patents Act 1977, sections 55 to 59, allow the use of patented inventions for the services of the Crown without the consent of the patent owner. If these provisions are relied on, compensation for loss of profit has to be paid.

  Law reports show the equivalent provisions in the Patents Act 1949 were used in 1961 by the then Minister of Health in respect of the anti-biotic tetracycline, but officials in my Department are not aware that these provisions have been relied on in recent years as regards medical products.

  Illegal Drug Addiction
  Mr. Jim Cunningham
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what measures he has in place to address illegal drug addiction. [103243]

  Yvette Cooper
  [holding answer 21 December 1999]: Challenging targets for tackling drug misuse have been set by the United Kingdom Anti-Drugs Co-ordinator in

  63W
  his "First Annual Report and National Plan" published in April this year. These will help to achieve the objectives of the Government's 10-year drugs strategy "Tackling Drugs to Build a Better Britain". £70.5 million additional resources are being made available to health and local authorities over the next three years for drug treatment services. A further £18 million over three years will support drug prevention activity, particularly amongst young people.

  Ante-natal/Neo-natal Screening
  Mr. Robertson
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health if he will make a statement on his Department's policy on the use of(a) ante and (b) neo-natal screening. [103652]

  Yvette Cooper
  [holding answer 21 December 1999]: Ante and neo-natal screening procedures can be vital in the detection of impending illness and onset of disease, where these allow for early and effective intervention. There are many screening procedures, some of which have the potential to build upon the current screening programme.

  We look to the National Screening Committee for the United Kingdom to appraise screening programmes, current and proposed, against a set of internationally recognised criteria and to advise on additions or changes.

  Pregnancy Advice Centres
  Dr. Tonge
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what plans he has to regulate pregnancy advice centres which do not refer clients on to medical procedures. [103668]

  Yvette Cooper
  [holding answer 21 December 1999]: It is not possible or practical to regulate the activities of every place, outside the National Health Service, that provides advice and information to women on pregnancy matters.

  We do maintain a register of pregnancy advice bureaux that provide a medical consultation and refer women on for abortion. This list of registered places is publicly available and will shortly be on the Department's website.

  Life Fertility Programme
  Dr. Tonge
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what plans his Department has to fund the Life National Hotline and the Life Fertility Programme. [103669]

  Yvette Cooper
  [holding answer 21 December 1999): Decisions on applications received for funding under Section 64 of the Health Services and Public Health Act 1968 from 2000–01 onwards have not yet been made.

  Routine Admissions (Suspension)
  Mr. Brady
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health if he will list those NHS trusts which have suspended routine admissions for at least(a) one week and (b) two weeks over the Christmas and New Year period. [104281]

  Ms Stuart
  The information requested is not held centrally. The decision to suspend routine admissions would have been made at local level based on guidance on planning for winter and the millennium holiday period issued earlier last year.

  Health Authority Funding
  Mr. Chope
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health if he will express in per capita terms the(a) actual and (b) percentage funding increases for each health authority in England in 2000–01. [104171]

  Mr. Denham
  The information requested is shown in the table.

  Health authority

  Cash increase per capita (£)

  Cash increase Percentage

  Avon

  40.44

  6.90

  Barking and Havering

  42.77

  6.39

  Barnet

  41.78

  6.58

  Barnsley

  50.91

  7.62

  Bedfordshire

  42.19

  7.62

  Berkshire

  39.16

  7.35

  Bexley and Greenwich

  43.00

  6.22

  Birmingham

  43.22

  6.48

  Bradford

  46.53

  7.19

  Brent and Harrow

  43.32

  6.38

  Bromley

  40.69

  6.60

  Buckinghamshire

  38.02

  7.24

  Bury and Rochdale

  47.85

  7.26

  Calderdale and Kirklees

  42.51

  6.64

  Cambridgeshire

  38.85

  7.14

  Camden and Islington

  59.45

  6.79

  Cornwall and Isles of Scilly

  42.38

  6.55

  County Durham

  48.04

  7.04

  Coventry

  45.47

  7.21

  Croydon

  41.64

  6.85

  Doncaster

  46.97

  6.98

  Dorset

  40.02

  6.25

  Dudley

  41.33

  6.93

  Ealing, Hammersmith and Hounslow

  47.06

  6.70

  East and North Hertfordshire

  38.68

  6.91

  East Kent

  41.71

  6.22

  East Lancashire

  48.67

  7.10

  East London and the City

  62.63

  8.02

  East Riding

  43.20

  6.96

  East Surrey

  37.49

  6.21

  East Sussex, Brighton and Hove

  42.59

  6.25

  Enfield and Haringey

  44.80

  6.53

  Gateshead and South Tyneside

  51.04

  7.18

  Gloucestershire

  37.57

  6.31

  Herefordshire

  39.43

  6.67

  Hillingdon

  42.24

  6.73

  Isle of Wight

  45.58

  6.21

  Kensington, Chelsea and Westminster

  62.49

  8.50

  Kingston and Richmond

  39.05

  6.22

  Lambeth, Southwark and Lewisham

  54.63

  6.85

  Leeds

  43.79

  6.81

  Leicestershire

  41.33

  7.41

  Lincolnshire

  41.59

  6.83

  Liverpool

  49.26

  6.57

  Manchester

  50.40

  6.60

  Merton, Sutton and Wandsworth

  42.70

  6.31

  Morecambe Bay

  42.16

  6.37

  Newcastle and North Tyneside

  48.89

  6.89

  Norfolk

  40.24

  6.65

  North and East Devon

  39.90

  6.32

  North and Mid Hampshire

  34.75

  6.57

  North Cheshire

  41.34

  6.38

  North Cumbria

  43.23

  6.92

  North Derbyshire

  41.98

  6.77

  North Essex

  38.98

  6.68

  North Nottinghamshire

  43.87

  7.12

  North Staffordshire

  47.23

  7.24

  North West Lancashire

  47.36

  6.79

  North Yorkshire

  39.38

  6.71

  Northamptonshire

  37.52

  6.44

  Northumberland

  44.66

  7.01

  Nottingham

  45.47

  7.46

  Oxfordshire

  37.16

  7.09

  Portsmouth and South East Hampshire

  39.95

  6.69

  Redbridge and Waltham Forest

  42.24

  6.22

  Rotherham

  47.96

  7.28

  65W

  Health authority

  Cash increase per capita (£)

  Cash increase percentage

  Salford and Trafford

  45.79

  6.56

  Sandwell

  48.37

  7.14

  Sefton

  46.18

  6.53

  Sheffield

  45.37

  6.64

  Shropshire

  40.11

  6.89

  Solihull

  38.36

  6.53

  Somerset

  39.83

  6.66

  South and West Devon

  41.37

  6.42

  South Cheshire

  38.60

  6.40

  South Derbyshire

  41.45

  6.95

  South Essex

  41.68

  7.05

  South Humber

  39.96

  6.24

  South Lancashire

  39.89

  6.48

  South Staffordshire

  37.53

  6.63

  Southampton and South West Hampshire

  39.48

  6.68

  St Helen's and Knowsley

  49.33

  7.14

  Stockport

  40.24

  6.52

  Suffolk

  37.08

  6.42

  Sunderland

  50.55

  7.20

  Tees

  49.32

  7.34

  Wakefield

  45.50

  6.95

  Walsall

  47.42

  7.28

  Warwickshire

  36.83

  6.22

  West Hertfordshire

  38.84

  6.52

  West Kent

  37.17

  6.41

  West Pennine

  46.53

  7.00

  West Surrey

  36.55

  6.26

  West Sussex

  42 09

  6 76

  Wigan and Bolton

  47.83

  7.28

  Wiltshire

  36.15

  6.31

  Wirral

  46.36

  6.54

  Wolverhampton

  48.60

  7.35

  Worcestershire

  36.92

  6.47

  Notes:

  1. Crude population figures supplied by the Office for National Statistics have been used to calculate the per capita figures.

  2. Amounts include increases to targeted funding for Health Action Zones.

SOCIAL SECURITY

  Carers
  Mr. Burstow
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security what plans he has to improve the level of benefits paid to carers. [102947]

  Mr. Ben Chapman
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security what plans he has to help carers. [102950]

  Mr. Bayley
  We are committed under the National Carer's Strategy to keeping financial support for carers under review, which we are doing.

  Social Exclusion
  Mr. Mackinlay
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security what further resources are proposed to reduce social exclusion. [102951]

  Mr. Bayley
  Over this Parliament we are investing an extra £40 billion in health and education, and we will be spending an additional £6 billion a year by the end of this Parliament in new measures to tackle child poverty.

  It is this Government that have made tackling poverty and social exclusion its priority. We are currently examining resources in the spending review and will make an announcement next year.
  66W
  Mr. Bercow
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security if he will set out the Government's plans to tackle poverty and social exclusion arising out of welfare dependency. [102955]

  Mr. Bayley
  A key element in our strategy for tackling poverty and social exclusion is to reduce the number of people claiming out-of-work benefits by helping people find work.

  The proportion of people living in working age workless households doubled between 1979 and 1997—this is the legacy we inherited and the challenge we face. It is a problem we are committed to overcome through our programme of welfare reform.

  One-Stop Benefits
  Mr. Pike
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security how the one-stop benefit trials are progressing. [102952]

  Mr. Borrow
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security if he will make a statement on progress so far with the ONE pilots. [102959]

  Angela Eagle
  The ONE service began operating in four pilot areas on 28 June 1999, and in eight more areas on 29 November. The early signs from the pilots appear encouraging but it will, of course, take time to make a full assessment of the impact. When robust and reliable data are available we will, of course, make it public.

  Minimum Income Guarantee
  Ms Rosie Winterton
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security what steps he is taking to ensure maximum take-up of the minimum income guarantee by those entitled to it. [102953]

  Mr. Rooker
  We are committed to taking action to find more effective ways of encouraging eligible pensioners to claim their entitlement to the minimum income guarantee. We will announce details of a national programme shortly.

  NIRS2
  Miss Kirkbride
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security if he will make a statement on the number of pensioners still affected by the NIRS2 computer problems. [102954]

  Mr. Rooker
  It is estimated that currently there are up to 83,000 pensioners who are still affected by current and past NIRS2 computer problems. The Benefits Agency anticipates that this backlog will be cleared during the course of 2000.

  New Deal (Lone Parents)
  Fiona Mactaggart
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security what progress has been made with the New Deal for Lone Parents; and if he will make a statement. [102956]

  Angela Eagle
  The New Deal for Lone Parents is providing active support to help lone parents move into work. In the first year of the national programme over 104,000 lone parents have attended interviews; 89 per cent. of these have agreed to participate in the
  67W
  programme; and over 28,000 lone parents have obtained jobs. In his pre-Budget report the Chancellor announced a package of improvements to the programme to build on the success of NDLP so far.

  Computer Systems (Benefits)
  Mr. Brazier
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security what plans he has to unify his Department's computer system for benefit payments with that of the Inland Revenue. [102957]

  Mr. Rooker
  There are no plans to unify the Department's computer systems with those of the Inland Revenue. However, this Department, the Inland Revenue, the Department for Education and Employment and local authorities are working together to ensure that joined-up client-focused welfare services can be offered to all.

  Millennium Compliance
  Mr. Baldry
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security if his Department experienced computer problems at the start of the new millennium. [102958]

  Angela Eagle
  There was only one minor incident across the whole range of the Department's 33 main computer systems, after the Millennium Date Change. This problem, which affected the transfer of certain specific Social Fund cases between offices, has since been fixed. Two of the Department's 783 administrative support systems had problems, which have also been fixed. This outcome follows the Department's substantial work to prepare for this event.

  Pension Provision
  Mr. Viggers
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security what steps have been taken by the Government to promote personal provision of pensions. [102960]

  Mr. Rooker
  We published a Green Paper in December 1998, setting out our proposals for pension reform. Our proposals will help everyone build up a decent second pension. The reformed system will ensure that all those who can save for a second pension will be able to do so.

  For people who have access to them, occupational pensions remain the best option; we have already implemented some of the measures we proposed to strengthen and support occupational pension schemes in the Welfare Reform and Pensions Act 1999. Further measures are in the Child Support, Pensions and Social Security Bill currently before Parliament.

  The new stakeholder pensions will be a secure, flexible, and value for money way to help up to 5 million people who do not have access to an occupational pension and for whom personal pensions can be unsuitable to save for their retirement. Stakeholder Pensions will be designed to help those on middle incomes—around £9,000-£20,000 a year—but will benefit those on higher incomes as well. The legislation to put in place the basic framework for stakeholder pension schemes is included in the Welfare Reform and Pensions Act 1999. We are continuing to consult on key areas of detail which will be set out in secondary legislation and we expect to publish draft Regulations shortly.
  68W
  We are reforming the State Earnings Related Pension Scheme through the introduction of the State Second Pension. This will give a dramatic boost to the pensions of low earners, carers and some long-term disabled people. Legislation is included in the Child Support, Pensions and Social Security Bill.

  We are also improving the quality of general and personal information on pensions. We are working in partnership with employers and the pensions industry to provide annual combined pension forecasts of current and projected state and private pension rights. A combined statement will give individuals a clearer indication of what sort of retirement income they might expect and enable them to make informed decisions about the level of savings they need to make.

  In June 1998, we also published a series of pensions information leaflets. These provide concise and accessible information in plain English about the pensions choices available to individuals. The leaflets relate to decisions individuals need to take at various life stages. The leaflets met the Plain English Campaign Crystal Mark standard and have been awarded the Money Management Council Quality Mark for providing clear and unbiased information on money matters. The leaflets have been promoted through marketing activity. The Financial Services Authority also provide more detailed information on certain financial issues, which complements the Departmental leaflets.

  Disability Living Allowance (Mobility Component)
  Mr. Bob Russell
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security how many people have lost the mobility component of their disability benefit in each of the past two years. [102961]

  Mr. Bayley
  114,400 awards of the mobility component of Disability Living Allowance stopped in 1997–98, and 129,900 in 1998–99. These figures are equivalent to around 7 per cent. of recipients. Awards stop in various circumstances, for example when recipients die, go to live abroad permanently, or experience a significant improvement in their ability to get around.

  Pensioners Benefits
  Mr. Blizzard
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security what plans he has to help pensioners with small second incomes who do not qualify for benefits. [102962]

  Mr. Rooker
  During our process of modernising and reforming welfare, we will consider all the components that make up the benefit system with a view to ensuring that the least well-off pensioners share in the rising national prosperity.

  Fraud
  Mr. Jack
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security if he will make a statement indicating which of his anti-fraud targets he is likely(a) to meet and (b) not to meet by the end of the current financial year. [102963]

  Mr. Rooker
  As published in the Public Service Agreement, for the first time we have set a single outcome target to reduce fraud and error in the two major benefits,
  69W
  Income Support and Jobseeker' s Allowance, by 30 per cent. by March 2007, with at least a 10 per cent. reduction by March 2002.

  State Pension Uprating
  Mr. Burns
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security if he will make a statement on the April 2000 uprating of the state pension. [102964]

  Mr. Rooker
  My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State made a statement on new rates of benefit, including State Retirement Pension, to apply from next April in a Written Answer on 9 November 1999,Official Report, columns 564–78W.

  Child Poverty
  Mr. Lidington
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security if he will make a statement on the level of child poverty in Britain. [102965]

  Mr. Bayley
  Far too many children's lives are blighted by poverty and social exclusion. That is why the Prime Minister has made it our aim to eradicate child poverty in the next 20 years.

  Disablement Benefits
  Dr. Cable
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security what steps he is taking to improve the quality of medical assessments as part of integrating testing for disablement benefits. [102966]

  Mr. Bayley
  The qualifying criteria for the various benefits for sick and disabled people vary and may need to be assessed separately on different occasions. The development of an integrated medical assessment would be complex and there are no immediate plans to introduce such an assessment.

  The issue of the quality of medical assessments in general is, however, taken very seriously. Standards relating to experience, qualifications and training are set out in the Benefits Agency's contract with the SEMA Group, which provides medical services. The work of all doctors is also subject to regular audit against nationally determined standards which are agreed by the Department's Chief Medical Adviser.

  Housing Benefit
  Mr. Robathan
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security if he will estimate the total spending on housing benefit(a) in 1996–97 adjusted for inflation and (b) projected for 1999–2000. [102942]

  Angela Eagle
  Housing benefit expenditure is expected to fall from £12 billion in 1996–97 to £11.2 billion in 1999–2000 in real terms.

  Departmental Employees (Disabled People)
  Mr. Crausby
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security what percentage of the total workforce in his Department is registered as disabled; and what steps he is taking to encourage the employment of disabled people in his Department. [102044]
  70W
  Mr. Bayley
  Existing data indicate that 4.1 per cent. of employees in the Department have stated that they have a disability.

  This Department has put a range of measures in place to encourage the employment of people with disabilities, using the Cabinet Office "Programme for Action to Achieve Equality of Opportunity in the Civil Service for Disabled People". This sets out action checklists for all departments, covering the recruitment, retention and career development of people with disabilities. In addition, this Department participates in the "Positive about Disabled People Symbol" scheme (known as the "two ticks" symbol).

  Departmental Employees (Ethnic Minorities)
  Mr. Crausby
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security what percentage of the total work force in his Department is of ethnic minority origin; and what steps he is taking to encourage the employment of people from the ethnic minorities in his Department. [102728]

  Mr. Bayley
  Existing data indicate that 5.83 per cent. of employees in the Department are of minority ethnic origin.

  My hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary for the Cabinet Office set out in his reply of 16 December 1999, Official Report, column 264W, corporate action that we are taking to encourage the employment of people from minority ethnic groups. This Department aspires to improve the diversity of its work force at every level and has put in place a range of measures specifically to encourage the employment of people with minority ethnic backgrounds and address current under-representation, particularly at senior levels.

  In addition to our plans to improve in the area of recruitment, we have a number of initiatives for developing the talent already in the Department. We are committed to achieving our goals by setting realistic but stretching targets by 31 March 2000 which will be underpinned by action plans encompassing imaginative outreach and positive action initiatives. Some specific examples are:
  working closely with the Employment Services to gain better understanding of the barriers restricting people from minority ethnic groups from applying for jobs;
  liaising with ethnic groups and ethnic community leaders to identify the scope of potential recruitment candidates and work towards breaking down perceived barriers. Producing equal opportunities policy statements in different languages has assisted in this respect;
  targeting schools and universities with a high percentage of minority ethnic students;
  taking part in careers fairs to attract minority ethnic undergraduates who may be suitable for fast stream development;
  participating in the Windsor Fellowship Scheme, which is run by an educational trust to introduce minority ethnic undergraduates as student placements to prepare them for management careers;
  working with organisations to offer its managers as mentors to minority ethnic students (in 1999, a BA manager was voted Mentor of the Year by the NMC).

  Winter Fuel Allowance
  Mr. Waterson
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security what plans the Government have to extend the £100 winter heating allowance to disabled people below the age of retirement. [103864]

  Angela Eagle
  I refer the hon. Member to the Written Answer given by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State to the hon. Member for Plymouth, Sutton (Mrs. Gilroy) on 20 December 1999,Official Report, column 325W.

  Council Tax Rebate Allowances
  Mr. Stunell
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security what representations he has received about changes to the calculation of non-dependant income contributions to council tax rebate allowances; and if he will make a statement. [103723]

  Angela Eagle
  While we have not received any representations on this issue, we have recently announced changes to the non-dependant deductions scheme. These changes were included in the annual benefit uprating package which was announced to the House on 9 November. From April 2000, non-dependant deductions for Council Tax Benefit will increase by 7 per cent., which is in line with average council tax increases. The income thresholds at which the level of deductions are set will, as is customary, rise by the ROSSI index (1.6 per cent.).

  Information Technology Services Agency
  Mr. Gordon Marsden
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security what conditions he has identified as reasonable cause to terminate outsourcing contracts for the Information Technology Services Agency in terms of(a) cost, (b) delay and (c) failure to meet operational needs. [103623]

  Angela Eagle
  The Department is in detailed discussions and negotiations with its preferred IT supplier, Affinity. This work will not be complete before February and it is not until then that the detail of the contracts, in respect of termination, will have been finalised.

  We intend to make sure that sufficient contractual safeguards are in place in the event that the service provider fails to meet the contractual service requirements. Termination is one of the safeguards under discussion.

  Mr. Gordon Marsden
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security when he next plans to meet trade union side representatives to discuss plans for outsourcing at the Information Technology Services Agency. [103624]

  Angela Eagle
  The Department has met with representatives from the Trade Union Side (TUS) at both Agency and Departmental level since the initial announcement regarding the future IS/IT Strategy for the Department. I also met with representatives of Departmental and Agency TUS on 25 November to discuss their concerns regarding the decision to outsource.

  Regular meetings between the Agency and the local TUS are taking place and a schedule of meetings, up to the end of March, has been agreed. A consultation framework has also been agreed between ITSA and TUS.
  72W
  The working relationship with the TUS in ITSA and consultation process is well established. We are being kept informed of all significant outcomes of meetings with TUS. We have no current plans to have further meetings with the TUS on this matter.

  Appeal Tribunals
  Dr. Naysmith
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security what remuneration, pensions and allowances are paid by his Department to persons who are appointed under the Social Security Act 1998 to act as members of an appeal tribunal; and if he will make a statement. [103731]

  Angela Eagle
  My right hon. and noble Friend The Lord Chancellor has set up a panel of persons to act as members of appeal tribunals and has made all appointments to it. The panel has 67 full-time members (excluding the President of appeal tribunals), all of whom are legally qualified. There are 1,971 part-time members with legal, medical and financial qualifications and with experience of dealing with the needs of disabled persons.

  Full-time panel members are salary paid. The average annual salaries at November 1999 were £99,022 for panel members heading the six regions within the Appeals Service and £83,146 for the remaining full-time members. Travelling and, where applicable, subsistence allowances are also payable to full-time panel members where they are required to attend a tribunal hearing away from their normal venue.

  As judicial appointments, full-time panel members belong to the Judicial Pensions Scheme but some have elected to have their pension benefits paid by analogy with the Principal Civil Service Pension Scheme.

  Part-time panel members are paid on a daily or sessional (half day) basis. The current rate of fees is set out in the following table:

  £

  Fee

  per session

  per day

  Preparation fee1

  Legally qualified

  138.50

  277.00

  230.00

  360.00

  Medically qualified (non-specialist)

  103.00

  206.00

  —

  Medically qualified (specialist)

  126.00

  252.00

  227.00

  354.00

  Financially qualified

  118.50

  237.00

  —

  Experience of disability

  63.50

  127.00

  —

  1 Preparation fees are payable to legally qualified panel members and medical specialists who hear appeals relating to Industrial Injuries Scheme benefits, Severe Disablement Allowance and Vaccine Damage

  2 Per session

  3 Per day

  Pensions are not payable to part-time panel members, but they may claim travel expenses for journeys between their home and tribunal venues. Where applicable, subsistence allowance is also payable.

  Other fees and allowances payable include training fees, lengthy attendance fees and fees for sessions which are cancelled.

  Benefits (Scotland)
  Mr. Alasdair Morgan
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security how many people in Scotland, under the age of 18 years, are in receipt of(a) Income Support, (b) Housing Benefit, (c) Jobseeker's Allowance and (d) Lone Parent Benefit as part of Child Benefit. [103866]

  Angela Eagle
  The information is not available in the format requested. Such information as is available is in the table.

  Number of people under 18 in Scotland who receive Income Support, Housing Benefit, Jobseeker's Allowance and Lone Parent Benefit as part of Child Benefit

  Benefit type

  Claimants aged 16 and 17

  Income Support (August 1999)

  2,100

  Housing Benefit (May 1998)

  1700

  Jobseeker's Allowance (August 1999)

  600

  Lone parent addition as part of Child Benefit (August 1999)

  700

  1 The Housing Benefit figure is based on a 1 per cent. sample and therefore subject to a high degree of sampling error. For example, the estimate of 700 could lie within the range of approximately 200 to 1,200

  Notes:

  1. Figures are rounded to the nearest hundred.

  2. Income Support, Jobseeker's Allowance and Child Benefit figures are based on a 5 per cent. sample and as such subject to a degree of sampling error.

  3. Precise figures cannot be provided because the figures have been extrapolated from small samples and will therefore be subject to a high degree of sampling error.

  Sources:

  Income Support Statistics Quarterly Enquiry, August 1999–5 per cent.

  Jobseeker's Allowance Statistics Quarterly Enquiry, August 1999–5 per cent.

  Housing Benefit Management Information System, annual 1 per cent. inquiries taken on the second Thursday of May 1998. Child Benefit Computer System—5 per cent. sample.

  Invalid Care Allowance (Scotland)
  Mr. Alasdair Morgan
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security (1) how many people in Scotland have become ineligible for invalid care allowance on the grounds of age in each of the last five years; [103865]

  (2) how many people in Scotland have received invalid care allowance in each year since 1991. [103759]

  Mr. Bayley
  The information is not available and could be obtained only at disproportionate cost.

  Disability Living Allowance
  Mr. David Heath
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security (1) what advice is given to assessors and adjudicators on applications for Disability Living Allowance on the mobility and care needs of those suffering from achondroplasia; [103642]

  (2) what account is taken of the needs of persons suffering from achondroplasia in framing criteria for Disability Living Allowance. [103641]

  Mr. Bayley
  Entitlement to Disability Living Allowance (DLA) depends on the extent to which a severely disabled person needs help with personal care,74W
  requires supervision or has difficulty getting around. People with achondroplasia have access to DLA in the same way as other severely disabled people.

  Guidance on the likely effects of a large range of disabling conditions is contained in the Disability Handbook issued to all decision makers. The Disability Living Allowance Advisory Board provides decision makers with regular updates and information on other conditions, to be used in conjunction with the Handbook. Advice, in this form, on the likely effects of achondroplasia and associated complications, was issued in August 1995.

  In addition to the training and written guidance that decision makers receive, they also have access to advice from doctors, if they need further information relating to any medical condition or combination of conditions.

  Child Support Agency
  Mr. Livsey
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security after what period data about payments made by absent parents is routinely erased from CSA records. [103116]

  Angela Eagle
  The administration of the Child Support Agency is a matter for the Chief Executive, Mrs. Faith Boardman. She will write to the hon. Member.

  Letter from Mrs. Faith Boardman to Mr. Richard Livsey, dated 23 December 1999:
  I am replying to your Parliamentary Question to the Secretary of State for Social Security about the Child Support Agency.
  The account history information on the CSA computer system is subject to an archiving process. This process examines account transactions that have reached a completed status ie. for a given charge there is a receipt and an associated payment out. Once these completed transactions are 365 days old they are marked as eligible for archiving and removed from the online system to the archive database.
  Data that is held in the archive database is available for retrieval as a hard copy report. There is currently no processing which deletes this data from the system archive database.
  The CSA business requirement in respect of deletion of financial data states that the information must be retained for the current financial year and the succeeding six. As CSA initial action only commenced in June 1993 the Agency does not have any financial data that has surpassed this age.
  The Agency intends to examine the need to delete archived data next year however, any data removed will be subject to the appropriate business rules as noted above.
  I hope this is helpful.

  Basic State Pension
  Mr. O'Hara
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security what was the value of the basic state pension for(a) single pensioners and (b) pensioner couples, for each year between November 1979 and April 2000; and what it would have been if it had been uprated in line with the higher in each year of average earnings or prices. [103956]

  Mr. Rooker
  The information is in the table.
  75W

  £ per week

  Uprating date

  Single pensioner actual rates

  Single pensioner increased by higher of earnings or prices

  Pensioner couple actual rates

  Pensioner couple increased by higher of earnings or prices

  November 1979

  23.30

  23.30

  37.30

  37 30

  November 1980

  27.15

  27.60

  43.45

  44 20

  November 1981

  29.60

  30.90

  47.35

  49 50

  November 1982

  32.85

  33.50

  52.55

  53.65

  November 1983

  34.05

  36.40

  54.50

  58.30

  November 1984

  35.80

  38.25

  57.30

  61.25

  November 1985

  38.30

  41.60

  61.30

  66.60

  July 1986

  38.70

  43.45

  61.95

  69.60

  April 1987

  39.50

  45.90

  63.25

  73.50

  April 1988

  41.15

  49.50

  65.90

  79 25

  April 1989

  43.60

  53.85

  69.80

  86 20

  April 1990

  46.90

  59.05

  75.10

  94 55

  April 1991

  52.00

  65.50

  83.25

  104 85

  April 1992

  54.15

  70.50

  86.70

  112 85

  April 1993

  56.10

  73.90

  89.80

  118 30

  April 1994

  57.60

  76.25

  92.10

  121 95

  April 1995

  58.85

  78.85

  94.10

  126 10

  April 1996

  61.15

  81.95

  97.75

  131 05

  April 1997

  62.45

  85.40

  99.80

  136 55

  April 1998

  64.70

  88.90

  103.40

  142 15

  April 1999

  66.75

  93.25

  106.70

  149 10

  April 2000

  67.50

  97.45

  107.90

  155 80

  Notes:

  1. The Retail Price Index (all items) has been used as published by the Office for National Statistics.

  2. Average Earnings Index Whole Economy (Non Seasonally Adjusted) as published by the Office for National Statistics.

  3. Figures have been rounded to the nearest 5p at each uprating.

  4. From April 1994 the basic rate of retirement pension has been increased by 50p on a single person and 20p on a pensioner couple to reflect VAT on fuel.

  5. The figures for November 1979 to November 1982 have been calculated using actual increases in Retail Prices Index rather than forecast increases.

  Opportunity for All
  Mr. Field
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security if he will list for each of the 32 indicators in Opportunity for All which of the other indicators and targets are Opportunity for All targets. [103484]

  Mr. Rooker
  We placed further information on the indicators of success in the Library of the House on 21 September to coincide with the publication of "Opportunity for All". There are no specific "Opportunity for All" targets. The paper placed in the Library shows where there is a corresponding Government target for each of the 32 indicators.

  Mr. Field
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security what baseline information has been developed for those indicators without baseline data in Opportunity for All. [103714]

  Mr. Rooker
  We are currently developing the baselines for those indicators without baseline information and will report on their development in the second annual report on the Government's Strategy for Tackling Poverty and Social Exclusion.

  Winter Fuel Payments
  Mr. Field
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security for what reason men aged 60 to 65 years are entitled to receive the winter fuel bonus if they are claiming Jobseeker's Allowance or Income Support. [103486]

  Angela Eagle
  Those men aged 60 or over in receipt of Income Support or income-based Jobseeker's Allowance which includes a pensioner premium have been eligible 76W
  for winter fuel payments since the scheme began. They are among the poorest elderly people and as such we decided that they should be eligible for this help.

  We have announced that winter fuel payments will be extended to everyone aged 60 and over from next winter. The payments will be backdated to the start of the scheme.

  Child Benefits
  Mr. Forth
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security what was the total allocation for his Department in 1996–97 and projected for 1999–2000 on child benefits. [102943]

  Angela Eagle
  Expenditure on Child Benefits for the financial year 1996–97 amounted to £6,941 million. It is estimated that expenditure for 1999–2000 will reach £8,286 million.

  Note:

  1. Figure for 1996–97 includes One Parent Benefit (£317 million).

  2. Figure for 1999–2000 is planned expenditure and it includes Lone Parent Addition of £128 million.

  Source:

  Departmental Report

  Invalid Care Allowance
  Mr. Webb
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security what records his Department holds for current recipients of Invalid Care Allowance on the duration of their claim. [104142]

  Mr. Bayley
  The information is in the table.
  77W

  Recipients of Invalid Care Allowance (ICA) as at 21 July 1999

  Number of carers

  Percentage of total recipients

  Less than 1 year

  64,486

  17.2

  1 to 2 years

  61,302

  16.4

  2 to 5 years

  127,403

  34.1

  5 to 10 years

  88,234

  23.6

  Over 10 years

  32,594

  8.7

  Total

  374,019

  100

  Source:

  ICA Unit, 100 per cent. count

  Child Support
  Mr. Webb
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security if he will list each of the categories of family that will be worse off as a result of the child support measures contained in the Child Support, Pensions and Social Security Bill; if he will list in each case the number of(a) families and (b) children so affected; and if he will estimate the average loss for each group. [104141]

  Angela Eagle
  The impact of the child support reforms will depend on a number of different factors, including the level of child support liability, whether this liability is being paid and whether the parent with care is on benefit. Over one million children will benefit from the reforms. However, in order to forecast which individual families are likely to be better or worse off as a result of the changes, we would need to establish the extent to which the non-resident parent is compliant now and estimate future compliance. We have not made such estimates; these could be provided only at disproportionate cost and we are not confident that the results would be reliable.

  It is inevitable that there will be differences in liability between the current and the new schemes. Under the new scheme we will get more parents paying more of what is due for their children. Payments of maintenance are already fully ignored in Working Families Tax Credit. Parents with care on Income Support will see the benefit of maintenance for the first time. They will gain up to £10 a week through the introduction of the new child maintenance premium. The payment of regular, reliable maintenance will also form a foundation on which parents with care can consider options for work.

  Mr. Webb
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security what estimate he has made of the likely completion date of the computer system being prepared for the Child Support Agency; and if it is his policy not to implement the new maintenance formula contained in the Child Support, Pensions and Social Security Bill until that computer system is in place. [104139]

  Angela Eagle
  We have always made clear that we intend to introduce the new child support system as soon as possible, but that will not be before the end of 2001 at the earliest. We are determined not to repeat the failures of the current system by introducing reforms too quickly or before new IT systems are ready.

  State Second Pension
  Mr. Webb
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security if he will estimate, for each of the 10 financial years starting from 2003–04,(a) expenditure on SERPS if the state second pension were not to be introduced,
  78W
  (b) expenditure on SERPS if the state second pension were to be introduced, (c) expenditure on the state second pension, assuming implementation in 2003–04 and a move to a flat rate scheme in 2008–09 and (d) the additional cost of national insurance rebates to those earning less than £9,000 per annum on each of the two alternative regimes proposed in his recent consultation document. [104140]

  Mr. Rooker
  The information is contained in the following tables. It is based on the assumptions that the State Second Pension will be introduced in April 2002 and that it will move to a flat-rate scheme in 2006–07 (five years after Stakeholder Pension Schemes are introduced). Costings based on introduction of the State Second Pension in April 2003 and a move to a flat-rate scheme in 2008–09 are not available at this time.

  All figures are expressed in 1999–2000 price terms and are rounded to the nearest £0.1 billion. The Low Earnings Threshold in State Second Pension is set at £9,500 pa for that year.

  Expenditure on SERPS if the State Second Pension were not introduced

  £ billion

  2002–03

  5.8

  2003–04

  6.2

  2004–05

  6.6

  2005–06

  7.0

  2006–07

  7.4

  2007–08

  7.8

  2008–09

  8.2

  2009–10

  8.6

  2010–11

  8.9

  2011–12

  9.2

  Expenditure on SERPS if the State Second Pension were to be introduced in April 2002

  £ billion

  2002–03

  5.7

  2003–04

  6.2

  2004–05

  6.6

  2005–06

  7.0

  2006–07

  7.3

  2007–08

  7.7

  2008–09

  8.0

  2009–10

  8.3

  2010–11

  8.6

  2011–12

  8.8

  Expenditure on the State Second Pension, if introduced in April 2002 and followed by a move to a flat-rate scheme in 2006–07

  £ billion

  2002–03

  0

  2003–04

  0

  2004–05

  0

  2005–06

  0.1

  2006–07

  0.2

  2007–08

  0.3

  2008–09

  0.5

  2009–10

  0.6

  2010–11

  0.8

  2011–12

  1.0

  79W

  The additional cost of national insurance rebates to those earning less than £9,500 pa based on the first approach contained in the recent consultation document The Structure of Rebates for the State Second Pension

  £ billion

  2002–03

  0.1

  2003–04

  0.2

  2004–05

  0.2

  2005–06

  0.2

  2006–07

  0.3

  2007–08

  0.3

  2008–09

  0.3

  2009–10

  0.3

  2010–11

  0.3

  2011–12

  0.3

  Note:

  These extra rebates are for those contracted-out of the State Second Pension via Contracted-Out Salary Related schemes, Contracted-Out Money Purchase schemes and Appropriate Personal Pension schemes. The figures do not include additional rebates paid to people earning between £9,500 and £21,600

  The additional cost of national insurance rebates to those earning less than £9,500 pa based on the second approach contained in the consultation document

  £ billion

  2002–03

  0

  2003–04

  0.1

  2004–05

  0.1

  2005–06

  0.1

  2006–07

  0.1

  2007–08

  0.1

  2008–09

  0.2

  2009–10

  0.2

  2010–11

  0.2

  2011–12

  0.2

  Note:

  These extra rebates are for those contracted-out of the State Second Pension via Appropriate Personal Pension schemes. The figures do not include additional rebates paid to people earning between £9,500 and £21,600 between £9,500 and £21,600

  Stakeholder Pensions
  Mr. Fitzpatrick
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security what progress has been made in developing proposals for stakeholder pensions. [104429]

  Mr. Darling
  Stakeholder pensions are intended to fill the gap for the many people who can afford to save for their retirement but do not currently have a suitable means of doing so. Following passage of the Welfare Reform and Pensions Act 1999, which sets the framework for stakeholder schemes, and extensive consultation on the detailed arrangements, we have now made decisions in a number of key areas. I am placing in the Library the Government's response to the consultation. The paper, "Stakeholder Pensions—Outcome of the Consultation" is also available in the Vote Office. The main points are:Schemes will only be able to charge in one way, on the value of the member's fund, and will not be allowed to charge more than 1 per cent. a year. No extra charges can be made if the member stops paying in, or wishes to transfer to another scheme.
  Schemes will accept any contributions of £20 or more.
  Schemes must provide information and explanatory material to potential members, but will not be required to offer individual financial advice within the 1 per cent. charge. Schemes may provide individual advice within the charge limit if they wish, or charge a separate fee.
  80W
  Schemes will be able to set up with a board of trustees, or can be run by an authorised stakeholder scheme manager.
  Employers will generally be required to give access to a stakeholder scheme from October 2001, unless they already offer a suitable alternative. Employers with fewer than five staff will initially be exempt from this requirement, but the arrangement will be reviewed in three years' time. Employers who arrange group personal pensions and who make a contribution of at least 3 per cent. of earnings will also initially be exempt, subject to review after three years.
  Existing rebates for Contracted-out Money Purchase Schemes and Appropriate Personal Pension schemes will apply to stakeholder pension schemes.

  Specific requirements will be incorporated in secondary legislation, on which we shall consult in draft shortly.

  BA Security and Investigation Service
  Mr. Field
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security (1) how many staff BASIS have employed in each area for each of the last 12 months; [103482]

  (2) what is the full complement of staff at each BASIS office and on 1 December how many of these posts were vacant; [103483]

  (3) how many BASIS staff at each area office have been with BASIS for 12 months or more. [103485]

  Mr. Rooker
  The information is in the tables.

  Number of staff BASIS have employed in each area for each of the last 12 months

  Business Development Team

  Southern

  Northern

  National Intelligence

  1998

  December

  33

  144

  83

  28

  1999

  January

  33

  143

  83

  27

  February

  31

  146

  83

  31

  March

  33

  143

  82

  31

  April

  34

  138

  79

  39

  May

  34

  139

  79

  44

  June

  37

  138

  77

  44

  July

  34

  139

  76

  43

  August

  33

  154

  74

  50

  September

  34

  143

  73

  52

  October

  32

  148

  71

  53

  November

  35

  147

  74

  57

  Numbers for the full complement of staff at each BASIS office and the number of vacancies

  Office/Team

  Full complement

  Staff in post

  Vacancies

  Business Development Team (BDT):

  BDT

  34

  35

  0

  Southern area:

  Nottingham

  19

  17

  2

  Birmingham

  19

  17

  2

  Cardiff

  19

  15

  4

  London:

  Team 1

  21

  21

  0

  Team 2

  21

  16

  5

  Team 3

  21

  14

  7

  Team 4

  21

  14

  7

  Team 5

  21

  15

  6

  Team 6

  21

  16

  5

  81W

  Numbers for the full complement of staff at each BASIS office and the number of vacancies

  Office/Team

  Full complement

  Staff in post

  Vacancies

  Northern area:

  Scotland

  19

  16

  3

  Newcastle

  19

  12

  7

  Leeds

  19

  18

  1

  Manchester

  19

  18

  1

  Liverpool

  19

  10

  9

  National Intelligence Unit:

  Identity Fraud Management Unit

  26

  21

  5

  Financial Investigation Unit

  5

  3

  2

  Giro Validation

  16

  6

  10

  National Intelligence Unit

  29

  27

  2

  Totals

  388

  311

  178

  1 A further recruitment exercise was carried out throughout October and November 1999. The interviews will be taking place in the next few weeks with a view to filling the vacancies.

  Numbers of BASIS staff at each area office who have been with BASIS for 12 months or more

  Team

  Number

  Business Development Team

  15

  Southern

  99

  Northern

  53

  National Intelligence

  15

DEFENCE

  Written Questions
  Mr. Davidson
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence how many questions for written answer he replied to by means of a letter placed in the Library rather than by a substantive answer in the Official Report in (a) Session 1998–99, (b) Session 1997–98 and (c) Session 1996–97; and if he will make a statement. [99840]

  Mr. Kilfoyle
  Out of a total of 2,351 Commons written questions tabled to Defence Ministers during Session 1998–99, our database records that 198 were answered by means of a letter placed in the Library rather than by a substantive reply in the Official Report. The database did not capture such information prior to the 1998–99 Session, and consequently it could only be provided at disproportionate cost for previous sessions.

  Defence Housing Executive
  Mr. Hancock
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what has been the cost of developing the new national computer network within the Defence Housing Executive. [100288]

  Mr. Kilfoyle
  It is assumed that this question refers to Project DOMIS, the PFI procurement which is intended to replace the Defence Housing Executive's (DHE's) existing computer system to provide an enhanced housing service to members of the armed services and their families.

  The system will link DHE's 202 offices throughout mainland UK and provide a modern, efficient housing allocation service together with improved management information.
  82W
  The Project has not yet reached the stage of placing a contract. The costs to date of the in-house team and consultants who are developing the requirements amount to £2.1 million.

  RN Vessels (UN Operations)
  Mr. Hancock
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence which Royal Navy vessels have been involved in United Nations operations in the last two years; and how long was each operation. [101663]

  Mr. Hoon
  No Royal Navy vessels have operated directly under UN command in the last two years, but they have supported a number of UN mandated operations or enforced UN security resolutions.

  HMS Glasgow joined Australian-led forces operating in support of the UN mandated International Force in East Timor (INTERFET) from 18–30 September 1999.

  HMS Cumberland, Nottingham, Newcastle, Coventry, Birmingham and Exeter have participated in the Multinational force enforcing sanctions against Iraq under UN Security Council Resolution 665.

  Humanitarian patrols of the Iraqi no-fly zones, in support of UN Security Council Resolution 688, have also been carried out by aircraft operating from HMS Invincible in February and March 1999. Aircraft operating from HMS Invincible who was replaced by HMS Illustrious also carried out patrols of the Iraqi no-fly zones over the period January to March 1998.

  Air Sea Rescue Service
  Mr. Hoyle
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence if he will make a statement on the future of the UK Air Sea Rescue Service. [101333]

  Mr. Spellar
  [holding answer 6 December 1999]: I can only comment upon the military Search and Rescue (SAR) contribution, as the overall responsibility for civil SAR rests with the Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions.

  Although the primary responsibility of the military SAR force is to rescue downed military aircrew, in peacetime the force also makes a significant contribution to rescuing civilians.

  The Strategic Defence Review (SDR) confirmed that the operational side of the RAF SAR should be maintained as a military task, with the priority of rescuing service personnel in the United Kingdom and surrounding seas. The military SAR force continues to provide an unequalled service with a capability which is second to none.

  The feasibility of contractorising the maintenance of SAR aircraft will be examined as part of the Sea King replacement strategy.

  HMS Chatham
  Mr. Hancock
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what is the cost of the refit of HMS Chatham; and if he will make a statement. [101670]

  Mr. Spellar
  Expenditure to date on HMS Chatham's refit is some £22 million, which includes an element for additional work which could not have been foreseen
  83W
  before the refit began. Final payment will be made on completion of the guarantee period, which expires in December 2000.

  HMS Brave
  Mr. Hancock
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what is the cost of HMS Brave being held in extended readiness. [101671]

  Mr. Spellar
  HMS Brave entered extended readiness in April 1999. Since then, £0.38 million has been spent in keeping her in this state. This figure includes the cost of preparations for extended readiness and the cost of the tow from Devonport to Portsmouth. The estimated cost to hold her in extended readiness for the next year will be a further £0.4 million.

  Forces Legal Aid
  Mr. Key
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence (1) if(a) staff (i) in the NAAFI, (ii) in DERA and (iii) of civilian contractors and (b) their dependants are eligible for forces legal aid; [102585]

  (2) for each of the three armed services, who is eligible for forces legal aid; and what are the criteria which must be met; [102587]

  (3) what is the sum available this year for legal aid in respect of each armed service; and what sums will be available in the next three years to take account of proposed legislation in the Armed Forces Discipline Bill [Lords]; [102586]

  (4) under what circumstances civilians are eligible for forces legal aid. [102588]

  Mr. Spellar
  [holding answer 13 December 1999]: Legal aid is available, from Service sources, for those who are to be tried by court-martial, who wish to appeal to the Courts-Martial Appeal Court, who are to be tried by a standing civilian court (the equivalent of a magistrates court which sits outside the UK), or who are to be tried by a criminal court outside the UK for an off-duty offence.

  The criteria that must be met by anyone applying for Service legal aid are that they must be subject to Service law (that is, are bound by one of the three single Service Discipline Acts), and assistance must be in the interests of justice. Individuals will be required to show that they have insufficient means to obtain assistance without help from public funds (and, in the case of an incident abroad, that the host country has no equivalent scheme for non-nationals). Depending on their personal means and commitments, individuals will be required to provide a personal contribution. The MOD scheme broadly mirrors the criteria applied by the civilian legal aid authorities in England and Wales.

  Those covered under the Service scheme are Service personnel in the UK and overseas, and attached civilians (including defence Agency personnel) and dependants abroad. However, there has been a long-standing policy that UK personnel employed abroad by a number of specified organisations, including the NAAFI, can make use of the Service legal aid scheme, subject to the funds being subsequently repaid. (It is a matter for the organisations concerned whether they or the individuals involved undertake the required reimbursement.) Civilian
  84W
  contractors, whether engaged either in work in the UK or abroad, are not eligible for Service legal aid as they are not subject to Service law.

  The sums available this year for Service legal aid are £100,000 for the Royal Navy, £770,000 for the Army and £146,000 for the Royal Air Force.

  The increase in Service legal aid as a result of the legislation proposed in the Armed Forces Discipline Bill will depend on the number and nature of cases handled.

  Army Foundation College
  Mr. Cotter
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence where the new Army Foundation College is to be based. [102579]

  Mr. Spellar
  At the present time no conclusions have been reached as to the site for the new Army Foundation College.

  Mr. Cotter
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence if the site for the new Army Foundation College is designated(a) green field or (b) brown field. [102578]

  Mr. Spellar
  It has not yet been determined where the new Army Foundation College is to be and therefore the designation of its site is not yet known.

  Mr. Cotter
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence if he will publish the conclusions of the value for money exercise conducted in determining the location of the new Army Foundation College. [102580]

  Mr. Spellar
  The information contained in the Investment Appraisals that have so far been undertaken in examination of the options for a second Army Foundation College will form the basis of advice to Ministers and are being withheld at present under Exemption 2 of the Code of Practice on Access to Government Information.

  Consultants
  Mr. Don Foster
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence how much his Department's agencies and non-departmental public bodies have spent on external consultants and advisers since May 1997. [102073]

  Mr. Kilfoyle
  [holding answer 13 December 1999]: I will write to the hon. Member and a copy of my letter will be placed in the Library of the House.

  Principle Anti-air Missile Systems
  Mr. Hancock
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence how many medium-range Principle anti-air missile systems the United Kingdom has developed in the last three years. [103033]

  Mr. Kilfoyle
  One.

  Troop Movements
  Mr. Hancock
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence how many UK troops will be transferred from East Timor to(a) Brunei and (b) the UK at the end of December. [103060]

  Mr. Hoon
  All UK troops, with the exception of two UN Monitoring Observers, returned from East Timor before the end of December. A total of 284 troops were transferred from East Timor, with 46 returning to the UK
  85W
  and 238 returning to Brunei. The withdrawal started on 8 December, following confirmation from the INTERFET Commander, Major-General Cosgrove, that their tasks were complete. The final contingent of Gurkhas arrived back in Brunei on 10 December and UK-based troops arrived home on 17 December.

  Asymmetric Warfare
  Mr. Hancock
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what representations he has received on the United Kingdom's asymmetric warfare; and if he will make a statement. [103032]

  Mr. Spellar
  My Department continually monitors and assesses threats to UK interests, whether they are conventional in nature or "asymmetric". The analysis influences our defence policy and planning to ensure that British defence capability is well placed to respond to the threats and opportunities we face now and may face in the future. The subject of asymmetric warfare is so broad as to appear frequently in representations and debates on defence and security policy.

  DERA (PPP Proposals)
  Mr. Matthew Taylor
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence if he will place in the Library a list of the organisations and individuals who responded to the consultation document on the Defence Evaluation and Research Agency public private partnership proposals published by his Department in May. [103183]

  Mr. Kilfoyle
  I have today placed in the Library of the House a list showing all the non-Governmental organisations that have provided written responses to the DERA PPP consultation document. Some responses, for example from trade associations, represented a consolidated view from a number of organisations consulted as part of their own consultation process. Similarly, a number of organisations and individuals responded orally through participation in consultation events. For reasons of confidentiality, the list does not include the names of individuals who responded on a personal basis, either to the Ministry of Defence or through their Member of Parliament.

  Gulf Veterans
  Mr. Matthew Taylor
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what meetings officials from the Gulf Veterans' Illnesses Unit were held with officials of the United States Department of Veteran Affairs between January and December 1998;(a) on what dates and (b) where each meeting took place; and for which section of the United States Department of Veteran Affairs the officials who attended each meeting worked. [103149]

  Mr. Spellar
  During 1998, officials from my Department's Gulf Veterans Illnesses Unit visited Washington DC on the following occasions: 16–18 February; 14–20 June; 26 September-3 October and 23–26 November. They would have met officials representing the US Department of Veterans Affairs on these occasions. In the time available, it has not proved possible to trace records of the meetings to establish in which sections of the Department of Veterans Affairs these officials worked. I will write to the hon. Gentleman if this information can be found.
  86W
  In addition to the above, a member of the Gulf Veterans Illness Unit (GVIU) based in Washington DC maintains continuous dialogue with United States Department of Veterans Affairs colleagues.

  Ministerial Meetings
  Mr. Matthew Taylor
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence how many times Ministers in his Department met members and officials on the United States Government between 2 May 1997 and 1 January 1998; on what dates and at which locations; and which(a) Ministers and (b) US counterparts and officials attended each meeting. [103181]

  Mr. Kilfoyle
  Between 2 May 1997 and 1 January 1998, MOD Ministers met US Government members and officials on the following occasions:

  Date

  Minister

  For the Armed Forces

  4 July 1997

  The right hon. John Dalton, Secretary US Navy—in UK

  15 October 1997

  Dr. John Hamre, Under Secretary—in US

  16 October 1997

  The hon. Togo West, Secretary of the Army—in US

  Defence Procurement

  1 July 1997

  Joe Reeder, US Secretary of State of the Navy—in UK

  6 October 1997

  The hon. John Dalton, Secretary of the Navy—in US

  6 October 1997

  Dr. John Hamre, Deputy Secretary of Defense—in US

  8 October 1997

  The hon. William Cohen. Secretary of Defense—in US

  Full records of the officials present at these meetings are not kept.

  Departmental Productivity
  Mr. Crausby
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what action he is taking to increase the productivity and reduce the running costs of his Department. [103847]

  Mr. Spellar
  Delivering efficient and modern public services is a key part of the Government's agenda for improving productivity. Greater efficiency is being sought within the public sector to ensure that the most effective results are obtained from available resources. The Ministry of Defence's (MOD) Public Service Agreement (PSA) sets out the objectives, key targets and resources for the MOD and the Armed Forces, and includes a range of measures to ensure that the budget allocated to defence purchases the maximum capability for the Armed Forces and fulfils the plans set out in the Strategic Defence Review.

  The key measures from the PSA that will help raise the Department's productivity are shown below:
  The MOD is committed to achieving efficiency savings of 3 per cent. a year (as a percentage of the operating costs efficiency baseline) for the period 1998–99 to 2001–02. In support of this, savings of at least £15 million a year are generated from ideas implemented through MOD's GEMS scheme, one of the most successful staff suggestion programmes in the UK.
  The appointment of a Chief of Defence Logistics, followed by the creation of a unified organisation to provide logistic support to all three Services, will help to achieve a reduction in book value of non munitions stockholdings of £2.2 billion by April 2001.

  87W
  The MOD is reforming its procurement organisation through the creation of the Defence Procurement Agency and implementation of the Smart Procurement Initiative. The DPA has been set a target to reduce its operating costs by 20 per cent. by 2001–02.
  The Department is committed to slimming down its central headquarters organisation, which has already reduced by 30 per cent. since 1990; and to reducing the planned number of office buildings to be occupied to two (from 24 in 1990).
  The Department is developing a strategy for better management and utilisation of the overall defence estate, including the realisation of gross receipts of more than £700 million from the sale of surplus property.
  MOD will regularly and systematically review all services and activities not directly associated with front line forces over a five year period in line with Government policy, "Better Quality Services". The Department will pursue private sector involvement in MOD business, where it provides best value for money, through Public/Private Partnership initiatives.

  The MOD is on track to meet the targets described above. The Defence White Paper 1999 (Cm 4446) and the Ministry of Defence Performance Report 1998–99 (Cm 4520), which were published on 20 December 1999, describe the progress that has been made in implementing the Strategic Defence Review and against the targets set in the MOD's PSA.

  Departmental Employees (Early Retirement)
  Mr. Gardiner
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence how many employees of his Department took early retirement packages and at what total cost, in the financial year 1996–97. [103362]

  Mr. Kilfoyle
  Early departure packages are available for staff over 50 years of age (classed as retirement) and under 50 years of age (classed as severance). The total number of early leavers, including voluntary and compulsory redundancies, caused by reductions and geographical relocations (but excluding Trading Fund Agencies) were 1,712 in Financial Year 1996–97. The total is broken down by category in the table.

  Retirement category

  Category sub-total

  Total

  Approved early retirement

  —

  109

  Actuarially reduced retirement

  —

  11

  Compulsory early retirement/Severance:

  CER on Structural grounds

  30

  —

  CER on Redundancy grounds

  595

  —

  CES on Structural grounds

  14

  —

  CES on Redundancy grounds

  443

  —

  CER/CES total

  —

  1,082

  Flexible early retirement/severance:

  FER on Structural grounds

  73

  —

  FER on Limited Postability

  6

  —

  FES on Structural grounds

  1

  —

  FES on Limited Postability

  5

  —

  FER/FES total

  —

  85

  Voluntary redundancy

  Voluntary Redundancy (CER terms)

  214

  —

  Voluntary Redundancy (CES terms)

  211

  —

  Voluntary Redundancy total

  —

  425

  Total

  1,712

  88W
  Financial Year 1996–97 represented the final round of the Department's "Options for Change" review and most of the early leavers left as a consequence of the review. The total cost to the Ministry of Defence in Financial Year 1996–97 was £61.181 million. This represents the cost of the initial and annual compensation, and any lump sum payments for retirements that took place in that year. The annual compensation payment for staff over 50 years of age at the point of leaving continues to be met by the MOD until individuals reach the minimum retirement age of 60 years.

  Antonov 124–100
  Mr. Hoyle
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what length of runway is required for the Antonov 124–100 when fully loaded. [103104]

  Mr. Kilfoyle
  [holding answer 20 December 1999]: This is a matter for the Chief Executive of the Defence Procurement Agency. I have asked the Chief Executive to write to my hon. Friend.

  Letter from Sir Robert Walmsley to Mr. Lindsay Hoyle, dated 10 January 2000:
  I am replying to your question to the Secretary of State for Defence in which you asked what length of runway is required for the Antonov AN 124–100 when fully loaded. This matter falls to me for answer within my area of responsibility as Chief of Defence Procurement and Chief Executive of the Defence Procurement Agency.
  According to Antonov promotional literature, when fully loaded the An124–100 requires a runway length of 3,000 metres.

  Territorial Army Land (Crosby)
  Mrs. Curtis-Thomas
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence (1) what representations he has received from the Territorial Auxiliary and Volunteer Reserve Association in Hightown regarding the purchase of access land; [103748]

  (2) if he will make a statement on the land owned and managed by the Territorial, Auxiliary and Volunteer Reserve Association in Hightown (Crosby), Merseyside. [103747]

  Mr. Spellar
  The Territorial Auxiliary and Volunteer Reserve's (TAVRA) rifle range at Altcar is accessed via a private road that passes through land that was sold in July 1998 to two parties. It has not been possible to reach an agreement to renew the right of way to the rifle range with one of the landowners. My Department is therefore considering options to resolve this difficulty. In the meantime, the rifle range is being accessed through a secondary entrance as a temporary measure.

  Joint Rapid Reaction Force
  Mr. Hoyle
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what assessment he has made of the impact of the Joint Rapid Reaction Force Exercise in Oman, scheduled for October 2001, on(a) the timetable for a decision on the FTA programme and (b) the assessment of the merits of the A400M aircraft. [103110]

  Mr. Kilfoyle
  [holding answer 20 December 1999]: We have always known that A400M would not be available in the short term and the Joint Rapid Reaction Force

  89W
  exercise in Oman in 2001 has not, therefore, been a factor in our assessment of the aircraft or of the FTA programme.

  Gurkha Pensions
  Mr. Kidney
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence if he has completed his examination of Gurkha pensions. [103638]

  Mr. Spellar
  The examination of Gurkha pensions and gratuities is now complete. Within the terms of the Tri-Partite Agreement (TPA) between India, Nepal and the UK Gurkha pensions will be increased to allow for a welfare related cash uplift to take account of Indian Government benefits in kind that will at least double the pension payments for all Gurkha pensioners. Increases will be introduced from 1 April 2000. Pension increases will continue to be paid immediately after 15 years service and, where appropriate, passed on to the widow and then

  Welbeck College

  State schools

  Independent schools

  Overseas schools

  Financial year of entry

  Number

  Percentage

  Number

  Percentage

  Number

  Percentage

  Number

  Persentage

  Total

  1994–95

  27

  4.4

  284

  46.6

  277

  45.5

  21

  3.5

  609

  1995–96

  23

  3.6

  332

  51.7

  273

  42.5

  14

  2.2

  642

  1996–97

  24

  3.6

  341

  51.3

  293

  44.1

  6

  1.0

  664

  1997–98

  26

  4.4

  299

  50.2

  259

  43.4

  12

  2.6

  596

  1998–99

  22

  3.7

  289

  48.7

  274

  46.1

  9

  1.5

  594

  Welbeck College is the Army's 6th Form College. The majority of its students are from the State sector.

  Dr. Starkey
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence how many and what percentage of officers accepted for training at Sandhurst Military College have been discharged for medical reasons before completing their training, broken down by company, in each of the last five years. [103870]

  Mr. Spellar
  The information is not available in the detail requested. The numbers of British Officer Cadets who have been medically discharged from the Royal Military Academy, Sandhurst, in each of the last five calendar years, are as follows:

  Calender year

  Numbers medically discharged

  Total in training

  1995

  40 (6%)

  686

  1996

  26 (4%)

  642

  1997

  122 (3%)

  1998

  119 (3%)

  663

  1999

  16 (1%)

  598

  1 There are a number of cadets who are still undergoing treatment/remedial training and who may yet be medically discharged

  Gulf War (Friendly Fire)
  Mr. Dalyell
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what facilities his Department provided for the US Army Depleted Uranium Assessment Unit to investigate the medical results and contamination data relating to British troops injured or killed by friendly fire in the Gulf conflict. [103654]

  Mr. Spellar
  [holding answer 21 December 1999]: None. 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
  90W
  a child up to the age of 25 years. Pensions will be reviewed in the normal way and will benefit from cost of living increases each year. The Nepalese Government have made representations throughout this examination and both the Nepalese and Indian Governments have been notified of the increases.

  Sandhurst
  Dr. Starkey
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence how many and what percentage of officers accepted for training at Sandhurst Military College in each of the last five years received their secondary education in(a) independent and public schools and (b) maintained schools, broken down by company. [103871]

  Mr. Spellar
  This information is not available in the form requested. An estimated breakdown of the secondary education of British Officer Cadets at the Royal Military Academy, Sandhurst for each of the past five financial years is as follows:

  "friendly fire" incidents during which British troops were injured or killed by depleted uranium-based ammunition during the Gulf conflict.

  Unexploded Grenade (Falkirk)
  Mr. Canavan
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence if he will make a statement about the incident on 15 December when schoolboys discovered a grenade near the Forth and Clyde Canal at Falkirk; and if he will make a statement about public safety in respect of other ammunition in that area. [103916]

  Mr. Spellar
  A World War 2 vintage No. 36 Mills bomb, common issue during that period, was discovered in the area of the Forth and Clyde Canal near Falkirk High School by pupils from the school on Wednesday 15 December 1999 following excavation work at the site. An Explosive Ordnance Disposal team from the Army was immediately called to the scene and successfully destroyed the device. There has been no recorded training with weapons previously in the vicinity of the school and it has not been possible to identify the reason for the grenade being there.

  With respect to other arms and ammunition in the area, I can confirm that, wherever arms and ammunition are stored on an Army establishment, this is done in accordance with the appropriate regulations. These are written to ensure that arms and ammunition are secure at all times. I can assure you that the arrangements at the nearby Territorial Army Unit at Grangemouth (153 Workshop Coy REME (V)) are in accordance with these regulations.

  Type 45 Destroyer
  Mr. Hancock
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence when the 12 Ship Programme for the Type 45 Destroyer will(a) start and (b) be completed. [103924]

  Mr. Kilfoyle
  The Type 45 Destroyer programme is already under way and on 23 November 1999 BAE Systems was appointed as Prime Contractor and awarded a contract to complete the Preparation For Demonstration phase. As regards the delivery programme for the Type 45 warships, I refer the hon. Member to the answer I gave on 6 December 1999,Official Report, column 342W.

  Horizon Project
  Mr. Hancock
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what the total cost was of UK involvement in the Horizon Project; and what the cost of withdrawing from the project was. [103925]

  Mr. Kilfoyle
  This is a matter for the Chief Executive of the Defence Procurement Agency. I have asked the Chief Executive to write to the hon. Member.

  Letter from Sir Robert Walmsley to Mr. Mike Hancock, dated 10 January 2000:
  I am replying to your question to the Secretary of State for Defence about the cost of UK involvement in the tri-national Horizon Frigate Programme. This matter falls to me to answer within my area of responsibility as Chief of Defence Procurement and Chief Executive of the Defence Procurement Agency.
  As was made clear in evidence to the House of Commons Defence Committee on 16 June 1999, the UK did not withdraw from Horizon. The three countries involved agreed not to proceed to the next phase. Phase 1 of the Horizon Programme (project Definition and Initial Design) was subsequently completed at the end of October 1999. It was also mentioned in evidence that about £100M that had been spent on Horizon (including spend on NFR90 and other studies). This figure covered UK expenditure on the Programme up to 31 March 1999 and I expect the final amount to be under £120M.
  Until the contract for the Demonstration and First of Class Phase of the Programme is placed, I am unable to say precisely how much of the investment in Horizon will translate into the national Type 45 programme but I can confirm that our plans for the Type 45 Destroyer build on the work accomplished in the design definition phase of the Horizon Programme and the Prime Contractor has indicated that he will pull through some 70% of the Horizon output (Horizon costs were shared equally between the three nations).

  Nancekuke Base, Cornwall
  Ms Atherton
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what substances are currently stored at the Nancekuke military base in Cornwall. [103942]

  Mr. Kilfoyle
  Substances currently stored at the former Chemical Defence Establishment Nancekuke, now RAF Portreath, are limited to Petroleum Oils and Lubricants which support the RAF role, together with some agricultural chemicals owned and used by a tenant farmer.

  Staff Recruitment
  Mr. Cohen
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence if he will make it his policy for agencies acting on behalf of his Department to recruit senior staff on the basis of open competition only; and if he will make a statement. [103902]
  92W
  Mr. Kilfoyle
  My Department currently has 42 agencies. The Chief Executives of 28 of these have already been or will, next time around, be appointed following an open competition. The remaining 14 Chief Executives are all military officers.

  In addition, a number of Chief Executives have chosen to recruit senior staff at Senior Civil Service, grade 6 and grade 7 levels by open competition on fixed term appointments, within the authority laid out in their Agency Framework Documents.

  In line with Sir Richard Wilson's recent report to the Prime Minister on Civil Service Reform, my Department has a target over the next five years to achieve a 10 per cent. year-on-year increase in open competitions for middle and senior managers across the Department, particularly aimed at bringing in new thinking and people who have skills that are currently in short supply.

  Territorial Army
  Mr. Hancock
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence (1) what was the total cost of full-time permanent staff instructors in each of the last three years in the Territorial Army; [103930]

  (2) what the total cost is of full-time personnel commanding Territorial Army units in the current financial year. [103928]

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

  Kosovo
  Mr. Key
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence if the Temporary Field Accommodation has been fully deployed in Kosovo; and if he will make a statement. [103763]

  Mr. Spellar
  [holding answer 21 December 1999]: It is currently envisaged that the Temporary Field Accommodation (TFA) project in Kosovo will be completed in February 2000.

  Faslane Shiplift
  Mr. Key
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence on how many occasions since 19 June the shiplift at Faslane has been used by(a) submarines and (b) surface ships; and if he will make a statement. [103411]

  Mr. Spellar
  [holding answer 21 December 1999]: Since 19 June 1999, the Shiplift at HM Naval Base Clyde has been used for the operational dockings of one surface ship (Minor War Vessel) from 22 June to 2 July, and one submarine (SSBN) from 7 July to 8 August. The facility has been non-operational since 1 September while essential Y2K compliance work was undertaken on the lift control and protection system. The replacement system completed the commissioning phase on 17 December.

  Broadsword
  Mr. Key
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, pursuant to his answer to the hon. Member for Salisbury of 29 November 1999,Official Report, column 4W, on

  93W
  the Territorial Army Joint Services Adventure Sail Training Vessel Broadsword, if he will list each repair and its cost since the refit in May 1998. [103406]

  Mr. Spellar
  [holding answer 21 December 1999]: The Joint Services Adventure Sail Training Vessel Broadsword returned from the Transglobe Inter-Service global yacht race on 10 December. The original estimate for likely repair work associated with this race was £14,000. Since its refit, including the period of the race, a total of £32,844 has been spent on repairs, as shown in the following table:

  £

  Country of repair/main areas of repair

  Cost of repair

  United Kingdom

  Deck, generator and communication equipment

  2,572

  Antigua

  Battery charger unit, electrical repairs, generator and main engine

  2,224

  Panama

  Main engine

  1,240

  Acapulco

  Minor Miscellaneous items

  200

  Honolulu

  Mast, communication equipment, generator, water system and structural

  6,714

  Hong Kong

  Sail

  2,172

  Singapore

  Batteries, sails, electrics, general repairs

  4,908

  Capetown

  Installation of gas system, sails, electrics, general repairs

  6,691

  Rio de Janeiro

  Main engine, fresh water tanks

  4,916

  Antigua

  Generator, main engine

  507

  Azores

  Water tank, batter charger and generator

  1700

  1 Estimated

  Training Fleet
  Mr. Key
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence in respect of the Joint Services Adventure Sail Training Fleet(a) what have been the running costs in each of the past five years, (b) what is (i) the current market value and (ii) the replacement cost of each vessel in the fleet and (c) if he will consider replacing the fleet with a PPP arrangement with leased yachts and instructors. [103409]

  Mr. Spellar
  [holding answer 21 December 1999]: The running costs for the Joint Services Adventure Sail Training Fleet in each of the past five years are:

  Year

  £ million

  1994–95

  0.890

  1995–96

  0.920

  1996–97

  1.017

  1997–98

  0.996

  1998–99

  1.238

  94W
  These costs include low level and routine maintenance and repair. Higher level upkeep (levels 3 and 4 maintenance) figures for the previous three years are:

  Year

  £000

  1996–97

  1383

  1997–98

  2756

  1998–99

  2654

  1 Upkeep only

  2 Upkeep and repair

  The figures for 1997–98 and 1998–99 include the cost of upkeep (major refit) work to comply with the Maritime and Coastguard Agency Code of Practice for Sail Training Vessels. Costs for earlier years can be provided only at disproportionate effort since funding specific to JSASTC can be isolated only by examining all bills received for minor warship repair work in this period.

  The training fleet currently operates 14 × Victoria 34 and 8 × Nicholson 55 sail training craft. The market value of each vessel will vary according to individual condition and the availability of similar vessels also on the market. The current market value for the Victoria 34s is estimated at £60,000 and £100,000 for the Nicholson 55s.

  Replacement costs are estimated to be £150,000 for a Victoria 34 and £800,000 for a Nicholson 55. These are current market prices (new) and include VAT. No replacements are included in the current procurement programme.

  We have no plans at present to replace the fleet with a PPP arrangement.

  Correspondence
  Sir Peter Lloyd
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence when he proposes to reply to the letter from the right hon. Member for Fareham to his predecessor, dated 24 February, about ensuring secure future supplies of ammunition for British forces. [104316]

  Mr. Hoon
  I will write to the hon. Member shortly.

  Royal Navy Vessels (Asbestos)
  Mr. Cohen
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what his Department's annual budget is for removal of asbestos from Royal Navy vessels. [104319]

  Mr. Spellar
  There is no specific annual budget for the removal of asbestos from Royal Navy vessels as it is planned to undertake the majority of this work during scheduled maintenance periods and refits. However, it is estimated that the total cost of the programme to eliminate asbestos, wherever practicable, will be about £7.5 million. This includes the cost of replacement stocks.

  Nuclear Weapons
  Mr. Corbyn
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what information senior officers on Trident submarines are given on the specific yields and likely targets of the missiles they are responsible for. [104077]

  Mr. Hoon
  The Trident missiles on which our nuclear deterrent is based have been de-targeted since 1994. In the circumstances of our having to use our nuclear weapons,
  95W
  members of the patrolling submarine crew would be provided with the information they need to discharge their duties. I am withholding the details of this information under Exemption 1 of the Code of Practice on Access to Government Information relating to defence, security and international relations.

  Mr. Corbyn
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what discussions he has had, and with whom, on the application of international humanitarian law to the use of Trident. [104072]

  Mr. Hoon
  I have had no specific discussions on the application of international humanitarian law to the use of Trident. The United Kingdom's minimum nuclear deterrent is consistent with international law.

  Mr. Corbyn
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence (1) if he will make a statement on the application of the Nuremberg Principles to military personnel ordered to use, or to threaten the use of, nuclear weapons; [104075]

  (2) what measures he has taken to make military personnel who operate Trident aware of their obligations under international law since the International Court of Justice delivered its Advisory Opinion on nuclear weapons; [104076]

  (3) how a member of the armed services would obtain an account of the Government's submission to the International Court of Justice on the legality of its nuclear deterrence policy; and if he will place a copy of the submission in the Library. [104078]

  Mr. Hoon
  The United Kingdom's minimum nuclear deterrent is consistent with international law. It follows that UK military personnel engaged in the operation or support of Trident are acting legally under the Nuremberg Principals. This has been made clear down the chain of command, and members of the Armed Services who seek further guidance on these issues can in the first instance do so through their chain of command.

  Guidance on the Law of Armed Conflict for the Armed Services is set out in the draft Joint Service Manual on the Law of Armed Conflict (Joint Service Publication 383) currently under preparation. We aim to publish this later this year, as we pledged at the 50th Anniversary Conference of the International Red Cross in November 1999. When it is published a copy will be placed in the Library of the House. The relevant section on Nuclear Weapons was reconfirmed following the 1996 Advisory Opinion of the International Court of Justice on the use or threat of use of nuclear weapons. It reads:
  "There is no specific rule of international law, express or implied, which prohibits the use of nuclear weapons. The legality of their use depends upon the application of the general rules of international law, including those regulating the inherent right of self defence and the conduct of hostilities. Those rules cannot be applied in isolation from any factual context to imply a prohibition of a general nature. Whether the use, or threatened use, of nuclear weapons in a particular case is lawful depends on all the circumstances. Nuclear weapons fall to be dealt with by reference to the same general principles as apply to conventional weapons. However, the new rules introduced in Additional Protocol I [to the Geneva Conventions] are not intended to have any effect on and do not regulate or prohibit the use of nuclear weapons."
  96W
  Mr. Corbyn
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence (1) what assessment his Department has carried out of the long-term effects of a 100 kiloton Trident on a military target; [104074]

  (2) what assessment his Department has carried out of the effects of a 100 kiloton Trident warhead detonation on the civilian population living near military targets. [104073]

  Mr. Hoon
  The Trident missiles on which our nuclear deterrent is based have been de-targeted since 1994. Our judgment of the minimum level of deterrence required is supported by comprehensive computer modelling which enables us to assess the effects of nuclear detonations. A number of factors are taken into account in this assessment. As Lord Robertson made clear to my hon. Friend the Member for Newport, West (Mr. Flynn) on 4 February 1998,Official Report, column 655W, these include the yield and design of the weapon used; the accuracy of the delivery system employed; the nature and construction of the target; the characteristics of the surrounding terrain; the height of the detonation; and geological and weather conditions. I am withholding information on UK nuclear warhead yield under Exemption 1 of the Code of Practice on Access to Government Information, relating to defence, security and international relations.

  Storm Shadow Cruise Missile
  Mr. Hancock
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what is the cost of developing the Royal Ordnance Augmented Charge for the UK's Storm Shadow Cruise Missile. [104111]

  Mr. Kilfoyle
  This is a matter for the Chief Executive of the Defence Procurement Agency. I have asked the Chief Executive to write to the hon. Member.

  Letter from Sir Robert Walmsley to Mr. Mike Hancock, dated 10 January 2000:
  I am replying to your question to the Secretary of State for Defence which sought information on the cost of developing the Royal Ordnance Augmented Charge for the UK's Storm Shadow air launched stand-off missile. This matter falls for answer within my area of responsibility as Chief Executive of the Defence Procurement Agency.
  The Augmented Charge was initially developed under private venture funding by Royal Ordnance. However, the adaption of this warhead for Storm Shadow is being undertaken as part of the Storm Shadow contract between ourselves and Matra BAe (Dynamics) UK Ltd. The Matra bid was submitted on a competitive basis, and we therefore have no visibility of the detailed cost breakdown of the warhead element.
  I am sorry I cannot be more helpful.

  Aircraft Carrier Group Deployment
  Mr. Ottaway
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence if he will list the operational reasons for cancelling a deployment by an aircraft carrier group to the USA and Caribbean from February to April 1999. [104153]

  Mr. Spellar
  HMS Invincible had been scheduled to participate in the US-led Joint Task Force Exercise in the western Atlantic between mid-February to early March 1999 but the deployment was cancelled. HMS Invincible was instead sent to the Gulf region on an operational
  97W
  deployment. The reason for deploying HMS Invincible to the Gulf at that time was announced to the House by the Secretary of State for Defence on 14 January 1999.

  Although we were unable to send a carrier to the Joint Task Force Exercise, the Royal Navy still made a significant contribution to the exercise. Commander United Kingdom Task Group and his staff participated in the exercise and the ships HMS Montrose, HMS Marlborough, HMS Sutherland together with RFA Oakleaf also participated. HMS Norfolk also contributed to this exercise while assigned to NATO's Standing Naval Forces Atlantic.

  STANOC Centre
  Mr. Cohen
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence how many personnel are assigned to the STANOC centre; on what date it was established; and from which subheads of which votes its funds are taken. [104318]

  Mr. Spellar
  The Army's Surveillance, Target Acquisition, Night Observation and Counter-Surveillance Centre (STANOC) was formed in 1971. The current establishment is two officers and four other ranks. The Centre is funded by the Adjutant General's Top Level Budget under the following Votes and subheads:

  Vote 1

  Army Manpower—subhead 1B1

  Travel and Subsistence—subhead 1E1

  Stationery—subhead 1L9

  IT—subhead 1F5.

  Minister for the Armed Forces (Speech)
  Mr. Ottaway
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence if he will place in the Library the speech given by the Minister for the Armed Forces on European Security and Defence to the French German UK Seminar at the Institut de Haute Education de la Defense Nationale (IHEDN), Paris, on 30 November. [104162]

  Mr. Spellar
  I am grateful for the hon. Member's interest in the recent seminar held at the Institute de Haute Education de la Defense Nationale (IHEDN) in Paris, which formed part of our "Outreach" programme of bilateral defence assistance to Central and Eastern Europe and was organised jointly with the French and German governments. I am pleased to tell him that I have arranged for a copy of my speech to the seminar to be placed in the Library of the House.

  HMS Westminster
  Mr. Ottaway
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence if he will make a statement on the withdrawal of HMS Westminster from Flotex and the In Year Budget Management Measure. [104152]

  Mr. Spellar
  The withdrawal of HMS Westminster from Flotex 99 needs to be set in the context of a very busy operational year for the Royal Navy and a sharp increase in fuel prices. This has resulted in some 98W
  adjustment of planned activities as part of normal cash management action to ensure that the Fleet stays within its allocated budget this year.

  Depleted Uranium
  Mr. Breed
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what data he has collated on the local environmental effects of the use of depleted uranium with respect to(a) human and (b) other life forms. [104263]

  Mr. Spellar
  The existing scientific literature on the possible hazards of depleted uranium (DU) is extensive. In 1993, the Defence Evaluation and Research Agency's Radiation Protection Service, then the Defence Radiological Protection Service, published a summary report of its assessment of the radiological and chemical hazards of DU. The report explained that there are two types of hazard posted by the use of DU: a radiation hazard, although DU is a low specific activity material (as defined by the International Atomic Energy Agency); and a chemical toxicity hazard, which is similar to that posed by other heavy metals, such as lead.

  A Ministry of Defence paper entitled "Testing for the presence of depleted uranium in UK veterans of the Gulf conflict: The Current Position" was published on 19 March 1999. This paper describes the scenarios in which UK troops may have been exposed to DU in the Gulf and outlines the possible health effects of exposures.

  In December 1993, the Defence Evaluation and Research Agency commissioned the independent environmental consultants W. S. Atkins to conduct an environmental impact assessment of DU firings on Ministry of Defence ranges in the UK. The consultants' report was published in 1995 and concluded that the radiation doses to members of the public and the associated risks from exposure to DU released in the environment, were extremely low. These conclusions were, and continue to be, sustained by comprehensive monitoring programmes at both sites.

  In addition, the joint UN Environment Programme/UN Commission on Human Settlements issued its report "The Kosovo Consequences for Environment" on 5 October 1999. The report assessed the potential effects on human health and the environment arising from the possible use of depleted uranium during the 1999 Kosovo conflict.

  Copies of all of these documents have been placed in the Library of the House.

  Finally, I refer the hon. Member to the reply given by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Defence to my hon. Friend the Member for Barnsley, West and Penistone (Mr. Clapham) on 2 November 1999, Official Report, column 89W, concerning a further review by the Ministry of Defence on the health effects of DU.

  Chinook Crash
  Mr. Swayne
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence if he will list the recommendations made by the Air Accidents Investigation Branch following the accident involving RAF Chinook 2D576 in 1994; and if he will make a statement regarding the implementation of these recommendations. [104051]

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

AGRICULTURE, FISHERIES AND FOOD

  GM Foods
  Mr. David Heath
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food if he will list the research work funded by his Department associated with the farm-scale trials of GM crops. [101750]

  Ms Quin
  [holding answer 9 December 1999]: I refer the hon. Member to the reply given to him on 14 December 1999, Official Report, columns 184–85W, where this project is listed in the table under code RG0116.

  CAP Payments (Worcestershire)
  Mr. Michael J. Foster
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food if he will estimate the total value to Worcestershire farmers of CAP payments for(a) the 1998 calendar year and (b) the 1998–99 financial year. [103028]

  Ms Quin
  The total value of all CAP payments (including the Agri-Environment Schemes) to farmers in Worcestershire are estimated to be of the order of £22.5 million in the 1998 calendar/financial year. The differential between the calendar year and financial year would be small since three quarters of the payments relate to Arable Aid payments which are made between October and the end of December.

  Mr. Michael J. Foster
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food how many farms in Worcestershire received CAP payments in the(a) 1998 calendar year and (b) 1998–99 financial year. [103174]

  Ms Quin
  The number of farms receiving CAP payments in the 1998 calendar year in Worcestershire was approximately 1,390. Figures for the financial year are not recorded, but the figures would be expected to be similar.

  Egg Producers
  Mr. Paul Marsden
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what financial assistance from the Government are available to British egg producers to market their products(a) in the United Kingdom and (b) in the rest of the EU; and if he will make a statement. [103303]

  Ms Quin
  My right hon. Friend announced in September a package of aid which included £1 million to help primary producers in England improve their marketing, levels of collaboration and competitiveness. This commitment was implemented through the launch on 11 October of the Agriculture Development Scheme 1999, a non-capital support measure open to all sectors of the agri-food industry, including egg producers.

  By the deadline for applications of 30 November, 160 applications, seeking £8.1 million in grant, had been received, including several from the egg sector. In light of this level of interest my right hon. Friend announced on 13 December that the budget for the scheme would be doubled to £2 million, if the quality of the applications supported the increase. We aim to announce decisions over the award of grant early next February.
  100W
  Egg producers will also have the opportunity to benefit from the allocation of more than £40 million over the next seven years to support better marketing and processing of agricultural products, under the EU Rural Development Regulation.

  Chicken Imports
  Mr. Andrew George
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what assessment he has made of animal welfare standards among chicken producers who supply the UK from(a) Thailand, (b) Brazil and (c) other countries. [103290]

  Mr. Morley
  Under Article 8 of Directive 98/58/EC the EU Commission is charged with producing a report comparing animal welfare conditions in the EU with those in non-member countries supplying the Community.

  Bovine Somatotropin
  Mr. Pike
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food if he will make a statement on the moratorium on the use of BST in(a) the UK and (b) the EU; and if he will make a statement. [102762]

  Ms Quin
  A report by the Government's independent scientific advisory body, the Veterinary Products Committee (VPC), was published on 11 October and a copy of the report was placed in the Library of the House. We accepted the VPC's advice to support a continuation of the moratorium or equivalent measures which prohibit the use of recombinant BST. The European Commission has proposed a ban on the use of the recombinant BST with effect from 1 January 2000. The Government supports that proposal.

  Pet Passports
  Mr. Hoyle
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food if, in relation to the pet passport scheme, the French Government have agreed to his Department's officials carrying out inspections in French ports. [102713]

  Ms Quin
  Discussions regarding arrangements for the surveillance of carrier activities participating in the pet passport pilot scheme to be introduced next year are still continuing.

  Departmental Employees (Ethnic Minorities)
  Mr. Crausby
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what percentage of the total workforce in his Department is of ethnic minority origin; and what steps he is taking to encourage the employment of people from the ethnic minorities in his Department. [102604]

  Mr. Morley
  [holding answer 13 December 1999]: As at 1 April 1999, 6.3 per cent. of permanent staff in core MAFF (4.4 per cent. of staff in MAFF including its Agencies) had declared themselves to be of ethnic minority origin.

  We encourage the employment of people of ethnic minority origin by a wide range of measures including the use of ethnic minority media as a means of advertising vacancies and attending a number of careers fairs aimed specifically at ethnic minority audiences. We have also recently reviewed and re-issued our Outreach Guidance.

  Fish Stocks
  Mr. Andrew George
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what assessment his Ministry has made of the reason for the decline in fishing stocks in the last three years by(a) stock and (b) area. [103666]

  Mr. Morley
  [holding answer 21 December 1999]: Not all fish stocks have declined in the past few years. For example, the large western mackerel stock has increased since 1994, and the Norwegian spring-spawning herring has doubled in size over the same period and has also extended its distribution.

  Most of the whitefish stocks however remain at or near historically low levels. This is associated with high levels of fishing mortality. In the North Sea, the recent assessments indicate some reduction of fishing mortality on roundfish, which will help to restore those stocks.

  All fish stocks are subject to great variations in the numbers of young produced each year. This variation is caused by changes in the size of the mature adult stock and annual changes in the environment being more or less favourable to the survival of larval fish. So even though stocks may be at generally low levels good or bad recruitment of young fish will cause the stocks to increase or decrease over periods of a few years.

  Against this background of variation, some sea areas have experienced a general warming. While this may be favourable for some stocks, such as sole, it has apparently adversely affected the production of young cod, especially in the North Sea and in the Irish Sea.

  Fisherman (Prosecutions)
  Mr. Andrew George
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food how many prosecutions there have been of fishermen landing at United Kingdom ports by(a) area, (b) weight of fish and (c) value of fish landed in each of the last five years. [103663]

  Mr. Morley
  [holding answer 21 December 1999]: Offences may be committed by fishermen at sea and on landing into the United Kingdom ports and abroad. Information in the form requested is not readily available and could be provided only at disproportionate cost.

  Designated Fishing Ports
  Mr. Andrew George
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what has been the additional cost to his Ministry of operating the designated fishing ports scheme. [103665]

  Mr. Morley
  [holding answer 21 December 1999]: The cost of operating the designated fishing ports scheme in respect of whitefish and shellfish landings made by UK vessels over 20 metres has been contained within the existing resources for fisheries enforcement.

  Fur Farming (Prohibition) Bill
  Mr. Hunter
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what representations he has(a) made to and (b) received from other European Governments about compatibility of the Fur Farming (Prohibition) Bill with the European Convention on Human Rights. [103553]
  102W
  Mr. Morley
  No such representations have been made or received.

  Mr. Hunter
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food if he will set out the basis for his Department's statement on the compatibility of the Fur Farming (Prohibition) Bill with the European Convention on Human Rights; and if he will place the relevant documents in the Library. [103552]

  Mr. Morley
  The Government's view is that the Fur Farming (Prohibition) Bill is compatible with the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR). There are overriding moral arguments in favour of a ban and a general public interest in removing this particular source of livelihood. This has to be balanced against the interests of those whose source of livelihood is being removed and the Bill respects the ECHR by provision of a two to three year winding-down period, compensation for certain categories of loss, and the reference of disputes on compensation to arbitration or the Lands Tribunal. In the Government's view, the balance struck between the demands of the general interest in this matter and the interests of the individuals directly affected is a fair one.

  Quota Allocations
  Mr. Gill
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, pursuant to the Government's reply to the eighth report from the Agriculture Committee, Session 1998–99 on Sea Fishing (HC 141–1) page ix, if he will make a statement on the expression, "with fishermen's interests protected by the legal concept of legitimate expectation". [103157]

  Mr. Morley
  The rules under which quota allocations are made available to producer organisations and other groups within the fishing industry are the subject of annual consultation with industry representatives. Throughout the 1990s allocations have been linked to previous fishing activity. For most quota stocks, with the introduction of fixed quota allocations, this is now the catches made during the reference period 1994–96.

TREASURY

  Objective 1 Funding
  Mr. Andrew George
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what assessment he has made of the requirements for match public funds from his Department for the EU Objective 1 regions of(a) Cornwall and Scilly, (b) Merseyside and (c) South Yorkshire for each of the seven years of the programme. [104302]

  Mr. Timms
  Responsibility for identifying match funding is a matter for project applicants and for the partnerships in the regions concerned. This ensures local ownership and commitment to the projects.

  There are numerous possible sources for match funding including local authorities, Government schemes, the voluntary sector and the private sector.

  The regional Government Offices are best placed to advise the partnerships on the sources of Government Departments' funding which can be used to match Structural Funds. The Government are updating and improving guidance on match funding.

  Queen Mother (Coin)
  Barbara Follett
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what plans Her Majesty's Government have to issue a coin to commemorate the hundredth year of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth, The Queen Mother. [104427]

  Mr. Gordon Brown
  Her Majesty The Queen has been graciously pleased to approve my recommendation that a crown piece should be issued this year in celebration of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother achieving her hundredth year. Collector versions of the coin will be available from early in the new year and the coin will also be available, later in the year, from banks and post offices at its face value of £5.

  Census
  Ms Lawrence
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer when the draft Census Order for England and Wales will be laid before Parliament, if questions on religion, ethnic group and income are to be included in the proposed content of the Census; and if he will make a statement. [104428]

  Miss Melanie Johnson
  The Draft Order in Council providing for a Census to be taken in England and Wales on Sunday 29 April 2001 has today been laid before Parliament. This Order specifies the persons by whom and with respect to whom returns are to be made and the topics on which questions are to be asked.

  The Government's proposals for the 2001 census were published in a White Paper (Cm 4253) in March this year. All the topics that were then proposed for England and Wales are included in the draft Order with the exception of religion. A change to the Census Act 1920 is necessary to permit a question on religion to be asked. A Bill to amend the Census Act to this effect was introduced in the House of Lords on 16 December 1999. If this is passed in time it is planned to include a question in the 2001 Census.

  A question on ethnic group is proposed in the Draft Census Order. The ethnic group question was one of the main successes of the 1991 Census, and the question for the forthcoming census has since been extensively researched and tested, both to meet users' requirements for additional information about people of mixed origin and sub-groups within the "White" population, particularly the "Irish", and to be as acceptable as possible to respondents. The new response categories are to provide optimum comparability with information from the 1991 Census question while, at the same time, attempting to improve response to the question among the many different ethnic minority communities.

  Consultation with users about requirements for information from the census has indicated that there is widespread support for the inclusion of an income question from key Government Departments, local government and others. But the strength of such requirements must be balanced against the possible public disquiet about the acceptability of such a question in a compulsory Census, the doubts about the reliability of the information collected, and the availability of possible alternative sources of the information. The Draft Order for England and Wales therefore does not include an income question.
  104W
  A copy of the 2001 Census Form will be included as part of the Census Regulations to be made following the Census Order.

  As the Census is a devolved issue, similar arrangements are being made in Scotland and Northern Ireland.

  Windfall Tax
  Mr. Cox
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what is the total value of receipts since May 1997 from the windfall tax on the privatised utilities. [104256]

  Mr. Timms
  I refer my hon. Friend to the reply given by the former Financial Secretary my hon. Friend the Minister for Hornsey and Wood Green (Mrs. Roche), to my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh, South (Mr. Griffiths) on 28 January 1999,Official Report, column 344W.

  Red Diesel
  Mr. Gibb
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, pursuant to his answer of 20 December 1999,Official Report, column 433W, concerning diesel fuel, (103015), what guidance has been issued to road hauliers regarding the use of Norwegian diesel. [104145]

  Mr. Timms
  No specific guidance has been issued in respect of Norwegian diesel. Notice 75, 'Fuel for diesel vehicles', issued by Customs and Excise gives advice on what fuels can be legally used in a diesel-engined road vehicle. This notice is freely available from Excise and Inland Customs Advice Centres.

  Art Sales
  Mr. Peter Ainsworth
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what estimate he has made of the likely effect of the introduction of a pre-eminence standard for claims for the conditional exemption of works of art on the number of works being sold. [101854]

  Dawn Primarolo
  [holding answer 7 December 1999]: None.

  Departmental Productivity
  Mr. Crausby
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what action he is taking to increase the productivity and reduce the running costs of his Department. [103857]

  Miss Melanie Johnson
  The Treasury's Public Service Agreement includes the following range of measures for increasing productivity within the Department, and hence saving running costs:a programme for reviewing all services and activities systematically over five years under the Better Quality Services initiative announced in the Modernising Government White Paper. The Public Service Agreement commits the Treasury to completing 60 per cent. of reviews by March 2003.
  an information strategy review, examining internal business processes and best working practices, and adoption of recommendations on better inter-departmental co-ordination.
  a reduction in the number and length of unfilled vacancies.
  a new robust system for recording sickness absence.
  moving to electronic publishing of information material previously published on paper.
  increasing the proportion of business undertaken electronically in accordance with Government targets.

  105W
  a review of the application of procurement techniques to expenditure, including electronic procurement of standard goods, paying suppliers electronically, and collaborating in joint procurement projects when they offer better value.

  The Treasury's gross running costs provision for 1999–2000 to 2001–02 is set out in its Public Service Agreement. The productivity measures listed above will enable the Department to increase the quantity and quality of outputs delivered by its running costs expenditure over this period.

  Gold Reserves
  Mr. Cox
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what is the value of the gold held in the national reserves. [104260]

  Miss Melanie Johnson
  Table 2 of the Quarterly Report on UK Official Holdings of Foreign Currency and Gold for the period July to September 1999, published on 2 December 1999, provides a breakdown of the size and composition of the United Kingdom's reserve holdings, including gold.

  Economic Policies
  Mr. Matthew Taylor
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, (1) pursuant to Cm 4181, page 115, No. xiv, what criteria he will use to determine whether high-growth business start-ups are successful; [104348]

  (2) pursuant to Cm 4181, page 115, No. xi, how he will measure improvement in the value for money in public procurement; [104347]

  (3) pursuant to Cm 4181, page 114, No. iii, by how much he aims to reduce the variability of the economic cycle, and on what measurement; [104322]

  (4) pursuant to Cm 4181, page 115, No. viii, how the productivity of (a) the public services overall and (b) individual departments will be measured year on year; [104321]

  (5) pursuant to Cm 4181, page 115, No. x, how he will measure the acceptance of the standard framework for public private partnership contracts; [104346]

  (6) if he will make a statement on the UK's preparations for entering the euro, with particular reference to Treasury performance target xxxii in Cm 4181; [104350]

  (7) what criteria he uses to define successful business start-ups, referred to in Cm 4181; [104279]

  (8) how achievement of the Treasury performance targets numbered xvii, xx, xxvi and xxix to xxxi, set out in the Public Service Agreements, Cm 4181, will be judged. [104323]
  106W
  Miss Melanie Johnson
  The information on how Departments' performances will be assessed against the targets set out in Cm 4181 was published in "The Government's measures of success Output and Performance Analysis" HM Treasury 31 March 1999. The document is also available on the Treasury's website.

  Pensions Mis-selling
  Mr. Andy King
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer (1) how many claims arising from the mis-selling of pensions are outstanding; and what assessment he has made of the timescale for their resolution; [104314]

  (2) how many claims arising from the mis-selling of pensions have been resolved to date; [104315]

  (3) how many people have been affected by the mis-selling of pensions in the last 10 years. [104313]

  Miss Melanie Johnson
  The regulators split the industry's work on the personal pension mis-selling review into two phases. During phase 1 firms were required to address the most urgent cases, where for example pensioners had died, or retired, or were close to retirement. Phase 2—which began in 1999—addresses less urgent cases, mostly younger people.

  The mis-selling of personal pensions took place during the period April 1998-June 1994 and the statistics given in this answer cover the mis-selling over that period. It is not practical to provide figures for the period from January 1990. The people affected by personal pension mis-selling are those who were mis-sold a pension and who were subsequently entitled to redress.

  The phase 1 review has led to offers of redress to 410,000 people. About 17,000 phase 1 cases are outstanding. This represents about 2 per cent. of all the cases included in the phase 1 review. These are typically difficult cases or cases which have only recently been identified as proper to phase 1. The Financial Services Authority closely monitors the firms responsible for these outstanding phase 1 cases.

  The total population to be examined under phase 2 is in excess of 800,000. About 114,000 cases have already been dealt with, and offers of redress have been made in about 90,000 cases. About 700,000 further cases are likely to be dealt with during the rest of the phase 2 review. Not all of these investors will be entitled to redress. The timetable is for all phase 2 case reviews to be completed by June 2002.

  It is too soon to say how many investors overall are likely to be offered redress under the two phases of the review.

Preamble
Reassembling after the Christmas Recess, the House met at half-past two of the clock: The LORD CHANCELLOR on the Woolsack.
Prayers—Read by the Lord Bishop of Derby.

  Pet Travel Pilot Scheme
  Lord Hoyleasked Her Majesty's Government:
  When they expect to start the pet travel pilot scheme.
  The Minister of State, Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (Baroness Hayman): My Lords, the pilot pet travel scheme will start on 28th February. From that date pet cats and dogs meeting the conditions of the scheme will be able to enter or reenter the United Kingdom without the need to go into quarantine.
  Lord Hoyle: My Lords, I thank my noble friend for that helpful reply. However, what is being done to make European vets, particularly French vets, aware of MAFF requirements? Will she consider launching a campaign so that British pet owners who take their pets abroad are aware that their pets must have treatment for ticks and ringworm before they re-enter Britain? Further, will my noble friend consider changing the 48-hour to 24-hour period in which this has to be carried out, to one of 24 hours only, so that it can be done at the point of re-entry? That would be far easier for people who are en route from a holiday resort. Instead of asking applicants to fill in a form to state that in the past six months their pets have not been in countries other than those participating in the scheme, will my noble friend consider making that part of the conditions for obtaining pet passports?
  Baroness Hayman: My Lords, my noble friend asks me a number of detailed questions on this matter which are important as the success of the scheme depends on our getting the detail right. I reassure my noble friend that the Chief Veterinary Officer has been in touch with colleagues across continental Europe about the requirements for the scheme. Good progress is being made with vets in western Europe on providing the necessary certification, and that, of course, is important for families with pets who are returning to this country. We shall launch a publicity campaign so that pet owners in this country who plan to travel abroad with their pets are aware of all the requirements of the scheme. It is in no one's interests for people to turn up with animals which are not eligible for the scheme. We shall launch what I hope will be a high profile and effective campaign directly at pet owners, but also through travel agents and vets.
  394
  The issue of "ticks and tapes" is a difficult one. These diseases can be dangerous for human beings and cause fatalities on the Continent each year. We do not want to import these diseases into this country when they are not endemic here. I recognise the concerns which exist as regards the difficulties of the 24- to 48-hour "window". We shall certainly look at that in terms of assessing the pilot scheme. I refer to the advice that we have at the moment from the expert committee in this regard. As regards the form and country of residence, that is the way we have arranged matters at the moment, but the whole aim of having the pilot is to address any difficulties before the main scheme is introduced next year.
  Lord Strabolgi: My Lords, remembering that pets from non-participating countries will still have to go into quarantine, where the conditions often leave much to be desired, have the Government done anything about instituting a closer system of inspection for these kennels?
  Baroness Hayman: My Lords, there has been concern expressed on occasion about standards within quarantine kennels. Certainly the ministry does, and will continue to, take action when concerns arise about animal welfare being endangered in those circumstances.
  Lord Soulsby of Swaffham Prior: My Lords, does the Minister agree that many people in this country are happy about the early introduction of the pilot scheme? Does the Minister recognise that a number of non-governmental organisations have been helpful in introducing the scheme, despite its various imperfections? I hope I may mention Passports for Pets which has been an effective organisation in this regard. If the pilot scheme is effective, will the Minister consider at an early opportunity the situation as regards the importation of animals from the United States and Canada?
  Baroness Hayman: My Lords, I echo the comments made by the noble Lord, Lord Soulsby. A number of organisations have not only been effective campaigners but now communicate well with pet owners to inform them of the detail of the scheme and what has to be done. Passports for Pets has been a particularly effective organisation in both areas and will continue to be relied upon to provide information to its members and other pet owners. We shall want to consider a number of issues in the longer term to determine whether it is possible to extend the scheme. As the noble Lord is aware, the position with regard to the United States of America was considered by Kennedy who recommended not implementing the scheme there. We shall conduct a further risk analysis next year when the main scheme comes into force.
  Lord Hardy of Wath: My Lords, can my noble friend assure the House and the country that, where rabies is

  395
  endemic and veterinary services leave much to be desired, there will be no possibility of a view being taken which would allow rabies to re-enter Britain?
  Baroness Hayman: My Lords, throughout the way in which we have framed the current pilot scheme and the long-term scheme the protection of public health has been uppermost in the Government's mind. That has to have the utmost priority. Equally, it has been recognised that science has moved on. Microchipping, vaccination and blood testing, coupled with the enormous efforts to stop endemic rabies in much of western Europe, mean that it is safe to implement this alternative scheme.
  Lord Swinfen: My Lords, does the certificate taken with the pet have to be issued abroad or can the preparatory treatment and the issue of the certificate take place in this country? That would be of particular use to those who need guide dogs and who have to go abroad for a day's business.
  Baroness Hayman: My Lords, if the noble is Lord is referring to the certificates in relation to rabies, microchipping and vaccination, they can certainly be issued in the country from which an animal is originally travelling. If a family is taking an animal on holiday with them, they would get the certificates in regard to its rabies-free status and its vaccination status here. If, for example, a service family is returning from Germany, they would get the relevant certificates there. The certificate or proof of treatment against "ticks and tapes" would normally be obtained at the end of a holiday or at the end of a period of stay abroad. In special circumstances—for example, where someone uses an assistance dog to go on a day trip—it will be possible to obtain that certificate here.
  Baroness Byford: My Lords, will pets coming in through Heathrow airport, for example, be subject to a different system from the current one? I understand that currently the pet is booked on the same flight as its owner and that if, for any reason, there is not enough space the pet has to wait and travel on the next incoming flight. Is that included in this trial scheme? What is the position with regard to pets being booked on and travelling on the same flight if they are not going into quarantine?
  Baroness Hayman: My Lords, I am glad to say that dealing with the booking of pets will not be on my shoulders. We will be looking at the operating regimes that the individual transport operators are currently submitting to the Ministry. We must ensure that they fulfil the requirements of the scheme in terms of allowing appropriate checks for the animals concerned. That is the Government's most important responsibility. There will be a certain amount of consumer pressure about how individual operators choose to transport animals. As I understand it, at the moment the airlines that are thinking about participating are considering having animals and their
  396
  owners on the same flight. However, ultimately, that has to be an operating decision for the companies and their customers rather than for the Government.

  Benefits: Payment through Post Office
  2.45 p.m.
  Lord Ezraasked Her Majesty's Government:
  What would be the effect on the Post Office and its network of the ending of the payment of benefits through the Post Office.
  The Minister for Science, Department of Trade and Industry (Lord Sainsbury of Turville): My Lords, there will be no change to existing methods of benefit payment before 2003 when the migration from order books and giro cheques to payment by automated credit transfer will commence. In the meantime, the automation of the post office counters network, due for completion by the spring of 2001, will enable the Post Office to extend its arrangements with the high street banks to offer a range of banking facilities at post offices. This will mean that benefit recipients who wish to access their benefits in cash at post offices will continue to be able to do so, both before and after the changeover, while post offices will be able to offer more services to all bank customers.
  Lord Ezra: My Lords, I thank the Minister for that Answer, but does he agree that the first effect of this policy has been to push the Post Office into the red for the first time in more than 20 years? It has had to write off some £570 million expended on the Horizon computer system, which was originally devised to improve the payment of benefits and which is now no longer required for that purpose. Secondly, does the Minister also agree that approximately 8,000 post offices—getting on for half of the total—will have 40 per cent of their revenues eliminated as a result of this policy and that this will seriously jeopardise their future existence? Does not the Minister accept that it has been a little unwise to introduce such far-ranging changes and reductions in revenue for the Post Office at a time when it faces more intense competition than ever before?
  Lord Sainsbury of Turville: My Lords, the loss to the Post Office is due entirely to what is, in effect, an accounting provision which has made it write off this very large sum of money. At the moment, the underlying profitability of the Post Office is extremely sound and it appears that it should remain so in the future. We have adjusted the external financial requirement and the profit target to take account of the fact that the Post Office will be paying for this project from gilts and assets held on its balance sheet. We should not think that the Post Office is in any financial difficulty at the moment. The change will not take place until 2003—it is not taking place at the moment—which is an extremely sensible timeframe for doing this. It is very difficult to calculate the exact impact on individual post offices. People have the right

  397
  now to move to the ACT system and will presumably continue to do so. To calculate the exact financial impact we shall have to know what payments will be made by the Benefits Agency and the post office counters network to post offices, both in these circumstances an I the new ones. The timeframe is a good one. It should not push people into immediate difficulties.
  Lord Islwyn: My Lords, does the Minister acknowledge that, up and down the country, there are many thousands of elderly people who do not have bank accounts? In turn, they regularly go to their local sub-post offices to draw their pensions and other benefits, to chat to friends and perhaps to seek a bit of advice. Can the Minister give an assurance that our Labour Government will do nothing to curtail this very reasonable practice?
  Lord Sainsbury of Turville: My Lords, let me make it clear that, even with the new system, in the future recipients of benefits will be able to go to a post office to get cash in exactly the same way as they do at the moment. What we are talking about here is a systems change that will introduce an automated accounting system to the transaction and will ease the migration out of order books. It will still enable people to go to the post office to get cash in the same way as they have in the past.
  Lord Elton: My Lords, is the noble Lord aware that the fact that something is to happen in three years' time does not make it any the less worrying? Is he further aware that the worry of many of us is that the last focal point in many rural communities will be extinguished if the average village post office ceases to be profitable, as suggested in the supplementary question of the noble Lord, Lord Ezra? Can the noble Lord tell the House whether the Government will look at the Post Office not only as a business—as was made clear in the first part of his Answer—pbut also at individual village post office counters as a matter of social importance and therefore political sensitivity?
  Lord Sainsbury of Turville: My Lords, the Government are totally committed to the idea of maintaining a nationwide network of post offices. We are acutely aware that they play an enormously important role in the lives of the elderly and the less mobile. That is why the Prime Minister has asked the performance and innovation unit in the Cabinet Office to carry out an urgent study on the post office network to assess its contribution to the vitality of local communities, how it fits in with the objectives of the Government and what future objectives we should have for it. In the meantime, a great deal of action is being taken to help with the financial viability of individual post offices, including the introduction of the new pay system that gives postmasters fixed payments. Furthermore, we are working in conjunction with VIRSA to produce a leaflet which explains how local communities can support their local post offices. Lastly, action has been taken on rates so that very small post offices
  398
  need only pay 50 per cent. These actions have been taken because the Government are well aware of the importance of the post office network within local communities.
  Lord Peston: My Lords, does my noble friend accept that we have no better example of the failure of the free market than the behaviour of the commercial banks? They seem either to provide seven or eight branches of different banks in the same locality or no branches whatsoever. Can my noble friend reassure noble Lords by stating that the Government support the view that, particularly in small rural communities, the Post Office should provide a basic banking service—which it is well set up to do—essentially for the purpose of cash transfer? That would deal with an area of business that the commercial banks are nowadays anxious to be rid of.
  Lord Sainsbury of Turville: My Lords, for most people a credit account of that sort should not attract any charges. As the Secretary of State has made clear, we certainly wish to ensure that those on income support get the full amount of money they are entitled to from their benefits and that no deductions are made from those. That point has been actively considered in terms of setting up an appropriate service.
  The Attorney-General (Lord Williams of Mostyn): My Lords, we have entered the 18th minute and I know that the noble Baroness has tabled an extremely important Question.

  Rights of Way: Horse-drawn Vehicles
  2.54 p.m.
  Baroness Trumpingtonasked Her Majesty's Government:
  Whether, in order to permit the harness horse equality with the ridden horse on public rights of way, they will rectify the anomaly in the Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions' consultation paper, Improving Rights of Way in England and Wales, which puts horse-drawn vehicles into the same category as the motorised vehicle.
  Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton: My Lords, we have given careful consideration to the responses to Improving Rights of Way in England and Wales, including the noble Baroness's proposal that we should distinguish between the rights of horse-drawn vehicles and those of motorised vehicles when using different classes of highway. We shall take those points into account when we introduce new legislation soon.
  Baroness Trumpington: My Lords, I am very fond of the Minister, but does she realise that, although she has tried her best, 15,000 harness horse drivers will be disappointed that they have not been able to receive a more formal response to my Question? Does she further realise that on this matter they have the

  399
  support of ramblers, GLEAM and the British Horse Society? Lastly, does the noble Baroness agree that it is vitally important to keep horse-drawn vehicles off our congested roads as much as possible?
  Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton: My Lords, I am deeply sorry to have disappointed the noble Baroness, Lady Trumpington. I should have liked to have been in a position, when wishing her a happy new year, to be able to respond to her Question in the manner she wished. Given her great experience of this position at the Dispatch Box, the noble Baroness will be aware that parliamentary privilege prohibits detailed revelation of the contents of legislation in advance. However, I can say to the noble Baroness that one-fifth of all the responses to the consultation came from those with equestrian and carriage vehicle interests. In addition, Ministers and officials met representatives of various organisations. This Government listen carefully and we shall pay full regard to those responses.
  Lord Burnham: My Lords, when the House of Lords was the House of Lords—namely, before 1911—the horse-drawn vehicle could be equated with the motor vehicle now. How are the horse-drawn vehicle and the harnessed horse defined today from the point of view of legislation?
  Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton: My Lords, the Question tabled by the noble Baroness relates to a consultation document issued by the Government. Further, the noble Baroness was certainly not alone in pointing out that the legislation did not seek to make distinctions on this point. We are dealing here with rights of way over which motorised vehicles are rightly prohibited. When the legislation is produced I hope to be in a position to demonstrate that the Government have listened to the points made.
  The Countess of Mar: My Lords, does the Minister appreciate that many of these rights of way are not metalled but are ordinary dirt roads. One of the problems here is that wheels tend to cut up the roadway very much more than do horses' hooves or human feet. As landowners are responsible for maintaining these rights of way, will the Minister take that point into consideration?
  Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton: My Lords, the noble Countess, Lady Mar, is right to draw attention to the fact that wheeled traffic may cause damage, and that the traffic we are considering here should be allowed only where it does not damage the carriageway. However, I am of course aware that horse-drawn vehicles can benefit people living nearby who wish to grow roses.

  Sport Strategy
  2.57 p.m.
  Lord McNallyasked Her Majesty's Government:
  When they intend to publish their strategy for sport.
  Lord McIntosh of Haringey: My Lords, the Government have been giving careful consideration to their strategy to improve sport in this country. We expect to publish in the near future, after consultation with key stakeholders in the strategy.
  Lord McNally: My Lords, did the Minister read in the Daily Mail of 6th January that out of 103 applications to sell school playing fields, 101 had been granted by the Government? That is a catastrophic betrayal of pre-election pledges by the Government. What confidence does that figure give that the so-called strategy for sport, requiring government resources and will to implement it, will deal with social exclusion and social deprivation, areas where sport has a unique opportunity to play a role?
  Lord McIntosh of Haringey: My Lords, the noble Lord and the Daily Mail choose their statistics very selectively. The truth of the matter is that in the first year of this Government, only in 13 cases were there losses of playing field sites against the advice of the statutory consultees, Sport England. In the past 12 months there have been only six such cases. The loss of playing fields, except when justified, has dramatically reduced and gives us confidence that our sports strategy will cover issues of social exclusion to which the noble Lord rightly refers.
  Lord Faulkner of Worcester: My Lords, can my noble friend say what progress has been made in finding a suitable athletics arena in London for world and European outdoor championships? Is he aware that there is very great public support for the decision taken by the Secretary of State and the Minister for Sport to remove athletics from the new Wembley stadium and to seek repayment of part of the lottery grant from the Football Association and Wembley National Stadium Limited?
  Lord McIntosh of Haringey: My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend for his comments about the Secretary of State's conclusion on Wembley. He will know that the Rugby Football Union has proposed to the Government that Twickenham should be used for major international athletic events. We are very receptive to that idea and are looking into all the issues in the hope that it may be a good solution for separate but still first-class provision both for athletics and for football.
  Lord Addington: My Lords, can the Minister give the House some guidance about school sports in particular? Will the time given in the national curriculum for school sports allow for the amount of travel faced by many inner city school pupils in getting

  401
  to playing fields? I am sure the noble Lord will agree that if the school timetable provides for three hours of sport but pupils spend one-and-a-half hours traveling—leaving aside getting changed—there is no proper sports provision at all.
  Lord McIntosh of Haringey: My Lords, the noble Lord is quite right. I can assure him that when the sports strategy appears it will give great prominence to the need for, adequate provision for physical education, including competitive team sports, in our schools. It is not within the legal power of the Secretary of State for Education and Employment to set a fixed period for any subject within the national curriculum, but the issue raised by the noble Lord of travelling to sports fields is an important one. It is an aspiration—an agreed aspiration—that there will be two hours of sporting activity all our schools.
  Lord Bruce of Donington: My Lords, in order to give further emphasis to the favourable response of my noble friend to the noble Lord, Lord McNally, would the Government be prepared to consider suspending as of now all further disposals of school sports fields and also laying it clown that in future any assent given to a proposal to dispose of a sports ground should be signed and approved by a senior Minister of the Crown?
  Lord McIntosh of Haringey: My Lords, I do not think it would be appropriate to ban every change of use for playing fields. For example, some are attached to schools which no longer exist and some are in areas where there is, as there certainly is not in all parts of the country, an excess of playing field provision. However, the thrust behind my noble friend's question is quite right. Perhaps I may point out that because Sport England is a statutory consultee it is necessary for local authorities to pay attention to the need for sporting facilities. The proceeds from any disposal of playing fields must go to education and to sporting provision. The Secretary of St ate now has the power, whenever it is necessary, to call in applications which affect playing fields. But I do not think that a blanket ban would be appropriate.
  Lord Cowdrey of Tonbridge: My Lords, will the Minister press with in government for more positive help for our four major ball game sports—rugby, tennis, football and cricket. During a constructive debate in your Lordships' House several months ago there was widespread agreement that, looking ahead, we would not be in a position to compete internationally in those four sports. It is a shattering state of affairs that our sports are on the floor. Can the Minister assure us that the Government really will take the problem seriously?
  Lord McIntosh of Haringey: My Lords, I can certainly give the noble Lord that assurance. The pursuit of excellence is one of the criteria that will govern the final production of our sports strategy. But it must in turn depend, as I am sure the noble Lord will
  402
  agree, on sports provision in schools and on the availability of sporting facilities and opportunities throughout life, even for those who cannot aspire to sporting excellence. The four major sports to which the noble Lord referred have been consulted and are being consulted in the preparation of the sports strategy.
  Lord Hoyle: My Lords, will my noble friend, who knows my interest in Rugby League as the chairman of Warrington Rugby League Club, ensure that super-Rugby League clubs receive the same educational grants as premier league and first division football clubs?
  Lord McIntosh of Haringey: My Lords, I do not know the answer to that question.
  Lord Phillips of Sudbury: My Lords, will the Government bear in mind in their strategy that sport in this country is carried on the shoulders of community amateur sports clubs? Is the Minister aware that they currently have no tax exemptions? They are not charities and they receive only discretionary rating relief. When the Government produce their strategy, will they contemplate giving them tax exemptions comparable to those available to charities?
  Lord McIntosh of Haringey: My Lords, we are very well aware of the problem to which the noble Lord refers. We are discussing it with the Treasury and with the Home Office. However, even if we were to grant 100 per cent relief, as happens in Scotland, the difficulty is in deciding what is a worthy community sports organisation of the kind to which he refers and not just a very rich golf club or one that is very exclusive. We require some definition of what is worthy and we have to retain some responsibility for local authorities, which know the sports clubs concerned, to make a decision on that point.

  Business
  Lord Carter: My Lords, at a convenient moment after 3.30 p.m. my noble friend Lord Hunt of Kings Heath will, with the leave of the House, repeat a Statement that is being made in another place on influenza.

  Race Relations (Amendment) Bill [H.L.]
  The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Home Office (Lord Bassam of Brighton): My Lords, I beg to move the Motion standing in my name on the Order Paper.
  Moved, That it be an instruction to the Committee of the Whole House to whom the Race Relations (Amendment) Bill [H.L.] has been committed that they consider the Bill in the following order:

  Clause 1,

  Schedule 1,

  Schedules 2 to 8,

  Schedules 2 and 3,

  Clause 9.—(Lord Bassam of Brighton.)

  On Question, Motion agreed to.

  Care Standards Bill [H.L.]
  3.7 p.m.
  The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Health (Lord Hunt of Kings Heath): My Lords, I beg to move that the House do now resolve itself into Committee on this Bill.
  Moved, That the House do now resolve itself into Committee.—(Lord Hunt of Kings Heath.)
  On Question, Motion agreed to. House in Committee accordingly.
  [The PRINCIPAL DEPUTY CHAIRMAN OF COMMITTEES (LORD TORDOFF) in the Chair.]
  Clause 1 [Children's homes]:
  Lord Hunt of Kings Heath Lord Hunt of Kings Heath moved Amendment No. 1:
  Page 1, line 9, leave out ("subsections (3) and (4))") and insert ("the following provisions of this section)").
  The noble Lord said: In moving this amendment I shall speak also to Amendments Nos. 2 to 4 and 149 and 150. They are correcting amendments to re-enact the provisions of the Children Act that require boarding schools in certain circumstances to be registered also as children's homes.
  Section 63 of the Children Act requires independent boarding schools to register as children's homes where they provide or arrange accommodation for any child for more than 295 days a year. The Bill as currently drafted states that if an establishment is a school, it cannot also be a children's home. These amendments are therefore necessary in order to retain the current provisions contained in the Children Act.
  We consider it appropriate that the more stringent arrangements for registering children's homes should apply where children remain with the school for much longer periods than are covered by the normal school terms. Consistent with the new definition of "children's homes", there will no longer be an exemption for schools providing accommodation for fewer than four children. In addition, the amendments cover independent schools approved for the education of children with special educational needs which are not currently provided by the Children Act provisions. We consider that such schools, where they provide accommodation for children for more than 295 days in a year, need to be registered as children's homes in the same way as other boarding schools.
  The amendments allow an important set of safeguards for children accommodated away from home to continue under the new arrangements provided for by the Bill. I beg to move.
  Lord Northbourne: I should like to express concern about the definition of these schools as set out in Amendment No. 3. Will the Minister indicate whether the purpose of the clause is to protect particular children at a school? If that is so, I suggest that the amendment is not worded clearly enough. Some schools take in other children for holiday courses, which could easily extend over the 295-day period. The children who attend the school during the normal term time are one group and an entirely different category of children may attend during the holidays. For example, at a school with which I am familiar music courses are held during the holidays. Some clearer definition may be necessary in that respect.
  Lord Laming: In regard to Amendment No. 2, leaving out the words from "centre" to the end of line 8, what is a "residential family"?
  Lord Hunt of Kings Heath: In regard to whether the definition of "295 days" is appropriate, there is no intention to capture schools with normal terms which run residential courses during the holidays, as many do. As regards the definition included in the clause, the key reference is that the accommodation is provided for children for more than 295 days. I take that to mean children receiving schooling for more than 295 days in any one year, rather than a school using the holiday period for other children's holiday activities. The provision repeats the wording of the Education Act. I am satisfied that it does not need further clarification. However, I shall be happy to examine it in the light of the noble Lord's comments.
  Lord Clement-Jones: I thank the Minister for having had the courtesy to write to me about one of the amendments that he has tabled. His case is clearly that the provision in the Bill is largely a reintroduction of provisions included in the Children Act but with the exception of independent schools approved for the education of children with special educational needs. What consultations have taken place with such schools about the provisions? After all, this is a major new piece of regulation for them.
  Lord Jenkin of Roding: Perhaps I may take up the point made by the Minister in his reply to the noble Lord, Lord Northbourne. He said that it is not the intention of the clause to catch, for instance, schools that run music courses during the holiday. However, it may be desirable to reflect that point in the Bill rather than merely in a statement from the Front Bench.
  On another point, independent schools are increasingly taking pupils from overseas. It is by no means unknown, particularly in the shorter school holidays, for some of those pupils to remain at the school, possibly being looked after by the family of one of the masters, during the Christmas and Easter

  405
  vacations. In tho3e circumstances a school may find itself with several children who are there for more than 295 days. Would that convert the school into "a children's home", whereas otherwise that would not happen?
  3.15 p.m.
  Lord Hunt of Kings Heath: Perhaps I may deal first with the issue of special schools. We are extending the dual registration arrangements to cover independent special schools, which are not currently covered. That will bring a further 100 or so special schools into the regime. That is an important safeguard. Children who attend such schools will receive the extra protection provided by dual registration.
  As regards the more general issue raised by the noble Lord, Lord Jenkin, I have said that I will reflect on the point raised by the noble Lord, Lord Northbourne, to make sure that the definition contained in the amendment does not cause problems to schools which use school premises outwith school term time. I repeat that the wording in the amendment follows current legislation. I am not aware that the present law has caused any problems to individual schools, either in the terms in which the noble Lord spoke or in terms of the point raised by the noble Lord, Lord Jenkin, regarding people coming from abroad who might stay in school premises.
  Baroness Masham of Ilton: I am very pleased that special schools have been included, but why were they not included in the first place? It is well known that some of these schools were strongly considered to be at risk and that serious abuses have taken place throughout the country.
  Lord Hunt of Kings Heath: It would be difficult for me to explain why special schools were not included in legislation that was enacted some years ago. The noble Baroness is right to point out the importance of introducing the safeguards into this Bill.
  As regards the point about independent schools in relation to children with special needs, the originating concern came from the children's safeguards review. In reply to the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, we have not yet held detailed discussions with the schools affected. However, I assure the noble Lord that we shall discuss detailed arrangements with them in due course.
  Lord Laming: Will the Minister indicate what the term "residential family" means?
  Lord Hunt of King's Heath: The amendment is not aimed at omitting the word "centre" but the word "or". It is a drafting point in order to introduce a new definition of a dual registration school.
  On Question, amendment agreed to.
  Lord Hunt of Kings Heath Lord Hunt of Kings Heath moved Amendment No. 2:
  Page 2. line 7, leave out from ("centre") to end of line 8.
  On Question, amendment agreed to.
  Lord Hunt of Kings Heath Lord Hunt of Kings Heath moved Amendment No.3:
  Page 2, line 9, at end insert—
  ("(5) Subject to subsection (6). an establishment is not a children's home if it is a school.
  (6) An independent school is a children's home at any time if at that time accommodation is provided for children at the school and either—

  (a) in each year that fell within the period of two years ending at that time, accommodation was provided for children. either at the school or under arrangements made by the proprietor of the school, for more than 295 days; or

  (b) it is intended to provide accommodation for children. either at the school or under arrangements made by the proprietor of the school, for more than 295 days in any year;

  and in this subsection "year" means a period of twelve months.").
  On Question, amendment agreed to.
  Clause 1, as amended, agreed to.
  Clause 2 [Independent hospitals etc.]:
  Lord Clement-Jones Lord Clement-Jones moved Amendment No. 4:
  Page 2, line 12, at end insert ("and for the purposes of this Act an independent hospital shall include private patient units within a health service hospital").
  The noble Lord said: I beg to move Amendment No. 4, the purpose of which is very similar to that of the two following amendments and the amendment in the name of the noble Earl, Lord Howe, and noble Lords on these Benches. I am sure that the noble Earl will have more to say on the subject. This is perhaps a fairly crude amendment but it is designed to deal with the straightforward question of whether or riot NHS pay beds should be subject to regulation under the terms of the Bill. Currently, such beds are not subject to review by the Commission for Health Improvement under the Health Act which we debated some months ago. This amendment is designed simply to bring into the fold those NHS pay beds which, after all, should be treated on the same footing as those provided by any other independent healthcare provider. If they are not brought within the terms of the Bill, no form of inspection or review will be applicable to them. What guarantee can patients in those NHS pay beds have of good clinical practice?
  I am very happy to see NHS trusts raise further funds by the provision of NHS pay beds. It is good to have a "mixed economy" in that sense. But I believe that one of the key matters in this Bill—as it was when we debated the Health Bill (now the Health Act)—is quality. The professions are themselves putting their house in order in terms of clinical governance. I believe that the Government in turn should ensure that the inspection and review regime is seamless not only across the NHS and the private sector, but also within the private sector. Both the private care sector and consumer interests believe strongly that that is a glaring omission. This particular amendment has been proposed by consumer organisations which feel strongly that, for the sake of the patients, Amendment No. 4 should be accepted by the Government.
  Earl Howe: I rise to speak to Amendments Nos. 11 and 18 in my name and to support strongly the observations of the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones. The Government are in a terribly complicated muddle over the regulation of private healthcare. The delivery of healthcare in this country does not issue forth from two conveniently separate channels, one labelled "public" and the other "private"; it is not as simple as that. The NHS frequently sub-contracts to the private sector, most notably in the field of mental health, and there are private wings and beds in NHS hospitals. If one decides, as the Government appear to have done, that, despite all the interdependence between the public and private sectors and the facts that most consultants work in both sectors and that the same patient can be treated in one sector and moved to another for further treatment, the public sector is to be regulated in one way and the private sector in another, anomalies are bound to occur.
  My understanding based on the debates last year on the Health Bill was that the Commission for Health Improvement would be the regulator of all healthcare funded by the public sector, including care delivered to NHS patients in private hospitals. We shall deal with that anomaly when we debate Amendment No. 31. Meanwhile, I should like to hear from the Minister whether my understanding is correct. Now that we are about to have a national care standards commission with a separate division responsible for regulating private hospitals and clinics, are we to suppose that in practice CHI may sub-contract to the commission the job of overseeing NHS patients in private hospitals?
  The anomaly addressed by this amendment, however, relates to NHS pay beds. Many people, including myself, are still unclear as to what role, if any, will be played by the Commission for Health Improvement in the supervision of standards in private wings and wards of NHS hospitals. The Minister was kind enough to address this issue in his winding-up speech at Second Reading, but I am afraid that I did not understand it, even on re-reading what he said. If CHI is not to be involved in the regulation of NHS pay beds, surely it follows that the national care standards commission must be; NHS pay beds cannot be left out in the cold.
  The trouble with the Bill is that it begins by categorising different kinds of care services in terms of the physical premises that they occupy. That might have been the best that the lawyers could do, but it makes life awkward when part of the Bill is devoted to NHS care and part is related to private care. My amendments try to find a way through it by defining a new type of establishment; namely, an income-generating health service unit. Such a unit is, in other words, a private ward or wing of an NHS hospital. Under this proposal, the NCSC will assume responsibility for NHS pay beds alongside its responsibility for monitoring standards in private hospitals. I hope that that proposal is a logical one;
  408
  certainly, it is meant to be constructive. I hope that the Minister will view that amendment with some sympathy.
  Lord Jenkin of Roding: I find myself in difficulty in this matter. I do not know whether the Minister is old enough to recollect Cullompton. At the time of the debates about the continuation of private beds in NHS hospitals when the noble Baroness, Lady Castle, was Secretary of State, there was considerable argument about whether it was appropriate that there should be pay beds within the premises of NHS hospitals, sometimes as an integral part of wards. Happily, in the end, sensible provisions prevailed, although it may have taken a year or two for the system to settle down.
  I find myself in a dilemma in this matter. I completely understand the point to which the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, referred. I also understand the points made by my noble friend in speaking to his amendments. But pay beds take many different forms. I take as an example Lindo Wing at the Middlesex Hospital or units at other teaching establishments which have premises separate from the main NHS hospital. In those circumstances, the intention behind the amendment moved by the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, is wholly appropriate. That should be looked after by the new commission. In the Forest Health Care Trust, of which I was chairman for a number of years, the largest group of pay beds was in that part of the hospital concerned with maternity. We found that over the years there was a considerable demand, even in a relatively deprived area of north-east London, for privacy and the ability to receive visitors at all times, and that people were prepared to pay for it. After all, nowadays most mothers are not in maternity beds for more than a day or two and therefore the cost is not very great. Those beds were an integral part of the remainder of the maternity provision in the hospital. The idea that somehow there should be two lots of inspection, one for NHS beds and the other for pay beds, seems to me to be utterly absurd. One must look at the remit of CHI and consider whether in those circumstances it is entirely appropriate that there should be a single system of inspection. For that reason, I find it difficult to accept these amendments.
  There is another category: amenity beds. As I understand the language used by my noble friend's Amendment No. 11—"income-generating health service units"—an amenity bed, which is much cheaper than a private bed, generates income and gives some of the advantages of a pay bed without the full cost being borne. Would those beds be subject to a separate system of control? I find all of this hugely confusing. I cannot believe that the Government do not now share that view. There will be a ridiculously overlapping system of inspection for what constitutes a single provision of beds which are occupied by patients under different terms.
  If one is looking for a way to inspect the standard of care—we shall debate clinical care in later amendments—one single inspection system must surely be right.
  3.30 p. m.
  Lord Clement-Jones: Before he sits down, perhaps I may ask the noble Lord to consider Amendment No. 31. What he said demonstrates much of the absurdity relating to acute healthcare. The contradictions in the Bill are exposed clearly in this set of amendments. Perhaps the noble Lord will agree that that may be a more felicitous way of dealing with regulations so that common standards are met in NHS and independent healthcare beds.
  Lord Jenkin of Roding: Perhaps I may respond to the noble Lord. If that is the intention, I shall listen with great interest to those who speak to that amendment.
  Baroness Masham of Ilton: I hope that a satisfactory solution will be found. I have been a patient in a National Health Service hospital which had private beds. I visited some of the private patients. Many were in side wards. They were foreign, lonely and deprived. I thought that they were being ripped off. Sometimes their rooms were not dusted. Sometimes they were overlooked and not fed. It would be wrong to leave such patients out of the debate. I hope that a satisfactory solution will be found.
  Baroness Gardner of Parkes: It has been interesting to listen to the different aspects put forward. The debate has revealed what a complex issue we are discussing. For some time I was chairman of the Royal Free Hospital which has private beds within the main hospital occupying half of a specific floor. Because there was need for more beds, national health patients were always given priority and those beds were used regularly for NHS patients although the private beds generated a large amount of additional income for the hospital and there fore were of great benefit to the national health patients.
  The noble Baroness, Lady Masham, raised the issue of shabby wards. The point may be true in some areas. If the private wings in London hospitals are not smartened up to a considerable degree, one has no hope of getting patients into them. They prefer the luxury hotel surroundings of the new, completely private clinics. One has not only to provide the best medicine but also luxury surroundings to encourage patients to choose one hospital rather than another.
  I wish to raise a different aspect. I like the phrase about the income generating health service. Some major national health hospitals run travel clinics. Patients pay for the injections and so on, which they need for travel. Such clinics are not a national health service and never have been. Yet such treatment is given in those hospitals.
  I am not clear whether the Bill relates only to inpatients who are resident in hospital or whether it will also provide for people having treatment of any form. With the present influenza crisis, many businesses would happily pay 'or that national health hospital to give influenza injections. The cost would be far less than that lost due to illness. It would surely be viable through the travel clinics. The premises already exist. It would be an additional feature.
  410
  We differentiate between what one can and cannot have. However, the patient or someone on his behalf may be prepared to meet the cost. When I was a parliamentary candidate for the Commons, I exchanged a number of letters about pay beds in Plymouth with the then Dr Owen. Pay beds have always been a major issue. However, I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Jenkin. It is important to have one standard and, if possible, one inspectorate. Could that be better achieved by inspection through the National Health Service? The noble Lord's point is valid. To inspect perhaps half a dozen beds or one minor clinic within the institution will not only be irritating but also somewhat impractical. Everyone will be on the defensive and much goodwill that exists in national health hospitals may be destroyed.
  I do not know whether to support the amendment. The more I have listened, the more uncertain I am. It is important that the Government apply their mind to a solution.
  Lord Rix: For 10 years I was a patient across the water at St Thomas' Hospital while my aortic valve, which was busily closing, was examined. Although taking advantage of the private facilities at York House across the road from St Thomas' Hospital, I was sent all the time to the national health testing beds in the hospital. Eventually I became an emergency patient and was admitted to the private rooms on the top floor of the hospital where, after further examination, the aortic valve was replaced.
  For 10 years I mixed private care with national healthcare in that hospital. Yet it all took place on the same premises. I should have thought that an inspection by the same body was sine qua non.
  Baroness Masham of Ilton: Perhaps I may respond to the noble Baroness, Lady Gardner of Parkes. The patients I saw had unfortunately no choice because they had broken their backs or necks. They were sent for treatment by foreign governments.
  I hope that the Minister will visit soon the Stoke Mandeville Hospital where he will see the situation for himself. He will also see how important is the income generated by those patients. That may help him sort out the matter. Two inspections would be a waste of time and resources.
  Lord Hunt of Kings Heath: The noble Baroness, Lady Masham, continually invites me to visit various excellent NHS facilities. I assure her that Stoke Mandeville is on my list.
  The discussion takes us back to the debate at Second Reading and the distinction to be made between the need for the proper regulation of the private healthcare sector and the effective management of the National Health Service, including private facilities contained under its management. Far from there being confusion or a problem about distinction, everything contained in the Bill and as regards the regulation of the private healthcare sector rests on the premise that there will inevitably be different arrangements between the regulation of the private sector and the management of

  411
  public sector healthcare services. We shall debate the issue more fully on later amendments. However, I felt that I should set the context in which we are debating the proper management of NHS pay beds.
  Amendments Nos. 4, 11 and 18 seek to extend the national care standards commission's regulatory responsibilities to cover NHS pay beds and other income generating facilities. Amendment No. 4 would include NHS private patient units within the definition of an independent hospital in Clause 2 thereby bringing them under the remit of the commission. Amendment No. 11 would have the same effect but would also bring other NHS income generation undertakings within the commission's remit. Amendment No. 18 has the same effect.
  In reply to the noble Lord, Lord Jenkin, I am not sure how widely the noble Earl, Lord Howe, intended the regulator's powers to go, because NHS trusts can generate income in a variety of ways. The noble Lord mentioned amenity beds, but one could include, for instance, renting out space to shops. I am sure that he did not intend to include such action within this provision.
  I believe that the amendments are misconceived. They assume that NHS paybeds need to be subject to regulation because otherwise they would be subject to no control. That is not the case. NHS paybeds, including those in dedicated units, are the responsibility of the NHS hospital where they are sited. They will be subject to clinical governance and all the other controls which apply to the NHS. The amendments would mean that even though a perfectly good system of management and clinical governance covered the whole hospital, certain parts of the hospital would be subject to another regulatory regime. That would be duplicatory and wasteful of time and effort. It would also distract the national care standards commission inspectors from their key task of improving regulation of the currently poorly regulated private sector into inspecting parts of the NHS where perfectly good systems of clinical governance are in place.
  Lord Clement-Jones: Will the Minister clarify those important words? Is he saying that NHS paybeds are covered by the Commission for Health Improvement; and that the reviewing body will be the commission? Will national service frameworks apply to NHS paybeds? Will the NICE guidelines be applied by the CHI when it is inspecting those paybeds? That is implied in the Minister's statement that the full regime as applied to the NHS will apply to its paybeds.
  Lord Hunt of Kings Heath: That must be right because those beds are part of an NHS trust hospital. What applies to that hospital must apply to all the beds within it.In conclusion, I say to the noble Earl, Lord Howe, that I refute the muddle which he suggests we have fallen into. I reiterate the fact that NHS paybeds are already covered by clinical governance and that therefore there is no need to have them further
  412
  regulated by the care standards commission. On that basis, I invite the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, to withdraw his amendment.
  Earl Howe: I am grateful to the Minister for clearing up much fog and uncertainty that have descended upon the issue. He has done so extremely clearly. We have had a helpful short debate and at the appropriate time I shall not move my amendments.
  Lord Clement-Jones: I thank the Minister for clearing up one confusion. However, in clearing one fog another has descended. As was said by the noble Lord, Lord Jenkin, as some of the NHS paybeds closely equate to independent sector healthcare beds perhaps they should be regulated in the same way. However, as others, such as maternity units, closely equate to NHS beds, a common inspection regime should apply.
  The common message is that a single set of regulations should apply across the board. The Minister repeated the distinction he made on Second Reading between the regulation of the independent healthcare sector and the management of the NHS. However, in many respects, it is a distinction without a difference. A common review and inspection system would be feasible, still leaving the regulation of the private care system within the commission. Future amendments are designed to achieve that.
  We have had an interesting and well attended debate and I thank all Members of the Committee who have taken part. In the meantime, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
  Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
  3.45 p.m.
  Lord Clement-Jones Lord Clement-Jones moved Amendment No. 5:
  Page 2, line 23, after ("hospital") insert ("or any undertaking by one or more persons)").
  The noble Lord said: Amendment No. 5 deals with a number of additions. We have tabled amendments to Clause 4, but this set of amendments has been formulated to fall under Clause 2. In a sense, therefore, we shall have two bites at the cherry in examining additional establishments which should be covered by the Bill.
  A Consumers' Association report in Health Which?, published in August 1999, found that patients using private GP call-out services may not be adequately protected. One of the problems is that, because they are domiciliary services and are not based in a clinic-type setting, they may not be covered by the Bill. The amendment makes it clear that private call-out services must register under the proposed regulations.
  I turn to Amendment No. 6. Arguably, dental care is the most common private healthcare service used by patients. While it is good that premises providing general practice services are covered under the Bill, we are concerned that only those dentists who provide treatment involving general anaesthetic will be regulated. We do not believe that that is adequate. Therefore, we propose that the dentists who do not

  413
  provide general anaesthetic should also be covered. They can undertake invasive and high-risk procedures and therefore, like GPs, should be regulated. I beg to move.
  Lord Hunt of Kings Heath: The purpose of Amendment No. 5 appears to be to seek to regulate medical practitioners who do not work from a specific establishment. We are concerned to ensure that the new regulatory system protects patients and have therefore decided to extend regulation to private primary medical care premises. We regard it as being extremely important that such premises, which include private walk-in clinics such as medi-centres, operate to clear standards and are properly and regularly inspected. Our aim is to ensure that all such premises are regulated without regard to their ownership arrangements.
  Amendment No. 6 seeks to bring all private general dental practice within the scope of the commission's regulatory powers. I understand the thinking behind the noble Lord's proposal, but I believe that such an extension of regulation is unwise. First, most dentistry, whether practised in the private or public sectors, does not present a great risk to patients. The great exception is in relation to dentistry under general anaesthetic, which has tragical ay resulted in deaths.
  We are determined to regulate such property, and the Bill makes provision for the commission to regulate premises where that work is undertaken. Furthermore, Clause 37 will allow such treatment to be regulated under the existing legislation even before the commission comes into existence, so concerned are we to take action.
  However, I must say to the noble Lord that it is a big step from regulating this aspect of dentistry to regulating the whole of private dentistry. We consulted on the issue last year and carefully considered the results. We concluded that it would not be right to extend regulation in the way proposed, not least because of the need for proportionality in our approach and the need to avoid unnecessarily increasing the regulatory burden on small businesses. That said, we stated clearly in Regulating Private and Voluntary Health Care chat we shall keep the matter under review and consider whether at some stage we should extend regulation to that and other sectors.
  The noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, raised a specific issue concerning call-out services. All wholly private GPs will be covered. Therefore GPs would be covered wherever 'they were practising. We did not regulate only the premises. It is worth making the point that private GPs will also come under the regulatory provisions of the General Medical Council.
  Baroness Gardner of Parkes: I should like to pass some comments on the Minister's remark that he does not believe that much dental hazard exists except in cases involving dental anaesthesia. As a dentist who has used thousands of general anaesthetics I believe that the general anaesthesia issue has gone over the to
  414
  pat present. I feel strongly about all the poor children who have to wait three months before they may have anything done.
  There is a further aspect to the matter. At the time when I was in practice the National Health Service was very much stronger than it is now. I deplore the transfer of dentistry away from the National Health Service. I was a member of the London local dental committee, and a procedure existed whereby we used to inspect any surgery or premises where there was any doubt whatever about the standard of cleanliness or hygiene. Today, when sterilisation is a most important feature of life in terms of transmission of infection—particularly HIV, although hepatitis is perhaps even more transmissible—it is important to ensure that all dental practices have adequate facilities in terms of autoclaving.
  In my day when one started one used to mix up one's solution in a bottle of water and add the tablets. Nowadays people would be horrified by that. Unfortunately, disease has progressed to the extent where it is terribly important that one has a sealed individual capsule and an individual needle. The Minister might believe that practices do not act in such a way, but I recall clearly, when I sat on the disciplinary committee of the General Dental Council, the case of a NHS practice—it could now he a private practice—where the forceps were merely dipped under the tap after each extraction. The dentist concerned had a turnover of £1 million per year and was disqualified by the General Dental Council. Think of how many patients he had treated without sterilising anything. He had one set of forceps for four surgeries which he would dip under the tap and then run on to the next patient. The hazard of that to the patient is almost unbelievable.
  Therefore, I cannot go along for a minute with the view that the only hazard in dentistry is general anaesthesia. It is important to consider this question. If I could find fault with the amendment tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, it might be that to specify dental practitioners is not enough and that the amendment should refer to premises used by anyone in any allied profession. I do not know what the hazards are in an osteopathic or chiropractic practice. Perhaps the terms of the amendment are not wide enough, but it would certainly be a good thing to include dental practitioners, unless the Minister can assure me of some other form of examination being carried out to assess standards in private dental practice.
  Baroness Masham of Iton: Will the Minister tell the Committee whether, where line 24 of Clause 2 states, "by medical practitioners", nurse practitioners are included?
  Lord Hunt of Kings Heath: I believe that the answer must be no.
  It is a foolhardy Minister who tries to talk about dentistry when the noble Baroness, Lady Gardner, is in the Committee. She made some extremely valid points. I hope that I did not, by saying that the particular focus here relates to anaesthesia, give the

  415
  impression that other issues do not need to be considered in relation to safety and hygiene within dental premises. The substantive point that I was trying to make is that this is an area of particular concern. I note the noble Baroness's comments as to whether too much is made of the anaesthesia issue. Certainly we in government have been concerned about the number of cases identified where use of anaesthesia has led to deaths in dental surgeries. The noble Baroness may well be aware that we are currently undertaking a review of that matter.
  To move from regulating that aspect of dentistry is a large step and it seems to me sensible to focus on that area. In relation to the more general issues about dentistry raised by the noble Baroness, we hope to publish a strategy on dental services in the future as part of our efforts to try to ensure that those who wish to have NHS dentistry may receive it. Of course, GDS regulations exist in relation to NHS dentistry which are one component of the relationship between the NHS and dental services. We are keen to encourage such practices as continued education for dentists in order that we may update them and ensure that they keep up with current thinking and trends.
  Lord Clement-Jones: Before the Minister sits down I should like him to answer a question. Is dentistry carried out in care homes subject to a different regime or is it still subject to the same regime—that is, that such dentists are regulated only when operating under general anaesthetic?
  Lord Hunt of Kings Heath: I believe that that is right. I shall check the point and perhaps write to the noble Lord. In relation to dental services, the Bill certainly focuses on treatment under anaesthesia.
  Lord Clement-Jones: I thank the Minister for a number of assurances he made during his reply, in particular in relation to the long-awaited dental strategy. I have asked a number of questions on that point and it is probably now about 18 months overdue—that is merely a quick estimate of the period of time for which we have been awaiting it. We look forward to it because it should clarify some of the issues.
  Lord Hunt of Kings Heath: We hope that the strategy will be published shortly. It is always better to get it right than to rush it.
  Lord Clement-Jones: There can be no danger of the strategy having been rushed, so I am sure that it will be an excellent strategy once it arrives. I appreciate also the Minister's assurance that, although he does not agree that dentistry in general should be brought within the scope of the Bill, there will be a review. I must say that I found some of the points made by the noble Baroness, Lady Gardner of Parkes, rather telling. I ask the Minister to read Hansard and to consider whether that review should happen sooner rather than later. Clearly dental interests need to be consulted, but I suspect that, as so often happens in
  416
  such cases, the better private practice dentists would welcome such regulation and only the worst practitioners would not welcome it, just as all the reputable independent healthcare sector organisations have welcomed greater regulation over their activities.
  Finally, I thank the Minister also for clarifying the position relating to private general practitioners. That will be a matter of some considerable comfort because it was felt that the Bill did not cover those who did not practise out of a clinic or out of their own premises. As the Bill goes through the House, we shall no doubt consider further the question of dentists who do not carry out general anaesthetics and we shall take on board some of the points made by the noble Baroness, Lady Gardner. In the meantime, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
  Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
  [Amendment No. 6 not moved.]
  On Question, Whether Clause 2 shall stand part of the Bill?
  Lord Laming: The debate on Clause 2 has been extremely helpful because it has revealed all too clearly the anomalies which the clause introduces into an otherwise very worthy Bill. The contributions made by a number of noble Lords have indicated well and truly that the inclusion of Clause 2 clarifies one anomaly but creates another.
  As I indicated at Second Reading, overall I warmly welcome the Bill. The main reason I do so is because it ensures for the first time that whoever is the provider—local authority, voluntary body or independent organisation—all social care provision will be regulated and inspected by the same body according to the same standards. That kind of consistency is warmly welcomed. But it is torpedoed by the introduction of Clause 2. Whatever the connection between the care standards covered by the rest of the Bill and dental services that use anaesthesia, clinics that terminate pregnancies, obstetrics services and cosmetic surgery and so on, Clause 2 is in the Bill only because the services referred to within it are independent or provided independently of the National Health Service. However, the issue of pay beds within the National Health Service and some other points which have been made, especially by the noble Baroness, Lady Gardner of Parkes, and the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, have indicated that those lines of demarcation are far from clear.
  The national care standards commission will be an entirely new body with a huge range of responsibilities in the social care field. It will register thousands and thousands of centres and individuals who must be deemed fit to run such services. The services will cover the whole age range and an enormous variety of needs experienced by children, adolescents, people with learning disabilities or those with mental health problems, physical disabilities or problems associated with ageing. The commission will already need to employ a wide range of people with specialist knowledge and skills if it is to achieve its principal function; that is, the registration and inspection of care

  417
  standards. It seems to me totally unrealistic to believe that a whole range of other skills necessary to deal with anaesthesia, anaesthetics, palliative care, cosmetic surgery and so on can be grafted on to that body. The Bill goes some way towards acknowledging those difficulties in that standards for the inspection of care services appear to be different from the standards applied to health provision.
  I have great regard for the Minister and for his knowledge of health services. He comes from Birmingham. When he addresses the good people of Birmingham he will be able to tell them that wherever their relatives are placed in the social care system, because of the Bill the standards will be secured by a uniform system of registration and inspection. However, sadly, because of Clause 2, he will not be able to say the same about healthcare. Within Birmingham is a vast reservoir of specialist knowledge and skill across the whole range of health service provision. However, that skill and knowledge are within the National Health Service and should be applied wherever the provision is made. As several noble Lords have said, increasingly the National Health Service is using independent provision in a wide range of ways; sometimes for recuperation, sometimes for rehabilitation, and sometimes because there is insufficient provision in the health service and therefore the choice is made to use an independent provider. It is not sufficient to say that the use of independent providers will be dealt with on a contractual basis with contractual arrangements. Everyone must be assured that the standards which apply in one section of healthcare will apply in all sections.
  I happen to be a great supporter of the National Health Service. However, I believe that wherever people receive healthcare treatment the standards of regulation and inspection should be the same. I do not believe that there is a sufficiently good argument for separating this area of activity from the remainder of the health service and for saying simply that the National Health Service is managed by the department. Whoever manages a service, that service should be subject to the same system of regulation and inspection. Unless the clause is removed from the Bill we shall have anomalies, of which pay beds in the National Health Service is just one.
  Your Lordships will recall the long debates which took place in this House on the Health Bill and the detailed discussion about new ways of promoting and maintaining clinical standards and monitoring performance across the health service. In addition to the long-established systems within healthcare, there are now adequate ways to ensure that all healthcare, whoever provides it, can he regulated, monitored and inspected by one body. I was interested in a publication which I am sure your Lordships will have seen. It is a recently published Parliamentary Brief in which the Secretary of State for Health, Mr Alan Milburn, states:
  "For the first time in the history of the NHS we are setting clear national standards—through National Service Frameworks and the National Institute of Clinical Excellence—to guarantee fair treatment wherever patients live".
  418
  Of course, wherever patients live; also, wherever patients are provided for. Mr Milburn goes on:
  "And for the first time we are inspecting all parts of the health service—through the Commission for Health Improvement—to ensure that patients get the top class care they deserve".
  I agree with that. However, if all aspects of the health service are to be inspected through the Commission for Health Improvement, surely it is possible to ensure that other health providers can be subject to the same type of inspection.
  In my view, Clause 2 undermines the consistency of an otherwise extremely worthy Bill. If the clause remains, it will undermine public confidence in the safeguards for patients and patient care and treatment and it will complicate unnecessarily the task of the new care standards commission. I believe that it will put at risk the commission's effectiveness which, in the long term, will undermine its performance. I hope that your Lordships will take this opportunity to remove Clause 2 from the Bill.
  Lord Clement-Jones: I support the noble Lord, Lord Laming. I believe that I would have only to say, "Amen", and my task would be done. However. I repeat some of the questions raised by the noble Lord. He expressed the issues extremely eloquently. He quoted the Government against themselves. I believe that the only matter he did not mention was the Government's own conclusions in response to the Health Committee which, again, can be prayed in aid against them. As we go through the Bill, the contradictions posed by Clause 2 will become greater and greater.
  As the noble Lord, Lord Laming, said, the provisions concerning independent acute hospitals have simply been grafted on to the Bill. Those of us who have been struggling with amendments during the recess have become acutely aware that the provisions regarding the regulation of independent care in the acute sector are simply bolted on and do not fit at all comfortably with the remainder of the Bill. The Bill is highly progressive and, as the noble Lord, Lord Laming, said, will provide consistent regulation across the social care sector. We see no such thing arising from that in the healthcare sector. Rather, we see a very different set of regulation. The best solution would be to get rid of Clause 2.
  The Minister is known for his reasonableness. We had good discussions concerning almost everything relating to the Health Bill apart from the independent healthcare sector. That was the one area where we divided continuously. We did not play a great deal of "ping-pong" but we divided continuously from Report stage through to Third Reading and got no joy whatever from the Government. I cannot help believing that there is some ingrained ideological unwillingness inside the heads of Ministers who, although they proclaim the virtues of a mixed economy in social care, somehow cannot grasp the fact that we have also, albeit on a more limited scale, a mixed economy in healthcare. After all, only this morning the Secretary of State spoke about how the flu epidemic is being dealt with. He was trying to refute

  419
  those who say that the independent healthcare sector is not being used sufficiently to deal with the epidemic. He said that we have contracts between local trusts and health authorities and the private healthcare sector. Therefore, in practice there is use of that sector. It is high time the Government responded to what is absolute common sense in this matter and agreed that we have a seamless system of regulation of healthcare across both the private and the NHS sectors.
  Lord Hunt of Kings Heath: I fully understand the reasons why the noble Lord, Lord Laming, does not want the national care standards commission to regulate the private healthcare sector. But we are determined to strengthen the current regulatory arrangements for this sector, not least to ensure the quality of care for patients. We believe that the most effective ways of doing that are contained within the proposals in this Bill.
  It is clear that we shall have further debate on this subject later tonight and indeed as the Bill progresses. But before responding directly to the noble Lord, I should set out the Government's general approach to the regulation of private and voluntary healthcare.
  We believe that the starting point is that those who operate private hospitals should be accountable for all aspects of care undertaken in them—both the clinical and the non-clinical services. This includes the work of doctors to whom they grant admitting rights. It is not acceptable for hospital owners and managers to seek to wash their hands of their responsibilities on the grounds that patients contract separately with consultants for medical care.
  We believe that there should be a strong regulatory regime for private healthcare. There is no doubt that one of the many weaknesses with the current regulatory regime is that 100 different health authorities are responsible for inspecting private hospitals. I believe that that has led to an inconsistent approach and that some health authorities have found it very difficult to regulate private hospitals appropriately.
  We believe that establishing a single body, the national care standards commission, with responsibility for regulating private healthcare across the country, will ensure a consistent and clear approach to enforcing the standards that we set. The inspectors will be focused on the healthcare sector and will develop the expertise and skills necessary to ensure proper regulation of this sector.
  I know that the noble Lord would like to have a separate body—or I suspect the noble Lord would like to have a separate body—regulating the independent healthcare sector. This would have been appropriate when the Government planned to have regional commissions for care standards, as there would not have been the same expertise at regional level nor the same need for regulating private healthcare in some areas as opposed to others. But as we have decided to have a national commission, that is no longer the case.
  420
  Her Majesty's Government very much believe that having one body regulating all the areas encompassed in the Bill is the best way forward.
  Having one body regulating healthcare alongside social care will mean that the commission will be able effectively to regulate facilities that provide both health and social care, using inspectors skilled in both areas. As well as ensuring inspectors will have the appropriate skill mix, it will also benefit providers, who will only have to be inspected by one body, compared with the current system under which they are inspected by both the health and local authority.
  If we set up a separate regulator for private healthcare, there would be substantial difficulty for some providers being forced to cut in half the work they do across both health and social care. For example, mental health provision is often provided across the range of care needs. Our overall approach to breaking down barriers between health and social care is encouraging providers to develop innovative and flexible mixes of provision. This would be seriously undermined if we asked providers to register separately their different provision with two different national regulatory bodies.
  I hope that I have convinced the noble Lord that although he does not necessarily agree with how we have dealt with the private healthcare sector, there is every reason to include the private healthcare sector within the provisions of this Bill and encompassed within the care standards commission. We shall be returning to this issue later in debate and specifically to the various aspects of private healthcare regulation. But I hope, having heard the arguments, that the noble Lord will now agree that the clause should stand part of the Bill.
  Lord Laming: I regret to say that I am wholly unconvinced. I will say that again: I am wholly unconvinced by anything which the Minister has said. That is a first.
  I find myself in a difficult position because I feel very strongly about Clause 2. As we go through the many amendments relating to Clause 2, I shall feel inclined to say: "Had you supported me in removing Clause 2, there would be no need to discuss this matter".
  In the light of this discussion and what the Minister has said, and the fact that we will have opportunity to return to the matter, wise counsel suggests that should withdraw my opposition to the Motion. But I must say that I do so with an extremely heavy heart.
  Clause 2 agreed to.
  Lord Burlison: My Lords, I beg to move that the House do now resume.
  Moved accordingly, and, on Question, Motion agreed to.
  House resumed.
  Lord Burlison: My Lords, before we move to the Statement on influenza, I take this opportunity to remind the House that the Companion indicates that

  421
  discussion on a Statement should be confined to brief comments and questions of clarification. Noble Lords who speak at length do so at the expense of other noble Lords.

  Influenza
  4.17 p.m.
  Lord Hunt of Kings Heath: My Lords, with the leave of the House, I shall repeat a Statement made by my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Health in another place. The Statement is as follows:
  "With permission, I would like to make a Statement on the outbreak of influenza that is gripping the country and the impact it is having on NHS services.
  "As the House will be aware, the last few weeks have seen a particular strain of influenza—Sydney A—affecting thousands of people in all parts of the country. According to the Public Health Laboratory Service, which monitors the incidence of flu, it has been rising in all regions over recent weeks. The worst affected regions to date have been the north and central. Nationally in early December the numbers of people consulting their GP for the first time with flu-like symptoms stood at 40 per 100,000 population. Today I can tell the House that the latest provisional figure had more than quadrupled to 197 per 100,000.
  "The Chief Medical Officer, Professor Liam Donaldson, has advised that the official figures only reflect the people, who have consulted their doctor and undoubtedly understate the true size of the outbreak. That is because heavy usage of the new service, NHS Direct, and the number of patients going to their pharmacist means many patients will not show up on the conventional GP-based tracking system.
  "The previous highest levels of influenza seen since monitoring began were in 1968–69 and 1989–90. The CMO believes that the present epidemic will not reach those levels, but he considers that there are people missing from official statistics because instead of consulting their GP they have used alternative routes of advice. That means that unless present levels of influenza activity peak soon we could be heading for the worst epidemic in the last decade. That certainly chimes with most people's experiences. There can hardly be a family in the land that has not been affected by the flu. Everybody knows somebody who has had it.
  "People also know that it is particularly severe in its effects. Professor Brian Duerdon, deputy director of the Public Health Laboratory Service, says that,
  'it is a more prolonged illness, at 10 to 12 days before people start to feel better rather than four or five'.
  "It is also having a particular impact on elderly people, some of whom have developed serious complications such as bronchitis and pneumonia. In addition to influenza, other viruses such as
  422
  respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) are contributing to acute respiratory illness. I am advised that RSV illness is at its peak at present.
  "Emergency admissions to hospital have risen as a result, with over 200,000 such admissions to hospitals in the past three weeks alone, an increase of almost 30 per cent over the past two months. The evidence that we are receiving from hospitals is that the patients who are being admitted are more ill than normal and are staying longer than normal.
  "This serious flu outbreak has placed additional strain on local health services in many parts of the country. In the last three weeks the number of people attending accident and emergency departments in hospitals has risen to over 600,000. There have been a quarter of a million calls to ambulance services—up almost one-third on last year—and a similar number of calls to NHS Direct over the last three weeks, many of them flu related. According to Professor Mike Pringle, chairman of the Royal College of GPs, over the millennium GP co-operatives had 50 per cent more calls than last year, mainly due to the flu.
  "These figures demonstrate very clearly that the flu outbreak has put very real pressure on NHS services. There is no doubt about that. Equally the evidence suggests that the NHS is dealing with these pressures. All acute hospitals across the country have remained open throughout the winter period. Of course both GP surgeries and hospitals are very busy.
  "The highest priority is being given to patients who are most seriously ill. As is usual and as had been planned, most hospitals have been undertaking little routine elective surgery over the last few weeks in order to be able to concentrate their efforts on emergency cases. The number of emergency admissions remained unusually high last week because of the flu outbreak and many hospitals which had planned to start surgery today have decided to delay until the immediate emergency pressures subside. Hospital managers and clinicians will make judgments about how best to balance their workload in light of local experience over the next few weeks. This approach represents a sensible deployment of NHS staff and resources. It is allowing the health service to cope with the surge in emergency demand that the flu outbreak has brought.
  "Thanks to the staff who are running critical care services, they too are coping with the demands being placed on them, despite the fact that intensive care is under very real pressure. About half of the patients being admitted to intensive care have flu or flu-like illnesses resulting in pneumonia or, less commonly, septicaemia leading to multiple organ failure.
  "This year the Government have provided a record number of intensive care and high dependency beds. We have worked very closely with the Intensive Care Society to plan critical ca re facilities in hospitals.

  423
  "Patients who need acute and critical care are being looked after. There has been an increase of 100 critical care beds this year and, with exceptional demand, staff and facilities are being used flexibly to ensure patients receive the care they need. Staff are doing an excellent job in difficult circumstances. The number of beds available fluctuates by the hour, but I can tell the House that as of mid-morning today there were 22 beds available. Local surges in demand, particularly as the flu moves around the country, will however continue to place particular pressures on critical care facilities. Where appropriate, local NHS hospitals have made arrangements with local independent hospitals for critical care.
  "Where transfers between intensive care units are required as a matter of last resort, the chief executives of NHS trusts have been asked to ensure that the arrangements run smoothly and that clinical staff are given as mush support as possible.
  "So the influenza outbreak has put particular pressure on the NHS. But the NHS is coping. As the chairman of the BMA, Dr Ian Bogle, said earlier today,
  'all parts of the NHS have been put under pressure but doctors and nurses are coping well from GP services to intensive care. The incidence of new cases of flu is uneven but wherever it is occurring it is a particularly nasty strain. Thanks to the high level of planning across the country we are coping'.
  "Of course the NHS is under severe pressure. Winter is always the busiest time of year for the NHS. This winter the NHS and social services have also had to deal with the special pressures brought by the extended millennium period. That is why planning for this winter began earlier than ever before. Local winter planning groups were established in April 1999 in every part of England to co-ordinate the planning and provision of health and social services over the winter and millennium period. Each group includes health authorities, social services, NHS trusts, primary care groups, out-of-hours and deputising services, NHS Direct, police and fire services, CHCs and other local authority departments and the voluntary and private sector.
  "Each local group submitted its plans for dealing with winter pressures by the end of September 1999. These were followed by visits from health and social care professionals from the Department of Health's Millennium Executive Team to ensure the robustness of the plans. We have extended the capacity of local health services to deal with winter pressures. Extra beds have been opened, and over the millennium period, for example, there were 45 per cent more ambulance staff on duty than the year before.
  "Winter planning has also included a major public information campaign. The aim of the campaign has been to encourage the public to use the most appropriate service for their needs—whether that be the local pharmacy and NHS Direct or indeed self-care as a complement to GP or
  424
  hospital services. The campaign was backed by the BMA, the RCN and the Patients Association among others. All of the evidence we have received to date suggests that the public have responded positively to this campaign by recognising that health services should be used responsibly and appropriately.
  "The campaign was also supported by a large increase in flu vaccinations made available to the public through family doctors. Flu vaccine can never eradicate flu but it can help to provide further protection for vulnerable groups. This winter 8.6 million doses of influenza vaccine were made available: a million up on last year. We do not as yet have uptake levels for flu vaccine this year but we will be reviewing them when they do become available. I have asked the Chief Medical Officer to look at ways to enhance uptake in future years. Increased use of computerised call-up systems is one possibility.
  "Over the last few weeks the NHS has risen to the challenges it has faced. That is not to say that services are not stretched. They are. We owe an enormous debt of gratitude to the staff of the NHS for making sure that services have been there for people when they need them. I hope that the House will want to join with me in thanking them for their efforts over Christmas, the millennium and now into the new year. The staff of the health service have done a quite magnificent job and I know the whole country is grateful to them. They are up against a very serious flu outbreak but I have every confidence that they will go on delivering care for patients where and when they need it".
  My Lords, that concludes the Statement.
  4.28 p.m.
  Earl Howe: My Lords, from these Benches, I thank the Minister for repeating the Statement. At the outset, I pay tribute to the nurses, doctors and other healthcare professionals throughout the country who are devoting their efforts so assiduously to the care of patients with influenza. It is a period of great pressure in many hospitals and at times like these we are glad to rely on the skill and conscientiousness of NHS staff.
  The next sentiment which springs to mind is less happy. It is that we have been here before. What are the data which have led the Chief Medical Officer to classify the current outbreak of influenza, as I believe he has done today, as an epidemic? Is that assessment the result of a collation of recent hospital statistics, together with an extrapolation of reported cases of flu patients who have either visited their pharmacists or are recovering at home having been treated by their GPS? Will the Minister tell the House what is the official definition of an "epidemic"? The figure in the Statement falls quite a long way short of the figure which I thought defined an epidemic; namely, 400 reported cases in every 100,000. I am unclear whether the definition can rest on an extrapolation as opposed to definite reported cases.

  425
  I turn to the matter of intensive care beds. Can the Minister tell the House how many IC beds there are in the country? He said that there had been an increase of 100 critical care beds, which of course is welcome, but how many of the total number of beds are available and staffed for use as opposed to being available theoretically? How many IT beds are currently unoccupied in London where pressures are particularly severe?
  I have read a report that stated that last Thursday all 275 intensive care beds in London were full. There appears to be a mismatch between beds that are nominally available and those that are actually available for use. Last week it was reported that only six out of the 10 intensive care beds at St Thomas's Hospital were available for use.
  What is the Government's policy towards using the private sector? I believe that in London there are 30 empty IT beds available in private hospitals and yet flu patients are being transferred out of London—sometimes over long distances—to other hard-pressed NHS hospitals. That is a minor scandal which will not appear to be so minor if the patient being transferred happens to be you or a member of your family.
  On vaccinations, can the Minister say what percentage of the elderly population has received a vaccination this winter? Can he expand on what the Statement said regarding a call-up process to vaccinate elderly people against influenza next winter? How far have those plans progressed? Does he recognise the contribution that the vaccination of hospital staff can make to reducing morbidity and mortality? Is he aware of a study in the Lancet which showed that vaccination of hospital staff could save many thousands of lives? Last year, in hospitals where half the staff were vaccinated the overall patient death rates fell to 13.6 per cent compared with 22.4 per cent in hospitals where staff had not been inoculated. How many hospitals offered their staff inoculation this winter?
  I am left a little bemused by the Statement and why it has been made. Is the Statement related to the Government's pledge to reduce waiting lists? As the Statement said, elective surgery has been cut back severely. That may be a sensible response to the flu outbreak, but what penalties will be imposed on NHS trusts that do not meet the targets set by the Government? The Minister knows my views on the Government's waiting list pledge. I believe that the targets are gravely misguided. Can he undertake that such hospitals will not be penalised for failing to contribute to the Government's waiting list targets?
  4.32 p.m.
  Lord Clement-Jones: My Lords, like the noble
  Earl, Lord Howe, I too thank the Minister for repeating the Statement. I also have a feeling of déjà vu On 11 th January last year, the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, made a Statement of similar length. However, I believe that this year the politics in relation to the practical medical aspects are to the fore. It seems strange that, although there is a rising
  426
  incidence—rather than an epidemic—the Government have announced that an epidemic is in train. I understand that "epidemic status" means 400 cases in every 100,000 people. Can the Minister explain whether or not we have reached that point or is the Chief Medical Officer simply saying that, although it is not yet an epidemic, if the incidence graph continues to rise at the current rate, we shall reach that situation?
  Before asking the Minister a number of questions, I have to declare an interest. I am one of those winter pressures myself as I saw my GP over the winter Recess. I can testify to the length of the virus as in my case it lasted for four weeks and a day. I congratulate the NHS staff who have been involved, many of whom had to cancel holidays in order to assist with the enormous pressures.
  Every winter it seems that the staff are asked to cope with such pressures and that we have a winter Statement. It appears that it is a tradition, rather like the 12 days of Christmas, that every winter the Government are obliged to make a Statement in a pear tree! Do the Government treat this situation as inevitable, rather like swallows in summer and the wind and rain in winter, or are they actively coping with the matter? On these Benches we cannot help but feel that declaring an epidemic status now is a way of disguising the fact that the Government are not injecting adequate resources into the NHS at the moment. There is no doubt that a full debate on the resources needed by the NHS is required.
  The Government cannot simply apologise when the newspapers have filled their pages with horror stories of people having to travel hundreds of miles for intensive care beds. In some cases, people have died. It is no good the Government apologising to the House and telling us how good a planning process there has been when, in fact, the outcome of that process has been so bad. Can the Government assure us that they will review the way in which those plans were carried out? The Minister has described them, but clearly they have not been effective. There may not have been adequate resources. The scale of the epidemic may not have been contemplated.
  The Minister quoted the president of the BMA. However, I can quote back to him the BMA's GP leader, John Chisholm, who said:
  "The Government is to a certain extent using this as an excuse. Underneath it there is an endemic problem, with the lack of beds and lack of staff to meet the needs of the population".
  Stephen Thornton, the chief executive of the NHS Confederation, which represents hospital trusts, said:
  "It all adds up to the inevitability of a January crisis. Occupancy rates are so high, that when hospitals do get a burst of activity they can't cope. The Government is doing nothing to prevent it happening next year".
  Stephen Thornton is a moderate person. He does not launch into great verbiage. He succeeded the Minister in the role of chief executive. As the Minister knows, in such a position one does not launch into tirades against the Government unless one feels extremely strongly because one depends on a good relationship with the Government.

  427
  What happened to the beds review? I have asked the Minister that question both orally and in written form. The beds review was designed to see how many beds and, in particular, how many intensive care beds we would need in future. That has long been promised but we have not yet seen it.
  When will the Government end the crude efficiency targets? The NHS Confederation has asked for that in a press release, which says:
  "NHS management is calling for an end to the crude efficiency saving targets that have been imposed on the service by successive governments—starting this year.
  Stephen Thornton … said: 'The NHS is running too fast and hot. NHS hospitals have been encouraged by successive Governments to become more and more 'efficient'. This means that average bed occupancy has gone up from 70 per cent or so in the 1970s to over 90 per cent today".
  What chance do hospital trusts have of coping with that sort of situation? What does the Minister have to say on bed occupancy?
  Can the Minister discuss also the issue of anti-flu drugs such as Relenza? We know that the Government took a firm stance on the subject. Will they reconsider the matter? It appears that such new drugs will have considerable effect at least on alleviating some of the symptoms and will certainly help to get people back to work. When considering the type of flu that the Minister mentioned in the Statement, where periods of incapacity are much longer than they have traditionally been for other strains of flu, it seems sensible to consider expenditure on those types of anti-flu drugs.
  4.40 p.m.
  Lord Hunt of Kings Heath: My Lords, first, I thank both the noble Earl, Lord Howe, and the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, for their tribute to the staff of the National Health Service. The contribution of doctors, nurses, ambulance crew, managers and indeed all staff of the NHS over the past few weeks has been tremendous. I am therefore happy to endorse those tributes.
  Both the noble Earl, Lord Howe, and the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, said that we have been here before. It is certainly true that at this time of the year the NHS is particularly prone to such things as flu epidemics and this year there has been the added pressure of the millennium period. However, the Department of Health in conjunction with NHS trusts throughout the country put an enormous amount of effort into preparations to handle the potential problems that might arise this winter. Those preparations have already contributed greatly to enabling the NHS to meet the problems that have already arisen. The noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, referred to my previous career in the health service. I can say that in the 25 years in which I worked in the NHS I have never seen it as well prepared as it has been this winter.
  The question arose as to the definition of "epidemic". As the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, said, the formal definition is 400 patients per 100,000
  428
  of population consulting their GP in one week. Last week we recorded 144 patients per 100,000 of population, but the levels are still rising. The final peak of activity is likely to reach the 200 to 400 range and it is fair to say that that range can be termed a moderate epidemic.
  Throughout this period our advice to people with flu has been that it is better to stay at home and only to call the doctor if it is really necessary. Those figures are an indication of what is happening and do not aim to catch all cases. The signs are that over the holiday period—this is reinforced by messages we received from the National Health Service—fewer people may have consulted their GP. We have clearly had the added advantage of NHS Direct which, in those areas where it is fully operating, provided an effective alternative to visiting the GP. Also, our campaign, Choose the Right Remedy, encourages patients with symptoms to seek advice from their community pharmacist as an alternative to going to the GP. Therefore if we accept the likely under-reporting of flu-like symptoms because of the effectiveness of NHS Direct and the campaign to encourage people to visit their community pharmacist, there is no doubt that the health service has been under considerable pressure.
  The noble Earl, Lord Howe, asked about the flu vaccine. The vaccine is offered to people of all ages with certain underlying medical conditions such as chronic heart or chest disease; to all people in long-stay residential accommodation; and to all those aged 75 years or over. Those groups are more prone to severe or complicated illness should they contract influenza. This year, exceptionally, the flu vaccine was also offered to NHS staff in order to minimise staff sickness over what we knew would be a pressurised winter period. The noble Earl asked also about the uptake of the vaccine. We will not know exactly who received the flu vaccine until later in the year, but over 8 million doses were made available by manufacturers.
  The noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, asked whether Relenza would have helped. Our advice from the National Institute of Clinical Excellence is that Relenza's benefit is limited to merely reducing the average length of illness from six to five days. There is no evidence so far that it provides any specific benefit to older people and those who are most vulnerable to the serious effects of flu.
  The noble Earl, Lord Howe, and the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, asked about the impact on waiting list targets and on the ability of the NHS to withstand the kind of pressures arising at the moment. The Government do not apologise for establishing waiting list targets. It must be a priority of the health service to reduce the number of people on waiting lists. We have done that successfully and will carry on doing so, but not at the expense of providing urgent emergency treatment when that is required.
  The noble Earl, Lord Howe, asked how many ITU beds were available to the health service. He will know that we added an additional 100 this winter, taking the total up to 1,570. In relation to the use of private sector facilities where appropriate, many local arrangements

  429
  are in place to use the private sector. There has never been any prohibition on NHS use of appropriate private sector facilities. Our understanding is that NHS trusts are in discussions with local private sector operators. We have no objection to that; indeed, we encourage it. In many cases, of course, the NHS is taking back from the private sector intensive care cases which may need the greater expertise and facilities the NHS has to offer.
  The noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, quoted my distinguished successor as chief executive of the NHS Confederation in relation to finance. In fact, when the Comprehensive Spending Review was announced, he said it was beyond his wildest dreams. The three-year period of the review brought a considerable amount of extra resources to the health service. That indicates how important we feel the NHS is. It enabled us to expand services and facilities. I am confident that we will continue to see that kind of investment producing further improvement in services. It indicates the importance that the Government place on the National Health Service.
  The noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, raised the issue of efficiency targets. Given the size of the NHS budgets, we can never be complacent in ensuring that we spend our resources wisely. It is extremely important that mechanisms are in place to ensure that the service is as efficient as possible.
  4.49 p.m.
  Lord Laming: My Lords, I thank the Minister for repeating the Statement. It may be because I am an innocent, but I was a little surprised that an epidemic only became an epidemic over the weekend.
  However, I add my congratulations to the Government on the way in which they set about planning for the winter. Although the Minister concluded his Statement by rightly expressing gratitude to the staff of the NHS, will he also add congratulations to the staff of the social service departments, in particular the domiciliary care services? They went out of their way and are still doing so to attend to people who are not only house-bound but bed-bound. They are making extra visits and caring for people who often live alone.
  The Minister said that the advice was for people to stay at home and indoors. That seems to be right, but many people who are at home and indoors need extra help, often of a personal nature. In this country we are fortunate to have home carers who go well beyond the call of duty in caring for people who are extremely dependent, particularly at this time.
  Will the Minister acknowledge that local authorities have opened up respite care beds? They have also gone to great trouble to keep services going, even when key staff have fallen victim to the flu themselves. I hope that the Minister will acknowledge the contributions from social care.
  Lord Hunt of Kings Heath: My Lords, as part of the planning operations for the millennium and winter pressure period, I am happy to say that local
  430
  authorities and social service departments were fully involved. I pay tribute to the tremendous work undertaken. During the Christmas period, I visited a number of social service facilities where staff were being employed and facilities opened. The point made by the noble Lord is relevant.
  As for the preparations made for this winter by the statutory agencies, the most pleasing aspect has undoubtedly been the co-operation at local level between the NHS, general practitioners, local government, social services and all the other agencies in the voluntary and private sectors who have had a part to play.
  Baroness Masham of Ilton: My Lords, is the Minister aware that the deputy headmaster of a successful school near Leeds died over the weekend from meningitis when it was thought he had influenza? Will the Minister try to protect patients who have other conditions so that they are not neglected and sent home after being told it is flu? Does the Minister agree that when there is a big influenza problem, as there is now, extra care in diagnosing symptoms should be taken?
  Lord Hunt of Kings Heath: My Lords, it would be hard to disagree with the noble Baroness, Lady Masham and I was sorry to hear of the case she mentioned. I have no doubt that there are lessons to be learnt in relation to how the NHS responded this winter, not only in terms of planning and preparation but also in terms of the way clinicians and nurses have had to operate. While we must do everything we can to ensure that the right diagnosis is made at the right time, we should also understand the pressures on staff at present.
  Lord Rix: My Lords, does the Minister agree that self-diagnosis with NHS Direct could lead to mistakes of that nature being made?
  Lord Hunt of Kings Heath: My Lords, I understand the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Rix. The signs are that NHS Direct has worked well. Those of us who live in areas where it is available and who have used it have found it to be an effective system. Careful protocols have been developed for use by the highly qualified and professional people on the end of the phones at NHS Direct. We will constantly review the situation to ensure that the right advice has been given, but my judgment is that NHS Direct has been of enormous value to thousands of people who can obtain advice at the end of a phone. In being alert to the issues rightly brought to our attention by the noble Lord, Lord Rix, we should recognise that the introduction of NHS Direct and the recognition of the wider role that community pharmacists have to play in giving advice to the public are enormous gains.
  Baroness Young: My Lords, I agree that we should thank all NHS staff and others who have worked so hard and so well. However, does the Minister agree that there is a serious situation in the country and in

  431
  the hospital service at this time? We read about in the newspapers and see on television screens patients on hospital trolleys for hours; people being put, I understand, into freezer trucks after they have died because there is no room for them anywhere else; and people waiting hours for treatment. At least one man has died through being taken a long distance to an intensive care bed. Does the Minister agree that it is no use saying that good plans were made if, at the end of the day, such things happen?
  My noble friend Lord Howe raised the important point of the effect on hospital waiting lists and the fact that all those whose operations have been cancelled for weeks, I understand, will add to the backlog. Will the Minister make it clear that hospitals will not be judged as having performed badly? Above all, does he recognise the great concern not only of the patients themselves but of their families over this extreme delay? It is not a time for being complacent about anything. The situation is serious and critical and the Government ought to address the issues more forcefully than they have done so far.
  Lord Hunt of Kings Heath: My Lords, there is no question of the Government being complacent. It was hardly being complacent to set up the kind of preparations put in place over the past few months. There is no doubt in my mind that the preparations have enabled us to withstand tremendous pressure. However, it cannot be denied that there has been pressure on the system and that the public have had to wait. In certain circumstances, as the noble Baroness mentioned, it has caused distress. But the overall impression that we have of how the NHS is responding is that it is busy, but the situation is manageable and is being managed. As ever, we are anxious to learn the lessons in order to ensure that, year on year, we are better prepared. We learnt lessons last year. The previous government learnt lessons over many years in relation to the kind of pressures being faced.
  As for waiting lists for non-urgent treatments, in planning the programme for the year we aimed at a reduction in the number of non-urgent treatments taking place over this period. As regards urgent treatments, of course, along with emergencies, they must be our priority and we are doing everything we can to ensure that patients are treated as soon as possible.
  Baroness Emerton: My Lords, I add my thanks to the Minister for repeating the Statement. I take up the point of waiting lists as chairman of an acute trust. Will the Government make any allowances at all for the slippage in the waiting list target as that target will be almost impossible to meet due to the cancellation of the elective cases? Last week in my trust 64 elective patients were cancelled and this morning 15 were cancelled. This morning we had four empty beds available, one of which had to be allocated to an orthopaedic patient who had been waiting 17 months to avoid exceeding the 18-month waiting period. Twelve patients were waiting for the four beds. If the
  432
  Government will reassure the NHS that where the pressures are great allowances will be made, that would be a great help.
  I, too, thank the staff. On New Year's Eve I walked around every ward and department. Many of the staff were working double shifts and were extremely tired, but I heard not one grumble. I walked to a street party of 70,000 people. The St John Ambulance staff treated 150 casualties and prevented 70 having to go to the accident and emergency department. I pay tribute to the planning that the statutory and voluntary agencies undertook for that evening.
  This morning, the chief executive, the deputy chief executive, the medical director and the finance director of my trust were all off work with flu. I receive hourly bulletins on what is happening in the trust. It is a serious situation.
  Lord Hunt of Kings Heath: My Lords, the noble Baroness represents a group of people, the chairs of trusts and health authorities, who have carried an enormous leadership load over the past few weeks and months. In paying tribute to the noble Baroness and to the work of her trust, which is much admired, I recognise the pressures not just on doctors, nurses and ambulance crews but also on those in senior management positions and those who sit on the boards of the corporate authorities of trusts.
  As regards waiting list issues, individual trusts will have to consider these matters in the light of their experience over the past few weeks. No doubt there will be dialogue between them and the regional offices of the NHS Executive. We have made enormous strides in reducing the number of people on waiting lists. It is important that over the year we maintain our efforts to continue to do that.
  Baroness Fookes: My Lords, if I heard the Minister aright, he said that there were 8 million "jabs" or doses available. However, as there are far more than 10 million old age pensioners, plus all the NHS staff and all those who may be at risk, is that really an adequate number?
  Lord Hunt of Kings Heath: My Lords, it is an increase on the previous year. As I said earlier, we made arrangements to allow the vaccine to be given to NHS staff. When the information becomes available we shall of course want to look at the figures and consider particularly who took advantage of the availability of the vaccine to determine what lessons need to be learned for future years.
  Baroness Ashton of Upholland: My Lords, on behalf of health authority chairmen, of whom I am one, I thank the Minister for his kind remarks. I believe that the planning has been a huge success. I spent part of the millennium weekend in my part of Hertfordshire working with the staff of NHS trusts and considering intensive care needs. I recognise that the collaboration that occurred between local government, the police

  433
  and different emergency services made a tremendous difference to the situation. Those who made the plans and the Government are to be congratulated on that.
  I pick up the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Rix, about NHS Direct. Our area has a fully functioning NHS Direct. Due to the protocols involved, the staff err always on the side of caution. Indeed, some of our GPs complain that too many people are referred to them as a result of NHS Direct. That occurs as a result of erring on the side of caution, which we believe i s correct.
  The noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, and the noble Earl, Lord Howe, mentioned déjà vu. I do not think that the flu epidemic is the fault of the Government. It is always a problem at this time of the year. All the staff in the NHS have been cautious as regards being exuberant at the success of the service over the millennium weekend. Many have said to me that they have to be sure the service can get through the winter. It is difficult to leave intensive care beds open on the off chance that a flu epidemic may occur. We try to keep our occupancy high because we are trying constantly to treat people. Therefore, when an epidemic arises—I am delighted that the Government have declared an epidemic so that we know what we are dealing with—we have to ensure that we can work together to resolve the issues. I congratulate all the staff, including t lose with whom have had the privilege of working in the past week, many of whom have worked on their days off, and the Government on the planning that has been undertaken.
  Lord Hunt of Kings Heath: My Lords, I am happy to endorse the remarks of my noble friend. I wish to make two points. Notwithstanding the serious pressures on the NHS, I believe that the service is better prepared for such pressures this winter than has ever been the case before. I refer to the point made by my noble friend as regards the use of NHS Direct. I believe that the service is well placed to respond to pressures such as a flu epidemic. Nurses taking a call can identify quickly those callers who might be at greater risk, such as those with respiratory problems, who may need professional help. In other cases, nurses have been able to give basic advice on the need to rest and to drink plenty of fluids, and on basic medication. We shall need carefully to evaluate how the service has worked at this time of pressure. However, I believe that the evidence we have seen so far will vindicate the service and show that it has been a source of enormous help.
  Lord Geddes: My Lords, is the Minister able to answer the question of my noble friend Lord Howe regarding the difference, if any, in theory and practice, as to the availability of intensive care beds?
  Lord Hunt of Kings Heath: My Lords, I believe that I mentioned the more than 1,500 intensive care beds which were available. As regards the whole country I do not have the information on whether at any time any could not be used for whatever reason, for example, staff shortages. The NHS has been careful to plan the most intensive possible use of those beds. We
  434
  have had information on the daily bed numbers available. We have kept a close check on the availability of those beds. At the end of this period we shall evaluate the numbers that have been used and learn what lessons we can for future years.

  Care Standards Bill [H.L.]
  5.8 p.m.
  House again in Committee.
  Clause 3 [Care homes]:
  Lord Clement-Jones Lord Clement-Jones moved Amendment No. 7:
  Page 2, line 42, after ("with") insert ("clinical,").
  The noble Lord said: We now move to Clause 3 which sets out for the purposes of the Bill the definition of a "care home". That effectively brings together the definitions in previous legislation of a "residential home" and of a "nursing home". There is some concern—this is interesting in the light of our discussions on the Statement—that when considering care homes the whole issue of clinical governance will not be considered. For that reason, Amendment No. 7 proposes the insertion of the word "clinical" after "with" on line 42, page 2.
  There is an increasing trend for nursing homes in particular to be used to treat NHS patients. When a hip is replaced in an NHS hospital as part of the treatment episode, the patient may be discharged from an NHS hospital to a private nursing home for rehabilitation. I am told that around the country winter pressure money is being used to purchase space in care facilities in order to release beds in the acute sector. That, of course, is of great relevance to what we have been discussing. If the word "clinical" is not inserted in the clause, can the Minister say what procedures would be in place to assess the clinical care delivered to individuals transferred to care homes from hospital as part of their treatment episode? Can he also explain what plans there are to implement clinical governance procedures in the social care setting when doctors and nurses carry out clinical procedures in such care homes? That is precisely what the amendment seeks to elicit.
  A further concern has been brought to my attention: the bringing together of the definition of a residential home and a nursing home may well allow, in some back-door way, means testing to be applied across the board. At the moment, nursing homes are means tested but residential homes are not. Can the Minister give a specific assurance—I am not sure that this was delivered on Second Reading—that there will not be any effect on means testing pending the outcome of enquiries such as the Royal Commission on Long-Term Care? I beg to move.
  Baroness Pitkeathley: I would be concerned about the inclusion of the word "clinical" in the clause for fear that it would further narrow the definition. It seems to me that in the Bill we are attempting to apply standards, in so far as we possibly can, across the board as regards care in all settings. I would be

  435
  concerned that the use of the word "clinical"—which has a medical connotation, a medical connection—would too much narrow the definition.
  Baroness McFarlane of Llandaff: I am grateful for the letter from the Minister following Second Reading which clarified for me some of my anxieties about this part of the Bill. I welcome the single registration system for nursing and residential homes. It should lead to a much more flexible system which is better able to provide care tailored to the patient's needs.
  However, I ask the Minister for some clarification about the financial implications of this provision for patients. As we know, at present nursing care provided in nursing homes is means tested, whereas all other health care, such as that provided in residential homes, acute and community hospitals and people's own homes, is provided free by the NHS. We seek some clarification and ministerial assurances that this change in the Bill will not be used to extend means testing of nursing care by the back door.
  Lord Hunt of Kings Heath: The amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, seeks to bring an establishment which provides only clinical care and accommodation within the definition of a "care home". Clause 3(3) excepts hospitals and independent clinics from the definition of "care home" as they are defined elsewhere.
  This does not mean that other key services for vulnerable people will fall in a gap between the definitions of care home and of independent hospital or clinic. For example, a hospice which provides palliative care would be covered within the definition of an independent hospital under Clause 2(6) as providing a listed service. Independent clinics and hospitals, as they are defined in Clause 2, are distinct services from care homes, and the Bill is drafted to allow different regulatory provisions to be made in respect of such services.
  Regulations and standards will be needed for independent hospitals and clinics which relate to the provision of their particular services—for instance, the staffing required in terms of doctors and nurses in establishments carrying out surgical procedures under general anaesthesia.
  Care homes will often provide a permanent home for their residents and so regulations will be needed to ensure that facilities and services are provided that would ordinarily be available to residents if they were in their own homes—clothes laundering, for instance.
  So far as concerns the question about means testing and definitions, I do not believe that these provisions will have any impact on those issues. The registration process and the registration certificate that will be given to particular homes will specify the kind of home as which they are registered. If a home was a nursing home, it would continue to be registered as a nursing home. Therefore, the application of means testing would continue as heretofore.
  5.15 p.m.
  Lord Clement-Jones: I suspect that the Minister has moved on from the previous point about the clinical care carried out within a care home but, unless I misheard, I do not think that he said what system of regulation there will be with regard to clinical care carried out within a care home—for instance, the kind of rehabilitation and transitional care I described earlier. What regulation applies in those circumstances? That is what the amendment seeks to elicit.
  Lord Hunt of Kings Heath: That will very much relate to the regulations and the national minimum standards that will follow from them, and the role of the care commission in inspecting those homes. The definition of a "care home" in Clause 3 is that an establishment is a "care home" if it provides accommodation, together with nursing or personal care, for the persons listed. If in such a home clinical provision was being carried out, as I mentioned in relation to a hospice, it is most likely that that particular institution would be registered as a hospital. But clearly there are judgments to be formed, on the basis of both the regulations and the national minimum standards, in relation to whether an establishment is a care home as defined or an independent hospital.
  Baroness Masham of Ilton: Before we move on, perhaps I may further press the Minister about the definition of residential homes. Do residential drug and alcohol rehabilitation facilities come under this clause?
  Lord Hunt of Kings Heath: Clause 3 of the Bill specifies that,
  "an establishment is a care home if it provides accommodation, together with nursing or personal care, for any of the following persons".
  That includes,
  "persons who are or have been suffering from dependence on alcohol or drugs".
  Lord Clement-Jones: I thank the Minister for his reply. I welcome his assurance about the means testing status quo, so to speak. I am no nearer feeling that I have had an answer about the clinical governance aspect. I recognise that the noble Baroness, Lady Pitkeathley, may have reservations about the particular expression in the amendment.
  The amendment seeks to elicit an answer from the Minister about the kind of clinical governance regime that will apply to clinical care when it is provided within a care home. Following the Minister's reply, I am no nearer feeling that there is an answer than I was earlier. The Minister seemed to say that such a home has to be defined as an independent hospital before the clinical governance regime can take place. In this amendment we are talking about situations which may be thought of as half-way houses. That brings us back

  437
  to the old chestnut we discussed earlier; that is, the question of seamless clinical governance between all sectors.
  Lord Hunt of Kings Heath: I thought that the main issued being raised here by the noble Lord was the question of an establishment that might fall under the category of a care home or under the category of an independent hospital. I have been trying to make it clear that the care standards commission will need to make judgments according to the regulations and the national minimum standards laid down as to how a particular home is to be registered. In the registration document, specific reference will he made to the services that are to be offered in that particular establishment.
  As regards clinical governance, as it were, in care homes, inspectors will visit both residential care homes and nursing homes to check on the healthcare provided to ensure that it is appropriate. I can assure the noble Lord that regulations and standards relating to such provision of healthcare will be laid down. I hope that I have now addressed the noble Lord's queries a little more clearly.
  Lord Clement-Jones: I thank the Minister for that reply, but I am afraid that I must reply, "Not really" to his last comment. I shall read carefully all his responses in Hansard. However, we may well return to the issue because the point here is not only the precise definition of a "care home". We must be assured that a regulatory regime will apply just as much to the social care being provided within those establishments as it will to the provision of healthcare. It is vital that we achieve the right balance.
  One problem in the Bill is that of trying to match the two halves of social care and it is a key issue that we must face as we progress through our discussions. In the mean time, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
  Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
  Lord Rix Lord Rix moved Amendment No. 8:
  Page 3, line 2, leave out ("suffering from illness") and insert ("ill").
  The noble Lord said: At the Second Reading of the Bill, befuddled though I was by the dreaded lurgy— although I was one of the 8 million who had the jab—I hope I made it clear then how much both I and Mencap, of which I am president, welcome this landmark Bill. For that reason, noble Lords may wonder why I have tabled so many solus amendments. Quite simply, I want to make certain that the improvements in standards for social services and the new safeguards being offered to service users apply equally and appropriately to one of the most vulnerable groups affected; namely, people with a learning disability.
  I have had the privilege of submitting a paper regarding those concerns to the Minister, as well as having a lengthy meeting with him and his officials, at which they were most helpful. As a result, I have tabled
  438
  28 amendments which appear to be alone and palely loitering, but I believe that the Minister will be well prepared with his responses and I can only hope that those will be favourable.
  In speaking to Amendment No. 8, perhaps I may speak also to Amendments Nos. 9 and 10. The amendments to this clause all seek to remove the word "suffering" from the statutory definitions used in the Bill for people with disabilities, illnesses or substance dependence. I do not doubt that we can all cite examples of people who have indeed suffered within the context of all three sets of circumstances; none the less, I do not believe suffering to be integral to any of them. At best the term is superfluous and at worst it is confusing.
  My particular concern is with the use of the word "suffering" in relation to people whose disability constitutes impairment of the intellect or a learning disability. As I have outlined on many occasions, suffering indicates the endurance of pain and implies the possibility of eventual cure, neither of which are normative expectations of people with learning disabilities. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Williams of Mostyn, was good enough to remove the term "suffer" from the definition of disability used in the Youth Justice and Criminal Evidence Bill in the previous Session. I hope that that will be accepted as a precedent and I urge the Minister to do the same in the context of this legislation. I beg to move.
  Lord Jenkin of Roding: When I read the amendment and found that I agreed with it, I am afraid that I had not appreciated the intricacy that lay behind it, which the noble Lord, Lord Rix, has just explained to the Committee. In my innocence, I thought that the noble Lord was engaged in a proper process of using the English language correctly; namely, using one word instead of three. I was prepared to applaud that and wondered whether I should have worked through the Bill with the same kind of toothcomb. The tendency to use convoluted phrases rather than simple English is something to be deplored. If that was all that the noble Lord, Lord Rix, was seeking to remedy with his amendment, he would have my full support.
  However, that is not all. The noble Lord has made another most important statement. Those of us who have had responsibility for organisations that look after people suffering from handicap of whatever kind would simply say that "suffering" is not the right word to use. It is therefore for two reasons that I hope that the Minister will be able to make a short speech to tell the Committee that he will be happy to accept all three amendments. I believe that they have a great deal to commend them.
  Lord Addington: The noble Lord, Lord Jenkin, has already said much of what I was going to say. However, I should like to emphasise that when you have a disability, you generally have that disability for life or for the long term. "Suffering" and "illness" are confusing words in this context and they put out the wrong message. They also suggest that a person will get better. We are referring here to hidden disabilities,

  439
  which are not dealt with directly in the Bill but are often referred to elsewhere. We must remember that legal language always makes reference both backwards and forwards through legislation. If one is suffering from an illness, one may recover from it. However, with a disability it is more likely that coping strategies will be developed. For that reason, if any ambiguity can be removed from the face of the Bill, that will aid not only the legislation before us, but also other Bills in this area. Furthermore, I can only concur with the noble Lord, Lord Jenkin, that one word is invariably better than three.
  Lord Laming: I rise briefly to support the amendment tabled by my noble friend Lord Rix. I shall not detain the Committee as it has already been clearly stated that two strong reasons have been given in support of it. The amendment certainly has my support.
  Lord Hunt of Kings Heath: I shall be brief. I fully understand the desire of the noble Lord, Lord Rix, to ensure that the wording of the Bill is as modern as possible when describing people who receive care services.
  If the noble Lord will allow me, I shall take this amendment away and discuss the exact wording with him between now and Report stage. We shall then ensure that the Bill is rectified in due course.
  Lord Rix: I shall be happy to accept the proposal of the Minister so long as we agree that one word should be used rather than three. I am sure that this marks the beginning of a happy new year so far as concerns the Care Standards Bill and I hope only that my other amendments will be accepted as speedily and with such aplomb by the Minister. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
  Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
  [Amendments Nos. 9and 10 not moved.]
  Clause 3 agreed to.
  [Amendment No. 11 not moved.]
  5.30 p.m.
  Clause 4 [Other basic definitions]:
  Lord Clement-Jones Lord Clement-Jones moved Amendment No. 12:
  Page 3. line 11, at end insert—
  ("( ) "Home-based health care agency" means an undertaking which consists of or includes arranging the provision of health care that requires the supervision of a registered nurse or doctor in their own homes.").
  The noble Lord said: The next group contains a large number of amendments. I shall speak to all of them except Amendment No. 17 standing in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Rix. The intention of my amendments is to draw attention to the number of gaps in Clause 4. Voluntary organisations are concerned that, as presently drafted, Clause 4 does not include some establishments that should be included.
  I am looking for the Minister's reaction to the establishments which we have set out in our amendments.
  Amendment No. 12 deals with the home-based care agency, which we define as meaning,
  "an undertaking which consists of or includes arranging the provision of health care that requires the supervision of a registered nurse or doctor in their own homes".
  We are talking here about home care, which in many ways seems to lack regulation in terms of the Bill.
  Amendment No. 13 deals with respite care. I shall not go through the full definition. If, before tabling my amendment, I had seen the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Rix, I certainly would have taken on board that much shorter and more desirable form of words. It is necessary to regulate respite care, which is not currently covered by the Bill.
  Of even greater importance is the question of sheltered housing. Voluntary organisations in this sector are concerned that some close care sheltered housing might be care homes in disguise and might well become so in order to avoid inspection. The provision of such housing is growing and it is often financially driven because housing benefit is available. But people being cared for in that setting are frail and vulnerable and deserve the same protection as that afforded to those in care homes.
  Amendment No. 16 deals with daycare centres, in relation to which there is a major hole in the Bill. Our definition may not be the most felicitous, but we have tried to bring in the kind of daycare that is generally thought of as being such. We do not understand why such daycare centres are not being brought within the terms of the Bill.
  The other amendments in the group are by and large consequential except those dealing with nursing agencies. This issue has given rise to considerable discussion, particularly within the nursing organisations. Clause 90 abolishes the Nurses Agencies Act 1957, which required nursing agencies to be inspected and listed and that the placing of nurses by an agency should be supervised by a registered nurse. However, local authorities were applying the Act patchily and at least one local authority was not aware that it was supposed to be carrying out those duties. The intention of our amendment is that nursing agencies should be regulated in the same way as doctor and other medical employment agencies are regulated under the Employment Agencies Act. However, if that was followed through in the Bill, it would mean that the requirement for agencies to inspected, listed and supervised by a nurse would be lost.
  We believe that that would be undesirable and that the requirement should be retained. The amendment would require nurses to be registered and inspected by the commission and would allow, under regulations, for nurse supervision of that. We believe that there are significant differences between the operation of nursing agencies and agencies supplying doctors. A nursing agency will supply nurses often at very short notice and often for very short periods—sometimes for just a few hours. In those circumstances, it is not

  441
  always possible to ensure that the nurse is qualified and suitable for the placement. For doctors, it is normal for CVs to be sent by the agency to the client and for placements to be of a longer duration.
  There is significant concern, particularly in the voluntary sector, that there are gaps in the Bill. I look forward to the Minister's response to the amendments. I beg to move.
  Earl Howe: I rise to speak to Amendment No. 15, which stands in my name. The amendment is identical in spirit to Amendment No. 12, to which the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, has just spoken, although, with all respect to him, the wording of that amendment reads a little oddly as it suggests that the relevant home-based healthcare is provided in the home of the nurse or doctor, which of course is not the case.
  I wish to re-emphasise a key point. Healthcare provided at home is becoming increasingly common. I refer not just to day-to-day nursing care but to often highly intensive and sophisticated medical procedures. The care of people in their own homes rather than in a hospital or a nursing home is to be welcomed. I believe that the Government are in agreement with that. The Bill should reflect current developments in healthcare. I urge the Minister to consider this issue with particular care.
  A point closely allied to that is the need to regulate healthcare assistants engaged in delivering healthcare at home. I shall talk more about healthcare assistants when we reach a later group of amendments. Suffice it now to say that if both they and the work that they are doing for people in a domestic setting are unregulated, that runs directly counter to the theme of the Bill.
  Lord Jenkin of Roding: I suggest that these are amendments to which the Government will wish to give a good deal of thought. I referred earlier to the Forest Healthcare Trust, of which I used to be chairman. The trust ran a hospital-at-home service. Such services are becoming more and more common as a way of relieving the pressure on beds within hospitals and in many cases giving patients a very much better service in the familiar surroundings of their own homes. In fact our experience was that they received a much better service in the hospital-at-home.
  I remember one dreadful case. I need not go into the details but it was the only case where I felt it right, as chairman of the trust, to sit through the whole of the coroner's hearing on the patient, who had in due course died. There had been rather deplorable treatment in the hospital, amounting to quite serious neglect. The patient was sent home to a hospital-at-home and the nurses immediately recognised what had gone wrong. The family said that under no circumstances did they want the patient to go back to hospital, but the person actually died of other causes.
  The hospital-at-home is becoming a valuable service, but it needs to be effectively regulated. The example to which I referred came wholly under the NHS and therefore would come within the Minister's definition of "management". But it could equally well have been a
  442
  service which the trust had contracted out to a private concern. In those circumstances, regulation should he applied because it is not always the case that the trust contracting out will have the resources properly to assess the value and quality of the care being given. Exactly the same can happen with respite services.
  There is also the question of psychiatric services. It is increasingly the case that psychiatric care is given to patients in their own homes. There has been a transition— from doctors and nurses who have been used throughout their careers to a ward-based service in large psychiatric hospitals to a system of delivering psychiatric care in the patient's own home. Here again, if it is an NHS service, no doubt the NHS management and the CHI will provide a proper form of quality control. But if that service is contracted out—the Minister has already referred to the fact that a good deal of psychiatric services are now provided by independent concerns—it is all the more important that there should be effective regulation.
  The noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, is on to a good point with at least some of these proposals. I hope that the Minister will take them away and examine them carefully. In a Bill that is supposed to bring the whole system under a single, common national standard of care, we do not want to find ourselves with any gaps.
  Lord Rix: Before speaking to my Amendment No. 17 which is included in this grouping, perhaps I may say to the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, that I hope, if he proceeds with Amendment No. 13, he will take the advice of his noble friend Lord Addington, so that the subsections appear in plain English and use one word instead of three.
  Amendment No. 17 seeks to provide a definition of day services to allow for their inclusion within the standards, registration and inspection provisions contained in the Bill. I believe that it will be of some help to the Minister and his department.
  One of the great strengths of this legislation is that it seeks to bring coherence to the hitherto unco-ordinated registration and inspection regimes, which are often not comprehensive. I believe that the Bill 'will bring greater co-ordination to the social care sector and that it goes a long way to making the system more comprehensive. But with the exclusion of day services, it simply does not go far enough.
  At Second Reading, I cited the example of a day centre in Sheffield where physical and sexual abuse had gone undetected over many years. It is our responsibility to act upon the evidence. I do not believe that there is a palpable distinction between residential services and day care services in terms of vulnerability and risk; indeed major independent inquiries such as the Longcare abuse inquiry in Buckinghamshire have also recommended that inspections should be extended to day services. Adults with learning disabilities spend substantial proportions of their everyday lives in services which are not registered, not approved, not checked and not accountable. That

  443
  state of affairs must change. I should welcome the Minister's assurance that the political will exists to effect that change.
  Lord Laming: Perhaps I may make three brief points. First, respite care is a feature of many care establishments. It depends whether Clause 3 of the Bill as presently drafted incorporates both short and long-term care. If it incorporates both, it should incorporate respite care. If it is intended to convey only long-term care, the amendment proposed by the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, seems essential. If I may say so with good grace, Amendment No. 15 seems to be an illustration of the difficulties that will remain throughout the Bill if Clause 2 stands.
  As regards Amendment No. 17, I, too, am surprised that day services appear to have been excluded from the regulation and inspection system. The wording of Amendment No. 17 is extremely helpful.
  Baroness Masham of Ilton: Perhaps I may add a word about those who live at home and have carers. I implore the Minister to do something about regulation of the agencies and possibly the carers. The situation is impossible at present. Charges are extraordinary. In some agencies there is no regulation at all. Some charge an amazing amount. Perhaps I may talk to the Minister outside the Chamber about this matter. We need to employ two, if not three, carers for my husband. Some agencies are exceedingly good; some are very dangerous. There are many vulnerable people living in their own homes under a tremendous amount of medication and getting into serious difficulties. There is no regulation as regards people who may be alcoholics coming in to work. So much needs to be done. But it is the expense of care in the home which causes problems. I hope that during the passage of the Bill we shall be able to do something about it. I have sent some information to one Minister regarding the regulation of care homes. The matter needs addressing. If, at this very moment, all the New Zealand, Australian and South African people went home, very vulnerable disabled people would have a real problem.
  5.45 p.m.
  Baroness O'Cathain: I note the comments of the noble Baroness, Lady Masham. I have some experience of the issue and support every single word she said. There are serious problems. For example, when I asked one carer who was sent into my home about her training, she said, "I used to work in an electronics factory. I happened to pass by the care agency last Saturday and the people there said, 'There's a lovely job going. Would you be prepared to do it?'" It was ludicrous. She had no idea at all of how to cope with a disabled person. There has to be some regulation.
  Baroness Pitkeathley: That will be precisely the function of the general social care council, when it is set up. All those workers will be regulated and inspected.
  Lord Hunt of Kings Heath: Perhaps I may turn first to Amendments Nos. 12 and 22 tabled by the noble
  444
  Lord, Lord Clement-Jones. I am grateful to the noble Lord for explaining the purpose of his amendments. It was not entirely clear from the drafting, which, as it stands, could be taken to include general practitioner home visits and district nursing services.
  I listened with great interest to the noble Lord's points about home-based care agencies and to the more general points raised about issues relating to private medical services undertaken in people's homes. Rather than say any more about the matter at this time, I should like to reflect on those issues without any commitment at this stage and take on board the comments made. No doubt we can debate the matter again on Report. Some important issues have been raised which require reflection.
  Amendments Nos. 13 and 20 offer a definition of a "residential respite care establishment" and require such establishments to be registered. I am in full agreement that care homes which provide care on a short-term basis should be registered in the same way as care homes which provide people with permanent accommodation and care. It is certainly the intention that such respite centres should be registered with the national care standards commission, and the definition of "care home" in Clause 3 of the Bill is wide enough as it stands to cover that type of establishment.
  The definition reads:
  "an establishment is a care home if it provides accommodation. together with nursing or personal care, for any of the following persons",
  and subsection (2) lists those who will come under the provision. The word "accommodation" is not qualified in any way, so I assure noble Lords that it would cover accommodation for as little as one night only. In other words, any establishment which offers nursing or personal care overnight for the categories of persons listed in subsection (2) of Clause 3 will need to be registered as a care home. I hope that I have managed to reassure the Committee on that point.
  Amendments Nos. 14 and 21 define a "close care sheltered housing establishment" as being an establishment which provides people who are ill, disabled, infirm or dependent on drugs or alcohol with accommodation together with personal care or nursing—but not board—and require such establishments to be registered.
  In the Registered Homes Act 1984, a residential care home is defined as an establishment which provides accommodation together with both board and personal care for persons in need of it by reason of old age, disability, past or present dependence on drugs or alcohol or past or present mental disorder.
  We are aware that this current definition is unsatisfactory. We know that there are establishments which provide accommodation and personal care for vulnerable people and which are to all intents and purposes residential care homes but which escape the requirement to register because they do not provide board. For example, they may make residents pay for their meals each day rather than include food in the overall contract price. We do not believe that that is acceptable. The Bill therefore offers a new definition of

  445
  "care home" as an establishment which provides accommodation together with nursing or personal care only. There is no longer any mention of "board". Therefore, in future, even if board is not provided, such establishments will be required to register as care homes.
  I turn to Amendments Nos. 14A and 22A which concern nurse agencies. Under our proposals nurse agencies will have a level playing field regulated by the same system as other employment agencies, including all those supplying other healthcare professionals under the Employment Agencies Act 1973. I have listened with care to the points raised. I believe that to suggest that nurses agencies should be registered and inspected in addition to complying with the provisions of the 1973 Act may be taken to imply that nurses are less professional than other healthcare professionals. I am sure that that is not the intention of the Committee. We shall ensure that should any additional safeguards be needed they will be put in place. for example, through codes of practice for employers. I am convinced that what we propose for nurses agencies will provide better protection for employers, the nurses engaged by agencies and vulnerable people while also minimising the regulatory burden on business. I hope that I have reassured noble Lords on that matter.
  I turn to Amendment No. 15. The new regulatory framework for domiciliary care is designed specifically to include care that is of a personal and non-clinical nature. It is not our intention to confuse this with nursing or clinical tasks which involve a fundamentally different training and skill profile. We believe that that would distort the nature and purpose of the domiciliary care regime and stretch it so widely that it would lose its focus and impact. That focus is specific to the needs of domiciliary care which is essentially a sector with extremely low levels of training and qualifications. The domiciliary care regulation scheme will be a powerful driver to address that deficiency. On the other hand, nurses are highly qualified and registered professionals with professional responsibility for their own clinical practice. I do not believe that to extend domiciliary care regulation to nursing and clinical services is a helpful move.
  I turn finally to Amendments Nos. 16, 17 and 19 which all deal with day care services. However, Amendment No. 17 has a wider definition than Amendment No. 16. I am conscious that there is disappointment that day care services are not included in the services to be regulated when the national care standards commission comes into force and starts its work. I hope the Committee accepts that that is in no way because of lack of concern for people with, say, learning disabilities, who are major users of such services, or the quality and standards of day care. It rests upon the practical question of what we can sensibly expect the commission to do when it takes on its considerable and very important responsibilities. In addition to its responsibility for the many thousands of care homes and other services which are already regulated, the commission will be given responsibility for regulating a number of new services not previously
  446
  regulated. This represents a very significant extension of the scope of regulation. We believe that that is as much as we can expect it to deal with at the beginning of its life. We do not want to overload the commission. We believe that it must be allowed to concentrate on carrying out its new duties effectively. We shall, however, keep the remit of the commission under review.
  Clause 39 allows the Secretary of State to extend the provisions of Part II to other social care services equivalent to those which may or must be provided by local authorities in the exercise of their social services functions. It may be that in time other services, such as day services, will be brought within the scope of regulation. Certainly, the inclusion of such a clause in the Bill means that we have day centres in mind as a likely example. We have said as much in the Explanatory Notes. Although the noble Lord, Lord Rix, may press me, I cannot at this stage give an absolute assurance as to when this may happen. We must be careful that we do not ask the national care standards commission to undertake an impossible task with the risk that it simply cannot cope and vulnerable people are put at risk.
  Before I conclude, I note the different definitions of day care in the amendments. I believe that the wider definition of day services, which may include a number of dispersed services not attached to any particular facility and not specific to those who receive care, will present significant difficulties in terms of boundaries. Regulation must always be appropriate, targeted and proportional. But I have already had a very helpful discussion with the noble Lord, Lord Rix, about this matter. There may be workable ways to define the tasks. That is one of the issues that will need a great deal of work and consultation before the Government can use Clause 39 to add such services to be regulated by the commission. I hope that the noble Lord is assured as to the possibilities of including day care in the regulatory system and will therefore not press his amendment.
  Lord Rix: Perhaps I may intervene on the question of the inspection of day care services. Obviously, I am disappointed that for the moment the Committee cannot obtain from the Minister a direct promise. The Minister used the expression "in time". That fills me with slight perturbation. It may mean when I am dead and gone. I believe that the need to regulate and inspect day care services at the very earliest moment is as great as for any care homes or housing. The scope for abuse in day care services is limitless. I told the Minister of a court case in the London area that occurred only three or four years ago in which, in the context of day care services, a young woman had been constantly sexually abused by a man. I hope that during the passage of the Bill through this House the Minister will be able to return to the Dispatch Box and give a slightly more definitive statement as to the future inspection of day care services rather than the expression "in time".
  Lord Jenkin of Roding: I endorse the observations of the noble Lord, Lord Rix. I believe that the general

  447
  power in Clause 39 includes a number of activities which may not yet be in contemplation. We are dealing here with a whole group of vulnerable people. We have an ever-expanding population as people live longer and no doubt an ever-growing range of services may be available to it. To ensure that Clause 39 takes account of those matters which are not at present in contemplation is very sensible. It may well be that we shall want to consider whether it should be subject to affirmative rather than negative resolution. Nevertheless, it is there.
  As to day care services, I believe that the noble Lord, Lord Rix, makes a very important point. I should like to consider whether an amendment can be tabled at a later stage of the Bill to place the Government under an obligation to extend the provisions of the Bill to day services so that we are not left with the rather vague and slightly depressing "in time". As Shakespeare said,
  "In time the savage bull doth bear the yoke".
  But that might be a very long time. I believe that the case made by the noble Lords, Lord Rix and Lord Clement-Jones, is a very strong one and I hope that the Government will reflect upon it.
  6 p.m.
  Lord Laming: Experience has shown that legislation is not always implemented on the first possible day. Getting something into legislation which can be implemented when the commission is able to take it on seems an entirely sensible proposition.
  Baroness Masham of Ilton: Perhaps I may ask the Minister about means testing. I believe he said that a care home with nursing was means tested.
  Lord Hunt of Kings Heath: I was asked whether the new regulatory system would have an impact on the current arrangements for means testing. I said that the process of registration and the registration certificate would specify the type of home. If it were a nursing home, it would be specified as a nursing home. Therefore, that would not have an impact on the means testing arrangements currently in place or on the distinction between care homes and nursing homes.
  Baroness Masham of Ilion: Is it correct that a care home is not means tested, whereas a residential home is?
  If someone has to be in a home for weeks, who pays the mortgage and electricity bills, and the expenses of the children, or does the individual come out with large debts? If he is disabled and goes into hospital and perhaps into residential care, he loses his benefits. What happens when the bills pile up?
  Lord Hunt of Kings Heath: The noble Baroness widens the debate somewhat. The Government appointed a Royal Commission on Long Term Care to consider some of the issues and the pressures on people faced with that situation. The noble Baroness will know that the Royal Commission reported some
  448
  months ago with a majority report and a minority report. The Government are considering how we respond to that.
  Lord Clement-Jones: It has been an interesting debate. Noble Lords have demonstrated, as always, their understanding and expertise in these areas.
  The Minister's reply was welcome in some respects. He said that he would consider whether there were any gaps with regard to home-based healthcare agencies. He believed that respite care and close care sheltered housing establishments were caught by the terms of the Bill. I shall read carefully his words in Hansard.
  The Minister also said that the necessary safeguards as regards nursing agencies would be put into regulation. I hope that regard will be given to the 1957 Act, aspects of which should be duplicated in the regulations. I refer in particular to inspection by a registered nurse. It may be right that the general framework of regulation should not be different but perhaps the system of inspection should vary from one type of agency to another.
  The big disappointment—it has been expressed by other noble Lords—relates to day services. My amendment does not go as far as the amendment tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Rix. I prefer to be associated with the noble Lord's amendment. It is spot on with regard to the needs of those going out into the community from their care homes. That situation must be regulated by a certain date. The noble Lord Jenkin remarked that it was not good enough to say that at some stage in the future the matter will be regulated. During the course of the Bill we should like an undertaking from the Minister that day services will be regulated at the earliest practicable moment. We understand about work loads. However, we should like a definition in the Bill. Then Clause 39 can be triggered at the earliest practicable moment. That is the solution towards which we are aiming. As we move towards Report stage and Third Reading, I hope that it will commend itself to the Government. In the mean time, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
  Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
  ]Amendments Nos. 13 to 22A not moved.]
  Clause 4 agreed to.
  Clause 5 agreed to.
  Clause 6 [National Care Standards Commission]:
  Baroness David Baroness David moved Amendment No. 23:
  Page 4, line 20, at end insert—
  ("( ) It shall be the principal aim of the Commission to secure and promote the well-being of those cared for under the provisions of Part II of this Act.").
  The noble Baroness said: Grouped with Amendment No. 23 standing in my name are Amendments Nos. 30, 45, 53, 65, 71 and 151 standing in the names of other noble Lords.
  Amendment No. 23 introduces a principal aim for the national care standards commission. The amendment seeks to set in primary legislation the fact that the first duty of the national care standards

  449
  commission should be towards the users of services—children, elderly people, and those with illnesses or disabilities—rather than the service providers.
  The wording follows that used under Sections 37 and 41 of the Crime and Disorder Act 1998 in relation to the principal aim of the youth justice system and the corresponding duties of the Youth Justice Board. The principal aim under that Act was to prevent offending by children and young persons. The principal aim under this amendment is even simpler: to promote and secure the welfare of those who are cared for under the provisions of Part II of the Act.
  The point of placing the commission under this primary duty is to make its job clearer and therefore easier. Without such a principal aim, other important considerations such as cost, staff morale, public/private management, or media or political opinion might have equal claim. Under Clause 7 the commission is placed under the vague general duties to inform the Secretary of State on availability and quality of services and to encourage improvement in that quality.
  "Quality of services" is a phrase which can be used to defend all sorts of practices—for example, financial cuts under the name of efficiency—and needs greater precision, which the amendment provides. I hope that the Minister will look kindly on the amendment. I beg to move.
  Earl Howe: I support the amendments. I speak in particular to Amendments Nos. 45, 53, 65 and 151. In the first instance, some of us approached the Bill in a state of high expectation only to find that it has a number of gaping holes, one or two of which have been mentioned. However, one of the most serious is the absence of any duty on the part of the national care standards commission to monitor clinical standards or to promote quality of care for patients in private hospitals. Indeed, from reading the Bill one could be forgiven for wondering where the well-being of the service users came in. That is why I identify myself with the remarks of the noble Baroness.
  The Government's quality agenda should be all embracing. It should not be confined only to the public sector. Maintaining high standards should be an across-the-board objective. That was my complaint during the passage of the Health Bill. Ministers apparently believe that the main issue for government is the protection of private patients. With respect, that is no more than a tiny fraction of the issue. Standards in the private sector are high. Everyone wants them to be even higher. But what the Bill says is that for all practical purposes it is up to the private sector to deliver whatever standards of healthcare it wants. We have moved far beyond that stage. Indeed, I do not think that people understand the attitude that if it is not done in the NHS, it somehow is not proper healthcare. That attitude is plain silly as well as being a slap in the face to the private sector.
  The point of giving the national care standards commission a duty to publish statistics relating to its remit, and combining that with a duty to promote
  450
  quality, is to ensure that standards of healthcare in the private sector will be capable of being assessed on a like-for-like basis with those in the NHS. That, in turn, will promote a verifiable consistency of standards in both the private and public healthcare sectors, which we all want to see.
  Private hospitals also have a duty to play their part in informing the public. That is why I tabled Amendment No. 65. I welcome Clause 20(3)(k), which appears to introduce for the first time a line of accountability within private hospitals between practitioners and managers. However, the words "appropriate quality" and "appropriate standards" in the subsection must be given meaning and substance in addition to an element of transparency.
  The time has come when we should make the quality agenda a reality in all branches of healthcare, and the Bill provides a golden opportunity to do so.
  Lord Rix: Surrounded by the praetorian guard of the noble Earl, Lord Howe, and the noble Lords, Lord Astor of Hever and Lord Clement-Jones, I feel secure in supporting Amendment No. 45. I welcome the emphasis on maintaining and improving quality, as must all Members of the Committee. However, without the direct control exercised over directly provided services, and without incorporation in contracts of specifications for bought-in services, that may be thought a vague requirement. In my book, it is an important requirement, even if it does no more than state an aim.
  If the list of services within the scope of the Bill is broadened, as I hope will be the case—for example, to include day services—I trust that the quality requirement will also extend to those additional services. We are talking about vulnerable people and basic services. If the coffee in your Lordships' Dining Room were not of the highest quality, which of course it is, that would be an inconvenience, but it would not undermine the welfare of those who drink it or impair the fundamental enjoyment of their lives. But poor quality in the services we are discussing means misery for the people receiving them. Misery is not something we can wish on those who are now our neighbours and one day could well be us.
  Increasingly, we are defining quality in terms of the experience of those receiving the service. A good quality service is one in which people—children or adults—are listened to, respected, treated as individuals and feel that the staff are there for their benefit and not that they are there for the benefit of the staff. Achieving that should be the prime aim of managers and owners.
  Lord Northbourne: I support Amendment No. 23. The Government accepted a similar amendment which I tabled in respect of the General Teaching Council. I believe that object or principal aim clauses are increasingly important in so far as any challenge to our legislation in the European courts will be looked at in the context of its overall objective. That should be stated in general terms and quite clearly at the beginning of the Bill.

  451
  I have a slight doubt about the drafting of the amendment. It is surely not right that the principal aim of the commission should be to look after only the children. We are also discussing old people's homes; perhaps some redrafting on Report may be appropriate.
  Baroness Masham of Ilton: I support Amendment No. 45. I want to give the Committee an example of a private hospital. My husband—I hope that he does not mind my quoting him—had to move from a National Health Service hospital, where he received exceedingly good care, to a private hospital. The NHS did not have a consultant to carry out an assessment for a particular condition. After six days in the private hospital in Leeds, I discovered that he had not had a wash. I was annoyed with myself for not having checked previously. I wrote to someone at the headquarters of BUPA who said that an inquiry would be conducted. A few weeks later I received a reply stating, "He never asked."
  Someone who has had a stroke or who has diabetes, Parkinson's disease or various complications, does not ask; he or she expects it to happen, especially if a man! Therefore, it is most important to lay down minimum standards for all hospitals.
  6.15 p.m.
  Lord Jenkin of Roding: I support the idea behind this group of amendments and the emphasis which they suggest should be put on quality. Over the years and in various guises, many of us have visited homes for old people or those with handicaps. One can tell almost within minutes whether the quality of the service is good. When one is inexperienced one sees the bathrooms, the bedrooms and the facilities and says, "Gosh, what a marvellous place!" But with a little experience and using one's other senses—not least one's nose—one can quickly tell whether the quality of care is good.
  I remember visiting a local authority home in Coventry. I was taken there by Mr White, a distinguished director of social services whom the noble Lord, Lord Laming, will know well. He said, "I want to show you what we can sometimes achieve." Within minutes of entering one sensed an atmosphere in which the standard of care was high. One visits some homes and sees, as I have said previously, a whole lot of "cabbages" sitting around doing nothing. One realises that the standard of care is poor.
  I am sorry that I could not take part in the Second Reading debate, but I want to turn to a point that was made then. No doubt the document Fit for the Future? will provide much of the flesh which will cover the bones of the Bill, but one has the impression that the Government are still at the stage of dealing with the facilities; the size of the room, the number of plugs and so forth. They are measuring what can be measured. However, it is most important that there is a clear statement in the Bill that the overall quality of care lies at the heart of the whole process.
  452
  With great respect to the noble Baroness, Lady David, I share the misgivings that her amendment achieves that purpose. We shall need to reflect on what has been said today, but I totally support the view that the Bill must set out that objective in the clearest possible terms. People will refer to it—there will be an argument within the commission or between those who are being regulated and the regulators—and someone will say, "Look, this is what Parliament has required of us. We must go for the best quality of care that can be provided in all the circumstances", whatever the correct phrase may be. That it needs to be there seems to me clear beyond peradventure. I am not sure how many Members of the Committee remember the Pollution Prevention and Control Bill, which contained no statement of purpose at all. As a result of the efforts of my noble friend Lord Renton and others the Government took the Bill away, there was a recommittal and some good purpose clauses were put into the Bill. That is what this Bill requires. Most of us have supported the general thrust of securing an even more standard form of regulation of the services for vulnerable people, but the quality of the care of those people must lie at the heart of what it is all about. The Bill should set that out beyond peradventure.
  Lord Clement-Jones: There cannot be any ambiguity about the contributions of all Members of the Committee who have spoken so far: quality is absolutely of the essence of the Bill. It was therefore with some incredulity that I found, when reading Clause 7 for the first time, that the wording of the duty to encourage improvement in the quality of Part II services provided in England—which many Members clearly wanted to strengthen through their amendments—although not particularly strong by itself, had been deleted for independent acute services so that "Part II services" meant services of a kind provided by persons registered under Part II other than medical or psychiatric treatment or certain listed medical services. That seems to be going precisely in the wrong direction.
  Therefore, on these Benches we greatly support the general thrust of the amendments. There may be differences about precise wording, but we certainly believe that quality should lie at the heart and that there should be a clear duty on the commission to promote that. The Private Member's Bill of my noble friend Lady Nicholson is designed to do exactly that. Clearly, running in parallel with a Bill such as this one makes it a rather awkward instrument to influence government policy. But there can be no doubt under that Private Member's Bill that a duty of quality is promoted by the regulating body. We believe that that should be reflected in the Bill.
  At this point, I should like to apologise on behalf of my noble friend Lady Nicholson who is unable to attend to speak to Amendments Nos. 53 and 151 in her name. She is detained elsewhere in the European Parliament. It really is important that the Government take another look at the duty of quality right across the board. It seems to us that ideology seems to have raised

  453
  its head again. Have we truly a Secretary of State for Health—and social services, so to speak—or is the Minister simply looking at particular sectors in a narrow way? On these Benches and from other Benches there appears to be a desire to make sure that the Secretary of State and the commission, through him, take as broad as possible a view of quality. It is the name of the game right across social care and across healthcare. We should wish to see that reflected in the Bill.
  Lord Laming: I support entirely what the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, has just said. The noble Lord, Lord Jenkin, reveals his vast experience in sharing his thoughts with us, in particular on Amendment No. 23. I support entirely the thrust of the amendment tabled in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady David. I hope greatly that the Minister will feel able to agree to a. form of words which captures the spirit of the amendment. Without it, Clause 6 is really about process and does not deal at all with the well-being and quality of care for extremely vulnerable people. The whole purpose of the commission should be to ensure quality of standards and proper protection where it is needed for some of the most vulnerable people in our community, and the notion of promoting well-being as opposed to dealing only with inadequate performance. Promoting well-being should be at the centre of the work of the commission. I hope that the Minister will be able to take on the general thrust of the amendment and come forward with a form of words with which the noble Baroness is happy and which we may all applaud.
  Lord Hunt of Kings Heath: I understand the thrust of the arguments being put forward. I have no doubt at all that better regulation of the various establishments and services listed in the Bill will lead to improved quality of service for people who use those services. I have no doubt that that will come about through the establishment of a highly professional central organisation which will prove to be much more consistent in its approach to registration than the previous 200 or so health and local authorities, and that it will have available to it the expertise which local health authorities and local authorities have sometimes missed out on.
  However, I make the point that the Bill itself and the purpose of the commission relate to regulation and registration. That is why the Bill is termed in the way that it is. Before I turn to Amendment No. 23, perhaps I may also pick up the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Jenkin, in his reference to Fit for the Future? and his suggestion that the emphasis of the draft consultation paper was rather too much on facilities and rather too little on quality and outcomes. The document is still out for consultation and we shall consider the results carefully. I wish to reassure the noble Lord that the Government are very much concerned with outcomes and not only with facilities. We shall take his remarks very much into account, and indeed, those made by other noble Lords when the Bill was discussed at Second Reading, when many similar points were raised.
  454
  I turn to Amendment No. 23, proposed by my noble friend Lady David. The independent nature of the new commission and its coherence and consistency will undoubtedly improve the quality of the services to be registered. As Members have already mentioned, the commission will have a general duty under Clause 7 to encourage improvement in the quality of Part II services. It will have powers also to ensure that the well-being of service users is secured and promoted. The Bill will achieve that by laying a clear and irreducible responsibility on service providers to secure and promote the well-being of those using their services and by ensuring that the commission vigorously carries out its functions.
  I draw my noble friend's attention to Clause 20(1)(d) and (e), which give regulation-making powers to require providers to promote the welfare of the relevant service users. Corresponding provision is found in current legislation; for example, that governing residential homes. It is our intention to continue with that provision, and indeed, to strengthen it with the Bill. Regulations together with the national minimum standards provided for under Clause 21 will give strong powers to improve the quality of service provision. Similarly, nothing in the Bill will detract from the existing responsibilities of local authorities and health authorities in respect of the welfare of those for whom they commission or arrange services.
  In relation to the question of statement of purpose, I reiterate that the Bill and the work of the commission rest upon the prime function of the agency, which is to regulate. It is through that regulation that the quality of services will improve.
  I turn now to Amendment No. 45. I agree wholeheartedly with the noble Earl and the noble Lord, as I have said already, that ensuring the quality of registered services is vitally important. One of the Bill's main aims is to improve the quality of registered services. Its provisions centre on that and it is intended to deliver quality through the enforcement of regulations and the national minimum standards. As I have already mentioned in connection with Amendment No. 23, regulations made under Clause 20(1)(d) will ensure that persons registered in respect of a children's home, care home or residential family centre must secure the welfare of their residents. That is essential to maintaining a quality service.
  Regulations under Clause 20(3)(k) will ensure that services provided in independent healthcare establishments or clinics are of appropriate quality and meet appropriate standards. Together with the national minimum standards provided for under Clause 21, regulations will improve the quality of service provision and ensure that registered persons continue to deliver quality. As the Bill already makes provision for maintaining and improving the quality of services, I hope that the noble Earl and the noble Lord will accept that the amendment is unnecessary.
  We come to Amendment No. 30, which seems to be based on what I can describe only as a misconception about the role of government in relation to private

  455
  healthcare. While the Government have a responsibility for the provision of public healthcare through the NHS, they have no such responsibility in respect of private healthcare. I believe that it will be wholly inappropriate to give the commission the same range of duties in relation to private healthcare as we place on it in relation to social care, where it will have wide-ranging responsibilities.
  Similarly, it is not the responsibility of the commission or of government more widely to improve the quality of private healthcare. That responsibility rests squarely on the owners and managers of private healthcare establishments. That differs from the Government's role in relation to the NHS where, clearly, we have a responsibility for improving quality. Our role in relation to the private healthcare sector is to ensure that proper standards are laid down and that they are adhered to by those providing care. As I said at the beginning of the debate, that is the difference between the Government's role in managing the NHS and in regulating the private sector.
  I turn to Amendment No. 53. I am sure that we all share the sentiments behind this amendment: that it is important for there to be proper arrangements in place to ensure the quality of treatment of patients in private hospitals. I recognise also the need to ensure that if residents in other establishments require medical treatment, they receive it. However, I do not believe that the amendment is necessary. First, as I have already said, we are taking powers in the Bill under Clause 20(3)(k) to make regulations requiring those who run private hospitals and other healthcare establishments to have arrangements in place to ensure the quality of the services which they provide, including clinical services. Secondly, we are already committed to introducing tough national minimum standards for healthcare providers and for those providing social care who will be regulated under this legislation. Thirdly, we are already taking powers to make provision for the welfare of those in children's homes, care homes and residential family centres. In short, we are already making the provision needed to secure proper care for those in private healthcare or social care establishments.
  Amendment No. 65 would require managers of independent hospitals to publish information about their services in a form appropriate for the general public. There is nothing between the Government and the noble Lord on this matter. We are committed to ensuring that patients and potential patients have comprehensive information about the services being provided by private hospitals and clinics. We made that clear last spring in our consultation document and we welcome the general support which was given to that proposal by those who commented. As we said in Regulating Private and Voluntary Healthcare, in working out detailed regulatory requirements and minimum standards we shall take account of the comments which were made in consultation. Therefore, I oppose the amendment because I do not
  456
  believe that it is necessary. The powers set out in Clause 20 will allow us to do what we and the noble Lord want.
  Clause 20(3)(a) will enable Ministers to make regulations which cover, among other matters, the provision of accurate information about the services provided by a private hospital. I want to make it clear that we are unequivocal in wanting to impose tough standards and requirements on the private healthcare sector. I believe that I acknowledged previously that the regime which existed was unsatisfactory. We are determined to put that right and, through regulations and minimum standards, to impose stringent requirements on the private healthcare sector.
  Amendment No. 71 would require the regulations, but not the minimum standards, which we make to be consistent with standards in the NHS where relevant. Again, I understand the intent behind that and, clearly, in drawing up standards for the private sector we shall want to take full account of requirements in the NHS. However, again, I must make the point that there is a difference between our role in regulating the private sector and our role in managing the NHS.
  Therefore, we may lay down standards which are appropriate for the private sector but which may be different from those of the National Health Service, not least because the private sector may undertake many procedures which are not available on the NHS. I give an example: if an independent hospital clinic specialises in the type of low-risk cosmetic surgery under local anaesthesia where patients stay overnight at the most, it may not be reasonable to require it to have the same standards as an NHS hospital taking emergency cases involving seriously ill or injured people. That is not a case of standards being higher or lower, or better or worse, but rather of being fit for purpose. The key point is that, rather than slavishly follow provisions in the National Health Service, we must ensure that the regulations and standards which we lay down for the private healthcare sector provide protection for patients and assurance about the quality of care that they receive.
  I turn to Amendment No. 151. Again, I thank the noble Baroness and the noble Lord for tabling the amendment and accept that the commission will need to collect and publicise information. Indeed, it is a regulator first and foremost and could not function effectively without collecting information. I believe also that in general the commission should make publicly available the information in its inspection reports and registers. However, there may be circumstances where it would not be appropriate for information to be available to the public; for example, cases relating to vulnerable children.
  I move on to say that the Bill already provides for the commission to collect and publish whatever statistics or information are necessary for the discharge of its functions. Clause 31 provides for regulations to be made requiring services to make annual returns to the registering authority. That information will be supplemented by inspections. The powers under Clauses 28 and 29 will allow the

  457
  commission to collect information to satisfy it that its service meets regulatory requirements and national minimum standards.
  I believe that on that basis, and given that the framework of the Bill already allows provision for the commission to collect and publicise information for the exercise of its functions, Amendment No. 151 is not necessary.
  6.30 p.m.
  Baroness Masham of Mon: Before the Minister sits down, perhaps I may ask a question. If an establishment does not adhere to an acceptable standard, will it lose its registration and be shut down after a warning? If not, what will happen?
  Lord Hunt of Kings Heath: There are a number of options available. The commission can bring to the attention of a home problems which it is hoped the home will wish to put right. If a serious situation arises in which the commission considers that harm may be done to residents, an application can be made to a magistrate for the home to be closed. If a situation arises which is not serious but in which none the less the home has refused to make good whatever are the deficiencies, the commission can go through a process which would lead to eventual de-registration. There are also offences in the Bill relating to homes which are carrying on as a home but are not registered. There is also an appeal mechanism, a tribunal to which homes can appeal if they are dissatisfied or aggrieved with the commission's action. There is a whole phalanx of actions that can be taken, depending on the seriousness of the case.
  Baroness Masham of Ilton: Can members of the public report deficiencies to the commission?
  Lord Hunt of Kings Heath: Yes, we would very much encourage the commission to invite comments from members of the public.
  Lord Laming: Before the Minister sits down—I apologise if I misheard him—did he say that if, for example, someone stayed overnight in an independent hospital providing cosmetic surgery, he would not need or receive the same safeguards as if, for example, he had that treatment in an NHS hospital or even an NHS pay bed?
  Lord Hunt of Kings Heath: No, I did not say that. I pointed out an example where, in relation to minor low-risk cosmetic surgery, the standard required for that surgery might be different from that required from a hospital providing major emergency services.
  Baroness Masham of Ilton: Patients may still get an infection.
  Baroness David: I should like to thank those noble Lords who have supported me in my Amendment
  458
  No. 23—the noble Lord, Lord Jenkin, even though he was not quite sure about the wording, and the noble Lords, Lord Laming and Lord Northbourne.
  But I should like to say to the noble Lord, Lord Northbourne, that, in fact, the amendment does not refer to children at all. It refers to the users of the services—those cared for under the provisions of Part II of the Bill. When I spoke, I referred to the users of the services—children, elderly people, those with illnesses or disabilities. I hope that the noble Lord will understand that this amendment, unlike many of my others, is not about children alone.
  As far as the Minister is concerned, I must say that I was rather disappointed with his response. I shall, of course, read carefully what he said and look at paragraphs (b) and (e) of Clause 20(1), as he asked me to. But I thought the thrust of my amendment was generally felt in the whole group and I shall read the whole debate on this group with great interest and consider what to do and whether to come forward with this amendment again with, perhaps, fresh wording.
  But in the mean time, I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.
  Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
  Baroness David Baroness David moved Amendment No. 24:
  Page 4, line 24, at end insert—
  ("( ) In the exercise of its functions the Commission shall give due consideration to the views of children affected by the provisions of this Act:).
  The noble Baroness said: This is the first of a number of amendments which I have tabled about children. I should like to say that these are probing amendments—I have no intention of dividing the House on them—but I should also like to say that they are backed by the Children's Advocacy Consortium which comprises the NSPCC, the Children's Society, Childline, children's rights officers and advocates, national youth advocacy services and Voice for the Child in Care. So they have support from a great number of organisations which do a lot of work for children.
  This Amendment No. 24, which is grouped with Amendment No. 26, seeks to ensure that the national care standards commission considers the wishes and feelings of children.
  The Children Act required both the courts in private family cases and local authorities in regard to looked-after children to give consideration to the wishes and feelings of children affected by their decision-making. It is therefore consistent under domestic law that the national care standards commission should be placed under a similar duty.
  Considering the views of children is, of course, also a requirement of Article 12 of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, ratified by the UK after the Children Act was enacted. The Government are due to report to the UN-based Committee on the Rights of the Child and would gain credit if they had made some effort in implementing Article 12 since they last reported. This is very important. Our support for the UN convention should be recognised.
  Under this amendment the commission is not bound to follow the views of children, simply to give them due consideration. The amendment's purpose is simply to ensure that the commission keeps in touch with the views of those it is trying to help. This is something that the Government have continually urged local authorities to do under the Quality Protects programme and it is difficult to see how they should not apply the same principles to the national care standards commission. I hope that the Minister will be able to reassure us on this.
  I now move to Amendment No. 26, which seeks to create a separate children's commission within the national care standards commission.
  The White Paper Modernising Social Services recognises the risk of the national care commission not giving sufficient priority to children's interest and views. That is why regional children's rights officers were proposed. While the reintroduction of these regional posts is necessary, this alone would not ensure that the commission works for children. It is proposed that an arm of the national care commission is established to deal with all matters connected with the regulation of children's services.
  The establishment of a children's commission would have three main benefits. First, its philosophy and framework would be developed completely with children in mind. Secondly, staff recruited to work within the commission would have an unequivocal commitment to, and expertise in, safeguarding children's welfare. Thirdly, children and young people would regard the commission as theirs and would be more likely to participate in its work and view it as a place to which to turn when their rights or welfare were being seriously jeopardised. So I ask the Minister to think seriously about this amendment. It would be a great help to children. I beg to move.
  6.45 p.m.
  Lord Clement-Jones: I rise, very briefly, to support the noble Baroness, Lady David, in Amendments Nos. 24 and 26. The Bill, of course, makes provision for a children's rights director. But, in our view, that does not go far enough and we should like to see a separate commission appointed by the commission itself to provide a clear focus on children's issues. It would be separate, promoting the rights and interests of children and young people in accordance with the principles and standards of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, to which the noble Baroness referred.
  Those articles of the UN convention complement recent government child-centred initiatives, such as Quality Protects and Sure Start, and therefore would be entirely consistent with that. But we believe that it is necessary to go further in the way the noble Baroness has suggested. We very much support these amendments.
  Baroness Masham of ilton: Having been a member of a board of visitors of a young offender institution for many years, I have often thought those young
  460
  people had much more protection than those in children's homes. They could come to a member of the board of visitors which had direct access to the Home Secretary and could take an issue forward. I should therefore like to support the two amendments. Children should have their voices heard.
  Lord Hunt of Kings Heath: I thank my noble friend for allowing us to discuss these very important issues.
  I deal first with Amendment No. 24. There is no doubt that a crucial role of the regulatory process is that the views of service users are heard. I refer my noble friend to Clause 28(3)(f) which contains the relevant provisions. Clause 28(3) states:
  "A person authorised by virtue of this section to enter and inspect premises may …
  (f)—interview in private any patient or person accommodated or cared for there who consents to be interviewed".
  Interviewing children during inspections is a core activity. It has been a requirement of the Social Services Inspectorate for a number of years. I assure the Committee that children's views will be at the forefront of the regulatory process, including inspection. Ensuring that children are listened to will be a crucial function of the children's rights director who will be a key senior appointment in the commission.
  I turn to Amendment No. 26. I draw attention to the Government's previous statements as to the particular importance of children's rights as a responsibility of the national care standards commission. That is reflected in the establishment of a children's rights director in paragraph 10 of Schedule 1. It is extremely important for me to emphasise that that will be a senior post, accountable to the chief executive of the commission. The postholder will play a major role in safeguarding the interests of looked-after children or others in receipt of services regulated and inspected by the national care standards commission.
  My noble friend put forward arguments for a children's rights commissioner. She referred to the first sentence of Article 4 of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child which states that parties shall undertake all appropriate legislative, administrative and other measures for the implementation of the rights recognised in this convention. It is true that that sentence has been interpreted by those in the field of children's rights as a mandate for structures and/or institutions to be created such as an ombudsman or commissioner for children. Members of the Committee will appreciate that the remit of a children's rights commissioner in that interpretation will inevitably span the responsibilities of a number of departments, not just the Department of Health.
  The Government considered whether there was a case for a children's rights commissioner to be appointed. It was considered by Ministers and discussed with children's rights groups early in 1998. The Government concluded at that time that they were not persuaded that it would be desirable to create such a national mechanism. However—it is important to stress this—the Government are extremely committed,

  461
  through a range of other initiatives, to keeping the issues of children's rights and safeguards clearly and firmly on the Government's collective agenda. That includes the ministerial task force on children's safeguards and the proposal in this Bill to establish a children's rights director.
  I turn to Amendment No. 26. A further tier within the national care standards commission, as proposed in the amendment, would lead to the risk of duplication and a general confusion of functions. I do not believe that such an arrangement—one body within another—would be practical or that it could work. Within the commission there must be clear lines of accountability and responsibility. I know that we shall return to those issues when we debate the schedule. I believe that children's rights and interests are best safeguarded through the commission having responsibility for them and through the establishment of a children's rights director.
  Baroness David: I thank the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, and the noble Baroness, Lady Masham, for their support. I think I can accept what the Minister said about Amendment No. 26. I see his arguments against the amendment and I think I accept those.
  I am not so happy with his response to Amendment No. 24. It is extremely important that the views of children should be heard and that something about that should be on the face of the Bill. Providing for children to be interviewed, as the Minister said, is not at all the same as being able to listen to the views of children. I think that is important.
  I believe that my noble friend referred to Article 4 of the UN convention whereas I referred specifically to Article 12. I am sorry that he did not accept that. I should like to think very seriously about this amendment. I shall read carefully what he said and I shall read Clause 28(3)(f) as he asked me to do. I am not altogether convinced, but I may return to the issue dealt with in Amendment No. 24 at the next stage of the Bill. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
  Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
  Lord Clement-Jones Lord Clement-Jones moved Amendment No. 25:
  Page 4. line 25, at end insert—
  ("(4) Regulations under this section shall correspond to section 23(3) of the Health Act 1999 with respect to the disclosure of confidential information which relates to and identifies a living individual.").
  The noble Lord. said: This returns to an issue of concern to the medical profession which was raised during the passage of the Health Act in this House. During the progress of that Act, the Government conceded amendments which safeguarded the confidentiality of personal health information in relation to the functions of the Commission for Health Improvement. This amendment replicates those safeguards to ensure that the national care standards commission, while carrying out its functions, provides the same standard of safeguard for the identification of patients in the independent healthcare and social care sectors.
  Section 23(2) of the Health Act 1999 ensures that the Commission for Health Improvement—CHI—will be able to obtain confidential information about individuals only in limited circumstances if such particular information related to a person's physical and mental health. Section 23(3) provides that CHI would not be able to obtain information, the disclosure of which is prohibited by another Act, regulations or directions. Regulations provide that if the information would identify an individual, CHI may require information to be produced in such a way as to prevent the identification of the individual.
  Personal health information will be collected for the provision of care for individual patients and generally, of course, it should not be used for other purposes without a patient's permission. Only where there are exceptional circumstances may information be used without consent; for example, where disclosure is essential to avoid risk of death or serious harm to people and where it is not possible to obtain consent. The grounds for disclosure must be of sufficient severity to justify a breach of a duty of confidentiality.
  Therefore, Amendment No. 25 is designed to introduce precisely those safeguards contained in the Health Act into the current Bill so that the national care standards commission would be bound by similar duties. I beg to move.
  Earl Howe: In speaking to this amendment, I shall speak also to Amendments Nos. 87, 98, 99, 100, 112, 113 and 114 which are all grouped with this amendment. First, I fully endorse everything which the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, has just said.
  During the passage of the Health Bill last year, my noble friend Lord McColl argued persuasively for better and fuller safeguards against breaches of medical confidentiality in the section of the legislation dealing with the powers of the Commission for Health Improvement. We all remember how appreciative we were when the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, took away our concerns and later ensured that appropriate government amendments were tabled to address those issues.
  I wholly agree with the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, that there is a direct parallel between CHI and the national care standards commission. Identical provisions should apply in each case.
  My Amendment No. 87 to Clause 28 is intended to put it beyond doubt that inspectors should not have an automatic right of access to medical records. Grouped with these amendments is a series of other amendments with a broadly comparable theme. We must be terribly careful about allowing reports on adoption or fostering agencies to be placed in the public domain when they may contain references to specific named children or adoptive or foster parents. It is more than possible to imagine such details being included in a report about a particular agency if the inspectors consider such information to be material and relevant. But access to such detail should be restricted to those few people who have a need to know. I hope that the Government will take away this issue and consider it.
  7 p.m.
  Lord Hunt of Kings Heath: All these amendments concern medical records and confidentiality. I shall begin by addressing the issues raised by Amendment No. 25.
  Of course, I appreciate the concerns of noble Lords and why the amendment has been tabled in relation to disclosure of confidential information to registration authorities and persons authorised by them. It is the case that a registration authority will need access to confidential information in order to regulate services effectively. The Bill provides the registration authority with appropriate access to confidential information. Inspectors will, for instance, need to ensure that residents in a care home have a proper care plan.
  The Bill already applies restrictions to the commission's access to documents such as medical records. As the commission will have to comply with the requirements of the Data Protection Act, I hope that the noble Lords will now feel reassured.
  I am grateful to the noble Lord for raising the question of access to medical records in Amendment No. 87. Clearly, that is an important and delicate matter. It is also a matter covered by technical legislation, including the Data Protection Act 1998, which is due to come into force on 1st March this year. As I have already stated, the national care standards commission will be bound by that legislation.
  The commission will regulate healthcare establishments that will be required to maintain records which will, of necessity, contain sensitive personal and healthcare information. In order to carry out its regulatory functions, for example, to ensure that proper care and treatment are being given, or to investigate concerns about the quality of such care, it may need to inspect medical records. That will, of course, have to be carried out by an appropriate health professional.
  The current legislation already allows for clinical records held by a registered nursing home to be inspected by medical practitioners. I believe that the commission should also have that power to carry out its functions properly and, therefore, I would not advise accepting this amendment.
  Turning to the other amendments in this group, particularly Amendments Nos. 98 to 100 and 112 to 114, I recognise that they are made with excellent motives in mind, those being the desire to keep the names of children, parents and foster carers confidential. We know that parents are concerned that their children should not be identified. We know that parents would not wish to be identified. We know that local authority foster carers and adoptive parents would not wish to be identified. The inspectors' reports are written keeping such matters in mind. We recognise that individuals want to be able to carry on their lives without the glare of publicity being turned upon them. It is right that their wish for privacy should be protected.
  However, there may be legitimate times when private concerns may have to give way to a public interest. Although such occasions will be rare, as a
  464
  general rule we would expect names to be kept confidential. That is good practice and we would expect it to be followed, but there may be times when it is in the public interest to name individuals. We need flexibility in the Bill to be able to do that.
  Having heard our reasons for not accepting these amendments, I hope that noble Lords will withdraw them.
  Baroness Knight of Collingtree: Before the Minister sits down, can he give the House an instance of the kind of situation in which it would be necessary to make names public? At the moment I cannot think of one, but I am sure that he has one in mind.
  Lord Hunt of Kings Heath: I have always found that one is on shaky ground when giving examples. However, one example that has come to mind is the case of Mr Roger Saint. A number of authorities approved Mr Saint as a foster carer although he had a conviction for indecent assault. Later he was charged and convicted on numerous charges of indecent assault against foster children in his care. If an independent fostering agency or a local authority were to approve a person as infamous as Mr Saint as a foster carer, the commission may want to name him when assessing the appropriateness of the behaviour of the authority or the agency. I am aware that that may be an excessive example, but there could be other cases where it may be appropriate to name an individual and we would want that power to be available. As I said earlier, I believe that that would occur rarely.
  Baroness Young: Perhaps I may press the Minister on this important point. The example that he has given is of a person who presumably has been before the courts and subsequently convicted, in which case his name would have been known publicly. As I understand the point made in Amendment No. 25 and in the amendment of my noble friend Lord Howe, we are not talking about people like that, but about possible prospective foster parents, adoptive parents and possibly children.
  I believe that the whole issue of confidentiality is extremely important. I have listened to the arguments and the Minister certainly has not satisfied me on how the power will work. A lot of people could be genuinely concerned that their names may become public knowledge. The more people who know about the people involved, the more likely it is that there will be a leak. These days we are all conscious of how difficult it is to keep anything confidential.
  We need to have the matter spelled out carefully. I suggest that one needs to have, certainly before the next stage of the Bill, much more detailed examples than the one given to my noble friend Lady Knight. How do the Government consider that this will work? Who would have access to such information and in what circumstances may it be made public? We need answers to those questions which are not hypothetical.
  Lord Hunt of Kings Heath: I said that I thought it was risky for me to use an example. I was seeking to

  465
  suggest to your Lordships that there may be circumstances in which it is in the public interest for the commission to be able to name a person. In that context, it is important for the Bill to allow for that flexibility on the part of the commission. I accept that this is a serious matter and one that should not be undertaken lightly. That will be well understood by the commission. As a general rule, we would expect names to be kept confidential. I have said that I believe this is good practice and one that we would expect to be followed.
  Earl Howe: I am grateful to the Minister. I shall reflect carefully on what he has said as regards the confidentiality of foster and adoptive parents. However. I do not believe that he has covered the point I was seeking to make about children. I cannot think of any situation in which the identity of a child should he disclosed to the general public. Of course, there are circumstances when the name of a child needs to be mentioned in a re port, but my amendments seek to ensure that only those few people with a need to know —and nobody else— should have access to that sensitive information. Between now and Report stage, I shall reflect on how to take this issue forward.
  Lord Clement-Jones: I too thank the Minister for his reply. However, I am somewhat puzzled that he does not seem to have taken on board the points made during the course of this debate—a feeling expressed by other Members of the Committee who spoke. The Minister has not given satisfaction to those like myself who were seeking a more narrow amendment purely in terms of medical confidentiality; nor has he given satisfaction in relation to the broader range of amendments tabled by the noble Earl, Lord Howe.
  The Minister seemed to be saying that the new commission will be subject to the new Data Protection Act and that that will solve everything. But I cannot see any reason why medical professionals—I proposed that this new commission should be on all fours with the Commission for Health Improvement which will also be subject to the new Data Protection Act— should not have the same protection for confidential information about their patients, and indeed for the patients to have that protection, as in the case of the commission. The rules of medical professional confidentiality were discussed at some length and were fully accepted by the Minister's predecessor, and I cannot see any reason why they should not be incorporated into this Bill.
  I therefore urge the Minister, between now and Report stage, to look again not only at the narrower Amendment No. 25, but also at the broader anxieties relating to confidentiality raised in the debate. In the meantime, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
  Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
  On Question, Whether Clause 6 shall stand part of the Bill?
  Lord Laming: I am not sure whether opposing Clause 6 is the correct way to achieve my purpose. I
  466
  hope that the Committee will excuse my inexperience in these matters. However, in speaking to this issue, I should like also to speak to my Amendment No. 27.
  Members of the Committee will recall the Government's White Paper, Fit for the Future? In that White Paper the Government proposed that eight regional bodies should undertake the work of regulation and inspection of care facilities, which your Lordships have been discussing throughout this Committee stage. At the present time those functions are undertaken by 150 local authorities (more if we include Wales) and a large number of health authorities. There is therefore good reason for wanting to achieve a higher standard of consistency and greater uniformity of regulation and standard setting than can operate across such a large number of different organisations.
  On the other hand, it is clear that in matters of this kind— the noble Baroness, Lady Masham, referred to this earlier—local intelligence is an important aspect of the work. Access to carers, to people who may have anxieties—members of staff and former members of staff—in relation to the standards being applied in homes or centres is essential. It is therefore important that there is good communication between the people charged with regulating facilities of this kind, which deal with some of the most vulnerable people in our community.
  I assumed, when the Government recommended that eight regional bodies should undertake this work, they would follow the boundaries of the current regions of the National Health Service; and that the idea was to facilitate good communication across social and healthcare authorities where there is a responsibility to protect vulnerable people, and to ensure that those who have concerns have ready access to the regulatory body.
  Since the White Paper was published the Government have come forward with the Bill before us. It does not recommend eight regional bodies; it recommends one care standards commission. As we have already said, this national commission will have an enormous range of responsibilities covering the whole age spectrum and most of the different aspects of social care needs that people experience in their lifetime. It is important that the way the work is undertaken commands the confidence not only of those who use the services and their carers, but also the wider community. The purpose of Amendment No. 27 is to secure an undertaking that if the Government intend to move away from providing eight local bodies, they ensure that the machinery is in place within the national body to facilitate that essential local contact.
  7.15 p.m.
  Baroness Young: The point made by the noble Lord, Lord Laming, is extremely important. I do not support his Amendment No. 27 in relation to regional authorities. In some areas regions are quite clear but in others they are very unclear. I am not sure that the amendment would be helpful either administratively or in any other way. I therefore do not support it.

  467
  However, a real issue arises in relation to Clause 6 and I should like to make two points. As the noble Baroness, Lady Masham, said, it is one thing to inspect things that are obvious—matters of hygiene, standards in buildings and so forth—but when one is trying to identify members of staff who may be the wrong sort of person to be employed, it is much more difficult. The only ones who will have any idea what is going on are those on the spot. A national commission is unlikely to identify anybody.
  This is a difficult but important issue. For that reason, the lower the level at which such inspections are undertaken, the more prospect there will be of identifying those who need to be identified. The same happens in the world with which I am much more familiar, that of education. People can only be identified at school level; it is difficult to identify them anywhere else. They are hardly likely to say who they are and outsiders are unlikely to know unless they are familiar with the circumstances of the organisation concerned. A real point is being made which needs to be addressed.
  As to whether Clause 6 should stand part, once again, it is a very general clause. For example, it says in subsection (2),
  "The Commission shall, in the exercise of its functions act—

  (a)—in accordance with any directions in writing given to it by the Secretary of State; and

  (b) under the general guidance of the Secretary of State".

  We do not know what that means. We do not know what the Secretary of State is going to say. It is therefore important, before the Bill completes its passage in this House, that we have a much clearer idea of what the Government have in mind on these important issues.
  Baroness Pitkeathley: In a long working association I have rarely found myself in disagreement with the noble Lord, Lord Laming, but I am afraid I do tonight. I come from the same point of view as he, that of users and carers. But my experience and all the feedback that I have received tells me that users and carers want the establishment of a national commission in which standards can be applied across as wide an area as possible. The number of times people have asked me why things are different in Newcastle than in Plymouth leads me to say that.
  That is where my disagreement with the noble Lord, Lord Laming, ceases because I agree with him that good communications and commanding confidence are essential for the commission. There is no doubt about it. Taking into account the points made by the noble Baroness, Lady Young, feedback from the local level, from the users and carers will be essential. But the establishment of standards is best done at national level so that everyone knows what they can expect.
  Baroness Masham of Ilton: I have been longing to ask who will carry out the inspection. How many people will it take? Perhaps we should have a national body to set the standards, but surely the people going
  468
  into the homes must be local. I give an example of what can happen. I received a letter from a lady in a home in Leeds saying that as her letters were read, a friend had to take them out and send them to me and I had to send mine back through the friend. On paper there were qualified staff; in practice there were 16 and 17 year-olds at night. What was going on was appalling. At that time a friend of mine served on Leeds health authority. I asked him to visit the place and he made inquiries. To cut a long story short, that lady was transferred to a home in Harrogate. Afterwards she wrote to me saying, "It was like leaving hell and going into heaven". She arrived on her birthday and they made her a birthday cake.
  Some people live in frightening situations. Therefore, there must be people attached to and visiting homes, so that residents have a contact. Someone had said, "Write to Lady Masham", as people have done over the years. That was one of my success stories, although there have probably been many that were not successes. There must be a proper establishment which must be local, even though it could be a national body also.
  Lord Jenkin of Roding: I find myself more in agreement with the noble Baroness, Lady Pitkeathley, than with the noble Lord, Lord Laming. I draw my reasoning from my experience of the Mental Health Act Commission. It is a national body which has been in existence for a good many years and which manages to carry out its inspections using people who are familiar with the particular hospital or institution but whose standards are entirely derived from a national standard-setting process. They command great respect; there is no question about that.
  As chairman of the trust, I always made it a point to attend the final day when the MHAC was carrying out its inspection at Claybury Hospital. I was hugely impressed by the authority of the inspectors and the awe and respect which they commanded from the hospital staff. Almost everyone concerned made a point of turning up—and that is not always what happens in the National Health Service. They paid the utmost attention to the recommendations after the team had spent two or three days inspecting the hospital, talking to patients and so on.
  I believe that one must have a national standard-setting body and on the whole, therefore, I am inclined to agree with the Government's change of heart. But I equally agree that it is essential that such people should be seen to command support, understanding and respect locally. That is a task which the Mental Health Act Commission has succeeded in performing over the years under a succession of able leaders. This commission is starting the task from scratch. Its members will need to apply some of the same skills, but they should start as a national standard-setting body. I agree with that, I apologise to the noble Lord, Lord Laming, if I cannot follow him on this occasion, but it is a case where second thoughts are best.
  Baroness David: I support the noble Baroness, Lady Pitkeathley, about the national care standards

  469
  commission setting the rules for the whole country. However, I am curious to know why the Government changed their mind about the eight regional officers. One needs local information and local people to go round ascertaining what is going on. I shall be interested to hear what the noble Lord has to say.
  Baroness Emerton: My experience with nursing is that the central body is the standard-setting body. It then devolves its functions to eight regional offices to ensure that the standards are carried out. I regret that I cannot support the noble Lord, Lord Laming, who sits in front of me. I support the noble Baroness, Lady Pitkeathley. There must be a central standard-setting body, but the process of enacting those standards must he devolved.
  Lord Hunt of Kings Heath: I shall deal first with why the Government changed their mind about the original intention to establish eight regional commissions as contained in the White Paper, Modernising Social Services, of November 1998. It was felt at the time that that would address the problems of a lack of independence and coherence in the current system. However, with eight care commissions there would still he problems of inconsistency between those eight. Although, probably, within each of the eight regional commissions, we would have had a more professional inspectorate and greater internal consistency, it was felt that there would none the less be inconsistency between the eight different commissions. In view of that and the many comments that the Government received, we felt in the end that it would be better to have one single national commission.
  However, I very much recognise the concerns of the Committee that it would not work effectively if it were an organisation remote from the practice and experience of people working in the field at local level.
  A number of factors should address the Committee's concerns in the area. First, we envisage that the commission will discharge many of its functions through a regional structure. Schedule 1 to the Bill gives the Secretary of State the power to direct the commission to appoint regional directors. But in association with that we would also expect the commission to have local offices because the people who will carry out the inspections will be locally based. Many of those who are currently employed within health and local authorities as inspection officers will transfer to the employment of the care standards commission. I take the point of the noble Lord, Lord Jenkin, about the calibre of the inspection officers. I argue that it is essential that we build on the foundation of the experience of those people.
  I hope that in that way the commission will be informed by the experience and professionalism of its local inspecting officers and that, through their knowledge and the information they provide, the commission's work at national level will be undertaken with sufficient knowledge and
  470
  understanding of the inspection process at local level. On those grounds, I hope that the noble Lord will withdraw his objection to the clause.
  Lord Laming: I am grateful to the Minister for that helpful reply. This has been a useful discussion because it has revealed that in all this there must be not only balance but an understanding of different levels of organisational accountability. The centre has a responsibility to set the standards, many of which will be accommodated in secondary legislation. The centre has the responsibility for promoting good practice, but, as the noble Baroness, Lady Young, rightly said, local authorities and those even more local than some local authorities, gain a great deal of knowledge about people working in their area and issues of local concern, such as the example given by the noble Baroness, Lady Masham. Therefore, there has to be a proper organisational arrangement which will accommodate both direction from the centre and local availability, access and sensitivity.
  None of that is accommodated in the way the Bill is framed at this stage. I am grateful to the Minister for his comments. I hope that as the Bill progresses we shall be able to establish a greater understanding of how these different levels of responsibility will find an accommodation within legislation to make sure that we do not, as it were, throw the baby out with the bath water and move from the present arrangement with local authorities to a central commission without having the machinery in the middle which will secure the best of both of those worlds. However, in the light of what the Minister has said, I withdraw my opposition to Clause 6.
  Clause 6 agreed to.
  Lord Burlison: I beg to move that the House do now resume. In moving this Motion, I suggest that the Committee stage begins again not before 8.30.
  Moved accordingly, and, on Question, Motion agreed to.
  House resumed.

  Statutory Instruments and Human Rights
  7.31 p.m.
  Viscount Colville of Culrossrose to ask Her Majesty's Government whether they have checked all statutory instruments issued since May 1997 for compliance with the European Convention on Human Rights (and especially with Article 8, right to respect for private and family life); and whether they will in future attach to every such instrument a statement of compliance.
  The noble Viscount said: My Lords, the House will know that in order to bring into force in October the Human Rights Act a great deal of energy is being spent on looking at primary legislation to see whether it complies with the provisions of the European Convention on Human Rights, and indeed a great deal of training in all sorts of public sectors is currently

  471
  taking place. My concern is that this may not have reached the departmental lawyers who draft statutory instruments.
  I have given a copy of the notes I propose to use to all those who are to speak in this short debate, except, I am afraid, to the noble Lord, Lord Marlesford, as I did not know that he was to participate. That at least enables me to avoid quoting vast quantities of statutory instruments. I should tell the noble Lord, Lord Bassam—as I think that I have already done in writing—that I do not quarrel with the merits of any statutory instruments; it is a point of procedure and compliance with the European convention that concerns me. I also take this opportunity to thank in advance all those who propose to take part in this debate as I cannot do so at the end.
  I have chosen Article 8 of the convention which deals with privacy. I hope that other noble Lords may wish to discuss other articles as all of them are important. Article 8 deals with the privacy that a person is entitled to enjoy in relation to his home. There are limitations which allow interference with this privacy by a public authority in accordance with law and for certain purposes such as the prevention of disorder or crime or the protection of health, but always—this governs the whole of the article, and indeed many others— only so far as is necessary in a democratic society. That is an important proviso to the limitations that can be imposed on this, as on many other rights.
  Under the jurisprudence of the Strasbourg court, when one talks about home the concept is not confined simply to the place where a person and his family live. It is wider than that. The German case of Niemietz dealt with a solicitor and his office. It occurs to me that there must be many similar examples in everyday life, for example, small farmers who keep their records at home and the owners of foodshops who live over the premises. In relation to a Starred Question asked before Christmas, the noble Lord, Lord Borrie, pointed to the increased commercial use of computers by people who carry out business interests from home. Therefore the dilemma is ever increasing.
  Your Lordships will be aware that the classic method of preventing crime—whether it is being committed or has already been committed— by way of entry has been in the hands of the police. The police—this was encapsulated in the Police and Criminal Evidence Act— are allowed entry to a person's house, and indeed other premises, only if they have reasonable cause to suspect that a crime is being or has been committed and they obtain a warrant from the magistrate. The same applies under other legislation, for instance when they are looking for stolen goods, drugs, other illegal imports, obscene publications and so on. Woe betide the organisation that does not go through the proper processes. There was a case where police were persuaded to apply for a warrant of entry into the premises of a firm called South West Meat early in the past decade. It was simply an exercise
  472
  whereby the meat intervention board wanted to snoop. The matter came before the courts which described the whole operation as a,
  "deplorable abuse of power by public officials and police".
  They awarded £25,000 exemplary damages. Therefore this is not a matter to be undertaken lightly. Warrants are not lightly granted.
  There are now vast quantities of other officials who are entitled, particularly under statutory instruments, to enter into one's home. The power depends primarily on the main legislation under which the statutory instruments are given. I looked at the Banking Act 1987 and the Police Act 1997, both of which produced statutory instruments which allow entry but only after a period of notice has been given. That is probably suitable for that kind of subject matter. I refer also to the Agriculture Act 1970 and the Animal Health Act 1981 which require the same test of "reasonable cause to believe". This carries through into the statutory instruments made under those pieces of legislation.
  Even under the European Communities Act— Section 2(2) is the prime source of subordinate legislation in this respect—there can be "reasonable grounds for suspecting" incorporated in the subordinate instrument. For instance, if I have potatoes originating in Egypt, under the potatoes originating in Egypt regulations of 1998 an inspector authorised by the Ministry of Agriculture can enter my house to look for them only if he has reasonable grounds for suspecting that I have them in the larder. I have no objection to that because I think that reasonable grounds for suspecting, or possibly notice, are exactly the kind of threshold which demonstrates that we are operating what is necessary in a democratic society. Therefore much of this is probably all right. I had a great deal of sympathy with the noble Lord, Lord Bassam, when he was unable to say how many statutory instruments gave powers of entry. The recent statutory instruments are not bound in the Library and a great deal of what I say is based upon inspired guesswork as to where I might look.
  What I am really concerned with are the statutory instruments which grant a right of entry, usually to unspecified officials, simply on a speculative basis. I cannot believe that that is within the powers and the remit of the European convention. I suggest that it goes too far. It is frequently contained in statutory instruments. There is possibly trouble in the primary legislation. I looked at the Food Safety Act 1990. There is perhaps room there for a revision if the Government are anxious to make sure that all their legislation lives up to the requirements of the European convention.
  The real trouble arises under the European Communities Act. There is no limitation in Section 2(2) on what kinds of powers of entry may be given; it is not mentioned at all. The power is absolutely general. It is there to give effect to directives and it frequently does so.
  I have looked at a number of statutory instruments in the past two or three years which have been made in the realm of animal health for food safety, where the

  473
  primary legislation —the British legislation—contains reasonable safeguards but where legislation made under the European Communities Act allows entry on a purely speculative basis.
  I am sure that all noble Lords will agree that spongiform encephalopathy must be dealt with very firmly and radically, even where it occurs in sheep and goats. I may happen to be keeping a goat or a sheep in my outhouse. I am surprised, however, to find that a veterinary inspector or officer of the appropriate Minister has a right at all reasonable hours to come in to see whether that is so. He does not have to have any reasonable suspicion. All he has to do is to show some authenticating document. I shall not go through all the statutory instruments that I have found, but this is a pattern which occurs time and again, particularly when implementing directives under the European Communities Act 1972.
  There is also a tendency, I fear, to stray in the direction of speculative entry. Not long ago there was a Prayer about the use of lead shot when shooting various wildfowl. The Prayer was not successful but the subordinate instrument was looked at. I see that it had been made under certain powers in the Environmental Protection Act. Those powers— I have looked at them—appear to include very reasonable restrictions on the Nights of entry, but the subordinate instrument does not. The authorised person—heaven knows who is the authorised person—can enter at any reasonable time any premises, including my house, which he has reason to believe it is necessary for him to enter. So he can come in to see if I am shooting moorhens from my bedroom window with cartridges containing lead pellets. He does not need to suspect that I am doing so; he simply comes in if he thinks it would be a good idea to do so. That is not in accordance even with the primary legislation.
  My purpose in asking the Question is to see how far the Government are making progress in this matter. A useful development has recently taken place. After your Lordships rose for the Christmas Recess, a Statement was made in another place by the Home Secretary in which he said that he would introduce statements of compliance—which now apply to all Acts of Parliament— in relation to subordinate legislation which requires the affirmative resolution or which amends primary legislation. But it would not apply to negative instruments. I have been talking about negative instruments.
  Let me make a Final point. If it is the intention of negative instruments passed under Section 2(2) of the European Communities Act to implement European law, I would suggest to the House that the implementation should comply with the Luxembourg codes—not the Strasbourg codes alone—which have a good deal to say about this. I have looked up some of the case law and I have given the noble Lord, Lord Bassam, some examples of it—Nold and Hoechst. There was a very interesting Greek case about television monopolies called ERT, which deals with Article 10 of the convention.
  474
  The way in which the Luxembourg court approaches this matter is that fundamental rights are part of the law of all the participating states in the European Union and should not be overridden in the course of pursuing European Union objectives. Therefore, if we are trying to implement directives under our own European Communities Act, I would suggest that we ought not do so in such a way as to violate Article 8, or indeed any of the other articles.
  I leave this matter with your Lordships. I hope that others will develop it. I believe that the principle and the problem are much more general than has been recognised. I hope that the Government will take forward the very encouraging steps announced before Christmas and will guarantee to the House that all departmental draftsmen who draw up the statutory instruments are trained to comply with what everyone else will have to comply with, the Human Rights Act. Otherwise, it will all end up in the courts and prove extremely expensive.
  7.46 p.m.
  Lord Marlesford: My Lords, we all owe a debt of gratitude to the noble Viscount, Lord Colville of Culross, for introducing this subject. Because of the very wide range of public service he has given to these matters, I suspect that there is no one in your Lordships' House who is better qualified to raise such a very important subject as the granting of powers of entry into private premises by secondary legislation, in particular, and also by primary legislation.
  There is nothing new in such powers; they have always been needed and always will be needed. But, as they are very strong powers, in each and every case where either primary legislation or statutory instrument grants them, they should be subject to public and parliamentary scrutiny to ensure that they are justified in overriding what should he the normal presumption against them.
  My own interest in this was stimulated by a Parliamentary Answer from the Minister in which he was unable to give me a list of the occasions since the last election when such powers have been granted. I note that the noble Viscount, Lord Colville, had sympathy with him for not being able to answer that question. I have rather less sympathy. I should have hoped that a new and radical Government, who are aiming both to show a libertarian streak and to have a sound law and order policy— I have the highest esteem for the present Home Secretary, whom I regard as a personal friend of many years' standing—would at the very least have kept a careful record of the occasions on which they introduced such legislation (my question was about the period since they came into power) in order to ensure that they were not in any way overdoing it. I do not blame the Minister personally but I felt that the answer indicated a somewhat cavalier—maybe he would prefer the word "casual" — attitude to the whole question.
  We then had the Prayer of the noble Earl, Lord Lytton, against the use of lead shot regulations (Statutory Instrument 1999/2170), to which the noble

  475
  Viscount, Lord Colville, has referred, in which the justification for the draconian powers was questioned. In her reply, the noble Baroness, Lady Farrington, said that these powers would be mainly exercised by the police but that they also might be exercised by the Environment Agency or English Nature.
  I have one question to put to the noble Lord, Lord Bassam, of which I gave his department notice this afternoon in order that he should be able to answer it. Have such powers been granted, or are there plans for them to be granted, either to the Environment Agency or to English Nature? I believe that it is dangerous to give such bodies powers of this kind unless it is absolutely essential. Furthermore, I believe that on occasions when any official other than the police or, by long-standing convention of powers held for centuries, officials of Customs and Excise, who has been given powers by a Secretary of State needs to gain access, he should always be accompanied by a police officer. At the very least, that will make the occasion more formal. Even to contemplate that an odd official from English Nature should enter people's private premises without a warrant is, I believe, unacceptable.
  This matter emphasises once again the generally unsatisfactory use of Henry VIII legislation; that is, primary legislation that gives powers to the Secretary of State by order. However, what I believe is much worse is that all too often, such statutory instruments are in effect themselves Henry VIII clauses. That is because they allow the Secretary of State to authorise anyone he wishes to exercise powers of entry without specifying who that person may be. That is a legitimate ground for complaint.
  I hope therefore that in future any use of statutory instruments in this way will be much more carefully considered as regards powers of entry and that arrangements will be made for appropriate parliamentary scrutiny. Those arrangements are not available at present. Furthermore, I hope that, under its new and more legitimate form, your Lordships' House may feel that it should have the power to pray against, with a vote, certain statutory instruments. Previously that was something that the House has not felt able to do.
  While I yield to no one in my support for the forces of law and order to use all appropriate means to fight serious wrongdoing, the trivialisation of such grave powers, as I believe the lead shot example to be, erodes freedom in a way that reduces rather than enhances public support for the forces of law and order on which we all depend. Finally, I hope very much that the Minister will give a positive and detailed reply to the points raised so sensibly and necessarily by the noble Viscount.
  7.53 p.m.
  Lord Lester of Herne Hill: My Lords, I am most grateful to the noble Viscount for initiating this debate on the important subject of effective parliamentary scrutiny of delegated legislation and in particular in the context of the right to personal privacy. In my
  476
  remarks I shall not focus on the right to personal privacy, for reasons that I can briefly explain. Obviously it is vital that powers of search, entry and seizure should comply with the fundamental right to respect for private life anchored in Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights. One of the reasons Sir Stafford Cripps gave in 1949 for opposing the European human rights convention, when he was Chancellor of the Exchequer in the Attlee government, was that he wanted his inspectors to be free to search our homes without any safeguards being introduced. Half a century later, we have moved well beyond that point.
  The reason why, with respect, I do not believe that the noble Viscount is correct in identifying a significant particular problem in the context which he has raised is because effective legal remedies are in place to deal with delegated legislation if it flouts the right to respect for personal privacy. First, if statutory instruments are made under Section 2(2) of the European Communities Act 1972, then they must be made with limits to their powers in accordance with European Community law. As the noble Viscount indicated, European law must be read subject to respect for human rights as laid down in the European Convention on Human Rights. It is beyond the power of Ministers or of this Parliament to produce statutory legislation which is not authorised by the 1972 Act and by the paramount law of the European Community. For that reason, if any subordinate instrument were made that violated the right to personal privacy, it could be challenged by way of judicial review and quashed. That will become even more the case when the Human Rights Act comes into force on 2nd October 2000. So the particular problem raised by the noble Viscount, although it is important that there should be safeguards of personal privacy, is dealt with through the legal process.
  However, that does not answer the wider question raised by the noble Viscount, which does not concern legal remedies, but is about the effective parliamentary scrutiny of delegated legislation. That problem goes far wider than the particular question on the Order Paper. It has been addressed most helpfully by the Delegated Powers and Deregulation Committee of 10 Members of your Lordships' House, chaired by the noble Lord, Lord Alexander of Weedon. In evidence given to the Royal Commission on Lords Reform on 21st April 1999, it made a number of important recommendations with which I agree in their totality. The first matter that the Delegated Powers and Deregulation Committee supported was the establishment of a human rights committee, or a joint committee with the other place, and they referred to the commitment made by the Government to support the creation of such a committee. However, the Delegated Powers Committee pointed out that the terms of reference being proposed for the new committee had three particular gaps. First, there would be no proposed scrutiny of the compatibility of secondary legislation—a point raised by the noble Viscount—where much potential incompatibility may lie and which could be a very considerable task.

  477
  Secondly, the Delegated Powers Committee pointed out that there was no mention of second-guessing ministerial statements on compatibility as laid out in Section 19 of the Human Rights Act, only,
  "the examination of draft legislation".
  Thirdly, it pointed out that the new committee would need the power and resources to consider whether amendments tabled to a Bill would render it incompatible with the convention.
  Finally, pointing out that we do not yet have a sensible structure, it recommended that we should set up a coherent committee structure in this House involving the creation of the following new committees in addition to ad hoc committees for the pre-legislative scrutiny of draft Bills: a human rights committee; a legal and constitutional committee—an important committee, given the special role of many second Chambers worldwide in relation to the constitution; and special scrutiny committees for detailed inquiry into selected statutory instruments.
  I very much hope that the noble Lord, Lord Wakeham of the Royal Commission will find it easy to recommend those proposals to the House. If it does not, I hope that the House will itself seize the initiative. However, since that evidence was given on 21st April, it is my sad task to inform the House that was has happened since thin has been a most lamentable dragging of feet by the Government in failing to set up a Select Committee on human rights, as had been promised a long time ago, or to indicate whether its terms of reference would include the scrutiny of delegated legislation.
  I shall not weary the House with a detailed recitation of all the occasions on which questions have been asked, not least by me, on this issue and answers not given, but it has gone on for month after month. As long ago as 20th May 1999, the Lord Privy Seal, the noble Baroness, Lady Jay of Paddington, indicated in a Written Answer that it was the Government's intention to set up a Joint Committee on Human Rights before the Human Rights Act 1998 came fully into force but that no decision had been taken on when exactly both Houses would be asked to approve Motions to appoint such a Joint Committee. Again and again the Government have been pressed and again and again they have refused to give an answer. There are some Questions down in my name for Written Answer at this very moment.
  The reason why that matters is that until such a committee is set up we shall not have any scrutiny machinery to deal with the kind of problems raised by the noble Viscount. Until we have a Select Committee, whether joint or separate, we will not have the expertise or the information to be able to scrutinise measures, whether primary or subordinate, for their compatibility with convention rights.
  It goes further than that. The Government put on the face of every Bill, as they must under Section 19 of the Human Rights Act, a statement of compatibility. It expresses the view that the Minister believes the Bill—I am referring to primary legislation—to be compatible. Indeed, as the noble Viscount indicated, the
  478
  Government have agreed to do the same under the affirmative resolution procedure for delegated legislation. But that is of no value unless the Government also give their reasons for considering that a measure, primary or delegated, is compatible. Again and again the Government have been pressed as to whether they will make it standard practice to give their reasons in order that we in this House and Members of another place are able to test those reasons.
  The issue arises again and again. Tomorrow the same Minister will be dealing with the Committee stage of the Race Relations (Amendment) Bill. I wrote to the Government and put down Questions to the Government so that we could be properly informed before the debate tomorrow—I said preferably by 4th January so that we could have plenty of time—as to the Government's reasons for believing that measure to be compatible with convention rights. I received a courteous reply from the Home Office indicating that those involved were on holiday and too busy and could not reply in time. We have not yet had a reply and the Committee stage is tomorrow. It is quite wrong that we should be scrutinising an important Bill in Committee tomorrow when we do not have a clue as to the Government's reasons for considering that the Bill is consistent with Articles 14, 6 and 13 of the European Convention on Human Rights in relation to access to justice, Ministers' liability and equality of treatment without discrimination. We do not have a clue. As a lawyer, I do not have a clue as to the Government's case on that; still less on compliance with the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which, as a member of the Human Rights Committee, the noble Viscount knows so well; still less on the Convention on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination.
  We are in a pathetically ignorant state. We simply do not have the material. Lawyer Members of the House like myself have to do our best to help other Members who are not lawyers to address some of these questions as unpaid professionals doing our best in the way that we can. It is not good enough. We need to have a proper committee structure to deal with the kind of questions raised by the noble Viscount and we need the information so that we can know what the Government's case is, we can test it and we can call the Government to account.
  I hope that the Minister will provide that information in the debate tomorrow on the Race Relations (Amendment) Bill. But I am addressing, as is the noble Viscount, systemic failures. We talk again and again about parliamentary sovereignty but the reality is that Parliament, or at least the other place, is controlled by the executive for most of the time between elections. The only way in which we can call the Government to account is by having effective powers and effective information. That is now what we must press for. For that reason, and for many others, I am most grateful to the noble Viscount for initiating

  479
  the debate. I very much hope that it will be considered at the highest level of government as a matter of priority.
  Lord Burnham: My Lords, before the noble Lord sits down, perhaps I may ask him to add to those measures that he mentioned the Armed Forces Discipline Bill, with the Report stage of which we shall deal next week, as another Bill where it is less than clear whether either the current legislation or the proposed legislation is compatible with the convention or with the Human Rights Act.
  Lord Lester of Herne Hill: My Lords, I do so with great pleasure because what I have said is true of every Bill. Every Bill has to have a statement of compatibility. Every Bill should be accompanied by or followed by reasons concerning compatibility. The same applies to the affirmative resolution procedure; and for the negative resolution procedure we need a proper committee system to look at selected delegated legislation, as the committee of the noble Lord, Lord Alexander, has made clear.
  8.5 p.m.
  Lord Cope of Berkeley: My Lords, like other noble Lords who have spoken, I am grateful to the noble Viscount, Lord Colville of Culross, for tabling this Unstarred Question. He has drawn attention to a most important consequence of the European Convention on Human Rights which seems to have escaped both the Government and Parliament. I understand that it was the 17th century English jurist, Coke, who formulated the legal principle that a man's home is his castle and every man's home is his safest refuge. It is therefore appropriate that this long-established principle of English law should find a place in the human rights convention, which has now been written into our statute law and comes into effect later this year. This nation and this House should be foremost in ensuring that the principle is carried into practice.
  However, the noble Viscount has shown us that we have allowed the principle to be eroded. He made the clear distinction between the powers of entry given to the police, Customs and so on, which are necessary for the protection of law and order and which are now formulated in PACE, and the increasing number of powers given to other officials to enter and search premises which are wholly or partly domestic and which do not provide the same safeguards for the citizen. They provide instead for what can be called "fishing expeditions". That is not acceptable under the convention and it should not be acceptable in our country in any case.
  That leads me to ask the Minister two questions. First, can he confirm that these powers, as they are now formulated without safeguards, will become illegal under the Human Rights Act when it comes into force later this year? I assume from what has been said, both by the noble Viscount and by the noble Lord, Lord Lester, that the answer to that question is clearly yes, but it would nevertheless be nice to have it
  480
  confirmed by the Minister. Perhaps I may say this to the noble Lord, Lord Lester. I do not think it is sufficient to say that it does not matter whether these powers are excessive because they can be quashed through judicial review. I am sure that the noble Lord is right about that. I am not arguing with him as a lawyer, but I do not think that we should have legislation on the statute book which can mislead both the officials concerned and the public into thinking that the powers are greater than they actually are. Therefore, although the power to quash them is important, it does not finally answer the question.
  Lord Lester of Herne Hill: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord for giving way. I was simply pointing to the existence of a remedy for over-breadth, but I entirely agree that Parliament should not authorise excessive powers without safeguards against abuse. I was simply indicating that there are those safeguards, but it is not good enough to give blank cheques to public officials without the legislation itself containing safeguards.
  Lord Cope of Berkeley: I am grateful to the noble Lord.
  The second question to which an answer is needed—not necessarily this evening, because it may be detailed—is: which statutory instruments confer powers which do not contain the safeguards? The noble Viscount has drawn our attention to some but has indicated that there are possibly many others. At present, none of us can be sure how many.
  If the answer to my first question is that the powers are illegal, it will be essential for the Government, Parliament and others to know which statutory instruments we are talking about. Like my noble friend Lord Marlesford, I do not think that it is good enough to answer, as Ministers have recently done, that the Government have lost count of how many such powers there are and that they do not propose to find out. Apart from anything else, the officials concerned with implementing the various provisions need to be told to stop using them in the way in which they apparently think that they can. It is not good enough for the Government to rely on the belief that the powers may exist but no one will bother with them in the future. We need to know; and it would be helpful to have a list.
  Underlying much of all this is the European Communities Act. Many of the offensive powers apparently stem from European Union agreements, sometimes known as directives. It may be that they have been over-zealously implemented here in being written into UK statutory instruments—the process known as "gold—plating" or it may be that the agreements themselves are defective in the light of the human rights convention. To eliminate the danger for the future, we need to provide both against the terms of the EU agreements themselves and against their overzealous implementation in the United Kingdom. A certificate of compliance, properly "policed", for all statutory instruments, whatever their parliamentary process, would provide a line of defence against gold-plating. I hope to hear a favourable response on that point from the Minister.

  481
  In addition, the European Union might adopt the practice of the present Government so far as primary legislation is concerned, and indeed affirmative instruments, and make the Commission certify that any agreement at which the Council of Ministers is about to arrive complies with the European Convention on Human Rights. I realise that the convention does not stem from the EU but from the Council of Europe, but all EU members subscribe to it, so presumably all will wish their directives and agreements to comply in future.
  I am mainly concerned with the two questions that I have asked: is it certain that these instruments will become illegal; and will the Minister set out, presumably in writing, which statutory instruments confer these offensive powers? I have no doubt that we shall be told by the Minister, correctly. that the noble Viscount has raised an important issue. It has also become clear during this debate that it is one that will not go away.
  8.15 p.m.
  Lord Bassam of Brighton: My Lords, the noble Viscount, Lord Colville, deserves great credit, and our gratitude, for raising the important subject of preparations for the Human Rights Act. I shall attempt to outline them in general terms, and pick up particular points that have been raised.
  Preparing for the Human Rights Act is a major task. It involves a great deal of work. The main burden of that work has to be shared by all government departments. But there can be no doubt that we all have an important part to play in the process. Debates such as this shine a torch on particular aspects of the preparatory work. This debate has been helpful to all concerned. It has also shown the parliamentary system working at its best.
  The noble Viscount was right to stress the importance of the Human Rights Act, as have all noble Lords who have spoken. It is a defining event in our constitutional history and development. When the Act comes into force, on 2nd October this year, it will place on all public bodies in this country a new and important statutory duty to act compatibly with convention rights—unless, of course, primary legislation prevents them from so doing. The duty is significant and wide-reaching. The Human Rights Act will also mean that all of our legislation must be interpreted in a way that is compatible with convention rights unless it is impossible to do so.
  But the new Act is not simply about compliance by public bodies with the new legal obligation. It is not merely about allowing people to raise convention points in UK courts without having to go to Strasbourg. The Human Rights Act is fundamentally about modernising our society and building a new culture of rights balanced by responsibilities within UK law. Rights and responsibilities go together. They are two sides of the same coin. The new culture that we want to build is one in which the Human Rights Act gives us a shared understanding of what is fundamentally right and wrong, a culture where
  482
  people recognise the duties that citizens owe to each other and the wider community and are willing to fulfil them—and one in which public authorities understand that the Human Rights Act defines what the basic rights are. It will sometimes require us to be robust about an individual's rights if we are to maintain the rights of others. That is the culture that we want to build. That is what the Human Rights Act is all about.
  There is no question that preparing for implementation of the Human Rights Act is a major task. It involves all public authorities, central and local government, the courts, the police, the utilities and private bodies in so far as they have to perform public functions. Public authority staff must be trained in an awareness of the convention rights and their new obligations. Public authorities are, as a consequence, reviewing the legislation, rules and procedures for convention points.
  I emphasise that we do not expect the statute book to be rewritten overnight on 2nd October 2000. Nor do we pretend that it will be in a state of perfection. We have, after all, been fully signed up to the ECHR for half a century, and ECHR proofing of legislation has been a continuing and deepening process throughout that period. The statutory instruments mentioned by the noble Viscount, Lord Colville, were not prepared without regard to ECHR considerations. Indeed, most were prepared very recently, in the shadow of the Human Rights Act.
  But the convention is a living instrument. It changes and evolves over time to reflect the way in which society has changed. That is one of its great strengths. It means that reviewing our legislation and procedures for convention points must be a continuous process. It cannot be a one-off event.
  Each government department is responsible for reviewing its own legislation and procedures for compatibility with the convention rights. That is not a task which lends itself to bureaucratic or centralised structures. Each individual department must feel responsibility for assessing its own legislation and "take ownership" of the process. That is an important part of building the new culture about which I spoke earlier. We must mainstream human rights awareness throughout Whitehall and the devolved administrations so that considering human rights implications of a particular procedure or policy initiative is an automatic and instinctive part of the decision-making process. Only then can we hope to develop the new culture that we seek. In our view, individual departments are best placed to decide how to do that. Each department has different requirements and different priority areas, and each must satisfy itself as to the compatibility of its own legislation and procedures and processes.
  The noble Viscount, Lord Colville, asks whether we have checked all the statutory instruments issued since May 1997 for compliance with convention rights. The short answer is that we have, or are in the process of doing so, but that the review of a particular statutory instrument or any other piece of legislation is a matter for the relevant department concerned. We have not

  483
  sought to impose on departments a bureaucratic, centralised structure to review individual items of legislation or to maintain long centrally held lists which purport to show when a particular piece of legislation has been given a green light, as it were. Such an approach would go against our efforts to mainstream human rights considerations throughout government. It would also go against the need for continuous review in the light of the "living instrument" nature of the ECHR.
  But the centre—in this case the Home Office and the Human Rights Task Force—is monitoring the general state of preparation in all departments. I can assure your Lordships' House that departments are well aware of their new responsibilities under the Human Rights Act and the impact of that Act on their legislation. Departments take very seriously the need to consider existing legislation, primary and secondary, for convention points. They are doing this not just because the Home Office has dictated that they should but because they understand that after 2nd October this year—this is an important point—the courts will be able to strike down secondary legislation that is incompatible with convention rights.
  The noble Viscount cited in particular a number of examples of secondary legislation which he believed might raise Article 8 privacy issues. Your Lordships' House is aware that intrusion into the privacy of the individual is an issue that this Government take extremely seriously. Indeed, we are introducing a Bill this Session to ensure that the use of intrusive investigation techniques continues to be regulated for the protection of both the rights of the individual and society at large. Clearly, Article 8 considerations will be at the heart of that legislation.
  But I make an important general point here. Central to the ECHR and the Human Rights Act is the principle of balance. The convention recognises that most of the rights within it are not absolute. There are circumstances where rights can legitimately be limited by the state and where a public authority must be tough on an individual's rights to protect the rights of society as a whole. The convention sets tests by which we can measure whether those limitations are in line with human rights principles. Are they in accordance with the law? Do they pursue a legitimate aim? Are they proportionate? The point is that there are circumstances in which the state is justified in interfering with a convention right, such as privacy. Clearly, Strasbourg recognises this. Simply to show that a particular action by a public authority touches on a convention right does not automatically mean that the right has been violated. The decision as to whether the legislation concerned is compatible with convention rights is not a precise science. After all, everything in the law is arguable. No Minister or official can be 100 per cent sure—certainly not before the Human Rights Act is in force and we see how the courts deal with convention points.
  484
  I cannot go into the provisions of the particular statutory instruments that the noble Viscount cited, although I shall be happy to pass on his concerns to the Ministers with direct responsibility for the legislation in question.
  I turn to the suggestion of the noble Viscount, that in future the Government should attach to every statutory instrument a statement of compliance with convention rights. The current position has statutory and non-statutory elements. As has been widely recognised in the debate, the statutory provision is Section 19 of the Human Rights Act which requires a Minister when introducing a new Bill to make a statement that in his or her view the provisions of the Bill are compatible with convention rights. Alternatively, if he or she is not able to state that he must explain why the Government wish the House to proceed with the Bill. But Section 19 applies only to primary legislation. Parliament, wisely I believe, did not extend the operation of that scheme to all species of legislation, primary and secondary. I venture to suggest that that is because the Human Rights Act subjects secondary legislation to a number of very powerful safeguards.
  Put simply, the general scheme of the Act does not permit secondary legislation which is incompatible with convention rights. In the first place, Section 6 of the Human Rights Act makes it unlawful for a public authority to act in a way that is incompatible with convention rights unless the public authority cannot act otherwise because of a provision in primary legislation. Unless that Section 6 saving applied, to seek to bring forward incompatible secondary legislation would be in conflict with the Human Rights Act itself.
  As your Lordships are aware, secondary legislation must always be within the powers of the Minister who makes it. It must be (to use the relevant term) intra vires. A Minister has no power to make secondary legislation that is incompatible with convention rights unless primary legislation requires him to do so. The Joint Committee on Statutory Instruments and its Clerk devote much anxious attention to the vires of proposed new secondary legislation. Behind and above these considerations there is the simple fact—a point very ably made by the noble Lord, Lord Lester—that from 2nd October of this year such incompatible secondary legislation can be struck down at any time by a court. It enjoys no special protection under the Human Rights Act. I believe that that is an extremely powerful safeguard which provides the best protection of all.
  My noble and learned friend the Attorney-General has already announced that from the beginning of the current Session a Minister who invites Parliament to approve a statutory instrument subject to affirmative resolution should, as a matter of good practice, always volunteer his or her view regarding its compatibility with convention rights. It is not essential that he or she should do so for the reasons that I have already given. But we believe that it would be odd if there were a debate about a proposed statutory instrument and the Minister made no comment about compatibility with

  485
  convention rights. We have also said that as a matter of good practice the Minister should always give his or her view regarding secondary legislation which amends primary legislation. Such legislation falls into a special category: it is treated as protected primary legislation under Section 21 of the Human Rights Act. We believe that it is right for the Minister to give his view about compatibility in such cases even where the secondary legislation which amends primary legislation is not subject to affirmative resolution. For example, this may take the form of a letter to the Joint Committee on Statutory Instruments. Detailed guidance to this effect has been issued to departments.
  I should like to deal with particular points raised in the debate. I believe that my earlier remarks have dealt with most of them. I can provide some comfort to the noble Lord, Lord Lester, on the question of the terms of reference of the joint committee to be established. It is our belief that the. terms of reference need to cover such matters as inquiries into general human rights issues in the UK. We also believe that that area should be covered by the joint committee in examining draft legislation and, in more general terms, that it should look at the longer term and perhaps the arguments surrounding the development of a human rights commission within the UK. We hope shortly to make an announcement of the date when the joint parliamentary committee will be set up. Clearly, there are important issues to be settled and debates to be had.
  Lord Lester of Herne Hill: My Lords, I am most grateful to the Minister for giving way. What he has not dealt with is the question whether the human rights committee to be set up shortly—I am not sure what "shortly" means in government terms—will have the power to review the compatibility of secondary legislation with convention rights. Nor has the noble Lord dealt with my point about the giving of reasons for statements of compatibility so that we are able to act as watchdogs and scrutineers in the public interest. The Minister said very little about the role of Parliament but a great deal about the role of the Government and the courts. Perhaps he will address the following two questions. Is there to be a special committee as recommended by the committee chaired by the noble Lord, Lord Alexander, to look at the compatibility of secondary legislation with human rights? Are we to have statements of reasons for compatibility in advance of debates so that those reasons can be scrutinised?
  Lord Bassam of Brighton: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord for again raising those points. I wish to reflect further on what he said. I shall write to him to elucidate our position. I think it likely that the joint committee will want to look at secondary legislation in the context of where legislation is going generally. However the important point—I made it earlier—is that we would expect Ministers in debate in any event to seek to deal with compatibility issues with secondary legislation. I am happy to give the matter further consideration.
  486
  I turn to points raised by the noble Lord, Lord Marlesford. He made contact with our department this afternoon. I cannot give the noble Lord an answer this evening. However, I am grateful to him and we shall take up his point. I shall write to the noble Lord and share the contents of that correspondence with your Lordships. I shall of course write to noble Lords on other points I have not covered in my responses.
  In conclusion, I stress that the Government are taking preparations very seriously indeed. They affect all public authorities and are wide ranging. Departments are engaged in a review of their legislational processes. It cannot be a one-off matter. It has to be a continuing, everyday part of the public service of this country that we approach matters in this way. We are trying to establish a change of culture across government; and to create a culture where human rights considerations are very much at the heart of public service work. I believe that to be the importance of the legislation and the way in which it affects processes. We all have a real and important part to play in that culture change. Parliament has a clear interest in the compatibility of new legislation. We seek to ensure that the Government's views on compatibility are made clear to Parliament wherever it is necessary to do so. The debate today has enabled us to focus on that real and genuine issue. I am most grateful to the noble Lord for raising these important issues and for providing us with the opportunity to explain our general approach.
  The Earl of Onslow: My Lords, the noble Lord has now spoken for 17 minutes. One of the most important points raised by my noble friend Lord Marlesford, and the noble Viscount, Lord Colville or Culross, was about the powers of entry of officials. This has gone much too far. In the words of the Dunning revolution, the power of the Crown is increasing, has increased, and should now be reduced. The power of the Crown to appoint people to go into people's houses is far too wide. The Minister has not addressed that point in his answer to this House today.
  Lord Bassam of Brighton: My Lords, in a sense I think that I have. The point I sought to make is that all secondary legislation which provides for powers of entry will be subject to a compatibility test. Each department needs to review it. Of course, powers of entry are important. In some instances they can appear draconian. But all governments and legislation have relied on powers of entry for important enforcement. I am sure the noble Earl will agree that the power of entry is an important tool in enforcing well intentioned and well directed legislation.

  Care Standards Bill IFI.1,1
  8.33 p.m.
  House again in Committee.
  [Amendments Nos. 26 and 27 not moved.]
  Clause 7 [General duties of the Commission]
  Lord Rix Lord Rix moved Amendment No. 28: Page 4, line 30, at end insert ("; and
  ( ) the provision of services for particular categories of service user").
  The noble Lord said: Amendment No. 28 is grouped with my Amendment No. 75, and Amendments Nos. 69 and 77. At the suggestion of the noble Lord, Lord Northbourne, Amendments Nos. 47, 48, 76, 121 and 147 have been added. There is a difference between the needs amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Northbourne, and my amendment which refers to particular categories of service users, although they could lead to needs of a special kind.
  Without wishing to make the general duties of the commission too specific—it seems to be overburdened already—I should welcome reassurance that the duty to keep the Secretary of State informed will include information on the provision of services for particular categories of service users. Noble Lords will not be surprised to hear that my concern lies with the common care experiences of people with learning disabilities although the same principle applies to the common care experiences of autistic people, older people or mental health service users. One would expect problems affecting particular groups and good practice to be drawn to the attention of the Secretary of State in the drive to improve quality for service users.
  On Amendment No. 75, in my previous comments on Clause 7 I stressed the importance of the commission having the power to take a strategic look at the way services affect particular groups of service users. Consistent with my earlier comments is my view that the national minimum standards should be derived from particular groups of service users. People with learning disabilities cover a wide range of intellectual impairment; and they often have other disabilities too, but there is a strong case for devising distinctive standards based on common need.
  It would be wholly inappropriate to apply the best care standards for older people to 19 year-olds with a learning disability or indeed vice versa. Yet national minimum standards need to be specific if they are to be meaningful. Perhaps the Minister will clarify that there is nothing in the legislation to preclude the formulation of national minimum standards for particular categories of service users. I beg to move.
  Lord Astor of Hever: I support the noble Lord. I speak also to Amendments Nos. 74 and 77. They are probing amendments to clarify whether the Government will adopt autism-specific standards for registration of residential services. The noble Lord, Lord Rix, has already touched on autism.
  Some noble Lords may have watched on television the disturbing Macintyre report on care homes. If so, they will remember the distress of Richard, a man with autism. There is no doubt that minimum standards
  488
  were absent in that establishment. Anyone with an understanding of autism could recognise Richard's responses to his maltreatment.
  Autism is a complex developmental disability which affects the way people communicate and relate to those around them. I declare an interest as the father of an autistic daughter. That is why I speak from the Back Benches. There are approximately 500,000 people on the autistic spectrum in the United Kingdom, many of whom will be in residential care homes. With a greater awareness of autism, and more successful early diagnosis, there will be a significant increase in demand for residential care by those with this devastating disability.
  Autism manifests itself differently in each individual. Common requirements for care are an emphasis on structure, consistency, reduction of disturbing stimuli and a high degree of organisation. The absence of these considerations in standards for residential care results, often, in high levels of anxiety for autistic individuals. To help them to reach the greatest level of independence, the environment must be tailored to meet their individual needs.
  Standards of delivery need to include autism awareness. Current arrangements whereby standards for learning disability were set locally have resulted in over-prescription in many cases and positive harm to those service users with autism.
  That point is illustrated by a case study from a National Autistic Society residential service. A young man with autism had a particular need for space and an absence of clutter in his bedroom in order to sleep. Any furniture, other than a bed, caused him extreme anxiety. However, the local authority inspection unit standards required that every adult with a learning disability should have a room with a wash basin. Service managers tried to explain the distress which that would cause, as well as the fact that it would not be used. However, the fixture was insisted upon. Within 24 hours the young man had ripped the fixture off the wall and thrown it out of his room. There can be no justification for such inflexibility, coupled with ignorance of the nature of autism.
  In order to prevent such incidents, the National Autistic Society has pioneered the development of autism specific standards. Indeed, initial funding came from the Department of Health. I therefore hope that the Government will build upon such expertise to raise standards overall.
  Lord Northbourne: It may be for the convenience of the Committee to take my Amendments Nos. 47, 48, 76, 121 and 147 with this group. They address the same issues in perhaps a more general way. In the context of the Government's understandable desire to create national minimum standards, my amendments refer to different minimum standards being relevant to different categories of need and of agency or establishment. The amendments tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Rix, refer to the provision of different services for the different categories of service users. Those tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones,

  489
  relate to the problem of autism and special requirements for special disabilities or conditions. However, the issue is one and the same.
  I am not satisfied that the Bill empowers the Minister to set different minimum standards for the different categories of establishment, of people or of service users. I envisaged different levels of medical intervention such as those referred to by the Minister during our discussion on a light level of plastic surgery as against more intensive surgery.
  The needs of old people are clearly distinct from those of children. My interest is in the different categories of children and I happen to be a trustee of the Caldecote Community, which contains extremely damaged children. The ratio of adults to children is two to one and the cost per child per year is £75,000. At the other end of the scale are the homes in which the children are less demanding and their needs can be met at less expense.
  I cannot see how, without different standards, the Government can meet the different levels of need. That is unless the standard they set is so low as to accommodate anyone and that would amount to little more than having a roof over their heads, hot water and drainage. On the other hand, an unnecessary and unattainable level of sophistication should not be applied.
  If there is any doubt that the Bill gives the Minister the necessary powers to create different categories of minimum standards, we should put it right now. If we have it wrong and set it in tablets of stone by approving the Bill, we shall be faced with the need for primary legislation.
  8.45 p.m.
  Lord Clement-Jones: Members of the Committee have made clear the purpose of these amendments. I want to speak in particular to Amendment No. 69, standing in my name and that of my noble friend Lady Nicholson, and to Amendment No. 77, so cogently introduced by the noble Lord, Lord Astor of Hever.
  As the noble Lord, Lord Northbourne, made clear, it is a matter of laying down standards and regulations which are specific to particular establishments or service users. The regulations must be flexible but specific, rather than be laid in a blanket form. I was struck by the example given by the noble Lord, Lord Astor, of the young man who had a need for space and an absence of clutter in his bedroom. That clearly illustrates the kind of specifics that we must reach. I look forward to hearing whether the Minister believes that the Bill can give such a level of flexibility.
  Amendment No. 69 attempts to discover whether it is possible for regulations to apply to particular categories of establishment or agency, or particular establishments or agencies, rather than provide a simple set of standards which applies across the board. It is important that the Minister is satisfied that the Bill is sufficiently specific in order for us to go forward with confidence in the belief that all the people whom we are
  490
  trying to protect and for whom we are trying to provide high quality services will be adequately catered for.
  Lord Hunt of Kings Heath: This is an important group of amendments. I share the view of Members of the Committee that it is important that the regulatory system should recognise the specific needs of particular people and client groups. I hope to reassure them that, in agreeing the legislation, regulation can be targeted at those who are receiving a particular type of care. However, we must strike a balance in order to ensure clear, enforceable standards at a national level. I believe that, in the provisions of the Bill and the detail which will be prescribed under it, we have struck that balance.
  I turn first to Amendment No. 28. We expect the commission to furnish information about the service provided for particular categories of people. The commission will be inspecting a range of services such as homes for children, older people and those with mental health problems. While doing so, it will learn about the availability and quality of provision of services for those and other groups of people. The information and knowledge gained by the commission will allow it to help policy makers. We expect it to provide a variety of information about the quality and availability of care services, including services for particular groups of people, as well as breaking down the analysis in other ways.
  Clause 7 is drafted widely in order to allow the commission to provide different kinds of information. It allows the commission to report information it believes to be important and it allows the Secretary of State to request specific information. I do not believe that the amendment increases that ability and therefore I do not believe that it is necessary.
  I turn to Amendment No. 69 and make it clear that the regulations will recognise, for example, that suitable requirements for the premises of a care home will differ from those of a private clinic. Regulations made under Clause 20(1)(g), relating to the number and type of persons working at an establishment or agency, will have to recognise the different staffing needs of children's homes compared with those of a private hospital. The need for regulations to be applied appropriately and for different regulations to be made under the same power was borne in mind as the Bill was being drafted. Accordingly, Clause 94 provides that any power to make regulations under the Bill,
  "may be exercised either in relation to all cases to which the power extends, or in relation to all those cases subject to specified exceptions, or in relation to any specified cases or classes of case."
  Subsection (5) of the same clause allows a particular power to be exercised to make the same provision in all cases or to make different provisions for different cases. As that provision is already within the Bill, I hope that Members will understand why I should be unwilling to accept the amendment.
  I emphasise that, when it comes to considering the different sorts of standards for different types of care home catering for different types of people, that does not mean to say that the standards expected will be

  491
  completely different. It is quite likely that there will be some core standards common to all care homes, but beyond that there will be additional standards specific to different categories of care home. The same will apply to children's homes and other establishments and agencies. Clause 21 as drafted already allows the Government to prepare and publish different sets of national minimum standards for different types of establishments and agencies.
  In relation to Amendments Nos. 75 and 77, I believe that the points raised by Members are covered. The noble Lord, Lord Astor, raised some pertinent points about the particular issue of autism. I am satisfied that under the Bill and the regulations we can make specific standards for homes looking after people with autism. As with other arrangements for national minimum standards, of course we shall wish to discuss with those most intimately concerned—both the users and the providers of care—the range and extent of those particular standards. I shall certainly make sure that the noble Lord's comments are very much borne in mind as we take the work of the commission forward.
  I turn now to Amendments Nos. 47 and 48, which essentially cover the same ground. Clause 3 of the Bill gives a general definition of a care home as being an establishment which provides accommodation together with nursing or personal care for people who are, or have been, suffering from an illness, who are disabled or infirm or who are, or have been, dependent on drugs or alcohol. That over-arching definition encompasses a whole variety of different possible care homes for different users.
  However, that is not to say that a single care home will be able to take any type of client no matter what his or her needs. We do not believe that that would be at all appropriate. As I have said, people will have different needs and require different types of care. The needs of the young adult with a physical disability will be different from those of an older person with Alzheimer's disease. Obviously different types of care home will be needed to accommodate them. Homes will he registered to provide certain types of care only, which will be specified in the registration certificates.
  I am grateful to the noble Lord for tabling the amendment because it enables me to say a little more about how that will actually work out in practice. People applying for registration will be required to give certain information in their applications. That will include the type of care that they wish to provide as well as the numbers of people they wish to accommodate, their age range, and so on. The commission may then grant the application either unconditionally or subject to such conditions as it thinks fit, provided, of course, that the establishment meets the relevant regulations and standards. In the case of a care home, the commission will always impose registration conditions relating to the category of care that the home may provide, the maximum number of residents it may accommodate and their age range. Those will be the minimum conditions of registration placed on all care homes.
  492
  As Clause 10 already allows the Government to make the necessary regulations, I hope that the noble Lord will accept that these particular amendments are not needed.
  I turn now to Amendment No. 76. I reiterate that Clause 21 as drafted already allows the Government to prepare and publish different sets of national minimum standards for different types of establishments and agencies. That point is well covered.
  I turn to Amendment No. 147. I again agree with the noble Lord that there will need to be different standards for different categories of schools. For example, one would not expect boarding schools for children with special needs to have the same standards as mainstream boarding schools. One would clearly expect staff to demonstrate different skills. Clause 86 as it stands already provides the powers that we need to ensure that there are appropriate standards for the full range of different types of boarding schools.
  On Amendment No. 121, I can assure the noble Lord that the clause provides for all three types of persons listed in it to be included in the definition of social care workers. It is a drafting convention to indicate alternatives as "(a), (b), (c)" and not as "(a), or (b), or (c)". I hope that on those grounds the noble Lord will feel that that amendment is not necessary.
  In conclusion, I very much take the points that all Members of the Committee who have taken part in the debate have raised. The standards required must fit the purpose of the particular establishment being inspected and registered. I hope that I have indicated that the Bill as drafted allows that to happen.
  Lord Rix: I am grateful to the Minister for the comprehensive response which he has given all four of us who have moved amendments this evening. To a certain extent I am assured that at least his intentions are honourable and I hope that they will be fulfilled. However, it was such a comprehensive answer that I am sure he will understand if I consult with my noble friend Lord Northbourne, the noble Lord, Lord Astor of Hever, and the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, when we have Hansard in front of us so that we may decide whether we wish to return to this matter on Report. With that in mind, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
  Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
  9 p.m.
  Baroness Baroness David moved Amendment No. 29:
  Page 4. line 32, at end insert—
  ("( ) The Commission shall receive and consider information on all representations including complaints made in respect of the provision and quality of Part II services in England.").
  The noble Baroness said: Amendment No. 29 is tabled in my name and that of the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, but also in this group are Amendments Nos. 33, 64, 66, 72, 169 and 170A, in the names of other Members.
  My particular amendment aims to give the national care standards commission a duty to monitor all official complaints relating to its remit. Section 26 of the Children Act 1989, with associated regulations and guidelines, set out a statutory procedure for responding to all representations, including complaints about Part III services. An essential element in that was the inclusion of an independent person in the local authority's consideration of all complaints received by the designated complaints officer. Independent advocacy was also an option, although it was not required. In addition, there was incomplete overlap with the procedure for adult services in the National Health Service and Community Care Act which required an independent element only for complaints which went on to the relevant review panel stage. Many local authorities have run the two procedures together and, for that and other reasons such as cost, have never fully implemented the statutory requirement to involve independent people, let alone independent advocates, in their procedure for children's services.
  The guidance of subsequent Social Services Inspectorate reports rightly emphasised the desirability of dealing with as many complaints as possible informally, locally and quickly. That has been used as another reason for not implementing the procedure in full. The independent element is seen as a bureaucratic and time-consuming factor to be avoided even when complaints have not been successfully resolved informally and have been received by the complaints officer.
  As SSI noted, in treating most or all complaints as informal, many authorities also fail to monitor them and thus to collect essential information on which to base the improvement of their services. Complainants, especially children, are often denied their statutory right to have an independent person involved in consideration of their complaint, as well as, arguably, even more valuable support from an independent advocate, which has not been a statutory right. The Utting report, People Like Us, recommended that that should be a right for children who are looked after, and that has been accepted by the Government.
  The procedures have been applicable only to certain services and with some confusion: for example, how best to apply them in respect of children being looked after in private and voluntary settings. Some residential establishments believed that they had to devise their own procedures. As the Bill is currently drafted, there is a risk that some of those sources of confusion will persist. There would be an ideal opportunity in the Bill to ensure that a civil complaints procedure with an independent element based on that of the Children Act with the additional right to independent advocacy be required for all children needing or receiving children's services, especially those placed away from home. However, all complaints or their outcomes could be monitored centrally while the regional children's rights directors would have an important impact on the Government's ability to hear the views of the most vulnerable children and to improve services accordingly.
  Having re-read the Second Reading debate at the weekend, I believe that the Minister is quite responsive to some of those requests. Therefore, I hope that he will be pleased to support the amendment and to accept it when he comes to reply to this group. I beg to move.
  Lord Clement-Jones: I rise to support the noble Baroness, Lady David. In speaking to Amendment No. 29, I shall speak also to Amendments Nos. 33, 64, 66, 72, 169 and 170A. All the amendments spring from a feeling that Clause 20(3)(j) is inadequate in the way that it provides for complaints to be dealt with in the independent sector, whether that applies to social care or healthcare. Certainly, the noble Baroness. Lady David, made a very strong case for complaints to be dealt with in the way that she described.
  However, the amendments provide a somewhat à la carte possibility to the Minister and his advisers. There are several different ways of dealing with that issue. Some would say that what is needed is a consistent form of complaints system which is independent and with clearly defined standards across the board for the independent sector. There are those who would say that the way to achieve that is to bring in the health ombudsman—the Health Service Commissioner set up and codified in the 1993 Act. The amendments, in their various ways, attempt to provide different ways of doing that. Indeed, the possibility of establishing a public complaints director in Schedule 1 is another way of achieving some of the same aims.
  In discussing in some detail the terms of Clause 20(3)(j), it is important that there is a uniform, robust complaints procedure which is acceptable to the commission. Surely that should be one of the requirements for registration of independent healthcare establishments. However, there is no current uniform complaints procedure within the independent healthcare sector. I am told that the BMA has been working on drawing up proposals for such a procedure. As part of its initiative, quite recently—in October—it held a major conference with the medical royal colleges. That involved a wide range of interested parties. The need for a coherent complaints procedure in private healthcare was discussed. Indeed, the BMA continues to have discussions with the various parties in an attempt to generate consensus about a uniform complaints procedure which would give patients a clear avenue for redress.
  Amendment No. 33 attempts to deal with the matter by charging the commission with being proactive in dealing with complaints from the independent healthcare sector. If it is satisfied that a complaint has not been dealt with properly, it refers the matter to the Health Service Commissioner. I wonder what role the Minister believes that the commission should play in assisting interested parties to develop a complaints procedure. I wonder whether he believes that there is a role for the health ombudsman in that process. Also, it is not clear in Clause 20(3)(j) quite what services can form a subject of complaint. Amendment No. 64 is designed to include the word "clinical" so that that is made rather clearer.

  495
  Another issue is that that complaints system should be compatible with that of the NHS. That has been raised with us by the NHS Confederation. The NHS commissions services from the private sector on behalf of its patients, often in instances where the NHS does not provide a service or where it cannot provide treatment immediately. In those circumstances, there must be a mechanism to lodge a complaint, and a complaints procedure must be able to cope with situations where a patient is passed from the NHS to private care. The information which the independent complaints commission collects about complaints must be in a common format to the NHS information. Indeed, the information collected by any complaints system, whether independent or not, must be in a common format to the NHS information in order to allow those complaints to be dealt with in an adequate fashion.
  Amendment No. 72 is rather simple in its design. It brings in the ability of a complainant to be able to come to the health service ombudsman directly, whether he has been treated in the NHS or in the independent healthcare system. We believe that the remit of the health service ombudsman should be extended to cover the private sector. That means that patients who are not satisfied with the outcome of their in-house complaints procedure would have access as NHS patients to an independent review of their complaint, which is, after all, the object of the exercise.
  The final amendment with which I wish to deal is to Schedule 1. This involves the appointment of a public complaints director working within the commission who would be able to discharge the functions of the commission in taking an overview of complaints made by those who have been treated in the private healthcare sector.
  Some organisations which have briefed us on these Benches believe that cosy relationships may sometimes exist between inspectors and care homes which prevent complaints being investigated properly. This is encouraged by a situation where the same inspector is expected to foster a good working relationship with a home—to work on promoting good practice—and also to investigate misconduct and abuse. For that reason, it is intended to separate out dealing with complaints by creating a public complaints director. We believe that complaints should be dealt with separately from other functions and by different inspectors.
  That is rather a compendium of different possibilities. I do not think we are wedded to any particular amendment on these Benches, but we believe that the Government should have an open mind about improving the system currently laid out in the Bill. We believe it to be wholly inadequate to deal with complaints in a proper fashion.
  Earl Howe: I support these amendments, two of which, Amendments Nos. 33 and 64, are in my name. I should like to focus my remarks on complaints in the context of private hospitals.
  496
  The key point is that it is not enough for each independent hospital to have its own formal complaints procedure although I do not in any way belittle its importance. The complaints procedure should be a standard, recognised and trusted system which applies across this sector as a whole. It is essential that we understand how proactive the commission will be in bringing this system into being and what role it will play as adjudicator.
  If, in a particular case, someone wanted to complain about the way the complaints procedure operated in a hospital, that requirement comes into sharp focus in the context of the NHS's use of the private sector, as the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, rightly emphasised.
  What happens when an NHS patient moves to a private hospital as an NHS patient and something goes wrong? The system in the private sector needs to be fully compatible with that of the NHS. For the private hospital just to conduct its own internal investigation is clearly not enough in such circumstances.
  I was encouraged to see a recent press release in which the noble Lord's colleague in the Department of Health, Gisela Stuart, said:
  "Under the new arrangements all private hospitals must have proper complaints procedures in place. They must make it clear to patients what to do if something goes wrong. And we will introduce arrangements for independent investigations where patients are not satisfied with how their complaint was handled."
  I hope that the Minister can give us some reassurance along those lines and put flesh on those bones.
  Baroness Masham of Ilton: Perhaps I may ask the mover of the amendments, and perhaps the Minister also, whether a time limit for complaining will be written in. I have always felt in all complaints there should be safeguards so that complainants are not persecuted in any way. Many people do not complain because they are frightened that they will not get a service afterwards.
  Lord Clement-Jones: Perhaps I may reply on behalf of some noble Lords who have tabled these amendments. We believe very strongly in independent complaints systems because we believe that they encourage people to come forward which may not happen in the cosy relationships which I described earlier. We believe people would not have confidence in those adjudicating on their complaints. The commission has a strong duty to ensure the complaints system is adequate. That is why we wish to see incorporated into the Bill a fully independent system and, if possible, the inclusion of the Health Service Ombudsman.
  Lord Hylton: On this group of amendments dealing with complaints, it is possible that England and Wales may be able to learn something from experience in Northern Ireland. In that region, there are statutory establishments known as training schools which take a variety of young people who are at risk and who sometimes have offended. In recent years, there has

  497
  been organised an independent advocacy service which enables aggrieved individuals to articulate their grievances and complaints in a much better way.
  The result is that some frivolous and invalid complaints can be eliminated at an early stage and the more valid ones can be heard and dealt with more effectively. I happen to know about that as president of a voluntary organisation called NIACRO which has had responsibility for the recruitment and training of those independent advocacy persons. That is perhaps particularly relevant to establishments which are taking young people or others who may be, for one reason or another, relatively inarticulate.
  9.15 p.m.
  Lord Laming: Anybody that takes on the responsibility for licensing any activity and determining that certain people are fit to manage those activities must have not only a strong complaints procedure but also a complaints procedure which has within it an independent element which can reassure users, carers and, indeed, the rest of us that complaints will be taken seriously.
  Complaints can be mischievous. That is one of the reasons why procedures need to be in place. But very often they are also an early indication that something is going wrong in a particular establishment or centre; that there is something not right in the way in which the activities are being managed.
  It is extremely important that when complaints are made, they are seen to be taken seriously. For that reason, I hope that the Minister will consider carefully the thrust of the amendments. Earlier, we talked about the commission's responsibility to promote the wellbeing of users of services. The other side of the coin is that the commission should take seriously any concerns which anyone has about the quality of service which is delivered.
  Lord Hunt of Kings Heath: This has been an important debate, I very much agree with the sentiments expressed by the noble Lord, Lord Laming, when he talked about the absolutely essential need for complaints to be taken seriously and when he referred to the indications that complaints give in relation to the adequacy or otherwise of the services which are under consideration.
  I want to make it clear to noble Lords that we are determined to ensure that proper arrangements are put in place for the effective handling of complaints. It will be a condition of registration that those running regulated establishments have complaints systems and publicise them. Furthermore, for the first time, we are determined to introduce an independent element to investigate cases where the complainant is not happy with the way in which his complaint about private healthcare has been handled locally.
  This group of amendments concerns matters relating to complaints generally and the specific issues relating to the investigation of complaints against registered healthcare providers.
  498
  Perhaps I may deal first with the general points. I fully agree with my noble friend's view, expressed through Amendments Nos. 29 and 66, that the commission should have an active role in pursuing complaints about regulated services. That is a function which is exercised currently by local authority and health authority inspectors. Investigation of complaints about breaches of standards and regulations often provides a source of information about the overall fitness of an establishment which does not surface during inspections. Sadly, we know that a few unscrupulous individuals have been adept at concealing abusive behaviour.
  Therefore, we intend that the new commission's role in complaints should be firmly related to its regulatory functions in a variety of ways. First, each registered service will have to meet standards with regard to its internal complaints procedure. Those will be monitored during inspections, and service users will be asked about their level of satisfaction in relation to the handling of complaints.
  Secondly, if a complainant has a concern which he is not confident to make to the operator of a service, the commission will accept complaints directly.
  Thirdly, all the standards will contain a section on the whistle-blowing procedures which each service should have. I hope that that answers one of the points made by the noble Baroness, Lady Masham. That is included in Fit for the Future?, the current consultation document.
  On the matter of an independent review panel, it is important to emphasise both the independence of the registration authority, which represents a change from the current situation, and its wide powers of investigation. As my noble friend Lady David suggested, under the current arrangements the health and local authorities responsible for registration of services may also be providers, so their independence could, under certain circumstances, be brought into question, as I know has been the case on occasion. One of the key features of the new arrangements is the full independence of the regulatory body.
  In addition, the regulatory authority will have wide powers to investigate any alleged breaches of regulations or standards. Indeed, alleged breaches of that nature will be at the heart of the vast majority of disputes between service user and service provider. Therefore, any service users involved in such a dispute who consider that their complaint has not been dealt with properly can be assured of an independent investigation by the regulatory authority, which may result in enforcement action being taken.
  A further level of independence arises should any enforcement action be taken to remedy deficiencies in a service; for example, through prosecution, the imposition of certain conditions, or even cancellation proceedings. In each case, either a court or a tribunal will review independently the evidence and the outcomes.

  499
  I hope that I have convinced noble Lords that the concept of an independent review panel is not necessary to the functioning of the commission which, in fact, has powers which may prove more effective in securing any improvements in services which may be necessary. Reputable providers, of course, will have nothing to fear from any of these measures. However, the disreputable ones will be dealt with vigorously.
  I now turn to matters relating specifically to healthcare services. I fully share the concerns of noble Lords as expressed in Amendment No. 64 that clinical complaints need to be investigated. I am pleased to be able to reassure noble Lords that the drafting of Clause 20(3)(j) refers to all services, including clinical services.
  In regard to Amendments Nos. 33 and 72, I also share the concern of noble Lords about the way in which complaints about private healthcare are dealt with at present. We are committed to introducing proper complaints arrangements for independent healthcare in which service users will have confidence.
  First, it will be a requirement of registration for all hospitals and clinics to have in place a local complaints procedure which can address all complaints, both clinical and non-clinical. That will need to be well publicised to users of the service and we expect there to be a clearly identified person in each private hospital responsible for handling complaints. We hope that the majority of complaints can be effectively dealt with at that level.
  However, we recognise that some complainants will be dissatisfied with the way in which their complaint has been dealt with locally and, for the first time, we are committed to introducing an independent complaints investigatory mechanism. We believe that it is wholly unsatisfactory that such arrangements are not in place now. Therefore, on the principle of the issue, I do not believe that there is anything between us.
  On the mechanism for achieving that, I believe that there is room for debate. Certainly the Health Service Commissioner does an excellent job, but his post was established to investigate complaints in the NHS, not the private sector. I am not convinced that it is necessarily right to add those responsibilities to his office. However, currently we are considering how best to deliver what we all want. Our intention is to introduce appropriate amendments, either here or in another place, before we have finished our consideration of the Bill.
  To the noble Earl, Lord Howe, I say that it is my understanding that if NHS patients receive care in a private hospital as a result of a contract arrangement between the NHS and a private sector operator, they are deemed to be NHS patients and in that respect the NHS complaints system operates.
  I turn to Amendments Nos. 169 and 170A. I hope I made clear in my previous comments that dealing with complaints is integral to the functioning of the
  500
  commission as it exercises its powers. For example, if a complaint about the furnishings or equipment in a registered home is made, and not handled to the satisfaction of the complainant, the commission's inspectors could investigate further. If they upheld the complaint and found that a breach of standards or regulations had occurred, they could require the proprietor to make improvements.
  Action would need to be taken on a day-to-day basis and not be referred to a person such as that envisaged in Amendments Nos. 169 and 170A. I suggest that identifying a separate director for complaints is an issue that is best left to the chief executive of the commission to determine as an operational matter. Of course, he or she will want to set clear performance objectives for inspectors and other staff and have a monitoring system in place to ensure that the whole issue of complaints is dealt with satisfactorily.
  I hope that I have indicated to the Committee that we take the issue of complaints seriously. The commission has a vital role to play in that regard. It will provide the independent element necessary and, as a result, members of the public can feel confident that, in using the services encompassed within the Bill, a proper complaints system will be in place.
  Lord Clement-Jones: Before the noble Baroness, Lady David, responds, perhaps I can make a few points. That was one of the most helpful responses the Minister has made this evening. A number of green shoots were lurking in his remarks which may grow into something larger as the Bill progresses through the House. In particular, what we need, even as regards matters in the Bill, is a little more teasing out of the chapter and verse. For instance, the Minister says it is a condition of registration that specific establishments must have a complaints system. Indeed, he went on to say that the requirement would be to provide an independent element to investigate complaints. On the face of it, the Bill makes no provision for that. However, that is a helpful indication of the way in which the Government's mind is working.
  It was extremely helpful for the Minister to say that the commission should have an active role in pursuing complaints and that it will accept complaints and have wide powers. But again, that is not obvious from reading the Bill. In order to accept his view—I take it in good faith—that an independent review panel and public complaints directors are not needed as part of the commission, it is important that he provide us with further information as to the regulations proposed and as to how the Bill might be amplified in that respect. I appreciate his statement that alleged breaches of standards will be investigated by the commission and also that, within his definition, "services" is wide enough to encompass clinical services.
  I was interested to hear the Minister talk of complaints in the independent healthcare system and the fact that there needs to be a clearly identified person in that regard. But, further, he said that the Government are committed to introducing an independent complaints mechanism and that there is no difference in principle between us. As I explained

  501
  from these Benches. in a sense we were presenting some à la carte possibilities; the mechanisms are myriad, it is the principle that matters. The Minister's statement that he was considering how best to deliver that independent complaints system for private healthcare was a strong indicator.
  I hope that the Minister will bring forward his proposals for amending the Bill at the Report stage here. Otherwise, we will engage in fruitless discussions, coming up with a further set of amendments, none of which will probably satisfy the Government. It would be much more satisfactory if the Government came back at Report stage with their amendments.
  Baroness David: This has been an extremely useful and rewarding debate. It is clear from the number of amendments put down that the complaints procedure is not satisfactory as it stands in the Bill. I was relieved when the Minister said that he would come forward with amendments. As the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, said, I hope that we shall have them at Report stage and that the Minister will reassure us about that. It would save a great deal of time, and avoid our putting down more amendments at the next stage, if he produces them, as I hope he will.
  It is clear that the provision in the Bill is not satisfactory. We need the independent element which I stressed in my amendment, as did many other Members of the Committee. If we could have the assurance that we shall receive the amendments at Report stage, I should be happy to withdraw my amendment.
  Lord Hunt of Kings Heath: I said that we would hope to introduce amendments either here or in another place. The matters are important and deserve careful consideration but while I should like to give the undertaking for which my noble friend asks, I am not in that position. It is our intention, before the Bill has completed its passage through Parliament, that amendments be brought forward.
  Baroness David: I have to accept that, but if the Minister could put pressure on his department, it must be possible to produce something in another fortnight and I hope he will try to use his charm and pressure to bring amendments forward. However, I must now withdraw my amendment.
  Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
  [Amendment No. 30 not moved.]
  9.30 p.m.
  Lord Clement-Jones Lord Clement-Jones moved Amendment No. 31:
  Page 5, line 6, leave cut from ("than") to end of line 8 and insert ("the "excepted services" as defined by subsection (8) below.
  (8) The "excepted services" means the provision of—

  (a) medical or psychiatric treatment, or

  (b) listed services (as defined in section 2).

  (9) The Commission shall have the general duty of securing improvements in the quality of excepted services in independent hospitals (as defined in section 2) and shall carry out this duty through the contracting of inspections with the Commission for Health Improvement ("CHI") established by the Health Act 1999.
  502
  (10) For the purposes of subsection (9) above the Commission shall ensure that the relevant independent hospital pays the full economic costs of any inspection.
  (11) The standards applied by CHI on any such inspection shall be those which it applies in any comparable inspection of a health service hospital.").
  The noble Lord said: We were talking earlier in the debate about standards being consistent and seamless across the NHS and the independent healthcare sector. That is precisely what the amendment seeks to do. We on these Benches could have been more radical and the noble Lord, Lord Laming, has perhaps been the most radical among us, in trying to abolish Clause 2 in its current form. I have a huge amount of sympathy with that approach. I believe that independent healthcare has been bolted onto the Bill in an inappropriate and last-minute fashion.
  However, I have been thinking carefully about the way in which the Government put their case for a separate regulator and subsequently mentioned, as the Minister did today, the difference between regulation of the independent sector and management of the NHS. I have no doubt that we will repeat that mantra for the remainder of the Bill as it goes through the House.
  It struck me that the best way of dealing with the matter is simply to say, "Let's not worry too much about the registration mechanisms, let's have a separate registration mechanism for the independent healthcare sector. It would be entirely appropriate and deals with the issue of regulation. But when it comes to standards, let's try to ensure that across the board the same standards are applied on inspections in the independent healthcare sector as in the NHS." That seems to me the common-sense formula.
  If you asked ordinary people in the street whether they thought there should be separate and different standards in private healthcare from the NHS, they would be horrified. They would have thought it the Government's duty to ensure that standards were common right across the board. That is what the amendment aims to achieve. It proposes that the
  commission could contract,
  "with the Commission for Health Improvement',
  set up under the Health Act 1999, to carry out its function of inspecting the independent healthcare sector. Consistent standards between the NHS and the independent healthcare sector could then be ensured. CHI would be in a position to use the expertise gained from inspecting NHS services and facilities and the same limited pool of expertise could be used for the independent healthcare sector. We propose that the relevant independent hospital pays the full economic cost of any such inspection. No one is suggesting that taxpayers should pay for CHI to inspect private healthcare. That was certainly a concern in the minds of Ministers when we tabled amendments to the then Health Bill last year.
  This measure does not overturn the apple cart; it simply ensures—as I am sure the majority of Members of the Committee who have spoken in the debate today are intent on ensuring—that there is a common and consistent standard across both sectors. The BMA

  503
  supports this measure and I know that there is considerable professional support for this set of amendments. It seems to be common sense that those people with expertise as regards review and inspection of NHS facilities should also take responsibility on a sub-contracted basis for carrying out that inspection in the private healthcare sector. I beg to move.
  Earl Howe: I can be brief. I rise simply to endorse everything that the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, has said. When we debated the then Health Bill on 17th June last year, the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, said, in relation to the document entitled Regulating Private and Voluntary Healthcare,
  "the consultation document does, however, acknowledge that a regulator might wish to contract with another body, such as the commission for health improvement … in order to help carry out … inspections. That is an issue on which we explicitly invite views".—[Official Report, 17/6/99; col. 459.]
  The view of these Benches is that an arrangement of that kind, a standing arrangement, would be a neat way of squaring the circle. It would be a neat way of creating at a stroke a means of delivering what we all want to see, which is consistency of clinical and care standards across the private and public sectors of healthcare, and consistency of enforcement. The Government's position on using the Commission for Health Improvement to regulate the private sector directly is well documented. I do not want to re-open that debate this evening. What we are talking about here is using the Commission for Health Improvement in a strictly limited role as a sub-contractor to the NCSC for a fee to inspect hospitals and monitor standards of care. Is the Minister now in a position to say what conclusions the Government have reached as regards this wider role for the Commission for Health Improvement?
  Lord Laming: If Clause 2 is to remain, I hope that the Minister will see this as a lifeline that he can grasp and hold to himself. I support the measure.
  Lord Hunt of Kings Heath: I fear that I am not yet desperately diving for that lifeline. Although the noble Earl, Lord Howe, does not want us to go back over old ground, I must say that the Government's position in relation to the Commission for Health Improvement rests very much in the first instance on the different set of arrangements which we believe to be made in relation to the regulation of private healthcare and the management of the National Health Service. It is fair to say—this was always intended—that the Commission for Health Improvement was set up expressly to improve quality in the National Health Service. It has a major task to carry out in doing that. I do not believe that it would be right for the commission to be diverted from that task by taking on the job of inspecting private sector healthcare.
  The very purpose of setting up a national care standards commission is to do that, as well as to regulate and inspect social care. It will have independent inspection teams which will be drawn from those people who are well able to carry out the
  504
  task. It will also be able to draw expertise from elsewhere, including from the Commission for Health Improvement, to help it in its work. I refer the Committee to Schedule 1 which I believe contains the ability for people to be seconded from agencies such as the Commission for Health Improvement to the care standards commission to help it in its work.
  However, the amendment goes further. It would require the Commission for Health Improvement to use the same standards in its inspections of the private sector as it does in its inspections of the NHS. That ignores the fact that we shall be setting out clear standards for the private sector which the commission's inspectors will be charged with enforcing.
  It would be wrong to create a rigid requirement on the national care standards commission to have to subcontract all its inspection work to the Commission for Health Improvement and to require exactly the same set of standards in this sector as in the NHS. I accept that inevitably in the development of national minimum standards the commission is bound to be informed by the work of NICE, CHI, national service frameworks and other service developments within the National Health Service, but, at the end of the day, it must be down to the commission itself to develop those standards and to have its own inspection arm in order to ensure that those standards are being kept to.
  Lord Clement-Jones: I am disappointed by the Minister's reply, although it was not unexpected. The Minister has recited the mantra of regulation and management once again. He said that CHI would be diverted if it were to carry out these inspections on contract from the commission. However, he said that the commission will have its own independent inspection teams which might have secondees from CHI. It seems to me that if one is going to have secondees from CHI, why on earth not simply—
  Lord Hunt of Kings Heath: The ability to second some members of staff from CHI to the commission is on a different scale to what is proposed in the amendment. That would involve the Commission for Health Improvement in a major exercise of work at a time when we wish it to focus on its very important responsibilities in relation to the National Health Service.
  Lord Clement-Jones: Of course it has very important responsibilities in relation to the National Health Service. But it is a body whose expertise is being built up; it will be an extremely valuable inspection force. It seems to us on these Benches that with a little bit of additional resource it could do extremely well in regulating the independent healthcare sector as well. If one is going to second from CHI into the commission, why not simply sub-contract to CHI rather than have all this business of secondment? That of itself recognises that CHI is a receptacle for expertise.
  Lord Hunt of Kings Heath: I come back to the point I raised: it is a very different issue. It seems absolutely

  505
  sensible and a matter of common sense for an organisation such as the Commission for Health Improvement to be able to second staff from time to time to the commission—and, indeed, vice versa. But the noble Lord's amendment describes a relationship much more fundamental than that in which the sub-contracting of inspections is mandatorily passed over to the Commission for Health Improvement. That is very different.
  Lord Clement-Jones: Before finally replying, perhaps I may ask the Minister whether or not he would accept an amendment that said the commission "may" sub-contract to CHI?
  Lord Hunt of Kings Heath: No. As I said, the Bill already allows for the secondment of staff. I should have thought that that would have met the noble Lord's position.
  9.45 p.m.
  Earl Howe: In that case, why did the Government's consultation document specifically invite views on the possibility of the regulator contracting—as I quoted—with another body such as the Commission for Health Improvement? If they were not serious about that proposal, why did they invite views on it?
  Lord Hunt of Kings Heath: We are an inclusive Government who wish to listen to what people have to say in this area as in other areas.
  Lord Clement-Jones: I apologise for once again interrupting the Minister. Perhaps I may ask him how many representations he has received against the notion of sub-contracting to CHI.
  Lord Hunt of Kings Heath: The noble Lord has floored me on that because I do not have the results of the consultation to hand. However, I would again draw the distinction between the ability of the commission to employ various mechanisms to enable it to do its job effectively, including the secondment of staff, and the very heavy-handed approach which the noble Lord has taken in this amendment. It would take away all discretion from the commission.
  Lord Clement-Jones: I thank the Minister for that further reply. I would have thought that, rather than being heavy-handed, this amendment is an elegant one. However, there is no accounting for taste in these matters.
  I understand the Minister's objections and I appreciate why ha has become so animated when responding to the issues raised here. However, he mentioned that, if inspections by CHI were made as a matter of course, then the amendment would require the same standards. Yes, the amendment does require the same standards. That is precisely why it is the second half of the Minister's reply that worries me greatly. It appears that, by saying that the Minister will issue standards under Clause 21 and so forth, the possibility exists of having two separate sets of
  506
  standards, one for the independent healthcare sector and one for the NHS. That is exactly what this amendment seeks to avoid. Simply to say that the commission is bound to be informed by the experiences of NICE and CHI is not sufficient.
  However, I appreciate that we have different perspectives on the matter, although I believe that after our discussions today, the Minister's view is in a minority in this Committee. Inevitably we shall have to return to the matter at Report stage. In the meantime, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
  Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
  Clause 7 agreed to.
  Lord Hunt of Kings Heath Lord Hunt of Kings Heath moved Amendment No. 32:
  After Clause 7, insert the following new clause—
  GENERAL FUNCTIONS OF THE ASSEMBLY
  (" )—(1) The Assembly may charge a reasonable fee determined by it in connection with the exercise of any power conferred on it by or under this Act.
  (2) The Assembly may provide training for the purpose of assisting persons to attain standards set out in any statements published by it under section 21.").
  The noble Lord said: We now move on to more serious matters; namely, the question of fees. In moving this amendment I propose to speak also to Amendments Nos. 171 and 172. I should like to speak to the later amendments first because these relate to the national care standards commission. I shall then deal with Amendment No. 32, which provides similar powers for the Welsh Assembly.
  Amendment No. 171 is very straightforward. It will allow the national care standards commission to run conferences, seminars and other training events for people who are registered with it—and indeed for anyone else who is interested in attending. The purpose of such events will be to improve the quality of services by helping people to meet the national minimum standards published by the Secretary of State under Clause 21. This is a sensible amendment and forms an important part of the commission's role in trying to ensure that good standards are reached.
  Amendment No. 172 deals with fees. In general, the intention is that the running costs of the commission will be met from the fees paid by the regulated services. Fees will be set by the Secretary of State and will consist of a registration fee and an annual fee. These fees will cover the reasonable costs of regulation. However, there are some activities that the commission will carry out which it would not be fair to expect all regulated services to pay for. This amendment allows the commission to charge fees for these additional "non-regulatory" activities.
  For example, the commission will be able to give advice and help to applicants, if requested, before they submit their application for registration. In practice, this type of advice can involve several hours' work and include meetings, site visits and so on. The amendment allows the commission to set its own charges to recover the costs involved. It also allows the commission to charge for any training events it puts on. In both cases,

  507
  the fees must be reasonable and should cover only the costs involved. It may be helpful to draw attention to paragraph 4 of Schedule 1 in this respect. The paragraph places a general duty on the commission to carry out its functions effectively, efficiently and economically. Finally, the amendment prevents the commission charging any fees other than those set out in the Act, without the approval of the Secretary of State.
  I turn now to Amendment No. 32. This amendment has the effect of allowing the National Assembly to have the same powers for Wales as are proposed for the national commission in England in relation to providing training and charging fees. The only difference is that the assembly will not of course require the consent of the Secretary of State for any fees it wishes to charge. The provision appears as a new clause as Schedule 1 does not apply to the registration authority in Wales. I beg to move.
  Earl Howe: I have a question about fees. How will the funding streams for the social care and the independent healthcare sectors operate? Will money received from each sector be ring-fenced so that there is no cross-subsidy between the social care sector and the independent healthcare sector?
  Lord Hunt of Kings Heath: It is a little early for me to be able to answer the noble Earl concerning the financial arrangements when the commission is up and running. As I said, the intention overall is for the commission to be funded through fees from the establishments to be regulated. The fee structures will necessarily have to relate to the costs of the regulation of those establishments, as is the case at the moment. But to talk about ring-fencing may be too rigid an approach to budget setting within the commission, although there will no doubt need to be some consideration of fairness in relation to the resources coming to the commission and the actual service provided.
  Lord Jenkin of Roding: I am a little unhappy about this proposal. Many establishments fear that they will be saddled with very considerable costs by way of fees for their own regulation. I have been looking through the Bill and through the Explanatory Notes, and as I can find no indication of what the likely cost of the commission will be, I have therefore been unable to form a view of what the level of fees will be. Where Bills provide that the costs will be met by the Secretary of State, there is a financial memorandum which tells us the additional cost to public funds of implementing the legislation. I may have missed it in what is a quite long volume of Explanatory Notes, but I am beginning to wonder whether we are being asked to buy a pig in a poke.
  We are being asked to pass amendments that will allow the commission to charge fees. The Minister told the Committee that the general intention is that fees will cover the cost of the regulatory activities, yet none of us seems to have the slightest idea of what those will
  508
  be. I do not expect the Minister to produce the information today, but I really do think that we should have some kind of financial information before we reach the next stage; otherwise it will be difficult to advise some of the organisations that are to be regulated as to what they will face. Perhaps it would not be unreasonable to ask the Government to produce some figures on what all of this will cost. It would be helpful if we could have those figures by Report stage.
  Lord Hunt of Kings Heath: I shall do what I can to provide information to noble Lords in relation to the issue of financing the commission. It has been government policy since the Registered Homes Act 1984 that providers should meet the reasonable costs of regulation. The White Paper, Modernising Social Services, stated the intention that the new regulatory system would be self-financing.
  As I said earlier, much detailed work has to be undertaken before one can come up with a new fee structure. A full study of the regulatory impact will be carried out, with providers being given an opportunity to give their views and to prepare for paying fees, particularly in those areas where they have not previously paid fees.
  It is important, as I said in reply to the noble Earl, Lord Howe, to have a fair system which reflects the cost of regulating different services. It seems to me that it would be unreasonable, for instance, for small providers to pay the same fee as large providers. There are examples in the current fee structure which will need to be examined carefully, but I shall be happy to see what other information I can obtain and to write to noble Lords.
  Earl Howe: Before we finish this group of amendments, perhaps I may ask the Minister a further question. It is prompted by the pertinent observations of my noble friend Lord Jenkin and relates in particular to Wales. What mechanisms will be put in place to prevent the Welsh Assembly from, as it were, using this provision to create an additional income stream and charging fees that do not relate in any meaningful sense to the cost of inspections? What is "reasonable" in this context? It would be helpful if the Minister could give an idea of the Government's thinking, as well as an indication of what mechanisms might be put in place to prevent the Welsh Assembly—this is not to impute any bad motives to its Members— from perhaps regarding this as a useful income stream.
  Baroness Masham of Ilton: As Wales has been mentioned, perhaps I may ask about Scotland and Northern Ireland.
  Lord Hunt of Kings Heath: The Bill does not relate to Scotland and Northern Ireland, although a later amendment tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Laming, addresses issues relating to the need for co-operation and the sharing of information between the four countries of the United Kingdom.

  509
  The noble Earl, Lord Howe, raised a question about Wales. It stretches the imagination to envisage the Welsh Assembly using this as a huge income generation pool in order to raise resources for other services. I have no doubt that the Assembly will wish to take full regard of the general principles under which fees have been charged in the past. As in England, there will undoubtedly be full consultation between the Assembly and organisations in Wales, with full debates in the Welsh Assembly—although I am treading on rather dangerous ground in commenting on the activities of the Welsh Assembly. I believe that, overall, a sensible approach will be taken, and the general principle that providers should meet the reasonable costs of regulation will be followed, both in England and Wales.
  On Question, amendment agreed to.
  [Amendment No. 33 not moved.]
  10 p.m.
  Clause 8 [Inquiries with respect to the Commission]:
  Lord Hunt of Kings Heath Lord Hunt of Kings Heath moved Amendment No. 34:
  Page 5, line 10, at end insert—
  ("(1A) The appropriate Minister may cause an inquiry to be held into any matter connected with a service provided in or by an establishment or agency.").
  The noble Lord said: In moving Amendment No. 34, I speak also to Amendments Nos. 35 and 37. Clause 8 of the Bill enables the Secretary of State to set up an inquiry into the way in which the commission has exercised its functions if there are any concerns that it may not have exercised them properly. However, as currently drafted, this clause applies only to the commission and the exercise of its functions and not to the establishments and agencies that it regulates. The purpose of this amendment is to extend the clause in order to allow the Secretary of State to set up a statutory inquiry into any matter connected with a regulated service. For example, if a consultant surgeon working in a private hospital is found to have unusually high death rates among his patients, the Secretary of State will have power to set up an inquiry to investigate. Without these amendments, he would be unable to do so.
  The intention is that the power will be used only very rarely. In the normal course of events, the commission will pick up any problems in the establishments and agencies that it regulates. This may happen during one of its routine visits or inspections, or the commission may be called in to investigate a particular complaint, concern or allegation about the establishment. If the commission discovers that standards are not being met or that regulations are being breached, it will use its powers to ensure that the matter is put right as quickly as possible. If it is not sorted out satisfactorily, the commission can take appropriate enforcement action. In the vast majority of cases, we expect that to be sufficient to sort out any problems. But we consider it essential that if the problem is extremely serious or it falls outside the regulatory functions of the commission, the Secretary of State should have the
  510
  power to set up an inquiry to investigate it. The amendment also gives the Welsh Assembly the same power.
  Amendment No. 35 is consequential upon the main amendment and allows the Secretary of State or the Welsh Assembly to direct that an inquiry under subsection (1A) shall be held in private. Amendment No. 37 is consequential on the main amendment and ensures that subsections (2) to (5) of Section 250 of the Local Government Act 1972 apply to any inquiry set up under Clause 8. I am sure that noble Lords recognise the importance of these amendments and I commend them to the Committee. I beg to move Amendment No. 34.
  Baroness Masham of Ilion: Can the Minister say whether the process will be speeded up? If a consultant is suspended on full pay for years and years, as has happened, it is a waste of money and the health service is faced with great expense.
  Lord Hunt of Kings Heath: We are all aware of the length and cost of some inquiries. I cannot tell the noble Baroness that I have a magic wand to wave to enable such inquiries to be speeded up. A number of factors come into play to explain why some inquiries take such a long time. I believe that these occasions will be few and far between. The essential point is that sometimes it is necessary for such an inquiry to be set up and we are particularly keen that the Bill should allow that to happen.
  On Question, amendment agreed to.
  Lord Hunt of Kings Heath Lord Hunt of Kings Heath moved Amendment No. 35:
  Page 5, line 11, after ("State") insert (", or, as the case may he, the appropriate Minister.").
  On Question, amendment agreed to.
  Lord Laming Lord Laming moved Amendment No. 36:
  Page 5, line 14, at end insert—
  ("( ) The Secretary of State shall publish all reports made by the Commission as a result of an enquiry.").
  The noble Lord said: I am sure that the Committee agrees that sometimes, for a variety of reasons, it is best for inquiries to take evidence in private. I believe that as a quid pro quo there should be a commitment on the face of the Bill that inquiry reports are published. The findings of inquiries should be public documents as a matter of good practice. This is related to freedom of information and the confidence of the public. I hope that the Minister is able to accept the amendment. I beg to move.
  Lord Rix: I support my noble friend on this issue. Noble Lords may recall that the national development team for learning disability—mental handicap in those days—had to keep its reports secret. About 10 years ago, there was a tremendous row about that. The then Minister for Health, the right honourable Kenneth Clarke, accepted that such secrecy was totally

  511
  inappropriate and the necessary arrangements were made. I think the same argument applies to this amendment.
  Lord Hunt of Kings Heath: I thank the noble Lord, Lord Laming, for proposing Amendment No. 36, which would oblige the commission to publish the report of an inquiry. We would normally expect an inquiry's findings to be published. However, I am advised that there may be circumstances where it would be inappropriate for the detail of the findings to be publicised. The Bill already provides for inquiries to be held in private, for instance in cases involving sexual abuse of children. Although the report could protect the identity of those concerned by omitting their names, there may be other circumstances in which it would not be appropriate to publish the details of the inquiry. Therefore, I cannot accept the noble Lord's amendment in its terms which would require all inquiry reports to be published. However, I should be agreeable to discussing the issue further with the noble Lord to see whether we can find a way through.
  Lord Laming: I am grateful to the Minister for that extremely helpful reply. I would not wish anything to be published which would be damaging to vulnerable people. If it is possible to find a form of words which achieve the objective of the amendment while protecting vulnerable people, I shall be very happy. With that assurance, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
  Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
  Lord Hunt of Kings Heath Lord Hunt of Kings Heath moved Amendment No. 37:
  Page 5, line 18, at end insert ("; and references in those provisions as so applied to a Minister shall be taken to include references to the Assembly").
  On Question, amendment agreed to.
  Clause 8, as amended, agreed to.
  Clause 9 [Requirement to register]
  Earl Howe Earl Howe moved Amendment No. 38:
  Page 5, line 23, leave out ("of any description").
  The noble Earl said: I realise that the purpose of the amendment is impossible to discern from its wording. It is designed purely as a device to enable me to ask the Government about their policy on the registration of domiciliary care agencies. The Explanatory Notes state that registration of domiciliary care agencies will not be required in the first instance, although it will be possible for an agency to apply to register voluntarily. However, any local authority or NHS body which carries on a domiciliary care agency will be required to register from the outset; and any outside domiciliary care agency with which it does business must be registered as well.
  Why have the Government approached the matter in this way? The point of registration is that the public should be protected. It is the domiciliary care agencies which do not register about which we should be concerned. Those are the services which deal typically
  512
  only with private users. If I, as a user, receive via an agency a service commissioned by a local authority or my local NHS trust, I have the reassurance that the agency is above board, because it is registered, and that if anything goes wrong I can go straight to the local authority and get it to sort the matter out.
  That is entirely as it should be. However, if I contract through an agency personally to arrange my own care, why should I not be able to rely on that agency equally? If it is registered, well and good, but it might not be. If it is not, I should not have the local authority or anyone else to turn to. I do not understand that, nor do I understand how paragraph 56 of the Explanatory Notes is reflected on the face of the Bill. Perhaps the Minister can enlighten me. I beg to move.
  Lord Clement-Jones: I support the noble Earl. I must admit that I was one of the small minority who did not immediately understand the thrust of the amendment. I am sure that we shall debate the issue further when we reach Clause 30. In the meantime, I believe that the issue is opaque and it is difficult to understand why the Government have taken this approach to domiciliary care. Surely, there should be one common system across the board.
  Baroness Masham of Ilion: This is a most important matter. If the Government lose the chance to round up the cowboys, they will not protect the many vulnerable people. I hope that the Minister, who understands such issues, will look at the problem and do something about it. We greatly want to improve the Bill and I fully support the noble Earl, Lord Howe.
  Lord Hunt of Kings Heath: The first point to be made is that for the first time the Bill introduces a statutory regulation system for domiciliary care. Although it might not go as far as Members of the Committee would wish, one should acknowledge that it is a new development that has been widely welcomed. As has been suggested, the regulatory system will not in the first instance require compulsory registration for all domiciliary care agencies.
  We believe that we are taking a sensible approach. The national care standards commission is embarking on a completely new area of regulation with untested definitions. There are potential difficulties in relation to who will be covered and who will not. With a compulsory registration scheme, it would be an offence not to be registered and the commission could be at risk of spending all its early days taking through difficult test cases on whether a particular agency should register or not. That would detract from its important task of inspecting and scrutinising services such as care homes which are already regulated.
  It is our consideration that at such a crucial and challenging time in the commission's early life that would be a challenge too far. However, the important point to make is that the Bill does not prevent any domiciliary care agency from registering if it wishes. The Government believe that providers will see the merit of registration in terms of attracting business and

  513
  assuring purchasers. In addition, any domiciliary care that is provided by or on behalf of a local authority or NHS body will be required to be with registered agencies. That should cover the majority of services in this sector.
  As regards private individuals who wish to use a registered agency for their care needs, we will ensure that the commission provides appropriate information in readily available and accessible forms to help people to know where to find such an agency in their area. We would expect to include a telephone information service. Registered agencies will also use a recognisable kite mark and their registration status can be confirmed with the commission.
  The Bill also allows for the Government to make the registration scheme fully compulsory at an appropriate stage. That might occur after the scheme has been in operation long enough to ensure that all the necessary experience has been gained to make that a possibility.
  I hope that I have satisfied Members of the Committee in that respect. The legislation is a major new departure which I believe will be widely welcomed. However, it is important that we learn from experience before a compulsory scheme is introduced.
  Baroness Masham of Ilton: Before the Minister sits down, care in the community has been going on for quite a long time now. There is nothing new about it. This will be a missed opportunity. The good agencies will register and the cowboys—people making a lot of money out of extremely vulnerable people—will not register.
  Lord Hunt of Kings Heath: The noble Baroness is right to say that care in the community has been a policy of governments for many years. I was suggesting that the regulation of domiciliary care is a new and welcome departure. I was suggesting also that in such a new territory the approach we have adopted is the most sensible way to enable us to learn through experience in order to be able to have a fully comprehensive system.
  Baroness Masham of Ilton: Too many people have already learned from very bad experiences.
  10.15 p.m.
  Earl Howe: I am grateful to the Minister and to all Members who have taken part in the debate. I understand that this is a new area of regulation; it is a welcome area of regulation and yes, we are dealing with untested definitions. The Minister said that if the commission was not careful it would be saddled with more work than it could cope with and that it might prove a challenge too far to sort out which agency had to be registered and which did not. The simple answer to that is to require all agencies to register. The fact is that some 85 per cent of all domiciliary care agencies deal in one way or another with local authorities or NHS trusts. The vast majority will have to register. If 85 per cent are registering, that leaves only a small number which will not be doing so.
  514
  I do not believe that it will make the difference between overload and the opposite of overload, whatever that is—"underload"—to require all agencies to register. The commission should be able to handle that. I hope that the Minister will reflect on the remarks made this evening because I feel I must return to the issue on Report. In the meantime, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
  Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
  Baroness David Baroness David moved Amendment No. 39:
  Page 5, line 30, at end insert—
  ("( ) Any person who privately fosters a child under the age of 16 for a consecutive period of 28 days or more without being registered under this Part shall he guilty of an offence.").
  The noble Baroness said: Amendments Nos. 39 and 41, tabled in my name and that of the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, aim to secure that private foster care comes within the remit of the Bill. Children who are privately fostered surely deserve the same kind of protection as other children who live away from home. They are just as vulnerable and their numbers significantly exceed the numbers of children living in community homes. A large proportion of privately fostered children are from minority ethnic communities and a failure to safeguard such children could be construed as institutional racism.
  The Children Act 1989 requires persons who intend to foster a child under the age of 16 privately for more than 28 days to notify their local authority. Local authorities are required to safeguard the welfare of privately fostered children, but they do not have to approve or register private foster carers. That is an anomaly. Local authorities have a duty to approve and register child minders and other day-care providers, yet children in such care return to their families each day while foster children do not. The current system is not working. Local authorities have not consistently advertised the duty of private foster carers to notify them.
  A 1993 Social Services Inspectorate report concluded that,
  "potentially vulnerable children were being placed in the care of strangers, without any checks being undertaken as to their suitability to care for children".
  Even if local authorities were being notified of all private fostering arrangements, their current responsibilities towards such children would still be lacking.
  Sir William Utting, in his comprehensive review of safeguards for children living away from home, concluded that current legislation is not protecting children:
  "Private fostering is clearly an area where children are not being safeguarded properly: indeed an unknown number are likely to be seriously at risk … all children living away from home should be safeguarded and those who are privately fostered should be no exception".
  The amendments would require prospective private foster carers to register with the national care commission. They would undergo an assessment of their suitability to look after children, and the care they offer would be monitored periodically. The

  515
  national commission would liaise with local authorities, notifying them of all children in their area who are privately fostered and sending them copies of their assessment reports. Those reports would highlight whether additional safeguards needed to be put in place for individual children. The children would not be looked after in care. This provision would still allow parents to make their own arrangements.
  However, if passed, the amendments will ensure that all private foster carers are assessed in relation to their suitability to care for children and will set in place a system for local authorities to receive formal notification of any concern in relation to individual children. If the Government agree to the amendments, as I hope they will, various consequential amendments will be needed, for example, to Clauses 11, 12, 15, 17, 18 and 20. I have and can produce the consequential amendments. They are available for the Government if they agree to these amendments, which I sincerely hope that they will.
  I cannot understand why this situation has been allowed to continue for as long as it has. I hope strongly that the Minister can agree to support the amendments. I beg to move.
  Lord Clement-Jones: I rise briefly to support the noble Baroness, Lady David. I believe that she put the case extremely cogently for this clear gap in the Bill to be filled. It seems extraordinary. The Government have been quite vigorous in pursuing many of the recommendations of Sir William Utting. However, the quotation that the noble Baroness, Lady David, gave us from his original report about private fostering makes an extremely strong case for including private foster carers within the terms of the Bill. They should be registered. They should be subject to the national care commission. I very much hope that the Government will listen to the noble Baroness's wise words.
  Lord Laming: Perhaps I too may encourage the Government to listen to the noble Baroness, Lady David, and, indeed, to the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones. At this hour of the evening I shall not detain your Lordships longer. The fact is that this matter has been a source of concern for a number of years, as the noble Baroness has already made plain. I hope that the Government will take this as an opportunity to address other concerns.
  Earl Howe: In the interests of brevity, I shall say simply that I identify myself wholly with the remarks of the noble Baroness, Lady David. I am most supportive of what she said and I hope that the Minister will take due note.
  Lord Hunt of Kings Heath: My noble friend is right that we have not planned for the national care standards commission to be responsible for dealing with private foster carers. I certainly appreciate the intention behind the amendments, which is to ensure
  516
  careful safeguards for children who are fostered in this country by private arrangement between their families and the carer. However, the Government do not consider that there is a need to extend further the wide range of offences associated with private fostering. As we said in response to the Children's Safeguards Review, we consider that the current regulations concerning private fostering are adequate as long as they are enforced.
  I believe that concentration and focus should be placed on the terms of enforcement. We are concerned that the regulation of private fostering is little known. Therefore, we are planning a publicity campaign to promote awareness of the regulations and particularly of the need to notify private fostering arrangements to local authorities. The campaign will be targeted to affect the most vulnerable groups of children.
  We plan also to work with relevant interests to develop a voluntary code of practice for foreign language schools, which often arrange accommodation in family homes for their pupils. Therefore, we intend to take those measures to ensure that the existing system is properly in force. However, we do not believe that the registration of foster carers is necessary or desirable.
  Baroness David: I am extremely disappointed with that answer. The Minister said that there are safeguards as long as they are enforced. I believe that it is quite clear that they are not being enforced. I shall not press the amendment to a Division tonight. However, I feel strongly about the matter and I shall certainly bring it forward at Report stage. In the mean time, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
  Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
  Clause 9 agreed to.
  Clause 10 [Applications for registration]:
  Lord Rix Lord Rix moved Amendment 40:
  Page 6, line 14, at end insert—
  ("( ) Notification of applications for registration shall be published in such form as shall be prescribed by regulations.").
  The noble Lord said: Amendment No. 40 is grouped with Amendment Nos. 42, 43, 44 and 107, to which other noble Lords will speak. As registration is to be, in effect, some guarantee of respectability, service providers will have to be registered to be used by their local authority. The decision to be registered should be soundly based. We have a tradition in this country of giving interested parties the opportunity to comment, thereby to improve the decision-making process. Marriage banns immediately spring to mind. When the use of a building changes, change of use regulations require this to be advertised. When an extension is added to a house requiring planning permission, proposals are posted with an opportunity for comment.
  The registration authority can enlist the views of local individuals or voluntary bodies when a request to register a care business is published in the local newspaper. Occasionally, things have been known and doubts harboured but there was no opportunity to

  517
  record these. That is unfair on the registration authority and even more unfair on the service user. I beg to move.
  Earl Howe: I rise to speak to Amendments Nos. 42, 43, 44 and 107 tabled in my name. The matters they deal with are straightforward. Amendment No. 42 seeks clarification about the factors that the registration authority can take into account when considering an application for registration. If someone has previously had his registration cancelled for any of the reasons set out in Clause 12, what safeguards are there to prevent that person attempting to set up another establishment and starting again?
  Amendment No. 43 picks up a section of paragraph 66 of the Explanatory Notes. I should be grateful if the Minister would confirm that no steps will be taken by the authority to cancel a registration—in normal circumstances—without every attempt being made, perhaps including prosecution, to ensure that an errant establishment or agency comes back into line. Am I right in thinking that cancellation of registration would be a last resort? How will the Government ensure that this is so?
  I should like to express my support for Amendment No. 44. It should! he automatic for the registration authority to notify the relevant health authority if an establishment is about to close. The health authority has a direct interest in such information and this is not reflected in the Bill.
  Finally, Amendment No. 107 to Clause 35 deals with the service of documents. A friend was recently sent an important letter by recorded delivery. It never arrived. Not only did it not arrive, but the Post Office confirmed that in paying for a recorded delivery service, one is not paying for the guaranteed delivery of the letter. I did not realise this. One pays for delivery to be recorded when and if it occurs. There is no redress against the Post Office for non-delivery. Therefore, I wonder whether it is appropriate to make specific provision in Clause 35 for notices and documents to be sent by recorded delivery. I should be grateful for the Minister's comments on that.
  10.30 p.m.
  Lord Clement-.Jones: I wish to speak briefly to Amendment No. 44 which the noble Earl, Lord Howe, has already touched upon. Quite simply, it seems rather strange in the circumstances that there is no discretion as to whether the local authority in whose area the establishment or agency is situated is notified by the commission in the event of cancellation of registration but there is a discretion as regards the health authority. Certainly, on these Benches, together with the NHS Confederation, we believe it is important that there should not be that discretion and that the words,
  "if the registration authority thinks appropriate",
  should be deleted from this subsection of the Bill.
  518
  The closure of any establishment may have a significant effect on local service provision. For example, if a care home for the elderly is suddenly closed, many of the residents may, in the short term at least, be placed in hospital facilities. The NHS Confederation and Members on these Benches believe that it would be good practice for the registration authority to notify the health authority at the same time as it notifies the local authority.
  Lord Laming: I, too, support Amendment No. 44. I regret that I did not think of this earlier because I should like to go a little further. It seems to me that it is extremely important that relatives are informed when such events take place. Very often relatives need to be involved in placing residents in alternative establishments. It would be terrible if homes were I o be closed and health authorities were not informed and they, in turn, did not inform the relatives. Therefore, I hope that the Government will feel able to strengthen that provision.
  Lord Hunt of Kings Heath: I shall respond first to Amendment No. 40. We do not consider it appropriate to require the national care standards commission to publish the applications from all establishments and agencies seeking registration. Where applications, for example, to establish a care home require planning permission from the local authority, those applications are publicly available.
  Amendment No. 42 requires the registering authority to take account of the ground for any prior refusals or cancellations of registrations when considering an application. It will clearly be vital that the registration authority takes account of any prior instances of refusals or cancellations of registrations when considering new applications. That will be part of routine operating practice. However, in our view, Clause 11 does not require amendment as proposed by the noble Lord to secure that that happens.
  I fully agree with the intent behind Amendment No. 43 that the new commission should aim to ensure that registered services are kept in business through meeting required standards. Perhaps I may say in answer to the noble Earl that inspectors will be directed to use a system of formal written warnings giving proprietors of care homes and other registered services every opportunity to come up to scratch wherever possible and when life and limb are not at stake.
  That system will be set out in directions to the commission under Clause 6(2) and is not needed on the face of the Bill. In the event that cancellation procedures are considered necessary by the registration authority, the tribunal will provide independent scrutiny of the steps taken to ensure compliance.

  519
  It is right to say that it is the responsibility of registered persons to maintain services at the required level, not that of the registration authority, although I take the points which the noble Earl raised.
  I turn now to Amendment No. 44. Members of the Committee have pointed out an inconsistency in the way in which a local authority is treated compared with the treatment of a health authority. I always note the comments of the NHS Confederation and the view it puts forward. On reflection, I prefer to take away the amendment, think about it and perhaps return with an amendment on Report because I believe that a very valid point has been raised.
  I confess that the noble Earl lost me when he talked about the differences between recorded delivery and registered delivery. My understanding was that the point that he raised had been met adequately as both registered post and recorded delivery require the signature of the recipient to prove delivery. That was certainly deemed to be sufficient under subsection (1) of Section 54 of the Registered Homes Act 1984. Although the noble Earl raised a particular case, I am not aware that that has caused problems in relation to the operation of the Registered Homes Act 1984. Perhaps he can enlighten me on that.
  Earl Howe: I am afraid I cannot produce any examples of where the provisions of the Registered Homes Act have failed in that respect. I had understood that there was a crucial difference between recorded delivery and registered post. Registered post guarantees delivery, whereas recorded delivery does not. It is merely a service that involves the signature of the recipient being provided to the postman or postwoman to acknowledge the fact that the postman or postwoman has done his or her job. If necessary, the sender of the letter can thereby obtain confirmation that the letter has been delivered. There is no comeback and no redress against the Post Office and I do not believe that the system provides as much proof against error as registered post. However, I take note of what the Minister said.
  Perhaps the Minister can amplify something else that he helpfully indicated in his earlier reply about the commission and the way in which it will seek to ensure that an establishment that has not fulfilled all the requirements that it ought to can be brought back into line. Clearly, some offences will warrant a harsher response from the commission than others which are relatively trivial. Perhaps it is too early for the Minister to say, although it would be interesting to know, what the commission's policy is likely to be and how proactive it can be in assisting establishments to put their houses in order, so to speak.
  Lord Hunt of Kings Heath: That is a helpful intervention by the noble Earl. I am sure that he knows more about the postal services than I do. No doubt, we shall have other opportunities to discuss this crucial matter during the passage of the Bill through the House.
  520
  The noble Earl also raised a much more substantive point about the way in which the commission will conduct its business. Perhaps I can reiterate that in situations where the residents of a particular establishment are at risk because the standards in one way or another are so bad, clearly it is right that the commission should be enabled to take action forthwith. In terms of taking action leading to the cancellation of registration, the commission can ask a justice of the peace to issue an emergency order to cancel registration or vary or impose a condition of registration. If the situation has not reached that level of seriousness, the inspectors can be directed to use a system of formal written warnings. In that case, proprietors of care homes and other registered services are given opportunities to sort out the problems that have been so identified.
  The word "proportionality" comes to mind in relation to how the commission will deal with those matters in the future. We will talk later about the amendments to Schedule 1, but the quality of leadership within the commission and the members appointed to the board will be crucial in setting within the regulatory framework and any directions given by the Secretary of State the right kind of judgments to enable us to have a tough regulatory regime but, equally, one which is fair to the establishments. There must be a sense of proportionality in dealing with problems ranging from minor ones which can be dealt with quickly to major ones which have to be dealt with through urgent action.
  I hope that I answered the points to the noble Earl's satisfaction.
  Earl Howe: I can see considerable gratitude from many in the care and nursing home arena for those replies. I am most grateful.
  Lord Clement-Jones: And gratitude comes from many in this House for that reply. I thank the Minister also for his reply to Amendment No. 44. I shall take care to ensure that all my amendments are supported by the NHS Confederation in the future.
  Lord Rix: My heart is not in this amendment; I am inclined to sympathise with the Government. Planning permission has been posted outside my house three times in the past seven years saying that I was going to make a large extension. My house is numbered eight; the permission was being sought for numbers 10, three and four. I am aware therefore that mistakes can take place.
  Also, our local paper is of such a standard that it goes into the recycling bin immediately it comes through the door, along with a lot of other junk mail. I feel therefore that local papers are not perhaps the best medium for disseminating the fact that registration is taking place. There may be other methods and perhaps I can return to this later. However, at this time of night, and with my doubts, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
  Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
  [Amendment No. 41 not moved.]
  Clause 10 agreed to.
  Clause 11 [Grant or refusal of registration]:
  [Amendment No. 42 not moved.]
  Clause 11 agreed to.
  Clause 12 [Cancellation of registration]:
  [Amendment No. 43 not moved.]
  Clauses 12 agreed to.
  Clauses 13 to 17 agreed to.
  Clause 18 [Urgent procedure for cancellation etc.]:
  [Amendment No. 44 not moved.]
  Clause 18 agreed to.
  Clause 19 agreed to.
  [Amendment No. 45 not moved.]
  Lord Burlison: I beg to move that the House be now resumed.
  Moved accordingly, and, on Question, Motion agreed to.
  House resumed.

  Alliance and Leicester Group Treasury plc (Transfer)
    Colchester Borough Council
      Greenham and Crookham Commons

        Mersey Tunnels
        The Examiners' certificates that the Standing Orders applicable to the petitions for the Bills have been complied with delivered and ordered to lie on the Table.
        House adjourned at sixteen minutes before eleven o'clock.

  Service Personnel in the Middle East: Pork Supplies
  Service Personnel in the Middle East: Pork Supplies
  Vaccines Interaction Research Panel
  Vaccines Interaction Research Panel
  Multiple Immunisations: Gulf War Practice
  Multiple Immunisations: Gulf War Practice
  Polio Vaccine: Gulf War Veterans' Response
  Polio Vaccine: Gulf War Veterans' Response
  Anthrax and Pertussis Vaccines: Co-administration Research
  Anthrax and Pertussis Vaccines: Co-administration Research
  General Pinochet
  General Pinochet
  "Operations": MoD Definition
  "Operations": MoD Definition
  Courts-martial
  Courts-martial
  UNICOM System
  UNICOM System
  Army Marriage Break-up Statistics
  Army Marriage Break-up Statistics
  Coalition Government
  Coalition Government
  Referendums: Foreign Donations
  Referendums: Foreign Donations
  Metropolitan Police: Chief Inspector of Constabulary's Report
  Metropolitan Police: Chief Inspector of Constabulary's Report
  Delegated Legislation and Human Rights
  Delegated Legislation and Human Rights
  Racial Discrimination: Legitimate Acts
  Racial Discrimination: Legitimate Acts
  Race Relations (Amendment) Bill
  Race Relations (Amendment) Bill
  Unjustifiable Indirect Discrimination
  Unjustifiable Indirect Discrimination
  Scotland: Impact of Race Relations (Amendment) Bill
  Scotland: Impact of Race Relations (Amendment) Bill
  European Committee for the Prevention of Torture
  European Committee for the Prevention of Torture
  General Pinochet
  General Pinochet
  Aged Prisoners
  Aged Prisoners
  Detention during Her Majesty's pleasure
  Detention during Her Majesty's pleasure
  Asylum Seekers: Dispersal and Support Arrangements
  Asylum Seekers: Dispersal and Support Arrangements
  Geneva Conventions, Common Article 3
  Geneva Conventions, Common Article 3
  European Convention on Human Rights: Compatibility Audit
  European Convention on Human Rights: Compatibility Audit
  Criminal Justice (Mode of Trial) Bill
  Criminal Justice (Mode of Trial) Bill
  Justice and Home Affairs Council, 2 and 3 December
  Justice and Home Affairs Council, 2 and 3 December
  National Statistical Service
  National Statistical Service
  Public Sector Borrowing: European Comparisons
  Public Sector Borrowing: European Comparisons
  Northern Ireland: Small Firms Capital Allowance
  Northern Ireland: Small Firms Capital Allowance
  Acquisitions and Mergers Activities: Value
  Acquisitions and Mergers Activities: Value
  Government Legislation and Compensation
  Government Legislation and Compensation
  French Meat
  French Meat
  Swordfish and Bluetin Tuna: Spanish Catches
  Swordfish and Bluetin Tuna: Spanish Catches
  Companies Act 1985: Definition of "Registered Office"
  Companies Act 1985: Definition of "Registered Office"
  Takeovers: Proposed Directive
  Takeovers: Proposed Directive
  Letters Placed in House of Lords Library
  Letters Placed in House of Lords Library